_May 9th._
To-day, Estelle, your special messenger, the Humming-Bird, comes darting to
our oriel, my Orient. As I sat sewing, his sudden, unexpected whirr made me
look up. How did he know that the very first Japan-pear-bud opened this
morning? Flower and bird came together by some wise prescience.
He has been sipping honey from your passion-flowers, and now has come to
taste my blossoms. What bright-winged thought of yours sent him so straight
to me, across that wide space of sea and land? Did he dart like a sunbeam
all the way? There were many of them voyaged together; a little line of
wavering light pierced the dark that night.
A large, brave heart has our bold sailor of the upper deep. Old Pindar
never saw our little pet, this darling of the New World; yet he says,--
"Were it the will of Heaven, an osier-bough Were vessel safe enough the
seas to plough."
Here he is, safe enough, not one tiny feather ruffled,--all the intense
life of the tropics condensed into this one live jewel,--the glance of the
sun on emeralds and rubies. Is it soft downy feathers that take this rich
metallic glow, changing their hue with every rapid turn?
Other birds fly: he darts quick as the glance of the eye,--sudden as
thought, he is here, he is there. No floating, balancing motion, like the
lazy butterfly, who fans the air with her broad sails. To the point, always
to the point, he turns in straight lines. How stumbling and heavy is the
flight of the "burly, dozing bumblebee," beside this quick intelligence!
Our knight of the ruby throat, with lance in rest, makes wild and rapid
sallies on this "little mundane bird,"--this bumblebee,--this rolling
sailor, never off his sea-legs, always spinning his long homespun
yarns. This rich bed of golden and crimson flowers is a handsome field of
tournament. What invisible circle sits round to adjudge the prize?
What secret does he bring me under those misty wings,--that busy birring
sound, like Neighbor Clark's spinning-wheel? Is he busy as well, this bit
of pure light and heat? Yes! he, too, has got a little home down in the
swamp over there,--that bit of a knot on the young oak-sapling. Last year
we found a nest (and brought it home) lined with the floss of
willow-catkin, stuck all over with lichens, deep enough to secure the two
pure round pearls from being thrown out, strongly fastened to the forked
branch,--a home so snug, so warm, so soft!--a home "contrived for fairy
needs."
Who but the fairies, or Mr. Fine-Ear himself, ever heard the tiny tap of
the young bird, when he breaks the imprisoning shell?
The mother-bird knows well the fine sound. Hours? days? no, weeks, she has
sat to hear at last that least wave of sound.
What! this tiny bit of restless motion sit there still? Minutes must be
long hours to her quick panting heart.
I will just whisper it in your ear, that the meek-looking mother-bird only
comes out between daylight and dark,--just like other busy mothers I have
known, who take a little run out after tea.
Can it be, that Mr. Ruby-Throat, my _preux chevalier_, keeps all the
sunshiny hours for himself, that he may enjoy to the full his own gay
flight?
Ah! you know nothing, hear nothing of woman's rights up there, in that
well-ordered household. Were it not well, if we, too, could give up our
royal right of choice,--if we could fall back on our strong earth-born
instincts, to be, to know, to do, one thing?
See how closely our darling curls up his slender black feet and legs, that
we may not see this one bit of mortality about him! No, my little immortal
does not touch the earth; he hangs suspended by that long bill, which just
tethers him to its flowers. Now and then he will let down the little black
tendrils of legs and feet on some bare twig, and there be rests and preens
those already smooth plumules with the long slender bodkin you lent
him. Now, just now, he darts into my room, coquets with my basket of
flowers, "a kiss, a touch, and then away." I heard the whirr of those gauzy
wings; it was not to the flowers alone he told his story. You did well to
trust this most passionate pilgrim with your secret; the room is radiant
with it. Slow-flying doves may well draw the car of Venus; but this arrow
tipped with flame darts before, to tell of its coming. What need of word,
of song, with that iridescent glow? Some day I will hear the whole story;
just now let the Humming-Bird keep it under his misty wings.
I have heard of a lady who reared these little birds from the nest; they
would suck honey from her lips, and fly in and out of her chamber. Only
think of seeing these callow fledglings! It is as if the winged thought
could be domesticated, could learn to make its nest with us and rear its
young.
Bountiful Nature has spared to our cold North this one compact bit from the
Tropics.
* * * * *
I believe we allow that birds are very highly organized creatures,--next to
man, they say. We, with our weary feet plodding always on the earth, our
heavy arms pinioned close to our sides!--look at this live creature, with
thinnest wing cutting the fine air! We, slow in word, slow in
thought!--look at this quivering flame, kindled by some more passionate
glance of Nature! Next to man? Yes, we might say next above. Had it not
been for that fire we stole one day, that Promethean spark, hidden in the
ashes, kept a-light ever since, it had gone hard with us; Nature might have
kept her pet, her darling, high, high above us,--almost out of roach of our
dull senses.
What is our boasted speech, with its harsh, rude sounds, to their gushing
melody? We learn music, certainly, with much pains and care. The bird
cannot tell if it be A sharp or B flat, but he sings.
Our old friend, the friend of our childhood, Mr. White of Selborne, (who
had attended much to the life and conversation of birds,) says, "Their
language is very elliptical; little is said, and much is meant and
understood." Something like a lady's letter, is it not?
How wise we might grow, if we could only "the bird-language rightly spell"!
In the olden times, we are told, the Caliphs and Viziers always listened to
what the birds said about it, before they undertook any new enterprise. I
have often thought I heard wise old folk discoursing, when a company of
hens were busy on the side-hill, scratching and clucking
together. Perchance some day we shall pick up a leaf of that herb which
shall open our ears to these now inarticulate sounds.
Why may we not (just for this summer) believe in Transmigrations, and find
some elder civilization embodied in this community of birds,--all those
lost arts taken wings, not to fly away, but to come flitting and building
in our trees, picking crumbs from our door-steps?
Do they say birds are limited? Who are we that set bounds to this direct
knowledge, this instinct? Mathematical, constructive, they certainly
are. What bold architect has builded so snug, so airy a house,--well
concealed, and yet with a good outlook? We make our dwellings conspicuous;
they hide their pretty art.
We wiseacres, who stay at home, instead of following the seasons round the
globe, should learn the art of making happy homes; yet what housekeeper
will not hang her head in shame and despair, to see this nice adaptation of
use to wants, shown each year in multitudes of nests? Now, only look at
it! always just room enough,--none to spare. First, the four or five eggs
lie comfortably in the small round at the bottom of the nest, with room
enough for the mother robin to give them the whole warmth of her broad red
breast,--her sloping back and wings making a rain-proof roof over her
jewels. Then the callow younglings rise a little higher into the wider
circle. Next the fledglings brim the cup; at last it runs over; four large
clumsy robins flutter to the ground, with much noise, much anxious calling
from papa and mamma,--much good advice, no doubt. They are fairly turned
out to shift for themselves; with the same wise, unfathomable eyes which
have mirrored the round world for so many years, which know all things, say
nothing, older than time, lively and quick as to-day; with the same
touching melody in their long monotonous call; soon with the same power of
wing; next year to build a nest with the same wise economy, each young
robin carrying in his own swelling, bulging breast the model of the hollow
circle, the cradle of other young robins. So you see it is a nest within a
nest,--a whole nest of nests; like Vishnu Sarma's fables, or Scheherazade's
stories, you can never find where one leaves off and another begins, they
shut so one into the other. No wonder the children and philosophers are
they who ask, whether the egg comes from the bird, or the bird from the
egg. Yes, it is a _Heimskringla_, a world-circle, a home-circle, this nest.
You remember that little, old, withered man who used to bring us eggs; the
boys, you know, called him Egg Pop. When the thrifty housewife complained
of the small size of his ware, he always said,--
"Yes, Marm, they be small; but they be monstrous full."
Yes, the packing of the nest is close; but closer is the packing of the
egg. "As full as an egg of meat" is a wise proverb.
Let us look at these first-fruits which the bountiful Spring hangs on our
trees.
"To break the eggshell after the meat is out we are taught in our
childhood, and practise it all our lives; which, nevertheless, is but a
superstitious relict, according to the judgment of Pliny, and the intent
hereof was to prevent witch-craft [to keep the fairies out]; for lest
witches should draw or prick their names therein, and veneficiously
mischief their persons, they broke the shell, as Dalecampius hath
observed." This is what Sir Thomas Browne tells us about eggshells. And
Dr. Wren adds, "Least they [the witches] perchance might use them for
boates to sayle in by night." But I, who have no fear of witches, would not
break them,--rather use them, try what an untold variety of forms we may
make out of this delicate oval.
By a little skilful turning and reversing, putting on a handle, a lip here,
a foot there, always following the sacred oval, we shall get a countless
array of pitchers and vases, of perfect finished form, handsome enough to
be the oval for a king's name. Should they attempt to copy our rare vases
in finest Parian, alabaster, or jasper, their art would fail to hit the
delicate tints and smoothness of this fine shell; and then those dots and
dashes, careless as put on by a master's hand!
Are not these rare lines? They look to me as wise as hieroglyphics. Who
knows what rhyme and reason are written there,--what subtile wisdom rounded
into this small curve,--repeated on the breasts and backs of the
birds,--their own notes, it may be, photographed on their swelling breasts
like the musical notes on the harp-shell,--written in bright, almost
audible colors on the petals of flowers,--harmonies, melodies, for ear and
eye? Has this language, older than Erse, older than Sanscrit, ever got
translated? I am afraid, dear, the key has been turned in the lock, and
thrown into the well.
The ornithologists tell us that some birds build nicer nests, sing sweeter
songs, than their companions of the same species. Can experience add wisdom
to instinct? or is it the right of the elder-born,--the birthright of the
young robin who first breaks the shell? Who has rightly looked into these
things?
I half remember the story of a beautiful princess who had all imaginable
wealth in her stately palace, itself builded up of rare and costly
jewels. She had everything that heart could desire,--everything but a roc's
egg. Her mind was contracted with sorrow, till she could procure this one
ornament more to her splendors. I think it turned out that the palace
itself was built within the roc's egg. These birds are immense, and take up
three elephants at a time in their powerful talons, (almost as many as
Gordon Cumming himself, on a good day's hunt,) and their eggs are like
domes.
Now, do not you be like the foolish princess, and desire a roc's egg; it
will prove a stone, the egg of a rock, indeed. Be content rather with this
ostrich-egg I send you; with your own slender fingers lift the
lid;--pretty, is it not, the tea-service I send you? The tidy warblers
threw out the emptied shells; one by one I picked them up, and have made
cups and saucers, bowls and pitchers for you: a roc's egg never held
anything one-half so fine.
You will say I am a fairy, as brother Evelyn says, when I relate to him the
fine sights and sounds I have seen and heard in the woods. No, but the
little silent people are very good to me.
Let me, then, go on my bird's-egging and tell you one more fact about our
fairy, our Humming-Bird. Audubon says "that an all-wise Providence has made
this little hero an exception to a rule which prevails almost universally
through Nature,--namely, that the smallest species of a tribe are the most
prolific. The eagle lays one, sometimes two eggs; the small European wren
fifteen; the humming-bird two: and yet this latter is abundantly more
numerous in America than the wren in Europe." All on account of his
wonderful courage, admirable instinct, or whatever it is that guards and
guides him so unerringly.
You see we may well love him whom
Nature herself loves so dearly.
"Ce que Dieu garde est bien gardé."
Ah, Estelle! your bonnie birdie, with
his wild whirr, darting back and forth
like a weaver's shuttle weaving fine
wefts, has got into my head; not "bee-bonneted,"
but bird-bonneted, I go. Yes,
this day shall be given to the king, as
our country-folk say, when they go a-pleasuring.
I am off with the little wool-gatherers,
to see what thorn and brier
and fern-stalk and willow-catkin will give
me. Good-day! good-day!