THE OOLOGIST 



203 



Birds Famous in History and 

 Mythology. 



Old Abe. 



The Jail-bird. 



Pliny's Dove. 



The Dicky-bird. 



Minerva's Owl. 



Shelley's Shylark. 



The Dove of Peace. 



The Cranes of Ibycus. 



Coleridge's Albatross. 



Bryant's Water-fowl. 



The Immortal Phoenix. 



Jackdaw of Pheinis. 



Sacred Imis of Egypt. 



Barnaby's Rudge's Raven. 



The Great American Hen. 



Robinson Crusoe's Parrot. 



Footless Bird-of-Paradise. 



The Raven released from the Ark. 



The Sacred Ibis of the Stymphal- 

 ides. 



The Raven that fed Elijah in the 

 wilderness. 



The Vulture that preyed upon the 

 liver of Prometheus. 



The Pigeon into which Semiramis 

 was turned into. 



The Peacock that once contained 

 the soul of Pythagoras. 



The Roc which laid an egg as big 

 as an ordinary hogshead. 



The Gray Goose one of the flock 

 whose cackling saved the Roman 

 capitol. Richard F. Miller. 



DR. R. W. SHUFELDT. 



The readers of the Oologist are to 

 be congratulated upon the fact that 

 as prominent and well known scien- 

 tist as Dr. Shufeldt has kindly con- 

 sented to contribute occasional arti- 

 cles for our columns. Dr. Shufeldt is 

 perhaps the best known living Amer- 

 ican Ornithologist and has been quite 

 active with his pen of late. 



THE AUK for October, 1915, con- 

 tains an article by him on "The Fos- 

 sil Remains of an extinct Cormorant 



found in Montana" and also an obit- 

 uary of Dr. Otto Herman. 



NATURE STUDY REVIEW for 

 October, 1915, likewise contains the 

 second installment by the doctor on 

 "Nature Study and the Common 

 Forms of Animal Life." 



THE ANATOMICAL RECORD for 

 October, 1915, is an exhaustive paper 

 on the "Comparative Osteology of 

 certain Rails and Cranes," illustrat- 

 ed. 



In OUR DUMB ANIMALS for Octo- 

 ber, 1915, is an article relating to 

 "The Quarrelsome King Bird" from 

 Dr. Shufeldt's pen, and THE COUN- 

 TRY GENTLEMEN for October, 1915, 

 is embellished by the same author 

 with a splendid appeal "Don't Shoot 

 the Owls," and it will not be long 

 until the contributions from the same 

 pen will be enjoyed by the readers of 

 this magazine. Editor. 



Some Western Birds. 

 BURROWING OWL. 



Theodore Roosevelt gave to this 

 species the descriptive name of 

 "picket pin," and well does it apply. 

 Sitting motionless in the hot sun at 

 the entrance to his burrow, he re- 

 sembles nothing in the world so much 

 as a stake driven into the prairie. 

 The rancher views him with a friend- 

 ly eye, and calls him "Billy Owl." 



His scientific cognomen is Speo- 

 tyto cunicularia hypogaea, and the 

 Check-List gives his range as the 

 Western United States from the Pa- 

 cific Coast to the Missouri River, and 

 from Canada south to Panama, with 

 accidental appearances in New York 

 and Massachusetts. A Southern 

 form, Speotyto cunicularia floridana, 

 is resident in the southern parts of 

 Florida and differs from our bird 

 principally in being smaller and 

 paler. 



North of about the forty-fifth par- 



