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PINE HILLS BIRD NOTES
BY HENRY A. SLACK

The world is a great volume of natural things,
but, alas, how few leaves are seriously turned!
—THOREAU

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DEDICATION
To the members of the Pine Hills Nature Study

Class and to those who with them have been inter-
ested in the birds and flowers of Pine Hills, I, with
sincere remembering thought, address this little book

of records.

Henry A. Slack

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“DO BIRDS HAVE AESTHETIC TASTE?”

This robin’s nest was found by a junior member of the Pine
Hills Nature Study Class in an elm tree on upper South Allen St.

A Few Little Thoughts for Parents of
Pine Hills

“Long before the birth of Odin
Mute was thunderous ocean’s roar;
Stillness o’er the huge earth brooding,
Strand was none, nor rocky shore.

“Tmir sat in lonely sadness,
Watching o’er the fruitless globe;
Never morning beamed with gladness;
Never eve with dewy robe.”
OR ages earth turned a hard, barren face to
the sun. There were no birds, no flowers,
no soul life. God had made the earth but had
not created man. Everywhere silence reigned,
save when broken by the extreme throes of
creative nature. Ages passed, and
“With shadows cool and sweet,
With silence like a prayer,
Breathing, brooding everywhere,”
man was created. The once sterile earth blos-
somed, fruited; and over all the sun serenely
shone. Happily were man’s days cast with sing-
ing birds and flowering fields, for through the
divine ways of nature he should seek and find
the higher life — the human soul that within him
ran. Thus the love of nature so widely spread
as to become almost universal, calls —
“Come forth and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.”
No barriers cramp or crowd in nature’s realm.
Her fields are open and far-reaching, and the
harvest sure and plentiful. Her wild bird chorus

5

is making every grove a temple and every sun-
rise a worship. She links the human soul to her
work, and man rises to kinship with his creator.

Nature is a generous teacher. The study is
not burdensome nor difficult. She demands no
scientific training. She makes it possible to know
the flowers without botanical aid, and all her
creative work without the hard climb up the steep
cliffs of science. She asks only that man see and
hear the things God has given to make the world
and life beautiful. They who have the way of
seeing and hearing these God-given things stand
at the open gate of the King’s highway, heirs to a
source of happiness others know not of.

It is beyond man to know why we are made
happy by the things seen and heard in nature, nor
can man explain the many and varied feelings
that course through the heart when we approach
nature with loving appreciation. A simple song
from the hedgerow, a comely flower from the
wild will often give thoughts too deep for care-
less comprehension — thoughts that lead to a
closer fellowship with nature and nature’s God.

“A thought that impels all thinking
And lives through all things —
Therefore am I a lover of the woods,
Of the meadows and mountains,
And all that we behold,

From the green earth
To the starry heavens.”

Through phases of beauty man penetrates to
the heart of nature where works the infinite.
Through nature is presented the various and

6

varying problems of life, that man by the travail
of science is trying to solve.

Why man takes pleasure in killing the things
God takes pleasure in creating is a question diff-
cult to answer. There is no honor nor glory in
destroying life. Humanity, sickened at the
wanton slaughter of the innocent, cries out
against it. Let life be sacred for all to whom
God has given it! Differ as we may, justice to
all involves obligations that should be universal.
All who are interested in the development of
character and refinement in our children should
generously encourage the study of nature in early
life. A man’s ways are usually too fixed to be
influenced, but the child, more easily interested,
is often led up to the highest interpretation of
nature — the elevation and preservation of life.
The way to secure nature’s fine influence on man
is through the child’s impressionable heart.

Parents do not fully realize the force for evil
concealed in an inherent taste that prompts a
child to hurt or kill — a taste, growing unchecked,
sooner or later develops, if not a cruel, a heedless
character, having no sympathy for suffering or
regard for life. Such a character sees not the
glory in heaven or earth, for he sees not with
loving eyes.

A child’s environment for the first year of life
is adjusted by the parents, who are thus made
directly or indirectly responsible for the impres-
sions made on the undeveloped mind, whose in-
tuitions frequently hold a truth not recognized

7

nor acknowledged. The heart of the child, sym-
pathetically trained, is quick to respond to the
many miracles of life that

“Come forth into the light of things,
Come forth and bring with them a heart
That watches and receives.”

Nature with her world of ready riches is an
ever willing help in directing these early impres-
sions. She takes nothing but good into the heart,
and nothing that is good from it.

All nature is sacred and beautiful. The child
that lives in accord with nature lives near to.
nature’s God. All that is consecrated and beauti-
ful appeals to him and his early life is made the
happy forestep to the world and work before him.

God is still creating the earth and the heavens.
Let man observe and learn to know and enjoy His
created things, and teach the children to know
and enjoy them, for so shall they live and learn

“To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity.”

INE HILLS now has a fairly good number

of the earliest birds. Robins, bluebirds

and song-sparrows are flying about joyously

singing in every district, while from the open

fields floats the meadow lark’s weird call, “ Hear
me sing.”

Over on the “ Ridge” the noisy flicker calls
quit, quit, quit, quit, quit, quit; and a group of
grackles in the tops of the seven pines awk-
wardly crane and cramp their necks in the effort
to gurgle up their clumsy spring notes. These
grackles winter South, but have now broken
camp and are distributing themselves through
the Northern States. A month hence they will
be settled in small companies in favorite resorts,
two of which are the pines on the Manning
Boulevard and the group of spruce at the upper
end of the park lake.

It is yet early for bluebirds to settle to house-
keeping, but they are busy house inspecting.
There are twenty-five or more houses put up on
Pine Hills for their use, with the prospect that
they will all be occupied. Of course the ever
present English sparrows contest all rights but

:

their own, and have frequent scuffles with the
new comers, but nothing of a serious nature
occurs till the bluebirds are ready to occupy the
houses.

The song, field, vesper and swamp sparrows
are jubilant, regardless of the changing weather,
and their songs may be heard by listeners almost
any hour of the day. With nesting this year the
songsparrow is at the front. March is early for
placing a nest out in the open field, and yet on
March 27 a songsparrow’s nest with five eggs
was seen by a member of the Pine Hills Audubon
and Nature Class in the meadow at the foot of
Oak Ridge. Courageous little bird, for frost
and snow will chill the air for many a day yet.

Coltsfoot, the earliest spring flower, was
brought to the class last Saturday. On the clay
bank near the cycle path at the south end of
Allen street coltsfoot abounds. It is an inoffen-
sive little plant that thrusts its dandelion-like
heads up through the heavy spring soil and opens
a pretty golden disc to the sun long before its
leaves appear. It is a common flower, yet few
know it.

“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

April 3, 1907.

10

“Firstly came Churl, son of Janus,
Rough for cold, in drugget clad,
Came with rack and rheum to pain us!

“Janus was he, oldest of potentates ;
Forward he looked, and backward, and below
He counts, as god of years and gates,
The years that through his portals come and go.”

ANUARY is the hard month of winter to get
through, when Nature makes little appeal
to the heart. But we have endured January and
are now on the spring side of winter, looking out
toward the rising sun and the day “when the
sap creeps up and the blossoms swell.’ There
will be other days of cold, of snow and high
winds; but also dreamy days of sunshine, when
we shall feel the soft touch of spring, when some
sweet bird will drop its cheerful notes into our
expectant hearts, and some fairy blossom raise
its starry eyes to ours. Our winters are not
quite as destitute of beauty as they seem when
viewed from the windows of our homes.

On the flat a little beyond Seven Pines, one
morning in late December, by brushing away a
snowy covering, I disclosed to a little nature-
loving companion six wee starry blossoms, as
fresh and bright as had the day been one in early
spring. A week later this little friend picked
from under the snow near her own door the
same blossoms — the common chickweed — com-
mon in no way save in the abundance of its

ul

growth. There is scarcely a day in the year
when this slender creeping plant, with its infan-
tile blossoms, may not be found in some sheltered
corner of the open field, or in our own dooryard.
To hold a place in the plant world for the family
it needs to be always at work, winter as well as
summer, producing seed of its kind. To be pro-
ductive the flowers must be fertilized by their
pollen, which bees and flies distribute during the
summer, but which the flowers must do for them-
selves during the winter. Night is the chick-
weed’s time of rest. When the leaves in pairs
are folded tenderly about the parent stem, the
petals of the flower close, the head drops, and a
chickweed sleeps.

Another interesting flower of early winter is
the witchhazel. In its bush habit it is abundant
about Pine Hills and breaks into bloom from
October to midwinter. A very beautiful speci-
men of its tree form stands south of Seven Pines
on the brow of the hill just where it tips down to
Willow Run. It is twenty or more feet in
height. In November, with not a leaf on the
bare branches, it was covered with a profusion
of blossoms — a little yellow flower setting fast
to every twig. On the last of December, with
the mercury at twenty degrees, it was yet in
bloom and with many fresh flowers. The seed
of the witchhazel matures very leisurely. Not
till the following autumn, when fresh flowers
appear, does it throw its seed. Side by side
along the bare branches sit the hard seed capsule

12

of the past and the frail flower of the present.
Then, as if after friendly consultation, the cap-
sule opens, throwing the seeds broadcast with
force sufficient to plant them several feet beyond
the parent tree.

No book can teach the lesson as we learn it
out in the open, in the wood, on the hillside, on
the plain below!

Following Beaver Creek from the foot of
Seven Pines north, you pass sumacs, with their
red caps turned brown, witchhazel and black
alder, among whose branches you see an occa-
sional last year’s bird’s nest, torn by the wind
that sweeps down the creek ravine.

At the foot of Oak Ridge, where South Pine
avenue crosses Beaver Creek, is a fringe of pussy
willows, one clump of which stands knee deep
in ice and water. This shrub for several years
has given the first suggestion of spring. As
early as mid-January this year its little pussies
began throwing off their brown wraps to look
cheerily out to the passers along the avenue.

The various interesting trees scattered through
Pine Hills make one of its chief beauties in the
winter. The Seven Pines are a beacon pointing
back many decades before the intrusion of streets
to days when our hill was marshaled by their
tribe. A lone group, storm beaten and weather
worn, yet like chieftains that were strong to
endure the wild wrenching of other years. Our
birds frequent these Seven Pines. In winter
woodpeckers and nuthatches tap along their

13

trunks, the owl hoots from their tops and
watches down for the field mice speeding along
their runways in adjoining fields. The crow,
the jay and an occasional shrike hie hither for
observation. All of Pine Hills, a large part of
the city, and much of the surrounding country
can be seen from these Seven Pines.

Northwest from here, crowning a ridge just
across and above Pine avenue, is a larger group
of trees, mostly oaks and pines. The pines oc-
cupy the upper ridge, the oaks the lower quite
to the meadow flat. Some of the pines tower
skyward a hundred feet and more, while the oaks
stretch out gnarled arms a distance quite equal
to their height. These oaks are not hoar with
age, but they have passed their three-score and
ten.

A pine standing on the cliff of the ridge fac-
ing north also has the honor of years and stature.
Its history would take us back of the early days
of our oldest inhabitant. Oaks, pines and Nor-
way spruces in an easy, straggling line occupy
the ridge from the avenue back to Holler’s
orchard. There are few native trees about Pine
Hills that surpass in suggestive beauty those
growing here. No views, near or distant, that
surpass those seen from the upper ridge. East
over Petersburg Hills is Hancock Mountain and
the Berkshires; west the Helderbergs and the
blue peaks of the Catskills. Oak ridge is a veri-
table parquet for the nature lovers of Pine Hills.

14

To rest here away from the noisy city below
brings health to the mind and peace to the spirit.
You open your heart and nature fills it while
you are giving thanks for the opportunity.

There are other interesting trees growing
singly and in groups north of Western avenue.
The pines grouped along the boulevard are the
most in evidence. Here are several noble speci-
mens of white pine. One stands on the outer
edge of the first group just at the head of Lan-
caster street. On Allen street stand two of
nearly one age and size that should attract more
than a passing thought. They represent two
types of growth. The one near the walk on the
west side of North Allen street beyond Lancaster
is, for its age, a fair specimen of symmetrical
beauty, while the lone pine in rear of 38 South
Allen is more the poetic type. Both in their way
are beautiful, but very different in form. By
its situation this lone pine is made a secure land-
mark for future generations.

Here he has stood for many years.
Here he stands and looks profound
On trees around,

Like a king among his peers.

The richly endowed, enduring white pine is of
historical age, and commercially the most im-
portant tree to civilized man; and civilized man
has been driving it away until there is but a trail-
ing fringe left to tell the story of fallen mon-
archs and a once vast community of tribes. In
sympathy with them, I receive some at least of

15

the fullness of life of those remaining, while I
grieve over the wanton destruction of so many
in our country.

The old apple trees growing beyond Lancaster
street, between the boulevard and Allen street,
are at all seasons of the year most interesting.
No tree is as picturesque as an old apple tree.
Its gnarled trunk and twisted branches are the
very poetry of tree life. Most trees have a
special beauty all their own at one season of the
year; but the apple tree is beautiful at all seasons.
The poet would say never more beautiful than
in winter. Birds are partial to it. The wood-
pecker, the nuthatch and the chickadee climb
through and over it from early fall to summer;
and the bluebird, the robin, and even the song-
sparrow, naturally a field bird, hie to the poetic
tree on their first coming, no matter how early
it may be, so

“Here’s to the old apple tree,
Whence thou mayest blow,

Whence thou mayest blow,
And whence thou mayest bear apples enow.”

February 29, 1908.

16

ONGED for, looked for, here at last! Over

Pine Hills, songsparrow, first bird of the season,
avant courier of the aerial hosts that will build
their homes and summer with us! Here for a
day only, but what matters that so long as he
told us what we wanted most to know, that
winter had packed his grip and was about to
abdicate in favor of spring? To-day songspar-
row is here again with his associates, robin and
bluebird. The trio are always our first spring

sometimes two, and often by

Of the winter we are weary,
Weary of the frost and snow,
Longing for the sunshine cheery,
And the brooklet’s gurgling flow;
Gladly then we hear thee sing
The reveille of spring,
Robin’s come!

Ring it out o’er hill and plain,
Through the garden’s lonely bowers,
Till the green leaves dance again,
Till the air is sweet with flowers;
Wake the cowslips by the rill,
Wake the yellow daffodil!
Robin’s come!

mountain, down valley, across country to

Sometimes one leads in the arrival,

“The gentle law that each should be
The other’s heaven and harmony,”

the three sail in together. We give them our
heart’s greeting, for however the world goes ill,
these birds will sing in it still.

17

The robin, who, by the way, is not a robin, but
a thrush, belongs to the Turdidae family, a small,
refined and highly distinguished family. His
name, robin, was given him by the Puritan
Fathers because of a fancied resemblance to the
so-called robin redbreast of England. Nor is
this famous robin redbreast of English story a
robin. He is a stone-chat, of an historic, old-
world family. Owing to his red breast, and be-
cause Robert and Robin were once favorite and
famous names, he was called robin — robin red-
breast.

Who has not heard the story of robin red-
breast and “ The Children in the Woods,” or
read that ancient Scottish pastoral of “ Robin,”
and of “ Robin Goodfellow,” and of ‘ Robin
Hood,” and “Auld Robin Gray” and “ Robin
Adair”?

In our bluebird we have a near relative of this
widely known robin redbreast. They inherit
alike from blueblooded ancestry, of which blue-
bird and one other, wheat-ear, are the sole repre-
sentatives in this country.

And our bluebird here at home is often called
the “blue robin.” There is no excuse for this
confusion of names. The robin and the blue-
bird are in looks and habits entirely unlike. To
our robin unhesitatingly we accord the military
rank his bearing and deportment demand. He
stands tall and erect. He does not walk, he
marches on to our lawn, and there drills his
imaginary forces. His calls are clarion calls of

18

command. “Attention! Front, face! Forward,
march!” and the company moves off. At break
of day, from the treetop, again he shouts to the
sleeping hosts, “Attention! Into line! March!”
and it is fitting that he should be made grand
marshal of these opening spring days.

The two other birds of the trio are different.
The bluebird is not a bird to command, nor is
the songsparrow. They first solicit, then woo,
attention. It is not difficult to gain access to
their hearts. Bluebird, gentle and confiding;
songsparrow, cheerful and trusting, have noth-
ing coarse in their natures; and are as unlike
robin as blue sky and sunshine are unlike an
electric flash.

And yet a more harmonious trio would be
hard to find in all birdland. Robin, at early
morn, briskly snaps us up and marches us quick
time through the busy part of the day to noon,
when we find songsparrow, who cheerily sees us
along a sunny way to the quiet precincts of blue-
bird, and the day ends and the night passes.

March 28, 1908.

19

IV.

Hush! the wind roars hoarse and deep,
On they come, on they come!

Hush! the waves are rolling in,
White with foam, white with foam!

DROPPED my work with you and came
away so unexpectedly, so unceremoniously,
that it gave me no time for explanations. Not
overstrong or energetic, I found that the work I
was doing with you, and trying to encourage
others to do along similar lines, was gradually
taking more of me than could be healthfully
spared. As a result after careful consideration
and a hasty preparation I find myself not
stranded, but very pleasantly situated at Whitney
Park, Monmouth Beach, New Jersey.

Historic Locality.

Monmouth Beach is midway between Long
Branch and Seabright, on the very narrow pe-
ninsula terminating at Sandy Hook. It is a
small, irregular plot of ground, having a mile
frontage along the ocean, and is about a mile
across from the ocean to the Shrewsbury river,
which, at Galilee, the first station north, makes a
detour, nearly surrounding it on three sides,
almost touching the ocean again near Long
Branch. This was the first settlement along the
Jersey coast.

Shrewsbury, just across the river, west from
Monmouth Beach, was one of the first established

20

townships in the State. It was settled by the
Dutch, but soon after became the dominion of
the Quakers, who built their first meeting house
in 1669. There is still a Quaker meeting
there, and a considerable number of Quakers, all
of whom belong to the New York yearly meeting.

Monmouth Beach.

Monmouth Beach as a summer resort has only
a short history. Not more than twenty-five years
ago a party of six or eight New York families,
in a very primitive way, colonized here for a
summer, using an old inn for a club house where
they got their meals and assembled for social
intercourse. That was the beginning from which
the present popular seaside resort with its com-
modious club house and many beautiful villa
homes, has grown.

Protecting Bulwarks

The villas along the ocean front are protected
from the varying moods of the ocean surf, which
at times is vigorous and fierce, by gigantic bul-
warks from fifteen to twenty feet high, of driven
logs backed by carloads of broken rock. These
bulwarks, notwithstanding their apparent strength,
need constant care, and are the only means of
preventing the sea pushing the whole front shore
with its villas back into the Shrewsbury.

Drives and Parks.

Ocean boulevard runs just in rear of the villas,
from Seabright to beyond Long Branch, and the
21

railroad in close proximity. At Monmouth the
club house is now a little way back, occupying
the segment of a circle three hundred feet in di-
ameter, which is completed by seven or more
cottages. The interior of the circle is parked by
a lawn and large willow trees.

Just across the drive north from the club
house circle is Whitney Park, an enclosure of
five acres outlined by a Japanese privet hedge,
with four large villa houses, all beautifully parked
with lawns, trees, shrubs, flower beds and a
system of connecting driveways.

Again north, and in immediate proximity, is
the Shrewsbury, at this point very broad, beyond
which, apparently very near, are the beautiful
blue hills of the Navisink Highlands. From
Whitney Park this view is at all times, in the
broad sunlight or under the clouds, in storm or
calm, most charming. With this outlook on the
north and west and old ocean on the east Mon-
mouth Beach seems like the center of some great
park system.

A Borough of Homes.

The borough, for Monmouth is now a borough,
is fed and clothed by the outlying towns. There
are no business enterprises here. A small one-
story express and real estate office, a one-story
shop where suits and shoes are renovated, a
boarding and livery stable, and a fish stall include
all. At the station there is a neat little stand

22

where daily papers, periodicals, post cards and
so forth are dispensed. The mail is delivered
morning and afternoon by a carrier via bicycle
from North Long Branch. For shopping and
bargaining one must go elsewhere. Monmouth
is a borough of homes. The quiet of the place is
indefinable. One can almost hear his own
thoughts, but it is health-giving and extremely
restful. “Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve
of care” is here in full force. What life most
needs to-day is a little more of nature’s peace
and rest. And yet many of us, with clear vision
for most things, see this truth as through a glass
dimly.

One Feline Inhabitant.

So far as I have knowledge there is but one
cat in the borough of Monmouth Beach. Of this
lack of felines one hears no complaint. Birds
are numerous, but not in such variety as farther
north, Robins, blackbirds, meadow larks and
sparrows waltz together over the lawns and trip
across the piazza in most familiar ways. They
nest nearby, and as you watch their pretty ways
you find yourself acknowledging to yourself, and
perhaps to your neighbor, the charm of it all.
And he wonders why he has never before caught
the spirit of these little creatures’ lives as they
appeal to him to-day. Ah, my friend, you have
been too busy to stop to throw open the shutters
of your soul for a look into the heart of nature.

23

Local Plant Life.

The sand and marsh flats along the river are
very interesting to the nature-loving tramp.
Here is always an opportunity to gratify any de-
sire he may have to find some new or strange
thing. Nature is not everywhere the same.
About Pine Hills, alike on sand or clay, grows
the evening primrose. Here along the river flats
I find the more attractive day primrose, called
sun-drops, a perfect glory of sunlit blossoms
opening their golden petals to the morning sun,
closing them when night comes to the eastern
sky and the evening primrose takes up its vigil.
Farther on, away from the shore, you come upon
a group of slender stemmed iris, the blue of the
flowers rivaling the blue of the sky under which
they are growing. And here is the yellow
thistle, a shore plant four feet in height, its cream-
yellow flowers deepening to gold color in the
center, with deeply-cut base leaves two feet in
length —a noble plant full of artistic suggestions
to the artistic eye, and covered with pricks against
which you would not be tempted to kick! Cross-
ing to the ocean side, scarcely forty rods from
the river bank, you kneel to the scarlet pimpernel,
the poet’s flower, growing in the clean, gray sand
of the beach, drawing its nourishment from
above, quenching its thirst from below.

A Writer's Tribute.

Mrs. Celia Thaxter writes: “ The little scarlet
pimpernel charmed me. It seemed more than a
24

flower; it was like a human thing. I knew it by
its homely name of poor man’s weather glass.
It was so much wiser than I, for when the sky
was yet without a cloud, softly it clasped its small
red petals together, folding its golden heart in
safety from the storms sure to come. How
could it know so much?”

The Personal Note.

I will leave for another opportunity the pleas-
ure of writing you of other flowers and birds that
make their home with the cottagers on this plot
of ground lying between ocean and river. I can
imagine it will not be easy to understand the
description of things seen as I have given them,
but I have tried to tell you where and how I am
resting, hoping to find strength to resume my
work with you in the autumn. I thank you for
the vacation notes and good wishes you have sent
me and am interested in and appreciate them all.

Sincerely your friend,
Henry A. SLACK.
Monmouth Beach, N. J.,
June 20, 1908.

25

V.

Give us the art of true inspiration,

That wakes the soul to a joy that is higher
And purer than all that the senses can give;

That teaches the language of lofty endeavor,
And hints of a life that ’twere worthy to live.

HE so-called land breeze, always uncomfor-

table along the coast, is seldom disturbing
here at Monmouth Beach. To-day the wind is
west, direct from inland, and the atmospheric con-
ditions are not only comfortable, but enjoyable.
The ocean along the east and the broad Shrews-
bury on the west and north unite to temper the
air of the little borough sitting so close between
the two. There have been no weather extremes
— no cause for complaining of heat or cold.
Indeed, here is an ideal place for a season of rest
and recuperation.

The Sea Gull.

The birds of Monmouth Beach are not numer-
cus nor in great variety, but are interesting.
Those most interesting because least known are
the fish crow, fish hawk and the sea gull. These
three are always in evidence. The fish crow,
which is least numerous, finds its foods along
the bank of the river. The gull and hawk take
theirs from the ocean. The gull, following in
the wake of the numerous vessels passing to and
fro along the coast, picks from the refuse thrown
from the ship’s kitchen all that is required to

26

appease his not very rapacious appetite. Many
tidbits go with this refuse, contributed by crew
and passengers interested in these birds.

I pleasantly recall how entertaining the sea
gulls were to a troop of soldiers sent in the fall
of ’63 from Hampton Roads, Va., to Folly
Island, South Carolina, by the boat Nelly Pence.
The voyage was slow, and most of the way rough
and monotonous. All along the way gulls came
out to the ship from the distant shore, and the
contents of the men’s haversacks was freely
shared with them.

Fishermen Friendly to Fish Hawks.

The numerous fish-pounds along this coast
attract the fish hawk. There are no less than
twelve of these on the sea front at Monmouth,
from which tons of fish are taken every season.
The pounds are made by sinking long poles into
the shallow sea bottom, to which are anchored
large nets from a hundred to two hundred and
fifty feet in length. From the tops of these
poles, which project out of the water, the hawk
can practice his poleless fishing avocation suc-
cessfully, without being molested; for all fisher-
men are friendly to the fishing hawk. His best
opportunity is when the nets are lifted to take in
the fish. Dropping from the pole to the net, he
seizes his choice of the floundering mass and
darts away to some inland tree, chuckling over
his easily gotten meal. The fish hawk’s custo-
mary way of procuring food is to hover over the

27

water till he spies a fish near the surface; then
he dives for it with the speed of a flying arrow.
He is strong of wing and seldom misses his mark.
A young bird with a broken leg, cared for at one
of the cottages, measured three and a half feet
from tip to tip of wing. He is very sociable and
fond of his home, which is seldom far away from
the sea. Along the road to Red Bank, just west
of Monmouth Beach, stands an old storm-torn
sycamore in the dead top of which is the nest of
a fish hawk. It is a rough looking affair, two
or more feet in diameter, built of coarse branches
and rubbish from the shore.

Of the three birds mentioned, the sea gull is
by far the most attractive and beautiful. His
ease and grace of motion on the wing, which is
most of the time, is surpassed by the barn
swallow only.

Birds Hobnob Together.

As I wrote you in a former letter, the variety
of birds here has not been great, but robins,
meadow larks, red-winged blackbirds, starlings,
songspariows and chippies have been numerous
and social. The robins, songsparrows and chip-
pies have crowded their little homes as close to
the cottages as tree, shrub and vine would admit.
There were four robins’ nests, two songsparrows’
and a chippy’s within a square of a hundred
feet between two of the cottages. From the
piazza we can look into three of the robins’ nests,
one of which is so near we can watch the parent

28

birds care for their second little brood, just out
of the shell. On the lawn at Whitney Park
birds make no social distinctions of race or fam-
ily. Ina friendly way all hobnob together, feed-
ing on what they find or from the generous
supply furnished at the Whitney cottage window.
It is not an infrequent occurrence at the park to
see a bird of one family feeding a young bird of
another family. It was but recently I saw an
English sparrow feed a young robin that had
fallen from its nest to the driveway. Again I
ran across a robin feeding a baby chipping spar-
row, while the parent bird sat in an adjacent
bush with a bug in its bill, waiting to perform
the same loving act.

Helped the Meadow Larks.

Meadow larks and blackbirds come to the
park from the river flats where they make their
homes. Not long since, looking for flowers, I
was over on the flats, which are sometimes used
by fishermen to stretch their nets for repairs.
In an effort to reach the river bank, where I
expected to find the purple gerardia, I ran into a
tangle of these nets. They were spread in devi-
ous ways with only a narrow footway between.
By carefully choosing my way I succeeded in
getting more than halfway to the shore, when I
struck a puzzle—a ditch with a net drawn over
it. I tried to cross on the net, but found it prac-
tically impossible. There was no way open to
the right or the left, so I was obliged to retrace

29

my steps. Not being as keen for the retreat as
I had been for the advance, I courted a more
leisurely pace. I had not gone far wher I was
made conscious, by a bevy of meadow larks and
blackbirds, that something had gone wrong in
the bird world. Thirty or more of these birds
were darting wildly about in distress and appar-
ently to attract my attention. First, I looked for
a coming hawk, but saw none. Then it occurred
to me I might possibly be trespassing on private
grounds. Where is the nest, was my next
thought. For answer I had not long to wait.
One of the larks dropped to a tuft of bog grass
not more than twelve span away, where just
under a spread net I found her nest and four
nestlings. It took but a moment to draw the net
away and give the parent birds access to the
hungry little family. There was joy in camp,
and the troop dispersed as I turned to continue
my way off the flat.

Visiting Birds.

Other birds at Monmouth are seen in pairs
mostly, seldom in large numbers. Many visit
but do not breed here. They come from inland
and make short stays.

Where the honeysuckle thrives there you find
the humming bird. There are great hedgerows
of honeysuckle at Monmouth.

In the willows of Club House Circle, just
across from Whitney Park, a fish crow built its
nest, also a golden woodpecker, an oriole and a

30

wood pewee. On the beach you see the sand-
piper chasing the surf down the sands to catch
the sand-fiddler, a tender morsel for his palate.

Of the warblers I have seen but one, the
warbling vireo. He was here for a few days
only. His song was the same as we are accus-
tomed to hear about Pine Hills—“ Don’t you
wish you were me? Don’t you wish you were
me?”

Swallows in the early morning and evening
swim in the air over the cottages, a pretty sight;
but they find no barns, no opportunity for nest-
ing, and are only visitors to feed on the insect
life so abundant during the morning and evening
tide.

English sparrows as seen here are not as ob-
jectionable as when farther north. They are not
so provokingly numerous, nor so exasperatingly
noisy, but, considering the absence of other birds,
quite acceptable. There is a place for all birds,
when all birds are in place, and the seaside is a
good place for the English sparrow.

Monmouth Beach Trees.

The willow, the locust and the sycamore are
the native trees of Monmouth Beach. Others, of
which there are many, have been brought here
by the cottage owners. In the spring of the
year the willows are extremely beautiful, but
they turn brown and drop their leaves early in
the fall, after which they look forlorn and blight-

31

stricken. Willows are brittle stemmed, and
birds do not build in them to any great extent.
The fish crow occasionally builds his coarse nest
in the upper branches because it is a safe place.
No cat or boy would venture on the brittle
branches. The willows felt the effect of the
storm of three weeks ago, which was in truth a
great northeaster. For two days the wind blew
a gale. The ocean was gray and tempersome,
roaring wildly and madly pounding the beach
with tons upon tons of seething water, then with
a wild leap, lifted its white crests, if not moun-
tain high, high enough to make the sight sublime.
Great logs twelve or more feet long were tossed
over the fifteen feet of bulkhead, with the ease
of a school boy tossing his ball over a fence.
The ocean has its moods. This was one of them.
To-day it is of another type, so calm, so peaceful,
so blue.

The Shrewsbury.

The moods of the Shrewsbury are mostly un-
changing — to-day as yesterday. At its best
bluer than the ocean or the beautiful Naversink
Heights beyond.

The height of the flower season at Monmouth
Beach has passed. Only the golden rod, the
beautiful gerardia and the heath-aster remain to
tell the story of a rich season of bloom, the
queens of which were the scarlet pimpernel, the
Sabbatia and the marsh rosemary or statice. Of
many or all of these, making a list of more than

32

a hundred names, I hope to tell you when the
class comes together for the winter’s work.

Monmouth Beach.

July, 1908.

33

Vi.

*“ Give me the best of life!
To live in the world with God,
Where the seed that is sown and dies
Lifts a harvest over the sod;
Where beauty and truth are one,
Where the right must have its way,
Where the storm clouds part for stars,
And the starlight heralds the day.”

RISTOTLE, one of the first to call attention

to the beauty of nature, standing in the

midst of his pupils, exclaimed, pointing to the

earth: “Such wonderful things as these, the

earth, the sea, the great orb of day and the starry

heavens, must be the work of a great Creator,
of a God.”

Our knowledge of natural history, the nature
life of this beautiful world, has been of slow
growth. The simple way to its great heart has
been overlooked. Many lives that might have
been made more beautiful by this knowledge have
passed out over the bar without having had a
suggestion even of the spiritual uplift found in
the heart of a flower or the song of a bird. To
many, our most beautiful flowers are “ weeds.”
To others they are beautiful because they appeal
to the life within that lies deeper than thought.
One sees, another feels.

Science Is Exacting.
A friend in Switzerland writes recently:
“ Here on the higher mountains are many flow-
ers of which I am grievously ignorant. I wish
34

I knew them all, and the birds, too. It would
seem like meeting so many friends then, when
one went out for a ramble, instead of compara-
tive strangers.” Like expression is often heard
from people in middle life, who have not recog-
nized their opportunity, and are now too busy to
accept or to make one. For this there is some
excuse. Science has made the way too hard.
Insistence on scientific methods has often blocked
the way to the simpler method of seeing, hearing
and feeling, and thus learning the lesson that
endears a world of beauty.

“They love not the flower they pick, and know it not,
And all their botany is Latin names.”

Blue Vervain.

During a tramp over the flat along the Shrews-
bury, near Galilee, a little station on the beach
a half mile north of Monmouth Beach, I quite
unexpectedly stumbled upon a group of simplus
joy, blue vervain. It was a charming bit of blue
blossom, radiant with sky tints, and not a con-
testant near for its unusual form and beauty.
It was a suggestion of Willow Run, Pine Hills,
where it grows more vigorous and abundant, but
with no such beauty of flower. To represent to
you the flower as I saw it growing there would
be impossible. Most of my class are acquainted
with it. Perhaps not just as I saw it growing
on the Shrewsbury flats, but familiarly enough
to recognize it wherever seen. The vervain is
classed with medicinal herbs. Its genealogy is a

35

clear one, tracing back to ancient religious story.
Its healing power was known before the time of
Christ, and it grew on Mount Calvary. The
Druids considered it a sacred plant, sacred to
the memory of Thor, the god of lightning.

In the Classics.

Pliny says bridal wreaths made of vervain,
gathered by the bride herself, gave assurance of
a long and happy conjugal life. Virgil refers to
vervain as a charm to recover lost love. In
Shakespeare’s time children hung vervain over
the door to keep witches away. The principal
herbs used in witches’ cauldrons were vervain and
rue. The present generation of physicians has
superseded herbalists and the vervain and many
other herbs are not as well known as when, sixty
years ago, children gathered them, not to keep
away witches, but to be used medicinally by their
elders.

Pink Star of Seaside Marsh.

The beautiful Sabbatia Stellaris — sea pink —
grows in great profusion just south of Mon-
mouth. Here is a flower that appeals to the
most indifferent. Fortunate they who have had
the pleasure of living under the gracious influence
of this wee pink star of the seaside marsh. Mrs.
Dana says of the Sabbatia:

“The advancing year has few fairer sights to
show us than a salt meadow flushed with these
radiant blossoms. They are so abundant, so

36

deep hued, so delicate, one feels tempted to lie
down among the pale grasses and rose stars in
the sunshine of the August morning and drink
his fill of their beauty.”

The Sabbatia does not grow in the vicinity of
Pine Hills. It is distinctly a shore plant. In-
deed, I should be pleased to introduce the class
to it, as seen growing about Monmouth, but the
most I can do this year will be to present dried
specimens at our next meeting. Its name, Sab-
batia, was given for Sabbatia, the botanist, but
many of the Modern Pilgrims of our New Eng-
land States prefer to think its name due to the
belief that the Plymouth Pilgrims first saw the
flower on Sabbath day.

The Rose Mallow.

The rose or marsh mallow is now the conspic-
uous flower of the salt marshes. It should be
better known in these days of summer migration.
It blooms from July to early autumn all along
the Atlantic coast. Wherever the air has a salt
tang the rose mallow grows and flowers pro-
fusely. It bears transplanting, and does ex-
tremely well when transferred to inland gardens,
though the flowers are not so large or deep in
color. It is very hardy, and will endure much
rcugh treatment and neglect. The class will re-
member the plant growing in the garden at 44
South Allen street. This plant was left by mis-
take one whole season on the garden bank without

37

protection or care, but planted the following
season, it grew and gave a generous bloom.

Of the scarlet pimpernel I have written you.
This charming little plant does not grow away
from the seashore, and, it is said, only on the
New England coast. This is a mistake, for it
grows about here from Seabright to Long Branch
profusely. If the so-called false pimpernel is
not a duplicate of the little scarlet-queen of the
coast it is a near relative, and grows all about
Pine Hills in the moist meadows where sport the
meadow lark and bobolink. It has a pale lilac
biossom, and is a large but more delicately
growing plant.

Growing in the Debris.

On the corner of Cottage street and Ocean
avenue here at Monmouth are the ruins of a
pretty cottage burned to the ground a little more
than a year ago. The fallen chimney and other
debris lie scattered over a large part of the half-
acre lot. From Whitney Park it is but a short
walk, and I frequently visit it, being interested
in the numerous wild plants I find there. The
marvelous growth of some of these so-called
weeds and the beauty of their minute flowers it
would be impossible to describe. There are two
plants, false pimpernel and spurge, prostrate
plants growing out of the sand and grit of the
fallen chimney, that specially interest me. They
have a very small tap root and great spread of
top, with a wonderful amount of delicate foliage

38

and blossom. The diameter of the pimpernel’s
circle of growth was thirty inches, that of the
spurge twenty-six inches. The branches were
exceedingly numerous, and the flowerets and
leaflets more so. On one-half inch of the spurge
I counted ten flowers and twenty leaflets. Seen
through a pocket lens, these flowers look like a
small button rose and quite as beautiful.

Sixty-five Species on One Lot.

On this lot, abandoned only one year, are
growing sixty-five species of wild flowering
plants, many of which my class would recognize.
If I could hand them one of these little pimper-
nels, not larger than my hand, that hold their
scarlet flowers not more than two inches above
the sandy beach they hug so closely, they might
wonder and perhaps ask where I saw the beauty
cf which I write. I find it has stirred one poet’s
heart and set a sympathetic pen in motion. Miss
Emily Shaw Farman writes:

“Bright little wayfarer in scarlet cap,
With purple tuft atop and doublet green,
Flora’s pet page sometime thou must have been,
Fallen from favor by some strange mishap;
It touches me to note the calm content
With which thou dost accept thy lowly lot,
And makest gay some poor, neglected spot
With thy glad presence; pitching thy small tent
Upon the farmer’s homely garden path,
Or close beside the dusty roadside way;
Heedless of high or low, if but a ray
Of heaven’s golden sunshine thou canst catch,
Watching and waiting, living not in vain —
A tiny prophet of the coming rain.”

39

Around Monmouth and along the ocean and
Shrewsbury shores, from Highland Beach to
Long Branch, it is with flowers as with birds,
there are not as many species as we have at Pine
Hills and vicinity. Then, too, the species in some
localities are different and less abundant. The
ox-eye daisy, Black-eyed Susan and the buttercup
that grow by the acre at home we hunt for at
Monmouth. And so with the goldenrods and
our beautiful asters.

Of the birds I will write at another time.

August 17, 1908.

40

Vil.

GAIN robin, bluebird, blackbird, songsparrow
and meadow lark have returned to Pine
Hills. It is not essential to fix the exact date of
arrival nor to be first to note their coming. To
know that they are on the wing, moving this way,
is a sufficiently pleasing thought to quicken the
pulse, give a roseate hue to March snows and
March brown fields, and to temper her nipping
winds.

But the birds are here; the robin back in the
woods, the bluebird in the orchard, the song-
sparrow at the foot of Seven Pines in the seed
crop of last year’s asters and goldenrod, and a
little farther on, in the upland meadow, sheltered
by hill and bush, hobnob in a friendly way the
meadow lark and blackbird.

“ One swallow does not make a summer,’ but
the early bird suggests, as in Tennyson’s poem of
Throstle, the coming of summer —

“Summer is coming, summer is coming.
I know it, I know it, I know it.
Light again, leaf again, life again, love again.”
Yes, my wild little Poet.

To the unsympathetic all this will seem a
stretch of imagery, but, even so, sooner or later
the actual as beautifully illustrated is sure to
occur in field and woodland about our homes.

March is the month of unrest, the season of
longing for the return of spring and summeér.

41

Winter has become irksome. We now would
step out of our open doors into the freshness of
a new year of birds and blossoms — eager for
every awakening impulse, every sweet and restful —
thought. For these we wait.

Meantime winter, sly and menacing, holds fast
to the skirt of spring, but, notwithstanding, she
comes. The sun rides higher, the day is longer,
the biting winds less keen, and the fleece-white
snows melt with the slightest rise in temperature
and race for the valley below.

“Here again, here, here, here, happy year!
O warble unchidden, unbidden!

Summer is coming, is coming, my dear,
And all the winters are hidden.”

March, 1909.

42

Vill.

HE season for nesting birds is again here.
Many nests are being built, others are fin-
ished, and some are already occupied. Bluebirds
occupy, or will occupy, the houses you have
thoughtfully put out for them, and will be com-
paratively safe; but the birds nesting in trees,
in shrubs and on the ground are at the mercy of
the home and tramp cat. May, June and July
are the months when the helpless young and the
mother birds are in the nest. This is the season
of the greatest danger and distress. Robins and
birds that feed on the ground are most in danger.
Searching for food with loving thought for their
nestlings, all unconscious of the wary cat, they
fall an easy prey. Already this destructive work
has begun.

A few days since a lady called to see if any-
thing could be done to save the life of a robin
she had taken from the mouth of her pet cat.
It was a large, beautifully marked robin. Noth-
ing could be done. Its neck was broken.

“No more would he sing for you or me,
Out in the old apple tree.”

A few hours later, as I stroked its glossy black
head, the eyes closed, and the life passed out
from the silken feathered robe over the bar to—
where?

Two days later a little girl came bringing a
myrtle warbler with a wing torn from its wee

43

body. Yesterday it was a waxwing crushed to
death and left on the grass; to-day a headless
songsparrow, bruised and bleeding! They were
buried with the robin under the evergreens,
where, within the last five years, have been
buried one hundred and twenty-five of our Pine
Hills birds.

What is happening in the trees at night!
Robin’s twilight song is full of happy trust, but
darkness does not protect. A stealthy step creeps
to the nest. The mother bird awakens. Two
gleaming eyes are near her. A rush of softly
padded feet, a frightened cry and all is over.
Morning comes. An empty nest only remains to
tell the story of the once happy home in the tree.

These are only a few of every day occurrences.
Think of the hundreds of beautiful wings and
singing throats sacrificed.

“Could ye but see the bright wings torn

From birds alive and bleeding,

And note their quivering agony,
I had no need for pleading.

The wingless form left in the dust —
Its deathly pain and terror,

Would wake in every human heart
A bitter sense of error.

Ten thousand thousand little birds
In cruel ways a-dying,

Have heard with breaking mother hearts
Their hungry nestlings crying.

The nestlings starve, and God’s command
Has been unheard and broken,

For He who made the universe
In their behalf hath spoken.”

With so many favoring conditions we should
have a hundred birds where now we have but
44

ten. Cats, more than all other natural causes,
bring terror and death to our birds. From sev-
enty to ninety per cent. of loss is traceable to the
unfeeling feline.

Where they are numerous, destruction is great-
est. The district along Western and Madison
avenues west of Main avenue sends more birds to
the evergreens than all of Pine Hills. Cats are
not nature-placed regulators. They are an arti-
ficial introduction. Against their beauty and
utility we hold no controversy; but if they are
worth having for household pets, they should be
worth intelligent, thoughtful care. At night see
that your cat has a secure retreat. Don’t thrust
her out of doors, nor drop her into a cellar with
an open window, as one little girl told me she
had several times unwittingly done. When birds
are asleep in their nests in bush and tree, your
pet, who climbs a tree as deftly as a nuthatch,
has the opportunity to be more than doubly
vicious, with no fear of interference.

Let us, with renewed effort, give such protec-
tion to the birds of Pine Hills as will insure for
another year, and all years, not only the birds we
now have with us, but increased numbers. It is
reasonable to say we have more birds now than
before the advent of our effort to protect and
encourage them.

“The bonnie, bonnie little birds!
It is their hour of need.
They have no power to beg for life;
It is for them we plead.”

May, 1909.
45

IX.

“There’s not a green leaf yet,
Wherewith a breeze could play;
The bare brown earth is wet
With the snow of yesterday;
But out on the apple-bough
A sound more sweet than rain:
Hark to the overflow!
Robin’s come again.”

—E. S. Oakey.

HEN we hear the first robin call of the year

we know winter is being crowded back to
make way for approaching spring. To-day robin
calls, calls as to his kindred of old — for all living
things to waken from their long winter-night’s
sleep and come forth.

Yes, robin is here, and bluebird and songspar-
row, rivals for first honors. I know the robin’s
call and I know the songs the sparrow and blue-
bird sing. So

“Put on your mantles of purple and gold.
Daffodils! Daffodils! Say, do you hear!
Spring is near.” Spring is here.

The coming of these birds and few spring-
teasing days that softened and set the snow gal-
loping down ravines to the river, are the sugges-
tive signs we have of the blithesome days soon
to cover the frost prints of a winter’s caprice.

The first report of our 1910 robin was from
Myrtle avenue, west, heard the morning of Feb-
ruary 28. The second report was from Manning
boulevard, March 1, heard in Boulevard Pines.

46

March 4 a robin was heard and seen in the elm
at the junction of Madison and Western avenues.
The first bluebird was reported the morning of
March 4. On the morning of March 6 robin,
bluebird and songsparrow were heard and seen
on South Allen street.
“Here again, here, here, here, happy year!
O warbler unbidden, unbidden,
Sing the new year in under the blue;
Last year you sang it so gladly!

New, new, new, new! Is it then so new
That you should carol so madly?”

March 6, 1910.

47

X.

“So dainty in plumage and hue,
A study in gray and in brown;
How little, how little we knew
The pest he would prove to the town

17

N 1851 and 1852, at Brooklyn, with many

promises of benefits to be derived, English
sparrows were introduced to this country. This
was a most unfortunate event. It was expected
they would eat the repulsive measuring worm
that was destroying the foliage in our park and
avenue trees. They did not destroy the pest nor
its white moth progenitors; and any good they
may have accomplished toward this purpose has
been nullified by their own subsequent career.

This harsh voiced foreign tramp, pernicious
and productive beyond belief, is likely to overrun
the country. Parks, avenues and gardens of our
cities, towns, villages and country homes beyond
have been taken by these peace disturbers in
numbers so extreme as to almost exclude our
native birds. Where we had the music of song
birds and the direct benefit of many native birds,
we now have the indecent wrangling of this
English sparrow.

“From dawn until daylight grows dim,
Perpetual chatter and scold.

No winter migration for him;
Not even afraid of the cold.”

Especially are these unwelcome interlopers re-
sponsible for the decrease in the number of help-
48

ful birds — birds that, except for their noisy pres-
ence, would nest and rear their young near our
homes. They mob the robin, bluebird and wren
so persistently and viciously it is nearly impos-
sible to coax them to build in a sparrow-infested
district.

There is a group of winter birds — woodpeck-
ers, nuthatches, chickadees, wrens, kinglets and
snowbirds, that, previous to the advent of the
English sparrow, liked to gather and frolic about
our homes, picking the food friendly hands had
scattered for them. These have been annihilated
or relegated to the woods, save a scattered few
who may be encouraged to visit a tempting bone
hung in a tree, or a suet table. But even these
dislike the little barbarians that refuse to others
the bone they have no use for.

It is impossible to change the nature of these
worrisome birds, and quite beyond the possible
to patiently endure them. Existing relations be-
tween man and birds are not such as to admit of
independent existence, but our relation with this
gypsy foreigner has been strained quite to the
point of separation. We not only can do with-
out him, but his dismissal would be greatly to
our advantage. But how shall we dismiss him!
He heeds not suggestion or warning. Our

“Look out there, now!
We're going to shoot!
Look out there!

Don’t you understand!”

makes not the slightest impression. Shall we
shoot ?

49

There are too many differing opinions and
moral points of view to answer such question
assuredly in the affirmative. Apparently there
is no way of relieving the situation by extermina-
tion; but is it not possible to lessen their num-
bers here on Pine Hills or elsewhere by concerted
action toward that end?

Birds will not tarry where they cannot have a
home. Where they nest is their home, for there
they rear their young. Deprive them of this
home, and there will be no increase. Persistently
destroy the nest and gradually they withdraw
from the contest. Contest it will prove, for the
English sparrow will not desert the privileges
seized without fierce resistance. Nothing but a
united, persevering individual effort to destroy
these nests will avail. Every home on the Hill
should enjoin there should be no English spar-
row’s nest, occupied or unoccupied, within its
domain. Permit their construction, then see that
they are pulled down and destroyed before occu-
pied. They will persist to the third or fourth
attempt in rebuilding, then move on. Let each
neighbor see that it be beyond his boundary, and
so crowd them out and off of Pine Hills.

There is no esthetic side to this question of
good-riddance to the English sparrow. It is
fully practical. The law of the English sparrow
is not the law of man or other birds. It is a law
unto themselves, and practically reads, “ What
is yours is mine, save by my consent,’ and they

enforce it relentlessly to the extreme. ‘“ When
50

Greek meets Greek then comes the tug of war.”
Let us for a time become Greeks, and meet them
not with Greek fire, but with methods like unto
their own. When they shall build we shall raze
to the ground and destroy. So shall be restored
the equilibrium lost by the introduction of the
English sparrow.

“Farewell, strange bird! I turn my face
To other kind than thine —
A thousand leagues of land and sea
Lie twixt thy home and mine!”

Jane, 1910.

51

Xl.

T IS pleasant to report that Pine Hills has this
year had a larger number of birds than at any
time since its organization as a community of
suburban homes. There have been more in
number and greater variety.

The advent here of protective thought was fol-
lowed by a successful effort to discourage the
destructive bird-slayer, the tramp cat, and to se-
cure a more direct, watchful care of the domestic
cat, especially during the birds’ breeding season.
The result has been a freer distribution of song
and other helpful birds.

In 1903 the number of species of birds on
Pine Hills did not exceed thirty. This year there
have been sixty-one species, with a large increase
in the whole number. Only for the obdurate
English sparrow, it is safe to say the increase
would have been much greater.

Of our familiar birds the best loved are the
robin, bluebird, songsparrow and the little
socialis. Their place in the heart of the loyal
bird lover is well established. Other birds as
well known, but not as intimately, are the
phoebe, oriole, catbird, bobolink, wren, summer
warbler and the pretty, petite, ruby-crowned
humming bird. These two groups busy them-
selves about our homes, in the trees, shrubs and
vines, building their nests and rearing their young
unmolested. Here is an opportunity to enter
nature’s domain, where dwells a spirit of unsel-
fish love. 52

Another group of birds, some known, others
little known, and still others not at all, occupied
the meadows, groves and orchards of the adja-
cent country. Of these are the red-winged black-
bird, the meadow lark, flicker, kingbird, cuckoo,
chewink, wood and veery thrush, rose-breasted
grosbeak, scarlet tanager and a dozen or more
warblers.

Then, too, there was a small interesting group
of birds quite unusual for this district. They
were the whip-poor-will, night hawk, sandpiper,
yellow legs and the little green heron. The sand-
piper, yellow legs and little green heron were
frequent visitors to the pool at the foot of Oak
Ridge, first noticed by a lad from Newton, Mass.,
visiting friends on Pine Hills. Later they were
often seen and reported by members of the Pine
Hills Audubon Class.

Just above and beyond Seven Pines, along the
ridge extending from the orchard at the south
end of South Main avenue west to Allen street,
straggles an old fence—so old it bears little
semblance to the original — twisted in and over-
grown with witchhazel, black alder, chokecherry,
dogwood and native grapes—a wild tangle of
shrubs and vines. This tangle row and the
ravine below along Willow Run make a paradise
for birds of the open. Here the meadow lark,
red-winged blackbird, flicker, bobolink and cat-
bird congregate in large numbers. It is an ex-
ceedingly safe retreat to find so near the busy
- haunts of men, and these birds have accepted the
53

opportunity, built their nests and reared their
young.

A like group of birds having the habit of build-
ing their nests near or on the ground in bush or
tall grass occupied the meadow and ravine east
of North Allen street between Western avenue
and State street. The sweet-singing, sweet-
natured songsparrow was of this group.

The Boulevard Pines, at one time a haven for
some of our rarer birds, have been so encroached
upon by recently erected villas they can hardly be
considered such now. However, the trees remain-
ing, with numerous others along this favorite
avenue, will still make a resort for many of the
helpful and some of the rarer singing birds. The
wood thrush, for many years spirit of the grove,
filling its dark recesses with weird song, may still
sing there, but not as of old, for the song of the
wood thrush is an adjunct of the cool retreat of
wood or grove, where

“Enraptured by the ecstacy of song
Trilled and trembled the myriad leaves,
Till the white wood-nymph, as she silent stood,
Leaned forward her sweet neck a-listening long.”

Since the removal of many grand old pines
Oak Ridge has been more a trysting than a breed-
ing place for birds. Then, too, the accession of
a row of numerous houses and others in close
proximity is suggestive of the birds’ bete-nozr,
the cat.

Previous to these changes there were, with

other birds, several families of the golden wood-
54

pecker, which for many years built in the tall
trunks of the old pines. This year there was
but one family. It occupied a last year’s nest,
two-thirds the way up the trunk of one of the
two trees called ‘‘ The Twins,” standing shoulder
to shoulder on the crest of the ridge.

The rolling country beyond the ridge, away
southwest to the Helderbergs, is, if not a land
flowing with milk and honey, a land for birds —
one that will renew and enlarge our supply if we
keep open doors.

There are other favored resorts in and around
Pine Hills, but especial interest centers with the
birds that build near our own homes. These —
robin, bluebird, chippie, songsparrow, wren and
phoebe, all favorite birds—have increased in
number noticeably, and with a little interested
effort might still further be increased. There
are ways in which this may be done: First, avoid
destroying them. Toa commendable extent this
has been accomplished. Second, provide shelteroy
and food by planting about your home shrubs
and vines, and trees along the streets and ave-

nues. The mountain ash, the weeping mulberry, 4
the dogwood and other fruit-bearing trees and ates
shrubs attract not only the robin and bluebird, 32 RG

but others of both summer and winter birds.
Residents along Pine avenue south to Myrtle
avenue have more bird life about them than the
residents along Allen street between the same
avenues, because they have a better setting of
trees. The Aurania, pride of the Pine Hillers,
55

occupying one-third of this tree-barren tract,
stands stark and bald without a tree to caress or
drop a cooling shade — not a tree to make in-
habitable its hospitable piazzas. ‘Oh, for a
thousand tongues to tell —”’

“If I knew I should die to-morrow, I would
plant a tree to-day,” said Stephen Girard.

September 17, 1910.

Xl.

F THE birds of Pine Hills none takes so
great a range for building nests as does the
robin. He evidently gives thought to locating
and placing his nest. Where and how to build
is as serious a question to the robin as is the same
question to his neighbor, man. Indeed, the suc-
cess and happiness of his home largely depend
on the putting of the nest. If he errs in this it
frequently results in tragical loss of home and
family.

In May of 1910 a pair of robins came into a
cherry tree standing near a rear piazza of a home
on South Allen street. It was on a Sunday
morning, clear and cold, with a northeast wind
blowing a serious gale. For some time they
capered about the tree in a frolicking way, then
settled to a three-branched fork half the tree’s
height from the ground.

To all appearance the robins were giving
thought to the problem of nest-building, madame
at least plainly showing she was on business bent.
After a somewhat incoherent chatter both sir
and madame flew out and away. In not more
than ten minutes they returned, their beaks filled
with dry grass. Going at once to the site selected,
they made a strenuous effort to lay the grass as
a base for their nest, but the wind was too violent.
Their every effort was defeated. For an hour
they kept diligently busy, doing over many times
the little round of first work without making any

57

progress. They sowed to the whirlwind. Grass,
stems and string were alike whisked away by
unruly breezes. After a short confab they gave
up the task and flew away.

The next morning they made another effort to
start the nest, were again defeated and again
retired.

Tuesday morning, there being a hush over all,
Sir and Madame Robin were early at the tryst-
ing place. From six to two o’clock uninterrupt-
edly they toiled, Sir Robin doing his part gra-
ciously, stopping only for an occasional burst of
song when madame was busy in the nest.

Under the good management of Madame the
nest had grown apace, so that when they left on
Wednesday it was fully one-half completed. She
was proving herself an expert architect and
builder. Alert and quick, she kept things mov-
ing. Dropping lightly into the nest, she would
thrust her breast forward, make six or more quick
turns of her body to give the desired cylindrical
form, then nimbly hopping out, with her mate
drive swiftly away for other material.

Thursday morning Robin came without mad-
ame. He was in extreme excitement, calling
loud and sharp, as with quick, jerky movements
he flew from tree to tree. Occasionally he would
dart off to. a weed-patch in the rear of South Pine
avenue apparently in search of the lost Madame.

Where was Madame? Did Robin know?
Only too well did Robin know!

Two days later Robin returned to the tree and

58

the unfinished nest, accompanied by Madame
Robin Two. Madame Robin Two was a demure
bird, slow of speech and motion. She entered
the tree from the top. Leisurely, almost lazily,
she made her way to the neighborhood of the
nest in the fork below, tipped it a casual glance
from a branch just above, then tumbled, rather
than dropped, into it. After a leisurely survey
she hopped out, and the two birds, Robin and
Madame Two, flew away.

On Tuesday, ten days after the first and fruit-
less effort, the nest was completed. Five eggs,
one each day, were then deposited therein, and
the duty of incubation began. Robin was song-
ful and Madame Two faithful and patient, but
their happy anticipations were not to be realized.
A little later both Robin and Madame Two were
trapped in the weed-patch and then —

“Never a sign in the empty nest
Tells of the love that mated, the love that sang.”

The weed-patch was feeding ground for birds,
and the happy hunting ground for bird-loving
cats.

“Yes, well your story pleads the cause
Of those dumb mouths that have no speech,
Only a cry from each to each,
An inarticulate moan of pain —

Something that is beyond the reach
Of human power to learn.”

More fortunate were two robins that a month
later came prospecting to the birch by the south-

front piazza. This first visit was made about the
59

middle of June. Before they left they had
chosen a cosy corner close to the trunk of the
tree for their nest, not more than twelve feet
from the ground.

Robin and Madame were a quiet couple, quite
willing to agree on matters pertaining to their
home. The next visit was early the following’
morning, and they at once set to work. Within
the week the nest was complete, and five days
later a complement of four eggs were snugly
stowed away within the nest, and Madame cover-
ing them. .

On only two occasions during the incubating
period did Robin take Madame’s place over the
eggs, and then but for the morning hours.
Madame, extremely faithful, left her charge but
once a day for food and exercise.

Twelve days after the first covering of the
eggs four wee birds were in place of the four
wee eggs, and the broken shells carried out and
away, leaving the nest tidy for the mother and
the little brood.

So far Robin had done little but stand guard
about his home and with his song keep Madame
cheerful.

The young birds grew apace, and were soon
holding fast to the upper rim of the nest, for no
longer was there room within. For Sir and
Madame Robin the nerve-racking season was at
hand. Meantime the weed-patch had been cut
and danger from that source removed. The
mighty slayer of birds must now hunt from the

60

open. This on Pine Hills was no longer safe or
sure. However, several attempts were made to
raid the nest, none of which was successful.
Robin had learned a lesson. He had found that
willing help was near, and he never hesitated to
make prompt and vigorous demand in time of
need. His demands were intelligently made,
were understood and prompt help rendered.

A little more than four weeks after their first
visit to the birch tree robins carried safely away
their full-fledged little family without having
had to register a single tragedy.

On a window lintel under the piazza of a home
on North Allen street two robins built a nest,
and without being disturbed safely carried away
two little families of four each.

A pair of robins built their nest on a shelving
cap of one of the supporting pillars of a piazza
roof on South Pine avenue.

Another pair built under the eaves of a south-
east dormer window in the roof of a house on
South Pine, between Myrtle and Western
avenues.

All birds haunt apple trees. In the rear of
481 Western avenue stands an apple tree in
which, for eight successive years, robins have
built nests with varying success, sometimes tak-
ing away their full number of young, at others
tragically sacrificing a part or all.

At Stop 30 on the Schenectady road a robins’
nest was built on the lintel of a closet window,
from which “the life in the nest” was sympa-

6l

thetically watched from first to last, and there
was no tragedy.

A Norway maple on the south side of West-
ern avenue, below West Lawrence street, was a
nest rendezvous for two families of robins, two
orioles and a red-eyed vireo. Two families in
one tree and with other birds is quite unusual.

“They'll come again to the apple tree —
Robin and all the rest —
When the orchard branches are fair to see,
In the snow of blossoms drest;
And the prettiest thing in the world will be
The building of the nest.”

October 28, 1911.

62

Xill.

“For, half our May ’s so awfully like May n't,
*Twould rile a Shaker or an evrige saint;
Though I own up I like our back’ard springs
Thet kind o’ haggle with their greens an’ things,
An’ when you ’most give up, ’ithout more words
Toss the fields full 0’ blossoms, leaves an’ birds.”

— Lowell’s Bigelow Papers.

HE first signs of returning spring have long
since passed, and still we wait the advent
of warmer, happier days than we are having.
We long for the ideal fullness of May and songs
of the birds that are here waiting the inspiration
for song and work that comes with
“The fair pledges of blithesome May
When birds and flowers are happy peers.”

At about the same time in early spring, year
after year, certain groups of birds come to Pine
Hills for a summer home, sing their songs, build
their nests, rear their young, live again their
happy, joyous life, then go back to the gypsy
camps of a southern winter. This has been their
life with us for many years, and how slight the
knowledge we have of it, and how lacking in
responsive sentiment is our attitude toward them!

At the dawn of summer days these birds greet
us with showers of song. What should he the
greeting we return?

“Wise it were to welcome and make ours
whate’er of good they bring.”

Love the birds! They are the cheerful notes
of earth and air.

63

The birds we saw a year ago, have seen for
years, are as charming to-day as when they first
sang.

So far as discovered, the birds now with us
are here given in the order of their coming:

Robin, bluebird, songsparrow, grackle, red-
winged blackbird, starling, meadow lark, flicker,
swamp sparrow, goldfinch, phoebe, catbird, king-
bird, cow-bunting, chewink, red-eyed vireo, rose-
breasted grosbeak, oriole, bobolink, barn swallow,
cliff swallow, redstart, house wren, field sparrow,
vesper sparrow, chipping sparrow, wood thrush,
creeping warbler, summer warbler, Maryland
yellow-throat, myrtle warbler, kinglet, tanager,
cedar waxwing, wood pewee, veery thrush,
chimney swift, least sandpiper, grasshopper
sparrow, sparrow hawk, crow, humming bird.

The robin, bluebird, songsparrow, phoebe,
chippie, wren, summer warbler and the hummer
are the every-day dooryard birds if there are
trees, shrubs or vines about our homes. Their
cheerful presence should be encouraged with
kindly attention to which they readily respond.
Are you so fortunate as to have robin, wren or
bluebird in a nearby tree, or a warbler and chip-
pie in the shrubbery, or a possible hummer on
the porch vine, turn a loving heart to them and a
watchful eye on the household and tramp cat,
for they leave

“ Never a sign but the empty nest
Of the love that mated, the love that sang.”

64

When birds are located for the season there
is very little change from day to day in any
given place, either in number or variety. Oak
Ridge, once an extremely pretty bluff, lies on the
west side of Pine avenue near the terminus of
Myrtle avenue. A number of its fine old oaks and
pines have slipped away, but it still remains an
attractive spot for birds and for an hour’s rest
and uplift of soul. The most opportune time to
see and hear the birds of Oak Ridge and the
fields beyond is an early hour of the morning,
for then they hold their song service, after which
they disperse to tour for the early worm.

The rolling fields and ravines east of upper
South Allen, past Seven Pines to Willow Run
and beyond is a district where home the meadow-
lark, starlings, flickers, bobolinks, kingbirds,
goldfinches and other well-known birds. For
these birds this has been a favorite district; but
the builders have sighted an opportunity and the
birds perforce must move out. Seven Pines,
Willow Run and the fields above lie in the direct
line of march, and soon we that know them now
shall know them no more forever.

“Hushed the stream, and torn the grassy slope,
The tuneful vale in silence lies ;
No touch will more awake its song,
No birds in adoration meet,
No communion with nature sweet,
With bowed heads we cry
No more upon the hills — No more.”

In the open, east from North Allen, bétween

State street and Western avenue, near and past

65

St. Mary’s Cemetery, look for meadowlarks, red-
wings, flickers, bobolinks, kingbirds, pewees,
least flycatchers, goldfinches, song, field, vesper
and chiping sparrows and a fair sprinkling of
wrens and warblers with an occasional wood
thrush note to stimulate the admiration of the
bird lover.

Another opportunity to search out the bird
treasure of Pine Hills is along the so-called Tun-
nel path, beginning just west of where Manning
boulevard turns on to Western avenue, and run-
ning northwest back to the pine barrens. It is
not a highway of roses but is a fruitful field for
the faithful.

Manning boulevard notwithstanding the ravag-
ing hand of civilization, still holds out in its one
shady nook, sufficient inducement to call a re-
turn of the queenly wood thrush, in whose glad
music is a song of hope and aspiration for all
that hear it.

There are a few other quite notable birds that
come to Pine Hills, spend the summer and go
again, having stayed with us quite unseen and
unknown. They are rose-breasted grosbeak, in-
digo bunting, purple finch and scarlet tanager,
birds of the trees along our streets. They are
attractive in color and brilliant singers.

“Yet these sweet sounds of early season,
And these fair sights of sunny days,
Are only sweet when we love and listen,
And only fair when we fondly gaze.”

May.25, 1912.

66

XIV.
GRUBS ATTACK OATS.

Evening Journal Correspondence.

Nassau, Sept. 6— Many farmers are
bothered by grubs. Whole pieces of
corn are being destroyed. Cabbage
plants also are attacked.

HIS and similar reports have been circulat-

ing through various sections of the State
for the past two or three months. The destruct-
ive white grub has been at work in grain fields,
meadows and pasture lands.

What is the cause, and what the remedy?
The cause is a lack of grub-eating birds. The
remedy is more grub-eating birds. To illustrate,
I relate an incident that not long since claimed
my attention. A young farmer came to ask if
I could explain why the crows were boring his
meadow plot full of holes, and killing the grass.
The plot looked very much as if it had been
hetchelled with a rough-toothed harrow. When
asked his thought regarding it, he replied: “I
think the crows are feeding on the grass roots.”
I suggested the white grub, and he went back to
the meadow to investigate.

Two days later he came again. This time to
confirm the truth of my suggestion. The white
grub had attacked his meadow, and the crows
had attacked the white grub.

Many people, perhaps most, take exceptions
to the crow. Farmers, with scant knowledge of

67

his habits and ways, quite universally condemn
him for the corn he takes. Whether it be corn
or grub the crow seeks, or whether crow or grub
is most injurious to his crops, is a question he
does not consider.

The great benefit conferred on the farmer by
the crow and other ground birds is not appre-
ciated. They eat an almost infinite number of
destructive insects and also rodents, not least of
which is the field-mouse, which always works
under cover of the stowed grain. Corn enters
into the menu of crows only in small ratio.

The grub-plagued district of Nassau and other
like plagued districts, need the help of our in-
sectiverous birds; and it is well just here to con-
sider that these and other birds came not to their
place by chance. They were put here for a pur-
pose. This purpose man has violated, and per-
force must now hang away the destructive gun,
and ask a recall of the birds. But again, birds
come not at beck or call. It will require time
and effort to restore conditions of which we have
been robbed by heedless methods.

Ignorance is not bliss, and it is not folly to be
wise.

September 21, 1912.

XV.

Slayer of the winter, art thou here again?
Oh, welcome thou that bringest summer nigh,
The bitter wind makes not thy victory vain,
Nor will we mock thee for thy faint blue sky.

"E KNOW the way the earth stores the
sun’s heat during the summer months for
winter use; and now while the dark days are
upon us, we know her numerous little folk who
are to people forest and field are with her, shel-
tered from frost and snow in restful quiet.
They are not a timid little folk. When spring
gives the signal, they will not hesitate to face the
frost-traps March will set for them. Spring
may trifle a wee bit with time ere giving the
signal, but when given, the birds, the flowers,
the green fields and green trees will respond.
Nothing has perished; nothing suffered.

Just now here on Pine Hills the footprints of
winter are strongly marked. There will yet be
slow-moving, nerve-racking days to test our
endurance before birds come to stay or dainty
flowers respond to sun’s loving caresses.

Meantime, while we wait, sturdy and silent in
their rugged winter coats stand the old oaks of
Oak Ridge. They cannot as in other days bend
to the storm, and so are torn and broken by the
gales winter shoots over the ridge. Having no
fear of winter in their veins, there they stand,
hardy pioneers, rooted to the present and the
past, loved by all who have an open heart for

69

nature. There were others that have been felled
by progressive men and hauled to the mill and
the idle andirons.

How much of life’s rapture is your right,
In earth’s joy what may your position be,

Rocked by breezes, touched by tender light,
Fed by dews and sung to by the breeze?

Something of delight and of content
Must be yours however vaguely known,
And your grace is mutely eloquent
And your beauty makes the Ridge a throne.

More sad the thought, these remaining will
fall before the devastations of nature’s open
fields, unless a protest or a plea be raised in
their behalf. Here is an opportunity for the
citizens of Pine Hills. Why not secure Oak
Ridge and the adjoining plots of ground, front
and rear, for a district park, a pleasure ground,
where for a brief time at least, the ever-present,
every-day business thought of ‘“ Wherewithal
shall I be clothed and fed” shall be banished.
Citizens of other districts in the city are making
strenuous efforts to secure the privilege and place
for district parks. Pine Hills has the oppor-
tunity at its door; such an opportunity as other
districts may seek and not find. Why not se-
cure it while it is not too late and in so doing
not only add an attraction to our already attract-
ive district of homes, but leave for the genera-
tions to follow a chance for grateful remem-
brance of their forbears.

Oak Ridge just west of Pine avenue and the
junction of Myrtle was named for the marked

70

resemblance of the vicinity, as seen from the
summit of the ridge, to the ground where during
the Civil War was fought the battle of that
name. On the north side at the foot of the
ridge a snarled, ill-defined, uninviting foot path
opens a rambling way to the summit, and across
to a belt of dark firs grouped along the west side.
Here on a lilt of turf under the sheltering bushes,
through the open door of your heart you may
take in the soul rest that floats to you over hill
and dale from the blue mountains in the distant
sunset-way.

What more than tropic winds, just this side Heaven,
What airs from Paradise,

Blown deep within your heart of hearts has given
This sweetness to your sighs!

Children climb up and over the steep rough
sides of the ridge with lung-expanding shouts
and merrymaking laughter, but their immature
thoughts dip not to the deeper, more restful
influence there open to the mature mind.

Oak Ridge, once the favorite rendezvous of
our Pine Hills bird is now the tramping and
camping ground of boys. Robins, bluebirds,
finches and other song birds yet dear to memory
do not trust to these the secret of their pretty
nests and little ones. The flicker and other high
perching birds occasionally conceal a nest in the
tops of the taller trees, or stop to rest, drop a
song or a call note, but the multiple of song
passes on to a safer retreat.

7

What truth is here, oh, man!
Hath hope been smitten in its early dawn!
Have clouds o’ercast their purposes and plans!

In two instances the early spring robin has
been reported as seen in this vicinity. The time
was a little early for the return of these migrant
birds. It frequently occurs with robins and blue-
birds that individual birds, loath to move on
south with the main body of their companions,
have sought and found a sheltered nook where
they could spend the winter north. In 1912 a
flock of robins found such shelter in Holmes’
woods just west of the Pine Hills boulevard.
Last winter, 1913, a half dozen bluebirds win-
tered in the vicinity south of Oak Ridge, making
frequent visits to Pine Hills. It is not always
the weather that forces our birds to go south
when winter approaches. It is quite as likely to
be the hold up at that season of the year in
nature’s commissary department, leaving it a
question of food supply. Under the snow every-
where present, about which we _ thoughtlessly
fret lies buried a world of plant life all uncon-
scious of our unrest. There in tranquil solitude
they wait as we wait for the blithesome season
when nature shall summon them to their places
in woodland and field, about our homes and
along our streets.

Already we have had assurances of the coming
of spring in the ever-early pussy willow, whose
soft woolly tips were in evidence near Manning
boulevard the first of February, previous to the

72

recent heavy fall of snow. We, who are anxious
for an early coming of spring, need not be un-
necessarily distressed over the snow-covered
fields. A thick blanket of snow is protective to
nature’s buried stores. The stern well-blanketed
winter foretells an early springtime and summer
harvest.

After the winter’s blanket has been rolled back,
the first wee one here on Pine Hills to spring
from the lap of mother earth will be the little
golden crested coltsfoot. Hie away then to the
clay bank along the west side of South Allen
street beyond Mercer street. There you will
find these little golden headed dandelion-like
flowers thrust out to the sunlight. It is a sturdy
little plant with beauty enough to stir the fabled
heart of stone.

Pretty firstling of the year!
Herald of the host of flowers!

Hast thou left thy cavern drear
In the hope of summer hours?

The robin’s clarion note is by many said to be
the first song note of the spring, but many trust-
worthy observers divide the honor with the blue-
bird and songsparrow, giving commendation for
early arrival to the meadow lark, the flicker and
the starlings.

Just now, all who are interested in the coming
of the birds and flowers, have their thoughts
and senses sharply turned southward whence
will come these blessings of beauty and song life.
To ourselves and often to our friends and neigh-

73

bors we are saying, “ When the birds come north
again,” but what then? Are we not indifferent
and careless in thought given, if we give any,
to this beautiful bird life? We enjoy the songs
for they have power to thrill the heart. They
should help us keep faith in the soul of nature;
but the thought of God in nature scarcely appeals
to us. We fold our hands in sleep, and are
awake only to the deceptive notes of an over-
strained social life.
Life has import more inspiring
Than the fancies of thy youth;

It has hopes as high as Heaven,
It has labors, it has truth.

March 7, 1914.

74

XVI.

“When first the March winds melt the snow,
And to the sleeping flowers below
The early meadow lark sings —”

T THIS season of the year we listen for

every bird note and greet with joy each
singer as he comes back to take his place with the
old choir of singers for the coming summer.

The meadow lark heard and seen in a field
near South Allen street March 12 was not a
too stimulating indication of the coming birds;
but to those who are anxiously looking forward
to such days it gives a forecasting thought.
Accurately speaking, the meadow lark in our
State is not surely a migratory bird. In some
sections of the State they are permanent resi-
dents; but if they do not winter in this imme-
diate vicinity, they are never so far away that a
bright spring-suggesting winter’s day will not
call them here for a period shorter or longer as
regulated by food conditions.

Nearly all birds have two homes. Such are
called migrants — migrants because they alter-
nately move to and from each every spring and
fall. In our State there are about twenty-five
species of non-migrant birds that make perma-
nent homes in various districts and_ localities.
Of these are the hawks, owls, crows, jays, part-
ridges, woodpeckers, meadow larks and other
smaller birds.

Here on Pine Hills, about our homes and

75

along the avenues, the call-notes of the chicka-
dee, the nuthatch and the downy woodpecker
are of almost daily occurrence. While in the
outskirts, along New Scotland avenue, the West-
ern turnpike, beyond the Boulevard, the “ Tun-
nel path,” which nearly a century ago was the
roadbed of Albany’s first railway —could be
heard and seen many others. A day spent in
Holmes’ woods would possibly disclose fifteen
or more of the twenty-five non-migrating species
accredited to this district.

It is the pacific pace-maker who sees and
hears. The business or social stride gives little
opportunity for an appreciative enjoyment of
nature’s fullness and beauty.

“ Hark, oh, hark!

The meadow lark!
Do you hear

His happy singing?
Sweet and clear

His voice is ringing —
Sweet and clear

From the meadows

Where the shadows
Disappear.”

The law governing bird life called instinct is
nearly if not quite identical with the reasoning
faculty in man.

Darwin classifies birds as feathered animals
and ranks blackbirds, starlings and crows next to
man in point of intelligence.

When considering the mental capacity of
birds, their reasoning power, justly or not, is
generally marked low; but may not this also be

76

said of the human species? There are large
numbers of the human species grossly lacking
knowledge of creative nature. Regarding nature
they are intellectually dull and deficient in rea-
soning capacity. They look to the face of
nature, and perhaps smile, but give no thought,
for they have none. For nature’s God they have
reverence, but for nature — ‘‘ What is nature? ”

Meadow larks are exceedingly interesting
birds. They are keen, almost intellectually so,
as any one can testify who has had occasion to
match wit against theirs in an effort to discover
the nest they conceal. Where one succeeds in
the effort a hundred will fail, and the meadow
lark’s nest is safe even in the open. When the
season comes for the arrival of mates and nest-
building, they drop into the tall grass of the
meadows, and are quiet and shy until fall, when
they, their little families with them, rise to the
trees, and later join others of the species moving
south.

Meadow larks are seldom seen in the interior
of woods. Pastures and meadows are their
natural resort. In pastures they place their
nests in the shelter of a tussock of grass; in
meadows, usually in a depression of the ground,
often made by hoofs of horse or ox.

Larks sing their best in the early part of the
season, early morning and on cloudy days. In
the early part of the season he comes alone, and
evidently from choice goes to the topmost branch
of some sturdy, lone tree in open field to sing

77

his praise anthem. It is far reaching and sweet
—one of the most attractive bird voices of early
spring. They whistle in minor key their “ re-
da-chee-a,” ‘“‘ re-da-chee-a,” with a finer musical
modulation “to the nice ear of nature” than a
prima donna. There is great variation in the
alternate succession of similar chords, but all
are clear and ringing, and would have a decided
tinge of sadness were they not so sweet.

Not in many years have we had so few birds
about us as during the past year. In the opens
there were not many, and in the woodlands

“Where, oh, where, are the tribes
That made merry the summer day! ~

And now to the interest of all who are anxious
for signs of a coming spring, I will copy from
a note book of 1899 two entries: “ March 25th.
And now the songsparrow and robin have come!
Against the warm south window drones an early
awakened fly. To the west in the distance the
snow-capped Helderbergs glisten blue and white
in the sun, but spring is here.” “ April 3, 1899.
To-day six inches of snow covers the ground,
and a high north wind is blowing. Our robins
have gone to the Pine Grove swamp for shelter
and berries, the bluebirds and songsparrows to
upper woodlands where seeds are found, to
await the return of milder days.”

March 24, 1914.

78

XVII.

HE blue birds and robins seen in Pine Hills
the past winter and still to be seen in favor-

able localities are the stayovers and transient
visitors. After the passing of freaky March they
will move on to adjoining States farther east
and north. Not until the mild days of April
break the frost-bound fields will the summer bird
come. When the coltsfoot (earliest spring
blossom) lifts its golden crest to the sun; when
earthworms, the beetle and other burrowing in-
sects come to the surface for air and light; when
the table is spread, then will come the summer
birds,— robins, bluebirds, songsparrows, meadow .
larks, starlings and others, to join the a eke
awakening, the carnival of song, of love-making, 7 a
home-building and domesticity.

Two winters since a group of birds were fre-
quent visitors to the neighborhood of South Allen
street where it crosses and Pine avenue where it
breaks at the ravine a little farther west. It is
safe to say that nearly every midwinter a small
party of bluebirds or robins or both may be
seen roaming not “in the gloaming,” but by
broad daylight about the south and west suburbs
of Pine Hills. Sometimes they venture to the
localities of the previous summer’s nest quite to
the interior of its streets and avenues.

It is not always severity of winter that drives
our birds south. The insufficiency of food is

often the moving cause.
79

Along the Chenango valley in the fifties, when
woodlands were numerous and more in acres
than now, it was not of infrequent occurrence
for whole troops of summer robins to move back
to these woods and there spend the winter.
Pratt’s mountain, so called at that time, near the
village of Sherburne, was a favorite winter ren-
dezvous for robins, and frequently other summer
birds. Where now are the woodlands that were
once protection, not only to the birds, but to the
soil? Felled by the axe of penurious man.

The food and habits of the robin and blue
bird are much alike. Both are hardy, quite as
hardy as many of the winter birds. In tempera-
ment they differ extremely. Robin is vivaciously
loud, at times almost noisy, he is inclined to be
selfish and domineering and is by no means a
model in domestic life.

The disposition of the bluebird is temperate,
modest and attractive. He is quite shy of the
approaches of mankind, and yet seeking a place
for his nest he chooses one near the habitat of
man. Their domestic life is more than com-
mendable, it is charmingly realistic. Few birds
give more or better attention to domestic life
than the bluebirds.

The bluebird is the stone chat, a hardy aris-
tocratic family of Norwegian ancestry. They
were given the name bluebird for their color,
blue, being symbolical of divine life.

The robin, so named by the Plymouth Pil-
grims, is an American bord, the migratory thrush

80

of the thrush family. The early settlers gave
the name robin because of his red breast which
reminded them of the red breast of their much
loved English robin.

The robin and the bluebird rear two families
each in a season, and with favoring conditions
often three. Their diet is mostly insectiverous,
noxious insects, destructive to growing crops,
and our fruit and forest trees.

These birds will daily consume their weight
in food of which eighty-five per cent. of that of
the robin and sixty-five per cent. of the blue-
bird is made up of destructive insects. All in-
sectiverous birds are extremely helpful to man
in the problems of food and “ what with all shall
we wear.”

Why are we so universally uninformed regard-
ing the utility of our birds? Are birds a divine
creation? If a divine creation, were they created
for esthetical or divine purpose? If for a divine
purpose, why are we so regardlessly destructive
of the divine will and purpose? What is your
answer, oh man?

Behold this an emblem true
Of man’s capricious way,
Who, when affliction clouds his way,
Bows the stiff heart to pray;
But when his sun is up and bright,
Will in his gifts the heavenly giver slight.

The tree sparrows have been quite numerous
here in Pine Hills this winter. They came last
fall just as our summer birds were winging their

81

way south. They will go in the spring when the
summer birds return. Their homes are in and
about Labrador. Our winter has no hardship
for the tree sparrow, and being seed eating birds
they find in the open country around Pine Hills
an abundant supply of edible food. In sunshine
or storm, fair or unfair weather, they drive
about our streets, dropping into the trees and
shrubs on our lawns, then to the ground as un-
expected and suddenly as if dropped from an
aerial bomb. They travel about in parties from
fifty to a hundred and more; are abrupt in all
their movements, quiet, unobtrusive and with all
are an attractive small bird to have familiar
touch with.

March 7, 1915.

82

XVIII.

NOWLEDGE is the keystone of success.

It concentrates thought and _ establishes
principles which should rightfully govern. Isg-
norance makes man a willing servant to the mis-
use of laws essential to his prosperity.

As a people we know too little of nature’s
creative methods. As tillers of the soil we know
less, and need to stand away from the hurrying
commercial world for calmer, more intelligent
consideration before we can make a right esti-
mate of the value of such methods. Work is
not well done if not in harmony with nature.
We often pursue wrong methods and in the con-
fusion of ways make mistakes, and a burden of
intended blessings.

When man came to the habitable parts of the
world he was the signal that set the creative and
the destructive forces of nature in opposition.

Cultivation of the soil gave increased vegeta-
tion which induced increased insect life and a
destructive war between animate and inanimate
life. Birds came to the relief of vegetation and
man prospered. With prosperity came careless
disregard of nature’s ways in the helpfulness of
birds. They were hunted to death for their
plumage, for the pleasure of the palate, and for
the amusement of sportsmen and pot hunters.

O darkened sense! O dense, deaf ear,
The world has placed its ban
Against the genii once so dear,
And strife and greed for many a year
Have spoiled the sweet, old atmosphere.
83

You will recall Longfellow’s poem, how the
birds of Killingsworth were exterminated
through a bounty from the ruler. The next year
the land was barren and the king offered a
bounty for living birds who became numerous
and restored the harvests to the realm.

Not alone they who are commercially inter-
ested in the products of the soil, but all who are
dependent on these products are asking what can
be done to destroy the insect pests now so de-
structive to agricultural pursuits. To all such
I advise, ‘‘ Read the handwriting on the wall —
protect the birds!”

Under the surface of the broad acres of our
fertile country a host of root eating grubs are
destructively working. On the surface are
hordes of beetles and insect pests equally busy
destroying surface vegetation. In our forest
trees and in the trees of our parks and streets
are myriads of trunk borers and leaf-sucking
insects — drawing the very life blood. In the
air from horizon to horizon are clouds of winged
midgets that carry into our homes annoyance and
poison into our bodies.

Of all this we are abundantly conscious and
yet it is with no great concern we read the hand-
writing on the wall — “ Protect the birds.”

The farmer, because more directly interested,
should join the effort now being made. He at
least should be policeman of his own acres.

84

This unfortunately he not only is not, but too
often, perhaps, unconsciously becomes a party to
the birds’ destruction.

During the season of 1913 from our own and
adjoining States came the anxious oft-repeated
call, “What can be done to save our growing
crops? In meadow and field the white grub bur-
rowing in the ground beyond the reach of me-
chanical device is destructively at work.”
Prompt response through the press came to this
query. Entomologists and laymen proclaimed
and explained but no direct or specific answer
was given. .

An anxious inquirer in a communication to
the New York Times, describing the destructive
work of the white grub in the city park and
botanical garden, gave suggestive answers when
he explained, “ The starlings in the park, until
the white grub appeared, were not earning their
salt as insect destroyers, but now they are show-
ing they are equal to the task and that the grub
is very sweet to their taste.”

Here we have reliable assurance in unity with
the ways of nature, when there is no interference
of man. The starlings were doing the work for
which they were better adapted than man and
his mechanical devices. Our despised crow
would do the same thing.

Again the handwriting on the wall — “ Recall
and protect the birds.” Man may destroy or
drive the birds away, but he cannot change the
laws of nature, nor put in their place laws of

85

his own, without loss and disappointment. In
the struggle for existence birds are the helpful co-
workers with man; but his treatment of these
helpful agents has been so cruelly reckless, work
against our insect pests has been unbalanced.
Insect life is again rampant and man is paying
the penalty. He is being heavily taxed with no
birds to protect. Protective legislation has been
weak and tardy. The unfeeling destroyers of
bird life are still alive and active. Helpful birds
have decreased in number. Many species have
been exterminated and others are desperately
facing the same fate.

“ Shall we care, you and I,
When no birds go winging by?”

April 7, 1915.

86

XIX.

HE question, “Do birds think?” is so uni-

versally affirmed or negatived in accord
with individual thought or interest, the answer
is lost in a labyrinth of theorizing. The answer
given by naturalists and others interested in bird
lore is frequently if not always individualized,
and the response of the general public to the
question is hesitant and unassured. Apparently
there is no open way to a comprehensive answer
to the question.

Birds have no language intelligible to man’s
understanding, and the speech of man is unin-
telligible to birds; hence that avenue through
which a convincing answer might be sought, is
closed. But why, if facts as defined by man are
truths, and the perception of truths, knowledge,
why should not man have a more comprehensive
knowledge of the facts—the truths in nature?
Why does man hesitate to concede the faculty of
thought and reasoning to birds and others of
the lower animals? What proof have we that
they do not think? We can only judge by the
circumstances under which actions are per-
formed, whether they are due to instinct or rea-
son; but it is a significant fact that the more the
habits of birds are studied by a naturalist, the
more he attributes to reason and the less to
instinct. Birds’ ways are extremely suggestive
of the intelligence that directs intelligent man,
and a careful examination of the nests and their

87

location gives fairly convincing evidence of an
ability to think and reason as well as to construct.

Locating the nest is almost as highly important
as the manner of constructing. With birds the
quality of fear—the apprehension of danger is
largely developed. Their first thought or im-
pulse when selecting a place for their nest is
safety, for on this depends success or failure in
establishing a home wherein to propagate a fam-
ily and thus perpetuate their species.

Is it not a reflection on the higher intelligence
of man that as factor in the destruction of our
beautiful bird life, he ranks first?

Ye have nests in the mountains, all rugged and stark;

Ye have nests in the forest, all tangled and dark;

Ye build and ye brood ’neath the cottagers’ eaves,

And ye build and ye sleep on the sod with the bonny
green leaves.

Where the nest, there the birds’ home.

The Baltimore oriole, one of our most saga-
cious birds, hangs its nest preferably in an elm
tree near the extreme end of a slender pendant
branch, where it is quite beyond the reach of
fur or feathered animals with evil intentions,
such as hawks, owls and climbing rodents. The
selecting of such site shows not only a clearly
understood protective method, but sagacity. No
animal of more than feather weight, even with
the tree as an accomplice, could disturb the nest
or its occupants.

The Indigo bunting, a common but not well-
known bird, many warblers, and frequently the

88

catbird conceal their nests in briar or thorn
bushes, and are protected by their sharp, harass-
ing thorns —'so sharp even the grown boy hesi-
tates to investigate.

Our dapper little goldfinch, actuated by like
protective reasoning, conceals his pretty nest
deep in the heart of an overgrown bull-thistle.

Birds that build their nests on the ground in
open fields—the meadow lark, the bobolink,
and many of the sparrow families are safe-
guarded by their ability to deceive the would-be
discoverer by the extreme effort required to dis-
cover the nest. Sometimes the nest of an open
field bird is accidentally found, but as a rule the
problem is a difficult one.

The little field sparrow is an adept at making
such problems. His method can scarcely be
considered instinctive.

The kingbird builds a nest far up some sturdy
tree standing near a running stream or pool of
water where insect life is abundant. He is an
insectiverous bird, and destroys hordes of in-
sect pests. The kingbird’s protective thought is
in his ability to defend himself. * He is exceed-
ingly antagonistic and a rabid advocate of pre-
paredness. Woe betide the bird, great or small,
that drives into his domain with evil intent. Not
only is he defender of his own nest, but of the
nests of the smaller birds in his neighborhood.

The chebeck or least flycatcher, the hum-
ming bird and the gray gnatcatcher saddle their
nests on an outreaching branch of a thickly-

89

leaved forest or fruit tree, relying on their
method of constructing for protection. Their
nests are round and compactly made of loose felt-
like material, the outer side over all closely cov-
ered with lichens stripped from the bark of the
tree in which they are built. They are very de-
ceiving. The nest of the humming bird is not
larger than a horse chestnut and looks very like
a large knot of the branch on which it is placed.
Only an expert observer finds a humming bird’s
nest.

Do birds think? The field sparrow builds its
nest on the ground in the open field. If by
chance or with malicious intent you approach
the nest when the mother bird is covering her
eggs, she abruptly flies up before you, then
abruptly falls at your feet, apparently disabled
by a broken wing or leg. Sympathetically you
stoop to pick her up when she hobbles lamely
away. You follow, and when again with like
intent you stoop to pick her up, she repeats her
first device, and after not only winning you away
from her nest, but all thought of it, she flashes
up and away when fear of the intruder has
passed.

There are other birds than the field sparrow
that practice similar protective methods. The
catbird is a gay deceiver. He sees you approach-
ing his nest. If by chance your approach is too
direct, he, being a good ventriloquist, sounds out
his warning notes as if from a bush a hundred

yards or more beyond where he is concealed.
90

You are deceived, pass on, and his nest is undis-
covered. Do birds think?

The golden woodpecker, flicker, highhole or
yarrup, as he is variously called, excavates a
recess high up in the trunk of a tall pine tree in
which to place his nest, the entrance being made
just large enough to admit a “highholder.”
These birds never leave their nest alone when
sheltering their eggs or young, watchful care be-
ing the protective thought— seclusion and in-
accessibility to all but the feathered tribe.

The kingfisher’s method for protection is to
drop a holt at the end of a two or three-foot
tunnel, burrowed into a stiff bank of sand or
clay near a stream or lake where fish are likely
to be abundant. Into this holt are dropped the
eggs, which the mother bird will brood. Here,
too, the young birds will be cared for until able
to care for themselves. Then for the first they
will leave the dark recess home and for the first
time behold the light of day.

Robins, more than other birds, trust man for
protection. They build their nests about his
home, in vines climbing the nearby trellis, un-
der the porch on the cap of a supporting column,
on the narrow lintel over the door, or on the
window-sill back of blinds, regardless of danger
conditions, trusting man for the safety of all that
is most precious to them — their home and fam-
ily; but Their life is in a work-day world,

A world ajar, weak and wrong,
Which calls for labor without song,—

Labor which alone is incomplete,
But when song-attuned, most sweet.

Henry A. SLACK.

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