Bill moderate, or rather long, curved, rather wide at base, but
compressed towards the end; apertures of the nostrils large; wings
rather short, rounded; first quill short; fourth, fifth, and sixth,
usually longest and nearly equal; tail moderate, or rather long, soft at
the end; legs and feet rather large and robust; claws curved, sharp. An
American genus, nearly allied to others, and containing numerous
species.
Picolaptes brunneicapillus. La Fresnaye, Guerin’s Mag. de Zoologie,
1835, p. 61.
Form. Bill curved; culmen distinct; wings short; tail rather long; tarsi
and toes strong, and covered with scales; tail wide, with its feathers
broad and soft.
Dimensions. Total length of skin, about 8¼ inches; wing, 3½; tail, 3½
inches. Female rather smaller.
Colors. Entire plumage above, brown, darkest and unspotted on the head;
but on other upper parts with every feather having a central stripe or
oblong spots of white, disposed to form longitudinal stripes; quills
with numerous spots of white on the edges of their outer webs, forming
somewhat regular oblique stripes, and on their inner webs with regular
transverse stripes of white; tail, with its central two feathers,
grayish-brown, transversely barred with brownish-black; other tail
feathers brownish black, with irregular wide transverse bands of white,
more numerous on the two outermost feathers.
Under parts white, tinged with fulvous on the flanks and abdomen;
feathers of the throat and neck before tipped with black; those of other
under parts with circular or oblong spots of black, large on the under
tail-coverts; bill and feet horn-color. Sexes alike.
Hab. Texas and Mexico. Spec. in Mus. Acad., Philada., and Nat. Mus.,
Washington.
Obs. This bird somewhat resembles several of its genus, but is not
difficult to distinguish. In many specimens, especially of the male
bird, the black predominates on the throat and neck before, so as to
present an almost uniform color.
Several late writers have placed this species in the genus
_Campylorhynchus_ (Spix).
[Illustration: Plate 26
The Ferruginous Buzzard
Archibuteo ferrugineus (_Lichtenstein_)]
ARCHIBUTEO FERRUGINEUS.—(Lichtenstein).
The Ferruginous Buzzard.
PLATE XXVI.—Adult and Young.
This is one of the largest and most handsomely plumaged of the Rapacious
birds of North America, though belonging to a division characterized by
heavy and comparatively slow flight, and not manifesting any
considerable degree of that courage and cunning which are generally so
remarkable in this great group of the ornithological kingdom. In fact,
on examination of the fine bird now before us, or of the Black Hawk of
the Atlantic States, which is nearly related to it, one would scarcely
infer that the object of such an admirable organization is nothing more
important than the destruction of the smallest and most defenceless of
quadrupeds or of reptiles. Yet such is apparently the case; many of the
birds of this group, though powerful in structure, and furnished with
the usual apparatus of strong and sharp bills and claws, and other
accompaniments of predatory habits, rarely attack any animal more
formidable than a mouse or ground-squirrel, or in some cases a frog or
other of the weaker species of reptiles.
It is, however, entirely erroneous to attribute a noble or generous
character to any of the predatory animals, though from an early period
of history several species have been so regarded. On the contrary, there
is in all these classes, whether of birds or of other animals, a marked
absence of the very traits which are in some measure assigned to them,
and even more unmistakably so in some of the more celebrated, as the
Eagles and Lions, than in the more humble species. Yet the rapacious
animals present a study in natural history of deep interest. Owing the
sustaining of their existence for the greater part to rapine and
violence, yet holding an important place in the great design of the
physical universe, they appear to personate a principle, if we may be
allowed to use the expression, involving one of the most momentous and
mysterious of problems, the existence of evil in the world. The prowling
and treacherous Lion, and the robber Wolf, have unfortunately but too
strong analogies in that race which is the head of the visible creation,
and they and their kind everywhere present the same intrinsic meanness
which is characteristic of violence and injustice, of vice and of crime
amongst men.
The bird now before the reader is, so far as known, exclusively a
Western species. It was first made known to American naturalists by Mr.
Edward M. Kern of this city, who, when attached as artist to Colonel
Frémont’s Expedition of 1846, obtained it in California and brought home
specimens in a collection made by him, of the birds of that country. It
had however been previously noticed and described as a bird of
California by Professor Lichtenstein, a distinguished European
naturalist, in a paper on the natural history of that country, in the
Transactions of the Royal Academy of Berlin (1838, p. 428).
Since Mr. Kern, the only American naturalist who has noticed this bird
is Dr. Heermann, who has met with it during both of his visits to
California, but especially during his connection with a party under
command of Lieut. Williamson, of the U. S. Topographical Engineers,
which has recently completed an examination and survey for a route for a
Railroad to the Pacific Ocean through the southern portion of the
territory of the United States. For our present article, Dr. Heermann
has with great kindness allowed us to make the following extract from
his journal, kept during the survey to which we have alluded:
“During a previous visit to California, I had seen this species in the
valley of the Sacramento river, and had considered it as rare in that
section of the country, but during the recent survey in which I have
been engaged in the southern part of the state, I found it very
abundant, and on one occasion saw five or six individuals in view at the
same moment, in the mountains, about sixty miles east of San Diego. It
was there much more frequently seen than any other species.
“As large tracts of that country inhabited by this bird are often
entirely without trees, it alights on the ground or on some slightly
elevated tuft of grass or a stone, where it sits patiently for hours
watching for its prey. Its food, on dissection, I found to consist
almost entirely of small quadrupeds, principally various species of
mice, and in one instance the crop was filled with the remains of a
ground-squirrel. In plumage it appears to vary as much as its allied
species, _A. sancti-johannis_. One specimen, which was shot by a soldier
attached to our party, had the tail strongly tinged with the red color
which characterizes that appendage in the red-tailed Hawk, (_B.
borealis_).
“I have several times seen a bird sailing over the prairies, about the
size of the present species, but with its entire plumage deep-black and
of heavy and continued flight. It was I think certainly of this genus;
but never having been so fortunate as to have procured a specimen, I am
unable to decide whether it was this bird, the Black Hawk (_A.
sancti-johannis_), or a new species to add to this group. My impression
is that it was the Black Hawk, but it may have been the present in a
stage of plumage yet undescribed.
“The nest and eggs of the present bird I procured on the Consumnes
river, in 1851. The nest was in the forks of an oak and was composed of
coarse twigs and lined with grasses; the eggs, two in number, were
white, marked with faint brown dashes. This nest was placed in the
centre of a large bunch of _Misletoe_, and would not have been
discovered, but having occasion to climb the tree to examine some
Magpie’s nests, the Hawk in flying off betrayed her retreat. The eggs of
this species are quite different from those of the European _A.
lagopus_, but with those of _A. sancti-johannis_, I have never had an
opportunity of comparing them.”
Mr. Kern’s specimens are marked as having been procured in the Tulavie
valley, California, in January, 1846. He observes, in his notes in our
possession, that finding this bird remarkably fat and in excellent
general condition, some of the party shot it for the mess-kettle
whenever opportunity offered, and found it “very good eating.” Possibly
under stress of capital appetites.