Bulletin, Issues 4-8U.S. Department of Agriculture. Division of Ornithology and Mammalogy, 1893 - Zoology, Economic |
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abundant Agriculture amount animals ants April average Bakersfield beetles berries birds bisulphide burrows California cents corn County crops Crow roosts Crow stomachs cutworms Dakota damage destroyed destruction DIVISION OF ORNITHOLOGY Downy Downy Woodpecker eaten eggs farmers feed feet fence fields Franklin's Spermophile Fresno fruit Gopher Geomys grain grass grasshoppers ground squirrels habits Hairy Woodpecker herbage hole hunts inches injurious insect food insects jack rabbits July June Kern County large numbers larvæ Lepus miles months nest number of stomachs Ornithology and Mammalogy percent plants Pocket Gophers poison poison sumac potatoes pouches Prairie Hare probably quantity rabbit drives Red-bellied Woodpecker Red-headed Woodpecker reports River roots San Joaquin Valley season seeds seen skins South Dakota southern species specimens Spermophile Spermophile Spermophilus spring stomachs examined Striped Spermophile strychnine tail taken trap trees Tulare Vernon Bailey Visalia wheat wild winter Woodpecker young
Popular passages
Page 28 - We had scarcely lighted our fires, when the camp was crowded with nearly naked Indians; some of them were furnished with long nets in addition to bows, and appeared to have been out on the sage hills to hunt rabbits. These nets were perhaps...
Page 3 - Endless columns pour in from various quarters, and as they arrive pitch upon their accustomed perches, crowding closely together for the benefit of the warmth and the shelter afforded by the thick foliage of the pine. The trees are literally bent by their weight, and the ground is covered for many feet in depth by their dung, which, by its gradual fermentation, must also tend to increase the warmth of the roost. Such roosts are known to be thus occupied for years, beyond the memory of individuals...
Page 4 - Such roosts are known to be thus occupied for years, beyond the memory of individuals; and I know of one or two, which the oldest residents in the quarter state to have been known to their grandfathers, and probably had been resorted to by the Crows during several ages previous.
Page 15 - Woodpecker is in the habit for successive years of drilling the canoe birch, red maple, red oak, white ash, and probably other trees for the purpose of taking from them the elaborated sap and in some cases parts of the cambium layer; that the birds consume the sap in large quantities for its own sake and not for insect matter which such sap may chance occasionally to contain; that the sap attracts many insects of various species, a few of which form a considerable part of the food of this bird, but...
Page 3 - ... the roost, and the other attacking them in the night when they had been for some hours asleep. I have already mentioned the regularity with which vast flocks move from various quarters of the country to their roosting places every afternoon, and the uniformity of the route they pursue. In cold weather, when all...
Page 13 - An old orange grower told me that the ' sapsuckers,' as he called them, never touch any but very ripe oranges and are troublesome only to such growers as reserved their crops for the late market. He also said that it is only within a very few years that they have shown a taste for the fruit ; and I myself observed that, although Red-bellies were very common in the neighborhood, only an individual, or perhaps a pair, visited any one grove.
Page 98 - Redbellied contained the substance designated as 'cambium' in the accompanying list of vegetable food. This is the layer of mucilaginous material lying just inside of the bark of trees, and from which both bark and wood are formed. It is supposed by many to be the main object sought by woodpeckers. Except in the case of a single species the stomach examination does not bear out this view, since cambium, if present at all, was in such small quantities as to be of no practical importance. The Yellow-bellied...
Page 9 - The fore feet are brought back simultaneously along the sides of the head until they reach a point opposite the hinder end of the pouches; they are then pressed firmly against the head and carried rapidly forward. In this way the contents of the pouches are promptly dumped in front of the animal. Sometimes several strokes are necessary.
Page 31 - ... equal size, the one active during the coldest weather, while the other is a characteristic hibernator, I cut out a part of the gluteal muscles of each, and after dividing and bruising, so as thoroughly to break up every part, I took fifty grains of each and placed in a test tube, into which I put two ounces of cold water. After freely agitating, the mixture was left to digest for eight hours, at the expiration of which time I carefully decanted and renewed the water, agitated and left twelve...