Jan. 7, 1911.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
ll 
is the omnipresent black tern. There is no 
part of the lake’s surface which they do not 
explore. Throw a dead minnow from your 
can and you will soon see a terq lift it from the 
water and swallow it as he flies. The sharp¬ 
ness of their eyes is marvelous. Nothing es¬ 
capes them. And they are so numerous on all 
the Northern lakes that every foot of water 
surface is scanned by their quick eyes. If, 
while rowing, one looks steadily for a moment 
in any given direction, a tern is sure to come 
in sight. 
One day I threw out some minnows that 
lay dry and stiff on the bottom of my boat. 
The terns immediately gathered them up, but 
instead of swallowing them at once, as they 
would minnows freshly dead, they flew low 
over the waves and dipped them in the water 
many times until the film upon their scales had 
been moistened, evidently so that they could 
be easily swallowed. The fishermen told me 
that they had frequently thrown up minnows 
ahead of these terns, and that the birds would 
take them in the air, as a kingbird takes a fly. 
This I tried repeatedly, but without success. 
These interesting birds came frequently to 
our pier, where they perched upon the posts 
and gathered up the dead minnows that we 
threw out for them. So tame did some of 
them become, that by approaching very slowlj. 
I caught one in my hand. The accompanying 
photograph was secured from one of the pier 
posts at a distance of about three feet. These 
birds, like our bluejays, seem to be omniver- 
ous. They will gather up most any morsel 
that one throws upon the water; and in the 
spring they are seen feeding over inland 
sloughs where there are no minnows. 
The neatness and precision with‘which they 
lift any morsel from the water is beautiful to 
see. Their bodies seem never to be brought 
nearer than two or three inches from the sur¬ 
face, then the mandibles part, the head dips 
gently—if the water be rough sometimes the 
opened mandibles point straight downward— 
and the morsel is lifted as unerringly as one 
could lift it from a hard surface with the 
fingers. Sometimes, it is true, the bird misses 
and has to wheel a second time; but this 
seems to be due not so much to miscalculation 
as to the probable fact- that the eye, owing to 
the action of the waves, lost the object at the 
crucial moment. 
Gulls search the Northern lakes for food, as 
do the terns. Of course, these birds take min¬ 
nows alive, and one frequently sees them 
hover, hawk-like, a moment, and then plunge 
full into the water for their prey; but between 
gulls and terns, few morsels of food are left 
to litter the surface of a lake and strew its 
shores with decaying waste. 
Another bird that, at least in a small way, 
may be reckoned among the scavengers is the 
swallow. They live on flies, and as far as I 
am aware, catch them alive. But the life of 
most flies is short, and those that are not taken 
alive, soon fall dead. I have mentioned the 
“lake flies.” For a few days they swarmed 
along the shore in myriads; but after their 
short life was ended they were seen littering 
the water, and in masses washed upon the 
beach. 
One day in a stiff gale, when a broken oar 
compelled three of us in one boat to drift to 
the lee shore, we found thousands of bank wide of the mark, sent them scampering to 
swallows feeding upon these flies which the their hole in the bank. 
wind was driving ashore. 1 he swallows were We have seen the muskrat eating the pulp 
m an open pasture, separated from the beach out of green bullrushes; we have had evidence 
by a fringe of trees. Every wire of a fence that made us suspect him of occasionally rob- 
was lined with swallows, sitting close to- bing blackbirds’ nests; and we have read of 
gether. They swarmed over the short-cropped his being fond of clams. Will he eat a dead 
grass, taking the flies on the wing, while hun- fish if he finds one cast up by the waves? I 
dreds of them lit upon the ground and picked found one of these animals the other day far 
the flies out of the grass. from rushes, and far from all his ordinary 
Sandpipers and other birds gather all their food, so far as I know what that food is. I 
SOME OF THE SCAVENGERS. 
food at the margin of the water, snatching 
eagerly whatever the waves wash up. The 
amount these birds eat would seem to be 
comparatively little, and yet, beyond question, 
they help materially to keep our lake shores 
sweet and clean. A number of animals help 
also. While walking in the timber on the 
shore of Lake Delavan, Wisconsin, through a 
little opening in the foliage, I saw four half- 
grown minks eagerly making their breakfast 
of a large dead fish which lay at the margin of 
the water. A shot from my .22, which went 
was passing a farm house with my camera 
when one of the family said, “See what we 
have under our porch!” A muskrat had come 
up from the lake or from the swamp half a 
mile distant, and was living under a little 
porch in a nest that he had dug in the dirt. 
At scavenger work, wolves and coyotes also 
help. A dead fish is a choice meal for them, 
and they are nnt infrequently seen at the mar¬ 
gin of the water enjoying their prey; in fact, 
the margin of a lake, whether in prairie or 
forest, mountain or plain, is a favorite resort 
for both animals and birds, not only for the 
sake of water, but for the food that may there 
be found. Craig S. Thoms. 
A Jaguar in Texas. 
The jaguar formerly ranged over a great part 
of Texas, south of the Red River, but has long 
been regarded as extinct in that region. 
At a recent meeting of the Biological Society 
of Washington, however, Vernon Bailey re¬ 
corded the killing last spring near London, Kim¬ 
ble county, not far from the Llano River in 
Central Texas, of a large jaguar. Mr. Bailey 
exhibited a lantern slide photograph of the dead 
specimen, together with a map showing locali¬ 
ties within the United States where this animal 
had been taken. 
Malaysian Wild Pheasants for New York. 
Prof. C. William Beebe, curator of orni¬ 
thology, New York Zoological Park, who has 
been in the far East in search of pheasants, has 
met with success by securing a complete collec¬ 
tion of fine specimens. Consul-General James T. 
DuBois writes from Singapore that in Borneo 
the curator secured specimens of all of the 
pheasants, obtaining eleven live birds. Exhaus¬ 
tive studies, photographs and paintings were 
made of the birds in their native haunts. Prof.. 
Beebe is now in Java, where he expects to se¬ 
cure a fine lot of specimens. 
Fur Seals in Captivity. 
At a meeting of the Biological Society of 
Washington, held last month, Dr. B. W. Ever- 
man reported that the two fur seals which came 
to- the Bureau of Fisheries last spring, an ac¬ 
count of which was printed in Forest and 
Stream, were still in good condition. Of the 
ten fur seals referred to in Forest and Stream 
recently as brought from the Pribilof Islands 
to Seattle, two were to remain there, two to go 
to Golden Gate Park, San Francisco; four to 
the National Zoological Park, Washington, and 
two to the New York Aquarium. 
The Forest and Stream may he obtained from 
any newsdealer on order. Ask your dealer to 
supply you regularly. 
