418 



THE BIRDS 



mal. Upon sighting anything that looks promising they circle around 

 and slowly approach the earth. Other buzzards in the distance see this 

 characteristic reaction and come to join the feast. The body of a dead 

 cow will be picked clean leaving only the bones before the buzzards have 

 finished. The repugnant odor of decaying flesh seems not to bother 

 them at all. They seem completely immune to the poisons of bacteria 

 that may be present in such flesh, although other animals may be killed 

 by it. Since they cannot carry things well in their claws, the young are 

 fed on a regurgitation of partly digested flesh. 



Courtesy Chicago Natural History Museum 



Fig. 27.9. A pair of loons. These birds are common around our northern lakes. 

 They are champion diving and swimming birds ; they can swim under water faster 



than most fish. 



The Loons. Visitors to the lakes in the northern part of the United 

 States will probably never forget the cry of the loon sounding over the 

 water in the middle of the night like the hysterical laughter of a lunatic. 

 However, the loon is anything but a lunatic. It is very hard to get near 

 one ; it will dive under the water when you approach in a boat, suddenly 

 pop up behind you, dive again, and appear again in some unexpected 

 direction as if mocking your pitiful efforts to outsmart it. Loons are 

 the champion diving birds, sometimes diving and swimming under water 

 to a depth of fifty feet. A fish or frog does not have a chance against 

 a loon, for the loon can outswim it under water. 



The Hummingbirds. These are the midgets of the birds ; the eggs 

 are little larger than pearls, and a young hummingbird will fill only a 

 portion of a teaspoon. Their wings are small and vibrate at such a 

 high rate of speed that the characteristic humming sound is produced 



