Part 46

=Nightingale= (_Daulias luscinia_).--The common nightingale is well known as the finest of songsters. It is rather larger than the hedge-sparrow, with about the same proportionate length of wings and tail. It is of a rich russet-brown color above, shading into reddish chestnut on the tail-coverts and tail; the lower part grayish-white; bill, legs, and feet brown. The sexes are alike in plumage. It is a native of many parts of Europe and Asia, and of the north of Africa, and is a bird of passage, extending its summer migrations on the continent of Europe as far north as Sweden. It frequents thickets and hedges and damp meadows near streams, and feeds very much on worms, beetles, insects, ants’ eggs, caterpillars, and other insect larvæ. The male bird sings by day as well as by night, but at night its song is most noticeable and characteristic. The variety, loudness and richness of its notes are equally extraordinary; and its long, quivering strains are full of plaintiveness as well as of passionate ecstasy. The ancient Romans paid more for a nightingale than they paid for a slave.

=Orioles= (_Oriolidæ_) are confined entirely to the Old World and are characteristic of the Oriental and Ethiopian regions. The birds called “Orioles” in the United States belong to an entirely different family, the _Icteridae_. The members of the family are generally of a bright yellow or golden color, which is well set off by the black of the wings.

Twenty-four species are enumerated, the best known being the GOLDEN ORIOLE. The adult male is about nine inches long. Its general color is a rich, golden yellow; the bill is dull orange-red; a black streak reaches from its base to the eye; the iris is blood-red; the wings are black, marked here and there with yellow, and a patch of yellow forms a conspicuous wing-spot; the two middle feathers of the tail are black, inclining to olive at the base, the very tips yellow, the base half of the others black, the other half yellow; legs, feet and claws dark brown. The female is less yellow than the male, and the under parts are streaked with gray. In central and southern Europe it is common in summer in certain localities; it is abundant in Persia, and ranges through central Asia as far as to Irkutsk. It winters in South Africa. Its food consists of insects and their larvæ, especially green caterpillars, and fruits such as currants, cherries and mulberries. The song of the male is short, loud, clear, and flutelike; he has also a mewing call-note, and a harsh alarm-note. The nest is unlike that of any other European bird; it is placed in, and suspended from, a fork in a horizontal branch, sometimes of an oak, usually of a pine, in a shady grove or thick wood, and is made of bark, wool and grass.

The BALTIMORE ORIOLES (_Icterus galbula_) range in color through orange, black, yellow and gray. They are sociable birds and seem to like the company of mankind, for their nests are, from choice, built as near as possible to houses, often being where they can be reached from windows. As they use a great deal of string in the construction of their nests, children often get amusement by placing bright-colored pieces of yarn where the birds will get them, and watch them weave them into their homes. Their song is a clear, querulous, varied whistle or warble; the call, a plaintive whistle. The Baltimore Oriole is found east of the Rockies, breeding north to New Brunswick and Manitoba. They winter in Central America.

=Robin= (_Planesticus migratorius_).--These well-known birds are very abundant in the northern half of the United States, being found most commonly about farms and dwellings in the country, and also in cities if they are not persecuted too severely by English Sparrows.

The male has a black head and bright reddish brown breast; the female, a gray head and much paler breast; the young, intermediate between the two and with a reddish brown breast spotted with black.

The song of the Robin is a loud, cheery carol, “cheerily-cheerup, cheerily-cheerup,” often long continued. The nest is a coarse but substantial structure of mud and grass, placed on horizontal boughs or in forks at any height, or in any odd place about dwellings; the four or five eggs are bluish green. Robins range throughout eastern North America, breeding from the middle of the United States northward. They winter throughout the same region. The Southern Robin is a paler form found in the Carolinas and Georgia.

=Sparrows= (_Fringillidæ_) are small plain-colored birds, with narrow palates, small conical bills, and streaked plumage. The English Sparrow (_Passer domesticus_) was introduced into United States in 1853, and has since spread to a remarkable extent, in cities, driving off other birds. The white-throated sparrow, an American form, is really a bunting. Other American sparrows have little in common with the English Sparrow. All American sparrows wear the characteristic brown streaked plumage of the group, and include the small chestnut-capped chipping sparrow of gardens, the song sparrow, the little active seashore sparrow, and the large handsome fox sparrow.

SONG SPARROW (_Melospiza melodia_).--This is probably the best known, most abundant and most widely distributed of all our birds. They are quite hardy and many of them winter in the northern states, but the majority go farther south, returning to their summer homes about the first of March. They may be found anywhere where there are bushes, vines or hedges, and very often about houses, even in large cities.

Their song is very pleasing and musical, strongly resembling brilliant measures from that of the Canary.

The nest of grass is either on the ground or in bushes, and contains three to five bluish-white eggs, profusely spotted with brown. The Song Sparrow breeds from Virginia and Missouri north to southern Canada. It winters from Massachusetts and Ohio southward. Many local races are found west of the Rockies, but only one east of them. Dakota Song Sparrow is found in the vicinity of Turtle Mountains, North Dakota; it is lighter above and brighter below.

=Swallows= (_Hirundinidæ_) are birds with long pointed wings, small feet, short, broad bill, and ten tail feathers. About one hundred species are known, almost universal in distribution. They feed while flying, catching insects. Some build nests in crevices, some dig holes in banks, and others make mud nests plastered against walls. The Barn Swallow of the United States, much like that of Europe, is lustrous steel blue, pale chestnut below, tail deeply forked. It arrives early in May and remains until late August. The American Chimney Swallow is a Swift. The Purple Swallow, or Purple Martin is a North American species. The general color, both of the upper and under parts, is shining purplish blue; the wings and tail black. It is a universal favorite and is hailed as the harbinger of spring. The Republican Swallow or Cliff-swallow of North America, makes a nest of mud, in form somewhat like a Florence flask, which it attaches to a rock or to the wall of a house. Hundreds sometimes build their nests in close proximity.

=Thrasher= (_Toxostoma rufum_) an American mimic bird or mocking thrush, is common in the eastern United States, mainly rust red above and whitish below, the breast and sides marked with lines of elongated brown spots. It is called also the Brown, Red, or Ferruginous Thrush, the Corn-planter, and French or Sandy Mockingbird. The song of this Thrasher is most musical and pleasing. It has a similarity to that of the Catbird, but is rounder, fuller and has none of the grating qualities of the song of that species. They apparently have a song of their own and do not deign to copy that of others. They are one of the most useful and desirable birds that we have. The SAGE THRASHER (_Oroscoptes montanus_) is often known as the Mountain Mockingbird because of the brilliance of its song, a very varied performance, long continued and mocking that of many other species. They inhabit sage-brush regions and are partial to the lower portions of the country, although frequently met in open mountains. They are not shy and can readily be located by their voices.

They nest in bushes, especially the sage and cactus, and range through the sage-brush regions of western United States from the Plains to the Pacific.

=Thrush= (_Turdus_), belongs to a family including many of the most familiar song-birds of Europe and America. The best-known American Thrush is the Robin. (See Robin). The Wood-thrush has a most melodious evening song, and is nearly as large as the Robin; the Hermit Thrush, has an even more exquisite song, which, owing to the habits of the bird is less frequently heard; Wilson’s Tawny Thrush has a strange, bell-like song. Other American thrushes include the Olive-backed and the Gray-cheeked varieties. The largest known British species is the Missel Thrush, sometimes called the “Stormcock,” from its habit of singing before or during wind or rain.

The SONG THRUSH (_Turdus musicus_) is smaller in size, and possesses finer powers of song. It is olive grey on the upper parts, while the under parts are a lighter grey, with dark fleckings. It is a true inhabitant of the woods, and comes to us early in March, animating nature, then just waking, with its musical song. The Song Thrush lives upon insects, and also upon snails, which it strikes upon a stone in order to break their shells.

=Warblers= (_Mniotiltidæ_).--Numerous species of warblers are found in North America which appear to graduate into the Tanagers. They are birds of brighter plumage than the Old-World Warblers, but resemble them in their habits, and are also migrants. The BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER (_Dendroica fusca_) is the most exquisite of the whole family; it is the most eagerly sought bird by bird lovers, in the spring. Some years they are very abundant, while in others few are seen, their routes of migration evidently varying. They arrive about the time that apple trees are in bloom, and are frequently seen among the blossoms, dashing after insects. Their song, a high-pitched lisping “zwe-zwe-zwe-see-ee-ee,” ending in a thin, wiry tone, almost a hiss, is very distinct from the song of any other bird. They nest in coniferous trees at any height from the ground. Shreds of bark, fine cedar twigs, rootlets, etc., are used in constructing nests. The MAGNOLIA WARBLER (_Dendroica magnolia_) is one of the prettiest of the Warblers and one of the least timid. Birch woods are their favorites during migrations, although a few of them will be found almost anywhere. They utter a short, rapid warble.

=Wrens= (_Troglodytes_) have a slender, slightly curved and pointed bill; the wings are very short and rounded; the tail short, and carried erect; the legs slender, and rather long. Their plumage is generally dull. Some fifteen species are recognized in North America, of which the most familiar and widely distributed is the HOUSE-WREN (_Troglodytes ædon_). These are bold, sociable and confiding birds, seemingly to prefer men’s society, building their nests in bird boxes that are erected for them, or in the most unexpected situations about buildings. They are one of the most beneficial birds that can be attracted to one’s yard, feeding wholly upon insects. Their songs are loud, clear and bubbling over with enthusiasm.

Wrens breed north to Maine and Manitoba and winter along the Gulf Coast. The Western House Wren is found from the Plains to the Pacific coast ranges.

=THE WADING BIRDS= (_Struthiones_)

In this class of birds, the beak is generally slender, the legs long and stilt-like. The struthiones live in marshy spots, and on the banks of rivers. They feed upon the reptiles and insects found in water and marshy districts, and upon plants. Most of the wading birds are migratory.

=Adjutant= (_Leptoptilus argala_), is a bird, common during summer in India. Generally stork-like in appearance, it stands about five feet high, and measures fourteen or fifteen feet from tip to tip of extended wings. The four-sided pointed bill is very large; the head and neck are almost bare; and a sausage-like pouch, sometimes sixteen inches long, and apparently connected with respiration, hangs down from the base of the neck. While feeding largely on carcases and offal about the towns, it also fishes for living food, and sometimes devours birds and small mammals. The loose under-tail feathers are sometimes used for decorative purposes.

=Bittern= (_Botaurus_).--The American species makes a rude nest of sticks, reeds, etc., in its marshy haunts, and lays four or five greenish-brown eggs. The bird is sluggish, and its flight is neither swift nor long sustained. When assailed, it fights desperately with bill and claws; and it is dangerous to approach it incautiously when wounded, as it strikes with its long sharp bill, if possible, at the eye. It is common in many parts of North America, migrating according to the season. The crown of the head is reddish brown, and the colors and markings of the plumage differ considerably from those of the common bittern.

=Crane= (_Grallatores cinerea_).--This family of birds differs from herons, storks, etc., in having the hind-toe placed higher on the leg than the front ones, and in certain characters of bill and skull. The members are also less addicted to marshy places, and feed not only on animal, but, to a considerable extent, on vegetable food. The cranes are all large birds, long-legged, long-necked, long-billed, and of powerful wing. Some of them perform great migrations, and fly at a great height in the air. The young cranes are helpless and require to be fed. Only two eggs are laid. The crane, when standing, is about four feet in height; the prevailing color is ash-gray; the head bears bristly feathers, and has a naked crown, reddish in the male; the bill, which is longer than the head, is reddish at the root, dark green at the apex; the feet are blackish; the tail is short and straight. They are very stately birds, though their habit of bowing and dancing is often grotesque. They feed on roots, seeds, etc., as well as on worms, insects, reptiles and even some of the smallest quadrupeds. The flesh is much esteemed.

The Whooping Crane (_G. americana_) is considerably larger than the common crane, which it otherwise much resembles except in color; its plumage, in its adult state, is pure white, the tips of the wings black. It spends the winter in the southern parts of North America. In summer it migrates far north.

=Heron= (_Ardea_) a large bird covered with long, loose down, with large wings, and a hard horny bill longer than the head, compressed from side to side, and united to the skull by firm, broad bones.

In the Heron genus--which includes the species commonly known as Egrets--the plumage is beautiful, but seldom exhibits very gay colors; white, brown, black, and slate, finely blended, generally predominating. The body is small in proportion to the length of the neck and the limbs. Herons are very voracious, feeding mostly on fish and other aquatic animals; but they also often prey on snakes, frogs, rats, and mice, and the young of other birds.

The Common Heron (_Ardea cinerea_) measures about three feet from the point of the bill to the tip of the tail. It is of a delicate gray color on the upper parts, the quill-feathers are black, the tail of a deep slate color, and the long plume is glossy dark. It generally builds its nest on a high tree; and as many as eighty nests have been counted on a single oak. America has many species of herons, most numerous in its warmer parts.

A common species of the temperate parts is the green heron (_A. virescens_), whose flesh is much esteemed. Other important species are the Great Blue Heron (_A. herodias_), the Great White or Florida Heron (_A. occidentalis_), the Great White Egret (_A. egretta_), and the Little White Egret (_A. candidissima_).

The Peacock Heron (_A. helias_) of South America, a small heron of exquisitely graceful shape and mien, with plumage variegated with colored spots and bars, is a favorite pet bird of the Brazilians.

=Ibis= (_Ibidoideæ_).--These birds are related to the spoonbills, and, more remotely, to the storks and herons. The bill is long, slender, curved, thick at the base, the point rather obtuse, the upper mandible deeply grooved throughout its length. The face and generally the greater part of the head, and sometimes even the neck, are destitute of feathers, at least in adult birds. The plumage is mainly white, with black feathers and plumes on the wings. The neck is long. The legs are rather long, naked above the joint, with three partially united toes in front, and one behind; the wings are moderately long; the tail is very short.

The Sacred or Egyptian Ibis, is an African bird, two feet six inches in length, although the body is little larger than that of a common fowl. The ancient Egyptians worshiped it as the emblem of purity, and used to embalm it.

The Glossy Ibis is a smaller species, also African, but migrating northward into continental Europe, and occasionally seen in Britain. It is also a North American bird. Its habits resemble those of the Sacred Ibis. Its color is black, varied with reddish brown, and exhibiting fine purple and green reflections. It has no loose pendent feathers.

The White Ibis, a species with pure white plumage, once abounded on the coasts of Florida, but has been killed off by feather hunters, so that it is rare except in the remote tropics.

The Scarlet Ibis is a tropical American species, remarkable for its brilliant plumage, which is scarlet, with a few patches of glossy black.

The Straw-necked Ibis is a large Australian bird of fine plumage, remarkable for stiff, naked, yellow feather-shafts on the neck and throat.

=Plovers.=--Wading shore birds sometimes also known as Sandpipers. Their bills are long for probing in the mud. The wings are long and pointed. The most peculiar species lives in New Zealand: its bill is sharply bent either to the right or left, near the end, enabling it to secure food from beneath stones.

North America has a number of species of plovers, such as the Kildeer Plover, abundant on the great western prairies, and not unfrequent in the Atlantic states. It utters, when approached by man, a querulous or plaintive cry.

UPLAND PLOVER (_Bartramia longicauda_) is the only plainly colored shorebird which occurs east of the plains and inhabits exclusively dry fields and hillsides. It breeds from Oregon, Utah, Oklahoma, Indiana, and Virginia, north to Alaska; winters in South America. It is the most terrestrial of our waders, is shy and wary, but has the one weakness of not fearing men on horseback or in a vehicle. Since the bird is highly prized as a table delicacy, it has been hunted to the verge of extermination. Ninety-seven per cent of the food of this species consists of animal forms, chiefly of injurious and neutral species. It injures no crop, but consumes a host of the worst enemies of agriculture.

=Stork= (_Ciconia alba_).--The storks are usually divided into the True Storks and the American “Wood Ibises” (_Tantalus_). There are about a dozen species. They belong chiefly to the Old World. The most familiar representative of the family is the Common Stork or White Stork (_Ciconia alba_), a native of the greater part of the Old World, a migratory. bird, its range extending even to the northern parts of Scandinavia. It is about three and one-half feet in length. The head, neck, and whole body are pure white; the wings partly black; the bill and legs red. The neck is long, and generally carried in an arched form; the feathers of the breast are long and pendulous, and the bird often has its bill half hidden among them. The flight is very powerful and high in the air; the gait slow and measured. In flight the head is thrown back and the legs extended. The stork sleeps standing on one leg, with the neck folded, and the head turned backward on the shoulder. It frequents marshy places, feeding on eels and other fishes, frogs, lizards, snakes, slugs, young birds, small mammals, and insects. It makes a rude nest of sticks, reeds, etc., on the tops of tall trees, or of ruins, spires, or houses. There are four or five eggs, white tinged with buff; and the old nest is re-occupied next year.

=Woodcock= (_Scolopax_).--Their nest is formed simply by lining a sheltered hollow with dead leaves, and three or four yellowish eggs with brown markings are laid in March or early in April. The young birds are sometimes carried by the mother from place to place, and the manner of carrying has given rise to much discussion. The woodcock feeds in the early morning and at dusk on worms, beetles, small crustaceans, etc., the quantity of food consumed being very large. The adult bird measures about fourteen inches, and weighs less than one pound.

The American Woodcock (_S. minor_) is a smaller bird than the European species, and it also is in much request for table use. It is eleven inches in length, and is found east of the Mississippi and south of the Canadian forests.

=THE SWIMMING BIRDS= (_Natatores_)

The beak is of a medium length; the front toes are, as a rule, joined together by a membrane, to aid the birds in swimming. The natatores live upon all still and flowing bodies of water, and feed upon the water reptiles and insects, rarely upon the water plants; and they are esteemed for their flesh, eggs, and feathers.

=Albatross= (_Diomedea_).--The Common or Wandering Albatross (_D. exulans_) is the largest of web-footed birds, measuring four feet in length, and from ten up to as much as seventeen feet in spread of wings. It weighs fifteen to twenty pounds, or even more. The wings are, however, narrow in proportion to their length. It often approaches very near to vessels, and is one of the objects of interest which present themselves to voyagers far away from land, particularly when it is seen sweeping the surface of the ocean in pursuit of fish and garbage. It seems rather to float and glide in the air, than to fly like other birds, for, except when it is rising from the water, the motion of its long wings is scarcely perceptible. It is affirmed by some to sail by setting its wings like sails, and to make headway against the wind without flapping. The albatross has great powers of sustained flight. It often follows a ship for a considerable time, and it has been calculated that it may fly seven hundred and twenty nautical miles in a day.

The plumage is soft and abundant, mostly white, dusky on the upper parts, with some of the feathers of the back and wings black. The bill is of a delicate pink, inclining to yellow at the tip.

The albatross is extremely voracious; it feeds on fish, cuttle-fish, jelly-fish, etc., but has no objection to the flesh of a dead whale, or to any kind of carrion. When food is abundant it gorges itself like the vultures, and then sits motionless upon the water, so that it may sometimes be taken with the hand. Its hoarse cry has been compared to that of the pelican, but is sometimes more suggestive of the braying of an ass. The single egg is four or five inches long, of a white color, spotted at the larger end. The nestling is white, the young somewhat brownish and of slow growth.

There are seven species. One of these, the Sooty Albatross (_D. fuliginosa_), chiefly found within the Antarctic circle, is called by sailors the Quaker Bird, on account of the prevailing brown color of its plumage.

=Flamingo= (_Phœnicopterus ruber_), a shore bird of Mediterranean, East Indian, and West Indian regions is essentially a greatly modified Goose. Its legs and neck are very long and its bill abruptly bent downward. It feeds with top of head down, sifting the mud, but retaining the small worms, crustaceans, molluscs, fishes, etc., on which the birds subsist.