North American Birds and West Nile Virus

Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted— On this home by horror haunted—tell me—tell me I implore! " Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me I implore! " Edgar Allan Poe " The Raven " " N ot far from the house sat a great wooden raven mounted on a rather low pole; his wings were flattened to his sides.… His mate…had rotted away long ago, leaving him moss-grown, dilapidated and alone…these two great birds had been set, one on either side of the doorway of a big house that had been full of dead Indians who had died during a smallpox epidemic. Bursting growth…grew up round the…raven, sheltering him from the tearing winds now that he was old and rotting.... " wrote Emily Carr in Klee Wyck, the best-selling book of short stories about her many visits to Native villages near Victoria, Canada, where she was born (1). Artist, author, and passionate advocate of trees and birds, Carr drew inspiration and focus from decaying aboriginal artifacts that littered the wilderness of her beloved British Columbia. Many of her works seem haunted by these artifacts' legacy of epidemics and death. With a " smothering darkness, " descended perhaps from her own Anglo-Victorian culture's fear of the primeval forest, she conveyed the frailty of human efforts against the power of the woods and the spirits in them (2). Carr pursued an artistic career from age 16 and attended the California School of Design in San Francisco. She taught art; traveled to England, France, and the wilds of Canada's Pacific Coast in search of personal style; and exhibited widely, in spite of financial constraints and ill health from heart disease and frequent bouts of depression. Her dedication to the natural world and her belief in the mystical and spiritual connection between all things culminated during the latter part of her life (1933–1936) in landscapes of " exceptional spontaneity and expressiveness " (2). The late 19th century witnessed sweeping cultural changes. Existing values were questioned in science, philosophy , and the arts, at the individual and social levels. Artists were moving away from descriptive likeness toward visual impression of objects. During her travels to Europe, Carr explored modernism and pondered its " big ideas " in the context of the " big land " of her childhood, adopting new styles, …