Chapter 27

HUMMERS AND CHIMNEY SWEEPS

THE RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD

"It won't be dark for a long time yet," said Dodo, after they had driven silently for a couple of miles, watching the clouds against the tree-tops and the Swallows that were out in full force, sky-sweeping for their evening meal.

"Are you growing sleepy?" asked Olive.

"No, only _terribly hungry_" whispered Dodo, as if rather ashamed of the fact; "and do you know, Olive, after dinner to-day I told Olaf I never should be hungry again, because I ate so much chowder. After we had driven awhile I thought to myself, 'I shan't want supper to-night anyway.' Then pretty soon I thought, 'I _shall_ want supper,' and now I want it _right away_!" The Doctor laughed and looked at the cows that were pasturing in the roadside fields, for they were passing a farming village.

"I don't see any Cowbirds this afternoon," said Nat, thinking the Doctor was looking for them.

"This time I am looking at the cows themselves! Those over there are beautiful creatures, and there is a clear spring of water in the corner of the pasture. When we come to the farmhouse where they belong, we will stop to buy some milk, and Miss Dodo shall have supper; for even Mammy's buns, when they have been travelling about all day in a basket, would, be rather dry without milk."

"But wouldn't the milk be good if the cows were not pretty, and there was no spring in the pasture?" asked Nat, who must have a reason for everything.

"It is not a question of pretty cows; it is whether they are clean and healthy or not, that makes the milk good or bad. And good pure water to drink, from a spring that is not near any barnyard or outbuilding, is one of the best things for keeping cows in good health."

Meanwhile they had driven up to a farmhouse, almost as large as their own, and the mistress, who was arranging her pans for the evening milking, said they might have cold milk then, or fresh warm milk if they would wait a little while until the cows came home.

Under the back porch was a cage with a little Owl in it, and the woman said it belonged to her boy. Joe, for that was his name, was about Rap's age, and soon made friends with them. They told him where they had been spending the day, and about their uncle's wonder room, and the birds at Orchard Farm. "Have you got a Hummingbird's nest on your farm, and a Swallow chimney?" Joe asked anxiously.

"No, not exactly," said Nat, hesitating. "There are some birds in Uncle Roy's chimney, but we haven't found a Hummingbird's nest yet, though there are lots of the birds about the garden."

"Well, there's a Hummingbird's nest in our crab-apple tree, and we own the biggest Swallow chimney there is in the county! Pa says so, and he knows," said Joe proudly. "If you'll come with me and not grab the nest, I'll show it to you. It's a widow Hummingbird, too. I've never seen her mate since she began to set, but before that he was always flyin' round the honeysuckles and laylocks, so I'm sure he is dead."

"May I come too?" asked the Doctor.

"Pleased to have you, sir," said Joe, making a stiff little bow. "I'd have asked you, only most men folks don't set much store by birds 'nless they are the kind they go gunnin' for. Only pa does. He likes any kind o' bird, whether it sings or not, and he's powerful fond of the Swallows in our chimney. He says they eat the flies and things that tease the cows down in the pasture, and since those Swallows came to our chimney we haven't had to put fly-sheets on the oxen when they are in the pasture--not once."

"Now, children, you see what good the Sky Sweepers do," said the Doctor.

"Sky Sweepers! We don't call 'em that! We call 'em Chimney Swallows!"

Then the children told Joe about the Bird Brotherhoods.

"Stand on this box," said Joe to Dodo, "and look hard at that small slantways branch, with the little bunch on it!"

"The little round bunch that looks like soft green moss?"

"Yes. Well, that's the Hummer's nest!"

"Oh! oh!" cried Dodo, forgetting to whisper, "I see a mite of a tail and a sharp needle beak sticking over the edge!"

This was too much for Mrs. Hummer, who flew off with a whirr like an angry little spinning-wheel--if such a proper Puritan thing is ever angry; and there in the nest were two tiny eggs, like white beans.

"Come back by the fence and watch," said Joe. "She doesn't like to leave the nest much when it is toward night."

"It's a pity her mate is dead. How lonely she must be!" said Dodo, who had a tender little heart.

"I do not think her mate is dead," said the Doctor; "he is merely staying away, after a custom of his family. The bird whose nest we see there is called the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, because he has a patch of glittering ruby-red feathers under his chin, at the top of his buttoned-up vest that hardly shows any while shirt-front. He wears a beautiful golden-green dress-coat, with its dark purplish tails deeply forked. His wife looks very much like him, only she has no ruby jewels to wear.

"Bold as this bird is in darting about and chasing larger ones, he is less than four inches long--only about the size of one of the hawk-moths that come out to feed, just as this valiant pygmy lancer leaves the flowers for the night.

"These Hummingbirds live on honey and very small insects, and dread the cold so that they spend the winter southward from Florida. But as soon as real spring warmth comes, they spread over the United States, east of the plains, and north even to the Fur Countries. They are the only kind found in the eastern half of North America, though there are more than a dozen other species in the West, most of them near the Mexican borders of the United States.

"When the Hummers arrive here, early in May, we see the brilliant males darting about--sometimes, I am sorry to say, quarrelling with their rivals and giving shrill cries like the squeaking of young mice. The last of May the dainty nest is made of plant-down and lichen scales. Then the male goes off by himself and sulks. You may see him feeding, but he keeps away from the nest--selfish bird that he is--until the little ones are ready to fly.

"Meanwhile the mother takes all the care and trouble herself, feeding her little Hummers in a peculiar way. She swallows tiny insects, and when they have remained a little while in her crop she opens her beak, into which the young bird puts its own and sucks the softened food, as a baby does milk from its bottle."

"I was wondering this very morning," said Joe, "how the old bird was going to feed her young ones when those two eggs hatched, without any mate to help her. I'm real glad you came along to explain it, sir. Somehow the reasons lots of folk give for things aren't reasonable at all."

"Now, children," said the Doctor, "write the Hummingbird table before the twilight comes on."

The Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

Length less than four inches.

Male: shining golden-green above, with dark purplish wings and tail, the latter forked; glittering ruby-red throat; other under parts grayish, with some white on the breast and greenish on the sides.

Female: lacks the ruby throat, and has the tail not forked, but some of its feathers white-tipped.

A Summer Citizen of the eastern United States from Florida to Canada.

Though songless, a jewel of a bird, belonging to the guild of Tree Trappers. Nest a tiny round cup of moss and plant-down stuccoed with lichens; eggs only two, white.

THE CHIMNEY SWIFT

"Now, wouldn't you like to see the big chimney?" asked Joe. "The birds go in and out a good deal this time o' day. It's across the road there, where the old house used to be. The house is all gone, but the chimney is as strong as ever--I can climb up top and look down at the nests inside. See! there it is now!" Looking over the fence, they saw a tall stack of worn gray stones, that looked more like a tower than a chimney. Small blackish birds kept streaming from the top, circling high in the air and darting down again, all twittering as they dropped one after another out of sight, inside the weather-beaten pile.

"Look, children!" said the Doctor. "These are Chimney Swifts, usually called Chimney Swallows: and their color is like soot, to match the places they live in."

"Aren't they any relations of Swallows?" asked Rap.

"No, my boy; they look like Swallows, but as I think Olive told you once, the Swifts are a family all by themselves. This one lives in the eastern half of the country in summer, and goes far south for the winter. When he lives in a wild region, he chooses a hollow tree for his nesting place, as his ancestors always did before there were any houses or chimneys.

"The flight of the Swift is so rapid that at times it is almost impossible for the quickest eye to follow him; his wings are very strong, and almost as long as all the rest of his body. Short and blunt as his tail looks when he flies, each feather ends in a hard sharp point which sticks out beyond the soft part. They feed on insects which they catch as they dash through the air, and can also break off dry twigs for nest-building without stopping--sometimes seizing the little sticks in their bills and sometimes in their claws, which are much stronger than those of Swallows."

"How do they make the sticks stay in the chimney? What do they set them on, and how do they perch while they are building?" asked Nat, all in one breath.

"Do you remember how the little Brown Creeper propped himself against the tree when he looked for insects?"

"Yes," said Rap; "he stuck his sharp tail-feathers into the bark and made a bracket of himself."

"The Swift does this also when he fastens twigs together for a nest. They are glued together into a little openwork basket, and gummed to the wall of the chimney, with a sticky fluid which comes from his own mouth."

"I've got a lot of old nests that fell down the chimney after a storm last winter that wet the glue and made them come unstuck," said Joe; "and I'll give you each one. If you look up the hole where the kitchen fireplace was, you can see the new nests quite plain; for the birds don't build them very near the top."

"Be careful of loose stones!" called the Doctor; but in a flash four young heads had disappeared in the ruins of the great fireplace, where three pairs of trousers and a short brown linen skirt alone were visible.

In a little while they had some milk and strawberries; and before they drove on Joe's father promised to take him up to Orchard Farm to see the birds in the Doctor's wonder room, as soon as haying should be over. To the children's astonishment they found it was half-past six o'clock; they had been at the farm an hour and a half, and could not stop again until they reached the wood lane where their uncle had promised to look for the Pewee's nest.

"Stay here, little people, and ask all the questions you like of Olive," said the Doctor, when they had reached the lane; "for I shall be able to find the nest more easily if you do not frighten the birds by talking."

"Pewee, pewee, pe-e-er!" cried a little voice.

"There he is, crying 'peek-a-boo' again," said Dodo. "Please, Olive, won't you tell us the table for the Chimney Swift now?"

"Certainly; and there is plenty of light yet if you wish to write it down."

The Chimney Swift

Length five and a half inches.

Sooty brown. Sharply pointed tail-feathers.

A Summer Citizen of eastern North America from Florida to the Fur Countries.

An excellent neighbor--a friend of the farmer and his cattle. An officer in the guild of Sky Sweepers, who shoots through the air in the shape of a bow and arrow.

"Come softly," said the Doctor, returning to the roadside; "I have found the Pewee's nest; it is quite new, and has no eggs in it as yet. This way--up along this ledge of rocks, and you can almost look into it." They moved quietly over the rocks until they reached a pepperidge tree, when the Doctor motioned them to stop and pointed to one of its branches which stretched over the rock. There was a flat nest with an evenly rounded edge, all covered with lichen scales outside.

"It is just like a Hummingbird's nest," whispered Nat.

"Only flatter, more like a saucer than a cup," said Rap. "Is it made of plant-down, too?"

"No--of fine grasses, rootlets, and bits of bark," said the Doctor; "and in a few days it will hold three or four creamy-white eggs, prettily wreathed around one end with dark-brown spots."

"Pewee, pewee, pe-e-er!" cried the nest owner very sadly.

"We are going home, so you needn't worry, dear," said Dodo. "Good-night."