Part 8

Nesting.—_Nest_: on the ground in thick grass or weeds; a slight depression lined (carefully or not) and usually overarched with dried grasses. _Eggs_: 4-6, white, speckled and spotted, sometimes very sparingly, with cinnamon brown or purplish; very variable in shape, elliptical ovate to almost round. Av. size, 1.12 × .80 (28.5 × 20.3). _Season_: April and June; two broods. Tacoma, April 5, 1906, 4 fresh eggs.

General Range.—Western United States, southwestern British Provinces, and northwestern Mexico, east to prairie districts of Mississippi Valley, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, etc., occasionally to Illinois and Michigan; breeding thruout its range.

Range in Washington.—Abundant east and west of the Cascades; largely resident on the West-side, partially on the East-side; numbers augmented from the south during last week in February.

Authorities.—[Lewis and Clark, Hist. Ex. (1814), Ed. Biddle: Coues. Vol II. p. 186.] _Sturnella neglecta_ Aud., Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. IX. 1858, 539. T. C&S. L². Rh. D¹. Sr. Ra. D². Ss¹. Ss². Kk. B. E.

Specimens.—(U. of W.) Prov. B. E. BN. P¹.

Summer silences the birds so gradually and we ourselves have become so much absorbed in business during the prosy days of September that we have almost forgotten the choruses of springtime and have come to accept our uncheered lot as part of the established order of things. But on a nippy October morning, as we are bending over some dull task, there comes a sound which brings us to our feet. We hasten to the window, throw up the sash and lean out into the cool, fresh air while a Meadowlark rehearses, all at a sitting, the melodies of the year’s youth. It all comes back to us with a rush; the smell of lush grasses, the splendor of apple blossoms, the courage of lengthening days, the ecstacies of courtship—all these are recalled by the lark-song. It is as tho this forethoughted soul had caught the music of a May day, just at its prime, in a crystal vase, and was now pouring out the imprisoned sound in a gurgling, golden flood. What cheer! What heartening! Yea; what rejuvenation it brings! Wine of youth! Splashes of color and gay delight!

It is impossible not to rhapsodize over the Meadowlark. He is a rhapsodist himself. Born of the soil and lost in its embraces for such time as it pleases him, he yet quits his lowly station ever and again, mounts some fence-post or tree-top, and publishes to the world an unquenchable gladness in things-as-they-are. If at sunrise, then the gleams of the early ray flash resplendent from his golden breastplate,—this high-priest of morning; and all Nature echoes his joyous blast: “Thank God for sunshine!” Or if the rain begins to fall, who so quickly grateful for its refreshment as this optimist of the ground, this prophet of good cheer! There is even an added note of exultation in his voice as he shouts: “Thank God for rain!” And who like him can sing farewell to parting day! Piercing sweet from the meadows come the last offerings of day’s daysmen, peal and counterpeal from rival friendly throats, unfailing, unfaltering, unsubdued: “It is good to live. It is good to rest. Thank God for the day now done!”

The Meadowlark of the East has a poet’s soul but he lacks an adequate instrument of expression. His voice does not respond to his requirement. Perhaps his early education, as a species, was neglected. Certain it is that in passing westward across the prairies of Iowa or Minnesota one notices an instant change in the voices of the Meadowlarks. The song of the western bird is sweeter, clearer, louder, longer and more varied. The difference is so striking that we can explain it only upon the supposition of an independent development. The western bird got his early training where prairie wild flowers of a thousand hues ministered to his senses, where breath of pine mingled faintly with the aroma of neighboring cactus bloom, and where the sight of distant mountains fired the imagination of a poet race. At any rate we of the West are proud of the Western Meadowlark and would have you believe that such a blithe spirit could evolve only under such circumstances.

Bird song never _exactly_ conforms to our musical notation, and there is no instrument save the human “whistle” which will even passably reproduce the quality of the Meadowlark’s song. Nevertheless, many interesting experiments have been made in recording these songs and a little attention will convince the least accomplished musician that there is a fascinating field for study here.

A formal song of the Western Meadowlark comprises from four to a dozen notes, usually six or seven. The song phrases vary endlessly in detail, yet certain types are clearly distinguishable, types which reappear in different parts of the country, apparently without regard to local traditions or suppositional schools of song. Thus a Chelan singer says, “_Oku wheel′er, ku wheel′er_”, and he may not have a rival in a hundred miles; yet another bird on the University campus in Seattle sings, _Eh heu, wheel′iky, wheel′iky_, or even _Eh heu wheel′iky, wheel′iky, wheel′iky_, and you recognize it instantly as belonging to the same type. In like manner _Owy′hee, rec′itative_ was heard with perfect distinctness both at Wallula and in Okanogan County.

Each bird has a characteristic song-phrase by which he may be recognized and traced thru a season, or thru succeeding years. One boisterous spirit in Chelan I shall never forget for he insisted on shouting, hour after hour, and day after day, “_Hip! Hip! Hurrah! boys; three cheers!_” Yet, while this is true, no bird is confined to one style of song. An autumnal soloist in Ravenna Park rendered no less than six distinct songs or song-phrases in a rehearsal lasting five minutes. He gave them without regard to sequence, now repeating the same phrase several times in succession, now hurrying on to new forms, pausing only after each utterance for breath.

Nor is the effort of the Western Meadowlark confined to the formal song for he often pours out a flood of warbling, chattering and gurgling notes which at close range are very attractive. Not infrequently he will interrupt one of these meditative rhapsodies with the clarion call, and return immediately to his minor theme.

In the presence of a stranger the lark serves frequent notice of intended departure in a vigorous _toop_, or _toob_, accompanying the sound with an emphatic flirt of the wings and jerk of the tail. Now and then the actual departure is accompanied by a beautiful yodelling song. After several preliminary _toobs_ the bird launches himself with fantastic exaggeration of effort and rolls out, _O′ly o′ly o′ly o′ly o′ly_, with ravishing sweetness.

At nesting time the parent birds have many causes for apprehension, and as they move about in search of food they give vent to the _toob_ note of distrust in a fashion which soon becomes chronic. In Douglas County this note is doubled, _two′ bit_, or _two′ whit_, and one cannot recall the varied life of the sage in June without hearing as an undertone the half melancholy _two′ bit_ of a mother Meadowlark as she works her way homeward by fearful stages.

At nesting time the Western Meadowlark enjoys a wide distribution in Washington. It is found not only on all grassy lowlands and in cultivated sections but in the open sage as well and upon the half-open pine-clad foothills up to an altitude of four thousand feet.

The Meadowlark is an assiduous nester. This not because of any unusual amativeness but because young Meadowlarks are the _morceaux délicieux_ of all the powers that prey, skunks, weasels, mink, raccoons, coyotes, snakes, magpies, crows. Hawks and owls otherwise blameless in the bird-world err here—the game is too easy. Even the noble Peregrine does not disdain this humble, albeit toothsome, quarry, and the Least Falcon (_Falco sparverius phalæna_) will stoop for a young Meadowlark when all other avian offerings are virtuously passed by.

Fecundity then is the only recourse,—this, and concealment. Not relying altogether upon its marvelous protective coloration the lark exhibits great caution in approaching, and, if possible, in quitting its nest. In either case it sneaks along the ground for a considerable distance, threading the mazes of the grass so artfully that the human eye can follow with difficulty or not at all. At the approach of danger a sitting bird may either steal from her nest unobserved and rise at a safe distance or else seek to further her deception by feigning lameness after the fashion of the Shore-birds. Or, again, she may cling to her charge in desperation hoping against hope till the last possible moment and taking chances of final mishap. In this way a friend of mine once discovered a brooding Meadowlark imprisoned underneath his boot—fortunately without damage for she occupied the deep depression of a cow-track.

To further concealment the grass-lined depression in which the Meadowlark places her four or five speckled eggs is almost invariably over-arched with dried grasses. This renders the eggs practically invisible from above, and especially if the nest is placed in thick grass or rank herbage, as is customary. Touching instances of blind devotion to this arch tradition were, however, afforded by a sheep-swept pasture near Adrian. Here the salt-grass was cropped close and the very sage was gnawed to stubs. But the Meadowlarks, true to custom, had imported long, dried grasses with which to over-arch their nests. As a result one had only to look for knobs on the landscape. By eye alone we located six of these pathetic landmarks in the course of a half-hour’s stroll.

One brood is usually brought off by May 1st and another by the middle of June. Altho Meadowlarks are classed as altricial, i. e. having young helpless when hatched and which require to be nurtured in the nest, the young Meadowlarks are actually very precocious and scatter from the nest four or five days after hatching, even before they are able to fairly stand erect. This arrangement lessens the chances of wholesale destruction but it would appear to complicate the problem from the parental standpoint. How would you, for instance, like to tend five babies, each in a separate thicket in a trackless forest, and that haunted by cougars, and lynxes, and boa-constrictors and things?

We cannot afford to be indifferent spectators to this early struggle for existence, for it is difficult to overestimate the economic value of the Meadowlark. The bird is by choice almost exclusively insectivorous. If, however, when hard pressed, he does take toll of the fallen wheat or alfalfa seed, he is as easily justifiable as is the hired man who consumes the farmer’s biscuits that he may have the strength to wield the hoe against the farmer’s weeds. Being provided with a long and sensitive bill, the Meadowlark not only gleans its insect prey from the surface of the ground, but works among the grass roots, and actually probes the earth in its search for wire- and cut-worms, those most dreaded pests. Besides devouring injurious grubs and insects of many kinds, the Lark has a great fondness for grasshoppers, subsisting almost entirely upon these in the season of their greatest abundance. In the matter of grasshopper consumption alone Meadowlarks of average distribution, are estimated by no less an authority than Professor Beal, to be worth about twenty-four dollars per month, per township, in saving the hay crop. To the individual farmer this may seem a small matter, but in the aggregate the saving to the nation amounts to some hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Even in winter, when a few individuals or occasional companies of Larks are still to be found, a large proportion of their food consists of hardy beetles and other insects, while weed-seed and scattering grain is laid under tribute, as it were, reluctantly.

It goes without saying that we cannot regard this bird as lawful game. We exempt the horse from slaughter not because its flesh is unfit for food—it is really very sapid—but because the animal has endeared itself to our race by generations of faithful service. We place the horse in another category, that of animal friend. And the human race, the best of it, has some time since discovered compunctions about eating its friends. Make friends with this bonny bird, the Meadowlark, and you will be ashamed thenceforth to even discuss assassination. Fricassee of prima donna! Voice of morning _en brochette_! Bird-of-merry-cheer on toast! Faugh! And yet that sort of thing passed muster a generation ago—does yet in the darker parts of Europe!

_Fringillidæ_—The Finches

No. 23. WESTERN EVENING GROSBEAK.

A. O. U. No. 514a. Hesperiphona vespertina montana Ridgway.

Description.—_Adult male_: Forehead and superciliaries gamboge yellow; feathers about base of bill, lores, and crown black; wings black with large white patch formed by tips of inner secondaries and tertials; tail black; remaining plumage sooty olive brown about head and neck, shading thru olive and olive-green to yellow on wing and under tail-coverts. Bill bluish horn-color and citron yellow; feet brownish. _Adult female_: General color deep smoky brownish gray or buffy brown, darker on the head, lighter on wings, lighter, more buffy, on sides, shading to dull whitish on throat and abdomen, tinged with yellowish green on hind-neck, clearing to light yellow on axillars and under wing-coverts; a small clear white patch at base of inner primaries; white blotches on tips of upper tail-coverts and inner webs of tail-feathers in varying proportions. Length about 8.00 (203.2); wing 4.39 (111.5); tail 2.42 (61.4); bill .82 (20.8); depth at base .62 (15.9); tarsus. 81 (20.3). Female very slightly smaller.

Recognition Marks.—Chewink size; olive-brown coloration with black and white in masses on wings; large, conical beak distinctive; high-pitched call note.

Nesting.—Has not yet been found breeding in Washington but undoubtedly does so. _Nest_ (as reported from New Mexico): principally composed of fine rootlets with some Usnea moss and a few sticks, settled upon horizontal branches of pine or fir, near tip, and at considerable heights; in loose colonies. _Eggs_: 4, “in color, size, form, and texture indistinguishable from those of the Red-winged Blackbird” (Birtwell).

General Range.—Western United States and Northern Mexico; east to and including Rocky Mountains; north to British Columbia.

Range in Washington.—Co-extensive with evergreen timber and appearing irregularly elsewhere. Resident within State but roving locally. Winters regularly in parks of the larger cities.

Authorities.—? _Fringilla vespertina_ Townsend, Journ. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila. VIII. 1839, 154 (Columbia R.). _Hesperiphona vespertina_ Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. IX. 1858, 409. T. C&S. Ra. Kk. B. E.

Specimens.—U. of W. P¹. Prov. B. E.

Sparrows are also called Cone-bills; it is, therefore, fair that the bird with the biggest cone should take precedence in a family history. But for this primacy there are damaging limitations. The Grosbeak is neither the most beautiful nor the most tuneful of the Fringillidæ, if he is by common consent rated the oddest. His garb is a patchwork; his song a series of shrieks; his motions eccentric; his humor phlegmatic; and his concepts beyond the ken of man. Altho at times one of the most approachable of birds, he is, on the whole, an avian freak, a rebus in feathers.

Perhaps we make too much of a mystery of him, just as we rate the owl highest in wisdom for the single discretion of silence, which any dunderhead may attain. But now take this group in the park; just what are they at? They sit there stolidly in the rowan tree where all the passersby may take note of them, giving vent ever and anon to explosive yelps, but _doing nothing_ by the hour, until an insane impulse seizes one of their number to be off to some other scene no better, be it near or far, and the rest yield shrieking consent by default of alternative idea. It is all so unreasonable, so uncanny, that it irritates us.

Evening Grosbeaks are semi-gregarious the year around, but are seen to best advantage in winter or early spring, when they flock closely and visit city parks or wooded lawns. One is oftenest attracted to their temporary quarters by the startling and disconnected noises which are flung out broadcast. It may be that the flock is absorbed in the depths of a small fir, so that one may come up near enough to analyze the sound. Three sorts of notes are plainly distinguishable: a low murmuring of pure tones, quite pleasant to the ear; a harsh but subdued rattle, or alarm note, _wzzzt_ or _wzzzp_, familiarly similar to that of the Crossbill; and the high-pitched shriek, which distinguishes the bird from all others, _dimp_. A little attention brings to light the fact that all the birds in the flock bring out this astonishing note at _precisely the same pitch_. Once distinguished, this note will serve again and again to draw attention to this uncanny fowl, as it passes overhead or loses itself in the bosom of some giant conifer.

It is not a little surprising at first thought, that the habits of these birds are best known in our larger cities, Seattle, Tacoma, Spokane, and Portland. Why they should be especially attracted to them, it is hard to say, unless it be that they love the din of urban life, which they help so valiantly to promote. But it is easy to see why they are more noticeable there; for their showy and patchy coloration marks them as distinguished visitors in town, whereas in the forest their colors so melt into and harmonize with their surroundings that it is difficult to follow their movements.

These Grosbeaks, or New World Hawfinches, are not to be commended as horticulturists. In winter they feed largely upon the ground, gleaning fallen seeds and fruits; and are especially fond of the winged key of the large-leafed maple (_Acer macrophyllum_). They drop down to such a feast one by one from the branches above, and it is amusing to note how the loud cracking of seeds is interspersed with music. A little later the birds devote themselves to swelling buds, and here too the maple is a favorite; tho ash, alder, flowering currant, and a dozen more are not disdained. The damage done is not considerable; for the birds, viewed in the large, are not numerous enough, all told, to be taken seriously; but viewed in the concrete, the snip, snip, of those mandibles in the lilac bushes is no idle joy.

It may be that the key of high C sharp, or whatever it be, _staccato con moto_, is the accepted love note, and that the green-liveried swain hurls declarations at his enamorata, like Samson in Handel’s oratorio, the live-long year. Anyway, his exertions are redoubled in early June, and he charges about in a reckless frenzy which should make the city gape. June, 1906, was memorable to us for the abundance of these Grosbeaks in the vicinity of Spokane. The very air of Cannon Hill and Hangman’s Creek seemed charged with expectation of Grosbeaks’ nests. But they were not for us. Nor has the nest yet been taken in Washington.

No. 24. ALASKAN PINE GROSBEAK.

A. O. U. No. 515c. Pinicola enucleator alascensis Ridgway.

Synonym.—Pine Bullfinch.

Description.—_Adult male_: In highest plumage rosy red (poppy red); back with dusky centers of feathers; lower belly and under tail-coverts ashy gray—this high plumage is the exception; in general the rosy gives place to ashy gray in varying proportions; wings and tail ashy dusky; tips of middle and greater coverts and outer edges of exposed tertials white (or rosy). Bill dusky; feet blackish. _Adult female_: Similar to male but rosy replaced by dingy yellow (varying from olive-yellow, olive-tawny and ochraceous to bricky red) and chiefly confined to head, hind-neck and upper tail-coverts (where brightest); feathers of back frequently tipped with ochraceous and breast with an ochrey wash. Length about 8.60 (218.4); wing 4.60 (117); tail 3.66 (93); bill .57 (14.5); tarsus .89 (22.7).

Recognition Marks.—Chewink size; large, rounded conical beak; red and gray coloration for size distinctive.

Nesting.—“_Nest_, composed of a basement of twigs and rootlets within which is a more compact fabric of finer materials. _Eggs_, usually 4, pale greenish blue, spotted and blotched with dark brown surface markings and lilac shell-spots.” Av. size 1.05 × .74 (26.7 × 18.8). _Season_: About June 1st; one brood.

General Range.—“Northwestern North America, except Pacific Coast, breeding in interior of Alaska; south, in winter, to eastern British Columbia, Montana (Bitterroot Valley), etc.” (Ridgway).

Range in Washington.—Reported by Allan Brooks as breeding in the Mt. Baker district (as below); should occur upon the timbered lowlands in winter.

Authorities.—Allan Brooks _in epist._ Dawson, Auk Vol. XXV. Oct. 1908, p. 482.

Specimens.—Prov.

This large and handsome Finch is of very irregular occurrence in southern British Columbia excepting the higher mountain ranges, where it breeds. During some winters it is present in large numbers, while in others, equally severe, none are seen. The species was very common throughout the winter of 1906-1907, a very severe one; but in that of 1901-1902, which was notably mild, Pine Grosbeaks were noticed in considerable numbers as far south as Penticton, 40 miles north of the international boundary, and they undoubtedly occurred much farther south.

Their food in the winter months is principally berries, but, strange to say, they altogether refuse those of the mountain ash, both the introduced and indigenous species. The former is the favorite food of the Eastern Pine Grosbeak thruout the winter in Ontario, but trees loaded with fruit were passed by at Okanagan Landing in the winter of 1906-1907, even after the birds had eaten all the rose hips and snow berries and were reduced to eating weed seeds with the _Leucostictes_.

Either this sub-species or _montana_ breeds on all the higher mountain ranges in British Columbia, occupying a zone from timber line downwards about 2,000 feet.

My first acquaintance with the Pine Grosbeak at its breeding grounds, was in the Cascade Mountains due north of Mt. Baker, on both sides of the Forty-ninth Parallel. Here the species was a somewhat sparing breeder close to timber line among the hemlock and balsam timber. They were feeding young on the 17th of July; at the same time Crossbills had fully grown young in flocks. No red males were seen, though many gray males were singing in the early mornings from the topmost spray of some balsam.

In the writer’s opinion the red plumage in the male is acquired at the first moult or immediately after the juvenal dress, and is usually only retained for one season; in some males a duller red dress is carried through the second summer, or more rarely a salmon-pink one; but in most cases the dress of the second summer is a gray one like the females, with yellow head and rump. Females may sometimes be seen with decidedly red heads and rumps,—from the size and shape of the bill these seem to be very old birds. The above remarks as to the red dress in the male apply also, in the writer’s experience, to the genera _Loxia_, _Carpodacus_ and _Acanthis_.

Allan Brooks.

No. 25. AMERICAN CROSSBILL.

A. O. U. No. 521. Loxia curvirostra minor (Brehm.).

Synonym.—Red Crossbill.