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PUBLISHED FOR THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES a P } ‘ay
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COPYRIGHT. 1610, GY FRANK M. CHAPMAN
Bird - Lore
March - April, 1910
CONTENTS
GENERAL ARTICLES PAGE
FRONTISPIECE.—SONG SPARROWS -.---.-.-------------- Louis Agassiz Fueries -.
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT’S List OF BIRDS SEEN IN THE WHITE House GrRouNDS
BONDAGE OUST a VPA SIEUTIN GOIN ope te tetera ete tease ane teen 53
GOLDEN-EYES ON YELLOWSTONE LAK®. Illustration .........- George Shiras, jrd.. 55
Mon MEADOWLARK. VEtSC<.\o2 =) 22 2-2 ee ee = = WOT nd eS
BARRED Ow. Leavine Nesv. Illustration ................Howard H. Cleaves.. 56
APigio) }PincioArioi) MVOloww IACI 6 852555 sons eocusososeucsn Ernest Waters Vickers.. 57
A New DEPARTURE FOR THE REDWING. Illustrated .....-... Howard H. Cleaves.. 60
TICKHRYAT NEST. U li Stra tones isis seein siete ns este John M. Schreck.. 62
NOPES(ON WATER, BIRDS iN PORTS PARK Ml CUS me are eae ce
HT. C. Williams and N. deW. Betts.. 63
HoopDED MERGANSER IN A CurcaGo Park. Illustrated_........- Herbert R. Mills.. 65
FLORIDA SCREECH OwL on NEST. Illustration ..................P. B. Philipp.. 66
THE MIGRATION OF NorTH AMERICAN SPARROWS. Third Paper. Illustrated by
TTS INGER TS JOT “sos ga etee sess 655455 454Ge5 so Se Ke W. W. Cooke.. 67
Tur DATA IN THE BIOLOGICAL SURVEY ...------...---.-------- W.W. Cooke.. 70
NoTES ON THE PLUMAGE OF NorTH AMERICAN SPARROWS. Second Paper with map
Frank M. Chapman... 71
BIRD-LORE’S ADVISORY COUNCIL ................-.-.-.-.-----.------+------ 74
NOTES FROM FIELD AND STUDY .................................-.-.------- NG
A SEMI-DOMESTICATED WARBLER, Arlhur H. Howell ; A PROTHONOTARY WARBLER IN
WELLESLEY, Angie Clara Chapin; WREN AND SPARROW, E. I. Metcalf; A Com-
MON-SENSE BirD-BOX, Illustrated, Edmund J. Sawyer; A New Birp CLuB;_
StTaRLINGS AT AMHERST, Mass., Lilian Gillette Cook; PRospEcT Park NOTES,
Edward Fleischer; BREWSTER’S WARBLER AT WATERBURY, CONN., Norman B.
Pilliry; A SuccEssFuL Martin Cotony, James S. Becker; Our Duty To Our
Birp Tenants, W. Bennett; Tur CARDINAL In NortHern New JERSEY,
Katherine K. Mosle; A QUEER Sparrow Sone, Leander S. Keyser; VERMILION
FLYCATCHER IN SoNoMA County, CALIFoRNIA, Violet Wheeler; CARDINAL NEAR
Burrato, David E. Wheeler; CHAUTAUQUA BirD LECTURES.
BOOK NEWS AND REVIEWS. ..............-22- 22-25-2022 002s ee eee ee eee 8r
REPORT ON THE IMMIGRATION OF BRITISH SUMMER RESIDEYTS IN THE SPRING OF
1908, Etc., W. R. Ogilvie-Grant; ‘Tar Home Lirz or A GoLDEN EAGLE’, H. B.
Macpherson; ‘Witp Lire In THE Rockies,’ Enos A. Mills; ‘FAuNA oF NEW
ENGLAND, II,’ Glover M. Allen; ‘Summer Brrps or SHAW’s GARDEN’, Oilo
Widman; ‘Tue Purrir Martin and Houses roz Its SumMEr Hom’,
J. Warren Jacobs.
EDITORIAL: 2325.0) F358 Fee ake BS Se din se tee SS eee 83
AUDUBON SOCIETIES—-SCHOOL DEPARTMENTS. ...............-------------- 84
EDUCATIONAL LEAFLET NO. 43. Rep-HeapED WooDPECKER, with colored 1 oe by
BTS OW yer Noo cae pee ee eee ee Ce Florence Merriam Bailey 86
AUDUBON SOCIETIES—EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT ....................-.--..-- go
+ Manuscripts intended for publication, books, etc., for review and exchanges, should be
sent to the Editor, at the American Museum of Natural History, 77th Street and Sth Avenue,
New York City, N.Y.
Notices of changes of addresses, renewals and subscriptions should be sent to
BIRD-LORE, HARRISBURG, PA.
Subscribers whose subscription has expired will find a renewal blank enclosed in the present
numberof the magazine.
To those whose subscription expired with the February, 1910, issue, and who have not notified us 10
discontinue their magazine, the present number is sent in the belief that the matter of renewal has been
overlooked Onreceipt of your renewal, we will send you the Remarkable Bird Picture before desciibed,
which should be considered due notification of the entry of your subscription.
If you do not care to renew, will you please notify us?
Entered as second-class mail matter in the Post Office at Harrisburg, Pa.
1. AtruTrman Sona SPARROW 3. Dxsrrt Sone SPARROW
2. Sone SPARROW 4, Soorr Sone SPARROW
5. Samury's Sone SPARROW
(ONE-HALF NATURAL SIZE)
Hirv-Lore
A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE
DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS
OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AUDUBON SocIETIES
Vol. XII MARCH—APRIL, 1910 No. 2
President Roosevelt’s List of Birds
Seen in the White House Grounds and About Washington
During His Administrationt
\ J HEN Mr. Richard Kearton, the English ornithologist and author,
brought his wonderful motion pictures of bird-life to this country,
he came directly to Washington, and gave his first exhibition at the
White House to a small company of invited guests. President Roosevelt seemed
to enjoy the entertainment immensely, and when it was over he congratulated
Mr. Kearton warmly. Then the two became the center of a distinguished group
of outdoor men, including Ambassador Bryce, and they talked for an hour on a
variety of subjects,—beginning with snakes and ending with nature-faking.
It was when the party was breaking up that I had an opportunity to speak
with the President, and I asked him if I might make, from a magazine article
of his, a list of the birds he mentioned having seen about the White House.
I explained that I wanted it for a new edition of the local bird book, ‘Birds of
Washington and Vicinity.’
“Why yes,” he answered cordially. “But V’ll do better for you than that.
I'll make you a list of all the birds I can remember having seen since ‘I ‘have
been here.”
Then he said I had better remind him, as he might forget it, and he told me
how to address a note so that it would come directly to him, without risk of
falling into a secretary’s waste-basket.
I wrote the reminder, and it shows the President’s characteristic promptness
that within twenty-four hours after mailing it I received this list of ninety-three
birds in his own handwriting.
Where an unusual name is given, I have added another in brackets. What
a Bush Sparrow was I did not know and could not find out, so I wrote Mr. Roose-
velt again, but not until after he had left Washington and was at Oyster Bay
engrossed with preparations for his African trip. I hardly expected a reply, but
some weeks later received a note from the Outlook office saying the writer had
“+Copyright, L. W. Maynard.
54 Bird - Lore
been instructed by Mr. Roosevelt, before his departure, to say that a Bush Spar-
row is a Field Sparrow.—Lucy W. Maynarp, Washington, D. C.
(*Denotes a species seen on White House grounds)
Nicut HrERon. Five spent winter of 1907
in swampy country about one-half
mile west of Washington Monument.
Movurninc Dove.
QUAIL.
RUFFED GROUSE.
Creek.
SHARP-SHINNED HAWK.
RED-SHOULDERED HAWK.
*SPARROW Hawk. A pair spent the last
two winters on and around the White
House grounds, feeding on the Spar-
rows—largely, thank Heaven, on the
English Sparrows.
*SCREECH OWL. Steady resident on White
House grounds.
*Saw-wHET Ow. A pair spent several
weeks by the south portico of the White
House, 1905.
KINGFISHER.
*YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO.
Harry WOODPECKER.
*DowNy WOODPECKER. =
*SAPSUCKER.
*RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. Nests (one
pair) on White House grounds.
*FLICKER. Nests (several pairs) on White
House grounds.
W HIP-POOR-WILL.
NIGHTHAWK.
*CHIMNEY SWIFT.
*HUMMINGBIRD.
KINGBIRD.
GREAT CRESTED FLYCATCHER.
PHBE.
Woop PEWEE.
HORNED LARK.
*CROW.
*FisH Crow.
*ORCHARD ORIOLE. One pair nested in
White House grounds.
BOBOLINK.
RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD.
*BALTIMORE ORIOLE.
MEADOWLARK.
*PURPLE GRACKLE.
House grounds.
early spring.
One seen on Rock
Nests on White
Very abundant in
*PURPLE FINCH.
*THISTLE BirD (Goldfinch).
VESPER SPARROW.
*WHITE-THROATED SPARROW. Sings; this
year sang now and then all through
the winter.
*TREE SPARROW.
*CHIPPIE (Chipping Sparrow). Nests.
BusH SPARROW (Field Sparrow).
*SNOW BiRD (Junco).
*SONG SPARROW. Nests.
*Fox SPARROW.
*CARDINAL.
TOWHEE.
*INDIGO-BIRD. Nests.
TANAGER.
PurPLE Martin.
*BARN SWALLOW.
TREE SWALLOW.
BANK SWALLOW.
*CEDAR BIRD.
LOGGER-HEAD SHRIKE.
*RED-EYED VIREO. Nests.
*WARBLING VIREO. Nests.
*BLACK AND WHITE WARBLER. Nests.
*BLUE YELLOW-BACKED WARBLER (Par-
ula Warbler).
*CapE May WARBLER.
*SUMMER YELLOWBIRD. Nests.
*BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER.
*BLACK-THROATED GREEN WARBLER.
*MyRTLE WARBLER.
* MAGNOLIA WARBLER.
*CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER.
*BAY-BREASTED WARBLER.
*BLACKPOLL WARBLER.
*BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER.
PRAIRIE WARBLER.
OVEN-BIRD.
WATER THRUSH.
KENTUCKY WARBLER.
*YELLOWTHROAT.
CHAT.
*BLUE-WINGED WARBLER.
*CANADIAN WARBLER,
*REDSTART. Nests on
grounds.
PIpPirT.
White House
President Roosevelt’s List of Birds 55
MOcKINGBIRD. * CHICKADEE.
*CATBIRD. Nests on White House *GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET.
grounds. *RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET.
THRASHER. GNATCATCHER.
House WREN. *Woop TuHrusH. Nests on White House
*CAROLINA WREN. grounds.
MarsH WREN. *BLUEBIRD.
*BROWN CREEPER. *RoOBIN. Nests on White House grounds.
*#WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH.
*TuUFTED Tit. Nests on White House
grounds.
(Doubtless this list is incomplete; I
have seen others that I have forgotten.)
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
March 27, 1908.
GOLDEN-EYES ON YELLOWSTONE LAKE
Photographed by George Shiras, 3d, July, 1909
THE MEADOWLARK
The cheerless remnant of the snow-drift lies
Along the fields, and there are wintry skies
Whose chilling blasts assail thee, Meadowlark.
I know not how you find subsistence here,
Among the withered herbs of yester-year:
I grieve for your uncertain days—but hark!
I hear your brave note calling, loud and clear.
—Edward R. Ford.
Photographed by Howard H. Cleaves, on Staten Island, N. Y., April 11, t909
(56)
The Pileated Woodpecker
By ERNEST WATERS VICKERS
With photographs by the author
O far as his continental occupancy
is concerned, this great black
Woodpecker is doomed. . Civiliza-
tion is banishing him to a few inaccessible
happy hunting- grounds; the shrieking
moan of a thousand portable saw-mills
are already hymning his requiem. He
cannot live on the selvage, like the Crow,
or find new prospects and privileges
under civilization’s newly imposed con-
ditions, as have the Robin and Flicker;
but must share a fate common with the
primeval forest, since his life is part and
parcel with the untamable spirit that
haunts the wilderness. And in a land
where liberty spells the right to carry a
gun and destroy every creeping and flying
thing, his end is only the more certain.
According to reports from all sec-
tions east of the Mississippi and south of
the Great Lakes, this ‘great northern
chief of his tribe,’ as Alexander Wilson
styles him, is disappearing or has already
SUGAR MAPLE, SHOWING THE : :
EXCAVATIONS MADE BY THE PILE. 0Ne; so that bird-lovers tramp miles to
ATED WOODPECKER. Ellsworth, Ohio. secure a glimpse of his vanishing forms,
and publish him in their notes with enthusiastic gladness.
The writer has been familiar with this bird in northeastern Ohio for more
than a dozen years, and here he has held his own, despite the growth in popula-
tion and rapid deforestation that have taken place in that length of time.
To study the Log-cock in his haunts is a memorable experience, which words
fail to describe. It kindles enthusiasm to the superlative degree.
Search the bird-books if you would gain an idea of his outward appearance,
but it is of his very spirit that we would give a glimpse. An animus of wild,
dashing joy, full of nervous, tireless, almost impatient industry; utter aloofness
from all man-made things; loud, ringing, derisive laughter; vigorous, straight-
away flight, bearing that chisel-beak firmly set on his short-necked powerful head,
—thus with his brief, flowing crest he suggests the Kingfisher, as he dashes across
alternate patches of light and shade with cackling laughter. Every movement
suggests a personality of unusual vim and poise and independent power. He
(57)
‘
58 Bird - Lore
does nothing by halves; his industry is intense. When he smites his chosen
sounding-board, the woods reverberate with the wooden music. When hewing
his way to a meal in the heart of a tree, the wintry silence is filled with the clatter
of his workshop, and the chips fly.
Think of him, almost as big as a Crow, some eighteen inches long by twenty-
eight inches in expanse, sooty black, with white stripes flowing from cheeks down
neck and out into his wings, the royal head in its scarlet cap, and the male with
scarlet mustaches to match, and that unutterably savage orange eye!
CHIPS FROM THE PILEATED’S WORKSHOP
About one-half natural size
If a workman is known by his chips, then the Log-cock is well advertised,—
the scene of his operations presenting an astonishing sight for amount of debris
and size of the chips. Thus there was the force of real meaning in his old scien-
tific name, H ylotomus, derived from the Greek and meaning “wood-cutter, ”’ for
he is the feathered wood-cutter par excellence to those who know his habits. In
proof of this, we offer a plate of his bent chips about one-half natural size. These
were of good, sound maple wood, showing ant holes, In striking, the Log-cock
employs a writing or wrenching stroke, which sends chips flying to a considerable
distance; some we have picked up six feet from the base of the tree.
Like the Flicker, he is a great lover of ants, which accordingly occupy a large
place in his bill-of-fare. So, to dine on the big black timber ants, which are his
The Pileated Woodpecker 59
special delight, he drives holes to the very heart of growing forest trees, tapping
the central chamber of the colony, where, in winter, he finds the dormant swarm
unable to move and feasts upon them at leisure. This habit of riddling trees has
caused the inobservant to condemn him for a timber destroyer; which is as great
a mistake as to conclude that all Woodpeckers are Sapsuckers because one had
the habit of puncturing the bark and drinking sap. A tree containing an ant
colony is already doomed. And the Log-cock makes no mistakes, though man
might find no outward sign of an ant-tree. Doubtless that strong formic smell,
coupled with his experience in sounding tree trunks,—as a man tells a ripe
watermelon by the plunk of it—enables him not only to find the tree, but, what
is more remarkable, to drive his hole with such precision that he taps the heart
of the community.
This illustration of a maple tree, a foot in diameter, will give some idea of
such excavations as this feathered wood-cutter will make in order to indulge his
fondness for ants. The largest of the four holes was 7 inches long, 2% inches wide,
and 7 inches deep. The next in size was 62 inches long, 24 inches wide and 7
inches deep. All four holes passed through 3 to 5 inches of sound wood each.
If any man were given a small gouge or chisel and a light mallet, and forced to
cut such a series of holes, he would rightly feel that he had quite a task before
him. But here was a bird doing the work with no tools but his beak.
These holes also record the retreat of the surviving ants upward in the tree,
or its occupancy by another swarm. The involution of new bark, clearly shown
in the illustration, about the two lower holes proves that they were made the winter
" previous, while the upper two were excavated late the following summer or after
the spring growth. Two more holes on the south side of the tree, which do not
show in the illustration, the lower of which is eight and one-half inches above the
highest hole shown on the east side, were made the following autumn. Hence
it would appear that each time of revisitation H-ylotomus (or Ceophleus, as we
now call him) found that the survivors had retreated a little higher, and followed
them up. Thus, in a way like a landlord, he goes his rounds and collects his rent.
This illustration of the Log-cock’s work is not a show specimen; numbers can
be found in his range to equal or surpass it. We have seen sugar-maple, soft
sugars, basswood or linden, wild cherry and various species of ash, operated
upon in this way by the Pileated Woodpecker.
A New Departure for the Redwing
By HOWARD H. CLEAVES, Staten Island, N. Y.
With photographs by the author
M \HE Red-winged Blackbird is gen-
erally associated with wet, marshy
places. His three-syllable note, or
song, we expect to hear from the tree-tops
on the border of some cat-tail swamp,
along some creek, or at the edge of a
pond.
The nest is easily located, bemmg placed
sometimes in a tussock of grass near the
"margin of the water, or out in an open
"stretch of marsh-land in. the short grasses.
as sewer More often it is suspended from the
ID AMAMEIS) IIH: BILANCHS IBID) upright stems of the highwater-shrubs or
HOVERING
the tall marsh grasses. The two latter
nests differ from the others. They are woven on the outside with plant fibers, and
fastened to their supports in a manner which makes them resemble, in a degree,
the nest of the Baltimore Oriole. Generally they are placed several feet from
the ground. The former nests are invariably placed very close to the ground, or
water, being only a few inches up the stems of the grasses to which they are
attached, and in no wise do they resemble a pendent nest. They are constructed .
throughout of grasses of various sizes.
But the Redwing is changing the nest-building customs of his race. He is
completely shifting the scenes of his domestic life. That is, he is doing so in a
certain section of Staten Island.
Last summer, while photographing Bobolinks, I had occasion to do a great
deal of walking back and forth through a daisy field, in search of nests. Red-
winged Blackbirds seemed numerous about the place, and would first alight on the
tree-tops at the edge of a wood, and then fly excitedly out over the field and hover
just above my head. I must have been too much absorbed in my Bobolinks at —
first to take note of the Redwings, for not until a female of the latter species had
actually been flushed from her nest did it occur to me that these birds might do
such an unheard-of thing as to build in an upland hay-field, within a few rods
of the nests of the Bobolink and Meadowlark. But here was unquestionable
proof. Father Redwing sat in a tree-top, scolding; the mother hovered excitedly
over my head; and just in front of me, supported by a cluster of daisy stems, was
the nest. The set of eggs was incomplete, but the eggs were unmistakable. The
nest-site had changed, but the eggs were scrawled with the same short-hand mark-
ings that adorn all Redwings’ eggs. The nest was of the type found in the short
salt-meadow grass, and was only four inches from the ground.
(60)
GS
TT ROIS SIE
A New Departure for the Redwing 61
I stopped long enough to photograph this rather unusual find, and when I
resumed my Bobolink work I soon happened upon another, this one containing
four eggs. This second nest was distant from the first about a hundred yards,
and no doubt there were more nests in the field, because at one time there were
four anxious females hovering in the air.
As stated above, the Redwings have always nested hereabout, either on
the salt meadows or along the borders of fresh-water ponds. The pond-borders
have, of late years, become so spoiled by cows and men that they now offer
scarcely a suitable nesting-site. The salt meadows have all been ditched, and I
often think that I would much rather endure mosquitos in their former numbers
than to have the scarcity of bird-life on the meadows which this ditchmg has
apparently caused. Formerly, during the spring and fall migrations, the meadow
lands attracted Greater Yellow-legs, Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers,
Semipalmated Plovers, and several others which are now rarely seen there.
However, these migrants are not the only birds to be affected. The Redwings
nested formerly in such numbers that to find half a dozen or more of their nests
within an hour was nothing remarkable. But the drying up of the meadows has
brought about a change. The grass is now parched, and small fish lie dead in
stale water-holes where Night Herons and Green Herons once made successful
catches. Soft mud here and there after a rain bears the impressions made by
Crows’ feet, and I am inclined to believe that the Crows play a more or less
important part in the increasing discomforts of the Redwings. Before, the mead-
ows were, for the most part, covered with water to the depth of several inches.
’ es | H 2 é 2
é , -- rar.’ ing
ae, > -_
HILLSIDE WHERE REDWINGS NEST AMONG THE DAISIES
62 Bird - Lore
Now the water is all drawn off, and the Crows can alight anywhere they please
and destroy the contents of the Blackbirds’ nests. On several occasions, nests
containing eggs have been located, and a day or two later have been found empty
and deserted. One day four sueh nests were observed, their linings being usually
torn out and scattered about the spot. Last season no Redwings nested on the
meadows.
The question arises: Are these adverse conditions causing the Redwing to
move to a new and different place during the nesting period, or is he doing it for
reasons of another character? It seems that the dominant instinct to return
each year to the same general locality is still strong, but that an entirely new area
im that locality is gradually being accepted as the place for the rearing of the an-
nual brood.
“PLACED THE PREY IN FRONT OF THE EXPECTANT YOUNGSTER”
From Macpherson’s ‘The Home-Life of the Golden Eagle.’ See page 62
Notes on Water Birds in Forest Park, St. Louis
By H. C. WILLIAMS and N. deW. BETTS
M \HE accompanying table gives a list of the water birds that were observed
on the ponds of Forest Park, St. Louis, during the spring and fall of 1908,
and spring of 1909. With the exception of three species (marked W in the
table), the list is based on notes made by the writers, who were stationed in the
park near the ponds, and had a very good opportunity to keep a register of the
visitors during the week-days. The dates on the three additional species were
kindly furnished by Mr. Widmann.
The list is probably far from complete, for, while many of the birds remained
for a considerable number of days or even weeks, others would stay for only a
few hours. This was especially true of Waders and Terns, several of which
passed on without waiting for identification.
The ponds are of recent formation, lying within the site of the World’s Fair
of 1904, and are not large, covering perhaps eight acres. There are two main
irregularly shaped ponds, connected by canals, with a total length of about one-
half mile. The canals are bordered with shrubbery, but the ponds are practi-
cally open on all sides and partially bordered by the Park highways. Small
- fish, frogs, and crayfish are apparently very abundant, and probably furnish the
chief attraction in keeping the Ducks on the ponds. Water-plants are not in
evidence to any extent, and must occupy a very small portion of the bill-of-fare.
One of the most interesting things noticed was the short space of time neces-
sary to make the Ducks feel at home after a stay of a day or two. They apparently
realized that they were safe, for, instead of flying at any one’s approach, they
simply swim out to the center of the ponds and allow themselves to be observed.
Tt was a good illustration of the value of bird refuges; for it is not always easy
for those accustomed to the actions of hunted birds to believe the stories of
the tameness of those that are consistently let alone. It is possible, however,
that birds in a park, where people are almost a part of the natural conditions,
would become unsuspicious much sooner than in a less-frequented preserve.
‘The number of birds of any one species usually varied considerably, and, in
order to give a fair idea of the number present, two columms are given in the
table, headed “average” and “greatest”? number. The average number is used,
in the case of species that were seen on and off for several weeks, to show the
number usually present. The inclusive dates give the first and last observations,
and do not necessarily mean a continuous presence.
The Scaup Ducks were by far the most numerous, and a flock of from eight to
twelve was present continuously for six weeks in the spring of 1909. During the
day they usually rested near the center of the ponds, not feeding to any extent
until evening. Their characteristic method of feeding was to swim rather slowly
along the shore, making frequent and rapid dives,—as though pursuing frogs that
had darted away from the bank. The Mergansers, Canvasbacks, Golden-eyes, and
(63)
64 Bird - Lore
Buffle-heads, usually fed nearer the center of the ponds, diving continuously
and at apparently no particular time of the day. Black Terns were present on
five separate occasions in the spring of 1909, appearing in the forenoon and flying
about over the ponds until dusk. They were never present when we arrived at
the park in the morning. While flying about, they made frequent swoops close
to the surface, as though catching insects, it being very seldom that they actually
entered the water. The five Canada Geese were too timid to remain long enough
for observations, leaving very shortly after they came down to inspect the place.
The Cormorant also departed at the first sight of an onlooker. The Pelicans
were observed circling above the park, and did not attempt to make a landing.
The Pelicans and the Great Blue Heron were the only species out of the thirty-
one listed that did not actually come down to the ponds, and perhaps, strictly
speaking, should not be included in the table
List of water birds seen on and about the ponds of
Forest Park, St. Louis, Mo.
So ao
a2 2a
Species o& 35 Spring, 1908 Fall, 1908 Spring, 1909
a4 | of
Pied-billed Grebe... . 5 26 Mar.22—May 9 July 24—Nov. 14 Mar. 22—-May 3
Loon (G.imber) .... I Apr. 24-27
Forster’s Tern...... 2 = May 1-4
Common Tern ..... 5 May 27
Black Tern ........| 12 38 Aug. 11, 12 May 6-27
Cormorant.......... 2 Apr. 19, May 12
White Pelican.......| 50 I0o Sept. 2, 29
American Merganser I Apr. Dec. 5, 6
Hooded Merganser . . 4 4 Apr. Nov. 3-Dec. 19
Mallard............. 2 Sept. 30—Dec. 9
Gadwall..... j Z Noy. 16—Dec. 9
Baldpate (W) . 6 Apr. 4
Blue-winged Teal. 2 12 Apr. 4-29 Sept. 28-Oct. 24
Shoveller kes 7 Apr. 4
Pintail. . Heeateic oie I Feb. ro
Wood Duck......... 8 Oct. 6 ’
Canvasback. . I Mar. 6-13
Lesser Scaup Duck. . aie) 60 Mar. 9-Apr. 21 Oct. 7—Dec. 7 Mar. 4—May 11
American Goldeneye 2 4 Noy. 21-Jan. 6, ‘09 | Mar. 17—Apr. 26
Bufflehead.......... ne 3 Oct. 27—Jan. 5, ‘09 Mar. 1—-Apr. 5
Ruddy Duck. . 2 Nov. 3—Nov. 14 Mar. 10
Canada Goose . . 5 Apr. 5
Great Blue Heron a (W) i Nov. 7
Green Heron. . I May 5 May 3-25
American Coot. ..... I 4 Apr. 8-May 9 Noy. 21—Dec. 1 Apr. 1-May 24
Wilson’s Snipe . sso. 2 Nov. 21 Mar. -23-Apr. 14
Pectoral Sandpiper . . 5 Mar. 31—May 1
Greater Yellowlegs . . 5 Apr. 28 Apr. 8-May 1
Solitary Sandpiper. . : I 3 May 1-5 Apr. 24—May 10
Spotted Sandpiper . - 2 3 May 2-5 Aug. 12 May 3-15
Kalldeer ear was 4 Mar. 5
Hooded Merganser in a Chicago Park
By HERBERT R. MILLS
ARFIELD PARK, a large natural woodland containing several acres
G of beautiful lagoons, is situated in Chicago’s thickly settled west side.
Here, in sight of Madison Street’s continual procession of street cars,
and within range of the roar from Lake Street’s elevated and surface lines, a
Hooded Merganser, in adult male plumage, has come and remained for the past
eighteen months. His first appearance in the park was during the spring migra-
tion of 1908, and since then my frequent visits to the park have never failed to
find him contentedly feeding along the edge of some lagoon, in company with
the tame Ducks and Swan that are kept there.
HOODED MERGANSER IN A CHICAGO PARK LAKE
Photographed by Herbert R. Mills
He is apparently uninjured. I have never seen him fly, but he sometimes
leaves the water and walks up on the shore to sit among the bushes on the bank.
In the water he far surpasses the tame birds in speed and power. He seems to have
lost all fear of human beings, for he will dash up to the very water’s edge to
snatch the cracker or piece of bread offered to him. When food is thrown out
on the lagoon, he will shoot through the water like a meteor, and seize the morsel
from under the very bill of the tame Duck, whose alertness and power of instan-
taneous reaction have long been lost through years of domestication.
(65)
66 Bird - Lore
Something in the distinguished appearance and dignified demeanor of this
wild beauty renders him conspicuous as a foreigner in his civilized environment,
and induces the immediate appellation of “Wild Duck” from every one who
sees him. The elevating influence that unspoiled Nature exerts over our lives
is manifest in the charm that attracts hundreds of park visitors toward the little
wild Merganser, and causes them to stop and gaze with admiration upon his
beauty. He so far overshadows his humble domestic relatives in character that
they are entirely ignored while in his presence. Such is the charm of the wilder-
ness which envelopes every wild being, radiating its message with every pulse of
its life. The beholder is spirited back to the wild, simple days of his own heritage,
when sin, sickness and suffering were the exception, and his endeavor to live a
pure, natural life receives a new impetus.
I hope that the presence of the Hooded Merganser in this crowded city will
emphasize the value of natural associations to mankind, and prove a powerful
mission to the cause of bird protection.
a
Tika - Fe
FLORIDA SCREECH OWL ON NEST
Photographed by P. B. Philipp
The Migration of North American Sparrows
THIRD PAPER
Compiled by Professor W. W. Cooke, Chiefly from Data in the Biological Survey
fi With Drawings by Louis AGAssiz FUERTES
cng ; (See frontispiece)
SONG SPARROW
“This species, as a whole, ranges from ocean to ocean, but over much of this
wide area it is not possible to trace the movements of the migrating individuals
because the observers cannot distinguish these from the resident breeding birds.
Thus, on the Pacific slope most of the Song Sparrows perform a more or less
extended migration, but some winter north to British Columbia and others breed
south to Lower California. It is not possible, therefore, to give any migrating dates
for the Pacific slope. In the eastern United States the birds winter north regu-
larly to Nebraska and New Jersey, and breed south to southern Nebraska and
southern Virginia. Thus there is a belt in the vicinity of the parallel of 40° N. lati-
tude in which Song Sparrows are found every month in the year and no migration
data are available.
SPRING MIGRATION
Naee c
PLACE Biers gar cnet oF ih) Eee catch
Northern New Jersey................ 17 March 5 A few winter
PAS Ere he Ni Wace cco artieiicl a attaget iim, egs cowed 17 March 15 February 23, 1909
/ Avo oeinia, INIG) Séoon france din GROCERS CheeeO ee 7 March 17 A few winter
Wiest awintields Ne WY 20 sve ects nies chee 7 March 17 March 7, 1906
Vernon)\Genter, IN Vi... 2. 1. et oe: 6 March 23 March 16, 1893
Bridgeport, Conn................... 4 March 4 A few winter
ewetin Cibyan COMM rca | 21 March 8 February 27, 1906
Hadhyme i Comirnc.. Scns se aos os > 6 March 12 March 3, 1898
antiond:: Contin csrieccae ie) ts es 16 March 16 February 21, 1906
Gamaamy, (Comme, oc cyes o/s alesse as ees ache 7 March 21 March 8, 1894
PawwiiGkets Renn lass.aiteny-haleead ec arse = 5 March 1 February 23, 1887
Fall River, Mass...................-- 3 Feb. 25 February 20, 1887
Attleboro Falls, Mass................ 4 Feb. 28 February 24, 1902
Springfield, Mass.................... 6 March 14 March 9, 1898
NWiestuGrotons Massyenria-ver sansa se 7 March 12 March g, 1894
Framingham, Mass................. 8 March 13 March 8, 1897
West Roxbury, Mass. ......,........ ql March 13 February 26, 1888
Beverly, Mass............. Ropyraetes 9 March 12 February 27, 1906
AVedlNSS i, WEISS. boone Odes onsen coud an 6 March 16 March 7, 1894
pibtsheldiwMlassorsstsy decisis ce) eae as 6 March 17 March 13, 1902
Fitchburg, Mass.. 8 March 17 March 12, 1908
East Templeton, Mass... hoe ge 9 March 21 March 14, 1893
IVIcinIGIES TELS miVtisereleval-eate -maieyss salts as) 7 5 March 27 March 18, 1893
Wells River, NAM momar napereeioge tees 5 March 27 March 23, 1908
IRauaGlolholay Witseanee nea pmas oes oe ad a March 30 March 19, 1894
(Charlotte Wittens 4 eee satel 13 April 1 March 13, 1898
Sim jObusburys: Vito emcee ce ee cee 6 13 March 31 March 20, 1908
Southern New Hampshire........... I4 March 20 March 11, 1898
IelamOVersgN |) EA. aiid = sae vs eye ee 5 March 25 March 18, 1898
Imanicaster. Nii, : ewcene sae tes 4 April 2 March 28, 1889
ietoydille wave WIN We betes oP ead enictmneront ere o 7 March 21 March 14, 1908
68
Bird - Lore
SPRING MIGRATION, continued
Number Av date of i
PLACE pi year Seas Aiwa Tae eee
Westbroolkeiiers. yon... lary eee ea ae 6 March 27 March 13, 1894
Bn psy Mieke sero nee are eee ee 6 March 29 March 15, 1908
Rly mouthy Mieka testa se ere eae 13 April 1 March 19, 1878
Orono MMe es aa ae 7 April 1 March 22, 1894
Grand Manan, N. B.............-... 5 March 31 March 23, 1889
Sty Johnsen Bb Sey ey ee ee Ir March 31 March 18, 1898
Eliallisascm Nae siere eee en eee nm 8 March 29 March 20, 1903
Scotchiiialcens Nib se eee eae 6 April 2 March 20, 1903
PICLOULCIN: (Sune ria ean nee Ne ee PN Rn 6 April 6 March 14, 1894
GMeyineyen, Ns Bscnoosawoeoek senees ou 12 April 14 March 29, 1898
North River, Prince Edward Island. . . 4 April 5 March 19, 1889
Montreal, Canada.................. 5 April 4 March 22, 1897
Quebeci City Canadase sen ane 18 April 12 March 26, 1902
Godbout Oucs ent ere April 13, 1885
Lake Mistassini, Que................ May 23, 1885
Southern Missouri.................. 8 March ro A few winter
Water] oo-mlin cdl aise nme cnn 9 March 5 Rare, winter
Wiaillseontt Osi he ence ate os Sa alae 8 Feb. 19 February 7, 1898
OBerling Oo Wyse ais aor e eer 5 March 6 February 20, 1892
Sandusksys) @n esses ia eae he ee aie 5 March 6 February 6, 1898
ClevelamGen Osean: meer xe emcees Io March 6 February 6, 1891
Iban, IMEC; nesnesosocelacoseees 9 March 3 January 29, 1906
Retersb tines mIVitreh tase iy een 7 March 5 February 4, 1890
iBatilek Creel Vio chess eee ee 8 March 10 March 5, 1909
Brant: Mich. canes ieee oun 8 March 18 March fo, 1903
Upper Peninsula, Mich.............. 6 April 13 March 29, 1905
Dunnville, Ontario................... 5 March 12 February 6, 1896
Strathroy, (Ontario. ses ee Ir March 14 February 24, 1899
Galt MOntarione ayes tor pee ee aes Io March 16 March 9, 1894"
Plover Mills, Ontario................ 6 March 18 March 9, 1887
‘oronton | @ntanions ee aan 16 March 18 March ro, 1898
Oftaway Ontariom .s3e eee 21 March 24 March 12, 1894
Nearmey- Onitantone se ene een 4 March 24 March 18, 1898
Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario............ 5 April 3 March 31, 1905
OnagaraiGanss eee oer ene II March 6 February 4, 1894
Keolculks Rap cy die at abi uae oe actrees 6 March 22 Rare, winter
Hillsboro; laren ey nena ea gee 5 March 14 March 9, 1899
Fairhel delay sane suena anna vi March 16 March 8, 1894
Sabula Wasse taney one Men neta 7 March 16 March 9, 1894
Dewitty a,c ee eee a 8 March 26 March 7, 1909
Grinnell slay gee yaaa eee ees 5 ‘March 25 March 16, 1889
Sioux Citys slae eee ye eer en aoe iene 4 April 18 March 22, 1908
Civica a} MM vet ares eine ecru 22 March 15 March 6, 1904
Rockford wlll vires een ag eer encel i March 19 March 4, 1894
Milford, Wis............ 5 March 15 March ro, 1850
Madison Wisse snanc eine eee 8 March 18 March rr, 1894
IMG RUE ANSI Swans dood Goede en bue 10 March 22 March 11, 1889
ili,a (ETOSSEmAWASHHR cikoc ae ee 6 March 23 March 18, 1905
Stevens Pointe Wisse een en 4 April 2 March 9, 1895
ManesboroyeMinmieeeee ee nee 8 April 2 March 17, 1889
Minneapolis, Minn.................. 8 April 4 March 18, 1889
IDS Ries IMG, hed oben ode ome ee moe 5 April 7 March 20, 1889
White Earth, Minn.................. 2 April 17 April 16, 1882
Larimore, N. D. (mear).............. 4 April 9 April 4, 1893
VEN ENC Ons vac dnulne de adhe eaks April 3, 1897
Columbia Falls, Mont............... 2 March 21 March 19, 1896
Great Falls, Mont.................... 3 April 3 March 27, 1889
Aweme ns \Vianitolb assent eerie oe II April 17 April 10, 1903
Qu’Appelle, Sask.................... April 15, 1904
Blapstatt Albertans aaner see tomer nen April 21, 1906
HdimontontwAllbertane ese een April 29, 1901
The Migration of North American Sparrows
SPRING MIGRATION
69
Number |
PLACE Ste ag eee cece [oteet ate oh ieee
|
| :
Gaimesvilleymb lar ei ct) ote ines see | March 31, 1887
Shipley bilaee nathan lstcty es ua ere | April 1, 1904
Cumberland, Ga.................... | April ro, 1902
Atlanta, Ga.. Sere ae Pr See Seay | May 1, 1902
Rising Fawn, Cas sree UAE ete May 9, 1885
Religie, IN (Cue gS sigsinae 08 how vu au ace 5 April 4 | April rz, 1890
Weer Ave aia Gastoneencnbeseones oF 8 April 24 | May 5, 1890
IBilomiseVEISSt a cen crete cee sysheucks, viawuscsteueretone March 12, 1906
Athens; Meniiey se ate daa adem ose 4 April 24 | April 28, 1906
PBritlvamiley Keyan wreeshotare rhe sschsyat see i: 5 April 12 | April 19, 1894
Southern Missouri.................. 3 April 20 | April 29, 1903
Stik /liohforaloy ANe>Ge nae wold aoe one April 6, 1891
INortherniRexasis.) cree rs tees B April 9 | April 23, 1885
Omavarecan Seaman eis stated nat ches 12 April 21 | April 28, 1892
FALL MIGRATION
Number | Average date of Earliest date o}
PLACE eireate al arava fall sea :
(Onidiciar MISANS Serene ey casie(e eager orete on of acces 9 October 9 October 2, 1902
orbbienm ye Re xrnastaysicyscyantyscisicveliey Sie atonal 3 October 16 October 15, 1888
JSyullbyaia ies GPE Ane avo es mere nani o Hin 7 October 7 October 4, 1887
LNmEMS, Weis. atgnandAo cnn pogo OOo 5 October 11 October 7, 1904
Southern Missouri.................. 5 October 12 October 2, 1908
Wieavenvillles IN@3.2.s.. vecn ces ee 3 October 8 October 4, 1894
AMET CA WIN ieee eas tise. ceaiee Loess 5 su sseitednasiats 13 October ro October 2, 1894
ILO PINOT Ey Sel Gee nunca hseensieca seis oh eva apt October 22, 1885
IReinkewoodsiGavy nes 62. cvc esses seis oon 5 October 21 October 6, 18098
INorthern Bloridas. sy. 62 0.2. e eal e so. B October 21 October 16, 1904:
FALL MIGRATION
umber
PLACE eigenen aeieye oete.o) | oe: Bate! he
|
Aweme, Manitoba.................. ro October 15 October 22, 1907
Lanesboro, Minn.................... 7 ' November 1 December 18, 1888
RSA Ullcrmeliacmveyettges= Suesey cichicsaatine, ate ureye ee 6 , October 26 November 5, 1894
(CirininGlll le vataa-eos. cherie deine Peoreeeee cee 3 November 4 November 24, 1885
ON Sboroy Wats aistine Ac stoets coher ras ays 4 November rz | November 20, 1898
Oniapa,) Kans. 20S. cesses as ne 4 November rz | December®6, 1903,
Upper Peninsula, Mich.............. 3. | October 15 October 19, 1898
Wicksbure, Mich... 50.2225 5.. 02... 4 November 16 | November 25, 1908
INovarsOntanionescsas:h<) Gsc ee. cfs 3 October 13 October 18, 1894 -
Plover Mills, Ontario............... 4 | October 14 October 30, 1893
Ottaway Ontario. ese uses ee ane 15 October 24 November 26, 1885
Galt MOntaxrtoy on fons cases ste ses 6 November 17 | December 15, 1902
KeMancar onmlllenttin. fuse decuycien is sercsee 6 . October 27 November 26, 1895
OberlinwWO wen se. ose case Makan 4 November 1 November 26, 1906
AWIATISE OIE NOM eycttersssdhiesd sonatas tue wens 4 | November 6 November 26, 1892
North River, Prince Edward Island December 25, 1889
70 Bird - Lore
Number
PLACE Sisae) | onstegimns sen || 7 eenanogean
Eastern Nova Scotia................. 3 October 17 October 22, 1894
ScotchwivalkesINENB srr iene erences 6 October 27 November 13, 1904
St. Jolhing NE WB. caves sinsce orate eres 3 November 1 November £7, 1894
Montrealy Canadas cecan. acer eos 8 October 17 October 29, 1895
Southwestern Maine................ I4 October 29 December 7, 1903
Southern New Hampshire............ 3 November 5 November 14, 1899
IN@mUNGIAal We MOeNOIMIS bose oconeescosane 5 November 1 November 20, 1906
Eastern Massachusetts.............. 19 October 28 November 13, 1894
Vives Wiisvavsell, ING Wop co cacedoouspee 6 October 25 November 1, 1901
The “Data in the Biological Survey”’
Explanatory note by PROFESSOR COOKE
sources of the notes on migration that appear from month to month. The
Biological Survey was established twenty-five years ago, and part of its
work from the outset has been the accumulating of data on bird distribution
and migration. The card system is used and each note is entered on a separate
card. At the present time the “data in the Biological Survey ” are contained on
about four hundred thousand cards of unpublished notes derived principally from
the more than two thousand different migration observers who have contributed
their reports during these twenty-five years. The remainder is derived from
records of museum specimens and from the field notes of the staff of the Bio-
logical Survey.
These original notes are supplemented by many published records. The most
important ornithological publications have been extracted thoroughly, and
many notes gathered from the so-called minor publications. About two hundred
thousand cards of published records are now on hand. The notes from “The Auk’
alone required over forty thousand cards.
The Biological Survey, therefore, has about six hundred thousand notes from
which to draw for information concerning the distribution and migration of North
American birds. It follows that on some of the more common birds the records
must be very voluminous. The migration dates given in this number of Brrp-
Lore for the Song Sparrow are selected from more than three thousand notes—
which, if published in full in the most condensed form, would require more than
forty of Brrp-Lorer’s pages. The records for Chicago occupy only two lines, one
for arrival in spring and the other for departure in the fall, but these dates are
selected from 83 records contributed during 26 years by 28 different persons.
|: may interest the readers of BirD-LoreE to learn something about the
Notes on the Plumage of North American Sparrows
SECOND PAPER
By FRANK M. CHAPMAN
(See frontispiece)
Song Sparrow (Fig. 2). The fusing of the spots on the central breast-feathers
- to make a larger spot or blotch and the pronounced maxillary stripes are the chief
distinguishing marks of the eastern Song Sparrow, as well as of practically all
the races of Song Sparrow; add to these certain characteristics of voice and
manner, and a disposition which usually permits examination at close range,
and we have a bird which is generally identified without difficulty.
The sexes are alike, and in view of the exceptional variations shown by this
species west of the Rockies, the color of our eastern bird is notably uniform.
It is a fact that the country east of the Rockies is in itself comparatively uniform,
but nevertheless there are in it areas inhabited by Song Sparrows the climate of
which differs more widely than that of regions in the West, each of which has a
different race of Song Sparrow.
We have, it is true, a slightly grayer form (MM. m. juddt) in North Dakota,
and specimens resembling this bird are not infrequently found in the Atlantic
coast states; but, on the whole, our bird shows but little individual variation
The nestling has the wings and tail like those of the adult, but the body plu-
mage is softer, the streaks are less sharply defined, the breast blotch is wanting,
and the plumage is more or less suffused with yellowish buff. It is in this costume
that the young birds sing the low, indeterminate, rambling song so unlike the lay
of the adult.
As Dr. Dwight has shown, in the paper before referred to, this plumage
may be worn for several months, the molt into the winter plumage occurring from
August to October. This molt includes all the body feathers, the tail, the tertials
and wing-coverts, usually the primaries and rarely the secondaries.
The adult, as is customary, passes from the breeding into winter plumage
by a complete molt, and is then indistinguishable from young birds in winter
plumage. Winter birds, aside from differences due to wear, have the breast and
sides more strongly washed with brownish than do summer specimens. There
appears to be no molt in the spring, and the difference between sleek winter speci-
mens and much-bedraggled midsummer ones is due to wear.
The Song Sparrow is the most plastic of North American birds, or, in other
words, it is so readily affected in size and color by the climatic conditions under
which it lives that, given some slight change in the climate of a region, we
expect to find it reflected in the Song Sparrow of that region. Broadly speaking,
the general colors of Song Sparrows are related to the rainfall, while their size
is related to latitude. Thus, the Song Sparrows of arid regions are pale, while the
Song Sparrows of humid regions are dark. Compare, for example, the figure
(72)
72 Bird - Lore
of the Desert Song Sparrow (Fig. 3) with that of the Sooty Song Sparrow (Fig. 4).
The former inhabits the Colorado desert where the annual rainfall averages
about six inches; the latter lives on the northwest Pacific coast where the
annual rainfall averages over ninety inches.
Again, observe that the Mexican Song Sparrow at the southern extremity
of the range of the species (No. 1, on map) is the smallest race, measuring some
six inches in length, and that there is a gradual increase in size northward until
the maximum is reached at the northern extremity of the range of the species,
where the Aleutian Song Sparrow (Fig. 1) attains a length of nearly nine inches.
If we compared only the palest Song Sparrow with the darkest, we might well
believe, so unlike are they, that each form represents a distinct species; but when
we include in our comparison representatives of all the twenty-three races of
Song Sparrows we find complete intergradation in color and in size. Nowhere
can one draw the line. As the climatic conditions under which the birds live
change, the birds keep pace. Cause and effect go hand in hand. Here we have
a species in flower, as it were, a single Song Sparrow stalk with its twenty-three
blossoms, any one of which might make an independent growth as a species
if it were separated from the parent stem. Doubtless some day the separation
will come, when we shall have several species of Song Sparrow, each with its group
of races, but at present we have only one species, divided into some twenty-three
sub-species or species in process of formation.
A variety of reasons may be advanced to account for the pronounced geo-
graphical variations shown by the Song Sparrow. Its wide range indicates
physical adaptability and ready adjustment to differences in food and habitat.
Its variations in size, while they conform to the general law of increase in size
northward, are exceptionally marked, and are not equaled by those of any other
North American bird,—a further indication of an inherent plasticity.
The species is comparatively non-migratory. Several races, notably in Cali-
fornia, are permanently resident, and a number of contiguous and restricted
areas may there be found each to have its own form of Song Sparrow. Such
strictly non-migratory species are continuously subjected to the influences of their
environment, which are heightened by permanent isolation. But even the most
migratory forms come early and stay late, and are thus in the breeding area for a
much greater part of the year than, for example, ay Warblers which come in
May and leave in August.
But, suggest as we may the various factors which appear to be active. in pro-
ducing such geographic variations as the Song Sparrows exhibit, they are not
potent with all birds, even when other things are equal, and it seems probable that
some species are in an active state of development and readily respond to the in-
fluences of their surroundings, while others are fixed and make no such response.
The latter represent older types of birds, which are, so to speak, near or a part
of the trunk of the bird’s family tree, while the former class includes the birds
at the terminal branches of this tree.
ey
MAP INDICATING THE DISTRIBUTION OF SONG SPARROWS
. Mexican Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia
mexicana).
. Michoacan Song Sparrow (M. m. adusia).
. Durango Song Sparrow (M. m. goldmanz).
. Mountain Song Sparrow (M. m. montana).
. Eastern Song Sparrow (M. m. melodia).
. Judd’s Song Sparrow (M. m. judd).
. Merrill’s Song Sparrow (M. m. merrillt).
. Desert Song Sparrow (M. m. fallax).
. Brown’s Song Sparrow (M. m. rivularis).
. San Diego Song Sparrow (M. m. cooperi).
. San Clemente Song Sparrow (M.m.clemente).
. Santa Barbara Song Sparrow(M.m.graminea).
ty
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
(73)
Samuel’s Song. Sparrow (Melospiza melodi
samuelis). -
Alameda Song Sparrow (M. m, pusillula).
Suisun Song Sparrow (M. m. masxillaris).
Heermann’s Song Sparrow(M. m. heermanni),
Mendocino Song Sparrow (M. m. cleonensis)-
Rusty Song Sparrow (M. m. morphna).
Sooty Song Sparrow (M. m. rujina).
Yakutat Song Sparrow (M. m. caurina),
Kenai Song Sparrow (M. m. kenaiensis).
Kadiak Song Sparrow (M. m. insignis.)
Aleutian Song Sparrow (M. m. sanaka).
Bird-Lore’s Advisory Council
ITH some slight alterations, we reprint below the names and addresses
of the ornithologists forming Brrp-Lore’s ‘Advisory Council,’
which were first published in Brrp-Lore for February, 1900.
To those of our readers who are not familiar with the objects of the Council,
we may state that it was formed for the purpose of placing students in direct
communication with an authority on the bird-life of the region in which they
live, to whom they might appeal for information and advice in the many diffi-
culties which beset the isolated worker.
The success of the plan during the nine years that it has been in operation
fully equals our expectations; and from both students and members of the Council
we have had very gratifying assurances of the happy results attending our efforts
to bring the specialist in touch with those who appreciate the opportunity to
avail themselves of his wider experience. ;
It is requested that all letters of inquiry sent to members of the Council
be accompanied by a stamped and addressed envelope for use in replying.
NAMES AND ADDRESSES OF MEMBERS OF THE ADVISORY COUNCIL
UNITED STATES AND TERRITORIES
ALASKA.—Dr. C. Hart Merriam, Biological Survey, Dept. of Agr., Washington, D. C.
Arizona.—Herbert Brown, Tucson, Ariz.
CairorniA.—Charles A. Keeler, Berkeley, Cal.
CALIFORNIA.—Walter K. Fisher, Palo Alto, Cal.
CoLorapo.—Dr. W. H. Bergtold, 1460 Clayton Ave., Denver, Col.
ConneEcTicuT.—]J. H. Sage, Portland, Conn.
DELAWARE.—C. J. Pennock, Kennett Square, Pa.
District oF CoLumBIA.—Dr. C. W. Richmond, U. S. Nat’l. Mus., Washington, D. C.
FLoripa.—Frank M. Chapman, American Museum Natural History, New York City.
Froripa, Western.—R. W. Williams, Jr., Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.
GerorcIA.— Dr. Eugene Murphy, Augusta, Ga.
Iniivots, Northern.—B. T. Gault, Glen Ellyn, Ml.
Itiinors, Southern.—Robert Ridgway, U. S. National Museum, Washington, D. C.
Inp1ana.—A. W. Butler, State House, Indianapolis, Ind.
INDIAN TERRITORY.—Prof. W. W. Cooke, Biological Survey, Washington, D. C.
Iowa.—C. R. Keyes, Mt. Vernon, Ia.
Kansas.—University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kan.
Lourstana.—Prof. George E. Beyer, Tulane University, New Orleans, La.
Matne.—O. W. Knight, Bangor, Me.
MAassAcHUSETTS.— William Brewster, Cambridge, Mass.
Micuican.—Prof. W. B. Barrows, Agricultural College, Mich.
Minnesota.—Dr. T. S. Roberts, 1603 Fourth Avenue, South, Minneapolis, Minn.
Maussissipp1.—Andrew Allison, Ellisville, Miss.
Missourt.—O. Widmann, 5105 Morgan St., St. Louis, Mo.
Montana.—Prof. J. M. Elrod, University of Montana, Missoula, Mont.
NEBRASKA.—Dr. R. H. Walcott, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Neb.
Nrvapa.—Dr. A. K. Fisher, Biological Survey, Dept. of Agr., Washington, D. C.
(74)
Bird-Lore’s Advisory Council 75
New HampsHire.—Dr. G. M. Allen, Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., Boston.
New JErsry, Northern.—Frank M. Chapman, Am. Mus. Nat. History, New York City.
NEw JERsry, Southern.—Witmer Stone, Academy Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, Pa.
New Mextco.—Dr. A. K. Fisher, Biological Survey, Dept. of Agr., Washington, D. C.
New York, Eastern.—Dr. A. K. Fisher, Biological Survey, Washington, D. C.
New York, Northern.—Egbert Bagg, 191 Genesee Street, Utica, N. Y.
New York, Western.—E. H. Eaton, Canandaigua, N. Y.
New York, Long Island.—William Dutcher, 141 Broadway, New York City.
Norte Daxota.—Prof. O. G. Libby, University, N. D.
“Norra Carorina.—Prof. T. G. Pearson, Greensboro, N. C.
Ox10.—Prof. Lynds Jones, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio.
OxiaHoma.—Dr. A. K. Fisher, Biological Survey, Dept. of Agr., Washington, D. C.
OrEGON.—W. L. Finley, Milwaukee, Ore.
PENNSYLVANIA, Eastern.—Witmer Stone, Acad. Nat. Sciences, Philadelphia, ipa
PENNSYLVANIA, Western.—W. Clyde Todd, Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, Pa.
RHODE IsLAND.—H. S. Hathaway, Box 498, Providence, R. I.
SoutH CARoztina.—Dr. Eugene Murphy, Augusta, Ga.
TExaAs.—H. P. Attwater, Houston, Tex.
Urau.—Prof. Marcus E. Jones, Salt Lake City, Utah.
VermontT.—Prof. G. H. Perkins, Burlington, Vt.
VirciniA —Dr. W. C. Rives, 1723 I Street, Washington, D. C.
WasHINGToN.—Samuel F. Rathburn, Seattle, Wash.
WEsT VircInIA.—Dr. W. C. Rives, 1723 I Street, Washington, D. C.
Wisconsin.—H. L. Ward, Public Museum, Milwaukee, Wis.
CANADA
ALBERTA.—G. F. Dippie, Calgary, Alta.
British CorumBiA, Western._—Francis Kermode, Provincial Museum, Victoria, B. C
British CoLumsra, Eastern.—Allan Brooks, Okanagan Landing, B. C.
ManiroBa.—Ernest Thompson Seton, Cos Cob, Conn.
Nova Scorra.—Harry Piers, Provincial Museum, Halifax, N. S.
Onrario, Eastern.—James H. Fleming, 267 Rusholme Road, Toronto, Ont.
ONTARIO, Western.—E. W. Saunders, London, Ont.
QuEBEC.—E. D. Wintle, 189 St. James Street, Montreal, Can.
MEXICO
E. W. Nelson, Biological Survey, Department of Agriculture, Washington, D C.
WEST INDIES
\
C. B. Cory, Field Museum, Chicago, Ill.
GREAT BRITAIN
Clinton G. Abbott, 153 West 73d St., New York City, N. Y.
Potes from Field and Stuy
A Semi-domesticated Warbler
Some time in October, 1909, a Myrtle
Warbler flew into the Union Station, in ’
Washington, D. C., and took up its abode
in the drug store which occupies a small
room at one corner of the large waiting-
room. Here it remained for over a month,
spending most of its time on top of the high
cases which occupy the sides of the room,
but flying freely about on the counters, and
showing no fear of the people in the store.
Its food seemed to be chiefly house-flies,
which it caught with great dexterity, and
it frequently drank of the various bever-
ages which were spilled on the soda
fountain. In one instance, it was said to
have been made ‘drunk’ by over indul-
gence, and, falling into a tub of water,
would have drowned had it not been
promptly rescued.
On November 20, in company with Mr.
W. R. Maxon (who had brought the case
to my attention), I visited the station, and
found the bird to be active and gentle,
as described. On November 25 it died
naturally, and I secured the skin for my
collection. The bird was an adult female,
in dull plumage.—ArTHuR H. HOWE Lt,
Washington, D. C.
A Prothonotary Warbler in Wellesley,
Mass.
On June 2, 1909, I had the good fortune
to see a fine specimen of this beautiful
Warbler on the Wellesley College grounds.
He was, apparently, a male, and was in
mature and brilliant plumage and full
song.
I was attracted by hearing a new note
among the familiar songs that fill the air
on a June day. As I happened to be occu-
pied with a piece of writing which must be
finished at a certain hour, I tried to ignore
the song; but it was so near and so in-
sistent that I threw my writing aside and
started in pursuit. In shorter time than
it takes to tell it, I had the bird under ob-
servation and, saw that he was indeed a
stranger. He was in a yery vivacious
mood, and some of his movements can
only be described as antics.
He had a sharp tilt or two with a pair of
Phoebes that had a nest near. One of the
best views I had of him was when he set
about examining one of the college houses.
(Wood Cottage). He went into the broad
piazza and perched on the backs of several
of the chairs, investigated trellises, blinds
and window-sills, then went to the edge
of the roof and into the gutter, where he
drank, and caught and ate a moth. His
rapid changes from one pose to another
afforded a good view of him from every
angle above and below, and his rich yellow
showed to fine advantage against the dark
background of the house.
In all, I stayed with him for about half
an hour. In the meantime I had run back
to the house for opera-glass and bird-books
and found that he corresponded exactly
to the description of Protonotaria citrea;
but the extreme rarity of that bird in
this region filled me at once with doubt
and excitement.
I called a friend, who is an excellent
observer of wide experience, and, although
she looked incredulous and even dubious
when I breathlessly said “‘ Prothonotary,”
she came out and agreed in my judgment.
Later, I consulted the college collection
of mounted specimens, and found that
my bird coincided in every particular
with the one in the collection, except that
he looked to me a trifle larger and was
in more brilliant feather—ANcIE CLARA
CHAPIN.
Wren and Sparrow
Four years ago I nailed an oil-can under
the gable end of a small building near the
house, the bottom of the can flat against
the building. The can was the sort with
a cork-fitted opening, with handle that
served as a door-step for the Wrens that
took up housekeeping in it. I have no way
of knowing that the same Wrens haye
(76)
: Notes from Field and Study
occupied it every year, but think they have,
for I do not think any others would occupy
an old nest. However, I am not sure on
that point.
Fom the first, it has been an object of
‘envy to the English Sparrows. The open-
ing in the can being too small for their
entrance, they collect on top and try to
‘oppose the Wrens going in and out. With
‘cheerfulness of song and manner, the
Wrens succeeded in raising two broods
each summer.
One day the Sparrow opposed the male
Wren from going in to feed the young
birds, when it put up a fight, or a show of
‘one, and dropped its food; that which
THe ——
HALVES ——
—=CompLetep ANY
-sotkeT _\_»
“RINDER-
Twine”
Sener
( PLANS FOR A BIRD-BoX”
DESIGN FOR A COMMON-SENSE
BIRD BOX
77
I found in the grass was part of a grass-
hopper. But the Wren sang a song of
defiance from the sweet-pea trellis.
With my watch in hand, I timed the
Wren in his songs. He sang ten to a
minute; that would be six hundred songs
in an hour, if he kept it up. Allowing
fourteen hours out of the twenty-four for
sleep and family duties, there are at least
ten hours devoted to vocal exercise.
One evening, at dusk, I heard a sleepy
little song coming from the can, a lullaby
to the young birds, or a serenade to Jenny
Wren.—E. JI. Mercatr, Minneapolis,
Minn.
A Common-sense Bird-box
The chief merit of the ‘nesting-site’
shown in these cuts lies in the fact that
it is not a human invention; it is simply a
copy from nature. By the way, is it not a
little surprising that, with so many inyen-
tions of elaborate ‘houses’ (properly so
called) for Martins, Swallows and Wrens,
no one seems to have offered, as yet, new
plans and specifications for sites for
Orioles and Hummingbirds ?
If you cannot lay hold of a good deserted
Woodpecker’s burrow, just get a stick
of stove-wood from the shed, or a fallen
branch from the nearest grove, drill an
auger hole an inch deep near one end of it,
split the stick with an axe, gouge out a
hollow in the cleft surface of each half (see
diagram) until the auger hole comes
through, nail them together again and
your site is complete; you have simply
been your own Woodpecker.
For Martins, the ‘stick’ should be about
twenty inches long, eight in diameter, with
the entrance about two and one-fourth
inches across. For Tree Swallows, Blue-
birds, Nuthatches and Wrens the length
should be about 18 inches, the diameter 6
inches, and the opening as follows: Tree
Swallows, 1%; Bluebird, 1$; Nuthatch, 14;
Wren, 14 inches, respectively, the dimen-
sions should be as follows, in the order
given above for Martins: 18 (about) x 6,
entrance, 1% inches; 18 (about) x 6, en-
trance, 1% inches; 18 (about) x 6, entrance
78
1} inches; 18 (about) x 5, entrance 1}
inches.—EpMuND J. SAwvER, Black River,
N.Y.
A New Bird Club
The “Bird Lovers’ Club of Brooklyn”
has recently been organized. It meets
monthly at the homes of the several mem-
bers. For the ensuing year, the following
officers have been elected: President,
Edward Fleischer; Vice-president, Mrs.
Charles S$. Hartwell; Secretary—Treasurer,
Dr. E. W. Vietor. Those interested may
communicate with the secretary at 166 St.
James Place.
Starlings at Amherst, Mass.
On December 27, 1909, I saw a flock
of seven Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) at
Long Lea Farm, Amherst, Massachusetts.
So far as I, or my bird-loving friends at
Long Lea know, that is the first record
in that locality. Until my return to New
York on January 19, I saw the birds
frequently. On one occasion there must
have been three or four dozen in the flock;
but, as they were flying, it was impossible
to be accurate as to the number. On Janu-
ary 18, there were seventeen of them near
the house, feeding on a bare patch in a
field which was, on other occasions, the
happy hunting-ground of flocks of Snow
Buntings and of Tree Sparrows.—LILIAN
GILLETTE Coox, New Vork City.
Prospect Park Notes
A NOVEMBER ORIOLE.—I wish to report
the occurrence of an adult male Baltimore
Oriole in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, N. Y.,
on November 25, 1909. The bird was
apparently uninjured, but seemed much
distressed by the cold, ruffling its feathers
until it was almost as round as a ball. A
light snow was falling at the time, and the
temperature was several degrees below the
freezing point.
NORTHERN SHRIKE.—A Shrike spent
all of February, 1909, and the greater part
of March in the park, and wrought great
havoc among the birds wintering there.
Bird -
Lore
PINE Siskrn.—Siskins were very com-
mon in Prospect Park last winter. They
were first observed by Dr. Vietor on No-
vember 1, 1908, and the last one was seen
on May 11, 1909. On January g, I counted
over a hundred in a single flock.
EvROPEAN CHarFrincH.—A bird of this
species was observed by Mrs. Vietor on
January 8, 1909. I saw it on the roth and
rith of that month. On both occasions it
was feeding with English Sparrows, but
kept on unconcernedly after its companions
had been frightened away at my approach.
It was probably one of the Central Park
Chaffinches that had gotten the “‘wander-
lust.’
Besides the above-mentioned birds, a
Hermit Thrush and two Fox Sparrows
spent all of last winter (1908-9) in the
park. A Carolina Wren was observed
until February 1 and again in March. I
saw American Crossbills from March 5 to
14, forty individuals being the largest
number observed in one day. On No-
vember 25, I saw a flock of thirty-four
Canada Geese flying over the park. On
the same date I saw the Oriole, a Carolina
Wren, a Woodcock and twelve other
species were noted. This and May 15, when
I counted forty-seven species, were my two
"best days’ for the year. On Noy. 26 and
27, a Long-eared Owl sat moping in a
spruce tree, but he has apparently gone
to pastures new.
During the year, I made ninety-six
visits to the park, and observed ninety-
seven species. — EDWARD FLEISCHER,
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Brewster’s Warbler at Waterbury, Conn.
On May 9, 1909, I saw a bird in a
bramble thicket answering the descrip-
tion of Brewster's Warbler. The de-
scription, taken down at the time, is: Fore-
head and crown yellow, approaching
orange; black line from bill passing
through eye; rest of upper parts slaty or
bluish gray; tail about same color as back;
under parts grayish white, with slight
tinge of yellow om breast; greater and
middle wing coverts yellow.
Notes from Field and Study 79
It was not shy at all, as I was able to
approach to within ten feet of it. A Blue
winged Warbler, nearby, seemed to be in
company with it.— Norman B. Pirriry,
Waterbury, Conn.
A Successful Martin Colony
I send another photograph (See Brrp-
Lore, March-April, 1909) of my Martin
colony, which was taken during the mating
petiod of 1909, and shows its growth from
one pair four years ago. The house
figured was built, during leisure time, from
poplar and pine, and is divided into twelve
compartments, the entrances being spaced
as far apart as possible with separate
perches, to prevent quarreling. The first
Martin to arrive last spring was a male,
A SUCCESSFUL MARTIN COLONY
Photographed by J. S. Becker, Clyde, Ohio
during the first week in April. When first
seen, he was sitting on the post that sup-
ported the house the year before, evidently
waiting for the house to be erected, as he
flew into it the moment it was raised.
Others came later and, by the first week
in May, the twelve compartments were all
occupied. Nesting commenced during the
second week in May, and by July 15 the
young had all flown. They numbered
nearly forty. To demonstrate the extreme
usefulness of these birds as insect-destroy-
ers, one needs only to inspect their abode
after the young have flown out, to see the
mass of shells and wings left from the
insects fed to the young.—JAs. S. BECKER,
Clyde, Ohio.
Our Duty to Our Bird Tenants
In your July-August, 1909, issue, I note
a letter from a Chicago bird-lover, “Our
duty to our bird tenants,” that leads me
to express to you the facts that have pre-
sented themselves in our locality. We had
plenty of birds in our suburb, and a small
garden producing well. A few new neigh-
bors arrived, each with a pet cat. That was
two years ago. We have now six cats that
visit our garden regularly,
among them a big black bird
cat. One cat has five black-
kittens now mature, and there
are other kittens growing up.
Last summer half the birds
were no more. This year we
hardly had a bird left and
quite a number had stopped
migrating in the spring. The
consequence is that I never
knew there could be? so
many kinds of destructive
worms and bugs to the square
foot. Our ground is the same,
the care the same, the climate
unchanged, and we have
plenty of water. The flow-
ers and vegetables were poor
and about a failure, as the
bugs and worms had to be
fought on everything.
We license dogs as a public
80 Bird - Lore
nuisance, and do a lot of writing about how
to be kind to and cultivate birds, and then
calmly overlook the basis of all the trouble,
the neighborhood cat legion. Don’t think
I dislike cats, as I am really fond of all
animals. But there are so many adyan-
tages we may not enjoy, on account of one
destructive element being entirely ignored
and uncontrolled, that the time has arrived
to recognize this matter and give it due
attention.
No one individual is strong enough to
carry out any reform, but an organization
could do much, with the codperation of
persons interested in gardens of small size.
And I venture to say the small-garden
proprietors would make a formidable list
from towns and cities all over the country.
As a practical citizen, l appeal to the Audu-
bon Society for assistance. in organizing
some sensible and far-reaching plan that
we may urge upon the officers of each
community, for the limiting of the de-
struction of birds by cats, and the conse-
quent failure of the gardens subsequent
to the absence of our feathered host.—
B. BENNETT, Chicago, Ill.
The Cardinal in Northern New Jersey
It may interest Brrp-Lor®’s readers to
know that on Christmas day, 1909, I saw
eleven Cardinals, seven males and six
females. This is the first time that more
than two have been seen in this locality.—
KATHERINE K. Mosiz, Gladstone, N. J.
A Queer Sparrow Song
One day, while rambling along a creek
in this neighborhood, I heard a Song Spar-
row sing a few notes, then stop short.
Presently he sang again in the same way;
soon he did it again. By this time my
curlosity was stirred, and I decided to look
into the matter. My eye soon caught the
Sparrow perched on a sapling twig, repeat-
ing his odd little song. This was the
method. His voice was clear enough for
the first three or four notes; then it sud-
denly stopped, as if the glottis were com-
pletely closed up. But the bird did not
cease his efforts when the break occurred.
Each time he kept his mandibles apart,
shook his head back and forth, and bulged
out his throat, trying hard to finish his trill.
I watched him till he flew away, and each
time he went through the song motions
long enough to complete his natural song,
even though his voice stopped before it was
more than one-third done.—LEANDER S.
Keyser, Canal Dover, O.
Vermilion Flycatcher in Sonoma
County, Cal.
Vermilion Flycatcher—On July 26,
1909, I saw a Vermilion Flycatcher, catch-
ing flies in a wild cherry tree, loaded with
ripe fruit.
This bird is a rare visitor in this part of
the state, and this is the only one that I
have ever seen here.—VIOLET WHEELER,
Graton, Cal.
Cardinal Near Buffalo
February 7, 1909, I saw a pair of Car-
dinals on the Canadian shore about six
miles from Buffalo. They were quite tame,
and with opera glasses the pink bill,
erectile crest and dark lores were easily
made out.
February 6 there was a heavy south-
west wind. The snow was nearly all gone,
but there was ice in the lake for about one
mile from shore.—DAvip E. WHEELER,
Buffalo, N. Y.
Chautauqua Bird Lectures
The Chautauqua Institution has given
to Herbert K. Job the appointment to
conduct the bird-study classes at their
Summer School, Chautauqua, N. Y., and
to give some public lectures at the Audi-
torium. The course will be planned with
these special things in view: To prepare
teachers to teach bird-study in the schools,
to show in detail how to hunt with the
camera, and to aid bird-lovers in the out-
door studies of birds. The method will
comprise lecture and class work, field ex-
cursions, and will use as a text-book Mr.
Job’s new book just published by The
Outing Publishing Company, New York,
—‘‘How to Study Birds.” Accessions to
this Course will be welcomed, and the
place and region are delightful.
Book ews and Meviews
REPORT ON THE IMMIGRATIONS OF BRITISH
SUMMER RESIDENTS IN THE SPRING OF
1908, ETc. Edited by W. R. OGItLviE-
Grant. Bulletin. British Ornithologists’
Club, Vol. XXIV. 235 pages, 29 maps.
Witherby & Co., 326 High Holborn,
London.
This, the Fourth Annual Report of the
Committee on bird migration appointed
by the British Ornithologists’ Club, will
be of interest to American readers, both
for what it contains as well as for the
methods employed in observing and record-
ing.
One is at once impressed with the lim-
ited opportunities of the British orni-
thologist, when compared with those en-
joyed by students of bird migration in
this country. Not alone is the area over
which a bird’s journey may be followed
smaller, but the migration itself evidently
does not begin to attain the proportions
‘which it reaches with us. Thus, only
thirty-four species appear on the regular
schedule of migration distributed by the
Committee. Nevertheless, the special
problems presented by an insular station
lend to the study of migratory phenomena
in Great Britain an exceptional interest. “In
the spring of 1908, the main bulk of the
birds had not appeared on the roth of
April. On the 20th, however, the immi-
gration commenced in earnest; and on the
26th birds began to pour in, the greatest
numbers arriving on the 29th, when no less
than twenty-four out of the thirty-four
specially recorded species arrived in con-
siderable numbers. During the following
ten days the immigration continued, and
culminated on the 9th of May in another
great influx, including nineteen different
species. After that date the migration
began to wane, only three species being
recorded on the rath, and a fortnight later
it ceased altogether. It will thus be seen
that the main tide of immigration in 1908
was of shorter duration than usual, taking
place almost entirely between the 26th of
April and the 12th of May’”—dates, it may
be added, which approximately bound the
period of most active migration near New
York City, some 600 miles south of south-
ern England; a demonstration of the im-
portance of isotherms over degrees of
latitude in affecting the distribution of life.
18 IMIS (Ce
Witp LIFE ON THE RockiEs. By ENos
A. Mitts. Houghton, Miffin & Co.,
Boston and New York. 1909. 12mo.,
vili-262 pages, 25 half-tones from photo-
graphs. Price $1.75.
Enos Mills is the John Muir of the Rock-
ies, and every one who knows him will
learn with pleasure that he has placed
in book form some of the results of his
long and loving association with nature
in the Rockies; and to those who do not
know him we commend these essays as
the records of a keen and sympathetic
observer, who has established close rela-
tions between himself and his environ-
ment, the trees and flowers, and wild ~
creatures that inhabit it.
The keynote of Mr. Mills’ book is en-
thusiasm and sincerity. He is more than
a nature lover, he is a nature worshiper,
and he pays here his tribute to the cliffs and
peaks, the trees and animals, with which
he has lived on terms of exceptional
intimacy.—F. M. C.
SumMMER Birps oF SHAW’S GARDEN. By
Orto WipMANN. Pages 41-80. Colored
frontispiece. Twentieth Annual Report
Missouri Botanical Garden. St. Louis.
1909.
Parks are not only often capital places
for the study of birds, but they are the only
places available to many residents of
cities. We trust, therefore, that this pam-
phlet is available to all visitors to the area
of which it treats, for it should do much to
arouse and direct their interest in birds.
It gives us excellent biographical notes on
the 40 species of birds which regularly
frequent Shaw’s Gardens in summer and
presumably breed there, and also treats
of six others of less frequent occurrence.—
Be NE Ce
(Sr)
82 Bird -
Tue Home-Lire oF A GOLDEN EAGLE.
Photographed and described by H. B.
MacpHERSON. Witherby & Co., 326
High Holborn, London. 1909. 8vo., 45
pages, 32 mounted half-tones. Price 5
shillings.
This is an ideal demonstration of the
possibilities of modern methods of bird
study with a camera, in which, prompted
primarily by the desire to get pictures, the
author built a blind of rocks, turf and
heather near a Golden Eagle’s eyrie, and
from this shelter studied and photographed
the birds during the eleven weeks their off-
spring was in the nest. More than a thou-
sand miles were traveled in going to and
from the nest, and often the bitter cold and
driving storms which prevailed in the
Grampian mountains (where, at an alti-
tude of nearly 3,000 feet, the birds had
made their home), during the season in
question, would have dismayed almost any
one but a genuine bird photographer.
We cannot present here even a résumé
of the interesting facts discovered and
recorded by Mr. Macpherson, but we un-
reservedly commend his essay as one of
the most fascinating chapters in bird-life
with which we are familiar, and quite
worthy of comparison with Mr. Finley’s
study of the California Condor.—F. M. C.
FAUNA OF New EncianpD II. List of the
Aves. By GLovER M. ALLEN. Occa-
sional Papers of the Boston Society of
Natural History, June, 1909. 8vo., 230
pages.
Thanks to the admirable method of pre-
sentation devised by Dr. Allen, we have
here not only an annotated list of the birds
of New England but also annotated lists
of the birds of each of the New England
states. After a tabular check-list of New
England birds, in which the presence or
absence of each species in each state, as
well as in the collection of the Boston So-
ciety of Natural History, is indicated,
Lore
the 4o2 species admitted to the New Eng-
land list are treated formally, under each
being given (1) the A. O. U. scientific name
(2) the A. O. U. common name followed
by other vernacular names used in New
England, (3) reference to the original
place of description with the type locality,
(4) reference to a colored figure of the bird
and its egg, when existing, (5) character
of haunts, (6) state headings with status,
manner of occurrence, dates of migration
and egg-laying of migrant and breeding
species. In conclusion, there is a list of
‘Species Introduced or Erroneously Ac-
credited. ’
In view of the surprisingly large amount
of information which Dr. Allen has suc-
ceeded in crowding into a limited space,
it may seem ungracious to ask for more; but
since the plan adopted evidently omits
references to the sources whence his local
data were obtained, would it not have
been well to give, in a bibliographical ap-
pendix, titles of at least the lists of birds
relating to the states contained in the region
in question ?—F. M. C.
THE PURPLE MarTIN AND HOUSES FOR
Its SummER Home. By J. WARREN
Jacops. Gleanings No. 5, pages 1-45;
First Supplement, pages 46-56. Numer-
ous illustrations. Waynesburg, Pa.
Mr. Jacobs may claim to be our leading
authority on the ways and wants of the
Purple Martin. His ‘Story of a Martin
Colony’ (Gleanings No. 2) was an admi-
rable contribution to the life history of that
bird, and he here treats at length of a more
practical side of the subject, namely, the
construction of Martin houses and estab-
lishing of Martin colonies. Warious cor-
respondents contribute their experiences
in inviting Martins to occupy houses built
by Mr. Jacobs, and both pamphlets con-
tain much of value and interest to those
who would bring ‘these delightful birds
about their homes —F. M. C.
Editorial 83
Bird: Lore
A Bi-monthly Magazine
Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds
OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES
Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN
Published by D. APPLETON & CO.
Vol. XII Published April 1, 1910 No. 2
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
Price in the United States, Canada and Mexico twenty cents
a number, one dullar a year, postage paid.
COPYRIGHTED, 1910, BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN
Bird-Lore’s Motto;
A Bird in the Bush is Worth Two in the Hand
WHERE in all the world can one dis-
cover in so restricted an area, a wider range
ot attractions than those which are to be
found in that portion of Mexico lying be-
tween Vera Cruz and Mexico City? From
the moment when one is still thirty miles
from land and the snow-capped summit of
Orizaba, distant ninety miles, becomes
visible, until one reaches the site of Teno-
chtitlan itself, one’s attention is held by a
variety of interests which make the trip
from coast to tableland an epitome of a
journey from the tropic to the temperate
zone. If one is in search of supremely
beautiful scenery it is here to the full limit
of human appreciation. Or if one would
test the climates of the world one may go
in a day from perpetual summer to ever-
lasting snow and at the same time pass
from belts where rain falls almost daily
to others where it is exceptional. One may
therefore select one’s climate and by a few
hour’s travel, either up or down the moun-
tain slopes, find perfection in climatic con-
ditions throughout the year. With these
extremes of temperature and rainfall there
is, of course, a corresponding diversity in
flora and fauna which makes the region
one of surpassing interest to the botanist
and zo6logist and particularly to the stu-
dent. of the geographical distribution of
life.
For the archzologist there are ruins
which evince a higher degree of aboriginal
civilization than has been found elsewhere
in America, and for the ethnologis tnatives
sufficiently isolated to retain their tribal
customs and afford problems of funda-
mental importance, in connecting the
present with the past.
The historic period opens with the in-
comparable romance of Cortez and the
Conquistadores and passes through three
centuries of Spanish government, the War
of Independence, the short-lived Empire of
Maximilian, the campaign of Scott, to the
astonishing era of development under
Diaz. Thus, whether one be a student of
nature or of man or merely a traveler in
search of the novel and beautiful, this por-
tion of Mexico will appeal to him with a
force and fascination which makes a
journey through it one of the memorable
experiences of a lifetime of travel.
One, however, should journey slowly.
The average tourist in his haste to reach the
Capital and avoid the, at this season, much
overrated heat of the tierra caliente rushes
through the tropical portion of his route
and thus misses the pleasure of an in-
troduction to many new forms of plant-
life and some of the most striking scenery
between the coast and tableland. To our
mind Mt. Orizaba is nowhere so impres-
sive as from the tropical zone at its feet
where, surrounded by a flora which sug-
gests equatorial heat, one looks upward
to perpetual snow and has at a glance an
effective lesson illustrating the influence
of temperature on the distribution of life.
The character of the bird-life does not
reveal itself so quickly and the American
Museum Expedition, of which mention
was made in the last issue of BIRD-LORE,
is now established at Cordova at the upper
limit of the tropical zone (alt. 2,713 feet),
whence expeditions will be made toward
the coast north and south through the
valleys which run parallel with the general
trend of the mounta‘ns and finally up to
the snow line on Mt. Orizaba itself, with the
object of ascertaining what at least are the
more common birds of the three life-zones
which are here represented.—Cordova,
Mexico, March 10, 1910.
The Audubon Societies
SCHOOL DEPARTMENT
Edited by MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT
Address all communications to the Editor of the School Department, National
Association of Audubon Societies, 141 Broadway, New York City
APRIL—WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HAWKS?
If you cannot discover new birds in your locality,
try to find something new about the old ones —
is at hand. We shall soon welcome all our familiar friends, but, without
neglecting them, let us open eyes and ears and find time either to add
to the list or perhaps learn something new about a group of birds of which
we may have grown contemptuous through familiarity.
A dozen years ago, bird students thought they knew all there was to be
learned about the Robin, Crow, Jay, and other common birds. Then came the
improved photography, with its rapid lens and shutter and the focusing glass,
wherein a moving object could be seen and caught exactly at the desired
moment, and straightway we knew that we had almost everything to learn about
the home-life of this living bird, even though scientists had already numbered
every bone and feather of the dead ones.
People often have a very good knowledge of the familiar song birds, as well
as those of striking plumage; but the so-called Birds of Prey are passed by in
bulk, and are merely called Hawks or Owls, as the case may be, with prejudice
and a miscellaneous desire to kill lodged against the entire guild.
But there are good Hawks, neutral Hawks and bad Hawks, in the same ratio
as there are good and bad people, and the same obtains with the Owls.
The Sharp-shinned Hawk is on the black list, so is Cooper’s Hawk and the
Goshawk; but the sins of these three should not be let fall on the useful Sparrow
Hawk, the devourer of grasshoppers, and other large insects and beetles,—_the
Marsh Hawk of summer days and the open or partly wooded low meadows,—or
the majestic Red-shouldered Hawk, who loves the woods near water where he
can put his nest high in a tree, and yet have good frog-hunting near home. This.
is the Hawk that cries Kiow! Kiou! in such a way that its identity by voice is
sometimes mixed with that of the Blue Jay, who often has a hard time to prove
an alibi!
The Red-tailed Hawk, also called Hen Hawk, and decried by the farmer as a
harrier of poultry, while a careful analysis of their food has shown that mice,
and other mammals, reptiles and insects are by far a larger article of their diet
than birds or poultry. Watch a pair of Red-tails circling through the air of an
(84)
(): CE more the little marsh frogs are peeping, and the return of the birds
The Birds’ World 85
April day, calling and trimming to the wind; have we any more inspiring sight,
anything more suggestive of freedom and joy of flight ?
Locate a pair of any one of these four Hawks; do not disturb them, but from
a screen of brush or other cover watch their daily life and comings and goings
with a good field-glass, and I believe you will soon drop out from the class of
people who seize a gun every time the word Hawk is mentioned.
Tf you wish three months of bird vaudeville, 1 commend you to watch a family
of Screech Owls, if you can by any chance locate one. From the moment the
nestlings are hatched and visible at the nest-hole (they remain a long time in
the nest) until their parents have, in late summer, completed their training in
all the flying tactics known to these little birds of wisdom, with much snapping
of beaks and warning cries of “Shay-shay-shay!” these are of incomparable
interest, and furnish unexpected amusement to those who do not know.
Screech Owls are early birds and begin to nest in early April, as do also the
Red-tailed and Red-shouldered Hawks; so ‘watch out’ lest the season slip
away before you locate your family. M O. W
THE BIRDS’ WORLD
“T lived first in a little house,
And lived there very well;
I tho’t the world was small and round,
And made of pale blue shell.
“T lived next in a little nest,
Nor needed any other;
I tho’t the world was made of straw,
And brooded by my mother.
“One day I fluttered from the nest,
To see what I could find;
I said 'The world is made of leaves,
I have been very blind.’
“At length I flew beyond the tree,
Quite fit for grown-up labors;
I don’t know how the world is made,
And neither do my neighbors.”
—Anon
THE RED-HEADED WOODPECKER
By FLORENCE MERRIAM BAILEY
Che Pational Association of Audubon Societies
EDUCATIONAL LEAFLET NO. 43
The Woodpeckers are a band of foresters most of whom spend their lives
saving trees. Many of them do their work hidden in the dark forests, but the Red-
heads hunt largely out in plain sight of passers-by. Why? Because, while they
devour enough enemies of the trees to deserve the name of foresters, they are
particularly fond of vegetable foods and large beetles found in the open.
Watch one of the handsome Red-headed birds on a fence. Down he drops
to pick up an ant or a grasshopper from the ground; then up he shoots to catch
a wasp or beetle in the air. Nor does he stop with fly-catching. Nutting—beech-
nutting—is one of his favorite pastimes; while berries, fruits, and seeds are all
to his taste. If, in his appreciation of the good things that man offers, the Red-
head on rare occasions takes a bit more cultivated fruit or berries than his rightful
share, his attention should be diverted by planting some of his favorite wild
fruits, such as dogwood, mulberry, elderberry, chokecherry, or wild black cherry.
But, in judging of what is a bird’s fair share of man’s crops, many things
should be considered. Food is bought for the Canary and other house pets;
and many people who do not care for caged pets buy food for the wild birds
summer and winter, to bring them to their houses: Flowers cost something, too.
But without birds and flowers, what would the country be? Before raising his
hand against a bird, a man should think of many things. A man who is unfair to
a bird is unfair to himself.
It would be a stingy man, indeed, who would begrudge the
Berane Woodpeckers their acorns and beechnuts. While the leaves are
still green on the trees, the Redheads discover the beechnuts and
go to work. “It is a truly beautiful sight,” Dr. Merriam says, “to watch these
magnificent birds creeping about after the manner of Warblers, among the
small branches and twigs, which bend low with thos weight, while picking and
husking the tender nuts.”
The nuts are not always eaten on the spot, for, like their famous Galiaen
cousins, the Redheads store up food for winter use. All sorts of odd nooks and
crannies serve the Redheads for storehouses—knot-holes, pockets under patches
of raised bark, cracks between shingles and in fences, and even railroad ties.
Sometimes, instead of nuts, grasshoppers and other eatables are put away in
storage. The wise birds at times make real caches, concealing their stores by
hammering down pieces of wood or bark over them.
Beechnuts are such a large part of the fall and winter food of the Redheads
(86)
RED-HEADED WOODPECKER
Order—Picr
Genus—MELANERPES
Family—Picipz
Species— ERYTHROCEPHALLS
The Red-headed Woodpecker 87
in some localities that, like the gray squirrels, the birds are common in good
beechnut winters and absent in others. Cold and snow do not trouble them, if
they have plenty to eat, for, as Major Bendire says, many of them “winter along
our northern border, in certain years, when they can find an abundant supply of
food.”’ In fact, in the greater part of the eastern states the-Redhead is “a rather
regular resident,”’ but in the western part of its range “it appears to migrate
pretty regularly,” so that it is rare to see one “north of latitude 40°, in winter.”
The western boundary of the Redhead’s range is the Rocky Mountains, but
east of the mountains it breeds from Manitoba and northern New York south
to the Gulf of Mexico; though it is a rare bird in eastern New England.
In sections where this erratic Woodpecker migrates, it leaves
Migration its nesting-grounds early in October, and returns the latter part
of April or the beginning of May. Before too much taken up with
the serious business of life, the Redhead goes gaily about, as Major Bendire
says, “frolicking and playing hide-and-seek with its mate, and when not so
engaged, amusing itself by drumming on some resonant dead I mb, or on the
roof and sides of houses, barns, etc.’’ For, though like other drummers, the Wood-
peckers are not found in the front ranks of the orchestra, they beat a royal tattoo
that may well express many fine feelings.
When the musical spring holiday is over and the birds have chosen a tree
for the nest, they hew out a pocket in a trunk or branch, anywhere from eight
to eighty feet from the ground. When the young hatch, there comes a happy
day for the looker-on who, by kind intent and unobtrusive way, has earned the
right to watch the lovely birds flying back and forth, caring for their brood.
And then, at last, come the days when the gray-headed young-
Nest sters, from hanging out of the window, boldly open their wings
and launch into the air. Anxious times these are for old birds,—
times when the watcher’s admiration may be roused by heroic deeds of parental
love; for many a parent bird fairly flaunts in the face of the enemy, as if trying
to say, “Kill me; spare my young!”
One family of Redheads once gave me a delightful three weeks. When
the old birds were first discovered, one was on a stub ina meadow. When
joined by its mate,as the farmer was coming with oxen and hayrack to take up
the rows of haycocks that led down the field, the pair flew slowly ahead along a
line of locusts, pecking quietly at the bark of each tree before flying on. At
the foot of the meadow they flew over to a small grove in the adjoining pasture.
As it was July, it was easy to draw conclusions. And when I went to the
grove to investigate, the pair were so much alarmed that they at once corrob-
orated my conclusions. Did I mean harm? Why had I come? One of them
leaned far down across a dead limb and inspected me, rattling and bowing
nervously; the other stationed itself on the back of a branch over which it peered
_ at me with one eye. Both of them cried krii/-tar-rah every time I ventured to
take a step. As they positively would not commit themselves as to which one
88—Ci«; Bird - Lore
of the many Woodpecker holes in sight belonged to them I had to make a tour
of the grove.
On its edge was a promising old stub with a number of big, round holes
and, picking up a stick, I rapped on the trunk. Both birds were over my head
in an instant, rattling and scolding till you would have thought I had come to
chop down the tree and carry off the young before their eyes. I felt injured,
but having found the nest could afford to watch from a distance.
It was not long before the old birds began feeding their young. They would
fly to the stub and stand under the nest while rousing the brood by rattling into
the hole, which had the odd effect of muffing their voices. When, as they flew
back and forth a Yellow-hammer stopped in passing, they drove him off in
a hurry. They wanted that grove to themselves.
On my next visits, if, in spite of many precautions, they discovered me,
they flew to dead tree tops to watch me, or startled me by an angry quarr’ quarr’
quarr’ over my head. When they found that I made no attempt to go near the
nest, however, they finally put up with me and went about their business.
After being at the nest together they would often fly off in opposite directions,
to hunt on different beats. If one hunted in the grove, the other would go out
to the rail fence. A high maple was a favorite lookout and hunting-ground for
the one who stayed in the grove, and cracks in the bark afforded good places
to wedge insects into. The bird who hunted on the fence, if suspecting a grub
in a rail, would stand as motionless as a Robin on the grass, apparently listening;
but when the right moment came would drill down rapidly and spear the grub.
If an insect passed that way the Redhead would make a sally into the air for
it, sometimes shooting straight up for fifteen or twenty feet and coming down
almost as straight; at others flying out and back in an ellipse, horizontally or
obliquely up in the air or down over the ground. But oftener than all, perhaps,
it flew down onto the ground to pick up something which its sharp eyes had
discovered there. Once it brought up some insect, hit it against the rail, gave
a business-like hop and flew off to feed its young.
The young left the nest between my visits, but when, chancing to focus my
glass on a passing Woodpecker I discovered that its head was gray instead of
red, I knew for a certainty what had happened. The fledgling seemed already
much at home on its wings. It flew out into the air, caught a white miller and
went back to the tree with it, shaking it and then rapping it vigorously against
a branch before venturing to swallow it. When the youngster flew, I followed,
rousing a Robin who made such an outcry that one of the old Redheads flew
over in alarm. “ Kzik-a-rik, kik-a-rik,” it cried as it hurried from tree to tree,
trying to keep an eye on me while looking for the youngster. Neither of us
could find it for some time, but after looking in vain over the west side of a big
tree I rounded the trunk and found it calmly sitting on a branch on the east
side—which goes to prove that it is never safe to say a Woodpecker isn’t on
a tree, till you have seen both sides!
The Red-headed Woodpecker 89
The old Redhead found the lost fledgling about the time that I did
and flew over to it with what looked like a big grub. At the delectable sight,
the youngster dropped all its airs of independence, and with weak infantile
cries turned and opened wide its bill!
Two days later I found two birds that may have been father and son, on
the side of a flagpole, out in the big world together. The old bird’s head glowed
crimson in the strong sunlight, and it was fortunate indeed that only friends
were by.
The striking tricolor makes the Redheads such good targets that they are
in especial danger from human enemies and need loyal, valiant defenders where-
ever they live. And what a privilege it is to have birds of such interesting habits
and beautiful plumage in your neighborhood! How the long country roads
are enlivened, how the green fields are lit up, as one of the brilliant birds rises
from a fence-post and flies over them! In the city, it is rare good luck, indeed,
to have a pair nest in an oak where you can watch them; and even a passing
glimpse or an occasional visit is something to be thankful for.
“There’s the Redhead!”’ you exclaim exultantly, when a loud tattoo beats
on your city roof in spring. And “There’s the Redhead!” you cry with delight,
as a soft kikarik comes from a leafless oak you are passing in winter; and the city
street, so dull and uninteresting before, is suddenly illumined by the sight.
Questions for Teachers and Students
What is Conservation ? ‘How do Woodpeckers help the United States in the
Conservation of its forests? What do Red-headed Woodpeckers eat? Is there
enough wild food for birds in your neighborhood? Why do people feed birds?
What is it to play fair? To be just to birds? How about the golden goose?
What nuts have you seen Redheads eat? Do Woodpeckers and Squirrels quarrel
over nuts? Where have you seen Redheads store beechnuts? What is a cache?
What birds and animals cache food? What have you found cached in the woods?
How do Redheads open beechnuts? Acorns? What can the old hunters tell you
about good nut or acorn winters and Redheads? If the Woodpeckers go south
in winter, where you live, at what times do they go and return? What different
calls have the Redheads ? Haye you ever heard a Tree-toad answer one by
mistake? What are the Redheads’ favorite drumming-places? Where do the
Woodpeckers nest near you ? Do both old birds brood the eggs and feed the young ?
Do they feed by regurgitation? How long do the old birds feed the young after
they leave the nest? Do the old birds use the same nest year after year? Why?
How far can a Woodpecker see an insect? Are the Redheads’ colors always con-
Spicuous? Why? Does their color pattern make them more or less conspicuous ?
Draw the flight of a Redhead fly-catching. Draw his position in hunting. Why
is it particularly interesting to have Redheads in your neighborhood? How can
you prevent their being killed?
The Audubon Societies
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT
Edited by WILLIAM DUTCHER
Address all correspondence, and send all remittances for dues and contributions to
the National Association of Audubon Societies, 141 Broadway, New York City
Bird Slaughter in the Pacific Islands
In the February number of BrIrD—LoRE,
a short announcement was made of the
capture of Japanese poachers on the
Hawaiian Islands Reservation. The Asso-
ciation has just received from its resident
representative in. Honolulu, Mr. William
Alanson Bryan, the following detailed ac-
count of the work of the poachers. There is
no doubt whatever but that these poachers
were working in the interest of the milli-
nery trade, and the horrors of this whole-
sale slaughter show the absolute necessity
for an international agreement between the
world powers to prevent work of this char-
acter. Until such an agreement is entered
into, such incidents as the present are
sure to be repeated.
It is intended that this Association shall
have a representative at the International
Ornithological Congress, which will com-
mence in Berlin on May 30, when it is
hoped that the section devoted to bird
protection will take up this very important
matter, and that a committee will be
formed to present to the world powers
the need for international bird protection,
especially with the view of prohibiting
the use of the plumage of all wild birds
for millinery or other ornaments.
The Thetis Arrives with Japanese
Poachers*
Twenty-three Captured at Laysan
After completing a cruise of the out-
lying bird islands and reefs, covering a
period of several weeks, the United States
revenue cutter, Thetis, under command
of Captain W. V. E. Jacobs, arrived in
*Reprinted from the Evening Bulletin, Feb-
ruary 2, 1910, Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii.
the harbor this morning and anchored in
the stream, pending a settlement of the
matter of a disposition of her valuable
cargo, including 259,000 bird skins and
wings, two and a half tons of baled
feathers, and several large cases and boxes
of stuffed birds.
The Thetis gathered in a party of
twenty-three Japanese poachers at Laysan
and Lysiansky Islands, the former scene
of operations of ‘‘ Admiral’? Max Schlem-
mer, the one-time King of Laysan Island.
The Japanese took their arrest philo-
sophically, and, when confronted with
the Federal officers of the law, they main-
tained a broad grin and to all intents and
purposes enjoyed the experience.
The captured poachers will be prose-
cuted under provisions of the Federal
laws against poaching, which call for a —
maximum penalty of six months’ im-
prisonment and the assessment of a fine
of $500.
That the men are the employes of a
hui, which is believed to have a local
connection, as well as headquarters in
Japan, is borne out by the statements of
several of the Japanese who have been
brought to Honolulu. While they will not
divulge the name or names of parties in
the Hawaiian Islands who are alleged as
being financially interested in the sys-
matic bird-poaching operations upon
the neighboring islands, they do say that
they have been in the service of a Japan-
ese company, with headquarters at Tokio,
who placed them on a small schooner
and, after an extended passage, landed a
portion of the party at Laysan, while the
others continued the voyage to Lysiansky.
They declare that they were given ample
provisions for a stay of a year or more.
(90)
The Audubon Societies QI
They were told that a Japanese schooner
would call for them some time along about
April, t9r0. They were instructed by
the agents before leaving to have their
bird-skins prepared for shipment by this
time.
In killing the birds, the Japanese say
that they used sticks, and after dead, by
the aid of knives, removed the skins and
secured the plumage. In other instances,
the birds were either killed or stunned by
knocking their heads against the sand.
One of the Japanese was identified as
a laborer who not very long ago was one
of a party engaged upon Laysan or Lysian-
sky Island, at the time when guano was
being taken from these islands.
The identification, however, was made
by one who had recently visited Midway,
and was there shown a picture taken on
Laysan Island, in which it is claimed one
of the captured Japanese then figured.
The matter of complicity will, however-
be threshed out in the courts,
The Thetis was unable to make fast
' time because of much bad weather.
Captain Jacobs, however, was highly
pleased over the success of the cruise.
He spoke at considerable length to visiting
newspaper men this morning.
' Bird Island was the first stop made by
the Thetis. This lonely spot in the Pacific
was found inaccessible, though it was the
nearest to the Hawaiian group. At this
season of the year, but very few birds
were found there or hovering over the
rock. It was found impossible to land
upon the rock, owing to the strong north-
east gales and heavy swells, the surf dash-
ing high against a sheer precipice two
hundred feet in height.
The Thetis, after cruising about Bird
Island, and her officers seeing no evidences
of human beings upon the lonely rock,
then proceeded to Neckar Island, where
the revenue cutter made a stop; but
it was discovered that there were no
more birds there.
Bad weather prevented a landing be-
ing made at Neckar Island, owing to the
strong northeasterly gales which prevailed,
with heavy seas.
_ The little revenue cutter then steamed
westward, and the next sighted was
Gardiner Island. This was also inacces-
sible, it being wholly of rock formation
and rising out of the sea to a height of
about two hundred feet, and having a
diameter of nearly two hundred feet. A few
albatrosses were noted hovering around
the rock, but to land a boat there was en-
tirely out of the question. Captain Jacobs
was of the opinion that about the only
way that a human being could visit this
isolated spot would be by swimming
through a raging surf. ;
Laysan Island was the next mid-
Pacific islet visited by the Thetis. It was
here that the first seizure of bird plum-
age was made, and the greater num-
ber of Japanese poachers were found.
The bird skins were confiscated, and the
Japanese placed under arrest.
The first signs of civilization discovered
at Laysan, as the Thetis came to anchor,
was an American flag which was seen
flying from the upper part of a small
water-tower or lookout station. Though
a high sea was running at the time, a boat
was sent from the Thetis, in command of
an officer with a crew of picked and
armed men, and a landing was effected.
The officer was instructed by Captain
Jacobs to learn the number of men upon
the island, and the Thetis officers were
also directed to secure information con-
cerning the amount of bird skins then on
the island.
The Thetis men rounded up fifteen
Japanese on Laysan, and these were oc-
cupying thirteen buildings and shacks.
In some of the buildings was found a large
quantity of bird skins and plumage. It
was on this island that two small sampans
were found. The little craft were evi-
dently used in taking the men from the
Japanese schooner to the island. Accord-
ing to the statement from the Thetis
officers, it would be impossible for the
Japanese to have made any distance at sea
in such small vessels. In the possession of
several of the Japanese were documents
purporting to have been given them from
local people, in which they were author-
92 Bird - Lore
ized to land on Laysan Island and conduct
a business of securing bird plumage.
The fifteen Japanese who were discovered
at Laysan Island were informed that their
acts were in direct violation of the Federal
laws. They submitted peaceably to the
mandate of Captain Jacobs that they were
under arrest, and offered no resistance
whatever when told to prepare for going
on board the Thetis. Itrequired two days
to transfer the Japanese poachers, their
personal effects, and bales and boxes of
plumage to the revenue cutter. The Japa-
nese were well provisioned. Six of the men
claim to have been residents of the island
since last April. Nine declared that they
had arrived at Laysan last August, being
landed there from the Japanese schooner
Tempou Maru, which is believed to have
sailed from Tokio or Yokohama. They
were told by the officers in charge of the
big bird hut in Japan that a schooner
would be sent for them in April, roro.
The men are, to all intents and purposes,
mere tools in the employ of the Japanese
company which is carrying on the work
of gathering bird-skins in the Pacific
Ocean. They offered no objections to
accompanying the American officers to
the revenue cutter.
The confiscation on Laysan included
a lot of bird skins which were undergoing
a process of curing. These were laid
under several hundred large Japanese
mats. The mats were held down by
rocks in order to prevent the skins from
being damaged by the wind or the weather.
These skins were found impossible to
transfer to the Thetis, it being conceded
that to bring them to the vessel might
cause sickness, as many were in a state of
putrefaction. After the dried and cured
plumage and skins were taken on board,
Captain Jacobs took steps to destroy the
skins in process of curing. This was
successfully accomplished.
Lysiansky Island yielded eight Japan-
ese poachers and a large quantity of dried
skins. The plumage found on this island
was practically all in a cured state and
ready for shipment. A great portion of
the booty was baled, and evidently pre-
pared to be loaded aboard the first Japa-
nese schooner to arrive. One officer and an
armed crew was sent ashore, and the eight
Japanese offered no resistance to accom-
panying the party back to the Thetis.
The poachers had been occupying four
buildings. They had an abundance of
provisions, and in several of the rude
shelters which had been erected upon
the island were found large numbers of
skins and feathers. It was here that the
Thetis officers found several cases of
stuffed birds. :
On both Laysan and Lysiansky islands,
the Japanese were in possession of a re-
production of an order issued through
the President of the United States some
years ago, which made it a crime against
the Federal statutes for any one to kill
birds on the mid-Pacific islands or en-
gage in the business of poaching or gather-
ing skins. It was upon the provisions of
this order, which was translated to the
Japanese found there, that the arrests
were made by the Thetis officers.
The Thetis officers having completed
their labors at Lysiansky, the revenue
cutter then proceeded to Pearl or Hermes
Reefs. The presence of small or calf
seals was first found at this spot. The
presence of a large number of birds was
also discovered as the Thetis neared the
Hermes Reefs. A boat was sent ashore,
but there were no signs of human beings
or their habitation on the reefs. The men
who manned the boats returned: and re-
ported to Captain Jacobs that the young
seals were extremely fierce. There had
apparently been no depredations from
bird hunters on the Hermes Reefs, accord-
ing to the report brought here by the
Thetis. '
From Hermes, the Thetis sailed, with
the aid of her auxiliary steam plant, to
Midway Island. Captain Jacobs here
got into communication with the author-
ities at Washington through the Midway
cable station.
The Thetis did not remain a great
length of time at Midway, but got under
way, and Ocean Island was the next
mid-Pacific isolation visited by the reve-
The Audubon Societies 93
nue cutter. While it was impossible to
effect a landing upon the deserted sand
spit, the vessel went close enough to the
island to note that there had been no
human habitations upon the spot for
quite a period. Many birds were dis-
covered there, and, as one of the Thetis
boats neared the shore, a large number
of sea-lions were found. No evidences of
depredations from poachers were dis-
covered, and the Thetis then resumed
her cruise, returning to Midway Island,
where she took on mail from the cable
station.
In order to make sure that the de-
struction of the uncured skins left on
Laysan had been complete, the Thetis,
upon leaving Midway for the last time,
called again at Laysan. A visit ashore
showed that the skins left there were
rendered worthless, and that their
destruction had been complete. On
Daro, or Dowsett Reefs, which was the
next point visited by the cutter, but few
birds were found hovering about the
island. No attempt was made to effect a
landing there but the cutter cruised about
the reefs, and several observations were
made which satisfied the officers that no
poachers had visited the Dowsett reefs
recently. A boat was sent ashore when
the Thetis arrived off the French Frigate
shoals. No birds were found there. The
shoals were inaccessible, and no landing
was made. On several sand islands near
the shoals no sign of human habitation
was noted. It was also a noteworthy fact
that throughout the tour of the Thetis
to the outlying bird islands, the officers
failed to note the presence of Japanese
fishing craft there. The French Frigate
Shoals was the last stop made by the
Thetis before returning to Honolulu.
‘The weather from the time of leaving the
shoals was very rough. The elements
served to retard the progress of the cutter.
and she was much delayed by the strong
northeasterly winds and seas.
Almost immediately after dropping
anchor, the Thetis was visited by a
party of Federal and Territorial officers.
United States District Attorney Breckons
and United States Marshall Hendry were
among the first to go aboard, and to take
charge of the twenty-three Japanese
who were virtually prisoners upon the
cutter. The vessel was also boarded by
representatives from the customs service,
whose duty it will be to take charge of
the ten tons or more of confiscated bird
plumage. Captain Jacobs estimates that
he has secured 259,000 bird wings, be-
sides a number of cases of stuffed birds.
It is possible that the Thetis may be
moored alongside one of the wharves
today, in order to permit of her discharging
the large quantity of plunder.
The disposition of the feathers is a
matter which will lie with the Treasury
Department officials at Washington. It
is understood that the plumage will be
destroyed, though it is conceded that the
confiscated feathers and skins are of
considerable value.
Four small boats found by the officers
of the Thetis, two on Laysan and two on
Lysiansky, were left there, as they were
small, and practically valueless, owing
to exposure to the elements.
Saving the Fur-Seal
About four months ago, the Committee
on Game Protective Legislation of the
Camp-Fire Club of America decided that
the fast-vanishing fur-seal needed the
assistance of independent citizens. Sta-
tistics show that the seal herd has dimin-
ished from about 360,000, in rg00, when
an official survey was made by the United
States Fish Commission, to an estimated
30,000, in Ig09.
Accordingly, a campaign was inaugu-
rated for the purpose of inducing Congress
and the Cabinet to stop the killing of seals
on our islands, and to make treaties with
foreign governments which would lead
to the total suppression of seal-killing at
sea, or “pelagic sealing.”
The Camp-Fire Club approached the
Senate Committee on the Conservation
of National Resources, and submitted a
resolution providing against the making of
a new lease for seal-killing, in place of the
94
old lease, which expires April, 1910, and
also providing for a ten-year close season,
during which the seal herds may breed up
to a high point. The resolution further
called upon the State Department to make
treaties with England and Canada, Japan,
Russia and Mexico, to prohibit pelagic
sealing. In addition to its work with Sena-
tor Dixon’s Committee, the necessities
of the fur-seals’ case were brought directly
to the attention of President Taft, the
Secretary of Commerce and Labor, the
Secretary of State, and the United States
Commissioner of Fisheries.
As the first result of this campaign, at
the close of a hearing on the resolution held
at Washington, February 26, 1910, the
Senate Committee on the Conservation
of National Resources directed its Chair-
man, Senator Dixon, to represent to the
Secretary of Commerce and Labor the
undesirability of renewing the lease, or
of making a new lease, for the killing of
seals on our islands. This decision was
reached unanimously. There is every indi-
cation that Senator Dixon’s committee now
fully realizes the gravity of the situation,
and the necessity for immediate action of a
far-reaching nature.
The National Association stands not
only for the conservation of wild birds,
but of wild animals, as its name indicates,
and the fur-seals are as much our wards as
the wild birds. Our benefactor made it one
of the conditions of his gift that animals
should be protected, as well as birds.
Every member of the Asscciation and
the readers of BrrD-LORE are urged to aid
in every possible way in the campaign
already started to save the fur-seal. Unless
drastic action is taken, these interesting
and valuable animals will soon have to be
classed among the extinct species.
The Association urges that every reader
of this notice will let his congressman hear
from him regarding this extremely im-
portant matter.—W. D.
Important Meeting
The Fifth Bi-Annual Conference of the
National Association of State Game War-
Bird - Lore
dens and Commissioners was held in New
Orleans, February 5-7. Commissioners
were present from twenty states, and
the Federal Government was also repre-
sented. The main topics discussed were
“Federal Control of Migratory Birds,”
“Civil Service for Game Wardens,”
“Propagation of Game,” and “protection
of Non-Game Birds.”
Mr.Frank M.Miller,Game Commissioner
of Louisiana, arranged a number of enter-
tainments and pleasant excursions for the
delegates. Among the resolutions passed,
was one heartily endorsing the work of
the National Association of Audubon So-
cieties. The meeting was regarded as a
very successful one, and one which will
result in much good throughout the
country.
Mr. T. Gilbert Pearson, of North Caro-
lina, presided at the meetings, and was re-
elected President of the Association. Dr.
George W. Field, of Massachusetts, was
elected Secretary.—W. D.
An Appeal to Members
There is an urgent and immediate de-
mand for several additional field agents;
but the Executive Officers cannot enlarge
its staff at the present time, because of
lack of means. Good trained men should
be placed in several states to conduct a
campaign of education against the exces- —
sive slaughter of Robins, which takes place
every winter, and during the early spring
while the birds are migrating northward.
The sentiment in the territory where this
slaughter takes place, which is so abhorrent
to the people of the states where the Robin
makes its summer home, can only be
changed by an active educational campaign,
and such a campaign can only be made
by placing in the field competent lecturers.
If every member will secure only one new
member at once, it will give the Society an
increase of income sufficient to warrant
the appointment of three additional field
men. This is one of the methods to protect
the Robin. Education is better than law,
for it creates good sentiment, without
which a law is useless.—W. D.
pat
Bird Books by Mr.
Chapman
~Handbook of Birds of
Eastern North America
Third edition. With introductory chapter on the study of Orni-
thology; how to identify birds and how to collect and preserve birds,
their mests and eggs. 20 full-page plates and 150 cuts in the text.
12mo. Library edition, cloth, $3.00
Pocket edition, flexible morocco, $3 50
Bird - Life
A guide to the study of our common birds. With 75 full-page
colored plates and numerous text-drawings by Ernest Thompson-
Seton. Containing an Appendix, especially designed for teachers.
12mo. Cloth, $2 00 net
Bird Studies with a Camera
A fascinating account of the habits of some of our common birds,
with descriptions of the largest bird colonies existing in eastern North
America. The author’s phenomenal success in photographing birds
in Nature not only lends to the illustrations the charm of realism, but
makes the book a record of surpassing achievements with the camera.
r2mo. Cloth, $1.75
The Warblers of North America
Full biographies of our ‘“‘most beautiful, most abundant, and least
known birds.’’ In describing these ‘‘dainty, fascinating sprites of the
tree-tops’’ Mr. Chapman has here drawn on his own great wealth of
material and has had the cooperation of many other ornithologists.
Illustrated with colored plates of every species, by Fuertes and
Horsfall, and by photographs of nests and eggs.
Imperial Sve. Cloth, $3.00 net
D. APPLETON & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
29-35 W. 32d St., New York City
J. HORACE MCFARLAND Co., Mr. PLEASANT PRESS, HARRISBURG, PA.
Camps and Cruises of |
an Ornithologist
| 250 Photographs y
from Nature. F r ank M.
8vo, color inlay :
on cover, gilt top, Chapman
rough -cut edges.
In a box, $3.00 net. Curator of Birds at
the American Museum
of Natural History”
For eight years, accompanied by artist and assistant, Mr. Chapman
devoted all of each nesting season of the birds to making the field
studies for a great series of groups of American birds which should
exceed in beauty and scientific value anything which has heretofore —
been attempted in this line. The story of these eight years experi-
ences, together with descriptions of wonderful sights in the world of
birds, as told by Mr. Chapman in “Camps and Cruises of an Orni-
thologist,’’ possesses the charm of a tale of travel and adventure,
while the illustrations form one of the most remarkable series of pic-
tures of bird-life which has ever appeared.
D. APPLETON & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
29-35 W. 32d St., New York City
ek xu MAY—JUNE, 1910 Sig veer
“conian inci) ame
gn? ai |
EDITED BY ee
FRANK M. CHAPMAN JUN 6 1
PUBLISHED FOR THE AUDUBON SOcI£TIES
BY National Musa ‘ ‘
D. Appleton & Company |
HARRISBURG, PA.
Fa TA ;
COPYRIGHT. 1610, BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN
Bird - Lore
May - June, 1910
CONTENTS
GENERAL ARTICLES PAGE
FRONTISPIECE.—SHARP-TAILED, NELSON’S, ACADIAN, SEASIDE AND DuSKY SEASIDE
SPARROWS «1c =o Gis sce aa te ieee nectar de aint s) SL OUTS Al Ra SsozeHUenlestas
My Summer TENANTS. Illustrated -...............-.-.-- Siephen P. Brownell.. 95
THE, Hermig TERUSH isi. ceetie oes talsele oe ates Cordelia J. Stamwood.. 100
Haw Ow? Wllustrations+ sieis secs c eee eionie eee A. B. Reed.. 104
BETWEEN THE TRACKS. Illustrated .............-.......- Gerard Allan Abbott.. tos
SporrED SANDPIPER. Illustration .......-...-..--. ..-------- H. H. Cleaves.. 107
Tue NESTING OF HEPBURN’S Rosy FincH. Illustrated....Charles Stuart Moody.. 108
BOBOLINK SINGING Ults tratlomerysta erste eee ite tte tat teeter era ete ars H. H. Cleaves.. 110
THE MIGRATION OF NorTH AMERICAN SPARROWS. Fourth Paper. Illustrated by
IBMT NG ISS TENET. “co jaasna saceeasaoe ee eoeonaeceece cece W.W. Cooke.. 111
NOTES ON THE PLUMAGE OF NoRTH AMERICAN SPARROWS. Third Paper ......
Frank M. Chapman.. 113
NOTES FROM FIELD AND STUDY ...........-.........------------------+--:- TS,
Ducks INCREASING, F. M. Bennett; THE GRACKLE IN VIRGINIA, O.C. Brewer; OUR
Durty To Our Birp TENANTS, Edgar Boyer; PirrsrorD, N. Y., Notes, Anna
E. Agate; SNOWBUNTINGS IN VERMONT, Eliza F. Miller; A WiNTER CATBIRD,
Rujus H. Carr; TurrEeD TirMousE In NorTHERN NEw JERSEY, Lowis S. Kohler.
BOOK NEWS AND REVIEWS. .......-...----------------------------+------:- 118
Eaton’s Birps or New Yorx; Cassinia; THOREAU’s NoTES oN NEw ENGLAND
Brrps; BRECK’s Pers at Camp BucKsHAW; THE ORNITHOLOGICAL MAGAZINES.
) POV HY O54 0: Hee i ia Seer mewn Sen Boe EO RB Aa et es GompermodEaoascecc] 121
AUDUBON SOCIETIES—SCHOOL DEPARTMENTS. .........-..----------------- 122
EDUCATIONAL LEAFLET NO. 44. FRanxkiIn’s Gut, with colored plates by Lowis
Alsasstg -Riaentes \ 0c Sui crete rancher at ksh ehtoe aint tele oie eels i eines Herbert K.Job.. 124
AUDUBON SOCIETIES—EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT ............-.....-------..- 128
PRESIDENT DuTCHER’S DEPARTURE FOR EvROPE; THE NEw YORK PLUMAGE
Law; A Birp Park ESTABLISHED; HERon CoLtontEs RAIDED; SoME AUDUBON
FIELD WORKERS.
x*x Manuscripts intended for publication, books, etc., for review and exchanges, should be
sent to the Editor, ai the American Museum of Natural History, 77th Sireet and 8th Avenue,
New York City, N. Y.
Notices of changes of addresses, renewals and subscriptions should be sent to
BIRD-LORE, HARRISBURG, PA.
Subscribers whose subscription has expired will find a renewal blank enclosed in the present
numberof the magazine.
To those whose subscription expired with the April, 1910, issue, and who have not notified us to
discontinue their magazine, the present number is sent in the belief that the matter of renewal has been
overlooked Onreceipt of your renewal, we will send you the Remarkable Bird Picture before described,
which should be considered due notification of the entry of your subscription,
If you do not care to renew, will you please notify us?
Entered as second-class mail matter in the Post Office at Harrisburg, Pa.
1. SHARP-TAILED SPARROW 3. ACADIAN SHARP-TAILED SPARROW
2. NeELson’s SPARROW 4. Dusky SEASIDE SPARROW
5. SEASIDE SPARROW
(ONE-HALF NATURAL SIZE)
Bird=-Lore
A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE
DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS
OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES
Vol. XII May—JuNE, 1910 No. 3
My Summer Tenants
By STEPHEN P. BROWNELL, West Barnett, Vt.
With photographs by the author
URRYING northward, on
H swift wing, two pairs of Tree
Swallows reach a certain
fence beside a brook, which flows into
the Connecticut river. The fields
are yet cold and gray, with patches
of snow still lingering around the
hedges. Yonder mountain is as white
as in winter, for it is only the middle
of April. The brook is swollen and
turbulent, and the wind blows cold
and fierce; but these welcome visitors
from warmer lands are as happy as
they can be.
The strange migratory impulse
that urged these birds onward toward
the north is rapidly subsiding, but
the nesting instinct is yery pressing.
But where shall they find a home?
BS. Where find a hidden hollow in which
TREE SWALLOW AT NEST to place those white eggs that lack pro-
tective coloration? Gone are the pole fences that, criss-crossing around the
pastures, provided such convenient hollows in their butt logs. Boards and barbed-
wire have taken the place of the old poles. The bushes along the roads in which,
formerly, Robins, Vireos and Catbirds built their nests, and which, also, provided
a few hollow trunks for Bluebirds and Tree Swallows, have recently been
cut down. The State Legislature ordered their destruction, so that ordinary
travelers might see the speeding motor-car in time to escape to the fields for
their lives.
96 Bird - Lore
But our Swallows are not discouraged. Despair never enters into bird-life.
If the old tenements are torn down in the progress of civilization, some other place
must be found for a home. Leaving the fence one at a time, they are soon perch-
ing on the saddle boards of a near-by house. They stop their twittering for a
moment, to look carefully at two strange-appearing boxes, one on the wall of the
house, the other on a pole near the barn door. These bear no resemblance to
a hollow stump, or log; but a small, round opening in the side of each rivets their
attention. It brings back memories of that knot-hole in the old pine log where,
last summer, the love of home life found pleasant expression. Circling round
and round the box on the pole, each time coming a little nearer, one pair—as the
picture shows—makes a selection of a home. The others, after much apparent
argument among themselves, and some opposition from the first pair, fix on the
box.near the kitchen door for their summer retreat. Very soon the female Swallow
enters the box on the pole, though not till each in turn had stood many times on
the peg that answers for a door-step, and peered cautiously into the mysterious
apartment. In another photograph, the female bird is coming out from one of her
visits of inspection, while her mate is keeping watch on the flat tower. The
birds soon got on very friendly terms with the landlord who provided these free
tenements, so the latter was able to get the pictures of his tenants by holding
the camera in his hands. One day he walked up and put his hand on the back
of the male bird, as it was looking in the nest, engrossed in admiration of the
young.
The Tree Swallows were not alone in their long pilgrimage northward.
Among the myriads of birds that were speeding, or had sped on in the same di-
rection, were a pair of Bluebirds that had arrived nearly a month before the
Swallows. Strange enough, their home for a few years past had been a box,
with a slightly larger door, on the rear wall of the house. These earlier migrants
had their nest nearly finished when the Swallows appeared. Hearing the “fweet,
tweet, twee-ee” of. the Swallows, they hurry over to the front of the house, and
fiercely attack the newcomers. Thus began a war between these rival birds
that lasted for several weeks.
While the male fights the Bluebird and guards the box, his mate does much
more than cheer him on. Under her untiring efforts, a carpet of dried grass
is soon placed in the box. This she covers with a soft layer of small, white, hen
feathers. A few weeks pass, and six young birds with closed eyes, and feather-
less bodies, snuggle, with open mouths, among the feathers. As the landlord
has no objection to children in his tenements, the Swallows are undisturbed,
so far as he is concerned. But, one morning, the Bluebird was in a bad humor.
Perhaps some little domestic trouble in the rear of the house had ruffled his tem-
per. At any rate, he comes to the Swallow’s nest and vigorously attacks the in-
mates. Immediately the watchful male swoops down upon the intruder. The
mother bird rushes from her nest, to lend a bill in the fray. The rivals meet
in the air, and, with toes and bills locked together, and wings pounding each
My Summer Tenants 97
INSPECTION
the vacated nest, was surprised
to find among the feathers a des-
sicated bird that had died when
quite small. Perhaps the parents
were reluctant to leave behind
one of that happy family.
Both families have long since
joined the great army of their
Own species,—the earliest of all
the birds to leave for the South.
Another winter has passed, and
another spring-time has come.
It is time now for the Swallows
to return to their old box.
Already the Bluebirds have come
back. They were seen yesterday,
stealing feathers from the Swal-
lows’ nest. But these may not
object, to find that their old ene-
mies have cleaned house for them.
other, they fall to the ground, too ex-
hausted to try another round. Besides
guarding the home, the father bird took
his share of the work in supplying the
hungry nestlings with bugs and flies.
During the hot weather, the mother
brought water in her bill for the thirsty
birds, and sometimes she varied the diet
of insects with a small piece of gravel
from the road, probably in place of pep-
sin, to aid digestion.
During this time the birds in the other
box were engaged in similar employ-
ments. With them, also, were six young
birds constantly clamoring for attention.
On the third of July, five well-feathered
birds left the pole on the box, to shift
for themselves. And the landlord, wonder-
ing why the parent birds kept entering
SELECTION
98 Bird - Lore
On another wall of the house in which the landlord lives is a flat box that
has served for several years as a foundation for the nest of a pair of Robins.
Here the mother bird “securely rears her young”—two broous each summer.
No neighbor’s skulking cat has been able to disturb her, for she is out of his
reach. No pugnacious Bluebird, or darting Hawk, flies under the porch roof, to
inyade her quiet home. A bird of peace, herself, she lives and toils in peace.
She, also, has posed, though rather unwillingly, for phutographs—the only rental
the landlord asks of his tenants. In the first picture she is admiring her four little
ones, which are yet too small to show above the walls of the nest. But, later,
they had sufficiently thrived on
their diet of grubs and worms to
be clearly in evidence when break-
fast was ready. The mud worm
which one favored, or rather, early
bird tried to swallow fell into
its throat like a coiled rope,
and threatened to choke it. The
watchful mother again seized it,
and safely lowered it down in a
straight line.
One morning, after these birds
had left home, the landlord was
watching them bathing in the foun-
tain near-by, into which one of the
young birds tumbled. Looking up,
he saw the Robin’s nest preémpted ~
by a Barn Swallow. The bird was
twisting itself about in the nest,
just as its former occupant had done
in making it round and smooth.
PROTECTION The Swallow made a Iudicrous
appearance in.the nest, which was doubly large for it; and when its ceased its
gyrations for a moment to get breath, nothing showed except the ends of its
forked tail and the tips of its primaries. Evidently the Barn Swallow had been
working for some time on its new home, for the nest showed a layer of mud built
partially around the top of the walls. Though the Robin’s nest was at first much
too large for the Swallow, the landlord concluded that this additional mud wall
was the result of the building instinct that even prompts our domestic fowl to
throw pieces of hay over her back and around her sides, when thrown off the
nest where she is determined to sit. But the work of the claim-, or nest-jum-
per, was thrown away; for the next morning disclosed the rightful owner in full
possession, lining the old nest with dried grass. In four days more, as many eggs
were laid and in due time they added another quartet to young Robinhood.
1!
My Summer Tenants 99
Besides the possession of many
treasured photographs of the differ-
ent summer tenants, many other
rewards are received for the rental
of the bird-boxes. The birds nest-
ing about the house gain much
confidence in man when they learn
that his intentions toward them
are kindly. When the landlord
comes out of the house, on a fine
summer morning, he is greeted
by his grateful tenants; and his
presence is announced in various
languages. Bluebirds, Robins,
Swallows and Chickadees, —he
hears them all speaking in their
own tongue, “he is up.” Such
a greeting, though perhaps not
intended by the birds as a special
welcome, makes him feel as proud
as the kings of olden time, whose
BLUEBIRD AT NEST
approach was heralded with the sound of trumpets. The Swallow, at his vigil
on top of the box, sees him as he steps from the porch, and whispers to his
mate, “there he comes.”” Fhe male Robin on the fence chirps out its modified
ROBIN AT. NEST
100 Bird-Lore
alarm note to the mother feeding her four spiny fledglings on the window-shutter
nest. Then the Bluebird, perched on the top of the barn, sees the landlord and
calls to its mate. This call has not the “cheerie, cheerie”’ note that it had a while
ago. The birds have changed their song since they got down to hard work. But
when this brood is able to take care of itself, and the old birds resume their love-
making, the “‘cheerie,” cheerful notes will take the place of the “‘we’ve toiled the
whole day long” tune.
The Kingbirds, which persist in building in the eavespout, instead of on the
safe foundation provided by better foresight, stop their work and announce
to the neighbors that the landlord is out. The confiding little Chickadees, which.
were driven by the Bluebirds from the box so carefully fashioned like a hollow
stump, occasionally return, and, looking over their first choice, seem to say that
they are sorry they took the old stump across the road for a nest. Below the house
the Chebecs are nesting in the elm tree, and, as the landlord approaches, one
calls to the other, ‘“‘chebec, chebec, chebec’”’; then from the mate on the telephone
wire the answer quickly comes, “quit, quit, quit,” which probably does not mean
stop in the Chebecish tongue.
The Hermit Thrush; the Voice of the Northern Woods
By CORDELIA J. STANWOOD, Ellsworth, Maine
N the Canadian fauna, the Hermit Thrush, the most definite Thrush to study,
I comes a month before the Olive-backed Thrush arrives, while the snow-
wraiths still linger in the shadowy forests, before the arbutus has begun its
subtle task of transmuting decaying earth molds into rough leaves, waxen petals,
and delicate perfume, and stands out against a background of well-nigh silent
woods. It tarries as long after its congener has departed. Again it is in the
foreground of a landscape, accented by dry rustling leaves and naked tree trunks,
with but few birds to rival it in our attention.
When the Hermit Thrush makes its début in the spring, its song is wonderfully
sweet, but it does not come into full possession of its voice until some time after
its arrival. In early August, it is still in full song. It was in the gloaming, August
4, 1909, that I stole upon one of the most ethereal demonstrations of the Hermit
Thrush I ever witnessed. My narrow footway lay through a stretch of evergreen
woods, interspersed with a few birches and poplars. The birds were perched at
different heights on the side of the woods illumined by the sinking sun, and
seemed to vie each with other in hymning its glories. Each burst of melody was
more indescribably perfect. Before the last cadence of one song died on the
air, a pure, serene exalted pan of praise burst forth from another golden
throat. The air palpitated with Thrush harmonies. I paused and passed on
unobserved in the quickly gathering shadows, my footsteps falling noiselessly
on pine leaf and moss-tuft. By August 14, the song is thin, suggesting the
The Hermit Thrush IOI
imperfect attempts of a young bird. Later than that the Hermit Thrush
seldom sings.
It is to be regretted that so many of the young fail to mature. A record kept
for five years, containing the history of fourteen nests and forty-seven eggs,
shows that only nineteen fledglings left the nest. The offspring of twenty-eight
birds were nineteen. My notes on Olive-backed Thrush and Robin show even
more fatal data, as their nests are larger and most of them so badly exposed. I
wish to emphasize the fact that these very beautiful, insectivorous birds lead
a most precarious existence, having to contend not only with wild foes but with
the ever-prevalent, half-fed cat.
The Hermit Thrush usually nests in open spaces in an unfrequented wood,
beside a wood-road or even a quiet street, and on the borders of pastures skirted
by woodlands. The nest is placed, generally, under a low fir tree, occasionally
under the tip of a long fir branch, rarely in a clump of ferns. A swamp appears
to be a necessary concomitant. Seven nests were located in a knoll, two in a
damp hollow, and six just above the swale in the dry earth of a hillside. In almost
every case, the slight excavation for the foundation of the nest was made in the
loam of a decayed log or stump.
The nests are very much alike. The outside of the structure is composed
of moss, dead wood, twigs and hay; it is lined with a small amount of black,
hair-like fiber, and pine needles. Once or twice the foundation of the nest con-
sisted of more than the ordinary amount of moss. At another time it was made
almost entirely of sticks or twigs. Fourteen were lined with pine needles, one with
the red fruit stems of bird wheat moss, and bird wheat moss. The proportions
of all nests are about the same. The one constructed entirely of twigs was about
a half-inch thicker at the top than the others.
In two or three cases, I have found the Hermit Thrush very timid. Generally,
the bird flies from the nest as a person approaches, or runs away over the leaves
with head and tail drawn down, to appear less conspicuous, mounts a branch
at a safe distance, regards one a few instants, while it slowly raises and lowers
its tail, then glides from sight. One or two have been so tame that I have had to
put my hand out, as if to touch them, to drive them from the nest.
In 1907, beginning June 14, I found five nests, the last on July 1. Each
clutch of this year contained three eggs. Hither the eggs or the young were
destroyed in all these nests save one, and that, I believe, was the second nest of
the bird that season. The fate of the other two nests was a great disappoint-
ment. In the hope of finding one more, I entered the next pasture, and turned
over each small fir carefully, to see if its fragrant branches, concealed one of
the coveted abodes. Under almost the first fir, I saw a large beautifully made
nest with the lining of the bottom and side torn out. Here was another defeat;
but, behold! On the top of a knoll a few yards away was what appeared to be
a freshly made nest. I concluded that these were both nests of the Hermit Thrush;
that the first nest I found had been destroyed, that the bird went away a short
102 Bird - Lore
distance and constructed a second, that the accident had befallen the bird so
lately that she had barely succeeded in completing the new nest. I was exceed-
ingly anxious to know if I had been wise enough to read a tragedy and its sequel
aright from these few facts, so I visited the knoll each day; the fourth day, there
was the egg of a Hermit Thrush. Two days later, at noon, the bird was sitting
on three eggs. On the twelfth day, July 10, two birds were out of the eggs by
noon. They were large birds, covered with a sparse growth of burnt-umber
down about one-fourth long. On the fifth day, the birds had quills on the wings
and pin-feathers on the back. The eleventh morning, July 20, the last nestling
left the nest in the afternoon.
A space for the nest was hollowed in a bit of decayed root or log, under a fir
tree, beside a stump in the top of a knoll, overgrown with bird wheat moss and
boulder fern. For foundation, the nest had a mass of dead wood, dead leaves,
moss, roots, and fern stipes; for lining, pine needles and black hair-like plant
fiber.
The diameters within were two and one-half inches by three and one-fourth
inches, depth three inches. The thickness of the walls at the top was one inch,
at the bottom one-half inch. Nearly all these measurements were taken before
the eggs were laid.
June 2, 1908, I flushed from the nest a most gentle Hermit Thrush, incubat-
ing four eggs.
June 7, there were three nestlings in the nest, burnt-orange in color, marked
with long, very dark-brown down. On the third day the eyelids of the young
Thrushes were parted in the center one-sixteenth of an inch. The feather tracts
were of the hue of gunpowder, the spaces between the feather tracts a tone of
burnt-orange.
The fifth day the eyes of the young birds were well open; very dark brown
pin-feathers were beginning to show through all the feather spaces; the pin-
feathers were longest in the center of the tract and shortest on the edges; they
looked, at this stage, like horse-hairs slightly overlapping each other.
The sixth day the quills were longer and fuller. The seventh day the tips
of the quills and pin-feathers had burst, so that in the morning the tips of the
speckled, olive-brown and golden-buffy feathers showed. :
The tenth day the young Thrushes opened their mouths wide for food, as
usual, at my approach, but on the eleventh day, the nestlings did not attempt
to open their beaks for food in the morning or afternoon. This was the first time
they showed any indication of fear.
On the twelfth day. The young Thrushes were gone by 9 o’clock this morn-
ing. The nest was immaculate, save for the quill scales that filled the inter-
stices. It was placed in a knoll, under a miniature fir, just off a street not much
frequented, in an open space in a growth where firs, pines and spruces pre-
dominate.
Generally, I find my nests of the Hermit Thrush by turning over trees and
The Hermit Thrush 103
looking under the branches. In such cases, or when the Thrush is flushed from
the nest, 1f she is merely incubating, she usually disappears quietly. When the
young are in the nest, the bird acts more disturbed, often mounting a stump
or branch, and calling chuck! chuck! chuck! or sometimes p-e-e-p! p-e-e-p! This
almost always attracts the attention of her mate and the other Thrushes, who
respond in numbers, and join their calls to the chorus of chucks and peeps. I
have known the bird, however, to fly away almost without a protest, even when
the young were taken from the nest.
August 22, 1909, while gathering blueberries for the tame Thrushes, I flushed
a Hermit Thrush from her nest, containing three eggs. This is the latest date
on which I have found the Hermit Thrush nesting.
August 27, three young were hatched; twelve days later, September 8, the
nestlings left the nest before 9 o’clock. :
The time of incubation, as one can readily see from the above record, is twelve
days; the young remain in the nest twelve days, and leave early in the morning,
as a general thing. One egg is laid each day about ten o’clock in the morning,
and the bird begins to incubate by 12 o’clock of the day the clutch is completed.
I have found the number of eggs in a set to vary from four to two. I should
judge from the nesting dates I have gathered that the Hermit Thrush, like its
cousin the Robin, raises from two to three broods during a season.
Summary of Observations on the Hermit Thrush
1g05.—April 23, First seen; May 27, Incubating four eggs; June 27, Incubat-
ing four eggs.
1906.—May 21, First seen; July 9, Incubating four eggs.
1907.—April 27, First heard; June 14, Incubating three eggs; June 15,
Incubating three eggs; June 23, Nest destroyed; June 23, A nest completed—
three eggs later; July 21, Bird incubating three eggs.
1908.—April 23, Saw two Thrushes; June 2, Bird incubating four eggs;
June 4, Bird incubating four eggs; June 8, Three large birds about ten days old.
July 3, Bird incubating two eggs; October 25, Last seen; August 14, Last heard
in song.
1909.—April 20, First heard; May 26, Nest containing two eggs, four the
following day; August 11, Nest containing three birds, two days old, judged;
August 23, Bird incubating three eggs, hatched August 27, left the nest Septem- —
ber 8; August 4, In full song; August 14, Last heard singing; voice thin; October
31, Last seen; November 6, Last responded to my call.
HAWK OWL
Photographed from nature by A. B. Reed, of the ‘Boston Traveler,’ at
Brookline, Mass. about January 25, 1910
(104)
Between the Tracks
By GERALD ALAN ABBOTT
With a photograph by the author
URING the spring migration, Waders patrol the beach along Muskrat
D Creek. Twittering and waltzing, the American Dunlins, Solitary and
Spotted Sandpipers, track nervously over the mud-bars in search of
animal life. Four hundred yards to the south, the slough grass affords ample
protection for those peculiarly retiring birds, the Rails. Occasionally they
expose themselves while passing from one clump of vegetation to another. Their
broad footholds, caused by the spread of three lengthy toes, enable them to tread
over treacherous places too shaky for man.
Between the tracks is a growth of sumach, willow, alder, hazel and briar.
This is a rendezvous for that “Owl among Snipe,”’ the Woodcock. Dozens
of these ‘Bog-suckers’ are in this undergrowth every March and October. Many
are transients, making their summer home in more northerly latitudes.
The residents begin to nest shortly after their arrival, and, on cloudy days,
or before and after sunrise, the atmosphere resounds with whistling wings and a
peculiar twitter of the cocks. Spiral ascensions, accompanied with a tremor of
wings, take the bird to a height of over one hundred feet. During this paroxysm,
the vocal cords are exerted to the full extent. The descent is a series of zig-zag
swoops, and the male alights within a few feet from where he arose. The object
of his affection is apt to be within close proximity, and is modestly pruning her
feathers or complacently squatting on her four yellowish brown eggs.
The Woodcock does not hesitate to venture close to the habitation of man.
In one of our suburban towns, a Woodcock chose a clump of bushes in the rear
yard of a private residence. Suburbanites living in the timbered sections about
Chicago are well-to-do people, and their lawns and grounds are well irrigated
or watered. The Woodcock likes this, and he sallies forth after the shadows
of night have fallen, and feeds in the mellow soil under the sprinkler or by the
hydrant.
Last spring, I invited a friend to tramp along Muskrat Creek and, leaving
him to doze on a bed of buttercups, I took up the trail of a Woodcock. Under a
clump of poplars the leaves were disturbed, and close inspection disclosed several
signs of my favorite wader. Close to a cow-path I found the male sitting on the
nest, beside a weather-beaten stump and with a south exposure. The shadow
fell evenly across the bird’s back, and the effect of the color scheme, or “pro-
tective coloration” was splendid. I could determine the sex of the bird, because
the females are slightly larger. Next time I visited the nest the other bird was
incubating, and she looked to be fully an inch longer than her mate.
The domestic life of the Woodcock is very impressive, despite the fact that
the birds themselves are comical-looking. Even the mother bird, while leading
her young through the brush, presents a laughable appearance. The eyes are
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106 Bird - Lore
set so far back on the head that she appears to be looking behind her, and at times
so intensely that she strikes against an obstacle, with the result that a portion
of the head is sometimes bared where the feathers are torn from the scalp by
thorn or brier.
The weather may be balmy when the nest contains eggs, but severe storms
of snow and sleet do not deter matters. The birds appear instinctively to know
\ SS. .
WOODCOCK ON NEST
May 4, 1900
how to arrange the duties of incubation, so the eggs hatch when climatic condi-
tions are favorable for development of the young.
The water in the marshes was lukewarm, and on the little slope bordering a
swamp, mandrakes and mushrooms were bursting through the virgin soil. Sev-
eral Whip-poor-wills were dozing on fallen boughs, and our pretty Yellow-
breasted Sapsucker was tapping a fresh poplar. I sometimes think that the
Woodcock sleeps with his eyes open, because I often detect them resting on their
breast where the soil is soft and the warm sun generates considerable heat from
the moist ground.
By the willow copse another bird was sitting, a few hundred yards from the
brush pile which contained the nest which we photographed. As I approached
the willows, I noticed what I judged to be the male sitting on the nest, and, instead
of making his exit in the usual Woodcock manner, he simply tumbled off the nest
Between the Tracks 107
in acrobatic style. The four eggs lying on the decayed leaves presented a beautiful
sight. The light creamy background offset the brick-red blotches, and many
lavender markings seemed to show through from the inner side of the shell.
Nests which are exemplifications of art and bird craft, such as the Blue-gray
Gnatcatcher, are marvels for neatness and construction; but nothing is handsomer
to me than a beautiful set of eggs lying in a bed of leaves, just as they are de-
posited by the Woodcock or Whip-poor-will.
The Woodcock often chooses a locality outside of the dense brush. One of
my farmer friends, while plowing his corn stubble several years ago, overturned
a mother Woodcock. In a depression of corn husks she was sitting on four eggs
May 15, and, had she commenced maternal duties twenty-four hours earlier,
her offspring would haye undoubtedly escaped the plow.
SPOTTED SANDPIPER
Photographed by H. H. Cleaves, Staten Island, N. Y.
The Nesting of Hepburn’s Rosy Finch
By CHARLES STUART MOODY, M. D.
With a photograph by the author
WAS not aware until quite recently that the nesting habits of Hepburn’s
Rosy Finch (Leucosticte tephrocotis littoralis) were but little known. The bird
is so common among the higher sierras of the Northwest that I supposed
all the ornithologists were familiar with it and its home-life. Prof. W. L. Dawson,
in his most excellent work on the birds of Washington, however, mentions the
fact that the eggs have not, to his knowledge, been taken. That being the case,
I will endeavor to state some few things about the bird and its nest; it having —
been my good fortune to locate at least three nests of this Rosy Finch, one of
which I succeeded in photographing 7m satu.
Hepburn’s Leucosticte is an almost constant resident in north Idaho, especi-
ally in the higher slopes of the Bitter Root, Coeur d’Alene, and Cabinet mountains
It does not seem to be deterred by the deep snows, and many times I have seen
flocks of them feeding with Crossbills about the door-yards of miners’ cabins
when the snow was many feet deep. Like Crossbills, they are very fond of salt,
and will greedily eat anything of a saline character. There is also a small black
midge, or gnat, that covers the snow on certain warm days, and these the birds
devour. I have also seen them industriously picking about the tops of fir trees
and on the branches of white cedars.
I can not better describe their nesting than by giving the incidents relating to
the photograph which accompanies this article. We were fishing one of the swift
mountain streams that flow into Lake Pend Oreille in north Idaho, last summer.
It is a very rough country through which the stream runs. Immense bluffs of
black basalt and granite tower hundreds of feet sheer from the bed of the stream.
In the niches grow stunted evergreens and a few deciduous bushes. Several
miles from where the stream flows into the lake a mining flume begins. It is
cut a part of the way out of the solid rock and winds sinuously along the mountain
side. My son and I were picking our way along this flume one day, that being the
most direct way back to camp, when we noticed a nest high on a shelf of rock
above our heads. It was late (July 5), and I did not think it to be occupied.
To make sure, I tossed a small stone up and started a Rosy Finch from her nest.
I did not attach much importance to the discovery, but the lad insisted upon
scrambling up to investigate. When he informed me, clinging to the side of the
cliff, that there were eggs in the nest, I resolved to make a picture of it, more from
the fact that it was so late in the season than with any idea of perpetuating a rare
nest. During this time the bird sat upon the top of a small fir that grew near the
flume, and scolded with an angry chuck, which, as Mr. Dawson has well described
it, sounds like the slap of the ratlines on a flag-pole in a high wind.
The next day I returned with my camera and, after a deal of trouble, suc-
ceeded in getting sufficiently near to the nest to make an exposure. This was
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The Nesting of Hepburn’s Rosy Finch 109
done by holding the camera in my hands, bracing myself against the side of the
cliff and guessing at the distance. Fortunately I am a pretty good guesser, and
the result was better than circumstances would seem to warrant. It was so good,
at any rate, that I kept the plate.
The nest as will be seen, is situated upon a slight shelf of the rock near where
the cliff takes a sharp angle. It was composed of dried grass stems, pine needles
and moss. The structure was poorly made, and I am at a loss to understand
why the wind did not sweep it away. The eggs, which were about .94 x .50 inches
were a bluish white, though I am inclined to believe this was due to the incu-
Pal spy 3 S$ =
NEST AND EGGS OF HEPBURN’S ROSY FINCH
bation, as they appeared about ready to hatch. I think that the eggs when first
deposited are milk-white, from the fact that those in another nest discovered by
me the next season were of that color.
The other two nests of this bird were discovered on Lightning Creek, a trib-
utary of the Clark’s Fork of the Columbia. This swift stream is born in the
glaciers of the Cabinet Range, and comes roaring down out of the mountains
like a mill-race. Like the other stream, it flows through a very rocky country.
We were fishing the stream near its head, at an elevation above sea-level of at
least 10,000 feet. A slide obstructed our progress up stream, and we were obliged
to take to the bluffs to get around. While picking our way around a cliff upon
which tussocks of grass were growing, a Rosy Finch started from beneath my
110 , Bird - Lore
feet. She alighted on a rock not far distant, and complained about our intrusion.
The nest was situated beneath one of these tussocks, and was very similar to
the one just described. As I stated, the four eggs were milk-white. I felt strongly
tempted to secure this set, but as we were several miles from camp, and camp
was many leagues from the railroad, I did not believe that I could bring them
out without breaking. It was just as well, for the bird was doubtless happier in
their possession than I would have been. This was late in June. The next day,
in practically the same territory, I found another nest, containing three young
and one unhatched egg.
This report is doubtless fragmentary and disconnected, but it may serve
to throw a little light on these birds. They are quite common here, and I believe
that diligent search will reveal them nesting in the country I have described,
in great numbers. In fact, the accidental happening upon three nests, without
any,search whatever, would indicate their frequency.
; re wk , iy ,
BOBOLINK SINGING
Photographed by H. H. Cleaves Staten Island, N. Y.
The Migration of North American Sparrows
FOURTH PAPER
Compiled by Professor W. W. Cooke, Chiefly from Data in the Biological Survey
With Drawings by Louis AGAssiz FUERTES
(See frontispiece)
SHARP-TAILED SPARROW
This species winters im the salt marshes of the Atlantic coast from North
Carolina to Florida, less commonly on the New Jersey coast, and rarely or casu-
ally on Long Island, and even on the coast of Connecticut. The earliest migrants
appear on Long Island late in April, and reach the northern limit of their range
in eastern Massachusetts and southwestern Maine about May 20. The last were
noted on Cumberland Island, Ga., April 25, 1903, and in Chatham county, Ga.,
May 2, 1907; the last at Pea Island, N. C., May 11, rg901, and May 12, 1902.
Some late fall records are: Scarboro, Me., September 17, 1902; Durham, N. H.,
October 21, 1899, and Newport, R. I., October 1, 1899.
NELSON’S SPARROW
A comparison of the breeding and wintering ranges of the species shows an
unusual migration route. The breeding range extends from Manitoba to northern
Alberta, while the species winters on the seacoast from North Carolina to Texas,
and occurs in migration as far north as Massachusetts. The migration route is
therefore fan-shaped, the small end in Alberta, hardly four hundred miles wide,
while the other end reaches from Texas to Massachusetts, with a width of sixteen
hundred miles.
Spring records are scanty and irregular: Blacksburg, Va., May 23, 1908;
Atlantic City, N. J., May 9, 1892; Erie, Pa., May 24, 1900; Cambridge, Mass.,
May 31, 1871; Scarboro, Me., May 22, 1897; Quincy, Ill., April 26, 1889;
Warsaw, Ill., May 8, 1879; Geneva, O., May 17, 1902; Coralville, Ia.. May 27,
1904; Sioux City, Ia., May 24,1906; Madison, Minn., May 23, 1889; Minne-
apolis, Minn., May 26, 1892; Cando, N. D., May 15, 1891; Winnipeg, Mani-
toba, May 25, 1892; Stony Plain, Alberta, May 23, 1908; and May 26, 1909;
Peace River Landing, Alberta, Jume 19, 1903; Hay River, Alberta, June 30,
1903. The latest recorded dates in the winter home are: Amelia Island, Fla.,
May 11, 1905; Chatham county, Ga., May 2, 1907; Sabine, La., May 20, 1907.
Fall records are more numerous and indicate a late migration. Dates of fall
arrival are: Southern Wisconsin, average, September 18, earliest, September 7,
1877; Chicago, Ill., average, September 21, earliest, September 17, 1874; Toronto,
Ont., September 22, 1894 and September 23, 1898; Fort Wayne, Ind., September
27, 1903; Erie, Pa., September 23, 1893 and September 13, 1900; Washington,
D. C., September 18, 1893 and September 26, 1898; Charleston, S. C., October
8, 1884; Fernandina, Fla., October 17, 1906. The latest dates recorded in the
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112 Bird-Lore
fall are: Chicago, Ill., average date of the last seen, October ro, latest, October
15, 1903; Toronto, Ont., October 28, 1896 and October 29, 1897; Iowa City,
Ia., October 12, 1894; North Freedom, Wis., October 15, 1904; Delavan, Wis.,
October 14, 1908; Lincoln, Neb., October 8, 1904; Neosho Falls, Kans., October
17, 1881; Scarboro, Me., October 16, 1894; Hamilton, N. Y., October 17, 1900;
Cambridge, Mass., October 7, 1871; Portland, Conn., October 22, 1894; Rocka-
way Beach, N. Y., October 5, 1907. The species has been taken as a straggler
near San Francisco, Calif., May 6, 1891, and January 31, 18096.
ACADIAN SHARP-TAILED SPARROW
The breeding range of this species almost touches the range of the Sharp-
tailed Sparrow in southwestern Maine, and extends thence along the coast to
Cape Breton Island. Spring migration records are rare: Boston, Mass., May
21, 1896 and May 31, 1897, Lubec, Me., May 21, 1903; Yarmouth, Nova Scotia,
June 14, 1904. In the South it has been recorded at Amelia Island, Fla., Feb-
ruary 24, 1906; Cumberland, Ga., March 7, 1902 and Frogmore, S. C., March
19-April 20, 1886.
The earliest date of fall arrival is September 10, 1905 at Portland, Me.,
scarcely beyond the breeding range. It was noted at Portland, Conn., October
4, 1890; Shelter Island, N. Y., October 7, 1901; Atlantic City, N. J., October
2, 1892; Charleston, S. C., October 25, 1889, and Amelia Island, Fla., November
16, 1905. The latest dates at the breeding grounds are: North River, Prince
Edward Island, October 18, 1889; Scarboro Marsh, Me., November 15, 1877;
Charleston Beach, R. I., October 15, 1899.
SEASIDE SPARROW
The Seaside Sparrow and its several forms breed in the salt marshes from
Massachusetts and Texas. They are resident on the Gulf coast and winter
regularly north to North Carolina. The following dates of occurrence farther
north may represent wintering birds or unusually early migrants: Seaville, N. J.,
February 22, 1892; Far Rockaway, L. I, February 22, 1884; Lawrenceburg,
L. L, March r2, 1888; Barnstable, Mass., February 9, 1898; Monomoy Island,
Mass., April 14, 1890. The main body of the migrants reaches New England in
early May.
The last one seen at Newport, R. I,. was October 1, 1899; Bridgeport, Conn.,
September 17, 1904; Flatlands, L. I., September 30.
Notes on the Plumage of North American Sparrows
THIRD PAPER
By FRANK M. CHAPMAN
(See frontispiece)
Sharp-tailed Sparrow (Fig. 1). The pronounced buff markings, brown
crown stripes, and striking pattern of the upper parts, are among the most char-
acteristic features of the Sharp-tail in fresh plumage. Worn summer birds lose
much of the buff on the breast and sides, which are then more sharply streaked,
but the buff on the sides of the head is still conspicuous.
The nestling differs greatly from the adult, being entirely rich buff below,.
usually more or less streaked on the breast and sides; the upper parts are dark
blackish brown, the feathers of the back, the wing coverts and tertials being
widely margined with yellowish brown. This plumage, as Dwight has shown,
is worn from the time the bird leaves the nest in late June or early July, until
September or early October, when, with the exception of the primaries, the
primary coverts and the secondaries (and sometimes all these), it is molted and
replaced by the first winter plumage, which resembles that of the bird figured,
and is indistinguishable from that of the adult in winter plumage.
As is usual with sedge-inhabiting birds, the effects of wear are soon apparent,
and midwinter specimens are as faded and worn as those of midsummer. Breed=
ing plumage is therefore acquired by a complete molt in March and April, when
the bird again acquires a plumage resembling that of fall. By the latter part of
May, the effects of wear and fading are apparent, and midsummer specimens
are almost white below, while the upper parts are dingy olive, almost if not
wholly unmarked.
The seasonal changes in the plumage of both Nelson’s Sharp-tail (Fig. 2)
and the Acadian Sharp-tail (Fig. 3) are similar to those just described. The
first named differs from the Sharp-tail (Fig. 1) chiefly in being unstreaked or
but lightly streaked below, in having the upper parts richer and browner in tone,
with the scapular markings whiter and more pronounced, and in its smaller
size. ;
The Acadian Sharp-tail (Fig. 3) is the palest of the three races. It is always
streaked below, but the streaks are dusky and not sharply defined; the buff is
much less rich and the back is grayer and greener, as the figure clearly shows.
In worn summer plumage the New Brunswick specimens are markedly dif-
ferent from Shoal Lake, Manitoba, specimens of Nelson’s Sharp-tail, the upper
parts of the latter bird at this season showing the effects of wear and fading but
little.
Nestling specimens of the Acadian Sharp-tail are usually unstreaked below.
The nestling plumage of Nelson’s Sharp-tail appears never to have been de-
scribed.
Seaside Sparrow (Fig. 5). The Seaside is a greenish gray bird with a yellow
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114 Bird - Lore
loral mark, with indistinct dusky streaks and a faint wash of buff on the breast
and sides. In worn plumage the buff disappears, but the back is still greenish
gray and unlike that of any of our other Sparrows.
The nestling is wholly unlike the adult. Its breast and sides are a pronounced
buff, conspiciously streaked with blackish; the upper parts are grayish brown
streaked with black. As with the Sharp-tail; the bird wears this plumage from
the time it leaves the nest in late June until August or September, when, by
molt of all the feathers, except primaries and secondaries (and possibly in some’
cases even them), the first winter plumage is acquired.
The adult passes into winter plumage by a complete molt in August, after
which it is indistinguishable from the young bird. This is the plumage figured
(Fig. 5).
Unlike the Sharp-tail, the Seaside has no spring molt. Its plumage, how-
ever, Shows the effect of wear, and fading much less than does that of the Sharp-
tail. Long Island specimens taken as late as the middle of May are still in com-
paratively fresh plumage, but after that date the change to worn breeding plu-
mage comes quickly.
The four southern races of our northern Seaside Sparrow are all of about
ithe same size, and are smaller than our bird. They are sometimes distinguished
with difficulty, but, since they are largely residents and are confined to our South
Atlantic and Gulf coasts, they do not come within the experience of many orni-
thologists. For our present purposes we may simply say that Macgillivray’s Sea-
side inhabits the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, where its relationships
with Scott’s Seaside are not clearly understood. The latter alone inhabits the
west coast of Florida, and doubtless extends west to Louisiana, when it is replaced
by the darker Fisher’s Seaside, which is most nearly related to Macgillivray’s
Seaside. On the south Texas coast we have Sennett’s Seaside, which, although
most widely separated geographically, is still most like our northern bird.
Black Seaside Finch (Fig. 4). I have seen only March specimens of this
little known bird, but it is not improbable that its plumage changes correspond
with those of the northern Seaside. It is confined to the marshes of northern
Indian River, chiefly on Merritt’s Island, and has never been seen, I believe,
north of the Haulover Canal. I have seen no specimens of the northern forms
south of Matanzas Inlet, and if as appears, the ranges of these two birds do not
come together, the Black Seaside is an isolated race, a fact which may in part
account for its strongly marked characters.
— Potes from Field and Stuay
Ducks Increasing
‘During the past winter, while cruising
along the Florida coast in the performance
of duty as inspector of lighthouses, I
was impressed by the great numbers of
Ducks seen in many places. In the months
of January, February and March, rg10,
at various times, I saw in Pensacola Bay,
St. Andrew’s Bay,. St. George Sound,
Tampa Bay, Charlotte Harbor, Key
Biscayne Bay, and several other regions
along the coast, flocks of Ducks that were
remarkable for numbers. In Tampa Bay
and in the upper end of Key Biscayne
Bay, north of Miami, the flocks seen were
really enormous, extending sometimes
two or three miles along the surface of the
water, and numbering tens of thousands
of individuals, swimming and feeding close
together.
I cruised in these same waters the winter
before and saw thousands of Ducks, but
the greater numbers this past season was
very noticeable. Residents, mostly light-
house keepers and watermen, with whom
I talked at all places visited, agreed that
they had never before seen such huge
flocks in their neighborhood.
For the most part these were Blue-
bills (Lesser Scaup), but I saw at different
times and places, generally associated
with the Bluebills, some Teal, Ring-
necked Ducks, Canvasbacks, and the
resident Florida Ducks. The Scaup Ducks
are known locally in Florida as ‘Raft
Ducks, but why I am unable to say. They
Swim in very compact masses, and a flock
of them some distance away looks some-
what like a large raft of logs bound to-
gether to be towed to a sawmill, and per-
haps the resemblance suggests the name.
The lateness of the season that some
of these Ducks remain in Florida is note-
worthy. Voyaging south from Pensacola
in April, I saw in Choctawhatchie Bay,
St. Joseph’s Bay, and in Apalachee Bay,
near St. Mark’s, small groups of Lesser
Scaups, aggregating from twenty or thirty
to as many as one hundred at each place
named. These may have been stragglers,
left behind by the spring migration, but
April rr, in the western end of Apalachi-
cola Bay, I saw the same species in such
numbers that the assumption that they
were stragglers is unreasonable. I ob-
served, a few miles apart, three separate
flocks or “rafts” of these birds feeding
in shoal water, and each flock contained
from two thousand to three thousand
individuals at the very lowest estimate.—
Ff. M. Bennerr, Commander, U.S. Navy,
Key West, Fla.
The Grackle in Virginia
In the center of the town of Pulaski,
Virginia, there is a very beautiful lawn
enclosed by a stone wall and shaded by a
thick grove of maple and cottonwood
trees, and in the center of this enclosure
is located Maple Shade Inn. But the
visitors to the grove are more interesting
in many respects than the visitors to the
hotel, and especially is this true of the
Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula), a half dozen
pairs of these birds finding asylum here
each season for the raising of their young.
But after the young ones are strong
enough to fly well, a change begins to take
place, and the birds all leave the grove
early in the morning and return about
sundown with increased numbers. This
is kept up for many weeks until their
numbers reach over a thousand. In
leaving the grove in the morning, the
greater part of the flock goes together
and in a northeast direction, from which
they never vary. On their return in the
evening, the flock is very much more
broken up into smaller flocks, but always
returning by the same route. I have seen
these birds eating dogwood berries in the
woods four miles directly east of this place.
Following the greater arc of the circle
from east to northwest, there are moun-
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116
tains with no cultivated fields, while the
remainder of the circle is made up of fer-
tile farms from which almost all varieties
of grain and insect food could be obtained.
It had been the habit of these birds for
eleven years to stay until the October
and November frosts had taken away their
nightly covering of maple leaves, and then
for several days on their evening return to
tell of their intended departure by circling
over their accustomed roosting-place,
making continuous cries, settling in the
partly bare trees, then rising and going
through the same program for several
times. But last year, after gathering in
their usual numbers and manner, they left
unceremoniously and took up their abode
in a valley beyond a mountain four miles
east, and never ventured back to their
old haunts. This change was not brought
about by the shot-gun or season, for there
was no shooting at their roost and no dif-
ference in the rainfall of the two places,
but I attribute it to a scarcity of their
food-supply in their old haunts.—O. C.
BREWER, Pulaski, Va.
Our Duty to Our Bird Tenants
I wish to second Mr. Bennett’s motion,
in the last issue of Brrp-LoRE, that a
movement be inaugurated for obviating
the feline pest that is so prevalent in our
cities. The dog, that is acknowledged
man’s most faithful friend, dare not show
his face on a city street, unless he has
a license tag attached to his collar; while
mongrel cats—black, white, gray, yellow
and spotted, big, ‘little, old, young and
indifferent—slink about our alley-ways
and back yards, their every movement
emblematic of distrust and thievishness,
a constant menace to the few birds that
are emboldened to live in the city, and thus
indirectly a bane to the small gardener.
If the cat nuisance is got rid of, we will
take heart and put some bird-boxes in our
back yard, where birds come each spring
in search of a nesting-site, which we are
now careful to see is not provided; for
how could we enjoy the exuberant song
of our little feathered neighbor (at our
Bird - Lore
invitation), when we knew that it was
eventually to become the requiem of his
little ones, that, in their helplessness,
must inevitably fall into the clutches of
the stray cats that daily prowl about the
premises ?
One who, under existing conditions,
as we have found them, would encourage
birds into his city yard, surely cannot have
the welfare of those birds at heart.—EDGAR
Boyer, Sparks, Nevada.
Pittsford, N. Y., Notes
On April 13, near here, I saw several
flocks of Juncos, and among them was
one with a snow-white head and neck.
Otherwise it looked like the other mem-
bers of the flock. On the same day I saw
a Towhee singing in some lilac bushes,
very near a house in the village -—Mrs.
Anna E. AGATE, Pittsford, N. Y.
Snowbuntings in Vermont
On February 6, a large flock (probably
200) of Snowflakes appeared in our village.
It is the first record for three years, and
perhaps longer. Last winter, there were
large flocks of Pine Siskins and Redpolls,
with a few Goldfinches and White-winged
Crossbills; but none was seen this past
winter. The Siskins were first noticed
May 28, 1907, and they stayed until the
middle of July, 1908.—E1izA F. MILLER,
Bethel, Vt.
A Winter Catbird
I wish to record the occurrence of a
Catbird in Brockton, Mass., in winter.
I first saw it December 19, 1909. Up to that
time the season had not been very severe,
the coldest being about 15°, and holding
steadily near that temperature for some
time. The bird was in an old, upland
pasture overgrown with junipers, birches,
young pines, huckleberry and bayberry
bushes, with numerous tangles of horse-
briers.
During the week before Christmas the
temperature fell to 12°, with but little
Notes from Field and Study
snow to that date. Christmas day I again
saw the Catbird in the same situation
It was evidently living on the fruit of the
bayberry and red cedar, which is abundant
this season.
Christmas evening it began to snow,
with the wind from the northeast. For
the next twenty-four hours there was the
most severe storm for years. When it was
-over, trains were stalled, telegraph and
telephone poles and wires were down, and
communication broken in all directions.
In the old pasture, cedars and birches were
bowed to the ground and held down by
the weight of snow, and the horse-brier
tangles had completely disappeared, being
so pressed down and covered that where,
the day before, I could not force a way
through, I could now walk over with the
snow well above my knees.
The Catbird survived the storm, but
was driven from the pasture, as its food
was completely covered, unless it cared to
eat the seeds of the birches, as did the
Chickadees and Tree Sparrows. Soon
after the storm, the Catbird appeared at
a house in the neighborhood, seeking food
on the piazza. That night the temperature
fell to 10°. Since then a search of every
suitable place has been in vain. Whether
the bird was frozen to death or, concluding
that the New England climate was too
strenuous, started for warmer climes, is an
Open question.—Rurus H. Carr, Brock-
ton, Mass.
Tufted Titmouse in Northern New Jersey
On February 27, r9ro, I found three
Tufted Titmice at Pine Brook, New
Jersey. My attention was attracted to
these Crested Tomtits by their three-note
song, which they continually whistled all of
the time I was observing them. All three
were busily engaged searching for food and
were very tame. One was particularly
sociable as he flew to a branch close over
my head and remained there for a few
seconds, watching me, and at the same
time singing. This is the only time when
I have found this species in New Jersey.—
Louis S. Koutrr, Bloomfield, N. J.
1L7
Notes on New Jersey Winter Birds
In northern New Jersey, according to
the observations of the writer, there has
been during the past winter (1909-10) an
entire absence of all the irregular winter
visitants, such as the Siskin, Redpoll and
Crossbills.
I have not observed a Purple Finch in
the vicinity of Plainfield since the spring
migration a year ago. While, in some
winters, this species is rare or absent, it
is almost invariably present in the spring
and fall. As bearing upon this observation,
a note in the last Christmas Bird Census
is significant. Mr. L. H. Potter there
stated that the Purple Finches were
plentiful in Vermont (Clarendon) last
winter, and that he had not seen them
wintering there before.
The Golden-crowned Kinglet and the
Brown Creeper were unusually scarce the
past winter. No Kinglets were met with
between about December 1 and March 27.
Among the noteworthy records was a
Wood Thrush observed in Ash Swamp,
near Plainfield, on December 19 and 25.
A heavy snow was falling when the bird
was visited on Christmas day, and it was
not seen after that date. This is the first
winter record of the Wood Thrush for
New Jersey.
A Fox Sparrow was seen in the same
place on December 25. With the exception
of the preceding winter (1908-9), this is
my only record of the Fox Sparrow later
than December 2. A Dutch Hawk was
observed on New Year’s Day, its first
occurence here in winter, in my experi-
ence.—W. Dr W. Mitter, Plainfeld,
INGeIE
A Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher in Prospect
Park, N. Y.
On April 7, 1910, my wife and I saw
a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher in Prospect Park.
We sent word to other members of the
‘Bird Lovers’ Club of Brooklyn, and four
members noted the bird on the 8th, oth,
and roth of the month.—E. W. VIETOR,
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Book News and Meviews
Birps oF New York. By ELon HOWARD
Eaton. New York State Museum,
Memoir 12, Part 1. Introductory
Chapters; Water Birds and Game
Birds. Albany, University of the State
of New York. 1910. 4to., 501 pages,
42 colored plates.
The first of the two volumes of this im-
portant work is now before us, and it fully
meets anticipations aroused by a knowl-
edge of the labor which has been unspar-
ingly expended in its preparation. Mr.
Eaton has shown admirable judgment in
the arrangement of his text, and in the
selection of material and presentation of
data has exercised a care and thorough-
ness which makes his work authoritative
in the highest degree. Thoroughly familiar
with previously recorded information in
regard to the birds of New York state, he
has himself had a wide field of experience
in this same area, and he has enlisted the
services of many other observers. The
volume, therefore, adequately reflects our
existing knowledge. The introductory
matter contains a ‘Summary of the New
York State Avifauna,’ ‘Life Zones of New
York State,’ with maps of much general
interest, ‘The Mt. Marcy Region,’ ‘In-
crease and Decrease of Species,’ “Sugges-
tions to Bird Students,’ ‘Bird Migration,’
‘Spring Arrivals,’ ‘Published Local List,’
‘County Schedules,’ ‘Classification,’ then,
under the head of “Descriptions of Genera
and Species,’ and occupying pages 91 to
390, we have descriptions of plumage and
sections on ‘Field Marks,’ ‘Distribution,’
‘Migrations,’ “Haunts and Habits’ and
‘Nest and Eggs’ of the water- and game-
birds of the state.
Lacking space in which to review the
text of this work in detail, we can simply ©
unreservedly commend it both as regards
matter and manner. It contains a large
amount of new material, and constitutes
a noteworthy addition to our knowledge
of birds.
The forty-two colored plates by Mr.
Fuertes, bound at the end of this volume,
add in so large a measure to its value and
attractiveness that we are not a little sur-
prised to find that the illustrator’s name
does not appear on the title page of the
work. Not since Audubon has there been
published such a slpendid series of colored
plates of our water and game birds. While
the necessity of grouping a number of birds
on the same plate has at times necessarily
produced an inartistic crowding of figures,
we nevertheless have a series of bird por-
traits which, on the whole, in our opinion,
are superior to any that have been made
of the same species. The four-color pro-
cess by which the plates were reproduced
has evidently, with few exceptions, done
justice to the originals, and as a series,
therefore, the plates are fully up to the stan-
dard of the text they accompany, an esti-
mate of their worth which we think should
be equally satisfactory to both author and
artist.—F. M. €.
CASSINIA: PROCEEDINGS OF THE DELA-
WARE VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB,
No. x11, 1909. Philadelphia, Pa. 8vo.
66 pages, 1 plate.
‘Cassinia’ brings its characteristic at-
mosphere of ornithological good fellow-
ship, the secret of which is sympathetically
explained in a delightful little sketch,
by George Spencer Morris, on ‘The D.
V. O. C. and its Twentieth Anniversary.’
“Life in the open,’’ he writes, “the love
of nature, the joy in her beauties, the touch
of adventure, the dash of sport, and then
the illusive grace and charm of the wild
bird prevading it all—that is ornithology.”
Certainly it is the kind of ornithology the
D. V. O. €. has thrived on, and the
writer concludes, “After twenty years we
find our little club stronger and more in
earnest than ever before, and thus, we
meet the future with confidence born
of the knowledge that a good work has
been well begun.” Why are there not
more D. V. O. C.’s?
’ Other papers in this number are a
biography of Thomas B. Wilson, D.D.,
by Witmer Stone; ‘Duck Shooting on the
(118)
Book News
Coast Marshes of New Jersey,’ by I.
Norris DeHaven; ‘Cruising Through the
New Jersey Pine Barrens,’ by J. Fletcher
Streets; “Nesting of the Broad-winged
Hawk and Goshawk in Pennsylvania,’
by Robert P. Sharples; ‘Breeding Birds of
Passaic and Sussex Counties, N. J.,’ by
William L. Baily; ‘Report on Spring
Migration of 1909, by Witmer Stone, with
an abstract of the Proceedings of the
sixteen meetings held during the year,
at which the average attendance was
nineteen.—F. M. C.
Nores on NEw ENGLAND Birps. By
Henry D. THoREAv. Arranged and
edited by Francis H. Allen. With pho-
tographs of Birds in Nature. Houghton,
Mifflin Co. 1910. 12mo., pages ix+
452, 14 half-tones, 1 map. Ptice, $1.75,
net.
It was a capital idea of Mr. Allen’s to
bring together the notes on birds scattered
through the fourteen volumes of Thoreau’s
published ‘Journal,’ and he has carried
it out in admirable fashion, placing the
notes under the species to which they
belong, arranging these in the sequence of
the A. O. U. ‘Check-List,’ and adding
comment when desirable. There is, also,
an index to the bird matter in Thoreau’s
previously published works, ‘The Week,’
‘Walden,’ etc. For the first time, therefore,
Thoreau’s actual contributions to orni-
thology are presented in a form which
not only renders reference easy but places
them within reach of many to whom the
‘Journals’ are not available.
Mr. Allen’s ‘Preface’ contains what
seems to us to be so just an estimate of
Thoreau as an ornithologist that we are
tempted to quote from it, and refrain only
because it should be read in its entirety.—
HEME:
WILDERNESS PETS aT Camp BucKSHAW.
By Epwarp Breck. Houghton, Mifflin
& Co. 239 pages, 16 half-tones. Price,
$2.50, net.
Young bears, moose, squirrels, Gulls,
Ravens and Loons, Uncle Ned Buck-
shaw and some boys and girls, are the
principal actors in these stories. The
and Reviews 119:
scene is laid out-of-doors, and the various
animals were given freedom, which made
them pets in the best sense of the word,
permitting the establishment of relations
which close captivity in cages forbids.
The various pets soon accepted the hospi-
tality of their human friends, and their
companionship evidently added not a little
to the pleasure and interest of life at Camp:
Buckshaw; but the tragic ends which a
number of them encountered emphasizes
the responsibility one assumes in taking
an animal from the care of its parents and
from its own environment.—F. M. C.
The Ornithological Magazines
THE AuK.—Among the pages of the
April ‘Auk’ is an obituary notice of Dr.
Richard Bowdler Sharpe, of the British
Museum, which marks the passing on
Christmas Day, 1909, of a great ornitholo-
gist and one of world-wide reputation.
His ‘Catalogue of Birds of the British
Museum’ supplemented by his ‘Hiand-List’”
is the only complete list of the birds of the
world, and is bound to be the standard for
years to come wherever the English lan-
guage is spoken. No finer monument to
his memory can be imagined. Dr. Allen’s
notice is accompanied by a portrait re-
produced from the magazine ‘British
Birds.’ There is also a belated obituary
and portrait of Dr. J. C. Merrill, U.S. A.,
who died in 1902, written by Mr. Wm.
Brewster, and still another obituary and
portrait of Mr. Chas. Aldrich, written by
Mr. Ruthven Deane.
An article deserving of special mention
is one by Mr. Leon J. Cole on ‘The Tag-
ging of Wild Birds: Report of progress in
1909.’ The fastening of metal bands to birds,
for the purpose of learning something of
their migratory movements, is not a new
idea, but Mr. Cole needs the co6peration
of all persons interested in birds if definite
results are to be obtained. He tells what
progress has been made in ‘banding’ birds
and describes the method. “The Court-
ships of Golden-eye and Eider Ducks,’ by
Dr. Charles W. Townsend, is a pleasing
contribution to the life histories of these
120
birds, and ‘Notes on the Florida Gallinule
(Gallinula galeata) in Philadelphia County,
Pa.’ by Richard F. Miller, shows the
difficulties with which nesting birds have
to cope, as their haunts are encroached
upon by the advance of civilization.
An article on “Birds Observed in Sas-
katchewan during the summer of 1909,’
by the late Mr. John F. Ferry, is a well
illustrated and carefully annotated list of
over one hundred of the species found on
the prairies of western Canada. Other
lists are “Notes on Some of the Rarer Birds
of Washtenaw County, Michigan,’ by
Messrs. N. A. Wood and A. D. Tinker;
“Bird Notes from Salida, Chafee County,
Colorado,’ by Edward B. Warren, and ‘A
List of Birds observed at Ashland, Vir-
ginia,’ by Mr. C. G. Embody. An ‘Appar-
ently New Species of Carrion Hawk of the
Genus [bycter,’ from Patagonia, is described
by Mr. W. E. D. Scott.
In the department of ‘General Notes’
will be found a number of records of
unusual interest, and the reviews concern
some important books. A list of the
members of the A. O. U. concludes this
number, and it may be well to call the
attention of those who bind their ‘Auks’ to
the fact that this list takes the place of the
one that used to appear in the October
number.—J. D., Jr.
THE Conpor.—Vol. XII of ‘The Con-
dor’ opens with the fourth part of Finley’s
“Life History of the California Condor,’
the first instalment of which appearcd
in the number for November, 1906. The
present part, illustrated with six excellent
half-tones, deals with the habits of the
young bird in captivity. The ‘Fossil Birds
from the Quaternary of Southern Cali-
fornia,’ in the Museum of the University
of California, are briefly described by
Loye Holmes Miller, who calls attention
to the preponderance of raptorial birds
and the presence of a true peacock, a
black vulture, and a peculiar raptorial
genus, Zeratornis, represented by a form
much larger than any flying birds of the
present time. Odlogy receives due atten-
tion in Ingersoll’s illustrated account of
Bird - Lore
‘Abnormal Birds’ Eggs,’ and Ray’s ‘De-
fense of Odlogy.’ Pemberton adds ‘Some
Bird Notes from Ventura County,’ relating
to eight species, and Warren contributes
an extended paper on ‘Some Central
Colorado Bird Notes’ on 127 species:
This last paper is a welcome change from
the others in being free from the peculiari-
ties of spelling which mar so many pages
of the magazine, a concession for which
the editor considers an apology necessary.
‘For the Better Determination of Agelazus
tricolor’ Mailliard gives a few notes and
illustrations of wings, and for the benefit
of students of distribution Grinnell pub-
lishes some ‘Miscellaneous Records from
Alaska’ on 35 species.
Of the half-dozen articles in the March
number,three are deyoted to nesting habits.
Peck describes ‘The Effect of Natural
Enemies on the Nesting Habits of Some
British Honduras Birds;’ Willard writes
of the ‘Nesting of the Western Evening
Grosbeak’ in the Huachuca Mountains,
Arizona, and Pingree tells briefly of “The
Nesting of the Frazar Oyster-catcher, in
1909, on the Tres Marias Islands, Jalisco,
Mexico.’ ‘The Status of the California
Bicolored Blackbird’ is discussed by
Mailliard; ‘The Habits of the Black-Capt
Vireo’ in Blaine County, Oklahoma, are
described by Bunker, and an interesting
‘Glimpse of Bird Life on the West Coast
of Mexico,’ near San Blas, is given by
Lamb.
But the most striking feature in these
two numbers is the rapid molt which cer-
tain bird names are undergoing as a result
of the policy on which “The Condor’ has
‘embarkt.’ Eight new bob-tailed names
are suddenly introduced: The Russet-
backt (p. 16) and Olive-backt Thrushes
(p. 43), the Black-capt Vireo (p. 70),
the White-rumpt Swallow (p. 78), the
Gray Ruft Grouse (p. 42), the Black-
neckt Stilt (p. 76), and the Ring-neckt
Duck (p. 79). “Douts’ may well be ‘ex-
prest? whether such ‘markt’ editorial
idiosyncrasies do more than add a pecu-
liar grotesqueness from which both authors
and readers would gladly be spared, if
their wishes were consulted.—T. S. P. -
Editorial
Bird: Lore
A Bi-monthly Magazine
Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds
OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES
Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN
Published by D. APPLETON & CO.
Vol. XII Published June 1, 1910 No. 3
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
Price in the United States, Canada and Mexico twenty cents
a number, one dollar a year, postage paid.
COPYRIGHTED, 1910, BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN
Bird-Lore’s Motto:
A Bird in the Bush is Worth Two in the Hand
THE American Museum of Natural
History’s expedition to Mexico, of which,
in explanation of the absence of Birp-
Lore’s editor, we have given news in our
two preceding issues, returned to New
York May 1, after having successfully
accomplished the work it had in view.
Camps were established from sea-level
to an altitude of 12,000 feet on Mt.
Orizaba, and the ornithological experi-
ences of the members of the expedition
were as varied as the difference between
faunas characterized, on the one hand, by
Parrots, Trogons and Roseate Spoonbills,
and, on the other, by Crossbills, Juncos
and Evening Grosbeaks, would imply.
Own the preceding page of this issue of
Birp-LorE, Dr. Palmer concludes his
review of recent numbers of ‘The Condor’
with some pertinent remarks on phonetic
spelling. Why will authors handicap them-
selves by presenting their thoughts in
words often so strangely spelled that the
sense they were designed to convey is in a
large measure weakened by the ludicrous-
ness of their appearance? The humor
of Artemus Ward’s sayings is admittedly
largely due to the absurd phonetic spelling
which he employed so effectively; but
assuredly no scientist should clothe his
ideas in a form which appeals primarily to
one’s sense of the ridiculous.
THE attention of Brrp-LORE’s readers
is called to the work of the American Bird-
I2T
Banding Association, as announced in
its circular of February 10, 1910. The
object of this Association is to record the
movements of individual wild birds by
attaching to their legs small metal bands.
so marked (“Notify ‘The Auk’ New
York”) that, should a bird so banded ever
fall into other hands, this occurrence
would be duly reported, and some idea
of its travels be thus obtained. “This
method of studying migration,” the
circular states, “has now been employed
in a number of European countries for
several years, and noteworthy results have
been obtained.”
The circular continues: ‘‘For the benefit
of any who may fear that the prosecution
of this work may be detrimental to bird-
life, it should be stated that the Association
is thoroughly in sympathy with the con-
servative efforts of the Audubon Societies
in this country. The shooting of birds
for the recovery of bands is in no way a
part of the scheme. It is desired to have
banding done only by reliable persons,
and, should it be found that the banding
of any species is doing harm, either from
the disturbing of the nestlings, or from
other causes, such work on that species.
will be discountenanced. As a guaranty
of good faith, it may be mentioned that
the present membership includes not only
many of the foremost members of the
American Ornithologists’ Union but also
leaders of the Audubon movement in
America.”
Applications for membership and remit-
tances of dues ($1 yearly) should be sent to
the Secretary-Treasurer, Mr. C. J. Pen-
nock, Kennett Square, Pa. Persons in-
terested in the banding, and caring to assist
in this part of the work, should address
Dr. Leon J. Cole, College of Agriculture,
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.
THE recent victory over the millinery
interests won by the National Association
and New York Audubon Societies (see
beyond page 128), is one of the most
notable illustrations of the power of a
thoroughly aroused public sentiment in
the history of bird protection.
The Audubon Hocieties.
SCHOOL DEPARTMENT
Edited by MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT
Address all communications to the Editor of the School Department, National
Association of Audubon Societies, 141 Broadway, New York City
TWO PROBLEMS IN BIRD PROTECTION —
CATS AND CROWS
cle \HE song birds are comparatively safe from men and boys, this spring,”
wrote one of our most active game wardens last week, “but cats and
Crows form a problem that yet remains to be solved.” .
Cats and Crows! I heaved a sigh, not of sentiment but of real despair; for it is
not only in wild woods and comparatively unprotected meadows and brush lots
that the wake of these two arch marauders is marked by empty nests. Here in
my garden, within twenty rods of the door, I had just found a Crow’s nest in
one of the spruces, from which fortress, to break the tedium of sitting, the Crows
were making squab-hunting excursions in the garden, even venturing in early
morning to rob a nest in the piazza vines, within plain view of my window.
Crows are bird outlaws in all agricultural regions, and are nowhere protected,
even if there is no price set upon their heads. Why then are there Crows?
Because they possess cunning in proportion to the apparent stupidity of their
appearance, and they have learned the art of self-protection in the school of
adversity. As family birds and rulers of their own social communities, there is
much to admire in the Crow; but, outside of this commune, they are utterly
objectionable.
Their military tactics and scouting abilities are used to enable them to
place their bulky nests in the most invisible places; but you will, if you study the
matter carefully, find that the nest is most conveniently located near a song-bird-
squab market, where, the moment the parent Robin or Thrush leaves the nest,
the Crow’s black shadow falls, and egg or bird are equally its prey.
It should be the duty of every bird lover to search out the Crow haunts of
his neighborhood, and, if it is impossible to shoot the old birds, to destroy the
nest as soon as the eggs are laid. The male members of various bird clubs can
do a great service by watching Crow roosts at the spring break-up, and locating
the various pairs as they separate.
As to the Crow’s place in unnature in its dawn, I am not prepared to argue;
but in our rural midst he becomes a tramp of birddom, and must be forcibly
requested to “move on.”
As to the other C—cats—the problem is infinitely more complex; for there are
many shrewd people who have not a word to say in defence of the corn thief,
who will not hear a word against the cat, the bird hunter by heredity, that even as
(122)
The Audubon Societies 123
a house pet lapses so quickly to the wild that it can never be said that it has
become perfectly domesticated.
Allowing for facts—the cat as a rodent catcher, and for sentiment —the com-
fortable-looking ‘fireside sphinx,’ much can be done in the cat question without
interfering with pussy’s real or fancied usefulness.
First, the destruction by local law of ownerless cats, or cats whose owners
decline the responsibility of feeding them.
Second, the confinement of pet cats during the time between May 1 and July 1,
in large and comfortable cages made of slats and wire, like covered chicken runs.
In fact I know of one clever man who constructed such a run at one side of his
strawberry bed, thus protecting his crop from the Robins and Catbirds, and
their young from the cat, at one blow.
Of course, this caging takes thought and involves considerable extra trouble;
and there are a lot of us who mean well and wish the birds well, but it begins and
ends there, for many places besides the one originally mentioned in the proverb
are paved with good intentions!
After the nesting season is over, the cat may be released, and the adult birds
can take their chances. Mind you, I say the cat, not three cats, their kittens,
and a few more that an irresponsible neighbor has left on your stoop, because she
was ‘too sensitive’ to have them drowned, and she knew you to be tender-
hearted.
Moderation is always a virtue, but moderation in cats may be regarded as
patriotism, as the domestic cat is really an alien who can never be truly naturalized.
—M. O. W.
“On the home grounds from seventy-five toa hundred nests were built
every spring, and the broods therein successfully reared for the birds were care- .
fully protected. Cats, Hawks, Crows, Jays and snakes were summarily dealt
with ; every note of alarm was promptly answered with an efficient rescue, and
all the spring and early summer the air was filled with the melody of happy
birds.’’
—Minor’s LAND AND GAME BirDs oF NEw ENGLAND,
EDITED BY WM. BREWSTER
John Burroughs says that cats probably destroy more birds than all other
animals combined.
“We have already introduced into this country a terrible scourge to birds—
the domestic cat. My statement heretofore published, that the mature cat, in
good hunting grounds, kills on an average, fifty birds a year, is certainly within
bounds.”
—EpDWARD Hower ForsusH.
FRANKLIN’S GULL
By HERBERT K. JOB
Che Pational Association of Audubon Societies
EDUCATIONAL LEAFLET NO. 44
In late April or early May, when the rich black soil has thawed at the surface,
the settler of the northwest prairies goes forth to plow. The warm season is short,
and his tillage vast, so he delays not for wind or storm. One day he is dark as
a coal-heaver, when the strong winds which sweep almost ceaselessly over the
prairie hurl upon him avalanches of black dust. Next day, perchance, in a driy-
ing storm of wet snow, he turns black furrows in the interminable white expanse,
his shaggy fur coat buttoned close around him. Then comes a day of warm
sunshine, when, as he plows, he is followed by a troup of handsome birds which
some might mistake for White Doves. Without sign of fear, they alight in the
furrow close behind him, and, with graceful carriage, hurry about to pick up
the worms and grubs which the plow has just unearthed. Often have I watched
the plowman and his snowy retinue, and it appeals to me as one of the prettiest
sights which the wide prairies can afford. No wonder that the lonely settler
likes the dainty, familiar bird, and in friendly spirit calls it his “Prairie Pigeon,’
or ‘Prairie Dove.’
It is indeed a beauty, a little larger than a domestic Pigeon, with white plu-
mage, save for the grayish “mantle,” the dark slaty “hood” over head and neck,
and the black-tipped wings. It often passes so near that one can see that the
white underparts have an exquisite rosy blush, which can be likened to that of
the peach blossom. In reality, it is not a Pigeon or Dove, but a Gull, one of
the several Rosy-breasted Gulls of the northern regions, the Franklin’s Gull or,
as the earlier ornithologists called it, the Franklin’s Rosy Gull, so named in honor
of the arctic explorer, Sir John Franklin.
In Audubon’s time few white men had penetrated “the Great American
Desert,” or seen this handsome Gull which Dr. Richardson had discovered
in the “fur countries.”” Audubon himself had never met with it alive, and has
no picture of it in his great work, in which he described it from the only two
stuffed skins available, brought from the Saskatchewan country, probably by
some explorer or fur-trader. Indeed, little has been known or written about it
till within quite recent years. Accounts of its habits in the standard works have
been very meager and unsatisfactory. It is distinctively a bird of the prairies,
ranging over both dry land and marshy lakes throughout the region of the great
plains, mostly west of the Mississippi valley, to the Rocky mountains. Its range
extends north to the northern parts of the continent, and south in winter to
Central and South America.
(124)
Family—Laripz
Species—FRANELINII
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Franklin’s Gull 125
Now that these billowy western prairies are teeming with settlers, there are
thousands of farmers who know well this beautiful bird. No wonder that it
is popular. Its tameness and familiarity are delightful, especially to those who
live remote from neighbors of their own kind. Its abundance, too, in some places,
is picturesque and spectacular. In the cold days of a Dakota spring, I have
seen the air alive with them, as they settled like a snowy blanket upon the dark
plowing.
Another fact which should mark it as one of our notably valuable species
is that it is largely imsectivorous. When in flocks they follow the plow, they are
eagerly eating the grubs and cutworms exposed to view. Or, alighting on the
prairie sward, they are busy devouring grasshoppers, locusts, and whatever
Insects come in their way. I have often watched them chasing and catching
insects awing, darting about like swallows, either low over the marshes or well
up aloft. In a nesting colony in Minnesota, Dr. T. S. Roberts found that the
young were fed almost wholly on insects. The stomach of one specimen examined
contained remains of fifteen kinds of insects, several of which were notably
injurious to man. Most of their food, at this time, consisted of the nymphs of
dragon-flies, of which one stomach examined contained 327. Like all other
Gulls, they will, when opportunity offers, eat the eggs of other birds, as I once
saw one do in a Grebe colony. This, however, was partly my fault, as I had
frightened the Grebes from their nests before they had time to cover their eggs
as usual, and thus put extra temptation in the Gulls’ way. Yet there can be
no question but that the western farmer’s ‘Prairie Doves’ are among his most
useful, as well as beautiful, allies.
Another attractive element in this bird is its restlessness and mysteriousness.
It is nearly always on the move. Faintly come the cries as of a distant flock of
Wild Geese or a pack of hounds. Louder and louder grow the voices, and pres-
ently the undulating line appears. Leisurely, yet steadily, it sweeps by, and soon
vanishes in the distance, whither bound who can tell? Often have I longed to
follow and learn their secret. But wherever I might drive with the bronchos and
buckboard, I would see their lines still on the move. Where there is a marshy
lake, they may often be seen, at times in large numbers, hovering over the rushes
or canes, throwing up their wings to settle down, presently to come fluttering
up again, parties frequently departing to straggle over the prairie, and other
parties arriving, probably passing to and from their distant breeding-ground.
Each spring, in May, all the Franklin’s Gulls of a wide region somehow
agree to resort to a particular one of the various marshy lakes for the purpose
of rearing their young. Just how they decide the important question is not for
us to know. At any rate, what they do select is a great area of grass, reeds, or
rushes, growing out of the water, and there, out of the abundance of dry stems,
each pair builds a partly floating nest, side by side with others, thousands of
them. These great cities of the Franklin’s Gull present one of the most spectac-
ular sights of bird-life on our continent, comparable, in a way, to the former
126 Bird - Lore
breeding-roosts of the lamented Passenger Pigeon, and are well worth great
effort to visit on the part of lovers of bird-life, offering particular sport to the hun-
ter with the camera, since the ‘game’ is both beautiful and readily approachable.
It is no easy matter to locate a colony, as the birds select a wild region and
are liable to change their location from year to year. Thus, to ascertain from
settlers where they have nested the year before does not assure finding them
the next season. The distances over the prairie are so vast that one may easily
miss the right location. By dint of driving and tramping for hundreds of miles,
during several trips to the Northwest, I have succeeded in finding two of the great
colonies. One was in North Dakota, which I have described in ‘Among the
Water-Fowl.’ The other and later experience was out in the broken, rolling
prairie country of southwestern Saskatchewan, where there are many lakes and
where this Gull is, in many localities, a common bird. Most of the lakes were
alkaline, and had no lacustrine grass or rushes favorable for the desired “roost.”
The ninth of June began as one of the many cold, lowering days of the
unusually wet season of 1905 on those bleak plains, when we started off on another
cold drive in search of the elusive colony. The sky was dark with heavy banks of
cumuli, with a sinister, autumnal aspect. For five miles the trail meandered
up and down over the rolling prairie, then up a billowy ridge. Out beyond us
for some miles extended a perfectly flat plain, which in time past had evidently
been the bed of a large lake. All that was left of it lay well out in the middle of
the area, a long, narrow lake, in two arms, surrounded by a vast area of reeds
growing out of the water. In the foreground a big bunch of cattle were feeding.
As we drove nearer I noticed a few of the Gulls flying toward the lake or hovering
over the reeds. The nearer we came, the more birds were in evidence. Stopping
the horse, I looked through my binoculars. There was no longer room for doubt.
Hundreds of Gulls, anywhere I might look over a wide area, were fluttering up
and alighting. Handing the glass to my fellow-enthusiast, I exclaimed,— Now
you can shout; we have found it at last!”
Driving to the margin of the great marshy flat, where the prairie began to be
wet and soft, we halted. Near us began a solid area of reeds that extended out
perhaps a quarter of a mile to the first open water. We could now hear the con-
fused chattering of the multitude of Gulls. With cameras strapped to our backs
and long rubber boots pulled up, we started in, rather anxiously, fearing that the
water might prove too deep to wade, and we had no boat. To our delight it
proved to be not over knee-deep. Canvasbacks, redheads, and other ducks kept
flying out before us, and Coots and Grebes slipped off through the tangle. We
paid them scant attention now, for we were about to witness a sight so remark-
able that we had eyes for hardly anything else.
Now the Gulls began to discover us. Rising in clouds, with ear-splitting
screaming, they flew to greet us, hovering but a few yards over our heads.
The sun was shining brightly through the fast departing clouds, and their white
breasts showed clearly the delicate rosy tinge. Here, now, were the first of the
Franklin’s Gull 127
nests at our feet, rude platforms of dead reed-stems, built up from the water
among the reeds, which now had a fresh growth as yet only waist high, and
thus were not tall enough to impede the view. The eggs were in twos and
threes, dark drab in hue, and heavily marked with black. It seemed as though
the whole colony must be awing, yet at almost every step new multitudes were
startled and rose with tragic screams. In every direction we were encompassed
by thousands upon thousands of screaming, indignant, outraged birds. Those
whose nests were at our feet darted at our heads with reckless abandon. Most
of the eggs had evidently been laid by the last week of May, and a few had
already hatched. The birds were quite tame, and when we remained still for
a time they would settle upon their nests within a dozen or fifteen feet of us.
They were too modest, though, to incubate in our presence, but stood up till
we withdrew.
The location chosen by this assemblage was amid a denser growth and in
less water than is often the case. The North Dakota colony I found nesting in
quite open water, of no less depth than up to one’s neck, requiring a boat to reach
it. Instead of reeds, a rather sparse growth of meadow grass furnished the sup-
port and anchorage for the nests. This was practically the condition of affairs.
encountered by Dr. Roberts in his Minnesota colony, except that this one was.
on the edge of a wide expanse of entirely open water, the level of the lake haying
been raised by heavy rains, apparently after the nests were constructed. The
young would swim out from the protecting reeds, when the wind would catch
them and begin to blow them out into the rough open water, where they would
doubtless perish. The old birds would try to compel them to swim back,which
they were unable to do. Failing in this, they would lay hold of the youngsters
with their bills and drag or hurl them back to their nests, sometimes wounded
and bleeding. Dr. Roberts also confirms my experience, and that of Mr. Bent,—
who found this Saskatchewan breeding-ground abandoned the following season,—
that these Gulls change their site from year to year, consistently with their
generally fickle, roving character. They are inclined to alternate between sev-
etal attractive locations, and return to a former favorite location in course of
time.
With the waning of July the life of these “White Cities” also wanes. The
nights grow sharp and chill, the frosts coat the sloughs with incipient ice, and
the settler must bid adieu, for a time, to his companionable ‘Doves.’ Like sail-
ing-craft running free before the onslaughts of Boreas, they carelessly wander
onward, to spend their “winter” where winter is but a memory, with choice
variety of insect life for daily fare. And when, at length, the northern prairie
lakes and sloughs are unlocked from their icy bonds, and the ‘Prairie Pigeons”
once more course the long deserted expanses, many a human heart is glad.
Never may heartless fashion dare to wrong the western farmers and the mullti-
tudes who look to him for bread by seeking to appropriate the lone settler’s pet—
a species important among the feathered custodians of the nation’s granaries-
The Audubon Docicties
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT
Edited by WILLIAM DUTCHER
Address all correspondence, and send all remittances for dues and contributions to
the National Association of Audubon Societies, 141 Broadway, New York City
President Dutcher’s Departure for Europe
Pp P'
President William Dutcher sailed on
May 17 for Europe aboard the steamer
Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. He goes to
attend the Fifth International Ornitho-
logical Congress, which will be held in
Berlin, May 30 to June 4. Mr. Dutcher
will address the section of Bird Protection,
and present a plan for a world-wide
organization among the nations which
shall work for the conservation of wild
bird and animal life.-—T. G. PEARSON.
The New York Plumage Law
On May 7, 1910, Governor Charles E.
Hughes, of New York State, signed the
Shea-White Plumage Bill. Thus ended the
most prolonged and hard-fought legisla-
tive battle which the Audubon Societies
have ever waged for bird protection.
For four successive years attempts have
been made to secure the enactment of
this statute, but in every instance hereto-
fore the opponents of the measure have
been able to prevent its being reported
favorably by the Committees of the Legis-
lature, to which it was assigned for con-
sideration.
During the past year, a wide and sys-
tematic campaign was conducted by the
National Association in every county of the
state. This educational effort at length so
thoroughly aroused public interest that
the legislature became aware that the
people were strongly for the bill and de-
manded its passage.
From early in January until the sig-
nature of the Governor was secured, the
officers of the National Association were
in close touch with the progress of the bill,
the Secretary, in fact, remaining in Albany
nearly one-half of the time. The Forest
Fish and Game Commissioner was thor-
oughly in sympathy with the effort, which
added great strength to the cause. Much
assistance was also rendered by the Audu-
bon Society of New York State, the Camp-
Fire Club of America, representatives
of many game protective clubs, and hun-
dreds of individuals working privately.
The opposition to the measure appar-
ently emanated entirely from the whole-
sale milliners of New York City, who de-
clared that their business would be seri-
ously impaired. The dealers in aigrettes
were especially active, being represented
by attorneys and others at the hearing
held before the Senate and Assembly
Committees and the hearing given by
Governor Hughes in his reception room
on May 3. The milliners also maintained
a lobbyist at Albany.
The text of the amended game laws in
reference to plumage now reads as follows:
“Sec. 98. Certain wild birds protected.
Wild birds other than the English Sparrow,
Crow, Hawk, Crow Blackbird, Snow Owl,
Great-horned Owl and Kingfisher, shall |
not be taken or possessed at any time,
dead or alive, except under the authority
of a certificate issued under this chapter.
No part of the plumage, skin or body of
any bird protected by this section, or of
any birds coming from without the state,
whether belonging to the same or different
species from that native to the state of New
York, provided such birds belong to the
same family as those protected by this
chapter shall be sold or had in possession
for sale. The provision of this section shall
not apply to game birds for which an open
season is provided in this chapter; except-
ing that Quail, English pheasants and Hun-
garian Partridges shall not be taken at any
(128)
The Audubon Societies
time in Richmond county prior to the year
nineteen hundred and fourteen.
Section two hundred and forty of said
act is hereby amended by adding a new
subdivision to said section, to be known
as subdivision eighteen thereof, and to read
as follows:
18. Plumage includes any part of the
feathers, head, wings or tail of any bird,
and wherever the word occurs in this
chapter reference is had equally to plum-
age of birds coming from without the
state as to that obtained within the state,
but it shall not be construed to apply to the
feathers of birds of paradise, ostriches,
domestic fowl or domestic pigeons.
This act shall take effect July 1, r9rr.”’
== (Ci TE
A Bird Park Established
Mrs. Mary Emery, of Cincinnati, has
recently purchased, at an estimated cost
of $250,000, a tract containing about two
acres of land located near the grounds
of the University of Cincinnati, which is
to be made a “Bird Park,” surrounded
by a cat-proof fence.
It has been given to the city, and its
improvements and care will be directed
by the Department of Biology of the Uni-
versity, the head of which, Prof. H. W.
Benedict, is credited with having interested
Mrs. Emery in this public-spirited idea.—
Tr. GP. ;
Heron Colonies Raided
Word has just reached this office that a
colony of Snowy Herons in eastern North
Carolina has been ‘shot out.’ It is re-
ported that the men who did the killing
realized something over $70 for the plumes
gathered that day from the backs of
the birds which were killed. Our infor-
mation is that the feathers were shipped to
a northern market, and, as this is a viola-
tion of the Federal statute, known as the
Lacey Act, the case has been placed in
the hands of the United States Attorney
for the eastern district of North Carolina.
Warden W. M. Sprinkle, who patrols
certain of the bird colonies on the Louisi-
129
ana coast, reports that, when he visited
Dutcher’s island on May 3, he found that
it had been plundered by eggers. The two
thousand Louisiana Heron nests had been
rifled of their eggs and a number of the
birds shot.
These cases emphasize the tremendous
importance of having the income of this
Association greatly enlarged at once, if
many of our birds are to be saved. The
Snowy Heron is one of the very rarest
plume birds in the United States today.
We know of two unprotected colonies,
each of which could be guarded at a cost
of $100 annually, but our present resources
are already strained to the limit, and the
additional expense cannot now be under-
taken. Is there not some reader of BirD-
Lore who is willing to contribute the
necessary amount to save one of the few
remaining breeding haunts of this aigrette-
bearing Heron?—T. G. P.
Some Audubon Field Workers
On January 28 there was organized in
the energetic city of Edmonton, Alberta,
a Provincial Audubon Society, which gives
promise of doing much splendid work for
bird and game protection in that section
of the Dominion of Canada. The officers
elected are president, Glenn B. Chadwick,
1240 Victoria avenue, and Sidney S. S.
Stansell, to25 Sixth street. We shall
expect to hear good reports of their
activities.
Miss Gretchen L. Libby of Riverside,
California, who has been lecturing for the
Association and the Audubon Society of
California for a number of months past,
has been doing some very aggressive
work. During the months of February and
March she visited forty-one schools in
eleven cities and towns and gave one hun-
dred and twelve talks. In this way she was
able to reach about six thousand children
and over four hundred adults. As a result
of the work in the schools, twenty-two
Junior Audubon Societies were organized
with a total membership of over one thou-
sand, and, as a number of schools have
130
not yet reported, she expects that member-
ship to be increased by several hundred.
Tr. Ernest Harold Baynes, the active
organizer of the American Bison Society,
and a well-known writer on natural his-
tory subjects, has been employed by the
Massachusetts Audubon Society to give
a series of lectures in that state. He writes
that one result of his work during the first
two weeks was the securing of over one
bo
thousand new members of all classes for
the state society.
Field Agent William lL. Finley, now
working in Arizona, writes under date of
May 10: “One of the most interesting
Audubon field meetings I ever attended
was on April 30, when Mrs. Finley and
I were invited to go afield with some of the
members of the Arizona Audubon Society.
The objective points were Silver Lake and
the Indian School about four miles south
of Tucson. Several of the teachers at the
school are enthusiastic bird-lovers, and
their influence among the one hundred and
forty Indian boys and girls is wholesome.
“The commonest bird of the desert here
is Palmer’s Thrasher, a big, brown fellow,
who sings like a Mocker and nests almost
entirely in the cholla cactus. The Cactus
Wren is his companion, thriving in the
heat of the desert and the thorns of the
cactus.
“We drove down to the Santa Cruz river,
where we began our observations. The
first bird seen was a Vermilion Flycatcher.
Arizona Hooded and Bullock Orioles were
flitting in and out among the cottonwoods.
One of the party found a Pyrrhuloxia,
a bird that has no common name that I
know of. In looks, he is much like a Car-
dinal, with his high crest, short, thick bill,
and breast patch of rose-red. He is the
finest whistler I have ever heard.
“In the same bushes where we watched
Bird -
Lore
the Pyrrhuloxia, one of the ladies found
the nest of a Crissal Thrasher, with its
three plain deep blue eggs. A little later,
another of the party discovered a Phaino-
pepla building in a mesquite,—another
bird that is easily identified by his high
crest and shiny black coat. In flight, the
white patch under the wing feathers flashes
as in the Mockingbird.
“During the afternoon, we also saw
Mockingbirds, Cafion Lark
Sparrows, Verdins, Linnets, Inca and
Mourning Doves, Arkansas Kingbirds,
Red-wing Blackbirds and others.
“Two nests of the Verdin were found.
One might search a long way to find a finer
piece of bird architecture than the Verdin’s
home. He builds a round hall of thorny
twigs and mesquite leaves, with a doorway
in the side.
“On the way home, we saw many Doves,
often in flocks, coming in from the desert
at sundown to visit the water holes. It is
a sight worth seeing, yet in reality a sad
one, when one knows the facts; for at these
water holes the Mexican hunter often
waits and kills these birds by the score.
It it too bad that no law gives them pro-
tection in the midst of the breeding-season.
Here is work for the Audubon Society.—
at, (Ge IP.
Towhees,
Caged Birds Imported
From January 1 to June 1 there were
imported to the United States through
New York City 98,835 wild birds to be
kept in cages. They came largely from
the ports of Hamburg and Bremen. An
examination of the importations yields a
list of about one hundred species. By far
the greatest number were Canaries, there
being in all 73,458. Of these 5,661 came
in a single shipment. Next in number
were Java Sparrows, of which 3,428 were
received. These figures do not include
those birds which died en route.—T. G. P.
Bird Books by Mr.
Chapman
Handbook of Birds of
Eastern North America
Third edition. With introductory chapter on the study of Orni-
thology; how to identify birds and how to collect and preserve birds,
their nests and eggs. 20 full-page plates and 150 cuts in the text.
12mo. Library edition, cloth, $3.00
Pocket edition, flexible morocco, $3.50
Bird - Life
A guide to the study of our common birds. With 75 full-page
colored plates and numerous text-drawings by Ernest Thompson-
Seton. Containing an Appendix, especially designed for teachers.
12mo. Cloth, $2.00 net
Bird Studies with a Camera
A fascinating account of the habits of some of our common birds,
with descriptions of the largest bird colonies existing in eastern North
America. The author’s phenomenal success in photographing birds
in Nature not only lends to the illustrations the charm of realism, but
makes the book a record of surpassing achievements with the camera.
t2mo. Cloth, $1.75
The Warblers of North America
Full biographies of our ‘‘most beautiful, most abundant, and least-
known birds.’’ In describing these ‘dainty, fascinating sprites of the
tree-tops’’ Mr. Chapman has here drawn on his own great wealth of
material and has had the codperation of many other ornithologists.
Illustrated with colored plates of every species, by Fuertes and
Horsfall, and by photographs of nests and eggs.
Imperial 8vo. Cloth, $3.00 net
D. APPLETON & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
29-35 W. 32d St., New York City
J. HORACE MCFARLAND Co., Mr. PLEASANT PRESS, HARRISBURG, Pa.
Camps and Cruises of
an Ornithologist
250 Photographs
from Nature.
8vo, color inlay
on cover, gilt top,
rough-cut edges.
In a box, $3.00 net.
Frank M.
Chapman
Curator of Birds at
the American Museum
of Natural History
For eight years, accompanied by artist and assistant, Mr. Chapman
devoted all of each nesting season of the birds to making the field
studies for a great series of groups of American birds which should
exceed in beauty and scientific value anything which has heretofore
been attempted in this line. The story of these eight years experi-
ences, together with descriptions of wonderful sights in the world of
birds, as told by Mr. Chapman in ‘Camps and Cruises of an Orni-
thologist,’’ possesses the charm of a tale of travel and adventure,
while the illustrations form one of the most remarkable series of pic-
tures of bird-life which has ever appeared.
D. APPLETON & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
29-35 W. 32d St., New York City -
Caer JULY—AUGUST, 1910 e0crn Seay
$1 a Year
aD Ay
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(Dy 4 \¢
Uy f
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{ iy,
EDITED BY
FRANK M. CHAPMAN
PUBLISHED FOR THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES
D. Appleton 8 Company - ca
HARRISBURG, PA. NEW ne
COPYRIGHT. 1610; BY FRANK M. ‘CHAPMAN
iran - Lore
July - August, 1910
CONTENTS
GENERAL ARTICLES i FAGE
FRONTISPIECE.—PINE SISKIN, GOLDFINCH..........-..--- Louis Agassiz Fueries..
THE BLacK-BILLED Cuckoo aT Home. Illustrated ..........Edmund J. Sawyer...
Some Brrp OrpuHans. Illustrated .........................---L. H. Schroeder..
Crive SwWALLows. dilustrated: 2.2. 920. 524-6 see ce tele sie rok A Brower
THE MIGRATION oF NoRTH AMERICAN SPARROWS. Fifth Paper. Illustrated by
EO UIA RU SSES Fier IES ac pone oa. y saat: eed Seas ee gate W. W. Cooke..
NoTres ON THE PLUMAGE OF NoRTH AMERICAN SPARROWS. Fourth Paper ..-.--.
Frank M. Chapman..
‘ NOTES FROM FIELD AND STUDY ...........-....---2---2-- +2222 eee eee eee
A TRAIT OF THE ENGLISH SPARROW, Edwin W. Humphreys; REPLACING A FALLEN
Swirt’s NEst, Illustrated, L. P. Emerson; Curtos 1n Nests, L.S. Keyser; SOME
Rare Ducks WiIntERING NEAR Boston, Illustrated, W. Charlesworth Levey;
Eariy APPEARANCE OF GULLS ON COBALT LAKE, OnT., Arthur A. Cole; GREAT
Crests NESTING IN A Box, Egbert T. Bush; PurpLe Martins INCREASING,
Ferdinand Schreiman; NotrEs ON SWAINSON’S Hawk, John McB. Robertson;
LATE STAY OF THE EVENING GROSBEAK, R. R. Seeber; Tor Least FLYCATCHER,
Illustrated, J. M. Schreck; Tue Cat Question, Emily G. Hunt; THE DESTRUC-
TIVENESS OF Cats, Mrs. Oscar Oldberg; A Humminepirrp Guest, Mrs. M. L.
Stephenson; TUFTED TITMOUSE IN NORTHERN NEw JERSEY, Isabel McC. Lemmon;
A Late Pine Siskin, L. Henry Potter; Do BirpS WatER THEIR YOUNG?
Illustrated, Mrs. S. Louise Patteson.
BOOK NEWS AND REVIEWS. ............-.-.--2.-2 2-222-222-2202 e eee eee ee
THAYER’S CONCEALING COLORATION IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM; BEEBES’ ‘OUR
SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS’; TOWNSEND’s ‘A LABRADOR SPRING’; MAcOoUN’S
CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN Birps; THe New A. O. U. CueEcx Lists; PALMER ON
GaME PRESERVES; McATEE ON PLANTS ATTRACTIVE TO Brirps; THE
ORNITHOLOGICAL MAGAZINES.
EDITORIAL (57-2) o cpio: S aibicesa alerscicen oe dein oh lee altar ttan a ates io) estoy si se eae eae ene eee
AUDUBON SOCIETIES—SCHOOL DEPARTMENTS. ....................---.-----
EpirorraL, M. O. W.; THe Mary M. Emery Birp Reserve, H. M. Benedict.
EDUCATIONAL LEAFLET NO. 45. Tur Brack-neapep Grospeak. Illustrated with
Colored Plate by Allen Brooks ..............-.. ..---.---.----W. L, Finley. =
AUDUBON SOCIETIES—EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT ..................-....-..-..-
Tue Girt oF Mrs. RussELL SAGE; FirtaH INTERNATIONAL ORNITHOLOGICAL CoNn-
GRESS; SomME REASONS WHy INTERNATIONAL BirRD Protection Is NECESSARY;
Tue Mary DutcHeR MrmoriaL FunD; Birp LEGISLATION IN ENGLAND; NOTES
FROM WARDENS; DESTROYING Carts.
131
135
137
139
142
143
£53
**x Manuscripts intended for publication, books, elc., for review and exchanges, should be
sent to the Editor, at the American Museum of Natural "History, 77th Street and 8th Avenue,
New York City, N. Y.
Notices of changes of addresses, renewals and subscriptions should be sent to
BIRD-LORE, HARRISBORG, PA.
Subscribers whose subscription has expired will find a renewal blank enclosed in the present
numberof the magazine.
To those whose subscription expired with the June, 1910, issue, and who have not notified us to
discontinue their magazine, the present number is sent in the belief that the matter of renewal has been
overlooked Onreceipt of your renewal, we will send you the Remarkable Bird Picture before described,
which should be considered due notification of the entry of your subscription.
If you do not care to renew. will you please notify us?
Entered as second-class mail matter in the Post Office at Harrisburg, Pa.
A, | Cpasored. 2 7ies.
1. PINE Siskin, Summer. 4. GoLprincnu, ad. female, Summer.
2. PINE Siskin, Fall. 5. GOLDFINCH, ad. male, Winter.
3. GOLDFINCH, ad. male, Summer. 6. GoLDFINcH, yng. male, Winter.
(One-half Natural Size.)
Pird-Lore
A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE
DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS
OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES
Vol. XII JULY—AUGUST, 1910 No. 4
The Black-billed Cuckoo at Home
By EDMUND J. SAWYER ,
With a photograph and drawings by the author
VERY observing bird student knows what is meant
by the unbirdlike species—certain not necessarily
uncommon, but hardly familiar birds. Some of
them are the Woodcock, Cuckoo, Whippoorwill, Nighthawk,
Chimney Swift, Hummingbird and, to some extent, the
Brown Creeper and Marsh Wren. There is a strangeness
F, about these birds, something by virtue of which we are
\ \G not allowed to pass them with the mere glance we might
A Vv bestow upon others which, it may be, we chance to know
\ a even less about. In some, this strangeness is slight and
vague; in others, it amounts to an air of mystery which hangs about
the bird like a veil. Of the latter, the Cuckoo is a striking example.
Wherever seen, a Cuckoo invites our thoughtful attention; there is always
the same engrossed, preoccupied bearing, always that suggestion, to a greater
or less extent, of the mystic.
On June 17, 1909, at the foot of a slight, sandy ridge covered with a scanty
growth of small oaks, locusts and pines, a Cuckoo
slipped silently from a small patch of hazel, or
similar bushes, at arm’s length from me. She
alighted low in a pine a few yards off, and at
once proceeded to dress her feathers, giving me as fine a
chance as could be wished to identify her as a Black-bill.
There was the nest with its two dull blue eggs. It was two
feet off the ground, resting on a fallen, dead locust among
the branches of which the shoots of bushes had grown "™
up. Made of long twigs and stiff grass stalks, and with a decided,
though moderate, hollow rather well lined, it was something more than
a mere griddle of crossed sticks. The lining consisted of a few green
leaves under a thin sprinkling of dry, brown, shriveled oak and similar catkins.
The nest was so plainly exposed from above, and so little concealed from the
132 Bird- Lore
side, that it seemed certain of discovery by any one passing that way. In
a stay of ten minutes, I did not see the bird again.
My next visit was on June 21. From this date until July 6,
I made trips every few days, spending from three-quarters of an
hour to four hours or more near the nest, each time. How rich
and varied would have been such observations about the nest
of a Wren, a Robin or some Warbler, or any of a hundred others
of our common birds! And how comparatively little of real
insight did they yield in the case of these uncanny birds!
At first, I usually found one of the old birds on the nest, and
occasionally when the young were several days old. The eggs
hatched between June 22 and 24. On the 20th both old birds —
came about, and remained within several yards of me for the
forty-five minutes that I spent sitting twenty-
five feet from the nest. The young would
“beg” for food when I shook the bushes about
their nest; and, as they stretched up their heads, I could
see the broken egg-shells under them. The following day
I found only the female about. She called now and then,
as usual since my first visit, but no mate appeared, though a
Cuckoo did occasionally call somewhere at a distance. Half an hour
went by, then an hour, and I had given him up for killed. Finally a
Cuckoo came, and swooped gently at the female perched in a locust
tree. He alighted on the branch she had left just in time to escape
him. There he stood, with slowly rising and falling tail, the other .
bird being a yard or two in front, he raised his tail beautifully
expanded. There was no attempt at pursuit, not a flutter nor a note; in
a few minutes the late comer sailed down over some bushes, and so out of
sight, as quietly as he had made his appearance on the scene. The sexes are
indistinguishable in the field, but I felt sure which was which in this apparent
courting scene.
Two days later, one of the Cuckoos flew up from the bushes about the
nest, and, still I found a Cuckoo occupying
the latter. The suggestive scene in the locust
at once occurred to me, and I hoped to see,
after all, an instance of that remarkable
anomaly, well known with Cuckoos, of
young birds and fresh eggs in the nest together.
From my accustomed seat eight or ten yards
away, I watched the sitter, patiently waiting for her to quit the nest. In the
meantime, the bird which had flown from near the nest had at once proceeded
to dress his feathers, as if he had been sitting—as, for aught I know, he had.
I have seen Waxwings sitting “tandem”’ on their eggs in cold weather.
Seve
The Black-billed Cuckoo at Home 133
After a while, the sitting bird deliberately called a few times from the nest—
a few of the usual kuk-kuk notes. A few minutes still later, she bent her head
under her breast, as if examining the nest contents under her, or, as I thought,
looking to the egg she had just laid; next she hopped to one of the shoots
beside the nest, then flew to a nearby tree. How eagerly I went forward, only
to behold the two callow young, no eggs. It was early morning, somewhat
cold and misty; the old bird had simply been brooding her bantlings.
a
y
NEST AND TWO YOUNG OF BLACK-BILLED CUCKOO
Well, she had called while sitting on her nest, that was something! As usual,
she was alone during most of my stay;—about two hours on this occasion.
As usual, too, she moved from tree to tree, hunting caterpillars, frequently
calling, occasionally dressing her feathers, and often sitting on one perch for
a minute or two at a time; but her head was seldom at rest for more than
a few full seconds at a time and, in consequence, the caterpillars fared ill.
Now it was some little chap near the thorny trunk of a locust, and now a big
brown fellow discovered on a topmost twig. With one of these brown worms
held near the end of her bill, she once spent several minutes within some ten
feet of her nest, apparently intent on feeding the young, but there was no
hint of the anxious, nervous fidgeting of a bird driven to approach her nest
134 Bird - Lore
under siege. After a while the food was missing; apparently she had swallowed
it, having decided that her young could wait a few hours longer, since the enemy
seemed inclined to stay awhile. The nestlings were never fed while I was about,
nor did their parents once exhibit the least impatience.
The actions of these birds are characterized by a peculiar gliding quality.
Extremely slender and graceful, they move among the close-growing branches
with remarkable ease and speed. The eye can scarcely
follow these motions. It is well nigh impossible to tell
whether the bird moves most by the aid of wings, tail,
or feet. The long tail is closely folded, in progressing
among the branches, and seems to act just like the
“shaft of an arrow in sustaining its owner’s
flight, if that elusive sliding through space can
properly be so called. For the most part, it
is only in quick turns and in sudden reaches
far out or abruptly down from a perch that the tail is somewhat expanded.
The bird assumes no special pose in calling, but, the feathers of the throat
and upper breast being much expanded in this act, the Cuckoo has, in some
positions especially, an odd or ludicrous appearance while sounding his strange
notes. There is nothing bird-like about this sound. Usually heard from a
hidden source, one might imagine a boy, hidden in the thicket, experimenting
with a “devil’s fiddle” made from a thin wooden box instead of a tin can. Nor.
is the unnatural element much lessened by catching the bird in the act; there
he sits, apparently in a brown study, dispassionately voicing in those weird
kuk-kuks the meditations of a hidden mind.
It is questionable if any degree of familiarity possible with the Black-billed
Cuckoo would dispel this atmosphere of secrecy in which he seems ever to
move and have his being. In the presence of this strange character, I can well
believe one might make a life study of the species, and still perceive that same
haunting inscrutability.
About July 6, the nest was empty. I had learned a little—a very little—
of Black-bill ways; I had seen a good many, possibly nearly all, of his poses,
and made some fifty distinct sketches of them. But the Cuckoo I had sought
to know and had hoped to think of henceforth, with the Robin, Oriole and
Song Sparrow, as an intimate acquaintance, remained a Cuckoo still—a
recluse, a forbidding, hidden character.
Some Bird Orphans
By MiSS L. H. SCHROEDER, Amsterdam, Montgomery Co.. N. Y.
UNE 12, 1909, a junior member of the Audubon Society brought me
J a little rusty-looking bird, fully feathered, but perfectly helpless. The
boy said he found him near the river, and his father said it was a young
Crow, and wanted to have it killed. I could not say what sort of a bird it
was; but it was a bird, and must be cared for. He was too young to take
food, and for many days I was obliged to force open his bill and feed him.
Slowly he grew, and learned to take food. In July, his feathers began to
change; his head became a beautiful blue, and the wings and tail an iridescent
purple and I knew that it was a Bronzed Grackle. He then ventured ’to fly
on the limb of a tree near the door, but came at my call at any time, walking
in and out at his pleasure during the day, and never failing to come in early
each evening, to be put to bed in his cage. If went out he followed me like
a little dog, and I was obliged to steal out to go on the street.
It would fill many pages were I to recount the amusing things he did
during the day. One of his favorite places was a shelf in the kitchen on which
stood a clock and a number of other things which interested him very much.
He would work with great energy until the clock door was opened, and then
watch the pendulum go back and forth. Among the things on the shelf was
a basket filled with balls of cotton and other material for mending; all these
he threw on the floor, one by one, and, when the basket was empty, he sat
in it seemingly much pleased with his new bed. Often, when I was at dinner,
he would sit on my shoulder and watch, and in a moment his bill would be
in my ear and he would fairly shout. At breakfast, he generally sat in my lap
and had his share of toast and coffee, drinking the coffee from a teaspoon.
It has been said that the Grackle is fond of corn, and does considerable dam-
age to corn-fields. I experimented with cracked corn, green corn, boiled corn,
canned corn, and corn in all shapes, but he would have none of it; but a nice
fat berry bug or a succulent spider were never refused. He would not touch
any sort of fruit, but a cracker, a bit of cake, or a little roasted or boiled meat
were eaten with a relish. Sometimes he would fly on my shoulder and put
his bill in my mouth, to force it open, and then examine my teeth, to see if
they were firm,—not a very pleasant proceeding when I thought of the berry
bugs and spiders! As the summer advanced, he took long flights to the woods,
and at times was gone for hours; but he always returned to his home, and came
to my hand at my call anywhere. When the leaves began to turn, I expected
him to go southward; but September came and passed, and he seemed to have
no thought of going. October 18, in the morning, he seemed restless, and
finally flew away, and, as it had grown quite cold, I felt sure he had migrated.
October 22, he returned, and came to the window to be let in out of the cold,
and when I went out he flew to my shoulder and expressed his joy in every
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136 Bird - Lore
possible way. He remained here until October 25, when, after spending
Sunday and the night in the house, he winged his way southward, leaving
a lonely feeling and the hope to see him again in the spring.
Among the other bird orphans brought to me by children, were two Flickers.
They were most beautiful but I was at a loss to know how to raise them.
I could not put them in a cage, so I set up dead limbs of trees in an empty
room and found this worked to perfection. To find the right kind of food
was another puzzle, but at last I found bananas to be the thing; in fact
A YOUNG GRACKLE
one of them was raised entirely on bananas, while the other would eat boiled
veal, strawberries, cherries, and boiled green peas. The intelligence of these
little creatures was wonderful. They soon learned to know my step, and would
call loudly when they heard me come up the stairs, and the moment I opened
the door one would be on my head or shoulder. Often in the night, I was
awakened by their talking in their sleep, this I never observed in any other
bird. When they learned to eat from a dish, I would set the food on the floor
and leave the door ajar, to peep in to see the two little ones eat, and hear |
them talk to each other as if they were pleased with their bill-of-fare.
A little Bank Swallow ought also to be mentioned. A boy brought one to me
when it was so small that I could not see it’s bill without glasses, and it seemed
almost impossible to force it open and feed it; but the little thing was so bright
and cheerful that it was worth any amount of trouble to raise it. I had made
arrangements to go to the Catskills three days after it was brought to me,
and took it with me, feeding it on the train and boat. As it grew older, I
found the diet of bread, milk and eggs would do no longer so engaged
children to help catch flies. In one afternoon my tiny Swallow consumed
eighty-five large flies, which shows what a large number of insects they destroy.
Cliff Swallows
By FRANK A. BROWN, Beverly, Mass.
With a photograph by the author
KIMMING abundantly over the fields of grass and alders, digging
S in the clayey mud along the seashore and inland streams, the easily
identified and confiding cliff Swallow is one of the most common and
abundant residents of eastern Maine and of the Nova Scotian valleys. Where
I have watched it during the last season, in Washington county, Maine, and
the vicinity of Grand Pré, N. S., it outnumbered by far all the other Swallows.
Scarcely an available barn, in certain spots, but has its nests in varying quan-
tities. On one small barn I counted one hundred and seventy-eight of the
clay nests hanging in rows and clusters from one side alone, and many others
have easily supported at least one hundred nests. From these colonies the
birds are continuously circling the immediate door-yards of the barns and
houses, and flying abroad over the orchards and fields on easy wing in pur-
suit of food and pleasure. At night and morning, especially, and at certain
other times of the day, all of the Swallows of the colony seem to be on the
wing in the vicinity of the nests. At other times there are simply individuals
going and returning from greater distances.
TI have carefully questioned many farmers, from place to place, as to their
disposition toward the birds, and have found in practically all cases much
love for the little fellows. Their coming is eagerly looked for and welcomed
in the spring, and their cheerful company and confident tameness are the
especial joy of the children. As well, all the testimony was to the effect that
the flies and mosquitos were noticeably decreased by their presence. To make
a rough estimate of their benefits to the farmers in the consumption of insects,
I lay on my back close by a small colony, and, by watching for half an hour
a nest where there were four young birds, estimating two or three insects
being brought at a feeding, about nine hundred would be consumed by that
family each fifteen-hour day of its rearing.
The seeking of mud for the nest-building I found particularly interesting
to watch. In one place was a trench dug some five feet deep, and with a most
inviting bed of soft sticky clay at the bottom. The Swallows were making
the most of the opening of such a mine, and, through the entire forenoon that
I observed them, they flocked in numbers and worked most conscientiously.
As they were so fearless in flight, not hesitating to come within a foot or two,
I thought it possible to watch them within some ten or fifteen feet, by getting
down into the trench and remaining quiet; but, after some twenty minutes
of it, I found that it would not work, and that I was only wasting their precious
minutes of a pleasant June day. So, having a brown poncho, I fastened it
by rocks across the trench, got a box for a seat behind it, and, hiding in its
shelter, was within a few feet of them in asmany minutes. They came in eager
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138 Bird - Lore
succession, fluttering down, feet dropped, ready to settle lightly on the soft
mud. The moment the feet touched ground, the body and tail were well up,
so as not to soil those sleek feathers, and the wings extended straight over the
back, continually fluttering to keep the feet from sinking or sticking. Mouth-
fuls of the clay were quickly gathered, the wings continually shaking, and
soon the Swallow was off. Every one was busy, mostly mindful only of his
own affairs; but now and then a tiff occurred, where two wanted the same
spot. Every newcomer called softly, and those flying above and across
were musically happy.
The nests are none too well fastened to the rafters, and a heavy rainstorm
at the wrong season destroys many of the young birds and eggs. The gather-
ing of the families and clans takes place early, so that late August sees the
majority gone for the season, to return again to their old homes with another
spring.
* 4 Sen ¥
= e = ~
PIE ak As ei
CLIFF SWALLOWS GATHERING MUD
The Migration of North American Sparrows
FIFTH PAPER
Compiled by Professor W. W. Cooke, Chiefly from Data in the Biological Survey
With Drawings by Louis AGAssiz FUERTES
(See frontispiece)
PINE SISKIN
_ The Pine Siskin breeds in southern Canada, the extreme northern United
States, and in the mountains south to North Carolina and New Mexico.
In the winter it extends its range almost, if not quite, to the Gulf coast;
but, at the same time, some individuals remain through this season almost
at the northern limit of the summer range, making it impossible to obtain
any dates of arrival or departure over most of the northern United States.
In addition, the Pine Siskin is one of the most irregular birds in its migratory
movements. One winter it may be present in thousands, and none be seen
again for several years. It was particularly abundant in the winter of 1906-7,
and remained unusually late during the cold spring of 1907.
SPRING MIGRATION
Number | 4.
verage date of Latest date of the
PLACE Bivens, the last one seen last one seen
Northern Florida...............-...-|} 2 March 22 March 26, 1890
Greensboro,:Alay. 2. 6. sees ese March 30, 1888
Southern Mississippi................ 2 April 15 April 19, 1902
Werner exe 2) eiysteret-sousesws oe castsie «P= May 29, 1907
NV lathe Nex nireeyevar as ecuspayee clejani) ove = May 26, 1890
Chanlestont Sn C.5% ata e ae de April 19, 1909
Iai besoin IN ey (Cols nineteen eed eee May 9g, 1885
Washinetons De Canyon cs cte see 3 May 16 May 20, 1904
Northern New Jersey. Ge Soden ce emon & May 18 June 15, 1907
St. Louis, Mo.. = AS a Mere nes May 23, 1907
Chicago, Tl isi ole ema | June 9, 1907
Openling Oo eal. ee la ee os 5 May 10 May 20, 1907
Southern Michigan.................. 5 May 12 May 23, 1897
Grmme Pal paarta sce A atserey sit! ces 4 May 18 May 30, 1890
Manhattan, Kans.................... 5 May 10 May 16, 1885
Blue Rapids, Kans....
Lincoln, Neb..........
May 28, 1907
May 23, 1899
FALL MIGRATION
Number wer .
PLACE Seat | ee onecss | Guo: crc een
Quebec City, Canada................ August 8, 1890
Southern Maine.................... 4 October 12 August 11, 1906
Eastern Massachusetts.............. 4 October 17 October 13, 1891
Northern New Jersey............... 5 October to October 3, 1908
IRON OV As Paisley ite cieisicsieisrd oD eevaks eyesee cies 5 October 13 September 30,1806
Philadelphia san eucy cm actos ea gee =e 3 October 18 October 12, 1884
Washington, D. C................... October 24, 1889
French Creek, W. Va............--... 2 October 12 October 6, 1892
(139)
140 Bird - Lore
FALL MIGRATION, continued
PLACE ae fovpeeaateat, | Pee teat te
yet
Raleigh oiNin Cid oiyaeion cok eure tea aes emt 4 November 11 | November 3, 1886
CentralaWisconsinge eee i aes 3 October 14 September 5, 1903
(Clavier rego), lll Nees wecesateinnens ae nie aien nls. fc, B October 8 September 18, 1896
OberlinssO ve, vit ak cach ete aus 2 October 20 | September 26, 1896
Grimmell Man oes Caen aa mes ert 2 October 21 | October 14, 1889
Tanwmenic ey JkcaaS ene se sees ecaeeieer ns | September 30, 1905
Hredexnicksbumpalexseny ier inert A October 17, 1894
The average of nine years’ records at Aweme, Manitoba, of spring arrival
is May 10, and the earliest May 4, 1901; Columbia Falls, Mont., April ro, 1894;
Edmonton, Alberta, May 20, 1909; Godbout, Quebec, March 26, 1888. The
average of the last seen at Aweme, Manitoba, is October 30, and the latest
November 6, 1908; Quebec City, Canada, December 18, 1888.
GOLDFINCH
The Goldfinch, represented by the three races mentioned in the succeeding
article, ranges from ocean to ocean, spends the winter principally south of
the forty-third parallel, and breeds, for the most part, north of the thirty-fifth
parallel. In the region between these two parallels, it is found all the year.
But, in addition, it occurs irregularly in winter over much of the northern
United States and even sometimes in southern Canada. The great bulk
of the Goldfinches migrate late, but a few wander from their winter stations
at an earlier date, and the records of the real migration are so mixed with
records of these wanderers and of winter birds that no exact statement can
be made of the date of migration throughout most of the United States. A
good example of this irregularity is found in the dates of the first seen at
Ottawa, Ontario, where the following are the dates of “arrival” for twenty-
two years: January 14, 29, February 10, 13, 28, March 5, 8, 13, 15, 25, 28,
April 7, 11, 12, 17, 26, May 9, 10, 13, 14, 22, 25. It is obvious that where
the dates of arrival extend over four months no exact average date can be
obtained.
SPRING MIGRATION
PLACE a cryeue | Avene Geis of | Eales aes
it
Allred muN ig tc cece Aree sssody tne nas hs a April 25 March 9, 1898
Eastern Massachusetts.............. | 2@ May 5 Occasional, winter
Biya ovate giles crcccne one nena cee ) 18 May 3 April 23, 1885
ScotchwbalkewiNe Bios onrenee eee ' 7 May 18 February 15, 1901
St. John, N. Bs ay seanen a ae Ditdecon cits wtih 6 May 20 April 12, 1895
Chatham, N. B Seni eny Se eR 15 May 27 May 20, 1891
Pictou, N.S. ell 8 May 16 May 1, 1889
North Riv ©, Prince Edward Island . el 4 May 31 May to, 1889
The Migration of North American Sparrows
SPRING MIGRATION, continued
I4I
Number ee Carli
PLACE era ee aes ci We sctce sativa
Shenbroo ken One anae remaster cee 4 May 19 April 26, 1903
Montreal (Oueynseaceer nee yee ee eee 5 May 22 ae 6, see
Godbowtm Ones see ec a eee ae te une 7, 1884
Chicago, = Me ivere Wa daar cvamereeeres sae II May 3 Occasional, winter
Salem way Wich ere ser eps er getses 22,2 eae 4 May 4 March 18, 1901
Baus Ste Marie, Mich! 2.0... 2..-24- 4 May 22 April 7, 1899
Galt (Onttarioneca.s ase spa ne eee. 9 May 11 May 2, 1899
Ottawa; Ontanio-s.) 52.05. eter ane te: II May 14 Occasional, winter
Northeastern Minnesota ............ 7 May 18 May 9, 1896
Southern South Dakota............. 9 May 17 May 5, r90r
Northwestern North Dakota.........! 17 May 22 May 15, 1894
Anweme, Manitoba. co.