one has learned to discriminate closely, he is apt to confound with
the red-eyed vireo's, is that of the solitary warbling vireo,--a
bird slightly larger, much rarer, and with a louder, less cheerful
and happy strain. I see him hopping along lengthwise of the limbs,
and note the orange tinge of his breast and sides and the white
circle around his eye.
But the declining sun and the deepening shadows admonish me that
this ramble must be brought to a close, even though only the leading
characters in this chorus of forty songsters have been described,
and only a small portion of the venerable old woods explored. In a
secluded swampy corner of the old Barkpeeling, where I find the
great purple orchis in bloom, and where the foot of man or beast
seems never to have trod, I linger long, contemplating the wonderful
display of lichens and mosses that overrun both the smaller and the
larger growths. Every bush and branch and sprig is dressed up in the
most rich and fantastic of liveries; and, crowning all, the long
bearded moss festoons the branches or sways gracefully from the
limbs. Every twig looks a century old, though green leaves tip the
end of it. A young yellow birch has a venerable, patriarchal look,
and seems ill at ease under such premature honors. A decayed hemlock
is draped as if by hands for some solemn festival.
Mounting toward the upland again, I pause reverently as the hush and
stillness of twilight come upon the woods. It is the sweetest,
ripest hour of the day. And as the hermit's evening hymn goes up
from the deep solitude below me, I experience that serene exaltation
of sentiment of which music, literature, and religion are but the
faint types and symbols.
1865.
V
BIRDS'-NESTS
How alert and vigilant the birds are, even when absorbed in building
their nests! In an open space in the woods I see a pair of
cedar-birds collecting moss from the top of a dead tree. Following
the direction in which they fly, I soon discover the nest placed in
the fork of a small soft maple, which stands amid a thick growth of
wild cherry-trees and young beeches. Carefully concealing myself
beneath it, without any fear that the workmen will hit me with a
chip or let fall a tool, I await the return of the busy pair.
Presently I hear the well-known note, and the female sweeps down and
settles unsuspectingly into the half-finished structure. Hardly have
her wings rested before her eye has penetrated my screen, and with a
hurried movement of alarm she darts away. In a moment the male, with
a tuft of wool in his beak (for there is a sheep pasture near),
joins her, and the two reconnoitre the premises from the surrounding
bushes. With their beaks still loaded, they move around with a
frightened look, and refuse to approach the nest till I have moved
off and lain down behind a log. Then one of them ventures to alight
upon the nest, but, still suspecting all is not right, quickly darts
away again. Then they both together come, and after much peeping and
spying about, and apparently much anxious consultation, cautiously
proceed to work. In less than half an hour it would seem that wool
enough has been brought to supply the whole family, real and
prospective, with socks, if needles and fingers could be found fine
enough to knit it up. In less than a week the female has begun to
deposit her eggs,--four of them in as many days,--white tinged with
purple, with black spots on the larger end. After two weeks of
incubation the young are out.
Excepting the American goldfinch, this bird builds later in the
spring than any other,--its nest, in our northern climate, seldom
being undertaken till July. As with the goldfinch, the reason is,
probably, that suitable food for the young cannot be had at an
earlier period.
[Illustration: FINDING A BIRD'S-NEST]
Like most of our common species, as the robin, sparrow, bluebird,
pewee, wren, etc., this bird sometimes seeks wild, remote localities
in which to rear its young; at others, takes up its abode near that
of man. I knew a pair of cedar-birds, one season, to build in an
apple-tree, the branches of which rubbed against the house. For a
day or two before the first straw was laid, I noticed the pair
carefully exploring every branch of the tree, the female taking
the lead, the male following her with an anxious note and look. It
was evident that the wife was to have her choice this time; and,
like one who thoroughly knew her mind, she was proceeding to take
it. Finally the site was chosen upon a high branch, extending over
one low wing of the house. Mutual congratulations and caresses
followed, when both birds flew away in quest of building material.
That most freely used is a sort of cotton-bearing plant which grows
in old wornout fields. The nest is large for the size of the bird,
and very soft. It is in every respect a first-class domicile.
On another occasion, while walking or rather sauntering in the woods
(for I have discovered that one cannot run and read the book of
nature), my attention was arrested by a dull hammering, evidently
but a few rods off. I said to myself, "Some one is building a
house." From what I had previously seen, I suspected the builder to
be a red-headed woodpecker in the top of a dead oak stub near by.
Moving cautiously in that direction, I perceived a round hole, about
the size of that made by an inch-and-a-half auger, near the top of
the decayed trunk, and the white chips of the workman strewing the
ground beneath. When but a few paces from the tree, my foot pressed
upon a dry twig, which gave forth a very slight snap. Instantly the
hammering ceased, and a scarlet head appeared at the door. Though I
remained perfectly motionless, forbearing even to wink till my eyes
smarted, the bird refused to go on with his work, but flew quietly
off to a neighboring tree. What surprised me was, that, amid his
busy occupation down in the heart of the old tree, he should have
been so alert and watchful as to catch the slightest sound from
without.
The woodpeckers all build in about the same manner, excavating the
trunk or branch of a decayed tree and depositing the eggs on the
fine fragments of wood at the bottom of the cavity. Though the nest
is not especially an artistic work,--requiring strength rather than
skill,--yet the eggs and the young of few other birds are so
completely housed from the elements, or protected from their natural
enemies, the jays, crows, hawks, and owls. A tree with a natural
cavity is never selected, but one which has been dead just long
enough to have become soft and brittle throughout. The bird goes in
horizontally for a few inches, making a hole perfectly round and
smooth and adapted to his size, then turns downward, gradually
enlarging the hole, as he proceeds, to the depth of ten, fifteen,
twenty inches, according to the softness of the tree and the urgency
of the mother bird to deposit her eggs. While excavating, male and
female work alternately. After one has been engaged fifteen or
twenty minutes, drilling and carrying out chips, it ascends to an
upper limb, utters a loud call or two, when its mate soon appears,
and, alighting near it on the branch, the pair chatter and caress a
moment, then the fresh one enters the cavity and the other flies
away.
A few days since I climbed up to the nest of the downy woodpecker,
in the decayed top of a sugar maple. For better protection against
driving rains, the hole, which was rather more than an inch in
diameter, was made immediately beneath a branch which stretched out
almost horizontally from the main stem. It appeared merely a deeper
shadow upon the dark and mottled surface of the bark with which the
branches were covered, and could not be detected by the eye until
one was within a few feet of it. The young chirped vociferously as I
approached the nest, thinking it was the old one with food; but the
clamor suddenly ceased as I put my hand on that part of the trunk in
which they were concealed, the unusual jarring and rustling alarming
them into silence. The cavity, which was about fifteen inches deep,
was gourd-shaped, and was wrought out with great skill and
regularity. The walls were quite smooth and clean and new.
I shall never forget the circumstance of observing a pair of
yellow-bellied woodpeckers--the most rare and secluded, and, next to
the red-headed, the most beautiful species found in our
woods--breeding in an old, truncated beech in the Beaverkill
Mountains, an offshoot of the Catskills. We had been traveling,
three of us, all day in search of a trout lake, which lay far in
among the mountains, had twice lost our course in the trackless
forest, and, weary and hungry, had sat down to rest upon a decayed
log. The chattering of the young, and the passing to and fro of the
parent birds, soon arrested my attention. The entrance to the nest
was on the east side of the tree, about twenty-five feet from the
ground. At intervals of scarcely a minute, the old birds, one after
the other, would alight upon the edge of the hole with a grub or
worm in their beaks; then each in turn would make a bow or two, cast
an eye quickly around, and by a single movement place itself in the
neck of the passage. Here it would pause a moment, as if to
determine in which expectant mouth to place the morsel, and then
disappear within. In about half a minute, during which time the
chattering of the young gradually subsided, the bird would again
emerge, but this time bearing in its beak the ordure of one of the
helpless family. Flying away very slowly with head lowered and
extended, as if anxious to hold the offensive object as far from its
plumage as possible, the bird dropped the unsavory morsel in the
course of a few yards, and, alighting on a tree, wiped its bill on
the bark and moss. This seems to be the order all day,--carrying in
and carrying out. I watched the birds for an hour, while my
companions were taking their turn in exploring the lay of the land
around us, and noted no variation in the programme. It would be
curious to know if the young are fed and waited upon in regular
order, and how, amid the darkness and the crowded state of the
apartment, the matter is so neatly managed. But ornithologists are
all silent upon the subject.
This practice of the birds is not so uncommon as it might at first
seem. It is indeed almost an invariable rule among all land birds.
With woodpeckers and kindred species, and with birds that burrow in
the ground, as bank swallows, king-fishers, etc., it is a necessity.
The accumulation of the excrement in the nest would prove most fatal
to the young.
But even among birds that neither bore nor mine, but which build a
shallow nest on the branch of a tree or upon the ground, as the
robin, the finches, the buntings, etc., the ordure of the young is
removed to a distance by the parent bird. When the robin is seen
going away from its brood with a slow, heavy flight, entirely
different from its manner a moment before on approaching the nest
with a cherry or worm, it is certain to be engaged in this office.
One may observe the social sparrow, when feeding its young, pause a
moment after the worm has been given and hop around on the brink of
the nest observing the movements within.
The instinct of cleanliness no doubt prompts the action in all
cases, though the disposition to secrecy or concealment may not be
unmixed with it.
The swallows form an exception to the rule, the excrement being
voided by the young over the brink of the nest. They form an
exception, also, to the rule of secrecy, aiming not so much to
conceal the nest as to render it inaccessible.
Other exceptions are the pigeons, hawks, and water-fowls.
But to return. Having a good chance to note the color and markings
of the woodpeckers as they passed in and out at the opening of the
nest, I saw that Audubon had made a mistake in figuring or
describing the female of this species with the red spot upon the
head. I have seen a number of pairs of them, and in no instance have
I seen the mother bird marked with red.
The male was in full plumage, and I reluctantly shot him for a
specimen. Passing by the place again next day, I paused a moment to
note how matters stood. I confess it was not without some
compunctions that I heard the cries of the young birds, and saw the
widowed mother, her cares now doubled, hastening to and fro in the
solitary woods. She would occasionally pause expectantly on the
trunk of a tree and utter a loud call.
It usually happens, when the male of any species is killed during
the breeding season, that the female soon procures another mate.
There are, most likely, always a few unmated birds of both sexes
within a given range, and through these the broken links may be
restored. Audubon or Wilson, I forget which, tells of a pair of fish
hawks, or ospreys, that built their nest in an ancient oak. The male
was so zealous in the defense of the young that he actually attacked
with beak and claw a person who attempted to climb into his nest,
putting his face and eyes in great jeopardy. Arming himself with a
heavy club, the climber felled the gallant bird to the ground and
killed him. In the course of a few days the female had procured
another mate. But naturally enough the stepfather showed none of the
spirit and pluck in defense of the brood that had been displayed by
the original parent. When danger was nigh he was seen afar off,
sailing around in placid unconcern.
It is generally known that when either the wild turkey or domestic
turkey begins to lay, and afterwards to sit and rear the brood, she
secludes herself from the male, who then, very sensibly, herds with
others of his sex, and betakes himself to haunts of his own till
male and female, old and young, meet again on common ground, late in
the fall. But rob the sitting bird of her eggs, or destroy her
tender young, and she immediately sets out in quest of a male, who
is no laggard when he hears her call. The same is true of ducks and
other aquatic fowls. The propagating instinct is strong, and
surmounts all ordinary difficulties. No doubt the widowhood I had
caused in the case of the woodpeckers was of short duration, and
chance brought, or the widow drummed up, some forlorn male, who was
not dismayed by the prospect of having a large family of half-grown
birds on his hands at the outset.
I have seen a fine cock robin paying assiduous addresses to a female
bird as late as the middle of July; and I have no doubt that his
intentions were honorable. I watched the pair for half an hour. The
hen, I took it, was in the market for the second time that season;
but the cock, from his bright, unfaded plumage, looked like a new
arrival. The hen resented every advance of the male. In vain he
strutted around her and displayed his fine feathers; every now and
then she would make at him in a most spiteful manner. He followed
her to the ground, poured into her ear a fine, half-suppressed
warble, offered her a worm, flew back to the tree again with a great
spread of plumage, hopped around her on the branches, chirruped,
chattered, flew gallantly at an intruder, and was back in an instant
at her side. No use,--she cut him short at every turn.
The _dénouement_ I cannot relate, as the artful bird, followed by
her ardent suitor, soon flew away beyond my sight. It may not be
rash to conclude, however, that she held out no longer than was
prudent.
On the whole, there seems to be a system of Women's Rights
prevailing among the birds, which, contemplated from the standpoint
of the male, is quite admirable. In almost all cases of joint
interest, the female bird is the most active. She determines the
site of the nest, and is usually the most absorbed in its
construction. Generally, she is more vigilant in caring for the
young, and manifests the most concern when danger threatens. Hour
after hour I have seen the mother of a brood of blue grosbeaks pass
from the nearest meadow to the tree that held her nest, with a
cricket or grasshopper in her bill, while her better-dressed half
was singing serenely on a distant tree or pursuing his pleasure amid
the branches.
Yet among the majority of our song-birds the male is most
conspicuous both by his color and manners and by his song, and is to
that extent a shield to the female. It is thought that the female is
humbler clad for her better concealment during incubation. But this
is not satisfactory, as in some cases she is relieved from time to
time by the male. In the case of the domestic dove, for instance,
promptly at midday the cock is found upon the nest. I should say
that the dull or neutral tints of the female were a provision of
nature for her greater safety at all times, as her life is far more
precious to the species than that of the male. The indispensable
office of the male reduces itself to little more than a moment of
time, while that of his mate extends over days and weeks, if not
months.[1]
[Footnote 1: A recent English writer upon this subject presents
an array of facts and considerations that do not support this
view. He says that, with very few exceptions, it is the rule
that, when both sexes are of strikingly gay and conspicuous
colors, the nest is such as to conceal the sitting bird; while,
whenever there is a striking contrast of colors, the male being
gay and conspicuous, the female dull and obscure, the nest is
open and the sitting bird exposed to view. The exceptions to
this rule among European birds appear to be very few. Among our
own birds, the cuckoos and blue jays build open nests, without
presenting any noticeable difference in the coloring of the two
sexes. The same is true of the pewees, the kingbird, and the
sparrows, while the common bluebird, the oriole, and orchard
starling afford examples the other way.]
In migrating northward, the males precede the females by eight or
ten days; returning in the fall, the females and young precede the
males by about the same time.
After the woodpeckers have abandoned their nests, or rather
chambers, which they do after the first season, their cousins, the
nuthatches, chickadees, and brown creepers, fall heir to them. These
birds, especially the creepers and nuthatches, have many of the
habits of the _Picidæ_, but lack their powers of bill, and so are
unable to excavate a nest for themselves. Their habitation,
therefore, is always second-hand. But each species carries in some
soft material of various kinds, or, in other words, furnishes the
tenement to its liking. The chickadee arranges in the bottom of the
cavity a little mat of a light felt-like substance, which looks as
if it came from the hatter's, but which is probably the work of
numerous worms or caterpillars. On this soft lining the female
deposits six speckled eggs.
I recently discovered one of these nests in a most interesting
situation. The tree containing it, a variety of the wild cherry,
stood upon the brink of the bald summit of a high mountain. Gray,
time-worn rocks lay piled loosely about, or overtoppled the just
visible byways of the red fox. The trees had a half-scared look, and
that indescribable wildness which lurks about the tops of all remote
mountains possessed the place. Standing there, I looked down upon
the back of the red-tailed hawk as he flew out over the earth
beneath me. Following him, my eye also took in farms and settlements
and villages and other mountain ranges that grew blue in the
distance.
The parent birds attracted my attention by appearing with food in
their beaks, and by seeming much put out. Yet so wary were they of
revealing the locality of their brood, or even of the precise tree
that held them, that I lurked around over an hour without gaining a
point on them. Finally a bright and curious boy who accompanied me
secreted himself under a low, projecting rock close to the tree in
which we supposed the nest to be, while I moved off around the
mountain-side. It was not long before the youth had their secret.
The tree, which was low and wide-branching, and overrun with
lichens, appeared at a cursory glance to contain not one dry or
decayed limb. Yet there was one a few feet long, in which, when my
eyes were piloted thither, I detected a small round orifice.
As my weight began to shake the branches, the consternation of both
old and young was great. The stump of a limb that held the nest was
about three inches thick, and at the bottom of the tunnel was
excavated quite to the bark. With my thumb I broke in the thin wall,
and the young, which were full-fledged, looked out upon the world
for the first time. Presently one of them, with a significant chirp,
as much as to say, "It is time we were out of this," began to climb
up toward the proper entrance. Placing himself in the hole, he
looked around without manifesting any surprise at the grand scene
that lay spread out before him. He was taking his bearings, and
determining how far he could trust the power of his untried wings to
take him out of harm's way. After a moment's pause, with a loud
chirrup, he launched out and made tolerable headway. The others
rapidly followed. Each one, as it started upward, from a sudden
impulse, contemptuously saluted the abandoned nest with its
excrement.
Though generally regular in their habits and instincts, yet the
birds sometimes seem as whimsical and capricious as superior
beings. One is not safe, for instance, in making any absolute
assertion as to their place or mode of building. Ground-builders
often get up into a bush, and tree-builders sometimes get upon the
ground or into a tussock of grass. The song sparrow, which is a
ground builder, has been known to build in the knothole of a fence
rail; and a chimney swallow once got tired of soot and smoke, and
fastened its nest on a rafter in a hay barn. A friend tells me of a
pair of barn swallows which, taking a fanciful turn, saddled their
nest in the loop of a rope that was pendent from a peg in the peak,
and liked it so well that they repeated the experiment next year. I
have known the social sparrow, or "hairbird," to build under a shed,
in a tuft of hay that hung down, through the loose flooring, from
the mow above. It usually contents itself with half a dozen stalks
of dry grass and a few long hairs from a cow's tail loosely arranged
on the branch of an apple-tree. The rough-winged swallow builds in
the wall and in old stone-heaps, and I have seen the robin build in
similar localities. Others have found its nest in old, abandoned
wells. The house wren will build in anything that has an accessible
cavity, from an old boot to a bombshell. A pair of them once
persisted in building their nest in the top of a certain pump-tree,
getting in through the opening above the handle. The pump being in
daily use, the nest was destroyed more than a score of times. This
jealous little wretch has the wise forethought, when the box in
which he builds contains two compartments, to fill up one of them,
so as to avoid the risk of troublesome neighbors.
The less skillful builders sometimes depart from their usual habit,
and take up with the abandoned nest of some other species. The blue
jay now and then lays in an old crow's nest or cuckoo's nest. The
crow blackbird, seized with a fit of indolence, drops its eggs
in the cavity of a decayed branch. I heard of a cuckoo that
dispossessed a robin of its nest; of another that set a blue jay
adrift. Large, loose structures, like the nests of the osprey and
certain of the herons, have been found with half a dozen nests of
the blackbirds set in the outer edges, like so many parasites, or,
as Audubon says, like the retainers about the rude court of a feudal
baron.
The same birds breeding in a southern climate construct far less
elaborate nests than when breeding in a northern climate. Certain
species of water-fowl, that abandon their eggs to the sand and the
sun in the warmer zones, build a nest and sit in the usual way in
Labrador. In Georgia, the Baltimore oriole places its nest upon the
north side of the tree; in the Middle and Eastern States, it fixes
it upon the south or east side, and makes it much thicker and
warmer. I have seen one from the South that had some kind of coarse
reed or sedge woven into it, giving it an open-work appearance, like
a basket.
Very few species use the same material uniformly. I have seen the
nest of the robin quite destitute of mud. In one instance it was
composed mainly of long black horse-hairs, arranged in a circular
manner, with a lining of fine yellow grass; the whole presenting
quite a novel appearance. In another case the nest was chiefly
constructed of a species of rock moss.