Popular science monthly . logist; for thescalpel of the taxi-dermist, or a legiti-mate target forevery gunner inthe land that cameacross them in theopen. There is a splen-did array of falcon-birds in ouravifauna, theprincipal represen-tatives being theEagles, the Fal-cons, the Hawks,Kites and these, wehave two speciesof Caracaras, aswell as the famousOsprey or FishHawk. When oneincludes the latter,with the four dif-ferent kinds ofEagles recogni/.edby American or-nithologists, thereare in the UnitedStates, all told, no fewer than thirty-twospecies and twenty-one sub-species ofs
Popular science monthly . logist; for thescalpel of the taxi-dermist, or a legiti-mate target forevery gunner inthe land that cameacross them in theopen. There is a splen-did array of falcon-birds in ouravifauna, theprincipal represen-tatives being theEagles, the Fal-cons, the Hawks,Kites and these, wehave two speciesof Caracaras, aswell as the famousOsprey or FishHawk. When oneincludes the latter,with the four dif-ferent kinds ofEagles recogni/.edby American or-nithologists, thereare in the UnitedStates, all told, no fewer than thirty-twospecies and twenty-one sub-species ofsuch l)irds. None of these are asabundant as they were half a centur\ ormore ago, or even less lime. Indeed,during the autumnal migration of birdssouthward in the early seventies, inthe southern part of Fairfield County inConnecticut, I have seen as many as atliousand or more different kinds ofiiawks pass overhead in the course of aday; I very much doubt that one nowcould count, at the same time of theyear, over a Profile of the Ospreylives entirely upon fish The thoughtless farmer argues thathawks of every kind kill domesticp(Hiltry, and that he, for one, is for exter-minating the entire lot of them. Thattliousands of chickens, ducks, youngturkeys, tame pigeons, guinea-fowls andother denizens ofthe farmers yard,have been, in time,destroyed byhawks, there canbe no question; buteven so, our inves-ti gat ion of sucha serious mattershould not restupon a snap judg-ment, and lead usto condemn theentire tribe on thataccount. In the first place,some hawks, as theFish Hawk, li\eentirely upon fish,and never attackor destroy any kintiof fowl or mam-mal, although ithas the strength tokill a full-growngobbler, were it totr\- to do so. Theillustration heregiven is the repro-duction of a photo-graph I made of abird not quite full grown, which was inmy possession for several days; I alsomade the other photographs for thisarticle from li\ing specimens of hawksin my keeping at differen
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectscience, bookyear1872
