CHAPTER XXIII

WAGTAILS, SHRIKES, THRUSHES, ETC.

One can scarcely walk along the banks of a British stream in spring or summer without noticing a pretty and graceful bird, sometimes running along near the edge of the water, and stopping every now and then to pick off an insect from the herbage, and sometimes rising into the air to catch a fly or gnat. And one can easily understand why the name wagtail has been given to it, for no matter whether it is flying or running, its tail is never still. Sometimes, too, it may be seen in a damp meadow, or even on a lawn in a garden; and where one wagtail is, others are sure to be not very far off.

The nest of this bird is usually placed in a hole in a river-bank, or else among the spreading roots of a tree. It is made of dry grass, withered leaves, and moss, and is lined with hair, wool, or feathers.

This description applies excellently to a little American bird, known as the water-thrush, although it is not a true thrush, but one of the warblers, of which a great many sorts, some very beautiful, are seen in our woods in the spring, on their way north; but just a few appear to remain with us all the year round.

THE CREEPER

Running about on the trunks and branches of trees, and looking very much like a feathered mouse, you may often see the creeper. It is about as big as a wren, and has a long, slender, and slightly curved beak, which it is constantly poking into the cracks and crevices of the bark in search of insects. It always begins its quest low down on the trunk, and works its way gradually upward, peering into every little cranny, and seldom remaining still for a single moment. The larger boughs are examined in just the same way, and when the bird has reached the top of the tree it flies down to another and begins again, and so on all through the day. And in order to prevent it from getting tired, it has a short, stiff tail like that of the woodpecker, which serves as a kind of camp-stool, and supports the weight of the body.

The nest of this quaint little bird is nearly always placed in a hole in a tree-trunk. It is made of roots, twigs, fragments of bark, and grass, and is lined with wool and feathers. From six to nine eggs are laid, which are white in color, prettily spotted with yellowish red.

THE NUTHATCH

This is another bird that one may often see running about on the trunk of a tree. It is shaped rather like a wren, but is a little bigger than a sparrow, and has a bluish-gray head and back, a white throat and breast. It has the curious habit of keeping head downward almost continuously as it works.

The European nuthatch is very fond of nuts, which it cracks in a most curious way. First of all, it wedges a nut firmly in some crevice in the bark of a tree. Then, taking up its stand on the trunk just above, it deals blow after blow on the nut with its stout little beak, swinging itself up into the air every time that it does so and giving a flap with its wings, so as to add force to its stroke. It turns itself into a kind of live pickax, and after a very few blows the nutshell is split open, and the clever little bird is able to get at the kernel; but our American nuthatch seems to have forgotten this habit, if it ever had it, and lives almost wholly on insects.

The nuthatch makes its nest in a hole in a tree, and it is generally composed of small pieces of soft bark, lined with dry leaves. When the mother bird is sitting on her eggs, which are white in color, spotted with pink, she will peck most savagely at any enemy which may try to enter, hissing as she does so, just like a snake.

TITMICE

These birds can be seen almost everywhere, and very pretty and attractive little birds they are as they run about on the trunks and branches of trees, not seeming to mind in the least whether they are perching on a bough, or hanging upside down underneath it. And all the while they are searching every little chink and cranny in order to see whether any small insects are hiding within it.

It is a very good plan in winter to take a marrow-bone, or a little network bag with a lump of suet in it, and hang it from the branch of a tree for the titmice. Day after day the little birds will visit it, clinging to it in all sorts of positions, and pecking vigorously away at the suspended dainty. And they will like a cocoanut which has been cut in half almost as well.

Several other kinds of titmice are also found in the British Isles, of which the great tit, the cole-tit, and the blue tit are plentiful almost everywhere. They are all very much alike in habits, and they all build in holes in trees, making their nests of moss, hair, wool, and feathers, and laying six or eight white eggs, prettily speckled with light red.

Titmice abound in all northern countries and, we have several American species, one of which, the merry, courageous little black-capped chickadee, is known by both eye and ear to every one who takes any notice of birds. In the Southern States another familiar one is the peto, or crested chickadee, who, when he lifts his pointed gray cap, reminds one of a tiny jay. The Rocky Mountain region and Pacific coast have several other kinds--all delightful. Our titmice all make their nests in holes in trees and stumps, usually taking possession of the last year's home of a woodpecker.

In Europe there is a famous titmouse having a very different method. This is the long-tailed tit, or bottle-tit, as it is sometimes called, because its nest is shaped just like a bottle without a neck. It is sometimes placed in the fork of a branch, but more generally in the middle of a thick bush, and is made of wool, moss, and spider-silk, and is lined with quantities of soft downy feathers. And although it is by no means small it is very easily overlooked, for the clever little birds cover all the outside with bits of gray lichen, so as to make it look as much like the surrounding branches as possible.

In this beautiful and cosy nest from ten to twelve eggs are laid, which are white in color, with just a few very small reddish spots. When the young birds are nearly fledged they quite fill up their nursery, and you can actually see the walls swelling out and contracting again as the little creatures breathe. And how they all manage to keep their long tails unruffled in those narrow quarters nobody knows at all.

In winter you may often see a whole family of these pretty birds--father, mother, and ten or a dozen little ones--all flying about together, for they never separate until the spring.

THE SHRIKE

A notable bird is the shrike, which is also known as the butcher-bird, owing to a most curious habit. It is a bird of prey, feeding upon all sorts of small creatures, and it seems to know that though it can catch plenty of these on warm, sunny days, they will all be hiding away in their retreats when the weather is cold and rainy. So on a fine, bright morning it will catch many more victims than it wants at the time, and put them away in its larder! Sometimes you may find a thorn-bush with four or five mice, half a dozen unfledged birds, two or three fat caterpillars, a big beetle or two, and perhaps a bumblebee, all stuck upon the thorns, like the joints of meat hung up in a butcher's shop. Then you may be quite sure that you have discovered a butcher-bird's larder. And by and by, when a cold and wet day comes, and the bird can catch no prey, it just comes and takes some of these creatures from the thorns, and so obtains plenty of provisions!

There are two species of shrike in the United States--one which visits us from the south in summer and the other from the north in winter.

THRUSHES

The thrush family is spread all over the world, and contains some of the most noted of singing birds. No one can read English poetry, or much of the classic prose of our language, without meeting with the names of such birds as the mavis, the blackbird, the blackcap, and especially the nightingale, all European thrushes; even the English robin, after which our larger American redbreast is named, is a sort of thrush, closely related to our dear little bluebird.

THE ROBIN

The robin is a great favorite with the people of Europe, because it is so very trustful. We have actually seen one of these birds perching on a man's knee for quite a minute, while it looked about for worms in a plot of ground which he had just been digging. But it is by no means so gentle a bird as many people think. In fact, it is a very quarrelsome bird, for if two cock robins meet they are almost sure to fight, and very often the battle goes on until one of the two is killed!

A robin once took up his abode in Hereford Cathedral, and seemed to think that it was his own private property. For one day, when another robin came in, he was seen chasing it all over the building, and was at last found sitting triumphantly on its dead body!

You may find the nest of the robin in a hole in a bank or a wall, or perhaps in the stump of a tree. It is made of dry leaves, roots, grass, and moss, lined with hair, or wool, and contains either five or six yellowish-white eggs, spotted with light brown.

THE NIGHTINGALE

Perhaps no bird in the world is so famous as a songster as the nightingale, largely because of its habit of singing in the night, for its music is not preëminent above that of several other thrushes. The nightingale spends the winter in Africa, returning to Central Europe in April, and after that in the warmer parts of Great Britain and the continent it may be heard every night for weeks, especially when the moon shines; and sometimes nearly all day as well.

If one passes near a bush in which a nightingale is singing, it is worth while to stop and to whistle a few low notes. The bird imagines that it is being challenged by another nightingale, and begins to sing louder than before. Then it stops and listens; and if one whistles a few notes more it becomes very much excited, and comes closer and closer, singing all the time, till at last it finds out how it has been taken in. And then it begins to scold, chattering away in the greatest indignation at having been deceived!

Only the cock nightingale sings, and even he is only able to do so for a few weeks. For very soon after the eggs are hatched his voice breaks, just as that of the cuckoo does, and the only note which he is able to utter until spring comes round again is a harsh whistle, followed by a hoarse croak.

The nest of the nightingale is placed on the ground under a low bush, and is made almost entirely of dead leaves. It contains either four or five eggs, which are dark olive brown all over.

NORTH AMERICAN THRUSHES

There is a long list of thrushes among our North American birds, and some of them will compare well as songsters with any of the woodland choristers of the world. The voice of our red-breasted robin carols sweetly enough in the spring; but he is far excelled a little later in the season by the wood-thrush, the hermit-thrush, the veery and certain others which come from the south when the weather becomes warm. Some of these species, as the hermit and its relatives, pass on into Northern Canada to make their nests and rear their young; but fortunately others--and among them queens of song--remain with us in the United States all summer.

Of these the most commonly seen and heard is that richest of woodland musicians, the wood-thrush, whose serenely beautiful song, in four parts, separated by brief pauses, floats to our ears from orchard and grove and shady roadside as the quiet of the summer evening draws on, and we begin to enjoy the coolness and peace of the twilight.

This eloquent thrush is reddish brown or bright cinnamon above, brightest on the head; and white below, thickly ornamented with rounded black spots in lines from throat to thighs. It is the least shy of all the thrushes except the robin, yet gracefully modest in its demeanor. It constructs its nest on the low horizontal limb of some tree, always with the peculiarity that its foundation is a layer of old sear leaves and that black, thread-like rootlets are a favorite material for the walls. The eggs are unspotted blue, smaller and lighter than the greenish treasures in the mud-built cabin of the robin.

Next in point of numbers, though not so often recognized, as the wood-thrush is the oliveback, which is distinctly olive in color on the back and flanks, and whose buffy underparts are unspotted save across the breast. This species is highly variable, so that those of the Pacific coast differ considerably from those of the Atlantic side of the continent.

The same is true of the hermit-thrush, which is heard only in the more northern half of the continent in spring, when its rich, indescribable fluting perhaps deserves the prize of superiority over all other American bird-musicians.

The veery, or Wilson's tawny thrush, is also noted for its song, which has an extraordinary bell-like quality which excites first curiosity and then admiration.

The group of birds to which the thrushes belong is a very large one, and includes many smaller and variously colored birds, among which are such familiar American friends as the brown thrasher and its many cousins of the Southwest; the saucy, mewing, catbird--a frequenter of every garden and blackberry thicket in the land; those busybodies the wrens, and many others.

WRENS

One would not at first glance connect the great long-tailed brown thrasher with the tiny garden-wren which stuffs a hole in one of the barn timbers or a crevice in a broken tree with a mass of twigs surrounding a soft little bed for the red-sprinkled eggs; but when you closely compare the shape of bill and feet, and their general form and manners, the resemblance becomes more plain. Then you are not surprised to find the rough nest and speckled eggs of the big thrasher and the tiny wren much alike, and to find a resemblance in their songs, much as they differ in loudness.

Wrens have a curious way of beginning to build nests, and leaving them half finished. These are sometimes supposed to be the work of the male bird alone, and are called cocks' nests; and certainly the cock does not seem to take any part in building the true nest, for he simply sits on a branch close by and sings, while the hen does all the work. Perhaps he is lazy; or perhaps she thinks that she can build much better than he can, and so will not let him help her. And therefore it may be that he makes these cocks' nests just to show her what he can do. But as wrens are very timid birds, and will often desert their nest if one even puts one's finger inside, it seems rather more likely that they are nests which the birds have left unfinished because they thought that some enemy had discovered them.

THE DIPPER

Not unlike a very big wren with a white throat and breast is the curious and interesting dipper, well known to dwellers in the Rocky Mountains and the ranges west of them. It is never found far from water, and you may often see it perched upon a stone in the shallows of a river, bobbing up and down every now and then just as though it were making a courtesy. And every time that it does so it gives a quick little jerk to its tail, just as the wren does. It also makes a nest of moss, somewhat like that of the wren, which is placed in a hole in the bank of a stream, or often in a crevice of the rocks behind a cascade. It feeds on insects and water-shrimps, etc., and you may often see it busily hunting for the little beetles which are hiding among the moss on the large stones in the bed of a stream, where it actually walks on the bottom. It can swim and dive perfectly well, and keeps itself beneath the surface by flapping with its wings, while it searches for grubs in the mud at the bottom of the water. The dipper has a very bright and gay little song, and always seems happy, and busy, and active.

SWALLOWS AND MARTINS

Swallows and martins form a very distinct group of small birds well known to everybody, for no one can help noticing them as they sail through the air in swift graceful circles or skim low over the water in constant pursuit of the tiny flies which form their fare, and are so small that vast numbers must be caught. Familiar, too, is their coming in the spring, when they are welcomed as the special sign of returning pleasant weather after the season of cold storms; and in autumn we cannot but notice them gathering in large flocks along the telegraph lines or over the marshes, preparatory to departing to their winter retreat in the tropics.

These characteristics, as well as their appearance--slender, long-winged, dark-colored--belong to the swallows and martins all over the world; and they are alike in all countries in their fearless fondness for making close acquaintance with mankind when he dwells in settled homes.

COMMON SWALLOWS

Naturally, these birds are inhabitants of caves and rocky cliffs, or of hollow trees; but, like the swifts, the moment a man builds a house or barn in Europe, or Asia, or South America, there certain swallows are sure to come to live with him, just as they do around our village and farm houses in North America. Hence the English people call their common species house-swallow, and we give the name barn-swallow to our similar one. This is the very common species with the long, deeply forked tail, which sets its nest of mud and straw on the beams of our barns or plasters it against the walls or roof, always _inside_ the building. Almost equally widespread and numerous is another barn-loving kind, distinguished by its short square tail and its habit of forming bulb-shaped nests wholly of mud, and of placing them in rows _outside_ the building, close up under the eaves. These last are better known as eaves-swallows.

WELL-KNOWN MARTINS

Martin is a name applied to various swallows, but with us it denotes the big purple one which in the warmer parts of the country gladly takes possession of the pretty bird-houses which many persons set on poles in their gardens.

Another smaller, sooty-brown martin, is the sand-martin, or bank-swallow, which differs from all the rest in placing its eggs on a little bed of straw and feathers at the end of a long burrow which it bores into the face of a cliff of earth beside some river, where usually a large company live as happy neighbors. This species is one of the few birds known almost all over the world.