HUMMERS AND CHIMNEY SWEEPS
THE RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD
[Illustration: Ruby-Throated Hummingbird.]
"It won't be dark for a long time yet," said Dodo, after they had driven
silently for a couple of miles, watching the clouds against the
tree-tops and the Swallows that were out in full force, sky-sweeping for
their evening meal.
"Are you growing sleepy?" asked Olive.
"No, only _terribly hungry_" whispered Dodo, as if rather ashamed of the
fact; "and do you know, Olive, after dinner to-day I told Olaf I never
should be hungry again, because I ate so much chowder. After we had
driven awhile I thought to myself, 'I shan't want supper to-night
anyway.' Then pretty soon I thought, 'I _shall_ want supper,' and now I
want it _right away_!" The Doctor laughed and looked at the cows that
were pasturing in the roadside fields, for they were passing a farming
village.
"I don't see any Cowbirds this afternoon," said Nat, thinking the Doctor
was looking for them.
"This time I am looking at the cows themselves! Those over there are
beautiful creatures, and there is a clear spring of water in the corner
of the pasture. When we come to the farmhouse where they belong, we will
stop to buy some milk, and Miss Dodo shall have supper; for even Mammy's
buns, when they have been travelling about all day in a basket, would,
be rather dry without milk."
"But wouldn't the milk be good if the cows were not pretty, and there
was no spring in the pasture?" asked Nat, who must have a reason for
everything.
"It is not a question of pretty cows; it is whether they are clean and
healthy or not, that makes the milk good or bad. And good pure water to
drink, from a spring that is not near any barnyard or outbuilding, is
one of the best things for keeping cows in good health."
Meanwhile they had driven up to a farmhouse, almost as large as their
own, and the mistress, who was arranging her pans for the evening
milking, said they might have cold milk then, or fresh warm milk if they
would wait a little while until the cows came home.
Under the back porch was a cage with a little Owl in it, and the woman
said it belonged to her boy. Joe, for that was his name, was about Rap's
age, and soon made friends with them. They told him where they had been
spending the day, and about their uncle's wonder room, and the birds at
Orchard Farm. "Have you got a Hummingbird's nest on your farm, and a
Swallow chimney?" Joe asked anxiously.
"No, not exactly," said Nat, hesitating. "There are some birds in Uncle
Roy's chimney, but we haven't found a Hummingbird's nest yet, though
there are lots of the birds about the garden."
"Well, there's a Hummingbird's nest in our crab-apple tree, and we own
the biggest Swallow chimney there is in the county! Pa says so, and he
knows," said Joe proudly. "If you'll come with me and not grab the nest,
I'll show it to you. It's a widow Hummingbird, too. I've never seen her
mate since she began to set, but before that he was always flyin' round
the honeysuckles and laylocks, so I'm sure he is dead."
"May I come too?" asked the Doctor.
"Pleased to have you, sir," said Joe, making a stiff little bow. "I'd
have asked you, only most men folks don't set much store by birds 'nless
they are the kind they go gunnin' for. Only pa does. He likes any kind
o' bird, whether it sings or not, and he's powerful fond of the Swallows
in our chimney. He says they eat the flies and things that tease the
cows down in the pasture, and since those Swallows came to our chimney
we haven't had to put fly-sheets on the oxen when they are in the
pasture--not once."
"Now, children, you see what good the Sky Sweepers do," said the Doctor.
"Sky Sweepers! We don't call 'em that! We call 'em Chimney Swallows!"
Then the children told Joe about the Bird Brotherhoods.
"Stand on this box," said Joe to Dodo, "and look hard at that small
slantways branch, with the little bunch on it!"
"The little round bunch that looks like soft green moss?"
"Yes. Well, that's the Hummer's nest!"
"Oh! oh!" cried Dodo, forgetting to whisper, "I see a mite of a tail and
a sharp needle beak sticking over the edge!"
This was too much for Mrs. Hummer, who flew off with a whirr like an
angry little spinning-wheel--if such a proper Puritan thing is ever
angry; and there in the nest were two tiny eggs, like white beans.
"Come back by the fence and watch," said Joe. "She doesn't like to leave
the nest much when it is toward night."
"It's a pity her mate is dead. How lonely she must be!" said Dodo, who
had a tender little heart.
"I do not think her mate is dead," said the Doctor; "he is merely
staying away, after a custom of his family. The bird whose nest we see
there is called the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, because he has a patch of
glittering ruby-red feathers under his chin, at the top of his
buttoned-up vest that hardly shows any while shirt-front. He wears a
beautiful golden-green dress-coat, with its dark purplish tails deeply
forked. His wife looks very much like him, only she has no ruby jewels
to wear.
"Bold as this bird is in darting about and chasing larger ones, he is
less than four inches long--only about the size of one of the hawk-moths
that come out to feed, just as this valiant pygmy lancer leaves the
flowers for the night.
"These Hummingbirds live on honey and very small insects, and dread the
cold so that they spend the winter southward from Florida. But as soon
as real spring warmth comes, they spread over the United States, east of
the plains, and north even to the Fur Countries. They are the only kind
found in the eastern half of North America, though there are more than a
dozen other species in the West, most of them near the Mexican borders
of the United States.
"When the Hummers arrive here, early in May, we see the brilliant males
darting about--sometimes, I am sorry to say, quarrelling with their
rivals and giving shrill cries like the squeaking of young mice. The
last of May the dainty nest is made of plant-down and lichen scales.
Then the male goes off by himself and sulks. You may see him feeding,
but he keeps away from the nest--selfish bird that he is--until the
little ones are ready to fly.
"Meanwhile the mother takes all the care and trouble herself, feeding
her little Hummers in a peculiar way. She swallows tiny insects, and
when they have remained a little while in her crop she opens her beak,
into which the young bird puts its own and sucks the softened food, as a
baby does milk from its bottle."
"I was wondering this very morning," said Joe, "how the old bird was
going to feed her young ones when those two eggs hatched, without any
mate to help her. I'm real glad you came along to explain it, sir.
Somehow the reasons lots of folk give for things aren't reasonable at
all."
"Now, children," said the Doctor, "write the Hummingbird table before
the twilight comes on."
The Ruby-throated Hummingbird.
Length less than four inches.
Male: shining golden-green above, with dark purplish wings and tail, the
latter forked; glittering ruby-red throat; other under parts grayish,
with some white on the breast and greenish on the sides.
Female: lacks the ruby throat, and has the tail not forked, but some of
its feathers white-tipped.
A Summer Citizen of the eastern United States from Florida to Canada.
Though songless, a jewel of a bird, belonging to the guild of Tree
Trappers. Nest a tiny round cup of moss and plant-down stuccoed with
lichens; eggs only two, white.
THE CHIMNEY SWIFT
"Now, wouldn't you like to see the big chimney?" asked Joe. "The birds
go in and out a good deal this time o' day. It's across the road there,
where the old house used to be. The house is all gone, but the chimney
is as strong as ever--I can climb up top and look down at the nests
inside. See! there it is now!" Looking over the fence, they saw a tall
stack of worn gray stones, that looked more like a tower than a chimney.
Small blackish birds kept streaming from the top, circling high in the
air and darting down again, all twittering as they dropped one after
another out of sight, inside the weather-beaten pile.
"Look, children!" said the Doctor. "These are Chimney Swifts, usually
called Chimney Swallows: and their color is like soot, to match the
places they live in."
"Aren't they any relations of Swallows?" asked Rap.
"No, my boy; they look like Swallows, but as I think Olive told you
once, the Swifts are a family all by themselves. This one lives in the
eastern half of the country in summer, and goes far south for the
winter. When he lives in a wild region, he chooses a hollow tree for his
nesting place, as his ancestors always did before there were any houses
or chimneys.
[Illustration: Chimney Swift.]
"The flight of the Swift is so rapid that at times it is almost
impossible for the quickest eye to follow him; his wings are very
strong, and almost as long as all the rest of his body. Short and blunt
as his tail looks when he flies, each feather ends in a hard sharp point
which sticks out beyond the soft part. They feed on insects which they
catch as they dash through the air, and can also break off dry twigs for
nest-building without stopping--sometimes seizing the little sticks in
their bills and sometimes in their claws, which are much stronger than
those of Swallows."
"How do they make the sticks stay in the chimney? What do they set them
on, and how do they perch while they are building?" asked Nat, all in
one breath.
"Do you remember how the little Brown Creeper propped himself against
the tree when he looked for insects?"
"Yes," said Rap; "he stuck his sharp tail-feathers into the bark and
made a bracket of himself."
"The Swift does this also when he fastens twigs together for a nest.
They are glued together into a little openwork basket, and gummed to the
wall of the chimney, with a sticky fluid which comes from his own
mouth."
"I've got a lot of old nests that fell down the chimney after a storm
last winter that wet the glue and made them come unstuck," said Joe;
"and I'll give you each one. If you look up the hole where the kitchen
fireplace was, you can see the new nests quite plain; for the birds
don't build them very near the top."
"Be careful of loose stones!" called the Doctor; but in a flash four
young heads had disappeared in the ruins of the great fireplace, where
three pairs of trousers and a short brown linen skirt alone were
visible.
In a little while they had some milk and strawberries; and before they
drove on Joe's father promised to take him up to Orchard Farm to see
the birds in the Doctor's wonder room, as soon as haying should be over.
To the children's astonishment they found it was half-past six o'clock;
they had been at the farm an hour and a half, and could not stop again
until they reached the wood lane where their uncle had promised to look
for the Pewee's nest.
"Stay here, little people, and ask all the questions you like of Olive,"
said the Doctor, when they had reached the lane; "for I shall be able to
find the nest more easily if you do not frighten the birds by talking."
"Pewee, pewee, pe-e-er!" cried a little voice.
"There he is, crying 'peek-a-boo' again," said Dodo. "Please, Olive,
won't you tell us the table for the Chimney Swift now?"
"Certainly; and there is plenty of light yet if you wish to write it
down."
The Chimney Swift
Length five and a half inches.
Sooty brown. Sharply pointed tail-feathers.
A Summer Citizen of eastern North America from Florida to the Fur
Countries.
An excellent neighbor--a friend of the farmer and his cattle. An officer
in the guild of Sky Sweepers, who shoots through the air in the shape of
a bow and arrow.
"Come softly," said the Doctor, returning to the roadside; "I have found
the Pewee's nest; it is quite new, and has no eggs in it as yet. This
way--up along this ledge of rocks, and you can almost look into it."
They moved quietly over the rocks until they reached a pepperidge tree,
when the Doctor motioned them to stop and pointed to one of its branches
which stretched over the rock. There was a flat nest with an evenly
rounded edge, all covered with lichen scales outside.
"It is just like a Hummingbird's nest," whispered Nat.
"Only flatter, more like a saucer than a cup," said Rap. "Is it made of
plant-down, too?"
"No--of fine grasses, rootlets, and bits of bark," said the Doctor; "and
in a few days it will hold three or four creamy-white eggs, prettily
wreathed around one end with dark-brown spots."
"Pewee, pewee, pe-e-er!" cried the nest owner very sadly.
"We are going home, so you needn't worry, dear," said Dodo.
"Good-night."