THE NIDIOLOGIST 



135 



I. MEXICAN TOUCAN. 



2. OSTRICH. 



Crossbill can boast of a very ornamental bill, 

 but in nature's plan beauty bows to utility. 



In company with the Finches everywhere, 

 during warmer seasons at any rate, wiU be 

 found a host of birds that pay no attention to 

 the seeds which the Finch so sedulously 

 searches after, but pursue and devour insects 

 by hundreds, varying their diet, at most, by an 

 occasional meal of berries. In this group we 

 find Thrushes, Warblers, Larks, Kinglets, 

 Vireos — in short, almost all Oscines that are not 

 Finches. The bills of these birds are slender 

 and soft; it would be quite beyond their power 

 to crush the softest seed, but they are wonder- 

 fully adapted to the very different purpose 

 they are destined to serve. Considered purely 

 as insect traps, however, the perfection of bills 

 is reached in certain groups of birds not in- 

 cluded among the Oscines. The members of 

 this sharply defined group of Flycatchers have 

 broad, flat bills, provided at their base with a 

 network of bristles on either side that must be 

 fairly disheartening to the insects on which 

 they prey; while the Goatsuckers present, 

 when they open their mouths, an even more 

 appalling cavity, also often bristle-guarded, 

 though they seem to have almost no bill at all 

 when the mouth is closed. A Goatsucker with 

 its mouth open is either ludicrous or terrible in 

 the extreme, as the point of view is that of a 

 man or of an insect. 



Mention of the bristlesthat aid these little 

 insect hunters suggests some very different 

 birds whose bills have bristle-like appendages. 

 Certain water fowl, of which the Shoveler Duck 

 is a familiar representative, are supplied with a 

 row of stiff bristles along the sides of the bill, 

 which serve as a sieve, 

 filtering the water that is 

 taken up in great billfuis, 

 and retaining particles of 

 food. The bill of the 

 Shoveler is otherwise re- 

 markable for its shape, be- 

 ing very much broader near 

 the tip than at the base. 



FLAMINGO, 



In this respect it closely 



resembles the bill of that 



wading beauty of the South, 



the Roseate Spoonbill. In 



alluding to the Spoonbill as 



a beauty, exception must be 



made to his bill and head, 



the latter being naked and 



unornamental; but the rest of his body is 



clothed in elegant plumage of a delicate rose 



color, fading to a scarcely tinted white in some 



parts, and deepening almost to scarlet in 



others. 



An even more brilliant wader that is also sup- 

 plied with a remarkable bill is the Flamingo. 

 Reversing the usual proportions, the upper 

 mandible is relatively small and thin, the 

 lower large and thick. But the departure from 

 the rule is understood when we learn that in 

 feeding the bird holds the bill upside down, 

 and the upper mandible is pressed into the mud 

 at the bottoin of the water in which it finds its 

 food. The edges of the Flamingo's mandibles 



1. AMERICAN' WOODCOCK. 



2. AMERICAN AVOCET. 



3. ROSEATE SPOON-BILL. 



4. WOOD IBIS. 



5. LONG-BILLED CURLEW. 



6. RUFFED GROUSE. 



are supplied with little toothlike serrations that 

 serve as filters, being in this respect like the 

 bills of Ducks and Geese. 



Stoddard Goodhue, in 

 Our Animal Friends. 



1. WHITE PELICAN. 



2. WHISTLING SWAN. 



Notes from Haywards, Cal. 



My Vigor's Wren's nest in the gourd came to 

 grief the past week. The wind and hard storm 

 blew it off the nail where it hung and broke all 

 but one egg of the seven. They Avould have 

 hatched this week. The female has gone right 

 to Avork again to repair the nest. Have tied it 

 fast with 'a string to the post, so nothing can 

 get it down now. 



I saw eight California Murres in the bay, 

 April 22, off the mouth of a creek. First time 

 I have ever noted them inside San Francisco 

 Bay. Otto Emerson. 



Haywards, Cal. 



