46 



THE OOLOGI&T. 



Devoted to Birds and Birds' Eggs 



THIRD PUBLICATION YEAR. 



S. L. WILLAED, EDITOR, 



Assisced by able Associate Editors. 



TERMS: 

 Forty cents a Tear in advance, postage paid. 



Items on Ornitliology and Oology solicited. 



^^Tliose wishing to dispose of birds' eggs 

 or skins will find The Oologist the best 

 means of communicating the fact to a lorge 

 class of collectors of any paper published. 

 Specimen copy for stamp. 



Address all communications to 



THE OOLOGIST, 

 Oneida Street, Utica, jST. Y. 



AUGUST, 1877. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF SIGHT 

 AND HEARING IN BIRDS. 



A VERY prevalent impression among 

 many people who have remarked the 

 extraordinary shyness of certain birds, is 

 that they have an over-acute sense of smell. 

 The Common Crow is credited by most 

 farmers' boys, and by many farmers them- 

 selves, with an unusually well developed 

 olfactory organ, asserting in inost positive 

 terms, their susceptibility of the scent of 

 recently discharged gunpowder. The Great 

 Blue Heron is also supposed by many who 



have hunted it, to have a very high sense 

 of smell, and it does sometimes seem as if 

 it could not be otherwise, for the methods 

 employed in approaching this bird are in 

 many cases so stealthy and covered, that 

 it appears impossible for the bird to have 

 perceived the movement except by scent. 

 But this is not the case. Birds are pos- 

 sessed, as a general thing, of a very feeble 

 olfactory perception, but to balance this, 

 its sense of hearing or sight or both are more 

 than ordinarily developed. It was for a long 

 time supposed that the Vulture possessed 

 very great powers of scent, but the observa- 

 tions of Audubon and others have proven that 

 it is by sight this bird perceives its prey. We 

 cannot of course, assert an immoderate de- 

 ficiency in their perception by scent, for a 

 few experiments with a confined rapacious 

 bii'd will show that it is considerably devel- 

 oped, though in an inverse ratio with its 

 more perfect sight and hearing. 



The sense of hearing is secondary in most 

 birds to that of sight, and when both the 

 auricular and olfactory organs are not as 

 well developed as iisual, the sense of sight 

 is very acute. The Crow is provei'bially 

 timid of the sight of a gun, and if its glis- 

 tening barrel be seen through the foliage of 

 a tree or bush, it is off at once ; but on sev- 

 eral occasions, our gun having been recent* 

 ly discharged, and giving out an almost in- 

 tolerable odor of gunpowder, by using pre- 

 cautions against being seen or heard, we 

 have approached within easy range of Crows 

 that had been repeatedly harassed and fired 

 at. It cannot be denied that certain rapa- 

 cious birds, notably the Hawks {Falcoii- 

 idce), have a well developed hearing, for 

 the different and multiplied artifices inef- 

 fectually employed for the destruction of 

 these birds, indicate that some other acute 

 sensibility than that of sight must have been 

 predominant. The faculties of sight and 

 hearing in birds might to many who have 

 pursued them seem unreasonably highly de- 

 veloped by the foregoing, but one consider- 

 ation is, that many birds, at least the larger 

 ones, employ much of their time in guard- 

 ing themselves from injury, and these fac- 



