Fonds SC122 - J. Dewey Soper fonds

Fonds consists of three volumes of J. Dewey Soper’s nature observation journals; two are typescript copies, and the third is a handwritten original.

The cover pages of the first two volumes state that they were transcribed in December 1970 from older notebooks that were written in pencil and had become smudged. Drawings from the original notebooks have been pasted into the transcribed volumes.

The first volume covers Wellington and Waterloo Counties from 1915 to 1918, and includes a list of birds observed at the Preston Farm, near Preston, Ont., in 1915, titled ‘Bird Migration’. The second volume covers Wellington and Waterloo Counties, Point Pelee, and Ridout, Ont., from 1918 to 1920, and has a list of specimens collected by Soper from January 1918 to March 1921. Both include brief bibliographies of some of Soper’s publications.

The third volume is handwritten, and like the first two contains drawings. It primarily covers Galt and Guelph in Waterloo and Wellington Counties, as well as trips to Proton Township in Grey County, and the Temagami area.. Included is a chart of birds observed in the Temagami area and Montreal River, Ont., from August 28 to September 11, 1920.

All three volumes contain narratives of Soper’s nature observations in the field, and include notes on birds, animals, and plants, as well as descriptions of weather and the landscape. The drawings in all three volumes are primarily of animals, landscapes, birds, and the occasional fossil.