The Weapons of Birds 



BY FREDERIC A. LUCAS 



Curator of Comparative Anatomy U. S. National Museum 



IKE the good little boy who figured in the story books of 

 our grandparents, the bird in literature is always gentle 

 and well-behaved; in real life neither the boy nor the 

 bird are quite as peaceable as they might be. It may 

 be treasonable to say it in the columns of Bird-Lore, 

 but the fact is that even the best of birds fight now and 

 then, while some of them are well provided with weapons 

 of offense and defense. Sad to say, Pigeons, those favorite emblems of 

 gentleness, are among the birds that fight most systematically; for they, or 

 at least our domesticated birds, are skilled boxers, feinting, guarding and 

 striking most dextrously with their wings. It might perhaps be pleaded 

 that the manners of the Pigeon have suffered from long association with 

 man, but, unfortunately, one of the species that grew up in total and for- 

 tunate ignorance of man was provided (pity we can not say is) with a spe- 

 cial weapon, a sort of natural slung-shot as it were, in the shape of a knob 

 of bone on the wrist. The wrist of a bird, as most readers of Bird-Lore 

 doubtless know, comes right at the bend of the wing, and there, or there- 

 abouts, is the place where such a weapon would be most effective. 

 (Fig. i.) The bird that wore this knob of bone was the flightless Soli- 

 taire, a big, overgrown, aberrant Pigeon related to the equally aberrant 

 Dodo, though better-looking, 

 and confined to the island of 

 Rodriguez, where years ago the 

 Frenchmen "caught him, and 

 cooked him, and ate him" — 

 quite out of existence. FlG - '■ Part of the winK of the Solitaire 



Francois Leguat, the historian of the Solitaire, to whom we are obliged 

 to turn for all information concerning this bird, wrote that, "The Bone of 

 this Wing grows greater towards the Extemity, and forms a little round 

 mass under the Feathers as big as a musket, ball. They will not suffer any 

 other Bird of their Species to come within two hundred Yards round of the 

 Place; But what is very singular, is, the Males will never drive away the 

 Females, only when he perceives one he makes a noise with his Wings to 

 call the Female, and she drives the unwelcome Stranger away, not leaving 

 it 'till 'tis without her Bounds. The Female does the same as to the 

 Males and he drives them away. We have observed this several Times and 

 I affirm it to be true." 



"The Combats between them on this occasion last sometimes pretty 

 long, because the Stranger only turns about and do's not fly directly from 



(182) 



