Identifier: birdsnatureinnat03chic (find matches)
Title: Birds and nature in natural colors : being a scientific and popular treatise on four hundred birds of the United States and Canada
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors:
Subjects: Birds -- North America
Publisher: Chicago : A.W. Mumford, Publisher
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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use of its uncommon fatness and the excellence of its meat, itwas generally know in New England as the dough bird. No doubt these qual-ities were the chief cause of the curlews extinction. Thus the very qualitiesthat should have insured the perpetuation of the species for the benefit of pos-terity led to its destruction by our improvident selves. The bird is spoken of hereas extinct since, to all intents and purposes, it is so, although a few probably stillsurvive. The lesson to be drawn from the destruction of the curlew and the pas-senger pigeon is that in the case of any given game bird we cannot tell exactlywhen the danger line is crossed and the safety of the species begins to be threat-ened. The untimely end of the curlew and pigeon shows that it is the part ofwisdom to apply the brakes before the bottom of the hill is reached—in otherwords, to adopt effective preventive measures before it is too late. Greater abundance atones for the smaller size of this curlew in regions 442
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538 ESKIMO CURLEW.Numenius borealis).About ^ Life-size. COPTRIGMT MUMFOHD, CMFCAQO where it is regularly found at all. It moves up the Mississippi Valley in immenseflocks, deploying over the prairies, and keeping company with such birds as theBartramian sandpiper and the golden plover. When feeding in extensive com-panies the birds keep up a conversational chattering, which Coues likens to thatof a flock of blackbirds. In Labrador, where these curlews have been most closely studied, they arefound to feed largely upon the cow berry (Empctrum nigram), so greedily, infact that their plumage often becomes stained with its purple juice. Upon thisfare, together with a generous allowance of sea food in the shape of snails, thebirds become excessively fat, and are in prime condition for the unreluctantgunner in August or early September. April Rain O the dashing, April rain Making crystal-clear the paneOf the window in my lilac-scented room! The quick flashing of bird-wings And the freshened

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