Birds Illustrated by Color Photography Vol 3. No 5.

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Various. Birds Illustrated by Color Photography Vol 3. No 5.

COLOR IN MUSIC

CONTENTMENT

THE FASCINATION OF BIRD STUDY

THE OSTRICH

THE SOUTH AMERICAN RHEA

THE BAY-BREASTED WARBLER

BIRD SUPERSTITIONS AND WINGED PORTENTS

THE BLACK-NECKED STILT

THE ENGLISH SPARROW

THE PIN-TAIL DUCK

THE PINTAIL DUCK

FEATHERS OR FLOWERS?

THE DOUBLE YELLOW-HEADED PARROT

THE DOUBLE YELLOW-HEADED PARROT

SPRING THOUGHTS

THE MAGNOLIA WARBLER

I CAN BUT SING

BIRDS PAIRING IN SPRING

THE GREAT BLUE HERON

THE GREAT BLUE HERON

A FOSTER BROTHER'S KINDNESS

A GOOSE THAT TAKES A HEN SAILING

THE NEW TENANTS

SUMMARY

Отрывок из книги

WHEN one knows six birds by sight or sound, it has been said, he is lost. After that he cannot rest until he knows fifty, or a hundred, or two hundred – in his back-door yard, or down in the orchard, or across the farm. It is not easy to explain wherein lies the fascination of "naming the birds without a gun." The humility of the scoffer, caught unawares, and taught his first six before he knows it, is something pathetic and instructive. Few mortals are proof against the charm – when once the first half-dozen are conquered. The first three come easy. Most of us know the Crow – and the Robin – and the Bluebird – and – and – the Sparrow – until we discover that there are more than a dozen varieties of Sparrow, and perceive that this common brown bird, hopping so cheerily in and out of the bushes, may be a Song Sparrow or a Chipping Sparrow or a White-Throated or White-Crowned or any one of the dozen – or even the Cocky English Sparrow, despised by ornithologist and tyro alike. When to the Crow and Robin and Bluebird one has added the Blackbird – both the Keel-tailed and the Redwing – and the Meadow Lark or the Highhole, the charm begins to work. Armed with opera-glass and bird book, the victim casts convention to the winds. He stands in the full glare of the public highway, his glass focused on an invisible spot, an object of ridicule to men and dogs. He crawls on his hands and knees through underbrush, under barbed fences and over stone walls. He sits by the hour waiting for a Vireo to come down from the topmost branch within range of his glass. He forgets luncheon and engagements. And what does he bring home? Certainly not the river and sky, and seldom even a feather.

Books on birds, continues the Boston Evening Transcript, like good wine, need no bush at this season of the year; the Golden-winged Woodpecker drums announcement on every limb; the Redwing Blackbird gurgles and chuckles and calls across the swamp; and the Lesser Sparrows and Bluebirds and Robins wake the morning to the weaving of new song. The hand reaches out for the familiar bird-book; that last note was a strange one. It is a new bird – or merely one forgotten? The delight begins all over with the first Bluebird's call, "a mere wandering voice in the air."

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Natives readily distinguish, even at a distance, the male bird from the female. The former is larger and darker colored, and has a larger head. It emits a singular deep-toned hissing note. Darwin, when he first heard it, thought it was made by some wild beast. It is such a sound that one cannot tell whence it comes, nor from how far distant.

The skylight in the roof of the apartment in which two Ostriches were kept in the Garden of Plants, Paris, having been broken, the glaziers were sent to repair it, and in the course of their work let fall a piece of glass. Not long after this the female Ostrich was taken ill, and died after an hour or two in great agony. The body was opened, and the throat and stomach were, found to have been dreadfully cut by the sharp corners of the glass which she had swallowed. From the moment his companion died the male bird had no rest; he appeared to be continually searching for something, and daily wasted away. He was removed from the spot, in the hope that he would forget his grief; he was even allowed more liberty, but in vain, and at length he mourned himself to death.

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