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My binocular was fixed upon him as he went flitting across the field and presently alighted on the ground. My surmise was correct; it was the scissorstail flycatcher, one of the most unique and handsome birds belonging to our American avifauna, one that merits more than a passing notice.
On the other hand, the hare and also the grey partridge, the hedgehog, the quail, the lark, the rook, and the stork find their way into the coniferous region as the forests are cleared. The avifauna is very rich; it includes all the forest and garden birds which are known in western Europe, as well as a very great variety of aquatic birds.
What a pleasure it was to ramble about in new fields and make acquaintance with new bird friends! There is not a very marked difference between the avifauna of eastern Kansas and Ohio, and yet there are some birds found in the former state that are not met with in the latter enough to keep the observer on the tiptoe of expectancy for several months.
At elevations of 3000 feet the avifauna of the hills is already markedly different from that of the plains; nevertheless many of the hill species do not descend to this level, at any rate in the summer. It is, therefore, necessary, when speaking of a plains bird as occurring or not occurring on the hills, to define precisely what is intended by this expression.
As has already been stated, the avifauna of Almora, a little station in the inner hills nearly forty miles from the plains, is a very curious one. I have not only heard the koel calling there, but have seen a young koel being fed by crows. Now, at Almora alone of the hill stations does Corvus splendens, the Indian house-crow, occur, and this is the usual victim of the koel.
The avifauna of the scrub-oak underbrush and of the white oak and pitch-pine trees overhead was as distinct as that of a new continent. A flight of pine warblers was on and the oaks and pitch pines were alive with them.
I may here remark that diurnal birds know as little about nocturnal birds as the man in the street does, hence the savage manner in which they mob any luckless owl that happens to be abroad in the daytime. Birds are intensely conservative; they resent strongly what they regard as an addition to the local avifauna. This assertion may be proved by setting free a cockatoo in the plains of India.
The avifauna, of course, becomes poorer; nevertheless the woods of the Steppe, and still more the forests of the Ante-Steppe, give refuge to many birds, even to the hazel-hen, the woodcock and the black-grouse. The fauna of the thickets at the bottom of the river-valleys is decidedly, rich and includes aquatic birds.
The question then arises; What reason is there for believing that these exotics, imported necessarily in small numbers, would succeed in winning a footing in our country, and become a permanent addition to its avifauna?
The avifauna of the Himalayas is a large one. It includes birds found throughout the range, birds confined to the eastern or western portions, birds resident all through the year, birds that are mere seasonal visitors, birds found only at high elevations, birds confined to the lower hills, birds abundant everywhere, birds nowhere common.
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