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Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [January, 1898]
Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [January, 1898] A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life
INTRODUCTION
With the January number of Birds, we enter upon a new year with the satisfaction of having pleased our readers, as well as rendered an actual service to the cause of education, ornithological literature, and art. Among the hundreds of testimonials from competent judges, (many of them scientists), which we have received, we will permit ourselves the use of one only, as exemplifying the excellence which we have sought to attain and the rightful claim which we may make for the future. The writer says: “I find Birds an everlasting source of pleasure to the children, not less than to myself. I have one of the few almost absolutely fresh copies of ‘Audubon’s Birds,’ for which I have refused $3,000, besides later works, and I will say that the pictures of birds given in your magazine are infinitely more true to life, and more pleasing, everyway, than any of those presented in either work. The other day I compared some of your pictures with the birds mounted by myself, notably a Wood-duck and a Wood-cock, and every marking co-incided. The photographs might have been taken from my own specimens, so accurately were they delineated, attesting the truth of your work.”
Some of our subscribers, unaware of the prodigality with which nature has scattered birds throughout the world, have asked whether the supply of specimens may not soon be exhausted. Our answer is, that there are many thousands of rare and attractive birds, all of them interesting for study, from which, for years to come, we might select many of the loveliest forms and richest plumage. Of North American birds alone there are more than twelve hundred species.
The success of Birds is due to its superior color illustrations and the unique treatment of the text. Popular and yet scientific, it is interesting to old and young alike.
The classification and nomenclature followed are those adopted by the American Ornithological Union in 1895.
Nature Study Publishing Company.
THE PIGEONS
Under the big nursery table
Are Sue, Don, Harold, and Mabel,
All playing, with joy and delight,
That pigeons they are, dressed in white.
Don’t you hear their gentle “coo, coo”?
Ah, now they fly out in full view!
And over the meadow they go —
’Tis their own dear nursery, you know —
Where, quick to the tops of the trees
They fly, with lightness and ease;
There each birdie is glad to be
Perched high upon a big chair-tree.
But to their home in swiftest flight
They haste, ere day has changed to night;
Then in they go, with cooing sweet,
And find their home a blest retreat.
And now they tell just where they’ve been,
And all the wondrous sights they’ve seen.
Then with their “coo, coo,” soft and low,
Each pigeon goes to sleep, I trow.– Emma G. Saulsbury.
THE CROWNED PIGEON
WE regret that a full monograph of this remarkable bird cannot be given in this number. It is the giant among Pigeons and has some characteristics, on account of its great size, not common to the family. Very little has been written about it, and it would be a real service to ornithology if some one familiar with the subject would communicate his knowledge to the public. These birds pair for life, and the loss or death of a mate is in many cases mourned and grieved over, the survivor frequently refusing to be consoled.
The Pigeon family is an exceedingly interesting one, of great variety of form and color, undergoing constant change by inter-breeding. There are about three hundred known species of Pigeons and Doves, about one third of which number are found in the New World. In North America but twelve species occur, a family small enough to find room in Birds to sit for their pictures. Some of these birds, says Chapman, are arboreal, others are strictly terrestrial. Some seek the forests and others prefer the fields and clearings. Some nest in colonies, others in isolated pairs, but most species are found in flocks of greater or less size after the nesting season. When drinking, they do not raise the head as others do to swallow, but keep the bill immersed until the draught is finished. The young are born naked and are fed by regurgitation.
Living specimens of this the largest species of Pigeons may some day be brought to the United States and made to increase as the Ring-necked English Pheasant has already been domesticated in their own country. It has been suggested that their introduction among us would be a comparatively easy matter.
THE RED-EYED VIREO
“A bird with red eyes! look, mamma,” said Bobby. “How funny!”
“And how beautiful,” replied his mamma. “Not plainly dressed, like his cousin, the Warbling Vireo, whose picture you saw in the October number of Birds.”
“The Yellow-Throated, in the June number,” said Bobbie, who has a remarkable memory, “was a lovely bird, too, mamma. Can Mr. Red-eye sing?”
“No, you can’t call his note a song; it is more like a chatter, which he keeps up from morning till night.”
“Like some children,” said Bobbie, with a sage nod of the head, “who talk all day long.”
“Yes,” smiled his mamma, “without saying very much, either. But this little bird works while he chatters.”
“I reckon he stops at noon time,” said Bobbie, “as other birds do.”
“No, even then the silence of the woods is broken by the Red-eyed Vireo’s voice. He is such a busy little fellow, he can’t find time for a nap.”
“Hm!” remarked Bobbie; “the other birds must find him a tiresome fellow, I think.
“Has he any other names, mamma?”