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Bird - Lore 



A Bi-tnonthly Magazine 

 Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds 



OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES 



Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN 

 Published by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Vol. VII Published April 1. 1905 



No. 2 



SUBSCRIPTION RATES 



Price in the United States, Canada and Mexico 

 twenty cents a number, one dollar a year, post- 

 age paid. 



COPYRIGHTED, 1905. BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Bird-Lore's Motto; 

 A Bird in the Bush is Worth Two in the Hand 



Bird-Lore's editorial office is at present 

 temporarily established in a photographic 

 observation blind on Pelican Island, Florida, 

 whence the editor, on behalf of the wards 

 of the government and of the Audubon So- 

 cieties, by which he is surrounded, sends 

 greetings to all bird lovers who, directly or 

 indirectly, have made their life one of com- 

 parative security. 



Pelican Island today diflfers from Peli- 

 can Island prior to the establishment of the 

 warden system chiefly in the greater tame- 

 ness of the adult birds and in the scarcity of 

 dead young birds. In 1898, on our first 

 visit to the island, the old birds arose before 

 one was within gunshot and usually alighted 

 in the water some distance offshore, thereto 

 swim about until one had departed or con- 

 cealed oneself. Today one may walk to 

 within thirty feet of sitting birds before they 

 leave the nest, and if one remains still they 

 will soon return. This change is chiefly 

 attributable to the fact that for years not a 

 gun has been fired on Pelican Island, as 

 well, also, to the further circumstance that 

 even unarmed visitors to this natural orni- 

 thological park have not been permitted to 

 wander about at will for an unlimited time, 

 but have been warned by ever-vigilant War- 

 den Kroegel that the birds were not to be 

 unduly disturbed. 



As a result, fewer unfeathered young have 

 succumbed to the sun's rays through the 

 enforced absence of the brooding parent, 

 while birds which had left the nest are not 



driven about until they become lost or 

 exhausted. 



Nevertheless, the colony does not appear 

 to be much larger than it was seven years 

 ago ; high water incident to northers having 

 caused great mortality on several occasions 

 since the birds were protected from human 

 enemies. Warden Kroegel believes that 

 the greater part of the island would now be 

 covered with nesting birds if all but its 

 eastern rim had not been flooded in the 

 latter part of December. Hundreds of 

 young were then drowned, and the lower 

 portion of the island is still thickly dotted 

 with eggs which were washed from the 

 nests. 



Ninety per cent of the birds now nesting 

 on the island occupy the high land of the 

 eastern border. Without knowing of the 

 fate of the birds that nested on the lower 

 ground, one might be led to infer that the 

 birds now nesting had selected their nesting 

 site because of its elevation, whereas they 

 evidently are merely survivors who by good 

 fortune escaped the disaster which befell 

 their neighbors. 



Experience apparently does not teach, and 

 year after year birds nest where they are 

 certain to be swamped when the water 

 rises. 



The possibility of planting the island 

 w'th red mangroves, which might make land 

 as well as furnish nesting sites for the birds, 

 is worthy of consideration. 



The Pelicans take kindly to the observa- 

 tion blind, and from its shelter one can 

 study them at short range. Birds of all 

 ages and voices are within a radius of a few 

 yards, from the grunting, naked, squirming 

 new-born chick, or the screaming, pugna- 

 cious, downy youngster, to the silent, dig- 

 nified, white-headed parent. 



At a glance one may see all the activities 

 of Pelican home- life, nest-building, laying, 

 incubating, feeding and brooding young, 

 bathing, preening, yawning — and the Peli- 

 can yawn is indeed a yawn — sleeping, all 

 may be readily observed from the blind, 

 whence, in truth, one may learn more about 

 Pelican ways in a morning than in days of 

 watching from a distance. — Pelican Island, 

 Florida, March 12, IQO^. 



