Part 25

“How do you think your mother would feel if somebody climbed in at the window and tumbled up your baby brother’s crib, perhaps spilling him out on the floor, or at least frightening him badly, in order to find out if he slept on a mattress or a feather bed, or if the crib itself was made of wood or metal?

“At the time of the spring migration the birds that have been living in flocks all winter put on fresh feathers, and court and separate into pairs just as people do when they marry and begin housekeeping. Naturally they feel very happy, and have a great deal to say to each other, and this is what makes birds break into song when the spring comes to give them new life.

“Though some few females can sing, it is the males who make the beautiful music that we hear in the spring mornings. The female is too busy with her housekeeping to do more than answer, but her husband’s song cheers her while she is brooding, and he probably tells her how pretty her new feathers are, and how much he loves her, too.

“Among our gayly coloured birds, unlike people, it is the male who wears the brightest clothes. You have heard of this all through our fall and winter lessons, and you have seen the difference in pictures; now that the birds themselves have come, you will have a chance to see how well you remember, and if you can name the birds as they fly. The Scarlet Tanager and the Goldfinch both have plain greenish olive-coloured wives. The female Blue Jay is of a less bright hue than her mate, and the mate of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak wears a buff, brownish streaked vest.

“Why? Because, as the mother bird spends more time about the nest than the father, if she wore bright clothes she would attract too much attention, and cruel Hawks, squirrels, and thieving people would find it too easily; and Nature’s first thought is always of the care and protection of young life, whether of plant, bird, or beast.

“Almost all of our birds feed the young nestlings with animal food, even if they themselves are seed-eaters; for little birds must grow quickly, and you would hardly believe the number of worms and flying things it takes to turn one little Robin from the queer, helpless, featherless thing that it is when it hatches from the egg, into the clumsy, clamouring ball of feathers, with awkward wings and hardly a bit of tail to balance it, that it is when it leaves the nest.

“No human father and mother work harder to feed their children than do these feathered parents, who toil ceaselessly from sunrise until sunset to bring food, and share by turns the protection of the nest.

THE NEST

When oaken woods with buds are pink, And new-come birds each morning sing, When fickle May on summer’s brink Pauses, and knows not which to fling, Whether fresh bud and bloom again, Or hoar-frost silvering hill and plain,

Then from the honeysuckle gray The Oriole with experienced quest Twitches the fibrous bark away, The cordage of his hammock-nest, Cheering his labour with a note Rich as the orange of his throat.

High o’er the loud and dusty road The soft gray cup in safety swings, To brim ere August with its load Of downy breasts and throbbing wings, O’er which the friendly elm tree heaves An emerald roof with sculptured eaves.

Below, the noisy world drags by In the old way, because it must; The bride with heartbreak in her eye, The mourner following hated dust; Thy duty, winged flame of spring, Is but to love, and fly, and sing.

O happy life, to soar and sway Above the life by mortals led, Singing the merry months away, Master, not slave of daily bread, And, when the autumn comes, to flee Wherever sunshine beckons thee!

—James Russell Lowell.

OUT OF THE SOUTH

A migrant song-bird I, Out of the blue, between the sea and the sky, Landward blown on bright, untiring wings; Out of the South I fly, Urged by some vague, strange force of destiny, To where the young wheat springs,

And the maize begins to grow, And the clover fields to blow. I have sought In far wild groves below the tropic line To lose old memories of this land of mine; I have fought This vague, mysterious power that flings me forth Into the North; But all in vain. When flutes of April blow, The immemorial longing lures me, and I go.

—Maurice Thompson.

WHAT TO EXPECT

“In April we may look for the coming of a score or more of different birds. How quickly they come and in what numbers depends upon the season. If it is mild, they come gradually; if stormy, by fits and starts, and sometimes in strangely mixed flocks.

“These belong to the first half of the month:—

_The Great Blue Heron._ Cousin to the white Egret; we always used to have a pair of them by the upper mill-pond.

_The Purple Finch._ A large sparrow with a beautiful voice; the fully grown male having a rosy flush to his feathers as if, it has been said, the juice of crimson berries had been squeezed over him.

_The Vesper-sparrow._ The wayside Sparrow of our afternoon walk that we have known as long as the Song Sparrow and Bluebird; famous for his clear, ringing song at twilight and dawn. Rather light in color, with _rust-red wing-markings and white outside tail-feathers_ that show conspicuously as he flits along and tells his name.

THE VESPER-SPARROW

It comes from childhood land, Where summer days are long And summer eves are bland— A lulling good-night song.

Upon a pasture stone, Against the fading west, A small bird sings alone, Then dives and finds its nest.

The evening star has heard And flutters into sight. Oh, childhood’s vesper bird, My heart calls back good night.

—Edith M. Thomas.

_The Chipping-sparrow._ Our least Sparrow, who wears a little chestnut velvet cap, gray back, and black bill, and has a mild, innocent expression in keeping with his friendly ways. He puts his dainty hair-lined nest (from which he is sometimes called Hair-bird) in a near-by shrub or rose-bush in the garden, and then hops about the door, picking up almost invisible bits of food, calling “chip-chip-chip.” His courting song is a long trill that begins at dawn almost with the Phœbe, and the dear little bird often sings as he sits on the ground.

_The Tree Swallow._ This we saw last fall in the migration, and we may hope that it will take lodging in some of the new bird-boxes.

“In the second half of the month:—

_The Barn Swallow._

_Spotted Sandpiper._

_Bank Swallow._

_Purple Martin._

_Whip-poor-will._ One of the birds of the air that, together with its brother the Nighthawk and its cousins the Chimney Swift and Humming-bird, may well be called winged mysteries.

_Towhee-Chewink, or Ground-robin_, of the tribe of Sparrows and Finches, but, like the Cardinal, without stripes, and having a stout beak. Head, throat, back, and breast black; white belly and rust-red sides. Black tail with white outer feathers. A handsome, vigorous bird and a lover of bushes and thickets, where he scratches among the leaves. Call-note, “Tow-hee-tow-hee.”

_Black-and-white Warbler._ This you will at first take to be a small Woodpecker from its black-and-white stripes and tree-creeping habits that remind one of the Brown Creeper of winter, but its slender bill names it a warbler; one of the “lispers,” who, though they have musical names, whisper or lisp a few notes as if to themselves.

_Ovenbird._ Also a warbler, but, though it sings high among the trees, nests on the ground among the leaves, the nest being closed at the top and open on the sides like an oven. A shy bird with a _golden brown crown edged by a black line_. Plain olive above, white beneath, with thrush-like black streaks on breast and sides.

_House Wren._ Dear little Jenny Wren, of several nests and a large family, who lives in our bird-boxes, outbuildings, and garden trellises. Gowned in reddish brown, with fine black bars and a pert little tail that she jerks nervously as she flies. Johnny Wren is the singing partner, for Jenny has no voice left of a morning after she has spluttered and scolded her bird neighbours and attended to her housekeeping.

_Brown Thrasher._

_Catbird._

_Wood Thrush._

_Veery._—No matter how familiar with them we may be, we must always pause to look and listen when we meet one of this wonderful quartette of vocalists, whose voices belong with the gorgeously apparelled singers of the opera; but the quiet plumage and demeanour of three of the four mark them for peaceful home life and seclusion.

WINGED MYSTERIES

“Four birds there are that live under one roof, so to speak, for they belong to one order divided into three different families. They are perfectly familiar to most of us who have lived in the real country, and yet they awaken our curiosity anew every season when they return. These birds are the Whip-poor-will, Chimney Swift, Nighthawk, and Humming-bird. The two first return to New England late in April; the two last during the first part of May, but it is better for us to take them all together now in April so as to be ready to recognize the first one that comes.

“The _Whip-poor-will_ comes first. It is a bird of the woods; in size a little less than the Robin, but of a build peculiar to its own family, long and low, a contrast heightened by its short legs and its habit of sitting length-wise on a limb and close to it. In short, it does not perch, it ‘squats.’ Its general colour is black, white, and buff, much streaked and mottled. Its tail is _round_, half of the three outer feathers white, giving the effect of a white spot.

“All of you children of this wooded hill country know this bird that flies about the house and across the fields to the woods before dawn or soon after dark, making no more noise than the bats, until, stopping to rest, he mechanically jerks out his name, ‘Whip-poor-will-Whip-poor-will-Chuck!’ So lonely and mournful does the cry sound in the distance that many weird stories have been told about the bird. But when the call comes close at hand, it is more cheerful, though always startling.

“This bird builds no nest, but lays its pair of dull white eggs, so marked that they blend with the earth like lichens and mosses, on the bare ground, or at best among a few leaves. But rash as this seems, the protective colour that nature has given to the parents, eggs, and young serves to keep them as safe as many another bird in a well-woven tree nest.

“Then, too, aside from its picturesque qualities, the Whip-poor-will, as Mr. Forbush says of it, ‘is an animated insect trap. Its enormous mouth is surrounded by long bristles which form a wide fringe about a yawning cavity, and the bird flies rather low among the trees and over the undergrowth, snapping up nocturnal insects in flight. It is, perhaps, the greatest enemy of night-moths, but is quite as destructive to May beetles and other leaf-eating beetles.’

THE WOOD THRUSH AND THE WHIP-POOR-WILL

When the faintest flush of morning Overtints the distant hill, _If you waken, if you listen_, You may hear the Whip-poor-will. Like an echo from the darkness, Strangely wild across the glen, Sound the notes of his finale, And the woods are still again.

Soon upon the dreamy silence There will come a gentle trill, Like the whisper of an organ, Or the murmur of a rill, And then a burst of music, Swelling forth upon the air, Till the melody of morning Seems to come from everywhere. A Thrush, as if awakened by The parting voice of night, Gives forth a joyous welcome to The coming of the light.

In early evening twilight Again the Wood Thrush sings, Like a voice of inspiration With the melody of strings; A song of joy ecstatic, And a vesper hymn of praise, For the glory of the summer And the promise of the days.

* * * * * *

And when his song is ended, And all the world grows still, As if but just awakened, Calls again the Whip-poor-will.

—Garrett Newkirk, in _Bird-Lore_.

“_The Nighthawk_, when perching, bears a general resemblance to the Whip-poor-will. The white band on its throat is wider, the tail is _not_ round, and it has white band near the end. There is a white bar across the quills of the wings that in flight looks like a round white spot or a hole.

“These four white patches, throat, wings, and tail tell you his name plainly, so when he is on the wing the Nighthawk should never be mistaken for a Whip-poor-will. Then, too, their habits are unlike. The Nighthawk does not belong to the night, neither is he a Hawk, which is a Bird of Prey with talons and a hooked beak. Early morning and late afternoon are his favourite times for hunting the sky for insects, for he also is one of our most valuable sky sweepers.

“Having no song, the cry of Skirk-skirk! given when on the wing, has a wild and eerie sound which is often followed by a booming noise of the quality that can be imitated by placing tissue-paper over a long, coarse comb and then blowing rapidly across it from one end to the other. This noise is made by the rush of the wind through the wing quills as the bird drops through the air after its winged food.

“The Nighthawk builds no nest, but lays its eggs on a bare rock in a field, amid the stones of rocky ground, on roofs even of city houses. Again does colour protection aid a bird, for the arrangements of its markings blend the Nighthawk with granite as perfectly as those of the Whip-poor-will conceal it in the woods.

“The Nighthawk, whose erratic flight makes it a target that piques the skill of a certain class of sportsmen, has frequently been shot at for prowess, the excuse being that it ‘wasn’t any good, anyway.’ Aside from the list of insects harmful to agriculture and domestic animals that it destroys, let us remember its crowning virtue, and cry ‘Hands off!’ It kills mosquitoes, and has thus earned the local name of Mosquito-hawk.

“It is hard to believe that any one should insist that the Nighthawk and the Whip-poor-will are one and the same bird, but such has been the case, and among intelligent people also, though the mistake has been definitely settled by one of the Wise Men.

A NIGHTHAWK INCIDENT

A discussion of the specific distinctness of the Whip-poor-will and Nighthawk, following an address to Connecticut agriculturists some years ago, led to my receipt, in July, 1900, of an invitation from a gentleman who was present, to come and see a bird then nesting on his farm that he believed combined the characters of both the Whip-poor-will and Nighthawk; in short, was the bird to which both these names applied.

Here was an opportunity to secure a much-desired photograph, and armed with the needed apparatus, as well as specimens of both the Nighthawk and Whip-poor-will, I boarded an early train for Stevenson, Connecticut, prepared to gain my point with bird as well as with man.

The latter accepted the specimens as incontrovertible facts, and readjusted his views as to the status of the birds they represented, and we may therefore at once turn our attention to the Nighthawk, who was waiting so patiently on a bit of granite out in the hayfields. The sun was setting when we reached the flat rock on which her eggs had been laid and young hatched, and where she had last been seen; but a fragment of egg-shell was the only evidence that the bare-looking spot had once been a bird’s home. The grass had lately been mowed, and there was no immediately surrounding cover in which the bird might have hidden. It is eloquent testimony of the value of her protective colouring, therefore, that we should almost have stepped on the bird, who had moved to a near-by flat rock as we approached the place in which we had expected to find her.

Far more convincing, however, was her faith in her own invisibility. Even the presence of a dog did not tempt her to flight, and when the camera was erected on its tripod within three feet of her body, squatting so closely to its rocky background, her only movement was occasioned by her rapid breathing.

There was other cause, however, besides the belief in her own inconspicuousness to hold her to the rock: one little downy chick nestled at her side, and with instinctive obedience was as motionless as its parent.

So they sat while picture after picture was made from various points of view, and still no movement, until the parent was lightly touched, when, starting quickly, she spread her long wings and sailed out over the fields. Perhaps she was startled, and deserted her young on the impulse of sudden fear. But in a few seconds she recovered herself, and circling, returned and spread herself out on the grass at my feet. Then followed the evolutions common to so many birds but wonderful in all. With surprising skill in mimicry, the bird fluttered painfully along, ever just beyond my reach, until it had led me a hundred feet or more from its young, and then, the feat evidently successful, it sailed away again, to perch first on a fence and later on a limb in characteristic (length-wise) Nighthawk attitude.

How are we to account for the development in so many birds of what is now a common habit? Ducks, Snipe, Grouse, Doves, some ground-nesting Sparrows and Warblers, and many other species also feign lameness, with the object of drawing a supposed enemy from the vicinity of their nest or young. Are we to believe that each individual who in this most reasonable manner opposes strategy to force, does so intelligently? Or are we to believe that the habit has been acquired through the agency of natural selection, and is now purely instinctive? Probably neither question can be answered until we know beyond question whether this mimetic or deceptive power is inherited.—Frank M. Chapman, in _Bird-Lore_.

* * * * *

“Now comes the _Chimney Swift_, universally called the Chimney Swallow; with small, compact body, only a little larger than a Bank Swallow, and long, strong wings, it dominates the air in which it lives and feeds, and so little does it use its feet that it does not perch on them, but brackets itself against post, wall, or chimney, Woodpecker fashion, the sharp, pointed quills of its short tail acting as a brace.

“In colour the Chimney Swift is sooty gray, and as it darts about the sky it looks like a winged spruce cone, the wings being held further forward in flight than those of the average bird.

“Like their cousins the Nighthawks, they feed chiefly in early morning and late afternoon, though in the nesting season this work continues all day. In the old wild days, like many another bird, this Swift built its basket nest of twigs and bird glue on the inside wall of hollow trees, but when man came, hollow trees went, and so, with the happy adaptability of Heart of Nature himself, the bird moved to the hollow chimneys of man’s own invention, and so, unwittingly, descended from his sky parlour and became the one real fireside bird that we have. And for this companionship he is willing to brave the risk of being smoked out and having sparks scorch his nest.

“Now that wide-mouthed stone chimneys are also disappearing, what remains for this Swift? We do not know, unless he changes his home to the open air and builds his bracket nests on outside walls.

“The Swift folds his wings and dives down the chimney to his nest silently as a bird cleaves the water, but when he rises, a roar of rapidly whirring wings marks the ascent, so that sometimes it annoys the people in whose rooms the chimney opens. Last summer, in the old orchard-house where Miss Wilde lives, we used to sit before the wide fireplace and listen to the Swifts twittering and whirling in and out of the chimney, and by looking up on a bright day their nests could be seen plainly. Once in a while an accident would happen, and Goldilocks will show you a beautiful bracket nest and five white eggs that became loosened after a storm and fell out on to the hearth.”

“But now that there is a fire all the time and a coal stove at Swallow Chimney, won’t the birds choke if they live there?” asked Sarah Barnes. “Grandma says they can stand wood smoke, but that coal-gas ‘spixiates’ ’em; ’cause we’ve never had any at our house since we’ve been burning coal.”

“I believe that your grandmother is right,” said Gray Lady, “and for this reason I have planned to have a new outside chimney for the cooking stove, so that the real ‘Swallow Chimney’ may be only used for the wood hearth fires, and so continue to be their home for as long as I live or the birds wish to rent it.

TO A CHIMNEY SWIFT

Uncumbered neighbour of our race! Thou only of thy clan Hast made thy haunt and dwelling-place Within the walls of man.

Thy haughty wing, which rides the storm, Hath stooped to Earth’s desires, And round thy eery rises warm The smoke of human fires.

Still didst thou come from lands afar In childhood days as now,— Yet alien as the planets are, And elfin-strange art thou.

Thy little realm of quick delights, Fierce instincts, untaught powers— What unimagined days and nights Cut off that realm from ours!

Thy soul is of the dawn of Earth, And thine the secrets be Of sentient being’s far-off birth And round-eyed infancy.

With thee, beneath our sheltering roof, The starry Sphinx doth dwell, Untamed, eternally aloof And inaccessible!

—Dora Read Goodale.

THE RUBY-THROATED HUMMING-BIRD

“The last and least of the four-winged mysteries is also the smallest of our birds, lacking a quarter of being four inches long. But it does not need size to proclaim its beauty any more than a glowing ruby or emerald; and indeed it wears both of these gems, the one on its throat and the other on its back. Its world is the garden where everything is brightest, its food nectar, and such little aphis as gather in it, and its home lashed by cobwebs to a slender branch, a fairy nest of plant, wool, and lichens, soft as feather down, wherein lie two eggs, white and opaque and glistening like some fresh-water pearls.

“When on the wing it either darts about like a ray of feathered light, or else, poised before a deep-throated flower, remains apparently motionless, though its wings vibrate with the mechanical hum of a fly-wheel of perfect workmanship.

“In spite of the fact that Father Humming-bird takes himself to parts unknown and leaves his mate to tend both eggs and birds, the mother is neither put out nor discouraged, and makes a model parent, who gathers and swallows the food for her tiny offspring and then, by a pumping process called regurgitation, brings it up and, taking no chances of spilling a drop, literally rams it into the little throat! This bird is to me the greatest mystery of all. It comes and it goes, but how does it endure the stress of weather and travel? Many a moth outspans it in breadth of wings. If the flight of the Wild Goose is wonderful in its courage, what of the Humming-bird? Is Puck of Pook’s Hill still alive, and has he feathered playfellows?

THE HUMMING-BIRD

Is it a monster bee, Or is it a midget bird, Or yet an air-born mystery That now yon marigold has stirred, And now on vocal wing To a neighbour bloom has whirred In an aëry ecstasy, in a passion of pilfering?

Ah! ’tis the Humming-bird, Rich-coated one, Ruby-throated one, That is not chosen for song,

But throws its whole rapt sprite Into the secrets of flowers The summer days along, Into most odorous hours It’s a murmurous sound of wings too swift for sight.

—Richard Burton.