Chapter XVIII: A Bird Anthology from Lowell 242 (2)

For ever-presentness, however, both summer and winter, the crested titmice and white-breasted nuthatches bear off the palm. Many droll tricks they perform. One day in January a titmouse scurried from the ground into a sapling; he held a large grain of corn between his mandibles, and, after flitting about a few moments, hopped to a dead branch that lay across the twigs, and deftly pushed the grain into the end of the bough. I stepped closer, when he tried to secure the hidden morsel; but my presence frightened him away, and I climbed the sapling, drew the broken branch toward me, and peered into the splintered end; yes, there was the grain of corn wedged firmly into a crevice. The provident little fellow! He had secreted the morsel for a stormy day when it would be impossible to procure food on the ground. If Solomon had watched these thrifty, industrious birds, as they pursue their untiring quest for food, he doubtless would have written in his Proverbs: “Go to the titmouse, thou sluggard; consider his ways, and be wise.”

Associated with the titmice, kinglets, and nuthatches were the downy woodpeckers, which belong to the artisan family of the bird community, being hammerers, drillers, and chisellers all combined. They pursue their chosen calling most sedulously. “What’s the use of having a vocation if you don’t follow it?” you may almost hear them say as they cant their heads to one side and peep under the bark for a tidbit, or hammer vigorously at a crevice in which a worm is embedded. The hairy woodpeckers, which are somewhat larger, are more erratic in their movements, none having been seen from the autumn until the latter part of January. At this date I heard their loud, nervous _Chi-i-i-r-r_, as they dashed from tree to tree apparently in great excitement.

I cannot forbear contrasting this winter with the previous one. In the winter of 1889-1890 the song-sparrows never left us at all, but sang on almost every pleasant day when I went to the woods or marsh; but this winter, which was somewhat colder, they went to other climes, and left the fringes of the pools and the thickets in the swamp tenantless, songless, and desolate. In 1889-1890 the cardinal grossbeaks whistled every month, making the woods ring even in January; this winter not a single note was heard from their resonant throats. I had just begun to fear that the pair which had greeted me so frequently the previous winter had been slaughtered by some caterer to the shameful fashions of the day, when, on the twenty-eighth of January, I was gladdened by the sight of them in company with several of their relatives or acquaintances and a bevy of tree-sparrows. Where had the grossbeaks been since November? And if they had gone south, why did they return from their visit so early in the season? Or perhaps a still more pertinent inquiry would be, Why had they gone away at all? It is difficult, however, to explain grossbeak caprice or ratiocination.

What do the birds do when it rains? No doubt, when the rain pours in torrents, they find plenty of coverts in the thick bushes or in the cavities of trees; but when the rain falls gently, and I make my way to their haunts, as I often do, they flit about as industriously as ever in their quest for food, only stopping now and then to shake the pearly drops from their water-proof cloaks. In such humid weather the wood-choppers in the forest—the human ones—stop their work and seek shelter. Not so these feathered workers, who gayly continue their playful toil, and exclaim exultingly, “Isn’t this a jolly rain?”

In another chapter mention has been made of the provident habits of certain birds, especially the titmice and nuthatches, in laying by a winter store. As if to confirm what has been said, one winter day a nuthatch went scudding up and down the trunk of a large oak-tree at the border of the woods. Presently he cried, _Yank! yank!_ as if to announce a discovery. Then he pecked and pried with all his might, until at length he drew a grain of corn out of a crevice of the bark, placed it in a shallow pocket on the other side of the tree, and began to pick it to pieces, swallowing the fragments as he broke them off. When this grain had been disposed of, he found another, and then another, until his hunger seemed to be appeased, when he darted off into the woods.

Other pedestrians and observers may differ from me both in temperament and habits, but to my mind nothing could be more delightful than a ramble in a snow-storm. Let the wind blow a gale from the west, driving the cold pellets blindingly into your face, and trying to rob you of your overcoat and cap; yet, if you have the spirit of the genuine rambler, your blood will tingle with delight, as well as with a sense of masterly overcoming, as you plod along; while you feel that every fierce gust that strikes you is only one of Nature’s love-taps,—a little rough, it is true, but for that very reason all the more expressive of affection. Stalking forth into the teeth of a winter storm develops the hardy traits of character, and puts the ingredients from which heroes are made into the pulsing veins. Many a time, as I have pushed my way triumphantly through the pelting wind, I have answered with a shout of joy Emerson’s vigorous challenge,—

“Come see the north wind’s masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry, evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Carves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.”

My winter saunterings have never been solitary, although often taken in haunts “far from human neighborhood.” The birds have afforded me all the companionship I have really craved. One is never lonely when one can see the flutter of a wing or hear the calls of the blithe commoners of the wildwood. When your soul is fretted by the daily round of strifes and jealousies in the human world, you can hie to the woods, and learn a lesson of conciliation from the example of the loving fellowship that exists in the bird community. I have often been shamed by this constant display of amity among many feathered folk, when I thought of the childish bickerings of men in church and state.

But moralizing aside, I must describe the behavior of my little winter friends, the tree-sparrows. They are the hardiest birds that spend the winter in my neighborhood, disdaining to seek shelter in the thick woods during the most violent snow-storm. Even the snowbirds, whose very name is a synonym for toughness, are glad to seek a covert in some secluded forest nook; but the tree-sparrows choose the clearing at the border of the woodland, where the wind howls loudest and blows the snow in wild eddies. Here they revel in the storm, flitting from twig to twig, hopping on the snow-covered ground as if it were a carpet of down, and picking seeds from grass-stems and weed-stalks. All the while they keep up a cheerful chirping, as if to express their appreciation of the pleasant winter weather.

Strangest of all is their wading about in the snow. It makes me shiver to see their little bare feet sinking into the icy crystals, and I feel disposed to offer them my warm rubber boots; only I know they would decline the proposal with scorn. “I am no tenderfoot!” one of them seems to say, with cunning literalness. Their dainty tracks in the snow are suggestive, and give to the thoughtful observer more than one clew to bird cerebration. Let us follow one of these winding pathways. Here a bird alighted, his feet sinking deep into the cold down; then he hopped along to this tuft of grass, where he picked a few mouthfuls of seeds, standing up to his body in the snow; then an impulse seized him to seek another feeding-place; so he went plunging through the drifts, leaving, at regular intervals, the prints of his two tiny feet side by side, while his toes traced a slender connecting line on the white surface between the deeper indentations. But here is another path. What impulse seized this bird to turn back like a rabbit on his track? For it is evident that this is sometimes done. Then here are only two or three footprints, showing that the bird alighted suddenly, and as suddenly yielded to an impulse to fly up again. What thought struck him just at that moment that made him so quickly change his mind?

At one point I traced a path which bore evidence of having been used a number of times for a long distance, as it wound here and there in an extremely sinuous course among the bushes and briers. Probably it was a sparrow-trail, if not a thoroughfare, and had been used by many birds. In more than one place were small hollows in the snow, just large enough for a bird’s body to wallow in. Usually they were at the terminus of one of these thoroughfares. Might the birds have tarried there to take a snow-bath? I have seen birds taking pool-baths, shower-baths, dew-baths, and dust-baths. Who will say they never take a snow-bath?

Next to the tree-sparrows, the juncos delight to hold carnival in the snow; but their behavior in this element is somewhat different: they are not so fond of hopping about in it, and do not plait such a network of tracks among the bushes. They will fly from a perch directly to the ground near a weed-stalk or other cluster of dainties, and stand quietly in the snow up to their little bodies while they take their luncheon. Sometimes their white breasts rest on the surface of the snow, or in a slight depression of it, when they look as if they were sitting in a nest of crystals.

The eighth of January was a cold day; in a little opening in the midst of the woods was a covey of snowbirds, and, incredible as it may seem, several of them stood in the selfsame tracks in the snow, so long that my own feet actually got frost-bitten while I watched them, although I wore three pairs of socks—this is an honest confession—and a pair of warm rubber boots. More than that, they thrust their beaks into the snow and ate of it quite greedily. What wonderful reserves of caloric must be wrapped up in their small bodies to enable them to keep themselves comfortable in winter with never a mouthful of warm victuals or drink! That the birds should thrive and be happy in the spring and summer is no matter of surprise; but it remains for the lover of out-door life in the winter to prove that many of them are just as cheerful and content when the mercury has taken a jaunt to some point far below zero.

The student of Nature cannot always be in the same mood. Indeed, Nature herself is, at times, as whimsical, apparently, as the human heart. There are times when she seems quite stolid, keeping her precious secrets all to herself, as if her lips had been hermetically sealed. With all your coaxing and hoaxing and flattery, you cannot win from her a response. Emerson, in one of his poems, speaks about the forms of Nature dulling the edge of the mind with their monotony; and this sometimes seems to be the case. Yet I must protest at once that it is not generally true. There are days when Nature fairly bubbles over with good cheer, and grows talkative and even confidential, responding to every touch of the rambler as a well-strung harp responds to the touch of a skilful player. It is difficult to account for her changeable moods, but obviously they are not always to be traced only to the mind of the observer.

During the winter of 1891-1892 many a tramp was taken to the homes of the birds; and let me whisper that there were days when even they seemed to be dull and commonplace. That is a frank concession for a bird-lover to make, but it is the truth. Sometimes these feathered actors have behaved in the most ordinary way, failing to perform a single trick that I had not seen a score of times before, and I have actually gone home without making a single entry in my note-book. But it has not always been so. There, for example, was the twenty-second of January; what an eventful day it was! The morning of the twenty-first had been very cold, the mercury having sunk, probably in a fit of despair, to fourteen degrees below zero. During the day, however, the weather grew considerably warmer; and when the twenty-second came, bright and clear, though still cold, one could take a jaunt with some comfort. The sun shone from a cloudless sky, and having put on my warm rubber boots, I waded out through the deep snow to the woods. The severe weather had not discouraged the jolly juncos and tree-sparrows, or driven them to a warmer climate. They delight in cold weather; it seems to make them all the merrier. They were flitting about in the bushes and trees, chirping gayly, or, like myself, were wading in the snow, although they had no woollen stockings for their little feet, much less warm rubber boots. What hardy creatures they are! For long distances I could trace their dainty tracks in the snow, winding in and out among the bushes and weeds, and making many a graceful curve, loop, angle, and labyrinth. By following these little paths, as has been said before, you may trace the thoughts of a bird,—that is, you may for the time become a bird mind-reader, interpreting every impulse that seized the throbbing little brain and breast.

While watching these birds in the woods, I observed a new freak of bird deportment. The juncos would fly up into the dogwood-trees, pick off a berry, nibble it greedily a moment with their little white mandibles, and then fling it to the ground. My eye was especially fixed on one little epicure. Presently he found a berry that was juicy and quite to his taste, and what did he do but seize it in his beak and dash down into the snow, where he stood leg-deep in the icy crystals until he had eaten his blood-red tidbit! He was in no hurry, but slowly picked the berry to pieces, flinging it again and again into the snow, devouring the soft red pulp and throwing the rind and seed away. He must have stood for fully five minutes in the same tracks; at all events, it seemed a long while to me, standing stock-still in the snow, watching him eat his cold luncheon, while my feet were becoming chilled. I should have pitied his little feet had he not seemed so utterly indifferent to the cold. Afterward I saw a number of juncos, as well as tree-sparrows, taking their dinner in a similar way,—that is, on the snow, which seemed to serve them for a table-cloth. Having eaten the pulp of the berries, they left the pits and scarlet rinds lying on top of the snow. Crumbs they were, scattered about by these precious children of the woods! In this respect the snowbirds and tree-sparrows differ from the crested titmice, which reject the pulp of the dogwood berries entirely, but bore out the kernel of the pit and eat it with a relish. And as to the gluttonous robins, bluebirds, woodpeckers, and waxwings, they swallow these berries whole. Every citizen of Birdville to his own taste, so I say.

In the corn-field adjoining the woods I witnessed another little scene that filled me with delight. At some distance I perceived a snowbird eating seeds from the raceme of a tall weed, which bent over in a graceful arc beneath its dainty burden. Apparently he was enjoying his repast all to himself. I climbed the fence, and cautiously went nearer to get a better view of the little diner-out. What kind of discovery do you suppose I made? I could scarcely believe my eyes. There, beneath the weed, hopping about on the snow, were a tree-sparrow and a junco, picking up the seeds that their little companion above was shaking down. It was such a pretty little comedy that I laughed aloud for pure delight. It seemed for all the world like a boy in an apple-tree shaking down the mellow fruit for his playmates, who were gathering it from the ground as it fell. It was a pity to disturb the birds at their festivities, and I felt like a bully for doing so; but in the interest of science, you see, I had to drive them away to see what kind of table they had spread. Beneath the weed the snow was etched with dainty bird-tracks, and thickly strewn with black seeds from the raceme of the weed-stalk.

Farther on in the woods, another cunning little junco proved himself no lay figure. It seemed, in fact, to be a junco day. When I first espied him, he was standing in the snow beneath a slender weed-stem eating seeds from his white table-cloth. But the curious feature about his behavior was that, whenever his supply of seeds on the snow had been picked up, he would dart up to the weed-stem (which was too slender to afford him a comfortable perch), give it a vigorous shake, which would bring down a quantity of seeds, and then he would flit below and resume his meal. This he did several times. I should not have believed a junco gifted with so much sense had not my own eyes witnessed this cunning performance. Had some other observer told the story, I should have laughed at it a little slyly and more than half unbelievingly; but, of course, one cannot gainsay the evidence of one’s own eyesight.

Nothing in all my winter rambles has surprised me more than the evident delight some species of birds take in the snow. It is a sort of luxury to them, wading-ground and feasting-ground all in one. How they keep their little bare feet from becoming chilblained is a mystery. The evening of the twentieth of January was bitterly cold, the wind blowing in fierce, howling gusts from the northwest. Yet when, at about five o’clock, I stalked out to the pond in the rear of my house, the tree-sparrows and song-sparrows were fairly revelling, not to say wallowing, in the snow among the weeds. The wind was so biting that I soon hurried back to the house, and left them to their midwinter carousal.

Quite a respectable colony of flickers found a home during the winter in my favorite woodland. Unlike the other birds mentioned, they do not wade about in the snow. No; to their minds, a bare tree-wall is the desideratum for a tramping-ground; and if they need more exercise than promenading affords them, they can take to wing and go bounding from one part of the woods to another. A flicker is a staid bird when he doesn’t happen to be in a playful mood. You would have laughed at one in December which was clinging to a branch high up in a tree with his head right in front of a woodpecker hole, over which he seemed to be standing guard. There he clung, as if that hollow contained the most precious treasure, and would not desert his post, although I leaped about on the ground, shouted loudly, and even flung my cap in the air like a wild man, to frighten him away. How comical he looked in his rôle of sentinel! He never smiled or even winked, but left such trifling to the human scatter-brain below, who was so ill-mannered as to laugh at a well-behaved woodpecker. Perhaps he had a winter store of food stowed away in that cavity, and thought he had to guard it well, now that a real brigand had come prowling about the premises.

IV.
FEBRUARY OUTINGS.

If I were not afraid of the ridicule of the cynic, I should begin this February chronicle with an exclamation of delight; but in these days, when so many of the so-called cultured class have taken for their motto, _Nil admirari_, one must try to repress one’s enthusiasm, or be scoffed at, or at least patronized, as young and inexperienced. Yet it would be out of the question for the genuine rambler to keep the valve constantly upon his buoyant feelings. If he did so, he would be wholly out of tune with the jubilant mood of bird and bloom and wave around him.

Almost every day of February, 1891, was a gala-day for me, on account of the large number of birds in song at that time. The weather was not always pleasant, but the month came in blandly, bringing on its gentle winds many birds from their southern winter-quarters; and as they had come, they made up their minds to stay. My notes begin with the eleventh of the month, and my narrative will begin with that date. In the evening I strolled out to my favorite swamp. On my arrival all was quiet; but soon the song-sparrows, seeing that a human auditor had come, broke into a jingling chorus. Early in the season as it was, they seemed to be almost in perfect voice, only a little of the hesitancy and twitter of their fall songs being distinguishable; nor did they seem to care for the raw evening wind blowing across the meadows, or the gray clouds scurrying athwart the sky, but kept up their canticles until the dusk fell.

Two days later, while sauntering through a woodland, I had the greatest surprise of the winter. For several years I had been studying the tree-sparrows, hoping to hear them sing, but only two or three times had my anxious quest been rewarded with even a wisp of melody from their lyrical throats. On this day, however, I came upon a whole colony of them in full tune, giving a concert that would have thrilled the most prosaic soul with poetry and romance. It was the first time I had ever really seen these birds while singing; but now, so kind was fortune, I could watch the movement of their mandibles, the swelling of their throats, and the heaving of their bosoms while they trilled their roundelays. My notes, taken on the spot, run as follows: “The song is somewhat crude and labored in technique; but the tones are very sweet indeed, not soft and low, as one author says, but quite loud and clear, so that they might be heard at some distance. The minstrelsy is more like that of the fox-sparrow than of any other sparrow, though the tones are finer and not so full and resonant. Quite often the song opens with one or two long syllables, and ends with a merry little trill having a delightfully human intonation. There is, indeed, something innocent and even childlike about the voices of these sparrows. Had they the song-sparrow’s skill in execution, they would rival that triller’s vocal performances. How many of them are taking part in the concert! They seem to be holding a song carnival to-day, and there is real witchery in their music. Frequently their songs are superimposed, as it were, upon the semi-musical chattering in which these birds so often indulge.”

But, strange to say, although the conditions were apparently in every respect favorable, I did not hear the song of a single tree-sparrow after that epochal day for more than a year. Evidently these birds are erratic songsters, at least in this latitude. On the same day the meadow-larks flung their flute-like songs athwart the fields, and the bold bugle of the Carolina wren echoed through the woods.

_February 14._ “In the swamp the song-sparrows are holding an opera festival,” my notes run. “One of them trills softly in a clump of wild-rose bushes, as if asking permission to sing; and then, his request being gladly granted, he leaps up boldly to a twig of a sapling, and breaks into a torrent of melody. Another, in precisely the same tune, answers him farther down the stream, the two executing a sort of fugue. A third leaps about on the dry grass that fringes a ditch, twitters merrily for a while, then flies to a small oak-tree near by, and—well, such a loud, rollicking, tempestuous song I have never before heard from a song-sparrow’s throat. Some of his tones are full and exultant, while others in the same run are low and tender, like the strains of a love-lorn harp. The tones produced by exhalation can be distinguished from those produced by inhalation. Sometimes his voice sounds a little hoarse, as if he had strained one of the strings of his lyre, but I find, on focusing my ear upon them, that these are some of his most melodious notes. Presently, in a fit of ecstasy, he hurls forth such a torrent of song, in _allegro furioso_, that one almost fancies the naiads and water-witches of the marsh are crying out for admiration.

“Here is something worthy of note—when the song-sparrow begins a trill, he usually sings it over a number of times, and then, as if wearied with one tune, turns to another; and yet with all his variations—and I know not how many he is capable of singing—there is always something distinctive about his minstrelsy that differentiates it from that of all other birds.”

_February 17._ “Again in the swamp. It seems to me I have never before heard the song-sparrows sing so gleefully. Every concert goes ahead of its predecessor. Here is a sparrow hopping about on the green grass among the bushes like a brown mouse; now he chirps sharply as if to attract my attention, and then bursts into a melody that almost makes me turn a somersault for very joy; and now, having sung his intermittent trills for a few minutes, he begins to warble a sweet, continuous lay, with an _andante_ movement, as if he could not stop.

“A little farther on, another songster, with a voice of excellent _timbre_, is descanting on a small oak sapling. Note, he runs over several trills, rising higher at every effort, until at last he strikes a note far up in the scale, holds it firmly a moment, and then drops to a lower note. Then he repeats the process, the summit of his ambition being attained whenever he reaches that high note, which is bewitchingly sweet. How clear and true his voice rings!

“Sometimes a silence falls upon the marsh; not a note is to be heard for a minute or two; and then, as if by a preconcerted signal, a dozen sparrows throw the air into musical tumult, their combined rush of notes seeming almost like a salvo. Often, too, when I approach the marsh, no music is heard, but no sooner have I climbed the fence into the enclosure than the choral begins; so that I believe I am justified in saying that the song-sparrow appreciates a human auditor. This is not said by way of disparagement,—by no means; for almost all musicians, whether human or avian, sing to be heard.”

On the same day I saw a song-sparrow whose central tail-feather was pure white from quill to tip, and the bird remained in the marsh until the twenty-fourth of the month, his odd adornment visible from afar. I was also surprised to find two male chewinks in the bushes. A cardinal grossbeak was also seen, and a robin’s song and the loud call of a flicker were heard.

My next outing occurred on the nineteenth, when the weather had turned colder, and snow was falling, mingled with sleet; yet several song-sparrows trilled softly in the marsh. On the twenty-third crow blackbirds were seen, and on the twenty-fourth a turtle-dove was cooing meditatively, and the song-sparrows were holding another opera festival. The last days of February became cold again, and March brought several severe storms; but I think none of the hardy, adventurous birds named, retreated to a warmer clime, even if they did regret having left their winter quarters a little prematurely.

V.
ARRIVAL OF THE BIRDS.

Have any of my readers kept a record of the arrival of the birds during the spring? The northward procession of the battalions in feathers is an interesting study. Why do some birds begin their pilgrimage from the south so much earlier than others? What is there in their physical and mental make-up that gives them the northward impulse even before fair weather has come? Do they become homesick for their summer haunts sooner than their fellows? These are questions that are much more easily asked than answered. The size of the bird furnishes no clew to the solution, for some small birds are better able to resist the cold than many larger ones. There is the little black-capped titmouse—a mere mite of a bird—which generally remains in my neighborhood all winter, cheerfully braving the stormiest weather; while the brown thrasher, fully five times as large, is carefully warming his shins in the sunny south, and will not venture north until the spring has come to stay. Here, too, is Bewick’s wren on the first day of April,—with no thought of making an April fool of any one,—while the Baltimore orioles, rose-breasted grossbeaks, and scarlet tanagers, all larger than he, are tarrying in Georgia and Alabama. There is nothing in the size or color or form of the birds that makes this difference; it is doubtless in the blood.

I have kept a careful memorandum of the arrival of these feathered voyagers (this was during the spring of 1892), and know almost to a certainty the day, and sometimes the hour, when they cast anchor in this port. The winter had been unusually severe, and yet the migration began as early as the twenty-second of February, when the first meadow-larks put in appearance, and sent their wavering shafts of song across the frost-bound fields. They had left only on the last day of December, but had apparently remained away as long as they could. On the same day the killdeer plovers also arrived, making their presence known by their wailing cry. On the twenty-third I heard the _Q-q-o-o-ka-l-e-e-e_ of the red-winged blackbirds, and on the morning of the twenty-fourth the first robins dropped from the sky after a “flying trip” in the night from some more southern stopping-place; but the weather was too cold for them to sing. Yet the song-sparrows and meadow-larks defied the cold with their cheerful melody. While the robin is a very gay and lavish songster, he wants favorable weather for his vocal rehearsals, and a “cold snap” will easily discourage him. He is evidently somewhat of a fair-weather minstrel. It was on February twenty-eighth, a pleasant day, that I caught the first strain of robin melody.

The towhee buntings dropped anchor on the seventh of March, filling the woods with their fine, explosive trills. It was a pleasant day, a sort of oasis in the midst of the stormy weather, and it did not seem inapt to speculate a little as to the thoughts of these birds on their arrival at their old summer haunts, after an absence of four or five months. Was the old brush-heap, where they had built their nest the previous spring, still there? Had the winter storms spared the twig on the sapling where Cock Bunting had sung erstwhile his sweetest trills to his dusky mate? “What if the woodman has cleared away our pleasant corner of the woods?” whispers Mrs. Towhee to her lord as they approach the sequestered spot. How their hearts must bound with joy when they find sapling and brush-heap and winding woodway all as they had left them in the autumn! No wonder they are so tuneful! Even the snow-storms that moan and howl through the woods a few days later cannot wholly repress their exuberant feelings.

On the same date a whole colony of young song-sparrows stopped at this station on their journey northward, although you must remember that quite a number of their elders remained here through the winter. What a twittering these year-old sparrows made in the bushes fringing the woods! I actually laughed aloud at their crude, tuneless, quasi-musical efforts. They were not in good voice, and, besides, had not yet fully learned the tunes that are sung in sparrowdom, and could not control their vocal chords. They made many sorry and amusing attempts to chant and trill, but their voices would break and catch in the most remarkable ways, now sliding up too high in the scale, now sliding down too low, and now veering too much to one side, so to speak. One tyro, I observed, sang the first part of a run very well, almost as well, in fact, as an adult musician could have sung it; but when he tried to finish, his voice seemed to fly all to flinders. He made the attempt again and again, but to no purpose. It was a day for which I have cut a notch in the tally-stick of memory. Leaving the company of young vocalists at their rehearsals at the border of the woods, I made my way to a swamp not far off, where a pleasant surprise lay in ambush. Here were no longer found young song-sparrows, but adults, and you should have heard them sing. What a contrast between the crude songs of the young birds and the loud, clear, splendidly intoned and executed trills of these trained musicians!

But I must return to the subject of migration. The fifteenth of March was a raw, blustering day, as its predecessors had been; but in the woods several fox-sparrows were singing, not their best, of course, but fairly well for such weather. They must have come during the night. But why had they come when the weather was so cold? Most birds wait until there is a bland air-current from the south on which they can ride triumphantly. Had this small band of fox-sparrows followed the example of a well-known American humorist, and gone to “roughing it”? Strange to say, I saw no more fox-sparrows until the twenty-eighth, when the weather had grown warm. That was also the day on which I saw the first winter wren scudding about in the brush-heaps and wood-piles and perking up his tail in the most approved bantam fashion. It may be a poor joke, but the thought came of its own accord, that if brevity is the soul of wit, this little wren must have a very witty tail; and it really is an amusing appendage, held up at an acute angle with the bird’s sloping back.

As I strolled along the edge of the woods on the same day, the fine rhythmic trill of the bush-sparrow reached my ear. He was celebrating his return to this sylvan resort, and his voice was in excellent trim; the fact is, I never heard him acquit himself quite so well, not even in May. Miss Lucy Larcom, of tender and sacred memory, has happily characterized this triller’s song in melodious verse:—

“One syllable, clear and soft
As a raindrop’s silvery patter,
Or a tinkling fairy-bell, heard aloft,
In the midst of the merry chatter
Of robin and linnet and wren and jay,—
One syllable oft repeated;
He has but a word to say,
And of that he will not be cheated.”

But why was not the grass-finch, his relative of the fields, in just as good voice when he arrived on the thirty-first? The last two springs this bird had to be on his singing-grounds several days before he recovered his full powers of voice. On the twenty-ninth the phœbe came with his burden of sweet song, and the first of April brought Bewick’s wren—sweet-voiced Arion of the suburbs—and the chipping sparrow, whose slender peal of song rang through my study window. Here my record stops for the present year; but by reference to my last year’s notes (1891) it appears that Bewick’s wren did not then arrive until April tenth, and chippy not until April twelfth. The difference in the seasons is doubtless the primary cause of this divergence in the time of arrival. April brings many other winged pilgrims,—the white-throated and white-crowned sparrows, the thrushes, the orioles, the tanagers, the cat-birds, the swallows and swifts, and some of the hardier warblers, while the great army of warblers delay their coming till the first and second weeks in May. And all the while we are having bird concerts, cantatas, oratorios, and opera festivals, mingled with some tragedy and a great deal of comedy, and there are love songs and cradle songs, matins and vespers, and twitterings expressive of every shade and variety of feeling.

I yield to the temptation to add a brief article entitled “Watching the Parade,” which was published in a New England journal in the summer of 1893, and contains a record of some observations made during the previous spring. By comparison with the preceding part of this chapter, it will indicate the versatile character of bird study in the same season of different years. I shall give it almost verbatim as first published, hoping the rather “free and easy” style will be generously overlooked by critical readers.

Every spring and autumn for many years I have been watching the parade; not a parade of soldiers, or of civic orders, or even of a menagerie; but one of far more interest to the naturalist,—the procession of the army in feathers. A wonderful cortége it is, this army in bright array; and every time you witness it, you add something new to your knowledge of bird life. The last spring has been no exception, although, when the pageant began, I wondered if I should see any new birds or hear any new songs, and even felt a little doubtful about it.

But quite early a new bird was added to my list. It was the blue-winged warbler, which carries about a scientific name big enough to break its dainty back. Just think of calling a tiny bird _Helminthophila pinus_! But happily it does not know its own name, and, like some of my readers, would not be able to pronounce it if it did, and therefore no serious harm is done. This bird may be known by the bright olive-green of its back, the pale blue of its wings, the pure yellow of its under parts, and the narrow black line running back through its eye. It seemed to be quite wary, yet I got near enough to see it catch insects on the wing like a wood-pewee, as well as pick them from the leaves of the trees.

The bird student must sometimes let problems go unsolved. For nearly, perhaps quite a week, three or four large, heavy-beaked birds flitted about in several tall tree-tops of the woods, but were so far up that, try as I would, I could not identify them even with my opera-glass. In my small collection of mounted birds there is a female evening grossbeak; and the tree-top flitters looked more like it than any other bird of my acquaintance. If they were evening grossbeaks, it was a rare find; for these birds are almost unknown in this part of the country, only a few having ever been discovered in this State. Their usual _locale_ is thought to be west of Lake Superior. I was sorely tempted to use a gun, but decided that it was just as well not to know some things as to massacre an innocent bird.

However, other finds were more satisfactory. Strolling through the woods one day, I caught the notes of a bird song that did not sound familiar. Surely it was a vireo’s quaint, continuous lay; but which of the vireos could it be? It was different from any vireo minstrelsy I had ever heard. Peering about in the bushes for the author of those elusive notes, I at length espied a little bird form, and the next moment my glass revealed the blue-headed or solitary vireo. It was the first time I had ever heard this little vocalist sing in the spring, although we have met—he and I—on familiar terms every season for many years. Here is a query: Why was blue-head silent other years, and so tuneful that spring? For he was often heard after that day.

The song was varied and lively, sometimes running high in the scale, and had not that absent-minded air which marks the roundelay of the warbling vireo. It is much more intense and expressive, and some notes are quite like certain runs of the brown thrasher’s song. The bird did two other things that were a surprise: he chattered and scolded much like the ruby-crowned kinglet. Then he caught a miller, and, as it was too large to be swallowed whole, placed it under his claws precisely like a chickadee or blue jay, and pulled it to pieces. This was a new trick to me, nor have I ever read, in any of the bird manuals, of his taking his dinner in this way.

The red-eyed vireo also chanted a little roundel that spring, as he pursued his journey northward, his song being slower in movement and less expressive and varied than that of his cousin just referred to.

Indeed, the procession seemed to be especially musical during that spring. One day, in the last week in April, a new style of music rang out at the border of the woods, and I fairly trembled lest the jolly soloist should scud away before I could identify him; but he had no intention of making his escape, and giving the credit of his vocal efforts to somebody else in the bird world. At length I got my glass upon him. He proved to be the purple finch,—rosy little Mozart that he was! For years he has passed through these woods with the vernal procession, but this was the first time he had ever been obliging enough to sing in my hearing. And what a rolling, rollicking little song it was, just as full of good cheer as bird song could be! He continued his vocal rehearsal for many minutes on that day, but afterward he and his fellows were as mute as the inmates of a deaf and dumb asylum. A purple finch once sang here in the fall; but the music was quite harsh and squeaking, very different from his springtime melody.

One of the most beautiful birds that have a part in the vernal parade is the rose-breasted grossbeak,—a bird that you will recognize at once by his white-and-black coat and the rosy shield he so bravely bears on his bosom. In his summer home, farther north, I have often heard his vivacious music (this was in northern Indiana); but until the past spring he has always been silent as he passed through this neighborhood, save that he would sometimes utter his sharp, metallic _Chip_. However, on the fourteenth of May two of these grossbeaks sang a most vigorous duet in the grove near my house; and I wish you could have heard it, for it would have made you almost leap for joy, it was so jolly and rollicksome. At first you may be disposed to think the grossbeak’s song much like the robin’s, but you will soon find that it is finer in several respects, the tones being clearer and fuller, the utterance more rapid and varied, and the whole song much more spirited; and that is saying a good deal, considering Cock Robin’s cheery carols. No one should fail to hear this rosy-breasted minstrel, whatever else he may miss. It will make him feel that life is worth living; that if God made this bird so happy, he must intend that his rational creatures, who are of more value than a bird, should also be cheerful.

Never were the birds so gentle and confiding as they were during that spring. A female redstart took up her residence in my yard for fully a week, flitting about in the trees and grape-arbor, seeking for nits and worms; and you are to remember that I live in town (though in the outskirts), with many houses and people about, and an electric car whirling along the street every few minutes. A dainty bay-breasted warbler—little witch!—kept the redstart company, letting me stand beneath the trees on whose lower branches she tilted, and watch her agile movements; yet one of my bird books declares that the bay-breasted warblers remain in the highest tree-tops of the woods! Both these birds occasionally uttered a trill.

The goldfinches, too, were very familiar. They came with the procession as far north as my neighborhood, but stopped here for the summer, instead of continuing their pilgrimage. Some of their brothers and sisters remained with me all winter. Within a few feet of my rear door stands a small apple-tree, in whose branches these feathered gold-flakes flashed about, and sang their childlike ditties, and one little madam fluttered in the leafy crotches of the twigs, fitting her body into them as if trying to see if they would make good nesting-sites; the while Sir Goldfinch sang and sang at the top of his voice. Several white-crowned sparrows also came to eat seeds thrown out into the back yard. These handsome sparrows were not shy, but perched on the fence or the trees, and trilled their sweet refrains.

VI.
WINGED VOYAGERS.

The subject of bird migration is one of absorbing interest, presenting many a perplexing problem to the student who cares to go into the philosophy of things. Why do the birds make these wonderful semi-annual pilgrimages, and whence came the original impulse, are questions often asked. With my limited opportunities for observation I cannot hope to shed much, if any, new light on the subject; yet it seems to me that some persons are disposed to invest it with more of an air of mystery than is really necessary. There are several patent, if not wholly satisfactory, reasons that may be assigned for the migrating impulse.

As this is not a scientific treatise, the writer will not be over-methodical in presenting these reasons, but will mention them in the order in which they occur to him. If we keep in mind the invariable succession of the seasons, and that this annual rotation has continued for ages, and if we also remember that all animals are dowered by their Creator with as much intelligence as is necessary for their well-being, much of the difficulty attaching to this subject will at once disappear. Birds, like their human kinsmen, learn by experience and tutelage, and are also gifted with a sure instinct that amounts in many cases almost to reason. Take, for instance, this one fact. As the sun creeps northward in the spring, it pours a more and more intense heat upon the northern portions of the tropical and sub-tropical regions. The heat would soon become intolerable to certain birds, which have doubtless tried the experiment of spending the summer in equatorial countries; or if individuals now living have not tried it, perhaps some of their more or less remote ancestors have. That birds do make experiments is proved by the fact that several pets of mine will carefully “sample” a new kind of food offered them, and if they do not find it to their taste, will let it severely alone; nor is it any the less evident that young birds receive instruction from their elders. Thus the necessity of leaving the torrid regions as summer approaches may have been impressed on the migrating species from time immemorial.

Again, as spring advances, insect and vegetable life is revived in regions farther north, and this certainly must act as a magnet upon the birds, drawing them from point to point as the supply of food becomes scarce in the more southern localities. Then, let us suppose for a moment that all the birds did remain in the south through the summer; there would sooner or later be a bird famine in the land, for the supply of seeds and insects would soon be exhausted. Our feathered folk are simply obliged, on account of the exigencies of food, to scatter themselves over a larger extent of country. They solve the problem of food supply and demand by these annual pilgrimages to the boreal lands of plenty.

To go a little more to the root of the matter, we may easily imagine how the migrating spirit got its first impulse and gradually became evolved into a habit of something like scientific precision. If the first birds lived in tropical climates, as was probably the case, some of them, as the food supply became exhausted, would be crowded northward, or would go of their own accord, and wherever they went they would find well-filled natural larders. Having once discovered that spring replenished the north with food, they would soon learn the desirability of making periodical journeys to that part of the globe. With this constant quest for food must also be coupled the instinctive desire of most birds for seclusion during the season of reproduction,—an instinct that would naturally drive them northward into the less thickly tenanted districts. But it may be objected that many species make long aerial voyages, passing over vast tracts of country to reach their chosen summer habitats in various parts of the north; and it is well known that the same individuals will return again and again, on the recurrence of spring, to the same locality. How are these facts to be accounted for?

If we accept the glacial theory—a hypothesis pretty well established now among scientific men—we may readily conceive that, as the sun melted the ice at a greater distance in both directions from the equator, the habitable area of the earth’s surface would gradually become enlarged. For the sake of vividness let us fancy ourselves living at that period of the world’s history. Let us select a point north of the equator where a given pair of birds can live in summer. They find plenty of food there, and are comparatively undisturbed by other birds, and they therefore become attached to the place, most feathered folk having a strong “homing instinct.” When winter comes, they and their progeny are forced to retire to the south; but they do not forget their pleasant summer haunt, their Mecca in the north, and therefore, at the approach of the following spring, they obey the home impulse and hie by easy stages to the beloved spot. Some of their number doubtless find it possible from time to time to push farther northward, and thus other breeding-haunts are selected. As the glacial accumulations melt away, the whole temperate region and a large part of the frigid zone become habitable. All this takes place by a very gradual process, requiring thousands of years, thus giving ample time for heredity to infuse the migratory habit into the nature of the birds. Every new generation would learn the route and other needful details from their predecessors, and thus the process would go on in an unending circuit year by year.

After the foregoing was written, my attention was called to the following quotation from Dr. J. A. Allen’s valuable paper on the “Origin of the Instinct of Migration in Birds.” The extract is taken from an article by Frank M. Chapman, published in “The Auk” for January, 1894: “Nothing is doubtless more thoroughly established than that a warm temperate or sub-tropical climate prevailed down to the close of the Tertiary epoch, nearly to the Northern Pole, and that climate was previously everywhere so far equable that the necessity for migration can hardly be supposed to have existed. With the later refrigeration of the northern regions, bird life must have been crowded thence toward the tropics, and the struggle for life thereby greatly intensified. The less yielding forms may have become extinct; those less sensitive to climatic change would seek to extend the boundaries of their range by a slight removal northward during the milder intervals of summer, only, however, to be forced back again by the recurrence of winter. Such migration must have been at first ‘incipient and gradual,’ extending and strengthening as the cold wave receded, and opened up a wider area within which existence in summer became possible. What was at first a forced migration would become habitual, and through the heredity of habit give rise to that wonderful faculty which we term the instinct of migration.” The reader’s attention is also directed to Mr. Chapman’s own article in the number of “The Auk” indicated.

It may be asked why some species remain in torrid and temperate climates, while others wing their way to the far north, even beyond the boundary of the Arctic Circle. My answer is, There is some Power that has wisely arranged all these matters, either by gradual development or by an original creative fiat. Every species is made to fit with nice precision into its peculiar niche in the creation. Perhaps Bryant suggests the true explanation in his poem entitled “To a Waterfowl”:—

“There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,
The desert and illimitable air,
Lone wandering, but not lost.”