FISHING HAWK Michelet descants in L'Oiseau, the fact that the gape of the mouth reaches, but does not pass, the eye, and the slight webbing between the outer front toes. The osprey has not the latter character, which, as well as a few others, produces a certain likeness to the owl tribe, which are known to be not nearly related to the hawk tribe. On account of these few facts, Pandion haliaetus, the osprey, has been given a separate place in the Accipitrine phalanx, which however it hardly deserves. A glance at the living bird, which is frequently to be found at the Zoo, will show this. It is unmistakably and thoroughly a hawk. The long-legged caracaras, and still more perhaps the less known Polyboroides of Africa, have a suggestion of the secretary bird, which is unquestionably an "aberrant "hawk. They may remind the visitor, too, of quite a distinct form, the cariama, which ornithologists now hold to be not far off from the cranes, by their habit of throwing back the neck when uttering their prolonged cry. But the remaining assemblage can only with difficulty be split up into "families," and even the carrion-loving ways of the vulture are successfully imitated by that "noble " bird the golden eagle, who will stoop readily from sailing with supreme dominion through the azure deep of air to settle upon a festering sheep's carcass. The osprey seems to be free from this ghoulish taste. This fish hawk, as it is often called, is world wide in range; it extends much farther than from China to Peru, viz. from Japan to Brazil, and from Alaska to New Zealand. It catches fish in the sea or in lakes; with us it is a rarity, though it has been ascertained to breed here, or rather in Scotland. And very rightly, as evidence of the proper importance to be attached to the matter, the Zoological Society awarded some years back a medal to certain gentlemen who had been instrumental in cherishing the nests and home of the osprey. FEMALE SEX PREDOMINANT Τ CHAPTER VII The Painted Snipe THIS co HIS gaily coloured Indian and African bird will serve as an instance of a not very common phenomenon among birds, that is the predominance of the female over the male sex. As a rule it is the male who is gorgeous or gaudy; he is the ornamental part of the household, and ruffles it abroad with his fellows, while the dowdily plumed hen stays at home and attends to her domestic cares. The painted snipe, however, belongs to a matriarchal species, where it is the female who is predominant in size and colouring, the cock bird, it is said, attending to the duties of incubation. A curious structural character emphasizes this reversed relation of the sexes. In many birds belonging to quite different groups the windpipe, instead of passing straight down to its entrance into the lungs, deviates into the substance of the breastbone, or under the skin, and there becomes variously coiled, the anatomical fact being followed by a more strident voice. Where the sexes differ in this it is the rule for the female to have a straight trachea without convolutions. Now in Rhynchæa capensis, as the painted snipe is known to ornithologists, it is the female who has a slightly coiled trachea, while that of the male is perfectly uncoiled. The term snipe is a misnomer when applied to this fowl, although it undoubtedly does belong to that great group of wading MR. FINN ON RHYNCHEA birds, the Limicolæ, which embraces the true snipes. The Indian sportsman knows that it neither behaves nor tastes like a snipe. The anatomist tells precisely the same tale. It is perhaps rather to the jaçanas, those extraordinary long-toed birds, which walk upon the leaves of aquatic plants both in the Old World and the New, that the Rhynchæa approaches most nearly in structure. It has too, according to Mr. F. Finn, a skulking and furtive gait like that of a rail. The first, and so far the only, specimens brought to the Zoo were sent over by the same gentleman in 1902. The bird is unmistakably of the Limicoline order. It has the long bill of the majority of that tribe. Its colours are striking and yet are held to be "protective"; the back is olive green with yellow stripes. The behaviour of this bird has been carefully studied by Mr. Finn. During courtship they spread their wings and crouch down, something after the fashion of the ruff; they utter coincidentally a sound "like that produced by plunging a hot iron into water." The same attitudes and actions are, however, produced by dismay, and are thought to be alarming to enemies. At any rate, Mr. Finn saw a golden plover which seemed to be frightened by this display. THE GLAUCOUS GULL In many respects this is one of the finest of the gull tribe. It is at least one of the largest. As a rule a specimen may be seen in the enclosure devoted to the gulls at the Zoo. The glaucous gull is not strictly a British species; it is like many forms which inhabit the northern regions, circumpolar in habitat. Its occasional inclusion in the fauna of this country is due to infrequent visitations to these islands. The only equal of the glaucous gull in size is the great blackbacked gull (Larus marinus), which is also a bird to be GULLS AND SKUAS irequently seen at the Zoo. The glaucous gull has a paler plumage. The gulls are a group of birds found more or less everywhere, and are of a fairly uniform coloration. The prevalent hues are grey, black and white, mingled in a way that everybody must have noted; a good many varieties of gull, comprising the more common forms, are always on view in their own special pond, and also in other enclosures at the Zoo. An exceptionally coloured gull is the beautiful ivory gull (Pagophila eburnea), which is brilliant white with black legs. It is an occasional visitant to our shores, and, though not willingly, to our Zoo. The greys and whites of the gulls is believed to assist in rendering the bird obscure on account of a harmony with frothing waves, over the tops of which the gull skims, or on the tops of which it rides. This may be so; but the young gull has a different plumage, which lasts for a long time, and is of a speckled brown. What is sauce for the goose ought to be sauce for the gosling; if the old bird needs this protection of invisibility, it might be thought that the young needed it more, or at least as much. But the colour of the young gull is not without significance if we bear in mind those close allies of the gulls, the skuas. Of these birds also examples are fairly certain to be visible in one or other of the enclosures devoted to birds. The prevailing hue of the skuas is brown. It is from these birds rather than from the gulls perhaps that the slang term "gull" is derived. For the skuas, though powerful enough and agile enough to do their fishing and food collecting generally for themselves, prefer to worry and harass some other fishing bird, until they make it drop its recently captured prey in sheer nervousness or fright. The older ornithologists, unduly impressed by webbed feet, put the gull near to the ducks and other aquatic birds. They have, however, nothing in common structurally except these webbed toes. THE BLACK SWAN The Curious though it may appear, when mere outward look is considered, the gulls come nearest to the Limicolæ than to all other existing groups of birds. Limicolæ is that extensive assemblage of birds which includes the snipes, plovers, and their manifold kindred. One rather singular type of Limicoline (not infrequently to be seen at the Zoo) is an antarctic bird of white plumage, known as Chionis, or in English as sheath-bill. It is an almost ideally intermediate form. It has the aspect and marine habits of a gull; but in some other particulars agrees more closely with the land representatives of this group Limicolæ. Another bird, British this time, offers a second bridge to connect the gulls with the plovers and the rest. The phalaropes are apt to be quite gull-coloured in their winter plumage; a delicate grey upon the back being contrasted with a white under-surface. But the phalaropes have not properly webbed feet like the gulls. The feet are in fact lobate, with expansions of skin at intervals as in the coot. The noises of gulls are varied and cheerful. The "countless laughter of the sea" is due to the hilarious jocularity of many gulls; one species has been named Larus cachinnaus, the laughing gull. THE BLACK SWAN It seems to be almost impossible to mention the black swan without quoting Virgil's "rara avis in terris," etc. At any rate, no writer of natural histories has ever avoided this obvious opportunity. There is, however, a kind of appropriateness in finding in Australia a negation of this kind, a sort of topsy-turvydom in colour which hangs together with mammals that lay eggs, with kingfishers that do not fish in streams but upon the dry land, and for reptiles, with weird-looking creatures that are apparently rabbits and wolves, but are really neither. The |