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A catalogue of the birds of Connecticut, arranged according to their natural ...

By James Harvey Linsley, 1843 I proposed to furnish next, for the Society, a list of the birds, which I now have the pleasure to transmit for the consideration of that body. I would beg leave to remark, that most of the birds herein named have been obtained in Stratford, Connecticut, and its vicinity, and are now in my cabinet. In comparatively few instances, where species have been found in the adjacent states of Massachusetts and New York, I have included them as belonging to this state, although I have not hitherto had the satisfaction to obtain them here. Class II. Sub-class I. Insessores. Order I. Accipitres. Family Vulturidce. 7. F., Washingtoniensis, Audubon, Washington Eagle, Stratford.
This noble bird was shot in New Canaan in April, 1821, and was sent to me in Stratford by Mr. J. Silliman. He soon recovered from his wound, and became perfectly domesticated. I kept him a while conned, but soon found it unnecessary, because if he left my premises, he would return to the stand at night.
I have known him to eat fourteen birds, (mostly Muscicapa tyrannus, king-bird,) and then he was satised for a week. He appeared to prefer this mode of living, and paid no attention to a daily supply. He however in the course of the summer became so mischievous among the young ducks of my neighbors, that I was compelled to kill him.
A single anecdote of his conduct may not be uninteresting. While he had possession of my front yard, occupying the centre as his stand, (the walks making a semicircle to the door,) he would remain perfectly quiet if gentlemen or ladies entered; but if a person with tattered garments, or such persons as were not accustomed to come in at the front door entered the yard, it was actually dangerous for them, and they could only escape the tremendous grasp of his talons by running with their full strength and shutting the gate after them. Facts of this kind often occurred, and I was occasionally compelled to release from his grasp such individuals as he had taken captive. With one claw in the sward and grass, he would hold quietly any man with the other. My domestics, both male and female, often felt this power of his talons and grasp. He would not allow their passing in that yard, and long acquaintance did not change his temper towards them. If however such persons passed him in the adjoining yard, to the door in the rear of the house, he made no complaints. What renders this truly remarkable was, he had no training to this purpose while in my possession, and was wild when I received him.

*25. S. Acadica, Gmelin, Little Owl, Stratford and New Haven. 25. Of the little Acadian owl, I have obtained one specimen, which was found lying upon his back in a barn-yard in a cold morning in March, 1841, though still living. It is very rare here; I have seen but two individuals. His stomach contained only sonic half-digested angle worms, (Lumbricus tcrrestris.) 7. T. Noveboracensis, Nuttall, New York Aquatic Thrush, Stratford. Rare at New Haven. 57. The New York aquatic thrush last season built a nest in my grape arbor, and laid three eggs, and then left on account of the pruning of the vines, which occurred as late as August 5th. 192. A. exilis, Gmelin, Least Bittern, Northford I obtained a ne specimen of the American bittern two years since, which had previously given great alarm to many of our inhabitants by its peculiarly doleful and mournful sounds at evening. One man who was laboring near the swamp, it is said, ran a mile in the greatest consternation, alleging that " the d1 was after him." It is also stated by several of our most respectable inhabitants, that forty seven years since, one hundred men united in a company on the Sabbath, to traverse this swamp, and succeeded in killing one of these same birds, and that their sounds have not been heard in the town since, until the former instance occurred which secured a specimen to me. Goldsmith has very happily expressed the booming of the bittern. " It is impossible (he says) for words to give any adequate idea of its solemnity. It is like the interrupted bellowing of a bull, but hollower and louder, and is heard at a mile's distance, as if issuing from some formidable being that resided at the bottom of the waters." Ours is equally appalling, and was said by many persons to be heard a mile at evening. 209. T. Glottis, Bechstein, Green Shanks, Stratford. *209. Of the green shank, I have seen but one, which was killed here last autumn. 220. Rallus elegans, Audubon, Rail, Stratford. A female specimen of R. elegans was taken alive in this town and conned in a cage, where it soon deposited an egg, both of which 1 obtained immediately. On opening the bird, I found many eggs of different sizes, sufcient to establish the fact that this species breeds here, though before unknown even to visit New England. She was chased into a hole in a bank near a salt marsh, and thus secured. The egg is larger and darker at the greater end than those of the clapper rail, which breeds abundantly here. 251. F. nigra, Bona., Scoter Duck, Stratford. 251. The ducks answering to Bonaparte's F. nigra, which I nd here, I imagine will be found to be the young, or a mere variety of the perspicillata. Several of these species exhibit great variety of plumage at different ages. One passed the last winter here, said to be pure white, and he escaped the effects of shot enough to have killed a score. 270. Sula bassana, Lacepede, Gannet, Solan Goose, Stratford. *270. The true solan goose killed here, which I presented to Yale Natural History Society, had in its stomach a bird, and in the stomach of the latter was also a birddestruction on destruction. Mr. B. Silliman, Jr. and Dr. Whelpley, who opened the stomach, observed this fact, as the former gentleman informed me. It was previously supposed this bird lived wholly on shes.