cover

[a1]

VOL. XVIII
No. 2
MARCH-APRIL, 191620c. a Copy
$1 a Year
Bird-Lore

Edited by
FRANK M. CHAPMAN
Published for the Audubon Societies
BY
D. Appleton & Company
HARRISBURG, PA.
     
NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY FRANK M. CHAPMANR. Weber.

[a2]

Bird-Lore

March-April, 1916

CONTENTS

GENERAL ARTICLESPage
Frontispiece in
Color
—Bush-Tits, Verdin, and Wren-Tit

Louis Agassiz Fuertes

The World’s Record for Density of Bird
Population.
Illustrated by the author Gilbert H. Grosvenor
77

The Robin in Yosemite.
Verse Garrett Newkirk
84

The Spring Migration of 1915 at Raleigh, N. C.

S. C. Bruner and C. S. Brimley
85

First Efforts at Bird Photography.
Illustrated
by the author H. Tra Hartshorn
88

Long-eared Owl on Nest.
Illustration
H. and E. Pittman
91

The Interesting Barn Owl.
Illustrated by the author
Joseph W. Lippincott
92

Photographs of Flickers
Arthur A. Allen
96

The Migration of North American Birds.

Illustrated by Louis Agassiz Fuertes W. W. Cooke
97
Notes on the Plumage of
North American Birds.
Thirty-seventh Paper Frank M. Chapman
NOTES FROM FIELD AND STUDY100
BOOK NEWS AND REVIEWS110
Grinnell’s Distributional List of California Birds;
Taverner On The Food Habits Of Cormorants;
The Ornithological Magazines.
EDITORIAL112
THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES—SCHOOL DEPARTMENT113
Bird and Arbor Day—An Awakening, A. H. W.;
Junior Audubon Work;
Ways of Keeping up Interest in Bird Study;
For and From Adult and Young Observers,
Red-wing Blackbird. Ills.
EDUCATIONAL LEAFLET No. 85. Chestnut-sided Warbler. With colored plate
by Bruce Horsfall     T. Gilbert Pearson
128
AUDUBON SOCIETIES—EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT132
A Case in Point;
A Feeding-Shelf; Photographing Water-Fowl;
Birds and the Cold Spell;
Florence Merriam Bailey;
New Members and Contributors;
The Virginia Game Bill;
Notes From the Field.

 Manuscripts intended for publication, books, etc., for review and exchanges, should be sent
to the Editor, at the American Museum of Natural History, 77th St. and 8th Ave., New York City.

Notices of changes of addresses, renewals and subscriptions should be sent to
BIRD-LORE, HARRISBURG, PA.

Please remit by Draft or Money Order

Important Notice to All Bird-Lore Subscribers

B

ird-lore is published on or near the first days of February, April, June,
August, October, and December. Failure to secure the copy due you should be
reported not later than the 18th of the months above mentioned. We cannot
supply missing copies after the month in which the number in question was issued.

Entered as second-class mail matter in the Post Office at Harrisburg, Pa.

[a3]

Send $1 for this famous

WREN HOUSE

Known as Jennie’s Choice

For three seasons “Jennie” preferred
this House where there
was a choice of fifty.

A. P. GREIM
“Birdville”
     
TOMS RIVER, N. J.

THE JACOBS BIRD-HOUSE COMPANY

Our Indorsement.

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user at factory prices, thus giving customers the
benefit of local dealers’ and agents’ commissions.

Mention this magazine and send 10 cts. for
our beautifully illustrated bird-house booklet.

JACOBS BIRD-HOUSE COMPANY
404 S. Washington St., Waynesburg, Pa.

Just the Book to Interest Children
in Bird Study

LITTLE BIRD BLUE

By William L. and Irene Finley

“No child can read this beautifully printed and illustrated book without
having his love for the bluebird increased; even the adult will find much pleasure
in text, illustrations, and exquisite make-up.”—Guide to Nature.

“One of the prettiest and most commendable
of children’s books.”—St. Louis Republic.

“It has the beneficial effect of intensifying
our love of birds.”—Rochester Post Express.

“Children could hardly have a more
happy introduction to bird-study.”—Lexington Herald.

“One of the most entertaining books
for juveniles.”—Boston Globe.

“Told in a manner to delight children.”—Zion’s Herald.

“Mr. and Mrs. Finley have written
the book with much charm, and woven
into the story a great deal of bird-lore.”—Portland Evening Telegram.

Profusely illustrated with drawings by Bruce Horsfall and photographs
by Mr. Finley. Price 75 cents net.

4 Park Street
BOSTON
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO.,16 East 49th St.
NEW YORK

[a4]

Everything from “Soup to
Nuts” for the Birds

Try Evang Bros. Mixtseed for
Native and Migratory Birds!
Large size package, 50 cents.

230 Main Street Evanston, Illinois

Bird Gardening

W

ALTER M. BUSWELL, at present the
Superintendent of the famous Bird
Sanctuary of the Meriden Bird Club, is prepared
to give expert advice on all matters pertaining
to the attraction and protection of birds.

Address: Meriden, New Hampshire

I should be pleased to have any
MUSEUM or HIGH SCHOOL
desiring to secure an excellent
ORNITHOLOGICAL and
OÖLOGICAL COLLECTION
for study and scientific purposes
communicate with me.

GEO. W. AMES
No. 707 Washington Avenue
Bay City, Mich.

To Bird-Lovers

Use Comstock’s
BIRD NOTEBOOKS
Nos. 1 and 2
in your bird study

Each book has outlines for recording
location, size, nesting, habits, etc., for use
in the field. In addition, book No. 1 has
30, and book No. 2 has 28 outline drawings
of birds (by Louis Agassiz Fuertes), on
watercolor paper for recording the colors.

These books are used in quantity in
classes, rural, city and normal schools and
colleges.

Pocket size, 124 pages
30 cts. each, 50 cts. set of two


Send for circular of the Nature
Notebook Series


The Comstock Publishing Company
110 Roberts Place, Ithaca, N. Y.

Wren House No. 6

Do You Love Birds?

Encourage them to live in your
gardens. Use our successful bird-houses
for Wrens, Chickadees, Bluebirds
and Purple Martins. Strongly
made—well painted, to resist weather.
Prices 35¢ to $10. Design illustrated
$1 50. Our reliable wire Sparrow Trap
endorsed by U. S. Government, $3
F. O. B. Dubuque. Write for free
illustrated Folder No. 233-B.

Farley & Loetscher Mfg. Co., Dubuque, Iowa

Bird-Lores
Wanted

(The publishers of BIRD-LORE respectfully
urge subscribers who desire to
have unbroken files of the magazine, to
renew their subscription at the time of
its expiration.)

Vol. I, Nos. 2, 3, 4; Vol. II, Nos.
1, 2, 3, 5; Vol. III, Nos. 4, 5; Vol.
XIII, Nos. 1, 2. Philip Dowell,
Port Richmond, N. Y.

Vol. I, Nos. 2, 3, 4, 6; Vol. II,
Nos. 2, 3, 5; Vol. III, Nos. 1, 2, 4;
Vol. IV, Nos. 1, 2; Vol. V, No. 1; Vol.
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X, Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5; Vol. XII, Nos. 4,
6; Vol. XIII, Nos. 1, 2, 4; Vol. XIV,
Nos. 1, 2; Vol. XV, No. 6. W. H.
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Vol. XII, No. 5; Vol. XV, No. 6;
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Vol. III, No. 2; will pay $2. E.
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Vol. XIII, No. 1. E. S. Wilson,
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Vol. XI, complete. A. J. Anderson,
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Publisher’s Note.—Complete sets
of Bird-Lore can no longer be supplied
by the publishers, and now bring
nearly three times the price at which
they were issued. To subscribers who
desire to complete their files, we offer
the free use of our advertising columns.

 [a5]

[a6]


(One-half natural size)

  • 1. Bush-Tit
  • 2. Lead-colored Bush-Tit
  • 3. Lloyd’s Bush-Tit, Male
  • 4. Lloyd’s Bush-Tit, Female
  • 5. Verdin
  • 6. Wren-Tit

[77]

Bird-Lore

A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE
DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS

Official Organ of The Audubon Societies

Vol. XVIIIMarch-April, 1916No. 2


The World’s Record for Density of Bird Population

By GILBERT H. GROSVENOR

Editor of the National Geographic Magazine

With photographs by the author

I

n the winter of 1913, our family bought a farm of one hundred acres, fifty
acres in forest and fifty in fields, in Montgomery County, Maryland, about
ten miles from Washington. We moved out in April. At the time, no members
of the family, including my wife, six children, and myself, could name
more than three birds—the Crow, the Robin, and the Turkey Buzzard. We
had, however, become interested in birds, owing to our friendship for the
Editor of Bird-Lore, and for other Audubon workers, and determined to see
what we could do to get birds around the home, which we named ‘Wild
Acres.’

The house is a typical old farmhouse, surrounded by an old apple and pear
orchard, with vegetable garden and hedges, and open fields beyond. Surrounding
the fields is a tract of fifty acres in woods, with a beautiful stream, and
several springs scattered around in the fields and woods.

The first thing we did was to drive away the English Sparrows which had
possession of the place. We got small shot-guns, and, whenever a Sparrow
appeared, shot him. It wasn’t long before those that were not shot, left. We
then made houses for Martins, Wrens, Bluebirds and Flickers, some of which
were immediately occupied. We had such success that in the winters of 1914
and 1915 we put up more houses, and in the spring of 1915 had attracted so
many birds around the house that Dr. H. W. Henshaw, the Chief of the U. S.
Biological Survey of the Department of Agriculture, became interested, and
delegated Dr. Wells W. Cooke to visit our place. Dr. Cooke was so impressed
by the number of feathered friends that we had gathered around us that he
urged me to make a census of the birds living on an acre or two adjacent to the
house, as he thought it probable that a count would bring us a world record.
The record up to this time was held by a family in Chevy Chase, Maryland,
who had attracted thirteen pairs of birds to one half-acre.

[78]

A BLUEBIRD’S NEST BOX, IN WHICH A PAIR OF BLUEBIRDS REARED
THREE BROODS IN 1914, AND AGAIN IN 1915

The prospect of securing a world’s record was so inviting that, during the
last week of June, 1915, I made a census of all birds nesting on the acre adjoining
our house and barns, with the result that we found fifty-nine pairs of birds
with young or eggs in the nest on that acre, the highest number of land-birds
inhabiting one acre that has yet been reported to the Department of Agriculture
or to any Audubon society. The details of the census are presented below:

LIST OF BIRDS NESTING ON ONE ACRE ADJACENT TO THE HOUSE AND BARNS
OF GILBERT H. GROSVENOR IN THE WEEK OF JUNE 15-21, 1915

(Only pairs whose nests were located with young or eggs in them are counted.)

Flicker*1pair
Bluebird*1
Yellow Warbler1
Orchard Oriole2
Catbird2
Song Sparrow1
Chipping Sparrow2
Phœbe1
House Wren*14
Robin7
Robin7
Kingbird1
Martins*26
Total59pairs
English Sparrows0

The asterisk (*) indicates pairs nesting in boxes put up by the family.

A similar census made of the second adjoining acre showed thirty-three
pairs nesting in this area, as follows:

[79]

LIST OF BIRDS NESTING ON SECOND ACRE

Song Sparrow1pair
Carolina Wren*1
Flicker*1
Maryland Yellow-Throat1
Brown Thrasher1
House Wren*4
Robin2
Catbird1
Chipping Sparrow1
Screech Owl* (no young in nest
 June 15, as brood had
 already left)
1
Martins*18
Towhee1
Total33pairs
English Sparrows0

A MARTIN HOUSE IN THE MEADOW, ABOUT ONE HUNDRED YARDS FROM THE HOUSE

It is advisable not to place the Martin box too near the
house, for the birds begin to chatter long before dawn, and
will awaken the household.

MARTIN HOUSE IN THE HEN-YARD OCCUPIED BY
TWENTY-FIVE PAIRS OF MARTINS IN 1914 AND 1915.

The Martins are very efficient
guardians of our chickens. I have
often seen them drive the Hawks
and Crows away. They hate Buzzards
also.

I attribute our success primarily to shooting the Sparrows and driving all
cats away, to putting up many boxes, to keeping fresh water handy at all times,
etc. We did everything we could for the comfort of our birds; for instance, we
put on twigs little pieces of the oil-paper that our butter was wrapped in, and
we left mud in convenient places for the Martins. The Catbirds used the oil-paper
[80]
for their nests, in fact, they used all kinds of scraps. Imagine the delight
of the family when, on examining one of the Catbird’s nests in the autumn, we
found one of the children’s hair-ribbons, and also a piece of an old dress of the
baby!

A SCREECH OWL’S NEST

This box was put up for Flickers in the winter
of 1914. Flickers took possession in March,
but were driven out by Sparrow Hawks. But
the Sparrow Hawks were frightened away two
weeks later by the too great prominence of the
position. Later a pair of Screech Owls adopted
it for their home. Last winter we took the box
down and carried it to the barn, to serve as
a model for making other boxes. On opening it
we found a live owl inside.

A SPARROW HAWK’S NEST ON THE EDGE OF THE WOODS

We had much difficulty in keeping red and
flying squirrels out of the houses placed near the
woods. In 1915 red squirrels drove out a pair
of Flickers brooding in a box on the forest edge.

We had read a great deal about how tame birds become when they are protected,
but were constantly amazed at the quickness with which they perceived
the care taken of them. Perhaps the most remarkable nest was that of a
Phœbe, which was built under the cornice of the piazza, within reach of my
hand. We had a little school in the morning at the house, and ten children
were continually running up and down the piazza, shouting at the top of their
voices, but the Phœbe went on building her nest, then hatched her eggs and
fed her young without fear, though she could see everyone and everyone could
see her.

I was also surprised to find how friendly birds, even of the same species, can
become. For instance, we had fourteen pairs of Wrens on a single acre, some
of the nests being not more than fifteen feet apart. We also had Robins nesting
only twelve yards apart. The Bluebirds, on the other hand, do not like
[81]
each other and would not tolerate another pair of Bluebirds nearer than 100
yards.

A FLICKER WAS NESTING IN BOX AND DID NOT STIR, THOUGH THERE
WERE FIVE CHILDREN IN THE TREE AND FOUR BELOW WHEN THIS
PHOTOGRAPH WAS TAKEN. (June 7, 1914.)

[82]

AN APARTMENT HOUSE FOR WRENS

When we started building houses, we
did not realize that Wrens would not share
a house with another pair of Wrens. This
house has rooms for eighteen pairs of Wrens.
The room on the left was occupied in 1913,
1914 and 1915, and all the other rooms were
vacant. Note Wren on box.

A WREN HOUSE IN THE GARDEN

Note the Wren on the perch. We had
fourteen pairs of house Wrens nesting on
one acre adjoining the house and barns in
1915. This is the largest number reported
of Wrens living on one acre.

The first year we had no Flickers, but there was a pair nesting in an old
apple tree on our neighbor’s property. During the winter the tree was blown
down and our oldest son obtained permission to get it. He cut out the portion
of the tree which contained the nest, cleaned out the hole, and then hung the
[83]
nest in a dying cherry tree, as shown in our illustration. The nest was not
more than ten yards from the house, but was taken possession of in 1914 and
again in 1915.

The photographs illustrate some of our tenants. We are putting up this
winter many more houses on the rest of the farm, as, up to this time, our efforts
have been confined to the ten acres nearest the house.

A FLICKER’S NEST BOX ON AN
APPLE TREE ONLY TWELVE YARDS
FROM THE HOUSE AND BORDERING
THE DRIVEWAY.

In this same tree, also, a pair of Robins
and a pair of Chipping Sparrows nested in
1915.

A BOX OCCUPIED BY FLICKERS
AND WRENS

When the Flickers came back the second
year (1915), they tried to excavate a new
door to their house, on the opposite side
from that shown in the picture, but soon
desisted, leaving a hole about 2 inches deep.
Later a pair of Wrens built a nest in the
new hole, so that in 1915 a brood of Flickers
and a brood of house Wrens were living in
the box at the same time. Note the Flicker’s
head in the doorway.

We have already found the following birds nesting on some part of the 100
acres of field and woods: Flicker, Robin, Catbird, Bluebird, Orchard Oriole,
House Wren, Purple Martin, Summer Warbler, Brown Thrasher, Chipping
Sparrow, Phœbe, Barn Swallow, Grasshopper Sparrow, Whip-poor-will,
Towhee, Indigo Bunting, Black-and-White Warbler, Song Sparrow, Meadowlark,
[84]
Chat, Maryland Yellowthroat, Field Sparrow, Cardinal, Red-eyed Vireo,
Ovenbird, Wood Thrush, Scarlet Tanager, Acadian Flycatcher, Great Crested
Flycatcher, Mourning Dove, Kingbird, Red-headed Woodpecker, Wood
Pewee, Bob-white, Chickadee, Titmouse, White-breasted Nuthatch, Carolina
Wren, Mockingbird, Goldfinch, Crow, Bluejay, Downy Woodpecker, Hairy
Woodpecker, Barred Owl, Screech Owl, Sparrow Hawk, Red-shouldered
Hawk, Redstart, Yellow-throated Vireo, Cedarbird, Vesper Sparrow, Louisiana
Water-thrush, and Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

We had, in 1915, seventy-five pairs of Martins in an area of approximately
ten acres, and expect to have a great many more than this in 1916. We had
one pair of Red-shouldered Hawks nesting in our woods, and kept them for
two years; but they developed such fondness for poultry, being caught repeatedly
thieving, that finally we had to shoot them.

We have in the woods a splendid pair of Barred Owls. They come around
the barns at night, and I suspect them also of attempts at chicken-thieving,
but they are too handsome and rare a bird in these parts to shoot. We have
nothing good to say of the Screech Owl, which we suspect of having been the
cause of the mysterious disappearance of many young birds from the nests.

If any one wants excitement, I suggest that he buy or borrow a stuffed
Owl, and put it out in the garden in the daytime during the nesting season.
All the birds in the neighborhood will soon congregate, and the children will
learn the birds quicker than in any other way.


The Robin in Yosemite

By GARRETT NEWKIRK

In this divine cathedral grand,

O’erborne by silent awe I stand,

When, friendly greets me, near at hand,

The Robin in Yosemite.
Beneath high wall and towering dome,

By roaring rapids dashed with foam,

I hear the old, sweet voice of home—

The Robin in Yosemite.
I hear from every sculptured wall

The voices of the ages call,

And, cheering with their echoes all,

The Robin in Yosemite.

[85]


The Spring Migration of 1915 at Raleigh, N. C.

By S. C. BRUNER and C. S. BRIMLEY

T

he migration of birds at Raleigh, N. C, during the spring of 1915 was
so unusual that it is believed that a short account, together with a list
of the records, will be of interest to the readers of
Bird-Lore. In considering
the following remarks, it may be well to bear in mind that records of
the bird migration in this locality have been made each year for the past
thirty-one years. Also, the amount of time spent in making observations during
the past season is significant. From March 19 to May 7, field trips were
made by Mr. Bruner on forty-seven days out of a possible fifty. Prior to and
after this period observations were made by him for several weeks at intervals
of from two to four days. Mr. Brimley was in the field for twelve days from
March 30 to April 28, but was unable to pay full attention to birds. The duration
of each trip averaged about four hours, this figure not including the time
spent in going to and from the city. Observations for the most part were made
independently by each of the writers, and on lands differing somewhat in general
character. It is believed that the great majority of species were recorded on as
near the actual date of their arrival as it would ordinarily be possible to obtain
them.

The most remarkable fact in connection with the season was the very great
delay in the arrival of the earlier migrants and in the departure of the winter
birds. This was very probably due almost entirely to the unusual weather conditions
which seemed to prevail throughout the South during March and early
April. March was abnormally cool, especially so during the latter part of the
month. At Raleigh one-half of an inch of snow fell on the thirty-first, and
this was soon followed by the most severe snowstorm on record for the month
of April. On April 2, at 8 P. M., wet snow began to fall, and continued steadily
until about 8 P. M. on April 3, the ground at that time being covered to a depth
of about ten inches, the total fall being equivalent to thirteen inches of dry snow.
In the wake of this storm came fair and very warm weather. By April 6 nearly
all traces of snow had disappeared, and the birds began to arrive. Between
April 6 and April 9, the Black-and-White Warbler, Louisiana Water-Thrush,
Yellow-throated Warbler, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Maryland Yellowthroat,
and White-eyed Vireo all reached Raleigh, these species being from nine to
fourteen days late. Prior to this period the Chipping Sparrow had appeared
on March 19—about two weeks late,—and the Blue-headed Vireo on April 1,
this bird arriving only one week late. After April 6, the greater number of
other species came in at about their usual time or a few days later, but several
were decidedly early. The Kingbird reached Raleigh on April 12, the earliest
date yet recorded in this locality. However, this was the only record for early
arrival that was broken among the commoner species, although two others
were equaled.

[86]

Six new records were established for late departures of winter birds, namely:
Loggerhead Shrike, April 1; Fox Sparrow, April 6; American Pipit, April 6;
Brown Creeper, April 19; Song Sparrow, April 28, and White-throated Sparrow,
May 19. Two former records were duplicated and seven of the remaining fourteen
species noted were from four to fourteen days later than the average. It
is plain that species which leave normally before the sixth of April could have
been delayed a few days by the severe weather of late March and early April;
but it is not easy to understand how it could have affected, to any marked
extent, the species which depart in late April and in May.

The migration at Raleigh was also characterized by an unusually great
variety of species, including a number of very rare birds. A Black-crowned
Night Heron taken on April 4 and a Bay-breasted Warbler observed on May 5
constitute new local records. Other rare or uncommon species worthy of especial
mention are the Yellow-crowned Night Heron, Osprey, Black-throated Green
Warbler, Yellow-legs, Pectoral Sandpiper, Bartramian Sandpiper, Cape May
Warbler, Blue-winged Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Baltimore Oriole,
Rose-breasted Grosbeak, and Wilson’s Warbler. The total number of species
whose arrival was observed amounted to no less than sixty-eight in all, which is
the largest number yet recorded at Raleigh during a single season. This fact
can probably in no way be attributed to the abnormal weather conditions
before mentioned (except possibly in the case of the Night Herons), but rather
to the large amount of time spent in making observations. Also the fact that
two observers were in the field did not play so large a part in this as might be
expected, as one of them alone observed all but one of the sixty-eight species
recorded.

A. COMMONER SPECIES

I. Species normally arriving before April 1.
NameAverage
date of
arrival
[1]
Arrival 1915Days later
or earlier
than average.
Chipping SparrowMarch7March1912 late
Yellow-throated WarblerMarch24April714 late
Blue-gray GnatcatcherMarch24April714 late
Blue-headed VireoMarch25April17 late
Pectoral SandpiperMarch25April1319 late
Louisiana Water-ThrushMarch26April712 late
Maryland YellowthroatMarch26April712 late
Black-and-White WarblerMarch27April610 late
Black-throated Green WarblerMarch27April1014 late
White-eyed VireoMarch31April99 late
American OspreyMarch31March283 early
II. Species normally arriving from April 1 to 10 inclusive.
Tree SwallowApril3April1310 late
Lesser Yellow-legsApril3April1310 late
Barn SwallowApril7April136 late
Green HeronApril9April145 late
Parula WarblerApril10April155 late
Whip-poor-willApril10April188 late
III. Species normally arriving from April 11 to 20, inclusive.
[87]
RedstartApril12April120 late
Yellow WarblerApril14April173 late
Prairie WarblerApril14April122 early
Yellow-throated VireoApril14April131 early
Spotted SandpiperApril15April132 early
Hooded WarblerApril16April106 early
Crested FlycatcherApril16April248 late
Red-eyed VireoApril16April204 late
Wood ThrushApril16April115 early
Chimney SwiftApril16April133 early
OvenbirdApril17April98 early
Summer TanagerApril17April116 early
House WrenApril17April203 late
Ruby-throated HummingbirdApril18April144 early
KingbirdApril19April127 early
CatbirdApril20April211 late
IV. Species normally arriving later than April 20.
Yellow-breasted ChatApril24April273 late
Solitary SandpiperApril24April1311 early
Orchard OrioleApril25April272 late
Wood PeweeApril25April272 late
Water-ThrushApril27April234 early
Black-throated Blue WarblerApril27April216 early
Green-crested FlycatcherApril30April219 early
BobolinkMay2May31 late
Indigo BuntingMay2April275 early
Blue GrosbeakMay3May12 early
Black-poll WarblerMay4May31 early
Kentucky WarblerMay5April2312 early
Yellow-billed CuckooMay6May148 late

B. RARER SPECIES
[2]

Yellow-crowned Night HeronApril 2 and 8
Black-crowned Night HeronApril6
Rough-winged SwallowApril6
King RailApril7
Rusty BlackbirdApril8
Bachman’s SparrowApril10
Grasshopper SparrowApril17
Bartramian SandpiperApril17
Purple MartinApril17
Prothonotary WarblerApril24
NighthawkApril24
(The last two were noted 15 miles east of Raleigh.)
Cape May WarblerApril27
Olive-backed ThrushApril28
Blue-winged WarblerApril30
Scarlet TanagerApril30
Wilson’s ThrushMay1
Chestnut-sided WarblerMay4
Baltimore OrioleMay4
Rose-breasted GrosbeakMay4
Bay-breasted WarblerMay5
Gray-cheeked ThrushMay13
Wilson’s WarblerMay19

[1] The average date of arrival was calculated from records made during the period
1884 to 1911 inclusive.

[2] This group includes species of which our records are too meager or too irregular
to obtain an average as to time of arrival.

[88]


First Efforts at Bird Photography

By H. IRA HARTSHORN, Newark, N. J.

With photographs by the author

T

he accompanying pictures are the results of my first attempts at bird
photography, and I want to let others know how much pleasure is
to be derived from this method of studying birds. All the pictures I
have taken so far are of the tame birds one sees every day around the house.
That is, if one doesn’t live in too big a city; in which case a trolley to the suburbs
will answer, as it did in my case.

My equipment, which includes a second-hand camera, two plate-holders,
an electrical release, a flashlight battery, small satchel, flexible wire, etc., did
not cost over $8.

CHIPPING SPARROW FEEDING ITS YOUNG

The first nest I saw last year was a Chickadee’s nest. I found it on April 18.
It was still cold, with not a leaf on the trees. The two birds were taking out
chips from the top of a birch stump, which was about seven feet high. The
hole was about eight inches deep. There was still no lining in the nest, so I
knew that the birds had not prepared it for the reception of the eggs.

I visited it again on April 26, and expected to see two eggs in the little home;
but, when I arrived there, I found that the nest had been broken off at the
very bottom of the eight inches already dug. This was caused by the Chickadees’
digging too close to the rotten bark, when the first gust of wind probably
broke it. Much to my delight, the birds were not daunted by this misfortune,
but kept on building. On April 24, the hole was started the second time. A
[89]
friend saw the Chickadees
begin the hole. On April
26, the hole was six inches
deep! The birds had dug
through fourteen inches
of wood to make their
home!

CHICKADEE LEAVING ITS NEST TO FORAGE FOR A
FAMILY OF EIGHT

On May 2 the nest
was finished, and on May
9 there were eight eggs
in the little bit of a hole
that could hardly hold
the mother bird.

May 23, I took my
camera with me to the
nest. I expected that the
young birds would be out
by that time, and that the old birds would be flying in and out with food,
giving me many opportunities for photography. I looked in the nest and saw
that every egg was hatched, so I proceeded to set my camera about two feet
away, when who should appear on the ground-glass but one of the parents,
with a mouth full of struggling
little green caterpillars.
She, if it were the female,
looked at the camera a second
or two, then, without another
thought of the outside world,
hopped down into the nest
and fed her young.

CHIPPING SPARROW APPROACHING ITS NEST

The camera arranged, I
was just about to seek concealment
behind a bush, when
both of the parent birds flew
near the nest with food. I
stood very still. One of the
birds, the male, I think,
stopped too, but the other
one flew right into the nest.
She soon came out, and stood
on the very point I had the
camera focused. Very slowly
I put my hand up to the
shutter-release, expecting the
[90]
bird to fly any minute;
but at last I reached it
and, click, I had my
first ‘close up’ bird
picture. And it was
the best one, too; for
although I took six or
seven others, they did
not turn out so well as
the first one.

CHIPPING SPARROW BROODING

May 31, I went to
take the pictures of the
little Chickadees, but
found that they were
still too small to handle.
I was not able to go
again, but my friend reports that the whole family of eight young left the
nest, and were very healthy-looking little birds. This nest was situated on
the edge of a woods at Verona, N. J.

During the two weeks’ vacation at Fredon, Sussex Co., N. Y., I found
twelve nests, a list of which follows. All but three were found on a farm.

One Robin’s nest, containing
one egg. Deserted for unknown
cause.

Two Field Sparrows’ nests.
Each contained young, almost
full-grown birds. One nest had
an unfertile egg in it.

One Barn Swallow’s nest,
containing four eggs.

Two Red-winged Blackbirds’
nests, each with four
eggs. Both nests were broken
up. One was entirely empty
and the other contained the
shells of the eggs. I could not
find out the cause of this
double tragedy.

A HOUSE WREN ENTERING ITS NEST
IN A FENCE-POST

Two House Wrens’ nests.
Both of these were in fence-posts.
I caught one bird with
the camera just as it was
entering the nest.

[91]

Two Chipping Sparrows’ nests. One was in an unusual place, on the limb
of a Norway spruce that projected over the porch roof. I got some very good
photographs of this family, which consisted of the parents and three young.
The young were hatched on June 6, and they left the nest on June 15.

One Kingbird’s nest, containing three eggs, was on a limb of a willow tree
that extended over a pond about ten feet. The nest itself was three feet
above the water.

One Flicker’s nest. I could not determine the number of young in this
nest, but I knew they were there by their hissing at a shadow over the entrance
to the nest.

This year the Bobolink appeared in the neighborhood of Fredon for the
first time in at least four years, if not more.

Of all the songs of birds I have heard, I like the Bobolink’s the best.


LONG-EARED OWL ON ITS EGGS IN AN OLD CROW’S NEST

Photographed by H. and E. Pittman, Wauchope, Saskatchewan.

[92]

The Interesting Barn Owl

By JOSEPH W. LIPPINCOTT, Bethayres, Pa.

With a photograph by the author

T

he Barn Owl commands my respect. He is the greatest mouse-eating
machine I have yet encountered, and as such surely deserves every
consideration in these days of crop destruction by rodents. Like most
Owls, he does not allow his presence long to remain unsuspected. A loud, harsh
scream after nightfall, repeated at the right intervals to keep one awake and
echoed by the young Owls when they appear, is his greeting. And well may the
little mice shiver in their poor retreats!

I heard the good old Barn Owls again and again during early spring nights,
and later found that two, or perhaps more, young ones were generally in or
about a hemlock grove not far from the creek and the swampy meadows that
make such ideal feeding-grounds and are, in fact, the nucleus of the rodent
hosts that spread over the neighboring farms each summer. It was by mere
accident, however, that I found a nest.

A neighbor was planning a greenhouse on the site then occupied by his
young chickens and, to give security to the glass, cut down a great storm-battered
and fire-scarred buttonball tree that stood at one end of his farm
buildings. Down it came with terrific force, but without killing three young
Barn Owls, which were able to give one of the workmen a big scare when he
climbed over the top. And this happened in the middle of August, when one
brood was already in the woods!

They were in a deep, dark, ill-smelling hollow, and a weird-looking trio
indeed with the white down still clinging over the yellow-brown feathers.
What startled the workman was a splendid series of hisses; for they understood
how to make the sound about as wickedly as the most poisonous serpent.

A little Owl is generally all grit, and these were the grittiest, bramble-footed
propositions I ever expect to handle. Their big eyes kept an unwinking
glare fixed on each one who came near, and they leaped like lightning, often
all three together, at a hand thrust within reach. It would have been very
comical except for the bitter earnestness which the poor little fellows put into
their defense, making one feel sorry for them when double gloves prevailed,
and they were deposited in a chicken-coop nearby, to prevent interference with
the chopping. Then, for hours after the moving, it seemed as if steam were
strangely and violently escaping from an ordinary chicken-coop, much to the
astonishment of visitors.

Around the tree were many of the small masses of fur and bones which
Owls disgorge a few hours after meals. These show very well what animals
have been taken and, in this case, were most interesting, since the dozens I
examined contained the remains of field mice, deer mice, shrews, and moles
only. No rabbits, no squirrels, no insects, no little birds! Indeed, there was
[93]
not a feather of any kind, although the little chickens had been running about
and roosting all spring and summer within a few feet—alluring, easy and constantly
announcing their presence by seductive peeping.

A YOUNG BARN OWL

The old hollow must have suffered long use. It opened toward the south
through a large limb hole about thirty feet from the ground, and also upward
through the broken top of the tree; though that exit was not used, and probably
only served to let in a veritable deluge of water during the thunderstorms. No
doubt, too, the young Owls amused themselves watching the clouds and the
stars pass slowly over their heads day by day, with the added excitement of a
Hawk, Buzzard, or smaller bird now and then. They rested on layers of debris
which, when examined, showed that honey bees had once been tenants, and
later bats and generations of Owls, perhaps many other birds, for hollows have
a strange, interesting history.

The birds themselves seemed about the size of old ones without the full
feathering, strong muscle and weight. They were so queer and wore such
[94]
humorous expressions whenever approached that, from the first, they would
have been objects of continual interested observation, were it not for the rather
discouraging fact that this almost always brought on a quarrel. The bright
light and excited feelings seemed to confuse one so much that he would mistake
the others for enemies and pounce on them. This caused equally fierce retaliation
every time, and resulted in all three being scratched about the thighs.
Darkening the coop remedied this.

It impressed me then as strange that, with all the birds’ show of aggressiveness,
there was no snapping of beaks nor marked disposition to bite; but I
later found that they did not have the same strength in their beaks as most
varieties of Owls, particularly the Great Horned Owls, which crush the skull
of a rabbit with such ease. This, I suppose, has something to do with the
species’ love of very small mammals, which can be torn to pieces and swallowed
without trouble by those queer cavernous mouths. Their hooked claws, which
gripped me on several occasions, were all right, though and as sharp as needles.

The youngsters were left severely alone until evening, when, with the lessening
light, came a quick change. They seemed to lose some of their fear, and
to be expectantly listening for something. Every now and then one would utter
a rasping cry, which blended harmoniously with the insect chorus and yet
could be heard a long distance.

Just as the sun set and the glow still spread over the west, the cries became
very insistent, and a shadow seemed to pass for an instant over the coop as
one of the parents flew quietly into a locust tree nearby, and stood there close
to the trunk, a mouse dangling from the left foot. It soon flew out and circled
noiselessly, only to disappear very soon, much to the disgust of the coop occupants.
Several minutes elapsed, the evening silence broken only by the rasping
call and the drum of the katy-dids; then an old Owl circled by bearing a
mouse in its beak. It may have been the same bird and the same mouse, the
deepening shadows making it impossible to see accurately.

The night being dark, I left my hiding-place and the birds until morning,
when it was surprising to find only the smallest of the three in the coop, and
that dead. The other two had escaped; but how they squeezed beneath slats
which allowed only the tiniest chicks to go through will ever be a mystery to
me. I could not even pull out the remaining one. It was much less developed
than the other two, both in size of limb and feather, and had evidently succumbed
to the effects of the frightful fall, though its body showed no bruise.

I hunted around the debris of the felled trees, and finally spied the others,
which had done some expert climbing and hidden in the darkest corners, one
beneath a tree trunk, the other in a leafy top where it had evidently stayed
all night, as evidenced by a kind of bed stamped down and lined with surplus
food carried there by the parents. Such a supper! three particularly fine
meadow mice and a fat star-nosed mole, all freshly killed and whole.

The youngsters, which at first crouched silently, were in a very bitter frame
[95]
of mind, so I carried them out by the wing tips—the only satisfactory way
I found of handling such a brambly article—and later made them stand in
the light for a photograph—a difficult matter, because they ran with all speed
for the wood-pile as soon as released. Just as I thought I had them, after
many attempts, one mistook the other for a foe, and, without preliminaries,
went for him. However, the other one met the rush feet first and seized the
attacking claws before they hit, practically holding down his brother by each
foot while he glared into his face in comical fashion, and hissed for all he was
worth. This holding hands continued with much comical shaking of heads,
until both birds suddenly struck at each other somewhat as roosters do; then
they held hands again until separated and put into a deep open-top box for
safe-keeping. If left free, dogs, cats, or opossums would most likely have found
them through the strong odor so noticeable about young birds of prey. The
mice were, however, first cut into pieces and thrust down the apparently hungry
birds’ throats, while each was held by his feet and neck.

Every night after that the youngsters were visited and fed by the devoted
old ones, and always it was with mice of some kind or moles—principally
meadow mice, house mice, white-footed mice, shrews and ground moles—as
many as eight sometimes, as shown by the disgorged pellets or uneaten bodies.

The parents also scrupulously cleaned the old box each night. They lived
in the hemlock wood across the narrow valley, but in what tree I could not
discover. One would appear soon after sunset with some kind of mouse, and
by eleven o’clock had apparently satisfied the youngsters’ hunger, for the rasping
cries would usually cease and an occasional louder and clearer cry of the
old birds pierce the darkness.

One fine morning found the youngsters gone. Day after day they had tried
to jump out of the box, each time coming a little closer to the edge. After this
they could be heard calling in the evenings, and sometimes until dawn. Always
in the wood, they perched high up side by side or on nearby limbs, and lazily
relied on their parents to keep up the good work of providing mice. On dark
nights they called much longer than on moonlight nights, which convinced me
that the hunting was more difficult then.

Occasionally a parent could be seen standing always very erect on the
barn gable overlooking a truck-garden, but usually it would watch from a tree
in the marshy meadows, now and then dropping to the ground and staying
there a considerable time as if hunting on foot among the grass clumps, a
method which, from the great agility of the young when pursued on the ground
and in the brush piles, I can well imagine no cat could improve on.

I tried without success to draw them by imitating their strange cry, and
also a mouse’s squeak made by sucking loudly on the back of the hand. A
Screech Owl and many wild animals would take instant notice of the latter,
but not the Barn Owls. Even a rat caught in a trap failed to entice these birds,
though several Screech Owls responded at once.

[96]

But who has stirred a Barn Owl? Over the dew-laden meadows he stands
guard, or perhaps at the edge of the moonlit corn-fields, waiting for the only
prey that seems to interest him. He knows the country like a book, the runways
of the meadow mouse, the house mouse’s path from corn shock to corn
shock, the mole’s early morning starting point.

Under the old buttonball tree the broods of young chickens ran from early
morning to night. The owner felt that the large Owls were a menace to his
flock and watched for them with a gun. But, with the fall of the old tree and
a study of their food, a new light has spread to every farm in that vicinity.

I heard the young Owl’s last ‘rasp’ on October 16; it was full of the weird
power which thrills one in the dark hours. A few minutes later, a big bird flew
low toward the orchard—the young Owls had taken to hunting at last.

In Again...On Again...Gone Again! Photographs of a Flicker by A. A. Allen

[97]

The Migration of North American Birds

Compiled by Prof. W. W. Cooke, Chiefly from Data in the Biological Survey

With a drawing by Louis Agassiz Fuertes

(See Frontispiece)

THE BUSH-TIT

All of the forms of Bush-Tits in the United States are non-migratory. The
present species, which is better known by the name of the Least Bush-Tit, is
confined to the Pacific Coast, where it ranges from northern Lower California
to southern British Columbia. This is the range of the typical form (Psaltriparus
minimus minimus
), while a subspecies called the California Bush-Tit
(Psaltriparus minimus californicus) occurs over much of eastern California
east of the Sacramento Valley, from the southern end of the Sierras nearly to
the Oregon line. A third form, or subspecies, the Grinda Bush-Tit (Psaltriparus
minimus grindæ
), is confined to the southern end of Lower California.

THE LEAD-COLORED BUSH-TIT

The southern boundary of the range of the Lead-colored Bush-Tit (Psaltriparus
plumbeus
) is found in western Texas, northern Mexico, southeastern to
northwestern Arizona, and the Providence Mountains, California. Thence it
occurs north to central and northwestern Colorado, northern Utah and northwestern
Nevada. A few individuals have been noted in southwestern Wyoming
and southeastern Oregon.

LLOYD’S BUSH-TIT

Scarcely coming across the boundary from its real home in northern Mexico,
the Lloyd Bush-Tit (Psaltriparus melanotis lloydi) occurs in the southern part
of the mountains of western Texas and barely crosses the line in southwestern
New Mexico.

THE VERDIN

Confined to the borderland of the southwestern United States, the Verdin
in its typical form (Auriparus flaviceps flaviceps) is one of the most interesting
birds of the desert and semi-arid districts, and is non-migratory. It ranges
north to southeastern California, southern Nevada, northwestern Arizona (and
extreme southwestern Utah), southwestern and southeastern New Mexico,
western and southern Texas, and south into northern Mexico and the northern
half of Lower California. The southern half of Lower California is occupied
by a subspecies called the Cape Verdin
(Auriparus flaviceps lamprocephalus).

THE WREN-TIT

The known ranges of the various forms, or subspecies of the Wren-Tit are
given in the following paper. All the forms are non-migratory.

[98]

Notes on the Plumage of North American Birds

THIRTY-SEVENTH PAPER

By FRANK M. CHAPMAN

(See Frontispiece)

Bush-Tit (Psaltriparus minimus and races. Fig. 1). The Bush-Tits of this
group may be known by their brownish crown. The male and female are alike
in color; the young bird closely resembles them but has the crown somewhat
darker, and the winter plumage differs from that worn in summer only in being
slightly deeper in tone. Three races of this species are known: The Bush-Tit
(P. m. minimus) of the Pacific coast from northern Lower California to Washington,
in which the crown is sooty brown; the California Bush-Tit (P. m.
californicus
), which occupies the interior of California and Oregon, and has
the crown much brighter than in the coast form; and Grinda’s Bush-Tit (P. m.
grindæ
), a form of the Cape Region of Lower California with a grayer back.

Lead-colored Bush-Tit (Psaltriparus plumbeus. Fig. 2). The gray
crown, of the same color as the back distinguishes this species from the Bush-Tits
living west of the Sierras. The male and the female are alike in color; the
young is essentially like them, but has less brownish on the sides of the head,
and there are no seasonal changes in color.

Lloyd’s Bush-Tit (Psaltriparus melanotis lloydi. Figs. 3, 4). Lloyd’s
Bush-Tit is a northern form of the Black-eared Bush-Tit of the Mexican
tableland. Occurring over our border only in western Texas, southern New
Mexico, and southern Arizona, it is rarely observed by the field ornithologist.
The adult male may always be known by its black cheeks; and when the female
has any black on the sides of the head (as in Fig. 4), no difficulty is experienced
in identifying her. But immature males and often some apparently adult
females are without black, and they then so closely resemble the Lead-colored
Bush-Tit that it is impossible to distinguish them by color alone.

Verdin (Auriparus flaviceps. Fig. 5). When it leaves the nest, the young
Verdin is a gray bird with no yellow on its head or chestnut on its wing-coverts,
but at the postjuvenal molt both yellow head and chestnut patch are acquired,
and the bird, now in its first winter plumage, cannot be distinguished from its
parents. These closely resemble each other, but the female sometimes has less
yellow on the head. After the colors of maturity are acquired, they are retained,
and thereafter there is essentially no change in the Verdin’s appearance throughout
the year.

There are but two races of the Verdin. One (A. f. flaviceps) occupies our
Mexican border from coast to coast. The other, the Cape Verdin (A. f. lamprocephalus),
a smaller bird with a brighter yellow head, is found only in the
Cape Region of Lower California.

Wren-Tit (Chamæa fasciata. Fig. 6). The Wren-Tit enjoys the distinction
of being the only species in the only family of birds peculiar to North America.[99]
It is restricted to the Pacific coast region from northern Lower California north
to Oregon. While it presents practically no variation in color with age, sex, or
season, it varies considerably with locality, four races of it being recognized.
Since they are non-migratory, the purposes of field identification will best be
served by outlining their distribution as it is given in Dr. Grinnell’s recent,
authoritative ‘Distributional List of the Birds of California’ as follows:

Pallid Wren-Tit (Chamæa fasciata henshawi). Common resident of the
Upper Sonoran Zone west of the deserts and Great Basin drainage from the
Mexican line through the San Diegan district, northward coastwise to San
Luis Obispo and San Benito counties, and interiorly along the western foothills
of the Sierra Nevada to the lower McCloud River, in Shasta County; also
along the inner northern coast ranges from Helena, Trinity County, and Scott
River, Siskiyou County, south to Covelo, Mendocino County, and Vacaville,
Solano County. The easternmost stations for this form are: vicinity of
Walker Pass, Kern County, and Campo, San Diego County.

Intermediate Wren-Tit (Chamæa fasciata fasciata). Common resident of
the coast region south of San Francisco Bay, from the Golden Gate to southern
Monterey County; east to include the Berkeley hills and at least the west
slopes of the Mount Hamilton range.

Ruddy Wren-Tit (Chamæa fasciata rufula). Common resident of the humid
coast belt immediately north of San Francisco Bay, in Marin, Sonoma, and
Mendocino counties. Northernmost station for this form: Mendocino City.

Coast Wren-Tit (Chamæa fasciata phæa). Fairly common resident locally
in the extreme northern humid coast belt. Humboldt and Del Norte Counties.

decorative image

[100]

Notes from Field and Study


A Correction

Through a typographical error the Tree
Sparrow was included in the Census of
Mrs. Herbert R. Mills of Tampa, Florida,
published in the January-February, 1916,
issue of Bird-Lore. The record should
have read Tree Swallow.—Editor.


Hints for Bird Clubs

The greatest problem with most of our
bird clubs seems to be: What can we do to
make our meetings interesting, so that all
the members, especially the younger ones,
will be anxious to come?

In planning for parties, picnics, or other
entertainments of that sort, we usually
expect to have everyone present take a
part in whatever games or sports there
are, and, no matter how often we have
them, there is never any question but that
all who can do so will be there. I believe
that bird-club meetings can be made
equally attractive if we go about them in
the same way, rather than to plan some
sort of entertainment where only a few
are to have a part, as is usually the case.

There is almost no limit to the number of
interesting and instructive things we can
do, and it will be possible for even the
more advanced bird students to learn
something new at nearly every meeting.

Every member should have a notebook
for keeping a record of the birds seen
and identified, with any new or interesting
things observed, for comparison with
others at each meeting; and each member
should have a standing in the club according
to the number of birds identified and
the amount of work done for the birds.
This will be an inducement for each member
to do something or learn something
new before the next meeting, and to be
present at all the meetings, to learn what
others have done. It will also be found
helpful in learning about birds and in
remembering what is seen; for, unless we
have some special reason for noting carefully
all that may be seen on our walks,
even the most interested observers will
miss many things, and will forget much
of what they did see.

When about to start on a walk of about
three miles, one bright pleasant morning
last June, I decided to keep a list of all
the birds seen and heard from the time I
started until I returned. The walk was
finished between twelve and one o’clock,
when most of the birds were quiet and few
were seen; yet I saw 105 birds on the trip,
and had a good idea of the number and
variety of birds one might see at this time
of the year. If I had kept no record of the
number, I could not have told how many I
was likely to see, or which species would
be seen oftenest. All such things will
prove interesting at the meetings, and will
add largely to our knowledge of birds in
the course of a year.

In winter, we should note the feeding
habits of the different birds and the number
and kinds of winter visitors seen; it is
also a good time to make a study of nests,
where they are placed, and the material
used in each.

In summer, there will be something for
every day if we have our eyes open; nesting
habits, bird-baths, and occasionally
some rare migrant to tell about. It would
be impossible to give a complete list of the
interesting things to be seen at this time.

Every club should own a few good
reference books, and have them at their
meetings, to settle any questions that may
arise. The ‘Color Key to North American
Birds,’ by Chapman, will be found useful
for identification, ‘Wild Bird Guests,’ by
Baynes, for matters pertaining to bird
clubs and bird protection, also ‘Useful
Birds and their Protection,’ by Forbush.

There are many others that would
prove beneficial, but these three are almost
indispensable, if we would learn the ways
of our wild bird friends and what we can
do to help them.

[101]

It is understood that every family of
bird lovers will be subscribers to Bird-Lore,
for few would be willing to miss the
interesting bits of information to be found
in every number of this bird magazine.

Selections from Bird-Lore, the Audubon
Leaflets, books on Nature by standard
authors, and occasionally articles from
some of the popular magazines, might be
read at each meeting. This will prove a
very interesting part of the program, and
there will always be material enough to
fill out any schedule.

Good plates of birds like those obtained
with the Audubon Leaflets and the set
published with the ‘Birds of New York’
will help in identifications, and, as the
cost is very small, every club should have
at least one set of each.

If we can get our clubs once started
along these lines, it seems possible that it
might become more of a problem to find
time for everything than to find something
to do.

One year’s course in a bird club of this
kind should give every member a fairly
good knowledge of what we can do for
the birds, and what they are doing for us.—W.
M. Buswell
, Superintendent Meriden,
(N. H.) Bird Club
.


Ornithological Possibilities of a Bit
of Swamp-Land

For several years, I have had a bit of
swamp-land under my eye, especially during
the cooler months. It is not exactly a
beauty-spot, being bordered by ragged
backyards, city dumps, a small tannery,
and a dismantled factory, formerly used
by a company engaged in cleaning hair
for plasterers’ use.

A part of the surface is covered by
cat-tails, the rest by a mixed growth of
water-loving shrubs, as sweet-gale, leather-leaf,
andromeda, and other shrubs which
like to dabble their roots in ooze. A
brook, connecting two large ponds, runs
through the swamp, giving current and
temperature enough to make certain a
large amount of open water, even in the
coldest weather.

A little colony of Wilson’s Snipe have
made this swamp their winter home for
at least fifteen years, and probably much
longer. Song, and generally Swamp Sparrows
can be found here all winter. This
winter, we have a Green-winged Teal,
finding feed enough to induce her to
remain; and over beside the cat-tails,
about some fallen willows, a Winter
Wren seems much at home.

During recent years, a sort of beach,
made by dumping gravel to cover refuse
from the hair factory, has been a favored
feeding place for various Sandpipers, as
well as the Snipe. The last of the Sandpipers
leave in November, while the Snipe
remain.

Bitterns and Black-crowned Night
Herons drop in during the fall and summer,
and our increasing Ring-neck Pheasant,
the gunner’s pet, loves to skulk around the
edges.

Tree Sparrows, Goldfinches, and their
kin attract an occasional Butcherbird and
the smaller Hawks, Pigeon, Sparrow, and
Sharp-shin in season.

Early spring brings a host of Blackbirds,
Redwings, Bronzed Grackles, and Rusties;
while a Cowbird hung about with some
English Sparrows, until Thanksgiving
time, this year.

We are always on the lookout for something
new to turn up in the swamp, and
are seldom disappointed. For so small a
place, not over five acres, it surely is a
bird haven; especially does it seem so
when, but a few rods away on the nearby
ponds, the ice-men are harvesting twelve-inch
ice. Naturally, local bird-lovers are
praying that the hand of “improvement”
will be stayed a long time in wiping out
this neglected little nook.—Arthur P.
Stubbs
, Lynn, Mass.


My Neighbor’s Sparrow Trap

My neighbor one block to the north,
Professor E. R. Ristine, who gives me
leave to use his name in the present connection,
finally lost his patience with
English Sparrows (Passer domesticus), on
or about May 15, 1915. The fact that
[102]
an elderly person sharing the home with
his family could not sleep at reasonable
hours on account of Sparrow chatter was
an element in the decision to which he
soon came. For into his hands fell an
advertisement of a Sparrow trap, just
such a two-funnel wire affair as was
described and recommended as early as
1912 by the Department of Agriculture in
Farmers’ Bulletin 493. On May 20, 1915,
the trap arrived, and was duly installed
and baited. It was at first placed on the
ground in the small chicken-yard at the
rear of the house, and the outer funnel was
baited with a small amount of cracked
grain, the finer “chick-feed” proving to
be most efficacious. The location of the
trap was changed at different times during
the spring, summer, and fall, and the
total results on the Sparrow population
were satisfactory beyond expectations.

By June 11, only twenty-two days after
the trap was set out, 78 Sparrows had
passed the fatal inner funnel of that simple
contrivance, and at this, fortunately
for the accurate details of the present
account, my neighbor’s interest was
aroused to know precisely what the powers
of his most recent purchase might really
be. With a pencil he marked thereafter on
the siding of his hen-house the mortuary
record: 6/13—84, 6/17—100, 7/9—202,
and so forth. That is to say, a total of 202
birds had been gathered in by July 9,
fifty days after the trap was put into
action, or an average of a little more than
four per day. This rate of destruction was
much increased during the following
month, the 300 mark being passed on July
27, and the 400 mark on August 11. The
rate of capture then declined, and it was
not until September 18 that the figure 508
was registered. The trap remained set
until December 5, at which time the
deadly record stood at 597. A few dozens
more had entered the trap but escaped
through the insufficient latching of the
“clean-out” door. After December 5
heavy snows fell, followed by sleet storms,
and my neighbor temporarily placed his
trap out of service on a back porch.

A few facts in connection with the above
record will prove of interest. The heaviest
catches were made when the currants
became very ripe and the trap was placed
under the laden bushes. Fewest Sparrows
were caught when the sweet corn in the
garden was in the milk stage, the birds
preferring the contents of the juicy kernels
to the dry grain with which the trap was
baited. The largest catch on any one day
was 20 birds, this number being reached
on two different dates, June 27 and
August 4. The Sparrows seemed to
arrive in flocks of greater or less size, and
the record would mount rapidly until these
were gathered in. Then, for several days
possibly, no birds at all would be trapped.
And the fine feature of the entire season’s
experience was that this trap caught
English Sparrows and no other bird whatsoever.
The only exception to English
Sparrows was a single hoary old house rat
that had evidently followed a Sparrow in;
at any rate, the latter was found partially
devoured.

Relief from the Sparrow nuisance began
to come to our neighborhood about the
middle of August, after full 400 of the
noisy chatterers had fallen victim to the
innocent-looking wire cage. And by the
time the Indian summer days of October
came, the English Sparrow tribe in our
part of town had dropped from the status
of “abundant” to only “fairly common.”
Indeed, I have not seen more than six
individuals together in our end of the
little city at any time in the last three
months.

Is it possible that my neighbor’s experience
was out of the ordinary? I do not
see why it should be, but I have found a
similar record only in the above-mentioned
Farmers’ Bulletin, where the capture of
300 Sparrows in six weeks in the Missouri
Botanical Gardens, St. Louis, is noted. If
it is at all typical of what may be accomplished,
then one or two things seem clear.
An easy method is at hand for holding in
check the Sparrow nuisance and more
attention should be given to Farmers’
Bulletin 493 than seems thus far to have
been accorded this worthy publication.—Charles
R. Keyes
, Mt. Vernon, Iowa.

[103]


A Tropical Migration Tragedy

[We are indebted to Prof. M. H. Saville
for a copy of ‘El Comercio’ for October 18,
1915, a newspaper published at San Pedro
Sula, Honduras, which contains the following
account of a migration tragedy.—Editor.]

“At midnight, on October 10, 1915,
there commenced to appear groups of birds
flying in a southerly direction. At the
time darkness set in, we began to hear the
call of a great number of birds that were
circling constantly over the city. This
avian invasion increased considerably during
the night. The main part of the army
of invasion crossing the Gulf of Honduras
arrived in the evening off the coast of
Puerto Cortes. These birds do not travel
by day, but follow the eastern shore,
guided by certain groups that, toward
night, exhausted, ceasing their flight, turn
inland. The bright rays from the electric
lights projected high in among the clouds,
serving to indicate the position of San
Pedro Sula and, attracted by its splendor,
the bird emigrants, greatly fatigued by
their vigorous exercise in the long flight
against contrary winds in their travel
across the Gulf of Mexico (approximately
700 miles), their short stay in Yucatan,
and their flight across the Gulf of Honduras,
the greater part of them fell one
upon another in their revolutions about
the lights, some dropping half-crazed
against the roofs and fences, breaking
wings and legs, some dying outright.

“At two o’clock in the morning, the
greater part of the expedition directed
toward this zone had arrived in the neighborhood
of the city. It was at that time
that the sound of their striking against
the posts and the electric wires was a
continual tattoo. It seemed almost as
though the stones in the streets had been
awakened, and were being hurled against
the inhabitants. Numbers of birds striking
against the zinc roofs gave off a sound
like hurrying footsteps, the drumming on
the zinc extending over the entire city.
At one spot within a radius of two yards
there fell dying six wounded birds. In the
morning the streets were strewn with
bodies; the greater part of them dead,
others wounded.”

A Shower of Birds

In the fall of 1915, a violent wind-storm
passed through the southern states, just
grazing the edge of Spartanburg, in upper
South Carolina. Here the minister of the
First Presbyterian Church was about to
take shelter in his home, from the fury
of the wind, when he saw what appeared
to be a small, black cloud swoop down
upon his roof and disappear. He hastened
in, and found, to his and his family’s
dismay, that little black birds were fairly
pouring down one of the chimneys.

The birds seemed to have been stunned
by the force of the gale to which they had
been exposed, and the floor was soon
covered, several inches deep, with their
inanimate bodies. They were picked up
by the bucketful, and thrown out, but
soon revived and flew away, none the
worse, apparently, for their unusual
experience. Two little fellows who were
overlooked took refuge on a curtain pole,
where they were discovered by a little
girl, several hours later.

This is probably the only time on record
when it literally rained birds. The birds
were common Chimney Swifts.—R. L.
Fripp
, Spartanburg, S. C.


A Heron’s Involuntary Bath

Some of the little comedies of bird life
are amusing to the onlooker, although,
like those happening to human beings, not
always so pleasant to the individuals
participating. A neighbor of mine where
I live on the shores of an island in the
Great South Bay, took up his dock for
the winter season and left a stake in the
water. It is beneath the surface except at
low tide when it projects an inch or two
above. At dusk on the evening of October
23, 1915, two Black-crowned Night
Herons came winging along. The one in
the lead, happening to spy the top of the
nearly submerged stake, immediately
[104]
dropped down and appropriated it for a
temporary fishing-station. Its mate,
probably trusting it had landed in very
shallow water, dropped down also beside
it. But it kept on going down until only
its head and shoulders protruded. It was
a surprised bird, and stood there a few
minutes in its awkward predicament,
looking around as if vainly trying to grasp
the situation. Then, finally giving it up,
it managed to spring out and fly off.—John
R. Tooker
, Babylon, Long Island.


Winter Notes from Carlisle, Ind.

We are having a very mild winter, with
heavy rains. During last week it has been
warm, and numerous Robins have been
here. There is a twenty-acre alfalfa field
adjoining town, and some eight acres of it
was mown only once and the other crop
left on the ground. This makes a regular
haven for the Meadow Larks, and during
the past week they have been having a
regular carnival. You can hear dozens of
them singing at a time. There must be
hundreds of them in this field. Song Sparrows
have also been singing.—J. H.
Gilliland
, Carlisle, Ind.


Notes from Nebraska

What is the most abundant bird in a
given locality? This a question often conjectured
upon by both ornithologists
and casual observers. The terms “abundant,”
“common,” “scarce,” or “very
scarce,” form poor records of actual
abundance, as suggested in recent issues
of Bird-Lore. So, to get data on actual
abundance, I took weekly bird censuses
during the months of May, June, July,
and a part of August, 1915, making counts
of both number of species and number of
individuals.

Of eight such censuses, taken during
June, July, and August, in northeastern
Kansas and southeastern Nebraska, Dickcissels
proved to be the most abundant in
six, if the exception is made of English
Sparrows, which led in numbers in two
censuses. This, I should say, would be
the case over a large part of the middle
West, of which the above-mentioned
vicinities are typical.

Here are my figures on the Dickcissel:

*June 5. Sabetha, Kan., 99 individuals
noted in 4¾ hours afield.

*June 12. Du Bois, Nebr., 64 individuals
noted in 5 hours afield.

*June 19. Pawnee, Nebr., 35 individuals
noted in 5 hours afield.

*June 27. Lewiston, Nebr., 109 individuals
noted in 6½ hours afield.

*July 5. Beatrice, Nebr., 25 individuals
noted in 4½ hours afield.

July 11. Beatrice, Nebr., 46 individuals
noted in 6 hours afield.

July 25. Hebron, Nebr., 36 individuals
noted in 3¾ hours afield.

*Aug. 1. Ruskin, Nebr., 39 individuals
noted in 5 hours afield.

Dates preceded by an asterisk are those
upon which the counts showed the Dickcissel
to be the most abundant species,
English Sparrows excepted. These figures
indicate an average of 11¼ Dickcissels
seen or heard per hour.

And, in spite of this prominent place
the Dickcissel holds in our bird life, I
have talked numbers of times with intelligent
people who not only disclaim any
knowledge of the bird, but say they have
never heard the name ‘Dickcissel’
before.

On July 11, 1915, in and around
Beatrice, Nebr., I counted 5,483 Blackbirds,
which I am reasonably sure were
Bronzed Grackles. Of this number,
5,260 were counted from one location on
the bank of the Big Blue River, the flock
passing continuously for about one hour.
This is mentioned as being further indicative
of actual abundance, and it might be
suggested that, in actual numbers, the
Bronzed Grackles might outweigh the
Dickcissels, their immense numbers in
flocks more than making up for the more
uniform local distribution of the non-flocking
Dickcissels.

In the May-June, 1915, number of
Bird-Lore, I note that Mr. Ridgway
classes the Upland Plover as a “species
verging toward extermination,” speaking
[105]
of it as now very scarce in southern Illinois.
This bird of the prairies is still to
be found in southeastern Nebraska, and I
believe it could not be called very scarce
in that locality. On June 27, 1915, in
Pawnee County, Nebraska, I saw a flock
of nine of these birds; on July 11, in Gage
County, I noted one; on July 12, in Gage
County, I noted eight; on July 23, in
Thayer County, I noted one; and on
August 1, in Nuckolls County, I saw a
flock of ten.

Mr. Ridgway’s description of the song
of the Upland Plover is a fitting one.
Its peculiar, mournful whistle is “one of
the most thrilling of bird songs.”—Howard
Paret
, Kansas City, Mo.

A
Gannet Over the Hudson River

On October 16, 1915, I was crossing the
Dyckman Street New York Ferry and
observed a Gannet, which passed quite
close to the ferry-boat, winging its way
steadily southward toward New York
Bay. It is so unusual and remarkable to
find this bird away from the coast as to
be worthy of record.—J. T. Nichols,
Englewood, N. J.

Petrels on the Hudson

The preceding note from Mr. Nichols
prompts me to add that one afternoon
during the first week in August, 1915 (I
failed to record the exact date), I saw
from the Fort Lee (130th Street) Ferry
at least a score of Petrels coursing low
over the water and flying down the river.
They were on the east side of the river,
from which I had embarked, and as the
boat carried me out of vision, Petrels
were still passing. Doubtless they were
Wilson’s Petrels which, in their search for
food, had gone far above their usual limits
in the lower harbor.—Frank M. Chapman,
Englewood, N. J.


Starling in Ohio

On January 8, Walter and Robert
Kirk, farmer boys living near here, captured
a Starling which has taken refuge
in their barn. I was unable to identify the
bird from their description of it over the
telephone, but when it was brought to me
I readily identified it, as I had been watching
its progress west. Needless to say, I
was somewhat surprised to see it here.
Bird-Lore Christmas census for 1914
reports it for West Chester and White
Marsh Valley, Pa.

So far as I know, this is the first record
of the Starling for Ohio, and it may be the
first west of the Alleghany Mountains.
This seems a long ‘jump’ westward for any
bird in so short a time, especially considering
the mountains it would have to
cross.

I have no doubt as to the identity of
the bird, but have taken photographs in
case of any question.—Sheridan F.
Wood
, West La Fayette, Ohio.


Evening Grosbeaks and Cardinals in Southern Wisconsin

About noon on January 22, 1916, as I
was returning from a walk in South Park, a
flutter of wings, accompanied by soft
whistles and twitters, caught my attention
and, to my surprise and joy, I counted
a flock of nineteen Evening Grosbeaks in
the small maple and elm trees bordering
the sidewalk.

The bright sunshine falling on their
plumage gave them an extremely beautiful
and gay-colored appearance. The
birds seemed to be nearly all males. They
were quite tame, and I was able to
approach close under the trees before they
took to their wings, finally disappearing
in a northeasterly direction. Two years
ago, on one of the coldest days of the
winter, a flock of about fifty visited Reedsburg
and were observed by a number of
our bird-lovers.

I cannot resist giving a brief account of
the pair of beautiful Cardinals that have
been staying in Reedsburg for the past
two weeks. Although I did not have the
good fortune to observe these rare visitors,
yet their identity was made certain
by the authoritative testimony of a number
[106]
of bird-lovers who had ample opportunity
to watch them closely from a
curtained window, which looked out on
the apple-tree and feeding-station only a
few feet from the house; so there was no
chance of an error in their identification.
They were first seen on January 5, in the
midst of a driving blizzard, with the
mercury dropping to 25° below zero. The
pair remained in the vicinity of the grain-strewn
feeding-station for about half an
hour, and have been seen a great many
times since, by a large number of people.—Ethel
A. Nott
, Reedsburg, Wisconsin.


Evening Grosbeaks at Port Henry, N. Y.

On December 17, 1915, I saw a pair of
Evening Grosbeaks.

On January 28, 1916, out over an open
spot of water in Lake Champlain, I saw
three Canada Geese and the men working
near there told me they had been around
there all the morning.

On January 7, 1916, I saw a large flock
of Evening Grosbeaks.

The last two weeks I have seen many
Crows as many as four in one flock.—Dora
B. Harris
, Port Henry, N. Y.


The Evening Grosbeak at Glens Falls, N. Y.

The Bird Club of Glens Falls reports
that on January 25, 1916, Miss Shields
saw on one of our streets, seven Evening
Grosbeaks, four males and three females.—C.
Eveleen Hathaway
, Secretary,
Glens Falls, N. Y.


Evening Grosbeaks at Saratoga Springs, N. Y.

It gives me much pleasure to report to
you that on Sunday morning, January 30,
1916, there was a flock of Evening Grosbeaks
feeding in the open woodland across
the street. When first seen, about twenty
of the birds were sitting quietly on the
upper branches of a leafless maple, the
balance feeding on exposed ground
between snowdrifts under the trees.
There were thirty-seven birds in the flock,
of which one-fourth to one-third were
males in the brilliant yellow, white, and
brownish black plumage. They were
talking to each other softly, and the low
beaded call was frequent; but I did not
hear the males whistle as they used to in
Wisconsin.

I called the attention of Miss Adelaide
Denton (the local authority on bird-life)
to the flock, and we watched them for
quite some time, before they rose, took
wing, and wheeling, flew to the north, and
disappeared. Miss Denton had never
seen Evening Grosbeaks in this territory
before, although she tells me Pine Grosbeaks
are fairly common winter visitors.

I have re-opened this letter to add that
part of the flock have returned to this
locality. Twenty-five of the Grosbeaks
now being in the maples across the way.

Perhaps I should add that I am quite
familiar with the Evening Grosbeaks,
having observed them every winter from
1900 to 1908-9 inclusive, feeding in the
box elder trees in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.—Jacolyn
Manning, M. D.
, Saratoga
Springs, N. Y.


The Evening Grosbeak at Boston

Any record of the Evening Grosbeak on
the Atlantic coast is so very rare that it
may interest the readers of Bird-Lore to
hear of a visit made to us by one on December
16, 1915.

Our bird was found in the Boston Parkway,
close to the city blocks, flying about,
at times rather wildly, at others, feeding
tamely on the ground among the English
Sparrows.

By its plumage, of which we give herewith
a brief sketch, we judge it to have
been a female or young bird. Head,
rather dark gray; nape, yellowish green;
back, pale brownish green; wings, black,
interspersed with large areas of white;
tail, black, with broad, white tip; chin and
throat, gray; rest of under-parts pale
yellowish or greenish brown; legs, pink;
bill, whitish, or pale horn-color.

When at rest, the bird gave the effect of
[107]
a huge winter Goldfinch; in flight, its
largely white wings strongly suggested a
Snow Bunting.

We heard it utter two distinctly different
notes; the first a rather loud and insistent
monosyllable—perhaps nearer peep
than any other—and the second, a peculiar
little trilling call, not unlike certain
notes of the Semipalmated Sandpiper.

Both as to plumage and notes, this
species is very strikingly different from
any other Grosbeak, of any age and either
sex, in this part of the world. Its whitish
beak, the yellowish green tone of its plumage,
the absence of streaks, and the presence
of such large areas of white in its
wings and tail—not to mention the notes
described above—all serve easily to distinguish
this bird even from the female
and young of the Pine Grosbeak, which,
of all our species, most nearly resembles it.

Such other observations of this species
as are made, this winter, thus far east, we
hope to see recorded in Bird-Lore.—E.
G.
and R. E. ROBBINS, Brookline, Mass.


Evening Grosbeaks at Poughkeepsie

On the afternoon of February 17, 1916,
I observed seven Evening Grosbeaks feeding
on locust seeds at our farm just outside
of Poughkeepsie. They returned on
the morning of the 20th, when they were
also seen by Mr. Allen Frost, Prof. Saunders
and Prof. Ellen Freeman, both of
Vassar College, and Miss S. Dean, a student,
who confirmed my identification. As
I believe this is a record for Dutchess
County, it seems worth reporting.—George
W. Gray
, Greenvale, Poughkeepsie,
N. Y.


Evening Grosbeaks in Lexington, Mass.

Although Evening Grosbeaks may
very probably have visited Lexington
during the flights of 1880-1890 and 1910-1911,
there was no satisfactory record of
the bird for the town until Mr. Francis S.
Dane saw a bird near his house on December
31, 1915. This bird proved to be a
member of a flock of eleven Grosbeaks, all
in the plumage of the female. For a week
or ten days this company remained in
the vicinity of where the first bird was
seen, the number of individuals varying
somewhat; the maximum being eleven.
Two fruited box elder trees were the
attraction to the locality. So regular were
their visits to these trees that observers
could rely almost with certainty on finding
the birds in one or the other of the trees
(they were some two hundred yards apart)
at eleven o’clock in the morning.

At all times, the Grosbeaks showed the
fearlessness of man so characteristic of
Pine Grosbeaks and the Crossbills, but
their tameness was especially noticeable
when the flock was busily feeding. The
birds then appeared to disregard the presence
of a party of observers; we could approach
them closely, and see very satisfactorily
their method of extracting the
seeds.

The seeds of the box elder grow in pairs
on a single stem, each seed having a wing.
In the winter, however, the seed in its
covering with the attached wing, having
broken away from the stem, hangs from it
only by a thread. It is an easy matter,
therefore, for the Grosbeak to break off a
single seed. Having detached it from the
stem (to do this the bird merely leans
downward and pulls off the husk and its
wing), the Grosbeak cuts through the
husk as far as the kernel and allows the
wing to drop to the ground; this it does
with a fluttering motion suggestive of a
small moth. The remainder, the whole
kernel and perhaps two-thirds of the
husk, the Grosbeak mumbles in his bill,
and in an incredibly short time discards
from the sides of his beak the more or less
macerated remains of the husk. Some of
these particles fall to the ground, some
cling for a time to the beak. The bird
swallows the kernel. Upon examining the
wings which the birds had clipped off, it
was apparent that the birds had bitten
directly over the kernel itself at a point
rather nearer the wing than the center of
the kernel. But, although by this incision
the kernel was exposed, it was never
severed and allowed to fall with the wing,
[108]
as would have been the case had the beak
been closed and the bite completed. The
cutting process was always arrested at
the point after the casing had been divided,
but before the meat has been severed.
All this, although the process involved
the nicest precision, was accomplished
with great rapidity,—the wing fluttering
to the ground within a second or two
after the fruit was plucked from the stem.

The big birds are curiously inconspicuous
when feeding in a box elder tree; their
color harmonizes very closely with the
dull grayish brown of the faded wings of
the fruit, and, as the birds are for the most
part silent, a feeding flock might easily be
passed unnoticed. In spite of their quiet
manner, however, the Grosbeaks are ever
on the alert, as was shown when a large
bird flew near them. They whirled away,
panic stricken, giving their loud ‘kerp’ call.

On January 8, the flock of eleven female
birds was replaced by a flock of eight
Grosbeaks, two males and six females.
These latter were all distinctly grayer than
any of the individuals of the first flock,
whose plumage was washed strongly with
yellow. This second flock has remained
to the present time, February 19, feeding
first upon the box elder seeds until the
two trees were practically stripped of
fruit, then visiting a Japanese crab-apple
tree loaded with minute apples, from which
the birds obtained the seeds by munching
off the pulp and discarding it. The flock
has suffered the loss of two female birds
(they were probably caught by a cat);
otherwise the company has remained
intact for six weeks. As in the case of the
original flock, these birds fed early in the
morning, again at about 11 A. M., and were
rarely seen in the afternoon. On one
occasion, they left the feeding-ground by
mounting high in the air and taking a
long, direct flight to the westward.
Besides the box elder and crab-apple
seeds, the birds have eaten wild-cherry pits,
poison-ivy berries, and gray-birch seeds.

Evening Grosbeaks have been seen
this season at several points in eastern
Massachusetts. Mrs. Lidian E. Bridge
kindly sent me a report of a flock which
visited her place in West Medford, four
birds on February 8 and 9. These birds
fed upon the berries of the honeysuckle,
mountain ash, and red cedar.

The large number of observers who came
from a radius of ten miles to see these rare
Grosbeaks demonstrated how great the
interest in birds is at the present time.
For nearly two months, several visitors
came every day at the appointed time,
and on Sundays and holidays the number
often reached thirty or more. The total
number of persons who saw the birds must
have been hundreds. And each one, thanks
to Audubon Societies and proper education
in out-of-doors studies, came armed
with a glass instead of a gun.—Winsor
M. Tyler, M. D.
, Lexington, Mass.


Evening Grosbeaks in Vermont

On February 14, 1916, we were visited by
a flock of nine Evening Grosbeaks, which
were feeding on the buds of sugar maple
in a grove of these trees near our place.

These birds were quite tame, allowing
me to look at them through my field-glass
at a distance of three rods, making
identification positive.

I heard their call note and saw three of
these birds at a distance on January 31.

On December 8, one was seen and heard
too far away to note its markings.—L.
H. Potter
, Clarendon, Vermont.


Evening Grosbeaks in Connecticut

I wish to report a thrilling experience
which I had this morning.

At ten o’clock, I glanced from my window,
and saw White-breasted Nuthatches
on the bird-shelf, Chickadees, Hairy
Woodpeckers, a Brown Creeper, and Blue
Jays, close by on two maples, a flock of
English Sparrows gleaning on the ground,
and two strange birds picking up their
breakfast on the outskirts, but a few feet
from the window.

The two rare visitors proved to be
Evening Grosbeaks. They came toward
me, went away from me, turned about and
displayed themselves in every light, and
[109]
finally flew to a spruce tree on the other
side of the house, where for about five
minutes they gave every opportunity to
study them at close range.

The large white patches on the wings
and white tips on the dark tail feathers
were very prominent.

The yellow forehead with black crown,
the heavy bill, and the body of a soft
yellow color, black wings and tail, made
identification very easy.

I presume these little strangers will be
heard from in other parts of Connecticut.—Mary
Hazen Arnold.

[The context shows that this observation
was made in Connecticut, but the
observer does not give her address.—Ed.]

Martin Problems

I should like those readers of Bird-Lore
who have accurately observed the
habits of the Purple Martin to tell me if
my experience of the past summer is a
common one and what it means. For
several years I have had a Martin house
of ten rooms, only one room of which has
ever been occupied and that always the
west attic. This year (1915) on May 22,
after visiting a short time several times a
day for a week, three Martins, one male
and two females, finally located in the
house. June 1 the birds began carrying
nesting material into both west and east
attic rooms. The male seemed to work in
the west room only, and one day was
seen taking in green cherry leaves from a
nearby tree. Only one male bird was
ever seen about the house, so I concluded
that this was a polygamous family.

The east room was not easy of observation,
so I could not be sure of all that took
place there, but know that it was occupied
by a female all summer and that a
nest was built. The male seemed to sleep
in the west room, both birds going in at
dusk. When incubation began, the male
occupied one of the south rooms. July 7,
a young Martin was found dead under the
house on the west side.

He was very tiny, and could not have
been more than a day old at most. His
neck was as thin as a darning needle but
his stomach was as large as a hickory nut,
and just as hard. Thinking the bird
abnormal, I opened the stomach only to
find everything right, the abdomen being
big and hard because of the great number
of bugs and flies it contained. July 16 I
went out of the city, so did not see the
young leave the house. For several
days previous to this, a baby Martin was
constantly at the door, and I believe there
was only one young bird.

My last year’s family consisted of only
two young birds, but one of which lived
to fly from the house.

Neither eggs nor birds were found in the
east room. Now, was this a polygamous
family, or was it one pair of Martins and
a non-mating female? Might it not have
been my family of last year? I will appreciate
answers from readers of Bird-Lore.—(Mrs.)
May S. Danner
, Canton, Ohio.

A Bold Winter Wren

On November 7, 1908, I had been standing
for some time motionless, watching
the antics of a Winter Wren which was
foraging in a brush-heap piled against a
fence. The Wren was very much occupied
and paid no attention to me, as I stood
about ten feet away. I had on a brown
suit, and was certainly not a very conspicuous
object. Suddenly the Wren
appeared in a corner of the fence with a
long morsel, the larva of some insect, in
his bill. Evidently this a tid-bit which
should be eaten leisurely for enjoyment.
At any rate, after peering about he caught
a glimpse of me standing conveniently
near. And much to my surprise, with no
hesitation, he flew straight at me and
alighted on the side of my coat. I could
feel his movements through the cloth.
He clung there several seconds. But, in
my attempt to get a better look at him,
I doubtless moved. For without a sound
or show of alarm he flew back to the fence
and finished his morsel. I do not think
the Wren implied that I was a stick, but
he certainly believed me to be a tree!—Edward
J. F. Marx
, Easton, Pa.

[110]

Book News and Reviews


A Distributional List of the Birds
of California.
By Joseph Grinnell.
Pacific Coast Avifauna No. 11; Contribution
from the Museum of Vertebrate
Zoölogy of the University of
California. Published by the Cooper
Ornithological Club, Hollywood, California,
October 21, 1915. Roy. 8vo,
217 pages, 3 plates.

Dr. Grinnell admits to this list 541
species and subspecies as unquestionably
Californian and includes in a Hypothetical
List 61 additional species whose standing
as Californian is doubtful.

“The systematic order is that of the
American Ornithologists’ Union Check-List
(1910), except that within groups of
species or subspecies a more natural arrangement
is sometimes adopted, for
example by according with geographical
sequence. The A. O. U. order is thus
accepted here because of the convenience
thereby admittedly secured, in concording
with the bulk of current ornithological
literature.” (Page 7.)

The distinctive feature of this paper is
its brief but clear introduction on the
life-zones and faunal areas of California
with its comments on the factors governing
the distribution of life, and on the relation
of faunas to zones. It is illustrated with
plates showing both zonal and faunal
divisions and four profiles across the state.

The terms used for the areas here defined
are employed through the list of
birds and with the aid of the maps, convey
a maximum of information with a minimum
of words.

Full records and references are given for
species of rare or accidental occurrence in
the state as a whole, as well as boundary
records for those forms occupying a portion
of the state.

It goes without saying that this list is
authoritative and aside from its purely
scientific value it should be of much
assistance in at least the provisional identification
in life of forms so closely related
that the locality at which they are seen is
their best field character.—F. M. C.


The Double crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax
auritus
) and its Relations
to the Salmon Industries on the
Gulf of St. Lawrence.
By P. A.
Taverner
. Canadian Geological Survey.
Mus. Bull. No. 13, Biol. Ser.
No. 5; April 30, 1915. 8vo., 24 pages,
1 plate.

Complaint having been made that
Cormorants were damaging the salmon
fisheries of the Gaspé coast, the Geological
Survey of Canada despatched Mr. Taverner
with two assistants to study the food-habits
of the Cormorant in the region
where the charges against it originated.

It is not without significance that the
Cormorant was accused, not by those who
are dependent on fishing for a living, but
by anglers who having rented certain
salmon streams apparently feel that they
have also acquired the power to inflict
the death penalty on any form of life
which they believe to interfere with their
own interests.

Mr. Taverner was in the field from
June 21 to August 23, and during this
time he not only secured data which indicated
that the charges against the
Cormorant are unfounded but made an
interesting contribution to our knowledge
of the life-history of that bird.

There is more in Mr. Taverner’s thoughtful,
well-written paper than is indicated by
its title. We trust that it will be read by
each of the complaining anglers!—F. M. C.


The Ornithological Magazines

The Condor.—The opening number of
Volume XVIII of ‘The Condor,’ for
January, 1916, is an unusually interesting
one. Under the title ‘Philadelphia to the
Coast in Early Days,’ Dr. Witmer Stone,
in a paper read at the meeting of the
American Ornithologists’ Union in San
Francisco, last May, outlines the development
of western ornithology prior to
1850. Anyone interested in the history of
early work in the West will find here a
clear, compact, and convenient résumé of
the contributors to ornithology made by
[111]
the voyages and expeditions of Captain
Cook, La Pérouse, Vancouver, Lewis and
Clarke, Major Long, Captain Wyeth and
Captain Beechey, and special reference to
the birds collected by Peale, Say, Townsend,
Nuttall, Bell and Heermann.

Mrs. Bailey continues her description
of ‘The Characteristic Birds of the Dakota
Prairies’ with a charming account of the
water-birds found along the sloughs and
marshes.

Jewett contributes a brief paper on ‘New
and Interesting Bird Records,’ concerning
thirteen species found in eastern Oregon
during the spring and summer of 1915.

One of the first fruits of the recent publication
of Grinnell’s ‘Distributional List
of the Birds of California,’ appears in
Dawson’s seven-page ‘Personal Supplement,’
which contains notes and critical
comments on sixty-three species. If other
observers would publish such notes as
they have with equal detail, it would no
doubt result in a considerable addition to
the wealth of information on the distribution
of California birds which Dr.
Grinnell has already so successfully
brought together.

The common names applied to several
birds come in for criticism in Notes from
Field and Study. Henderson defends the
term ‘House Finch,’ and condemns the
two synonyms by which the bird is often
known. The term ‘Linnet’ he considers
not distinctive and ‘California Linnet’ as
indefensible. Dawson proposes Auburn
Canyon Wren as a preferable name for the
Dotted Canyon Wren and Coues’ Petrel
instead of Ashy Petrel for the bird which
‘simply isn’t ashy.’—T. S. P.

The Auk.—Readers of the January
issue will find therein a good deal about
bird song as it is viewed from different
angles by several contributors. Mr. H.
Oldys discusses the ‘Rhythmical Singing of
Veeries’ from a musician’s standpoint,
and Mr. A. A. Saunders, in a letter at
page 103, upholds the scientist’s belief in
the use of a graphic method while, casually,
in no less than three other articles,
the writers make use of conventional
human syllables in an effort to express
bird-notes. After all, a person must hear
a bird-song to know anything about it,
and the crudest symbols, musical notes or
words that he may employ to awaken his
memory of the song mean more to him
than any system that has yet been invented.
It is his notation alone that will
arouse his memory, for the science of
musical sounds cannot go far in explaining
what his ear has never heard. Mr. H. J.
Fry offers ‘A Study of the Seasonal Decline
of Bird Song,’ painstaking so far as it goes,
but limited to a single season.

Mr. F. C. Lincoln records ‘The Discovery
of the Nest and Eggs of Leucosticte
australis
,’ the Brown-capped Rosy Finch,
in the Colorado mountains and shows us
a half-tone of the site and one of the nest
and eggs, the latter pure white. Messrs.
B. S. Bowdish and P. B. Philipp record
the finding of several nests of ‘The Tennessee
Warbler in New Brunswick,’ and
also show us half-tones of the rare nest
and eggs.

A pleasing study of the courtship of
several species of ducks is presented by
Dr. C. W. Townsend, who uses binoculars
to good advantage, and Mr. J. C. Phillips
raises ‘Two Problems in the Migration of
Water Fowl,’ one, regarding the occurrence
of certain North American Ducks
in the Marshall Islands, the other dealing
with the behavior of Canada Geese when
migrating.

Mr. W. A. Bryan declares that there is
‘An Undescribed Species of Drepanididæ
on Nihoa, Hawaiian Group,’ but wisely
refrains from preliminarily tagging it with
a name (as has sometimes been done in
similar cases) because no specimens have
been obtained. Messrs. J. E. Thayer and
O. Bangs list ‘A Collection of Birds from
Saghalin Island,’ Mr. F. H. Allen describes
‘A Nesting of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak,’
and Mr. H. Mousley contributes the
first part of ‘Five Years’ Personal Notes
and Observations on the Birds of Hatley,
Stanstead Co., Quebec, 1911-1915.’ There
is much of interest in Mr. Mousley’s well
annotated list which is to be continued.—J.
D.

[112]

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
Contributing Editor, MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT
Published by D. APPLETON & CO.

Vol. XVIIIPublished April 1, 1916No. 2

SUBSCRIPTION RATES

Price in the United States, Canada and Mexico, twenty cents
a number, one dollar a year, postage paid.

COPYRIGHTED, 1916, BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN

Bird-Lore’s Motto:

A Bird in the Bush Is Worth Two in the Hand

It is a long time since Bird-Lore has
published a more valuable and significant
article than the one contributed by Mr.
Gilbert H. Grosvenor to this issue. Its
chief value does not lie in its important
bearing on what may be termed avian
sociology or on its surprising demonstration
of the close connection existing between
available nesting-sites and bird-population.
Rather is it to be found in
the relations which it reveals between
human-life and bird-life as the result of
the best type of what we have before
called ‘bird gardening.’

The birds which Mr. Grosvenor has
brought about him are unquestionably
more his birds than if he had shot them
and placed their skins in a cabinet. With
their death his responsibility for their
welfare would cease. But a living bird,
to which we feel we owe protection,
is exposed to so many dangers that our
fears for its safety are correspondingly
aroused. These birds of our garden are
our guests. Through the erection of bird-houses
and by other means we have invited
them to live with us and when they accept
as readily as they have with Mr. Grosvenor,
they make us realize not only our
responsibility but they awaken the
strongest sense of hospitality.

In a former number of Bird-Lore we
had something to say about what we
believe to be the difference between ornithologists
and bird-lovers. That is,
between the bird student eager to devote
his life to research work some of which
may be so dry and technical that it would
repel anyone but a born enthusiast; and
the person whose interest in birds, while
keen and genuine, does not beget that
hunger for knowledge concerning them
which is the birthright of the true naturalist.

The first type of interest we feel
distinguishes the born ornithologists, the
second is an almost universal heritage of
mankind. Usually, however, it is dormant.
We may be in possession of this
priceless gift and still be unaware of its
existence. Herein lies the value of nature-study,
and particularly of the kind of
educational work the National Association
of Audubon Societies accomplishes through
its Junior Classes. It is not to be expected
that the one hundred and fifty odd thousand
children included in these classes
during the past year will become ornithologists.
But if their inherent love of
birds is quickened and they become acquainted
with the more common species
and are taught to realize the beauty and
value of bird-life we shall have added
immeasurably to their resources.

Mr. Grosvenor tells us that in April,
1913, when he moved to his country home
near Washington, neither he nor any
member of his family could name more
than three species of birds. Opportunity
so quickly added to this number that
within two years, as his statistics show,
he had succeeded in inducing to nest on
his home acre more than twice as many
birds as had been before reported from
the same area and under similar conditions.

So much we learn from the figures given.
But no figures can express the pleasure
derived from the friendships which have
been established between landlord and
tenant, and between landlord’s family
and tenants’ families. Mr. Grosvenor may
regret that his own childhood lacked that
association with the commoner birds
which gives them an enduring place in our
affection. But his pictures show that he
does not propose to have his children
denied this privilege.

[113]

The Audubon Societies

SCHOOL DEPARTMENT

Edited by ALICE HALL WALTER

Address all communications relative to the work of this department
to the Editor, 67 Oriole Avenue, Providence, R. I.

“Nature has no human inhabitant who appreciates her. The birds with their plumage
and their notes are in harmony with the flowers, but what youth or maiden conspires
with the wild, luxuriant beauty of nature? She flourishes most alone, far from
the towns where they reside. Talk of heaven! ye disgrace earth.

“Sometimes I rambled to pine groves, standing like temples, or like fleets at sea,
full-rigged, with wavy boughs, and rippling with light, so soft and green and shady that
the Druids would have forsaken their oaks to worship in them; or to the cedar wood
beyond Flint’s Pond, where the trees, covered with hoary blue berries, spiring higher
and higher, are fit to stand before Valhalla, and the creeping juniper covers the ground
with wreaths full of fruit; or to swamps where the usnea lichen hangs in festoons from
the white-spruce trees, and toadstools, round tables of the swamp gods, cover the
ground, and more beautiful fungi adorn the stumps, like butterflies or shells, vegetable
winkles; where the swamp-pink and dogwood grow, the red alder-berry glows like
eyes of imps, the waxwork grooves and crushes the hardest woods in its folds, and the
wild-holly berries make the beholder forget his home with their beauty, and he is
dazzled and tempted by nameless other wild forbidden fruits, too fair for mortal taste.

“Instead of calling on some scholar, I paid many a visit to particular trees, of kinds
which are rare in this neighborhood, standing far away in the middle of some pasture, or
in the depths of a wood or swamp, or on a hill top: such as the black-birch of which we have
some handsome specimens two feet in diameter; its cousin the yellow-birch, with its loose
golden vest, perfumed like the first; the beech, which has so neat a bole and beautifully
lichen-painted, perfect in all its details, of which, excepting scattered specimens, I know
but one small grove of sizable trees left in the township, supposed by some to have been
planted by the pigeons that were once baited with beech nuts near by; it is worth the
while to see the silver grain sparkle when you split this wood; the bass; the hornbeam;
the celtis occidentalis, or false elm, of which we have but one well-grown; some taller
mast of a pine, a shingle tree, or a more perfect hemlock than usual, standing like a
pagoda in the midst of the woods; and many others I could mention. These were the
shrines I visited both summer and winter.”—Excerpt from Walden,
Henry D. Thoreau.

“He saw with a clear and kindred eye, he understood with his heart, the life of field
and wood and water about him. The open sky, the solitudes of the windy hill-top, the
sweep of the storm, the spacious changes of dark and dawn, these, it seems to me, spoke
to him more clearly than to others.”—C. G. D. Roberts,
in Introduction to Walden.

BIRD AND ARBOR DAY

AN AWAKENING

In most of the talks we listen to on Bird and Arbor Day, in most of the
poems and prose selections we recite or read to celebrate this occasion, we hear
about the awakening of spring, when birds return and trees and early plants
blossom, and insects and hibernating animals emerge from a winter’s sleep.
[114]
All Nature is pictured as rousing from the lethargy of cold December and colder
January and February, under the influence of the sun, now early with its
morning greeting, and of soft breezes which begin to take the place of chilling
gales. But what part has man in all of this glad festival of activity and growth!
Does he awaken too, and take his part in the general re-creation of Nature?

No, man is glad when spring comes, he welcomes birds and flowers and budding
trees, but he has learned to build shelters for himself against storms, to
fight the uneven cold with steady fire, and to raise and store food to nourish
his body throughout the season when the ground is frozen and vegetation dead.
He does not come to life and activity again with the changing seasons, and,
much as he may enjoy spring with its multiform beauties, he seldom rouses
out of the routine of his ordinary life, except now and then, perhaps, for a
fitful instant. Well-fed, well-clothed and well-housed, he still fears the elements
and dreads exposure and hunger. He is not a part of nature, but the ambitious
master of nature. Only now and then does a man partly awaken from his
civilized life and turn to Nature as to a mother. But when he does, when his
eyes are fairly open, when his hand can write or his lips speak the truth, what a
revelation comes not only to him but to those who understand his message!

It is of man’s awakening that I wish to tell you this lovely Bird and Arbor
Day season, an awakening which you must try to feel if you are not so choked
and stifled in towns and cities by ideas of things to wear and eat and amuse
yourself with that you cannot understand the truth.

In all ages, a few men have awakened to the touch of Nature. It would be
worth our while to know even their names, but, better yet, to know their message.
Some have lived as you and I live, others have lived only in books,
through the imagination of other men. There was once a lad who was afraid,
afraid of the dark, afraid of horses, afraid of many things. As he grew older,
he began to feel that there was much he did not enjoy because of fear, and he
resolved to conquer fear. He ran through a pasture where a bull was loose,
and outwitted the charging creature, escaping to a place of safety. This was
rash. He attempted to drive a horse of some spirit through crowded city
streets, with no knowledge of driving or sympathy with horses. This was rash,
too. He left his companions and guides asleep at night on the edge of the
jungle, and wandered alone into the forest, unarmed and almost breathless
with fear. It was a rash thing to do, but as he wandered or stood rooted to the
ground, while deer, monkeys, frogs, owls, flying squirrels, and at last a tiger,
crossed his path, he began to feel a new sense of security and serenity. He found
it very wonderful and beautiful. “A warm, faintly-scented breeze just stirred
the dead grass and leaves. The trees and bushes stood in pools of darkness,
and beyond were pale stretches of misty moonshine and big rocks shining
with an unearthly luster. Ahead was darkness, but not so dense, when he
came to it, that the track was invisible … the moon was like a great
shield of light spread out above him. All the world seemed swimming in its
[115]
radiance…. He wished he could walk as a spirit walks—.” … “Of course,
the day jungle is the jungle asleep. This was its waking hour. Now the deer
were arising from their forms, the tigers and panthers and jungle cats stalking
noiselessly from their lairs in the grass. Countless creatures that had hidden
from the heat and pitiless exposure of the day stood now awake and alertly
intent upon their purposes, grazed or sought water, flitting delicately through
the moonlight and shadows. The jungle was awakening. This was the real
life of the jungle, this night life, into which man did not go. Here he was on
the verge of a world that, for all the stuffed trophies of the sportsman and the
specimens of the naturalist, is still almost as unknown as if it were upon another
planet.”

“He became less and less timorous as beast and bird evaded him or fled at
his approach, and when the moon sank suddenly, and darkness settled down,
‘a great stillness came over the world, a velvet silence that wrapped about
him, as the velvet shadows wrapped about him. The corncrakes had ceased,
all the sounds and stir of animal life had died away, the breeze had fallen,’
and thus, calm and full of placid joy, he waited for the dawn, for he had conquered
fear.”

This is an imaginary picture, based no doubt on some actual experience.
It is worth reading because it puts one into sympathy with Nature, even
with one of its wildest and most uninhabitable parts. There are girls, and boys
too, living in secure houses in village or town, who are afraid, afraid of the dark,
afraid of the deep woods, afraid of wild, lonely places where snakes may be
lurking, or some imagined beast. There are many grown-up people who are
more fearful than children, to whom a storm is terrifying, who see little beauty
in rough places, who take no enjoyment in fog, rain or snow. It is natural to
be afraid, but it is not wholesome, and it betrays ignorance. This kind of fear
deprives most people of much that makes up the very best of life. One need
not be rash or daring to conquer fear. It is only needful to awaken, to get
into sympathy with Nature, to see the world as it really is, and not as our
shrinking bodies lead us to imagine.

A man died not long ago who for many years had lived perhaps as close to
Nature as anyone in this generation. His name was John Muir. He loved the
mountains with their vast silences and wide outlooks; the storms and winds,
searching every hidden corner and ruling all Nature in their passing; the giant
trees of his home country, majestic sentinels of tranquillity, and age-long growth;
he loved the clouds and stars, birds, beasts and flowers; he loved mighty waters,
whose power man’s hand might never check. This man wrote at times modestly
and reverently of what he saw and felt. You can learn truth from him. Many
other men have seen deeply into Nature, and written with sincerity, pages
which we do well to study. There comes to mind the poet Lanier, who, struck
by the fatal hand of disease, sought to prolong his life by living with Nature
in the open. How delicately and clearly he translated beauty into terms of
[116]
music and rhythm! How intimately he sensed the world about him! He
wrote,

“I am not overbold.

I hold

Full powers from Nature manifold.

I speak for each no-tonguéd tree

That, spring by spring, doth nobler be,

And dumbly and most wistfully

His mighty prayerful arms outspreads

Above men’s oft-unheeding heads,

And his big blessing downward sheds.

I speak for all-shaped blooms and leaves,

Lichens on stones and moss on eaves,

Grasses and grains in ranks and sheaves;

Broad-fronded ferns and keen-leaved canes,

And briery mazes bounding lanes,

And marsh-plants, thirsty-cupped for rains,

And milky stems and sugary veins;
. . . . . .
“All purities of shady springs,

All shynesses of film-winged things

That fly from tree-trunks and bark-rings;

All modesties of mountain-fawns,

That leap to covert from wild lawns,

And tremble if the day but dawns;

All sparklings of small beady eyes

Of birds, and sidelong glances wise

Wherewith the jay hints tragedies;

All piquancies of prickly burs,

And smoothnesses of downs and furs

Of eiders and of minevers;

All limpid honeys that do lie

At stamen-bases, nor deny

The hummingbirds’ fine roguery,

Bee-thighs, nor any butterfly;

All gracious curves of slender wings,

Bark-mottlings, fiber-spiralings,

Fern-wavings and leaf-flickerings;

Each dial-marked leaf and flower-bell,

Wherewith in every lonesome dell

Time to himself his hours doth tell;

All tree-sounds, rustlings of pine-cones,

Wind-sighings, doves’ melodious moans,

And night’s unearthly under-tones;

All placid lakes and waveless deeps,

All cool reposing mountain-steeps,

Vale-calms and tranquil lotos-sleeps;—

Yea, all fair forms, and sounds, and lights,

And warmths, and mysteries, and nights,

Of Nature’s utmost depths and heights,

—These doth my timid tongue present,
[117]

Their mouthpiece and leal instrument

And servant, all love-eloquent.

I heard, when ‘All for love’ the violins cried;

So, Nature calls through all her system wide,

Give me thy love, O man, so long denied.’”

—From The Symphony, Sidney Lanier.

No message could be more beautiful or more welcome than this. Not poets
and artists, but birds, streams, and the pure encircling air should call us into
the open. We may not have the opportunity to wander in the jungle by night,
or to climb lonely mountains or penetrate into the glooms of giant forests, but
we can get outdoors by day into parks or country, and we can learn to sleep
outdoors and feel the health-giving air with every breath we draw, and to
awaken every morning with gladness that we are looking out upon the sky and
rising sun, with no barriers of blinds and storm-windows between us and Nature.
When we realize every day that to live, to simply be alive, is joy, then work will
never mean drudgery or idleness and luxury seem things worth while.

If Bird and Arbor Day can make you understand and feel this message, it
will be the happiest day of the year for you.—A. H. W.

JUNIOR AUDUBON WORK

For Teachers and Pupils

Exercise XXVI. Correlated Studies: School Gardening and Reading

In view of the fact that valuable suggestions are being received from time
to time, as to practical methods of conducting and encouraging bird- and
nature-study, it is perhaps a wise and timely interruption of the ordinary
Junior Audubon exercise to submit the following five methods for the consideration
of teachers and pupils. Each of these methods contains at least one idea
which can be worked out along local lines by any teacher with the aid of willing
pupils. Some of these methods are particularly applicable to Bird and Arbor
Day, for we have now somewhat outgrown the necessity of simply having
“exercises” to mark that day. When all days are Bird and Arbor Days, we
shall have gained a strong point in bird- and nature-study, and let it be hoped
no school will omit some sincere recognition of the day, this spring.

Ways of Keeping Up Interest in Bird-Study

I. A BIRD-GAME FOR THE SCHOOLROOM

During the years of 1914 and 1915, I have learned a great deal about birds.
We have an Audubon Society in our room which I think is very interesting.
We have about sixteen members, and we watch and study the birds very carefully.
[118]
Our teacher read us a story out of Bird-Lore that one of her pupils
wrote last year for the magazine. It certainly is interesting.

One day we went into Miss W——’s room, to have our society together.
After we finished the program, we played a game called ‘Guessing Birds.’
Some one would go to the front of the room with a bird pinned on her back and
one of the teachers would ask some one in the room a question about the bird.
Then they would have to guess the name of the bird. We had lots of fun playing
this game. Some of the children could not guess the bird that they had on
their backs. Then the teacher would take if off and put her hand over the name
of the bird and ask if they knew what it was.

There has not been much snow in Herndon, so the birds can find a good
deal of food without anyone feeding them. With our fines we bought some wire
and suet. One day we went to the woods not far from the schoolhouse to feed
the birds. We tacked the wire on the trees and then put the suet under the
wire. It will soon be time to go and put more suet under the wire for the birds.—Geraldine
Sager
(Aged 11), Herndon, Va.

[Very often the best way of fostering and keeping up interest in bird-study has to be
considered, especially in Junior Audubon Societies or bird clubs. The idea suggested
above seems to be an attractive one, for anything in the nature of a game usually appeals
to young people. Several bird-games similar to “Avelude” are for sale, but these are
played with cards, and are not suitable for use in the schoolroom. They make agreeable
recreations for the home, however, and their use may well be encouraged.—A. H. W.]

II. A BIRD CONTEST FOR BIRD CLUBS

Place………… Time…….. Date…………

1. A crowned head (answer) Kingbird
2. An unsteady light (answer) Flicker
3. An Eastern city visitor (answer) Baltimore Oriole
4. A yellow conversationalist (answer) Yellow-breasted Chat
5. The pride of the farm (answer) Quail
6. A peace mourner (answer) Mourning Dove

——————————————————————

21. Ruler of the fisheries (answer) Kingfisher

Name of contestant……………………

[Space is too limited to print this contest in full, but enough has been given to show
how it was carried out. The Nature-Study Club of Indiana engaged in the contest,
which was gotten up by one of its leaders, “to afford some amusement for the members
while they were enjoying the beauties of nature. It was given under a large, spreading
beech, and during the time the members were racking their brains to find the proper
name of each feathered creature listed, the calls and notes of many of the birds could be
heard all around, seemingly trying to assist the members to recall their names. The trip
was a most successful one from a nature-study point of view, as the club traversed
beautiful streams, lowlands and hills, and found a variety of trees and plants and many
beautiful birds.”

[119]

The approximate age of those taking part in the contest was about thirteen (ten to
sixteen years). A prize was offered, and a little girl aged twelve who had thirteen correct
answers out of the twenty-one puzzles given, won it.

This form of diversion in connection with bird-study has considerable to commend
it as an occasional method to use to stimulate interest and start competition.—A. H. W.]

III. METHOD OF STUDY

Miss Mc—— has read your interesting letter to her class. And as I am one
of the twenty-eight, or twenty-nine girls in her class I have decided to write,
and give you an idea of what we are doing. I think that we (that is the class)
are all interested in the Audubon Society for the protection of birds. On
April 7 the class had their picture taken to send to you. On Friday afternoon
we always try to read at least one of the leaflets of the lives of the birds. Each
girl reads a paragraph, and as we read the teacher explains it to us. This summer
we are going to have some bird-houses in the playgrounds of the school.

I live out in the suburbs of the city, and generally there are a great many
birds that come to our door in the morning. Hoping to hear from your Society
quite often; I remain one of the interested pupils.—Isabel Acorn.


Miss Mc—— read your letter to the class the other day, and we were very
much interested in it. I like the Society, and every Friday in school we read
a leaflet. The birds often come into the yard in summer, and we scatter crumbs.

We are making bird-boxes, and when the leaves come on the trees we are
going to have shelves put up and put crumbs on them. It is nice to paint
pictures of the birds and read about them.

In the summer out in the country the Canaries used to come and build
their nests in the low bushes. I used to scatter crumbs for them, but they
would rather have worms. The Kingfishers came early in the morning, so that
we did not see much of them.—Dorothy Davies.

[The members of the Apulia Junior Audubon Society are from eight to twelve years
old. The School Department was very glad to receive pencil drawings made from the
educational leaflets, together with the letters given above through the kindness of Mr.
T. Gilbert Pierson. The way in which the leaflets are used by this society is excellent,
and suggests a method practicable for all junior Audubon Societies.—A. H. W.]

IV. RHODE ISLAND BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ CLUB WORK.
HOME PROJECTS FOR 1915

Conducted by the Extension Service, Rhode Island State College and the United
States Department of Agriculture

Boys and girls from nine to eighteen years of age inclusive may enroll.
There will be achievement emblems offered for all those who do successful
work. Local prizes may also be offered for good work and exhibits at local
[120]
shows, such as poultry, corn and flower shows, also grange exhibits. Boys and
girls may take up any one or more of the following projects.

Home Garden.—Cultivation of vegetables, flowers, shrubs, etc. General
care of the garden.

Market-Garden.—Cultivation of one-twentieth acre of vegetables.

School and Allotment-Gardens.—Cultivation of vegetables and flowers, etc.,
in a centralized garden at or near the school or on vacant lots.

Corn Clubs.—Cultivation of one-tenth acre of corn.

Potato Clubs.—Cultivation of one-twentieth acre of potatoes.

Dairy Herd Clubs.—Keeping an accurate record of all milk produced each
day.

Canning Clubs.—Canning fruit and vegetables for home use or for market.

Baking Clubs.—Baking bread and cake.

Sewing Clubs.—Making garments and repairing.

Handicraft Club.—Making useful articles for use in the home or on the
farm.

Bird and Tree Clubs.—The study and recognition of birds and trees.

Official enrollment cards will be sent to boys and girls who wish to enroll
in one or more of the projects mentioned above. When received, their names
will be sent to Washington, and Uncle Sam will correspond with them occasionally
and send them bulletins of information and helpful letters. The State
Leader or assistants will visit the local clubs from time to time, to help them
with their work; he will also send helpful bulletins and letters as needed.
Monthly reports will be required from each member enrolled in the club work,
giving an account of his or her work.

The agent of the Extension Service of the Rhode Island State College writes:

“Inclosed please find a brief explanation of the boys’ and girls’ club work in
agriculture, gardening, domestic science and handicraft work. This is a splendid
movement for the Improvement Society to take up and encourage as a
part of their constructive work in any community.

“The greatest asset in any community or state is the boys and girls who are
to be the men and women of to-morrow. We should see to it that they are
encouraged to be industrious and thrifty. Work of this kind will provide a
very profitable as well as an interesting occupation for many idle moments
after school, and through the long vacations for our boys and girls. At this time
of the year clean-up campaigns are being started, and I would like to tack on
to the end of that slogan the word ‘plant-up.’ I think that boys and girls
should be encouraged not only to ‘clean-up’ the rubbish about their homes,
but to invest a few cents in seeds which will germinate and grow and produce
a picture very much more attractive than can be produced by many cans of
paint and, furthermore, if the right kind of plant is selected, the effect will be
perennial.”

[121]

An illustrated lecture on this subject may be secured at any time by making
application to the undersigned. Bulletins and circular letters will be sent
to the boys and girls who enroll in this club work from time to time. Personal
visits will also be made as often as possible if
desired.—Ernest K. Thomas.

[This is a kind of work every state needs.—A. H. W.]

V. MAKING A BIRD CENSUS

There are various ways of making or taking a bird-census, but all depend
for their success upon certain rules.

1. Define clearly the area in which the observations are taken.

2. Study carefully the occurrence of species in adjoining localities.

3. Note the differences of occurrence between the foregoing and the area
under observation.

4. Study reliable data of other observers, in order to avoid “wild guesses”
and to eliminate errors in your own observations.

5. Keep records in a usable form, so that data may be easily compared
from year to year.

6. Distinguish between permanent residents, transients, and summer or
winter residents or visitors, and accidental visitors.

7. When in doubt as to the identity of a species, never enter it in the record,
simply to swell the list. Continued study will enable you eventually to determine
the most puzzling occurrences.

8. Record carefully temperature, direction and velocity of wind, and if
possible, barometric pressure.

9. Chart the area studied, designating wooded places, pastures, marshy
and dry places, roadside, orchards, garden, and water spaces.

10. Study the destination and point of departure of migrating species.

11. Learn both the common names and the scientific names of species if
you intend to be strictly accurate. Common names of the same species frequently
differ in different localities and are therefore liable to be misleading.
Scientific names are easily mastered and usually have a definite meaning, which
will help you to remember some distinguishing character or habit of a species.

12. Always be open to fair criticism, and to acknowledge errors in observation.
The most distinguished students of any subject are those who profess
to have the most to learn. A keen eye and quick brain are indispensable to
any student, and calm judgment must always precede reliable conclusions.

A very practical illustration of how a bird-census may be taken is described
in Dr. C. F. Hodge’s invaluable book, Nature-Study and Life.
The school-children of the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, worked together under Dr.
Hodge’s direction, and made a census of the nesting-species in a city block for
two seasons three years apart, showing not only the number but also the
increase and decrease of nesting-species during that time.

[122]

From Marion, Virginia, comes a detailed census of the birds found in the
surrounding county during the spring migration. Space is not available for
printing in full this census, which includes some ninety odd species, but the
method followed, as explained by the following communication, is of interest,
and should prove helpful to students in other localities. “The Woman’s Club
of Marion has an organized Audubon Society of sixty pupils and four teachers.
The three Junior classes are taught once a week from the Audubon leaflets.
The Senior Class has helped take the census of Smythe County under the guidance
of its teacher. In sixteen field lessons, ninety-four species and eighteen
hundred and sixty-three birds of these species have been seen.”

It should be added that these Audubon classes work together with the
Woman’s Club and the Conservation Committee of Marion, thus fostering a
civic interest in bird-life among young and old. If more clubs would interest
themselves in organizing work of this kind, a great deal might be learned
about the local occurrence and movements of birds which would be of use in
following their migrations.—A. H. W.

SUGGESTIONS

1. Compare the methods of observation of Thoreau, Lanier and the author of the
jungle quotations.

2. Which author seems to know Nature best?

3. Do you know the trees in your neighborhood as well as Thoreau did those about
Concord and Walden Pond?

4. How many separate things in Nature are enumerated by Lanier in the excerpt
from “The Symphony?”

5. Are you familiar with these things?

6. What is miniver?

7. How did Thoreau learn so much about Nature?

8. Are Lanier’s allusions to Nature exact?

9. If you wished to tell a person who knew nothing about Nature, what to listen and
look for, how many things could you name or describe to him?

10. Make a list of the trees, shrubs, and plants in your neighborhood.

11. Make a list of the spring migrants in your locality.

12. Make a study of what actually takes place during the transition from winter to
spring.—A. H. W.


FOR AND FROM ADULT AND YOUNG OBSERVERS

SPRING

Spring has come at last,

And the birds are flying fast

To our great Northern skies,

Where they think it’s paradise.
The rustle of their little wings

Tells us of the coming Spring.

And their little notes of love

Are like the peaceful songs of Doves.

Virginia Stearns (Nine years old), Milwaukee, Wis.

[123]

MY BLUEBIRDS

Early in December, 1914, my brother and I cut down an old half-dead
apple-tree, and on it we found a partly hollow log that the English Sparrows
had evidently used for years. As I had my eye out for bird-houses, I confiscated
it and finished hollowing it out. It made three log-nests, all of which
have been used by bird tenants since then. On February 17, I put up two of
the logs on the bank of the Ohio River, at a distance of 40 feet from our house,
where they could easily be observed from nine different windows.

The site was ideal for a bird’s nest. Below, 127 feet, the Ohio rolled majestically
by, flushed with the melted snow that the spring rains brought from the
mountains, and dotted here and there with floating cakes of ice. The other
bank of the river rose 329 feet above the level of the water. It was heavily
wooded and an ideal place for all kinds of birds. As this is right in the path of
the Mississippi Migration Route, one could hear the “honk, honk,” of Canada
Geese, the talking notes of the Old Squaw, and once the maniacal laughter of a
Loon, as it followed the Ohio to the mouth of the Beaver River, there probably
resting and continuing its journey up the Beaver to its northern nesting-ground.
Below, I give the dates of the important events in the Bluebirds’ history.

February 17. Nest-logs put up.
February 25. First Bluebird seen.
February 28. Three pairs looked at both logs,
    fought for them, and my pair rented it.
March 21. Nest completed.
March 26. First egg laid.
March 27. Second egg laid.
March 28. Third egg laid.
March 29. Fourth egg laid.
March 30. Fifth egg laid.
April 13. Young hatched.
April 29. Young left the nest.

Prior to March 29, the river bank had been burned over twice for the purpose
of improving the grass roots, but the Bluebirds never seemed to mind it,
although the nest was enveloped in clouds of thick smoke both times. The last
two days of March, and the first two of April were cold, below freezing, with
a driving snowstorm followed by sleet; but the Bluebirds’ activities never
ceased. At this time the male passed the night in the nest with the female,
‘twinkling’ into the log at sunset. The male was very pugnacious, and seemed
not to know fear. He would dash with equal courage at a Flicker or a Song
Sparrow, when they approached his tree. Once I saw him actually knock a
Flicker off a branch. Perhaps he would not have succeeded had the Flicker
been aware of his approach, but the Bluebird came up behind and hit him
below the belt. When I would go near the nest, the male would utter ‘chuckling’
notes, as if to scold and frighten me away. On several occasions he came
so close that I could almost touch him.

When the young were about four days old, I set up my camera, three feet
away from the nest, to obtain some pictures. The first time the shutter snapped,
the female hopped down on to the branch on which the camera was placed, put
[124]
her head to one side, and seemed to say, “What is this that clicks in my face,”
and then she hopped all over it, pecking it.

GOING HOME
Photographed by W. R. Boulton, Jr.

Both parents were often seen cleaning the nest. They began to feed the
young at about eight o’clock every morning, and continued it steadily at an
average of every six
or seven minutes
until about six at
night, using as food
almost exclusively a
certain kind of bug
that was very hairy,
brownish with black
markings, and, except
for the hair,
might have been mistaken
for castor
beans, being about
the same size. They
seemed a huge
mouthful for a young
Bluebird. Several times a day I would climb up to the nest and whistle softly
like a Bluebird before the aperture. The young would crane their necks and
stretch their mouths for the supposed food, although none was forthcoming.

LEAVING HOME
Photographed by W. R. Boulton, Jr.

When the young flew from the nest, I felt as though I had lost a family.
My grief was not such that I could not capture them, however, and after
counting noses, I found that one was missing. I climbed up and there I found
‘runtie’ at the bottom of the nest, pitifully squeaking at being left alone. I
took out the bottom and extracted him. Finally, after half an hour or more
of posing, I got several
good pictures of
the babies on a dead
branch. When I
opened the nest-log
to clean it, I found
a little block of
grasses about three
inches in diameter
and one inch high.
It fairly glistened
with shed feather-sheaths.
In the bottom
were six or seven
bugs, of the species
[125]
mentioned before, that had evidently escaped the birds. Exactly two months
after the first egg was laid, the second nest of the same pair was nearing completion
in another of my boxes. Here are the dates.

  • May 29. First egg laid.
  • May 30. Second egg laid.
  • May 31. Third egg laid.
  • June 1. Fourth egg laid.
  • June 16. Young hatched.
  • June 23. Young have not flown yet.

While the female was incubating, the male still fed the young of the first
brood, although not so often as when they left the nest.—Wolfrid Rudyerd
Boulton, Jr.
(Age 14 years), Beaver, Pa.

[Perhaps no better word of appreciation of this carefully worded description of
personal observations could be given than to quote from a letter written by Mr. Herbert
K. Job with reference to the data given by Master Boulton, Jr.: “His accurate information
about the periods of incubation and rearing of the Bluebird came in handy to me
just now, as there is a pair in a box up-state which I want to ‘film’ at just the right period,
and now I can estimate when to make the trip.” The pictures illustrating this article
were not only taken, but also developed and finished by the observer.—A. H. W.]

A MUSICAL WOODLAND

Riding on my pony in a thick-set wood, I heard the “Feathered Musicians”
playing on their instruments.

First the trill of the Wood Thrush, then the sweet trill of the Meadowlark,
the rapidly repeated ‘wickci’ of the Flicker, the sweet melody of the Robin,
the charming song of the Song Sparrow, and the ‘chip’ of the Chipping Sparrow,
were most delightful.

Far off in the distance I could hear the sweet Canary-like whistle of the
Goldfinch and the ‘eak’ of the Purple Grackle.

The woods rang with the music of the birds, for nothing is so sweet as
natural music.—Sarah W. Weaver (Age 11 years), Baltimore County, Md.

[“For nothing is so sweet as natural music.”

This naive observation brings to mind the gurgle of brooks, waving treetops, and
hum of busy insects, as well as the music of feathered songsters. It has the essence of
spring in it, when awakening life so quickly voices itself in melody.—A. H. W.]

INTERESTING PERFORMANCE OF A TUFTED TITMOUSE

While taking refuge from a slight April shower on the porch of an unoccupied
summer cottage at Lithia Springs, Ga., twenty miles from Atlanta, I
once witnessed an interesting performance by a Tufted Titmouse. Having
chosen a damp brown oak leaf from the ground, it flew with it into a bare tree,
and, holding the leaf with its claw firmly against a branch, it drew itself to its
full height, raised its head like a Woodpecker, and with all the might of its
tiny frame gave, a forcible blow to the leaf with its bill. This process was kept
up nearly half an hour. The bird seemed utterly indifferent to the near presence
[126]
of my two friends and myself. Once it dropped the leaf, but immediately
picked it up and carried it back to the tree. A boy passed on the sidewalk
below. The bird flew to a higher branch. At last its purpose seemed to be accomplished.
It rested, and lifted the leaf by the petiole. We then saw that the
hammering had made it into a firm brown ball nearly as large as an oak gall.
The bird flew with it behind the kitchen-ell of the cottage. We hurried around,
and were met by the Titmouse, empty-billed, who looked at us with an innocent,
nonchalant air. Had it dropped the ball into its nest-hole?—Lucy H.
Upton.

[Who can add any information which will throw light on this unusual observation?—A.
H. W.]

TWILIGHT HOUR AT ASHAWAY

The western sky, soft tinted with the hues of setting sun,

Lends beauty to the twilight shadows lengthening one by one,

Twined mystic’lly together by the stirring April breeze

That sends a message of awakening through the leafless trees.
The fresh, cool air, bearing the scent of new-ploughed earth

Gives promise of the future harvest soon to have its birth,

When garden, field and orchard, now wearing brown and gray,

Shall change these duller colors for the vernal green of May;
The farmer reads the happy signs and whistles in true glee

Jangling in haste his cans and milk-pails merrily;

While lazy cattle straggle up the rocky barnyard way,

And the impatient horses paw and whinny for their hay.
A scuffle and a cackle in the hen-coop near at hand

Give token where the mother hen broods o’er her fledgling band,

And Spotty seeks the hay-mow, purring loudly in her pride,

For there, in safety waiting her, three kittens do abide.
The Robins and the Bluebirds call and answer all around,

And the cheerful little peeptoads seem to crowd the air with sound,—

And yet it is not noisy. Joyous peace is everywhere,

And a consciousness of Heaven makes the twilight hour more fair.

Ruth R. Hayden.

[This poem was written by a student in The Rhode Island State Normal School. It
is of unusual interest since the author, although blind, undertook the course in nature-study
and succeeded so well that her instructor writes: “I am tempted to say that only
those are blind who won’t see. I am convinced that the subject is most valuable for
classes in schools of the blind.” See Bird-Lore, Vol. XIII, No. 6, p. 316.—A. H. W.]

[127]


FEMALE RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD, NEST AND YOUNG
Photographed by E. Jack

[128]

THE CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER

By T. GILBERT PEARSON

The National Association of Audubon Societies

EDUCATIONAL LEAFLET NO. 85

Among the most charming birds in the world are the members of that
group classified as the family of Wood Warblers. There are about one hundred
and fifty-five known species, and they are found in no other country but
America. Seventy-four kinds occur in North America, and fifty-five of these
have been recorded in the United States.

They are small birds, the majority measuring rather less than five and one-half
inches from bill-tip to tail-tip. They are birds mainly of woods and thickets,
a few only venturing into open country. The Warbler’s bill is longer than that
of most small birds, and is well adapted for seizing the soft-bodied insects
upon which it so largely preys.

One of the most common members of the family in the Eastern States is
the Chestnut-sided Warbler. The general appearance of the male is that of a
particularly trim little bird with olive-green back and bright yellow crown; the
under parts are lighter, and the sides are marked by deep chestnut—that is,
this is the way the male looks in spring. At this season the female is quite
similar, although its colors are duller. In the fall and winter the plumage
presents a very different appearance. The upper parts then are yellowish
olive-green, sometimes with faint streaks on the back. The deep-chestnut of
the sides has given way to a few spots or patches of this color.

In seeking the Chestnut-sided Warbler, one should go to woodlands that
have been cut over and grown up in bushes. There are found the conditions
which this bird dearly loves, and in such a situation one may pass a whole
forenoon and seldom be out of sight or hearing of one or more of them.

The nest is made of strips of bark, soft dead leaf-stems, and similar material;
it is lined with tendrils and rootlets. Usually the nest is from two and a half
to three and a half feet from the ground. Rarely have I found one so situated
that it could not readily be reached by the spring of an agile house-cat, and
there is much evidence to show that many are pulled down every year by these
feline hunters.

It is commonly reported that as many as five eggs are deposited in the
nest before the bird begins sitting, but fully three-fourths of those nests that
I have found contained only four eggs. They are white, with numerous brown
markings of various shades—some distinct, others more or less obscure, as if
the inside of the shell had been painted and the color was showing through.
The spots and blotches are gathered chiefly in a wreath about the larger end.

[128a]

CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER

  • Order—Passeres
  • Genus—Dendroica
  • Family—Mniotiltidæ
  • Species—pennsylvanica

National Association of Audubon Societies

[128b]

[129]

They are pretty, dainty little objects, as is the case with all Warblers’ eggs.
In size, they are about two-thirds of an inch long, and half an inch in diameter
at the largest place.

In the latitude of Boston, fresh eggs may usually be found late in May or
in the first week of June.

The Chestnut-sided Warbler feeds almost exclusively on insects. John
James Audubon wrote that once in Pennsylvania, during a snowstorm in
early spring, he examined the dead bodies of several, and found that their
stomachs contained only grass-seeds and a few spiders. The birds were very
poor, and evidently were in a half-starved condition, which would probably
account for the fact that they had been engaged in such an un-warbler-like act
as eating seeds. Ordinarily this bird is highly insectivorous, and feeds very
largely on leaf-eating caterpillars. It also collects plant-lice, ants, leaf-hoppers,
small bark-beetles, and, in fact, is a perfect scourge to the small insect-life
inhabiting the foliage of the bushes and trees where it makes its home. Sometimes
the birds take short flights in the air after winged insects. It will thus be
seen that the Chestnut-sided Warbler is of decided value as a guardian of trees,
which is reason enough why the legislators of the various states where the
bird is found were induced to enact the Audubon Law for its protection.

All birds that depend so much on insects for their livelihood as does the
Chestnut-sided Warbler are necessarily highly migratory. By the middle of
September nearly all have departed from their summer home, which, we may
say roughly, covers the territory of the southern Canadian Provinces from
Saskatchewan eastward, and extends southward as far as Ohio and New Jersey.
They are also found in summer along the Alleghany Mountains in Tennessee
and South Carolina. Most of the migrants go to Central America by way of
the Gulf of Mexico, and only a comparatively small number travel to Florida
and the Bahama Islands.

The song of the Chestnut-sided Warbler is confused in the minds of some
listeners with that of the Yellow Warbler. Mathews says the song resembles
the words, “I wish, I wish, I wish to see Miss Beecher.”

Mr. Clinton G. Abbott, writing in Bird-Lore in 1909, told most entertainingly
of the fortunes of a pair of these Warblers and their nest, which he
watched one summer. After telling of finding a nest from which all the eggs
had been thrown but one, and in their place had been deposited two eggs of
the Cowbird, he says:

“The nest was found at Rhinebeck, New York, on July 6, 1900, incubation
having apparently just started. Four days later I discovered that one of the
Cowbird’s eggs was infertile; so I removed it from the nest, disappointed that
I should not, after all, enjoy the somewhat unique experience of observing
two young Cowbirds growing up in the same nest. It was some time during
the night of July 13-14 that the first of the remaining two eggs hatched—the
Cowbird’s of course. The Warbler’s hatched between twelve and twelve-thirty[130]
o’clock on the 14th. The nicety with which matters had been so arranged that
the young Cowbird would have just a convenient start in life over its unfortunate
rival commanded at least my admiration if not my sympathy. Cowbirds
must indeed be sharp nest-finders to be able to discover at short notice not
only the nests of certain suitable kinds of birds, but even nests containing
eggs at a certain stage of incubation!

A NEST OF THE CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER

“After the hatching of the eggs, I spent considerable time at the nest-side,
and observed with interest the many pretty little incidents of a bird’s domestic
life—the constant and tender brooding of the newly hatched young by both
Warblers in turn; the never-ceasing search among the neighboring trees and
bushes for small caterpillars; the delivery of the food by the male to the brooding
female, who, in turn, would raise herself and pass it to the young; the careful
cleansing of the nest; and many other intimate details of the birds’ loving
and happy lives. When I drew aside the leaves that sheltered the nest and
allowed the sun to shine upon it for purposes of photography, the mother,
realizing with that wonderful instinct common to all birds which nest in the
shade, the fatal effect on her babies of the sun’s direct rays, would take her
stand on the edge of the nest and with outstretched wings would form of her
own body a living shield for the comfort and protection of her young. Although
herself in evident distress from the heat, and with parted mandibles continually
gasping for air, she would remain in this position as long as the sun shone
upon her, only stepping aside occasionally when a well-known signal announced
that her husband had arrived with a meal for the little ones. It was a beautiful
picture of parental devotion.

[131]

“As the young birds began to grow, the Cowbird not only maintained, but
rapidly increased its lead over its small nest-mate. At every visit of the parent
bird with food, its capacious gullet could be seen violently waving aloft and
almost completely hiding the feeble little mouth of the Warbler, whose owner
was pathetically doing its best in a dumb appeal for food. The Cowbird’s
appetite seemed never to be satiated and, unlike most nestlings, which relapse
after a meal and give their brethren the next chance, he seemed ready for every
fresh opportunity; and, by reason of his superior display, he usually succeeded
in obtaining the coveted morsel. However, the young Warbler did manage to
get an occasional portion, and I had strong hopes that he might reach maturity.
For I realized that a Chestnut-sided Warbler’s usual laying is about five eggs,
and that therefore some four eggs must have been made to give place to the
two Cowbird’s. Hence the young Cowbird in the nest might reasonably be
granted the room and food of four young Warblers. More than this I hoped
he was not getting.

“On July 18, at 3.30 P. M., when the birds were about four days old, I took
them from the nest to compare their sizes. I replaced them in the nest, but
that was the last I saw of the poor little Warbler. When I returned at 5 P. M.,
the Cowbird was in sole and triumphant possession of the nest. Just what
became of the Chestnut-sided Warbler will never be known, but my theory is
that, weakened by lack of sufficient food, the little fellow at last became too
feeble to raise himself at all, and was crushed to death by the Cowbird’s gross
body. The parent birds, returning and finding the little corpse in the bottom
of the nest, were no doubt impelled by their instinctive sense of cleanliness to
carry it to a distance; for the most careful search over a large area beneath the
nest failed to reveal any sign of the missing bird, thus proving that it had not
fallen from the nest nor been forced out by the Cowbird.

“The Cowbird now had things all his own way and, there being no one to
dispute his right to all the food, he grew with amazing rapidity. The dainty
little cup of a nest, never built to accommodate such a monster, was soon completely
forced out of shape. His body then protruded beyond the lower rim of
the nest, and the ground underneath became littered with droppings, quite
baffling the cleanly, sanitary instincts of the Warblers.

“The Cowbird, now almost twice as large as his devoted foster-parents,
rises with hideous chitterings of delight to receive an ever-acceptable meal.
I visited the nest at 7.30 A. M., on July 26. As I walked home to breakfast, I
resolved that in the interests of justice I ought to put an end to that Cowbird,
as a murderer and a menace to the welfare of birddom. But when I
returned to the spot, about 9 A. M., he had escaped me; the nest was empty,
my bird flown. No doubt, if I had searched and listened, I should have
heard him shouting for food not far away; but my spirit of vengeance was
only half-hearted at best, and so I left him, a criminal abroad, to be the parent,
I suppose, of others as bad.”

[132]

The Audubon Societies

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT

Edited by T. GILBERT PEARSON, Secretary

Address all correspondence, and send all remittances for dues and contributions, to
the National Association of Audubon Societies, 1974 Broadway, New York City.

William Dutcher, President

  • Theodore S. Palmer, First Vice President
  • Frederic A. Lucas, Acting President
  • T. Gilbert Pearson, Secretary
  • Jonathan Dwight, Jr., Treasurer

Samuel T. Carter, Jr., Attorney

Any person, club, school or company in sympathy with the objects of this Association may become
a member of it, and all are welcome.

Classes of Membership in the National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild
Birds and Animals:

$5annually pays for a Sustaining Membership
$100paid at one time constitutes a Life Membership
$1,000constitutes a person a Patron
$5,000constitutes a person a Founder
$25,000constitutes a person a Benefactor

Form of Bequest:—I do hereby give and bequeath to The National Association of Audubon
Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals (Incorporated), of the City of New York.

A CASE IN POINT

In the last issue of Bird-Lore were reproduced
some photographs of a ruined
White Ibis rookery, which Dr. Herbert R.
Mills stated had been destroyed by
“sportsmen” who had wantonly shot the
birds. Such raids on the bird-life of Florida
have been made frequently by northern
visitors to the state. A striking example
of this habit has just come to public notice.

In the February issue of Scribner’s
Magazine
, a writer, after referring to the
pleasures he enjoyed while catching
tarpon at Bocagrande, says:

“Birds were always flying around the
boat; Gulls, Man-o’-wars, Pelicans, and
when we weren’t fishing we were potting
at them with a Winchester .22. The Big
Chief was a wizard with a rifle, and even
skimming Swallows were none too swift
or too small for his Deadeye Dick precision
of aim. After cutting down a sailing Man-o’-war,
two hundred yards above the
water, and surely three hundred yards
away, he formed a Man-o’-war’s Club; any
body who killed one flying was entitled to
membership.”

All these birds are protected by the
laws of Florida and at least one of them
by the United States Migratory Bird Law.
There is no open season for any of them.
The man who wrote this is not a poor,
illiterate inhabitant of the southern
swamps, who killed the birds to sell their
feathers for a few dollars with which to
help feed his family; but is a successful
writer of novels and stories, many of
which you and I have bought and read
with pleasure. Incidentally, by our purchase
of his work, we have aided in
swelling his royalties, thus enabling him
to go to Bocagrande, and doubtless elsewhere,
where he might amuse himself from
time to time in the very delectable sport of
shooting harmless non-game birds. This
man is John Fox, Jr.

As a result of the work of this Association,
the Pelican colonies in Charlotte
Harbor near Bocagrande have been made
Federal bird-reservations. While attempting
to protect one of them, Columbus G.
McLeod, one of our wardens, had his head
chopped open and his body sunk in the
harbor by persons who did not approve
of his zeal. These birds—the wards of
the Government, the birds that the
Audubon Society’s members have been
giving money to protect, and the birds for
which one good man has given up his
life—these birds afford targets for Mr.
John Fox Jr., and his friends; and
[133]
Scribner’s Magazine, doubtless greatly
pleased at the privilege of being allowed
to publish an article from the pen of a
gentleman so distinguished, kind and
altruistic, has taken these boasting
sentences and printed them, regardless of
the fact that the magazine will go into
thousands of homes to be read by young
men who may later go tarpon-fishing in the
limpid waters about Bocagrande, and
who might be inspired to follow the example
of the noble deeds of this celebrated
novelist.

We are glad to reproduce here an open
letter written to him by Doctor William
F. Blackman, President of the Florida
State Audubon Society:

Dear Sir: As a tarpon fisherman, holding
the record in a recent year for the largest
fish taken in the state, I was much
interested in your article in the February
Issue of Scribner’s Magazine, on ‘Tarpon
Fishing at Bocagrande.’ But when you
told your readers that you and your companions
beguiled your leisure, on this occasion,
by ‘potting with a Winchester .22’
at the Gulls, Man-o’-wars, Pelicans, and
skimming Swallows which surrounded your
boat, you surprised and pained and disgusted
me beyond words.

“You doubtless knew that all these birds
are protected by the laws of Florida, and
some of them by the Federal laws also; your
action was deliberately criminal; it was also
unspeakably puerile, wanton, cruel, and
vulgar.

“The citizens of Florida welcome tourists
from other states; we are happy to share
our excellent fishing and shooting with them
within legal and decent limits, which, I am
glad to say, the great majority of those who
sojourn among us carefully and cheerfully
observe; but we do not propose to allow
our plumage and insectivorous birds to be
slaughtered to provide fun for thoughtless
and reckless gunners whether residents or
visitors.

“You are too foxy to say whether you
yourself succeeded in killing any of these
birds, but I hereby give you notice that if
you ever again set foot on our soil, and I am
apprised of the fact, I shall see that you
have an opportunity to tell your story in
the courts. If proof can be had of your
personal guilt, you will be punished to the
full limit of the law, in both the state and
federal jurisdictions, for a misdemeanor so
unsportmanlike and inexcusable.”


A FEEDING-SHELF FOR BIRDS ERECTED BY JUDGE HARRY L. CRESWELL,
GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

[134]


PHOTOGRAPHING WATER-FOWL

To watch at close range the wildfowl
accumulated on the Ward-McIlhenny
reservation in the marshes of Louisiana
is the privilege of a lifetime.

Mr. Herbert K. Job not only had this
privilege for about six weeks during last
December and the early weeks of January,
but he procured a remarkable series of
photographs of water-birds that make that
region their winter home. From the
moving pictures that he made the
Association now has a thousand-foot reel,
showing Pintails, Teals, and other Ducks,
as well as Boat-tailed Grackles and
Coots.

To ornithologists, the most interesting
pictures he obtained were those of the
Blue Geese. The chief summer home of
these birds is supposed to be on the islands
north of the American continent, and
most, if not all of them, pass the winter in
the marshes of Louisiana. I know of no
case heretofore where they have been
photographed in large numbers at close
range.

PHOTOGRAPHED FROM THE WINDOW OF A CABIN ON
THE WARD-McILHENNY RESERVATION

The accompanying illustrations were
all made by Mr. Job on this expedition,
and will give some idea of the results of
his skill and patience in the use of a
moving-picture camera.

[135]

WHEN ALARMED, THE DUCKS WERE THE FIRST TO TAKE FLIGHT

AN INTERESTING COMPANY OF COOTS

[136]

PINTAILS, TEALS, AND COOTS, PHOTOGRAPHED FROM CABIN WINDOW

PINTAILS, TEALS, AND BOAT-TAILED GRACKLES, PHOTOGRAPHED FROM
CABIN WINDOW

[137]

BLUE GEESE AND A FEW GREATER SNOW-GEESE “GRAVELING” AT VERMILION BAY, LOUISIANA.
MR. JOB WAITED FIVE DAYS IN A BLIND TO GET THESE PICTURES OF GEESE

[138]

BLUE GEESE AND SNOW-GEESE ALIGHTING. VERMILION BAY, LOUISIANA,
JANUARY 3, 1916

THE MARSH ON FIRE

[139]


BIRDS AND THE COLD SPELL

On the morning of February 5, 1916,
there was received at the office of the
National Association the following telegram:

“The State Game Warden, Topeka,
Kansas, reports his state covered with
three to nine inches of sleet and ice. Birds
starving by wholesale. State organizing
campaign for food. Can you assist?
Immediate action necessary. E. W. Nelson,
Acting Chief, Biological Survey.”

We immediately telegraphed to the State
Game Warden of Kansas offering $200
for the purchase of grain. Shortly afterward
the following telegram was received
from Honorable Carlos Avery, State
Game Commissioner of Minnesota:

“Conditions critical for Quail on account
of unprecedented depth of snow and
extreme cold. Funds insufficient to care
for them adequately. Can you include
Minnesota for appropriation for this
purpose?”

This second call for help, together with
word received from other directions,
indicated that the snow and ice-cap had
extended generally over a number of the
northern states of the Middle West. We
at once wired to the officials of some of the
organizations in several of these states,
and also sent telegrams to thirty-five
members of the Association, telling them of
the situation and asking for contributions
to be used in the purchase and distribution
of food for the birds. Many of the members
immediately responded, and in a
remarkably short time we had collected
and telegraphed to the Cleveland Bird-Lovers’
Association $200, to the President
of the South Dakota State College $200,
and to the Minnesota Game Commission
$600.

We also telegraphed the Postmaster
General in Washington asking that rural
mail-carriers in Minnesota, Kansas, and
Nebraska be authorized to distribute
grain to be supplied them for the purpose.
The Third Assistant Postmaster
General at once gave the instructions
requested.

Mrs. Elizabeth C. T. Miller, President
of the Cleveland Bird-Lovers’ Association,
sent notices to all on her large membership
list, called upon the people generally
through the press, and set other movements
in operation looking to the good of
the birds.

The South Dakota State College is the
largest educational institution in the
State, enrolling over eleven hundred members.
President E. C. Perisho, who is a
lover of wild birds and, incidentally, one
of the most influential and public-spirited
educators of the West, called a mass
meeting of his students and laid the situation
before them. The following is from
one of his letters, and will give some idea
of what resulted.

“We are doing everything possible at
this end to save the birds of South Dakota.
I thought perhaps you would be interested
to know that our organization for this
purpose is as follows:

“1. The State College has written to
four hundred or five hundred boys and
girls, members of the Boys’ and Girls’
Clubs of the state, asking them to scatter
grain and make some protection to save
the Field Sparrows, Quails, and Prairie
Chickens especially.

“2. The entire extension force of the
College, including all the short-course
demonstrators, district men, etc., have
been written to and are coöperating with
us.

“3. All the county agents of the state
are interesting the school children of their
counties, and a number of farmers and
the rural mail carriers.

“4. The commercial clubs in all the
large towns of the state, and the smaller
ones where grain is most needed, have been
written to, asking for their immediate
coöperation.

“5. All the state institutions, five
besides our own, have been asked to
help in this matter.

“6. A number of high schools and township
schools, etc., have been asked to help.

“7. Between one and two hundred
farmers, well distributed over the state
have had personal letters.

“Money in small amounts has been
promised to county agents, commercial
clubs, etc. I met a number of the young
men of our college today and talked to
them about the situation, and asked for
their coöperation in writing to their
homes, etc. Those most interested in the
work went out, after the meeting, and
had a picture taken. I will send you this
photograph as soon as it is developed.”

[140]

SAVING THE QUAIL IN MINNESOTA

1. Locating nesting-places of Quails under brush and broken treetops. 2. Placing grain under brush
just occupied by a bunch of Quails. 3. Fifteen Quails were found here on February 13; food was left for
them. 4. Some Quails become weak from lack of food, are easily caught, and sit contentedly in one’s
warm hand. 5. Several Quails near the foot of a tree, and one (at the right) running.

[141]

In Minnesota, the “Save the Quail
Association” was immediately formed by
the sportsmen of St. Paul and vicinity.
Mr. Carlos Avery put the State Game
Wardens to work, and the matter was
given wide publicity. An immense work
was done throughout the state in the way
of feeding birds. Mr. Avery has sent in a
large number of photographs, showing the
men actually at work for the relief of the
birds. The method of feeding the Quails,
to locate the covies, scrape the snow
away, and put out food.

The heavy snow and extreme cold prevailed
over a large area of the northern
United States, and more work was probably
done to feed the birds this winter than
ever before under similar conditions.
Many of the State Game Commissions
have funds for this purpose, and have been
very active.

Quails and Pheasants are known to
have suffered much in Oregon and Washington.
A quaint little incident is reported
of pheasants in Washington, sent us by a
correspondent in British Columbia. He
relates that the Pheasants during the time
of deep snow not only came familiarly
about barnyards, but were fond of perching
on the backs of the hogs in order,
apparently, to warm their chilled feet.

There have been some losses in New
England, and even from New Jersey reports
reached the office of the toll of bird-life
that the heavy snow had taken.

STUDENTS OF THE SOUTH DAKOTA STATE COLLEGE, AFTER LISTENING TO AN
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT E. C. PERISHO, ON THE NEED OF FEEDING BIRDS IN
WINTER. NOTE THE DEPTH OF THE SNOW.

[142]


FLORENCE MERRIAM BAILEY

When George Bird Grinnell coined the
term “Audubon Society,” and started the
Audubon Movement, in 1886, one of the
first to respond to the call and to go
actively into the work was Miss Florence
Merriam, who, with Miss Fanny Hardy—now
Mrs. Eckstorm, author of several
bird-books—in March, 1886, organized
the Smith College Audubon Society. Soon
afterward Miss Merriam assumed the
duties of a local Audubon secretaryship,
in northern New York, and also secured
local secretaries in several neighboring
towns.

In 1897, when the Audubon Society of
the District of Columbia was organized,
she was one of its chartered members. For
many years, as Mrs. Florence Merriam
Bailey, she has been an active member of
its executive committee, and, among other
duties, has had charge of the annual
spring bird-class, one of the most important
features of that Society. That her
interest in the work is deep, and sympathetic
to an unusual degree may be shown
by a quotation from a letter that she
wrote to the California Audubon Society
on the occasion of its organization:

“Wherever you go, study the birds and
tell your friends of them. Point out to
them the chaste beauty of your exquisitely
tinted waterfowl; let them see the glowing
splendor of your Tanagers, the flashing
jewels of your Hummingbirds. Take them
to the fields, that they may listen in rapture
to the rare voice of your Meadowlark;
take them to the deep canyons filled with
the flute-like notes of the Canyon Wren;
and to the fir forests on the mountainsides,
where their souls will be stirred by
the uplifted song of the Thrush.

“By knowing the birds personally, you
will bring to your Audubon work the
enkindling spark of enthusiastic friendship.
In all phases of your work, for
yourselves, your friends, your birds, and
your children, you have my hearty
interest and good wishes. For fifteen
years I have been waiting for you to take
up the cause of the California birds, and
for many years I have been working with
the children of the West on my heart.
Knowing this, you may well believe that
I wish your beautiful work an earnest
God-speed.”

Mrs. Bailey’s natural girlhood’s interest
in wild birds was greatly quickened by
dwelling in a home in which scholarship
and a love of scientific accuracy were
taught daily; and she had the added
advantage of living in a region of northern
New York well supplied with bird-life.
In a recent letter she wrote: “Having been
brought up on Coues’s ‘Key,’ and trained
by my brother, Dr. C. Hart Merriam, on
leaving College in 1886 I began doing
careful field-work.” Since that day, no
woman has studied the wild birds of
America so systematically, so thoroughly,
and so carefully as she. The amount of
field-work she has done is perfectly astonishing,
and probably few women have
spent so many days in the wilds, or so
many nights under canvas, as has Mrs.
Florence Merriam Bailey. Her work,
partly conducted in company with her
brother, Dr. Merriam, and her husband,
Mr. Vernon Bailey, has been carried on
not only in eastern and southern states
and in the Bermudas, but also in Arizona,
Oregon, California, North Dakota, Texas,
Utah, and New Mexico.

As a teacher of others, she has given
bird-talks and conducted field-classes in
bird-study in various parts of the country,
and for thirty years her name has been
before the public as a writer of popular
and scientific articles. The titles of no
less than seventy communications published
in The Auk, Bird-Lore, The Condor,
Forest and Stream, The Outlook, Popular
Science
, The American Agriculturist, and
elsewhere, have come to my attention.
Her first book, “Birds Through An Opera
Glass,” was published in 1889. This was
followed by “My Summer in a Mormon
Village,” 1895; “A-Birding on a Bronco,”
1896; and “Birds of Village and Field,”
1898.

[143]

FLORENCE MERRIAM BAILEY

[144]

Her largest and most valuable contribution
to the literature of ornithology is
her “Handbook of Birds of the Western
United States,” first published in 1902.
From the day of its appearance, this was
hailed as the most practical and useful
book on our western birds that had ever
been published, and for many years to
come it will be regarded as the standard
work on the subject. No serious student
of bird-life in the western United States
would think of being without this valuable
book on his study-table.


NEW MEMBERS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Enrolled from January 1 to March 1, 1916.

Life Members.
Agnew, Miss Alice G.
Andrews, J. Sherlock
Arnold, Edward W. C.
Barr, James H.
Black, R. Clifford
Blake, Mrs. Francis
Brackenridge, George W.
Burnham, William
Butler, Mrs. Paul
Butterworth, Mrs. William
Campbell, John B.
Childs, Eversley
Clark, George H.
Clementson, Mrs. Sidney
Colgate, Richard M.
Covell, Dr. H. H.
Dahlstrom, Mrs. C. A.
Dodge, Cleveland H.
Doepke, Mrs. William F.
Eddison, Charles
Glazier, Henry S.
Hamlin, Mrs. Eva S.
Hanna, Mrs. H. M., Jr.
Haskell, J. Amory
Higginson, Mrs. James J.
“Iowa Friend”
Jenkins, Mrs. Joseph W.
Keen, Miss Florence
Keith, Mrs. D. M.
Kingsbury, Miss Alice E.
Langdon, Woodbury G.
Lansing, Mrs. G. Y.
Lawrence, Rosewell B.
Low, Miss Nathalie F.
MacLean, Mrs. Charles F.
Marmon, Mrs. Elizabeth C.
Miller, Mrs. E. C. T.
Mitchell, Miss Mary
Moore, Mrs. William H.
Neave, Miss Jane C.
Newberry, W. F.
Oliver, Mrs. James B.
Osborn, Mrs. William C.
Prentiss, F. F.
Rathborne, Richard C.
Remsen, Miss Elizabeth
Rodewald, F. L.
Sanger, Mrs. C. R.
Severance, John L.
Stetson, Francis L.

          Stillman, B. G.
Stillman, Chauncey D.
Thaw, J. C.
Upson, Mrs. Henry S.
Weld, Miss Elizabeth F.
White, Windsor T.
Woolman, Edward

Sustaining Members.
Adams, Mrs. Maud W.
Aims, Miss Edith M.
Allen, Charles D.
Allen, Mrs. D. P.
Armstrong, Mrs. C. R.
Audubon Society of Illinois.
Audubon Society of New Hampshire.
Barber, Mrs. H.
Barrows, Ira.
Bayne, Howard
Beacom, M. W.
Benton, Andrew A.
Biays, Miss Katherine
Billard, Mrs. J. L.
Bispham, David
Boettger, Mrs. Theodore
Booth, Mrs. Henry M.
Brunswick, Mrs. E.
Burton, Mrs. Robert M.
Carey, Mrs. Frederic F.
Cerf, Mrs. L. A.
Choate, Miss Caroline
Church, F. S.
Clark, F. Ambrose
Clark, George C.
Clements, Mrs. G. H.
Cochran, G. D.
Cohn, Julius M.
Colfelt, Mrs. R. McM.
Colorado Audubon Society
Cory, Daniel W.
de Bary, A.
Delta Duck Club
DeMilt, Miss Aida R.
deRham, H. Casimir
Dinsmore, Mrs. W. B.
Emerson, William
Flint, Mrs. Austin
Ford, Mrs. Bruce
Foshay, Dr. P. Maxwell
Fraser, Miss Ann C.
Fuld, Solomon

          Gale, C. C.[145]
Gates, Dr. Milo H.
Gavit, E. P.
Godwin, Mrs. H.
Gouinlock, Miss Mary S.
Haggin, Mrs. Ben Ali
Haines, Charles D.
Hall, A. Neely
Hatch, Miss Cornelia C.
Havemeyer, Henry O.
Hawes, Miss M. M.
Hawkes, Miss Eva
Herz, Mrs. F. W.
Heyn, Miss Emma
Hibbs, Mrs. Russell A.
Hitchcock, Master Frank
Hoening, Mrs. C.
Hooper, Mrs. Newlin
Hopkins, Mrs. George B.
Hotchkiss, Frank A.
Houghton, Mrs. Grace N.
Howland, Dr. John
Hoyt, Miss Rosina S.
Hyde, Mrs. Clarence M.
Imbrie, Mrs. James
Irwin, John V.
Jaretzki, Mrs. Alfred
Jenkins, A. W.
Jennings, Mrs. Oliver G.
Jewett, William K.
Judd, Mrs. M. E.
Judson, Mrs. A. L.
Keck, Miss Margaret W.
Kennedy, David A.
Kennedy, Mrs. N. Van Rensselaer
Kent, Edwin C.
Keyes, Mrs. Edward L., Jr.
Kimball, Mrs. Reuel B.
King, Mrs. Willard V.
Kinne, Miss Helen
Klingenstein, Charles
Lamb, Gilbert D.
Lane, James Warren, Jr.
Lansburgh, Miss Edith Rosalie
Ledoux, Mrs. Albert R.
Lehmaier, Mrs. Louis A.
Lehman, Meyer H.
Lewis, Richard V.
Lieb, Dr. Charles C.
Lilienthal, Dr. Howard
Louis, Charles H.
McHugh, Joseph P.
Maron, Otto
Massey, Miss H. F.
Mather, Charles M.
Mayer, Louis
Merriam, F. L.
Meyn, Mrs. Heinrich
Miller, Mrs. R. T.
Miller, Mrs. Seaman
Mills, Frederic C.
Mills, Miss Jean
Moore, Miss K. T.
Moorhead, Horace R.

          Morton, Mrs. Levi P.
Moses, Mrs. E.
Muendel, Miss Christina
Nelson, Charles W.
New Bedford Bird Club
Newell, Mrs. G. T.
Nicoll, Mrs. Fancher
Oregon Audubon Society
Palmer, Nicholas F.
Peck, Dr. Charles H.
Pomeroy, Daniel E.
Poor, Roger M.
Pope, Miss Edith A.
Pratt, Mrs. Frederic B.
Procter, Mrs. Wm. Cooper
Proctor, Thomas R.
Puffer, Miss Isabel
Putney, Miss E. C.
Redmond, Master Henry S.
Reese, Mrs. R. G.
Rehling-Qvistgaard, J. W. V.
Renard, Fred O.
Reynolds, Mrs. G. W.
Riley, Mrs. W. W.
Robbins, Allan Appleton
Rogers, Mrs. Francis
Romenus, Albert
Rumsey, Lawrence Dana
Rupprecht, Frederick K.
Ryle, Miss Julia
Sachs, Dr. Bernard
Savage, James
Sawtelle, Mrs. E. M.
Schanck, George E.
Scofield, Miss Marion
Seaman, William W.
Sharpe, Miss Elizabeth M.
Shaw, Miss Louise
Sherman, Miss Julia Frances
Siegel, William
Simmons, Mrs. Warren H.
Simonson, Mrs. William A.
Simpson, Miss Jean W.
Smillie, James C.
Smith, Mrs. A. G.
Smith, Miss Emeline C.
Smith, Mrs. Rufus B.
Smith, William Wharton
Snook, Mrs. T. E.
Soule, Elizabeth P.
Stafford, Mrs. William F.
Staudt, John
Steers, James R.
Steinway, F. T.
Stephens, Mrs. Nassau S.
Stillman, Mrs. E. G.
Stone, Miss Elizabeth B.
Strauss, Albert
Stubner, C. J.
Stursberg, Julius A.
Swan, William D.
Taylor, Mrs. W. R. K.
Thomson, John F.
Topliff, Miss Anna E.

          Townsend, Eugene L.
[146]
Tucker, Carill
Tuxbury, Miss L. E.
Varicle, Miss Renée
Vassar Wake Robin Club
Watson, Miss Emily A.
White, Mrs. Stanford
Whitson, Abraham U.
Wiborg, F. B.
Williams, Alexander S.
Williams, Mrs. Sydney M.
Wilson, Mrs. M. Orme
Wing, Frank L.
Winston-Salem Audubon Society
Zabriskie, Mrs. Cornelius

New Contributors.
Evans, Miss Mildred
French, Daniel C.
Harron, Master Halie I.
Haueisen, William C.
Jeremiah, J.
Kellogg, Miss M. W.
Macdonald, James A.
Mix, Robert J.
Newcomer, Miss Nannie I.
Parker, Forrest H.
Perrin, Marshall L.
Post, Mrs. E. J.
Townsend, Mrs. Charles
Wheeler, Mrs. L. F.

Contributors to Egret Fund

Previously acknowledged$1,01626
Abbott, Mrs. T. J.500
Adams, William C.100
Ames, Mrs. J. B.500
Auchincloss, Mrs. E. S.500
Barclay, Miss Emily500
Barri, Mrs. John A.500
Baxter, Lucy W.500
Beebe, Mrs. William H. II.300
Bernheimer, Mrs. J. S.1000
Bignell, Mrs. Effie100
Bird-Lover500
Blackwelder, Eliot100
Bliss, Miss Lucy B.700
Bonham, Miss Elizabeth S.500
Bonham, Mrs. Horace1000
Boynton, Mrs. C. H.100
Brent, Mrs. Duncan K.200
Brooks, Mrs. Shepherd1000
Brown, D. J.200
Burgess, E. Phillips300
Burt, Miss Edith200
Button, Conyers2500
Carse, Miss Harriet200
Case, Mrs. James B.1000
Clarke, Mrs. E. A. S.500
Clerk, Mrs. A. G.100
Cleveland, Mrs. Clement100
Collins, Miss Gertrude500
Cristy, Mrs. H. W.100
Curie, Charles500
Cutter, Ralph L.500
Davis, William T.500
Dawes, Miss Elizabeth B.1000
DeForest, Mrs. Robert W.500
Delafield, Mrs. John R.200
Dwight, Mrs. M. E.200
Early, Charles H.200
Eastman, George5000
Ellis, William D.1000
Emmons, 2nd, Mrs. R. W.1000
Evans, William B.400
Fergusson, Alexander C.200
Field, E. B.200
Foot, James D.200
Franklin, Mrs. M. L.1000
Friedman, Mrs. Max200
Fries, Miss Emilie100
Frothingham, John W.3500
Fuguet, Stephen500
Garst, Julius300
Godeffroy, Mrs. E. H.1000
Goodwin, Geo. R.500
Greene, Miss Caroline S.100
Haskell, Miss Helen P.200
Hathaway, Harry S.200
Hodgman, Miss Edith M.500
Hopkins, Miss Augusta D.300
Horr, Miss Elizabeth500
Hoyt, Miss G. L.500
Hunter, Mrs. W. H.200
Jackson, P. T., Jr.600
Jennings, Dr. George H.300
Jordan, A. H. B.2000
Joslin, Ada L.200
Jube, Albert B.300
Kennedy, Mrs. John S.500
Kerr, Mrs. T. B.100
Lewis, Mrs. August1000
Lewis, Mrs. Herman E.500
Mackey, Oscar T.500
Mann, J. R.100
Marrs, Mrs. Kingsmill500
Marsh, Spencer S.100
Mason, G. A.500
Mason, H. L., Jr.500
Meigs, Miss Hester125
Mellns, J. T.200
Merritt, Mrs. James H.200
Mills, Dr. Herbert R.2000
Montell, Mr. and Mrs. F. M.250
Moore, Alfred500
Morganthau, Mrs. M. L.100
Mott, Miss Marian500
Murray, J. Irwin, Jr.100
Nice, Mrs. Margaret M.300
Noyes, Raymond300
Oliver, Dr. Henry K.1000
Osborne, Arthur A.100
Pagenstecher, Miss Friede500
Parker, Edward L.2500
Parker, Mrs. W. R.300
Patton, Mrs. Margaret S.1000
Peck, Dr. Elizabeth L.100
Penfold, Edmund1000
[147]
Petty, E. R.200
Phelps, Mrs. Frances von R.1000
Pott, Miss Emma100
Pusey, Mrs. Howard200
Raymond, Charles II.500
Rhoads, S. N.100
Righter, William S.500
Robbins, Miss N. P. H.300
Robbins, Mr. and Mrs. R. E.2000
Sampson, Miss Lucy S.100
Saunders, Charles G.100
Schweppe, Mrs. H. M.100
Scofield, Miss Marion.1000
Shattuck, Miss Gertrude A.100
Simpkins, Miss M. W.1000
Small, Miss A. M.200
Spackman, Miss Emily S.100
Spalter, Mrs. F. B.100
Stanton, Mrs. T. G.200
Stevens, F. E.200
Stimson, William B.300
Thorndike, Mrs. Augustus100
Timmerman, Miss Edith150
Tower, Mrs. Kate D.100
Troescher, A. F.1000
Vaillant, Mrs. G. H.300
Von Zedlitz, Mrs. Anna200
Walker, Miss Mary A.200
White, Horace500
Willcox, Prof. M. A.1000
Williams, George F.500
Winslow, Miss Maria L. C.600
Woodward, Dr. S. B.500
Wright, Miss Mary A.200
Zimmerman, Dr. M. W.500
Total$1,70151


THE VIRGINIA GAME BILL PASSES

By a vote of twenty-four to nine, the
Senate of the Virginia Legislature has
passed the bill of the Farmers’ Union and
the Audubon Society for the establishment
of a Commission of Fisheries and
Game. The bill was signed by the Governor
on March 13, 1916. Thus ends a fight
which the Audubon Society has led in the
Virginia Legislature, session after session,
for many years.

Mr. M. D. Hart, President of the
Virginia Audubon Society, and others
who have labored hard for the successful
passage of this measure, are to be congratulated.
Now, at least, we may hope
for some good bird-and-game protection
in that state, for the commissioner will
have power to employ wardens, and will
have funds with which to pay them.

The methods of selecting the local
wardens is rather unusual: From a list of
ten names, submitted by the boards of
supervisors of the counties and the councils
of cities, the commissioner will select
wardens—one for each county and city
in the commonwealth. In communities
of less than 20,000 inhabitants these
officers will be paid a salary not to exceed
$50 a month. In more populous communities
their monthly pay will not be in
excess of $60. Special wardens may be
appointed to serve for not more than $3 a
day. The commissioner or any of his
wardens may serve original processes as
sheriffs and constables. Every hunter
who leaves his own premises or those
adjoining his will be required to obtain
from the commissioner a hunter’s license.
Residents will be charged $1 for the
privilege of hunting in their county, and
$3 for a state range. Non-residents may
hunt anywhere in Virginia on payment
of $10.

The victory in Virginia leaves only two
states in the Union that have no game-warden
system. These states are Florida
and Mississippi, which still vie with each
other for the honor of being the Rip Van
Winkle state in the matter of bird-protection.

birds on branch

[148]


SPRING ARRIVALS LOOKING FOR HOMES

From a drawing by Walter M. Dunk

[149]

NOTES FROM THE FIELD

Birds Beautifying Cemeteries

Some time ago, the Secretary happened
to visit a suburban cemetery,
where landscape-gardening and sculptural
art had done what they could to make the
scene beautiful and comforting, but he
was impressed by the absence of singing
birds. Alien Sparrows were chattering,
and the gurgling of a Grackle was heard
in the distance, but none of the sweet
voices and pretty forms of the native
birds charmed the ear or gladdened the
eye of a visitor. This seemed strange, for
the varied trees and shrubbery, with
sunny spaces among them, quiet and
guarded against noisy intrusion, would be
exceedingly attractive and favorable to
bird-life; and it occurred to him that in
no place would an invitation to the birds
to make themselves at home in summer
be so likely to be accepted; nor could
anything be more appropriate than their
cheerful presence. They will prove useful,
too.

These thoughts induced him to write a
brief essay, entitled “Cemeteries as Bird-Sanctuaries,”
which has been published
by the National Association as Circular
No. 2, and distributed to many persons
likely to be interested. The response has
been most encouraging. Associations and
individuals all over the country have
written for this circular, and are taking
measures to furnish cemeteries with
shelters, nesting-boxes and feeding-stations
for birds under instruction from the
Association. The great Forest Lawn
Cemetery near Omaha, for example, is
putting up 100 nest-boxes as a beginning.
The Rosehill Cemetery and others about
Chicago are undertaking similar enterprises,
and the Cemetery Beautifying
Association of San Francisco is planning
this addition to its methods of
making more attractive the resting-place
of the dead. Blue Bird announces that the
Lake View Cemetery at Cleveland, Ohio,
will erect many feeding-tables and nest-boxes,
in its grounds. The matter has been
taken up by the Lexington Kentucky
Audubon Society. Other instances might
be mentioned.

It is greatly to be hoped that many
others will follow their example. The
movement we think is worth while, for the
sake of humanity as well as for the birds.

The Oregon Audubon Society

The Oregon Audubon Society has
recently established headquarters in the
Young Men’s Christian Association building,
in Portland. The room occupied by
the Society has been tastefully decorated
with pictures, and contains cabinets of
specimens for study. It is planned to give
lectures regularly on Saturday evenings.

Mr. William L. Finley, President of the
Society, and the Pacific Coast field-agent
for the National Association, in company
with Mrs. Finley, has this spring been
spending several weeks in the East, where
he has been constantly engaged in giving
lectures illustrated with moving pictures
of sea-birds, Sage Grouse, sea-lions, cougars,
black bears, antelopes, and other
interesting forms of western wild life.

Work Along Columbia River

The Federation of Women’s Clubs in
the State of Washington has been notable
among such organizations for that practical
interest in bird-life which arises from
an appreciation of their usefulness as well
as their beauty. It has recently testified
to this most substantially by becoming a
member of this Association. Last year,
and to a less extent in the previous year,
the Federation was represented largely at
the State Fair by an exhibition that was
called the “Bird Court,” in which all sorts
of ornithological things were displayed to
great advantage. The success of these
exhibitions was due largely to the wisdom
and energy of Mrs. G. R. Pike, of North
Yakima, who has been indefatigable in
her efforts to spread the study of birds in
the schools. She has been traveling and
[150]
lecturing throughout the state for some
time, under the auspices of the State
Federation, which has supported this
agency generously. The National Association
has coöperated in all these matters,
and feels that it is abundantly rewarded
by results. It has now enabled Mrs. Pike
to extend her work, and it anticipates
still larger results in the organization of
Junior Classes, and in the stimulation of a
general interest in the cause throughout
the Columbia Valley.

Feather Importation In Canada

It may not be generally known to the
readers of Bird-Lore that, immediately
following the passage of the Tariff Act in
Washington, on October 3, 1913, which
prohibited the importation of feathers to
this country, the Canadian Parliament,
largely through the efforts of Dr. C. Gordon
Hewitt, passed a somewhat similar
measure. The Canadian law prohibits the
importation of:

“Aigrettes, Egret plumes, or so-called
Osprey plumes, and the feathers, quills,
heads, wings, tails, skins, or parts of skins,
of wild birds, either raw or manufactured;
but this provision shall not come into
effect until January 1, 1915, and shall
not apply to the feathers or plumes of
Ostriches; the plumage of the English
Pheasant and the Indian Peacock; the
plumage of wild birds ordinarily used as
articles of diet; the plumage of birds imported
alive, nor to specimens imported
under regulations of the Minister of Customs
for any natural-history or other
museum, or for educational purposes.”

Allan Brooks a Soldier

Allan Brooks, the artist, many of whose
colored pictures of birds have appeared in
Bird-Lore, is with the English Army
“somewhere in France.” In the summer
of 1915 he wrote the office that he would
not be able to do further work for the
Association for some time, as he was going
to Europe to study. Almost immediately
after his arrival in England war broke out.
He at once returned to Canada and
enlisted in a company at his home in
British Columbia. He has been promoted
from the rank of Lieutenant to that of
Captain. Last December, when Captain
Brooks had attained the distinction of
the longest continuous trench service of
any officer of the Canadian army, he was
offered a more restful position behind the
lines, but he declined it.

In a letter received by one of his friends
a short time ago he stated that he had
thus far escaped injury with the exception
of deafness in one ear, as a result of
a shell-explosion; and that, if he survived
the war, he would return to
America and hoped to paint better pictures
than before.

Deer-Killing Dogs

A lady writes from a village in northern
New York of the evil of loose dogs in
rural communities; and of her care for
winter-birds:

“On Sunday morning, January 23, two
dogs chased a deer (a young doe), that
strayed down from the mountains, and
attacked it most viciously until it sank
exhausted and wounded on the grounds of
the summer home of the church of the
Heavenly Rest, of which my husband is
gardener and caretaker. He and my son
rescued the deer from the dogs, and a neighbor
notified the supervisor, who gave
permission for its removal to a barn, awaiting
the arrival of the game warden. My
three children are members of the Audubon
Society, and are greatly interested in all
wild things. They are heart-broken
about the deer, and we try to protect
everything wild that comes our way. We
have many wild birds around our house,
which we coaxed around by putting little
houses in the branches of nearby trees, and
putting crumbs and scraps in them. We
also fixed some branches of hemlock
on the windowsill of our dining-room, on
which my husband ties pieces of suet,
doughnut, bones, and pieces of a pudding
I make especially for them, of suet, currants,
raisins, bread-crumbs, and scraps of
meat; and oh, how they enjoy it!”—Mrs.
John W. Payne.

[a7]

The Kind That Win Birds

Dodson Bird Houses

Don’t delay. Birds will soon be here. Put out Dodson
Bird Houses now and have Bluebirds, Wrens, Martins, Flickers, etc.
living in your garden. Buy houses made by a bird-lover.

Mr. Dodson has loved and worked for Native Birds all his life.
Dodson Bird Houses (20 styles—for all kinds of birds) used by birds
in every state. Martin House (illustrated here), $12; Wren House
$5; Bluebird House, $5; Flicker House, $2.50 to $5; Chickadee
House, $1.50 and $2.50; Bird Baths, $6 to $17. Prices f.o.b.
Kankakee, Illinois.

FREE PICTURE Of bird in Natural
Colors, with descriptive folder of Nature
Neighbors, the best set of books about
birds published. Write for this—now.

FREE BOOKLET Telling How to Win
Native Birds, and illustrating the famous
Dodson Bird Houses, Shelters, Baths, etc. Write
for it.

The Famous Dodson Sparrow Trap. No other trap like
this. Double funnel and automatic drop trap combined.
Works all the time. Price, $6. If you’re interested in birds,
write to the “Man the Birds Love.”

JOSEPH H. DODSON, 712 S. Harrison Ave., Kankakee, Ill.

Mr. Dodson is a Director of the Illinois Audubon Society

Edmanson Martin House. 28 rooms. Price
$10 f.o.b. Chicago; 26 rooms, $8.50.

Edmanson Bird Homes - Shipped Direct from Factory - Lowest Prices

Will last a lifetime. Attract the birds. Provide cozy little homes
for them. There is no better way of getting tree and shrub
insurance. Birds will work for you free of cost every day in the
year. Edmanson Bird Houses are used by thousands of America’s
foremost lovers of birds—endorsed by the Audubon Societies.

5,000 Bird Houses in Stock—Already Seasoned
Ready for Immediate Use—Birds Arrive This Month

We have been manufacturing Bird Houses for 20 years. Our
prices are lowest. Bluebird House, $5; Houses for Purple Martins,
$8.50; for Flickers, $3; for Chickadees, 70 cts.; for Swallows, $2.50; Cement Bird
Bath, $11; the famous Edmanson Sparrow Trap, electric welded, automatic,
none better, $1.75.

BIRD BOOKS by recognized authorities. We can save you money on
books. Handsomely illustrated catalog free. Write for it today.

E. E. EDMANSON & COMPANY
616 South Norton Street         Chicago, Illinois

Edmanson Wren
House.
4 rooms.
Price $4.50 f.o.b. Chicago.

Edmanson Feedery.
Price $1 f.o.b. Chicago.
Feeds grain, also suet.

Agents Wanted

To handle Subscriptions
for

The National

Humane Review

A high-grade publication
devoted especially to the
subject of child and animal
protection. Carefully
edited. Well illustrated.

Splendid opportunity for
those looking for part or
whole time work.

Write for particulars

The National Humane Review
ALBANY, NEW YORK

Learn the Birds

at your first acquaintance with them. You’ll
never forget them if you jot down a complete
description of each one while you watch it.
By using the BIRD NOTE BOOK you
record the essential markings and structure
in a few seconds, and can refer to your
colored plates after the bird is gone. This
method impresses the bird on the memory
indelibly. Also aids teachers and class-leaders.
Universally approved.

Single copy 15c. In two-dozen lots, 10c each

R. H. GERBERDING

1320 Chase Street     ANDERSON, IND.

Food for Nesting Birds

If you want birds to nest near you, you must
supply them with food. No food will attract
insectivorous birds more effectively than Mealworms.
The old birds eat them and also give
them to their young. Mealworms should be
fed from a shallow tin, glass or china vessel
that stands at some shaded place, free of the
sun’s rays. Place in it the worms you wish to
feed that day, and also a little bran. That is
their food. A treat for the fishes, etc., in your
aquarium, to keep them active and in good
health. A good clean bait for fishing with
rod and line. A choice food for your young
pheasants. (See U. S. Farmers’ Bulletin No. 390.)

Shall I supply you? 500 for $1; 1,000 for
$1.50; 5,000 for $5; 10,000 for $7.50, all express
prepaid east of the Mississippi.

C. B. KERN, Box 203, Mount Joy, Pa.

[a8]

A Purchasing Agency

The National Association of
Audubon Societies, 1974 Broadway,
New York, will act as a

Purchasing Agency for
Its Members

and friends, in obtaining for them
desired Books, Bird-boxes, Feeding-tables,
Field-glasses, Kodak
and other Cameras suitable for
work in Natural History, Botanical
or Entomological Supplies, Printed
Labels, Notebooks, School Apparatus
for Nature-Study, and anything
else wanted in the line of
Audubon work or recreation.

Cash must accompany
each order

The Bird
Is Astonishingly
Interesting

But so is the tree or shrub, the
insects on which the bird feeds,
the rock on which you sit; yes, even
the joy and pathos of the call of the
owl and whippoorwill are enhanced
by the stars.

ALL nature is our theme.

The Guide to Nature

EDITED BY
EDWARD F. BIGELOW

PUBLISHED BY
THE AGASSIZ ASSOCIATION

ARCADIA
Sound Beach :: Connecticut

SUBSCRIPTION, $1 A YEAR
SINGLE COPY, 10 CENTS

NATURE-
STUDY
REVIEW

Official Journal

The American Nature-Study Society

L. H. BAILEY, Pres., 1915

Each issue filled with special
illustrated articles from practical
teachers, dealing with School
Gardening, Nature-Study and
Elementary Agriculture, Methods,
Type Lessons and Suggestions.

SUBSCRIBE NOW

$1 a year, 15 cts. per copy

(Including Membership in the American
Nature-Study Society)

The Nature-Study Review
Ithaca, N. Y.

Two Cents Will
Buy a Bird’s Portrait

like that in this magazine. It
will be sent to you on a detached
sheet, ready for
framing, and with it will
go an Educational Leaflet
of four pages, describing
the bird’s habits, and an
outline plate for coloring.

These useful and beautiful
colored portraits of birds are
issued by the National Association
of Audubon Societies
, which
will send on request a list of
nearly 100 kinds of native
American birds
for your choice.

Address the Secretary

1974 Broadway, New York

[a9]

JOIN THIS ASSOCIATION
AND
HELP THE CAUSE OF BIRD-PROTECTION!

The Educational Leaflets
OF THE
National Association of
Audubon Societies

¶ The best means of learning the birds of your
neighborhood, and of teaching your children.

¶ Each leaflet describes the habits and utility of
one bird, and contains a detached colored plate
and an outline sketch of its subject.

¶ The Colored Plates are faithful portraits of the
birds, yet treated artistically, as is shown by the
examples in the border. No better pictures of their>
kind exist. (Plates not sold separately.)

¶ The Outlines are unshaded copies of the plates,
intended to be colored—the best method of fixing
facts in a young mind.

¶ These Leaflets, 85 in number, are sold singly at 2
cents each, or in a bound volume (Nos. 1 to 59) at>
$1.75. A list will be sent on request to the

National Association of Audubon Societies
1974 Broadway, New York City

SUBSCRIBE TO THE MAGAZINE
BIRD-LORE
COLORED PLATES           ONE DOLLAR A YEAR

[a10]

A BIRD BOOK
FOR TEACHERS



Bird-Life
By FRANK M. CHAPMAN

is especially adapted to the use of teachers. There
are 75 full-page colored plates figuring 100 common
birds. The Biographies are so arranged that they
may be used in supplemental reading. The Introductory
Chapters treat of the bird’s place in nature
and its relations to man, including its esthetic and
economic value; the wings, tail, bill, and feet of birds
and their uses, the colors of birds and what they mean,
bird migration, the voice of birds, birds’ nests and eggs.

An Appendix throws all this matter into the form
of lessons, reviews the bird-life of a year, tells of the
more interesting events of each month, and gives lists
of the birds which may be looked for at certain seasons.

There is a Field Key, ‘local lists’ for various places,
and an outline of classification for those who want it.

12mo, cloth. 300 pages. Price $2 net

D. Appleton & Company

NEW YORK CITY

[a11]

New, Revised Edition of the

Handbook of Birds
of Eastern North America

By FRANK M. CHAPMAN

Curator of Birds, American Museum of Natural History

With Plates in Colors and Black and White, by LOUIS
AGASSIZ FUERTES, and Text Illustrations by
TAPPAN ADNEY and ERNEST THOMPSON-SETON

The text of the preceding edition has been thoroughly
revised and much of it rewritten. The nomenclature and
ranges of the latest edition of the “Check-List” of the
American Ornithologists’ Union have been adopted.
Migration records from Oberlin, Ohio, Glen Ellyn, Ill.,
and Southeastern Minnesota, numerous nesting dates for
every species, and many biographical references have
been added; the descriptions of plumage emended to
represent the great increase in our knowledge of this
branch of ornithology; and, in short, the work has been
enlarged to the limit imposed by true handbook size and
brought fully up-to-date.

In addition to possessing all the features which made
the old “Handbook” at once popular and authoritative,
the new “Handbook” contains an Introduction of over
100 pages on “How to Study the Birds in Nature,”
which will be of the utmost value to all students of living
birds.

The subjects of distribution, migration, song, nesting,
color, food, structure and habit, intelligence, and allied
problems are here treated in a manner designed to arouse
interest and stimulate and direct original observation.

A Biographical Appendix, giving the titles to all the
leading works and papers (including faunal lists) on the
Birds of Eastern North America, shows just what has
been published on the birds of a given region, a matter
of the first importance to the local student.

561 Pages. Cloth, $3.50 net. Flexible Morocco, $4.00 net

D. APPLETON & COMPANY, Publishers

29-35 West 32d Street, New York

J. Horace McFarland Company, Mt. Pleasant Press, Harrisburg, Pa.

[a12]

The Warblers Are Coming!

THE WARBLERS of
NORTH AMERICA

By FRANK M. CHAPMAN and others

Twenty-four colored plates by Fuertes
and Horsfall, illustrating male, female
and immature plumages.

Three hundred and six pages of text
treating of the color characters, field-marks,
range, migration, haunts,
songs, nest and eggs of each species.

T

HE book is an indispensable guide
to every student of these, the “most
beautiful, most abundant, and least
known” of our birds.

8vo. Cloth, $3. Postage, 20 cents

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

29 West Thirty-second Street
NEW YORK CITY


Transcriber’s Notes

All obvious typographical errors were corrected. Some
alternate spelling of words were retained as printed (i.e., Indorsement,
despatched, etc.). Two of the ads had words with spaced letters; but it
was assumed here that was to “justify” the text without having excessive
space between words.

Typographical Corrections

On page 97, Auriparus flaviceps
Camprocephalus
  Auriparus flaviceps
lamprocephalus
.

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