Peent, -peent, -peent, -peent,
From the thick grass on the hill;
Peent, -peent, -peent, -peent,
At eve when the world is still.
Then a sudden whistle of whirring wings,—
A rush to the upper air,—
And a rain of maddening music falls
From the whole sky,—everywhere!
—Winifred Ballard Blake in _Bird-Lore_.
“Dave, please tell us about the bird that you saw on the nest,” said
Gray Lady, “and how you came to find it.”
“Half a dozen of us went out to hunt for May-flowers (Trailing Arbutus)
one Wednesday along the first part of April last year. Miss Wilde
thought Zella had measles, and school was closed two days, but doctor
found it was only a cold and eating too much sausage meat and sweet
pickles, and so they broke out, and he gave her rhubarb.” (Dave, having
been asked to tell all about it, was bound to omit no detail.)
“The others of our crowd stayed along by the path that runs through the
wood, where you saw the birds dance, because there are black snakes
through the brush there that begin to crawl out to sun in April, and the
girls were scared of them.
“I went on ahead a little piece, and turned up a side hill where there
was an old rail fence that divides our woods from the Cobbs’ piece.
Right in front of me I found a bully patch of May-flowers, and I sat
down and began cutting them with my knife (’cause they have wiry sort of
stems) and made them in a nice even bunch, when something ahead sort of
made me keep my eyes glued to it. It was under the slant of the lowest
fence rail. I thought it was a striped snake curled up round, at first,
because I felt eyes were looking at me, though it was too dark to see
them, at first. Did you ever have that feeling, Gray Lady?”
“Yes, I have had it, Dave, and I know what a strange sensation it is.
The last time I had it I felt no better when I saw the eyes; in fact,
little cold shivers went all over, for I was far away from here, and the
eyes were those of a rattlesnake that was coiled up, amid the stones of
a ledge, where I was gathering some rare wild flowers.”
“Oh, what _did_ you do?” cried all the children, together.
“I backed away as fast as I could, keeping my eyes upon the snake, until
I was at a safe distance, where he could not spring at me, and then I
very foolishly ran! What did you do, Dave?”
“I crept up nearer until I got a good look, and then I saw that it was a
bird. It was sitting ever so still, with its head well down on its
shoulders and its long beak close to its breast. It had queer, big eyes
set up on top of its head, and round like a frog’s, not like any other
bird that I know of.”
“The eyes of the Woodcock and its cousins, the Snipe, are set in this
way, so that, when they are boring in the mud for food, they can keep
watch behind them as well as in front,” said Gray Lady.
“First, I thought the bird was dead, it kept so still,” continued Dave,
“but I could see its breast raised a little with its breathing.”
“If it had been dead, its eyes would have been closed,” said Gray Lady.
“It is one of the many mysterious and unaccountable facts about a bird,
that it is the only animal that closes its own eyes when death touches
it.”
“It wasn’t afraid, so I thought that I would just smooth its feathers,”
said Dave. “I did, and it didn’t fly, only just puffed up a little, so I
thought I would lift it very carefully to see if there were any eggs
under it, and there were four nice, sort of round, light, brown eggs,
the colour that our Plymouth Rocks lay, only mottled. But the bird
didn’t like to be lifted, and she sort of growled inside, the way a hen
does, so I set her down and went away.”
“That was a very pleasant experience of yours, Dave, and shows how tame
game-birds will become if they are kindly treated. This Woodcock has an
advantage over the Grouse and Bob-white, his cousin, because it travels
South in winter and constantly shifts its feeding-places, but it suffers
from other dangers: it is hunted in all the states through which it
passes, and the eggs are large enough to be very attractive, not only to
foxes and all the gnawing creatures of the woods, but to people as well.
If that nest and eggs had been seen by one of those foreign-born
poachers who come here thinking that everything they find out-of-doors,
and they can pocket, belongs to them, the poor Woodcock would have lost
her entire brood and perhaps her own life as well.
[Illustration: E. Van Alterna, Photo. WOODCOCK ON NEST]
* * * * *
“These three land-birds, together with a number of wild ducks, that live
some on fresh and some near salt water, travelling North and South
according to season, are the legitimate game-birds of the country. Of
the wild ducks, the most of these breed in the far North, and are hunted
in their migrations. If this hunting is done fairly, as the law
prescribes, and the birds are not chased and shot at from moving boats,
or with repeating guns, or when startled from their sleep with flashing
lights, they seem able to hold their own. Humanity, however, demands
that they should not be hunted on their spring journeys on the way to
their nesting-haunts and when they may have already chosen mates.
“One Duck there is, however, of exquisite plumage, gentle disposition,
and quiet, domestic habits, nesting about inland ponds and streams, in
the inhabited parts of the United States, from Florida up to Hudson Bay,
that is in danger of swift extinction if the protection given song-birds
is not extended to it. This is the Wood Duck, called in Latin ‘_Aix
Sponsa_’—‘Bridal Duck’—from the fact that the beauty of his plumage
was fit for a bridal garment.
“Look at that bird, mounted on a mossy stump, in that case by the
window. When I was a girl, I have seen a half-dozen pairs in the pond
above the grist-mill, and I knew as surely where I could always find a
pair nesting as where I could find a Robin or Song Sparrow, but now it
is fast becoming a bird of the past, only to be seen in pictures. Why is
this? The reasons are many, and some, such as the settlement of the
country, and the draining of ponds and waterways, and the cutting down
of river brush, cannot be helped.
“The Wood Duck nests in a tree hole, and, when the young are able to
leave the nest, the parents hold them in their bills and carry them to
the ground in somewhat the way in which cats remove their kittens from
place to place. Consequently, if the lumber is cleared, and no suitable
trees are left, what is this Duck to do? He cannot take to the chimneys
as the Swifts have. Still, this Duck, whose beauty alone is a sufficient
and patriotic reason for saving him to his country, might adapt his
nesting to other conditions if it could be protected as the Grouse,
Quail, and Woodcock are in New England, or, better yet, not be hunted in
any way for a number of years, so that the Wood Ducks, wherever located,
should have, a chance to increase once more and reëstablish themselves.
[Illustration: National Association of Audubon Societies WOOD DUCK]
Order—Anseres Family—Anatidæ
Genus—Aix Species—Sponsa
“For, when we come to look closely at the matter, there is really no
fair hunting, for the killing inventions of man—the magazine guns,
etc.,—are on the increase, while the power of poor game-birds to
protect themselves lessens both on land and water. Think of it, in some
states there are no laws to protect this bird, even in summer, and, as
Wood Ducks are fond of their nesting-places, and are very unsuspicious
birds, it often happens that an entire family is killed the moment the
young are large enough to furnish the pitiful thing, in this case, that
is called ‘sport.’
“As it happens, the woods on this side of the river from above the pond
to the sawmill belong to the General’s farm, and, Tommy and Dave, the
water right on the other side belongs to your fathers.
“Will you not ask them if they will help me to protect their birds, if I
can get half a dozen pairs from one of the Wise Men who is trying to
reëstablish them in their old haunts?
“The Grouse and Quail are growing friendly again under protection, and I
am in hopes that we may have a drummer, as well as a fifer and his
family, in the orchard and near-by woods next spring.
“There are many hollow willows near the upper pond like the ones in
which the Wood Ducks used to nest. If these are left, the ducks will
soon become attached to them, and, if they escape peril elsewhere, for
this Duck’s greatest danger is in the vicinity of home, then we shall
all have a chance, possibly, some day to see a sight that ever the Wise
Men argue about,—the parent Duck bringing her young from the tree hole
to take their first swim!”
The boys promised to ask the question, and Tommy reported at the
schoolhouse, the next Friday, that “grandpa thinks it would be just
bully to have Wood Ducks again, and he’ll sit round the pond, with a
shot-gun, all he’s able, to keep folks away. He says he’s seen the old
ones yank the young, one by one, right out of the nest by the wing, and
set ’em on the ground, and when they were all down, lead ’em to the
water. And once, when the tree was close over the pond, the old bird
flew down and set ’em right on the water. He says weasels and water-rats
and snakes and snapping-turtles help kill off the ducklings, because
until they get big enough to fly they’ve got no way of lighting-out.”
All of which goes to prove that Tommy Todd had inherited some of his
keenness of eye in “watching out” for the doings of wild things.
“There are others that are classed with game-birds that will surely
everywhere be stricken from the list some day, and put with those birds
that we wish to cherish at all seasons, and for whom there should be no
hunting, either fair or foul.
“These birds, even though a couple of them are cousins to the Woodcock,
are so small of body (their long wing in flight giving a deceptive idea
of their size) that their flesh is of no account, save to either the
starving, who are bound by no laws, or the glutton seeking for an
article of food to whet a jaded palate, like the old emperors of Rome
who ate nightingale’s tongues, forsooth! We do not wish to breed or
encourage such barbarians in our America. At the same time, these birds
have great value in their insect-eating capacity.”
“Pop says they always used to shoot Meadowlarks when he was a boy, and
up to not very long ago,” said Tommy, “and Yellowhammers and Pigeons and
Doves and Robins, too, but now nobody dares, except on the sly. Anyway,
the Wild Pigeons grandfather tells of are all gone, and I’ve only seen a
couple of Doves this year.”
“The birds you speak of are now protected by law, here in Connecticut,”
said Gray Lady, “though in some states they are not, but the game-birds
I mean are the little Killdeer Plover, and the Upland and other small
Plovers, together with the Sandpipers, both of fresh and salt water.”
XV
GAME-BIRDS?
_The plea of the Meadowlark, Mourning Dove, Sandpiper, Plovers, and
Bobolink, the Masquerader_
“Spare us, please! We are too small for food.”
“You, children, who live with green fields about you, all know the
Meadowlark by sight and sound, even if you never have had the curiosity
to learn its name. It is the bird seen walking in old fields and
lowlands. In size it is a little larger than a Robin, with a rather flat
head and long, stout bill, its back speckled and streaked with brown and
black, and a beautiful yellow throat and breast crossed by a crescent of
black. When the bird is on the ground, if you came behind it, at a
distance, you might think it a Flicker, but the moment it takes to the
air with a whirring flight, the white feathers at the outside of the
tail show plainly, and name it Meadowlark, just as the white rump names
the Flicker.
“Then, you know its voice, that sometimes drops from a tree, sometimes
rises from the grass, that Mr. Burroughs says calls, ‘Spring o’ the
year—Spring o’ the year.’ The notes are clear as a flute, and,
beautiful as our Meadowlark’s song is, that of his brother, the Prairie
Lark, is still more melodious, and I shall never forget the first spring
morning that I heard it from the border of one of those endless
grain-fields that roll on to meet the sky like a glistening green sea
with its waters stirred by the breeze.
“The Meadowlark is certainly a thing of beauty, but, at the same time,
its greater service to man is its usefulness; not as a bit of meat, no
matter how plump it may grow, but as the untiring guardian of the
fields, where it spends its life and makes its nest home in a grass
tussock. For this bird, of the eastern United States, is with us here in
Southern New England, and southward, all the year, and those flocks that
migrate do not leave until late fall, and are back again by the middle
of March, while the Prairie Lark covers the western part of the country,
as permanent warden of the meadow and hayfields. All the year they keep
at work; from March to December insect food is the chief part of the
diet; insects that are the farmer’s bane,—grasshoppers, cutworms,
sow-bugs, ticks, weevils, plant-lice, and the click-beetle (the grown-up
wire worm) being but a few of them. The remaining months, December,
January, and February, insects failing, waste grain is eaten, and weed
seeds, as pigeon grass, rag and smart weed, and black mustard.
[Illustration: MEADOWLARK]
“Happily for us, this beautiful bird is protected in all the New England
and Middle States, but, if we have friends who live in Florida, North
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee, Missouri and Idaho,
where the Larks are only considered as food, let us beg them to tell
every one of this and the Prairie Lark’s merits, so that they may be
placed on the list of the protected. And when you hear any one say that
the Meadowlark is by rights a game-bird, say as politely as may be, but
very firmly, ‘No; it is _not_! At least, not in staunch, common-sensed
New England!’
_The Mourning Dove_
“Soft of plumage, gentle, and almost sad of voice is the Mourning Dove,
the grayish brown bird with metallic lustres, whose name is taken from
its plaintive accents. Its comings and goings are silent, and, in spite
of its size, for it is as large as the Meadowlark, if it was not for its
cooing, heard early in the morning, we should seldom know of its
presence, for its flight is noiseless, and it chooses trees in secluded
places for the little loose bunch of sticks that forms its nest.
“Formerly, this Dove, together with its cousin, the Passenger Pigeon,
were everywhere to be found, while the Passenger Pigeon, a bird of fine
flesh, was so plentiful as to be almost a staple article of food, and
wagons loaded with birds were peddled through city streets. With the
wastefulness of a people coming to a new and liberal country, the birds
were often shot down in their roosts, from pure wantonness, and left to
decay upon the ground, so that now the Passenger Pigeon and the wild
buffalo have gone to the happy animal-country, where there is no
hunting, together,—two valuable animals practically extinct,—and North
America is the poorer for its thoughtlessness.
“With this warning before us, the Kind Hearts’, of which there are
plenty everywhere, whether they are banded into clubs or not, should
strive to have this gentle, harmless life protected.
“‘Why?’ says the farmer, in the states that refuse protection. ‘Maybe it
doesn’t do any harm, but what good can it do that can make up to me for
not eating it?’ To such a man say this: The Mourning Dove is a consumer
of evil weeds, and its presence in flocks will lessen his labour and
give his hoe arm a rest; that the crop of a dove, examined by the
Department of Agriculture in Washington, was found to hold 9200 seeds of
noxious weeds! _Not to have these weeds grow_ would give the farmer, or
his boy, time for a half holiday, wherein to go clamming or berry
picking!
[Illustration: MOURNING DOVES]
* * * * *
“Now we have some little birds whose names are still on the list of
food- or game-birds, and I should like to see them wiped from it
forever, or, at least, until they are once more plentiful in their
haunts. These are the two cousins of the Woodcock,—Sandpipers, the
Spotted and the Least, and two Plovers, also water-loving birds, the
Killdeer and the Upland Plover.
“Most of you children, at some part of the season, go down to the shore
of the bay yonder, perhaps it may be when your fathers gather seaweed in
the spring and fall, in late summer for the snapper fishing, or all
through the autumn and early winter for long-necked clams. Some of you,
I know, like Tommy and Dave, have camped out there for several weeks.
Have you not noticed the little prints of birds’ feet just above the
edge of tide-water? Or have you not seen the little birds themselves, no
bigger than Sparrows, with streaked, brown-gray backs and soft white
feathers underneath, running to and fro, balancing when they feed, as if
making a courtesy, all the while whispering softly among themselves?
“Or, again, others slightly larger, with ash and brown backs, and
underparts spotted with round, black marks like a thrush, white spotted
wings, and the outer tail-feathers white barred, showing in flight?
“These two gracious, confiding little birds are the Least and the
Spotted Sandpiper. Their small size should keep them off the food list,
for what are their dead bodies but a single mouthful? And what are they
alive? Things of joy and mystery combined. For what is a more perfect
picture of grace and happiness than these birds with a background of
sand, seaweed, and shells, and all the sparkling water before?
“Of a gray day, their pleasant prattle is shut down by the fog, and
sounds strange and mysterious, and when they spread their pointed wings,
and vanish into the mist, that seems to pick them up as it rolls in, the
picture is complete.
“The Least Sandpiper, the smallest of his tribe, is found in greater
numbers on our beach than the Spotted. He comes to us in the migrations,
as he nests only in the far North. I can remember, when as a girl I was
fond of swiming in the bay until late in autumn, that a flock of these
little birds flew over me so close that I could feel the beating of
their wings. His use is to give interest to the landscape, and his plea
for life his harmless littleness, his confidence, and his obedience in
filling the place in nature which the great Plan has given him. Perhaps
you may have heard the poem that he inspired in the heart of one woman,
who lived on a sea-girt island, and, oftentimes, had only the birds for
company; even if you have heard it, the verses are among those of which
we never tire.