July, 1922 
FOREST AND STREAM 
303 
ANOTHER PHEASANT 
HYBRID 
I N view of recent discussion concern- 
ing alleged hybrids between the Chi- 
nese pheasant and domestic fowl we 
publish a photograph made at Miami, 
Florida, by Louis L. Mowbray, of a re- 
markable bird, said to be a cross between 
A cross between peacock and turkey 
a female peacock and a male turkey. Mr. 
Mowbray, who is an accomplished natu- 
ralist, tells us thatwhen taking the picture 
he had no reason to doubt the authenticity 
of the hybrid. The bird was as big as a 
large male turkey, white in color, mot- 
tled with iridescent greenish and brown, 
and its tail plumage resembled that of a 
domestic fowl somewhat. 
KILDEER NESTING ON 
LONG ISLAND 
O UR valued correspondent who, in the 
last number of Forest and Stream, 
describes finding nests of the Kildeer on 
Staten Island, will perhaps be interested 
that we came across a family of this 
same plover adjacent to some farm land 
on the Hempstead Plains, Long Island, 
on May 14. The parent bird ran back 
and forth a little way off calling contin- 
uously and attempting to lure us away. 
She would lower her head, run rapidly 
a short distance, then sit down with 
wings drooped at sides, exposing conspic- 
uously the bright red-brown rump, or 
raised awkwardly and loosely, as though 
hurt. It was no easy task to locate any 
of her downy brood. By sitting down 
to wait and refusing to be decoyed away, 
we finally, by a careful study of her be- 
havior, judged the position of a young 
one correctly, saw it run, headed it off 
and took it into custody for a few min- 
utes to determine its method of keeping 
so well concealed. It would run erect 
until it disappeared behind the screen of 
some insignificant tuft of grass and 
squat motionless among the grasses, very 
difficult to see though in plain view from 
above. 
JULY 
W ITH early July the sun has touched 
its farthest north at noon, and 
day by day, while the hours of light 
shorten imperceptibly, it is receding to- 
wards the equator. Nature for the most 
part gives no heed. The temperature of 
the sea water continues to rise, now from 
time to time drifting fishes from the sub- 
tropics to our shores. Flowers bloom in 
succession, and that they are few in the 
woodland may be attributed to a max- 
imum expansion of the leafy canopy 
overhead, whence the wood pewee sends 
its call all day long to the gratefully cool 
shadows which lie thick on forest 
ground. Land birds now have young 
and find juicy insect food for them abun- 
dant as it would be at no other season. 
Though, with family cares birds pipe in 
the dawn less freely, the midsummer 
chorus of insects, crickets, grasshoppers 
and their kin is gaining volume and 
swells with each succeeding sultry eve- 
ning, a drowsy orchestra of a myriad 
tiny musicians. 
To look closely, however, there is one 
clear evidence that the tide has turned. 
Shore-birds are already coasting south. 
If one goes out on the marsh, as like as 
not one sees a Jack curlew high in air 
on the southbound path through the skies. 
Speak to him with an imitation of his 
whistle and he will answer, but never 
swerving, flies steadily on towards, — he 
alone knows how far. Into the soft 
summer southwest wind blurring the 
sunshine, little whisps of the smallest 
sandpipers twinkle down the coast low 
over the sparkling bay’s surface, or 
alight to mark the mud or sand of marsh 
or shore with tiny tripping feet. First 
they are all the brown-backed least sand- 
piper, but larger, more active flocks of 
the grayer semipalmated soon follow. 
A RARE ALBACORE 
B y courtesy of the American Museum 
of Natural History we publish here- 
with the photograph of an albacore with 
exceedingly high dorsal and anal fins, 
secured near Christmas Island in the Pa- 
An unusual albacore 
cific Ocean by the Whitney South Sea 
Expedition. This may be the adult of 
Cermo macropterus, an albacore known 
from Japan, but it is thought to be a dis- 
{Contimied on page 329) 
A 
Track of a semi-palmated sandpiper in proportion to one inch scale 
