. Guide leaflet. being provided withfine, tooth-like serrations to enable it to grasp its slippery victims. After prolonged submersion, the Anhingas plumage, in spite of itstexture, becomes more or less saturated with water, hence the bird,while drying its feathers, stands with wide-open wings. (See bird atright.) The Anhingas webbed feet make it at home in the water, but it isthe birds tail which renders it, for a diving bird, equally at ease in theair. With spread wings and tail it soars in circles, hawk-like, for longperiods, evidently for the pleasure it finds in this exhilarating form ofe
. Guide leaflet. being provided withfine, tooth-like serrations to enable it to grasp its slippery victims. After prolonged submersion, the Anhingas plumage, in spite of itstexture, becomes more or less saturated with water, hence the bird,while drying its feathers, stands with wide-open wings. (See bird atright.) The Anhingas webbed feet make it at home in the water, but it isthe birds tail which renders it, for a diving bird, equally at ease in theair. With spread wings and tail it soars in circles, hawk-like, for longperiods, evidently for the pleasure it finds in this exhilarating form ofexercise Anhingas are hatched naked and are reared in the aest, which is aremarkably well made structure. When a few days old. a buff downbegins to appear, which soon covers them. Like the young of Pelicansand Cormorants, they secure their food from the parent- throat. The background represents a bonnet, or yellow pond lily lakewith its surrounding cypl ttd palmettoes, 17 miles west <•: 31 Lucie, Florida. 8. THE SANDHILL CRANE ON THE KISSIMMEE PRAIRIES IN 1632, when Morton wrote of New England birds, of Cranesthere are a great store—they sometimes eate our conic and doepay for their presumption well enough—a goodly bird in a dishe and no discommodity/ he referred to the species in this group. At thattime it was doubtless common throughout North America; now it nestsin Florida only, of the Atlantic (oast States, while in the interior itbreeds only locally west of Wisconsin. In Florida, the Sandhill Crane is still to be found on the great Kis-simmee Prairies and their adjoining low, pine-grown lands, where thestudies for the present group were made. Here, in March, it commonlybuilds its little island nest in the water-filled depressions thickly grownwith a species of pickerel weed locally known as bull-tongue. Nest-building is preceded by the singular antics of courtship, whenboth males and females hop, skip and jump about one another, bowinglow and leaping high, all
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectnatural, bookyear1901
