File:Birds that hunt and are hunted; (1905) (14749864202).jpg

Identifier: birdsthathuntar00blan (find matches)
Title: Birds that hunt and are hunted;
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors: Blanchan, Neltje, 1865-1918
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: New York, Doubleday, Page & company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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on the dry, openplains, scouring the country for food at a distance of miles fromits nesting ground. John Burroughs once had brought to him, toidentify, a sooty tern, a near relative of the black species, that afarmer had picked up exhausted and emaciated in his meadow,fully one hundred and fifty miles from the sea, and at least twothousand miles from the Florida Keys, the birds chosen habitat. 57 Terns It had starved to death, he says, ruined by too much wing.Another Icarus. Its great power of flight had made it bold andventuresome, and had carried it so far out of its range that itstarved before it could return. By the end of July the young black terns have sufficientlydeveloped to join the flocks of adults that even thus early showthe restlessness called forth by the instinct for migration. InAugust migration commences in earnest; and when we see thebirds east of the Alleghanies, they are usually on their journeysouth, the only time they show a preference for the Atlanticcoast. 53
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PI SKIMMERS (Family Rynchopidce) Black Skimmer (Rynchops nigra) Called also: SCISSOR BILL; CUT-WATER Length—16 to 20 inches. Male and Female—Crown of head, back of neck, and all upperparts, glossy black; forehead, sides of head and neck, andunder parts white, the latter suffused with cream or palerose in the nuptial season. Lining of wings black. Broadpatch on wing, the tips of the secondaries, white; also theouter tail feathers, while the inner ones are brownish.Lower half of bill, measuring from 3.50 to 4.50 inches, isabout one inch larger than upper half. Basal half of bill car-mine; the rest black. Bill rounded at the ends, and com-pressed like the blade of a knife. Feet carmine, with blackclaws. Range— Warmer parts of America, north on the Atlantic coast toNew Jersey, and casually to the Bay of Fundy. A. O. U. Season—May to September. Summer resident so far north asNew Jersey; a transient summer visitor beyond. Closely related as the skimmers are to both gulls and terns,i

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