ABBHVILLE LIBRARY Ol ART
BIRDS
$4.95
Audubon Birds BY ROGER TORY PETERSON Since John James his
Audubon
famous engravings
in
first
published
Birds of America,
between 1827 and 1838, they have been universally recognized as artworks of su-
preme beauty entific
that also incorporate the sci-
knowledge of Audubon's time. Orig-
inally issued in a four- volume edition
copies, Birds of America
a
full set
the general public
is
at
just
by Audubon's bird prints as
as fascinated the rare
of 1 90
such a rarity that
has brought almost $400,000
However,
auction.
is
book
collector.
For this volume, the distinguished American naturalist and artist
son has selected his
Roger Tory
Peter-
own favorite bird prints,
which have been meticulously reproduced in color.
In his lively
commentaries, Dr.
Peterson describes the birds pictured, their
and habitat, and includes the
characteristics
most recent ornithological observations
which sometimes
differ
from Audubon's.
In his introductory essay,
Peterson
about
tells
difficulties in
birds
is
Roger Tory himself, his
compiling Birds of America,
and discusses
movement
Audubon
how
today's conservation
actively protecting
from extinction.
Audubon's
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ROGER TORY PETERSON
Abbeville Press
•
Publishers
•
New York
ON THE COVER: Black-billed Magpie (detail) Commentary on page 12 1
FRONTISPIECE:
Yellow-Breasted Chat (detail)
Commentary on page 30
Library of Congress Catalog Card
Number 79-57407
ISBN 0-89659-091-7
© 1980 by Cross River Press, Ltd. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher. Inquiries should be addressed to Abbeville Press, Inc., 505 Park Avenue, New York 10022. Printed and bound in Japan.
Copyright
CONTENTS Black-billed
Magpie
(detail)
FRONT COVER Commentary 12 1
Yellow-Breasted Chat
(detail)
Commentary and
full
Introduction
FRONTISPIECE 30
picture
7-11
Pileated Woodpecker
12-13
Wood Duck
14-15
Snowy Egret
16-17
Mallard
18-19
Cedar Waxwing
20-21
Blue Jay
22-23
White-Crowned Sparrow
24-25
American Kestrel or Sparrow Hawk
26-27
Black Vulture
28-29
Yellow-Breasted Chat
30-31
Northern Cardinal
32-33
Greater Prairie Chicken
34-37
Bald Eagle
38-39
Screech
Owl
40-4
Brown Pelican
42-43
Ruffed Grouse
44-45
Osprey
46-47
Summer Tanager
48-49
Brown Thrasher
50-5
Black-Crowned Night Heron
52-55
Wild Turkey
56-57
Green Heron
58-59
Snowy Owl
60-61
American Flamingo
62-63
Vesper Sparrow
64-65
Great Blue Heron
66-67
Least Bittern
68-69
Northern, or Baltimore, Oriole
70-71
Passenger Pigeon
72-73
Common
74-77
Eider
Roseate Tern
78-79
Great Horned Owl
80-81
American Oystercatcher
82-83
Mourning Dove
84-85
Crow
86-87
Fish
Whooping Crane
88-89
Northern Shoveler
90-91
Key West Quail-Dove
92-95
Carolina Parakeet
96-97
Clapper Rail
98-99
American Robin Yellow-Billed
Cuckoo
100-101
102-103
Gray Kingbird
104-105
Long-Billed Curlew
106-107
Broad-Winged
Hawk
White-Winged Crossbill
108-109 110-111
INTRODUCTION by Roger Tory Peterson
THE NAME AUDUBON but in recent years is
it
has
has long been synonymous with birds.
come
to
have a broader connotation. This
because the great national organization
gone through
name
that bears his
a philosophical metamorphosis.
has
Birds and bird-
watching became the precursors of environmental awareness, and therefore
Audubon has become
movement. John James Audubon,
a
symbol of
in a sense,
was
the conservation
the father of
ornithology, although Alexander Wilson, the Scot,
accorded that distinction, having published
work on American
his
own
American
encyclopedic
birds about twenty years earlier. Actually,
Mark Catesby preceded them
many years. His Natural Bahama Islands, published
both by
History of Carolina, Florida, and the
113 birds and established him as the
in 1731, depicted
usually
is
first real
ornithologist of America.
But the thing
that separated
predecessors was that he
first
gave them the simulation of though they were on
life.
museum
Audubon
as an artist
from
his
took birds out of the glass case and
Others portrayed them
pedestals.
To
stiffly, as
give his birds vitality
and movement, Audubon worked from freshly killed specimens, wiring them into lifelike positions. In his youth he had tried hundreds of outline sketches but found
He fashioned gave It
it
a
wooden model, "a
a kick, broke
was then
that
it
to
it
atoms, walked
off,
out of bed.
.
.
.
.
.
.
and thought again.
he conceived the procedure he was
many years. He wrote: "One morning I leapt
them.
difficult to finish
tolerable-looking Dodo.
went
to
follow for
took a
to the river,
bath and returning to town inquired for wire of different sizes,
bought some and was soon again kingfisher
I
at
Mill Grove.
met, pierced the body with wire, fixed
another wire held the head, smaller ones fixed the
I it
shot the
feet.
me the real kingfisher. I outlined the bird, was my first drawing actually from nature."
stood before
This
first
to the board, .
.
.
there
colored
it.
The saga of Audubon has been told many times, with variations. It is
not exactly a Horatio Alger tale of rags to riches, because the
fledgling
was
all
Audubon was given
a
young gentleman's
tutoring and
but spoiled by an indulgent stepmother.
Jean Jacques Fougere of Santo
Domingo
in
Audubon was born in 1785 on the island the West Indies. He was the son of a
prosperous French sea captain and a young French-Creole lady.
Mademoiselle Rabin, who died before the captain returned to his home and wife in France. How he explained his transgression to Madame Audubon is not known, but she took the four-year-old
boy It
to her heart as her
may have been
to
own.
escape conscription
in
Napoleon's army or
perhaps to avoid the stigma of illegitimacy that Captain sent his son at age eighteen to Mill
he
owned In
Audubon
Grove near Philadelphia where
property.
France the youngster had studied drawing for six months
under the guiding hand of the famed Jacques Louis David, and this skill
could not be suppressed. The birds of America fascinated
him, and drawing them became an obsession from which he never freed himself.
After marrying Lucy Bake well
ward
Grove he moved westhad set him up in
Mill
at
Kentucky, where
to Louisville,
his father
was not in his blood, or so it seemed. It were uncertain and investment risky those days. Moving further westward to the
business. But business
must be admitted
on the
that times
frontier in
down
Mississippi and then
to
New
Orleans, he met successi\c
was almost reduced
reverses until he
to
penury.
In reviewing this difficult period he wrote that "birds were birds I drew, I looked on nature only; my days were happy beyond human conception." He had conceived a grandiose
then as now. ...
'
plan of painting
all
of the birds of North America
—
—
at least all
of
known and at no time did he lose sight of this goal. While he was away from his family for months exploring the those then
wilderness, painting and pursuing his dream, his devoted Lucy,
who had borne him two sons, kept home and hearth together by teaching. He himself eked out a living as an itinerant portrait painter and by giving dancing and fencing lessons.
As
his portfolio
lisher, but
bulged he began
he could find none
one would risk the better
capital.
chance of success
teacher and portraits,
in
in
to
look for a patron or pub-
New York
He decided
sail in
No
might be a
England, so with Lucy's savings as a
some money he had managed
he set
or Philadelphia.
that there
to acquire
by painting
1826.
Abroad he was acclaimed immediately. The rough,
man from the American frontier was a sensation. He
colorful
fascinated the
genteel patrons of the art salons in London, Edinburgh, and Paris.
Long ahead of relations,
his time in the art of
showmanship and public
he played his part well.
William Lizars of Edinburgh agreed
to
engrave and publish
work, but when only ten plates had been finished the colorists
on
strike
and Audubon was forced
was Robert Havell,
Jr.
,
of London.
\\
his
ent
to find another engraver. This
Audubon was
fortunate to be in
the hands of such a skilled artist and craftsman. His accomplish-
ment
in etching the
copper plates was as much a tour-de-force as
the original paintings. that
hang
It is
in the galleries
instructive to
of the
compare
the watercolors
New York Historical Society to the
Havell prints with which most of us are familiar. After three intensely active years in England, Scotland, and
Audubon returned to America in 1829 to paint additional more subscriptions, to travel extensively, and to Eventually his journeys were to take him from the the gaps. fill in Gulf Coast and the Florida Keys to Labrador and westward to the France,
birds, to try for
foothills of the Rockies. It
took twelve years to bring to completion the publication of the
plates
and
their
accompanying
text in the Ornithological Biogra-
phy.
may seem
It
paradoxical that this genius, the epitome of the
become the father figure of the movement in North America. He shot birds like far more than he needed for his studies. This is well
hunter naturalist, should have
conservation
mad, often documented one finds
some of
in his Ornithological
that as
Biography, but
Audubon grew
the changes he saw.
older he
He pondered
species and the wild places where they lived. restrain
him from
one reads on
the future of certain
However,
this
did not
collecting freely. Shooting practically every-
moved was
do in those days. was not conservation consciousbut awareness, which he more than anyone else seems to
thing that
Audubon's ness,
if
became disturbed by
the thing to
real contribution
symbolize. That in
itself is
enough; awareness
is
inevitably fol-
lowed by concern. Another paradox
is
the legend of the unstable
dreamer, the inattentive shopkeeper and itinerant the age of forty,
made an
and improvident artist,
who,
after
abrupt turnabout and carried to comple-
most ambitious publishing venture had ever been attempted by an American.
tion almost single-handedly the that
Madison Avenue would have admired his techniques. To fit the image of the American frontiersman, he wore woodsman's clothing and allowed his hair to grow long over his shoulders. He also
10
became
a super-salesman, traveling from city to city to secure
subscriptions.
Meanwhile, as
monitored with
a sort of production
infinite care the
work of
manager he
the engravers and the
corps of colorists.
How
could he have been irresponsible and impractical
could do
A
set
if
he
this?
all
of Audubon's Birds of America, bound
in
four "'double
elephant folio" volumes and numbering 435 color plates, could
have been purchased by subscription for one thousand dollars
when
it
was published between 827 and 838. One hundred years same set would have gone on the market for perhaps 1
1
later the
fifteen
thousand dollars. Recently (1977),
at
auction, the double
elephant folio sold for nearly four hundred thousand dollars. Single prints of
wild turkey,
some of the more popular
now sell for several
subjects, such as the
thousand dollars, much more than
the original purchase price of the entire collection.
On
the other
hand, certain other prints, such as those which depict predators
much
eating their prey, go for
striking compositions (one of
less.
my
One
of Audubon's most
favorites)
shows two black its macabre
vultures feasting on the head of a deer. Because of
subject matter
few people would choose such
a picture for the
livingroom wall.
Although about 190
sets
of the elephant folio editions were
issued and distributed, less than half exist today: dealers dis-
mantled the others for sale of individual
prints.
many
artists
It
might be pointed out
Audubon had
that like
apprentices.
Some
of an earlier day
of the backgrounds. leaves,
flowers, and accessories were painted by Joseph Mason. George
Lehman, and
others, but the birds in every instance are the
work of
the master himself.
The
selections presented here are
11
among my
favorites.
[Pileated vi/oodpecker [dryocopus pileatus]
SECOND
in size only to the
the pileated
woodpecker
is
mysterious ivory-billed woodpecker, still
common
in
United States. In some places, such as
New
parently disappeared some years ago,
has
it
many
Jersey,
made
parts of the
where
it
ap-
a strong come-
back.
This handsome woodpecker was youthful birding days, and favorites, if
went into
we are
to
this spirited
it
my
bird
during
my
must also have been one of Audubon's
judge from the imagination and effort that
composition.
He was
even shyer than the ivory-bill and seemed shot
favorite
of the opinion that to
know
it
was
the distance that
would carry. This may partly explain why the pileated wood-
pecker survived and the ivory-bill did not, but a more likely reason lies in the
specialized
food habits of the two species. The ivory-bill feeder,
the
pileated less so.
According
Tanner, who did most of the research on the ivory-bill,
to it
is
a highly
Dr.
James
takes about
six square miles of virgin timber to support a single pair of ivorybills,
by
whereas the same area will support about 36 pairs of pileateds.
Even when they keep out of
sight pileateds betray their presence
their diggings, large oval or
oblong holes, and also by their loud,
irregular, flickerlike calls.
12
VUood LDuck [aix sponsa]
THIS,
the most beautiful North
dangered
American duck, actually was
The reason for
the present century.
its
decline was that
throughout the eastern states during the summer;
northward
to
less
en-
United States during the early years of
in the eastern
it
it
remained
did not migrate
frequented lakes and marshes in the northern
Canada as did most other waterfowl. For this was often known as the "summer duck." It was extremely
prairie states and
reason
it
vulnerable because spring shooting, not yet outlawed, went on at the
very time that wood ducks were courting and setting up households. Things
known
(then
initiated a ficial
became
so critical that the National
as the National Association
breeding program
of
Audubon
Audubon
in Connecticut, raising birds
conditions and setting out large
Society
Societies)
under
arti-
numbers of nesting boxes for
their convenience.
The wood duck does not as do most other ducks. cavity.
Audubon
It
nest on the
lays
its
ground or amongst the reeds
eggs (up to 15 or more) in a tree
occasionally found them occupying the abandoned
holes of ivory-billed woodpeckers. Aldiough a into a hole that
would seem too small
are often at a premium.
To counteract
to
wood duck can squeeze
admit
this,
it,
good nesting
game departments
sites
often
build specially designed boxes, which are placed on poles several feet
above the water where raccoons and other predators cannot reach
them.
Baby wood ducks, the
feather-lined
though
it
a
nest
few hours after hatching, simply climb from to
the entrance hole
and jump out
— even
might be twenty feet or more above the hard forest
They survive and soon head for
floor.
the nearest water with the rest of
their nestmates.
14
Snowy
(bgret
[egretta thula]
THE snowy proudest
heron with the golden slippers," has become symbol of the National Audubon Society, the great
egret, "the
the
conservation organization of which John James saint.
At the beginning of
this
American herons, was on
the
century the
way
out.
"aigrettes" by the trade, were worth
little
Its
Audubon
is
the patron
snowy, loveliest of
all
exquisite plumes, called
$32 an ounce, twice
their weight
Every heronry was ferreted out and destroyed. As the birds
in gold.
bore these nuptial sprays only at nesting time, the young birds, bereaved of their parents, perished too, and the stench of death
every colony. in
Where
there
hung heavy over
had been hundreds of thousands of egrets
our southern states there soon remained but a few hundred. The
National
Audubon
Society fought for plumage laws and to meet the
first Audubon warden in South Florida, plume hunters near Cape Sable in 1905. A marker which stands where his body washed ashore reads "Faithful unto death." Under protection the egrets and all the other long-legged waders have made a spectacular comeback. Today snowies by the scores
emergency hired wardens. The
Guy Bradley, was
of thousands
shot by
now
nest north to the Great
Lakes and southern
New
England.
Audubon chose "low country." right is
to
is
meant
for his
We
to
background a
wonder whether
rice plantation in the Carolina
the small figure in the ditch at the
be Audubon himself, carefully stalking the bird which
be immortalized as his model.
16
11
iaitard
[anas pl a t yrh
y n ch o
"puddle ducks" THE green-headed "Pekin ducks" on farm;
parks are mallards; so are
in the
the white
the
in fact nearly all
ducks are descended from the wild mallard uted, perhaps the most earth.
On our
marshes except
—
it
is
common wherever
the extreme northeast,
there are lakes and
from New England
There the black duck (a brother under the skin) replaces There
is
domestic
the most widely distrib-
numerous, and certainly the most hunted duck on
continent in
s
north.
it.
no doubt that there were once more mallards. In 1832 Audu-
bon found them
in
Florida in flocks that darkened the air. There are
great flocks today, and
I
still
myself have seen a gathering of two-thirds of a
million on a refuge in Illinois. But a continental population of all ducks that
may have numbered between 200,000,000 and 500,000,000
Audubon's day reason
is
(just a guess)
obvious.
From
a
dropped
to
55—60 million
few hundred thousand guns
at
in
most
bon's era the duck hunting pressure has increased to millions.
could not keep pace; on the contrary
— during
in
1978. The in
Audu-
The ducks
those years 100,000,000
acres of marshland, the duck nurseries of the continent, were drained for agriculture to help feed the explosively increasing tion.
Like rising taxes,
it
is
no accident
has dropped from twenty-five per
mere four
in the past
30
years.
that the daily
man some many
There
around.
18
just aren't
human popula-
bag limit of ducks years back,
enough ducks
to
to
a
go
Cedar vi/axwtng BOMBYCILLA
HOW
differently
C E
D RORU M
were song birds regarded
]
Audubon's day! The
in
gentle waxwings were sought for the table by every epicure, great ornithologist tells of a basketful of these
warded
to
New
little
and the
birds that were for-
Orleans as a Christmas present. They never reached their
destination because the steward of the steamer on which they were
shipped made pies of them for his passengers.
An
inch or so longer than a Sparrow, the cedar waxwing
"most tailored" of
all
and a yellow band on the
a pointed top-knot scales, like sealing
give the bird
its
wax, adorn the
name.
only sounds to escape
Few will
birds are
winter in
It its
tip
of
its
tail.
some of the wing
tips of
Little red
feathers and
might be called a "songless songbird," for the ungifted syrinx are thin
more nomadic; one year
New
the sleekest,
is
our birds, a mixture of soft browns and grays, with
if
lisps.
the berry crop
is
good,
year some might travel as far as Central America or Panama. return to the northern states and Canada procrastinating nature, wait until
down
to the essential task of
they always remind
many
England, Utah or the State of Washington; the next
me
late,
summer
is
and as
They
befits their casual
half spent before settling
perpetuating their kind. Feeding their young,
of pinball machines, producing berry after berry
from their distended crops, until a dozen or more have appeared as by magic in their
bills.
20
if
gc
(Blue
[CYANOCITTA CRIST A T A
MANY uncomplimentary
things have been said about the blue jay.
has been called a "thief" because
It
squirrel's cache; a "tease" because
and a "bully" because
]
it
mobs
it
the
pilfers
little
acorns from the
blinking screech owl;
chases other birds from the food shelf.
It
has
even been labeled a "deep-dyed villain" for eating birds' eggs as the
trio
portrayed by
Audubon
creatures according to a nest
and
are doing. But
human
to absorb
this, there
failings.
For
a blue jay to
such
losses. If
some of them would,
There of
is
rob
to eggs for centuries is
geared high
there were no natural checks such as
would be so many warblers, vireos and other small birds that
would give out and they would starve
their food supply of insects
much
a false thing to evaluate wild
it is
and
the small birds thrive; their reproductive rate
still
least
virtues
have helped themselves
a natural act. Jays
is
enough
it
a "blue jay" of
until the balance
some kind
in every state in the
wooded Canada, but the three
— or at
was restored.
Union and
in
birds pictured here represent
the real blue jay, a bird larger than a robin, with a blue back, a crest and
white spots in of Mexico, jay)
it is
its
wings and
tail.
replaced in the
Found from Newfoundland
West by
and a paler one without (California
22
to the
Gulf
a dark jay with a crest (Steller's
jay).
vl/ kite'-(^rowned
Sparrow
ZONOTRICHIA LEL'COPHRYS]
A on
GLIMPSE
its
who
of a white-crown
is
enough
to
show
that
it is
no ordinary
sparrow. Distinguished in mien, with broad black and white stripes
.
crown,
it
lacks the drabness of the
common
lot.
To those of us
live along the Atlantic seaboard, the white-throated sparrow
more
familiar, a bird with similar
a square white throat patch.
many;
a few
wheezy
We
head
stripes,
is
much
but which has in addition
see white-crowns in migration, but not
hop elegantly on the lawns
in early
May and
sing their
from the hedges. These transients are en route
lyrical notes
to
Newfoundland, Labrador and the Hudson Bay country, the very threshold of the Arctic, where the last stunted spruces give
West of the Appalachians the white-crown during the season of dant. There
it
its
passage,
and
in the far
is
way
West
One
The
positively abun-
race breeds on the coast as far
south as California. Every garden in the Pacific states
is
visited
by some
handsome sparrow.
plant which
summer
is
can be heard, even in summer, singing from the edges of
every bog in the high mountains.
race of this
to the tundra.
much more numerous
Audubon
pictured in this attractive design
is
the
grape (Vitis aestivalis) and the sparrow so furtively peeking from
behind the big leaf
is
youngsters with pink
an immature individual, one of those tan-looking bills
that
show up with
24
their parents in the
fall.
^/tmerican Jvestrel or Sparrow crlawn [falco sparverius]
THIS
beautiful
little
bird of prey
is
a falcon, not a true
obsolete name, sparrow hawk, would imply.
its
sparrows in
its
diet.
and crickets which
it
Rather, spots
it
seems
to
Nor does
hawk it
as
favor
prefer mice, grasshoppers
from a high vantage point on some dead
tree or telephone wire.
No
other diurnal bird of prey except
grine falcon, ranges as widely in the coast to coast and
its
larger relative, the pere-
New World.
It is
found from
from northwestern Canada and central Alaska
south through the two American continents to Tierra del Fuego.
Adaptable, deserts,
it is
secution, to size,
impartial to rural roadsides, open country, prairies,
woodland edges, farmlands and even which the larger birds of prey are
hardly larger than that of a jay.
cities. It
subject,
When
escapes per-
by virtue of
perched on a wire
its it
looks somewhat like an oversized swallow. Even the slim pointed
wings suggest those of a swallow rather than those of a typical hawk. Unlike most other day-flying birds of prey of sticks in a tree, nor does cavity, usually excavated
it
lay
by a
its
eggs on a
flicker, in
some
graph pole. In the desert a woodpecker hole hole in a it
may
cliff will
it
does not build a nest cliff
in a
do. In the western foothills
ledge. It seeks a
isolated tree or tele-
saguaro cactus or a
where holes are scarce
appropriate an old magpie nest. Even a building in the center
of a town
may
offer a safe nest site.
26
{Black Vulture [CORACYPS ATRATUS]
ALTHOUGH living best. It is
room
this
wall,
may seem
composition is,
it
in
my
macabre
too
opinion, one of Audubon's very
imaginative and brilliantly handled.
may sometimes
Although black vultures and turkey vultures
seen together, they prefer to associate in assemblies of their
The wide-ranging turkey Canada
to
effortlessly
for the
Cape Horn, on long
stiff
which
vulture,
is
own
be
kind.
found from southern
is
the better sailplane of the two. Gliding
wings,
rocks and
it
tilts
unsteadily to take
advantage of subtle air currents.
The black vulture has
a stockier look.
the short square tail that barely projects
It is
readily identified by
beyond the broad wings
and by the whitish patches toward the wing-tips. redheaded relative
—
and a short glide. The black vulture, which
is
labored than that of
its
is
more
rapid
flaps
Its flight
several
the one most fre-
quently seen around towns and cities in tropical America, seldom ventures north of Maryland and Ohio and avoids the higher hills
and mountains into which the turkey vulture often ventures. At a carcass the black vulture
is
the
more aggressive of
species have declined in recent years, although this
mented. They are struck by cars
succumbed
to
at
poisoned carrion.
28
is
the two. Both
not well docu-
roadside kills and some have
LJello\K>-[Jjreasted
L^hat
[iCTERIA VIRENS]
THE
been called an acrobat, a clown and a ventrilo-
versatile chat has
quist.
Its
come from
strange puzzling calls
singer remains hidden
the thickets while the
— clucks, mews, caws, coos and whistles that would
do credit to a mockingbird. However, the chat's repertoire
is
more
limited
than that of a mocker, with longer pauses between the phrases. The act
show
that caps the climax of the
wildly,
is
the flight song, when, revealing itself
ascends with flopping wings and dangling
at last, the bird
and parachutes back
to the briar patch.
legs, singing
Audubon, always
a careful
observer, faithfully records the clowning grotesquerie of the flight song,
while he shows below a female brooding amid a bower of sweet-briar roses. Systematists disagree as to
how
the chat should be classified. For want
of a better solution they have placed it is
it
in the warbler family,
even though
lYi inches long, half again as large as the general run of warblers.
However,
it
acts
more
like
that include the catbird,
same kind of brushy sings and
of course,
mimics
one of the mimic thrushes (the family of birds
brown thrasher, and mockingbird).
tangles they do, has the
like one, sings
its flight
It likes
same loose-jointed
on moonlit nights
as they often do, and,
song suggests that of a mockingbird. Can
living as neighbors in the
same environment
produces a similar personality?
30
the
actions,
it
be that
— the same catbriar tangles
I
Lorthem Cardinal [CARDINALIS CARDINALIS]
CARDINALS have been the favorite subjects of bird Audubon's day. One modern bird painter mission out of every ten he receives
Another confides that he has made
and
tells
artists
me
com-
for a portrait of a cardinal.
is
at least
twenty paintings of cardinals,
no matter what kind of a job he turns out he can
that
ever since
that one
sell
it.
Bright
red birds always have an irresistible appeal, whether they are framed
on the living room wall or flying free about the snow-covered food shelf outside the
One would
window.
think a bird so brightly colored as the cardinal would
surely migrate to the tropics, along with the tanagers and orioles, but,
on the contrary, a cardinal that spends the summer to
in a
garden
is
likely
winter there too, probably not wandering more than a quarter of a
mile away the
snow
all
lies
year
— even
in northern
But by and large the cardinal
where
it
Ohio or southern Ontario where
deep and the temperature drops below the zero mark.
vies with the
is
more
mockingbird for
typical of the southern states, first
place in the affections of
garden lovers. Perched among the waxy leaves of a magnolia, the male chants in clear slurred whistles
Once it
what cheer, cheer, cheer, cheer, cheer!
a favorite cage bird, trapped commercially
has grown more numerous and
is
now
as far north as the Great Lakes and
32
New
by
tens of thousands,
a familiar town bird in cities
England.
(greater Lrratrte L^htcken [tympanuchus cupido]
WHEN Audubon was
young man
a
Kentucky he found
in
pin-
nated grouse (prairie chickens) "so abundant that they were
common
held in no higher estimation as food than the most
and no hunter of Kentucky deigned
to
shoot them.
upon with more abhorrence than the crows." He reported friend
who was fond
flesh,
They were looked
of rifle-shooting "killed upwards of
that
40
in
a
one
morning, but picked none of them up, so satiated with grouse was he."
He added: "Such an but what will you think
account
when
may appear tell
I
strange to you, reader;
you, that, in that same country,
where twenty-five years ago they could not have been sold than one cent a-piece, scarcely one
have abandoned the
is
now
to
at
more
be found? The grouse
Kentucky, and removed (like the
state of
In-
dians) every season further to the westward, to escape from the
murderous white man." He reported prairie chicken (the that in the
now
markets of Philadelphia,
from
that the eastern
extinct heath hen)
five to ten dollars the
sell
at
still
abundant on the midwestern
When
had become "so rare
New York and
prairies, but this too to
the native prairie vegetation
An
panuchus Cupido Society
—
to
change,
agricultural
was eliminated they
much
organization in Wisconsin is
restricted,
The Tym-
dedicated to purchasing, preserving
and managing remaining prairie chicken
37 D OUT HERE
was
modern
soon disappeared. Today the remaining populations, are carefully managed.
Boston, they
pair." At that time they were
mainly because the bird could not adapt practices.
race of the
habitat.
^ *
AJ
•MiVi
-v
oi
ia ftl
.vl isV
#1 ST Unf njal^
• I
^^i
{Bald Kbagle [haliaeetos
TO
L E
U C O CE P H
ALU s
quote John James Audubon's account of the bald eagle in his
Ornithological Biography: "The figure of this noble bird
known throughout
the civilized world,
emblazoned as
it
is
is
well
on our
national standard, which waves in the breeze of every clime, bearing in distant
lands the remembrance of a great people living in a state
of peaceful freedom.
Since
westward one
all
of the lower
that peaceful
freedom
in
the 49th state, can boast far
48
last
forever!"
those brave words the Union has pushed
The bald eagle occurs
to the Pacific.
—Hawaii. Alaska,
than
May
Audubon penned
states
combined. There
is
every state except
more bald eagles also a very strong
Canadian population. Like the ospreys, bald eagles around the Great Lakes and along certain stretches of the Atlantic coast suffered
DDT
from
the effects of
and related pollutants, but with the ban on these biocides repro-
duction
is
now improving. However,
Canada and Alaska do
eagles need space and only in
these big birds
still
find the
elbowroom
that
they once knew.
Adult bald eagles with their white heads and
tails
can be instantly
recognized. Not so the dark immatures which somewhat resemble
golden eagles except for the whitish lining of the underwing. Audubon, in painting an aberrant immature bird, was under the mistaken
impression that
it
was
a
new
species which he
Washington."
38
named
'"The Bird of
'*
Screech
\^)wt
[OTUS ASIO]
AUDUBON has shown one gray screech owl and two reddish ones in this
composition.
He
stated that the gray bird
was an adult
and the reddish ones were young. He was mistaken. Actually, these differences in color have nothing to do with age, sex or season.
are color phases. they
may
Red
to
may
They
often be paired, or
be the products of the same brood.
This wide-ranging
wick
birds and gray birds
Mexico,
is
little
owl, found from Alaska and
New
Bruns-
perhaps the most familiar owl. Where barred and
great horned owls dominate the night world, screech owls might be scarce, while in rural
communities or towns, devoid of these large
nocturnal predators which eat
little
owls, tree surgeons
may
be the
screech owl's worst enemies. In the eastern half of the continent, where screech owls
two color phases, they give voice
to a
mournful whinny
tremulous wail running down the scale. This
and the birds
will often respond. In western
come
in
at night, a
call is easily imitated
North America, where
they are either gray or dull brown, never red, screech owls do not
have the descending whinny. Instead they sing a series of hollow whistles on one pitch, starting slowly then running into a tremolo
with the rhythm of a small ball bouncing to a standstill.
40
{Brown [Pelican [PELECANUS OCCIDENTALIS]
THE
serio-comic pelicans with their accordion-pleated pouches are
the delight of every tourist California.
The most popular
who
visits
pelicans of
all
the beaches of Florida or
are perhaps those
who make
the municipal pier at St. Petersburg their headquarters, patiently sitting
on their posts until someone dignified, as birds of
offers
a
handout. At once profoundly
such ancient lineage should be, they are
time masters of deadpan clowning, particularly
contend for the same
fish.
This
little
when two
at the
same
or three birds
group of brown pelicans who prefer
begging to an honest living probably nest with the hundreds of their kind
who
resort to the
mangrove
ten such rookeries the Gulf.
On
Pelicans
islands out in
in Florida,
Tampa
Bay. There are eight or
and several others in the Carolinas and along
the Pacific side they do not breed north of California.
fly in
each bird taking
orderly lines, close to the water, flapping, then sailing,
its
cue from the bird in front of
follow-my-leader. Fishing, the big birds
fly
it,
as
aloft,
if
they were playing
spot the schools of
small fry, and facing downwind, pull their wings back and plunge beakfirst
with a grand splash. The brown pelican, which
Louisiana, has a wingspread of six and a half feet.
is
the state bird of
It is strictly
coastal,
whereas the white pelican, which has a wingspread of nine, nests far inland in the western half of the continent.
42
uxuffed (grouse [bonasa umbellus]
THE ruffed grouse was obviously Audubon's as
it is
game laws
many
today for
He
game
bird,
bag limit or the season when grouse
that dictated the
could be taken.
favorite
sportsmen. During his era there were no
himself shot them at
times of the year.
all
was known
In former days the ruffed grouse
as "pheasant"
by
country folk in the Appalachians and from thence westward, while in
New England
this
was called "partridge." These names
it
persist to
day amongst some sportsmen.
This
red-brown or gray-brown chickenlike bird
large
brushy woodlands
is
usually not noticed until
Two
with a startling whir.
it
of
the
explodes into the air
basic color types occur: reddish birds
Audubon
with rufous or reddish tails such as or gray-brown birds with grayish
tails.
depicted, and gray
In the East, red birds are in
the preponderance in the southern part of the bird's range which ex-
tends to the southern Appalachians, and gray birds predominate in the north. In the West, red birds are typical of the Pacific states,
gray birds of the Rockies.
The "drumming" of morning as its
the cock grouse
best heard in the early
is
stands on a woodland log and beats
it
its
wings against
body. The muffled thumping starts slowly, accelerating into a
whir:
Bup
.
.
bup
Audubon admits
.
.
that
.
bup
.
.
.
bup
.
.
.
bup
.
.
.
bup
.
.
.
he often lured drumming males
beating on an inflated bladder.
44
bup
.
.
to his
.
uprrrr.
gun by
<&'sprey [PANDION HALIAETUS]
TRADITIONALLY,
the elegant osprey or "fish
hawk," escaped
condemned most other birds of prey. Ever
the prejudice that
Audubon's day fishermen and farmers along the coast were of
since
the opinion that
an osprey's nest on the property was like a scare-
crow, a warning to "chicken hawks" to keep away. Although there
was nothing
to this superstitious belief,
large vulnerable birds It
was not in
itself
War
was a connection between
many
eagles, ospreys
to
DDT
and related
soon became apparent that
and the dramatic failure of produce young. Chlorinated
break down and are passed along the
to
food chain with a cumulative fish
it
their use
and peregrines
hydrocarbons are slow
small
years that the osprey found
II
The new wonder chemical
chemicals were being used widely and there
served to protect these
from unnecessary persecution.
until the post-World
difficulty.
it
Poisoned insects are eaten by
effect.
which are eaten by larger
fish
which
in turn are easily
caught by the osprey which transfers the accumulated poisons to
own
Although the
DDT, to
afflicted
ospreys were seldom killed outright by
they laid porous thin-shelled eggs and reproduction dropped
almost
this
its
tissues.
nil.
Where
I live,
near the mouth of the Connecticut River,
once abundant nester has almost disappeared.
pollution
is
being controlled there
is
Now
that chemical
evidence that the surviving
ospreys in nearby areas are again having some success in raising
normal broods of two or three young.
46
"
flk£g
I
"X.
••
....
/
-PS
r
summer Summer |
IN
P
I
cjanager cJo
R A N C A
RUBRA]
the South there are two "red-birds": the "winter redbird" (the
cardinal),
here.
which remains
The only two
year,
all
and the "summer redbird," shown
birds in the eastern states that are all red, they are
one has a
easily recognized, for
crest, the
other has not.
draped live oaks or the long-leaf pines the
summer
From
the moss-
tanager sings
the note with which
its
robin-like phrases, but far
more
always announces
staccato chicky-tuck, a note unlike that of any
other bird.
itself, a
The yellowish female
sing. Occasionally, if a
when summer
God
the
is
it
says chicky-tuck too, but she does not
storm sweeps up the coast in April,
at the
time
tanagers are making their hazardous passage across the
Gulf, a few are carried as far as of
characteristic
summer
tanager
is
New
England, but except for such acts
an unreconstructed southerner, seldom
venturing across the Mason and Dixon Line. The other eastern species, the scarlet tanager, crimson with black wings,
spending the
summer
in the
is
a
Yankee by adoption,
oak woods of the northern
tier of states
and southern Canada. In Latin America four hundred species of tanagers, garbed in vivid
shades of red, blue and yellow, vie with the parrots and trogons in making the tropics gay.
Why,
out of
all this
gorgeous galaxy, only two tanagers
should be adventurous enough to cross the Gulf of Mexico
many
mysteries of migration.
48
is
one of the
ujrown cJhrasher [toxostoma rufum]
AUDUBON'S
dramatic portrayal of the thrashers and the black
snake reminds
me
of his controversial painting of the mocking-
birds defending their nest against a rattlesnake. The
was much
criticized
latter painting
by some of his contemporaries who averred that
rattlesnakes did not climb trees.
He was on
safer ground
when he
adopted a similar concept for his painting of the "ferruginous
mockingbird", as he called the thrasher. In
this"
instance he showed a
blacksnake, a reptile that does climb trees and which robs nests
when
it
can.
However,
thrashers would In
come
is
it
doubtful whether a second pair of neighbors.
to the aid of their distressed
Mexico there are many kinds of thrashers and
their allies.
Our
southwestern states have eight, but in the eastern half of the continent
we have only
the catbird.
three
Audubon
—
the
brown thrasher,
the
mockingbird and
rated the thrasher as the most
numerous song-
bird in the eastern states except for the robin. This certainly would not be true today. in the last
It
is
century, but
quite possible that thrashers have declined
we
lack measurable evidence.
Birds of the thrasher-mockingbird family are often called "mimic thrushes." Actually, the thrasher and the catbird do not
mimic but
have their own repertoire of short phrases. Whereas the mockingbird repeats each phrase a half dozen times or
more before going on
to
the next one, the thrasher repeats but once. This pairing of phrases
distinguishes
its
song from that of the catbird which does not repeat.
50
Ujiack-Lsrowried flight Crleroa [nycticorax nycticorax]
AT
dusk on the marsh a
flat
of the night heron from
where
distant,
sky
is
it
its
quoh or quark announces hidden
has spent the day.
Its
roost,
the arrival
perhaps several miles
silhouette against the evening
unmistakably that of a heron, but
it
is
shorter-legged and
stockier.
In recent years the large night heron colonies on
Long Island and
elsewhere in the northeast suffered a serious drop in numbers for reasons that are not fully understood.
DDT
for the decline, but if so,
and
It
has been suggested that the
syndrome of the 1950's and 1960's might have been responsible
glossy ibis
why should
the
snowy
egret, cattle egret
be prospering as never before? All three of these
long-legged waders which share the night heron's marshes are
breeding in
New England where
they were
unknown
at the
now
beginning
of the century.
The black-crowned night heron It
is
a familiar inhabitant of
Canada
to
is
not peculiar to North America.
marshes and shores from southern
Tierra del Fuego and the Falklands where a dark race
can be seen standing on the tidal rocks in the company of Magellanic penguins.
It is
also widespread in suitable terrain in Europe, Asia,
Africa and some of the Pacific islands.
52
FOLD OUT
HI
Vis iid
cJurkey
[meleacris callopavo]
TODAY
a single print of
Audubon's wild turkey would bring
at
auction twenty times the original subscription price of the entire collection of
435
prints in the Elephant Folio.
In Audubon's day the wild turkey
was
still
widespread east of
the Rockies but already diminished or absent in
northerly parts of
its
range which
in colonial
some of
the
days extended
to
more
New
England and southern Ontario. When he wrote the biography of this
noble fowl
numerous
in
Audubon noted
where they were very abundant in earlier
that turkeys
days
in
Kentucky he had seen birds of 10 first
recalled that
12 pounds
to
rate turkey weighing
30 pounds avoirdupois was considered
to
He
thirty years ago."
offered for three pence each and "a
25
were becoming "less
every portion of the United States, even in those parts
well
sold
from
when
it
brought a quarter of a dollar." However, by 1836-7 they had risen in price to
By
this
75 cents
in the
markets of Washington.
time domestic turkeys were
filling the void.
These were
descendants of wild birds of Mexican origin which had been brought to
Europe by
the conquistadors.
After domestication turkeys were returned to the continent of their origin.
much reduced
After the wild stock had become
management
practices effected
wild turkeys are
West beyond
to
be found in 47
is
in
numbers, game
comeback and today 1,500,000 states,
including
the ancestral range of the bird.
Turkey Federation which tion
a
many
areas in the
The National Wild
dedicated to the program of reintroduc-
and management now has a membership of 30,000.
56
(^reen uieron [butorides striatus]
THIS of
small dark heron
its
is
most generally distributed member
the
family in the United States and the one most likely
seen around
little
wooded ponds and streams
of the country. At close range
it
may seem more
its
somewhat
Alarmed by
heron.
close approach,
it
it
flies
little
it
in-
blue
and
elevates a shaggy crest
with a loud skyow or skewk. Airborne,
and crowlike, but
irides-
blue than green, leading some
experienced observers to believe they have discovered a
flies off
be
reveals a rich chestnut neck and
greenish-yellow or orange legs. In strong light cent upperparts
to
in the northern parts
looks quite black
with slower, more arched wing-beats than
a crow.
Audubon has shown
a green heron plucking a luna
moth from
the
leafblade of a marsh plant, a rather unlikely incident because the ethereal green
moth
is
usually to be found in a woodland environ-
ment. However, moths, like birds, have wings and therefore could
be encountered occasionally in an atypical situation.
Whereas most other herons breed tends to be
in
colonies, the green heron
a loner, usually nesting in the privacy of
some
thick
grove or in an orchard, but there are places, particularly near the coast,
where several pairs might nest together
58
in loose association.
Snowy Qywl [nyctea scandiaca]
THE
key
to life in the Arctic is the
mammal it
in check. Periodically
when
when
The snowy owl waxes
crash.
lemming, the
that increases so rapidly that even
the depression comes
little
mouse-like
enemies cannot keep
reaches saturation there
it
on the lemming horde
fat
it
its
in
is
a population
peak years, but
must leave the barren tundra and seek food
elsewhere. Flights of these big ghostly owls drift into the United States
about one year in four, and
longer intervals invasions of thousands
at
pour across the border.
As one would expect of birds of the midnight sun, they are not nocturnal as other owls, but
fly
as
abroad by day, searching the marshes,
the open plains and the dunes along the sea for rabbits and other four-
footed fare. So persecuted are they by trophy hunters that few survive the winter to
make
the return
winter successfully at a
dump
trip.
However, one year, four spent the
in the Bronx where they caught rats and
escaped notice, because at a distance they looked like bundles of newspaper.
The fuzzy young
times mistaken for
At home
of
snowy
baleful
it
owls are white and are, therefore, some-
in the far north, the
Arctic fox and the Eskimos
There
all
owls.
sits
upon
booming
its
who
snowy owl has few enemies except the
find the eggs of Ookpikjuak very palatable.
hillock, surveys its bleak
to the polar sky.
60
domain and intones
its
JrLmericari .merican QJlamingo Q/ic PH
[
IT
took
Audubon
O E N
I
C O P
TERU
S
RUBER]
nearly twelve years, from 1826 to 1838, to complete
the publication of the original edition of
but the
first
London. first
When
was complete there were four huge volumes, the
the set
hundred plates each, and the fourth, one
three containing one
hundred and
The Birds of America. All
were engraved by Robert Havell and his son, of
ten plates
These were reproduced by copper plate en-
thirty-five.
graving and colored by hand. Later (1840 to 1844), an octavo edition
was published, with total
number
to five
were far inferior
sixty-five
additional
illustrations,
bringing the
hundred. But these, lithographed in Philadelphia,
to the
four hundred and thirty-five large copper plate
impressions.
Harry Havell,
a descendant of the engraver, once
showed
me some
proofs that were used by the colorists. These were not entire prints, but had been cut into irregular pieces, for what reason
At any
rate,
had written
in
pencil,
gerated this point, for
deep a color.
I
cannot say.
remember the flamingo on which Audubon "more red here." Possibly his memory exag-
particularly
I
He had
I
have always thought he made
observed
many
this bird too
of these grotesque waders in the
Florida Keys, but today they are seldom seen
away from
the
unless one goes to Hialeah Park, near Miami, or one of the
Bahamas,
many parks
elsewhere in Florida where wing-clipped birds are kept. These famous captives lost their bright pink it
when fed a shrimp
when
diet.
62
first
brought there, but regained
esper oparrow vesper Si [POOECETES CKAMINEUS]
EACH bird has cation tag
when
it flies.
other
little
its
is its
own
Otherwise
brown
distinctive label.
white outer it
tail
The vesper sparrow's
identifi-
feathers which flash conspicuously
would look rather
like a
song sparrow or any
bird.
Although Audubon sketched the vesper sparrow, or "bay-winged
was called
in those days, beside a prickly pear cactus
bunting," as
it
(opuntia),
a bird of the green
states
it is
meadows
and southern Canada. Shy,
it
road or pauses behind a weed until
that stretch across the northern
runs mouselike along the side of the its
pursuer passes. Then, hopping
the tip of a mullein stalk or a fence post,
it
sings. Its
melody sounds
to
like
the brisk lay of a song sparrow but has a minor quality, with two low, clear introductory notes.
At dusk, when other voices grow
continues to sing from the fence line until darkness finally
Our
native sparrows are a large family, somber, streaked
but attractive in a modest way. Most of them sing well inspired
— and
their food habits of small insects
them economically
desirable.
silent,
it
stills it.
little birds,
— some seem almost
and weed seeds make
So do not for a moment put them
in the
same category with the house sparrow, an immigrant which neither sings nor has too desirable habits. They do not even belong to the same family, for the
house sparrow
is
related to the
64
weaver finches of the old world.
K^reat \Jblue uieron [ardea hero
ONE
di as]
of the most ambitious publishing ventures of
all
Audubon's
time,
Birds of America appeared in four huge volumes, the heaviest of
which weighs
fifty-six
pounds. The page
trimming, was termed "elephant to
show every
26H by 39H
size,
and as
swan or hummingbird,
bird,
sometimes taxed
folio,"
it
inches before
was Audubon's desire his ingenuity
life size,
was
to the limit. In this portrait of a great blue heron,
he
has solved the problem of fitting the gangling bird onto the page by
dropping
Four
its
head
in a graceful
sweep
to its feet.
heron stands motionless
feet tall, the statuesque great blue
in
the shallows, waiting until a fingerling or a frog ventures close enough
From
to spear with a lightning thrust.
coast to coast, and from the Gulf
of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, this gaunt wader
people
more
who
live
near the water.
Many
restricted to the inland prairies
stretched full length.
The
call
it
and always
fly
its
head back to
its
familiar to
with their necks
great blue heron in flight pulls
comfortable loop, tucking
is
a "crane," but cranes are
its
neck into a
shoulders. Both birds have
a wing-spread equal to that of an eagle.
High in the
tall
trees of
platforms of sticks.
swampy woodlands herons
build their rickety
Hundreds often gather from miles around
single heronry, for like
many
to
form a
other water birds they find security in
numbers.
66
oLeast Ujtttem [IXOBRYCHUS EXILIS]
THIS
tiny elusive heron
much
thinner.
is
Audubon
bittern that a lady brought to erect,
an inch apart, on a
scarcely the size of a
him
in her apron.
The bird
table.
meadowlark but
an experiment with a
tried
He
live least
placed two books
easily walked between the
two books without moving either of them. Although a least bittern
would seem too wide
pass through such a narrow space,
to
parently can constrict
its
body, an ability that enables
it
to
it
ap-
move
without hindrance through the dense reeds and cattails.
Were
it
not for
its
song, a low,
might not suspect the presence of discovered its
it
may
muted cuckoolike coo-coo-coo, we
this little
heron
in the
marsh.
When
"freeze" or slowly melt into the reeds, relying on
protective coloration to escape notice.
When
pressed,
it
reluctantly
takes to the air, displaying large buff wing patches. After flying but a short distance,
it
drops
in
again to play hide and seek.
Least bitterns share the marshes with the rails which are even
more
elusive.
patches
None of
when they
fly.
the rails
show the conspicuous buff wing
The much larger American
bittern
is
a heavily
streaked brown bird which shares the least bittern's habit, discovered, of standing rigid with ing the reeds.
68
its bill
when
pointed skyward, simulat-
lorthem, or ujaltimore, denote
I
[icterus calbula]
George WHEN ment
Calvert, the
Lord Baltimore,
first
many
of Virginia he found
visited the settle-
birds along the Chesapeake.
None, however, had beauty so breath-taking as the flame-colored birds, smaller than robins, which were later to bear his name. so the story goes, he took their colors, orange
Much
impressed,
and black, for
his coat
of arms.
Although Audubon portrayed them appropriately enough tree,
Baltimore orioles are particularly partial
some towns
the spread of the
other trees.
The
longest,
nest,
to elms.
in a tulip
However,
Dutch elm disease has forced them
deep as a handbag,
is
hung from
to
in
use
the tips of the
most sweeping branches, where no cat would venture. One can
help the feathered architects by putting out yarn and string, cutting them
exceeding ten or twelve inches so that the birds won't
into lengths not
get tangled in them.
As
if
following some inviolable schedule orioles
make
their
annual
pilgrimage over tropical jungles, across or around the Gulf of Mexico,
through the plantations of the Gulf states and ever northward until in
May
early
New
they reach the elm-shaded towns of the Great Lakes and
England.
A
hold them up a of the
few continue
little,
into southern
Canada. Bad weather might
but not much, and they arrive within a day or two
same date from year
to year.
No
birds follow the calendar
precisely than those that winter deep in the tropics.
70
more
LPassenaer 'assenger crigeon LPtc [ectopistes migratorius]
OVER
most
a century ago the passenger pigeon was probably the
numerous
bird in
all
the world; today
it is
extinct. Incredible as
it
may have outnumbered all other birds in the United States combined — hundreds of species. One authority, summing up the evidence, seems,
it
believes that in
Audubon's day there were nearly
five billion
pigeons in the states of Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana alone!
passenger
From New-
foundland to Florida, early writers told of immense hordes. The great
columns and took
in flight, extending for
as
much
as three days to pass.
called the father of
Alexander Wilson, sometimes
American ornithology, estimated a
to contain 2,230,272,000 birds.
numbers. He reckoned that their daily food
hundreds of miles, blotted out the sun
if
He
flock in
each bird ate a half pint of acorns a day,
consumption would be 17,424,000 bushels! Similarly,
Audubon estimated
a flock near Louisville at 1,115,136,000 birds.
Accounts of the great roosts read
like the tales of a
romancer. Trees
broke under the weight of the pigeons; thousands of armed tered day
Kentucky
considered this far below their actual
and night and shipped countless barrels
men
slaugh-
to the big cities
they rotted on the sidewalks for want of buyers. The
last
where
immense nesting
took place in Michigan in 1878. During the next thirty years the remaining flocks dwindled until they were gone.
The
last
passenger pigeon in
the world expired at the Cincinnati Zoo at 1:00 p.m. Central Standard
Time, September
1,
1914.
72
\_sommon
(bider
[SOMATERIA MOLLISSIMA]
AUDUBON has sometimes been
accused by modern ornithologists
of over-dramatizing his subjects. This animated composition of
a trio of eiders risks this criticism, but
it is
almost certain that
it
was
inspired by an incident that he had actually witnessed; perhaps dur-
ing his Labrador cruise
when he became very familiar with
these
striking sea ducks. Eiders are probably as abundant today as they
were
in
Audubon's time, when they could be purchased
markets for 75 cents per pair. Although they are are no longer prized as flocks
numbering many thousands winter on
Long
yard, but only a relative few reach
and
to the east in the
at
Island.
Boston
hunted, they
epicures. Great
the shoals of
on Cape Cod and many can also be seen offshore
coast
still
much by wildfowlers and
in the
Monomoy
Martha's Vine-
On
the
Maritime Provinces they appear
Maine to
be
breeding in greater numbers than they did forty years ago.
Eider down, gathered from the nests of the
sitting females,
has
long been an article of commerce. In Iceland, where eider farms are
managed
scientifically,
the
industry
is
an important part of the
economy. With similar management, insuring the protection of the birds, the gathering of
the species
North
is
down could be
found widely on both sides of the North Atlantic and
Pacific.
77 LD OUT HERE
profitable elsewhere because
[Roseate cJern [STERNA DOUGALLll]
NO
bird of land or sea
is
more buoyant, more
saw
Key
his first roseate terns at Indian
than
skillful in the air,
clumsy by comparison.
this exquisite tern. Gulls are
in Florida,
When Audubon
he remarked: "I
thought them the hummingbirds of the sea, so light and graceful were their
movements." Other writers since have made a more apt comparison,
nicknaming them "sea swallows." Terns are among the most cosmopolitan birds
wander the seven seas diving for
with
jet
the clan
them
snatching tiny
like kingfishers.
black caps and forked is
The
"bloom" on
its
rest,
New England and unknown
much
alike,
member
of
tail
and, in May,
strangely spotty.
Found here
with a longer
is
main group nests on certain
little
about Long Island Sound. South
until the Florida
of there
it is
lives in
Bermuda, Venezuela, on islands
Africa, in India,
They
the world.
breast.
and there along the Atlantic coast, the
almost
in
from the surface or
different kinds look
distribution of the roseate tern
islands off southern
fish
but this distinguished
tails,
more streamlined than the
a soft peach-colored
The
at will,
Keys are reached.
off the coasts of
It
also
Europe and
Ceylon and China. Hundreds of miles separate some
of the colonies, to which the birds are
drawn
as if
by a magnet.
Why
they
should resort to certain ancestral bars and islands while unaccountably avoiding thousands of others that would seem equally suitable,
mystifying habit.
78
is
a
Q,reat
G>W
uiorned
[bubo vircinianus]
THE
deep, measured hooting of this nocturnal hunter sounds from
the woodlands as dusk settles over the land. Alert to the slightest rustle of a small animal in the shadows,
through the Its
trees,
wide yellow eyes and the ear tufts (which have nothing to do with
its real
ears) give the bird a cat-like look
of Newfoundland, lumberjacks call it
thrives
it
from Labrador and Alaska
— in
fact, in
a resident of every state in the
handicap of
size (nearly
two
feet), possesses the wits
country.
I
to
South America and varies from
more humid
Union and even though
regions. It it
has the
feet long, with a wing-spread of four to five
necessary to survive even in settled farming
have seen a nest in the rocks on the Palisades close
George Washington Bridge
some places they hide
at the
their
very threshold of
two white eggs
in
they appropriate old crow's nests. So aggressive dator and so powerful are
stand up to
the foggy forests
the 'cat owl'. Distributed widely,
near-white at the edge of the Arctic to dusky in is
on noiseless wings
glides
it
ready to strike quickly.
it.
its
New York
to the
City. In
hollow trees, in others this magnificent pre-
is
spring-trap claws that even an eagle cannot
In Florida, one eagle's nest in twenty
horned owls each year, and the owners are forced sions elsewhere.
80
is
commandeered by
to rebuild their
man-
J/Lmencan
\^)ystet'catcher
[haematopus palliatus]
CONTRARY
to the impression given
one does not have
portrait,
to
run
by the goggle-eyed bird
fast to catch
technique of the "sea-crow," as the baymen
call
in this
an oyster. The usual is
it,
to stalk
about
at
low tide on the beds of exposed "coon" oysters and disable them with a clip of its big red bill. It is as skillful in
as
opening the reluctant
shellfish
any professional oyster-opener.
A
foot and a half long,
it is
one of the largest and most striking of
the shorebirds, flashing great white wing patches parties, flying
from bar
when
it
flies.
all
Little
to bar, rapidly repeat their piercing whistles
wheep! wheep! wheep! Because they attract so
much
attention to them-
Audubon found
selves their survival
is
far north as Labrador,
where he watched them pry limpets from the rocks,
threatened.
oystercatchers as
and apparently they lived along the entire coast from there
Today they are gone
entirely
few, from Florida as well.
must go
to Argentina.
from the northeast, and, except for a very
To be sure
of finding oystercatchers today one
to Virginia or the Carolinas, or else to the
on the white shelly beaches they
still
lay their
Texas coast. There
two or three blotched eggs
on the naked sand. Oystercatchers do not migrate much; the birds of the Virginia and
North Carolina coasts merely move
augment the
as far as
big flocks that winter about
82
South Carolina where they
Cape Romaine.
Illourrung ^Jjove [ZENAIDA MACROURA]
IN
flowery words, describing this flowery scene,
the branch above, a love scene
is
just
Audubon
wrote: ''On
commencing. The female,
still
coy and undetermined, seems doubtful of the truth of her lover, and virginput his sincerity to the
like resolves to
of his wishes.
and
tail
test,
by delaying the
gratification
She has reached the extremity of the branch, her wings
already opening, and she will
fly off
to
spot, where, if her lover should follow with the
some more sequestered
same assiduous devotion,
they will doubtless become as blessed as the pair beneath them."
Nature writers of an earlier generation almost always wrote in
human thoughts and emotions mirrored
vein, seeing
Birds became
little
this
in wild creatures.
people dressed in feathers. Although "humanizing" the
animals made them more appealing,
it
distorted the truth and retarded
our understanding of wildlife. True, some of the same natural laws control both birds and men, but modern behaviorists find that birds have a
psychology of their own, quite unlike ours.
The mourning dove, or Carolina Audubon's day,
is
found
in
drive across the country in
the road on
a
dove, as
it
was called in
every state in the Union, and were you to
summer you would probably
more days during your journey than any other
and slimmer than a domestic dove, call,
turtle
mournful ooah, cooo, cooo,
its
pointed
tail is its
see
84
beside
Smaller
best mark. Its
coo, fades in the distance
ghostly coos.
it
bird.
to
three
C*row
CJisk
[CORVUS OSSIFRAGUS]
ALONE crow
on the beach gives pause
an ordinary crow or
.
is it
a fish
to the
man
with a glass.
inches difference in their sizes, but one can't be sure of size bird
But
is
if
it
is.
If
it
standing alone, where there the bird talks
If
it
it
tells
Is
it
crow? True, there are three or four
when
the
nothing with which to compare
is
it.
everyone within hearing what kind of a crow
caws an honest to goodness caw, then
says ca or cah in a nasal juvenile sort of
way
it
is
it is
small crow that lives along Atlantic tidewater from
a
common
crow.
a fish crow
Long Island
— the
to the
Gulf of Mexico. Audubon commented: "At times the sound of their voices seems as
if in
faint
mimicry of that of the common crow,
at others,
one would suppose that they are troubled with a cough or cold." Fish crows can be found far up
some of the
large rivers that drain the
Atlantic slope; rivers like the Hudson, Delaware and
influenced by the tide.
They
where they seem quite
at
are
Potomac which
are
numerous around Washington, D. C,
home on
the ledges of the Smithsonian, the
Museum and the other government buildings that line ConstiAvenue. No doubt they hunt for pigeons' eggs along these man-
National tution
made
cliffs.
In Audubon's day they fearlessly entered every coastal town,
but since then they have learned the wary ways of other crows.
86
:«<«
*
VUhooptng L^rane [grus Americana]
TO Americans
the
gered species."
whooping crane
It is
is
the most publicized "endan-
we
with some shock that
learn that
Audubon
himself killed seven with two shots, a remarkable feat inasmuch as these
wary birds are almost impossible
approach
to
if
a
man
is
carrying a gun. In his biography of this species
winter sojourn in the South
and from thence
to
ana whoopers on
Texas."
New
Audubon
it
was "abundant
I
myself saw the
in
states that
during
its
Georgia and Florida,
last
of the wild Louisi-
Year's day in 1948 when Bob Smith, the
Mississippi flyway biologist of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
took
me
out over the coastal marshes west of the Mississippi Delta
in his two-seated patrol plane.
aircraft
as
it
For a brief moment our speedy
was not more than 200
feet
away from
the
little
huge white bird
towered above the flocks of snow geese.
There were
By 1953
the
less
than three dozen whoopers in the world in 1948.
number had dropped
to
about 23. Since then, due
the cooperative efforts of the National
Audubon
to
Society, the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service and the Canadian government, the whooping crane population has climbed slowly but steadily to well over
100, including some in captive rearing programs.
The main
makes an annual journey from Wood Buffalo Park
in northwestern
Canada
to the
flock
Aransas Wildlife Refuge on the central coast of Texas.
88
I
iorthem Shoveler [anas clypeata]
seem THE postures of some Audubon's but he may be forgiven because he was always aware — dynamic composition and show of
birds
rather contrived,
to create a
objectives
of two
as
to
many
important details of the bird as he could. Hence the spread wing of the
male shoveler which would not have revealed
pattern had the bird been
shown
at rest or
its
colorful
simply walking about.
Shovelers are widespread in the Northern Hemisphere, being found across North America,
Europe and Asia, and
months)
south to northern South
America
the shoveler
is
much more widespread
in the
ing from Alaska to California. East of the prairies
summer the
it is
West, breeda very local
autumn and winter western birds invade
resident, but during
ponds and marshes of the Atlantic seaboard, mingling with the
more abundant mallards, black ducks, water dabblers.
shaped bill
(in the winter
also
America and Africa. In North
When swimming,
bills sifting
makes
goodies from the
the wings
seem
to
bird was not well-balanced.
be
pintails, teal
shovelers
sit
muddy
drab plumage known as the "eclipse," which
modest brown plumage of
mences
a second molt in
its
which
mate. it
By
regains
90
the is
back as though the
male molts
into a
much like the summer it com-
very
the end of its
fresh-
water. In flight the big
set rather far
By midsummer
and other
low, their big spoon-
bright pattern.
:Ktij
est
\\
zlaail- Juo\ e %
[geotrygon chrysia]
\\ "HEN Audubon t
\
with a Sergeant Sykes ;
the Florida Keys in
visited
made
Indian doves
1832 several
regular visits to these tropical
who was
stationed a:
Key
isles.
\^ est.
^
On May
est
oth.
he secured a dove
him. the bright rusty bird which he has portrayed here among
lavender morning glories. These richly-colored doves hid in the dense thickets of
^ est
Indian hardwoods that grew about the shady ponds, and
cooed mournfully as
sounded
all
doves do. To his ears their moaning notes
like uhoe-uhoe-oh-oh-oh. Later
crossed the blue-green waters between loose flocks of five or six
numerous enough Todav Kev
W
tc
to enable
est
i
he saw more of them as they
Cuba and Kev
\^ est. riving in
small
loam. Bv midsummer the doves became
sportsmen to shoot as manv as a score
has been stripped almost bare of
its
town has grown and the Navy has taken over. The Kev
in a day.
native trees: the \^ est
quail-dove,
ruddy quail-dove. Zenaida dove, and perhaps one or two others that lived in the
Keys
in those days are gone.
the white-crowned pigeon,
Gulf from Cuba.
It still
still
makes
its
nests sparingly on
Only one West Indian dove. annual pilgrimage across the
some of the small mangrove
keys between Key West and Cape Sable. Birds that live on islands are
always more vulnerable, more easily exterminated, than birds that reside
on large continental areas.
92
FOLD OUT
Hi
m^mmmmi^^h^
Carolina [Parakeet [CONUROPSIS
THIS,
the only parrot
endemic
tinct early in the present
so
still
abundant that by
C
his
AR O LIN
to the
E
NSIS
]
United States, became ex-
century; but in Audubon's day
own admission he was
a basketful of these birds with a
few
shots, in
of good specimens for his drawing.
He
order
it
was
able to procure to
make
a choice
reported that farmers de-
stroyed them in great numbers because of their crop depredations:
"Whilst busily engaged
from
the stacks, the
in
plucking off the fruits or tearing the grain
husbandman approaches them with
perfect ease,
and commits great slaughter among them. All the survivors shriek, fly
very place of most imminent danger. The gun
is
kept at work; eight
or ten, or even twenty, are killed at every discharge. as
conscious of the death of their
if
bodies, screaming as loud as ever, but
few remain
alive.
the course of a Little
rise,
round about for a few minutes, and again alight on the
wonder
I
The
living birds,
companions, sweep over still
their
return to be shot at until
have seen hundreds destroyed
in this
manner
in
few hours." that
Audubon was
to write in his later years:
"Our
parakeets are rapidly diminishing in number, and in some districts,
where twenty-five years ago they were
plentiful, scarcely
now to be seen. ... I not now half the number that existed fifteen years ago." Today it is still possible to see parrots in the United
any are
should think that along the Mississippi there
is
States, but
they are not Carolina parakeets. They are escapees from the pet
— monk
trade
parakeets and canary-winged parakeets from South
America, budgerigars from Australia and half a dozen other species of exotic origin.
%
C tapper
[Kail
[rallus loncirostris]
FOR
hundreds of miles, from Long Island
up of
stretch the long beaches, built
shell
to
the Gulf of Mexico,
and sand, brought from the
bottom of the sea by the waves. Behind these barrier islands salt
marshes, from one to
five
miles broad in places. These are the
of the "salt water marsh hen." There might be hundreds of
the marsh, but you probably would not see even one
if
the
lie
homes
them
the tide
is
in
low,
for they are as shy as birds can be, running ratlike through the grass
unnoticed. Although they can swim
if
choose, they would rather use their legs.
when
the tide comes in and forces
sundown when near.
they have to and can
They
they
are easy to locate, however,
them onto the
last
high spots, or toward
their clattering kek-kek-kek-kek-kek sounds
Then the marsh seems
fly if
alive with them,
and
all
from
far
and
night long they
answer each other from the sedge. For
many
years these palatable fowl, as large as small chickens (fourteen
have been favorite gamebirds, hunted up and
to sixteen inches long),
down and
the coast.
it is
City.
When
high storm tides strand them the
toll
is
great,
recorded that ten thousand were killed in two days near Atlantic
Today clapper
rails
are reduced in number, not alone because of
the killing and the egging, but because of a the drainage of the marshes.
98
much more
potent factor
^rLfnertcan
LKobtn
[turdus migratorius]
WHEREVER
British colonists settled they
after the familiar birds of
Hence,
in at least half a
named
certain birds
town and countryside back home.
dozen different parts of the world we find
"robins" simply because they have rusty-red breasts, reminiscent of the "robin redbreast" of England.
In pre-Columbian times American robins were primarily forest birds, but early
on they took
to
and shade
the towns
trees.
Un-
doubtedly the manicured lawns, where earthworms were easier
come
new
by, were partly responsible for this adoption of a
to
habitat.
But in Audubon's time robins did not enjoy the security that they
know
today.
He
"Their presence ners,
writes of the winter sojourn of robins in the South: is
productive of a sort of jubilee
among
the gun-
and the havoc made among them with bows and arrows, blow-
pipes, guns, and traps of different sorts,
wonderful.
is
.
.
.
Every
gunner brings them home by the bagful." It
was the destruction of robins as much as anything
sparked the Audubon movement in the early years of
Today
it
would be unthinkable
to
shoot
a
robin;
it
America's most beloved bird, the real symbol of spring
weary northerners.
It is
free to
else that
this century. is
perhaps
to winter-
walk our lawns with no fear except
for the neighborhood cats.
100
Cuckoo
LJeliow-'JjiUed
[COCCYZUS AMERICANUS]
cuckoos OLD World World
New
lay their eggs in the nests of other birds.
cuckoos do not; they have not developed the habit
of brood parasitism. black-billed, builds
The yellow-billed cuckoo,
its
own
nest, a frail
like
congener, the
its
saucer of twigs into which the
bird deposits two to four pale blue-green eggs. Although the nest
usually situated in a bush or small tree,
I
is
once found one in a clump
of royal ferns. In this spirited composition fruiting
Audubon has shown
pawpaw. One has caught
conspicuous "field-marks" are well shown
and the large
the pair in a
a tiger swallowtail butterfly.
—
toil-spots that distinguish this species
from
The wing
the rufous in the
the similar
black-billed cuckoo.
One of Audubon's correspondents noted more numerous some years than confirmed since.
It
is
that cuckoos are
much
others, a fact that has been fully
believed that cyclic outbreaks of tent cater-
pillars coincide with these fluctuations.
The two similar cuckoos,
more often heard than
seen.
the yellow-bill
The
and the
ka ka ka ka ka ka ka ka ka ka ka ka kow kowp tarded toward the end). The black cucucu, cucucu, cucucu,
etc.,
black-bill, are
yellow-bill utters a rapid throaty
bill
-
kowp
-
kowp
(re-
has a rythmic cu cu cu, cucucu,
a melancholy song that can sometimes
be heard at night. Country people, believing that their vocalizations signalled rain, once called them "rain crows."
102
uxtngbtrd
C^rat/
[tyrannus do mini censis]
THE best place
to see the "gray tyrant," as
Florida Keys. There during the sitting at
oh the wires that follow the Overseas Highway.
the airport in Miami, perched atop the
that had just flown in
month from
Audubon
its
winter resort in the
Although
tailfin
from Cuba. Somehow
in Florida the
islands in the Caribbean
West
Keys
of a
abundant,
my
first
one
same oceanic
this
a
flight
Indies.
suit
them
best because they are like the
where the species
state.
saw
I
in the
it, is
is
Pan American Clipper
is
most
birds can be seen along both coasts of the peninsula
northern parts of the
it
seemed symbolic, for
this
had made
earlier, in April, the kingbird
called
summer months
They look much
at
home, gray king-
—a
like the
few even in the
ordinary kingbirds
so familiar along roadsides everywhere in the east, but have a big-billed,
bull-headed look and are of a pale washed-out gray color, without the
band of white on the
They
tip
of the
tail,
that
marks the eastern kingbird.
are just as hot tempered as their slaty-backed northern brethren,
sallying forth to
meet wandering crows or hawks,
and swearing
them
that
at
in kingbird fashion.
of the eastern kingbird, has given
strafing,
dive-bombing,
Their cry, not so strident as
them the nickname "pipiry
flycatcher." All kingbirds belong to the flycatcher family,
exposed perches as flycatchers do, waiting until insects
104
fly
and
by.
sit
on
JLong-Uj tiled L/iiriew [numenius americanus]
Audubon arranged
his earlier paintings
IN they
made
oriental print quality in
many
of his designs even though he
familiar with the art of the East. Later, project, he
began
birds and plants so that
on a white background. There
attractive patterns
to create solid
midway through
backgrounds, painting
is
an
was not
his great
in skies,
water
and landscapes. Perhaps George Lehmann, the Swiss landscape painter
who accompanied him on some of
his expeditions, helped
him with
these.
Here, as a setting for two long-billed curlew, old
the
city
of Charleston,
South
Carolina.
Audubon
At that
has shown
time the
big
"sickle-bill," the largest of all the
American sandpipers, was common
all up and down Audubon wrote
and particularly
the Atlantic Coast that
must have been mistaken, as
coming
to the coast
when
Plains and on the alkali its
its
from flocks
it
is
nesting
flats
wild harsh cur-lee! can
flocks visit the flats
in
South Carolina.
nested there, but naturalists today believe he
it
by nature a bird of the prairies, is
through.
On
the northern Great
of the Great Basin in Utah and
still
be heard on
summer days and
Nevada sizable
on the coasts of California and Texas. Long absent
the Atlantic Coast
it
might yet make a comeback, for lately small
have again been seen on the Carolina Capes. The ordinary
curlew, the whimbrel, does not have the extremely long bill (five to
seven inches) that marks this rara avis.
106
.
.
1 II
Ujroad- vs/tnqed ulawk [buteo platypterus]
THE broad-wing, alone among Audubon, who knew
this
the birds of prey,
is
a success story.
chunky crow-sized hawk, said
by no means rare, but he leaves the impression that less
numerous
in his day. It is evident that
it
was
was much
he never witnessed one of
the massive migrations of broad-wings that go
ridges about the third
it
week of September. At
down
the
Appalachian
certain vantage points,
Tom in Massachusetts, the Kittatinny Ridge in New Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania as well as at focal
such as Mount Jersey and
points on the Great Lakes,
it
is
possible in a single
day
to see thou-
sands of broad-wings soaring in great wheels on the thermals. This species seems to be prospering because everything about life style
and environment seems
second-growth woodlands that
it
to
work
frequents
to in
its
its
advantage. The
the Northeast have
vastly
expanded as worked-out farms have been abandoned. Because
of
food preferences (no small birds)
of it
its
DDT
it
and other chlorinated hydrocarbons
has escaped the perils in the
food chain.
And
escapes the autumnal gauntlet of gunfire by making a mass exodus
from
the United States before the hunting season starts.
Further-
more, because of deforestation in the tropics (where the native have declined) there over during
its
is
more second-growth for
this species to
winter sojourn. In Colombia, more than
cent of the birds of prey that one sees
wings.
108
nowadays
hawks
in
fifty
hunt per-
winter are broad-
vUhite- vt/inged Crossbill [LOXIA LEUCOPTERA)
WITH
pruning shears, crossbills snip the rough
their cross-tipped
scales
from the spruce cones and deftly extract the
flat
Strangely erratic in their habits, they are content to stay
brown all
seeds.
winter in
Quebec or Alaska if the branches are heavily laden when the crop is poor they pull out. I have known summers when the woods along the Maine coast were alive with the cold forests of
with cones, but in years
crossbills, calling noisily to
like big goldfinches.
intervals
— sometimes
central states, far
Not only are
each other and flying about in
The next year
—
years apart
from
their
home
—even during
it
little
bands
might not see a single one. At
flocks
wander
as far south as the
forests.
crossbills given to these unpredictable
"invasions," but they might take of the year
I
the bitter days of
wanderings or
to nest at
any time
January when the
drifts lie
into their
heads
deep over the land and only the long view of things would concede the eventual return of spring.
On
the other
hand
their
hidden nests
in the
evergreens have been found during the hottest days of August.
There are two kinds of crossbills
in
America. The best known
red crossbill, a dingy brick-red bird, but the handsomest rosy red or dull pink with broad white wing bars.
is
the
the white-wing,
Audubon has shown two
males and two females on an alder twig which he picked
110
is
in
Newfoundland.
ON THE COVER
UjIacR-otttea
11
IPICA PICA
explorers THE were the
lagpte
|
Lewis and Clarke, on their historical expedition,
first to
record the magpie in the United States. They saw
bend of the Missouri, and more as they
their first ones near the great
proceeded westward. Although magpies are found over a large part of Europe and Asia, in our country they are confined to the mountains
and valleys of the West, particularly the arid sage-brush country. fly
with
wing patches flashing and long
tails
There, ai-ound the ranches, they are a striking sight as they level flight across the fields, white
streaming out behind.
From beak
to tail they
measure about twenty
inches.
At
this stage of
exploration.
could not
Audubon's work the West was
Many new
set foot
on
resolve to paint only
The
black-billed
all parts
Thus
in the
period of
of the continent, he abandoned his earlier
from fresh specimens
magpie
received from friends
still
birds were yet to be described, and because he
falls in this
who were
group.
that
he himself had taken.
Some western
birds were
not always sure of the bird's origin.
Collie's magpie-jay, a magnificent long-tailed bird
of southern
Mexico, was mistakenly recorded by Audubon as coming from the
Columbia River, and Morton's
Modern
ornithologists
may
finch, a
criticize
Chilean bird, from California.
Audubon
for these inaccuracies,
but the fact remains that he was perhaps the greatest thologist of his or
was
still
any other period, a
a wilderness.
112
trail
American
orni-
breaker when our country
Hj
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