Birds, Vol. II, No 2, August 1897 by Various — Free Audiobook

1 01 - Bird Song 7:44

Birdsong.

We made several early morning excursions into the woods and fields during the month of June, and were abundantly rewarded in many ways, by beholding the gracious awakening of nature in her various forms, kissed into renewed activity by the radiance of morn, by the sweet-smelling air filled with the perfume of a multitude of opening flowers which had drunk again the dew of heaven, by the sight of flitting clouds across the bluest of skies, Patching the green earth with moving shadows, and, sweetest of all, by the twittering, calling, musical sounds of love and joy which came to the ear from the throats of the feathered throng. How pleasant to lie prone on one's back on the cool grass, and gaze upward through the shady green canopy of boughs, Watching the pretty manoeuvres, the joyous greetings, the lively anxieties, the graceful movements, and even the sorrowful happenings of the bird-life above us.

Listen to the variety of their tones, as manifest as the difference of form and colour. What more interesting than to observe their habits and discover their cosy nests with their beautiful eggs in the green foliage? Strange that so many persons think only of making a collection of them, robbing the nests with heartless indifference to the suffering of the parents, to say nothing of the invasion which they make of the undoubted rights the birds have from nature to protection and perpetuation. Strictly speaking, there are few birds to which the word singing can properly be applied, the majority of them not having more than two or three notes, And they with little suggestion of music in them. Chanticleer crows, his spouse cackles or clucks, as may be suitable to the occasion.

To what ear are these noises musical? They are rather language, and, in fact, the varying notes of every species of birds have a significance which can alone be interpreted by its peculiar habits. If careful note be made of the immediate conduct of the male or female bird, as the case may be, after each call or sound, the meaning of it becomes plain. A hen whose chicks are scattered in search of food, upon seeing a hawk, utters a note of warning, which we have all heard, and the young scamper to her for protection beneath her wings. When she has laid an egg, cut, cut, cut, cut, ot, cut, Announces it from the nest and the barn. When the chicks are hatched, her cluck-cluck-cluck calls them from the nest and the wild word, and her chick-chick-chick uttered quickly selects for them the dainty which she has found, or teaches them what is proper for their diet.

A good listener will detect enough intonations in her voice to constitute a considerable vocabulary. Which, if imitated with exactness, will deceive Mistress Pollet herself. To carry the idea further, we will take the notes of some of the birds depicted in this number of birds. The osprey, or fish-hawk, has been carefully observed, and his only discovered note is a high, rapidly repeated whistle, very plaintive. Doubtless this noise is agreeable and intelligible to his mate, but cannot be called a song, and has no significance to the listener. The vulture utters a low, hissing sound when disturbed. This is its only note. Not so with the bald eagle, whose scream emulates the rage of the tempest, and implies courage, the quality which associates him with patriotism and freedom.

In the notes of the partridge there is a meaning recognizable by everyone. After the nesting season, when the birds are in bevies, their notes are changed to what sportsmen term scatter calls. Not long after a bevy has been flushed, and perhaps widely scattered, the members of the disunited family may be heard signaling to one another in sweet minor calls of two and three notes, and in excitement They utter low, twittering tones.

Of the Sora rails, Mr. Chapman says, knowing their calls, you have only to pass a May or June evening near a marsh to learn whether they inhabit it. If there, they will greet you late in the afternoon with a clear-whistled, Curwee, which soon comes from dozens of invisible birds about you. And, long after night has fallen, it continues like a springtime chorus of piping hylas. Now and again it is interrupted by a high-voiced, rolling whinny, which, like a call of alarm, is taken up and repeated by different birds all over the marsh. Poor red-breasted Mergenser! He has only one note, a croak. Perhaps it was of him that Bryant was thinking when he wrote the stanzas. To a waterfowl. The sentiment of feeling awakened by any of the aquatic fowls is pre-eminently one of loneliness, says John Burroughs.

The wood duck, see July birds, which you approach, starts from the pond or the marsh, the loon neighing down out of the April sky. The wild goose, the curlew, the stork, the bittern, the sandpiper, etc., awaken quite a different train of emotions from those awakened by the land birds. They all have clinging to them some reminiscence and suggestion of the sea. Their cries echo its wildness and desolation, their wings are the shape of its billows. But the evening grosbeak, the Kentucky warbler, the skylark, land birds all, are singers. They have music in their throats and in their souls, though of varying quality. The Grosbeak's note is described by different observers as a shrill cheapy tee and a frog-like peep, while one writer remarks that the males have a single metallic cry like the note of a trumpet, and the females a loud chattering like the large cherry birds.

The Kentucky Warbler sung is entirely unlike that of any other warbler, and is a loud, clearly whistled performance of five, six, or seven notes, Turtle, Turtle, Turtle, resembling in tone some of the calls of the Carolina Wren. He is so persistent in his singing, however, that the Red-Brest and Mergens' simple croak would sometimes be preferable to it. But the Skylark... All the earth and air with thy voice is loud, as, when night is bare from one lonely cloud, the moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. Sisi Marble.

2 02 - The American Osprey 2:54

The American Osprey. Here's the picture of a remarkable bird. We know him better by the name Fishhawk. He looks much like the eagle in July Birds. The osprey has no use for Mr. Eagle, though. You know the bald eagle, or sea eagle, is very fond of fish. Well, he is not a very good fisherman, and from his lofty perch he watches for the fishhawk or osprey. Do you ask why? Well, when he sees a fishhawk with its prey, he is sure to chase him and take it from him. It is for this reason that ospreys dislike the bald eagle. Their food is fish, which as a rule they catch alive. It must be interesting to watch the osprey at his fishing. He wings his way slowly over the water, keeping a watch for fish as they appear near the surface.

When he sees one that suits him, he hovers for a moment, and then, closing his wings, falls upon the fish. Sometimes he strikes it with such force that he disappears in the water for a moment. Soon we see him rise from the water with the prey in his claws. He then flies to some tall tree, and if he has not been discovered by his enemy, the Eagle, can have a good meal for his hard work. Look at his claws, then think of them striking a fish, as they must when he plunges from on high. A gentleman tells of an osprey that fastened his claws in a fish that was too large for him. The fish drew him under, and nothing more was seen of Mr. Osprey. The same gentleman tells of a fish weighing six pounds that fell from the claws of a fishhawk that became frightened by an eagle.

The osprey builds his nest much like the bald eagle. It is usually found in a tall tree and out of reach. Like the eagle, it uses the same nest each year, adding to it. Sometimes it measures five feet high and three feet across. One nest that was found contained enough sticks, corn stalks, weeds, moss, and the like to fill a cart, and made a load for a horse to draw. Like the crows and blackbirds, they prefer to live together in numbers. Over 300 nests have been found in the trees on a small island. One thing I want you to remember about the osprey, they usually remain mated for life.

3 03 - The American Osprey 4:21

The American Osprey. An interesting bird, winged fisher, as he has been happily called, is seen in places suited to his habits throughout temperate North America, particularly about islands and along the sea coast. At Shelter Island, New York, They are exceedingly variable in the choice of a nesting place. On Gardener's Island, they all build in trees at a distance varying from ten to seventy-five feet from the ground. On Plum Island, where large numbers of them nest, many place their nests on the ground, some being built up to a height of four or five feet, while others are simply a few sticks arranged in a circle, and the eggs laid on the bare sand. On Shelter Island, they build on the chimneys of houses, and a pair had a nest on the crossed bar of a telegraph pole.

Another pair had a nest on a large rock. These were made of coarse sticks and seaweed, anything handy, such as bones, old shoes, straw, etc. A curious nest was found some years ago on the coast of New Jersey. It contained three eggs, and securely embedded in the loose material of the osprey's nest was a nest of the purple grackle, containing five eggs, while at the bottom of the hawk's nest was a thick, rotten limb, in which was a tree-swallow's nest of seven eggs. In the spring and early autumn, this familiar eagle-like bird can be seen hovering over creek, river, and sound. It is recognized by its popular name of fishhawk. Following a school of fish, it dashes from a considerable height to seize its prey with its stout claws.

If the fish is small, it is at once swallowed. If it is large, and the osprey will occasionally secure shad, bluefish, bass, etc., weighing five or six pounds, the fish is carried to a convenient bluff or tree and torn to bits. The bald eagle often robs him of the fish by seizing it or startling him so that he looses his hold. The osprey, when fishing, makes one of the most breezy, spirited pictures connected with the feeding habits of any of our birds. As often there is a splashing and a struggle under water when the fish grasped is too large or the talons of the great bird gets entangled. He is sometimes carried under and drowned. And large fish have been washed ashore, with these birds fastened to them by the claws.

Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright says, I found an osprey's nest in a crooked oak on Wakeman's Island in late April, 1893. As I could not get close to the nest, the island is between a network of small creeks, and the flood tides covered the marshes, I at first thought it was a monstrous crow's nest. But on returning the second week in May, I saw a pair of ospreys coming and going to and fro from the nest. I hoped the birds might return another season, as the nest looked as if it might have been used for two or three years, and was as lopsided as a poorly made haystack. The great August storm of the same year broke the tree, and the nest fell, making quite a heap upon the ground. Among the debris were sticks of various sizes, Dried reeds, two bits of bamboo fishing-rods, sea-weeds, some old blue mosquito-netting, and some rags of fish-net.

Also about half a bushel of salt hay in various stages of decomposition, and malodorous dirt galore. It is well known that ospreys, if not disturbed, will continue indefinitely to heap rubbish upon their nests till their bulk is very great. Like the owls, They can reverse the rear toe.

4 04 - The Sora Rail 4:13

II, No. II, August, 1897, Recorded for LibriVox by Linda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, B.C. The Sora Rail. Various are the names required to distinguish the little slate-coloured Carolina Rail from its brethren, Sora, Common Rail, and On the Potomac River, or Tolan, being among them, he is found throughout temperate North America, in the weedy swamps of the Atlantic, states in great abundance, in the Middle States and in California. In Ohio, he is a common summer resident, breeding in the extensive swamps and wet meadows. The nest is a root of fair made of grass and weeds, placed on the ground in a tussock of grass in a boggy tract of land, where there is a growth of briars, etc., where he may skulk and hide in the wet grass to elude observation.

The nest may often be discovered at a distance by the appearance of the surrounding grass. The blades of which are in many cases interwoven over the nest, apparently to shield the bird from the fierce rays of the sun, which are felt with redoubled force on the marshes. The rails feed on both vegetable and animal food. During the months of September and October, the weeds and wild oats swarm with them. They feed on the nutritious seeds. Small snail shells, worms, and larvae of insects, which they extract from the mud. The habits of the sore rail, its thin, compressed body, its aversion to take wing, and the dexterity with which it runs or conceals itself among the grass and sedge, are exactly similar to those of the more celebrated Virginia Rail.

The Sora frequents these parts of marshes, preferably where freshwater springs rise through the morass. Here it generally constructs its nest, one of which, says an observer, we had the good fortune to discover. It was built in the bottom of a tuft of grass in the midst of an almost impenetrable quagmire. and was composed altogether of old wet grass and rushes. The eggs had been flooded out of the nest by the extraordinary rise of the tide in a violent northwest storm, and they scattered about the driftweed. The usual number of eggs is from six to ten. They are of a dirty white or pale cream color, sprinkled with specks of reddish and pale purple, most numerous near the Great End. When on the wing the Sora Rail flies in a straight line for a short distance with dangling legs, and suddenly drops into the water.

The rails have many foes, and many nests are robbed of their eggs by weasels. Snakes, blackbirds, and marsh hawks, although the last cannot disturb them easily, as the marsh hawk searches for its food while flying and the majority of rail's nests are covered over, making it hard to distinguish them when the hawk is above.

5 05 - The Sora Rail 2:49

6 06 - The Kentucky Warbler 2:50

7 07 - The Kentucky Warbler 5:08

The Kentucky Warbler Between sixty and seventy warblers are described by Davy in his nests and eggs of North American birds. And the Kentucky Warbler is recognized as one of the most beautiful of the number, in its manners almost the counterpart of the golden-crowned thrush, soon to delight the eyes of the readers of birds, though it is altogether a more conspicuous bird, both on the account of its brilliant Plumage and greater activity. The males being during the season of nesting, very pugnacious, continually chasing one another about the woods. It lives near the ground, making this artfully concealed nest, among the low herbage and feeding in the undergrowth. The male singing from some old log or low bush, his song recalling that.

of the cardinal, though much weaker. The ordinary note is a soft ship, somewhat like the common call of the peewee. Considering its great abundance, says an observer, the nest of this charmer is very difficult to find. The female, he thought, must slyly leave the nest at the approach of an intruder. Running beneath the herbage until a considerable distance from the nest, when, joined by her mate, the pair, by the evident anxiety, misled the stranger as to its location. It has been declared that no group of birds better deserves the epithet pretty than the warblers. Tangers are splendid, hummingbirds refulgent, others brilliant. Gaudy or magnificent, but warblers alone are pretty. The warblers are migratory birds, the majority of them passing rapidly across the United States in spring, on the way to their northern nesting grounds, and in autumn to their winter residence within the topics.

When the apple-trees bloom, they revel among the flowers, vying in activity and numbers with the bees, now probing the recesses of a blossom for an insect, then darting to another, where, poised daintily upon a slender twig, or suspended from it, they explore hastily but carefully for another morsel. Every movement is the personification of nervous activity, as if the time for their journey was short, as, indeed, appears to be the case. For two or three days at most suffice some species in a single locality. We recently saw a letter from a gentleman living at Lake Geneva. in which he referred with enthusiasm to birds, because it had enabled him to identify a bird which he had often seen in the apple-trees among the blossoms, particularly at the present season, with which he was unacquainted by name.

It was the orchard oriel, and he was glad to have a directory of nature, which would enable him to add to his knowledge and correct errors of observation. The idea is a capital one, and the beautiful Kentucky Warbler, unknown to many who see it often, may be recognized in the same way by residents of southern Indiana and Illinois. Kansas, some localities in Ohio, Particularly in the southwestern portion, in parts of New York and New Jersey, in the District of Columbia, and in North Carolina. It has not herefore been possible, even with the best painted specimens of birds in the hand, to satisfactorily identify the pretty creatures, but with birds as a companion. Which may readily be consulted, the student cannot be led into error.

8 08 - The Red Breasted Merganser 3:20

The Red-Breasted Mergetzer Why this duck should be called red-breasted is not at first apparent, as at a distance The color cannot be distinguished, but seeing near, the reason is plain. It is a common bird in the United States in winter, where it is found in suitable localities in the months of May and June. It is also a resident of the far north, breeding abundantly in Newfoundland, Labrador, Greenland, and Iceland. It is liberally supplied with names such as Red-breasted, Goose Ender or Sheldrake, Garbill, Sea Robin, etc. There is a difference in opinion as to the nesting habits of the Redbreast. Some authorities claiming that, like the Wood Duck, the nest is placed in the cavity of a tree, others that it is usually found on the ground among bushwood, surrounded with tall grasses and At a short distance from water, Davy says that most generally it is concealed by a projecting rock or other object, the nest being made of leaves and mosses lined with feathers and down, which are plucked from the breast of the bird.

The observers are all probably correct, the bird adapting itself to the situation. Fish is the chief diet. of the merganser, for which reason its flesh is rank and unpalatable. The bird's appetite is insatiable, devouring its food in such quantities that it has frequently to disgorge several times before it is able to rise from the water. This duck can swallow fishes six or seven inches in length, and will attempt to swallow those of a larger size, choking in the effort. The term merganser is derived from the plan of the bird's bill, which is furnished with saw teeth fitting into each other. The eggs of the red-breasted merganser vary from six to twelve, are oval in shape, and are of a yellowish or reddish drab, sometimes a dull, buffy green.

You may have seen pictures of this duck, which frequently figures in dining rooms on the ornamental panels of stuffed game birds, but none which could cause you to remember its lifelike appearance. You here see before you an actual red-breasted merganser.

9 09 - The Yellow Legs 2:05

10 10 - The Skylark 2:54

The Skylark. This is not an American bird. I have allowed his picture to be taken and placed here because so many of our English friends desired it. The Skylark is probably the most noted of birds in Europe. He is found in all of the countries of Europe, but England seems to claim it. Here it stays during the summer and goes south in the winter. Like our own meadowlark, he likes best to stay in the fields. Here you will find it when not on the wing. Early in the spring, the skylark begins his song, and he may be heard for most of the year. Sometimes he sings while on the ground, but usually it is while he is soaring far above us. Skylarks do not often seek the company of persons. There are some birds, you know, that seem happy only when they are near people.

Of course, they are somewhat shy, but as a rule, they prefer to be near people. While the Skylark does not seek to be near persons, yet it is not afraid of them. A gentleman, while riding through the country, was surprised to see a Skylark perch on his saddle. When he tried to touch it, the lark moved along on the horse's back and finally dropped under the horse's feet. Here it seemed to hide. The rider looking up saw a hawk flying about. This explained the cause of the skylark's strange actions. A pair of these larks had built their nest in a meadow. When the time came for mowing the grass, the little ones were not large enough to leave the nest. The mother bird laid herself flat on the ground, with her wings spread out.

The father bird took one of the little ones from the nest and placed it on the mother's back. She flew away, took the baby bird to a safe place, and came back for another. This time the father took his turn. In this way they carried the little ones to a safe place before the mowers came. Like our meadow-lark, the sky-lark builds her nest on the ground, never in bushes or trees. Usually, it is built in a hole below the surface of the ground. It is for this reason that it is hard to find. Then, too, the color of the nest is much like that of the ground. Four or five eggs are usually laid, and in two weeks the little larks crack the shells and come into the world crying for worms and bugs.

11 11 - The Skylark 4:19

The Skylark. The English Skylark has been more celebrated in poetry than any other songbird. Shelley's famous poem is too long to quote and too symmetrical to present in fragmentary form. It is almost as musical as the sweet singer itself.

By the first streak of dawn, says one familiar with the Skylark, He bounds from the dripping herbage, and on fluttering wings mounts the air for a few feet ear, giving forth his sherry notes. Then upward, apparently without effort, he sails, sometimes drifting far away as he ascends, borne, as it were, by the ascending vapors, so easily he mounts the air. His notes are so pure and sweet, and yet so loud and varied withal, that when they first disturb the air of early morning, all the other little feathered tenants of the fields and hedgerows Seem irresistibly compelled to join him in filling the air with melody. Upwards, ever upwards, he mounts, until like a speck in the highest ether he appears motionless.

Yet still his notes are heard, lovely in their faintness, now gradually growing louder and louder as he descends, until within a few yards of the earth they cease, and he drops like a fragment hurled from above into the erpage, or flits about it for a short distance ere alighting.

The lark sings just as richly on the ground as when on Quivering Wing. When in song, he is said to be a good guide to the weather, for whenever we see him rise into the air, despite the gloomy looks of an overcast sky, fine weather is invariably at hand.

The nest is most frequently in the grass fields, sometimes amongst the young corn, or in places little frequented. It is made of dry grass and moss, and lined with fibrous roots and a little horsehair. The eggs, usually four or five in number, are dull white, spotted, clouded, and blotched over the entire surface with brownish green. The female lark, says Dixon, like all ground birds, is a very close sitter, remaining faithful to her charge. She regains her nest by dropping to the ground a hundred yards away or more from its concealment. The food of the lark is varied. In spring and summer, Insects in their larvae, and worms in slugs. In autumn and winter, seeds.

Olive Thornmiller tells this pretty anecdote of a Skylark which he emancipated from a bird store. I bought the Skylark, though I did not want him. I spared no pains to make the stranger happy. I procured a beautiful sod of uncut fresh grass, of which he at once took position, crouching or sitting low among the stems, and looking most bewitching. He seemed contented, and uttered no more that appealing cry, but he did not show much intelligence. His cage had a broad base, behind which he delighted to hide, and for hours as I sat in the room I could see nothing of him, although I would hear him stirring about. If I rose from my seat he was instantly on the alert, and stretched his head up to look over at me.

I tried to get a better view of him by hanging a small mirror at an angle over his cage, but he was so much frightened by it That I had removed it. This bird, Mrs. Miller says, never seemed to know enough to go home. Even when very hungry, he would stand before his wide-open door, where one step would take him into his beloved grass thicket, and yet that one step he would not take. When his hunger became intolerable, he ran around the room, circled about his cage, looking in, recognizing his food dishes, and trying eagerly to get between the wires to reach them. And yet, when he came before the open door, he would stand and gaze, but never go in. After five months' trial, during which he displayed no particular intelligence, and never learned to enter his cage, he passed out of the bird-room, but not into a store.

12 12 - Wilson's Phalarope 2:44

13 13 - The Evening Grosbeak 3:54

Kranz. The Evening Grossbeak. Handsomer birds there may be, but in the opinion of many, this visitant to various portions of Western North America is in shape, color, and markings, one of the most exquisite of the feather wearers. It has, for its habitation, the region extending from the plains to the Pacific Ocean, and from Mexico into British America. Toward the north, it ranges further to the east, so that, while it appears to be not uncommon about Lake Superior, it has been reported as occurring in Ohio, New York, and Canada. In Illinois, it was observed at Freeport during the winter of 1870 and 1871, and at Waukegan during January 1873. It is a common resident of the forest of the state of Washington, and also of Oregon.

In the latter region, Dr. Merrill observed the birds carrying building material to a huge fir tree, but was unable to locate the nest, and the tree was practically inaccessible. Mr. Walter E. Bryant was the first to record an authentic nest and eggs of the evening In a paper read before the Californian Academy of Sciences, he describes a nest of this species containing four eggs, found in Yolo country, California. The nest was built in a small live oak at the height of ten feet and was composed of small twigs supporting a thin layer of fibrous bark and a lining of horsehair. The eggs are of a clear greenish-ground color, blotched with pale brown. According to Mr. Davey, one of the leading authorities on North American birds, Little, if any, information has been obtained regarding the nests and eggs of the evening crossbeak.

As to its habits, Mr. O. P. Day says that about the year 1872, while hunting during fine autumn weather in the woods about Eureka, Illinois, he fell in with a number of these crossbeaks. They were feeding in the treetops on the seeds of the sugar maple, just then ripening, and were excessively fat. They were very unsuspicious, and for a long time suffered him to observe them. They also ate the buds of the cottonwood tree in company with the rose-breasted crossbeak. The song of the crossbeak is singularly like that of the robin, and to one not thoroughly familiar with the notes of the latter a difference would not at first be detected. There is a very decided difference, however, and by repeatedly listening to both species in full voice it will be discovered more and more clearly.

The sweet and gentle strains of music harmonize delightfully, and the concert they make is well worth the careful attention of the discriminating student. The value of such study will be admitted by all who know how little is known of the songsters. A gentleman said to us that one day in November the greater part of the football field at the south end of Lincoln Park was covered with snowbirds. There were also on the field more than one hundred grammar and high school boys waiting the arrival of the football team. There was only one person present who paid any attention to the birds which were picking up the food, twittering, hopping, and flying about, and occasionally indulging in fights, and all utterly oblivious of the fact that there were scores of shouting schoolboys around and about them.

The gentlemen called the attention of one after another of ten of the high school boys to the snowbirds and asked what they were. They one and all declared that they were English sparrows, and seemed astounded that any could be so ignorant as not to know what an English sparrow was, so much for the city-bred boys' observation of birds.

14 14 - The Evening Grosbeak 1:50

15 15 - The Turkey Vulture 1:51

16 16 - The Turkey Vulture 3:41

The Turkey Vulture. Turkey Buzzard is the familiar name applied to this bird, on account of his remarkable resemblance to our common turkey. This is the only respect, however, in which they are alike. It inhabits the United States and British provinces from the Atlantic to the Pacific, south through central and most of South America. Every farmer knows it to be an industrious scavenger, devouring at all times the putrid or decomposing flesh of carcasses. They are found in flocks, not only flying and feeding in company, but resorting to the same spot to roost. Nesting also in communities, depositing their eggs on the ground, on rocks, or in hollow logs and stumps, usually in thick woods or in a sycamore grove, in the bend or fork of a stream.

The nest is frequently built in a tree, Renowned naturalists have long argued that the vulture does not have an extraordinary power of smell, but, according to Mr. Davey, an excellent authority, it has been proven by the most satisfactory experiments that the turkey buzzard does possess a keen sense of smell, by which it can distinguish the odour of flesh at a great distance.

The flight of the turkey vulture is truly beautiful, and no landscape with its patches of green woods and grassy fields is perfect without its signified figure high in the air, moving round in circles, steady, graceful and easy, and apparently without effort. Its sails, says Dr. Brewer, with a steady even motion, with wings just above the horizontal position, with their tips slightly raised, rises from the ground with a single bound, gives a few flaps of the wings. and then proceeds with its peculiar soaring flight, rising very high in the air. The vulture pictured in the accompanying plate was obtained between the Brazos River and Matagorda Bay. With it was found the black vulture, both nesting upon the ground.

As the nearest trees were 30 or 40 miles distant, these vultures were always found in this situation. The birds selected an open spot beneath the heavy growth of bushes, placing the eggs upon the bare ground. The old bird, when approached, would not attempt to leave the nest, and in the case of the young bird in the plate, the female, to protect it from harm, promptly disgorged the putrid contents of her stomach, which was so offensive that the intruder had to close his nostrils with one hand while he reached for the young bird with the other. The turkey vulture is a very silent bird, only uttering a hiss of defiance or warning to its neighbors when feeding, or a low gutter or croak of alarm when flying low overhead.

The services of the vultures as scavengers in removing offal render them valuable, and almost a necessity in southern cities. If an animal is killed and left exposed to view, the bird is sure to find out the spot in a very short time, and to make its appearance as if called by some magic spell from the empty air.

Never stoops the soaring vulture on his quarry in the desert, on the sick or wounded bison, but another vulture watching from his high aerial lookout. Sees the downward plunge and follows, and a third pursues the second, coming from the invisible ether, first a speck, and then a vulture, till the air is dark with pinions.

17 17 - To A Water-Fowl 2:20

18 18 - Gambel's Partridge 2:34

19 19 - Summary 5:10

Summary. American Osprey. Pandian Palaeatus Carolinensis. North America. Breeds from Florida to Labrador. Winters from South Carolina to Northern South America. Nest generally in a tree. 30 to 50 feet from the ground, rarely on the ground. Eggs. Two to four. Generally buffy white, heavily marked with chocolate.

Sora Rail. Porzana, Carolina.

Temperate North America, south to the West Indies and northern South America. Nest of grass and reeds, placed on the ground in a tussock of grass, where there is a growth of briars. Eggs from seven to fourteen, of a ground color of dark cream or drab with reddish-brown spots.

Kentucky Warbler. Geoflipus formosa. Eastern United States. Breeds from the Gulf states to Iowa and Connecticut. Winters in Central America. On or near the ground. Eggs. Four or five. White or grayish white. Speckled or blotched with ruffus.

Red-breasted merganser. Merganser serrator.

Northern parts of the northern hemisphere. In America, breeds from northern Illinois and New Brunswick northward to the Arctic region. Winters southward to Cuba.

of leaves, grasses, mosses, etc., lined with down, on the ground, near water, among rocks or scrubby brushes.

Eggs, 6-12, Creamy Buff.

Yellowlegs. Totanus flavopus.

North America. Breeding chiefly in the interior from Minnesota, Northern Illinois, Ontario County, New York. Northward to the Arctic regions. Winters from the Gulf states to Patagonia. Eggs. Three or four. Buffy, spotted, or blotched with dark matter, orv and dyke. Brown and purplish-gray.

Skylark. Allauda arvensis. Range. Europe and portions of Asia and Africa. Accidental in the Bermudas and in Greenland. Nest. Placed on the ground, in meadows or open grassy places, sheltered by a tuft of grass. The materials are grasses, plant stums, and a few chance leaves. Eggs. Three to five, of varying form, color, and size.

Wilson's Phalaroup. Phalaroupus tricholar.

Temperate North America, breeding from northern Illinois and Utah, northward to the Saskatchewan region. South in winter to Brazil and Patagonia. Nest, a shallow depression in soft earth, lined with a thin layer of fragments of grass. Eggs, three to four, cream buff or buffy white, heavily blotched with deep chocolate.

Evening Grosbeak. Cocothraustus vespertina.

Interior of North America, from Manitoba northward. Southeastward in winter to the upper Mississippi Valley and casually to the northern Atlantic states. Nest of small twigs, lined with bark, hair, or rootlets, placed within 20 feet of the ground. Eggs, three or four, greenish, blotched with pale brown.

Turkey Vulture. Catharista atrata.

Tempered America from New Jersey southward to Patagonia. Nest. In hollow stump or log, or on ground beneath bushes or palmettos. Eggs. One to three. Dull white, spotted, and blotched with chocolate marking.

Gamble's partridge. Calapepla, gambelli.

Northwestern Mexico, Arizona, New Mexico, Southern Utah, and Western Utah and Western Texas. Nest. Placed on the ground. Sometimes without any lining. Eggs from 8 to 16. End of section 19. This recording is in the public domain. End of Birds, Volume 2, Number 2, August 1897.

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