158 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



attempts of the handicapped suitor to spread an imaginary tail 

 and declare his everlasting devotion prevailed. He was accepted, 

 and the pair vv^ere inseparable until the nest was finished and the 

 duck began sittting on her eleven eggs. 



Turning from the birds in the collection to our wild native 

 birds which make the Park their home, or pay it frequent visits, 

 we find much of interest in their changed habits and dispositions. 

 The sight of so many birds flying unharmed in the flying cages 

 or walking about their ranges or swimming on the various 

 ponds undisturbed, although in close proximity to man, is fraught 

 with significance to the quick perceptions of wild birds, large and 

 small. Their keen perceptions and superior powers of intelligence 

 tell them that such unwonted altruistic conditions must offer 

 advantages. 



The almost immediate recognition of their security in the Park 

 is remarkable, and birds which seldom show themselves within 

 sight of civilization have come again and again, and exhibited 

 a tameness which deceives many people into thinking they must 

 be escaped birds. The honored visitation of Canada geese will 

 long testify to the truth of this. Wild sea-gulls quite often drop 

 from their loose flocks passing overhead, and consort for a few 

 days with their wing-clipped kindred. When they leave, the 

 young gulls which have been hatched in the Park usually ac- 

 company them, but return in a few hours to their home and 

 flock. Ducks, herons, and hawks show as quick a realization of 

 their immunity from danger in the Park. 



Green herons creep like feathered phantoms among the 

 branches of the trees overhanging the water, while great blue- 

 and black-crowned night herons, forgetting all shyness, clamber 

 over the arches of the big flying cage in broad daylight, and in 

 sight of hundreds of people, peering down at their brethren in- 

 side and uttering envious quawks as they see the bountiful repast 

 of fish and shrimps prepared for those fortunate ones. 



The treatment of the tame crows raised from the nest by their 

 wild relations offers an interesting psychological study. Casual 

 notes of mine show that the condition of affairs is about as fol- 

 lows : The tame individuals are a source of great concern to their 

 feral friends. That no gun will be turned against them these 

 wild birds well know, but such utter contempt as familiarity with 

 man has bred in the tame crows — closely superintending every 

 important change of cages or birds, often alighting on the very 

 head or shoulders of the attendants — this the wild crows, viewing 

 from a distance, seem to think is evidence of a disordered mind. 



