Chapter XVIII: A Bird Anthology from Lowell 242 (4)

Prior to that discovery I had supposed, with most people, that all birds roost in trees and bushes. Later researches have proved how wide of the truth one’s unverified hypotheses may be. A week or so afterward, while strolling one evening at dusk through a favorite timber-belt, I noticed the snowbirds, or juncos, darting up from the leaves and bushes and small brush-heaps, beneath which they had found dainty little coverts from the storm. In many places crooked twigs and branches, covered with leaves, lay on the ground, leaving underneath small spaces overarched and sheltered, and into these cosey nooks the juncos had crept for the night. No enemies, at least in winter, would find them there, and their hiding-places were snug and warm. Long after dark I lingered in the woods, and everywhere startled the snow-birds from their leafy couches. At one place a whole colony of them had taken lodgings. When my passing frightened them away, they flew through the darkness into the neighboring trees. After waiting at some distance for several minutes, I returned to the spot, and found that some of the birds had gone back to their bedrooms on the ground.

In my nocturnal prowlings through the fields and lowlands, I have frequently frightened the meadowlarks from the grass, and that long before nest-building or incubation had begun. Of course, they were recognized by their nervous alarm-calls, as well as by the peculiar sound of their fluttering wings. What surprises me beyond measure is that they so often select low, boggy places for their roosts, instead of the dry pleasant upland slopes. But there is no accounting for tastes in the bird world. The grass-finches and lark-sparrows, like their relatives just mentioned, seek little hollows in the ground for bed-chambers, usually sheltered by grass tufts.

Long before day, one April morning, I made my way to the marsh so frequently mentioned in this volume. The moon was shining brightly in the southern sky. Early as it was—for as yet there was no sign of daybreak—the silvery trills of the song-sparrows rose from the bushes like a votive offering to the Queen of Night. From one part of the swamp a sweet song would ring out on the moonlit air, and would at once be taken up by another songster not far away. Then another would chime in, and another, until the whole enclosure was filled with the antiphonal melody. A silence would then fall upon the marsh like a dream-spirit, to be broken soon by another outburst of minstrelsy; and thus the nocturne continued until day broke, and it merged into the glad matin service.

But my object is to tell about bird roosts rather than about bird music. When I reached the farther end of the marsh, several sparrow songs came up from the ground. I walked with a tentative purpose toward a spot whence a song came, when the little triller sprang up affrighted. The same experiment with a number of other songsters brought a like result in each case, proving beyond doubt, I think, that at least some of the song-sparrows roost on the ground, and begin their matins before they rise from their couches, so anxious are they to put in a full day of song.

On the same morning—it was still before daybreak—a bevy of red-winged blackbirds, which had been roosting in the long grass, flew up with vociferous cries and protests at the rude awakening I had given them, just when they were enjoying their morning nap. Blame them who will for making loud ado, for there are many people who would do the same under similar provocation. Thus it will be seen that many birds sleep on the ground. My investigations lead me to this conclusion: As a rule, those birds which nest on or near the ground, and spend a considerable portion of their time in the grass, like the meadow-larks and song-sparrows, roost on the ground, while others find bushes and trees more to their taste. Still, there are exceptions to this rule; for on several occasions, while bent on my nocturnal prowlings, I have driven the turtle-dove from the ground, although this bird usually roosts in the thorn-trees and willows.[4]

The robins choose thick trees and even wild rose-bushes for roosts. In the apple-trees and pines of a neighbor’s yard across the fields these birds find sleeping-apartments early in the spring, before nest-building is begun, for a perfect deluge of robin music often pours from that locality, both morning and evening.

The white-throats, wood-sparrows, and brown thrashers make use of the thick thorn-trees of the marsh for lodgings. They flutter about in sore dismay as I approach, until I start back, lest they should impale themselves on the sharp thorns. Sometimes the thrasher ensconces himself for the night in the brush-heaps which the wood-choppers have made on the slopes, making his presence known by his peculiar way of scolding at my officious intrusion.

One cannot help admiring the wise forethought displayed by many birds in creeping into the thick thorn-bushes at night, where they may sleep without fear of attack from their nocturnal foe, the owl. Full well they seem to know he cannot force his bulky form through the thick network of branch and thorn. How he must gnash his teeth with rage—if owls ever do that—when he espies his coveted prey sleeping peacefully just beyond the reach of his talons! Still, it sometimes happens that even a small bird ventures into too close quarters in these terrible prickly bushes; for I once found a dead sparrow completely wedged in among the fierce thorns, where it had evidently been caught in such a way as to prevent its escape.

Something over a year after the preceding facts were published, I was seized with a whim to resume my investigations on bird roosts. One of my nocturnal rambles seems to be deserving of somewhat minute description. It was a delightful evening of early spring, with a warm westerly breeze stirring the bursting leaves. The sun had set, and the dusk was falling over fields and woods. The bright moon, a little more than half full, lengthened out the gloaming and added many precious minutes to the singing hours of the birds. Such a woodland chorus as I was permitted to listen to that evening! It was a rare privilege. How the wood-thrushes vied with the towhee buntings! Which would sing the latest? That seemed to be the question. At length there were several moments of silence, and I supposed all the birds had gone to sleep, when a white-throated sparrow and a wood-pewee struck in with their sweet strains; and so the chorus continued until it was really night. The wood-thrushes, I think, got in the last note of the twilight serenade.

Before it had become quite dark, I espied a wood-thrush sitting in the fork of a dogwood-tree, looking at me in a startled way; but she did not fly. I walked off some distance, remained awhile, and then returned, to find her still in her place. Then I strolled about until night had fully come; the moon shone brightly, so that it was not dark. When I went back to the dogwood-tree, the speckled breast of the thrush was still visible in the fork which she had chosen for her bed-chamber, and I wished her pleasant dreams.

While stalking about, I startled another wood-thrush, which had selected a loose brush-heap on the ground instead of a sapling or tree for a roost. The indigo-birds and bush-sparrows flew up from the blackberry bushes as I pushed my way through them. Several times the towhee buntings leaped scolding out of bed, having selected brush-heaps, or dead branches lying on the ground, for roosting-places.

A discovery was also made in regard to the sleeping-apartments of the red-headed woodpecker. As the dusk was gathering, a red-head dashed in front of me into the border of the woods, alighting on a sapling stem, and then began to shuffle upward toward a hole plainly visible from where I sat; but just as he reached the hole, another red-head appeared with a challenging air on the inside of the cavity, and red-head number one darted away with a cry of alarm. Now was my time to discover, if possible, where red-head number two would roost. So I kept a close watch on the cavity, waiting about, as previously said, until nightfall, and then, keeping my eye on the hole, so that the bird could not fly out without being seen, I made my way to the sapling. Intently watching the hole with my glass, I tapped the stem of the tree with my heel, when, in the moonlight, a red head and long, black beak were protruded from the opening above. The woodpecker was within, that much was proved; and when I had beaten against the tree, he had sprung up to the orifice to see who was thus impolitely disturbing his evening slumbers. He turned his head sidewise, and looked down at me with his keen beady eyes; but although I tapped against the tree again and again, he would not leave the cavity. There can be no doubt that it was his bedroom,—that cosey apartment in the sapling,—for it was still too early in the season for the bird to begin nesting, as he had arrived only two or three days before from his winter residence in the south. Very likely most woodpeckers roost in the cavities which they hew in trees, for I do not see why the one into whose private affairs I pried that evening should have been an exception. He most probably was only following the customs of his tribe from time immemorial.[5]

A number of experiments made with young birds purloined from the nest—I must beg the feathered parents’ forgiveness—have added several interesting facts to the subject in hand. One spring I became guardian, purveyor, and man-of-all-work to a pair of young flickers, taken from a cavity in an old apple-tree. They were kept in a large cage, in which I placed sapling boughs of considerable size. They had not become my protégés many days before they insisted on converting these upright branches into sleeping-couches, clinging to the vertical boles with their stout claws, and pillowing their heads in the feathers of their backs. In this position they slept as comfortably as the thrushes and orioles confined in other cages slept on their horizontal perches, or, for that matter, as I slept in my own bed. They even slept on the under side of an oblique branch. One of them passed one night on a horizontal perch, although apparently his slumbers were not quite so sound and refreshing as they would have been had he roosted in the wonted upright position. Queerest of all, these woodpeckers sometimes selected the side of the cage itself for a roosting-place, thrusting their claws into the crevice between the door and its frame. Wherever they roosted, their tails were made to do duty as braces, by being pressed tightly against the wall to which they clung. A pair of young red-headed woodpeckers behaved in much the same way, always preferring to sleep on an upright perch.

During the spring of 1893 I placed in a cage the following birds, all taken while in a half-callow state, from the nest: Two cat-birds, one red-winged blackbird, one cow-bunting, and two meadow-larks. In a few days all of them proclaimed their species, as well as the inexorable law of heredity, by selecting such roosts as were best adapted to them, and that without any instruction whatever from adult birds. The meadow-larks almost invariably squatted on the grass with which the floor of the cage was lined, usually scratching and waddling from side to side until they had made cosey hollows to fit their bodies; while the remaining inmates flew up to the perches when bed-time came.

It was quite interesting to look in upon my group of sleeping pets of an evening, part of them roosting in the lower story of the cage and the rest in the upper story. Several times, however, one of the larks slept on a perch, and the red-wing, after the cat-birds and bunting had been removed from the cage, occasionally seemed to think the upstairs a little lonely, and so he cuddled down on the grass below, edging up close to the larks. The strangely assorted bedfellows slept together in this way like happy children.

XI.
THE WOOD-PEWEE.
A MONOGRAPH.

Almost every person living in the country or the suburbs of a town is familiar with the house-pewee, or phœbe-bird. It is usually looked upon as the sure harbinger of spring. In my boyhood days my parents and grandparents were wont to say, “Spring is here; the phœbe is singing.” And if blithesomeness of tone and good cheer have anything to do with the advent of the season of song and bursting blossoms, the pewit, as he is often called, must be a true herald and prophet. He seems to carry the “subtle essence of spring” in his tuneful larynx, and in the graceful sweep of his flight as he pounces upon an insect. It is quite easy to make the transition from his familiar song of _Phe-e-by_ to the exclamation, _Spring’s here!_ by a little stretch of the fancy.

But the phœbe has a woodland relative, a first cousin, with which most persons are not so well acquainted, because he is more retiring in his habits, and seeks out-of-the-way places for his habitat. I refer to the wood-pewee. If your eyes and ears are not so sharp as they should be, you may get these two birds confounded; yet there is no need of making such a blunder. The woodland bird is smaller, slenderer, and of a darker cast than his relative; and, besides, there is a marked difference in the musical performances of these birds. The song of the phœbe is sprightly and cheerful, and the syllables are uttered rather quickly, while the whistle of the wood-pewee is softer and more plaintive, and is repeated with less emphasis and more deliberation. There is, indeed, something inexpressibly sad and dreamy about the strain of the wood-pewee, especially if heard at a distance in the “emerald twilight” of the “woodland privacies.” Mr. Lowell seldom erred in his attempts to characterize the songs and habits of the birds, but in his exquisite poem entitled “Phœbe” he certainly must have referred to the wood-pewee and not to the phœbe-bird, as his description applies to the former but not to the latter. He calls this bird “the loneliest of its kind,” while the pewit is a familiar species about many a country home. Taking it for granted that he meant the wood-pewee, how happy is his description!

“It is a wee sad-colored thing,
As shy and secret as a maid;
That ere in choir the robins ring,
Pipes its own name like one afraid.

“It seems pain-prompted to repeat
The story of some ancient ill,
But _Phœbe! Phœbe!_ sadly sweet,
Is all it says, and then is still.

· · · · · · ·

“_Phœbe!_ it calls and calls again;
And Ovid, could he but have heard,
Had hung a legendary pain
About the memory of the bird.

· · · · · · ·

“_Phœbe!_ is all it has to say
In plaintive cadence o’er and o’er,
Like children who have lost their way,
And know their names, but nothing more.”

This poetical tribute is certainly very graceful, and would be true to life if the phonetic representation were a little more accurate. Instead of _Phœbe_, imagine the song to be _Pe-e-w-e-e-e_ or _Phe-e-w-e-e-e_, and you will gain a clear idea of the minstrelsy of this songster of the wildwood. However, he frequently varies his tune,—to prevent its becoming monotonous, I opine. He sometimes closes his refrain with the falling inflection or circumflex, and sometimes with the rising, as the mood prompts him. In the former case the first syllable receives the greater emphasis and is the more prolonged, and in the latter this order is precisely reversed. When the last syllable is uttered with the rising circumflex, it is usually, if not always, cut off somewhat abruptly. Moreover, this minstrel often runs the two syllables of his song together,—a peculiarity that I have represented in my notes, taken while listening to the song, in this way: _Phe-e-e-o-o-w-e-e-e!_ There is a characteristic swing about the melody that refuses to be caught in the mesh of letters and syllables.

In some of the pewee’s vocal efforts he does not get farther than the end of the first syllable. The song seems to be cut off short, as if the notes had stuck fast in the singer’s throat, or as if something had occurred to divert his mind from the song. Perhaps this hiatus is caused by the sudden appearance of an insect glancing by, which attracts the musician’s attention. This bird usually chooses a dead twig or limb in the woods as a perch, on which he sits and sings, turning his head from side to side, so that no flitting moth may escape him.

And what a persistent singer he is! He sings not only in the spring when other vocalists are in full tune, but also all summer long, never growing disheartened, even when the mercury rises far up into the nineties. What a pleasant companion he has been in my midsummer strolls as I have wearily patrolled the woods! On the sultriest August days, when all other birds were glad to keep mute, sitting on their shady perches with open mandibles and drooping wings, the dreamful, far-away strain of the wood-pewee has drifted, a welcome sound, to my ears through the dim aisles. He seems to be a friend in need. How often, when the heat has almost overcome me, as I pursued my daily beat, that song has put new vigor into my veins! When Mr. Lowell wrote that

“The phœbe scarce whistles
Once an hour to his fellow,”

he must have been listening to a far lazier specimen than those with which I am acquainted.

Most birds fall occasionally into a kind of ecstasy of song, and the wood-pewee is no exception. One evening, after it had grown almost dark, a pewee flew out into the air directly above my head from a tree by the wayside, and began to sing in a perfect transport as he wheeled about; then he swung back into the tree, keeping up his song in a continuous strain, and in sweet, half-caressing tones, until finally it died away, as if the bird had fallen into a doze during his vocal recital. I lingered about for some time, but he did not sing again. Why should he repeat his good-night song?

I have frequently heard young pewees in midsummer singing in a continuous way, instead of whistling the intermittent song of their elders. It sounds very droll, giving you the impression that the little neophyte has begun to turn the crank of his music-box and can’t stop. His voice is quite sweet, but his execution is very crude. Wait, however, until he is eight or nine months older, and he will show you what a winged Orpheus can do. My notes say that on the thirtieth of July, 1891, I heard a “pewee’s quaint, prolonged whistle, interlarded with his ordinary notes.” Thus it will be seen that he is a somewhat versatile songster, proving the poet’s lines half true and half untrue:—

“The birds but repeat without ending
The same old traditional notes,
Which some, by more happily blending,
Seem to make over new in their throats.”

Younger readers may, perhaps, need to be informed that the wood-pewee belongs to the family of flycatchers, as do also the king-bird or bee-martin, the phœbe-bird, the great-crested flycatcher, and a number of other interesting species, all of which have a peculiar way of taking their prey. The pewee will sit almost motionless on a twig, lisping his plaintive tune at intervals, until a luckless insect comes buzzing near, all unconscious of its peril, when the bird will make a quick dash at it, seize it dexterously between his mandibles, and then circle around gracefully to the same or another perch, having made a splendid “catch on the fly.” If the quarry he has taken is small, it slips at once down his throat; but should it be too large to be disposed of in that summary way, he will beat it into an edible form upon a limb before gulping it down. Agile as he is, he sometimes misses his aim, being compelled to make a second, and occasionally even a third attempt to secure his prize. I have witnessed more than one comedy which turned out to be a tragedy for the ill-starred insect. Sometimes the insect will resort to the ruse of dropping toward the ground when it sees the bird darting toward it, and then a scuffle ensues that is really laughable, the pursuer whirling, tumbling, almost turning somersault in his desperate efforts to capture his prize. Once an insect flew between me and a pewee perched on a twig, when the bird darted down toward me with a directness of aim that made me think for a moment he would fly right into my face; but he made a dexterous turn in time, caught his quarry, and swung to a bough near by. If one were disposed to be speculative, one might well raise Sidney Lanier’s pregnant inquiry at this point, the reference being to the southern mocking-bird, and not to our pewee,—

“How may the death of that dull insect be
The life of yon trim Shakspeare, on the tree?”

It has been my good fortune to find one, but only one, nest of this bird. It was placed on a horizontal branch about fifteen feet above the ground, and was a neat, compact structure, decorated on the outside with grayish lichens and moss, giving it the appearance of an excrescence on the limb.[6] It is said by those who have closely examined the nests, that they are handsomely built and ornamented, and are equalled only by the dainty houses of the humming-bird and the blue-gray gnat-catcher. The eggs, usually four in number, are of a creamy white hue, beautifully embellished with a wreath of lavender and purplish-brown around the larger end or near the centre.

Though our bird prefers solitary places for his home, he is far from shy, if you call on him in his haunt in the wildwood. He will sit fearless on his perch, even if you come quite near, looking at you in his staid, philosophical way, as if you were scarcely worth noticing. Nor will he hush his song at your approach, although he does not seem to care whether you listen to him or not. It is seldom that he can be betrayed into doing an undignified act; and even if he does almost turn a somersault in pursuing a refractory miller, he recovers his poise the next moment, and settles upon his perch with as much _sang froid_ as if nothing unusual had occurred. Altogether, the wood-pewee is what Bradford Torrey would call a “character in feathers.”

XII.
A PAIR OF NIGHT-HAWKS.

The night-hawk and the whippoorwill are often confounded by persons of inaccurate habits of observation. It is true, both birds are members of the goatsucker family; but they belong to entirely different genera, and are therefore of much more distant kin than many people suppose. The whippoorwill is a forest bird, while the night-hawk prefers the open country. Besides, the whippoorwill is decidedly nocturnal in his habits, making the woods ring at night, as every one knows, with his weird, flutelike melody; whereas the night-hawk is a bird of the day and evening. Then, a peculiar mark of the night-hawk is the round white spot on his wings, visible on the under surface as he performs his wonderful feats overhead,—a mark that does not distinguish his woodland relative.

As a rule, the gloaming is the favorite time for the night-hawk’s wing-exercises; then he may be seen whirling, curveting, mounting, and plunging, often at a dizzy height, gathering his supper of insects as he flies; but his petulant call is often heard at other hours of the day, perhaps at noon when the sun is shining with fierce warmth. Even during a shower he seems to be fond of haunting the cloudy canopy, toying with the wind.

His call, as he tilts overhead, is difficult to represent phonetically, both the vowels and consonants being provokingly elusive and hard to catch. To me he seems usually to say _Spe-ah_. Sometimes the _S_ appears to be omitted, or is enunciated very slightly, while at other times his call seems to have a decidedly sibilant beginning. On several occasions he seemed to pronounce the syllable _Scape_.

I had often watched the marvellous flight of these birds, as they passed like living silhouettes across the sky; but they had always seemed so shy and unapproachable that, prior to the summer of 1891, I had despaired of ever finding a night-hawk’s nest. However, one evening in June, while stalking about in the marsh, I suddenly became aware of a large bird fluttering uneasily about me in the gathering darkness. Presently it was joined by its mate, and then the two birds circled and hovered about, often coming into uncomfortable proximity with my head, and muttering under their breath, _Chuckle! chuckle!_ Several times one of them alighted for a few moments on the rail-fence near by, and then resumed its circular flight. Even in the darkness I recognized that my uncanny companions were night-hawks, and felt convinced that there must be a nest in the neighborhood, or they would not display so much anxiety. It was too late to discover their secret that evening, and, besides, I really felt a slight chill creeping up my back, with those dark, ghostly forms wheeling about my head, and so I went reluctantly home.

Two days later I found time to visit the marsh. On reaching the spot where the two birds had been seen, presto! a dark feathered form started up before me from the ground. It was the female night-hawk; and there on the damp earth, without the least trace of a nest or a covering of any kind, lay two eggs. At last I had found a night-hawk’s nest! The ground-color of the eggs, which were quite large, was of a dirty bluish-gray cast, mottled and clouded with darker gray and brown.

The behavior of the mother bird was curious. She had fluttered away a few rods, pretending to be hurt, and then dropped into the grass. On my driving her from her hiding-place, she rose in the air and began to hover about above my head, and then, to my utter surprise, she swooped down toward me savagely, as if she really had a mind to attack me. As I walked away, she seemed to grow angrier and bolder, making a swift dash at me every few minutes, and actually coming so near my head as to cause me involuntarily to raise my cane in self-defence. A quaver of uneasiness went through me. I really believe she would have struck me had I given her sufficient provocation. There was a brisk shower falling at the time, and so, fearing the eggs might become addled, I hurried to the remote end of the marsh. Suddenly my feathered pursuer disappeared. Wondering if she had resumed her place on the nest, I sauntered back to settle the doubt, but presently espied her sitting lengthwise on a top rail of the fence, while her eggs lay unprotected in the rain. Her dark, mottled form and sleepy, half-closed eyes made a quaint picture. I slowly withdrew, and as long as I could see her with my glass, she kept her perch on the rail without moving a pinion.

On the twenty-third of June another call was made on the night-hawk family, when I found two odd-looking bairns in the nest, if nest it could be called. They were covered with soft down, the black and white of which presented a wavy appearance. Their short, thick bills were covered with a speckled fuzz, except the tips. I stooped down and smoothed their downy backs with my hand, but there was no expression of fear in their sluggish eyes.

Both parents were present on the twenty-sixth of June. For a while the male bird pursued his mate savagely through the air, as if venting on her his anger at my intrusion, and then, mounting far up toward the sky and poising a moment, he plunged toward the earth with a velocity that made my head dizzy, checking himself, as is his wont, with a loud resounding _Bo-o-m-m_. The female again pursued her unwelcome visitor, swooping so near my head two or three times that I could have reached her with my cane. The cock bird, curiously enough, never displayed so much courage, but kept at a safe distance.

On the twenty-ninth the young birds had been moved about a half rod from the original site of the nest, and hopped off awkwardly into the grass when I tried to clasp them with my hand. The benedict was absent this time, and was never seen on any of my subsequent visits while the young birds were fledging. By the first of July the bantlings hopped about in a lively manner at my approach to their domicile, and wheezed in a frightened way, spreading out their mottled pinions. On the seventh of July neither of the parents was to be seen, and the youngsters sat so cosily side by side on the ground that I had not the heart to disturb their slumbers. Approaching cautiously on the tenth, I almost stepped on the mother bird before she flew up. At the same moment both young birds started from the ground, and fluttered away in different directions on their untried wings, their flight being awkward and labored. A few weeks later four night-hawks were circling about above the marsh,—no doubt the family that had been affording me such an interesting study. What was my surprise when one of them resented my presence by swooping down toward me, as the female had done a few weeks before!

Reference has already been made incidentally to the night-hawk’s curious habit of “booming,” as it is called. This sound is always produced as he plunges in an almost perpendicular course from a dizzy height,—or, more correctly, at the end of that headlong plunge, just as he sweeps around in a graceful curve. There is something almost sepulchral about the reverberating sound. How it is produced is a problem over which there has been no small amount of discussion in ornithological circles. But after considerable study of this queer performance, I am persuaded that it is a vocal outburst, produced either for its musical effect (though it is far from musical), or else to give vent to the bird’s exuberance of feeling as he makes his swift descent.

His thick, curved bill seems admirably adapted to produce this sound, as do also his arched throat and neck. It has seemed to me, too, that his mandibles fly open at the moment the boom is heard, although I cannot be sure such is the case. Besides, the peculiar _chuckle_, previously referred to, had about it a quality of sound suggestive of kinship with the bird’s resounding boom. The hollow, wheezy alarm-call of the young birds, heard on several of my visits to the nest in the marsh, corroborates this theory. But there is still further proof that this hypothesis is correct. The night-hawk often makes his headlong plunge without booming at all, but merely utters his ordinary rasping, aerial call, which has been translated by the syllable _Spe-ah_. Then he sometimes combines the two calls, and on such occasions both of the sounds are uttered with a diminished loudness, as one would expect if both are vocal performances, but as one would _not_ expect if the booming were made by the concussion of the bird’s wings with the resisting air, as some ornithologists suppose. The female sometimes booms, but her voice obviously lacks the strong, resounding quality that characterizes the voice of her liege lord.

XIII.
A BIRDS’ GALA-DAY.

In Mr. Emerson’s poem entitled “May Morning” this stanza occurs:—

“When the purple flame shoots up,
And Love ascends the throne,
I cannot hear your songs, O birds,
For the witchery of my own.”

It would seem, therefore, that to be a poet does not always give one the coign of vantage in observing Nature, but may, on the contrary, prove a positive disadvantage. Should the rambler go about “crooning rhymes” and making an over-sweet melody to himself, instead of keeping his ear alert to the music around him, he would be likely to miss many a wild, sweet song fully as enchanting as his own measured lines. No music of my own, however, diverted my mind from Nature’s blithe minstrels as, on the twenty-ninth of April, 1892, I pursued my avian studies in some of my favorite resorts.

It was nine o’clock when I reached the quiet woodland lying beyond a couple of fields. The first fact noted was the return of a number of interesting migrants which had not been present on the preceding day. They had, as is their wont, come by night from some more southern rendezvous. Among them was the oven-bird or accentor, announcing his presence with his startling song, which at first seemed to come from a distance, but gradually drew nearer, like a voice walking toward me as it grew louder and more accelerated. On account of this quaint ventriloquial quality of voice, the little vocalist is often very difficult to find, and you are sure to look in a dozen places before you at last descry him. What a sedate genius he is, as he sits atilt on a twig, or walks in his leisurely fashion on the leaf-carpeted ground, looking up at you at intervals out of his sage, beady eyes.

I have hinted that the oven-bird was first seen and then heard. In this respect the habits of different species of birds differ widely. The accentors, meadow-larks, orioles, bobolinks, Bewick’s wrens, summer warblers, white-crowned sparrows, and some other species usually begin at once to celebrate with pæans their return to their old haunts; whereas the wood-thrushes, brown thrashers, and white-throated sparrows seem to wait several days after their arrival before they tune their harps,—a diversity of behavior difficult to explain. Scarcely less inexplicable is the fact that some species arrive in scattered flocks, others in battalions and armies, and others still, one by one. My notes made on this day contain this statement: “Yesterday I heard a single call of the red-headed woodpecker; to-day the woods are full of these birds.”

On the first day of April the first Bewick’s wren of the spring appeared, but, strange to say, not another wren was seen until near the end of the month. A single bird often goes ahead of the main body of migrants like a scout or outrider; while not infrequently a small company precedes the approaching army in the capacity, perhaps, of an advance guard.

Threading my way through the “dim vistas, sprinkled o’er with sun-flecked green,” to an open space near the border of the woods, I had the opportunity of listening to an improvised cat-bird concert, without a cent of charge for admission. Here some mental notes were made on the vocal qualities of this bird in comparison with those of the celebrated brown thrasher, and with some hesitancy I give my conclusions. Each songster has his special points of excellence. The thrasher has more voice volume than his rival, his technique is better, he glides more smoothly from one part of his song to another, and executes several runs that for pure melody and skill in rendering go beyond the cat-bird’s ability; but, on the other hand, it must be said that the latter minstrel’s song contains fewer harsh, coarse, unmusical notes; his voice, on the whole, is of a finer quality, is pitched to a higher key, and his vocal performances are characterized by greater artlessness or _naïveté_. Though professing to be no connoisseur, I have never felt so deeply stirred by the thrasher’s as by the cat-bird’s minstrelsy. There does not seem to be so much fervor and real passion in the vocal efforts of the tawny musician.

A little farther on, I again turned my steps into a dense section of the woods. Suddenly there was a twinkle of wings, a flash of olive-green, a sharp _Chip_, and then there before me, a few rods away, a little bird went hopping about on the ground, picking up dainties from the brown leaves. What could it be? Was I about to find a species that was new to me? It really seemed so. My opera-glass, when levelled upon the bird, revealed olive-green upper parts, yellow or buff under parts, and four black stripes on the head, two on the pileum and one through each eye. It was the rare worm-eating warbler (_Helmitherus vermivorus_) at last,—a bird that had for many years eluded me. The little charmer was quite wary, chirping nervously while I ogled him,—for it was a male,—and then hopped up into a sapling, and finally scurried away out of sight.

A few steps farther on in the woods an extremely fine cat-like call swung down, like thread of sound, from the tree-tops. Of course, it was my tiny acquaintance the blue-gray gnat-catcher, and his pretty spouse, who had arrived, perhaps from Cuba or Guatemala, a few days before. What an immense distance for their frail little wings to traverse, “through tracts and provinces of sky”! You seldom see anything more dainty and dream-like than the fluttering of these birds from one tree-top to another, reminding you of an animated cloudlet hovering and darting about in mid-air. Not a more fay-like bird visits my woodland than the blue-gray gnat-catcher. Even the ruby-throated hummingbird, though still smaller, seems rather roly-poly in comparison; and no warbler, not even the graceful redstart, can flit about so airily. One of the gnat-catchers in the tree-top presently darted out after a miller, which tried to escape by letting itself fall toward the ground. A vigorous drama followed. The bird plunged nimbly after, whirling round and round in a spiral course until it had secured its wriggling prize.

The gnat-catcher lisps a little song,—a gossamer melody, it might be called. His slender voice has quite a “resonant tang.” On that day I did not take notes on his music, but the next day I had a good opportunity to do so; and I give the result, especially as no minute description of this bird’s song has been recorded, so far as I know. I had often heard it before, but had neglected to listen to it intently enough to analyze its peculiar quality. Bending my ear upon it, I distinctly and unmistakably detected, besides the bird’s own notes, the notes of three other birds,—those of the cat-bird’s alarm-call, of the phœbe’s song, and of the goldfinch’s song and call. The imitation in each case was perfect, save that the gnat-catcher’s tones were slenderer than those of the birds whose music he had (if I may so speak) plagiarized. Is this tiny minstrel a mocker? Perhaps my description may be a surprise to many students of bird minstrelsy, but I can only say that, having listened to the song for fully an hour, I could not well have been mistaken. Several times the reproduction of the goldfinch’s song was so perfect that I looked the tree all over again and again with my glass for that bird, but goldfinches there were none about. Moreover, the gnat-catcher was in plain sight, dropping quite low in the tree part of the time; and there can be no doubt that every strain proceeded from his lyrical little throat.

The forenoon and part of the afternoon slipped away all too rapidly, bringing many valuable additions to my stock of bird lore; but I must pass others by to describe the most important “find” (to me) of this red-letter day in my experience. At about half-past four o’clock I reached an old bush-covered gravel-bank where many birds of various species have been encountered. As I stepped near a pool at the foot of the bank, a little bird flashed into view, setting my pulses all a-flutter. It was the hooded warbler, the first of the species I had ever seen. He was recognizable at once by the bright yellow hood he wore, bordered all around with deep black. A bright, flitting blossom of the bird world!

For fully an hour I lingered in that “embowered solitude,” watching the bird’s quaint behavior, which deserves more than a mere passing notice. He was not in the least shy or nervous, but seemed rather to court my presence. Almost every moment was spent in capturing insects on the wing or in sitting on a perch watching for them to flash into view. Like a genuine flycatcher, as soon as a buzzing insect hove in sight, he would dart out after it, and never once failed to secure his prize. Sometimes he would plunge swiftly downward after a gnat or a miller, and once, having caught a miller that was large and inclined to be refractory, he flew to the ground, beat it awhile on the clods, and then swallowed it with a consequential air which seemed to say, “That is my way of disposing of such cases!” Several times he mounted almost straight up from his perch, and twice he almost turned a somersault in pursuit of an insect. Once he clung like a titmouse to the bole of a sapling. I could often hear the snapping of his mandibles as he nabbed his prey. When an insect came between him and myself, he would fearlessly dash directly toward me, as if he meant to fly in my face or alight on my head, often coming within a few feet of me. He seemed to be as confiding as a child. When I stepped to the other end of the gravel-bank, going even a little beyond it, curiously enough, the bird pursued me; then, as an experiment, I walked back to my first post of observation, and, to my surprise, he followed me again. Was he really desirous of my company? Or did he know that I intended to ring his praises in type? At length I stole away a short distance among the trees, but presently a loud chirping in my rear arrested my attention. I turned back, and found it to be my new-made friend, the hooded warbler, who, strange to say, seemed to be calling me back to his haunt. Then I climbed to the top of the gravel-bank; he selected perches higher up in the saplings than before, so as to be nearer me,—at least, so it appeared. The affectionate little darling! The only other sound he uttered during the entire time of our hobnobbing—his and mine—was the slenderest hint of a song, which was really more of a twitter than a tune.

But at last I bade the little sorcerer a reluctant adieu. In a hollow of the woods I lay down on the green grass, and listened for half an hour to the lyrical medley of a brown thrasher perched on a treetop. It was indeed a wonderful performance, and the longer I listened the more its witchery grew upon me. My special purpose in bending my whole attention upon this performance was to see if the thrasher mimicked the songs of other birds. Many persons think him a genuine imitator; indeed, in some places he is called the northern mocking-bird. I am forced to say, however, that, as far as my observation goes, he does not mimic, but sings his own compositions, like the original genius he is. In all that song, and others since listened to, not a single strain did he utter that I could positively identify as belonging to the musical repertoire of another bird. It is true, he sometimes, in the midst of his song, uttered the alarm call of the robin; but as both birds belong to the same family, this was not to be wondered at, and affords no evidence of the gift of imitation. If the thrasher does mimic his fellow-minstrels, as many persons contend, the borrowed notes are so brief and so intermingled and blent with his own music as to be unrecognizable.

On the other hand, this tawny vocalist utters musical strains that are entirely unlike anything else in the whole realm of bird minstrelsy, proving his song to be characteristic. The brown thrasher is not a musical pirate, but an original composer,—a sort of Mozart or Beethoven in the bird world. And how wonderful are some of his slurred runs! Nothing in the domain of music could be finer, and the harsh notes he frequently interpolates only serve to accentuate and enhance the melody of those that are truly lyrical.

In his engaging book entitled “Birds in the Bush,” Bradford Torrey, who is second to none in the school of popular writers on feathered folk, characterizes this tawny vocalist in a most admirable manner. However, in regard to the matter of mimicry, his observations differ slightly from my own; yet I gladly quote what he says rather incidentally on the subject. One day he was listening to three thrashers singing simultaneously. “In the midst of the hurly-burly,” he writes, “one of the trio suddenly sounded the whippoorwill’s call twice,—an absolutely perfect reproduction.” Then he adds, somewhat jocosely, in a foot-note: “The ‘authorities’ long since forbade _Harporhynchus rufus_ to play the mimic. Probably in the excitement of the moment this fellow forgot himself.” Of course, one cannot gainsay the testimony of so careful an observer and so conscientious a reporter as Mr. Torrey; yet it is possible that this whippoorwill call was only a slip of the thrasher’s voice and not an intended imitation; at all events, in my opinion, such vocal coincidences, whether accidental or designed, are of rare occurrence.

Since the foregoing observations were made and first published, I have often sought to prove them untrue, but have failed. No thrasher has ever, in my hearing, unmistakably plagiarized a single strain from his fellow-musicians. Fearing my ear for music might be defective, rendering me incapable of distinguishing correctly the various songs of birds, I put myself to the test in this way: On one of the streets of my native town there is a brilliant mocking-bird, whose cage is often hung out on a veranda. Again and again I have stopped to listen to his ringing medley, and have never failed to hear him distinctly mimic the songs and calls of other birds, such as the robin, blue jay, cardinal grossbeak, and red-headed woodpecker. Why should I be able instantly to detect the notes of other birds in the mocker’s song and never once be able to detect them in the song of the thrasher?

But it is fully time to return to my ramble. The gifted songster in the tree-top would sometimes pipe a strain of such exquisite sweetness that it seemed to surprise himself; he would pause a moment, as if to reflect upon it and fix it in mind for future use; and erelong he would repeat it, reminding his admiring auditor of Browning’s lines on the Wise Thrush,—

“He sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture.”

New strains were continually introduced. So loud and full were some of his notes that “the blue air trembled with his song,” and the woods fairly woke into echoes. It is really doubtful if the disparaging term “hurly-burly” should be applied to such peerless vocalization. It was bird opera music of the highest style, improvised for the occasion, and formed a fitting conclusion to this rare birds’ gala-day.

XIV.
RIFE WITH BIRDS.
A JAUNT TO A NEW FIELD.

A four days’ outing along the Ohio River one spring brought me some “finds” that may be of interest to bird lovers. Everywhere there were the twinkle of wings, the twitter of voices, and the charm of song; indeed, so plentiful were the feathered folk that the title of this article is far less poetical than realistic and descriptive. It was the latter part of May, the time in that latitude when the birds were in full song, at least those which were not too busy with their family cares. Sixty-four species were seen during a stay of four days in the neighborhood.

Mine host was a farmer whose premises afforded a habitat for numerous birds, there being many trees and bushes in the yard and a large orchard near by. In one of the silver maples a pair of warbling vireos had built a tiny pendent cradle, as is their wont, set in a bower of shining twigs and green leaves. There it swayed in the zephyrs, rocking the birdlings to sleep and filling their dreams with rhythm; and the lullabies that the happy parents sang were cheerful and engaging, in spite of the fact that some critic has pronounced the minstrelsy of the warbling vireo tiresome. Tiresome, forsooth! Truth to tell, the more closely you listen to it the sweeter it grows. All day long, from peep of dawn to evening twilight, those quaint, continuous lays could be heard, now subdued and desultory, now almost as vigorous as a robin’s carol.

It sometimes seemed as if the vireos and orchard orioles were rival vocalists. If so, a prize should be awarded to both,—to the vireos for persistency, for never letting up; to the orioles for richness and melody of tone. Many a rollicking two-part concert they gave.

But there were other voices frequently heard in the chorus, though not so continuously as those of the birds just mentioned. A song-sparrow, which had built a dainty cot in a bush not two rods from the veranda, sometimes trilled an interlude of entrancing sweetness, taking the bays for real tunefulness from every rival. Then, to my surprise, a Maryland yellow-throat, shy little fellow in other places, would frequently sing his heart out in the small trees and silver maples of the front yard. He did not fly off or discontinue his song when an auditor stood right beneath his perch, but would throw back his masked head, distend his golden throat, and deliver his trill to his own and everybody else’s satisfaction. Very often, too, the indigo-bird, just returned from a bath in the cerulean depths, would enrich the harmony with the most rollicksome, if not the most tuneful lay of the chorus. As a sort of accompaniment, the chipping-sparrow often trilled his silvery monotone; and once a robin added his _Cheerily, here, here!_

So much for the birds about the house, though there were many others that have not been mentioned; in fact, there were some twenty species in all. There were also birds a-plenty in other places. A half day was spent in some fields bordering the broad river. On a green slope was a bush-sparrow’s nest, daintily bowered in the grass by the side of a blackberry bush, and in a thicket hard by two yellow-breasted chats had placed their grassy cradles, proclaiming their secret to all the world by their loud cries of warning to keep away. It is odd that these birds, shy and nervous as they are, should go so far out of their way to tell you that they have a nest somewhere in the copse that you mustn’t touch, mustn’t even look for. While you are yet a quarter of a mile away, they will utter their loud cries of warning; and if you go to the thicket where they are, you will be almost sure to find their nest, so poorly have they learned the lesson of discretion.

In a little hollow of the copse a dying crow lay prone upon the ground. At intervals he would struggle and gasp in a spasmodic way. When I gently moved him with my cane, he grasped it with his claws and held it quite firmly. I put the stick to his large black beak. He took hold of it feebly, ready to defend himself even with his last gasp, for that it proved to be; he lay over and died the next instant. I could not give the pathology of the case, as no wounds could be found on his body.