GRANIVOROUS BIRDS
“It might at first seem that I ought to be as lenient toward those who
hunt granivorous birds as I have just shown myself severe toward the
destroyers of insectivorous birds; for can it be denied that birds
given to a vegetable diet are harmful to our crops, that they plunder
our grain-fields and devour great quantities of seeds, buds, fruit, and
young garden plants? Some of them know how to extract the wheat grains
from the ear, and others boldly come to get their share of the oats
thrown to the poultry in our barnyards. Others, again, prefer the juicy
flesh of fruit and know before we do when cherries are ripe or pears
are mellow, so that when we come to gather in the harvest all that we
find is merely what they have left. There are even some that have a
queer-shaped beak for splitting fruit open and dividing it into
quarters so as to get at the pips, which are to them the very choicest
of titbits. Look at this one’s beak and tell me if you have ever seen a
more singular tool.”
“The two mandibles cross each other,” said Jules. “Instead of meeting
they go criss-cross like the blades of an old pair of scissors out of
order.”
“What can such a rickety beak be good for,” Emile asked, “with its tips
pointing one up and the other down? It will never be able to pick up a
seed from the ground.”
“Consequently, it does not get its food from the ground. Its manner of
proceeding is more complicated.
“First I will say that the bird is known as a crossbill, from the
position of the two mandibles. This odd arrangement is not the result
of an accident to the bird, as for instance a sprain following some
violent effort; it is not a crippled beak, nor is it a rickety beak, as
Emile calls it, but a beak in its natural and perfect state. The bird
is born with this odd beak and has never had any other. It is even
extremely doubtful whether it would consent to make a change if it had
the opportunity, so useful a tool is this beak for the work it has to
do. The crossbill has a fondness for pine seeds above all other food.
Take a pine-cone and lift the scales with the point of a penknife. You
will find behind each scale two seeds full of oil and smelling slightly
of resin. They are the titbits the bird is after. But how get at them
under scales so hard and so firmly held in place? In vain would the
grosbeak hammer at these scales with its strong tool; it would never
succeed in opening them. Even we ourselves with the aid of a knife find
it difficult. But the crossbill makes play of this hard work. It
inserts the tip of one mandible under the scale and, using the other as
a fulcrum, pries with a turning movement until the scale is lifted and
the seed laid bare; and the whole thing is done in next to no time. A
key turning in the lock does not push the bolt more easily.”
“I must change my mind,” Jules acknowledged, “about this beak that at
first seemed to me so awkward; it is a first-rate key to force the lock
of a pine-cone.”
“And it is not less useful,” proceeded his uncle, “in quartering apples
and getting out the pips. I should not like to have crossbills by the
dozen in any orchard of mine; they would soon tear all the fruit to
pieces. Fortunately, it is not our level plains that these birds choose
as their haunts, but cold, mountainous regions covered with dark
forests of cone-bearing evergreens. Their plumage is bright red more or
less tinged with green and yellow. Crossbills breed in the coldest
countries of Europe and build their nests even in midwinter. Their
materials are moss and lichens, made to shed the melting snow by a
coating of resin.
“I shall enter no plea for the crossbill: its taste for apple and pear
seeds is a serious matter; but I will mention certain things that seem
to plead for the granivorous birds as a class. First, the greater
number of these birds feed on wild seeds of no value to us even if not
actually harmful to our cultivated fields. We weed our tilled land,
clearing it of all plants that exhaust it to no purpose. Many
granivorous birds also weed, in their own way: they gather the seeds
that would otherwise infest the soil. For example, must we not
acknowledge the services of the goldfinch, which, when thistles have
matured, alights on their prickly heads and searches for the seeds amid
the thistle-down? I need not describe this pretty little bird, so well
is it known to you all.”
“It has a splash of red on its head,” said Emile, “with yellow, black,
and white on its wings.”
“Yes, that is the goldfinch. Its nest, which is one of the most
carefully built to be found anywhere, is placed in the fork of some
flexible branch. The outside consists of mosses and lichens with a
padding of down from thistles and other plants bearing seeds that have
silky tufts, as for example the groundsel and the dandelion. The
inside, artistically rounded, is lined with a thick layer of horsehair,
wool, and feathers. The eggs, five or six in number, are white with
reddish-brown spots, chiefly at the large end. The goldfinch merits our
gratitude: it cheers us with its singing and works diligently at
weeding lands infested with thistles and groundsel.
“I will say as much in favor of the linnet, which feeds on all kinds of
small seeds in our fields and to that extent follows the honorable
trade of weeding. At the same time I will not hide its liking for
linseed, which has given it the name it bears. It is very fond of
hemp-seed, also. But hemp and flax are not found everywhere, and the
bird manages to get along very well without them by gathering a
quantity of other seeds, more or less harmful to agriculture. It likes
to breed in hilly country, choosing some thickly grown juniper-tree or
bush. Its nest contains five or six white eggs with red spots. Its
plumage is brown with a dash of crimson on head and breast.
“To the part of weeders, seed-eating birds add a second even more
praiseworthy one. Seeds, it is true, furnish their customary food; but
most of the birds devour a great number of insects when these are
plentiful and easy to find. If they lack the patience to hunt for worms
in their most hidden retreats with the painstaking care of the
slender-beaks, they at least profit by those that fortune places within
their reach. A few grubs to season their regular diet of seeds are a
godsend to them; and, moreover, their favorite seeds may by some
mischance be lacking in their neighborhood. Not every day can the
goldfinch find thistle-seeds nor the linnet flaxseed. What, then, is to
be done except to have patience and in the meantime eat insects?
“Last but not least, in their young days when, weak and featherless,
they are fed from the parents’ beak, many granivorous birds are brought
up on insects. The reason is plain enough. You can readily understand
that the delicate crop of a young bird just out of the shell has not
the strength to digest hard, dry seeds. It must have something more
nourishing, something smaller and, above all, more succulent, such as a
marmalade of grubs prepared in the mother’s beak. A few days later,
with the first growth of down, will come little soft caterpillars
served whole; then tougher insects will prepare the stomach for the
more difficult digestion of seeds. I select a few examples at random.
“The chaffinch, the gay chaffinch, is well known to be a granivorous
bird, a lover of millet and hemp-seed. Now, what does it give its
little ones while they are still in the nest? It gives them hairless
caterpillars and tender larvæ, chosen as being the easiest food to
digest. I can say the same of the greenfinch, a bird with plumage
midway between green and yellow; of the bullfinch, known by its red
breast and stomach; and of the various buntings that come in the winter
in flocks, pecking around our straw-stacks. These last, however, feed
perhaps more than the others on seeds, as they have on the inside of
the upper mandible a small, hard excrescence intended expressly for
crushing them.
“I might add to these examples, but prefer to conclude with a bird that
is one of the most familiar to you, the sparrow. Here, certainly, we
have an undoubted seed-eater. It raids our dove-cotes and poultry-yards
and steals the food of our pigeons and poultry. It goes a-harvesting in
the grain-fields before our reapers have begun their task. A great many
other misdeeds are laid at its door. It strips cherry-trees, plunders
our gardens, forages for sprouting seeds, regales itself on young
lettuce, and nips the first little leaflets of green peas. But when
hatching-time comes this bold pilferer is transformed into a helper
inferior to none. At least twenty times an hour the father and the
mother, by turns, bring a mouthful to their young ones, and each time
it consists of either a caterpillar or an insect large enough to
require quartering, or perhaps a larva as fat as butter; or it may be a
grasshopper or some other small game. In one week the brood consumes
about three thousand insects, including larvæ, caterpillars, and grubs
of all kinds. I have counted in the immediate vicinity of a single nest
of these birds the remains of seven hundred June-bugs besides small
insects without number. Behold what a store of food is needed for
raising only one brood! What quantities of vermin, then, must all the
broods of a community devour! After such services let him who will
presume to raise a hand against our sparrows; as for me, I leave them
in peace as long as they do not become too troublesome.
“My closing word is this: eaters of seeds and eaters of insects,
grosbeaks and slender-beaks, some in greater degree, some in less, all
come to our aid. Peace, then, to the little birds, the joy of the
country-side and the protectors of our crops!”