Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-09-23
NEW GROUPS OF BIRDS
Pacific Coast Specimens Col lected by an Expert.
VARIOUS SECTIONS REPRESENTED.

to the American Museum of Natu-
 ra1 History In New York-Hovv the
 Material Was obtained-Environ-
 ments of the Birds Closely Studied. Frank M. Chapman, the bird man at the American Museum of Natural His tory in New York, has returned from his summer vacation with material for five new bird groups of the Pacific coast. MT. Chapman had all sorts of interesting experiences in gathering this material, says the New York Times. He was accompanied by a landscape artist to make studies of the environment; a preparator, with wax and plaster molds, to make casts of such vegetation as could not be bodily removed and preserved by means of the fluid used for the pur- pose, and bird artist to paint freshly killed birds and retain the brilliant coloring, which fades in the dead speci- men. This artist. was Louis Agassiz Fuertes. MT. Chapman collected the material and photographed the birds, with their nests and immediate en- vironment.
 One of the groups in contemplation will be the largest and finest bird group ever yet constructed anywhere. It will show the bird life of the irri- gated regions of California, which Is an example of the changes wrought by man among the little people of woods and fields. The districts, formerly arid, were destitute of bird life. Water has been turned in in great quantities, changing the arid valleys into pasture lands covered with great herds of cat tIe.N The water is allowed to stand on certain sections to fertilize them and then drawn off to others. In its wake have come enormous numbers of water birds. They follow the water as 1t is moved and live and breed along the irrigating ditches until these valleys, once almost desert, are alive with wa ter birds.
 The group will show various species of wild ducks, the glossy ibis (not the sacred bird of Egypt, herons, coots, black terms, Forster's terms, avocets, stilts, yellow headed blackbirds and killdeer. These names sound familiar; but, with the exception of the black birds and black terms, none of the birds is found in the east, the Pacific coast species all differing. The black bird is not water bird, but it stays so persistentIy among the weeds at the waters edge that 1t is characteristic of the scene.
 These birds are very shy, for they have vast areas of solitude in which to FNI- whose ranch MT. Chapman collected this material controls 14,000,O00 acres in California.
 This group will be twenty feet long and eight feet high, larger than the splendid Virginia coast group, which was the banner group of last year. The ranch, located in the San Joaquin valley, afforded a background of the coast range piled majestically against the horizon. This background, with the green, level, water laced irrigated lands in the foreground is now being painted in San Francisco by a local artist familiar with the color effects of the region and the means of reproduc- ing them.
 The second fine group will show cor morants on rock as they swarm at the Cliff House in San Francisco or on the rocks off Cyprus point, at Monte rey. Rather than try to reproduce these great rocks in miniature, it has been thought best to show a section of one, with the painting showing the great sea girt rock in the background. The cormorant is very much like a large duck. A life size cormorant head, painted by MT. Fuertes, shows the value of the bird artists work in such a case. The bird puffs out bag on its throat, evidently for purposes of display. This bag, a brilliant blue in color, dries away in the dead speci- men, leaving the painting the only model.
 Material for a group of mountain quail and sooty grouse was gathered in the Sierras amid surroundings of the most beautiful mountain scenery, and then the party went up to Pyra- mid lake, in Nevada. An island in the lake is metropolis of the pelican race, one of the last great fastnesses of the bird world. At Chapman counted 4,OO0 young pelicans upon it. They are white pelicans, differing from their famous cousins of Pelican island, on the Florida coast. The old birds meas ure eight feet from tip to tip. When America was discovered this bird was found on the Atlantic coast. It is now confined to a few inaccessible To- calities in the west.
 Another coast region group will be one of the yellow billed magpie. This is exactly like the magpie of the old world, except that it's bill is yellow. It has never been found outside of cer- tain regians of California, and it is rapidly becoming extinct in those ow- ing to the poison the ranchmen put out for gophers. The magpie eats either the poison or the poisoned ground squirrel and dies forthwith. Although small bird, 1t builds of twigs an enor- nous domed nest several feet high. The nest brought away was secured from the tree with infinite pains and care, and then the collector had to visit three or four of the small towns T