The Redwood gazette., 1894-08-02
ranges all the way from the gigantic
but untidy buzzard to the piquant but
hot headed hornet

ranges all the way from the gigantic
but untidy buzzard to the piquant but
hot headed hornet
Professor Huxley claimed in SUBJ
stance that the bird family so closely re-
sembled the reptile family in all essen
tial features of organization that they
might be said to be merely an extremely
modified and aberrant reptilian type.
This is true when we begin to look
into the osseous structure especially,
and with a little batter on it frogs
hind leg somewhat resembles quail's.
Take the toad too. He has no doubt for
centuries been content to grovel upon
the ground until his efforts to soar are
greeted now with biting sarcasm and
coarse laughter. Yet who shall say that
the goose pimples on the back of the
toad did not at one time contain the
glorious plumage of sweet voiced bird?
We should learn from this not to be
too easily content. A certain degree Of
discomfort is necessary to ambition, and
ambition is necessary to progress and
promotion. Who knows but that the
common warty toad once fitted through
the foliage of the forest or chased the
butterfly across the wild sweeps of hon
eysuckle and rose? Who knows but that
at first he ate too much and loafed about
in the shade for a few days, and finally
that he preferred complete rest all the
time, until feather by feather his ward
robe fell away during the fight of swift
morning he found himself naked and
fat, with flabby rudimentary flying mus
cles only, and with his huge olive green
stomach resting on the wet clay? Let
US look into this and be not content
with dead beetles that have perished
perhaps with some contagious disease
when by swiftly soaring into the track
of the honey laden and busy bee we may
have pleasing morsel without risk of
malaria.
This leads us to speak of the buzzard,
another bird that will no doubt in a
few more centuries become reptile, his
head and neck now being entirely bereft
Of plumage. Why is this? Merely be-
cause he is not ambitious He waits pa
tiently for dead horse rather than sup
ply himself with juicy worms and feel
ing that at all times ne is not afraid to
look man in the eye. Did you ever see
buzzard that could look you in the
eye? No, sir. He cam do it unless very
high in the sky.
The buzzard of North Carolina only
lives we'll along the line of bad roads,
where dead horses freight the gale and
call the attention of the thoughtless
passersby to the fact that they are dead,
but not forgotten. With better roads
half our buzzards. would have to go to
work again or starve
The buzzard is called by ornitholo-
gists the buteo of the order raptores
and family falconid9. It has a pecul-
lar bill, which bends from the base and
is not notched. It resembles the eagle
and falcon in size, but has a peculiar
carriage when on the ground, its gait
resembling that of cat whose feet
have been incased in paper overshoes
The buzzard is lacking in courage. He
has bearing very much like that of
New York police captain who is going
up the elevator to lick the editor, but
his breath is favored differently.
The buzzard measures about four feet
from tip to tip and looks best when
about one and half miles up above the
world SO high like skeeter in the sky.
Then he is graceful and symmetrical.
But when he is half concealed in the
thorax of dead horse everybody except
his warmest friends shun him.
The American buzzard is called Buteo
vulgaris It is so untidy in eating that
wise Providence has seen fit to deprive
it of whiskers and courage.
One of the buzzard family in America
is the red tailed hawk, or Buteo bore
alis, and is more fatal to pullets than
an annual conference The American