INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS
“Now let us go back to the principal slender-beaked birds, eaters of
insects only and consequently our greatest helpers. They are all small
in size, delicately and gracefully formed, and modest in dress. Among
them we find the sweet singers that make the woods echo in spring with
the refreshing songs of the opening season.
“First there is the nightingale, clothed all in brown except the under
parts, which are whitish in color. Listen to it some calm evening in
May. All is quiet, so we need not lose a note of the bird’s hymn. It
begins with a few timid and tentative phrases, thus:
Teoo-oo, teoo-oo, teoo-oo, teoo-oo,
Shpe, teoo-oo, tokooa.
Then it becomes more animated:
Teo, teo, teo, teo, teo,
Koo-oo-teoo, koo-oo-teoo, koo-oo-teoo, koo-oo-teoo, Tskoo-o,
tskoo-o, tskoo-o, tskoo-o,
Tsee-ee, tsee-ee, tsee-ee, tsee-ee, tsee-ee, tsee-ee.
Here the phrasing becomes more marked, the melody quicker:
Dlo, dlo, dlo, dlo, dlo, dlo,
Koo-e-oo, trrrrrrritz!
Lu-lu-lu, le-le-le-le, lee-lee-lee-lee.
Enthusiasm then bursts all bounds and the bird indulges in the most
brilliant roulades; but our harsh alphabet is powerless to show the
sounds that come from this wonderful throat.
“‘The nightingale,’ says Buffon, ‘begins with a timid prelude in weak
and almost wavering tones, as if wishing to try its instrument and win
the attention of those within hearing; but presently, gaining
assurance, it gradually becomes animated and displays all the resources
of its incomparable organ. Bursts of melody, lively volleys of rippling
song in which clearness is equaled only by volubility, low and
voiceless murmurs inaudible to the listener, but calculated to increase
the brilliance of the notes about to be heard, vivid and rapid trills
that sweep the gamut and are articulated with force and even with a
certain hardness of effect not unpleasing to the ear, plaintive
cadences softly modulated, notes struck without art but full of soul,
enchanting and poignant chords that seem to come from the very heart
and to convey a touching significance—such are the impassioned strains
by which, in a tongue doubtless full of sentiment, this natural
songster appears to try to charm its mate or, rather, to contend before
her with his jealous rivals for the prize of supreme excellence in
song.’
“I have seen unfeeling barbarians cut short this pretty romance with a
shot from a gun. They say that half a dozen nightingales make an
excellent broiled dish. Horrors! What a frightful brute is man when he
thinks of nothing but his stomach!
“The nightingale builds its nest in bushes and rather near the ground,
sometimes even among the roots. Coarse grasses and oak leaves are used
for the outside, tufts of fleece and horsehair for the inside. The
female lays five dark-green eggs.
“With the nightingale, though less wonderful as singers, are to be
classed the warblers, thirty or more species of which can be counted in
Europe. All live on flies, caterpillars, small beetles, spiders, and
larvæ of various kinds. Their nests are constructed with much art. Some
nest in trees and hedges in our gardens; others prefer thickets and
lonely groves; still others choose holes in tree trunks and walls.
Others, again, build on piling that projects above the water in
marshes; that is, they unite three or four slender reeds with a
ligature and build their nest on this swaying support. Others, finally,
content themselves with a little hole in the ground. Among the
best-known of these birds is the black-capped warbler, so named on
account of the black hood that covers the top of the head and the nape
of the neck. You remember it is one of the cuckoo’s victims, as was
proved by the egg found a few days ago, in the nest at the foot of the
garden. Then we must include the babbling warbler, lover of copses,
orchards, and gardens; the little red warbler, which visits our
fruit-trees and says, zip-zap, zip-zap, zip-zap; the marsh-warbler,
which builds its nest among the marsh reeds; and the Alpine warbler,
guest of chalets and tuneful songster of high, snowy mountains.
“Now let us look at the fallow-finch or whitetail, which flies from
clod to clod in our fallow fields (whence its name of fallow-finch),
and in flying spreads its white tail, a target for the huntsman and the
reason for its second name. It is ash-colored on the back and reddish
white underneath, with black wings and eyebrows. It frequents
cultivated fields to catch the grubs turned up by the plow. Its nest,
placed under a clod of turf, amid a pile of stones, or in a hole in
some dry wall, is made of moss, grass, and feathers. The eggs, five or
six in number, are light blue. The fallow-finch’s chosen haunts are
dry, rocky uplands, where it may be seen in the autumn in large flocks,
flying from one rock to another and from one clod to another, keeping
close to the ground.
“By the fallow-finch’s side let us place the stonechat, a little,
lively, active bird always seen perched on the topmost branch of a bush
or bramble, where it repeats, with frisky movements, its short cry of
ooistratra, ooistratra. If from this place of observation it sees an
insect on the ground, it flies down, seizes it, and returns in a trice
to its perch by a short curving flight like that so characteristic of
the shrike. Its plumage is brown, with red breast and black throat. The
sides of the neck, together with the wings and the rump, are ornamented
with white. Stonechats frequent hedges that border sown fields and dry
pastures, and are never seen, any more than are fallow-finches, in damp
lands along the banks of rivers. They build their nests, in which they
lay five or six greenish-blue eggs, among the roots of bushes, in
crevices in rocks, and among piles of stones.
“I should count it almost a crime to omit here the robin redbreast, in
my opinion the most pleasing of our smaller birds in its wide-awake
manner, its gentle look, and its friendly curiosity, which makes it
come and pick up the shepherd’s crumbs when he is eating his lunch. At
the first dawn of day it begins its lively song, uttering now and then
a note or two that recall certain parts of the nightingale’s more
elaborate performance. Who does not know its alert cry from the depths
of some clump of bushes, treet, tee-ree-tee-teet, tee-reet,
tee-ree-tee-teet, and its call to some passing member of its kin,
oo-eep, oo-eep?
“The redbreast is greenish brown above, bright red on the throat and
breast, and white on the stomach. It nests in the densest woods amid
the moss-grown tree roots, and its nest, made of leaves, horsehair,
tufts of wool, and feathers, contains from five to seven whitish eggs
spotted with red.
“In winter the redbreast leaves the forest, draws near our farms, and
even ventures into our houses in quest of food. God forbid, boys, that
you should ever betray its confidence when, on a stormy winter’s day,
it comes discreetly tapping with its beak on the window-pane, asking
hospitality. Welcome the poor little famished creature, and it will pay
you a hundred times over with its gentle warbling and its zeal in
defending the fruits of the earth.
“But enough about the slender-beaks. You ought by this time to
appreciate the immense help we receive from these legions of
insect-eaters which share the work of the fields, hedges, meadows,
gardens, woods, and orchards, and wage incessant warfare on every sort
of vermin that would destroy our harvests unless others than ourselves
were constantly on the watch—others cleverer and endowed with sharper
eyesight and greater patience for the unending hunt, and also having
nothing else to do. I am not exaggerating, I assure you; without our
insectivorous birds we should soon suffer from famine. Who, then,
except an idiot with a mania for destruction, would dare touch the
nests of these birds of the good God that enliven the country-side with
their varied plumage and protect us from insects? There are, I well
know, unruly boys who, tired of their books and lessons, delight to
play truant and make a pastime of climbing trees and searching hedges
in order to toss the new-born birds out of their nests to a miserable
death and to smash the eggs. The rural guard is on the watch for these
wicked thieves, and the law punishes them, that our fields and orchards
may enjoy the birds’ protection and continue to produce their sheaves
and their fruit.”