Pigeon was lost. No one could believe this at first, because there had
been so very many--more than a thousand, more than a million, more than
a billion. How could more than a billion doves be lost?
They were such big birds, too--a foot and a half long from tip of beak
to tip of tail, and sometimes even longer. Why, that is longer than the
tame pigeons that walk about our city streets. How could doves as large
as that be lost, so that no one could find a pair, not even for one
thousand dollars to pay him for the time it took to hunt?
Their colors were so pretty--head and back a soft, soft blue; neck
glistening with violet, red, and gold; underneath, a wonderful purple
red fading into violet shades, and then into bluish white. Who would not
like to seek, for the love of seeing so beautiful a bird, even though no
one paid a reward in money?
Shall we go, then, to Kentucky? For 'twas there the man named Audubon
once saw them come in flocks to roost at night. They kept coming from
sunset till after midnight, and their numbers were so great that their
wings, even while still a long way off, made a sound like a gale of
wind; and when close to, the noise of the birds was so loud that men
could not hear one another speak, even though they stood near and
shouted. The place where Audubon saw these pigeons was in a forest near
the Green River; and there were so many that they filled the trees over
a space forty miles long and more than three miles wide. They perched so
thickly that the branches of the great trees broke under their weight,
and went crashing to the ground; and their roosting-place looked as if a
tornado had rushed through the forest.
Must there not be wild pigeons, yet, roosting in Kentucky--some small
flock, perhaps, descended from the countless thousands seen by Audubon?
No, not one of all these doves is left, they tell us, in the woods in
that part of the country. The rush of their wings has been stilled and
their evening uproar has been silenced. Men may now walk beside the
Green River, and hear each other though they speak in whispers.
Would you like to seek the dove in Michigan in May? For there it was,
and then it was, that these wild pigeons nested, so we are told by
people who saw them, by hundreds of thousands, or even millions. They
built in trees of every sort, and sometimes as many as one hundred nests
were made in a single tree. Almost every tree on one hundred thousand
acres would have at least one nest. The lowest ones were so near the
ground that a man could reach them with his hand.
[Illustration: _Suppose you should find just one pair._]
Suppose you should find, next May, just one pair nesting. Sire Dove, we
think from what we have read, would help bring some twigs, and Dame Dove
would lay them together in a criss-cross way, so that they would make a
floor of sticks, sagging just a little in the middle. As soon as the
floor of twigs was firm enough, so that an egg would not drop through,
Dame Dove would put one in the shallow sagging place in the middle. It
would be a white egg, very much like those our tame pigeons lay; and,
because there would be no thick soft warm rug of dried grass on the
floor, you could probably see it right through the nest, if you should
stand underneath and look up. But you couldn't see it long, because,
almost as soon as it was laid, Dame Dove would tuck the feather
comforter she carried on her breast so cosily about that precious egg,
that it would need no other padding to keep it warm. She would stay
there, the faithful mother, from about two o'clock each afternoon until
nine or ten o'clock the next morning. She would not leave for one
minute, to eat or get a drink of water. Then, about nine or ten o'clock
each morning, Sire Dove would slip onto the nest just as she moved off,
and they would make the change so quickly that the egg could not even
get cool. That one very dear egg would need two birds to take care of
it, one always snuggling it close while the other ate and flew about and
drank.
So they would sit, turn and turn about, for fourteen days. All this
while they would be very gentle with each other, saying softly,
"Coo-coo," something as tame pigeons do, only in shorter notes, or
calling, "Kee-kee-kee." And sometimes Sire Dove would put his beak to
that of his nesting mate and feed her, very likely, as later they would
feed their young. For when the two weeks' brooding should be over, there
would be a funny, homely, sprawling, soft and wobbly baby dove within
the nest.
The father and mother of him would still have much to do, it seems; for
hatching a dove out of an egg is only the easier half of the task. The
wobbly baby must be brought up to become a dove of grace and beauty.
That would take food.
But you must not think to see Sire and Dame Dove come flying home with
seeds or nuts or fruit or grain or earthworms or insects in their beaks.
What else, then, could they bring? Well, nothing at all, indeed, in
their beaks; for the food of a baby dove requires especial preparation.
It has to be provided for him in the crop of his parent. So Dame Dove
would come with empty beak but full crop, and the baby would be fed.
Just exactly how, I have not seen written by those people who saw a
million Passenger Pigeons. Perhaps they did not stop to notice.
However, if you will watch a tame pigeon feed its young, you can guess
how a wild one would do it. A tame mother-pigeon that I am acquainted
with comes to her young (_she_ has two) and, standing in or beside the
nest, opens her beak very wide. One of her babies reaches up as far as
he can stretch his neck and puts his beak inside his mother's mouth. He
tucks it in at one side and crowds in his head as far as he can push it.
Then the mother makes a sort of pumping motion, and pumps up soft baby
food from her crop, and he swallows it. Sometimes he keeps his beak in
his mother's mouth for as long as five minutes; and if anything startles
her and she pulls away, the hungry little fellow scolds and whines and
whimpers in a queer voice, and reaches out with his teasing wings, and
flaps them against her breast, stretching up with his beak all the while
and feeling for a chance to poke his head into her mouth again. And
often, do you know, his twin sister gets her beak in one side of Mother
Pigeon's mouth while he is feeding at the other side, and Mother just
stands there and pumps and pumps. The two comical little birds, with
feet braced and necks stretched up as far as they can reach, and their
heads crowded as far in as they can push them, look so funny they would
make you laugh to see them. Then, the next meal Father Pigeon feeds them
the same way, usually one at a time, but often both together.
Now, I think, don't you, because that is the way tame Father and Mother
Pigeon serve breakfast and dinner and supper and luncheons in between
whiles to their tame twins, that wild Dame and Sire Dove would give food
in very much the same way to their one wild baby? It might not be
exactly the same, because tame pigeons and wild Passenger Pigeons are
not the same kind of doves; but they are cousins of a sort, which means
that they must have some of the same family habits.
If you should find a nest in Michigan in May, perhaps you can learn more
about these matters, and watch to see whether, when the baby dove is all
feathered out, Dame or Sire Dove pushes it out of the nest even before
it can fly, though it is fat enough to be all right until it gets so
hungry it learns to find food for itself. Perhaps you can watch, too, to
see why Dame and Sire Dove seem to be in such a hurry to have their
first baby taking care of himself. Is it because they are ready to build
another nest right straight away, or would Dame Dove lay another egg in
the same nest? Tame Mother Pigeon often lays two more eggs in the next
nest-box even before her twins are out of their nest. Then you may be
sure Father and Mother Pigeon have a busy time of it feeding their
eldest twins, while they brood the two eggs in which their younger twins
are growing.
It would be very pleasant if you could watch a pair of Passenger Pigeons
and find out all these things about them. _If you could!_ But I said
only "perhaps," because the people who know most about the matter say
that Michigan has lost more than a million, or possibly more than a
billion, doves. They say that, if you should walk through all the woods
in Michigan, you would not hear one single Passenger Pigeon call,
"Kee-kee-kee" to his mate, or hear one pair talk softly together,
saying, "Coo-coo." There are sticks and twigs enough for their nests
lying about; but through all the lonesome woods, so we are told, there
is not one Sire Dove left to bring them to his Dame; and never, never,
never will there be another nest like the millions there used to be.
[Illustration: _Through all the lonesome woods there is not one dove._]
Well, then, if we cannot find them at sunset in their roosting-place in
Kentucky or in their nests in Michigan in May, shall we give up the
quest for the lost doves? Or shall we still keep hold of our courage and
our hope and try elsewhere?
Surely, if there are any of these birds anywhere, they must eat food!
Shall we seek them at some feeding-place? This might be everywhere in
North America, from the Atlantic Ocean as far west as the Great Plains.
That is, everywhere in all these miles where the things they liked to
eat are growing. So, if you keep out of the Atlantic Ocean, and get
someone to show you where the Great Plains are, you might look--_almost
anywhere_. Why, many of you would not need to take a steam-train or even
a trolley-car. You could walk there. Most of you could. You could walk
to a place where they used to stop to feed. Those that were behind in
the great flock flew over the heads of all the others, and so were in
front for a while. In that way they all had a chance at a well-spread
picnic ground. Yes, you could easily walk to a place where that used to
happen--most of you could.
Do you know where acorns grow, or beechnuts, or chestnuts? Well,
Passenger Pigeons used to come there to eat, for they were very fond of
nuts! Do you know where elm trees grow wild along some riverway, or
where pine trees live? Oh! that is where these birds used sometimes to
get their breakfasts, when the trees had scattered their seeds. Do you
know a tree that has a seed about the right size and shape for a knife
at a doll's tea-party? Yes, that's the maple; and many and many a party
the Passenger Pigeons used to have wherever they could find these
cunning seed-knives. Only they didn't use them to cut things with. They
ate them up as fast as ever they could.
Have you ever picked wild berries? Why, more than likely Passenger
Pigeons have picked other berries there or thereabouts before your day!
Do you know a place where the wild rice grows? Ah, so did the Passenger
Pigeons, once upon a time!
But if you know none of these places, even then you can stand near where
the flocks used to fly when they were on their journeys. All of you who
live between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Plains can go to the door
or a window of the house you live in and point to the sky and think:
"Once so many Passenger Pigeons flew by that the sound of their wings
was like the sound of thunder, and they went through the air faster than
a train on a track, and the numbers in their flocks were so many that
they hid the sun like great thick clouds."
When you do that, some of you will doubtless see birds flying over; but
we fear that not even one of you will see even one Passenger Pigeon in
its flight.
What happened to the countless millions is recorded in so many books
that it need not be written again in this one. This story will tell you
just one more thing about these strange and wonderful birds, and that is
that no _child_ who reads this story is in any way to blame because the
dove is lost. What boy or girl is not glad to think, when some wrong has
been done or some mistake has been made, "It's not _my_ fault"?
[Illustration: _Once, so many flew by, that the sound of their wings was
like the sound of thunder._]
Even though this bird is gone forever and forever and forever, there are
many other kinds living among us. If old Mother Earth has been robbed of
some of her children, she still has many more--many wonderful and
beautiful living things. And that she may keep them safe, she needs your
help; for boys and girls are her children, too, and the power lies in
your strong hands and your courageous hearts and your wise brains to
help save some of the most wonderful and fairest of other living things.
And what one among you all, I wonder, will not be glad to think that
_you_ help keep the world beautiful, when you leave the water-lilies
floating on the pond; that it is the same as if _you_ sow the seeds in
wild gardens, when you leave the cardinal flowers glowing on the banks
and the fringed gentians lending their blue to the marshes. For the life
of the world, whether it flies through the air or grows in the ground,
is greatly in your care; and though you may never win a prize of money
for finding the dove that other people lost, there is a reward of joy
ready for anyone who can look at our good old Mother Earth and say, "It
will not be _my_ fault if, as the years go by, you lose your birds and
flowers."
And it would be, don't you think, one of the greatest of adventures to
seek and find and help keep safe such of these as are in danger, that
they may not, like the dove, be lost?
XI
LITTLE SOLOMON OTUS
Oh, the wise, wise look of him, with his big round eyes and his very
Roman nose! He had sat in a golden silence throughout that dazzling day;
but when the kindly moon sent forth a gentler gleam, he spoke, and the
speech of little Solomon Otus was as silver. A quivering, quavering
whistle thrilled through the night, and all who heard the beginning
listened to the end of his song.
It was a night and a place for music. The mellow light lay softly over
the orchard tree, on an old branch of which little Solomon sat mooning
himself before his door. He could see, not far away, the giant chestnut
trees that shaded the banks of a little ravine; and hear the murmuring
sound of Shanty Creek, where Nata[3] grew up, and where her
grandchildren now played hide-and-seek. Near at hand stood a noble oak,
with a big dead branch at the top that was famous the country round as a
look-out post for hawks and crows; and maybe an eagle now and then had
used it, in years gone by.
But hawk and crow were asleep, and toads were trilling a lullaby from
the pond, while far, far off in the heart of the woods, a whip-poor-will
called once, twice, and again.
Solomon loved the dusk. His life was fullest then and his sight was
keenest. His eyes were wide open, and he could see clearly the shadow of
the leaves when the wind moved them lightly from time to time. He was at
ease in the great night-world, and master of many a secret that
sleepy-eyed day-folk never guess. As he shook out his loose, soft coat
and breathed the cool air, he felt the pleasant tang of a hunger that
has with it no fear of famine.
Once more he sent his challenge through the moonlight with quivering,
quavering voice, and some who heard it loved the darkness better for
this spirit of the night, and some shivered as if with dread. For
Solomon had sounded his hunting call, and, as with the baying of hounds
or the tune of a hunter's horn, one ear might find music in the note and
another hear only a wail.
Then, silent as a shadow, he left his branch. Solomon, a little lone
hunter in the dark, was off on the chase. Whither he went or what he
caught, there was no sound to tell, until, suddenly, one quick squeak
way over beside the corn-crib might have notified a farmer that another
mouse was gone. But the owner of the corn-crib was asleep, and dreaming,
more than likely, that the cat, which was at that moment disturbing a
pair of meadow bobolinks, was somehow wholly to be thanked for the
scarcity of mice about the place.
[Illustration: _Oh, the wise, wise look of him._]
Solomon was not wasteful about his food. He swallowed his evening
breakfast whole. That is, he swallowed all but the tail, which was
fairly long and stuck out of his mouth for some time, giving him rather
a queer two-tailed look, one at each end! But there was no one about to
laugh at him, and it was, in some respects, an excellent way to make a
meal. For one thing, it saved him all trouble of cutting up his food;
and then, too, there was no danger of his overeating, for he could tell
that he had had enough as long as there wasn't room for the tail. And
after the good nutritious parts of his breakfast were digested, he had a
comfortable way of spitting out the skin and bones all wadded together
in a tidy pellet. An owl is not the only kind of bird, by any means,
that has a habit of spitting out hard stuff that is swallowed with the
food. A crow tucks away many a discarded cud of that sort; and even the
thrush, half an hour or so after a dainty fare of wild cherries, taken
whole, drops from his bill to the ground the pits that have been
squeezed out of the fruit by the digestive mill inside of him.
After his breakfast, which he ate alone in the evening starlight and
moonlight, Solomon passed an enjoyable night; for that world, which to
most of us is lost in darkness and in sleep, is full of lively interest
to an owl. Who, indeed, would not be glad to visit his starlit kingdom,
with eyesight keen enough to see the folded leaves of clover like little
hands in prayer--a kingdom with byways sweet with the scent and mellow
with the beauty of waking primrose? Who would not welcome, for one
wonderful night, the gift of ears that could hear the sounds which to
little Solomon were known and understood, but many of which are lost in
deafness to our dull ears?
Of course, it may be that Solomon never noticed that clovers fold their
leaves by night, or that primroses are open and fragrant after dusk. For
he was an owl, and not a person, and his thoughts were not the thoughts
of man. But for all that they were wise thoughts--wise as the look of
his big round eyes; and many things he knew which are unguessed secrets
to dozy day-folk.
He was a successful hunter, and he had a certain sort of knowledge about
the habits of the creatures he sought. He seldom learned where the day
birds slept, for he did not find motionless things. But he knew well
enough that mice visited the corn-crib, and where their favorite runways
came out into the open. He knew where the cutworms crept out of the
ground and feasted o' nights in the farmer's garden. He knew where the
big brown beetles hummed and buzzed while they munched greedily of
shade-tree leaves. And he knew where little fishes swam near the surface
of the water.
So he hunted on silent wings the bright night long; and though he did
not starve himself, as we can guess from what we know about his
breakfast of rare mouse-steak, still, the tenderest and softest
delicacies he took home to five fine youngsters, who welcomed their
father with open mouths and eager appetite. Though he made his trips as
quickly as he could, he never came too soon to suit them--the hungry
little rascals.
[Illustration: _Solomon knew the runways of the mice._]
They were cunning and dear and lovable. Even a person could see that, to
look at them. It is not surprising that their own father was fond enough
of them to give them the greater part of the game he caught. He had,
indeed, been interested in them before he ever saw them--while they were
still within the roundish white eggshells, and did not need to be fed
because there was food enough in the egg to last them all the days
until they hatched.
Yes, many a time he had kept those eggs warm while Mrs. Otus was away
for a change; and many a time, too, he stayed and kept her company when
she was there to care for them herself. Now, it doesn't really need two
owls at the same time to keep a few eggs warm. Of course not! So why
should little Solomon have sat sociably cuddled down beside her? Perhaps
because he was fond of her and liked her companionship. It would have
been sad, indeed, if he had not been happy in his home, for he was an
affectionate little fellow and had had some difficulty in winning his
mate. There had been, early in their acquaintance, what seemed to
Solomon a long time during which she would not even speak to him. Why,
'tis said he had to bow to her as many as twenty or thirty times before
she seemed even to notice that he was about. But those days were over
for good and all, and Mrs. Otus was a true comrade for Solomon as well
as a faithful little mother. Together they made a happy home, and were
quite charming in it.
They could be brave, too, when courage was needed, as they gave proof
the day that a boy wished he hadn't climbed up and stuck his hand in at
their door-hole, to find out what was there. While Mrs. Otus spread her
feathers protectingly over her eggs, Solomon lay on his back, and,
reaching up with beak and clutching claws, fought for the safety of his
family. In the heat of the battle he hissed, whereupon the boy
retreated, badly beaten, but proudly boasting of an adventure with some
sort of animal that felt like a wildcat and sounded like a snake.
Besides, courage when needed, health, affection, good-nature, and plenty
of food were enough to keep a family of owls contented. To be sure, some
folk might not have been so well satisfied with the way the household
was run. A crow, I feel quite sure, would not have considered the place
fit to live in. Mrs. Otus was not, indeed, a tidy housekeeper. The floor
was dirty--very dirty--and was never slicked up from one week's end to
another. But then, Solomon didn't mind. He was used to it. Mrs. Otus was
just like his own mother in that respect; and it might have worried him
a great deal to have to keep things spick and span after the way he had
been brought up. Why, the beautiful white eggshell he hatched out of was
dirty when he pipped it, and never in all his growing-up days did he see
his mother or father really clean house. So it is no wonder he was
rather shiftless and easy-going. Neither of them had shown what might be
called by some much ambition when they went house-hunting early that
spring; for although the place they chose had been put into fairly good
repair by rather an able carpenter,--a woodpecker,--still, it had been
lived in before, and might have been improved by having some of the
rubbish picked up and thrown out. But do you think Solomon spent any of
his precious evenings that way? No, nor Mrs. Otus either. They moved in
just as it was, in the most happy-go-lucky sort of way.
Well, whatever a crow or other particular person might think of that
nest, we should agree that a father and mother owl must be left to
manage affairs for their young as Nature has taught them; and if those
five adorable babies of Solomon didn't prove that the way they were
brought up was an entire success from an owlish point of view, I don't
know what could.
[Illustration: _Those five adorable babies of Solomon._]
Take them altogether, perhaps you could not find a much more interesting
family than the little Otuses. As to size and shape, they were as much
alike as five peas in a pod; but for all that, they looked so different
that it hardly seemed possible that they could be own brothers and
sisters. For one of the sons of Solomon and two of his daughters had
gray complexions, while the other son and daughter were reddish brown.
Now Solomon and Mrs. Otus were both gray, except, of course, what white
feathers and black streaks were mixed up in their mottlings and dapples;
so it seems strange enough to see two of their children distinctly
reddish. But, then, one never can tell just what color an owl of this
sort will be, anyway. Solomon himself, though gray, was the son of a
reddish father and a gray mother, and he had one gray brother and two
reddish sisters: while Mrs. Otus, who had but one brother and one
sister, was the only gray member of her family. Young or old, summer or
winter, Solomon and Mrs. Otus were gray, though, young or old, summer or
winter, their fathers had both been of a reddish complexion.