Part 7

This naive observation brings to mind the gurgle of brooks, waving treetops, and hum of busy insects, as well as the music of feathered songsters. It has the essence of spring in it, when awakening life so quickly voices itself in melody.--A. H. W.]

=INTERESTING PERFORMANCE OF A TUFTED TITMOUSE=

While taking refuge from a slight April shower on the porch of an unoccupied summer cottage at Lithia Springs, Ga., twenty miles from Atlanta, I once witnessed an interesting performance by a Tufted Titmouse. Having chosen a damp brown oak leaf from the ground, it flew with it into a bare tree, and, holding the leaf with its claw firmly against a branch, it drew itself to its full height, raised its head like a Woodpecker, and with all the might of its tiny frame gave, a forcible blow to the leaf with its bill. This process was kept up nearly half an hour. The bird seemed utterly indifferent to the near presence of my two friends and myself. Once it dropped the leaf, but immediately picked it up and carried it back to the tree. A boy passed on the sidewalk below. The bird flew to a higher branch. At last its purpose seemed to be accomplished. It rested, and lifted the leaf by the petiole. We then saw that the hammering had made it into a firm brown ball nearly as large as an oak gall. The bird flew with it behind the kitchen-ell of the cottage. We hurried around, and were met by the Titmouse, empty-billed, who looked at us with an innocent, nonchalant air. Had it dropped the ball into its nest-hole?--LUCY H. UPTON.

[Who can add any information which will throw light on this unusual observation?--A. H. W.]

=TWILIGHT HOUR AT ASHAWAY=

The western sky, soft tinted with the hues of setting sun, Lends beauty to the twilight shadows lengthening one by one, Twined mystic'lly together by the stirring April breeze That sends a message of awakening through the leafless trees.

The fresh, cool air, bearing the scent of new-ploughed earth Gives promise of the future harvest soon to have its birth, When garden, field and orchard, now wearing brown and gray, Shall change these duller colors for the vernal green of May;

The farmer reads the happy signs and whistles in true glee Jangling in haste his cans and milk-pails merrily; While lazy cattle straggle up the rocky barnyard way, And the impatient horses paw and whinny for their hay.

A scuffle and a cackle in the hen-coop near at hand Give token where the mother hen broods o'er her fledgling band, And Spotty seeks the hay-mow, purring loudly in her pride, For there, in safety waiting her, three kittens do abide.

The Robins and the Bluebirds call and answer all around, And the cheerful little peeptoads seem to crowd the air with sound,-- And yet it is not noisy. Joyous peace is everywhere, And a consciousness of Heaven makes the twilight hour more fair.

--RUTH R. HAYDEN.

[This poem was written by a student in The Rhode Island State Normal School. It is of unusual interest since the author, although blind, undertook the course in nature-study and succeeded so well that her instructor writes: "I am tempted to say that only those are blind who _won't see_. I am convinced that the subject is most valuable for classes in schools of the blind." See BIRD-LORE, Vol. XIII, No. 6, p. 316.--A. H. W.]

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=THE CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER=

By T. GILBERT PEARSON

The National Association of Audubon Societies

EDUCATIONAL LEAFLET NO. 85

Among the most charming birds in the world are the members of that group classified as the family of Wood Warblers. There are about one hundred and fifty-five known species, and they are found in no other country but America. Seventy-four kinds occur in North America, and fifty-five of these have been recorded in the United States.

They are small birds, the majority measuring rather less than five and one-half inches from bill-tip to tail-tip. They are birds mainly of woods and thickets, a few only venturing into open country. The Warbler's bill is longer than that of most small birds, and is well adapted for seizing the soft-bodied insects upon which it so largely preys.

One of the most common members of the family in the Eastern States is the Chestnut-sided Warbler. The general appearance of the male is that of a particularly trim little bird with olive-green back and bright yellow crown; the under parts are lighter, and the sides are marked by deep chestnut--that is, this is the way the male looks in spring. At this season the female is quite similar, although its colors are duller. In the fall and winter the plumage presents a very different appearance. The upper parts then are yellowish olive-green, sometimes with faint streaks on the back. The deep-chestnut of the sides has given way to a few spots or patches of this color.

In seeking the Chestnut-sided Warbler, one should go to woodlands that have been cut over and grown up in bushes. There are found the conditions which this bird dearly loves, and in such a situation one may pass a whole forenoon and seldom be out of sight or hearing of one or more of them.

The nest is made of strips of bark, soft dead leaf-stems, and similar material; it is lined with tendrils and rootlets. Usually the nest is from two and a half to three and a half feet from the ground. Rarely have I found one so situated that it could not readily be reached by the spring of an agile house-cat, and there is much evidence to show that many are pulled down every year by these feline hunters.

It is commonly reported that as many as five eggs are deposited in the nest before the bird begins sitting, but fully three-fourths of those nests that I have found contained only four eggs. They are white, with numerous brown markings of various shades--some distinct, others more or less obscure, as if the inside of the shell had been painted and the color was showing through. The spots and blotches are gathered chiefly in a wreath about the larger end.

They are pretty, dainty little objects, as is the case with all Warblers' eggs. In size, they are about two-thirds of an inch long, and half an inch in diameter at the largest place.

In the latitude of Boston, fresh eggs may usually be found late in May or in the first week of June.

The Chestnut-sided Warbler feeds almost exclusively on insects. John James Audubon wrote that once in Pennsylvania, during a snowstorm in early spring, he examined the dead bodies of several, and found that their stomachs contained only grass-seeds and a few spiders. The birds were very poor, and evidently were in a half-starved condition, which would probably account for the fact that they had been engaged in such an un-warbler-like act as eating seeds. Ordinarily this bird is highly insectivorous, and feeds very largely on leaf-eating caterpillars. It also collects plant-lice, ants, leaf-hoppers, small bark-beetles, and, in fact, is a perfect scourge to the small insect-life inhabiting the foliage of the bushes and trees where it makes its home. Sometimes the birds take short flights in the air after winged insects. It will thus be seen that the Chestnut-sided Warbler is of decided value as a guardian of trees, which is reason enough why the legislators of the various states where the bird is found were induced to enact the Audubon Law for its protection.

All birds that depend so much on insects for their livelihood as does the Chestnut-sided Warbler are necessarily highly migratory. By the middle of September nearly all have departed from their summer home, which, we may say roughly, covers the territory of the southern Canadian Provinces from Saskatchewan eastward, and extends southward as far as Ohio and New Jersey. They are also found in summer along the Alleghany Mountains in Tennessee and South Carolina. Most of the migrants go to Central America by way of the Gulf of Mexico, and only a comparatively small number travel to Florida and the Bahama Islands.

The song of the Chestnut-sided Warbler is confused in the minds of some listeners with that of the Yellow Warbler. Mathews says the song resembles the words, "I wish, I wish, I wish to see Miss Beecher."

Mr. Clinton G. Abbott, writing in BIRD-LORE in 1909, told most entertainingly of the fortunes of a pair of these Warblers and their nest, which he watched one summer. After telling of finding a nest from which all the eggs had been thrown but one, and in their place had been deposited two eggs of the Cowbird, he says:

"The nest was found at Rhinebeck, New York, on July 6, 1900, incubation having apparently just started. Four days later I discovered that one of the Cowbird's eggs was infertile; so I removed it from the nest, disappointed that I should not, after all, enjoy the somewhat unique experience of observing two young Cowbirds growing up in the same nest. It was some time during the night of July 13-14 that the first of the remaining two eggs hatched--the Cowbird's of course. The Warbler's hatched between twelve and twelve-thirty o'clock on the 14th. The nicety with which matters had been so arranged that the young Cowbird would have just a convenient start in life over its unfortunate rival commanded at least my admiration if not my sympathy. Cowbirds must indeed be sharp nest-finders to be able to discover at short notice not only the nests of certain suitable kinds of birds, but even nests containing eggs at a certain stage of incubation!

"After the hatching of the eggs, I spent considerable time at the nest-side, and observed with interest the many pretty little incidents of a bird's domestic life--the constant and tender brooding of the newly hatched young by both Warblers in turn; the never-ceasing search among the neighboring trees and bushes for small caterpillars; the delivery of the food by the male to the brooding female, who, in turn, would raise herself and pass it to the young; the careful cleansing of the nest; and many other intimate details of the birds' loving and happy lives. When I drew aside the leaves that sheltered the nest and allowed the sun to shine upon it for purposes of photography, the mother, realizing with that wonderful instinct common to all birds which nest in the shade, the fatal effect on her babies of the sun's direct rays, would take her stand on the edge of the nest and with outstretched wings would form of her own body a living shield for the comfort and protection of her young. Although herself in evident distress from the heat, and with parted mandibles continually gasping for air, she would remain in this position as long as the sun shone upon her, only stepping aside occasionally when a well-known signal announced that her husband had arrived with a meal for the little ones. It was a beautiful picture of parental devotion.

"As the young birds began to grow, the Cowbird not only maintained, but rapidly increased its lead over its small nest-mate. At every visit of the parent bird with food, its capacious gullet could be seen violently waving aloft and almost completely hiding the feeble little mouth of the Warbler, whose owner was pathetically doing its best in a dumb appeal for food. The Cowbird's appetite seemed never to be satiated and, unlike most nestlings, which relapse after a meal and give their brethren the next chance, he seemed ready for every fresh opportunity; and, by reason of his superior display, he usually succeeded in obtaining the coveted morsel. However, the young Warbler did manage to get an occasional portion, and I had strong hopes that he might reach maturity. For I realized that a Chestnut-sided Warbler's usual laying is about five eggs, and that therefore some four eggs must have been made to give place to the two Cowbird's. Hence the young Cowbird in the nest might reasonably be granted the room and food of four young Warblers. More than this I hoped he was not getting.

"On July 18, at 3.30 P. M., when the birds were about four days old, I took them from the nest to compare their sizes. I replaced them in the nest, but that was the last I saw of the poor little Warbler. When I returned at 5 P. M., the Cowbird was in sole and triumphant possession of the nest. Just what became of the Chestnut-sided Warbler will never be known, but my theory is that, weakened by lack of sufficient food, the little fellow at last became too feeble to raise himself at all, and was crushed to death by the Cowbird's gross body. The parent birds, returning and finding the little corpse in the bottom of the nest, were no doubt impelled by their instinctive sense of cleanliness to carry it to a distance; for the most careful search over a large area beneath the nest failed to reveal any sign of the missing bird, thus proving that it had not fallen from the nest nor been forced out by the Cowbird.

"The Cowbird now had things all his own way and, there being no one to dispute his right to all the food, he grew with amazing rapidity. The dainty little cup of a nest, never built to accommodate such a monster, was soon completely forced out of shape. His body then protruded beyond the lower rim of the nest, and the ground underneath became littered with droppings, quite baffling the cleanly, sanitary instincts of the Warblers.

"The Cowbird, now almost twice as large as his devoted foster-parents, rises with hideous chitterings of delight to receive an ever-acceptable meal. I visited the nest at 7.30 A. M., on July 26. As I walked home to breakfast, I resolved that in the interests of justice I ought to put an end to that Cowbird, as a murderer and a menace to the welfare of birddom. But when I returned to the spot, about 9 A. M., he had escaped me; the nest was empty, my bird flown. No doubt, if I had searched and listened, I should have heard him shouting for food not far away; but my spirit of vengeance was only half-hearted at best, and so I left him, a criminal abroad, to be the parent, I suppose, of others as bad."

=The Audubon Societies=

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT

Edited by T. GILBERT PEARSON, Secretary

Address all correspondence, and send all remittances for dues and contributions, to the National Association of Audubon Societies, 1974 Broadway, New York City.

WILLIAM DUTCHER, _President_

FREDERIC A. LUCAS, _Acting President_

THEODORE S. PALMER, _First Vice President_

T. GILBERT PEARSON, _Secretary_

JONATHAN DWIGHT, JR., _Treasurer_

SAMUEL T. CARTER, JR., _Attorney_

Any person, club, school or company in sympathy with the objects of this Association may become a member of it, and all are welcome.

Classes of Membership in the National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals:

=$5 annually pays for a Sustaining Membership= =$100 paid at one time constitutes a Life Membership= =$1,000 constitutes a person a Patron= =$5,000 constitutes a person a Founder= =$25,000 constitutes a person a Benefactor=

FORM OF BEQUEST:--I do hereby give and bequeath to The National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals (Incorporated), of the City of New York.

=A CASE IN POINT=

In the last issue of BIRD-LORE were reproduced some photographs of a ruined White Ibis rookery, which Dr. Herbert R. Mills stated had been destroyed by "sportsmen" who had wantonly shot the birds. Such raids on the bird-life of Florida have been made frequently by northern visitors to the state. A striking example of this habit has just come to public notice.

In the February issue of _Scribner's Magazine_, a writer, after referring to the pleasures he enjoyed while catching tarpon at Bocagrande, says:

"Birds were always flying around the boat; Gulls, Man-o'-wars, Pelicans, and when we weren't fishing we were potting at them with a Winchester .22. The Big Chief was a wizard with a rifle, and even skimming Swallows were none too swift or too small for his Deadeye Dick precision of aim. After cutting down a sailing Man-o'-war, two hundred yards above the water, and surely three hundred yards away, he formed a Man-o'-war's Club; any body who killed one flying was entitled to membership."

All these birds are protected by the laws of Florida and at least one of them by the United States Migratory Bird Law. There is no open season for any of them. The man who wrote this is not a poor, illiterate inhabitant of the southern swamps, who killed the birds to sell their feathers for a few dollars with which to help feed his family; but is a successful writer of novels and stories, many of which you and I have bought and read with pleasure. Incidentally, by our purchase of his work, we have aided in swelling his royalties, thus enabling him to go to Bocagrande, and doubtless elsewhere, where he might amuse himself from time to time in the very delectable sport of shooting harmless non-game birds. This man is John Fox, Jr.

As a result of the work of this Association, the Pelican colonies in Charlotte Harbor near Bocagrande have been made Federal bird-reservations. While attempting to protect one of them, Columbus G. McLeod, one of our wardens, had his head chopped open and his body sunk in the harbor by persons who did not approve of his zeal. These birds--the wards of the Government, the birds that the Audubon Society's members have been giving money to protect, and the birds for which one good man has given up his life--these birds afford targets for Mr. John Fox Jr., and his friends; and _Scribner's Magazine_, doubtless greatly pleased at the privilege of being allowed to publish an article from the pen of a gentleman so distinguished, kind and altruistic, has taken these boasting sentences and printed them, regardless of the fact that the magazine will go into thousands of homes to be read by young men who may later go tarpon-fishing in the limpid waters about Bocagrande, and who might be inspired to follow the example of the noble deeds of this celebrated novelist.

We are glad to reproduce here an open letter written to him by Doctor William F. Blackman, President of the Florida State Audubon Society:

"_Dear Sir_: As a tarpon fisherman, holding the record in a recent year for the largest fish taken in the state, I was much interested in your article in the February Issue of _Scribner's Magazine_, on 'Tarpon Fishing at Bocagrande.' But when you told your readers that you and your companions beguiled your leisure, on this occasion, by 'potting with a Winchester .22' at the Gulls, Man-o'-wars, Pelicans, and skimming Swallows which surrounded your boat, you surprised and pained and disgusted me beyond words.

"You doubtless knew that all these birds are protected by the laws of Florida, and some of them by the Federal laws also; your action was deliberately criminal; it was also unspeakably puerile, wanton, cruel, and vulgar.

"The citizens of Florida welcome tourists from other states; we are happy to share our excellent fishing and shooting with them within legal and decent limits, which, I am glad to say, the great majority of those who sojourn among us carefully and cheerfully observe; but we do not propose to allow our plumage and insectivorous birds to be slaughtered to provide fun for thoughtless and reckless gunners whether residents or visitors.

"You are too foxy to say whether you yourself succeeded in killing any of these birds, but I hereby give you notice that if you ever again set foot on our soil, and I am apprised of the fact, I shall see that you have an opportunity to tell your story in the courts. If proof can be had of your personal guilt, you will be punished to the full limit of the law, in both the state and federal jurisdictions, for a misdemeanor so unsportmanlike and inexcusable."

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=PHOTOGRAPHING WATER-FOWL=

To watch at close range the wildfowl accumulated on the Ward-McIlhenny reservation in the marshes of Louisiana is the privilege of a lifetime.

Mr. Herbert K. Job not only had this privilege for about six weeks during last December and the early weeks of January, but he procured a remarkable series of photographs of water-birds that make that region their winter home. From the moving pictures that he made the Association now has a thousand-foot reel, showing Pintails, Teals, and other Ducks, as well as Boat-tailed Grackles and Coots.

To ornithologists, the most interesting pictures he obtained were those of the Blue Geese. The chief summer home of these birds is supposed to be on the islands north of the American continent, and most, if not all of them, pass the winter in the marshes of Louisiana. I know of no case heretofore where they have been photographed in large numbers at close range.

The accompanying illustrations were all made by Mr. Job on this expedition, and will give some idea of the results of his skill and patience in the use of a moving-picture camera.

=BIRDS AND THE COLD SPELL=

On the morning of February 5, 1916, there was received at the office of the National Association the following telegram:

"The State Game Warden, Topeka, Kansas, reports his state covered with three to nine inches of sleet and ice. Birds starving by wholesale. State organizing campaign for food. Can you assist? Immediate action necessary. E. W. NELSON, Acting Chief, Biological Survey."

We immediately telegraphed to the State Game Warden of Kansas offering $200 for the purchase of grain. Shortly afterward the following telegram was received from Honorable Carlos Avery, State Game Commissioner of Minnesota:

"Conditions critical for Quail on account of unprecedented depth of snow and extreme cold. Funds insufficient to care for them adequately. Can you include Minnesota for appropriation for this purpose?"

This second call for help, together with word received from other directions, indicated that the snow and ice-cap had extended generally over a number of the northern states of the Middle West. We at once wired to the officials of some of the organizations in several of these states, and also sent telegrams to thirty-five members of the Association, telling them of the situation and asking for contributions to be used in the purchase and distribution of food for the birds. Many of the members immediately responded, and in a remarkably short time we had collected and telegraphed to the Cleveland Bird-Lovers' Association $200, to the President of the South Dakota State College $200, and to the Minnesota Game Commission $600.

We also telegraphed the Postmaster General in Washington asking that rural mail-carriers in Minnesota, Kansas, and Nebraska be authorized to distribute grain to be supplied them for the purpose. The Third Assistant Postmaster General at once gave the instructions requested.