524 



HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 



AMERICAN OSPREY. 





our startled eyes. Our dear old friend the 

 Robin, than whom we love none better, joyous- 

 ly accepts our protection, and nests within easy 

 reach of our hands. And only this very spring, 

 even while our men were working in an elephant 

 yard, completing the paving, a Robin built its 

 nest on the frame of the big steel gate of the 

 elephants' fence, that swung within close prox- 

 imity to an active steam roller and a dozen 

 busy men ! And this while the gate daily swung 

 to and fro. Our men were all very proud of 

 this vote of confidence, but alas ! the work had 

 to go on. Just as we feared, the bird found the 

 position untenable, and finally it flew away and 

 built another nest in a less busy spot. Another 

 Robin, with more wisdom, built her nest on one 

 of the corral gates of the Antelope House, and 

 although the gate is opened widely every day 

 for the cart to pass through, she successfully 

 reared her brood. 



AMERICAN BITTERN. 



THE BELTED KINGFISHER. 



The Bluebird still comes to us abundantly 

 in spring, and in the cat-tail marshes along the 

 Hudson and elsewhere, 



"The Red-Wing pipes his o-ka-lee!" 

 just as it has for a hundred years, and we know 

 not how many more. And be it remarked here 

 that amid at least a hundred species of song- 

 birds now kept in the Zoological Park, indoors 

 and out, the Red-Winged Blackbird is the most 

 persistent singer, the most theatrical, and in my 

 opinion very nearly the sweetest singer of them 

 all. In our big outdoor cages, wherein the 

 flocks scarcely know that they are confined, they 

 sing more joyously and persistently than I ever 

 heard them in their own cat-tail marshes. 



