Bird Stories Part 13

_Bird Study Book_ (Pearson), pages 101-213; 200.

_Birds in their Relation to Man_ (Weed and Dearborn), pages 255-330.

_Bird-Lore_, vol. 22, pages 376-380.

_Useful Birds and their Protection_ (Forbush), pages 354-421.

_Birds of Ohio_ (Dawson), pages 548-551; "Herring Gull."

_Bird Book_ (Eckstorm), pages 23-29; "The Herring Gull."

_American Birds_ (Finley), pages 211-217; "Gull Habits."

_Game-Laws for 1920_ (Lawyer and Earnshaw), pages 68-75; "Migratory-Bird Treaty Act."

_Tales from Birdland_ (Pearson), pages 3-27; "Hardheart, the Gull."

_Educational Leaflet No. 29_; "The Herring Gull." (National a.s.sociation of Audubon Societies.)

PETER PIPER

_Act.i.tis macularia_, the Spotted Sandpiper.

Educational Leaflet No. 51. (National a.s.sociation of Audubon Societies.)

"A leisurely little flight to Brazil."

Peter, the gypsy, and Bob, the vagabond, are both famous travelers, and might have pa.s.sed each other on the way, coming and going, in Venezuela and in Brazil. Peter, like Bob, is a night migrant, stopping in the daytime for rest and food.

For references to literature on bird-migration, the list under the notes to "Bob, the Vagabond," may be used.

GAVIA OF IMMER LAKE

_Gavia immer_, the Loon.

_The Bird_ (Beebe). "Hesperornis--a wingless, toothed, diving bird, about 5 feet in length, which inhabited the great seas during the Cretaceous period, some four millions of years ago." (Legend under colored frontispiece.)

_Life Histories of North American Diving Birds_ (Bent), pages 47-60.

_Bird Book_ (Eckstorm), pages 9-13.

_By-Ways and Bird-Notes_ (Thompson), pages 170-71. "The cretaceous birds of America all appear to be aquatic, and comprise some eight or a dozen genera, and many species. Professor Marsh and others have found in Kansas a large number of most interesting fossil birds, one of them, a gigantic loon-like creature, six feet in length from beak to toe, taken from the yellow chalk of the Smoky Hill River region and from calcareous shale near Fort Wallace, is named _Hesperornis regalis_."

_Educational Leaflet No. 78._ (National a.s.sociation of Audubon Societies.)

If twenty years of undisputed possession seems long enough to give a man a legal t.i.tle to "his" land, surely birds have a claim too ancient to be ignored by modern beings. Are we not in honor bound to share what we have so recently considered "ours," with the creatures that inherited the earth before the coming of their worst enemy, Civilization? And in so far as lies within our power, shall we not protect the free, wild feathered folk from ourselves?

EVE AND PETRO

_Petrochelidon lunifrons_, Cliff-Swallow, Eave-Swallow.

_Bird Studies with a Camera_ (Chapman), pages 89-105; "Where Swallows Roost."

_Handbook of Nature-Study_ (Comstock), pages 112-113.

_Bird Migration_ (Cooke), pages 5, 9, 19-20, 26, 27; Fig. 6.

_Our Greatest Travelers_ (Cooke), page 349; "Migration Route of the Cliff Swallows."

_Bird Book_ (Eckstorm), pages 201-12.

_Bird-Lore_, vol. 21, page 175; "Helping Barn and Cliff Swallows to Nest."

UNCLE SAM

_Haliaeetus leucocephalus_, the Bald Eagle.

_Stories of Bird Life_ (Pearson), pages 71-80; "A Pair of Eagles."

_The Fall of the Year_ (Sharp), chapter V.

_Educational Leaflet No. 82._ (National a.s.sociation of Audubon Societies.)

At the time this story goes to press, our national emblem is threatened with extermination. The following references indicate the situation in 1920:--

_Conservationist, The,_ vol. 3, pages 60-61; "Our National Emblem."

_National Geographic Magazine,_ vol. 38, page 466.

_Natural History,_ vol. 20, pages 259 and 334; "The Dead Eagles of Alaska now number 8356."

_Science_, vol. 50, pages 81-84; "Zoological Aims and Opportunities," by Willard G. Van Name.

CORBIE

_Corvus brachyrhynchos_, the Crow.

_The Bird_ (Beebe), pages 153, 158, 172, 200-01, 209. "When the brain of a bird is compared with that of a mammal, there is seen to be a conspicuous difference, since the outer surface is perfectly smooth in birds, but is wound about in convolutions in the higher four-footed animals. This latter condition is said to indicate a greater degree of intelligence; but when we look at the brain of a young musk-ox or walrus, and find convolutions as deep as those of a five-year-old child, and when we compare the wonderfully varied life of birds, and realize what resource and intelligence they frequently display in adapting themselves to new or untried conditions, a smooth brain does not seem such an inferior organ as is often inferred by writers on the subject. I would willingly match a crow against a walrus any day in a test of intelligent behavior.... A crow ... though with h.o.r.n.y, shapeless lips, nose, and mouth, looks at us through eyes so expressive, so human, that no wonder man's love has gone out to feathered creatures throughout all his life on the earth."

_Handbook of Nature-Study_ (Comstock), pages 129-32.

_American Birds_ (Finley), pages 69-77; "Jack Crow."