Spring in our northern climate may fairly be said to extend from the
middle of March to the middle of June. At least, the vernal tide
continues to rise until the latter date, and it is not till after the
summer solstice that the shoots and twigs begin to harden and turn to
wood, or the grass to lose any of its freshness and succulency.
It is this period that marks the return of the birds,--one or two of
the more hardy or half-domesticated species, like the song sparrow
and the bluebird, usually arriving in March, while the rarer and more
brilliant wood-birds bring up the procession in June. But each stage
of the advancing season gives prominence to the certain species, as to
certain flowers. The dandelion tells me when to look for the swallow,
the dogtooth violet when to expect the wood-thrush, and when I have
found the wake-robin in bloom I know the season is fairly inaugurated.
With me this flower is associated, not merely with the awakening of
Robin, for he has been awake for some weeks, but with the universal
awakening and rehabilitation of nature.
Yet the coming and going of the birds is more or less a mystery and a
surprise. We go out in the morning, and no thrush or vireo is to be
heard; we go out again, and every tree and grove is musical; yet
again, and all is silent. Who saw them come? Who saw them depart?
This pert little winter wren, for instance, darting in and out the
fence, diving under the rubbish here and coming up yards away,--how
does he manage with those little circular wings to compass degrees and
zones, and arrive always in the nick of time? Last August I saw him in
the remotest wilds of the Adirondacks, impatient and inquisitive as
usual; a few weeks later, on the Potomac, I was greeted by the same
hardy little busybody. Does he travel by easy stages from bush to bush
and from wood to wood? or has that compact little body force and
courage to brave the night and the upper air, and so achieve leagues
at one pull?
And yonder bluebird with the earth tinge on his breast and the sky
tinge on his back,--did he come down out of the heaven on that bright
March morning when he told us so softly and plaintively that, if we
pleased, spring had come? Indeed, there is nothing in the return of
the birds more curious and suggestive than in the first appearance, or
rumors of the appearance, of this little blue-coat. The bird at first
seems a mere wandering voice in the air: one hears its call or carol
on some bright March morning, but is uncertain of its source or
direction; it falls like a drop of rain when no cloud is visible; one
looks and listens, but to no purpose. The weather changes, perhaps a
cold snap with snow comes on, and it may be a week before I hear the
not again, and this time or the next perchance see this bird sitting
on a stake in the fence lifting his wing as he calls cheerily to his
mate. Its notes now become daily more frequent; the birds multiply,
and, flitting from point to point, call and warble more confidently
and gleefully. Their boldness increases till one sees them hovering
with a saucy, inquiring air about barns and out-buildings, peeping
into dove-cotes and stable windows, inspecting knotholes and
pump-trees, intent only on a place to nest. They wage war against
robins and wrens, pick quarrels with swallows, and seem to deliberate
for days over the policy of taking forcible possession of one of the
mud-houses of the latter. But as the season advances they drift more
into the background. Schemes of conquest which they at first seemed
bent upon are abandoned, and the settle down very quietly in their old
quarters in remote stumpy fields.
Not long after the bluebird comes the robin, sometimes in March, but
in most of the Northern States April is the month of the robin. In
large numbers they scour the fields and groves. You hear their piping
in the meadow, in the pasture, on the hillside. Walk in the woods, and
the dry leaves rustle with the whir of their wings the air is vocal
with their cheery call. In excess of joy and vivacity, they run, leap,
scream, chase each other through the air, diving and sweeping among
the trees with perilous rapidity.
In that free, fascinating, half-work and half-play
pursuit,--sugar-making,--a pursuit which still lingers in many parts
of New York, as in New England,--the robin is one's constant
companion. When the day is sunny and the ground bare, you meet him at
all points and hear him at all hours. At sunset, on the tops of the
tall maples, with look heavenward, and in a spirit of utter
abandonment, he carols his simple strain. And sitting thus amid the
stark, silent trees, above the wet, cold earth, with the chill of
winter still in the air, there is no fitter or sweeter songster in the
whole round year. It is in keeping with the scene and the occasion.
How round and genuine the notes are, and how eagerly our ears drink
them in! The first utterance, and the spell of winter is thoroughly
broken, and the remembrance of it afar off.
Robin is one of the most native and democratic of our birds; He is
one of the family, and seems much nearer to us than those rare, exotic
visitants, as the orchard starling or rose-breasted grosbeak, with
their distant, high-bred ways. Hardy, noisy, frolicsome, neighborly,
and domestic in his habits, strong of wing and bold in spirit, he is
the pioneer of the thrush family, and well worthy of the finer artists
whose coming he heralds and in a measure prepares us for.
I could wish Robin less native and plebeian in one respect,--the
building of his nest. Its coarse material and rough masonry are
creditable neither to his skill as a workman nor to his taste as an
artist. I am the more forcibly reminded of his deficiency in this
respect from observing yonder hummingbird's nest, which is a marvel of
fitness and adaptation, a proper setting for this winged gem,--the
body of it composed of a white, felt-like substance, probably the down
of some plant or the wool of some worm, and toned down in keeping with
the branch on which it sits by minute tree-lichens, woven together by
threads as fine and grail as gossamer. From Robin's good looks and
musical turn, we might reasonably predict a domicile of him as clean
and handsome a nest as the king-bird's, whose harsh jingle, compared
with Robin's evening melody, is as the clatter of pots and kettles
beside the tone of a flute. I love his note and ways better even than
those of the orchard starling or the Baltimore oriole; yet his nest,
compared with theirs, is a half-subterranean hut contrasted with a
Roman villa. There is something courtly and poetical in a pensile
nest. Next to a castle in the air is a dwelling suspended to the
slender branch of a tall tree, swayed and rocked forever by the wind.
Why need wings be afraid of falling? Why build only where boys can
climb? After all, we must set it down to the account of Robin's
democratic turn: he is no aristocrat, but one of the people; and
therefore we should expect stability in his workmanship, rather than
elegance.
Another April bird, which makes her appearance sometimes earlier and
sometimes later than Robin, and whose memory I fondly cherish, is the
phoebe-bird, the pioneer of the flycatchers. In the inland farming
districts, I used to notice her, on some bright morning about Easter
Day, proclaiming her arrival, with much variety of motion and
attitude, from the peak of the barn or hay-shed. As yet, you may have
heard only the plaintive, homesick note of the bluebird, or the faint
trill of the song sparrow; and Phoebe's clear, vivacious assurance of
her veritable bodily presence among us again is welcomed by all ears.
At agreeable intervals in her lay she describes a circle or an ellipse
in the air, ostensibly prospecting for insects, but really, I suspect,
as an artistic flourish, thrown in to make up in some way for the
deficiency of her musical performance. If plainness of dress indicates
powers of song as it usually does, then Phoebe ought to be unrivaled
in musical ability, for surely that ashen-gray suit is the superlative
of plainness; and that form, likewise, would hardly pass for a
"perfect figure" of a bird. The seasonableness of her coming, however,
and her civil, neighborly ways, shall make up for all deficiencies in
song and plumage. After a few weeks phoebe is seldom seen, except as
she darts from her moss-covered nest beneath some bridge or shelving
cliff.
Another April comer, who arrives shortly after Robin-redbreast, with
whom he associates both at this season and in the autumn, is the
gold-winged woodpecker, alias "high-hole," alias "flicker," alias
"yarup." He is an old favorite of my boyhood, and his note to me means
very much. He announces his arrival by a long, loud call, repeated
from the dry branch of some tree, or a stake in the fence,--a
thoroughly melodious April sound. I think how Solomon finished that
beautiful description of spring, "And the voice of the turtle is heard
in the land," and see that a description of spring in this farming
country, to be equally characteristic, should culminate in like
manner,--"And the call of the high-hole comes up from the wood."
It is a loud, strong, sonorous call, and does not seem to imply an
answer, but rather to subserve some purpose of love or music. It is
"Yarup's" proclamation of peace and good-will to all. On looking at
the matter closely, I perceive that most birds, not denominated
songsters, have, in the spring, some note or sound or call that hints
of a song, and answers imperfectly the end of beauty and art. As a
"livelier iris changes on the burnished dove," and the fancy of the
young man turns lightly to thoughts of his pretty cousin, so the same
renewing spirit touches the "silent singers," and they are no longer
dumb; faintly they lisp the first syllables of the marvelous tale.
Witness the clear sweet whistle of the gray-crested titmouse,--the
soft, nasal piping of the nuthatch,--the amorous, vivacious warble of
the bluebird,--the long, rich note of the meadowlark,--the whistle of
the quail,--the drumming of the partridge,--the animation and
loquacity of the swallows, and the like. Even the hen has a homely,
contented carol; and I credit the owls with a desire to fill the night
with music. Al birds are incipient or would be songsters in the
spring. I find corroborative evidence of this even in the crowing of
the cock. The flowering of the maple is not so obvious as that of the
magnolia; nevertheless, there is actual inflorescence.
Few writers award any song to that familiar little sparrow, the
Socialis; yet who that has observed him sitting by the wayside, and
repeating, with devout attitude, that fine sliding chant, does not
recognize the neglect? Who has heard the snowbird sing? Yet he has a
lisping warble very savory to the ear. I have heard him indulge in it
even in February.
Even the cow bunting feels the musical tendency, and aspires to its
expression, with the rest. Perched upon the topmost branch beside his
mate or mates,--for he is quite a polygamist, and usually has two or
three demure little ladies in faded black beside him,--generally in
the early part of the day, he seems literally to vomit up his notes.
Apparently with much labor and effort, they gurgle and blubber up out
of him, falling on the ear with a peculiar subtile ring, as of turning
water from a glass bottle, and not without a certain pleasing cadence.
Neither is the common woodpecker entirely insensible to the wooing of
the spring, and, like the partridge, testifies his appreciation of
melody after quite a primitive fashion. Passing through the woods on
some clear, still morning in March, while the metallic ring and
tension of winter are still in the earth and air, the silence is
suddenly broken by long, resonant hammering upon a dry limb or stub.
It is Downy beating a reveille to spring. In the utter stillness and
amid the rigid forms we listen with pleasure; and, as it comes to my
ear oftener at this season than at any other, I freely exonerate the
author of it from the imputation of any gastronomic motives, and
credit him with a genuine musical performance.
It is to be expected, therefore, that "yellow-hammer" will respond to
the general tendency, and contribute his part to the spring chorus.
His April call is his finest touch, his most musical expression.
I recall an ancient maple standing sentry to a large sugar-bush, that,
year after year, afforded protection to a brood of yellow-hammers in
its decayed heart. A week or two before nesting seemed actually to
have begun, three or four of these birds might be seen, on almost any
bright morning, gamboling and courting amid its decayed branches.
Sometimes you would hear only a gentle persuasive cooing, or a quiet
confidential chattering,--then that long, loud call, taken up by
first one, then another, as they sat about upon the naked
limbs,--anon, a sort of wild, rollicking laughter, intermingled with
various cries, yelps, and squeals, as if some incident had excited
their mirth and ridicule. Whether this social hilarity and
boisterousness is in celebration of the pairing or mating ceremony, or
whether it is only a sort of annual "house-warming" common among
high-holes on resuming their summer quarters, is a question upon which
I reserve my judgment.
Unlike most of his kinsmen, the golden-wing prefers the fields and the
borders of the forest to the deeper seclusion of the woods, and hence,
contrary to the habit of his tribe, obtains most of his subsistence
from the ground, probing it for ants and crickets. He is not quite
satisfied with being a woodpecker. He courts the society of the robin
and the finches, abandons the trees for the meadow, and feeds eagerly
upon berries and grain. What may be the final upshot of this course of
living is a question worth the attention of Darwin. Will his taking to
the ground and his pedestrian feats result in lengthening his legs,
his feeding upon berries and grains subdue his tints and soften his
voice, and his associating with Robin put a song into his heart?
Indeed, what would be more interesting than the history of our birds
for the last two or three centuries. There can be no doubt that the
presence of man has exerted a very marked and friendly influence upon
them, since they so multiply in his society. The birds of California,
it is said, were mostly silent till after its settlement, and I doubt
if the Indians heard the wood thrush as we hear him. Where did the
bobolink disport himself before there were meadows in the North and
rice fields in the South? Was he the same lithe, merry-hearted beau
then as now? And the sparrow, the lark, and the goldfinch, birds that
seem so indigenous to the open fields and so adverse to the woods,--we
cannot conceive of their existence in a vast wilderness and without
man.
But to return. The song sparrow, that universal favorite and
firstling of the spring, comes before April, and its simple strain
gladdens all hearts.
May is the month of the swallows and the orioles. There are many other
distinguished arrivals, indeed nine tenths of the birds are here by
the last week in May, yet the swallows and the orioles are the most
conspicuous. The bright plumage of the latter seems really like an
arrival from the tropics. I see them dash through the blossoming
trees, and all the forenoon hear their incessant warbling and wooing.
The swallows dive and chatter about the barn, or squeak and build
beneath the eaves; the partridge drums in the fresh sprouting woods;
the long, tender note of the meadowlark comes up from the meadow; and
at sunset, from every marsh and pond come the ten thousand voices of
the hylas. May is the transition month, and exists to connect April
and June, the root with the flower.
With June the cup is full, our hearts are satisfied, there is no more
to be desired. The perfection of the season, among other things, has
brought the perfection of the song and the plumage of the birds. The
master artists are all here; and the expectations excited by the robin
and the song sparrow are fully justified. The thrushes have all come;
and I sit down upon the first rock, with hands full of the pink
azalea, to listen. With me the cuckoo does not arrive till June; and
often the goldfinch, the kingbird, the scarlet tanager delay their
coming till then. In the meadows the bobolink is in all his glory; in
the high pastures the field sparrow sings his breezy vesper-hymn; and
the woods are unfolding to the music of the thrushes.
The cuckoo is one of the most solitary birds of our forests, and is
strangely tame and quiet, appearing equally untouched by joy or grief,
fear or anger. Something remote seems ever weighing upon his mind. His
note or call is as of one lost or wandering, and to the farmer is
prophetic of rain. Amid the general joy and the sweet assurance of
things, I love to listen to the strange clairvoyant call. Heard a
quarter of a mile away, from out the depths of the forest, there is
something peculiarly weird and monkish about it. Wordsworth's lines
upon the European species apply equally well to ours:--"O blithe
new-comer! I have heard, I hear thee and rejoice: O cuckoo! shall I
call thee bird? Or but a wandering voice?
"While I am lying on the grass,
Thy loud note smites my ear!
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off and near!
"Thrice welcome, darling of the spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery."
The black-billed is the only species found in my locality, the
yellow-billed abounds farther south. Their note or call is nearly the
same. The former sometimes suggests the voice of a turkey. The call of
the latter may be suggested thus: k-k-k-k-k-kow, kow, kow-ow, kow-ow.
The yellow-billed will take up his stand in a tree, and explore its
branches till he has caught every worm. He sits on a twig, and with a
peculiar swaying movement of his head examines the surrounding
foliage. When he discovers his prey, he leaps upon it in a fluttering
manner.
In June the black-billed makes a tour through the orchard and garden,
regaling himself upon the canker-worms. At this time he is one of the
tamest of birds, and will allow you to approach within a few yards of
him. I have even come within a few feet of one without seeming to
excite his fear or suspicion. He is quite unsophisticated, or else
royally indifferent.
The plumage of the cuckoo is a rich glossy brown, and is unrivaled in
beauty by any other neutral tint with which I am acquainted. It is
also remarkable for its firmness and fineness.
Notwithstanding the disparity in size and color, the black-billed
species has certain peculiarities that remind one of the passenger
pigeon. His eye, with its red circle, the shape of his head, and his
motions on alighting and taking flight, quickly suggest the
resemblance; though in grace and speed, when on the wing, he is far
inferior. His tail seems disproportionately long, like that of the red
thrush, and his flight among the trees is very still, contrasting
strongly with the honest clatter of the robin or pigeon.
Have you heard the song of the field sparrow? If you have lived in a
pastoral country with broad upland pastures, you could hardly have
missed him. Wilson, I believe, calls him the grass finch, and was
evidently unacquainted with his powers of song. The two white lateral
quills in his tail, and his habit of running and skulking a few yards
in advance of you as you walk through the fields, are sufficient to
identify him. Not in meadows or orchards, but in high, breezy
pasture-grounds, will you look for him. His song is most noticeable
after sundown, when other birds are silent; for which reason he has
been aptly called the vesper sparrow. The farmer following his team
from the field at dusk catches his sweetest strain. His song is not so
brisk and varied as that of the song sparrow, being softer and wilder,
sweeter and more plaintive. Add the best parts of the lay of the
latter to the sweet vibrating chant of the wood sparrow, and you have
the evening hymn of the vesper-bird,--the poet of the plain,
unadorned pastures. Go to those broad, smooth, uplying fields where
the cattle and sheep are grazing, and sit down in the twilight on one
of those warm, clean stones, and listen to this song. On every side,
near and remote, from out the short grass which the herds are
cropping, the strain rises. Two or three long, silver notes of peace
and rest, ending in some subdued trills and quavers, constitute each
separate song. Often, you will catch only one or two of the bars, the
breeze having blown the minor part away. Such unambitious, quiet,
unconscious melody! It is one of the most characteristic sounds in
nature. The grass, the stones, the stubble, the furrow, the quiet
herds, and the warm twilight among the hills, are all subtly expressed
in this song; this is what they are at last capable of.
The female builds a plain nest in the open field, without so much as a
bush or thistle or tuft of grass to protect it or mark its site; you
may step upon it, or the cattle may tread it into the ground. But the
danger from this source, I presume, the bird considers less than that
from another. Skunks and foxes have a very impertinent curiosity, as
Finchie well knows; and a bank or hedge, or a rank growth of grass or
thistles, that might promise protection and cover to mouse or bird,
these cunning rogues would be apt to explore most thoroughly. The
partridge is undoubtedly acquainted with the same process of
reasoning; for, like the vesper-bird, she, too, nests in open,
unprotected places, avoiding all show of concealment,--coming from the
tangled and almost impenetrable parts of the forest to the clean, open
woods, where she can command all the approaches and fly with equal
ease in any direction.
Another favorite sparrow, but little noticed, is the wood or bush
sparrow, usually called by the ornithologists Spizella pusilla. Its
size and form is that of the socialis, but is less distinctly marked,
being of a duller redder tinge. He prefers remote bushy heathery
fields, where his song is one of the sweetest to be heard. It is
sometimes very noticeable, especially early in spring. I remember
sitting one bright day in the still leafless April woods, when one of
these birds struck up a few rods from me, repeating its lay at short
intervals for nearly an hour. It was a perfect piece of wood-music,
and was of course all the more noticeable for being projected upon
such a broad unoccupied page of silence. Its song is like the words,
fe-o, fe-o, fe-o, few, few, few, fee fee fee, uttered at first high
and leisurely, but running very rapidly toward the close, which is low
and soft.
Still keeping among the unrecognized, the white-eyed vireo, or
flycatcher, deserves particular mention. The song of this bird is not
particularly sweet and soft; on the contrary, it is a little hard and
shrill, like that of the indigo-bird or oriole; but for brightness,
volubility, execution, and power of imitation, he is unsurpassed by
any of our northern birds. His ordinary note is forcible and emphatic,
but, as stated, not especially musical; Chick-a-re'r-chick, he seems
to say, hiding himself in the low, dense undergrowth, and eluding your
most vigilant search, as if playing some part in a game. But in July
of August, if you are on good terms with the sylvan deities, you may
listen to a far more rare and artistic performance. Your first
impression will be that that cluster of azalea, or that clump of
swamp-huckleberry, conceals three of four different songsters, each
vying with the the others to lead the chorus. Such a medley of notes,
snatched from half the songsters of the field and forest, and uttered
with the utmost clearness and rapidity, I am sure you cannot hear
short of the haunts of the genuine mockingbird. If not fully and
accurately repeated, there are at least suggested the notes of the
robin, wren, catbird, high-hole, goldfinch, and song sparrow. The pip,
pip, of the last is produced so accurately that I verily believe it
would deceive the bird herself; and the whole uttered in such rapid
succession that it seems as if the movement that gives the concluding
note of one strain must form the first note of the next. The effect is
very rich, and, to my ear, entirely unique. The performer is very
careful not to reveal himself in the mean time; yet there is a
conscious air about the strain that impresses me with the idea that my
presence is understood and my attention courted. A tone of pride and
glee, and, occasionally, of bantering jocoseness, is discernible. I
believe it is only rarely, and when he is sure of his audience, that
he displays his parts in this manner. You are to look for him, not in
tall trees or deep forests, but in low, dense shrubbery about wet
places, where there are plenty of gnats and mosquitoes.
The winter wren is another marvelous songster, in speaking of whom it
is difficult to avoid superlatives. He is not so conscious of is
powers and so ambitious of effect as the white-eyed flycatcher, yet
you will not be less astonished and delighted on hearing him. He
possesses the fluency and copiousness for which the wrens are noted,
and besides these qualities, and what is rarely found conjoined with
them, a wild, sweet, rhythmical cadence that holds you entranced. I
shall not soon forget that perfect June day, when, loitering in a low,
ancient hemlock wood, in whose cathedral aisles the coolness and
freshness seems perennial, the silence was suddenly broken by a strain
so rapid and gushing, and touched with such a wild, sylvan
plaintiveness, that I listened in amazement. And so shy and coy was
the little minstrel, that I came twice to the woods before I was sure
to whom I was listening. In summer he is one of those birds of the
deep northern forests, that, like the speckled Canada warbler and the
hermit thrush, only the privileged ones hear.
The distribution of plants in a given locality is not more marked and
defined than that of the birds. Show a botanist a landscape, and he
will tell you where to look for the lady's-slipper, the columbine, or
the harebell. On the same principles the ornithologist will direct you
where to look for the greenlets, the wood sparrow, or the chewink. In
adjoining counties, in the same latitude, and equally inland, but
possessing a different geological formation and different
forest-timber, you will observe quite a different class of birds. In a
land of the beech and sugar maple I do not find the same songsters
that I know where thrive the oak, chestnut, and laurel. In going from
a district of the Old Red Sandstone to where I walk upon the old
Plutonic Rock, not fifty miles distant, I miss in the woods, the
veery, the hermit thrush, the chestnut-sided warbler, the blue-backed
warbler, the green-backed warbler, the black and yellow warbler, and
many others, and find in their stead the wood thrush, the chewink, the
redstart, the yellow-throat, the yellow-breasted flycatcher, the
white-eyed flycatcher, the quail, and the turtle dove.
In my neighborhood here in the Highlands the distribution is very
marked. South of the village I invariably find one species of birds,
north of it another. In only one locality, full of azalea and
swamp-huckleberry, I am always sure of finding the hooded warbler. In
a dense undergrowth of spice-bush, witch-hazel, and alder, I meet the
worm-eating warbler. In a remote clearing, covered with heath and
fern, with here and there a chestnut and an oak, I go to hear in July
the wood sparrow, and returning by a stumpy, shallow pond, I am sure
to find the water-thrush.
Only one locality within my range seems to possess attractions for all
comers. Here one may study almost the entire ornithology of the State.
It is a rocky piece of ground, long ago cleared, but now fast
relapsing into the wildness and freedom of nature, and marked by those
half-cultivated, half-wild features which birds and boys love. It is
bounded on two sides by the village and highway, crossed at various
points by carriage-roads, and threaded in all directions by paths and
byways, along which soldiers, laborers, and truant school-boys are
passing at all hours of the day. It is so far escaping from the axe
and the bush-hook as to have opened communication with the forest and
mountain beyond by straggling lines of cedar, laurel, and blackberry.
The ground is mainly occupied with cedar and chestnut, with an
undergrowth, in many place, of heath and bramble. The chief feature,
however, is a dense growth in the centre, consisting of dogwood,
water-beech, swamp-ash, alder, spice-bush, hazel, etc., with a network
of smilax and frost-grape. A little zigzag stream, the draining of a
swam beyond, which passes through this tanglewood, accounts for many
of its features and productions, if not for its entire existence.
Birds that are not attracted by the heath, or the cedar and chestnut,
are sure to find some excuse for visiting this miscellaneous growth in
the centre. Most of the common birds literally throng in this
idle-wild; and I have met here many of the rarer species, such as the
great-crested flycatcher, the solitary warbler, the blue-winged swamp
warbler, the worm-eating warbler, the fox sparrow, etc. The absence of
all birds of prey, and the great number of flies and insects, both the
result of the proximity to the village, are considerations which ho
hawk-fearing, peace-loving minstrel passes over lightly; hence the
popularity of the resort.
But the crowning glory of all these robins, flycatchers, and warblers
is the wood thrush. More abundant than all other birds, except the
robin and catbird, he greets you from every rock and shrub. Shy and
reserved when he first makes his appearance in May, before the end of
June he is tame and familiar, and sings on the tree over your head, or
on the rock a few paces in advance. A pair even built their nest and
reared their brood within ten or twelve feet of the piazza of a large
summer-house in the vicinity. But when the guests commenced to arrive
and the piazza to be thronged with gay crowds, I noticed something
like dread and foreboding in the manner of the mother bird; and from
her still, quiet ways, and habit of sitting long and silently within a
few feet of the precious charge, it seemed as if the dear creature had
resolved, if possible, to avoid all observation.
If we take the quality of melody as the test, the wood thrush, hermit
thrush, and the veery thrush stand at the head of our list of
songsters.
The mockingbird undoubtedly possesses the greatest range of mere
talent, the most varied executive ability, and never fails to surprise
and delight one anew at each hearing; but being mostly an imitator, he
never approaches the serene beauty and sublimity of the hermit thrush.
The word that best expresses my feelings, on hearing the mockingbird,
is admiration, though the first emotion is one of surprise and
incredulity. That so many and such various notes should proceed from
one throat is a marvel, and we regard the performance with feelings
akin to those we experience on witnessing the astounding feats of the
athlete or gymnast,--and this, notwithstanding many of the notes
imitated have all the freshness and sweetness of the originals. The
emotions excited by the songs of these thrushes belong to a higher
order, springing as they do from our deepest sense of the beauty and
harmony of the world.
The wood thrush is worthy of all, and more than all, the praises he
has received; and considering the number of his appreciative
listeners, it is not a little surprising that his relative and equal,
the hermit thrush, should have received so little notice. Both the
great ornithologists, Wilson and Audubon, are lavish in their praises
of the former, but have little or nothing to say of the song of the
latter. Audubon says it is sometimes agreeable, but evidently has
never heard it. Nuttall, I am glad to find, is more discriminating,
and does the bird fuller justice.
It is quite a rare bird, of very shy and secluded habits, being found
in the Middle and Eastern States, during the period of song, only in
the deepest and most remote forests, usually in damp and swampy
localities. On this account the people in the Adirondack region call
it the "Swamp Angel." Its being so much of a recluse accounts for the
comparative ignorance that prevails in regard to it.
The cast of its song is very much like that of the wood thrush, and a
good observer might easily confound the two. But hear them together
and the difference is quite marked: the song of the hermit is in a
higher key, and is more wild and ethereal. His instrument is a silver
horn which he winds in the most solitary places. The song of the wood
thrush is more golden and leisurely. Its tone comes near to that of
some rare stringed instrument. One feels that perhaps the wood thrush
has more compass and power, if he would only let himself out, but on
the whole he comes a little short of the pure, serene, hymn-like
strain of the hermit.
Yet those who have heard only the wood thrush may well place him first
on the list. He is truly a royal minstrel, and, considering his
liberal distribution throughout our Atlantic seaboard, perhaps
contributes more than any other bird to our sylvan melody. One may
object that he spends a little too much time in tuning his instrument,
yet his careless and uncertain touches reveal its rare compass and
power.
He is the only songster of my acquaintance excepting the canary, that
displays different degrees of proficiency in the exercise of his
musical gifts. Not long since, while walking one Sunday in the edge of
an orchard adjoining a wood, I heard one that so obviously and
unmistakably surpassed all his rivals, that my companion, although
slow to notice such things, remarked it wonderingly; and with one
accord we paused to listen to so rare a performer. It was not
different in quality so much as in quantity. Such a flood of it! Such
copiousness! Such long, trilling, accelerating preludes! Such sudden,
ecstatic overtures would have intoxicated the dullest ear. He was
really without a compeer,--a master artist. Twice afterward I was
conscious of having heard the same bird.
The wood thrush is the handsomest species of this family. In grace
and elegance of manner he has no equal. Such a gentle, high-bred air,
and such inimitable ease and composure in his flight and movement! He
is a poet in very word and deed. His carriage is music to the eye. His
performance of the commonest act, as catching a beetle, or picking a
worm from the mud, pleases like a stroke of wit or eloquence. Was he a
prince in the olden time, and do the regal grace and mien still adhere
to him in his transformation? What a finely proportioned form! How
plain, yet rich, his color,--the bright russet of his back, the clear
white of his breast, with the distinct heart-shaped spots! It may be
objected to Robin that he is noisy and demonstrative; he hurries away
or rises to a branch with an angry note, and flirts his wings in
ill-bred suspicion. The mavis, or red thrush, sneaks and skulks like a
culprit, hiding in the densest alders; the catbird is a coquette and a
flirt, as well as a sort of female Paul Pry; and the chewink shows his
inhospitality by espying your movements like a Japanese. The wood
thrush has none of theses underbred traits. He regards me
unsuspiciously, or avoids me with a noble reserve,--or, if I am quiet
and incurious, graciously hops toward me, as if to pay his respects,
or to make my acquaintance. I have passed under his nest within a few
feet of his mate and brood, when he sat near by on a branch eying me
sharply, but without opening his beak; but the moment I raised my hand
toward his defenseless household, his anger and indignation were
beautiful to behold.
What a noble pride he has! Late one October, after his mates and
companions had long since gone south, I noticed one for several
successive days in the dense part of this next-door wood, flitting
noiselessly about, very grave and silent, as if doing penance for some
violation of the code of honor. By many gentle, indirect approaches, I
perceived that part of his tail-feathers were undeveloped. The sylvan
prince could not think of returning to court in this plight, and so,
amid the falling leaves and cold rains of autumn, was patiently biding
his time.
The soft, mellow flute of the veery fills a place in the chorus of the
woods that the song of the vesper sparrow fills in the chorus of the
fields. It has the nightingale's habit of singing in the twilight, as
indeed have all our thrushes. Walk out toward the forest in the warm
twilight of a June day, and when fifty rods distant you will hear
their soft, reverberating notes rising from a dozen different throats.
It is one of the simplest strains to be heard,--as simple as the curve
in form, delighting from the pure element of harmony and beauty it
contains, and not from any novel or fantastic modulation of it,--thus
contrasting strongly with such rollicking, hilarious songsters as the
bobolink, in whom we are chiefly pleased with tintinnabulation, the
verbal and labial excellence, and the evident conceit and delight of
the performer.
I hardly know whether I am more pleased or annoyed with the catbird.
Perhaps she is a little too common, and her part in the general chorus
a little too conspicuous. If you are listening for the note of another
bird, she is sure to be prompted to the most loud and protracted
singing, drowning all other sounds; If you sit quietly down to observe
a favorite or study a new-comer, her curiosity knows no bounds, and
you are scanned and ridiculed from every point of observation. Yet I
would not miss her; I would only subordinate her a little, make her
less conspicuous.
She is the parodist of the woods, and there is ever a mischievous,
bantering, half-ironical undertone in her lay, as if she were
conscious of mimicking and disconcerting some envied songster.
Ambitious of song, practicing and rehearsing in private, she yet seems
the least sincere and genuine of the sylvan minstrels, as if she had
taken up music only to be in the fashion, or not to be outdone by the
robins and thrushes. In other words, she seems to sing from some
outward motive, and not from inward joyousness. She is a good
versifier, but not a great poet. Vigorous, rapid, copious, not without
fine touches, but destitute of any high, serene melody, her
performance, like that of Thoreau's squirrel, always implies a
spectator.
There is a certain air and polish about her strain, however, like that
in the vivacious conversation of a well-bred lady of the world, that
commands respect. Her maternal instinct, also, is very strong, and
that simple structure of dead twigs and dry grass is the center of
much anxious solicitude. Not long since, while strolling through the
woods, my attention was attracted to a small densely grown swamp,
hedged in with eglantine, brambles, and the everlasting smilax, from
which proceeded loud cries of distress and alarm, indicating that some
terrible calamity was threatening my sombre-colored minstrel. On
effecting an entrance, which, however, was not accomplished till I had
doffed coat and hat, so as to diminish the surface exposed to the
thorns and brambles, and, looking around me from a square yard of
terra firma, I found myself the spectator of a loathsome yet
fascinating scene. Three or four yards from me was the nest, beneath
which, in long festoons, rested a huge black snake; a bird two thirds
grown was slowly disappearing between his expanded jaws. As he seemed
unconscious of my presence, I quietly observed the proceedings. By
slow degrees he compassed the bird about with his elastic mouth; his
head flattened, his neck writhed and swelled, and two or three
undulatory movements of his glistening body finished the work. Then he
cautiously raised himself up, his tongue flaming from his mouth the
while, curved over the nest, and with wavy subtle motions, explored
the interior. I can conceive of nothing more overpoweringly terrible
to an unsuspecting family of birds than the sudden appearance above
their domicile of the head and neck of this arch-enemy. It is enough
to petrify the blood in their veins. Not finding the object of his
search, he came streaming down from the nest to a lower limb, and
commenced extending his researches in other directions, sliding
stealthily through the branches, bent on capturing on of the parent
birds. That a legless, wingless creature should move with such ease
and rapidity where only birds and squirrels are considered at home,
lifting himself up, letting himself down, running out on the yielding
boughs, and traversing with marvelous celerity the whole length and
breadth of the thicket, was truly surprising. One thinks of the great
myth of the Tempter and the "cause of all our woe," and wonders if the
Arch One is not now playing off some of his pranks before him. Whether
we call it snake or devil matters little. I could but admire his
terrible beauty, however; his black, shining folds, his easy, gliding
movement, head erect, eyes glistening, tongue playing like subtle
flame, and the invisible means of his almost winged locomotion.
The parent birds, in the mean while, kept up the most agonizing
cry,--at times fluttering furiously about their pursuer, and actually
laying hold of his tail with their beaks and claws. On being thus
attacked, the snake would suddenly double upon himself and follow his
won body back, thus executing a strategic movement that at first
seemed almost to paralyze his victim and place her within his grasp.
Not quite, however. Before his jaws could close upon the coveted prize
the bird would tear herself away, and, apparently faint and sobbing,
retire to a higher branch. His reputed powers of fascination availed
him little, though it is possible that a frailer and less combative
bird might have been held by the fatal spell. Presently, as he came
gliding down the slender body of a leaning alder, his attention was
attracted by a slight movement of my arm; eyeing me an instant, with
that crouching, utter motionless gaze which I believe only snakes and
devils can assume, he turned quickly,--a feat which necessitated
something like crawling over his own body,--and glided off through the
branches, evidently recognizing in me a representative of the ancient
parties he once so cunningly ruined. A few moments after, as he lay
carelessly disposed in the top of a rank alder, trying to look as much
like a crowded branch as his supple, shining form would admit, the old
vengeance overtook him. I exercised my prerogative, and a
well-directed missile, in the shape of a stone, brought him looping
and writhing to the ground. After I had completed his downfall and
quiet had been partially restored, a half-fledged member of the
bereaved household came out from his hiding-place, and, jumping upon a
decayed branch, chirped vigorously, no doubt in celebration of the
victory.
Till the middle of July there is a general equilibrium; the tide
stands poised; the holiday spirit is unabated. But as the harvest
ripens beneath the long, hot days, the melody gradually ceases. The
young are out of the nest and must be cared for, and the moulting
season is at hand. After the cricket has commenced to drone his
monotonous refrain beneath your window, you will not, till another
season, hear the wood thrush in all his matchless eloquence. The
bobolink has become careworn and fretful, and blurts out snatches of
his song between his scolding and upbraiding, as you approach the
vicinity of his nest, oscillating between anxiety for his brood and
solicitude for his musical reputation. Some of the sparrows still
sing, and occasionally across the hot fields, from a tall tree in the
edge of the forest, comes the rich note of the scarlet tanager. This
tropical-colored bird loves the hottest weather, and I hear him even
in dog-days.
The remainder of the summer is the carnival of the swallows and
flycatchers. Flies and insects, to any amount, are to be had for the
catching; and the opportunity is well improved. See that sombre,
ashen-colored pewee on yonder branch. A true sportsman he, who never
takes his game at rest, but always on the wing. You vagrant fly, you
purblind moth, beware how you come within his range! Observe his
attitude, the curious movement of his head, his "eye in a fine frenzy
rolling, glancing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven."
His sight is microscopic and his aim sure. Quick as thought he has
seized his victim and is back to his perch. There is no strife, no
pursuit,--one fell swoop and the matter is ended. That little sparrow,
as you will observe, is less skilled. It is the Socialis, and he finds
his subsistence properly in various seeds and the larvae of insects,
though he occasionally has higher aspirations, and seeks to emulate
the peewee, commencing and ending his career as a flycatcher by an
awkward chase after a beetle or "miller." He is hunting around in the
dull grass now, I suspect, with the desire to indulge this favorite
whim. There!--the opportunity is afforded him. Away goes a little
cream-colored meadow-moth in the most tortuous course he is capable
of, and away goes Socialis in pursuit. The contest is quite comical,
though I dare say it is serious enough to the moth. The chase
continues for a few yards, when there is a sudden rushing to cover in
the grass,--then a taking to wing again, when the search has become to
close, and the moth has recovered his wind. Socialis chirps angrily,
and is determined not to be beaten. Keeping, with the slightest
effort, upon the heels of the fugitive, he is ever on the point of
halting to snap him up, but never quite does it,--and so, between
disappointment and expectation, is soon disgusted and returns to
pursue his more legitimate means of subsistence.
In striking contrast to this serio-comic strife of the sparrow and the
moth, is he pigeon hawk's pursuit of the sparrow or the goldfinch. It
is a race of surprising speed and agility. It is a test of wing and
wind. Every muscle is taxed, and every nerve strained. Such cries of
terror and consternation on the part of the bird, tacking to the right
and left, and making the most desperate efforts to escape, and such
silent determination on the part of the hawk, pressing the bird so
closely, flashing and turning, and timing his movements with those of
the pursued as accurately and as inexorably as if the two constituted
one body, excite feelings of the deepest concern. You mount the fence
or rush out of your way to see the issue. The only salvation for the
bird is to adopt the tactics of the moth, seeking instantly the cover
of some tree, bush or hedge, where its smaller size enables it to move
about more rapidly. These pirates are aware of this, and therefore
prefer to take their prey by one fell swoop. You may see one of them
prowling through an orchard, with the yellowbirds hovering about him,
crying, Pi-ty, pi-ty, in the most desponding tone; yet he seems not to
regard them, knowing, as do they, that in the close branches they are
as safe as if in a wall of adamant.
August is the month of the high-sailing hawks. The hen-hawk is the
most noticeable. He likes the haze and calm of these long, warm days.
He is a bird of leisure, and seems always at his ease. How beautiful
and majestic are his movements! So self-poised and easy, such an
entire absence of haste, such a magnificent amplitude of circles and
spirals, such a haughty, imperial grace, and, occasionally, such
daring aerial evolutions!
With slow, leisurely movement, rarely vibrating his pinions, he mounts
and mounts in an ascending spiral till he appears a mere speck against
the summer sky; then, if the mood seizes him, with wings half closed,
like a bent bow, he will cleave the air almost perpendicularly, as if
intent on dashing himself to pieces against the earth; but on nearing
the ground he suddenly mounts again on broad, expanded wing, as if
rebounding upon the air, and sails leisurely away. It is the sublimest
feat of the season. One holds his breath till he sees him rise again.
If inclined to a more gradual and less precipitous descent, he fixes
his eye on some distant point in the earth beneath him, and thither
bends his course. He is still almost meteoric in his speed and
boldness. You see his path down the heavens, straight as a line; if
near, you hear the rush of his wings; his shadow hurtles across the
fields, and in an instant you see him quietly perched upon some low
tree or decayed stub in a swamp or meadow, with reminiscences of frogs
and mice stirring in his maw.
When the south wind blows, it is a study to see three or four of these
air-kings at the head of the valley far up toward the mountain,
balancing and oscillating upon the strong current; now quite
stationary, except a slight tremulous motion like the poise of a
rope-dancer, then rising and falling in long undulations, and seeming
to resign themselves passively to the wind; or, again sailing high and
level far above the mountain's peak, no bluster and haste, but as
stated, occasionally a terrible earnestness and speed. Fire at one as
he sails overhead and, unless wounded badly, he will not change his
course or gait.
His flight is a perfect picture of repose in motion. It strikes the
eye as more surprising than the flight of a pigeon, and swallow even,
in that the effort put forth is so uniform and delicate as to escape
observation, giving to the movement an air of buoyancy and perpetuity,
the effluence of power rather than the conscious application of it.
The calmness and dignity of this hawk, when attacked by crows or the
kingbird, are well worth of him. He seldom deigns to notice his noisy
and furious antagonists, but deliberately wheels about in that aerial
spiral, and mounts and mounts till his pursuers grow dizzy and return
to earth again. It is quite original, this mode of getting rid of an
unworthy opponent, rising to the heights where the braggart is dazed
and bewildered and loses his reckoning! I am not sure but is is worthy
of imitation.
But summer wanes, and autumn approaches. The songsters of the
seed-time are silent at the reaping of the harvest. Other minstrels
take up the strain. It is the heyday of insect life. The day is
canopied with musical sound. All the songs of the spring and summer
appear to be floating, softened and refined, in the upper air. The
birds, in a new but less holiday suit, turn their faces southward. The
swallows flock and go; the bobolinks flock and go; silently and
unobserved, the thrushes go. Autumn arrives, bringing finches,
warblers, sparrows, and kinglets from the north. Silently the
procession passes. Yonder hawk, sailing peacefully away till he is
lost in the horizon, is a symbol of the closing season and the
departing birds. 1863.