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WiL w HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF THE Museum of Comparative Zoology THE WILSON BULLETIN A Quarterly Magazine of Ornithology Edited by JossELYN Van Tyne Margaret Morse Nice Frederick N. Hamerstrom, Jr. Associate Editors Volume 56 1944 Published by the WILSON ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB PAST OFFICERS OF THE WILSON ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB President J. B. Richards, 18S8-1889. R. M. Strong, 1920-1921. Lynds Jones, 1890-1893. Thos. L. Hankinson, 1922-1923. Willard N. Clute, 1894. Albert F. Gainer, 1924-1926. R. M. Strong, 1894-1901. Lynds Jones, 1927-1929. Lynds Jones, 1902-1908. J. W. Stack, 1930-1931. F. L. Burns, 1909-1911. J. M. Shaver, 1932-1934. W. E. Saunders, 1912-1913. Josselyn Van Tyne, 1935-1937. T. C. Stephens, 1914-1916. Mrs. Margaret Morse Nice, 1938-1939. W. F. Henninger, 1917. Lawrence E. Hicks, 1940-1941. Myron H. Swenk, 1918-1919. George Miksch Sutton, 1942-1943. S. Charles Kendeigh, 1943- Vke-President C. C. Maxfield, 1893. Wm. I. Lyon, 1924. R. M. Strong, 1894. Thos. H. Whitney, 1925-1928. Ned Hollister, 1895-1903. George Miksch Sutton, 1929-1931. W. L. Dawson, 1904-1905. Edwin L. Moseley, 1932-1933. R. L. Baird, 1906-1908. Josselyn Van Tyne, 1933-1934. W. E. Saunders, 1909-1911. Alfred M. Bailey, 1935-1936. B. H. Swales, 1912-1913. Mrs. Margaret M. Nice, 1937. Geo. L. Fordyce, 1914-1919. Lawrence E. Hicks, 1938-1939. H. C. Oberholser, 1920-1921. George Miksch Sutton, 1940-1941. Dayton Stoner, 1922-1923. S. Charles Kendeigh, 1942-1943. Olin S. Pettingill, Jr,, 1944- Second Vice-President Josselyn Van Tyne, 1932-1933. Alfred M.-BaUey, 1933-1934. Mrs. Margaret M. Nice, 1935-1936. Lawrence E. Hicks, 1937. George Miksch Sutton, 1938-1939. S. Charles Kendeigh, 1940-1941. Olin S. Pettingill, Jr., 1942-1943 Harrison F. Lewis, 1944- Secretary Lynds Jones, 1888-1889. C. W. G. Eifrig, 1912-1913. J. Warren Jacobs, 1890-1891. Orpheus M. Schantz, 1914. WUlard N. Clute, 1892. Thos. L. Hankinson, 1915-1916. J. Warren Jacobs, 1893. G. A. Abbott, 1917. Wm. B. Caulk, 1894. Albert F. Ganier, 1918-1922. J. E. Dickinson, 1895-1897. Gordon Wilson, 1923-1925. W. L. Dawson, 1898-1901. Howard K. Gloyd, 1926-1928. John W. Daniel, Jr., 1902-1905. Jesse M. Shaver, 1929-1931. Frank L. Burns, 1906. Lawrence E. Hicks, 1932-1936. Benj. T. Gault, 1907-1911. Olin S. Pettingill, Jr., 1937-1941. Brooks, 1942- Treasurer R. M. Strong, 1892-1893. Geo. L. Fordyce, 1920-1922. Lynds Jones, 1894-1901. Wm. I. Lyon, 1923. F. L. Burns, 1902-1905. Ben J. Blincoe, 1924-1926. B. H. Swales, 1906-1908. J. W. Stack, 1927-1929. W. F. Henninger, 1909-1913. W. M. Rosene, 1930-1935. P. B. Coffin, 1914-1916. S. E. Perkins III, 1936-1938. Frank M. Phelps, 1917-1919. Gustav Swanson, 1939-1942. Milton . Trautman, 1943- Editor Lynds Jones, 1888-1924. T. C. Stephens, 1925-1938. r\ Frank L. Burns, 1901. Josselyn Van Tyne, 1939- Cv> f 4 t944 y Vol. 56 MARCH. 1944 No. 1 Ilje piteon Pulletm CONTENTS Plumbeous Kite Sutton Frontispiece The Kites of the Genus Ictinia George Miksch Sutton 3 Bonaparte’s Gull on the Niagara River and Eastern Lake Erie Clark S. Beardslee 9 The Present Status of the American Eider on the Maine Coast Alfred 0. Gross 15 A Study of the Cardinal in Tennessee Amelia R. Laskey 27 General Notes 45 Editorial 51 Ornithological Literature 52 Annual Reports 61 THE WILSON BULLETIN is published quarterly in March, June, September, and December, as the official organ of the Wilson Ornithological Club, at Ann Arbor, Michigan, and is sent to all members not in arrears for dues. The subscription price is $2.00 a year, invariably in advance, in the United States. Single numbers, 50 cents. Outside of the United States the rate is $2.25. Single numbers, 60 cents. Subscriptions should be sent to the Treasurer. All articles and communications for publication, books and publications for review, exchanges, and claims for lost or undelivered copies of the magazine, should be addressed to the Editor. The current issue of Tke Wilson Bulletin is printed by the Ann Arbor Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Entered as second class matter July 13, 1916, at Ann Arbor, Michigan, under Act of Congress of March 3, 1879. THE WILSON ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB Founded December 3, 1888. Named after Alexander Wilson, the first American ornithologist. The officers for the current year are: President—S. Charles Kendeigh, University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois. First Vice-President—Olin Sewall Pettingill, Jr., Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota. Second Vice-President—Harrison F. Lewis, Department of Mines and Re- sources, Ottawa, Canada. Treasurer—Milton B. Trautman, Stone Laboratory, Put-in-Bay, Ohio. Secretary—Maurice Brooks, University of West Virginia, Morgantown, West Virginia. Editor—Josselyn Van Tyne, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. Associate Editors—Margaret M. Nice and F. N. Hamerstrom, Jr. Assistant Editor—G. Reeves Butchart. Membership dues per calendar year are: sustaining membership, $5.00; active membership, $3.00; associate membership, $2.00. PLUMBEOUS KITE (Ictinea plumbea) Adult female taken along the Rio Sabinas, near Gomez Farias, southwestern Tamaulipas, Mexico, on April 18, 1941. From a field sketch in water-color by George Miksch Sutton. (About one-third life-size) THE WILSON BULLETIN A QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF ORNITHOLOGY Published by the Wilson Ornithological Club Vol. 56 MARCH, 1944 No. 1 I 3, THE KITES OF THE GENUS ICTINIA BY GEORGE MIKSCH SUTTON re the Mississippi Kite and Plumbeous Kite distinct species, or are A they geographical races of the same bird? Twenty years ago, when I first compared specimens of the two forms, I was so impressed with certain differences between them that it did not occur to me to question the judgment of those who had accorded them full specific rank. At that time I had not seen either in life, had not examined either eggs or young birds, and did not know enough about taxonomy to be concerned with the validity of such phylogenetic concepts as might be embodied in, or proclaimed by, their scientific names. Today I am much better acquainted with these two kites. I have spent weeks on end with the former in western Oklahoma (Sutton, 1939:41-53) and have encountered the latter briefly in southwestern Tamaulipas, at the northern edge of its range (Sutton and Pettingill, 1942:8). I have handled the skins in several of our museums and am convinced that neither form has a single morphological character wholly its own. I have made a point of observing both birds critically in life, have heard their cries, noted carefully the colors of their fleshy parts, painted them from freshly killed specimens, skinned them, and examined their stomach contents. All this, together with what I have learned from the literature concerning the distribution and nesting habits of the Plumbeous Kite, convinces me that the two birds are conspecific. In the following paper I propose to show why I consider them thus closely re- lated. In disposition and behavior they are alike. They are mild to the point of docility much of the time though capable of becoming pugna- cious when their nests or young are threatened. They may perch for an hour at a stretch in the very top of a tree but are more likely, especially on a hot day, to seek a shady spot on a lower branch. Their flight is buoyant, easy, and graceful. As they soar about, their widespread tails veer this way and that. I have not had opportunity to compare their cries directly, but the shrill whistles of Plumbeous Kites that I heard in Tamaulipas seemed to me the precise counterpart of the phee-phew I had so often heard from the Mississippi Kites in Oklahoma. 4 THE WILSON BULLETIN March, 1944 Vol. 56, No. 1 Both birds feed chiefly on large insects, many of which they cap- ture on the wing. Freshly killed specimens have the same peculiar, sweetish, slightly offensive odor, probably that of insects they have eaten. Too, they usually have a soiled patch in the middle of the under tail coverts—evidence of the habit of tucking moist, partly eaten prey snugly up against the tail as they fly. As for their nidification, I can say nothing concerning the Plumbe- ous Kite from personal observation. The nest is described as “a col- lection of rather coarse twigs” built with “but little care” and placed thirty to forty feet up in a mangrove (Dickey and van Rossem, 1938: 108); as a “small, rather formless” structure “of sticks placed in the main crotch of a tree about twenty feet from the ground” (Chapman, 1894:70); and as “composed of small sticks . lined with leaves and fibrous material, and placed toward the end of a branch of a Ceiba at 50 to 60 feet” (Belcher and Smooker, 1934:589). It must, therefore, be very much like that of its northward ranging relative. The Missis- sippi Kite nests “in tall trees” (Chapman, 1932:216) when it inhabits a heavily forested region. So, apparently, does the Plumbeous Kite. Chubb (1916:274-275) quotes Schomburgk to the effect that the lat- ter form “builds its nest of twigs in tall trees that are quite impossible to climb.” The eggs of the two forms seem to be very similar. They are white or very pale bluish white, unmarked save for nest stains. Three Plumbeous Kite eggs described by Belcher and Smooker (1934:589) measured 40 x 33, 41.25 x 35.5, and 41 x 35 mm., while the average for 29 Mississippi Kite eggs measured by Bendire (1892:179) was 41 x 34 mm. (extremes: 39 x 32—44.5 x 36.5).