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Updated: May 31, 2025
It was not long before ornithologists from various parts of the world came to "Egg-land," as the farthermost point of the island came to be known, to see the marvellous sight, not of thousands but of hundreds of thousands of bird-eggs.
Thence the domesticated form appears to have been returned to this country, where it has been a favorite in a measure unknown in the Old World. Ornithologists deem the Cuban turkey, whence our tame form came, to be specifically distinct from those which are found on the mainland of this continent.
Their prevailing color was emerald green, while the wings and tail were made up of tints of orange, scarlet, and blue, and around the back of the bird was a golden sheen rarely found even in equatorial specimens. Whether the bird is known to ornithologists or not I cannot tell. One night our camp was pitched near an anthill, inhabited by innumerable millions of those insects.
I watched the birds for an hour, while my companions were taking their turn in exploring the lay of the land around us, and noted no variation in the programme. It would be curious to know if the young are fed and waited upon in regular order, and how, amid the darkness and the crowded state of the apartment, the matter is so neatly managed. But ornithologists are all silent upon the subject.
Some of our familiar friends of the plains are still with us. There are the kite, the scavenger vulture, the common myna, and a number of others, but these are the exceptions which prove the rule. Scientific ornithologists recognise this great difference between the two faunas, and include the Himalayas in the Palæarctic region, while the plains form part of the Oriental region.
Some day the economic ornithologists under the leadership of Professor F. E. L. Beal, America's leading authority on the subject, may give us a full and exhaustive account of what the various birds do for us in the way of keeping down the great scourge of grass and weeds with which the farmers have to deal.
They go in horizontally to the centre and then turn downward, enlarging the tunnel as they go, till when finished it is the shape of a long, deep pear. Another trait our woodpeckers have that endears them to me, and that has never been pointedly noticed by our ornithologists, is their habit of drumming in the spring.
But the botanists were lovers of birds, also, and went nowhere without opera-glasses; while the ornithologists, in turn, did not hold themselves above some elementary knowledge of plants, and amused themselves with now and then pointing out some rarity sedges and willows were the special desiderata which the professional collectors seemed in danger of passing without notice.
Of the four remaining members of the company, two were botanists, and two for the time ornithologists.
Several most experienced ornithologists consider our British red grouse as only a strongly-marked race of a Norwegian species, whereas the greater number rank it as an undoubted species peculiar to Great Britain.
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