Stray Feathers From A Bird Man's Desk - free ebook by Austin Loomer Rand

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Stray Feathers From A Bird Man's Desk

Austin Loomer Rand

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STRAY FEATHERSFROM A BIRD MAN'S DESK

STRAY FEATHERSFROM A BIRD MAN'S DESK

STRAY FEATHERS FROM A BIRD MAN'S DESK By Austin L. Rand CURATOR OF BIRDS, CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM WITH CARTOONS BY RUTH JOHNSON DOUBLEDAY &amp; COMPANY, INC., GARDEN CITY, N.Y., 1955 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 55-5254 Copyright, 1955, by Austin L. Rand © All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States At the Country Life Press, Garden City, N.Y. First Edition...

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INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

In looking back over the preparation of these sketches I feel as though each evening I'd gathered up the bits and pieces left over from the day's work and fashioned them into designs for my own amusement and the edification of my family. Truly it's as though I'd used stray feathers, fallen from the bird skins I'd handled, and fitted them together into something of wider interest than the original. Much of my work now is museum research, working with bird specimens and books. In fashioning a rese

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BIRDS USING TOOLS [Ref]

BIRDS USING TOOLS [Ref]

M an is the tool user pre-eminent in the animal world, but he does not stand completely alone in this. Here and there, in quite different groups of animals such as insects, mammals, and birds, a few kinds have forged a little ahead of the rest of their near relatives and show the very beginning of tool using. The song thrush of Europe is perhaps a borderline case. It feeds in part on snails. To get the soft edible animal out of its shell, it carries or drags the snail to a favorite rock, its anv

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BIRDS AS BRIGANDS [Ref]

BIRDS AS BRIGANDS [Ref]

A nti-social activities of humans such as those of brigands who plunder their fellow men find their parallels in the bird world. The bald eagle is one of the best-known of the birds that practice such brigandage. Fond of fish, and capable of capturing it himself upon occasion, it is a common practice for the eagle to take fish from the osprey, plunder the osprey has just caught from the water. The osprey, with a fresh-caught fish, flies heavily. The watching eagle quickly overtakes the smaller,

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BIRDS BATHING [Ref]

BIRDS BATHING [Ref]

T he toilet of most birds includes wetting their feathers in water and shaking the feathers and preening them with the bill. This bathing probably helps remove foreign matter from the birds' plumage and helps keep it in good condition. In addition it is probable that in summer the birds derive enjoyment from the coolness resulting from the bathing. But birds bathe in cold weather as well as warm and have been recorded doing so when the temperature of the air was only 10 or so degrees above zero.

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HOW BIRDS ANOINT THEIR FEATHERS [Ref]

HOW BIRDS ANOINT THEIR FEATHERS [Ref]

A bird's plumage receives a great deal of care from the bird that wears it. The bill is the only implement for this grooming, and it is run through and along the feathers it can reach, helping clean them and making sure they lie in their proper place in the bird's dress. There are parts of the plumage that the bird's bill obviously can't reach, as that of the head, but ducks at least surmount this difficulty by rubbing their head against their body. Many birds have oil glands (the only external

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TRAVELING BIRDS' NESTS [Ref]

TRAVELING BIRDS' NESTS [Ref]

I n spring and fall many of our birds make long journeys under their own power, some of the most publicized being the migration of the Arctic tern, a bird that may spend the northern summer north of the Arctic Circle and, before returning there next season, may have visited south of the Antarctic Circle. The golden plover that makes a nonstop flight to Hawaii is another famous traveler, and many of our smaller songbirds are no mean travelers either. The barn swallow that nests about an Illinois

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MALADAPTATION IN BIRDS [Ref]

MALADAPTATION IN BIRDS [Ref]

T hrough selection birds have become adapted to their environment. In most cases this is successful adaptation. Occasionally, however, we come across instances in which the adaptations do not work out. Such cases, where the actions of the birds are not beneficial or are even detrimental to it, come as surprises. Since the introduction of the Tartarian honeysuckle ( Lonicera tatarica ) into the United States from Asia, its planting as an ornamental shrub provides each autumn a display of juicy re

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FEATHERED BABY SITTERS AND CO-OP NURSERY NESTS [Ref]

FEATHERED BABY SITTERS AND CO-OP NURSERY NESTS [Ref]

C o-operative nurseries , where a few parents look after the young while the rest of the adults, temporarily freed of the care of their offspring, can go about their other affairs, appear in the bird world. The wild turkey of our Eastern United States commonly steals away singly to lay its eggs and incubate them in its nest on the ground. But occasionally it happens, Audubon writes, that several hen turkeys associate together and lay their eggs in one nest, and raise their young together. With t

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BIRDS' NESTS AND THEIR SOUP [Ref]

BIRDS' NESTS AND THEIR SOUP [Ref]

I n caves near the ocean in the Far East nest myriads of tiny swiftlets whose chief impact on the civilized world is that their nests provide an edible article of commerce. "Birds' nest soup" at once comes to the mind of the Occidental, few of whom have ever eaten of the nests, or even seen the birds to know them. For those who would like to see the nests, some museums have them on exhibition, such as in the Chicago Natural History Museum, where two nests are placed in their natural setting, and

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WALLED WIVES OF HORNBILLS [Ref]

WALLED WIVES OF HORNBILLS [Ref]

F or long it has been written that the male hornbill walled up his mate in her nest in a hole in a tree at nesting time, and one author even wrote that the male plucked out the female's feathers at this time. The facts underlying these statements have different interpretations, but the nesting of the hornbill is still one of the most extraordinary of animal habits. Travelers and naturalists in Africa had brought back tantalizing bits of information, to add piecemeal to our knowledge of these bir

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BURIED EGGS AND YOUNG [Ref]

BURIED EGGS AND YOUNG [Ref]

T he crocodile bird , or Egyptian plover, has enjoyed a dubious publicity because of its reputed habit of entering, and coming out of, crocodile mouths. As Herodotus put it, the crocodile's mouth is infested with leeches, and when the crocodile comes out of the water it lies with its mouth open facing the western breeze. Then the crocodile bird goes into the crocodile's mouth and devours the leeches, to the gratification of the crocodile, who is careful not to harm the bird. Though there are som

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MONKEY BIRDS [Ref]

MONKEY BIRDS [Ref]

B irds get their everyday names in a variety of ways in the countries where they live; from their looks, like the snake birds and the pond scroggins; from their color, like the cardinal and the blackbird; from their behavior, like the frigate bird and the creepers and the boobies and king-birds; from what they eat, or are supposed to eat, like the antbirds and plantain eaters and bee eaters; from what they say, like the poor-will and the more-pork; from how they say it, like the warblers and the

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BIRD-MADE INCUBATORS [Ref]

BIRD-MADE INCUBATORS [Ref]

I ncubators as we know them on chicken farms are electrical gadgets with thermostats to control the temperature, or at least with oil lamps to supply the heat necessary for the young chick in the egg to grow. Naturally we wouldn't expect anything so artificial as this in the bird world, but there is one group of birds that does not brood its eggs but has employed another method of incubating. The birds that do this are fowl-like birds of the Australasian area. They are variously called "mound bu

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CORMORANT FISHING [Ref]

CORMORANT FISHING [Ref]

I n western Europe , when falconry was in favor for taking game on land and in the air, there was a certain vogue for training cormorants to take fish. Like the falcons, the cormorants were hooded and carried on the wrist, but of course where the falcons flew to their game, the cormorants swam to theirs. It was in China where cormorants were domesticated, "completely and perfectly," as that eminent Sinologist Dr. Laufer says. Extensive breeding establishments have been maintained. The eggs of th

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THE SHRIKE'S LARDER [Ref]

THE SHRIKE'S LARDER [Ref]

O ur northern shrike is a songbird which has developed feeding habits along the lines of those of a hawk. Whereas most birds its size are content with fruits, seeds, or insects of a size it can beat or bite and then swallow whole, our northern shrike takes not only small insects but prefers large ones, and mice and birds too big to be swallowed whole. It is an opportunist and takes what is most abundant and easily accessible. The shrike's strong hooked bill is a powerful weapon, used with a nipp

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BIRD FLAVORS [Ref]

BIRD FLAVORS [Ref]

P articularly in the study of insects it has been shown that bright or contrasting and conspicuous colors tend to be associated with ill-flavor in the animals that wear them, while insects with a good flavor tend to be so colored that they are difficult to see. The first is a warning coloration—advertising to a predator that he will not enjoy eating this insect and better leave it alone; the other is concealing color, its function apparently to keep predators from finding their prey. The tasters

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HOW MANY FEATHERS HAS A BIRD? [Ref]

HOW MANY FEATHERS HAS A BIRD? [Ref]

T he question as to the number of feathers on a bird seems a simple one without complication. Dr. Wetmore, the well-known ornithologist who was secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, has given us some data. The number varies with the species, of course: the smallest bird, a hummingbird from Cuba, had the fewest, 940 feathers; larger birds had more, the robin 2587, and the mourning dove 2635 feathers. A glaucous-winged gull had 6540; a mallard 11,903 feathers; a Plymouth Rock chicken was said to

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LAST YEAR'S BIRDS' NESTS [Ref]

LAST YEAR'S BIRDS' NESTS [Ref]

T he wisdom of our fathers is sometimes embodied in what we call old saws, to wit, "Many hands make light work," to which the iconoclast retorts, "Too many cooks spoil the broth." And when we come to the phrase, "As useless as a last year's bird's nest," we must reply, "Circumstances alter cases." For many a bird's nest of yesteryear still has its use; some a biological use to other birds; some to feed and clothe man. SUBLEASES The snug, secure cavity that a woodpecker chisels in some tree trunk

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SYMBIOSIS—ANIMALS LIVING IN MIXED HOUSEHOLDS [Ref]

SYMBIOSIS—ANIMALS LIVING IN MIXED HOUSEHOLDS [Ref]

S ymbiosis , a term from the Greek, is what the biologist uses for the living together of two dissimilar organisms. In a broad sense it includes such diverse relations as the lice living on man and rats in his house, the union of an alga and a fungus to form a lichen, and the cross-pollination of flowers by hummingbirds. The story of the burrowing owls of our Western plains living in amity with prairie dogs and rattlesnakes as one happy family comes to mind as an example. But "foolish nonsense"

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BIRD APARTMENT HOUSES [Ref]

BIRD APARTMENT HOUSES [Ref]

E very now and then in our press appear blasts against crowded living conditions in our cities, and the tenements where people are crowded together. Often there is the implication that this type of thing is unnatural and abnormal. And yet when we look about us in the bird world we see that gregariousness is a common trait. We have only to remember the great flocks of starlings and blackbirds in the autumn, or the massed flights of water fowl. Not only in traveling and in feeding, but also at nes

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BIRD HELPERS AT NESTING TIME [Ref]

BIRD HELPERS AT NESTING TIME [Ref]

I n many a well-run American home the children have definite responsibilities, the older children may help look after the younger, and even grown-up relatives may stay as part of the family group. As in so many cases there may be found parallels to this in the bird world. The ani, the curious tropical American cuckoo that makes communal nests, is gregarious and the young of the first brood become part of the parent flock. Two more broods may be raised during one season in Cuba, and the young of

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A NAME FOR A BOAT

A NAME FOR A BOAT

A request for the name of a sea bird, a name to be used for a boat, came to me at my desk in the museum one day. My memory was quickly exhausted with sea gull, sea swallow, and albatross. But I keep within reach the handy guide, Birds of the Ocean , by W. B. Alexander. In the index I found twenty pages of names, two columns to a page. They started with aalge, Uria , and went on down through the alphabet to yelkouan, Puffinus , and to zimmermanni, Sterna . EUPHONY NEEDED A name should be short, p

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WEAVERS AND TAILORS IN THE BIRD WORLD [Ref]

WEAVERS AND TAILORS IN THE BIRD WORLD [Ref]

O ne can imagine the consternation in trade-union circles when it becomes known that there are, among birds, those who weave and those who sew. Their products are entirely for home consumption and there are no minimum wage, no maximum hours, or any fair-trade or quality agreements. None of the Audubon societies have even touched on the matter. WEAVING The sewing and the weaving is done entirely in the construction of nests. To take up the weavers first, we can point to the Baltimore oriole, whic

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SOCIAL PARASITES AMONG BIRDS [Ref]

SOCIAL PARASITES AMONG BIRDS [Ref]

T he mother who would leave her infant on a stranger's doorstep, to be brought up an orphan, not even knowing its own parents, is a despicable character in human society. But when we leave the man-made society we must leave man-made rules of behavior and man-made prejudices behind. Morals are human. The rest of the animal world is not immoral, it is amoral. It cannot afford criteria beyond survival and reproduction. So while we call certain birds "social parasites," we attach no stigma to them.

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FISH EATS BIRD! [Ref]

FISH EATS BIRD! [Ref]

I t has become commonplace to hear about birds eating fish. The government gets out reports on the relation of fish-eating birds to fish abundance. The cries of commercial fisheries have caused inquiries to be instituted into the food of cormorants that were supposed to be eating the fish before they grew up enough for us to eat. The scarcity of salmon in some of our Northeastern streams has caused the allocation of biologists to study the predation of kingfisher and merganser on salmon fry and

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CROWS ARE SMARTER THAN "WISE" OWLS [Ref]

CROWS ARE SMARTER THAN "WISE" OWLS [Ref]

T he owl has always been considered the symbol of wisdom. The old saying has it that "fine feathers don't make fine birds," but I'm afraid that the owl has taken in people with its appearance. The owl's reputation for wisdom seems to be based on a staid, impressive appearance combined with an inarticulate disposition. Though owls do at times make a great deal of noise, hooting, shrieking, and whistling, much of the time the owl sits quietly looking wise and saying nothing. But owls don't seem to

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TAME WILD BIRDS [Ref]

TAME WILD BIRDS [Ref]

W e think of wild birds as being shy creatures by nature. For those of us who have kept a feeding station for birds in the winter so as to have the pleasure of association with the chickadee, nuthatches, woodpeckers, and other visitors, one of the most attractive things is that the wild birds become tame. Through association with persons they gradually learn that human beings are not to be feared. The high point of many a bird lover's experience is when a chickadee becomes so tame that it will p

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BIRDS AS PILFERERS [Ref]

BIRDS AS PILFERERS [Ref]

P ilfering , or petty theft, is one of the less desirable but very human attributes of our race. But it's also pretty widespread in the animal kingdom. Theft as the usual thing is practiced by only a few birds. But when it's a case of petty theft, happening now and then, it is common enough in the bird world. It's not restricted to any group of birds, but may crop up almost anywhere. There's no threat or fight about it usually. The bird, which gets its food by means of the acuity of its vision a

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HIBERNATION IN BIRDS [Ref]

HIBERNATION IN BIRDS [Ref]

N ot until 1948 did the scientific world have satisfactory evidence that any bird hibernated. True, it was an established fact that sometimes in cold weather some birds, notably swifts and hummingbirds, might become torpid for a short time, but this was not hibernation. The early literature, of more than a century ago, contained many accounts, some claiming to be firsthand, of birds hibernating. Swallows in particular were reported as seen to submerge in ponds in the autumn. Numbers of them were

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SNAKESKINS IN BIRDS' NESTS [Ref]

SNAKESKINS IN BIRDS' NESTS [Ref]

T here are occasionally discovered behavior patterns of birds that are so unusual as to make one stop and wonder. They are unusual for birds generally, but in a species here and there they are the regular thing. Such is the placing of a shed snakeskin in their nests by some birds. A bird like the English sparrow, or the road runner, which uses a variety of material coarse or fine, would be expected to use shed snakeskins occasionally, as it came across them. But there are a number of species tha

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CO-OPERATION BY BIRDS [Ref]

CO-OPERATION BY BIRDS [Ref]

T he importance of co-operation, contrasted with competition, has assumed increased importance in discussions of evolution, as it has in discussions of human social progress. Co-operation in nature is of various kinds; from the manner in which a forest shelters the squirrel to the manner in which two or more individuals of one species work together for a common object. The working together of two birds to rear a family is so well known an affair that one forgets that it is an example of co-opera

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WATCHDOGS AT THE NEST [Ref]

WATCHDOGS AT THE NEST [Ref]

A savage watchdog outside his master's house helps to protect it. If an intruder comes, the watchdog, if it's the right kind, simply bites him without preliminaries. There's a parallel to this in the bird world. Some birds often have their nests close to wasps' or bees' nests, or in trees inhabited by biting ants. The birds and the ants, wasps, or bees get along without disturbing each other. But when intruders come along the insects swarm out, biting or stinging and driving the intruder away. T

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BIRD GUIDES TO HONEY [Ref]

BIRD GUIDES TO HONEY [Ref]

I n Africa there are birds which lead men to honey. They are called honey-guides and their family name, Indicatoridae, has the same idea incorporated into it. Though there are several species of these small, dull-colored birds, which are related on the one hand to woodpeckers and on the other to barbets, it is only one species, the common or black-throated honey-guide that is well known as a guide to honey. The traveler in the country may find one of these birds chattering and flying ahead of hi

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OXPECKERS [Ref]

OXPECKERS [Ref]

T he lives of oxpeckers are so linked to those of large, hoofed game or domestic cattle that in West Africa where game is scarce the birds depend on cattle, and their range is restricted accordingly. There the cattle are confined to the higher and more northern areas, free of tsetse flies, from Senegal to Northern Cameroon. Thus tsetse flies help to determine the limits of the oxpeckers' range. Except for their nesting, which is in holes in trees, and their sleeping, most of their time is spent

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WINGS IN FEEDING [Ref]

WINGS IN FEEDING [Ref]

T he obvious adaptation of a bird's wings is for locomotion; to fly in the air. It is true that some few birds are flightless, and some like the penguins use their wings for underwater swimming, but this does not spoil the generalization. Secondary uses, some with special adaptations, occur: the owl at bay spreads its wings wide, with the effect of increasing its apparent size and being more terrifying to a predator. The young bird, begging to be fed, flutters its wings in a characteristic way,

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INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC OF BIRDS

INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC OF BIRDS

V ocal music bulks large in our avian springtime chorus, but don't overlook the instrumental music that accompanies it. The drumming of the downy woodpecker on the dead limb of a maple near my bedroom window is as much a part of my spring as is the cheery cheerup of our robin. It's not that woodpeckers are voiceless that they drum. The flicker can be called in with his particularly rich repertoire to repudiate it vociferously. All day the downy woodpecker goes about pounding his head against tre

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CONDITIONING IN BIRDS [Ref]

CONDITIONING IN BIRDS [Ref]

T he classical experiment in conditioning and reflexes is that of Pavlov. It consisted of sounding a bell each time food was given to a dog. Finally the salivary response resulted even when the bell was rung, without the food being given to the dog. The dog was conditioned to the bell. First it had responded to the food, then to the food and the bell, and finally to the bell alone, by a flow of saliva. The beauty of this experiment is in its simplicity, dealing as it does with a single reflex. T

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POISONOUS BIRDS [Ref]

POISONOUS BIRDS [Ref]

P oison we know perhaps best in the plant world, whence comes, for example, strychnine. The deadly nightshade, a common weed, is another well-known poison plant. In the animal world we know poison best as something that is injected into the body by stings of bees, bites of spiders, the bites of insects, and even bites of shrews. In addition some animals having irritating, bad-tasting, or poisonous secretions which presumably protect the possessor from predators. This has received most attention

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KINGFISHERS ON THE TELEPHONE

KINGFISHERS ON THE TELEPHONE

" What color is the kingfisher? Not the American one, but the European and Asiatic one? My husband is painting one and needs to know the colors," a lady's voice came over the telephone. I thought quickly. "Will it help if I explain the various kinds and colors of kingfishers and where they live? But no, lessons on taxonomy and zoogeography fall too flat most of the time." The lady's voice had a Central European quality. To her "the kingfisher" probably meant the little sparrow-sized kingfisher o

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ON IDENTIFYING SEA SERPENTS

ON IDENTIFYING SEA SERPENTS

T he lock ness monster reappears periodically in the newspapers. This monster seems to belong in the general category of "sea serpent." As a museum zoologist I've had little to do with such things. The stock in trade of a museum is specimens and if someone sends us a "sea serpent" (and I don't mean a water snake or a sea snake), we'll identify it. If it doesn't have a name we'll give it one and make a place for it in our classification. Until then we are aloof. We've had some little experience a

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CONSERVATION OVER THE TELEPHONE

CONSERVATION OVER THE TELEPHONE

R ichard Orr , the Tribune reporter, called me one day about bronze grackles. It seems that the Chicago Tribune , in their "Day by Day on the Farm," had told about the grackles on the Tribune farm. A Tribune reader wrote in, expressing surprise that grackles were permitted on the Tribune farm and gave details of destruction by grackles of other birds, personally observed. What were the facts of the case? Should grackles be tolerated? Or should they be eliminated? Orr wanted to know. This is the

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BIRDS WASHING FOOD [Ref]

BIRDS WASHING FOOD [Ref]

W e not only wash ourselves and our clothes, but certain items of our food are regularly washed, as spinach, to get the sand out of it. Washing has been so important in our society that we've coined the term "Cleanliness is next to godliness." Possibly we've the snobbish idea it's a strictly human trait. Among other animals we don't expect to find water used for such cleanliness, and the raccoon, who does wash his food, is considered a sort of biological oddity. But when we come to birds we find

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HOW ANIMAL VOICES SOUND TO FOREIGN EARS

HOW ANIMAL VOICES SOUND TO FOREIGN EARS

W hen in El Salvador in 1951, I found that the common barnyard animals had much the same voices as the ones with which I was familiar in the United States. But when I saw their utterances written down it was another matter. The voices written in Spanish sometimes looked as different as the names of the animals written in Spanish. Take the donkey, for example (or burro , as they call it in Spanish). In English we call its "song" "Heehaw!" In Spanish they wrote it for me, "Aja! Aja! Ija! Ija!" The

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SIGHT IDENTIFICATION

SIGHT IDENTIFICATION

S ometimes when I'm trying to decide whether the birds of the Cameroon Mountains of West Africa are the result of one invasion and variation in situ , or of two invasions, or whether the Himalayan red-billed choughs of Ladak are different from those of Nepal, or how the molt of the cassowary resembles that of penguins, I am called to the telephone to identify a bird someone has seen. The chances are it's a starling. I've not kept a record, but I fancy half the questions are on identification of

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GREEN HUNTING JAYS TURN BLUE

GREEN HUNTING JAYS TURN BLUE

S ometimes in "working out" a bird collection things get dull. In identifying the specimens, and writing down why they are this species, or that species, or subspecies, it seems routine; as though it were simply routine putting things in the categories ready for them. Such was my feeling one day as I worked over Himalayan jays and magpies from Nepal. I'd done the yellow-billed blue magpie, and the red-billed blue magpie, which both fell into their places smoothly. Then I got out the literature,

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HOW BIRDS USE COWS AS HUNTING DOGS [Ref]

HOW BIRDS USE COWS AS HUNTING DOGS [Ref]

T he sportsman out for quail or woodcock uses dogs to drive out the birds for him. Starlings and cowbirds about Chicago use the same principle in hunting grasshoppers. Instead of dogs they use cows, though of course the cows are intent on something else and presumably unconscious of the fact that they're helping the birds. As the cow grazes slowly across a meadow, it scares up grasshoppers close in front of it. The cowbirds and starlings take advantage of this. Instead of covering the meadow on

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EARLY BIRD LISTING

EARLY BIRD LISTING

I wonder how many of the people who go out making lists of spring birds know that bird listing goes back to ancient times. It's a modern sport, but earlier bird watching was serious, and a competitive listing of birds played a part in as important an event as the selection of the site of the city of Rome. The story, as Plutarch tells it, is that Romulus wanted the city on what became known as Roma Quadrata; Remus wanted it on the Aventine Mount. As was the custom in those days, they concluded at

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BATTLE OF THE SEXES AND ITS EVOLUTIONARY SIGNIFICANCE [Ref]

BATTLE OF THE SEXES AND ITS EVOLUTIONARY SIGNIFICANCE [Ref]

I used to think that the battle of the sexes so ably portrayed by James Thurber was artificial, a man- and/or woman-made thing. But recently I've come to see it as old—probably as old as sex itself in the animal world. Under the severe tide, "Secondary Sexual Characters and Ecological Competition," in a paper from the Bird Division of the Chicago Museum, I've outlined the possibility of competition for food, between the sexes, being a factor in evolution, responsible in part for characteristics

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WATER IN THE DESERT [Ref]

WATER IN THE DESERT [Ref]

W ater is a precious thing in the desert. Without it no life is possible. When rains come plants spring into vigorous growth. During the long stretches without rain they rest, some as seed, while some plants store water in root systems, or in large trunks. Animals have developed a number of ways of surviving long dry spells in arid country. Among mammals the kangaroo rat of our Southwestern desert seems able to get along without water. This is caused by an arrangement within the body whereby the

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BIRD GRAVEYARDS [Ref]

BIRD GRAVEYARDS [Ref]

T he best-known stories of animal graveyards are those of elephants. But when I asked the curator of mammals about them the answer I got was little better than a snort. Apparently the evidence for them is so vague that it's little better than a myth. But in birds we have a few bits of evidence from far-scattered places that occasionally such things as graveyards exist. In the antarctic Dr. Robert Cushman Murphy found on the island of South Georgia a place where Johnny penguins went to die. It wa

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ANIMAL GARDENS [Ref]

ANIMAL GARDENS [Ref]

B est known of the "gardens" and "animal husbandry" of the lower animals are those of the ants; the aphis kept by the ants for the sake of a sweetish secretion, and the underground fungus garden of the ants. In the vertebrates I know nothing comparable to this, but we do get a number of cases where there is a definite relation between the animals and the growth of vegetation. It has been said that in the antarctic the nesting colonies of some penguins are detrimental to the vegetation. The const

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DROPPING THINGS [Ref]

DROPPING THINGS [Ref]

T he story is well known, being recorded by Pliny, of how the poet Aeschylus came to his death through a bird mistaking his bald head for a rock and dropping a turtle on it. The bird was evidently the lammergeier or "lamb vulture," one of the largest and most magnificent of the Old World birds of prey; nearly four feet long. In the Atlas Mountains of North Africa its normal food is turtles, and these it cracks open, so that it can get at the meat, by carrying them up into the air and dropping th

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LEARNING BY BIRDS [Ref]

LEARNING BY BIRDS [Ref]

O f course birds can learn. Indeed there's a trite saying that no animal has been discovered so low that it cannot learn. One of the simplest cases of learning is shown by parts of some experiments I carried out years ago on the curve-billed thrasher. I had raised a number of these thrashers by hand, and in connection with finding out about their tasting abilities I first fed them on the white of egg, hard-boiled and cut into little squares. They liked it. Then I soaked more squares of boiled eg

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CAN BIRDS COUNT? [Ref]

CAN BIRDS COUNT? [Ref]

I f birds can count, it's a rather rudimentary thing—perhaps no more than impressions of the size of groups. The widely known example showing that birds don't seem to distinguish between one and two persons is the ruse used by bird photographers and students of birds who are using blinds from which to watch the birds at close range. The hide, or blind, is a little hut built perhaps a few feet from the nest to be photographed. If the photographer enters the blind in the sight of the parent birds,

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COURTSHIP FEEDING [Ref]

COURTSHIP FEEDING [Ref]

A young man , giving his best girl a box of chocolates, and a bird, giving his prospective mate a worm or a berry, have this in common: they are both practicing courtship feeding. Further, humans and birds are the only vertebrate animals that do this. With birds, during courtship, the female often begs to be fed by acting like a young bird—with fluttering wings and widely gaping mouth. The male normally places the food he has collected directly in the open mouth of the female. The significance o

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THEY TURNED THE TABLES [Ref]

THEY TURNED THE TABLES [Ref]

M ost birds prey on animals enough weaker than themselves to be in no danger from their prey; their hunting is more like that of the gunner after rabbits than that of the hunter after lions. But there are exceptions. The great blue heron, armed with a spearheadlike bill, lives largely on fish. These it spears in the water, stalking about after them on its long legs, or waiting like a bird on a Japanese screen, as patient as any fisherman, for its prey to come within striking distance. The heron'

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SURVIVAL OF THE UNFIT [Ref]

SURVIVAL OF THE UNFIT [Ref]

T o care for the weak, the unfit, and the cripple is usually considered an extremely highly developed altruism in our society. As our society progresses, more and more provisions are made for the unfit. In nature the unfit usually is soon weeded out. If an animal is unable to feed itself it is doomed; or if it is less successful than its fellows it has less chance of leaving progeny. That is natural selection. Hence on both counts it comes as a surprise to find two well-authenticated cases of cr

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DUST AND SNOW BATHING

DUST AND SNOW BATHING

T he taxidermist preparing a bird specimen for the museum sometimes has to deal with one whose plumage is soiled or stained. He may have to wash it with water. Then, to dry the plumage, fluff it, and help in arranging the plumage so it will lie smooth and natural, he may use a powder: corn meal, sawdust, plaster, or plaster and potato starch may be worked into the feathers, then dusted out again. It is interesting that birds themselves use and have used long before taxidermists a similar method

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DECORATION IN THE HOME [Ref]

DECORATION IN THE HOME [Ref]

T o use a bunch of flowers or a spray of leaves in decorating a room in a house is a refinement of civilization. As the flowers fade, or the leaves wilt, they are replaced with fresh ones. Sometimes a winter bouquet is used that will serve for months. There are several birds that habitually deck their nests with green vegetation, and when it is wilted, it is renewed with fresh. The reason is not clear. It has been suggested it is to supply humidity and, by evaporation, coolness; it has also been

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CURIOSITY IN BIRDS

CURIOSITY IN BIRDS

B eing unable to ask birds questions that will receive answers, we have to judge their motives from appearances. And from the way some birds act curiosity seems a strong motivation at times. They show a disposition to inquire into things, especially strange things. Young blue jays that I've raised and studied are among the most prying, investigating, inquisitive birds I've known. When well fed they devoted much time to examining things. Humans, of course, would examine objects by picking them up

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REFERENCES

REFERENCES

Is it true? Did it really happen? The implications and correlations are my own, and some of the accounts on the previous pages are based on my experiences. But many of the facts come from the writings of others. Where the incidents are well known no documentation is given. But when the behavior described is little known or only recently discovered I've given a reference so that the source can be consulted. These are arranged under the appropriate chapter headings. BIRDS USING TOOLS Edna Fisher,

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