Spix. Av. Bras. pl. 1. Buff. Pl. Enl. 428. Vieill. Gal. pl. 3.
Plumage on the neck, dusky cinereous; wings and tail, glossy black;
all other parts, fine pale fulvous. Head and upper part of neck naked,
the former with an elevated and conspicuous caruncle arising from the
cere.
Total length of skin about 28 inches, wing 18, tail about 9 inches.
Hab. South and Central America. Mexico.
Obs. The King Vulture is the most handsome bird of its family. Though
admitted by Nuttall as a bird of the United States (Manuel, I. p. 40,
Boston, 1840,) no instance is recorded, or has otherwise come to our
knowledge, of its having been observed north of Mexico. It is not
improbable, however, that it may yet be found in Texas or in California,
or possibly in Florida. It is described by Hernandez as an inhabitant of
Mexico, in his “New History of the Plants, Animals, and Minerals of
Mexico,” p. 319, (Nova, plantarum, animalium et mineralium Mexicanorum,
Historia, Rome, 1651, folio,) and has found a place in the works of all
authors on general Ornithology, and been noticed by many travellers.
The above comprise all the Vultures which have been hitherto known or
supposed to inhabit America, north of Mexico. There are three other
species which appear to be peculiar to South America and the islands of
West Indies, (particularly the more southern of them,) all of which more
or less intimately resemble our species of the North. They are
_Cathartes jota_ (Molina), described in Geog. Nat. and Civil Hist. of
Chili, American edition, I. p. 185, (Middletown Conn. 1808, octavo,)
_Cathartes Brasiliensis_, Bonaparte Consp. Av. p. 9, and _Cathartes
urbicola_, Des Murs Rev. and Mag. de Zool. April, 1853. The latter is a
large and very remarkable species which has only recently been
ascertained to frequent the cities of several of the West Indies.
Nearly all of the American Vultures are remarkable for a disposition
manifested, in a greater or less degree, to resort to cities, or even
more isolated abodes of men, for the purpose of procuring food. In the
southern cities of the United States, the Black Vulture congregates in
large numbers; its relative of South America (_Cathartes Brasiliensis_)
possesses the same habit, and is exceedingly abundant in the cities of
the countries that it inhabits. Even the gigantic Condor does not
hesitate to make its appearance in the vicinity of villages or dwellings
in the western countries of South America for the same purpose. In this
respect these birds resemble the most common European bird of their
family which inhabits southern Europe, and also Asia and northern
Africa; the _Neophron percnopterus_ or Egyptian Vulture. The latter is,
however, very different in colour, being nearly white when adult, and
_clean_, which is an important consideration in a bird of habitually
filthy habits.
Travellers have represented the male of the Condor as larger and as
having more handsome plumage than the female. We hope to be excused for
here asking attention to this point, should opportunity occur to any of
our readers. It is the only known or supposed instance in the order of
Rapacious Birds, of the male being the larger, and, if true, of course
establishes an exception hitherto not recognized by naturalists. In
these birds, and especially in the Falcons and Eagles, the difference in
the size of the sexes of the same species is often very remarkable, but
the larger is invariably the female.
Further experiments and observations by persons having suitable
opportunities and facilities are very desirable for the purpose of
ascertaining the degree of development of the senses of sight and smell
in the Vultures. Eminent authors have maintained quite opposite views on
this subject, some attributing the fact that they perceive objects
suitable for their food from a distance, to the acuteness of their sight
and others to their power of smelling. This is yet an open question,
though there is a very considerable amount of evidence on each side, and
may be regarded as presenting an interesting field for further
investigation.
[Illustration: Plate 11
Kirtland’s Owl
Nyctale Kirtlandii (_Hoy_)]
NYCTALE KIRTLANDII.—(Hoy.)
Kirtland’s Owl.
PLATE XI.—Adult Male.
Having in the eastern portion of the United States no traditions nor
architectural remains which date beyond the first settlement of the
white man, our people are but little prone to many of the superstitions
which have prevailed in the old world. In the absence of the ruined
monastery or crumbling abbey, of the ivy-covered baronial castle and
haunted tower, local and legendary superstitions especially, have found
no considerable nor permanent place in the popular mind.
Some reliance in the influence of the moon, and a small degree of
attention to the aspect of the sign of the zodiac according to the
time-honored frontispiece in the almanac, both materially lacking in the
important requisite of full and trusting faith, are very nearly the only
mysteries which can be regarded as having acquired a practical adoption
in any appreciable degree. Others, as the witchcraft of former and the
Spiritualism of latter times, as in other countries, have temporarily
assumed aspects of more or less importance, but have either disappeared,
or, awaiting the certain test of Christian enlightenment and
unprejudiced examination, have taken the form of religious faith, and
are held in conscientious veneration. An occasional exception may be
found, too, in the local transplanting of an European, or perhaps of an
African tradition, but many superstitions of the old world are almost
absolutely unknown; the evil Banshee, the gentler Brownie, Puck and
Oberon, Mab and Titania have no local habitation, though well beloved as
beautiful accessories in the immortal productions of the poets, or as
told by an humble mother to her children in tales of remembrance of her
native land.
In the higher order of legends—in those which record facts or dim
histories of exceeding antiquity, or in which are embalmed the deeds of
the remote hero, though even more faded than his features on the
mouldering wall or the faded marble—young America pleads her youth. But
not without product—and as that which has been shall be again, as
legends and traditions like to those of other nations will very probably
be amongst the results of American mind, there is one American name,
perhaps as yet one only, which may become mythical or even now is. When
thousands of years shall have rolled away, and the annals of the present
age shall be known only to the scholar and the antiquary of those times
in precious scraps and fragments, the adjusting of which shall require
the skilfulness of learning, some future Lepsius or Layard may recognise
in a wise Minos or in a just Nemesis, the American Washington.
The Republic of the United States has acquired its position as a nation,
and in fact has existed only in an age of enlightenment, and the
universal attention to education and the diffusion of general knowledge
which happily has ever prevailed in a degree not exceeded in any
country, has necessarily prevented in a great measure the forming of
orally transmitted histories or of legendary fables, and there being no
ruins of buildings nor other evidences of the decay of past ages, our
people do not associate with ideas of desolation, animals which might
have found suitable habitations in such localities, nor have they
attributed traditional associations or characters.
We have no birds of ill omen, and even the long-defamed Owl has escaped
his usual reputation; not that he is regarded with favor, rather the
reverse; but for other reason than attributed connexion with
supernatural agents; nor is his appearance in the neighborhood of the
farm-house or the settler’s cabin regarded as at all ominous, except of
immediate danger to whatever of the domestic poultry may have attracted
his attention, or in any degree foreboding, unless of his own abrupt
demise in case he happens to be observed by the proprietor, having at
hand his trusty rifle or fowling-piece. The owl takes the greater risk
in such an adventure.
On account, in some measure, of their peculiar forms, particularly their
large heads and staring eyes, their nocturnal habits, and their
habitually resorting in the day-time to secluded haunts in the forest or
other little-frequented localities, no animals have been more invariably
regarded as of evil portent than owls. And in this character they have
found a place in the literature, and especially the poetry, of nearly
all nations ancient and modern. The Latin writers seldom fail to mention
the appearance of the owl among the omens and prodigies which they
frequently enumerate as having preceded disasters to the state or to
distinguished personages. Pliny in his Natural History, gravely devotes
a chapter to Inauspicious Birds, and gives the owl a post of distinction
in this manner: “The owl, a dismal bird, and very much dreaded in public
auguries, inhabits deserts which are not only desolate, but dreary and
inaccessible: it is a monster of night, nor does it possess any voice
but a groan. Thus, when it is seen in towns or in daylight, it is an
omen to be dreaded.” Book x., chapter 12. The poets give him the same
reputation, but perhaps only in the legitimate exercise of their art.
The poet is privileged in the entire domain of nature, and Virgil and
Shakspeare have forever commemorated, though somewhat infamously, the
Owl. The former alludes to it as one of numerous precursors of the death
of Dido:
“Solaque culminibus ferali carmine bubo
Sæpe queri, et longas in fletum ducere voces.”
“Whilst lonely on the roof, night’s bird prolongs
The notes of woe, and shrieks funereal songs.”
Shakspeare uses the Owl in the same capacity of direful portent. Thus
Casca, in allusion to omens preceding the death of Cæsar:
“And yesterday, the bird of night did sit
Even at noon-day upon the market-place
Hooting and shrieking:”
and in Macbeth he introduces its cry as an accompaniment of the murder
of Duncan:
“Hark! Peace! It was the owl that shrieked,
The fatal bellman, which giv’st the stern’st good-night.
He is about it:”
and again in Henry the Sixth:
“The owl shriek’d at thy birth; an evil sign;
The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time,
Dogs howl’d, and hideous tempests shook down trees.”
Shakspeare has various other passages of much the same tenor, and so
have many other poets of the English and other languages; but, as we can
say truly with Cowper (in Task):
“The jay, the pie, and e’en the boding owl,
That hails the rising moon, have charms for _us_,”
we have no intention at all of making out a strong case of bad
reputation against him, even from the poets. We ought to say, though,
that he has borne this reputation much more recently than the time of
Pliny, and in some countries of the old world has scarcely yet attained
a character of entire respectability. There might be a difficulty,
however, in deciding which is the more remarkable, the things said of
him, or the gravity of the sayer. A writer, cited in Brand’s Popular
Antiquities, says to the point: “In the year 1542, at Herbipolis or
Wirtzburg, in Franconia, this unlucky bird by his screeching songs
affrighted the citizens a long time together, and immediately followed a
great plague, war, and other calamities. About twenty years ago, I did
observe that in the house where I lodged, an Owl groaning in the window
presaged the death of two eminent persons who died there shortly after.”
Another, bringing the matter to a more general bearing, says: “If an
owl, which is reckoned a most abominable and unlucky bird, send forth
its hoarse and dismal voice, it is an omen of the approach of something:
that some dire calamity and some great misfortune is near at hand.” And
amongst many similar stories, it is related by an old author, that when
a Duke of Cleves was suffering with the disease of which he afterwards
died, an Owl was seen and heard frequently upon the palace of Cleves in
the day-time, and could scarcely be driven away. Very wonderful, but not
calculated for the present meridian, and happily rather out of date
generally. It would scarcely suit the citizens of our frontier States to
regard in any such aspect the nightly serenades of the Great Horned Owl,
though performed in a style entirely appropriate.
Other nations, and some more ancient than the Romans, also regarded the
Owl with various degrees of superstition. In Egypt, at one period, an
image of an Owl transmitted by the supreme authority to a subject, was
an intimation in established form, that the latter would particularly
oblige his sovereign by immediately committing suicide. With which civil
invitation, compliance, at earliest convenience, appears to have been
necessary, not entirely as a matter of mere politeness, but to save
himself from aspersions as a man of honor and a gentleman. An instance
is related by Diodorus Siculus, in which a person placed in such a
dilemma and manifesting some repugnance and uncourtly backwardness, was
put to death by one of his parents to save their house from disgrace.
But the people of the present day have been favored to live in an age
characterized in all Christian countries by the diffusion of truth and
the progress of intellectual cultivation, and in which, as a peculiar
feature, the physical sciences especially have tended to dispel the
mists of ages. In accordance with the spirit of it, modern writers
rarely resort to the adoption, even in poetic composition, of ungrounded
popular errors. Thus, with no such implication, Coleridge, in
Christabel, introduces the Owl in an opening chorus:
“’Tis the middle of the night by the castle-clock,
And the owls have awakened the crowing cock.
Tu—whit!—tu-whoo!
And hark again! the crowing cock
How drowsily he crew.”
And beautiful too is the allusion to the Owl by Longfellow, in Hyperion:
“For the owl is a grave bird; a monk who chants midnight mass in the
great temple of Nature.”
Kirtland’s Owl, which we present to our readers in the plate now before
us, is one of the most recent additions to the Ornithological Fauna of
this country, and was first brought to notice by Philo R. Hoy, M. D., an
eminent naturalist and physician of Racine, Wisconsin, who has
ascertained its occurrence, and has succeeded in obtaining several
specimens in the neighborhood of that city.
It appears, however, to be by no means a common species, though having
been observed in the season of incubation, as well as in the winter, it
may be presumed to be a constant resident, and further investigation may
bring to light full details of its history. It belongs to a group
composed of several species of small owls, found in the northern regions
of both continents, the most common of which, in this country, is the
little Acadian Owl (_Nyctale acadica_), a curious and rather handsome
little species not very well known in the rural districts, but sometimes
occurring, and also occasionally captured, in the cities. It is the
least of the owls of the Atlantic States. Another species is known as
Tengmalm’s Owl (_N. Tengmalmii_), which inhabits the higher northern
latitudes of America and Europe.
Like the other small species of its family, the present Owl probably
subsists on the smaller birds and quadrupeds and on insects. The last
form no inconsiderable portion of the food of the smaller Owls. We have
repeatedly found the remains of insects in the stomachs of several
species; and in 1851, during the period of the appearance of the
Seventeen-year Locust (_Cicada septemdecim_) in the neighborhood of
Philadelphia, we enjoyed an opportunity, in company with several members
of the Academy of Natural Sciences of this city, of observing the common
Red Owl (_Ephialtes asio_) while engaged in feeding on insects of that
remarkable species. It captured them principally in an apple-tree in
which it was first noticed, but occasionally pursued its object to the
ground, and with a degree of adroitness and avidity which fully evinced
that it had been accustomed to similar occupation.
Dr. Hoy’s description of the species now before us was first published
in the Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy, VI. p. 211, (Dec. 1852,)
from which we make the following extract:
“But two specimens of this bird have been taken, to my knowledge; the
first was captured in October 1851, and kept until winter, when it made
its escape; the second, that from which the above description was taken,
flew into an open shop, July 1852. It is strictly nocturnal, utters a
low tremulous note, and is an active and efficient mouser.”
We have been informed by Dr. Hoy that during the past summer (1853,) he
had succeeded in obtaining another specimen which proved to be a female.
It is slightly larger than the male, but similar in all other respects.
The figures in our plate represent the male bird, and are about
two-thirds of the size of life.