Bird Welfare- 



W orkers in Session 



Some Notes' of the A. 0. 0. Congress at 

 Cambridge 



BT WINTHROP PACKARD 



THIS week surely the Cambridge 

 birds, such at least as modern 

 progress has left us, should ha 

 sung their best songs in jubilant 

 chorus, for the best friends they have 

 among men were assembled in the Univer- 

 sity City. The American Ornithologists' 

 Union held its thirtieth stated meeting 

 there, converging several hundred strong 

 from all parts of the Union and making 

 a week of it. Daily there was poured 

 forth upon the members, their associates 

 and friends, such wit and wisdom of bird 

 lore as has been accumulated by the en- 

 thusiastic students of bird life during the 

 past year, the store appealing to the eye as 

 well as to the ear, for the stereopticon 

 did its share in making the matter in- 

 structive and interesting. 



Ornithologists of more than national 

 prominence related results of explorations 

 and investigations, such men as Frank M. 

 Chapman, curator of the Museum of Nat- 

 ural History at New York, editor of Bird 

 Lore and author of many standard bird 

 books; Edward Howe Forbush, State orni- 

 thologist of Massachusetts, widely known 

 as a lecturer on the economic value of 

 bird life and the author of several scien- 

 tific works on the subject; A. C. Bent, 

 secretary of the Bristol County Academy 

 of Sciences, to whom has been entrusted 

 by the National Government the comple- 

 tion of the monumental work on "Life His- 

 tories of North American Birds," which 

 was begun by Captain Bendlre ; Dr. George 

 W. Field, biologist and lecturer, chairman 

 of the Massachusetts Fish and Game Com- 

 mission ; Herbert K. Job of East Haven, 

 Conn., author and lecturer on birds ; Pro- 

 fessor C. F. Hodge of Worcester, natur- 

 alist and author; T. Gilbert Pearson of 

 New York city, secretary of the National 

 Association of Audubon Societies, and a 

 host of others of fame as_ ornithologists, 

 not forgetting a number o'f women bird 

 lovers whose names had equal prominence 

 on the programme. 



Most of the papers were either earnest 

 discussions of scientific topics or of some 

 phase of welfare work for birds. Joh spoke 

 of the propagation and restoration of Amer- 

 ican wild fowl. Dr. Field described and 

 Illustrated the present status of the heath 

 hen. Chapman pictured his investigations 

 Into the bird life of Colombia, South Amer- 

 ica. Bent and Dr. Charles W. Townsend of 

 Boston gave notes on Labrador and the 

 birde found in their explorations there. 

 Forbush described and pictured his recent 

 investigations into the condition of the 

 bobolink in the South. The Okefinokee 

 Swamp in southern Georgia had been bio- 

 logically investigated, and the investigators 

 told about it, with maps and lanterns slides. 

 Pearson described the present breeding 

 range of the much slaughtered white egrets 

 of the United States. And so it went. The 

 Western Hemisphere has been pretty well 

 investigated by these scientists, so far as 

 Its bird life is concerned, during the past' 

 year, and they put the results of their 

 investigations to the critical tests of ecru- 

 tiny and discussion by their brother scien- 

 tists. 



Of equal, perhaps even greater, interest to 

 laymen were other papers on simpler 

 phases of the bird question, such as "Queer 

 Nesting Sites of the House Wren," "The 

 Nest Life of the Sparrow Hawk." and es- 

 pecially one on "Concealing Action of the 

 Bittern," which savors as much of hocus- 

 pocus as it does of science, and which I am 

 minded to relate, though I cannot put It as 

 well as did the observer, Professor Walter 

 Barrows of East Lansing, Mich. 



The narrator told of a bittern, Botaurus 

 lentiginosus, which lighted in the shallows 

 of. a reed-margined pond of small area 

 and forthwith and on the spot disappeared. 

 Though he and another man -made a jmto — 

 plete circuit of the little pond, looking with 

 all their eyes for this two-foot long bird 

 which had been seen to alight in It, the 

 bittern they could not see. As they were 

 about to give up the search he suddenly 

 materialized in just about the spot where 

 he had been seen to alight but where they 

 had previously looked for him in vain. The 

 explanation of this, as given by the narra- 

 tor, was the habit of the bittern, well 

 known to ornithologists, of, when alight- 

 ing in a new place where enemies might 

 lurk suddenly turning itself into the sem- 

 blance, of a gray, upright stake. The bird 

 stands stiffly ereet. Its feathers drawn In 

 to its body, Its bill pointing to the sky, 

 and Its gray-brown plumage harmonizing 

 perfectly with any reeds or stumps among 

 which It has alighted.. That is. the bittern 

 "froze," as they say, and was not to be 

 distinguished aimong the reeds which it 

 somewhat resembled. 



But that's not the story. If it were It 

 probably would not have been told. After 

 they saw the bittern he continued stilt and 

 erect, and, while the water was calm and 

 unruffled, still motionless. But when the 

 wine blew and swayed the reeds this bit- 

 tern, with a finesse quite astonishing, 

 swayed with the reeds, making himself an 

 impersonal part of their lifelessness, which 

 almost had the effect of effacing him from 

 the view of the watchers even while their 

 eyes were fixed on him. To the mere layman 

 in ornithological matters this story brought 

 a brief breathless silence, but another ob- 

 scrvei hastened to confirm it with testi- 

 mony of having seen another bittern In a 

 far distant State do something much Ilk* 

 this one of Michigan and the tension was 

 relieved. There was some discussion as 

 to whether the bittern in this instance was 

 not swayed by the same wind that swayed 

 the reeds, but it was finally decided that 

 he acted with intentional cunning to pro- 

 mote his concealment. 



Another rather interesting adventure in 

 looal bird observation told how the antics 

 of a moving picture concern brought flocks 

 of hitherto unheard of shore birds to a 

 York State pond some hundreds of miles 

 inland— that is, shore birds hitherto un- 

 heard of in that locality. The biograph 

 people rehearsed a tragedy. They had the 

 lover and the lady drowned in the lake. 

 Then they had the frantic search for the 

 bodies, the draining of the lake and the 

 finding of stuffed dummies in the mud of 

 the bottom. All very realistic and amus- 

 ing for the jaded frequenters of the moving 

 picture theatres, without doubt. But see 

 how little we know what is going on in 

 the air over our heads while we rehearse 

 tragedies and drain hitherto undrained 

 ponds. The mud of the pond bottom was 

 no sooner bare than flocks of shore birds 

 began to drop in from the sky. There 

 were knots, red-backed sandpipers, stilts 

 and sanderlings, and turnstones, and the 

 bird lovers of the neighborhood had a treat 

 that thev would have had to eo at least 



three hundred miles, to Coney Island or 

 the Jersey coast for, if there had been no 

 moving picture concern. As Mrs. Wiggs 

 used to say, "We never know which way 

 happiness is coming." 



The paper on the work of the Bird Band- 

 ing Association brought out some interest- 

 ing stories, too. This association under- 

 takes to put on the legs of as many birds 



as possible' a "light, aluminum band, bear- 

 ing a number and a request to report to 

 The Auk, which is the organ of the A. O. 

 U„ if the bird is recaptured. Usually blr,ds 

 that are just maturing are taken from the 

 nest before they can fly and thus banded. 

 The bird is then returned to the nest and 

 forgets the band, but for all Its life carries 

 with it an identification mark which is re- 

 corded in the annals of the association. 

 This work has been carried on In a large 

 way on the continent of Europe for many 

 vears, and has greatly extended the knowl- 

 edge of the migration routes of various 

 birds Last year 11,400 of these bands 

 were put on birds in England alone. In 

 America, since the work was begun, only 

 2300 have been used, but the association is 

 planning to greatly increase this. Eight 

 hundred birds were banded last year. 



As yet no results of great importance 

 have resulted from this work, but some 

 interesting things have happened. Ernest 

 Harold Baynes, general manager of the 

 famous Merlden Bird Club of Meriden. 

 N. H., two years ago one June day found 

 a chimney swift in his front room, the 

 bird having gone from its nest down chim- 

 ney instead of up. He promptly banded 

 it and sent it up chimney again, A ytar 

 and eight days afterward he again found a 

 chimney swift fluttering about the same 

 room. He caught it and examined the leg. 

 There, sure enough, was the aluminum band 

 with the number on it, 6326, proving be- 

 yond a doubt that this was the same 

 bird that had visited him a little over a ; 

 year before. Enough records of this sort 

 will prove beyond a peradventure what we 

 already think- we know, that the same 

 good old chimney swifts come back to the 

 same good old chimneys to nest year after 

 year. So, eventually It will be proved — or 

 disproved— of other birds by this banding 

 method. 



One great work of the A. O. U. Is the 

 Check-List of North American' birds, in 

 which it takes care to correctly scientifical- 

 ly name every species of bird that is found, 

 even casually, within the limits of the 

 continent. It gives as well the common 

 names and the range of each species and 

 sub-species and is the last authority ou 

 such matters. 



These are a few of the multiple activi- 

 ties of the A. O. U. It scientifically ex- I 

 amines the bird life of the continent each 

 year, classifying, tabulating and naming. It 

 studies the migrating, nesting and all other 

 habits of the birds of the continent, bands 

 them, photographs them, makes millions of 

 field notes and publishes the more impor- 

 tant of them, and works patiently for 

 scientific and friendly knowledge of bird 

 life, doing a work which is really of great 

 economic importance at Its own expense. 

 And once a year the members meet for a 

 congress in some city. Boston was favored 

 this year, in that the conference was held 

 practically within Its limits, at the Uni- 

 versity Museum at Cambridge, and the 

 general public were invited and did not fail 

 to respond. 



