Pictures Of Birds Research Articles

Discrimination of relative numerosity by pigeons

In three experiments, pigeons were trained to discriminate between uniform arrays of two elements that differed in color, form, or size. They were then tested with arrays that contained different proportions of the two elements on these dimensions. In all cases, orderly discrimination gradients reflected these proportions. The discrimination readily transferred to new arrays with similar stimuli, but with different total numbers of elements. In Experiment 4, the pigeons were taught to discriminate between two groups of categorical stimuli: pictures of birds and pictures of flowers. A test with different proportions of each again produced a gradient based on relative numerosity. Experiment 5 demonstrated transfer of stimulus control on the numerosity dimension when pigeons were trained with one set of instances from two categories, and then were tested with new instances from the same categories.

Transfer of oddity learning in the pigeon

Two pigeons were trained on a six-key modified oddity-from-sample procedure. The stimuli were olor pictures of birds, butterflies, and human faces. Initially, the third peck on the sample key which presented one of three different bird pictures) lit only one comparison key. Every three dditional pecks on the sample illuminated another comparison key. Fifteen sample pecks produced he maximum of five comparison stimuli. A peck on the comparison key that presented the non-atching bird picture produced grain. Pecks on matching keys turned off all the comparison keys nd repeated the trial. The birds learned to peck each sample until the non-matching comparison timulus was produced, and then to peck that key. After acquisition (70%–90% accuracy), the hree bird stimuli were replaced by a new set of three bird pictures. Subsequent phases provided ew sets of bird, butterfly, and human face stimuli. Both birds showed transfer of oddity learning o the novel samples. The data suggest that the birds may have been engaging in conceptual-type oddity learning, rather than learning discrete five-key discriminations or a series of two component chains.

The illustrations of birds in the Vatican manuscript of De arte venandi cum avibus of Frederick II

Summary A detailed examination, from the point of view of an ornithologist, of the pictures of birds in the thirteenth-century manuscript, Vatican, Pal. Lat. 1071, of De arte venandi cum avibus of Frederick II, shows that most of them are not the accurate representations that have generally been claimed. The illustrators, of whom there were probably not less than three, show little knowledge of natural history, and, even when they were drawing birds such as falcons that must have been available to them, they did not observe very closely. They were no better than many of the artists active in England at the same period or earlier, and a comparison indicates that they did not, as has sometimes been suggested, influence the northern illustrators. The number of subjects, though high, is not wide, being confined for the most part to birds that were likely to have been used as quarry in falconry. Few British species illustrated in MS. Pal. Lat. 1071 are not also in at least some English manuscripts, but many in...

Recognition Memory for Pictures of Birds in Relation to Bird-Watching Skill

Three groups with high (HK), low (LK), or no (NK) knowledge of birds were shown pictures of European birds, American birds that looked like European birds (SA), and American birds that did not (DA) and tested for recognition. The HK and LK subjects outperformed NK subjects on all three categories of bird pictures, but differences decreased in magnitude from European birds to DA birds. Renewed presentation of the study pictures to investigate verbal responses to the birds suggested different encoding strategies in HK and LK subjects compared with NK subjects.

The ‘Picture Taken Lady’

Abstract Eccentricity, audacity, and indefatigability are characteristic of so many figures in photography's brief history that we have come to expect photographers to be peculiar by nature. Alexander Alland's colourful account of Jessie Tarbox Beals' life reinforces our expectations. Had it not been for the rising popularity of the popular camera in the late 1880s, Jessie Tarbox might have spent her life as a school teacher. Once she began to photograph, however—practising first on her students, who called her the ‘picture taken lady’—there was no turning back. Photographing more diversely in style and subject matter than her female contemporaries, and with no use for the soft-focus painterly style of the time, she and her 8 × 10 camera pursued every image that could be sold. Indeed, this profit motive distinguished her from her more art-oriented female peers, and placed her firmly in the tradition of an all-male field: photo-journalism. She trained her new husband Alfred Beah in darkroom basics, and there he remained, while she climbed trees and 20-ft ladders, stole aboard balloons, and sneaked her camera through courtroom-door transoms to find a unique and saleable angle. Although her exuberant life exemplified the tenets of the suffragettes, she was no joiner and no fighter for any social causes. She was, above all else, a pragmatic business woman: ‘the ability to hustle . . . is the most necessary qualification. . . . Thank God I had abnormal strength. Mere feminine, delicate, Dresden China type of women, get nowhere in business or professional life. . . . If a woman is to make headway with men she must be truly masculine.’ No doubt her husband Alfred would have attested to this. While he processed and printed, as many as 5000 plates in six months, she mixed with the lights of literature, the arts, and high society, and photographed four Presidents. She covered the Jacksonville fire, immigrants at Ellis Island, N.Y. tenement slums, and prison life; never limiting her subject matter, she photographed the corpse of a burned baby, action pictures of birds and cats, negroes in the south, pastoral country scenes and, towards the end of her life, elegant gardens and interiors. She often kept a dozen or more appointments in one day, travelling by bicycle or on foot, with 50 pounds of camera, plates and tripod and, with Alfred's support, could deliver proofs the same day. After a day spent pursuing President Theodore Roosevelt from dawn to dusk (having made 32 pictures of him), he exclaimed: ‘Good Lord . . . where in the world does that woman get all her plates?’

Contribution to the Radiology and Pathology of Transmissible Avian Osteopetrosis—Lymphomatosis

THE AVIAN LEUKOSIS complex includes bony lesions called tentatively osteopetrosis gallinarum (Jungherr and Landauer, 1938); Paget's disease or osteitis deformans (Venkataraman, 1936); diffuse osteo-periostitis (Pugh, 1927); osteodystrophia fibrosa cystica (Ghos, 1934); hypertrophic osteitis (Bull and Auger, 1924; Brochet, 1935); thick leg disease, marble bone, akropachia ossea (Reinhardt, 19:30). Spontaneous cases have been reported by numerous observers (Bieley, 1943; Carpentier, 1931; and others), Eidecken (1940) furnished x-ray pictures of birds showing osteopetrotic lesions from the Vineland Poultry Laboratory, Vineland, N. J., for J ungherr's article on osteopetrotic lymphomatosis in the Textbook of Diseases of Poultry (Iowa State College Press, 1944). Jungherr and Landauer (1938) found the bony lesions to be transmissible and inseparable from fowl lymphomatosis. Brandly, Nelson, and Cottral (1942) suggested etiological differences between the bony and leukemic lesions. Coles and Bronkhorst (1946), i...

Exploring Nature with a Camera

BIRD photography has reached such a pitch of excellence, its devotees are so many and so enthusiastic, that we are apt to forget that the camera is a useful aid in many other branches of field work. In “Exploring Nature with a Camera”, Mr. E.G. Neal makes this clear. He deals, it is true, with the photography of birds, but he devotes as much or more space to insect photography, night photography, plant photography and so on. His chapteron night work is illustrated by some good flashlight pictures of badgers near their sett, and we envy him the thrill of taking them. The author says in his preface that “this book is written in the hope that the keen naturalist who has got a camera, especially those of the younger generation, will be encouraged to try it out”, and it can be highly recommended as a present for the beginner. Although Mr. Neal says his little volume “is not a technical book on photography”, it is full of practical information on the use of the camera (not forgetting his hints on the type of instrument) and how to take pictures of birds, mammals, insects, reptiles, flowers, fungi, etc. Here and there, as if by accident, interesting observations are recorded. Commenting that it is often easier to photograph a portion of an object than the whole, say a few twigs rather than the whole tree, he gives as an instance ice-encased twigs during the great 'crystal thaw' of 1939-40, when trees, bushes and other vegetation were thickly coated with clear ice. Then, as an aside, he remarks, “I was interested to see a wych elm tree with the usual covering of ice, for I knew that the white letter hairstreak butterfly (Strymon w-album)laid its eggs every year on the twigs of this particular tree, and that they would now be encased in ice. The following July this species was more common than for many years, so the ice had no appreciable bad effect.” Exploring Nature with a Camera Ernest G. Neal By. Pp. 103 + 62 plates. (London: Paul Elek (Publishers), Ltd., 1946.) 10s. 6d. net.

Ninth International Ornithological Congress

THE ninth International Ornithological Congress, which will be attended by ornithologists from every part of the the world, will be held in Rouen on May 9—14. Later, the members of the Congress will proceed to Paris and the programme will terminate with a long excursion to the bird reserves in the Camargue. All questions concerning the preservation of birds will be dealt with at the meetings of the International Committee for Bird Preservation, which will be held immediately before the Congress. These meetings are confined to the official delegates of the national sections, which are operating in twenty-eight different countries, of the Committee. In connexion with the Congress an international exhibition of bird pictures is being held in Paris on May 14—29. British ornithological art will be represented by the works of Roland Green, G. E. Lodge, Peter Scott, Archibald Thorburn (lent by Messrs. W. F. Embleton) and A. W. Seaby (lent by Mr. A. W. Harvey Brown, Stevens and Brown Gallery).

Animal Picture Books

(1)“BEAUTY in Animals” is introduced by Friedrich Schnack and consists of sixty-four photographs, mostly by Hedda Walther. The series of pictures of mammals and birds, “is the means to assist us to find the way to a higher view, and to sharpen our understanding for it”. Many of the pictures are of parts of animals and in most of the rest the animal fills up the greater part of the picture. We have never found a series of stuffed animals to excite the emotions and we are sure that these pictures will seldom do so. Why not let the publishers try again and show the animals alive in characteristic attitudes, or better, in their natural environment as Mr. Swinton has done in his “Monsters”, mostly giants of earlier days (2). Here there are accurate reproductions of models representing the animals in natural motion, set in appropriate environments so as to form pictures. They look to us like superposed photographs, in other words, ancient beasts with modern plants. We do not object to this, for the gain is great, but we think a little more attention to composition and printing would make many of the pictures less confused. The text might be made still more popular, and why give specific names to most reptiles and to no mammals ?

A Method of Obtaining Series of Bird Pictures

A Method of Obtaining Series of Bird Pictures

Trees, stars, and birds. Edward L. Moseley. World Book Company. viii + 404 pages, 244 illustrations and 73 bird pictures in color, $1.40

<i>Trees, stars, and birds.</i> Edward L. Moseley. World Book Company. viii + 404 pages, 244 illustrations and 73 bird pictures in color, $1.40

Bird Pictures Free to Teachers

Bird Pictures Free to Teachers

The Naturalist's Picture Gallery 1

MR. KEARTON'S bird pictures are so well known that it is unnecessary to say much about his latest work, beyond indicating its scope and object, except that the pictures are larger than usual, and, if possible, more beautifully reproduced. This work has been prepared at the request of friends who have expressed a wish for Kearton pictures from nature on a larger scale of reproduction, and in order to give the man or woman, boy or girl, who knows but little of the countryside a bright and stimulating glimpse of the wild creatures dwelling therein. But it will not be to these alone that this sumptuous volume will appeal. Those who know our birds and beasts best will probably appreciate it more than anyone else, for to them these beautiful pictures of their old friends will be an unfailing joy and delight. Upwards of fifty birds and beasts and reptiles are portrayed, and to each is devoted a pleasant descriptive article. First and foremost this is a picture book (wherein birds, beasts, and reptiles jostle together without system, as they jostle in nature's own domain), as its title implies; but the text, although of secondary importance, is as accurate, informatory, and interesting as care and experience can make it. Familiar wild birds and beasts find a place here side by side with the very rarest birds that visit our islands to breed. Mist-wreathed mountains and quiet hedgerows, the restless sea and peaceful meadow, the deep woods and the. towering sea cliffs, have all been visited to find these pictures. Allege th e r the author is fully justified in his belief that the work will form the finest gallery of sun pictures of wild birds and beasts, taken amidst their natural surroundings, ever published in this or any other country.

International Congresses on Ornithology and Tropical Agriculture

WE have received the announcement that the fifth International Ornithological Congress will meet in Berlin from May 30 to June 4 inclusive. Its success seems already ensured by the large number of distinguished ornithologists (representing twenty-three countries) who have intimated their intention of attending. According to the programme, the congress will assemble in the “Festsaal” of the Zoological Gardens, and its sectional meetings will be held in the Landwehroffizier-Kasino, close to the Zoological Gardens station of the State railway, where also will be installed on May 29 and following days the business bureau. The president designate is the distinguished professor of the Berlin Natural History Museum, Dr. Anton Reichenow, the subject of whose opening address is “Uber die Fortschritte und den gegenwärtigen Stand der Ornithologie.” In the ordinary course he would have been introduced by the retiring president, the late Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, and the absence of this genial personality, so familiar at these triennial congresses, cannot but cast a shadow over the meeting. The congress is divided into practically the same sections as at its last meeting:—systematic ornithology, anatomy, palæontology, geographical distribution; migration; biology and oology; bird protection; aviculture and acclimatisation; and economic ornithology. Many important papers are already announced by, among others, the president, Count v. Berlepsch, Herr Csörgey, Dr. Eckstein, Dr. Hartert, Dr. Helms, Herr Nehrkorn, Prof. Neumann, Hon. Walter Rothschild, Dr. Thienemann, and Prof. Virchow. Visits to the following places of interest have been arranged:— on Monday afternoon to the Havelsee, at the invitation of the German Ornithological Society; on Thursday morning to the Zoological Gardens, with lunch to follow; on Friday to the Natural History Museum, or a motor trip round Berlin for those who prefer it. On the evening of Tuesday there will be a kinematograph exhibition of bird pictures at the “Urania” Society's rooms. On Wednesday evening the city will entertain the members and their wives, and on Friday evening the customary banquet will take place in the Zoological Gardens. After the close of the congress excursions will be arranged, if sufficient members apply, to the observation station at Rossitten and to the experimental protection station at Seebach. The subscription for. full membership is 20 marks, and for lady associates who do not desire the publications 10 marks. The secretary's address is 43 Invalidenstrasse, Berlin N. 4.

Professor Scott's Bird Pictures

Professor Scott's Bird Pictures

Professor Scott's Bird Pictures

Professor Scott's Bird Pictures