Birds and all Nature, Vol. V, No. 2, February 1899

A rabbit, a weasel, a mink, or even a skunk is good eating for the owl. And there are times when one owl will make a meal of another owl of smaller size. A large red-tailed hawk was once put into a garret where there was a snowy owl. That night the hawk was killed and partly eaten by the owl. A tame great horned owl and a little screech owl were shut up in a hay loft together. The wings of the big owl were cut so he could not fly. After about a week they both became one owl, and that owl threw up the claws, beak, bones, and feathers which had once been useful to the little screech owl.

Owls sometimes catch partridges and quails. This is not so bad, for they pick out the weak birds that are not well, and so keep disease from spreading among the fine birds. A hunter once shot a bob white so that it was not killed but could not fly. He and his dog were chasing the bird in the grass along a fence hoping to catch it. An owl saw the wounded bird and thought it belonged to him because it was not well. He came out of the woods very swiftly and picked up the bob white right before the eyes of the hunter.

In woods where there are panthers one will often hear in the night fearful cries that make it seem as if some wild beast were about to jump down from some tree near by to kill the one who is out so late. Most of these cries which frighten people so are made by hoot owls. But it is not easy to tell whether the sound comes from a hoot owl or from the throat of a wild cat. There is a saying among country people who wish to seem wise: "I wasn't brought up in the woods to be afraid of owls."

The hoot owl has so many wild notes in his voice that it is not at all strange that he scares people who have not been brought up in the woods. Before he sends out his proper hoot he sometimes seems to try to frighten everybody out of the forest with his awful shrieks. Sometimes several hoot owls get together in the night to hold a concert. One of them seems to tell a funny story and all the rest break out with shouts of he-he-he-he-hi-hi-hi-hi-ha-ha-ha-ha, and then they become as solemn as any other owls, and the stillness of the night is perfect until another owl has a droll story or song to set the rest a-shouting at.

The owl is brave. One that weighed less than six ounces once fought a nine-pound rooster. A teamster in Maine once went to sleep on top of his load while his horses ate their oats beside a forest road. When he pulled the blanket away from his face an owl pounced down upon it, perhaps thinking his white skin was a rabbit, and tore his cheeks fiercely. He was much frightened, having just awakened. But he caught the owl and killed it after a short struggle, and called himself lucky because his eyes were not put out by the bird.

If the owl is a sober and wise bird he forgets all about it when he woos his mate. Such awkward dancing and foolish boo-hoo-ing is never seen except when the owl is trying to choose a mate for life. But he makes up for his awkwardness when there are eggs to sit upon, for the owl is the best husband a bird ever had. When there is room in the old hollow where the nest is he will sit on the eggs with his wife and help her hatch the puffy little owl children.

Owls are the best of parents, too, for they will risk their own lives freely to protect their young. If their nests are robbed and the old birds can find where their young ones are caged they will come daily with food for them though they are in great danger in doing so.

They lay their eggs earlier than other birds, and often the falling snow covers the back of the sitting bird. The warmth of her body melts it so that water runs gently down through the nest and forms icicles that hang below and glisten in the sunshine to tell of the faithful conduct of the mother owl.

Small birds, as a rule, hate owls, and they delight in getting round these great awkward fellows whenever they can catch them by day and doing all they can to hurt their feelings. Bird-catchers sometimes catch small birds because they are so fond of teasing owls. An owl is caught and tied to a tree. The tree is covered with sticky stuff called bird lime. As soon as a little bird sees the owl in the tree he cries to his friends and they come in great crowds to tease the owl. But the small birds find their desire to torment ends in their own capture, for they cannot get away from the bird lime until the trapper comes along and gathers all the little birds that are hanging to the sticky limbs and twigs about the big bird they were trying to tease.

THE DUCK MOLE

WE ARE indebted to Dr. George Bennett for the first good description of the duck mole (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) which was an object of wonder to naturalists long after its discovery. This enthusiastic investigator traveled to Australia for the sole purpose of observing the animal. Up to that time little was known of it. We simply knew that the duck mole lives in the water and was persistently hunted by the natives, as it yielded a savory flesh and laid eggs. The latter discovery was made by Caldwell in 1884.

The duck mole is about two feet in length, six inches of which are included in the tail. The males are larger than the females. The legs are very small, all four feet being five-toed and webbed. All the toes are very strong, blunt, and excellently adapted for digging. The middle toes are the longest. The tail is flat and is broad at the end, the extremity being formed by long hairs. It is abruptly cut off, and in old animals is either entirely naked beneath or covered with a few coarse hairs. In young animals it is quite hairy. The adult animal has only four horny teeth in its two jaws, of which the upper front tooth is broad and flat and resembles a grinder.

The fur of the duck mole consists of a coarse outer coat of a dark brown color with a silvery-white surface tinge, and a very soft, grayish inner fur, similar to that of the seal and the otter. A peculiar fish-like odor is given forth by the fur, especially when it is wet. The Australians, however, are very fond of the flesh of the animal in spite of its disgusting odor. The duck mole is said to be fondest of calm spots in rivers filled with aquatic plants and the banks of which are shaded by the dense foliage of trees; and it constructs more or less complicated burrows in the banks. A tunnel about eighteen feet long terminates in a large chamber, both the chamber and its approaches being strewn with dry aquatic plants. The chamber usually has two entrances, one below the surface of the water, and the other about twelve inches above.

The duck moles are seen at all times in the rivers of Australia, especially during the spring and summer. They emerge from their retreats at dusk, though they sometimes also appear in the day time, searching for food. When the water is clear, the observer can follow with the eye the movements of the animal as it dives and reappears above the surface. It likes to stay near the shore, amidst the mud, searching for its food between the roots of the plants, where insects abound. The mollusks which it captures in its forays it stores temporarily in its cheek-pouches and then consumes them at greater leisure.

"On a beautiful summer evening," says Bennett, "I approached a small river in Australia, and as I knew the predilection of the duck mole for the hour of dusk, I tried to obtain a glimpse of one. With a constant grasp on our guns, we patiently stood on the shore. It was not long before we saw a black object appear near us on the top of the water, the head being raised but little above the surface. We stood motionless, lest we should scare the animal, carefully observing and following its movements, for one must be ready to shoot just as the duck mole reappears after diving. Only a shot in the head is effective, as the loose, thick fur will not allow a bullet to penetrate it readily. We wounded one which gave evidence of severe injury and sank immediately, but soon rose again. When the dog brought it to us we found it to be a fine male. Several minutes after it had been brought out of the water it apparently revived, and, instantly rising to its feet, staggered toward the river. About twenty-five minutes later it turned over several times and then died. As I had heard much about the danger of being pierced by its spur even when the animal is mortally injured, I put my hand near the so-called poisonous spur at the first grasp. In its violent exertions to escape the animal scratched me slightly with its hind paws and also with its spur, but despite the roughness with which I seized it, it did not wound me intentionally. I had also been further told that the duck mole lay on its back when it wished to use the spur, which statement will not be received as at all probable by anyone who knows the animal in ever so slight a way. I put it in this position, but it only strove to regain its feet without attempting to wound me by using its spur. In short, I tried in every way to induce the animal to make use of its spur as a weapon, but in vain; and I am perfectly convinced that the spur has another function than that of a weapon. The natives characterize the spur as 'mischievous,' that being with them a word which in general conveys the idea of dangerous or poisonous character; yet they use the same expression in speaking of the scratches inflicted by the animal with the hinder feet, and they are not at all afraid of seizing a living duck mole. When the queer creature runs along the ground, it produces an impression of something unnatural, and its strange shape easily startles a timid person. Cats instantly take flight at its appearance, and even dogs, which are not specially trained, stare at it, prick their ears, and bark, but are afraid to touch it."

On another voyage Bennett discovered a burrow containing three young ones, upon which the hair had already grown, and which he could observe for some time. When he found the nest with the young ones and placed them on the ground, they ran to and fro, but did not make such savage attempts to escape as did the old ones. The natives, whose mouths watered at the sight of these fat young animals, said that they were about eight months old, and added that the young duck moles were fed milk by their mother only during their early infancy and later were given insects, small shells, and mud.

At evening Bennett's two little pets emerged from their cage at dusk and usually ate their food; then they began to play like a couple of young dogs, attacking each other with their beaks, lifting their fore paws and climbing over each other. They were very lively. Their little eyes gleamed and the apertures of the ears opened and closed in remarkably rapid succession. As their eyes stand quite high on their heads they cannot see very well straight ahead, and therefore are apt to come into collision with near-by objects. The young animals survived only five weeks.

The duck mole lays several soft-shelled eggs. The eggs are hatched in the nest. The newly-hatched young are small, naked, blind and as helpless as those of the pouched animals. Their beaks are short.

In the zoölogical garden at Melbourne duck moles have occasionally been kept of late years, but none have, thus far, reached Europe or America alive.

Brehm says that the duck mole is the last among the known mammals.

THE HIBERNATION OF ANIMALS

NATURE presents no greater or more curious phenomenon than the habit of certain animals to conceal themselves and lie dormant, in a lethargic sleep, for weeks and months. It is known that in perfect hibernators the processes of nature are interrupted during the period of this long insensibility. Breathing is nearly, and in some animals, entirely suspended, and the temperature of the blood even in the warmer blooded animals, falls so low that how life can be maintained in them is a great mystery.

A variety of Rocky Mountain ground squirrels, when in perfect hibernation, says an observer, has a temperature only three degrees above freezing point of water, and when taken from their burrows are as rigid as if they were not only dead, but frozen. But a few minutes in a warm room will show that they are not only alive, but full of life.

As to the suspension of breathing in hibernators, the fact is proved sufficiently in the instances of the raccoon and the woodchuck. When they have laid themselves away for the winter sleep they roll themselves up comfortably and press their noses in such a position against their hinder parts that it would be an absolute impossibility for them to draw a breath. It is generally supposed that the bear rolls itself up in this way and does not breathe, but the holes melted in the snow beneath which the animal frequently stows itself, under a covering of leaves, prove that it does breathe while in its lethargy.

The marmot family produces the soundest winter sleepers. When the marmot is in its peculiar state of hibernation the electric spark will not rouse it. The most noxious gases do not affect it in the slightest. If its temperature is raised above that at which the animal breathed in its natural state it will die almost immediately.

Our own familiar wild animals, the bear, the raccoon, and the woodchuck – the so-called ground-hog – are classed as perfect hibernators, because they store no food for winter, but have acquired or provided themselves with a thick, fatty secretion between the skin and flesh, which, it is supposed, supplies them with sustenance. As a matter of fact, although dormant animals absorb fat, it does not enter into their digestive organs. Food introduced into the stomach of a hibernating animal, or reptile, by force or artificial means, will be found undigested at all stages of its lethargy, for it invariably goes into its peculiar state on an empty stomach. That is one of the mysteries of the phenomenon, not so great, however, as the fact that bears and woodchucks produce their young during their winter sleep. The male bear is frequently roused from his sleep and is found by the woodsman roaming about in mid-winter, but they have never known, they say, a female bear to be killed after the season for hibernation has set in.

Squirrels are only partial hibernators, from the fact that they work all summer and fall storing great quantities of food to supply them when hunger wakes them up during the winter, some of them, no doubt, spending very little time in a lethargic sleep.

The common land tortoise, no matter where it may be, and it is a voracious feeder, goes to sleep in November and does not wake up again till May, and that curious animal, the hedgehog, goes to sleep as soon as the weather gets cold and remains in unbroken slumber six months.

Bats, at the beginning of cold weather, begin to huddle together in bunches in hollow trees, dark corners in deserted houses, and in caves and crevices in the rocks. They gradually lose all sensibility, and continue in a comatose state until the return of genuine warm weather. When you see the first bat of the season fluttering at nightfall you can be sure that warm weather has come to stay. The little hooks at the end of one of the joints of each wing are what the bat hangs itself up by when it goes to sleep, whether for a day or for months. When the bats are clustering for hibernation one of the number hangs itself up by its hooks, head downward, and the others cling to it. It is on record that sixty bats have been found in one cluster, the entire weight of the lot being sustained by the one bat clinging with its hooks to whatever it had fastened them to at the start – a weight of at least ten pounds. The position of the central bat in such a cluster would be like that of a man hanging by his thumb-nails and supporting the weight of fifty-nine other men. So completely is animation suspended in the bat during the cold months that no test yet applied has induced it to show the least sign of life. Torpid bats have been inclosed by the hour in air-tight glass jars and not a particle of oxygen in the jars has been exhausted when they were taken out, showing that the bats had not breathed.

As cold drives certain animals, insects, and reptiles to a state of torpidity, so heat and lack of water bring about the same condition in others. The animal or reptile that hibernates, or goes to sleep in cold weather, arranges its body so that it will conduce to the greatest warmth, while those that estivate, or become torpid in warm weather, place themselves in positions that show that they want all the coolness the climate will permit. The tenric, a tropical animal, carnivorous and insectivorous, becomes torpid during the greatest heat, and lies on its back with its body drawn to its greatest length, and its limbs spread wide apart. Snakes estivate in the South, all kinds together, just as snakes hibernate in the North, but instead of rolling themselves in great balls, as the northern snakes do, they lie singly, and stretched to their full length.

Want of water will cause the common garden snail to go into a state of the most complete and curious lethargy. This is the snail of the genus Limax, not the larger one of the genus Helix. In the latter the phenomenon of hibernation is especially remarkable. In November the snail forms just a soft, silky membrane across the external opening of its shell. On the inner surface of that it deposits a coating of carbonate of lime, which immediately hardens the gypsum. This partition is again lined with a silky membrane. The snail then retires a little further into the shell and forms a second membranous partition, retiring again and again until there are six of these partitions between the snail and the lime-coated door at the entrance of the shell. In the recess behind all these partitions the snail lies torpid until May. All this time it lives without motion, without heat, without food, without air, without circulation or the exercise of any of its functions. If this snail is prevented from hibernating for several seasons by keeping it in a warm room, it will gradually waste away and die. A case is known where several snails of this genus were shut in a perforated box without food or water. They retired into their shells and closed them with a thin membrane. They remained so for three years, but revived when put into torpid water. They had been driven into torpidity by drought. The blood of this animal is white.

It may be of interest to state in connection with these animals who pass half the year, or less, in sleep, that there are several species of fish, reptiles, and insects which never sleep during their stay in this world. Among fish it is now positively known that pike, salmon, and gold-fish never sleep at all. Also that there are several others of the fish family that never sleep more than a few minutes during a month. There are dozens of species of flies which never indulge in slumber, and from three to five species of serpents which the naturalists have never been able to catch napping.

Apollo has peeped through the shutter,And awakened the witty and fair;The boarding-school belle's in a flutter,The two-penny post's in despair.The breath of the morning is flingingA magic on blossom and spray,And cockneys and sparrows are singingIn chorus on Valentine's day.– Praed.

THE CAPE MAY WARBLER

(Dendroica tigrina.)LYNDS JONES

THERE is hardly another group of birds that yields so satisfactory returns for earnest study as the American wood warblers. All shades and patterns of color are theirs, from somber to brilliant, from the plainest to the most intricate and exquisite pattern. Almost all degrees of vocal ability are found among them, from the simple twitter of the Tennessee to the wild thrilling challenge of the Louisiana water thrush or the ventriloquial antics of the yellow-breasted chat. Many bird students, it is true, regard the group as too difficult for any but the professional ornithologist to attempt; and that may be true of the females and of the autumnal plumages of the young, but the spring males are a constant inspiration and delight to one who admires variety in beauty.

It may be objected that the small size of the warblers renders their field study difficult, even if the foliage does not prove a serious hindrance. One must remember, however, that most small birds are not wary and that they may be closely approached, so that, with a good field-glass (and every bird-student should use one) their colors and the pattern of their dress can readily be made out even in the lower tree tops, where many of them feed. Foliage is always in the way, but even that can be circumvented by patience and perseverance.

The study of adult males in spring is greatly aided by the fact that each species, with some exceptions, has one or more patches of color peculiar to itself. Thus in the Cape May warbler the ear patches are rufous. Other species possess rufous colors, but none of them in this place.

The Cape May warbler belongs among the less common species, but may be common for a day or two during the height of the migration. It is very fond of orchards where it feeds among the foliage, snatching an insect here, a larva there, and cleaning the bundle of eggs from the leaf over yonder with an untiring energy. They also associate more or less with the other warblers in the woods. They are of great value to the fruit grower.

This species is found from the Atlantic coast west to the plains and north to Hudson's Bay, passing the winter in the tropics. It breeds from northern New England to Hudson's Bay and probably in northern Minnesota. The nest is built in a low bush in a wooded pasture or open woodland, said to be partially pensile. The nest and eggs are not readily distinguishable from those of several other warblers. The males sing frequently from their perch on the topmost twig of a spruce tree, thus misleading one as to the whereabouts of the female and nest. The song resembles somewhat that of the black and white warbler, but is rather less wiry. It cannot be represented on paper.

The tongue of this bird is worthy of special notice. It is cleft at the tip, and is provided with somewhat of a fringe. This character is not peculiar to this species, but is found in some honey creepers and in at least one foreign family of birds, thus suggesting, at least, the relationship of the warblers as a group. It might be asked, what is the significance of this character as regards feeding-habits? Apparently nothing, since the feeding-habits and food do not differ from those of other warblers not having the cleft tongue as greatly as the tongues themselves differ in structure. It is apparently an aberrant character developed somewhat at random among groups nearly related, or perhaps a remnant of structure.

SNOWFLAKES

Falling all the night-time,Falling all the day,Silent into silence,From the far-away;Stilly host unnumbered,All the night and dayFalling, falling, falling,From the far-away, —Never came like gloryTo the fields and trees,Never summer blossomsThick and white as these.To the dear old placesWinging night and day,Follow, follow, follow,Fold them soft away;Folding, folding, folding,Fold the world away,Souls of flowers driftingDown the winter day.– John Vance Cheney.

A TIMELY WARNING

WHILE a British brig was gliding smoothly along before a good breeze in the South Pacific, a flock of small birds about the size, shape, and color of paroquets settled down in the rigging and passed an hour or more resting. The second mate was so anxious to find out the species to which the visiting strangers belonged that he tried to entrap a specimen, but the birds were too shy to be thus caught and too spry to be seized by the quick hands of the sailors. At the end of about an hour the birds took the brig's course, and disappeared, but towards nightfall they came back and passed the night in the main-top. The next morning the birds flew off again, and when they returned at noon the sailors scattered some food about the decks. By this time the birds had become so tame that they hopped about the decks, picking up the crumbs. That afternoon an astonishing thing happened. The flock came flying swiftly toward the brig. Every bird seemed to be piping as if pursued by some little invisible enemy on wings, and they at once huddled down behind the deck-house. The superstitious sailors at once called the captain of the brig, who rubbed his eyes and looked at the barometer. A glance showed that something was wrong with the elements and the brig was put in shape to out-ride a storm. The storm came down about twenty minutes after the birds had reached the vessel. For a few minutes the sky was like the waterless bottom of a lake – a vast arch of yellowish mud – and torrents of rain fell. Why it did not blow very hard, no one knows; but on reaching port, two days later, the captain learned that a great tornado had swept across that part of the sea. The birds left the vessel on the morning after the storm and were not seen again.