Chapter II: Part 2

It is an indiscretion ever to say of a bird that he has only such and such notes. You may have been his friend for years, but the next time you go into the woods he will likely enough put you to shame by singing something not so much as hinted at in your description. I thought I knew the song of the yellow-rumped warbler, having listened to it many times,--a slight and rather characterless thing, nowise remarkable. But coming down Mount Willard one day in June, I heard a warbler's song which brought me to a sudden halt. It was new and beautiful,--more beautiful, it seemed at the moment, than any warbler's song I had ever heard. What could it be? A little patient waiting (while the black-flies and mosquitoes "came upon me to eat up my flesh"), and the wonderful stranger appeared in full view,--my old acquaintance, the yellow-rumped warbler.

With all this strong tendency on the part of birds to vary their music, how is it that there is still such a degree of uniformity, so that, as we have said, every species may be recognized by its notes? Why does every red-eyed vireo sing in one way, and every white-eyed vireo in another? Who teaches the young chipper to trill, and the young linnet to warble? In short, how do birds come by their music? Is it all a matter of instinct, inherited habit, or do they learn it? The answer appears to be that birds sing as children talk, by simple imitation. Nobody imagines that the infant is born with a language printed upon his brain. The father and mother may never have known a word of any tongue except the English, but if the child is brought up to hear only Chinese, he will infallibly speak that, and nothing else. And careful experiments have shown the same to be true of birds.[6] Taken from the nest just after they leave the shell, they invariably sing, not their own so-called natural song, but the song of their foster-parents; provided, of course, that this is not anything beyond their physical capacity. The notorious house sparrow (our "English" sparrow), in his wild or semi-domesticated state, never makes a musical sound; but if he is taken in hand early enough, he may be taught to sing, so it is said, nearly as well as the canary. Bechstein relates that a Paris clergyman had two of these sparrows whom he had trained to speak, and, among other things, to recite several of the shorter commandments; and the narrative goes on to say that it was sometimes very comical, when the pair were disputing over their food, to hear one gravely admonish the other, "Thou shalt not steal!" It would be interesting to know why creatures thus gifted do not sing of their own motion. With their amiability and sweet peaceableness they ought to be caroling the whole year round.

This question of the transmission of songs from one generation to another is, of course, a part of the general subject of animal intelligence, a subject much discussed in these days on account of its bearing upon the modern doctrine concerning the relation of man to the inferior orders.

We have nothing to do with such a theme, but it may not be out of place to suggest to preachers and moralists that here is a striking and unhackneyed illustration of the force of early training. Birds sing by imitation, it is true, but as a rule they imitate only the notes which they hear during the first few weeks after they are hatched. One of Mr. Barrington's linnets, for example, after being educated under a titlark, was put into a room with two birds of his own species, where he heard them sing freely every day for three months. He made no attempt to learn anything from them, however, but kept on practicing what the titlark had taught him, quite unconscious of anything singular or unpatriotic in such a course. This law, that impressions received during the immaturity of the powers become the unalterable habit of the after life, is perhaps the most momentous of all the laws in whose power we find ourselves. Sometimes we are tempted to call it cruel. But if it were annulled, this would be a strange world. What a hurly-hurly we should have among the birds! There would be no more telling them by their notes. Thrushes and jays, wrens and chickadees, finches and warblers, all would be singing one grand medley.

Between these two opposing tendencies, one urging to variation, the other to permanence (for Nature herself is half radical, half conservative), the language of birds has grown from rude beginnings to its present beautiful diversity; and whoever lives a century of millenniums hence will listen to music such as we in this day can only dream of. Inappreciably but ceaselessly the work goes on. Here and there is born a master-singer, a feathered genius, and every generation makes its own addition to the glorious inheritance.

It may be doubted whether there is any real connection between moral character and the possession of wings. Nevertheless there has long been a popular feeling that some such congruity does exist; and certainly it seems unreasonable to suppose that creatures who are able to soar at will into the heavens should be without other equally angelic attributes. But, be that as it may, our friends, the birds, do undeniably set us a good example in several respects. To mention only one, how becoming is their observance of morning and evening song! In spite of their industrious spirit (and few of us labor more hours daily), neither their first nor their last thoughts are given to the question, What shall we eat, and what shall we drink? Possibly their habit of saluting the rising and setting sun may be thought to favor the theory that the worship of the god of day was the original religion. I know nothing about that. But it would be a sad change if the birds, declining from their present beautiful custom, were to sleep and work, work and sleep, with no holy hour between, as is too much the case with the being who, according to his own pharisaic notion, is the only religious animal.

In the season, however, the woods are by no means silent, even at noonday. Many species (such as the vireos and warblers, who get their living amid the foliage of trees) sing as they work; while the thrushes and others, who keep business and pleasure more distinct, are often too happy to go many hours together without a hymn. I have even seen robins singing without quitting the turf; but that is rather unusual, for somehow birds have come to feel that they must get away from the ground when the lyrical mood is upon them. This may be a thing of sentiment (for is not language full of uncomplimentary allusions to earth and earthliness?), but more likely it is prudential. The gift of song is no doubt a dangerous blessing to creatures who have so many enemies, and we can readily believe that they have found it safer to be up where they can look about them while thus publishing their whereabouts.

A very interesting exception to this rule is the savanna sparrow, who sings habitually from the ground. But even he shares the common feeling, and stretches himself to his full height with an earnestness which is almost laughable, in view of the result; for his notes are hardly louder than a cricket's chirp. Probably he has fallen into this lowly habit from living in meadows and salt marshes, where bushes and trees are not readily to be come at; and it is worth noticing that, in the case of the skylark and the white-winged blackbird, the same conditions have led to a result precisely opposite. The sparrow, we may presume, was originally of a humble disposition, and when nothing better offered itself for a singing-perch easily grew accustomed to standing upon a stone or a little lump of earth; and this practice, long persisted in, naturally had the effect to lessen the loudness of his voice. The skylark, on the other hand, when he did not readily find a tree-top, said to himself, "Never mind! I have a pair of wings." And so the lark is famous, while the sparrow remains unheard-of, and is even mistaken for a grasshopper.

How true it is that the very things which dishearten one nature and break it down, only help another to find out what it was made for! If you would foretell the development, either of a bird or of a man, it is not enough to know his environment, you must know also what there is in him.

We have possibly made too much of the savanna sparrow's innocent eccentricity. He fills his place, and fills it well; and who knows but that he may yet outshine the skylark? There is a promise, I believe, for those who humble themselves. But what shall be said of species which do not even try to sing, and that, notwithstanding they have all the structural peculiarities of singing birds, and must, almost certainly, have come from ancestors who were singers? We have already mentioned the house sparrow, whose defect is the more mysterious on account of his belonging to so highly musical a family. But _he_ was never accused of not being noisy enough, while we have one bird who, though he is classed with the oscines, passes his life in almost unbroken silence. Of course I refer to the waxwing, or cedar-bird, whose faint, sibilant whisper can scarcely be thought to contradict the foregoing description. By what strange freak he has lapsed into this ghostly habit, nobody knows. I make no account of the insinuation that he gave up music because it hindered his success in cherry-stealing. He likes cherries, it is true; and who can blame him? But he would need to work hard to steal more than does that indefatigable songster, the robin. I feel sure he has some better reason than this for his Quakerish conduct. But, however he came by his stillness, it is likely that by this time he plumes himself upon it. Silence is golden, he thinks, the supreme result of the highest æsthetic culture. Those loud creatures, the thrushes and finches! What a vulgar set they are, to be sure, the more's the pity! Certainly if he does not reason in some such way, bird nature is not so human as we have given it credit for being. Besides, the waxwing has an uncommon appreciation of the decorous; at least, we must think so if we are able to credit a story of Nuttall's. He declares that a Boston gentleman, whose name he gives, saw one of a company of these birds capture an insect, and offer it to his neighbor; he, however, delicately declined the dainty bit, and it was offered to the next, who, in turn, was equally polite; and the morsel actually passed back and forth along the line, till, finally, one of the flock was persuaded to eat it. I have never seen anything equal to this; but one day, happening to stop under a low cedar, I discovered right over my head a waxwing's nest with the mother-bird sitting upon it, while her mate was perched beside her on the branch. He was barely out of my reach, but he did not move a muscle; and although he uttered no sound, his behavior said as plainly as possible, "What do you expect to do _here_? Don't you see _I_ am standing guard over this nest?" I should be ashamed not to be able to add that I respected his dignity and courage, and left him and his castle unmolested.

Observations so discursive as these can hardly be finished; they must break off abruptly, or else go on forever. Let us make an end, therefore, with expressing our hope that the cedar-bird, already so handsome and chivalrous, will yet take to himself a song; one sweet and original, worthy to go with his soft satin coat, his ornaments of sealing-wax, and his magnificent top-knot. Let him do that, and he shall always be made welcome; yes, even though he come in force and in cherry-time.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] There is no Historic-Genealogical Society among the birds, and the robin is not aware that his own remote ancestors were reptiles. If he were, he would hardly speak so disrespectfully of these batrachians.

[4] Mr. C. N. Allen, in _Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club_, July, 1881.

[5] Since this paper was written I have three times heard the wood wagtail's true song in the morning,--but in neither case was the bird in the air. See p. 284.

[6] See the paper of Daines Barrington in _Philosophical Transactions_ for 1773; also, Darwin's _Descent of Man_, and Wallace's _Natural Selection_.

CHARACTER IN FEATHERS.

The finger of God hath left an inscription upon all his works, not
graphical or composed of letters, but of their several forms,
constitutions, parts, and operations, which, aptly joined together,
do make one word that doth express their natures. By these letters
God calls the stars by their names; and by this alphabet Adam
assigned to every creature a name peculiar to its nature.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE.

CHARACTER IN FEATHERS.

In this economically governed world the same thing serves many uses. Who will take upon himself to enumerate the offices of sunlight, or water, or indeed of any object whatever? Because we know it to be good for this or that, it by no means follows that we have discovered what it was made for. What we have found out is perhaps only something by the way; as if a man should think the sun were created for his own private convenience. In some moods it seems doubtful whether we are yet acquainted with the real value of anything. But, be that as it may, we need not scruple to admire so much as our ignorance permits us to see of the workings of this divine frugality. The piece of woodland, for instance, which skirts the village,--how various are its ministries to the inhabitants, each of whom, without forethought or question, takes the benefit proper to himself! The poet saunters there as in a true Holy Land, to have his heart cooled and stilled. Mr. A. and Mr. B., who hold the deeds of the "property," walk through it to look at the timber, with an eye to dollars and cents. The botanist has his errand there, the zoölogist his, and the child his. Oftenest of all, perhaps (for barbarism dies hard, and even yet the ministers of Christ find it a capital sport to murder small fishes),--oftenest of all comes the man, poor soul, who thinks of the forest as of a place to which he may go when he wishes to amuse himself by killing something. Meanwhile, the rabbits and the squirrels, the hawks and the owls, look upon all such persons as no better than intruders (do not the woods belong to those who live in them?); while nobody remembers the meteorologist, who nevertheless smiles in his sleeve at all these one-sided notions, and says to himself that he knows the truth of the matter.

So is it with everything; and with all the rest, so is it with the birds. The interest they excite is of all grades, from that which looks upon them as items of millinery, up to that of the makers of ornithological systems, who ransack the world for specimens, and who have no doubt that the chief end of a bird is to be named and catalogued,--the more synonyms the better. Somewhere between these two extremes comes the person whose interest in birds is friendly rather than scientific; who has little taste for shooting, and an aversion from dissecting; who delights in the living creatures themselves, and counts a bird in the bush worth two in the hand. Such a person, if he is intelligent, makes good use of the best works on ornithology; he would not know how to get along without them; but he studies most the birds themselves, and after a while he begins to associate them on a plan of his own. Not that he distrusts the approximate correctness of the received classification, or ceases to find it of daily service; but though it were as accurate as the multiplication table, it is based (and rightly, no doubt) on anatomical structure alone; it rates birds as bodies, and nothing else: while to the person of whom we are speaking birds are, first of all, souls; his interest in them is, as we say, personal; and we are none of us in the habit of grouping our friends according to height, or complexion, or any other physical peculiarity.

But it is not proposed in this paper to attempt a new classification of any sort, even the most unscientific and fanciful. All I am to do is to set down at random a few studies in such a method as I have indicated; in short, a few studies in the temperaments of birds. Nor, in making this attempt, am I unmindful how elusive of analysis traits of character are, and how diverse is the impression which the same personality produces upon different observers. In matters of this kind every judgment is largely a question of emphasis and proportion; and, moreover, what we find in our friends depends in great part on what we have in ourselves. This I do not forget; and therefore I foresee that others will discover in the birds of whom I write many things that I miss, and perhaps will miss some things which I have treated as patent or even conspicuous. It remains only for each to testify what he has seen, and at the end to confess that a soul, even the soul of a bird, is after all a mystery.

Let our first example, then, be the common black-capped titmouse, or chickadee. He is, _par excellence_, the bird of the merry heart. There is a notion current, to be sure, that all birds are merry; but that is one of those second-hand opinions which a man who begins to observe for himself soon finds it necessary to give up. With many birds life is a hard struggle. Enemies are numerous, and the food supply is too often scanty. Of some species it is probable that very few die in their beds. But the chickadee seems to be exempt from all forebodings. His coat is thick, his heart is brave, and, whatever may happen, something will be found to eat. "Take no thought for the morrow" is his creed, which he accepts, not "for substance of doctrine," but literally. No matter how bitter the wind or how deep the snow, you will never find the chickadee, as the saying is, under the weather. It is this perennial good humor, I suppose, which makes other birds so fond of his companionship; and their example might well be heeded by persons who suffer from fits of depression. Such unfortunates could hardly do better than to court the society of the joyous tit. His whistles and chirps, his graceful feats of climbing and hanging, and withal his engaging familiarity (for, of course, such good-nature as his could not consist with suspiciousness) would most likely send them home in a more Christian mood. The time will come, we may hope, when doctors will prescribe bird-gazing instead of blue-pill.

To illustrate the chickadee's trustfulness, I may mention that a friend of mine captured one in a butterfly-net, and, carrying him into the house, let him loose in the sitting-room. The little stranger was at home immediately, and seeing the window full of plants, proceeded to go over them carefully, picking off the lice with which such window-gardens are always more or less infested. A little later he was taken into my friend's lap, and soon he climbed up to his shoulder; where, after hopping about for a few minutes on his coat-collar, he selected a comfortable roosting place, tucked his head under his wing, and went to sleep, and slept on undisturbed while carried from one room to another. Probably the chickadee's nature is not of the deepest. I have never seen him when his joy rose to ecstasy. Still his feelings are not shallow, and the faithfulness of the pair to each other and to their offspring is of the highest order. The female has sometimes to be taken off the nest, and even to be held in the hand, before the eggs can be examined.

Our American goldfinch is one of the loveliest of birds. With his elegant plumage, his rhythmical, undulatory flight, his beautiful song, and his more beautiful soul, he ought to be one of the best beloved, if not one of the most famous; but he has never yet had half his deserts. He is like the chickadee, and yet different. He is not so extremely confiding, nor should I call him merry. But he is always cheerful, in spite of his so-called plaintive note, from which he gets one of his names, and always amiable. So far as I know, he never utters a harsh sound; even the young ones, asking for food, use only smooth, musical tones. During the pairing season his delight often becomes rapturous. To see him then, hovering and singing,--or, better still, to see the devoted pair hovering together, billing and singing,--is enough to do even a cynic good. The happy lovers! They have never read it in a book, but it is written on their hearts,--

"The gentle law, that each should be
The other's heaven and harmony."

The goldfinch has the advantage of the titmouse in several respects, but he lacks that sprightliness, that exceeding light-heartedness, which is the chickadee's most endearing characteristic.

For the sake of a strong contrast, we may look next at the brown thrush, known to farmers as the planting-bird and to ornithologists as _Harporhynchus rufus_; a staid and solemn Puritan, whose creed is the Preacher's,--"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." No frivolity and merry-making for him! After his brief annual period of intensely passionate song, he does penance for the remainder of the year,--skulking about, on the ground or near it, silent and gloomy. He seems ever on the watch against an enemy, and, unfortunately for his comfort, he has nothing of the reckless, bandit spirit, such as the jay possesses, which goes to make a moderate degree of danger almost a pastime. Not that he is without courage; when his nest is in question he will take great risks; but in general his manner is dispirited, "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." Evidently he feels

"The heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world;"

and it would not be surprising if he sometimes raised the question, "Is life worth living?" It is the worst feature of his case that his melancholy is not of the sort which softens and refines the nature. There is no suggestion of saintliness about it. In fact, I am convinced that this long-tailed thrush has a constitutional taint of vulgarity. His stealthy, underhand manner is one mark of this, and the same thing comes out again in his music. Full of passion as his singing is (and we have hardly anything to compare with it in this regard), yet the listener cannot help smiling now and then; the very finest passage is followed so suddenly by some uncouth guttural note, or by some whimsical drop from the top to the bottom of the scale.

In neighborly association with the brown thrush is the towhee bunting, or chewink. The two choose the same places for their summer homes, and, unless I am deceived, they often migrate in company. But though they are so much together, and in certain of their ways very much alike, their habits of mind are widely dissimilar. The towhee is of a peculiarly even disposition. I have seldom heard him scold, or use any note less good-natured and musical than his pleasant _cherawink_. I have never detected him in a quarrel such as nearly all birds are once in a while guilty of, ungracious as it may seem to mention the fact; nor have I ever seen him hopping nervously about and twitching his tail, as is the manner of most species, when, for instance, their nests are approached. Nothing seems to annoy him. At the same time, he is not full of continual merriment like the chickadee, nor occasionally in a rapture like the goldfinch. Life with him is pitched in a low key; comfortable rather than cheerful, and never jubilant. And yet, for all the towhee's careless demeanor, you soon begin to suspect him of being deep. He appears not to mind you; he keeps on scratching among the dry leaves as if he had no thought of being driven away by your presence; but in a minute or two you look that way again, and he is not there. If you pass near his nest, he makes not a tenth part of the ado which a brown thrush would make in the same circumstances, but (partly for this reason) you will find half a dozen nests of the thrush sooner than one of his. With all his simplicity and frankness, which puts him in happy contrast with the thrush, he knows as well as anybody how to keep his own counsel. I have seen him with his mate for two or three days together about the flower-beds in the Boston Public Garden, and so far as appeared they were feeding as unconcernedly as though they had been on their own native heath, amid the scrub-oaks and huckleberry bushes; but after their departure it was remembered that they had not once been heard to utter a sound. If self-possession be four fifths of good manners, our red-eyed Pipilo may certainly pass for a gentleman.

We have now named four birds, the chickadee, the goldfinch, the brown thrush, and the towhee,--birds so diverse in plumage that no eye could fail to discriminate them at a glance. But the four differ no more truly in bodily shape and dress than they do in that inscrutable something which we call temperament, disposition. If the soul of each were separated from the body and made to stand out in sight, those of us who have really known the birds in the flesh would have no difficulty in saying, This is the titmouse, and this the towhee. It would be with them as we hope it will be with our friends in the next world, whom we shall recognize there because we knew them here; that is, we knew _them_, and not merely the bodies they lived in. This kind of familiarity with birds has no necessary connection with ornithology. Personal intimacy and a knowledge of anatomy are still two different things. As we have all heard, ours is an age of science; but, thank fortune, matters have not yet gone so far that a man must take a course in anthropology before he can love his neighbor.

It is a truth only too patent that taste and conscience are sometimes at odds. One man wears his faults so gracefully that we can hardly help falling in love with them, while another, alas, makes even virtue itself repulsive. I am moved to this commonplace reflection by thinking of the blue jay, a bird of doubtful character, but one for whom, nevertheless, it is impossible not to feel a sort of affection and even of respect. He is quite as suspicious as the brown thrush, and his instinct for an invisible perch is perhaps as unerring as the cuckoo's; and yet, even when he takes to hiding, his manner is not without a dash of boldness. He has a most irascible temper, also, but, unlike the thrasher, he does not allow his ill-humor to degenerate into chronic sulkiness. Instead, he flies into a furious passion, and is done with it. Some say that on such occasions he swears, and I have myself seen him when it was plain that nothing except a natural impossibility kept him from tearing his hair. His larynx would make him a singer, and his mental capacity is far above the average; but he has perverted his gifts, till his music is nothing but noise and his talent nothing but smartness. A like process of depravation the world has before now witnessed in political life, when a man of brilliant natural endowments has yielded to low ambitions and stooped to unworthy means, till what was meant to be a statesman turns put to be a demagogue. But perhaps we wrong our handsome friend, fallen angel though he be, to speak thus of him. Most likely he would resent the comparison, and I do not press it. We must admit that juvenile sportsmen have persecuted him unduly; and when a creature cannot show himself without being shot at, he may be pardoned for a little misanthropy. Christians as we are, how many of us could stand such a test? In these circumstances, it is a point in the jay's favor that he still has, what is rare with birds, a sense of humor, albeit it is humor of a rather grim sort,--the sort which expends itself in practical jokes and uncivil epithets. He has discovered the school-boy's secret: that for the expression of unadulterated derision there is nothing like the short sound of _a_, prolonged into a drawl. _Yah_, _yah_, he cries; and sometimes, as you enter the woods, you may hear him shouting so as to be heard for half a mile, "Here comes a fool with a gun; look out for him!"

It is natural to think of the shrike in connection with the jay, but the two have points of unlikeness no less than of resemblance. The shrike is a taciturn bird. If he were a politician, he would rely chiefly on what is known as the "still hunt," although he too can scream loudly enough on occasion. His most salient trait is his impudence, but even that is of a negative type. "Who are you," he says, "that I should be at the trouble to insult you?" He has made a study of the value of silence as an indication of contempt, and is almost human in his ability to stare straight by a person whose presence it suits him to ignore. His imperturbability is wonderful. Watch him as closely as you please, you will never discover what he is thinking about. Undertake, for instance, now that the fellow is singing from the top of a small tree only a few rods from where you are standing,--undertake to settle the long dispute whether his notes are designed to decoy small birds within his reach. Those whistles and twitters,--hear them! So miscellaneous! so different from anything which would be expected from a bird of his size and general disposition! so very like the notes of sparrows! They must be imitative. You begin to feel quite sure of it. But just at this point the sounds cease, and you look up to discover that Collurio has fallen to preening his feathers in the most listless manner imaginable. "Look at me," he says; "do I act like one on the watch for his prey? Indeed, sir, I wish the innocent sparrows no harm; and besides, if you must know it, I ate an excellent game-breakfast two hours ago, while laggards like you were still abed." In the winter, which is the only season when I have been able to observe him, the shrike is to the last degree unsocial, and I have known him to stay for a month in one spot all by himself, spending a good part of every day perched upon a telegraph wire. He ought not to be very happy, with such a disposition, one would think; but he seems to be well contented, and sometimes his spirits are fairly exuberant. Perhaps, as the phrase is, he enjoys _himself_; in which case he certainly has the advantage of most of us,--unless, indeed, we are easily pleased. At any rate, he is philosopher enough to appreciate the value of having few wants; and I am not sure but that he anticipated the vaunted discovery of Teufelsdröckh, that the fraction of life may be increased by lessening the denominator. But even the stoical shrike is not without his epicurean weakness. When he has killed a sparrow, he eats the brains first; after that, if he is still hungry, he devours the coarser and less savory parts. In this, however, he only shares the well-nigh universal inconsistency. There are never many thorough-going stoics in the world. Epictetus declared with an oath that he should be glad to see _one_.[7] To take everything as equally good, to know no difference between bitter and sweet, penury and plenty, slander and praise,--this is a great attainment, a Nirvana to which few can hope to arrive. Some wise man has said (and the remark has more meaning than may at once appear) that dying is usually one of the last things which men do in this world.

Against the foil of the butcher-bird's stolidity we may set the inquisitive, garrulous temperament of the white-eyed vireo and the yellow-breasted chat. The vireo is hardly larger than the goldfinch, but let him be in one of his conversational moods, and he will fill a smilax thicket with noise enough for two or three cat-birds. Meanwhile he keeps his eye upon you, and seems to be inviting your attention to his loquacious abilities. The chat is perhaps even more voluble. _Staccato_ whistles and snarls follow each other at most extraordinary intervals of pitch, and the attempt at showing off is sometimes unmistakable. Occasionally he takes to the air, and flies from one tree to another; teetering his body and jerking his tail, in an indescribable fashion, and chattering all the while. His "inner consciousness" at such a moment would be worth perusing. Possibly he has some feeling for the grotesque. But I suspect not; probably what we laugh at as the antics of a clown is all sober earnest to him.

At best, it is very little we can know about what is passing in a bird's mind. We label him with two or three _sesquipedalia verba_, give his territorial range, describe his notes and his habits of nidification, and fancy we have rendered an account of the bird. But how should we like to be inventoried in such a style? "His name was John Smith; he lived in Boston, in a three-story brick house; he had a baritone voice, but was not a good singer." All true enough; but do you call that a man's biography?

The four birds last spoken of are all wanting in refinement. The jay and the shrike are wild and rough, not to say barbarous, while the white-eyed vireo and the chat have the character which commonly goes by the name of oddity. All four are interesting for their strong individuality and their picturesqueness, but it is a pleasure to turn from them to creatures like our four common New England _Hylocichlæ_, or small thrushes. These are the real patricians. With their modest but rich dress, and their dignified, quiet demeanor, they stand for the true aristocratic spirit. Like all genuine aristocrats, they carry an air of distinction, of which no one who approaches them can long remain unconscious. When you go into their haunts they do not appear so much frightened as offended. "Why do you intrude?" they seem to say; "these are our woods;" and they bow you out with all ceremony. Their songs are in keeping with this character; leisurely, unambitious, and brief, but in beauty of voice and in high musical quality excelling all other music of the woods. However, I would not exaggerate, and I have not found even these thrushes perfect. The hermit, who is my favorite of the four, has a habit of slowly raising and depressing his tail when his mind is disturbed--a trick of which it is likely he is unconscious, but which, to say the least, is not a mark of good breeding; and the Wilson, while every note of his song breathes of spirituality, has nevertheless a most vulgar alarm call, a petulant, nasal, one-syllabled _yeork_. I do not know anything so grave against the wood thrush or the Swainson; although when I have fooled the former with decoy whistles, I have found him more inquisitive than seemed altogether becoming to a bird of his quality. But character without flaw is hardly to be insisted on by sons of Adam, and, after all deductions are made, the claim of the _Hylocichlæ_ to noble blood can never be seriously disputed. I have spoken of the four together, but each is clearly distinguished from all the others; and this I believe to be as true of mental traits as it is of details of plumage and song. No doubt, in general, they are much alike; we may say that they have the same qualities; but a close acquaintance will reveal that the qualities have been mixed in different proportions, so that the total result in each case is a personality strictly unique.

And what is true of the _Hylocichlæ_ is true of every bird that flies. Anatomy and dress and even voice aside, who does not feel the dissimilarity between the cat-bird and the robin, and still more the difference, amounting to contrast, between the cat-bird and the bluebird? Distinctions of color and form are what first strike the eye, but on better acquaintance these are felt to be superficial and comparatively unimportant; _the_ difference is not one of outside appearance. It is his gentle, high-bred manner and not his azure coat, which makes the bluebird; and the cat-bird would be a cat-bird in no matter what garb, so long as he retained his obtrusive self-consciousness and his prying, busy-body spirit; all of which, being interpreted, comes, it may be, to no more than this, "Fine feathers don't make fine birds."

Even in families containing many closely allied species, I believe that every species has its own proper character, which sufficient intercourse would enable us to make a due report of. Nobody ever saw a song-sparrow manifesting the spirit of a chipper, and I trust it will not be in my day that any of our American sparrows are found emulating the virtues of their obstreperous immigrant cousin. Of course it is true of birds, as of men, that some have much more individuality than others. But know any bird or any man well enough, and he will prove to be himself, and nobody else. To know the ten thousand birds of the world well enough to see how, in bodily structure, habit of life, and mental characteristics, every one is different from every other is the long and delightful task which is set before the ornithologist.

But this is not all. The ornithology of the future must be ready to give an answer to the further question how these divergences of anatomy and temperament originated. How came the chickadee by his endless fund of happy spirits? Whence did the towhee derive his equanimity, and the brown thrush his saturnine temper? The waxwing and the vireo have the same vocal organs; why should the first do nothing but whisper, while the second is so loud and voluble? Why is one bird belligerent and another peaceable; one barbarous and another civilized; one grave and another gay? Who can tell? We can make here and there a plausible conjecture. We know that the behavior of the blue jay varies greatly in different parts of the country, in consequence of the different treatment which he receives. We judge that the chickadee, from the peculiarity of his feeding habits, is more certain than most birds are of finding a meal whenever he is hungry; and that, we are assured from experience, goes a long way toward making a body contented. We think it likely that the brown thrush is at some special disadvantage in this respect, or has some peculiar enemies warring upon him; in which case it is no more than we might expect that he should be a pessimist. And, with all our ignorance, we are yet sure that everything has a cause, and we would fain hold by the brave word of Emerson, "Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable."

FOOTNOTES:

[7] This does not harmonize exactly with a statement which Emerson makes somewhere, to the effect that all the stoics were stoics indeed. But Epictetus had never lived in Concord.

IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Our music's in the hills.

EMERSON.

IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

It was early in June when I set out for my third visit to the White Mountains, and the ticket-seller and the baggage-master in turn assured me that the Crawford House, which I named as my destination, was not yet open. They spoke, too, in the tone which men use when they mention something which, but for uncommon stupidity, you would have known beforehand. The kindly sarcasm missed its mark, however. I was aware that the hotel was not yet ready for the "general public." But I said to myself that, for once at least, I was not to be included in that unfashionably promiscuous company. The vulgar crowd must wait, of course. For the present the mountains, in reporters' language, were "on private view;" and despite the ignorance of railway officials, I was one of the elect. In plainer phrase, I had in my pocket a letter from the manager of the famous inn before mentioned, in which he promised to do what he could for my entertainment, even though he was not yet, as he said, keeping a hotel.

Possibly I made too much of a small matter; but it pleased me to feel that this visit of mine was to be of a peculiarly intimate character,--almost, indeed, as if Mount Washington himself had bidden me to private audience.

Compelled to wait three or four hours in North Conway, I improved the opportunity to stroll once more down into the lovely Saco meadows, whose "green felicity" was just now at its height. Here, perched upon a fence-rail, in the shadow of an elm, I gazed at the snow-crowned Mount Washington range, while the bobolinks and savanna sparrows made music on every side. The song of the bobolinks dropped from above, and the microphonic tune of the sparrows came up from the grass,--sky and earth keeping holiday together. Almost I could have believed myself in Eden. But, alas, even the birds themselves were long since shut out of that garden of innocence, and as I started back toward the village a crow went hurrying past me, with a kingbird in hot pursuit. The latter was more fortunate than usual, or more plucky; actually alighting on the crow's back and riding for some distance. I could not distinguish his motions,--he was too far away for that,--but I wished him joy of his victory, and grace to improve it to the full. For it is scandalous that a bird of the crow's cloth should be a thief; and so, although I reckon him among my friends,--in truth, _because_ I do so,--I am always able to take it patiently when I see him chastised for his fault. Imperfect as we all know each other to be, it is a comfort to feel that few of us are so altogether bad as not to take more or less pleasure in seeing a neighbor's character improved under a course of moderately painful discipline.

At Bartlett word came that the passenger car would go no further, but that a freight train would soon start, on which, if I chose, I could continue my journey. Accordingly, I rode up through the Notch on a platform car,--a mode of conveyance which I can heartily and in all good conscience recommend. There is no crowd of exclaiming tourists, the train of necessity moves slowly, and the open platform offers no obstruction to the view. For a time I had a seat, which after a little two strangers ventured to occupy with me; for "it's an ill wind that blows nobody good," and there happened to be on the car one piece of baggage,--a coffin, inclosed in a pine box. Our sitting upon it could not harm either it or us; nor did we wean any disrespect to the man, whoever he might be, whose body was to be buried in it. Judging the dead charitably, as in duty bound, I had no doubt he would have been glad if he could have seen his "narrow house" put to such a use. So we made ourselves comfortable with it, until, at an invisible station, it was taken off. Then we were obliged to stand, or to retreat into a miserable small box-car behind us. The platform would lurch a little now and then, and I, for one, was not experienced as a "train hand;" but we all kept our places till the Frankenstein trestle was reached. Here, where for five hundred feet we could look down upon the jagged rocks eighty feet below us, one of the trio suddenly had an errand into the box-car aforesaid, leaving the platform to the other stranger and me. All in all, the ride through the Notch had never before been so enjoyable, I thought; and late in the evening I found myself once again at the Crawford House, and in one of the best rooms,--as well enough I might be, being the only guest in the house.

The next morning, before it was really light, I was lying awake looking at Mount Webster, while through the open window came the loud, cheery song of the white-throated sparrows. The hospitable creatures seemed to be inviting me to come at once into their woods; but I knew only too well that, if the invitation were accepted, they would every one of them take to hiding like bashful children.

The white-throat is one of the birds for whom I cherish a special liking. On my first trip to the mountains I jumped off the train for a moment at Bartlett, and had hardly touched the ground before I heard his familiar call. Here, then, was Mr. Peabody at home. Season after season he had camped near me in Massachusetts, and many a time I had been gladdened by his lively serenade; now he greeted me from his own native woods. So far as my observations have gone, he is common throughout the mountain region; and that in spite of the standard guide-book, which puts him down as patronizing the Glen House almost exclusively. He knows the routes too well to need any guide, however, and may be excused for his ignorance of the official programme. It is wonderful how shy he is,--the more wonderful, because, during his migrations, his manner is so very different. Then, even in a city park you may watch him at your leisure, while his loud, clear whistle is often to be heard rising above a din of horse-cars and heavy wagons. But here, in his summer quarters, you will listen to his song a hundred times before you once catch a glimpse of the singer. At first thought it seems strange that a bird should be most at home when he is away from home; but in the one case he has nothing but his own safety to consult, while in the other he is thinking of those whose lives are more to him than his own, and whose hiding-place he is every moment on the alert to conceal.

In Massachusetts we do not expect to find sparrows in deep woods. They belong in fields and pastures, in roadside thickets, or by fence-rows and old stone-walls bordered with barberry bushes and alders. But these white-throats are children of the wilderness. It is one charm of their music that it always comes, or seems to come, from such a distance,--from far up the mountain-side, or from the inaccessible depths of some ravine. I shall not soon forget its wild beauty as it rose out of the spruce forests below me, while I was enjoying an evening promenade, all by myself, over the long, flat summit of Moosilauke. From his habit of singing late at night this sparrow is in some places known as the nightingale. His more common name is the Peabody bird; while a Jefferson man, who was driving me over the Cherry Mountain road, called him the Peverly bird, and told me the following story:--

A farmer named Peverly was walking about his fields one spring morning, trying to make up his mind whether the time had come to put in his wheat. The question was important, and he was still in a deep quandary, when a bird spoke up out of the wood and said, "Sow wheat, Peverly, Peverly, Peverly!--Sow wheat, Peverly, Peverly, Peverly!" That settled the matter. The wheat was sown, and in the fall a most abundant harvest was gathered; and ever since then this little feathered oracle has been known as the Peverly bird.

We have improved on the custom of the ancients: they examined a bird's entrails; we listen to his song. Who says the Yankee is not wiser than the Greek?

But I was lying abed in the Crawford House when the voice of _Zonotrichia albicollis_ sent my thoughts thus astray, from Moosilauke to Delphi. That day and the two following were passed in roaming about the woods near the hotel. The pretty painted trillium was in blossom, as was also the dark purple species, and the hobble-bush showed its broad white cymes in all directions. Here and there was the modest little spring beauty (_Claytonia Caroliniana_), and not far from the Elephant's Head I discovered my first and only patch of dicentra, with its delicate dissected leaves and its oddly shaped petals of white and pale yellow. The false mitrewort (_Tiarella cordifolia_) was in flower likewise, and the spur which is cut off Mount Willard by the railroad was all aglow with rhodora,--a perfect flower-garden, on the monochromatic plan now so much in vogue. Along the edge of the rocks on the summit of Mount Willard a great profusion of the common saxifrage was waving in the fresh breeze:

"Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance."

On the lower parts of the mountains, the foliage was already well out, while the upper parts were of a fine purplish tint, which at first I was unable to account for, but which I soon discovered to be due to the fact that the trees at that height were still only in bud.

A notable feature of the White Mountain forests is the absence of oaks and hickories. These tough, hard woods would seem to have been created on purpose to stand against wind and cold. But no; the hills are covered with the fragile poplars and birches and spruces, with never an oak or hickory among them. I suspect, indeed, that it is the very softness of the former which gives them their advantage. For this, as I suppose, is correlated with rapid growth; and where the summer is very short, speed may count for more than firmness of texture, especially during the first one or two years of the plant's life. Trees, like men, lose in one way what they gain in another; or, in other words, they "have the defects of their qualities." Probably Paul's confession, "When I am weak, then am I strong," is after all only the personal statement of a general law, as true of a poplar as of a Christian. For we all believe (do we not?) that the world is a universe, governed throughout by one Mind, so that whatever holds in one part is good everywhere.

But it was June, and the birds, who were singing from daylight till dark, would have the most of my attention. It was pleasant to find here two comparatively rare warblers, of whom I had before had only casual glimpses,--the mourning warbler and the bay-breasted. The former was singing his loud but commonplace ditty within a few rods of the piazza on one side of the house, while his congener, the Maryland yellow-throat, was to be heard on the other side, along with the black-cap (_Dendroeca striata_), the black-and-yellow, and the Canadian flycatcher. The mourning warbler's song, as I heard it, was like this: _Whit whit whit_, _wit wit_. The first three notes were deliberate and loud, on one key, and without accent. The last two were pitched a little lower, and were shorter, with the accent on the first of the pair; they were thinner in tone than the opening triplet, as is meant to be indicated by the difference of spelling.[8] Others of the family were the golden-crowned thrush, the small-billed water-thrush, the yellow-rumped, the Blackburnian (with his characteristic _zillup_, _zillup_, _zillup_), the black-throated green, the black-throated blue (the last with his loud, coarse _kree_, _kree_, _kree_), the redstart, and the elegant blue yellow-back. Altogether, they were a gorgeous company.