It cost me an appendix to become a treasure-hunter, but it was worth
the price. I really had very little use for that appendix anyway,
while my membership in the Order of Treasure-Hunters has brought me in
several million dollars' worth of health and happiness.
It all began when I was sent from a city hospital to an old farmhouse
in the northwestern corner of Connecticut, with instructions to avoid
all but the most ladylike kind of exercise. Accordingly one morning I
found myself tottering feebly along a wood-road that led over Pond
Hill, highly resolved to walk to Hen's Pine and back. This was the
lone tree which stood on the crest of the wooded hill which, half a
century ago, old Hen, a freed slave, had begged from the
charcoal-burners when they coaled that region. Hen's old horse, Bill,
is buried at its foot, and Hen had hoped to lie there himself with his
axe, his fiddle, and his whip. Instead, he sleeps in a little
graveyard on a bare hill beside his old master.
My path had just crossed a round green circle in the woods where an
old charcoal-pit had set its seal forever. Suddenly a brown bird flew
up from beside the road a few yards ahead of me. If she had kept
quiet, I never would have learned her secret. When, however, she came
back, flying from branch to branch with fluttering wings and jerking
tail, keeping up at the same time a rattle of alarm-notes like a tiny
machine-gun, even a novice like myself would suspect a nest.
Fortunately a broken hazel bush marked the exact spot from which she
had flown. On going there, and looking carefully near its base, I
found what has always seemed to me one of the most beautifully hidden
nests of all the hundreds which I have seen since--perhaps because it
was my first rare nest. It was roofed in by the split hazel-branch,
and made of woven dry grass and leaves, with a scanty lining of
horse-hair and a flooring of leaf-fragments. Inside were five eggs.
Four of them were bluish-white, with aureoles of reddish-brown
blotches around the blunt ends; but the fifth was larger, and was
specked and splashed with blotches of rufous and brown-purple. Long
afterwards I learned that this last egg was the fatal gift of that
vampire the cow-bird, and that by leaving it there I had doomed the
four legitimate future birds of that nest to certain death. Sooner or
later the deadly changeling would hatch from that egg and roll its
foster-brothers out of the nest to starve.
That day, however, I was ignorant even of the name of the bird whose
nest I had found. For long I stood and gloated like a miser over the
little jewel-casket which the mother-bird had shown me, and for the
first time realized that anywhere in the woods and fields I might
come upon other treasure-hordes of the same kind. Then and there I
became a treasure-hunter. Ever since then I leave my treasures where I
find them, so that my recollections of them may not be marred by any
memories of fluttering, mourning mother birds. Aside from any
sentimental reasons, it has always seemed to me that he who takes the
eggs which he has discovered is guilty of the economic error of
spending his principal. If left undisturbed, the nest will pay
dividends in the way of information and observations which are worth
more than the mere possession of the pierced and empty eggs.
All the time that I was studying this nest both the parent birds were
moving around me in anxious circles. At times the mother bird would
drop her wings and scurry along just in front of me, pretending that
she was wounded nigh unto death and that, if I would but follow her
away from the nest, she could easily be caught. Both the birds had
brown backs and buff breasts and sides spotted with black, and
constantly tilted their tails and walked instead of hopping. As soon
as I came back to the farmhouse, I rummaged through colored charts and
bird-books until I had decided that the nest was that of a fox
sparrow, which also has a brown back and a spotted breast. It was not
until another year that I learned that the fox sparrow nests in the
far North and that the bird whose home I had discovered was none other
than the oven-bird--or golden-crowned accentor, to give him his more
sonorous title. This is the bird which comes in late April or early
May and sings all through the woods the best example of a crescendo
song in all bird-music. His nest on the ground usually has a domed
overhanging roof which makes it resemble an old-fashioned Dutch oven.
In spite of my ignorance there followed the happiest week of my life.
I forgot that I was an invalid, as well as all the injunctions of my
doctor. From morning until night I hunted birds' nests. As usual
fortune favored the novice, and I found nests that first week which I
have found but few times since.
The very next morning, on the other side of Pond Hill I turned a
sudden corner of the path through the dim green silence, and stepped
right into a breakfast-party. Mrs. Ruffed Grouse, known in that part
of the country as partridge, was breakfasting in the open path with at
least a dozen little grouse--or is it greese. Although taken by
surprise, neither she nor her children hesitated for the fraction of a
second. Falling upon the ground, she rolled and flapped as if in the
last agonies of death, whining like a puppy and dragging herself
almost to my feet. I looked away from the covey for a minute, to watch
the bird struggling and whining at my very feet. As I stretched my
hand out toward her, she feebly flopped away, still apparently well
within reach. I took a step or so after her, to see if she would
really permit herself to be caught. Suddenly realizing that she was
only decoying me away from her brood, I turned back. Although I had
gone less than six feet, and the little birds had been huddled
together close to me on the bare path, they had absolutely
disappeared. It seemed impossible that in a few seconds they could
have gained the shelter of the woods or could have found cover in the
scanty grass and scattered leaves close at hand. Not one could I find
although I searched and searched. When I turned back the mother grouse
was gone also, although I could hear her whining through the bushes.
Years later, again at the edge of the woods, one day early in June, I
came upon another mother grouse leading a covey of little chicks,
evidently just hatched, in single file out from the woods into the
open, probably to catch grasshoppers. She went through the same
performance as the first one, but this time I selected the two nearest
chicks, which stood directly in front of me, and resolved that nothing
would make me take my eyes away from them. Even as I watched, they
melted away into the grass. One I found lying motionless on its side
under a big brown leaf, looking exactly like its covering. The other I
never did find. At first the leaf-hidden partridge refused to move
even when I touched it, until I picked it up. Then it gave a shrill
peep almost like a little chicken. Instantly the poor mother bird
rushed up to my very feet and dashed her wings frantically against my
legs, jumping up from the ground and whining so piteously that, after
I had stroked her fuzzy, soft little chick, I put it back on the
ground without any further examination. At once it disappeared, and
the mother bird, still whining, also sidled away into the woods.
I hid behind an apple tree and waited nearly half an hour. At last
from the woods sounded a low "Cluck, cluck, cluck," and instantly nine
little partridge chicks, one by one, started up from the most
impossible hiding-places. It was like watching a resurrection. Some
came from under leaves, others out of clumps of grass, and two or
three rose from the almost bare ground, where they had lain in perfect
concealment. Falling into single file, they hurried like little ghosts
into the thicket, and the last I heard of that little family was a few
soft and very satisfied clucks from the hidden mother bird.
During that golden week of treasure-hunting I found a number of common
nests which, although everyday affairs to an experienced
ornithologist, were then, as they are now, a source of never-ending
interest. There was the robin's nest partly made of wool, which I
found in a thorn-bush in the sheep-pasture, with its four long,
sky-blue eggs. Over in the woods, just back of the deserted house
where Nat Bunker, the Indian, used to weave wonderful baskets out of
maiden-hair stems, I found the nest of a wood thrush in a witch-hazel
about seven feet from the ground, by the simple process of running my
head against the bush while going through the thick undergrowth. This
accident bunted the mother thrush off the nest; and pulling the bush
down, I peered in and saw three light-blue eggs.
If I had taken these eggs, as some bird's-nesters do, I never should
have had the experience of actually seeing a little wood thrush come
into the world. It was the last morning of my stay, and I had been
making my round of nests, examining each one and beginning the
bird-notes which I have kept up ever since. As I pulled the nest down
and looked at the three eggs, I suddenly saw a tiny black speck appear
out of the side of one. Then the shell cracked and split, and I
realized that what I had seen was the beak of the little bird within.
In a moment the crack spread, and finally, with a tremendous effort,
one half of the blue shell slid off and there in front of me, snugly
resting in the other half of the shell, was the naked baby-thrush, its
long neck curled down beside its round stomach. Raising its blind
head, it pressed against the confining shell, while its whole bare
body shook with the heart-throbs of a new life. I realized that before
my eyes this bare, blind bird was passing from one world into another;
and when the birth was finally accomplished and, free from the
prisoning shell, the little thrush lay panting on the bottom of the
soft nest, I turned away with a certain sense of uplift that I had
watched a fellow creature win a battle for a higher life.
It was another wood thrush's nest that same week, in the deep of a
thicket, that gave me still another experience. The nest was in a tiny
bush much lower than I have ever found a wood thrush's nest since.
When the mother thrush left the nest, she wasted no time in idle
alarm-notes, but, circling around the bush, flew straight for my face.
I ducked, and she went over me, only to turn and come back; and if I
had not guarded myself by striking at her with my hands, I have no
manner of doubt that she would have struck me with her beak.
In only one other instance in many years of bird's-nesting have I ever
been actually attacked by a nesting bird. Once in the twilight I had
found my first and last nest of a Kentucky warbler on the edge of a
wood. Taking a short cut through the trees, I was instantly assailed
by a pair of screech-owls, which flew directly at my face, snapping
their beaks and making little wailing notes. The light was so dim and
their flight so swift, that I actually ran out into the open, fearing
lest they might land with beak or claw on my eyes.
It was on the third day that I found in a white-thorn bush the little
horse-hair nest of the chipping sparrow. This last summer, in the
depths of Northern Canada, while hunting for such rare nests as the
bay-breasted, the yellow-palm and the Tennessee warblers, I found the
same little horse-hair home of the chipping sparrow. I thought with
this my last, as I did with my first, that there are no eggs of
American birds more beautiful than those little blue, brown-flecked
eggs of the dear gentle little chippy.
That same day, on the edge of the thick woods near the schoolhouse, I
found swinging from maple saplings, four and five feet from the
ground, the beautiful little woven baskets, thatched on the outside
with white birch-bark and lined within with pine-needles, of the
red-eyed vireo, with the black line through and the white line above
her red eye. In the vast, bare hardhack pasture on the slope of Pond
Hill, I watched a field sparrow fly down under a hardhack bush with a
bug in its beak. Hurrying there, I found on the ground, concealed by
the bush, her little nest of woven grass, with four little field
sparrows inside, whose gaping beaks kept both father and mother field
sparrow busy all day to fill them. As the parent birds flitted around
me, I could see plainly the pink beak which distinguishes the field
sparrow from all others of its family. Beside the brook, among the
cat-tails on the ground, I found the rough nest of the red-winged
blackbird, with its four eggs scrawled with strange black
hieroglyphics.
The fourth day was another treasure-trove day. Just at dawn, in a
dew-drenched thicket of spirea, I found three nests not six feet
apart. In one, root-lined and thatched with strips of grape-vine bark,
glowed the four deep blue eggs of the cat bird. The next nest,
singularly deep and made of dried grass, was owned by a black-blue
indigo bunting who, in spite of his intense coloring, seemed content
with three washed-out white eggs and a light-brown wife. On the last
nest the bird was brooding, and showed the golden-crowned head and the
chestnut band along the side which has given its name to the
chestnut-sided warbler. The nest, a humble affair of grass and hair,
sheltered four wonderful eggs, pink-white, spotted at the largest end
with flecks of chocolate and lilac and umber. Back of the thickets
tottered an old, old house. For fifty years it had been leased to the
wild-folk. As I looked at it, one of them flitted out of the
cellar-way, a gray bird whose name-note was phoebe. Just within the
doorway, on an oak beam, I found her new-finished nest of fresh,
bright, green moss.
All that morning I followed orchid-haunted paths through dim aisles of
high pine trees without finding a nest. When I gave up hunting for
them, they appeared. Toward noon I had put together a pocket rod and
was wading down the bed of a little brook, to catch a few trout for
lunch. In a little pool at the foot of a laurel bush, I landed a plump
jeweled fish. I cast again, and my hook caught a low hanging branch. I
gave the bough a shake, and from the foot of the bush a pale brown
bird stole out. A moment later I was looking at my first veery's nest.
It seemed strange to meet face to face this dweller in the dark woods.
Usually I had heard his weird harp-notes from the cool green depths of
the thicket, but with never a glimpse of the singer. To-day he sat on
a low branch within six feet, and I could plainly see the faintly
marked breast and the white spot under the beak which are the
field-marks of the veery, or Wilson's thrush. Both birds flittered
around me like ghosts, saying faintly, "Wheer! wheer! wheer!" The nest
was built just off the ground and lined with brown leaves, and held
four of the most vivid blue eggs owned by any of the bird-folk. The
eggs of the cat-bird are of a deeper blue, but the strange vivid
brightness of the veery's eggs makes all other blue eggs look faded by
contrast.
All too soon my glorious week of treasure-hunting drew to a close. For
the last day were reserved the best two of my bird-adventures. During
the morning I had followed a wood-road which led through dark woods
into a marsh, and then up a wooded slope. I sat down to rest, and
suddenly saw a gray bird fly up into a tree, alight on a limb, and
before my eyes suddenly disappear. Bringing my field-glasses to bear,
I discovered saddled on that limb a lichen-covered nest, which looked
so exactly like the limb itself that, if the bird had not shown me her
home, I would never by any chance have discovered it. It was a far
climb for an invalid, but I felt that life was not worth living unless
I could have a closer look at this strange nest which had flashed into
sight right before my eyes. Gruntingly I clambered up the trunk, and
for the first time looked into the beautiful nest of the wood pewee.
It was lined with down and held four perfect eggs, pearly-white and
flecked with heavy brown and black spots.
For a long time I sat perched aloft, rejoicing over every perfect
detail of that nest and the eggs, and studying the gentle, silent,
anxious parent birds, of a dark-brownish-gray with two white wing-bars
and whitish under-parts. I went back to lunch feeling that my last day
had been well spent. However, the best was yet to be. I realize from
later experiences in bird's nesting that all this has an impossible
sound, but I can only say that I am setting down the happenings of
this week of treasure-hunting exactly as they came, and as they appear
in the battered canvas-bound note-book in which I scrawled my
field-notes that summer. The Wild Folk had evidently decided to
celebrate my discovery of their world by granting me seven days of
nest-finding rarely vouchsafed even to veteran ornithologists.
[Illustration: THE JEWEL-BOX OF THE WOOD PEWEE]
It was at twilight, and I stood on the edge of an old orchard where
grew a white-oak tree. As I looked away across the valley, I heard a
humming noise, and through the dimming light saw a tiny bird buzzing
through the air just overhead. As I watched, she alighted on a long
limb about ten feet from the ground, and even an ignoramus like myself
could recognize the long curved beak of the hummingbird. This one had
a white instead of a crimson throat, which, I was to learn, marked the
female. For an instant the little bird perched on the limb just over
my head, and then suddenly sidled toward what seemed a tiny knot, but
was not. Lest I be betrayed into further puns unworthy the fair fame
of a bird-student, I hasten to add that I had found the nest of a
ruby-throated hummingbird.
It was too dark that evening to examine it more closely, but by
sunrise the next morning I was on the spot with a step-ladder, and
with more delight than I have ever had in a nest since, looked down
into the tiny lichen-covered, cobweb-stitched, thistle-down-lined nest
of this smallest of all our birds. Within were two tiny white eggs.
The opening of the nest was just about the size of a quarter of a
dollar, and it did not seem possible that two little birds could later
be brooded and fed and reared in such a tiny cradle. The nest itself
was saddled on the limb, which was perhaps four inches in diameter.
It was so placed that the bottom of the nest did not rest directly on
the limb, but hung a little to one side, so that the future little
birds would rest in the swing of a hammock rather than on the hard
foundation of the branch itself. The nest was lashed to the limb with
strand after strand of cobwebs carried and wound around and around,
until the whole structure was firmly anchored by myriads of almost
invisible but tough little ropes. Inside, it was lined with the soft
yellowish-white fluffy fleece found inside milkweed pods. Next came a
layer of reddish-brown seed-husks, all bound and lashed together with
a network of cobwebs. On the outside was a layer of dull ashy-green
lichen-scales. Each minute separate fragment was fitted into a mosaic
which covered the whole nest. Outside of everything was another almost
invisible network of cobwebs, like the net of a balloon which holds
the round globe within. There must have been hundreds of gossamer
strands making up this network, all so fine that only by the closest
examination could they be seen.
Every bird's nest is a miracle, but I don't know any that is such a
marvel of industry and ingenuity and beauty as that of the
ruby-throated bird. Later on, when Mrs. Hummingbird was through with
her home, I collected it, and had an opportunity of seeing just what
the building of that nest meant to her--for, sad to say, Mr. H. B.
never moves a claw to help in home-building. The labor of collecting
the spider-webs alone, to say nothing of the hundreds of lichen-flecks
and seed-husks, would seem to be almost impossible. On the outside of
the nest I counted over a hundred separate bits of lichen, and then
undoubtedly overlooked many; while in the next layer of seed-husks
there were probably at least three times as many. Bit by bit, flake by
flake, the little worker had gathered her material, and from it had
spun, and woven and built a nest which was not only soft and secure
for her little ones, but, when finished, was absolutely disguised. No
prowler on the ground or pirate of the air could tell that nest from a
lichen-covered knot, unless, as had been my fortune, the little mother
herself showed it to them.
So endeth the tale of my first treasure-hunting. If you are not one of
us, don't let another summer go by without joining our Order. You will
find a wealth of happiness which no thief can steal nor misfortune
lose, and which, as the years go by, pays ever-increasing dividends of
joyous memories.