File:A history of the game birds, wild-fowl and shore birds of Massachusetts and adjacent states... with observations on their...recent decrease in numbers; also the means for conserving those still in (14563986377).jpg

Identifier: historyofgame00forb (find matches)
Title: www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/tags/book...
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Forbush, Edward Howe, 1858-1929 Massachusetts. State Board of Agriculture Beecroft, Willey Ingraham, 1870- Job, Herbert Keightley, 1864-1933
Subjects: Game and game-birds -- Massachusetts Game and game-birds -- New England Birds -- Massachusetts Birds -- Conservation
Publisher: (Boston, Wright & Potter printing company, state printers
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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untry with itswary eye. When the head is raised the hunter must be wellconcealed to avoid discovery. Dr. Hatch writes that a young bird of this species whichhe kept in confinement swallowed almost anything that itcould get hold of. All sorts of hard articles that had beenpicked up were afterwards regurgitated with the indigestibleportions of the food.^ This species usually swallows its food whole. Fish, frogs,snakes, shell-fish, field mice and other small mammals, birdsand even eggs make up a portion of its animal food. My friend Mr. William S. Perry of Worcester, flushed aSandhill Crane from its nest on the Kankakee marshes andshot the bird. He found two large lumps in its gullet, and onopening it he found three eggs of the Sora Rail intact. Theshell of the first was bright and glossy; the next was some-what faded, and the shell of the third, which was nearest thestomach, had lost its smooth coating and some of its mark- » Hatch, P. L.: Notes on the Birds of Minnesota, 1892, p. 100.
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I- -o SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 487 ings, apparently through the action of the digestive juices.The stomach was full, which prevented the eggs from passingdown, but the first egg may have been attacked by the digest-ive juices in the gullet or oesophagus. Probably the only safe method by which this long-billedbird could secure the entire egg contents was that of swallow-ing the eggs whole. Mr. Perry showed me the neck and headof this Crane, and the three eggs taken therefrom. He saidthat Rails were very numerous in the marsh, and all marshanimals fed upon them. The vegetable food of the Sandhill Crane includes corn,potatoes and sweet potatoes. The destruction of these farmcrops is one indirect cause for the disappearance of the birdfrom inhabited regions. It falls before the rifle of the farmerand hunter, and is shot from blinds as it flies over the prairies.It is killed at all seasons, and, like the Whooping Crane, itprobably is doomed to extinction. Note. — The Little Brown C

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