For danger did not come to Heron Camp without finding Ardea's Soldier at
his post.
Now the Plume-Hunters did not have bodies like crocodiles and leather
wings, you know; but they were dragons of a sort, for all that, for they
carried brutal things in their hands that belched forth smoke and pain
and death, and they were cruel of heart, and they had sold themselves to
do evil for the sake of the dollars that covetous men and women would
pay them for feathers.
Dragons though they were, Ardea's Soldier met them bravely. I like to
think how brave he was; for was not the fight he fought a fight for our
good old Mother Earth, that she might not lose those beautiful children
of hers? If the world should be robbed of Snowy Herons, it would be just
so much less lovely, just so much less wonderful. And have they no right
to life, since the same Power that gave life to men gave life to them?
And when we think about it this way, who seems to have the better right
to those plumes--herons, or men and women?
The Soldier believed in Ardea's right to life, believed in it so deeply
that he stood alone before the Plume-Hunters and told them that, while
he lived, the birds of his camp should also live.
And that is why they killed him--the dragons who were cruel of heart
and had sold themselves to do evil for the sake of dollars that covetous
men and women would pay for feathers.
Because of his courage and because of the cause for which he died, I
think, don't you, that Ardea's Soldier might well be called "Knight of
the Snowy Heron."
I said that he was alone, and it is true that no one was there at the
camp to help him. But many there were in other places doing their bit in
the same good fight. Another soldier, named Theodore Roosevelt, did much
for these birds when he was President, by granting them land where no
man had a right to touch them; for it makes a true soldier angry when
the weak are oppressed, and he said, "It is a disgrace to America that
we should permit the sale of aigrettes." Another man, named Woodrow
Wilson, whose courage also was so great that he always did what he
believed to be right, would not permit, when he was Governor of New
Jersey, a company to sell aigrettes in that State; he said, "I think New
Jersey can get along without blood-money."
Many another great man, besides, served the cause of Ardea. So many, in
fact, that there is not room here to tell about them all. But there is
room to say that the children helped. For, you know, every Junior
Audubon Society sends money to the National Association of Audubon
Societies--not much, but a little; and when the Knight of the Snowy
Heron was killed, that little helped the National Association to hire
another soldier to take his place. Now, think of that! There was another
soldier who so believed in the Herons' right to life and plumage, that
he was ready to protect them though it meant certain danger to himself!
Yes, there is to this very day a soldier at Heron Camp. Do you know a
way to keep him safe? Why, you children of America can do it if you
will, and it need not cost one of you a penny. You can do it with your
minds. For if every girl makes up her mind for good and all that she
will never wear a feather that costs a bird its life; and if every boy
makes up his mind for good and all that he will never be a
feather-hunting dragon--why there will not be _anybody_ growing up in
America to harm Ardea, will there? You can keep the Soldier of Heron
Camp safe by just wishing it! That sounds wonderful as a fairy story
come true, does it not? And like the knight in some old fairy tale,
could not Ardea's new Soldier "live happily forever after"?
IX
THE FLYING CLOWN
There are many accounts of the flying clown, in books, nearly all of
which refer to him as bull-bat or nighthawk, and a member of the
Goatsucker or Nightjar family. But he wasn't a bull and he wasn't a bat
and he wasn't a hawk and he wasn't a jar; and he flew more by day than
by night, and he never, never milked a goat in all his life. So for the
purposes of this story we may as well give him a name to suit ourselves,
and call him Mis Nomer.
He was a poor skinny little thing, but you would not have guessed it to
see him; for he always wore a loose fluffy coat, which made him look
bigger and plumper than he really was. It was a gray and brown and
creamy buff-and-white sort of coat, quite mottled, with a rather plain,
nearly black, back. It was trimmed with white, there being a white
stripe near the end of the coat-tail, a big, fine, V-shaped white place
under his chin that had something the look of a necktie, and a bar of
white reaching nearly across the middle of each wing.
These bars would have made you notice his long, pointed wings if he had
been near you, and they were well worth noticing; for besides just
flying with them,--which was wonderful enough, as he was a talented
flier,--he used them in a sort of gymnastic stunt he was fond of
performing in the springtime.
Perhaps he did it to show off. I do not know. Certainly he had as good a
right to be proud of his accomplishments as a turkey or a peacock that
spreads its tail, or a boy who walks on his hands. Maybe a better right,
for they have solid earth to strut upon and run no risks, while Mis did
his whole trick in the air. It was a kind of acrobatic feat, though he
had no gymnasium with bars or rings or tight rope, and there was no
canvas stretched to catch him if he fell. A circus, with tents, and a
gate-keeper to take your ticket, would have been lucky if it could have
hired Mis to show his skill for money.
But Mis couldn't be hired. Not he! He was a free, wild clown, performing
only under Mother Nature's tent of wide-arched sky. If you wanted to see
him, you could--ticket or no ticket. That was nothing to him; for Mis,
the wild clown of the air, had no thought either of money or fame among
people.
Far, far up, he flew, hither and yon, in a matter-of-fact-enough way;
and then of a sudden, with wings half-closed, he dropped toward the
earth. Could he stop such speed, or must he strike and kill himself in
his fall? Down, down he plunged; and then, at last, he made a sound as
if he groaned a loud, deep "boom."
[Illustration: _The Flying Clown._]
But just at the moment of this sound he was turning, and then, the first
anyone knew, he was flying up gayly, quite gayly. Then it wasn't a groan
of fear? Mis afraid! Why the rascal had but to move his wings this way
and that, and go up instead of down. He might be within a second of
dashing himself to death against the ground, but so sure were his wings
and so strong his muscles, that a second was time and to spare for him
to stop and turn and rise again toward the safe height from which he
dived. A fine trick that! The fun of the plunge, and then the quick jerk
at the end that sent the wind groaning against and between the feathers
of his wings, with a "boom" loud and sudden enough to startle anyone
within hearing.
Yes, you might have seen the little clown at his tricks without a ticket
at the wild-circus gate, for all he cared or knew. What did the children
of men matter to him? Had not his fathers and grandfathers and
great-grandfathers given high-air circus performances of a springtime,
in the days when bison and passenger pigeons inherited their full share
of the earth, before our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers
had even seen America?
Was it, then, just for the joy of the season that he played in the air,
or was there, after all, someone besides himself to be pleased with the
sport? Who knows whether the little acrobat was showing his mate what a
splendid fellow he was, how strong of wing and skillful in the tricks of
flight? Be that as it may, the mate of Mis was satisfied in some way or
other, and went with him on a voyage of discovery one afternoon, when
the sky was nicely cloudy and the light pleasantly dull.
Now, like all good parents, Mis and his mate were a bit particular about
what sort of neighborhood they should choose for their home; for the
bringing up of a family, even if it is a small one, is most important.
A peaceful place and a sunny exposure they must have; there must be good
hunting near at hand; and one more thing, too, was necessary. Now, the
house-lot they finally decided upon met all four of these needs, though
it sounds like a joke to tell you where it was. But then, when a clown
goes merrily forth to find him a home, we must not be surprised if he is
funny about it. It was where the sun could shine upon it; though how Mis
and his mate knew that, all on a dull, dark afternoon, I'm sure I can't
tell. Maybe because there wasn't a tree in sight. And as for peace, it
was as undisturbed as a deserted island. It was, in fact, a sort of
island in a sea of air, and at certain times of the day and night there
was game enough in this sea to satisfy even such hunters as they.
Perhaps they chuckled cosily together when they decided to take their
peace and sunshine on the flat roof of a very high building in a very
large city. Their house-lot was covered with pebbles, and it suited them
exactly. So well that they moved in, just as it was.
Yes, those two ridiculous birds set up housekeeping without any house.
Mother Nomer just settled herself on the bare pebbles in a satisfied
way, and that was all there was to it. Not a stick or a wisp of hay or a
feather to mark the place! And as she sat there quietly, a queer thing
happened. She disappeared from sight. As long as she didn't move, she
couldn't be seen. Her dappled feathers didn't look like a bird. They
looked like the light and dark of the pebbles of the flat roof. Ah, so
_that_ was the one thing more that was necessary for her home, besides
sunshine and peace and good hunting. It must be where she could sit and
not show; where she could hide by just looking like what was near her,
like a sand-colored grasshopper on the sand in the sun,[2] or a
walking-stick on a twig,[2] or a butterfly on the bark of a tree.[2]
Yes, Mis's mate knew, in some natural wise way of her own, the secret of
making use of what we call her "protective coloration." This is one of
the very most important secrets Mother Nature has given her children,
and many use it--not birds alone, but beasts and insects also. They use
it in their own wild way and think nothing about it. We say that it is
their instinct that leads them to choose places where they cannot easily
be seen. If you do not understand exactly what instinct is, do not feel
worried, for there are some things about that secret of Mother Nature
that even the wisest men in the world have not explained. But this we do
know, that when her instincts led Mother Nomer to choose the pebbly roof
as a background for her mottled feathers, she did just naturally very
much the same thing that the soldiers in the world-war did when they
made use of great guns painted to look like things they were not, and
ships painted to look like the waves beneath them and the clouds in the
sky above. Only, the soldiers did not use their protective coloration
naturally and by instinct. They did this by taking thought; and very
proud they felt, too, of being able to do this by hard study. They
talked about it a great deal and the French taught the world a new word,
_camouflage_, to call it by. And their war-time camouflage _was_
wonderful, even though it was only a clumsy imitation of what Mother
Nature did when the feathers of Mother Nomer were made to grow dappled
like little blotches of light and dark; or, to put it the other way
about, when the bird was led, by her instinct, to choose for the
nesting-time a place where she did not show.
Of course, it was not just the gravel on the flat roof that would match
her feathers; for there isn't a house in the land that is nearly so old
as one thousand years, and birds of this sort have been building much
longer than that. No, so far as color went, Mother Nomer might have
chosen a spot in an open field, where there were little broken sticks or
stones to give it a mottled look--such a place, indeed, as her ancestors
used to find for their nesting in the old days when there were no
houses. Such a place, too, as most of this kind of bird still seek; for
not all of them, by any means, are roof-dwellers in cities.
Our bird with the dappled feathers, however, sat in one little spot on
that large roof for about sixteen days and nights, with time enough off
now and then to get food and water, and to exercise her wings. When she
was away, Mis came and sat on the same spot. If you had been there to
see them come and go, you would have wondered why they cared about that
particular spot. It looked like the rest of the sunny roof--just little
humps of light and dark. Ah, yes! but two of those little humps of light
and dark were not pebbles: they were eggs; and if you couldn't have
found them, Mis and his mate could, though I think even they had to
remember where they were instead of eye-spying them.
By the time sixteen days were over, there were no longer eggs beneath
the fluffy feathers that had covered them. Instead, there were two
little balls of down, though you couldn't have seen them either, unless
you had been about near enough to touch them; for the downy children of
Mis were as dappled as his mate and her eggs, and they had, from the
moment of their hatching, the instinct for keeping still if danger came
near.
[Illustration: _Peaceful enough, indeed, had been the brooding days._]
Peaceful enough, indeed, had been the brooding days of Mother Nomer.
Something of the noise and bustle, to be sure, of the city streets came
up to her; but that was from far below, and things far off are not worth
worrying about. Sometimes, too, the sound of voices floated out from
the upper windows of the building, quite near; but the birds soon became
used to that.
When the twins were but a few days old, however, their mother had a real
scare. A man came up to take down some electric wires that had been
fastened not far from the spot that was the Nomer home. He tramped
heavily about, throwing down his tools here and there, and whistling
loudly as he worked. All this frightened little Mother Nomer. There is
no doubt about that, for her heart beat more and more quickly. But she
didn't budge. She couldn't. It was a part of her camouflage trick to sit
still in danger. The greater the danger, the stiller to sit! She even
kept her eyes nearly shut, until, when the man had cut the last and
nearest end of wire and put all his things together in a pile ready to
take down, he came to look over the edge of the roof-wall. As he bent to
do this, he brushed suddenly against her.
Then Mother Nomer sprang into the air; and the man jumped, in such
surprise that, had it not been for the wall, he would have fallen from
the roof. It would be hard to tell which was the more startled for a
moment--man or bird. But Mother Nomer did not fly far. She fell back to
the roof some distance from her precious babies and fluttered pitifully
about, her wings and tail spread wide and dragging as she moved lamely.
She did not look like a part of the pebbly roof now. She showed
plainly, for she was moving. She looked like a wounded bird, and the
man, thinking he must have hurt her in some way, followed her to pick
her up and see what the trouble was. Three times he almost got her.
Almost, but not quite. Crippled as she seemed, she could still fumble
and flutter just out of reach; and when at last the man had followed her
to a corner of the roof far from her young, Mother Nomer sprang up, and
spreading her long, pointed wings, took flight, whole and sound as a
bird need be.
The man understood and laughed. He laughed at himself for being fooled.
For it wasn't the first time a bird had tricked him so. Once, when he
was a country boy, a partridge, fluttering as if broken-winged, had led
him through the underbrush of the wood-lot; and once a bird by the
river-side stumbled on before him, crying piteously, "Pete! Pete!
Pete-weet!" and once--Why, yes, he should have remembered that this is
the trick of many a mother-bird when danger threatens her young.
So he went back, with careful step, to where he had been before. He
looked this way and that. There was no nest. He saw no young. The little
Nomer twins were not the son and daughter of Mis, the clown, and Mother
Nomer, the trick cripple, for nothing! They sat there, the little
rascals, right before his eyes, and budged not; they could practice the
art of camouflage, too.
[Illustration: _The little rascals could practise the art of
camouflage._]
But as he stood and looked, a wistful light came into the eyes of the
man. It had been many years since he had found nesting birds and watched
the ways of them. His memory brought old pictures back to him. The
crotch in the tree, where the robin had plastered her nest, modeling the
mud with her feathered breast; the brook-edge willows, where the
blackbirds built; the meadow, with its hidden homes of bobolinks; and
the woods where the whip-poor-wills called o' nights. His thoughts made
a boy of him again, and he forgot everything else in the world in his
wish to see the little birds he felt sure must be among the pebbles
before him. So he crept about carefully, here and there, and at last
came upon the children of Mis. He picked up the fluffy little balls of
down and snuggled them gently in his big hands for a moment. Then he put
them back to their safe roof, and, gathering up his tools, went on his
way, whistling a merry tune remembered from the days when he trudged
down Long-ago Lane to the pasture, for his father's cows. Late of
afternoon it used to be, while the nighthawks dashed overhead in their
air-hunts, showing the white spots in their wings that looked like
holes, and sometimes making him jump as they dropped and turned, with a
sudden "boom."
No sooner had the sound of his whistle gone from the roof, than Mother
Nomer came back to her houseless home--any spot doing as well as
another, now that the twins were hatched and able to walk about. As she
called her babies to her and tucked them under her feathers, her heart
still beating quickly with the excitement of her scare, it would be easy
to guess from the dear way of her cuddling that it isn't a beautiful
woven cradle or quaint walls of clay that matter most in the life of
young birds, but the loving care that is given them. In this respect the
young orioles, swinging in their hammock among the swaying tips of the
elm tree, and the children of Eve and Petro, in their wonderful brick
mansion, were no better off than the twins of Mis and Mother Nomer.
Busy indeed was Mis in the twilights that followed the hatching of his
children; and, though he was as much in the air as ever, it was not the
fun of frolic and clownish tricks that kept him there. For, besides his
own keen appetite, he had now the hunger of the twins to spur him on.
Such a hunter as he was in those days! Why, he caught a thousand
mosquitos on one trip; and meeting a swarm of flying ants, thought
nothing at all of gobbling up five hundred before he stopped. Countless
flies went down his throat. And when the big, brown bumping beetles,
with hard, shiny wing-covers on their backs and soft, fuzzy velvet
underneath, flew out at dusk, twenty or thirty of them, as likely as
not, would make a luncheon for Mis the clown. For he was lean and
hungry, and he ate and ate and ate; but he never grew fat. He hunted
zigzag through the twilight of the evening and the twilight of the dawn.
When the nights were bright and game was plenty, he hunted zigzag
through the moonlight. When the day was dull and insects were on the
wing, he hunted, though it was high noon. And many a midnight rambler
going home from the theatre looked up, wondering what made the darting
shadows, and saw Mis and his fellows dashing busily above where the
night-insects were hovering about the electric lights of the city
streets. He hunted long and he hunted well; but so keen was his appetite
and so huge the hunger of his twins, that it took the mother, too, to
keep the meals provided in the Nomer home.
I think they were never unhappy about it, for there is a certain
satisfaction in doing well what we can do; and there is no doubt that
these birds were made to be hunters. Mis and his kind swept the air, of
course, because they and their young were hungry; but the game they
caught, had it gone free to lay its myriad eggs, would have cost many a
farmer a fortune in sprays to save his crops, and would have added
untold discomfort to dwellers in country and city alike.
Although Mis, under his feathers, was much smaller than one would think
to look at him, there were several large things about him besides his
appetite. His mouth was almost huge, and reached way around to the sides
of his head under his eyes. It opened up more like the mouth of a frog
or a toad than like that of most birds. When he hunted he kept it
yawning wide open, so that it made a trap for many an unlucky insect
that flew straight in, without ever knowing what happened to it when it
disappeared down the great hollow throat, into a stomach so enormous
that it hardly seems possible that a bird less than twice the size of
Mis could own it.
There were other odd things about him, too--for instance, the comb he
wore on his middle toe-nail. What he did with it, I can't say. He didn't
seem to do very much with his feet anyway. They were rather feeble
little things, and he never used them in carrying home anything he
caught. He didn't even use them as most birds do when they stop to
rest; for, instead of sitting on a twig when he was not flying, he would
settle as if lying down. Sometimes he stayed on a large level branch,
not cross-wise like most birds, but the long way; and when he did that,
he looked like a humpy knot on the branch. When there were no branches
handy, he would use a rail or a log or a wall, or even the ground; but
wherever he settled himself, he looked like a blotch of light and dark,
and one could gaze right at him without noticing that a bird was there.
That was the way Mother Nomer did, too--clowns both of them and always
ready for the wonderful game of camouflage!
They had remarkable voices. There seemed to be just one word to their
call. I am not going to tell you what that word is. There is a reason
why I am not. The reason is, that I do not know. To be sure, I have
heard nighthawks say it every summer for years, but I can't say it
myself. It is a very funny word, but you will have to get one of them to
speak it for you!
They came by all their different kinds of queerness naturally enough,
Mis and Mother Nomer did, for it seemed to run in the family to be
peculiar, and all their relatives had oddities of one kind or another.
Take Cousin Whip-poor-will, who wears whiskers, for instance; and Cousin
Chuck-will's widow, who wears whiskers that branch. You could tell from
their very names that they would do uncommon things. And as for their
more distant relatives, the Hummingbirds and Chimney Swifts, it would
take a story apiece as long as this to begin to tell of their strange
doings. But it is a nice, likable sort of queerness they all have; so
very interesting, too, that we enjoy them the better for it.
There is one more wonderful thing yet that Mis and his mate did--and
their twins with them; for before this happened, the children had grown
to be as big as their parents, and a bit plumper, perhaps, though not
enough to be noticed under their feathers. Toward the end of a pleasant
summer, they joined a company of their kind, a sort of traveling circus,
and went south for the winter. Just what performances they gave along
the way, I did not hear; but with a whole flock of flying clowns on the
wing, it seems likely that they had a gay time of it altogether!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: See _Hexapod Stories_, pages 4, 110, 126.]
X
THE LOST DOVE
_One Thousand Dollars ($1000) Reward_
That is the prize that has been offered for a nesting pair of Passenger
Pigeons. No one has claimed the money yet, and it would be a great
adventure, don't you think, to seek that nest? If you find it, you must
not disturb it, you know, or take the eggs or the young, or frighten the
father- or mother-bird; for the people who offered all that money did
not want dead birds to stuff for a museum, but hoped that someone might
tell them where there were live wild ones nesting.