The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-03-14
Birds Acquiring New and Brutal
Habits,

Prof Samuel Lockwood gives an in,
teresting account of that beautiful
bird known as the golden robin, or Bal
timore orioIe, in connection with the
common bunble-bees. Last June large
numbers of these bees were found IN
der the horse chestnut trees, then in
full bloom, in the campus of Rutgers
college every one of them decapitated.
and the heads lying around with the
bodies aud it further appears that
every opS$0f the headless bees was a
stingless male. The professor worked
out the case with much patient perse-
verance, and found to his surprise that
this wholesale slaughter was the work
of four orioles. Another fact that as
tunished him was, that the bodies of
these insects were empty, the vlscera
having been drawn out at the ring-like
opening where the head had been neat
" shipped by the birds. The process
was to catch the bees while lowering at
the ball-like opening of the flowers.
After severing the head, they extracted
the viscera for the sake of the honey
sac Several very interesting consider
atiOns are brought out in the course Of
the article-such as the acquired taste !;
the birds had found out that honey
was nice. Was it not singular, too,
that they had learned that it could be
got in such a manner? And there was
also the curious fact that the bird con-
fined its marauding to the white-headed
bees, the stingless males-thus carrying
on his terrible work with impunity, and
almost wantOnness, as it contented it
self with simply the honey-bearing sac.
Prof. Lockwood also notes a curious
change of habit in the king-bird.
Speaking of the wonderfully plucky
manner of this courageous little bird
i'll attacking crows and other large
birds, us securing the general admlra-
ton, he says that for himself that ad-
miratiOn has gone down to zero, as he
has noticed that the bird has not any
true knightly qualities, but can do
some very mean things. The professor
then instances a case III which a pair Of
robins had built ii nest in a tree so near
by that the process could be watched
from the house A pair of king-birds
kept all the time near, and watched the
progress with genuine royal Incidence,
and. when all was finished, with kingly
impudence took possession. The right
full owners made but a feeble effort to
resist this invasion. The king-b birds re-
tanned possession until their young
were raised. More than year ago,
Prof. Lockwood likewise called atten-
tion to the fact that the great butcher
bird, or northern shrike, contrary to all
precedent, had begun to visit in wint r
the cities where the European sparrows
have become naturalized. The bird in
summer collects grasshoppers, small
lizards, ETC., and impales them on the
spines of the locust or other trees, eat
ing them at its leisure. He notices the
case in which shrike in its winter visit
gibbeted a sparrow in the city by put
ting its neck in the crotch of a small
branch of larch, and then, having
knocked in the top of it's head, the
bird extracted its victims brains.
Georgia is getting scarce of wood,
and wants her Legislature to interfere
in behalf of the young trees. But she
finds consolation in her aff1iction in the
hope that it will lead to the develop
nent of the coal fields in her noun