NATURAL HISTORY. 



When a bird or a wild animal is killed, that is the end of it. If photographed, it may still live and its educational 



and scientific value is multiplied indefinitely. 



- CIVILIZATION AND THE BIRDS. 



ROY F. GREENE 



Every student of bird life whose home 

 is in the West, must have noted with 

 interest the effect that civilization and 

 settlement have had on the bird residents 

 of that section. 



In 1885 I first began to notice the feath- 

 ered tribe that haunted the prairies, cliffs 

 and timbered streams in what is now 

 known as the Territory of Oklahoma. I 

 was then living on my father's cattle ranch 

 near the headwaters of Duck creek, a 

 -tributary of the Chicaskia river, in what 

 was then the Cherokee strip, and is now 

 Kay county. This ranch was 25 miles 

 from the nearest town and postoffke, and 

 at least 8 miles from any other ranch : so 

 man's presence did not intrude over much 

 on sylvan quietude. 



Out on the prairies where long horn 

 cattle grazed, the prairie hen made its 

 nest and raised its brood undisturbed, and 

 the lesser prairie hen was by no means 

 an uncommon summer resident. The 

 mountain plover nested abundantly on the 

 wide prairie stretches and the snowy plover 

 frequently raised its young on the alkali 

 wastes and salt plains, a little farther 

 Westward. I learned to know these birds 

 well and frequently took clutches of their 

 eggs, though I look back now with regret 

 at my craze for oology in those days. 



Marsh hawks, ferruginous, rough legs, 

 poor wills, frosted poor wills, night hawks 

 and Western night hawks were common 

 on the prairies in the nesting season. 

 Along the timbered creeks one could find 

 in some high tree or low, some stubby 

 bush or clump of poison vine, the nests of 

 such interesting birds as the Mississippi 

 kite, Cooper's hawk, red tailed hawk, red 

 shouldered hawk, Swainson's hawk, Amer- 

 ican osprey, American long eared owl, and 

 occasionally a bald eagle. 



The vesper sparrow sang his song at 

 dusk far from the haunts of men, and 

 made his nest in a cavity of his own crea- 

 tion. The grasshopper sparrow, Hen- 

 slow's sparrow, lark sparrow and prairie 

 horned lark made the prairies their sum- 

 mer home, and when riding leisurely along 

 on a cow-pony, I have had them fly up 

 gingerly from their nests in the grass 

 clumps only when the horse's hoofs had 

 nearly touched their well hidden clutch of 

 eggs. 



Along the creek trails, flycatchers, 

 Acadian flycatchers, wood pewees and the 

 Western variety of the same, olive-sided 



flycatchers, crested flycatchers, red-eyed 

 vireos, white eyed vireos, Bell's vireos, 

 yellow warblers, yellow breasted chats, 

 long tailed chats, hooded warblers, Ameri- 

 can redstarts, mocking birds, catbirds, 

 brown thrashers, wood thrushes, blue- 

 gray gnat catchers and cardinals held 

 merry carnivals of song, disported them- 

 selves among the tree tops and in the 

 tangled thickets, and raised their little 

 broods without fear of being dispossessed. 



In 1893, only 9 years ago, but worrisome 

 years for the feathered habitants, this 

 prairie country was thrown open to white 

 settlement. The grass lands, the wide 

 prairie ranches, have been bVoken by the 

 plow, and happy homes have been builded, 

 towns and villages have sprung up, roads 

 and bridges have been constructed, and the 

 hand of man has carved the bust of civili- 

 zation from the rough block of Nature. 



Our quiet, unobtrusive birds have de- 

 parted. The English sparrow seems to 

 have been perched on the first settler's 

 wagon that came into the new country. 

 When the homesteader sank to slumber 

 that first night on his virgin claim, the 

 vesper sparrow sang him to sleep; when 

 he awoke next morning the songster's 

 belligerent British cousin had driven the 

 soulful singer into the past. The mock- 

 ingbird, the brown thrasher, the robin and 

 the catbird decided to become civilized 

 and stay. They have met the new condi- 

 tions, and have seemingly prospered as 

 well in the hedge fences as they did in the 

 trees that skirted the prairie streams in 

 the dear, dead years. The bronzed grackle, 

 brewer's black bird, white rumped shrike 

 and barn swallow nest in the settler's or- 

 chard and back yard, while the purple 

 martin fights with the English sparrow for 

 possession of the bird house by the barn. 



The meadow lark still lives in the bit 

 of prairie reserved for cow pasture, or in 

 the fields of wheat; the Bob White, lark 

 sparrow, dandy dickcissel, saucy chipping 

 sparrow and mourning dove have re- 

 mained; but our dearest loved ones have 

 flown, to return perhaps no more. 



The orchard and the Baltimore orioles 

 nest where the vireos and warblers swnng 

 their grassy castles in air back in the 

 used-to-be; the wood thrushes and gnat 

 catchers have been replaced with the chat- 

 tering blue jay and the pugnacious king 

 bird. The scissor-tailed flycatcher, Bell's 

 vireo, the yellow warbler and the long 

 tailed chat are about all that are left us 

 of our old time colony. 



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