with his customary shyness while training the young; for this brilliant
bird, during nesting so fearless everywhere, manages to disappear
completely after the young leave the nest. Now and then he may be seen
going about near the ground, silent, and absorbed in his arduous task of
teaching those clamorous urchins to get their own living; or in the
early morning, engaged in picking open the hideous nests of the
tent-caterpillars and quietly taking his breakfast therefrom. Later,
when bantlings are off his mind, he reappears in his favorite haunts,
and sings a little before bidding us adieu for the season; although
occasionally this supplementary song is a dismal failure, and the oriole
discovers, as have other singers before him, that one cannot neglect his
music, even for the best of reasons, and take it up again where he left
off.
[Illustration: FEEDING THE BABY--THE BALTIMORE ORIOLE]
[Sidenote: _EXCITEMENT AMONG THE ORIOLES._]
As I passed under an apple-tree, one morning, on my way to the ferny
path, I heard the domestic cry of the oriole, uttered, I think, only
when rearing the young, a tender "yeap." I paused instantly, and soon
heard a very low baby cry, a soft "chur-r-r" exactly like the first note
of the young oriole when he comes up to the edge of the nest, only
subdued almost to a whisper, showing that education had progressed, and
this little one had learned to control his infantile eagerness. All at
once there arose a great commotion over my head; an oriole fled
precipitately to another tree and stood there watching me, scolding his
harshest, flirting his wings and jerking his body in great excitement.
In a moment his mate joined him, and both began to call, though she held
a worm in her beak. This not seeming to effect their purpose, the singer
suddenly uttered a loud, clear whistle of two notes, startlingly like a
man's whistle to a dog, when instantly a young oriole flew out of the
apple-tree and joined his parents. Then the low note began again, and
the family departed.
The infant who receives such devoted care is a pretty little creature in
dull yellow, and the most persistent cry-baby I know in the bird-world,
though several are not far behind him in this accomplishment. His plaint
begins when he mounts the edge of the nest preparatory to his debut, and
ceases hardly a minute for days, a long-drawn shuddering wail, that
suggests nothing less than great suffering, starvation, or some other
affliction hard to be borne. What makes the case still worse, the
nursery is high, and each nestling chooses for himself the direction in
which he will depart. East and west, north and south, they scatter; and
where one lands, there he will stay for hours, if not days, drawn down
into a little heap, looking lonely and miserable, and apparently
impressed with the sole idea that he must keep himself before the world
by his voice, or he will be lost and forgotten. It is no wonder that,
between the labor of collecting food and following up the family to
administer it, the mother becomes faded and draggled, and the father
abandons his music, and goes about near the ground, grubbing like any
ditch-digger.
[Sidenote: _HE CLIMBED THE TREE._]
The young oriole, however, does not lack intelligence. A correspondent
tells me of one who, starting out too ambitiously in his first flight,
landed on the ground instead of on the tree he had selected, and,
looking about for a place of safety, saw a single leaf growing a few
feet up on the trunk of a tree. That so inexperienced an infant should
notice it was surprising, but that he should at once start for it showed
remarkable "mother wit." To reach this haven of refuge, he ascended the
tree-trunk a few inches, half flying and half climbing, clinging with
his claws to the bark to rest, then scrambling upward a few inches
farther, and so on till he reached the leaf, when he perched on its tiny
stem, and remained there as long as he was watched.
But to return to my place among the ferns. When I had been there some
time, silent and motionless, a catbird at my back, too happy to be long
still, would take courage and charm me with his wonderful whisper song,
an ecstatic performance which should disarm the most prejudiced of his
detractors. Occasionally, his mate, as I supposed, uttered warning
cries, and in deference to her feelings, as it appeared, his notes
dropped lower and lower, till I could scarcely hear them, though he was
not ten feet away. The song of the catbird is rarely appreciated;
probably because he seldom gives a "stage performance," but sings as he
goes about his work. In any momentary pause a few liquid notes bubble
out; on his way for food, a convenient fence post is a temptation to
stop a moment and utter a snatch of song. His manner is of itself a
charm, but there is really a wonderful variety in his strains. He has
not perhaps so fine an organ as his more celebrated relative, the
thrasher; he cannot, or at least he does not, usually produce so clear
and ringing a tone. Nor is his method the same; he does not so often
repeat himself, but varies as he sings, so that his aria is full of
surprises and unexpected turns. Doubtless, persons expert at finding
imitations of other birds' notes would discover some in his. But I am a
little skeptical on the subject of conscious "mocking." When the catbird
sings I hear only the catbird, and in the same way I take pleasure in
the song of thrasher or mockingbird, nor care whether any other may have
hit upon his exact combinations.
After the catbird, silence, broken only by the soft, indescribable
utterances that are at the same time the delight and the despair of the
bird-student. Some birds, upon entering this solitary retreat, announced
themselves by a single note, or call, as effectually as if they had sent
in a card, while others stole in, took quick and close observation, and
departed as quietly as they had come, unseen and unheard by clumsy human
senses. Often, indeed, have I wished for eyes to look behind me, where
it sometimes seems that everything most interesting takes place.
[Sidenote: _ANXIOUS DAYS IN CROWLAND._]
This secluded corner of the pasture proved to be a very popular nursery
with the feathered world. Catbirds came about bearing food, and all
sorts of catbird talk went on within hearing: the soft liquid "chuck"
and "mew" (so called, though it is more like "ma-a") in all tones and
inflections, complaining, admonishing, warning, and caressing. There was
evidently a whole family among the bushes. A vireo baby, plainly just
out of the cradle, stared at me, and addressed me with a sort of husky
squawk, an indescribable sound, which, until I became familiar with it,
brought me out in hot haste to see what terrible tragedy was going on.
For it is really a distressful cry, although it often proclaims nothing
more serious than that the young vireo wants his dinner; as some infants
of the human family scream at the top of their voices under similar
circumstances.
Beyond the close-growing bushes I heard the crow baby's quavering cry;
and these seemed indeed anxious days in crowland. All the little folk
were crying at once, in their loudest and most urgent tones, enough to
distract the hard-working parents who hurried back and forth overhead,
at their best speed, trying to stop the mouths of their ill-bred brood.
On one occasion I saw an old crow flying over, calling in a decided,
"stern parent" style, followed by a youngster not yet expert on the
wing, who answered with his droll baby "ma-a-a" in a much higher key.
She was conducting him over the pasture to the salt marsh, where much
crow-baby food came from in those days, and he was doing his best to
keep up with her stronger flight. Sometimes another sound from the
nursery came to my ears,--the caw of an adult, drawn out into a long,
earnest "aw-w-w," like admonishing or instructing the now silent olive
branches. It was many times repeated, and occasionally interrupted by a
baby voice, showing that the little ones were not asleep. I suspect,
from what I have seen of crow ways, that the sable mamma is a strict
disciplinarian who will tolerate no liberties and no delinquencies on
the part of her dusky brood, and although this particular Young American
may complain, he dare not rebel. Poor crowling! he needs perhaps a
Spartan training to fit him for his hard life in the world. With every
man's hand against him, and danger lurking on all sides, he must be wary
and sharp and have all his wits about him to live.
[Sidenote: _THE HEAVENLY SONG._]
When I could tear myself away from this domestic corner of the pasture,
I passed on to the riverside nook I have mentioned. Here my seat was on
the edge of the bank, high above the stream, shaded by a group of black
and battered old spruces that looked as if they had faced the storms of
a hundred stern Maine winters, as probably they had. Pine-trees at my
back filled the air with odors; a thicket beloved of small birds
stretched away at one side. Across the river spread a sunny knoll, on
which stood a huge old apple-tree, contemporary perhaps with the
spruces, having one attractive dead branch, and surrounded at a little
distance with a semi-circle of shrubs and low trees. It was a tempting
theatre for bird dramas, which the solitary student, half hidden on the
bank above, could overlook and bring to clear vision with a glass, while
not herself conspicuous enough to startle the actors. In this lovely
spot many mornings of that happy July passed delightfully away.
In the leafy background to the apple-tree dwelt the veery. From its
apparently impenetrable depths came his warning calls, and on rare and
blessed occasions his heavenly song; for it was July, and it is only in
June that
"New England woods at close of day,
With that clear chant are ringing."
For, with all the rhapsody in his soul, this thrush is a devoted parent,
and notwithstanding the fact that he is one of the kings of song, he
comes down like the humblest sparrow of the fields, to help feed and
train his lovely tawny brood. Without exception that I know, he is the
most utterly heartbroken of birds when the nest is discovered. So
pathetic are the wails of both parents that I never could bear to study
a nest, and I had to harden my heart against the bleating, despairing
cries of the mother before I could secure even a look at a youngster
just out of the nest. This scion of the charming thrush family is a
patient little soul, with all the dignity and reserve as well as the
gentleness of his race; no human child could be more winning.
A beautiful instance might be seen in that spot of Nature's provident
way of looking out for the future. Those battered old spruces had a
flourishing colony of young trees growing up all around and under the
shade of their wings, and some day when a great wind breaks off the
decayed old ones, there will be several vigorous half-grown young, to
take their place, so the place will not be left desolate a day. If man
would only take this hint in his own treatment of trees, leave the young
ones to take the place of those he removes, we should not have to dread
the wasteful destruction of our forests.
[Sidenote: _A CATBIRD BLUEBERRYING._]
In this corner, one morning, I saw a catbird gathering blueberries for
dinner. She came down on a fence post as light as a feather, looked
over to where I sat motionless under my tree, hesitated, flirted her
tail expressively as who should say, "Can I trust her?" then glanced
down to the berry-loaded bushes on the ground, and turned again her soft
dark eyes on me. I hardly breathed, and she flew lightly to the first
wire of the fence, paused, then to the second, still keeping an eye my
way. At that point she bent an earnest gaze on the blueberry patch,
turning this way and that, and I believe selecting the very berry she
desired; for she suddenly dropped like a shot, seized the berry, and was
back on the post, as if the ground were hot. There she rested long
enough for me to see what she held in her beak, and then disappeared in
the silent way she had come. In a moment she returned; for it was not
for herself she was berrying, but for some speckled-breasted beauty
shyly hiding in the alder thicket below.
As the babies' month drew near its close, and August stood threateningly
on the threshold, sometimes I heard young folk at their lessons. Most
charming was a scion of the chewink family learning to ring his silver
bell. I could not see him,--he was hidden behind the leafy screen across
the river; but happily sounds are not so easily concealed as sights, and
the little performance explained itself as clearly as if I had had the
added testimony of my eyes (though I longed to see it, too). The
instructor was a superior singer, such as I have heard but few times,
and the song at its best is one of our most choice, consisting of two
short notes followed by a tremolo perhaps an octave higher, in a loud
clear ring like a silver-toned bell.
"Was never voice of ours could say
Our inmost in the sweetest way
Like yonder voice."
For several minutes this rich and inspiring song rang out from the
bushes, to my great delight, when suddenly it ceased, and a weak voice
piped up. It was neither so loud nor so clear; the introductory notes
were given with uncertainty and hesitation, and the tremolo was a slow
and very poor imitation. Still, it was plain that the towhee baby was
practicing for his entrance into the ranks of our most bewitching
singers. The next day, a chewink, I think the same whose music and whose
teaching I had admired, honored me with a song and a sight together. He
was as spruce as if he had just donned a new suit, his black hood like
velvet, his chestnut of the richest, and his white of the whitest, and
he sang from the top of a small pine-tree; sometimes, in the restless
way of his family, scrambling over the branches, and again shifting his
position to a small birch-tree.
[Sidenote: _INDIVIDUALITY OF FLOWERS._]
Many other songs and singers I enjoyed in those pleasant mornings beside
the river, till the hour for what Thoreau designates as "that whirlpool
called a dinner" drew near, and then, unmindful of the philosopher's
advice, I started slowly homeward, collecting as I went, materials to
fill the vases in my room.
In gathering flowers, one needs to select with discretion, for they, no
less than their winged neighbors in the pasture, have an individuality
of their own. The wild rose, for example, is most amiable in lending
itself to our enjoyment. Not only does it submit to being torn from the
parental stem, but it will flourish perfectly, and go on opening bud
after bud, so long as it has one to open, as lovely and as fragrant as
its sisters on the bush. One needs only to snip off the heads whose
petals have dropped, to have a fresh and beautiful bowl of roses every
morning. The daisy too adorns our tables and our vases cheerfully, and
as long as if it still stood among the grasses, its feet planted in
mother earth; and even when it has lived out its allotted time, it
neither withers nor droops, but begins to look wild, its petals losing
their trim regularity and standing every way.
Different indeed is the disposition of the goldenrod, which, though
remaining fresh and bright, when called upon to decorate our homes,
obstinately refuses to open a petal after it is gathered; and the
fairy-like elder, which sullenly resents being touched, gives up the
struggle for existence and droops at once; and the cactus, which
promptly draws its satin petals together, and stubbornly declines to
open again. The loveliest bouquet of late July on the coast of Maine is
this, which I give for the pleasure of other flower-lovers, if haply
there be any who have not discovered it. Put in a vase a few stalks of
completely opened goldenrod, of the variety that divides into long,
finger-like stems. Let there be just enough so that when each blossom is
spread out full they shall barely cover the space. Have the stems of
equal length, so that the effect shall be flat, and not conical. Into
this, between the blossoms, carefully stick the stems of a few fully
spread lace flowers (or wild carrot), with stems two or three inches
longer than you have allowed the goldenrod stems. Each must have full
space to display every tiny floweret, and not to hide the golden glory
beneath. When prepared, set the vase or bowl on the floor, before a
grate or to light up some gloomy corner. Properly done the effect is a
marvel and a joy forever, like lace over sunshine, like some fairy
creation too dainty for words to picture.
IX.
DOWN THE MEADOW.
The bird-baby world was not bounded by any pasture, however enchanting,
and I have not told all the charms of this one. The house where I found
bed and board, in the intervals of bird study,--once a farmhouse, now an
"inn of rest" for a country-loving-family,--was happily possessed of two
attractions: the pasture toward which I turned with the morning sun, and
a meadow which drew me when shadows grew long in the afternoon. This
meadow began at the road passing in front of the house, and extended to
the salt marsh which separated us from the sea. The marsh was always a
beautiful picture,
"Stretching off in a pleasant plain
To the terminal blue of the main."
It was never twice the same, for it changed with every passing cloud,
with every phase of the weather, with every tide; one never tired of it.
And it was full of winged life: not only the beautiful gulls,
"Whose twinkling wings half lost amid the blue,"
in a white cloud over the far-off beach, but small birds of several
kinds, who never came near enough to dry land to be identified.
Sharp-tailed sparrows appeared on the meadow after grass was cut, and
their exquisite ringing trill could always be heard from the bank; crows
fed upon it every day; blackbirds' wings were always over it; and above
all, sandpipers were there,
"Calling dear and sweet from cove to cove."
One afternoon, starting down the meadow on my usual visit to the
sandpiper little folk, I heard a low cry of "flick-er! flick-er!" and
there on the grass before me were two of the birds face to face. One was
an adult, but the other was a nearly grown young one, and I saw in an
instant that I had unwittingly intruded upon the breakfast he was about
to receive. In the goldenwing family--as perhaps not every one knows--a
repast is not over with one poke into an open bill; it is a far more
serious affair indeed. The young bird opens his mouth a little, the
parent thrusts his--or her--beak down the waiting throat, until one
would think the infant must be choked, and then the elder delivers
little pokes, as he crams down the mouthfuls, six, eight, even ten I
have counted before he stops. Then the heads draw apart, and the
grown-up--who has plainly come well provided--makes a sort of
spasmodic movement in his own throat, probably raising from some
internal reservoir another portion of food, the infant opens his beak
again, and the operation is repeated.
[Illustration: TAKING BREAKFAST--THE GOLDEN-WINGED WOODPECKER]
[Sidenote: _TAKING HIMSELF TOO SERIOUSLY._]
Of course my presence interfered with this elaborate, several-course
breakfast, and the elder of the two fell to reproaching me by loud calls
and vehement bows in my direction. Seeing that I was not sufficiently
impressed, and did not depart, he resorted to stronger measures; he
swayed his head from side to side, stretching out his neck like an
enraged goose, and presenting a most droll appearance.
At first the youngster seemed to be paralyzed, but suddenly--perhaps
realizing what harm my inopportune appearance had done--he also began to
bow and sway, exactly as papa was doing. Anything more ludicrous than
those two birds standing face to face and performing such antics it is
hard to imagine; no one but a flicker could be at the same time so
serious and so absurd.
At the edge of the meadow, where it sloped sharply down to the marsh,
lived one whose days were full of trouble, which he took care to make
known to the world,--a
"Fire-winged blackbird, wearing on his shoulders
Red, gold-edged epaulets."
His little family, not yet out of the nest, was settled safely enough
behind a clump of bushes that fringed the marsh. But he, in his role of
protector, had taken possession of two trees on the high land, where he
could overlook the whole neighborhood, and see all the dangers, real and
fancied, that might, could, would, or should threaten them, and "borrow
trouble" to his heart's content. The trees, this bird's headquarters,
were an aged and half-dead cherry and a scraggy and wind-battered elm,
standing perhaps a hundred feet apart. On the top twig of one of these,
or flying across between them, he was most of the time to be seen, and
his various cries of distress, as well as his wild, woodsy song, came
plainly up to me in my window.
[Sidenote: _THE REDWING WAS FRANTIC._]
The troubles of this Martha-like character began when mowers brought
their clattering machine, and with rasping noise and confusion dire laid
low the grass which had isolated him from the rest of the world, and
that impertinent world poured in. First came crows, from their homes in
the woods beyond the pasture, to feast on the numerous hoppers and
crawlers left roofless by the mowers, and to procure food for their
hungry young, and alighted in the stubble, two or three or half a dozen
at a time. By this the soul of the redwing was fired, and with savage
war-cries he descended upon them. His manner was to fly laboriously to a
great height, and then swoop down at a crow as if to annihilate him. The
bird on the ground turned from his insect hunt long enough to snap at
his threatening enemy, and then returned to his serious business. So
long as the crows stayed the redwing was frantic, his cries filled the
air; and as they were almost constantly there, he was kept on the
borders of frenzy most of the time.
After the crows came the bird-students, with opera-glasses and spying
ways. These also the irascible redwing decided to be foes, flying about
their heads threateningly, and never ceasing his doleful cries so long
as they were in sight. I hoped his brown-streaked mate down in the marsh
knew what a fussy and suspicious personage she had married, and would
not be made anxious by his extravagances; but she too distrusted the
bird gazers, adding her protests to his, and such an outpouring of
"chacks" and other blackbird maledictions one--happily--is not often
called upon to encounter.
After the bird-students the haymakers; and every time a man or a horse
appeared in that field, the blackbird was thrown into utter despair, and
the air rang with his lamentations.
He was evidently a character, a bird of individuality, and I was anxious
to know him better; so, although I hated to grieve him, I resolved to
go somewhat nearer, hoping that he would appreciate my harmlessness and
soon see that he had nothing to fear from me. Not he! Having taken it
into his obstinate little head that all who approached the sacred spot
he guarded were on mischief bent, he refused to discriminate. The moment
I approached the gate, the whole width of the meadow from him, he
greeted me with shouts and cries, and did not cease for an instant,
though I stayed two hours or more. I always went as modestly and
inoffensively as possible through the meadow, far from his two trees,
seated myself on the edge of the slope at some distance from him, and
remained quiet. But he was never reconciled. His first act, as I started
down the field, was to fly out to meet me, as if to drive me away. When
he reached me, he would hold himself ten or fifteen feet above my head,
perfectly motionless excepting a slight movement of the wings, looking
as if he meditated an attack; and indeed I did sometimes fear that he
would treat me as he did the crows. As I came nearer, his mate flew up
out of the bushes, and added her demonstrations to his. Their movements
in the air were beautiful. One would beat himself up quite high, and
then hover, or apparently rest at that altitude, as if too light to come
down, at last floating earthward, pausing now and then, as if he
absolutely could not return to our level.
[Sidenote: _WHAT DID IT ALL MEAN?_]