AGES OF BIRDS. 89 



Ages of Birds. 



Among birds the swan lives to be the oldest, in extreme 

 cases reaching 300 years. The falcon has been known to 

 live 162 years. An eagle died in 1819 which had been 

 caught 104 years before and was then quite old. A white 

 headed vulture, which was caught in 1706, died in the avi- 

 ary at Schonbrun, near Vienna, in 1824. Parrots live 

 more than a century. Water birds have a long life, ex- 

 ceeding that of several generations of men. Ravens also 

 live over a hundred years. 



In captivity, magpies live from twenty to twenty-five 

 years, and still longer in freedom. The common he.n at- 

 tains the age of from fifteen to twent}' 5-ears. Doves live 

 ten years and the little singing birds from eight to seven- 

 teen years. The nightingale's life is the shortest, ten 

 years being the longest, and next comes the blackbird, 

 which never lives longer than fifteen years. — Wilmington^ 

 N. C, Star. 



A Bird's Queer Death Song. 



There is a queer bird in the jungles of northern South 

 America w^hich is called the " pauji " by the natives, but 

 is known to science as the galeated curasson. It is chief- 

 ly remarkable because it sings its own death song. 



It does not really sing, but makes a deep humming noise, 

 which sounds very much like the Spanish words ' ' El 

 muerto esta aqui " — " The corpse lies here." 



"It is while uttering this lugubrious chant," said a 

 South American traveler, " that the ' pauji ' usually meets 

 its death, for the hunter can easily track it to its retreat, 

 and it falls a victim, as the Indians say, to its own death 

 song." 



