Bird lore - Project Puffin

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Bird - Lore
Crane and Raven. Falcons, now belonging to tropical America, then ranged
California.
Of birds not found, Loye Holmes Miller, who has made a study of this
deposit and named a dozen species never before identified, particularly notes
the absence of the Mourning Dove. As this is now the commonest species
in the vicinity, of the approximately eighty species of Pigeons in the Americas
today. Miller concludes that it was not here at the time the tar-pools were
making this most nearly complete collection of the fauna of the epoch imme-
diately preceding man that has yet been discovered.
He also notes the absence of certain other forms one would expect to find,
as the King Vulture and Harpy Eagle, both now found along the Mexican
border. There are no Parrots, now common a few degrees south. The Spoonbill
and Ibis are absent, now close at hand. Neither is there' a trace of birds that
do not fly, so the question of whether the South American Rhea entered by
way of Alaska or whether it is a product of the southern continent is still
unsolved. But scientists believe that some day the discovery of members of
this subclass will be made, as it is beheved they entered from the north, as
did cats, deer, elephants, and other mammals of Old-World origin that reached
us via the land-bridge of Alaska. There were no large carnivora in South
America until the fehnes, or cat family, reached there in relatively late geo-
logical times.
Somewhat alHed to the Condors, though without any near relatives, so
TAR-LAKE AT RANCHO LA BREA, SHOWING ASPHALTUM SEEPAGE IN FOREGROUND
AND EXCAVATIONS AT RIGHT
Photographed by M. C. Frederick