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THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

Bl RD-SONGS

ABOUT

WORCESTER.

BY

HARRY LEVERETT NELSON, A.M. ,VW-

BOSTON

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1889

Copyright, 1889,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.

time of the singing of birds is come.

I rose anon, and thoght I wolde goon
Into the wode, to here the briddes singe,
When that the mysty vapour was agoon,
And clere andfeyer was the morownyng.

And in I went to here the briddes songe,
Which on the braunches, bo the in pleyn and vale,
So loude songe that al the wode ronge.

INTRODUCTION,

'""THE letters here collected were first
published in Worcester newspapers.
The theme, almost universally attractive,
has found few students willing to devote to
it that degree of patient observation and
comparison necessary to its knowledge.
That the birds are singing about us, that
their music forms part of the great har-
mony of Nature, that when noblest desires
and sweetest anticipations inspire our cour-
age, then are our cheerful spirits most
nearly in tune with the songs, of these
unfeed minstrels, — all this we know.

But there is an added delight, which
they who seek it find, in intimate acquaint-
ance with the singer, in possessing per-

4 INTRODUCTION.

sonal information of the place and hour of
his concert, in listening for his vernal over-
ture, and appreciating the brightening
blessing of his season's farewell.

" Come, hear this woman, she sings like
a nightingale." " But I can hear the
nightingale." Not altogether wise in the
philosopher to reject the one, but how can
we excuse neglect of the other ?

In the rural city where the writer of the
letters lived, it came to many as a matter
of surprise that there was so much to
study, so ample a source of gratification in
the birds about us. Filled as they are
with the enthusiasm of the true lover, the
letters served as a guide for others to
pleasures not before revealed.

On the sixteenth of August, eighteen
hundred and eighty-nine, HARRY LEVER-
ETT NELSON, then hardly past the por-
tals of his professional career, was quietly
turned aside into that silent path which
leads we know not whither. Reflections
such as have here been imperfectly ex-

INTRODUCTION. 5

pressed, persuaded several of his friends
that his letters in more permanent form
would be welcomed by former readers and
find appreciation in wider circles. In this
belief we present them just as they came
from his pen, with but the corrections of
a careful proof-reader. We have added
a letter on another topic, which seemed
to us of interest

R. H.

C F. A.

C. M. R

WORCESTER, MASS.,

November ; 1889.

CONTENTS.

LETTER PAGE

I. APRIL BIRDS 9

II. APRIL BIRDS (Continued) ... 20

III. APRIL BIRDS (Concluded) ... 31

IV. MAY BIRDS 43

V. MAY BIRDS (Continued) .... 55

VI. JUNE BIRDS 67

VII. MIDSUMMER SONGSTERS .... 79
VIII. BIRD NOMENCLATURE. — SOME ENG-
LISH AND AMERICAN BIRDS ... 90
IX. THE BIRDS OF PRINCETON . . . 100
X. OFF CAPE COD. — WHALING IN

MASSACHUSETTS BAY . . . . 113

BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

I.

APRIL BIRDS.

WORCESTER, April 9, 1887.
MY DEAR MR. EDITOR, — In contribut-
ing this series of letters to your esteemed
paper I am realizing an idea I have long
had in mind of attempting through your
columns to awaken some general interest
in the study of bird songs. In pursuance
of this idea I shall endeavor in this letter
to describe the songs of some of our earli-
est birds, which it will be comparatively
easy to master thus early in the season,

10 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

before the arrival of the countless hosts
of others, which will soon make their ap-
pearance from the South. I trust, also,
that I shall be able to facilitate this study
by the method I shall adopt of describing
actual walks about Worcester, and of re-
ferring continually to well-known and ac-
cessible localities.

Yesterday was a cloudless April day,
and the sun tempered the chilliness in the
air caused by the snow-banks along the
roadside. As I walked up Highland Street
by Mr. Salisbury's house, my ears were
at once saluted by the pretty trills of the
song-sparrow (mefosptea melodid) issuing
from the orchard and fields west of the
house. At this season this beautiful singer
cannot be mistaken, uttering three or four
pipes, or whistles, followed by canary-like
trills and quavers, not very loud, but
spirited and vivacious. There is, perhaps,
no other of our birds whose song varies so
much in detail and execution, though the
quality and theme are always the same,
and sometimes the same singer will give

APRIL BIRDS. II

us five or six different variations in rapid
succession without changing his perch.
The little vesper-sparrow (pooccetes gram-
ineus\ which will now soon be with us,
pours forth a song so similar to some of
these variations that it requires consider-
able practice and study to distinguish
them with certainty. Until the robins are
in song, this modest little song-sparrow,
in his plain brown suit, furnishes nine-
tenths of our bird music. Proceeding up
Highland Street I am greeted with its song
from all parts of Elm Park. This bird
has been with us now for three or four
weeks, and, like the blue-bird, has been
filling the bleak, barren fields with its
music since its first appearance.

All the way up the street the much-
abused English sparrows kept up a con-
stant chatter to the south towards the
city, while to the north, especially among
the evergreens opposite the Merrifield
estate, the slate-colored snow-birds (junco
hyentalis) were everywhere to. be seen.
These snow-birds, with their ashy-black

12 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

backs, white bellies, and white lateral tail-
feathers opening and shutting like a fan
as they fly before you, are for the first
few weeks in April more numerous than
the individuals of all other species com-
bined. Although, as their name implies,
they occasionally stay with us through the
winter months, they are much more abun-
dant in the early spring and late fall. By
the first of May they will nearly all have
left for the White Mountains and the
North, where they pass the summer. I
have, however, seen a few pairs near the
summit of Mount Wachusett in the sum-
mer, and have no doubt that they breed
there. Numerous as are the snow-birds,
they contribute but little to our spring
music, their only song being an occasional
low jingle, not, however, unpleasing to the
ear. In the Park I found these birds un-
usually abundant.1

1 Nuttall says that the song of the snow-bird is " a
few sweet, clear, and tender notes, almost similar to the
touching warble of the European robin red-breast."
It is among the finer and more delicate forecastings of
earliest spring. — EDS.

APRIL BIRDS. 13

As I stand in the road opposite Elm
Park, I hear first, away off toward Sunny-
side, and then from the slopes of Newton
Hill, the soft, homesick warble of the blue-
bird (sialia sialis). It is impossible not
to recognize the half-pathetic, tremulous
note, so different from the cheerful ditty
of the song-sparrow, with which it most
frequently blends during the frosty days
of March and April. The bluebird has
been with us nearly a month, and is al-
ready pairing and beginning preparations
for setting up housekeeping in some mar-
tin-box before the door, or in some de-
serted woodpecker's hole in the woods or
fields.

On the morning of the 3ist of March,
walking along Pleasant Street, west of
Newton Hill, I was surprised to hear from
the snow-covered meadow below the pierc-
ing, long-drawn-out whistle of the meadow-
lark (sturnella magna). It is a veritable
spring sound, fresh and strong, cleaving
the frosty air like a knife. It is simple as
the curve in form, beginning low, ascend-

14 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

ing and strengthening, and then descend-
ing. The larks may always be heard a
little later in the season in the fields by
Salisbury's Pond, east of the boulevard,
and in the fields south and east of the
Technical School, and I have even heard
them on West street, in the neighborhood
of the tennis-courts. This is one of our
handsomest native birds, with his conspic-
uous yellow breast and martial bearing,
and may be easily recognized by his
peculiar hovering flight, not unlike the
soaring of the hawk, and by his white
tail-feathers.

The robins (turdus migratorius) have
been with us in abundance for two weeks,
but though I heard them yesterday on all
sides screaming and calling, none were
yet in song. The spring carnival had not
yet begun. For the rest of the month,
however, these thrushes will be musical
enough. April is, par excellence, the robins'
month. The wood-thrush and veery wait
for May; but what is sweeter and more
inspiring than the strong, profuse song

APRIL BIRDS. 15

of the robin which he carols forth for an
hour at a time in the April twilight
from some leafless tree in the pasture or
orchard?

Since writing the above, on the evening
of the date of this letter, I have heard
robins in full song all along Harvard
Street, and they have now, undoubtedly,
generally begun singing in all parts of
the city:

Another bird, which comes in April, or
even in March, is the phoebe-bird (sayornis
ftiscus), the pioneer of the fly-catchers.
Its cheerful and rapidly repeated phee-bee,
phee-bee, phee-bee is its spring note. In
the summer we hear phe-ee-bee, phe-ee-bee,
slower, sadder, and more in accordance
with the advancing season.

The common chickadee, or black-capped
titmouse (parus atricapillns), has, in addi-
tion to its ordinary dee-dee-dee, a spring
note so much like the later note of
the phcebe that they cannot easily be
distinguished. I have never seen the
pretty note of the chickadee mentioned in

1 6 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

any book but Thoreau's •" Early Spring in
Massachusetts," edited by Mr. H. G. O.
Blake. I first heard it myself on a bright,
sunny day, toward the end of February,
on Kendall Street. The chickadee is one
of our very few birds that stay with us
all the year round, and it is also one
of the few birds that have inspired the
native muse. Mr. Emerson's " Titmouse "
ranks with his " Humble-bee " among the
most popular and well-known of his
poems.

Yesterday I saw a pair of white-bellied
nuthatches (sitta carolinensis) in an orchard
near Kendall Street, and heard their harsh,
rasping qua-qtia-qtia, which it is quite im-
possible to mistake. Last fall they were
abundant all through the neighborhood,
and were very conspicuous with their
glistening dark-blue backs and heads, white
breasts, and queer, short tails. Like the
chickadee, the nuthatch lives on the larvse
in the bark, and he is our only bird that
hangs head downward as he creeps around
the trunk in his search for food. The nut-

APRIL BIRDS. I/

hatch breeds far north of us, whither he
will soon be hastening.1

The pigeon woodpecker, or high-hole,
or flicker (colaptes auratus}, is a character-
istic April bird, which, unlike the nuthatch,
comes to tarry, and though I have as yet
missed his long, loud tf-if-if-if* reminding
one somewhat of the scream of the robin,
yet it will soon be heard re-echoing through
the outskirts of the city. Though a hand-
some, jaunty fellow, he is much fonder of
being heard than seen, which seems all
the stranger, as his voice is far from pleas-
ing or musical.

The blue grackle, or crow-blackbird
(quiscalus versicolor) is already abundant
in the Rural Cemetery, one of his favorite
haunts, and it is amusing indeed to watch
him lift his wings and jerk up his tail in
his desperate efforts to sing, all resulting
in the most pitiful wheezing and sput-
tering,— the mere parody of a musical
performance.

1 The white-bellied nuthatch sometimes breeds in
Massachusetts. — EDS.

2

1 8 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

The loud conqueree of the red-shoul-
dered blackbird {agelaius phceniceus) is al-
ready heard among the marshes of North
Pond, and the long, sliding, monotonous
chant of the common little chipping-spar-
row (spizella socialis) \ have suspected that
I heard once or twice from our orchard,
but the real flight of this species, it is
clear, is hardly yet begun.

Within the next week or two the purple-
finch and the goldfinch, the vesper-spar-
row and the field-sparrow will have put in
an appearance ; but with these exceptions
there will be few prominent arrivals be-
fore the first of May. Not till then, at the
earliest, may we expect the brown-thrush
and the cat-bird, the wood-thrush and the
veery, the orioles and the bobolinks, the
vireos, and the host of warblers that come
by the first of June.

I would say in conclusion to this letter
that any of your readers who may be in-
terested in the subject of birds and their
singing will find the first chapter of John
Burroughs' " Wake Robin," and the chap-

APRIL BIRDS. 19

ter in Bradford Torrey's "Birds in the
Bush" entitled "A Bird Lover's April,"
delightful and profitable reading regard-
ing our early birds. I must not omit to
mention also a book I have already re-
ferred to, Thoreau's " Early Spring in
Massachusetts," comprising extracts from
his journal, which, however, brings down
the season only to about the eighth of
April. •

II.

APRIL BIRDS (CONTINUED).

WORCESTER, April 19, 1887.
MY DEAR MR. EDITOR, — Since my
last letter the vesper, field, and chipping
sparrows, the purple-finch, goldfinch, and
blue-backed swallows have made their ap-
pearance from the South, the robins have
been singing everywhere, the pigeon-wood-
pecker has begun to shout, and the snow-
birds have been growing fewer daily. The
recent unseasonable weather, and yester-
day's heavy snow-storm, have probably
checked somewhat the onward tide of mi-
gration; but this is only temporary, and
the season's steady advance is but little
retarded. As most of our early birds are

APRIL BIRDS. 21

finches or sparrows, which live on the
seeds of plants and weeds, they have been
put to little inconvenience by the weather,
for, so long as their food supply is am-
ple, it is well known that with their warm
clothing and highly organized systems, the
birds are insensible to the extreme cold.

The most conspicuous arrival of the last
few days is the vesper-sparrow, or bay-
winged, bunting, or grass-finch (jtooccztes
graminens). Up to the fifteenth of the
month, of all his tribe, the song-sparrow
had reigned supreme, but during the night
of the fourteenth (for it is now well estab-
lished that birds make their migrations in
the night-time) there was a great flight of
baywings. On the morning of the fif-
teenth, in the orchard north of Highland
Street, just beyond Elm Park, I saw a
flock of fifty or a hundred; and numerous
individuals were singing freely, both in
the orchard and all along the side of New-
ton Hill opposite. They are much more
abundant now than they will be later in
the season, as the great body will proceed

22 BIRD -SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

farther north, leaving behind only a small
fraction of their number to spend the sum-
mer with us here in Massachusetts. The
song of this species is strikingly like the
song sparrow's, but the voice is not so
loud and ringing, and the two or three
opening notes are less sharply empha-
sized. In general the difference between
the two songs may be well expressed by
saying that the one is more declamatory,
the other more cantabile^ — a difference
such as might have been expected, con-
sidering the nervous, impetuous disposition
of the song-sparrow and the placidity of
the baywing. The sparrow may be easily
identified by its size, which is considerably
larger than that of the song-sparrow, and
by the two white lateral quills of his tail,
— less conspicuous, however, than in the
snow bird, since there we have white
against black, while here we have white
against brown. John Burroughs finds in
this little vesper-sparrow one of his favor-
ite birds. Of him he says : " Not in
meadows or orchards, but in high, breezy

APRIL BIRDS. 23

pasture-grounds will you look for him.
His song is most noticeable after sun-
down, when other birds are silent, for
which reason he has been aptly called the
vesper-sparrow. Two or three long silver
notes of rest and peace, ending in some
subdued thrills or quavers, constitute each
separate song. Such unambitious, uncon-
scious melody ! It is one of the most
characteristic sounds in nature. The
grass, the stones, the stubble, the furrow,
the quiet herds and the warm twilight
among the hills, are all subtilely expressed
in this song ; this is what they are at least
capable of.'1

All along the ridge of hills on Burncoat
Street, from Adams Square to the Summit,
these birds are unusually abundant all
through the season.

The field-sparrow, or bush-sparrow
(spizella pusilla), though closely allied to
the familiar chipping-sparrow, whom he
strongly resembles in size and general ap-
pearance, is usually found remote from
the abodes of man, either on the edge of

24 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

the woods or in the waste pasture-lot
overgrown with under-brush. His song
is simplicity itself, consisting of two or
three introductory whistles, followed by
a whistle long and vibrating, but without
trills or other embellishments. I often
hear it near the border of the woods on
the southwest slope of Millstone Hill,
towards the city, and on the bushy hillside
beyond Sunnyside, east of Peat Meadow.
The field-sparrow enjoys the distinction
of singing all summer long, even during
the heat of the dog-days, long after most
other birds have become silent. This
bird I have heard once or twice this
spring, though as yet it has hardly become
abundant.

Of all the members of the sparrow fam-
ily that stay with us to breed, the purple
finch, or linnet (carpodacus purpureus),
is the finest musician. Only the adult
male is purple, however, and even he, ac-
cording to Burroughs, looks as if he had
been dipped in pokeberry juice and taken
out before the dyeing process was half

APRIL BIRDS. 25

finished. The female and the young male
are clad in plain brown. This finch ap-
pears in the spring, just when the elm-
trees are beginning to leaf out, and he is
supposed to feed on the bursting buds, to
the no great benefit, I fancy, of the tree.
I have not yet heard him about Worces-
ter, but, spending last Sunday in Ux-
bridge, where the season is much more
advanced than here, I was awakened early
in the morning by his loud, warbling song
proceeding from the old elm-tree in front
of the farm-house.

The long, piercing note of the lark, aris-
ing from the meadows along the river,
contrasted strangely with the song of the
linnet, the two producing a curious and
rather unusual medley.

The purple finch has a wonderfully
sweet and protracted warble, the notes fol-
lowing one another with surprising rapid-
ity, surpassing in this respect, Burroughs
says, the music of almost any other bird.
There is a strong resemblance to the song
of the warbling vireo, and it was undoubt-

26 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

edly this finch which Thoreau tells us in
his journal he heard in April, and was un-
able to identify, but would have judged to be
the warbling vireo had it not been much
too early in the season for the arrival of
this bird. With the exception of the robin
and the chipping-sparrow, the purple finch
is the earliest of the birds that are equally
common in the country and along the city
streets. Last season I heard him early in
April in one of the elms on Belmont
Street, in front of the schoolhouse, and
some weeks afterwards was surprised to
find him singing in a maple-tree on
Chestnut Street. This bird is an excellent
example of the unequal distribution of
certain species of birds through different
parts of the country. He was formerly
rare about Worcester, but of late years 'has
become pretty abundant, while in some
parts of the State he is almost never seen.
About Cambridge both the purple finch
and the house wren are said to be very
abundant. About Worcester the wren is
extremely rare.

APRIL BIRDS. 27

On the afternoon of Easter Sunday,
while walking on West Street, I heard a
goldfinch in full song. The American
goldfinch (chrysomitris tristis), when in
full spring plumage, is one of the hand-
somest of our birds, with his bright yellow
body and jet black wings. This bird and
the yellow warbler are indiscriminately
called " yellow birds," though the name
seems -more appropriate to the warbler,
which is yellow all over. The goldfinch,
however, is much the finer singer, belong-
ing to the same family as the canary
and our own sweet singing -sparrows.
The song, twitter, and call-note of this
finch are wonderfully like the canary's,
and as a whole flock will often sing in cho-
rus, you may get some conception of the
effect of such a concert if you will imagine
fifty canaries thus engaged out of doors.
The goldfinch, like the purple finch, may
almost be called a city bird, as he is often
seen about our lawns and gardens. He
is, however, especially fond of evergreen
trees, and in the Rural Cemetery, where

28 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

these trees abound, he is very abundant.
The goldfinch sometimes remains with us
in sheltered places through the winter,
when he loses his brilliant plumage and
takes on a sort of dull-green, neutral tint.

One of the commonest and, before the
advent of the English sparrow, perhaps
the most familiar and sociable of our
birds, is the little chipping-sparrow
(spizella socialis), with his russet-colored
crown and plain ashy-gray breast. Only
the scouts of the great body have as yet
arrived, but within a very few days now
every garden in the city will resound with
the long sliding chant. Bradford Torrey,
speaking of the song of this bird, says:
"Who that knows it does not love his
earnest, long-drawn trill, dry and tuneless
as it is? I can speak for one, at all events,
and he always has an ear open for it by
the middle of April. It is the voice of a
friend, — a friend so true and gentle and
confiding that we do not care to ask
whether his voice be smooth and his
speech eloquent."

APRIL BIRDS. 29

Some writers have compared the song
of this sparrow to the clicking sound pro-
duced by the rapid and repeated striking
together of two pebbles. This little bird,
according to Wilson Flagg, is always the
first performer in the early morning con-
cert, trilling his humble song while it is
still dark, even before the robins are yet
awake ; and though I am unable to cor-
roborate this by personal experience, I do
remember hearing its song last June from
a cherry-tree in our garden at ten o'clock
at night.

In the first flush of my ornithological
studies I remember how long it took me
to associate this simple little song, which I
heard everywhere, in city and country
alike, with the chipping-sparrow. At
that time I had never seen it mentioned
in the books, and I was long convinced
that it must belong to some rare warbler
which had suddenly become abundant in
this vicinity. My experience in regard to
this bird, and many others as well, would
lead me to advise all other students of

30 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

bird-songs to hesitate long before attrib-
uting a new and unknown song to any
of our rarer and accidental birds. Very
few such birds will be heard in an entire
season.

When at Uxbridge, Sunday, while lis-
tening to the song of the purple finch, I
saw a pair of white-bellied swallows
(tachycineta bicolor) flying far over my
head in the blue sky. This swallow is the
first of his family to make his appearance
in the spring, and after the purple martin,
rare about Worcester, is the handsomest
swallow we have. It is not, however,
nearly so common here as the barn-swal-
low, being much more abundant on the
sea-coast and in the neighborhood of large
lakes. Before the white man came here
the swallow built its .nests in hollow trunks
of trees, and still does so in unsettled parts
of the country, but in this vicinity it gen-
erally nests in martin-boxes prepared for
its reception.

III.

APRIL BIRDS (CONCLUDED).

WORCESTER, April 30, 1887.

DEAR MR. EDITOR, —All day Thurs-
day there had been a warm April rain,
and yesterday morning it cleared up warm
and clear, with hardly a breath of air to
stir the half-unfolded leaves which glis-
tened in the bright sunlight. All the con-
ditions were favorable to bird-music, and
I felt sure that a short walk into the
country would not be unrewarded. Most
of our birds, as is well known, sing more
freely in the early morning and evening
twilight, but more especially in the morn-
ing, when everything is fresh and green,
and the whole face of nature seems to

32 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

smile, suffused with the rays of the rising
sun. On rainy days the birds will often
sing all day long, and then their morning
and vesper hymns receive less attention.
But the best time of all to hear bird-songs
is after a storm, when the clouds have
cleared away and the sun shines bright
again. Then the pent-up feelings of our
feathered songsters find expression in the
choicest and most ecstatic melody. Windy
days are not so favorable to the study of
bird-songs, and, generally speaking, the
birds sing much more freely in warm
weather that in cold.

Yesterday my walk took me out Lincoln
Street to the little strip of woods west of
Adams Square, — a favorite haunt of mine,
and one of the best and most accessible
regions in this vicinity for bird-music. As
I had expected, I found all the birds in
full song, — robins, pigeon-woodpeckers,
bluebirds, song, vesper, field, and chip-
ping sparrows. The vesper and field
sparrows were unusually abundant and
musical, and there had evidently been a

APRIL BIRDS. 33

flight of the latter species within a few
days, as the edge of the woods was full
of them. I doubt if I ever heard a more
magnificent and varied concert of sparrow-
music than on this occasion, — the lively
ditty of the song-sparrow, the sweet,
melodious trill of the vesper, the long,
ringing whistle of the field-sparrow, and
even the sliding jingle of the chipper.
All contributed their part. There seemed
nothing more to be desired, but a pleasure
unexpected was still in store for me. Sud-
denly from the moist meadow at the foot of
the hill there was wafted up to me what
seemed a new sparrow-song, sweeter and
more liquid than any I had ever heard.
This was repeated again and again, and
slowly it dawned upon me that I had heard
this beautiful song before. More than six
years ago, in the backwoods of Maine, on
the shores of the Rangeley Lakes, I had
become familiar with the sweet strain of
the peabody bird, the white-throated
sparrow, " the nightingale of the North,"
(zonotrichia albicollis) ; and now right here
3

34 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

in Worcester, almost within the city limits,
I heard his song blending with the music
of our own familiar sparrows. I have for-
borne to mention in these letters the fox-
colored sparrows, the winter wrens, the
kinglets, the white-crowned sparrows, and
other birds of the far North, many of
whom are most accomplished songsters,
but whose stay with us in the spring,
during their migrations, is so brief that
their music attracts little notice. But the
peabody bird has a claim on me which I
may not and would not dispute, — that of
an old friend whose melody I knew and
loved long before I took any special inter-
est in bird-songs, and who is inseparably
associated in my mind with sweet-scented
primeval forests, with wild mountain trout-
streams, and the weird screaming of
the loon. The song of the peabody
bird begins with a long, clear, wavering
whistle, followed by two or three bars,
peabody, peabody, peabody, of almost un-
equalled sweetness. John Burroughs, who
had heard the bird in the Adirondacks,

APRIL BIRDS. 35

referring to the abrupt termination of its
song, says : " If it could give us the finish-
ing strains, of which this seems only the
prelude, it would stand first among feath-
ered songsters." In the White Mountains
this song and that of the hermit-thrush
are much admired by the summer pilgrim,
and they are even mentioned in the guide-
books among the other attractions of the
region. • How few that have been charmed
with the music of these birds in their
native wilds are aware that for a brief
period every spring they pour forth the
same melody almost at our very door-
steps ! It is now generally admitted that
all birds sing, more or less fitfully, during
the spring migration, and it has lately
been one of my most cherished dreams to
hear the hermit-thrush (turdus pallasii)
here at home in my own woods. I have
already seen him this spring flitting
through the woods like a ghost, silent
and sojigless. In a few days, like the
white-throated sparrow, he will have
moved on in his journey to the North, and

36 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

several seasons may be necessary before
my hopes are realized.

While listening to the peabody bird, I
am greeted by the humble trill of the
pine-creeping warbler {dendroica pinus)
singing in a hemlock-tree over my head.
Foolish bird ! His is a pretty song by
itself, but beside the delicious sparrow
music with which I am regaled, his feeble
twcety weet, weet sounds pitifully weak and
unsatisfactory. This little warbler, how-
ever, is doubly welcome, both for his own
sake and for the sake of the gorgeous
company of which he is the forerunner.
Our warblers are the daintiest, the most
delicate and the most gaily attired of all
our birds. In outward show, compared
With these elegant little creatures, the
plainly-dressed sparrows and thrushes are
homely and unattractive enough. But
with birds as with human beings, the law
of compensation is inexorable, and we
find the American warblers possessed of
very inferior musical gifts. How different
in Europe ! Enough is said when I men-

APRIL BIRDS. 37

tion the nightingale as the most prominent
representative of the family. Not only
are the warblers feeble singers, but they
are also most of them very difficult to
identify, as they flit about in the dense
foliage of the tree-tops in their search for
their insect food. As we walk through the
thick woods, we are generally conscious
of a half-suppressed, insect-like music in
the trees far over our heads, but seldom
associate it with these gaudily-dressed
visitors from the tropics. Some of the
members of this family, however, like the
oven-bird and the Maryland yellow-throats,
are ground-warblers, and are much better
known than most of their brethren, while
the half-domesticated little yellow warbler
is almost as familiar as the robin or the
chipping-sparrow. The pine-creeping is
the only warbler I have seen this season,
but by the tenth of May probably he will
be reinforced by the great body of his
congeners. Of the forty varieties of
warblers assigned by Audubon to North
America only a dozen or more are ever

38 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

seen in this vicinity, and many of these
only twice a year, in the migrations, when
on their way to or from British America.
There are few greater contrasts in nature
than that presented by these Northern
warblers, many of them the most elegant
of their family, seeking out the vast unin-
habited forests of the far North in which
to breed and rear their young.

As I walk along the edge of the woods
my attention is attracted by a very notice-
able tri-colored bird, nearly as large as a
robin, flitting about in a heap of brush.
The unmistakable piedness of his dress,
and a sharp cherawink at once serve to
identify him as the chewink, or towee-
bunting, or ground-robin (pipilo erytJiro-
phthalmus). I had been expecting him
for a day or two, as he always makes his
appearance a little before May-day. Who
but an ornithologist would suppose the
bird to be a sparrow, with his glossy black
back, bright chestnut breast, and clear
white beneath, so totally unlike the plainly
dressed members of that family with

APRIL BIRDS. 39

which we are familiar? Yet some re-
semblance in anatomical structure has
settled the question in the scientific
world,- and a sparrow he shall be. Be-
sides his cherawink, which is his alarm
note, the bird has a rather musical call
note, tow-lice, sometimes ending in a long
sparrow-like trill, which perhaps suffi-
ciently vindicates the ornithologists in
their classification of him. The chewink
is usually found, like the field-sparrow, in
bushy pasture-lots or on the borders of
the woods, and, like the sparrow, con-
tinues singing far into the summer. While
picnicking at the Lake last August in the
pine grove just above the Poor-Farm
Bridge on the Shrewsbury side, I remember
hearing the field-sparrows and chewinks
singing in unison, while not another bird-
note was to be heard in any direction.

On the tip top of a tree near by I espy
a cow blackbird, or cow-bird (jnolothrus
pecoris), emitting with commendable as-
siduity his queer, sibilant cluck-see. This
bird has been with us a month, and should,

4O BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

perhaps, have been alluded to in one of
my former letters. The male is glossy
black, with the exception of the head,
which is dark brown, and the female is
brown all over. The cow-bird, as his
name implies, is most abundant in the
fields and pastures among the grazing
herds of cattle. But the most remarkable
thing about this bird is that it builds no
nest of its own, but deposits its eggs
surreptitiously in other birds' nests. This
habit it shares exclusively, among all the
birds known to science, with the European
cuckoo, a bird with which, however, it is
no wise allied. Ornithologists have specu-
lated as to the explanation of this eccen-
tricity exhibited by these widely different
birds, but apparently in vain.

Dr. Coues suggests that perhaps some-
time in the remote past some female cow-
bird, dilatory about the building of her
nest, hit upon this easy expedient as a
necessary makeshift, and that gradually
the obnoxious custom extended to the
whole tribe of cow-birds. The smaller

APRIL BIRDS. 41

birds are generally the victims, especially
the chipping-sparrow, Maryland yellow-
throat, and yellow-warbler. Generally the
strange egg is hatched by the foster
parents, and the young cow-bird is tended
with all the solicitude bestowed on the
rightful occupants of the nest. Some-
times, however, the birds thus imposed
upon abandon their nest altogether, es-
pecially if it contains no eggs of their own,
and occasionally they construct a two-
story nest, leaving the cow-bird's egg in
the basement. The thing that has always
struck me as most remarkable about the
cow-birds, though I have never seen it
mentioned in the books, is the wonderful
instinct that brings together into one flock
of their kindred these young fledglings,
all reared in different nests, by all sorts of
foster-parents.

Walking deeper into the woods to
gather a bunch of the beautiful blood-root
flower (sanguinaria canadensis) which I
find in full bloom, my attention is arrested
by the loud hammering of the downy

42 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

woodpecker {picus pubescens). It is aston-
ishing how this little woodpecker, scarcely
larger than a sparrow, makes the woods
reverberate. He is one of our few birds
that seem to be entirely destitute of all
vocal expression, and it is perhaps only
right, therefore, that Downy should be
allowed to hammer away on his tree as
noisily as he pleases. The downy wood-
pecker, like the chickadee, stays with us
all the year round, and like the chickadee
lives on the larvae in the bark, which
he has no difficulty in procuring at all
seasons.

I had hoped yesterday to hear in these
woods a brown-thrush, or at least a cat-
bird, and had thought it just possible that
some adventurous wood-thrush might have
already arrived in summer quarters ; but in
this I was destined to disappointment. I
had heard, however, the song of the pea-
body bird during his migration, and would
not have exchanged it even for the wood-
thrush's evening hymn.

IV.
MAY BIRDS.

WORCESTER, May 13, 1887.

MY DEAR MR. EDITOR, — The morn-
ing of May-day was bright and spring-like,
and should have been signalized, it seemed
to me, by the advent of a goodly number of
birds, but not a single new song rewarded
my usual Sunday walk. The next morn-
ing, however, I saw my first brown-thrush
flitting about in the thickets by the side of
the boulevard west of Elm Park, and he
soon broke forth into the old familiar
song. Wednesday morning was celebrated
by the appearance of the first orioles,
yellow-warblers, redstarts, black-and-white
creeping-warblers, and least fly-catchers,
and on Thursday evening I heard my

44 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

first wood-thrush, which, with the possible
exception of the orioles and Wilson's
thrushes, was the most important arrival
of the week. The Wilsons came Friday,
and on Saturday and Sunday I heard my
first cat-bird, warbling vireo, oven-bird,
wood-pewee, and night-hawk.

The brown-thrush (harporhynckus ritfus)
and the cat-bird (jnimus carolinensis) are
thrushes belonging to the same genus with
the mocking-bird, and, like this celebrated
Southern songster, they have for a song a
curious medley, which often suggests the
notes of other birds. Ornithologists are
now generally agreed, however, .that this
is really a song of their own, and that they
are in no wise guilty of plagiarism. There
is a very strong family likeness between
their songs, and it is sometimes very diffi-
cult to distinguish them with certainty.
The brown-thrush's contralto, however, is
much fuller and rounder than the cat-
bird's soprano, and he wants the cat-bird's
feline mew, which has given this bird his
name. The strong, clear sow-ivheat of the

MAY BIRDS. 45

brown-thrush, from which he has received
in some quarters the name of the " planting-
bird," is much less marked in the song of
the cat-bird. On the whole, the thrasher
must be judged to be much the finer singer,
though the cat-bird's song is much sweeter
than is generally supposed. The brown-
thrush, the largest of all the thrushes, is a
very conspicuous, long-tailed bird, with
bright reddish-brown plumage, but is much
less neighborly than the cat-bird, generally
preferring the more retired woods and pas-
tures. This bird is now in his glory, and
it is almost impossible to go out into the
country without hearing him on every side.
In a little more than a month he will have
become silent. Of the song of this bird
Bradford Torrey writes : " His song is a
grand improvisation. Such power and
range of voice ; such startling transitions ;
such endless variety; and withal such
boundless enthusiasm and almost incredible
endurance ! "

Nearly allied to the brown-thrush, though
of a different genus, are the wood-thrush,

46 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

or song-thrush (turdus imistelinus) and the
Wilson's thrush, or veery (turdus fi:sces-
cens], the most beautiful singers to be
found in this vicinity. The wood-thrush
may always be heard at this season in
the early morning and evening, and in
cloudy weather through the day, in Paine's
Woods, in the neighborhood of the hermit-
age, while the veery is to be heard higher
up on Millstone Hill, near the quarries.
Both birds sing in the thick woods south
of Hope Cemetery, and I often hear the
wood-thrush in the woods west of Adams
Square. The wood-thrush will continue
singing nearly into August, but the veeries
will become songless by the first of July.
The song of the wood-thrush it is almost
impossible to represent in words, but it is
hard to mistake the bell-like purity of its
voice, which cannot be confounded with
the song of any other bird. In elaborate
technique and delicious portamento it sur-
passes all the other thrushes. A pecu-
liarly liquid air-o-ee is very beautiful, and
a silvery jingle is often interspersed, so

MAY BIRDS. 47

different from the rest of the song that it
seems to the listener to proceed from some
other bird. The wood-thrushes, more than
any other birds I know of, exhibit various
degrees of excellence, some individuals
singing much more beautifully than others.
The song of this bird is, perhaps, more
likely than that of any other to attract the
notice of the uninitiated, and is usually set
down, by such as a most remarkable and
noteworthy phenomenon, though the wood-
thrushes are really among the most abund-
ant of our birds.

The song of the Wilson's thrush, or
veery, is beautiful for its very simplicity,
and of all birds' songs may most truly
be called spiritual. It consists of a repeti-
tion of the words ve-ee-ry, ve-ee-ry, ve-ee-ry,
or che-u-ry, che-u-ry, che-u-ry, introduced or
followed by two or three clear, melodious
whistles. Two very remarkable things
about this song are its arpeggio quality, as
if it were accompanied by some rare musi-
cal instrument, and its ventriloquistic ef-
fect. You will sometimes discover a veery,

48 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

which you have been listening to for some
time and have supposed to be at a con-
siderable distance, perched on a tree over
your very head. The veery is the smallest
of the thrushes, with heavily mottled breast
and tawny back, whence it is sometimes
called the tawny thrush. Of the song of
the veery Burroughs writes : " The soft,
mellow flute of the veery fills a place in
the chorus of the woods that the song
of the vesper-sparrow fills in the chorus
of the fields. It is one of the simplest
strains to be heard, delighting from the
pure element of harmony and beauty it
contains."

The handsome oriole (icterus Baltimore),
to most of us the most conspicuous arrival
of May, has already begun to sing from
our elm-trees, and will soon commence
building his pendent nest. In the South it
is said that these birds invariably build on
the north and west side of the tree, while
in our colder climate it is well known that
they generally suspend their nests from
boughs looking to the south or east. I

MAY BIRDS. 49

would suggest to any of my readers who
may care to make the experiment that
bright-colored yarn left in an exposed
place in the yard would probably result in
a brilliant and variegated hang-bird's nest
in the elm-tree before the house. Besides
the rich, liquid whistles common to both
sexes, and heard at all hours of the day,
the male oriole possesses a beautiful, pro-
tracted warble, which he pours forth gen-
erally in the early morning. One of the
most remarkable things about the bird is
its disappearance about the last of July
and its subsequent return towards the last
of August, just previous to its departure
for the South, when its whistles are again
heard for a few days.

Almost the first song to be heard in
the woods, at all hours of the day, is the
highly accentuated crescendo of the oven-
bird (seiurus atirocapillus). The oven-bird,
formerly called the golden-crowned thrush,
but now relegated to the family of warblers,
is one of the commonest of our woodland
birds. It derives its name from its oven-
4

50 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

shaped, over-arched nest, which is gene-
rally so successfully concealed on the
ground that it is considered a great prize
by the juvenile collector of birds' eggs.
a Within a few years it has been discovered
that this bird, during the mating season,
sometimes indulges in a rare bit of melody,
which combines the vivacity of the gold-
finch with the rich warble of the purple-
finch. This is the first season I have been
fortunate enough to hear this love-song of
the oven-bird, and, though I had been
listening for it and knew what to expect,
it was hard to convince myself that so de-
licious a warble could proceed from an
American warbler. The oven-bird, like
the crow and the meadow-lark, is a walker,
differing in this respect from the great ma-
jority of birds, which are hoppers. Its
delicate, flesh-colored legs mark it at once
as a ground warbler, since the legs of the
tree-warbler are black and much stouter
and coarser.

As the song of the oven-bird in the
woods, so is the song of the yellow-warbler

MAY BIRDS. 51

(dendroica czstiva) in the orchards and
gardens, everywhere to be heard. In Elm
Park the other day, I could easily have
counted twenty-five or thirty individuals.
This bird is very conspicuous, being of a
bright, greenish yellow, slightly streaked
with black. His song, which for several
weeks will be heard constantly, consists of
five or six pipes, ending abruptly in a
sharp quaver, the whole uttered with great
rapidity, but much less musical than a
sparrow-song.

A song much resembling that of the
yellow-warbler, though considerably shorter
and weaker, is that of the beautiful little
redstart (setophaga ruticilla), another mem-
ber of the elegant warbler family, which is
very abundant in all our woods. The red-
start is black above and white beneath,
with beautiful patches of bright red on its
sides and breast. This bird was formerly
classed by ornithologists with the fly-
catchers, by reason of its habit of cap-
turing its insect food on the wing, but
now it takes its place with the family to

52 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

which its elegance and brilliant plumage
entitle it.

The warbling vireo (inreo gilvus), the
first of his family to arrive from the South,
is a singer of good parts, and of all the
birds known to me may most emphatically
be said to warble. His song much resem-
bles that of the purple-finch, but contains
none of the trills of the latter, and is not
nearly so full and round. Somebody has
tried to turn it into English by the words
brigadier, brigadier, bridget, which, perhaps,
express very well the accentuation, the
number of syllables, and the pauses. Per-
haps the most interesting thing about this
bird is that it is much more abundant in
the city than in more retired localities, seem-
ing to prefer the elms and maples that line
our city streets. How few passers-by feel
grateful to this little vireo for the delicious
music which he lavishes on them from
above. In Elm Park the song of these
birds can scarcely be missed. The vireos
(Latin viridis), or greenlets, all have green-
ish-brown backs, with white beneath, and

MAY BIRDS. S3

are a family confined exclusively to the
New World. They seem to occupy in or-
nithology a middle ground between the
finches and the warblers.

The fly-catchers, of which the only rep-
resentative so far mentioned in my letters
is the phcebe-bird, belong to the great divi-
sion of clamatores, or screamers, and really
have no right to sing at all. The least fly-
catcher, or chebec (empidonax minimus),
may be said strictly to follow the letter of
instructions laid down for him by the or-
nithologists. His sharp, emphatic chebec
is far from melodious, resembling some-
what one of the commonest utterances of
the unmusical English sparrow.

The last bird I shall mention in this
letter is the wood-pewee (contopus virens),
another member of the fly-catcher family,
whose long-drawn-out pe-ee-wee in sweet-
ness and pathos scarcely yields the palm to
many of the oscines or singing-birds proper.
The wood-pewee, like the field-sparrow, the
chewink, and the wood-thrush, sings far into
the summer. Its nest, which rivals the

54 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

humming-bird's in elegance, is made of
bark and lichens, and saddled on to the
top of a horizontal bough, so that it is
almost impossible to distinguish it from an
excresence of the tree itself.

I think, in closing, that I cannot do
better than quote the last stanza of a
poem by Trowbridge on this bird, espe-
cially as it contains the most beautiful allu-
sion to the song of the wood-thrush I have
ever seen : —

For so I found my forest bird, —
The pewee of the loneliest woods,—
Sole singer in these solitudes,
Which never robin's whistle stirred,
Where never blue-bird's plume intrudes.
Quick darting through the dewy morn,
The redstart trilled his twittering horn
And vanished in thick boughs ; at even
Like liquid pearls fresh showered from heaven,
The high notes of the lone wood-thrush
Fell on the forest's holy hush ;
But thou all day complainest here, —
4 Pewee ! pewee ! peer ! '

V.

MAY BIRDS (CONTINUED).

WORCESTER, May 18, 1887.

MY DEAR MR. EDITOR, — While walk-
ing yesterday in Hope Cemetery, I heard
issuing from the birch woods to the east-
ward a rich, rolling warble, reminding me
somewhat of the song of the robin. I was
at once persuaded that these notes could
belong only to one bird, the rose-breasted
grosbeak {goniaphea Indoviciana), one of
the rarest and most beautiful of our birds.
Following up the song I was soon able to
identify the bird with certainty, as he was
far from shy, and retained his perch until I
was almost under the tree from which he
was singing. Whoever has been fortunate
enough once to catch a glimpse of the

56 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

rose-breasted grosbeak is not likely soon
to forget him. He is about the size of the
robin, black above and light beneath, with
a heavy, rather homely beak, whence his
name. But this rather unattractive feature
is amply counterbalanced by a beautiful
rose-blush circular spot in the very centre
of his breast, which is very conspicuous
and unmistakable against the white.

A friend of mine, I remember, once came
across one of these handsome birds, which
he had never seen before, in the back-
woods of Maine, and using this beautiful
mark as a target, sent a rifle-bullet through
its heart. The bird's chief ornament was
thus the occasion of its death. The female
wants the rose-blush mark on the breast,
and is altogether a plain, inconspicuous
bird, with a brown back and light breast.
Some ornithologists profess to see in the
subdued tints of the females of nearly all
our birds a wise provision of nature, which
has clad in plainer and less noticeable at-
tire the sex which is most concerned in the
propagation of its kind. They find a sim-

MAY BIRDS. 57

ilarly wise provision in the law of nature
which has conferred such rich musical gifts
on the male birds, which are almost entirely
denied to the females. The rose-breasted
grosbeak is closely allied to the beautiful
cardinal grosbeak, — a more southern spe-
cies, with which most of my readers are
probably familiar as a cage-bird, — as well
as to the blue-grosbeak of Louisiana. The
musical attainments of this bird, as of the
cardinal grosbeak, are of a very high or-
der, but his comparative rarity prevents
his song being familiar to most of us. I
saw only three or four of these birds dur-
ing the whole of last season, but one indi-
vidual last June flew into a tree in Elm
Park, directly over my head, thus giving
me an admirable opportunity to study his
song. It reminds one both of the song of
the robin and of the rich warble of the
oriole, but to my mind is much superior
to either.

Another bird, no less striking in appear-
ance than the grosbeak, and much com-
moner, being in fact rather abundant in all

58 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

our thick woods, is the brilliant scarlet
tanager {py.'anga rubrd). This bird is all
the more conspicuous, as his flaming plu-
mage is generally set off in strong relief
against the dark pines and hemlocks of
the forest, which one almost expects him
to ignite as he flashes through them like a
living coal. This tanager has jet-black
wings, in marked contrast to his brilliant
body, but a closely allied species, the sum-
mer red-bird (pyranga cestiva}, which is
abundant west of New England, is red all
over. The scarlet tanager is common all
through the Millstone Hill region, and I
often hear there his wild, half-suppressed
chip-cheer, sounding as if uttered beneath
his breath. Besides this note the tanager
has also a beautiful warbling song, so
much like the robin's that it is often very
difficult to distinguish them. There is,
however, a certain indescribable wildness
about the tanager's voice, harmonizing
with the deep, unfrequented woods where
he lives, that, after a little study, makes it
unmistakable. This bird is a most accom-

MAY BIRDS. 59

plished ventriloquist, and one of the most
experienced and learned students l of bird-
songs in the State has told me that it is
impossible for him to trace home the scar-
let tanager by his song alone. The female
is of a yellowish-green color, and would
never be suspected for a moment of being
in any wise related to her brilliant mate.

That the scarlet tanager is not better
known than he is, notwithstanding his bril-
liant plumage, is perhaps not at all sur-
prising, in view of the secluded localities
which he generally frequents ; but the red-
eyed vireo (vireo olivaceus) can scarcely
be said to leave this excuse open, yet I
surmise that not one in ten of my readers
ever heard of him. Abundant everywhere
in the deep woods, where he is heard in
company with the oven-bird, the tanager,
and the redstart, and along our city streets,
where his song blends with that of the
warbling vireo, the purple finch, the yel-
low warbler, the robin, and the chippee,
this little vireo sings constantly his un-

1 Mr. E. H. Forbush, of Worcester, Mass — EDS.

60 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

assuming, rather monotonous song at all
hours of the day, and far into the sum-
mer, long after most of the birds have
become silent. It is the elegant little nest
of this bird which the falling leaves reveal
to us in the autumn, suspended from the
forked branches of the maple-tree. Sam-
uels finds in the red-eyed vireo a favorite
bird. Of him he writes: —

" I feel that no description of mine can begin
to do justice to the genial, happy, industrious
disposition of this one of our most common,
and perhaps best loved birds. From the time
of its arrival, about the first week in May, until
its departure, about the first week in October, it
is seen in the foliage of elms and other shade-
trees in the midst of our cities and villages, in
the apple-trees near the farm-houses, and in
the tall oaks and chestnuts in the deep forests.
Everywhere in the New England States, at all
hours of the day, from early dawn until evening
twilight, his sweet, half-plaintive, half-meditative
carol is heard. This consists of the syllables
'wee cheweo turrullet cheweeo, given in a singu-
larly sweet tone. I know that I am not singular
in my preference when I say that, of all my
feathered acquaintances, this is the greatest

MAY BIRDS. 6r

favorite I have. I always loved it, and I can
never look upon one after it is killed, no matter
how naturally it is preserved, without a sad feel-
ing? — as if it were one of my own most dear
friends dead before me."

One of the most delightful arrivals of
the last few days, and a favorite bird of
mine, is the dainty little Maryland yellow-
throat {geothlypis trichas). To my mind,
he is- the prettiest singer of all the war-
blers, and his lively pity me, pity me, pity
me, far from expresses the sentiment sug-
gested in the words by which his song
is usually translated into English. This
bird is olive-gi'een above, with a black
head, and wrhite beneath, with a beautiful
bright yellow throat, by which he may
be easily identified. The yellow-throat is
a ground warbler, and is usually found in
moist meadows and thickets. This bird
is remarkably abundant in Peat Mead-
ow, and from the rifle range this side of
the meadow a dozen songs may often
be heard at once issuing from as many
throats.

62 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

The nighthawk (chordeiles virginianus),
which is really no hawk at all, and the
whippoorwill (antrostomus vocifcrus) are
two closely allied species of birds belong-
ing to the family of goat-suckers (capri-
mulgidce). Their generic name had its
origin in an old superstition in England,
founded on the broad, ugly beaks, cov-
ered with woolly bristles, which mark the
birds of this family. The nighthawk and
the whippoorwill look almost exactly
alike, both being brown birds, sprinkled
with ashy gray, as if they had fallen into
an ash-barrel, and it is not surprising that
the curiously erroneous i'dea should pre-
vail in some quarters that the two are sim-
ply different sexes of the same bird.

Apart from the fact that they are both
nocturnal birds, however, they present the
most marked contrasts, both in their gen-
eral habits and their notes. The whip-
poorwill is one of the most retired of our
birds, inhabiting the densest forests. I
often hear him in the woods which line
Lake Quinsigamond, and I remember once

MAY BIRDS. 63

hearing a regular chorus of their weird
utterances at Happy Valley in Boylston.
These birds are viewed with much super-
stitious awe in some parts of the country,
and a whippoorwill singing from the
ridge-pole of a farm-house is considered
a most ominous event. The whippoor-
will builds no nest, but deposits its two
beautiful cream-colored eggs, which are
quite rare and of considerable value, in a
depression on the bare ground. The night-
hawk is almost a city bird, and its loud,
squeaking cry is one of the commonest
sounds to be heard everywhere along our
city streets in the early evening twilight,
as the bird wheels about just above the
roofs of the buildings in pursuit of night-
flying insects of all kinds. One of the
most remarkable things about the night-
hawks is the way they have changed their
breeding habits, in accordance with the
changed conditions of the country, and
birds which formerly laid their eggs on
rocky ledges in the deep woods are now
found depositing them on the flat tin roofs

64 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

of our Main Street blocks, as a most con-
venient substitute.

The chimney-swift (jchaetura pelasgid),
generally, but erroneously called the chim-
ney-swallow, is another bird often to be
seen in the early evening, circling about
far up in the sky. His perfectly blunt tail
is sufficient to distinguish him from the
family of swallows, to which he is in no
wise related. These birds are probably
the swiftest of the feathered tribe, and the
distance they cover in a single day must be
something simply marvellous. It is calcu-
lated that during the migrations these birds
travel as far as a thousand miles in a single
night. The swifts formerly built in hollow
trunks of trees, but now build in deserted
chimney-flues, from which habit they de-
rive their name. Formerly vast numbers
of them built in the chimneys of the old
Salisbury mansion on Lincoln Square, and
at all hours of the day they could be seen
circling about above the chimneys in dense
clouds. The chimney-swifts have been
with us now for several weeks.

MAY BIRDS. 65

The barn-swallow (Jiirundo horreoruni),
perhaps the commonest of our swallows,
but which generally arrives from the South
several weeks later than the white-breasted
swallow, may be easily distinguished by
his reddish-brown breast and his exceed-
ingly forked tail. This swallow, like the
chimney-swift, formerly nested in the hol-
low trunks of trees.

The eave-swallow, or cliff-swallow (petrch
chelidon lunifrons), is nearly as common as
the barn-swallow. In accommodating it-
self to the advance of civilization, this swal-
low has very naturally chosen to build its
plaster nest outside the barn, under the
eaves, as most similar to the ancient cliffs
which its ancestors had used for the same
purpose.

The smallest of all the swallows and al-
most the only one whose breeding habits
have suffered no change since the white
man settled the country, is the little bank-
swallow (cotyle riparid), which is not very
common in this vicinity. This bird, like
the kingfisher, still lays its eggs in the
5

66 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

middle of the sand-bank, which it reaches
by long subterranean passages which it has
excavated for itself.

The purple-martin {progne purpurea),
the largest and handsomest of the swal-
lows, for some inexplicable reason seems
to be rather uncommon about Worcester.
Whether this is any wise due to the ad-
vent of the English sparrow, with which
perhaps this bird would be most apt to
clash by reason of its similar breeding
habits, I am unable to say.

VI.

JUNE BIRDS.

WORCESTER, June 9, 1887.

MY DEAR MR. EDITOR, — Of all months
in the year June is the month which all
lovers of bird-music can least afford to lose.
Before the first of June in this latitude all
the birds have come, and very few are
silent before the first of July. Since my
last letter the most prominent and best
known arrivals are the bobolinks, the king-
birds, the indigo-birds, the humming-birds,
and the cuckoos, the last being always the
tardiest of our birds to make their appear-
ance from the South. As the bluebird led
the van, so the cuckoo brings up the rear
of the great feathered army.

68 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

The bobolink (dolichonyx oryzivorus),
whose rare musical gifts entitle him to be
first mentioned in this letter, is one of the
most familiar and best loved of our birds.
This bird is peculiar to North America
and has no even remote kindred in the Old
World. He is unique even among our
own birds. In the first place he is the
only one that has clear white above with
black beneath. Then the bobolink's rol-
licking gush of melody is said to be the
only bird-song which the Southern mock-
ing-bird is unable to mimic. A caged
mocking-bird will at once become silent
when he hears the silvery medley of the
bobolink coming up from the meadow
before the farm-house. Of this bird's song
Samuels writes : " Almost everybody in
the North knows the song of the bobolink,
and has laughed in spite of himself at the
grotesque singer, as, perched on a twig
in the cherry-tree by the house, or in the
elm by the roadside, or in the alder by the
brook, he nodded his head, quivered his
wings, opened his mouth, and rattled

JUNE BIRDS. 69

out the most curious, incomprehensible,
jingling, roundabout, careless, joyous, laugh-
able medley that any bird-throat ever
uttered."

All 'my readers are familiar with Bryant's
" Robert of Lincoln," in which he trys to
turn this song into English poetry. He is
hardly so successful, it seems to me, as
Wilson Flagg, a practical ornithologist, in
his charming little poem entitled " The
O'Lincoln Family."

Few birds undergo so complete a change
of plumage as the male bobolink at the
end of the breeding season. Then he not
only loses his voice, but takes on a dull
brown dress, in place of his conspicuous
black and white attire, and it would be dif-
ficult indeed to recognize in him the gayly
dressed minstrel of a month before.

Late in August the bobolinks collect in
vast flocks, and begin to move southward
in their fall migration. During their pas-
sage through the Middle States, when they
become very fat, they are slaughtered in
great quantities for the table, and are there

7O BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

known as reed-birds. In the Southern
States they become rice-birds, since they
make great havoc in the rice-fields of these
States, and again in the Bahamas they play
the role of the butter-bird. The bobolinks
winter in the West Indies, or even farther
south. They summer in Canada, and in
New England, and the other Northern
States, and every spring throughout this
whole region there is scarcely a meadow
which is not taken possession of by at
least one pair of these birds. The bob-
olinks are common enough everywhere
about Worcester, but I find them espe-
cially abundant in the fields and meadows
on both sides of Lincoln Street from
Adams Square to the Poor Farm.

The king-bird (tyrannies carolinensis],
largest of the fly-catcher family, is prob-
ably as familiar to most of my readers as
the bobolink, with his white-tipped tail-
feathers, black back, and white breast. He
is, perhaps, most noticeable as he sits on
the telegraph and telephone wires, darting
forth now and then to capture some un-

JUNE BIRDS. /I

wary moth or beetle, and then as quickly
regaining his perch. His song is a sharp
jingle, not entirely unpleasing to the ear.
This bird is, perhaps, best known for his
unbounded courage, which leads him to
attack even the largest birds of prey, and
it is no uncommon sight in the country to
see a little king- bird away up in the air in
hot pursuit of some hawk or crow. It is
said that he sometimes attacks even the
eagle, and that the king of birds is obliged
to lower his colors to his plucky little
assailant.

One of the most interesting recent ar-
rivals, though probably known to but few
of my readers, is the beautiful little indigo-
bird (cyanospiza eyanea). This bird be-
longs to the great family of finches, and
is thus related to the goldfinch and the
purple-finch, with which its pretty song
and conspicuous plumage would seem to
associate it. Its song consists of the sylla-
bles tehee, tehee, tehee, — tehee, tehee, tehee,
- tehee, tehee, tehee, uttered in a peculiar,
lisping manner. Unlike most bird-songs,

72 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

it begins high and loud, and gradually
descends, the last notes being scarcely au-
dible. The indigo-bird is generally found
in bushy pastures and clearings, and since,
like these birds, he sings far into the sum-
mer, I am apt to associate him in my mind
with the field-sparrow and .the chewink. I
often hear his song south of Bell Pond and
on the south slope of Chandler Hill, and I
sometimes hear him in the fields southwest
of Adams Square.

The ruby-throated humming-bird (trochi-
lus colubris) belongs to the family of stri-
sores, or squeakers, like the chimney-swift
and the nighthawk. It is well known
that the humming-birds are confined ex-
clusively to the New World. The ruby-
throated is the only representative of
his family found within the boundaries
of the United States, while in tropical
South America genera, sub-genera, and
species are found innumerable, and new
ones are being discovered continually.
These winged gems are too well known to
require more than a passing notice. They

JUNE BIRDS. 73

come late and leave early, and while they
are with us it seems as though their visit
to our colder clime could be only acci-
dental, — as if they were continually pining
for the more congenial warmth of the
tropics whence they come.

The cuckoos (coccyzi), like the wood-
peckers, belong in ornithology to the order
of scansoreSy or climbers, having two pairs
of toes opposite each other, instead of
three on one side and one on the other.
The family is represented in North Amer-
ica by two species, the black-billed and
the yellow-billed. The former is rather
the more northern of the two, and is, there-
fore, more abundant about Worcester.
They are both large birds, about the size
of the brown-thrush, though of rather
slenderer and more graceful build, and
are light-chestnut above, and white be-
neath. The American, unlike the Euro- >
pean cuckoo, builds a nest of its own, and
rears its own offspring. Its nest is a very
slight affair, however, and some ornitholo-
gists attribute this fact to its near kinship

74 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

to the European cuckoo. The notes of
both our cuckoos are very similar, consist-
ing of the syllables kow, kow, kow, or km,
km, km, km, reminding one very little of
the plain cuckoo, cuckoo, of the European
bird. Burroughs, when in England, found
little satisfaction in the cuckoo's note,
which seemed to him a gross plagiarism
on the cuckoo-clock. The cuckoo's note
has in a remarkable degree the quality
of remoteness and introvertedness, and
Wordsworth's well-known lines apply
equally well to our own bird : —

While I am lying on the grass

Thy twofold shout I hear,
From hill to hill it seems to pass,

At once far off, and near.

The same whom in my school-boy days

I listened to; the cry
Which made me look a thousand ways

In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green ;

And thou wert still a hope, a love ;
Still longed for, neve'r seen !

JUNE BIRDS. 75

To the farmer the call of the cuckoo
bodes rain, whence he is in some quarters
called the rain-crow.

There are several of our less known
warblers which deserve at least a passing
notice in these papers. The black and
white creeping-warbler (mniotilta varia) is
rather common in most of our thick woods,
where I often hear it in company with the
redstart. Its song is very fine and insect-
like, more so, perhaps, than that of any
other bird, consisting of a lisping ren-
dition of the syllables wheechee, wheechee,
wheechee.

The black-throated green warbler (den-
droeca virens) is said generally to be found
in pine and hemlock groves, though I am
obliged to confess I am as yet unfamiliar
with its song. Burroughs and Torrey,
however, consider it the best of all the
warbler-songs. The latter has turned it
into English by the words, Sleep, sleep,
pretty one, sleep.

Another warbler with whose song I am
unfamiliar is the elegant blue yellow-back

76 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

(parula americana), which is said to be
common in hardwood groves. I am sure
it would amply repay any of my readers
to visit the Natural History rooms and
inspect the beautifully mounted specimen
of this bird, which the society is fortunate
enough to possess. The blue yellow-back
is the smallest, the daintiest, and most ele-
gant of our warblers.

The black-poll warbler (dendroeca striatd)
is chiefly interesting as being, with the ex-
ception of the cuckoo, the last of our birds
to usher in the spring. The insect-like/^,
jee.jee of this warbler is heard everywhere
during the last week of May, and the tardi-
ness of his arrival would seem to justify us
in supposing that he had come to stay; but
he is only a migrant, and in a week or two
he has left us as suddenly as he came, and
taken wing for the far northern forests,
where he breeds. Audubon, who found
this bird breeding in the wilds of Labra-
dor, congratulates himself on being the
first white man who ever saw its nest and
eggs.

JUNE BIRDS. 77

I must not omit to mention, also, the
beautiful and familiar cedar-bird, or cherry-
bird (ampelis cedrorum), unmusical though
lie be. This bird, like that rare winter
visitant, the Bohemian chatterer, belongs
to the family of waxwings, so called from
a horny appendage, like sealing-wax, on
the tips of their wings. The cedar-bird is
very uncertain in its movements and migra-
tions, which are apparently independent of
the weather, and flocks of them are often
seen in mid-winter along the city streets,
feeding on the buds of the cedar-tree.

The last bird which I shall mention in
these papers is the little spotted sandpiper
(tringoides macularius). He is the only
representative of a large family that stays
with us to breed, and is found on the
shores of every body of water in New
England. He makes his appearance as
early as the first week in April, or as soon
as the ice breaks up in our rivers and
ponds, and. his p ecu liar peet- weet, peet-weet,
which is heard all through the season, is
easily recognized.

78 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

I cannot forbear in closing to quote the
first and last stanzas of a delightful little
poem on this bird by Celia Thaxter.

Across the narrow beach we flit,

One little sandpiper and I ;
And fast I gather, bit by bit,

The scattered driftwood bleached and dry.
The wild waves reach their hands for it,

The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we flit, —

One little sandpiper and I.

Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night

When the loosed storm breaks furiously?
My driftwood fire will burn so bright !

To what warm shelter canst thou fly ?
I do not fear for thee, though wroth

The tempest rushes through the sky ;
For are we not God's children both,

Thou little sandpiper and I ?

VII.

MIDSUMMER SONGSTERS.

WORCESTER, July 28th, 1887.

DEAR MR. EDITOR, — With most birds,
their singing is confined to the seasons of
mating and of nesting. After the young
birds have left the nest, the parents gen-
erally become silent. Who ever heard the
gushing, rollicking song of the bobolink in
the month of August, or even after the
middle of July? Such an event would be
indeed a strange and unaccountable phe-
nomenon, for the bobolinks are always
very careful to have their young fully
fledged and out of the nest before the
mower comes to cut the grass in the
meadows and threaten the destruction of
their dwellings, together with their precious

80 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

contents. Some birds, however, rear sev-
eral broods in the season, and may some-
times be found nesting even as late as the
last of July, while all birds whose first
efforts at raising their quota of young have
for any reason miscarried are pretty sure
to make a second attempt, which often
carries them far into the summer. Thus
the wood-thrush, when the first nest has
been robbed, a thing which often happens
by reason of its exposed position, will
sometimes continue singing almost to the
middle of August.

Until recently the robins have been in
full song, and within a few days I have
heard sing fitfully and as if by accident,
the yellow-warbler, the bluebird, the war-
bling-vireo, the cat-bird, the pigeon-wood-
pecker, and the golden-robins. The song
of the yellow-warbler interested me par-
ticularly. I had not heard him for a
month and was therefore much surprised
yesterday to hear his song issuing from
the moist thickets of Peat Meadow. All
the notes were there, but the song was

MIDSUMMER SONGSTERS. 8 1

delivered in a listless and perfunctory
manner, as if the bird had little heart for
singing. It seemed to be a reminiscence
of the gay springtime, expressing no
present joy but rather a regret for the
joyful days that were gone. Until within
a day or two I have not heard for over a
month the rich warble of the golden-
robin. It is now their second springtime.
It is -a well-known fact, though very
difficult to explain, that these birds after
remaining silent for nearly a month, again
become vocal in August just before their
departure for the South. The loud squeak-
ing and booming of the nighthawk is still
one of the commonest evening sounds
along our city streets, and the weird cry of
the whippoorwill is still common enough
along the shores of Lake Quinsigamond,
but these goat-suckers are not to be classed
with singing-birds at all.

The most persistent and reliable mid-
summer songsters, however, are the song,
vesper, and field sparrows, the chewink,
the indigo-bird, the wood-pewee, and the
6

82 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

red-eyed vireo. These are the midsum-
mer and late summer minstrels par excel-
lence. Their singing seems to be entirely
independent of their breeding habits. In
the extracts from his journal entitled
" Summer," edited by Mr. H. G. O. Blake,
Thoreau writes : " Some birds are poets
and sing all summer. They are the true
singers. Any man can write verses in the
love season. We are most interested in
those birds that sing for the love of the
music and not of their mates; who medi-
tate their strains and amuse themselves
with singing; the birds whose strains are
of deeper sentiment."

The song-sparrow deserves especial
praise for singing so late in the season,
and there is probably no other of our
birds that from first to last contributes so
much to the general chorus. Appearing
sometimes as early as the first week in
March, he begins singing from the first
moment of his arrival, and continues to
regale us with his lively and spirited
melody, sometimes until the first of Sep-

MIDSUMMER SONGSTERS. 83

tember. At both extremities of the sea-
son his voice is often the only one to be
heard from far or near. He sings, too, all
day long, except perhaps at high noon,
and as if conscious that such persistent
singing, if unvaried, might in time become
tiresome to the listener, the song-sparrow
gives us some six or seven variations,
which sometimes follow one another in
rapid succession. One of these variations,
consisting of a long and peculiarly liquid
whistle, immediately after the introductory
note, and before the concluding trills, is
especially beautiful. Thoreau, in the book
above quoted, writes : " R. W. E. [Ralph
Waldo Emerson] imitates the wood-thrush
by ' He willy willy — ha willy willy — O
willy, O.' The song-sparrow is said to be
imitated in New Bedford thus: ' Maids,
maids, maids, hang on your tea-kettle — ettle
ettle — ettle — ettle' "

The vesper-sparrow, or bay-winged
bunting, also comes early, and we should
indeed be grateful to him for continuing
his sweet, melodious trills through into

84 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

.the heat of the dog-days. I still hear him
singing as persistently as ever, whenever
my walk takes me to the high, open
pastures beyond Sunnyside.

Thoreau writes in his journal, under
date of June 23, 1856: " To New Bedford

with R . Baywings sang morning and

evening about R 's house, often resting

on a beanpole, and dropping down and
running and singing on the bare ground
amid the potatoes their note somewhat
like Come here, here — there, there (then
three rapid notes) — quick, quick, quick,
or I'm gone"

The long, vibrating whistle of the field-
sparrow, or bush-sparrow, as John Bur-
roughs calls him, is one of the character-
istic sounds of midsummer on the bushy
hillside. Thoreau, writing of summer,
says : " Maybe the huckleberry-bird best
expresses the season, or the red-eye.
What subtile differences between one sea-
son and another ! " I was long in doubt
what bird Thoreau meant by the huckle-
berry-bird, but in view of this remark, and

MIDSUMMER SONGSTERS. 85

since he nowhere mentions the field-spar-
row by name, there can be little doubt
that this bird was meant. The local and
popular names of birds, as of flowers, are
infinite. This bird may be heard any day
along the hillside east of Peat Meadow.

It is no wonder that the little red-eyed
vireo keeps on singing his simple, rather
monotonous ditty all through the summer,
and almost up to the time of his depart-
ure for the South, about the second week
in September. His song, which he carols
all day long, as he flits about among the
leaves of the maple in pursuit of his insect
food, seems to be treated by him as a
part of the business of the day, and is in
no wise expressive of undue emotion and
exuberance of spirits, as is the case with
the singing of most birds.

That curious harlequin, in his pied dress,
the chewink or ground-robin, or towhee
bunting, is another bird I always hear
almost till the close of summer, usually
in company with the field-sparrow. Even
after he has abandoned his sparrow-like

86 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

song, he still gives us his hardly less
musical call-note toivkee, until he leaves
for the South in October.

The sweet, pathetic pe-ee-wee of the
wood-pewee is now heard not only in the
deep woods, which are the bird's proper
habitation, but on the city lawns as well ;
for at this season the pewees, like many
other forest birds, leave their woodland
retreats after the young have left the nest,
and seek their food in the gardens of our
cities, where they find insects in great
abundance. Speaking of the peculiar pa-
thos of the pewee's voice, I remember one
ornithologist who derides the sentimen-
tality of the poet who conceived this bird
to be weighed down with sorrow and woe.
Notwithstanding the peculiar structure of
its windpipe, the ornithologist assures us
that the pewee manages to enjoy life about
as well as the majority of birds. All birds,
however, considering the manifold perils
to which they are exposed, seem to be
remarkably cheerful and light-hearted.

It is doubtful if many of our song-birds

MIDSUMMER SONGSTERS. 8/

die a natural death. What with hawks
and snakes and the perils inseparably
connected with their migrations, not to
speak of the small boy with his murderous
gun, they pass indeed a precarious and
uncertain existence. Then, as we all
know, the domestic cat is responsible for
only too large a share of bird fatalities.
The eggs and helpless young, moreover,
are • peculiarly liable to disaster. The
common red squirrel is a miscreant who
is especially fond of birds' eggs, and the
crow, blue-jay, and many other species of
birds are addicted to the disreputable habit
of preying on the eggs of their smaller
neighbors. We must remember, however,
that it is thus that nature prevents the
undue increase of all species of animals,
and thus works out her own Malthusian
theory. It is only wlren the balance is
disturbed by the introduction of new and
adventitious causes of destruction . that
we need fear the extermination of any
species of animals. Must not the fatalities
among our birds caused by the small boy

88 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

and the purveyor of birds' feathers for hat
decorations be classed in this category?

To revert, however, from this digres-
sion to summer bird-songs, the most
characteristic and typical summer songster
is the indigo-bird. This beautiful little
bird, whose deep blue plumage is much
darker than that of the bluebird, comes so
late in the season that it is only right that
he should continue to sing for us through
the summer.

He sings all through the livelong sum-
mer day, and his song, consisting of a
lisping rendition of the syllable tehee,
tehee, tehee-tehee, tehee, tehee-tehee, tehee,
tehee, is as much of a midsummer sound
as the chirping of a cricket. I heard him
yesterday singing loud and clear at the
end of the woods, just north of Sunnyside,
his being the only bird-song within hear-
ing. I am also pretty sure to hear him
in the fields west of Adams Square. I
will quote in conclusion the following ex-
tract from Thoreau's journal : " June 9,
1857, P. M. To Violet, Sorrel, and Calla

MIDSUMMER SONGSTERS. 89

Swamp. In the sprout land, beyond the
red huckleberry, an indigo-bird, which
chirps about me as if it had a nest there.
This is a splendid and marked bird, high
colored as is the tanager, looking strange
in this latitude. Glowing indigo. Wilson
says it sings, not like most other birds, in
the morning and evening chiefly, but also
in the middle of the day. In this I no-
tice it is like the tanager, the other fiery-
plumaged bird. They seem to love the
heat. It probably had its nest in one of
these bushes."

VIII.

BIRD NOMENCLATURE. — SOME ENG-
LISH AND AMERICAN BIRDS.

WORCESTER, Aug. 8, 1887.

MY DEAR MR. EDITOR, — When our
forefathers settled this country they named
most of the birds they found here after
those that had been familiar to them in
Old England. Thus the common migra-
tory thrush (tnrdus migratorius) they
named the robin, because that bird's red-
dish-brown breast and familiar, sociable
ways reminded them of the English robin
redbreast, that much loved bird which the
pathetic old ballad of " The Babes in the
Woods " had immortalized. The famous
European skylark, which has inspired so

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN BIRDS. 91

many poets in the old world, lent its name
to the bird which the early colonists found
inhabiting the meadows along the streams
of the New World. Our crow-blackbird,
redwinged blackbird, and cow-blackbird,
derived their names from the English
thrush which bears that name. In like
manner our American chimney-swift was
named from the English chimney-swallow,
and our purple-martin from the English
window-martin, or cliff-swallow. Our sum-
mer yellowbird or thistle-bird, was called
the goldfinch, and our purple-finch the lin-
net. Our ruffed grouse was called the par-
tridge, and our American partridge the
quail. So after the English redstart, a
bird nearly allied to the robin redbreast,
one of our wood-warblers, a family pecu-
liar to the New World, was named. The
cuckoos, wrens, and nuthatches are other
familiar instances.

From an ornithological point of view,
however, these popular names were some-
times glaring misnomers, and, indeed, were
often based upon very superficial resem-

92 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

blances. Thus our American robin's near-
est congener in Europe is the blackbird.
Both are thrushes ; they are of about the
same size, and, according to the Duke of
Argyle, their songs bear a very strong re-
semblance to each other. The English
robin is about half the size of ours, and is
no thrush at all, but belongs, like the
nightingale, to the family of European war-
blers. I have observed that domestics
newly arrived from the Old World always
call our robins thrushes, as indeed they
should. The nearest relative of the Eng-
lish robin in this country is the bluebird.
They both have reddish-brown breasts, are
of about the same size, and in general re-
semble one another very closely. Yet I
was much surprised to see in an English
encyclopaedia that the American bluebird
was known as the English robin. The
error of the learned author of the article
was in a measure excused by the error of
our ancestors.

In ornithology our meadow-lark is not a
lark, but an American starling. Though

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN BIRDS. 93

he is a large, handsome bird, with a con-
spicuous yellow breast, his song consists
merely of a long, wavering whistle, which
is always uttered from the ground, and
which bears not the slightest resemblance
to the copious notes of the skylark, which
he showers down upon us from far up in
the sky. The only true lark to be found
in these parts is the shore-lark, which with
us fs only a winter bird of passage, and
which, even in its summer haunts in the
far North, is said to be possessed of rather
inferior musical gifts. Recently, however,
in the vicinity of the Yellowstone Park, a
new lark, called Sprague's lark, has been
discovered, whose song is said to be
unequalled by his celebrated European
cousin. I saw the other day, in a New
York newspaper, that the skylark has re-
cently been introduced into some parts of
New York State with complete success.
What a substitute this bird would have
been for the English sparrow!

Our beautiful purple-martin has no near
congener in the European avifauna, our

94 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

common cliff or eave swallow correspond-
ing to the English window-martin. They
both build their hemispherical plaster nests
on the sides of steep cliffs, or under the
eaves of houses and barns. Shakspeare's
well-known lines in Macbeth apply equally
well to our own bird : —

This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coigne of van Inge, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed, and procreant cradle ;
Where they most breed and haunt, I have ob-
served,
The air is delicate.

It is an interesting and curious fact
that while in this country the swift
builds in chimneys, in England he builds
in barns, while the English swallow, cor-
responding to our barn-swallow, builds
in chimneys. This accounts for our swift
being commonly called the chimney-
swallow.

Many of our birds, however, especially
those which had no European representa-

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN BIRDS. 95

tive, were named from the real or fancied
resemblance of their songs or call-notes to
certain articulate words or sounds. On
this principle of onomatopoeia the che-
wink, the wood-pewee, the phoebe bird,
the chicadee, the bobolink, and the veery
received their names. The last-mentioned
bird was undoubtedly a veery long before
he was a Wilson's thrush. Perhaps the
most remarkable of our birds in this re-
spect, however, is the whippoorwill, whose
weird nocturnal cry is as easily turned into
English as the chirping of the katydid.
The Indians, however, translated it into
" wish-ton-wish," which, perhaps, would be
the better version ; and Cooper, in his
novel by that name, tells us that this bird
is in some quarters vulgarly called " the
whippoorwill."

It has probably been observed by most
of my readers that the nearer you are
to the bird, the more difficult it is
to distinguish the words of the English
translation.

On the comparative merits of the Eng-

96 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

lish and American song-birds, John Bur-
roughs, in his " Fresh Fields," writes : -

" I could well understand, after being in Eng-
land a few days, why, to English travellers, our
songsters seem inferior to their own. They are
much less loud and vociferous ; less abundant
and familiar ; one needs to woo them more ;
they are less recently out of the wilderness ;
their songs have the delicacy and wildness of
most woodsy farms, and are as plaintive as the
whistle of the wind. They are not so happy a
race as the English songsters, as if life had more
trials for them, as doubtless it has, in their en-
forced migrations and in the severer climate with
which they have to contend. On the whole, I
may add that I did not anywhere in England
hear so fine a burst of bird-song as I have heard
at home, and I listened long for it and atten-
tively. Not so fine in quality, though perhaps
greater in quantity."

Among English travellers Burroughs re-
fers particularly to the Duke of Argyle,
who contributed to Frazer's Magazine for
1880 two very interesting papers entitled
"Some First Impressions of America."

These papers dealt chiefly with nature

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN BIRDS. 97

in this country, and the Duke, who is a
most accomplished ornithologist, did not
forget the birds. He writes that, though
he was in the woods and fields of Canada
and the States in the richest moment of
spring, he heard little of that burst of song
with which he had been familiar in Eng-
land. I was surprised, however, in read-
ing these articles to find that some of our
finest singers he does not seem to have
heard at all. He makes no mention what-
ever of the wood-thrush, or the veery, or
the bobolink, or the rose-breasted gros-
beak, or of many others of our best
singers. He does admit that the Ameri-
can robin, though, as he maintains, inferior
to the English blackbird, is much more fa-
miliar, and therefore much oftener heard.
His letters, on the whole, are delightful,
and I am sure will amply repay any one
who takes the trouble to read them. The
humming-bird, which he had searched for
long in vain, he at last discovers during a
trip to Niagara Falls, and his delight is
infinite. He thinks the bird sets off the
7

98 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

falls perfectly. How apt is the descrip-
tion of the humming-bird, " a vibratory
haze " ! The sight of a goldfinch fills him
with enthusiasm, and he exclaims, " An
American goldfinch, indeed ! "

According to Gilbert White's charming
book, " On the Natural History of Sel-
borne," which is as much of an English
classic as Izaak Walton's " Complete An-
gler," the linnets and sparrows of England
are rather weak singers. How different
here ! The purple-finch, goldfinch, indigo-
bird, rose-breasted grosbeak, the peabody
bird, the song, vesper, and field sparrows,
all of them superior songsters, are included
in this family. As for the thrushes, there
are in England only three species, the mis-
sal-thrush, or throstle, the song-thrush, or
mavis, and the blackbird. Our robin's
song, according to Burroughs, is scarcely
inferior to any of them, while they have in
England no birds whatever answering to
our mocking-bird, brown-thrush, catbird,
wood-thrush, and veery.

Our vireos are a family peculiar to the

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN BIRDS. 99

New World, and have no representatives
whatever in Europe. Neither have the ori-
oles or the tanagers, or the bobolinks, all of
them among the most musical of our birds.

On the other hand, the European war-
blers, to which family the nightingale be-
longs, are not represented at all in the New
World. The American wrarblers, which,
properly speaking, are not warblers at all,
are weak singers, and have nothing in
common with the celebrated Old World
warblers. According to Burroughs, how-
ever, in England at least, the nightingale
is very rare ; and in his chapter in " Fresh
Fields " entitled " A Search for a Nightin-
gale " he gives us an amusing account of
his desperate though fruitless endeavor to
find that bird.

The skylark, too, at least in the settled
parts of this country, has no proper repre-
sentative, so that the two most famous Old
World songsters are denied to the New
World. Thus has nature to the Eastern
and Western Continent dealt out her gifts
with an even and impartial hand.

IX.

THE BIRDS OF PRINCETON.

PRINCETON, June 20, 1889.
MY DEAR MR. EDITOR, — Having passed
the last few days in the Worcester County
hill town of Princeton, I have been tempted
to send you this letter on the birds I have
heard sing here at this season of the year,
when nearly all our wild birds sing at their
best. I am particularly prompted to do
this, as it will give me an opportunity to
inform local ornithologists that the hermit-
thrush, a bird well known for the beauty
of its song throughout the White Moun-
tains and the more northern districts of
Maine, is to be found breeding and sing-
ing on our own Wachusett.

THE BIRDS OF PRINCETON. IOI

In the first place, as was to be expected,
I have heard sing in Princeton nearly all
the birds we hear sing in Worcester. The
scarlet tanager, the indigo-bird, the king-
bird, the wood-thrush, and the humming-
bird, which had long escaped me, I have
at last succeeded in finding. But there are
others which still remain unfound. The
chief of these are the veery, or Wilson's
thrush, the warbling-vireo, the rose-breasted
grosbeak, the red-shouldered blackbird,
the crow blackbird, the barn-swallow, the
white-breasted swallow, and the night-
hawk. On the other hand, there are
many species of birds, the individuals of
which are much more numerous here than
at home.

Of all Princeton birds, the most abun-
dant, persistent, and self-asserting is the
chewink. Chewinkville, or Towheetown,
would be a most appropriate denomina-
tion of Princeton upon any ornithological
system of nomenclature of our Worcester
County towns. Then the sweet-singing
vesper-sparrow is to be found everywhere,

102 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

pouring forth most lavishly his beautiful
lisping ditty, as might naturally be ex-
pected in a high, breezy country like that
of Princeton. While in Worcester we hear
him only on the more distant hills about
the city, here he is heard on the town
common itself, where he actually takes the
place of the obnoxious English sparrow, —
a bird which, I omitted to mention, is not
included in the avifauna of this town. In
Worcester the purple-finch and bluebird
are occasionally heard, but here we hear
these delicious songsters along the village
street on every side. I use the word " de-
licious " in speaking of the song of the
bluebird advisedly, for though I had never
known it before, I have now discovered that
he is a singer of no mean ability. His
singing is almost as profuse as the robin's,
and he will sometimes continue singing
from the same perch half an hour at
a time in the most impassioned manner.
Though I miss here the pretty warble of
the warbling-vireo, his place is easily sup-
plied by the purple-finch, whose song,

THE BIRDS OF PRINCETON. 103

though similar, is somewhat superior to
his. I never in my life heard such singing
from that much under-estimated thrush,
the American robin, as here in Princeton.
The Princeton air would seem to have pu-
rified and exalted his voice, and his kinship
to the veery and hermit-thrush is made
manifest.

In Worcester the pretty goldfinch, the
little yellow bird with the black wings, is
not very abundant. Here he is seen fly-
ing in all directions with his pretty dipping
flight, and uttering his canary-like twitter.
The handsome meadow-lark is not uncom-
mon, though found in nothing like such
abundance as along the intervals of the
Blackstone River in the towns below Wor-
cester. But the merry bobolink pours
down his rollicking song from over our
heads in every meadow. Here you do
not go out of town to seek him, and the
best place I know to hear him is from the
east piazza of the Wachusett House and
from Mr. Bullock's pretty cottage. In
July and August, when the town will be

104 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

visited by crowds of people from the city,
the bobolink will have become tuneless,
but we hope that his music is appreciated
by the few fortunate enough to be already
here. Another bird, however, of a very
different temper from the bobolink's, the
whippoorwill, or the wish-ton-wish, as he
was called by the Indians, is heard every
evening from the village common, and
he will continue to emit throughout the
summer his weird, sepulchral cry for
the benefit of the visitors of July and
August.

About Princeton his near congener, the
nighthawk, does not contest the field with
him, but leaves the whippoorwill to his
solitary glory.

One of the handsomest and most musi-
cal of our wood-warblers, the tiny Mary-
land yellow-throat, which I had hardly
expected to find here in Princeton, as he
is generally found in low, swampy places,
is not uncommon, and his lively twittitee, •
twittitee, twittitee, often greets my ear.
The black-and-white creeping-warbler is

THE BIRDS OF PRINCETON. IDS

also often seen here, as is the redstart,
whose brisk trill so often salutes you on
going out of the open into the forest.
The chimney-swifts are very abundant, the
chimneys of nearly every farm-house seem-
ing to be repositories of their nests. Of
the" swallows, the cliff or eave swallow
seems to be the prevailing species ; the
bank-swallows, I am told, are not uncom-
mon, but the white-breasted and the barn
are very rare.

Yesterday, while sitting in the stony pas-
ture back of the Mt. Pleasant House, where
the well-known authoress " H. H." is said
to have passed much of her time during
her yearly visits to Princeton, we could
not help remarking the peculiar sense of
wildness and remoteness which the ring-
ing, vibrating song of the bush-sparrow
produced on the mind. This little bird,
about the size of the chipping-sparrow, is
the least known of all our common spar-
rows, but it is hard to understand how his
clear, ringing whistle can fail to attract
attention.

106 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

Wilson Flagg, the pioneer of popular
ornithologists, writing some thirty years
ago, tells us that the voice of the quail or
bob-white is no longer heard in the land, —
that, being a permanent resident with us,
he is destroyed in vast numbers by the
severity of our winters, and now that
the taste of the epicure and the gun of the
fowler are thrown into the scale against
him, the quail's speedy extermination is at
hand. My Worcester experience would
most certainly point to the verification of
Flagg's predictions, but here in Princeton
it is very different. "Bob-white" or " More
wet" as it is sometimes translated, cheery
and strong, greets you from every pasture,
meadow, and hillside. It may be that
the past open winter explains this unu-
sual abundance of the toothsome quail, -
whereof all sportsmen and epicures take
notice !

The crow is more a'bundant here than in
Worcester, and seems even more wild, sav-
age, and unapproachable. According to
Thoreau, these birds embody the departed

THE BIRDS OP PRINCETON. IO/

spirits of the old Indian sagamores. This
is certainly a more poetical explanation of
their hostility to the white man than to
attribute it to the effect of the white man's
gun.

As for the thrushes, the robins, the brown-
thrushes, and the cat-birds are as abundant
about Princeton as they are in the neigh-
borhood of Worcester. As for the smaller
thrushes, the sylvan minstrels par excel-
lence, the wood-thrush is heard constantly
in the grove just northwest of the village.
The veery, which I have heard repeatedly
this season and last in the peat-meadow
woods near Worcester, and which is, on
the whole, a common bird in that vicinity,
I have failed to hear at all in Princeton.
This was hardly unexpected to me, as I
knew that the veery generally lives in low
woods near ponds, and there are no ponds
near Princeton except Wachusett Pond, the
other side of the mountain, which I have
not yet visited. Now the hermit-thrush is
closely allied both to the wood-thrush and
the veery, but belongs to the Canadian

108 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

fauna, while the other two belong to the'
Apalachian. It is a well-known fact, how-
ever, that on the sides of mountains we
often find birds and flowers alike which
properly belong to regions much further
north, the difference in altitude correspond-
ing to the difference in latitude, so that the
climates of the northern low lands and of
the southern high lands are the same.
Moreover I had seen the common slate-
colored snow-bird, which is especially char-
acteristic of the Canadian fauna, near the
summit of Wachusett in August, and felt
convinced that it must have nested there,
as it was too early for the fall migrations.
Now, if the snow-bird nested there, it was
fair to suppose that the hermit-thrush
nested there also, and might therefore be
heard singing up on the mountain in the
month of June. Accordingly I took a trip
to the mountain yesterday with the express
purpose of solving this interesting prob-
lem, if possible. But I had never heard
the song of the hermit and had never been
able to obtain a satisfactory description of

THE BIRDS OF PRINCETON. IOQ

it either from the books or from persons
who had heard it. Some authorities com-
pare the hermit's song to that of the veery,
others to that of the wood-thrush. I con-
sidered, however, that I knew thoroughly,
and in all their variations, the songs of
these two birds, and I felt sure that I
should recognize at once as belonging to
this wonderful family, embracing the veery,
the wood-thrush, the hermit-thrush, the
olive-back thrush, and the gray-cheeked
thrush, any song that did actually belong
to it. The olive-backed and gray-cheeked
are arctic thrushes, so that if I heard the
songs of any thrush belonging to this fam-
ily which I had never heard before, it
would be the song of the hermit.

I reached the summit about six o'clock
in the evening. On the way up I heard
oven-birds and wood-pewees at frequent
intervals. I was also much delighted at
finding again, near the top, my snow-birds
of last summer. This time I was sure they
were nesting there, as was plainly shown
by their demonstrations while I remained

110 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

in their neighborhood. On the way up,
too, I was encouraged by hearing a whistle
which seemed to answer Burroughs's de-
scription of the whistle of the hermit.
Of course the return down the mountain
would furnish the true test, as it would
then be just the time of day when all the
thrushes of this family are most likely to
sing. Accordingly, about half-past six, I
slowly began my descent down the bridle-
path. The oven-birds seemed never to tire
of singing, though I was, in my impatience,
almost tired of hearing them.

I had now gone nearly half-way down,
and was getting pretty thoroughly dis-
couraged, for I had little hope of hearing
them in the lower zone of the mountain.
Suddenly, away off to the eastward, but
brought to my ears with perfect clearness
by the strong east wind, a song arose once,
twice, and yet again, until I finally had
heard at least eight or ten strains. Then
the angry cry of a blue-jay was heard in
the same direction, and the singing ceased.
I waited half an hour to hear it again, but

THE BIRDS OF PRINCETON. Ill

in vain. I shall return to the mountain to-
morrow* evening, and hope to hear it a
second time ; but it would not be necessary
in order to convince me more positively
that I had heard the hermit-thrush. There
is no possibility of confounding it with the
veery; the three or four simple bars of
the veery's beautiful song have nothing in
common with it. It is more like the song
of the wood-thrush, but with all the disagree-
able features eliminated. It is a continu-
ous, not an interrupted song like that of
the wood-thrush. Then the hermit's song
is much simpler than his, and wants the
jingles and staccato notes of the wood-
thrush's song, which are generally con-
sidered such blemishes. Then there is
absolutely nothing corresponding to the
beautiful airoee of the wood-thrush. The
song I heard consisted of three soft melo-
dious whistles in the same key, followed
immediately by three more notes in a very
different key. The whole was repeated in
rapid succession until it ceased altogether.
That it was the hermit-thrush I am sure,

112 BIRD-SONGS ABOUT WORCESTER.

and this bird must now be added to the
list of birds who nest and rear their young
in Worcester county. But I must hear
the song again before I am willing to
yield it precedence over our own incom-
parable veery.

X.

OFF CAPE COD.

WHALING IN MASSACHUSETTS BAY.

PROVINCE-TOWN, BARNSTABLE COUNTY,
Aug. 12, 1887.

MY DEAR MR. EDITOR, — Since my
arrival in this old fishing-town, whales
have been the absorbing topic of conver-
sation, not only among the transient sum-
mer-boarders, but among the permanent
residents as well. A few days before I
came, a large school of fin-back whales,
for the first time in two years, made its
appearance at the entrance of Massachu-
setts Bay, and ever since there has been
great excitement here. Several of the

114 OFF CAPE COD-

guests of the Gifford House, the hotel
where I am stopping, had been out whal-
ing, and reported rare sport. The unvary-
ing verdict has been that there was noth-
ing to be compared with it for a moment.
So your correspondent, thinking that
such an opportunity ought not to be
missed, turned out at 4.30 yesterday morn-
ing, and walking down to Union wharf,
found there the stanch little steamer,
" A. B. Nickerson," J. S. Nickerson com-
mander, all ready to set out for the day's
whaling. The morning was somewhat
cloudy, but the wind was southwest, and
everything promised a pleasant day. Be-
sides the captain and crew, there were on
board a Marlboro editor and his son, a
Boston provision merchant, and myself.
The Boston man had been out the day
before and had been so infatuated with
the sport that he could not forego its
repetition. The editor, perched upon the
hurricane-deck, spent most of the time
taking voluminous notes, and I trust his
Marlboro paper may escape the notice

WHALING IN THE BAY. IIS

of your readers, so that all indivious com-
parisons of our respective efforts may be
avoided.

Steaming out of the magnificent harbor
of Provincetown, the only harbor on a lee
shore within two hundred miles, we are
soon off the Race Point lighthouse, which
guards the tip end of Cape Cod. As we
stand out to sea, the low, sandy coast-line
of the back of the cape comes into full
view. Away off to the southeast we can
just make out the celebrated Highland
lighthouse, one of the three " primary
lights " of New England. This is the first
light that greets the trans-atlantic voyager
on entering Massachusetts Bay. Five
miles nearer and easily distinguishable,
we see the terrible Peaked (pronounced
Picket) Hills bar, with its important life-
saving station. This is the most dangerous
point on the whole coast, and never a
winter passes without leaving many a
wreck on these insidious sand-bars, which
extend nearly a mile out to sea. During the
Revolutionary War H. M. S. " Somerset,"

Il6 OFF CAPE COD.

one of the British men-of-war that had cov-
ered the red-coats while crossing to Bunker
Hill, and afterwards set fire to Charlestown,
was wrecked at the Peaked Hills, to the
great joy of the people of the Cape, to
whom this vessel had long been a terror.
There were more than four hundred souls
on board, many of whom were swallowed
up by the sea, and their bodies buried in
Deadmen's Hollow, near by. The sur-
vivors, among them Captain Aubrey, the
commander of the vessel, were marched
to Boston as prisoners-of-war by the Barn-
stable militia. The vessel was thrown up
high on the beach, and after a few years
was wholly buried in the sand. Within
two or three years the constantly shifting
sands, after more than a hundred years,
again revealed to view the live-oak timbers
of the old war-ship. Many are the relics
in Provincetown obtained by the towns-
people during the temporary exhumation.
At the present time the vessel is again
imbedded in sand to the depth of nearly
thirty feet. This is only one of the

WHALING IN THE BAY. 1 1/

innumerable shipwrecks to be charged to
the account of this bar.

An old sea-captain told me how, not
many years ago, he saw an Italian brig,
the " Giovanne," dashed to pieces at the
Peaked Hills, and all but one of her crew
drowned before his eyes. No living soul
could help them, as no life-boat could
possibly get through the great foaming
breakers which rolled in more than thirty
feet high. He said the captain, a great,
powerful fellow, several times swam almost
up to the shore, but was as often swept
back by the undertow. At last he was seen
to give up the unequal contest, throw up
his hands, and sink below the waves ; and
after the storm his body was thrown up on
the beach, together with those of his crew.

Within a few years, in the month of
November, three of the crew of the life-
boat, including the captain, all Province-
town men, were drowned while trying to
reach a stranded vessel, a part of whose
crew they had already saved. This was
the first wreck on the coast after the

Il8 OFF CAPE COD.

acquittal of the captain on the charge of
cowardice. He had been thus accused
because he had refused to put out to a
shipwrecked vessel, while a volunteer crew
from Provincetown manned the life-boat
and rescued the imperilled crew. On his
acquittal, however, he took the first op-
portunity offered to redeem himself, and
expiated by his life any past offence of
which he might have been guilty.

Before the establishment of the life-
saving station, moreover, many a poor
fellow whom the waves had spared died
of cold and exposure while wandering
about in midwinter over the barren \vastes
of sand which stretch back for over two
miles towards Provincetown. But enough
of these sad stories of shipwreck and death,
which are only too common on this coast.

Before we were five miles beyond Race
Point we heard from the man on the look-
out above the inspiring cry of " There she
blows ! " and before long, whales could be
seen spouting in all directions, rolling and
tossing like great porpoises. It is a great

WHALING IN THE BAY. 1 19

mistake to suppose that whales spout out
great volumes of water, as I remember they
were represented as doing in the pictures
in the geographies. They really spout out
no water at all, but the slight spray which
is usually seen is the water above their
blow-holes, which is forced into the air
when the whale exhales.

It may be well right here to describe
the peculiar method of killing the fin-back
whale, the only whale common on our
coast. The harpoon and lance, which are
so effective against the sperm, right, and
humpback whales, are of very little avail
against the fin-back. This whale is long
and sTender, and " just made for running,"
as an old whaler told me. When har-
pooned they will " run the nails out of a
boat in no time," going at the rate of
almost a mile a minute. A few years ago
some young men from the town, who had
been foolish enough to harpoon a fin-back,
narrowly escaped drowning, being picked
up by a passing vessel just as their boat
was sinking. Therefore in killing this

120 OFF CAPE COD.

whale a bomb-lance, a comparatively re-
cent invention, is now always employed.
This lance is hollow and charged with
powder. It is fired out of a heavy gun or
blunderbuss, the powder in the gun ignit-
ing a fuse at the end of the lance, which
explodes in about fourteen seconds. If
the lance has been fired into a vital part,
the explosion generally results in the
speedy death of the whale.

Although the whales were so numerous,
we at first had considerable trouble in
getting a shot at them. These fin-back
whales are in the habit of spouting five or
six times, and then, having filled their
lungs with air, they go down to the bottom
to feed, often remaining there for a long
time. Unless, therefore, you are pretty
near them when they first come up, it is
impossible to get near enough to shoot
them. At last, as luck would have it, a
whale comes up to spout for the first time
within an eighth of a mile of us. All
steam is crowded on, and off we dash in
the direction of the whale. Again he rises

WHALING IN THE BAY. 121

to blow, and again and again. We are
now very near him, and the fifth time he
seems to the novice to present a capital
shot, being less than a rod distant. The
noise of his blowing is like a locomotive
letting off steam, and we can trace the
outline of his vast body long after he has
disappeared beneath the surface. On
board there is the intensest excitement.
The 'captain and mate, standing far out on
the bowsprit-like bridge, with guns in
hand, share ' the excitement. Will the
whale blow again? That is the all-impor-
tant question which agitates us. If he
does it will be our last chance, as it
will be his sixth blowing. But the sus-
pense is of short duration. Just ahead of
us his head comes slowly into view. At
full speed we dash up alongside, and before
his ponderous body is again submerged
two bomb-lances enter it just behind
the left shoulder. We are at once all on
the alert, listening for the explosion of the
lance. We hear nothing but the dashing
of the waves against the steamer's sides,

122 OFF CAPE COD.

and it is evident that the lance has failed
to explode. Still the whale must be
seriously injured. We strain our eyes in
every direction for the next blowing, for
a wounded whale is generally obliged to
come up very often to breathe. Soon we
see a whale blow an eighth of a mile off
our starboard bow, and the man at the
look-out declares it to be the wounded
whale. He knows it, he says, because
there is " something queer about his
spout" So after him we tear, and for
at least an hour continue to pursue him.
At last the captain, in great disgust, and
with difficulty repressing his angry feelings
towards the man at the masthead, declares
we are after the wrong whale, and might
as well return home as follow him out
to sea any further. So we turn around,
considerably crestfallen, having given up
all hope of ever seeing the wounded whale
again. In the meantime I retired to the
cabin for a nap, having made up my mind
that whaling was over for the day. Before
long, however, I am aroused by a great

WHALING IN THE BAY. 123

commotion on deck, and rushing up the
companion-way find that a whale whose
spout was flecked with blood has just been
seen not more than a quarter of a mile
away on our port bow. From this time to
the death of the whale I never saw such
excited men as those on board the steamer,
with the possible exception of the mate, an
old whaler, who seemed to be reasonably
cool. As for the captain, he appeared to
be the most excited man on board. Well,
we soon succeeded in getting another shot,
and this time, as before, the lance failed to
explode, and off goes the whale with un-
diminished speed. The next time he rises,
however, his spout is more deeply tinged
with blood than before. Again we steam
after him at full speed, and soon come up
alongside as he rises to blow. This time,
thinking the end is near, and fearing that
the whale will sink when dead, the captain
casts a harpoon into him. Off he rushes
with eight hundred feet of rope behind,
with the buoy attached to the rope dancing
along through the water at a very lively

124 OFF CAPE COD-

rate. It soon becomes plain that the
whale is not going to die so easily. We
attempt to get another shot, but find it
even more difficult than before. It is im-
possible to tell what direction the whale is
going to take. Now he appears on our
port and now on our starboard bow, and
we are unable to get anywhere near him.
Finally the captain, fuming and swearing,
and declaring that even now we shall lose
the whale, rope and all, calls down the man
at the masthead, whom he takes severely
to task for his inability to follow the whale
under water, mounts aloft himself, and in
stentorian tones shouts out his orders to
the man at the wheel. Double caution is
now necessary to prevent the rope getting
foul of our rudder, which untoward ac-
cident would very speedily put an end to
the chase. Every time the whale rises to
spout the waves are crimson with his
blood for many feet around, and the blood
is plainly seen pouring out of the holes
in his sides, made by the lances. Once
he comes up to spout directly under the

WHALING IN THE BAY. 125

vessel, and the shock of the collision nearly
throws us off our feet. The front deck
is covered with blood from his spout.
Finally the mate, who all this time has
remained stationed on the bridge in front,
succeeds in getting another shot, and a
dull report tells us that the lance has ex-
ploded. According to all precedents the
whale should have died at once then and
there. The mate can scarcely believe his
eyes when, a couple of minutes later, a
'bloody spo~ut on our port bow announces
that the whale has still considerable life
left. It is nearly half an hour before
another shot is secured. Again the lance
explodes, and again the whale disappears
from view. The mate, in great wrath,
with a mighty oath, shouts out to the
captain aloft that he has fired hfs last shot,
and, if he has not killed the whale this
time, the captain has got to come down and
kill him himself. For more than a minute
nothing is seen ; then the whale's back
appears above the surface of the water, a
tremor seems to pass through his whole

126 OFF CAPE COD.

frame, and then he turns over on his side
dead, stretching out nearly sixty feet,
with his flukes high above the water. All
hands agreed that this was the gamiest
whale they had ever killed. Any of the
last three shots, the mate declared, would
o have killed a " new " whale, but when a
whale, he said, was mortally wounded,
he would die when he got ready, and you
couldn't hurry him by shooting him again.
After the death of the whale the ex-
citement rather increased than diminished.
Down comes the captain from the mast-
head, and thick and fast gives his orders
for securing the whale before he sinks. In
this case, however, there was no occasion
for hurry. It soon became evident that
this whale would float; and after cutting
off its flukes, to prevent resistance to the
water, we soon had a cable round his tail
and were steaming slowly home with the
whale in tow. The whale had conducted
us nearly ten miles off Race Point and the
chase had lasted more than five hours.
By five o'clock we had anchored the whale

WHALING IN THE BAY. 1 27

off the beach opposite the oil factory,
where the blubber would soon be con-
verted into some twenty barrels of oil.

Most whales sink as soon as they are
dead, and rise to the surface again after
three or four days, when they are secured
by the whalers. The lances are marked
with the whaler's initials so as to enable
him to prove his property. It has recently
been decided in the United States district
court for the district of Massachusetts, in a
very important case in which Provincetown
and Wellfleet parties were interested, that
these dead whales belong to the whalers
who kill them, and not to the man who
happens to tow them ashore. It was held
that the killing of a whale with a bomb-
lance was a sufficient appropriation of a
wild animal {fercz natures) to constitute
property. Had the decision of the court
been otherwise, the whaling industry at the
Cape would soon become extinct.

INDEX.

BLACKBIRD, cow, 39, 91, 98 ;
crow, 17, 91, 101 ; red-
shouldered, or red-winged,
18, 91, 101.

Bluebird, n, 13, 32, 67, 80,
88, 92, 102.

Blue-jay, 87, no.

Bobolink, 18, 67, 68, 69, 70,
79. 95> 97, 99, 103.

Bob-white, 106.

Bunting, bay-winged, 21, 83 ;
towhee, 38, 85.

CATBIRD, 18, 42, 44, 45, 80,

98, 107.
Cedar-bird, 77.
Chebec, 53.
Cherry-bird, 77.
Chewink, 38, 39, 53, 72, 81,

85, 95, ioi.

Chickadee, 15, 16, 42,95.
Cow-bird, 39, 40,41.
Crow, 50, 87, 106.
Cuckoo, 40, 67, 73, 91.

FINCH, grass, 21 ; purple, i8>
20, 24, 25, 26, 30, 50, 52,
59, 91, 98, 102.

Flicker, 17.

Flycatcher, least, 43, 53.

GOATSUCKERS, 62, 8r.
Goldfinch, 18, 20, 27, 28, 50,

91, 98, 103.
Golden robin, 80, 85,
Grackle, blue, 17.
Greenlets, 52.
Grosbeak, blue, 57 ; cardinal,

57; rose- breasted, 55, 56,

97, 98, ioi.
Ground robin, 38, 85.

HANGBIRD, 49.
Highhole, 17.
Huckleberry-bird, 84.
Humming-bird, ruby-throated,
54, 67, 72, 97, ioi.

INDIGO-BIRD, 67, 71, Si, 88,
89, 98, ioi.