bird’s quaint behavior, which deserves more than a mere passing notice.
He was not in the least shy or nervous, but seemed rather to court my
presence. Almost every moment was spent in capturing insects on the wing
or in sitting on a perch watching for them to flash into view. Like a
genuine flycatcher, as soon as a buzzing insect hove in sight, he would
dart out after it, and never once failed to secure his prize. Sometimes
he would plunge swiftly downward after a gnat or a miller, and once,
having caught a miller that was large and inclined to be refractory, he
flew to the ground, beat it awhile on the clods, and then swallowed it
with a consequential air which seemed to say, “That is my way of
disposing of such cases!” Several times he mounted almost straight up
from his perch, and twice he almost turned a somersault in pursuit of an
insect. Once he clung like a titmouse to the bole of a sapling. I could
often hear the snapping of his mandibles as he nabbed his prey. When an
insect came between him and myself, he would fearlessly dash directly
toward me, as if he meant to fly in my face or alight on my head, often
coming within a few feet of me. He seemed to be as confiding as a child.
When I stepped to the other end of the gravel-bank, going even a little
beyond it, curiously enough, the bird pursued me; then, as an
experiment, I walked back to my first post of observation, and, to my
surprise, he followed me again. Was he really desirous of my company? Or
did he know that I intended to ring his praises in type? At length I
stole away a short distance among the trees, but presently a loud
chirping in my rear arrested my attention. I turned back, and found it
to be my new-made friend, the hooded warbler, who, strange to say,
seemed to be calling me back to his haunt. Then I climbed to the top of
the gravel-bank; he selected perches higher up in the saplings than
before, so as to be nearer me,—at least, so it appeared. The
affectionate little darling! The only other sound he uttered during the
entire time of our hobnobbing—his and mine—was the slenderest hint of a
song, which was really more of a twitter than a tune.
But at last I bade the little sorcerer a reluctant adieu. In a hollow of
the woods I lay down on the green grass, and listened for half an hour
to the lyrical medley of a brown thrasher perched on a treetop. It was
indeed a wonderful performance, and the longer I listened the more its
witchery grew upon me. My special purpose in bending my whole attention
upon this performance was to see if the thrasher mimicked the songs of
other birds. Many persons think him a genuine imitator; indeed, in some
places he is called the northern mocking-bird. I am forced to say,
however, that, as far as my observation goes, he does not mimic, but
sings his own compositions, like the original genius he is. In all that
song, and others since listened to, not a single strain did he utter
that I could positively identify as belonging to the musical repertoire
of another bird. It is true, he sometimes, in the midst of his song,
uttered the alarm call of the robin; but as both birds belong to the
same family, this was not to be wondered at, and affords no evidence of
the gift of imitation. If the thrasher does mimic his fellow-minstrels,
as many persons contend, the borrowed notes are so brief and so
intermingled and blent with his own music as to be unrecognizable.
On the other hand, this tawny vocalist utters musical strains that are
entirely unlike anything else in the whole realm of bird minstrelsy,
proving his song to be characteristic. The brown thrasher is not a
musical pirate, but an original composer,—a sort of Mozart or Beethoven
in the bird world. And how wonderful are some of his slurred runs!
Nothing in the domain of music could be finer, and the harsh notes he
frequently interpolates only serve to accentuate and enhance the melody
of those that are truly lyrical.
In his engaging book entitled “Birds in the Bush,” Bradford Torrey, who
is second to none in the school of popular writers on feathered folk,
characterizes this tawny vocalist in a most admirable manner. However,
in regard to the matter of mimicry, his observations differ slightly
from my own; yet I gladly quote what he says rather incidentally on the
subject. One day he was listening to three thrashers singing
simultaneously. “In the midst of the hurly-burly,” he writes, “one of
the trio suddenly sounded the whippoorwill’s call twice,—an absolutely
perfect reproduction.” Then he adds, somewhat jocosely, in a foot-note:
“The ‘authorities’ long since forbade _Harporhynchus rufus_ to play the
mimic. Probably in the excitement of the moment this fellow forgot
himself.” Of course, one cannot gainsay the testimony of so careful an
observer and so conscientious a reporter as Mr. Torrey; yet it is
possible that this whippoorwill call was only a slip of the thrasher’s
voice and not an intended imitation; at all events, in my opinion, such
vocal coincidences, whether accidental or designed, are of rare
occurrence.
Since the foregoing observations were made and first published, I have
often sought to prove them untrue, but have failed. No thrasher has
ever, in my hearing, unmistakably plagiarized a single strain from his
fellow-musicians. Fearing my ear for music might be defective, rendering
me incapable of distinguishing correctly the various songs of birds, I
put myself to the test in this way: On one of the streets of my native
town there is a brilliant mocking-bird, whose cage is often hung out on
a veranda. Again and again I have stopped to listen to his ringing
medley, and have never failed to hear him distinctly mimic the songs and
calls of other birds, such as the robin, blue jay, cardinal grossbeak,
and red-headed woodpecker. Why should I be able instantly to detect the
notes of other birds in the mocker’s song and never once be able to
detect them in the song of the thrasher?
But it is fully time to return to my ramble. The gifted songster in the
tree-top would sometimes pipe a strain of such exquisite sweetness that
it seemed to surprise himself; he would pause a moment, as if to reflect
upon it and fix it in mind for future use; and erelong he would repeat
it, reminding his admiring auditor of Browning’s lines on the Wise
Thrush,—
“He sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture.”
New strains were continually introduced. So loud and full were some of
his notes that “the blue air trembled with his song,” and the woods
fairly woke into echoes. It is really doubtful if the disparaging term
“hurly-burly” should be applied to such peerless vocalization. It was
bird opera music of the highest style, improvised for the occasion, and
formed a fitting conclusion to this rare birds’ gala-day.
XIV.
RIFE WITH BIRDS.
A JAUNT TO A NEW FIELD.
A four days’ outing along the Ohio River one spring brought me some
“finds” that may be of interest to bird lovers. Everywhere there were
the twinkle of wings, the twitter of voices, and the charm of song;
indeed, so plentiful were the feathered folk that the title of this
article is far less poetical than realistic and descriptive. It was the
latter part of May, the time in that latitude when the birds were in
full song, at least those which were not too busy with their family
cares. Sixty-four species were seen during a stay of four days in the
neighborhood.
Mine host was a farmer whose premises afforded a habitat for numerous
birds, there being many trees and bushes in the yard and a large orchard
near by. In one of the silver maples a pair of warbling vireos had built
a tiny pendent cradle, as is their wont, set in a bower of shining twigs
and green leaves. There it swayed in the zephyrs, rocking the birdlings
to sleep and filling their dreams with rhythm; and the lullabies that
the happy parents sang were cheerful and engaging, in spite of the fact
that some critic has pronounced the minstrelsy of the warbling vireo
tiresome. Tiresome, forsooth! Truth to tell, the more closely you listen
to it the sweeter it grows. All day long, from peep of dawn to evening
twilight, those quaint, continuous lays could be heard, now subdued and
desultory, now almost as vigorous as a robin’s carol.
It sometimes seemed as if the vireos and orchard orioles were rival
vocalists. If so, a prize should be awarded to both,—to the vireos for
persistency, for never letting up; to the orioles for richness and
melody of tone. Many a rollicking two-part concert they gave.
But there were other voices frequently heard in the chorus, though not
so continuously as those of the birds just mentioned. A song-sparrow,
which had built a dainty cot in a bush not two rods from the veranda,
sometimes trilled an interlude of entrancing sweetness, taking the bays
for real tunefulness from every rival. Then, to my surprise, a Maryland
yellow-throat, shy little fellow in other places, would frequently sing
his heart out in the small trees and silver maples of the front yard. He
did not fly off or discontinue his song when an auditor stood right
beneath his perch, but would throw back his masked head, distend his
golden throat, and deliver his trill to his own and everybody else’s
satisfaction. Very often, too, the indigo-bird, just returned from a
bath in the cerulean depths, would enrich the harmony with the most
rollicksome, if not the most tuneful lay of the chorus. As a sort of
accompaniment, the chipping-sparrow often trilled his silvery monotone;
and once a robin added his _Cheerily, here, here!_
So much for the birds about the house, though there were many others
that have not been mentioned; in fact, there were some twenty species in
all. There were also birds a-plenty in other places. A half day was
spent in some fields bordering the broad river. On a green slope was a
bush-sparrow’s nest, daintily bowered in the grass by the side of a
blackberry bush, and in a thicket hard by two yellow-breasted chats had
placed their grassy cradles, proclaiming their secret to all the world
by their loud cries of warning to keep away. It is odd that these birds,
shy and nervous as they are, should go so far out of their way to tell
you that they have a nest somewhere in the copse that you mustn’t touch,
mustn’t even look for. While you are yet a quarter of a mile away, they
will utter their loud cries of warning; and if you go to the thicket
where they are, you will be almost sure to find their nest, so poorly
have they learned the lesson of discretion.
In a little hollow of the copse a dying crow lay prone upon the ground.
At intervals he would struggle and gasp in a spasmodic way. When I
gently moved him with my cane, he grasped it with his claws and held it
quite firmly. I put the stick to his large black beak. He took hold of
it feebly, ready to defend himself even with his last gasp, for that it
proved to be; he lay over and died the next instant. I could not give
the pathology of the case, as no wounds could be found on his body.
One of the most interesting finds of the day was the nest of a green
heron, often called “fly-up-the-creek.” The nest, only a loosely
constructed platform of sticks, was placed on the branches of a leaning
clump of small trees, and was about twenty feet from the ground. The
startled bird flew back and forth in the row of trees, and even went
back to the nest while I watched her at a distance, but was too shy to
remain there when I went near. In spite of the offensive nicknames
foisted upon this heron, it is a handsome bird. As this one flew back
and forth she made quite an elegant picture, with her long, glossy-brown
neck and tail, white throat-line, ash-blue back, dappled under parts,
and the long, slender feathers draping her hind-neck. But why was she
called the green heron? Look as sharply as I would, I could descry no
green in her plumage. A few days later, however, I examined a mounted
specimen, and then the puzzle was solved; for an iridescent green patch
on the wing was so marked a feature of its coloration as to account for
the bird’s common name.
Memory will always linger fondly about a certain afternoon and evening
spent on the steep hills mounting up toward the sky a quarter of a mile
or more back from the river. To a pedestrian like myself, used to
rambling over a comparatively level scope of country, these high hills
afforded a wonderful prospect, and almost made my head dizzy, as I
clambered far up their steep sides. Perhaps the mountain-climber would
think them tame. It made my head swim that evening to see a towhee
bunting dart from a copse near by and hurl himself with reckless abandon
down the declivity, as if there were not the slightest danger of
breaking his neck or dashing himself to pieces. He stopped just in time
to plunge into another thicket for which he had taken aim.
As the sun sank, I seated myself on the grass far up the steep, and
looked down on the beautiful valley below me. There was the broad Ohio,
wending its way between the sentinel hills, the green clover fields and
meadows smiling good-night to the sinking sun, and the brown ploughed
fields with their green corn-rows. A wood-thrush mounted to a dead twig
at the very top of a tall oak some distance below me, and poured forth
his sad vesper hymn, so bewitchingly sweet and far-away; the while
Kentucky warblers and cardinal grossbeaks piped their lullabies or
madrigals, as they chose, from the darkling woods; and, altogether, it
was a never-to-be-forgotten evening.
An early morning hour found me climbing the acclivity and mounting to
the top of the hill. In a clover-field the gossamer _Tse-e-e_ of the
grasshopper sparrow, a birdlet among birds, pierced my ear. Presently a
pair of these sparrows were seen on the fence-stakes, and, yes, one of
them had a worm in its bill, indicating that there were little ones in
the neighborhood. If I could find a grasshopper sparrow’s nest! Often
had I sought for one, but without success. For a long while my eyes
followed the bird with the worm in her bill. Every now and then she
would dart over into the grass as if to feed her bantlings, and I would
mark the spot where she alighted; but when I went to it no nest or
birdlings were to be found. Again and again I fairly trembled, thinking
myself on the verge of a discovery, only to be balked completely in the
end. But one victory was won; I got close enough to the bird to see
distinctly with my glass the yellow markings on the edge of the wings,—a
characteristic I had never before been able to make out. Curiously
enough, one wing of this bird was quite profusely tinged with yellow,
while the yellow of the other could just be distinguished.
Why should not a bird-student frankly chronicle his failures as well as
his successes? During the day I encountered three birds that I was
unable to identify, try as I would. One was singing lustily in some tall
trees, and when at length I got my glass upon him he looked like a
Carolina wren; but that bird has been a familiar acquaintance for many
years,—comparatively speaking,—and I have so often heard his varied
roundels that they certainly are all known to me. Moreover, the quality
of this mysterious singer’s voice and the manner of his execution were
wholly different from those of the Carolina or any other wren of my
acquaintance. The following is a transcription of the song as near as it
could be represented by letters: _Che-ha-p-e-e-r-r-r!_
_che-ha-p-e-e-r-r-r!_ repeated at brief intervals loudly and vigorously,
but without variation. The bird had a white superciliary line,
brownish-barred wings, and whitish under parts. A consultation of all
the manuals in my possession fails to solve the problem.
In a deep gorge, cut through the country by a small creek—small now, at
least—on its way to the river, two curious bird calls were heard; but
one bird kept himself hidden in a dense thicket, and the other bolted
into the dark woods that covered a steep acclivity. The first bird sang
rather than called, and the words he said sounded quite distinct:
_Che-o-wade’ll-wade’ll-chip!_—a sentiment that he repeated again and
again.
In spite of these disappointments my jaunt through this ravine was
exceedingly pleasant,—so delightfully quiet and solitary; not a human
sound to disturb the sacredness of the place; nothing but the songs and
calls of wild birds.
“’Twas one of those charmed days
When the genius of God doth flow;
The wind may alter twenty ways,
A tempest cannot blow:
It may blow north, it still is warm;
Or south, it still is clear;
Or east, it smells like a clover-farm;
Or west, no thunder fear.”
In one of the loneliest parts of the ravine there appeared on the scene
my first Louisiana water-thrush, often called the large-billed wagtail.
There it stood “teetering” on a spray or a rock, or skimming through the
shallow water, its speckled breast and olive back harmonizing—I had
almost said rhyming—with the gray of the creek’s bed, the crystal of the
water, and the green of the thicket-fringed banks. It was part and
parcel of the scene,—a lone bird in a lone place. But, hold! not lone,
after all. Presently a young wagtail, the image of its mamma, emerged
from somewhere or nowhere, and ran toward the old bird with open mouth,
twinkling wings, and a pretty, coaxing call. She thrust something into
its mouth; but still the bantling coaxed for more, when she dashed away
a few feet, picked up another tidbit from the water, ran back to her
little charge, and fed it again. But now, when it still pursued her, she
seemed to lose her patience, for she rushed threateningly toward it,
causing it to scamper away, and then she flew off. Yet after that she
fed either the same or another youngster a number of times. Once a
water-thrush went swinging down the gorge, the very poetry of graceful
poise and movement, looking more like a naiad than a real
flesh-and-blood birdlet.
On a horizontal branch extending out over the rippling stream, a
wood-thrush sat on her mud cottage; but whether she appreciated the
romantic character of the situation or not, she did not say. There were
many other interesting feathered folk in the gorge and on its wooded
steeps, each “a brother of the dancing leaves;” but to describe them all
would take too long, and merely to name them would be too much like
reciting a dry catalogue.
XV.
VARIOUS PHASES OF BIRD LIFE.[7]
I.
BIRD COURTSHIP.
No one who has studied the birds can deny that there is genuine sexual
love among them. Many species act on the principle that “a pure life for
two” is the only kind of life to live, and therefore a match once made
is a match that lasts until death does them part. There may be
fickleness, divorce, and downright unfaithfulness among birds sometimes,
and there certainly is polygamy among some species; but such examples of
irregularity are rather the exception than the rule. Monogamy largely
prevails, and I have no doubt that any departure from the regular
connubial relation creates a scandal in bird circles.
As in the human world, so in the bird world a period of courtship
precedes the celebration of the nuptials. But the mode differs in
different kingdoms of creation. Many lovers in feathers conduct their
wooing in a somewhat rudely persistent and obtrusive fashion. Society
would soon ostracize the human suitor having such manners, and might
even consider him amenable to the civil courts, and put him in jail as a
character unfit to be abroad. However, if hot pursuit, brazen manners,
and half-coercive measures are considered “good form” in bird land, we
of the human genus are the last who have a right to find fault, for are
we not the most conventional beings on the face of the earth? You might
almost as well be in limbo or inferno as out of style. Was there not a
time when even the flaming sunflower was regarded as the highest emblem
of the beautiful, merely because it was the “fad,” and not because
anybody really felt that it possessed special æsthetic qualities?
“People who live in glass houses ought not to throw stones,” is the
saucy challenge of the merry chickadee to his human critic, as he
dashes, like an animated “nigger-chaser,” after the little Dulcinea whom
he has marked for his bride. Then he stops, and, balancing on a spray,
whistles his sweetest minor tune, _Pe-e-w-e-e, pe-e-e-w-e-e_; which,
being interpreted, probably means,—
“Does not all the blood within me
Leap to meet thee, leap to meet thee,
As the spring to meet the sunshine?”
No doubt many a feathered swain is smitten, and smitten very deeply too,
with Cupid’s arrow, flung by some charming capturer of hearts. A little
boy’s love-letter to a lassie who had taken his throbbing heart by
storm, ran thus: “I love you very dearly. You are so nice that I don’t
blame anybody for falling in love with you. I don’t see why _everybody_
doesn’t fall in love with you.” If one may judge from the impetuosity
with which most feathered lovers press their suits, there must be many
instances of such captivation in bird land.
Have you ever been witness of the wooing of that half-knightly,
half-boorish bird, the yellow-hammer? In the grove near my house several
pairs of these birds had a great time one spring settling their hymeneal
affairs. For hours a lover would pursue the object of his affections
around and around, never giving her a moment’s respite. No sooner had
she gone bounding to another tree than he would dash after, often
flinging himself recklessly right upon the spot where she had alighted,
compelling her to hitch away, to avoid being struck by her impetuous
lover. His policy seemed to be to take her heart by storm, to wear her
out, to give her no time to think matters over, to compel her, _nolens
volens_, to consent to his proposed marital alliance. No doubt she
finally, said yes, merely to get rid of him, and then failed of her
purpose. After the courtship has passed its first stage, and the wooed
one has grown less shy, the bowings and scrapings of the yellow-hammers
are truly ludicrous. The female will flit away only a short distance,
and will sometimes turn toward her mottled suitor, when they will wag
their heads at each other, now to this side, now to that, in the most
serio-comical manner imaginable. It is the way these lords and ladies of
woodpeckerdom make their royal obeisances.
On a pleasant day in February two downy woodpeckers were “scraping
acquaintance.” The male pursued his sweetheart about in the trees after
the manner of his kind; but occasionally she would stand at bay and
apparently challenge him to come nearer if he dared. Then both of them
would lift their striped forms to an almost perpendicular position,
their heads and beaks pointing straight toward the sky, and their bodies
swaying grotesquely from side to side. This little comedy over, the
finical miss bolted to another tree, with her cavalier in hot pursuit.
Coy as the feathered ladies usually seem, many of them apparently are
genuine flirts, and would feel greatly disappointed should their lovers
give over the chase. They evidently want to be won, but not too easily.
(Perhaps it might be said, _en passant_, there are belles in other than
the bird community who resort to similar _naïve_ and winsome ruses.) In
a shady nook of the woods I once saw a gallant towhee bunting employing
all the arts at his command to win a damsel who seemed very demure. He
was an extremely handsomely formed and finely clad bird,—a real _édition
de luxe_. He flew down to the ground, picked up a brown leaf in his
bill, and flourished it at her, as much as to say, “It is time for
nest-building, dear.” Then he spread his wings and handsome tail, and
strutted almost like a peacock about on the leafy ground. But, no, she
would not, and she would not, and there was no use in talking; she
flitted, half contemptuously, to a more distant bush. That proud cockney
need not think she cared for him! She wasn’t going to lose her heart to
every lovelorn swain who came along. But, mark you, when I tried to
separate them, by driving one to one side of the path and the other to
the opposite side, the little hypocrite contrived every time, with
admirable finesse, to flit over toward her knightly suitor. Three times
the experiment brought the same result. Her maidenly reserve had a good
deal of calculation in it, after all, innocent as she appeared. Perhaps
she had conned Longfellow’s wise quatrain:
“How can I tell the signals and the signs
By which one heart another heart divines?
How can I tell the many thousand ways
By which it keeps the secret it betrays?”
That the course of true love does not always run smooth in the bird
world as elsewhere, goes without saying. There are feuds and jealousies.
Sometimes two beaux admire the same belle, and then there may be war to
the death. I have seen two rival song-sparrows clutch in the air, peck
and claw at each other viciously, and come down to the ground with a
thud that must have knocked the breath out of them for a few moments.
Incredible as it may seem, an acute observer of bird life declares that
the females are most likely to quarrel and fight over their lovers. At
such times the male stands by, looks on approvingly, and lets them fight
it out, no doubt pluming himself on the fact that he is of sufficient
importance to be the cause of a duel or a sparring-match among the
ladies.