Chapter XXVI: Solitary the Thrush 259 (4)

Thirty minutes proved to be as long as I could bring myself to stay, and then I meekly retired to the furthest corner of the field, where I made myself as inconspicuous as possible, and hoped I might be allowed to remain. Kingbird and robins accepted the compromise and returned to their own affairs; but the veeries by turns fed the babies and reviled me from a tree near my retreat, till I took pity on their distress and left the orchard altogether.

Not only does the veery exhibit this strong liking for solitude, and express the loneliness of the woods more perfectly than any other bird, with the exception, perhaps, of the wood-pewee; but his calls and cries are all plaintive, many of them sensational, and one or two really tragic.

His most common utterance, as he flits lightly from branch to branch, is a low, sweet "quee-o," sometimes hardly above a whisper. When everything is quiet about him one may often hear an extraordinary performance. Beginning the usual call of "quee-o," in a tender and mournful tone, he will repeat it again and again at short intervals, every time with more pathetic inflection, till the wrought-up listener cannot resist the feeling that the next sound must be a burst of tears. Although his notes seem melancholy to hearers, however, the beautiful bird himself is far from expressing that emotion in his manner.

Aside from the enchanting quality of his calls, and the thrilling magnetism of his song, the tawny thrush is an exceedingly interesting bird. In his reserved way he is socially inclined, showing no dislike to an acquaintance with his human neighbors, and even evincing a curiosity and willingness to be friendly, most winning to see.

Speak to one who, as you passed, has flown up from the ground and alighted on the lowest limb of a tree, looking at you with clear, calm eyes. He will not fly; he will even answer you. You may stand there half an hour and talk to him and hear his low replies. It seems as if it were the easiest thing in the world to inspire him with perfect confidence, to coax him to a real intimacy. But there is a limit to his trustfulness. When he has a nest and little ones to protect, as already shown, he is a different bird; he is wild with terror and distress, and refuses to be comforted when one approaches the sacred spot.

This unfortunate distrust of one's intentions makes it very hard for a student who loves the individual bird to watch his nest. One can't endure to give pain to the gentle and winsome creature. The mournful, despairing cry of both parents, "ke-o-ik! ke-o-ik! ke-o-ik!" constantly repeated, makes me, at least, feel like a robber and a murderer, and no number of "facts" to be gained will compensate me for the suffering thus caused.

One more phase of veery character I was surprised and delighted to learn. Sitting on a log in the edge of the woods one evening, just at sunset, I listened to the singing of one of these birds quite close to me, but hidden from sight. I had never been so near a singer, and I was surprised to hear, after every repetition of his song, a low response, a sort of whispered "chee." Was it his mate answering, or criticising his music? Was it the first note of his newly-fledged offspring? Or could it be _sotto voce_ remarks of the bird himself? It was impossible to decide, and I went home much puzzled to account for it; but a day or two later the mystery was solved,--the thrush showed himself to be a humorist.

The odd performance by which I discovered this fact I saw through my closed blind. The bird was in plain sight on a small dead tree, but it was a retired spot, where he was accustomed to see no one, and he evidently did not suspect that he had a listener.

He had eaten his fill from a cluster of elderberries I had hung on the tree, and he lingered to sing a little, as he often did. First he uttered a call, aloud, clear "quee-o," and followed it instantly by a mocking squawk in an undertone. I could hardly believe my eyes and ears, and at once gave much closer attention to him. As if for the express purpose of convincing me that I had not been mistaken, he instantly repeated his effort; and after doing so two or three times, he poured out his regular song in his sweet, ringing voice, and followed it by a whispered "mew," almost exactly in the tone of pussy herself.

He was not far from my window, across a small yard, and as plainly seen through my glass as though not six feet away. I saw his beak and throat, and am absolutely certain that he delivered every note. The absorbed singer stood there motionless a long time, and carried on this queer conversation with himself. It sounded precisely like two birds, one of whom was mocking or ridiculing the other in a low tone.

Sometimes the undertone, as said above, was a squawk; again it resembled a squeal; now it was petulant, as though the performer scoffed at his own singing; and then it was a perfect copy of the song itself, given in an indescribably sneering manner. I could think of nothing but the way in which one child will sometimes mock the words of another.

It was very droll, as well as exceedingly interesting, and I hope some day to study further this unfamiliar side of the thrush nature.

After my unsuccessful attempt to disarm the fears and suspicions of the meadow-nesting thrushes, we left the little family to its much loved solitude, and in a day or two the whole nestful departed.

XIII.

A JUNE ROUND OF CALLS.

"I should like to meet you two in that rig on Fifth Avenue," calmly said our hostess one morning in June, as we started out on our regular round of calls.

What a suggestion! We stared at each other with a new standard of criticism in our eyes. We were not exactly in ordinary visiting costume; but then, neither were we making ordinary visits, for the calling-list of June differs in every way from that of January. The neighbors at whose doors we appeared would be quite as well (or as ill) pleased to see us in our dull green woods dress, with fresh leaves on our hats to convey the impression that we were mere perambulating shrubs, with opera-glasses instead of cards, and camp-stools in place of a carriage, as though we had been in regulation array. Away we went, the big dog prancing ahead with the camp-stool of his mistress.

Our first call was upon a small dame very high up in the world, thirty feet at least. The mention of Fifth Avenue suggests that possibly our manners were not above criticism. We introduced ourselves to Madam Wood-Pewee not by ringing and sending up cards, but by pausing before her door, seating ourselves on our stools, and leveling our glasses at her house. We felt, indeed, that we had almost a proprietary interest in that little lichen-covered nest resting snugly in a fork of a dead branch, for we had assisted in building it, at least by our daily presence, during the week or two that she spent in bringing, in the most desultory way, snips of material, fastening them in place, and moulding the whole by getting in the nest and pressing her breast against it, while turning slowly round and round. Now that she had really settled herself to sit, we never neglected to leave a card upon her, so to speak, every morning.

As we approached we were pleased to see her trim lord and master bearing in his mouth what was no doubt intended for a delicate offering to cheer her weary hours, for a gauzy yellow wing stuck out on each side of his beak, suggesting something uncommonly nice within. He stood a moment till we should pass, looking the picture of unconsciousness, and defying us to assert that he had a house and home anywhere about that tree. But when we did not pass, after hesitatingly hopping from perch to perch nearer the nest, he deliberately diverted yellow wing from its original destiny, swallowed it himself, and wiped his beak with an air that said: "There now! What can you make out of that?"

Ashamed to have deprived the little sitter of her treat, we folded our stools and resumed our march.

How shall one put into words the delights of the woods in June without "dropping into poetry?" Does not our own native poet say:--

"Who speeds to the woodland walks?
To birds and trees who talks?
Caesar of his leafy Rome,
There the _poet_ is at home."

But if one is not a poet, must he then suffer and enjoy in silence? When he puts aside the leafy portiere and enters the cool green paradise of the trees, must he be dumb? Slowly, almost solemnly, we walked up the beautiful road with its carpet of dead leaves. It was as silent of man's ways as if he were not within a thousand miles, and we had all the enjoyment of the deep forest, with the comforting assurance that five minutes' walk would bring us to people.

A small family in dark slate-color and white, with a curious taste for the antique cave-dwelling, was next on our list. The home was an excavation in the soft earth, held together by the roots of an overturned tree, and everything was quiet when we arrived--the two well-grown infants sound asleep on their hair mattress. We sat down to wait, and in a moment we heard the anxious "pip" of the returning parents. They had been attending to their regular morning work, and both brought food for those youngsters, who woke inopportunely--as babies will--and demanded it instantly.

Junco--for he was the head of this household--paused on a twig near by, opened and shut his beautiful white-bordered tail, in the embarrassing consideration whether he should go in before our eyes and take the risk of our intentions, or let his evidently starving offspring suffer. He "eyed us over;" he waited till his modest little spouse, acting from feeling rather than from judgment (as was to be expected from one of her unreasoning sex), had slipped in from below, administered her morsel to those precious babies, and escaped unharmed. Then he plucked up courage, boldly entered his door, gave a poke behind it, and flew away.

A week later, after we had called as usual one morning and found the house empty, he brought his pretty snow-birdlings in their tidy striped bibs up to the grove at the back door, where we often heard his sharp trilling little song, and saw him working like some bigger papas to keep the dear clamorous mouths filled.

The Junco neighborhood was a populous part of our calling district. Behind his cave, in a high tree, lived a family of golden-winged woodpeckers, who "laughed" and talked as loud as they liked, scorning to look upon the two spies so far below them. Not quite so self-possessed and bold were they a little later, when madam came up to the grass by the farmhouse with her young son to teach him to dig, for that is what she did. He was a canny youngster, though he was shy, and had no notion of being left in the lurch for a moment. If mamma flew to the fence, he instantly followed; did she return to the ground, baby was in a second at her side demanding attention. On one occasion while I was watching them behind my blind, the mother managed to slip away from him and disappear. In a moment he realized his deserted condition, stretched up, like a lost chicken, looking about on every side, and calling, in a most plaintive tone, "pe-au! au!" and then, "au! au! pe-au!" When at length he saw his mother, he burst into a loud cry of delight, and flew into a locust-tree, where I heard for a long time low complaining cries, as if he reproached her for leaving her baby alone on the fence.

On the right of the home of the golden wings, in a sapling not more than five feet from the ground, was the residence of a gay little redstart, which we had watched almost from the laying of the foundations. We made our visit. Yesterday there were two pearls of promise within; to-day, alas! nothing.

Squirrels, we said; for those beasts were the bugaboo of the woods to its feathered inhabitants. Hardly a nest was so high, so well hidden, or so closely watched, but some unlucky day a little fellow--sportsman, would you call him?--- in gray or red fur, would find his chance, and make his breakfast on next year's song birds.

Musing on this and other tragedies among our friends, we silently turned to the next neighbor. At this door we could knock, and we always did. (We desired to be civil when circumstances permitted.) A rap or two on the dead trunk brought hastily to the door, twenty-five feet high, a small head, with a bright red cap and necktie, and eager, questioning eyes. Observing that he had guests, he came out, showing his black and white coat. But one glance was usually enough; he declined to entertain us, and instantly took his leave. We knew him well, however--the yellow-bellied woodpecker, or "sapsucker," as he was called in the vicinity. This morning we did not need to knock, for one of the family was already outside,--a young woodpecker, clinging to the bark, and dressing his nest-ruffled plumage for the grand performance, his first flight. We resolved at once to assist at the debut, secured reserved seats with a good view, and seated ourselves to wait.

Didst ever, dear reader, sit in one position on a camp-stool without a back, with head thrown back, and eyes fixed upon one small bird thirty feet from the ground, afraid to move or turn your eyes, lest you miss what you are waiting for, while the sun moves steadily on till his hottest rays pour through some opening directly upon you; while mosquitoes sing about your ears (would that they sang only!), and flies buzz noisily before your face; while birds flit past, and strange notes sound from behind; while rustling in the dead leaves at your feet suggests snakes, and a crawling on your neck proclaims spiders? If you have not, you can never appreciate the enthusiasms of a bird student, nor realize what neck-breaks and other discomforts one will cheerfully endure to witness the first flight of a nestling.

This affair turned out, however, as in many another case of great expectations, to be no remarkable performance. When the debutant had made his toilet, he flew, as if he had done it all his life, to the next tree, where he began at once to call for refreshment, after his exertion.

Disappointed, we dropped our eyes, whisked away our insect tormentors, gathered up our properties, and passed on our way.

This was the farthest point of our wanderings. The way back was through a narrow path beside the oven-bird's pretty domed nest, then between the tangle of wild-berry bushes and saplings, where a cuckoo had set up housekeeping, and where veeries and warblers had successfully hidden their nests, tantalizing us with calls and songs from morning till night; from thence through the garden, past the kitchen door, home.

XIV.

A BOBOLINK RHAPSODY.

Can anything be more lovely than a meadow in June, its tall grass overtopped by daisies, whose open faces,

"Candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free,
Publish themselves to the sky"?

One such I knew, despised of men as a meadow, no doubt, but glorious to the eye with its unbroken stretch of white bowing before the summer breeze like the waves of the sea, and charming as well to pewee and kingbird who hovered over it, ever and anon diving and bringing up food for the nestlings. When, to a meadow not so completely abandoned to daisies, where buttercups and red clover flourish among the grass, is added the music of the meadow's poet, the bobolink, surely nothing is lacking to its perfection.

Passing such a field one evening, I noted the babble of bobolinks, too far off to hear well, and the next day I set out down another path which passed through the meadow, to cultivate the acquaintance of the birds. It was a warm summer morning, near the middle of June, and when I reached the spot not a bobolink was in sight; but I sought a convenient bank under an old apple-tree, made myself as inconspicuous as possible, and waited. With these birds, however, as I soon found out, my precautions were unnecessary. They are not chary of their music; on the contrary, they appear to sing directly to a spectator, and they are too confident of the security of the nest to be disturbed about that. In a moment a black head with its buff cap appeared at the top of a grass stem, and instantly the black body, with its grotesque white decoration, followed. The bird flew half a dozen feet, singing as he went, as if the movement of the wings set the music going, alighted a little nearer, sang again, and finally, concluding that here was something to be looked after, a human being, such as he was accustomed to see pass by, taking possession of a part of the bobolink domain, he flew boldly to a small tree a few yards from me. He alighted on the top twig, in plain sight, and proceeded to "look me over," a performance which I returned with interest. He was silent only a few seconds, but the sound that came from his beak amazed me; it was a "mew." If the cat-bird cry resembles that of a cat, this was a perfect copy of a kitten's weak wail. It was always uttered twice in close succession, and sometimes followed by a harsh note that proclaimed his blackbird strain, a "chack!"

His utterance was thus: "mew, mew (quickly), chack!" and I interpreted it into a warning to me to leave the premises. I did not go, however, and after several repetitions his vigilance began to relax. He was really so full of sweet summer madness that it was impossible to keep up the role of stern guardian of the nests under the veil of buttercups and daisies, which he knew all the time I could never find. So, when he opened his mouth to say "chack," a note or two would irresistibly bubble out beside it, as if he said, "You really must go away, my big friend. We cannot have you in our fields;--but, after all, isn't the morning delicious?"

After a long conflict between desire to sing and his conviction of duty as special policeman, which ludicrously suggested Mr. Dick in his struggle between longing to be foolish with David Copperfield and to be grave to please Miss Betsy, he fairly gave in and did sing--and such a burst! Everybody has tried his hand at characterizing this bird's incomparable song, but no one has fully expressed it, for words are not capable of it. Perhaps Mrs. Spofford has caught the spirit as well as any one:--

"Last year methinks the bobolinks
Filled the low fields with vagrant tune,
The sweetest songs of sweetest June--
Wild spurts of frolic, always gladly
Bubbling, doubling, brightly troubling,
Bubbling rapturously, madly."

Expressing himself was so great a relief to my bobolink, after his unnatural gravity of demeanor, that he repeated the performance again and again. I say repeated it; I found that he had two ways of beginning, but after he got into his ecstasy I could think of nothing but how marvelous it was, so that whether the two differed all through I am not sure. It was every time a new rapture to me as well as to him. One of his beginnings that I had time to note before I was lost in the flood of melody was of two notes, the second a fifth higher than the first, with a "grace-note," very low indeed, before each one. The other beginning was also two notes, the second at least a fifth lower than the first, with an indescribable jerk between, and uttered so softly that if I had been a little further away I could not have heard it. It sounded like "tut, now."

Seeing that I remained motionless, the bird forgot altogether his uncongenial occupation of watchman, and launched himself into the air toward me, soaring round and round me, letting fall such a flood, such a torrent, of liquid notes that I thought half a dozen were singing,--and then dropped into the grass. Soon others appeared here and there, and sang it mattered not how or where,--soaring or beating the wings, on a grass stem, the top of a tree, hidden in the grass, or rudely rocked by the wind, they "sang and sang and sang."

Then for a while all was still. A turkey leading her fuzzy little brood about in the grass thrust her scrawny neck and anxious head above the daisies, said "quit! quit!" to me, and returned to the brooding mother-tones that kept her family around her. Tiring of my position while waiting for the concert to resume, I laid my head back among the ferns, letting the daisies and buttercups tower above my face,--strangely enough, by this simple act realizing as never before the real motherhood of the earth.

While I lay musing, lo, a sudden burst of music above my head! A bobolink sailed over my face, not three feet from it, singing his merriest, and then dropped into the grass behind me. Oh, never did I so much wish for eyes in the back of my head! He must be almost within touch, yet I dared not move; doubtless I was under inspection by that keen dark eye, for the first movement sent him away with a whir.

My next visitors were a small flock of six or eight cedar-birds, who were seriously disturbed by my choice of a couch. Evidently the green tent above my head was their chosen tree, and they could not give it up. Finding me perfectly silent, they would come, perch in various parts of the branches, and turn their wise-looking black spectacles down to look at me, keeping up an animated conversation the while. We call the cedar-bird silent because he has, as generally supposed, but one low note; but he can put into that one an almost infinite variety of expressions. If I so much as moved a hand, instantly my Quaker-clad friends dived off the tree below the bank across the road, as if, in their despair, they had flung themselves madly into the brook at the bottom. But I did not suspect them of so rash an act, and, indeed, in a few minutes the apple-tree again resounded with their cries.

Meanwhile the sun marched relentlessly on, and the shadows without and the feelings within alike pointed to the dinner hour (12 M.). I rose, and thereby created a panic in my small world. Six cedar-birds disappeared over the bank, a song sparrow flew shrieking across the field, a squirrel interrupted in his investigations fled madly along the rail fence, every few steps stopping an instant, with hindquarters laid flat and tail resting on the rail, to see if his head was still safe on his shoulders.

I gathered up my belongings and sauntered off toward home, musing, as I went, upon the bobolink family. I had not once seen or heard the little mates. Were they busy in the grass with bobolink babies? and did they enjoy the music as keenly as I did? How much I "wanted to know"! How I should like to see the nests and the nestlings! What sort of a father is the gay singer? (Some of the blackbird family are exemplary in this relation.) Does he drop his part of poet, of reveler of the meadows, I wonder, and come down to the sober prose of stuffing baby mouths? Are bobolinks always this jolly, delightful crowd? Are they never quarrelsome? Alas! it would take much more than one day, however sunny and however long, to tell all these things.

At the edge of the meadow I sat down again, hoping for one more song, and then came the crown of the whole morning, the choicest reserved for the last. A bird sailed out from behind the daisies, passed over my head, and delivered the most bewitching rhapsody I had yet heard. Not merely once did he honor me, but again and again without pausing, as if he intended to fill me as full of bobolink rapture as he was himself. His voice was peculiarly rich and full, and, what amazed me, his first three notes were an exact reproduction of the wood-thrush's (though more rapidly sung), including the marvelous organ-like quality of that bird's voice. I could have listened forever.

"Oh, what have I to do with time?
For this the day was made."

But when he had uttered his message he sank back into the grass, and I tore myself away from the bobolink meadow, and came home far richer and far happier than when I set out.

XV.

THE BOBOLINK'S NEST.

My acquaintance with the bobolink was resumed a year later in the lovely summer home of a friend in the Black River Country, within sight of the Adirondack hills. We had found many nests in the woods and orchards, but the meadow had been safe from our feet, partly because of the rich crops that covered it, but more, perhaps, because of the hopelessness of the search over the broad fields for anything so easily hidden as a ground nest.

One evening, however, our host with a triumphant air invited us to walk, declaring that he could show us a nest more interesting than we had found.

The gentleman was a joker, and his statements were apt to be somewhat embellished by his vivid imagination, so that we accepted them with caution; but now he looked exultant, and we believed him, especially as he took his hat and stick and started off.

Down the road we went, a single carriage-way between two banks of grass a yard high. After carefully taking his bearings by certain small elm-trees, and searching diligently about for an inconspicuous dead twig he had planted as a guide-post, our leader confidently waded into the green depths, parted the stalks in a certain spot, and bade us look.

We did. In a cosy cup, almost under our feet, were cuddled together three bird-babies.

"Bobolinks?" we cried in a breath.

"Yes, bobolinks," said our guide; "and you had to wait for an old half-blind man to find them for you."

We were too much delighted to be annoyed by his teasing; a bobolink's nest we never hoped to see.

Nor should we, but for a discovery of mine that very morning. Walking down that same road, I had noticed in the deep grass near the path a clump of exquisite wild flowers. They were of gorgeous coloring, shaded from deep orange to rich yellow, full petaled like an English daisy, and about the size of that flower, with the edge of every tiny petal cut in fairy-like fringe. I admired them for some minutes as they grew, and then gathered a handful to grace my room. As I came up to the house, my host stood on the steps; his eyes fell at once upon my nosegay, and a look of horror came into his face.

My heart sank. Had I unwittingly picked some of his special treasures, some rare exotic which he had cultivated with care?

"Where did you find that stuff?" he demanded. I was instantly relieved; no man will call a treasure "stuff."

"In the meadow," I answered. "What is it?"

"You must show me the exact spot," he said, emphatically. "I shall have a man out at once, to get it up, root and branch. It's the devil's paintbrush."

"Then his majesty has good taste in color," I said.

"That stuff," he went on, "spreads like wildfire. It'll eat up my meadow in a year."

I turned back and showed him the spot from which my flowers had come, pointing out at the same time two or three other clumps I could see farther out in the waving green sea, and before long his farmer and he were very busy over them.

Now it appeared that in tramping about the deep grass, where we bird-students dared not set our feet, he had nearly stepped on a bobolink, who flew, and thus pointed out her nest; and he had taken its bearings with the intention of putting us to shame.

We looked long at the tiny trio so compactly packed in their cradle, till they awoke and demanded supplies. Then we carefully replanted the dead stick, taking its exact bearings between three trees, drew a few grass-stems together in a braid at the margin so that we should not lose what we had so accidentally gained, and then we left them.

During this inspection of the nest, the "poet of the year" and his spouse were perched on two neighboring trees, utterly unmoved by our movements. They were, no doubt, so perfectly confident of the security of the hiding-place that it never occurred to them even to look to see what we three giants were doing. At least, such we judged were their sentiments by the change in their manners somewhat later, when they thought we were likely to make discoveries.

The meadow itself had been our delight for weeks. When we arrived, in the beginning of June, it was covered with luxuriant clumps of blue violets, and great bunches of blue-eyed grass that one might gather by the handful at one picking. Later the higher parts were thickly sprinkled with white where

"Gracefully as does the fawn,
Sweet Marguerites their dainty heads uphold,"

while the hollows were golden with buttercups. Then the grass under the warm June sun stretched up inch by inch till it was three or four feet high and very thick. Meanwhile a bobolink or two, and as many meadow-larks had taken possession of it, and it was made still richer by the sweet minor strains of the lark, and the song of the bird who,

"like the soul
Of the sweet season vocal in a bird,
Gurgles in ecstasy we know not what."

The evening after our humiliation--which we lost sight of in our joy--we returned to the charmed spot, parted again the sweet grass curtains and gazed down at the baby bobolinks, while the parents perched on two trees as before and paid not the smallest attention to us.

We passed on down the road to the gate where we could look into a neighboring pasture and watch for a pair of red-headed woodpeckers who lived in that pleasant place, and catch the reflection of the sunset in the northern sky. While we lingered there, I looked with my glass back at the bobolinks, and chanced to see Bobby himself in the act of diving into the grass. When he came out he seemed to notice me, and instantly began trying to mislead me.

He came up boldly, flew to another spot where a weed lifted its head above the green, and dropped into the grass exactly as though he was going to the nest; then he rose again, repeated his tactics, pausing every time he came out and calling, as if to say, "This is my home; if you're looking for a nest, here it is!" His air was so business-like that it would naturally deceive one not possessed of our precious secret, the real spot where his three babies were cradled, and one might easily be led all over the meadow by the wily fellow.

For six successive days we paid our short visits, and found the nestlings safe. They did not seem to mature very fast, though they came to look up at us, and open their mouths for food. But on the seventh day there was a change in Master Robert's behavior. On the afternoon of this day, wishing to observe their habits more closely, I found a seat under a tree at some distance, not near enough, as I thought, to disturb them.

I did disturb them sorely, however, as instantly appeared. The calmness they had shown during all the days we had been looking at the nest was gone, and they began to scold at once. The head of the family berated me from the top of a grass-stem, and then flew to a tall old stump, and put me under the closest surveillance, constantly uttering a queer call like "Chack-que-dle-la," jerking wings and tail, and in every way showing that he considered me intrusive and altogether too much interested in his family affairs. I admitted the charge, I could not deny it; but I did not retire.

At last he apparently determined to insist upon my going, for he started from his high perch directly toward me. Swiftly and with all his force he flew, and about twenty feet from me swooped down so that I thought he would certainly strike my face. I instinctively dodged, and he passed over, so near that the wind from his wings fanned my face. This was a hint I could not refuse to take. I left him, for the time.

That evening when we went for our usual call, lo! the nest was empty. At not more than seven or eight days of age, those precocious infants had started out in the world! That explained the conduct of the anxious papa in the afternoon, and I forgave him on the spot. I understood his fear that I should discover or step on his babies three, scattered and scrambling about under all that depth of grass. The abandoned homestead, which we carefully examined, proved to be merely a cup-shaped hollow in the ground, slightly protected by a thin lining.

In a few days the wandering younglings were up in front of the house, where we could watch the parents drop into the grass with food; and where, of course, they were safe from anybody's intrusion. I had one more encounter with his lordship. After the young had been out a week or more, they seemed in their moving about to get back near to the old place. As I took my usual walk one evening, down the carriage drive to the gate, I found two pairs of bobolinks on one tree; the two mothers with food in their mouths, evidently intended for somebody down in the grass; and the two fathers, very much disturbed at my appearance. They greeted me with severe and reproving "chacks," and finally favored me with the most musical call I have heard from the sweet-voiced bird of the meadow. It was like "kee-lee!" in loud and rich tones, and it was many times repeated.

I assured them that I had no wish to disturb their little ones; though, if I had been able to lift the whole grassy cover to peep at the two small families hidden there, I fear I should have yielded to the temptation.

Our bird had been somewhat erratic in making his home far from his fellows,--so social are these birds even in nesting-time; but now he was joined by more of his kind from the meadows below, and to the beautiful waving carpet of green, dotted here and there with great bunches of black-eyed Susans and devil's paint-brushes (what names!), and sprinkled all over with daisies, now beginning to look a little disheveled and wild, was added the tantalizing interest of dozens of little folk running about under its shelter.

The next week brought to the meadow what must seem from the bobolink point of view almost the end of the world. Men and horses and great rattling machines, armed with sharp knives, which laid low every stem of grass and flower, and let the light of the sun in upon the haunts and the nests of the bobolink babies.

Happily, however, not all the earth is meadow and subject to this annual catastrophe; and I think the whole flock took refuge in a pasture where they were safe from the hay-cutters, and had for neighbors only the cows and the crow babies.

XVI.

THE TANAGER'S NEST.

One of the prettiest memory-pictures of my delightful June on the banks of the Black River is the nest of a scarlet tanager, placed as the keystone of one of Nature's exquisite living arches. The path which led to it was almost as charming as the nest itself. Lifting a low-hanging branch of maple at the entrance to the woods, we took leave of the world and all its affairs, and stepped at once into a secluded path. Though so near the house, the woods were solitary, for they were private and very carefully protected. Passing up the rustic foot-path, under interlacing boughs of maple and beech, we came at length to a sunny open spot, where all winter grain is kept for partridges, squirrels, and other pensioners who may choose to come. From this little opening one road turned to the wild-berry field, where lived the cuckoo and the warblers; another opened an inviting way into the deep woods; a third went through the fernery. We took that, and passed on through a second lovely bit of wood, where the ground was wet, and ferns of many kinds grew luxuriantly, and the walk was mostly over a dainty corduroy of minute moss-covered logs.

At the end of the fernery are two ways. The first runs along the edge of the forest, whose outlying saplings hang over and make a cool covered walk. Down this path I almost had an adventure one day. The morning was warm and I was alone. As I came out of this covered passage, beside an old stump, I noticed in a depression in the ground at my feet a squirming mass of fur. On looking closer I saw four or five little beasts rolling and scrambling over each other. They were as big, perhaps, as a month-old kitten, but they were a good deal more knowing than pussy's babies, for as I drew near they stopped their play and waited to see what would happen. I looked at them with eager interest. They were really beautiful; black and white in stripes, with long bushy tails. Black and white, and so self-possessed!--a thought struck me. "Mephitis," I gasped, and instantly put several feet more between us. So attractive and playful were they, however, that notwithstanding I feared it might be hard to convince their mamma, should she appear, of my amiable intentions, I could not resist another look. Calm as a summer morning walked off one of the mephitis babies, holding his pretty tail straight up like a kitten's, while the other four went on with their frolic in the grass. At this moment I heard a rustle in the dead leaves, and having no desire to meet their grown-up relatives, I left in so great haste that I took the wrong path, and finally lost myself for a time in a tangle of wild raspberry bushes, whose long arms reached out on every side to scratch the face and hands or catch the dress of the unwary passer-by.

The other of the two ways spoken of was a road, soft-carpeted with dead leaves. To reach the tanager's nest we took that, and came, a little further on, to a big log half covered with growing fungi and laid squarely across the passage. This was the fungus log, another landmark for the wanderer unfamiliar with these winding ways. On this, if I were alone, I always rested awhile to get completely into the woods spirit, for this is the heart of the woods, with nothing to be seen on any side but trees. Cheerful, pleasant woods they are, of sunny beech, birch, maple, and butternut, with branches high above our heads, and a far outlook under the trees in every direction. There is no gloom such as evergreens make; no barricade of dark impenetrable foliage, behind which might lurk anything one chose to imagine, from a grizzly bear to an equally unwelcome tramp.

In this lovely spot come together four roads and a path, and to the pilgrim from cities they seem like paths into paradise. That on the right leads by a roundabout way to the "corner," where one may see the sunset. The next, straight in front, is the passage to the nest of the winter wren. The far left invites one to a wild tangle of fallen trees and undergrowth, where veeries sing, and enchanting but maddening warblers lure the bird-lover on, to scramble over logs, wade into swamps, push through chaotic masses of branches, and, while using both hands to make her way, incidentally offer herself a victim to the thirsty inhabitants whose stronghold it is. All this in a vain search for some atom of a bird that doubtless sits through the whole, calmly perched on the topmost twig of the tallest tree, shielded by a leaf, and pours out the tantalizing trill that draws one like a magnet.

Between this road and the wren's highway a path runs upward. It is narrow, and guarded at the opening by a mossy log to be stepped over, but it is most alluring. Up that route we go. On the left as we pass we notice two beautiful nests in saplings, so low that we can look in; redstarts both, and nearly always we find madam at home. We pass on, step over a second mossy log, pause a moment to glance at a vireo's hanging cradle on the right, and arrive at length at a crossing road, on the other side of which our path goes on, with a pile of logs like a stile to go over. Over the logs we step, walk a rod or two further, stop beside the blackened trunk of a fallen tree, turn our faces to the left, and behold the nest.

Before us is one of nature's arches. A maple sapling, perhaps fifteen feet high, has in some way been bowed till its top touched the ground and became fastened there, a thing often seen in these woods. Thus diverted from its original destiny of growing into a tree, it has kept its "sweetness and light," sent out leaves and twigs through all its length, and become one of the most beautiful things in the woods--a living arch. Just in the middle of this exquisite bow, five feet above the ground, is the tanager's nest, well shielded by leaves. We never should have found it if the little fellow in scarlet had not made so much objection to our going up this particular passage that we suspected him of having a secret in this quarter. He went ahead of us from tree to tree, keeping an eye on us, and calling, warily, "chip-chur!" When we sat down a few moments to see what all the fuss was about, we saw his spouse in her modest dress of olive green on a low branch. She, too, uttered the cry "chip-chur!" and seemed disturbed by our call. Looking around for the object of their solicitude, our eyes fell at the same instant on the nest. We dared not speak, but an ecstatic glance from my comrade, with a hand laid on her heart to indicate her emotions, announced that our hopes were fulfilled; it was the nest we were seeking.

The birds, seeing that we meant to stay, flew away after a while, and we hastened to secrete ourselves before they should return, by placing our camp-stools in a thick growth of saplings just higher than our heads. We crowned ourselves with fresh leaves, not as conquerors, though such we felt ourselves, but as a disguise to hide our heads. We daubed our faces here and there with an odorous (not to say odious) preparation warranted to discourage too great familiarity on the part of the residents already established in that spot. We subsided into silence.

The birds returned, but were still wary. As before, the male perched high and kept a sharp eye out on the country around, and I have no doubt soon espied us in our retreat. Madam again tried to "screw her courage up" to visit that nest. Nearer and nearer she came, pausing at every step, looking around and calling to her mate to make sure he was near. At last, just as she seemed about to take the last step and go in, and we were waiting breathless for her to do it, a terrific sound broke the silence. The big dog, protector and constant companion of my fellow-student, overcome by the torment of mosquitoes, and having no curiosity about tanagers to make him endure them, had yielded to his emotions and sneezed. Away went the tanager family, and, laughing at the absurd accident, away we went too, happy at having discovered the nest, and planning to come the next day. We came next day, and many days thereafter, but never again did we see the birds near. They abandoned the nest, doubtless feeling that they had been driven away by a convulsion of nature.

One day, somewhat later, in the winter wren's quarter, where there were pools left by a heavy rain, we met them again. Madam was bathing, and her husband accompanied her as guard and protector. They flew away together. All of June we heard him sing, and we often followed him, but never again did we surprise a secret of his, till the very last day of the month. We had been making a visit to our veery nests, and on our way back noticed that the tanager was more than usually interested in our doings. He seemed very busy too, with the air of a person of family. While we were watching to see what it meant, he caught a flying insect and held it in his mouth. Then we knew he had little folk to feed, so we seated ourselves on the fungus log, and waited for him to point one out. He did. He could not resist giving that delicate morsel to his first-born. With many wary approaches, he dropped at last into the scanty undergrowth, and there, a foot above the ground, we saw the young tanager. He was a little dumpling of a fellow, with no hint in his baby-suit of the glory that shall clothe him by and by. But where was the mother? and where had they nested? But for that untimely sneeze, as I shall always believe, they would have made their home in that beautiful nest on the arch, and we should have been there to see.

XVII.

THE WILES OF A WARBLER.

"Hark to that petulant chirp! What ails the warbler?
Mark his capricious ways to draw the eye."

We called him the blue, but that was not his whole name by any means. Fancy a scientist with a new bird to label, contenting himself with one word! His whole name is--or was till lately--black-throated blue-backed warbler, or _Dendroica coerulescens_, and that being fairly set down for future reference for whom it may concern, I shall call him henceforth, as we did in the woods, the blue.

For a day or two at first he was to us, like many another of his size, only a "wandering voice." But it was an enticing voice, a sweet-toned succession of _z-z-z_ in ascending scale, and it was so persistent that when we really made the attempt, we had no trouble in getting sight of the little beauty hardly bigger than one's thumb. He was a wary little sprite, and though he looked down upon us as we turned opera-glasses toward him,--a battery that puts some birds into a panic,--he was not alarmed. He probably made up his mind then and there, that it should be his special business to keep us away from his nest, for really that seemed to be his occupation. No sooner did we set foot in the woods than his sweet song attracted us. We followed it, and he, carelessly as it seemed, but surely, led us on around and around, always in a circle without end.

My fellow bird-student became fairly bewitched, and could not rest till she found his nest. For my part I gave up the warbler family long ago, as too small, too uneasy, too fond of tree-tops, to waste time and patience over. In these her native woods, my comrade led in our walks, and the moment we heard his tantalizing _z-z-z_ she turned irresistibly toward it. I followed, of course, happy to be anywhere under these trees.

One morning she tracked him inch by inch till she was fortunate enough to trace him to a wild corner in the woods given up to a tangle of fallen trees, saplings, and other growth. She went home happy, sure she was on the trail. The next day we turned our steps to that quarter and penetrated the jungle till we reached a moderately clear spot facing an impenetrable mass of low saplings. There we took our places, to wait with what patience we might for the blue.

Our lucky star was in the ascendant that day, for we had not been there three minutes before a small, inconspicuous bird dropped into the bushes a few feet from us. My friend's eye followed her, and in a second fell upon the nest the little creature was lining, in a low maple about two feet from the ground.

But who was she? For it is one of the difficulties about nests, that the brightly-colored male, whom one knows so well, is very sure not to show himself in the neighborhood, and his spouse is certain to look just like everybody else. However, there is always some mark by which we may know, and as soon as the watcher secured a good look she announced in an excited whisper, "We have it! a female blue, building."

So it proved to be, and we planted our seats against trees for backs, and arranged ourselves to stay. The dog seeing this preparation, and recognizing it as somewhat permanent, with a heavy sigh laid himself out full length, and composed himself to sleep.

The work over that nest was one of the prettiest bits of bird-life I ever watched. Never was a scrap of a warbler, a mere pinch of feathers, so perfectly delighted with anything as she with that dear little homestead of hers. It was pretty; it looked outside like the dainty hanging cradle of a vireo, but instead of being suspended from a horizontal forked twig, it was held in an upright fork made by four twigs of the sapling.

The little creature's body seemed too small to hold her joy; she simply could not bring her mind to leave it. She rushed off a short distance and brought some infinitesimal atom of something not visible to our coarse sight, but very important in hers. This she arranged carefully, then slipped into the nest and moulded it into place by pressing her breast against it and turning around.

Thus she worked for some time, and then seemed to feel that her task was over, at least for the moment. Yet she could not tear herself away. She flew six inches away, then instantly came back and got into the nest, trying it this way and that. Then she ran up a stem, and in a moment down again, trying that nest in a new way, from a fresh point of view. This performance went on a long time, and we found it as impossible to leave as she did; we were as completely charmed with her ingenuous and bewitching manners as she was with her new home.

Well indeed was it that we stayed that morning and enriched ourselves with the beautiful picture of bird ways, for like many another fair promise of the summer it came to naught.

We had not startled her, she had not observed us at all, nor been in the least degree hindered in her work by our silent presence, twenty feet away and half hidden by her leafy screen. But the next day she was not there. After we had waited half an hour, my friend could no longer resist a siren voice that had lured us for days (and was never traced home, by the way). I offered to wait for the little blue while she sought her charmer.

We were near the edge of the woods, and she was obliged to pass through part of a pasture where sheep were kept. Her one terror about her big dog was that he should take to making himself disagreeable among sheep, when she knew his days would be numbered, so she told him to stay with me. He had risen when she started, and he looked a little dubious, but sat down again, and she went away.