File:Birds and nature in natural colors. (1913) (14751972145).jpg

Identifier: birdsnatureinnat04unse (find matches)
Title: Birds and nature in natural colors.
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors:
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: Chicago : A.W. Mumford, Publisher
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: BHL-SIL-FEDLINK

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
uiseitself and belie its ancestry? The reason is not difficult to discover. It found aplace for itself ready-made in Nature, New Zealand, a sparsely-stocked island,peopled by various forms of life from adjacent but still distant continents. Thereare no dangerous enemies there. Here, there was a great opportunity for anightly prowler. The owl parrot, with true business instinct, saw the openingclearly laid before it, and took to a nocturnal and burrowing life, with the naturalconsequence that more forms survived which were dingy in color. Unlike theowls, however, the Owl Parrot, true to the vegetarian instincts of the wholelory race, lives almost entirely upon sprigs and mosses and other creeping plants.It is thus essentially a ground bird; and as it feeds at night in a country possess-ing no native beasts of prey, it has almost lost the power of flight, and uses itswings only as a sort of parachute to break its fall in descending from rock ortree to its accustomed breeding ground. 626
Text Appearing After Image:
The Sparrow By Abbie Farwell Brown Little bird of dusty brown,Why do you stay here in town,In the noise and dirt and heatHopping in the dusty street?Other songsters choose to goWhere the grass and clovers grow,Where the dew is on the hillAnd the shady woods are still ;Where the baby rivers skip,And the cool green mosses drip.There tomorrow I shall be!Sparrow, do you envy me? Saucy bird, alert and quick,Lingering on stone and brick,—Little children linger, too.Who perhaps are fond of you;Pale and pitiful to see.Sick and sorry, too, maybe.They can dream but never goWhere the ferns and daisies grow.All the sultry summer throughThey will hear no bird but you.Cheap and common, sharp and shrill.Chirping, chirping, chirping still.Picking bugs and crumbs and things.Yet—you have the gift of wings;They can see you dart and flyFree and high to tree and sky,—Only little comrade givenWho can bring them news of heaven! Sparrow, when I go away, Is that why you choose to stay? —From St. Nicho

Note About Images