SOME NOTABLE WATER BIRDS
From these relics of geologic antiquity the remainder of the birds now
living, and their fossil ancestors as well, differ fundamentally, and
are united in a division whose badge is the keel on the sternum; hence
they are termed "carinate" birds (Carinatæ). The list begins with the
most archaic order, that of the loons, of which three or four species
are named, but they are hardly separable. They are as big as geese,
have black backs checkered with white spots, white undersurfaces and
heads purplish black, variously marked; and these heads and necks have
a very reptilian look, as they stretch forward their heads inquiringly,
or utter the "wild laughter" that seems so consonant with the lonely
waters they frequent. The reptilian suggestion is even stronger
in their cousins the grebes, known to gunners as "die-dappers,"
"hell-divers," etc., on account of the quickness with which they will
disappear when alarmed. The family badge is on the feet, where the
toes are not connected by a full web, as in loons, but every toe is
margined by a flange of firm skin with a scalloped margin. Grebes have
a way of swimming with the whole body under water, when the exposed
head and neck look very "snaky." The brown and white plumage of grebes
is exceedingly close and dense, and their indifference to wet and cold
is shown by the fact that their nests are mere rafts of sodden weeds
often so loosely tied to the rushes that they go adrift. Grebes abound
on all northern waters and are rarely shot since the taking of their
silvery breasts for hat ornaments has been stopped.
The penguins constitute an order limited in range to the antarctic
region. Their picture is in everybody's mind--a bird that stands as
erect as a soldier on two almost invisible legs and a short stiff tail,
and carries a small head, sometimes plumed, with a strong pointed bill.
The picture usually represents the great flocks that resort in the
brief summer to their rocky breeding places on icy shores, each female
guarding and incubating her two eggs in the rudest of nests on the
ground. These antarctic "rookeries" sometimes hold tens of thousands.
During the rest of the year the penguins are at sea, or under it,
behaving more like seals than birds, for their scalelike plumage is
impervious to water, and their stubby wings are in effect flippers by
which they swim under water, the strong-webbed feet acting only as
rudders until they come to the surface and can paddle. Penguins feed on
crustaceans and mollusks mostly, but also on fish and sea weed.
Next comes that group of wide sea wanderers, the albatrosses and
petrels, united in the family Procellariidæ, whose special mark is
found in the two bony tubes along the top of the beak that contain
the nostrils. Of the albatrosses many species are known, nearly all
inhabitants of the southern oceans, although two or three of the
largest regularly visit the North Pacific coast, and more rarely one
strays into the North Atlantic; certain small species frequent the
western coast of South America. The one best known is the "wandering"
albatross, whose wings spread nine or ten feet, yet are only nine
inches wide. They spend their whole lives on the open ocean, and
undoubtedly sleep there, regardless of storm or calm; but in summer
land on some lone antarctic island or lofty shore, and construct a heap
of mud and rubbish on top of which they deposit two chalky eggs.
Their relatives, the oceanic petrels, are much smaller as a rule,
and some no bigger than sparrows. They are of many kinds, including
fulmars, shearwaters, etc., and nearly all are black or sooty brown,
usually with touches of white. Most of the group are denizens of the
southern hemisphere, but some belong to the north and are migratory;
and the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean are the home of the original
stormy petrels, which sailors call "Mother Carey's chickens" and regard
with mingled superstition and affection; Leach's white-rumped petrel,
of our New England coast, shares this name. Some of the far-southern
species are almost as big as albatrosses. Petrels get their food from
both the waves and the shore and follow ships on long voyages in hope
of scraps of flesh thrown overboard. Most of them breed in holes dug
in the topsoil of sea-fronting cliffs, and lay white eggs; many hide
in these holes by day, and go out only at night, filling the air with
wild cries while they hunt; but fulmars and shearwaters, which make
rude nests on rough shores or on cliff ledges, often in vast colonies,
go abroad in daylight, and throng on the Grand Banks and wherever else
fishing is going on.
Next, in the classification based on structure rather than on
superficial resemblances, comes a large assemblage of water birds,
some exclusively marine, others of inland waters. Here are placed
those long-winged, graceful, oceanic flyers, the tropic birds, and the
many kinds of gannets, snowy white, that soar and plunge like falcons
as they sweep over the waves and pick up incautious squids, fishes,
etc. Most of them are tropical, but one gannet is well known on both
shores of the North Atlantic where it nests in thousands on the cliff
faces that bound such lofty islets as the Bass Rock near Edinburgh, the
Hebrides, and Bird Rock in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The flight is easy
and powerful, and the food is caught by a hawklike plunge.
The nearest relatives of these white birds are the cormorants, which
are shining black, glossy, with blue or green reflections. They are
scattered over the whole globe, most of them along seashores, but many
breed on inland lakes and swamps, usually in large companies. Unlike
the sweeping and beautiful flight of the far-wandering gannets, these
birds appear heavy on the wing; and instead of snatching their food
from the surface they dive after the fishes on which they feed, and
pursue their slippery prey under water, swimming with both wings and
feet, and dodging here and there in a most surprising way. Their bills
are peculiarly well adapted to holding what they catch; and a near
relative of the West Indies and southward often spears its prey with
its bill. This is the darter or snakebird, so called because its long
neck and small head give it a peculiarly snakelike appearance as it
swims with nothing above the surface but the slender head, and that
making scarcely a ripple.
Far more of a wanderer is the tropical long-tailed, long-winged, black
frigate bird, which is the hawk of the sea, for it hovers about the
flocks of fishing birds and forces them to disgorge their catch, which
it appropriates as it falls. Among the birds that suffer most from its
robberies are the pelicans, several species of which live close to salt
water in various parts of the world, while others prefer the lakes and
swamps inland. We have two common species in the United States, the
white pelican, seen all over the interior of the country in summer,
and the brown, which is southern and maritime; both are gregarious not
only in their annual migrations but in their breeding, building nests
on bushes in large companies. Their food is mainly fish, caught both by
diving and by scooping them up as they swim. The well-known peculiarity
of the pelican is the bag of naked skin that hangs from the underside
of the bill, and serves as a receptacle for the catch; when it is
filled the bird returns to its resting place to consume its food at
leisure, or to open wide its mouth and allow its nestlings to pick out
the contents of the bag.
All the foregoing are mainly marine and have short legs and webbed
feet, used principally in swimming; but we now come to the fresh-water
"waders"--the herons, bitterns, storks, ibises, and the like, whose
bodies are perched on stiltlike legs, and whose habits require them
to wade about in marshes and swamps in search of their miscellaneous
food; hence the neck also is long and the bill straight and sharp-edged
to fit it for seizing and holding the active prey by a sudden thrust.
All warm and temperate countries possess herons in a great variety of
species, varying in size from a bird three and one-half feet long, such
as our great blue heron, to one a few inches only in length; but the
colors are usually light and prevailingly bluish or greenish; while the
marsh-loving bitterns are streaked brown. Some are pure white, as is
our elegant egret, which has been all but exterminated in the United
States by men who kill it in the breeding season, when the beautiful
plumes that then adorn its back are at their best, and are marketable
as ornaments for hats and military shakos. Every plume bird so killed
means the loss of a family of young. Herons are shy, solitary birds, as
a rule, nesting on trees in remote swamps in "rookeries" to which they
return year after year from their winter retreats in the tropics; and
they get their food, which includes every sort of living thing they can
find, mostly by standing motionless in the water until it comes near
enough to be picked up by a swift stroke.
The storks are similar birds, but with rather heavier bodies and a way
of standing erect, and of holding the head straight out in flight (the
herons draw it back by curving the neck), which distinguishes them.
They are white and black as a rule, and mainly Oriental or African,
no typical species occurring in the United States. Storks are more
inclined to search the land for food than are the herons, and an
Egyptian species is locally called "a bird of blessing," because it
cleans the villages, while the stately "adjutant" of India is carefully
protected as a similar scavenger. The most familiar of the storks,
however, is the white one that in Europe nests on the roofs of houses,
chimney tops and similar places, and is generally regarded with an
affection that has been expressed in many a poem and story. Ibises are
much like storks, the common "sacred" ibis of Egypt probably owing
its religious distinction to its fondness for lizards and snakes--a
service highly appreciated in that country. Several ibises inhabit
America, one of which is not uncommon along the border of the Gulf of
Mexico, while another is noted for the splendid scarlet of its plumage.
In the same family is the beautiful spoonbill of our Gulf Coast, whose
name refers to the spatulate expansion of the end of the beak. Its
richly roseate hue is reproduced in the dress of the flamingos, that
need not be described.
[Illustration: FLAMINGOS
(_Phoenicopterus ruber_)]
We pass from the flamingos to the ducks by an intermediate form--the
curious chahas and horned screamers of northern South America--large,
turkeylike birds, often tamed and made of service on country places,
where they guard the poultry against hawks and other enemies.
The ducks are a cosmopolitan family (Anatidæ) of about 200 species,
divisible into five groups, namely, mergansers, river ducks, marine
ducks, geese and swans. These have many features in common, one of
which is that in the early autumnal molt all the wing quills drop
out at once, so that for a time none of them is able to fly. The
mergansers, sheldrakes, or "saw bills," are fish eaters, catching their
prey under water, where they move expertly, by means of the narrow,
tooth-studded bill that reminds us of the ichthyornis. They frequent
rivers, and most of them prefer rushing streams. Of our three species
two breed only in the Far North, the third on the Pacific slope. During
the winter they resort to a marine life in warmer latitudes. The river
ducks (Anatinæ) are distinguished from the seafaring ducks (Fuligalinæ)
not only by their preference for inland lakes and marshes, but by the
fact the hind toe bears no lobe, while in the sea ducks it is somewhat
webbed and functional. This group includes such well-known species as
the mallard, black duck, gadwall, widgeon, baldpate, teals, shoveler,
pintail, and the exquisite wood duck, to speak of American species
alone. The mallard and wood duck breed all over the continent, the
latter having the peculiarity of making its nest in trees, but the
others rarely nest south of Canada, except among the mountains of the
Pacific slope.
The seafaring ducks in North America also include several species that
are found on inland bays and salt marshes, such as Chesapeake Bay and
its borders, and do not limit their migratory routes to the seacoast,
but fly overland. Such are the redhead and canvasback, the scaups and
golden-eyes and the ringneck; but the eiders, the scoters, and some
others are truly oceanic. Most of these breed in the Far North, always
nesting on the ground, as is the rule of the whole family, except the
golden-eyes, which choose hollows in stumps and trees. None of the
ducks lays spotted eggs.
While among the ducks the male is likely to wear, at least in the
breeding season, more gayly colored plumage than the female--often
of extraordinary beauty--among the geese both sexes are alike, and
either white throughout, as in most of our species, or brown or gray,
with more or less black, as in the brants, and in our common "wild" or
Canada goose. Geese are far more terrestrial than ducks and visit the
land to nip the herbage, young corn, or cereals; in California doing
serious damage to growing crops. All our species breed in arctic lands
except the Canada goose, which still makes its nest in the northern
parts of the United States and throughout Canada; and most of them
spend the winter south of our country. They represent to most persons
the idea of bird migration. "We see the living wedge of long-necked
birds," says Chapman, "passing high overhead; the unbroken sound waves
bring the sonorous 'honks' with unexpected distinctness to our ears;
and we receive an impressive lesson in the migration of birds. They are
embarked on a journey of several thousand miles, but they come and go
as surely as though they carried chart and compass."
As these geese are larger than the ducks, so the swans surpass the
geese in size and are indeed the largest of water birds. The eight
species are distributed all over the world, everywhere frequenting
fresh waters alone; and all are white except a black-headed Argentine
species, and the wholly black swan of Australia. Before the discovery
of this Australian curiosity a black swan was the proverbial _rara
avis_--something incredible! Swans live mainly on weeds and roots
pulled up from the bottom, but also eat snails, and so forth. Two
species, the whistling and the trumpeter swans, belong to the American
fauna, but both are now rare.