Tyler, Hamilton A.

Biography

Hamilton Alden Tyler was born in Fresno, California, in 1917. His father was an ardent field ornithologist, a contributor to Bent's Life Histories, and the author of a study on nesting habits of birds. Young Tyler's interest in insects and earliest training began as an egg boy, climbing up trees and over cliffs for various naturalists.

After attending the University of California, Berkeley, with a brief interval as a squad leader on the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War, Tyler became a farmer, then a landscape gardener, and finally, a professional writer. His long-held interest in literature continued, with his Sonoma County farms becoming a crossroads for traveling poets and the literary and artistic wing of conscientious objectors; Robert Duncan and William Everson both lived for a time at Treesbank .

Tyler has written books and articles on gardening and Pueblo Indian culture and ceremonialism, especially concerning the complex roles of birds and mammals in native mythology. He is also known for his book on owls and for The Swallowtail Butterflies of North America, a compendium of all the known species, subspecies, and forms found from Yucatan to Alaska.

From the guide to the Hamilton A. Tyler Papers, 1915-1984, (The Bancroft Library)