13 



THE OSPREY. 



THE OSPREY. 



An Illustrated Magazine of Birds and Nature. 

 Published Monthly, except in July and .\ugust. 



EDITED BY 



WALTER ADAMS JOHNSON 

 .\SSOCI.4TEli WITH 



Dr. ELLIOTT COUES. 



Notes and News of a relevant nature, and original contrib- 

 utions are respecttuily solicited, and should be addressed 

 to the editor at the office of publication, 



Cop> right i8y7. by The Osprey Co, Fntered as second- 

 class mail matter, at the New York, N. Y,, Postoffi^ e, 

 March 2, i8g8, 



THE OSPREY COMPANY, 

 141 E.4ST 2sTH Street, - . . New York City. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



Our soldiers campaigning in Cuba have found 

 much to fill tliem witli horror and dispel from 

 their minds any lingering illusions as to the glory 

 of war; but nothing has more shocked and dis- 

 gusted them than the part played by the vul- 

 tures. Every skirmisli which left the bodies 

 of friend and foe lifeless in the dense underbrush 

 was to these birds the occasion for a veritable 

 feast, and they were not slow to avail themselves 

 of the opportunity. It was not long before the 

 American soldiers learned what the sudden ap- 

 pearance of these birds hovering over the chap- 

 paral meant, and the thought of what lay below 

 and of the purpose of these winged scavengers 

 filled them with disgust, Alany times they tried 

 to kill or drive them away and interrupt their 

 horrible work, but the birds were not to be de- 

 nied. One of the Rough Riders, writing home 

 after the fi.ghting at Baiquiri,' told of these birds 

 and of the effect of their appearance upon tlie 

 men. One of his comrades, who had borne him- 

 self bravely in the presence of the enemy, went 

 into violent hysterics at the sight of the buzzards 

 and the thought of their disgusting mission. 

 Had the men only known, the birds, instead of 

 being their enemies, were, in reality, invaluable 

 allies. In the thick growth of vegetation that 

 clothes many of the hillsides and valleys of Cuba, 

 the work of t'^'c burial parties is slow and diffi- 

 cult, and bodies are often nverlookeu in the 

 search. The keen senses of the buzzard lead him 

 unerringly to the spot. In many cases his work, 

 nauseating and disgusting as it must be to con- 

 template, is the means of preserving the health 

 and strength of many of our soldiers. 



About a year ago an enterprising newspaper 

 man got u" a "fake" account of the extinction of 

 the Wild Pigeon, which was widely copied, and 

 still occasionally crops out in rural newspapers. 

 In this article the Smithsonian Institution was 

 made to offer large rewards for specimens and 

 to make strenuous efforts to find living bird^. 

 but all in vain, and the species was pronounced 

 extinct. Many letters, from various sections of 

 the country, were received bv the Institution, 

 some askine about the size of the reward, others 

 .giving information nbout localities where live 

 lairds mi.ght be found, some correspondents hgd 

 seen the birds recently, others wrote for direc- 

 tions to enable them to distinguish pigeons from 

 doves. -A man on Cape Cod sent a INIournin.g 



Dove in the flesh and wished the reward sent 

 him by return mail. .-Xnotlier said large number..; 

 uf Wild Pigeons were still to be found in Oregor» 

 and California, and other localities equally out 

 of the range of the species — even Brazil and the 

 West Indies — were given by various writers. 

 One shrewd individual knew where the birds were 

 in abundance, but could disclose the locality only 

 upon receipt of the reward. Finallv. as a result 

 of this widely-circulated newspaper misinforma- 

 tion, the Smithsonian collections have lieen in- 

 creased by a single immature Wild Pigeon, a gift 

 from Mr. J. G. Taylor, of Owensboro, Ky., who 

 obtained it July 27, 1898, about two miles east 

 of that place. 



A new $5,000 monkey house has recently been 

 opened to the public in Central Park, of New 

 York City. Superintendent John B. .Smith has 

 purchased eleven additional monkeys, and now 

 has a collection of forty-five in assorted sizes of 

 monkeys and baboons. There is in the collec- 

 tion a large, muscular, and pugnacious Rhesus 

 monkey, "John L.." by name, who occupies a 

 cage by himself, havin.g killed three monkeys put 

 in the cage to keep him company. He has been 

 eighteen years in the Central Park Zoo. an un- 

 usually long period, as the average life of a 

 monkey in captivity is four years. 



Not long ago Charles W. Richmond, of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, had occasion to com- 

 pile a list of birds of the Hawaiian Islands, and 

 found the total to be ninety-seven species, of 

 which seven or eight are already extinct, with 

 several others nearly so, and the remainder 

 doomed. This list does not include introduced 

 birds, of which there are several, like the Eng- 

 lish Sparrow, California Quail, House Finch. 

 Mynah (Acridotlicres tristis), etc. 



Among their extensive list of fall announce- 

 ments the Doubleday & McClure Company have 

 three nature books. Besides "Birds That Hunt 

 and .Are Hunted," w'hich we have mentioned as 

 a companion volume to "Bird Neighbors," there 

 are "Flashlights on Nature," life histories of 

 familiar insects and plants, bv Grant .\llen, and 

 "The Butterfly Book," by W,'j, Holland, LL,D,, 

 with hundreds of examples in colored plates, 



W, B. Richardson, the well-known bird col- 

 lector, is spending a few weeks at his home in 

 Boston. Mr. Richardson has made extensive 

 collections in the West Indies, Mexico, and Cen- 

 tral .America, during the past ten years, princi- 

 pally for Mr. Cory and Messrs. Salvin and God- 

 man. Of late he has been occupied with his 

 coffee plantation at Matagalpa, Nicaragua. 



According to the London "Field." last winter 

 a fisherman observed a small bird on the back of 

 a sea-gull; but when the gull came near the boat, 

 it flew off, and tried to perch on the mast. It 

 was evidently dead-tired, but eventually got on 

 board, where the fisherman gave it shelter, and 

 restored it to the land. 



Dr. Edgar .A. Mearns and First Lieutenant 

 Jno. W, Daniel, Jr., are leaving for Puerto Rico, 

 where, when duty lets them off, they expect to 

 collect and write in collaboration touching the 

 avi-fauna of the island. 



G. F. Dippie. of Toronto. Canada, has been 

 spending several months on a natural history 

 expedition into .Alberta, Northwest Canada. 



