Read Ebook: The Auk: A Quarterly Journal of Ornithology Vol. XXXVI APRIL 1919 No. 2 by Various Stone Witmer Editor

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RECENT LITERATURE.--'The Game Birds of California,' 297; Mathews' 'The Birds of Australia,' 299; De Fenis on Bird Song in its Relation to Music, 300; Dwight on a New Gull, 301; McAtee on the Food Habits of the Mallard Ducks, 301; Stone on Birds of the Canal Zone. 302; Shufeldt on the Young Hoatzin, 302; Riley on Celebes Birds, 302; Oberholser's 'Mutanda Ornithologica V,' 303; Miller's 'Birds of Lewiston-Auburn and Vicinity,' 303; Recent Papers by Bangs, 304; Economic Ornithology in Recent Entomological Publications, 304; The Ornithological Journals, 307; Ornithological Articles in Other Journals, 312; Publications Received, 314.

CORRESPONDENCE.--Identifications , 316.

NOTES AND NEWS.--Obituary: Frederick DuCane Godman, 319; Robert Day Hoyt, 319; The Mailliard Collection, 320; Recent Expeditions, 321; The Flemming Collection, 321; Rare Birds in the Philadelphia Zoo, 321; Meeting of the R. A. O. U., 322; U. S. National Museum Collection, 322; A. O. U. Check-List, 322; New National Parks, 322; Geographic Distribution of A. O. U. Membership, 323; The Migratory Bird Law, 323; The Delaware Valley Ornithological Club, 323; Common Names of Birds, 324; Birds of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, 324.

'THE AUK,' published quarterly as the Organ of the AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGISTS' UNION, is edited, beginning with volume for 1912, by Dr. WITMER STONE.

TERMS:--.00 a year, including postage, strictly in advance. Single numbers, 75 cents. Free to Honorary Fellows, and to Fellows, Members, and Associates of the A. O. U. not in arrears for dues.

THE OFFICE OF PUBLICATION IS AT 30 BOYLSTON ST., CAMBRIDGE, BOSTON, MASS.

Manuscripts for general articles must await their turn for publication if others are already on file but they must be in the editor's hands at least six weeks, before the date of issue of the number for which they are intended, and manuscripts for 'General Notes', 'Recent Literature', etc., not later than the first of the month preceding the date of the number in which it is desired they shall appear.

THE AUK: A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY.

MRS. OLIVE THORNE MILLER.

BY FLORENCE MERRIAM BAILEY.

Little more than a month after the last meeting of the A. O. U., at which greetings were sent from the Council to Mrs. Miller as the oldest living member of the Union, came the announcement of her death, on December 26, 1918. Born on June 25, 1831, she had indeed been allotted a full span, and for thirty-one of her eighty-seven years she had been associated with the American Ornithologists' Union joining four years after it was founded and being made Member in 1901 when that class was established.

Harriet Mann--for the more familiar name of Olive Thorne Miller was the pen name adopted after her marriage--was born at Auburn, New York, where her father, Seth Hunt, was a banker; but she was of New England ancestry on both sides of the family, her paternal grandfather being an importing merchant of Boston, and her great-grandfather, Captain Benjamin Mann, having organized a company during the revolution of which he was in command at Bunker Hill.

From Auburn the family moved to Ohio when she was eleven years old, making the journey, in lieu of railroads, by "packet" on the canal through the Mohawk Valley, by steamer across Lake Erie, and finally by an old-fashioned thoroughbrace coach for twenty-five miles through Ohio--a journey full of romance to an imaginative child, and described entertainingly in one of Mrs. Miller's delightful and in this case largely autobiographical child stories, 'What Happened to Barbara.' In Ohio she spent five years in a small college town where she attended private schools, among them one of the Select Schools of that generation, with an enrollment of some forty or fifty girls. At the age of nine, as she says, she "grappled with the problems of Watts on the Mind!" To offset the dreariness of such work, she and half a dozen of her intimate friends formed a secret society for writing stories, two members of the circle afterwards becoming well known writers. For writing and reading even then were her greatest pleasures. The strongest influence in her young life, she tells us, was from books. "Loving them above everything, adoring the very odor of a freshly printed volume, and regarding a library as nearest heaven of any spot on earth, she devoured everything she could lay her hands upon." As she grew older the shyness from which she had always suffered increased painfully, and coupled with a morbid sensitiveness as to what she considered her personal defects made people a terror to her; but solitary and reticent, she had the writer's passion for self expression and it is easy to understand her when she says, "To shut myself up where no one could see me, and speak with my pen, was my greatest happiness."

In 1854, she married Watts Todd Miller, like herself a member of a well known family of northern New York, and in her conscientious effort to be a model wife and to master domestic arts to which she had never been trained, she sacrificed herself unnecessarily. "Many years I denied myself the joy of my life--the use of my pen," she tells us, "and it was not until my children were well out of the nursery that I grew wise enough to return to it."

The history of the vicissitudes of her literary life is at once touching and enlightening. Full of ardor to reform the world, to prevent needless unhappiness and to set people on the right path, her first literary attempt was the essay, but as she expressed it, "the editorial world did not seem to be suffering for any effusions of mine," and her manuscripts were so systematically returned that she was about giving up, concluding during very black days that she had mistaken her calling; when a practical friend gave her a new point of view. What did the public care for the opinions of an unknown writer? she asked. Let her give what it wanted--attractively put information on matters of fact. Then when her reputation was established, people might be glad to listen to her views of life.

Philosophically accepting the suggestion, she calmly burned up her accumulated "sentiments and opinions," and set about writing what she termed "sugar-coated pills of knowledge" for children. The first, the facts of china-making in the guise of a story, she sent to a religious weekly which had a children's page, and to her surprise and delight received a check for it--her first--two dollars! This was apparently in 1870, and for twelve years, she worked in what she terms that "Gradgrind field" in which during that period she published some three hundred and seventy-five articles in religious weeklies, 'Our Young Folks,' 'The Youth's Companion,' 'The Independent,' 'St. Nicholas,' 'The Chicago Tribune,' 'Harper's,' 'Scribner's,' and other papers and magazines, on subjects ranging from the manufacture of various familiar articles, as needles, thread, and china to sea cucumbers, spiders, monkeys, and oyster farms; and during those twelve years, in addition she published five books, the best known of which were perhaps 'Little Folks in Feathers and Fur,' 1873, 'Queer Pets at Marcy's,' 1880, and 'Little People of Asia,' 1882.

About this time, having lived in Chicago nearly twenty years, the Millers, with their two sons and two daughters, moved to Brooklyn, where they lived until Mr. Miller's death. Not long after settling in Brooklyn, when she had spent twelve years mainly on miscellaneous juvenile work, Mrs. Miller was visited by a friend who gave her a new subject, completely changing the course of her life. The friend was none less than Mrs. Sara A. Hubbard, whom she had known as a book reviewer in Chicago, but who was also an enthusiastic bird woman--later an Associate of the A. O. U.--and whose greatest desire in coming to New York had been to see the birds.

As Mrs. Miller na?vely remarks, "of course I could do no less than to take her to our park, where were birds in plenty." And here, in Prospect Park when she was nearly fifty years old--incredible as it seems in view of her later work--Mrs. Miller got her first introduction to birds. "I knew absolutely nothing about ornithology," she confesses; "indeed, I knew by sight not more than two birds, the English Sparrow and the Robin, and I was not very sure of a Robin either! I must say in excuse for myself," she adds, "that I had never spent any time in the country and had been absorbed all my life in books. My friend was an enthusiast, and I found her enthusiasm contagious. She taught me to know a few birds, a Vireo, the charming Catbird, and the beautiful Wood Thrush, and indeed before she left me I became so interested in the Catbird and Thrush that I continued to visit the park to see them, and after about two summers' study the thought one day came to me that I had seen some things that other people might be interested in. I wrote what I had observed and sent an article to the 'Atlantic Monthly' and it was accepted with a very precious letter from Mr. Scudder, who was then editor. All this time my love of birds and my interest in them had been growing, and soon I cared for no other study. I set up a bird-room in my house to study them winters and I began to go to their country haunts in the summer."

Of the bird-room described so interestingly in 'Bird Ways' it is only necessary to say that first and last Mrs. Miller had about thirty-five species of birds which she bought from the bird stores in winter and allowed to fly about in her bird room, where she could study them unobtrusively at her desk by means of skillfully arranged mirrors. For twenty summers, from 1883 to 1903, she spent from one to three months in the country studying the wild birds, visiting among other sections, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, North Carolina, Michigan, Colorado, Utah, and California, taking careful notes in the field and writing them up for publication at the end of the season. To one who has not known her, the method may sound deliberate and commercial, but to one who has worked joyfully by her side, each year's journey is known to have meant escape from the world, to the ministering beneficence of Nature. Let her speak for herself.--"To a brain wearied by the din of the city ... how refreshing is the heavenly stillness of the country! To the soul tortured by the sights of ills it cannot cure, wrongs it cannot right, and sufferings it cannot relieve, how blessed to be alone with nature, with trees living free, unfettered lives, and flowers content each in its native spot, with brooks singing of joy and good cheer, with mountains preaching divine peace and rest!" Freed from city life and the tortures imposed by her profound human sympathy, each gift of fancy and imagination, each rare quality of spirit, joined in the celebration of the new excursion into fields elysian. But while each sight she saw was given glamour and charm by her imagination and enthusiasm, her New England conscience ruled her every word and note, and not one jot or tittle was let by, no word was set down, that could not pass muster before the bar of scientific truth.

Mrs. Miller's first bird book was published in 1885 and the others followed in quick succession although they were interlarded with magazine articles and books on other subjects--as 'The Woman's Club,' 1890, 'Our Home Pets,' 1894, 'Four Handed Folk,' 1896, and a series of children's stories, 1904 to 1907. Her eleven bird books, published by the Houghton, Mifflin Company, were 'Bird Ways,' 1885, 'In Nesting Time,' 1887, 'Little Brothers of the Air,' 1892, 'A Bird Lover in the West,' 1894, 'Upon the Tree Tops,' 1897, 'The First Book of Birds,' 1899, 'The Second Book of Birds,' 1901, 'True Bird Stories from my Note-Books,' 1902, 'With the Birds in Maine,' 1903, 'The Bird our Brother,' 1908, and her last book, 'The Children's Book of Birds'--a juvenile form of the First and Second Book of Birds--1915.

The newspaper and magazine articles of this second period of Mrs. Miller's literary work, beginning with the time when she first began to study birds, were published not only in the principal religious weeklies and others of the former channels, but by various syndicates, in 'Harper's Bazar,' and the 'Atlantic Monthly.' They included not only a large number of bird papers, some of which appeared later in her books, but also articles on general subjects, proving her friend's statement, for now that her reputation had become established on a basis of fact, the public was ready to profit by her "sentiments and opinions."

Her last book of field notes--'With the Birds in Maine'--was published in 1903, when she was seventy-two, after which time she was able to do very little active field work and her writing was confined mainly to children's books.

In 1902 Mrs. Miller had visited her oldest son, Charles W. Miller, in California, and fascinated by the outdoor life and the birds and flowers of southern California, she would have returned to live, without delay, had it not been that her married daughter, Mrs. Smith, and her grandchildren lived in Brooklyn. In 1904, however, accompanied by her younger daughter, Mary Mann Miller, she did return to California, where her daughter built a cottage on the outskirts of Los Angeles on the edge of a bird-filled arroyo where rare fruits and flowers ran riot and the cottage--El Nido--became embowered in vines and trees.

From 1870-1915, as nearly as can be determined by her manuscript lists, Mrs. Miller published about seven hundred and eighty articles, one booklet on birds and twenty-four books--eleven of them on birds, her books being published mainly by the Houghton Mifflin Company and E. P. Dutton. When we stop to consider that her real work did not begin until she was fifty-four, after which four hundred and five of her articles and nineteen of her books were written, and moreover that during her later years, by remarkable self-conquest, she became a lecturer and devoted much of her time to lecturing on birds in New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and other towns, we come to a realization of her tireless industry and her astonishing accomplishment.

When living in Brooklyn she was a member of some of the leading women's clubs of New York and Brooklyn, giving her time to them with the earnest purpose that underlay all her work. In the midst of her busy life, it is good to recall as an example of her devotion to her friends, that for years Mrs. Miller gave up one day a week to visiting an old friend who had been crippled by an accident; and after she had gone to California took time to make for her a calendar of three hundred and sixty-five personally selected quotations from the best in literature.

When Mr. Brewster, in view of a discovery made by Mrs. Miller, wrote in 'The Auk,' regretting that one "gifted with rare powers of observation" should not record at least the more important of her discoveries in a scientific journal, Mrs. Miller replied in another note to 'The Auk,' confessing that she would not know what was a discovery; adding with the enthusiasm that vitalized her work--"to me everything is a discovery; each bird, on first sight, is a new creation; his manners and habits are a revelation, as fresh and as interesting to me as though they had never been observed before." Explaining her choice of a literary rather than a scientific channel of expression, she gives the key to her nature work, one of the underlying principles of all her work--"my great desire is to bring into the lives of others the delights to be found in the study of Nature."

Looking over the bookshelf where the names of Burroughs, Torrey, Miller, and Bolles call up each its own rare associations, I am reminded of a bit of advice that came long years ago from Mr. Burroughs' kindly pen--"Put your bird in its landscape"--as this seems the secret of the richness and charm of this rare company of writers, for while beguiling us with the story of the bird, they have set it in its landscape, they have brought home to us "the river and sky," they have enabled us to see Nature in its entirety.

Remembering this great boon which we owe Mrs. Miller, it seems rarely fitting that when her three score years and ten were accomplished, her last days should have been spent in the sunshine surrounded by the birds and flowers which brought her happiness in beautiful California.

FOOTNOTE:

'Upon the Tree-Tops', 3, 1897.

AN EXPERIENCE WITH HORNED GREBES .

BY ALEXANDER D. DUBOIS.

The southeastern portion of Teton County, Montana, lying in the prairie region east of the Rocky Mountains, comprises flat and rolling bench-lands, traversed at frequent intervals by coulees which are tributary to the Teton and Sun Rivers. On these benches are occasional shallow depressions which have no natural drainage. They form transient "prairie sloughs" which may be dry at one season and wet meadows or ponds of water at another.

The slough which afforded the present observations is a crescent-shaped depression, not more than ten or twelve acres in extent, curving about a knoll upon which stands a homesteader's cabin. There are no lakes or water courses in the immediate vicinity. During the last few years the region has been rapidly transformed into grain farms. At the time these notes were made the meadow in question was bordered on three sides by plowed fields. The spring of 1917 was an extremely rainy one, following a winter of much more than normal snowfall. In consequence, the crescent-shaped meadow became a marshy sheet of water.

Whenever I appeared at the edge of the slough, it was the custom of the two Grebes to float about upon the area of open water with an air of supreme unconcern. They busied themselves constantly with their toilets, preening the feathers of all parts of their bodies and very frequently tipping or rolling themselves in the water to reach their under parts with their bills. In this half-capsized posture they would float for several seconds, exposing to view the strikingly prominent white area that is normally below the water-line. This preening and floating in different positions, on the part of both birds, proceeded without interruption during my entire stay, each day that I visited them. It became very evident that it was practiced as a ruse to hold the attention of the intruder and thus divert him from their nest.

On the following day, June 13, I donned the hip boots again and stationed myself with the camera outfit, determined to see if patience would be rewarded by an opportunity to photograph the bird on her nest at close range. It was a wearisome experiment, but not without result, for eventually the Grebes became remarkably bold. The female was the first to approach. She swam around the nest repeatedly, but for a long time refused to venture upon it. For the most part the male witnessed her adventures from a discreet distance. Occasionally however, he came up; and finally, while the female was showing her agitation by swimming hurriedly about, the male swam deliberately to the nest, climbed up its side, and sat on the eggs, facing me. A plate was exposed on this unexpected sitter but unfortunately was ruined by an accident before development. He became alarmed by my activities in changing plate-holders, or perhaps by the removal of my head from beneath the focusing cloth, and suddenly slipped off the nest into the water. Both birds were subsequently photographed together, near the nest.

I cautiously moved the camera somewhat closer and waited. The female frequently shot out of the water at me with a rush accompanied by a harsh cry, and sometimes ended her attack with a dive and a great splash. Eventually she went upon the nest, and once in contact with her eggs, she became invincible. I photographed her thus; then moved the tripod toward her, slowly and cautiously, keeping my head beneath the cloth. In this way the camera was placed within arm's length of the bird and another exposure made, which resulted in the intimate portrait of Plate X, fig. 1. I uncovered my head, but she remained firm, and when I extended my hand toward her she reached out her long neck and delivered a vicious, stinging stab with her sharp bill. The threatening attitude of the bird, just previous to striking, is shown in Plate X, fig. 2.

The exposed situation of this nest is shown in several of the photographs. It consisted of a mass of coarse grasses, many of them fresh and green, floating in about a foot of water, the body of the nest below the water line being of such bulk as to almost touch the muddy bottom. The nest-lining, in the bottom of the well hollowed cavity, was very wet and soggy, being only slightly above the water surface when the nest was unoccupied, and probably below it when the weight of the bird was added to that of the nest. This lining was composed of decaying vegetation which was decidedly warm to the touch, in the sunshine, while the wet rim of the nest was cold.

The eggs of this set were taken. They were of course in various stages of incubation, from fresh in the last, to well begun in the first-laid egg. For some time after I had left the empty nest, taking the camera with me, the two Grebes swam to and fro beside it, or circled around it, frequently going to the nest and climbing part way up. Occasionally one of the birds, presumably the female, sat upon the nest for a brief period, shifting herself in a restless manner, and then returned to the water.

For several days I stayed away. Would these birds nest again in this small and rapidly diminishing slough at so late a season? Would they leave the slough and go elsewhere to nest? Or would they abandon the duty of reproduction altogether? These questions seemed of sufficient interest to demand further observations, but not wishing to further inject the factor of the human menace into their already complicated affairs, I left the birds entirely to themselves. Meanwhile extremely dry warm weather was causing rapid evaporation and the slough was shrinking very perceptibly.

My next visit, on the eighteenth of June, disclosed the fact that the Grebes were not only present but were building a new nest not far from the old one. The nest seemed nearly completed. The two birds were floating near each other on the open water, preening their plumage in the ostentatious manner previously described.

At seven-thirty on the morning of June 21, the new nest contained two eggs, partially covered, especially on the northwest side, which was the direction from which I approached the slough. There was a striking difference in the coloring of the two eggs, in view of the slight difference in their ages. One egg was a drab-tinted cream; the other a beautiful greenish tint with a freshness and delicacy which is difficult to describe, and which marked it as having just been deposited by the bird. A schedule of the subsequent visits to this nest is given in the accompanying table:

When I approached on the morning of June 24, the Grebe was on her nest. She made herself as inconspicuous as possible by holding her head down, close to the nest rim. As I came within twenty-five or thirty yards of the nest the bird hastily pulled a covering of green-stuff over the eggs and slid silently into the water, disappearing completely. Although I watched for some time I did not succeed in catching even a glimpse of either of the birds.

On the occasion of the sixth visit I found the nest lightly covered with fresh green stems and blades which had been plucked by the bird. At that time I made the notation in my field book: "Never see the birds on the open water any more." However, on the next day, some time after I had left the nest, I did see one of the Grebes floating on the open water. The eggs had again been covered with fresh vegetation.

On the morning of June 27, I approached by a circuitous route, passing by the nest with my interest ostensibly concentrated elsewhere. But as I passed too near her the bird slipped quickly off the nest without stopping to cover the eggs; and I could not find her afterward. It will be noted from the tabulated schedule that neither of the birds was seen at the tenth, eleventh, or twelfth visits. The thirteenth visit was more successful for I saw a Grebe sitting perfectly motionless, at the edge of a water-lane which traversed some of the thickest vegetation, its bright red eyes appearing as its only conspicuous feature. The next day , I could not find the birds, and the fifteenth visit gave me only a fleeting glimpse of a Grebe. The eggs were not covered but were slightly shielded on the side from which I had come. On the evening of July 12, one of the birds was observed floating, silent and solemn, with head toward me, at the farthest side of the open water. It was evident at this time that the birds had changed their dress since my acquaintance with them at their first nest, for no yellow "horns" were now visible.

On July 13, finding only four eggs in the nest, and pieces of egg shell both there and in the water, I searched carefully in the vicinity of the nest but without result. I could neither find the newly hatched young nor catch any glimpse of either parent. On the next day the conditions were the same except that the eggs were slightly covered and a few small feathers had been left on the nest, showing that the bird had been upon it.

The twentieth visit, on the evening of July 15, gave me an opportunity to examine the bird at close range. She was on the nest and allowed me to approach, cautiously, to a point twenty or thirty feet from her. She was considerably changed in appearance. The yellowish-white tip of the bill remained unaltered and the light line through the lower margin of the lore was observed to still persist, but the plumage of the head was much subdued, the yellow plumes having been exchanged for mere inconspicuous grayish streaks on the sides of the head. As I came up I could see a young bird poking its head through her wing. She soon left the nest, with a startling rush, and swam rapidly away, leaving three eggs in the nest and two tiny youngsters in the water. The newly hatched downy young can both swim and dive in a feeble way. As I approached them they tried to escape by diving. When I held them in my hands they gave utterance to a little cry not greatly different from that of domestic chicks.

The downy young are very striking in appearance. They are striped longitudinally with black and white stripes; the white however is rather a "soiled" or grayish white. There are two narrow white stripes on the head which converge to a point at the base of the bill. Between these stripes, on the forehead, is a small slightly raised bare spot, of a bright red color, back of which is a white elongated blotch, or median stripe. The bill is pink and has on both mandibles a white tip which resembles white porcelain. This is larger on the upper mandible than on the lower. On the upper mandible between the nostrils there is a black spot. The iris is brown, not red like that of the adults. The lobate feet are remarkably well developed, but the wings are rudimentary.

On the following day, July 16, I failed to find either the parent or the young at the nest. The three remaining eggs were not covered. Again on the morning of the seventeenth, the nest held only the three uncovered eggs; but when I skirted the east end of the slough to examine a Sora's nest, I was startled by the parent Grebe taking wing not far from me. She flew over the farthest part of the slough, but soon returned, after circling a time or two, to the small area of open water, where she alighted with a splashing glide. When on the wing this bird shows very prominent white markings. The white secondaries cause the posterior portion of the wing to show as a prominent white area, and of course the entire under surface of the body, being white, is very conspicuous when the bird wheels. The flight is so duck-like that the flying Grebe might readily be mistaken, at a distance, for a duck.

I waded to the spot whence this bird had taken flight and presently saw the water agitated by some small creature beneath the surface. It was one of the diminutive downy Grebes, floating submerged, head downward, with its forward parts thrust into a mass of filamentous vegetation , while its legs, stretched to their full extent posteriorly, were pointed vertically upward toward the surface of the water. I easily took it up in my hand.

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