divided my interest with the birds. So many and such variety I never
noticed elsewhere, and they acted exactly like fly-catching birds,
staying an hour at a time on one perch, from which every now and then
they sallied out, sweeping the air and returning to the perch they had
left. Sometimes I saw four or five of them at once, resting on different
dead twigs in the yard the other side of the lawn, and I have even seen
one knock a fellow-dragonfly off a favorite perch and take it himself.
They were very beautiful, too: some with wings of transparent white or
light amber barred off by wide patches of rich dark brown or black;
others, again, smaller, and all over blue as the lazuli's head; and a
third of brilliant silver, which sparkled as it flew, as if covered with
spangles. One alighted there with wings which seemed to be covered with
a close and intricate design in the most brilliant gold thread. I went
almost near enough to put my hand on him, and I never saw a more
gorgeous creature; beside his beautiful wings his back was of old gold,
coming down in scallops over the black and dark blue under part.
In due time four lovely blue eggs filled the nest of the lazuli, and
about the middle of June madam began to sit, and I had to be more
careful than ever in timing my visits.
Some birds approach their nest in a loitering, aimless sort of way, as
if they had no particular business, in that quarter, and, if they see
any cause for alarm, depart with an indifferent air that reveals nothing
of their secret. Not thus the ingenuous lazuli. She showed her anxiety
every moment; coming in the most businesslike way, and proclaiming her
errand to the most careless observer, till I thought every boy on the
street would know where her eggs were to be found. She had a very pretty
way of going to the nest; indeed, all her manners were winning. She
always alighted on the peach-tree branch, looked about on all sides,
especially at me in my seat on the piazza, flirted her tail, uttered an
anxious "phit," and then jumped off the limb and dived under the bushes
near the ground. It is to be presumed that she ascended to her nest
behind the leaves by hopping from twig to twig, though this I could
never manage to see.
And what of her gay little spouse all this time? Did he spend his days
cheering her with music, as all the fathers of feathered families are
fabled to do? Indeed he did not, and until I watched very closely, and
saw him going about over the poplars in silence, I thought he had left
the neighborhood. Once in the day he had a good singing time, about five
o'clock in the morning, two hours before the sun rose over the
mountains. If one happened to be awake then, he would hear the most
rapturous song, delivered at the top of his voice, and continuing for a
long time. But as it grew lighter, and the human world began to stir, he
became quiet again, and, if he sang at all, he went so far from home
that I did not hear him.
But the wise little blue-head had not deserted; he was merely cautious.
Every time that the little sitter went off for food she met him
somewhere, and he came back with her. Occasionally he took a peep at the
treasures himself, but he never entered by her roundabout way. He always
flew directly in from above.
Ten days passed away in this quiet manner, my attention divided between
the birds, the dragonflies, and the clacking grasshopper, who went
jerking himself about with a noise like a subdued lawn-mower, giving one
the impression that his machinery was out of order.
The tenth day of sitting we had a south wind. That does not seem very
terrible, but a south wind on the shore of the Great Salt Lake is
something to be dreaded.
"A wind that is dizzy with whirling play,
A dozen winds that have lost their way."
It starts up suddenly, and comes with such force as to snap off the
leaves of trees, and even the tender twigs of shrubs. As it waxes
powerful it bends great trees, and tries the strength of roofs and
chimneys. From the first breath it rolls up tremendous clouds of dust,
that come and come, and never cease, long after it seems as if every
particle in that rainless land must have been driven by. It is in the
"Great Basin," and the south wind is the broom that sweeps it clean. Not
only dust does the south wind bring, but heat, terrible and
suffocating, like that of a fiery furnace. Before it the human and the
vegetable worlds shrink and wither, and birds and beasts are little
seen.
Such a day was the birthday in the little nest in the raspberries, and
on my usual morning call I found four featherless birdlings, with beaks
already yawning for food. Every morning, of course, I looked at the
babies, but it was not till the eighth day of their life that I found
their eyes open. Before this they opened their mouths when I jarred the
nest in parting the branches, thus showing they were not asleep, but did
not open their eyes, and I was forced to conclude that they were not yet
unclosed.
Sometimes the daily visit was made under difficulties, and I was
unpleasantly surprised when I stepped upon the grass of the little lawn
that I was obliged to cross. The grass looked as usual; the evening
before we had been sitting upon it. But all night a stream had been
silently spreading itself upon it, and my hasty step was into water two
or three inches deep, which swished up in a small fountain and filled a
low shoe in an instant.
This is one of the idiosyncrasies of irrigation, which it seemed I
should never get accustomed to, and several times I was obliged to turn
back for overshoes before I could pay my usual call. A lawn asoak is a
curious sight, and always reminds me of Lanier's verses,
"A thousand rivulets run
'Twixt the roots of the soil; the blades of the marsh grass stir;
... and the currents cease to run,
And the sea and the marsh are one."
The morning the lazulis were ten days old, before I came out of the
house, that happened which so often puts an end to a study of bird
life,--the nest was torn out of place and destroyed, and the little
family had disappeared. The particulars will never be known. Whether a
nest-robbing boy or a hungry cat was the transgressor, and whether the
nestlings were carried off or eaten, or had happily escaped, who can
tell? I could only judge by the conduct of the birds themselves, and as
they did not appear disturbed, and continued to carry food, it is to be
presumed that part, if not all, of the brood was saved from the wreck of
their home.
Happily, to console me in my sorrow for this catastrophe, the lazuli was
not the only bird to be seen on the lawn, though his was the only nest.
I had for some time been greatly interested in the daily visits of a
humming-bird, a little dame in green and white, who had taken possession
of a honeysuckle vine beside the door, claiming the whole as her own,
and driving away, with squeaky but fierce cries, any other of her race
who ventured to sip from the coral cups so profusely offered.
The season for humming-birds opened with the locust blossoms next door,
which were for days a mass of blooms and buzzings, of birds and bees.
But when the fragrant flowers began to fall and the ground was white
with them, one bird settled herself on our honeysuckle, and there took
her daily meals for a month. Being not six feet from where I sat for
hours every day, I had the first good opportunity of my life to learn
the ways of one of these queer little creatures in feathers.
After long searching and much overhauling of the books, I made her out
to be the female broad-tailed humming-bird, who is somewhat larger than
the familiar ruby-throat of the East. Her mate, if she had one, never
came to the vine; but whether she drove him away and discouraged him, or
whether he had an independent source of supply, I never knew. She was
the only one whose acquaintance I made, and in a month's watching I came
to know her pretty well.
In one way she differed strikingly from any humming-bird I have seen:
she alighted, and rested frequently and for long periods. Droll enough
it looked to see such an atom, such a mere pinch of feathers, conduct
herself after the fashion of a big bird; to see her wipe that
needle-like beak, and dress those infinitesimal feathers, combing out
her head plumage with her minute black claws, running the same useful
appendages through her long, gauzy-looking wings, and carefully removing
the yellow pollen of the honeysuckle blooms which stuck to her face and
throat. Her favorite perch was a tiny dead twig on the lowest branch of
a poplar-tree, near the honeysuckle. There she spent a long time each
day, sitting usually, though sometimes she stood on her little wiry
legs.
But though my humming friend might sit down, there was no repose about
her; she was continually in motion. Her head turned from side to side,
as regularly, and apparently as mechanically, as an elephant weaves his
great head and trunk. Sometimes she turned her attention to me, and
leaned far over, with her large, dark eyes fixed upon me with interest
or curiosity. But never was there the least fear in her bearing; she
evidently considered herself mistress of the place, and reproved me if I
made the slightest movement, or spoke too much to a neighbor. If she
happened to be engaged among her honey-pots when a movement was made,
she instantly jerked herself back a foot or more from the vine, and
stood upon nothing, as it were, motionless, except the wings, while she
looked into the cause of the disturbance, and often expressed her
disapproval of our behavior in squeaky cries.
The toilet of this lilliputian in feathers, performed on her chosen twig
as it often was, interested me greatly. As carefully as though she were
a foot or two, instead of an inch or two long, did she clean and put in
order every plume on her little body, and the work of polishing her beak
was the great performance of the day. This member was plainly her pride
and her joy; every part of it, down to the very tip, was scraped and
rubbed by her claws, with the leg thrown over the wing, exactly as big
birds do. It was astonishing to see what she could do with her leg. I
have even seen her pause in mid-air and thrust one over her vibrating
wing to scratch her head.
Then when the pretty creature was all in beautiful order, her
emerald-green back and white breast immaculate, when she had shaken
herself out, and darted out and drawn back many times her long
bristle-like tongue, she would sometimes hover along before the tips of
the fence-stakes, which were like laths, held an inch apart by
wires,--collecting, I suppose, the tiny spiders which were to be found
there. She always returned to the honeysuckle, however, to finish her
repast, opening and closing her tail as one flirts a fan, while the
breeze made by her wings agitated the leaves for two feet around her.
Should a blossom just ready to fall come off on her beak like a coral
case, as it sometimes did, she was indignant indeed; she jerked herself
back and flung it off with an air that was comical to see.
When the hot wind blew, the little creature seemed to feel the
discomfort that bigger ones did: she sat with open beak as though
panting for breath; she flew around with legs hanging, and even alighted
on a convenient leaf or cluster of flowers, while she rifled a blossom,
standing with sturdy little legs far apart, while stretching up to reach
the bloom she desired.
Two statements of the books were not true in the case of this bird: she
did not sit on a twig upright like an owl or a hawk, but held her body
exactly as does a robin or sparrow; and she did fly backward and
sideways, as well as forward.
Toward the end of June my tiny visitor began to make longer intervals
between her calls, and when she did appear she was always in too great
haste to stop; she passed rapidly over half a dozen blossoms, and then
flitted away. Past were the days of loitering about on poplar twigs or
preening herself on the peach-tree. It was plain that she had set up a
home for herself, and the mussy state of her once nicely kept breast
feathers told the tale,--she had a nest somewhere. Vainly, however, did
I try to track her home: she either took her way like an arrow across
the garden to a row of very tall locusts, where a hundred humming-birds'
nests might have been hidden, or turned the other way over a neighbor's
field to a cluster of thickly grown apple-trees, equally impossible to
search. If she had always gone one way I might have tried to follow, but
to look for her infinitesimal nest at opposite poles of the earth was
too discouraging, even if the weather had been cool enough for such
exertion.
When at last I could endure the wind and the dust and the heat no
longer, and stood one morning on the porch, waiting for the most
deliberate of drivers with his carriage to drive me to the station, that
I might leave Utah altogether, the humming-bird appeared on the scene,
took a sip or two out of her red cups, flirted her feathers saucily in
my very face, then darted over the top of the cottage and disappeared;
and that was the very last glimpse I had of the little dame in green.
INDEX.
Acadian flycatcher, 161.
Arkansas goldfinch, 23.
At four o'clock in the morning, 95.
Barbed wire fence, 157.
Behind the tangle, 246.
Birds:
and poets, 194.
a strange song, 73.
different ways, 264.
hard to study, 20.
in Colorado, 18.
in Colorado Springs, 260.
in Denver, 260.
in the "Wrens' Court," 161, 166, 168.
leave nesting place, 154.
morning chorus, 21, 22, 105.
music in Colorado, 32.
not on exhibition, 19.
not sing alike, 34.
panic among, 39.
unfamiliar, 23, 259.
Utah, 260.
Black-headed grosbeak, 244, 251.
song of, 244.
Blue jay, 126.
and doll, 103.
and red-headed woodpecker, 104.
apple-tree nest, 151.
a struggle, 149.
attentive to mate, 127.
bad name, 147.
devoted mother, 127.
eating, 144.
getting over the ground, 145.
home deserted, 140.
interview with, 146.
joke or war-cry? 134.
manners, 130, 132, 144.
my search for nest, 126.
no pretense, 130.
pine-tree nest, 126.
vocabulary, 133.
when babies are noisy, 131.
with a stranger, 148.
with catbirds, 150.
Blue jay, the young:
accident to, 140.
beauty of, 143.
climber, 141.
first outing, 138.
imperfect, 152.
intelligence in house, 152.
on edge of nest, 137.
returned to parents, 153.
Bobolink song, 120.
Burro an investigator, 89.
Camp Harding, 9.
Camping in Colorado, 3.
Canyon wren, the, 74.
manners, 86, 87.
song, 74.
Cardinal grosbeak, 107.
abandoning the nest, 120.
as a father, 113.
confidence in people, 121.
delight of parents, 123.
eating corn, 109, 115.
importance of the builder, 119.
kindness to young, 117.
manners, 107.
nest, 122.
on grass, 105, 107.
politeness to mate, 116.
reception of woodpecker, 108.
rose trellis nest, 121.
speeding the parting guest, 125.
victim of English sparrow, 114.
Cardinal, the young, 113.
characteristics, 114.
first baby out, 122.
food of, 123.
song of, 116.
training, 116.
with sparrows, 114, 115.
Carolina wren, the great:
babies appear, 172.
ceremony of approaching, 177.
father disturbed, 175.
first sight of, 159.
fighting a chipmunk, 178.
hard to see, 177.
interruption to study, 168.
manners, 163, 173, 175.
mother anxious, 176.
nest, 149, 182.
song, 162, 164.
trailing, 162.
"Wrens' Court," 160.
Carolina wren, the young:
cries of, 181.
delay in taking flight, 179.
development of, 174.
first sallies, 180, 181.
manners, 178.
Catbird song, 23.
Cat on lawn, 112.
Cedar-tree little folk, 194.
Charming nook, a, 124.
Chat, long-tailed, yellow-breasted, 40, 232.
alertness of, 240.
bewitching, 241.
comes in sight, 237.
eccentric, 232.
egg stolen, 50.
farewell, 51.
first sight of, 45.
hard to study, 47.
haunts of, 241.
home of, 246.
humor, 40.
manners, 44, 46, 238, 239, 240.
nest, 47, 48.
on hand, 245.
saucy, 41.
secret of invisibility, 239.
studies me, 254,
triumphant, 257.
voice, 40, 43, 45, 236, 237, 239.
Chat, the madam:
interviews me, 255.
keeps her mate up to duty, 249.
manners, 248.
squawks, 254.
wonderful acting, 256.
Chewink, or towhee bunting:
babies, 31.
green-tailed towhee, 210.
husky cry, 30.
manners, 28, 29.
nest, 30.
song, 29.
Cheyenne Canyon, 15.
solitary possession of, 75.
Cheyenne Mountain, 43.
Chipmunk, 78.
Cinderella among the flowers, a, 60.
Cliff-dwellers in the canyon, 70.
Colorado, a restful way to see, 13.
the wonderland, 14.
Cotton storm, a, 17.
Cottonwoods, in the, 17.
Cuckoo, 157, 231.
Doll as a bogy, 103.
Dragonflies in Utah, 263.
English or house sparrow:
as a climber, 110.
autocrat, 129.
in Utah, 261.
robbing blackbirds, 100.
robbing red-headed woodpecker, 110.
Feast of flowers, the, 52.
Flicker a character, 106.
Flowers:
abundance of bloom, 54.
anemone, 61.
cactus, 56, 62, 74.
castilleia, 67.
cleome, 67.
columbine, 58, 67.
cyclamen, 67.
extermination by cattle, 208.
extermination by tourists, 68.
geranium, 58.
gilia, 64.
golden prince's feather, 65.
gummy and clinging stems, 66.
harebells, 67.
in a niche, 73.
in Kansas, 52.
mariposa lily, 65.
mentzelia, 60.
mertensia, 67.
Mexican poppy, 62.
milky juice, 66.
moccasin plant, 54, 75.
nasturtium, self-willed, 149.
ox-eye daisy, 66.
painter of, 68.
paradise of, 53.
pentstemon, 58.
pink stranger, 62.
primrose, 58, 67.
roses, 58, 63, 75.
spiderwort, 52.
symphony in green, 55.
varieties, 53, 57.
vetches, 67.
wild garden, 57.
wild mignonette, 62.
yellow daisies, 52.
yucca, 55, 62.
Gates, idiosyncrasies of, 220.
Getting up in the morning, 95.
Glen, a beautiful, 155.
frightened out of, 169.
Grasshopper, a clacking, 266.
Grave of "H. H.," 90, 91.
Great-crested flycatcher, 167.
Gull, the herring, 211.
following the plow, 213.
flight, 215.
manners, 213.
nesting, 216.
nooning, 215.
penalty for killing, 212.
sent to the "Chosen People," 212.
value of, 216.
Horned lark:
horns, 36.
nest, 36.
song, 35.
Horse, a scared, and result, 228.
drive me away, 257.
House wren, the Western, 24.
babies, 27, 28.
disturbed, 27.
manners, 24.
nest, 25.
song, 27.
strange cry, 25.
Humming-bird:
collecting spiders, 271.
different from the Eastern, 38.
dislike of heat, 272.
in canyon, 76.
last glimpse, 273.
manners, 269.
nesting, 272.
noisy, 38.
precious beak, 271.
scolding, 42.
surveillance, 40.
the broad-tailed, 268.
toilet of, 271.
Ideal retreat, an, 247.
In a pasture, 207.
In the Middle Country, 93.
In the Rocky Mountains, 1.
Irrigation vagaries, 242, 245, 267.
Kansas, 7.
Kitchen, an al fresco, 243.
Kitten, a lost, 39.
Lazuli-painted finch, 261.
anxiety of mother, 263.
babies, 267.
manners, 262, 265.
nest, 262.
nest destroyed, 268.
Magpie:
discover us, 225.
manners, 216, 219, 224.
nest, 223.
nursery, 230.
reception to us, 227.
search for nest, 216.
song, 224.
Meadow-lark, the Western, 249.
cry, 120.
song, 24, 32, 34.
Morning tramp, a, 156.
Mosquito, absence of, 20.
a lonely, 21.
Mourning dove, 103.
headquarters, 199.
joke of, 200.
manners, 196, 198, 199.
nest, 198.
silence of, 201, 204.
song, 195, 204.
talk, 204.
wing whistle, 204.
young, interview with, 201.
young, manners of, 197, 201.
Oak-brush, the, 222.
On the lawn, 259.
Orchard, an old, 250.
Orchard oriole:
a later view, 191.
anxiety of parents, 185.
baby cries, 186.
babies' first flight, 189, 190.
call from a Baltimore, 188.
called by nestlings, 184.
manners, 186, 190.
nest, 184, 192.
song of female, 191.
song of male, 192.
Park, a deserted, 42.
Pewee, Western wood, 22.
nest, 38.
song, 22, 37.
voice, 37.
Purple grackle, the, 96.
discouraging them, 104.
eating, 100.
greeting to me, 97.
husky tones, 98.
humor, 99.
no repose of manner, 101.
plumage, 99.
robbed by sparrows, 100.
strange utterances, 98.
treatment of young, 101.
young, 98, 101, 102.
young, persistence of, 102.
Red-headed woodpecker:
autocrat, 106.
eating corn, 109.
protecting the place, 110.
treatment of cardinal grosbeak, 108.
treatment of doll, 104.
Rest, to find, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11.
Robin, absence of, 28.
and corn, 103.
and doll, 103.
not plentiful, 250.
reception of snake, 250.
Rocky Mountains:
a pasture on, 207.
Cheyenne range, 235.
Wasatch range, 233, 234.
Sage-bush, 233.
Sage the delight of my friend, 234.
Salt Lake, view of, 218.
Secret of the Wild Rose Path, 231.
Seven Sisters' Falls, 72.
Sight-seeing travelers, 12.
South wind, 266.
Strange character of feathered world, 128.
Strangers not allowed, 129.
Study of birds, my way, 226.
Study of birds, two ways, 236.
Tents to live in, 11.
Thrushes absent, 260.
Tourist, 89, 91.
Tourist, the unscrupulous, 68.
Towhee (see Chewink).
Tragedy of a nest, 42.
Uproar of song, an, 32.
Vagaries of name-givers, 160.
View, a beautiful, 136.
Walks from the camp, 70.
the evening, 70.
the morning, 72.
up to the canyon, 72.
Water ouzel, or American dipper:
baby, 80, 85.
cry, 79.
"dipping," 80.
feats in the water, 83.
manners, 80, 81.
nest, 77.
song, 79, 81.
the mother, 82.
Wood-thrush nest, 168.
Yellow warbler:
nest, 36, 37.
song, 23, 36.
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| Transcriber's Note: |
| |
| Letters with a macron above are represented |
| by [=x]. |
| |
| Typographical errors corrected in the text: |
| |
| Page 72 standstone changed to sandstone |
| Page 153 Word "to" added before "one side" |
| Page 250 cooes changed to coos |
| Page 277 " added to "Wrens' Court, |
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