72 ORIZABA GROUP 
thus the series not only depicts characteristic bird-life of North America, 
but characteristic American scenery as well. The backgrounds of the 
groups were painted by Bruce Horsfall, Charles J. Hittell, J. Hobart 
Nichols, Carl Rungius, W. B. Cox and Louis A. Fuertes. The foliage 
and flowers were reproduced in the Museum laboratories from material 
collected in the localities represented. Each group is fully described 
in the label attached to the case. [See Guide Leaflet No. 28.] Beginning 
with the case at the right of the entrance and passing on to the right 
around the hall, we find the groups arranged in the following sequence: 
The distribution of birds, notwithstanding their powers of flight, is 
limited in great measure by climate. Thus in traveling 
from Panama north to Greenland there are zones of bird- 
life corresponding to the zones of temperature. This con- 
dition is illustrated on the mountain of Orizaba in Mexico, where in 
traveling from the tropical jungle at its base to its snow-clad peak the 
naturalist finds zones of life comparable with those to be found in travel- 
ing north on the continent. Thus the Orizaba group so far as the dis- 
tribution of life is concerned is an epitome of ail the groups in the hall. 
Among our most beautiful and graceful shore-birds are the terns and 
gulls, which (because of their plumage) have been so cease- 
lessly hunted and slaughtered for millinery purposes that 
now in their breeding-places there are only hundreds where 
formerly there were thousands. The group represents a section of an 
island off the Virginia coast where the birds are now protected by law. 
The duck hawk may be found nesting on the Palisades of the Hudson 
almost within the limits of New York City. It builds 
nests on the ledges of the towering cliffs. This hawk is 
a near relative of the falcon which was so much used for 
hunting in the Middle Ages. It often comes into the City for pigeons. 
In August and September the meadows and marshlands in the 
vicinity of Hackensack, New Jersey, are teeming with 
ee mca bird-life. In the group showing these Hackensack 
Group meadows are swallows preparing to migrate southward, 
bobolinks or “rice birds”? in autumn plumage, red-winged 
blackbirds, rails, wood ducks and long-biled marsh wrens. 
The wild turkey is a native of America and was once abundant in 
the wooded regions of the eastern portion of the United States, but is 
now very rare. It differs slightly in color from the Mexiean bird, the an- 
cestor of our common barnyard turkey, which was intro- 
duced from Mexico into Europe about 1530 and was 
Orizaba 
Group 
Cobb’s Island 
Group 
Duck Hawk 
Group 
Wild Turkey 
Group 
brought by the colonists to America. (Reproduced from 
studies near Slaty Forks, West Virginia.) 

