ENDPAPER 



L 



ike most working parents, 

 I wear two hats. In my 

 case, I am a single parent 

 and a scientist. When asked 

 about their mother's occupation, 

 my sons, Eddie and James, usu- 

 ally reply, "Well, she climbs trees 

 for a living." As a rain-forest 

 biologist, I have been on many 

 expeditions to study the canopies 

 of remote jungles, and my boys, 

 of necessity, have often come 

 along. They have lived in remote 

 huts, counted leaves, patiently 

 watched herbivores feeding on 

 foliage, brushed their teeth with- 

 out running water, eaten mystery 

 stews over campfires, addressed 

 their own hypotheses, and gen- 

 erated their own data sets. 



In the Amazon we have dan- 

 gled from trees together, walked 

 on canopy bridges, learned about 

 medicinal plants from a shaman, 

 eaten insects, spotted scarlet 

 macaws, and just gotten muddy. 

 My children also have an extra- 

 ordinary tolerance for biology at 

 the dinner table. We talk about 

 insect poop and how to measure 

 it. We bandy about the Latin 

 names of beetles as if they were 

 sports teams. Family debates 

 focus on how to rig new gadgets 

 tor sampling in the treetops. 



Because my children have 

 been such an integral part ot my 

 research expeditions, I am de- 

 lighted — both as a scientist and as a 

 mother — that the field journals they 

 kept on these journeys record such 

 heartfelt enthusiasm: 



Diary of James 

 Aged 13, Grade 7 (almost) 

 Auc.usi 8. I woke up this morning with- 

 out an alarm clock; I realized my mom 

 was still asleep. Gosh, she must have been 

 really tired getting all three of us packed, 

 on the plane, and into the jungle. She 

 had just been to Peru three months ago, 

 and now we were back as a family while 

 she taught a summer workshop. I slowly 

 got out ot my bed, which was surround- 



Growing Up 

 in the 

 Treetops 



By Margaret D. Lowman, 

 Edward Burgess, and James Burgess 



James Burgess (left) and his brother Edward (right) 

 trade for blowguns in the Peruvian Amazon. 



ed by mosquito netting, and wondered 

 how anyone could sleep through the 

 noisy calls of the macaws and toucans. 

 Probably the most exciting part about the 

 Amazon is that all around you are mil- 

 lions of species of plants, mammals, in- 

 sects, birds, and other types of creatures. 

 Some of them have extremely colorful 

 patterns or strange forms. Others have 

 exotic names, beautiful calls, or special 

 physiological features. One thing I 

 learned in the Amazon is that the name 

 does not always indicate how a bird 

 looks. An ornithologist told me about a 

 bird with the longest Latin name in the 

 world — Griseotyrannus aurantioatrocristatus. 

 I have been tyini>; to memorize it, but it is 



tricky. When I went on a bird- 

 watching trip, we saw this bird, and 

 to my dismay it was gray with a 

 slight yellow patch on its head. 



August 9. I went into the canopy 

 for sunrise with my buddy D.C. 

 Randle. It was nearly dark on the 

 forest floor, but when we climbed 

 up all the steps into the canopy, 

 the first rays of morning sun daz- 

 zled us. The birds and monkeys up 

 there were also awake and active. 

 Mist was rising from the river in 

 the distance. I wondered if boys 

 my age were out fishing in their 

 dugout canoes, getting breakfast 

 for their families. How different 

 were our lifestyles: they had 

 canoes, blowguns, and soccer 

 balls; we had computers, cell 

 phones, and Nintendo. It might 

 be fun to trade places. 



Undated Entry. In the Amazon, 

 people are different from those 

 in America. In some American 

 cities, it is hard to trust people 

 and to find kindness, but in the 

 jungle everyone is kind and 

 generous. When we visited people 

 in the Amazon, sometimes we 

 traded things. Peruvians had many 

 handmade crafts like knives, 

 blowguns, baskets, masks, neck- 

 laces, bracelets, and decorations. 

 The villagers liked to trade for 

 my soccer shoes, T-shirts, or serv- 

 ing spoons, which were not easy 

 to get along the river. 



The Amazon is my favorite 

 place on Earth. 



Eddie and James taught me to 

 think beyond the relatively narrow 

 perspective of analytical science. Ex- 

 periencing the world through three 

 pairs of eyes has enriched my life far 

 beyond relying on my view alone. 



Margaret D. Lowman is a professor of 

 biology and environmental studies at A'cir 

 College of Florida, in Sarasota. Her sons, 

 Edward and James, are students at Princeton 

 University. This story is excerpted from It's a 

 Jungle Up There: More Tales from the 

 Treetops, by Margaret D. Lowman, Edward 

 Burgess, and James Burgess, which is being 

 published this month by Yale I University Press. 



NATURAL HISTORY March 2006 



