Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. 2, No. 5

THE WILD TURKEY

I thought my picture would appear in this number of Birds. What would Thanksgiving be without a Turkey, I’d like to know.

The editor says that I am a bird of ex-tra-or-di-na-ry size and beauty. That word is as big as I am, but by spelling it, I guess you will understand.

I look as proud as a peacock, don’t I? Well, I am just as proud. You ought to see me strut, and hear me talk when the hen-turkeys are around. Why, sometimes when there is a large troop of us in the woods you can hear us gobble, gobble, gobble, for many miles. We are so fond of talking to each other.

That is when we are about to set up housekeeping, you think.

Yes, in March and April. After the nests are made, and the little turkeys hatched out, we big, handsome fellows go off by ourselves. The hen-turkeys, with their young broods, do the same.

Sometimes there are as many as a hundred in our troop and seventy or eighty in theirs. We travel on foot, picking up food as we go, till we meet a man with a gun, or come to a wide river.

Then we have to fly.

In a flock? Oh, yes. We choose some high place from which to get a good start. There we all stay, sometimes a day or two, strutting about and talking big. It is gobble, gobble gobble, from morning till night. Just like one of your conventions, you know. After awhile our leader gives the signal and off we all fly to the opposite shore.

Did you ever see one of our nests? No? Well, they are not easily seen, though they are made on the ground. You see, we are cunning and build them among tall, thick weeds and tangled briars.

I hope, if you ever come across one, you will not touch it, because my mate would never return to it again, if you did.

What do we eat?

Berries, fruit and grasses, beetles, tadpoles, frogs and lizards. In fact anything we consider good.

THE YELLOW-BILLED TROPIC BIRD

IN appearance this bird resembles a large Tern, and its habits are similar to those of the Terns. Inter-tropical, it is of a wandering disposition, breeding on the islands of mid-ocean thousands of miles apart. It is noted for its elegant, airy, and long-protracted flight. Davie says that on Bourbon, Mauritius and other islands east and south of Madagascar it breeds in the crevices of the rocks of inaccessible cliffs, and in hollow trees. In the Bermuda Islands it nests about the first of May in holes in high rocky places along the shores. Here its favorite resorts are the small islands of Great Sound, Castle Harbor, and Harrington Sound. The Phaeton, as it is felicitously called, nests in the Bahamas in holes in the perpendicular faces of cliffs and on the flat surfaces of rocks. A single egg is laid, which has a ground-color of purplish brownish white, covered in some specimens almost over the entire surface with fine reddish chocolate-colored spots.

These species compose the small but distinct family of tropic birds and are found throughout the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world. Long journeys are made by them across the open sea, their flight when emigrating being strong, rapid, and direct, and immense distances are covered by them as they course undismayed by wind or storm. In feeding, Chapman says, they course over the water, beating back and forth at a height of about forty feet, and their long willowy tail-feathers add greatly to the grace and beauty of their appearance when on the wing. They are of rare and probably accidental occurrence on our coasts.

 
The Songs of Nature never cease,
Her players sue not for release
In nearer fields, on hills afar,
Attendant her musicians are:
From water brook or forest tree,
For aye comes gentle melody,
The very air is music blent —
An universal instrument.
 

– John Vance Cheney.

THE YELLOW-BILLED TROPIC BIRD

The people who make a study of birds say that I look like a large Tern, and that my habits are like his.

I don’t know whether that is so, I am sure, for I have no acquaintance with that bird, but you little folks can turn to your March number of Birds and see for yourselves if it is true.

For my part, I think I am the prettier of the two on account of my long, willowy tail-feathers. They add greatly, it is said, to the grace and beauty of my appearance when on the wing. Then, the color of my coat is much more beautiful than his, I think, don’t you think so, too?

We are not so common as the Terns, either, for they are very numerous. There are only three species of our family, so we consider ourselves quite distinct.

What are we noted for?

Well, principally for our long distance flights across the sea, elegant and airy, as the writers say of us. Maybe that is the reason they call us the Phaeton sometimes.

Do we go north in the summer as so many other birds do?

Ugh! You make me shudder. No, indeed! We never go farther north than Florida. Our home, or where we build our nests, is in the tropical and sub-tropical regions, where the weather is very warm, you know.

We are great wanderers and build our nests on islands, way out in the ocean many thousands of miles apart.

In trees?

Oh, no, but in any hole we see in the face of a great rock or cliff, and sometimes right on the top of a rock.

How many eggs?

Only one. That is the reason, you see, that our family remains small.

Sing?

Oh, my, no! We are not singing birds. We have a call-note, though harsh and guttural, which sounds like tip, tip, tip.

THE EUROPEAN KINGFISHER

RARELY indeed is this charming bird now found in England, where formerly it could be seen darting hither and thither in most frequented places. Of late years, according to Dixon, he has been persecuted so greatly, partly by the collector, who never fails to secure the brilliant creature for his cabinet at every opportunity, and partly by those who have an inherent love for destroying every living object around them. Gamekeepers, too, are up in arms against him, because of his inordinate love of preying on the finny tribe. Where the Kingfisher now is seen is in the most secluded places, the author adds, where the trout streams murmur through the silent woods, but seldom trod by the foot of man; or in the wooded gullies down which the stream from the mountains far above rushes and tumbles over the huge rocks, or lies in pools smooth as the finest mirror.

The Kingfisher is comparatively a silent bird, though he sometimes utters a few harsh notes as he flies swift as a meteor through the wooded glades. You not unfrequently flush the Kingfisher from the holes in the banks, and amongst the brambles skirting the stream. He roosts at night in holes, usually the nesting cavity. Sometimes he will alight on stumps and branches projecting from the water, and sit quiet and motionless, but on your approach he darts quickly away, often uttering a feeble seep, seep, as he goes.

The habits of the English Kingfisher are identical with those of the American, though the former is the more brilliant bird in plumage. (See Birds, Vol. I, p.) The ancients had a very absurd idea as to its nesting habits. They believed that the bird built a floating nest, and whenever the old bird and her charge were drifted by the winds, as they floated over the briny deep, the sea remained calm. He was, therefore, to the ancient mariner, a bird held sacred in the extreme. Even now these absurd superstitions have not wholly disappeared. For instance, the nest is said to be made of the fish bones ejected by the bird, while the real facts are, that they not only nest but roost in holes, and it must follow that vast quantities of rejected fish bones accumulate, and on these the eggs are of necessity laid.

These eggs are very beautiful objects, being of a deep pinkish hue, usually six in number.

The food of the Kingfisher is not composed entirely of fish, the remains of fresh-water shrimps being found in their stomachs, and doubtless other animals inhabiting the waters are from time to time devoured.

The English Kingfisher, says Dixon, remains throughout the year, but numbers perish when the native streams are frozen. There is, perhaps, not a bird in all the ranks of the feathered gems of equatorial regions, be it ever so fair, the Humming-bird excepted, that can boast a garb so lovely as this little creature of the northland. Naturalists assert that the sun has something to do with the brilliant colors of the birds and insects of the tropics, but certainly, the Kingfisher is an exception of the highest kind. Alas, that he has no song to inspire the muse of some English bard!