CHAPTER IX

THE STORY OF THE SUMMER YELLOWBIRD

The little bird sits at his door in the sun, Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, And lets his illumined being o'errun With the deluge of summer it receives. His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings-- He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest; In the nice ear of Nature, which song is the best?

James Russell Lowell.

Here is a legend of the summer yellowbird. Let who will believe or disbelieve. They will think of it as often as they see the yellow beauty.

Once on a time, when Mother Nature was very lavish of her gold, she forgot to be thrifty and took to spreading it everywhere. She thought she had enough to make the whole world yellow, this being her favorite color; but she soon collected her wits, and reasoned that if everything were yellow there would be nothing left for contrast. So she quit spreading it on, and took to tossing it about in great glee, not caring where it went, so it was in dashes and dots and streaks and lumps, here and there.

She threw whole handfuls on the flowers, and butterflies, and little worms, and toadstools, and grass roots, and up in the sky at sunset, and against mountain peaks. The mountains laughed at this sudden whim of Mother Nature, opening their mouths wide, and got whole apronfuls tossed right down their throats.

After the ocean bottoms had been peppered with the gold, the flowers came along for their share; the buttercups and dandelions, and goldenrod and sunflowers and jonquils, and hosts of others.

Last came the orioles and finches and bobolinks, and many others, each in turn getting a spray or a dash or a grain of the yellow, and went away singing about it.

But certain very plain little birds arrived later, when the gold was almost gone, and asked Nature to give them "just a little." Now she had but a handful left. Seeing that there wasn't enough to go around if each had a little, the lady birds said, "Give all you have left to our mates. We do not care for gold. We will follow them about like shadows and look well to the nesting."

Then Nature smiled on the unselfish lady birds, and tossed all she had left of the yellow stuff straight at the singers who stood before her, each behind the other in a straight row, thinking she would give it to them in bits. But Nature threw it at them with all her might, laughing.

Of course the bird in front got the biggest splash, and then it scattered down the line, until the last few had only a dust or two. But they all began to warble, every one, each so happy that he had a little gold.

When Nature saw that the bird in the front had more than his share, she looked very keenly in his face and said: "My son, you must go everywhere, all over the cities and towns and country and forests, wherever human hearts are sad and eyes are dim with tears. And you must warble all about summer and good times when the clouds are dark, and you must be fond of houses where people dwell, and fields and playgrounds and sheep, and keep company with sorrow, and make the earth glad you had so much gold about you. And you can stay out in the rain, and make believe the sun shines when it doesn't, just to make people happier. Shoo! little summer yellowbird, that is your name."

And the bird has been true to his happy mission ever since, going about here and there and everywhere in our country, taking his gold with him, and making buttercups and dandelions grow on fir-trees and goldenrod quiver in the glens before even the spring crocuses are out. In the green of the trees he looks like a single nugget, and when he runs up and down a branch it seems as if somebody had spilled liquid gold above, and it was running zigzag in and out of the bark. When he flies in the blue sky he seems like a visible laugh, for nobody can see the dash he makes and not smile. Many a breaking heart has been made less sad by the sight of him, and though he is not much of a singer, as singing goes, the few notes he has are cheery. Better to speak a few glad words than be an orator and scold.

And the yellow summer bird couldn't scold if he tried. The more he warbles gladness, the more the habit grows. In those nooks where the yellow warbler does his dress act, or molts, the children catch the feathers as they fall from his night perch, or lie in the ferns and toss them about for fun, to see them glint in the sunshine. Little girls gather them for doll hats, and make startling fashions for winter head-dresses.

All right, little girls; take the feathers as they are tossed to you by the merry warbler, without a single twinge of conscience. They are yours because they are given you. You didn't steal them nor hire a big boy to bring them to you. Should the yellow warbler molt a pair of wings by mistake, and you found them lying in a bush some bright autumn morning, you might have them for your doll's hat. You might even put them on your own little head.

But to rob a bird of its gold, to tear out a wing or a feather to flaunt on your own pitiless head or the cracked china head of your doll--that would be a different thing.

There is a story afloat which we are tempted to tell, though it isn't a very happy one, and is not believed by everybody. It especially concerns girls and some women.

It has been a well-known fact for centuries that birds do hold conventions for the supposed purpose of talking over matters that concern themselves.

Not long ago, some time in the century that has just passed, there was a general convention of American birds held in the backwoods of the north. There were representatives from all the bird families that wear bright feathers. The purpose of the assembly was for discussion of different points in fashion, more particularly of the head-dress of women.

Now, at this point in the story, everybody knows exactly the drift of the "moral" which is as sure to come at the end as the yellowbird is sure to come with the daffodils. So it's of no use to go on with the story, since the moral is what story-tellers usually aim at from start to finish. Listen to the summer yellowbird all next season, and when he gives the word, let everybody, big and little, who loves to wear bird feathers and wings, make a scramble for the backwoods, and you may hear the upshot of the convention for yourself. In the mean time, should crows and magpies and eagles and vultures, and other birds of strong beak and furious temper, steal down on homes and peck off the scalps of girls and women as they lie in their happy beds, let no one be alarmed. Possibly there has been a bird convention, and the big birds of sharp claw and strong beak are but doing as they are directed--and it is "the fashion" for them to do it, so they are quite excusable.

But if we go on with legends and imagined bird conventions, we shall never get to the bird itself.

The bird itself is the summer yellowbird, the dear, delightful yellow warbler, whose very picture you see before you; the restless, much-traveled bird, the bird who may not look exactly like himself when his coat is worn and tumbled, but who comes by a new, fresh one when it is most sorely needed. More dull of color is his mate, who is just behind himself, somewhere in the tree out of range of the camera. The two are never far apart in family times; where one flies there goes the other, happy as clams--if clams ever are very happy, which we doubt--nesting as they do deep down in the wet sand, and never seeing a flower or a ripe peach or a raspberry all their lives. However, it is supposed the clam knows something akin to happiness, for he is always where he wants to be, save when he falls into the pot, and here is where we will leave him.

Well, the yellow warbler is at home all over North America, migrating from place to place, sometimes in twos and threes, sometimes in flocks; at times journeying straight on, and again stopping in every treetop for refreshments sure to be ready. Sometimes the birds travel by night, coming in on the morning train like any travelers, hungry for breakfast, and the first we know of their arrival is a quaint little plea for something to eat. Not a highly melodious note that, but curious and pleasing.

We always know summer is coming straight away when we see the warbler, just as we know winter is here by the first snowflake. And as soon as they arrive nesting begins. For that very purpose they come, of course. As to the nests, they are very beautiful. The one in the picture must have been built deep in the woods, where grasses and dried leaf tatters were plenty.

But there is no set pattern to go by, when nests are made. That is, there is no particular building material allowed, as with the swallows and some others. The yellow warbler loves best to use things that mat together readily, so the nest cup will be compact and thick, like a piece of felt cloth--so different from the nest of the grosbeak, transparent and open, like basketwork.

To get this cloth-like substance, the birds visit the sweet-fern stalks of the pasture sides, pulling off the woolly furze bit by bit, until a beakful is gathered. Then they make a trip to the brooks, especially in early spring, where they wake up the catkins on the pussy-willows and get loads of the soft fur. Oh, the secrets the pussy-willows know, about bird and bat and butterfly cocoon, and other winged people that frolic in their shadows! They could tell you exactly how many beakfuls of pussy fur it takes to weave a crib blanket for a yellow warbler's nest. Whole nests are made of it sometimes; for the warbler loves to gather one particular kind of material for a nest if sh& comes across enough of it in one spot. That is why they build so rapidly, always getting it done in a hurry. They love big loads of anything, and the male shows his mate where she can find it with the least trouble. In places where sheep pasture, rubbing against trees and catching their sides into thorns and sticks at every turn, the yellowbird gathers the wool. She likes this particularly, as it is light and clings to itself, and she can carry large quantities at one trip.

The happy boy or girl who has a pasture near by home is rich. There is nothing like a pasture to study nature in, especially birds. A wood lot with trees of all sizes in it, a cranberry bog, a huckleberry patch, a maple grove, a sweet-fern corner, with snake vines running at random among young brakes--ah! this is the spot of all the world for nature-lovers and birds. One can part the bushes and find a warbler's nest most anywhere. One can peer up into the treetops and find another. In the treetops the nest is fastened securely, be it where the winds have a habit of blowing through their fingers when it isn't necessary. But birds and winds are fair play-fellows and seldom interfere with one another.

Here, in southern California, we have little wind, if any, in the days of the summer yellowbird. So nests are often set in a crotch without a bit of fastening.

Two years ago a pair came to the house grounds, the first we had seen so near. We wondered what they would nest with first, knowing their disposition to take the material close at hand. We knew they strip the down from the backs of the sycamores in the mountain cañons, and gather bits of wool fiber from tree trunks, or ravel lint from late weed stems in the arroyos. So we anticipated and shook loose cotton-batting in a bush. No sooner did father yellowbird spy the fluffy, white stuff than he brought madam, and she was delighted. This cotton could be pulled by beakfuls, and an afternoon or two would make the entire nest.

And they used it, not getting another thing save some gray hairs from a lady's head, which in combing had escaped, and were saved on purpose for the birds.

The nest was placed in the crotch of a pepper-tree, just out of reach of tiptoe inquirers. Just one pinch of cotton above another until the cup was deep and true to the shaping of the mother's breast, she turning round and round after the manner of nest-builders. Through the layers ran separate hairs which held the cotton in shape.

It was a beautiful thing, that nest, even after it had served its purpose, and we took it down when the birds had flown. That was a mistake of ours. It was before we had come to know it is better to leave old nests undisturbed. Many birds love to return the coming season and repair last year's structures.

When the following summer came, and the yellowbirds returned from their winter in Mexico, they went straight to the same old tree. They crept up and down the trunk, peering into all the crotches, and criticising every place where a nest might have been. Perhaps a single speck of the cotton had 'remained and served for "a pointer"; anyway, the birds located the exact spot and went to work without more ado.

Exactly as though they remembered, they went also to the supply counter where we had placed more cotton in advance of their coming, and with it they built exactly the same white nest in the very crotch of last year's happy history.

It was a pretty sight to see the mother take the cotton. It looked sparklingly white against her breast and dripping from her beak. And all the time she was arranging it in the nest to suit her experienced mind, her mate sang, warbling his sympathy, darting through the leaves, and running up and down the branches. This running up and down the boughs, so like their cousins, the creepers, makes this bird look graceful of form and motion, as indeed he is, anywhere and at anything he does. On this account he is often called the gem-bird, his brilliant grace suggesting some precious and coveted stone.

These warblers of ours did not feign lameness, if we came near the nest, as some of the family are said to do. From daily companionship they came to know and trust us. Had the nest been a little lower we should have succeeded in taming them completely, as we have many of the wild birds at nesting-time.

We have left the nest where it is this fall, hoping the birds will return and claim it another year. It being of cotton, however, and having no threads to bind it in the crotch, we think the winter storms will wreck it.

It has been claimed by good authority that the cow-bird loves to deposit her eggs in the yellow warbler's nest. But this is of little avail to the cow-bird's trick, for Madam Warbler sees the point and the egg at a glance. She often builds above the intruder, imprisoning the alien egg, and so leaves it to its fate. A single bird is said to have built above the cow-bird's egg three times in succession, as the intruder persisted, until there were four floors to the nest, on the last of which the mother succeeded in laying her own eggs. If she becomes discouraged by the persistency of her guilty neighbor, she will leave the spot sometimes and search for another in which to carry on her own affairs in peace.

Of the seventy-five or more species of this warbler family said to occur in the United States, all resemble each other in points enough to mark them as warblers. All are insect-eaters. Some are called worm-eaters, others bug-eaters. They despise a vegetable diet. On account of their sharp appetite for grubs and larvæ, the warblers are the friends of all who live by the growth of green things and the ripening of fruits and grains. With few exceptions all the birds are small and very beautiful. Theirs is the second largest family among our birds, ranking next to the sparrows.

Some of the warblers live near streams, playing boat on floating driftwood, hunting for insects in the decaying timbers, running up and down half-submerged logs atilt on the shore, after spiders and water-beetles.

If they are missed we may be sure they will return in their own good time, bringing their warble with them. They may only stay long enough for breakfast or dinner, taking advantage of their stop-over tickets, like any travelers of note. Perhaps the strong, courageous, singing males of the party of travelers come in advance of the females and young, as if to see that the country is ready and at peace. Nothing can be said of them more beautiful and fitting than this quotation from Elliott Coues:

"With tireless industry do the warblers defend the human race. They visit the orchard when the apple and pear, the peach, plum, and cherry, are in bloom, seeming to revel among the sweet-scented blossoms, but never faltering in their good work. They peer into crevices of the bark, and explore the very heart of the buds, to detect, drag forth, and destroy those tiny creatures which prey upon the hopes of the fruit-grower, and which, if undisturbed, would bring all his care to naught. Some warblers flit incessantly in the tops of the tallest trees, others hug close to the scored trunks and gnarled boughs of the forest kings; some peep from the thickets and shrubbery that deck the watercourses, playing at hide-and-seek; others, more humble still, descend to the ground, where they glide with pretty mincing steps and affected turning of the head this way and that, their delicate flesh-tinted feet just stirring the layer of withered leaves with which a past season carpeted the sod. We may see warblers everywhere in their season and find them a continual surprise."

"Sweet and true are the notes of his song: Sweet, and yet always full and strong; True, and yet they are never sad. Serene with that peace that maketh glad; Life! Life! Life! Oh, what a blessing is life! Life is glad."