HORNED GREBE.Winter Plumage.
HORNED GREBE.Winter Plumage.
HORNED GREBE.
Winter Plumage.
The bull-frog, whose legs are considered such a delicacy, often attains a length of fifteen inches. Its food consists of insects, small frogs, birds, mice, and young water-fowl, and one has been killed which had eaten a bat. Birds have learned to look upon it as a foe. Bull-frogs are fast becoming extinct because of the demand for their legs.
The sharp-shinned hawk is smaller in body, but has about the same expanse of wing, as a domesticated pigeon. It is one of the few hawks that is destructive to birds and young poultry. Not only in the country, but in the city parks and villages, it is seen in late fall or in winter, skimming over the tops of the bushes ready to pounce upon a sparrow of any species the instant one appears.
Red squirrels and chipmunks differ in size, markings, and habits. The red squirrel is nearly twice as large as the chipmunk, it nests in trees, and is usually seen among the branches. It is red on the back and whitish beneath, sometimes having one black line along each side. Chipmunks live in the ground, hollow stumps, and roots. They are poor tree climbers and will not jump from tree to tree unless forced to do so. They have a black stripe down the back and two on each side.
SPOTTED SANDPIPER.
SPOTTED SANDPIPER.
SPOTTED SANDPIPER.
At dusk or early in the evening the weird, tremulous wail of the screech owl may be heard. Sometimes one will visit a favorite tree at the same hour evening after evening, and after sounding his cry several times, will glide away into the country to hunt for a supper of beetles, meadow mice or white-footed mice.
The chipping sparrow, field sparrow, vesper sparrow, mourning dove, red-shouldered blackbird, and purple grackle stay with us as long as the weather will permit. Mr. Chapman says: "Should the season be an exceedingly mild one, many of these birds will remain [about New York] until late in December."
The brown creeper, another denizen of the forests, groves, and village shade trees, is seldom noticed because of its small size and dull coloring, which blends perfectly with the tree trunks. It is often found in company with chickadees, nuthatches and kinglets. The creeper flies to the base of a tree, and winds his way to the top, hunting in the crevices of the bark for insects and insect larvæ, occasionally uttering a clear, feeble trill.
Unlike the bears one meets in certain kinds of animal stories, the real bear is the most easily frightened of all our large animals. His eyesight is defective, and his hearing not particularly good, but his keen nose more than compensates for those deficiencies.
CHICKADEES.Upper, Mountain.Lower, Hudsonian.
CHICKADEES.Upper, Mountain.Lower, Hudsonian.
CHICKADEES.
Upper, Mountain.
Lower, Hudsonian.
Artists often make the mistake of drawing a flying bird with its feet drawn up beneath its breast. Although some birds do hold their feet in this position, the herons, gulls, buzzards, and most of the hawks and eagles hold their feet and legs against the under side of the tail. The legs of the many species of herons are very conspicuous when the birds fly, for as the tail is short, they extend far beyond it.
Some ants live in the ground, some make chambers in wood, while others build mounds of small sticks, dirt, and gravel, and construct roadways to and from them. They feed upon flesh, fruit, and plant substances. Their hind legs are provided with a sort of brush for cleaning the dirt from their bodies, and these legs in turn are cleaned by being drawn through the mouth.
The "'coon" (raccoon) is strictly a nocturnal animal, and spends the day in hollow trees, crevices in the rocks, or in thick underbrush, coming forth at night to hunt its food,—mice, birds, crabs, clams, eggs, acorns, and green corn. On the Pacific Coast it makes a neat round hole in the side of a pumpkin and takes out the seeds with its hands.
Hawks, owls, and eagles are bold defenders of their nests and young. Circling overhead, they suddenly bow their wings and dash at the intruder, turning quickly and swooping up again when only a few inches from his head. Instances are known in which persons have been wounded severely while meddling with the property of such birds of prey.
The tail of the brown creeper, and of all of the thirty-five species and sub-species of woodpeckers, is provided with stiff, pointed feathers which curve in slightly. With the chimney swift, each feather is armed with a spine. While woodpeckers cling to a tree trunk, and the chimney swift to the side of a chimney, their stiff tails help to support them.
Although the darning-needle, dragon fly, snake feeder, or snake doctor is perfectly harmless, Howard says, "Some believe that they will sew up the ears of bad boys; others that they will sting horses; still others that they act as feeders and physicians to snakes, especially to water snakes." They are the beautiful lace-winged insects that frequently dip down and pick up an insect from the surface of a pond or a river.
Conspicuous in the withered grass of upland meadows are the white flowers of the several species of everlasting. If picked before they begin to fade, they will keep through winter nearly as fresh and white as when the blossoming season was at its height.
In the mountains of the North, the black bear is beginning to look for a suitable place in which to pass the winter. Many bears could wear their skins much longer if they would only hibernate before the snow begins to fly. Every hunter anxiously awaits the first fall of snow, which makes the tracking of bears so easy.
Nine out of every ten persons call salamanders or newts, "lizards." Lizards do not metamorphose; consequently they are never found in the water. They are very swift; lovers of the sun, and in the East are rarely seen north of a line parallel with southern New England. Salamanders are found eitherin the water or in damp places. They metamorphose, and when on the ground their efforts to escape are feeble.
Owls, woodpeckers, ducks, doves, pigeons, the ruffed grouse, Bob-white, belted kingfisher, ruby-throated hummingbird, chimney swift, short-billed marsh wren, and bush-tit lay eggs that are glossy white or various shades of white or buff-color. The eggs of the herons, cuckoos, robin, bluebird, catbird, Wilson's thrush, and hermit thrush are blue, green, or various shades of those colors.
Just at evening the white-throated sparrows, from the thickets, call their sweet, clear good-night to one another. As the darkness falls, the calls gradually cease, until only an occasional flutter is heard as some restless bird, not satisfied with its perch, chooses a new position for the night.
It is now time to build winter shelters for Bob-white, and to begin to feed the winter birds. Cut pine or evergreen boughs, and pile them against the side of a log, leaving asmallopening at each end for the quail to enter. Make the shelters on the south or east side of a hill or bank, where it will be protected from the cold winter storms. Now scatter buckwheat about your bird "wickey-up," as an Indian would call it, and they will soon find it. You should feed grain to your flock all winter.
The sparrow hawk is a summer resident in New England, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio. It nests in a cavity of a tree or in a deserted woodpecker's nest, and it will return to the same locality year after year. The bird is no larger than a robin, and instead of being a sparrow killer, it lives chiefly upon insects.
The opossum is the only North American member of the order Marsupialia which has so many representatives in Australia and New Zealand. The marsupials are the animals that have pouches over their abdomens in which theycarry their young. Some people wrongly include in this order the pocket gopher, pocket mouse, and other mammals that have cheek pouches in which theycarry food.
Accounts of the capture of "extremely rare and valuable monkey-faced owls," are often published. These owls are nothing more than barn owls, which are so common in the Southern States. They nest in holes in banks, in cavities in trees, or in church belfries. A pair has occupied one of the towers in the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, for several years.
The common meadow mouse makes a docile and interesting pet, if captured without frightening or exciting him. Within fifteen minutes from the time of his capture he will often lose all fear, and while you hold him he will wash his face with his paws.
The snowy, and the great-gray, owls, both inhabitants of the North-land, are the largest American members of the owl family. They are more frequently seen in the daytime and are much tamer than other owls, often permitting one to approach very close to them. Except in very severe weather they rarely come below the Canadian border. In disposition the great-horned owl and the snow owl are considered fierce, still they can be tamed, even if captured when adult.
It is a general impression that bears hug their victims to death. When enraged a bear will charge to within a few feet of a man, rise upon its hind legs, and strike him down with its fore paws, or hold him with them while it attacks his neck and shoulders with its teeth. After inflicting several wounds a bear will often leave its victim without further injuring him.
Photograph by Jackson.THE GREAT HORNED OWL AND THE SNOWY OWL CAN BE TAMED.
Photograph by Jackson.THE GREAT HORNED OWL AND THE SNOWY OWL CAN BE TAMED.
Photograph by Jackson.
THE GREAT HORNED OWL AND THE SNOWY OWL CAN BE TAMED.
The blue jay is one of the birds who remain with us throughout the entire year. His habits are not the same in all parts of his range. In some localities he is strictly a bird of the forests, while in others, he is common in our city parks and shade-trees. A relative of the crow, he is charged with robbing nests of their eggs and young birds. He is fond of nuts also, and will eat any kind that his strong bill can open.
Hawks and owls will respond quickly if you make a squeaking noise like a mouse, and a fox will stop and prick up his ears, then turn and proceed in the direction of the sound until he discovers its source. A weasel will dash toward the hunter, and even after it sees him, its curiosity keeps it from retreating at once.
The Thanksgiving turkey that we eat about now "is derived from the wild turkey of Mexico, which was introduced into Europe shortly after the Conquest and was thence brought to eastern North America." (Chapman and Reed.) The tips of the upper tail-coverts of the domestic and the Mexican turkey are whitish, while those of the wild turkey of eastern United States are rusty brown.
BLUE JAYS.
BLUE JAYS.
BLUE JAYS.
A skunk knows every woodchuck and rabbit burrow in his neighborhood. In the woods he will often visit hole after hole with great precision, but in the meadows he is more apt to follow the fences, frequently cutting across a corner in order to shorten the distance to a burrow. Probably experience has taught him that rabbits are often found in woodchuck holes and that meadow mice also take shelter in them during the winter.
The tallest and heaviest of all birds is the African ostrich, but the condor of South America has the widest expanse of wing. In the United States, the California vulture, once very rare, but now steadily increasing, is broadest across the wings. The whooping crane stands the highest, and the swans are the heaviest of our birds.
Do not kill the bats that you find passing the winter in your garret, or those that fly into your house in the summer. They destroy large numbers of gnats and mosquitoes, and do no harm. The belief that they get into one's hair is ridiculous, and it is seldom that they are infested with vermin. A South American species has been known to suck the blood of horses and cattle.
On returning to the nest and discovering that a cowbird has laid an egg in it, some species of birds will roll the egg out. But the phœbe, red-eyed vireo, chipping sparrow, and yellow warbler will sometimes cover the eggs with nesting material and build up the sides of the nest, thus burying its own and the cowbird's egg. Another set of eggs is then laid and the bird begins to sit, but the buried eggs are too deep to be affected by the warmth of the parent's body, so the "lazy-bird's" purpose is defeated.
In the abandoned birds' nests that are placed near the ground in shrubs and small trees close to hazel-nut bushes and bitter-sweet vines, you will often find a handful of hazel-nuts or bitter-sweet berries. They were put there by the white-footed mice and the meadow mice who visit these storehouses regularly. Very often a white-footed mouse will cover a bird's nest with fine dried grass and inner bark, and make a nest for itself.
Between now and the first of March you may expect to see large flocks of red-polls feeding on seeds among the weeds and low bushes, and cross-bills in the pine and spruce trees shelling seeds from the cones.
Reproduced by the courtesy of the Field Columbian Museum.A FOUR-STORIED WARBLER'S NEST. EACH STORY REPRESENTS AN ATTEMPT BY THE WARBLER TO AVOID BECOMING FOSTER PARENT OF A YOUNG COWBIRD.
Reproduced by the courtesy of the Field Columbian Museum.A FOUR-STORIED WARBLER'S NEST. EACH STORY REPRESENTS AN ATTEMPT BY THE WARBLER TO AVOID BECOMING FOSTER PARENT OF A YOUNG COWBIRD.
Reproduced by the courtesy of the Field Columbian Museum.
A FOUR-STORIED WARBLER'S NEST. EACH STORY REPRESENTS AN ATTEMPT BY THE WARBLER TO AVOID BECOMING FOSTER PARENT OF A YOUNG COWBIRD.
Besides being the means by which they capture their prey, the talons of an eagle, hawk, or owl are their weapons of defence. Their bill can really inflict but little injury. When wounded one of these birds will throw itself upon its back, and strike with its feet, burying its talons deep in the flesh of its adversary.
The gray or wood gray fox lives about the rocks and ledges. It is a noted tree climber, and, being less fleet than the red fox, it often eludes pursuing dogs by taking shelter in the rocks, or amid the branches of a tree. Running a short distance, it will spring to the side of a tree and scramble up the trunk. Sometimes it falls back and is obliged to repeat the performance several times before it is able to gain the first branches, from which it can easily climb from limb to limb as high as it chooses.
The junco and the horned lark in some localities are called "snowbird," but the snow bunting, or snowflake, is the only bird correctly so called. These birds do not look alike, but the appearance of the three species in large numbers during the winter is confusing to one not versed in bird-lore.
SNOW BUNTING.
SNOW BUNTING.
SNOW BUNTING.
Why is it that most carnivorous animals, as well as most birds of prey, refuse to eat shrews and moles? It may be due to the strong pungent odor of their bodies. Cats will catch them and play with them, but owls are the only creatures that seem to care for them for food.
Mr. Newhall says that a lady told him that an Oneida Indian once cured her grandfather of a severe illness. He afterward learned that the medicine used was an extract of witch-hazel, and later prepared and sold it widely.
The great-horned owl, hoot owl, or cat owl, is the only bird that from choice will feed upon skunks. Although rabbits are abundant and easy to capture, his Owlship seems to prefer to battle against the long teeth and disagreeable odor of the skunk in order to dine upon its flesh. Nearly all owls of this species that are killed in winter are strongly scented with the skunk's odor.
The two glands that hold the skunk's vile-smelling fluid are about the size and shape of a pecan nut. They are strictlyorgans of protectionand are never used except inextremecases of defence. They are situated between the skin and the flesh near the root of the tail. When brought into use, a number of strong muscles encircling them contract, and a fine spray of the fluid is thrown off; the tail taking no part in its distribution.
Snakes are not slimy and clammy; they do not cover their food with saliva before swallowing it, and the forked flexible member which darts in and out of their mouth is not a "stinger," but the tongue. They do not swallow their young in cases of danger, and they have no power to "charm," or hypnotize.
The bald-faced hornet attaches his large, cone-shaped, paper nests under the eaves of houses, in garrets, or to the limbs of trees. Collecting the minute fibres that adhere to the weather-beaten fences and buildings, the hornets mix it with saliva and make a crude quality of paper. To enlarge a nest, the inside walls are torn away and the material is used to add to the outside layer. Like bumblebees, the workers and drones die in the fall, the queen hibernating.
Beautiful as the deer are and innocent as they seem, they cannot be trusted, as attendants in zoological parks can testify. A bear will seldom attack a keeper without provocation, and when he does he will usually give warning before he charges. Not so with a buck of the deer family. Greeting his best friend in the most cordial manner, he may, without warning, charge when the man's back is turned, and gore or trample him to death.
The American eagle is more often spoken of as the "bald eagle," a name which misleads many people since the bird is not "bald" at all. The top of its head is as thickly feathered as the heads of most birds. Probably some one thought that the white head and neck made the eagle appear bald, hence the name. The birds reach the third year before the head and tail begin to turn white.
The little striped skunk, or hydrophobia skunk of the South, West, and Southwest, is about half the size of our common skunk. It frequently goes mad and attacks people with great fury. Cowboys and other persons compelled to sleep on the ground in the open have been bitten by it and have died of hydrophobia.It is the onlyNorth American animal that will deliberatelyattack a sleeping person.
"Till a comparatively recent date it was not certainly known that eels have eggs which develop outside of the body. Even now the breeding habits are scarcely known, but it is supposed that the spawning takes place late in the fall or during the winter, near the mouth of rivers, on muddy bottoms." (Bean.)
The so-called glass snake is truly speaking not a snake, but a legless lizard. It forms part of the food of the true snakes. Its body is very brittle, a light blow with a stick being sufficient to break it in two. Although it is true that another tail will grow (provided not more than a fourth of the body is missing), it is not true that the broken pieces will eventually unite, or that a head and body will grow on the tail piece.
How often you read of, or heard some one speak of, the whale as "the largest of fish." A whale is amammal, because it suckles its young. It is not only the largest oflivingmammals, but, according to Mr. Lucas, the large ones are larger than any of the enormous reptiles that inhabited the world before the advent of man, and whose fossil remains may be seen in any of our large museums.
The quiet little tree sparrows spend the winter with us feeding on the seeds of weeds and grasses. You will find their tracks in the snow where flocks have been eating ragweed seeds, and you are likely to see some of them fluttering about in the bushes along the river banks, or in the frozen swamps uttering a pleasing call note. They can be identified by the distinct black spot on the breast and their pinkish bills.
There is no better time to study the tracks and nightly doings of animals than after the first fall of snow. Start early in the morning and see how many stories the tracks have written.
Following the tracks of a white-footed mouse in the woods, they lead you to a hollow log, at the entrance of which are a number of beech-nut shells, remains of a midnight feast taken from a winter store-house. From here the mouse went into the field, and then the tracks stop abruptly, leaving you to guess the rest. Possibly one of the several species of owls that inhabit your locality could explain the sudden ending of the trail.
Continuing through the woods, you soon discover the trail of two birds whose feet are not quite the size of those of bantam chickens. Following them a few hundred yards you come to a bedded spot in the snow, beneath the drooping branches of a spruce. Not far from here, two ruffed grouse rise, with a loud whirr of wings, and speed off before your startled eyes. These are the birds whose tracks you have been following.
Don't follow a fox track with the intention of overtaking the maker, unless you have dogs. He may be ten miles away at that very moment, and even if you should draw near to him, he is almost certain to elude your sight by sneaking away.
You may find where a muskrat has left the stream and started across the meadow to a marsh near by. Suddenly a mink's track breaks into the trail and follows in the same direction, and you soon come to a spot where the snow is much disturbed, and the tracks mingle in confusion. Blood-stains on the snow and matted places show where the two have fought a battle for existence. A broad, deep trail leading to a stump indicates that some object has been dragged across the snow, and there you find the half-eaten remains of the muskrat.
What tracks are these, trailing along the fence between a brush-lot and a buckwheat field? At the corner of the fence human footprints and those of a dog join them. All now travel in the same direction, first on one side of the fence, then on the other. Finally the bird tracks stop abruptly and the marks of wings on each side of them show that the birds have taken flight. The dog has suddenly bolted, and where his tracks turn back is a dash in the snow and a few quail feathers which tell the story; a hunter has bagged his game.
An open brush-lot bordering woods is the best place to find cotton-tail rabbit tracks. Judging from the number of tracks and the spaces between them, the rabbits have been playing tag, or attempting to break the record for running and jumping. They did rest, however, for beneath a bush, and by the side of a stump, we find impressions in the snow where they sat down. If it is a warm day, you are apt to surprise one taking a sun-bath.
Save in the dome of the Capitol, could our national bird, the bald eagle, select a more appropriate place for its nest than at Washington's home? In a patch of heavy timber at Mt. Vernon, Va., a pair of eagles have nested for several years.
Photograph by J. Alden Loring.COTTONTAIL RABBIT TAKING A SUNBATH.
Photograph by J. Alden Loring.COTTONTAIL RABBIT TAKING A SUNBATH.
Photograph by J. Alden Loring.
COTTONTAIL RABBIT TAKING A SUNBATH.
Mistletoe is a parasitic evergreen shrub that is abundant in the South. It grows in thick clusters on limbs of various species of trees. Its flowers are whitish, and after the flowering season, clusters of white berries take the place of the blossoms. As the berries are ready to fall, they become soft and sticky, and when they drop they adhere to the bark of any limb they strike, and the seeds take root and are nourished by the sap of the tree.
You might take a Christmas walk over the ice and visit a muskrat's house of sticks and other rubbish. If the occupants are at home, you will notice a frosty spot on one side of the mound. A muskrat hunter would thrust his spear through the thin wall and impale one or more of the rats upon its tines. Many of the clods composing the house bear the nose-print of the maker.
While sleigh-riding you are likely to see a flock of trim, sober-colored birds perched close together, feeding on the berries of the mountain ash tree or on decayed apples. They havecrestsandwax-like red dotson the inner feathers of their wings. These are cedar-birds, or cedar waxwings. They often remain with us throughout the year.
"The name 'burl' is applied to all excrescent growths on trees, except true knots. The origin of these wart-like swellings is imperfectly known, but they can generally be attributed to injuries by woodpeckers, gall insects, and to the irritating and continued growth of fungi in the woody tissues at such points." (Adams.)
A flock of pine grosbeaks feeding on buds in a maple or an apple tree on a cold winter's day is a pleasing sight for any bird lover. They are the size of a robin, and the male has a rose-colored head, neck, breast, and back. They are quiet birds and very tame, even permitting a person to climb the tree and approach within a few feet, before they take flight. It is only during the severest weather that they migrate south into southern New York, Pennsylvania, and New England.
North America can boast of the largest deer in the world, the Alaskan moose; as well as the largest of flesh-eating mammals, the Kodiak bear. We also have more rodents and cats than any other country.
BONAPARTE GULL.
BONAPARTE GULL.
Sometimes the lakes freeze over, and the gulls are compelled to seek the large open rivers, and ask alms from the inhabitants along their banks. At such times they become very tame, so if you will place food within their reach, they will soon find it and call upon you from day to day.
Transcriber NoteAlthough the images were inserted before the "Notes" page which follows each page of dates, the images were not moved due to the List of Illustrations page numbering. Produced from images generously provided on The Internet Archive and all resultant materials are placed in the Public Domain.
Transcriber Note
Although the images were inserted before the "Notes" page which follows each page of dates, the images were not moved due to the List of Illustrations page numbering. Produced from images generously provided on The Internet Archive and all resultant materials are placed in the Public Domain.