Part 11

My next experiment was with some lamp wick to which I had tied bits of cotton. The titmouse took the cotton and would have taken the wicking, I think, if it had not been fastened in too tight for her. After that I tried tying bits of cotton to strings, and letting them dangle before the mouth of the nest. Though I moved up to within twenty feet of the nest, she paid no attention to me but hurried in. She liked the cotton so well she stopped in her hallway, reached up to pull at the white bundles, and tweaked and tugged till, finally, she backed triumphantly down the hole with one.

Her mate, less familiar with my experiments, started to go to the nest after her, but the sight of the cotton scared him so he fled ignominiously back into the treetop. He stayed there singing till she came out, when he flew up to her with a dainty he had discovered--at least the two put their bills together; perhaps it was just a caress, for they were a tender, gentle little pair.

Having proved that my bird liked feathers and cotton, I wanted to see what she thought of straws. Apparently she did not think much of them. She looked very much dashed when she came home and found the yellow sticks protruding from the nest hole. She hesitated, turned her head over, flew to a twig on one side of the oak and then back to one on the other side. Finally she mustered courage, and with her crest flattened as if she did not like it, darted down into the hole. When she flew out, however, she went right to her mate, and forgetting all her troubles at sight of him, fluttered her wings and lisped like a young bird as she put up her bill to have him feed her.

Perhaps it was unkind to bother the poor bird any more, but I meant her no harm and the fever for experiment possessed my blood. I tied some of the straws to a piece of wicking and baited it with feathers, thinking that perhaps she would take the straws for the sake of the feathers and wicking. I also stuffed the hole with horsehair. She did pull at the feather end of the line; I saw the straw jerk, and, when she had left, found a round hole the brave little bird had made right through the middle of the mat of horsehair I had stopped the nest with.

Straws and horsehair the titmouse evidently classed together. They were not on her list of building materials. On reflection she decided that the horsehair would make a good hall carpet, so left it in the vestibule, though she would have none of it down in her nest; but she calmly threw my straws down on the ground at the foot of the oak.

I don't know what experiments I might have been tempted to try next had I not suddenly found myself dismissed--the house was complete. My pretty Quaker lady sat in the shade of the oak leaves with crest raised and the flickering sunlight flecking her gray breast. She pecked softly at one of the white feathers that blew up against her as she listened to the song of her mate; and then flew away to him without once going to the nest. Evidently her work was done, and she was waiting till it should be time to begin brooding.

Ten days later I saw her mate come with his bill full of worms and lean down by the hole to call her. She answered with a sweet pleading twitter, and reached up to be fed. When he had gone, perhaps she thought she would like a second bite. At any rate, she hopped out in the doorway and flew off to another tree, calling out _tsché-de-de_ so sweetly he would surely have come back to her had he been within hearing.

A few days later I saw him feed her at the nest five or six times in half an hour. He would come to the next oak, light and call to her, when she would answer from inside the tree trunk and he would go to her. I was near enough to see her pretty gray head and black eyes coming up out of the crack in the oak. Sometimes when he had fed her he would call out and she would answer as if saying good-by from down in the nest. One morning I found the devoted little mate bringing her breakfast to her at half past six.

Nearly a month later they were feeding their young. The winsome mother bird, who had looked so tired and nest-worn the last time I saw her, was now as plump and happy as her spouse. When I thought the pair were away, I went to try to get sight of the nestlings down the hole. The old birds appeared as soon as I set foot by the oak and took upon themselves to scold me. They chattered softly in a way they had never done before. They quickly got used to me again, however, and fed the little ones without hesitation right before me, knowing full well that a person who had helped them build their nest would never harm their little brood; and it was a disappointment when I had to go away and leave the winning family.

XVI.

IN OUR NEIGHBOR'S DOOR-YARD.

THE little German girl with the scarlet pinafore was a near neighbor, living at the head of the valley in a cottage surrounded by great live-oaks. These trees were alive with birds. Bush-tits flew back and forth, busily hanging their gray pockets among the leafy folds of the drooping branches; blue jays flew through, squawking on their way to the brush; goldfinches, building in the orchard, lisped sweetly as they rested in the oaks; and a handsome oriole who was building in the grove flew overhead so slowly he seemed to be retarded by the fullness of his own sweet song. But I had become so fond of the gentle gray titmouse whose nest I had helped to build, that of all the bird songs in the trees, its cheery _tu-whit', tu-whit', tu-whit'_ was most enticing to me. How delightful it would be to watch another pair of the winning workers! I did see one of the birds enter a hollow branch, one day, and not long after saw it go down a hole in an oak trunk; but never saw it afterwards in either place. Back and forth I followed that elusive voice, hoping to discover the nest, but I suspect the bird was only prospecting, and had not even begun to work.

The little German Gretchen became interested in the search for the titmouse's nest, and told me that a gray bird had built in an oak in front of her house. I rode right over to see it, but found the gray bird a female Mexican bluebird, whose brilliant ultramarine mate sat on the fence of the vegetable garden in plain sight. The children kept better watch of the nest after that, and a few days later, when in my attic study, I heard the tramp of a horse, and, looking out, found my little friend under the window, come to tell me that the eggs had hatched. When her older sister came for the washing I asked her if she had seen the old birds go to the nest, and she said, "Yes; one was blue and the other gray."

When I rode up again, the young had grown so that from the saddle I could look down the hole and see their big mouths and bristling pin-feathers. The mother bird was about the tree, and her soft dull coloring toned in well with the gray bark. The bluebirds had a double front door, and went in one side to come out the other. I saw both of them feed the young, the male flying into the hole straight from the fence post.

It seemed such hard work finding worms out in the hot sun that I wondered if birds' eyes ever ached from the intentness of their search, and if there were near-sighted birds. Perhaps the intervals of feeding depend on the worm supply rather than the dietary principles of the parents.

Gretchen's mother was bending over her wash-tubs out under the oaks, and I called her attention to the pretty birds brooding in her door-yard, telling her that they were good friends of hers, eating up the worms that destroyed her flowers and vegetables. "So?" she asked, but seemed ready to let the subject drop there, and hurried back to her work. A poor widow with a large family of children and a ranch to look after can find little time, even in beautiful California, to enjoy what Nature places in her door-yard.

Three weeks later Gretchen came riding down to tell me that there were eggs in the tree again. The bluebird bid fair to be as hardworked as the widow, at that rate, I thought, when I went up to look at them. The children showed me the nest of a goldfinch, near the ground, in one of the little orange-trees in front of the house. They also pointed out linnets' nests in the vines by the door, and the oldest child said eagerly, "When we came home from school there was a hummingbird in the window, and we caught it," adding, "I think it must have been a father hummingbird." "Why?" I asked, "was it pretty?" "Yes, it just shined," she exclaimed enthusiastically.

When the family were at home, their puppy would bark at us furiously, and follow us about suspiciously, but when he had been left on the ranch alone he was glad of our society. Then when I watched the bluebirds, he came and curled down by my side, becoming so friendly that he actually grew jealous of Billy, and turned to have me caress him each time that the little horse walked up to have the flies brushed off his nose, or having pulled up a bunch of grass by the roots, brought it for me to hold so that he could eat it without getting the dirt in his mouth.

Going home one day, Billy came upon a gopher snake. Now Canello had been brought up in a rattlesnake country, and was always on his guard, but Billy was 'raised' in the mountains, where snakes are scarce, and did not seem to know what they were. He had given me a good deal of anxiety by this indifference--he had stepped over a big one once without seeing any need for haste--and I had been expecting that he would get bitten. Here, then, was my chance to give him a scare. The gopher snake was harmless; perhaps, if I could get him so close to it that he would see it wriggle away from under his feet, he might be less indifferent to rattlers.

The gopher snake was three or four feet long, and lay as straight as a stick across our path. As I urged Billy up beside it, he actually stepped on the tip of its tail. The poor snake writhed a little, but gave no other sign of pain; its rôle was to remain a stick. And Billy certainly acted as if it were. I threw the reins on his neck, thinking that if he put his head down to graze he might make a discovery. Then a horrid thought came to me. The people said the rattlers sometimes lost their rattles. In a general way, rattlers and gopher snakes look alike; what if this were a rattlesnake, and at my bidding my little horse should be struck! But no. There was no mistaking the long tapering body of the gopher, and it lacked the wide flat head of the rattler. But I might have spared myself my fears. Billy would not even put his head down, and when I tried to force him upon the snake he quietly turned aside. To make the snake move, I threw a stick at it, but it was as obstinate as Billy himself. Then I slipped to the ground, and picking up a long pole gave it a gingerly little poke. Still motionless! I tried another plan, taking Billy away a few yards. Then at last the snake slowly pulled itself along. But the moment we came back it turned into a stick again, and Billy relapsed into indifference. It was no use. I could do nothing with either of them. I would see the snake go off, anyway, I thought, so withdrew and waited till it felt reassured, when it started. Its silken skin shone as it wormed silently through the grass and disappeared down a hole without a sound, and I reflected that it might also come _up_ without a sound, very likely beside me as I sat on the dead leaves!

XVII.

WHICH WAS THE MOTHER BIRD?

THE second time I went to California the little whitewashed adobe opposite my ranch was still standing, but an acacia-tree had grown over the well where the black ph[oe]be had nested, and the shaft was so overrun with bushes and vines that it was hard to find a trace of it. Drawn by pleasant memories, I rode in one morning, sure of finding something interesting about the old place.

I had not waited long before the chip of a young bird came from the vines over the well. It proved a callow nestling, with no tail, and little to mark its parentage. Presently a brown long-tailed wren-tit came with food in its bill and peered down through the leaves at it; and then a California towhee came and sat around till satisfied as to whose child was crying. A moment later a lazuli bunting flew over with food in her bill, and I at once bethought me of the lazuli-like markings, the brownish wing-bars and the sharp cry of "quit," which none but a lazuli could give. That surely was my bird.

But if so, what did this interest on the part of the wren-tit mean? She hopped about the nestling with tail up and crest raised, chattering to it in low mysterious tones; and when I suspected her of giving her worm to it, suddenly turned her head and looked away with a suspiciously non-committal air. The lazuli, however, sat indifferently on a branch and plumed her feathers, though when she did fly down toward the young one, the wren-tit gave way. But even then the lazuli did not feed the small bird. When she had gone, the wren-tit came back. She spoke low to the nestling, and drew it down into the thick part of the tangle where I could not see them, though there was a hint of tiny quivering wings, and I was morally certain that the old bird was feeding it, especially when she flew up in sight with the smart air of having outwitted me.

I was getting more and more bewildered. What did it all mean? Were there two families of young down in the tangle? If not, why were two old birds feeding one little one, and to which mother did the child belong? The wisdom of Solomon was needed to solve the riddle.

The wren-tit simply devoted herself to the little bird, going and coming for it constantly; while the lazuli, ordinarily the most nervous noisy bird when her young are disturbed, sat around silently, or flew away without remark. I became so impressed by the wren-tit side of the case that I quite forgot the lazuli note and markings.

Just as I thought I had come to a decision in the case, a male lazuli flew in, lighting atilt of an acacia stalk opposite the wren-tit. But when he saw me he craned his neck and flew off in a hurry--no father, surely, scared away at the first glimpse of me! However, I was not clear in my mind, and sat down to puzzle the matter out.

At this juncture Madame Lazuli came with food; the young bird turned toward her for it, and behold! she took to her wings with all she had brought. I had hardly time to congratulate myself on this new piece of testimony, when back came the lazuli with her bill full!

In my perplexity I moved so near the little one that, without meaning to, I forced the old birds to show their true colors. The situation was too dangerous to admit of further subterfuge. Both Madame Lazuli and her handsome blue mate--whom I discovered at a safe distance up on a high branch out of reach--flew down and dashed about, twitching their tails from side to side as they cried "quit," in nervous tones; altogether acting so much like anxious parents that I had to relinquish my theory that the little bird belonged to the wren-tit. Like the mother whom Solomon judged, she forgot all else when real danger threatened the child. Having come to my decision from circumstantial evidence, I remembered with a start that I had known it all the time, from the wing-bars and the call note! Nevertheless, my riddle was only half solved, for how about the wren-tit?

A young bird called from the sycamore at the corner of the adobe, and when both old birds flew over to it, I thought I'd better follow. I got there just in time to see a little bird light in the elbow of a limb, totter as if going to fall, and save itself by snuggling up in the elbow, where it sat in the sun looking very cozy and comfortable--winning little tot. The mother lazuli started to come to it, but seeing me flew away to another branch, where, well screened, she stretched up on her toes to look at me over the top of a big sycamore leaf. Though the fledgling called, the mother left without going to it.

The wren-tit had stayed behind at the well; but while the lazuli was gone, who should come flying in but the foster mother! I was astonished. Moreover, the instant the youngster set eyes on her, it started up and flew to her--actually flew into her in its hurry. She admonished it gently, in a soft chattering voice, for she could not scold it.

When the lazuli came back with food, it was only to see her little bird flying off to the other side of the tree after the wren-tit! I thought she seemed bewildered, but she followed in their wake--we all followed. Here came a closer test. Both lazuli and wren-tit stood before the small bird. Which would it go to? The lazuli kept silent, but the wren-tit called softly and the little one raised its wings and flew toward her, leaving its mother behind.

I watched and waited, but the wren-tit did not give over her kind offices, and the last I saw of the birds, on riding away, the three were flying in procession across the brush, the lazuli following its mother and the wren-tit bringing up the rear.

I went home very much puzzled. Was the wren-tit a lonely mother bird who had lost her own little ones, or was she merely an old maid with a warm spot in her heart for other peoples' little folks?

XVIII.

A RARE BIRD.

WE may say that we care naught for the world and its ways, but most of us are more or less tricked by the high-sounding titles of the mighty. Even plain-thinking observers come under the same curse of Adam, and, like the snobs who turn scornfully from Mr. Jones to hang upon the words of Lord Higginbottom, will pass by a plain _brown chippie_ to study with enthusiasm the ways of a _phainopepla_! Sometimes, however, in ornithology as in the world, a name does cover more than its letters, and we are duped into making some interesting discoveries as well as learning some of the important lessons in life. In the case of the phainopepla, no hopes that could be raised by his cognomen would equal the rare pleasure afforded by a study of his unusual ways.

On my first visit to Twin Oaks I caught but brief glimpses of this distinguished bird. Sometimes for a moment he lit on a bare limb and I had a chance to admire his high black crest and glossy blue-black coat, which with one more touch of color would become iridescent. He was so slenderly formed, and his shining coat was so smooth and trim, he made me think of a bird of glass perched on a tree. But while I gazed at him he would launch into the air and wing his way high over the valley to the hillsides beyond, leaving me to marvel at the white disks on his wings, hidden when perching, but in air making him suggest a black ship with white sails.

His appearance was so elegant and his ways so unusual that I went back East regretting I had not given more time to a bird who was so individual, and resolved that if I ever returned to California my first pleasure should be to study him. When the time finally came, an ornithologist friend who knew my plans wrote, exclaiming, "Do study the phainopeplas!" and added that she felt like making a journey to California to see that one bird.

From the middle of March till the middle of May I watched and waited for the phainopeplas. There had been only a few of the birds before, and I began to fear they had left the valley. When despairing of them, suddenly one day I saw a black speck cross over to the hills. I wanted to drop my work and follow, but went on with my rounds, and one bright morning on my way home after a discouraging hunt for nests, a pair of phainopeplas flew up right before my eyes almost within sight of the house. I dropped down behind a bush, and in a moment more the birds flew to a little oak by the road--a tree I had been sitting under that very morning! The female seated herself on top of the oak, watching me with raised crest, while her mate disappeared in a dark mat of leaves, probably mistletoe, where he stayed so long that the possibility of a nest waxed to a probability, and I made a rapid but ecstatic ascent to the observer's seventh heaven. A phainopepla's nest right on my own doorsill! I could hardly restrain my impatience, and was tempted to shoo the birds away so I could go to the nest; when suddenly they opened their wings and, crossing the valley, disappeared up a side canyon! Pulling myself together and reflecting that I might have known better than to imagine there would be a nest so near home, I took up my camp-stool and trudged back to the house.

After that came a number of tantalizing hints. When watching the third gnatcatcher's nest I had seen a pair of phainopeplas flying suggestively back and forth from the brush to the various oaks, and thought the handsome lover fed his mate as his relative the gentle high-bred waxwing does. Surely the wooing of these beautiful birds should be carried on with no less fine feeling, courtesy, and tenderness; and so it seems to be. The black knight flew low over my head slowly, as if inspecting me, and then came again with his lady, as if having said, "Dear one, I would consult you upon this impending danger."

After that, something really delightful came about. Day by day, on riding back to our ranch-house, I found phainopeplas there eating the berries of the pepper-trees in our front yard. Before long the birds began coming early in the morning; their voices were the first sounds we heard on awakening and almost the last at night, and soon we realized the delightful fact that our trees had become the feeding ground for all the phainopeplas of the valley. Altogether there were five or six pairs. It was a pretty sight to see the black satiny birds perched on one of the delicate sprays of the willowy pepper-trees, hanging over the grape-like clusters, to pluck the small pink berries. The birds soon grew very friendly, and, though they gave a cry of warning when the cats appeared, became so tame they would answer my calls and let me watch them from the piazza steps, not a rod away.

When they first began to linger about the house we thought they were building near, and when one flew into an oak across the road, almost gave me palpitation of the heart by the suggestion. But no nest was there, and when the bird flew away it rose obliquely into the air perhaps a hundred feet, and then flew on evenly straight across to the small oaks on the farther side of a patch of brush that remained in the centre of the valley, known to the ranchmen as the 'Island.' The flight looked so premeditated that the first thing the next morning, although the phainopeplas were at the peppers, I rode on ahead to wait for them at their nest. We had not been there long before hearing the familiar warning call. Turning Billy in the direction of the sound, I threw his reins on his neck to induce him to graze along the way and give our presence a more casual air, while I looked up indifferently as if to survey the landscape. To my delight the phainopepla did not seem greatly alarmed, and, throwing off the assumed indifference that always makes an observer feel like a wretched hypocrite, I called and whistled to him as I had done at the house, to let him know that it was a familiar friend and he had nothing to fear. The beautiful bird started toward me, but on second thought retreated. I turned my back, but, to my chagrin, after giving a few low warning calls, my bird vanished. Alas, for the generations of murderers that have made birds distrust their best friends--that make honest observers tremble for what may befall the birds if they put trust in but one of the human species!