. Song birds and water fowl . trengthentheir nests, in evident anticipation of thesevere weather at hand. These successive ad-ditions of material sometimes result in a per-fectly enormous building, as in the case of onefound at Plumb Island, Conn., that was sevenfeet high, and from six to eight feet across. Our familiar *flicker, or golden-wingedwoodpecker, is esteemed a great luxury by Jer-sey hunters; and their method of decoyingthem is peculiar. I noticed, here and there,in the scrubby woodland, a very long deadbranch projecting slantingly upward from nearthe top of a tree, looking half art
. Song birds and water fowl . trengthentheir nests, in evident anticipation of thesevere weather at hand. These successive ad-ditions of material sometimes result in a per-fectly enormous building, as in the case of onefound at Plumb Island, Conn., that was sevenfeet high, and from six to eight feet across. Our familiar *flicker, or golden-wingedwoodpecker, is esteemed a great luxury by Jer-sey hunters; and their method of decoyingthem is peculiar. I noticed, here and there,in the scrubby woodland, a very long deadbranch projecting slantingly upward from nearthe top of a tree, looking half artificial, halfnatural—a clever device for the accommodationof flickers, which, in migration, pass over thisregion in great numbers and in fat in the night, they find these conspic-uous perches very alluring for resting places,and are shot in the early morning. They roostso close together that sometimes several will bebrought down at one discharge. There is somuch rivalry among hunters in capturing this 192. OSPREYA grand old barbarian bird of prey-a typical cannibal-chief in feathers (p. 19 0- At the Waters Edge game, and some of the perches are so muchmore attractive than others, that a gunner willsometimes sleep all night under a tree, in orderto pre-empt the claim in the morning. Besides finding Cape May favorable forstudying the various hawks, which are particu-larly abundant hereabouts—one man telling methat he had shot fifty-six the day before, justfor practice !—I had an opportunity of observ-ing one of the most repulsive species in thefeathered kingdom—the turkey buzzard. Wemight say of it, as was once remarked in regardto a certain persons conduct, *^it is worse thansinful, it is vulgar. And, as I saw these un-gainly creatures moping about on the beach,with unkempt plumage, tall but crouching fig-ures, round-shouldered, with snaky necks, andslinking, glittering eyes, coarse-visaged andstupid, and with a nauseous appetite, the sightstruck me as
Size: 1391px × 1796px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublishern, booksubjectbirds
