Heap high the farmer’s wintry hoard!
Heap high the golden corn!
No richer gift has autumn poured
From out her lavish horn!
Let other lands, exulting, glean
The apple from the pine,
The orange from its glossy green,
The cluster from the vine;
We better love the hardy gift
Our ragged vales bestow,
To cheer us when the storm shall drift
Our harvest-fields with snow.
Through vales of grass and meads of flowers,
Our ploughs their furrows made,
While on the hills the sun and showers
Of changeful April played.
We dropped the seed o’er hill and plain,
Beneath the sun of May,
And frightened from our sprouting grain
The robber crows away.
All through the long, bright days of June,
Its leaves grew green and fair,
And waved in hot midsummer’s noon
Its soft and yellow hair.
And now, with Autumn’s moonlit eves,
Its harvest time has come,
We pluck away the frosted leaves,
And bear the treasure home.
Then, richer than the fabled gift
Apollo showered of old,
Fair hands the broken grain shall sift,
And knead its meal of gold.
Let vapid idlers loll in silk,
Around their costly board;
Give us the bowl of samp and milk,
By homespun beauty poured!
Where’er the wide old kitchen hearth
Sends up its smoky curls,
Who will not thank the kindly earth,
And bless our farmer girls?
Then shame on all the proud and vain,
Whose folly laughs to scorn
The blessing of our hardy grain,
Our wealth of golden corn!
Let earth withhold her goodly root,
Let mildew blight the rye,
Give to the worm the orchard’s fruit,
The wheat-field to the fly;
But let the good old crop adorn
The hills our fathers trod;
Still let us, for his golden corn,
Send up our thanks to God!
—John Greenleaf Whittier.
[Illustration: OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER.
(Contopus borealis).
About Life-size.
FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.]
THE OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER.
(_Contopus borealis._)
The Olive-sided Flycatcher is a North American bird breeding in the
coniferous forests of our Northern States, northward into Canada and in
mountainous regions. It winters in Central and South America.
Like all Flycatchers, their food consists almost exclusively of winged
insects, such as beetles, butterflies, moths and the numerous gadflies
which abound in the places frequented by these birds. A dead limb or the
decayed top of some tall tree giving a good outlook close to the nesting
site, is usually selected for a perch, from which excursions are made in
different directions after passing insects, which are often chased for
quite a distance. This Flycatcher usually arrives on its breeding
grounds about the middle of May, and its far-reaching call notes can
then be heard almost constantly in the early morning hours and again in
the Four Birds & Nature Tues—Hammond evening. Unless close to the bird,
this note sounds much like that of the wood pewee, which utters a note
of only two syllables, like “pee-wee,” while that of the Olive-sided
Flycatcher really consists of three, like “hip-pin-whee.” The first part
is uttered short and quick, while the latter two are so accented and
drawn out, that at a distance the call sounds as if likewise composed of
only two notes, but this is not the case. Their alarm note sounds like
“puip-puip-puip,” several times repeated, or “puill-puill-puill;” this
is usually given only when the nest is approached, and occasionally a
purring sound is also uttered.
Tall evergreen trees, such as pines, hemlocks, spruces, firs and cedars,
situated near the edge of an opening or clearing in the forest, not too
far from water and commanding a good outlook, or on a bluff along a
stream, a hillside, the shore of a lake or pond, are usually selected as
nesting sites by this species, and the nest is generally saddled well
out on one of the limbs, where it is difficult to see and still more
difficult to get at. Only on rare occasions will this species nest in a
deciduous tree.
While it appears tolerant enough toward other species, it will not allow
any of its own kind to nest in close proximity to its chosen home, to
which it returns from year to year. Each pair seems to claim a certain
range, which is rarely less than half a mile in extent, and is usually
located along some stream, near the shore of a lake, or by some little
pond; generally coniferous forests are preferred, but mixed ones answer
their purpose almost equally well as long as they border on a body of
water or a beaver meadow and have a few clumps of hemlock or spruce
trees scattered through them which will furnish suitable nesting sites
and lookout perches.
While on a collecting trip a nest of this species was observed in a
spruce tree and about forty-five feet from the ground. The birds
betrayed the location of the nest by their excited actions and incessant
scolding. They were very bold, flying close around the climber’s head,
snapping their bills at him, and uttering angry notes of defiance rather
than of distress, something like “puy-pip-pip.” They could not possibly
have been more pugnacious.
The nest was a well-built structure. It was outwardly composed of fine,
wiry roots and small twigs, mixed with green moss and lined with fine
roots and moss. It was securely fixed among a mass of fine twigs growing
out at that point of the limb.
As a rule the nests are placed at a considerable height from the ground,
usually from forty to sixty feet, though occasionally one is found that
is not more than twenty feet.
In spite of their pugnacious and quarrelsome habits these birds are so
attached to the localities they have selected for their homes that they
will usually lay a second set of eggs in the same nest from which their
first set has been taken—Adapted from Charles Bendire’s Life Histories
of North American Birds.