FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July 22, 1905. 
'6 6 
A Cute Curlew. 
New York, July 10 — Editor Forest and Stream: I 
have just come back from a hunting trip to the Rocky 
Mountains, and though I failed to get the bear I was 
looking for I had some good fishing, and saw a number 
of things that were of great interest to me. Among 
these was the nuptial strutting of the dusky grouse and 
of the fool hen, both of which performances were new 
to me. I was interested, too, by something told me by 
one of the natives who came into our camp one night, 
carrying a bird with him which he called a female willow 
grouse, the bird being a female dusky grouse. He 
dressed it at our camp, and I was sorry tO' see that it 
was full of eggs, one of them about ready to be laid. The 
man said that he had gone out to get a bird for a sick 
member of his family, had come upon this bird strutting 
on a log witb dragging wings and expanded tail, and, 
supposing from its actions that it was a male, had killed 
it. He said that if he had known it to be a female he 
would not have shot it. 
Coming back over the prairie we passed by many little 
ponds about which there were waterfowl of one sort and 
another, a few ducks, but many waders, and among them 
avocets and curlews. 
We are all aware that many of the sandpipers, like 
some of the grouse, feign injury for the purpose of lead- 
ing enemies away from their nests and young, and most 
of us, 1 think, at one time or another of our life have 
been deceived by these simulated injuries and have fol- 
lowed the parent, making its effort to draw us away 
from its young a successful one. 
Not far from a pond which we passed, I saw a very 
large sickle bill curlew alight on the ground and stagger 
about, and then rising on the wing, take a short flight. 
As the bird flew, I noticed something moving on the 
ground near it, and at once recognized this animal as a 
kit fox. which was pursuing the bird. The bird took a 
short flight, and the fox made a swift rush after it, and 
as it lowered its flight, sprang into the air in -the effort 
to seize it. The bird was a little too high for the fox, and 
seeming frightened by the attack scaled on a little fur- 
ther, and then once more came down nearly to the 
ground, and the fox again made a swift rush toward it, 
but before reaching it the bird fluttered forward once 
more and again escaped. This continued for a long dis- 
tance, until finally the bird and the fox were quite a 
distance from me; so far, in fact, that I could not have 
told what either was. When they passed out of my sight 
the curlew was still coming down near to the ground 
every few yards, and the fox was still making rushes 
and trying to seize it. On the edge of the pond which 
we passed a few moments later, stood another curlew, 
apparently not interested in the proceedings at all. It 
seemed clear to me that the curlew was occupied in 
toling the fox away from its nest or its young, and cer- 
tainly the bird appeared to succeed admirably and to 
be wholly deceiving the fox. J. J. W., Jr. 
Zoological Parkis New Bird House 
The new bird house, which has just been opened in 
•the New York Zoological Society’s Park, is a beautiful 
building and admirably adapted to the uses for which it 
is intended. There are abundant room, light and air, the 
cages are large, and arrangements have been made to 
have the houses full of growing plants, so that the birds’ 
surroundings will be very natural in appearance. The 
building consists of two large halls built in an L, one of 
which is sixty-five feet long by fifty feet wide, its great- 
est. height being thirty-six feet. The roof is of ribbed 
glass, so that the building is really like a great conserva- 
tory, and when filled with the plants and vines, the effect 
will be very beautiful. There are mo less. than thirty- 
four large windows in the hall, besides which a large 
part of the roof can be raised at one end so that there 
will never be any lack of air. The exhibition cages which 
line the halls are very large, from nine to twelve feet in 
height and from four to eight feet square, Each is pro- 
vided with a separate drinking cup and bathing basin fed 
by individual water pipes. The central perches are small 
trees. ■ ' . ' ^ 
In the middle of the great hall is a flying cage thirty- 
six feet long, fifteen feet wide and about twenty feet 
high. In it is a large bathing pool, fed by a fountain, the 
depth of the water varying from to 4 inches. Besides 
the indoor cages are nineteen outdoor cages in which the 
hardier birds may be kept all the year round. The total 
number of cages' in the building is eighty. _ The mesh of 
the cage wire is as large as possible, consistent with the 
size of the birds confined in the cage, and wherever it is 
possible the wires are vertical and horizontal, thus inter- 
fering as little as possible with the spectators’ view. 
As in some of the other buildings at the Zoological 
Park, the doors of the cages are all at the back, and open 
into a keeper’s passage which extends around the entire 
building. This arrangement adds much to the conveni- 
ence of feeding and watering the birds and cleansing 
their cages, and enables the keepers, to get at them with- 
out disturbing visitors who may be in front of Jhem. 
Dumb-waiters running from the cellar carry supplies to 
the upper floors, and a tunnel leading from without into 
the cellar enables needed material to be brought by cart 
or wagon into the building, and refuse to be carted away 
without being seen. At the north end of the building is 
the Curator’s office, and above this a glass roofed labora- 
tory. At the south end of the building are rooms for 
keepers and for feed, and above these other rooms which 
may be used as hospitals or as breeding places. 
Although the bird house already holds many interest- 
ing and beautiful birds there is yet room for many others. 
One of the large halls has been called the parrot room 
because it will be largely devoted to the most beautiful 
birds of this class, : yet it is not intended to attempt to 
bring together a very large series of parrots, which, how- 
ever great their beauty, are so noisy as to make them dis- 
agreeable to many people. 
An effort will be made to secure a large and typical col- 
lection of North American birds, and already Mr. Beebe 
has secured a very considerable representation of our 
more familiar birds. In one cage may be found such 
beautiful native species as the bobolink, the orchard and 
Baltimore orioles, the scarlet tanager, rose-breasted gros- 
beak, red-winged blackbird and others of our bright 
plumaged but familiar birds. Another is occupied by 
birds hatched this year but now of full size, such as 
robins, brown thrashers, catbirds and a number of other 
species familiar to all bird lovers. 
The bright colored finches from Africa and other dis- 
tant lands will, no doubt, attract more attention from 
the uninformed public than our own more soberly colored 
species, which, tO' many of us, are so interesting be- 
cause more familiar, and because they are native birds. 
These old-world species are of all sizes and shapes and 
colors, and are so curious and beautiful that each one 
would well pay careful study. The beautiful Japanese 
robin, a relative of the English robin redbreast, but not 
of our robin, is one of the notable exotics here. Its soft 
gray plumage is charmingly variegated with red and 
yellow, and, unlike most birds of brilliant plumage, it 
has a beautiful song. Foreign birds are here in great 
numbers — all that we have heard of and many that we 
have never heard of before. The central flying cage is 
to be occupied by little ducks, among them our own teal, 
the garganey teal of Europe, a tree duck from the Philip- 
pine Islands, which is much like one of those that enters 
the United States from the south, a pair of young 
flamingos, terns, a skimmer or two, some rails and for- 
eign gallinules. These terns have an odd and interesting 
history. Some years ago Mr. Beebe went south to visit 
certain bird rookeries on the Virginia coast and brought 
back with him a number of eggs of terns, gulls and skim- 
mers. Some of these eggs, put in an incubator, hatched 
out, and the birds were reared by hand and now seem to 
be well and as contented as can be. The skimmer, with 
his curious bill, the under mandible of which projects 
three or four inches beyond the upper, has taught him- 
self lessons of captivity and feeds here without difficulty. 
In the bird house there are a great multitude of doves 
and pigeons, some of them no larger than a sparrow, 
others almost as large as a hen turkey — the crown 
pigeons. Some are dressed in the dullest, soberest gray, 
others — the fruit pigeons — brilliant with an iridiscence 
which shines like metal. The odd blood-breasted 
dove from Luzon, in the Philippines, bears in the midst 
of the white feathers of its breast a curious drop-shaped 
spot of deep crimson which fades away at the edges and 
looks precisely as if the feathers were stained with blood, 
so as to remind one a little bit of the old-time pictures of 
the pelican, which was supposed to nourish its young on 
blood drawn from its own breast. The plumed dove 
from northwestern Australia very closely resembles a 
quail in appearance and in habit. Its life is spent almost 
wholly on the ground. 
Among the many recent arrivals of East Indian birds 
are two concave casque hornbills, singular for the size 
of their bills and heads, and for their general ungainli- 
ness. 
Of birds interesting to sportsmen there are the franco- 
lins, pheasants, tinanious and the curious horned 
screamer. A pair of these birds are very striking. They 
stand high on the legs and except for feet and bill remind 
one somewhat of the geese to which they are allied. They 
are from South America. One species lives in the swamps 
and lagoons of Argentina. Though not web-footed they 
swim readily enough, and though rising from the ground 
slowly and with difficulty their powers of flight are great 
and they are fond of soaring in 'spiral circles to great 
heights, almost disappearing from sight. A curious char- 
acteristic of this bird is, that its body seems to be covered 
under the skin by a thin layer of air which, when the 
skin is pressed, causes an odd crackling noise to be 
heard. From the loud cry which the birds utter they are 
called screamers, and some of them bearing on their 
wings strong sharp spurs or horns have been called 
horned screamers. When tamed and associating with 
domestic fowls they are said to be useful in protecting 
them from the attacks of hawks. 
Far from the screamers, both in the zoological system 
and in the land which they inhabit, are a pair of black- 
footed penguins from the coast of South Africa. They 
are small birds, not larger than a duck, black above and 
chiefly white below, sitting and walking absolutely up- 
right and holding their flippers— wings — a little out from 
their body. They walk with something of the waddle 
that may be seen in the gait of a man of extraordinary 
fetness. In diving for food they do not enter the 
water head first, but fall off the shelf or rock on which 
they are standing, striking the water on the breast and 
at once disappearing diagonally under it in search of 
food. The wings are the chief means of progression 
under the water, and little bubbles of air seem to rise 
constantly from the body. After coming up out of the 
water the birds shake themselves and erect their feathers, 
which, as they stand on end, look not in the least like 
feathers but like coarse hair. There is a curious similar- 
ity in actions and in appearance between these birds and 
the seals. 
Over in the ostrich house are a number of other new 
and larger birds which are interesting. Of three casso- 
waries one is said to be from the extreme north cape of 
Australia, another from the Island of Ceram, near New 
Guinea; there are also two young emus from Australia, 
the first young ones, we believe, that the Society has had. 
The cassowaries live in the forest and the emus in the 
open grassy plains. Both are large birds and yet they 
are very different in color and in general appearance. 
The emus are grayish, while the cassowary is almost 
black, with highly colored wattles on his neck and a tall 
helmet of horn covering the head. As in most of the 
birds in which the breast bone, or sternum, lacks a keel, 
the wing has almost disappeared in both birds, but ,on 
the other hand they are tremendously swift runners, and 
if cornered have a very good idea of defending them- 
selves by means of their tremendously strong feet, the 
toes of which are armed with large hard claws which 
might deal a very serious wound. 
Mr. Beebe, the Curator of birds at the Zoological Park, 
is devoted to his work and gives unending time and 
thought to the study of the collections in his keeping 
and to the improving of their condition. It is interesting 
to see that of the birds under his charge a considerable 
number seem to know him, and on his appearance to 
hurry to the bars of the cages in the hope that they may 
receive a word or a touch of attention. Much may be 
hoped for in the way of an increased knowledge of our 
birds when the time shall come for breeding the species 
confined here. This will be one of the matters under- 
taken when the work of the Park is further advanced. 
There is here a wide field for investigation and study. 
Fooling a Fox. 
Hamar, Norway.- — Editor Forest and Stream: The 
article in the Forest and Stream a short time ago on 
“The Imitation of Animal Sounds,” reminds me of an 
experience I had some three years ago with a fox. 
It was early in the spring, one wening about dusk, I 
was sitting by a clearing in the woods waiting for the 
flight of woodcock, when suddenly I heard the short bark 
of a fox a short distance off. I slipped into the gun 
the two B.B. cartridges which I always have along when 
hunting, and waited for him to appear. He seemed to 
be passing by, however, when the thought struck me to - 
tiy and fool the cute fellow. Stooping underneath a 
pine I did my best to imitate the death cry of a hare, 
repeating it two or three times, and ending with a de- 
spairing wail. 
The barking had stopped and everything was still and 
silent until I commenced to think the'trick was not going 
to work, when I caught sight of the fox sneaking along 
the edge of the clearing, and when right opposite me he 
came out into the open and sat down within twenty 
yards, looking around as though to say, “Where the ; 
deuce is that hare?” I watched him for a while, and he, 
seemed completely unconscious of danger until the gun. 
ended his chicken stealing days forever. 
It was an old dog fox, and the skin about worthless, ., 
but it makes me grin yet to think how completely fooled . I 
he was. Chr. G. 1 
In the Pittsbnfg Zoo. 
Editor Forest and Stream: • . , 
In the Highland Park Zoo Pittsburg has .probably one 1 
of the finest public zoological gardens west of New York,;! 
and the city authorities are adding to it every summer. 
The thousands of visitors that take in the show every 
Sunday were given an exhibition on last Sunday that i 
was not down on the bills. The two polar bears began ; 
a fight and kept it up for ten minutes, tearing each other, i 
while 'the keepers dare not go near them, to separate,! 
them. At last the smaller of the two bears whipped his, J 
big brother, who returned to his cage, refusing to be seen , 
again all day. The park is doing its share to prevent the 1 
buffalo from becoming extinct. They have three buffalo ; 
in it now, and Howard Eaton, an old Pittsburg man, | 
who has a ranch at Medora, N. D., has given them two 
more, a bull and a cow, that are expected to arrive every , 
day now. Cabia Blanco. ] 
Elfc Antlefs in Growth. 
At a social meeting of the Royal Society, recently held i 
at the rooms of the Society, Burlington House, London, 
Mr. H. Irving showed an interesting series of photo- ,* 
graphs of deer antlers. The animal chosen for photo- t 
graphy was a full-grown elk or wapiti. The first picture ’ 
showed the animal on the second day after he had cast « 
his antlers; and every two weeks thereafter, during the * 
four months of the antlers’ growth, pictures were taken. 
One of the last pictures shows the velvet hanging from 
the horns in strips, and the last of all shows them clean, 
hard and white. 
It Will Interest Them. 
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