^' ■ I
BIRDS
Every Child Should Know
by Neltje Blanelian
BIRDS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
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Red-Eyed Vireo
BIRDS THAT EVERY
CHILD SHOULD KNOW
::BYz
NELTJE BLANCHAN
Author of **Bird Neighbours," ** Birds that Hunt and Are
Hunted," "Nature's Garden," and ** How to
Attract the Birds."
SIXTY-THREE PAGES OF
PHOTOGRAPHS FROM LIFE
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1907, by
Doubleday, Page & Company
All rights reserved ^
including that of translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian
PREFACE
If all his lessons were as joyful as learn-
ing to know the birds in ;. the fields and woods,
there would be no
** ... whining Schoole-boy with his Satchell
And shining morning face creeping like Snaile
Unwillingly to schoole."
Long before his nine o'clock headache ap-
pears, lessons have begun. Nature herself is
the teacher who rouses him from his bed with
an outburst of song under the window and sets
his sleepy brain to wondering whether it was a
robin's clear, ringing call that startled him from
his dreams, or the chipping sparrow's wiry
tremulo, or the gushing little wren's tripping
cadenza. Interest in the birds trains the ear
quite imconsciously. A keen, intelligent listener
is rare, even among grown-ups, but a child who
is becoming acquainted with the birds about
him hears every sound and puzzles out its
meaning with a cleverness that amazes those
with ears who hear not. He responds to the
first alarm note from the nesting blue birds in
the orchard and dashes out of the house to
chase away a prowling cat. He knows from
vi Birds Every Child Should Know
afar the distress caws of a company of crows
and away he goes to be sure that their perse-
cutor is a hawk. A faint tattoo in the woods
sends him cHmbing up a tall straight tree with
the confident expectation of finding a wood-
pecker's nest within the hole in its side.
While training his ears, Nature is also training
every muscle in his body, sending him on long
tramps across the fields in pursuit of a new bird
to be identified, making him run and jump
fences and wade brooks and climb trees with the
zest that produces an appetite like a saw-mill's
and deep sleep at the close of a happy day.
When President Roosevelt was a boy he was
far from strong, and his anxious father and
mother naturally encouraged every interest
that he showed in out-of-door pleasures. Among
these, perhaps the keenest that he had was in
birds. He knew the haunts of every species
within a wide radius of his home and made a
large collection of eggs and skins that he pre-
sented to the Smithsonian Museum when he
could no longer endure the evidences of his
*' youthful indiscretion,'* as he termed the col-
lector's mania. But those bird hunts that
had kept him happily employed in the open air
all day long, helped to make him the strong,
manly man he is, whose wonderful physical
endurance is not the least factor of his greatness.
No one abhors the killing of birds and the rob-
Preface vii
bing of nests more than he ; few men, not spec-
cialists, know so much about bird life.
Nature, the best teacher of us all, trains the
child's eyes through study of the birds to
quickness and precision, which are the first
requisites for all intelligent observation in every
field of knowledge. I know boys who can
name a flock of ducks when they are mere specks
twinkling in their rapid rush across the auttmm
sky; and girls who instantly recognise a gold-
finch by its waving flight above the garden.
The white band across the end of the kingbird's
tail leads to his identification the minute some
sharp young eyes perceive it. At a consider-
able distance, a little girl I know distinguished
a white-eyed from a red-eyed vireo, not by the
colour of the iris of either bird's eye, but by the
yellowish white bars on the white-eyed vireo 's
wings which she had noticed at a glance. An-
other girl named the yellow-billed cuckoo, al-
most hidden among the shrubbery, by the
white thumb-nail spots on the quills of his out-
spread tail where it protruded for a second
from a mass of leaves. A little urchin from the
New York City slums was the first to point out
to his teacher, who had lived twenty years on a
farm, the faint reddish streaks on the breast of
a yellow warbler in Central Park. Many there
are who have eyes and see not.
What does the study of birds do for the
viii Birds Every Child Should Know
imagination, that high power possessed by hu-
mans alone, that Ufts them upward step by step
into new realms of discovery and joy? If the
thought of a tiny hummingbird, a mere atom
in the universe, migrating from New England
to Central America will not stimulate a child's
imagination, then all the tales of fairies and
giants and beautiful princesses and wicked
witches will not cause his sluggish fancy to
roam. Poetry and music, too, would fail to
stir it out of the deadly commonplace.
Interest in bird life exercises the sympathies.
The child reflects something of the joy of the
oriole whose ecstasy of song from the elm on
the lawn tells the whereabouts of a dangling
**cup of felt*' with its deeply hidden treasures.
He takes to heart the tragedy of a robin's mud-
plastered nest in the apple tree that was washed
apart by a storm, and experiences something
akin to remorse when he takes a mother bird
from the jaws of his pet cat. He listens for the
return of the bluebirds to the starch-box home
he made for them on top of the grape arbour and
is strangely excited and happy that bleak day
in March when they re-appear. It is nature
sympathy, the growth of the heart, not nature
study, the training of the brain, that does most
for us.
Neltje Blanchan.
Mill Neck, 1906.
CONTENTS
I. Our Robin Goodfellow and His Rela-
tions 3
Robin, Bluebird, Wood Thrush, Wilson's
Thrush.
II. Some Neighbourly Acrobats . .17
Chickadee, Nuthatches, Titmouse,
Kinglets.
ni. A Group of Lively Singers . .31
Mockingbird, Catbird, Brown Thrasher,
Wrens.
' IV. The Warblers 51
Yellow Warbler, Black and White Creep-
ing Warbler, Ovenbird, Maryland Yellow-
throat, Yellow-breasted Chat.
V. Another Strictly American Family . 62
The Vireos.
VI. Birds Not of a Feather . . .77
Butcherbirds, Cedar Waxwing, Tanagers.
Vn. The Swallows 91
Purple Martin, Barn Swallow, Cliff
Swallow, Tree Swallow, Bank Swallow.
VIII. The Sparrow Tribe . . . .105
Purple Finch, English Sparrow, GoldiSnch,
Vesper Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow,
White-throated Sparrow, Tree Sparrow,
Chippy, Field Sparrow, Junco, Song
ix
X Contents
CHAPTBR PAGB
Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow, Fox Sparrow,
Towhee, Cardinal, Rose-breasted Gros-
beak, Indigo Bunting, Snowfiake.
IX. The Ill-assorted Blackbird Family 135
Bobolink, Cowbird, Red-wing, Meadow-
lark, Orioles, Blackbirds.
X. Rascals We Must Admire . . 151
Crow, Blue Jay and Canada Jay.
XI. The Flycatchers . . . .159
Kingbird, Crested Flycatcher, Phoebe,
Pewee, Least Flycatcher. §
XII. Some Queer Relations . . .173
Nighthawk, Whip-poor-will, Chimney
Swift, Hummingbird.
Xin. Non-union Carpenters . . . 187
Our Five Common Woodpeckers.
XIV. Cuckoo and Kingfisher . . . 203
XV. Day and Night Allies of the
Farmer 211
Buzzards, Hawks, and Owls.
XVIo Whistler and Drummer . . 233
Bob -white and Ruffed Grouse.
XVII. Birds of the Shore and Marshes 245
Snipe, Sandpiper, Plover, Rails and
Coots, Bitterns and Herons.
XVIII. The Fastest Flyers . . .265
Gulls, Ducks, and Geese.
Index 275
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Red-eyed Vireo . ""/ ^ . -^ Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
It is Only When he is a Baby that you
Cotdd Gruess our Robin is Really a Thrush.
(A, R. Dugmore) 8
Young Bluebirds Taking their First Walk.
(A, R. Dugmore) ..... 9
Baby Wood Thrushes — Notice the Family
Resemblance Between them and the
Baby Robins and Bluebirds. {A, R.
Dugmore) . . . . . .12
A Wood Thrush Startled by the Click of the
Camera. (A, R, Dugmore) . . • ^3
The Chickadee at her Front Door. (A. R.
Dugmore) . . . . . .22
Young Nuthatches Learning their First
Lesson in Balancing on a Horizontal Bar.
(W. E. Carlin) . . . . .23
The Noisy Contents of a Soap Box: a Family
of House Wrens. {A. R, Dugmore) . 30
The Marsh Wren's Round Cradle Swung
Among the Rushes. (A, R. Dugmore) . 31
xi
xii List of Illustrations
VAdNG PAOB
Like '*Brer Rabbit" the Catbird is Usually
"Bred en Bawn in a Brier Patch.'*
{A. R. Dugmore) ..... 34
Another Tragedy of the Nests: What Villain
Ate the Catbird's Eggs? {Verne Morton) . 35
'* Mamma!*' Young Mockingbird CalUng for
Breakfast. (^4. R. Dugmore) ... 50
All is Well with this Yellow Warbler's Nest.
{G. C. Embody) . . . . .51
Dinner for One: A Black-and-white Warbler
Feeding her Baby. {A. R. Dugmore) . 51
The Oven-bird who Calls ''Teacher, Teacher,
TEACHER, TEACHER, TEACHER!''
(William P. Hopkins) .... 58
Oven-bird in her Cleverly Hidden Nest —
Some of the Leaves and Sticks Have Been
Pulled Away From the Front to Secure
her Picture. (.4. R. Dugmore) . . 59
Young Oven-birds on Day of Leaving Nest.
(A. R. Dugmore) . . . . -59
A Red-eyed Vireo Baby in his Cradle.
(A. R. Dugmore) ..... 76
Out of It. {A. R. Dugmore) . . 76
Home of the Loggerhead Shrike with Plenty
of Convenient Hooks for this Butcher
Bird to Hang Meat On. (R. H. Beebe) . 77
The Cedar Waxwing. (W. P. Hopkins) . 84
List of Illustrations xiii
FACING PAGE
The Gk)rgeous Scarlet Tanager, who Sang in
this Tree, Was Killed by a Sling Shot. The
Nest Was Deserted by his Terrified Mate.
{A. R. Dugmore) ..... 85
Young Barn Swallows Cradled Under the
Rafters. {A. R. Dugmore) . . .96
Baby Barn Swallows Learning to Walk a
Plank. (A. R. Dugmore) ... 97
The Most Cheerful of Bird Neighbours: Song
Sparrows. (A. R. Dugmore) . . 116
A Baby Chippy and its Two Big Rose-
breasted Grosbeak Cousins. . . .116
A Chipping Sparrow Family: One Baby Satis-
fied, the Next Nearly So, the Third Still
Hungry. (A. R. Dugmore) . . .117
Cardinal. (C W. Beebe) . . . .134
That Dusky Rascal the Cowbird. (C. W,
Beebe) ....... 135
The Gorgeous Baltimore Oriole. (A, R.
Dugmore) . . . . . .146
How do you Suppose these Young Baltimore
Orioles Ever Packed themselves into this
Nest? {A. R. Dugmxrre) , . . .147
Young Orchard Orioles. {A. R, Dugmore) . 150
*' There Were Three Crows Sat on a Tree."
{A. R. Dugmore) . . . . -151
Blue Jay on her Nest. {R, H. Beebe) . .158
xiv List of Illustrations
PACING PAGB
Five Little Teasers Get No Dinner from
Mamma Blue Jay. {Craig S. Thomas) . 159
Not Afraid of the Camera: Baby Blue Jays
Out for their First Airing. {Craig S.
Thomas) . . . . . .159
The Dashing Great Crested Flycatcher.
{A. R. Dugmore) . . . . .162
Baby Kingbirds in an Apple Tree. {A. R.
Dugmore) . . . . . .163
Four Crested Flycatchers, who Need to Have
their Hair Brushed. {A. R. Dugmore) . 164
Time for these Young Phoebes to Leave the
Nest. {A, R. Dugmore) . . .165
Young Phoebes on a Bridge Trestle. {A. R.
Dugmore) . . . . . .165
Least Flycatchers in a Rose Bush. . .176
Nighthawk Resting in the Sunlight. {John
Boyd) . . . . . . -177
A Chimney Swift at Rest. (C. W. Beebe) . 180
Hummingbird Pumping Food into her Babies'
Crops. {Julian Burroughs) • . .181
Twin Ruby-throats. {Julian Burroughs) . 181
Our Little Friend Downy. {A. R. Dugmore) 192
The Red-headed Woodpecker. {G. W. Beebe) 193
The Sapsucker. {G, G. Embody) . .198
Baby Flickers Just Out of their Hole. {A. R.
Dugmore) . . . • . -199
List of Illustrations xv
FACZNQ PAOE
The Flicker. (C. W, Beehe) . . ' . 206
Two Baby Cuckoos on the Rickety Bundle of
Sticks that by Courtesy we Call a Nest.
(Verne Morton) . . . . .207
Waiting for Mamma and Fish. {A, W,
Anthony), . . . . . .210
Young Belted Kingfisher on his Favourite
Snag. {A. W. Anthony) . . .210
Kingfisher on the Look-out for a Dinner.
(^4. W. Anthony) .... 211
Turkey Buzzard: One of Nature's Best
Housecleaners. (C. W, Beehe) . . 226
The Beautiful Little Sparrow Hawk. (C. W.
Beehe) ....... 227
Father and Mother Barn Owls. {Silas A.
Lottridge) , . . . . .232
The Heavenly Twins: Young Barn Owls.
(Silas A, Lottridge) . . . -233
A Little Screech Owl in the Sunlight Where
Only a Photographer Could Find him.
(C. W, Beehe) . . . . .236
Mrs. White on her Nest while Bob Whistles
to her from the Wild Strawberry Patch.
(A. R. Dugmore) .... 237
A Little Girl's Rare Pet. (C. F. Hodge) . 242
The Drummer Drtimming. (C. F. Hodge) . 243
A Flock of Friendly Sandpipers and Turn-
stones in Wading. {Herhert K. J oh) . 258
xvi List of Illustrations
MCaNG VAOX
One Little Sandpiper. (R. H. Beebe) , -259
The Coot. (C. W, Beebe) . . ajg
The Little Green Heron, the Smallest and
Most Abundant Member of his Tribe.
(W, P. Hopkins). . . . . a6o
Half-grown Little Green Herons on Dress
Parade. {John M. Schreck) . . .261
Black-crowned Night Heron Rising from a
Morass. (Alfred /. Might) . . . 268
Canada Geese. (Geo. D. Bartlett) . . 269
The Feather-lined Nest of a Wild Duck. . 272
Sea Gulls in the Wake of a Garbage Scow
Cleansing New York Harbour of Floating
Refuse ••••••• 273
CHAPTER I
OUR ROBIN GOODFELLOW AND
HIS RELATIONS:
American Robin
Bluebird
Wood Thrush
Wilson's Thrush
THE AMERICAN ROBIN
Called also: Red-breasted Thrush; Migratory
Thrush; Robin Redbreast
TT IS only when he is a baby that you
-*• could guess our robin is really a thrush,
for then the dark speckles on his pliunp little
yellowish-white breast are prominent thrush-
like markings, which gradually fade, however,
as he grows old enough to put on a brick-red
vest like his father's.
The European Cock Robin — a bird as familiar
to you as our own, no doubt, because it was he
who was killed by the Sparrow with the bow
and arrow, you well remember, and it was he
who covered the poor Babes in the Wood with
leaves — ^is much smaller than our robin, even
smaller than a sparrow, and he is not a thrush
at all. But this hero of the story books has a
red breast, and the English colonists, who settled
this country, named our big, cheerful, lusty
bird neighbour a robin, simply because his red
breast reminded them of the wee little bird at
home that they had loved when they were
children.
When our American robin comes out of the
5
6 Birds Every Child Should Know
turquoise blue egg that his devoted mother has
warmed into Ufe, he usually finds three or four
baby brothers and sisters huddled within the
grassy cradle. In April, both parents worked
hard to prepare this home for them. Having
brought coarse grasses, roots, and a few leaves
or weed stalks for the foundation, and pellets
of mud in their bills for the inner walls (which
they cleverly managed to smooth into a bowl
shape without a mason's trowel), and fine
grasses for the lining of the nest, they saddled
it on to the limb of an old apple tree. Robins
prefer low-branching orchard or shade trees
near our homes to the tall, straight shafts of
the forest. Some have the courage to build
among the vines or under the shelter of our
piazzas. I know a pair of robins that reared a
brood in a little clipped bay tree in a tub next
to a front door, where people passed in and out
continually. Doubtless very many birds would
be glad of the shelter of our comfortable homes
for theirs if they could only trust us. Is it not
a shame that they cannot? Robins, especially,
need a roof over their heads. When they fool-
ishly saddle their nest on to an exposed limb
of a tree, the first heavy rain is likely to soften
the mud walls, and wash apart the heavy, bulky
structure, when
**Down tumble babies and cradle and all."
The American Robin y
It is wiser of them to fit the nest into the
supporting crotch of a tree, as many do, and
wisest to choose the top of a piazza pillar, where
boys and girls and cats cannot climb to molest
them, nor storms dissolve their mud-walled
nursery. There are far too many tragedies of
the nests after every heavy spring rain.
Suppose your appetite were so large that you
were compelled to eat more than your weight
of food every day, and suppose you had three
or four brothers and sisters, just your own size,
and just as ravenously hungry. These are the
conditions in every normal robin family, so you
can easily imagine how hard the father and
mother birds must work to keep their fledglings'
crops filled. No wonder robins like to live near
our homes where the enriched land contains
many fat grubs, and the smooth lawns, that
they run across so lightly, make hunting for
earth worms comparatively easy. It is esti-
mated that about fourteen feet of worms (if
placed end to end) are drawn out of the ground
daily by a pair of robins with a nestful of babies
to feed. When one of the parents alights near
its home, every child must have seen the little
heads, with wide-stretched, yellow bills, pop up
suddenly like Jacks-in-the-box. How rudely
the greedy babies push and jostle one another
to get the most dinner, and how noisily they
clamour for it! Earth worms are the staff of
8 Birds Every Child Should Know
life to them just as bread is to children, but
robins destroy vast quantities of other worms
and insects more injurious to the farmers' crops,
so that the strawberries and cherries they take
in June should not be grudged them.
A man of science, who devoted many hours of
study to learn the great variety of sounds made
by common barnyard chickens in expressing
their entire range of feeling, from the egg shell
to the axe, could entertain an audience de-
lightfully for an evening by imitating them.
Similar study applied to robins would reveal
as surprisingly rich results, but probably less
funny. No bird that we have has so varied a
repertoire as Robin Goodfellow, and I do not
believe that any boy or girl alive could recognise
him by every one of his calls and songs. His
softly warbled salute to the sunrise differs from
his lovely even-song just as widely as the
rapturous melody of his courting days differs
from the more subdued, tranquil love song to
his brooding mate. Indignation, suspicion,
fright, interrogation, peace of mind, hate, cau-
tion to take flight — these and a host of other
thoughts, are expressed through his flexible
voice.
Toward the end of June, you may see robins
flying in flocks after sun-down. Old males and
young birds of the first brood scatter themselves
over the country by day to pick up the best
**It is only when he is a baby that you could guess cm
robin is really a thrush"
J4
IS
J4
'Jo
be
^
The Bluebird g
living they can, but at night they collect in
large numbers at some favourite roosting place.
Oftentimes the weary mother birds are now
raising second broods. We like to believe that
the fathers return from the roosts at sun-up
to help supply those insatiable babies with
worms throughout the long day.
After family cares are over for the year, robins
moult, and then they hide, mope, and keep silent
for awhile. But in September, in a suit of new
feathers, they are feeling vigorous and cheerful
again; and, gathering in friendly flocks, they
roam about the woodland borders to feed on the
dogwood, choke cherries, juniper berries, and
other small fruits. You see they change their
diet with the season. By dropping the tindi-
gested berry seeds far and wide, they plant great
numbers of trees and shrubs as they travel.
Birds help to make the earth beautiful. With
them every day is Arbour Day.
It is a very dreary time when the last robin
leaves us, and an exceptionally cold winter
when a few stragglers from the south-botmd
flocks do not remain in some sheltered, stmny,
woodland hollow.
THE BLUEBIRD
Is there any sign of spring quite so welcome
as the glint of the first bluebird unless it is his
lo Birds Every Child Should Know
softly whistled song? Before the farmer begins
to plough the wet earth, often while the snow is
still on the ground, this hardy little minstrel is
making himself very much at home in our or-
chards and gardens while waiting for a mate to
arrive from the South.
Now is the time to have ready on top of the
grape arbour, or under the eaves of the bam,
or nailed up in the apple tree, or set up on poles,
the little one-roomed houses that bluebirds are
only too happy to occupy. More enjoyable
neighbours it would be hard to find. Sparrows
will fight for the boxes, it is true, but if there
are plenty to let, and the sparrows are per-
sistently driven off, the bluebirds, which are a
little larger though far less bold, quickly take
possession. Birds that come earliest in the
season and feed on insects, before they have
time to multiply, are of far greater value in the
field, orchard, and garden than birds that delay
their return until warm weather has brought
forth countless swarms of insects far beyond the
control of either bird or man. Many birds
w^ould be of even greater service than they are
if they received just a little encouragement to
make their homes nearer ours. They could
save many more millions of dollars' worth of
crops for the farmers than they do if they were
properly protected while rearing their ever-
hungry families. As two or even three broods
The Bluebird 1 1
of bluebirds may be raised in a box each spring,
and as insects are their most approved baby
food, you see how much it is to our interest
to set up nurseries for them near our homes.
But when people are not thoughtful enough
to provide them before the first of March, the
bluebirds hunt for a cavity in a fence rail, or a
hole in some old tree, preferably in the orchard,
shortly after their arrival, and proceed to line it
with grass. From three to six pale blue eggs are
laid. At first the babies are blind, helpless, and
almost naked. Then they grow a suit of dark
feathers with speckled, thrush-like vests similar
to their cousin's, the baby robin's; and it is
not until they are able to fiy that the lovely
deep blue shade gradually appears on their gray-
ish upper parts. Then their throat, breast, and
sides turn rusty red. While creatures are help-
less, a prey for any enemy to pounce upon,
Nature does not dress them conspicuously, you
may be sure. Adult birds, that are able to look
out for themselves, may be very gaily dressed,
but their children must wear sombre clothes
until they grow strong and wise.
Young bluebirds are far less wild and noisy
than robins, but their very sharp little claws
discourage handling. These pointed hooks on
the ends of their toes help them to climb out of
the tree hollow, that is their natural home, into the
big world that their presence makes so cheerful.
12 Birds Every Child Should Know
As you might expect of creatures so heavenly
in colour, the disposition of bluebirds is partic-
ularly angelic. Gentleness and amiability are
expressed in their soft, musical voice. Tru-aU
ly, tru-al-ly, they sweetly assert when we
can scarcely believe that spring is here; and
tur-ivee, tur-wee they softly call in autumn when
they go roaming through the country side in
flocks of azure, or whirl through Southern woods
to feed on the waxy berries of the mistletoe.
THE WOOD THRUSH
Called also: Song Thrush; Wood Robin; Bell
Bird
Much more shy and reserved than the social,
democratic robin is his cousin the wood thrush,
whom, perhaps, you more frequently hear than
see. Not that he is a recluse, like the hermit
thrush, who hides his nest and lifts up his
heavenly voice in deep, cool, forest solitudes;
nor is he even so shy as Wilson's thrush, who
prefers to live in low, wet, densely overgrown
Northern woods. The wood thrush, as his name
implies, certainly likes the woodland, but very
often he chooses to stay close to our country and
suburban homes or within city parks with a more
than half-hearted determination to be friendly.
A wood thrush startled by the dick of the camera
The Wood Thrush 13
He is about two inches shorter than the robin.
Above, his feathers are a rich cinnamon brown,
brightest on his head and shoulders and shading
into olive brown on his tail. His white throat
and breast and sides are heavily marked with
heart-shaped marks of very dark brown. He
has a white eye ring.
''Here am V come his three clear, bell-like
notes of self-introduction. The quality of his
music is delicious, rich, penetrative, pure and
vibrating like notes struck upon a harp. If
you don't already know this most neighbourly
of the thrushes — as he is also the largest and
brightest and most heavily spotted of them all —
you will presently become acquainted with one
of the finest songsters in America. Wait until
evening when he sings at his best. Nolee-a-e-o-
lee-nolee-aeolee-lee! peals his song from the trees.
Love alone inspires his finest strains ; but even
in July, when bird music is quite inferior to that
of May and June, he is still in good voice. A
song so exquisite proves that the thrush comes
near to being a bird angel, very high in the scale
of development, and far, far beyond such low
creatures as ducks and chickens.
Pit-pit-pit you may hear sharply, excitedly
jerked out of some bird's throat, and you wonder
if a note so disagreeable can really come from the
wonderful songster on the branch above your
head. By sharply striking two small stones
14 Birds Every Child Should Know
together you can closely imitate this alarm call.
Whom can he be scolding so severely? It is
yourself, of course, for without knowing it you
have come nearer to his low nest in the beech
tree than he thinks quite safe. While sitting,
the mother bird is, however, quite tame. A
photographer I know placed his camera within
four feet of a nest, changed the plates, and
clicked the shutter three times for as many
pictures without disturbing the gentle sitter who
merely winked her eye at each chick.
Wood thrushes seem to delight in weaving
bits of paper or rags into their deep cradles
which otherwise resemble the robins.' A nest
in the shrubbery near a bird-lover's home in
New Jersey had many bits of newspaper at-
tached to its outer walls, but the most con-
sf)icuous strip in front advertised in large letters
*'A House to be Let or Sold.'' The original
builders happily took the next lease, and another
lot of nervous, fidgety baby tenants came out of
four light greenish-blue eggs; but, as usual,
they moved away to the woods, aften ten days,
to join the choir invisible.
WILSON'S THRUSH
The veery, as the Wilson's thrush is called
in New England, is far more common there than
Wilson's Thrush 15
the wood thrush, whose range is more southerly.
During its spring and fall migrations only is it
at all common about the elms and maples that
men have planted. Take a good look at its
tawny coat and lightly spotted cream buff
breast before it goes away to hide. Like
Kipling's ''cat that walked by himself/* the
veery prefers the *' wild, wet woods, '' and there
its ringing, weird, whistling monotone, that is so
melodious without being a melody, seems to
come from you can't guess where. The singer
keeps hidden in the dense, dark undergrowth.
It is as if two voices, an alto and a soprano, were
singing at the same time: Whee-you, whee-you :
— the familiar notes might come from a scythe
being sharpened on a whetstone, were the sound
less musical than it is. The bird is too wise to
sing very near its well-hidden nest, which is
placed either directly on the damp ground or
not far above it, and usually near water.
Throughout its life the veery seems to show a
distrust of us that, try as we may, few have
ever overcome.
If you have thought that the thrush-like, cin-
namon brown, speckle-breasted bird, with a long
twitching tail like a catbird's, and a song as fine
as a catbird's best, would be mentioned among
the robin's relations, you must guess again, for
he is the brown thrasher, not a thrush at all.
You will find him in the Group of Lively Singers,
. CHAPTER II
SOME NEIGHBOURLY ACROBATS
Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Golden-crowned Kinglet
THE CHICKADEE
Called also: Black-capped Titmouse
"piTTERLY cold and dreary though the day
-^^ may be, that *4ittle scrap of valour,*' the
chickadee, keeps his spirits high until ours can-
not but be cheered by the oft-repeated, clear,
tinkling silvery notes that spell his name.
Chicka-dee-dee: ckicka-dee-dee: he introduces
himself. How easy it would be for every child
to know the birds if all would but sing out
their names so clearly! Oh, don't you wish they
would?
"Piped a tiny voice near by
Gay and polite— a cheerful cry —
Chic k'C hie kadeedeef Saucy note
Out of sound heart and merry throat.
As if it said, * Good day, good Sir!
Fine afternoon, old passenger!
Happy to meet you in these places
Where January brings few faces.' "
No bird, except the wren, is more cheerful than
the chickadee, and his cheerfulness, fortunately,
is just as ** catching'' as measels. None will
respond more promptly to your whistle in imi-
tation of his three very high, clear call notes, and
coEQe nearer and nearer to make quite sure you
19
20 Birds Every Child Should Know
are only a harmless mimic. He is very inquis-
itive. Although not a bird may be in sight
when you first whistle his call, nine chances out
of ten there will be a faint echo from some far
distant throat before very long ; and by repeat-
ing the notes at short intervals you will have,
probably, not one but several echoes from as
many different chickadees whose curiosity to
see you soon gets the better of their appetites
and brings them flying, by easy stages, to the
tree above your head. Where there is one
chickadee there are apt to be more in the neigh-
bourhood; for these sociable, active, cheerful
little black-capped fellows in gray like to hunt
for their living in loose scattered flocks through-
out the fall and winter. When they come near
enough, notice the pale rusty wash on the sides
of their under parts which are more truly dirty
white than gray. Chickadees are wonderfully
tame: except the chipping sparrow, perhaps
the tamest birds that we have. Patient people,
who know how to whistle up these friendly
sprites, can sometimes draw them close enough
to touch, and an elect few, who have the special
gift of winning a wild bird's confidence, can in-
duce the chickadee to alight upon their hands.
Blessed with a thick coat of fat under his soft,
fluffy gray feathers, a hardy constitution and a
sunny disposition, what terrors has the winter
for him? When the thermometer goes down,
The Chickadee 21
his spirits seem to go up the higher. DangUng
like a circus acrobat on the cone of some tall
pine tree; standing on an outstretched twig,
then turning over and hanging with his black-
capped head downward from the high trapeze ;
carefully inspecting the rough bark on the twigs
for a fat grub or a nest of insect eggs, he is con-
stantly hunting for food and singing grace be-
tween bites. His day, day, day, sung softly
over and over again, seems to be his equivalent
for *' Give us this day our daily bread."
How delightfully he and his busy friends, who
are always within call, punctuate the snow-
muffled, mid-winter silence with their ringing
calls of good cheer! The orchards where chicka-
dees, titmice, nuthatches, and kinglets have
dined all winter, will contain few worm-eaten
apples next season. Here is a puzzle for your
arithmetic class: If one chickadee eats four
hundred and forty-four eggs of the apple tree
moth on Monday, three htindred and thirty-
three eggs of the canker worm on Tuesday, and
seven hundred and seventy-seven miscellaneous
grubs, larvae, and insect eggs on Wednesday and
Thursday, how long will it take a flock of
twenty-two chickadees to rid an orchard of
every unspeakable pest? One very wise and
thrifty fruit grower I know attracts to his trees
all the winter birds from far and near, by keep-
ing on several shelves nailed up in his orchard,
22 Birds Every Child Should Know
bits of suet, cheap raisins, raw peanuts chopped
fine, cracked hickory nuts and rinds of pork.
The free lunch counters are freely patronised.
There is scarcely an hour in the day, no matter
how cold, when some hungry feathered neigh-
bour may not be seen helping himself to the
heating, fattening food he needs to keep his
blood warm.
At the approach of warm weather, chickadees
retreat from public gaze to become temporary
recluses in damp, deep woods or woodland
swamps where insects are most plentiful. For
a few months they give up their friendly flock-
ing ways and live in pairs. Long journeys
they do not undertake from the North when it
is time to nest ; but Southern birds move north-
ward in the spring. Happily the chickadee may
find a woodpecker's vacant hole in some hollow
tree; worse luck if a new excavation must be
made in a decayed birch — the favourite nursery.
Wool from the sheep pasture, felt from fern
fronds, bits of bark, moss, hair, and the fur of
''little beasts of field and wood'' — anything
soft that may be picked up goes to line the hol-
low cradle in the tree-trunk. How the crowded
chickadee babies must swelter in their bed of
fur and feathers tucked inside a close, stuffy hole !
Is it not strange that such hardy parents should
coddle their children so?
The chiekadee at her front door
-J3
•a
^
3
Tufted Titmouse 23
TUFTED TITMOUSE
Called fdso: Peto Bird; Crested Tomtit; Crested
Titmouse
Don't expect to meet the tufted titmouse
if you live very far north of Washington. He
is common only in the South and West.
This pert and lively cousin of the lovable
little chickadee is not quite so friendly and far
more noisy. Peto-peto-peto comes his loud, clear
whistle from the woods and clearings where he
and his large family are roving restlessly about
all through the autumn and winter. A famous
musician became insane because he heard one
note ringing constantly in his overwrought
brain. If you ever hear a troupe of titmice
whistUng Peto over and over again for hours at
a time, you will pity poor Schumann and fear
a similar fate for the birds. But they seem to
delight in the two tiresome notes, uttered some-
times in one key, sometimes in another. Another
call — day-day-day — reminds you of the chick-
adee's, only the tufted titmouse's voice is louder
and a little hoarse, as it well might be from
such constant use.
Few birds that we see about our homes wear
a top knot on their heads. The big cardinal
has a handsome red one, the larger blue jay's
is bluish gray, the cedar waxwing's is a Quaker
24 Birds Every Child Should Know
drab ; but the little titmouse, who is the size of
an English sparrow, may be named at once by
the gray pointed crest that makes him look so
pert and jaunty. When he hangs head down-
ward from the trapeze on the oak tree, this
little gray acrobat's peaked cap seems to be
falling off; whereas the black sloiU cap on the
smaller chickadee fits close to his head no
matter how much he turns over the bar and
dangles.
Neither one of these cousins is a carpenter
like the woodpecker. The titmouse has a short,
stout bill without a chisel on it, which is why
it cannot chip out a hole for a nest in a tree
trunk or old stump unless the wood is much
decayed. You see why these birds are so
pleased to find a deserted woodpecker's hole.
Not alone are they saved the trouble of making
one, but a deep tunnel in a tree-trunk means
security for their babies against haw^ks, crows,
jays, and other foes, as well as against Avind and
rain.
When you find a flock of either chickadees
or titmice, you may be sure it is made up chiefly,
if not entirely, of the birds of one or two broods
of the same parents. Their families are usually
large and the members devoted to one another.
Titmice nest in April so that you cannot tell the
brothers and sisters from the father and mother
when the troupe of acrobats leave the woods in
White-breasted Nuthatch 25
early autumn and whistle lustily about your
home.
WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH
Called also: Tree Mouse; Devil Downhead
When it comes to acrobatic performances in
the trees, neither the chickadee nor the tit-
mouse can rival their relatives, the little bluish
gray nuthatches. Indeed, any circus might
be glad to secure their expert services. Hang-
ing fearlessly from the topmost branches of the
tallest pine, running along the under side of
horizontal limbs as comfortably as along the
top of them, or descending the trunk head fore-
most, these wonderful little gymnasts keep their
nerves as cool as the thermometer in January.
From the way they travel over any part of the
tree they wish, from top and tip to the bottom
of it, no wonder they are sometimes called Tree
Mice. Only the fly that walks across the
ceiling, however, can compete with them in
clinging to the under side of boughs.
Why don't they fall off? If you ever have a
chance, examine their claws. These, you will
see, are very much curved and have sharp little
hooks that catch in any crack or rough place in
the bark and easily support the bird's weight.
As a general rule the chickadee keeps to the
26 Birds Every Child Should Know
end of the twigs and the smaller branches ; the
tufted titmouse rids the larger boughs of in-
sects, eggs, and worms hidden in the scaly bark ;
but the nuthatches can climb to more inac-
cessible places. With the help of the hooks
on their toes it does not matter to them whether
they run upward, downward, or sidewise ; and
they can stretch their bodies away from their
feet at some very queer angles. Their long bills
penetrate into deep holes in the thick bark of
the tree trunks and older limbs and bring forth
from their hiding places insects that would
escape almost every other bird except the
brown creeper and the woodpecker. Of course,
when you see any feathered acrobat performing
in the trees, you know he is working hard to
pick up a dinner, not exercising merely for fun.
The most familiar nuthatch, in the eastern
United States, is the one with the white breast;
but in the Northern States and Canada there is
another common winter neighbour, a smaller
compactly feathered, bluish gray gymnast with
a pale rusty breast, a conspicuous black line
running apparently through his eye from the
base of his bill to the nape of his neck, and heavy
white eyebrows. This is the hardy little red-
breasted nuthatch. His voice is pitched rather
high and his drawling notes seem to come from
a lazy bird instead of one of the most vigorous
and spry little creatures in the wood. The
White-breasted Nuthatch 27
nasal ank-.znk of his white-breasted cousin is
uttered, too, without expression, as if the bird
were compelled to make a sound once in a while
against his will. Both of these cousins have
similar habits. Both are a trifle smaller than
the English sparrow. In summer they merely
hide away in the woods to nest, for they are not
migrants. It is only when nesting duties are
over in the autumn that they become neigh-
bourly.
Who gave them their queer name? A hat-
chet would be a rather clumsy tool for us to use
in opening a nut, but these birds have a con-
venient, ever-ready one in their long, stout,
sharply pointed bills with which they hack apart
the small thin-shelled nuts like beech nuts and
hazel nuts, chinquapins and chestnuts, kernels
of com and sunflower seeds. These they wedge
into cracks in the bark just big enough to hold
them. During the summer and early autumn
when insects are plentiful, the nuthatches eat
little else; and then they thriftily store away
the other items on their bill of fare, squirrel
fashion, so that when frost kills the insects, they
may vary their diet of insect eggs and grubs
with nuts and the larger grain. Flying to the
spot where a nut has been securely wedged,
perhaps weeks before, the bird scores and hacks
and pecks it open with his sharp little hatchet,
whose hard blows may be heard far away.
28 Birds Every Child Should Know
Although this tool is a great help to the nut-
hatches in making their nests, they appear to be
quite as ready to accept a deserted woodpecker's
hole as the chickadee with a smaller bill. A
natural cavity will answer, or, if they must,
they will make one in some forest tree. The
red-breasted nuthatches have a curious habit
of smearing the entrance to the hole with fir-
balsam or pitch. Why do you suppose they do
it? Perhaps they think this will discourage egg
suckers, like snakes, mice, or squirrels; but,
in effect, the sticky gum often pulls the feathers
from their own breasts as they go in and out
attending to the wants of their family.
RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET
Count that a red-letter day on your calendar
when first you see either this tiny, dainty sprite,
or his next of kin, the golden-crowned kinglet,
fluttering, twinkling about the evergreens. In
republican America we don't often have the
chance to meet two crowned heads. Ener-
getic as wrens, restless as warblers, and as per-
petually looking for insect food, the kinglets flit
with a sudden, jerking motion from twig to
twig among the trees and bushes, now on the
lawn, now in the orchard and presently in the
hedgerow down the lane. They have a pretty
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 29
trick of lifting and flitting their wings every
little while. The bluebird and pine grosbeak
have it too, but their much larger, trembling
wings seem far less nervous.
Happily the kinglets are not at all shy; no
bird is that is hatched out so far north that it
never sees a human being until it travels south-
ward to spend the winter. Alas! It is the birds
that know us too well that are often the most
afraid. When the leaves are turning crimson
and russet and gold in the autumn, keep a sharp
look out for the plump little grayish, olive green
birds that are even smaller than wrens, and not
very much larger than hummingbirds. Al-
though members of quite a different family — the
kinglets are exclusive — they condescend to join
the nuthatches and chickadees in the orchard
to help clean the farmer's fruit trees or pick up
a morsel at the free lunch counter in zero
weather. Love or war is necessary to make the
king show us his crown. But vanity or anger
is sufficient excuse for lifting the dark feathers
that nearly conceal the beauty spot on the top
of his head when the midget's mind is at ease.
If you approach very near — and he will allow
you to almost touch him — you may see the
little patch of brilliant red feathers, it is true,
but you will probably get an unexpected,
chattering scolding from the little king as he
flies away.
30 Birds Every Child Should Know
In the spring his love song is as surprisingly
strong in proportion to his size as the wren's.
It seems impossible for such a volume of mellow
fiute-like melody to pour from a throat so tiny.
Before we have a chance to hear it again the
singer is off with his tiny queen to nest in some
spruce tree beyond the Canadian boixier.
I
s
■I
The marsh wren's round cradle swung among the rushes
CHAPTER III
A GROUP OF LIVELY SINGERS
House Wren
Carolina Wren
Marsh Wren
Brown Thrasher
Catbho)
Mockingbird
THE HOUSE WREN
rP YOU want some jolly little neighbours for
-*• the stimmer, invite the wrens to live near you
year after year by putting up small, one-family
box-houses under the eaves of the barn, the
cow-shed, or the chicken-house, on the grape
arbour or in the orchard. Beware of a pair of
nesting wrens in a box nailed against a piazza
post: they beat any alarm clock for arousing
the family at sunrise.
Save the starch boxes, cover them with
strips of bark, or give them two coats of paint
to match the building they are to be nailed on.
Cut a hole that you have marked on one end of
each box by drawing a lead pencil around a
silver quarter of a dollar. A larger hole would
mean that English sparrows, who push them-
selves everywhere where not invited, would
probably take possession of each house as fast
as you nailed it up. Of course the little one-
roomed cottages should have a number of small
holes bored on the sides near the top to give the
wrens plenty of fresh air. Have the boxes in
place not later than the first of April — then
watch. Would it not be a pity for any would-be
tenants to pass by your home because they could
33
34 Birds Every Child Should Know
not find a house to let? Wrens really prefer
boxes to the holes in stiimps and trees they
used to occupy before there were any white
people with thoughtful children on this con-
tinent. But the little tots have been known to
build in tin cans, coat pockets, old shoes, mit-
tens, hats, glass jars, and even inside a human
skull that a medical student hung out in the
sun to bleach!
When you are sound asleep some April morn-
ing, a tiny brown bird, just returned from a long
visit south of the Carolinas, will probably alight
on the perch in front of one of your boxes, peep
in the doorhole, enter — ^although his pert
little cocked-up-tail has to be lowered to let
him through — ^look about with approval, go
out, spring to the roof and pour out of his
wee throat a gushing torrent of music. The
song seems to bubble up faster than he can
sing. "Foive notes to wanst" was an Irish-
man's description of it. After the wren's
happy discovery of a place to live, his song will
go off in a series of musical explosions all day
long, now from the roof, now from the clothes-
posts, the fence, the bam, or the wood-pile.
There never was a more tireless, spirited, bril-
liant singer. From the intensity of his feelings,
he sometimes droops that expressive little tail
of his, which is usually so erect and saucy.
With characteristic energy, he frequently
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Another tragedy of the nests : what villain ate the catbird's eggs ?
The House Wren 35
begins to carry twigs into the house before he
finds a mate. The day little Jenny Wren
appears on the scene, how he does sing! Dash-
ing off for more twigs, but stopping to sing to
her every other minute, he helps furnish the
cottage quickly, but, of course, he overdoes —
he carries in more twigs and hay and feathers
than the little house can hold, then pulls half
of them out again. Jenny gathers too, for she
is a bustling housewife and arranges matters
with neatness and despatch. Neither vermin
nor dirt will she tolerate within her well-kept
home. Everything she does to suit herself
pleases her ardent little lover. He applauds
her with song; he flies about after her with a
nervous desire to protect ; he seems beside him-
self with happiness. Let any one pass too near
his best beloved, and he begins to chatter ex-
citedly: '' ChiUchit-chit-chiV as much as to
say, *'0h, do go away; go quickly! Can't you
see how nervous and fidgety you make me? ''
If you fancy that Jenny Wren, who is
patiently sitting on the little pinkish chocolate
spotted eggs in the centre of her feather bed,
is a demure, angelic creature, you have never
seen her attack the sparrow, nearly twice her
size, that dares put his impudent head inside
her door. Oh, how she flies at him! How she
chatters and scolds! What a plucky little shrew
she is, after all! Her piercing, chattering, scold-
36 Birds Every Child Should Know
ing notes are fairly hissed into his ears until h^
is thankful enough to escape.
THE LITTLE BROWN WREN*
There's a little brown wren that has built in our tree,
And she's scarcely as big as a big bumble-bee;
She has hollowed a house in the heart of a limb,
And made the walls tidy and made the floors trim
With the down of the crow's foot, with tow, and with straw
The cosiest dwelling that ever you saw.
This little brown wren has the brightest of eyes
And a foot of a very diminutive size.
Her tail is as trig as the sail of a ship.
She's demure, though she walks with a hop and a skip;
And her voice — but a flute were more fit than a pen
To tell of the voice of the little brown wren.
One morning Sir Sparrow came sauntering by
And cast on the wren's house an envious eye;
With a strut of bravado and toss of his head,
"I'll put in my claim here," the bold fellow said;
So straightway he mounted on impudent wing,
And entered the door without pausing to ring.
An instant — and swiftly that feathery knight
All towsled and tumbled, in terror took flight,
While there by the door on her favourite perch,
As neat as a lady just starting for church,
With this song on her lips, **He will not call again
Unless he is asked," sat the little brown wren.
If the bluebirds had her courage and hot,
quick temper, they would never let the sparrows
drive them away from their boxes. Unfor-
tunately a hole large enough to admit a blue-
♦From "Boy's Book of Rhyme," by Clinton Scollard
The Carolina Wren 37
bird will easily admit those grasping monop-
olists ; but Jenny Wren is safe, if she did but
know it, in her house with its tiny front door
It is amusing to see a sparrow try to work his
shoulders through the small hole of an empty
wren house, pushing and kicking madly, but
all in vain.
What rent do the wrens pay for their little
houses? No man is clever enough to estimate
the vast numbers of insects on your place that
they destroy. They eat nothing else, which is
the chief reason why they are so lively and
excitable. Unable to soar after flying insects
because of their short, round wings, they keep,
as a rule, rather close to the ground which their
finely barred brown feathers so closely match.
Whether hunting for grubs in the wood-pile,
scrambling over the brush heap after spiders,
searching among the trees to provide a dinner
for their large families, or creeping, like little
feathered mice, in queer nooks and crannies
among the outbuildings on the farm, they are
always busy in your interest which is also theirs.
It certainly pays, in every sense, to encourage
wrens.
THE CAROLINA WREN
The house wrens have a tiny cousin, a mite of
a bird, called the winter wren, that is so shy
38 Birds Every Child Should Know
and retiring you will probably never become
well acquainted with it. It delights in mossy,
rocky woods near running water. But a larger
chestnut brown cousin, the Carolina wren, with
a prominent white eyebrow, a bird which is quite
common in the Middle and Southern States,
sometimes nests in outbuildings and in all sorts
of places about the farm. However, he too
really prefers the forest undergrowths near
water, fallen logs, half decayed stumps, and
mossy rocks where insects lurk but cannot hide
from his sharp, peering eyes. Now here, now
there, appearing and disappearing, never at
rest, even his expressive tail being in constant
motion, he seems more nervously active than
Jenny Wren's fidgety husband.
Some people call him the mocking wren,
but I think he never deliberately tries to imitate
other birds. Why should he? It is true that
his loud-ringing, three-syllabled whistle, *' Tea
ket-tle, Tea-ket-tle, Tea-ket-tle/* suggests the
crested titmouse's '' peto'' of two syllables, but
in quality only ; and some have thought that his
whistled notes are difficult to distinguish from
the one-syllabled, but oft-repeated, long-drawn
quoit of the cardinal. These three birds are
frequently to be heard in the same neighbour-
hood and you may easily compare their voices ;
but if you listen carefully, I think you will not
accuse the wren of trying to mock either of the
The Marsh Wren 39
others. In addition to his ringing, whistled
notes, he can make other sounds pecuHarly his
own: trills and quavers, scolding cacks, rat-
tling kringggs, something like the tree toad's, be-
sides the joyful, lyrical melody that has given
him his reputation as a musician. Even these do
not complete his repertoire. To deliver his fam-
ous song, he chooses a conspicuous position in
the top of some bush or low tree; then, with
head uplifted and tail drooping — a favourite
posture of all these lively singers — he makes
us very glad indeed that we heard him. Hap-
pily he sings almost as many months in the
year as the most cheerful bird we have, the
song sparrow.
THE MARSH WREN
Hidden among the tall grasses and reeds along
the creeks and rivers, lives the long-billed marsh
wren, a nervous, active little creature that you
know at a glance. With tail cocked up and
even tilted forward toward her head in the ex-
treme of wren fashion, or suddenly jerked
downward to help keep her balance, she sways
with the grass as it blows in the wind — a dainty
little sprite. With no desire to make your
acquaintance, she flies with a short, jerky motion
(because of her short wings) a few rods away,
40 Birds Every Child Should Know
then drops into the grasses which engulf her as
surely as if she had dropped into the sea. You
may search in vain to find her now. Like the
rails, she has her paths and runways among the
tall sedges and cat-tails, where not even a boy
in rubber boots may safely follow.
But she does not live alone. Withdraw, sit
down quietly for awhile and wait for the ex-
citement of your visit to subside; for every
member of the wren colony, peering sharply at
you through the grasses, was watching you
long before you saw the first wren. Presently
you hear a rippling, bubbling song from one of
her neighbours ; then another and another and
still another from among the cat-tails which,
you now suspect, conceal many musicians.
The song goes ofiE like a small explosion of mel-
ody whose force often carries the tiny singer up
into the air. One explosion follows another,
and between them there is mi^ch wren talk — a,
scolding chatter that is as great a relief to the
birds' nervous energy as the exhaust from its
safety valve is to a steam engine. The rising
of a red-winged blackbird from his home in the
sedges, the rattle of the kingfisher on his way
up the creek, or the leisurely flapping of a
bittern over the marshes is enough to start the
chattering chorus.
Why are the birds so excited? This is their
nesting season, May, and really they are too
The Brown Thrasher 41
busy to be bothered by visitors. Most birds
are content to make one nest a year but not
these, who, in their excess of wren energy, keep
on building nest after nest in the vicinity of the
one preferred for their chocolate brown eggs.
Bending down the tips of the rushes they some-
how manage to weave them, with the weeds and
grasses they bring, into a bulky ball suspended
between the rushes and firmly attached to
them. In one side of this green grassy globe
they leave an entrance through which to carry
the finer grasses for the lining and the down from
last season's bursted cat-tails. When a nest
is finished, its entrance is often cleverly con-
cealed. If there are several feet of water below
the high and dry cradle, so much the better,
think the wrens — fewer enemies can get at
them ; but they do sometimes build in meadows
that are merely damp. In such meadows the
short-billed marsh wren, a slightly smaller
sprite, prefers to live.
THE BROWN THRASHER
Called also: Brown Thrush; Long Thrush;
Ground Thrush; Red Thrush; French Mock-
ing-bird; Mavis.
People who are not very well acquainted
with the birds about them usually mistake the
42 Birds Every Child Should Know
long-tailed brown thrasher for a thrush because
he has a rusty back and a speckled white breast,
which they seem to think is an exclusive thrush
characteristic, which it certainly is not. The
oven-bird and several members of the sparrow
tribe, among other birds, have speckled and
streaked breasts, too. The brown thrasher is
considerably larger than a thrush and his
habits are quite different. Watch him ner-
vously twitch his long tail, or work it up
and down like one end of a see-saw, or sud-
denly jerk it up erect while he sits at attention
in the thicket, then droop it when, after mount-
ing to a conspicuous perch, he lifts his head to
sing, and you will probably *' guess right the
very first time '' that he is a near relative of the
wrens, not a thrush at all. As a little sailor-
boy once said to me, *' He carries his tell-tail
on the stern."
Like his cousin, the catbird, the brown thrasher
likes to live in bushy thickets overgrown with
vines. Here, running over the ground among
the fallen leaves, he picks up with his long slen-
der bill, worms, May beetles and scores of other
kinds of insects that, but for him, would soon
find their way to the garden, orchard, and fields.
Yet few farmers ever thank him. Because
they don't often see him picking up the insects
in their cultivated land, they wrongly conclude
that he does them no benefit, only miscliief.
The Brown Thrasher 43
because, occasionally, he does eat a little fruit.
It seems to be a dreadful sin for a fellow in
feathers to help himself to a strawberry or a
cherry or a little grain now and then, although,
having eaten quantities of insects that, but
for him, would have destroyed them, who has
earned a better right to a share of the profits ?
Do you think the brown thrasher looks any
more like a cuckoo than he does like a thrush?
Simply because he is nearly as long as the dull
brownish cuckoo and has a brown back,
though of quite a different tawny shade,
some boys and girls say it is difficult to tell
the two birds apart. The cuckoo glides through
the air as easily as if he were floating *down
stream, whereas the thrasher's flight, like
the wren's, is tilting, uneven, flapping, and
often jerky. If you make good use of your
sharp eyes, you will be able to tell many birds
by their flight alone, long before you can see the
colour of their feathers. The passive cuckoo has
no speckles on his light breast, and the yellow-
billed cuckoo, at least, has white thumb-nail
spots on his well-behaved tail, which he never
thrashes, twitches, and balances as the active,
suspicious thrasher does his. Moreover the
cuckoo's notes sound like a tree-toad's rattle,
while the thrasher's song — a merry peal of music
— entrances every listener. He seems rather
proud of it, to tell the truth, for although at
44 Birds Every Child Should Know
other times he may keep himself concealed
among the shrubbery, when about to sing, he
chooses a conspicuous perch as if to attract
attention to his truly brilliant performance.
The thrasher has been called a ground
"thrush'' because it so often chooses to place
its nest at the roots of tall weeds in an open
field ; but a low bush frequently suits it quite as
well. Its bulky nest is not a very choice piece
of architecture. Twigs, leaves, vine tendrils,
and bits of bark form its walls, and the speckled,
greenish blue eggs within are usually laid upon
a lining of fine black rootlets.
THE CATBIRD
Slim, lithe, elegant, dainty, the catbird, as
he nms lightly over the lawn or hunts among
the shrubbery, appears to be a fine gentleman
among his kind — a sort of Beau Brummel in
smooth, gray feathers who has preened and
prinked until his toilet is quite faultless. You
would not be surprised to hear that he slept
on rose petals and manicured his claws. He is
among the first to discover the bathing dish or
drinking pan that you have set up in your
garden, for he is not too squeamish, in spite of
his fine appearance, to drink from his bath.
With well-poised, black-capped head erect, and
The Catbird 45
tail tip too, wren fashion, he stands at attention
on the rim of the dish, alert, listening, tense —
the neatest, trimmest figure in birddom.
After he has flown off to the nearest thicket,
what a change suddenly comes over him! Can
it be the same bird? With puffed out, ruffled
feathers, hanging head, and drooping tail, he
now suggests a fat, tousled schoolboy, just
tumbled out of bed. Was ever a bird more
contradictory? One minute, from the depths
of the bushy undergrowth where he loves to
hide, he delights you with the sweetest of songs,
not loud like the brown thrasher's, but similar ;
only it is more exquisitely finished, and rippling.
''Prut! Prut! coquillicot!'' he begins. ''Really,
really, coquilUcot! Hey, coquillicot! Hey, victory!''
his inimitable song goes on like a rollicking
recitative. The next minute you would gladly
stop your ears when he utters the disagreeable
cat-call that has given him his name. " Zeay,
Zeay'' — whines the petulant cry. Now you see
him on the ground calmly looking for grass-
hoppers, or daintily helping himself to a morsel
from the dog's plate at the kitchen door. Sud-
denly, with a jerk and a jump, he has sprung
into the air to seize a passing moth. There is
always the pleasure of variety and the unex-
pected about the catbird.
He is very intelligent and friendly, like his
cousin, the mockingbird. One catbird that
4^ Birds Every Child Should Know
comes to visit me at least ten times every day,
can scarcely wait for the milk to be poured into
the dog's bowl before he has flown to the brim
for the first drink. Once, in his eagerness, he
alighted on the pitcher in my hand. He has
a pretty trick of flying to the sun dial as if he
wished to learn the time of day. From this
point of vantage, he will sail off suddenly, like a
flycatcher, to seize an insect on the wing. He
has a keen appetite for so many pests of the
garden and orchard — moths, grasshoppers,
beetles, caterpillars, spiders, flies and other in-
sects — that his friendship, you see, is well worth
cultivating. Five catbirds, whose diet was care-
fully watched by scientific men in Washington,
ate thirty grasshoppers each for one meal.
Yet how many people ignorantly abuse the
catbird! Because he has the good taste to like
strawberries and cherries as well as we do, is he
to be condemned on that account? If he kills
insects for us every waking hotrr from April to
October, don't you think he is entitled to a
little fruit in June? The ox that treadeth out
the com is not to be muzzled, so that he cannot
have a taste of it, you remember. A good way
to protect our strawberry patches and cherry-
trees from catbirds, mockingbirds, and robins,
is to provide fruit that they like much better —
the red mulberry. Nothing attracts so many
birds to a place. A mulberry tree in the chicken
The Mockingbird 47
yard provides a very popular restaurant, not
only for the song birds among the branches,
but for the scratchers on the ground floor.
Like the yellow-breasted chat, the catbird
likes to hide its nest in a tangle of cat brier along
the roadside undergrowth and in bushy, wood-
land thickets. Last winter, when that vicious
vine had lost every leaf, I counted in it eighteen
catbird nests within a quarter of a mile along
a country lane. Long before the first snow-
storm, the inmates of those nests were enjoying
summer weather again from the Gulf States to
Panama. If one nest should be disturbed in May
or June, when the birds are raising their families,
all the catbird neighbours join in the outcry of
mews and cat-calls. Should a disaster happen
to the parents, the orphans will receive food and
care from some devoted foster-mother until they
are able to fly. You see catbirds are something
far better than intelligent, musical dandies.
THE MOCKINGBIRD
What child is there who does not know the
mockingbird, caged or free ? In the North you
very rarely see one now-a-days behind prison
bars, for, happily, several enlightened states
have made laws to ptmish people who keep our
wild birds in cages or offer them for sale,, dead or
48 Birds Every Child Should Know
alive. When all the states make and enforce
similar laws, there will be an end to the barbaric
slaughter of many birds for no more worthy-
end than the trimming of hats for thought-
less girls and women. Birds of bright plumage
have suffered most, of course, but the mocking-
birds' nests have been robbed for so many
generations to furnish caged fledglings for both
American and European bird dealers, that shot
guns could have done no work more deadly.
Where the people are too ignorant to understand
what mockingbirds are doing for them every day
in the year by eating insects in their gardens,
fields, parks, and public squares, they are shot
in great numbers for the sole offence of helping
themselves to a small fraction of the very fruit
they have helped to preserve. Even the birds
ought to have a *' square deal'' in free America:
don't you think so ?
Although not afflicted with *'the fatal gift of
beauty," at least not the gaudy kind, like the
cardinal's and scarlet tanager's, the mocking-
bird's wonderful voice has brought upon him
an equal quantity of troubles. Keenly intelli-
gent though he is, he does not know enough to
mope and refuse to sing in a cage, but whiles
away the tedious hours of his captivity by all
manner of amusing and delightful sounds. In-
deed it has been found that the household pet is
apt to be a better mocker than the wild bird —
The Mockingbird 49
a most unfortunate discovery. Not only does
he imitate the notes of birds about him, but he
invents all manner of quips and vocal jugglery.
His love song is entrancing. *'Oft in the
stilly night, *' when the moonlight sheds a sil-
very radiance about every sleeping creature,
the mockingbird sings to his mate such delicious
music as only the European nightingale can
rival. Perhaps the* stillness of the hour, the
beauty and fragrance of the place where the
singer is hidden among the orange blossoms or
magnolia, increase the magic of his almost
pathetically sweet voice ; but surely there is no
lovelier sound in nature on this side of the sea.
Our poet Lanier declared that this ** heavenly
bird'' will be hailed as '' Brother'' by Beethoven
and Keats when he enters the choir invisible
in the spirit world.
Ever alert, on the qui vive, the mockingbird
can no more suppress the music within him,
night or day, than he can keep his nervous,
high-strung body at rest. From his restlessness
alone you might know he is the cousin of the
catbird and brown thrasher and is closely re-
lated to the wrens. Flitting from perch to
perch (fluttering is one of his chief amusements
even in a cage), taking short flights from tree to
tree, and so displaying the white signals on his
wings and tail, hopping lightly, swiftly, grace-
fully over the ground, bounding into the air,
50 Birds Every Child Should Know
or the next minute shooting his ashy gray
body far across the garden and leaving a wake
of music behind as he flies, he seems to be per-
petually in motion. If you live in the South
you can encourage no more delightftd neighbour
than this star performer in the group of lively
singers.
"MAMMA!"
Young mockingbird calling for breakfast
All is -well -with this yellow warbler's nest
Dinner for one : a black-and-white warbler feeding her baby
CHAPTER IV
THE WARBLERS
Yellow Warbler
Black and White Creeping Warbler
Oven-bird
Maryland Yellow-throat
Yellow-breasted Chat
Redstart
YELLOW WARBLER
Called &l3o: Summer Yellowbird; Wild Canetry.
RATHER than live where the skies are gray
and the air is cold, this adventurous little
warbler will travel two thousand miles or more to
follow the sun. A trip from Panama to Canada
and back again within five months does not
appal him. By living in perpetual sunshine
his feathers seemed to have absorbed some of It,
so that he looks like a stray sunbeam playing
among the shrubbery on the lawn, the trees ia
the orchard, the bushes in the roadside thicket,
the willows and alders beside the stream. He
is shorter than the English sparrow by an inch.
Although you may not get close enough to see
that his yellow breast is finely streaked with
reddish brown, you may know by these marks
that he is not what you at first suspected he
was — somebody's pet canary escaped from a
cage. It is not he but the goldfinch — the
yellow bird with the black wings — ^who sings
like a canary. Happily he is so neighbourly
that every child may easily become acquainted
with this most common member of the large
warbler family.
53
54 Birds Every Child Should Know
I don't believe there is anybody living who
cotild name at sight every one of the seventy
warblers that visit the United States. Some
are very gaily coloured and exquisitely marked,
as birds coming to us from the tropics have a
right to be. Some are quietly clad; some, like
the redstart, are dressed quite differently from
their mates and young; others, like the yellow
warbler, are so nearly alike that you could see
no difference between the male and female from
the distance of a few feet. Some live in the
tops of evergreens and other tall trees ; others,
like the Maryland yellow-throat, which seems
to prefer low trees and shrubbery, are rarely
seen over twelve feet from the ground. A few,
like the oven-bird, haunt the undergrowth in
the woods or live most of the time on the earth.
With three or four exceptions all the warblers
dwell in woodlands, and it is only during the
spring and autumn migrations that we have an
opportimity to become acquainted with them ;
when they come about the orchard and shrub-
bery for a few days' rest and refreshment during
their travels. Fortunately the cheerful little
yellow warbler stays around our homes all
summer long. Did you ever know a family so
puzzling and contradictory as the Warblers?
The great majority of these fascinating and
exasperatmg relatives are nervous, restless little
sprites, constantly flitting from branch to
Yellow Warbler 55
branch and from twig to twig in a never-ending
search for small insects. As well try to catch
a weasel asleep as a warbler at rest. People
who live in the tropics, even for a little while,
soon become lazy. Not so the warblers, whose
energy, like a steam engine's, seems to be in-
creased by heat. Of course they do not undertake
long journeys merely for pleasure, as wealthy
human tourists do. They must migrate to find
food ; and as insects are most plentiful in warm
weather, you see why these atoms of animation
keep in perpetual motion. They are among the
last migrants to come north in the spring and
among the first to leave in the autumn because
insects don't hatch out in cool weather, and
the birds must always be sure of plenty to eat.
Travelling as they do, chiefly by night, they are
killed in numbers against the lighthouses and
electric light towers which especially fascinate
these poor little victims.
Who first misled us by calling these birds
warblers? The truth is there is not one really
fine singer, like a thrush, in the whole family.
The yellow-breasted chat has remarkable vocal
ability, but he is not a real musician like the
mockingbird, who also likes to have fun with
his voice. The warblers, as a rule, have weak,
squeaky, or wiry songs and lisping tseep call
notes, neither of which ought to be called a
warble. The yellow warbler sings as acceptably
5^ Birds Every Child Should Know
as most of his kin. Seven times he rapidly
repeats ** Sweet — sweet — sweet — sweet — sweet —
sweeter-sweeter'' to his sweetheart, but this
happy Uttle lovemaker's incessant song is apt
to become almost tiresome to everybody except
his mate.
What a clever little creature she is! More
than any other bird she suffers from the per-
secutions of that dusky rascal, the cowbird.
In May, with much help from her mate, she
builds an exquisite little cradle of silvery plant
fibre, usually shreds of milkweed stalk, grass,
leaves, and caterpillars' silk, neatly lined with
hair, feathers, and the downy felt of fern fronds.
The cradle is sometimes placed in the crotch
of an elder bush, sometimes in a willow tree;
preferably near water where insects are abim-
dant, but often in a terminal branch of some
orchard tree.
Scarcely is it finished before the skulking
cowbird watches her chance to lay an egg
in it that she may not be bothered with the
care of her own baby. She knows that the
yellow warbler is a gentle, amiable, devoted
mother, who will probably work herself to death,
if necessary, rather than let the big baby cow-
bird star^'-e. But she sometimes makes a great
mistake in her individual. Not all yellow
warblers will permit the outrage. They prefer
to weave a new bottom to their nest, over the
Black and White Creeping Warbler 57
cowbird's egg, although they may seal up their
own speckled treasures with it. Suppose the
wicked cowbird comes back and lays still an-
other egg in the two-storied nest: what then?
The little Spartan yellow bird has been known
to weave still another layer of covering rather
than hatch out an unwelcome, greedy inter-
loper to crowd and starve her own precious
babies. Two and even three-storied nests are
to be found by bright-eyed boys and girls.
BLACK AND WHITE CREEPING
WARBLER
You may possibly mistake this little warbler
for a downy woodpecker when first you see him
creeping rapidly over the bark of trees, or hang-
ing from the under side of the branches. But
when he flits restlessly from twig to twig and
from tree to tree without taking time to exam-
ine spots thoroughly ; especially when he calls
a few thin wiry notes — zee-zee-zee-zee — you may
know he is no woodpecker, but a warbler.
Woodpeckers have tliick set, high shouldered
bodies which they flatten against the tree trunks ;
the males wear red in their caps, and all have
larger, stouter bills than the warbler's. Moreover,
no woodpecker is so small as this streaked and
speckled little creature who is usually too intent
58 Birds Every Child Should Know
on feeding to utter a single zee. You could not
possibly confuse him with the dilligent, placid
brown creeper or with the slate-blue nuthatch
which also creeps along the branches on the
tinder or upper side. Some children I know
call this black and white warbler the little zebra
bird. Would that all warblers were so easily
identified!
OVEN-BIRD
Called also: The Teacher ; Golden-crowned Thrush;
The Accentor,
" Teacher— r^ac/^^r— TEACHER— TEACHER-
TEA Cf/£i? ! *' resounds a penetrating, accented
voice from the woods. Who calls ? Not an im-
patient scholar, as you might suppose, but a shy
little thrush-like warbler who has no use whatever
for any human being, especially at the nesting
season in May and June, when he calls most
loudly and frequently. Beginning quite softly,
he gradually increases the intensity of each
pair of notes in a crescendo that seems to come
from a point much nearer than it really does.
Once heard it is never forgotten, and you can
always be sure of naming at least one bird by
his voice alone. However, his really exquisite
love song — a clear, ringing, vivacious melody,
uttered while the singer is fluttering, hovering,
Ovenbird in her cleverly hidden nest,
and sticks have been pulled away
secure her picture
Some of the leaves
from the front to
Young ovenbirds on day of leaving nest
Oven-bird 59
high among the tree-tops — is rarely heard, or
if heard is not recognised as the teacher's
aerial serenade. He is a warbler, let it be re-
corded, who really can sing, and beautifully,
however rarely.
Why is he called the oven-bird? A little
girl I know was offered five dollars by her father
if she could find the bird's nest in the high dry
woods near her home. ''Teacher!'' was the
commonest sound that came from them. It
rang in her ears all day, so of course she thought
it would be ' 'too easy' ' to earn the money. Every
afternoon, when school was out, she tramped
through the woods hour after hour, poking about
among the dead leaves, the snapping twigs,
the velvety moss, the fallen logs, the yoimg
spring growth of the little plants and creepers,
always keeping her eyes on the ground where
she knew the nest would be found. Day after
day she continued the search. Every time she
saw a little hump of dead leaves or twigs and
grasses her heart bounded with hope, but on
closer examination she found no nest at all.
Finally, one day when she was becoming dis-
couraged, she spied in the path a little brownish
olive bird, about the size of an English sparrow,
but with a speckled, thrush-like breast and a
dull orange V-shaped patch, bordered by black
lines, on the top of his head. He was walking
about on the ground, nodding his head a^ if
6o Birds Every Child Should Know
marking time, not hopping, sparrow-fashion;
and he took very dainty, pretty steps that sug-
gested a French dancing master. Occasionally
he would scratch the path for insects, like a tiny
chicken. Although she had never seen the
teacher, and had expected that the loud voice
came from a much larger bird, she felt sure that
this must be he, so she sat down on a log and
watched and waited. Presently she saw him tug
at a fine black hair-like root that lay across the
path, and, snapping it off, quickly fly away,
away — oh, where did he go with it? She ran
stumbling after him through the undergrowth
to a little clearing. There another bird, just
like him, whom she instantly guessed was his
mate, flew straight toward her, dropped to the
ground, ran about distractedly, dragging one
wing as if it were broken, and uttering sharp,
piteous notes of alarm. The little girl didn't
like to distress the birds, of course, but how
could she resist the temptation to find their
nest? So on she tramped around and around in
an ever widening circle, the excited birds still
hovering near and sharply scolding her. You
may be sure she was quite as excited as they.
At last, a little dome-shaped mound of
grasses, half hidden among the dry brown oak
leaves and wild geranium, gladdened her eyes.
Running around to the opposite side she knelt
down on the grass, peeped under the arched roof
Maryland Yellow-throat 6i
and into the nest, which was shaped Hke an
old-fashioned Dutch oven. Was ever a sight so
welcome? She almost screamed with joy.
Through the opening on one side, that was about
three inches high, she could see the lining of
fine black rootlets, just like the one she had
watched the bird snap off and carry away.
Then she flew home, as if she too had wings,
and, calling breathlessly "Oh Father! Father!
I've found it!'' burst into the house. A week
before even one white speckled egg had been laid
in the oven-bird's nest, there was a golden
half eagle in a happy little girl's palm. A fort-
night later a man with a camera took a picture
of the patient mother-bird, whose pretty striped
head you see peeping out from under the dome.
MARYLAND YELLOW-THROAT
Called also: Black-masked Ground Warbler
This gay little warbler looks as if he were
dressed for a masquerade ball with a gray-edged
black mask over his face and the sides of his
throat, a brownish green coat and a bright
yellow vest. He is smaller than a sparrow.
How sharply the inquisitive fellow peers at you
through his mask whenever you pass the damp
thicket, bordering the marshy land, where he
&2 Birds Every Child Should Know
likes best to live! And how quickly he hops from
twig to twig and flies from one clump of bushes
to another clump, in restless, warbler fashion,
as he leads you a dance in pursuit! Not for
a second does he stop watching you.
If you come too close, a sharp pit-pit or chock
is snapped out by the excited bird, whose fa-
miliar, oft-repeated, sprightly, waltzing triplet
has been too freely translated, he thinks, into,
Fol-low-me, foUlow-me, fol-low-me. Pursuit is
the last thing he really desires, and of coiu*se he
issues no such invitation. What he actually
says almost always sounds to me like Witch-
ee-tee, witch-ee-tee, witch-ee-tee. You will surely
hear him if you listen in his marshy retreats.
He sings almost all summer. Except when
nesting he comes into the garden, picks minute
insects out of the blossoming shrubbery, hops
about on the ground, visits the raspberry tangle,
and hides among the bushes along the roadside.
Only the yellow warbler, of all his numerous
tribe, is disposed to be more neighbourly. In
spite of his local name, he is to be found in winter
from Georgia to Labrador and Manitoba west-
ward to the Plains. You see he is something of
a traveller.
The little bird who bewitches him, and to
whom he sings the witch's song, wears no black
mask, so it is not easy to nam.e her if her mate is
not about. Her plumage is duller than his and
The Yellow-breasted Chat 63
the sides of her plump Httle body, which are
yellowish brown, shade into grayish white
underneath. Sometimes you may catch her
carrying weeds, strips of bark, broad grasses,
tendrils, reeds, and leaves for the outside of
her deep cradle, and finer grasses for its lining,
to a spot on the ground where plants and low
bushes help conceal it. She does not build so
beautiful a nest as the yellow warbler, but like
her she, too, poor thing, sometimes suffers
from the sneaking visits of the cowbird. Un-
happily, she is not so clever as her cousin,
for she meekly consents to hatch out the cow-
bird's egg and let the big, greedy interloper
crowd and worry and starve her own brood.
Why does the cowardly cowbird always choose
a victim smaller than herself?
THE YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT
*'Now he barks like a puppy, then quacks
like a duck, then rattles like a kingfisher, then
squalls like a fox, then caws like a crow, then
mews like a cat — C-r-r-r-r-r-whrr-that's it —
Chee-quack, cluck, yit-yit-yit-now — hit it —
tr-r-r-r-wheu-caw-caw-cut, cut-tea-hoy-who, who-
mew, mew,'' writes John Burroughs of this
rollicking polyglot, the chat; but not even
that close student of nature could set down on
64 Birds Every Child Should Know
paper all the multitude of queer sounds with
which the bird amuses himself. He might be
mistaken for a dozen different birds and animals
in as many minutes.
Such a secretive roysterer is he that you may
rarely see him, however often you may hear his
voice when he is hidden beyond sight in partial
clearings or the bushy, briery, thickety openings
in the woods. As he seems to delight in keep-
ing pursuers off by a natural fence of barbed
wire, the cat brier, wild blackberry, raspberry,
and rose bushes are among his favourite plants.
But if you will sit down quietly near his home,
your patience will probably be rewarded by the
sight of this largest of the warblers, with olive
green upper parts, a conspicuous white line
running from his bill around his eye and another
along his throat, and a bright yellow breast
shading to grayish white underneath. He is
over an inch longer than the English sparrow.
His wife looks just like him.
The zany at the circus can go through no
more clownish tricks than the chat. See him,
a mere bunch of feathers, dance and balance in
the air, now fluttering, now falling as if he had
been shot, or turning aerial somersaults, now
rising and trailing his legs behind him like a
stork, now dropping out of sight in the thickest
part of the thicket. The instant he spies you,
ChuUchut, he scolds from the briars. Shy,
The Redstart 65
eccentric, absurd, but inspired with a ''fine
frenzy,'' which is a passionate love for his mate
and their nest, all his queer notes and equally-
queer stunts centre about his home. On moon-
light nights, Punchinello entertains himself and
Columbine with a series of inimitable perfor-
mances which have earned him the title of
yellow mockingbird. He can throw his voice
so that it seems to come from qmte a different
direction, as you may sometime have heard a
human ventriloquist do.
THE REDSTART
When this exquisite little warbler flashes his
brilliant salmon flame and black feathers among
the trees, darting hither and thither, fluttering,
spinning about in the air after insects caught
chiefly on the wing, you will surely agree that
he is the most beautiful as well as the most
lively bird in the woods. The colour scheme
of his clothes suggests the Baltimore oriole's,
only the flaming feathers on the sides of his
body, wings, and tail are a pinker shade of flame,
and the black ones which cover his back,
throat, and upper breast, are more glossy, with
bluish reflections. Underneath he is white,
tinged with salmon. But you could not pos-
sibly mistake this lovely little sprite for the
oriole, he is so much smaller — ^about an inch
66 Birds Every Child Should Know
shorter than the sparrow. His cousin, the
Blackbumian warbler, a much rarer bird,
with a colour scheme of black, white, and
beautiful rich orange, not salmon flame, can be
named instantly by the large amount of white
in his tail feathers. There are so few brilliantly
coloured birds that find their way to us from the
tropics, that it should not take any boy or girl
longer to learn them than it does to learn the
first multiplication table. In Cuba the red-
start is known as *'E1 Candelita'* — ^the little
candle flame that flashes in the deep, dark, trop-
ical forest.
Who would believe that this small firebrand,
half glowing, half charred, whirUng about
through the trees, as if blown by the wind, is
a cousin of the sombre oven-bird that walks
so daintily and leisurely over the grotmd? The
redstart keeps perpetually in motion that he
may seize gnats and other gauzy winged mouth-
f uls in mid-air — not as the flycatchers do, by wait-
ing on a fence rail or limb of a tree for a dinner to
fly past, then dashing out and seizing it, but
by flitting about constantly in search of insect
prey. The bristles at the base of his bill pre-
vent many an insect from getting past it. He
rests on the trees only long enough to snatch a
morsel, then away he goes again. No wonder
the Spaniards call all the gaily coloured, trop-
ical wood warblers ''Mariposas'' — ^butterflies.
CHAPTER V
THE VIREOS:
ANOTHER STRICTLY AMERICAN
FAMILY
Red-Eyed Vireo
White-Eyed Vireo
Yellow-Throated Vireo
Warbling Virbo
THE VIREOS
^T^OU know that if the birds should suddenly
•*• perish, there wouldn't be a leaf, a blade of
grass, or any green thing left upon the earth
within a few years — it would be uninhabitable.
When Dame Nature, the most thorough of
housekeepers, gave to the birds the task of
restraining insects within bounds so that man
and beast could live, she gave the care of foliage
to the vireos. It is true that most of the war-
blers, and a few other birds too, hunt for their
food among the leaves, but with nothing like
the vireo's painstaking care and thoroughness.
The nervous, restless warblers flit from twig
to twig without half exploring the foliage;
whereas the deUberate, methodical vireos search
leisurely above and below it, cocking their little
heads so as to look up at the under side of the
leaf above them and to peck off the destroyers
hidden there — ^bugs of many kinds and count-
less little worms, caterpillars, weevils, inch-
worms, May beetles, and leaf-eating beetles.
Singing as they go, no birds more successfully
combine work and play.
Because they spend their lives among the
foliage, the vireos are protectively coloured ; with
69
70 Birds Every Child Should Know
soft grayish or olive green on their backs, wings,
and tail, whitish or yellow below. Some people
call them greenlets. They are all a little smaller
than sparrows. More inconspicuous birds it
would be hard to find or more abundant, al-
though so commonly overlooked except by
people on the look-out for them. Where the
new growth of foliage at the ends of the branches
is young and tender, many insects prefer to lay
their eggs that their babies may have the most
dainty fare as soon as they are hatched. They
do not reckon upon the vireos' visits.
Toward the end of April or the first of May,
these tireless gleaners return to us from Central
and South America where they have spent the
winter, which of course you know, is no winter
on the other side of the equator, but a con-
tinuation of summer for them. Competition
for food being more fierce in the tropics than
it is here, millions of birds besides the warblers
and vireos travel from beyond the Isthmus of
Panama to the United States and back again
every year in order that they may live in per-
petual summer with an abundance of food.
If any child thinks that birds are mere creatures
of pleasure, who sing to pass the time away, he
doesn't begin to understand how hard they
must work for a living. They cannot limit their
labours to an eight-hour day. However, they
keep cheerful through at least sixteen busy hours.
The Red-eyed Vireo 71
THE RED-EYED VIREO
Almost everywhere in the Eastern United
States and Canada, the red-eyed vireo is the
most common member of his family. The
only individual touch to his costume that helps
to distinguish him is a gray cap edged with a
black line which runs parallel to his conspicuous
white eyebrow. He wears a dull olive coat and
a white vest. But listen to the Preacher ! You
have no need to meet him face to face in order
to know him : '' You see it — you know it — do you
hear me ? — do you believe itf ' ' he propounds inces-
santly through the long summer days, even after
most other birds are silent. You cannot mistake
his voice. With a rising inflection at the end of
each short, jerky sentence, he asks a question
very distinctly and sweetly, then pauses an
ixistant as if waiting for a reply — an unusually
courteous orator. His monotonous monologue,
repeated over and over again, comes to us from
the elms and maples in the village street, the
orchard and woodland, where he keeps steadily
and deliberately at work. Some boys say they
can whittle better if they whistle. Vireos
seem to hunt more thoroughly if they sing.
Like the rest of his kin, the red-eyed vireo is
quite tame. A little girl I know actually stroked
the pretty head of a mother bird as she sat
brooding in her exquisite nest, and a week later
72 Birds Every Child Should Know
carried one of the young birds all around the
garden on a rake handle.
Vireos are remarkably fine builders — among
the very best. Although their nests are not so
deep as the Baltimore orioles', the shape and
weave are similar. The red-eye usually prefers
to swing her cradle from a small crotch in an
oak or apple tree or sapling, and securely lace
it through the rim on to the forked twigs. Nests
vary in appearance, but you will notice that these
weavers show a preference for dried grass as a
foundation into which are wrought bits of bark,
lichen, wasps' nest *' paper," spider web, plant
down, and curly vine tendrils.
THE WHITE-EYED VIREO
It is not often that you can get close enough
to any bird to see the white of his eyes, but the
brighter olive green of this vivacious little
white-eyed vireo's upper parts, his white breast,
faintly washed with yellow on the sides, and the
two yellowish white bars on his wings help you
to recognise him at a distance. Imagine my
surprise to meet him in Bermuda, over six
hundred miles out at sea from the Carolina
coast, where he, too, was taking a winter va-
cation! In those beautiful islands, where our
familiar catbirds and cardinals also abound,
The White-eyed Vireo 73
^m^ white-eyed vireo is the most common bird
^ be seen. His sweet, vigorous, irregular
interrogation may be heard all day. But there
he is known by quite a different name — '' Chick
of the Village. ' ' It was a pleasant shock to hear,
*' Now, who are you, ehf piquantly sung out at
me, a stranger in the islands, by this old ac-
quaintance in a hibiscus bush within a few steps
of the pier where the steamer landed.
In the United States where he nests, his
manners are less sociable; in fact they are
rather pert, even churlish at times, and never
very friendly. Here he loves to hide in such
low, briery, bushy tangles as the chat and
catbird choose. By no stretch of the imagin-
ation would his chic Bermuda name fit him
here, for he has little to do with villages and he
resents your advances toward more intimate
acquaintance with harsh, cackling scoldings,
half to himself, half to you, until you, in turn,
resent his impertinence and leave him alone —
just what the independent little fellow wanted.
He has a strong, decided character, you perceive.
His precious nest, so jealously guarded, is
a deeper cup than that of his cousin with the
red eye, deeper than that of any of the other
vireos, and it usually contains three favourite
materials in addition to those generally chosen
by them: they are bits of wood usually stolen
from some woodpecker's hole^ shreds of paper.
74 Birds Every Child Should Know
and yards and yards of fine caterpillar silk,
by which the nest is hung from its slender fork
in the thicket. It also contains, not infre
quently, alas! a cowbird's most unwelcome egg.
THE YELLOW-THROATED VIREO
In a family not conspicuous for its fine
feathers, this is certainly the beauty. The
clear lemon yellow worn at its throat spreads
over its vest; its coat is a richer and more
yellowish green than the other vireos wear, and
its two white wing-bars are as conspicuous as
the white-eyed vireo's. Moreover its mellow
and rich voice, like a contralto's, is raised to
a higher pitch at the end of a sweetly sung
triplet. ''See me; Fm here; where are youV the
singer inquires over and over again from the
trees m the woodland, or perhaps in the village
when nesting duties are not engrossing. Don't
mistake it for the chat simply because its
throat is yellow.
As this is the beauty of the family, so is it
also the best nest builder.
THE WARBLING VIREO
High up in the top of elms and maples that
line village streets where the red-eyed vireo loves
The Warbling Vireo 75
to hunt, even among the trees of so busy a
thoroughfare as Boston Common, an almost
continuous warble in the early summer in-
dicates that some unseen singer is hidden there ;
but even if you get a glimpse of the warbling
vireo you could not tell him from his red-eyed
cousin at that height. Modestly dressed, with-
out even a white eye-brow or wing-bars to re-
lieve his plain dusty olive and whitish clothes,
he is the least impressive member of his retiring,
inconspicuous family. He asks you no ques-
tions in jerky, colloquial triplets of song, so
you may know by his voice at least that he is
not the red-eyed vireo. Some self-conscious
birds, like the song sparrow, mount to a con-
spicuous perch before they begin to sing, as if
they had to deliver a distinct number on a
programme before a waiting audience. Not
so with this industrious little gleaner to whom
singing and dining seem to be a part of the
same performance — one and inseparable. He
sings as he goes, snatching a bit of insect food
between warbles.
Although towns do not affright him, he really
prefers wooded border-land and clearings, es-
pecially where birch trees abound, when it is
time to rear a family.
A red -eyed vireo baby in his cradle
Out of it
Home of the loggerhead shrike, with plenty of convenient
hooks for this butcher bird to hang meat on
CHAPTER VI
BIRDS NOT OF A FEATHER
Two BUTCHER-BlRDS
Cedar Waxwing
Scarlet Tanager
THE BUTCHER-BIRDS OR SHRIKES
TS IT not curious that among our so-called
-*• song birds there should be two, about
the size of robins, the loggerhead and the
northern shrike, with the hawk-like habit of
killing little birds and mice, and the squirreFs
and blue jay's trick of storing what they cannot
eat? They are butchers, with the thrifty
custom of hanging up their meat, which only
improves in flavour and tenderness after a day
or two of curing. Then, even if storms should
drive their little prey to shelter and snow should
cover the fields, they need not worry nor starve
seeing an abundance in their larder provided
for the proverbial rainy day.
In the Southern and Middle States, where the
smaller loggerhead shrike is most common,
some children say he looks like a mockingbird ;
but the feathers on his back are surely quite a
different gray, a light-bluish ash, and pearly on
his under parts, with white in his black wings
and tail which is conspicuous as he flies. His
powerful head, which is large for his size, has a
heavy black line running from the end of his
mouth across his cheek, and his strong bill has a
hook on the end which is useful in tearing the
79
8g Birds Every Child Should Know
flesh from his victim's bones. He really looks
like nothing but just what he is — a butcher-bird.
See him, quiet and preoccupied, perched on
a telegraph pole on the lookout for a dinner!
A kingbird, or other flycatcher which chooses
similar perches, would sail off suddenly into
the air if a winged insect hove in sight, snap it
up, make an aerial loop in its flight and return
to its old place. Not so the solitary, sanguinary
shrike. When his wonderfully keen eyes de-
tect a grasshopper, a cricket, a big beetle, a
lizard, a little mouse, or a sparrow at a distance
in a field, he drops like an eagle upon the victim,
seizes it with his strong beak, and flies with
steady flapping strokes of the wings, close along
the ground, straight to the nearest honey locust
or spiny thorn ; then rises with a sudden upward
turn into the tree to impale his prey. Hawks,
who use the same method of procuring food,
have very strong feet ; their talons are of great
help in holding and killing their victims; but
the shrikes, which have rather weak, sparrows-
like feet, for perching only, are really compelled
in many cases to make use of stout thorns or
sharp twigs to help them quiet the struggles
of their victims. Weather-vanes, lightning
rods, bare branches, or the outermost or top
branches of tall trees, high poles, and telegraph
wires, which afford a fine bird's eye-view of the
surrounding hunting ground, are favourite points
The Butcher-birds or Shrikes 8i
of vantage for both shrikes. When it is time
to husk the corn, every farmer's boy must have
seen a shrike sitting on a fence-rail or hovering
in the air ready to seize the httle meadow mice
that escape from the shocks.
It is sad to record that sometimes shrikes also
sneak upon their prey. When they resort to
this mean method of securing a dinner they
leave the high perches and secrete themselves
in clumps of bushes in the open field. Luring
little birds within striking distance by imitating
their call notes, they pounce upon a terror-
striken sparrow before you could say ''Jack
Robinson." Shrikes seem to be the only
creatures that really rejoice in the rapid increase
of English sparrows. In summer they prefer
large insects, especially grasshoppers, but in
winter when they can get none, they must
have the fresh meat of birds or mice. At
any season they deserve the fullest protection
for the service they do the farmer. Shrikes
kill only that they themselves may live, and not
for the sake of slaughter, which is a so-called
sport reserved for man alone, who in any case,
should be the last creature to condemn them.
The loggerhead's call-notes are harsh, creak-
ing, and unpleasant, but at the approach of the
nesting season he proves that he really can sing,
although not half as well as his cousin, the
northern shrike, who astonishes us with a fine
82 Birds Every Child Should Know
song some morning in early spring. Before we
become familiar with it, however, the wander-
ing minstrel is off to the far north to nest within
the arctic circle. It is only in winter that the
northern shrike visits the United States, travel-
ling as far south as Virginia and Kansas between
October and April. He is larger than the log-
gerhead, being a little over ten inches long, a
goodlooking winter visitor in a gray suit with
black and white trimmings on his wings and tail
and wavy bars on his breast. Bradford Torrey
used to visit a vireo that would drink water
from a teaspoon which he held out to her while
she sat brooding on her nest. I know a lady
who fed bits of raw meat to a wounded shrike
from the tines of a fork, the best substitute
for a thorn she could find, because he fotmd it
awkward to eat from a dish.
THE CEDAR WAXWING
Called also: Cedarhird; Cherry-bird; Bonnet
bird. Silk-tail.
So few birds wear their head feathers crested
that it is a simple matter to name them by
their top-knots alone, even if you did not see
the gray plumage of the little tufted titmouse,
the dusky hue of the crested flycatcher, the blue
The Cedar Waxwing 83
of the jay and the kingfisher, the red of the
cardinal, and the richly shaded grayish-brown of
the cedar waxwing, which is, perhaps, the most
familiar of them all. His neat and well-groomed
plumage is fine and very silky, almost dove-like
in colouring, and although there are no gaudy
features about it, few of our birds are so ex-
quisitely dressed. The pointed crest, which
rises and falls to express every passing emotion,
and the velvety black chin, forehead, and line
running apparently through the eye, give dis-
tinction to the head. The tail has a narrow
yellow band across its end, and on the wings are
the small red spots like sealing wax that are
responsible for the bird's queer name. The
waxwing is larger than a sparrow and smaller
than a robin.
But it is difficult to think of a single bird
when one usually sees a fiock. Sociable to a
degree, the waxwings rove about a neighbour-
hood in scattered companies, large and small,
to feed on the cedar or juniper berries, choke-
cherries, dog-wood and woodbine berries, elder,
haw, and other small wild fruits on which they
feed very greedily ; then move on to some other
place where their favourite fruit abotmds.
Happily, they care very little about our culti-
vated fruit and rarely touch it. A good way
to invite many kinds of birds to visit one's
neighbourhood is to plant plenty of berry-
84 Birds Every Child Should Know
bearing trees and shrubs. The birds themselves
plant most of the wild ones, by dropping the
imdigested berry seeds far and wide. How
could the seeds of many species be distributed
over thousands of miles of land without their
help? If will surprise you to count the number
of trees about your home that have been
planted, quite unconsciously, by birds many
years before you were born. Cedarbirds are
responsible for no small part of the beauty of
the lanes and hedgerows throughout their wide
range from sea to sea and from Canada to
Mexico and Central America. Nature, you see,
makes her creatures work for her, whether
they know they are helping her plans or not.
When a flock of cedarbirds enters your
neighbourhood, there is no noisy warning of
their coming. Gentle, refined in manners,
courteous to one another, almost silent visitors,
they will sit for hours nearly motionless in a
tree while digesting a recent feast. An occa-
sional bird may shift his position, then, politely
settling himself again without disturbing the
rest of the company, remain quiet as before.
Lisping, Twee-twee-zee call notes, like a hushed
whispered whistle, are the only sounds the
visitors make. How different from a roving
flock of screaming, boisterous blue jays!
When rising to take wing, the squad still
keeps together, flying evenly and swiftly in
The gorgeous scarlet tanager who sang in this tree was killed
by a sling-shot. The nest was deserted by his terrified
mate
The Cedar Waxwing 85
close ranks on a level with the tree-tops along
a straight course; or, wheeling suddenly, the
birds dive downward into a promising, leafy,
restaurant. Enormous numbers of insects are
consumed by a flock. The elm-beetle, which
destroys the beauty, if not the life, of some of
our finest shade trees, would be exterminated
if there were cedarbirds enough. One flock
within a week rid a New England village of
this pest that had eaten the leaves on the double
row of elms which had been the glory of its
broad main street for over a hundred years.
When you see these birds in an orchard, look
for better apples there next year. Canker-
worms are a bon bouche to them; so are grubs
and caterpillars, especially cutworms.
Sometime after all the other birds, except
the tardy little goldfinch, have nested, the
waxwings give up the flocking habit and live
in pairs. Toward the end of June, when many
birds are rearing the second brood, you may see
a couple begin to carry grass, shreds of bark,
twine, fine roots, catkins, moss or rags — ^any
or all of these building materials — ^to some tree,
usually a fruit tree or a cedar ; and then, if you
watch carefully, you will find what is not al-
ways the case with humans — ^the birds' manners
at home are even better than when moving in
society abroad. The devoted male brings
dainties to his brooding mate and helps her feed
86 Birds Every Child Should Know
their family. Moreover, cedarbirds are very
good to feathered orphans.
THE SCARLET TANAGER
Called also: Black-winged Redbird
People who are now living can remember
when scarlet tanagers were as common as robins.
Where are they now? You see a redbird at
the north so rarely that a thrill of excitement is
felt when a flash of scarlet among the tree-tops
makes the day a red-letter one on your bird
calendar. Alas! He has, what has certainly
proved to be, the fatal gift of beauty. A
scarlet coat with black wings and tail, worn by
a bird larger than a sparrow, makes a shining
mark among the foliage for the shot gun and
sling shot. Thousands of tanagers have been
slaughtered to be worn on the unthinking heads
of vain girls and women. Many are killed
every year, during the spring and autumn
migrations, by flying against the great light-
houses along our coasts, the birds' highway
of travel. Tanagers, who are only summer
visitors from the tropics, are peculiarly suscepti-
ble to cold; a sudden change in the weather,
a drop in the thermometer some time in May
just after they have come here from a warmer
The Scarlet Tanager 87
climate and are still especially sensitive, will
kill off great numbers in the north woods and
in Canada. They really should postpone their
journey a little while until the weather becomes
settled and there are fewer fogs on the coast.
The male tanager, in his wedding garment, is
sometimes mistaken for a cardinal by people
who only half see any object they look at.
Bird study sharpens the sight wonderfully, and
teaches boys and girls the importance of accur-
rate observation. The cardinal, a larger bird,
is almost as large as a robin ; he is a rich, deep
red all over, and not a scarlet shade. Moreover
he wears a pointed crest by which you may al-
ways know him, while the tanager, whose head
is smooth, may be certainly named by his black
wings and tail. After the nesting season, the
tanager begins to moult and then he is a queer
looking object indeed in his motley coat. Only
little patches and streaks of scarlet remain here
and there among the olive green feathers that
gradually replace the red ones until, in winter,
he becomes completely transformed into ac
olive bird with black wings, looking like his
immature sons. How tiresome to have to
change his feathers again toward spring before
he can hope to woo and win a mate !
The exacting little lady bird, who demanc^
such fine feathers, is herself quietly clad in light
olive green with a more yellowish tinge on hex
88 Birds Every Child Should Know
lighter breast that she may be In perfect colour
harmony with the leaves she lives and nests
among. If she, too, wore scarlet, I fear the
tanager tribe would have disappeared years
ago. Happily her protective colouring, which
betrays no nest secrets, has saved the species.
Is it not strange that birds, who spend the
rest of their lives among the tree-tops, hunting
among the foliage for insects and small fruit,
should nest so low? Sometimes they place
their cradle on a limb only six feet from the
ground. It is a rather shabby, poorly made
affair which very lively tanager youngster might
easily tumble apart. ''Chip — churr'' calls the
gorgeous father from the tree top, and a re-
assuring reply that all is well with the nest
floats up to him from his mate. He does not
often risk its safety by showing himself near
the nest, securely hidden by the foliage below.
If, toward the end of May, you hear him singing
his real song, which is somewhat like an oriole's
mellow, cheery carol, you may be sure he is
planning to spend the summer in your neigh-
bourhood. Not many miles from New York
there is a house built on the top of a hill, whose
sides are covered with oak and chestnut woods,
where one may be sure to see tanagers among
the tree tops from any window at any hour of
any day from May to October. Several nests
in those woods are saddled on to the horizontal
The Scarlet Tanager 89
limbs of the white oak. Not, many people are
blessed with such beautiful, interesting neigh-
bours.
In the Southern States, one of the most fa-
miliar birds in the orange groves, orchards, and
woods of pine and oak, is the summer tanager,
another smooth-headed redbird, but without a
black feather on him. He is fire red all over.
Of the three hundred and fifty species of tana-
gers in the tropics, only two think it worth
while to visit the Eastern United States and one
of these frequently suffers because he starts too
early. Suppose all should suddenly decide to
come north some spring and spend the summer
with us! Our woods would be filled with some
of the most brilliant and gorgeous birds in the
world. Don't you wish all the members of the
family were as adventurous as the scarlet
tanager?
CHAPTER VII
THE SWALLOWS
Purple Martin
Barn Swallow
Cliff Swallow
Bank Swallow
Tree Swallo'XF
THE SWALLOWS
IF YOU were a bird, could you think of
any way of earning a living more delightful
than sailing about in the air all day, playing
cross-tag on the wing with your companions,
skimming low across the meadows, ponds and
marshes, or rising high above them and darting
hither and thither wherever you pleased, with-
out knowing what it means to feel tired ? Swal-
lows are as much in their element when in the
air as fish are in water; but don't imagine they
are there simply for fun. Their long, blade-
like wings, which cut the air with such easy,
but powerful strokes, propel them enormous
distances before they have collected enough
mosquitoes, gnats and other little gauzy-
winged insects to supply such great energy
and satisfy their hunger. With mouth widely
gaping, leaving an opening in the front of their
broad heads that stretches from ear to ear, they
get a tremendous draught down their little
throats, but they gather in a dinner piece-meal
just as the chimney swift, whip-poor-will and
night-hawk do. Viscid saliva in the bird's
mouth glues the little victims as fast as if they
were caught on sticky fly-paper; then, when
93
94 Birds Every Child Should Know
enough have been trapped to make a pellet, the
swallow swallows them in a ball, although
one swallow does not make a dinner, any more
than one swallow makes a summer.
These sociable birds delight to live in com-
panies, even during the nesting season when
most feathered couples, however glad to flock
at other times, prefer to be alone. As soon as
the yotmg birds can take wing, one family
party unites with another, one colony with
another, until often enormous numbers assemble
in the marshes in August and September. You
see them strung like beads along the telegraph
wires, perched on the fences, circling over the
meadows and ponds, zigzagging across the
sky. Millions of swallows have been noted in
some of these autumnal flocks. Usually they
go to sleep among the reeds and grasses in a
favourite marsh where the bands return year
after year ; but some prefer trees*. Comparatively
little perching is done except at night, for swal-
lows' feet are very small and weak.
At sunrise, the birds scatter in small bands
to pick up on the wing the long continued meal,
which lasts till late in the afternoon. Those
who have gone too far abroad and must travel
back to the roost after sundown shoot across
the sky with incredible swiftness lest darkness
overtake them. Relying upon their speed of
flight to carry them beyond the reach of en-
The Purple Martin 95
emies, they migrate boldly by daylight instead
of at night as the timid little vireos and warblers
do. During every day the swallows are with
us they must consume billions and trillions of
blood-sucking insects that would pester other
animals beside ourselves. Think of the mos-
quito bites alone that they prevent! Every
one of us is greatly in their debt.
Male and female swallows are dressed so
nearly alike that you can scarcely tell one from
the other. Both twitter merrily but neither
really sings.
THE PURPLE MARTIN
There is a picturesque old inn beside a post
road in New Jersey with a five-storied mar-
tin house set up on a pole above its quaint
swinging sign. For over thirty years a record
was kept on the pole showing the dates of the
coming and going of the martins in April and
September, which did not vary by more than
two or three days during all that time. The
inn-keeper locked up in his safe every night the
registers on which were entered the arrivals
and departures of his human guests, but he
valued far more the record of his bird visitors
which interested everybody who stopped at his
inn.
96 Birds Every Child Should Know
One day, while he was away, a man who
was painting a fence for him thought he would
surprise him by freshening up the old, weather-
beaten pole. Alas! He painted ove^ every
precious mark. You may be sure the surprise
recoiled upon him like a boomerang when the
wrathful inn-keeper returned. However, the
martins continue to come back to their old
home year after year and rear their broods on
little heaps of leaves in every room in the house,
which is the cheerful fact of the story.
These glossy, blue-black iridescent swallows^
grayish white underneath, the largest of their
graceful tribe, have always been great favourites.
Even the Indians in the Southern States used to
hang gourds for them to nest in about their
camps — a practice continued by the Negroes
around their cabins to this day. Strangely
enough these birds which nested and slept in
hollow trees before the coming of the white
men, were among the first to take advantage
of his presence. Now, in the Eastern United
States, at least, the pampered darlings of
luxury positively refuse to live where people
do not put up houses for their comfort. In
the sparsely settled West, however, they still
condescend to live in trees, but only when they
must, like the chimney-swifts, who, by the way
are no relation. Plenty of people persist in
calling them chimney swallows, which is pre-
Young barn swallows cradled under the rafters
The Purple Martin 97
cisely what they are not. Not even the Httle
house wren has adapted itself so quickly to
civilised men's homes, as the swift and purple
martin.
Intelligent people, who are only just begin-
ning to realise what birds do for us and how
very much more they might be induced to do,
are putting up boxes for the martins, not only
near their own houses, that the birds may rid the
air of mosquitoes, but in their gardens and
orchards that incalculable numbers of injurious
pests in the winged stage may be destroyed.
When martins return to us in spring from
Central and South America, where they have
passed the winter, insects are just beginning to
fly, and if they can be captured then, before
they have a chance to lay their eggs, you see
how much trouble and money are saved for the
farmers by their tireless allies, the swallows.
Unfortunately, purple martins are not so com-
mon at the North as they were before the coming
of those saucy little immigrants, the English
sparrows, who take possession, by fair means
or by foul, of every house that they can find.
In the South, where the martins are still very-
numerous, a peach grower I know has set up
in his orchard rows of poles, with a house on
each, either for them or for bluebirds. He
says these bird partners are of inestimable value
in keeping his fruit trees free from insects.
98 Birds Every Child Should Know
The curculio, one of the worst enemies every
fruit grower has to fight, destroying as it does
miUions of dollars worth of crops every year,
is practically unknown in that Georgia planter's
orchard. Some day farmers all over the
United States will wake up and copy his good
idea.
A colony of martins circling about a house
give it a delightful home-like air. Their very-
soft, sweet conversation with one another
as they fly, sounds like rippling, musical
laughter.
THE BARN SWALLOW
Do you know where there is an old-fashioned,
weather-worn bam, with its hospitable doors
standing open, where you could not find at
least one pair of bam swallows at home beneath
its roof? These birds, you will notice, prefer
dilapidated old farm buildings, whose doors are
ojff their hinges, and whose loose shingles or
broken clapboards offer plenty of entrances
and exits. If you like to play around a barn
as well as every child I know, you must be
already acquainted with the exquisite, dark
steel-blue swallows with glistening reddish buflE
breasts, and deeply forked tails, that dart and
glide in and out of the openings, merrily twitter-
ing as they fly. While you tumble about in the
The Barn Swallow 99
hay among the rafters the swallows go and
come, so that, quite unconsciously, you will
associate them with happy hours as long as you
live.
High up on some beam, too high for the
children to reach, let us hope, a pair of barn
swallows will plaster their mud cradle. Did
you ever see them gathering pellets of wet soil
in their bills at some roadside puddle? It is,
perhaps, the only time you can ever catch them
with their feet on the earth. Each mud pill
must be carried to the barn and fastened on to
the rafter. Countless trips are made to the
puddle before a sufficient number of pellets
are worked into the deep mud walls of the ample
nursery. Usually grass is mixed with the mud,
but some swallows make their bricks without
straw. A lining of fine hay and plenty of
feathers from the chicken yard seem to be
essential for their comfort, which is a pity, be-
cause almost always chicken feathers are
infested with lice, and lice kill more young birds
than we like to think about. \Vhen there is a
nestful of fledglings to feed, sticky little pellets
of insects, caught on the wing, are carried to
them by both parents from daylight to dusk.
Do notice how tirelessly they work!
In a family famous for graceful, rapid flight,
the barn swallow easily excels all his relations.
The deep fork in his tail enables him to steer
loo Birds Every Child Should Know
himself with those marvellously quick, erratic
turns, which make his course through the air
resemble forked lightning. But with what
exquisite grace he can also glide and skim across
the water, fields and meadows without an
apparent movement of the wing! His flight
seems the very poetry of motion. The ease
of it accounts for the very wide distribution
of barn swallows from southern Brazil in win-
ter to Greenland and Alaska in summer. What
a journey to take twice a year!
THE EAVE OR CLIFF SWALLOW
More than any other bird family, the swal-
lows are becoming increasingly dependent for
shelter upon man, at least when they are nest-
ing; and as this is the season when they are
most valuable to him because of the enormous
numbers of insects they prevent from multi-
plying, let us hope that familiarity with us
will never breed contempt and cause them to
return to their old, uncivilised building sites.
In the sparsely settled West, the cliff swallow
still fastens its queer, gourd-shaped, mud nest
against projecting rocks, but in the East it is
so quick to take advantage of the eaves of the
barns and other out-buildings, that its old name
does not apply, and we know it here only as an
eave swallow.
The Bank Swallow loi
The barn swallow, as we have seen, chooses
to nest upon the rafters inside the barn, but the
cave swallow is content to stay outside under
the shelter of a projecting roof. In such a place
you find not one, but several or many mud
tenements plastered in a row against the wall,
for eave swallows are always remarkably so-
ciable, even at the nesting season. A photo-
graph of a colony I have seen shows one htmdred
and fifteen nests nearly all of which touch one
another.
Although so often noticed circling about
bams, you may know by the rusty patch on the
lower part of his steel-blue back, the crescent-
shaped white mark on his forehead, and the
notched, not deeply forked tail, that the eave
swallow is not the barn swallow, which it other-
wise resembles.
THE BANK SWALLOW
Called also: Sand Martin; Sand Swallow
Perhaps you have seen a sand bank some-
where, probably near a river or pond, where
the side of the bank was filled with holes as if
a small cannon had been trained against it as
a target. In and out of the holes fly the
smallest of the swallows, with ^ no lovely me-
tallic blue or glistening buff in their dull plum-
I02 Birds Every Child Should Know
age, which is plain brownish gray above, white
underneath, with a grayish band across the
breast. Only their cousin, the rough-winged
swallow, whose breast is brownish gray, is so
plainly dressed.
The giggling twitter of the bank swallows as
they wheel and dart through the air above you,
proves that they are never too busy hunting
for a dinner to speak a cheerful word to their
friends. Year after year a colony will return to
a favourite bank, whose face has been honey-
combed with such care. Think of the labour
and patience required for so small a bird to dig
a tunnel two feet deep, more or less! Some
nests have been placed as far as four feet from
the entrance. You are not surprised at the big
kingfisher, who also tunnels a hole in a bank for
his family, because his long, strong bill makes
digging comparatively easy ; but for the small-
billed, weak-footed swallow, the work must be
difficult indeed. What a pity they cannot hire
moles to make the tunnels with their strong,
flat, spade -like feet. No wonder the birds be-
come attached to the tunnels that have cost so
much labour. When there are no longer any
baby swallows on the heaps of twigs, grass and
feathers at the end of them, the birds use them
as resting places by day as well as by night until
it is time to gather in vast flocks and speed away
to the tropics.
The Tree Swallow 103
THE TREE SWALLOW
Called also: White-breasted Swallow
Probably this is the most abundant swallow
that we have; certainly countless numbers
assemble every year in the Long Island and
Jersey marshes, perch on the telegraph wires
and skim, with much circUng, above the mead-
ows and streams in a perfect ecstasy of flight.
At a little distance the bird appears to be black
above and white below, but as he suddenly
wheels past, you see that his coat is a lustrous
dark steel green. Immature birds are brownish
gray. All have white breasts.
As the tree swallows are the only members
-of their family who spend the winter in the
Southeastern United States, they can easily
arrive at the North some time before their rela-
tives from the tropics overtake them. And they
are the last to leave. Myriads remain in the
vicinity of New York until the middle of Octo-
ber. There is plenty of time to rear two broods,
which accounts for the great size of the flocks.
By the Fourth of July the young of the first
broods are off hunting for little gauzy-winged
insects over the low lands ; and about a month
later the parents join their flock, bringing with
them more youngsters than you could count.
They sleep every night in the marshes, cling-
ing to the reeds.
K>4 Birds Every Child Should Know
Like the cliff swallow, the tree swallow is
fast losing the right to its name. It takes
so kindly to the boxes we set up for martins,
bluebirds and wrens that, where sparrows do
not interfere, it now prefers them to the hollow
trees, which once were its only shelter. But
some tree swallows still cling to old-fashioned
ways and at least rest in hollow trees and
stumps, even if they do not nest in them.
Some day they may become as dependent upon
us as the martins and, like them, refuse to nest
where boxes are not provided.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SPARROW TRIBE
Song Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
Field Sparrow
Vesper Sparrow
English Sparrow
Chipping Sparrow
Tree Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Fox Sparrow
JUNCO
Snowflake
Goldfinch
Purple Finch
Indigo Bunting
Towhee
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Cardinal Grosbeak
THE SPARROW TRIBE
T IKE the poor, the sparrows are always
•*--' with us. There is not a day in the year
when you cannot find at least one member of
the great tribe which comprises one-seventh
of all our birds — ^by far the largest North Amer-
ican family. What is the secret of their
triumphant numbers?
Many members of the hardy, prolific clan,
wearing dull brown and gray-streaked feathers,
in perfect colour harmony with the grassy, bushy
places or dusty roadsides where they live, are
usually overlooked by enemies in search of a
dinner. Undoubtedly their protective colouring
has much to do with their increase. They
are small birds mostly, not one so large as a
robin.
Sparrows being seed eaters chiefly, although
none of the tribe refuses insect meat in season,
and all give it to their nestlings, there is never
a time when they cannot find food, even at the
frozen North where some weedy stalks project
above the snow. They are not fastidious.
Fussy birds, like fussy people, have a hard time
in this world ; but the whole sparrow tribe, with
few exceptions, make the best of things as they
io8 Birds Every Child Should Know
find them and readily adapt themselves to
whatever conditions they meet. How wonder-
fully that saucy little gamin, the English spar-
row, has adjusted himself to this new land!
Members of the more aristocratic finch and
grosbeak branches of the family, however, who
wear brighter clothes, pay the penalty by de-
creasing numbers as our boasted civilisation
surrounds them. Gay feathers afford a shining
mark. Naturally grosbeaks prefer to live
among protective trees. They are delightful
singers, and so, indeed, are some of their plain
little sparrow cousins.
All the members of the family have strong,
conical bills well suited to crush seeds, and
gizzards, like a chicken's, to grind them fine.
These little grist-mills within the birds' bodies
extract all the nourishment there is from the
seed. The sparrow tribe, you will notice, do
immense service by destroying the seeds of
weeds, which, but for them, would quickly
overrun the farmer's fields and choke his crops.
Because these hardy gleaners can pick up a
living almost anywhere, they do not need to
make very long journeys every spring and au-
tumn. Their migrations are comparatively
short when undertaken at all. As a rule their
flight is laboured, slow, and rather heavy — just
the opposite from the wonderfully swift and
graceful flight of the swallows.
The Song Sparrow 109
THE SONG SPARROW
This is most children's favourite bird: is it
yours? Although by no means the belle of the
family, the song sparrow is beloved throughout
its vast range if for no other reason than be*
cause it is irrepressibly cheerful. Good spirits
are contagious : every one feels better for having
a neighbour always in a good humour. Most
birds mope when it rains, or when they shed
their feathers, or when the weather is cold and
dreary, or when something doesn't please them,
and cultivate their voices only when they fall
in love in the happy spring-time. But you
may hear the hardy, healthful song sparrow's
** merry cheer" almost every month in the year,
in fair weather or in foul, in the middle of the
night and in broad daylight, when a little mate
is to be wooed with light-hearted vivacity,
when two, three, or even four broods severely
tax the singer's energy through the summer,
when clothes must be changed in August
and when the cold of approaching winter drives
every other singer from the choir. The most
familiar song — for this tuneful sparrow has at
least six similar but slightly different melodies
in his repertoire — begins with a full round note
three times repeated, then dashes off into a
sweet, short, lively, intricate strain that almost
trips itself in its hasty utterance. Few people
no Birds Every Child Should Know
whistle well enough to imitate it Few birds
can rival the musical ecstasy.
Artlessly self-confident, not at all bashful,
the song sparrow mounts to a conspicuous
perch when he sings, rather than let his efforts
be muffled by foliage. Don't mistake him for
an English sparrow; notice his distinguishing
marks: the fme dark streaks on his light breast
tend to form a larger blotch in the centre. You
see him singing on the extended branch of some
low tree, on the topmost twig of a bush, on
a fence, or a piazza railing from which he dives
downward into the grass, or flies straight along
into the bushes, his tail working like a pump
handle as if to help his flight. Very rarely he
flies upward. Diving into a bush is one of his
specialties. He best likes to live in regions
near water.
The song sparrows that come almost every
day in the year among many other birds to my
piazza roof for waste canary seed and such
delicacies, show refreshing spirit in driving
off the English sparrows who, let it be recorded,
can get not a morsel until the song sparrows are
abundantly satisfied. One of the latter is quite
able to keep off half a dozen of his English
cousins. How does he do it? Not by his
superior size, for the measurements of both
birds show that they are about the same length
although the song sparrow's slightly longer and
Swamp Sparrow 1 1 1
more graceful tail makes him appear a trifle
larger. Certainly not by any rowdy, bold
assaults, which are the English bird's specialty.
But by simply assuming superiority and expres-
sing it only by running in a threatening attitude
toward each English sparrow who dares to
alight on the roof, does he bluff him into flying
away again! There is never a fight, not even
an ill-mannered scolding, just quiet monopoly
for a few minutes, then a joyous outburst of
song. After that the English sparrows may
take the songster's leavings.
SWAMP SPARROW
Where rails thread their way among the
rushes, and red-winged blackbirds, marsh wrens,
and Maryland yellow-throats like to live, there
listen for the tweet-tweet-tweet of the swamp
sparrow. It is a sweet but rather monotonous
little song that he repeats over and over again
to the mate who is busy about her grassy nest
in a tussock not far away, but well hidden among
the rank swamp growth.
Some children say it is difficult to tell the
plain gray-breasted swamp sparrow from the
larger song sparrow with the streaked breast;
but I am sure their eyes are not so sharg as
yours.
112 Birds Every Child Should Know
FIELD SPARROW
While the neighbourly song sparrow and the
swamp sparrow delight to be near water, the
field sparrow chooses to live in dry uplands
where stunted bushes and cedars cover the hills
and overgrown old fields, and towhees and
brown thrashers keep him company. He is
not fond of human society, however, and usually
flies away with wavering, uncertain flight from
bush to bush rather than submit to a close
scrutiny of his bright chestnut brown back and
crown, flesh-coloured bill, gray eyebrow, grayish
throat, buffy breast and light feet. Because
his tail is a trifle longer than the chippy's he is
slightly larger than the smallest of our sparrows.
Unless you notice that his bill is not black and
his head not marked with black and gray
streaks like the chippy*s, you might easily
mistake him for his sociable, confiding little
cousin who comes hopping to the door.
How differently he sings! Listen for him
some evening after sunset when his simple ves*
per hymn, clear, plaintive, sweet, nngs from th^
bush where he perches especially for the perform^
ance. Scarcely any two field sparrows sing pre-
cisely alike. Most of them, however, begin with
three clear, smooth, leisurely whistles — cher^
wee, cher-wee, cher-wee — then hurry through
the other notes — cheo^ cheo'dee-dee-eee, e,
Vesper Sparrow 113
which run rapidly into a trill before they die
away. Others reverse the time and diminish
the measures toward the close. However sung,
the song, which makes the uplands tuneful all
day and every day from April to August, does
not vary its quality, which is as fine as the
vesper sparrow's.
Hatched in a bush, and almost never seen
apart from one, this humble little bird might
well be called the bush sparrow.
VESPER SPARROW
To name this little dingy sparrow that haunts
the open fields and dusty roadsides, you must
notice the white feather on each side of his tail
as he spreads it and flies before you to alight
upon a fence. Like the song sparrow, this
cousin has some fine dark streaks on his throat
and breast. If you get near enough you will
notice that his wing coverts, which are a bright
chestnut brown, make the rest of his sparrow
plumage look particularly pale and dull. Some
people call him the bay- winged bunting ; others,
the grass finch, because he nests, like the
meadow-lark and many other foolish birds, on
the ground where mice, snakes, mowing ma-
chines and cats often make sad havoc of his
young family.
114 Birds Every Child Should Know
The field sparrow, as we have seen, prefers
neglected old fields overgrown with bushes,
but the vesper sparrow chooses more broad,
open, breezy, grassy country. When busy
picking up insects and seed on the ground, he
takes no time for singing, but keeps steadily at
work, unlike the vireos that sing between bites.
With him music is a momentous matter to
which he is quite willing to devote half an hour
at a time. He usually mounts to a fence rail
or a tree before beginning the repetitions of his
lovely, serene vesper which is most likely to
be heard about sunset, or at sunrise, if you are
not a sleepy-head. Like the rose-breasted
grosbeak, he has the delightful habit of singing
through the early hours of the summer night.
ENGLISH SPARROW
Is there a boy or girl in America who does not
already know this saucy, keen-witted little gamin
who thrives where other birds would starve;
who insiScS upon thrusting himself where he
is not wanted, not only in other bird's houses,
but about the cornices, pillars, and shutters of
our own, where his noise and dirt drive good
housekeepers frantic ; who, without any weapons
but his boldness and impudence to fight with,
fears neither man nor beast, and who multi*
English Sparrow iig
plies as fast as the rabbit, so that he is rapidly
inheriting the earth? Even children who have
never been out of the slums know at least this
one bird, this ever-present nuisance, for he
chirps and chatters as cheerfully in the reeking
gutters as in the prettiest gardens ; he hops with
equal calm about the horse's feet and trolley
cars in crowded city thoroughfares, as he does
about flowery fields and quiet country lanes;
he will pick at the overflow from garbage pails
on the sidewalk in front of teeming tenements
and manure on the city pavements with quite
as much relish as he will eat the fresh clean seed
spilled by a canary, or cake-crumbs from my
lady's hand. Intense cold he endures with
cheerful fortitude and as intense mid-summer
heat without losing his astonishing vitality.
Is it any wonder that a bird so readily adaptable
to all sorts of conditions should thrive like a
weed and beat his way around the world?
Now that he has gained such headway in this
country his extermination is practically im-
possible, since a single pair of sparrows might
have 275,716,983,698 descendants in ten years!
It is foolish to talk of ridding the land of these
vermin of birddom. The conditions that kept
them in check at home are lacking in this great
land of freedomx and so we Americans must
pay the penalty for ignorantly tampering with
nature.
ii6 Birds Every Child Should Know
Sparrows were first imported into Brooklyn
in 185 1 to rid the shade trees of inch worms.
This feat they accompHshed there and in New
York with neatness and despatch. Every one
fed, petted, and coddled them then. It was
not until many years later that their true char-
acter came to be thoroughly understood. Then
it was found by scientific men in Washington,
after the fairest trial any culprits ever received,
that not all the insects and weed seeds they
destroy compensate for the damage they do
in the farmer's grain fields, to say nothing of
their harrassing and dispossessing other birds
more desirable. But they kill no birds, so we
may hope that, in the course of time, our native
songsters may pluck up courage to claim their
rights and hold their own, learning from the
sparrows the important lesson of adaptability,
CHIPPING SPARROW
Called also: Chippy; Door-step Sparrow; Hair
Sparrow.
This summer a pair of the sociable, friendly
little chippies — the smallest members of their
clan — decided that they would build in a little
boxwood tree on the verandah of our house next
to the front door through which members of
the family passed every hour of the dav While
The most cheerful of bird neighbors: song sparrows
A baby chippy and its two big rose-breasted grosbeak cousins
u
:§
!5
Chipping Sparrow 117
we sat within a few feet of the tree, both birds
would carry into it fine twigs and grasses for
the foundation of the nest and, later, long horse
hairs which they coiled around and around to
form a lining. Where did they get so many
hairs? A few might have been switched out
of the horses' tails in the stable yard or dropped
on the road, but what amazingly bright eyes
the birds must have to find them, and how
curious that chippies alone, of all the feathered
tribe, should always insist upon using them to
line their cradles!
From the back of a settle, the round of a
rocking chair, or the gnomon of the sun-dial
near the verandah, the little chippy would trill
his wiry tremulo, like the locust's hot weather
warning, while his mate brooded over five tiny
greenish-blue eggs in the boxwood tree. Be-
fore even the robin was awake, earlier than
dawn, he would start the morning chorus with
the simple little trill that answers for a song to
express every emotion throughout the long day.
Both he and his mate use a chip call note in
talking to each other.
When she was tired brooding, of which she
did far more than her share, he would relieve
her while she went in search of food. Very often
he would carry to the nest a cabbage worm for
her or some other refreshing delicacy. The
screen door mio^ht banj^f beside her while she sat
ii8 Birds Every Child Should Know
close upon her treasures without causing her
to do more than flutter an eye-Hd. Every
member of the family parted the twigs of box-
wood that enclosed the nest to look upon her
pretty little reddish-brown head with a gray
stripe over the eye and a dark-brown line run-
ning apparently through it. All of us gently
stroked her from time to time. She would
occasionally leave the nest for only a minute or
two to pick up the crumbs, chickweed, and
canary seed scattered for her about the veran-
dah floor, and showed not the slightest fear
when we went on with our regular occupations.
We were the breathlessly excited ones, while
she hopped calmly about our feet. The chippy
is wonderfully tame — perhaps the tamest bird
that we have.
You may be sure there was joy in the house-
hold when the nest in the boxwood contained
baby chippies one morning — not a trace of egg-
shells which had been carried away early.
Insects were the only approved baby-food and
we were greatly astonished to see what large
ones were thrust down the tiny, gaping throats
every few minutes. Instead of flying straight
to the nest, both parents would frequently stop
to rest or get proper direction on the back or
the arm of a chair where some one was sitting.
In eight days the babies began to explore the
verandah. Then they left us suddenly without
Tree Sparrow 119
a ** good-bye/' No guests whom we ever had
beneath our roof left a more aching void than
that chipping sparrow family. How we hope
they will find their way back to the boxwood
tree from the Gulf States next April!
TREE SPARROW
Called also: Winter Chippy
When the friendly little chippy leaves us in
autumn, this similar but larger sparrow cousin
comes into the United States from the North,
and some people say they cannot tell the two
birds apart or the field sparrow from either of
them. The tree sparrow, which, unlike the
chippy, has no black on his forehead, wears an
indistinct black spot on the centre of his breast
where the chippy is plain gray, and the field
sparrow is buffy. The tree sparrow has a parti-
coloured bill, the upper-half black, the lower
yellow with a black tip, while the chippy has
an entirely black bill, and the field sparrow a
flesh-coloured or pale-red one. Only the tree
sparrow, which is larger than either of the
others, although only as large as a full grown
English sparrow, spends the winter in the
Northern United States, and by that time his
confusing relatives are too far south for compar-
ison. It is in spring and autumn that their
I20 Birds Every Child Should Know
ranges over-lap and there is any possibility of
confusion.
When the slate-coloured juncos come from
their nesting grounds far over the Canadian
border, look also for flocks of tree sparrows
in fields and door yards, where crab grass,
amaranth and fox tail grass, among other
pestiferous weeds, are most abundant. I do
not know how Professor Beal of the Depart*
ment of Agriculture, arrived at his conclusions,
but he estimates that in a single state — Iowa —
the tree sparrows alone destroy eight hundred
and seventy-five tons of noxious weed seeds
every winter. Then how incalculably great
must be our debt to the entire sparrow tribe!
Tree sparrows welcome other winter birds
to their friendly flocks that glean a comfortable
living from the weed stalks protruding from
the snow. Their cheerful, soft, jingling notes
have been likened by Mr. Chapman to *' sparkling
frost crystals turned to music.*'
WHITE-THROATED SPARROW
Called also: Peabody-hird; Canada Sparrow
"What's in a name?'' Our English cousins
over the border are quite sure they hear this
sparrow sing the praises of Swee-e-et Can-a-da,
Can-a-da, Can-a-da-ah, while the New En-
White-throated Sparrow 121
glanders think the bird distinctly says, I-I-Pea-
body, Pea-bod-y, Pea-bod-y-I , extolling the
name of one of their first families. You may
amuse yourself by fitting whatever words you
like to the well-marked metre of the clear, high-
pitched, plaintive, sweet song of twelve notes.
Learn to imitate it and you will be able to
whistle up any white-throat within reach of
your voice in the Adirondacks, the White
Mountains, or the deep, cool woods of Maine,
throughout the summer, although the majority
of these hardy sparrows nest on the northern
side of the Canadian border. Our hot weather
they cannot abide. When there is a keen
breath of frost in the air and the hedgerows and
thickets in the United States are taking on
glorious autumnal tints, listen for the white-
throated migrants conversing with sharp chink
call-notes that soimd like the ring of a marble-
cutter's chisel.
During the autumn and spring migrations,
when these birds are likely to give us the semi-
annual pleasure of coming closer about our
homes, with other members of their sociable
tribe, you will see that the white-throat is a
slightly larger and more distinguished bird
than the English sparrow, and that he wears a
white patch above his plain, gray breast. Ex-
cept the white-crowned sparrow, who wears a
black and white-striped soldier cap on his head,
122 Birds Every Child Should Know
and who sometimes travels in migrating flocks
with his cousins, the white-throated sparrow is
the handsomest member of his plain tribe.
FOX SPARROW
Do you imagine because he is called the fox
sparrow that this bird has four legs, or that he
wears a brush instead of feathers for a tail, or
that he makes sly visits to the chicken yard
after dark? When you see his rusty, reddish-
brown coat you guess that the foxy colour of
it is alone responsible for his name. His light
breast is heavily streaked and spotted with
brown, somewhat like a thrush's, and as he is
the largest and reddest of the sparrows, it is not
at all difficult to identify him.
In the autumn, when the juncos come into
the United States from Canada, small flocks of
their fox sparrow cousins, that have spent the
summer from the St. Lawrence region and
Manitoba northward to Alaska, may also be
expected. They are often seen in the junco's
company among the damp thickets and weeds,
along the roadsides and in stalky fields bounded
by woodland. The fox sparrow loves to scratch
among the dead leaves for insects trying to
hide there, quite as well as if he were a chicken
or a towhee or an oven-bird who kick up the
J unco 123
leaves and earth rubbish after his vigorous
manner.
From Virginia southward, the people know
the fox sparrow only as a winter resident. Be-
fore he leaves them in the spring, he begins to
practise the clear, rich, ringing song, which
fairly startles one with pleasure the first time
it is heard.
JUNCO
Called also: Slate-coloured Snow-bird
When the skies are leaden and the first
flurries of snow warn us that winter is near,
flocks of juncos, that reflect the leaden skies on
their backs, and the grayish-white snow on their
breasts, come from the North to spend the
winter. A few enter New England as early as
September, but by Thanksgiving increased
numbers are foraging for their dinner among
the roadside thickets, in the furrows of
ploughed fields, on the ground near evergreens,
about the barn-yard and even at the dog's plate
beyond the kitchen door.
Notice how abruptly the slate gray colour of
the junco's mantle ends in a straight line across
his light breast, and how, when he flies away,
the white feathers on either side of his tail serve
as signals to his friends to follow. Such signals
124 Birds Every Child Should Know
are especially useful when birds are migrating;
without them, many stragglers from the flocks
might get lost. Juncos, who are extremely
sociable birds, except when nesting, need help
in keeping together. A crisp, frosty Hsip
call note signifies alarm and away flies the
flock. They are quiet, unassuming visitors,
modest in manner and in dress; but how we
should miss them from the winter landscape!
SNOWFLAKE
In the northern United States and Canada,
it is the snowfiake or snow bunting, a sparrowy
little bird with a great deal of white among its
rusty brown feathers that is the familiar winter
visitor. Instead of hopping, like most of its
tribe, it walks over the frozen fields and
rarely perches higher than a bush or fence rail,
for it comes very near being a grotmd bird.
Delighting in icy blasts and snow storms, flocks
of these irrepressibly cheerful little foragers
fatten on a seed diet picked up where other
birds would starve.
AMERICAN GOLDFINCH
Called also: Black-winged Yellow-bird; Thistle
Bird; Lettuce Bird; Wild Canary
Have you a garden gay with marigolds, sun-
flowers, coreopsis, zinnias, cornflowers, and gail-
American Goldfinch 125
lardias? If so, every goldfinch in your neigh-
bourhood knows it and hastens there to feed on
the seeds of these plants as fast as they form,
so that you need expect to save none for next
spring's planting. Don't you prefer the birds
when flower seeds cost only five cents a packet?
Clinging to the slender, swaying stems, the
goldfinches themselves look so like yellow
flowers that you do not suspect how many are
feasting in the garden until they are startled
into flight. Then away they go, bounding
along through the air, now rising, now falling,
in long aerial waves peculiar to them alone.
You can always tell a goldfinch by its wavy
course through the air. Often it accents the
rise of each wave as it flies by a ripple of sweet,
twittering notes. The yellow warbler is some-
times called a wild canary because he looks
like a canary ; the goldfinch has the same mis-
leading name applied to him because he sings
like one.
But goldfinches by no means depend upon
our gardens for their daily fare. Wild lettuce,
mullein, dandelion, ragweed and thistles are
special favourites. Many weed stalks suddenly
blossom forth into black and gold when a flock
of finches alight for a feast in the summer fields,
or, browned by winter frost, bend beneath the
weight of the birds when they cling to them pro-
truding through the snow.
126 Birds Every Child Should Know
Usually not until July, when the early thistles
furnish plenty of fluff for nest lining, do pairs of
goldfinches withdraw from flocks to begin the
serious business of raising a family. A com-
pact, cozy, cup-like structure of fine grass, veg-
etable fibre, and moss, is placed in the crotch
of a bush or tree, or sometimes in a tall,
branching thistle plant. Except the cedar
waxwings, the goldfinches are the latest nesters
of all our birds. As their love-making is pro-
longed through the entire summer, so is the
deliciously sweet, tender, canary-like song of
the male. Dear, dear, dearie, you may hear him
sing to his dearest all day long.
In summer, throughout his long courtship,
he wears a bright, lemon-yellow wedding suit
with black cap, wings, and tail, while his sweet-
heart is dressed in a duller green or olive yellow.
After the August moult, he emerges a dingy
olive-brown, sparrowy bird, in perfect colour
harmony with the wintry fields.
PURPLE FINCH
Called also: Linnet
It would seem as if the people who named
most of our birds and wild flowers must have
been colour-blind. Old rose is more nearly
the colour of this finch who looks like a brown
Purple Finch 127
sparrow that had been dipped into a bath of
raspberry juice and left out in the sun to fade.
But only the mature males wear this colour,
which is deepest on their head, rump, and breast.
Their sons are decidedly sparrowy until the
second year and their wives look so much like
the song sparrows that you must notice their
heavy, rounded bills and forked tails to make
sure they are not their cousins. A purple
finch that had been caged two years gradually
turned yellow, which none of his kin in the wild
state has ever been known to do. Why? No
ornithologist is wise enough to tell us, for the
colour of birds is still imperfectly understood.
Like the goldfinches, these finches wander
about in flocks. You see them in the hemlock
and spruce trees feeding on the buds at the tips
of the branches, in the orchard pecking at the
blossoms on the fruit trees, in the wheat fields
with the goldfinches destroying the larvae of
the midge, or by the roadsides cracking the
seeds of weeds that are too hard to open for birds
less stout of bill. When it is time to nest, these
finches prefer evergreen trees to all others, al-
though orchards sometimes attract them.
A sudden outbreak of spirited, warbled song
in March opens the purple finch's musical sea-
son, which is almost as long as the song spar-
row's. Subdued nearly to a humming in
October, it is still a delightful reminder of thi^
128 Birds Every Child Should Know
finest voice possessed by any bird in the great
sparrow tribe. But it is when the singer is in
love that the song reaches its highest ecstasy.
Then he springs into the air just as the yellow-
breasted chat, the oven-bird, and woodcock do
when they go a-wooing, and sings excitedly
while mounting fifteen or twenty feet above
his mate until he drops exhausted at her side.
INDIGO BUNTING
Called also: Indigo-bird.
Every child knows the bluebird, possibly the
kingfisher and the blue jay, too, but there is
only one other bird with blue feathers, the little
indigo bunting, who is no larger than your pet
eanary, that you are ever likely to meet unless
you live in the Southwest where the blue gros-
beak might be your neighbour. If, by chance,
you should see a little lady indigo-bird you
would probably say contemptuously : " Another
tiresome sparrow,'' and go on your way, not
noticing the faint glint of blue in her wings and
tail. Otherwise her puzzling plumage is de-
cidedly sparrowy, although unstreaked. So is
that of her immature sons. But her husband
will be instantly recognised because he is the
only very small bird who wears a suit of
deep, rich blue with verdigris-^freen reflections
lowhee 129
about the head — ^bluer than the summer sky
which pales where his Httle figure is outUned
against it.
Mounting by erratic, short flights from the
weedy places and bushy tangles he hunts among
to the branches of a convenient tree, singing as
he goes higher and higher, he remains for a time
on a conspicuous perch and rapidly and repeat-
edly sings. When almost every other bird is
moulting and moping, he warbles with the same
fervour and timbre. Possibly because he has the
concert stage almost to himself in August, he
gets the credit of being a better performer than
he really is. Only the pewee and the red-eyed
vireo, whom neither midday nor midsummer
heat can silence, share the stage with him then.
TOWHEE
Called also: Chewink; Ground Robin; Joree
From their hunting-ground in the blackberry
tangle and bushes that border a neighbouring
wood, a family of chewinks sally forth boldly
to my piazza floor to pick up seed from the
canary's cage, hemp, cracked com, sunflower
seed, split pease, and wheat scattered about for
their especial benefit. One fellow grew bold
enough to peck open a paper bag. It is a daily
happening to see at least one of the family close
130 Birds Every Child Should Know
to the door; or even on the window-silL
The song, the EngHsh, the chipping, the field^
and the white-throated sparrows — any one or
all of these cousins — usually hop about with
the chewinks most amicably and with no
greater ease of manner ; but the larger chewink
hops more energetically and precisely than any
of them, like a mechanical toy.
Heretofore I had thought of this large, vigor-
ous bunting as a rather shy or at least self-
sufficient bird with no.desire to be neighbourly.
His readiness to be friends when sure of the
genuiness of the invitation, was a delightful
surprise. From late April until late October
my softly-whistled towhee has rarely failed to
bring a response from some pensioner, either in
the woodland thicket or among the rhododen-
drons next the piazza where the seeds have
been scattered by the wind. Chewink, or towhee
comes the brisk call from wherever the busy
bunting is foraging. The chickadee, whippoor-
will, phoebe and pewee also tell you their
names, but this bird announces himself by two
names, so you need make no mistake.
Because he was hatched in a ground nest and
loves to scratch about on the ground for insects,
making the dead leaves and earth rubbish fly
like any barnyard fowl, the towhee it often
called the ground robin. He is a little smaller
than robin-redbreast. Looked down upon from
Red-breasted Grosbeak 131
above he appears to be almost a black bird,
for his upper parts, throat and breast are very
dark where his mate is brownish; but under-
neath both are grayish white with patches of
rusty red on their sides, the colour resembling
a robin's breast when its red has somewhat
faded toward the end of summer. The white
feathers on the towhee's short, rounded wings
and on the sides of his tail are conspicuous
signals, as he flies jerkily to the nearest cover.
You could not expect a bird with such small
wings to be a graceful flyer.
Rarely does he leave the ground except to
sing his love-song. Then, mounting no higher
than a bush or low branch, he entrances his
sweetheart, if not the human critic, with a song
to which Ernest Thompson Seton supplies the
well-fitted words: Chuck-burr, pill-a wilUa-
will-a.
RED-BREASTED GROSBEAK
Among birds, as among humans, it is the
father who lends his name to the family, how-
ever difficult it may be to know the mother and
children by it. Who that had not studied the
books would recognise Mrs. Scarlet Tanager by
her name? or Mrs. Purple Finch? or Mrs.
Indigo Bunting? or Mrs. Rose-breasted Gros-
132 Birds Every Child Should Know
beak? The latter lady has not a rose-coloured
feather on her. She is a streaked, brown bird,
resembling an overgrown sparrow, with a
thick, exaggerated finch bill and a conspicuous,
white eyebrow. When her husband wears his
winter clothes in the tropics, his feathers are
said to be similar to hers, so that even his name,
then, does not fit. But when he returns to the
United States in May he is, in very truth, a rose-
breasted grosbeak. His back is as black as a
chewink's; underneath he is grayish white,
and a patch of lovely, brilliant, rose colour on
his breast, with wing linings of the same shade,
make him a splendidly handsome fellow. Per-
haps before you get a glimpse of the feathers
that are his best means of introduction, you
may hear a thin eek call -note from some tree-top,
or better still, listen to the sweet, pure, mellow,
joyously warbled song, now loud and clear, now
softly tender, that puts him in the first rank of
our songsters.
Few birds so conspicuously dressed risk the
safety of their nests either by singing or by being
seen near it, but this gentle cavalier not only
carries food to his brooding mate but actually
takes his turn at sitting upon the pale-greenish,
blue-speckled eggs. As a lover, husband, and
father he is irreproachable.
A friend who reared four orphan grosbeaks
says that they left the nest when about eleven
Cardinal Grosbeak 133
days old. They were very tame, even affection-
ate toward him, hopping over his shoulders, head,
knees, and hands without the least fear, and
eating from his fingers. When only ten weeks
old the little boy grosbeaks began to warble.
On being released to pick up their own living
in the garden, these pets repaid their foster-
father by eating quantities of potato-bugs,
among other pests. Some people call this
grosbeak the potato-bug bird.
CARDINAL GROSBEAK
Called also : Crested Redhird: Virginia NighU
ingale.
It was on a cold January day in Central Park,
New York, that I first met a cardinal and was
warmed by the sight. Then I supposed that he
must have escaped from a cage, for he is un-
common north of Washington. With tail and
crest erect, he was hopping about rather clumsily
on the ground near the bear's cage, and
picking up bits of broken peanuts that had
missed their mark. Presently a dove-coloured
bird, lightly washed with dull red, joined him
and I guessed by her crest that she must be
his mate. Therefore both birds were per-
manent residents in the park and not escaped
pets. Although they look as if they belonged
134 Birds Every Child Should Know
in the tropics, cardinals never migrate as the
rose-breasted grosbeak and so many of our
fair-weather feathered friends do. That is
because they can Hve upon the weed seeds and
the buds of trees and bushes in winter as
comfortably as upon insects in summer. It
pays not to be too particular.
In the Southern States every child knows the
common cardinal and could tell you that he is
a little smaller than a robin (not half so graceful),
that he is red all over, except a small black
area around his red bill, and that he wears his
head-feathers crested like the blue jay and the
titmouse. In a Bermuda garden, a shelf res-
taurant nailed up in a cedar tree attracted car-
dinals about it every hour of the day. If you
can think of a prettier sight than that dark
evergreen, with the brilliant red birds hopping
about in its branches and the sparkling sapphire
sea dashing over gray coral rocks in the back-
ground, do ask some artist to paint it!
Few lady birds sing — an accomplishment
usually given to their lover's only, to help woo
them. But the female cardinal is a charming
singer with a softer voice than her mate's —
most becoming to one of her sex — and an in-
dividual song quite different from his loud,
clear whistle.
c3
That dusky rascal, the cowbird
CHAPTER IX
THE ILL-ASSORTED BLACKBIRD
FAMILY
Bobolink
COWBIRD
Red-winged Blackbird
Rusty Blackbird
Meadowlark
Orchard Oriole
Baltimore Oriole
Purple and Bronzed Grackles
BOBOLINK
Called also: Reedbird; Ricehird; Ortolan; Maybird
Such a rollicking, jolly singer is the bobolink!
On a May morning, when buttercups spangle
the fresh grasses in the meadows, he rises from
their midst into the air with the merriest frolic
of a song you ever heard. Loud, clear, strong,
full of queer kinks and twists that could not
possibly be written down in our musical scale^
the rippling, reckless music seems to keep his
wings in motion as well as his throat ; for when
it suddenly bursts forth, up he shoots into the
air like a skylark, and paddles himself along
with just the tips of his wings while it is the
*'mad music'* that seemingly propels him : — then
he drops with his song into the grass again.
Frequently he pours out his hilarious melody
while swaying on the slender stems of the
grasses, propped by the stiff, pointed feathers
of his tail. A score or more of bobolinks rising
in some open meadow all day long, are worth
travelling miles to hear.
If you were to see the mate of one of these
merry minstrels apart from him, you might
easily mistake her for another of those tiresome
137
138 Birds Every Child Should Know
sparrows. A brown, streaked bird, with some
bufif and a few white feathers, she shades into
the colours of the ground as well as they and
covers her loose heap of twigs, leaves and grasses
in the hay field so harmoniously that few
people ever find it or the clever sitter.
As early as the Fourth of July, bobolinks
begin to desert the choir, being the first birds
to leave us. Travelling southward by easy
stages, they feed on the wild rice in the marshes
until, late in August, enormous flocks reach
the cultivated rice fields of South Carolina and
Georgia.
On the way, a great transformation has
gradually taken place in the male bobolink's
dress. At the North he wore a black, buff
and white wedding garment, with the unique
distinction of being lighter above than below;
but this he has exchanged, feather by feather,
for a striped, brown, sparrowy winter suit like
his mate's and children's, only with a little
more buff about it.
In this inconspicuous dress the reedbirds, or
ricebirds, as bobolinks are usually called south
of Mason and Dixon's line, descend in hordes
upon the rice plantations when the grain is
in the milk, and do several millions of dollars'
worth of damage to the crop every year, sad,
sad to tell. Of course, the birds are snared,
shot, poisoned. In southern markets half
Cowhird 139
a dozen of them on a skewer may be bought,
plucked and ready for the oven, for fifty cents
or less. Isn't this a tragic fate to overtake
our joyous songsters? Birds that have the mis-
fortune to like anything planted by man, pay
a terribly heavy penalty.
Such bobolinks as escape death, leave this
country by way of Florida and continue their
four thousand mile journey to southern Brazil,
where they spend the winter; yet, nothing
daunted by the tragedies in the rice fields,
they dare return to us by the same route in
May. By this time the males have made
another complete change of feather to go
a-courting. Most birds are content to moult
once a year, just after nursery duties have ended ;
some, it is true, put on a partially new suit in
the following spring, retaining only their old
wing and tail feathers; but a very few, the
bobolink, goldfinch, and scarlet tanager among
them, undergo as complete a change as Harle-
quin.
COWBIRD
This contemptible bird every child should
know if for no better reason than to despise it.
You will see it alone or in small flocks walking
about the pastures after the cattle; or, in the
I40 Birds Every Child Should Know
West, boldly perching upon their backs to
feed upon the insect parasites — a pleasant
visitor for the cows. So far, so good.
The male is a shining, greenish-black bird^
smaller than a robin, with a coffee-brown head
and neck. His morals are awful, for he makes
violent love to any brownish-gray cowbird
he fancies but mates with none. What should
be his song is a squeaking klnck tse-e-e, squeezed
out with difficulty, or a gurgle, like water being
poured from a bottle. When he goes a-wooing,
he behaves ridiculously, parading with spread
wings and tail and acting as if he were violently
nauseated in the presence of the lady. Fancy
a cousin of the musical bobolink behaving
so!
And nothing good can be said for the female
cowbird. Shirking as she does every motherly
duty, she sneaks about the woods and thickets,
slyly watching her chance to lay an egg in the
cradle of some other bird, since she never makes
a nest of her own. Thus she scatters her prospec-
tive family throughout the neighbourhood. The
yellow warbler, who is a famous sufferer from
her visits, sometimes outwits her, as we have
seen ; but other warblers, less clever, the vireos,
some sparrows, and, more rarely, woodpeckers,
flycatchers, orioles, thrushes and wrens, seem
to accept the unwelcome gift without a protest.
If you were a bird so imposed upon, wouldn't
Red-winged Blackbird 141
you peck holes in that egg, or roll it out of
your nest, or build another cradle rather than
hatch a big, greedy interloper that would
smother and starve your own babies? Prob>
ably every cowbird you see has sacrificed the
lives of at least part of a brood of valuable^
insectivorous songsters. Without the least
spark of gratitude in its cold heart, a young
cowbird grafter forsakes its over-kind foster
parents as soon as it can pick up its living
and remains henceforth among its own kin —
of whom only cows could think well.
RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD
Called also: Swamp Blackbird
When you are looking for the first pussy
willows in the frozen marshes, or listening to
the peeping of young frogs some day in early
spring, you will, no doubt, become acquainted
with this handsome blackbird, with red and
orange epaulettes on his shoulders, who has
just returned from the South. ''Ke, kong-
ker-ee,'' he flutes from the willows and alders
about the reedy meadows where he and his
bachelor friends flock together and make them
ring ''with social cheer and jubilee/' A little
later, flocks of dingy, brown, streaked birds,
142 Birds Every Child Should Know
travelling northward, pause to rest in the
marshes. Wholesale courting takes place short-
ly after and every red-wing in a black uniform
chooses one of the plain, streaked, matter-of-
fact birds for his mate. The remainder con-
tinue their unmaidenly journey in search of
husbands, whom they find waiting in cheerful
readiness in almost any marsh. By the first
of May all have settled down to home life.
Then how constant are the rich, liquid,
sweet O'ka-lee notes of the red-wing! Ever
in foolish fear for the safety of his nest, he
advertises its whereabouts in musical head-
lines from the top of the nearest tree, or circles
around it on fluttering wings above the sedges,
or chucks at any trespasser near it tmtil one
might easily torture him by going straight to
its site.
But how short-lived is this excessive devo-
tion to his family! In July, the restless yoimg
birds fiock with the mothers, but the now
indifferent fathers keep apart by themselves.
Strange conduct for such fussy, solicitous
birds! They congregate in large ntunbers
where the wild rice is ripening and make short
excursions to the farmers' fields, where they
destroy some grain, it is true, but so little as
compared with the quantity of injurious insects
and weed seed, that the debt is largely in the
red-wings* favour.
Meadowlark 143
RUSTY BLACKBIRD
Called also: Thrush Blackbird
This cousin of the red-wing, whom it resembles
in size, flight and notes, is a common migrant
in the United States. Nesting is done farther
north. In spring, the rusty blackbirds come
from the South in pairs, already mated, whereas
the red-wings and grackles travel then in flocks.
At that time the males are a tmiform glossy,
bluish-black, and their mates a slate gray, darker
above than below ; but after the summer moult,
when they gather in small companies, both
are decidedly rusty. You might mistake them
for grackles in the spring, but never for male
red-wings then with their bright epaulettes.
Notice the rusty blackbird's pale yellow eye.
MEADOWLARK
Called also: Old-field Lark; Meadow Starling
Every farmer's boy knows his father's friend,
the meadowlark, the brownish, mottled bird,
larger than a robin, with a lovely yellow breast
and black crescent on it, that keeps well hidden
in the grass of the meadows or grain fields.
Of course he knows, too, that it is not really
a lark, but a starling. When the shy bird
takes wing, note the white feathers on the
144 Birds Every Child Should Know
sides of its tail to be sure it is not the big,
brownish flicker, who wears a patch of white
feathers on its lower back, conspicuous as it
flies. The meadowlark has the impolite habit
of turning its back upon one as if it thought
its yellow breast too beautiful for human eyes
to gaze at. It flaps and sails through the air
much like bob-white. But flying is not its
specialty. It is, however, a strong-legged,
active walker, and rarely rises from the ground
unless an intruder gets very near, when away
it flies, with a nasal, sputtered alarm note,
to alight upon a fence rail or other low perch.
The tender, sweet, plaintive, flute-like whistle,
Spring-o' -the-year , is a deliberate song usually
given from some favourite platform — a stump,
a rock, a fence or a mound, to which the bird
goes for his musical performance only. He
sings on and on delightfully, not always the
same song, for he has several in his repertoire,
and charms all listeners, although he cares
to please none but his mate, that looks just
like him.
She keeps well concealed among the grasses
where her grassy nest is almost impossible
to find, especially if it be partly arched over
at the top. No farmer who realises what an
enormous number of grasshoppers, not to
mention other destructive insects, meadow-
larks destroy, is foolish enough to let his
Orchard Oriole 145
mowing-machine pass over their nests if he can
but locate them. By the time the hay is ready
for cutting in June, the active meadowlark
babies are usually running about through grassy
run-ways, but eggs of the second brood too
frequently, alas! meet a tragic end.
«
ORCHARD ORIOLE
Fortunately many other birds besides this
oriole prefer to live in orchards; otherwise
think how many worm-eaten apples there
would be! He usually has the kingbird for
company, and, strange to say, keeps on friendly
terms with that rather exclusive fellow; also
the robin, the bluebird, the cedar waxwing and
several other feathered neighbours who show
a preference for fruit trees when it is time to
nest. You may know the orchard oriole's
cradle by its excellent weaving. It is not a
deep, swinging pouch, like the Baltimore oriole's,
but a well-rounded cup, more like a vireo's,
formed of grasses of nearly even length and
width, cut green and woven with far more skill
and precision than a basket made by a boy or a
girl is apt to be. Look for it near the end of
a limb, ten to twenty feet up. It is by no
means easily seen when the green, grassy cup
matches the colour of the leaves.
The mother oriole is so harmoniously dressed
146 Birds Every Child Should Know
in grayish olive green, more yellowish under-
neath, that you may scarcely notice her as she
glides among the trees; but her mate is more
conspicuous, however quietly dressed in black
and reddish chestnut — even sombrely dressed
as compared with his flashy orange and black
cousin, the Baltimore oriole. Nevertheless,
it takes him two, or possibly three years to
attain his fine clothes. By that time his song
is rich, sweet and strong.
Do orioles generally take special delight in
the music of a piano? An orchard oriole who
used to come close to our house to feed on the
basket worms dangling from a tamarix bush,
returned long after the last worm had been
eaten whenever someone touched the keys.
And I have known more than one Baltimore
oriole to fly about the house, joyously singing,
as if attracted and excited by the music in-doors.
BALTIMORE ORIOLE
Called also: Firebird; Golden Robin; Hang-nest;
Golden Oriole
A flash of flame among the tender young
spring foliage ; a rich, high, whistled song from
the blossoming cherry trees, and every child
knows that the sociable Baltimore oriole has just
returned from Central America. Brilliant orange
The gorgeous Baltimore oriole
How do you suppose these young Baltimore orioles ever
packed themselves into so small a nest ?
Baltimore Oriole 147
and black feathers like his could no more be
concealed than the fiery little redstart's; and
as if they alone were not enough to advertise
his welcome presence in the neighbourhood,
he keeps up a rich, ringing, insistent whistle
that you can quickly learn to imitate. You
have often started all the roosters in your
neighbourhood to crowing, no doubt ; even so you
can * Vhistle up'' the mystified orioles, who are
always disposed to live near our homes. Al-
though the Baltimore oriole has a Southern
name, he is really more common at the North,
whereas the orchard oriole is more at home
south of New England.
Lady Baltimore, who wears a yellowish-olive
dress with dusky wings and tail, has the repu-
tation of being one of the finest nest builders
in the world. To the end of a branch of some
tall shade tree, preferably an elm or willow,
although almost any large tree on a lawn or
roadside may suit her, she carries grasses,
plant fibre, string, or bits of cloth. These
she weaves and felts into a perfect bag six or
seven inches deep and lines it with finer grasses,
hair and wool — a safe, cozy, swinging cradle
for her babies.
But, as you may imagine, those babies have
a rather hard time when they try to climb out
of it into the world. Many a one tumbles to
the ground, unable to hold on to the tip of a
148 Birds Every Child Should Know
swaying twig, and not being strong enough to
fly. Then what a tremendous fuss the parents
make! They cannot carry the youngster up
into the tree; they are in deadly fear of cats;
they are too worried and excited to leave him
alone ; but the plucky little fellow usually hops
toward the tree and with the help of his sharp
claws on the rough bark, flutters his way up
to the first limb. People who have brought
up broods of orphan orioles say that they are
unusually lively, interesting pets. The little
girl orioles will attempt, instinctively, to weave
worsted, string, grass, or whatever is given
them to play with, for of course they never took
a lesson in weaving from their expert mother.
THE PURPLE AND THE BRONZED
GRACKLES
Called also: Crow Blackbirds
You probably know either one of our two
crow blackbirds, similar in size and habits, one
with purplish, iridescent plumage, the common-
est grackle east of the AUeghanies and south of
Massachusetts, and the bronzed grackle, with
brassy tints in his black plumage, who over-
runs the Western country and from Massa-
chusetts northward. Both have uncanny,
The Purple and the Bronzed Crackles 149
yellow eyes that make you suspect they may
be witches in disguise. Their mates are a trifle
smaller and duller.
When the trees are still leafless in earliest
spring and the ground is brown and cold, flocks
of blackbirds dot the bare trees or take shelter
from March winds among their favourite ever-
greens, or walk solemnly about on the earth
like small crows, feeding on fat white grubs
and beetles in a business-like way. They
are singularly joyless birds. A croaking, wheezy
whistle, like the sound of a cart wheel that needs
axle-grease, expresses whatever pleasure they
may have in life.
Always sociable, living in flocks the entire
year through, it is in autumn only that they
band together in enormous numbers, and in
the West especially, do serious havoc in the
cornfields. However, they do incalculable good
as insect destroyers, so the farmers must for-
give the * 'maize thieves."
Was ever a family so ill-assorted as the black-
bird and oriole clan ? What traits are common
to every member of it? Not one, that I know.
Some of the family, as you have seen, are gor-
geously clad, like the Baltimore oriole; some
quite plainly, like the cowbird; and although
black seems to be a prevalent colour in the
150 Birds Every Child Should Know
plumage, the meadowlark, for example, is a
brown bird with only a black crescent on its
breast. Most of the males are dressed quite
differently from their mates, although the female
grackles are merely duller. Some of these birds
sing exquisitely ; others wheeze or croak a few
unmusical notes. Some live in huge flocks ; some
live in couples. Some, like the bobolinks,
travel to the tropics and beyond every winter ;
others, like the meadowlark, can endure the
intense cold of the North. Part of the family
feed upon the ground, but the oriole branch
live in the trees. Devotion to mates and chil-
dren characterise most of the family, but we
cannot overlook the cowbird that neither mates
nor takes the slightest care of its offspring.
The cowbird builds no nest, while its cousin,
the Baltimore oriole, is a famous weaver. The
bobolink is a rollicking, jolly fellow ; the grackle
is solemn, even morose. What a queer family!
'There were three crows sat on a tree
CHAPTER X
RASCALS WE MUST ADMIRE
American Crow
Blue Jay
Canada Jay
AMERICAN CROW
npWO close relatives there are which, like the
■^ poor, are always with us — the crow and the
blue jay. Both are mischievous rascals, extraor-
dinarily clever, with the most highl}^ developed
brains that any of our birds possess. Some men
of science believe that, because of their brain
power, they rightly belong at the head of the
bird class where the thrushes now stand; but
who wishes to see a family of songless rogues
awarded the highest honours of the class
Aves?
No bird is so well known to ''every child,*'
so admired by artists, so hated by farmers,
as the crow, who flaps his leisurely way above
the cornfields with a caw for friend and foe
alike, not caring the least for anyone's opinion
of him, good or bad. Perhaps he knows his
own true worth better than the average farmer,
who has persecuted him with bounty laws, shot-
gun, and poison for generations. The crow
keeps no account of the immense numbers
of grubs and larvae he picks up as he walks after
the plough every spring, nor does the far-
mer, who nevertheless counts the corn stolen
as fast as it is planted, and as fast as it ripens,
153
154 Birds Every Child Should Know
you may be very sure, and puts a price on the
robber's head. Yet he knows that com, dipped
in tar before it is put in the ground, will be
left alone to sprout. But who is clever enough
to keep the crows out of the field in autumn?
How humiliated would himians feel if they
realised what these knowing birds must think
of us when we set up in our cornfields the
absurd-looking scares they so calmly ignore!
Some crows I know ate every kernel off every
ear around the scare-crow in a neighbour's
field, but touched no stalk very far from it, as
much as to say: *'We take your dare along
with your com, Mr. Silly. If the ox that
treadeth out his com is entitled to his share
of it, ought not we, who saved it from grass-
hoppers, cutworms, May beetles and other
pests, be sharers in the profits?'' Granted;
but what about eating the farmer's young
chickens and turkeys as well as the eggs and
babies of little song birds? At times, it must be
admitted, the crow's heart is certainly as
dark as his feathers; he is as black as he is
painted, but happily such cannibalism is apt
to be rare. Strange that a bird so tenderly
devoted to his own fledglings, should be so
heartless to others'!
Toward the end of winter, you may see a
pair of crows carrying sticks and trash to the
top of some tall tree in the leafless woods^
American Crow 155
and there, in this bulky cradle, almost as
bulky as a squirrel's nest, they raise their fam-
ily. Young crows may be easily tamed and they
make interesting, but very mischievous pets.
It is only when crows are nesting that they
give up their social, flocking habit.
In winter, if the fields be lean, large pictur-
esque flocks may be seen at dawn streaking
across the sky to distant beaches where they
feed on worms, refuse and small shellfish.
More than one crow has been watched, rising
in the air with a clam or a mussel in his claws,
dropping it on a rock, then falling after it, as
soon as the shell is smashed, to feast upon its
contents. The fish crow, a distinct species,
never foimd far inland, although not neces-
sarily seen near water, may be distinguished
from our common crow by its hoarser car. In
some cases it joins its cousins on the beaches.
With punctual regularity at sundown, the flocks
straggle back inland to go to sleep, sometimes
thousands of crows together in a single roost.
Many birds have more regular meal hours and
bed-time than some children seem to care for.
Because crows eat almost anything they can
find, and pick up a good living where other
birds, more finical or less clever, would starve,
they rarely need to migrate; but they are great
rovers. There is not a day in the year when
you could not find a crow.
156 Birds Every Child Should Know
BLUE JAY
This vivacious, dashing fellow, harsh-
voiced and noisy, cannot be overlooked; for
when a brightly coloured bird, about a foot
long, roves about your neighbourhood with a
troop of screaming relatives, everybody knows
it. In summer he keeps quiet, but throws
off all restraint in autumn. Hear him ham-
mering at an acorn some frosty morning!
How vigorous his motions, how alert and in-
dependent! His beautiful military blue, black
and white feathers, and crested head, give him
distinction.
He is certainly handsome. But is his beauty
only skin deep? Does it cover, in reality, a
multitude of sins? Shocking stories of murder
in the song bird's nest have branded the blue
jay with quite as bad a name as the crow's. The
brains of fledgings, it has been said, are his
favourite tid-bits. But happily scientists, who
have turned the searchlight on his deeds, find
that his sins have been very greatly exag-
gerated. Remains of young birds were found
in only two out of nearly three htmdred blue
jays' stomachs analysed. Birds' eggs are more
apt to be sucked by both jays and squirrels
than are the nestlings to be eaten. Do you
ever enjoy an egg for breakfast? Fruit, grain,
thin-shelled nuts, and the larger seeds of trees
Canada Jay 157
and shrubs, gathered for the most part in Na-
ture.'s open store-room, not in man's, are what
the jay chiefly deUghts in ; and these he hides
away, squirrel-fashion, to provide for the rainy
day. More than half of all his food in summer
consists of insects, so you see he is then quite
as useful as his cousin, the crow.
Jays are fearful teasers. How they love
to chase about some poor, blinking, bewildered
owl, in the daylight! Jay-jay-jay, you may
hear them scream through the woods. They
mimic the hawk's cry for no better reason,
perhaps, than that they may laugh at the panic
into which timid little birds are thrown at the
terrifying sound. A pet jay I knew could whistle
up the stupid house-dog, who was fooled again
and again. This same jay used to carry all
its beech nuts to a piazza roof, wedge them
between the shingles, and open them there
with ease. An interesting array of hair pins,
matches, buttons, a thimble and a silver spoon
were raked out of his favourite cache under
the eaves.
CANADA JAY
Called also: Whiskey Jack; Moose -bird; Meat-bird
Anyone who has camped in the northern
United States and over the Canadian border
knows that the crow and blue jay have a rogue for
1S8 Birds Every Child Should Know
a cousin in this sleek, bold thief, the Canada jay.
He is a fluffy, big, gray bird, without a crest, with
a white throat and forehead and black patch
at the back of his neck. This rascal will walk
alone or with his gang into your tent, steal
your candles, matches, venison, and collar-
buttons before your eyes, or help himself to
the fish bait while he perches on your canoe,
or laugh at you with an impudent ca-ca-ca from
the mountain ash tree where he and his friends
are feasting on the berries; then glide to the
ground to slyly pick a trap set for mink or
marten. Fortunate the trapper who, on his
return, does not find either bait gone, or g^me
damaged.
Fearless, amazingly hardy (having been
hatched in zero weather), mischievous and
clever to a maddening degree, this jay, like
his cousins, compels admiration, although we
know all three to be rogues.
Five little teasers get no dinner from Mamma blue jay
Not afraid of the camera: baby blue jay out for their first airing
CHAPTER XI
THE FLYCATCHERS
Kingbird
Crested Flycatcher
Phcebe
Pewee
Least Flycatchbr
THE FLYCATCHERS
WHEN you see a dusky bird, smaller than
a robin, lighter gray underneath than
on its sooty-brown back, with a well-rounded,
erect head, set on a short, thick neck, you may
safely guess it is one of the flycatchers — an-
other strictly American family. If the bird
has a white band across the end of its tail it is
probably the fearless kingbird. If the feathers
on top of its head look as if they had been
brushed the wrong way into a pointed crest;
moreover, if some chestnut colour shows in its
tail when spread, and its pearly gray breast
shades into yellow underneath, you are looking
at the noisy "wild Irishman*' of birddom, the
crested flycatcher. Confiding Phoebe wears
the plainest of dull clothes with a still darker,
dusky crown cap, and a line of white on her
outer tail feathers. She and the plaintive
wood pewee, who has two indistinct whitish
bars across her extra-long wings, are scarcely
larger than an English sparrow ; while the least
flycatcher, who calls himself Chebec, is, as you
may suppose, the smallest member of the
tribe to leave the tropics and spend the summer
with us. Male and female members of this
z6z
1 62 Eirds Every Child Should Know
family wear similar clothes, fortunately for
'* every child'* who tries to identify them.
You can tell a flycatcher at sight by the way
he collects his dinner. Perhaps he will be
sitting quietly on the limb of a tree or on a
fence as if dreaming, when suddenly off he
dashes into the air, clicks his broad bill sharply
over a winged insect, flutters an instant, then
wheels about and returns to his favourite perch
to wait for the next course to fiy by. He may
describe fifty such loops in mid-air and make as
many fatal snap-shots before his hunger is
satisfied. A swallow or a swift would keep
constantly on the wing; a vireo would hunt
leisurely among the foliage; a warbler would
restlessly flit about the tree hunting for its
dinner among the leaves; but the dignified,
dexterous flycatcher, like a hawk, waits
patiently on his lookout for a dinner to fly
toward him. ''AH things come to him who
waits,'' he firmly believes.
None of the family is musically gifted, but all
make a more or less pleasing noise. Flycatchers
are solitary, sedentary birds, never being found
in flocks; but when mated, they are devoted
home lovers.
We are apt to think of tropical birds as
very gaily feathered, but certainly many that
come from warmer climes to spend the summer
with us are less conspicuous than Quakers.
The dashing, great crested flycatcher
Baby kingbirds in an apple tree
Kingbird 163
KINGBIRD
Called also: Bee Martin
In spite of his scientific name, which has
branded him the tyrant of tyrants, the kingbird
is by no means a bully. See him high in air in
hot pursuit of that big, black, villainous crow,
who dared try to rob his nest, darting about the
rascal's head and pecking at his eyes until he
is glad to leave the neighbourhood! There
seems to be an eternal feud between them.
Even the marauding hawk, that strikes terror
to every other feathered breast, will be driven
off by the plucky little kingbird. But surely
a courageous home defender is no tyrant. A
kingbird doesn't like the scolding catbird for
a neighbour, or the teasing blue jay, or the
meddlesome English sparrow, but he simply
gives them a wide berth. He is no Don Quixote
ready to fight from mere bravado. Tyrannus
tyrannus is a libel.
For years he has been called the bee martin
and some scientific men in Washington deter-
mined to learn if that name, also, is deserved.
So they collected over two hundred kingbirds
from different parts of the country, examined
their stomachs and found bees — mostly drones
— ^in only fourteen. The bird is too keen sighted
and clever to snap up knowingly a bee with a
164 Birds Every Child Should Know
sting attached, you may be sure; but occa-
sionally he makes a mistake when, don't you
believe, he is more sorry for it than the bee-
keeper? He destroys so many robber flies — a
pest of the hives — that the intelligent apiarist,
who keeps bees in his orchard to fertilise the
blossoms, always likes to see a pair of kingbirds
nesting in one of his fruit trees. The gardener
welcomes the bird that eats rose chafers; the
farmer approves of him because he catches
the gadfly that torments his horses and cattle,
as well as the grasshoppers, katydids and
crickets that would destroy his field crops if
left unchecked.
From a favourite lookout on a tall mullein
stalk, a kingbird neighbour of mine would
detect an insect over one hundred and seventy
feet away, where no human eye could see it,
dash off, snap it safely within his bill, flutter
uncertainly an instant, then retiurn to his perch
ready to **loop the loop'* again any moment.
The curved clasp at the tip of his bill and the
stiff hairs at the base helped hold every insect
his prisoner. While waiting for food to fly into
sight the watcher did a good deal of calling.
His harsh, chattering note, ching, ching, which
penetrated to a surprising distance, did not
express alarm, but rather the exultant joy of
victory.
He and his mate were certainly frantic with
Four crested flycatchers who need to have their hair brushed
Time for these young phoebes to leave the nest
Young phoebes on a bridge trestle
Crested Flycatcher 165
fear, however, when I cKmbed into their apple
tree one June morning, determined to have a
peep at the five creamy- white eggs, speckled
with brown and pale lilac, that had just been
laid in the nest in a crotch near the end of a
stout limb. Whirling and dashing about my
head, the pair made me lose my balance,
and I tumbled ten feet or more to the ground.
As the intruder fell, they might well have
exclaimed — perhaps they did — ''Sic semper
tyrannisF'
CRESTED FLYCATCHER
Far more tyrannical than the kingbird is this
'*wild Irishman,'' as John Burroughs calls the
large flycatcher with the tousled head and
harsh, uncanny voice, who prowls around the
woods and orchards startling most feathered
friends and foes with a loud, piercing ex-
clamation that sounds like What! Unlike
good children, he is more often heard than
seen.
That the solitary, unpopular bird takes a
mischievous delight in scaring its enemies, you
may know when I tell you that it likes better
than any other lining for its nest, a cast snake
skin. Is it any wonder that the baby fly-
catchers' hair stands on end? If the great-
crest cannot find the skin of a snake to coil
1 66 Birds Every Child Should Know
around her eggs, or to hang out of the nest, she
may use onion skins, or oiled paper, or even
fish scales; for what was once a protective
custom, sometimes becomes degraded into a
cheap imitation of the imitation in the furnish-
ing of her house. Into an abandoned wood-
peckers' hole or a bluebirds' cavity after the
babies of these early nesters have flown, or into
some unappropriated hollow in a tree, this fly-
catcher carries enough grasses, weeds and
feathers to keep her nestlings cozy during those
rare days of June beloved by Lowell, but which
Dr. Holmes observed are often so rare they
are raw.
PHCEBE
Called also: Bridge Pewee; Dusky Flycatcher;
Water Pewee
The first of its family to come North, as well
as the last to leave us for the winter, the phoebe
appears toward the end of March to snap up
the first insects warmed into life by the spring
sunshine. Grackles in the evergreens, red-
wings in the swampy meadows, bluebirds in the
orchard may assure us that summer is on the
way; but the homely, confiding phoebe, who
comes close about our houses and bams, brings
the good news home to us every hour.
Phcebe 167
Pewit — phcebe, pewit — phcehe, he calls con-
tinually. As he perches on the peak of a
building or other point of vantage, notice how
vigorously he wags his tail when he calls, and
turns his head this way and that, to keep an
eye in all directions lest a bite should fly by
him unawares.
Presently a mate comes from somewhere
south of the Carolinas where she has passed
the winter; for phoebes are more hardy than
the rest of the family and do not travel all the
way to the tropics. With unfailing accuracy
she finds the region where she built her nest
the previous season or where she herself was
hatched. This instinct of returned direction
is marvellous, is it not? Sometimes it is
hard enough for us humans to find the way
home when not ten miles away. Did you ever
get lost? Birds almost never do.
Phoebes like a covering over their heads to
protect their nests from spring rains, so you
will see a domesticated couple going about the
place like a pair of wrens, investigating niches
under the piazza roof, beams in an empty barn
loft and projections under bridges and trestles.
By the middle of April a neat nest of moss and
lichen, plastered together with mud and lined
with long hair or wool, if sheep are near, is
made in the vicinity of their home of the year
before. The nursery is exquisitely fashioned —
1 68 Birds Every Child Should Know
one of the best pieces of bird architecture you
are likely to find.
Some over-thrifty housekeepers, neverthe-
less, tear down nests from their piazzas, because
the poor little phoebes are so afflicted with lice
that they are considered objectionable neigh-
bours. Many wild birds, like chickens, have
their life-blood drawn by these minute pests.
But a thorough dusting of the phoebe's nest
with Persian powder would bring relief to the
tormented birds, save their babies, perhaps,
from death and keep the piazza free from
vermin. No birds enjoy a bath in your foun-
tain or water pan more than these tormented
ones.
From purely selfish motives it pays to cul-
tivate neighbours ever on the lookout for
flies, wasps. May beetles, click beetles, elm
destroyers and the moth of the cutworm. The
first nest is usually so infested that the phoebes
either tear it down in July, and build a new one
on its site, or else make the second nest at a
little distance from the first. The parents of
two broods of from four to six ravenously
hungry, insectivorous young, with an instinc-
tive desire to return to their old home year
after year, should surely meet no discourage-
ment from thinking farmers' wives.
Shouldn't you think that baby phoebes,
reared in nests under railroad bridges, would
Wood Pewee 169
be f earfiilly frightened whenever a train thtrn-
dered overhead?
WOOD PEWEE
When you have been wandering through
the summer woods did you ever, Hke Trow-
bridge, sit down
"Beside the brook, irresolute,
And watch a little bird in suit
Of sombre olive, soft and brown,
Perched in the maple branches, mute?
With greenish gold its vest was fringed,
Its tiny cap was ebon-tinged,
With ivory pale its wings were barred,
And its dark eyes were tender starred.
'Dear bird,' I said, 'what is thy name?'
And thrice the mournful answer came,
So faint and far, and yet so near —
* Pewee! pe-wee! peer!' **
Doubtless this demure, gentle little cousin of
the noisy, aggressive, crested flycatcher has no
secret sorrow preying at its heart, but the ten-
der pathos of its long-drawn notes would seem
to indicate that it is rather melancholy. And
it sings (in spite of the books which teach us
that the flycatchers are ^'songless, perching
birds'') from the time of its arrival from Cen-
tral America in May until only the tireless
indigo bunting and the red-eyed vireo are left
in the choir in August.
But how suddenly its melancholy languor
170 Birds Every Child Should Know
departs the instant an insect flies within sight 1
With a cheerful, sudden sally in mid-air, it
snaps up the luscious bite, for it can be quite as
active as any of the family. While not so
ready to be neighbourly as the phoebe, the
pewee condescends to visit our orchards and
shade trees.
When nesting time comes, it looks for a partly
decayed, lichen-covered branch, and on to this
saddles a compact, exquisite cradle of fine
grass, moss and shreds of bark, binding bits of
lichen with spiders' web to the outside until
the sharpest of eyes are needed to tell the
stuccoed nest from the limb it rests on. Only
the tiny hummingbird, who also uses lichen as
a protective and decorative device, conceals
her nest so successfully.
LEAST FLYCATCHER
Called also: Chebec
It is not until he calls out his name, Chebec!
Chebec! in clear and business-like tones from
some tree-top that you could indentify this
fluffy flycatcher, scarcely more than five inches
long, whose dusky coat and light vest ofifer no
helpful markings. Not a single gay feather
relieves his sombre suit. Isn't this a queer,
Quakerly taste for a bird that spends half his life
Least Flycatcher 171
in the tropics among gorgeously feathered
friends? Even the plain vireos, as a family,
wear finer clothes than the dusky flycatchers.
You may know that the chebec is not one of those
deliberate searchers of foliage by his sudden,
murderous sallies in mid-air.
Abundant from Pennsylvania to Quebec,
the least flycatchers are too inconspicuous to
be much noticed. They haunt apple orchards
chiefly at nesting time, fortunately for the crop,
and at no season secrete themselves in shady
woods as pewees do. A little chebec neighbour
of mine used to dart through the spray from
the hose that played on the lawn late every
every afternoon during a drought, and sit on
the tennis net to preen his wet feathers; but
he nearly put out my eyes in his excitement
xnA. anger when I presumed on so much f riendli-
less to peep into his nest.
CHAPTER XII
SOME QUEER RELATIONS
Whip-poor-will
NiGHTHAWK
Chimney Swift
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
WHIP-POOR-WILL
A QUEER, shadowy bird, that sleeps all
day in the dense wood and flies about
through open country after dark as softly as
an owl, would be difficult for any child to know
were it not for the weird, snappy triplets of
notes that tell his name. Every one knows him
far better by sound than by sight. Whip-
poor-wtll (chuck) whip-poor-will (chuck) whip-
poor-will (chuck) he calls rapidly for about
two hours, just after sunset or before sunrise
from some low place, fluttering his wings at
each announcement of his name. But you
must be near him to hear the chuck at the end
of each vigorous triplet; most listeners don't
know it is there.
You might be very close indeed without
seeing the pltmip bird, about the size of a robin,
who has flattened himself lengthwise against
a lichen-covered branch until you cannot tell
bird from bark. Or he may be on a rock or an
old, mossy log, where he rests serene in the
knowledge that his mottled, dull dark-brown,
gray, buff, black and white feathers blend
perfectly with his resting place. He must
choose a spot broad enough to support his
17s
176 Birds Every Child Should Know
whole body, for, like his cousin, the nighthawk,
and his more distant relatives, the humming-
bird and the swift, his feet are too small and
weak for much perching. You never see him
standing erect on a twig with his toes clasped
aroimd it, but always squatting when at rest.
A narrow white band across his throat makes
his depressed head look as if it had been sepa-
rated from his body — a queer effect that may
remind you of the Cheshire Cat in "Alice in
Wonderland. ' ' The whip-poor-will *s three outer
tail feathers have white ends which help to
distinguish him from the nighthawk. He has
a funny little short beak, but his large mouth
stretches from ear to ear, and when he flies
low above the fields after sunset, this trap is
kept open, like the swift's and the swallow's,
to catch any night-flying insects — ^mosquitoes,
June bugs, gnats, katydids and little moths —
that cross his path. Long, stiffened bristles
at the ends of his mouth prevent the escape
of a victim past the gaping trap. On the wing
the bird is exceedingly swift and graceful. Some
children mistake him for a bat or a night-
hawk.
Relying upon the protective covering of her
soft plumage, the mother whip-poor-will builds
no nest, but lays a pair of mottled eggs directly
on the ground in the dark woods where a carpet
of dead leaves and decayed wood makes con-
Nighthawk 177
cealment perfect. Not even the ovenbird con-
trives that a peep at her eggs shall be so difficult
for us. It is next to impossible to find them.
Unlike the wicked cowbird, who builds no nest
because she has no maternal instinct, the whip-
poor-will, who is a devoted mother, makes none
because none is needed. Once I happened upon
two fuzzy, dark, yellowish -gray, baby whip-poor-
wills (mostly mouths) in a hollow of a decayed,
lichen-covered log, which was their *' comfy"
cradle ; but the frantic mother, who flopped and
tumbled about on the ground around them,
whining like a puppy, sent me running away
from sheer pity.
In the Southern States a somewhat larger
whip-poor-will, but with the same habits, is
known as chuck-wilFs-widow.
NIGHTHAWK
Called also: Bull-bat; Night-jar; Mosquito-hawk
Did you ever hear a rushing, whirring, boom-
ing sound as though wind were blowing
across the btmg-hole of an empty barrel? The
nighthawk, who makes it, is such a high flyer^
that in the dusk of the late afternoon or early
evening, when he delights to sail abroad to get
his dinner, you cannot always see him; but as
178 Birds Every Child Should Know
he coasts down from the sky — ^not on a sled,
but on his half -closed wings — ^with tremendous
speed, the rush of air through his stiff, long
wing feathers makes an uncanny, aeoHan music
that silly, superstitious people have declared
is a bad omen. You might think he would
dash out his brains in such a headlong dive
through the air, but before he hits the earth,
a sudden turn saves him and off he goes un-
harmed, skimming above the grotmd and catch-
ing insects after the whip-poor-will's manner.
He lacks the helpful bristles at the ends of his
fly-trap. Don't imagine, because of his name,
that he flies about only at night. He is not
so nocturnal in his habits as the whip-poor-will.
Toward the end of summer, especially, he may
be seen coursing over the open country at
almost any hour of the day. Once in a while,
as he hunts, he calls peent — a sharp cry that
reminds you of the meadowlark's nasal call-
note. Presently, mounting upward higher and
higher, at the leisurely rate of a boy dragging
his sled up hill, he seems to reach the very
clouds, when down he coasts again, faster than
a boy's flexible flyer. Listen for the booming
noise of this coaster! Evidently he enjoys the
sport as much as any boy or girl, for he repeats
his sky-coasting very often without having to
wait for a snow-storm. Indeed, when winter
comes, he is enjoying another summer in South
Nighthawk 179
America. Life without insects would be im-
possible for him.
When he is coursing low above the fields,
with quick, erratic, bat-like turns, notice the
white spots, almost forming a bar across his
wings, for they will help you to distinguish him
from the whip-poor-will, who carries his white
signals on the outer feathers of his tail. Both
of these cousins wear the same colours, only
they put them on differently, the whip-poor-will
having his chiefly mottled, the nighthawk his
chiefly barred. The latter wears a broader
white band across his throat. His mate sub-
stitutes buff for his white decorations.
Like the mother whip-poor-will, she makes
no nest but places her two speckled treasures
in some sunny spot, either on the bare ground,
on a rock, or even on the fiat roof of a house.
Since electric lights attract so many insects
to the streets of towns and villages, the enter-
prising nighthawk often forsakes the country
to rear her children where they may enjoy the
benefits of modem improvements.
Both the nighthawk and the whip-poor-will
belong to the goatsucker family. Did you ever
hear a more ridiculous name? Eighty-five
innocent birds of this tribe, found in most parts
of the world, have to bear it because some care-
less observer may have seen one of their number
flying among a herd of goats in Europe to catch
i8o Birds Every Child Should Know
the insects on them, just as cowbirds follow
our cattle; and he imagined the bird was
actually drinking the goat's milk!
CHIMNEY SWIFT
There are some children, and grown-ups, too,
who persist in calling this bird the chimney
swallow, although it is not even remotely
related to the swallow family, and its life his-
tory, as well as its anatomy, are quite different
from a swallow's, as you shall see.
Down within some unused chimney, the
modern babies of this soot-coloured, dark,
grayish-brown bird first open their eyes. Old-
fashioned swifts still nest in hollow trees or
caves, but chimneys are so much more abundant
and convenient, that up-to-date birds prefer
them. Without stopping in their flight, the
parent swifts snap off with their beaks or feet,
little twigs at the ends of dead branches, and
these they carry, one by one, into a chimney,
gluing them against the side until they have
finished an almost flat, shelf -like, lattice cradle.
Where do they get their glue? Only during
the nesting season do certain glands in their
mouths flow a brownish fluid that quickly gums
and hardens when exposed to the air. After
nursery duties have ended, the gland shrinks
A chimney swift at rest
Hummingbird pumping food into her babies' crops
Twin rubythroats
Chimney Swift i8i
from disuse. When the basket cradle has
been stuck against a chimney-side, it looks as
if it were covered with a thin coat of isinglass.
On this lattice from four to six white eggs are
laid. A friend, who innocently started a fire
in his library one cold, rainy mid-summer even-
ing, was startled and shocked when a nest and
eggs suddenly fell on the hearth. He had no
idea birds were nesting in his chimney. The
rush of their wings he had thought was the wind.
Of course the fire melted the glue, when down
fell the cradle. Happily there were no ** babies
and air* to tumble into the flames.
When the baby swifts are old enough to
climb out of the lattice, they still cling near
it for about a fortnight waiting for their wings
to grow strong, before they try to leave the
chimney. Apparently they hang themselves
up to go to sleep. Shouldn't you think they
would fall on the hearth down stairs? Doubt-
less they would but for their short, thin, stiff-
pointed tail feathers which help to prop them
up where they cling to the rough bricks and
mortar of the chimney lining. Woodpeckers
also prop themselves with their tail feathers,
but against tree trunks. Not until swifts are
a month old do the lazy little fellows climb out
of their deep, dark cavern into the boundless
sky, which is their true home. No birds are
more tireless, rapid flyers than they. Their
i82 Birds Every Child Should Know
small feet, weak from disuse, could scarcely
hold them on a perch.
One day last July I picked up on the groimd
a young swift I thought had dropped from ex-
haustion in its first flight. As swifts had been
nesting in one of the chimneys, I carried the
young bird in my hand into the house, up
stairs, out through an attic window onto the
roof, climbed along the ridgepole in terror for
my life, clinging by only one free hand to the
peak of the roof, and at last reached the swift's
chimney. Laying the sooty youngster on the
stone chimney-cap I had crawled cautiously
backward only a few feet, when lo ! my charge
suddenly bounded off into the air like a veteran
to join a flock of companions playing cross-tag.
As it wheeled and darted above the house,
evidently quite as much at ease in the air as
any of the merry, twittering company, don't
you believe it started the laugh on me? But
what had brought so able a young flyer to
earth? My wounded vanity tempts me to be-
lieve that it had really dropped from fatigue
and, once on the ground, was unable to rise
again, whereas it was comparatively easy to
launch itself from the chimney-top.
With mouths agape from ear to ear, the
swifts draw in an insect dinner piecemeal, as
they course through the air, just as the whip-
poor-will, nighthawk and swallows do. For-
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 183
tunate the house where a colony elect to live,
for they rid the air of myriads of gnats and
mosquitoes, as they fly cibout overhead, sil-
houetted against the sky. Early in the morning
and late in the afternoon are their hours for
exercise. You will think, perhaps, that they
look more like bats than birds. Watch their
rapid wing-beats very closely and see if you can
settle the mooted question as to whether they
use both wings at once, or first one wing and
then the other in alternate strokes. After you
have noticed their peculiar, throbbing flight,
you will never again confuse them with the
graceful, gliding swallows. Although the swift
is actually shorter than a sparrow, its spread
wings measure over a foot across from tip to
tip. No wonder it can fly every waking mo-
ment without feeling tired, and journey from
Labrador to Central America for a winter
holiday.
RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD
What child does not know the hummingbird,
the jewelled midget that flashes through the
garden, poises before a flower as if suspended
in the air by magic, thrusts a needle-like bill into
one cup of nectar after another, then whirs
off out of sight in a trice? It is the smallest
184 Birds Every Child Should Know
bird we have. Suppose a fairy wished to
pluck one for her dinner, as we should pluck a
chicken; how large, do you think, woiild be
the actual body of a hummingbird, without
its feathers? Not much, if any, larger than
a big bumble-bee, I venture to guess. Yet
this atom of animation travels from Panama
to Quebec or beyond, and back again every
year of its brief life, that it may live where
flowers, and the minute insects that infest them,
will furnish drink and meat the year aroimd.
So small a speck of a traveller cannot be seen
in the sky by an enemy with the sharpest of
eyes. Space quickly swallows it. A second
after it has left your garden it will be out of
sight. This mite of a migrant has plenty
of stay-at-home relatives in the tropics — ex-
quisite creatures they are — ^but the ruby-throat
is the only hummingbird bold enough to venture
into the eastern United States and Canada.
What tempts him so far north? You know
that certain flowers depend upon certain insect
friends to carry their pollen from blossom to
blossom that they may set fertile seed ; but did
you know that certain other flowers depend
upon the hummingbird ? Only his tongue,
that may be run oi\t beyond his long, slender
bill and turned around curves, could reach the
drops of nectar in the tips of the wild colum-
bine's five inverted horns of plenty. The
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 185
Monarda or bee-balm, too, hides a sweet sip
in each of its red tubes for his special benefit.
So does the coral honeysuckle. There are a
few other flowers that cater to him, especially,
by wearing his favourite colour, by hiding
nectar so deep that only his long tongue can
drain it, and by opening in orderly succession
so that he shall fare well throughout the sum-
mer, not have a feast one month and a famine
the next. In addition to these flowers in
Nature's garden that minister to his needs,
many that have been brought from the ends of
the earth to our garden plots please him no less.
The canna, nasturtium, phlox, trumpet-flower,
salvia, and a host of others, delight his eye and
his palate. Don't you think it is worth while
to plant his favourites in your garden if only
for the joy of seeing him about? He is wonder-
fully neighbourly, coming to the flower-beds
or window-boxes with undaunted familiarity
in the presence of the family. A hummingbird
that lived in my garden sipped from a sprig of
honeysuckle that I held in my hand. But the
bird is not always so amiable by any means. A
fierce duellist, he will lunge his rapier-like bill
at another hummer with deadly thrusts. A
battle of the midgets in mid-air is a sorry sight.
You may know a male by the brilliant
metallic-red feathers on his throat. His mate
lacks these, but her brilliancy has another
1 86 Birds Every Child Should Know
outlet, for she is one of the most expert nest*
builders in the world. An exquisitely dainty
little cup of plant down, felted into a compact
cradle and stuccoed with bits of lichen bound on
by spider-web, can scarcely be told from a knot
on the limb to which it is fastened. Two eggs,
not larger than beans, in time give place to two
downy hummers about the size of honey-bees.
Perhaps you have seen pigeons pump food
down the throats of their squabs? In this same
way are baby hummingbirds fed. After about
three weeks in the nest, the young are ready
to fly; but they rest on perches the first month
of their independence more than at any time
afterward. No weak-footed relative of the
swift could live long off the wing. It is good-
bye to summer when the last hummingbird
forsakes our frost-nipped, northern gardens for
happier hunting grounds far away.
CHAPTER XIII
NON-UNION CARPENTERS
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied SAPSUCBatR
Red-headed Woodpecker
Flicker
OUR FIVE COMMON WOODPECKERS
TF, AS you walk through some old orchard
-■■ or along the borders of a woodland tan-
gle, you see a high-shouldered, stocky bird
clinging fast to the side of a tree " as if he had
been thrown at it and stuck,'' you may be very
sure he is a woodpecker. Four of our five
common, non-union carpenters wear striking
black and white suits, patched or striped, the
males with red on their heads, their wives with
less of this jaunty touch of colour perhaps, or
none, but wearing otherwise similar clothes.
Only the dainty little black and white creeping
warbler could possibly be confused with the
smallest of these sturdy, matter-of-fact artisans,
although, as you know, chickadees, titmice,
nuthatches and kinglets also haunt the bark of
trees; but the largest of these is smaller than
downy, the smallest of the woodpeckers. One of
the carpenters, the big flicker, an original
fellow, is dressed in soft browns, yellow, white
and black, with the characteristic red patch
across the back of his neck.
It is easy to tell a woodpecker at sight or
even beyond it, when you see or hear him ham-
mering for a dinner, or drumming a love song,
is<4
190 Birds Every Child Should Know
or chiselling out a home in some partly decayed
tree. How cheerfully his vigorous taps resound !
Hammer, chisel, pick, drill, and drum — all these
instruments in one stout bill — ^and a flexible
barbed spear for a tongue that may be run out
far beyond his bill, like the hummingbird*s,
make the woodpecker the best-eqtdpped work-
man in the woods. All the other birds that
pick insect eggs, grubs, beetles and spiders from
the bark could go all over a tree and feast, but
the woodpecker might follow them and still
find plenty left, borers especially, hidden so
deep that only his sticky, barbed tongue could
drag them out.
As you see his body flattened against the
tree's side perhaps you wonder why he doesn't
fall off. Do you remember why the swifts,
that sleep against the inside walls of our chim-
neys, do not fall down to the hearths below?
Like them and the bobolink, the woodpeckers
prop themselves by their outspread, stiffened
tails. Moreover, they have their toes arranged
in a curious way — ^two in front and two behind,
so that they can hold on to a section of bark
very much as an iceman holds a piece of ice
between his tongs. Smooth bark conceals no
larvae nor does it offer a foothold, which is why
you are likely to see woodpeckers only on the
trunks or the larger limbs of trees where old,
scaly bark grows.
Downy Woodpecker 191
DOWNY WOODPECKER
A hardy little friend is the downy wood-
pecker who, like the chickadee, stays by us the
year around. Probably no other two birds are
so useful in our orchards as these, that keep up
a tireless search for the insect robbers of our
fruit. Wintry weather can be scarcely too
severe for either, for both wear a warm coat of
fat under their skins and both have the com-
fort of a snug retreat when bitter blasts blow.
Friend downy is too good a carpenter, you
may be sure, to neglect making a cozy cavity for
himself in autumn, just as the hairy wood-
pecker does. The chickadee, titmouse, nut-
hatch, bluebird, wren, tree swallow, sparrow
hawk, crested flycatcher and owls, are not the
only birds that are thankful to occupy his snug
quarters in some old tree after he has moved
out in the spring to the new nursery that his
mate and he make for their family. He knows
the advantage of a southern exposure for his
hollow home and chisels his winter quarters
deep enough to escape a draught. Here he lives
in single blessedness — or selfishness? — with no
thought now for the comfort of his mate, who,
happily, is quite as good a carpenter as he,
and as able to care for herself. She may make
a winter home or keep the nursery.
192 Birds Every Child Should Know
Very early in the spring you will hear the
downy, like the other woodpeckers, beating a
rolling tattoo on some resonant limb, and if you
can creep close enough you will see his head
hammering so fast that there is only a blur
above his shoulders. This drumming is his love
song. The grouse is even a more wonderful per-
former, for he drums without a drum, which no
woodpecker can do. The woodpecker drums not
only to win a mate, however, but to tell where
a tree is decayed and likely to be an easy spot
to chisel, and also to startle borers beneath the
bark, that he may know just where to tunnel
for them, when they move with a faint noise,
which his sharp ears instantly detect.
This master workman, who is scarcely larger
than an English sparrow, occasionally pauses
in his hammering long enough to utter a short,
sharp peek, peek, often continued into a rat-
tling cry that ends as abruptly as it began.
You may know him from his larger and louder-
voiced cousin, the hairy woodpecker, not only
by this call note, but by the markings of the
outer tail feathers, which, in the downy, are
white barred with black; and in the hairy, are
white without the black bars. Both birds are
much striped and barred with black and white.
When the weather grows cold, hang a bone
with a little meat on it, cooked or raw, or a
lump of suet in some tree beyond the reach of
J
mm
•'
.^4!
4
1 , , ™^
■■'' *tf-'^¥-,-&;.;;^ ;:-^^^:
Our little friend downy
The red-headed woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker 193
cats ; then watch for the downy woodpecker's
and the chickadee's visits to your free-lunch
counter.
HAIRY WOODPECKER
Light woods, with plenty of old trees in them,
suit this busy carpenter better than orchards or
trees close to our homes, for he is more shy than
his sociable little cousin, downy, whom he as
closely resembles in feathers as in habits. He
is three inches longer, however, yet smaller than
a robin. In spite of his name, he is covered
with black and white feathers, not hairs. He
has a hairy stripe only down the middle of his
broadly striped back.
After he and his mate have decided to go to
housekeeping, they select a tree — a hollow-
hearted or partly decayed one is preferred — ^and
begin the hard work of cutting out a deep cavity.
Try to draw freehand a circle by making a
series of dots, as the woodpecker outlines his
round front door, and see, if you please, whether
you can make so perfect a ring. Downy's en-
trance need be only an inch and a half across ;
the hairy's must be a little larger, and the
flicker requires a hole about four inches in
diameter to admit his big body. Both mates
work in turn at the nest hole. How the chips
fly! Braced in position by stiff tail feathers and
194 Birds Every Child Should Know
clinging by his stout toes, the woodpecker keeps
hammering and chiselling at his home more
hours every day than a labour imion would
allow. Two inches of digging with his strong
combination tool means a hard day's work.
The hole usually runs straight in for a few inches,
then ctirves downward into a pear-shaped
chamber large enough for a comfortable nursery.
A week or ten days may be spent by a couple in
making it. The chips by which this good work-
man is known are left on the nursery floor, for
woodpeckers do not pamper their babies with
fine grasses, feathers or fur cradle linings, as
the chickadee and some other birds do. A
well-regulated woodpecker's nest contains five
glossy-white eggs.
Sheltered from the rain, wind and sun, hidden
from almost every enemy except the red
squirrel, woodpecker babies lie secure in their
dark, warm nursery, with no excitement ex-
cept the visits of their parents with a fat grub.
Then how quickly they scramble up the walls
toward the light and dinner!
YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER
This woodpecker I am sorry to introduce to
you as the black sheep of his family, with
scarcely a friend to speak a good word for him.
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 195
Murder is committed on his immensely useful
relatives, who have the misfortune to look
ever so little like him, simply because ignorant
people's minds are firmly fixed in the belief that
every woodpecker is a sapsucker, therefore a
tree-killer, which only this miscreant is, and
very rarely. The rest of the family who drill
holes in a tree harmlessly, even beneficially, do
so because they are probing for insects. The
sapsucker alone drills rings or belts of holes for
the sake of getting at the soft inner bark and
drinking the sap that trickles from it.
Mrs. Eckstorm, who has made a careful study
of the woodpeckers in a charming little book
that every child should read, tells of a certain
sapsucker that came silently and early in the
autumn mornings to feed on a favourite moun-
tain ash tree near her dining-room window. In
time this rascal killed the tree. *' Early in the
day he showed considerable activity,'' writes
Mrs. Eckstorm, ''flitting from limb to limb and
sinking a few holes, three or four in a row, usual-
ly above the previous upper girdle of the limbs
he selected to work upon. After he had tapped
several limbs, he would sit patiently waiting
for the sap to flow, lapping it up quickly when
the drop was large enough. At first he would
be nervous, taking alarm at noises and wheeling
away on his broad wings till his fright was
over, when he would steal quietly back to his
196 Birds Every Child Should Know
sapholes. When not alarmed, his only movement
was from one row of holes to another, and he
tended them with considerable regularity. As
the day wore on he became less excitable, and
clung cloddishly to his tree trunk with ever in-
creasing torpidity, until finally he hung motion-
less as if intoxicated, tippling in sap, a
dishevelled, smutty, silent bird, stupefied with
drink, with none of that brilliancy of plumage
and light-hearted gaiety which made him the
noisiest and most conspicuous bird of our
April woods/*
But it must be admitted that very rarely does
the sapsucker girdle a tree with holes enough to
sap away its life. He may have an orgie of in-
temperance once in awhile, but much ahoruld be
forgiven a bird as dexterous as a flycatcher in
taking insects on the wing and with a hearty
appetite for pests. Wild fruit and soft-shelled
nuts he likes too. He never bores a tree to get
insects as his cousins do, for only when a nest
must be chiselled out is he a wood pecker in the
strict sense.
You may know this erring one by the pale,
sulphur-yellow tinge on his white under parts,
the white patch above the tail on his mottled
black and white back, his spotted wings with
conspicuous white coverts, the broad black patch
on his breast extending to the comers of his
mouth in a chin strap, and the lines of crimson
Red-headed Woodpecker 197
on forehead, crown, chin and throat. He is
smaller than a robin by two inches, yet larger
than the English sparrow, who shares with him
a vast amount of public condemnation.
RED-HEADED WOODPECKER
A pair of red-headed woodpeckers I know, who
made their home in an old tree next the station
yard at Atlanta, where locomotives clanged,
puffed, whistled and shrieked all day long,
evidently enjoyed the noise, for the male Hked
nothing better than to add to it by tapping on
one of the glass non-conductors around which
a telegraph wire ran. When first I saw the
handsome, tri-coloured fellow he was almost
enveloped in a cloud of smoke escaping from
a puffing locomotive on the track next the tele-
graph pole, yet he tapped away unconcerned
and as merrily as you would play a two-step on
the piano. When the vapour blew away, his
glossy bluish black and white feathers, laid on
in big patches, were almost as conspicuous as
his red head, throat and upper breast. His mate
is red-headed, too.
All the woodpeckers have musical tastes. A
flicker comes to my verandah to tap a galvan-
ised rain gutter, for no other reason than the
excellent one that he enjoys the soimd. Tin
iqS Birds Every Child Should Know
roofs everywhere are popular tapping places.
Certain dry, dead, seasoned limbs of hardwood
trees resound better than others and a wood-
pecker in love is sure to find out the best one in
the spring when he beats a rolling tattoo in the
hope of charming his best beloved. He has no
need to sing, which is why he doesn't.
Fence posts are the red-head's favourite rest-
ing places. From these he will make sudden
sallies in mid-air, like a fly-catcher, after a pass-
ing insect; then return to his post.
You remember that the blue jay has the
thrifty habit of storing nuts for the proverbial
rainy day, and that the shrike hangs up his
meat to cure on a thorn tree like a butcher.
Red-headed woodpeckers, who are especially
fond of beechnuts, acorns and grasshoppers,
hide them away, squirrel fashion, in tree cavi-
ties, in fence holes, crevices in old barns, be-
tween shingles on the roof, behind bulging
boards, in the ends of railroad ties, in all sorts
of queer places, to feast upon them in winter
when the land is lean. Who knows whether
other woodpeckers have hoarding places? The
sapsucker, the hairy and the downy wood-
peckers also like beechnuts ; the flicker prefers
acorns; but do they store them for winter use?
The red-head's thrifty habit was only recently
discovered: has it been only recently acquired?
It must be simpler to store the summer's sur-
The sapsucker
Baby flickers just out of their hole
Flicker 199
plus than to travel to a land of plenty when
winter comes. Heretofore this red-headed
cousin has been reckoned a migratory member
of the home-loving woodpecker clan, but only
where he could not find plenty of beechnuts to
keep him through the winter.
FLICKER
Called also: High-hole; Clape; Golden-winged
Woodpecker; Yellow-hammer; Yucker
Why should the flicker discard family tradi-
tions and wear clothes so different from those
of his relations? His upper parts are dusty
brown, narrowly barred with black, and the
large white patch on his lower back, so con-
spicuous as he flies from you, is one of the best
marks of identification on his big handsome
body. His head is gray with a black streak
below the eye, and a scarlet band across the
nape of the neck, while the upper side of the
wing feathers is black relieved by golden shafts.
Underneath, the wings are a lovely golden yel-
low, seen only when the bird flies toward you.
His breast, which is a pale, pinkish brown, is
divided from the throat by a black crescent,
smaller than the meadowlark's, and below this
half-moon of jet there are many black spots.
200 Birds Every Child Should Know
He is qiiite a little larger than a robin, the larg-
est and the commonest of our five non-union
carpenters.
See him feeding on the ground instead of on
the striped and mottled tree trunks, where his
black and white striped relatives are usually
fotmd, and you will realise that he wears brown
clothes, finely barred, because they harmonise
so perfectly with the brown earth. What does
he find on the ground that keeps him there so
much of the time? Look at the spot he has
just flown from and you will doubtless find ants.
These are chiefly his diet. Three thousand
of them, for a single meal, he has been known
to lick out of a hill with his long, round,
extensile, sticky tongue. Evidently this lusty
fellow needs no tonic. His tail, which is
less rounded than his cousins', proves that
he has little need to prop himself against tree
trunks to pick out a dinner; and his curved
bill, which is more of a pickaxe than a hammer,
drill, or chisel, is little used as a carpenter's tool
except when a nest is to be dug out of soft,
decayed wood. Although he can beat a rolling
tattoo in the spring, he has a variety of call
notes for use the year through. Did you ever
see the funny fellow spread his tail and dance
when he goes courting? Flickers condescend
to use old holes deserted by their relatives who
possess better tools. You must have noticed
Flicker 201
all through these bird bibgraphies that the
structure and colouring of every bird are
adapted to its kind of life, each member of the
same family varying according to its habits.
The kind of food a bird eats and its method of
getting it, of course, bring about most, if not
all, of the variations from the family type.
Each is fitted for its own life, *'even as
you and I/'
Like your pet pigeon, the hummingbird,
and several other birds, parent flickers pump
partly digested food from their own stomachs
into those of their huingry babies. Imagine
how many trips would have to be taken to a
nest if ants were carried there one by one!
How can the birds be sure they will not thrust
their bills through the eyes of their blind, naked
and helpless babies in so dark a hole? It must
be very difficult to find the mouths and be sure
none is neglected. Like the little pig you all
know about, I suspect there is always at least
one little flicker in the dark tree-hollow that
"gets none*' each trip.
CHAPTER XIV
CUCKOO AND KINGFISHER
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Black-billed Cuckoo
Belted Kingfisher
YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO
Called also: Rain Crow
ir\0 YOU own a cuckoo clock with a little bird
•*-^ inside that flies out of a door every hour
and tells you the time ? Except when it is time to
go to school or to bed you are doubtless amused
to hear him hiccough cuckoo, cuckoo, the me-
chanical notes that tell his name. Cuckoo
clocks were first made in Europe where the
common species of cuckoo calls in this way,
but don't imagine its American cousins do.
Our yellow-billed cuckoo's unmusical, guttural
notes sound something like a tree toad's
rattle, kuk-kuk, kuk-kuk, kuk-kuk, kr-r-r-uck, kr-
r-T'tick, kr-r-r-uck, kr-r-rtick, cow, cow, cow,
cow! This is his complete *'song," but usually
one hears only a portion of it. The black-
billed cuckoo's voice is softer, and its cow notes
run together, otherwise their ''songs" are alike.
Both of our common cuckoos are slim, grace-
ful birds about twelve inches long — ^longer than
a robin. They are solitary creatures and glide
silently among the foliage of trees and shrub-
bery, rarely giving you a good look at their
satiny, grayish-brown backs and dull-white
20C
2o6 Birds Every Child Should Know
breasts. You may know the yellow-billed
cuckoo by the yellow lower-half of his long,
curved bill, his cinnamon-brown wings and the
conspicuous white thumb-nail spots on his
dark tail feathers. If you were to dip your
thumb in white paint, then pinch these outer
quills, you would leave similar marks.
Most birds will not touch the hairy, fuzzy
caterpillars — very disagreeable mouthfuls, one
would think. But happily cuckoos enjoy them
as well as the smooth, slippery kind. " I guess
they like the custard inside,*' said a little boy
I know who had stepped on a fat caterpillar on
the path. '* Cuckoos might well be called
caterpillar birds," wrote Florence Merriam
Bailey, " for they are so given to a diet of the
hairy caterpillars that the walls of their stom-
achs are actually permeated with the hairs, and
a section of stomach looks like the smoothly
brushed top of a gentleman's beaver hat."
When you see the webs that the tent cater-
pillar stretches across the ends of the branches
of fruit and nut trees toward the end of summer,
or early autumn, watch for the cuckoo's visits.
Orioles, also, tear open the webs to get at the
wiggling morsels inside, but they leave dead
and mutilated remains behind them, showing
that their appetite for web worms is less keen
than that of the cuckoos, who eat them up clean.
Fortunately the caterpillar of the terribly
The flicker
Two baby cuckoos on the rickety bundle of sticks that by
courtesy we call a nest
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 207
destructive gypsy moth is another favourite
dainty.
Perhaps you have heard that the cuckoo,
like the naughty cowbird, builds no nest and
lays its eggs in other birds' cradles? This is
true only of the European cuckoo. Its Ameri-
can cousin makes a poor apology for a nest, it
is true, merely a loose bundle or platform of
sticks, as fiimsily put together as a dove's
nest. The greenish-blue eggs or the naked
babies must certainly fall through, one would
think. Still it is all the cuckoos' own, and they
are proud of it. But so sensitive and fearful
are they when a human visitor inspects their
nursery that they will usually desert it, never
to return, if you touch it, so beware of peep-
ing!
When the skinny cuckoo babies are a few
days old, blue pin-feathers begin to appear, and
presently their bodies are stuck full of fine,
sharply pointed quills like a well-stocked pin
cushion. Porcupine babies you might think
them now. But presto! every pin-feather
suddenly fluffs out the day before the youngsters
leave the nest, and they are clothed in a suit of
soft feathers like their parents. In a few
months young cuckoos, hatched as far north as
New England and Canada or even Labrador,
are strong enough to fly to Central or South
America to spend the winter.
2o8 Birds Every Child Should Know
BELTED KINGFISHER
Called also: The Halcyon
This Izaak Walton of birddom, whom you
may see perched as erect as a fish hawk on a
snag in the lake, creek or river, or on a dead
limb projecting over the water, on the lookout
for minnows, chub, red fins, samlets or any
other small fry that swims past, is as expert as
any fisherman you are ever likely to know.
Sharp eyes are necessary to see a little fish
where sunbeams dance on the ripples and the
refracted light plays queer tricks with one's
vision. Once a victim is sighted, how swiftly
the lone fisherman dives through the air and
water after it, and how accurately he strikes
its death-blow behind the gills! If the fish be
large and lusty it may be necessary to carry it
to the snag and give it a few sharp knocks with
his long powerful bill to end its struggles.
These are soon over, but the kingfisher's have
only begun. See him gag and writhe as he
swallows his dinner, head first, and then, re-
gretting his haste, brings it up again to try a
wider avenue down his throat! Somebody
shot a kingfisher which had tried to swallow so
large a fish that the tail was sticking out of his
mouth, while its head was safely stored below
in the bird's stomach. After the meat digests,
Belted Kingfisher 209
the indigestible skin, bones, and scales of the
fish are thrown up without the least nausea.
A certain part of a favourite lake or stream
this fisherman patrols with a sense of ownership
and rarely leaves it. Alone, but self-satisfied,
he clatters up and down his beat as a police-
man, going his rounds, might sound his rattle
from time to time. The rattle-headed bird
knows every pool where minnows play, every
projection along the bank where a fish might
hide, and is ever on the alert, not only to catch a
dinner, but to escape from the sight of the child
who intrudes on his domain and wants to
**know'' him. You cannot mistake this big,
chunky bird, fully a foot long, with grayish-
blue upper parts, the long, strong wings and
short, square tail dotted in broken bars of
white, and with a heavy, bluish band across his
white breast. His mate and children wear
rusty bands instead of blue. The crested
feathers on top of his big, powerful head reach
backward to the nape like an Indian chief's
feather bonnet, and give him distinction.
Under his thick, oily plumage, as waterproof
as a duck's, he wears a suit of down tmder-
clothing.
No doubt you have heard that all birds are
descended from reptile ancestors ; that feathers
are but modified scales, and that a bird's song
is but the glorified hiss of the serpent. Then
2IO Birds Every Child Should Know
the kingfisher and the bank swallow retain at
least one ancient custom of their ancestors, for
they still place their eggs in the ground. The
lone fisherman chooses a mate early in the spring
and, with her help, he tunnels a hole in a bank
next a good fishing ground. A minnow pool
furnishes the most-approved baby food. Per-
haps the mates will work two or three weeks
before they have tunnelled far enough to suit
them and made a spacious nursery at the end
of the long hall. Usually from five to eight
white eggs are laid about six feet from the en-
trance on a bundle of grass, or perhaps on a
heap of ejected fish bones and refuse. While
his queen broods, the devoted kingfisher brings
her the best of his catch. At first their babies
are as bare and skinny as their cuckoo relatives.
When the father or mother bird flies up stream
with a fish for them, giving a rattling call in-
stead of ringing a dinner bell, all the hungry
youngsters rush forward to the mouth of the
tunnel ; but only one can be satisfied each trip.
Then all run backward through the inclined
tunnel, like reversible steam engines, and keep
tightly huddled together until the next exciting
rattle is heard. Both parents are always on
guard to drive off mink, rats and water snakes
that are the terrors of their nursery.
Waiting for mamma and fish
Young belted kingfisher on his favourite snag
■.M
Kingfisher on the look-out for a dinner
CHAPTER XV
DAY AND NIGHT ALLIES OF THE
FARMER
Turkey Vulture
Red-shouldered Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Cooper's Hawk
Bald Eagle
American Sparrow Hawk
American Osprey
American Barn Owl
Short-eared Owl
Long-eared Owl
Barred Owl
Screech Owl
TURKEY VULTURE
Called also: Turkey Buzzard
IT VERY child south of Mason and Dixon's Kne
-*^ knows this big buzzard that sails serenely
with its companions in great circles, floating
high overhead, now rising, now falling, with
scarcely a movement of its wide-spread wings.
In the air, it expresses the very poetry of motion.
No other bird is more graceful and buoyant.
One could spend hours watching its fascinating
flight. But surely its earthly habits express
the very prose of existence; for it may be seen
in the company of other dusky scavengers, walk-
ing about in the roads of the smaller towns and
villages, picking up refuse; or, in the fields,
feeding on some dead animal. Relying upon
its good offices, the careless farmer lets his dead
pig or horse or chicken lie where it dropped,
knowing that buzzards will speedily settle on it
and pick its bones clean. Oiu* soldiers in the
war with Spain say that the final touch of horror
on the Cuban battlefields was when the buz-
zards, that were wheeling overhead, suddenly
dropped where thfeir wounded or dead comrades
fell.
213
214 Birds Every Child Should Know
Because it is so helpful in ridding the earth of
decaying matter, the law and the Southern
people, white and coloured, protect the vulture.
Its usefulness is more easily seen and understood
than that of many smaller birds of greater value
which, alas ! are a target for every gunner. Con-
sequently, it is perhaps the commonest bird in
the South, and tame enough for the merest tyro
in bird lore to learn that it is about two and
a half feet long, with a wing spread of fully six
feet; that its head and neck are bare and red
like a turkey's, and that its body is covered
with dusky feathers edged with brown — an
ungainly, unlovely creature out of its element,
the air. Another sable scavenger, the black
vulture or carrion crow, of similar habits, but
with a more southerly range, is common in the
Gulf States.
Because it feeds on carrion that not even a
goat grudges it, and is too lazy and cowardly to
pick a quarrel, the buzzard has no enemies.
Although classed among birds of prey, it does
not frighten the smallest chick in the poultry
yard when it flops down beside it. With beak
and claws capable of gashing painful woimds,
it never uses them for defence, but resorts to
the disgusting trick of throwing up the contents
of its stomach over any creature that comes too
near. When a colony of the ever-sociable
buzzards are nesting, you may be very sure
Red-shouldered Hawk 215
no one cares to make a close study of their
yoiing.
RED-SHOULDERED HAWK
Called also: Hen Hawk; Chicken Hawk; Win-
ter Hawk
Let any one say '' Hawk*' to the average far-
mer and he looks for his gun. For many years
it was supposed that every member of the hawk
family was a villain and fair game, but the
white searchlight of science shows us that
most of the tribe are the farmers' allies, which,
with the owls, share the task of keeping in check
the mice, moles, gophers, snakes, and the larger
insect pests. Nature keeps her vast domain
patrolled by these vigilant watchers by day
and by night. Guns may well be turned on
those blood-thirsty fiends in feathers. Cooper's
hawk, the sharp-shinned hawk, and the goshawk,
that not only eat our poultry, but every song
bird they can catch : the law of the survival of
the fittest might well be enforced with lead in
their case. But do let us protect our friends,
the more heavily built and slow-flying hawks
with the red tails and red shoulders, among
other allies in our ceaseless war against farm
vermin !
In the court of last appeal to which all our
2i6 Birds Every Child Should Know
hawks are brought — I mean those scientific
men in the Department of Agricvdture, Washing-
ton, who examine the contents of birds' stom-
achs to learn just what food is taken in different
parts of the country and at different seasons
of the year — the two so-called *'hen hawks"
were proved to be rare offenders, and great
helpers. Two hundred and twenty stomachs
of red-shouldered hawks were examined by
Dr. Fisher, and only three contained remains
of poultry, while one hundred and two con-
tained mice; ninety-two, insects; forty, moles
and other small mammals ; fifty-nine, frogs and
snakes, and so on. The percentage of poultry-
eaten is so small that it might be reduced to
nothing if the farmers would keep their chickens
in yards instead of letting them roam to pick
up a Uving in the fields, where the temptation
to snatch up one must be overwhelming to a
hungry hawk. Fortunately these two benefi-
cent "hen hawks," are still common, in spite
of our ignorant persecution of them for two
hundred years or more.
Toward the end of summer, especially in
September, when nursery duties have ended
for the year and the hawks are care free, you
may see them sailing in wide spirals, delighting
in the cooler stratum of air high overhead.
Balancing on wide, outstretched wings, floating
serenely with no apparent effort, they enjoy
Red-shouldered Hawk 217
the slow merry-go-round at a height that would
make any child dizzy. Sometimes they rise out
of sight. Kee you, kee you, they scream as they
sail. Does the teasing blue jay imitate the call
for the fun of frightening little birds?
But the red-shouldered hawk is not on
pleasure bent much of the time. Perching is
its specialty, and on an outstretched limb, or
other point of vantage, it sits erect and digni-
fied, its far-seeing eyes alone in motion trying
to sight its quarry — a mouse creeping through
the meadow, a mole leaving its tunnel, a chip-
munk running along a stone wall, a frog leap-
ing into the swamp, a gopher or young rabbit
frisking arotmd the edges of the wood — ^when,
spying one, *'like a thunderbolt it falls.''
If you could ever creep close enough to a
red-shouldered hawk, which is not likely, you
would see that it is a powerful bird, about a
foot and a half long, dark brown above, the
feathers edged with rusty, with bright chestnut
patches on the shoulders. The wings and dark
tail are barred with white, so are the rusty-buff
under parts, and the light throat has dark
streaks. Female hawks are larger than the
males, just as the squaws in some Indian tribes
are larger than the braves. It is said that
hawks remain mated for life ; so do eagles and
owls, for in their family life, at least, the birds of
prey are remarkably devoted, gentle and loving.
2i8 Birds Every Child Should Know
RED-TAILED HAWK
Called also: Hen Hawk; Chicken Hawk; Red
Hawk
This larger relative of the red-shouldered
hawk (the female red-tail measures nearly two
feet in length) shares with it the hatred of all
but the most enlightened farmers. Before con-
demning either of these useful allies, everyone
should read the report of Dr. Fisher, published
by the Government, and to be had for the ask-
ing. This expert judge tells of a pair of red-
tailed hawks that reared their young for
two successive seasons in a birch tree in some
swampy woods, about fifty rods from a poultry
farm, where they might have helped themselves
to eight hundred chickens and half as many
ducks ; yet they were never known to touch one.
Occasionally, in winter especially, when other
food is scarce, a red-tail will steal a chicken —
probably a maimed or sickly one that cannot
get out of the way — or drop on a bob-white;
but ninety per cent, of its food consists of
injurious mammals and insects.
Both of these slandered *'hen hawks'' prefer
to live in low, wet, wooded places with open
meadows for hunting grounds near by.
Cooper s Hawk 219
COOPER'S HAWK
Called also: Chicken Hawk; Big Blue Darter
Here is no ally of the farmer, but his foe, the
most bold of all his robbers, a blood-thirsty
villain that lives by plundering poultry yards,
and tearing the warm flesh from the breasts of
game and song birds, one of the few members of
his generally useful tribe that deserves the
punishment ignorantly meted out to his inno-
cent relatives. Unhappily, it is perhaps the
most common hawk in the greater part of the
United States, and therefore does more harm
than all the others. It is mentioned in this
chapter that concerns the farmers' allies, only
because every child should know foe from friend.
The female Cooper's hawk is about nineteen
inches long and her mate a finger-length smaller,
but not nearly so small as the little blue darter,
the sharp-shinned hawk, only about a foot in
length, but which it very closely resembles in
plimiage and villainy. Both species have
slaty-gray upper parts with deep bars across
their wings and ashy-gray tails The latter
differ in outline, however. Cooper's hawk having
a rounded tail with whitish tip, and the sharp-
shinned hawk a square tail. In maturity
Cooper's hawk wears a blackish crown. Both
species have white throats with dark streaks
220 Bird^ Every Child Should Know
and the rest of their under parts are much
barred with buff and white.
Instead of spending their time perching on
lookouts, as the red-tailed and red-shouldered
hawks do, these two reprobates dash after their
victims on the wing, chasing them across open
stretches where such swift, dexterous, dodging
flyers are sure to overtake them. Or they will
flash out of a clear sky like feathered lightning
and boldly strike a chicken, though it be peck-
ing com near a farmer's feet. These two
marauders, and the big slate-coloured goshawk,
also called the blue hen hawk or partridge
hawk, stab their cruel talons though the vitals
of more valuable poultry, song and game birds,
than any child would care to read about.
BALD EAGLE
Every American boy and girl knows our
national bird, which is the farmer's ally, how-
ever, only when it appears on the money in his
pocket. Without an eagle on that, you must
know it would be of little use to him.
Truth to tell, this majestic emblem of our
republic (borrowed from imperial Rome) that
spreads itself gloriously over our coins, flag
poles, public buildings and government docu-
ments, is, in real life, not the bravest of the
brave, nor the most intelligent, nor the noblest,
Bald Eagle 221
nor the most enterprising of birds, as one fain
would believe. On the contrary, it often uses
its wonderful eyesight to detect a bird more
skilful than itself in the act of catching a fish,
and then puts forth its superb strength to rob
the successful fisher of his prey. The osprey
is a frequent sufferer, although some of the
water fowl, that patiently course over the waves
hour after hour, in search of a dinner, may be
robbed of it by the overpowering pirate. Dead
fish cast up on the beach are not rejected.
When fish fail, coots, ducks, geese and gulls —
the fastest of flyers — are likely to be snatched
up, plucked clean of their feathers, and torn
apart by the great bird that drops suddenly
upon them from the clouds like Jove's thunder-
bolt. Rarely small animals are seized, but
there is probably no well-authenticated case of
an eagle carrying off a child.
It is in their family life that hawks and
eagles, however cruel at other times, show some
truly lovable traits. Once mated, they know
neither divorce nor family quarrels all their lives.
Home is the dearest spot on earth to them.
They become passionately attached to the
great btmdle of trash that is at once their nest
and their abode. A tall pine tree, near water,
or the rocky ledge of some steep cliff, is the
favourite site for an eagle eyrie. Here the de-
voted mates will carry an immense quantity of
222 Birds Every Child Should Know
sticks, sod, cornstalks, pine twigs, weeds, bones,
and other coarse rubbish, until, after annual
repairs for several seasons, the broad, fiat nest
may grow to be almost as high as it is wide and
look something like a New York sky-scraper.
Both parents sit on the eggs in turn and devote
themselves with zeal to feeding the eaglets.
These spoiled children remain in the nest
several months without attempting to fly,
expecting to be waited upon even after they are
actually larger than the old birds. The cast-
ings of skins, bones, hair, scales, etc., in the
vicinity of a hawk's or eagle's nest, will indicate,
almost as well as Dr. Fisher's analysis, what
food the babies had in their stomachs to make
them grow so big. Immature birds are almost
black all over. Not until they are three years
old do the feathers on their heads and necks
turn white, giving them the effect of being bald.
Any eagle seen in the eastern United States is
sure to be of this species.
In the West and throughout Asia and Africa
lives the golden eagle, of which Tennyson wrote
the lines that apply equally well to our East-
em *'bird of freedom":
**He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls:
He watches from his mountain walls,
And, like a thunderbolt, he falls.*'
American Sparrow Hawk 223
AMERICAN SPARROW HAWK
Called also: Killy Hawk; Rusty-crowned Falcon;
Mouse Hawk
Just such an extended branch as a shrike or a
kingbird would use as a lookout while searching
the landscape o'er for something to eat, the
little sparrow hawk chooses for the same purpose.
He is not much larger than either of these birds,
scarcely longer than a robin. Because he is a
hawk, with the family possession of eyes that
are both telescope and miscroscope, he can
detect a mouse, sparrow, garter snake, spider
or grasshopper, farther away than seems to us
possible.
Every farmer's boy knows this beautiful
little rusty-red hawk, with slaty-blue cap and
wings, and creamy-buflf spotted sides, if not by
sight then by sound, as it calls kill-ee, kill-ee
kill-ee, across the fields. It does not soar and
revolve in a merry-go-round on high like its
cousins, but flies swiftly and gracefully, keeping
near enough to the ground to see everything that
creeps or hops through the grass. Dropping
suddenly, like a stone, upon its victim (usually
a grasshopper) it seizes it in its small, sharp,
fatal talons and bears it away to a favourite
perch, there to enjoy it at leisure.
224 Birds Every Child Should Know
This is the hawk that is so glad to find a
deserted woodpecker's hole for its nest. How
many other birds gratefully accept those skil-
ful carpenters' vacant tenements!
AMERICAN OSPREY
Called also: Fish Hawk
A pair of these beautiful big hawks, that had
nested year after year in the top of a tall pine
tree on the Manasquan River, New Jersey, were
great pets in that region. An old fisherman
of Bamegat Bay told me that when he was
hauling in his seine one day, he saw the male
osprey strike the water with a splash, struggle
an instant with a great fish that had been fol-
lowing his net, and disappear below the waves,
never to rise again. The bird more than met his
match that time. The fish was far larger than
he expected, so powerful that it easily dragged
him under, once his talons were imbedded in
the fish/s flesh. For the rest of the summer the
widowed osprey always stayed about when the
fisherman hauled his net on the beach, and bore
away to her nest the worthless fish he left in it
for her special benefit. But after rearing her
family — a prolonged process for all the hawks,
eagles, and owls — she never returned to the
Owls 225
neighbourhood. Perhaps old associations were
too painful; perhaps she was shot on her way-
South that winter ; or perhaps she took another
mate with more sense and less greed, who pre-
ferred to reside elsewhere.
As you may imagine, fish hawks always live
near water. In summer they frequent the in-
lets along the Atlantic coast, but over inland
lakes and rivers also, many fly back and forth.
You may know by their larger size — ^they are
almost two feet long — ^and by their slow flight
that they are not the winter gulls. Their dusky
backs and white under parts harmonise well with
the marine picture, North or South. Their plum-
age contains more white than that of any other
hawk. No matter how foggy the day or how
quietly the diving osprey may splash to catch
his fish dinner, any bald-headed eagle in the
vicinity is sure to detect him in the act of seiz*
ing it, and then to relieve him of it instantly*
OWLS
Like many children I know, owls begin to be
especially lively toward night, only they make
no noise as they fly about. Very soft, fluffy
plumage muffles their flight so that they can
drop upon a meadow mouse creeping through
the grass in the stilly night before this wee,
2 26 Birds Every Child Should Know
timorous beastie suspects there is a foe abroad.
As owls live upon mice, mostly, it is important
they should be helped to catch them with some
device that beats our traps. If mice should
change their nocturnal habits, the owl's whole
scheme of existence would be upset, and the
hawks would get the quarry that they now
enjoy: mice, rats, moles, bats, frogs and the
larger insects. You see the farmer has in-
valuable day and night allies in these birds of
prey which take turns in protecting his fields
from rodents, one patrol working while the
other sleeps. On the whole, ow^ls are the more
valuable to him. They usually continue their
good work all through the winter after the
hawks have gone South. Can you think of any
other birds that work for him at night?
Not only can owls fluff out their loose, mottled
plumage, but they can draw it in so close as to
change their shape and size in an instant, so
that they look like quite different birds, or
rather not like birds at all, but stumps of trees.
Altering their outlines, changing their shape
and size at will, is one of these queer birds*
peculiarities. Their eyes, set in the centre of
feathered discs, do not revolve in their sockets,
but are so fixed that they look only straight
ahead, which is why an owl must turn his head
every time he wishes to glance to the right or
left. Another peculiarity is the owls' method
Turkey buzzard : one ol Nature's house cleaners
I
i
1
The beautiful little sparrow hawk
Barn Owl 227
of eating. Bolting entire all the food they
catch, head first, they digest only the nutritious
portions of it. Then, bowing their heads and
shaking them very hard, they eject the bones,
claws, skin, hair and fur in matted pellets, with-
out the least distress. Some children I know,
who swallow their food in a hurry — cherry
stones, grape skins, apple cores and all — need
a similar, merciful digestive apparatus.
Like the hawks, owls are devoted, life-long
mates. The females are larger than the males.
Some like to live in dense evergreens that hide
them from teasing blue jays and other foes by
day; some, like the barn owl, prefer towers,
church steeples or the tops of barns and other
buildings ; some hide in llpUow trees or deserted
woodpeckers' holes, but all naturally prefer to
take their long, daily naps where the sunlight
does not penetrate. They live in their homes
more hours than woodpeckers or any other
birds. No doubt we pass by many sleeping
owls without suspecting their presence.
BARN OWL
Called also: Monkey-faced Owl
This is the shy, odd-looking, gray and white
mottled owl with the triangular face and slim
228 Birds Every Child Should Know
body, about a foot and a half long, that comes
out of its hole at evening with a wild scream,
startling timid and superstitious people into the
belief that it is uncanny. The American coun-
terpart of "wise Minerva's only fowl/' its large
eye-discs and solemn blink certainly make it
look like a fit companion for the goddess of
wisdom.
A tame bam owl, owned by a gentleman in
Philadelphia, would sit on his shoulder for hours
at a time. It felt offended if its master would
not play with it. The only way the man
could gain time for himself during the bird's
waking hours, was to feed it well and leave a
stuffed bird for it to play with when he went
out of the room, just^as Jimmy Brown left a
doll with his baby sister when he went out to
play; only the man could not tack the owl's
petticoats to the floor.
A pair of bam owls lived for many years in the
tower of the Smithsonian Institution, Wash-
ington. Dr. Fisher found the skulls of four
htmdred and fifty-fotu: small mammals in the
pellets cast about their home. Another pair
lived in a tower and on the best of terms with
some tame pigeons. Happily the owls had no
taste for squab, but the debris of several
thousand mice and rats about their curious
dwelling proved that their appetite neede(? no
coaxing with such a delicacy.
Short-eared Owl 229
SHORT-EAREt) OWL
Called also: Marsh Owl; Meadow Owl
This owl, and its long-eared cousin, wear the
tufts of feathers in their ears that resemble harm-
less horns. Unlike its relatives, the short-
eared owl does some hunting by daylight,
especially in cloudy weather, and like the
marsh hawk it prefers to live in grassy, marshy
places frequented by meadow mice. On the
other hand, the long-eared owl respects family
traditions, and goes about only after dark.
*'It usually spends the day in some evergreen
woods, thick willow copse or alder swamp,
although rarely it may be found in open places,''
says Dr. Fisher. *' The bird is not wild and will
allow itself to be closely approached. When
conscious that its presence is recognised, it sits
upright, draws the feathers close to its body,
and erects the ear-tufts, resembling in ap-
pearance a piece of weather-beaten bark more
than a bird." The long and the short of it is,
that few people, except professional bird stu-
dents, know very much about these or any other
owls, for few find them by day or forsake their
couches when they are abroad. We may take
Dr. Johnson's advice and *' give our days and
nights to the study of Addison/' but few of us
give even a part of our days and less of our nights
to the study of the birds about us.
230 birds Every Child Should Know
BARRED OWL
Called also: Hoot Owl
If "a good child should be seen and not
heard'' what can be said for this owl? Its
deep-toned whoo-whoo-who-whoo-to-whoo-ah, like
the wail of some lost soul asking the way, is the
only indication you are likely to have that a
hoot owl lives in your neighbourhood. You
can imitate its voice and deliberately *'hoot it
up." Few people who know its voice will ever
see its smooth, round, bland, almost human
face.
*' As useless as a last year's nest" can have no
meaning to a pair of these large hardy owls
that go about toward the end of winter looking
for a deserted woodpecker's nest or a hawk's,
crow's, or squirrel's bulky cradle in some tree
top. Ever after they hold it as their own.
Farmers shoot the owl that occasionally takes
one of their broilers or a game bird, not knowing
that the remainder of its diet really leaves them
in its debt.
SCREECH OWLS
A boy I know had a pair of little screech owla
invite themselves to live in a box he had nailed
Screech Owls 231
up for bluebirds in his father's orchard. Al-
though they had full liberty, in time they be-
came tame pets, even pampered darlings, with
a willing slave to trap mice for them in the corn
crib and hay loft. At first mice were plentiful
enough, and every day after school the boy
would empty the traps, climb the apple tree
and feed the owls. But presently the mice
learned the danger that may lurk behind an
innocent looking lump of cheese. One foolish,
hungry mouse now and then was all the boy
could catch. This he would carry by the tail
to his sleeping pets, arouse them by dangling it
against their heads, at which, while half asleep,
they would click their beaks like castanets.
When both were wide awake he would allow
one of them to bolt the mouse while he still
held on firmly to the tail. Then, jerking the
mouse back out of the owl's throat, he would
allow the other owl to really swallow it. When
next he caught a mouse, the operation was
reversed: the owl that had been satisfied be-
fore now gulped the mouse first, only to have
it jerked away and fed to its mate. In this
way, strange to say, the boy kept on friendly
terms with the pair for several weeks, when he
discovered that they liked bits of raw beef quite
as well as mice. After that he carried his
queer pets to the house and kept them in his
room all winter. Early in the spring they
232 Birds Every Child Should Know
returned to the bird house and raised a family
of funny, fluffy, plump little owlets.
This boy discovered for himself the screech
owls' strange characteristic of changing their
colour without changing their feathers, as
moulting song birds change theirs. They have
a rusty, reddish-brown phase and a mottled-
gray phase. So far as is known, these changes
of colour are not dependent upon age, sex, or
season. No one understands what causes them
or what they mean. Sometimes the same family
will contain birds with plumage that is rusty-
brown or gray or intermediate. But you may
always know a screech owl by its small size (it
is only about as long as a robin) and by the ear
tufts that make it look wide-awake and very
wise.
By day it keeps well hidden in some deserted
woodpecker's hole or a hollow in some old
orchard tree, which is its favourite residence;
but some mischievous little birds, with sharper
eyes than ours, often discover its hiding place,
wake it up, and chase it, blinking and bewil-
dered, all about the farm. By night; when its
tormentors are asleep, this little owl goes forth
for its supper, and then we hear its weird,
sweet, shivering, tremulous cry. Because it
lives near our homes and is, perhaps, the com-
monest of the owls all over our country, every
child can know it by sound, if not by sight.
Father and mothei" barn owls
CHAPTER XVI
MOURNER, WHISTLER, AND
DRUMxMER
Mourning Dove
Bob-white
Ruffed Grouse
MOURNING DOVE
Called also: Carolina Dove
Y\0 NOT waste any sympathy on this Ih-
■*^ cessant love-maker that slowly sings
coo-O'O, ah-coo-o-O'OoO'O-o-ooo-O'Oy in a sweetly
sad voice. Really he is no more melan-
choly than the plaintive pewee but, on the
contrary, is so happy in his love that his de-
votion has passed into a proverb. Neverthe-
less, the song he sings to his ''turtle dove''
sounds more like a dirge than a rapture. While
she lives, there is no more contented bird in the
woods.
Dove lovers are quite self-sufficient. Their
larger cousins, the wild pigeons, that once were
so abundant, depended on friends for much of
their happiness and lived in enormous flocks.
Now only a few pairs survive in this land of
liberty to refute the adage ''In union there is
strength.'' Because millions of pigeons slept
in favourite roosts many miles in extent, they
were all too easily netted, and it did not take
greedy men long to turn the last flock into cash.
Happily, doves preserved their race by scat-
tering in couples over a wide area — from
235
236 Birds Every Child Should Know
Panama, in winter, as far north as Ontario in
warm weather. Not until nursery duties,
which begin early in the spring, are over, late
in summer, do they give up their shy, imsocial
habits to enjoy the company of a few friends.
When they rise on whistling wings from tree-
bordered fields, where they have been feeding
on seeds and grain, not a gun is fired: no one
cares to eat them.
Only the cuckoo of our common birds builds
so flimsy a nest as the dove's adored darling.
I am sorry to tell you she is a slack, incompetent
housekeeper, but evidently her lover is blind
to every fault. What must the expert phoebe
think of such a poorly made, imtidy cradle, or
that bustling, energetic housewife, Jenny Wren,
or the tiniest of clever architects, the humming-
bird? It is a wonder that the dove's two white
eggs do not fall through the rickety, rimless,
unlined lattice. How scarred and bruised the
naked bodies of the twins must be by the sticks !
Like pigeons, hummingbirds, flickers, and some
other feathered parents, doves feed their fledg-
lings by pumping partly digested food — **pig-
eon's milk" — from their own crops into theirs.
When they leave the open woodlands to
take a dust bath in the road, or to walk about
and collect gravel for their interior grinding
machines, or to get a drink of water before
going to sleep, you may have a good look at
A little screech owl in the sunlight where only a photog-
rapher could find him
Bob'White 237
them. As they walk, they bob their heads in
s^^unny manner of their own. They are bluish,
fawn-coloured birds about a foot long. The
male has some exquisite metallic colours on
his neck, otherwise he resembles his best be-
loved. Both wear black crescent patches on
their cheeks. All the feathers on their long,
pointed tails, except the two largest central
ones, have a narrow, black band across the end
and are tipped with white. The breast feathers
shade from pinkish fawn to pale bufi below.
Beautiful birds these, in spite of their quiet,
Quaker clothes.
BOB-WHITE
Called Also: '' Quail-on-Toast'' ; Partridge
What a cheerful contrast is Bob White's
clear, staccato whistle to the drawling coo of
the amorous dove! Character is often ex-
pressed in a bird's voice as well as in ours.
From their voices alone you might guess that
the dove and the quail are no relation. They
do not belong even to the same order, bob-
white being a scratching bird and having the
ruffed grouse and barnyard chicken for his kin.
Pheasants and turkeys are distantly related.
In the South people call him a partridge; in
238 Birds Every Child Should Know
New England it is the ruffed grouse that is
known by that name; therefore, to save con-
fusion, why not always give bob-white the
name by which he calls himself? The chickadee,
phcebe, peewee, towhee, whip-poor-will and
bobolink, who tell their names less plainly than
he, save every child who tries to know them
much trouble. Don't you wish every bird
would introduce himself?
The boy who
** Drives home the cows from the pasture,
Up through the long, shady lane,
Where the quail whistles loud in the wheat fields,
That are yellow with ripening grain,"
probably ''whistles up'' those bob- whites on
his way home as you would start up the roosters
in the barnyard by imitating their crow. Bob
White! Ah, Boh White! rings from some plump
little feathered gallant on the outskirts of almost
any farm during the long nesting season.
A slight depression in some dry, grassy field
or a hole at the foot of an old stump or weed-
hedged wall will be lined with leaves and grasses
by both mates in May to receive from ten to
eighteen brilliant white eggs that are packed in,
pointed end downwards, to economise space.
If an egg were removed, it would be difficult
indeed to re-arrange the clutch with such
economy. Would it not be cruel to touch a
Boh'White 239
Hest which the outraged owners would at once
desert ?
Just as baby chickens follow the mother
about, so downy bob-whites run after both
their parents and learn which seeds, grain, in-
sects and berries they may safvly ez.t. Man,
with his gun and dog and mowing machines, is
their worst enemy, of course; then comes the
sly fox and sneaking weasel that spring upon
them from ambush, and the hawk that drops
upon them like a thunderbolt. Birds have
enemies above, below, and on every side. Is
it any wonder that they are timid and shy? A
note of alarm from Mamma White summons the
chicks, half-nmning, half-flying, to huddle
close to her or to take shelter beneath her short
wings. Their little grouse cousins find pro-
tection in a more original way. When the
mother is busy sitting on a second or third
clutch of eggs, it is Bob himself, a pattern of
all the domestic virtues, who takes full charge
of the family. When the last chicks are ready
to join their older brothers and sisters, the bevy
may contain three or four dozen birds, all de-
votedly attached to one another. At bed time
they squat in a circle on the ground^^ tails toward
the centre of the ring, heads pointing outward
to detect an enemy coming from any direction.
As if their vigilance were not enough, Bob
usually remains outside the ring to act as
240 Birds Every Child Should Know
sentinel. At the sign of danger the bunch of
birds will rise with loud whirring of the wings,
as suddenly as a bomb might burst.
From November onward, every gun in the
country will be trained against them. There
is sufficient reason for poor people, who rarely
have any really good food, or enough to eat,
shooting game birds in season ; but who has any
patience with the pampered epicures for whose
order **quail-on-toast'* are cooked by the htm-
dred thousand at city clubs, restaurants, and
private tables, already over-supplied? No chef
could ever tempt me to eat this friendly little
song bird that stays about the farm with his
family through the coldest winter to pick up
the buckwheat, cheap raisins, and sweepings
from the hay loft that keep him as neighbourly
as a robin. Every farmer who does not post his
place,' and who allows this useful ally in his
eternal war against weeds and insect pests to be
shot, impoverishes himself more than he is
aware.
RUFFED GROUSE
X^ ailed also: Partridge
Bob-white and ruffed grouse are the fife and
drum corps of the woods. That some birds
are wonderful musicians everybody knows.
Ruffed Grouse 241
No other orchestra contains a member who can
drum without a drum. Ex^en that famous
drummer, the woodpecker, needs a dead, dry,
resonant, hardwood limb to tap on before he
can produce his best effects. How does the
grouse beat his deep, muffled, thump, thump,
thtmiping, rolHng tattoo .^^ Some scientists have
staked their reputation on the claim that they
have seen him drum by rapidly striking his
wings against the sides of his body; but other
later-day scientists, who contend that he beats
only the air when his wings vibrate so fast that
the sight cannot quite follow them, are tm-
doubtedly right.
On a fallen log, a stump, a rail fence or a wall,
that may have been used as a drumming stand
for many years, the male grouse will strut with
a jerking, dandified gait, puff out his feathers,
ruff his neck frills, raise and spread his fan-
shaped tail like a turkey cock, blow out his
cheeks and neck, then suddenly halt and begin
to beat his wings. After a few slow, measured
thumps, the stiff, strong wings whir faster
and faster, until there is only a blur where they
vibrate. This is the grouse's love song that
summons a mate to their trysting place. It
serves also as a challenge to a rival. Blood and
feathers may soon be strewn around the ground,
for in the spring grouse will fight as fiercely as
game-cocks. Sportsmen in the autumn woods
242 Birds Every Child Should Know
often hear grouse drumming at the old stand,
merely from excess of vigour and not because
they take the slightest interest then in a mate.
After the mating season is over, they have less
chivalry than barnyard roosters.
Shy, wary birds of wooded, hilly country,
grouse are rarely thought of as possible pets,
but the gentle little girl in the picture won the
heart of a drummer and subdued his wildness,
as you see. Some people are trying to domes-
ticate grouse in wire-enclosed poultry yards.
Sometimes when, like ''the cat that walked
by himself ' ' you wander " in the wild wet woods, ' *
perhaps you will be suddenly startled by the
loud whirring roar of a big brown grouse that
suddenly hurls itself from the ground near your
feet. If it were shot from the mouth of a can-
non it could surprise you no less. Then it sails
away, dodging the trees and disappears. Gun-
ners have "educated" the intelligent bird into
being, perhaps, the most wily, difficult game
in the woods.
Like the meadowlark, flicker, sparrows and
other birds that spend much time on the ground,
the bob-white and ruffed grouse wear brown
feathers, streaked and barred, to harmonise
perfectly with their surroundings. ''To find
a hen grouse with young is a memorable
experience, " says Frank M. Chapman. " While
the parent is giving us a lesson in mother love
feD
The drummer drumming
Ruffed Grouse 243
and bird intelligence,her downy chicks are teach-
ing us facts in protective colouration and hered-
ity. How the old one limps and flutters ! She
can barely drag herself along the ground. But
while we are watching her, what has become of
the ten or a dozen little yellow balls we had
almost stepped on? Not a feather do we see,
until, poking about in the leaves, we find one
little chap hiding here and another squatting
there, all perfectly still, and so like the leaves
in coiour as to be nearly invisible.''
CHAPTER XVII
BIRDS OF THE SHORE AND
MARSHES
KiLLDEER
Semipalmated or Ring-necked Plover
Least Sandpiper
Spotted Sandpiper
Woodcock
Clapper Rail
SoRA Rail
Great Blue Heron
Little Green Heron
Black-crowned Night Heron
American Bittern
KILLDEER
TF YOU don't know the little killdeer plover,
-'■ it is surely not his fault, for he is a noisy
sentinel, always ready, night or day, to tell you
his name. Killdee, killdeey he calls with his
high voice when alarmed — and he is usually
beset by fears, real or imaginary — ^but when at
peace, his voice is sweet and low. Much per-
secution from gunners has made the naturally
gentle birds of the shore and marshes rather
shy and wild. Most plovers nest in the Arctic
regions, where man and his wicked ways are
unknown. When the yoimg birds reach our
land of liberty and receive a welcome of hot
shot, the survivors learn their first lesson in
shyness. Some killdeer, however, are hatched
in the United States. No sportsman worthy
the name would waste shot on a bird not larger
than a robin ; one, moreover, with musky flesh ;
yet I have seen scores of killdeer strung over
the backs of gimners in tide-water Virginia.
Their larger cousins, the black-breasted, the
piping, the golden and Wilson's plovers, who
travel from the ttmdras of the far North to
South America and back again every year,
have now become rare because too much cooked
247
248 Birds Every Child Should Know
along their long route. You can usually tell
a flock of plovers in flight by the crescent shape
of the rapidly moving mass.
With a busy company of friends, the killdeer
haimts broad tracts of grassy land, near water-
uplands or lowlands, or marshy meadows beside
the sea. Scattered over a chosen feeding
ground, the plovers run about nimbly, nervously,
looking for trouble as well as food. Because
worms, which are their favoixrite supper, come
out of the ground at nightfall, the birds
are especially active then. Grasshoppers,
crickets, and other insects content them during
the day.
SEMIPALMATED PLOVER
The killdeer, which is our commonest plover,
has a little cousin scarcely larger than an English
sparrow that is a miniature of himself, except
that the semipalmated (half -webbed) or ring-
necked plover has only one dark band across
the upper part of his white breast, while the
killdeer wears two black rings. This dainty
little beach bird has brownish-gray upper parts
so like the colour of wet sand, that, as he runs
along over it, just in advance of the frothing
ripples, he is in perfect harmony with his sur-
rotmdings. Relying upon that fact for pro-
Least Sandpiper 249
tection, he will vSquat behind a tuft of beach
grass if you pass too near rather than risk
flight.
When the tide is out, you may see the tiny
forms of these common ring-necks mingled with
the ever-friendly little sandpipers on the ex-
posed sand bars and wide beaches where all
keep up a constant hunt for bits of shell fish,
fish eggs and sand worms.
General Greely found them nesting in
Grinnell Land in July, the males doing most of
the incubating as is customary in the plover
family, whose females certainly have advanced
ideas. Downy little chicks run about as soon
after leaving the egg as they are dry. In
August the advance guard of southbound
flocks begin to arrive in the United States
en route for Brazil — quite a journey in the world
to test the fledgling's wings.
LEAST SANDPIPER
Across the narrow beach we flit,
One little sandpiper and I ;
And fast I gather, bit by bit,
The scattered driftwood bleached and dry.
The wild waves reach their hands for it,
The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we flit, —
One little sandpiper and I.
2SO Birds Every Child Should Know
Above our heads the sullen clouds
Scud black and swift across the sky;
Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds
Stand out the white light-houses high.
Almost as far as eye can reach
I see the close-reefed vessels fly,
As fast we flit along the beach,-'—
One little sandpiper and I.
I watch him as he skims along
Uttering his sweet and mournful cry;
He starts not at my fitful song,
Or flash of fluttering drapery.
He has no thought of any wrong;
He scans me with a fearless eye.
Stanch friends are we, well-tried and strong,
The little sandpiper and I.
Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night
When the loosed storm breaks furiously?
My driftwood fire will burn so bright!
To what warm shelter canst thou fly?
I do not fear for thee, though wroth
The tempest rushes through the sky:
For are we not God's children both,
Thou, little sandpiper, and I ?
Almost every child I know is more familiar
with Celia Thaxter's poem about the little sand-
piper than with the bird itself. But if you have
the good fortune to be at the seashore in the
late simimer, when flocks of the friendly mites
come to visit us from the Arctic regions on their
way south, you can scarcely fail to become
acquainted with the companion of Mrs. Thax-
ter's lonely walks along the beach at the Isles
of Shoals where her father kept the lighthouse.
spotted Sandpiper 251
The least sandpipers, peeps^ ox-eyes or stints,
as they are variously called, are only about the
size of sparrows — too small for any self-
respecting gunner to bag, therefore they are
still abundant. Their light, dingy-brown and
gray, finely speckled backs are about the colour
of the mottled sand they run over so nimbly,
and their breasts are as white as the froth of
the waves that almost never touch them.
Beach birds become marvellously quick in
reckoning the fraction of a second when they
must nm from under the combing wave about
to break over their little heads. Plovers rely
on their fleet feet to escape a wetting. Least
sandpipers usually fly upward and onward if a
deluge threatens; but they have a cousin, the
semipalmated (half-webbed) sandpiper that
swims well when the tmexpected water sud-
denly lifts it off its feet.
These busy, cheerftd, sprightly little peepers
are always ready to welcome to their flocks
other birds — ring-necked plovers, tumstones,
snipe and phalaropes. If by no other sign,
you may distinguish sandpipers by their con-
stant call, peep-peep,
SPOTTED SANDPIPER
Do you know the spotted sandpiper, teeter,
tilt-up, teeter-tail, teeter-snipe, or tip-up, which-
252 Birds Every Child Should Know
ever you may ch<x)se to call ^t? As if it had
not yet decided whether to be a beach bird or
a woodland dweller, a wader or a perching
songster, it is eqtially at home along the sea-
shore or on wooded uplands, wherever ditches,
pools, streams, creeks, swamps, and wet mea-
dows furnish its favourite foods. It stays
with us through the long summer. Did you
ever see it go through any of the queer motions
that have earned for it so many names? Jerk-
ing up first its head, then its tail, it walks with
a funny, bobbing, tipping, see-saw gait, as if
it were self-conscious and conceited. Still
another popular name was given from its sharp
call peet-weet, peet-weet, rapidly repeated, and
usually uttered as the bird flies in graceful
curves over the water or inland fields.
WOODCOCK
Called also: Blind, Wall-eyed, Mud, Bigheaded,
Wood, and Whistling Snipe; Bog-sucker; Bog-
bird; Timber Doodle
Whenever you see little groups of clean-cut
holes dotted over the earth in low, wet grotmd,
you may know that either the woodcock or
Wilson's snipe has been there probing for worms.
Not even the woodpecker's combination tool
Woodcock 253
is more wonderfully adapted to its work than
the bill of these snipe, which is a long, straight
boring instrument, its upper half fitted with a
flexible tip for hooking the worm out of its hole
as you would lift a string out of a jar on your
hooked finger. Down goes the bill into the
mud, sunk to the nostrils; then the upper tip
feels around for its slippery victim. You need
scarcely hope to see the probing performance
because earth-worms, like mice, come out of their
holes after dark, which is why snipe are most
active then.
A little boy once asked me this conundrum of
his own making : " What is the difference between
Martin Luther and a woodcock?'' Just a few
differences suggested themselves, but I did not
guess right the very first time; can you? " One
didn't like a Diet of Worms and the other does/'
was the small boy's answer.
After the ground freezes hard in the north-
ern United States and Canada, the woodcock
is compelled to go south to Virginia. But by
the time the skunk cabbage and bright-green,
fluted leaves of hellebore are pushing through
the bogs and wet woodlands in earliest spring,
back he comes again. An odd-looking, thick-
necked, chunky fellow he is, less than a foot in
length, his long, straight, stout bill sticking far
out from his triangular head; his eyes placed
to far back in the upper corners that he must
254 Birds Every Child Should Know
be able to see behind him quite as well as he
can look ahead; the streaks and bars of his
mottled russet-brown, gray and buff and black
upper parts being so laid on that he is in per-
fect harmony with the russet leaves, earth and
underbrush of his woodland home. When his
mate is sitting on her nest, the mimicry of her
surroundings is so perfect it is well-nigh im-
possible to find her.
Sportsmen pursue both the woodcock and
Wilson's snipe relentlessly, but happily they
are no easy targets. Rising on short, stiff,
whistling wings they fly in a zig-zag, erratic
flight, and quickly drop to cover again, con-
tinually breaking the scent for a pursuing
dog.
RAILS
Rails are such shy, skulking hiders among
the tall marsh grasses that *' every child*' need
never hope to know them all ; but a few mem-
bers of the family that are both abundant and
noisy, may be readily recognised by their voices
alone.
All rails prefer to escape from an intruder
through the sedges in well-worn runways rather
than trust their short, rounded wings to bear
them beyond danger ; and for forcing their way
throtigh grassy jungles, their narrow-breasted.
Rails 25s
wedge-shaped bodies are perfectly adapted.
Compressed almost to a point in front, but
broad and blimt behind where their queer
little short-pointed tails stand up, the rails*
small figures thread their way in and out of the
mazes over the oozy ground with wonderful
rapidity.
*' As thin as a rail*' means much to the cook
who plucks one. It offers even a smaller bite than
a robin to the epicure. When a gunner routs
a rail it reluctantly rises a few feet above the
grasses, flies with much fluttering, trailing its
legs after it, but quickly sinks in the sedges
again. Except in game bags, you rarely see
a rail's varied brown and gray back or its barred
breast. The bill is longer than the head. The
long, widespread, fiat toes help the owner to
tread a dinner out of the mud as well as to
swim across an inlet; and the short hind toes
enable him to cling when he runs up the rushes
to reach the tassels of grain at the top. No
doubt you once played with some mechanical
toy that made a noise something like the
peculiar, rolling cackle of the clapper rail.
This '' marsh hen, " which is common in the salt
meadows along our coast from Long Island
southward, continually betrays itself by its
voice; otherwise you might never suspect its
presence unless you are in the habit of pushing
a pimt up a creek to get acquainted with the
2 $6 Birds Every Child Should Know
interesting shy creatures that dwell in what
Thoreau called *' Nature's sanctuary.*'
The clapper's cousin, the sora, or Carolina
rail, so well known to gunners, alas ! if not to
"every child, '' delights to live wherever wild
rice grows along inland lakes and rivers or
along the coast. Its sweetly whistled spring
song ker-wee, ker-wee, and ''rolling whinny"
give place in autumn to the 'kuk, kuk, 'k-k-k-
'kuk imitated by alleged sportsmen in search
of a mere trifle of flesh that they fill with shot.
As Mrs. Wright says of the bobolinks (neigh-
bours of the soras in the rice fields) so may it
be written of them ; they only serve '' to length-
en some weary dinner where a collection of
animal and vegetable bric-a-brac takes the
place of satisfactory nourishment.'*
GREAT BLUE HERON
Standing motionless as the sphinx, with his
neck drawn in until his crested head rests
between his angular shoulders, the big, long-
legged, bluish-gray heron depends upon his
stillness and protective colouring to escape the
notice of his prey, and of his human foes (for
he has no others) . In spite of his size — and he
stands four feet high without stockings — it takes
the sharpest eyes to detect him as he waits in
Great Blue Heron 257
some shallow pool among the sedges along the
creek or river side, silently, solemnly, hour after
hour, for a little fish, frog, lizard, snake, or
some large insect to come within striking dis-
tance. With a sudden stroke of his long, strong,
sharp bill, he either snaps up his victim, or runs
it through. A fish will be tossed in the air
before being swallowed, head downward, that
the fins may not scratch his very long, slender
throat. When you are eating ice cream, don't
you wish your throat were as long as this
heron's?
A gunner, who wantonly shoots at any living
target, will usually try to excuse himself for
striking down this stately, picturesque bird
into a useless mass of flesh and feathers, by
saying that herons help themselves to too many
fish. (He forgets about all the mice and
reptiles they destroy.) But perhaps birds, as
well as men, are entitled to a fair share of the
good things of the Creator. Some people
would prefer the sight of this majestic bird to
the small, worthless fish he eats. What do you
think about protecting him by law? Any one
may shoot him now. The broad side of a barn
would be about as good a test of a marksman's
skill.
\The evil that birds do surely lives after them ;
the good they do for us is far too little ap-
preciated. Almost the last snowy heron and
258 Birds Every Child Should Know
the last egret of Southern swamps have yielded
their bodies to the knife of the plume hunter,
who cuts out the exquisite decorations these
birds wear during the nesting season. Inas-
much as all the heron babies depend upon
their parents through an unusually long, help-
less infancy, the little orphans are left to die by
starvation. For what end is the slaughter of
the innocents? Merely that the imthinking
heads of vain women may be decked out with
aigrettes! Don't blame the poor hunters too
much when the plimies are worth their weight
in gold.
LITTLE GREEN HERON
Called also: Poke; Chuckle-head
This most abundant member of his tropical
tribe that spends the summer with us, is a shy,
solitary bird of the swamps where you would
lose your rubber boots in the quagmire if you
attempted to know him too intimately. But
you may catch a glimpse of him as he wades
about the edge of a pond or creek with slow,
calculated steps, looking for his supper. All
herons become more active toward evening
because their prey does. By day, this heron,
like his big, blue cousin, might be mistaken for
03
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One rfttle sandpiper
*W.
.. >.%;s.^^i.a^KSSSMi^
Xlie coot
Little Green Heron 259
a stump or snag among the sedges and bushes
by the waterside, so dark and still is he. Herons
are accused of the tropical vice of laziness ; but
surely a bird that travels from northern Canada
to the tropics and back again every year to
earn its living, as the little green heron does,
is not altogether lazy. Startle him, and he
springs into the air with a loud squawk, flap-
ping his broad wings and trailing his greenish-
yellow legs behind him, like the storks you see
painted on Japanese fans.
He and his mate have long, dark-green crests
on their odd-shaped, receding heads and some
lengthened, pointed feathers between the shoul-
ders of their green or grayish-green hunched
backs. Their figures are rather queer. The
reddish-chestnut colour on their necks fades
into the brownish-ash of their under parts,
divided by a line of dark spots on the white
throat that widen on the breast. Although
the little green heron is the smallest member of
this tribe of large birds that we see in the
Northern States and Canada, it is about a foot
and a half long, larger than any bird, except
one of its own cousins, that you are likely to
see in its marshy haunts.
Unlike many of their kind a pair of these
herons prefer to build their rickety nests apart
by themselves rather in one of tliose laige,
sociable, noisy and noisome colonies which we
26o Birds Every Child Should Know
associate with the heron tribe. Flocking is
sometimes a fatal habit.
BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON
Called also: Quawk; Qua Bird
When the night herons return to us from the
South in April, they go straight to the home of
their ancestors, to which they are devotedly
attached — rickety, ramshackle heronries, mere
bundles of sticks in the tops of trees in some
swamp — and begin at once to repair them.
The cuckoo's and the dove's nests are fine
pieces of architecture compared with a heron's.
Is it not a wonder that the helpless heron babies
do not tumble through the loose twigs? When
they are old enough to climb around their lat-
ticed nursery, they still make no attempt to
leave it, and several more weeks must pass be-
fore they attempt to fly. If there is an ancient
heronry in your neighbourhood, as there is in
mine, don't attempt to visit the untidy, ill-
smelling place on a hot day. One would like
to spray the entire colony with a deodoriser.
Thanks to the night heron's habits that keep
him concealed by day when gtmners are abroad,
a few large heronries still exist within an hour's
ride of New York, in spite of much persecution.
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American Bittern 261
Unlike the solitary little green cousin, the black-
crowned heron delights in company, and a
hundred noisy pairs may choose to nest in some
favourite spot. How they squawk over their
petty quarrels! Wilson likened the noise to
that of *' two or three hundred Indians choking
one another."
Only when they have young fledglings to feed
do these herons hunt for food in broad day-
light. But as the light fades they become in-
creasingly active and noisy; even after it is
pitch dark, when the fishermen go eeling, you
may hear them quawking continually as they
fiy up and down the creek. Big, pearly-gray
birds (they stand fully two feet high) with
black-crowned heads, from which their long,
narrow, white wedding feathers fall over the
black top of the back, the night herons so
harmonise with the twilight as to seem a part
of it.
AMERICAN BITTERN
Called also: Stake-driver; Poke; Freckled
Heron; Booming Bittern; Indian Hen
Even if you have never seen this shy hermit of
large swamps and marshy meadows you must
know him by his remarkable "barbaric yawp."
Not a muscle does this brown and blackish and
262 Birds Every Child Should Know
buff freckled fellow move as he stands waiting
for prey to come within striking distance of
what appears to be a dead stump. Sometimes
he stands with his head drawn in until it rests
on his back ; or, he may hold his head erect and
pointed upward when he looks like a sharp
snag. While he meditates pleasantly on the
flavour of a coming dinner, he suddenly snaps
and gulps, filling his lungs with air, then loudly
bellows forth the most unmusical bird cry you
are ever likely to hear. You may recognise it
across the marsh half a mile away or more. A
nauseated child would go through no more con-
vulsive gestures than this happy hermit makes
every time he lifts up his voice to call, pump^
er4unk, pump-er4unk, pump-er-lunk. Still
another noise has earned him one of his many
popular names because it sounds like a stake
being driven into the mud.
A booming bittern I know sits hour after
hour, almost every day in stmimer, year after
year, on a dark, decaying pile of an old dock
in the creek. Our canoe glides over the water
so silently it rarely disturbs him. The timid
bird relies on his protective colouring to con-
ceal him in so exposed a place and profits by
his fearlessness in broad daylight next to an
excellent feeding ground. At low tide he walks
about sedately on the muddy fiats treading out
a dinner. Kingfishers rattle up and down the
American Bittern 263
creek, cackling rails hide in the sedges behind
it, red-winged blackbirds flute above the
phalanxes of rushes on its banks : but the bit-
tern makes more noise, especially toward even-
ing, than all the other inhabitants of the swampy-
meadows except the frogs, whose voices he
forever silences when he can. Frogs, legs and
all, are his favourite delicacy.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FASTEST FLYERS
Canada Goose
Wild Ducks
Herring Gull
CANADA GOOSE
/^F THE millions of migrants that stream
^^ across the sky every spring and autumn,
none attract so much attention as the wild
geese. How their mellow honk, honk thrills
one when the birds pass like ships in the night!
Such big, strong, rapid flyers have little to fear
in travelling by daylight too, but gunners have
taught them the wisdom of keeping up so high
that they look like mere specks. It must be
a very dull child without imagination, who is
not stirred by the flight of birds that are
launched on a journey of at least two thousand
miles. Don't you wish you were as familiar
with the map as these migrants must be?
Usually geese travel in a wedge-shaped flock,
headed by some old, experienced leader; but
sometimes, with their long necks outstretched,
they follow one another in Indian file and shoot
across the clouds as straight as an arrow.
Geese spend much more time on land than
ducks do. If you will study the habits of the
common barnyard goose you will learn many
of the ways of its wild relations that nest too
far north to be watched by "every child."
Canada geese that have been woimded by
267
268 Birds Every Child Should Know
sportsmen in the fall, can be kept on a farm
perfectly contented all winter; but when the
honking flocks return from the south in March
or April, they rarely resist *' the call of the wild,*'
and away they go toward their kin and freedom.
WILD DUCKS
Birds that spend their summers for the most
part north of the United States and travel past
us faster than the fastest automobile racer or
locomotive — and an htmdred miles an hour is
not an uncommon speed for ducks to fly — need
have little to fear, you might suppose. But so
mercilessly are they hunted whenever they stop
to rest, that few birds are more timid.
River and pond ducks, that have the most
delicious flavour because they feed on wild rice,
celery and other dainty fare, frequent sluggish
streams and shallow ponds. There they tip
up their bodies in a funny way to probe about
the muddy bottoms, their heads stuck down
under water, their tails and flat, webbed feet
in the air directly above them, just as you have
seen barnyard ducks stand on their heads.
They like to dabble along the shores, too, and
draw out roots, worms, seeds and tiny shellfish
imbedded in the banks. Of course they get a
good deal of mud in their mouths, but fortim-
Black-crowned night heron rising from a morass
Wild Ducks 269
ately their broad, flat bills have strainers on the
sides, and merely by shutting them tight, the
mud and water are forced out of the gutters.
After nightfall they seem especially active and
noisy.
In every slough where mallards, blue- and
green-winged teal, widgeons, black duck and
pintails settle down to rest in autumn, gunners
wait concealed in the sedges. Decoying the
sociable birds by means of painted wooden
images of ducks floating on the water near the
blind, they commence the slaughter at day-
break. But ducks are of all targets the most
difficult, perhaps, for the tyro to hit. On the
slightest alarm they bound from the water on
whistling wings and are off at a speed that only
the most expert shot overtakes. No self-
respecting sportsman would touqh the little
wood duck — the most beautiful member of its
family group. It is as choicely coloured ancj
marked as the Chinese mandarin duck, and a
possible possession for every one who has a
country place with woods and water on it.
Unlike its relatives, the wood duck nests in
hollow trees and carries its babies to the water
in its mouth as a cat carries its kittens.
The large group of sea and bay ducks, con-
tains the canvas-back, red-head and other
vegetarian ducks, dear to the sportsman and
epicure. These birds may, perhaps, be familiar
270 Birds Every Child Should Know
to *' every child'' as they hang by the necks
in butcher-shop windows, but rarely in life.
Enormous flocks once descended upon the
Chesapeake Bay region. To Virginia and
Maryland, therefore, hastened all the gunners
in the East until the canvas-back, at least, is
even more rare in the sportsman's paradise than
it is on the gourmand's plate. Every kind of
duck is now served up as canvas-back. Some
sea ducks, however, which are fish eaters, have
flesh too tough, rank, and oily for the table.
They dive for their food, often to a great depth,
pursuing and catching fish under water like the
saw-billed mergansers or shelldrakes which
form a distinct group. The surf scoters, or
black coots, so abundant off the Atlantic coast
in winter, dive constantly to feed on mussels,
clams or scallops. Naturally such athletic
birds are very tough.
With the exception of the wood duck, all
ducks nest on the ground. Twigs, leaves and
grasses form the rude cradle for the eggs, and,
as a final touch of devotion, the mother bird
plucks feathers from her own soft breast for the
eggs to lie in. When there is any work to be
done the selfish, dandified drakes go off by
themselves, leaving the entire care of raising the
family to their mates. Then they moult and
sometimes lose so many feathers they are un-
able to fly. But by the time the ducklings are
Herring Gull 271
well grown and strong of wing, the drake joins
the family, one flock joins another, and the
ducks begin their long journey southward.
But very few children, even in Canada, can ever
hope to know them in their inaccessible swampy
homes.
HERRING GULL
Called also: Winter Gull
"Every child'* who has crossed the ocean or
even a New York ferry in winter, knows the big,
pearly-gray and white gulls that come fromnorth-
ern nesting grounds in November, just before
the ice locks their larder, to spend the winter
about our open waterways. On the great
lakes and the larger rivers and harbours along
our coast, you may see the scattered flocks
sailing about serenely on broad, strong wings,
gliding and skimming and darting with a poetry
of motion few birds can equal. There are at
least three things one never tires of watching:
the blaze of a wood fire, the breaking of waves
on a beach, and the flight of a flock of gulls.
Not many years ago gulls became alarmingly
scarce. Why? Because silly girls and women,
to follow fashion, trimmed their hats with gull's
wings until hundreds of thousands of these
272 Birds Every Child Should Know
birds and their exquisite little cousins, the
terns or sea-swallows, had been slaughtered.
Then some people said the massacre must stop
and happily the law now says so too. Paid keep-
ers patrol some of the islands where gulls and
terns nest, which is the reason why you may see
ashy-brown young gulls in almost every flock.
When they mature, a deep-pearl mantle covers
their backs and wings, and their breasts, heads
and tails become snowy white. Their colour-
ing now suggests fogs and white-capped waves.
Why protect birds that are not fit for food
and that kill no mice nor insects in the farmer's
fields? is often asked. A wise man once said
**the beautiful is as useful as the useful,'' but
the picturesque gulls are not preserved merely
to enliven marine pictures and to please the eye
of travellers. They fill the valuable office of
scavengers of the sea. Lobsters and crabs,
among many other creatures under the ocean,
gulls, terns and petrels, among many creatures
over it, do for the water what the turkey buz-
zard does for the land — rid it of enormous
quantities of refuse. When one watches hun-
dreds of gulls following the garbage scows out
of New York harbour, or sailing in the wake of an
ocean liner a thousand miles or more away
from land, to pick up the refuse thrown over-
board from the ship's kitchen, one realises the
excellence of Dame Nature's housecleaning.
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Herring Gull 273
Gulls are greedy creatures. No sooner will
one member of a flock swoop down upon a
morsel of food, than a horde of hungry com-
panions, in hot pursuit, chase after him to try
to frighten him into dropping his dinner. With
a harsh, laughing cry, akak, kak, akak, kak, kak,
they wheel and float about a feeding ground
for hours at a time.
And they fly incredibly far and fast. A
flock that has followed an ocean greyhound all
day will settle down to sleep at night ** bedded"
on the rolling water like ducks while "rocked
in the cradle of the deep.'' After a rest that
may last till dawn, they rise refreshed, fly in
the direction of the vanished steamer and
actually overtake it with apparent ease in time
to pick up the scraps from the breakfast table.
Reliable sailors say the same birds follow a ship
from our shores all the way across the Atlantic,
INDEX
INDEX
Accenter, 58.
Bellbird, 12.
Bittern, 40, 263.
American, 261.
Booming, 261, 262.
Blackbird, 149.
Crow, 148.
Red- winged, 40, iii,
141, 142, 1^3, 166,
263.
Rusty, 143-
Swamp, 141.
Thrush, i43-
Bluebird, iii, vi, 9, 10, 11,
12, 29, 36, 97, 104,
128, 145, 166, 191,
231.
Blue Jay, 23, 24, 79» S3, 84,
128, 134, 153, 156,
157. 163, 198, 217,
227, 232.
Bobolink, 137, 138, 139, 140,
150, 190, 238, 256.
Bob-white, 144, 218, 237,
238, 239, 240, 242.
Bog-bird, 252.
Bog-sucker, 252.
Bonnet-bird, 82.
Bull-bat, 177-
Bunting, 130.
Bay- winged, 113.
Indigo, 128, 131, 169.
Snow, 124.
Butcherbird, 79, 80.
Buzzard, 214.
Turkey, 213, 272.
Canary, 115, 128.
Wild, 53, 124, 125.
Canvas-back, 270.
Cardinal, 23, 38, 48, 72, 83,
87, 133, 134.
Catbird, 15, 42, 44, 45. 4^,
47, 49, 72, 163.
Cedarbird, 82, 84, 85, 86.
Chat, Yellow-breasted, 47,
55. 63, 64, 74, 128.
Chebec, 161, 170, 171.
Cherry-bird, 82.
Chewink, 129, 130, 132.
Chickadee, 19, 20, 21, 22,
23, 24, 25, 28, 29,
130, 189, 191, 193,
23S.
Chminey swift, x8o.
Chippy, 116, 117, 118.
Winter, 119.
Chuckle-head, 258.
Chuck- will 's- widow, 177.
Clape, 199.
Coot, 221.
Black, 270.
Cowbird, 56, 57, 63, 74, i39»
140, 141, 149, 150,
177, 180, 207.
Creeper, Brown, 26, 58.
Crow, iv, 24, 63, 149.
American, 153, 154,
155, 156. 157. 163,
230.
Carrion, 214.
Rain, 205.
Cuckoo, 207, 210, 236, 260.
Black-billed, 205.
Yellow-billed, v, 43,
205, 206.
277
Darter, Big Blue, 219.
Little Blue, 2x9.
278
Index
Devil Downhead, 25.
Dove, 236, 237, 260.
Carolina, 235.
Motirning, 235,
Duck, V, 63, 221, 271, 273.
Black, 269.
Canvas-back, 269.
Chinese mandarin, 269.
Red-headed, 269.
Wild, 268.
Wood, 269, 270.
Eagle, 80, 221, 222, 224.
Bald, 220, 225.
Golden, 222.
Falcon, Rusty-crowned, 223.
Finch, 108.
Grass, 113.
Purple, 126, 127, 131.
Firebird, 146, 193,
Flicker, 144, 189, 193, 198,
199, 200, 201, 242.
Flycatcher, 46, 66, 80, 140,
161, 162, 196, 198.
Crested, 82, 161, 165,
166, 169, 191.
Dusky, 166, 170.
Least, 161, 170, 171.
Goatsucker, 179.
Goldfinch, v, 53, 85.
American , 1 24, 125,
126, 127, 139.
Goose, 221.
Canada, 267.
Goshawk, 215, 220.
Grackle, 143, 150, 166.
Bronzed, 148.
Purple, 148.
Grosbeak, 108.
Blue, 128.
Cardinal, 133*
Pine, 29.
Red-breasted, 131.
Rose-breasted, 114, 13I1
132, 133, 134.
Grouse, 192, 238, 241, 242.
Grouse, Ruffed, 237, 238,
240, 242.
Gull, 221, 225, 272, 273.
Herring, 271.
Winter, 271.
Halcyon, 208.
Hang-nest, 146.
Hawk, iv, 24, 80, 162, 163,
221, 222, 224, 226,
227, 230, 239.
American Sparrow, 191,
223.
Chicken, 215, 218, 219.
Cooper's, 215, 219.
Fish, 208, 224, 225.
Hen, 215, 216, 218.
Killy, 223.
Marsh, 229.
Mosquito, 177.
Mouse, 223.
Partridge, 220.
Red, 218.
Red-shouldered, 215,
216, 217, 218, 220.
Red-tailed, 218, 220.
Sharp-shinned, 215,
219.
Winter, 215.
Hen-hawk, Blue, 220.
Hen, Indian, 261.
Marsh, 255.
Heron, 257, 258, 2^9, 261.
Black-crowned Night,
260, 261.
Freckled, 261.
Great Blue, 256.
Little Green, 258, 259.
High-hole, 199.
Hummingbird, vi, 29, 170,
176, 190, 201, 236.
Ruby-throated, 183,
184, 185, 186.
Indigo-bird, 128.
Jay, Canada, i57» isS*
Jenny Wren, 236.
Index
279
Joree, 129*
Jiinco, 120, 122, 123, 124.
Kingbird, v, 80, 145, 161,
163, 164, 165, 223.
Kingfisher, 40, 63, 83, 102,
128, 210, 262.
Belted, 208.
Kinglet, 21, 29, 189.
Golden-crowned , 28.
Ruby-crowned, 28, 29.
Lark, Old-field, 143.
Lettuce-bird, 124.
Linnet, 126.
Logger-head, 79» 81, 82.
Mallard, 269.
Martin, 104.
Bee, 163.
Purple, 95, 9<5, 97> 9^-
Sand, loi.
Mavis, 41*
Maybird, I37'
Meadowlark, 113, 143, 144,
145. iSo» 17S, 199.
242.
Meatbird, 157-
Merganser, 270.
Mockingbird, 45, 46, 47, 48,
_ 49. 55, 79.
French, 41.
Yellow, 65.
Moose-bird, 157.
Nighthawk, 93, 176, 177,
179, 182.
Nightingale, 49.
Virginia, 133.
Nightjar, 177.
Nuthatch, 21, 26, 28, 29, 58,
189, 191.
Red-breasted, 26, 28.
White-breasted, 25, 27.
Oriole, vi, 88, 140, 148, 206.
Baltimore, 65, 72, 145,
146, 147, 149. ISO-
Oriole, Golden, X46.
Orchard, i45f 146, 147.
Ortolan, i37«
Osprey, 221, 224, 225.
Oven-bird, 42, 54, 58, 59,
61, 66, 122, 128, 177.
Owl, 191, 215, 224, 225, 226,
227, 231.
Bam, 227, 228.
Barred, 230.
Hoot, 230.
Long-eared, 229.
Marsh, 229.
Meadow, 229.
Monkey- faced, 227.
Screech, 230, 232.
Short-eared, 229.
Ox-eye, 251.
Partridge, 237, 240.
Peabody-bird, 120.
Peep, 251.
Peto-bird, 23.
Petrel, 272.
Pewee, 129, 130, 235, 238.
Bridge, 166.
Water, 166.
Wood, 161,169,170,171.
Phalarope, 251.
Pheasant, 237.
Phoebe, 130, 161, 166, 167,
168, 170, 236, 238.
Pigeon, 201, 236.
Wild, 235.
Pintail, 269.
Plover, 251.
Black-breasted, 247.
Golden, 247.
Killdeer, 247, 248.
Piping, 247.
Ring-necked, 248, 249,
251.
Semipalmated, 248.
Wilson's, 247.
Poke, 258, 261.
Quail, 237, 238, 240.
Qua-bird, 260.
Quawk, 260.
28o
Index
Rail, 40. iii» 254. 255, 262.
Carolina, 256.
Red-bird, Black-winged, 86.
Crested, i33-
Redstart, 65, 66, 147.
Reedbird, i37» 138.
Ricebird, i37» 138.
Robin, iii, vi, 5» 6, 7, 8, 9,
II, 12, 13, IS, 46, 79,
83, 86, 87, 107, 117,
131, 134, 143, 145,
175, 197, 200, 205,
223, 232, 247, 255.
Golden, 146.
Ground, 129, 130.
Redbreast, 5, 130.
Wood, 12.
Sandpiper, 249, 250.
Least, 249, 251.
Semipalmated, 251.
Spotted, 251.
Sapsucker, 195, 196, 198.
Yellow-bellied, 194.
Scoter, Surf, 270.
Sea-swallow, 272.
Sheldrake, 270.
Shrike, 80, 81, 198, 223.
Northern, 79» 81, 82.
Silk-tail, 82.
Skylark, 137.
Snipe, 251, 253.
Big-headed, 252.
Blind, 252.
Mud, 252.
Wall-eyed, 252.
Whistling, 252.
Wilson's, 252, 254.
Wood, 252.
Snow-bird, Slate-coloured,
123.
Snowflake, 124.
Sora, 256.
Sparrow, 5, 10, 35,- 36, 42,
61,66, 70, 80, 83,86,
104, 107, 127, 128,
132, 138, 140, 183,
242, 251.
Sparrow, Canada, 120.
Chipping, iii, 20, 112,
116, 117, 119, 130.
Door-step, 116.
English, 24, 27, 33, 53,
59, 64, 81, 97, 108,
no, III, 114, 115,
116, 119, 121, 130,
161, 163, 192, 197,
248.
Field, 112, 114, 119,
130.
Fox, 122, 123.
Hair, 116.
Song, 39, log, no, in,
112, 113, 127, 130.
Swamp, III, 112.
Tree, iig, 120.
Vesper, 113* 114.
White-crowned, 121.
White-throated, 120,
121, 122, 130.
Stake-driver, 261.
Starling, Meadow, 143.
Stint, 251.
Swallow, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97,
108, 176, 182, 183.
Bank, loi, 102, 210.
Barn, 98, 99, 100, loi.
Chimney, 180.
Eave or Cliff, 100, loi,
104.
Rough- winged, 102.
Sand, Id,
Tree, 103, 104, 191.
White-breasted, 103.
Swift, 97, 176, 180, 181, 182,
183.
Chimney, 93, 96, 190.
Tanager, Scarlet, 48, 86, 87,
88, 89, 131, 139.
Summer, 89.
Teacher, 58, 59, 60.
Teal, Blue- winged, 269.
Green- winged, 269.
Teeter, 251.
Teeter-snipe, 251.
Index
281
Teeter-tail, 251.
Tern, 272.
Thistlebird, 124.
Thrasher, Brown, 15, 4i> 42,
43, 44, 45, 49, 112.
Thrush, 42, 43» 55» ^22, 140,
153.
Brown, 41-
Golden-crowned, 58.
Ground, 4i> 44-
Hermit, 12.
Long, 41-
Migratory, 5.
Red, 41.
Red-breasted, 5.
Song, 12.
Wilson's, 12, 14.
Wood, 12, 13, 14, 15.
Tilt-up, 251.
Timber Doodle, 252.
Tip-up, 251.
Titmouse, 21, 24, 25, 134,
189, 191.
Black-capped, 19.
Crested, 23, 38.
Tufted, 23, 26, 82.
Tomtit, Crested, 23.
Towhee, 112, 122, 129, 130,
131, 238.
Tree Mouse, 25.
Turkey, 214.
Turnstone, 251.
Veery, 14, 15.
Vireo, 69, 70, 82, 95, 114,
140, 145, 162, 171.
Red-eyed, V, 71,72, 74,
75,129, 169.
Warblmg, 74, 75-
White-eyed, v, 72, 73,
74.
Yellow-throated, 74.
Vulture, 214.
Black, 214.
Turkey, 2x3,
Warbler, 22>, 54, 55, 59» <54,
65,66,69,70,95, 162.
Black and W hite Creep-
ing, 57, 58, 189.
Blackburnian, 66.
Black-masked,Gro\ind,
61.
Yellow, V, 53, 54, S5> 56.
57. 62, 63, 125, 140.
Waxwing, 2^.
Cedar, 82, 83, 85, 126,
145-
Whip-poor-will, 93, 175, 176,
177,178,179,182,238.
Whiskey Jack, 157.
Widgeon, 269.
WVen, iii, 19, 28, 29, 30, 34,
35.36,37. 42, 43.45.
49, 104, 167, 191.
Carolina, 37, 38.
House, 33, 97-
Marsh, 39, 40, 41, iii.
Winter, 37.
Woodcock, 128, 252,253,254.
Woodpecker, iv, 22, 24, 26,
28, 57, 73. 140, 166,
181, 189, 190, 192,
194, 195, 198, 224,
227, 230, 232, 241,
252.
Downy, 57, 189, 191,
192, 193, 198.
Golden- winged, 199.
Hairy, 191, 192, 193,
198.
Red-headed, 197, 198,
199.
Yellow-bird, Black- winged,
124.
Sumraer, 53.
Yellowhammer, i99'
Yellow- throat, Maryland^
54, 61, III.
Yucker, 199.
Open Library