Birds and Nature, Vol. 12 No. 4 [September 1902]

THE CELESTIAL BIRD

The ancients called the eagle the celestial bird because it flies high with its eye fixed on the sun.

According to the myths of the birds they are older than the gods and to them mankind is deeply indebted; for the hawk created man, the wren, and not Prometheus, brought down fire for his use, the crow taught him marital laws, while the eagle gave him the brew from the fountain of song. Just why the eagle – who is no musician – should have interested himself in this way, legend does not explain, but, as he is of majestic appearance, and imperial in character, there can be no possible objection to his acting as cup-bearer to the poets! They all like him – or, at least, like to describe him. Tennyson says —

 
He clasps the crag with crooked hands
Close to the sun in lonely lands
Ring’d with the azure world he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls,
He watches from his northern walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
 

But the eagle takes part in the affairs of birds and beasts, as well as in those of men, for, according to an oriental legend, in ancient times beasts and birds were at war with each other. While victory was still uncertain the owl withdrew from the winged army quite prepared to go over to the enemy. But the eagle fought with such valorous prowess that the birds were finally victorious. The owl, seeing this, flew back to join them. But the eagle observed his movements, and forbade him ever again to mix with his subjects or show his face to the sun.

Although the eagle is a bird of prey he is used as a national emblem on Persian, Roman and United States coins. Indeed, the eagle is often used for heraldic emblems, standards and various emblematic devices. The eagle is cosmopolitan. The so-called bald-eagle takes three years to complete its plumage; it is called the “black” eagle the first year, the “gray” the second and the “bald” the third year, when the white plumage on neck and head, which gives it the name, is complete. After shedding its feathers in the spring, even the old birds assume the appearance of youth, hence David speaks of the “youth which is renewed like the eagle’s.” An unusual fact in reference to this bird is that the female is said to be larger and braver than the male.

A story is told of a pair of eagles in the New York Zoological Park who made a nest in the root of a tree, in a cavity of the ground and lined it with moss. As no eggs were yet ready the birds brought a smooth round stone to the nest on which they sat, male and female, on alternate days. Some such habit as this may account for the idea of the ancients that the eagle carried stones to her nest to facilitate the laying of her eggs.

The eagle lives to be very old. It is not especially difficult to tame. A young one caught in the Territory could not be bought. The Indian woman who was taming it refused all offers. She said, “Ah-cha-fa-tona wants young eagle, she not want white man’s money!”

“Old Abe” – named for Lincoln – was caught and tamed by soldiers during the civil war. He went through the war delighted with battles. One of his feathers, dropped on the battlefield, was framed and now hangs in Washington.

Belle Paxson Drury.

THE BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER
(Charadrius squatarola.)

The Black-bellied Plover is quite cosmopolitan, though its range is practically confined to the northern hemisphere, passing southward in the winter to the West Indies and northern South America and breeding in the far North. Not only is its range extensive, but also its list of common or local names. Some of the better known of these are Whistling Field Plover, May Cock, Beetle-head, Black-breast and Bottle-head. Its large head has given it the name Bull-head and its large, brilliant and expressive dark colored eyes, which in summer are surrounded by a white ring, have led some of its admirers to call it the Ox-eye.

The Black-bellied Plover is grouse-like in appearance and differs from all the other plovers in having a rudimentary hind toe. It varies greatly in the color of its plumage, both with age and with the seasons. As it stands upon the beach, decked in its summer plumage, it is a striking and beautiful bird. As winter approaches its plumage assumes a more somber hue and becomes a mixture of dark brown and gray above, while below the plumage is white with lines and spots of dark brown on the neck and breast.

This bird is one of the largest of the plover species. It will run rapidly for a few yards and suddenly stopping will elevate its head and closely survey its environment. The older birds are shy, but the younger ones will quite readily respond to the call of the hunter and will usually approach his decoys. Its call notes are of two kinds. One is loud and penetrating and may be heard at a long distance. This call consists of a number of distinct notes, the second of which is accented. The notes of the other call are uttered in a low and satisfied tone as if the bird were perfectly contented. Mr. George H. Mackay found much to admire in the life of this Plover. He says: “There is something very aristocratic in the bearing of the adult birds as you watch them standing on the marsh with their heads erect, their black and white plumage strikingly defined, and their large, dark, liquid eyes ever on the alert for danger. With the yellowish green marsh grass for a background, they make a most interesting study in black and white, which, coupled with that clear penetrating note of alarm when danger is discovered, cannot fail to impress one.”

When migrating it may fly alone or in flocks. At times the flocks will assume a wedge-shaped or a crescent-like form. The latter seems to be the more common form, and the ends of the crescent may point either forward or backward. The solitary birds are more frequent in the interior, while the flocks are more common near the sea coast. The slow and measured stroke of the long wings is well fitted to a continuous and prolonged flight. When tired from flying at sea it will rest on masses of seaweed or float upon the water.

The Black-bellied Plover feeds largely on minute mollusks, shrimps, worms, sea insects and on various larvae found in the marshes. It also eats grasshoppers and late in the season, at the North, berries form a large part of its diet. It is at this time that its flesh is most eagerly sought by the connoisseur of game food. Food is gathered with a quick stroke and from the surface, for the bird cannot probe for its food as do the sandpipers.

This Plover is a tide bird, “seeking a large portion of its food on those extensive sand flats left by the receding waters, which may be adjacent to marshes where the grass is short, and which are interspersed with barren places where there is no grass, also to uplands and fields where the grass is scanty or closely fed down by sheep or cattle. It is to such places that they like to resort when driven from their feeding grounds on the sand flats by the incoming tide. They also frequent, at such times, the crest and dry sand of the beaches and shoals; here they remain until the tide has sufficiently ebbed to permit them again to return to feed.”

The Black-bellied Plover gives but little attention to home building. Its nest is a mere depression in the ground lined with grass and leaves.

SOME BIRD WONDERS

Geologically considered, the migration of birds had its origin in the beginning of the Post-Tertiary period of our globe’s history. Prior to the Glacial Epoch there was no migratory instinct among the feathered tribes of the earth’s fauna for the simple reason that there was no necessity for such a change of habitat.

Thus the annual recurrence of this phenomenon has been going on not since the creation, as many suppose, but for units of ages whose lapse can be reckoned only by millenniums of calendar years. It is not the time and place here to discuss the means by which this length of time can be even approximately determined, but there are certain inferences and conclusions which are well endorsed by scientific research.

For our present purpose it is quite sufficient to say that the Glacial Epoch wholly changed the climatic relations of the polar and middle latitude regions of our globe. From the semitropical conditions which once perennially existed there, these regions have since and for ages been subject to the intense cold which now periodically prevails within those limits.

There is a growing conviction among geologists that the intense cold of the Glacial Epoch was caused by a change in the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit. If this be true, then the “Great Winter” of astronomers was reigning in all its severity 210,000 years ago.

The wild goose, his near relatives, the brant and swan, and other aquatic feathered races, made their appearance on the fifth day of creation. “And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.”

Now this fifth day of creation very nearly corresponds to the Triassic and Jurassic periods of Mesozoic Time in Geology.

Although “every winged fowl after his kind” is included in the bird category of this creative act, it has been thought, and for good reasons, that the more highly organized birds other than the aquatic tribes, did not make their appearance till the sixth day of the Mosaic account, which would be exactly represented by the Tertiary Period of Cenozoic Time. According to this view, then, the wild goose is an older denizen of our world than the smaller birds of passage which make their home on the land only.

But Geology fills up many niches and supplies many details left blank in the first chapter of Genesis. It is now one of the firmly established tenets among geologists that between the Mesozoic and Cenozoic times there came a tremendous disturbance in the earth’s crust.

In his “Story of the Earth,” Dr. J. Dorman Steele says, “The Mesozoic time, like the Palaeozoic, was closed by mighty upheavals. The conditions of life were changed. All the Mesozoic types disappeared; hardly any species survived the shock.” A few individuals did survive, however, and among them was our venerable friend, the wild goose.

Having now finished the prefatory portion of our story, the reader will be better able to understand what may follow.

There is something wonderful, a conception, indeed, which smacks little short of the sublime in contemplating the protracted journeyings of the larger aquatic birds of passage. Especially is this true of the American wild goose, the brant and the swan. The brant is the wild goose of Great Britain and continental Europe; a much smaller bird than his American relative; and its migrations are of comparatively short range.

The European domesticated swan, remains, of course, the year round in the country of his adoption.

Not so, however, with the American goose and swan. Both the former, Anseres hyperboreas, and the latter, Cygnus buccinator, rear their young in the Arctic regions and spend the succeeding winter with their offspring in the Gulf States and Central America.

Think of these magnificent birds, those on the Pacific coast flying from the shores of the Arctic ocean in northern Alaska and British America, crossing the Rocky Mountains, and, after a journey of four or five thousand miles, complacently settling down in Texas, Mexico, Yucutan, or Nicaragua, as the experienced leaders may determine. Then turn to those on the Atlantic side of the continent and watch them as they leave the Baffin’s Bay country, cross the great lakes and the Appalachian mountain system to make a short winter sojourn among the everglades of southern Florida.

In the tactics of these great birds while performing their immense journeys there is something remarkable even to the casual observer. More than two thousand years ago it was recorded by a student of natural history that, “Olores iter facientes colla imponunt praecedentibus; fessos duces ad terga recipiunt.”

“Swans performing a journey rest their necks upon those preceding; and the leaders receive the weary ones upon their backs.”

And this significant remark has often been confirmed by modern observation.

Owing to the fact that they are more sparsely distributed, that they fly much higher and in smaller numbers than wild geese, the swans are comparatively seldom seen during their migratory flights save in the fastnesses of mountainous districts or at the extreme points of arrival and departure. Hence we see why so little is known concerning the details of their aerial movements.

On the contrary, the semi-annual passage of wild geese is not only a folk-lore phenomenon, but a familiar spectacle to the residents of cities and towns as well as those who spend their days in the rural districts. Now, there is more military precision in the alignment of a large flock of wild geese than the most careful observer ever dreamed of or science investigated.

Here in the fastnesses of our Rocky Mountains there are many exceptionally good opportunities for watching the marvelous evolutions of these birds.

While their flight may be a mile high or more when spanning a level scope of country, as in the prairie districts, they barely clear the more elevated peaks while crossing lofty mountain ranges. Hence it will be seen that an observer on either slope is much nearer the passing birds than an inhabitant of the lower levels or plains.

The well known acute angled form assumed by wild geese in their annual journeys is not a mere fortuitous conceit on the part of the birds, but a true pattern of that diagram formulated by the anserine leaders of long agone prehistoric ages; brave old heroes that piloted their snowy hosts over the storm-lashed wastes of northern latitudes while frost and fire and glacier and drift were so radically changing the topography of our globe.

It can be shown that this particular form of alignment in the flight of geese is just as essential to the convenience and vital interests of the birds as the hexagonal form of honeycomb cells is to the bees that construct and fill them with honey. Nay, it is also true that no other form of alignment in flight could fulfill the conditions required; but we cannot here explain the principles involved in the interesting discussion.

L. Philo Venen.