ORNITHOLOGY 



15 



The Ancients and Birds. 



. ..,umg- Llie latest of the ptiblica- 

 tions of Leland Stanford Junior Uni- 

 \ersity is Ernest Whitney Martin's 

 "The Birds of the Latin Poets.'' The 

 author has brought together virtually 

 every mention in Latin poetry of 

 every several bird. These amount to 

 some seventy species in all ; and each 

 of these so far as possible, is identified, 

 and in addition, compared with our 

 own American forms. 



The striking feature of this work, 

 besides the remarkable learning and 

 industry of its author, is the small 

 knowledge of ancients concerning bird 

 life. They concerned themselves lit- 

 tle Avith their neighbors of the air, and 

 took little delight in them. In this, 

 they seem to have been of like mind 

 with their descendants of to-day, who 

 prefer to eat a robin or a lark to hear- 

 ing it sing. 



Doubtless as the author points out, 

 the fact that the Romans belicA ed that 

 the birds are metamorphosed human 

 children had something to do with 

 their feeling toward them. Neverthe- 

 less, they did not always think sad- 

 ly of the feathered tribes — as witness 

 Horace's famous lines about the duck 

 and his habitat in the "aqua, qua, 

 qua, qua, qua !" 



Trinity Churchyard a Bird Refuge. 



The vestry of Trinity Church, in 

 New York City, has recently adopted 

 measures for the protection of the 

 birds that frequent the churchyard dur- 

 ing migration. This action was taken 

 at the instance of Miss Elizabeth S. 

 Day, of Brooklyn, who reported that 

 she had noted thirty species of birds 

 in the churchyard, despite its location 

 at the junction of Broadway and W'alh 

 Street, in the heart of the financial 

 section of the city. — Henry Oldys. 



A tern, ringed in the Fame Islands, 

 almost at the north of England, in July 

 was captured the following February 

 on the African Gold Coast almost 

 under the equator. 



The Hatching Egg. 



BY W. I. EEECROFT, ADAMS, MASS. 



A wonderful provision of nature im- 

 pels the lower animals to do the right 

 things at the right time, things which 

 they could not have been taught nor have 

 learned by previous experience ; in the 

 case of very young animals omission 

 would prove fatal. The chick breaks its 

 way out of the shell unaided. But it 

 does not work aimlessly. Starting at a 

 point where it first breaks the shell, it 

 continues all around in the same plane by 

 turning itself bodily as it proceeds, until 

 by vigorous kicks and struggles it forces 

 the lid off. 



Another wonderful thing in this con- 

 nection is that nature has provided a 

 temporary means for the breaking of the 

 shell. The chick's bill is soft, so nature 

 has placed in the tip of the upper man- 

 dible a tiny hard scale that drops ofT a 

 few days after the chick emerges as it is 

 then of no f:'r Iv/r •.'.-c. 



HOW THE CHICK BREAKS THE EGGSHELI. 



