->i8o Bird -Lore 



Studying the birds in this table carefully and in the order given, let us see 

 liow many we have ever heard of before. Probably the Perching Birds are 

 most familiar, and who can guess for what reason? Arithmetic may help 

 us to answer this question. Suppose we look up the different families and 

 -species under each order and discover which order contains the most families 

 ■3,nd which the most species? Also, which contains the fewest? We might 

 figure out, too, how many species there are in all the orders taken together. 



It is estimated that there are over 12,000 species of birds in the world, 

 possibly as many as 14,000. Do you think North America has its share of 

 Thirds? Sometime we may learn how all these different kinds of birds are dis- 

 tributed throughout the world, but now we must turn to the thirty species 

 "we have selected and find out something of their summer homes, and how 

 they may happen to be our neighbors for a few months of each year. 



The Loon belongs to an order of birds that is made up of three quite dis- 

 tinct families: the Grebes, which look like small, tailless ducks; the big Loons; 

 ■and a large group of strange, northern birds. Auks, Puffins, Guillemots, Murres, 

 and the little Dovekie, few of which come down to temperate North America. 

 The Loon is as remarkable a diver as any of these water-birds, and is known 

 quite generally throughout the length and breadth of our continent. In win- 

 ter, you may find it from the region of the Great Lakes, southern British 

 -Columbia and southern New England down to Florida, the Gulf Coast and 

 Lower California. With the coming of spring it starts north and for those 

 who know its conspicuously marked black-and-white plumage it is a migrant 

 •eagerly awaited. Draw a line on your map from northern California eastward 

 to the northern part of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New York, New 

 Hampshire, and so on, to Nova Scotia. South of this line the Loon rarely, 

 if ever, breeds, but north of it you may follow the nesting of this spring 

 traveler up to Kotzebue Sound, Banks Land, Barrow Strait and northern 

 Greenland. 



Quite different from the Diving Birds are the Long-winged Swimmers of 

 Order II. Skuas, Jaegers, Gulls, Terns, the Noddy and the Black Skimmer 

 are found here, all of them birds of much grace on the wing, especially the 

 beautiful Gulls and Terns, or "Sea-swallows," as the latter are commonly 

 called. Probably no species in this order is better known than the large Herring 

 Gull. Its winter home extends from the northern edge of the United States 

 to Lower California, western Mexico, the Bahamas, Cuba, Yucatan, and the 

 coast of Texas; while, in Europe, it is found as far south as the Caspian and 

 Mediterranean Seas. Springtime finds this gull moving northward to nest. 

 How far north it goes you may see on the map, by looking up central Alaska, 

 Melville Island, southern Ellesmere Land and Cumberland Sound. In this 

 order of birds, as in the first order, we find stories of great destruction. Take 

 time to read about the former breeding-resorts of the Gulls and Terns and 

 compare them with those now in use. You will learn many surprising facts. 



