Most people receive with incredulity a statement of the number of
birds that annually visit our climate. Very few even are aware of half
the number that spend the summer in their own immediate vicinity. We
little suspect, when we walk in the woods, whose privacy we are
intruding upon,--what rare and elegant visitants from Mexico, from
central and South America, and from the islands of the sea, are
holding their reunions in the branches over our heads, or pursuing
their pleasure on the ground before us.
I recall the altogether admirable and shining family which Thoreau
dreamed he saw in the upper chambers of Spaulding's woods, which
Spaulding did not know lived there, and which were not put out when
Spaulding, whistling, drove his team through their lower halls. They
did not go into society in the village; they were quite well; they had
sons and daughters; they neither wove nor spun; there was a sound as
of suppressed hilarity.
I take it for granted that the forester was only saying a pretty thing
of the birds, though I have observed that it does sometimes annoy them
when Spaulding's cart rumbles through their house. Generally, however,
they are as unconscious of Spaulding as Spaulding is of them.
Walking the other day in an old hemlock wood, I counted over forty
varieties of these summer visitants, many of the common to other woods
in the vicinity, but quite a number peculiar to these ancient
solitudes, and not a few that are rare in any locality. It is quite
unusual to find so large a number abiding in one forest,--and that not
a large one,--most of them nesting and spending the summer there. Many
of those I observed commonly pass this season much farther north. But
the geographical distribution of birds is rather a climatical one. The
same temperature, though under different parallels, usually attracts
the same birds; difference in altitude being equivalent to the
difference in latitude. A given height above sea-level under the
parallel of thirty degrees may have the same climate as places under
that of thirty-five degrees, and similar flora and fauna. At the
head-waters of the Delaware, where I write, the latitude is that of
Boston, but the region has a much greater elevation, and hence a climate
that compares better with the northern part of the State and of New
England. Half a day's drive to the southeast brings me down into quite
a different temperature, with an older geological formation, different
forest timber, and different birds,--even with different mammals.
Neither the little gray rabbit nor the little gray fox is found in my
locality, but the great northern hare and the red fox are. In the last
century, a colony of beavers dwelt here, though the oldest inhabitant
cannot now point to even the traditional site of their dams. The
ancient hemlocks, whither I propose to take the reader, are rich in
many things besides birds. Indeed, their wealth in this respect is
owing mainly, no doubt, to their rank vegetable growth, their fruitful
swamps, and their dark, sheltered retreats.
Their history is of an heroic cast. Ravished and torn by the tanner
in his thirst for bark, preyed upon by the lumberman, assaulted and
beaten back by the settler, still their spirit has never been broken,
their energies never paralyzed. Not many years ago a public highway
passed through them, but it was at no time a tolerable road; trees
fell across it, mud and limbs choked it up, till finally travelers
took the hint and went around; and now, walking along its deserted
course, I see only the footprints of coons, foxes, and squirrels.
Nature loves such woods, and places her own seal upon them. Here she
show me what can be done with ferns and mosses and lichens. The soil
is marrowy and full of innumerable forests. Standing in these fragrant
aisles, I feel the strength of the vegetable kingdom, and am awed by
the deep and inscrutable processes of life going on so silently about
me.
No hostile forms with axe or spud now visit these solitudes. The cows
have half-hidden ways through them, and know where the best browsing
is to be had. In spring, the farmer repairs to their bordering of
maples to make sugar; in July and August women and boys from all the
country about penetrate the old Barkpeelings for raspberries and
blackberries; and I know a youth who wonderingly follows their languid
stream casting for trout.
In like spirit, alert and buoyant, on this bright June morning go I
also to reap my harvest,--pursuing a sweet more delectable than sugar,
fruit more savory than berries, and game for another palate than that
tickled by trout.
June, of all the months, the student of ornithology can least afford
to lose. Most birds are nesting then, and in full song and plumage.
And what is a bird without its song? Do we not wait for the stranger
to speak? It seems to me that I do not know a bird till I have heard
its voice; then I come nearer it at once, and it possesses a human
interest to me. I have met the gray-cheeked thrush in the woods, and
held him in my hand; still I do not know him. The silence of the
cedar-bird throws a mystery about him which neither his good looks nor
his petty larcenies in cheery time can dispel. A bird's song contains
a clew to its life, and establishes a sympathy, an understanding,
between itself and the listener.
I descend a steep hill, and approach the hemlocks through a large
sugar-bush. When twenty rods distant, I hear all along the line of the
forest the incessant warble of the red-eyed vireo, cheerful and happy
as the merry whistle of a schoolboy. He is one of our most common and
widely distributed birds. Approach any forest at any hour of the day,
in any kind of weather, from May to August, in any of the Middle or
Eastern districts, and the chances are that the first note you hear
will be his. Rain or shine, before noon or after, in the deep forest
or in the village grove,--when it is too hot for the thrushes or too
cold and windy for the warblers,--it is never out of time or place
for this little minstrel to indulge his cheerful strain. In the deep
wilds of the Adirondacks, where few birds are seen and fewer heard,
his note was almost constantly in my ear. Always busy, making it a
point never to suspend for one moment his occupation to indulge his
musical taste, his lay is that of industry and contentment. There is
nothing plaintive or especially musical in his performance, but the
sentiment expressed is eminently that of cheerfulness. Indeed, the
songs of most birds have some human significance, which, I think, is
the source of the delight we take in them. The song of the bobolink to
me expresses hilarity; the song sparrow's, faith; the bluebird's,
love; the catbird's, pride; the white-eyed flycatcher's,
self-consciousness; that of the hermit thrush spiritual serenity:
while there is something military in the call of the robin.
The red-eye is classed among the flycatchers by some writers, but is
much more of a worm-eater, and has few of the traits or habits of the
Muscicapa or the true Sylvia. He resembles somewhat the warbling
vireo, and the two birds are often confounded by careless observers.
Both warble in the same cheerful strain, but the latter more
continuously and rapidly. The red-eye is a larger, slimmer bird, with
a faint bluish crown, and a light line over the eye. His movements are
peculiar. You may see him hopping among the limbs, exploring then
under side of the leaves, peering to the right and left, now flitting
a few feet, now hopping as many, and warbling incessantly,
occasionally in a subdued tone, which sounds from a very indefinite
distance. When he has found a worm to his liking, he turns lengthwise
of the limb and and bruises its head with his beak before devouring
it.
As I enter the woods the slate-colored snowbird starts up before me
and chirps sharply. His protest when thus disturbed is almost metallic
in its sharpness. He breeds here, and is not esteemed a snowbird at
all, as he disappears at the near approach of winter, and returns
again in spring, like the song sparrow, and is not in any way
associated with the cold and snow. So different are the habits of
birds in different localities. Even the crow does not winter here, and
is seldom seen after December or before March.
The snowbird, or "black chipping-bird," as it is known among the
farmers, is the finest architect of any of the ground-builders known
to me. The site of its nest is usually some low bank by the roadside,
near a wood. In a slight excavation, with a partially concealed
entrance, the exquisite structure is placed. Horse and cow hair are
plentifully used, imparting to the interior of the nest great symmetry
and firmness as well as softness.
Passing down through the maple arches, barely pausing to observe the
antics of a trio of squirrels,--two gray ones and a black one,--I
cross an ancient brush fence and am fairly within the old hemlocks,
and in one of the most primitive, undisturbed nooks. In the deep moss
I tread as with muffled feet, and the pupils of my eyes dilate in the
dim, almost religious light. The irreverent red squirrels, however,
run and snicker at my approach, or mock the solitude with their
ridiculous chattering and frisking.
This nook is the chosen haunt of the winter wren. This is the only
place and these the only woods in which I find him in this vicinity.
His voice fills these dim aisles, as if aided by some marvelous
sounding-board. Indeed, his song is very strong for so small a bird,
and unites in a remarkable degree brilliancy and plaintiveness. I
think of a tremulous vibrating tongue of silver. You may know it is
the song of a wren, from its gushing lyrical character; but you must
needs look sharp to see the little minstrel, especially while in the
act of singing. He is nearly the color of the ground and the leaves;
he never ascends the tall trees, but keeps low, flitting from stump to
stump and from root to root, dodging in and out of his hiding-places,
and watching all intruders with a suspicious eye. He has a very pert,
almost comical look. His tail stands more that perpendicular: it
points straight toward his head. He is the least ostentatious singer I
know of. He does not strike an attitude, and lift up his head in
preparation, and, as it were, clear his throat; but sits there on a
log and pours out his music, looking straight before him, or even down
at the ground. As a songster, he has but few superiors. I do not hear
him after the first week in July.
While sitting on this soft-cushioned log, tasting the pungent
acidulous wood-sorrel, the blossoms of which, large and pink-veined,
rise everywhere above the moss, a rufous-colored bird flies quickly
past, and, alighting on a low limb a few rods off, salutes me with
"Whew! Whew!" or "Whoit! Whoit!" almost as you would whistle for your
dog. I see by his impulsive, graceful movement, and his dimly speckled
breast, that it is a thrush. Presently he utters a few soft, mellow,
flute-like notes, one of the most simple expressions of melody to be
heard, and scuds away, and I see it is the veery, or Wilson's thrush.
He is the least of the thrushes in size, being about that of the
common bluebird, and he may be distinguished from his relatives by the
dimness of the spots upon his breast. The wood thrush has very clear,
distinct oval spots on a white ground; in the hermit, the spots run
more into lines, on a ground of a faint bluish white; in the veery,
the marks are almost obsolete, and a few rods off his breast presents
only a dull yellowish appearance. To get a good view of him you have
only to sit down in his haunts, as in such cases he seems equally
anxious to get a good view of you.
From those tall hemlocks proceeds a very fine insect-like warble, and
occasionally I see a spray tremble, or catch the flit of a wing. I
watch and watch till my head grows dizzy and my neck is in danger of
permanent displacement, and still do not get a good view. Presently
the bird darts, or, as it seems, falls down a few feet in pursuit of a
fly or a moth, and I see the whole of it, but in the dim light am
undecided. It is for such emergencies that I have brought my gun. A
bird in the hand is worth half a dozen in the bush, even for
ornithological purposes; and no sure and rapid-progress can be made
in the study without taking life, without procuring specimens. This
bird is a warbler, plainly enough, from his habits and manner; but
what kind of warbler? Look on him and name him: a deep orange or
flame-colored throat and breast; the same color showing also in a line
over the eye and in his crown; back variegated black and white. The
female is less marked and brilliant. The orange-throated warbler would
seem to be his right name, his characteristic cognomen; but no, he is
doomed to wear the name of some discoverer, perhaps the first who
rifled his nest or robbed him of his mate,--Blackburn; hence
Blackburnian warbler. The burn seems appropriate enough, for in these
dark evergreens his throat and breast show like flame. He has a very
fine warble, suggesting that of the redstart, but not especially
musical. I find him in not other woods in this vicinity.
I am attracted by another warble in the same locality, and experience
a like difficulty in getting a good view of the author of it. It is
quite a noticeable strain, sharp and sibilant, and sounds well amid
the the old trees. In the upland woods of beech and maple it is a more
familiar sound than in these solitudes. On taking the bird in hand,
one can not help exclaiming, "How beautiful!" So tiny and elegant, the
smallest of the warblers; a delicate blue back, with a slight
bronze-colored triangular spot between the shoulders; upper mandible
black; lower mandible yellow as gold; throat yellow, becoming a dark
bronze on the breast. Blue yellow-back he is called, though the yellow
is much nearer a bronze. He is remarkably delicate and beautiful,--the
handsomest as he is the smallest of the warblers known to me. It is
never without surprise that I find amid these rugged, savage aspects
of nature creatures so fairy and delicate. But such is the law. Go to
the sea or climb the mountain, and with the ruggedest and the savagest
you will find likewise the fairest and the most delicate. The
greatness and the minuteness of nature pass all understanding.
Ever since I entered the woods, even while listening to the lesser
songsters, or contemplating the silent forms about me, a strain has
reached my ears from out of the depths of the forest that to me is the
finest sound in nature,--the song of the hermit thrush. I often hear
him thus a long way off, sometimes over a quarter of a mile away, when
only the stronger and more perfect parts of his music reach me; and
through the general chorus of wrens and warblers I detect this sound
rising pure and serene, as if a spirit from some remote height were
slowly chanting a divine accompaniment. This song appeals to the
sentiment of the beautiful in me, and suggests a serene religious
beatitude as no other sound in nature does. It is perhaps more of an
evening than a morning hymn,
though I hear it at all hours of the day. It is very simple, and I
can hardly tell the secret of its charm. "O spheral, spheral!" he
seems to say; "O holy, holy! O clear away, clear away! O clear up,
clear up!" interspersed with the finest trills and the most delicate
preludes. It is not a proud, gorgeous strain, like the tanager's or
the grosbeak's; suggests no passion or emotion,--nothing
personal,--but seems to be the voice of that calm, sweet solemnity one
attains to in his best moments. It realizes a peace and a deep, solemn
joy that only the finest souls may know. A few nights ago I ascended a
mountain to see the world by moonlight, and when near the summit the
hermit commenced his evening hymn a few rods from me. Listening to
this strain on the lone mountain, with the full moon just rounded from
the horizon, the pomp of your cities and the pride of your
civilization seemed trivial and cheap.
I have seldom known two of these birds to be singing at the same time
in the same locality, rivaling each other, like the wood thrush or the
veery. Shooting one from a tree, I have observed another take up the
strain from almost the identical perch in less than ten minutes
afterward. Later in the day, when I had penetrated the heart of the
old Barkpeeling, I came suddenly upon one singing from a low stump,
and for a wonder he did not seem alarmed, but lifted up his divine
voice as if his privacy was undisturbed. I open his beak and find the
inside yellow as gold. I was prepared to find it inlaid with pearls
and diamonds, or to see an angel issue from it.
He is not much in the books. Indeed, I am acquainted with scarcely
any writer on ornithology whose head is not muddled on the subject of
our three prevailing song-thrushes, confounding either their figures
or their songs. A writer in the "Atlantic" [Footnote: For December,
1853] gravely tells us the wood thrush is sometimes called the hermit,
and then, after describing the song of the hermit with great beauty
and correctness, cooly ascribes it to the veery! The new Cyclopaedia,
fresh from the study of Audubon, says the hermit's song consists of a
single plaintive note, and that the veery's resembles that of the wood
thrush! The hermit thrush may be easily identified by his color; his
back being a clear olive-brown becoming rufous on his rum and tail. A
quill from his wing placed beside one from his tail on a dark ground
presents quite a marked contrast.
I walk along the old road, and note the tracks in the thin layer of
mud. When do these creatures travel here? I have never yet chanced to
meet one. Here a partridge has set its foot; there, a woodcock; here,
a squirrel or mink; thee, a skunk; there, a fox. What a clear, nervous
track reynard makes! how easy to distinguish it from that of a little
dog,--it is so sharply cut and defined! A dog's track is coarse and
clumsy beside it. There is as much wildness in the track of an animal
as in its voice. Is a deer's track like a sheep's or a goat's? What
winged-footed fleetness and agility may be inferred from the sharp,
braided track of the gray squirrel upon the new snow! Ah! in nature is
the best discipline. How wood-life sharpens the senses, giving a new
power to the eye, the ear, the nose! And are not the rarest and most
exquisite songsters wood-birds?
Everywhere in these solitudes I am greeted with the pensive, almost
pathetic not of the wood pewee. The pewees are the true flycatchers,
and are easily identified. They are very characteristic birds, have
strong family traits and pugnacious dispositions. They are the least
attractive or elegant birds of our fields or forests.
Sharp-shouldered, big-headed, short-legged, of no particular color, of
little elegance in flight or movement, with a disagreeable flirt of
the tail, always quarreling with their neighbors and with one another,
no birds are so little calculated to excite pleasurable emotions in
the beholder, or to become objects of human interest and affection.
The kingbird is the best dressed member of the family, but he is a
braggart; and, though always snubbing his neighbors, is an arrant
coward, and shows the white feather at the slightest display of pluck
in his antagonist. I have seen him turn tail to a swallow, and have
known the little pewee in question to whip him beautifully. From the
great-crested to the little green flycatcher, their ways and general
habits are the same. Slow in flying from point to point, they yet have
a wonderful quickness, and snap up the fleetest insects with little
apparent effort. There is a constant play of quick, nervous movements
underneath their outer show of calmness and stolidity. They do not
scour the limbs and trees like the warblers, but, perched upon the
middle branches, wait, like true hunters, for the game to come along.
There is often a very audible snap of the beak as they seize their
prey.
The wood pewee, the prevailing species in this locality, arrests your
attention by his sweet, pathetic cry. There is room for it also in the
deep woods, as well as for the more prolonged and elevated strains.
Its relative, the phoebe-bird, builds an exquisite nest of moss on the
side of some shelving cliff or overhanging rock. The other day,
passing by a ledge, near the top of a mountain in a singularly
desolate locality, my eye rested upon one of these structures, looking
precisely as if it grew there, so in keeping was it with the mossy
character of the rock, and I have had a growing affection for the bird
ever since. The rock seemed to love the nest and claim it as its own.
I said, what a lesson in architecture is here! Here is a house that
was built, but with such loving care and such beautiful adaptation of
the means to the end, that it looks like a product of nature. The same
wise economy is noticeable in the nests of all birds. No bird could
paint its house white or red, or add aught for show.
At one point in the grayest, most shaggy part of the woods, I come
suddenly upon a brood of screech owls, full grown, sitting together
upon a dry, moss-draped limb, but a few feet from the ground. I pause
within four or five yards of them and am looking about me, when my eye
lights upon these, gray, motionless figures. They sit perfectly
upright, some with their backs and some with their breasts toward me,
but every head turned squarely in my direction. Their eyes are closed
to a mere black line; though this crack they are watching me,
evidently thinking themselves unobserved. The spectacle is weird and
grotesque. It is a new effect, the night side of the woods by
daylight. After observing them a moment I take a single step toward
them, when, quick as thought, their eyes fly wide open, their attitude
is changed, they bend, some this way, some that, and, instinct with
life and motion, stare wildly about them. Another step, and they all
take flight but one, which stoops low on the branch, and with the look
of a frightened cat regards me for a few seconds over its shoulder.
They fly swiftly and softly, and disperse through the trees. I shoot
one, which is of a tawny red tint, like that figured by Wilson. It is
a singular fact that the plumage of these owls presents two totally
distinct phases which "have no relation to sex, age, or season," one
being an ashen gray, the other a bright rufous.
Coming to a drier and less mossy place in the woods, I am amused with
the golden-crowned thrush,--which, however, is no thrush at all, but a
warbler. He walks on the ground ahead of me with such an easy, gliding
motion, and with such an unconscious, preoccupied air, jerking his
head like a hen or a partridge, now hurrying, now slackening his pace,
that I pause to observe him. I sit down, he pauses to observe me, and
extends his pretty ramblings on all sides, apparently very much
engrossed with his own affairs, but never losing sight of me. But few
of the birds are walkers, most being hoppers, like the robin.
Satisfied that I have no hostile intentions, the pretty pedestrian
mounts a limb a few feet from the ground, and gives me the benefit of
one of his musical performances, a sort of accelerating chant.
Commencing in a very low key, which makes him seem at a very uncertain
distance, he grows louder and louder till his body quakes and his
chant runs into a shriek, ringing in my ear, with a peculiar
sharpness. This lay may be represented thus:
[TRANSCRIBISTS NOTE: ORIGINAL BOOK USES FONT SHIFTS
TO ILLUSTRATE AN INCREASE IN VOLUME]
"Teacher, Teacher, Teacher, Teacher, Teacher!"--the accent on the
first syllable and each word uttered with increased force and
shrillness. No writer with whom I am acquainted gives him credit for
more musical ability than is displayed in this strain. Yet in this the
half is not told. He has a far rarer song, which he reserves for some
nymph whom he meets in the air. Mounting by easy flights to the top of
the tallest tree, he launches into the air with a sort of suspended,
hovering flight, like certain of the finches, and bursts into a
perfect ecstasy of song,--clear, ringing, copious, rivaling the
goldfinch's in vivacity, and the linnet's in melody. This strain is
one of the rarest bits of bird melody to be heard, and is oftenest
indulged in late in the afternoon or after sundown. Over the woods,
hid from view, the ecstatic singer warbles his finest strain. In this
song you instantly detect his relationship to the
water-wagtail,--erroneously called water-thrush,--whose song is
likewise a sudden burst, full and ringing, and with a tone of youthful
joyousness in it, as if the bird had just had some unexpected good
fortune. For nearly two years this strain of the pretty walker was
little more than a disembodied voice to me, and I was puzzled by it as
Thoreau by his mysterious night-warbler, which, by the way, I suspect
was no new bird at all, but one he was otherwise familiar with. The
little bird himself seems disposed to keep the matter a secret, and
improves every opportunity to repeat before you his shrill,
accelerating lay, as if this were quite enough and all he laid claim
to. Still, I trust I am betraying no confidence in making the matter
public here. I think this is preëminently his love-song, as I hear it
oftenest about the mating season. I have caught half-suppressed bursts
of it from two males chasing each other with fearful speed through the
forest.
Turning to the left from the old road, I wander over soft logs and
gray yielding débris, across the little trout brook, until I emerge in
the overgrown Barkpeeling,--pausing now and then on the way to admire
a small, solitary now and then on the way to admire a small, solitary
white flower which rises above the moss, with radical, heart-shaped
leaves, and a blossom precisely like the liverwort except in color,
but which is not put down in my botany,--or to observe the ferns, of
which I count six varieties, some gigantic ones nearly shoulder-high.
At the foot of a rough, scraggly yellow birch, on a bank of club-moss,
so richly inlaid with partridge-berry and curious shining
leaves--with here and there in the bordering a spire of false
wintergreen strung with faint pink flowers and exhaling the breath of
a May orchard--that it looks too costly a couch for such an idler, I
recline to note what transpires. The sun is just past the meridian,
and the afternoon chorus is not yet in full tune. Most birds sing with
the greatest spirit and vivacity in the forenoon, though there are
occasional bursts later in the day in which nearly all voices join;
while it is not till the twilight that the full power and solemnity of
the thrush's hymn is felt.
My attention is soon arrested by a pair of hummingbirds, the
ruby-throated, disporting themselves in a low bush a few yards from
me. The female takes shelter amid the branches, and squeaks exultingly
as the male, circling above, dives down as if to dislodge her. Seeing
me, he drops like a feather on a slender twig, and in a moment both
are gone. Then as if by a preconcerted signal, the throats are all
atune. I lie on my back with eyes half closed, and analyze the chorus
of warblers, thrushes, finches, and flycatchers; while, soaring above
all, a little withdrawn and alone rises the divine contralto of the
hermit. That richly modulated warble proceeding from the top of yonder
birch, and which unpracticed ears would mistake for the voice of the
scarlet tanager, comes from that rare visitant, the rose-breasted
grosbeak. It is a strong, vivacious strain, a bright noonday song,
full of health and assurance, indicating fine talents in the
performer, but not a genius. As I come up under the tree he casts his
eye down at me, but continues his song. This bird is said to be quite
common in the Northwest, but he is rare in the Eastern districts. His
beak is disproportionately large and heavy, like a huge nose, which
slightly mars his good looks; but Nature has made it up to him in a
blush rose upon his breast, and the most delicate of pink linings to
the under side of his wings. His back is variegated black and white,
and when flying low the white shows conspicuously. If he passed over
your head, you would not the delicate flush under his wings.
That bit of bright scarlet on yonder dead hemlock, glowing like a live
coal against the dark background, seeming almost too brilliant for the
severe northern climate, is his relative, the scarlet tanager. I
occasionally meet him in the deep hemlocks, and know no stronger
contrast in nature. I almost fear he will kindle the dry limb on which
he alights. He is quite a solitary bird, and in this section seems to
prefer the high, remote woods, even going quite to the mountain's top.
Indeed, the event of my last visit to the mountain was meeting one of
these brilliant creatures near the summit, in full song. The breeze
carried the notes far and wide. He seemed to enjoy the elevation, and
I imagined his song had more scope and freedom than usual. When he had
flown far down the mountain-side, the breeze still brought me his
finest notes. In plumage he is the most brilliant bird we have. The
bluebird is not entirely blue; nor will the indigo-bird bear a close
inspection, nor the goldfinch, nor the summer redbird. But the tanager
loses nothing by a near view; the deep scarlet of his body and the
black of his wings and tail are quite perfect. This is his holiday
suit; in the fall be becomes a dull yellowish green,--the color of the
female the whole season.
One of the leading songsters in this choir of the old Barkpeeling is
the purple finch or linnet. He sits somewhat apart, usually on a dead
hemlock, and warbles most exquisitely. He is one of our finest
songsters, and stands at the head of the finches, as the hermit at the
head of the thrushes. His song approaches an ecstasy, and, with the
exception of the winter wren's, is the most rapid and copious strain
to be heard in these woods. It is quite destitute of the trills and
the liquid, silvery, bubbling notes that characterize the wren's; but
there runs through it a round, richly modulated whistle, very sweet
and very pleasing. The call of the robin is brought in at a certain
point with marked effect, and, throughout, the variety is so great and
the strain so rapid that the impression is as of two or three birds
singing at the same time. He is not common here, and I only find him
in these or similar woods. His color is peculiar, and looks as if it
might have been imparted by dipping a brown bird in diluted pokeberry
juice. Two or three more dipping would have made the purple complete.
The female is the color of the song sparrow, a little larger, with
heavier beak, and tail much more forked.
In a little opening quite free from brush and trees, I step down to
bath my hands in the brook, when a small, light slate-colored bird
flutters out of the bank, not three feet from my head, as I stoop
down, and, as if severely lamed or injured, flutters through the grass
and into the nearest bush. As I do not follow, but remain near the
nest, she chips sharply, which brings the male, and I see it is the
speckled Canada warbler. I find no authority in the books for this
bird to build upon the ground, yet here is the nest, made chiefly of
dry grass, set in a slight excavation in the bank not two feet from
the water, and looking a little perilous to anything but ducklings or
sandpipers. There are two young birds and one little speckled egg just
pipped. But how is this? what mystery is here? One nestling is much
larger than the other, monopolizes most of the nest, and lifts its
open mouth far above that of its companion, though obviously both are
of the same age, not more than a day old. Ah! I see; the old trick of
the cow bunting, with a stinging human significance. Taking the
interloper by the nape of the neck, I deliberately drop it into the
water, but not without a pang, as I see its naked form, convulsed with
chills, float downstream. Cruel? So is Nature cruel. I take one life
to save two. In less than two days this pot-bellied intruder would
have caused the death of the two rightful occupants of the nest; so I
step in and turn things into their proper channel again.
It is a similar freak of nature, this instinct which prompts one bird
to lay its eggs in the nests of others, and thus shirk the
responsibility of rearing its own young. The cow buntings always
resort to this cunning trick; and when one reflects upon their
numbers, it is evident that these little tragedies are quite frequent.
In Europe the parallel case is that of the cuckoo, and occasionally
our own cuckoo imposes upon a robin or a thrush in the same manner.
The cow bunting seems to have no conscience about the matter, and, so
far as I have observed, invariable selects the nest of a bird smaller
than itself. Its egg is usually the first to hatch; its young
overreaches all the rest when food is brought; it grow with great
rapidity, spreads and fills the nest, and the starved and crowded
occupants soon perish, when the parent bird removes their dead bodies,
giving its whole energy and care to the foster-child.
The warblers and smaller flycatchers are generally the sufferers,
though I sometimes see the slate-colored snowbird unconsciously duped
in like manner; and the other day, in a tall tree in the woods, I
discovered the black-throated green-backed warbler devoting itself to
this dusky, over-grown foundling. An old farmer to whom I pointed out
the fact was much surprised that such things should happen in his
woods without his knowledge.
These birds may be seen prowling through all parts of the woods at
this season, watching for an opportunity to steal their egg into some
nest. One day while sitting on a log, I saw one moving by short
flights through the trees and gradually nearing the ground. Its
movements were hurried and stealthy. About fifty yards from me it
disappeared behind some low brush, and had evidently alighted upon the
ground.
After waiting a few moments I cautiously walked in the direction.
When about halfway I accidentally made a slight noise, when the bird
flew up, and seeing me, hurried out of the woods. Arrived at the
place, I found a simple nest of dry grass and leaves partially
concealed under a prostrate branch. I took it to be the nest of a
sparrow. There were three eggs in a nest, and one lying about a foot
below it as if it had been rolled out, as of course it had. It
suggested the thought that perhaps, when the cowbird finds the full
complement of eggs in a nest, it throws out one and deposits its own
instead. I revisited the nest a few days afterward and found an egg
again cast out, but none had been put in its place. The nest had been
abandoned by its owner and the eggs were stale.
In all cases where I have found this egg, I have observed both male
and female cowbird lingering near, the former uttering his peculiar
liquid, glassy note from the tops of the trees.
In July, the young which have been reared in the same neighborhood,
and which are now of a dull fawn color, begin to collect in small
flocks, which grow to be quite large in autumn.
The specked Canada is a very superior warbler, having a lively,
animated strain, reminding you of certain parts of the canary's,
though quite broken and incomplete; the bird, the while, hopping amid
the branches with increased liveliness, and indulging in fine sibilant
chirps, too happy to keep silent.
His manners are quite marked. He has a habit of courtesying when he
discovers you which is very pretty. In form he is an elegant bird,
somewhat slender, his back of a bluish lead-color becoming nearly
black on his crown: the under part of his body, from his throat down,
is of a light, delicate yellow, with a belt of black dots across his
breast. He has a fine eye, surrounded by a light yellow ring.
The parent birds are much disturbed by my presence, and keep up a loud
emphatic chirping, which attracts the attention of their sympathetic
neighbors, and one after another they come to see what has happened.
The chestnut-sided and the Blackburnian come in company. The black and
yellow warbler pauses a moment and hastens away; the Maryland
yellow-throat peeps shyly from the lower bushes and utters his "Fip!
fip!" in sympathy; the wood pewee comes straight to the tree overhead,
and the red-eyed vireo lingers and lingers, eyeing me with a curious
innocent look, evidently much puzzled. But all disappear again, one by
one, apparently without a word of condolence or encouragement to the
distressed pair. I have often noticed among birds this show of
sympathy,--if indeed it be sympathy, and not merely curiosity, or
desire to be forewarned of the approach of a common danger.
An hour afterward I approach the place, find all still, and the mother
bird upon her nest. As I draw near she seems to sit closer, her eyes
growing large with an inexpressibly wild, beautiful look. She keeps
her place till I am within two paces of her, when she flutters away as
at first. In the brief interval the remaining egg has hatched, and the
two little nestling lift their heads without being jostled or
overreached by any strange bedfellow. A week afterward and they were
flown away,--so brief is the infancy of birds. And the wonder is that
they escape, even for this short time, the skunks and minks and
muskrats that abound here, and that have a decided partiality for such
tidbits.
I pass on through the old Barkpeeling, now threading an obscure
cow-path or an overgrown wood-road; now clambering over soft and
decayed logs, or forcing my way through a network of briers and
hazels; now entering a perfect bower of wild cherry, beech, and soft
maple; now emerging into a grassy lane, golden with buttercups or
white with daisies, or wading waist-deep in the red raspberry-bushes.
Whir! whir! whir! and a brood of half-grown partridges start up like
an explosion, a few paces from me, and, scattering, disappear in the
bushes on all sides. Let me sit down here behind the screen of ferns
and briers, and hear this wild hen of the woods call together her
brood. At what an early age the partridge flies! Nature seems to
concentrate her energies on the wing, making the safety of a bird a
point to be looked after first; and while the body is covered with
down, and no signs of feathers are visible, the wing-quills sprout and
unfold, and in an incredibly short time the young make fair headway in
flying.
The same rapid development of wing may be observed in chickens and
turkeys, but not in water-fowls, nor in birds that are safely housed
in the nest till full-fledged. The other day, by a brook, I came
suddenly upon a young sandpiper, a most beautiful creature, enveloped
in a soft gray down, swift and nimble and apparently a week or two
old, but with no signs of plumage either of body or wing. And it
needed none, for it escaped me by taking to the water as readily as if
it had flown with wings.
Hark! there arises over there in the brush a soft persuasive cooing,
a sound so subtle and wild and unobtrusive that it requires the most
alert and watchful ear to hear it. How gentle and solicitous and full
of yearning love! It is the voice of the mother hen. Presently a faint
timid "Yeap!" which almost eludes the ear, is heard in various
direction,--the young responding. As no danger seems near, the cooing
of the parent bird is soon a very audible clucking call, and the young
move cautiously in the direction. Let me step never to carefully from
my hiding-place, and all sounds instantly cease, and I search in vain
for either parent or young.
The partridge is one of our most native and characteristic birds. The
woods seem good to be in where I find him. He gives a habitable air to
the forest, and one feels as if the rightful occupant was really at
home. The woods where I do not find him seem to want something, as if
suffering from some neglect of Nature. And then he is such a splendid
success, so hardy and vigorous. I think he enjoys the cold and the
snow. His wings seem to rustle with more fervency in midwinter. If the
snow falls very fast, and promises a heavy storm he will complacently
sit down allow himself to be snowed under. Approaching him at such
times, he suddenly bursts out of the snow at your feet, scattering the
flakes in all directions, and goes humming away through the woods like
a bombshell,--a picture of native spirit and success.
His drum is one of the most welcome and beautiful sounds of spring.
Scarcely have the trees expanded their buds, when, in the still April
mornings, or toward nightfall, you hear the hum of his devoted wings.
He selects not, as you would predict, a dry and resinous log, but a
decayed and crumbling one, seeming to give the preference to old
oak-logs that are partly blended with the soil. If a log to his taste
cannot be found, he sets up his alter on a rock, which becomes
resonant beneath his fervent blows. Who has seen the partridge drum?
It is the next thing to catching a weasel asleep, though by much
caution and tact it may be done. He does not hug the log, but stands
very erect, expands his ruff, gives two introductory blows, pauses
half a second, and then resumes, striking faster and faster till the
sound becomes a continuous, unbroken whir, the whole lasting less than
half a minute. The tips of his wings barely brush the log, so that the
sound is produced rather by the force of the blows upon the air and
upon his own body as in flying. One log will be used for many years,
though not by the same drummer. It seems to be a sort of temple and
held in great respect. The bird always approaches on foot, and leaves
it in the same quiet manner, unless rudely disturbed. He is very
cunning, though his wit is not profound. It is difficult to approach
him by stealth, you will try many times before succeeding; but seem to
pass by him in a great hurry, making all the noise possible, and with
plumage furled, he stands as immovable as a know, allowing you a good
view, and a good shot if you are a sportsman.
Passing along one of the old Barkpeelers' roads which wander aimlessly
about, I am attracted by a singularly brilliant and emphatic warble,
proceeding from the low bushes, and quickly suggesting the voice of
the Maryland yellow-throat. Presently the singer hops up on a dry
twig, and gives me a good view: lead-colored head and neck, becoming
nearly black on the breast; clear olive-green back, and yellow belly.
From his habit of keeping near the ground, even hopping upon it
occasionally, I know him to be a ground warbler; from his dark breast
the ornithologist has added the expletive mourning, hence the mourning
ground warbler.
Of this bird both Wilson and Audubon confessed their comparative
ignorance, neither ever having seen its nest or become acquainted with
its haunts and general habits. Its song is quite striking and novel,
though its voice at once suggests the class of warblers to which it
belongs. It is very shy and wary, flying but a few feet at a time, and
studiously concealing itself from your view. I discover but one pair
here. The female has food in her beak, but carefully avoids betraying
the locality of her nest. The ground warblers all have one notable
feature,--very beautiful legs, as white and delicate as if they had
always worn silk stockings and satin slippers. High tree warblers have
dark brown or black legs and more brilliant plumage, but less musical
ability.
The chestnut-sided belongs to the latter class. He is quite common in
these woods, as in all the woods about. He is one of the rarest and
handsomest of the warblers; his white breast and throat, chestnut
sides, and yellow crown show conspicuously. Last year I found the nest
of one in an uplying beech wood, in a low bush near the roadside,
where cows passed and browsed daily. Things went on smoothly till the
cow bunting stole her egg into it, when other mishaps followed, and
the nest was soon empty. A characteristic attitude of the male during
this season is a slight drooping of the wings, and a tail a little
elevated, which gives him a very smart, bantam-like appearance. His
song is fine and hurried, and not much of itself, but has its place in
the general chorus.
A far sweeter strain, falling on the ear with the true sylvan cadence,
is that of the black-throated green-backed warbler, whom I meet at
various points. He has no superiors among the true Sylvia. His song is
very plain and simple, but remarkably pure and tender, and might be
indicated by straight lines, thus [2 dashes, square root symbol, high
dash]; the first two marks representing two sweet, silvery notes, in
the same pitch of voice, and quite unaccented; the latter marks, the
concluding notes, wherein the tone and inflection are changed. The
throat and breast of the male are a rich black like velvet, his face
yellow, and his back a yellowish green.
Beyond the Barkpeeling, where the woods are mingled hemlock, beech,
and birch, the languid midsummer note of the black-throated blue-back
falls on my ear. "Twea, twea, twea-e-e!" in the upward slide, and with
the peculiar z-ing of summer insects, but not destitute of a certain
plaintive cadence. It is one of the most languid, unhurried sounds in
all the woods. I feel like reclining upon the dry leaves at once.
Audubon says he has never heard his love-song; but this is all the
love-song he has, and he is evidently a very plain hero with his
little brown mistress. He assumes few attitudes, and is not a bold and
striking gymnast, like many of his kindred. He has a preference for
dense woods of beech and maple, moves slowly amid the lower branches
and smaller growths, keeping from eight to ten feet from the ground,
and repeating now and then his listless, indolent strain. His back and
crown are dark blue; his throat and breast, black; his belly, pure
white; and he has a white spot on each wing.
Here and there I meet the black and white creeping warbler, whose fine
strain reminds me of hairwire. It is unquestionably the finest
bird-song to be heard. Few insect strains will compare with it in this
respect; while it has none of the harsh, brassy character of the
latter, being very delicate and tender.
That sharp, uninterrupted, but still continued warble, which before
one has learned to discriminate closely, he is apt to confound with
the red-eyed vireo's, is that of the solitary warbling vireo,--a bird
slightly larger, much rarer, and with a louder less cheerful and happy
strain. I see him hopping along lengthwise of the limbs, and note the
orange tinge of his breast and sides and the white circle around his
eye.
But the declining sun and the deepening shadows admonish me that this
ramble must be brought to a close, even though only the leading
characters in this chorus of forty songsters have been described, and
only a small portion of the venerable old woods explored. In a
secluded swampy corner of the old Barkpeeling, where I find the great
purple orchis in bloom, and where the foot of man or beast seems never
to have trod, I linger long, contemplating the wonderful display of
lichens and mosses that overrun both the smaller and the larger
growths. Every bush and branch and sprig is dressed up in the most
rich and fantastic of liveries; and, crowning all, the long bearded
moss festoons the branches or sways gracefully from the limbs. Every
twig looks a century old, though green leaves tip the end of it. A
young yellow birch has a venerable, patriarchal look, and seems ill at
ease under such premature honors. A decayed hemlock is draped as if by
hands for some solemn festival.
Mounting toward the upland again, I pause reverently as the hush and
stillness of twilight com upon the woods. It is the sweetest, ripest
hour of the day. And as the hermit's evening hymn goes up from the
deep solitude below me, I experience that serene exaltation of
sentiment of which music, literature, and religion are but the faint
types and symbols. 1865.