I know a little minister who has a big degree;
Just like a long-tailed kite he flies his D.D.D.D.D.
His pulpit is old-fashioned, though made out of growing pine;
His great-grandfather preached in it, in days of Auld lang syne.
Sometimes this little minister forgets his parson’s airs:
I saw him turn a somersault right on the pulpit stairs;
And once, in his old meeting-house, he flew into the steeple,
And rang a merry chime of bells, to call the feathered people.
He has a tiny helpmeet, too, who wears a gown and cap,
And is so very wide-awake, she seldom takes a nap.
She preaches, also, sermonettes, with headlets one, two, three,
In singing monosyllables beginning each with D.
But O her little minister, she does almost adore:
I’ve heard her call her sweet D.D. full twenty times or more.
And his pet polysyllable—why, did you hear it never?
He calls her Phe-be B, so dear, I’d listen on forever.
Now if there is a Bright Eyes small who’d like to go with me,
And on his cautious tiptoes ten, creep softly to a tree,
I’ll coax this little minister to quit his leafy perch,
And show this little boy or girl the way to go to church;
And where his cosy parsonage is hidden in the trees,
And how in summer it is full of little D.D.D.’s.
And if Bright Eyes will prick his ears, he’ll hear the titmice say,
“Good morning,” which, in Chickadese is always “Day, day, day.”
—Ella Gilbert Ives.
“Now that I have answered my own question, there was another that one of
you asked, or rather a pair of questions. Why do some birds go away in
autumn, and why do they come back? It is very important to know the
answers to these, if we want to really understand about the lives of
birds and the trials and dangers they undergo.
_The Bird Year and the Migration_
“People who think of birds at all know that they are not equally
plentiful at all times of the year, but that they have their seasons of
coming and disappearing, as the flowers have, though not for exactly the
same reason.
“We are accustomed to see the plants send up shoots through the bare
ground every spring, unfold their leaves and blossoms, and, finally,
after perfecting seed, wither away again at the touch of frost.
“Of these plants, as well as some large trees, a few are more hardy than
others, like the ground-pine, laurel, and wintergreen, and are able to
hold their leaves through very cold weather, and we call them
evergreens.
“You notice that the birds appear in spring even before the
pussy-willows bud out, and that every morning when you wake, the music
outside the window and down among the alders on the meadow border is
growing louder, until by the time the apple trees are in bloom there
seems to be a bird for every tree, bush, and tuft of sedgegrass.
“By the time the timothy is cut and rye harvested, you do not hear so
great a variety of song. The Robin, Song Sparrow, House Wren, and
Meadowlark are still in good voice, and an occasional Catbird, but the
Bobolink has dropped out, and the Brown Thrasher no longer tells the
farmer how to plant his corn: ‘Drop it, drop it, cover it up, hoe it,
hoe it;’ and very wise he is, too, for the corn is all planted.
“Later still, when the stacked cornstalks fill the fields with their
wigwams, like Indian encampments, the pumpkins are gathered in golden
heaps, and the smoke of burning leaves and brush pervades the air, you
hear very few bird songs, for many birds have either dropped silently
out of sight or collected in huge flocks, like the Swallow, swept by,
and disappeared in the clouds, while others, like the Purple Grackle or
Common Crow-Blackbird,—walk over the stubble and cover the trees,
making such a creaking, crackling noise that one would surely think that
their wings as well as voices were rusty and needed oiling.
“What has become of the birds? Where do they go when they disappear?
“Being warm-blooded animals they cannot dive into the mud and hide, like
fishes, or crawl into cracks of tree bark and wrap themselves up in
cocoons, like insects. Neither do they drop their feathers and die away
as tender plants drop their leaves and disappear.
“People once believed that Swallows dived through the water into the
mud, where they rolled themselves into balls and slept all winter. They
thought this because Swallows are seen in early autumn in flocks about
ponds and marshes, where they feed upon the insects that abound in such
places. People thought that as Swallows were last seen in these places
before they disappeared they must have gone under the water; but this
was merely guessing, which is a very dangerous thing to do when trying
to find out the plans that Nature makes for her great family.
“Later yet, when the snow begins to fall, there is little or no bird
music, only the hoot of an Owl, the shrill cry of the Hawks, the ‘quank,
quank’ of the Nuthatch, that runs up and down the tree-trunks like a
mouse in gray-and-white feathers, the jeer of the Jay, and the soft
voice of the Chickadee that, as you have just heard, tells you his name
so prettily as he peers at you from beneath his little black cap.
“But the Catbird, Wren, Bobolink, Oriole, the Cuckoo that helped clear
the tent caterpillars from the orchard, the Chat that puzzled the dogs
by whistling like their master, the beautiful Barn Swallow, with the
swift wings, that had his plaster nest in the hayloft, the Phœbe that
built in the cowshed, and the dainty Humming-bird that haunted the
honeysuckle on the porch and hummed an ancient spinning-song to us with
his wings,—where are they all?
“And why is it that while those have disappeared, some few birds still
remain with us in spite of cold and snow?”