THE BIRD AS A TRAVELLER
Rap went up to Orchard Farm one morning very early to take Nat for a
walk through the fields, down to the river, to see some birds that had
arrived in the night.
It was only five o'clock, but Dr. Hunter was walking to and fro in the
garden, listening to the burst of bird-music as eagerly as if it were
for the first time in his life. That is one of the best parts of our
friendship with Bird People; they never weary us by talking too much,
and every spring after winter's silence their music is as new as ever.
"Please, Uncle Roy, can I go with Rap?" pleaded Nat. "I will wear my
rubber boots."
"You may go if you eat something first. I wonder if Rap would invite me
also?" said the Doctor, leading the way to the big kitchen pantry.
"I know he would!" cried Nat joyfully. "He wished and wished you would
go with us, but we didn't think you'd care to, because you have been to
the river woods so many times before. But why must I eat something,
uncle? I'm in such a hurry to go."
"Because, my boy, the life in us is like a fire that must be supplied
with fuel to keep it burning, only instead of wood or coal we need food.
Very early in the morning this life flame of ours, that is called
vitality, is very low, like a fire that has burned down, and if we go
out in the damp air and breathe the mists that rise from the ground our
vitality has not strength to resist them. But if we put fresh fuel on
our inward fire by eating something before we go out, then that bad
little mischief-maker, which we call malaria, has harder work to creep
into us."
"How funny! May I call Rap to tell him? Rap! Rap! come in and have milk
and something to eat, to make your inside fire burn up chills and
fever!"
Rap thought at first that Nat must be crazy, but very soon understood
what the Doctor meant, and was overjoyed at the prospect of having him
join the expedition.
"Dodo will cry when she wakes up and knows where we have gone," said
Nat, who had been much more kind and thoughtful of his sister since
coming to the Farm. But kindness is very catching, and at the Farm
everybody was kind, from the House People to the big gray horses in the
barn, which let the chickens pick up oats from between their powerful
hoofs, without ever frightening them by moving.
"It is too long a walk for little sister, but you must remember
everything that you see and hear, and tell her about it. Don't forget
the field-glass," said the Doctor, following the boys along the road
where telegraph wires made bird-perches between the high poles.
"You said a lot of birds came last night," said Nat to Rap; "but how do
you know that they came last night and where did they come from?"
"I know they came last night because they were not here yesterday,"
answered Rap; "but I don't know where they came from, except that it
must be from where it is warmer than it is here, because they went away
just before it grew cold last fall. See, Doctor, there are some of them
now on those fence rails and more up on the telegraph wires. The miller
calls them 'Bee Martins,' and says that they eat up all the honey-bees.
Have they any other name--because I have never seen them catch bees?"
Nat looked at them first with the field-glass, then without it as they
drew quite near the fence, and saw a fine bird, twice as long as his
middle finger. Its back and wings looked dark gray; it was white
underneath, with a touch of gray on the breast, and had a black tail,
with white at the end of it. As Nat looked the bird raised a little tuft
of feathers on top of its head, as if angry, flew into the air, giving a
shrill cry, seized an insect, and returned to its perch.
"That is the Kingbird," said the Doctor; "one of the most useful of the
insect-catchers. Instead of living on honey-bees, as many people think,
he eats very few of these, but kills instead thousands of the bad
robber-fly, which is the honey-bee's worst enemy. This bird is really
king of the air and of all fly-catching birds. See how graceful his
flight is, and how easily be moves!"
"Why did he go away last fall?" asked Nat. "Does he feel the cold
weather very much?
"He does not stay in the United States until the weather is cold enough
to dull him; but he has to move away for another reason. The same reason
that forces so many birds to leave us--he must follow his food. This
food consists of insects--different kinds of flies, ants, and
grasshoppers, which disappear or die as the air grows cold.
"Rap, have you ever noticed the difference between the sounds in a
spring night and a night in autumn? In spring the air is humming with
the calls of all sorts of insects, but in autumn it is silent, and even
the crickets have stopped chirping.
"So about the last of September our Kingbirds, who live everywhere in
the United States, gather in flocks, start to find a place where insects
are still stirring about, and fly southward, following the sea-coast and
the great rivers for paths. Those from the eastern part of the country
stop in Central America or fly on to South America, and those from the
western part often stop in Mexico."
"But how can they fly so far?" said Nat; "it's hundreds of miles; and
how do they find the way?"
"The flight of a bird is a wonderful thing, my boy. He spreads those
frail wings of his, and launches into the air, up, up, above trees and
steeples, then on and on, being able to fly several hundred miles
without resting. Some birds, when the wind aids them, cover more than a
hundred miles in a single hour.
"As to the way, the eye of the bird is like a telescope. It magnifies
and sees from very far off. Flying through the upper air the bird
watches the line of coast and river, and the instinct that is placed in
him says, 'Follow these.' So he follows them, remembering that by doing
so he has found a place of safety in other seasons. All through the
spring and all through the autumn birds take these mysterious
flights--for so they always seem to House People, as flock after flock
gathers and disappears. You can watch them sometimes passing by day so
high in the sky that they seem like dust-motes--then perhaps you will
only hear a faint call-note and see nothing. At night the sound of many
voices falls from the clouds. Sometimes it will be the tinkling bell of
Bobolinks, sometimes the feeble peep of Snipes, and sometimes the hoarse
honk of Wild Geese."
"Why, Uncle Roy! Can you tell a bird's name without seeing it, only by
one little cry?"
"Yes, my lad. When you have lived with birds as long as I have, you will
know their different voices as you do those of your own family. When
some one calls you in the garden, can't you tell whether it is Dodo or
Olive?"
"Yes, but their voices are so _very_ different."
"So are the voices of birds, when you know them well."
"But the young birds who have been hatched up here--how do they know
about going the first time?" asked Rap.
"The young ones are led in their journeys with signals and cries by
their parents; they in turn lead their own young, and so the knowledge
is kept up endlessly."
"I can see why they go south," said Rap, after thinking a few moments,
"but why do they come back again? Why don't they stay and build their
nests down there?"
"That is a difficult question to answer," said the Doctor, "and one that
we House People try to explain in different ways. I think that the love
of the place where they were born is strong enough in birds to bring
them back every season to build their nests. So you see that Citizen
Bird is a patriot; for, though he may be in the midst of plenty in a
tropical forest, when the time comes he travels hundreds of miles to his
native land to make the young, that will fly from his nest, citizens
like himself."
"But the birds that can eat seeds and other things do not travel so far,
do they?" asked Rap.
"No, the birds who rove about the United States throughout the year are
either Weed Warriors, or Seed Sowers, or those Tree Trappers who creep
about tree-trunks picking the eggs and grubs of insects from the bark.
Or else those great Cannibal Birds, the Wise Watchers, who eat the flesh
of their smaller brothers, as well as of rats, mice, and all such
vermin--the Hawks and Owls; or else they are Gulls, Terns, Fishing
Ducks, and a great many other kinds of sea birds who feed on fish and
pick up the scraps floating on the surface of sea, lake, and river."
"Do the Barn Swallows that are making nests in the hayloft go as far
south as Kingbirds?" asked Nat.
"Yes, indeed! The Swallows' swift flight carries them far and wide, for
not only do they make homes all through North America, but they are so
sure of wing and confident of outstripping any cannibal birds who might
try to chase them, that when they leave us they fly by day and often
stop for a little visit in the West Indies on their way to South
America."
"Suppose, Uncle Roy, when they are travelling, a storm comes up and it
grows so foggy they can't see how to follow the rivers--don't they
sometimes lose themselves?"
"Yes, very often they become confused and fly this way and that, but
always toward the nearest place where they see a light, as if it meant
escape for them. But this instinct is frequently their death, for they
fly against the towers of great lighthouses, or the windows of tall
buildings, or even electric wires, and thus break their necks or wings."
"That is why I have so often found dead birds along the turnpike under
the telegraph wires," said Rap.
"Yes, Rap, the inventions of man are very wonderful, but some of them
have been sad things for Bird People, and this is another reason why we
should protect them whenever we can. These journeys that the birds make
when they leave their nesting haunts for the winter season, and return
again in spring, are called _migrations_. The word 'migrate' means to
move from one country to another with the intention of remaining there
for some time. The birds who only make little trips about the country,
never staying long in one place, we call visitors.
"Birds may be divided according to their journeys into three groups,
which will help you to place them:
"1. Citizens.
"Those Bird People whose families stay in or near the same place the year
round, roving about somewhat according to the food-supply and weather.
"2. Summer Citizens.
"The families that, though they are with us but six or eight months of
the year, make their homes here, and pay their rent and taxes by working
for the common good. As they are almost all insect-eaters, they are even
more useful than the stay-at-home Citizens, who are chiefly seed-eaters
or cannibals.
"3. Winter Visitors.
"The birds who come down from the North in severe weather, but do not
stay in one place for any particular time, arriving one day and
disappearing the next. They glean for their scanty board and return to
the cold countries, of which they are Citizens, before nesting-time."
"Please tell me the names of some of the birds that live here all the
time," said Nat. "Have I seen any yet?"
"I think the Bluebird, the Robin, and the Song Sparrow are Citizens,"
said Rap, "because last winter I used to see one of two almost every
day, unless the snow and ice were very thick."
"Yes," said the Doctor, "the Bluebird is a Citizen in the Middle and
Southern States, and the Robin also. But in the more northerly parts
they are Summer Citizens, returning early and staying late. But the Song
Sparrow is a Citizen almost everywhere, and is known about every bushy
garden from the east coast to the west, and from the cotton plantation
to the land of snow."
"Please tell me the names of some winter visitors," said Rap. "Isn't the
Great White Owl one of these?"
"Yes, the Snowy Owl is one of them; so is the Snowflake, who comes to
us on the wings of the storm; the tiny Winter Wren, the Great Northern
Shrike, and many others, who arrive when snow-tide is upon us in the
temperate part of the country, after our song birds have flown to the
warmer south. You shall hear of all these, and learn where each one
lives, in the bird stories I am going to write for you. But now let us
go down by the river and see what some of these newly arrived birds are
doing after their long journey.
"Hark! I hear the notes of a Thrasher in those bushes, and the
Red-winged Blackbirds are calling all through the marsh meadow. When I
was a boy the alder bushes were always full of nests."
"They have nests there now," said Rap eagerly; "a great many nests, and
they are very pretty. Ah! There is the big brown bird that you call a
Thrasher, with his striped breast and long tail that spreads like a fan.
I see him--he is building in that barberry bush!"
"Then the nest comes pretty soon after the up-journey," said Nat.
"Yes," answered the Doctor, as he watched the antics of the Thrasher;
"right after the journey the mate, and next the nest. Do not forget the
mate, Nat, for it is Mrs. Bird who usually makes the nest and _always_
lays the eggs, besides working in the guilds with her husband, whose
greatest distinction is in being the family musician."
"When do the Summer Citizens begin to come back to their nesting
places?" asked Nat. "And when do they go away again?"
"The great bird procession begins the first of March with Bluebirds,
Robins, Redwings, and Meadowlarks, but it is the first of June before
the latest comers, the little Marsh Wrens, are settled. Then in autumn,
from September until the first snows of December fall, the procession
flutters back south again, one by one or in great flocks, dropping away
like falling leaves in the forest, and the birds that we see later are
likely to be Citizens.
"The early Robin may have a second brood and the Hummingbird eggs in her
nest, before the Marsh Wrens have even been seen.
"In the Southern States the birds arrive and build sooner than in the
Northern. A cold spring may delay the on-coming migration, or a warm
autumn retard the return movement. But as you study birds you will soon
see that each one has his own place in the procession, and usually keeps
it. Year by year this vast procession goes on in the air, back and
forth, night and day, like the ceaseless ebb and flow of the tides at
sea. Bird-waves flow on forever, in their appointed times, and none of
Nature's aspects are more regular or more unfailing. It almost seems,
boys, as if birds made the seasons--as if winter in the Middle and
Northern States might be called the 'songless season.'"