OCR Text |
Show THE RICH COUNTY REAPER. RANDOLPH. UTAH Aftermath of New Englands Hurricane SPEAKING OF BIRDS Theres really no blue or green in their feathers , but sun rays, rain or a blue sky can make our nesting friends colorful as a peacock! O Society. Prepared by National Geographic WNU Service. feathers, Washington. D. C. THERE April. , ' - A s - ' - - " " ? - r y s v . which break off during is no blue Red finches display no such gray in the feathers of edges to the feathers. But upon ex- neither, with rare exceptions, is there any The only pigment in ordinary birds feathers are reds and yellows and blacks, and all the other colors are due either to a combination of these or to the superficial structure of the feathers overlying some other pigment. Blue feathers, for example, contain only brown or blackish pigment overlaid by a layer of prismatic cells which reflect only blue light rays. Sometimes the structure is that of minute pits on the surface of the feathers. When green. colors they become filled with water during rain, they lose their refractive power, and the birds, apparently, change from blue to white, as in the tropical swallow tanagers. Again, the blue color is due to inute air spaces in the superficial yer of cells, just as the blueness of the sky is due to minute dust particles, and the blueness of the milk on the boarding house table to the minute cream droplets. So long Jas our blue birds remain between us and the source of light, they are hot blue birds at all and therefore may go unnoticed. Yellow birds are usually conspicuous because our eyes are very sensitive to yellow. But many birds have a structure overlaid by a yellow pigment, so that the combination sends green light to our eyes. Then we say these birds are green. Wet the back of a parrot and it becomes brown, or scratch the surface of one of the green feathers with a knife and a dark mark is left. But there seem to be many red .birds among these tanagers and finches. Why do we not see them more often? Certainly we have no trouble seeing a red traffic light indeed, most of them seem to be that color when we are in a hurry. .There are some reds, such as the iridescent throats of the humming birds, for which the structure of the eatners is responsible. But most reds, such as those of the tanagers and finches, are due to ,pigme'nt, and they regi. as ,red under all rd be really effec-,tivhowever, the red must be exposed to direct sunlight. ( Should a scarlet tanager alight in the middle of a sunlit lawn or a cardinal fly across the open space in a garden, either bird would attract attention, but most of the time they are sitting among the shadows of green leaves, where they are poorly lighted. The sunlight is reflected from the leaves more readily than from the birds, especially since our eyes are peculiarly sensitive to greens. blue-produci- H ng amining a feather with a lens, one that the red pigment occurs only in the main branches of the leafiike structure, the parts called the shaft and the barbs, while the more minute branches, or barb-ule- s, are gray. As these barbules wear off, the barbs with their color become more exposed and the feathers apparently get brighter. Thus the red finches (the purple finch, house finch, and redpolls) apparently brighten as spring advances. Thus the summer tanager male remains red throughout file year, and so do the cardinal, the purple finch, the pine grosbeak, and the crossbills. The yellow evening grosbeak never becomes gray like his mate, once he has acquired maturity, though the male goldfinch does. No one has yet advanced a satisfactory explanation for these differences in seasonal styles among the males, but the inference is that the females are dully colored so as not to attract attention to the nest. Usually the brilliantly colored males in this family never assist in incubating the eggs, but even here there are exceptions, as in the rosed breasted and grosbeaks. Males of these birds not only sit on the eggs, but even break all rules of bird conduct by singing as they do so. will find Picture shows demolished homes at Milford, Conn., after the tropical hurricane which spread havoc along the Atlantic seaboard. Milford, which is located on Long Island sound, suffered $1,000,000 damage from the A storm, the worst in history here. Winners of International Regatta RECALL WINNER black-heade- Grosbeak Mortality Whether because of the singing, or because of the bright colors of the incubating male, or because of the general fragility of the nest, there is a relatively high nest morgrostality among the beaks, and some years very few rose-breast-ed Judge Fletcher Bowron is Los Annew mayor, the winner in a d recall mayoralty election. Mayor Walter von Hutschler, left, whose Primm, representing Frank L. Shaw was recalled as Bow- the Hamburg Fiotte of Germany, captured the sixteenth annual internaron was elected over him by a ma- tional star boat regatta at San Diego, is shown with his crew mate, Hanse Weise, waving their jority of more than 100,000. trophy after victory. geles white-hulle- flag-decorat- FORMIDABLE FOE ' e, Winter Markings For their nest in the west, a pair of enterprising Los Angeles sparrows selected an electric, switch box which the owner im mediately shut off to prevent electrocution. Two fledglings are shown above, in their novel nest . -- are reared. Then the species becomes scarce, because grosbeaks are not so persistent about renesting as are some other birds. There is no one place in North America where all of the birds here mentioned can be found. The hepatic tanager, beautiful bunting, and Sharpes seedeater, for example, are not found very far Photograph shows F. F. Hill as he was sworn as governor of the north of the Mexican border. Farm Credit administration succeeding William I. Myers, who recently resigned to return to his professorship at Cornell university, and Miss Elsie England, secretary to the General Counsel administering the oath. young During the winter many birds have their conspicuous marks veiled by gray edges to the feathers. These edges break off during the spring, exposing the color underneath. The male house sparrow, for example, in winter seems to have only a narrow line of black on his throat, because the rest of his black cravat is concealed by the gray tips of the pyrr-hulox- ia, CROYDON Art Means, left guard for the Washington Huskies, looks like an ominous threat for any opponent that gets in his way. His 1938 gridiron initiation came when the Huskies lost to Minnesota, 15 to 0. Below , A Prophecy Or Hope? AIRCRAFT the m BELGIUM 00 CREAT BRIT AIN . C i ! I A picture of evening grosbeaks at Whitefish Lake, Mich., taken with telescopic lens. The camera has aided man immeasurably In Us study of bird life. CZECHQSL0VAKIA.OK OY DENMARK HOLLAND PH EIRE El FRANCE F GERMANY D 1TA1 V.. .v. I:.,....:.'. WAVAV.,AlVW.V1 This is the air markings board at Croydon airdrome, London. The letters this troublous time in Europe takes on added significance. OK" after Czechoslovakia Is |