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Audubon Birds BY ROGER TORY PETERSON Since John James his

Audubon

famous engravings

in

first

published

Birds of America,

between 1827 and 1838, they have been universally recognized as artworks of su-

preme beauty entific

that also incorporate the sci-

knowledge of Audubon's time. Orig-

inally issued in a four- volume edition

copies, Birds of America

a

full set

the general public

is

at

just

by Audubon's bird prints as

as fascinated the rare

of 1 90

such a rarity that

has brought almost $400,000

However,

auction.

is

book

collector.

For this volume, the distinguished American naturalist and artist

son has selected his

Roger Tory

Peter-

own favorite bird prints,

which have been meticulously reproduced in color.

In his lively

commentaries, Dr.

Peterson describes the birds pictured, their

and habitat, and includes the

characteristics

most recent ornithological observations

which sometimes

differ

from Audubon's.

In his introductory essay,

Peterson

about

tells

difficulties in

birds

is

Roger Tory himself, his

compiling Birds of America,

and discusses

movement

Audubon

how

today's conservation

actively protecting

from extinction.

Audubon's

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ROGER TORY PETERSON

Abbeville Press

•

Publishers

•

New York

ON THE COVER: Black-billed Magpie (detail) Commentary on page 12 1

FRONTISPIECE:

Yellow-Breasted Chat (detail)

Commentary on page 30

Library of Congress Catalog Card

Number 79-57407

ISBN 0-89659-091-7

© 1980 by Cross River Press, Ltd. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher. Inquiries should be addressed to Abbeville Press, Inc., 505 Park Avenue, New York 10022. Printed and bound in Japan.

Copyright

CONTENTS Black-billed

Magpie

(detail)

FRONT COVER Commentary 12 1

Yellow-Breasted Chat

(detail)

Commentary and

full

Introduction

FRONTISPIECE 30

picture

7-11

Pileated Woodpecker

12-13

Wood Duck

14-15

Snowy Egret

16-17

Mallard

18-19

Cedar Waxwing

20-21

Blue Jay

22-23

White-Crowned Sparrow

24-25

American Kestrel or Sparrow Hawk

26-27

Black Vulture

28-29

Yellow-Breasted Chat

30-31

Northern Cardinal

32-33

Greater Prairie Chicken

34-37

Bald Eagle

38-39

Screech

Owl

40-4

Brown Pelican

42-43

Ruffed Grouse

44-45

Osprey

46-47

Summer Tanager

48-49

Brown Thrasher

50-5

Black-Crowned Night Heron

52-55

Wild Turkey

56-57

Green Heron

58-59

Snowy Owl

60-61

American Flamingo

62-63

Vesper Sparrow

64-65

Great Blue Heron

66-67

Least Bittern

68-69

Northern, or Baltimore, Oriole

70-71

Passenger Pigeon

72-73

Common

74-77

Eider

Roseate Tern

78-79

Great Horned Owl

80-81

American Oystercatcher

82-83

Mourning Dove

84-85

Crow

86-87

Fish

Whooping Crane

88-89

Northern Shoveler

90-91

Key West Quail-Dove

92-95

Carolina Parakeet

96-97

Clapper Rail

98-99

American Robin Yellow-Billed

Cuckoo

100-101

102-103

Gray Kingbird

104-105

Long-Billed Curlew

106-107

Broad-Winged

Hawk

White-Winged Crossbill

108-109 110-111

INTRODUCTION by Roger Tory Peterson

THE NAME AUDUBON but in recent years is

it

has

has long been synonymous with birds.

come

to

have a broader connotation. This

because the great national organization

gone through

name

that bears his

a philosophical metamorphosis.

has

Birds and bird-

watching became the precursors of environmental awareness, and therefore

Audubon has become

movement. John James Audubon,

a

symbol of

in a sense,

was

the conservation

the father of

ornithology, although Alexander Wilson, the Scot,

accorded that distinction, having published

work on American

his

own

American

encyclopedic

birds about twenty years earlier. Actually,

Mark Catesby preceded them

many years. His Natural Bahama Islands, published

both by

History of Carolina, Florida, and the

113 birds and established him as the

in 1731, depicted

usually

is

first real

ornithologist of America.

But the thing

that separated

predecessors was that he

first

gave them the simulation of though they were on

life.

museum

Audubon

as an artist

from

his

took birds out of the glass case and

Others portrayed them

pedestals.

To

stiffly, as

give his birds vitality

and movement, Audubon worked from freshly killed specimens, wiring them into lifelike positions. In his youth he had tried hundreds of outline sketches but found

He fashioned gave It

it

a

wooden model, "a

a kick, broke

was then

that

it

to

it

atoms, walked

off,

out of bed.

.

.

.

.

.

.

and thought again.

he conceived the procedure he was

many years. He wrote: "One morning I leapt

them.

difficult to finish

tolerable-looking Dodo.

went

to

follow for

took a

to the river,

bath and returning to town inquired for wire of different sizes,

bought some and was soon again kingfisher

I

at

Mill Grove.

met, pierced the body with wire, fixed

another wire held the head, smaller ones fixed the

I it

shot the

feet.

me the real kingfisher. I outlined the bird, was my first drawing actually from nature."

stood before

This

first

to the board, .

.

.

there

colored

it.

The saga of Audubon has been told many times, with variations. It is

not exactly a Horatio Alger tale of rags to riches, because the

fledgling

was

all

Audubon was given

a

young gentleman's

tutoring and

but spoiled by an indulgent stepmother.

Jean Jacques Fougere of Santo

Domingo

in

Audubon was born in 1785 on the island the West Indies. He was the son of a

prosperous French sea captain and a young French-Creole lady.

Mademoiselle Rabin, who died before the captain returned to his home and wife in France. How he explained his transgression to Madame Audubon is not known, but she took the four-year-old

boy It

to her heart as her

may have been

to

own.

escape conscription

in

Napoleon's army or

perhaps to avoid the stigma of illegitimacy that Captain sent his son at age eighteen to Mill

he

owned In

Audubon

Grove near Philadelphia where

property.

France the youngster had studied drawing for six months

under the guiding hand of the famed Jacques Louis David, and this skill

could not be suppressed. The birds of America fascinated

him, and drawing them became an obsession from which he never freed himself.

After marrying Lucy Bake well

ward

Grove he moved westhad set him up in

Mill

at

Kentucky, where

to Louisville,

his father

was not in his blood, or so it seemed. It were uncertain and investment risky those days. Moving further westward to the

business. But business

must be admitted

on the

that times

frontier in

down

Mississippi and then

to

New

Orleans, he met successi\c

was almost reduced

reverses until he

to

penury.

In reviewing this difficult period he wrote that "birds were birds I drew, I looked on nature only; my days were happy beyond human conception." He had conceived a grandiose

then as now. ...

'

plan of painting

all

of the birds of North America

—

—

at least all

of

known and at no time did he lose sight of this goal. While he was away from his family for months exploring the those then

wilderness, painting and pursuing his dream, his devoted Lucy,

who had borne him two sons, kept home and hearth together by teaching. He himself eked out a living as an itinerant portrait painter and by giving dancing and fencing lessons.

As

his portfolio

lisher, but

bulged he began

he could find none

one would risk the better

capital.

chance of success

teacher and portraits,

in

in

to

look for a patron or pub-

New York

He decided

sail in

No

might be a

England, so with Lucy's savings as a

some money he had managed

he set

or Philadelphia.

that there

to acquire

by painting

1826.

Abroad he was acclaimed immediately. The rough,

man from the American frontier was a sensation. He

colorful

fascinated the

genteel patrons of the art salons in London, Edinburgh, and Paris.

Long ahead of relations,

his time in the art of

showmanship and public

he played his part well.

William Lizars of Edinburgh agreed

to

engrave and publish

work, but when only ten plates had been finished the colorists

on

strike

and Audubon was forced

was Robert Havell,

Jr.

,

of London.

\\

his

ent

to find another engraver. This

Audubon was

fortunate to be in

the hands of such a skilled artist and craftsman. His accomplish-

ment

in etching the

copper plates was as much a tour-de-force as

the original paintings. that

hang

It is

in the galleries

instructive to

of the

compare

the watercolors

New York Historical Society to the

Havell prints with which most of us are familiar. After three intensely active years in England, Scotland, and

Audubon returned to America in 1829 to paint additional more subscriptions, to travel extensively, and to Eventually his journeys were to take him from the the gaps. fill in Gulf Coast and the Florida Keys to Labrador and westward to the France,

birds, to try for

foothills of the Rockies. It

took twelve years to bring to completion the publication of the

plates

and

their

accompanying

text in the Ornithological Biogra-

phy.

may seem

It

paradoxical that this genius, the epitome of the

become the father figure of the movement in North America. He shot birds like far more than he needed for his studies. This is well

hunter naturalist, should have

conservation

mad, often documented one finds

some of

in his Ornithological

that as

Biography, but

Audubon grew

the changes he saw.

older he

He pondered

species and the wild places where they lived. restrain

him from

one reads on

the future of certain

However,

this

did not

collecting freely. Shooting practically every-

moved was

do in those days. was not conservation consciousbut awareness, which he more than anyone else seems to

thing that

Audubon's ness,

if

became disturbed by

the thing to

real contribution

symbolize. That in

itself is

enough; awareness

is

inevitably fol-

lowed by concern. Another paradox

is

the legend of the unstable

dreamer, the inattentive shopkeeper and itinerant the age of forty,

made an

and improvident artist,

who,

after

abrupt turnabout and carried to comple-

most ambitious publishing venture had ever been attempted by an American.

tion almost single-handedly the that

Madison Avenue would have admired his techniques. To fit the image of the American frontiersman, he wore woodsman's clothing and allowed his hair to grow long over his shoulders. He also

10

became

a super-salesman, traveling from city to city to secure

subscriptions.

Meanwhile, as

monitored with

a sort of production

infinite care the

work of

manager he

the engravers and the

corps of colorists.

How

could he have been irresponsible and impractical

could do

A

set

if

he

this?

all

of Audubon's Birds of America, bound

in

four "'double

elephant folio" volumes and numbering 435 color plates, could

have been purchased by subscription for one thousand dollars

when

it

was published between 827 and 838. One hundred years same set would have gone on the market for perhaps 1

1

later the

fifteen

thousand dollars. Recently (1977),

at

auction, the double

elephant folio sold for nearly four hundred thousand dollars. Single prints of

wild turkey,

some of the more popular

now sell for several

subjects, such as the

thousand dollars, much more than

the original purchase price of the entire collection.

On

the other

hand, certain other prints, such as those which depict predators

much

eating their prey, go for

striking compositions (one of

less.

my

One

of Audubon's most

favorites)

shows two black its macabre

vultures feasting on the head of a deer. Because of

subject matter

few people would choose such

a picture for the

livingroom wall.

Although about 190

sets

of the elephant folio editions were

issued and distributed, less than half exist today: dealers dis-

mantled the others for sale of individual

prints.

many

artists

It

might be pointed out

Audubon had

that like

apprentices.

Some

of an earlier day

of the backgrounds. leaves,

flowers, and accessories were painted by Joseph Mason. George

Lehman, and

others, but the birds in every instance are the

work of

the master himself.

The

selections presented here are

11

among my

favorites.

[Pileated vi/oodpecker [dryocopus pileatus]

SECOND

in size only to the

the pileated

woodpecker

is

mysterious ivory-billed woodpecker, still

common

in

United States. In some places, such as

New

parently disappeared some years ago,

has

it

many

Jersey,

made

parts of the

where

it

ap-

a strong come-

back.

This handsome woodpecker was youthful birding days, and favorites, if

went into

we are

to

this spirited

it

my

bird

during

my

must also have been one of Audubon's

judge from the imagination and effort that

composition.

He was

even shyer than the ivory-bill and seemed shot

favorite

of the opinion that to

know

it

was

the distance that

would carry. This may partly explain why the pileated wood-

pecker survived and the ivory-bill did not, but a more likely reason lies in the

specialized

food habits of the two species. The ivory-bill feeder,

the

pileated less so.

According

Tanner, who did most of the research on the ivory-bill,

to it

is

a highly

Dr.

James

takes about

six square miles of virgin timber to support a single pair of ivorybills,

by

whereas the same area will support about 36 pairs of pileateds.

Even when they keep out of

sight pileateds betray their presence

their diggings, large oval or

oblong holes, and also by their loud,

irregular, flickerlike calls.

12

VUood LDuck [aix sponsa]

THIS,

the most beautiful North

dangered

American duck, actually was

The reason for

the present century.

its

decline was that

throughout the eastern states during the summer;

northward

to

less

en-

United States during the early years of

in the eastern

it

it

remained

did not migrate

frequented lakes and marshes in the northern

Canada as did most other waterfowl. For this was often known as the "summer duck." It was extremely

prairie states and

reason

it

vulnerable because spring shooting, not yet outlawed, went on at the

very time that wood ducks were courting and setting up households. Things

known

(then

initiated a ficial

became

so critical that the National

as the National Association

breeding program

of

Audubon

Audubon

in Connecticut, raising birds

conditions and setting out large

Society

Societies)

under

arti-

numbers of nesting boxes for

their convenience.

The wood duck does not as do most other ducks. cavity.

Audubon

It

nest on the

lays

its

ground or amongst the reeds

eggs (up to 15 or more) in a tree

occasionally found them occupying the abandoned

holes of ivory-billed woodpeckers. Aldiough a into a hole that

would seem too small

are often at a premium.

To counteract

to

wood duck can squeeze

admit

this,

it,

good nesting

game departments

sites

often

build specially designed boxes, which are placed on poles several feet

above the water where raccoons and other predators cannot reach

them.

Baby wood ducks, the

feather-lined

though

it

a

nest

few hours after hatching, simply climb from to

the entrance hole

and jump out

— even

might be twenty feet or more above the hard forest

They survive and soon head for

floor.

the nearest water with the rest of

their nestmates.

14

Snowy

(bgret

[egretta thula]

THE snowy proudest

heron with the golden slippers," has become symbol of the National Audubon Society, the great

egret, "the

the

conservation organization of which John James saint.

At the beginning of

this

American herons, was on

the

century the

way

out.

"aigrettes" by the trade, were worth

little

Its

Audubon

is

the patron

snowy, loveliest of

all

exquisite plumes, called

$32 an ounce, twice

their weight

Every heronry was ferreted out and destroyed. As the birds

in gold.

bore these nuptial sprays only at nesting time, the young birds, bereaved of their parents, perished too, and the stench of death

every colony. in

Where

there

hung heavy over

had been hundreds of thousands of egrets

our southern states there soon remained but a few hundred. The

National

Audubon

Society fought for plumage laws and to meet the

first Audubon warden in South Florida, plume hunters near Cape Sable in 1905. A marker which stands where his body washed ashore reads "Faithful unto death." Under protection the egrets and all the other long-legged waders have made a spectacular comeback. Today snowies by the scores

emergency hired wardens. The

Guy Bradley, was

of thousands

shot by

now

nest north to the Great

Lakes and southern

New

England.

Audubon chose "low country." right is

to

is

meant

for his

We

to

background a

wonder whether

rice plantation in the Carolina

the small figure in the ditch at the

be Audubon himself, carefully stalking the bird which

be immortalized as his model.

16

11

iaitard

[anas pl a t yrh

y n ch o

"puddle ducks" THE green-headed "Pekin ducks" on farm;

parks are mallards; so are

in the

the white

the

in fact nearly all

ducks are descended from the wild mallard uted, perhaps the most earth.

On our

marshes except

—

it

is

common wherever

the extreme northeast,

there are lakes and

from New England

There the black duck (a brother under the skin) replaces There

is

domestic

the most widely distrib-

numerous, and certainly the most hunted duck on

continent in

s

north.

it.

no doubt that there were once more mallards. In 1832 Audu-

bon found them

in

Florida in flocks that darkened the air. There are

great flocks today, and

I

still

myself have seen a gathering of two-thirds of a

million on a refuge in Illinois. But a continental population of all ducks that

may have numbered between 200,000,000 and 500,000,000

Audubon's day reason

is

(just a guess)

obvious.

From

a

dropped

to

55—60 million

few hundred thousand guns

at

in

most

bon's era the duck hunting pressure has increased to millions.

could not keep pace; on the contrary

— during

in

1978. The in

Audu-

The ducks

those years 100,000,000

acres of marshland, the duck nurseries of the continent, were drained for agriculture to help feed the explosively increasing tion.

Like rising taxes,

it

is

no accident

has dropped from twenty-five per

mere four

in the past

30

years.

that the daily

man some many

There

around.

18

just aren't

human popula-

bag limit of ducks years back,

enough ducks

to

to

a

go

Cedar vi/axwtng BOMBYCILLA

HOW

differently

C E

D RORU M

were song birds regarded

]

Audubon's day! The

in

gentle waxwings were sought for the table by every epicure, great ornithologist tells of a basketful of these

warded

to

New

little

and the

birds that were for-

Orleans as a Christmas present. They never reached their

destination because the steward of the steamer on which they were

shipped made pies of them for his passengers.

An

inch or so longer than a Sparrow, the cedar waxwing

"most tailored" of

all

and a yellow band on the

a pointed top-knot scales, like sealing

give the bird

its

wax, adorn the

name.

only sounds to escape

Few will

birds are

winter in

It its

tip

of

its

tail.

some of the wing

tips of

Little red

feathers and

might be called a "songless songbird," for the ungifted syrinx are thin

more nomadic; one year

New

the sleekest,

is

our birds, a mixture of soft browns and grays, with

if

lisps.

the berry crop

is

good,

year some might travel as far as Central America or Panama. return to the northern states and Canada procrastinating nature, wait until

down

to the essential task of

they always remind

many

England, Utah or the State of Washington; the next

me

late,

summer

is

and as

They

befits their casual

half spent before settling

perpetuating their kind. Feeding their young,

of pinball machines, producing berry after berry

from their distended crops, until a dozen or more have appeared as by magic in their

bills.

20

if

gc

(Blue

[CYANOCITTA CRIST A T A

MANY uncomplimentary

things have been said about the blue jay.

has been called a "thief" because

It

squirrel's cache; a "tease" because

and a "bully" because

]

it

mobs

it

the

pilfers

little

acorns from the

blinking screech owl;

chases other birds from the food shelf.

It

has

even been labeled a "deep-dyed villain" for eating birds' eggs as the

trio

portrayed by

Audubon

creatures according to a nest

and

are doing. But

human

to absorb

this, there

failings.

For

a blue jay to

such

losses. If

some of them would,

There of

is

rob

to eggs for centuries is

geared high

there were no natural checks such as

would be so many warblers, vireos and other small birds that

would give out and they would starve

their food supply of insects

much

a false thing to evaluate wild

it is

and

the small birds thrive; their reproductive rate

still

least

virtues

have helped themselves

a natural act. Jays

is

enough

it

a "blue jay" of

until the balance

some kind

in every state in the

wooded Canada, but the three

— or at

was restored.

Union and

in

birds pictured here represent

the real blue jay, a bird larger than a robin, with a blue back, a crest and

white spots in of Mexico, jay)

it is

its

wings and

tail.

replaced in the

Found from Newfoundland

West by

and a paler one without (California

22

to the

Gulf

a dark jay with a crest (Steller's

jay).

vl/ kite'-(^rowned

Sparrow

ZONOTRICHIA LEL'COPHRYS]

A on

GLIMPSE

its

who

of a white-crown

is

enough

to

show

that

it is

no ordinary

sparrow. Distinguished in mien, with broad black and white stripes

.

crown,

it

lacks the drabness of the

common

lot.

To those of us

live along the Atlantic seaboard, the white-throated sparrow

more

familiar, a bird with similar

a square white throat patch.

many;

a few

wheezy

We

head

stripes,

is

much

but which has in addition

see white-crowns in migration, but not

hop elegantly on the lawns

in early

May and

sing their

from the hedges. These transients are en route

lyrical notes

to

Newfoundland, Labrador and the Hudson Bay country, the very threshold of the Arctic, where the last stunted spruces give

West of the Appalachians the white-crown during the season of dant. There

it

its

passage,

and

in the far

is

way

West

One

The

positively abun-

race breeds on the coast as far

south as California. Every garden in the Pacific states

is

visited

by some

handsome sparrow.

plant which

summer

is

can be heard, even in summer, singing from the edges of

every bog in the high mountains.

race of this

to the tundra.

much more numerous

Audubon

pictured in this attractive design

is

the

grape (Vitis aestivalis) and the sparrow so furtively peeking from

behind the big leaf

is

youngsters with pink

an immature individual, one of those tan-looking bills

that

show up with

24

their parents in the

fall.

^/tmerican Jvestrel or Sparrow crlawn [falco sparverius]

THIS

beautiful

little

bird of prey

is

a falcon, not a true

obsolete name, sparrow hawk, would imply.

its

sparrows in

its

diet.

and crickets which

it

Rather, spots

it

seems

to

Nor does

hawk it

as

favor

prefer mice, grasshoppers

from a high vantage point on some dead

tree or telephone wire.

No

other diurnal bird of prey except

grine falcon, ranges as widely in the coast to coast and

its

larger relative, the pere-

New World.

It is

found from

from northwestern Canada and central Alaska

south through the two American continents to Tierra del Fuego.

Adaptable, deserts,

it is

secution, to size,

impartial to rural roadsides, open country, prairies,

woodland edges, farmlands and even which the larger birds of prey are

hardly larger than that of a jay.

cities. It

subject,

When

escapes per-

by virtue of

perched on a wire

its it

looks somewhat like an oversized swallow. Even the slim pointed

wings suggest those of a swallow rather than those of a typical hawk. Unlike most other day-flying birds of prey of sticks in a tree, nor does cavity, usually excavated

it

lay

by a

its

eggs on a

flicker, in

some

graph pole. In the desert a woodpecker hole hole in a it

may

cliff will

it

does not build a nest cliff

in a

do. In the western foothills

ledge. It seeks a

isolated tree or tele-

saguaro cactus or a

where holes are scarce

appropriate an old magpie nest. Even a building in the center

of a town

may

offer a safe nest site.

26

{Black Vulture [CORACYPS ATRATUS]

ALTHOUGH living best. It is

room

this

wall,

may seem

composition is,

it

in

my

macabre

too

opinion, one of Audubon's very

imaginative and brilliantly handled.

may sometimes

Although black vultures and turkey vultures

seen together, they prefer to associate in assemblies of their

The wide-ranging turkey Canada

to

effortlessly

for the

Cape Horn, on long

stiff

which

vulture,

is

own

be

kind.

found from southern

is

the better sailplane of the two. Gliding

wings,

rocks and

it

tilts

unsteadily to take

advantage of subtle air currents.

The black vulture has

a stockier look.

the short square tail that barely projects

It is

readily identified by

beyond the broad wings

and by the whitish patches toward the wing-tips. redheaded relative

—

and a short glide. The black vulture, which

is

labored than that of

its

is

more

rapid

flaps

Its flight

several

the one most fre-

quently seen around towns and cities in tropical America, seldom ventures north of Maryland and Ohio and avoids the higher hills

and mountains into which the turkey vulture often ventures. At a carcass the black vulture

is

the

more aggressive of

species have declined in recent years, although this

mented. They are struck by cars

succumbed

to

at

poisoned carrion.

28

is

the two. Both

not well docu-

roadside kills and some have

LJello\K>-[Jjreasted

L^hat

[iCTERIA VIRENS]

THE

been called an acrobat, a clown and a ventrilo-

versatile chat has

quist.

Its

come from

strange puzzling calls

singer remains hidden

the thickets while the

— clucks, mews, caws, coos and whistles that would

do credit to a mockingbird. However, the chat's repertoire

is

more

limited

than that of a mocker, with longer pauses between the phrases. The act

show

that caps the climax of the

wildly,

is

the flight song, when, revealing itself

ascends with flopping wings and dangling

at last, the bird

and parachutes back

to the briar patch.

legs, singing

Audubon, always

a careful

observer, faithfully records the clowning grotesquerie of the flight song,

while he shows below a female brooding amid a bower of sweet-briar roses. Systematists disagree as to

how

the chat should be classified. For want

of a better solution they have placed it is

it

in the warbler family,

even though

lYi inches long, half again as large as the general run of warblers.

However,

it

acts

more

like

that include the catbird,

same kind of brushy sings and

of course,

mimics

one of the mimic thrushes (the family of birds

brown thrasher, and mockingbird).

tangles they do, has the

like one, sings

its flight

It likes

same loose-jointed

on moonlit nights

as they often do, and,

song suggests that of a mockingbird. Can

living as neighbors in the

same environment

produces a similar personality?

30

the

actions,

it

be that

— the same catbriar tangles

I

Lorthem Cardinal [CARDINALIS CARDINALIS]

CARDINALS have been the favorite subjects of bird Audubon's day. One modern bird painter mission out of every ten he receives

Another confides that he has made

and

tells

artists

me

com-

for a portrait of a cardinal.

is

at least

twenty paintings of cardinals,

no matter what kind of a job he turns out he can

that

ever since

that one

sell

it.

Bright

red birds always have an irresistible appeal, whether they are framed

on the living room wall or flying free about the snow-covered food shelf outside the

One would

window.

think a bird so brightly colored as the cardinal would

surely migrate to the tropics, along with the tanagers and orioles, but,

on the contrary, a cardinal that spends the summer to

in a

garden

is

likely

winter there too, probably not wandering more than a quarter of a

mile away the

snow

all

lies

year

— even

in northern

But by and large the cardinal

where

it

Ohio or southern Ontario where

deep and the temperature drops below the zero mark.

vies with the

is

more

mockingbird for

typical of the southern states, first

place in the affections of

garden lovers. Perched among the waxy leaves of a magnolia, the male chants in clear slurred whistles

Once it

what cheer, cheer, cheer, cheer, cheer!

a favorite cage bird, trapped commercially

has grown more numerous and

is

now

as far north as the Great Lakes and

32

New

by

tens of thousands,

a familiar town bird in cities

England.

(greater Lrratrte L^htcken [tympanuchus cupido]

WHEN Audubon was

young man

a

Kentucky he found

in

pin-

nated grouse (prairie chickens) "so abundant that they were

common

held in no higher estimation as food than the most

and no hunter of Kentucky deigned

to

shoot them.

upon with more abhorrence than the crows." He reported friend

who was fond

flesh,

They were looked

of rifle-shooting "killed upwards of

that

40

in

a

one

morning, but picked none of them up, so satiated with grouse was he."

He added: "Such an but what will you think

account

when

may appear tell

I

strange to you, reader;

you, that, in that same country,

where twenty-five years ago they could not have been sold than one cent a-piece, scarcely one

have abandoned the

is

now

to

at

more

be found? The grouse

Kentucky, and removed (like the

state of

In-

dians) every season further to the westward, to escape from the

murderous white man." He reported prairie chicken (the that in the

now

markets of Philadelphia,

from

that the eastern

extinct heath hen)

five to ten dollars the

sell

at

still

abundant on the midwestern

When

had become "so rare

New York and

prairies, but this too to

the native prairie vegetation

An

panuchus Cupido Society

—

to

change,

agricultural

was eliminated they

much

organization in Wisconsin is

restricted,

The Tym-

dedicated to purchasing, preserving

and managing remaining prairie chicken

37 D OUT HERE

was

modern

soon disappeared. Today the remaining populations, are carefully managed.

Boston, they

pair." At that time they were

mainly because the bird could not adapt practices.

race of the

habitat.

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