Part 4
“in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear!”
Out of the pines and into the oak woods: the change was very abrupt, and as complete as possible. Every feature of the surroundings was bathed in light now, and the emergence from the pine forest’s gloom restored our spirits. We are ever craving variety, and there was positive beauty in every stunted oak’s ugliness, and from them we needed but to turn our heads to see thrifty magnolias near the river-bank. These have no special enemy, now that the beavers are gone, and thrive in the black mud by the water’s edge; better, by far, than the gum-trees near them, for these were heavy laden with pallid mistletoe,—to me a most repugnant growth.
We reached open country at last, and here were birds without number. How quickly all else fades at such a time! The whole valley trembled with the ringing whistle of a thousand red-wings. A few swallows—the first of their kind to return—darted over the wide waters and rested on projecting branches of trees that floods had stranded on the islands. The sprightly kill-deers ran with such dainty steps over the sand that I could not find their footprints. They, too, were pioneer birds, but none the less light-hearted because alone. They sang with all their last year’s earnestness, scattering music among the marshes where frogs were now holding high carnival. They were very tame, at least so far as we were concerned, but a little in doubt as to what a stray hawk might be about. But they left us only to make room for others, and whether we looked riverward or landward mattered not: it was birds, birds, birds! Here a hundred sparrows in an oak, there a troop of snow-birds in the bushes, a whistling titmouse sounding his piercing notes, the plaintive bluebird floating overhead, the laugh of the loon at the bend of the river, and buzzards searching for stranded herring where the seine had been drawn.
A flock of herons, too, passed overhead, and, had they not seen us, might have stopped here on the river-shore. What an addition to a landscape! and yet now so seldom seen. No birds can be more harmless than they, yet not even the hawks are subject to greater persecution. Not long since these birds were abundant, and a “heronry” was one of the “sights” of many a neighborhood; but people now scarcely know what a “heronry” is. The very word suggests how rapidly our large birds are disappearing, and their roosting-places, where hundreds gathered and nested, too, in season, are matters of “ancient history.” In fear and trembling, the herons that linger about our watercourses singly seek secluded trees wherein to rest, and, I fear, even then sleep with one eye open. A fancy, on the part of women, for heron plumes has wrought a deal of mischief.
But where is the pyxie? We knew it must be near at hand, but why make haste to find it? All else was so beautiful here, why not wait even until another day? The river-bank was itself a study. At the top, sand of snowy whiteness; then a ribbon of clay over which water trickled carrying iron in solution, that was slowly cementing a sand stratum beneath, where every degree of density could be found, from solid rock to a paste-like mass that we took pleasure in moulding into fantastic shapes, thereby renewing our dirt-pie days.
A little later in the year, this bluff, now streaked and spotted, will be green with the broad-leaved sundews, curious carnivorous plants that here take the place of grasses. There is a filiform sundew that grows near by, where the ground is high, if not dry; but it, too, waits for warmer days. Not so the pyxie. Almost at first glance, as we left the bluff, we saw it, sparkling white, nestled among the gray mats of reindeer-moss, or fringed by shining winter-green still laden with its crimson fruit.
Here the earth was strangely carpeted. Sphagnum, beautiful by reason of rich color, gray-green moss, and the object of our long tramp,—pyxie. No botany does it justice, passing it by with the mere mention of its barbarous name, _Pyxidanthera barbulata_. It might be thought the meanest of all weeds, but is, in truth, the chiefest glory of this wonderful region.
Is it strange we regretted that Time would not slacken his pace? I know not where else, in these northern regions, so much is to be seen, and so soon. Spring, elsewhere, is the round year’s strangest child, often too forward, and too often backward; but her accomplishments here and now are beyond criticism. Such perfect work, and yet she is not out of her teens. The day was April 1.
CHAPTER THIRD
_THE COMING OF THE BIRDS_
The moon in April is an important factor in the progress of that event—the coming of the birds—which makes every spring memorable. While not disposed to wait upon it too long, still, there is little doubt but that the birds that have been wintering afar south travel very largely by its light, and when it happens that the moon fulls between the middle and the twenty-fifth of the month, the flights of thrushes, orioles, wrens, and other migrants reach us a week earlier than when the nights are dark during the same period. Temperature, storms, and general backwardness of the season do not seem to have a like importance in bird economy.
Of course, by the coming of the birds I do not refer to the pioneers that are in advance of every company. Indeed, I have seldom announced the first of the season, but I have been met by the man who was at least one day ahead of me; so firstlings are not favorites.
There is every year the one memorable morning when we can say, in broad terms, “The birds are here.” When the oriole whistles from the tallest tree in the lawn; when the wren chatters from the portal of his old-time home; when the indigo-finch sings in the weedy pasture; when lisping warblers throng every tree and shrub; while over all, high in air, the twittering swallows dart in ecstasy; and at last, the day-long concert over, whippoorwills in the woods pipe their monotonous refrain. The Indians were right: when there came such days as this, they had no further fear of frost, and we need have but little. Our climate certainly has changed slightly since their time, but we have in such a bird-full day an assurance that the clinging finger-tips of Winter have at last relaxed and his hold upon our fields and forests is lost.
A word again of the advance guard. The brown thrush came on the seventeenth of the month (April, 1892), when there were no leafy thickets and the maples only were in bloom. What a glorious herald he proved! and so he always proves. Before the sun was up I heard him in my dreams, and later the fancy proved a fact. Perched at the very top of an old walnut-tree, where the wintry world was spread before him, he sang that song peculiarly his own.
No hint of blushing roses on the hill, The buds are sleeping yet upon the plain, The blight of dreary winter clingeth still, The forest weeps where falls the chilly rain.
Scarce hopeful leaf-buds shrink—death’s solemn hush Rests on the field, the meadow brook along, Till breaks the day, O happy day! the thrush Foretells the coming summer in a song.
Two days later it was almost summer, and tripping along the river’s pebbly beach were spotted sand-pipers. They were ahead of time this year, I thought, but none the less happy because the trees were bare and the water cold; but, stranger still, in the sheltered coves of the mill-pond, that now reflected the gold of the spice-wood and the crimson of the overhanging maples, there were warblers, merry as in midsummer, and a pair, at least, of small thrushes. A bittern, too, stood in the weedy marsh. There they had gathered on that sunny, summery day, as if warm weather was an established fact; but how different the next morning, when a cold north-east storm prevailed! How well it showed that one such sunny day does not make a season! How clearly it proved that birds have no prophetic insight! They were caught and suffered and disappeared. Did they fly above the clouds and go to some distant point, free of chilling rain, or did they hide in the cedar swamps? This problem I did not essay to solve. In the few cedars along the river-shore I found nothing but winter residents, but I made no careful search. A few days later and spring-like conditions again prevailed and every day some new bird was seen, but not until May 1 could we say, “The birds have come.”
These uncertain April days are not disappointing. We are not warranted in expecting much of them, and whatsoever we do meet with is just so much more than we had reason to look for,—an added bit of good luck that increases our love for the year’s fourth month; but if no migrant came, there is little likelihood that the pastures and rivershore would be silent. There never was an April that had not its full complement of robins and blithe meadow-larks, of glorious crested tits and gay cardinals, of restless red-wings and stately grakles, and these are quite equal to driving dull care away, and keeping it away, if the migrants did not come at all. Even in March, and early in the month, we often have a foretaste of abundant bird-life; an intimation of what a few weeks will bring us. A bright March morning in 1893 was an instance of this. I walked for miles along the river-bank with a learned German who was enthusiastic about everything but what interested me. This may not seem to be a promising outlook, but we undertook to convert each other. I was to give up my frivolity, he determined. My effort was to get his dry-as-dust whimsies out of him. The great ice-gorge of the past winter was now a torrent of muddy waters and huge cakes of crystal that rushed and roared not only through the river’s channel, but over half the meadow-land that bordered it. It was, I admit, an excellent opportunity to study the effects of such occurrences, for to them is due the shaping of the valley, and gravel transportation, and all that; but then there was the effect of light and shade upon the wonderful scene, and beauty like this crowded out my taste for geology. The sky was darkly blue, flecked with great masses of snow white-cloud that drifted between the sun and earth, casting shadows that blackened the ice and brought winter back again; but a moment later a flood of sunshine as promptly changed all, and the bluebirds hinted of spring. Then, too, the gulls and crows screamed above the roar and crunching of the ice as it struck the scattered trees, while in every sheltered nook was a full complement of song-sparrows. Why any one should bother about geology at such a time I could not see; but my companion was intent upon problems of the ice age, and continually remarked, “Now, if” or “Don’t you see?” but I always cut him short with “See that crow?” or “Hear that sparrow?” No, he had not seen or heard the birds, and neither had I his particular impressions. At last the sunshine broke upon him, and he laughed aloud when he saw the crows trying to steal a ride on ice-rafts that continually upset. I was hopeful now, and he soon heard the birds that sang, and whistled after a long line of kill-deer plover that hurried by, every one calling to his fellows. It was something to know that the coming of the birds can rouse a German out of his everlasting problems. He had more to say of the springtide so near at hand than had I, and, nosing over the ground, found nine vigorous plants in active growth, and spoke so learnedly of _Cyperus_, _Galium_, _Allium_, and _Saponaria_ that I as glibly thought, in jealous mood, “Confound him!” for now he was taking possession of my province and showing me my littleness; but then I had dragged him out of his problems.
The truth is, I was in something like despair when we started out, for I feared a lecture on physical geography, and, indeed, did not quite escape; but the bitter was well mixed with the sweet, and he in time listened with all my ardor to the birds that braved the boisterous wind and were not afraid of a river wilder than they had ever seen before. The day proved to be of more significance than as regards mere glacial geology. It was a foretaste of what was coming in April. I drew a glowing picture of what our April meant, and pictured a peaceful river and violets and meadow blossoms as bright as they were fragrant. My learned friend smiled, then grew enthusiastic; must come again to see the birds as they arrived, and—must I say it?—spoke of beer. Alas! it was Sunday.
There are two reasons why April birds are particularly attractive. One is, there are fewer of them, and again, there is practically no foliage to conceal them. Better one bird in full view than a dozen half hidden. Their songs, too, have a flavor of novelty, and ring so assuringly through the leafless woods. The ear forever bends graciously to promises, even though we know they will be broken; but birds, unlike men, are not given to lying. When they promise May flowers and green leaves they mean it, and, so far as history records, there has never been a May without them, not even the cold May of 1816, when there was ice and snow. But aside from their singing, April birds offer the opportunity of studying their manners, which is better to know than the number of their tail-feathers or the color of their eggs. The brown thrush that sings so glibly from the bare branch of a lonely tree shows now, by his way of holding himself and pointing his tail, that he is closely akin to the little wrens and their big cousin, the Carolina mocker, so called, which does not mock at all. Of all our April birds, I believe I love best the chewink, or swamp-robin. To be sure, he is no more a feature of April than of June, and many are here all winter; but when he scatters the dead leaves and whistles his bi-syllabic refrain with a vim that rouses an echo, or mounts a bush and sings his few notes of real music, we forget that summer is only on the way, but not yet here. Of all our birds, I always fancied this one was most set in his singing, as he surely is in his ways; but Cheney tells us that "this bird, like many others, can extemporize finely when the spirit moves him. For several successive days one season a chewink gave me very interesting exhibitions of the kind. He fairly revelled in the new song, repeating it times without number. Whether he stole it from the first strain of ‘Rock of Ages’ or it was stolen from him or some of his family, is a question yet to be decided." Now, the chewink is a bird of character, and, above all things, dislikes interference, and he sings “for his own pleasure, for he frequently lets himself out lustily when he knows he is all alone,” as Dr. Placzeck has said of birds in general. I shall never forget a little incident I once witnessed, in which a chewink and a cardinal grosbeak figured. They reached the same bush at the same moment, and both started their songs. The loud whistle of the red-bird quite smothered the notes of the chewink, which stopped suddenly before it was through and, with a squeak of impatience, made a dash at the intruder and nearly knocked him off his perch. Such haps and mishaps as these—and they are continually occurring—can only be seen in April or earlier, when we can see through the woods, and not merely the outer branches of the trees when in leaf. In April we can detect, too, the earliest flowers, and they fit well with the songs of the forerunning birds. There is more, I think, for all of us in an April violet than in a June rose; in a sheltered bit of turf with sprouting grass than in the wide pastures a month later. We do not hurry in-doors at the sudden coming of an April shower. The rain-drops that cling to the opening leaf-buds are too near real gems not to be fancied a veritable gift to us, and we toy with the baubles for the brief moment that they are ours. The sunshine that follows such a shower has greater magic in its touch than it possesses later in the year; the buds of the morning now are blossoms in the afternoon, so quickening is the warmth of the first few days of spring. The stain of winter is washed away by an April shower, and the freshest green of the pasture is ever that which is newest. There is at times a subtle element in the atmosphere that the chemist calls “ozone,” but a better name is “snap.” It dwells in April sunshine and is the inveterate foe of inertia. It moves us, whether we will or not, and we are now in a hurry even when there is no need of haste. The “spring fever” that we hear of as a malady in town never counts as its victim the lover of an April outing. The beauty of novelty is greater than the beauty of abundance. Our recollection of a whole summer is but dim at best, but who forgets the beginnings thereof? We passed by unheeding many a sweet song before the season was over, but can recall, I venture to say, our first glimpse of the returning spring. Though the sky may be gray, the earth brown, and the wind out of the north, let a thrush sing, a kinglet lisp, a crested tit whistle, and a tree-sparrow chirp among the swelling leaf-buds, and you have seen and heard that which is not only a delight in itself, but the more pleasing that it is the prelude announcing the general coming of the birds.
CHAPTER FOURTH
_THE BUILDING OF THE_ _NEST_
There are probably very few children who are not more or less familiar with birds’ nests, for they are not by any means confined to the country, but are to be found in the shade trees of every village street, to say nothing of the old-time lilac hedges, gooseberry bushes, and homely shrubbery of fifty years ago. Even in our large cities there are some few birds brave enough to make their homes in or very near the busiest thoroughfares. As an instance, it was not so long ago that a yellow-breasted chat—a shy bird—nested in the yard of the Pennsylvania Hospital, at the corner of Eighth and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia, and soon learned to mimic many a familiar street sound. Such instances as these were more common before the unfortunate blunder of introducing the English sparrow. But it is in the country only that we find boys really posted in the matter of nests, and I wish I could add that they always adopt the rules of “hands off” when these nests come under their notice. It means far more mischief than most people think to disturb a nest, and so let every boy decide that he will not be guilty of such wanton cruelty. This, however, does not shut off every boy and girl in the land from studying these nests, and a more delightful subject can never come under youthful investigation.
What is a bird’s nest? Every one knows, after a fashion, and yet few have ever considered how much that bunch of twigs, hollow in a tree, or hole in the ground really means. Like so much that is familiar, we glance at it in a careless way and never stop to consider its full significance. Except in a very few instances, a bird’s nest is never the result of a single individual’s labor. Even if but one bird does all the work, there has previously been a decision reached by two birds as to where the nest shall be placed, and how much this means! At once we are brought to consider that an interchange of thought has taken place. The pair have discussed, literally, the merits and drawbacks of the situation, and have had in mind not only their own safety, but that of their offspring. The fact that they make mistakes at times proves this. Were this not the case, or if nests were placed hap-hazard in any tree or bush or anywhere on the ground, bird enemies would have a happy time for a short season, and then birds, like many of the world’s huge beasts, would become extinct. On the contrary, birds have long since learned to be very careful, and their ingenuity in this apparently simple matter of choosing a nest site is really astonishing. This, too, has resulted in quickening their wits in all directions, and the bird that is really a booby is scarcely to be found.
Birds suffer at times from their misjudgment or over-confidence, and this, it must be added, reflects upon us. The instances are numberless where birds have quickly learned that certain people love them, and they lose all fear. Again, naturally very timid birds soon learn when they are free from persecution. The writer frequently passes in the cars by a zoological garden on the bank of a river, and has been impressed with the abundant illustration of birds’ intelligence to be noticed there. The crows have learned that fire-arms are not allowed to be used anywhere near, and so they fearlessly hop about not only the enclosure of the garden, but the many tracks of the railroad just outside, showing no timidity even when the locomotives rush by. Stranger still, wild ducks gather in the river almost directly under the railroad bridge, and do not always dive out of sight as the trains pass by, and I have never seen them take wing, even when the whistle blew the quick, short, penetrating danger signal.
To come back to their nests: birds have other enemies than man to guard against, and so are never in a hurry in the matter of determining where to build. Time and again a location has been discovered to be unsuitable after a nest has been commenced, and the structure abandoned. I have observed this many times. Indeed, my own curiosity has led the birds to move, they not quite approving my constant watching of what was going on. I well remember seating myself once in a shady nook to eat my lunch, and being almost attacked by a pair of black-and-white tree-creeping warblers. Their actions were plainly a protest against my staying where I was, and on looking about, I found that I had almost sat upon their nest, which was then just completed, but contained no eggs. I visited the spot the next day and found a single egg; but my coming was a mistake, for the birds now believed I had sinister designs, and abandoned their new-made home.
The method of building, of course, varies as much as the patterns of nests. Even when the same materials are used, they are differently treated, and a nest of sticks only may in one case be merely thrown together, as it were, while in another they are so carefully interlaced that the structure is a basket, and holds together if held by the rim only. Another, the same in general appearance, would immediately fall to pieces if similarly treated. A reason for this is discoverable in some cases, but not in all. If we examine a great many nests, the rule will hold good, I think, that where they are very loosely put together, the locality is such that no natural disturbing causes, as high winds, are likely to bring disaster. Until I studied this point the occurrence of exceedingly frail nests was ever a matter of surprise, for it is to be remembered that the same species, as a cat-bird or cardinal red-bird, does not build after a uniform fashion, but adapts its work to the spot chosen for the nest. It would be very hazardous to say that a nest was built by this or that bird, unless the builder was seen in possession.