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IN BIRD LAND 
 
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IN BIRD LAND 
 
 BY 
 
 LEANDER S. KEYSER 
 
 Hast thou named all the birds without a gun? 
 
 Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk? 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson: Forbearance 
 
 Teach me half the gladness 
 That thy brain must know, 
 
 Such harmonious madness 
 From my lips would flow 
 The world should listen then, as I am listening now! 
 
 Percy B. Shelley : To a Skylark 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 
 
 1896 
 
Copyright 
 
 By A. C. McClurg and Coo 
 a.d. 1894 
 

 =^<?7 7 / y 
 
 K 
 
 t?°U 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 The articles comprising this volume having 
 been previously published in various periodi- 
 cals of the country, I would desire to tender 
 my grateful acknowledgments to the several 
 publishers and editors for their uniform cour- 
 tesy in permitting me to reprint the papers. 
 My observations on birds have been made, 
 except when otherwise indicated, in various 
 haunts in and about Springfield, Ohio, — a 
 region well adapted for ornithological research 
 or pastime. 
 
 L. S. K. 
 
 5 
 
 August, 1894. 
 

CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 I. Wayside Rambles 9 
 
 II. Bird Curios 24 
 
 III. Winter Frolics 40 
 
 IV. February Outings 58 
 
 V. Arrival of the Birds 64 
 
 VI. Winged Voyagers 76 
 
 VII. Plumage of Young Birds 87 
 
 VIII. Nest-Hunting 92 
 
 IX. Midsummer Melodies no 
 
 X. Where Birds Roost 116 
 
 XI. The Wood-Pewee 127 
 
 XII. A Pair of Night-Hawks 135 
 
 XIII. A Birds’ Gala-Day 141 
 
 XIV. Rife with Birds 152 
 
 XV. Various Phases of Bird Life: 
 
 I. Bird Courtship 160 
 
 II. Bird Nurseries 169 
 
 III. Bird High Schools 185 
 
 IV. Bird Work 193 
 
 V. Bird Play 201 
 
 VI. Bird Deaths 207 
 
 XVI. The Secret of Appreciation 216 
 
 XVII. Browsings in Other Fields 226 
 
 XVIII. A Bird Anthology from Lowell . . . 242 
 
 My Bird List 263 
 
 Index 267 
 
This way would I also sing , 
 
 My dear little hillside neighbor l 
 A tender carol of peace to bring 
 To the sunburnt fields of labor 
 Is better than 7naking a loud ado; 
 
 Trill on , a?nid clover and yarrow l 
 There 's a heart-beat echoing for you, 
 
 And blessing you, blithe little sparrow f 
 
 Lucy Larcom. 
 
IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 i. 
 
 WAYSIDE RAMBLES. 
 
 OOKING out of my study window one fair 
 
 spring morning, I noticed a friend — a pro- 
 fessional man — walking along the street, evidently 
 taking his “constitutional.” Having reached the end 
 of the brick pavement, he paused, glanced around 
 a moment undecidedly, and then, instead of walk- 
 ing out into the beckoning fields and woods, turned 
 down another street which led into a thickly popu- 
 lated part of the city. Surely, I mused, we are not 
 all cast in the same mould. While he carefully 
 avoided going beyond the suburbs and the beaten 
 paths, as if afraid he might soil his polished shoes, 
 I should have plunged boldly into the country, 
 “ across lots,” to find some sequestered nook or 
 grass-grown by-way, “ far from human neighbor- 
 hood,” to hold undisturbed converse with Nature. 
 My friend’s conduct, however, did not put me in 
 a critical mood, but rather stirred some grateful 
 reflections on the wise adaptation of all things in 
 
10 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 the world of being. How fortunate that men are 
 so variously constituted ! If some did not naturally 
 choose the bustle and stir and excitement of the 
 city, where would be our philanthropists, our How- 
 ards and Peabodys and Dodges? On the other 
 hand, if others did not voluntarily seek quiet and 
 solitude in Nature’s unfrequented haunts, the world 
 would never have been blessed with a Wordsworth, 
 an Emerson, or a Lowell ; and in that case, for some 
 of us at least, life would have been bare and arid. 
 
 It is true, we cannot accept Pope’s dictum, “ What- 
 ever is, is right.” We know that many things that 
 are, are wrong; but doubtless more things in this 
 paradoxical old world are right than moralists some- 
 times suppose. To the genuine lover of Nature, and 
 especially to the lover of her unbeaten pathways, 
 the ringing lines of Emerson come home with 
 thrilling power : — 
 
 “ If I could put my woods in song 
 And tell what ’s there enjoyed, 
 
 All men would to my gardens throng, 
 
 And leave the cities void.” 
 
 Yet I doubt if any spot in Nature’s domain could 
 be made so attractive as to overcome most persons’ 
 natural love of human association. Mayhap even 
 if this could be done, it would not be desirable. 
 Should all men hie to the woods and leave the 
 cities void, it would spoil both the woods and the 
 cities. The charm of the woods is their quiet, 
 their solitude ; the enchantment of the city, its 
 
WAYSIDE RAMBLES . 
 
 1 1 
 
 thronging life and activity. While I may be lone- 
 some in a crowd, my neighbor is almost sure to feel 
 lonesome in the marsh or the deep ravine. If all 
 men loved Nature with a passion that could not be 
 controlled, much work would be left undone that is 
 indispensable to human life and happiness. I am 
 glad, therefore, that there are many birds of many 
 kinds ; glad, too, that there are many men of many 
 minds. The apostle does well to remind his breth- 
 ren in the church that there are “ diversities of gifts ” 
 and “ diversities of operations,” even if all do spring 
 from “the same Spirit.” 
 
 Albeit, as for me, give me 
 
 “ A secret nook in a pleasant land, 
 
 Whose groves the frolic fairies planned.” 
 
 Emerson voices my own feeling when he sings : — 
 
 “ A woodland walk, 
 
 A quest of river-grapes, a mocking thrush, 
 
 A wild rose, or rock-loving columbine, 
 
 Salve my worst wounds ; ” 
 
 for, 
 
 “What friend to friend cannot convey, 
 
 Shall the dumb bird instructed say.” 
 
 And it is true that a wayside ramble will often do, 
 by way of self-revelation and conviction, what no 
 human voice of chastisement can accomplish. Mr. 
 Howells says, in one of his most trenchant analytical 
 novels : “ If you ’re not in first-rate spiritual condition, 
 you ’re apt to get floored if you undertake to com- 
 mune with Nature.” There are times when the very 
 
IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 I 2 
 
 immaculateness of the sky, or the purity of a wood- 
 land flower, rebukes one, gives one a keen sense of 
 one’s sins, and makes one long for absolution ; or 
 when the pensive moaning of the wind through the 
 gray, branchless trees on a winter’s day forces on 
 the mind a prevision of a judgment about to be 
 visited upon one’s misdoings. Yet this is seldom 
 my own experience while idling in out-of-the-way 
 places. Usually I feel soothed and comforted, or, 
 at most, a sort of glad melancholy steals over me, 
 which is as enchanting as a magician’s spell ; while 
 I often win exhilaration from the whispering breezes, 
 as if they carried a tonic on their pulsing wings. 
 
 On the spring morning on which my friend so 
 studiously avoided Nature’s by-paths, my stint of 
 labor for the day was soon despatched, and then, 
 flinging my lunch-bag over my shoulders, I hurried 
 across the fields, anxious to put a comfortable dis- 
 tance between myself and bothering human tene- 
 ments. By noon I had reached a green hollow at 
 the border of a woodland, where Nature, to a large 
 extent at least, has had her own sweet way. Here, 
 on the grassy bank of a rivulet, I sat down to eat my 
 luncheon. The spring near by filled my cup with 
 ale that sparkles, but never burns ; that quenches 
 thirst, but never creates it. Not a human habita- 
 tion was in sight ; nothing but the tinkling brook, 
 the sloping hills, the quiet woods, and the overarch- 
 ing sky. The haunt was not without music. The 
 far-away cadences of the bush- sparrows on the hill- 
 side filled the place like melodious sunshine. A 
 
WAYSIDE RAMBLES . 
 
 *3 
 
 short distance down the hollow a song- sparrow 
 thrummed his harp, while a cooing dove lent her 
 dreamy threnody to the wayside trio. Although 
 engaged in the prosaic act of eating my luncheon, 
 I breathed in an atmosphere of poetry and romance, 
 and half expected a company of water-witches and 
 dryads to leap upon the greensward before me 
 and dance to the music of bird and brook. A 
 pagan I am not, — at least, such is my hope ; but 
 moods subjunctive sometimes seize me when I do 
 not blame the Greeks — aye, rather, when I praise 
 them — for peopling the woods with Pan and his 
 retinue ; for I feel the influence of a strange, 
 mystical, and more than impersonal presence. 
 
 Yes, one’s dreams sometimes take on a specula- 
 tive cast, even on a day that seems to be “the bridal 
 of the earth and sky.” In this unfrequented spot 
 the birds sing their sweetest carols, be there a human 
 ear to hear or not. Do they sing merely for their 
 own delectation, these little creatures of a day? 
 Is there not far too much sweetness wasted on the 
 desert air? Would there not be more purpose in 
 Nature could these dulcet strains be treasured in 
 some way, so that they might be poured into man’s 
 appreciative ear? Why has Nature made no pho- 
 nographs? Wherefore all this waste of ointment? 
 Does Nature encourage the habits of the spend- 
 thrift? I recall a summer day when I strolled 
 along a deep, lonely ravine. It was at least a mile 
 to the nearest human dwelling. Suddenly a clear, 
 melodious trill from a song-sparrow’s lusty throat 
 
14 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 rippled through the stillness, making my pulses 
 flutter. Here, doubtless, the little Arion had sung 
 his roundels all summer long, and perhaps I had 
 been the only person who had heard him, and then 
 I had caught only a few tantalizing strains — simply 
 enough to give a taste for more. Why was the 
 peerless triller apparently burying his talents in this 
 solitary haunt? 
 
 It may be true of bird song, as of the recluse 
 flower, that “ beauty is its own excuse for being ; ” 
 but I am not ashamed to record my confession of 
 faith, my creed, on this matter; not my dreamy 
 cogitations with ifs and mayhaps . There is a divine 
 ear which catches every strain of wayside melody, 
 and appreciates it at its true value. Thus, no beauty 
 or sweetness is ever lost, no bird or flower is really 
 an anchorite. A bird may flit away in alarm at the 
 approach of a human intruder, and may not lisp a 
 note until he is well out of the haunt ; but the same 
 songster will unconsciously pour his dithyrambs all 
 summer long into the ear of God. Nature was not 
 made for man alone ; it was also made for its Cre- 
 ator. Never has the brown thrasher sung with such 
 enchanting vigor and abandon as he did the other 
 day at the corner of the woods when he thought no 
 human auditor within ear-shot. He was singing for 
 God, albeit unconsciously. 
 
 It is high time to get back to my waysiding, if I 
 may coin a word. You must go to an out-of-the- 
 way resort, far from the din of loom and factory, to 
 feel the quaint, delicate fancy of Sidney Lanier’s 
 lines, — 
 
WAYSIDE RAMBLES. 
 
 !S 
 
 “ Robins and mocking-birds that all day long 
 
 Athwart straight sunshine weave cross-threads of song, 
 
 Shuttles of music.” 
 
 The wayside rambler often is witness of delight- 
 ful bird-pranks that must escape other eyes. On a 
 bright day in February I strolled to the hollow to 
 which I have already referred. The sun was melt- 
 ing the ice-mantle from the brook, and causing the 
 snow to pour in runlets down the banks. In a 
 broad, shallow curve of the stream the tree-sparrows 
 and song-sparrows were taking a bath. I watched 
 them for a long time. Some of them would remain 
 in the ice-cold water for from three to five minutes, 
 fluttering their wings and tails in perfect glee, and 
 sending the pearl-drops and spray glimmering into 
 the air. Their ablutions done, they would fly up to 
 the saplings near by, and carefully preen and dry 
 their moistened robes. 
 
 It was in the depth of the woods that my saucy 
 black-cap, the titmouse, clambered straight up the 
 vertical bole of an oak sapling, as if he had learned 
 the trick from the brown creeper or the white- 
 breasted nuthatch. No less interesting was the 
 conduct of the downy woodpecker, that little drum- 
 major of the woods. He is the tilter par excellence 
 of the woodpecker family. He flings himself in the 
 most reckless manner from trunk to branch, and 
 from branch to twig, often alighting back-downward 
 on the slenderest stems. Shall I describe one of 
 his odd tricks? I had often seen him clinging to 
 the slender withes of the willows at the border of 
 
i6 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 the swamp, and had wondered how he could hold 
 himself with his claws to so meagre a support. It 
 was a problem. How much I longed to solve it ! 
 However, for a long time the bird so completely 
 baffled me that I felt like another Tantalus. One 
 winter day, however, he happened to be quite near 
 the ground as I stood beneath the willows, so that 
 I could see just how he accomplished the mysteri- 
 ous feat. Imagine my surprise ! He did not cling 
 to the withes with his daws at all, as he clings to a 
 tree-trunk or a large bough, but grasped the slender 
 perches with his feet, precisely as if they were hands, 
 flinging his long toes, like fingers, clear around the 
 stems, one foot above the other. In ascending, he 
 would go foot over foot ; in descending, he would 
 simply loosen his hold slightly and slip down. Sir 
 Isaac Newton may have made more important dis- 
 coveries, but he did not feel prouder or happier 
 when he solved the binomial theorem than did I 
 when my little avian problem was solved. I am not 
 aware that any one else has ever described this 
 performance, and am strongly tempted to announce 
 it as an original discovery. Yet a certain writer 
 once declared, patronizingly, that there are some 
 writers — himself excepted, of course — on natural 
 history themes who proclaim as original discoveries 
 many facts that are perfectly familiar to every tyro 
 in science. Spite of the scornful reflection, however, 
 it is my modest opinion that there are very few 
 observers who have seen a woodpecker ascending a 
 willow-withe foot over foot. 
 
WAYSIDE RAMBLES . 
 
 !7 
 
 Many, many a cunning bird prank would have 
 been missed had I kept, like the majority of pedes- 
 trians, to the beaten track. There, for example, 
 is that odd little genius in mottled robes, the brown 
 creeper, who has performed a sufficient number of 
 quaint gambols to repay me for all the time and 
 effort expended in pursuing my wayside rambles. 
 He is always sui generis , apparently priding himself 
 on his eccentricities, like some people you may 
 know. A genuine arboreal creeper, he almost in- 
 variably coasts up hill. Unlike his congeners, the 
 nuthatch and the creeping warbler, he never goes 
 head-downward. Dear me, no ! Whether it is 
 because it makes him light-headed, or he regards 
 it as bad form, I am unable to say. He does not 
 even hitch down backward after the manner of the 
 woodpeckers, but marches up, up, up, until he 
 thinks it time to descend, which he does by taking 
 to wing, bounding around in an arc as if he were 
 an animated rubber ball. You may almost imagine 
 him saying : “ Pah ! such vulgar sport as creeping 
 head-downward may be well enough for mere 
 plebeians like the nuthatches and the striped 
 creepers, but it is quite beneath the caste of a 
 patrician like myself ! Tseem ! tseem ! ” At rare 
 intervals he will slip down sidewise for a short 
 distance, in a slightly oblique direction, especially 
 when he comes to a fork of the branches. 
 
 However, he does not think it beneath his dignity 
 to take a promenade on the under side of a hori- 
 zontal bough. One day as I watched him doing 
 
i8 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 this, he reached a point where the limb made an 
 obtuse angle by bending obliquely downward. Now 
 what would he do? Would he really hitch down 
 that branch head-foremost, only for once? By no 
 means. Catch him committing such a breach of 
 creeper decorum ! He suddenly spread his wings 
 and hurled himself to the lower end of that oblique 
 section of the branch, and then ambled up to the 
 angle in regular orthodox fashion. You will never 
 find him doing anything to give employment to the 
 heresy hunters ! 1 
 
 Have any of my fellow-observers ever seen this 
 merry-andrew convert himself into a whirligig? I 
 once witnessed this droll performance, which seemed 
 almost like a vagary. A creeper was clinging to a 
 large oak-tree near the base, when he took it into 
 his crazy little pate, for what earthly — or unearthly — 
 reason I know not, to wheel around like a top several 
 
 1 Some months after the foregoing had appeared in the 
 columns of a popular journal I had occasion to modify one 
 assertion. For many years I had been studying the creeper, 
 and had never seen him descend a tree or bough head-first 
 until one autumn day while loitering in the woods. A creeper 
 was hitching up the stem of a sapling in his characteristic 
 manner ; as I drew near, he seemed to catch a glimpse of a 
 tidbit in his rear, near the sapling’s root. In his extreme 
 haste to secure it before I drove him away, he wheeled 
 around, scuttled down over the bark head-foremost a distance 
 of perhaps two feet, picked up his morsel, and then dashed 
 out of sight, as if ashamed of his breach of creeper etiquette, 
 probably to eat humble pie at his leisure. That was in the 
 autumn of 1892. Since then no creeper, to my knowledge, 
 has been guilty of a similar offence against the convenances . 
 
WAYS WE RAMBLES. 
 
 *9 
 
 times in quick succession. He rested a moment, 
 and then repeated the comedy. 
 
 On another occasion a creeper was preening his 
 ruffled feathers, having evidently just taken a bath ; 
 and how do you suppose he went about it ? In quite a 
 characteristic fashion, you may rest assured. Instead 
 of sitting crosswise on a perch, as most birds would 
 have done, he clung to the vertical bole of a large 
 oak-tree, holding himself firmly against the shaggy 
 bark, and daintily straightening out every feather 
 from his breast to his flexible tail. Growing tired 
 of this position — apparently so, at least — he 
 shuffled up to a fork made by the trunk and a large 
 limb, where he found a more comfortable slanting 
 perch on which to complete his toilet. Once, after- 
 ward, I saw a creeper arranging his plumes in the 
 same way. 
 
 But the quaintest exploit of this bird still remains 
 to be described. One autumn day, while rambling 
 along the foot of a range of steep cliffs, I caught sight 
 of one of these birds darting from a tree toward the 
 perpendicular wall of rock. For a few moments I 
 lost him, but followed post-haste, muttering to my- 
 self, “ What if I should find the little clown climbing 
 up the face of the cliff ! That would be a perform- 
 ance worth describing to my bird-loving friends, 
 wouldn’t it?” (Surely a monomaniac may talk 
 aloud to himself.) I could scaicely believe my 
 eyes, for the next moment my happy presenti- 
 ment was realized ; there was the creeper scaling 
 the vertical face of the cliff, with as much ease and 
 
20 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 aplomb, apparently, as a fly creeping up the smooth 
 surface of a window-pane ! Then he flew ahead a 
 short distance, and began mounting the cliff where 
 its face was quite smooth and hard. Presently he 
 encountered a bulging protuberance, and tried to 
 creep along the oblique under side of it ; but 
 that feat proved to be beyond his skill, agile as he 
 was, and so he abandoned the attempt, and swung 
 away to another part of the vertical wall. I have 
 never seen, in any of the manuals which I have con- 
 sulted, a description of a similar performance ; and 
 if any of my readers have ever witnessed such a 
 “ coruscation ” of creeper genius, I should be glad 
 to hear from them. 
 
 In one’s out-of-the-way saunterings, one dashes 
 up against many a faunal problem that defies, even 
 while it challenges, solution. On a cold day of 
 early winter I was strolling along the bare, wind- 
 swept banks of a river, keeping my eyes alert, as 
 usual, for bird curios. In the small bushes that 
 fringed the bank were some cunningly placed nests. 
 In the bottom of one of them lay many seeds of 
 dogwood berries, with the kernels bored out, — the 
 work, no doubt, of the crested tits. But there were 
 no dogwood-trees within twenty- five rods of the 
 place ! Why had the birds carried the shells to this 
 nest, and dropped them into it? This is all the 
 more curious because it was not a tit’s nest, but 
 very likely a cat-bird’s. One can only surmise that 
 the tits had gathered these seeds in the fall, and 
 stowed them away in the nest for winter use, and 
 
WAYSIDE RAMBLES. 
 
 21 
 
 then had eaten out the kernels when hunger drove 
 them to it. That would be in perfect keeping with 
 the habits of these thrifty little providers for the 
 morrow. 
 
 During the winter of 1892-1893 a red-bellied 
 woodpecker, often called the zebra-bird, took up 
 his residence in my woodland. (I call it mine by 
 a sort of usufruct, because I ramble through its 
 pleasant archways or sit in its quiet boudoirs at all 
 hours and in all seasons.) With the exception of 
 several brief absences, for which I could not account, 
 the woodpecker remained until the following spring, 
 giving me some delightful surprises. It was the 
 first winter he had shown the good grace to keep 
 me company. Perhaps he was lazy ; or he may 
 have been a clumsy flier ; or perchance he got 
 separated from his fellows by accident, and so was 
 left behind in the autumn when the southward pil- 
 grimage began. 
 
 He was, by all odds, the handsomest woodpecker 
 I had ever seen. His entire crown and hind-neck 
 were brilliant crimson, which fairly shimmered like 
 a flambeau when the sun peeped through a rift in 
 the clouds and shone upon it ; and then his back 
 was beautifully mottled and striped with black and 
 white, while his tail was bordered with a broad band 
 of deep black. What a splendid picture he made, 
 too, whenever he spread his wings and bolted from 
 one tree to another ! I wish an artist could have 
 caught him on the wing, and transferred him to 
 canvas. He performed a trick that was new to 
 
22 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 me, and did it several times. He would dash to 
 some twigs, balance before them a moment on the 
 wing, pick a nit or a worm from a dead leaf-clump, 
 and then swing back to his upright p'erch. Once 
 he found a grain of corn in a pocket of the bark, 
 placed there, perhaps, by a nuthatch ; but he did 
 not seem to care for johnny-cake, and so he dropped 
 it back into the pocket. How cunningly he canted 
 his head and peered into the crannies of the bark 
 for grubs, calling, Chack ! chack ! 
 
 During the entire winter he uttered only this 
 harsh, stirring note, half jocose, half spiteful ; but, 
 greatly to my surprise, when spring arrived, espe- 
 cially if the weather happened to be pleasant, he 
 began to call, K-t-r-r! k-t-r-r ! precisely like a 
 red-headed woodpecker; indeed, at first I laid 
 siege to every tree, looking in vain for a red-head 
 come prematurely northward, until I discovered the 
 trick of my winter intimate, the red-bellied wood- 
 chopper. Why it should have been so I cannot 
 explain ; but whenever a cold wave struck this lati- 
 tude during the spring, he would invariably revert 
 to his harsh Chack! chack! and then when the 
 breezes grew balmy again, he would resume his 
 other reveille, making the woods echo. I also dis- 
 covered — it was a discovery to myself, at least — 
 that the red-bellied is a drummer, like most of his 
 relatives ; but not once did he thrum his merry 
 ra-ta-ta before spring arrived, — another avian 
 conundrum for the naturalist to beat his brains 
 against. 
 
WAYSIDE RAMBLES. 
 
 2 3 
 
 But hold ! I might go rambling on in this way 
 forever, like Tennyson’s brook, — or, possibly, like 
 Ixion revolving on his wheel, — describing the odd 
 pranks witnessed in my wayside rambles. It is 
 high time, however, to call a halt ; yet, after a brief 
 breathing-space, these miscellanies will be resumed 
 in the next chapter, which may, with some degree 
 of propriety, be entitled “ Bird Curios.” 
 
24 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 II. 
 
 BIRD CURIOS. 
 
 VERY observer of birds and animals has 
 
 -L Ij doubtless amassed many facts of intense 
 interest — at all events, of intense interest to him- 
 self — which he has not been able to adjust to any 
 systematic arrangement he may have made of his 
 material. That is true of the incidents described in 
 this chapter. It will, therefore, necessarily partake 
 of the nature of bric-a-brac. If it were not so self- 
 complimentary, I should dub it bird mosaic, and 
 have done. The reader will perhaps be more dis- 
 posed to trace a resemblance to an eccentric old 
 woman’s “ crazy quilt ; ” and if he prefers the home- 
 lier and less poetical title, I shall not complain. 
 
 But even a bit of patchwork must be begun 
 somewhere, and so I shall plunge at once in medias 
 res . 
 
 The day was one of the fairest of early spring. 
 How shall I describe it? No sky could have been 
 bluer, no fields greener. The earth smiled under 
 the favoritism of the radiant heavens in happy 
 recognition. My steps were bent along the green 
 banks of a winding creek in northern Indiana. 
 Suddenly a loud, varied bird song fell on my ear 
 
BIRD CURIOS. 
 
 2 5 
 
 and brought me to a full stop. It swept down lilt- 
 ingly from a high, bushy bank some rods back from 
 the stream, and at once proclaimed itself as the 
 rhapsody of the cat- bird. Anxious to watch the 
 brilliant vocalist in his singing attitudes, I ap- 
 proached the acclivity, and soon espied him in the 
 midst of the dense copse, which was not yet covered 
 with foliage. He redoubled his efforts when he saw 
 an appreciative auditor standing near. Presently a 
 quaint impulse seized his throbbing, music-filled 
 bosom. He swung gracefully to the ground, picked 
 up a fragment of newspaper, leaped up to his perch 
 again, and then, holding the paper harp in his beak, 
 resumed his song with more vigor than before. All 
 the while his beady eyes sparkled with good-natured 
 raillery, as if he expected me to laugh at his unique 
 performance ; and, of course, I was able to accom- 
 modate him without half an effort. An errant gust 
 of wind suddenly wrenched the bit of paper from 
 his bill and bore it to the ground. The minstrel 
 darted after, and straightway recovered his elusive 
 prize, flew up to his perch, and again roused the 
 echoes of woodland and vale with his rollicking 
 song, the paper harp imparting a peculiar resonance 
 to his tones ; while his air of banter seemed to 
 challenge me to a musical contest. I laughingly 
 declined in the interest of my own reputation. 
 
 He was one of the choicest minstrels of bird land 
 I have ever heard, — barring the sex, a Jenny Lind 
 or an Adelina Patti, — his voice being of excellent 
 timbre , his tones pure and liquid, and his technical 
 
26 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 execution almost perfect. Ever since that day I 
 have been the avowed friend of the catbird, — in 
 truth, his champion, ready at any moment, in 
 season and out, to take up the glove in his defence 
 against every assailant. Some very self-conscious 
 human performers — people who themselves live in 
 glass houses — have accused him of singing to be 
 heard, making him out vain and ambitious. Well, 
 what if he does? Why do his human compeers 
 sing or speak or write ? Certainly not purely for 
 their own delectation, but also, in part at least, to 
 catch the appreciative ear and eye of the public, and 
 win a bit of applause. “ Let him that is without sin 
 among you first cast a stone.” He who scoffs at 
 my plumbeous-hued choralist makes me his enemy, 
 
 — not the choralist’s, but the scoffer’s. So let the 
 latter beware ! 
 
 I leave the cat-bird, however, to his own resources 
 
 — he is well able to take care of himself — to tell 
 what the birds were doing during a recent spring, 
 which fought in a very desultory manner its battle 
 with the north winds. Special attention is called to 
 the laggard character of the season because a tardy 
 spring is a sore ordeal to the student of bird life, 
 postponing many of his most longed-for investiga- 
 tions. The spring to which I refer (1892) was pro- 
 vokingly slow in its approach, and yet it developed 
 some traits of bird character that were interesting. 
 For instance, the first week in April was a seducer, 
 being quite bland, starting the buds on many trees, 
 and putting the migrating fever into the veins of a 
 
BIRD CURIOS. 
 
 2 7 
 
 number of species of birds. But the snow-storms 
 and fierce northern blasts that came later were very 
 hard on both birds and buds. Many a chorus was 
 sung during the pleasant weather, but on more than 
 one day afterward the cheerful voices of the feathered 
 choir were hushed, while the songsters themselves 
 sought refuge from the storm in every available 
 nook, where they sat shivering. One cannot always 
 repress the interrogatory why Nature so frequently 
 stirs hopes only to blast them ; but it is not the 
 business of the empirical observer to question her 
 motives or her manners, — rather to study her as 
 she is, without asking why. 
 
 Cold as April was, some birds were hardy enough 
 to go to nest-building. Among these were the robins, 
 whose blushing bosoms could be seen everywhere in 
 grove and field. On the seventh of the month a 
 robin was carrying grass fibres to a half- finished nest 
 in the woodland near my house. A week later she 
 was sitting on the nest, hugging her eggs close 
 beneath her warm bosom, while the tempests howled 
 mercilessly about her roofless homestead. It seemed 
 to me, one cold morning after a snow-storm, that her 
 body shivered as she sat there, and I feared more 
 than once that she would freeze to death ; but no 
 such fatality befell her, and she resolutely kept her 
 seat in her adobe cottage. 
 
 And this reminds me of a bird tragedy described 
 to me by a professor in the college located in my 
 town. He said that a number of years ago a robin 
 built a nest in a tree not far from the site on which 
 
28 
 
 IN BIRD LAND, 
 
 some workmen were erecting a new college building. 
 In May a very fierce snow-storm came. One day 
 the workmen noticed a half-dozen robins darting 
 about the nest on which the hatching bird sat, flying 
 at her with sharp cries, striking her with their wings, 
 and making use of various other devices to dislodge 
 her from the nest. They seemed to realize that she 
 was in peril of her life through long inactivity and 
 exposure to the cold. But their efforts were unsuc- 
 cessful : she would not leave her nest ; her eggs or 
 young must have her care at whatever cost. How- 
 ever, the poor bird paid dearly for her devotion. 
 The next morning — the night had been very cold 
 — the workmen found her dead upon the nest. 
 My informant vouches for the truthfulness of the 
 story, and says that he himself saw the faithful 
 mother on the nest after she had been frozen stiff. 
 
 On the twentieth of April I saw another robin 
 sitting close on her nest, which was built on a 
 horizontal branch of a willow-tree, not more than 
 eight feet from the ground. The raw east wind 
 lifted the feathers on her back, as if determined to 
 creep through her thick clothing to the sensitive 
 skin. A few days earlier a blue jay was seen carry- 
 ing lumber to her partly erected nursery in the 
 crotch of an oak-tree. A pair of bluebirds, sigh- 
 ing out their sorrows and joys, began building in 
 one of my bird-boxes during the pleasant early April 
 weather ; but when the cold spell came, they wisely 
 suspended operations until the storms were overpast 
 and they could proceed with safety. A killdeer 
 
BIRD CURIOS. 
 
 2 9 
 
 plover’s nest was found by my farmer neighbor on 
 the ninth of April. It was on the ground in an 
 open field, with not so much as a spear of grass for 
 protection. 
 
 That year the crow blackbirds arrived from the 
 south in February, all bedecked in holiday attire, 
 the rich purple of their necks scintillating in the 
 sunshine. You have perhaps observed the droll an- 
 tics of these birds as they sing their guttural O-gl-ee. 
 It is amusing to see them fluff up their feathers, 
 spread out their wings and tails, bend their heads 
 forward and downward with a spasmodic movement, 
 and then emit that queer, gurgling, half-musical 
 note. It would seem that the little they sing re- 
 quires a superhuman — more precisely, perhaps, a 
 super-avian — effort, coming aqueously, one might 
 almost say, from some deep fountain in their wind- 
 pipes. These contortions do not invariably accom- 
 pany their vocal performances, but certainly occur 
 quite frequently. The red-wings also often behave 
 in a like manner ; and both species always spread 
 out their tails like a fan when they sing, whether 
 they fluff up their plumes and twist their necks or 
 not. 
 
 Another bit of bird behavior gave me not a little 
 surprise during the same spring. It started this 
 query in my mind : Is the white-breasted nuthatch 
 a sap-sucker? It has been proved by Mr. Burroughs 
 and Mr. Frank Bolles, I think, that the yellow- 
 bellied woodpecker is. But how about the frisky 
 nuthatch, so versatile in ways and means? Here is 
 
3 ° 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 an incident. One day I saw a nuthatch thrusting 
 his slender bill into a hole in the bark of a young 
 hickory-tree. Nuthatches often hunt for grubs in 
 that way, but something about this fellow’s conduct 
 prompted me to watch him closely for some minutes. 
 He bent over the hole with a lingering movement, 
 as if sipping something. Presently I slowly ap- 
 proached the tree, keeping my eye intent on the 
 bird. 
 
 Of course, he flew away on my approach, but 
 my eye was never taken from the spot to which he 
 had been clinging. Being forced to climb the trunk 
 of the tree a few feet, what discovery do you sup- 
 pose awaited me? There was a small hole pierced 
 through the bark from which the sap was flowing 
 down the crannies, and into that fount the little was- 
 sailer had been thrusting his bill, with a sort of lin- 
 gering motion, precisely as if he had been sipping 
 the sweet liquor. The evidence was sufficient to 
 convince me that he had been doing this very un- 
 orthodox thing. The real sap-suckers, no doubt, 
 had dug the well, for there were a number of them 
 in the woods, and the nuthatch had been stealing 
 the nectar. Perhaps, however, I wrong him ; he 
 may have asked permission of the owner to drink 
 from the saccharine fountain. 
 
 The next autumn I took occasion to pry into the 
 affairs of my beloved intimates of the woods, and had 
 more than one surprise. Some species of birds, like 
 some other animals, lay by a supply of food for 
 winter, proving that they do take some thought for 
 
BIRD CURIOS. 
 
 3 1 
 
 the morrow. So far as my observation goes, this pro- 
 vident care is displayed only by those birds that are 
 winter residents in our more northern latitudes. I 
 have never seen any of the vast company of migrants 
 making such provision for the proverbial rainy day ; 
 and, indeed, it would be unnecessary. To them suf- 
 ficient unto the day is the care as well as the evil 
 thereof, and so they take their “ daily bread ” as 
 they happen to find it. 
 
 Our winter residents, however, are more thrifty, 
 as I have observed again and again. Here is an 
 instance which once came under my eye. While 
 sauntering along the border of the woods one day in 
 September, I noticed several nuthatches and black- 
 capped titmice busily gathering seeds from a clump 
 of sunflower stalks, and flying with them to the trees 
 near by. I found a seat and watched them for a 
 long while. A nuthatch would dart over to a sun- 
 flower stalk, cry, Yak ! yak ! in his familiar way, as if 
 talking affectionately to himself, deftly pick out a seed 
 from its encasement, fly with it to the trunk of an 
 oak-tree, and then thrust it into a crevice of the 
 bark with his long slender beak. He would then 
 hurry back for another seed, which he would treat 
 in the same way. 
 
 The behavior of one of these little toilers was 
 especially interesting. By mistake he pushed a 
 seed into a cranny which seemed to be too deep for 
 his purpose, and so he proceeded in his vigorous 
 way to pry and chisel it out. He seemed to say to 
 himself : “ That would be too hard to dig out on a 
 
32 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 cold winter day ; I think I ’d better get it out now.’' 
 When he had secured it, he put it into another 
 crevice, which also proved too deep ; and so his 
 dainty had to be recovered once more. The third 
 attempt, however, proved a charm, for that time he 
 found a little pocket just to his liking. To make 
 very sure he did not eat the seed, I did not take my 
 eye from him for a single moment. The fact is, 
 during the entire time spent in watching the birds, I 
 did not see them eat a single seed. The titmice flew 
 farther into the woods with their winter “ goodies,” 
 where the foliage was so dense, while the birds were 
 so quick in movement, that it was impossible to see 
 just where they hid their store ; but they returned 
 too soon for a new supply to allow time for eating 
 the seeds. 
 
 One autumn I spent a week in a part of Ken- 
 tucky where beechnuts were very plentiful, and saw 
 the hairy and red- headed woodpeckers putting 
 away their hoard of “ mast ” for the winter, indus- 
 trious husbandmen that they were. A farmer said 
 that he had often seen the woodpeckers carrying 
 these nuts to a hole in a tree and dropping them 
 into it. He once found such a winter store that 
 must have contained fully a quart of beechnuts. In 
 my own neighborhood the hairy woodpecker often 
 hides tidbits in gullies of the bark, after the man- 
 ner of the nuthatch. The crested tit also stows 
 corn and various kinds of seeds in some safe niche 
 for a time of exigency. Several times in the winter, 
 when the ground was covered with snow, I have 
 
BIRD CURIOS. 
 
 33 
 
 surprised this bird eating a corn grain in the very 
 depth of the woods, a considerable distance from 
 the neighboring cornfields. 
 
 One winter day a nuthatch picked three grains of 
 corn in succession from the fissures of an oak, and 
 greedily devoured them. On another occasion one 
 of these nuthatches was seen diving into a hole on 
 the under side of a limb. Presently he emerged 
 with a nut of some kind in his bill, and flew away, 
 remaining just about long enough to eat it, when he 
 returned for another. This he repeated until his 
 dinner was finished. 
 
 No doubt, when cold and stormy weather comes, 
 these birds have many a luscious mouthful because 
 of their forehandedness, and no doubt they enjoy 
 their well-kept stores as much as the farmer and his 
 family relish their dish of mellow apples around the 
 glowing hearth on a winter evening. It is no fancy 
 flight, but a literal truth, that many a niche and 
 cleft is made to do duty as larder for the feathered 
 and furred tenants of the woods. 
 
 With the birds that migrate, autumn is the season 
 for gathering in large convocations, holding “ windy 
 congresses in trees,” as Lowell aptly puts it. The 
 aerial movements of some of these feathered armies 
 are often worthy of observation. Memory lingers 
 fondly about a day in autumn when two friends and 
 myself were clambering up the side of a steep hill 
 or ridge that bounded a green hollow on the south. 
 We had gone half-way to the top when we turned 
 to admire the panorama spread out picturesquely 
 3 
 
34 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 before us. Our exclamations of pleasure at the 
 scene were soon interrupted by a shadow hurtling 
 across the hollow, and on looking up, we saw a vast 
 army of crow blackbirds sweeping overhead, moving 
 about fifty abreast. How long the column was I 
 cannot say, but it extended over the hollow from 
 hilltop to hilltop and some distance beyond in both 
 directions. The odd feature about the ebon army’s 
 evolutions was this : The vanguard had gone on far 
 beyond the ravine, and was pushing over the oppo- 
 site ridge, when there was a peculiar swaying move- 
 ment near the centre directly above the hollow ; 
 then that part of the column dropped gracefully 
 downward toward the trees below them ; at the 
 same moment those in the van swung lightly around 
 to the right and returned, while the rear part of 
 the column advanced rapidly, and then all swept 
 grandly down into the tops of the tall trees in the 
 ravine. It was a splendid military pageant, and 
 might well start several queries in the interrogative 
 mind. Where was the commander-in chief of that 
 sable army? Was he near the centre of the 
 column? If so, why should he station himself 
 there instead of at the head? Again, how could 
 the message to return be sent so speedily to the 
 vanguard ? Do birds employ some occult method 
 of telegraphy? But these are questions more easily 
 asked than answered ; for no one, so far as I know, 
 has yet given special attention to the military tactics 
 of the armies in feathers. 
 
 It may be a somewhat abrupt transition from a 
 
BIRD CURIOS. 
 
 35 
 
 crowd to an individual, but the reader must bear 
 in mind that a close logical unity cannot be pre- 
 served in a chapter composed of bric-a-brac; and, 
 besides, is not every crowd made up of individuals ? 
 How great was my surprise, one summer day, to 
 see a purple grackle stalking about in his regal 
 manner on the flat rocks of a shallow woodland 
 stream, and then suddenly wheel about, pull a crab 
 out of the water, and fly off with it to a log, where 
 he beat it to pieces and devoured it ! I doubt if 
 many persons are aware that this bird dines on 
 crab. On the same day another grackle, striding 
 pompously about in the shallow water, suddenly 
 sprang up into the air, some six or eight feet, and 
 caught an insect on the wing. This was a perform- 
 ance on the part of a crow blackbird never before 
 witnessed by me. 
 
 One day in the woods my saucy little madcap, 
 the crested titmouse, was tilting about on the twigs 
 of a sapling like a trapeze performer in a circus. 
 Sometimes he hung lightly to the under side of a 
 spray, and pecked nits and other dainties from the 
 lower surface of a leaf. While doing so, he hap- 
 pened to catch sight of an insect buzzing by ; he 
 flung himself at it like a feathered arrow ; but for 
 some reason he missed his mark, and the insect, in 
 its efforts to escape, let itself drop toward the 
 ground. An interesting scuffle followed ; the tit- 
 mouse whirled around and around, dashing this way 
 and that like zigzag lightning, in hot pursuit, flutter- 
 ing his wings very rapidly until he alighted on the 
 
36 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 ground on the dry leaves, where he at last succeeded 
 in capturing his prize. He gulped it down with a 
 sly wink, as much as to say : “ Was n’t that a clever 
 trick, sir? Beat it if you can ! ” Then he picked 
 up a seed and flew with it to a twig in a dogwood 
 sapling, where he placed it under his claws, holding 
 it firmly as he nibbled it with his stout little beak. 
 His meal finished, he suddenly pretended to be 
 greatly alarmed at something, called loudly, Chick , 
 chick-a-da ! chick-a- da-da ! and darted away like 
 an Indian’s arrow. 
 
 On the same day a golden-crowned kinglet — my 
 Lilliputian of the woods — surprised me by drop- 
 ping from a twig above me to the ground, right at 
 my feet, passing within two or three inches of my 
 face. Quick as a flash he leaped to a sapling before 
 me, and I saw that he held a worm in his tiny bill. 
 Of course, that was the prize for which he had 
 dashed in such a headlong way to the ground. 
 
 Few birds have charmed me more than the jolly 
 red-headed woodpecker, and many a quaint antic 
 has he performed with all the nonchalance of a sage 
 or a stoic. He has a queer way of taking his meals. 
 The first time it came to my notice I was walking 
 home, on a hot summer day, along a railway, when 
 a red-head bounded across the track before me, 
 holding a ripe, blood-red cherry in his beak. He 
 made a handsome picture with his pure white and 
 velvety black coat and vest, his crimson cap and 
 collar, and his — here my tropes fail, and I am 
 forced to become literal — long, black beak, tipped 
 
BIRD CURIOS . 
 
 37 
 
 with the scarlet berry. Swinging gracefully across 
 the railway, he presently alighted on a stake of the 
 meadow fence, where he seemed to place the cherry 
 in a sort of crevice, and then sip from it in a 
 somewhat dainty, half-caressing way, as if it were 
 rarely billsome. My curiosity being excited, I eyed 
 him awhile, and then, determined to reconnoitre, 
 climbed the wire fence over into the meadow, and 
 drove him away from his menu. There, in a small 
 pocket of the fence-stake, apparently hollowed out, 
 at least partially, by the bird himself, lay the cherry, 
 its rind punctured in several places, where the 
 diner-out had thrust in his bill to sip the juicy pulp 
 underneath, — a sort of woodpecker’s table d'hote . 
 The crevice had a rank odor of cherries dried in 
 the sun, — a proof that it had been used for a 
 dining-table for some time. The legs and wings 
 of several kinds of insects were also strewn about. 
 Since that day I have found many of these pockets 
 in fence-stakes, posts, dead tree-boles, and old 
 stumps, where woodpeckers have placed their 
 dainties to be eaten at their convenience. 
 
 You have doubtless seen these red-heads catching 
 insects on the wing. This they do with as much 
 agility as the wood-pewee, sometimes performing 
 evolutions that are little short of marvellous. From 
 my study window I once watched one of these 
 aeronauts as he sprang from the top of a tall oak- 
 tree in the grove near by, and mounted up, up, up 
 in graceful terraces of flight, until he had climbed 
 at least twice the height of the tree, when he sud- 
 
38 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 denly stopped, poised a moment airily, wheeled 
 about, and plunged downward headlong with a 
 swiftness that made my head swim, closing the de- 
 scent with a series of bounds, as if he were going 
 down an aerial stairway. Whether he performed 
 this feat in pursuit of an insect, or to display his 
 skill, or only to give vent to his exuberance of 
 feeling, I am unable to say. 
 
 The red-head has an odd way of taking a bath 
 during a light shower, which he does by clinging 
 lengthwise to an upright or oblique branch, fluffing 
 up his plumes as much as possible, and then flapping 
 his wings slowly back and forth, thus allowing the 
 refreshing drops thoroughly to percolate and rinse 
 his handsome feathers. And, by the way, the subject 
 of bird baths is one of no small degree of interest 
 to the ogler of the feathered creation. It has been 
 my good fortune to see a brilliant company of 
 warblers of various species — lyrics in color, one 
 might call them — performing their ablutions at a 
 small pond in the woods. How their iridescent 
 hues flashed and danced in the sunshine, as they 
 dipped their dainty bosoms into the water, twinkled 
 their wings, and fluttered their tails, sending the 
 spray like pearl-mist into the air ! One sylvan pic- 
 ture like that is worth many a mile’s tramping. 
 
 I once saw several myrtle warblers taking a dew- 
 bath. Do you wonder how they did it? They 
 leaped from a twig in the trees upon the dew-covered 
 leaves, — it was early morning, — and fluttered about 
 until their plumes were thoroughly drenched, then 
 
BIRD CURIOS. 
 
 39 
 
 flitted to a perch to dry their bedraggled feathers 
 and carefully arrange their dainty toilets . 1 
 
 Besides, it has been my chance to witness my 
 little confidant, Bewick’s wren, taking a dust-bath, 
 which he did in this manner : he would squat flat 
 on his belly on the ground in the lane, completely 
 hiding his feet, and then glide about rapidly and 
 smoothly over the little undulations, stirring the dust 
 in volatile cloudlets. Never have I seen any per- 
 formance, even in the bird realm so varied and 
 versatile, more absolutely charming ; so charming, 
 indeed, that I believe my brief description of it 
 will fittingly bring this rambling chapter on “ Bird 
 Curios ” to a close. 
 
 1 Long after this statement had appeared in print, Mr. 
 Bradford Torrey described, in the “ Atlantic Monthly,” a 
 similar performance which he witnessed in Florida; and, 
 rather oddly, myrtle warblers were also the actors in this 
 instance. 
 
40 
 
 IN BIND LAND . 
 
 III. 
 
 WINTER FROLICS. 
 
 H AD Mr. Lowell never written anything but 
 “A Good Word for Winter,’’ he would still 
 have deserved a place in the front rank of American 
 writers. What a genuine appreciation of Nature, 
 even in her sterner and more unfriendly moods, 
 breathes in every line of his manfully written mono- 
 graph ! Blessed be the man whose love for Nature 
 is so leal and deeply rooted that he can say, “ Even 
 though she slay me, yet will I trust in her ! ” When 
 the storm howls dismally, and the icy gusts strike 
 you rudely in the face ; when the cold rain or sleet 
 pelts you spitefully ; when, in short, Nature seems 
 to frown and scold and bluster, — the loyal lover 
 of her feels no waning of affection, but knows that 
 beneath all her bluster and apparent harshness she 
 carries a tender, maternal heart in her bosom that 
 responds to his wooing. No, Thomson is in error 
 when he says that winter is the “ inverted year.” 
 Winter, as well as summer, is the year right end up, 
 standing squarely on its feet ; or, if it does some- 
 times turn a somersault, it quickly wheels about 
 again into an upright position. Nor is Cotton’s 
 dictum correct that winter is “ our mortal enemy.” 
 
WINTER FROLICS . 
 
 41 
 
 It has been much misunderstood, and therefore 
 much abused, for there are persons who will ever 
 and anon malign that which is above their com- 
 prehension. 
 
 It is just possible that the weather may sometimes 
 become too cold in the winter for open-air exercise ; 
 but the winter of 1890-1891, with its occasional 
 snow-storms, its alternating days of rain and clear 
 sunshine, was an almost ideal one for the rambler. 
 There were times when the woods were clad in 
 robes more beautiful than the green of spring or 
 the brown of autumn ; when I was compelled to 
 exclaim with a Scottish poet, — 
 
 “ Now is the time 
 
 To visit Nature in her grand attire.” 
 
 I mean those days when every twig and branch 
 was “ ridged inch-deep with pearl,” making the 
 woodland a perfect network of marble shafts and 
 columns. 
 
 As to the feathered tenants of the woods, they 
 were almost as light-hearted and gay as in the 
 season 'of sunshine and flowers, save that they were 
 not so prolific of song. Quite a number of interest- 
 ing species were the constant companions of my 
 winter loiterings, and several of them occasionally 
 regaled me with snatches of melody. Among our 
 winter songsters is the hardy Carolina wren. On 
 December and January days when the weather was 
 quite cold, his vigorous bugle echoed through the 
 woods, Chil-le-lu , chil-le-lu , or, Che-wish-year , che- 
 
42 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 wish-year , giving one the feeling that at least one 
 brave little heart was not discouraged on account 
 of the dismal moaning of the wintry storm. He 
 is every inch a hero, and I wonder Emerson did 
 not celebrate his praise as well as that of the black- 
 capped chickadee, in verse. The wren is somewhat 
 more of a recluse than most of my winter intimates. 
 He has not been quite as sociable as I should have 
 liked. Whether it was modesty or selfishness that 
 made him a sort of eremite could not be deter- 
 mined. Most of his contemporaries, such as the 
 chickadees, kinglets, nuthatches, and woodpeckers, 
 prefer to go in straggling flocks ; so that, as soon 
 as I see one bird or hear his call, I feel sure that he 
 is simply the sentinel of a bevy of feathered tilters 
 and coasters at my elbow. No, they do not believe 
 in monasteries or nunneries; they do not believe 
 that it is good for a bird to be alone, whatever may 
 be said of man or woman. Listen to that kinglet, 
 the malapert, hanging head-downward on a spray 
 and making his disclaimer : “ No, sir, we birds 
 
 are sociable beings, as men are, and like to hold 
 commerce with one another. What good would it 
 do to sing so sweetly or tilt so gracefully were 
 there no auditors or spectators to admire our per- 
 formances?” And all his plumed comrades cry, 
 “ Aye ! aye ! ” by way of emphatic endorsement. 
 
 The division of these tenants of the woods into 
 communities or colonies is a matter of unique 
 interest to the ornithologist. For instance, there 
 seemed to be at least two of these groups, one 
 
WINTER FROLICS. 
 
 43 
 
 dwelling chiefly in the eastern part of the woodland 
 not far from a farm-house, and the other occupying 
 the western part. Sometimes, too, another com- 
 munity was found in the partly cleared section at 
 the northern extremity of one arm of the timber 
 belt. These several groups reminded one of the 
 nomadic tribes of Oriental countries, who rove 
 from one locality to another within certain loosely 
 defined boundaries. True, it is merely a matter 
 of speculation ; but I have often wondered if feuds 
 and jealousies ever arise among these various 
 feathered tribes, as is so conspicuously the case in 
 the human world. I doubt it very much, for my 
 woodland birds dwell together in comparative 
 harmony, and are not half so quarrelsome and 
 envious as many communities of men and women. 
 Bird nature is evidently not so depraved as human 
 nature. Perhaps, as the birds had no direct hand 
 in the first transgression, the curse did not fall so 
 blightingly upon them. 
 
 My western bird colony were somewhat erratic 
 in their movements. During December and the 
 first week in January I found them almost invari- 
 ably in a secluded part of the woods about half-way 
 between the northern and southern extremities ; 
 but when, about the middle or possibly the twen- 
 tieth of January, I visited the haunt, not a bird of 
 any description could be found. Had all of them 
 gone to other climes? I felt a pang as the thought 
 came. But there was no occasion for solicitude. 
 Near the southern terminus of the woods, although 
 
44 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 still in a dense portion of them, the colony had 
 taken up a temporary abode. Here they remained 
 for over a week, and then, on the twenty-ninth of the 
 month, which was a rainy day, they shifted back to 
 their old tryst, while scarcely a bird was to be found 
 in the locality they had just left. Thus by caprice, 
 or on account of the exigencies of food, they oscil- 
 lated from place to place. 
 
 There were some birds here all winter that were 
 not found during the previous winter — that of 
 1889-1890. The golden-crowned kinglet was one. 
 Every day, rain or shine, warm or cold, he flitted 
 about so cheerfully and with so innocent an air 
 that I often spoke to him as if he were a real 
 person; and he appreciated my words of praise, 
 too, without doubt, for he would come scurrying 
 near, disporting his head so that I could catch the 
 gleam of his amber coronal, with its golden patch 
 for a centre-piece. Then there was that quaint 
 little genius, the brown creeper, hugging the trunks 
 of the trees and saplings, and tracing the gullies of 
 the bark as he sought for such food as he relished. 
 See him turn his cunning head from side to side to 
 peer under a loose scale ! 
 
 Among my most pleasant winter companions were 
 the black-capped chickadees or tomtits. Not for 
 anything would I cast a reflection upon these en- 
 gaging birds, but candor compels me to say that 
 they seem to be somewhat fickle ; that is, I cannot 
 always tell where to find them, or if they will let 
 themselves be found at all. Early in the spring of 
 
WINTER FROLICS. 
 
 45 
 
 last year they made their appearance in these woods, 
 remaining a week or more, and then were not seen 
 until about the middle of August. Again they dis- 
 appeared, returning in October, and then hied away 
 once more and did not come back until January. 
 Besides, at one time they associated with the eastern 
 colony of birds and at another with the western. 
 Like some “ featherless bipeds, ” — Lowell’s expres- 
 sion, — they seemed to be of a roving disposition. 
 A winter ago they occasionally stirred the elves and 
 brownies of the woodland into transports by their 
 sweet, sad minor whistle, but this winter they were 
 provokingly chary of their musical performances. 
 
 For ever-presentness, however, both summer and 
 winter, the crested titmice and white-breasted nut- 
 hatches bear off the palm. Many droll tricks they 
 perform. One day in January a titmouse scurried 
 from the ground into a sapling; he held a large 
 grain of corn between his mandibles, and, after 
 flitting about a few moments, hopped to a dead 
 branch that lay across the twigs, and deftly pushed 
 the grain into the end of the bough. I stepped 
 closer, when he tried to secure the hidden morsel ; 
 but my presence frightened him away, and I climbed 
 the sapling, drew the broken branch toward me, 
 and peered into the splintered end ; yes, there was 
 the grain of corn wedged firmly into a crevice. The 
 provident little fellow ! He had secreted the morsel 
 for a stormy day when it would be impossible . to 
 procure food on the ground. If Solomon had 
 watched these thrifty, industrious birds, as they 
 
46 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 pursue their untiring quest for food, he doubtless 
 would have written in his Proverbs : “ Go to the 
 titmouse, thou sluggard ; consider his ways, and be 
 wise.” 
 
 Associated with the titmice, kinglets, and nut- 
 hatches were the downy woodpeckers, which belong 
 to the artisan family of the bird community, being 
 hammerers, drillers, and chisellers all combined. 
 They pursue their chosen calling most sedulously. 
 “ What ’s the use of having a vocation if you don’t 
 follow it?” you may almost hear them say as they 
 cant their heads to one side and peep under the 
 bark for a tidbit, or hammer vigorously at a crevice 
 in which a worm is embedded. The hairy wood- 
 peckers, which are somewhat larger, are more erratic 
 in their movements, none having been seen from 
 the autumn until the latter part of January. At 
 this date I heard their loud, nervous Chi-i-i-r-r , as 
 they dashed from tree to tree apparently in great 
 excitement. 
 
 I cannot forbear contrasting this winter with the 
 previous one. In the winter of 1889-1890 the song- 
 sparrows never left us at all, but sang on almost 
 every pleasant day when I went to the woods or 
 marsh ; but this winter, which was somewhat colder, 
 they went to other climes, and left the fringes of the 
 pools and the thickets in the swamp tenantless, 
 songless, and desolate. In 1889-1890 the cardinal 
 grossbeaks whistled every month, making the woods 
 ring even in January ; this winter not a single note 
 was heard from their resonant throats. I had just 
 
WINTER FROLICS. 
 
 47 
 
 begun to fear that the pair which had greeted 
 me so frequently the previous winter had been 
 slaughtered by some caterer to the shameful fashions 
 of the day, when, on the twenty-eighth of January, 
 I was gladdened by the sight of them in company 
 with several of their relatives or acquaintances and 
 a bevy of tree-sparrows. Where had the grossbeaks 
 been since November? And if they had gone south, 
 why did they return from their visit so early in the 
 season? Or perhaps a still more pertinent inquiry 
 would be, Why had they gone away at all? It is 
 difficult, however, to explain grossbeak caprice or 
 ratiocination. 
 
 What do the birds do when it rains? No doubt, 
 when the rain pours in torrents, they find plenty 
 of coverts in the thick bushes or in the cavities 
 of trees ; but when the rain falls gently, and I make 
 my way to their haunts, as I often do, they flit 
 about as industriously as ever in their quest for 
 food, only stopping now and then to shake the 
 pearly drops from their water-proof cloaks. In 
 such humid weather the wood-choppers in the forest 
 - — the human ones — stop their work and seek 
 shelter. Not so these feathered workers, who gayly 
 continue their playful toil, and exclaim exultingly, 
 “Isn’t this a jolly rain?” 
 
 In another chapter mention has been made of 
 the provident habits of certain birds, especially the 
 titmice and nuthatches, in laying by a winter store. 
 As if to confirm what has been said, one winter day 
 a nuthatch went scudding up and down the trunk of 
 
4 8 
 
 IN BIND LAND. 
 
 a large oak-tree at the border of the woods. Pres- 
 ently he cried, Yank / yank ! as if to announce a 
 discovery. Then he pecked and pried with all his 
 might, until at length he drew a grain of corn out 
 of a crevice of the bark, placed it in a shallow pocket 
 on the other side of the tree, and began to pick it 
 to pieces, swallowing the fragments as he broke them 
 off. When this grain had been disposed of, he 
 found another, and then another, until his hunger 
 seemed to be appeased, when he darted off into 
 the woods. 
 
 Other pedestrians and observers may differ from 
 me both in temperament and habits, but to my 
 mind nothing could be more delightful than a 
 ramble in a snow-storm. Let the wind blow a gale 
 from the west, driving the cold pellets blindingly 
 into your face, and trying to rob you of your over- 
 coat and cap ; yet, if you have the spirit of the 
 genuine rambler, your blood will tingle with delight, 
 as well as with a sense of masterly overcoming, as 
 you plod along ; while you feel that every fierce gust 
 that strikes you is only one of Nature’s love-taps, — 
 a little rough, it is true, but for that very reason all 
 the more expressive of affection. Stalking forth 
 into the teeth of a winter storm develops the hardy 
 traits of character, and puts the ingredients from 
 which heroes are made into the pulsing veins. 
 Many a time, as I have pushed my way triumphantly 
 through the pelting wind, I have answered with a 
 shout of joy Emerson’s vigorous challenge, — 
 
WINTER FROLICS. 
 
 49 
 
 “ Come see the north wind’s masonry. 
 
 Out of an unseen quarry, evermore 
 Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer 
 Carves his white bastions with projected roof 
 Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.” 
 
 My winter saunterings have never been solitary, 
 although often taken in haunts “ far from human 
 neighborhood.” The birds have afforded me all 
 the companionship I have really craved. One is 
 never lonely when one can see the flutter of a wing 
 or hear the calls of the blithe commoners of the 
 wildwood. When your soul is fretted by the daily 
 round of strifes and jealousies in the human world, 
 you can hie to the woods, and learn a lesson of con- 
 ciliation from the example of the loving fellowship 
 that exists in the bird community. I have often 
 been shamed by this constant display of amity 
 among many feathered folk, when I thought of the 
 childish bickerings of men in church and state. 
 
 But moralizing aside, I must describe the behavior 
 of my little winter friends, the tree-sparrows. They 
 are the hardiest birds that spend the winter in my 
 neighborhood, disdaining to seek shelter in the 
 thick woods during the most violent snow-storm. 
 Even the snowbirds, whose very name is a synonym 
 for toughness, are glad to seek a covert in some 
 secluded forest nook ; but the tree-sparrows choose 
 the clearing at the border of the woodland, where 
 the wind howls loudest and blows the snow in wild 
 eddies. Here they revel in the storm, flitting from 
 twig to twig, hopping on the snow-covered ground 
 4 
 
5 ° 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 as if it were a carpet of down, and picking seeds 
 from grass-stems and weed-stalks. All the while 
 they keep up a cheerful chirping, as if to express 
 their appreciation of the pleasant winter weather. 
 
 Strangest of all is their wading about in the snow. 
 It makes me shiver to see their little bare feet sink- 
 ing into the icy crystals, and I feel disposed to offer 
 them my warm rubber boots ; only I know they 
 would decline the proposal with scorn. “ I am no 
 tenderfoot ! ” one of them seems to say, with cunning 
 literalness. Their dainty tracks in the snow are 
 suggestive, and give to the thoughtful observer more 
 than one clew to bird cerebration. Let us follow 
 one of these winding pathways. Here a bird 
 alighted, his feet sinking deep into the cold down ; 
 then he hopped along to this tuft of grass, where he 
 picked a few mouthfuls of seeds, standing up to his 
 body in the snow ; then an impulse seized him to 
 seek another feeding-place ; so he went plunging 
 through the drifts, leaving, at regular intervals, the 
 prints of his two tiny feet side by side, while his 
 toes traced a slender connecting line on the white 
 surface between the deeper indentations. But here 
 is another path. What impulse seized this bird to 
 turn back like a rabbit on his track? For it is 
 evident that this is sometimes done. Then here 
 are only two or three footprints, showing that the 
 bird alighted suddenly, and as suddenly yielded to 
 an impulse to fly up again. What thought struck 
 him just at that moment that made him so quickly 
 change his mind ? 
 
WINTER FROLICS. 
 
 51 
 
 At one point I traced a path which bore evidence 
 of having been used a number of times for a long 
 distance, as it wound here and there in an ex- 
 tremely sinuous course among the bushes and briers. 
 Probably it was a sparrow-trail, if not a thoroughfare, 
 and had been used by many birds. In more than 
 one place were small hollows in the snow, just large 
 enough for a bird’s body to wallow in. Usually 
 they were at the terminus of one of these thorough- 
 fares. Might the birds have tarried there to take a 
 snow-bath? I have seen birds taking pool-baths, 
 shower-baths, dew-baths, and dust-baths. Who will 
 say they never take a snow-bath? 
 
 Next to the tree-sparrows, the juncos delight to 
 hold carnival in the snow ; but their behavior in this 
 element is somewhat different : they are not so fond 
 of hopping about in it, and do not plait such a net- 
 work of tracks among the bushes. They will fly 
 from a perch directly to the ground near a weed- 
 stalk or other cluster of dainties, and stand quietly 
 in the snow up to their little bodies while they take 
 their luncheon. Sometimes their white breasts rest 
 on the surface of the snow, or in a slight depression 
 of it, when they look as if they were sitting in a nest 
 of crystals. 
 
 The eighth of January was a cold day; in a little 
 opening in the midst of the woods was a covey of 
 snowbirds, and, incredible as it may seem, several 
 of them stood in the selfsame tracks in the snow, so 
 long that my own feet actually got frost-bitten while 
 I watched them, although I wore three pairs of 
 
 UNIVERSITY Of 
 KJ.1N01S LIBRARY 
 
5 2 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 socks — this is an honest confession — and a pair 
 of warm rubber boots. More than that, they thrust 
 their beaks into the snow and ate of it quite greedily. 
 What wonderful reserves of caloric must be wrapped 
 up in their small bodies to enable them to keep 
 themselves comfortable in winter with never a 
 mouthful of warm victuals or drink ! That the birds 
 should thrive and be happy in the spring and 
 summer is no matter of surprise ; but it remains for 
 the lover of out-door life in the winter to prove that 
 many of them are just as cheerful and content when 
 the mercury has taken a jaunt to some point far 
 below zero. 
 
 The student of Nature cannot always be in the 
 same mood. Indeed, Nature herself is, at times, as 
 whimsical, apparently, as the human heart. There 
 are times when she seems quite stolid, keeping her 
 precious secrets all to herself, as if her lips had 
 been hermetically sealed. With all your coaxing and 
 hoaxing and flattery, you cannot win from her a re- 
 sponse. Emerson, in one of his poems, speaks about 
 the forms of Nature dulling the edge of the mind 
 with their monotony ; and this sometimes seems to 
 be the case. Yet I must protest at once that it is 
 not generally true. There are days when Nature 
 fairly bubbles over with good cheer, and grows talk- 
 ative and even confidential, responding to every 
 touch of the rambler as a well-strung harp responds 
 to the touch of a skilful player. It is difficult to 
 account for her changeable moods, but obviously 
 they are not always to be traced only to the mind 
 of the observer. 
 
WINTER FROLICS. 
 
 53 
 
 During the winter of 1891-1892 many a tramp 
 was taken to the homes of the birds ; and let me 
 whisper that there were days when even they seemed 
 to be dull and commonplace. That is a frank con- 
 cession for a bird-lover to make, but it is the truth. 
 Sometimes these feathered actors have behaved in 
 the most ordinary way, failing to perform a single 
 trick that I had not seen a score of times before, and 
 I have actually gone home without making a single 
 entry in my note-book. But it has not always been 
 so. There, for example, was the twenty-second of 
 January : what an eventful day it was ! The morn- 
 ing of the twenty-first had been very cold, the mer- 
 cury having sunk, probably in a fit of despair, to 
 fourteen degrees below zero. During the day, how- 
 ever, the weather grew considerably warmer ; and 
 when the twenty-second came, bright and clear, 
 though still cold, one could take a jaunt with some 
 comfort. The sun shone from a cloudless sky, 
 and having put on my warm rubber boots, I waded 
 out through the deep snow to the woods. The se- 
 vere weather had not discouraged the jolly juncos 
 and tree-sparrows, or driven them to a warmer 
 climate. They delight in cold weather ; it seems to 
 make them all the merrier. They were flitting about 
 in the bushes and trees, chirping gayly, or, like my- 
 self, were wading in the snow, although they had no 
 woollen stockings for their little feet, much less warm 
 rubber boots. What hardy creatures they are ! For 
 long distances I could trace their dainty tracks in 
 the snow, winding in and out among the bushes and 
 
54 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 weeds, and making many a graceful curve, loop, angle, 
 and labyrinth. By following these little paths, as has 
 been said before, you may trace the thoughts of a 
 bird, — that is, you may for the time become a bird 
 mind-reader, interpreting every impulse that seized 
 the throbbing little brain and breast. 
 
 While watching these birds in the woods, I ob- 
 served a new freak of bird deportment. The juncos 
 would fly up into the dogwood-trees, pick off a berry, 
 nibble it greedily a moment with their little white 
 mandibles, and then fling it to the ground. My eye 
 was especially fixed on one little epicure. Presently 
 he found a berry that was juicy and quite to his 
 taste, and what did he do but seize it in his beak 
 and dash down into the snow, where he stood leg- 
 deep in the icy crystals until he had eaten his blood- 
 red tidbit ! He was in no hurry, but slowly picked 
 the berry to pieces, flinging it again and again into 
 the snow, devouring the soft red pulp and throw- 
 ing the rind and seed away. He must have stood 
 for fully five minutes in the same tracks ; at all events, 
 it seemed a long while to me, standing stock-still in 
 the snow, watching him eat his cold luncheon, while 
 my feet were becoming chilled. 1 should have pitied 
 his little feet had he not seemed so utterly indifferent 
 to the cold. Afterward I saw a number of juncos, 
 as well as tree-sparrows, taking their dinner in a simi- 
 lar way, — that is, on the snow, which seemed to serve 
 them for a table-cloth. Having eaten the pulp of 
 the berries, they left the pits and scarlet rinds lying 
 on top of the snow. Crumbs they were, scattered 
 
WINTER FROLICS. 
 
 55 
 
 about by these precious children of the woods ! In 
 this respect the snowbirds and tree-sparrows differ 
 from the crested titmice, which reject the pulp of 
 the dogwood berries entirely, but bore out the ker- 
 nel of the pit and eat it with a relish. And as to 
 the gluttonous robins, bluebirds, woodpeckers, and 
 waxwings, they swallow these berries whole. Every 
 citizen of Birdville to his own taste, so I say. 
 
 In the corn-field adjoining the woods I witnessed 
 another little scene that filled me with delight. At 
 some distance I perceived a snowbird eating seeds 
 from the raceme of a tall weed, which bent over in a 
 graceful arc beneath its dainty burden. Apparently 
 he was enjoying his repast all to himself. I climbed 
 the fence, and cautiously went nearer to get a better 
 view of the little diner-out. What kind of discovery 
 do you suppose I made ? I could scarcely believe 
 my eyes. There, beneath the weed, hopping about 
 on the snow, were a tree-sparrow and a junco, pick- 
 ing up the seeds that their little companion above 
 was shaking down. It was such a pretty little 
 comedy that I laughed aloud for pure delight. It 
 seemed for all the world like a boy in an apple-tree 
 shaking down the mellow fruit for his playmates, 
 who were gathering it from the ground as it fell. It 
 was a pity to disturb the birds at their festivities, 
 and I felt like a bully for doing so ; but in the inter- 
 est of science, you see, I had to drive them away to 
 see what kind of table they had spread. Beneath 
 the weed the snow was etched with dainty bird- 
 tracks, and thickly strewn with black seeds from the 
 raceme of the weed-stalk. 
 
5 ^ 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 Farther on in the woods, another cunning little 
 junco proved himself no lay figure. It seemed, in 
 fact, to be a junco day. When I first espied him, he 
 was standing in the snow beneath a slender weed- 
 stem eating seeds from his white table-cloth. But the 
 curious feature about his behavior was that, whenever 
 his supply of seeds on the snow had been picked 
 up, he would dart up to the weed-stem (which was 
 too slender to afford him a comfortable perch), give 
 it a vigorous shake, which would bring down a 
 quantity of seeds, and then he would flit below and 
 resume his meal. This he did several times. I 
 should not have believed a junco gifted with so much 
 sense had not my own eyes witnessed this cunning 
 performance. Had some other observer told the 
 story, I should have laughed at it a little slyly and 
 more than half unbelievingly ; but, of course, one 
 cannot gainsay the evidence of one’s own eyesight. 
 
 Nothing in all my winter rambles has surprised 
 me more than the evident delight some species of 
 birds take in the snow. It is a sort of luxury to 
 them, wading-ground and feasting-ground all in one. 
 How they keep their little bare feet from becoming 
 chilblained is a mystery. The evening of the twen- 
 tieth of January was bitterly cold, the wind blowing 
 in fierce, howling gusts from the northwest. Yet 
 when, at about five o’clock, I stalked out to the 
 pond in the rear of my house, the tree- sparrows and 
 song-sparrows were fairly revelling, not to say wal- 
 lowing, in the snow among the weeds. The wind 
 was so biting that I soon hurried back to the house, 
 and left them to their midwinter carousal. 
 
WINTER FROLICS. 
 
 57 
 
 Quite a respectable colony of flickers found a 
 home during the winter in my favorite woodland. 
 Unlike the other birds mentioned, chey do not wade 
 about in the snow. No ; to their minds, a bare 
 tree-wall is the desideratum for a tramping-ground ; 
 and if they need more exercise than promenading 
 affords them, they can take to wing and go bounding 
 from one part of the woods to another. A flicker is 
 a staid bird when he does n’t happen to be in a play- 
 ful mood. You would have laughed at one in De- 
 cember which was clinging to a branch high up in a 
 tree with his head right in front of a woodpecker 
 hole, over which he seemed to be standing guard. 
 There he clung, as if that hollow contained the most 
 precious treasure, and would not desert his post, 
 although I leaped about on the ground, shouted 
 loudly, and even flung my cap in the air like a wild 
 man, to frighten him away. How comical he looked 
 in his role of sentinel ! He never smiled or even 
 winked, but left such trifling to the human scatter- 
 brain below, who was so ill-mannered as to laugh 
 at a well-behaved woodpecker. Perhaps he had a 
 winter store of food stowed away in that cavity, and 
 thought he had to guard it well, now that a real 
 brigand had come prowling about the premises. 
 
IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 58 
 
 IV. 
 
 FEBRUARY OUTINGS. 
 
 I F I were not afraid of the ridicule of the cynic, 
 I should begin this February chronicle with an 
 exclamation of delight ; but in these days, when so 
 many of the so-called cultured class have taken for 
 their motto, Nil admirari , one must try to repress 
 one’s enthusiasm, or be scoffed at, or at least pat- 
 ronized, as young and inexperienced. Yet it would 
 be out of the question for the genuine rambler to 
 keep the valve constantly upon his buoyant feelings. 
 If he did so, he would be wholly out of tune with 
 the jubilant mood of bird and bloom and wave 
 around him. 
 
 Almost every day of February, 1891, was a gala- 
 day for me, on account of the large number of birds 
 in song at that time. The weather was not always 
 pleasant, but the month came in blandly, bringing 
 on its gentle winds many birds from their southern 
 winter-quarters ; and as they had come, they made 
 up their minds to stay. My notes begin with the 
 eleventh of the month, and my narrative will begin 
 with that date. In the evening I strolled out to my 
 favorite swamp. On my arrival all was quiet ; but 
 soon the song-sparrows, seeing that a human auditor 
 
FEBRUARY OUTINGS. 
 
 59 
 
 had come, broke into a jingling chorus. Early in 
 the season as it was, they seemed to be almost in 
 perfect voice, only a little of the hesitancy and 
 twitter of their fall songs being distinguishable ; 
 nor did they seem to care for the raw evening 
 wind blowing across the meadows, or the gray 
 clouds scurrying athwart the sky, but kept up their 
 canticles until the dusk fell. 
 
 Two days later, while sauntering through a wood- 
 land, I had the greatest surprise of the winter. For 
 several years I had been studying the tree- sparrows, 
 hoping to hear them sing, but only two or three 
 times had my anxious quest been rewarded with 
 even a wisp of melody from their lyrical throats. 
 On this day, however, I came upon a whole colony 
 of them in full tune, giving a concert that would 
 have thrilled the most prosaic soul with poetry and 
 romance. It was the first time I had ever really 
 seen these birds while singing ; but now, so kind 
 was fortune, I could watch the movement of their 
 mandibles, the swelling of their throats, and the 
 heaving of their bosoms while they trilled their 
 roundelays. My notes, taken on the spot, run as 
 follows : “ The song is somewhat crude and labored 
 in technique ; but the tones are very sweet indeed, 
 not soft and low, as one author says, but quite loud 
 and clear, so that they might be heard at some dis- 
 tance. The minstrelsy is more like that of the fox- 
 sparrow than of any other sparrow, though the tones 
 are finer and not so full and resonant. Quite often 
 the song opens with one or two long syllables, and 
 
6o 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 ends with a merry little trill having a delightfully 
 human intonation. There is, indeed, something 
 innocent and even childlike about the voices of 
 these sparrows. Had they the song-sparrow’s skill 
 in execution, they would rival that triller’s vocal 
 performances. How many of them are taking 
 part in the concert ! They seem to be holding a 
 song carnival to-day, and there is real witchery in 
 their music. Frequently their songs are superim- 
 posed, as it were, upon the semi-musical chattering 
 in which these birds so often indulge.” 
 
 But, strange to say, although the conditions were 
 apparently in every respect favorable, I did not hear 
 the song of a single tree-sparrow after that epochal 
 day for more than a year. Evidently these birds 
 are erratic songsters, at least in this latitude. On 
 the same day the meadow-larks flung their flute-like 
 songs athwart the fields, and the bold bugle of the 
 Carolina wren echoed through the woods. 
 
 February 14. “ In the swamp the song-sparrows 
 are holding an opera festival,” my notes run. “ One 
 of them trills softly in a clump of wild- rose bushes, 
 as if asking permission to sing ; and then, his request 
 being gladly granted, he leaps up boldly to a twig 
 of a sapling, and breaks into a torrent of melody. 
 Another, in precisely the same tune, answers him 
 farther down the stream, the two executing a sort 
 of fugue. A third leaps about on the dry grass 
 that fringes a ditch, twitters merrily for a while, 
 then flies to a small oak-tree near by, and — well, 
 such a loud, rollicking, tempestuous song I have 
 
FEBR UARY 0 UTINGS. 6 1 
 
 never before heard from a song-sparrow’s throat. 
 Some of his tones are full and exultant, while others 
 in the same run are low and tender, like the strains 
 of a love-lorn harp. The tones produced by exha- 
 lation can be distinguished from those produced 
 by inhalation. Sometimes his voice sounds a little 
 hoarse, as if he had strained one of the strings of 
 his lyre, but I find, on focusing my ear upon them, 
 that these are some of his most melodious notes. 
 Presently, in a fit of ecstasy, he hurls forth such a 
 torrent of song, in allegro furioso , that one almost 
 fancies the naiads and water-witches of the marsh 
 are crying out for admiration. 
 
 “ Here is something worthy of note — when the 
 song-sparrow begins a trill, he usually sings it over a 
 number of times, and then, as if wearied with one 
 tune, turns to another ; and yet with all his varia- 
 tions — and I know not how many he is capable of 
 singing — there is always something distinctive about 
 his minstrelsy that differentiates it from that of all 
 other birds.” 
 
 February 17. “ Again in the swamp. It seems 
 
 to me I have never before heard the song-sparrows 
 sing so gleefully. Every concert goes ahead of its 
 predecessor. Here is a sparrow hopping about on 
 the green grass among the bushes like a brown 
 mouse ; now he chirps sharply as if to attract my 
 attention, and then bursts into a melody that almost 
 makes me turn a somersault for very joy ; and now, 
 having sung his intermittent trills for a few minutes, 
 he begins to warble a sweet, continuous lay, with an 
 andante movement, as if he could not stop. 
 
62 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 iC A little farther on, another songster, with a 
 voice of excellent timbre , is descanting on a small 
 oak sapling. Note, he runs over several trills, rising 
 higher at every effort, until at last he strikes a note 
 far up in the scale, holds it firmly a moment, and 
 then drops to a lower note. Then he repeats the 
 process, the summit of his ambition being attained 
 whenever he reaches that high note, which is 
 bewitchingly sweet. How clear and true his voice 
 rings ! 
 
 “ Sometimes a silence falls upon the marsh ; not 
 a note is to be heard for a minute or two; and 
 then, as if by a preconcerted signal, a dozen spar- 
 rows throw the air into musical tumult, their com- 
 bined rush of notes seeming almost like a salvo. 
 Often, too, when I approach the marsh, no music is 
 heard, but no sooner have I climbed the fence into 
 the enclosure than the choral begins; so that I 
 believe I am justified in saying that the song-spar- 
 row appreciates a human auditor. This is not said 
 by way of disparagement, — by no means ; for 
 almost all musicians, whether human or avian, sing 
 to be heard.” 
 
 On the same day I saw a song- sparrow whose 
 central tail-feather was pure white from quill to tip, 
 and the bird remained in the marsh until the twenty- 
 fourth of the month, his odd adornment visible from 
 afar. I w r as also surprised to find two male che- 
 winks in the bushes. A cardinal grossbeak was also 
 seen, and a robin’s song and the loud call of a 
 flicker were heard. 
 
FEBRUARY OUTINGS. 
 
 63 
 
 My next outing occurred on the nineteenth, 
 when the weather had turned colder, and snow was 
 falling, mingled with sleet; yet several song- 
 sparrows trilled softly in the marsh. On the twenty- 
 third crow blackbirds were seen, and on the twenty- 
 fourth a turtle-dove was cooing meditatively, and 
 the song-sparrows were holding another opera festi- 
 val. The last days of February became cold again, 
 and March brought several severe storms ; but I think 
 none of the hardy, adventurous birds named, retreated 
 to a warmer clime, even if they did regret having left 
 their winter quarters a little prematurely. 
 
64 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 V. 
 
 ARRIVAL OF THE BIRDS. 
 
 H AVE any of my readers kept a record of the 
 arrival of the birds during the spring ? The 
 northward procession of the battalions in feathers is 
 an interesting study. Why do some birds begin 
 their pilgrimage from the south so much earlier than 
 others? What is there in their physical and mental 
 make-up that gives them the northward impulse even 
 before fair weather has come? Do they become 
 homesick for their summer haunts sooner than their 
 fellows? These are questions that are much more 
 easily asked than answered. The size of the bird 
 furnishes no clew to the solution, for some small 
 birds are better able to resist the cold than many 
 larger ones. There is the little black-capped tit- 
 mouse — a mere mite of a bird — which generally 
 remains in my neighborhood all winter, cheerfully 
 braving the stormiest weather; while the brown 
 thrasher, fully five times as large, is carefully warm- 
 ing his shins in the sunny south, and will not ven- 
 ture north until the spring has come to stay. Here, 
 too, is Bewick’s wren on the first day of April, — 
 with no thought of making an April fool of any 
 one, — while the Baltimore orioles, rose-breasted 
 
ARRIVAL OF THE BIRDS. 
 
 65 
 
 grossbeaks, and scarlet tanagers, all larger than he, 
 are tarrying in Georgia and Alabama. There is 
 nothing in the size or color or form of the birds that 
 makes this difference ; it is doubtless in the blood. 
 
 I have kept a careful memorandum of the arrival 
 of these feathered voyagers (this was during the 
 spring of 1892), and know almost to a certainty 
 the day, and sometimes the hour, when they cast 
 anchor in this port. The winter had been unusually 
 severe, and yet the migration began as early as the 
 twenty-second of February, when the first meadow- 
 larks put in appearance, and sent their wavering 
 shafts of song across the frost-bound fields. They 
 had left only on the last day of December, but had 
 apparently remained away as long as they could. 
 On the same day the killdeer plovers also arrived, 
 making their presence known by their wailing cry. 
 On the twenty-third I heard the Q-q-o-o-ka-l-e-e-e of 
 the red-winged blackbirds, and on the morning of 
 the twenty-fourth the first robins dropped from the 
 sky after a “ flying trip” in the night from some 
 more southern stopping-place ; but the weather 
 was too cold for them to sing. Yet the song-spar- 
 rows and meadow-larks defied the cold with their 
 cheerful melody. While the robin is a very gay 
 and lavish songster, he wants favorable weather for 
 his vocal rehearsals, and a “ cold snap ” will easily 
 discourage him. He is evidently somewhat of a fair- 
 weather minstrel. It was on February twenty- 
 eighth, a pleasant day. that I caught the first strain 
 of robin melody. 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 The towhee buntings dropped anchor on the 
 seventh of March, filling the woods with their fine, 
 explosive trills. It was a pleasant day, a sort of 
 oasis in the midst of the stormy weather, and it did 
 not seem inapt to speculate a little as to the thoughts 
 of these birds on their arrival at their old summer 
 haunts, after an absence of four or five months. 
 Was the old brush-heap, where they had built their 
 nest the previous spring, still there ? Had the 
 winter storms spared the twig on the sapling where 
 Cock Bunting had sung erstwhile his sweetest trills 
 to his dusky mate ? “ What if the woodman has 
 
 cleared away our pleasant corner of the woods?” 
 whispers Mrs. Towhee to her lord as they approach 
 the sequestered spot. How their hearts must bound 
 with joy when they find sapling and brush-heap and 
 winding woodway all as they had left them in the 
 autumn ! No wonder they are so tuneful ! Even 
 the snow-storms that moan and howl through the 
 woods a few days later cannot wholly repress their 
 exuberant feelings. 
 
 On the same date a whole colony of young song- 
 sparrows stopped at this station on their journey 
 northward, although you must remember that quite 
 a number of their elders remained here through the 
 winter. What a twittering these year-old sparrows 
 made in the bushes fringing the woods ! I actually 
 laughed aloud at their crude, tuneless, quasi-musical 
 efforts. They were not in good voice, and, besides, 
 had not yet fully learned the tunes that are sung in 
 sparrowdom, and could not control their vocal 
 
ARRIVAL OF THE BIRDS . 
 
 6 7 
 
 chords. They made many sorry and amusing at- 
 tempts to chant and trill, but their voices would 
 break and catch in the most remarkable ways, now 
 sliding up too high in the scale, now sliding down 
 too low, and now veering too much to one side, so 
 to speak. One tyro, I observed, sang the first part 
 of a run very well, almost as well, in fact, as an adult 
 musician could have sung it ; but when he tried to 
 finish, his voice seemed to fly all to flinders. He 
 made the attempt again and again, but to no pur- 
 pose. It was a day for which I have cut a notch 
 in the tally-stick of memory. Leaving the company 
 of young vocalists at their rehearsals at the border 
 of the woods, I made my way to a swamp not far 
 off, where a pleasant surprise lay in ambush. Here 
 were no longer found young song-sparrows, but 
 adults, and you should have heard them sing. What 
 a contrast between the crude songs of the young 
 birds and the loud, clear, splendidly intoned and 
 executed trills of these trained musicians ! 
 
 But I must return to the subject of migration. 
 The fifteenth of March was a raw, blustering day, 
 as its predecessors had been ; but in the woods sev- 
 eral fox-sparrows were singing, not their best, of 
 course, but fairly well for such weather. They must 
 have come during the night. But why had they 
 come when the weather was so cold? Most birds 
 wait until there is a bland air-c.urrent from the south 
 on which they can ride triumphantly. Had this 
 small band of fox- sparrows followed the example 
 of a well-known American humorist, and gone to 
 
68 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 “ roughing it ”? Strange to say, I saw no more fox- 
 sparrows until the twenty-eighth, when the weather 
 had grown warm. That was also the day on which 
 I saw the first winter wren scudding about in the 
 brush-heaps and wood-piles and perking up his tail 
 in the most approved bantam fashion. It may be 
 a poor joke, but the thought came of its own accord, 
 that if brevity is the soul of wit, this little wren 
 must have a very witty tail ; and it really is an 
 amusing appendage, held up at an acute angle with 
 the bird’s sloping back. 
 
 As I strolled along the edge of the woods on the 
 same day, the fine rhythmic trill of the bush-spar- 
 row reached my ear. He was celebrating his return 
 to this sylvan resort, and his voice was in excellent 
 trim ; the fact is, I never heard him acquit himself 
 quite so well, not even in May. Miss Lucy Larcom, 
 of tender and sacred memory, has happily charac- 
 terized this triller’s song in melodious verse : — 
 
 “One syllable, clear and soft 
 As a raindrop’s silvery patter, 
 
 Or a tinkling fairy-bell, heard aloft, 
 
 In the midst of the merry chatter 
 Of robin and linnet and w ren and jay, — 
 
 One syllable oft repeated ; 
 
 He has but a word to say, 
 
 And of that he will not be cheated.” 
 
 But why was not the grass-finch, his relative of 
 the fields, in just as good voice when he arrived on 
 the thirty-first? The last two springs this bird had 
 to be on his singing-grounds several days before he 
 
ARRIVAL OF THE BIRDS. 
 
 69 
 
 recovered his full powers of voice. On the twenty- 
 ninth the phoebe came with his burden of sweet song, 
 and the first of April brought Bewick’s wren — sweet- 
 voiced Arion of the suburbs — and the chipping 
 sparrow, whose slender peal of song rang through 
 my study window. Here my record stops for the 
 present year; but by reference to my last year’s 
 notes (1891) it appears that Bewick’s wren did not 
 then arrive until April tenth, and chippy not until 
 April twelfth. The difference in the seasons is 
 doubtless the primary cause of this divergence in 
 the time of arrival. April brings many other winged 
 pilgrims, — the white-throated and white-crowned 
 sparrows, the thrushes, the orioles, the tanagers, 
 the cat-birds, the swallows and swifts, and some of 
 the hardier warblers, while the great army of war- 
 blers delay their coming till the first and second 
 weeks in May. And all the while we are having bird 
 concerts, cantatas, oratorios, and opera festivals, 
 mingled with some tragedy and a great deal of 
 comedy, and there are love songs and cradle songs, 
 matins and vespers, and twitterings expressive of 
 every shade and variety of feeling. 
 
 I yield to the temptation to add a brief article 
 entitled “ Watching the Parade,” which was pub- 
 lished in a New England journal in the summer of 
 1893, and contains a record of some observations 
 made during the previous spring. By comparison 
 with the preceding part of this chapter, it will indi- 
 cate the versatile character of bird study in the 
 
7 o 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 same season of different years. I shall give it 
 almost verbatim as first published, hoping the 
 rather “ free and easy” style will be generously 
 overlooked by critical readers. 
 
 Every spring and autumn for many years I have 
 been watching the parade ; not a parade of soldiers, 
 or of civic orders, or even of a menagerie ; but one 
 of far more interest to the naturalist, — the pro- 
 cession of the army in feathers. A wonderful cor- 
 tege it is, this army in bright array ; and every time 
 you witness it, you add something new to your 
 knowledge of bird life. The last spring has been no 
 exception, although, when the pageant began, I 
 wondered if I should see any new birds or hear any 
 new songs, and even felt a little doubtful about it. 
 
 But quite early a new bird was added to my list. 
 It was the blue-winged warbler, which carries about 
 a scientific name big enough to break its dainty 
 back. Just think of calling a tiny bird Helminiho - 
 phila pinus ! But happily it does not know its own 
 name, and, like some of my readers, would not be 
 able to pronounce it if it did, and therefore no 
 serious harm is done. This bird may be known by 
 the bright olive-green of its back, the pale blue of 
 its wings, the pure yellow of its under parts, and the 
 narrow black line running back through its eye. It 
 seemed to be quite wary, yet I got near enough to 
 see it catch insects on the wing like a wood-pewee, 
 as well as pick them from the leaves of the trees. 
 
 The bird student must sometimes let problems go 
 
ARRIVAL OF THE BIRDS . 71 
 
 unsolved. For nearly, perhaps quite a week, three 
 or four large, heavy-beaked birds flitted about in 
 several tall tree-tops of the woods, but were so far 
 up that, try as I would, I could not identify them 
 even with my opera-glass. In my small collection 
 of mounted birds there is a female evening gross- 
 beak ; and the tree-top flitters looked more like it 
 than any other bird of my acquaintance. If they 
 were evening grossbeaks, it was a rare And; for 
 these birds are almost unknown in this part of the 
 country, only a few having ever been discovered in 
 this State. Their usual locale is thought to be west 
 of Lake Superior. I was sorely tempted to use a 
 gun, but decided that it was just as well not to know 
 some things as to massacre an innocent bird. 
 
 .However, other finds were more satisfactory. 
 Strolling through the woods one day, I caught the 
 notes of a bird song that did not sound familiar. 
 Surely it was a vireo’ s quaint, continuous lay ; but 
 which of the vireos could it be? It was different 
 from any vireo minstrelsy I had ever heard. Peer- 
 ing about in the bushes for the author of those 
 elusive notes, I at length espied a little bird form, 
 and the next moment my glass revealed the blue- 
 headed or solitary vireo. It was the first time I had 
 ever heard this little vocalist sing in the spring, 
 although we have met — he and I — on familiar 
 terms every season for many years. Here is a 
 query : Why was blue-head silent other years, and 
 so tuneful that spring? For he was often heard 
 after that day. 
 
72 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 The song was varied and lively, sometimes run- 
 ning high in the scale, and had not that absent- 
 minded air which marks the roundelay of the 
 warbling vireo. It is much more intense and 
 expressive, and some notes are quite like certain 
 runs of the brown thrasher’s song. The bird did 
 two other things that were a surprise : he chattered 
 and scolded much like the ruby-crowned kinglet. 
 Then he caught a miller, and, as it was too large to 
 be swallowed whole, placed it under his claws pre- 
 cisely like a chickadee or blue jay, and pulled it to 
 pieces. This was a new trick to me, nor have I 
 ever read, in any of the bird manuals, of his taking 
 his dinner in this way. 
 
 The red-eyed vireo also chanted a little roundel 
 that spring, as he pursued his journey northward, his 
 song being slower in movement and less expressive 
 and varied than that of his cousin just referred to. 
 
 Indeed, the procession seemed to be especially 
 musical during that spring. One day, in the last 
 week in April, a new style of music rang out at the 
 border of the woods, and I fairly trembled lest the 
 jolly soloist should scud away before I could iden- 
 tify him ; but he had no intention of making his 
 escape, and giving the credit of his vocal efforts to 
 somebody else in the bird world. At length I got 
 my glass upon him. He proved to be the purple 
 finch, — rosy little Mozart that he was ! For years 
 he has passed through these woods with the vernal 
 procession, but this was the first time he had ever 
 been obliging enough to sing in my hearing. And 
 
ARRIVAL OF THE BIRDS. 
 
 73 
 
 what a rolling, rollicking little song it was, just as 
 full of good cheer as bird song could be ! He 
 continued his vocal rehearsal for many minutes on 
 that day, but afterward he and his fellows were as 
 mute as the inmates of a deaf and dumb asylum. A 
 purple finch once sang here in the fall ; but the 
 music was quite harsh and squeaking, very different 
 from his springtime melody. 
 
 One of the most beautiful birds that have a part 
 in the vernal parade is the rose-breasted grossbeak, 
 — a bird that you will recognize at once by his 
 white-and-black coat and the rosy shield he so 
 bravely bears on his bosom. In his summer home, 
 farther north, I have often heard his vivacious 
 music (this was in northern Indiana) ; but until 
 the past spring he has always been silent as he 
 passed through this neighborhood, save that he 
 would sometimes utter his sharp, metallic Chip . 
 However, on the fourteenth of May two of these 
 grossbeaks sang a most vigorous duet in the grove 
 near my house ; and I wish you could have heard it, 
 for it would have made you almost leap for joy, it 
 was so jolly and rollicksome. At first you may be 
 disposed to think the grossbeak’s song much like 
 the robin’s, but you will soon find that it is finer in 
 several respects, the tones being clearer and fuller, 
 the utterance more rapid and varied, and the whole 
 song much more spirited ; and that is saying a 
 good deal, considering Cock Robin’s cheery carols. 
 No one should fail to hear this rosy-breasted min- 
 strel, whatever else he may miss. It v/ill make him 
 
74 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 feel that life is worth living ; that if God made this 
 bird so happy, he must intend that his rational 
 creatures, who are of more value than a bird, should 
 also be cheerful. 
 
 Never were the birds so gentle and confiding as 
 they were during that spring. A female redstart 
 took up her residence in my yard for fully a week, 
 flitting about in the trees and grape-arbor, seeking 
 for nits and worms ; and you are to remember that 
 I live in town (though in the outskirts), with many 
 houses and people about, and an electric car whirl- 
 ing along the street every few minutes. A dainty 
 bay-breasted warbler — little witch ! — kept the red- 
 start company, letting me stand beneath the trees 
 on whose lower branches she tilted, and watch her 
 agile movements ; yet one of my bird books declares 
 that the bay-breasted warblers remain in the highest 
 tree-tops of the woods ! Both these birds occasion- 
 ally uttered a trill. 
 
 The goldfinches, too, were very familiar. They 
 came with the procession as far north as my neigh- 
 borhood, but stopped here for the summer, instead 
 of continuing their pilgrimage. Some of their 
 brothers and sisters remained with me all winter. 
 Within a few feet of my rear door stands a small 
 apple-tree, in whose branches these feathered gold- 
 flakes flashed about, and sang their childlike ditties, 
 and one little madam fluttered in the leafy crotches 
 of the twigs, fitting her body into them as if trying 
 to see if they would make good nesting-sites ; the 
 while Sir Goldfinch sang and sang at the top of his 
 
ARRIVAL OF THE BIRDS . 
 
 75 
 
 voice. Several white-crowned, sparrows also came 
 to eat seeds thrown out into the back yard. These 
 handsome sparrows were not shy, but perched on 
 the fence or the trees, and trilled their sweet 
 refrains. 
 
76 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 VI. 
 
 WINGED VOYAGERS. 
 
 T HE subject of bird migration is one of absorb- 
 ing interest, presenting many a perplexing 
 problem to the student who cares to go into the 
 philosophy of things. Why do the birds make these 
 wonderful semi-annual pilgrimages, and whence came 
 the original impulse, are questions often asked. With 
 my limited opportunities for observation I cannot 
 hope to shed much, if any, new light on the sub- 
 ject ; yet it seems to me that some persons are dis- 
 posed to invest it with more of an air of mystery than 
 is really necessary. There are several patent, if not 
 wholly satisfactory, reasons that may be assigned 
 for the migrating impulse. 
 
 As this is not a scientific treatise, the writer will 
 not be over- methodical in presenting these reasons, 
 but will mention them in the order in which they 
 occur to him. If we keep in mind the invariable 
 succession of the seasons, and that this annual rota- 
 tion has continued for ages, and if we also remem- 
 ber that all animals are dowered by their Creator 
 with as much intelligence as is necessary for their 
 well-being, much of the difficulty attaching to this 
 subject will at once disappear. Birds, like their 
 
WINGED VOYAGERS . 
 
 77 
 
 human kinsmen, learn by experience and tutelage, 
 and are also gifted with a sure instinct that amounts 
 in many cases almost to reason. Take, for instance, 
 this one fact. As the sun creeps northward in the 
 spring, it pours a more and more intense heat upon 
 the northern portions of the tropical and sub-tropical 
 regions. The heat would soon become intolerable 
 to certain birds, which have doubtless tried the 
 experiment of spending the summer in equatorial 
 countries ; or if individuals now living have not 
 tried it, perhaps some of their more or less remote 
 ancestors have. That birds do make experiments 
 is proved by the fact that several pets of mine 
 will carefully “ sample ” a new kind of food offered 
 them, and if they do not find it to their taste, 
 will let it severely alone; nor is it any the less 
 evident that young birds receive instruction from 
 their elders. Thus the necessity of leaving the 
 torrid regions as summer approaches may have 
 been impressed on the migrating species from time 
 immemorial. 
 
 Again, as spring advances, insect and vegetable 
 life is revived in regions farther north, and this 
 certainly must act as a magnet upon the birds, 
 drawing them from point to point as the supply of 
 food becomes scarce in the more southern localities. 
 Then, let us suppose for a moment that all the birds 
 did remain in the south through the summer ; there 
 would sooner or later be a bird famine in the land, 
 for the supply of seeds and insects would soon be 
 exhausted. Our feathered folk are simply obliged, 
 
?8 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 on account of the exigencies of food, to scatter 
 themselves over a larger extent of country. They 
 solve the problem of food supply and demand by 
 these annual pilgrimages to the boreal lands of 
 plenty. 
 
 To go a little more to the root of the matter, we 
 may easily imagine how the migrating spirit got its 
 first impulse and gradually became evolved into a 
 habit of something like scientific precision. If the 
 first birds lived in tropical climates, as was probably 
 the case, some of them, as the food supply became 
 exhausted, would be crowded northward, or would 
 go of their own accord, and wherever they went 
 they would find well-filled natural larders. Having 
 once discovered that spring replenished the north 
 with food, they would soon learn the desirability of 
 making periodical journeys to that part of the globe. 
 With this constant quest for food must also be 
 coupled the instinctive desire of most birds for 
 seclusion during the season of reproduction, — an 
 instinct that would naturally drive them northward 
 into the less thickly tenanted districts. But it may be 
 objected that many species make long aerial voyages, 
 passing over vast tracts of country to reach their 
 chosen summer habitats in various parts of the 
 north ; and it is well known that the same individ- 
 uals will return again and again, on the recurrence 
 of spring, to the same locality. How are these facts 
 to be accounted for? 
 
 If we accept the glacial theory — a hypothesis 
 pretty well established now among scientific men - 
 
WINGED VOYAGERS . 
 
 79 
 
 we may readily conceive that, as the sun melted the 
 ice at a greater distance in both directions from the 
 equator, the habitable area of the earth’s surface 
 would gradually become enlarged. For the sake of 
 vividness let us fancy ourselves living at that period 
 of the world’s history. Let us select a point north 
 of the equator where a given pair of birds can live 
 in summer. They find plenty of food there, and 
 are comparatively undisturbed by other birds, and 
 they therefore become attached to the place, most 
 feathered folk having a strong “ homing instinct.” 
 When winter comes, they and their progeny are 
 forced to retire to the south ; but they do not for- 
 get their pleasant summer haunt, their Mecca in 
 the north, and therefore, at the approach of the 
 following spring, they obey the home impulse and 
 hie by easy stages to the beloved spot. Some of 
 their number doubtless find it possible from time to 
 time to push farther northward, and thus other 
 breeding-haunts are selected. As the glacial ac- 
 cumulations melt away, the whole temperate region 
 and a large part of the frigid zone become habitable. 
 All this takes place by a very gradual process, re- 
 quiring thousands of years, thus giving ample time 
 for heredity to infuse the migratory habit into the 
 nature of the birds. Every new generation would 
 learn the route and other needful details from 
 their predecessors, and thus the process would go 
 on in an unending circuit year by year. 
 
 After the foregoing was written, my attention was 
 called to the following quotation from Dr. J. A. 
 
8o 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 Allen’s valuable paper on the “ Origin of the In- 
 stinct of Migration in Birds.” The extract is taken 
 from an article by Frank M. Chapman, published in 
 “ The Auk ” for January, 1894 : “ Nothing is doubtless 
 more thoroughly established than that a warm tem- 
 perate or sub-tropical climate prevailed down to the 
 close of the Tertiary epoch, nearly to the Northern 
 Pole, and that climate was previously everywhere so 
 far equable that the necessity for migration can 
 hardly be supposed to have existed. With the later 
 refrigeration of the northern regions, bird life must 
 have been crowded thence toward the tropics, and 
 the struggle for life thereby greatly intensified. The 
 less yielding forms may have become extinct ; those 
 less sensitive to climatic change would seek to extend 
 the boundaries of their range by a slight removal 
 northward during the milder intervals of summer, 
 only, however, to be forced back again by the recur- 
 rence of winter. Such migration must have been at 
 first incipient and gradual,’ extending and strength- 
 ening as the cold wave receded, and opened up a 
 wider area within which existence in summer became 
 possible. What was at first a forced migration 
 would become habitual, and through the heredity 
 of habit give rise to that wonderful faculty which 
 we term the instinct of migration.” The reader’s 
 attention is also directed to Mr. Chapman’s own 
 article in the number of “ The Auk ” indicated. 
 
 It may be asked why some species remain in 
 torrid and temperate climates, while others wing 
 their way to the far north, even beyond the boun- 
 
WINGED VOYAGERS. 
 
 8l 
 
 clary of the Arctic Circle. My answer is, There is 
 some Power that has wisely arranged all these mat- 
 ters, either by gradual development or by an original 
 creative fiat. Every species is made to fit with nice 
 precision into its peculiar niche in the creation. 
 Perhaps Bryant suggests the true explanation in his 
 poem entitled “To a Waterfowl” : — 
 
 “ There is a Power whose care 
 Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, 
 
 The desert and illimitable air, 
 
 Lone wandering, but not lost.” 
 
 This may seem like begging the question ; yet, to 
 my mind, it is impossible to develop a philosophy 
 of the universe without assuming an original crea- 
 tive Intelligence. True, the laws of evolution will 
 account for many of the details, and birds, like men, 
 are empowered in a large measure to work out their 
 own destiny ; but somewhere there must be a Power 
 that has infused into Nature all these wonderful po- 
 tentialities of development. Involution must pre- 
 cede evolution. 
 
 But this is speculation. Account for them as we 
 may, the facts are evident. Within the circle of my 
 own observation there is abundant proof of this varied 
 but wise adaptation in Nature. There, for example, 
 is the tiny golden-crested kinglet, which remains here 
 all winter, no matter how severe the weather, and 
 seems to be the embodiment of good cheer; whereas 
 the brown thrasher, a bird many times as large, 
 would be likely to perish in the first snow-squall. 
 Then, when spring arrives, Master Kinglet hies to 
 6 
 
82 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 the north for the breeding-season, while Monsieur 
 Thrasher comes up from the south and becomes 
 my alb summer intimate. 
 
 Another matter of intense interest concerning bird 
 migration is that the migrants which winter farthest 
 north are, as a rule, the first to arrive in the spring 
 at their summer homes or vernal feeding-grounds. 
 For instance, in the latter part of March or the 
 beginning of April, while the thrashers, cat-birds, 
 and others which winter in our Southern States, are 
 arriving in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, 
 and Ohio, the warbler army, which spends the winter 
 in the West Indies, Yucatan, and Central America, 
 is just crossing over from those countries to the 
 southern borders of the United States. 
 
 When autumn comes, experience has taught the 
 migrants that their only safety lies in making their 
 way to the south before cold weather sets in ; for 
 many of them certainly do start on this voyage 
 long before winter drives them from their northern 
 haunts. In my opinion, they are gifted with suf- 
 ficient reason — call it instinct, if you like — to do 
 this, and I do not think they are moved by an 
 uncontrollable impulse which acts upon them as 
 if they were mere automata. 
 
 Portions of the migrating army often overlap. 
 For example, the juncos and tree-sparrows are 
 winter residents in my neighborhood, but very 
 frequently they remain here a month or more after 
 the earliest arrivals from the south. Presently, 
 however, they grow nervous, flit about uneasily, 
 
WINGED VOYAGERS. 
 
 S3 
 
 trill little snatches of song, inure themselves to 
 flight by longer or shorter excursions about the 
 country, and then join the northward procession 
 en route for their breeding-haunts in British Amer- 
 ica. With regret I bid them adieu, but find com- 
 pensation in the knowledge that their places will 
 be supplied by a brilliant company of summer 
 residents. 
 
 One of the strangest features of migration is the 
 fact that a bird will sometimes make the voyage 
 from north to south, and vice versa — or a part of 
 the voyage — alone, at least as far as companionship 
 with individuals of its own kind is concerned. 
 Whether this is done advertently or inadvertently I 
 am unable to say, but the fact cannot be disputed. 
 In the spring of 1892, as noted in another chapter, 
 a hooded warbler was flitting about a gravel bank in 
 a wooded hollow, and although I scoured the coun- 
 try for miles around day after day, I never met 
 another bird of this species. The little Apollo in 
 feathers was so gentle and familiar that surely his 
 mates would not have escaped my notice had there 
 been any in the neighborhood. Why he preferred 
 to travel alone, or in company with other species 
 rather than his own kin, might be an interesting 
 problem in avian psychology. A little farther down 
 the glen a single mourning warbler was also seen at 
 almost the same date. His companions had prob- 
 ably wished him bon voyage , and left him to strike 
 out in an independent course through the trackless 
 ocean of air. 
 
8 4 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 That the army of migrants travel mostly by night 
 is a well-known fact that can be verified by any one 
 who will stand out-of-doors and listen to their chirp- 
 ing overhead. They seem to move in loose flocks, 
 for there are intervals of complete silence, followed 
 by a promiscuous chirping from many throats. Nor 
 are these nocturnal calls all uttered by a single 
 species, but usually a number of species seem to be 
 travelling in company. One might say, therefore, 
 that the feathered army moves in squads. As they 
 travel in the dark, very little can be said about their 
 flight ; but every student has found species of birds 
 in an early morning ramble which he could not find 
 anywhere on the previous day, proving that they must 
 have arrived in the night. Here is a single excerpt 
 — many might be given — from my note-book : “ On 
 the third of March, 1894 , 1 took a long stroll into the 
 country, remaining in the fields until dusk ; not a 
 single meadow-lark was to be seen or heard. At 
 daybreak next morning, however, the shrill whistle 
 of I know not how many larks rose like musical 
 incense from the fields and commons in the rear of 
 my house. Depend upon it, had these lavish min- 
 strels been in the neighborhood during the previous 
 afternoon, they would not have escaped my atten- 
 tion, for they could not have kept their music in 
 their larynxes, not they ! There is a cog in Nature’s 
 machinery lost if the meadow-larks are silent for 
 a half day in the spring.” 
 
 In 1885 Mr. William Brewster, the well-known 
 ornithologist, made some intensely interesting dis- 
 
WINGED VOYAGERS . 
 
 §5 
 
 coveries on the nocturnal flight of migrants, at Point 
 Lepreaux Lighthouse, New Brunswick. The prin- 
 cipal lantern, which was in the top of the tower, 
 cast a light that could be seen fifteen miles away in 
 clear weather. Even on dark and foggy nights this 
 lantern would throw out a strong light to such a dis- 
 tance that a bird coming into the lighted area could 
 readily be seen. On stormy nights the lighthouse 
 seemed to possess a fatal attraction for the lost and 
 rain-beaten birds, which would fly toward it and 
 often dash against the glass, the roof, and other 
 portions of the tower with such force that they 
 fell dead or disabled. Mr. Brewster could see 
 them approaching in the prism of light, some dash- 
 ing themselves with fatal effect against the tower, 
 but more, fortunately, turning aside or gliding 
 upward over the roof, and then pressing on toward 
 the west with incessant chirping. During rainy 
 weather a larger proportion would strike the brilliant 
 obstruction. 
 
 It is interesting to notice that different species 
 composed the companies that passed the lighthouse. 
 For instance, on the night of September first, seven 
 different species of warblers and one red-eyed vireo 
 were killed or disabled, and one Traill’s flycatcher 
 entered the mouth of the ventilator, and came down 
 through it into the lantern. A few evenings later, 
 about forty per cent of the specimens identified were 
 Maryland yellow- throats, forty per cent more red- 
 eyed vireos, and the remaining twenty per cent 
 weie made up of two kinds of thrushes and six kinds 
 
86 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 of warblers. These figures are given to show the 
 heterogeneous composition of the migrant army. 
 
 Mr. Brewster also found that no birds came about 
 the lantern except on densely cloudy or foggy 
 nights, and that they came in the greatest numbers 
 when the first hour or two of the evening had been 
 clear and was succeeded by fog or storm. These data 
 would seem to prove that the birds began their noc- 
 turnal journey with the expectation of having pleas- 
 ant weather, and when the fog or storm rose later in 
 the evening, they flew lower and got bewildered by 
 the glare of the lighthouse. 
 
 Many theories of bird migration have been pro- 
 posed and argued at length, but, on the whole, I 
 incline to Mr. Brewster’s theory that the old birds, 
 having learned the advantage of these semi-annual 
 expeditions, and having also determined the route by 
 means of certain landmarks, act as aerial pilots to 
 the army of young birds to whom the way is still 
 unknown. Mountain ranges, river valleys, coast 
 lines, and sheets of landlocked water doubtless serve 
 the purpose of guide-posts to these airy travellers. 
 Much as has been written on the subject, however, 
 there still remains a large field for original research. 
 
PLUMAGE OF YOUNG BIRDS. 
 
 87 
 
 VII. 
 
 PLUMAGE OF YOUNG BIRDS. 
 
 I T is surprising what odd and variegated costumes 
 are sometimes worn by the juvenile members 
 of the bird community. Frequently their attire is 
 so different from that of their elders that even the 
 expert ornithologist may be sorely puzzled to deter- 
 mine the category to which they belong ; yet there 
 are usually some characteristic markings, however 
 obscure, by which their places in the avian system 
 may be fixed. As a rule, the plumage of young 
 birds is more striped and mottled than that of mature 
 specimens, Nature playing some odd pranks of color- 
 mixing in tiding a bird over from callow infancy to 
 full-fledged life. Fashion plates in the world of 
 bantlings would be of little account, as no fixed 
 patterns are followed. 
 
 Some parts of the growing bird’s plumage change 
 to the normal color sooner than others. I remem- 
 ber a young male indigo bird that I saw in October, 
 whose garb, just after fledging, must have been a 
 warm brown almost like that of the adult female ; 
 but now he had cast off a part of his infantile robes, 
 and put on in their stead the cerulean of his male 
 parent ; his tail, rump, and the base of his wings 
 
88 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 were blue, while the rest of his plumage was brown. 
 He made a unique and pretty picture as he sat 
 atilt on a blackberry stem, asking me with loud 
 Tsips to admire his quaint toilet. Early in the 
 spring I have seen indigo birds in whose plumage 
 the tints were quite differently blended and arranged. 
 
 What a party-colored suit the young bluebird 
 wears ! His breast, instead of being plain brick-red 
 as in the case of the adult bird, is profusely striped 
 with dark brown on a background of soiled white ; 
 and his upper parts, in lieu of the warm azure of 
 riper years, are a lustrous brown curiously mottled 
 with tear-shaped blocks of white ; while his wings 
 and tail have already assumed the normal blue of 
 this species. In the days of his youth the chipping- 
 sparrow also dons a striped vest, so that, if it were 
 not for his smaller size, it would be difficult to dis- 
 tinguish him from his relative, the grass-finch. 
 
 My admiration was especially stirred, one mid- 
 summer day, by the dainty appearance of a small 
 coterie of bush-sparrows flitting about on a railroad 
 which I was pursuing on foot ; a large patch on 
 their wings was of a dark, glossy brown tint, 
 extremely pretty, and looking precisely as if it had 
 been painted by the deft hand of ap artist. Their 
 under parts were variously streaked with white and 
 dusk. At first I scarcely recognized my familiar 
 little sylvan friends ; but their intimacy with several 
 adult specimens, as well as several well-known diag- 
 nostic markings, settled the question of their identity 
 beyond a doubt. 
 
PLUMAGE OF YOUNG BIRDS . 89 
 
 Not every person is aware that the common red- 
 headed woodpecker is no red-head at all during the 
 first summer of his buoyant young life, but a black- 
 head instead, or, rather, his head and neck are very 
 dark gray. However, one day in September I was 
 delighted and amused to find an adolescent wood- 
 pecker whose head and neck were beginning to 
 turn quite reddish, flecked everywhere with white, 
 giving him a decidedly picturesque appearance as 
 he scuddled up an oblique fence-stake. Of course 
 the red- head is always sui generis, but in this case 
 he seemed to be more so than usual. Nearly all 
 the woodpeckers — the downy, the hairy, and the 
 golden- winged — are devoid of the red spots on 
 their heads, while young, to prevent them, I suppose, 
 from becoming vain. 
 
 Sometimes an entirely foreign tint is introduced 
 into the plumage of the young bird during his tran- 
 sition state. One day I was surprised to observe 
 a decidedly bluish cast on the striped breast of a 
 young towhee bunting, which was all the more 
 curious because there is no blue whatever in the 
 plumage of either the adult male or female. But 
 the most curious freak of Nature’s dyeing I have 
 ever seen in the bird world was in the case of a 
 young scarlet tanager, whose body, including the 
 wings, was completely girded with a band of white, 
 the border of which was quite irregular. As every 
 observer knows, the only colors visible in the adult 
 male’s plumage are black and scarlet ; still, when 
 the scarlet feathers are pushed aside, they show 
 
9 o 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 white underneath, and that may account for the 
 albino quality of this specimen. 
 
 When he is first fledged, the pattern of the young 
 cardinal grossbeak’s plumage very much resembles 
 that of his mother ; but soon the bright red of his 
 full dress begins to peep here and there through the 
 grayish-olive of his kilts and trousers, so to speak, 
 making him look as if he had been meddling with a 
 keg of red paint and had splashed himself liberally 
 with it. By and by there is a very odd blending of 
 tints in his suit. Scarcely less curious is the garb 
 of the young white-crowned sparrow ; his whole 
 head is black or blackish- brown, except a tiny speck 
 of white in the centre of the crown, gleaming like 
 a diamond in its dark setting. In the adult bird 
 the whole crown is a glistening white, bordered on 
 each side by a black band, which circles about on 
 the forehead and separates the crown-piece from 
 the white superciliary line. 
 
 Some of the warblers are scarcely recognizable in 
 their juvenile attire. For example, the young black- 
 poll, bay-breasted, and chestnut-sided warblers bear 
 little, if any, resemblance to their parents, whose 
 diversified nuptial robes make our woodlands radiant 
 in the spring. The young are quite tame in their 
 soiled olive plumes, and look so much alike that 
 the ornithologist is often at his wits’ end to tell 
 them apart. Were it not for the yellow rumps of the 
 magnolia and myrtle warblers when young, one 
 would scarcely know them from a dozen other 
 species as they pursue their journey southward in 
 
PLUMAGE OF YOUNG BIRDS. 9 1 
 
 the autumn. The Maryland yellow-throat does not 
 deign to wear his black mask until he is about eight 
 months old, and the boy redstart contents himself 
 with his mamma’s style of dress until he returns in 
 the spring from his sojourn in the south, and does 
 not seem to be ashamed to be tied to her apron- 
 string. And there is that natty little dandy, the 
 ruby-crowned kinglet — it is said, on good authority, 
 that he must be two years old before he is entitled 
 to wear the ruby gem in his forehead ; which must 
 be a sore deprivation for this little aristocrat in 
 feathers. Perhaps in kingletdom a bird does not 
 become of age until he is two years old. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that the study of ornithology 
 is made more difficult, and at the same time more 
 interesting, by this change of toilet among the birds, — 
 more difficult, because the observer must learn to 
 identify the birds in their youthful as well as in their 
 adult plumage ; and more interesting, because of 
 the greater variety thus given to this branch of 
 scientific inquiry. 
 
92 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 VIII. 
 
 NEST-HUNTING. 
 
 N OTHING in Nature is more pregnant with 
 suggestion than the nest of a bird. The 
 story of one of these deftly woven dwellings in the 
 woods, if fully written, might prove almost as weird 
 and romantic as the history of a castle on the Rhine. 
 What madrigals, what paeans, have been sung, and 
 what victories celebrated, from the time the first 
 fibres were braided until the chirping nestlings were 
 able to shift for themselves ! And, alas, how many 
 fond hopes have perished as well ! No doubt the 
 ruses and subterfuges employed to elude cunning 
 foes or ward off their murderous attacks, would fill 
 a volume of valuable information on military tactics. 
 One might write comedies or tragedies about the 
 nest-life of the birds that would be no less inter- 
 esting than realistic. More than that, the study of 
 these wonderful fabrics would virtually be a study 
 of the psychology of the feathered artisans, each 
 nest being an index of a special type of mind and 
 a measure of the bird’s mental resources. As 
 William Hamilton Gibson has well said : “ To know 
 the nidification and nest-life of a bird is to get the 
 
NEST-HUNTING. 
 
 93 
 
 cream of its history ; ” than which nothing could be 
 truer or more aptly expressed. 
 
 No wonder the poets have so often been thrown 
 into lyrical moods over the homesteads of the birds ! 
 Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster’s poem on “ The Build- 
 ing of the Nest ” is perhaps not unfamiliar to most 
 readers ; but one stanza is so graceful and rhythmi- 
 cal that it begs for quotation at this point : — 
 
 “They ’ll come again to the apple-tree — 
 
 Robin and all the rest — 
 
 When the orchard branches are fair to see 
 In the snow of blossoms dressed, 
 
 And the prettiest thing in the world will be 
 The building of the nest.” 
 
 In one of my rambles I found an abandoned 
 towhee bunting’s nest containing three eggs, and 
 could not help speculating as to the cause of its 
 desertion. Might there have been a quarrel 
 between husband and wife, making a separation 
 necessary? I am loath to believe it, although, if 
 certain acute observers are correct, divorce is not 
 wholly unknown in the bird community. But in 
 this case I am inclined to think that some enemy 
 had destroyed the female, for a male flitted about 
 in the bushes, calling a good deal and singing at 
 intervals, and there seemed to be a plaintive note 
 in his song, as if he might be chanting an elegy. 
 At all events, the pair that built the nest had had 
 their tragedy. 
 
 Every bird-student must admit that his quest for 
 nests often ends in disappointment, because many 
 
94 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 birds are adepts at concealment, while others build 
 in places where you would not think of looking. 
 However, I have had but little difficulty in finding 
 the nests of the brown thrasher, which erects an 
 inartistic platform of sticks, bound together by a few 
 grass fibres, and thus is easily descried in the bushes, 
 where it is usually placed. Early in the spring I 
 found the nest of a pair of these birds in a thick 
 clump of bushes near the edge of a woodland, and 
 resolved to keep watch over it until the young 
 family had left their home. The parent birds in 
 this case were very solicitous for the safety of their 
 young. Every time I called they set up a pitiful 
 to-do, which invariably made me hurry away, after 
 a timid peep into the cradle. There is as much 
 difference in the temperaments of birds of the same 
 species as there is among persons belonging to the 
 same family. While the thrashers in question 
 seemed to be terrified at my presence, others 
 driven from their nests displayed little or no fear, 
 but sat quietly on a perch near by and allowed me 
 to examine their domicile without so much as a 
 chirp. 
 
 The brown thrasher has surprised me by the 
 variety of places he selects for building his log 
 house. Wilson Flagg in his book, “A Year with 
 the Birds,’ ’ says that this bird usually builds on the 
 ground ; and Mr. Eldridge E. Fish, who writes 
 pleasantly about the birds of western New York, 
 bears similar testimony. Perhaps thrasher-fashion 
 in New England and New York differs from 
 
NEST-HUNTING. 
 
 95 
 
 thrasher-fashion in Ohio (in which locality the 
 birds display the best taste I will not say) ; for 
 during the spring of 1890 I found but two nests 
 on the ground, and was surprised to find even them, 
 while at least fifteen were discovered in other places. 
 Most of them were on low thorn-bushes, but not all. 
 One was built in a brush-heap, one on a pile of 
 “ cord-wood,” another on a small stump screened 
 by some bushes, and two on a rail fence. Of the 
 last two, one was partly supported by poison-ivy 
 vines and partly by a rail ; the other was built 
 entirely on a rail in a projecting corner of the 
 fence. 
 
 The thrasher, as has been said, builds an artless 
 platform of sticks that in some cases barely holds 
 together long enough to answer the purpose for 
 which it was intended. In this respect its habits 
 differ from those of the wood-thrush, a bird that 
 is very abundant and musical in my neighborhood. 
 I have found many of the wood-thrush’s nests, 
 which are built in the crotches of small saplings in 
 the thickest part of the woods, and are made almost 
 as substantial as the adobe dwellings of the robin. 
 The thrush does not use as much mortar as his red- 
 breasted relative ; otherwise there is a close resem- 
 blance between the nests of the two birds. 
 
 It was amusing to find pieces of newspaper 
 bedizening the houses of the wood-thrushes so 
 frequently, though it cannot be said that they 
 showed the highest literary taste in their selec- 
 tions ; for one or two of the fragments contained 
 
9 6 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 accounts of political caucuses. However, it would 
 be too much to assume that the birds had read 
 them, as many of us “ humans ” find such literature 
 too deep for our comprehension. I shall neither 
 eulogize nor stigmatize this favorite minstrel by 
 calling him a politician, although if one were to 
 regard his nesting-habits alone, he deserves that 
 sobriquet quite as well as the white-eyed vireo. 
 
 That parasite among American birds, the female 
 cow-bunting, audaciously spirits her eggs into the 
 wood-thrush’s nest, to be hatched with those that 
 properly belong there, while she and her mate sit in 
 the trees near by and whistle their taunting airs, and 
 watch to see whether their dupe attends faithfully to 
 the additional household cares imposed upon her. 
 When the birds are hatched, the victim of this piece 
 of imposture innocently feeds her foster children 
 with the best tidbits she can find, spite of the fact 
 that they may soon crowd her own offspring out of 
 the nest-home. The wonder is that she does not 
 discover the trick at once ; for her eggs are deep 
 blue, while the cow-bird’s are white, speckled with 
 ashy brown. Can the wood- thrush be color-blind ? 
 
 About two miles from town, along the banks of a 
 small creek, was the nest of that interesting little 
 bird, the summer warbler, — a dainty structure, com- 
 posed of downy material, and deftly lodged among 
 the twigs of a sapling at the foot of a cliff. A cold 
 spring gurgled from the rocks near by ; the willows 
 and buttonwood trees bent to the balmy breezes, 
 and the tinkling of the brook mingled with the songs 
 
NEST-HUNTING. 
 
 97 
 
 of many birds. A place for day-dreams truly, and 
 the summer warblers were the dryads and nymphs 
 hitting through the realms of fancy. If all birds were 
 as astute as the summer warbler, the race of cow- 
 buntings would soon become extinct, or would soon 
 have to change their methods of propagation, and go 
 to rearing their own families. Our little strategist, 
 when she comes home and finds a cowbird’s egg 
 dropped into her nest, begins forthwith to add another 
 story, and thus leaves the interloper in the cellar, 
 with a floor between it and her warm breast. It 
 is a genuine case of “ being left out in the cold.” 
 I have found several of these exquisite towers that 
 were three stories high, on the top of which the 
 little bird sat perched like a goddess on the summit 
 of Olympus. (My simile may seem a trifle far- 
 fetched, but I shall let it stand.) But why, you 
 dear little sprite, do you not merely pitch the offen- 
 sive egg out of the nest, instead of going to all the 
 trouble of building a loft ? No answer, save an 
 untranslatable trill, comes from the throat of the 
 dainty minstrel . 1 
 
 Some years ago I witnessed a curious bit of bird- 
 behavior that I have never seen described in any of 
 the numerous books on ornithology which I have 
 
 1 Mr. Eldridge E. Fish, to whom reference has already 
 been made, after reading this article, which first appeared 
 in a weekly paper, suggested in a letter that the little warbler 
 could not well remove the intruded egg without breaking it, 
 which would spoil her nest altogether. Hence she simply 
 adds another story to her dwelling. This is doubtless the 
 true explanation. 
 
 7 
 
9 8 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 consulted. I make reference to it here for the first 
 time. I was strolling along the banks of a broad 
 river in northern Indiana on the first of June, when 
 a warm, steady rain set in. How the birds contrive 
 to keep their eggs and nestlings dry during a shower 
 had long been an enigma to me, and now was my 
 time to find out. Knowing where a summer warbler 
 had built her nest in some bushes, I cautiously ap- 
 proached, and then stood looking down on the bird 
 before me, which showed no disposition to leave her 
 progeny to the mercy of the elements. It was a 
 picture indeed! The darling little mother — how 
 can one help using an endearing term ! — sat with 
 her wings and tail spread out gracefully over the rim 
 of the nest all the way round, thus making a perfect 
 umbrella of her lithe, dainty body. 
 
 Nothing could differ more from the airy out-door 
 nest of the summer warbler than the dark subter- 
 ranean caverns of the swallows in the bank of the 
 creek. One day, while sauntering along a stream, I 
 noticed a hole in the opposite bank. I passed on, 
 but on second thought turned to look at the excava- 
 tion a little more closely, when a swallow darted like 
 an arrow into it, and in a few moments made as 
 quick an exit. Wading across the creek, I thrust 
 my walking-stick, which was almost four feet long, 
 into the orifice over its entire length without reach- 
 ing the end ! Why a bird, so neat in attire and so 
 agile on the wing, should build her nest in a dark 
 Erebus like that, is a Sphinx’s riddle that must be 
 left to wiser heads to solve. 
 
NEST-HUNTING. 
 
 99 
 
 What a contrast is the open-air hammock of the 
 Baltimore oriole, swinging from the flexible branches 
 of a buttonwood tree a little farther up the stream 1 
 How softly the chirping brood within is rocked by 
 the breezes that sweep down from the slopes, laden 
 with the odor of clover blossoms ! Somewhere near 
 there must be a warbling vireo’s nest, for one of 
 these birds is singing in the trees ; but my eyes are 
 not sharp enough to descry its pensile domicile. 
 
 On my way home, on the top of a hill, I step 
 casually up to a small thorn-bush, whose branches 
 and leaves are thickly matted together, and, as I 
 push the foliage aside, there is a flutter of wings, 
 followed by a rapid chirping, and a little bird flits 
 away, pretending to be seriously wounded. It is a 
 bush-sparrow. Cosily placed beneath the leafy roof 
 among the thick boughs is the procreant cradle. 
 What could be more dainty ! A little nest, woven 
 of fine grass-fibres, deftly lined with hair, and con- 
 taining four speckled eggs, real gems. How “ beau- 
 tiful for situation ” is this tiny cottage on the hill ! 
 Here the feathered poets may sit on their leafy 
 verandas, look down into the green valleys, and 
 compose verses on the pastoral attractions of Nature. 
 One is almost tempted to spin a romance about the 
 happy couple. 
 
 On returning, one day, from an ornithological 
 jaunt, I met my friend, the young farmer, who 
 knows something about my furor for the birds. 
 There was a knowing smile on his sunburned face, 
 “ I know where there ’s a killdeer’s nest,” he said ; 
 
100 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 “ would you like to see it?” Tired out as I was 
 with my long walk, I exclaimed: “Yes, sir! I’ll 
 follow you to the end of the world to see a plover’s 
 nest.” The sentence was added merely by way of 
 mild (not wild) hyperbole. A shallow pit in the 
 open corn-field, lined with a few chips and pebbles, 
 constituted the nest of the plover, not having so 
 much as a spear of grass to protect it from rain and 
 storm. It contained one egg and a callow youngster, 
 the egg being quite large at one end and pointed at 
 the other, which gave it a very uncouth shape. My 
 young friend informed me that there had been five 
 eggs when he found the nest, all lying with their 
 acute ends toward the centre ; the next time he 
 went to look there were only four, then three, and 
 finally only two. Evidently the parent birds were 
 having a serious time guarding their homestead from 
 marauders. On going to the place some days later, 
 I found both the egg and the baby plover gone, and 
 I could only hope that no mischance had befallen 
 them. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, the winter is a favorable 
 season for nest-hunting. True, the birds are not 
 then at home, to speak with a good deal of license, 
 or engaged in rearing families ; but the deserted 
 structures may be more readily found after the 
 leaves have fallen from the trees and bushes. As I 
 stroll through the woods or the marsh on a winter 
 day, scores of nests that escaped my eye during the 
 summer are to be seen. Especially is this the case 
 after a snowfall, for the nests catch the descending 
 
NEST-HUNTING. 
 
 IOI 
 
 flakes which are piled up in them in downy mounds, 
 and thus attract the attention of the observer. I 
 have often felt inclined to heap upon myself the 
 most caustic epithets for having passed again and 
 again, during the breeding-season, so near the nest 
 of an interesting bird without knowing of its exist- 
 ence until winter’s frosts had stripped the coppice 
 of its leaves, and have resolved as often that the 
 next season shall not find me napping. 
 
 In the marsh which is one of my favorite trudging- 
 grounds, I made a quaint discovery some winters 
 ago, which has raised more than one query in my 
 mind. One day, after a snowfall, I found many 
 deserted nests in the thickets. Brushing the snow 
 out of them revealed, in the bottom of each basket, 
 a small pile of the seeds and broken shells of wild- 
 rose and thorn berries. Why had the birds put 
 them there — if it was the birds? Perhaps the 
 winter birds, when they arrived in the autumn, 
 found these old nests good storehouses in which to 
 lay by their winter supplies. I have never seen the 
 birds feeding on them, but, as spring approached, 
 the berry seeds had nearly all disappeared. 
 
 Come with me, for I know a pleasant, half-clois- 
 tered field of clover which is the habitat of a number 
 of charming little birds. Just where it is shall 
 remain one of my semi- sylvan secrets, for one must 
 not betray all the confidences of one’s feathered 
 intimates. The field cuts a right angle in a wood- 
 land, by which it is, therefore, bounded on the east 
 and north, while toward the west and south the 
 
102 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 undulating country stretches away like a billowy sea 
 of green. The woods themselves, on the sides 
 adjacent to the field, are hemmed and fringed with 
 a thick growth of saplings, bushes, and brambles, 
 where the feathered husbands sit and hymn their 
 joy by the hour to their little mates hugging their 
 nests in the clover and the copse. It is a quiet spot, 
 — one of Nature’s nunneries. Human dwellings may 
 be seen in the distance ; but it is seldom that any 
 one, save a mooning rambler like myself, goes there 
 to disturb the peace of the feathered tenants. 
 
 Here, one summer a few years ago, a pair of 
 those wary birds the yellow-breasted chats built a 
 nest, which they placed snugly in the blackberry 
 bushes that bordered and partly hid the rail-fence. 
 I kept close reconnoissance on this little home- 
 stead until the nascent inmates were about half- 
 fledged, when, to my dismay, every one of them 
 was kidnapped by some despicable nest-robber. 
 My own sorrow was equalled only by the inexpres- 
 sible anguish of the bereaved parents. To add to 
 my troubles, a nestful of young indigo-birds came 
 to grief in the same way. There must be, it seems, 
 a system of brigandage in every realm, be it human 
 or faunal. 
 
 A pair of bush-sparrows, however, were more for- 
 tunate in their brood-rearing. One day, while 
 standing near the fence, I noticed a bush-sparrow, 
 bearing an insect in her bill, dart down into the 
 clover, a short distance over in the field. I walked 
 to the spot, when she flew up with an uneasy chirp, 
 
NES T -HUNTING. 
 
 103 
 
 proclaiming a secret that she could not keep. 
 There on the grass, sure enough, was her nestful of 
 little ones. Some accident must have befallen the 
 fibrous cot, for the weeds and clover were broken 
 down and trampled flat all around it, so that it sat 
 loosely on the ground, without even a blade of grass 
 to shelter it. Fearing that buccaneers in the shape 
 of jays or hawks might rob the nest, I broke off a 
 number of weeds and made a sort of thatched roof 
 over it ; that would also protect the panting infants 
 from the sun, which was beating down like a furnace. 
 Then I took my stand a few rods away, to see what 
 the old birds would do. Erelong both the papa 
 and mamma came with billsome morsels in their 
 mouths, and, after fluttering about uneasily for a 
 few minutes, darted down to the nest and fed their 
 young. Of course, they first had to peep, and peer, 
 and cant their dainty heads this way and that, to 
 examine the roof I had improvised for the nest, 
 wondering, no doubt, what kind of a bungling archi- 
 tect had been at work there ; but finally they 
 seemed to think all was well. Perhaps in their 
 hearts they thanked me for my thoughtful care. 
 
 A day or two later I called again, even at the risk 
 of coming de trop. The weeds arched over the 
 bird crib at my former visit having withered, I made 
 them another green roof, sheltering them as cosily 
 as I could and leaving a small opening at the side 
 for an entrance. After an absence of a few minutes 
 I crept surreptitiously back to the enchanted spot, — 
 for it drew me like a loadstone, — and there sat the 
 
104 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 trim little mother on her cradle, covering her chil- 
 dren to keep them warm, her reddish-brown tail 
 daintily reaching out through the doorway. She did 
 not fly up as I bent lovingly over her, and presently 
 I stole away, desirous not to disturb her. 
 
 The bush-sparrow is a captivating little bird, 
 graceful of form and sweet of voice, singing his 
 cheerful trills from early spring until far past mid- 
 summer. The song makes me think of a silver 
 thread running through a woof of golden sunshine, 
 carried forward by a swinging shuttle of pearl. I 
 think the figure is not far-fetched. He is quite 
 partial to a dense little thorn-bush for a nesting- 
 place, often concealing his grassy cottage so cun- 
 ningly that you must look sharply for it among the 
 leaves and twigs, or it will escape your eye. 
 
 One of the neatest and prettiest denizens of my 
 clover-field was the goldfinch. Wings of black and 
 coat of bright yellow, he went bounding through 
 the ether, rising and falling in graceful festoons of 
 flight, in such a lightsome way he seemed to be 
 rocking himself on the breeze. How jauntily he 
 wore his tiny black cap, little exquisite of the field 
 that he is, to whom I always go hat in hand ! He 
 deserves a monograph all to himself, but at this time 
 I can spare him only a few paragraphs. 
 
 As a rule, the goldfinches prefer to build their 
 nests in small trees, often selecting the maples along 
 the suburban streets of the city. I was greatly 
 surprised, therefore, to find a nest in my clover- 
 field, where there were no trees at all. Noticing a 
 
NEST-HUNTING . 
 
 io 5 
 
 bird fly into a clump of blackberry bushes one day, 
 I took it for a female indigo-bird. A nest was soon 
 found woven very neatly and compactly, and having 
 not only grass-fibres wrought into its structure, but 
 also wool and thistle-down. A queer indigo-bird’s 
 nest, I mused. The wool in the cup was ruffled 
 and loose, and taking it for a deserted homestead, I 
 carelessly thrust my hand into it. The next moment 
 I was sorry for the thoughtless act, for the material 
 looked so fresh that I decided it must be an unfin- 
 ished bird-cradle. I resolved to discover the own- 
 ers, if possible. Two days later it was in the same 
 condition. Had I driven away the little builders 
 by laying defiling hands on the nest? I felt like a 
 culprit, and waited a week before again venturing to 
 visit the place, when, as I approached, a female gold- 
 finch flew from the nest, uncovering five dainty 
 white eggs, set like pearls in the bottom of the cup. 
 A goldfinch’s nest in a blackberry bush ! That was 
 a climax of surprises, in very truth. 
 
 On the same day, not far distant, another bush- 
 sparrow’s nest was found in some bushes, placed 
 about three feet from the ground. In a few weeks 
 there were babies five in the goldfinch’s nest, and 
 four in that of the bush-sparrow. Pray keep both 
 nests in mind, remembering that the youngsters of 
 both families were hatched on the same day. One 
 evening at twilight I again stepped out to the clover- 
 field. The mother goldfinch was sitting close on her 
 nest, and did not stir as I came near. Then I 
 touched her lightly with my cane. Still she remained 
 
io6 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 on her nest as if glued fast, only glaring at me with 
 her wild, beady eyes. At length I softly laid my 
 finger on her back, when she uttered a queer, half- 
 scolding cry, and leaped up to the nest’s rim, but 
 did not fly. There she stood, turning her head and 
 eying me keenly until I stole away, unwilling to for- 
 feit her confidence and good-will. But when, on 
 my way home, I paused a moment to look at the 
 bush-sparrow’s nest, the mother flitted away with a 
 frightened chirp before I came within reach. She 
 was not as confiding as her little neighbor, the 
 goldfinch. 
 
 Now mark ! On the fifteenth of August the young 
 bush-sparrows had become so large and well devel- 
 oped that when, meaning no harm, I touched them 
 gently with my finger, they flipped out of the nest 
 like flashes of lightning. The infant goldfinches 
 were not yet more than half fledged, and merely 
 snuggled close to the bottom of the nest when I 
 caressed them. The idea of flying was still remote 
 from their little pates. These observations prove 
 that young bush-sparrows develop much more rap- 
 idly than young goldfinches ; yet, strange as it may 
 seem, the goldfinch, when grown, flies much higher, 
 if not more swiftly, than his little neighbor, and 
 continues longer on the wing. 
 
 On the same day I sat down in the clover, a few 
 rods from the goldfinch’s nest, and kept close watch 
 on both the old birds and their offspring for an hour 
 and a half. The sun attacked me savagely with 
 his red-hot arrows, and the sweat broke from every 
 
NES T-H UN TING. 
 
 107 
 
 pore, but I felt amply repaid for my vigil. During 
 the first half-hour the parent birds ventured slyly to 
 feed their bantlings twice. Then I crept closer, 
 and waited an hour ; but the parent birds were too 
 shy to bring their hungry nestlings a single mouth- 
 ful of food, choosing, it would seem, to let them suf- 
 fer hunger rather than take risk themselves. The 
 little things were almost famished, and behaved very 
 quaintly. Every rustle of the leaves in the wind 
 caused them to start up, crane out their necks, pry 
 open their mouths as wide as they could, waddle 
 awkwardly from side to side, and chirp for some- 
 thing to eat. How famished they were ! They 
 even seized one another’s heads and tried to gulp 
 one another down. The spectacle was just a little 
 uncanny. 
 
 But, dear me ! they were not as ignorant of the 
 ways of the world as you might suppose. When I 
 lightly tapped the stems of the bushes with my cane, 
 instead of leaping up and opening their mouths as 
 they were expected to do, they shrank down into 
 the bottom of the nest, discerning at once the dif- 
 ference between those strokes on the bush and their 
 parents’ quiet approach or loving call. Something 
 must have put them on their guard, and instilled 
 feelings of fear into their palpitating bosoms. Per- 
 haps it was that shy personage, the mother herself ; 
 for she would call admonishingly at intervals from 
 the woods, Ba-bie / ba-bie ! putting a pathetic 
 accent on the second syllable. It was droll to see 
 
io8 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 the youngsters try to preen their feathers, they went 
 about the performance so awkwardly. 
 
 On the seventeenth of the month one of the nest- 
 lings was missing, and no amount of looking for it 
 in the thicket revealed any clew to its whereabouts. 
 None of the remaining birds were ready to fly. 
 Two days later they were still in the nest, although 
 they had grown considerably since my last visit, so 
 that one of them was almost crowded out of the 
 circular trundle-bed. I could not resist the temp- 
 tation to lift it in my hand, just to see how pretty 
 it was and how it would act. It uttered a sharp 
 cry of alarm, and sprang from my hand ; but its 
 wings were still so weak that it merely fluttered in 
 an oblique direction to the ground. The third time 
 I caught it, it sat contentedly on my palm, and 
 allowed me to stroke its back, looking up at its 
 captor with mingled wonder and trustfulness. 
 
 On the heads of all the nestlings a fine down pro- 
 truded up through and above the feathers. The 
 birds looked very knowingly out of their small coal- 
 black eyes, but the cunning little things obstinately 
 refused to open their mouths for me, entice them 
 as I would ; however, when I moved away some 
 distance, and their mamma came with a tempting 
 morsel, they sprang up instantly and gulped it down. 
 Not so very unsophisticated, after all, for mere bant- 
 lings ! On the morning of the twenty-sixth all the 
 young finches had left the nest, and were perched in 
 the bushes near by. I contrived to catch one of them 
 
NES T-HUNTING. 
 
 J09 
 
 and hold him in my hand a few moments, to admire 
 his dainty toilet and pretty dark eyes. Thus my 
 brief study in comparative ornithology proved that 
 the young goldfinches left the nest seven days after 
 the young bush-sparrows, hatched at the same time, 
 had taken wing. 
 
no 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 IX. 
 
 MIDSUMMER MELODIES. 
 
 S EVERAL times has the statement been made 
 in print that it is scarcely worth one’s while 
 to attempt to study the birds during the midsummer 
 months, the reason alleged being that at that time 
 they are silent and inactive, and their behavior 
 devoid of special interest. Now, nothing ministers 
 so gratefully to the pride of the original investigator 
 as to prove untrue the theories that have been 
 advanced in books and that are current among 
 scientific men. During the summer of 1891 I re- 
 solved to discover for myself what the birds were 
 doing, and so, spite of drought, heat, and mosqui- 
 toes, I visited the haunts of my winged companions 
 at least every other day. The result was a surprise 
 to myself, proving that the unwisest thing a natu- 
 ralist can do is to lay down absolute canons of 
 conduct for feathered folk. 
 
 It is just possible that physical stupor, induced 
 by the extreme heat of summer, has caused some 
 ornithologists to observe carelessly and listlessly, 
 and for that reason they have supposed that the 
 birds were as languid as themselves ; but the wide- 
 awake student, who can brave heat and cold alike, 
 will never find the feathered creation failing to 
 
MIDSUMMER MELODIES. 
 
 1 1 r 
 
 repay the closest attention. Some birds are almost 
 as active when the mercury is wrestling with the 
 nineties as on the fairest day of May, and those 
 are the ones to be studied in midsummer. 
 
 My special investigations began about the middle 
 of July. It is true that at that time what are usually 
 regarded as the songsters of the first class — the 
 brown thrashers, wood-thrushes, cat-birds, and bobo- 
 links — had gone into a conspiracy of silence, not 
 a musical note coming from their throats, although 
 some of them always remain in this latitude until 
 far into September. But when the first-class min- 
 strels are mute, one appreciates the minor vocalists 
 all the more. Yet I must not omit to say that on 
 the thirtieth of July I caught a fragment of a wood- 
 thrush’s song, the last I heard for the season. 
 
 Let me recall one day in particular. It was the 
 tenth of August, and the weather was broiling, — hot 
 enough to drive the thermometer into hysterics, 
 just the day to see how the heat would affect the 
 feathered tenants of the groves ; and so, overcoming 
 my physical inertia as best I could, I stalked to 
 the woods in the afternoon in quest of bird lore. 
 With the perspiration running from every pore, I 
 trudged about for some time without seeing or hear- 
 ing a single bird. Were the books correct, after all? 
 Was I to be deprived of the pleasure of proving 
 them in error? It began to appear as if such 
 might be the case. Presently, however, as I pushed 
 out into a gap at one side of the woods, an uneasy 
 chirping in the clumps of bushes and brambles near 
 
I I 2 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 by sent a thrill of gladness through my veins. I felt 
 intuitively that there were birds in abundance in the 
 neighborhood, and my presentiment proved correct ; 
 for before my brief search was completed, I was 
 permitted to record the songs of the indigo-bird, 
 the cardinal grossbeak, the towhee bunting, the 
 wood-pewee, the Baltimore oriole, and the black- 
 capped chickadee ; while, no sooner had I stepped 
 out of the woods into the adjoining swamp, than 
 the song-sparrow chimed merrily, “ Oh, certainly, 
 certainly, you must n’t forget me-me-me ! No-sirree, 
 no-sirree ! ” 
 
 One of the most blithesome trillers of midsummer 
 was the grass-finch, which sang his canticles until 
 about the twelfth of August, when he suddenly took 
 leave for parts unknown. It seemed to me he sang 
 more vigorously in July than in May, for several 
 times he prolonged his trill with such splendid 
 musical effect as to make me rush out to the adjoin- 
 ing field to find a lark-sparrow. The black-throated 
 bunting remained here almost as long, rasping his 
 harsh notes until he also took his flight. I was 
 somewhat disappointed in the meadow-larks, having 
 heard but one note from their tuneful throats during 
 August ; but when September came, they resumed 
 their shrill choruses, which lasted until November, 
 increasing in vigor as the autumn advanced. 
 
 The robins were chary of their music, only two 
 songs having been heard during August, one of 
 them on the fourteenth. But the little bush-sparrow 
 made ample compensation, chanting his pensive 
 
MIDSUMMER MELODIES . 
 
 11 3 
 
 voluntaries almost every day at the border of the 
 woods until about the twentieth of August. Still 
 more lavish of his melody was the indigo-bird, which 
 on several occasions was the only songster, besides 
 the wood-pewee, heard during a long stroll through 
 the woods. An irrepressible minstrel, he is the most 
 cheery member of the midsummer chorus. My 
 notes say that the Maryland yellow-throat was sing- 
 ing in splendid voice on the first of August, but I 
 am positive I heard him later in the month, as he 
 is one of our most rollicksome midsummer choralists. 
 The goldfinch sang cheerily on the first, eighteenth, 
 and nineteenth of August, and I cannot say how 
 often in July and August I heard the loud refrain 
 of the Carolina wren. 
 
 On the tenth, twelfth, fourteenth, eighteenth, 
 and nineteenth of August, the Baltimore oriole piped 
 cheerily, though he had partly doffed his splendid 
 vernal robes, and was beginning to don his modest 
 autumnal garb. The cardinal bird fluted frequently 
 during July and August, and, besides, regaled me 
 with a vocal performance on the third of September. 
 The last record I have of the towhee bunting’s 
 trill is the tenth of August; but before that date 
 he was quite lavish of his music. On many of 
 my tramps to the woods the sad minor whistle of 
 the black-capped chickadee pierced the solitudes, 
 making one dream of one’s boyhood days, — 
 
 “ When birds and flowers and I were happy peers,” 
 as Lowell would phrase it. 
 
 8 
 
IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 114 
 
 One of my surprises was a warbler’s trill on the 
 twelfth of August. The little tantalizer kept itself 
 so far up in the trees as to baffle all attempts at 
 identification, but I am disposed to think it was a 
 cerulean warbler. On the nineteenth of August two 
 warbler trills, one of them, I feel almost sure, from 
 the throat of the chestnut-sided warbler, were heard, 
 which is all the more novel because these birds are 
 not residents, but only migrants in this latitude. I 
 should have felt amply repaid for all my efforts, had 
 I proved nothing more than that warblers will some- 
 times regale one with an aftermath of song in the 
 dog days. 
 
 The most persistent minstrel of the midsummer 
 orchestra was the wood-pewee, — the only bird 
 whose song I heard on every excursion to the woods 
 during July and August ; and even when September 
 came, there seemed to be little abatement in his 
 musical industry. All the year round, the song- 
 sparrow is the most prolific lyrist of my acquain- 
 tance, but in midsummer he is distanced by his 
 sylvan neighbor, the wood-pewee. During my walks 
 on the twenty-ninth and thirty-first of August 
 the pewee’s was the only song heard. 
 
 Then, he does not confine himself wholly to 
 his ordinary song, Phe-e-w-e-e or Phe-e-e-o-r-e-e-e , 
 for one day in July he twittered a quaint med- 
 ley in a low, caressing tone, as if singing a lullaby 
 to his nestlings. At first I could not tell what 
 bird was the author of the new style of melody, but 
 presently the song glided sweetly into the well-known 
 
MIDSUMMER MELODIES. 1 15 
 
 Pe-e-w-e-e . On another occasion I was charmed by 
 the vocal rehearsals of a young pewee. His youth 
 was evident from the fact that he twinkled his wings 
 and coaxed for food from the mother bird, who re- 
 warded his vocal efforts by feeding him. The song 
 was extremely beautiful, spite of the crudeness of its 
 execution ; a clear continuous strain, repeated quite 
 loudly, with here and there a partially successful at- 
 tempt to emit the ordinary pewee notes. Occasion- 
 ally the parent bird would respond, as if setting the 
 ambitious novice a musical copy, and then he would 
 make a heroic effort to pipe the notes he had just 
 heard, and several times he succeeded admirably. 
 He had a voice of excellent quality, but did not 
 have it under perfect control ; still, the immature 
 song was so innocent, so naive and striking, that it 
 was a temptation to wish he would never learn to 
 sing otherwise. 
 
 Permit me to add, in conclusion, that, while the 
 birds are not equally musical or plentiful all the year 
 round, yet there is never a time when their behavior 
 is not worth careful attention. Moreover, midsum- 
 mer is the most favorable time for the study of the 
 quaint behavior and varied plumage of young birds, 
 — a theme connected with our avian fauna that 
 merits more consideration than it has yet received. 
 
IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 1 16 
 
 X. 
 
 WHERE BIRDS ROOST. 
 
 NE winter evening found me tramping through 
 
 a swamp not far from my home, listening 
 to the dulcet trills of the song- sparrows, which had 
 recently returned from a brief visit to a more south- 
 ern latitude. There was no snow on the ground, 
 and the day had been pleasant ; but, as evening 
 approached, the west wind blew raw across the 
 fields. For some reason which I cannot now re- 
 call, an impulse seized me to clamber over the 
 fence into the adjacent meadow, where I stalked 
 about somewhat aimlessly for a minute or two, little 
 thinking that I was on the eve of a discovery, — one 
 that was destined to lead me into a delightful field 
 of investigation. 
 
 The ground was rather soggy, but a pair of tall 
 rubber boots make one indifferent to mire and 
 mud. The dusk was now gathering rapidly, and 
 it was time for most birds to go to bed. I soon 
 found, too, that they were going to bed, and, more- 
 over, were taking lodgings in the most unexpected 
 quarters. Imagine my surprise when, as I trudged 
 about, the little tree-sparrows, which are winter 
 
WHERE BIRDS ROOST. 
 
 1 1 7 
 
 residents in my neighborhood, flew up here and 
 there out of the deep grass. They seemed to be 
 hidden somewhere until I came near, and then they 
 would suddenly dart up as if they had emerged from 
 a hole in the ground. 
 
 This unexpected behavior led me to investigate ; 
 and I soon found that in many places there were 
 cosey apartments hollowed out under the long, thick 
 tufts of marsh grass, with neat entrances at one side 
 like the door of an Eskimo hut. These hollows 
 gave ample evidence of having been occupied by 
 the birds, so that there could be no doubt about 
 their being bird bedrooms. Very frequently they 
 were burrowed in the sides of the mounds of sod 
 raised by the winter frosts, and were thus lifted 
 above the intervening hollows, which contained ice- 
 cold water. In every case the overhanging grass 
 made a thatched roof to carry off the rain. 
 
 I do not mean to say that these little dugouts 
 were made by the birds themselves. Perhaps they 
 were, but it is more probable that they had been 
 scooped out the previous summer by field-mice, and 
 had only been appropriated for sleeping-apartments 
 by the sparrows. However that may be, they were 
 exceedingly cunning and cosey ; and soft must have 
 been the slumbers of the feathered occupants while 
 the wintry blasts howled unharming above them. 
 
 Prior to that discovery I had supposed, with most 
 people, that all birds roost in trees and bushes. 
 Later researches have proved how wide of the truth 
 one’s unverified hypotheses may be. A week or so 
 
1 18 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 afterward, while strolling one evening at dusk 
 through a favorite timber-belt, I noticed the snow- 
 birds, or juncos, darting up from the leaves and 
 bushes and small brush-heaps, beneath which they 
 had found dainty little coverts from the storm. In 
 many places crooked twigs and branches, covered 
 with leaves, lay on the ground, leaving underneath 
 small spaces overarched and sheltered, and into 
 these cosey nooks the juncos had crept for the 
 night. No enemies, at least in winter, would find 
 them there, and their hiding-places were snug and 
 warm. Long after dark I lingered in the woods, 
 and everywhere startled the snow-birds from their 
 leafy couches. At one place a whole colony of 
 them had taken lodgings. When my passing fright- 
 ened them away, they flew through the darkness 
 into the neighboring trees. After waiting at some 
 distance for several minutes, I returned to the spot, 
 and found that some of the birds had gone back 
 to their bedrooms on the ground. 
 
 In my nocturnal prowlings through the fields and 
 lowlands, I have frequently frightened the meadow- 
 larks from the grass, and that long before nest-build- 
 ing or incubation had begun. Of course, they were 
 recognized by their nervous alarm-calls, as well as by 
 the peculiar sound of their fluttering wings. What 
 surprises me beyond measure is that they so often 
 select low, boggy places for their roosts, instead of 
 the dry pleasant upland slopes. But there is no 
 accounting for tastes in the bird world. The grass- 
 finches and lark- sparrows, like their relatives just 
 
WHERE BIRDS ROOST . 1 19 
 
 mentioned, seek little hollows in the ground for 
 bed-chambers, usually sheltered by grass tufts. 
 
 Long before day, one April morning, I made my 
 way to the marsh so frequently mentioned in this 
 volume. The moon was shining brightly in the 
 southern sky. Early as it was — for as yet there 
 was no sign of daybreak — the silvery trills of the 
 song-sparrows rose from the bushes like a votive 
 offering to the Queen of Night. From one part of 
 the swamp a sweet song would ring out on the 
 moonlit air, and would at once be taken up by an- 
 other songster not far away. Then another would 
 chime in, and another, until the whole enclosure 
 was filled with the antiphonal melody. A silence 
 would then fall upon the marsh like a dream-spirit, 
 to be broken soon by another outburst of min- 
 strelsy ; and thus the nocturne continued until day 
 broke, and it merged into the glad matin service. 
 
 But my object is to tell about bird roosts rather 
 than about bird music. When I reached the 
 farther end of the marsh, several sparrow songs 
 came up from the ground. I walked with a ten- 
 tative purpose toward a spot whence a song came, 
 when the little triller sprang up affrighted. The 
 same experiment with a number of other songsters 
 brought a like result in each case, proving beyond 
 doubt, I think, that at least some of the song- 
 sparrows roost on the ground, and begin their 
 matins before they rise from their couches, so 
 anxious are they to put in a full day of song. 
 
 On the same morning — it was still before day- 
 
120 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 break — a bevy of red-winged blackbirds, which 
 had been roosting in the long grass, flew up with 
 vociferous cries and protests at the rude awakening 
 I had given them, just when they were enjoying 
 their morning nap. Blame them who will for 
 making loud ado, for there are many people who 
 would do the same under similar provocation. 
 Thus it will be seen that many birds sleep on the 
 ground. My investigations lead me to this con- 
 clusion : As a rule, those birds which nest on or 
 near the ground, and spend a considerable portion 
 of their time in the grass, like the meadow-larks 
 and song-sparrows, roost on the ground, while 
 others find bushes and trees more to their taste. 
 Still, there are exceptions to this rule ; for on several 
 occasions, while bent on my nocturnal prowlings, 
 I have driven the turtle-dove from the ground, 
 although this bird usually roosts in the thorn-trees 
 and willows . 1 
 
 The robins choose thick trees and even wild rose- 
 bushes for roosts. In the apple-trees and pines of 
 a neighbor’s yard across the fields these birds find 
 sleeping- apartments early in the spring, before 
 nest-building is begun, for a perfect deluge of 
 robin music often pours from that locality, both 
 morning and evening. 
 
 The white-throats, wood-sparrows, and brown 
 thrashers make use of the thick thorn-trees of the 
 marsh for lodgings. They flutter about in sore 
 
 1 This is, after all, no exception, for I have since found a 
 number of turtle-doves’ nests on the ground. 
 
WHERE BIRDS ROOST . 
 
 I 2 I 
 
 dismay as I approach, until I start back, lest they 
 should impale themselves on the sharp thorns. 
 Sometimes the thrasher ensconces himself for the 
 night in the brush-heaps which the wood-choppers 
 have made on the slopes, making his presence 
 known by his peculiar way of scolding at my offi- 
 cious intrusion. 
 
 One cannot help admiring the wise forethought 
 displayed by many birds in creeping into the thick 
 thorn-bushes at night, where they may sleep without 
 fear of attack from their nocturnal foe, the owl. 
 Full well they seem to know he cannot force his 
 bulky form through the thick network of branch 
 and thorn. How he must gnash his teeth with 
 rage — if owls ever do that — when he espies his 
 coveted prey sleeping peacefully just beyond the 
 reach of his talons ! Still, it sometimes happens 
 that even a small bird ventures into too close 
 quarters in these terrible prickly bushes ; for I once 
 found a dead sparrow completely wedged in among 
 the fierce thorns, where it had evidently been 
 caught in such a way as to prevent its escape. 
 
 Something over a year after the preceding facts 
 were published, I was seized with a whim to re- 
 sume my investigations on bird roosts. One of my 
 nocturnal rambles seems to be deserving of some- 
 what minute description. It was a delightful 
 evening of early spring, with a warm westerly 
 breeze stirring the bursting leaves. The sun had 
 set, and the dusk was falling over fields and woods. 
 The bright moon, a little more than half full. 
 
122 
 
 IN BIRD LAND, 
 
 lengthened out the gloaming and added many 
 precious minutes to the singing hours of the birds. 
 Such a woodland chorus as I was permitted to 
 listen to that evening ! It was a rare privilege. 
 How the wood-thrushes vied with the towhee 
 buntings ! Which would sing the latest ? That 
 seemed to be the question. At length there were 
 several moments of silence, and I supposed all the 
 birds had gone to sleep, when a white-throated 
 sparrow and a wood-pewee struck in with their 
 sweet strains ; and so the chorus continued until 
 it was really night. The wood- thrushes, I think, 
 got in the last note of the twilight serenade. 
 
 Before it had become quite dark, I espied a 
 wood-thrush sitting in the fork of a dogwood-tree, 
 looking at me in a startled way ; but she did not 
 fly. I walked off some distance, remained awhile, 
 and then returned, to find her still in her place. 
 Then I strolled about until night had fully come ; 
 the moon shone brightly, so that it was not dark. 
 When I went back to the dogwood-tree, the 
 speckled breast of the thrush was still visible in 
 the fork which she had chosen for her bed-chamber, 
 and I wished her pleasant dreams. 
 
 While stalking about, I startled another wood- 
 thrush, which had selected a loose brush-heap on 
 the ground instead of a sapling or tree for a roost. 
 The indigo -birds and bush- sparrows flew up from 
 the blackberry bushes as I pushed my way through 
 them. Several times the towhee buntings leaped 
 scolding out of bed, having selected brush-heaps, 
 
WHERE BIRDS ROOST. 
 
 123 
 
 or dead branches lying on the ground, for roost- 
 ing-places. 
 
 A discovery was also made in regard to the 
 sleeping-apartments of the red-headed woodpecker. 
 As the dusk was gathering, a red- head dashed in front 
 of me into the border of the woods, alighting on 
 a sapling stem, and then began to shuffle upward 
 toward a hole plainly visible from where I sat ; but 
 just as he reached the hole, another red-head 
 appeared with a challenging air on the inside of 
 the cavity, and red-head number one darted away 
 with a cry of alarm. Now was my time to discover, 
 if possible, where red- head number two would roost. 
 So I kept a close watch on the cavity, waiting about, 
 as previously said, until nightfall, and then, keeping 
 my eye on the hole, so that the bird could not fly 
 out without being seen, I made my way to the sap- 
 ling. Intently watching the hole with my glass, I 
 tapped the stem of the tree with my heel, when, in 
 the moonlight, a red head and long, black beak 
 were protruded from the opening above. The wood- 
 pecker was within, that much was proved ; and when 
 I had beaten against the tree, he had sprung up to 
 the orifice to see who was thus impolitely disturbing 
 his evening slumbers. He turned his head sidewise, 
 and looked down at me with his keen beady eyes ; 
 but although I tapped against the tree again and 
 again, he would not leave the cavity. There can be 
 no doubt that it was his bedroom, — that cosey apart- 
 ment in the sapling, — for it was still too early in 
 the season for the bird to begin nesting, as he had 
 
124 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 arrived only two or three days before from his winter 
 residence in the south. Very likely most wood- 
 peckers roost in the cavities which they hew in trees, 
 for I do not see why the one into whose private 
 affairs I pried that evening should have been an 
 exception. He most probably was only following 
 the customs of his tribe from time immemorial . 1 
 
 A number of experiments made with young birds 
 purloined from the nest — I must beg the feathered 
 parents' forgiveness — have added several interesting 
 facts to the subject in hand. One spring I became 
 guardian, purveyor, and man-of-all-work to a pair of 
 young flickers, taken from a cavity in an old apple- 
 tree. They were kept in a large cage, in which I 
 placed sapling boughs of considerable size. They 
 had not become my proteges many days before they 
 insisted on converting these upright branches into 
 sleeping-couches, clinging to the vertical boles with 
 their stout claws, and pillowing their heads in the 
 feathers of their backs. In this position they slept 
 as comfortably as the thrushes and orioles confined 
 in other cages slept on their horizontal perches, or, 
 for that matter, as I slept in my own bed. They 
 
 1 The reader will see, from the facts given in the remainder 
 of the chapter, that I reckoned without my host in supposing 
 that woodpeckers usually sleep in cavities of trees. That they 
 sometimes select such places for roosts cannot be doubted; 
 but that such is always or even generally their habit the ex- 
 periments described farther on conclusively disprove. It is 
 only fair to say that the rest of the chapter was added long 
 after the foregoing had been written, and proves how unsafe 
 it is for the naturalist to make generalizations. 
 
WHERE BIRDS ROOST. 125 
 
 even slept on the under side of an oblique branch. 
 One of them passed one night on a horizontal perch, 
 although apparently his slumbers were not quite so 
 sound and refreshing as they would have been had 
 he roosted in the wonted upright position. Queerest 
 of all, these woodpeckers sometimes selected the 
 side of the cage itself for a roosting-place, thrusting 
 their claws into the crevice between the door and 
 its frame. Wherever they roosted, their tails were 
 made to do duty as braces, by being pressed tightly 
 against the wall to which they clung. A pair of 
 young red-headed woodpeckers behaved in much 
 the same way, always preferring to sleep on an 
 upright perch. 
 
 During the spring of 1893 I placed in a cage the 
 following birds, all taken while in a half-callow state, 
 from the nest : Two cat-birds, one red-winged black- 
 bird, one cow-bunting, and two meadow-larks. In 
 a few days all of them proclaimed their species, as 
 well as the inexorable law of heredity, by selecting 
 such roosts as were best adapted to them, and that 
 without any instruction whatever from adult birds. 
 The meadow-larks almost invariably squatted on the 
 grass with which the floor of the cage was lined, 
 usually scratching and waddling from side to side 
 until they had made cosey hollows to fit their bodies ; 
 while the remaining inmates flew up to the perches 
 when bed-time came. 
 
 It was quite interesting to look in upon my group 
 of sleeping pets of an evening, part of them roosting 
 in the lower story of the cage and the rest in the 
 
126 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 upper story. Several times, however, one of the larks 
 slept on a perch, and the red-wing, after the cat-birds 
 and bunting had been removed from the cage, occa- 
 sionally seemed to think the upstairs a little lonely, 
 and so he cuddled down on the grass below, edging 
 up close to the larks. The strangely assorted bed- 
 fellows slept together in this way like happy 
 children. 
 
THE WOOD-PE WEE. 
 
 127 
 
 XI. 
 
 THE WOOD-PEWEE. 
 
 A MONOGRAPH. 
 
 LMOST every person living in the country or 
 
 the suburbs of a town is familiar with the 
 house-pewee, or phcebe-bird. It is usually looked 
 upon as the sure harbinger of spring. In my boy- 
 hood days my parents and grandparents were wont 
 to say, “ Spring is here ; the phoebe is singing.” 
 And if blithesomeness of tone and good cheer have 
 anything to do with the advent of the season of 
 song and bursting blossoms, the pewit, as he is 
 often called, must be a true herald and prophet. 
 He seems to carry the “ subtle essence of spring” 
 in his tuneful larynx, and in the graceful sweep of 
 his flight as he pounces upon an insect. It is quite 
 easy to make the transition from his familiar song of 
 Phe-e-by to the exclamation, Spring 's here ! by a 
 little stretch of the fancy. 
 
 But the phoebe has a woodland relative, a first 
 cousin, with which most persons are not so well 
 acquainted, because he is more retiring in his habits, 
 and seeks out-of the-way places for his habitat. I 
 refer to the wood-pewee. If your eyes and ears are 
 not so sharp as they should be, you may get these 
 
128 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 two birds confounded ; yet there is no need of 
 making such a blunder. The woodland bird is 
 smaller, slenderer, and of a darker cast than his 
 relative ; and, besides, there is a marked difference 
 in the musical performances of these birds. The 
 song of the phcebe is sprightly and cheerful, and 
 the syllables are uttered rather quickly, while the 
 whistle of the wood-pewee is softer and more plain- 
 tive, and is repeated with less emphasis and more 
 deliberation. There is, indeed, something inex- 
 pressibly sad and dreamy about the strain of the 
 wood-pewee, especially if heard at a distance in the 
 “ emerald twilight” of the “ woodland privacies.” 
 Mr. Lowell seldom erred in his attempts to charac- 
 terize the songs and habits of the birds, but in his 
 exquisite poem entitled “ Phcebe ” he certainly 
 must have referred to the wood-pewee and not to 
 the phoebe-bird, as his description applies to the 
 former but not to the latter. He calls this bird 
 “ the loneliest of its kind,” while the pewit is a 
 familiar species about many a country home. Tak- 
 ing it for granted that he meant the wood-pewee, 
 how happy is his description ! 
 
 “ It is a wee sad-colored thing, 
 
 As shy and secret as a maid, 
 
 That ere in choir the robins ring, 
 
 Pipes its own name like one afraid. 
 
 “ It seems pain-prompted to repeat 
 The story of some ancient ill, 
 
 But Phcebe l Phcebe l sadly sweet, 
 
 Is all it says, and then is still. 
 
THE WOOD-PEWEE. 
 
 129 
 
 “ Phcebel it calls and calls again ; 
 
 And Ovid, could he but have heard. 
 
 Had hung a legendary pain 
 About the memory of the bird. 
 
 “ PJuzbe / is all it has to say 
 
 In plaintive cadence o’er and o’er, 
 
 Like children who have lost their way, 
 
 And know their names, but nothing more.” 
 
 This poetical tribute is certainly very graceful, 
 and would be true to life if the phonetic represen- 
 tation were a little more accurate. Instead of 
 Phcebe , imagine the song to be Pe-e-w-e-e-e or Phe- 
 e-w-e-e-e , and you will gain a clear idea of the min- 
 strelsy of this songster of the wild wood. However, 
 he frequently varies his tune, — to prevent its 
 becoming monotonous, I opine. He sometimes 
 closes his refrain with the falling inflection or cir- 
 cumflex, and sometimes with the rising, as the mood 
 prompts him. In the former case the first syllable 
 receives the greater emphasis and is the more pro- 
 longed, and in the latter this order is precisely 
 reversed. When the last syllable is uttered with the 
 rising circumflex, it is usually, if not always, cut off 
 somewhat abruptly. Moreover, this minstrel often 
 runs the two syllables of his song together, — a pecu- 
 liarity that I have represented in my notes, taken 
 while listening to the song, in this way : Phe-e-e-o- 
 o-w-e-e-e / There is a characteristic swing about 
 the melody that refuses to be caught in the mesh 
 of letters and syllables. 
 
 In some of the pewee’s vocal efforts he does not 
 9 
 
i3° 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 get farther than the end of the first syllable. The 
 song seems to be cut off short, as if the notes had 
 stuck fast in the singer’s throat, or as if something 
 had occurred to divert his mind from the song. 
 Perhaps this hiatus is caused by the sudden appear- 
 ance of an insect glancing by, which attracts the 
 musician’s attention. This bird usually chooses a 
 dead twig or limb in the woods as a perch, on which 
 he sits and sings, turning his head from side to side, 
 so that no flitting moth may escape him. 
 
 And what a persistent singer he is ! He sings 
 not only in the spring when other vocalists are in 
 full tune, but also all summer long, never growing 
 disheartened, even when the mercury rises far up 
 into the nineties. What a pleasant companion he 
 has been in my midsummer strolls as I have wearily 
 patrolled the woods ! On the sultriest August days, 
 when all other birds were glad to keep mute, sitting 
 on their shady perches with open mandibles and 
 drooping wings, the dreamful, far-away strain of 
 the wood-pewee has drifted, a welcome sound, to 
 my ears through the dim aisles. He seems to be a 
 friend in need. How often, when the heat has 
 almost overcome me, as I pursued my daily beat, 
 that song has put new vigor into my veins ! When 
 Mr. Lowell wrote that 
 
 “The phcebe scarce whistles 
 Once an hour to his fellow,” 
 
 he must have been listening to a far lazier specimen 
 than those with which I am acquainted. 
 
THE WOOD-PEWEE . 
 
 Most birds fall occasionally into a kind of ecstasy 
 of song, and the wood-pewee is no exception. One 
 evening, after it had grown almost dark, a pewee 
 flew out into the air directly above my head from 
 a tree by the wayside, and began to sing in a per- 
 fect transport as he wheeled about ; then he swung 
 back into the tree, keeping up his song in a con- 
 tinuous strain, and in sweet, half- caressing tones, 
 until finally it died away, as if the bird had fallen 
 into a doze during his vocal recital. I lingered 
 about for some time, but he did not sing again. 
 Why should he repeat his good-night song? 
 
 I have frequently heard young pewees in mid- 
 summer singing in a continuous way, instead of 
 whistling the intermittent song of their elders. It 
 sounds very droll, giving you the impression that 
 the little neophyte has begun to turn the crank of 
 his music-box and can’t stop. His voice is quite 
 sweet, but his execution is very crude. Wait, 
 however, until he is eight or nine months older, 
 and he will show you what a winged Orpheus can 
 do. My notes say that on the thirtieth of July, 
 1891, I heard a “ pewee’s quaint, prolonged whistle, 
 interlarded with his ordinary notes.” Thus it will 
 be seen that he is a somewhat versatile songster, 
 proving the poet’s lines half true and half untrue : — 
 
 “ The birds but repeat without ending 
 The same old traditional notes, 
 
 Which some, by more happily blending, 
 
 Seem to make over new in their throats.” 
 
132 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 Younger readers may, perhaps, need to be in- 
 formed that the wood-pewee belongs to the family 
 of flycatchers, as do also the king-bird or bee- 
 martin, the phoebe-bird, the great-crested fly- 
 catcher, and a number of other interesting species, 
 all of which have a peculiar way of taking their 
 prey. The pewee will sit almost motionless on a 
 twig, lisping his plaintive tune at intervals, until a 
 luckless insect comes buzzing near, all unconscious 
 of its peril, when the bird will make a quick dash 
 at it, seize it dexterously between his mandibles, 
 and then circle around gracefully to the same or 
 another perch, having made a splendid “ catch on 
 the fly.” If the quarry he has taken is small, it 
 slips at once down his throat; but should it be 
 too large to be disposed of in that summary way, 
 he will beat it into an edible form upon a limb 
 before gulping it down. Agile as he is, he some- 
 times misses his aim, being compelled to make a 
 second, and occasionally even a third attempt to 
 secure his prize. I have witnessed more than one 
 comedy which turned out to be a tragedy for the 
 ill-starred insect. Sometimes the insect will resort 
 to the ruse of dropping toward the ground when it 
 sees the bird darting toward it, and then a scuffle 
 ensues that is really laughable, the pursuer whirl- 
 ing, tumbling, almost turning somersault in his 
 desperate efforts to capture his prize. Once an 
 insect flew between me and a pewee perched on a 
 twig, when the bird darted down toward me with 
 a directness of aim that made me think for a 
 
* THE WOOD-PEWEE. 133 
 
 moment he would fly right into my face ; but he 
 made a dexterous turn in time, caught his quarry, 
 and swung to a bough near by. If one were dis- 
 posed to be speculative, one might well raise 
 Sidney Lanier’s pregnant inquiry at this point, 
 the reference being to the southern mocking-bird, 
 and not to our pewee, — 
 
 “ How may the death of that dull insect be 
 The life of yon trim Shakspeare, on the tree ? 99 
 
 It has been my good fortune to find one, but 
 only one, nest of this bird. It was placed on a 
 horizontal branch about fifteen feet above the 
 ground, and was a neat, compact structure, deco- 
 rated on the outside with grayish lichens and moss, 
 giving it the appearance of an excrescence on the 
 limb . 1 It is said by those who have closely exam- 
 ined the nests, that they are handsomely built and 
 ornamented, and are equalled only by the dainty 
 houses of the humming-bird and the blue-gray 
 gnat-catcher. The eggs, usually four in number, 
 are of a creamy white hue, beautifully embellished 
 with a wreath of lavender and purplish-brown 
 around the larger end or near the centre. 
 
 Though our bird prefers solitary places for his 
 home, he is far from shy, if you call on him in his 
 haunt in the wildwood. He will sit fearless on 
 his perch, even if you come quite near, looking at 
 
 1 Since this was written, I have found several more nests, 
 and have even watched the skilful architects at their house- 
 building. 
 
134 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 you in his staid, philosophical way, as if you were 
 scarcely worth noticing. Nor will he hush his song 
 at your approach, although he does not seem to 
 care whether you listen to him or not. It is 
 seldom that he can be betrayed into doing an 
 undignified act ; and even if he does almost turn a 
 somersault in pursuing a refractory miller, he re- 
 covers his poise the next moment, and settles upon 
 his perch with as much sang froid as if nothing 
 unusual had occurred. Altogether, the wood-pewee 
 is what Bradford Torrey would call a “ character in 
 feathers.” 
 
A PAIR OF NIGHT-HAWKS . 
 
 *35 
 
 XII 
 
 A PAIR OF NIGHT-HAWKS. 
 
 HE night-hawk and the whippoorwill are often 
 
 confounded by persons of inaccurate habits of 
 observation. It is true, both birds are members of 
 the goatsucker family; but they belong to entirely 
 different genera, and are therefore of much more 
 distant kin than many people suppose. The whip- 
 poorwill is a forest bird, while the night-hawk pre- 
 fers the open country. Besides, the whippoorwill 
 is decidedly nocturnal in his habits, making the 
 woods ring at night, as every one knows, with his 
 weird, flutelike melody ; whereas the night-hawk is 
 a bird of the day and evening. Then, a peculiar 
 mark of the night-hawk is the round white spot on 
 his wings, visible on the under surface as he per- 
 forms his wonderful feats overhead, — a mark that 
 does not distinguish his woodland relative. 
 
 As a rule, the gloaming is the favorite time for the 
 night-hawk’s wing-exercises ; then he may be seen 
 whirling, curveting, mounting, and plunging, often at 
 a dizzy height, gathering his supper of insects as he 
 flies ; but his petulant call is often heard at other 
 hours of the day, perhaps at noon when the sun is 
 shining with fierce warmth. Even during a shower 
 
1 36 
 
 IN BIRD-LAND. 
 
 he seems to be fond of haunting the cloudy canopy, 
 toying with the wind. 
 
 His call, as he tilts overhead, is difficult to repre- 
 sent phonetically, both the vowels and consonants 
 being provokingly elusive and hard to catch. To 
 me he seems usually to say Spe-ah. Sometimes the S 
 appears to be omitted, or is enunciated very slightly, 
 while at other times his call seems to have a de- 
 cidedly sibilant beginning. On several occasions he 
 seemed to pronounce the syllable Scape . 
 
 I had often watched the marvellous flight of these 
 birds, as they passed like living silhouettes across 
 the sky; but they had always seemed so shy and 
 unapproachable that, prior to the summer of 1891, 
 I had despaired of ever finding a night-hawk’s nest. 
 However, one evening in June, while stalking about 
 in the marsh, I suddenly became aware of a large 
 bird fluttering uneasily about me in the gathering 
 darkness. Presently it was joined by its mate, and 
 then the two birds circled and hovered about, 
 often coming into uncomfortable proximity with my 
 head, and muttering under their breath, Chuckle / 
 chuckle ! Several times one of them alighted for a 
 few moments on the rail-fence near by, and then 
 resumed its circular flight. Even in the darkness I 
 recognized that my uncanny companions were night- 
 hawks, and felt convinced that there must be a nest 
 in the neighborhood, or they would not display so 
 much anxiety. It was too late to discover their 
 secret that evening, and, besides, I really felt a slight 
 chill creeping up my back, with those dark, ghostly 
 
A PAIR OF NIGHT-HAWKS . 137 
 
 forms wheeling about my head, and so I went 
 reluctantly home. 
 
 Two days later I found time to visit the marsh. 
 On reaching the spot where the two birds had 
 been seen, presto ! a dark feathered form started 
 up before me from the ground. It was the female 
 night-hawk ; and there on the damp earth, without 
 the least trace of a nest or a covering of any kind, 
 lay two eggs. At last I had found a night-hawk’s 
 nest ! The ground-color of the eggs, which were 
 quite large, was of a dirty bluish -gray cast, mottled 
 and clouded with darker gray and brown. 
 
 The behavior of the mother bird was curious. 
 She had fluttered away a few rods, pretending to 
 be hurt, and then dropped into the grass. On my 
 driving her from her hiding-place, she rose in the air 
 and began to hover about above my head, and then, 
 to my utter surprise, she swooped down toward me 
 savagely, as if she really had a mind to attack me. 
 As I walked away, she seemed to grow angrier and 
 bolder, making a swift dash at me every few minutes, 
 and actually coming so near my head as to cause 
 me involuntarily to raise my cane in self-defence. 
 A quaver of uneasiness went through me. I really 
 believe she would have struck me had I given her 
 sufficient provocation. There was a brisk shower 
 falling at the time, and so, fearing the eggs might 
 become addled, I hurried to the remote end of the 
 marsh. Suddenly my feathered pursuer disappeared. 
 Wondering if she had resumed her place on the 
 nest, I sauntered back to settle the doubt, but pres* 
 
IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 138 
 
 ently espied her sitting lengthwise on a top rail of 
 the fence, while her eggs lay unprotected in the rain. 
 Her dark, mottled form and sleepy, half-closed eyes 
 made a quaint picture. I slowly withdrew, and as 
 long as I could see her with my glass, she kept her 
 perch on the rail without moving a pinion. 
 
 On the twenty-third of June another call was made 
 on the night-hawk family, when I found two odd- 
 looking bairns in the nest, if nest it could be called. 
 They were covered with soft down, the black and 
 white of which presented a wavy appearance. Their 
 short, thick bills were covered with a speckled fuzz, 
 except the tips. I stooped down and smoothed 
 their downy backs with my hand, but there was no 
 expression of fear in their sluggish eyes. 
 
 Both parents were present on the twenty-sixth of 
 June. For a while the male bird pursued his mate 
 savagely through the air, as if venting on her his 
 anger at my intrusion, and then, mounting far up 
 toward the sky and poising a moment, he plunged 
 toward the earth with a velocity that made my head 
 dizzy, checking himself, as is his wont, with a loud 
 resounding Bo-o-m-m . The female again pursued 
 her unwelcome visitor, swooping so near my head 
 two or three times that I could have reached her 
 with my cane. The cock bird, curiously enough, 
 never displayed so much courage, but kept at a 
 safe distance. 
 
 On the twenty-ninth the young birds had been 
 moved about a half rod from the original site of the 
 nest, and hopped off awkwardly into the grass when 
 
A PAIR OF NIGHT-HAWKS . 
 
 1 3 9 
 
 I tried to clasp them with my hand. The benedict 
 was absent this time, and was never seen on any of 
 my subsequent visits while the young birds were 
 fledging. By the first of July the bantlings hopped 
 about in a lively manner at my approach to their 
 domicile, and wheezed in a frightened way, spread- 
 ing out their mottled pinions. On the seventh of 
 July neither of the parents was to be seen, and the 
 youngsters sat so cosily side by side on the ground 
 that I had not the heart to disturb their slumbers. 
 Approaching cautiously on the tenth, I almost 
 stepped on the mother bird before she flew up. At 
 the same moment both young birds started from the 
 ground, and fluttered away in different directions on 
 their untried wings, their flight being awkward and 
 labored. A few weeks later four night-hawks were 
 circling about above the marsh, — no doubt the 
 family that had been affording me such an interesting 
 study. What was my surprise when one of them 
 resented my presence by swooping down toward me, 
 as the female had done a few weeks before ! 
 
 Reference has already been made incidentally to 
 the night-hawk’s curious habit of “ booming,” as it is 
 called. This sound is always produced as he plunges 
 in an almost perpendicular course from a dizzy height, 
 — or, more correctly, at the end of that headlong 
 plunge, just as he sweeps around in a graceful 
 curve. There is something almost sepulchral about 
 the reverberating sound. How it is produced is a 
 problem over which there has been no small amount 
 of discussion in ornithological circles. But after 
 
140 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 considerable study of this queer performance, I am 
 persuaded that it is a vocal outburst, produced 
 either for its musical effect (though it is far from 
 musical), or else to give vent to the bird’s exuber- 
 ance of feeling as he makes his swift descent. 
 
 His thick, curved bill seems admirably adapted 
 to produce this sound, as do also his arched throat 
 and neck. It has seemed to me, too, that his 
 mandibles fly open at the moment the boom is 
 heard, although I cannot be sure such is the case. 
 Besides, the peculiar chuckle , previously referred to, 
 had about it a quality of sound suggestive of kin- 
 ship with the bird’s resounding boom. The hollow, 
 wheezy alarm-call of the young birds, heard on 
 several of my visits to the nest in the marsh, cor- 
 roborates this theory. But there is still further proof 
 that this hypothesis is correct. The night-hawk 
 often makes his headlong plunge without booming at 
 all, but merely utters his ordinary rasping, aerial call, 
 which has been translated by the syllable Spe-ah . 
 Then he sometimes combines the two calls, and on 
 such occasions both of the sounds are uttered with 
 a diminished loudness, as one would expect if both 
 are vocal performances, but as one would not expect 
 if the booming were made by the concussion of the 
 bird’s wings with the resisting air, as some orni- 
 thologists suppose. The female sometimes booms, 
 but her voice obviously lacks the strong, resounding 
 quality that characterizes the voice of her liege lord. 
 
A BIRDS' GALA-DAY . 
 
 14 1 
 
 XIII. 
 
 A BIRDS’ GALA-DAY. 
 
 I N Mr. Emerson’s poem entitled “ May Morning ” 
 this stanza occurs : — 
 
 “ When the purple flame shoots up, 
 
 And Love ascends the throne, 
 
 I cannot hear your songs, O birds, 
 
 For the witchery of my own.” 
 
 It would seem, therefore, that to be a poet does 
 not always give one the coign of vantage in observ- 
 ing Nature, but may, on the contrary, prove a 
 positive disadvantage. Should the rambler go about 
 “ crooning rhymes ” and making an over- sweet 
 melody to himself, instead of keeping his ear alert 
 to the music around him, he would be likely to miss 
 many a wild, sweet song fully as enchanting as his 
 own measured lines. No music of my own, how- 
 ever, diverted my mind from Nature’s blithe min- 
 strels as, on the twenty-ninth of April, 1892, I 
 pursued my avian studies in some of my favorite 
 resorts. 
 
 It was nine o’clock when I reached the quiet 
 woodland lying beyond a couple of fields. The 
 first fact noted was the return of a number of 
 interesting migrants which had not been present 
 
142 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 on the preceding day. They had, as is their wont, 
 come by night from some more southern rendezvous. 
 Among them was the oven-bird or accentor, an- 
 nouncing his presence with his startling song, which 
 at first seemed to come from a distance, but 
 gradually drew nearer, like a voice walking toward 
 me as it grew louder and more accelerated. On 
 account of this quaint ventriloquial quality of voice, 
 the little vocalist is often very difficult to find, and 
 you are sure to look in a dozen places before you 
 at last descry him. What a sedate genius he is, 
 as he sits atilt on a twig, or walks in his leisurely 
 fashion on the leaf-carpeted ground, looking up at 
 you at intervals out of his sage, beady eyes. 
 
 I have hinted that the oven-bird was first seen 
 and then heard. In this respect the habits of 
 different species of birds differ widely. The ac- 
 centors, meadow-larks, orioles, bobolinks, Bewick’s 
 wrens, summer warblers, white-crowned sparrows, 
 and some other species usually begin at once to 
 celebrate with paeans their return to their old haunts ; 
 whereas the wood-thrushes, brown thrashers, and 
 white-throated sparrows seem to wait several days 
 after their arrival before they tune their harps, — a 
 diversity of behavior difficult to explain. Scarcely 
 less inexplicable is the fact that some species arrive 
 in scattered flocks, others in battalions and armies, 
 and others still, one by one. My notes made on 
 this day contain this statement : “ Yesterday I heard 
 a single call of the red-headed woodpecker ; to-day 
 the woods are full of these birds.” 
 
A BIRDS' GALA-DAY. 
 
 *43 
 
 On the first day of April the first Bewick’s wren of 
 the spring appeared, but, strange to say, not another 
 wren was seen until near the end of the month. A 
 single bird often goes ahead of the main body of 
 migrants like a scout or outrider ; while not infre- 
 quently a small company precedes the approach- 
 ing army in the capacity, perhaps, of an advance 
 guard. 
 
 Threading my way through the “ dim vistas, 
 sprinkled o’er with sun-flecked green,” to an open 
 space near the border of the woods, I had the 
 opportunity of listening to an improvised cat-bird 
 concert, without a cent of charge for admission. 
 Here some mental notes were made on the vocal 
 qualities of this bird in comparison with those of 
 the celebrated brown thrasher, and with some 
 hesitancy I give my conclusions. Each songster 
 has his special points of excellence. The thrasher 
 has more voice volume than his rival, his technique 
 is better, he glides more smoothly from one part 
 of his song to another, and executes several runs 
 that for pure melody and skill in rendering go 
 beyond the cat-bird’s ability ; but, on the other 
 hand, it must be said that the latter minstrel’s song 
 contains fewer harsh, coarse, unmusical notes ; his 
 voice, on the whole, is of a finer quality, is pitched 
 to a higher key, and his vocal performances are char- 
 acterized by greater artlessness or ?iawete. Though 
 professing to be no connoisseur, I have never felt so 
 deeply stirred by the thrasher’s as by the cat-bird’s 
 minstrelsy. There does not seem to be so much 
 
144 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 fervor and real passion in the vocal efforts of the 
 tawny musician. 
 
 A little farther on, I again turned my steps into 
 a dense section of the woods. Suddenly there was 
 a twinkle of wings, a flash of olive-green, a sharp 
 Chip , and then there before me, a few rods away, 
 a little bird went hopping about on the ground, 
 picking up dainties from the brown leaves. What 
 could it be ? Was I about to find a species that 
 was new to me? It really seemed so. My opera- 
 glass, when levelled upon the bird, revealed olive- 
 green upper parts, yellow or buff under parts, and 
 four black stripes on the head, two on the pileum 
 and one through each eye. It was the rare worm- 
 eating warbler ( Helmitherus vermivorus) at last, — a 
 bird that had for many years eluded me. The little 
 charmer was quite wary, chirping nervously while I 
 ogled him, — for it was a male, — and then hopped up 
 into a sapling, and finally scurried away out of sight. 
 
 A few steps farther on in the woods an extremely 
 fine cat-like call swung down, like thread of sound, 
 from the tree-tops. Of course, it was my tiny 
 acquaintance the blue-gray gnat-catcher, and his 
 pretty spouse, who had arrived, perhaps from Cuba 
 or Guatemala, a few days before. What an immense 
 distance for their frail little wings to traverse, 
 “ through tracts and provinces of sky ” ! You 
 seldom see anything more dainty and dream-like 
 than the fluttering of these birds from one tree-top 
 to another, reminding you of an animated cloudlet 
 hovering and darting about in mid-air. Not a more 
 
A BIRDS ’ GALA-DAY. 
 
 *45 
 
 faj-like bird visits my woodland than the blue-gray 
 gnat-catcher. Even the ruby-throated humming- 
 bird, though still smaller, seems rather roly-poly 
 in comparison ; and no warbler, not even the grace- 
 ful redstart, can flit about so airily. One of the 
 gnat-catchers in the tree-top presently darted out 
 after a miller, which tried to escape by letting itself 
 fall toward the ground. A vigorous drama followed. 
 The bird plunged nimbly after, whirling round and 
 round in a spiral course until it had secured its 
 wriggling prize. 
 
 The gnat-catcher lisps a little song, — a gossamer 
 melody, it might be called. His slender voice 
 has quite a “ resonant tang.” On that day I did 
 not take notes on his music, but the next day I 
 had a good opportunity to do so ; and I give the 
 result, especially as no minute description of this 
 bird’s song has been recorded, so far as I know. 
 I had often heard it before, but had neglected to 
 listen to it intently enough to analyze its peculiar 
 quality. Bending my ear upon it, I distinctly 
 and unmistakably detected, besides the bird’s own 
 notes, the notes of three other birds, — those of the 
 cat-bird’s alarm-call, of the phoebe’s song, and of the 
 goldfinch’s song and call. The imitation in each 
 case was perfect, save that the gnat-catcher’s tones 
 were slenderer than those of the birds whose music 
 he had (if I may so speak) plagiarized. Is this 
 tiny minstrel a mocker? Perhaps my description 
 may be a surprise to many students of bird min- 
 strelsy, but I can only say that, having listened to 
 
 io 
 
146 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 the song for fully an hour, I could not well have 
 been mistaken. Several times the reproduction of 
 the goldfinch’s song was so perfect that I looked 
 the tree all over again and again with my glass for 
 that bird, but goldfinches there were none about. 
 Moreover, the gnat-catcher was in plain sight, 
 dropping quite low in the tree part of the time ; and 
 there can be no doubt that every strain proceeded 
 from his lyrical little throat. 
 
 The forenoon and part of the afternoon slipped 
 away all too rapidly, bringing many valuable additions 
 to my stock of bird lore ; but I must pass others 
 by to describe the most important “ find ” (to me) 
 of this red-letter day in my experience. At about 
 half-past four o’clock I reached an old bush-covered 
 gravel-bank where many birds of various species 
 have been encountered. As I stepped near a pool 
 at the foot of the bank, a little bird flashed into 
 view, setting my pulses all a-flutter. It was the 
 hooded warbler, the first of the species I had ever 
 seen. He was recognizable at once by the bright 
 yellow hood he wore, bordered all around with deep 
 black. A bright, flitting blossom of the bird world ! 
 
 For fully an hour I lingered in that “ embowered 
 solitude,” watching the bird’s quaint behavior, which 
 deserves more than a mere passing notice. He was 
 not in the least shy or nervous, but seemed rather 
 to court my presence. Almost every moment was 
 spent in capturing insects on the wing or in sitting 
 on a perch watching for them to flash into view. 
 Like a genuine flycatcher, as soon as a buzzing insect 
 
A BIRDS' GALA-DAY. 
 
 M7 
 
 hove in sight, he would dart out after it, and never 
 once failed to secure his prize. Sometimes he would 
 plunge swiftly downward after a gnat or a miller, and 
 once, having caught a miller that was large and in- 
 clined to be refractory, he flew to the ground, beat 
 it awhile on the clods, and then swallowed it with a 
 consequential air which seemed to say, “ That is 
 my way of disposing of such cases ! ” Several times 
 he mounted almost straight up from his perch, and 
 twice he almost turned a somersault in pursuit of an 
 insect. Once he clung like a titmouse to the bole 
 of a sapling. I could often hear the snapping of 
 his mandibles as he nabbed his prey. When an in- 
 sect came between him and myself, he would fear- 
 lessly dash directly toward me, as if he meant to fly 
 in my face or alight on my head, often coming within 
 a few feet of me. He seemed to be as confiding 
 as a child. When I stepped to the other end of the 
 gravel -bank, going even a little beyond it, curiously 
 enough, the bird pursued me ; then, as an experi- 
 ment, I walked back to my first post of observation, 
 and, to my surprise, he followed me again. Was he 
 really desirous of my company? Or did he know 
 that I intended to ring his praises in type? At 
 length I stole away a short distance among the trees, 
 but presently a loud chirping in my rear arrested 
 my attention. I turned back, and found it to be 
 my new-made friend, the hooded warbler, who, 
 strange to say, seemed to be calling me back to his 
 haunt. Then I climbed to the top of the gravel- 
 bank ; he selected perches higher up in the saplings 
 
IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 148 
 
 than before, so as to be nearer me, — at least, so it 
 appeared. The affectionate little darling ! The only 
 other sound he uttered during the entire time of 
 our hobnobbing — his and mine — was the slenderest 
 hint of a song, which was really more of a twitter 
 than a tune. 
 
 But at last I bade the little sorcerer a reluctant 
 adieu. In a hollow of the woods I lay down on the 
 green grass, and listened for half an hour to the 
 lyrical medley of a brown thrasher perched on a 
 treetop. It was indeed a wonderful performance, 
 and the longer I listened the more its witchery grew 
 upon me. My special purpose in bending my whole 
 attention upon this performance was to see if the 
 thrasher mimicked the songs of other birds. Many 
 persons think him a genuine imitator ; indeed, in 
 some places he is called the northern mocking-bird. 
 I am forced to say, however, that, as far as my obser- 
 vation goes, he does not mimic, but sings his own com- 
 positions, like the original genius he is. In all that 
 song, and others since listened to, not a single strain 
 did he utter that I could positively identify as be- 
 longing to the musical repertoire of another bird. 
 It is true, he sometimes, in the midst of his song, 
 uttered the alarm call of the robin ; but as both birds 
 belong to the same family, this was not to be 
 wondered at, and affords no evidence of the gift of 
 imitation. If the thrasher does mimic his fellow- 
 minstrels, as many persons contend, the borrowed 
 notes are so brief and so intermingled and blent 
 with his own music as to be unrecognizable. 
 
A BIRDS' GALA-DAY. 
 
 149 
 
 On the other hand, this tawny vocalist utters musi- 
 cal strains that are entirely unlike anything else in 
 the whole realm of bird minstrelsy, proving his song 
 to be characteristic. The brown thrasher is not a 
 musical pirate, but an original composer, — a sort of 
 Mozart or Beethoven in the bird world. And how 
 wonderful are some of his slurred runs ! Nothing 
 in the domain of music could be finer, and the harsh 
 notes he frequently interpolates only serve to ac- 
 centuate and enhance the melody of those that are 
 truly lyrical. 
 
 In his engaging book entitled “ Birds in the Bush,” 
 Bradford Torrey, who is second to none in the school 
 of popular writers on feathered folk, characterizes this 
 tawny vocalist in a most admirable manner. How- 
 ever, in regard to the matter of mimicry, his obser- 
 vations differ slightly from my own; yet I gladly 
 quote what he says rather incidentally on the subject. 
 One day he was listening to three thrashers singing 
 simultaneously. “ In the midst of the hurly-burly,” 
 he writes, “one of the trio suddenly sounded the 
 whippoorwill’s call twice, — an absolutely perfect re- 
 production.” Then he adds, somewhat jocosely, in 
 a foot-note : “ The 6 authorities 7 long since forbade 
 Harporhynchus rufus to play the mimic. Probably in 
 the excitement of the moment this fellow forgot him- 
 self.” Of course, one cannot gainsay the testimony 
 of so careful an observer and so conscientious a re- 
 porter as Mr. Torrey; yet it is possible that this 
 whippoorwill call was only a slip of the thrasher’s 
 voice and not an intended imitation ; at all events, 
 
IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 * 5 ° 
 
 in my opinion, such vocal coincidences, whether 
 accidental or designed, are of rare occurrence. 
 
 Since the foregoing observations were made and 
 first published, I have often sought to prove them 
 untrue, but have failed. No thrasher has ever, in 
 my hearing, unmistakably plagiarized a single strain 
 from his fellow-musicians. Fearing my ear for music 
 might be defective, rendering me incapable of distin- 
 guishing correctly the various songs of birds, I put 
 myself to the test in this way : On one of the streets 
 of my native town there is a brilliant mocking-bird, 
 whose cage is often hung out on a veranda. Again 
 and again I have stopped to listen to his ringing 
 medley, and have never failed to hear him distinctly 
 mimic the songs and calls of other birds, such as 
 the robin, blue jay, cardinal grossbeak, and red- 
 headed woodpecker. Why should I be able in- 
 stantly to detect the notes of other birds in the 
 mocker's song and never once be able to detect 
 them in the song of the thrasher? 
 
 But it is fully time to return to my ramble. The 
 gifted songster in the tree-top would sometimes pipe 
 a strain of such exquisite sweetness that it seemed 
 to surprise himself ; he would pause a moment, as if 
 to reflect upon it and fix it in mind for future use ; 
 and erelong he would repeat it, reminding his ad- 
 miring auditor of Browning’s lines on the Wise 
 Thrush, — 
 
 “ He sings each song twice over, 
 
 Lest you should think he never could recapture 
 The first fine careless rapture.” 
 
A BIRDS ’ GALA-DAY. 
 
 New strains were continually introduced. So loud 
 and full were some of his notes that “ the blue air 
 trembled with his song,” and the woods fairly woke 
 into echoes. It is really doubtful if the disparaging 
 term “hurly-burly” should be applied to such peer- 
 less vocalization. It was bird opera music of the 
 highest style, improvised for the occasion, and formed 
 a fitting conclusion to this rare birds’ gala-day. 
 
l S 2 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 XIV. 
 
 RIFE WITH BIRDS. 
 
 A JAUNT TO A NEW FIELD. 
 
 FOUR days’ outing along the Ohio River one 
 
 spring brought me some “ finds” that may be 
 of interest to bird lovers. Everywhere there were 
 the twinkle of wings, the twitter of voices, and the 
 charm of song; indeed, so plentiful were the 
 feathered folk that the title of this article is far 
 less poetical than realistic and descriptive. It was 
 the latter part of May, the time in that latitude 
 when the birds were in full song, at least those 
 which were not too busy with their family cares. 
 Sixty-four species were seen during a stay of four 
 days in the neighborhood. 
 
 Mine host was a farmer whose premises afforded a 
 habitat for numerous birds, there being many trees 
 and bushes in the yard and a large orchard near 
 by. In one of the silver maples a pair of war- 
 bling vireos had built a tiny pendent cradle, as is 
 their wont, set in a bower of shining twigs and 
 green leaves. There it swayed in the zephyrs, rock- 
 ing the birdlings to sleep and filling their dreams 
 with rhythm ; and the lullabies that the happy 
 
RIFE WITH BIRDS. 
 
 I 53 
 
 parents sang were cheerful and engaging, in spite of 
 the fact that some critic has pronounced the min- 
 strelsy of the warbling vireo tiresome. Tiresome, 
 forsooth ! Truth to tell, the more closely you listen 
 to it the sweeter it grows. All day long, from peep 
 of dawn to evening twilight, those quaint, continuous 
 lays could be heard, now subdued and desultory, 
 now almost as vigorous as a robin’s carol. 
 
 It sometimes seemed as if the vireos and orchard 
 orioles were rival vocalists. If so, a prize should be 
 awarded to both, — to the vireos for persistency, for 
 never letting up ; to the orioles for richness and 
 melody of tone. Many a rollicking two-part con- 
 cert they gave. 
 
 But there were other voices frequently heard in 
 the chorus, though not so continuously as those of 
 the birds just mentioned. A song-sparrow, which 
 had built a dainty cot in a bush not two rods from 
 the veranda, sometimes trilled an interlude of en- 
 trancing sweetness, taking the bays for real tuneful- 
 ness from every rival. Then, to my surprise, a 
 Maryland yellow-throat, shy little fellow in other 
 places, would frequently sing his heart out in the 
 small trees and silver maples of the front yard. He 
 did not fly off or discontinue his song when an 
 auditor stood right beneath his perch, but would 
 throw back his masked head, distend his golden 
 throat, and deliver his trill to his own and every- 
 body else’s satisfaction. Very often, too, the indigo- 
 bird, just returned from a bath in the cerulean 
 depths, would enrich the harmony with the most 
 
T 54 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 rollicksome, if not the most tuneful lay of the 
 chorus. As a sort of accompaniment, the chipping- 
 sparrow often trilled his silvery monotone ; and once 
 a robin added his Cheerily , here , here / 
 
 So much for the birds about the house, though 
 there were many others that have not been men- 
 tioned ; in fact, there were some twenty species in 
 all. There were also birds a-plenty in other places. 
 A half day was spent in some fields bordering the 
 broad river. On a green slope was a bush-sparrow’s 
 nest, daintily bowered in the grass by the side of a 
 blackberry bush, and in a thicket hard by two 
 yellow-breasted chats had placed their grassy cradles, 
 proclaiming their secret to all the world by their 
 loud cries of warning to keep away. It is odd that 
 these birds, shy and nervous as they are, should go 
 so far out of their way to tell you that they have a 
 nest somewhere in the copse that you mustn’t 
 touch, mustn’t even look for. While you are yet a 
 quarter of a mile away, they will utter their loud 
 cries of warning ; and if you go to the thicket where 
 they are, you will be almost sure to find their nest, 
 so poorly have they learned the lesson of discretion. 
 
 In a little hollow of the copse a dying crow lay 
 prone upon the ground. At intervals he would 
 struggle and gasp in a spasmodic way. When I 
 gently moved him with my cane, he grasped it with 
 his claws and held it quite firmly. I put the stick 
 to his large black beak. He took hold of it feebly, 
 ready to defend himself even with his last gasp, for 
 that it proved to be ; he lay over and died the next 
 
RIFE WITH BIRDS. 
 
 T 55 
 
 instant. I could not give the pathology of the 
 case, as no wounds could be found on his body. 
 
 One of the most interesting finds of the day was 
 the nest of a green heron, often called “ fly-up-the- 
 creek.” The nest, only a loosely constructed plat- 
 form of sticks, was placed on the branches of a 
 leaning clump of small trees, and was about twenty 
 feet from the ground. The startled bird flew back 
 and forth in the row of trees, and even went back 
 to the nest while I watched her at a distance, but 
 was too shy to remain there when I went near. In 
 spite of the offensive nicknames foisted upon this 
 heron, it is a handsome bird. As this one flew back 
 and forth she made quite an elegant picture, with 
 her long, glossy-brown neck and tail, white throat- 
 line, ash-blue back, dappled under parts, and the 
 long, slender feathers draping her hind-neck. But 
 why was she called the green heron? Look as 
 sharply as I would, I could descry no green in her 
 plumage. A few days later, however, I examined 
 a mounted specimen, and then the puzzle was 
 solved ; for an iridescent green patch on the wing 
 was so marked a feature of its coloration as to ac- 
 count for the bird’s common name. 
 
 Memory will always linger fondly about a certain 
 afternoon and evening spent on the steep hills 
 mounting up toward the sky a quarter of a mile or 
 more back from the river. To a pedestrian like 
 myself, used to rambling over a comparatively level 
 scope of country, these high hills afforded a wonder- 
 ful prospect, and almost made my head dizzy, as I 
 
IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 156 
 
 clambered far up their steep sides. Perhaps the 
 mountain-climber would think them tame. It made 
 my head swim that evening to see a towhee bunting 
 dart from a copse near by and hurl himself with reck- 
 less abandon down the declivity, as if there were not 
 the slightest danger of breaking his neck or dashing 
 himself to pieces. He stopped just in time to 
 plunge into another thicket for which he had taken 
 aim. 
 
 As the sun sank, I seated myself on the grass far 
 up the steep, and looked down on the beautiful 
 valley below me. There was the broad Ohio, wend- 
 ing its way between the sentinel hills, the green 
 clover fields and meadows smiling good-night to the 
 sinking sun, and the brown ploughed fields with their 
 green corn-rows. A wood-thrush mounted to a dead 
 twig at the very top of a tall oak some distance 
 below me, and poured forth his sad vesper hymn, 
 so bewitchingly sweet and far-away ; the while Ken- 
 tucky warblers and cardinal grossbeaks piped their 
 lullabies or madrigals, as they chose, from the dark- 
 ling woods; and, altogether, it was a never-to-be- 
 forgotten evening. 
 
 An early morning hour found me climbing the ac- 
 clivity and mounting to the top of the hill. In a 
 clover-field the gossamer Tse-e-e of the grasshopper 
 sparrow, a birdlet among birds, pierced my ear. 
 Presently a pair of these sparrows were seen on the 
 fence-stakes, and, yes, one of them had a worm in 
 its bill, indicating that there were little ones in the 
 neighborhood. If I could find a grasshopper spar- 
 
RIFE WITH BIRDS. 
 
 1 57 
 
 row’s nest ! 4 Often had I sought for one, but with- 
 out success. For a long while my eyes followed the 
 bird with the worm in her bill. Every now and then 
 she would dart over into the grass as if to feed her 
 bantlings, and I would mark the spot where she 
 alighted ; but when I went to it no nest or bird- 
 lings were to be found. Again and again I fairly 
 trembled, thinking myself on the verge of a dis- 
 covery, only to be balked completely in the end. 
 But one victory was won ; I got close enough to the 
 bird to see distinctly with my glass the yellow mark- 
 ings on the edge of the wings, — a characteristic I 
 had never before been able to make out. Curiously 
 enough, one wing of this bird was quite profusely 
 tinged with yellow, while the yellow of the other 
 could just be distinguished. 
 
 Why should not a bird- student frankly chronicle 
 his failures as well as his successes ? During the 
 day I encountered three birds that I was unable to 
 identify, try as I would. One was singing lustily in 
 some tall trees, and when at length I got my glass 
 upon him he looked like a Carolina wren ; but that 
 bird has been a familiar acquaintance for many years, 
 — comparatively speaking, — and I have so often 
 heard his varied roundels that they certainly are all 
 known to me. Moreover, the quality of this mys- 
 terious singer’s voice and the manner of his execu- 
 tion were wholly different from those of the Carolina 
 or any other wren of my acquaintance. The fol- 
 lowing is a transcription of the song as near as it 
 could be represented by letters : Che-ha-p-e-e-r-r-r ! 
 
IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 158 
 
 che-ha-p-e-e-r-r-r ! repeated at brief intervals loudly 
 and vigorously, but without variation. The bird had 
 a white superciliary line, brownish- barred wings, and 
 whitish under parts. A consultation of all the man- 
 uals in my possession fails to solve the problem. 
 
 In a deep gorge, cut through the country by a 
 small creek — small now, at least — on its way to 
 the river, two curious bird calls were heard ; but one 
 bird kept himself hidden in a dense thicket, and the 
 other bolted into the dark woods that covered a 
 steep acclivity. The first bird sang rather than 
 called, and the words he said sounded quite dis- 
 tinct : Che-o-wadd ll-wadd ll-chip ! — a sentiment that 
 he repeated again and again. 
 
 In spite of these disappointments my jaunt through 
 this ravine was exceedingly pleasant, — so delightfully 
 quiet and solitary; not a human sound to disturb 
 the sacredness of the place ; nothing but the songs 
 and calls of wild birds. 
 
 “ ’T was one of those charmed days 
 
 When the genius of God doth flow; 
 
 The wind may alter twenty ways, 
 
 A tempest cannot blow: 
 
 It may blow north, it still is warm ; 
 
 Or south, it still is clear ; 
 
 Or east, it smells like a clover-farm ; 
 
 Or west, no thunder fear.” 
 
 In one of the loneliest parts of the ravine there 
 appeared on the scene my first Louisiana water- 
 thrush, often called the large-billed wagtail. There 
 it stood “ teetering ” ona spray or a rock, or skim- 
 ming through the shallow water, its speckled breast 
 
RIFE WITH BIRDS. 
 
 *59 
 
 and olive back harmonizing — I had almost said 
 rhyming — with the gray of the creek’s bed, the 
 crystal of the water, and the green of the thicket- 
 fringed banks. It was part and parcel of the scene, 
 — a lone bird in a lone place. But, hold ! not 
 lone, after all. Presently a young wagtail, the 
 image of its mamma, emerged from somewhere or 
 nowhere, and ran toward the old bird with open 
 mouth, twinkling wings, and a pretty, coaxing call. 
 She thrust something into its mouth ; but still the 
 bantling coaxed for more, when she dashed away a 
 few feet, picked up another tidbit from the water, 
 ran back to her little charge, and fed it again. But 
 now, when it still pursued her, she seemed to lose 
 her patience, for she rushed threateningly toward it, 
 causing it to scamper away, and then she flew off. 
 Yet after that she fed either the same or another 
 youngster a number of times. Once a water- thrush 
 went swinging down the gorge, the very poetry of 
 graceful poise and movement, looking more like a 
 naiad than a real flesh-and-blood birdlet. 
 
 On a horizontal branch extending out over the 
 rippling stream, a wood-thrush sat on her mud 
 cottage ; but whether she appreciated the romantic 
 character of the situation or not, she did not say. 
 There were many other interesting feathered folk in 
 the gorge and on its wcoded steeps, each “ a 
 brother of the dancing leaves ; ” but to describe 
 them all would take too long, and merely to name 
 them would be too much like reciting a dry 
 catalogue. 
 
i6o 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 XV. 
 
 VARIOUS PHASES OF BIRD LIFE. 1 
 
 I. 
 
 O one who has studied the birds can deny that 
 
 there is genuine sexual love among them. 
 Many species act on the principle that “ a pure life 
 for two ” is the only kind of life to live, and there- 
 fore a match once made is a match that lasts until 
 death does them part. There may be fickleness, 
 divorce, and downright unfaithfulness among birds 
 sometimes, and there certainly is polygamy among 
 some species ; but such examples of irregularity are 
 rather the exception than the rule. Monogamy 
 largely prevails, and I have no doubt that any 
 departure from the regular connubial relation creates 
 a scandal in bird circles. 
 
 As in the human world, so in the bird world a 
 period of courtship precedes the celebration of the 
 nuptials. But the mode differs in different kingdoms 
 of creation. Many lovers in feathers conduct their 
 
 1 This series of papers, as well as some others in this vol- 
 ume, was written at the suggestion of Mr. Amos R. Wells, 
 of “ The Golden Rule,” Boston, and was first published in 
 that journal. 
 
 BIRD COURTSHIP. 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE. 161 
 
 wooing in a somewhat rudely persistent and obtru- 
 sive fashion. Society would soon ostracize the 
 human suitor having such manners, and might even 
 consider him amenable to the civil courts, and put 
 him in jail as a character unfit to be abroad. How- 
 ever, if hot pursuit, brazen manners, and half-coer- 
 cive measures are considered “ good form ” in 
 bird land, we of the human genus are the last who 
 have a right to find fault, for are we not the most 
 conventional beings on the face of the earth? You 
 might almost as well be in limbo or inferno as out 
 of style. Was there not a time when even the 
 flaming sunflower was regarded as the highest 
 emblem of the beautiful, merely because it was the 
 “ fad,” and not because anybody really felt that it 
 possessed special aesthetic qualities ? “ People who 
 
 live in glass houses ought not to throw stones,” is 
 the saucy challenge of the merry chickadee to his 
 human critic, as he dashes, like an animated “ nigger- 
 chaser,” after the little Dulcinea whom he has 
 marked for his bride. Then he stops, and, balancing 
 on a spray, whistles his sweetest minor tune, Pe-e - 
 w-e-e , pe-e-e-w-e-e ; which, being interpreted, prob- 
 ably means, — 
 
 “ Does not all the blood within me 
 Leap to meet thee, leap to meet thee, 
 
 As the spring to meet the sunshine ? ” 
 
 No doubt many a feathered swain is smitten, and 
 smitten very deeply too, with Cupid's arrow, flung 
 by some charming capturer of hearts. A little boy’s 
 love-letter to a lassie who had taken his throb- 
 
 ii 
 
162 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 bing heart by storm, ran thus : “ I love you very 
 dearly. You are so nice that I don’t blame any- 
 body for falling in love with you. I don’t see why 
 everybody does n’t fall in love with you.” If one 
 may judge from the impetuosity with which most 
 feathered lovers press their suits, there must be 
 many instances of such captivation in bird land. 
 
 Have you ever been witness of the wooing of that 
 half-knightly, half-boorish bird, the yellow-hammer? 
 In the grove near my house several pairs of these 
 birds had a great time one spring settling their 
 hymeneal affairs. For hours a lover would pursue 
 the object of his affections around and around, never 
 giving her a moment’s respite. No sooner had she 
 gone bounding to another tree than he would dash 
 after, often flinging himself recklessly right upon the 
 spot where she had alighted, compelling her to hitch 
 away, to avoid being struck by her impetuous lover. 
 His policy seemed to be to take her heart by storm, 
 to wear her out, to give her no time to think matters 
 over, to compel her, nolens volens , to consent to his 
 proposed marital alliance. No doubt she finally 
 said yes, merely to get rid of him, and then failed 
 of her purpose. After the courtship has passed its 
 first stage, and the wooed one has grown less shy, 
 the bowings and scrapings of the yellow-hammers 
 are truly ludicrous. The female will flit away only 
 a short distance, and will sometimes turn toward her 
 mottled suitor, when they will wag their heads at 
 each other, now to this side, now to that, in the 
 most serio-comical manner imaginable. It is the 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE. 163 
 
 way these lords and ladies of woodpeckerdom make 
 their royal obeisances. 
 
 On a pleasant day in February two downy wood- 
 peckers were “ scraping acquaintance.’ ’ The male 
 pursued his sweetheart about in the trees after the 
 manner of his kind ; but occasionally she would 
 stand at bay and apparently challenge him to come 
 nearer if he dared. Then both of them would lift 
 their striped forms to an almost perpendicular posi- 
 tion, their heads and beaks pointing straight toward 
 the sky, and their bodies swaying grotesquely from 
 side to side. This little comedy over, the finical 
 miss bolted to another tree, with her cavalier in hot 
 pursuit. 
 
 Coy as the feathered ladies usually seem, many of 
 them apparently are genuine flirts, and would feel 
 greatly disappointed should their lovers give over the 
 chase. They evidently want to be won, but not too 
 easily. (Perhaps it might be said, en passant , there 
 are belles in other than the bird community who resort 
 to similar naive and winsome ruses.) In a shady 
 nook of the woods I once saw a gallant towhee 
 bunting employing all the arts at his command to 
 win a damsel who seemed very demure. He was an 
 extremely handsomely formed and finely clad bird, — 
 a real edition de luxe. Fie flew down to the ground, 
 picked up a brown leaf in his bill, and flourished it 
 at her, as much as to say, “ It is time for nest-build- 
 ing, dear.” Then he spread his wings and hand- 
 some tail, and strutted almost like a peacock about 
 on the leafy ground. But, no, she would not, and 
 
164 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 she would not, and there was no use in talking ; she 
 flitted, half contemptuously, to a more distant bush. 
 That proud cockney need not think she cared for 
 him ! She was n’t going to lose her heart to every 
 lovelorn swain who came along. But, mark you, 
 when I tried to separate them, by driving one to 
 one side of the path and the other to the opposite 
 side, the little hypocrite contrived every time, with 
 admirable finesse, to flit over toward her knightly 
 suitor. Three times the experiment brought the 
 same result. Her maidenly reserve had a good deal 
 of calculation in it, after all, innocent as she appeared. 
 Perhaps she had conned Longfellow’s wise quatrain : 
 
 “ How can I tell the signals and the signs 
 By which one heart another heart divines ? 
 
 How can I tell the many thousand ways 
 By which it keeps the secret it betrays ? ” 
 
 That the course of true love does not always run 
 smooth in the bird world as elsewhere, goes without 
 saying. There are feuds and jealousies. Sometimes 
 two beaux admire the same belle, and then there 
 may be war to the death. I have seen two rival 
 song-sparrows clutch in the air, peck and claw at 
 each other viciously, and come down to the ground 
 with a thud that must have knocked the breath out 
 of them for a few moments. Incredible as it may 
 seem, an acute observer of bird life declares that the 
 females are most likely to quarrel and fight over 
 their lovers. At such times the male stands by, 
 looks on approvingly, and lets them fight it out, no 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE. 165 
 
 doubt pluming himself on the fact that he is of suffi- 
 cient importance to be the cause of a duel or a 
 sparring-match among the ladies. 
 
 Even those birds that seem to be the impersona- 
 tion of .kindliness often engage in vigorous wrangles 
 before they are able to settle the troubles that arise 
 from match-making. The bluebird, of the siren 
 voice and cerulean hue, is a case in point. Mr. Bur- 
 roughs describes, in his inimitable way, the vigorous 
 campaign of two pairs of bluebirds, which could not 
 decide the subject of matrimony among themselves 
 without resort to arms. Both the males and females 
 engaged in more than one set-to. Once the hot- 
 headed lovers closed with each other in the air, fell 
 to the ploughed ground, and remained there, tugging 
 and pecking and tweaking for nearly two minutes. 
 Yet, when they separated, neither seemed to be any 
 the worse for the melee. 
 
 The tiny hummers are extremely belligerent birds. 
 A writer describes the contests of certain humming- 
 birds in the island of Jamaica when moved by 
 jealousy. When two males have become rivals, they 
 will level their long, pointed bills at each other, and 
 then dash together with the swiftness of an arrow ; 
 they meet, separate, meet again, with shrill chirping, 
 dart upward, then downward, and circle around and 
 around, until the eye grows weary of watching them, 
 and can no longer follow their rapid transits. At 
 length one falls, exhausted, to the ground, while the 
 other rests, panting and trembling, on a leafy spray, 
 or perhaps tumbles, mortally wounded, to the earth. 
 
i66 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 There are some diminutive hummers, called Mexi- 
 can stars, which become perfect furies when their 
 jealousy is aroused. Their throats swell ; their crests, 
 wings, and tails expand ; and they clinch and spear 
 each other in the air like the veriest disciples of 
 Bellona. Thus a giant passion may dwell in a 
 pygmy form. 
 
 It will be pleasant to turn to more gentle ways of 
 pressing a love-suit. The manners of some males 
 are very courtly while trying to win a spouse. They 
 strut about most gracefully, and display their plumes 
 to the best advantage, as if they would charm the 
 coy damsel of their choice. The dainty kinglets 
 erect and expand their crest feathers so that the 
 golden or ruby spot spreads over the entire crown, 
 making them look handsome indeed. 
 
 It has never been my good fortune to witness the 
 wooing of the ruffed grouse, miscalled the partridge 
 in New England and the pheasant in the Middle 
 States ; but Mr. Langille has seen the performance, 
 and with good reason goes into raptures over it. 
 He describes it in this way : “ Behold the male 
 strutting before the female in time of courtship ! 
 The first time I saw him in this act I was utterly 
 at a loss to identify him. The ruff about the neck 
 is perfectly erect, so that the head is almost dis- 
 guised ; the wings are partially opened and drooped 
 gracefully ; the feathers are generally elevated ; the 
 tail, with its rich, black band, is spread to the ut- 
 most and thrown forward. Thus he stands, nearly 
 motionless, a genuine object of beauty.” 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE . 
 
 167 
 
 One of the most brilliant exhibitions of this kind 
 must be that of the great emerald birds of Paradise, 
 as they disport themselves before the object of their 
 affection. They gather in flocks of from twelve to 
 twenty on certain trees. Mr. A. R. Wallace, in his 
 “ Malay Archipelago,” gives an interesting descrip- 
 tion of these “ dancing-parties,” as they are called 
 by the natives. The wings of the male birds, he 
 says, “ are raised vertically over the back ; the head 
 is bent down and stretched out; and the long 
 plumes” — those that spring like spray from the 
 sides or shoulders — “ are raised and expanded till 
 they form two magnificent golden fans, striped with 
 deep red at the base, and fading off into the pale 
 brown tint of the finely divided and softly waving 
 points ; the whole bird is then overshadowed by 
 them, the crouching body, yellow head, and emerald- 
 green throat forming but a foundation and setting 
 to the golden glory which waves above them.” 
 
 No wonder the maiden’s reserve all melts away, 
 and she soon yields willing consent to her lover’s 
 importunings ! There is only one flaw in this beau- 
 tiful picture, and that is made by man himself, — 
 man, the meddler in avian happiness. While the 
 birds are absorbed in their courtship, the natives, 
 for love of pelf, steal near and shoot them with 
 blunt arrows. Sometimes all the males are thus 
 murdered, ruthlessly, heartlessly, before the danger is 
 discovered. Of course the mercenary butchers sell 
 the plumes for decorative purposes. Gold is the 
 only thing that glitters in the eyes of a sordid world. 
 Some people spell “ God ” with an “ 1.” 
 
i68 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 No doubt vocal display also plays a large part in 
 the courtship of birds. Nothing else in the early 
 spring can wholly account for the wonderful musical 
 tournaments that one hears lilting so lavishly on the 
 air. Many a damsel, doubtless, listens to the numer- 
 ous vocalists of her neighborhood, and then chooses 
 the suitor whose voice possesses the finest qualities, 
 or whose madrigals have the truest ring. How many 
 things may combine to determine the choice of the 
 parties, it would be difficult to say. Perhaps some 
 birds are handsomer than others in the eyes of 
 those that are looking for mates ; perhaps some 
 have more courtly and agreeable manners ; perhaps 
 some put more fervor into their wooing or more 
 passion into their songs ; perhaps some are better 
 tempered ; others may be more industrious or frugal 
 or tidy, and thus will make better husbands or house- 
 wives. Many a lass doubtless is sorely puzzled as 
 to whom she shall choose for a mate. One may 
 even fancy her crooning Addison’s quaint, paradox- 
 ical lines to a whimsical lover concerning whose 
 eligibility she harbors some doubt, — 
 
 “ In all thy humors, whether grave or mellow, 
 
 Thou’rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow, 
 
 Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee, 
 
 That there ’s no living with thee or without thee.” 
 
 One question — not a profound one, I confess — 
 must bring this chapter to a close : Do the plumed 
 ladies ever propose? One might imagine a love- 
 lorn female bird throwing aside her maidenly reserve 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE. 169 
 
 in a fit of desperation, and singing the lines of Mrs. 
 Browning, — 
 
 “ But I love you, sir ; 
 
 And when a woman says she loves a man, 
 
 The man must hear her, though he love her not.” 
 
 II. 
 
 BIRD NURSERIES. 
 
 A bird’s nest is a bedroom, dining-room, sitting- 
 room, parlor, and nursery all in one ; for there 
 the young birds sleep, eat, rest, entertain their 
 guests (if they ever have any), and receive their 
 earliest training. Yet there is no doubt that in 
 treating the nest as a nursery we make use of the 
 aptest simile that could be chosen. Those who 
 have not given the matter special attention would 
 scarcely suspect how many and varied are the in- 
 terests that cluster around these dwellings of our little 
 brothers and sisters of field and woodland. The 
 growth of the bantling family, their mental develop- 
 ment, their deportment in the nest, their chirpings 
 and chatterings, their way of beguiling the time, the 
 length of their stay in their childhood home, — all 
 these, and many other problems of equally absorbing 
 interest, can be solved only by the closest surveil- 
 lance. But it is no light task to watch a nest at 
 close enough range to study the natural, unrestrained 
 ways of the young birds. The fact is, in many, 
 perhaps most, cases it cannot be done. 
 
IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 I 70 
 
 But before describing the inmates of the nursery 
 it would be well to give some attention to the nursery 
 itself, its site and structure. By going to the books 
 I might tell you of many quaint nests, of the nests of 
 the tailor-bird, the water-ouzel, the parula warbler, 
 the burrowing owl, and many others; but — begging 
 pardon for my conceit — I prefer not to get my 
 material second-hand. One would rather describe 
 one’s own observations, even though one may not be 
 able to present so rare a list of curios. The nest of 
 the common wood-thrush, right here in my own 
 neighborhood, is of far more personal interest than 
 the remarkable nest of the fairy martin of Australia, 
 which I have small hope of ever seeing. 
 
 Having mentioned the nest of the wood-thrush, 
 I might as well begin with it. It is not a remarkable 
 structure from an architectural point of view. It might 
 be called a semi-adobe dwelling, thatched with vari- 
 ous kinds of grasses and leaves, and lined with vege- 
 table fibres. It is much like the nest of the robin, 
 only Madam Thrush does not go quite so extensively 
 into the plastering business. It has been interesting 
 to study the ingenuity of these sylvan architects in 
 choosing sites for their nests. They seem to know 
 just where a nest may be built with the least labor in 
 order to make it sit firmly in its place. In the woods 
 that I most frequently haunt there is a sort of bushy 
 sapling whose branches, at a certain point on the 
 main stem, often grow out almost horizontally for a 
 few inches, and then form an elbow by shooting up 
 almost vertically, thus making an arbor, as it were, 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE . 171 
 
 which says plainly to the thrush, “ This is just the 
 site for a nest.” In these crotches the wood-thrush 
 rears her dwelling, its walls being firmly supported all 
 around by the perpendicular branches. Do these 
 saplings grow for the special benefit of the wood- 
 thrush, or does the feathered artificer accommodate 
 herself to the circumstances, or is there mutual 
 adaptation between bird and bush ? That is a 
 problem for the evolutionist. 
 
 But the thrush often selects other sites for her 
 nursery. One day I found a nest deftly placed on 
 the point of intersection of two almost horizontal 
 limbs. From the lower one several small branches 
 grew up in an oblique direction, to give the walls of 
 the mud cottage firm support. The intersecting 
 boughs belonged to two different saplings. Another 
 nest that did not have very strong external support 
 was set down upon the short stub of a limb, which 
 ran up into the mud floor and held the structure 
 firmly in place. 
 
 One day I stumbled upon a very tall thrush nest, 
 looking almost like a tower in its crotch. As the 
 nestlings had left, I lifted it from its place and tore 
 it apart, thinking the thrush might have fallen upon 
 the summer warbler’s ruse to outwit the cow-bunting 
 by adding another story to her hut, thus leaving the 
 bunting’s intruded egg in the cellar. But such was 
 not the case ; she had simply done the unorthodox 
 thing of using an old nest, still in good condition, 
 for a foundation upon which to rear the new structure. 
 Will the theologians of thrushdom bring charges of 
 
1 7 2 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 heresy against her? Was it really a case of “ higher 
 criticism ”? It may have been, especially when you 
 remember that these thrushes often weave into their 
 nests fragments of newspapers, some of which may 
 contain theological discussions. 
 
 One peculiarity in the nest-building of most of the 
 birds of my neighborhood may as well be mentioned 
 now as later ; they seldom build in the densest and 
 most secluded parts of the woods, but usually choose 
 some bush or sapling near the border, or close to a 
 woodland path or winding road, where people some- 
 times pass. Perhaps they do this because the 
 natural enemies of birds, such as squirrels, minks, 
 and hawks, fight shy of these pathways traversed by 
 human feet. Perhaps, too, the birds do not like the 
 gloom and loneliness of the more sequestered por- 
 tions of the woods. They like to be semi-sociable, 
 at least, and are not disposed to make monks and 
 nuns of themselves. 
 
 A far more artless nest is that of the turtle-dove. 
 This bird should attend an industrial college for a 
 term or two, to learn the art of building ; but it 
 would do no good : the meek little thing would cling 
 obstinately to her inherited ideas, and never become 
 a connoisseur in nest construction. Sometimes, 
 when you stand beneath her cottage, you can see 
 her white eggs gleaming through the interstices of 
 the loosely matted floor. As a rule, she builds on a 
 branch ; but something possessed one little mother, 
 in the spring of 1891,10 build her nursery on a large 
 stump about six feet high, standing right in the 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE. 
 
 *73 
 
 midst of the woods. I fear she was not a well trained 
 bird ; but I watched her closely, and must concede 
 that, whether her conduct was in “ good form” or 
 not, she reared her brood in the most approved 
 manner. I could come within two feet of her, and 
 almost touch her with my cane, before she would fly 
 from the nest. How her little round eyes stared at 
 me without so much as a blink ! But she was greatly 
 agitated, for her bosom palpitated with the violent 
 throbbing of her heart. 
 
 “ I ’ve found a turtle-dove’s nest on the ground/’ 
 said my friend, the young farmer across the fields, 
 one spring day. (No matter about the year of grace, 
 for every year is a year of grace in bird study.) My 
 head was shaken skeptically, and I smiled in a 
 patronizing way, for a turtle-dove’s nest on the 
 ground was an unknown quantity in all my study of 
 birds ; but my friend declared, “ Honest Injun ! ” 
 and I left him to his obstinate opinions. But, hold ! 
 who, after all, proved to be the donkey? A few 
 days later I myself stumbled upon a turtle-dove’s 
 nest in a clover-field, flat on the ground. Bird 
 students, be careful how you dispute the word of 
 these sharp-eyed tillers of the soil ! 
 
 But for birds that invariably choose old mother 
 earth for the foundation of their houses, commend 
 me to the American meadow-larks. In this respect 
 they are certainly groundlings, though not in a bad 
 sense. All their nests are constructed on the same 
 general plan, it is true ; but the details are quite 
 diverse, proving that architectural designs in the lark 
 
174 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 guild of builders are almost as numerous as the 
 builders themselves. My young farmer friend found 
 a nest early in the spring, with not a blade of grass 
 near it for protection, while the structure itself was 
 arched over only a very little in the rear. Another 
 nest was situated in a pasture, and was almost as 
 devoid of roofing as was the first nest. But rather 
 late in the spring a nest was found, hidden most 
 deftly in the clover and plantain leaves, which were 
 woven together in the most intricate manner so as 
 to form a canopy over the cosey cot. At one side 
 there was a tunnel, some two feet long, forming the 
 only entrance to the apartment. The nest proper 
 was arched over from the rear for fully one half its 
 width. Not ten feet away was another lark’s nest 
 that was almost wholly exposed to the light and air. 
 In the lark world there is evidently a good deal of 
 room for originality. There seem to be many larks 
 of many minds. 
 
 My quest for cuckoos’ nests during the summer 
 of 1892 was well rewarded, but I shall stop to 
 describe only one of these finds. The young birds 
 having left, I lifted the nest from the swaying branch 
 on which it hung, and examined it. The founda- 
 tion was composed of twigs and sticks intertwined 
 and plaited together with some degree of skill, but 
 it was the lining that stirred my interest. First, it 
 consisted of a number of dead forest leaves from 
 which the cellular texture had been completely 
 stripped, leaving only the petiole, midrib, and veins ; 
 underneath this was a more compact carpet of the 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE . 
 
 1 75 
 
 same kind of leaves, of which the blade, instead of 
 being stripped off, was perforated with innumerable 
 small holes, making them look like extremely fine 
 sieves. In some cases the blades seemed to be 
 split, leaving the veins and veinlets exposed, so that 
 one could trace their intricate net-work. Another 
 cuckoo nest had both the stripped and perforated 
 leaves, but fewer of each kind. Whether the birds 
 themselves did the artistic work on these leaves or 
 not, — that is a question. The stripping of the 
 upper layer of their blades would allow the dust and 
 scaly substance shed by the young birds, to sift 
 through to the second layer, where it would not 
 come in direct contact with the nurslings. The 
 two carpets were laid, no doubt, in the interests of 
 health and cleanliness. 
 
 But it is time to turn our attention to the children 
 of the nursery. The life of young birds in the nest, 
 — what a field for study ! One thing they learn 
 very early, probably almost as soon as they emerge 
 from the shell ; that is, to open their mouths for 
 food. No tutor or professor needed for that ! Most 
 young birds soon become quite clamorous for their 
 rations. Lowell must have looked into more than 
 one bird nursery, or he scarcely would have thought 
 of writing the lines, — 
 
 “ Blind nestlings, unafraid, 
 
 Stretch up, wide-mouthed, to every shade 
 By which their downy dream is stirred, 
 
 Taking it for the mother-bird.” 
 
 A nestful of half-callow younglings, standing on 
 
IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 176 
 
 tiptoe, craning up their necks, wabbling from side 
 to side, opening their mouths to the widest extent 
 of their “gapes,” knocking heads and beaks to- 
 gether, and chirping at the top of their voices, — I 
 confess it makes a picture more grotesque than 
 attractive. By and by, as the pin-feathers begin to 
 grow, the infant brood seem to feel an itching sen- 
 sation, which causes them to pick the various parts 
 of their bodies to remove the scaly substance that 
 gathers on the skin and at the bases of the sprout- 
 ing feathers. But how awkwardly they go about 
 this exercise 1 Their heads seem to be too heavy 
 for their long, slender necks, and go waggling and 
 rolling from side to side, often missing the mark 
 aimed at. However, the muscles of the nurslings 
 are developing all the while. Soon they lift them- 
 selves to their full height, stretch themselves, jerk 
 their tails higher than their heads in a most amusing 
 way (you smile, but they don’t), and then squat 
 down upon the floor of the nest again. A day or so 
 later the most advanced youngster feels the flying 
 impulse stirring in his veins, and so, after stretching 
 himself as previously described, he extends his wings 
 to their utmost reach, and flaps them in a joyous 
 way over his cuddling companions, sometimes rap- 
 ping them smartly on the head. Soon there comes 
 a day when he hops to the edge of the nest, looks 
 • out upon the wide, beckoning world like a young 
 satrap, and flaps his wings with a semi-conscious 
 feeling of strength. Ere long, encouraged by his 
 parents, he spreads his wings, and takes a header 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE . 
 
 177 
 
 for the nearest twig. Why, his wings will bear him 
 up on the buoyant air ! He has graduated from 
 the nursery and the grammar grade into the high 
 school. 
 
 Every year has its eccentricities, so to speak ; 
 that is, the character of the weather and other 
 modifying causes afford the faunal life an occasion 
 for a development that is peculiar. Thus the 
 observations made by the naturalist one year are not 
 necessarily mere repetitions of those made other 
 years. Nature is not often guilty of tautology. I 
 yield therefore to the temptation to add a few 
 chronicles made during the spring of 1893, which, 
 I hope, will not destroy the unity of this article on 
 bird nurseries. One day in June, while strolling 
 through the woods, I heard the song of a red-eyed 
 vireo. It was a kind of talking song, or recitative, 
 as if the bird were discoursing on some favorite 
 theme, and improvising his music as he went. His 
 voice was so loud and clear that I could hear it far 
 away, drifting through the green, embowered aisles 
 of the woods. This vigorous chanson was a surprise, 
 for I have never before known this vireo to remain 
 in my neighborhood during the summer. He mostly 
 hies farther north. But a still greater surprise lay 
 in ambush for me a few days later, in one of my 
 rambles through the woods. Suddenly there was a 
 light flutter of wings near my head, and there hung 
 a tiny nest on the low, swaying branches of a 
 sapling. 
 
 That it was a vireo’s nest was evident, for it was 
 
 12 
 
i 7 8 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 fastened to the twigs by the rim, without any support 
 below, swinging there like a dainty basket. Pres- 
 ently I got my glass on the bird herself, and found her 
 to be a red-eyed vireo. That was my first nest of this 
 species, and proud enough I was of the discovery. 
 The outside of the little cot was prettily ornamented 
 with tufts of spider-webs. As usual with this bird, a 
 piece of white paper was wrought into the lower 
 part of the nest. Three vireo’s eggs and one cow- 
 bunting’s lay in the bottom of the cup. 
 
 Every few days I called on the bird, going close 
 enough only to see her plainly, without driving her 
 off the nest. She made a pretty picture sitting 
 there, one fit for an artist’s brush, with her head 
 and tail pointing almost straight up, her body grace- 
 fully curved to fit the deep little basket, and her 
 eyes growing large and wild at her visitor’s approach. 
 At length, one day, I felt sure there must be little 
 ones in the nest, and so I went very close to her ; 
 yet she did not fly. Then I moved my hand toward 
 her, and finally touched her back before she flitted 
 away. A featherless cow-bunting lay in the ham- 
 mock, but the vireo’s eggs were not yet hatched. 
 A few days later the nest was robbed. Some heart- 
 less villain, probably a blue jay, had destroyed all 
 the children. I could have wept, so keen was my 
 sense of bereavement. 
 
 The cow-buntings imposed a great deal on other 
 kind-hearted bird parents that spring. Almost every 
 nest contained one or two of this interloper’s eggs, 
 and, as if Nature abetted the designs of the parasite, 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE. 
 
 1 79 
 
 these eggs were almost always hatched first. One 
 wood-thrush’s nest contained two bunting and three 
 thrush eggs. As soon as the bantlings had broken 
 from the shell, the buntings could be readily dis- 
 tinguished from the thrushes, for the former feath- 
 ered much more rapidly than the latter. When the 
 youngsters were about half grown, they crowded one 
 another considerably in their adobe apartment, but, 
 to all intents and purposes, they lived together in 
 beautiful domestic harmony. At all events, no un- 
 seemly family wrangles came under my eye. By 
 and by, on one of my visits, I found that the bunt- 
 ings had left the maternal roof (to speak with a 
 good deal of poetic license), while the thrush trio 
 still sat contentedly on the nest, and did not display 
 any fear when I caressingly stroked their brown 
 backs, but looked up at me in a native , confiding 
 way that was very gratifying. Quite different was 
 the conduct of the inmates of a bush-sparrow’s nest, 
 hidden in the grass at the woodland’s border. The 
 baby sparrows rushed pell-mell from their pretty 
 homestead when I came near, leaving a bunting, 
 which had been hatched and reared with them, 
 alone in the nest. He was not nearly so far 
 developed as his brothers and sisters, and had no 
 intention of being driven from home. 
 
 But here is an instance more like that of the 
 bunting- wood-thrush episode just described. A pretty 
 basket, woven of fine fibrous material, swung from 
 the lower branches of an apple-tree in the orchard 
 of one of my farmer friends, and contained three 
 
i8o 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 young orchard orioles and one cow-bunting. One 
 day I procured a step-ladder and climbed up to the 
 nest, when the bunting sprang out with a wild cry 
 and toppled to the ground, while the young orioles, 
 not yet half-fledged, merely pried open their mouths 
 for food. Yet these birds, when grown, are fully as 
 dexterous on the wing as their foster relatives, the 
 buntings. 
 
 During the same spring some observations on 
 youthful blackbirds were made. They may be of 
 sufficient interest to register in this place. Did you 
 know that a part of the heads of infant blackbirds 
 remains bare a week or two after the other por- 
 tions of their bodies are well feathered? This is 
 true of the three species of my acquaintance, — 
 the purple grackles, the red-winged blackbirds, and 
 the cow-buntings. The bald portion includes the 
 forehead, part of the crown, the chin, and throat, 
 and extends behind and below the ears, which are 
 covered with a tiny tuft of fuzz. Had this unfeathered 
 portion been red instead of black, the youngsters 
 would have looked quite like diminutive turkey- 
 buzzards. One may be pardoned for being some- 
 what puzzled over the childish conundrum, Why 
 young blackbirds, of all the birds in the circle of 
 one’s acquaintance, must go bareheaded during the 
 first few weeks of their life. By and by, however, 
 the feathers grow out on this space as thickly as on 
 the remainder of their bodies. 
 
 Strange that I have found so few black-capped 
 titmice’s nests, familiar and abundant as they are 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE . 
 
 181 
 
 in my neighborhood, both summer and winter ; but 
 my quest was rewarded in two instances during the 
 spring of 1893, — the first nest being in the top of 
 a truncated sassafras-tree. The snag was perhaps 
 twenty feet high. On one of my visits the birds 
 were hollowing out their little apartment. They 
 would dart into the narrow opening, and presently 
 emerge, carrying small fragments of partly decayed 
 wood in their beaks and dropping them to the 
 ground. Some weeks later, I climbed the tree (with 
 much fear and trembling, be it said), but the birds 
 had made the cavity so deep that I could not see 
 the bottom, and break open their sylvan nursery I 
 would not. The second titmouse nest was in a 
 very slender branch of a sassafras-tree, — so slender, 
 indeed, that it was a wonder the birds were able to 
 make a hollow in it. At first it looked precisely 
 like a black patch burned on the bough’s surface. 
 When one of the feathered atoms stood in the tiny 
 doorway and looked out, she made a pretty picture, 
 — one that would have put a throb of joy into an 
 artist’s bosom. 
 
 Yet there is another picture that I should prefer 
 to have painted, not on account of its attractiveness, 
 but on account of its quaintness ; it was the nest, 
 eggs, and young of a pair of green herons in an 
 orchard. The nest was built high in an apple-tree, 
 and was only a loose platform of sticks. Although 
 anything but an expert climber, I contrived to scale 
 that tree three times to satisfy my curiosity. The 
 first time there were four eggs of a greenish-blue 
 
182 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 cast — not jewels by any means — in the nest. On 
 my second visit four of the oddest birdlings I ever 
 looked upon greeted me with wide-open eyes and 
 mouths. They were covered with light yellowish 
 down, and the space about the eyes was of a 
 greenish hue, — one of the characteristic markings 
 of the adult birds. When they opened their mouths, 
 expecting to be fed, their throats puffed out some- 
 what like the throats of croaking frogs, making a 
 good-sized pocket inside to receive chunks of food. 
 The thought struck me that perhaps the pocket was 
 designed as a sort of temporary storage place for 
 victuals until the nestling was ready to swallow them. 
 The birds made a low, quaint noise that cannot be 
 represented phonetically. Indeed, the picture they 
 made was slightly uncanny, so I did not linger about 
 it overlong. 
 
 A week later my third and last call on the heron 
 household was made. What an odd spectacle it 
 presented ! The young birds had grown wonder- 
 fully, though still covered with down, with very little 
 sign of feathers. As my head appeared above the 
 rim of the nest, they slowly craned up their India- 
 rubber necks, then rose on their stilt-like legs, and 
 looked at me with wondering, wide-open eyes that 
 gleamed almost like gold. The spectacle made me 
 think of ghouls, incongruous as the simile may seem. 
 When I touched one of the birds, it huddled, 
 half-alarmed, down to the bottom of the nest. An- 
 other slyly stalked off to the edge of the platform, 
 upon a thick clump of twigs and leaves, eying me 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE. 183 
 
 keenly as he moved away. I hurriedly climbed 
 down, lest he should topple to the ground and dash 
 himself to death ; and -thus, while I was on the brink 
 of causing a tragedy, yet, as a sort of emollient to 
 my conscience, I consoled myself with the thought 
 that I had really prevented one. 
 
 Another interesting discovery of the same spring 
 was a killdeer plover’s nest, which my farmer friend 
 across-lots found in a clover-field. There had been 
 a heavy rainfall, making the ploughed ground as soft 
 as mush ; but my tall rubber boots were mud-proof, 
 and so I went to pay the plovers my respects. This 
 was after six o’clock in the evening. I found one 
 little bird in the shallow, pebble-lined nest, and 
 three eggs, one of them slightly broken at the larger 
 end. The plover nestling was an odd baby, with 
 its large head, fluffy, square-shouldered body, and 
 slender beak sticking straight out. A small piece of 
 the egg-shell still clung to its back. On taking the 
 tiny thing into my hand, what was this I saw? It 
 had only three toes on each foot, instead of four, as 
 most birds have ; and those three were all fore toes, 
 while the bird had no hind toe at all. Why the 
 plover should have no hind toe is an enigma ; but 
 then, the ostrich has none, either, and only two in 
 front, — “ every species after its kind.” 
 
 Early the next morning two more youngsters had 
 broken shell, and come forth to keep their more 
 precocious brother company. The eldest was marked 
 quite distinctly about the head and neck like its 
 parents, having the characteristic white and black 
 
184 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 bands, thus early proclaiming the persistence of its 
 type. When I set it down — for I had lifted it in 
 my hand — it started to run over the soft ground, 
 enhancing its speed by flapping its tiny wings. The 
 picture was indescribably cunning. The bird was so 
 small that it looked like a downy dot scudding over 
 the undulations of the ground. Think of a baby 
 only about fifteen hours old running away from 
 home in that manner ! I caught the infantile scape- 
 grace and placed it back in its cradle, where it 
 remained. During the night there had been a very 
 heavy fall of rain, and yet these youngsters, small as 
 they were, had not been drowned, having doubtless 
 been covered by their parents. At six o'clock in 
 the evening they had all left the nest, and, search as 
 I would, I could find no clew to their whereabouts, 
 though the parent birds were flying and scuttling 
 about with loud cries of warning to me to keep my 
 distance. Thus it would seem that young plovers, 
 like young partridges, grouse, and ducks, leave the 
 nest at a very tender age. 
 
 Before closing, I must mention something odd 
 that befell a kingfisher’s nest. A year prior I had 
 found a nest in a high bank in a sloping field, where 
 the water had washed out a deep gully. In passing 
 the bank one day I noticed that it had been partly 
 broken down ; there had been a landslide on a small 
 scale, caused by the washing of the heavy spring 
 rains. Half way to the top, on a narrow shelf, lay a 
 clutch of kingfisher’s eggs, some of them broken by 
 the caving of the bank. The landslide had occurred 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE. 
 
 ^5 
 
 after the cavity had been made and the eggs de- 
 posited, thus blasting the hopes of the kingfishers. 
 However, they had not become despondent, for, 
 later in the season, they burrowed a hole for an 
 underground nursery in another part of the bank. 
 
 III. 
 
 BIRD HIGH SCHOOLS. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that there is a regularly 
 graded system of instruction in the school-life of 
 the birds. There may be method in their learning, 
 but it would be difficult to state positively just where 
 the primary, grammar, high-school, and college grades 
 merge into one another, or when diplomas of effi- 
 ciency are granted, if granted at all. But that there 
 is something of a system of pedagogy among birds, 
 and that the juniors do receive instruction from their 
 seniors, no observer of feathered life can doubt for 
 a moment. In the systems of human instruction 
 the child-life of the young learner usually ends with 
 his high-school course ; he then stands at the thresh- 
 old of young manhood, ready to do a good deal of 
 wrestling with his problems on his own account. 
 Taking that fact as our cue, we should say that the 
 high-school instruction of the youthful bird begins 
 when he leaves the nest, and ends when he is able 
 to fly with dexterity, and provide for his own sup- 
 port, at least in the main. It is not probable that 
 the lecture system prevails in the bird community, 
 
i86 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 or the method of class instruction now in vogue, or 
 that books and charts and blackboards are used ; 
 but the instruction is chiefly individual, and is carried 
 on mostly by example, coercion, and urgent appeal. 
 There is not an inexhaustible number of branches 
 to be pursued by the little undergraduates in plumes ; 
 but their efforts at obtaining an education consist 
 chiefly in mastering three grand accomplishments, 
 — flying, feeding, and singing. 
 
 If ever you have seen a bevy of young red-headed 
 woodpeckers, led by several of their elders, taking 
 their wing-exercises, choosing a certain tree in the 
 woods for a point of departure, and then sailing 
 around and around with loud cries of delight, you 
 must have concluded that it was a veritable class in 
 calisthenics. One seldom has an opportunity to 
 see young birds taking their first lessons in flight, 
 but it is worth one’s time and patience to be present 
 at such a recitation. The parents set the example 
 by flying from the nest to a perch near by, and then 
 coax and scold their children to follow their ex- 
 ample. If the little learners hesitate, as they usually 
 do, their impatient teachers exclaim : “ Why, just try it 
 once. You never will learn to fly any younger. If 
 you will only spread your wings, let go of the rim 
 of the nest, and venture out on the air, you will find 
 that it will bear you up. Don’t be afraid.” But 
 perhaps the pupils complain that it makes their 
 heads dizzy to look down from their awful height. 
 Then the teachers pooh-pooh at their fears, and cry 
 condescendingly, C( The idea of being afraid ! Why, 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE. 187 
 
 just see here ! ” and they mount up into the air, 
 poise, careen, and perform other extraordinary feats, 
 while the youngsters gaze at them in wide-eyed 
 wonder. At last, after much persuasion and many 
 half-attempts, one of the youngsters spreads his 
 pinions and flutters laboriously until he scrambles 
 upon the nearest twig, with bated breath and throb- 
 bing pulses. He is frightened half to death, but he 
 has found that the friendly air will support him if he 
 makes proper use of his wings, and so he will soon 
 make another effort, and another, until he begins 
 really to enjoy the exercise. However, several days 
 may elapse before the youngest and weakest member 
 of the class can muster sufficient courage to take his 
 first aerial journey. 
 
 Some species of birds graduate from the nest 
 much sooner than others. In one case I observed 
 that a family of goldfinches remained in the nest 
 just seven days after a family of bush-sparrows, 
 hatched on the same day, had taken their flight . 1 
 The yellow-billed cuckoo has given me no little 
 surprise in this respect. When he first creeps out 
 of his shell apartment, he is a callow, ungainly in- 
 fant, black as coal, with a sparse covering of stiff 
 bristles ; but almost before a week has passed, he 
 has hopped from his washed-out cradle to try the 
 realities of the great world around him. Why the 
 agile little goldfinch should remain in the crib so 
 much longer than his less dexterous fellow-pupil, 
 
 1 This episode is referred to in the chapter on “Nest* 
 Hunting.” 
 
i88 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 the cuckoo, is a problem of bird school-life that 
 I must leave for solution to wiser heads. 
 
 Having gone from the nest, the young bird has 
 not yet learned all about the art of flying; no, 
 indeed ! He must become perfect by practice. 
 Many a blunder will he make. At first he can- 
 not always nicely calculate the distance to the twig 
 that he has in view, and so he fails to give himself 
 the proper propulsive force ; he misses his footing 
 by going too far, or not far enough, and then where 
 he will alight is a question of what he happens to 
 strike first. Probably a wild, desperate scramble will 
 ensue, which ends only when the youthful novice has 
 fallen plump upon the ground. He may be very 
 much alarmed ; but as soon as he recovers his 
 breath, his courage rises, and he tries again. 
 
 Although the young birds have the whole world 
 for their larder, with victuals just to their taste 
 constantly at their elbow, they must learn even the 
 art of eating, and, until they do so, they demand that 
 their parents be their caterers. For several weeks 
 after they have passed the first term of school-life, 
 they will still sit on a limb, open their mouths, 
 twinkle their wings, and allow their patient victual- 
 lers to thrust morsel after morsel down their 
 throats. My opinion is that the patience of their 
 parents wears out after a time, and they leave 
 the overgrown youngster to paddle for himself. 
 How proud he must be of the exploit when he 
 catches his first insect and successfully stows it away 
 in his maw ! In a deep, quiet glen I watched a 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE . 
 
 189 
 
 family of young phoebes and their parents catching 
 insects on the wing. It was amusing. The old 
 birds evidently felt that it was about time for their 
 pupils to learn to provide their own victuals, but 
 the youngsters stoutly demanded that their lunch- 
 eons be brought them in the accustomed manner. 
 They must have noticed that the old birds would 
 occasionally catch an insect and dispose of it them- 
 selves. Once when the parent bird darted out for 
 a small cabbage butterfly, a young fellow swooped 
 down at her with such force that she let the insect 
 squirm out of her bill and flutter to the ground, 
 and thus make good its escape before she could re- 
 cover it. Both birds lost their dinner through the 
 greed and rashness of the little gourmand. Another 
 time an old bird caught a yellow butterfly, dashed 
 to a limb, and quickly gulped it down, wings and all, 
 before any of the presumptuous high- schoolers could 
 reach him. The bearing of the bird was most 
 laughable. Finally, several of the young birds darted 
 out into the air for passing insects, proving that they 
 were taking lessons in that fine art ; but their gym- 
 nastics were far from perfect, and they hit the mark 
 scarcely half the time. 
 
 With most young birds music is a part of their 
 high-school curriculum. Perhaps you have thought 
 that they learn their lessons in vocal music without 
 special instruction, but this is not always the case. 
 Observation proves that the old birds have them 
 under tutelage, setting them lyrical copies, which 
 they are expected to learn by frequent rehearsal. 
 
190 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 I have myself observed such a performance in the 
 case of the wood-pewee, as described in the chapter 
 on “ Midsummer Melodies.” First attempts are 
 crude and awkward, although the tones may be very 
 fine. It requires frequent drill to bring the vocal 
 organs under perfect control, just as is the case with 
 human singers. If you have listened to the squeak- 
 ing, chattering, twittering medley of young song- 
 sparrows, you have realized how much practice 
 is necessary before the would-be vocalists will be 
 able to execute the wonderful trills of which they 
 are master when they graduate from the musical 
 conservatory. 
 
 I must tell you of a little bird high-school class 
 over which I once assumed charge. It consisted 
 of three wood-thrushes, two bluebirds, and a 
 brown thrasher, all of which were taken from the 
 nest before they were ready to fly, and confined in 
 a large wire cage. Very soon they learned to take 
 food from my hand. But in many things that are 
 essential to bird life and bird weal they had no 
 tutors and no drill -masters, and therefore had to 
 learn them as best they could. Yet it was surpris- 
 ing how soon they gained proficiency. Without a 
 single copy from adult birds, all of them were able 
 to fly about from perch to perch in a few days. It 
 was not more than a week before they began to pick 
 in an awkward way, but after more than five weeks 
 they would still open their mouths and take food 
 from the hand. The mechanical act of eating was 
 something they had to learn by slow degrees. While 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE. 191 
 
 they could readily pick up a tidbit, it seemed to 
 be a difficult task to get it back far enough into the 
 mouth to swallow it. This was especially true of 
 the thrasher, whose bill was long. How he would 
 toss a morsel about, pinch it, fling it away, catch it 
 up again, and pound it against a perch, before he 
 could work it back into his capacious throat ! 
 
 They were amusing pets, those feathered pupils 
 of mine. From them I have gained an insight into 
 bird character which could have been gained in no 
 other way. The difficulty in observing birds in the 
 wild state is, you cannot study them at close range, 
 and hence cannot watch their development from 
 day to day. None the less interesting were my 
 little pupils because they had to depend on their 
 own wits and learn their lessons without a pedagogue. 
 How did they learn to bathe without being shown 
 how ! They learned it, that is sure ; and they went 
 through the exercise precisely as birds do in the wild- 
 wood. They would leap into the bath-dish, duck 
 their heads into the water, flutter their wings and 
 tails until thoroughly rinsed, and then fly up to a 
 perch to preen their bedrenched plumage. But they 
 made some mirth-provoking blunders. One day a 
 wood-thrush got astride of the rim of his bath-tub, one 
 leg outside and the other inside, and in that interest- 
 ing position tried to take his ablution. He looked 
 exceedingly droll, and seemingly could not under- 
 stand why he did not succeed better. Another time 
 the thrasher remained outside of the bath-dish, and 
 thrust his head over the rim into the water, squat- 
 
192 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 ting on the sand and twinkling his pinions. But the 
 time came when all the birds discovered of their 
 own accord that the proper way was to leap right 
 into the lavatory. 
 
 How early in life do juvenile birds begin to sing? 
 That is a question, I venture to say, that very few 
 students of bird life would be able to answer. It 
 may be difficult to believe — if my own ears had 
 not heard, I should be very skeptical of the accuracy 
 of the assertion — but my wood-thrushes had not 
 been in my care more than three or four weeks 
 before one of them began to twitter a little song. 
 He could not have been much more than five weeks 
 old. This is all the more remarkable when it is 
 remembered that there were no adult thrushes within 
 a half-mile of the house. He seemed to discover 
 that he had a voice, and thought he might as well 
 use it. 
 
 Ah, yes, and sad to relate, my high-school pupils 
 soon learned to quarrel, and that without the 
 example of their elders. When I threw a billsome 
 morsel on the floor of the cage, several of them 
 would make a dive for it, and soon get into a 
 wrangle. “ It ’s mine ! it ’s mine ! ” each would 
 proclaim by his greedy behavior. Then perhaps 
 two would seize it, and tug at it like boys fighting for 
 an apple. Or if one contrived to get it first, the rest 
 would try to wrench it from his beak, and thus 
 they would pursue one another about in a wild chase. 
 The thrasher, being younger than his fellows, was 
 for a time cheated out of every choice morsel he 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE . 
 
 193 
 
 secured ; but he finally learned to help himself and 
 swallow his victuals instanter. Two of the thrushes, 
 probably males, seemed to have a mutual grudge. 
 They would pursue each other until the fugitive 
 would turn and stand at bay, snapping his mandi- 
 bles in a savage manner, as if they were worked by 
 steel springs. I regret being compelled to publish 
 these pugnacious tendencies in my beloved pets ; but 
 I prefer giving a realistic rather than a fictitious or 
 roseate sketch of the school-days of these pupils in 
 plumes. 
 
 IV. 
 
 BIRD WORK. 
 
 <( Life is real, life is earnest,” might be just as 
 truly said of “ our little brothers of the air” as of 
 us, their big brothers of the soil. If you think that 
 their whole career consists of nothing but play and 
 song and bounding joy, you have seen very little 
 of the bird life around you. For the mother bird, at 
 least, the whole period of nesting, sometimes extend- 
 ing over several months, is a time of drudgery, 
 anxiety, and, far too often, of disappointed hopes. 
 I have heard a bird mother’s wail that went like 
 iron into my soul, and told me all too plainly that 
 it had come from a bereft and broken heart. When 
 we remember how many tragedies occur in the 
 feathered community, we scarcely care about sing- 
 ing, “ I wish I were a little bird.” Had you 
 witnessed the unutterable agony of a pair of yellow- 
 
194 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 breasted chats one spring, when their four pretty 
 bairns were stolen by some heartless buccaneer, you 
 would have thanked the Pleiades, Ursa Major, Ursa 
 Minor, and all your other lucky stars, that you were 
 a man or woman and not a bird. 
 
 “ Oh ! it would be so pleasant to fly and tilt in 
 the air, to dash from twig to twig, to make long 
 aerial voyages to foreign countries ! ” Do I hear 
 you say that? Wait a moment. Have you ever 
 thought that even the long, bounding flight of the 
 swallows and swifts, accomplished apparently with- 
 out effort, may sometimes become a weariness to 
 the flesh, especially when insects are scarce and 
 their maws empty? Then, those long nocturnal 
 journeys that birds make during the migrating season 
 may often tax their strength to the utmost. Indeed, 
 if you will listen to their feeble chirping, as they 
 sweep overhead through the darkness, you will often 
 detect a note of fatigue running through it, as much 
 as to say, “ Ah, I wish we were at our journey’s 
 end ! ” No, bird life is not all roseate. It has its 
 humdrum and drudgery, its wear and tear, its prose 
 as well as its poetry, its hard realism as well as its 
 romance. 
 
 One of the tasks of bird life is the building of 
 nests. It is true, the birds always do this work with 
 a zest that makes it seem half play ; but, after spend- 
 ing a day in gathering material and weaving it into 
 the nest, scarcely taking time to stop for meals, I 
 have no doubt the little toilers are ready to retire 
 when bedtime comes. Have you ever watched these 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE. 
 
 J 95 
 
 little artists constructing their nests? They first lay 
 the foundation, which is usually made of rather 
 coarse material, and is more or less loosely woven ; 
 and then they proceed to build the superstructure. 
 Some birds, like the robin and the bluebird, will have 
 their mouths full of material every time they come 
 to the nest ; while others, such as the dainty warblers, 
 will return with a single fibre. Usually the bird 
 leaps into the cup of the nest, and deftly weaves in 
 the new material with its bill ; and then shifts around 
 with a quivering motion of body and wings, to give 
 the structure proper shape and size. The nest must 
 be made to fit the body of the bird like a glove, so 
 that she may rest easily in it during the long period 
 of incubation. The robin and the wood-thrush bring 
 mud and clay ; this they mix, no doubt, with their 
 own saliva, which gives it its viscid character. The 
 dainty, blue-gray gnat-catcher collects lichens of 
 various kinds, with which she decorates the high 
 walls of her compact little cottage. Does this tiny 
 artist sometimes build nests just for fun or aesthetic 
 effect ? I watched the building of two nests one spring 
 that were never used. With what a graceful touch 
 the feathered dots laid the lichen bricks in the walls ! 
 
 The hatching of the eggs must be a severe tax on 
 the patience of the mother bird, for the principal 
 part of this work devolves upon her. Sitting hour 
 by hour upon the nest, looking out upon the wide 
 spaces of air waiting to be conquered by her active 
 wings ; with nothing except hope to feed her mind ; 
 with not even a book or a newspaper to read, — 
 
196 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 well, here is a chance to let patience have her per- 
 fect work. Then think of her uneasiness at the 
 approach of every foe. It is work ; it is not mere 
 idleness. As for her lord, it may seem only like 
 holiday sport to sit in the tree-top and sing all the 
 livelong day, to beguile the weary hours of his sit- 
 ting mate. But perhaps it often takes on the hue 
 of work, too, when singing becomes a duty. Small 
 wonder, if the choralist’s vocal chords often become 
 jaded and sore, while there may be danger of bring- 
 ing on throat or lung trouble. Besides, he must 
 often carry a dainty morsel to his spouse when he 
 would much prefer to eat it himself. Then, he 
 must take his turn on the nest while his partner 
 goes off for a “ constitutional ” to get the stiffness 
 out of her joints, or gathers a relay of food and 
 preens her ruffled plumes. 
 
 One of the most unpleasant tasks of the time of 
 incubation and brood rearing is the warding off of 
 enemies. And they are numerous. No feathered 
 parents can feel sure that they shall be able to tide 
 their little family safely over this perilous period. 
 Have you ever seen the plucky wood-pewee engag- 
 ing in a contest with that highwayman in feathers, 
 the blue jay? How he dashes at the bloodthirsty 
 villain, snapping his mandibles viciously at every 
 onset, and sometimes pecking a feather from his 
 enemy’s back ! Nor will he give up the battle until 
 the jay steals off with a hangdog expression on his 
 face. The little warbling vireo is no less game when 
 the jay comes too near his precincts. 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE. 
 
 197 
 
 One day in spring I was witness to a curious inci- 
 dent. A red-headed woodpecker had been flying 
 several times in and out of a hole in a tree where 
 he (or she) had a nest. At length, when he re- 
 mained within the cavity for some minutes, I stepped 
 to the tree and rapped on the trunk with my cane. 
 The bird bolted like a small cannon-ball from the 
 orifice, wheeled around the tree with a swiftness 
 that the eye could scarcely follow, and then dashed 
 up the lane to an orchard a short distance away. 
 But he had only leaped out of the frying-pan into 
 the fire. In the orchard he had unconsciously got 
 too near a king-bird’s nest. The king-bird swooped 
 toward him, and alighted on his back. The next 
 moment the two birds, the king-bird on the wood- 
 pecker’s back, went racing across the meadow like 
 a streak of zigzag lightning, making a clatter that 
 frightened every echo from its hiding-place. That 
 gamy flycatcher actually clung to the woodpecker’s 
 back until he reached the other end of the meadow. 
 I cannot be sure, but he seemed to be holding to 
 the woodpecker’s dorsal feathers with his bill. 
 Then, bantam fellow that he was, he dashed back 
 to the orchard with a loud chippering of exultation. 
 “ Ah, ha ! ” he flung across to the blushing wood- 
 pecker ; “ stay away the next time, if you don’t 
 fancy being converted into a beast of burden ! ” 
 
 A large part of a bird’s toil, after there are chil- 
 dren in the nest, consists in providing victuals for 
 them. For this purpose the whole country around 
 must be scoured, and sometimes long journeys must 
 
198 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 be made. I have watched a kingfisher flying again 
 and again from a winding creek in the valley to her 
 nest on a hillside nearly a half-mile distant, with a 
 minnow in her bill, while the sun was pouring a 
 sweltering deluge upon the fields. It kept her busy 
 every moment to supply the imperious demands of 
 her hungry brood in the bank. A common field- 
 bird, which I watched one day for a long while, 
 would often return to her nest every minute with an 
 insect. Many, many times have I obeyed Lowell’s 
 injunction, — 
 
 “ Come up and feel what health there is 
 In the frank Dawn’s delighted eyes, 
 
 As. bending with a pitying kiss, 
 
 The night-shed tears of Earth she dries. ,, 
 
 But even at that early hour the feathered toilers 
 have always been ahead of the human wage-workers 
 in beginning the labors of the day. The nestlings 
 must have a twilight breakfast ; and then, in the 
 evening, as long as the gloaming lasts, they noisily 
 demand just one more mouthful for supper. 
 
 Young birds are ravenous feeders. They seem 
 to live to eat, and have no thought of eating to live. 
 For an hour and a half, one August day, I kept 
 watch of a nestful of bantlings, and during that 
 time the parent birds were so shy that they fed 
 their infants only twice. At last the little things 
 became fairly desperate for food, springing up in 
 the nest and opening their mouths with pitiful cries 
 every time the breeze stirred the bushes about them. 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE . 
 
 199 
 
 They were so famished that I hurried away lest they 
 should go to preying on one another, for they would 
 sometimes greedily seize one another by the bills or 
 heads, and try to gobble one another down. Inci- 
 dents like this prove that the old birds must be on 
 the jump every moment to procure a sufficient sup- 
 ply of food for their young. Even after they have 
 left the nest, the juvenile members of the family 
 must be fed for several weeks. As long as mamma 
 and papa will get their luncheons for them, they will 
 make little effort to help themselves. I have seen 
 the dainty little accentor feeding a great, overgrown 
 mossback of a cow-bunting, which had to “juke” 
 down to her like a giant to a dwarf to receive the 
 morsel she offered him. What a drudgery it must 
 have been to collect victuals enough to fill his 
 capacious maw ! Think of a toil-worn, care-fretted 
 little mother feeding a strapping boy that will not 
 work ! 
 
 Moreover, adult birds often are kept busy for 
 hours supplying their own craving for food. One 
 April day a hooded warbler, natty little beau, near 
 an old gravel-bank in the woods, was watched by 
 me for an hour and a half. During that time he 
 must have caught an insect almost every minute, 
 and sometimes no sooner had he gulped down one 
 than he made a swift dash for another. Had he 
 not been so very, very handsome, I should have 
 dubbed him a gourmand. 
 
 At certain seasons of the year what an active life 
 the red-headed woodpeckers are compelled to lead, 
 
200 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 in order to satisfy the demands of their stomachs ! 
 With intervals of scarcely more than a few seconds, 
 they bound out from a perch, seize an insect on 
 the wing, and wheel back again. For hours this 
 half work, half frolic is kept up. By the way, al- 
 most all birds sometimes engage in this flycatcher 
 game of taking their prey on the wing. The Balti- 
 more orioles, the bluebirds, the yellow-bellied wood- 
 peckers, the crested tits, the chippies, the indigo- 
 birds, and even the white-breasted nuthatches and 
 English sparrows, to say nothing of many species of 
 warblers, catch insects in this way. 
 
 Many birds have to “ scratch for a living,’ ’ and 
 that in a literal sense. There is the towhee bunt- 
 ing, for example. Instead of getting down on his 
 breast, however, like the hen or the partridge, he 
 stretches himself up on his legs as if they were stilts, 
 and then bobs up and down in an amusing fashion, 
 while he scatters leaves and dirt to side and rear. 
 I do not know whether the robins scratch or not, 
 but they often jerk the leaves from the ground with 
 their bills, and hurl them away with a half-disdain- 
 ful air. Several young wood-thrushes kept in a 
 cage removed obstructions in the same way. 
 
 Even the merry bobolink, the Beau Brummel of 
 our meadows and clover-fields, cannot spend every 
 day 
 
 “ Untwisting all the chains that tie 
 The hidden soul of harmony ; ” 
 
 for the time comes when he must do the work of a 
 staid husband and father, and help to take care of 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE . 
 
 201 
 
 the growing brood. With all his pirouetting in the 
 air, he carries in his bosom an anxious heart, as you 
 will quickly see if you go too near his snuggery in 
 the grass. The wild scramble in which birds of all 
 kinds often have to engage, in order to secure a 
 refractory insect, proves that there is ample room 
 for the play of their best energies. Thus we see 
 that the birds have plenty to do besides rollicking, 
 singing, enjoying gala- days, and taking excursions 
 to gay watering-places. Like their human brothers 
 and sisters, they must toil patiently on “ through 
 the every-dayness of this work-day world.” They, 
 too, may have their literature — unwritten, however 
 — on the “ dignity of labor.” 
 
 V. 
 
 BIRD PLAY. 
 
 How strange it is that animals never laugh ! If 
 you watch a group of monkeys playing their antics, 
 you will find their faces as sedate as a judge’s, save, 
 perhaps, a merry twinkle of the eye. Comical as 
 their gambols are, one would think they would break 
 into convulsions of merriment. True, animals have 
 various ways of giving vent to their exuberant feel- 
 ings, but this is done very slightly by means of facial 
 expression. Their risibles must be meagrely devel- 
 oped. What has been said in regard to animals in 
 general is also true of birds, whose eyes often 
 twinkle and are intensely expressive, but whose 
 
202 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 countenances proper reveal very little of the emo- 
 tion swelling in their breasts. 
 
 Yet by the movements of their bodies you can 
 easily read their feelings. You can tell at a glance 
 by the conduct of a bird whether or not it is alarmed 
 at your presence, or whether it is engaged in a frolic 
 or in watching a wily foe. How different is the 
 behavior of most birds in the breeding-season, with 
 a nest near at hand, from their demeanor at other 
 times ! Look at that brown thrasher perched in a 
 tree-top on a spring morning, singing his paean to 
 the surrounding woodland, and notice how fearless 
 he appears. Contrast his manners two months 
 later when he goes skulking through the tanglewood, 
 afraid to be seen. Conceal their secret as they 
 may, an expert student of birds can almost always 
 tell if there is a nest in the neighborhood. 
 
 It is, therefore, by their conduct rather than by 
 their facial expression that birds reveal their love of 
 play. That they do have their frolics, no one can 
 doubt. Much of their time is occupied in labor, 
 and that often of the most serious, if not arduous, 
 kind, and they frequently combine toil and play ; 
 but there are times when they seem to give them- 
 selves up to unmixed sportiveness. There is not 
 much system in their games, so far as I have ob- 
 served. They mostly engage in frolics of a rough- 
 and-tumble kind, for the pure love of the fun, and 
 perhaps with no thought of winning a prize. 
 
 It is possible, however, that the company of red- 
 headed woodpeckers I watched one day in the 
 
PHASES OP BIRD LIFE, 
 
 203 
 
 woods were having a genuine flying-race. One tree 
 was selected as a point of departure, from which 
 they would start and fly around in a wide circle, — 
 perhaps their race-track, — always returning to the 
 same tree with loud chattering, which sounded like 
 shouts of applause. This exercise they kept up for 
 hours, always starting from the same tree and de- 
 scribing nearly the same circle. If it was not a 
 contest of speed, I am at a loss to know what it 
 was. 
 
 The woodpeckers, especially the youngsters, have 
 another game that has a decidedly human flavor ; it 
 is the game of bo-peep among the trunks and 
 branches of trees. A red-head will shy off from his 
 companions, conceal himself somewhere behind a 
 tree-trunk, and then peep from his hiding-place in 
 an exquisitely comical way, until he is espied by 
 some sharp-eyed fellow- frolicker. A vigorous chase 
 will follow, as pursuer and pursued dash wildly away 
 among the trees. Sometimes, when the fugitive is 
 too hotly pursued, he will stop and keep his com- 
 panion at bay by presenting his long, spearlike bill 
 as a sort of bayonet. 
 
 Another tree-climber is the brown creeper. I 
 have described many of his pranks in the first 
 chapter of this volume. One November day I wit- 
 nessed a performance that beats the record. Two 
 creepers were hitching up the trunks of the trees in 
 their characteristic manner, when one of them sud- 
 denly dropped straight down about fifteen feet, 
 scarcely more than an inch from the trunk of the 
 
2 04 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 tree ; then, instead of alighting, he darted straight 
 up again the same distance, fluttered a moment 
 uncertainly on the wing, and then dropped again to 
 the foot of the tree, where he alighted, and resumed 
 his upward march. But that was not all. Presently 
 his companion, not to be outdone, began to whirl 
 around and around the tree, descending in a spiral 
 course until he reached the foot. There he tarried 
 a moment to take breath, and then, much to my 
 surprise, whirled himself up in the same way, a dis- 
 tance of perhaps twenty feet, accomplishing it in 
 four or five revolutions. But, as if to distance all 
 creepers’ pranks ever witnessed before, he descended 
 again in the same spiral course. These perform- 
 ances can be interpreted only as ways in which to 
 give vent to the spirit of frolic in the creeper 
 nature. 
 
 On the same day my dancing dot in feathers, the 
 golden-crowned kinglet, performed one of his favor- 
 ite tricks, which is not often described in the books. 
 You will remember that in the centre of the yellow 
 crown-patch of the males, there is a gleaming golden 
 speck, visible only when you look at him closely. 
 But when the little beau is in a particularly rollick- 
 some mood, or wants to display his gem to his mate 
 or kindred, he elevates and spreads out the feathers 
 of his crest, and lo ! a transformation. The whole 
 crown becomes golden ! That gleaming speck ex- 
 pands until it completely hides the yellow and black 
 of the crown. It has been my good fortune on 
 several occasions to see the ruby-crowned kinglet 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE. 
 
 205 
 
 transfigure himself in the same way, except that his 
 entire crown became ruby. Probably the little 
 Chesterfield that can exhibit the most brilliant coro- 
 nal wins the sweetest damsel in the kinglet commu- 
 nity for a wifie. 
 
 Perhaps, as a rule, our winter birds find the 
 season rather cold for play ; yet they often frolic in 
 the snow like children, even when they do not stalk 
 through it in quest of food. This is especially true 
 of the snow-birds and tree-sparrows. Birds are 
 especially fond of splashing in water. Even in the 
 winter-time, when it flows ice-cold into the stream 
 or pond from the melting snow on the banks, certain 
 birds will plunge into it, and enjoy their bath for 
 many minutes. They do not seem to be satisfied 
 with merely wetting their plumes, but remain in the 
 water, twinkling their wings and tails, much longer 
 than is actually necessary. Several times in the 
 autumn I have seen a large company of warblers of 
 different species taking a bath in a woodland pond. 
 How they enjoyed their ablutions ! Again and 
 again they would return to the water, as if loath to 
 quit it. 
 
 To my mind, the flicker is one of our most playful 
 birds, spite of his staid looks. I have seen a half- 
 dozen of these birds on a single tree, scudding 
 about after one another and calling, Zwick-ah ! 
 zwick-ah ! in their affectionate way. Not infre- 
 quently two of them will face each other, and begin 
 bowing in a vigorous style, turning their heads dex- 
 terously from side to side to avoid collision. This 
 
20 6 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 is sometimes kept up for several minutes. It is very 
 comical, the only drawback being that the birds 
 themselves do not laugh. Why they should engage 
 in so ridiculous a performance with so serious an air, 
 is a problem that still belongs to the unknown. 
 
 A cut-throat finch, a pet, was, as a rule, a very 
 sedate little body, but one day he had to come 
 . down from his pedestal to get rid of his surplus of 
 feeling. This he did by dancing a sort of jig to his 
 own music, swaying his body to and fro in a most 
 laughable way. On another day an English sparrow 
 flew upon his cage, which was hanging on the veranda, 
 when “ Pompey ” turned his head toward his visitor, 
 burst into song, and bobbed his head from side to 
 side. No doubt the sparrow felt that he was receiv- 
 ing an ovation. 
 
 A most laughable incident occurred one day in 
 my large cage of birds. “ Flip,” a fine young wood- 
 thrush, was rehearsing his song. A young thrasher 
 leaped up beside him on the perch. The two birds 
 turned their heads to each other, and looked into each 
 other’s eyes a moment ; then Flip opened his mouth 
 at his visitor, and broke into song, the tones coming 
 right out of his gold-lined throat. All the while he 
 jerked his head from side to side or up and down in 
 perfect time with his music, his eye gleaming intelli- 
 gently, as if he enjoyed the fun. Even my loud out- 
 burst of laughter did not put a stop to the little farce. 
 Flip was a bright bird. He afterward had a cage 
 all to himself, and regaled his hosts with many a 
 cheerful song, such as only the wood-thrush is master 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE. 
 
 207 
 
 of. Occasionally he would leap to the end of his 
 cage, open his mouth wide at “ Brownie,” whose 
 cage stood next to his, and sing a comic song ; at 
 least, it seemed comic. 
 
 These incidents, although they do not prove that 
 birds have elaborate games, do prove that they pos- 
 sess the play spirit, and no doubt their pastimes and 
 amusements are relished fully as much by them as 
 ours are by us; perhaps more so. 
 
 VI. 
 
 BIRD DEATHS. 
 
 If only some master dramatist could write the 
 tragedies of bird land ! They would be highly 
 exciting, and would afford ample room for the play 
 of genius ; for there are adventures and disasters 
 without number. Perhaps it is on account of the 
 many reverses that there is so often a pensive strain 
 in the songs of the birds, — a minor chord running 
 like a shimmering silver line through the weft of 
 the woodland music. Robert Burns, in his “ Address 
 to a Woodlark,” touched the very marrow of bird 
 sadness, and pleaded with the little singer to cease 
 its song, or he himself would go distracted, — 
 
 “ Say, was thy little mate unkind, 
 
 And heard thee as the careless wind ? 
 
 Oh ! nocht but love and sorrow joined 
 Sic notes o’ wae could wauken. 
 
208 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 “ Thou tells o’ never-ending care, 
 
 O’ speechless grief and dark despair ; 
 
 For pity’s sake, sweet bird, nae mair! 
 
 Or my poor heart is broken.” 
 
 If Coleridge had studied the birds more care- 
 fully, and acquainted himself with their griefs, he 
 never would have written, in mockery of Milton’s 
 “ L’ Allegro,” — 
 
 “ A melancholy bird ! O, idle thought ! 
 
 In nature there is nothing melancholy ! ” 
 
 I have seen a pair of birds whose little brood had 
 just been cruelly slaughtered, and my heart bled for 
 them when I saw that their anguish was too great 
 for expression. Perhaps birds that have been be- 
 reaved soon forget their sorrow, and yet I doubt it ; 
 for if you listen to the minor treble of the black- 
 capped chickadee, you cannot help feeling that he is 
 singing a dirge for some long-lost love, or, if not 
 that, may be recounting, by some occult law of 
 heredity, the story of the many sorrows of his ances- 
 tors from the beginning down to his own generation. 
 What ravishing sadness there is in the songs of the 
 white-throated and white-crowned sparrows ! The 
 bluebird is always sighing as he shifts from post to 
 post, and nothing could be more melancholy than 
 the call of the jay in autumn. The crow at a dis- 
 tance complains of his disappointment, while the 
 wood-thrush, in his evening and morning voluntaries, 
 rehearses the sad memories of his life. Keats speaks 
 of the “plaintive anthem” of the nightingale, and 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE . 
 
 209 
 
 Thomson declares that even the merry linnets “lit 
 on the dead tree, a dull, despondent flock.” 
 
 It would be difficult to arrange a “ table of mor- 
 tality ” for the birds. However, as they know noth- 
 ing about life insurance, there is no call for such a 
 compilation ; but even if the statistician could state 
 the number of deaths, there is no arithmetic that 
 could compute the heartaches and heartbreaks expe- 
 rienced by “our little brothers of the air.” “In 
 the midst of life we are in death,” might well be put 
 into the litany of the birds. If they had burial- 
 grounds, there would be plenty of employment for 
 the sexton and some grave “ Old Mortality.” 
 
 The elements themselves sometimes play sad havoc 
 with the birds. Mr. Eldridge E. Fish, of Buffalo, 
 N. Y., tells of an October storm in which many 
 golden-crowned kinglets were dashed to the ground, 
 while others flew against windows of houses in which 
 lights were left burning. The storm was so severe 
 that the little voyagers, travelling southward by night, 
 were compelled to alight, and thus many of them 
 were destroyed. The same writer speaks of a cold 
 rain which froze as it fell, coating everything with 
 ice, and thus cutting off the birds’ supply of food, so 
 that many bluebirds perished. To my certain know- 
 ledge, robins, which breed very early in the spring, 
 sometimes are frozen to death while hugging their 
 nests, when a cold wave swoops from the north. 
 The same calamity sometimes overtakes the cross- 
 bill during the winter in the forests of Canada. 
 Apparently even Nature herself is not always a tender 
 14 
 
210 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 mother to her offspring. Do not ask me why, for I 
 am not writing a philosophical thesis. 
 
 Birds have many natural enemies. I can still hear 
 the cries of a young bird that a sparrow-hawk had 
 seized in his talons and was bearing overhead. 
 What a savage cannibal he seemed to be ! Not for 
 anything would I cast undeserved odium on the re- 
 putation of any bird, but I fear very much that the 
 blue jay is both a robber and a murderer. In the 
 season when eggs and young birds are in the nest, 
 he has a sly, hang-dog air, which, to my mind, pro- 
 claims not only a guilty conscience, but also a sinis- 
 ter purpose. At other seasons he seems to have an 
 open, frank manner. It is true, I myself have never 
 seen him in the very act of robbing a fellow-bird’s 
 nest, but I have often seen pewees, vireos, sparrows, 
 and goldfinches charge upon him with desperate fury 
 when he came in the vicinity of their homesteads. 
 Indeed, all the smaller birds seem to have a mortal 
 terror of him, which can be accounted for only on 
 the ground that he is known to be a highwayman. 
 
 A farmer friend, who loves the birds, and has none 
 of the unreasoning prejudice against them sometimes 
 displayed by country folk, told me that he once saw 
 a blue jay pounce upon a chippie’s nest, snatch up a 
 callow bantling in his bill, and fly off with it across 
 the field to his nest. In a few moments he returned, 
 and bore away another nestling. By this time the 
 farmer’s ire was aroused, and he got his gun and put 
 an end to the feathered brigand’s life on his return 
 for the third mouthful. This is more than circum- 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE. 
 
 211 
 
 stantial evidence. Yet in defence of the handsome 
 rascal it may be said that he does good in other 
 directions, for he rids the earth of many pestiferous 
 insects. Gladly would I acquit him of all blame if 
 that were possible. 
 
 Mr. Burroughs thinks that birds which have suf- 
 fered at the blue jay’s hands — or, rather, beak — 
 often retaliate by destroying the jay’s eggs. He 
 found a jay’s nest with five eggs, every one of which 
 was punctured, apparently by the sharp bill of some 
 bird, with the sole purpose of destroying them, for 
 no part of their contents had been removed. He 
 suggests that in the bird world the Mosaic law may 
 be, “ An egg for an egg,” instead of “ An eye for an 
 eye.” 
 
 The life of young birds hangs on a very brittle 
 thread. A kind of Damocles’ sword seems to be 
 dangling over them. What a “ slaughter of inno- 
 cents ” in a single season ! I think that of the many 
 nests I found during the spring of 1892 fully half 
 were raided. How often, on finding a nest, I have 
 resolved to watch it until the young birds were ready 
 to leave ; but on going back a few days later, the 
 cradle was rifled of its treasures. These frequent 
 “ tragedies of the nests ” make the bird-lover sick at 
 heart. It is no paradox to say that many birds are 
 killed before they are born. 
 
 Birds often meet with fatal accidents. They 
 sometimes impale themselves on a thorn, or creep 
 into places in thorn-trees from which they cannot 
 extricate themselves. A robin hung itself one spring 
 
212 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 by a kite-string that swung in a loop from the roof 
 of my house, — a case of involuntary suicide. A 
 nuthatch that I saw one day in the woods had its 
 leg broken, and I could not help thinking of its 
 lingering agony before it would starve to death. A 
 pet nonpareil, a dear, bright- hued little fellow, was 
 well and happy one evening ; but the next morn- 
 ing he lay dead on the bottom of the cage, perhaps 
 the victim of a convulsion. Another pet nonpareil 
 was not in good health ; so I thought a bath in tepid 
 water might be good for him ; but alas ! the ablu- 
 tion proved too much for the little invalid, which, in 
 spite of our utmost efforts to save his life, succumbed 
 to the inevitable. A like fate befell a young turtle- 
 dove which a neighbor found in the woods and 
 brought me for a gift. 
 
 But the cause of a great deal of mortality among 
 birds is man’s inhumanity to them. The thirst for 
 blood seems to be inherent in many coarse natures, 
 and as killing a fellow-man is illegal and almost sure 
 to be summarily punished, many men gratify their 
 greed for gore by slaying innocent birds and 
 animals. 
 
 “ Butchers and villains, bloody cannibals ! 
 
 How sweet a plant have you untimely cropped 1 
 You have no children, butchers ! if you had, 
 
 The thought of them would have stirred up remorse. ,, 
 
 The small boy with a sling or a spring-gun or an 
 air-rifle is a source of much grief to the birds. He 
 even kills the tiny kinglets that flit to and fro in the 
 trees bordering our streets, and seems to think it 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE. 
 
 213 
 
 sport. More senseless and wicked still was the fash- 
 ion in vogue a few years ago, perhaps not yet quite 
 obsolete, which compelled the massacre of thousands 
 of bright-hued birds for feminine — I should say 
 unfeminine — adornment. To say nothing of the 
 “ loudness ” and bad taste of such a fashion, it is 
 extremely unwise to put birds to death, for no one 
 can compute the number of injurious insects they 
 annually devour. A bird on the bonnet means so 
 much less bread on the table. A bird in the orchard 
 is a sort of scavenger and pomologist combined, and 
 does his share in giving you a dish of fruit for dinner. 
 The scarlet tanager looks like a living ruby in a 
 green tree ; but — I speak bluntly — it looks like a 
 chunk of gore on a woman’s bonnet. In behalf of 
 good taste and the birds, I enter my protest against 
 this barbaric custom. 
 
 True, birds have elements of the Adamic nature 
 in them. Many of them do relish forbidden fruit, 
 and must be driven off, lest they rifle your cherry- 
 tree ; but it is seldom necessary to kill them, even 
 then, especially those that live wholly on insects and 
 fruit. 
 
 A correspondent once sent me a number of 
 queries. How do birds come to their “ last end ” ? 
 Do none of them die natural deaths ? If they do, 
 why do we never, or at least very rarely, find dead 
 or dying birds in the fields and woods? My re- 
 sponse to these questions is : Very few birds die 
 natural deaths, — that is, merely of sickness or old 
 age, — though a few of them may. When a bird 
 
IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 2 14 
 
 becomes feeble or is crippled, it falls an easy prey 
 to a prowling hawk, owl, shrike, eagle, or cat. 
 Should a bird escape all these enemies, and finally 
 lie down and die in a natural way, it would doubt- 
 less soon be found and devoured by a carrion-eating 
 fowl or quadruped, and thus its. corpse would never 
 be seen by human eyes. Sad indeed it is to think 
 of the numberless ways in which birds meet “ the 
 last enemy.” 
 
 Be it far from me to use caustic speech against 
 any man or set of men ; but it makes me both in- 
 dignant and sick at heart to read the bloody chroni- 
 cles of most of the so-called “ collectors.” How 
 many embryo birds they slay merely to gratify their 
 morbid craze for gathering “ clutches,” as they 
 suggestively call a set of eggs ! Not long ago a col- 
 lector narrated, in an ornithological journal, the 
 harrowing story of his having rifled the nest of a 
 hairy woodpecker five or six times in a single season, 
 the poor bird laying a new deposit after each bur- 
 glary, until at last she grew suspicious and sought a 
 safer site for her nest. The writer described his 
 part of the performance with apparent gusto, as if 
 he had made a splendid contribution to science ! 
 If he must have a collection of hairy woodpecker’s 
 eggs, why not take a single “ clutch,” and then leave 
 the bird to make her second deposit and rear her 
 brood in peace? 
 
 To my mind, many “ professionals ” shoot a score 
 of birds where they ought to shoot but one. The 
 long record of slaughtered birds is sickening. The 
 
PHASES OF BIRD LIFE . 
 
 215 
 
 Newgate Calendar scarcely furnishes a parallel. 
 Even our most scientific journals print many of 
 these bloody annals. It is true, a reasonable num- 
 ber of specimens must be collected for scientific pur- 
 poses, but surely no adequate excuse can be given 
 for shooting hundreds of individuals of the same 
 species merely to have the honor of saying that an 
 astounding number of specimens were “ taken.” If 
 the cause of natural history cannot be promoted 
 without destroying the humane instincts of the natu- 
 ralist himself, the price is too great ; it were better 
 left unpaid. A bird in the bush is worth forty in 
 the hand, especially if the forty are dead; worth 
 more, too, I venture to add, to the cause of science 
 itself. 
 
2l6 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE SECRET OF APPRECIATION. 
 
 I T is an open secret, and perhaps not a very pro- 
 found one. I need not prolong the reader’s 
 suspense, if mayhap he should feel any, by assum- 
 ing a mysterious air, but may as well frankly divulge 
 the secret at once. There are times when melo- 
 drama is sadly out of place — if, indeed, it is ever in 
 place. What, then, is the secret of appreciation? 
 It is simply being en rapport with the object or 
 truth to be appreciated. No more patent fact was 
 ever declared than that which Saint Paul wrote : 
 “ Spiritual things are spiritually discerned.” There 
 must be mental kinship, or there cannot be true 
 valuation. Bring a depressed or distracted mind to 
 the most exhilarating service, and you will miss its 
 pith and point, and go away unrewarded. 
 
 The same truth obtains in our commerce with 
 Nature, which, it would seem, will not brook a rival in 
 our hearts if we would win from her all her treasured 
 sweets. “ Give me your whole mind, your whole 
 attention,” she says, “ or I will close up every foun- 
 tain of refreshment.” What benefit will that man 
 whose mind is absorbed in the affairs of the market 
 derive from a woodland stroll? What secret will 
 
THE SECRET OF APPRECIATION. 
 
 217 
 
 the rustling leaves speak to him, or the opening 
 flowers, or the chirping birds? He sees no transit 
 of swift wings, and the sunshine dapples the leaf- 
 carpeted ground in vain for eyes that see only the 
 ledger and day-book in the sylvan haunt. 
 
 My own experience confirms the foregoing state- 
 ments. For several months one summer I felt 
 depressed and abstracted on account of several 
 untoward circumstances which need not be described, 
 for “ every heart knoweth its own bitterness.” In 
 this mood I sometimes sauntered out to my wood- 
 land haunts ; but I saw very little, and what I did 
 see bore the stamp of triteness, and seemed as dull 
 and languid as myself. My heart was otherwhere. 
 A secret, gnawing grief draws the thoughts inward, 
 and breaks the spell of the outer world, charm she 
 never so sweetly. The soul hopelessly hungering 
 for the unattainable comes almost to despise the 
 blessings within its grasp. A-lack-a-day, that any- 
 thing should ever come between the heart and its 
 gentle mistress, Nature ! And so it was that even 
 the birds, my precious intimates, became a weari- 
 ness both to the flesh and the spirit. 
 
 Master Chickadee was nothing but a lump of flesh 
 covered with mezzo-tinted feathers, all prose, no 
 poetry ; a creature that I had once invested with a 
 rare charm (in my own mind), but now only a lout of 
 a bird, a buffoon, whose noisy chatter broke harshly 
 into my gloomy meditations. Once I had fairly 
 revelled in the army of kaleidoscopic warblers, and 
 had called them to their faces all kinds of endearing 
 
IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 2 18 
 
 names, like a lover wooing a bride ; but now, in my 
 dejected frame of mind, they were prosaic enough, 
 and provokingly shy, and I felt too indifferent even 
 to ogle them with my glass as they tilted in the tree- 
 tops. What a humdrum life was the life of the 
 birds, anyway, and how indescribably humdrum my 
 semi-frequent beat in the woods was becoming ! 
 
 But by and by, in the autumn, an event occurred 
 that transformed my inner world, dispelling the 
 darkness, dissipating the clouds, bathing all in sun- 
 shine. Then I hied to the fields and woods, and, 
 behold, a metamorphosis ! The inner miracle had 
 wrought an outer wonder. Never was there “ such 
 mutual recognition vaguely sweet ” between the 
 autumn woods and my appreciative heart. The 
 ground, flecked with sunshine, filtering through the 
 browning leaves, became a work of mosaic fit for a 
 king to tread on, and the westerly breeze sang a 
 paean through the branches. And how many birds 
 there were ! A flock of robins were chirping in the 
 grove, now and then breaking into song, as if they 
 had forgotten that spring was past and that it was 
 unconventional for robin redbreast to sing in the 
 autumn ; but they seemed to be willing to make a 
 breach of the convenances to give me delight. 
 
 Numerous warblers chirped in the tree-tops, or 
 swung out on the upbuoying air to catch some ill- 
 fated insect on the wing ; and although I could not 
 identify many of them, I felt no annoyance, as I had 
 at other times, for I could truly u rejoice with those 
 that do rejoice,” because I had no sorrow of my 
 
THE SECRET OF APPRECIATION. 
 
 219 
 
 own to distract my mind. I could have forgiven 
 almost any trick a bird had seen fit to play me. 
 The brown creeper, just from his haunt in some 
 primeval forest of British America, went hitching up 
 a tree-bole in his own quaint way without even the 
 courtesy of a friendly how-d’-you-do ; but I forgave 
 the slight, and told him he was a poet, — there was 
 rhythm in every movement, and his feathers rhymed 
 each with its fellow. 
 
 Across the breezy hills to the river valley I made 
 my way in lightsome mood, finding birds a-plenty 
 wherever I went. More than once the song-spar- 
 rows broke into their autumnal twitter, aftermath of 
 their springtime choruses when they were in full 
 tone ; and occasionally the Carolina wren uttered 
 his stirring reveille, which, though perhaps not tune- 
 ful in itself, seemed tuneful to me that day, because 
 there was music in my own mind. When you are 
 in the right mood, even the distant caw of the crow 
 or the plaintive cry of the blue jay sets the harp of 
 your soul to melody ; while the riotous piping of the 
 cardinal grossbeak makes you feel as if you were 
 “ married to immortal verse.” 
 
 But, alas ! when “ loathed melancholy, of Cer- 
 berus and blackest midnight bom,” is your unbidden 
 companion, every overture of Nature is a burden, an 
 intrusion into the privacy of your grief, and — 
 
 “ Vainly morning spreads her lure 
 Of a sky serene and pure.” 
 
 In a leaf- strewn arcade beneath the overarching 
 bushes hard by the river, were the merry j uncos, my 
 
220 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 companions of the winter, which had come back 
 from their summer vacation in the north. How 
 glad I was to salute them and welcome them home ! 
 Their trig little forms, sprightly motions, confident 
 air of comradery, and merry trills were a joy to me. 
 And then I could not help wondering if any of them 
 might be the same birds I had met during the early 
 summer on one of the green mountains of Canada, 
 where I had spent a day of rapturous delight. In 
 the same sequestered angle, autumn though it was, 
 the phcebe bird brought back reminiscences of 
 spring, with his cheery whistle ; while farther down 
 the valley his shy relative, the wood-pewee, com- 
 plained dulcetly that winter was coming to drive 
 him from his pleasant summer haunts. Every 
 sound, whether joyful or sad, struck a responding 
 chord in my heart, because Nature had my undi- 
 vided thought. 
 
 When the mind is distracted by sorrows it can- 
 not shake off, it boots little that the chirp of the 
 chestnut-sided and cerulean warblers is sharp and 
 penetrating ; that the call of the black-throated 
 green, black- throated blue and myrtle warblers is 
 somewhat harsh ; that the Maryland yellow-throat 
 expresses his alarm or disapproval in a note still 
 lower in the scale and quite rasping ; that the Black- 
 burnian and parula warblers tilt about far up in the 
 tree-tops, as if they scorned the ground ; that the 
 black-throats and creepers dance airily about in the 
 bushes or lower branches of the trees, come con- 
 fidingly near you, a tiny interrogation point dangling 
 
THE SECRET OF APPRECIATION . 
 
 221 
 
 from every eyelash, ask you what you are about, 
 what you do when you are at home, whether you 
 have just come from the hospital that you look so 
 pale, and, having decided that you are a harmless 
 monomaniac, to say the worst, go about their play- 
 ful toil of capturing insects, apparently unmindful 
 of your presence. But when your heart is jolly and 
 full of nature love, all these simple facts, proving the 
 large diversity of temperament in bird-land’s deni- 
 zens, are a source of joy to you ; you note them, are 
 glad on account of them, though you scarcely know 
 why. 
 
 In a quiet retreat just beyond a steep-graded rail- 
 way-track the black-throated green warblers were 
 very abundant and unusually rollicksome. It was 
 strange how they could dash about in the thorn-trees 
 without impaling themselves on the terrible spears. 
 One little fellow swung out of a tree after a miller, 
 which dropped upon a fence-post near by. Why 
 did the natty bird act so queerly? He danced about 
 on the top of the post, tried to pick up something, 
 but was baffled in all his efforts ; then he scudded 
 around the post a few inches below the top like a 
 nuthatch, uttering his harsh little chirp. At length 
 I stepped up, determined to solve the enigma. 
 There was the solution ; the miller had wriggled into 
 a deep hole in the post, so that the bird could not 
 reach it. With a slender stick I drew it out of its 
 hiding-place, and placed it on the top of the post ; 
 but whether the bird ever went back and profited by 
 my well-meant helpfulness I do not know. Begging 
 
222 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 the poor miller’s pardon, I felt happy in befriending 
 the charming fairy of a bird. With gladness throb- 
 bing in every corpuscle, it was not in my place to 
 question Nature’s economy in making the sacrifice 
 of one life necessary to the sustenance of another. 
 
 Tramping on, I presently found myself in a marsh 
 stretching back from the river-bank. As I stood in 
 the tangle of tall grass and weeds, listening to the 
 songs and twitters of various birds, the sentiment, 
 if not the precise lines, of Lowell, came to mind like 
 a draught of invigorating air, — 
 
 “Dear marshes ! vain to him the gift of sight 
 Who cannot in their various incomes share, 
 
 From every season drawn, of shade and light. 
 
 Who sees in them but levels brown and bare. 
 
 Each change of storm or sunshine scatters free 
 On them its largess of variety, 
 
 For Nature with cheap means still works her wonders 
 rare.” 
 
 But what was that sharp chirp? It instantly drew 
 my thoughts from the marsh itself and the poet’s 
 tribute. Opera-glass in hand, I softly stole near the 
 bushy clump from which the sound came. Ah ! 
 there the bird was, tilting uneasily on a slender twig. 
 The swamp-sparrow ! It was the first time I had 
 positively identified this bird in my *own neighbor- 
 hood, — not, I suppose, because it had not been pres- 
 ent often and again, but because I had been too 
 dull of sight to see it. Then came a glad memory. 
 I recalled the peculiar circumstances under which I 
 had seen my first swamp-sparrow, hundreds of miles 
 
THE SECRET OF APPRECIATION . 
 
 223 
 
 away. During a visit to Boston and vicinity, a 
 year prior, I spent a never-to-be-forgotten afternoon 
 with Bradford Torrey, who needs no introduction 
 to intelligent readers. We walked out to some of 
 his favorite haunts. It was an ideal October day, 
 and the charming New England landscape threw a 
 spell over me that gave me a kind of other-worldly 
 feeling. My companion was all I had expected him to 
 be, and more, — a good talker and an appreciative 
 listener, — and even now, when I recall my saunter 
 with this quiet, gentle bird-lover, it seems more like 
 a dream than a reality. 
 
 The afternoon had slipped well by when we came 
 to a bush-fringed brook and Mr. Torrey told me that 
 there were swamp- sparrows in the thickets. “ How 
 much I should like to see one ! ” I cried. “ The 
 swamp-sparrow is a stranger to me.” “ You shall 
 have your wish gratified,” he replied ; and forthwith 
 he climbed the fence, stalked to the other side of 
 the stream, and slowly, gently drove the chirping 
 sparrows toward me, so that I could see their mark- 
 ings plainly with my glass. How lovingly I ogled 
 them ! I could not get my fill of the birds shown 
 me by one whom I had loved so long at a distance. 
 It was an epoch in my poor life, — an epoch in a 
 double sense. Who will censure my feeling of grati- 
 fied pride? In the evening, after our stroll, as we 
 walked to and fro on the platform at the railway- 
 station waiting for the train to start, I remarked : 
 “ Mr. Torrey, I shall never forget my first meeting 
 with the swamp-sparrow.” 
 
224 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 “No,” he responded innocently, as if my humble 
 remembrance would confer an honor upon him ; 
 “ whenever you see that bird hereafter, you will 
 think of me, won’t you? ” I told him I should; and 
 that evening in the marsh, a year later, I kept my 
 tryst with memory, while tears, half sad, half glad, 
 dimmed my eyes. 
 
 But hark ! A little farther on, from the sparse 
 bushes of a grassy bank, came the swinging treble 
 of a white-throated sparrow, like a votive offering. 
 What enchantment possessed the birds that evening ? 
 Had Orpheus with his miracle-working harp come 
 back to earth? I was half tempted to believe for 
 the nonce in the transmigration of souls, for the 
 notes drifted so sadly sweet on the still air, as if 
 the fabled minstrel had indeed returned to mundane 
 realms. Among the thick clusters of weeds and 
 bushes that fringed a railway, which I pursued in my 
 homeward walk, many birds were going to roost, — • 
 sparrows, warblers, red-winged blackbirds, and car- 
 dinal grossbeaks. My passing along alarmed them, 
 and sent them dashing from their leafy couches. 
 
 Thus the afternoon passed. I had not, perhaps, 
 learned as many new things about my kinsmen in 
 plumes as on many other rambles, but I had dis- 
 covered the secret of appreciation ; that the mind 
 must be unharassed by carking care or depressing 
 sorrow to win the best from Nature. Give me a 
 lightsome heart, and I will trudge with any pedestrian. 
 Give me a heavy heart, and the weight clings to the 
 soles of my feet like barnacles to a ship’s bottom. 
 
THE SECRET OF APPRECIATION. 225 
 
 Given the proper mood, the lines of an American 
 poet — no need to mention his name — have the 
 ring of gospel truth, — 
 
 “ Nature, the supplement of man, 
 
 His hidden sense interpret can ; 
 
 What friend to friend cannot convey 
 Shall the dumb bird instructed say.” 
 
226 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 XVII. 
 
 BROWSINGS IN OTHER FIELDS. 
 
 E ' VEN the most home-loving body may sometimes 
 j gain refreshment, and at the same time have 
 his mental vision broadened, by a jaunt to another 
 neighborhood ; and if he has a hobby, he may 
 beguile the days in riding it, and thus evade, for a 
 time at least, that most harrowing of all maladies, 
 homesickness. Well, to make a long story short, 
 and a dull one a little brighter, let me say at once 
 that I have, more or less recently, made several 
 visits to various points of interest, and everywhere 
 have found delightful comradeship with the birds. 
 First, I shall speak of a trip to Montreal, that gem 
 city on the St. Lawrence, beautiful for situation as 
 well as for other attractive features. 
 
 South of the city a mountain rears its green, 
 symmetrical mass. True, it is not very lofty as 
 mountains go ; but standing there alone in the midst 
 of a far stretching plain, it seems really majestic, 
 especially to one unused to great altitudes. It is a 
 favorite pleasure-resort for residents and visitors, 
 having been converted into a beautiful park, with 
 winding paths and driveways, many shady nooks, 
 with comfortable benches to lounge on, and a tower 
 
BROWSINGS IN OTHER FIELDS . 227 
 
 on the summit, from which you can look down upon 
 a scene that is really enchanting. Nestling at the 
 foot of the mountain is the city, with its towers, 
 steeples, well-laid streets, and palatial residences ; 
 curving and gleaming far to the northeast and south- 
 west is the mighty St. Lawrence, its green banks 
 holding it in loving embrace far as the eye can reach ; 
 in another direction you trace the Ottawa River 
 meandering far to the northwest like a ribbon of 
 silver, and dividing into two branches a few miles 
 away, thus forming the island of ]\ftmtreal ; beyond 
 the St. Lawrence is the Lake of Two Mountains, and 
 far away in the misty distance toward the south 
 and southwest, are the blue outlines of the Green 
 and Adirondack ranges ; in other directions the 
 plain stretches level until it melts in the hazy 
 distance, and is dotted with farm-houses, villages, 
 well-cultivated fields, and green woodlands. 
 
 One afternoon a few unoccupied hours were at 
 my disposal. I determined to spend them on 
 Mount Royal, as the eminence is called. A car 
 wheels you up an inclined plane, almost perpen- 
 dicular near the top, at least two-thirds of the way 
 to the summit. Having filled myself with the scene 
 from the tower, I was starting off to make a tour of 
 the park, when my footsteps were arrested by a 
 quaint new song coming from a clump of trees 
 farther down the declivity. Interest in everything 
 else vanished in a moment. A good deal of time 
 was spent before I could get a sight of the minstrel. 
 Much to my surprise, he turned out to be a thrush ; 
 
228 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 the species, however, could not be determined at 
 the time for lack of my opera-glass, as the bird was 
 perched rather high in a tree. In the brief time at 
 my disposal just then, I saw a number of other 
 birds, and resolved to spend a day on the mountain 
 studying them, as soon as other duties would permit. 
 
 That day came in good time. An early morning 
 hour found me skirting the steep sides of the moun- 
 tain, alert for feathered dwellers. It was the tenth 
 of July, too late for the best songs and for finding 
 birds in the nes^ and yet I felt fairly well satisfied 
 with the results of the day’s excursion. Presently 
 the song of the thrush, whose identity I had come 
 to settle, was heard in the copse. A look at him 
 with my glass proved him to be the veery, or Wilson’s 
 thrush, only a migrant in my State, and one that 
 pursues his pilgrimage both to the north and south 
 in patience-trying silence. 
 
 To my ear the song was sweet, almost hauntingly 
 so. Some notes were quite like certain strains of 
 the wood-thrush’s rich song, but others seemed more 
 ringing and bell-like, and the whole tune was more 
 skilfully and smoothly rendered, — that is, with less 
 labored effort. Still, I am loath to say that the 
 general effect of this bird’s song is more pleasing 
 than that of the wood-thrush, for there is something 
 far-away and dreamy about the minstrelsy of the 
 latter that one does not hear in the song of any 
 other species. 
 
 The veeries evidently had nests or younglings 
 among the bushes, for they called in harsh, alarmed 
 
BROWSINGS IN OTHER FIELDS. 229 
 
 tones as I entered their secluded haunts, but I had 
 not the good fortune to find a nest. Indeed, it 
 was too late to discover any nests at all, except such 
 as had been deserted. But, to my great delight, I 
 found that the jolly juncos breed on the mountain, 
 for there they were carrying food to their little ones, 
 which had left the nursery and were ensconced in 
 the thick foliage. These birds are winter residents 
 in my own neighborhood, but in the spring they hie 
 to this and other localities of the same and higher 
 latitudes to spend the summer. It was refreshing 
 to meet my little winter intimates. They were quite 
 lyrical, but their little trills did not seem any more 
 tuneful here in their breeding-haunts than in their 
 winter residences, especially when Spring pours her 
 subtle essence into their veins. 
 
 Nothing surprised me more than £0 find song- 
 sparrows on the top of the mountain, whereas they 
 are usually the tenants of the swamps and other low- 
 lands in my neighborhood. Here they were rearing 
 families on the mountain’s crest as well as along the 
 streams that laved the mountain’s base. They also 
 sang their tinkling roundels in both places, some- 
 times ringing them out so loudly that they could be 
 distinctly heard above the clatter of the street cars. 
 
 At one place, in a cluster of half-dead trees and 
 saplings, a colony of warblers were tilting about ; 
 all of them only migrants about my home in Ohio, 
 but breeding here. There were old and young 
 creeping warblers, the elders singing their trills in 
 lively fashion, and the young ones twittering coax- 
 
2 3 ° 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 ingly for food. Here were also a number of redstarts, 
 — sonnets in black and gold, — the young beseech- 
 ing their parents constantly for more luncheon. A 
 beautiful chestnut-sided warbler wheeled into sight 
 and reeled off his jolly little trill, and then gave his 
 half-grown baby a tidbit from his beak. On another 
 part of the mountain the song of a black-throated 
 green warbler fell pensively on the ear, coming from 
 the thick branches of a tall tree, like a requiem from 
 a broken heart. Presently he flitted down into plain 
 view, his curiosity drawing him toward his auditor 
 sitting beneath on the grass. No doubt his mate 
 was crouched on her nest far up in one of the trees. 
 
 In a thicket on the acclivity of the mountain, I 
 heard a loud, appealing call, which was new to me ; 
 and yet it evidently came from the throat of a young 
 bird pleading for its dinner. By dint of a good deal 
 of peering about and patient waiting, I at length 
 found it to be a juvenile chestnut-sided warbler. 
 Lying on the ground beneath the green canopy 
 of the bushes, I watched it a long time, hoping to 
 see the old bird feed it ; but she was too shy to 
 come near, although the youngster gre^ almost des- 
 perate in its entreaties. An old nest in the crotch 
 of a sapling near at hand announced where the 
 little fellow had, no doubt, been hatched. It was 
 a beautiful nest, as compactly built as the cottage 
 of a goldfinch, and was decorated, like a red- eyed 
 vireo’s nest, with tiny balls of spider-web and strips 
 of paper. 
 
 Not far away from this charmed spot a red- eyed 
 
BROWSINGS IN OTHER FIELDS. 23 1 
 
 vireo had hung her basket to the horizontal fork of 
 a small swaying branch. It was still fresh, and in 
 such good condition as to convince me that it had 
 just been completed by the little basket-maker, 
 which had not yet deposited her dainty eggs in the 
 cup. No other bird on the mountain sang as much 
 as this vireo, with the sharp red eyes and golden 
 breast. On the whole, I doubt not that Mount 
 Royal would be an almost ideal place for bird study, 
 if one could spend the month of June on its wooded 
 summit, slopes, and acclivities. 
 
 The next visit to be described was made to the 
 somewhat celebrated Zoological Garden at Cincin- 
 nati, Ohio, which contains a really magnificent collec- 
 tion of animals and birds. However, a description 
 of the latter must suffice, although the animals inter- 
 ested me almost as deeply. There are many cages 
 and aviaries containing rare species of feathered 
 folk, the only difficulty being that they are not so 
 thoroughly labelled as they might be for the con- 
 venience of visitors, many of whom are sufficiently 
 interested to want to know at least the common 
 names of the birds. All curators and superin- 
 tendents of such institutions should recognize the 
 importance of complete and systematic labelling of 
 the specimens in their care. 
 
 The first aviary at which I stopped consisted of 
 a collection of bright-hued and sweet-toned birds, 
 most of them foreigners. Here one could revel 
 in variety ; for there were crimson-eared waxbills 
 from West Africa, black-headed finches from India, 
 
232 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 cut-throat finches and other dainty folk from across 
 the sea, with indigo-birds, nonpareils, goldfinches, 
 and song-sparrows from our own land. Of these, 
 the nonpareils, or painted finches, were the most 
 gifted singers, having loud, clear voices that rang 
 far above the voices of their fellow-prisoners. No 
 birds make daintier pets than these pretty creatures, 
 with their delicate blue and red costumes. The 
 next best singer in this collection was the American 
 goldfinch, which was not far behind the nonpareil, 
 and really excelled him in one respect, — that is, his 
 song was more prolonged and varied. 
 
 The next collection was certainly a parti-hued 
 one, containing cardinal grossbeaks, Brazilian car- 
 dinals, crow blackbirds, towhee buntings, brown 
 thrashers, and English blackbirds. I had the pleas- 
 ure of hearing the song of the Brazilian cardinal. 
 It was quite fine, but scarcely comparable with the 
 rich, full-toned, and varied whistle of our cardinal- 
 bird, being much less vigorous, slower in move- 
 ment, and feebler in tone. It was gratifying to be 
 able to give the palm to our North American 
 songster. 
 
 But of all the clatter of bird music and bird noise 
 combined that I have ever heard in my life, the 
 song of the English starling bore off the bays. 
 Never before had I listened to such divers sounds 
 from a bird’s throat, nor had I even fancied that 
 they were possible. Small wonder a well-trained 
 starling costs from twenty to forty dollars at the 
 bird stores ! No description can do justice to the 
 
BROWSINGS IN OTHER FIELDS. 233 
 
 starling’s song. He begins in a low, subdued tone, 
 and seems at first to be quite calm ; but gradually he 
 grows excited, his body quivers and sways from side 
 to side, his neck is craned out, his throat expands and 
 contracts convulsively, and, oh ! oh ! oh ! — pardon 
 the exclamations — the hurly-burly that gurgles and 
 ripples and bubbles and pours from his windpipe ! 
 At one point a double sound is produced, or two 
 sounds nearly at the same moment, — one low and 
 guttural, the other on a higher key, — presently a 
 half-dozen notes rush forth pell-mell, accompanied 
 by a quick snapping of the mandibles then a suc- 
 cession of loud, musical, explosive notes fall on the 
 ear ; and finally the bird, as if in a spasm of ecstasy, 
 opens his mouth wide and utters a clear, rapturous 
 trill as a sort of musical peroration. It is simply 
 wonderful. At first the bird seems to control the 
 song, but erelong the song seems to master the bird 
 completely. To my mind, it seemed that the song- 
 ster in the intervals of silence had wound up his 
 music-box, and then, having got started, was unable 
 to stop until the spring had run down. Some of 
 the notes of the strain were quite melodious, while 
 others were rather grating. 
 
 But what was that silvery song, rising above all 
 the other clangor of music ? It was the trill of my 
 peerless little friend, the white-throated sparrow, 
 which I have met so often in my own woodland 
 trysts. Were I to award the prize to any bird in 
 the whole Zoo for sweetness of tone, it would cer- 
 tainly be given to this matchless minstrel. No other 
 
2.34 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 bird’s voice had such a purely musical quality ; and 
 he sang just as loudly and sweetly as he does in his 
 native copse, bringing back the memory of many a 
 pleasant woodland ramble. 
 
 A beautiful family group next claimed attention. 
 It comprised two adult silver pheasants, a male and 
 female, and two little chicks recently from the shell, 
 which had been hatched in the Zoo. They looked 
 like downy chickens, and were about as large. There 
 was no hint of the long, gorgeous plumes that their 
 papa bore so proudly ; nothing but brownish, slightly 
 checkered down made up their suits. When their 
 mamma pecked at something on the ground, they 
 would scamper to her for it, as you have seen small 
 chickens do. Unlike most young birds, they picked 
 up their food themselves, and did not pry open 
 their mouths to be fed. 
 
 Had you seen the birds I next stopped to ogle, 
 you would have joined in my merriment ; for they 
 were the great kingfishers of Australia. What heavy 
 bills they carried, looking like good-sized clubs ! 
 One of them pounded his beak against his perch 
 until it fairly rattled with the concussion. When I 
 tapped lightly against the wires, they stretched out 
 their necks, and hissed at me out of their huge 
 mouths. 
 
 Nothing was more pleasing than a large wired 
 house containing a dozen or more blue jays. Rain 
 was falling gently at the time, and the refreshing 
 drops filtered upon the birds through the wire roof. 
 How they enjoyed their bath as they flitted from 
 
BROWSINGS IN OTHER FIELDS . 235 
 
 perch to perch ! But the rain did not descend 
 rapidly enough for several of them ; and so, in order 
 to drench their plumage more thoroughly, they 
 plunged into the leafy bushes growing in their apart- 
 ment, and crept about over and through the sprinkled 
 foliage until their feathers were well rinsed. 
 
 An interesting bird was the yellow- headed black- 
 bird, which is a resident of some of our Western 
 States, but which does not deign even to visit my 
 neighborhood. His whole head and neck are 
 brilliant yellow, as if he had plunged up to his 
 shoulders in a keg of yellow paint, while the rest of 
 his attire is shiny black. He utters a loud, shrill 
 whistle, quite unlike any sound produced by his 
 kinsmen, the crow blackbird and the red-wing. He 
 seemed to feel quite at home in his cage with several 
 other species of birds. 
 
 Many a time I have thought I heard a tumult of 
 bird song in the fields or woods, but at the Zoo I 
 was greeted with a perfect din from the throats of 
 more than two dozen indigo-birds, all singing simul- 
 taneously. They simply drowned out every other 
 sound in the neighborhood when they chimed in 
 the chorus. Even the goldfinch, doing his level 
 best, could not be heard until there was a lull in 
 the shriller music. In the same enclosure were the 
 bluebirds and robins. My pity went out to one of 
 the robins, which was trying to build a nest, but 
 could not find a proper site nor the right kind of 
 material. She would pick up a bunch of fibres and 
 strings from the ground, fling them on the window- 
 
236 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 sill, and then squat down upon them to press them 
 into the desired concave with her red bosom ; but 
 it was all to no purpose, for she had no mortar with 
 which to rear the walls of a cottage. 
 
 Leaving the robin to her fruitless labors, I turned 
 to a collection of weaver-birds of various species 
 and divers markings. There was one, especially, 
 with a black head and neck and yellow body, that 
 attracted notice. He was rather handsome ; his 
 song, however, was a perfect squall, especially the 
 closing notes. These birds did not sing all the 
 time, but intermittently, one of them beginning with 
 a few ringing notes as a prelude, and then the others 
 joining, all screaming louder and louder as the 
 chorus went on, until they ended in a supreme 
 racket. Then there were a few moments of quiet, 
 followed by the united chorus as before, making 
 such a tumult that one voice could scarcely be dis- 
 tinguished from another. A dainty little sparrow, 
 unnamed, seemed to fill in the intervals with his chirp- 
 ings, forming a sort of semi-musical interlude. 
 
 The enclosure which contained the yellow-headed 
 blackbird was divided into a number of apartments. 
 Here were parrots of various species, among them a 
 number of white-throated Amazons. You have 
 doubtless heard a dozen or more parrots screaming 
 simultaneously. On my visit these birds created 
 a terrible hubbub. They cried and laughed and 
 sighed and groaned and shrieked until my ears were 
 almost deafened. But in the midst of it all, when 
 there was a slight lull, could be heard the silvery 
 
BROWSINGS IN OTHER FIELDS. 237 
 
 trill of a white-throated sparrow, sounding like the 
 music of an angel amid a tumult of imps. 
 
 Near the centre of the garden there is a long 
 pond enclosed by wire fencing, and on and about 
 this pond is to be found an interesting group of 
 water-fowls. There was a large bluish-colored crane 
 with a ruff of feathers about his head. A workman 
 came along and snapped his fingers at the bird, 
 which hopped and leaped about and almost turned 
 a somersault. A great blue heron had made a nest 
 of sticks and twigs on the bare bank of the pond, 
 and was sitting on two eggs. While I was watching 
 her, she rose slowly on her long stilts, stretched out 
 her stiffened wings, rearranged the sticks with her 
 bill, and then sat down on her eggs again, turning 
 them under her breast. What an opportunity for a 
 bird student if day by day he could have watched 
 her build her nest and rear her young ! 
 
 Swimming about on the pond like a couple of 
 feathered craft were two great white pelicans with 
 long bills and elevated wings. A tuft of feathers or 
 bristles grew on the top of their upper mandibles. 
 They seemed to be guying each other, or probably 
 were engaged in a real naval battle ; for they pur- 
 sued each other around and around, engaged in 
 various martial movements and counter-movements, 
 and every now and then clashed together their great 
 beaks like two men fencing with swords. But they 
 avoided close contact. How lightly and smoothly 
 they glided about on the water ! 
 
 Standing on a platform on the other side of the 
 
238 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 pond, were two more large, almost gigantic pelicans, 
 not of the same species as the two just mentioned, 
 having no tufts on their beaks, but a large feather- 
 less spot on the side of their heads encircling the 
 eye. There they stood, silently preening their 
 plumes, dexterously drawing each snowy feather 
 between their mandibles. How long they had been 
 making their toilet I cannot say. Presently the first 
 two pelicans came sailing over to the platform, and 
 climbed awkwardly upon it. Would there be a 
 pitched battle between them and the other two 
 birds? One of the latter stretched forth his neck, 
 and, to my great surprise, puffed out a large mem- 
 branous bag or pouch at his throat like that of a 
 frog, and uttered a warning cry. But soon the 
 quartette of feathered Goliaths settled down into 
 quiet, and adjusted their plumes without the least 
 interference with one another’s comfort. 
 
 Following a winding pathway, I presently reached 
 an apartment which contained sixteen great horned 
 owls, sitting in a row and looking as wise as Greek 
 sages. It was amusing to see them expand their 
 eyes and stare through the blinding light, then 
 blink, close one eye and dilate the other, and then 
 shut both so nearly that only narrow chinks were 
 visible between the lids. Several of them opened 
 their small, human-like mouths, and hissed at me 
 softly whenever I stirred. In another part of the 
 ground there was a collection of barn owls, with 
 faces that looked very intelligent; but the birds 
 seemed to be quite wild, glaring with their black 
 
BROWSINGS IN OTHER FIELDS. 239 
 
 eyes and swaying their heads from side to side in 
 a nervous, irritable way. 
 
 I felt many times repaid for my saunter through 
 the Zoo, and would advise all who have an oppor- 
 tunity of visiting a good zoological garden not to 
 let it go by unimproved. A great deal of informa- 
 tion as well as pleasure may be thus gained. 
 
 Wherever one is, one must get people to talking 
 about one’s mania. How else could it be said that 
 there is method in one’s madness, or in what re- 
 spects it differs from mere lunacy? While visiting 
 with a delightful family living in a city some dis- 
 tance from my home, our conversation drifted — 
 perhaps with a good deal of calculation on my part 
 — to the birds, with the result that I was put in 
 possession of several facts worth noting, chiefly be- 
 cause they prove how helpful some birds are to one 
 another in their domestic relations. No birds are 
 more ingenious in planning for one another’s com- 
 fort and safety than our “ foreign brethren,” the 
 English sparrows. The mistress of this intelligent 
 family, a woman who has keen eyes and ears for 
 the birds, declared that she always heard one spar- 
 row in the trees about the house waking up its 
 sleeping mates at break of day, like the father of a 
 family rousing his drowsing children. It called in 
 shrill tones as if it were saying, “ Wake up ! wake 
 up ! Day is coming ! Time to go to work ! ” As 
 it continued its clamor, it seemed to be flying 
 about from one point to another, visiting every bed- 
 room, until at length a faint peep was heard here 
 
240 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 and there in response from various members of the 
 sparrow household, and erelong the entire com- 
 pany was awake. When my friend told me this 
 story, I was considerably surprised, not to say a 
 little skeptical. But, remaining in their home over 
 night, I had an opportunity to confirm the story, 
 for I was myself awakened in the morning by the 
 loud, impatient calls of a sparrow rousing his fam- 
 ily ; and the process took place just as my inform- 
 ants had described it, leaving no longer any room 
 for doubt. 
 
 The same kind friends described another cun- 
 ning freak of bird behavior. A lady’s bedroom 
 window opened near some bushy trees, in which a 
 pair of birds — perhaps robins — had built a nest. 
 At night the lady would often hear the male singing. 
 But sometimes he would grow drowsy, and would 
 become silent, — he had evidently got to napping, 
 — when there would be a coaxing, complaining 
 Pc-e-e-p! pe-e-e-p ! from the little wife on the nest, 
 evidently asking him to “ sing some more.” Then 
 he would tune his pipe again until his throat got 
 tired and his eyelids heavy. In this way the ex- 
 acting wife kept her spouse serenading her for a 
 large part of the night. Perhaps, like children, 
 she could not sleep unless some one was singing to 
 her. At all events, it was very bright of her to de- 
 mand a lullaby or love -song from her husband to 
 put her to sleep. 
 
 The conduct of many kinds of birds in the 
 autumn while preparing for their Hegira to the 
 
BROWSING IN OTHER FIELDS . 
 
 241 
 
 south is extremely interesting. They assemble in 
 flocks, sometimes large enough to suggest an ecu- 
 menical council, and fall to cackling, twittering, 
 discussing, and in many other ways making prepa- 
 ration for their aerial voyage to another clime. 
 They really seem to regret being compelled to 
 leave their pleasant summer haunts, if one may 
 judge from the length and fervor of their good- 
 byes. Perhaps they are like human beings who 
 have a strong attachment for home, and must visit 
 every nook and tryst to say au revoir before they 
 take their departure. One can easily imagine how 
 dear to their hearts are the scenes of their child- 
 hood, and of their nest-building and brood-rearing. 
 
 No birds make a greater to-do over their leave- 
 taking in the autumn than the house martins. I 
 once visited for a few days with some friends who 
 live in the country and have had a bevy of mar- 
 tins in their boxes for many years. They described 
 the behavior of these birds when fall comes. At a 
 certain date in September they will gather in a 
 compact flock, sing and whistle and chatter at the 
 top of their voices, circle about the premises, alight- 
 ing on the trees, fences, and buildings, and then will 
 rise in the air and sail away through the blue ether. 
 Strange to say, they may return in a day or two, 
 and repeat their evolutions ; and this may be 
 done several times before they say adieu and begin 
 their southward pilgrimage in real earnest. Why 
 do they do this? One might well rack one’s brain 
 in vain conjectures. Do they lose their way the 
 16 
 
IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 242 
 
 first time? Or do they get a bad start, and then 
 come back to try again? Or do they get home- 
 sick after they have gone some distance, and return 
 once more to look upon the familiar scenes? It 
 would be difficult to sift all the processes of bird 
 cerebration. 
 
A BIRD ANTHOLOGY FROM LOWELL . 243 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 A BIRD ANTHOLOGY FROM LOWELL . 1 
 
 I N making a study of Lowell’s poetry for a special 
 purpose, one cannot help admiring the genius 
 with which he transmutes every theme he touches 
 into gold. His Muse is exceedingly versatile, ranging 
 at her own sweet will over a wide and varied field. 
 There may be times when you are not in the mood 
 for smiling at his humor or weeping at his pathos ; 
 but his delineations of Nature are always so true, 
 so musical, so picturesque, that they seldom fail to 
 strike a responsive chord in the breasts of those 
 readers who are not 
 
 “Aliens among the birds and brooks, 
 
 Dull to interpret or conceive 
 
 What gospels lost the woods retrieve.” 
 
 No other American poet seems to get quite so 
 near to Nature’s throbbing heart. Dream though 
 he sometimes may, he seldom loses his hold on the 
 world of reality. Nature in her own garb is beauti- 
 
 1 This article, under the title of “Lowell and the Birds,” 
 was first published in the “ New England Magazine,” for 
 November, 1891, shortly after the poet’s death. Copyright 
 credit is here given to the publisher of that magazine. 
 
244 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 ful enough for him, and does not need the garnish- 
 ing and drapery of an over-fanciful interpretation. 
 It is not my purpose, however, to eulogize LowelPs 
 poetry, even his poetry of Nature, in a general way, 
 or attempt an analysis of it, but simply to call atten- 
 tion to his metrical descriptions of the feathered 
 creation. Among all our American poets, he is the 
 limner par excellence of bird ways. It is true that 
 Emerson is somewhat rich in allusions to our feath- 
 ered denizens, and especially felicitous in his char- 
 acterizations ; but his references are briefer, more 
 casual, and far less frequent than those of Lowell, 
 who takes toll of them, one might almost say, 
 without stint; for he says of himself, — 
 
 “ My heart, I cannot still it, 
 
 Nest that has song-birds in it.” 
 
 Lowell never speaks of the birds in a stereotyped 
 way, as many poets do, but mentions them by name, 
 and often describes their behavior with a deftness 
 and accuracy of touch that fairly enchant the 
 specialist in bird lore. Having given no little at- 
 tention to the study of birds, I feel prepared to say 
 that Lowell’s hand is almost always sure when he 
 undertakes to depict the manners of the “ feathered 
 republic of the groves.” I have found, I think, 
 only one technical inaccuracy in all his numerous 
 allusions ; 1 and I believe I may say, without boasting, 
 
 1 The one noted in the chapter on “The Wood-Pewee.” 
 As the poem on this bird is quoted in that article, it has been 
 purposely omitted from this collection of passages. 
 
A BIRD ANTHOLOGY FROM LOIVELL. 245 
 
 that I am familiar with every bird whose charms he 
 has chanted. Indeed, he himself boasts modestly, 
 as poets may, of his familiarity with the birds in his 
 beautiful tribute to George William Curtis, saying, — 
 
 “ I learned all weather-signs of day and night ; 
 
 No bird but I could name him by his flight.” 
 
 In the first place, let me point out the remarkable 
 felicity of his more general references to birds and 
 their ways. The music of the minstrels of the air 
 often fills his bosom with pleasing but half- regretful 
 reminders of other and happier days, as, for 
 example, when he penned those exquisite lines, 
 “To Perdita, Singing,” — 
 
 “ She sits and sings, 
 
 With folded wings 
 And white arms crost, 
 
 * Weep not for bygone things, 
 
 They are not lost.’ ” 
 
 Then follow some lines of rare sweetness, the 
 concluding ones of which are these, — 
 
 “ Every look and every word 
 Which thou givest forth to-day, 
 
 Tells of the singing of the bird 
 Whose music stilled thy boyish play.” 
 
 A similar pensive reference is found in our poet’s 
 ode, “To the Dandelion,” which is as deserving 
 of admiration as many of the more famous odes 
 of English poesy. He thus apostrophizes “ the 
 common flower” that fringes “the dusty road with 
 harmless gold,” — 
 
IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 246 
 
 “ My childhood’s earliest thoughts are linked with thee ; 
 
 The sight of thee calls back the robin’s song, 
 
 Who, from the dark old tree 
 
 Beside the door, sang clearly all day long; 
 
 And I, secure in childish piety, 
 
 Listened as if I heard an angel sing 
 
 With news from heaven, which he could bring 
 Fresh every day to my untainted ears, 
 
 When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.” 
 
 A bird often affords our poet a metaphor or a 
 simile by which to represent some sad reminiscence 
 of his life. Listen to this sweet minor strain, — 
 
 “ As a twig trembles, which a bird 
 
 Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent, 
 
 So is my memory thrilled and stirred; — 
 
 I only know she came and went.” 
 
 With what a plaintive melody the last line lingers 
 in one’s mind, like some far-off melancholy strain, 
 singing itself over again and again with a persistency 
 that will not be hushed, — “ I only know she came 
 and went.” There are times, too, when our bard 
 falls into a slightly despondent mood, and even 
 then the birds serve to give a turn to his pensive 
 reflections, — 
 
 “ But each day brings less summer cheer, 
 
 Crimps more our ineffectual spring, 
 
 And something earlier every year 
 Our singing birds take wing.” 
 
 To my mind, he is less attractive when his verse 
 takes on this cheerless hue, and I therefore turn 
 gladly to his more jubilant lays, in which he seems 
 to have caught the joy of the full-toned bird 
 
A BIRD ANTHOLOGY FROM LOWELL . 247 
 
 orchestra, as he does at more than one place in 
 “ The Vision of Sir Launfal,” — 
 
 “ The little birds sang as if it were 
 The one day of summer in all the year, 
 
 And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees,” 
 
 What bird lover has not often been caught in 
 such a mesh of bird song, on a bright day of the 
 early springtime ? Even good-natured Hosea Big- 
 low cannot always repress his enthusiasm for the 
 birds, although he is quite too chary of his allusions 
 to them, — that is, too chary for the man who has 
 birds on the brain. His unsophisticated sincerity 
 cannot brook a perfunctory treatment of Nature’s 
 blithe minstrels, for he breaks out scornfully in 
 denouncing those book-read poets who get “wut 
 they’ve airly read” so “ worked into their heart 
 an’ head ” that they 
 
 ** . . . can’t seem to write but jest on sheers 
 With furrin countries or played-out ideers. 
 
 This makes ’em talk o’ daisies, larks, an’ things, 
 
 Ez though we ’d nothin’ here that blows an’ sings. 
 Why, I ’d give more for one live bobolink 
 Than a square mile o’ larks in printer’s ink ! ” 
 
 Hosea, in spite of the meagreness of his allusions 
 to bird life, still proves beyond a doubt that he is 
 conversant with the migratory habits of the birds, 
 and that he has been watching a little impatiently 
 for their vernal appearance in his native fields and 
 woods, as every bird student who reads the following 
 lines will testify, — ? 
 
248 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 “ The birds are here, for all the season ’s late ; 
 
 They take the sun’s height, an’ don’ never wait; 
 
 Soon ’z he officially declares it ’s spring, 
 
 Their light hearts lift ’em on a north’ard wing, 
 
 An’ th’ ain’t an acre, fur ez you can hear, 
 
 Can’t by the music tell the time o’ year.” 
 
 Sometimes a single line or phrase proclaims our 
 poet’s loving familiarity with the feathered world, 
 and gives his verse an outdoor flavor that positively 
 puts a tonic into the appreciative reader’s veins, 
 almost driving him out beneath the shining vault of 
 the sky ; as when the poet refers to “ the cock’s 
 shrill trump that tells of scattered corn ; ” or to 
 “ the thin-winged swallow skating on the air ; ” or 
 laments because “ snowflakes fledge the summer’s 
 nest ; ” or remarks incidentally that the “ cat-bird 
 croons in the lilac-bush ; ” or that “ the robin sings, 
 as of old, from the limb ; ” or that “ the single crow 
 a single caw lets fall ; ” or asks, “ Is a thrush 
 gurgling from the brake?” How vivid and full of 
 woodsy suggestion are the following lines from that 
 captivating poem, “ A1 Fresco ” : — 
 
 “The only hammer that I hear 
 Is wielded by the woodpecker. 
 
 The single noisy calling his 
 In all our leaf-hid Sybaris.” 
 
 Nothing could be more characteristic of wood- 
 peckerdom than that quatrain. Still more rhyth- 
 mical are the first six lines — a metrical sextette 
 that sing themselves — of the poem entitled “ The 
 Fountain of Youth,” — 
 
A BIRD ANTHOLOGY FROM LOWELL . 249 
 
 “ ’T is a woodland enchanted ! 
 
 By no sadder spirit 
 
 Than blackbirds and thrushes, 
 
 That whistle to cheer it 
 All day in the bushes, 
 
 This woodland is haunted. ” 
 
 And what a picture for the fancy is limned in the 
 following lines : — 
 
 “ Like rainbow-feathered birds that bloom 
 A moment on some autumn bough, 
 
 That, with the spurn of their farewell, 
 
 Sheds its last leaves ! ” 
 
 A flashlight view that, of one of the rarest scenes 
 in Nature. The poet must have bent over more 
 than one callow brood of nestlings, or he never 
 could have written so knowingly about them, — 
 
 “ Blind nestlings, unafraid, 
 
 Stretch up wide-mouthed to every shade 
 By which their downy dream is stirred. 
 
 Taking it for the mother bird; ” 
 
 for such is the unsuspicious habit of most bantlings 
 in the nest. It would be difficult to find a defter 
 touch than that with which Lowell describes a 
 resplendent morning, “ omnipotent with sunshine,” 
 whose “ quick charm . . . wiled the bluebird to his 
 whiff of song,” 
 
 “ While aloof 
 
 An oriole clattered and a robin shrilled, 
 Denouncing m@ an alien and a thief ; ” 
 
 particularly if it is borne in mind that the allusion is 
 to the chattering alarm-call of the oriole and the 
 robin. Exquisite indeed is the description of — 
 
250 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 “The bluebird shifting his light load of song 
 From post to post along the cheerless fence; 
 
 while it would puzzle one to find anywhere a more 
 poetical and at the same time realistic portrayal 
 than this, — 
 
 “ Far distant sounds the hidden chickadee 
 Close at my side/' — 
 
 especially if the reference be to the little black- 
 capped titmouse’s minor whistle, which has a 
 strange, sad remoteness when heard in the sylvan 
 depth, reminding one of the myth of Orpheus 
 mourning for his lost love. No less vivid are the 
 lines, — 
 
 “The phoebe scarce whistles 
 Once an hour to his fellow ; ” 
 
 or these, — 
 
 “O’erhead the balanced hen-hawk slides, 
 
 Twinned in the river’s heaven below ; ” 
 
 or this description of a winter scene, — 
 
 “ I stood and watched by the window 
 The noiseless work of the sky, 
 
 And the sudden flurries of snow-birds 
 Like brown leaves whirling by.” 
 
 Hark ! — 
 
 “ All pleasant winds from south and west 
 With lullabies thine ears beguiled, 
 
 Rocking thee in thine oriole’s nest, 
 
 Till Nature looked at thee and smiled.” 
 
 Listen again ! — 
 
 “ The sobered robin, hunger-silent now, 
 
 Seeks cedar-berries blue, his autumn cheer.” 
 
A BIRD ANTHOLOGY FROM LOWELL . 
 
 2 5 I 
 
 If one were only there to see : — 
 
 “ High flaps in sparkling blue the far-heard crow, 
 
 The silvered flats gleam frostily below ; 
 
 Suddenly drops the gull, and breaks the glassy tide.” 
 
 Of course even the casual observer has often 
 been aware of the fact that “ the robin is plastering 
 his house hard by ; ” and many of us may have 
 looked upon a winter scene like the following, but 
 I am sure we never thought of painting it in just 
 such tropical colors, — 
 
 “ The river was numb, and could not speak, 
 
 For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun ; 
 
 A single crow on the tree-top bleak 
 From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun.” 
 
 Hosea Biglow seems to think he knows where 
 to find 
 
 “ Some blooms thet make the season suit the mind, 
 
 An’ seem to match the doubting bluebird’s notes,” 
 
 liverworts and bloodroots being among those talis- 
 manic plants. There is a world of serenity in the 
 following metrical etching, which makes one almost 
 long to die and be forever at rest : — 
 
 “ Happy their end 
 
 Who vanish down life’s evening stream 
 Placid as swans that drift in dream 
 Round the next river-bend.” 
 
 Our poet had the charming habit of making some 
 characteristic bird-way do deft metaphorical duty in 
 
252 
 
 IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 his verse, like the skilful weaver who runs a line of 
 exquisite tint through his weft. Here is an instance, 
 found in the poem called “ Threnodia,” — 
 
 “ I loved to see the infant soul 
 
 Peep timidly from out its nest, 
 
 His lips, the while, 
 
 Fluttering with half-fledged words, 
 
 Or hushing to a smile 
 
 That more than words expressed, 
 
 When his glad mother on him stole 
 And snatched him to her breast ! 
 
 O, thoughts were brooding in those eyes, 
 
 That would have soared like strong-winged birds 
 Far, far into the skies, 
 
 Gladding the earth with song 
 And gushing harmonies.” 
 
 Here is another fine simile, — 
 
 “ As if a lark should suddenly drop dead 
 
 While the blue air yet trembled with its song, 
 
 So snapped at once that music’s golden thread/' 
 
 In the following stanzas on “ The Falcon ” — 
 used as a metaphor for Truth — there is a captivat- 
 ing multiplicity of figures, — 
 
 “ I know a falcon swift and peerless 
 As e’er was cradled in the pine; 
 
 No bird had ever eye so fearless, 
 
 Or wing so strong as this of mine. 
 
 i( The winds not better love to pilot 
 A cloud with molten gold o’errun, 
 
 Than him, a little burning islet, 
 
 A star above the coming sun. 
 
A BIRD ANTHOLOGY FROM LOWELL. 253 
 
 “ For with a lark’s heart he doth tower, 
 
 By a glorious upward instinct drawn ; 
 
 No bee nestles deeper in the flower 
 Than he in the bursting rose of dawn.” 
 
 It almost throws one into “ a midsummer night’s 
 dream ” to read this picturesque line, — 
 
 “ The clouds like swar.s drift down the streaming atmosphere.” 
 
 That must have been an expressive face indeed 
 whose features were 
 
 “ As full of motion as a nest 
 That palpitates with unfledged birds,” 
 
 albeit one may be permitted to hope, without irrev- 
 erence, that it made a more attractive picture than 
 did the callow youngsters gaping and wabbling in 
 their nursery. But here is a delineation of bird 
 life so graphically and richly colored that one longs 
 for the brush of the artist to transfer it to canvas. 
 Listen ! listen ! There is an exhilarant in the 
 atmosphere. 
 
 "The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 
 
 Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 
 
 And lets his illumined being o’errun 
 With the deluge of summer it receives ; 
 
 His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 
 
 And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings ; 
 
 He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — 
 
 In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best ? ” 
 
 The last two lines, by the way, are in perfect keep- 
 ing with Mr. Lowell’s generous instincts, which were 
 always on the side of the lowly and unappreciated. 
 
254 
 
 Ii V BIRD LAND. 
 
 Seductive as the figure is, there seems to be some- 
 thing slightly forced in the poet’s conceit that the 
 thrushes sing because they have been “ pierced 
 through with June’s delicious sting,” unless it might 
 be justified on the principle that pain and trial often 
 enhance moral values. 
 
 There is a beautiful stanza in the poem, “ On 
 Planting a Tree at Inverara,” — 
 
 “ Hither the busy birds shall flutter, 
 
 With the light timber for their nests, 
 
 And, pausing from their labor, utter 
 The morning sunshine in their breasts.” 
 
 With all his poet’s soul Lowell loved the serene, 
 as when he congratulates himself on having left the 
 grating noise and stifling smoke of London, and 
 found in some sequestered haunt 
 
 “ Air and quiet too ; 
 
 Air filtered through the beech and oak; 
 
 Quiet by nothing harsher broke 
 Than wood-dove’s meditative coo.” 
 
 The word “ meditative ” is extremely felicitous, 
 but no more so than the hop-skip-and-spring of 
 the following lines from a Commencement dinner 
 poem : — 
 
 “ I ’ve a notion, I think, of a good dinner speech, 
 
 Tripping light as a sandpiper over the beach, 
 
 Swerving this way and that, as the wave of the moment 
 Washes out its slight trace with a dash of whim’s foam on ’t, 
 And leaving on memory’s rim just a sense 
 Something graceful had gone by, a live present tense ; 
 
 Not poetry, — no, not quite that, but as good, 
 
 A kind of winged prose that could fly if it would.” 
 
A BIRD ANTHOLOGY FROM LOWELL. 255 
 
 Like all discriminating lovers of “ Nature’s blithe 
 commoners,” Lowell had his favorites, whose 
 praises he frequently rung with a sincerity that 
 cannot be doubted for a moment. He was espe- 
 cially partial to the bobolink. Lie must have often 
 peeped into the 
 
 “Tussocks that house blithe Bob o’ Lincoln/’ 
 
 or his Muse would not have been so adept and 
 faithful in her hymning descriptions. We will lend 
 a listening ear while she sings her chansons on the 
 virtues of the bird our poet loved so truly. First, 
 I will call attention to the following portraiture of 
 that cavalier of the meadow, the male bobolink, at 
 the season when there are bantlings in the grass- 
 dome^ nest which demand his paternal care, as 
 well as that of his faithful spouse, — 
 
 “ Meanwhile that devil-may-care, the bobolink, 
 Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops 
 
 Just ere he sweeps o’er rapture’s tremulous brink, 
 
 And ’twixt the windrows most demurely drops, 
 
 A decorous bird of business, who provides 
 For his brown mate and fledgelings six besides, 
 
 And looks from right to left, a farmer ’mid his crops.” 
 
 One can almost see the poet leaning against the 
 rail fence of the clover field, with pencil in hand, 
 drawing the portrait of the bird which is posing 
 unconsciously before him, so true is his delineation 
 of bobolink life. But to find Lowell at his best you 
 must read his description of Robert o’ Lincoln at 
 his best. Hark ! — 
 
256 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 “A week ago the sparrow was divine; 
 
 The bluebird, shifting his light load of song 
 From post to post along the cheerless fence, 
 
 Was as a rhymer ere the poet come ; 
 
 But now, oh, rapture ! sunshine winged and voiced, 
 
 Pipe blown through by the warm, wild breath of the West, 
 Shepherding his soft droves of fleecy cloud, 
 
 Gladness of woods, skies, waters, all in one. 
 
 The bobolink has come, and, like the soul 
 Of the sweet season, vocal in a bird, 
 
 Gurgles in ecstasy we know not what, 
 
 Save June ! Dear June ! Now God be praised for June.” 
 
 The only fault to be found with this exquisite 
 tribute is that it is rather too much involved to 
 glide melodiously from the lips, or be quite clear 
 to the mind until after a second or third reading. 
 Not so picturesque, but more simple and musical, 
 is this bit, — 
 
 “ From blossom-clouded orchards, far away 
 The bobolink tinkled. ” 
 
 The provincial tongue of Hosea Biglow presents 
 us with the following rare bit of portraiture, which 
 has all the strength and freshness of a painting from 
 Nature : — 
 
 “ June’s bridesman, poet o’ the year, 
 
 Gladness on wings, the bobolink is here ; 
 
 Half-hid in tip-top apple-bloom he sings, 
 
 Or climbs against the breeze with quiverin’ wings, 
 
 Or, givin’ way to ’t in mock despair, 
 
 Runs down, a brook o’ laughter, thro’ the air,” — 
 
 a rhythmical tribute that is both an honor to the 
 poet and a compliment to the bobolink. 
 
A BIRD ANTHOLOGY FROM LOWELL. 
 
 257 
 
 The Baltimore oriole also claims Mr. Lowell’s 
 admiration. There is one descriptive passage rela- 
 tive to this bird that, in my opinion, goes ahead 
 of even the famous bobolink eulogy just quoted : 
 
 “ Hush ! ’T is he ! 
 
 My oriole, my glance of summer fire, 
 
 Is come at last, and, ever on the watch, 
 
 Twitches the pack-thread I had lightly wound 
 About the bough to help his housekeeping, — 
 Twitches and scouts by turns, blessing his luck, 
 
 Yet fearing me who laid it in his way, , 
 
 Nor, more than wiser we in our affairs, 
 
 Divines the providence that hides and helps. 
 
 Heave, ho ! Heave, ho ! he whistles as the twine 
 Slackens its hold ; oitce more , now ! and a flash 
 Lightens across the sunlight to the elm 
 Where his mate dangles at her cup of felt. 
 
 Nor all his booty is the thread ; he trails 
 My loosened thought with it along the air, 
 
 And I must follow, would I ever find 
 The inward rhyme to all this wealth of life.” 
 
 The last sentence is a deft turn at weaving, oriole- 
 like, a thread of moral reflection into a fine piece of 
 description. Even in his later years Lowell could 
 not throw off the spell that this summer flake of 
 gold had thrown over him ; for in his volume called 
 “ Heartsease and Rue ” he has inserted a little 
 poem entitled “The Nest ” that for rhythmical flow 
 and beauty has not been excelled by any of his 
 earlier productions. He first describes the nest in 
 May as follows : — 
 
 “ Then from the honeysuckle gray 
 The oriole with experienced quest 
 17 
 
IN BIRD LAND . 
 
 Twitches. the fibrous bark away, 
 
 The cordage of his hammock nest, 
 
 Cheering his labor 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 leaves. 
 
 Thy duty, winged flame of Spring, 
 
 Is but to love and fly and sing.” 
 
 Then he chants a pathetic “ palinode,” as he 
 calls it, in December, when 
 
 “ . . . homeless winds complain along 
 The columned choir once thrilled with song. 
 
 “And thou, dear nest, whence joy and praise 
 The thankful oriole used to pour, 
 
 Swing’st empty while the north winds chase 
 Their snowy swarms from Labrador. 
 
 But, loyal to the happy past, 
 
 I love thee still for what thou wast.” 
 
 Besides the bobolink and the oriole, the black- 
 bird is often made to do charming duty in Lowell’s 
 verse. Every student of the birds has often seen 
 the picture described by the line, — 
 
 “ Alders the creaking red-wings sink on ; ” 
 
 or heard 
 
 “ . . . the blackbirds clatt’rin’ in tall trees 
 An’ settlin’ things in windy Congresses, — 
 
 Queer politicians, though, for I’ll be skinned 
 Ef all on ’em don’t head against the wind.” 
 
A BIRD ANTHOLOGY FROM LOWELL . 259 
 
 A number of quotations in which the robin figures 
 conspicuously have already been given. One more 
 occurs to me, — that in which Hosea Biglow 
 exclaims, — 
 
 “ Thet ’s robin-redbreast’s almanick ; he knows 
 That arter this ther’ ’s only blossom-snows ; 
 
 So, choosiiT out a handy crotch an’ spouse, 
 
 He goes to plast’rin’ his adobe house.” 
 
 But hold ! here is still another : — 
 
 “ The Maple puts her corals on in May, 
 
 While loitering frosts about the lowlands cling, 
 
 To be in tune with what the robins sing, 
 
 Plastering new log-huts ’mid her branches gray.” 
 
 It can scarcely be hoped to make this anthology 
 from Lowell exhaustive, for almost every time I 
 turn the leaves of his poetical works I stumble upon 
 some reference to the birds before unnoted ; but 
 this article would be incomplete should one of his 
 choicest bits of metrical description, which must 
 bring both anthology and book to a close, be 
 omitted. It is found in the poem entitled “ The 
 Nightingale in the Study,” the whole of which must 
 be read to catch the drift of its moral teaching. 
 The poet doubtless attributes more magnanimity to 
 the cat-bird than that carolist is entitled to, — but 
 no matter; the Muses cannot be over-precise. 
 Here is a charmer : — 
 
 “ ‘ Come forth ! ’ my cat-bird calls to me, 
 
 * And hear me sing a cavatina 
 That, in this old familiar tree, 
 
 Shall hang a garden of Alcina. 
 
26 o 
 
 IN BIRD LAND. 
 
 “ ‘ Or, if to me you will not hark, 
 
 By Beaver Brook a thrush is ringing 
 Till all the alder-coverts dark 
 
 Seem sunshine-dappled with his singing. 
 
 “‘Come out beneath the unmastered sky, 
 With its emancipating spaces, 
 
 And learn to sing as well as I, 
 
 Without premeditated graces. 
 
 “ ' Come out ! with me the oriole cries, 
 
 Escape the demon that pursues you ! 
 
 And hark ! the cuckoo weatherwise, 
 
 Still hiding, farther onward wooes you.’ ” 
 
 But this time, for a wonder, the poet declines the 
 invitation to go out of doors, because, as he says, 
 “ a bird is singing in my brain ; ” and yet he 
 does so with evident regret, for he exclaims, in 
 response to the cat-bird's plea, — 
 
 Alas, dear friend, that, all my days, 
 
 Has poured from that syringa thicket 
 The quaintly discontinuous lays 
 To which I hold a season ticket, — 
 
 €t ‘ A season ticket cheaply bought 
 With a dessert of pilfered berries, 
 
 And who so oft my love has caught 
 With morn and evening voluntaries, 
 
 “ * Deem me not faithless, if all day 
 Among my dusty books I linger, 
 
 No pipe, like thee, for June to play 
 With fancy-led, half-conscious finger. 
 
A BIRD ANTHOLOGY FROM LOWELL. 
 
 261 
 
 “ ( A bird is singing in my brain, 
 
 And bubbling o’er with mingled fancies, ' 
 Gay, tragic, rapt, right heart of Spain 
 Fed with the sap of old romances 
 
 and so for once the poet of the birds cannot be lured 
 from his study, where he has been caught in the weft 
 of old Moorish and Castilian legends, and he con- 
 cludes his apology with the only slighting allusion 
 in all his verses, so far as I have discovered, to his 
 beloved winged minstrels : — 
 
 “ ‘ Bird of to-day, thy songs are stale 
 To his, my singer of all weathers, 
 
 My Calderon, my nightingale, 
 
 My Arab soul in Spanish feathers. 
 
 “ 1 Ah, friend, these singers dead so long, 
 
 And still, God knows, in purgatory, 
 
 Give its best sweetness to all song, 
 
 To Nature’s self her better glory.’ ” 
 
 Thus the Lowell anthology has swollen to a veri- 
 table anthem, and gives to this modest volume a 
 peroration that it can never hope to deserve. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 MY BIRD LIST. 
 
 T HE following is an alphabetical list of the birds 
 which I have seen in my neighborhood, Springfield, 
 Clark County, Ohio. It is given for the convenience of 
 bird students, who are always interested in the locale of 
 the feathered tribe. The small figure (i) indicates 
 residents all the year round; (2), summer residents; 
 (3), winter residents ; (4), migrants. 
 
 Dickcissel . 2 
 
 Dove, turtle or mourning . 1 
 Duck, wood . 2 
 
 Finch, purple . 4 
 Flicker . 1 
 
 Flycatcher, Acadian . 4 
 crested . 2 
 least . 4 
 Traill’s . 4 
 yellow-bellied . 4 
 
 Gnatcatcher, blue -gray . 4 
 Goldfinch, American . 1 
 Grass-finch . 2 
 Grossbeak, cardinal . 1 
 
 rose-beasted . 4 
 Grouse, ruffed . 1 
 
 Hawk, red-shouldered . 3 
 sharp-shinned . 3 
 
 Bittern, American 2 
 Blackbird, red-winged . 2 
 Bluebird 2 (occasionally win- 
 ter resident). 
 
 Bobolink . 2 
 
 Bob-white . 1 
 
 Bunting, black - throated ; 
 
 Dickcissel . 2 
 Butcher-bird . 4 
 Buzzard, turkey . 2 
 
 Cat-bird . 2 
 
 Cedar-bird . 4 
 
 Chat, yellow-breasted . 2 
 
 Chickadee, black-capped . 1 
 
 Cow-bird . 2 
 
 Creeper, brown . 3 
 
 Crow . 1 
 
 Cuckoo, black -billed . 2 
 yellow-billed . 2 
 
264 
 
 MY BIRD LIST. 
 
 Hawk, sparrow . 1 
 Heron, great blue . 2 
 green . 2 
 
 Humming-bird, ruby- 
 throated . 2 
 
 Indigo-bird . 2 
 
 Jay, blue . 2 
 Junco; snowbird . 3 
 
 Killdeer . 2 
 Kingbird . 2 
 Kingfisher, belted 2 
 Kinglet, golden-crownea 3 
 ruby-crowned . 4 
 
 Lark, horned or shore . 3 
 meadow . 2 
 
 Martin, purple . 2 
 
 Night-hawk . 2 
 
 Nuthatch, white-breasted . 1 
 red-breasted . 4 
 
 Oriole, Baltimore . 2 
 
 orchard . 2 
 Oven bird . 2 
 Owl, screech . 1 
 
 Pewee, wood . 2 
 Phoebe ; house pewee . 2 
 Pipit, American . 3 
 
 Redstart . 4 
 
 Robin 2 (sometimes in win- 
 ter). 
 
 Sandpiper, spotted 2 
 Sapsucker, yellow-bellied . 4 
 
 Shrike, loggerhead . 4 
 Sparrow, chipping 2 
 English . 1 
 field . 2 
 fox 4 
 
 grasshopper . 2 
 
 lark . 4 
 
 Savanna . 4 
 
 song . 1 
 
 swamp . 4 
 
 tree . 3 
 
 white-crowned . 4 
 white-throated . 4 
 Swallow, bank . 2 
 barn 2 
 
 cliff or cave, 
 white-bellied or 
 tree . 2 
 
 Swift, chimney . 2 
 
 Tanager, scarlet . 2 
 Titmouse, tufted . 1 
 Thrasher, brown . 2 
 Thrush, hermit 4 
 
 Wilson’s or veery 4 
 wood . 2 
 
 Towhee ; chewink . 2 
 
 Vireo, blue-headed . 4 
 red-eyed . 2 
 warbling . 2 
 white-eyed . 4 
 yellow-throated . 4 
 
 Warbler, bay-breasted . 4 
 black and white . 4 
 Blackburnian 4 
 black-poll 4 
 black-throated blue . 4 
 black-throated green . 4 
 blue-winged . 4 
 
MY BIRD LIST. 
 
 Warbler, Canadian . 4 
 cerulean . 4 
 chestnut-sided . 4 
 Connecticut . 4 
 golden-winged . 4 
 hooded . 4 
 Kirtland’s . 4 
 magnolia . 4 
 Maryland yellow- 
 throat . 2 
 mourning . 4 
 myrtle . 4 
 Nashville . 4 
 palm or red-poll . 4 
 Tennessee . 4 
 Wilson’s ; green 
 black-capped 4 
 
 265 
 
 Warbler, worm-eating . 4 
 
 yellow or summer . 2 
 Water-thrush . 4 
 
 Louisiana . 4 
 Whippoorwill . 2 
 Woodpecker, downy . 1 
 
 golden-winged ; flicker . 1 
 hairy . 1 
 
 red-bellied ; zebra-bird . 3 
 red-headed . 2 
 yellow-bellied . 4 
 Wren, Bewick’s . 2 
 Carolina . 1 
 house . 2 
 
 short-billed marsh . 4 
 winter 4 
 
INDEX 
 
 Accentor, 199. 
 
 Addison, quoted, 168. 
 
 Allen, J. A., quoted, 79-80. 
 
 Bird baths, 15, 38, 39, 51, 205. 
 Bird colonies, 42-44. 
 
 Bird migration, 64, 76-86. 
 
 Bird plumage, 87-91. 
 
 Bird roosts, 116-126. 
 
 Bird sadness, 207, 208. 
 
 Bird song, my creed regarding, 
 *3> 14- 
 
 Birds of Paradise, 167. 
 Blackbirds, 180, 249, 258. 
 crow, 29, 34, 35, 63. 
 red-winged, 29, 65, 120, 125. 
 yellow-headed, 235. 
 Bluebirds, 28, 88, 165, 190, 209, 
 249, 250. 
 
 Bobolink, 200, 247, 255, 256. 
 Bolles, Frank, 29. 
 
 Brewster, William, 84-86. 
 Browning, Robert, quoted, 150. 
 Browning, Mrs. E. B., quoted, 
 169. 
 
 Bryant, W. C M quoted, 81. 
 Bunting, black-throated, 112. 
 cow, 96, 97, 125, 178, 180, 
 199. 
 
 towhee, 66, 89, 93, 113, 156, 
 163, 200. 
 
 Burns, Robert, quoted, 207. 
 Burroughs, John, 29, 165, 21 1. 
 
 Cat-bird, 24-26, 82, 125, 143, 
 259-261. 
 
 Chapman, Frank M., 80. 
 
 Chat, yellow-breasted, 102, 154, 
 
 19374- 
 
 Chewink, 62. 
 
 Chickadee, 42, 44, 217, 250. 
 Coleridge, quoted, 208. 
 Collectors, 214. 
 
 Creeper, brown, 15, 17-20, 44, 
 203, 219. 
 
 Cross-bill, 209. 
 
 Crow, 154, 251. 
 
 Cuckoo, yellow-billed, 174, 187. 
 
 Dove, turtle, 13, 63, 120, 172, 
 J 73- 
 
 Emerson, 42, 52, 244. 
 
 quoted, 10, 11, 49, 141, 158, 
 225. 
 
 Falcon, 252. 
 
 Finch, cut-throat, 206. 
 purple, 72. 
 
 Fish, Eldridge E., 94, 97, 209. 
 Flicker, yellow-hammer, 57, 124, 
 162, 205. 
 
 Flycatcher, Traill’s, 85. 
 
 Gibson, W. H., quoted, 92. 
 Gnat-catcher, blue-gray, 144-146, 
 195- 
 
 Goldfinch, 74, 104-109, 1 13, 187, 
 2 3 2 i 2 35- 
 
 Grackle, purple (see Crow black- 
 bird), 35. 
 
 Grass-finch, 68, 88, 112, 118. 
 Grossbeak, Brazilian, 232. 
 
 cardinal, 46, 62, 90, 113, 
 156, 232. 
 
268 
 
 INDEX . 
 
 Grossbeak, evening, 71. 
 
 rose-breasted, 64, 73. 
 Grouse, ruffed, 166. 
 
 Hawk, hen, 250. 
 
 sparrow, 210. 
 
 Heron, great blue, 237. 
 
 green, 155, 181-183. 
 Howells, W. D., quoted, 11. 
 Hummers, 165. 
 
 Indigo-bird, 87, 102, 153, 235. 
 
 Jay, blue, 28, 196, 210, 234. 
 Juncos (see Snow-birds), 51, 53- 
 56, 82, 118, 219, 229. 
 
 Killdeer, 28, 65, 99, 183. 
 King-bird; bee-martin, 197. 
 Kingfisher, Australian, 234. 
 
 belted, 184. 
 
 Kinglets, 42, 166. 
 
 golden-crowned, 36, 44, 81, 
 204, 209. 
 
 ruby-crowned, 91, 204. 
 
 Langille, J. H., quoted, 166. 
 Lanier, Sidney, quoted, 14-15, 
 T 33- 
 
 Larcom, Lucy, quoted, 68. 
 
 Lark, 247, 252, 253. 
 
 meadow, 65, 84, 112, 118, 
 
 125, 173- 
 
 Longfellow, quoted, 164. 
 
 Lowell, 40, 45. 
 
 quoted, 113, 128-9, 130, 13 1, 
 175, 198, 222, 243-261. 
 
 Martin, house or purple, 241. 
 Mexican stars, 166. 
 
 Milton, quoted, 200. 
 
 Montreal, 226. 
 
 Mount Royal, Canada, 227-231. 
 
 Nests, 20, 92-109, 169-185. 
 Night-hawk, 1 35-140. 
 
 Nonpareil, 212, 232. 
 
 Nuthatch, white-breasted, 15, 29, 
 3 h 35> 42, 45» 47, 212. 
 
 Oriole, Baltimore, 64, 99, 113, 
 249, 257, 260. 
 orchard, 153, 180. 
 Oven-bird, 142. 
 
 Owls, 121, 238. 
 
 Parrots, 236. 
 
 Pelicans, 237. 
 
 Pewee, wood, 1 14, 115, 127-134, 
 190, 196, 220, 244. 
 
 Pheasant, silver, 234. 
 
 Phoebe, 69, 126, 189, 220, 250. 
 
 Redstart, 74, 91, 230. 
 
 Robin, 27, 65, 73, 1 12, 120, 200, 
 21 1, 233, 246, 249, 250, 251, 
 259- 
 
 Sandpiper, 254. 
 
 Sangster, Margaret E., quoted, 
 93- 
 
 Shakespeare, quoted, 212. 
 Snow-bird (see Junco), 49, 51, 
 250. 
 
 Sparrow, bush, 12, 68, 88, 99, 
 102-104, 105, 106, 109, 
 112, 120. 
 
 chipping, 69, 88, 210. 
 English, 239. 
 fox, 67. 
 
 grasshopper, 156. 
 lark, 1 1 2, 1 18. 
 song, 13, 15, 46, 56, 58, 60- 
 62, 63, 65, 66, 1 14, 1 19, 
 153, 164, 229. 
 swamp, 222. 
 
 tree, 15, 49-51, 53, 55, 56, 
 59-60, 1 16. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 269 
 
 Sparrow, white-crowned, 90. 
 white- throated, 120, 224,233, 
 . 2 37- 
 
 Starling, English, 232. 
 
 Swallow, bank, 98. 
 
 Swan, 251, 253. 
 
 Tanager, scarlet, 65, 89, 213. 
 
 Thrasher, brown, 14, 64, 81, 82, 
 94, 120, 121, 143, 148-151, 
 190, 202, 206. 
 
 Titmouse, black-capped, 15, 31, 
 32, 64, 1 13, 180. 
 crested, 20, 32, 35, 45. 
 
 Thrush, Wilson’s, 227, 228. 
 wood, 95, 122, 156, 159, 170- 
 172, 179, 190, 206, 259. 
 
 Torrey, Bradford, 39, 134, 149, 
 223. 
 
 Vireo, blue-headed, 71-72. 
 red-eyed, 72, 85, 177, 230. 
 warbling, 99, 152, 196. 
 
 Wallace, A. R., quoted, 167. 
 
 Warblers, 38, 82, 85, 86, 90, 217. 
 bay-breasted, 74. 
 Blackburnian, 220. 
 black-throated blue, 220. 
 black-throated green, 220, 
 221, 230. 
 
 Warblers, blue-winged, 70. 
 cerulean, 114, 220. 
 chestnut-sided, 114,220, 230. 
 creeping, 220, 229. 
 hooded, 83, 146-148, 199. 
 Kentucky, 156. 
 
 Maryland yellow-throat, 85, 
 9L ii3> 153- 
 mourning, 83. 
 myrtle, 38, 39, 220. 
 parula, 220. 
 summer, 96-98. 
 worm-eating, 144. 
 Water-thrush, Louisiana, 158. 
 Waxbills, 231. 
 
 Weaver-birds, 236. 
 Whippoorwill, 135, 149. 
 Wood-dove, 254. 
 
 Woodpeckers, 17, 42, 124, 248. 
 downy, 15, 46, 163. 
 hairy, 32, 46. 
 
 red-bellied; zebra bird, 21. 
 red-headed, 32, 36-38, 89, 
 123, 125, 142, 186, 197, 
 199, 202. 
 
 yellow-bellied ; sap-sucker, 
 29, 30. 
 
 Wren, Bewick’s, 39, 64, 69, 143. 
 Carolina, 41, 113, 157. 
 
 Zoological Garden, a visit 
 to, 231-239. 
 
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