SOME BIRDS WITH A BAD NAME.
A good name is what we all want in this world. We like to have people
speak well of us behind our backs. There are a few birds which have a
bad name. Sometimes they deserve what is said of them, and sometimes
they are quite innocent. It is always well for us to find out for
ourselves if what we hear about birds is quite true.
There is a king-bird or bee-martin. Farmers think him a very wicked
little fellow, catching the bees on the wing and eating greedily
whole swarms of them. Mr. Farmer has not yet found out everything
about the bee-martin, or he would know that he eats a good many
enemies of the bees, even if he does swallow a few of the bees
themselves.
[Illustration: King-Bird.]
We once saw these birds around our beehive and felt certain that they
were eating the bees. They would dart close to the hives, snapping
their bills and looking very savage. But we were willing to watch a
long while, that we might be certain if we were not mistaken, and we
did just right.
There was some tall grass near the hives, and we noticed swarms of
strange looking black-and-blue flies all over the grass. We saw these
flies dart out to the front of the hive and kill the bees faster than
the birds could have done it.
Waiting a little longer, we found that the birds were on the watch
for these flies, and it was these they were catching instead of the
bees at that particular time.
A certain naturalist, who has spent a good deal of time trying to
find out if the bee-birds do really kill bees, has told us a little
secret, which is very interesting and may lead some other people to
investigate the matter. He says that he has never found a worker-bee
in the stomach of a bee-bird, though he has examined a great many of
them. He has found only drones, which the worker bees are very glad
to get rid of and often kill, because they are lazy and eat honey
without gathering any for winter.
Perhaps one reason why the bee-bird prefers the drone to the worker
is because the drones have no stings.
By all this you see that it pays us to take some trouble to find out
all the good there is about anybody.
However, it cannot be denied that the king-birds do eat bees, when
they can find nothing they like better. We have often wondered what
they do with so many stings, and why they are not poisoned by them.
We have not examined a king-bird's throat to find out this secret,
but a friend of ours did look at the throat of a toad which persisted
in eating his bees on warm summer evenings. This man found a good
many stings on the side of the toad's throat, which had caught there
when he swallowed the bees. Stings are probably not poisonous to
toads and bee-birds.
[Illustration: Loggerhead Shrike.]
Hardly anybody speaks a good word for the butcher-bird or shrike.[9]
Yet this bird is not half so bad as most people think he is. It
is true that he has been caught a few times in doing very naughty
things, such as making a dinner on a small chicken, or on birds
weaker than himself.
[9] _Lanius ludovicianus._
But his most common food consists of insects, especially Jerusalem
crickets. This great yellow cricket is an inch or two inches long,
and he looks as bad as he is reported to be, for he wears a suit of
clothes with brown and yellow stripes, running around, instead of
up and down in the usual way for stripes. This makes one think of a
convict or a convict's suit of clothes.
Now the shrike, or butcher-bird, does us a great favor by making as
many meals as he can of these great crickets. These crickets are
the fellows that dig holes in our potatoes while they are in the
ground and bite the roots off from our pansies and other plants. The
butcher-bird also eats grasshoppers and beetles, and other enemies to
our roots and grains. So we see that he is more our friend than our
enemy.
This bird, which we have all learned to despise so much, could teach
us a good lesson in his line of work, for he is a very merciful and
kind butcher. He is in the habit of killing his victim quickly, and
does not hang it up alive on a thorn, as some people think he does.
He probably fastens his dinner in that way that he may pull it to
pieces easier and know where to find it when he is hungry again.
The English sparrow[10] is another bird that has a bad name, and he
deserves what is said of him more than some of the other birds. He is
quarrelsome and selfish and very unlovable. But in spite of this we
have sometimes put him to a good use, and have grown to look upon
the little tyrant as quite capable of adding to the comfort of our
families.
[10] _Passer domesticus_, introduced into the United States from
Europe.
Once there was a sick child in our family, and we happened to think
that the sparrow would make a good supper for our little invalid. The
birds were "small fry," to be sure, but we cooked them, and they were
good eating.
[Illustration: English Sparrow.]
Then we gathered all the sparrows' eggs we could reach every morning,
and cooked them. They were delicious. We felt that it was not wrong
for us to take a good many of these eggs, for there were countless
more.
We found that we could tempt the hen birds to lay their eggs close
to the door, by placing hay above the sills and around the window
corners, just as you would make a hen's nest for Mistress Biddy.
This disposition of the English sparrow to become domesticated, like
our hens, once came near making trouble in money matters. Captain
R. H. Pratt, of the Carlisle Indian School, noting that the sparrows
were driving all the other birds away from the school grounds,
offered a penny a set for all the eggs which should be brought to him.
The little Indian students, two hundred or more of them, made a raid
on the grounds, and brought so many eggs to the captain that he began
to think he should have no money left. He thought, "Surely there
cannot be so many nests as there are sets of eggs." So he set himself
to work to find out the secret.
It had not taken the boys long to learn that Mrs. Sparrow would lay
right along, just like a hen, if the nest itself were not destroyed.
The eggs were taken out cautiously as often as four or five were
laid, and the industrious little Indian claimed his reward. It was a
good scheme at money-making, but the alert superintendent soon found
it out, and of course took back his offer. There was no more bounty
given for sparrows' eggs that summer.
California farmers complain a good deal about the linnets.[11] One
man whom we know spent whole days in March killing the linnets,
because he thought they were eating up his peach buds. In late summer
we went over to see him, and what do you think he was doing? We found
him pulling off half of the little peaches and throwing them on the
ground.
[11] Housefinch, _Carpodacus mexicanus frontalis_.
"Good morning, sir," we said, stopping at the street along the edge
of the field. "What are you doing?"
He looked up and answered, "Oh, I am thinning out the peaches. They
are too thick on the boughs, and they will grow larger if there are
only half as many left. We always have to thin them out in this way
before fall."
"But, sir," we said, "don't you think it would have saved you some
trouble if you had let the linnets thin the peaches for you in the
spring? They would have eaten more insects than peaches, too, and not
have charged you a dollar for all their work."
The man looked surprised and scratched his head in a sorry sort of
way. Then he said, "Why, I never thought of that. I was told that the
linnets do a great deal of damage. I will get them to take care of my
peach orchard next year. I am sorry I made such a mistake."
[Illustration]