PART II. 

 BIRDS AND REPTILES. 



CHAPTER V. 



Rapacious Birds — Bald-headed Eagles stooping on Fish — Similitude 

 between Birds of boreal America, Asia, and Europe — Hawks, Owls — 

 Effects of Climate and Civilization on certain Rapacious Birds — 

 Numerical Estimate of the Migratory and Resident Birds— Effects of 

 Cold and Climate on the inward and outward Economies of Animals 

 and Plants — Results of Climate on certain Indigenous and Foreign 

 Animals and Trees — Pines split by Frost — A Silver Frost — Climate 

 affecting Fruits— Ox-eye Daisy — Crows and Jays — Canada Jay as- 

 suming the Habits of the Kingfisher — The Thrushes — Robin and his 

 Habits — Young Birds Feeding their Companions — Songs of American 

 Thrushes— Catbird, or Carolina Mocking-bird ; its modes of Mimick- 

 ing Sounds — Woodpeckers prospecting rotting Pine Trunks — The 

 Log-cock — Differences in dimension of Species from different Lati- 

 tudes and Longitudes — Birds laying indefinite numbers of Eggs. 



THE rapacious birds observed within our boundaries 

 amount to about thirty species, of which only a few reside 

 throughout the winter, as may be readily surmised considering 

 the climate, and the fact that by far the greater number of the 

 smaller birds are migratory ; but doubtless the former is less 

 a barrier to their appearance in winter than the absence of the 

 latter, and as the extinction of forest and reclamation of land 

 extends, so will the numbers of birds, great and small, increase. 

 Moreover, the hare, as I have shown elsewhere, is now fast 

 attaining the characteristics of the European rabbit, and is as 



