were seriously disturbed by my choice of a couch. Evidently the green
tent above my head was their chosen tree, and they could not give it up.
Finding me perfectly silent, they would come, perch in various parts of
the branches, and turn their wise-looking black spectacles down to look
at me, keeping up an animated conversation the while. We call the
cedar-bird silent because he has, as generally supposed, but one low
note; but he can put into that one an almost infinite variety of
expressions. If I so much as moved a hand, instantly my Quaker-clad
friends dived off the tree below the bank across the road, as if, in
their despair, they had flung themselves madly into the brook at the
bottom. But I did not suspect them of so rash an act, and, indeed, in a
few minutes the apple-tree again resounded with their cries.
Meanwhile the sun marched relentlessly on, and the shadows without and
the feelings within alike pointed to the dinner hour (12 M.). I rose,
and thereby created a panic in my small world. Six cedar-birds
disappeared over the bank, a song sparrow flew shrieking across the
field, a squirrel interrupted in his investigations fled madly along the
rail fence, every few steps stopping an instant, with hindquarters laid
flat and tail resting on the rail, to see if his head was still safe on
his shoulders.
I gathered up my belongings and sauntered off toward home, musing, as I
went, upon the bobolink family. I had not once seen or heard the little
mates. Were they busy in the grass with bobolink babies? and did they
enjoy the music as keenly as I did? How much I "wanted to know"! How I
should like to see the nests and the nestlings! What sort of a father is
the gay singer? (Some of the blackbird family are exemplary in this
relation.) Does he drop his part of poet, of reveler of the meadows, I
wonder, and come down to the sober prose of stuffing baby mouths? Are
bobolinks always this jolly, delightful crowd? Are they never
quarrelsome? Alas! it would take much more than one day, however sunny
and however long, to tell all these things.
At the edge of the meadow I sat down again, hoping for one more song,
and then came the crown of the whole morning, the choicest reserved for
the last. A bird sailed out from behind the daisies, passed over my
head, and delivered the most bewitching rhapsody I had yet heard. Not
merely once did he honor me, but again and again without pausing, as if
he intended to fill me as full of bobolink rapture as he was himself.
His voice was peculiarly rich and full, and, what amazed me, his first
three notes were an exact reproduction of the wood-thrush's (though more
rapidly sung), including the marvelous organ-like quality of that
bird's voice. I could have listened forever.
"Oh, what have I to do with time?
For this the day was made."
But when he had uttered his message he sank back into the grass, and I
tore myself away from the bobolink meadow, and came home far richer and
far happier than when I set out.
XV.
THE BOBOLINK'S NEST.
My acquaintance with the bobolink was resumed a year later in the lovely
summer home of a friend in the Black River Country, within sight of the
Adirondack hills. We had found many nests in the woods and orchards, but
the meadow had been safe from our feet, partly because of the rich crops
that covered it, but more, perhaps, because of the hopelessness of the
search over the broad fields for anything so easily hidden as a ground
nest.
One evening, however, our host with a triumphant air invited us to walk,
declaring that he could show us a nest more interesting than we had
found.
The gentleman was a joker, and his statements were apt to be somewhat
embellished by his vivid imagination, so that we accepted them with
caution; but now he looked exultant, and we believed him, especially as
he took his hat and stick and started off.
Down the road we went, a single carriage-way between two banks of grass
a yard high. After carefully taking his bearings by certain small
elm-trees, and searching diligently about for an inconspicuous dead twig
he had planted as a guide-post, our leader confidently waded into the
green depths, parted the stalks in a certain spot, and bade us look.
We did. In a cosy cup, almost under our feet, were cuddled together
three bird-babies.
"Bobolinks?" we cried in a breath.
"Yes, bobolinks," said our guide; "and you had to wait for an old
half-blind man to find them for you."
We were too much delighted to be annoyed by his teasing; a bobolink's
nest we never hoped to see.
Nor should we, but for a discovery of mine that very morning. Walking
down that same road, I had noticed in the deep grass near the path a
clump of exquisite wild flowers. They were of gorgeous coloring, shaded
from deep orange to rich yellow, full petaled like an English daisy, and
about the size of that flower, with the edge of every tiny petal cut in
fairy-like fringe. I admired them for some minutes as they grew, and
then gathered a handful to grace my room. As I came up to the house, my
host stood on the steps; his eyes fell at once upon my nosegay, and a
look of horror came into his face.
My heart sank. Had I unwittingly picked some of his special treasures,
some rare exotic which he had cultivated with care?
"Where did you find that stuff?" he demanded. I was instantly relieved;
no man will call a treasure "stuff."
"In the meadow," I answered. "What is it?"
"You must show me the exact spot," he said, emphatically. "I shall have
a man out at once, to get it up, root and branch. It's the devil's
paintbrush."
"Then his majesty has good taste in color," I said.
"That stuff," he went on, "spreads like wildfire. It'll eat up my meadow
in a year."
I turned back and showed him the spot from which my flowers had come,
pointing out at the same time two or three other clumps I could see
farther out in the waving green sea, and before long his farmer and he
were very busy over them.
Now it appeared that in tramping about the deep grass, where we
bird-students dared not set our feet, he had nearly stepped on a
bobolink, who flew, and thus pointed out her nest; and he had taken its
bearings with the intention of putting us to shame.
We looked long at the tiny trio so compactly packed in their cradle,
till they awoke and demanded supplies. Then we carefully replanted the
dead stick, taking its exact bearings between three trees, drew a few
grass-stems together in a braid at the margin so that we should not lose
what we had so accidentally gained, and then we left them.
During this inspection of the nest, the "poet of the year" and his
spouse were perched on two neighboring trees, utterly unmoved by our
movements. They were, no doubt, so perfectly confident of the security
of the hiding-place that it never occurred to them even to look to see
what we three giants were doing. At least, such we judged were their
sentiments by the change in their manners somewhat later, when they
thought we were likely to make discoveries.
The meadow itself had been our delight for weeks. When we arrived, in
the beginning of June, it was covered with luxuriant clumps of blue
violets, and great bunches of blue-eyed grass that one might gather by
the handful at one picking. Later the higher parts were thickly
sprinkled with white where
"Gracefully as does the fawn,
Sweet Marguerites their dainty heads uphold,"
while the hollows were golden with buttercups. Then the grass under the
warm June sun stretched up inch by inch till it was three or four feet
high and very thick. Meanwhile a bobolink or two, and as many
meadow-larks had taken possession of it, and it was made still richer
by the sweet minor strains of the lark, and the song of the bird who,
"like the soul
Of the sweet season vocal in a bird,
Gurgles in ecstasy we know not what."
The evening after our humiliation--which we lost sight of in our joy--we
returned to the charmed spot, parted again the sweet grass curtains and
gazed down at the baby bobolinks, while the parents perched on two trees
as before and paid not the smallest attention to us.
We passed on down the road to the gate where we could look into a
neighboring pasture and watch for a pair of red-headed woodpeckers who
lived in that pleasant place, and catch the reflection of the sunset in
the northern sky. While we lingered there, I looked with my glass back
at the bobolinks, and chanced to see Bobby himself in the act of diving
into the grass. When he came out he seemed to notice me, and instantly
began trying to mislead me.
He came up boldly, flew to another spot where a weed lifted its head
above the green, and dropped into the grass exactly as though he was
going to the nest; then he rose again, repeated his tactics, pausing
every time he came out and calling, as if to say, "This is my home; if
you're looking for a nest, here it is!" His air was so business-like
that it would naturally deceive one not possessed of our precious
secret, the real spot where his three babies were cradled, and one might
easily be led all over the meadow by the wily fellow.
For six successive days we paid our short visits, and found the
nestlings safe. They did not seem to mature very fast, though they came
to look up at us, and open their mouths for food. But on the seventh day
there was a change in Master Robert's behavior. On the afternoon of this
day, wishing to observe their habits more closely, I found a seat under
a tree at some distance, not near enough, as I thought, to disturb them.
I did disturb them sorely, however, as instantly appeared. The calmness
they had shown during all the days we had been looking at the nest was
gone, and they began to scold at once. The head of the family berated me
from the top of a grass-stem, and then flew to a tall old stump, and put
me under the closest surveillance, constantly uttering a queer call like
"Chack-que-dle-la," jerking wings and tail, and in every way showing
that he considered me intrusive and altogether too much interested in
his family affairs. I admitted the charge, I could not deny it; but I
did not retire.
At last he apparently determined to insist upon my going, for he
started from his high perch directly toward me. Swiftly and with all his
force he flew, and about twenty feet from me swooped down so that I
thought he would certainly strike my face. I instinctively dodged, and
he passed over, so near that the wind from his wings fanned my face.
This was a hint I could not refuse to take. I left him, for the time.
That evening when we went for our usual call, lo! the nest was empty. At
not more than seven or eight days of age, those precocious infants had
started out in the world! That explained the conduct of the anxious papa
in the afternoon, and I forgave him on the spot. I understood his fear
that I should discover or step on his babies three, scattered and
scrambling about under all that depth of grass. The abandoned homestead,
which we carefully examined, proved to be merely a cup-shaped hollow in
the ground, slightly protected by a thin lining.
In a few days the wandering younglings were up in front of the house,
where we could watch the parents drop into the grass with food; and
where, of course, they were safe from anybody's intrusion. I had one
more encounter with his lordship. After the young had been out a week or
more, they seemed in their moving about to get back near to the old
place. As I took my usual walk one evening, down the carriage drive to
the gate, I found two pairs of bobolinks on one tree; the two mothers
with food in their mouths, evidently intended for somebody down in the
grass; and the two fathers, very much disturbed at my appearance. They
greeted me with severe and reproving "chacks," and finally favored me
with the most musical call I have heard from the sweet-voiced bird of
the meadow. It was like "kee-lee!" in loud and rich tones, and it was
many times repeated.
I assured them that I had no wish to disturb their little ones; though,
if I had been able to lift the whole grassy cover to peep at the two
small families hidden there, I fear I should have yielded to the
temptation.
Our bird had been somewhat erratic in making his home far from his
fellows,--so social are these birds even in nesting-time; but now he was
joined by more of his kind from the meadows below, and to the beautiful
waving carpet of green, dotted here and there with great bunches of
black-eyed Susans and devil's paint-brushes (what names!), and sprinkled
all over with daisies, now beginning to look a little disheveled and
wild, was added the tantalizing interest of dozens of little folk
running about under its shelter.
The next week brought to the meadow what must seem from the bobolink
point of view almost the end of the world. Men and horses and great
rattling machines, armed with sharp knives, which laid low every stem of
grass and flower, and let the light of the sun in upon the haunts and
the nests of the bobolink babies.
Happily, however, not all the earth is meadow and subject to this annual
catastrophe; and I think the whole flock took refuge in a pasture where
they were safe from the hay-cutters, and had for neighbors only the cows
and the crow babies.
XVI.
THE TANAGER'S NEST.
One of the prettiest memory-pictures of my delightful June on the banks
of the Black River is the nest of a scarlet tanager, placed as the
keystone of one of Nature's exquisite living arches. The path which led
to it was almost as charming as the nest itself. Lifting a low-hanging
branch of maple at the entrance to the woods, we took leave of the world
and all its affairs, and stepped at once into a secluded path. Though so
near the house, the woods were solitary, for they were private and very
carefully protected. Passing up the rustic foot-path, under interlacing
boughs of maple and beech, we came at length to a sunny open spot, where
all winter grain is kept for partridges, squirrels, and other pensioners
who may choose to come. From this little opening one road turned to the
wild-berry field, where lived the cuckoo and the warblers; another
opened an inviting way into the deep woods; a third went through the
fernery. We took that, and passed on through a second lovely bit of
wood, where the ground was wet, and ferns of many kinds grew
luxuriantly, and the walk was mostly over a dainty corduroy of minute
moss-covered logs.
At the end of the fernery are two ways. The first runs along the edge of
the forest, whose outlying saplings hang over and make a cool covered
walk. Down this path I almost had an adventure one day. The morning was
warm and I was alone. As I came out of this covered passage, beside an
old stump, I noticed in a depression in the ground at my feet a
squirming mass of fur. On looking closer I saw four or five little
beasts rolling and scrambling over each other. They were as big,
perhaps, as a month-old kitten, but they were a good deal more knowing
than pussy's babies, for as I drew near they stopped their play and
waited to see what would happen. I looked at them with eager interest.
They were really beautiful; black and white in stripes, with long bushy
tails. Black and white, and so self-possessed!--a thought struck me.
"Mephitis," I gasped, and instantly put several feet more between us. So
attractive and playful were they, however, that notwithstanding I feared
it might be hard to convince their mamma, should she appear, of my
amiable intentions, I could not resist another look. Calm as a summer
morning walked off one of the mephitis babies, holding his pretty tail
straight up like a kitten's, while the other four went on with their
frolic in the grass. At this moment I heard a rustle in the dead leaves,
and having no desire to meet their grown-up relatives, I left in so
great haste that I took the wrong path, and finally lost myself for a
time in a tangle of wild raspberry bushes, whose long arms reached out
on every side to scratch the face and hands or catch the dress of the
unwary passer-by.
The other of the two ways spoken of was a road, soft-carpeted with dead
leaves. To reach the tanager's nest we took that, and came, a little
further on, to a big log half covered with growing fungi and laid
squarely across the passage. This was the fungus log, another landmark
for the wanderer unfamiliar with these winding ways. On this, if I were
alone, I always rested awhile to get completely into the woods spirit,
for this is the heart of the woods, with nothing to be seen on any side
but trees. Cheerful, pleasant woods they are, of sunny beech, birch,
maple, and butternut, with branches high above our heads, and a far
outlook under the trees in every direction. There is no gloom such as
evergreens make; no barricade of dark impenetrable foliage, behind which
might lurk anything one chose to imagine, from a grizzly bear to an
equally unwelcome tramp.
In this lovely spot come together four roads and a path, and to the
pilgrim from cities they seem like paths into paradise. That on the
right leads by a roundabout way to the "corner," where one may see the
sunset. The next, straight in front, is the passage to the nest of the
winter wren. The far left invites one to a wild tangle of fallen trees
and undergrowth, where veeries sing, and enchanting but maddening
warblers lure the bird-lover on, to scramble over logs, wade into
swamps, push through chaotic masses of branches, and, while using both
hands to make her way, incidentally offer herself a victim to the
thirsty inhabitants whose stronghold it is. All this in a vain search
for some atom of a bird that doubtless sits through the whole, calmly
perched on the topmost twig of the tallest tree, shielded by a leaf, and
pours out the tantalizing trill that draws one like a magnet.
Between this road and the wren's highway a path runs upward. It is
narrow, and guarded at the opening by a mossy log to be stepped over,
but it is most alluring. Up that route we go. On the left as we pass we
notice two beautiful nests in saplings, so low that we can look in;
redstarts both, and nearly always we find madam at home. We pass on,
step over a second mossy log, pause a moment to glance at a vireo's
hanging cradle on the right, and arrive at length at a crossing road,
on the other side of which our path goes on, with a pile of logs like a
stile to go over. Over the logs we step, walk a rod or two further, stop
beside the blackened trunk of a fallen tree, turn our faces to the left,
and behold the nest.
Before us is one of nature's arches. A maple sapling, perhaps fifteen
feet high, has in some way been bowed till its top touched the ground
and became fastened there, a thing often seen in these woods. Thus
diverted from its original destiny of growing into a tree, it has kept
its "sweetness and light," sent out leaves and twigs through all its
length, and become one of the most beautiful things in the woods--a
living arch. Just in the middle of this exquisite bow, five feet above
the ground, is the tanager's nest, well shielded by leaves. We never
should have found it if the little fellow in scarlet had not made so
much objection to our going up this particular passage that we suspected
him of having a secret in this quarter. He went ahead of us from tree to
tree, keeping an eye on us, and calling, warily, "chip-chur!" When we
sat down a few moments to see what all the fuss was about, we saw his
spouse in her modest dress of olive green on a low branch. She, too,
uttered the cry "chip-chur!" and seemed disturbed by our call. Looking
around for the object of their solicitude, our eyes fell at the same
instant on the nest. We dared not speak, but an ecstatic glance from my
comrade, with a hand laid on her heart to indicate her emotions,
announced that our hopes were fulfilled; it was the nest we were
seeking.
The birds, seeing that we meant to stay, flew away after a while, and we
hastened to secrete ourselves before they should return, by placing our
camp-stools in a thick growth of saplings just higher than our heads. We
crowned ourselves with fresh leaves, not as conquerors, though such we
felt ourselves, but as a disguise to hide our heads. We daubed our faces
here and there with an odorous (not to say odious) preparation warranted
to discourage too great familiarity on the part of the residents already
established in that spot. We subsided into silence.
The birds returned, but were still wary. As before, the male perched
high and kept a sharp eye out on the country around, and I have no doubt
soon espied us in our retreat. Madam again tried to "screw her courage
up" to visit that nest. Nearer and nearer she came, pausing at every
step, looking around and calling to her mate to make sure he was near.
At last, just as she seemed about to take the last step and go in, and
we were waiting breathless for her to do it, a terrific sound broke the
silence. The big dog, protector and constant companion of my
fellow-student, overcome by the torment of mosquitoes, and having no
curiosity about tanagers to make him endure them, had yielded to his
emotions and sneezed. Away went the tanager family, and, laughing at the
absurd accident, away we went too, happy at having discovered the nest,
and planning to come the next day. We came next day, and many days
thereafter, but never again did we see the birds near. They abandoned
the nest, doubtless feeling that they had been driven away by a
convulsion of nature.
One day, somewhat later, in the winter wren's quarter, where there were
pools left by a heavy rain, we met them again. Madam was bathing, and
her husband accompanied her as guard and protector. They flew away
together. All of June we heard him sing, and we often followed him, but
never again did we surprise a secret of his, till the very last day of
the month. We had been making a visit to our veery nests, and on our way
back noticed that the tanager was more than usually interested in our
doings. He seemed very busy too, with the air of a person of family.
While we were watching to see what it meant, he caught a flying insect
and held it in his mouth. Then we knew he had little folk to feed, so
we seated ourselves on the fungus log, and waited for him to point one
out. He did. He could not resist giving that delicate morsel to his
first-born. With many wary approaches, he dropped at last into the
scanty undergrowth, and there, a foot above the ground, we saw the young
tanager. He was a little dumpling of a fellow, with no hint in his
baby-suit of the glory that shall clothe him by and by. But where was
the mother? and where had they nested? But for that untimely sneeze, as
I shall always believe, they would have made their home in that
beautiful nest on the arch, and we should have been there to see.
XVII.
THE WILES OF A WARBLER.
"Hark to that petulant chirp! What ails the warbler?
Mark his capricious ways to draw the eye."
We called him the blue, but that was not his whole name by any means.
Fancy a scientist with a new bird to label, contenting himself with one
word! His whole name is--or was till lately--black-throated blue-backed
warbler, or _Dendroica coerulescens_, and that being fairly set down
for future reference for whom it may concern, I shall call him
henceforth, as we did in the woods, the blue.
For a day or two at first he was to us, like many another of his size,
only a "wandering voice." But it was an enticing voice, a sweet-toned
succession of _z-z-z_ in ascending scale, and it was so persistent that
when we really made the attempt, we had no trouble in getting sight of
the little beauty hardly bigger than one's thumb. He was a wary little
sprite, and though he looked down upon us as we turned opera-glasses
toward him,--a battery that puts some birds into a panic,--he was not
alarmed. He probably made up his mind then and there, that it should be
his special business to keep us away from his nest, for really that
seemed to be his occupation. No sooner did we set foot in the woods than
his sweet song attracted us. We followed it, and he, carelessly as it
seemed, but surely, led us on around and around, always in a circle
without end.
My fellow bird-student became fairly bewitched, and could not rest till
she found his nest. For my part I gave up the warbler family long ago,
as too small, too uneasy, too fond of tree-tops, to waste time and
patience over. In these her native woods, my comrade led in our walks,
and the moment we heard his tantalizing _z-z-z_ she turned irresistibly
toward it. I followed, of course, happy to be anywhere under these
trees.