The American Museum Journal 



Vol. IX JANUARY, 1909 No. 1 



THE DUCK HAWK, HACKENSACK MEADOW AND EGRET GROUPS. 



THE Journal presents this month photographs of three Bird 

 Habitat Groups. Two of these, recently completed, are of 

 special interest to residents of the vicinity of New York City. 

 The first shows the Duck Hawk or Peregrine Falcon as it nests on 

 the Palisades. This Falcon is famed for its fearlessness and strength 

 of wing and talon. Among falconers the Peregrine was rated second 

 only to the Gyrfalcon and no person of lower rank than an earl was 

 permitted to own and fly one of these noble hawks. The Peregrine is 

 found throughout the greater part of the world but is nowhere common. 

 Near New York City it is known to nest only on the less accessible 

 ledges and cliffs of the Palisades and Hudson Highlands. 



The second local group illustrates the bird-life of our Hackensack 

 Meadows in August. Diu-ing this month, and in Septeml)er, these 

 marshes are the home of myriads of birds which come to them to roost 

 and to feed. Swallows of several species are comparatively rare in the 

 marshes during the day, but late in the afternoon they stream in by the 

 thousand, coming from every direction and steering their flight toward 

 some regularly frequented roost in the reeds. They leave early in the 

 morning radiating to all points of the compass to scour the country for 

 food. Red-winged Blackbirds, Bobolinks, now called Reedbirds, and 

 Carolina or Sora Rail are attracted to the marshes by the wild rice which 

 ripens about this time; and the last two are now killed in large numbers. 

 In August the marshes are remarkable not only for their birds but also 

 for their flowers. !Marsh mallows, cardinal flowers, jewel-weed, sagit- 

 taria, ])ickerel weed, loose-strife, wild sunflower, hempweed, vervain, 

 gerardia and many other species l)loom so luxuriantly that one might 

 imagine that nature was holding a flower show. 



The third group shows part of a colony of the White Egret in a 

 flooded cypress forest of South Carolina. This Habitat Group was 

 added to the series early in the year, in fact the history of the accumu- 



