nare" passed us. All my young men are engaged in skinning the Mormon arcticus.
June 30. I have drawn three birds this day since eight o'clock, one Fringilla lincolnii, one Ruby-crowned Wren, and a male White-winged Crossbill. Found a nest of the Savannah Finch with two eggs; it was planted in the moss, and covered by a rampant branch; it was made of fine grass, neither hair nor feathers in its composition. Shot the L. marinus in fine order, all with the wings extending nearly two inches beyond the tail, and all in the same state of moult, merely showing in the middle primaries. These birds suck other birds' eggs like Crows, Jays, and Ravens. Shot six Phalacrocorax carbo[1] in full plumage, species well ascertained by their white throat; found abundance of their eggs and young.
July 1. The weather was so cold that it was painful for me to draw almost the whole day, yet I have drawn a White-winged Crossbill[2] and a Mormon arcticus. We have had three of these latter on board, alive, these three days past; it is amusing to see them running about the cabin and the hold with a surprising quickness, watching our motions, and particularly our eyes. A Pigeon Hawk's[3] nest was found to-day; it was on the top of a fir-tree about ten feet high, made of sticks and lined with moss, and as large as a Crow's nest; it contained two
- ↑ Common Cormorant. See note on page 370.
- ↑ Loxia leucoptera.
- ↑ Le petit caporal, Falco temerarius, AUD. Ornith. Biog. i., 1831, p. 381, pl. 85. Falco columbarius, AUD. Ornith. Biog. i., 1831, p. 466, pi. 92 ; v., 1838, p. 368. Synopsis, 1839, p. 16. B. Amer. 8vo, ed. i., 1840, p. 88, pi. 21. Falco auduboni, BLACKWALL, Zoöl. Researches, 1834. —E. C.
In vol. v., p. 368, Audubon says: "The bird represented in the last mentioned plate, and described under the name of Falco temerarius, was merely a beautiful adult of the Pigeon Hawk, F. columbarius. The great inferiority in size of the individual represented as F. temararius was the cause of my mistaking it for a distinct species, and I have pleasure in stating that the Prince of Musignano [Charles Bonaparte] was the first person who pointed out my error to me soon after the publication of my first volume."
Bonaparte alludes to this in his edition of Wilson, vol. iii. p. 252.
