The Ornithologist and Oölogist Volume 12

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 Excerpt: ...and very deep. The inside was all nicely lined with tufts of cow hair. In one nest the hair was all red, while for the make up of the other white steers must have suffered, for I have no doubt but what these ravens got their hair from the backs of living animals. I have seen them in the severe winter weather alight on the back of a steer and pick out huge mouthfuls of flesh, so hungry and voracious do they become. The eggs were eight in number; in both sets one being perfectly fresh but the others I could not save, not having proper tools with me. In color they were bright green with great elongated blotches of black running lengthwise with the egg. All sixteen were very much alike, hardly distinguishable. Measurement averaged about 1.98x1.30, some being over 2.00 and a few under. These birds differ very much from the common crow in every way, size, action and croak. I remember the first one I ever saw. 1 knew it was a raven in a moment. This large set of eight eggs is now in my collection. Trees began to thin out and in the very last tree on the creek I obtained a set of three eggs of the Krider's Hawk, (liuteo borealix krideri). So closely allied are they with the Western Red-tail that a sure identity can only be established by shooting the hawk. The birds are a pure white underneath from neck to end of tail and a person can tell between these two species of hawks which is which, with some degree of accuracy without shooting them, yet it is safer to do so. After leaving the creek we took a direct course across the prairie for the chalk bluffs and camped for the night on a broad, level plain four miles from their base, and in one of the best natural ranges in the West, so considered. Large herds of cattle and horses could be seen on all sides with here and...