Gary and Tweets -

Having owned a copy of Birds of American since I was a kid, your
reference sent me to the nether regions of the collection. You are
correct, it does contain "grisly little paragraphs" of food sources and
stomach contents. Of the hawks and owls, only the Great Grey and Horned
Owls were noted as including squirrels as a food source.

In addition to this information the book is informative on changing
attitudes towards many birds, particularly predators. The hawks, eagles,
and falcons are rated as to being "beneficial" or "not beneficial" with
many uses of the term evil included. All of the accipiters are deemed
evil and worthy of extermination - quoting: "Although the Sharp-shinned
Hwk has a body but little larger than a Robin's, this relentless
buccaneer, like his larger relative, the Cooper's Hawk, fully uphold the
traditions of Hawks for destructiveness.", and "This murderous little
villain will destroy all small birds unfortunate enough to live within
its hunting grounds." Similarly the owls are rated, with notes for some
species that if they confined their ranges to the open spaces of the
west they could be considered beneficial because they eat rodents.

The Fuertes plates are generally very nice, although some of the birds
are rather generalized.

Another interesting point is the changes of names which have taken
place (in some cases a number of times) since the publication in 1917
and 1936. An example is the Flicker or Northern Flicker with many
references to other names including Yellow-shafted and Red-shafted.

Brian H. Bell
Woodinville Wa
bellasoc at isomedia.com

Gary Bletsch wrote:

> Dear Tweeters,
>
> I don't have the time to look into it, but I believe there might be
> info on the prey items of owls and hawks, and perhaps squirrel
> predation as well, in the old Birds of America book. I think that's
> the title. It's the one from the early 20th century with the plates by
> Louis Agassiz Fuertes.
>
> One thing I remember from that venerable book are the grisly little
> paragraphs that the authors included for many species, telling about
> "examination of stomach contents."
>
> Yours truly,
>
> Gary Bletsch
>
>
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