586 IN TEXAS-ONE OF OUR FAMOUS SONG BIRDS A KINSMAN "It might almost be said that the birds are all birds of the poets and of no one else. So true is this that all the great ornithologists ... have been poets in deed if not in word. Audubon is a notable case in point, who, if he had not the tongue or the pen of the poet, certainly had the eye and ear and heart. . . the singleness of purpose, the enthusiasm, the unworldliness, the love, that characterize the true and divine race of bards. So had [Alexander] Wilson, though perhaps not in as large a measure; yet he took fire as only a poet can. While making a journey on foot to Philadelphia, shortly after landing in this country, he caught sight of the red-headed woodpecker flitting among the trees . . . and it so kindled his enthusiasm that his life was devoted to the pursuit of the birds from that day. . . . The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense is his life,-largebrained, large-lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame charged with buoyancy and his heart with songs." -From Birds and Poets Photograph by William L. Finley and H. T. Bohlman Pacific yellow-throat-in Oregon. "The current notion that the parent birds teach the young to fly-that of set purpose they give them lessons in flying-is entirely erroneous. The young fly automatically when the time comes, as truly so as the witch hazel nut explodes, and the pod of the jewel-weed goes off when the seeds are ripe. The parent birds call to their young, and I have thought that in some cases they withhold the food longer than usual to stimulate the young to make the great adventure ."-From Field and Study Photograph by Wiliam L. Finley and H. T. Bohlman Black-throated gray warbler-Oregon.-"Till the middle of July there is a general equilibrium; the tide stands poised. . . . But as the harvest ripens beneath the long hot days, the melody gradually ceases. The young are out of the nest and must be cared for, and the molting season is at hand. After the cricket has commenced to drone his monotonous refrain beneath your window, you will not, till another season, hear the wood thrush in all his matchless eloquence. The bobolink has become careworn and fretful. Some of the sparrows still sing, and occasionally across the hot fields, from a tall tree in the edge of the forest, comes the rich note of the scarlet tanager."-From Wake-Robin GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULLS ON A LAKE OF NOVA SCOTIA This species is the most majestic of the Atlantic Coast gulls in the winter time. It is a silent, alert sentinel of uninhabited beaches, never seeking the protection offered by civilization nor the ready sources of food about the fishing village. A glimpse into the summer colony, however, gives a very different idea of these shy winter visitors Photographs by William L. Finley and H. T. Bohlman INHABITANTS OF INLAND WATERS The western grebe (above), and a young avocet, of the Malheur marshes.-Malheur Lake. Oregon, with its surrounding marshes, was set aside in 1908 as a federal wild bird reservation by special proclamation of President Roosevelt. It is the greatest wild bird reservation in the United States, but is about to be destroyed by promoters shutting off all water from entering the lake1 1 EDITORIAL NOTE.-In letters to the Editor Mr. Finley calls attention to the destruction in prospect for this and Klamath Lake reservations: "I do not know whether you have any way of helping us in regard to Klamath and Malheur Lake reservations. Lower Klamath Lake where Dr. [Frank M.] Chapman got his great habitat group for the American Museum, is now dried up and the reservation is practically destroyed from the bird standpoint-unless the United States Reclamation Service opens the dykes along Klamath River and lets the water back in. We have a continual fight against this sort of commercialism that wants to destroy everything in the hope of turning it into money." (See page 736) |