The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-01-21
OUR BOHEMIAN VISITORS.

Our city just now is filled with many
strangers. Their coming was not
heralded, their going will be silent
and their sojourn all too short But
while they do stay they Should be
made most welcome. They bring no
money, but they bring beauty, and
beauty is joy. And like the lilies of the
field they spin not neither do they
toll, yet Solomon in all his glory was
not arrayed like one OF these. Who
are these strangers that visit us only
during the mid-winter and whose stay
is so short yet bringing with it So
much of pure delight? They are the
bohemian chatterers, among the rar-
Jest and most beautiful OF all our
birds. Their heads are crested as the
heads of all such birds should be, and
their plunlage, when closely examin-
ed, is of the softest and most delicate
texture possible. The feathers seem
like the most beautiful of frost work.
Audubon says that the first intl-
nations of this beautiful bird in
NortA America were made by Mr.
was found by the former in 1926,
near the sources of the Athabasca, in
the spring, and by DR.. Richardson, in
the same season, at the Great Bear
lake, in latitude 50 degrees. He also
observed large flock, consisting of
several hundred, on the banks of the
Saskatchewan at Carbon House, early
in May, 1927. Audubon's sons saw a.
pair near Boston, in the autumn of
1882. They pursued them for an hour,
but without success. The most south
ern locality in which he noted them
iwas in the neighborhood of Philadel-
phia, where as well as on Long Is
land, several were Shot in 1880 and
1882. His friend, Thomas McCullocn,
of Picton, Nova Scotia, who furnished
! him with the specimens from which
he made his figures of them, gave
him an account of the affection dis
lplayed by one toward its companion,
an affection almost human and touch,
ling in the extreme
The mate had been wounded and
took refuge in a t'hicket of evergreens.
1t called and called but the mate took
no heed. 1t left its perch ait the top
of the tree and rose i'm the air. Sud-
denly it wheeled in it's flight and
with the directness of an arrow
brushed it's mate gently, seeking to
dispel its stupor. But all its efforts
were in vain. Again it alfghted on
the spruce tree where it had formerly
perched, where it could see and warn
its matte of approaching danger. 1t
| flew about for some time, then re-
turned, aligllting on the same tree
top as before. Its very fidelity to its
wounded mate proved to be it's death.
The chance was too rare, the prize
too great, and the faithful bird be-
came the victim of the ardent natur-
alist.
The bird is as rare as it is beauti-
full. 1t is stated in Baird, Brewer and
Ridgway's North American Birds y
that except i'm a few instances, none
Iof these birds have been seen west OF
ftiie Rocky Mountains. These fnstan-
ces were noted by Dr.. Cooper who
saw this species, in September, at
Fort Laramie, and he also obtained
a single individual on the Colorado
Salt Lake City must be deemed to be
west of the Rocky Mountains, and we
yourselves have noticed them here
every winter for the past fourteen
years, except during that of 1922
And they may have been there. then
They go in focks of from twenty tic
thirty, and their favorite place fol-
Iperching seems to be the tall poplar
lrtrees. When they first make their APP