526 



HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 



GREAT BLUE HERON. 



gloriously abundant throughout the valley of the 

 Hudson, but the latter is at most seasons quite 

 rare. In my boyhood days I despised the abun- 

 dance of the Red-Head, and foolishly spurned 

 it; but the cash value of the woodpeckers gen- 

 erally is now understood in a way that it was not 

 forty years ago. 



The owls that hooted in the woods of Manhat- 

 tan Island three hundred years ago still main- 

 tain their lines of descent. In spite of guns, 

 traps and poison, the Great Horned Owl, the 

 Barred and the Screech Owl will not down. 



All three persist today, even in the 

 Borough of the Bronx. Only four 

 years ago I was one night assaulted 

 in Mosholu Parkway by a Screech 

 Owl who rashly leaped to the con- 

 clusion that I was an ornithologist, 

 and therefore dangerous both to her 

 brood and her nest. Half a dozen 

 times she dashed by on angry wing, 

 so close to my face that I feared for 

 my eyes. And it was only last 

 spring that a Barred Owl came to 

 grief in the Zoological Park, in this 

 wise : 



On three successive mornings, the 

 men of the Bird House found that 

 during the night something with sav- 

 age beak and claws had caught sev- 

 eral song birds in the outside cages, 

 through the wire netting, killed them, 

 and partly devoured them. Swear- 

 ing vengeance, the keepers cunning- 

 ly laid a trap on the roof of the 

 cages, consisting of a dead bird neat- 

 ly surrounded with an environment 

 of limed sticks, like a score of lead 

 pencils. In the cold, gray dawn of 

 the morning after, the avengers 

 found, helplessly flopping around on 



the cage roof, the Barred Owl bird-murderer, 



with limed sticks all over him, wondering what 



had happened to him, and why he was quite 



unable to fly. 



Not for long was he left in doubt ; for the 



keepers of song-birds believe in the survival of 



the fittest. 



Throughout the Hudson valley, but not 



counting the Adirondacks, the ground ganie- 



AMER1CAN WOODCOCK. 



WILSON'S SNIPE. 



