Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

for the birds, nature supplies a substi- miles. For the entire distance of twentytute for gravel by means of the wild eight miles every tree of any size had more prairie rose (Rosa blanda), "which is or less nests, and many trees were filled abundant everywhere; and the ruddy with them. None were lower than about hips, unlike most fruits, do not fall fifteen feet above the ground. At least five hundred men were engaged when ripe. Besides being sweet and in netting pigeons during the great Petosky nutritious, they contain a number of nesting of 1881. Mr. Stevens thought that small, angular, hard seeds which answer they may have captured on an average perfectly the purpose of gravel." Mr. twenty thousand birds apiece during the Ernest E. Thompson, who has given season. Sometimes two car-loads were special attention to the prairie sharp-shipped south on the railroad each day. tailed grouse of Manitoba, has exam- Nevertheless he believed that not one bird ined its gizzard during every month of in a thousand was taken. Hawks and the year, and found it to be always pro- owls often abound near the nesting. Owls can be heard hooting there all night.

vided with rose hips.

Twenty years ago the enormous number of the birds in North America excited extreme astonishment, and has been adverted to by many writers. The vast breeding colonies of the wild pigeon frequently covered the forest for miles together. Mr. S. B. Stevens, of Cadillac, a veteran pigeon-netter of large experience and a man of high reputation for veracity and carefulness of statement, gave in 1888 the following testimony to Mr. William Brewster, who published it in his article "On the Present Status of the Wild Pigeon, etc. :"The largest nesting he ever visited was incies are crowded out of existence. In 1878 or 1877. It began near Petosky, and extended north-east past Crooked Lake for twenty-eight miles, averaging three or four miles wide. The birds arrived in two separate bodies, one directly from the south by land, the other following the east coast of Wisconsin and crossing at Manitou Island. He saw the latter body come in from the

On one occasion an immense flock of young birds became bewildered in a fog while crossing Crooked Lake, and, descending, struck the water, and perished by thousands. The shore for miles was covered a foot or more deep with them. The old birds rose above the fog and none were killed.

The battle of life, or the struggle for existence, in the animal kingdom results in such a check by the various species on the growth of each other as to maintain to a large extent a fair balance of the contending forces, although it happens from time to time that some spe

lake at about three o'clock in the afternoon.

their primeval dwelling-places the grouse
have, of course, many enemies, which
prevent their numbers from becoming
unduly excessive. Among such ene-
mies may be mentioned the fox, cat,
minx, weasel, and squirrel; birds of
prey, comprising certain hawks and
owls, which destroy either the eggs or
the young; and numerous snakes, in-
cluding, especially, rattlesnakes, which
are terrible enemies.
One of them,

when killed, was found to have swal-
lowed five Texan Bob Whites at one

It was a compact mass of pigeons, at least five miles long by one mile wide. The birds began building when the snow was twelve inches deep in the woods, although the fields were bare at the time. So rapidly did the colony extend its boundaries that it meal; another contained four Bob soon passed literally over and around the place where he was netting, although when he began this point was several miles from the nearest nest. Nestings usually start in deciduous woods, but during their progress the pigeons do not skip any kind of trees they encounter. The Petosky nesting extended eight miles through hard-wood timber, then crossed a river bottom wooded with arbor vitæ, and thence stretched During wet springs the nests, which through white pine woods about twenty are generally on the ground, are often

Whites and a scaled partridge. But of all living enemies man is at once the most powerful and immeasurably the most fatal. I shall advert to his destructive work shortly. Meanwhile I must add a few words concerning the influence of wet and cold seasons, and prairie fires.

birds. In the following fall I heard of but three or four coveys of quail within a radius of sixty miles where thousands had been the year before.

In spite, however, of all adverse influences, some species of grouse seem not only to maintain their position effectually, but actually to spread themselves increasingly over wide territories. The quail, known throughout the United States as the Bob White, is steadily advancing westward, southward, and northward. It is now found in Colorado, Utah, California, northern New Mexico, and Oregon. In fact, it evidently makes itself at home in any country where the climate is not too severe in winter.

inundated, especially if they be in valleys or on low grounds. The following fact is a striking example of this truth Mr. J. W. Preston, of Baxter, Iowa, records that several years ago he fright- The most destructive agents of the ened a prairie hen from her nest of nests of the justly designated" valuable eggs in a marsh that was subject to bird," the prairie hen, as well as of overflow; the nest was entirely sub- various other kinds of grouse, are the merged and the bird was incubating the prairie fires, which often occur and comcold eggs! Not eight feet distant, on mit fearful ravages. Many of the stock a tussock, a marsh hawk was waiting men do not burn their hay ground until for her clutch of eggs. The number of the middle of May, and hence thoueggs and of newly hatched chickens sands of eggs are destroyed every year. which are destroyed during and in Moreover, many nests with eggs are consequence of wet seasons must be yearly ploughed up, and thus the genenormous; and the effects of excep-eral loss is increased. tionally cold seasons are probably not less destructive. On the high plateaux where the white-tailed ptarmigan is found the wind often blows with a tremendous sweep, and is almost strong enough to throw down a man. Suffering from the extreme cold when such a wind is blowing, the ptarmigan have learnt to dig out for themselves little nests or hollows in the snow banks; they lie with their heads towards the wind, and are thus greatly protected from it, but such snowy refuges must at best be terribly cold. In some years the spring season begins especially early, and the warm weather is often succeeded temporarily by a return of wintry cold. As the love-making of the grouse commences habitually before the snow has completely disappeared, incu-"packs " comprising from one hundred bation is apt to occur exceptionally early in the year, and meanwhile to be overtaken, therefore, by the return of cold northern blasts, which often prove fatal to a large number of newly hatched chicks, and sometimes to the too devoted mother, as appears from the following authentic and pathetic fact, viz., that a hen was discovered sitting on her nest of eggs, she and her eggs being quite frozen to death. In some years the winter cold proves terribly destructive. Mr. A. C. Lowell, writing to Captain Bendire, thus refers to its effect on the valley partridge :

On the other hand, the evidence that a great decrease of bird life has long been going on in North America is irresistible. In former times the heath hen used to be seen in autumn in

to two hundred birds in each; now the number in a covey rarely exceeds six or eight. In Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, where the Columbian sharptailed grouse used to be exceedingly abundant a decade ago, it is every year becoming rarer, and, at the present rate of decrease, it will not be long before the bird will be numbered among the game birds of the past. Similar testimony concerning the rapidly increasing scarcity of this bird is tendered by various observers, among whom may be mentioned Mr. Denis Gale, and Mr. W. M. Wolfe, of Kearney, Nebraska; the In the winter of 1887-8 about two feet of last-named gentleman says that this snow fell, followed by three very severe bird has retired before civilization, nights, in which the thermometer reached and the pinnated grouse has taken its 28° below zero. This killed most of these place." The breeding range of the

wild turkey, the largest and finest of will use them for the growth of cereals American game birds, is yearly be- and other vegetable products, or for coming more restricted, and, at the grazing purposes, the former occupants present rate of decrease, the total ex- of those territories will gradually mitinction of this bird east of the Mis- grate from them to regions in which sissippi and north of the Ohio River they may still live, and, as birds are is only a question of a few years. capable of ranging over vast areas, it Throughout Missouri and Kansas it is already nearly exterminated. It used to be found in Nebraska; none occur there now. Dr. W. L. Ralph, of Utica, New York, writes:

is reasonable to suppose that of the dispossessed occupants they will suffer least by their expulsion from their former homes. But as the time approaches when the white man will become lord

Fifteen years ago I found the wild turkey of all he surveys, the wild fowl, as abundant in most parts of Florida . . . but well as other wild animals, will betake they have gradually decreased in numbers themselves to their last available refsince then, and, though still common in uges, there to meet their inevitable places where the country is wild and unset-fate - gradual extinction. Even now, tled, they are rapidly disappearing from as we have seen, the number of birds those parts in the vicinity of villages and navigable waters.

is already fast diminishing; but though this process cannot be arrested it is within the power of the American people to lessen, as well as to increase, its rapidity.

The ground doves are constant residents of Florida, and ten or fifteen years ago they were abundant throughout the central and northern parts Now, a vast number of birds are deof the state. They are still common, stroyed yearly for the sake merely of though fast decreasing in numbers, gratifying that baneful and detestable owing principally to the causes that love of "sport," in the indulgence of are rapidly exterminating most Florida which thousands of men pride thembirds, viz., plume hunters and tourists. selves. Many birds are also destroyed Evidence is thus forthcoming from for the sake of their plumage; but every part of the United States that the most fell and wholesale destroyers the most important of their winged of bird life are the men who kill the inhabitants are rapidly disappearing. passenger pigeon by thousands and The fact is a truly saddening one. thousands for the sake of enriching There are certain causes conducing to themselves by their slaughter. The their extinction which are inevitable. enormous "breeding colonies," or The gradual but rapidly increasing oc-"pigeon roosts," as they were formerly cupation of the land by the white man, called, frequently covering the forest or, as intimated by Mr. Wolfe, the “advance of civilization," is not only depriving the red man of his huntinggrounds, and thus ensuring his destruction, but at the same time is ousting the birds from their vast prairie homes, which they have occupied for countless ago, things of the past, never to be centuries, and thus condemning them also to gradual extinction. This result is certainly being effected, and will, no doubt, sooner or later be accomplished. In any case it is a deplorable one, but it need not be hastened by the extraordinarily reckless and selfish conduct of the European invader. Of course, as the vast territories of the United States become occupied by white men, who

for miles, and so often mentioned by naturalists and hunters in former years, are, like the immense herds of the American bison which roamed over the great plains of the West in countless thousands but a couple of decades

seen again. In fact, the extermination. of the passenger pigeon has progressed so rapidly during the past twenty years that it looks now as if its total extermination might be accomplished within the present century. The immense destruction of this pigeon in a single year and at one roost only is thus described by Professor II. B. Roney in the Chicago Field:

The nesting area, situated near Petosky, | Michigan and Wisconsin are simply covered something like 100,000 acres of worse than useless; for, while they land, and included not less than 150,000 prohibit disturbing the birds within acres within its limits, being in length their nesting, they allow an unlimited about forty miles by three to ten in width. netting only a few miles beyond its The number of dead birds sent by rail (in outskirts during the entire breeding 1878) was estimated at 12,500 daily, or season." The experience of the Cuban 1,500,000 for the summer, besides 80,352 live birds; an equal number was sent by legislation on this subject is like to that water. We have [says the writer], adding recorded of Wisconsin and Michigan; the thousands of dead and wounded not se- in Cuba the blue-headed quail dove cured, and the myriads of squabs left dead" is constantly decreasing in numbers," in the nest, at the lowest possible estimate writes Dr. Juan Vilarbo, professor of a grand total of 1,000,000,000 pigeons sacri- the University of Havana, and “it is ficed to Mammon during the nesting season continually persecuted, notwithstanding that it is protected at certain times by the hunting laws.”

of 1878.

Captain Bendire is of opinion that the last-mentioned figure is far above the The breeding range of the heath hen, actual number killed during that or "the last remnant of a once more or any other year; but even granting that less widely distributed race at varionly a million were killed at this roost ous points in eastern Massachusetts, the slaughter is appalling, and it is not southern Connecticut, Long Island, strange that the number of this bird is New Jersey, and Pennsylvania,” is at now small compared with what it was present limited to the island of Marin former years. tha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, where these birds are "strictly protected by law." Nevertheless one of the Boston market men reported "that he has had

The question whether the American people will be content to look on with indifference while the beautiful and interesting feathered inhabitants of as many as twenty from the Vineyard their country are being rapidly and in a single season." Though within wilfully destroyed is a question deserv- the limited area of the island of Maring grave consideration. And if evi- tha's Vineyard the effort to preserve dence should be forthcoming that a the heath hen from slaughter has aplarge majority of the citizens of the proached nearly to success, the protec great western republic are not con- tive laws of Wisconsin and Michigan senting witnesses of the wilful destruc- have, as stated above, proved abortive ; tion of these birds, two other questions and, in my opinion, the only measure arise (1) Can this destruction be pre- at once practicable and likely to convented? and (2), if it can, will the duce to a successful coping with the sovereign people insist on its preven- evil is an act of Congress for the rigortion? It seems to me that both these ous prevention of the bird slaughter questions may and ought to be answered going on. The proposal of such an act in the affirmative. I fear that the would probably evoke the vigorous opadoption of an effective preventive position of the advocates and defenders measure by each of the forty-four of the doctrine of "State rights.” As¡ States of the American Union sepa- I am not an American politician I do rately is scarcely to be hoped for. Nev- not venture to offer an opinion on the ertheless three American States - viz., practicability of this proposal, but comWisconsin, Michigan, and Massachu- mend the whole subject to the earnest setts have done honor to themselves attention of American statesmen and by taking the initiative in lessening, or lovers not only of their great country, attempting to lessen, the vast destruc- but also of its winged inhabitants, tion continually going on; and even whose mournful procession to extincCuba is rivalling these three American tion they may, if they resolve to do so, States by making a similar effort. But indefinitely retard.

it is alleged that "the present laws of

JOHN WORTH.

It is

From The Fortnightly Review. I should say, of portions of circles, for THE WANDERINGS OF THE NORTH POLE. the exposures having lasted for about On a recent visit to Cambridge, Pro- four hours, about one-sixth of each fessor Barnard, the discoverer of the circumference was completed during fifth satellite of Jupiter, exhibited at that time. The effect thus produced the Cavendish Laboratory his most was that of a number of circular arcs interesting collection of photographs of varying sizes, and of different demade at the Lick Observatory. These grees of brightness. Most conspicuous pictures were obtained by a six-inch amongst them was the trail produced photographic lens of three feet focus, by the actual Pole Star itself. attached to an ordinary equatorial, the well known, of course, that though the telescope of which was used as a guider situation of the Pole is conveniently when it was desired to obtain a picture marked by the fortunate circumstance of the stars with a long exposure. that a bright star happened during the Among the advantages of this process present century to lie in the immediate may be reckoned the large field that is vicinity of the veritable Pole, yet, of thereby obtained, many of the plates course, this star is not actually at the that he exhibited being as much as Pole, and consequently, like all the four degrees on the edge. I am, how- other stars, Polaris itself must be reever, not now going to speak of Bar- volving in a circle whereof the centre nard's marvellous views of the Milky lies at the true Pole. The brighter Way, nor of the plate on which a comet the star the brighter is the trail which was discovered, nor of the vicissitudes it produces, so that the circle made by of Holmes's comet, nor of that won- Polaris is much more conspicuous than derful picture in which Swift's comet the circles produced by the other stars actually appears to be producing, by of inferior lustre. It is, however, to a process of gemmation, an offshoot be noted that some of the faint stars which is evidently adapted for an in- lie much closer to the Pole than Polaris dependent cometary existence. The itself. There is, indeed, one very mipicture to which I wish specially to nute object so close to the Pole that refer in connection with our immediate the circle in which its movements are subject is one in which the instrument was directed towards the Celestial Pole. In this particular case the clockwork which is ordinarily employed to keep the stars acting at the same point of the plate was dispensed with. telescope, in fact, remained fixed while the heavens rotated in obedience to the diurnal motion. Under these circumstances each star, as minute after minute passed by, produced an image on a different part of the plate; the consequence of which was that the record which the star was found to have left, when the picture was developed, was that of a long trail instead the degree in which the Pole Star of a sharply defined point. As each star appears to describe a circle in the sky around the Pole, and as, in the vicinity of the Pole, these circles were small enough to be included in the plate, this polar photograph exhibits a striking spectacle. It displayed a large number of concentric circles, or rather,

[blocks in formation]

The

performed seems very little more than a point when represented on the screen on which the slide was projected. The interesting circumstance was noted that there appeared to be occasional interruptions to the continuity of the circular arcs. This was due to the fact that clouds had interposed during the intervals represented by the interruptions. A practical application is thus suggested, which has been made to render useful service at Harvard College Observatory. Every night, and all night long, a plate is there exposed to this particular part of the sky, and

leaves a more or less complete trail affords an indication of the clearness or cloudiness of the sky throughout the course of the night. From the positions of the parts where the trail has been interrupted it is possible not only to learn the amount of cloudiness that has prevailed, but the particular hours 4300

« AnteriorContinuar »