to service in a proverb, is in these last days made a matter of doubt.
It transpires that they are engaged without respite in a struggle for
existence,--a struggle so fierce that at least two of them perish every
year for one that survives.[14] How, then, can they be otherwise than
miserable?
There is no denying the struggle, of course; nor need we question some
real effect produced by it upon the cheerfulness of the participants.
The more rationalistic of the smaller species, we may be sure, find it
hard to reconcile the existence of hawks and owls with the doctrine of
an all-wise Providence; while even the most simple-minded of them can
scarcely fail to realize that a world in which one is liable any day to
be pursued by a boy with a shot-gun is not in any strict sense
paradisiacal.
And yet, who knows the heart of a bird? A child, possibly, or a poet;
certainly not a philosopher. And happiness, too,--is that something of
which the scientific mind can render us a quite adequate description? Or
is it, rather, a wayward, mysterious thing, coming often when least
expected, and going away again when, by all tokens, it ought to remain?
How is it with ourselves? Do we wait to weigh all the good and evil of
our state, to take an accurate account of it _pro_ and _con_, before we
allow ourselves to be glad or sorry? Not many of us, I think. Mortuary
tables may demonstrate that half the children born in this country fail
to reach the age of twenty years. But what then? Our "expectation of
life" is not based upon statistics. The tables may be correct, for aught
we know; but they deal with men in general and on the average; they have
no message for you and me individually. And it seems not unlikely that
birds may be equally illogical; always expecting to live, and not die,
and often giving themselves up to impulses of gladness without stopping
to inquire whether, on grounds of absolute reason, these impulses are to
be justified. Let us hope so, at all events, till somebody proves the
contrary.
But even looking at the subject a little more philosophically, we may
say--and be thankful to say it--that the joy of life is not dependent
upon comfort, nor yet upon safety. The essential matter is that the
heart be engaged. Then, though we be toiling up the Matterhorn, or swept
along in the rush of a bayonet charge, we may still find existence not
only endurable, but in the highest degree exhilarating. On the other
hand, if there is no longer anything we care for; if enthusiasm is dead,
and hope also, then, though we have all that money can buy, suicide is
perhaps the only fitting action that is left for us,--unless, perchance,
we are still able to pass the time in writing treatises to prove that
everybody else ought to be as unhappy as ourselves.
Birds have many enemies and their full share of privation, but I do not
believe that they often suffer from _ennui_. Having "neither storehouse
nor barn,"[15] they are never in want of something to do. From sunrise
till noon there is the getting of breakfast, then from noon till sunset
the getting of dinner,--both out-of-doors, and without any trouble of
cookery or dishes,--a kind of perpetual picnic. What could be simpler
or more delightful? Carried on in this way, eating is no longer the
coarse and sensual thing we make it, with our set meal-times and
elaborate preparations.
Country children know that there are two ways to go berrying. According
to the first of these you stroll into the pasture in the cool of the
day, and at your leisure pick as many as you choose of the ripest and
largest of the berries, putting every one into your mouth. This is
agreeable. According to the second, you carry a basket, which you are
expected to bring home again well filled. And this method--well, tastes
will differ, but following the good old rule for judging in such cases,
I must believe that most unsophisticated persons prefer the other. The
hand-to-mouth process certainly agrees best with our idea of life in
Eden; and, what is more to the purpose now, it is the one which the
birds, still keeping the garden instead of tilling the ground, continue
to follow.
That this unworldliness of the birds has any religious or theological
significance I do not myself suppose. Still, as anybody may see, there
are certain very plain Scripture texts on their side. Indeed, if birds
were only acute theologians, they would unquestionably proceed to turn
these texts (since they find it so easy to obey them) into the basis of
a "system of truth." Other parts of the Bible must be _interpreted_, to
be sure (so the theory would run); but _these_ statements mean just what
they say, and whoever meddles with them is carnally minded and a
rationalist.
Somebody will object, perhaps, that, with our talk about a "perpetual
picnic," we are making a bird's life one cloudless holiday;
contradicting what we have before admitted about a struggle for
existence, and leaving out of sight altogether the seasons of scarcity,
the storms, and the biting cold. But we intend no such foolish
recantation. These hardships are real enough, and serious enough. What
we maintain is that evils of this kind are not necessarily inconsistent
with enjoyment, and may even give to life an additional zest. It is a
matter of every-day observation that the people who have nothing to do
except to "live well" (as the common sarcasm has it) are not always the
most cheerful; while there are certain diseases, like pessimism and the
gout, which seem appointed to wait on luxury and idleness,--as though
nature were determined to have the scales kept somewhat even. And surely
this divine law of compensation has not left the innocent birds
unprovided for,--the innocent birds of whom it was said, "Your heavenly
Father feedeth them." How must the devoted pair exult, when, in spite
of owls and hawks, squirrels and weasels, small boys and full-grown
oölogists, they have finally reared a brood of offspring! The long
uncertainty and the thousand perils only intensify the joy. In truth, so
far as this world is concerned, the highest bliss is never to be had
without antecedent sorrow; and even of heaven itself we may not scruple
to say that, if there are painters there, they probably feel obliged to
put some shadows into their pictures.
But of course (and this is what we have been coming to through this long
introduction),--of course our friends of the air are happiest in the
season of mating; happiest, and therefore most attractive to us who find
our pleasure in studying them. In spring, of all times of the year, it
seems a pity that everybody should not turn ornithologist. For "all
mankind love a lover;" and the world, in consequence, has given itself
up to novel-reading, not knowing, unfortunately, how much better that
_rôle_ is taken by the birds than by the common run of story-book
heroes.
People whose notions of the subject are derived from attending to the
antics of our imported sparrows have no idea how delicate and beautiful
a thing a real feathered courtship is. To tell the truth, these
foreigners have associated too long and too intimately with men, and
have fallen far away from their primal innocence. There is no need to
describe their actions. The vociferous and most unmannerly importunity
of the suitor, and the correspondingly spiteful rejection of his
overtures by the little vixen on whom his affections are for the moment
placed,--these we have all seen to our hearts' discontent.
The sparrow will not have been brought over the sea for nothing,
however, if his bad behavior serves to heighten our appreciation of our
own native songsters, with their "perfect virtues" and "manners for the
heart's delight."
The American robin, for instance, is far from being a bird of
exceptional refinement. His nest is rude, not to say slovenly, and his
general deportment is unmistakably common. But watch him when he goes
a-wooing, and you will begin to feel quite a new respect for him. How
gently he approaches his beloved! How carefully he avoids ever coming
disrespectfully near! No sparrow-like screaming, no dancing about, no
melodramatic gesticulation. If she moves from one side of the tree to
the other, or to the tree adjoining, he follows in silence. Yet every
movement is a petition, an assurance that his heart is hers and ever
must be. The action is extremely simple; there is nothing of which to
make an eloquent description; but I should pity the man who could
witness it with indifference. Not that the robin's suit is always
carried on in the same way; he is much too versatile for that. On one
occasion, at least, I saw him holding himself absolutely motionless, in
a horizontal posture, staring at his sweetheart as if he would charm her
with his gaze, and emitting all the while a subdued hissing sound. The
significance of this conduct I do not profess to have understood; it
ended with his suddenly darting at the female, who took wing and was
pursued. Not improbably the robin finds the feminine nature somewhat
fickle, and counts it expedient to vary his tactics accordingly; for it
is getting to be more and more believed that, in kind at least, the
intelligence of the lower animals is not different from ours.
I once came unexpectedly upon a wood thrush, who was in the midst of a
performance very similar to this of the robin standing on the dead
branch of a tree, with his crown feathers erect, his bill set wide open,
and his whole body looking as rigid as death. His mate, as I perceived
the next moment, was not far away, on the same limb. If he was
attempting fascination, he had gone very clumsily about it, I thought,
unless his mate's idea of beauty was totally different from mine; for I
could hardly keep from laughing at his absurd appearance. It did not
occur to me till afterwards that he had perhaps heard of Othello's
method, and was at that moment acting out a story
"of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field,
Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,
Of being taken by the insolent foe
And sold to slavery."
How much depends upon the point of view! Here was I, ready to laugh;
while poor Desdemona only thought, "'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous
pitiful." Dear sympathetic soul! Let us hope that she was never called
to play out the tragedy.
Two things are very noticeable during the pairing season,--the scarcity
of females and their indifference. Every one of them seems to have at
least two admirers dangling after her,[16] while she is almost sure to
carry herself as if a wedding were the last thing she would ever consent
to think of; and that not because of bashfulness, but from downright
aversion. The observer begins to suspect that the fair creatures have
really entered into some sort of no-marriage league, and that there are
not to be any nests this year, nor any young birds. But by and by he
discovers that somehow, he cannot surmise how,--it must have been when
his eyes were turned the other way,--the scene is entirely changed, the
maidens are all wedded, and even now the nests are being got ready.
I watched a trio of cat-birds in a clump of alder bushes by the
roadside; two males, almost as a matter of course, "paying attentions"
to one female. Both suitors were evidently in earnest; each hoped to
carry off the prize, and perhaps felt that he should be miserable
forever if he were disappointed; and yet, on their part, everything was
being done decently and in order. So far as I saw, there was no
disposition to quarrel. Only let the dear creature choose one of them,
and the other would take his broken heart away. So, always at a modest
remove, they followed her about from bush to bush, entreating her in
most loving and persuasive tones to listen to their suit. But she, all
this time, answered every approach with a snarl; she would never have
anything to do with either of them; she disliked them both, and only
wished they would leave her to herself. This lasted as long as I stayed
to watch. Still I had little doubt she fully intended to accept one of
them, and had even made up her mind already which it should be. She
knew enough, I felt sure, to calculate the value of a proper maidenly
reluctance. How could her mate be expected to rate her at her worth, if
she allowed herself to be won too easily? Besides, she could afford not
to be in haste, seeing she had a choice of two.
What a comfortably simple affair the matrimonial question is with the
feminine cat-bird! Her wooers are all of equally good family and all
equally rich. There is literally nothing for her to do but to look into
her own heart and choose. No temptation has she to sell herself for the
sake of a fashionable name or a fine house, or in order to gratify the
prejudice of father or mother. As for a marriage settlement, she knows
neither the name nor the thing. In fact, marriage in her thought is a
simple union of hearts, with no taint of anything mercantile about it.
Happy cat-bird! She perhaps imagines that human marriages are of the
same ideal sort!
I have spoken of the affectionate language of these dusky lovers; but it
was noticeable that they did not sing, although, to have fulfilled the
common idea of such an affair, they certainly should have been doing so,
and each trying his best to outsing the other. Possibly there had
already been such a tournament before my arrival; or, for aught I know,
this particular female may have given out that she had no ear for
music.
In point of fact, however, there was nothing peculiar in their conduct.
No doubt, in the earlier stages of a bird's attachment he is likely to
express his passion musically; but later he is not content to warble
from a tree-top. There are things to be said which cannot appropriately
be spoken at long range; and unless my study of novels has been to
little purpose, all this agrees well with the practices of human
gallants. Do not these begin by singing under the lady's window, or by
sending verses to her? and are not such proceedings intended to prepare
the way, as speedily as possible, for others of a more satisfying,
though it may be of a less romantic nature?
Bearing this in mind, we may be able to account, in part at least, for
the inexperienced observer's disappointment when, fresh from the perusal
of (for example) the thirteenth chapter of Darwin's "Descent of Man," he
goes into the woods to look about for himself. He expects to find here
and there two or three songsters, each in turn doing his utmost to
surpass the brilliancy and power of the other's music; while a feminine
auditor sits in full view, preparing to render her verdict, and reward
the successful competitor with her own precious self. This would be a
pretty picture. Unfortunately, it is looked for in vain. The two or
three singers may be found, likely enough; but the female, if she be
indeed within hearing, is modestly hidden away somewhere in the bushes,
and our student is none the wiser. Let him watch as long as he please,
he will hardly see the prize awarded.
Nevertheless he need not grudge the time thus employed; not, at any
rate, if he be sensitive to music. For it will be found that birds have
at least one attribute of genius: they can do their best only on great
occasions. Our brown thrush, for instance, is a magnificent singer,
albeit he is not of the best school, being too "sensational" to suit the
most exacting taste. His song is a grand improvisation: a good deal
jumbled, to be sure, and without any recognizable form or theme; and
yet, like a Liszt rhapsody, it perfectly answers its purpose,--that is,
it gives the performer full scope to show what he can do with his
instrument. You may laugh a little, if you like, at an occasional
grotesque or overwrought passage, but unless you are well used to it you
will surely be astonished. Such power and range of voice; such startling
transitions; such endless variety! And withal such boundless enthusiasm
and almost incredible endurance! Regarded as pure music, one strain of
the hermit thrush is to my mind worth the whole of it; just as a single
movement of Beethoven's is better than a world of Liszt transcriptions.
But in its own way it is unsurpassable.
Still, though this is a meagre and quite unexaggerated account of the
ordinary song of the brown thrush, I have discovered that even he can be
outdone--by himself. One morning in early May I came upon three birds of
this species, all singing at once, in a kind of jealous frenzy. As they
sang they continually shifted from tree to tree, and one in particular
(the one nearest to where I stood) could hardly be quiet a moment. Once
he sang with full power while on the ground (or close to it, for he was
just then behind a low bush), after which he mounted to the very tip of
a tall pine, which bent beneath his weight. In the midst of the
hurly-burly one of the trio suddenly sounded the whip-poor-will's call
twice,--an absolutely perfect reproduction.[17]
The significance of all this sound and fury,--what the prize was, if
any, and who obtained it,--this another can conjecture as well as
myself. I know no more than old Kaspar:----
"'Why, that I cannot tell,' said he,
But 'twas a famous victory.'"
As I turned to come away, the contest all at once ceased, and the
silence of the woods, or what seemed like silence, was really
impressive. The chewinks and field sparrows were singing, but it was
like the music of a village singer after Patti; or, to make the
comparison less unjust, like the Pastoral Symphony of Handel after a
Wagner tempest.
It is curious how deeply we are sometimes affected by a very trifling
occurrence. I have remembered many times a slight scene in which three
purple finches were the actors. Of the two males, one was in full adult
plumage of bright crimson, while the other still wore his youthful suit
of brown. First, the older bird suspended himself in mid air, and sang
most beautifully; dropping, as he concluded, to a perch beside the
female. Then the younger candidate, who was already sitting near by,
took his turn, singing nearly or quite as well as his rival, but without
quitting the branch, though his wings quivered. I saw no more. Yet, as I
say, I have often since thought of the three birds, and wondered whether
the bright feathers and the flying song carried the day against the
younger suitor. I fear they did. Sometimes, too, I have queried whether
young birds (who none the less are of age to marry) can be so very meek
or so very dull as never to rebel against the fashion that only the old
fellows shall dress handsomely; and I have tried in vain to imagine the
mutterings, deep and loud, which such a law would excite in certain
other quarters. It pains me to say it, but I suspect that taxation
without representation would seem a small injustice, in comparison.
Like these linnets in the exceptional interest they excited were two
large seabirds, who suddenly appeared circling about over the woods, as
I was taking a solitary walk on a Sunday morning in April. One of them
was closely pursuing the other; not as though he were trying to overtake
her, but rather as though he were determined to keep her company. They
swept now this way, now that,--now lost to sight, and now reappearing;
and once they passed straight over my head, so that I heard the
whistling of their wings. Then they were off, and I saw them no more.
They came from far, and by night they were perhaps a hundred leagues
away. But I followed them with my blessing, and to this day I feel
toward them a little as I suppose we all do toward a certain few
strangers whom we have met here and there in our journeyings, and
chatted with for an hour or two. We had never seen them before; if we
learned their names we have long ago forgotten them; but somehow the
persons themselves keep a place in our memory, and even in our
affection.
"I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
And a certain use in the world, no doubt;
Yet a hand's breadth of it shines alone
'Mid the blank miles round about:
"For there I picked up on the heather,
And there I put inside my breast,
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather!
Well, I forget the rest."
Since we cannot ask birds for an explanation of their conduct, we have
nothing for it but to steal their secrets, as far as possible, by
patient and stealthy watching. In this way I hope, sooner or later, to
find out what the golden-winged woodpecker means by the shout with which
he makes the fields reëcho in the spring, especially in the latter half
of April. I have no doubt it has something to do with the process of
mating, but it puzzles me to guess just what the message can be which
requires to be published so loudly. Such a stentorian, long-winded cry!
You wonder where the bird finds breath for such an effort, and think he
must be a very ungentle lover, surely. But withhold your judgment for a
few days, till you see him and his mate gamboling about the branches of
some old tree, calling in soft, affectionate tones, _Wick-a-wick,
wick-a-wick_; then you will confess that, whatever failings the
golden-wing may have, he is not to be charged with insensibility. The
fact is that our "yellow-hammer" has a genius for noise. When he is
_very_ happy he drums. Sometimes, indeed, he marvels how birds who
haven't this resource are able to get through the world at all. Nor
ought we to think it strange if in his love-making he finds great use
for this his crowning accomplishment. True, we have nowhere read of a
human lover's serenading his mistress with a drum; but we must remember
what creatures of convention men are, and that there is no inherent
reason why a drum should not serve as well as a flute for such a
purpose.
"All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
_All_ are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame."
I saw two of these flickers clinging to the trunk of a shell-bark tree;
which, by the way, is a tree after the woodpecker's own heart. One was
perhaps fifteen feet above the other, and before each was a strip of
loose bark, a sort of natural drum-head. First, the lower one "beat his
music out," rather softly. Then, as he ceased, and held his head back
to listen, the other answered him; and so the dialogue went on.
Evidently, they were already mated, and were now renewing their mutual
vows; for birds, to their praise be it spoken, believe in courtship
after marriage. The day happened to be Sunday, and it did occur to me
that possibly this was the woodpeckers' ritual,--a kind of High Church
service, with antiphonal choirs. But I dismissed the thought; for, on
the whole, the shouting seems more likely to be diagnostic, and in spite
of his gold-lined wings, I have set the flicker down as almost certainly
an old-fashioned Methodist.
Speaking of courtship after marriage, I am reminded of a spotted
sandpiper, whose capers I amused myself with watching, one day last
June, on the shore of Saco Lake. As I caught sight of him, he was
straightening himself up, with a pretty, self-conscious air, at the same
time spreading his white-edged tail, and calling, _Tweet, tweet,
tweet_.[18] Afterwards he got upon a log, where, with head erect and
wings thrown forward and downward, he ran for a yard or two, calling as
before. This trick seemed especially to please him, and was several
times repeated. He ran rapidly, and with a comical prancing movement;
but nothing he did was half so laughable as the behavior of his mate,
who all this while dressed her feathers without once deigning to look at
her spouse's performance. Undoubtedly they had been married for several
weeks, and she was, by this time, well used to his nonsense. It must be
a devoted husband, I fancy, who continues to offer attentions when they
are received in such a spirit.
Walking a log is a somewhat common practice with birds. I once detected
our little golden-crowned thrush showing off in this way to his mate,
who stood on the ground close at hand. In his case the head was lowered
instead of raised, and the general effect was heightened by his
curiously precise gait, which even on ordinary occasions is enough to
provoke a smile.