Part 52

Dimensions. Length, to end of tail, 10½ inches; to end of wings, 10; wing, from flexure, 6¼; tail, 3½; tarsus, 1¼ inches. (Aud., as above.)

The bird here described is stated by Mr. Audubon to have been procured near Pictou, Nova Scotia; and he appears to have been confident that it was identical with the European Strix passerina. It is, however, clearly not that species. We would suppose it to be the young of Nyctale Richardsoni, were it not described as having the “iris dark.” It may be a small and curious new species of Syrnium, or perhaps Nyctale, and the procuring of specimens would be in a high degree interesting. We have no knowledge of it ever having been observed since the publication of the above description by Mr. Audubon.

6. Syrnium aluco. (Linn.) Strix aluco. Linn., Syst. Nat. I., p. 132. (1766.) Strix stridula. Linn., Syst. Nat. I., p. 133. (1766.)

Selby, Brit. Orn., pl. 25; Gould, B. of Eur. I., pl. 47.

This well known European species is given by Mr. Nuttall, in his “Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and Canada” (I., p. 135), and is stated by him to have been found in the northern regions of this continent. Such is probably the case; but no American specimen has ever come under our notice.

This species exhibits very nearly the same variety of plumage as the American Red and Mottled Owls (Scope asio and nævia), and has been described repeatedly under different names.

7. Strix peregrinator. The Sharp-winged Owl. Bartram, Travels, p. 285. (1793.)

With the head eared and the body variegated in color.

Impossible to determine from the brief description, though being given as a species inhabiting Pennsylvania, probably applicable to the Long-eared Owl (Otus Wilsonianus).

8. Strix diurnalis. The Short-winged Day Owl. Barton, Fragments of the Nat. Hist. of Penna., p. 9. (1799.)

Stated by Professor Barton to have been observed by him in Pennsylvania on the 15th of December, 1791, but of the species he gives no description.

The names and descriptions now given comprise all that have come under our notice, represented as inhabiting North America within our limits.

Of the birds of this family, the names proposed by the older American naturalists and others, are not numerous; and though the group may be regarded as presenting some difficulties to the student, the correct nomenclature of North American species is not difficult to determine. Bartram enumerated six species (Travels, p. 285), to all of which, except one, he gives names for the first time employed to designate the birds to which he alludes, and to a few of which he attaches sufficient descriptions. All of his species had, however, been previously described, and we have, we believe, cited his names as synonymes, so far as they can be ascertained.

The greatest difficulty in the study of the Owls of North America will be found in the intimate resemblance that a few species bear to others of Europe and Asia, and, we may add, in the examination of the birds which we have given in the preceding pages as varieties of the Great-horned Owl (Bubo virginianus). The variations that we have noticed, and especially those of color, may be ascertained by subsequent observation to be so uniform and constant as to constitute specific distinction, though at present we cannot so regard them.

In the Owls of other countries there are several groups in which it is very difficult to determine the species, on account of their resemblance to each other. This is especially the case with the small species of the genus Scops, which inhabit India and other countries of Asia; and there are, too, many of the birds of this genus, of all countries, that are exceedingly perplexing. In fact, we would hardly recommend a student in natural history to begin General Ornithology with the Owls.

With this family we conclude the rapacious Birds.

BUTEO INSIGNATUS.—(Cassin.) The Brown Buzzard. PLATE XXXI.—Adult Male and Young Female.

One of the most remarkable facts in the geographical distribution of the birds of western and northwestern North America is, that many species extend their range in northern latitudes almost or quite to the shores of the Atlantic ocean, while not a single instance is on record of the same species having been observed in either of the middle or southern States of the Union. The Magpie, which on the Pacific is commonly found southwardly as far as Mexico, has been noticed by Dr. Hoy, at Racine, in the State of Wisconsin. The Lark Bunting (Emberiza grammaca), another western bird, has also been ascertained by the same gentleman to be abundant in the State just mentioned; and the only specimen that we have ever seen of the Stone Chat of America (Saxicola œnanthoides), a bird discovered some years since on the coast of Oregon, was obtained in the vicinity of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Many instances tending to demonstrate this extensive and remarkable migration might be produced, but we have unfortunately to acknowledge ourselves unable to offer a theory or even hypothesis attempting to account for it, and must regard the facts as remaining among many in natural history with which naturalists are for the present under the necessity of resting, without inference or application to any established general principles. Important results will yet reward American naturalists who may engage in this interesting field of scientific research.

Instinct is little or nothing more than inherited memory. But we are by no means satisfied that any definition which we have yet met with of the faculty known by the latter name is strictly correct. Whatever memory is, that inherited we are disposed to regard as instinct. And that the impressions on this faculty are transmissable in animals from parents to their offspring, we regard the migration of young birds, particularly those of a first brood, when the parents remain to attend to a second, as clearly substantiating.

The bird now before the reader is a species that appears to perform the extended northward migration to which we have alluded, and is one of the most remarkable instances that has come to our knowledge. It was first described by us from a specimen obtained in the vicinity of Montreal, Canada, and the only instance of its having been observed since, has been by Dr. Heermann, in California; though if ever occurring in the middle or southern States on the Atlantic, in the same latitude as on the Pacific, it has escaped the researches of all previous naturalists or travellers.

Adult and young birds of this species were observed, and specimens were obtained by Dr. Heermann, who ascertained that it reared its young in California.

For an opportunity to examine the specimen originally described by us in the present volume (p. 102), we are indebted to our lamented friend and correspondent, M. McCulloch, M. D., a naturalist of extensive acquirements, and an eminent physician, late of Montreal, but, we much regret to add, now recently deceased, and to John Pangman, Esq., of Grace Hall, in the vicinity of that city. Mr. Pangman had the kindness to interest himself, in conjunction with Dr. McCulloch, so much as to obtain the loan of the specimen from the Natural History Society of Montreal, in the museum of which it was deposited, and to bring it for our inspection to Philadelphia, and we shall not soon forget his evident and enlightened gratification, nor our own great pleasure, when we assured him that it was a bird hitherto unknown as an inhabitant of North America, and, as we then supposed, very probably an undescribed species, which we subsequently ascertained to be the case.

This is one of the most remarkable of the rapacious birds which have been recently added to the ornithological fauna of the United States. It differs entirely in color from any previously-known American species, unless it may be supposed to approximate in that character to the little-known Harlan’s Buzzard of Audubon. It bears also some distant resemblance to one stage of plumage of the Black Hawk.

The only information relative to the habits of this bird that we have in our power at present to lay before the reader, is the following from the Journal of Dr. Heermann:

“I first remarked this species at the crossing of Graysonville ferry, on the San Joaquim river, California, and continued to meet with it occasionally until we had crossed Kern river. Owing to the lateness of the season, I was able to ascertain but little respecting its propagation; the only nests which were found having been forsaken some time previously by the young. These nests, composed externally of coarse sticks, and lined with roots, were built in the topmost branches of oaks, which grow abundantly on the banks of the large water-courses.

“This bird, like the rest of its genus, appears sluggish in its habits, perching for hours in a quiescent state on some tall tree, and permitting the hunter to approach without showing any signs of fear. This apparent stolidity may, however, be owing to the fact that it is seldom molested, and has not yet learned to mistrust a gun, as do the birds of prey in more settled portions of the country.”

The specimens brought by Dr. Heermann are now in the national collection at Washington city.