unwritten, of course, but carefully handed down from father to son, and
faithfully observed. Nor is it cause for wonder if, in our ignorant
eyes, some of these "society manners" look a little ridiculous. Even the
usages of fashionable human circles have not always escaped the laughter
of the profane.
I was standing on the edge of a small thicket, observing a pair of
cuckoos as they made a breakfast out of a nest of tent caterpillars (it
was a feast rather than a common meal; for the caterpillars were
plentiful, and, as I judged, just at their best, being about half
grown), when a couple of scarlet tanagers appeared upon the scene. The
female presently selected a fine strip of cedar bark, and started off
with it, sounding a call to her handsome husband, who at once followed
in her wake. I thought, What a brute, to leave his wife to build the
house! But he, plainly enough, felt that in escorting her back and forth
he was doing all that ought to be expected of any well-bred,
scarlet-coated tanager. And the lady herself, if one might infer
anything from her tone and demeanor, was of the same opinion. I mention
this trifling occurrence, not to put any slight upon _Pyranga rubra_
(who am I, that I should accuse so gentle and well dressed a bird of bad
manners?), but merely as an example of the way in which feathered
politeness varies. In fact, it seems not unlikely that the male tanager
may abstain on principle from taking any active part in constructing the
nest, lest his fiery color should betray its whereabouts. As for his
kindness and loyalty, I only wish I could feel as sure of one half the
human husbands whom I meet.
It would be very ungallant of me, however, to leave my readers to
understand that the female bird is always so unsympathetic as most of
the descriptions thus far given would appear to indicate. In my memory
are several scenes, any one of which, if I could put it on paper as I
saw it, would suffice to correct such an erroneous impression. In one of
these the parties were a pair of chipping sparrows. Never was man so
churlish that his heart would not have been touched with the vision of
their gentle but rapturous delight. As they chased each other gayly from
branch to branch and from tree to tree, they flew with that delicate,
affected movement of the wings which birds are accustomed to use at such
times, and which, perhaps, bears the same relation to their ordinary
flight that dancing does to the every-day walk of men and women. The two
seemed equally enchanted, and both sang. Little they knew of the
"struggle for existence" and the "survival of the fittest." Adam and
Eve, in Paradise, were never more happy.
A few weeks later, taking an evening walk, I was stopped by the sight of
a pair of cedar-birds on a stone wall. They had chosen a convenient flat
stone, and were hopping about upon it, pausing every moment or two to
put their little bills together. What a loving ecstasy possessed them!
Sometimes one, sometimes the other, sounded a faint lisping note, and
motioned for another kiss. But there is no setting forth the ineffable
grace and sweetness of their chaste behavior. I looked and looked, till
a passing carriage frightened them away. They were only common
cedar-birds; if I were to see them again I should not know them; but if
my pen were equal to my wish, they should be made immortal.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Wallace, _Natural Selection_, p. 30.
[15] The shrike lays up grasshoppers and sparrows, and the California
woodpecker hoards great numbers of acorns, but it is still in dispute, I
believe, whether thrift is the motive with either of them. Considering
what has often been done in similar cases, we may think it surprising
that the Scripture text above quoted (together with its exegetical
parallel, Matthew vi. 26) has never been brought into court to settle
the controversy; but to the best of my knowledge it never has been.
[16] So near do birds come to Mr. Ruskin's idea that "a girl worth
anything ought to have always half a dozen or so of suitors under vow
for her."
[17]
"That's the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!"
The "authorities" long since forbade _Harporhynchus rufus_ to play the
mimic. Probably in the excitement of the moment this fellow forgot
himself.
[18] May one who knows nothing of philology venture to inquire whether
the very close agreement of this _tweet_ with our sweet (compare also
the Anglo-Saxon _swéte_, the Icelandic _soetr_, and the Sanskrit
_svad_) does not point to a common origin of the Aryan and sandpiper
languages?
SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE.
A man that hath friends must show himself friendly.
PROVERBS xviii. 24.
SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE.
As I was crossing Boston Common, some years ago, my attention was caught
by the unusual behavior of a robin, who was standing on the lawn,
absolutely motionless, and every few seconds making a faint hissing
noise. So much engaged was he that, even when a dog ran near him, he
only started slightly, and on the instant resumed his statue-like
attitude. Wondering what this could mean, and not knowing how else to
satisfy my curiosity, I bethought myself of a man whose letters about
birds I had now and then noticed in the daily press. So, looking up his
name in the City Directory, and finding that he lived at such a number,
Beacon Street, I wrote him a note of inquiry. He must have been amused
as he read it; for I remember giving him the title of "Esquire," and
speaking of his communications to the newspapers as the ground of my
application to him. "Such is fame!" he likely enough said to himself.
"Here is a man with eyes in his head, a man, moreover, who has probably
been at school in his time,--for most of his words are spelled
correctly,--and yet he knows my name only as he has seen it signed once
in a while to a few lines in a newspaper." Thoughts like these, however,
did not prevent his replying to the note (my "valued favor") with all
politeness, although he confessed himself unable to answer my question;
and by the time I had occasion to trouble him again I had learned that
he was to be addressed as Doctor, and, furthermore, was an ornithologist
of world-wide reputation, being, in fact, one of the three joint-authors
of the most important work so far issued on the birds of North America.
Certainly I was and am grateful to him (he is now dead) for his generous
treatment of my ignorance; but even warmer is my feeling toward that
city thrush, who, all unconscious of what he was doing, started me that
day on a line of study which has been ever since a continual delight.
Most gladly would I do him any kindness in my power; but I have little
doubt that, long ere this, he, too, has gone the way of all the earth.
As to what he was thinking about on that memorable May morning, I am as
much in the dark as ever. But there is no law against a bird's behaving
mysteriously, I suppose. Most of us, I am sure, often do things which
are inexplicable to ourselves, and once in a very great while, perhaps,
it would puzzle even our next-door neighbors to render a complete
account of our motives.
Whatever the robin meant, however, and no doubt there was some good
reason for his conduct, he had given my curiosity the needed jog. Now,
at last, I would do what I had often dreamed of doing,--learn something
about the birds of my own region, and be able to recognize at least the
more common ones when I saw them.
The interest of the study proved to be the greater for my ignorance,
which, to speak within bounds, was nothing short of wonderful; perhaps I
might appropriately use a more fashionable word, and call it phenomenal.
All my life long I had had a kind of passion for being out-of-doors;
and, to tell the truth, I had been so often seen wandering by myself in
out-of-the-way wood-paths, or sitting idly about on stone walls in
lonesome pastures, that some of my Philistine townsmen had most likely
come to look upon me as no better than a vagabond. Yet I was not a
vagabond, for all that. I liked work, perhaps, as well as the generality
of people. But I was unfortunate in this respect: while I enjoyed
in-door work, I hated to be in the house; and, on the other hand, while
I enjoyed being out-of-doors, I hated all manner of out-door
employment. I was not lazy, but I possessed--well, let us call it the
true aboriginal temperament; though I fear that this distinction will be
found too subtile, even for the well-educated, unless, along with their
education, they have a certain sympathetic bias, which, after all, is
the main thing to be depended on in such nice psychological
discriminations.
With all my rovings in wood and field, however, I knew nothing of any
open-air study. Study was a thing of books. At school we were never
taught to look elsewhere for knowledge. Reading and spelling, geography
and grammar, arithmetic and algebra, geometry and trigonometry,--these
were studied, of course, as also were Latin and Greek. But none of our
lessons took us out of the school-room, unless it was astronomy, the
study of which I had nearly forgotten; and that we pursued in the
night-time, when birds and plants were as though they were not. I cannot
recollect that any one of my teachers ever called my attention to a
natural object. It seems incredible, but, so far as my memory serves, I
was never in the habit of observing the return of the birds in the
spring or their departure in the autumn; except, to be sure, that the
semi-annual flight of the ducks and geese was always a pleasant
excitement, more especially because there were several lakes
(invariably spoken of as ponds) in our vicinity, on the borders of
which the village "gunners" built pine-branch booths in the season.
But now, as I have said, my ignorance was converted all at once into a
kind of blessing; for no sooner had I begun to read bird books, and
consult a cabinet of mounted specimens, than every turn out-of-doors
became full of all manner of delightful surprises. Could it be that what
I now beheld with so much wonder was only the same as had been going on
year after year in these my own familiar lanes and woods? Truly the
human eye is nothing more than a window, of no use unless the man looks
out of it.
Some of the experiences of that period seem ludicrous enough in the
retrospect. Only two or three days after my eyes were first opened I was
out with a friend in search of wild-flowers (I was piloting him to a
favorite station for _Viola pubescens_), when I saw a most elegant
little creature, mainly black and white, but with brilliant orange
markings. He was darting hither and thither among the branches of some
low trees, while I stared at him in amazement, calling on my comrade,
who was as ignorant as myself, but less excited, to behold the prodigy.
Half trembling lest the bird should prove to be some straggler from the
tropics, the like of which would not be found in the cabinet before
mentioned, I went thither that very evening. Alas, my silly fears! there
stood the little beauty's exact counterpart, labeled _Setophaga
ruticilla_, the American redstart,--a bird which the manual assured me
was very common in my neighborhood.
But it was not my eyes only that were opened, my ears also were touched.
It was as if all the birds had heretofore been silent, and now, under
some sudden impulse, had broken out in universal concert. What a
glorious chorus it was; and every voice a stranger! For a week or more I
was puzzled by a song which I heard without fail whenever I went into
the woods, but the author of which I could never set eyes on,--a song so
exceptionally loud and shrill, and marked by such a vehement crescendo,
that, even to my new-found ears, it stood out from the general medley a
thing by itself. Many times I struck into the woods in the direction
whence it came, but without getting so much as a flying glimpse of the
musician. Very mysterious, surely! Finally, by accident I believe, I
caught the fellow in the very act of singing, as he stood on a dead
pine-limb; and a few minutes later he was on the ground, walking about
(not hopping) with the primmest possible gait,--a small olive-brown
bird, with an orange crown and a speckled breast. Then I knew him for
the golden-crowned thrush; but it was not for some time after this that
I heard his famous evening song, and it was longer still before I found
his curious roofed nest.
"Happy those early days," those days of childish innocence,--though I
was a man grown,--when every bird seemed newly created, and even the
redstart and the wood wagtail were like rarities from the ends of the
earth. Verily, my case was like unto Adam's, when every fowl of the air
was brought before him for a name.
One evening, on my way back to the city after an afternoon ramble, I
stopped just at dusk in a grove of hemlocks, and soon out of the
tree-top overhead came a song,--a brief strain of about six notes, in a
musical but rather rough voice, and in exquisite accord with the quiet
solemnity of the hour. Again and again the sounds fell on my ear, and as
often I endeavored to obtain a view of the singer; but he was in the
thick of the upper branches, and I looked for him in vain. How delicious
the music was! a perfect lullaby, drowsy and restful; like the
benediction of the wood on the spirit of a tired city-dweller. I blessed
the unknown songster in return; and even now I have a feeling that the
peculiar enjoyment which the song of the black-throated green warbler
never fails to afford me may perhaps be due in some measure to its
association with that twilight hour.
To this same hemlock grove I was in the habit, in those days, of going
now and then to listen to the evening hymn of the veery, or Wilson
thrush. Here, if nowhere else, might be heard music fit to be called
sacred. Nor did it seem a disadvantage, but rather the contrary, when,
as sometimes happened, I was compelled to take my seat in the edge of
the wood, and wait quietly, in the gathering darkness, for vespers to
begin. The veery's mood is not so lofty as the hermit's, nor is his
music to be compared for brilliancy and fullness with that of the wood
thrush; but, more than any other bird-song known to me, the veery's has,
if I may say so, the accent of sanctity. Nothing is here of
self-consciousness; nothing of earthly pride or passion. If we chance to
overhear it and laud the singer, that is our affair. Simple-hearted
worshiper that he is, he has never dreamed of winning praise for himself
by the excellent manner in which he praises his Creator,--an absence of
thrift, which is very becoming in thrushes, though, I suppose, it is
hardly to be looked for in human choirs.
And yet, for all the unstudied ease and simplicity of the veery's
strain, he is a great master of _technique_. In his own artless way he
does what I have never heard any other bird attempt: he gives to his
melody all the force of harmony. How this unique and curious effect,
this vocal double-stopping, as a violinist might term it, is produced,
is not certainly known; but it would seem that it must be by an
_arpeggio_, struck with such consummate quickness and precision that the
ear is unable to follow it, and is conscious of nothing but the
resultant chord. At any rate, the thing itself is indisputable, and has
often been commented on.
Moreover, this is only half the veery's technical proficiency. Once in a
while, at least, he will favor you with a delightful feat of
ventriloquism; beginning to sing in single voice, as usual, and anon,
without any noticeable increase in the loudness of the tones, diffusing
the music throughout the wood, as if there were a bird in every tree,
all singing together in the strictest time. I am not sure that all
members of the species possess this power, and I have never seen the
performance alluded to in print; but I have heard it when the illusion
was complete, and the effect most beautiful.
Music so devout and unostentatious as the veery's does not appeal to the
hurried or the preoccupied. If you would enjoy it you must bring an ear
to hear. I have sometimes pleased myself with imagining a resemblance
between it and the poetry of George Herbert,--both uncared for by the
world, but both, on that very account, prized all the more dearly by the
few in every generation whose spirits are in tune with theirs.
This bird is one of a group of small thrushes called the _Hylocichlæ_,
of which group we have five representatives in the Atlantic States: the
wood thrush; the Wilson, or tawny thrush; the hermit; the olive-backed,
or Swainson; and the gray-cheeked, or Alice's thrush. To the unpracticed
eye the five all look alike. All of them, too, have the same glorious
voice, so that the young student is pretty sure to find it a matter of
some difficulty to tell them apart. Yet there are differences of
coloration which may be trusted as constant, and to which, after a
while, the eye becomes habituated; and, at the same time, each species
has a song and call-notes peculiar to itself. One cannot help wishing,
indeed, that he might hear the five singing by turns in the same wood.
Then he could fix the distinguishing peculiarities of the different
songs in his mind so as never to confuse them again. But this is more
than can be hoped for; the listener must be content with hearing two,
or at the most three, of the species singing together, and trust his
memory to make the necessary comparison.
The song of the wood thrush is perhaps the most easily set apart from
the rest, because of its greater compass of voice and bravery of
execution. The Wilson's song, as you hear it by itself, seems so
perfectly characteristic that you fancy you can never mistake any other
for it; and yet, if you are in northern New England only a week
afterwards, you may possibly hear a Swainson (especially if he happens
to be one of the best singers of his species, and, more especially
still, if he happens to be at just the right distance away), who you
will say, at first thought, is surely a Wilson. The difficulty of
distinguishing the voices is naturally greatest in the spring, when they
have not been heard for eight or nine months. Here, as elsewhere, the
student must be willing to learn the same lesson over and over, letting
patience have her perfect work. That the five songs are really
distinguishable is well illustrated by the fact (which I have before
mentioned), that the presence of the Alice thrush in New England during
the breeding season was announced as probable by myself, simply on the
strength of a song which I had heard in the White Mountains, and which,
as I believed, must be his, notwithstanding I was entirely unacquainted
with it, and though all our books affirmed that the Alice thrush was not
a summer resident of any part of the United States.
It is worth remarking, also, in this connection, that the _Hylocichlæ_
differ more decidedly in their notes of alarm than in their songs. The
wood thrush's call is extremely sharp and brusque, and is usually fired
off in a little volley; that of the Wilson is a sort of whine, or snarl,
in distressing contrast with his song; the hermit's is a quick, _sotto
voce_, sometimes almost inaudible _chuck_; the Swainson's is a mellow
whistle; while that of the Alice is something between the Swainson's and
the Wilson's,--not so gentle and refined as the former, nor so
outrageously vulgar as the latter.
In what is here said about discriminating species it must be understood
that I am not speaking of such identification as will answer a strictly
scientific purpose. For that the bird must be shot. To the maiden
"whose light blue eyes
Are tender over drowning flies,"
this decree will no doubt sound cruel. Men who pass laws of that sort
may call themselves ornithologists, if they will; for her part she calls
them butchers. We might turn on our fair accuser, it is true, with some
inquiry about the two or three bird-skins which adorn her bonnet. But
that would be only giving one more proof of our heartlessness; and,
besides, unless a man is downright angry he can scarcely feel that he
has really cleared himself when he has done nothing more than to point
the finger and say, You're another. However, I am not set for the
defence of ornithologists. They are abundantly able to take care of
themselves without the help of any outsider. I only declare that, even
to my unprofessional eye, this rule of theirs seems wise and necessary.
They know, if their critics do not, how easy it is to be deceived; how
many times things have been seen and minutely described, which, as was
afterwards established, could not by any possibility have been visible.
Moreover, regret it as we may, it is clear that in this world nobody can
escape giving and taking more or less pain. We of the sterner sex are
accustomed to think that even our blue-eyed censors are not entirely
innocent in this regard; albeit, for myself, I am bound to believe that
generally they are not to blame for the tortures they inflict upon us.
Granting the righteousness of the scientist's caution, however, we may
still find a less rigorous code sufficient for our own non-scientific,
though I hope not unscientific, purpose. For it is certain that no great
enjoyment of bird study is possible for some of us, if we are never to
be allowed to call our gentle friends by name until in every case we
have gone through the formality of a _post-mortem_ examination.
Practically, and for every-day ends, we may know a robin, or a redstart,
or even a hermit thrush, when we see him, without first turning the bird
into a specimen.
Probably there are none of our birds which afford more surprise and
pleasure to a novice than the family of warblers. A well-known
ornithologist has related how one day he wandered into the forest in an
idle mood, and accidentally catching a gleam of bright color overhead,
raised his gun and brought the bird to his feet; and how excited and
charmed he was with the wondrous beauty of his little trophy. Were there
other birds in the woods as lovely as this? He would see for himself.
And that was the beginning of what bids fair to prove a life-long
enthusiasm.
Thirty-eight warblers are credited to New England; but it would be safe
to say that not more than three of them are known to the average
New-Englander. How should he know them, indeed? They do not come about
the flower-garden like the humming-bird, nor about the lawn like the
robin; neither can they be hunted with a dog like the grouse and the
woodcock. Hence, for all their gorgeous apparel, they are mainly left to
students and collectors. Of our common species the most beautiful are,
perhaps, the blue yellow-back, the blue golden-wing, the Blackburnian,
the black-and-yellow, the Canada flycatcher, and the redstart; with the
yellow-rump, the black-throated green, the prairie warbler, the summer
yellow-bird, and the Maryland yellow-throat coming not far behind. But
all of them are beautiful, and they possess, besides, the charm of great
diversity of plumage and habits; while some of them have the further
merit, by no means inconsiderable, of being rare.
It was a bright day for me when the blue golden-winged warbler settled
in my neighborhood. On my morning walk I detected a new song, and,
following it up, found a new bird,--a result which is far from being a
thing of course. The spring migration was at its height, and at first I
expected to have the pleasure of my new friend's society for only a day
or two; so I made the most of it. But it turned out that he and his
companion had come to spend the summer, and before very long I
discovered their nest. This was still unfinished when I came upon it;
but I knew pretty well whose it was, having several times noticed the
birds about the spot, and a few days afterwards the female bravely sat
still, while I bent over her, admiring her courage and her handsome
dress. I paid my respects to the little mother almost daily, but
jealously guarded her secret, sharing it only with a kind-hearted woman,
whom I took with me on one of my visits. But, alas! one day I called,
only to find the nest empty. Whether the villain who pillaged it
traveled on two legs, or on four, I never knew. Possibly he dropped out
of the air. But I wished him no good, whoever he was. Next year the
birds appeared again, and more than one pair of them; but no nest could
I find, though I often looked for it, and, as children say in their
games, was sometimes very warm.