Chapter IV: Part 4

At last the quiet brooding days came to an end, and four funny little herons wobbled about in Ardea's nest. Their long legs and toes stuck out in all directions, and they couldn't seem to help sprawling around. If there had been string or strands of moss or grass in the nest, they would probably have got all tangled up. As it was, they sometimes nearly spilled out, and saved themselves only by clinging to the firm sticks and twigs. So it would seem that their home was a good sort for the needs of their early life, just as it was; and no doubt a heron's nest for a heron is as suitable a building as an oriole's is for an oriole.

It would take some time before the babies of Ardea would be able to straighten up on their long, slim legs and go wading. Until that day came, their father and mother would have to feed them well and often. Now the marsh where the snowy herons went fishing, where the shallow water was a favorite swimming-place for little fishes, was ten miles or more from their nest. Some kinds of herons, perhaps most kinds, are quiet and stately when they hunt, standing still and waiting for their game to come to them, or moving very slowly and carefully. But Ardea and the other snowy herons ran about in a lively way, spying out the little fishes with their bright yellow eyes, and catching them up quickly in their black beaks. After swallowing a supply of food, Ardea took wing and returned across the miles to her young. Standing on the edge of her nest and reaching down with her long neck, she took the bill of one of her babies in her own mouth, and dropped part of what she had swallowed out of her big throat down into his small one. When she had fed her babies and preened her pretty feathers a bit, she was off again on the ten-mile flight; for many a long journey she and her mate must take ere their little ones could feed themselves. But ten miles over and over and over again were as nothing to the love she had for her children; and faithfully as she had brooded her eggs, she now began the task of providing their meals. She seemed so happy each time she returned, that perhaps she was a little bit worried while she was away; but there is no reason to think she really was afraid that any great harm could come to them.

Certainly she was unprepared for what she found when she flew back from her fourth fishing trip. Even when she reached Heron Camp, she did not understand. There are some things it is not given the mind of a bird to know.

She could not know, poor dear, that there were people in the world who coveted her beautiful wedding plumes. Women there were, who wished to make themselves look better by wearing the feathers that Nature had given snowy herons for their very own. And men there were, who thought to make themselves grander in the dress of their organization by walking about with heron plumes waving on their heads. The two kinds of white herons with wonderful plumes that have been put to such uses are called Egrets and Snowy Egrets, and the feathers, when they are stripped from the birds, are called by the French name of _aigrette_.

Now, of course, Ardea could not know about this, or that the Plume-Hunters had come to steal her wedding feathers. But she knew well enough that danger was at hand, and that in times of trouble a mother's place is beside her babies. Her heart beat quickly with a new terror, but she stayed, the brave bird stayed! And all about her the other herons stayed also. They had no way to fight for their lives, and they might have flown far and safely on their strong wings; but none of them would desert the home built with love while the frightened babies were calling to their fathers and mothers.

No, _they_ could not fight for their lives, but there was one who could. For danger did not come to Heron Camp without finding Ardea's Soldier at his post.

Now the Plume-Hunters did not have bodies like crocodiles and leather wings, you know; but they were dragons of a sort, for all that, for they carried brutal things in their hands that belched forth smoke and pain and death, and they were cruel of heart, and they had sold themselves to do evil for the sake of the dollars that covetous men and women would pay them for feathers.

Dragons though they were, Ardea's Soldier met them bravely. I like to think how brave he was; for was not the fight he fought a fight for our good old Mother Earth, that she might not lose those beautiful children of hers? If the world should be robbed of Snowy Herons, it would be just so much less lovely, just so much less wonderful. And have they no right to life, since the same Power that gave life to men gave life to them? And when we think about it this way, who seems to have the better right to those plumes--herons, or men and women?

The Soldier believed in Ardea's right to life, believed in it so deeply that he stood alone before the Plume-Hunters and told them that, while he lived, the birds of his camp should also live.

And that is why they killed him--the dragons who were cruel of heart and had sold themselves to do evil for the sake of dollars that covetous men and women would pay for feathers.

Because of his courage and because of the cause for which he died, I think, don't you, that Ardea's Soldier might well be called "Knight of the Snowy Heron."

I said that he was alone, and it is true that no one was there at the camp to help him. But many there were in other places doing their bit in the same good fight. Another soldier, named Theodore Roosevelt, did much for these birds when he was President, by granting them land where no man had a right to touch them; for it makes a true soldier angry when the weak are oppressed, and he said, "It is a disgrace to America that we should permit the sale of aigrettes." Another man, named Woodrow Wilson, whose courage also was so great that he always did what he believed to be right, would not permit, when he was Governor of New Jersey, a company to sell aigrettes in that State; he said, "I think New Jersey can get along without blood-money."

Many another great man, besides, served the cause of Ardea. So many, in fact, that there is not room here to tell about them all. But there is room to say that the children helped. For, you know, every Junior Audubon Society sends money to the National Association of Audubon Societies--not much, but a little; and when the Knight of the Snowy Heron was killed, that little helped the National Association to hire another soldier to take his place. Now, think of that! There was another soldier who so believed in the Herons' right to life and plumage, that he was ready to protect them though it meant certain danger to himself!

Yes, there is to this very day a soldier at Heron Camp. Do you know a way to keep him safe? Why, you children of America can do it if you will, and it need not cost one of you a penny. You can do it with your minds. For if every girl makes up her mind for good and all that she will never wear a feather that costs a bird its life; and if every boy makes up his mind for good and all that he will never be a feather-hunting dragon--why there will not be _anybody_ growing up in America to harm Ardea, will there? You can keep the Soldier of Heron Camp safe by just wishing it! That sounds wonderful as a fairy story come true, does it not? And like the knight in some old fairy tale, could not Ardea's new Soldier "live happily forever after"?

IX

THE FLYING CLOWN

There are many accounts of the flying clown, in books, nearly all of which refer to him as bull-bat or nighthawk, and a member of the Goatsucker or Nightjar family. But he wasn't a bull and he wasn't a bat and he wasn't a hawk and he wasn't a jar; and he flew more by day than by night, and he never, never milked a goat in all his life. So for the purposes of this story we may as well give him a name to suit ourselves, and call him Mis Nomer.

He was a poor skinny little thing, but you would not have guessed it to see him; for he always wore a loose fluffy coat, which made him look bigger and plumper than he really was. It was a gray and brown and creamy buff-and-white sort of coat, quite mottled, with a rather plain, nearly black, back. It was trimmed with white, there being a white stripe near the end of the coat-tail, a big, fine, V-shaped white place under his chin that had something the look of a necktie, and a bar of white reaching nearly across the middle of each wing.

These bars would have made you notice his long, pointed wings if he had been near you, and they were well worth noticing; for besides just flying with them,--which was wonderful enough, as he was a talented flier,--he used them in a sort of gymnastic stunt he was fond of performing in the springtime.

Perhaps he did it to show off. I do not know. Certainly he had as good a right to be proud of his accomplishments as a turkey or a peacock that spreads its tail, or a boy who walks on his hands. Maybe a better right, for they have solid earth to strut upon and run no risks, while Mis did his whole trick in the air. It was a kind of acrobatic feat, though he had no gymnasium with bars or rings or tight rope, and there was no canvas stretched to catch him if he fell. A circus, with tents, and a gate-keeper to take your ticket, would have been lucky if it could have hired Mis to show his skill for money.

But Mis couldn't be hired. Not he! He was a free, wild clown, performing only under Mother Nature's tent of wide-arched sky. If you wanted to see him, you could--ticket or no ticket. That was nothing to him; for Mis, the wild clown of the air, had no thought either of money or fame among people.

Far, far up, he flew, hither and yon, in a matter-of-fact-enough way; and then of a sudden, with wings half-closed, he dropped toward the earth. Could he stop such speed, or must he strike and kill himself in his fall? Down, down he plunged; and then, at last, he made a sound as if he groaned a loud, deep "boom."

But just at the moment of this sound he was turning, and then, the first anyone knew, he was flying up gayly, quite gayly. Then it wasn't a groan of fear? Mis afraid! Why the rascal had but to move his wings this way and that, and go up instead of down. He might be within a second of dashing himself to death against the ground, but so sure were his wings and so strong his muscles, that a second was time and to spare for him to stop and turn and rise again toward the safe height from which he dived. A fine trick that! The fun of the plunge, and then the quick jerk at the end that sent the wind groaning against and between the feathers of his wings, with a "boom" loud and sudden enough to startle anyone within hearing.

Yes, you might have seen the little clown at his tricks without a ticket at the wild-circus gate, for all he cared or knew. What did the children of men matter to him? Had not his fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers given high-air circus performances of a springtime, in the days when bison and passenger pigeons inherited their full share of the earth, before our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers had even seen America?

Was it, then, just for the joy of the season that he played in the air, or was there, after all, someone besides himself to be pleased with the sport? Who knows whether the little acrobat was showing his mate what a splendid fellow he was, how strong of wing and skillful in the tricks of flight? Be that as it may, the mate of Mis was satisfied in some way or other, and went with him on a voyage of discovery one afternoon, when the sky was nicely cloudy and the light pleasantly dull.

Now, like all good parents, Mis and his mate were a bit particular about what sort of neighborhood they should choose for their home; for the bringing up of a family, even if it is a small one, is most important.

A peaceful place and a sunny exposure they must have; there must be good hunting near at hand; and one more thing, too, was necessary. Now, the house-lot they finally decided upon met all four of these needs, though it sounds like a joke to tell you where it was. But then, when a clown goes merrily forth to find him a home, we must not be surprised if he is funny about it. It was where the sun could shine upon it; though how Mis and his mate knew that, all on a dull, dark afternoon, I'm sure I can't tell. Maybe because there wasn't a tree in sight. And as for peace, it was as undisturbed as a deserted island. It was, in fact, a sort of island in a sea of air, and at certain times of the day and night there was game enough in this sea to satisfy even such hunters as they.

Perhaps they chuckled cosily together when they decided to take their peace and sunshine on the flat roof of a very high building in a very large city. Their house-lot was covered with pebbles, and it suited them exactly. So well that they moved in, just as it was.

Yes, those two ridiculous birds set up housekeeping without any house. Mother Nomer just settled herself on the bare pebbles in a satisfied way, and that was all there was to it. Not a stick or a wisp of hay or a feather to mark the place! And as she sat there quietly, a queer thing happened. She disappeared from sight. As long as she didn't move, she couldn't be seen. Her dappled feathers didn't look like a bird. They looked like the light and dark of the pebbles of the flat roof. Ah, so _that_ was the one thing more that was necessary for her home, besides sunshine and peace and good hunting. It must be where she could sit and not show; where she could hide by just looking like what was near her, like a sand-colored grasshopper on the sand in the sun,[2] or a walking-stick on a twig,[2] or a butterfly on the bark of a tree.[2]

Yes, Mis's mate knew, in some natural wise way of her own, the secret of making use of what we call her "protective coloration." This is one of the very most important secrets Mother Nature has given her children, and many use it--not birds alone, but beasts and insects also. They use it in their own wild way and think nothing about it. We say that it is their instinct that leads them to choose places where they cannot easily be seen. If you do not understand exactly what instinct is, do not feel worried, for there are some things about that secret of Mother Nature that even the wisest men in the world have not explained. But this we do know, that when her instincts led Mother Nomer to choose the pebbly roof as a background for her mottled feathers, she did just naturally very much the same thing that the soldiers in the world-war did when they made use of great guns painted to look like things they were not, and ships painted to look like the waves beneath them and the clouds in the sky above. Only, the soldiers did not use their protective coloration naturally and by instinct. They did this by taking thought; and very proud they felt, too, of being able to do this by hard study. They talked about it a great deal and the French taught the world a new word, _camouflage_, to call it by. And their war-time camouflage _was_ wonderful, even though it was only a clumsy imitation of what Mother Nature did when the feathers of Mother Nomer were made to grow dappled like little blotches of light and dark; or, to put it the other way about, when the bird was led, by her instinct, to choose for the nesting-time a place where she did not show.

Of course, it was not just the gravel on the flat roof that would match her feathers; for there isn't a house in the land that is nearly so old as one thousand years, and birds of this sort have been building much longer than that. No, so far as color went, Mother Nomer might have chosen a spot in an open field, where there were little broken sticks or stones to give it a mottled look--such a place, indeed, as her ancestors used to find for their nesting in the old days when there were no houses. Such a place, too, as most of this kind of bird still seek; for not all of them, by any means, are roof-dwellers in cities.

Our bird with the dappled feathers, however, sat in one little spot on that large roof for about sixteen days and nights, with time enough off now and then to get food and water, and to exercise her wings. When she was away, Mis came and sat on the same spot. If you had been there to see them come and go, you would have wondered why they cared about that particular spot. It looked like the rest of the sunny roof--just little humps of light and dark. Ah, yes! but two of those little humps of light and dark were not pebbles: they were eggs; and if you couldn't have found them, Mis and his mate could, though I think even they had to remember where they were instead of eye-spying them.

By the time sixteen days were over, there were no longer eggs beneath the fluffy feathers that had covered them. Instead, there were two little balls of down, though you couldn't have seen them either, unless you had been about near enough to touch them; for the downy children of Mis were as dappled as his mate and her eggs, and they had, from the moment of their hatching, the instinct for keeping still if danger came near.

Peaceful enough, indeed, had been the brooding days of Mother Nomer. Something of the noise and bustle, to be sure, of the city streets came up to her; but that was from far below, and things far off are not worth worrying about. Sometimes, too, the sound of voices floated out from the upper windows of the building, quite near; but the birds soon became used to that.

When the twins were but a few days old, however, their mother had a real scare. A man came up to take down some electric wires that had been fastened not far from the spot that was the Nomer home. He tramped heavily about, throwing down his tools here and there, and whistling loudly as he worked. All this frightened little Mother Nomer. There is no doubt about that, for her heart beat more and more quickly. But she didn't budge. She couldn't. It was a part of her camouflage trick to sit still in danger. The greater the danger, the stiller to sit! She even kept her eyes nearly shut, until, when the man had cut the last and nearest end of wire and put all his things together in a pile ready to take down, he came to look over the edge of the roof-wall. As he bent to do this, he brushed suddenly against her.

Then Mother Nomer sprang into the air; and the man jumped, in such surprise that, had it not been for the wall, he would have fallen from the roof. It would be hard to tell which was the more startled for a moment--man or bird. But Mother Nomer did not fly far. She fell back to the roof some distance from her precious babies and fluttered pitifully about, her wings and tail spread wide and dragging as she moved lamely. She did not look like a part of the pebbly roof now. She showed plainly, for she was moving. She looked like a wounded bird, and the man, thinking he must have hurt her in some way, followed her to pick her up and see what the trouble was. Three times he almost got her. Almost, but not quite. Crippled as she seemed, she could still fumble and flutter just out of reach; and when at last the man had followed her to a corner of the roof far from her young, Mother Nomer sprang up, and spreading her long, pointed wings, took flight, whole and sound as a bird need be.

The man understood and laughed. He laughed at himself for being fooled. For it wasn't the first time a bird had tricked him so. Once, when he was a country boy, a partridge, fluttering as if broken-winged, had led him through the underbrush of the wood-lot; and once a bird by the river-side stumbled on before him, crying piteously, "Pete! Pete! Pete-weet!" and once--Why, yes, he should have remembered that this is the trick of many a mother-bird when danger threatens her young.

So he went back, with careful step, to where he had been before. He looked this way and that. There was no nest. He saw no young. The little Nomer twins were not the son and daughter of Mis, the clown, and Mother Nomer, the trick cripple, for nothing! They sat there, the little rascals, right before his eyes, and budged not; they could practice the art of camouflage, too.

But as he stood and looked, a wistful light came into the eyes of the man. It had been many years since he had found nesting birds and watched the ways of them. His memory brought old pictures back to him. The crotch in the tree, where the robin had plastered her nest, modeling the mud with her feathered breast; the brook-edge willows, where the blackbirds built; the meadow, with its hidden homes of bobolinks; and the woods where the whip-poor-wills called o' nights. His thoughts made a boy of him again, and he forgot everything else in the world in his wish to see the little birds he felt sure must be among the pebbles before him. So he crept about carefully, here and there, and at last came upon the children of Mis. He picked up the fluffy little balls of down and snuggled them gently in his big hands for a moment. Then he put them back to their safe roof, and, gathering up his tools, went on his way, whistling a merry tune remembered from the days when he trudged down Long-ago Lane to the pasture, for his father's cows. Late of afternoon it used to be, while the nighthawks dashed overhead in their air-hunts, showing the white spots in their wings that looked like holes, and sometimes making him jump as they dropped and turned, with a sudden "boom."

No sooner had the sound of his whistle gone from the roof, than Mother Nomer came back to her houseless home--any spot doing as well as another, now that the twins were hatched and able to walk about. As she called her babies to her and tucked them under her feathers, her heart still beating quickly with the excitement of her scare, it would be easy to guess from the dear way of her cuddling that it isn't a beautiful woven cradle or quaint walls of clay that matter most in the life of young birds, but the loving care that is given them. In this respect the young orioles, swinging in their hammock among the swaying tips of the elm tree, and the children of Eve and Petro, in their wonderful brick mansion, were no better off than the twins of Mis and Mother Nomer.

Busy indeed was Mis in the twilights that followed the hatching of his children; and, though he was as much in the air as ever, it was not the fun of frolic and clownish tricks that kept him there. For, besides his own keen appetite, he had now the hunger of the twins to spur him on. Such a hunter as he was in those days! Why, he caught a thousand mosquitos on one trip; and meeting a swarm of flying ants, thought nothing at all of gobbling up five hundred before he stopped. Countless flies went down his throat. And when the big, brown bumping beetles, with hard, shiny wing-covers on their backs and soft, fuzzy velvet underneath, flew out at dusk, twenty or thirty of them, as likely as not, would make a luncheon for Mis the clown. For he was lean and hungry, and he ate and ate and ate; but he never grew fat. He hunted zigzag through the twilight of the evening and the twilight of the dawn. When the nights were bright and game was plenty, he hunted zigzag through the moonlight. When the day was dull and insects were on the wing, he hunted, though it was high noon. And many a midnight rambler going home from the theatre looked up, wondering what made the darting shadows, and saw Mis and his fellows dashing busily above where the night-insects were hovering about the electric lights of the city streets. He hunted long and he hunted well; but so keen was his appetite and so huge the hunger of his twins, that it took the mother, too, to keep the meals provided in the Nomer home.

I think they were never unhappy about it, for there is a certain satisfaction in doing well what we can do; and there is no doubt that these birds were made to be hunters. Mis and his kind swept the air, of course, because they and their young were hungry; but the game they caught, had it gone free to lay its myriad eggs, would have cost many a farmer a fortune in sprays to save his crops, and would have added untold discomfort to dwellers in country and city alike.

Although Mis, under his feathers, was much smaller than one would think to look at him, there were several large things about him besides his appetite. His mouth was almost huge, and reached way around to the sides of his head under his eyes. It opened up more like the mouth of a frog or a toad than like that of most birds. When he hunted he kept it yawning wide open, so that it made a trap for many an unlucky insect that flew straight in, without ever knowing what happened to it when it disappeared down the great hollow throat, into a stomach so enormous that it hardly seems possible that a bird less than twice the size of Mis could own it.

There were other odd things about him, too--for instance, the comb he wore on his middle toe-nail. What he did with it, I can't say. He didn't seem to do very much with his feet anyway. They were rather feeble little things, and he never used them in carrying home anything he caught. He didn't even use them as most birds do when they stop to rest; for, instead of sitting on a twig when he was not flying, he would settle as if lying down. Sometimes he stayed on a large level branch, not cross-wise like most birds, but the long way; and when he did that, he looked like a humpy knot on the branch. When there were no branches handy, he would use a rail or a log or a wall, or even the ground; but wherever he settled himself, he looked like a blotch of light and dark, and one could gaze right at him without noticing that a bird was there. That was the way Mother Nomer did, too--clowns both of them and always ready for the wonderful game of camouflage!

They had remarkable voices. There seemed to be just one word to their call. I am not going to tell you what that word is. There is a reason why I am not. The reason is, that I do not know. To be sure, I have heard nighthawks say it every summer for years, but I can't say it myself. It is a very funny word, but you will have to get one of them to speak it for you!

They came by all their different kinds of queerness naturally enough, Mis and Mother Nomer did, for it seemed to run in the family to be peculiar, and all their relatives had oddities of one kind or another. Take Cousin Whip-poor-will, who wears whiskers, for instance; and Cousin Chuck-will's widow, who wears whiskers that branch. You could tell from their very names that they would do uncommon things. And as for their more distant relatives, the Hummingbirds and Chimney Swifts, it would take a story apiece as long as this to begin to tell of their strange doings. But it is a nice, likable sort of queerness they all have; so very interesting, too, that we enjoy them the better for it.

There is one more wonderful thing yet that Mis and his mate did--and their twins with them; for before this happened, the children had grown to be as big as their parents, and a bit plumper, perhaps, though not enough to be noticed under their feathers. Toward the end of a pleasant summer, they joined a company of their kind, a sort of traveling circus, and went south for the winter. Just what performances they gave along the way, I did not hear; but with a whole flock of flying clowns on the wing, it seems likely that they had a gay time of it altogether!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 2: See _Hexapod Stories_, pages 4, 110, 126.]

X

THE LOST DOVE

_One Thousand Dollars ($1000) Reward_

That is the prize that has been offered for a nesting pair of Passenger Pigeons. No one has claimed the money yet, and it would be a great adventure, don't you think, to seek that nest? If you find it, you must not disturb it, you know, or take the eggs or the young, or frighten the father- or mother-bird; for the people who offered all that money did not want dead birds to stuff for a museum, but hoped that someone might tell them where there were live wild ones nesting.

You see the news had got about that the dove that is called Passenger Pigeon was lost. No one could believe this at first, because there had been so very many--more than a thousand, more than a million, more than a billion. How could more than a billion doves be lost?

They were such big birds, too--a foot and a half long from tip of beak to tip of tail, and sometimes even longer. Why, that is longer than the tame pigeons that walk about our city streets. How could doves as large as that be lost, so that no one could find a pair, not even for one thousand dollars to pay him for the time it took to hunt?

Their colors were so pretty--head and back a soft, soft blue; neck glistening with violet, red, and gold; underneath, a wonderful purple red fading into violet shades, and then into bluish white. Who would not like to seek, for the love of seeing so beautiful a bird, even though no one paid a reward in money?

Shall we go, then, to Kentucky? For 'twas there the man named Audubon once saw them come in flocks to roost at night. They kept coming from sunset till after midnight, and their numbers were so great that their wings, even while still a long way off, made a sound like a gale of wind; and when close to, the noise of the birds was so loud that men could not hear one another speak, even though they stood near and shouted. The place where Audubon saw these pigeons was in a forest near the Green River; and there were so many that they filled the trees over a space forty miles long and more than three miles wide. They perched so thickly that the branches of the great trees broke under their weight, and went crashing to the ground; and their roosting-place looked as if a tornado had rushed through the forest.

Must there not be wild pigeons, yet, roosting in Kentucky--some small flock, perhaps, descended from the countless thousands seen by Audubon? No, not one of all these doves is left, they tell us, in the woods in that part of the country. The rush of their wings has been stilled and their evening uproar has been silenced. Men may now walk beside the Green River, and hear each other though they speak in whispers.

Would you like to seek the dove in Michigan in May? For there it was, and then it was, that these wild pigeons nested, so we are told by people who saw them, by hundreds of thousands, or even millions. They built in trees of every sort, and sometimes as many as one hundred nests were made in a single tree. Almost every tree on one hundred thousand acres would have at least one nest. The lowest ones were so near the ground that a man could reach them with his hand.

Suppose you should find, next May, just one pair nesting. Sire Dove, we think from what we have read, would help bring some twigs, and Dame Dove would lay them together in a criss-cross way, so that they would make a floor of sticks, sagging just a little in the middle. As soon as the floor of twigs was firm enough, so that an egg would not drop through, Dame Dove would put one in the shallow sagging place in the middle. It would be a white egg, very much like those our tame pigeons lay; and, because there would be no thick soft warm rug of dried grass on the floor, you could probably see it right through the nest, if you should stand underneath and look up. But you couldn't see it long, because, almost as soon as it was laid, Dame Dove would tuck the feather comforter she carried on her breast so cosily about that precious egg, that it would need no other padding to keep it warm. She would stay there, the faithful mother, from about two o'clock each afternoon until nine or ten o'clock the next morning. She would not leave for one minute, to eat or get a drink of water. Then, about nine or ten o'clock each morning, Sire Dove would slip onto the nest just as she moved off, and they would make the change so quickly that the egg could not even get cool. That one very dear egg would need two birds to take care of it, one always snuggling it close while the other ate and flew about and drank.

So they would sit, turn and turn about, for fourteen days. All this while they would be very gentle with each other, saying softly, "Coo-coo," something as tame pigeons do, only in shorter notes, or calling, "Kee-kee-kee." And sometimes Sire Dove would put his beak to that of his nesting mate and feed her, very likely, as later they would feed their young. For when the two weeks' brooding should be over, there would be a funny, homely, sprawling, soft and wobbly baby dove within the nest.

The father and mother of him would still have much to do, it seems; for hatching a dove out of an egg is only the easier half of the task. The wobbly baby must be brought up to become a dove of grace and beauty. That would take food.

But you must not think to see Sire and Dame Dove come flying home with seeds or nuts or fruit or grain or earthworms or insects in their beaks. What else, then, could they bring? Well, nothing at all, indeed, in their beaks; for the food of a baby dove requires especial preparation. It has to be provided for him in the crop of his parent. So Dame Dove would come with empty beak but full crop, and the baby would be fed. Just exactly how, I have not seen written by those people who saw a million Passenger Pigeons. Perhaps they did not stop to notice.

However, if you will watch a tame pigeon feed its young, you can guess how a wild one would do it. A tame mother-pigeon that I am acquainted with comes to her young (_she_ has two) and, standing in or beside the nest, opens her beak very wide. One of her babies reaches up as far as he can stretch his neck and puts his beak inside his mother's mouth. He tucks it in at one side and crowds in his head as far as he can push it. Then the mother makes a sort of pumping motion, and pumps up soft baby food from her crop, and he swallows it. Sometimes he keeps his beak in his mother's mouth for as long as five minutes; and if anything startles her and she pulls away, the hungry little fellow scolds and whines and whimpers in a queer voice, and reaches out with his teasing wings, and flaps them against her breast, stretching up with his beak all the while and feeling for a chance to poke his head into her mouth again. And often, do you know, his twin sister gets her beak in one side of Mother Pigeon's mouth while he is feeding at the other side, and Mother just stands there and pumps and pumps. The two comical little birds, with feet braced and necks stretched up as far as they can reach, and their heads crowded as far in as they can push them, look so funny they would make you laugh to see them. Then, the next meal Father Pigeon feeds them the same way, usually one at a time, but often both together.

Now, I think, don't you, because that is the way tame Father and Mother Pigeon serve breakfast and dinner and supper and luncheons in between whiles to their tame twins, that wild Dame and Sire Dove would give food in very much the same way to their one wild baby? It might not be exactly the same, because tame pigeons and wild Passenger Pigeons are not the same kind of doves; but they are cousins of a sort, which means that they must have some of the same family habits.

If you should find a nest in Michigan in May, perhaps you can learn more about these matters, and watch to see whether, when the baby dove is all feathered out, Dame or Sire Dove pushes it out of the nest even before it can fly, though it is fat enough to be all right until it gets so hungry it learns to find food for itself. Perhaps you can watch, too, to see why Dame and Sire Dove seem to be in such a hurry to have their first baby taking care of himself. Is it because they are ready to build another nest right straight away, or would Dame Dove lay another egg in the same nest? Tame Mother Pigeon often lays two more eggs in the next nest-box even before her twins are out of their nest. Then you may be sure Father and Mother Pigeon have a busy time of it feeding their eldest twins, while they brood the two eggs in which their younger twins are growing.

It would be very pleasant if you could watch a pair of Passenger Pigeons and find out all these things about them. _If you could!_ But I said only "perhaps," because the people who know most about the matter say that Michigan has lost more than a million, or possibly more than a billion, doves. They say that, if you should walk through all the woods in Michigan, you would not hear one single Passenger Pigeon call, "Kee-kee-kee" to his mate, or hear one pair talk softly together, saying, "Coo-coo." There are sticks and twigs enough for their nests lying about; but through all the lonesome woods, so we are told, there is not one Sire Dove left to bring them to his Dame; and never, never, never will there be another nest like the millions there used to be.

Well, then, if we cannot find them at sunset in their roosting-place in Kentucky or in their nests in Michigan in May, shall we give up the quest for the lost doves? Or shall we still keep hold of our courage and our hope and try elsewhere?

Surely, if there are any of these birds anywhere, they must eat food! Shall we seek them at some feeding-place? This might be everywhere in North America, from the Atlantic Ocean as far west as the Great Plains. That is, everywhere in all these miles where the things they liked to eat are growing. So, if you keep out of the Atlantic Ocean, and get someone to show you where the Great Plains are, you might look--_almost anywhere_. Why, many of you would not need to take a steam-train or even a trolley-car. You could walk there. Most of you could. You could walk to a place where they used to stop to feed. Those that were behind in the great flock flew over the heads of all the others, and so were in front for a while. In that way they all had a chance at a well-spread picnic ground. Yes, you could easily walk to a place where that used to happen--most of you could.

Do you know where acorns grow, or beechnuts, or chestnuts? Well, Passenger Pigeons used to come there to eat, for they were very fond of nuts! Do you know where elm trees grow wild along some riverway, or where pine trees live? Oh! that is where these birds used sometimes to get their breakfasts, when the trees had scattered their seeds. Do you know a tree that has a seed about the right size and shape for a knife at a doll's tea-party? Yes, that's the maple; and many and many a party the Passenger Pigeons used to have wherever they could find these cunning seed-knives. Only they didn't use them to cut things with. They ate them up as fast as ever they could.

Have you ever picked wild berries? Why, more than likely Passenger Pigeons have picked other berries there or thereabouts before your day!

Do you know a place where the wild rice grows? Ah, so did the Passenger Pigeons, once upon a time!

But if you know none of these places, even then you can stand near where the flocks used to fly when they were on their journeys. All of you who live between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Plains can go to the door or a window of the house you live in and point to the sky and think: "Once so many Passenger Pigeons flew by that the sound of their wings was like the sound of thunder, and they went through the air faster than a train on a track, and the numbers in their flocks were so many that they hid the sun like great thick clouds."

When you do that, some of you will doubtless see birds flying over; but we fear that not even one of you will see even one Passenger Pigeon in its flight.

What happened to the countless millions is recorded in so many books that it need not be written again in this one. This story will tell you just one more thing about these strange and wonderful birds, and that is that no _child_ who reads this story is in any way to blame because the dove is lost. What boy or girl is not glad to think, when some wrong has been done or some mistake has been made, "It's not _my_ fault"?

Even though this bird is gone forever and forever and forever, there are many other kinds living among us. If old Mother Earth has been robbed of some of her children, she still has many more--many wonderful and beautiful living things. And that she may keep them safe, she needs your help; for boys and girls are her children, too, and the power lies in your strong hands and your courageous hearts and your wise brains to help save some of the most wonderful and fairest of other living things. And what one among you all, I wonder, will not be glad to think that _you_ help keep the world beautiful, when you leave the water-lilies floating on the pond; that it is the same as if _you_ sow the seeds in wild gardens, when you leave the cardinal flowers glowing on the banks and the fringed gentians lending their blue to the marshes. For the life of the world, whether it flies through the air or grows in the ground, is greatly in your care; and though you may never win a prize of money for finding the dove that other people lost, there is a reward of joy ready for anyone who can look at our good old Mother Earth and say, "It will not be _my_ fault if, as the years go by, you lose your birds and flowers."

And it would be, don't you think, one of the greatest of adventures to seek and find and help keep safe such of these as are in danger, that they may not, like the dove, be lost?

XI

LITTLE SOLOMON OTUS

Oh, the wise, wise look of him, with his big round eyes and his very Roman nose! He had sat in a golden silence throughout that dazzling day; but when the kindly moon sent forth a gentler gleam, he spoke, and the speech of little Solomon Otus was as silver. A quivering, quavering whistle thrilled through the night, and all who heard the beginning listened to the end of his song.

It was a night and a place for music. The mellow light lay softly over the orchard tree, on an old branch of which little Solomon sat mooning himself before his door. He could see, not far away, the giant chestnut trees that shaded the banks of a little ravine; and hear the murmuring sound of Shanty Creek, where Nata[3] grew up, and where her grandchildren now played hide-and-seek. Near at hand stood a noble oak, with a big dead branch at the top that was famous the country round as a look-out post for hawks and crows; and maybe an eagle now and then had used it, in years gone by.

But hawk and crow were asleep, and toads were trilling a lullaby from the pond, while far, far off in the heart of the woods, a whip-poor-will called once, twice, and again.

Solomon loved the dusk. His life was fullest then and his sight was keenest. His eyes were wide open, and he could see clearly the shadow of the leaves when the wind moved them lightly from time to time. He was at ease in the great night-world, and master of many a secret that sleepy-eyed day-folk never guess. As he shook out his loose, soft coat and breathed the cool air, he felt the pleasant tang of a hunger that has with it no fear of famine.

Once more he sent his challenge through the moonlight with quivering, quavering voice, and some who heard it loved the darkness better for this spirit of the night, and some shivered as if with dread. For Solomon had sounded his hunting call, and, as with the baying of hounds or the tune of a hunter's horn, one ear might find music in the note and another hear only a wail.

Then, silent as a shadow, he left his branch. Solomon, a little lone hunter in the dark, was off on the chase. Whither he went or what he caught, there was no sound to tell, until, suddenly, one quick squeak way over beside the corn-crib might have notified a farmer that another mouse was gone. But the owner of the corn-crib was asleep, and dreaming, more than likely, that the cat, which was at that moment disturbing a pair of meadow bobolinks, was somehow wholly to be thanked for the scarcity of mice about the place.

Solomon was not wasteful about his food. He swallowed his evening breakfast whole. That is, he swallowed all but the tail, which was fairly long and stuck out of his mouth for some time, giving him rather a queer two-tailed look, one at each end! But there was no one about to laugh at him, and it was, in some respects, an excellent way to make a meal. For one thing, it saved him all trouble of cutting up his food; and then, too, there was no danger of his overeating, for he could tell that he had had enough as long as there wasn't room for the tail. And after the good nutritious parts of his breakfast were digested, he had a comfortable way of spitting out the skin and bones all wadded together in a tidy pellet. An owl is not the only kind of bird, by any means, that has a habit of spitting out hard stuff that is swallowed with the food. A crow tucks away many a discarded cud of that sort; and even the thrush, half an hour or so after a dainty fare of wild cherries, taken whole, drops from his bill to the ground the pits that have been squeezed out of the fruit by the digestive mill inside of him.

After his breakfast, which he ate alone in the evening starlight and moonlight, Solomon passed an enjoyable night; for that world, which to most of us is lost in darkness and in sleep, is full of lively interest to an owl. Who, indeed, would not be glad to visit his starlit kingdom, with eyesight keen enough to see the folded leaves of clover like little hands in prayer--a kingdom with byways sweet with the scent and mellow with the beauty of waking primrose? Who would not welcome, for one wonderful night, the gift of ears that could hear the sounds which to little Solomon were known and understood, but many of which are lost in deafness to our dull ears?

Of course, it may be that Solomon never noticed that clovers fold their leaves by night, or that primroses are open and fragrant after dusk. For he was an owl, and not a person, and his thoughts were not the thoughts of man. But for all that they were wise thoughts--wise as the look of his big round eyes; and many things he knew which are unguessed secrets to dozy day-folk.

He was a successful hunter, and he had a certain sort of knowledge about the habits of the creatures he sought. He seldom learned where the day birds slept, for he did not find motionless things. But he knew well enough that mice visited the corn-crib, and where their favorite runways came out into the open. He knew where the cutworms crept out of the ground and feasted o' nights in the farmer's garden. He knew where the big brown beetles hummed and buzzed while they munched greedily of shade-tree leaves. And he knew where little fishes swam near the surface of the water.

So he hunted on silent wings the bright night long; and though he did not starve himself, as we can guess from what we know about his breakfast of rare mouse-steak, still, the tenderest and softest delicacies he took home to five fine youngsters, who welcomed their father with open mouths and eager appetite. Though he made his trips as quickly as he could, he never came too soon to suit them--the hungry little rascals.