Baltimore oriole, perhaps the most fantastically marked of all our
birds' eggs. One would hardly expect a plainly marked egg in such a
high-swung, elaborately woven, deeply pouched, aristocratic nest. The
threads and strings and horsehairs with which the structure is sewed
and bound and stayed are copied in the curious lines and markings of
the treasures it holds. After the oriole is through with its nest, it
is sometimes taken possession of by the house wren in which to rear
its second brood. The long, graceful cavity, with its fine carpet of
hair, is filled with coarse twigs, as if one were to build a log hut in
a palace, and the rusty-colored eggs of the little busybody deposited
there. The wren would perhaps stick to its bundle of small fagots in
the box or pump tree, and rear its second brood in the cradle of the
first, were it not that by seeking new lodgings time can be saved. The
male bird builds and furnishes the second nest, and the mother bird has
begun to lay in it before the first is empty.
The chatter of a second brood of nearly fledged wrens is heard now
(August 20) in an oriole's nest suspended from the branch of an
apple-tree near where I write. Earlier in the season the parent birds
made long and determined attempts to establish themselves in a cavity
that had been occupied by a pair of bluebirds. The original proprietor
of the place was the downy woodpecker. He had excavated it the autumn
before, and had passed the winter there, often to my certain knowledge
lying abed till nine o'clock in the morning. In the spring he went
elsewhere, probably with a female, to begin the season in new quarters.
The bluebirds early took possession, and in June their first brood
had flown. The wrens had been hanging around, evidently with an eye
on the place (such little comedies may be witnessed anywhere), and
now very naturally thought it was their turn. A day or two after the
young bluebirds had flown, I noticed some fine, dry grass clinging to
the entrance to the cavity; a circumstance which I understood a few
moments later, when the wren rushed by me into the cover of a small
Norway spruce, hotly pursued by the male bluebird. It was a brown
streak and a blue streak pretty close together. The wrens had gone
to housecleaning, and the bluebird had returned to find his bed and
bedding being pitched out-of-doors, and had thereupon given the wrens
to understand in the most emphatic manner that he had no intention of
vacating the premises so early in the season. Day after day, for more
than two weeks, the male bluebird had to clear his premises of these
intruders. It occupied much of his time and not a little of mine, as
I sat with a book in a summer-house near by, laughing at his pretty
fury and spiteful onset. On two occasions the wren rushed under the
chair in which I sat, and a streak of blue lightning almost flashed
in my very face. One day, just as I had passed the tree in which the
cavity was placed, I heard the wren scream desperately; turning, I saw
the little vagabond fall into the grass with the wrathful bluebird
fairly upon him; the latter had returned just in time to catch him, and
was evidently bent on punishing him well. But in the squabble in the
grass the wren escaped and took refuge in the friendly evergreen. The
bluebird paused for a moment with outstretched wings looking for the
fugitive, then flew away. A score of times during the month of June did
I see the wren taxing every energy to get away from the bluebird. He
would dart into the stone wall, under the floor of the summer-house,
into the weeds,—anywhere to hide his diminished head. The bluebird,
with his bright coat, looked like an officer in uniform in pursuit of
some wicked, rusty little street gamin. Generally the favorite house
of refuge of the wrens was the little spruce, into which their pursuer
made no attempt to follow them. The female would sit concealed amid
the branches, chattering in a scolding, fretful way, while the male
with his eye upon his tormentor would perch on the topmost shoot and
sing. Why he sang at such times, whether in triumph and derision, or to
keep his courage up and reassure his mate, I could not make out. When
his song was suddenly cut short, and I glanced to see him dart down
into the spruce, my eye usually caught a twinkle of blue wings hovering
near. The wrens finally gave up the fight, and their enemies reared
their second brood in peace.
That the wren should use such coarse, refractory materials, especially
since it builds in holes where twigs are so awkward to carry and
adjust, is curious enough. All its congeners, the marsh wrens, the
Carolina wren, the winter wren, build of soft flexible materials. The
nest of the winter wren, and of the English "Jenny Wren," is mainly of
moss, and is a marvel of softness and warmth.
One day a swarm of honey-bees went into my chimney, and I mounted the
stack to see into which flue they had gone. As I craned my neck above
the sooty vent, with the bees humming about my ears, the first thing
my eye rested upon in the black interior was two long white pearls
upon a little shelf of twigs, the nest of the chimney swallow, or
swift,—honey, soot, and birds' eggs closely associated. The bees,
though in an unused flue, soon found the gas of anthracite that hovered
about the top of the chimney too much for them, and they left. But
the swallows are not repelled by smoke. They seem to have entirely
abandoned their former nesting-places in hollow trees and stumps and
to frequent only chimneys. A tireless bird, never perching, all day
upon the wing, and probably capable of flying one thousand miles in
twenty-four hours, they do not even stop to gather materials for their
nests, but snap off the small dry twigs from the treetops as they fly
by. Confine one of these swallows to a room and it will not perch,
but after flying till it becomes bewildered and exhausted, it clings
to the side of the wall till it dies. I once found one in my room on
returning, after several days' absence, in which life seemed nearly
extinct; its feet grasped my finger as I removed it from the wall,
but its eyes closed, and it seemed about on the point of joining its
companion which lay dead upon the floor. Tossing it into the air,
however, seemed to awaken its wonderful powers of flight, and away it
went straight toward the clouds. On the wing the chimney swallow looks
like an athlete stripped for the race. There is the least appearance
of quill and plumage of any of our birds, and, with all its speed and
marvelous evolutions, the effect of its flight is stiff and wiry. There
appears to be but one joint in the wing, and that next the body. This
peculiar inflexible motion of the wings, as if they were little sickles
of sheet iron, seems to be owing to the length and development of the
primary quills and the smallness of the secondary. The wing appears to
hinge only at the wrist. The barn swallow lines its rude masonry with
feathers, but the swift begins life on bare twigs, glued together by a
glue of home manufacture as adhesive as Spaulding's.
I have wondered if Emerson referred to any particular bird in these
lines from "The Problem:"—
"Know'st thou what wove yon wood-bird's nest
Of leaves, and feathers from her breast?"
Probably not, but simply availed himself of the general belief that
certain birds or fowls lined their nests with their own feathers. This
is notably true of the eider duck, and in a measure of our domestic
fowls, but so far as I know is not true of any of our small birds. The
barn swallow and house wren feather their nests at the expense of the
hens and geese. The winter wren picks up the feathers of the ruffed
grouse. The chickadee, Emerson's favorite bird, uses a few feathers
in its upholstering, but not its own. In England, I noticed that the
little willow warbler makes a free use of feathers from the poultry
yard. Many of our birds use hair in their nests, and the kingbird and
cedar-bird like wool. I have found a single feather of the bird's own
in the nest of the phœbe. Such a circumstance would perhaps justify
the poet.
About the first of June there is a nest in the woods upon the ground
with four creamy white eggs in it, spotted with brown or lilac, chiefly
about the larger ends, that always gives the walker, who is so lucky
as to find it, a thrill of pleasure. It is like a ground sparrow's
nest with a roof or canopy to it. The little brown or olive backed
bird starts away from your feet and runs swiftly and almost silently
over the dry leaves, and then turns her speckled breast to see if
you are following. She walks very prettily, by far the prettiest
pedestrian in the woods. But if she thinks you have discovered her
secret, she feigns lameness and disability of both legs and wing, to
decoy you into the pursuit of her. This is the golden-crowned thrush,
or accentor, a strictly wood bird, about the size of a song sparrow,
with the dullest of gold upon his crown, but the brightest of songs in
his heart. The last nest of this bird I found was while in quest of the
pink cypripedium. We suddenly spied a couple of the flowers a few steps
from the path along which we were walking, and had stooped to admire
them, when out sprang the bird from beside them, doubtless thinking she
was the subject of observation instead of the flowers that swung their
purple bells but a foot or two above her. But we never should have seen
her had she kept her place. She had found a rent in the matted carpet
of dry leaves and pine needles that covered the ground, and into this
had insinuated her nest, the leaves and needles forming a canopy above
it, sloping to the south and west, the source of the more frequent
summer rains.
At about the same time one finds the nest above described, if he
were to explore the woods very thoroughly, he might chance upon two
curious eggs lying upon the leaves as if dropped there by chance.
They are elliptical, both ends of a size, about an inch and a quarter
long, of a creamy white spotted with lavender. These are the eggs
of the whip-poor-will, a bird that has absolutely no architectural
instincts or gifts. Perhaps its wide, awkward mouth and short beak are
ill-adapted to carrying nest materials. It is awkward upon the ground
and awkward upon the tree, being unable to perch upon a limb, except
lengthwise of it.
The song and game birds lay pointed eggs, but the night birds lay round
or elliptical eggs.
The egg-collector sometimes stimulates a bird to lay an unusual number
of eggs. A youth, whose truthfulness I do not doubt, told me he once
induced a high-hole to lay twenty-nine eggs by robbing her of an egg
each day. The eggs became smaller and smaller, till the twenty-ninth
one was only the size of a chippie's egg. At this point the bird gave
up the contest.
There is a last egg of summer as well as a first egg of spring, but one
cannot name either with much confidence. Both the robin and the chippie
sometimes rear a third brood in August; but the birds that delay their
nesting till midsummer are the goldfinch and the cedar-bird, the former
waiting for the thistle to ripen its seeds, and the latter probably for
the appearance of certain insects which it takes on the wing. Often the
cedar-bird does not build till August, and will line its nest with wool
if it can get it, even in this sultry month. The eggs are marked and
colored, as if a white egg were to be spotted with brown, then colored
a pale blue, then again sharply dotted or blotched with blackish or
purplish spots.
But the most common August nest with me—early August—is that of the
goldfinch,—a deep, snug, compact nest, with no loose ends hanging,
placed in the fork of a small limb of an apple-tree, peach-tree, or
ornamental shade-tree. The eggs are a faint bluish white.
While the female is sitting, the male feeds her regularly. She calls
to him on his approach, or when she hears his voice passing by, in the
most affectionate, feminine, childlike tones, the only case I know of
where the sitting bird makes any sound while in the act of incubation.
When a rival male invades the tree, or approaches too near, the male
whose nest it holds pursues and reasons or expostulates with him in
the same bright, amicable, confiding tones. Indeed, most birds make
use of their sweetest notes in war. The song of love is the song of
battle, too. The male yellowbirds flit about from point to point,
apparently assuring each other of the highest sentiments of esteem and
consideration, at the same time that one intimates to the other that
he is carrying his joke a little too far. It has the effect of saying
with mild and good-humored surprise, "Why, my dear sir, this is my
territory; you surely do not mean to trespass; permit me to salute you,
and to escort you over the line." Yet the intruder does not always take
the hint. Occasionally the couple have a brief sparring match in the
air, and mount up and up, beak to beak, to a considerable height, but
rarely do they actually come to blows.
The yellowbird becomes active and conspicuous after the other birds
have nearly all withdrawn from the stage and become silent, their
broods reared and flown. August is his month, his festive season. It
is his turn now. The thistles are ripening their seeds, and his nest
is undisturbed by jay-bird or crow. He is the first bird I hear in
the morning, circling and swinging through the air in that peculiar
undulating flight, and calling out on the downward curve of each
stroke, "Here we go, here we go!" Every hour in the day he indulges in
his circling, billowy flight. It is a part of his musical performance.
His course at such times is a deeply undulating line, like the long
gentle roll of the summer sea, the distance from crest to crest or from
valley to valley being probably thirty feet; this distance is made with
but one brief beating of the wings on the downward curve. As he quickly
opens them, they give him a strong upward impulse, and he describes
the long arc with them closely folded. Thus, falling and recovering,
rising and sinking like dolphins in the sea, he courses through the
summer air. In marked contrast to this feat is his manner of flying
when he indulges in a brief outburst of song in the air. Now he flies
level, with broad expanded wings nearly as round and as concave as two
shells, which beat the air slowly. The song is the chief matter now,
and the wings are used only to keep him afloat while delivering it. In
the other case, the flight is the main concern, and the voice merely
punctuates it.
I know no autumn egg but a hen's egg, though a certain old farmer
tells me he finds a quail's nest full of eggs nearly every September;
but fall progeny of any kind has a belated start in life, and the
chances are against it.
IV
BIRD COURTSHIP
There is something about the matchmaking of birds that is not easily
penetrated. The jealousies and rivalries of the males and of the
females are easily understood,—they are quite human; but those sudden
rushes of several males, some of them already mated, after one female,
with squeals and screams and a great clatter of wings,—what does it
mean? There is nothing human about that, unless it be illustrative
of a trait that has at times cropped out in the earlier races, and
which is still seen among the Esquimaux, where the male carries off
the female by force. But in these sudden sallies among the birds, the
female, so far as I have observed, is never carried off. One may see
half a dozen English sparrows engaged in what at first glance appears
to be a general mêlée in the gutter or on the sidewalk; but if you look
more closely you will see a single female in the midst of the mass,
beating off the males, who, with plumage puffed out and screaming and
chattering, are all making a set at her. She strikes right and left,
and seems to be equally displeased with them all. But her anger may
be all put on, and she may be giving the wink all the time to her
favorite. The Esquimaux maiden is said by Doctor Nansen to resist
stoutly being carried off even by the man she is desperately in love
with.
In the latter half of April, we pass through what I call the "robin
racket,"—trains of three or four birds rushing pell-mell over the lawn
and fetching up in a tree or bush, or occasionally upon the ground, all
piping and screaming at the top of their voices, but whether in mirth
or anger it is hard to tell. The nucleus of the train is a female. One
cannot see that the males in pursuit of her are rivals; it seems rather
as if they had united to hustle her out of the place. But somehow the
matches are no doubt made and sealed during these mad rushes. Maybe the
female shouts out to her suitors, "Who touches me first wins," and away
she scurries like an arrow. The males shout out, "Agreed!" and away
they go in pursuit, each trying to outdo the other. The game is a brief
one. Before one can get the clew to it, the party has dispersed.
Earlier in the season the pretty sparring of the males is the chief
feature. You may see two robins apparently taking a walk or a run
together over the sward or along the road; only first one bird runs,
and then the other. They keep a few feet apart, stand very erect, and
the course of each describes the segment of an arc about the other,
thus:—
_____ _____ _____ _____ _____
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \
\______/\______/\______/\______/\______/
How courtly and deferential their manners toward each other are! often
they pipe a shrill, fine strain, audible only a few yards away. Then,
in a twinkling, one makes a spring and they are beak to beak, and
claw to claw, as they rise up a few feet into the air. But usually no
blow is delivered; not a feather is ruffled; each, I suppose, finds
the guard of the other perfect. Then they settle down upon the ground
again, and go through with the same running challenge as before. How
their breasts glow in the strong April sunlight; how perk and military
the bearing of each! Often they will run about each other in this way
for many rods. After a week or so the males seem to have fought all
their duels, when the rush and racket I have already described begins.
The bluebird wins his mate by the ardor of his attentions and the
sincerity of his compliments, and by finding a house ready built
which cannot be surpassed. The male bluebird is usually here several
days before the female, and he sounds forth his note as loudly and
eloquently as he can till she appears. On her appearance he flies at
once to the box or tree cavity upon which he has had his eye, and,
as he looks into it, calls and warbles in his most persuasive tones.
The female at such times is always shy and backward, and the contrast
in the manners of the two birds is as striking as the contrast in
their colors. The male is brilliant and ardent; the female is dim
and retiring, not to say indifferent. She may take a hasty peep into
the hole in the box or tree and then fly away, uttering a lonesome,
homesick note. Only by a wooing of many days is she to be fully won.
The past April I was witness one Sunday morning to the jealousies
that may rage in these little brown breasts. A pair of bluebirds had
apparently mated and decided to occupy a woodpecker's lodge in the
limb of an old apple-tree near my study. But that morning another male
appeared on the scene, and was bent on cutting the first male out, and
carrying off his bride. I happened to be near by when the two birds
came into collision. They fell to the grass, and kept their grip upon
each other for half a minute. Then they separated, and the first up
flew to the hole and called fondly to the female. This was too much
for the other male, and they clinched again and fell to the ground as
before. There they lay upon the grass, blue and brown intermingled. But
not a feather was tweaked out, or even disturbed, that I could see.
They simply held each other down. Then they separated again, and again
rushed upon each other. The battle raged for about fifteen minutes,
when one of the males—which one, of course, I could not tell—withdrew
and flew to a box under the eaves of the study, and exerted all the
eloquence he possessed to induce the female to come to him there. How
he warbled and called, and lifted his wings and flew to the entrance to
the box and called again! The female was evidently strongly attracted;
she would respond and fly about half way to an apple-tree, and look
toward him. The other male, in the mean time, did his best to persuade
her to cast her lot with him. He followed her to the tree toward his
rival, and then flew back to the nest and spread his plumage and
called and warbled, oh, so confidently, so fondly, so reassuringly!
When the female would return and peep into the hole in the tree, what
fine, joyous notes he would utter! then he would look in and twinkle
his wings, and say something his rival could not hear. This vocal and
pantomimic contest went on for a long time. The female was evidently
greatly shaken in her allegiance to the male in the old apple-tree. In
less than an hour another female responded to the male who had sought
the eaves of the study, and flew with him to the box. Whether this was
their first meeting or not I do not know, but it was clear enough that
the heart of the male was fixed upon the bride of his rival. He would
devote himself a moment to the new-comer, and then turn toward the old
apple-tree and call and lift his wings; then, apparently admonished
by the bird near him, would turn again to her and induce her to look
into the box and warble fondly; then up on a higher branch again, with
his attention directed toward his first love, between whom and himself
salutations seemed constantly passing. This little play went on for
some time, when the two females came into collision, and fell to the
ground tweaking each other spitefully. Then the four birds drifted away
from me down into the vineyard, where the males closed with each other
again and fell to the plowed ground and lay there a surprisingly long
time, nearly two minutes, as we calculated. Their wings were outspread,
and their forms were indistinguishable. They tugged at each other most
doggedly; one or the other brown breast was generally turned up,
partly overlaid by a blue coat. They were determined to make a finish
of it this time, but which got the better of the fight I could not
tell. But it was the last battle; they finally separated, neither,
apparently, any the worse for the encounter. The females fought two
more rounds, the males looking on and warbling approvingly when they
separated, and the two pairs drifted away in different directions. The
next day they were about the box and tree again, and seemed to have
definitely settled matters. Who won and who lost I do not know, but
two pairs of bluebirds have since been very busy and very happy about
the two nesting-places. One of the males I recognize as a bird that
appeared early in March; I recognize him from one peculiar note in the
midst of his warble, a note that suggests a whistle.
The matchmaking of the high-holes, which often comes under my
observation, is in marked contrast to that of the robins and bluebirds.
There does not appear to be any anger or any blows. The male or two
males will alight on a limb in front of the female, and go through with
a series of bowings and scrapings that are truly comical. He spreads
his tail, he puffs out his breast, he throws back his head, and then
bends his body to the right and to the left, uttering all the while a
curious musical hiccough. The female confronts him unmoved, but whether
her attitude is critical or defensive I cannot tell. Presently she
flies away, followed by her suitor or suitors, and the little comedy is
enacted on another stump or tree. Among all the woodpeckers the drum
plays an important part in the matchmaking. The male takes up his stand
on a dry, resonant limb, or on the ridgeboard of a building, and beats
the loudest call he is capable of. The downy woodpecker usually has a
particular branch to which he resorts for advertising his matrimonial
wants. A favorite drum of the high-holes about me is a hollow wooden
tube, a section of a pump, which stands as a bird-box upon my
summer-house. It is a good instrument; its tone is sharp and clear. A
high-hole alights upon it, and sends forth a rattle that can be heard
a long way off. Then he lifts up his head and utters that long April
call, _Wick, wick, wick, wick_. Then he drums again. If the female does
not find him, it is not because he does not make noise enough. But his
sounds are all welcome to the ear. They are simple and primitive and
voice well a certain sentiment of the April days. As I write these
lines I hear through the half-open door his call come up from a distant
field. Then I hear the steady hammering of one that has been for three
days trying to penetrate the weather boarding of the big icehouse by
the river, and reach the sawdust filling for a nesting-place.