Part 15

“The Ruffed Grouse, the ‘King of American game-birds,’ was abundant in all our woods, and was often seen in fields and orchards, until its numbers were decimated by the gunner and the survivors driven to the cover of the pines. The characteristic startling roar of its wings, with which it starts away when flushed from the ground, and its habit of drumming on a log, have been often described. The speed with which the wings are beaten in drumming makes it impossible for the human eye to follow them and make sure whether they strike anything or not. Naturalists, after long discussion, had come to believe that the so-called ‘drumming,’ of the Ruffed Grouse was caused by the bird beating the air with its wings, as described by Mr. William Brewster; but now comes Dr. C. F. Hodge and reopens the controversy by exhibiting a series of photographs, which seem to show that the bird, in drumming, strikes the contour feathers of the body. Strange as it may seem, there are many people who often take outings in the country, yet have never heard the drumming of this bird. This tattoo is most common in late winter and early spring, but may be heard occasionally in summer and not uncommonly in fall. While sounded oftenest during the day, it may fall on the ear at any hour of the night. In making it, the bird usually stands very erect on a hollow log or stump, with head held high and ruffs erected and spread, and, raising its wings, strikes downward and forward. The sound produced is a muffled boom or thump. It begins with a few slow beats, growing gradually quicker, and ends in a rolling, accelerated tattoo. It has a ventriloquial property. Sometimes, when one is very close to the bird, the drumming seems almost soundless; at other times it sounds much louder at a distance, as if, through some principle of acoustics, it were most distinctly audible at a certain radius from the bird. It is the bird’s best expression of its abounding vigour and virility, and signifies that the drummer is ready for love or war.

“The female alone understands the task of incubation and the care of the young. Once, however, when I came upon a young brood, the agonized cry of the distressed mother attracted a fine cock bird. He raised all his feathers and, with ruffs and tail spread, strutted up to within a rod of my position, seemingly almost as much concerned as the female, but not coming quite so near. The hen sometimes struts forward toward the intruder in a similar manner, when surprised while with her young. She can raise her ruffs and strut exactly like the cock.

“The Grouse has so many enemies that it seems remarkable how it can escape them, nesting as it does on the ground. Instances are on record, however, where birds, that probably have been much persecuted, have learned to deposit their eggs in old nests of Hawks or Crows, in tall trees. Whenever the mother bird leaves the nest, the eggs are easily seen, and, while she sits, it would seem impossible for her whereabouts to remain a secret to the keen-scented prowlers of the woods. But her colours blend so perfectly with those of the dead leaves on the forest floor, and she sits so closely, and remains so motionless among the shadows, that she escapes the sharp-eyed Hawk. She gives out so little scent that the dog, skunk, or fox passes quite near, unnoticing.

“The Grouse does not naturally fear man; more than once, in the wilderness of the northwest, a single bird has walked up to within a few feet of me. They will sit on limbs just above one’s head, almost within reach, and regard one curiously, but without much alarm. Usually, in Massachusetts, when a human being comes near the nest, the mother bird whirs loudly away. She has well learned the fear of man; but, in a place where no shooting was permitted, a large gang of men were cutting under-brush, while a Partridge, sitting there, remained quietly on her nest as the men worked noisily all about her. Another bird, that nested beside a woods road, along which I walked daily, at first would fly before I had come within a rod of her; but later she became confiding enough to sit on her nest while six persons passed close beside her. Evidently the bird’s facility in concealing her nest consists in sitting close and keeping her eggs well covered. Her apparent faith in her invisibility is overcome only by her fear of man or her dread of the fox. When the fox is seen approaching directly toward her, she bristles up and flies at him, in the attempt to frighten him with the sudden roar of her wings and the impetuosity of her attack; but Reynard, although at first taken aback, cannot always be deceived by such tricks; and the poor bird, in her anxiety to defend her nest, only betrays its whereabouts. Probably, however, the fox rarely finds her nest, unless he happens to blunder directly into it.

* * * * *

“During the fall the Grouse keep together in small flocks. Sometimes a dozen birds may be found around some favourite grape-vine or apple tree, but they are usually so harried and scattered by gunners that toward winter the old birds may sometimes be found alone.

“As winter approaches, this hardy bird puts on its ‘snow-shoes,’ which consist of a fringe of horny processes or pectinations that grow out along each toe, and help to distribute the weight of the bird over a larger surface, and so allow it to walk over snows into which a bird not so provided would sink deeply. Its digestion must resemble that of the famous Ostrich, as broken twigs and dry leaves are ground up in its mill. It is a hard winter that will starve the Grouse. A pair spent many winter nights in a little cave in the rocky walls of an old quarry. Sumacs grew there and many rank weeds. The birds lived well on sumac berries, weed seeds, and buds.

“Sometimes, but perhaps rarely, these birds are imprisoned under the snow by the icy crust which forms in cold weather following a rain, but usually they are vigorous enough to find a way out, somewhere. The Grouse is perfectly at home beneath the snow; it will dive into it to escape a Hawk, and can move rapidly about beneath the surface and burst out again in rapid flight at some unexpected place.

“The Ruffed Grouse is a bird of the woodland, and though useful in the woods, it sometimes does some injury in the orchard, by removing too many buds from a single tree. In winter and early spring, when other food is buried by the snow, and hard to obtain, the Grouse lives largely on the buds and green twigs of trees; but, as spring advances, insects form a considerable part of the food. The young feed very largely on insects, including many very destructive species.”

—E. H. Forbush, in _Useful Birds and Their Protection_.

THE RUFFED GROUSE

When the pallid sun has vanished Under Osceola’s ledges, When the lengthening shadows mingle In a sombre sea of twilight, From the hemlocks in the hollow Swift emerging comes the Partridge; Not a sound betrays her starting, Not a sound betrays her lighting In the birches by the wayside, In her favoured place for budding. When the twilight turns to darkness, When the fox’s bark is sounding, From her buds the Partridge hastens, Seeks the soft snow by the hazels, Burrows in its sheltering masses, Burrows where no Owl can find her.

—Frank Bolles.

“You all know the path that runs by the grist-mill and up through the river woods. In spring, I could almost count upon seeing a Grouse or two when I took that walk, and very early, of September and October mornings, I have seen the Woodcock probing, with their long, sensitive, pointed bills, with which they can feel like fingers, in the muddy ground back of the river woods for the worms, and such like, upon which they feed. It was my father, himself, who took me one evening, even though it was bedtime, to these same woods to hear the Woodcock’s courting dance and song.”

“I didn’t know any game-birds could sing,” said Tommy.

“They are not classed with song-birds, and yet in courting time, most birds have some sort of musical speech in addition to their call-notes; you know that even Crows sometimes succeed in singing. But this love-song varies with the individual bird more than it does with the birds that are real vocalists.

“The Woodcock feed chiefly at dawn and twilight, and it is easy to tell where they have been by the little holes in the mud left by the bill. This spring night father took me to the wood edge, and drew me to him, to keep me still while we waited—for what? I was soon to know.

“Presently a half-musical cry came out of the gathering darkness, and was repeated and echoed by several others. Then a rush, as if a bird had flung himself into the air and opened his wings at the same time; next, a whirring sound as the bird circled skyward and vanished, his notes falling behind him, but before I realized what was going on, the bird dropped straight as a Hawk, balanced on his toes, gave a low, musical cry, and began again; for thus it is that the Woodcock tries to please and win his mate.

THE WOODCOCK’S WOOING

Peent, -peent, -peent, -peent, From the thick grass on the hill; Peent, -peent, -peent, -peent, At eve when the world is still.

Then a sudden whistle of whirring wings,— A rush to the upper air,— And a rain of maddening music falls From the whole sky,—everywhere!

—Winifred Ballard Blake in _Bird-Lore_.

“Dave, please tell us about the bird that you saw on the nest,” said Gray Lady, “and how you came to find it.”

“Half a dozen of us went out to hunt for May-flowers (Trailing Arbutus) one Wednesday along the first part of April last year. Miss Wilde thought Zella had measles, and school was closed two days, but doctor found it was only a cold and eating too much sausage meat and sweet pickles, and so they broke out, and he gave her rhubarb.” (Dave, having been asked to tell all about it, was bound to omit no detail.)

“The others of our crowd stayed along by the path that runs through the wood, where you saw the birds dance, because there are black snakes through the brush there that begin to crawl out to sun in April, and the girls were scared of them.

“I went on ahead a little piece, and turned up a side hill where there was an old rail fence that divides our woods from the Cobbs’ piece. Right in front of me I found a bully patch of May-flowers, and I sat down and began cutting them with my knife (’cause they have wiry sort of stems) and made them in a nice even bunch, when something ahead sort of made me keep my eyes glued to it. It was under the slant of the lowest fence rail. I thought it was a striped snake curled up round, at first, because I felt eyes were looking at me, though it was too dark to see them, at first. Did you ever have that feeling, Gray Lady?”

“Yes, I have had it, Dave, and I know what a strange sensation it is. The last time I had it I felt no better when I saw the eyes; in fact, little cold shivers went all over, for I was far away from here, and the eyes were those of a rattlesnake that was coiled up, amid the stones of a ledge, where I was gathering some rare wild flowers.”

“Oh, what _did_ you do?” cried all the children, together.

“I backed away as fast as I could, keeping my eyes upon the snake, until I was at a safe distance, where he could not spring at me, and then I very foolishly ran! What did you do, Dave?”

“I crept up nearer until I got a good look, and then I saw that it was a bird. It was sitting ever so still, with its head well down on its shoulders and its long beak close to its breast. It had queer, big eyes set up on top of its head, and round like a frog’s, not like any other bird that I know of.”

“The eyes of the Woodcock and its cousins, the Snipe, are set in this way, so that, when they are boring in the mud for food, they can keep watch behind them as well as in front,” said Gray Lady.

“First, I thought the bird was dead, it kept so still,” continued Dave, “but I could see its breast raised a little with its breathing.”

“If it had been dead, its eyes would have been closed,” said Gray Lady. “It is one of the many mysterious and unaccountable facts about a bird, that it is the only animal that closes its own eyes when death touches it.”

“It wasn’t afraid, so I thought that I would just smooth its feathers,” said Dave. “I did, and it didn’t fly, only just puffed up a little, so I thought I would lift it very carefully to see if there were any eggs under it, and there were four nice, sort of round, light, brown eggs, the colour that our Plymouth Rocks lay, only mottled. But the bird didn’t like to be lifted, and she sort of growled inside, the way a hen does, so I set her down and went away.”

“That was a very pleasant experience of yours, Dave, and shows how tame game-birds will become if they are kindly treated. This Woodcock has an advantage over the Grouse and Bob-white, his cousin, because it travels South in winter and constantly shifts its feeding-places, but it suffers from other dangers: it is hunted in all the states through which it passes, and the eggs are large enough to be very attractive, not only to foxes and all the gnawing creatures of the woods, but to people as well. If that nest and eggs had been seen by one of those foreign-born poachers who come here thinking that everything they find out-of-doors, and they can pocket, belongs to them, the poor Woodcock would have lost her entire brood and perhaps her own life as well.

* * * * *

“These three land-birds, together with a number of wild ducks, that live some on fresh and some near salt water, travelling North and South according to season, are the legitimate game-birds of the country. Of the wild ducks, the most of these breed in the far North, and are hunted in their migrations. If this hunting is done fairly, as the law prescribes, and the birds are not chased and shot at from moving boats, or with repeating guns, or when startled from their sleep with flashing lights, they seem able to hold their own. Humanity, however, demands that they should not be hunted on their spring journeys on the way to their nesting-haunts and when they may have already chosen mates.

“One Duck there is, however, of exquisite plumage, gentle disposition, and quiet, domestic habits, nesting about inland ponds and streams, in the inhabited parts of the United States, from Florida up to Hudson Bay, that is in danger of swift extinction if the protection given song-birds is not extended to it. This is the Wood Duck, called in Latin ‘_Aix Sponsa_’—‘Bridal Duck’—from the fact that the beauty of his plumage was fit for a bridal garment.

“Look at that bird, mounted on a mossy stump, in that case by the window. When I was a girl, I have seen a half-dozen pairs in the pond above the grist-mill, and I knew as surely where I could always find a pair nesting as where I could find a Robin or Song Sparrow, but now it is fast becoming a bird of the past, only to be seen in pictures. Why is this? The reasons are many, and some, such as the settlement of the country, and the draining of ponds and waterways, and the cutting down of river brush, cannot be helped.

“The Wood Duck nests in a tree hole, and, when the young are able to leave the nest, the parents hold them in their bills and carry them to the ground in somewhat the way in which cats remove their kittens from place to place. Consequently, if the lumber is cleared, and no suitable trees are left, what is this Duck to do? He cannot take to the chimneys as the Swifts have. Still, this Duck, whose beauty alone is a sufficient and patriotic reason for saving him to his country, might adapt his nesting to other conditions if it could be protected as the Grouse, Quail, and Woodcock are in New England, or, better yet, not be hunted in any way for a number of years, so that the Wood Ducks, wherever located, should have, a chance to increase once more and reëstablish themselves.

Order—Anseres Family—Anatidæ Genus—Aix Species—Sponsa

“For, when we come to look closely at the matter, there is really no fair hunting, for the killing inventions of man—the magazine guns, etc.,—are on the increase, while the power of poor game-birds to protect themselves lessens both on land and water. Think of it, in some states there are no laws to protect this bird, even in summer, and, as Wood Ducks are fond of their nesting-places, and are very unsuspicious birds, it often happens that an entire family is killed the moment the young are large enough to furnish the pitiful thing, in this case, that is called ‘sport.’

“As it happens, the woods on this side of the river from above the pond to the sawmill belong to the General’s farm, and, Tommy and Dave, the water right on the other side belongs to your fathers.

“Will you not ask them if they will help me to protect their birds, if I can get half a dozen pairs from one of the Wise Men who is trying to reëstablish them in their old haunts?

“The Grouse and Quail are growing friendly again under protection, and I am in hopes that we may have a drummer, as well as a fifer and his family, in the orchard and near-by woods next spring.

“There are many hollow willows near the upper pond like the ones in which the Wood Ducks used to nest. If these are left, the ducks will soon become attached to them, and, if they escape peril elsewhere, for this Duck’s greatest danger is in the vicinity of home, then we shall all have a chance, possibly, some day to see a sight that ever the Wise Men argue about,—the parent Duck bringing her young from the tree hole to take their first swim!”

The boys promised to ask the question, and Tommy reported at the schoolhouse, the next Friday, that “grandpa thinks it would be just bully to have Wood Ducks again, and he’ll sit round the pond, with a shot-gun, all he’s able, to keep folks away. He says he’s seen the old ones yank the young, one by one, right out of the nest by the wing, and set ’em on the ground, and when they were all down, lead ’em to the water. And once, when the tree was close over the pond, the old bird flew down and set ’em right on the water. He says weasels and water-rats and snakes and snapping-turtles help kill off the ducklings, because until they get big enough to fly they’ve got no way of lighting-out.” All of which goes to prove that Tommy Todd had inherited some of his keenness of eye in “watching out” for the doings of wild things.

“There are others that are classed with game-birds that will surely everywhere be stricken from the list some day, and put with those birds that we wish to cherish at all seasons, and for whom there should be no hunting, either fair or foul.

“These birds, even though a couple of them are cousins to the Woodcock, are so small of body (their long wing in flight giving a deceptive idea of their size) that their flesh is of no account, save to either the starving, who are bound by no laws, or the glutton seeking for an article of food to whet a jaded palate, like the old emperors of Rome who ate nightingale’s tongues, forsooth! We do not wish to breed or encourage such barbarians in our America. At the same time, these birds have great value in their insect-eating capacity.”

“Pop says they always used to shoot Meadowlarks when he was a boy, and up to not very long ago,” said Tommy, “and Yellowhammers and Pigeons and Doves and Robins, too, but now nobody dares, except on the sly. Anyway, the Wild Pigeons grandfather tells of are all gone, and I’ve only seen a couple of Doves this year.”

“The birds you speak of are now protected by law, here in Connecticut,” said Gray Lady, “though in some states they are not, but the game-birds I mean are the little Killdeer Plover, and the Upland and other small Plovers, together with the Sandpipers, both of fresh and salt water.”

XV GAME-BIRDS?

_The plea of the Meadowlark, Mourning Dove, Sandpiper, Plovers, and Bobolink, the Masquerader_

“Spare us, please! We are too small for food.”

“You, children, who live with green fields about you, all know the Meadowlark by sight and sound, even if you never have had the curiosity to learn its name. It is the bird seen walking in old fields and lowlands. In size it is a little larger than a Robin, with a rather flat head and long, stout bill, its back speckled and streaked with brown and black, and a beautiful yellow throat and breast crossed by a crescent of black. When the bird is on the ground, if you came behind it, at a distance, you might think it a Flicker, but the moment it takes to the air with a whirring flight, the white feathers at the outside of the tail show plainly, and name it Meadowlark, just as the white rump names the Flicker.

“Then, you know its voice, that sometimes drops from a tree, sometimes rises from the grass, that Mr. Burroughs says calls, ‘Spring o’ the year—Spring o’ the year.’ The notes are clear as a flute, and, beautiful as our Meadowlark’s song is, that of his brother, the Prairie Lark, is still more melodious, and I shall never forget the first spring morning that I heard it from the border of one of those endless grain-fields that roll on to meet the sky like a glistening green sea with its waters stirred by the breeze.

“The Meadowlark is certainly a thing of beauty, but, at the same time, its greater service to man is its usefulness; not as a bit of meat, no matter how plump it may grow, but as the untiring guardian of the fields, where it spends its life and makes its nest home in a grass tussock. For this bird, of the eastern United States, is with us here in Southern New England, and southward, all the year, and those flocks that migrate do not leave until late fall, and are back again by the middle of March, while the Prairie Lark covers the western part of the country, as permanent warden of the meadow and hayfields. All the year they keep at work; from March to December insect food is the chief part of the diet; insects that are the farmer’s bane,—grasshoppers, cutworms, sow-bugs, ticks, weevils, plant-lice, and the click-beetle (the grown-up wire worm) being but a few of them. The remaining months, December, January, and February, insects failing, waste grain is eaten, and weed seeds, as pigeon grass, rag and smart weed, and black mustard.

“Happily for us, this beautiful bird is protected in all the New England and Middle States, but, if we have friends who live in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee, Missouri and Idaho, where the Larks are only considered as food, let us beg them to tell every one of this and the Prairie Lark’s merits, so that they may be placed on the list of the protected. And when you hear any one say that the Meadowlark is by rights a game-bird, say as politely as may be, but very firmly, ‘No; it is _not_! At least, not in staunch, common-sensed New England!’

_The Mourning Dove_