Birds and all Nature, Vol. IV, No. 6, December 1898

That there is pain and evil, is no rule
That I should make it greater, like a fool.

    – Leigh Hunt.
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.

    – Wordsworth.
A GOOD man," said Plutarch, "will take care of his Horses and Dogs, not only while they are young, but when old and past service."

The organs of sense, and consequently feeling itself, are the same as they are in human creatures. I can't imagine how a man not hardened in blood and massacre is able to see a violent death, and the pangs of it, without concern. —Bernard de Mandeville, 1723.

However we may differ as to speculative points of religion, justice is a rule of universal extent and invariable obligation. See that no brute of any kind, whether intrusted to thy care or coming in thy way, suffer through thy neglect or abuse. Let no views of profit, no compliance with custom, and no fear of the ridicule of the world, even tempt thee to the least act of cruelty or injustice to any creature whatsoever. But let this be your invariable rule everywhere, and at all times, to do unto others as, in their condition, you would be done unto. —Humphry Primatt, D. D., 1776.

But a full-grown Horse or Dog is, beyond comparison, a more rational, as well as more conversable animal than an infant of a day, a week, or even a month old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? —Jeremy Bentham, 1780.

Animals are endued with a capability of perceiving pleasure and pain; and from the abundant provision which we perceive in the world for the gratification of their several senses, we must conclude that the Creator wills the happiness of these his creatures, and consequently that humanity towards them is agreeable to him, and cruelty the contrary. This, I take it, is the foundation of the rights of animals, as far as they can be traced independently of scripture, and is, even by itself, decisive on the subject, being the same sort of argument as that on which moralists found the Rights of Mankind, as deduced from the Lights of Nature. —Thomas Young, 1798.

The claims of the lower animals to humane treatment, or at least to exemption from abuse, are as good as any that man can urge upon man. Although less intelligent, and not immortal, they are susceptible of pain; but because they cannot remonstrate, nor associate with their fellows in defense of their rights, our best theologians and philosophers have not condescended to plead their cause, nor even to make mention of them; although, as just asserted, they have as much right to protection from ill-usage as the best of their masters have. —W. Youatt, 1839.

There is a moral as well as a physical character to all animal life, however humble it may be – enveloped indeed in obscurity, and with a mysterious solemnity which must ever belong to the secrets of the Eternal. Let us then approach with caution the unknown character of the brute, as being an emanation from Himself; and treat with tenderness and respect the helpless creatures derived from such a source. —Ralph Fletcher, 1848.

THE CALIFORNIA VULTURE

Among the crags, in caverns deep,
The Vulture rears his brood;
Far reaching is his vision's sweep
O'er valley, plain, and wood;
And wheresoe'er the quarry lies,
It cannot 'scape his peering eyes.
The traveler, from the plain below,
Sees first a speck upon the sky —
Then, poised on sweeping wings of woe,
A Vulture, Bat-like, passes by.

    C. C. M.
DOCTOR BREWER states that the single species composing this very distinct genus belongs to western North America, and, so far as known, has the most restricted distribution of all the large raptorial birds in the world. It is found on the coast ranges of southern California from Monterey Bay southward into Lower California. It has become very much reduced in numbers and extinct in localities where it was formerly abundant, which is doubtless due to the indiscriminate use of poison which is placed on carcasses for the purpose of killing Wolves, Bears, Lynxes, Cougars, and other animals which destroy Sheep, Calves, and other cattle of the stockmen. Davie says it is more common in the warm valleys of California, among the almost inaccessible cliffs of the rough mountain ranges running parallel with the Sierra Nevadas for a hundred miles south of Monterey. It associates with the Turkey Buzzard, and the habits of both species are alike, and they often feed together on the same carcass.

The Vulture's flight is easy, graceful, and majestic. A writer who watched one of these gigantic birds thus pictures it: "High in air an aeronaut had launched itself – the California Condor. Not a wing or feather moved, but resting on the wind, like a kite, the great bird, almost if not quite the equal of its Andean cousin, soared in great circles, ever lifted by the wind, and rising higher and higher into the empyrean. Not a motion of the wing could be seen with careful scrutiny through the glass, but every time the bird turned and faced the wind it seemed to bound upward as though lifted by some super-human power, then bearing away before it, gathering the force or momentum which shot its air-laden frame higher and higher until it almost disappeared from sight – a living balloon."

The ordinary California Buzzard and the singular Ravens of Santa Catalina Island often give marvelous exhibitions of soaring or rising into the air without moving their wings, and when it is remembered that their bodies are reduced to a minimum of weight, and that even the bones are filled with air, it is almost scientifically and literally true that they are living balloons. And yet the weight of the Vulture is sometimes twenty-five pounds, requiring immense wings – eight and a half to eleven feet from tip to tip – to support it.

Mr. H. R. Taylor, of the late Nidologist, says there have probably but three or four eggs of the California Vulture been taken, of which he has one. The egg was taken in May, 1889, in the Santa Lucia Mountains, San Luis Obispo County, California, at an altitude of 3,480 feet. It was deposited in a large cave in the side of a perpendicular bluff, which the collector entered by means of a long rope from above. The bird was on the nest, which was in a low place in the rock, and which was, the collector says, lined with feathers plucked from her own body. This assertion, however, Mr. Taylor says, may be an unwarranted conclusion. From the facts at hand, it appears that the California Condor lays but a single egg.

The Condor is not an easy bird to capture, for it has a fierce temper and a powerful beak. An unusually large one, however, was recently taken in Monterey County, California. To catch the mighty creature William J. Barry made use of a lasso, such as ranchmen have with which to round up obstreperous cattle. The strength of one man was barely sufficient to imprison it. It is said that the appetite of the bird was not affected by its loss of liberty.

A GAMELESS COUNTRY

THE West Indian Archipelago, with its four islands and numberless islets, is called the gameless country, because in a region of more than 100,000 square miles there are no Monkeys, Bears, Raccoons, Wild Hogs, Jaguars, Pumas, Panthers, Lynxes, Wild Cats, Foxes, Wolves, or Jackals. There is not even a Woodchuck to be dug out of the many caves. Dogs and Cats, too, are unknown, and this lack of household pets seems to have driven the aborigines to expedients, for in a book called "Ogilvy's Voyages" there is a story told of a San Domingo native who kept a tame Manatee or Sea Cow that made its headquarters in an artificial pond, and was so well trained that when called by its name it would come out of the water, go to a neighbor's house and after receiving food return to the pond, accompanied by boys who seemed to charm it by singing, and it often carried two children on its back. Its instinct was wonderful. It was once struck by a pike in the hand of a Spaniard and after that always refused to come out of the water when there was a clothed man near.

Manatees are often seen northwest of Cuba in shoals, sporting about the reefs like Sea Lions. They are cunning creatures and can dodge the harpoon with more success than any other aquatic animal. The largest land animal of this strange territory is a huge Rat, measuring eighteen inches in length without the tail. With this exception, it is claimed, Cuba, Jamaica, San Domingo, and Porto Rico have no land animals.

SNOWFLAKES

Out of the bosom of the air,
Out of the cloud folds of its garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow,
Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.

    – Longfellow.

THE AMERICAN GOLDEN-EYE

We watch the hunters creeping near
Or crouching in the silvery grasses;
Their gleaming guns our greatest fear,
As high o'erhead our wild flock passes.

But we are of the air, and speed
Like meteors dropping from the sky;
He's "the man behind the gun" indeed
Who can fairly wing a Golden-eye.

    – C. C. M.
FOR beauty this bird will compare favorably with any of the family except the Wood Duck, whose colors are more various and brilliant. Whistler is the name by which it is more commonly known, from the peculiar noise of wings made while flying. In spite of its short, heavy body and small wings, it covers immense distances, ninety miles an hour being the speed credited to it by Audubon, who, however, was not always accurate in his calculations. It is an abundant species throughout the fur countries, where it frequents the rivers and fresh-water lakes in great numbers. It breeds as far north as Alaska, where, on the Yukon, it nests about the middle of June. Like the Wood Duck, it makes its nest in hollow trees and decayed trunks. This consists of grass, leaves, and moss, lined with down from the bird's breast. The eggs are from six to ten in number, and ashy green in color.

The Golden-eye is a winter visitant to Illinois. On Long Island it is better known among the hunters as the "Whistler," and by others it is also called the "Great-head," from its beautifully rich and thickly crested head. On that island it is said to be a not very abundant species, arriving there in company with other migratory Ducks. Mr. Girand met with it in the fall and spring on the Delaware and in Chesapeake bay. Its food consists of small Shell and other Fish, which it procures by diving. In the fall the flesh of the Golden-eye is very palatable. It is very shy and is decoyed with great difficulty. In stormy weather it often takes shelter in the coves with the Scoup Duck, and there it may be more readily killed. Naturally the Golden-eye is chiefly seen in company with the Buffle-head, the Merganser, and other species that are expert divers like itself. When wounded, unless badly hurt, its power of diving and remaining under water is said to be so remarkable that it cannot be taken.

The Golden-eyes always have a sentinel on the watch to announce the approach of an enemy. They have been very little studied in their haunts. The word Clangula indicates in some degree the tone of their voices. They swim under water like fish, out of which they can bound upward and make off with prodigious speed.

GOLDEN ROD

A lady who has lately been making a visit in the West was telling the other day about the forlorn aspect of the country out that way to her. "Even the Golden-rod," she said; "you can't imagine how scraggly and poor it looks, compared with our magnificent flowers along the road here. I wonder what makes the Western Golden-rod so inferior." The very next day there arrived at her house a relative whom she had been visiting when she was in the West. He sat on the veranda, and looked indulgently – even admiringly – at the landscape, and praised its elements of beauty. But as his eye ran along the roadside near by, he said: "But there is one thing that we are ahead of you in – you have no such splendid Golden-rod here as we have out West! The Golden-rod growing along that road, now, is tame and poor compared with ours." What a blessed thing it is that the gold of our own waysides is richer than the gold of all other waysides!