places. For several seasons a pair have nested in a bushy marsh a few
miles back of me, near the house of a farmer friend of mine, who has a
keen eye for the wild life about him. Two years ago he found the nest,
but when I got over to see it the next week, it had been robbed,
probably by some boys in the neighborhood. The past season, in April or
May, by watching the mother bird, he found the nest again. It was in a
marshy place, several acres in extent, in the bottom of a valley, and
thickly grown with hardback, prickly ash, smilax, and other low thorny
bushes. My friend took me to the brink of a low hill, and pointed out to
me in the marsh below us, as nearly as he could, just where the nest was
located. Then we crossed the pasture, entered upon the marsh, and made
our way cautiously toward it. The wild, thorny growths, waist-high, had
to be carefully dealt with. As we neared the spot, I used my eyes the
best I could, but I did not see the hawk till she sprang into the air
not ten yards away from us. She went screaming upward, and was soon
sailing in a circle far above us. There, on a coarse matting of twigs
and weeds, lay five snow-white eggs, a little more than half as large as
hens' eggs. My companion said the male hawk would probably soon appear
and join the female, but he did not. She kept drifting away to the east,
and was soon gone from our sight.
We presently withdrew and secreted ourselves behind the stone wall, in
hopes of seeing the mother hawk return. She appeared in the distance,
but seemed to know she was being watched, and kept away.
About ten days later we made another visit to the nest. An adventurous
young Chicago lady also wanted to see a hawk's nest, and so accompanied
us. This time three of the eggs were hatched, and as the mother hawk
sprang up, either by accident or intentionally she threw two of the
young hawks some feet from the nest. She rose up and screamed angrily.
Then, turning toward us, she came like an arrow straight at the young
lady, a bright plume in whose hat probably drew her fire. The damsel
gathered up her skirts about her and beat a hasty retreat. Hawks were
not so pretty as she thought they were. A large hawk launched at one's
face from high in the air is calculated to make one a little nervous. It
is such a fearful incline down which the bird comes, and she is aiming
exactly toward your eye. When within about thirty feet of you, she turns
upward with a rushing sound, and, mounting higher, falls toward you
again. She is only firing blank cartridges, as it were; but it usually
has the desired effect, and beats the enemy off.
After we had inspected the young hawks, a neighbor of my friend offered
to conduct us to a quail's nest. Anything in the shape of a nest is
always welcome, it is such a mystery, such a centre of interest and
affection, and, if upon the ground, is usually something so dainty and
exquisite amid the natural wreckage and confusion. A ground nest seems
so exposed, too, that it always gives a little thrill of pleasurable
surprise to see the group of frail eggs resting there behind so slight a
barrier. I will walk a long distance any day just to see a song
sparrow's nest amid the stubble or under a tuft of grass. It is a jewel
in a rosette of jewels, with a frill of weeds or turf. A quail's nest I
had never seen, and to be shown one within the hunting-ground of this
murderous hawk would be a double pleasure. Such a quiet, secluded,
grass-grown highway as we moved along was itself a rare treat.
Sequestered was the word that the little valley suggested, and peace the
feeling the road evoked. The farmer, whose fields lay about us, half
grown with weeds and bushes, evidently did not make stir or noise enough
to disturb anything. Beside this rustic highway, bounded by old mossy
stone walls, and within a stone's throw of the farmer's barn, the quail
had made her nest. It was just under the edge of a prostrate thorn-bush.
"The nest is right there," said the farmer, pausing within ten feet of
it, and pointing to the spot with his stick.
In a moment or two we could make out the mottled brown plumage of the
sitting bird. Then we approached her cautiously till we bent above her.
She never moved a feather.
Then I put my cane down in the brush behind her. We wanted to see the
eggs, yet did not want rudely to disturb the sitting hen.
She would not move.
Then I put down my hand within a few inches of her; still she kept her
place. Should we have to lift her off bodily?
Then the young lady put down her hand, probably the prettiest and the
whitest hand the quail had ever seen. At least it started her, and off
she sprang, uncovering such a crowded nest of eggs as I had never before
beheld. Twenty-one of them! a ring or disk of white like a china
tea-saucer. You could not help saying, How pretty! How cunning! like
baby hens' eggs, as if the bird were playing at sitting, as children
play at housekeeping.
If I had known how crowded her nest was, I should not have dared disturb
her, for fear she would break some of them. But not an egg suffered harm
by her sudden flight. And no harm came to the nest afterward. Every egg
hatched, I was told, and the little chicks, hardly bigger than
bumblebees, were led away by the mother into the fields.
In about a week I paid another visit to the hawk's nest. The eggs were
all hatched, and the mother bird was hovering near. I shall never forget
the curious expression of those young hawks sitting there on the ground.
The expression was not one of youth, but of extreme age. Such an
ancient, infirm look as they had,--the sharp, dark, and shrunken look
about the face and eyes, and their feeble, tottering motions! They sat
upon their elbows and the hind part of their bodies, and their pale,
withered legs and feet extended before them in the most helpless
fashion. Their angular bodies were covered with a pale yellowish down,
like that of a chicken; their heads had a plucked, seedy appearance; and
their long, strong, naked wings hung down by their sides till they
touched the ground: power and ferocity in the first rude draught, shorn
of everything but its sinister ugliness. Another curious thing was the
gradation of the young in size; they tapered down regularly from the
first to the fifth, as if there had been, as probably there was, an
interval of a day or two between the hatchings.
The two older ones showed some signs of fear on our approach, and one of
them threw himself upon his back, and put up his impotent legs, and
glared at us with open beak. The two smaller ones regarded us not at
all. Neither of the parent birds appeared during our stay.
When I visited the nest again, eight or ten days later, the birds were
much grown, but of as marked a difference in size as before, and with
the same look of extreme old age,--old age in men of the aquiline type,
nose and chin coming together, and eyes large and sunken. They now
glared upon us with a wild, savage look, and opened their beaks
threateningly.
The next week, when my friend visited the nest, the larger of the hawks
fought him savagely. But one of the brood, probably the last to hatch,
had made but little growth. It appeared to be on the point of
starvation. The mother hawk (for the male seemed to have disappeared)
had perhaps found her family too large for her, and was deliberately
allowing one of the number to perish; or did the larger and stronger
young devour all the food before the weaker member could obtain any?
Probably this was the case.
Arthur brought the feeble nestling away, and the same day my little boy
got it and brought it home, wrapped in a woolen rag. It was clearly a
starved bantling. It cried feebly but would not lift up its head.
We first poured some warm milk down its throat, which soon revived it,
so that it would swallow small bits of flesh. In a day or two we had it
eating ravenously, and its growth became noticeable. Its voice had the
sharp whistling character of that of its parents, and was stilled only
when the bird was asleep. We made a pen for it, about a yard square, in
one end of the study, covering the floor with several thicknesses of
newspapers; and here, upon a bit of brown woolen blanket for a nest, the
hawk waxed strong day by day. An uglier-looking pet, tested by all the
rules we usually apply to such things, would have been hard to find.
There he would sit upon his elbows, his helpless feet out in front of
him, his great featherless wings touching the floor, and shrilly cry for
more food. For a time we gave him water daily from a stylograph-pen
filler, but the water he evidently did not need or relish. Fresh meat,
and plenty of it, was his demand. And we soon discovered that he liked
game, such as mice, squirrels, birds, much better than butcher's meat.
Then began a lively campaign on the part of my little boy against all
the vermin and small game in the neighborhood, to keep the hawk
supplied. He trapped and he hunted, he enlisted his mates in his
service, he even robbed the cats to feed the hawk. His usefulness as a
boy of all work was seriously impaired. "Where is J----?" "Gone after a
squirrel for his hawk." And often the day would be half gone before his
hunt was successful. The premises were very soon cleared of mice, and
the vicinity of chipmunks and squirrels. Farther and farther he was
compelled to hunt the surrounding farms and woods to keep up with the
demands of the hawk. By the time the hawk was ready to fly, it had
consumed twenty-one chipmunks, fourteen red squirrels, sixteen mice, and
twelve English sparrows, besides a great deal of butcher's meat.
His plumage very soon began to show itself, crowding off tufts of the
down. The quills on his great wings sprouted and grew apace. What a
ragged, uncanny appearance he presented! but his look of extreme age
gradually became modified. What a lover of the sunlight he was! We would
put him out upon the grass in the full blaze of the morning sun, and he
would spread his wings and bask in it with the most intense enjoyment.
In the nest the young must be exposed to the full power of the midday
sun during our first heated terms in June and July, the thermometer
often going up to ninety-three or ninety-five degrees, so that sunshine
seemed to be a need of his nature. He liked the rain equally well, and
when put out in a shower would sit down and take it as if every drop did
him good.
His legs developed nearly as slowly as his wings. He could not stand
steadily upon them till about ten days before he was ready to fly. The
talons were limp and feeble. When we came with food, he would hobble
along toward us like the worst kind of a cripple, drooping and moving
his wings, and treading upon his legs from the foot back to the elbow,
the foot remaining closed and useless. Like a baby learning to stand, he
made many trials before he succeeded. He would rise up on his trembling
legs only to fall back again.
One day, in the summer-house, I saw him for the first time stand for a
moment squarely upon his legs with the feet fully spread beneath them.
He looked about him as if the world suddenly wore a new aspect.
His plumage now grew quite rapidly. One red squirrel a day, chopped fine
with an axe, was his ration. He began to hold his game with his foot
while he tore it. The study was full of his shed down. His dark-brown
mottled plumage began to grow beautiful. The wings drooped a little, but
gradually he got control of them, and held them in place.
It was now the 20th of July, and the hawk was about five weeks old. In a
day or two he was walking or jumping about the grounds. He chose a
position under the edge of a Norway spruce, where he would sit for hours
dozing, or looking out upon the landscape. When we brought him game, he
would advance to meet us with wings slightly lifted, and uttering a
shrill cry. Toss him a mouse or sparrow, and he would seize it with one
foot and hop off to his cover, where he would bend above it, spread his
plumage, look this way and that, uttering all the time the most exultant
and satisfied chuckle.
About this time he began to practice striking with his talons, as an
Indian boy might begin practicing with his bow and arrow. He would
strike at a dry leaf in the grass, or at a fallen apple, or at some
imaginary object. He was learning the use of his weapons. His wings
also,--he seemed to feel them sprouting from his shoulders. He would
lift them straight up and hold them expanded, and they would seem to
quiver with excitement. Every hour in the day he would do this. The
pressure was beginning to centre there. Then he would strike playfully
at a leaf or a bit of wood, and keep his wings lifted.
The next step was to spring into the air and beat his wings. He seemed
now to be thinking entirely of his wings. They itched to be put to use.
A day or two later he would leap and fly several feet. A pile of brush
ten or twelve feet below the bank was easily reached. Here he would
perch in true hawk fashion, to the bewilderment and scandal of all the
robins and catbirds in the vicinity. Here he would dart his eye in all
directions, turning his head over and glancing up into the sky.
He was now a lovely creature, fully fledged, and as tame as a kitten.
But he was not a bit like a kitten in one respect,--he could not bear to
have you stroke or even touch his plumage. He had a horror of your hand,
as if it would hopelessly defile him. But he would perch upon it, and
allow you to carry him about. If a dog or cat appeared, he was ready to
give battle instantly. He rushed up to a little dog one day, and struck
him with his foot savagely. He was afraid of strangers, and of any
unusual object.
The last week in July he began to fly quite freely, and it was necessary
to clip one of his wings. As the clipping embraced only the ends of his
primaries, he soon overcame the difficulty, and, by carrying his broad,
long tail more on that side, flew with considerable ease. He made
longer and longer excursions into the surrounding fields and vineyards,
and did not always return. On such occasions we would go to find him and
fetch him back.
Late one rainy afternoon he flew away into the vineyard, and when, an
hour later, I went after him, he could not be found, and we never saw
him again. We hoped hunger would soon drive him back, but we have had no
clew to him from that day to this.
THE WINTER WREN
An old hemlock wood at the head waters of the Delaware is a chosen haunt
of the winter wren. His voice fills these dim aisles, as if aided by
some marvelous sounding-board. Indeed, his song is very strong for so
small a bird, and unites in a remarkable degree brilliancy and
plaintiveness. I think of a tremulous, vibrating tongue of silver. You
may know it is the song of a wren from its gushing, lyrical character;
but you must needs look sharp to see the little minstrel, especially
while in the act of singing. He is nearly the color of the ground and
the leaves; he never ascends the tall trees, but keeps low, flitting
from stump to stump and from root to root, dodging in and out of his
hiding-places, and watching all intruders with a suspicious eye. He has
a very pert, almost comical look. His tail stands more than
perpendicular: it points straight toward his head. He is the least
ostentatious singer I know of. He does not strike an attitude, and lift
up his head in preparation, and, as it were, clear his throat; but sits
there on a log and pours out his music, looking straight before him, or
even down at the ground. As a songster, he has but few superiors. I do
not hear him after the first week in July.
The winter wren is so called because he sometimes braves our northern
winters, but it is rarely that one sees him at this season. I think I
have seen him only two or three times in winter in my life. The event of
one long walk, recently, in February, was seeing one of these birds. As
I followed a byroad, beside a little creek in the edge of a wood, my eye
caught a glimpse of a small brown bird darting under a stone bridge. I
thought to myself no bird but a wren would take refuge under so small a
bridge as that. I stepped down upon it and expected to see the bird dart
out at the upper end. As it did not appear, I scrutinized the bank of
the little run, covered with logs and brush, a few rods farther up.
Presently I saw the wren curtsying and gesticulating beneath an old log.
As I approached he disappeared beneath some loose stones in the bank,
then came out again and took another peep at me, then fidgeted about for
a moment and disappeared again, running in and out of the holes and
recesses and beneath the rubbish like a mouse or a chipmunk. The winter
wren may always be known by these squatting, bobbing-out-and-in habits.
As I sought a still closer view of him, he flitted stealthily a few
yards up the run and disappeared beneath a small plank bridge near a
house.
I wondered what he could feed upon at such a time. There was a light
skim of snow upon the ground, and the weather was cold. The wren, so far
as I know, is entirely an insect-feeder, and where can he find insects
in midwinter in our climate? Probably by searching under bridges, under
brush-heaps, in holes and cavities in banks where the sun falls warm. In
such places he may find dormant spiders and flies and other hibernating
insects or their larvæ. We have a tiny, mosquito-like creature that
comes forth in March or in midwinter, as soon as the temperature is a
little above freezing. One may see them performing their fantastic
air-dances when the air is so chilly that one buttons his overcoat about
him in his walk. They are darker than the mosquito,--a sort of dark
water-color,--and are very frail to the touch. Maybe the wren knows the
hiding-place of these insects.
THE CEDAR-BIRD
How alert and vigilant the birds are, even when absorbed in building
their nests! In an open space in the woods I see a pair of cedar-birds
collecting moss from the top of a dead tree. Following the direction in
which they fly, I soon discover the nest placed in the fork of a small
soft maple, which stands amid a thick growth of wild cherry-trees and
young beeches. Carefully concealing myself beneath it, without any fear
that the workmen will hit me with a chip or let fall a tool, I await the
return of the busy pair. Presently I hear the well-known note, and the
female sweeps down and settles unsuspectingly into the half-finished
structure. Hardly have her wings rested before her eye has penetrated my
screen, and with a hurried movement of alarm she darts away. In a moment
the male, with a tuft of wool in his beak (for there is a sheep pasture
near), joins her, and the two reconnoitre the premises from the
surrounding bushes. With their beaks still loaded, they flit round with
a frightened look, and refuse to approach the nest till I have moved off
and lain down behind a log. Then one of them ventures to alight upon
the nest, but, still suspecting all is not right, quickly darts away
again. Then they both together come, and after much peeping and spying
about, and apparently much anxious consultation, cautiously proceed to
work. In less than half an hour it would seem that wool enough has been
brought to supply the whole family, real and prospective, with socks, if
needles and fingers could be found fine enough to knit it up. In less
than a week the female has begun to deposit her eggs,--four of them in
as many days,--white tinged with purple, with black spots on the larger
end. After two weeks of incubation the young are out.
Excepting the American goldfinch, this bird builds later in the season
than any other, its nest, in our northern climate, seldom being
undertaken till July. As with the goldfinch, the reason is, probably,
that suitable food for the young cannot be had at an earlier period.
I knew a pair of cedar-birds, one season, to build in an apple-tree, the
branches of which rubbed against the house. For a day or two before the
first straw was laid, I noticed the pair carefully exploring every
branch of the tree, the female taking the lead, the male following her
with an anxious note and look. It was evident that the wife was to have
her choice this time; and, like one who thoroughly knew her mind, she
was proceeding to take it. Finally the site was chosen upon a high
branch, extending over one low wing of the house. Mutual congratulations
and caresses followed, when both birds flew away in quest of
building-material. That most freely used is a sort of cotton-bearing
plant which grows in old worn-out fields. The nest is large for the size
of the bird, and very soft. It is in every respect a first-class
domicile.
The cedar-bird is the most silent bird we have. Our neutral-tinted
birds, like him, as a rule are our finest songsters; but he has no song
or call, uttering only a fine bead-like note on taking flight. This note
is the cedar-berry rendered back in sound. When the ox-heart cherries,
which he has only recently become acquainted with, have had time to
enlarge his pipe and warm his heart, I shall expect more music from him.
But in lieu of music, what a pretty compensation are those minute,
almost artificial-like, plumes of orange and vermilion that tip the ends
of his wing quills! Nature could not give him these and a song too.
THE GOLDFINCH
About the most noticeable bird of August in New York and New England is
the yellowbird, or goldfinch. This is one of the last birds to nest,
seldom hatching its eggs till late in July. It seems as if a particular
kind of food were required to rear its brood, which cannot be had at an
earlier date. The seed of the common thistle is apparently its mainstay.
There is no prettier sight at this season than a troop of young
goldfinches, led by their parents, going from thistle to thistle along
the roadside and pulling the ripe heads to pieces for the seed. The
plaintive call of the young is one of the characteristic August sounds.
Their nests are frequently destroyed, or the eggs thrown from them, by
the terrific July thunder-showers. Last season a pair had a nest on the
slender branch of a maple in front of the door of the house where I was
staying. The eggs were being deposited, and the happy pair had a loving
conversation about them many times each day, when one afternoon a very
violent storm arose which made the branches of the trees stream out like
wildly disheveled hair, quite turning over those on the windward side,
and emptying the pretty nest of its eggs. In such cases the birds build
anew,--a delay that may bring the incubation into August.
It is a deep, snug, compact nest, with no loose ends hanging, placed in
the fork of a small limb of an apple-tree, a peach-tree, or an
ornamental shade-tree. The eggs are faint bluish-white.
While the female is sitting, the male feeds her regularly. She calls to
him on his approach, or when she hears his voice passing by, in the most
affectionate, feminine, childlike tones, the only case I know where the
sitting bird makes any sound while in the act of incubation. When a
rival male invades the tree, or approaches too near, the male whose nest
it holds pursues and reasons or expostulates with him in the same
bright, amicable, confiding tones. Indeed, most birds make use of their
sweetest notes in war. The song of love is the song of battle too. The
male yellowbirds flit about from point to point, apparently assuring
each other of the highest sentiments of esteem and consideration, at the
same time that one intimates to the other that he is carrying his joke a
little too far. It has the effect of saying with mild and good-humored
surprise, "Why, my dear sir, this is my territory; you surely do not
mean to trespass; permit me to salute you, and to escort you over the
line." Yet the intruder does not always take the hint. Occasionally the
couple have a brief sparring-match in the air, and mount up and up, beak
to beak, to a considerable height, but rarely do they actually come to
blows.