BIOLOGY LIBRARY
^...
BIRDS
THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS
BY
FLORENCE A. MERRIAM
NEW YORK CLEVELAND CHICAGO
Or Chautauqtta
BIOLOGY LIBRARY
This edition of " Birds Through an Opera-Glass "
is issued for The Chautauqua Press by Houghton,
Mifflin & Co., publishers of the work.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mfi.tf;., U. K. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
INTRODUCTION
WHEREVER there are people there are birds,
so it makes comparatively little difference where
you live, if you are only in earnest about getting
acquainted with your feathered neighbors. Even
in a Chicago back yard fifty-seven kinds of birds
have been seen in a year, and in a yard in Port-
land, Connecticut, ninety-one species have been
recorded. Twenty-six kinds are known to nest
in the city of Washington, and in the parks and
cemeteries of San Francisco in winter I have
found twenty-two kinds, while seventy-six are
recorded for Prospect Park, Brooklyn, and a hun-
dred and forty-two for Central Park, New York.
There are especial advantages in beginning to
study birds in the cities, for by going to the mu-
seums you can compare the bird skins with the
birds you have seen in the field. And, moreover,
you can get an idea of the grouping of the differ-
ent families which will help you materially in
placing the live bird when you meet him at home.
If you do not live in the city, as I have said
elsewhere, " shrubby village dooryards, the trees
of village streets, and orchards, roadside fences,
M85575
iv INTRODUCTION
overgrown pastures, and the borders of brooks
and rivers are among the best places to look for
birds." 1
When going to watch birds, " provided with
opera-glass and note-book, and dressed in incon-
spicuous colors, proceed to some good birdy place,
the bushy bank of a stream or an old juniper
pasture, and sit down in the undergrowth or
against a concealing tree-trunk, with your back
to the sun, to look and listen in silence. You
will be able to trace most songs to their singers
by finding which tree the song comes from, and
then watching for movement, as birds are rarely
motionless long at a time when singing. It will
be a help if, besides writing a careful descrip-
tion of both bird and song, you draw a rough
diagram of the bird's markings, and put down
the actual notes of his song as nearly as may be.
" If you have time for only a walk through the
woods, go as quietly as possible and stop often, lis-
tening to catch the notes which your footsteps have
drowned. Timid birds may often be attracted
by answering their calls, for it is very reassuring
to be addressed in one's native tongue." 2
Birds' habits differ in different localities, and
as this book was written in the East, many birds
are spoken of as common which Western readers
will find rare or wanting; but nearly the same
1 Birds of Village and Field.
2 Maynard's Birds of Washington. Introduction by F. A. M.
INTRODUCTION v
families of birds are found in all parts of the
United States, so that, if not able to name your
bird exactly, at least you will be able to tell who
his relatives are.
Boys who are interested in watching the coming
of the birds from the south in spring, and their
return from the north in the fall, can get blank
migration schedules by applying to the Biological
Survey, Department of Agriculture, Washing-
ton, D. C. ; and teachers and others who want
material for bird work can get, free on applica-
tion, the publications of the Biological Survey,
which show how the food of birds affects the
farm and garden. Much additional information
can be obtained from the secretaries of the State
Audubon Societies, and their official organ, " Bird-
Lore."
Photography is coming to hold an important
place in nature work, as its notes cannot be ques-
tioned, and the student who goes afield armed
with opera-glass and camera will not only add
more to our knowledge than he who goes armed
with a gun, but will gain for himself a fund of
enthusiasm and a lasting store of pleasant mem-
ories. For more than all the statistics is the
sanity and serenity of spirit that comes when we
step aside from the turmoil of the world to hold
quiet converse with Nature.
FLORENCE A. MERRIAM.
WASHINGTON, D. C., May 11, 1899.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. The Robin -4
II. The Crow 10
III. The Bluebird 14
IV. The Chimney Swift; Chimney "Swallow" . 16
V. Catbird 18
VI. Keel-Tailed Blackbird ; Crow Blackbird ; Bronzed
Grackle 20
VII. Bobolink; Reed-Bird; Rice-Bird ... 27
VIII. Ruffed Grouse ; Partridge .... 32
IX. Ruby-Throated Humming-Bird .... 36
X. Meadow-Lark 40
XI. Black-Capped Chickadee ; Titmouse ... 42
XII. Cuckoo ; Rain Crow 46
XIII. Yellow Hammer ; Flicker 48
XIV. Baltimore Oriole ; Fire-Bird ; Golden Robin ; Hang-
Nest 52
XV. Barn Swallow 55
XVI. Belted Kingfisher 57
XVII. Chip-Bird or Chippy ; Hair-Bird ; Chipping Spar-
row ; Social Sparrow . . . . . .60
XVIII. Song Sparrow . 66
XIX. Blue Jay 69
XX. Yellow-Bird; American Goldfinch; Thistle-Bird 76
XXI. Pho3be 80
XXII. King-Bird ; Bee Martin 83
XXIII. Wood Pewee 85
XXIV. Least Flycatcher 87
XXV. Red-Winged Blackbird 89
XXVI. Hairy Woodpecker 92
viii CONTENTS.
XXVII. Downy Woodpecker 99
XXVIII. White-Bellied Nuthatch ; Devil-Down Head . 100
XXIX. Cowbird . 105
XXX. White-Throated Sparrow . . . . 109
XXXI. Cedar-Bird; Waxwing . . . . 112
XXXII. Chewink; Towhee . . . . . .115
XXXIII. Indigo-Bird . . .'. . . . 119
XXXIV. Purple Finch 122
XXXV. Red-Eyed Vireo . . . . . . 124
XXXVI. Yellow-Throated Vireo . . . . .129
XXXVII. Warbling Vireo ^ . 131
XXXVIII. Oven-Bird; Golden-Crowned Thrush . ..132
XXXIX. Junco; Slate-Colored Snowbird . . " . 138
XL. Kinglets .140
XLI. Snow Bunting ; Snowflake .... 144
XLII. Scarlet Tanager . . , . >, .146
XLIII. Brown Thrasher . . . . ." . 150
XLIV. Rose-Breasted Grosbeak . . -. . .153
XLV. Wbippoorwill . . . ^ . . 155
XLVI. Winter Wren . . . . . . . 155
XLVII. Red-Headed Woodpecker .... 159
XLVIII. YeUow-BeUied Sapsucker .... 160
XLIX. Great-Crested Flycatcher .... 163
L. Bank Swallow ; Sand Martin . . . . 165
LI. Cave Swallow ; Cliff Swallow . . . 166
LII. Crossbills 166
LHI. Night-Hawk ; Bull Bat .... 169
LIV. Grass Finch; Vesper Sparrow; Bay -Winged
Bunting 171
LV. Tree Sparrow . . . , . . 172
LVI. White-Crowned Sparrow , . . .173
LVIL Field Sparrow; Bush Sparrow . . 174
LVIII. Fox Sparrow ....... 175
LIX. Brown Creeper . . . * . . 176
WARBLERS.
LX. Summer Yellow-B'ird ; Golden Warbler; Yel-
low Warbler 179
LXT. Redstart ... 180
CONTENTS. ix
LXIL Black and White Creeping- Warbler . . 184
LXIII. Blackburnian Warbler; Hemlock Warbler;
Orange-Throated Warbler ... 186
LXIV. Black-Throated Blue Warbler . . .187
LXV. Yellow Rumped Warbler ; Myrtle Warbler 189
LXVI. Chestnut-Sided Warbler 190
LXVII. Maryland Yellow-Throat ; Black Masked
Ground Warbler 191
LXVIII. Thrushes 193
LXIX. Wilson's Thrush ; Veery ; Tawny Thrush . 198
LXX. Hermit Thrush 202
APPENDIX.
Pigeon-Holes for the Perching Birds mentioned in this
book 206
General Family Characteristics of Birds Treated . . 208
Arbitrary Classifications of Birds Described . . . 211
Books for Reference . . 220
BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS,
WE are so in the habit of focusing our spy-
glasses on our human neighbors that it seems an
easy matter to label them and their affairs, but
when it comes to birds, alas ! not only are there
legions of kinds, but, to our bewildered fancy,
they look and sing and act exactly alike. Yet
though our task seems hopeless at the outset, be-
fore we recognize the conjurer a new world of in-
terest and beauty has opened before us.
The best way is the simplest. Begin with the
commonest birds, and train your ears and eyes by
pigeon-holing every bird you see and every song
you hear. Classify roughly at first, the finer
distinctions will easily be made later. Suppose,
for instance, you are in the fields on a spring
morning. Standing still a moment, you hear
what sounds like a confusion of songs. You think
you can never tell one from another, but by listen-
ing carefully you at once notice a difference. Some
are true songs, with a definite melody, and tune,
if one may use that word, like the song of several
of the sparrows, with three high notes and a run
2 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
, ,
down.lhe .9pdl|.J/f(Jtiers are only monotonous
trillscatyjijjs.the s.arne.fr\yo notes, varying only in
te < n|ttt**aiati nnCtfasiiyV^iici as that of the chipping
bird, who makes one's ears fairly ache as he sits
in the sun and trills to himself, like a complacent
prima donna. Then there is always plenty of gos-
siping going on, chippering and chattering that
does not rise to the dignity of song, though it adds
to the general jumble of sounds ; but this should
be ignored at first, and only the loud* songs lis-
tened for. When the trill and the elaborate song
are once contrasted, other distinctions are easily
made. The ear then catches the quality of songs.
On the right the plaintive note of the meadow-
lark is heard, while out of the grass at the left
comes the rollicking song of the bobolink.
Having begun sorting sounds, you naturally
group sights, and so find yourself parceling out
the birds by size and color. As the robin is a
well-known bird, he serves as a convenient unit
of measure an ornithological foot. If you call
anything from a humming-bird to a robin small,
and from a robin to a crow large, you have ar
practical division line, of use in getting your
bearings. And the moment you give heed to col-
ors, the birds will no longer look alike. To sim-
plify matters, the bluebird, the oriole with his
orange and black coat, the scarlet tanager with
his flaming plumage, and all the other bright birds
can be classed together ; while the sparrows, fly-
BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. 3
catchers, thrushes, and vireos may be thought of
as the dull birds.
When the crudest part of the work is done, and
your eye and ear naturally seize differences of size,
color, and sound, the interesting part begins. You
soon learn to associate the birds with fixed local-
ities, and once knowing their favorite haunts,
quickly find other clues to their ways of life.
By going among the birds, watching them
closely, comparing them carefully, and writing
down, while in the field, all the characteristics of
every new bird seen, its locality, size, color, de-
tails of marking, song, food, flight, eggs, nest,
and habits, you will come easily and naturally
to know the birds that are living about you. The
first law of field work is exact observation, but
not only are you more likely to observe accurately
if what you see is put in black and white, but
you will find it much easier to identify the birds
from your notes than from memory.
With these hints in mind, go to look for your
friends. Carry a pocket note-book, and above all,
take an opera or field glass with you. Its rapid
adjustment may be troublesome at first, but it
should be the " inseparable article " of a careful
observer. If you begin work in spring, don't
start out before seven o'clock, because the confu-
sion of the matins is discouraging there is too
much to see and hear. But go as soon as possi-
ble after breakfast, for the birds grow quiet and
4 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
fly to the woods for their nooning earlier and
earlier as the weather gets warmer.
You will not have to go far to find your first
bird.
THE ROBIN.
NEXT to the crow, the robin is probably our best
known bird ; but as a few of his city friends have
never had the good fortune to meet him, and as he
is to be our " unit of measure," it behooves us to
consider him well. He is, as every one knows, a
domestic bird, with a marked bias for society.
Everything about him bespeaks the self-respecting-
American citizen. He thinks it no liberty to dine
in your front yard, or build his house in a crotch of
vour piazza, with the help of the string you have
inadvertently left within reach. Accordingly, he
fares well, and keeps fat on cherries and straw-
berries if the supply of fish-worms runs low. Mr.
Robin has one nervous mannerism he jerks his
tail briskly when excited. But he is not always
looking for food as the woodpeckers appear to be,
nor flitting about with nervous restlessness like the
warblers, and has, on the whole, a calm, dignified
air. With time to meditate when he chooses, like
other sturdy, well-fed people, his reflections usually
take a cheerful turn ; and when he lapses into a.
poetical mood, as he often does at sunrise and
THE ROBIN. 5
sunset, sitting on a branch in the softened light
and whispering a little song to himself, his senti-
ment is the wholesome every-day sort, with none
of the sadness or longing of his cousins, the
thrushes, but full of contented appreciation of the
beautiful world he lives in.
Unlike some of his human friends, his content
does not check his activity. He is full of buoyant
life. He may always be heard piping up above
the rest of the daybreak chorus, and I have seen
him sit on top of a stub in a storm when it seemed
as if the harder it rained the louder and more ju-
bilantly he sang. He has plenty of pluck and
industry, too, for every season he dutifully accepts
the burden of seeing three or four broods of bird
children through all the dangers of cats, hawks,
6 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
and first flights ; keeping successive nestfuls of
gaping mouths supplied with worms all the sum-
mer through.
His red breast is a myth and belongs to his
English namesake ; and it must be owned that
his is a homely reddish brown that looks red only
when the sunlight falls on it. His wife's breast
is even less red than his in fact, she looks as if
the rain had washed off most of her color. But,
perhaps, had they been beautiful they would have
been vain, and then, alas for the robins we know
and love now. When the children make their
debut, they are more strikingly homely than their
parents ; possibly because we have known the old
birds until, like some of our dearest friends, their
plainness has become beautiful to us. In any case,
the eminently speckled young gentlemen that come
out with their new tight-fitting suits and awkward
ways do not meet their father's share of favor.
Perhaps the nest they come from accounts for
their lack of polish. It is compact and strong,
built to last, and to keep out the rain ; but with
no thought of beauty. In building their houses
the robins do not follow our plan, but begin with
the frame and work in. When the twigs and
weed stems are securely placed they put on the
plaster a thick layer of mud that the bird
moulds with her breast till it is as hard and
smooth as a plaster cast. And inside of all, for
cleanliness and comfort, they lay a soft lining of
THE ROBIN. 7
dried grass. This is the typical nest, but of course,
there are marked variations from it. Usually it
is firmly fixed in the crotch of a branch or close
to the body of the tree where its weight can be
supported.
But who does not know instances of oddly
placed nests outside of trees ? The " American
Naturalist" records one "on the top of a long
pole, which stood without support in an open barn-
yard," and Audubon notes one within a few feet
of a blacksmith's anvil. A number of interesting
sites have come within my notice. Among them
are : the top of a blind ; an eave trough ; a shingle
that projected over the inner edge of an open shed ;
and, most singular of all, one inside a milk-house,
set precariously on the rim of a barrel that lay on
its side, just above the heads of the men who not
only appeared both night and morning with alarm-
ingly big milk pails, but made din enough in ply-
ing a rattling creaky pump handle to have sent
any ordinary bird bolting through the window.
Robins usually nest comparatively high, though
Audubon tells of a nest found on a bare rock on
the ground, and this summer I found one in the
crotch of a small tree only two and a half feet
from the earth. It was near a hen yard, so per-
haps Madam Robin was following the fashion by
laying her eggs near the ground. In any case,
she was on visiting terms with the hen-roost, for,
singularly enough, there were feathers plastered
8 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
about the adobe wall, though none inside. Per-
haps the weather was too warm for a feather bed !
or was this frivolous lady bird thinking so
much of fashion and adornment she could spare
no time on homely comfort ?
Longfellow says :
"There are no birds in last year's nest,"
but on a brace in an old cow shed I know of, there
is a robin's nest that has been used for several
years. A layer of new material lias been added
to the old structure each time, so that it is now
eight inches high and bids fair soon to rival the
fourteen story flat houses of New York. A re-
markable case is given in the " Naturalist " of a
robin that had no " bump of locality," and distri-
buted its building material impartially over nearly
thirty feet of the outer cornice of a house.
You may look for robins almost anywhere, but
they usually prefer dry open land, or the edge of
woodland, being averse to the secluded life of
their relatives, the thrushes, who build in the for-
est. Those I find in the edge of the woods are
much shyer than those living about the house,
probably from the same reason that robins and
others of our most friendly Eastern birds are wild
and suspicious in the uninhabited districts of the
West or, who will say there are no recluses
among birds as well as men ?
The flight and song of the robin are character-
istic. The flight is rapid, clear cut, and straight.
THE ROBIX. 9
Unlike many birds, he moves as if he were going
somewhere. His voice is a strong clear treble,
loud and cheerful, but he is not a musician, and
has no one set song. His commonest call has two
parts, each of three notes run together ; the first
with a rising, the last with a falling inflection,
like, tril-la-re&, tril-la-rah ; trU-la-ree, tril-la-rah.
But he has a number of calls, and you must be
familiar with the peculiar treble quality of his
note to avoid confusing it with others.
In the fall, Lowell says,
'* The sobered robin hunger-silent now,
Seeks cedar-berries blue, his autumn cheer,"
and this " sobered" suggests a question. Why is
it that as soon as robins form flocks, they become
shy ? Is it because they are more often shot at
when migrating in large numbers ; or because, as
Mr. William Hubbell Fisher suggests, they have
left their homes, and so have lost confidence in
the surroundings and people ?
In some localities they live on cedar-berries in
the fall, but here they are well satisfied with
mountain ash berries, wild cherries, and ungath-
ered crab apples. Speaking of their food, what a
pity that anglers cannot contract with them for a
supply of bait ! Woe betide the fish-worm that
stirs the grass on the lawn within their hearing !
How wise they look as they cock their heads on
one side and stand, erect and motionless, peering
down on the ground. And what a surprise it
10 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
must be to the poor worm when they suddenly tip
forward, give a few rapid hops, and diving into
the grass drag him out of his retreat. Though
they run from a chicken, robins will chase chip-
munks and fight with red squirrels in defense of
their nests or young.
IL
THE CROW.
THE despised crow is one of our most interest-
ing birds. His call is like the smell of the brown
furrows in spring life is more sound and whole-
some for it. Though the crow has no song, what
a variety of notes and tones he can boast! In
vocabulary, he is a very Shakespeare among birds.
Listening to a family of Frenchmen, though you
do not know a word of French, you easily guess
the temper and drift of their talk, and so it is in
listening to crows tone, inflection, gesture, all
betray their secrets. One morning last October
I caught, in this way, a spicy chapter in crow fam-
ily discipline.
I was standing in a meadow of rich aftermath
lying between a stony pasture and a small piece
of woods, when a young crow flew over my head,
cawing softly to himself. He flew straight west
toward the pasture for several seconds, and then,
as if an idea had come to him, turned his head
THE CROW. 11
and neck around in the intelligent crow fashion,
circled back to the woods, lit, and cawed vocifer-
ously to three other crows till they came over
across the pasture.
After making them all circle over my head, per-
haps merely as a blind, he took them back to his
perch where he wanted them to go beechnutting
or something else. Whatever it was, they evi-
dently scorned his childishness, for they flew back
to their tree across the field as fast as they had
come. This put him in a pet, and he would not
budge, but sat there sputtering like a spoiled
child. To everything he said, whether in a com-
plaining or teasing tone, the same gruff paternal
caw came back from the pasture. " Come along ! "
it seemed to say. To this the refractory son would
respond, " I won't." They kept it up for several
minutes, but at last paternal authority conquered,
and the big boy, making a wide detour, flew slowly
and reluctantly back to his family. He lit on a
low branch under them, and when the father gave
a gruff " I should think it was time you came," he
defiantly shook his tail and cleaned his bill. After
a few moments he condescended to make a low
half sullen, half subdued remark, but when the
family all started off again he sat and scolded
some time before he would follow them, and I
suspect he compromised matters then only because
he did not want to be left behind.
The " intelligence of the crow " lias become a
12 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
platitude, but when we hear of his cracking clams
by dropping them on a fence, coming to roost with
the hens in cold weather, and in the case of a
tame crow opening a door by lighting on the
latch, his originality is a surprise, A family near
here had much merriment over the gambols of a
pet crow named Jim. Whenever he saw the gar-
dener passing to and fro between the house and
garden, he would fly down from the trees, light on
his hat, and ride back and forth. He liked to
pick the bright blossoms, particularly pansies and
scarlet geraniums, and would not only steal bright
colored worsteds and ribbons, but tear all the yel-
low covers from any novels he came across. When
any one went to the vegetable garden he showed
the most commendable eagerness to help with the
work, being anxious to pick whatever was wanted
from raspberries and currants to the little cu-
cumbers gathered for pickling.
The sight of the big black puppy waddling
along wagging high in air a long black tail in-
congruously finished off with a tipping of white
hairs was too much for Jim's sobriety. Down he
would dive, give a nip at the hairs, and be gravely
seated on a branch just out of reach by the time
Bruno had turned to snap at him. Let the puppy
move on a step, and down the mischief would come
again, and so the two would play sometimes for
more than half an hour at a time. Then again,
the joke would take a more practical turn, for, in-
THE CROW. 13
stead of flying overhead when Bruno looked back,
Jim would steal the bone the puppy had been
gnawing.
The crow was happy as long as any one woidd
play with him, and never tired of flying low over
the ground with a string dangling from his bill for
the children to run after. Another favorite play
was to hold on to a string or small stick with his
bill while some one lifted him up by it, as a baby
is tossed by its arms. He would even hold on and
let you " swing him around your head." He was
never daunted, and when the toddling two-year-
old would get too rough in her play and strike at
him with her stick, he would either catch the hem
of her pinafore and hold on till she ran away, or
would try scaring her, rushing at her his big
black wings spread out and his bill wide open.
One day his pluck was thoroughly tested.
Hearing loud caws of distress coming from the
lawn, the gardener rushed across and found Jim
lying on his back, his claw tightly gripping the
end of one of the wings of a large hawk, that,
surprised and terrified by this turn of the tables
was struggling frantically to get away. Jim held
him as tight as a vise, and only loosened his grasp
to give his enemy into the gardener's hands. After
letting go he submitted to the victor's reward, let-
ting his wounds be examined and his bravery ex-
tolled while he was carried about wearing a
most consciously heroic air, it must be confessed
for due celebration of the victory.
14 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
III.
THE BLUEBIRD.
As you stroll through the meadows on a May
morning, drinking in the spring air and sunshine,
and delighting in the color of the dandelions and
the big bunches of blue violets that dot the grass,
a bird call comes quavering overhead that seems
the voice of all country loveliness. Simple, sweet,
and fresh as the spirit of the meadows, with a
tinge of forest richness in the plaintive t'm-al-ly
that marks the rhythm of our bluebird's undulat-
ing flight, wherever the song is heard, from city
street or bird-box, it must bring pictures of flower-
ing fields, blue skies, and the freedom of the
wandering summer winds.
Look at the bluebird now as he goes over your
head note the cinnamon of his breast ; and as
he flies down and turns quickly to light on the
fence post, see the cobalt-blue that flashes from
his back. These colors are the poet's signs that
the bird's sponsors are the " earth and sky." And
the little creature has a wavering way of lifting
its wings when perching, as if hesitating between
earth and sky, that may well carry out the poet's
hint of his wild ethereal spirit.
Notice the bluebird's place in literature. The
robin, with his cheerful soprano call, serves as the
emblem of domestic peace and homely cheer ; but
THE BLUEBIRD. 15
the bluebird, with his plaintive contralto warble,
stirs the imagination, and is used as the poetic
symbol of spring. The temper of the bluebird
makes him a fit subject for the poet's encomiums.
Mr. Burroughs goes so far as to say that "the
expression of his indignation is nearly as musical
as his song."
Lowell speaks of the bluebird as
" shifting his light load of song
From post to post along the cheerless fence."
But although he is as restless and preoccupied
here as elsewhere, lifting his wings tremulously as
if in reality " shifting his load of song," and long-
ing to fly away, the bluebird sometimes comes
down to the prose of life even here and actually
hides his nest in the hole of a fence rail. When
this is not his fancy he fits up an old woodpecker's
hole in a post, stub, or tree ; or, if more social in
his habits, builds in knot-holes in the sides of
barns, or in bird-boxes arranged for his use. At
Northampton I was shown a nest in an old stub
by the side of the road, so shallow that the father
and mother birds fed their young from the out-
side, clinging to the sides of the hole and reaching
in to drop the food into the open mouths below.
Although the bluebird has such a model temper,
it has not always a clear idea of the laws of meum
and tuum, as was shown by a nest found directly
on top of a poor swallow's nest where there lay
four fresh eggs ! The nest is usually lined with
16 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
dry grasses and similar materials. The eggs,
from four to seven in number, are generally plain
pale greenish blue, but occasionally white.
Sitting on a fence at a little distance the young
birds look almost black, but as they fly oft' you
catch a tinge of blue on their wings and tails.
Their mother is more like her husband, but, as
with most lady birds, her tints are subdued
doubtless the result of "adaptation," as bright
colors on the back of the brooding mother would
attract danger.
We have two reasons for gratitude to the blue-
bird. It comes home early in the spring, and is
among the last to leave in the fall, its sweet note
trembling on the air when the " bare branches of
the trees are rattling in the wind."
IV.
CHIMNEY SWIFT; CHIMNEY
WATCH a chimney swift as he comes near you,
rowing through the air first with one wing and
then the other, or else cruising along with sails
set. Look at him carefully and you will see that
he is not a swallow, although he often goes by
that name. He looks much more like a bat. His
outlines are so clear cut and angular that he could
be reduced, roughly, to two triangles, their com-
mon base cutting his body vertically in halves.
CHIMNEY SWIFT. 17
His tail is, of itself, an acute-angled triangle ter-
minating merely in bristles ; and his wings look
as if made of skin stretched on a frame, bat
fashion, instead of being of feathers.
He twitters in a sharp chippering way as he
flutters through the air and picks up flies, saying,
as Mr. Burroughs puts it, " chippy- chippy-chirio,
not a man in Dario can catch a chippy-chippy-
chirio." And you are inclined to believe the
boast such zigzag darting, such circling and
running! The men of Dario would need seven
league wings to keep up with him, and then, after
a lightning race, when just ready to throw their
pinch of salt, with a sudden wheel the chippy-
chirio would dart down a chimney and disappear
from sight.
And what a noise these swifts do make in the
chimneys ! If you ever had a room beside one of
their lodging-houses you can testify to their " noc-
turnal habits during the nesting season." Such
chattering and jabbering, such rushing in and
scrambling out ! If you only could get your spy-
glass inside the chimney! Their curious little
nests are glued against the sides like tiny wall
pockets; and there the swifts roost, or rather
hang, clinging to the wall, side by side, like little
sooty bats. Audubon says that before the young
birds are strong enough to fly they clamber up
to the mouths of the chimneys as the pitifully tri-
umphant chimney-sweeps used to come up for a
18 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
breath and wave their brooms in the air at their
escape from the dangers below. Though never
venturing near us the swifts come to live inside
our houses. Like the robin they are citizens, but
what a contrast !
Their feet are weak from disuse, and it is be-
lieved that they never light anywhere except in a
chimney or in a hollow tree, where they sometimes
go at night and in bad weather. They gather the
twigs they glue together for their nests while on
the wing, and their ingenuity in doing it shows
how averse they are to lighting. Audubon says :
" The chimney swallows are seen in great numbers
whirling around the tops of some decayed or dead
tree, as if in pursuit of their insect prey. Their
movements at this time are exceedingly rapid;
they throw their body suddenly against the twig,
grapple it with their feet, and by an instantaneous
jerk snap it off short, and proceed with it to the
place intended for the nest."
V.
CATBIRD.
HIGH trees have an unsocial aspect, and so, as
Lowell says, "The catbird croons in the lilac-
bush," in the alders, in a prickly ash copse, a bar-
berry-bush, or by the side of the garden. In
Northampton one of his favorite haunts is an old
CATBIRD. 19
orchard that slopes down to the edge of Mill
River. Here he is welcomed every year by his
college girl friends ; and in the open seclusion of
an apple-tree proceeds to build his nest and raise
his little family, singing through it all with keen
enjoyment of the warm sunshine and his own com-
pany.
To the tyro the catbird is at once the most in-
teresting and most exasperating of birds. Like
some people, he seems to give up his time to the
pleasure of hearing himself talk. A first cousin
of the mocking-bird whom he resembles in per-
son much more than in voice perhaps the re-
lationship accounts for his overweening confidence
in his vocal powers. As a matter of fact his jerky
utterance is so harsh that it has been aptly termed
asthmatic.
The catbird is unmistakably a Bohemian. He
is exquisitely formed, and has a beautiful slate-
gray coat, set off by his black head and tail. By
nature he is peculiarly graceful, and when he
chooses can pass for the most polished of the
Philistine aristocracy. But he cares nothing for
all this. With lazy self-indulgence he sits by the
hour with relaxed muscles, and listlessly drooping
wings and tail. If he were a man you feel con-
fident that he would sit in shirt sleeves at home
and go on the street without a collar.
And his occupation ? His cousin is an artist,
but he is he a wag as well as a caricaturist, or
20 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
is lie in sober earnest when he tries to mimic the
inimitable Wilson's thrush? If a wag he is a
success, for he deceives the unguarded into believ-
ing him a robin, a cat, and "a bird new to
science ! " How he must chuckle over the enthu-
siasm which hails his various notes and the bewil-
derment and chagrin that come to the diligent
observer who finally catches a glimpse of the gar-
rulous mimic !
The catbird builds his nest as he d'oes every-
thing else. The loose mass of coarse twigs patched
up with pieces of newspaper or anything he hap-
pens to fancy, looks as if it would hardly bear his
weight. He lines it, however, with fine bits of
brown and black roots, and when the beautiful
dark green eggs are laid in it, you feel sure that
such an artistic looking bird must enjoy the con-
trasting colors.
VI.
KEEL -TAILED BLACKBIRD; CROW BLACKBIRD;
BRONZED GRACKLE.
LOWELL gives this bird the first place in the
calendar. He says :
" Fust come the blackbirds clatt'rin' in tall trees,
And settlin' things in windy Congresses,
Queer politicians, though, for I '11 be skinned
If all on 'em don't head against the wind."
In spite of all that may be brought up in Grand
CROW BLACKBIRD. 21
Jury against these "queer politicians," who is
there that could not confess to a thrill of pleasure
when they appear about the house " clatt'rin' in
taU trees " ?
As Mr. Burroughs has it : " The air is filled
with cracking, splintering, spurting, semi-musical
sounds, which are like pepper and salt to the ear."
There is a delicious reality to their notes. We
feel now that spring is not a myth of the poets,
after all, but that she has sent this black advance
guard as a promise of wild flowers and May-day.
Black, did I say ? Nothing could be more mis-
leading. Mr. Ridgway describes the body of the
purple grackle as " brassy olive or bronze," his
neck as " steel-blue, violet, purple, or brassy
green," and his wings and tail as " purplish or
violet-purplish." He is one of the most brilliant
of our bird beauties. Watch him as he ambles
over the branches, and when the sunlight strikes
him you will wonder who could have been so blind
as to dub him blackbird. Call him, rather, the
black opal !
He is a bird of many accomplishments. To
begin with, he does not condescend to hop, like
ordinary birds, but imitates the crow in his stately
walk ; then he has a steering apparatus that the
small boy might well study in coasting time. He
can turn his tail into a rudder. Watch him as
he flies. While he is going straight ahead you
do not notice anything unusual, but as soon as he
22 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
turns or wants to alight you see his tail change
from the horizontal to the vertical into a rud-
der. He is called keel-tailed on account of it.
Moreover, he can pick beechnuts, catch cray-
fish without getting nipped, and fish for minnows
alongside of any ten-year-old. Last October I
found him beech-nutting, but he made hard work
of it. I suspect the cold snap for there was
snow on the ground had stiffened his toes so
that he was more awkward than usual. " Poor fel-
low, I felt sorry for him, it entailed such danger-
ous gymnastics ! But it was amusing to see him
walk over the branches, stretch his neck to the
point of dislocation, and then make such a deter-
mined dive after the nut that he nearly lost his
balance, and could only save himself by a desper-
ate jerk of the tail. Even when he picked out a
nut he had to put it under his claw and drill
through the shell, pick-axe style, before he could
get a morsel to eat. He evidently thought it
rather serious sport, and flew down for some shriv-
eled crab-apples as a second course. But an army
of robins had possession of the apple-tree and
two of them were detailed to drive him off, so he
had to finish his breakfast up in the cold beech
top.
A long list of nesting sites might be given, in-
cluding martin-houses, poplars, evergreens, holes
in stubs, the sides of fish hawk's nests, and
church spires where the blackbirds' "clatt'rin"' is
CROW BLACKBIRD. 23
drowned by the tolling bells. Instances of their
quarrels with robins and other birds would fill a
volume, but the most interesting feud of which
I have heard was enacted in the garden of the
keen observer and botanist, Mrs. Helen M. Bagg,
and its progress was watched by her unnoticed,
as she looked out upon the participants from
among the flowering shrubs and vines that sur-
round her cottage. I quote her racy descrip-
tion :
" Early one May two robins, with many mani-
festations of happiness, set up house-keeping in a
tree near the south end of my house. A few days
later a large flock of blackbirds alighted on the
trees on the north side of the yard. There had
been a blackbird wedding, and their friends had
escorted them hither with the laudable intention
of finding a suitable location for a nest for the
happy pair. A loud chattering and fluttering fol-
lowed, one advising this place, another that. At
length the young husband espied the broad top
of the water-pipe, under the eaves, and settled on
that as a most secure and suitable home for his
bride. The wedding guests, with the satisfaction
that comes from the consciousness of having per-
formed one's duty, took their departure, leaving
the blissful couple to the uninterrupted enjoyment
of their own society. Ah ! who could have fore-
told 4 on night so fair, such awful morn' could
rise?"
24 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
" In the mean time the robins had been watch-
ing these unusual proceedings with much anxiety
and uneasiness ; apparently not well pleased and
not a little alarmed that their hereditary foes
should presume to invade their domains and be-
come domiciled in such close proximity to their
own residence. But they made no hostile demon-
strations that day, waiting to see the turn of af-
fairs, and, as the sequel shows, to gain time to
summon the assistance of friends. Early the next
morning they resolved to eject the new-comers
from the premises.
" Then occurred the most remarkable scene I
ever witnessed. At the loud cries of the combat-
ants an immense number of birds of both kinds
came flocking from all quarters to the scene of
action, as if they had been expecting the affray.
They attacked each other with great ferocity and
fought pluckily with bills and feet amid loud
cries of anger and derision. Feathers flew. The
wounded would fly away to a neighboring tree to
nurse their hurts for a moment, when, still smart-
ing with pain, back they would come to fight with
redoubled fury. The shrieks and cries increased
till it seemed a veritable pandemonium. Every
robin and blackbird within the radius of a mile
must have been present, either as spectator or par-
ticipant in the strife. After a time, finding that
both parties were equally brave, and that neither
would yield, they with one accord withdrew from
CROW BLACKBIRD. 25
the conflict as suddenly as they came, a few only
remaining to arbitrate matters.
" The path from the house to the road divides
the yard into equal parts. It was agreed that in
future the blackbirds should keep on the north
side, and the robins on the south side of this path.
Peace and quiet reigned the rest of the day, all
parties being too exhausted to resume the struggle
even if they had not been in honor bound to re-
spect the treaty. But do not fancy that the feud
was forgotten. By no means. The sleek black-
coated, dapper young gentleman, conscious of hav-
ing won the victory, inasmuch as he had not been
dislodged from his position, allowed no oppor-
tunity to pass in which he might show his con-
tempt for or exult over his plainly-dressed and
comparatively inelegant neighbors.
" When the nest-building commenced, our gay
chevalier complacently permitted his meek little
wife to perform the main part of the labor, while
he would perch himself on a limb as near the di-
viding line as possible and taunt or ridicule his
opponents, whom family cares alone prevented
from reciprocating the compliments the will
and desire were strong enough. Sometimes he
would examine the nest to see how the work pro-
gressed, and occasionally he condescended to pick
up a straw and fly with it to a tree near by, and
sit there with it in his mouth with a wonderfully
self-satisfied air, yet never offering it to his mate.
26 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
After a few moments he would drop it, smooth
his plumage, wheel about, whisk his tail, and per-
form various other antics for the delectation of
Mrs. Blackbird ; then he would suddenly dart off
to see what the robins were about.
" During the weeks that followed, through nest-
making and incubation, the enmity between the
blackbirds and robins never abated. They were
ever wary and on the alert, and if it chanced that
either party, returning to his home, happened to
cross the ' Mason and Dixon's line,' the other was
out of his nest in a trice to drive off the intruder.
Sometimes I thought both parties courted these
occasions, though they would generally content
BOBOLINK. 27
themselves with angry words and looks. The next
year they, or their children, returned, and each
took amicable possession of his old nesting-place,
neither deigning to notice his neighbor."
VII.
BOBOLINK; REED-BIRD; RICE-BIRD.
THOUGH the bluebird brings the poet pictures
of fields blooming with dandelions and blue vio-
lets, and visions of all the freshness and beauty of
nature, it tinges his thought with the tremulous
sadness and longing of spring ; but Robert o' Lin-
coln, the light-hearted laugher of June, brings
him the spirit of the long bright days when the
sun streams full upon meadows glistening with
buttercups and daisies.
Pray, have you seen the merry minstrel singing
over the fields, or sitting atilt of a grass stem?
And do you know what an odd dress he masquer-
ades in ? If not, let me warn you. One day at
college some young observers came to me in great
excitement. They had seen a new bird. It was
a marvelous, unheard-of creature its back was
white and its breast black. What could it be?
Later on, when we were out one day, a bobolink
flew on to the campus. That was their bird. And
to justify their description they exclaimed, " He
looks as if his clothes were turned around." And
so he does.
28 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
Shades of short hair and bloomers, what an in-
novation ! How the birds must gossip ! Instead
of the light-colored shirt and vest and decorous
dark coat sanctioned by the Worth of conven-
tional bird circles for centuries, this radical decks
himself out in a jet-black shirt and vest, with not
so much as a white collar to redeem him ; besides
having all of four almost white patches on the
back of his coat ! But don't berate him who
knows but this unique coloring is due to a process
unrecognized by the Parisian Worth, but desig-
nated by Mr. Darwin as " adaptation " ? Most
field birds are protected by sparrowy backs, and
with his black back, the tendency certainly seems
to be to lessen the striking effect with lighter col-
ors, leaving the breast, which is unseen when he
BOBOLINK. 29
is on the grass, as black as may be. In the fall
when flying into dangers that necessitate an in-
conspicuous suit, the bobolink makes amends for
the confusion caused in the spring, by adopting
the uniform ochraceous tints of his wife. In this
dress he joins large companies of his brothers and
flies south, where he is known first as the " reed-
bird," and then, in the rice-fields, as the "rice-
bird."
What could resemble the old time " needle in
the hay-stack " more than a bobolink's nest in a
meadow full of high grass ? But, do you say, the
birds act as a magnet to discover it ? That seems
to remove all difficulties. But suppose your mag-
net were bound to make you believe north, south,
and east, west ? When the bobolinks assure you
their nest is anywhere except where it is
within a radius of five or six rods, you well, try
it some warm day next summer ! Here is a bit of
my experience.
One day in June I think I have surely found a
bobolink's nest. Everything is simplified. In-
stead of a dozen pairs of birds flying up helter
skelter from all parts of the field, there is only
one pair, and they kindly give me a line across
the meadow ending with a small elm on the west,
and a fence on the east. As they only occasion-
ally diverge to an evergreen on the north or go
for a run to a distant field on the south, I am
confident. In imagination I am already examin-
30 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
ing the brownish white, deeply speckled eggs and
noting the details of the nest. But the best way
is to keep perfectly still and let the birds show
me just where the nest is, though of course it is
only a matter of a few minutes more or less. I sit
down in the grass, pull the timothy stems over my
dress, make myself look as much as possible like
a meadow, and keep one eye on the bobolinks,
while appearing to be absorbed with an object on
the other side. But they are better actors than I.
Twitter-itter-itter the anxious mother reiterates
in a high key as she hovers suggestively over a
tuft of grass a few rods away. So soon ! My
impatience can hardly be restrained. But the
father is coming.
Lingkum - lingkum - lingkum, he vociferates
loudly, hovering over a bunch of weeds in just
the opposite direction. By this time the mother
is atilt of another timothy stem in a new place,
looking as if just ready to fly down to her nest.
And so they keep it up. I examine all the weeds
and tussocks of grass they point out. On nearing
one of them, the mother flies about my head with
a show of the greatest alarm ; my hopes reach
certainty there is nothing there ! I look under
every nodding buttercup and spreading daisy for
yards around only to see Mrs. Robert of Lincoln
hovering above a spot she had avoided before.
The next day I offer a reward to two children if
they will find the nest, but the birds probably
BOBOLINK. 31
practice the same wiles on them they can dis-
cover nothing. What a pity the poor birds can't
tell friends from enemies. They treat me as if I
were a brigand ; but if they knew I wanted to
peep at their pretty eggs and admire their house-
keeping arrangements, how gladly they would show
me about !
After noticing the clear cut, direct flight of the
robin, the undulating flight of the bluebird, and
the circling and zigzagging of the swift, you will
study with interest the labored sallies and eccen-
tricities of the bobolink. When he soars, he
turns his wings down till he looks like an open
umbrella ; and when getting ready to light in the
grass puts them up sail fashion, so that the um-
brella seems to be turned inside out. Indeed,
from the skillful way he uses his wings and tail
to steer and balance himself, you might think he
had been trained for an acrobat.
The most animated song of the bobolink is
given on the wing, although he sings constantly
in the grass, and on low trees and bushes. The
most exuberantly happy of all our birds, he seems
to contain the essence of summer joy and sun-
shine. " Bobolinkum-linkum-deah-deaJi-deah " he
warbles away, the notes fairly tumbling over each
other as they pour out of his throat. Up from
the midst of the buttercups and daisies he starts
and flies along a little way, singing this joyous
song with such light - hearted fervor that he is
32 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
glad to sink down on the stem of some sturdy
young timothy before giving his last burst of
song.
Thoreau gives the best description I have ever
seen of the first notes of the bobolink's song. He
says : " I hear the note of a bobolink concealed
in the top of an apple-tree behind me. . . . He is
just touching the strings of his theorbo, his glassi-
chord, his water organ, and one or two notes globe
themselves and fall in liquid bubbles -from his
tuning throat. It is as if he touched his harp
within a vase of liquid melody, and when he lifted
it out the notes fell like bubbles from the trem-
bling strings. Methinks they are the most liquidly
sweet and melodious sounds I ever heard."
Almost every one gives a different rendering of
the bobolink's meaning. The little German chil-
dren playing in our meadows cry after him in
merry mimicry, " Onde-dey dunkel-dey onde-dey
dunkel-dey" The farm boy calls him the " corn-
planting bird," and thinks he says, " Dig a hole,
dig a hole, put it in, put it in, cover *t up, cover 't
up, stamp on ', stamp on ', step along.'' 1
VIII.
RUFFED GROUSE; PARTRIDGE.
THE partridge, or ruffed grouse as he is more
properly called, is our first true woods bird. His
RUFFED GROUSE. 33
colors are the colors of the brown leaves that lie
011 the ground, and as he crouches close to the
earth it is no easy task to discover him. The one
thought of the poor persecuted bird seems to be
to keep out of reach of his enemies.
Here, one of his favorite covers is in a quiet
spot where I go to gather ferns a grove that
" fronts the rising sun " and is full of dappled
maple saplings interspersed with the white birches
that gleam in the morning light and keep birch-
bark scrolls rolled up along their sides ready for
the birds to carry away for their nests. At the
foot of the trees, and close to the moss-covered
drumming-log, ferns stand in pretty groups of all
growths from the tiny green sprays and the soft
uncurling downy balls to the full grown arching
fronds whose backs are dotted with brown fruit ;
while, as a protecting hedge along the front of the
grove, great masses of the tender green mountain
fern give their delicate fragrance to the air. But
pass by this hiding place, and a sudden whirr
through the bushes, first from one startled bird
and then another, tells you they have flown before
you. Approach the drumming-log when the air
has been resounding with exultant blows the
noise stops, not a bird is to be seen.
As we feed the partridges in our woods and
never allow any hunting there, in winter the birds
venture about the house for food. The Norway
spruces by the garden afford a warm shelter, and
34 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
there, under the boughs, corn is kept for them
on barrels and boxes. On the other side of the
house, in front of the dining-room window, is a
similar store for the blue jays and gray squirrels ;
and as they sometimes visit the partridges' table,
the latter often fly around the house to see if the
squirrels' corn tastes any better than theirs.
The first snowy morning they appear we have
to peek through the shutters very cautiously, for
they are painfully shy, crouching in the- snow, lis-
tening tremulously to the least sound from the
house, looking about every time they pick up a
kernel of corn, and whirring off back to their
evergreens if a window or blind chances to be
thrown open. But they soon lose their fears, and
some mornings we find their pretty footprints in
the snow on the piazza.
One winter they seemed to show a fondness for
music, often coming close to the house as I was
playing the piano. Indeed they and the squirrels
must both have followed the Pied Piper of Hame-
lin the squirrels not only nibble their corn with
complacent satisfaction when the music box is
wound for them, but have even let themselves be
stroked when a peculiarly pathetic air was whis-
tled! Who dare say what forest concerts the
pretty creatures may get up on the long winter
evenings when they are tired frolicking on the
moonlit snow!
Still the partridges seem to like the bright red
RUFFED GROUSE. 35
berries of the cranberry-tree even better than they
do music, and we have been much amused watch-
ing their attempts to get the berries from a bush
by the garden. Sometimes they stand in the snow
underneath and jump for them ; but one day when
the bush was covered with ice one adventurous
bird flew up on a branch and nearly turned a
somersault in trying to lean over and pick off the
berries and at the same time keep hold of the
slippery perch.
But our chief pleasure is in watching the par-
tridges from the bay window of the dining-room.
The young men are as proud as turkey-cocks
of the handsome black ruffs for which they were
dubbed " ruffed grouse," and when they strut be-
fore the ladies, raising their crests, erecting their
spread tails, and puffing out the ruffs over their
shoulders they remind one forcibly of the lordly
cock. In matter of fact they do belong to the
same family, that of the gallinaceous birds,
and many of their mannerisms betray the relation-
ship. Their way of scratching in the snow, rest-
ing their weight on one foot and scratching with
the other, is like that of the common hen, and
their drumming is the finished performance that
is caricatured by Chanticleer. Drumming with
the partridge is a joy. He beats the air with his
wings till it must needs sing for him, and the
music is full of refreshing pictures of green mossy
logs, arching ferns, and the cool shade of the
woods.
36 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
IX.
RUBY-THROATED HUMMING-BIRD.
DID you ever see a humming-bird sitting on a
bare branch of a towering tree ? Until you have
you will scarcely appreciate what a wee mite of a
bird it is. Indeed I find it hard to think of it
as a bird at all. It seems more like a fairy, " a
glittering fragment of a rainbow," as Audubon
calls it, or as some one else has said,
" Like a gem or a blossom on pinions,"
something too dainty and airy to have even three
inches of actual length. It seems like the winged
spirit of color as it comes humming through the
air to hover over the flowers on the piazza, its
body like green beryl, and its throat glancing fire.
Like Puck it might boast that it could " put a
girdle round about the earth in forty minutes,"
for while we are wondering at its friendliness it
darts off and is gone like the flash of a diamond.
In this vicinity the garden of Mrs. Bagg seems
to be one of the favorite haunts of the humming-
birds, and she has kindly given me some notes on
her experiences with them. She says :
" In confinement they do not appear to pine for
freedom, beating themselves against the wires like
other birds, but seem contented and at home from
the first I kept a pair caged a whole summer,
HUMMING-BIRD. 37
feeding them with water sweetened with honey or
sugar. When I put a cup of their food in the
cage they would alight on my fingers, and with
their long flexible tongue suck off the honey I had
accidentally spilled. In disposition they are too
pugnacious to live as harmoniously as one would
expect or desire, sometimes pursuing one another
around the cage with great ferocity, and such in-
conceivable rapidity that their tiny forms seemed
resolved into absolute sound. I frequently per-
mitted them to fly about the room for exercise,
but they never returned voluntarily to their cage.
When caught they did not resist and struggle,
but saw the door of their prison-house closed upon
them without a complaint. They had never a sick
or unhappy day through the whole summer, but
when the cold days of autumn approached they
began to droop, although their cage was hung in
the warmest place in the room. For three days
they hung suspended to their perches by their
feet, and did not relax the hold while life lasted.
I have found them clinging to vines and shrub-
bery in that manner on cold mornings after a
frost, but though seemingly lifeless the warmth of
the hand would revive them.
" Some years a few are unaccountably tardy
about migrating; at other times they make the
mistake of coming too early in spring. Undoubt-
edly most of them migrate in August, but with
them, as in every other community, there are al-
38 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
ways some laggards as well as bold pioneers. I
once found one in my house on a very cold morn-
ing in the fall. He was probably sleeping on some
house-plants that had been brought in from the
frost the previous night, and was too benumbed
with cold to know it. I caught and fed him, as it
would have been barbarous to turn him out in the
cold. He soon became a great pet, and was tame
as a kitten.
" One day two gentlemen entered the room
where his cage was hanging, both wearing tall
hats. He fell immediately to the bottom of the
cage, with wings outspread, eyes closed, body rigid,
and with every appearance of death. We took
him in our hands and warmed him by the fire.
He still remained motionless. We decided that
those hats had frightened him to death. With a
heavy heart I laid him aside, intending to embalm
him at my leisure.
" A few minutes later my friends left the house.
Directly after the door closed I heard a humming
and buzzing in the room. Looking up, there was
my bird circling around the room in the most hila-
rious manner. Who can tell whether his apparent
death was not counterfeited ? If it was not feigned,
why did he revive the moment the door was closed
and I was alone ?
"If you capture one out of doors and hold
him in your hand he will practice the same
ruse, stretching himself out, stiff and motionless.
HUMMING-BIRD. 39
Thrown off your guard you stoop to examine your
prize, when lo ! your hand is empty and your
bird nearly out of sight before you have time to
recover from the astonishment.
" Towards the humble-bee he manifests the
utmost ill-will, a veritable ' dog in the manger '
spirit, driving him away from one flower after an-
other till the bee in pure desperation turns on his
persecutor. There are surely sweets enough for
all, and he knows it. Still it may be possible that
his animosity is aroused more by a personal aver-
sion he has to the bee than by more selfish con-
siderations. We will give him the benefit of the
doubt. He is fond of silence, and will often sit
half an hour together on a dead twig wrapt in
the profoundest meditation, and doubtless the in-
cessant droning of the bees disturbs his reflections
and irritates him beyond endurance. I had once
in my garden a ribbon-bed of white and rose col-
ored Lamium. In its unsullied beauty it was like
a dream of poetry. Every flower was perfect
with an unsurpassed and delicate loveliness. One
sunny morning I observed an unusual number of
humming-birds and bees working among the blos-
soms. Presently there was a commotion ! The
humming-birds had united to drive the bees away,
darting at them furiously, uttering at the same
time their spiteful, piping cries. The bees, intent
on seeking their breakfast, at first gave up good-
naturedly and flew to some other flower, only to
40 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
be driven from that a moment later. At length
forbearance ceased to be a virtue, and the temper
of the apathetic bee was aroused. A fierce battle
ensued. They pursued one another around and
around that flower bed, over and under and
through the flowers, sometimes the birds and then
the bees having the vantage. Their rage knew no
bounds, and they fought till sheer exhaustion com-
pelled them* to desist. Every flower was torn to
shreds, not a whole blossom remaining."-.
The nest of the humming-bird is as delicate as
the little creature itself. It is built in the form
of a small cup, saddled upon a horizontal limb,
and covered on the outside with lichens which
make it look like a knob on the branch. The
child who discovers a humming-bird's nest is cred-
ited with sharp eyes.
X.
MEADOW-LARK.
To many, the meadow-lark is only a voice, but
if you follow the rule laid down at the beginning
of your work, and are determined to see as well
as hear, you will have little trouble in finding the
owner of the plaintive call that rises so mysteri-
ously out of the grass.
Focus your glass on the meadow, and listen
carefully for the direction of the sound. As the
ME ADO W-LARK. 41
lark is very much the color of the dead grass that
covers the ground when he first comes north, and
of the dry stubble left after the summer mowing,
he is somewhat hard to see. When you have
found him, it is a delightful surprise to see that
the brownish yellow disguise of his back is re-
lieved, not, indeed, by a sable robe like the bobo-
link's, but by a throat of brilliant yellow, set off
by a large black crescent.
The meadow-lark has two notable characteris-
tics. Belonging to the blackbird family, he is a
walker, and when he flies you will see that he is
also one of the few birds marked by prominent
white outer tail feathers. The peculiarities of his
labored flight are exactly described by Shelley
42 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
when he says, in his Ode to the Skylark, " Thou
dost float and run" Flying seems hard work for
him, and he does as little of it as possible. When
he starts up from the meadow, he goes in a di-
rect line to the tree he wishes to reach. Like
the boboh'nk, he nests in fields and lays his eggs
in a coil of dried grass on the ground.
In variety and execution the famous song of the
European lark may be superior to that of our own
Eastern lark, though Wilson holds that xmrs ex-
cels it in " sweetness of voice." The mournful
melody of the meadow-lark is full of poetic sugges-
tions ; he is the hermit thrush of the meadows,
and where the light-hearted bobolink's song jos-
tles the sunbeams, he is as solitary and pensive as
the lonely hermit when it thrills the hush of the
sunset after-glow with its fervid Te Deuni.
XL
BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEE; TITMOUSE.
READ Emerson's " Titmouse " and you will
recognize this charming little bird without the
aid of your glass. Not only in spring and fall,
but in the coldest winter days you will hear what
Thoreau calls the " silver tinkling " cMclc-a-dee-
dee-dee-dee, chick-a-dee-dee*dee-dee ringing through
the air. When you hear it, if you look carefully
over the trees you will see a fluffy little
CHICKADEE. 43
dressed out in a black hood whose sombre tone is
relieved by whitish side pieces, a vest to match
the sides of the hood, and a dark gray coat for
contrast. Clinging to the side of a tree one min-
ute, and hanging upside down pecking at the
moss on a branch the next, it is flitting about
hither and thither so busily that unless you draw
near you will hardly catch a glimpse of its black
cap and gray and white clothes. You need not
fear scaring it, for it has the most winning confi-
dence in man, inspecting the trees in the front
yard or those in the woods with the same trustful
unconcern.
You are inclined to think that the busy chick-
adee takes no time to meditate, and sees only the
bright side of life ; and when you hear its plain-
tive minor whistle piercing the woods, you wonder
if it can have come from the same little creature
whose merry chick-a-dee-dee you know so well.
Thoreau calls this plaintive whistle the spring
phoabe's note of the chickadee, and gives its win-
ter call as day, day, day. When happy, the
chickadee is the best company one could hope for
on a winter's walk ; when busy it seems to realize
perpetual motion ; and when it gives up its ordi-
nary pursuits and prepares to rear a family, it
goes to work in the same whole-souled fashion.
Leaving civilization with its many distractions, it
goes into the woods, and that is the last you see
or hear of it until fall. Even there it is not con-
44 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
tent to sit perched up on top of an open nest, but
builds in the side of a stump or a dead stub, and
retires from the world with the determination of
a nun.
You will wonder at first how such a tiny bill as
the chickadee's can be used as a pickaxe, but if
you notice it carefully you will see that, without
being clumsy, it is very stout, for it is arched
enough to give it strength. Of course the chick-
adee sometimes nests in natural cavities in trees ;
and Audubon says old woodpeckers' holes are oc-
casionally used ; but most writers agree in think-
ing that it usually makes its own excavation,
occasionally in comparatively hard wood.
One morning I was hurrying noisily through
the underbrush of a clearing to get home in time
for breakfast, when, suddenly, I came face to face
with a pair of chickadees. Even then they did
not stir, but sat eying me calmly for several sec-
onds. I suspected a nest, and when they had
flown off, I discovered the opening in a decayed
stub close by my side. The stub was a small one,
being perhaps eight or ten inches in diameter and
four and a half feet high. The entrance was
about a foot from the top, and the nest itself a
foot or more below this. What a tasteful little
structure it was ! Although out of sight, it was
far prettier than most bird-houses on exhibition
in the forest. Bits of fresh green moss gave it a
dainty air, and brought out the dark gray of the
CHICKADEE. 45
squirrel or rabbit fur that made it snug and
warm. I was tempted to wonder where the fur
came from had this innocent chickadee tweaked
it out of the back of some preoccupied animal ?
Perhaps the demure little recluse has a spice of
wickedness after all, and its satisfaction in its se-
cure retreat has something of exultant mischief
in it!
In any case, it sometimes takes unfair advan-
tage, for this fall I saw a chickadee deliberately
lying in wait for his breakfast, just as a spider
would. I was passing a Norway spruce when I
caught sight of him pecking away on the under
side of one of the lower branches. Soon he pulled
out a large white chrysalis-like ball, flew up on a
branch and sat there till he disposed of it. Then
he went back and hung himself, upside down, to
the branch, just below the place where the first
morsel had come from. Balder, my big New-
foundland, and I were within five feet of the little
rogue, but he did not care for that. There he
clung for as much as two or three minutes, per-
fectly motionless except when he turned his head
to give us a preoccupied look. Then suddenly he
picked down and drew out a small white worm,
and flew up into the branch with a triumphant
little cry, as much as to say, " Ha, ha, I got you
after all!"
46 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
XII.
CUCKOO ; RAIN CROW.
UNLESS you follow the cuckoo to his haunts,
you rarely see him. Now and then, perhaps, you
catch a glimpse of his long brown body as he
comes silently out of an orchard, an overgrown
garden, or a clump of bushes, to disappear swiftly
in a heavily leaved tree or mass of shrubbery
where he suspects a fresh supply of insects.
A third longer than the robin, the cuckoo is a
slender, olive-brown bird with a light breast. The
two species are very similar in -appearance and
habit, but in the yellow-billed there are distinct
white spots known as " thumb marks " on the
CUCKOO. 47
under side of the tail. The black-billed cuckoo is
a plainer bird, its only striking peculiarity being
its bright red eyelids.
You will do well to remember the rhythm of
the cuckoo's notes. It may save you an experi-
ence I had one fall. I supposed the birds had
left for the South, but hearing a regular kuk-kuk-
kuk coming from the woods, and being especially
anxious to study the cuckoo's habits, I left the
raspberry patch where I was watching for rare
warblers, and hurried off in search of the wander-
ing voice. What a treat ! to be able to see a
cuckoo after all ! I crept along with scrupulous
care, begrudging the time my caution cost me, but
determined not to lose this last chance. What if
he should fly off before I could get there ! But
no I began to exult kuk-kuk-kuk came loud
and clear as I stopped to listen for the direction
of the sound. I must be almost up to him. Oh,
that I could sweep all the noisy dead leaves into
the ditch ! I look about anxiously for moss and
old logs to step on. There ! Grasping my note-
book in one hand, with the other I raise my glass.
A mischievous looking chipmunk, sitting erect on
top of a mossy stump, suddenly jumps off into
the leaves and the sound stops !
48 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
XIII.
YELLOW HAMMER ; FLICKER.
WHEN people attempt to give their children
descriptive names they generally meet with the
success of the colored woman who christened her
little girl " Lillie White " only to see her grow
to be the darkest of her ebony family. But local
bird names are more like nicknames ; they usually
touch facts, not hopes, and hint the most striking
features of coloring, song, flight, and habit. As
you have discovered, this is true of the bluebird,
chimney swift, catbird, keel-tailed blackbird, hum-
ming-bird, and meadow -lark; and looking over
the yellow hammer's thirty-six common names
given by Mr. Colburn in the Audubon Magazine
for June, 1887, you will get a fair description of
the bird. As he flies over your head in the field
your first impression is of a large yellow bird
he is of the size of the crow blackbird and
on the list you find "yellow hammer," "yellow
jay," and " pique-bois jaune " ; but as the yellow
light comes mainly from his bright yellow shafts
and the gold of the underside of his wings
and tail, you have also "yellow-shafted wood-
pecker," and " golden-winged woodpecker." His
dark back and the large white spot at the base of
his tail, though conspicuous in flight, are not dig-
nified by a name ; but when he lights on the side
YELLOW HAMMER. 49
of a tree or an old stub you recognize him as a
" woodpecker." With the help of your glass you
also see the bright red crescent on the back of his
head, for which he is probably called " crescent
bird." There he clings, fastening his claws firmly
in the bark, and bracing himself with the stiff
quills of his tail, so that his convexity of outline
almost amounts to a half circle as he bends for-
ward to " hammer " on the wood. This is the
best time to use your glass, for he is quite a shy
bird, and except when engaged in his favorite
work, is hard to observe satisfactorily, even at a
respectful distance. His dark back proves to be
barred with black, and following him as he circles
up the tree you get a glimpse of his breast that
discloses a large black collar separating his thickly
spotted breast from the plain light throat.
The song of the yellow hammer is like the Ger-
man th he has n't any. He has a variety of cries
and calls, however, and a trill that sounds like a
great rattle shaken in the air. Mr. Colburn at-
tributes twelve of his names to imitations of these
various sounds; clape, cave-due, fiddler, flicker,
hittock, hick-wall, ome-tuc, piute or peerit, wake-
up, yaffle, yarrup, and yucker.
Mr. Ingersoll refers " flicker " to his flight, and
if you watch your yellow hammer till he flies off
to another tree you will see that the adjective de-
scribes his peculiar but characteristic woodpecker
flight better than the most labored description.
50 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
Mr. Colburn says he is called " taping bird " from
it, because he looks as if " measuring off tape."
If you are persevering enough to follow him to
his nest and you never feel thoroughly ac-
quainted with birds any more than with people
until you see them in their homes you will dis-
cover why he is called "high-hold," " high-holder,"
and " high-hole " that is, if the nest he has
made is one of the high ones. Sometimes yellow
hammers build very low. However this may be,
the entrance to the nest is a large round hole, cut
out of the wood of the tree, as the pile of chips
on the ground attests. Inside, the hole is very
YELLOW HAMMER. 51
deep and the white eggs are laid on the chips at
the bottom. The usual number of eggs is six.
A gentleman tells me a curious case of miscal-
culation on the part of a yellow hammer that built
in an old apple-tree near his house. He says the
old birds kept bringing food to the nest so long
that he thought something must be wrong, and
went to investigate. The nest was just within his
reach, and he found that, as he had supposed, the
birds were more than large enough to fly. In fact
they were so large they could not get out of the
mouth of the nest, and were actually imprisoned
there ! The gentleman got an axe and cut out
the opening for them, and the next morning the
brood had flown.
Knowing the habits of the yellow hammer, you
wonder why there is no name to credit him with
the work he does for us in eating the boring ants
that eviscerate our noblest trees ; and you are still
more surprised to find no name to stamp him a
field and ground woodpecker, because his devo-
tion to ant-hills and other ground preserves is one
of the characteristics that distinguish him from
the other woodpeckers. Possibly the name " wood-
pecker lark " may refer to his custom of hunting
in the fields.
52 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
XIV.
BALTIMORE ORIOLE ; FIRE-BIRD ; GOLDEN ROBIN ;
HANG-NEST.
WILSON notices the interesting fact that our
oriole was named by Linnaeus in honor of Lord
Baltimore, whose colors were black and orange.
He is shorter than the robin, and compared
with that plump alderman is slenderly and deli-
cately built much more in the form of the
blackbirds. His back is black instead of grayish-
brown, and his breast orange instead of dull red-
dish. In habit, he contrasts still more strongly
with the robin. Who ever saw Sir Baltimore
watching for fish-worms in the grass, or taking
possession of a crotch in the piazza ? and, on
the other hand, who ever saw a robin hold his din-
ner under his claw and peck it to pieces as the
orioles and their cousins the blackbirds do ? The
oriole is comparatively shy, and has a nervous,
excitable temperament, while the robin is not only
social but phlegmatic. Then the call of the fire-
bird is shriller, and pitched on a higher key ;
while his love song is an elaborate poem in mel-
ody, compared with the blunt courtship of robin
redbreast just watch this graceful suitor some
morning as he bows and scrapes before his lady-
love to the rhythm of his exquisitely modulated
song. Now running high and loud with joyful
BALTIMORE ORIOLE. 53
exultant love, then curving into a low, soft ca-
dence, vibrating with caressing tenderness, it
finally rounds off with broken notes of entreaty so
full of courtly devotion and submission, yet, withal,
so musical and earnest with tender love, that you
feel sure his suit can never be denied.
When the oriole comes to build his nest and
you compare his work with that of the robin, you
feel that you have an artistic Queen Anne beside
a rude mud hovel. The term hang-nest is strictly
applicable. The birds are skillful weavers and
build long, delicate, pocket-shaped nests that look
as if made of gray moss. These they hang from
the end of a branch, as if thinking of the first
line of the old nursery rhyme,
" When the wind blows the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,"
and, indeed, the cradles are built by such clever
workmen that the bough must needs break to give
them a fall. The nest looks as if it barely touched
the twigs from which it hangs, but when you ex-
amine it you may find that the gray fibres have
woven the wood in so securely that the nest would
.have to be torn in pieces before it could be loos-
ened from the twigs. What is the nest made of ?
It shines as if woven with threads of gray silk,
but it must be field silk from the stems of plants.
And the horse hairs ? Mr. Burroughs tells of one
oriole who went bravely into the back part of a
horse stable for its hair lining. Sometimes a bit
54 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
of twine or gay worsted thrown on the grass is
gladly accepted, and Nuttall once saw an oriole
carry off a piece of lampwick ten or twelve feet
long.
In Northampton I witnessed an interesting case
which proved that skill in nest making as well
as other crafts comes by hard-earned experience,
and, consequently, that manual training should
be introduced into all bird schools ! A pair of
young and inexperienced orioles fell in love and
set out, with the assurance of most brides and
grooms, to build a home for themselves. They suc-
ceeded admirably in the selection of their build-
ing site, but then the trouble began. The premise
that all young lovers are weavers or architects
sometimes leads to dire syllogistic conclusions.
Was it the pressing business of the honeymoon
that interfered with the weaving, or was it be-
cause this young couple had not yet learned how
to pull together that their threads got in a snarl
and their gray pocket was all awry ? Whatever
the reason, the cradle was altogether too short to
rock well, and was skewed up in such a fashion
that some of the baby birds would have been sure
of a smothering. Like Grimm's clever Elsie the
birds foresaw all these dangers, and actually left
the completed nest to be tossed by the wind while
they went off to try again in another place. It
is believed to be unusual for two young birds to
pair together.
BARN SWALLOW. 55
XV.
BAKN SWALLOW.
THE barn swallow is the handsomest and best
known of the swallows. It is lustrous steel blue
above, and has a partial collar of the same be-
tween the deep chocolate of the chin and throat
and the pale chestnut of the breast.
What a contrast to the ugly so-called " chimney
swallow " ! And not in coloring only. Compare
its long forked tail with the short, square, bristly
tail of the swift. And then watch its flight
the coursing of a Pegasus beside the trotting of a
racer ! The swift has wonderful wing power, but
no grace. It flies as if under wager, and when
hunting, its path might be marked off by angles,
for it zigzags like a bat. But the barn swallow's
course is all curves. It has the freest flight of
any bird I have ever seen. It seems absolutely
without effort or constraint.
The swallows are so agile they often dart down
as you drive along the road, and circle around
and around you, managing dexterously to keep
just ahead of the horses. At other times they
run and circle away over the fields and through
the sky, and at sunset often haunt our rivers or
lakes, skimming low over the surface and some-
times dipping down for a drink as they go.
At rest, they sit side by side on the ridge-pole
56 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
of a barn or on a telegraph wire, where they look
like rows of little mutes. It is funny enough to
see them light on a wire. Fluttering over it for
a moment before settling down, they sway back
and forth till you are sure they must fall off.
r^Sr- '" ,.
The roads afford them much occupation. When
not making statistics about the passers-by, or col-
lecting mud for their nests, they take dust baths
in the road. They usually build inside barns or
covered bridges, lining their nests with feathers,
but a case is recorded of a nest under the eaves of
a house, which was made entirely of " rootlets and
grass," though thickly lined with downy chicken
feathers. Mr. Burroughs tells of a barn nest
" saddled in the loop of a rope that was pendant
from a peg in the peak."
BELTED KINGFISHER. 57
Of the notes of the barn swallow Mr. Bicknell
says : " An almost universal misconception re-
gards the swallows as a tribe of song-less birds.
But the barn swallow has as true claims to song
as many species of long-established recognition as
song birds. Its song is a low, chattering trill . . .
often terminating with a clear liquid note with an
accent as of interrogation, not unlike one of the
notes of the canary. This song is wholly distinct
from the quick, double - syllabled note which so
constantly escapes the bird during flight."
XVI.
BELTED KINGFISHER.
THE robin lives on neighborly terms in our
dooryard, the swift secretes himself in our chim-
neys, the humming-bird hovers in our gardens,
the barn swallow circles around our barns, the
catbird talks to himself in our orchards, the oriole
hangs his " hammock " from our. elms, the bobo-
link holds gay possession of our fields till the
mower comes to dispute his claim, and the yellow-
hammer appoints himself inspector general of our
ant-hills, fence-posts, and tree trunks; but the
kingfisher cares nothing for us or our habitations.
He goes off by himself into the heart of the wil-
derness, not to crouch among the brown leaves on
the ground like the partridge, but to fly high and
58 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
far over river and lake, calling loudly to the
echoes as he goes.
He is the most marked of the trillers, having a
loud, rapid call that Wilson compares to a watch-
man's rattle, and that, as Mr. Burroughs ingen-
iously suggests, reminds you of an alarm clock. He
usually gives it when on the wing, and if on hear-
ing him you look up in time, you will see a large,
ungainly slate-blue bird, with an odd flight his
short tail making him out of proportion so that his
wings seem too far back. As he flies over, you
note his big, heavily-crested head, his dark collar,
BELTED KINGFISHER. 59
and his glistening white throat. If he lights 011
a dead stub by the water, and you can see the
compact, oily plumage that is adapted for cold
plunges, you will think him handsome in spite of
his topheaviness. He sits like the catbird, and
watches the fish come toward the surface. But
before they know what has happened they are
wriggling in his bill. After catching a fish he
quickly carries it back to his perch, to be devoured
at his leisure.
The kingfisher shows us a new style of nest,
though it -might seem that there had been variety
enough before. There was the " adobe house "
of the robin, the coarse bundle of sticks gathered
by the crow, the exquisite lichen-covered cup of
the humming-bird, the loose, clumsy-looking nests
of the catbird and cuckoo, the frame house rented
by the bluebird, the tiny wall pocket glued to the
chimney by the swift, the grass houses of the bob-
olink and meadow-lark, the mud bowl of the barn
swallow, the airy gray pocket of the oriole, and
the snug wooden retreats of the chickadee and
yellow hammer. But here is something stranger
than any of them a burrow in the earth, that
might well be the hole of some shy animal rather
than the home of a bird. It is usually dug in
the banks of rivers or streams.
As the kingfisher spends most of his time on
the wing, his feet are small and weak, different
enough from the powerful feet and claws of the
60 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
blackbirds and orioles. What a woodsman the
kingfisher must be ! Do the hemlock's longest
branches tip to the east ? Does the lichen grow
on the north side of the trees ? Ask him for his
compass. He needs no trail. Follow him and he
will teach you the secrets of the forest. For here
lies the witchcraft of our new world halcyon,
rather than in the charming of sailors' lives, or in
the stilling of the sea.
XVII.
CHIP-BIRD OR CHIPPY; HAIR-BIRD; CHIPPING
SPARROW; SOCIAL SPARROW.
WE have already had "chimney swallows " that
were not swallows, crow blackbirds that were not
crows, partridges that were grouse, and kingfishers
that dug holes in the ground, besides bluebirds
and humming-birds and robins and chickadees and
catbirds and cuckoos, all crowded together ; and
now we are coming to that vexatious family, the
sparrows. How can any one be expected to re-
member such a medley long enough to know the
birds out of doors? I never really knew them
until I pigeon-holed them, and I believe that is
the best way. But how shall we go to work ?
Ornithologists separate our birds into seventeen
orders, and divide these into numerous families
and genera and species. We should have to turn
CHIPPY. 61
pension-office clerks to get pigeon-holes enough for
them ! But twelve of the seventeen we shall leave
entirely alone, the divers, all kinds of swim-
mers, waders, herons, cranes, parrots, and others
that most of us never see outside of museums. Of
the five orders left, four are quickly disposed of.
The partridge will be our only representative of
the "gallinaceous birds," the cuckoos and king-
fishers of the order of " cuckoos, etc.," the wood-
peckers of the " woodpeckers, etc.," and the swift,
humming-bird, night-hawk, and whippoorwill of
the "goatsuckers, swifts, etc."
There are so few of these, and they are so scat-
tered, that it does not seem worth while to give up
part of our pigeon-holes to them, so we will put
them away in a drawer by themselves, and keep
our pigeon-holes free for the one order left, the
highest of all, that of the " perching birds." It
has twenty-one families, but we need only four-
teen holes because there are seven families that
we shall not take up. So our best way is to paste
the label " perching birds " over our fourteen
holes, and then, while remembering that we have
left out seven families, number each hole and put
in the birds as they come in their natural order of
development from low to high.
The crow goes in No. 2 by himself at present.
The bobolink, meadow-lark, crow blackbird, and
oriole all go into No. 3, because they belong to the
family of " blackbirds, orioles, etc.," although they
62 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
represent different branches, or genera. Chippy
goes into No. 4 to wait for the other "finches,
sparrows, etc.," the barn swallow will go into No.
6, which belongs to " the swallows," the catbird
into No. 10, the chickadee into No. 12, and the
robin and bluebird into No. 14, the last hole,
as they belong to the most highly developed fam-
ily of all the birds, that of the " thrushes, blue-
birds, etc."
This simplifies matters. The chimney swift
belongs to an entirely different order from the
swallows, a much lower one, and so was put
in the drawer, together with the kingfisher, whose
feet are weak and who nests in the ground. Now
all the " perching birds " we have had fall readily
into place. The crow is by himself in No. 2, as
the blackbirds in No. 3 differ from him in having
wives smaller than themselves, and in anatomical
and technical peculiarities that are the foundation
of all the divisions we have.
But here is chippy in No. 4 ; let us see how he
is related to the other birds. First, what does he
look like? Although one of those "little gray
birds " that vex the spirit of the tyro, he is well
known as the smallest and most friendly of our
sparrows. All the sparrows are small, dull colored
birds, none of them being much more than half as
large as a robin. But he is marked by a reddish-
brown cap, edged by a delicate white line over eye
and cheek. His back is streaked with grayish-
CHIPPY. 63
brown and black, his wings are crossed by narrow
whitish bars, and underneath he is a pure light
ash color.
Notice the bill chippy has to crack seeds with.
It is the short, thick, conical bill of the family,
and contrasts not only with the long slender bills
of the worm -eating robin and bluebird in No.
14, but with those of the oriole, crow blackbird,
and meadow-lark in No. 3. The bobolink shows
the nearness of No. 3 and 4 in his partly conical
bill, and also in flight, though, by coloring, he is
more closely related to the crow in No. 2. It is
hardly necessary to suggest the differences that
separate chippy from the chimney swift, the ruffed
grouse, the humming-bird, the cuckoo, and the
ant-eating yellow hammer.
Of our common sparrows chippy alone has no
real song, but he trills away monotonously,
by the hour, you are tempted to think, with
cheerful perseverance that would grace a better
cause. He is called " hair-bird " because he lines
his nest with horse or cow hair, and when you
think of the close observation and industry it takes
to find this hair you will recognize not only the
power of inherited habit but the fitness of the
name hair-bird.
Last summer a chipping sparrow built in a jas-
mine bush in the crotch of a neighbor's piazza.
When the little mother was startled by intruders
she would dart into the bush, crouch down, flatten
64 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
her head, and try to make herself invisible, but
she had too many frights and at last abandoned
her nest. In a grape-vine on top of a trellis in
the garden in front of the cottage another chippy
had built. She seemed to be fearless, never stir-
ring even when we stood at the foot of the trellis
and stared at her.
I found several nests in Norway spruces. One
was near a farm-house. It was on a bough hidden
so skillfully under an evergreen twig that I had
much ado to find it, and there was barely room for
even the small mother bird to get up to it. But the
four little dark blue eggs wreathed with purplish
dots around the larger ends, as they lay clustered
on their mat of brown rootlets, made a sight to
repay a longer hunt. With all her care the poor
mother was not able to conceal her little ones. A
hungry chipmunk discovered them, and was shot
by the farmer when it was swallowing the last one
of the four.
In summer the chipping birds haunt the piazza,
coming almost to our feet for crumbs. Last season
two broods were brought by their mothers, and it'
was diverting to watch them. The mothers drove
each other about in a scandalous fashion, and, what
was worse, would not feed each other's children,
but turned their backs in the most hard-hearted
way even when the hungry youngsters ran up in
front of them and stood with wide open bills teas-
ing for food. As the babies grew older I suspect
CHIPPY. 65
their mothers poisoned their minds, too, for as
nearly as I could make out a coldness grew up be-
tween the families of infants.
The old chipping birds are very intelligent.
The turn of the head and the quick glance from
the eye show that their familiar bravery is due to
no thoughtless confidence, but is based 011 keen
observation and bird wit.
The young birds seem more trustful and are
dear fluffy little creatures. When they get to be
as big as their mothers and know perfectly well
how to feed themselves, the lazy babies will often
stand helplessly right in the middle of a handful
of crumbs, and chirr at their mother till she picks
the crumbs up and drops them in their bills.
One day I found a young chippy sitting on the
picket of a fence. His mother soon flew up onto
the picket next to him with his dinner in her bill
and leaned over trying to reach it across. It was
a comical proceeding, the baby fluttering his
wings, opening his mouth, crying out and bobbing
toward his mother while she stretched across till
well, both birds came near a tumble before
they gave it up.
Chipping birds are always about, in the garden,
on the lawn, and around the house. The back
door with its boundless possibilities in the crumb
line attracts them strongly. At one house, for
several years, a number of them came to the back
yard every day when the chickens were fed. They
66 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
sat on the fence till the first rush and scramble
were over, and then flew down among the hens to
get their dinner.
XVIII.
SONG SPARROW.
THE song sparrow, of course, goes into the same
pigeon-hole as chippy No. 4, " finches, spar-
rows, etc.," showing the same sparrow traits in
coloring, size, bill, and flight ; and the same con-
trasts with the crow in No. 2, the " blackbirds,
orioles, etc.," in No. 3, the " swallows " in No. 6,
and the robin and bluebird among the " thrushes,
bluebirds, etc.," of No. 14. But with all this, our
little friend has a marked individuality, and dif-
fers from his small cousin chippy in temper and
charm. I may be prejudiced, but while I admire
chippy for his bravery and intelligence I do not
find him as winsome as this simple little bird with
his homely cheeriness.
In the spring the song sparrow comes North a"
few days after the robin, and although the chill
from the snow banks gives him a sore throat that
makes his voice husky, you may hear him singing
as brightly as if he had come back on purpose to
bring spring to the poor snow-bound farmers.
Even his chirp of rich contralto quality com-
pared with the thin chip of his cousin has a
SONG SPARROW. 67
genuine happy ring that raises one's spirits ; and
when he throws up his head and sings the sweet
song that gives him his name, you feel sure the
world is worth living in.
The song sparrow's brown coat has little beauty,
but his dark breastpin, surrounded by brown
streaks, sets off his light gray waistcoat to advan-
tage ; and the brown topknot that he raises when
interested gives him a winning air of sympathetic
attention.
The song sparrows are not about the house as
much as the chippies, and last summer they began
coming for crumbs a week later in the nesting
season than their ubiquitous cousins. Then it
was amusing to see the business-like way in which
they hopped about, their tails perked up and
their wings close to their sides. There was one
that walked like a blackbird, and when he ran it
seemed a waste of energy he had so much more
to do than if he had hopped !
The usual note of the song sparrow is a rich
" tschip," as Thoreau gives it ; but when nesting it
has an odd thin chip that sounds so like the note
of a young bird that it deceived me into hunting
through the bushes when the old bird who was
really making it was in plain sight. The spar-
row's song is the first set song likely to attract
your attention when listening to the birds near
the house, and as Thoreau says, is " more honest-
sounding than most.'' The song consists of one
68 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
high note repeated three times, and a rapid run
down the scale and back; but it varies greatly
with individuals, and almost every writer renders
it differently.
In choosing the site for its nest, the song spar-
row adapts itself to circumstances with the grace
of a true philosopher. At one time content with
making a rude mat of straw at the bottom of a
roadside brush heap, at another it builds in a
willow, using the woolly catkins to soften the bed ;
and frequently it nests right on the ground, when
the farmers call it the " ground sparrow." But
the prettiest site of any I have ever known was
in a sweetbriar bush on the edge of the garden.
Here the little mother could be lulled into her
noon-day nap by the droning of the bumble-bees
buzzing about the garden ; or, if she chose, watch
the fluttering butterflies and quivering humming-
birds hovering over the bright flowers. Every
breath of air brought her the perfume of the briar
leaves, and when the pink buds unfolded she could
tell off the days of her brooding by the petals that
fluttered to the ground.
BLUE JAY. 69
XIX.
BLUE JAY.
THE blue jay comes with a dash and a flourish.
As Thoreau says, he " blows the trumpet of win-
ter.'' Unlike the chickadee, whose prevailing
tints match the winter sky, and whose gentle day-
day-day chimes with the softly falling snows, the
blue jay would wake the world up. His " clario-
net " peals over the villages asleep in the snow-
drifts as if it would rouse even the smoke that
drowses over their white roofs. He brings the
vigor and color of winter. He would send the
shivering stay-at-homes jingling merrily over the
fields, and start the children coasting down the
hills. Wake-up, wake-up, come-out, come-out he
calls, and blows a blast to show what winter is
good for.
And so he flashes about, and screams and scolds
till we crawl to the window to look at him. Ha !
what a handsome bird ! He has found the break-
fast hung on the tree for him and clings to it
pecking away with the appetite of a Greenlander.
Not a hint of winter in his coloring ! Note his
purplish back as he bends over, the exquisite
cobalt blue, touched off with black and white on
his wings, and the black barring on the tightly
closed tail he is bracing himself by. How distin-
guished his dark necklace and handsome blue
70 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
crest make him look ! There ! he is off again,
and before we think where he is going we hear
the echo of his rousing phe-pJiay, phe-phay from
the depths of the woods.
In many places the jays are common winter
residents, pitching their tents with the hens and
barnyard animals and comporting themselves with
familiar assurance. But in this region they are
irregular guests. Sometimes they are here for a
few days in the fall, or visit us when the hawks
BLUE JAY. 71
return in spring, teasing the young observer by
imitating the cry of the redtailecl hawk. But if
the fancy takes them they spend the winter with
us, showing comparatively little of the timidity
they feel in some localities.
Last fall a party of jays stayed here for some
time, but when I was congratulating myself on
having them for the winter, they left, and did not
return till the middle of January. Then one
morning one of them appeared suddenly on a tree
in front of the window. He seemed to have been
there before, for he flew straight down to the corn
boxes by the dining-room. The gray squirrels
had nibbled out the sweetest part of the kernels,
and he acted dissatisfied with what was left, drop-
ping several pieces after he had picked them up.
But at last he swallowed a few kernels and then
took tfiree or four in his bill at once and flew up
in a maple. He must have deposited some of
them in a crotch at the body of the tree, for after
he had broken one in two under his claw strik-
ing it with " sledge-hammer blows " he went back
to the crotch, picked up something, flew back on
the branch, and went through the process over
again. The second time he flew down to the corn
boxes he did the same thing ate two or three
kernels, and then filled his bill full and flew off
this time out of sight. Since then I have often
seen him carry his corn off in the same way, giv-
ing his head a little toss to throw the kernels back
?2 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
in his bill as he was loading up. Wilson calls
attention to the fact that by this habit of carrying
off kernels and seeds, the jay becomes an impor-
tant tree-planting agent.
What a good business man the blue jay would
make ! All his motions are like the unique load-
ing up performance time - saving, decided, di-
rect. Once during the first morning after his re-
turn he flew down to the boxes from the tree over
them and came so straight he looked as if falling
through the air. He pecked at the bark of the
trees as indifferently as he had examined the corn
the squirrels had nibbled, but I thought he drank
with some gusto. He seemed to be catching the
rain drops that were running down the sides of
the trees and filling the crevices of the bark.
After he had flown off and the gray squirrels
were comfortably settled at breakfast, he came
dashing back round the corner in such a hurry
he almost struck the squirrel on the lower corn
box. The first thing I saw was a confusion of
blue feathers and gray fur, and then a blue jay
flying off to the evergreen, and a gray squirrel
shaking his tail excitedly and starting from one
side of the box to the other trying to collect his
wits. By this time the blue jay had recovered
from his surprise, and seeing that it was only a
squirrel, hopped about in the spruce as full of
business as if the collision had been planned. Not
so with the poor squirrel ! He sprang up on the
BLUE JAY. 73
highest box, stretching straight up on his hind
legs, with fore paws pressed against his breast
and ears erect, his heart beating his sides and his
tail hanging down shamefacedly as he looked
anxiously toward the spruce where the blue jay
had gone. Gradually the fear on his face changed
to a comical look of bewilderment. Could that
bird flying about as if nothing had happened be
what struck him, or had he gone to sleep over his
corn and had a bad dream ? He settled down on
his haunches with an expression of inane confu-
sion, and finally turned back into his corn box, a
sorry contrast to the clear-headed blue jay.
This was the first morning the jays came, and
we were greatly entertained watching the develop-
ment of affairs. There were only three birds
that were regular patrons of the corn barrel res-
taurant, while there were thirteen gray squirrels,
and when the squirrels got over their first sur-
prise they seemed to consider the jays an insig-
nificant minority. There were no claw -to -bill
tussles, for when a jay was eating on a corn box
by the side of the tree, and a squirrel ran down
the trunk right above him, and gave a jump that
promised to land him on the jay's head, the bird
would quietly fly off. But such meekness was no
sign of discomfiture. The jays came back as often
as they were driven away. If the squirrels ob-
jected to their eating on a corner of the box with
them, the jays would hop down on the snow and
74 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
pick up the corn the squirrels had scattered there.
They were so persistent, and at the same time so
dignified and peaceable, that the squirrels could
not hold out against them ; and though for a time
the birds took advantage of the squirrels' laziness
and got a good breakfast mornings before the
sleepy fur coats appeared, two or three weeks of
10 20 below zero silenced the squirrel's last
prior-claims argument and the jays were allowed
to eat undisturbed from the same boxes with
them.
But it is not only the squirrels that the blue
jays dine with, for one day last winter the little
three-year-old came running out of the dining-
room in great excitement, crying, " Oh, grandpa !
come quick ! There are three partridges, and one
of them is a blue jay ! " Indeed, the other day
the blue jays quite took possession of the corn
barrels that are the special property of the part-
ridges. The barrels stand under the branches of
a Norway spruce on either side of a snow-shoe
path that runs from the house, and though the
jays were self-invited guests, I could not help ad-
miring the picture they made, they flying about
and sitting on the barrels, the dark green of the
boughs bringing out the handsome blue of their
coats.
But the spot where I have found the blue jays
most at home is in the dense coniferous forests of
the Adirondacks. I shall never forget seeing a
BLUE JAY. 75
flock of them on Black Mountain. From the top
of the mountain the wilderness looked like a sea
of forest-clad hills, with an occasional reef out-
lined by surf, for the largest lakes seemed like
tracery in the vast expanse of forest. The im-
pressive stillness was broken only by the rare
cries of a pair of hawks that circled over the
mountain ; for the most part they soared, silent as
the wilderness below them. Coming down into
the forest primeval, where the majestic hemlocks
towered straight toward the sky, and their mas-
sive knotted roots bound down the granite bowl-
ders that showed on the mountain side there we
found the blue jays in their home. A flock of
them lived together, feeding on wild berries and
beechnuts, sporting among the ferns and mosses,
and drinking from the brook that babbled along
near the trail. What a home our handsome birds
had chosen ! But the memory of the spot is
dreary. Unmoved by the beauty of the scene, to
which the blue jays gave color and life ; unawed
by the benedicite of the hemlocks ; betraying the
trust of the friendly birds, the boy of the party
crept into their very home and shot down one
after another of the family as they stood resistless
before him. To-day the pitiful lament of the
brave old birds haunts me, for, forgetting to fear
for themselves, those that were left flew about in
wild distress, and their cries of almost human
suffering reached us long after we had left the
desecrated spot.
76 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
XX.
YELLOW-BIRD ; AMERICAN GOLDFINCH ; THISTLE-
BIRD.
THROW yourself down among the buttercups
and daisies some cloudless summer day and look
up at the sky till its wondrous blueness thrills
through you as an ecstacy. Then catch your
breath and listen, while out of the air 'eomes a
clear fluid note of rapture. All ! there is the
little goldfinch a bit of the sun's own gold
sauntering through the air, rising and falling to
/- r*^
the rhythm of his own f f I ^his wav an ^
dee-ree. dee-ee-ree.
that he flits, at each call fluttering his wings and
then letting himself float down on the air. Spring
up from the meadow and follow him till down
from* the blue sky he comes to alight airily on a
pink thistle -top. Then as he bends over and
daintily plucks out the tiny seeds that would soon
have been ballooning through the air, you can ad-
mire the glossy black cap, wings, and tail that
touch off his slender gold form.
Who would ever take this fairy-like beauty for
a cousin of our plain chippy and song sparrow ?
And yet his bill and size and family traits
are the same. Pigeon-hole No. 4 was marked
"finches, sparrows, etc.," and he is one of the
YELLOW -BIRD.
77
finches. He seems near enough like the sparrows
too, when you think how unlike he is to the black-
birds and orioles of No. 3, or the swallows of No.
6, the catbird of No. 10, and the robin or blue-
bird of No. 14.
Even the chickadee from No. 12 is a strong
contrast to him. His slender frame fits him for
flying through the air, while the chickadee's
plump, fluffy figure is suited to flitting about tree-
trunks and branches. Early in the spring the
chickadee goes to the woods, and, using his pointed
bill as a pick-axe, picks out a nest hole in the side
of a stump or tree trunk. But the goldfinch
waits until July, and then, going to the nearest
orchard, chooses a plum or apple-tree crotch and
sets about making a basket to fit it. He peels
78 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
the bark from some slender weed for the outside,
and pilfers a thistle-top or the silk storeroom of
some other plant for a lining.
An old nest the children brought me last fall
had a veritable feather-bed of down in it, on top
of the usual silky lining, and it stuffed the cup so
full there seemed hardly room enough for the
eggs. It looked as if two or three whole thistle-
tops had been put in and matted down.
Last year a pair of goldfinches built in a plum-
tree by the side of a carriage drive, so low that
on tiptoe I could reach into the nest to count over
the eggs from day to day. And what dainty light
blue shells they had. Just as if bits of blue sky
had fallen into the nest ! The mother-bird must
have guessed my delight in her treasures, for she
would sit quietly on a tree a few feet away with
an air that said quite plainly, " Are n't they dear
little eggs ? You can look at them just as long
as you like. I '11 wait here till you get through ! '*
As the goldfinches nest so much later than
most birds, the young are barely out before the
warblers and other of the birds begin migrating.
I have seen the little ones teasing their father for
food late in September. One day I saw one fed
on the head of a big sunflower.
I am afraid Mr. Goldfinch is not a good dis-
ciplinarian, for his babies follow him around flut-
tering their wings, opening their mouths, and
crying tweet-ee, tweet-ee, tweet-ee, tweet-ee^ with
YELLOW -BIRD. 79
an insistence that suggests lax family government.
Some one should provide him with a bundle of
timothy stalks ! And yet who would have our
fairy use the rod ? Just listen to him some day
as he flies away from his nest, singing over to him-
self in tones of exquisite love and tenderness
his sweet bay-bee, bay-ee-bee, and you will feel
that the little father has a secret better than any
known to the birch.
Our goldfinch is not a musician when it comes
to his long song. That is a canary jumble of
notes whose greatest charm is its light-hearted-
ness. But though he is not as finished a songster
as the canary, during the summer he is much
prettier, for then his yellow suit is richly trimmed
with black markings. In September however he
loses his beauty, and until the next April or May,
when his perilous travels are over for the season,
looks much like his plain little wife. His black
trimmings are gone, and he has become flaxen-
brown above and whitish-brown below, quite
commonplace.
In connection with this protective change in
plumage the " Naturalist " gives an interesting in-
stance of protective habit, in which the wise birds
disguised themselves by the help of their bright
summer coats. A flock of them were dining on
top of the stalks of yellow mullein that covered
the slope of the embankment by which the ob-
server and his party passed. He says: "The
80 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
mulleins were ranged in stiff files, like soldiers in
yellow uniforms, and each bird as we passed re-
mained motionless, looking like a continuation of
the spike, of which one might easily be deceived
into thinking it part and parcel. As soon as we
had passed by, the birds were again busy, flitting
from plant to plant, feeding on the seeds and
enjoying themselves."
What a difference it makes in our thought of
winter to know that our little goldfinch will never
find it too cold to visit us. Being a vegetarian, his
storehouse is always well filled, for if the snow
covers the seeds he would gather from the brown
weed tops, he goes to the alders in the swamp ;
and if they fail him he is sure to find plenty in the
seeds of the hemlock, the spruce, and the larch.
XXI.
PHCEBE.
CLASSING the crow -blackbird, bobolink, and
oriole together in No. 3 by their striking colors,
and distinguishing the sparrows in No. 4 by their
striped backs, the common flycatchers, who belong
in our first pigeon-hole, No. 1, stand out as un-
striped, dull, dark grayish birds, with light breasts.
Mr. Burroughs describes them as "sharp-shoul-
dered, big-headed, short-legged, of no particular
color, of little elegance of flight or movement."
PIKE BE. 81
Knowing that the vocal organs of the flycatch-
ers are undeveloped, you are not surprised by the
contrast they present to the sweet-voiced sparrows
and finches, the talkative catbird, and the bobo-
link, who is always bubbling over with song, nor
do you wonder at the abrupt call of the phoebe.
Although it resembles a jerking repetition of
phoe-be, phce-be, it is not precisely what the word
would indicate. The first part of the call is com-
paratively clear, but the second is a longer rasping
note, with a heavily trilled r, making the whole
more like phoe-ree, phoe-ree.
When the birds first begin coming north you
hear this note. When you have traced it to its
source, and it is an excellent habit to see every
bird whose notes attract your attention, the dull
olive gray coat and the whitish vest, with its
tinge of pale yellow, are soon forgotten in watch-
ing the odd ways of the bird.
Somewhat longer than a song sparrow, two
thirds as large as a robin, he is strikingly unlike
the cheery, busy sparrow, or, in fact, like any of
the birds we have had. There he sits on a branch,
in an attitude that would shock the neat songsters.
His wings droop at his sides, and his tail hangs
straight down in the most negligent fashion. He
seems the personification of listlessness ; but,
focus your glass on him, his wings are vibrating,
and his tail jerks nervously at intervals. Suddenly
he starts into the air, snaps his bill loudly over an
82 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
unsuspecting insect he has been lying in wait for,
and before you breathe settles back on the branch
with a spasmodic jerk of the tail.
And now, as he sits looking for another victim,
you have a good chance to note, through your
glass, the peculiarities of the bill that gave such
a resounding " click." Birds' bills are their tools,
the oriole's is long and pointed for weaving,
the chickadee's short and strong to serve as a
pickaxe ; but when the nest does not "call for a
tool of its own the bill conforms to the food habits
of the bird, as the white man's needs are met
by knife and fork, and the Chinaman's by chop-
sticks. So the bills of the robin and bluebird,
you remember, are long, thin, and slender, well
fitted for a worm diet, while the sparrows, who
live mostly on seeds, have the short, stout, cone-
shaped finch bill. In the same way flycatchers'
bills are specially adapted for their use, that of
catching the insects upon which they live. At
the base there are long stiff bristles, and the upper
half of the bill hooks over the lower so securely at
the end that when an insect is once entrapped it-
has small chance of escape.
The phoebe is fond of building in a crotch of
the piazza, on the beams of old sheds, and under
bridges, apparently indifferent to the dust and
noise of its position ; but away from the immediate
haunts of man it usually nests in caves or rocky
ledges, and sometimes takes possession of the up-
KINGBIRD. 83
turned roots of a fallen tree. I well remember
finding a cave nest when we were children. We
let ourselves down into the cave by a crevice in
the lime rock, and after groping our way among
the loose stones that made the floor, and as our
anxious fathers insisted the roof of the cave,
crawling along low passages, wedging between
narrow walls, and hunting for stepping stones
across the dark pools that reflected the glimmer
of our candles, we suddenly came into a flood of
daylight, a crack in the rocks wide enough to
make a dangerous pitfall for the horses and cows
that grazed overhead, but chosen by the phoebes
as the safest possible nook for rearing a brood of
baby birds. Down the sides of this shaft the rain
trickled, keeping the moss green and giving the
tiny ferns strength to cling to the crannies of the
rock. On a ledge just in reach of the tallest of
us the wise pair of birds had built their nest, care-
less of the dark cavern below, and happy among
the moss and ferns.
XXII.
KINGBIRD; BEE MARTIN.
THE kingbird is noticeably smaller than the
robin, but is larger and more compactly built than
most of the flycatchers. The sobriety of his plain
blackish coat and white vest are relieved by a
colored patch that may sometimes be espied under
84 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
his crest, and also by a white tip to his tail, which,
when spread in flight, has the effect of a white
crescent. He has a peculiar flight, holding his
head up and using his wings in a labored way as
if he were swimming. When looking for his din-
ner he often flutters obliquely into the air, display-
ing his shining white breast and fan-shaped tail
to the best advantage.
All the disagreeable qualities of the flycatchers
seem to centre in this bird. His note is a harsh,
scolding twitter. His crown proclaims him king,
not by right, but by might, such a bickering
pugilist, such a domineering autocrat he is. The
crow's life becomes a plague when this tormentor
gives chase ; and the smaller birds find themselves
driven at the point of the bill from the fences they
had considered public highways.
But whatever may be the exact limit of his
quarrelsomeness it stops short at home ; old king-
birds are certainly tender guardians of their
young. I once watched a pair in search of food.
They flew down to the haycocks in the meadow
near the orchard, sat there reconnoitring for a
moment, and then jumped into the grass to snap
up the insect they had discovered. Flying back
to the young they flirted their wings and tails as
they dropped the morsel into the gaping red
throats, and in an instant were off again for a
hunt in the air, or in another tree. And so they
kept hard at work, looking everywhere till the
WOOD PEWEE. 85
voracious appetites of their infants were satisfied.
DeKay says of the kingbird's diet : " He feeds
on berries and seeds, beetles, canker-worms, and
insects of every description. By this, and by his
inveterate hostility to rapacious birds, he more
than compensates for the few domestic bees with
which he varies his repast." To this DeKay adds
the interesting statement : " Like the hawks and
owls, he ejects from his mouth, in the shape of
large pellets, all the indigestible parts of insects
and berries."
XXIII.
WOOD PEWEE.
IN size, coloring, and habit you will hardly dis-
tinguish the wood pewee from the phoebe, al-
though* the former is somewhat smaller. These
two birds stand apart from all the others we have
had. The chimney swift and barn swallow also
live on insects, but measure the difference in their
methods of hunting. The swift zigzags through
the air, picking up his dinner as he goes; the
swallow skims the rivers, and circles over the
meadows and through the sky, without so much
as an ungraceful turn of the wing to suggest that
he is dining. But the pho3be and the wood pe-
wee lie in wait for their victims. They cunningly
assume indifference until the unwary gauzy-wing
floats within range, then spring on it, snap it up,
and fall back to wait for another unfortunate.
86 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
And when not hunting, how silent and motion-
less they sit, the phoebe on the ridgepole of a
barn, the wood pewee on a twig in the flickering
sunlight and shade of the green woods ; neither
of them uttering more than an occasional note,
and scarcely stirring unless to look over their
shoulders.
Though the pho3be and wood pewee look so
much alike, in reality they are as much at odds
as a farmer and a poet. Unlike the nest of the
phoabe, the wood pewee's is essentially woodsy
and distinctive. It is an exquisite little structure,
saddled on to a lichen-covered limb. Made of fine
roots and delicate stems of grass and seed pods,
it is covered with bits of lichen or moss glued on
with saliva, so that like the humming-bird's nest it
seems to be a knob on the branch. It is a shallow
little nest, and the four richly crowned c*reamy
eggs, though tiny enough in themselves, leave
little room for the body of the brooding mother.
In temper the phoabe is so prosaic that we nat-
urally connect it with the beams of barns and
cow sheds ; while the wood pewee, associated with
the cool depths of the forest, is fitted to inspire
poets, and to stir the deepest chords of human
nature with its plaintive, far-reaching voice.
It has moods for all of ours. Its faint, lisping
LEAST FLYCATCHER. 87
suggests all the happiness of domestic love and
peace. At one moment its minor
rrr
come to me i
with the liquidity of a " U " of sound <C,Lf
is fraught with all the pathos and yearning of a
desolated human heart. At another, its tender,
motherly ~- ^ .^
dear-ie dear-ie dear
with which it lulls its little ones, is as soothing
to the perplexed and burdened soul as the soft
breathing of the wind through the pine needles,
or the caressing ripple of the sunset-gilded waves
of a mountain lake.
XXIV.
LEAST FLYCATCHER.
IF you have been in the country, or even in
one of our smaller towns during the spring and
summer, you may have noticed the reiteration of
an abrupt call of two notes che-becJc' che-beck'
coming from the apple-trees and undergrowth. If
you have traced it you have discovered a small
gray bird, in coat and habit a miniature of the
phoebe and wood pewee, jerking not only his tail
but his whole body with his emphatic call.
This small bird seems a piquant satire on the
88 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
days of tournament and joust, when knights
started out with leveled lances to give battle to
every one they met. He is a fearless little war-
rior, snapping his bill ominously as he charges,
full tilt, at his enemy.
Last summer on passing a thicket I heard this
snapping, together with loud calls of che-beck',
and stopped to see what was happening. There,
in a low willow, I found a family of young sun-
ning themselves while their mother brought them
their dinner. It seemed a most peaceable scene,
but a picket fence ran along just back of the wil-
low, and I soon discovered that this was the tilt
yard. Whenever a song sparrow or pewee hap-
pened to light there and stretch its wings for a
sun bath, the fierce little mother would suddenly
appear, dart at the unoffending bird, and fairly
throw him off the fence with her abrupt onset.
After unseating her enemy she would fly off as
fast as she had come, career about in the air till
she had snapped up a fly or miller, dart back,
thrust it into one of the open mouths with a jab
that threatened to decapitate the little one, and
seemed to mean, " There, take it quick if you 've
got to have it," and with a flirt of the tail and
wings, before I had time for a second look, would
be off in hot pursuit of another insect.
I wanted to see if she would be afraid of me,
and so crept up by the fence, almost under the
baby birds. Two of them sat there side by side,
RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD. 89
in the most affectionate manner, nestling down on
the branch with their soft white feathers fluffed
out prettily. They did not mind me, and closed
their eyes as if the warm sunlight made them
sleepy. All of a sudden their mother flew up to
one of them with a fly, but was so startled on see-
ing me that instead of giving it to him she sprang
up on top of his head and was off like a flash,
almost tumbling him off the branch, and leaving
him very much scared and bewildered. As soon
as her nerves recovered from the shock she came
back again and went on with her work as if I had
not been there. The father seemed to be as rest-
less and pugnacious as the mother, and, if appear-
ances were to be trusted, was quarreling with his
neighbors in a tree near by, while his wife guarded
the picket and fed her young.
XXV.
RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD.
THE large flocks of blackbirds seen coming
north in the spring are confusing at first, but by
careful observation you will soon be able to dis-
criminate between them. Sometimes the crow
blackbird and the red-wing fly together, but they
more commonly go in separate flocks. At a dis-
tance, the flight of the two is perhaps the most
distinctive feature the " keel-tail " steering ap-
90 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
paratus of the crow blackbird marking him any-
where. Then, though they both belong in the
same pigeon-hole, the keel-tailed is a half larger,
and the red-wing a trifle smaller than the robin.
Known more familiarly, the red-wing lacks the
noisy obtrusiveness of his awkward cousin, and
usually prefers the field to the dooryard.
Though as I write the roads are being broken
through the drifted snow by plough and kettle, as
I turn over the crumpled leaves of the small note-
book I have carried on so many tramps, the first
faint, penciled notes I find on the red-wing take
me back into May, and, in fancy, we are again
starting down the hill to the swampy meadows
where
" The red-wing flutes his o-ka-lee."
Did you ever see a meadow full of cowslips ?
Here is the true field of the cloth of gold. It
looks as if father Sun had crumbled up sunbeams
and scattered the bits over the meadow ! As you
sink into the soft wet ground, every few steps
bring you to a luxuriant clump of the tender
green plants lit up by flower cups of glistening-
gold. Each bunch seems more beautiful than the
last, and, like a child, I would carry the whole
field full of flowers home in my arms ! This sun-
garden is the red-wing's playground. As we stroll
along, he flies over our heads calling out o-ka-lee,
and then, with outstretched wings, soars slowly
down to the ground, where he sits and wags his
tail as fast as a catbird.
RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD. 91
As Thoreau says, his red wing marks him as
effectually as a soldier's epaulets. This scarlet
shoulder cap is so striking against the bird's black
coat that the careless observer does not notice its
border of brownish yellow, even when it shades
into white, as it does in some of the western
species. With Madam Blackbird the contrast is
not so great, for she is not as pure black as her
husband, having brownish streaks that, even at a
distance, give her a duller look ; and then her
epaulets are more salmon than scarlet. Still the
effect is pleasing, and it is only a matter of taste
if we do not admire her as much as her spouse.
I was unable to go to the meadows during the
nesting season, and the next notes I find in my
book were taken in the middle of June. Then
the young were hidden in the grass, and the old
birds followed us from spot to spot, screaming
loudly as they circled near us, or hovered low over
our heads. Perhaps their cries were to warn
their children, for, although there were three of
us, and we examined carefully all the places where
they showed the most concern, we succeeded in
scaring up only one rusty-coated youngster.
Two weeks later, in the warm days of July,
the red-wings seemed to have left the meadows for
the trees that skirted the alder swamp, and fam-
ilies of old and young were sitting with their
cousin grackles in the willows and on thfe rail
fence, while some flew up as I walked through an
92 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
opening in the swamp where the cat-tails stood
guard, and the long-banded rushes soughed like
wind in a forest.
XXVI.
HAIRY WOODPECKER.
THE habits of the woodpecker family are more
distinctive, perhaps, than those of any group of
the birds we have been considering, and the most
superficial observer cannot fail to recognize its
members.
Woodpeckers the very name proclaims them
unique. The robin drags his fish-worm from its
hiding place in the sod, and carols his happiness
to every sunrise and sunset ; the sparrow eats
crumbs in the dooryard and builds his nest in a
sweetbriar ; the thrushes turn over the brown
leaves for food and chant their matins among the
moss and ferns of the shadowy forest ; the gold-
finch balances himself on the pink .thistle or yel-
low mullein top, while he makes them " pay toll "
for his visit, and then saunters through the air in
the abandonment of blue skies and sunshine ; the
red-wing flutes his o-ka-lee over cat-tails and cow-
slips ; the bobolink, forgetting everything else,
rollicks amid buttercups and daisies ; but the
woodpecker finds his larder under the hard bark
of the trees, and, oblivious to sunrise and sunset,
HAIRY WOODPECKER. 93
flowering marsh and laughing meadow, clings
close to the side of a stub, as if the very sun him-
self moved around a tree trunk !
But who knows how much these grave mono-
maniacs have discovered that lies a sealed book
to all the world besides ? Why should we scorn
them ? They are philosophers ! They have the se-
cret of happiness. Any bird could be joyous with
plenty of blue sky and sunshine, and the poets,
from Chaucer to Wordsworth, have relaxed their
brows at the sight of a daisy ; but what does the
happy goldfinch know of the wonders of tree
trunks, and what poet could find inspiration in a
dead stub on a bleak November day ? Jack Frost
sends both thrush and goldfinch flying south, and
94 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
the poets shut their study doors in his face, draw-
ing their arm-chairs up to the hearth while they
rail at November. But the wise woodpecker
clings to the side of a tree and fluffing his feathers
about his toes makes the woods reverberate with
his cheery song, for it is a song, and bears an
important part in nature's orchestra. Its rhyth-
mical rat tap, tap, tap, tap, not only beats time
for the chickadees and nuthatches, but is a reveille
that sets all the brave winter blood tingling in our
veins.
There the hardy drummer stands beating on
the wood with all the enjoyment of a drum major.
How handsome he looks with the scarlet cap on
the back of his head, and what a fine show the
white central stripe makes against the glossy
black of his back !
Who can say how much he has learned from
the wood spirits ? What does he care for rain or
blinding storm ? He can never lose his way. No
woodsman need tell him how the hemlock branches
tip, or how to use a lichen compass.
Do you say the birds are gone, the leaves have
fallen, the bare branches rattle, rains have black-
ened the tree trunks ? What does he care ? All
this makes him rejoice ! The merry chickadee
hears his shrill call above the moaning of the
wind and the rattling of the branches, for our
alchemist is turning to his lichen workshop.
The sealed book whose pictures are seen only
HAIRY WOOpPECKER. 95
by children and wood fairies opens at his touch.
The black unshaded tree trunks turn into en-
chanted lichen palaces, rich with green and gold
of every tint. The " pert fairies and the dapper
elves " have left their magic circles in the grass,
and trip lightly around the soft green velvet moss
mounds so well suited for the throne of their
queen. Here they find the tiny moss spears Lowell
christened, " Arthurian lances," and quickly arm
themselves for deeds of fairy valor. Here, too, are
dainty silver goblets from which they can quaff
the crystal globes that drop one by one from the
dark moss high on the trees after rain. And
there what wonders in fern tracery, silver fili-
gree and coral for the fairy Guinevere I
But hark ! the children are coming and off
the grave magician flies to watch their play from
behind a neighboring tree trunk. There they
come, straight to his workshop, and laugh in glee
at the white chips he has scattered on the ground.
They are in league with the fairies, too, and
cast magic spells over all they see. First they spy
the upturned roots of a fallen tree. It is a moun-
tain! And up they clamber, to overlook their
little world. And that pool left by the fall rains.
Ha ! It is a lake I And away they go, to cross
it bravely on a bridge of quaking moss.
As they pass under the shadow of a giant hem-
lock and pick up the cones for playthings, they
catch sight of the pile of dark red sawdust at the
96 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
foot of the tree and stand open-mouthed while the
oldest child tells of a long ant procession she saw
there when each tiny worker came to the door to
drop its borings from its jaws. How big their
eyes get at the story ! If the woodpecker could
only give his cousin the yellow hammer's tragic
sequel to it !
But soon they have found a new delight. A
stem of basswood seeds whirls through the air to
their feet. They all scramble for it". What a
pity they have no string ! The last stem they
found was a kite and a spinning air-top for a day's
play. But this never mind there it goes up
in the air dancing and whirling like a gay young
fairy treading the mazes with the wind.
" Just see this piece of moss ! How pretty ! "
And so they go through the woods, till the brown
beech leaves shake with their laughter, and the
gray squirrels look out of their oriel tree trunk
windows to see who goes by, and the absorbed
magician who can tell how much fun he steals
from his lofty observation post to make him con-
tent with his stub !
Why should he fly south when every day brings
him some secret of the woods, or some scene like
this that his philosopher's stone can turn to happi-
ness ? Let us proclaim him the sage of the birds !
If he could speak ! The children would gather
about him for tales of the woodsprites ; the stu-
dent of trees would learn facts and figures enough
HAIRY WOODPECKER. 97
to store a book ; and the mechanic ! Just watch
the dexterous bird as he works !
A master of his trade, he has various methods.
One day in September he flew past me with a
loud scream, and when I came up to him was
hard at excavating. His claws were fast in the
bark on the edge of the hole, and he seemed to be
half clinging to it, half lying against it. His stiff
tail quills helped to brace him against the tree,
and he drilled straight down, making the bark fly
with his rapid strokes. When the hole did not
clear itself with his blows, he would give a quick
scrape with his bill and drill away again. Sud-
denly he stopped, picked up something, and flew
up on a branch with it. He had found what he
was after. And what a relish it proved ! I could
almost see him holding it on his tongue.
Another day in November he had to work
harder for his breakfast, and perhaps it was for-
tunate. The night before there had been a sharp
snowstorm from the north, so that in passing
through the woods all the trees and undergrowth
on the south of me were pure white, while on the
opposite side the gray trees with all their confu-
sion of branches, twigs, and noble trunks stood out
in bold relief. The snow that had fallen made it
rather cold standing still, and I would have been
glad to do part of Mr. Hairy's work myself. But
he needed no help. He marched up the side of
the stub, tapping as he went, and when his bill
98 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
gave back the sound for which he had been listen-
ing, he began work without ado. This bark must
have been harder or thicker than the other, for
instead of boring straight through, he loosened it
by drilling, first from one side and then from the
other. When he could not get it off in this way,
he went above, and below, to try to start it, so
that, before he found his worm he had stripped
off pieces of bark several inches long and fully
two across. He was so much engro'ssed that I
came to the very foot of the stub without disturb-
ing him.
Indeed, woodpeckers are not at all shy here
but work as unconcernedly by the side of the
house as anywhere else. Once I was attracted by
the cries of a hairy, and creeping up discovered a
mother feeding her half-grown baby. She flew
off when she saw me, probably warning the little
fellow to keep still, for he stayed where she left
him for five or ten minutes as if pinioned to the
branch, crouching close, and hardly daring to stir
even his head. Then, as she did not come back,
and he saw no reason to be afraid of me, he flew
off independently to another limb, and marched
up the side arching his neck and bowing his head
as much as to say, " Just see how well I walk ! "
DOWNY WOODPECKER. 99
XXVII.
DOWNY WOODPECKER.
THE downy looks so much like the hairy that it
would be easy to confound them if it were not for
the difference in size. The downy is fully two
inches shorter than the hairy. As you see him
on a tree at a distance, the white stripe on his
back is bounded by black, or as Thoreau expresses
it, " his cassock is open behind, showing his white
robe." Above this stripe is a large check of black
and white, and below on a line with the tips of
his wings seems to be a fine black and white
check, while, if he is an adult male, a scarlet
patch on the back of his head sets off his black
and white dress.
Seen only a rod away, as I see him through the
window in winter, clinging to a tree, and picking
at the suet hung out for him, the white central
stripe of his back is marked off above by a black
line which goes across to meet the black of his
shoulders. From the middle of this and at right
angle to it, another black line goes straight up
towards his head, so carrying on the line of the
white stripe, and forming the dividing line of the
two white blocks. This, again, meets the point
of a black V, so broad as to be almost a straight
line. On this V lies the red patch of the back
of his head. Over his eye is a white line that ex-
100 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
tends back to meet the red patch. What at a
distance looked like fine checking at the base of
his wings proves to be white lining across the
black.
The downy comes about us here with the same
familiarity as the hairy, and it was only a few
weeks ago that the cook brought me one she
found imprisoned between the sashes of her win-
dow. He was scared, poor little fellow, and wrig-
gled excitedly, trying to force my hand open.
When I had taken a look at his pretty brown
eyes I carried him to the front door, and off he
flew to the nearest tree where he began pecking
at the bark as if nothing had happened.
XXVIII.
WHITE-BELLIED NUTHATCH ; DEVIL-DOWN HEAD.
CROSSBILLS, snow buntings, blue jays, pine
finches, pine grosbeaks, goldfinches, and some-
times other birds visit us here at irregular inter-
vals during the winter, but there are four little
friends that never desert us, no matter how long
the winter lasts. They form a novel quartette,
for the chickadee whistles the air, the nuthatch
sings his meagre alto through his nose, and the
two woodpeckers the hairy and downy beat
their drums as if determined to drown the other
parts. But they are a merry band, with all their
WHITE-BELLIED NUTHATCH. 101
oddities, and wander about' giyiiig oCpnceris Wher-
ever they go, till the woods are alive, agaj^,, and
we forget that we have .ever*, missed tho summer
birds.
When the drums get too much absorbed in
their tree trunks, the alto and air go serenading
by themselves, and who knows what gossip they
indulge in about the grave magicians' day dreams,
or how gayly they swear to stand by each other
and never be put down by these drums ! They
are old chums, and work together as happily as
Mr. and Mrs. Spratt, the chickadee whistling his
merry chick-a-dee-dee, dee, dee as he clings to a
twig in the tree top, and the nuthatch answering
back with a jolly little yank, yank, yank, as he
hangs, head down, on the side of a tree trunk.
What a comic figure he makes there !
Trying to get a view of you, he throws his head
back and stretches himself away from the tree till
you wonder he does not fall off. His black cap
and slate-blue coat are almost hidden, he raises
his white throat and breast up so high.
" Devil-down-head " he is called from this habit
of walking down the trees, since instead of walk-
ing straight down backwards, as the woodpeck-
ers do, he prefers to obey the old adage and
" follow his nose." A lady forgetting his name
once aptly described him to me as " that little up-
side-down bird," for he will run along the under
side of a branch with as much coolness as a fly
would cross the ceiling.
102 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
Orfe',o'f his VftojH$ip names is "sapsucker," for
ojy i ^utljatch J^as a swe^ tooth, and when the
fanners 4ap, ''thie; &fee8 r , in* spring he "happens
round " at the sugar bush to see what sort of ma-
ple syrup they are to have. He tests it well, tak-
ing a sip at " the calf " where it oozes out from
the gashing of the axe, tasting it as it dries along
the spile, and finally on the rim of the buckets.
But his most interesting name is nuthatch !
How does he come by it ? That seems a riddle.
Some cold November day put on a pair of thick
boots and go to visit the beeches. There in their
tops are the nuthatches, for they have deserted
the tree trunks for a frolic. They are beechnut-
ting ! And that with as much zest as a party of
WHITE-BELLIED NUTHATCH. 103
school-children starting out with baskets and pails
on a holiday. Watch them now ! What clumsy
work they make of it, trying to cling to the
beechnut burr and get the nuts out at the same
time. It 's a pity the chickadee can't give them
a few lessons ! They might better have kept to
their tree trunks. But they persist, and after
tumbling off from several burrs, finally snatch
out a nut and fly off with it as calmly as if they
had been dancing about among the twigs all their
days. Away they go till they come to a maple or
some other rough-barked tree, when they stick
the nut in between the ridges of the bark, ham-
mer it down, and then, when it is so tightly
wedged that the slippery shell cannot get away
from them, by a few sharp blows they hatch the
nut from the tree ! Through my glass I watched
a number of them this fall, and they all worked
in about the same way, though some of them
wedged their nuts far into cracks or holes in the
body of the tree, instead of in the bark. One of
them pounded so hard he spread his tail and al-
most upset himself. The fun was so great a
downy woodpecker tried it, and of all the big
school-boys ! The excitement seemed to turn his
head, and he attacked a beechnut burr as if he
would close with it in mortal combat !
Though without any real song, the nuthatch
has a delightful variety of notes. In May his
nasal henk-a, henk-a, henk-a, comes through the
104 BfRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
soft green woods as a peculiarly peaceful caress-
ing- note, and his soft yang, yang, yang is full of
woodsy suggestions. In the last of June I noted
the sweet yah-ha of the nuthatch, the same yang,
yang, yang, and his nearest approach to a song,
the rapid yah-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha. In August and
September the nasal yank is sometimes run into
an accelerated half song. Thoreau gives the or-
dinary winter note as quah, quah, and while that
expresses the mellowness of the note" -on some
days better than yank, they are both descriptive.
But though certain notes may predominate in
given months, on a cold January morning I have
heard from a flock of nuthatches every note that
I had ever heard before at any time of the year.
Like the other members of the quartette, the nut-
hatch nests in holes in trees or stumps while its
lightly spotted eggs, six or eight in number, are
laid on a soft, f elty lining.
I am often surprised by discovering the nut-
hatch at work in places where I despair of finding
any birds. One day in December the snow-cov-
ered woods seemed to have fallen into the silent
slumber of a child. Not a breath came to blow
the white cap from the vireo's nest, or scatter the
heaped-up snow that rested like foam on the slen-
der twigs. The snow that had drifted against the
side of the tree trunks clung as it had fallen. In
silence the branches arched under their freight ;
the rich ochraceous beech leaves hung in masses
under the snow not a leaf rustled.
COWBIRD. 105
Overhead the twigs, snow-outlined, made exqui-
site filigree against the pale blue sky. But sud-
denly, as the woods seemed to be holding its breath,
the yank of the nuthatch came first from one tree
and then another. A family of them were looking
for their dinner in the white forest. If the snow
covered the upper side of a branch, they ran along
upside-down on the under side ; if the south side
of a tree trunk was white, they walked, head down,
on the north side ; and there, too, was the little
drummer a downy woodpecker, flickering from
tree to tree even here, the merry band was find-
ing a place for itself in nature. As I passed on,
fainter and fainter came the note of the nuthatch.
I looked back through the woods ; the blue sky
was veiled by snow clouds, but behind them shone
the southern sun, pervading them with that won-
drous radiance of white light that only a winter
sky can show.
XXIX.
COWBIRD.
THE cowbird is one of the smaller blackbirds.
The male has an iridescent body and purplish-
brown head and neck. The female has no bril-
liant coloring, and is decidedly dingy in appear-
ance.
About the size of the kingbird, the cowbird im-
106 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
poses upon its brothers in the same systematic
manner. It employs subtle measures, however,
and the result of its work is much worse than that
of the kingbird. Audubon says, " Like some un-
natural parents of our own race, it sends out its
progeny to be nursed." Coues says of its habits :
" Like the European cuckoo, it builds no nest,
laying its eggs by stealth in the nests of various
other birds, especially warblers, vireos, and spar-
rows ; and it appears to constitute, furthermore,
a remarkable exception to the .rule of conjugal
affection and fidelity among birds. A wonderful
provision for the perpetuation of the species is
seen in its instinctive selection of smaller birds as
the foster-parents of its offspring ; for the larger
egg receives the greater share of warmth during
incubation, and the lustier young cowbird asserts
its precedence in the nest ; while the foster-birds,
however reluctant to incubate the strange egg
(their devices to avoid the duty are sometimes
astonishing), become assiduous in their care of
the foundling, even to the neglect of their own
young. The cowbird's egg is said to hatch sooner"
than that of most birds ; this would obviously con-
fer additional advantage."
The birds upon which the cowbird imposes
sometimes build a second floor to their houses
when they find the big stranger egg in their
home, and a case is given where even a third story
was built. The cowbird spends a large share of
CO WBIRD. 107
his time among the cattle in the pastures, so earn-
ing his name.
With the cowbird, our pigeon-hole for " black-
birds, orioles, etc.," No. 3, is as full as we shall
make it. There are seven birds in it the bobo-
link, cowbird, red- winged blackbird, meadow-lark,
crow blackbird, and oriole. Comparing them for
a moment with the lower orders of birds we put
away in the drawer the chimney swift, par-
tridge, humming-bird, cuckoo, woodpeckers, and
kingfisher ; and then again with the other families
of perching birds we have had the flycatchers
of No. 1, the finches and sparrows of No. 4, the
barn swallow from No. 6, and the chickadee and
nuthatch from the " nuthatches and tits " of No.
12, we shall see how clearly they stand out as a
group.
Perhaps it will be well to summarize their com-
mon characteristics.
BLACKBIKDS, ORIOLES, etc. (Pigeon-hole No. 3.)
Birds that live in the meadows.
Meadow-lark.
Bobolink.
Birds with much black in plumage. (Compare
with sparrows.)
Crow blackbird.
Red-winged blackbird.
Cowbird.
Bobolink.
Oriole.
108 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
Birds whose general build is compact but slen-
der, and by whom the claw is used for holding
food. (Compare with robin and sparrows.)
Oriole.
Crow blackbird.
Red-winged blackbird.
Birds in which the females are smaller than the
males.
Red-winged blackbird.
Cowbird.
Meadow-lark.
Crow blackbird.
Birds with long straight bills. (Compare with
swift, chickadee, finches, and sparrows.)
Crow blackbird.
Red-winged blackbird.
Meadow-lark.
Oriole.
Birds that walk instead of hopping. (Compare
with flycatchers, sparrows, etc.)
Crow blackbird.
Red-winged blackbird.
Cowbird.
Meadow-lark.
WHITE-THROATED SPARROW. 109
XXX.
WHITE-THROATED SPARROW.
THOUGH the white-throats nest in the Adiron-
dacks and other dense northern forest regions, they
come to us for only about a month in spring and
fall. In Northampton, Massachusetts, I have
heard their clear spring whistles,
r r t s c c t c c c
I - I - pea-bod-dy, pea-bod -dy, pea- bod - dy
r r r
I '* > C 5 C
I - I - I - pea - bod - dy, pea - bod - dy
coming from the wooded bank of Mill River, from
the low bushes of the fields, and the undergrowth
of the woods on the outskirts of the city ; and in
the fall have seen them in front of the houses
scratching among the leaves under the evergreens
of Eound Hill.
The first intimation I had of their return this
fall was in the clearing one day, when I found two
of them sitting atilt of a blackberry bush in front
of me. As one of them sat facing me and the
other had his back to me and only turned to look
over his shoulder, I had a chance to note not only
the white chin and ash-gray breast but the black
striped chestnut back and the pretty five-striped
crown, whose central grayish line is enclosed by
110 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
two black lines, bounded in turn by the whitish
line over the eyes. While I was watching them
their attention was diverted by the barking of a
gray squirrel in the woods, but they seemed to
listen to him as they had me, with quiet interest,
little more.
A large flock of them stayed here for about a
month, keeping always near the same spots, a
brush heap, an old dead tree-top, by which water
and grain were kept for them, and a raspberry
patch a few rods away. From the raspberry patch
would come their quarrying note that Mr. Bick-
nell speaks of, the peculiar chelink that gives the
sound of a chisel slipping on stone, and which,
when coming from a flock at a little distance, gives
the effect of a quarry full of stone cutters. As
I went through the patch they would fly up from
among the bushes, some uttering a little surprised
chree, some calling cheep as they flew noisily by,
while others clung, crouching close, to the side of
a stem, looking back to see who I was.
The small slate-colored snowbirds, the juncos,
were with the sparrows more than any other birds ;
but the oven-bird, whose premises they had invaded,
looked down on them with mild curiosity until it
was time for her to go south ; and later, a family
of chewinks chased them off the fence by way of
turnabout justice, though you are tempted to feel
that the white-throats need little punishment.
They have none of the petulance or arbitrariness
WHITE-THROATED SPARROW. Ill
of chippy, but with the sweet temper of the song
sparrow, these larger cousins have a thoughtful
bearing that harmonizes with their spring song,
which is tinged with sadness, like the melodious
call of the bluebird.
One morning in September, not finding the
white-throats in the raspberry-patch, I went on to
a circular opening near the edge of the woods just
south of it. The sunlight streaming down through
the half Indian summer haze and melting into the
soft lights and shadows of the surrounding green
woods, gave a mystic loveliness to the spot. A
delicate white birch stretched up, sunning itself ;
a maple trunk stood in shadow with one spray of
a drooping branch dipped in the emerald sun dye ;
the red autumn leaves lodged here and there
seemed to be shaken out of sight by the green
bushes, but a breath of fresh wind murmured that
summer was past and was it a footstep ? No !
It was an army of little autumn pedestrians ! A
happy host of white-throated sparrows, hopping
about on the ground under the bushes. Busy and
fearless, their footsteps pattered on the leaves, and
they sometimes came within two or three feet of
me without taking fright. A chipmunk scudded
through the bushes after his playfellow without
startling them. From every side came the happy
chee-ree; a cobweb shimmered in the sunlight.
What if fall were coming ? It brought these little
friends of ours !
112 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
XXXI.
CEDAR-BIKD; WAXWING.
THE cedar-birds go into pigeon-hole No. 7, the
place for "the waxwings," etc., and when you
have examined them you will feel that they de-
serve a cubby-hole of their own. In spring and
fall they are found in flocks, often of five or seven,
but you will be likely to overlook them if you are
not consciously watching the birds. They are
rather shy, and are slender birds, a little smaller
than a robin, with inconspicuous coloring, and,
moreover, have no song to attract your attention,
nothing but a lisping note and a faint whis-
tle that sounds as if they were drawing in their
breath. But they are about, and in June will
probably nest in the nearest orchard, and eat
canker-worms from the village trees.
When you find them you will be repaid for your
trouble. By the law of compensation, discussed
by Darwin under the head of Natural Selection,
their beauty makes up for their lack of voice",
while, in the case of the sparrows, plainness is
compensated by musical power.
The waxwing's plumage is a soft fawn tone, lit
up by touches of color. Its crest is fawn, but it
has a black chin and a black stripe through the
eye, a yellow band across the end of its tail, and,
most unique external feature of all, which ex-
CEDAR-BIRD. 113
plains the name waxwing a tipping of a bright
red horny substance that looks like sealing-wax
on the shorter feathers of its wings, and some-
times the feathers of the tail. How prettily the
tipping lights up its dainty coat ! It gives the
final touches to an artistic costume. But what
impresses you most at first sight is the waxwing's
crest, and the fact that, unlike the fluffy chicka-
dee, every delicately tinted feather of its shapely
body is smoothed into place with exquisite care.
The waxwings are the elite of bird circles, and
seem fit companions for the proud oriole and the
graceful catbird. But how modest and retiring
they seem as they hide away among the leaves,
silent and self-contained, while the handsome oriole
flaunts his scarlet banner through the air, blowing
a bugle-note for all the world to hear ; and the
gay Bohemian catbird chuckles at his own jokes,
and tells the lilacs all he knows as he idles in the
sunshine.
Nuttall relates a curious instance of politeness
which he noticed among cedar-birds. One, hav-
ing caught an insect, gave it to his neighbor, who
took it to give to another, he in turn passing it on,
till it had gone the rounds of the group before it
was devoured !
The gentle affectionate nature of the cedar-bird
has often been commented upon, and naturalists
have called attention to the fact that the pretty
little birds have even adopted the human symbol
114 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
of tenderness, and are often seen kissing each
other. Gumpei Kuwada, the young Japanese ob-
server at Northampton, Massachusetts, has sent
me some interesting notes on the subject. He
says : " On the 7th of May I saw a very large
flock of cedar-birds, Ampelis cedrorum. Two of
these were seated on a branch a little distance
apart, and one hopped toward the other and bent
down his head and -touched the bill of the other
with his own bill, then went back to his place;
then the second bird went to the first bird and
went through the same motions and returned to
his place; then the first bird repeated the per-
formance, and so these two cedar-birds went alter-
nately and touched each other's bills for about
five minutes. The action of the two birds was so
funny that I could not call it anything else but
that they fell in love and kissed each other. It
could not possibly have been a mother feeding
her young, because it was so early in the season,
and they were in a flock and had nothing in their
bills, and their bills were shut."
The cedar -birds are not only affectionate in
their own families, but sometimes show the most
human compassion to stranger birds. Mrs.
Martha D. Jones, of Northampton, writes me of
a touching instance of their friendliness. She
says : " Last summer my sister watched for weeks
a robin's nest in an apple-tree some ten feet from
her chamber window. She could see into the nest,
CHE WINK. 115
and day by day watched the maturing of love and
hope and faith till the little ones were fledged.
Then came a sad day when the mother bird was
killed, and again a sadder still when the sole pro-
vider of the hungry brood was taken. Who
should provide for the four little gaping mouths ?
Must the little ones perish also? Their pitiful
cries could be heard in the house, and my sister
tried to devise some way to reach the nest and
relieve them. When lo! she was anticipated.
The young had been heard, and a pitiful heart
had responded. ... A cedar -bird came before
the day closed and adopted them, fed them con-
stantly for more than a week; brought them
safely from the nest and taught them to fly as
though they had been her own." What an ex-
ample these birds could set the kingbird and
least flycatcher !
XXXII.
CHEVVINK ; TOWHEE.
THE sight of a chewink, even in migration, is
a rare pleasure in the Adirondack region. One
October morning when the orchard trees and
evergreens are astir with sparrows, a big umber-
brown bird comes out from the low branches of a
Norway spruce, and, showing white tail feathers
as she flies, hides away among the low spreading
116 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
branches of a white birch. Just as I begin to
question my eyes, she flies into a plum-tree and I
recognize the small brown head, the short finch
bill, for she belongs in pigeon-hole No. 4, and
the white triangular corners of the chewink taiL
But on the instant she spies me, and away she flies,
low over the ground to I never know where.
Had she clapped on a magic cap she could not
have vanished more completely. I waste the best
part of the morning hunting for her, and the next
day begin the search again.
Going along a narrow trail that serves as snow-
shoe path in winter, in passing a dead tree top I
start the usual number of white-throats, and as I
turn the corner of the fence into the clearing be-
hold ! right before me, clinging to the side of a
CHE WINK. 11?
raspberry stem and looking at me over his shoul-
der, is a handsome male chewink. What a beauty !
His back is bbck and his sides match the crisp
curled beech leaves that color the wood paths in
fall. He whisks his tail back and forth, and opens
and shuts it as a nervous beauty toys with her fan,
so disclosing the white feathers that border it and
the white triangles on the corners. But before I
can put pencil to note-book he has disappeared. I
spy about in all directions, get down on my knees
to peer through the raspberry bushes, and tiptoe
along, ogling all the white-throats that light on the
fence but never a glimpse do I get of him.
Then suddenly he appears on top of a fence
facing me ; but as I look down he hops among
the ferns, and as I screen myself behind a tree
for a better view when he shall fly up again, a low
cheree-ak-ree reaches me, and I see him on the
fence several rods away! He looks up to the
trees, raising and lowering his cap, with the odd
effect of rounding or flattening his head, and then,
deciding in favor of brambles, jumps off into the
bushes again.
And so I follow him for three or four hours,
trying every device to keep near without letting
him take fright, stepping on moss or walking
along the trunks of fallen trees to avoid the crack-
ling sound of the leaves, stopping to listen for his
soft cheree-ah-ree, getting down to look through
the bare stems of the bushes for him, and, if I see
118 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
him as lie scratches among the leaves, crouch
motionless close to the ground till I ain as full of
cramps as Caliban. Once, seeing him on the
fence, I stand close to a tree and take an old dry
golden-rod curious freak it is too, with axillary
flowers all the way up the stem and hang it
from a twig in front of me as a screen and in that
way get a good look at him through my glass.
Off his guard, he loses the alert nervous manner
noticed at first, and seems winningly peaceful and
social but just as I am allowing him all the
virtues of the decalogue, he flies at a white-throat
that presumes to light on the fence, and drives it
off in a temper !
I next find both Mr. and Mrs. Chewink by the
corner of the fence where grain and water are
kept for the birds, and when Mr. Chewink is not
chasing after white-throats, they busy themselves
hunting among the leaves. Near by a partridge
sits motionless on a limb, so close to a tree she
seems part of it. So much for being in the land-
scape! I take Madam Partridge's hint, and
perch myself on the fence with my back to a tree
that stands by it ; and, thanks to the device, when
Mr. Chewink comes, after hopping about uncon-
sciously just in range of my glass, he flies up on
an arching blackberry stem only a few feet from
me and sings softly to himself for several minutes
without ever noticing me !
After about a week a storm came that drove
INDIGO-BIRD. 119
the chewinks south, and I searched through the
raspberry patch and wandered through the woods
calling to them in vain. But one day after the
middle of the month I found another male eating
the grain. He scratched among the leaves in full
view, running at them with a queer energetic mo-
tion, tossing them up behind him. I had a long
conversation with him, but though he answered
all my remarks in a very friendly way, he looked
cold, and talked in rather a pensive strain, and I
saw no more of the family that fall.
XXXIII.
INDIGO-BIRD.
IN a paper in the " Audubon Magazine," Mr.
Ridgway has shown what a mistake has been
made in depreciating our American songsters.
With equal justice an article might be written,
calling attention to the brilliant plumages of many
of our northern birds. The purple grackle, ori-
ole, bluebird, goldfinch, humming-bird, barn swal-
low, blue jay, purple finch, scarlet tanager, red-
headed woodpecker, yellow -throated vireo, and
numbers of our warblers would excite wondering
delight if they should bear South American or
European labels. Indeed, among birds as among
roadside flowers, we need to make it the fashion
to appreciate our own national gallery of beauties.
120 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
Not the least of our most brilliant every-day
songsters is the indigo-bird. Only in a poor light
is he as dull as common indigo. In the sunlight
his coat is an intense, exquisite blue, the shade of
which varies as he moves, and is described by
Thoreau as " glowing indigo." Mrs. Indigo has
a pretty tinge of blue on her shoulders and tail
feathers, but if the light is not right to bring this
out, the peculiarly warm brown, which is almost
burnt sienna, is enough to distinguish her from
the ordinary brown birds that are like her in size
and build. Her habit of jerking her tail from
side to side is also diagnostic.
The indigo-bird is one of our most energetic,
tireless songsters. He is usually seen on the top
of a bush or a tree not more than twenty or thirty
feet high ; often in the edge of the woods, or in a
clump of bushes beside the road, and sometimes
in the garden, where his breezy, sunny song shows
that he is making the most of all the light and
air that are to be had. Blithe and merry in the
sunshine, he sings as loudly through the noonday
heat as in the cooler hours.
His roundelay has been syllabified in various
ways, but the rhythm and tone may be suggested
by che-ree' che-ree' che-ree' che-ree f che-rah' rah-
rup f . The last half varies greatly, sometimes
being che-rah' rah-ah-rup, or che-rah 1 che-rif) 1
cherup 1 . Very often the song ends with an inde-
scribable, rapid flourish of confused notes.
INDIGO-BIRD. 121
This June a pair of indigo-birds built in the
edge of the woods only a few rods from the house,
but I think they never ceased to regret their
temerity. The nest was a pretty little bunch of
dry leaves and grass, and its deep, narrow cavity
was lined with hair. It was wedged into the fork
of a tiny beech, only six inches from the ground,
and not more than three feet from the carriage
drive. The mother would sit quietly when wag-
ons passed, but as soon as she found that I had dis-
covered her nest would fly off in distress whenever
I happened to be walking by. Unlike goldfinches
and sparrows, the mother never got used to me,
and to the last suspected me of I don't know
what murderous intentions darting off into the
low bushes with her metallic cheep, cheep, as soon
as she caught sight of me, and almost refusing to
feed her babies till I had gone back to the house.
Her husband, though somewhat suspicious, could
not share her alarm ; he chirped and jerked his
tail about, but his anxiety had a perfunctory air.
Earlier in the season I saw a very marked in-
stance of this difference in temperament. I was
walking through the edge of a clearing when I
scared up a mother indigo-bird, apparently look-
ing for a good site for her nest. She was much
excited, and twitched her tail as she flew about
crying cheep, cheep. She made so much noise
that her husband heard her, and came flying home
to rescue her. He did not think either my dogs or
122 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
I looked belligerent, but followed her from limb
to limb to be near if we should attack her. It
was evident that he did not sympathize with her
fears, as he neither cried out nor jerked his tail ;
and after he had chased her patiently all over the
branches, from one tree to another, and through
the bushes, at last he turned toward her on a
branch and looked at her as much as to say,
" Oh ! you tiresome creature ; why will you be
so absurd ? Don't you see they 're not going to
hurt you?"
His contempt had no effect, however, and he
opened his mouth at her ! This threat of conju-
gal authority subdued her, and at last she meekly
flew off into the woods with him. But, like some
other good wives, she had her way in the end,
and though she followed Mr. Indigo back there
several times to look for " empty lots," two or
three more scares determined her, and the nest
was built elsewhere !
XXXIV.
PURPLE FINCH.
THE purple finch is about the size of his cousin
the song sparrow. He is as fond of singing in a
maple or an evergreen as chippy is of trilling on
the lawn, and the result is much more satisfac-
tory, although he does not sing as well as the song
sparrow.
PURPLE FINCH. 123
Now and then you catch a sweet liquid note,
but for the most part his song is only a bright
warble, without beginning or end. The song
sparrow, you know, begins, strikes his upper note
three times, and then runs down the scale, finish-
ing off usually with a little flourish ; but the pur-
ple finch seems to sing in circles, without much
musical sense nothing but a general feeling
that the sun is warm and bright, and there are
plenty of buds and seeds to be found near by.
Thoreau puts the song in syllables as a-twitter-
witter-witter-wee, a-witter-witter-wee.
The song is at its best when our pretty finch is
in love. Then it has more expression and sweet-
ness and resembles the whisper song of the robin.
And when he bows and dances before the little
brown lady he is trying to win for his bride, his
pretty magenta head and back, his rosy throat
and white breast, with his graceful ways and ten-
der song, make him an attractive suitor. The
brown-streaked, sparrowy-looking little creature
who seems to ignore him at first, can scarcely help
feeling flattered by the devotion of such a hand-
some cavalier, and you feel sure that his wooing
will come to a happy end.
Like the waxwings, bobolinks, white-throated
sparrows, blue jays, goldfinches, and swifts, ex-
cept in the nesting season, the purple finches are
generally found in flocks, their favorite haunts
being woods and orchards.
124 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
XXXV.
RED-EYED VIREO.
AMONG the songs that come through the open
window in summer, there is one I hear when the
midday heat has silenced nearly all the others. It
comes from the upper branches of the trees about
the house, and is a preoccupied warble, of three
loud, guttural notes, given with monotonous va-
riety. In rhythm it is something like he-ha-wha
or ha-ha-wha, or, again, he-ha-whip in rising in-
flection, and he-ha-whee in falling cadence.
If I go out and focus my glass on the dull-
colored bird that moves along over the branches
inspecting the leaves in such a business-like way, I
discover it to be an exquisite little creature, tinted
more delicately than the waxwing, but with much
the same glossy look and elegant air. It is a
slender bird, about half as large as a robin. Its
back is olive, and its breast white, of such tints
that when the sunlight is on the leaves our vireo
is well disguised, for its back looks like the upper
side of the leaf, and its breast like the under side
with the sun on it. If the bird considerately flies
down into the lower branches, as it turns its head
to one side, I can make out its ash-colored cap
and the lines that border it, first a black one,
then a white, and below that another black line,
running through the eye.
RED-EYED VIREO. 125
If its search among the lower branches is suc-
cessful it runs along the length of a limb, holding
its worm out at bill's length, shaking it over the
limb as if afraid of dropping it before it is in con-
dition to swallow.
But although one becomes attached to the cheery
bird that sings at its work from morning till night,
in park and common, as well as about the country
house, the best way to know it is to follow one of
the family into the edge of the woods where it
builds its nest.
Such an exquisite little workman as you discover
it to be ! It wonders how the meadow-lark and
bobolink can like to nest on the damp ground, and
how the woodpeckers can live in a tree trunk,
how can they ever keep their babies quiet without
a cradle ! The coarse mud-plastered house of the
robin fills it with lofty surprise. For its part it
usually chooses a lithe sapling that responds to all
the caprices of the wind, and from the fork of one
of its twigs hangs a dainty birch-bark basket.
For lining it picks up leaf-bud cases, curving
stems of the maple seeds, wings the children
call them, and now and then a spray of hem-
lock. With the artist's instinct it puts the strips
of brown bark next the lining, and keeps the shin-
ing silvery bits for the outside. Sometimes it
puts in pieces of white, crisp, last year's leaves,
and often steals the side of a small wasp's nest to
weave in with the rest, while bits of white cob-
126 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
web-like substance that look as if taken from co-
coons are fastened on for ornament.
What could you have more daintily pretty?
Nothing after the four white, delicately wreathed
oval eggs are laid on the maple wing stems in the
bottom.
On such a nest as this, with the tender green
leaves to shield her from stray sunbeams, and the
wind to rock her gently back and forth, brooding
must lose some of its wearisome monotony ; and
you are tempted to account for the difference be-
tween the nervousness of some bird mothers and
the contented trustfulness of the vireo.
One day I accidentally surprised a vireo on her
nest. Here was a chance to see her red eyes. I
leveled my glasses at them and stared with the in-
sistent curiosity of an enthusiast. Nearer and
nearer I crept, and actually got within two feet of
the tree before she stirred. Then she flew off
with only a mildly complaining whee-ough, and
sat down in a tree near by to see what I would do
next. But just then I espied a wasp's nest about
two feet over hers, and not waiting to see if it was
" to let," retreated, wondering at the proximity.
There were a number of vireo families that I
was watching last spring, and one of them built
so low that by pulling down the end of the branch
I could reach into the nest. One day when I
went to examine the eggs they had turned into a
family of such big yellow-throated youngsters that
they filled the nest.
RED-EYED VIREO. 127
The mother did not seem to be there, so I sat
down with my dogs near by to wait for her. I
supposed she was off worm-hunting and would fly
back in great excitement on discovering the in-
truders. But all at once, almost over my head, I
heard a low, CYOoningjiohee-ah ! I turned in sur-
prise, and there was my mother bird looking down
at me with all the composure of an old friend.
Wha-wha-wha, she said, as she saw the dogs and
took in the group again. As we kept still, and
did not offer to molest her children, she soon be-
gan looking about for worms, saying ter-ter-eater
in the most complacent tone as she worked. She
would turn her head and look down at us now and
then with mild curiosity ; but although I went
back to the nest to test her she seemed to have
perfect confidence in me, not showing the least
alarm.
Afterward I heard the vireo song from her, and
concluded that she was the father of the family,
left on guard while the mother was taking her
rest. I thought perhaps that accounted for some
of the indifference, but after that, when I went to
see them, I found both old birds, and always met
with the same trustfulness. Indeed, they would
talk to me in the most friendly manner, answering
my broken bird talk with gentle sympathetic seri-
ousness that said very plainly they knew I meant
well, and what a sweet winsome sound it had,
uttered in their low caressing tones !
128 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
To their enemies, however, these beautiful birds
are neither gentle nor confiding. Last June, as I
was watching a chestnut-sided warbler from the
undergrowth near a vireo's nest, I heard a great
commotion among the thrushes and vireos, and
hurried out of the cover to se$ what was the trouble.
I heard a low complaining croon from one of the
vireos, and looking up saw, to my surprise, a
gray screech owl flying blindly about among the
branches. After a little he stumbled upon a dead
limb and sat down, trying to feel at home. But
the vireos were crying ominously kray, kree-kree-
Jcree-kree, and when he thought how they had
darted down and snapped their bills at him as he
came along, he edged uneasily over the branch.
Just then my dog came running noisily through
the dead leaves under the tree. What could be
coming next ! The scared, awkward owl turned
his head over to one side and strained his big eyes
to see. His ears stood up, and his pupils grew
bigger and bigger with fright. He looked like a
great booby entrapped by a practical joke. But
this was too serious. What with a dozen vireos
and thrushes threatening him, some wild animal
or other rushing about at the foot of the tree,
and the pair of big glass eyes almost as large as
his own, through which another mysterious object
was menacing him. No owl could bear it! Away
he flew, as fast as his blundering wings could flap,
followed by the angry vireos, who saw him well
YELLOW-THROATED VIREO. 129
out of their neighborhood before they let him
alone.
The next day I scared up the foolish fellow
again, in the same place, and found that the near-
est vireo's nest was gone ! Not a trace was left,
nothing but one feather ! Had he taken his re-
venge in the night? The trees refused to tell
tales, and I had to be satisfied with giving him
such a scare as would keep him away in future.
XXXVI.
YELLOW-THROATED VIREO.
THE name of this beautiful bird calls up college
days, for my first memory of him is a picture of
one of the fairest May mornings upon which a
Connecticut Valley sun ever rose.
Dandelions were just beginning to dot the ten-
der grass, and the air was full of busy travellers
stopping on their northward journey to see the
beautiful old New England town that the bird-
voiced Jenny Lind christened the " paradise of
America." Eager for a sight of the strangers, I
hid myself under the spreading boughs of an old
apple-tree in the corner of an orchard and waited
to see what would come.
A purple finch was now gathering materials for
her nest where she had been coquetting with her
handsome lover not long before, and the catbird
130 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
who lived across the road by the bank of Mill
River had flown over to talk with the visitors ;
while above the rest full and rich came the song
of the handsome rose-breasted grosbeak. My
cover was a happy thought. Right into the tree
over my head came the birds, so busy flitting
about the leaves they had little time to look under
the branches. And most beautiful of all though
a rainbow of warblers came before I left was
this dainty, golden-throated vireo.
Less restless than the warblers, he inspected the
boughs more thoroughly, giving toe at intervals
glimpses of his olive back, white wing bars, and
bright yellow chin and throat as well as his pretty
yellow breast that turns to white below. Whe-he-
he, he sang out as he worked, and I suspect his
sharp eyes detected me when he turned his head
on one side and peered through the leaves.
How delighted I was to discover, a few weeks
later, that he or one of his brothers had gone to
housekeeping on the campus ! The nest was the
first vireo basket I had ever seen, and I well re-
member the enthusiasm it excited in the other
college girls. We would go out after breakfast,
wade through the damp grass to the maple from
which it hung, and stand looking up at it, admir-
ing the bits of white trimming fastened on at reg-
ular intervals along the sides, and exclaiming at
the beauty of the architect watching us from among
the leaves, until, at last, the tolling of the chapel
bell would send us hurrying back up the hill.
WARBLING VIREO. 131
XXXVII.
WARBLING VIREO.
THE warbling is the smallest of the three vireos.
Its back is grayish olive, and its breast is tinged
with yellow. It may be distinguished from the
others by his song.
Dr. Brewer says : " This vireo ... is to a
large extent a resident of villages, towns, and
even cities. It is by far the sweetest singer that
ventures within their crowded streets and public
squares, . . . and the melody of its song is ex-
quisitely soft and beautiful. It is chiefly to be
found among the tall trees, in the vicinity of dwell-
ings, where it seems to delight to stay, and from
their highest tops to suspend its pensile nest. It
is especially abundant among the elms on Boston
Common."
By reason of their dainty coats and shapely forms,
their pretty ways and their repose of manner, the
vireos remind one most forcibly of the waxwings.
Birds naturally group themselves by occupation,
and, as a Darwinian corollary, by coloring. The
sparrows spend most of their time on the ground
searching for seeds, and are protected by their
earth-colored suits ; the woodpeckers live clinging
to tree trunks, and many of them are disguised by
their likeness to the bark ; the flycatchers take
their living from the insects that swarm in the
132 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
air, and their dull colors serve as non-conductors
of attention ; while the vireos, who live on measure-
worms and similar morsels, are so exclusively de-
voted to foliage that they might well be called
leaf-birds, and their tints harmonize strikingly
with their habits. They may well be known as
" greenlets."
XXXVIII.
OVEN-BIRD; GOLDEN-CROWNED THRUSH.
WE have had the loud rattling trill of the yel-
low hammer, the alarm of the kingfisher, and the
fine, shrill trill of the chipping sparrow, but now
we come to one that differs from them all. Mr.
Burroughs has aptly described it by the word
teach-er. It seems to beat upon the air, growing
louder and louder, increasing in intensity, volume,
and rapidity until the end, like
r r ' F & \ \ i \ g
teach-er, teach-er, teach-er, teach-er, teacher
Ordinarily the trill is your clue in looking for
the oven-bird. When you hear it close at hand,
and fail to see him on a tree, look carefully under
the bushes on the ground. If you see a bird the
size of the white - throated sparrow, tossing the
dead leaves aside with his bill and scratching them
OVEN-BIRD. 133
up, less like a chewink than like a hen, you have
probably found your friend.
His olive-green back makes him inconspicuous
when he is among the leaves, and the thick brown
spotting on his white breast serves as a disguise
when he is on the ground. If you are fortunate
you will discover his orange-brown crown, enclosed
by two black stripes that converge toward the
biU.
Like the partridge, the crow, the blackbirds,
and the meadow-lark, the oven-bird is a walker, so
that you can distinguish him at a glance merely
by his leisurely dignified gait, it is such a con-
trast to the hopping of the chewinks and spar-
rows.
The leaf-house from which the oven-bird gets
his name varies in its roofing, but the first nest I
ever found may be taken as a type of the com-
monest style of architecture. It was a bright morn-
ing in June, and while walking through the edge
of a grove of young maples a brown shadow started
up from under my feet and disappeared in the
woods. On looking down beside a blooming Solo-
mon's seal, I saw what at first glance seemed to
be a bunch of dry leaves, one of the thousand
pushed up by mice or crowding spring flowers.
But the hint given by the fleeting shadow could
not be ignored, and I stooped down to examine
the bunch. I felt it over eagerly, one, two,
three sides, no opening ; the fourth, my fingers
134 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
slipped in, it was the unique oven-bird's nest I
had been hoping to find ever since I was a child.
In an instant I was on hands and knees peering
through the mysterious doorway. How interest-
ing ! There lay five exquisite eggs, their irregu-
lar brown speckles centring in a crown about the
larger end. What a wonderful builder the little
creature seemed ! His arched roof was lined so
smoothly with soft dry leaves it suggested a fret-
work ceiling. What a tiny palace of beauty had
this golden-crowned queen of the thrushes ! What
mystery that bunch of leaves held ! The little
brown lady might have been sitting at the mouth
of a fairy cave.
The next day I found three of the eggs hatched,
and such absurd -looking nestlings had well been
taken for bird gnomes. They seemed all mouth
and eyeball! Small red appendages answered
for wings, and tufts of gray down on the skin did
for a coat of feathers. Even when feebly throw-
ing up their heads and opening their big yellow
throats for worms, the birds' eyes were closed so
fast they had an uncanny appearance. The same
day I had the good fortune to stumble upon an-
other nest. This was essentially the same, though
built more of fine roots.
The ingenuity of the builders is shown by a
device which puzzled me greatly in my first nest.
I made several visits to it, and when the little
ones had flown, found that the grass around the
OVEN-BIRD. 135
mouth of the nest had been pulled together, so as
to leave only a round hole just large enough for
the bird to go in and out. For some time I was
at a loss to account for it, but I had noticed from
the outset that this bird acted peculiarly. On
none of my visits had she uttered a note or come
near me, while the other mother oven-birds always
began smacking their bills and flying hither and
thither the instant I appeared. Perhaps this
mother was more thoughtful than the others, and
considering their clatter dangerous, went to the
other extreme.
The most terrified oven-bird that I have ever
seen I found on a densely wooded hillside in the
same woods. She began her smacking as soon as
we came in sight, but although we hunted care-
fully for the nest we could not find a trace of it.
We sat down on a log and waited for her to show
136 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
it to us, but that did no good. She did confine
herself to a radius of about three rods, but select-
ing saplings at extreme points flew from one to
the other as she inspected us, all the while wag-
ging her tail nervously up and down and keeping
up the monotonous smacking.
Finding her as incorrigible as the mosquitoes,
and realizing the approach of the dinner hour,
my friend and I set out for home. But in our
case the gods favored the cowardly, for, as we
were brandishing our maple twigs in the faces of
pursuing punkies and mosquitoes, we suddenly
started up the little family we had been hunting
for.
They ran out from the leaves under our feet,
scudding off in all directions. My two dogs
pounced after them, and we flew in terror after
the dogs, but Balder's big jaws had nearly en-
gulfed them before we had dragged him off. In
the midst of the confusion the terrified mother flew
to the ground and began trailing in a pitifully
excited way. She spread out her wings and tail,
dragging them along the earth as if helpless. On
finding that we would not accept that decoy, and
seeing that her little ones had hidden away under
the leaves, she tried another plan and walked once
slowly back and forth for about a rod on the
side away from her young. Having, as she sup-
posed, completely diverted our attention by these
imaginative ruses, as the dogs were perfectly
OVEN-BIRD. 137
quiet, and we had not moved since the first alarm,
she made a detour and risked an examination of
the place where the little birds had disappeared.
In watching the oven-bird I have been surprised
to find how irregular individuals are in their time
of nesting. On June 11 I found a family of full-
grown young being fed in the branches of a ma-
ple-tree. The same day I found a nest full of
eggs. June 12 three of these eggs hatched, and
I found a nest of young a quarter grown. June
13 I found the family that I have just described
well out of their nest. These could hardly have
been first and second broods, as they were in all
stages of development. This same difference I
have since found in the nesting of robins, vireos,
chipping birds, song sparrows and others.
When I considered myself well acquainted
with the oven-bird and its notes, I was much sur-
prised to be told that it had a beautiful song dis-
tinct from the usual trill. The trill seems to be
used for all its commonplace thoughts and feel-
ings, but, as Mr. Bicknell says, " on occasion, as
if sudden emotion carried it beyond the restric-
tions that ordinarily beset its expression, it bursts
forth with a wild outpouring of intricate and
melodious song. This song is produced on the
wing, oftenest when the spell of evening is com-
ing over the woods. Sometimes it may be heard
as an outburst of vesper melody carried above the
foliage of the shadowy forest and descending and
dying away with the waning twilight."
138 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
Mr. Bicknell speaks only of the two songs, but
I have heard the two combined. The outbreak
of high, rapid, confused notes being interlarded
with the low-pitched conversational trilling teach! -
er, teach'er. By increasing the confusion, this
adds greatly to the effect of excitement spoken of
by Mr. Bicknell. Though most common at even-
ing or in the night, I have frequently heard this
medley in both morning and afternoon. The
rhythm and volume of this interesting song in its
simplest form may be suggested by the syllables
whee'he, whee'he, whee'ha, he' he' ha, increasing
in volume toward the middle, and unlike the or-
dinary trill, diminishing in intensity again at the
close.
XXXIX.
JUNCO; SLATE-COLORED SNOWBIRD.
EARLY in September you may have found the
j uncos, companies of little gray-robed monks and
nuns, just emerging from the forests where they
cloister during the summer months. Most of
them nest well to the north, but still there are
many that content themselves with the cool moun-
tain ranges of the Alleghanies.
If they build in your locality, as they do here,
their habits, like those of the chickadee, are
greatly changed in summer, and you will take
more than one casual walk through the woods be-
JUNCO. 139
fore you discover them. They are no longer in
flocks, but in pairs, and I consider myself fortu-
nate if I get a timid look from one from among
the dead branches of a fallen tree top.
Early last May I was delighted to see a pair
on the edge of the raspberry patch, but though
they inspected the recesses of a pile of brush,
seemed greatly interested in the nooks and cran-
nies of an upturned root, and reviewed the attrac-
tions of a pretty young hemlock that stood in a
moss-grown swamp on the border of the patch, I
suspect it was only a feint ; and when they came
to the grave business of house choosing they fol-
lowed family traditions and built under a stump,
in a hole beneath the root of a tree, under an
overhanging bank, or somewhere else on the
ground, with a natural roof to keep off the rain.
At all events, they left the raspberry patch,
and with the exception of one or two that I heard
giving their high-keyed woodsy trill in June, that
was the last time I saw any of the family there
until fall. Then they came out in time to meet
their cousins the white-throats, and stayed till
after the first snows.
Like the sparrows, waxwings, blackbirds, swal-
lows, blue jays, swifts, and others, the juncos live
in flocks when not nesting. One day in Septem-
ber I found a number of them gathered around
an old barn, some sitting quietly on the boards
and sticks that lay on the ground, and others, as
140 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
becomes inhabitants of No. 4, hopping about pick-
ing up seeds.
Another day they and some white-throats were
by the side of the barn eating grain scattered at
the threshing. Not content with what they could
find there, some of them flew up on the sill of a
small window, hopped along, and actually disap-
peared in the dark barn.
As the weather grew colder they came^ as they
do every spring and fall, to see what they could
find to eat by the side of the house. Here, where
they find only friends, they raise their heads with
quiet curiosity when you approach, and seem
notably gentle, trustful birds ; but it is said that
they show much caution as well as intelligence in
eluding their enemies, and are among the most
difficult birds to snare.
XL.
KINGLETS.
Do you know these dainty little birds that visit
us twice a year ? Some bright September morn-
ing you wake up and find them flitting about the
apple-trees, and know that fall has come. But
they tell you the fact in such a breezy, cheery way
that you remember only how glad you are to see
them. In April they are back just long enough
to sing out " How do you do ? " and then are off
for the north so that summer shan't catch them.
KINGLETS. 141
How do they look ? Well, they are fluffy little
things with grayish olive coats and whitish vests
that protect them as they flit about the leaves as
perfectly as the vireo's suits. That is the way I
thought of them when I had only a vague idea
that one of the family had a golden crest, and the
other wore a ruby crown. But one fall, when
they came back to the old thorn-apple by the
garden, I thought I would learn to know the
cousins apart.
That morning one little fellow had the tree all
to himself. And what a queer gnome he was ! A
fat ball of feathers, stilted up on long, wiry legs,
with eyes that, though set oddly enough far back
from his bill, were yet so near together they seemed
to prevent his seeing straight ahead. He would
flash one eye on me, and then jerk himself round
and flash the other, scolding in the funniest way
with his fine chatter. I could not see that he had
any crown at all, and so was as much puzzled as
ever to decide which kinglet he was.
He and his friends were here by themselves
about two weeks, working industriously all the
while dear little brownies to clear our moun-
tain ashes and apple-trees of insects before leaving
us. I came to know them as far off as I could
see them by their restless bluebird way of lifting
their wings and twinkling them in the air as they
hunted through the branches. And how they did
hunt ! As the kinglets live among the leaves,
142 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
they adopt the tints of the vireos, though they are
as little like them as the fluffy chickadee is like
the waxwing in build or temperament. The vireos
walk sedately down the length of a branch, calmly
turning their heads on one side to peer under the
leaves for their measure-worm ; but the kinglets !
clambering up a limb, turning from one side
to the other, with one big eye always close to the
bark staring for insects ; fluttering under a twig
like a humming-bird, and then catching hold up-
side down to pick off an insect ; flitting about
from branch to branch; stopping a moment to
eye me inquisitively, and then hurrying on with
their work the restless pigmies seemed most
unvireo like.
At the end of two weeks I had seen no kinglet
crown of any kind. But one day I had a surprise.
Hearing a faint note from a Norway spruce I
looked up and saw a kinglet, but what was it ?
Instead of being one of my gnomes, he was the
most human, every -day sort of a bird, with a
naive interrogative air that might have argued
him an American. Then his tiny, stubby bill
stuck out from his big head with such a pert,
business-like air it gave my idea of kinglets an-
other shock. What was he ? Could I have been
wholly mistaken ? Was my elf no kinglet at all
was this the kinglet ? Such a crown ! I had
comforted myself for my gnome's lack of crown
by thinking that it was concealed like the king-
KINGLETS. 143
bird's, but here, how could such a crown as this
ever have been hidden? Why, the black lines
came way down to his absurd little bill, and the
gold between them was plain enough to be seen
almost as far off as the bird himself.
I came in bewildered enough, but the moment
I saw DeKay's plates I understood it all. This
was the golden-crowned, and my pigmies were the
ruby-crowned kinglets. After that the two kinds
were here in great numbers for two weeks, and
before the rubies left I surprised one of them into
showing his beautiful scarlet crown. The ruby-
crowns went as they had come, two weeks in ad-
vance of the goldens.
When they were both here I used to stand
under the apple-trees and watch them. Some-
times there must have been twenty in one tree.
They were very tame, but rarely found time to
look at me.
Seen together the golden is appreciably the
smaller; his legs look shorter, and he is not so
plump, appears more like an ordinary bird.
His back is grayer than the ruby's, and when his
wings are crossed over it you get an effect of bars
near the tips. Mr. Golden-crown has a concealed
patch of cadmium orange in the centre of his
crown, but his wife is content with the plain gold,
and the children often show neither black nor
gold. The goldens seem to have less of the wild
bluebird habit of lifting their wings when lit, but
144 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
they hang upside down even more than the rubies,
often flying up from one spray to light upside
down on the one above. The goldens have a busi-
ness-like way of getting under a leaf and picking
off the insects one after another as fast as their
tiny bills can work. Their song is said to be
inferior to that of the rubies, which is considered
a ten-days' marvel coming from such a tiny bird.
XLI.
SNOW BUNTING; SNOWFLAKE.
THIS is the true snowbird, and though it be-
longs in the same pigeon-hole that of the finches
and sparrows it can never be confounded with
the junco. The monastic juncos are closely
shrouded in slate - gray robes and cowls, only a
short under robe of white being marked off below
their breasts. The snowflakes, on the other hand,
as their name suggests, are mostly white, although
their backs are streaked with dusky and black.
The juncos come about the house in spring and
fall, and during the early snows, but the snow-
birds, timid and strange, fly over the fields and
are associated with the wonderful white days of a
country winter, when the sky is white, the earth
is white, and the white trees bow silently under
the wand of winter till they stand an enchanted
snow forest. For, as the flakes drift through the
SNOW BUNTING. 145
air, the snowbirds, undulating between the white
earth and sky, seem like wandering spirits that
are a part of the all-pervading whiteness. Tho-
reau says, " they are the true spirits of the snow-
storm. They are the animated beings that ride
upon it and have their life in it."
Mr. Allen, in speaking of our winter birds,
says : " The beautiful snow buntings when whirl-
ing from field to field in compact flocks, their
white wings glistening in the sunlight, form one
of the most attractive sights of winter." He adds
that they are the " bad weather birds " of the su-
perstitious, as they usually appear mysteriously
during snowstorms and disappear in the weeks
of fine weathej. He says : " Cold, half -arctic
countries being their chosen home, they only
favor us with their presence during those short
intervals when their food in the northern fields
is too deeply buried ; and being strong of wing
and exceedingly rapid in flight, they can in a few
hours leave the plain for the mountain, or migrate
hundreds of miles to the northward."
Late in December I have seen a flock of them
flying over the meadows with the rhythmical un-
dulating motion of their cousins the goldfinches,
twittering ter-ra-lee, ter-ra-lee, ter-ra-lee as they
went. Now and then they would light for a mo-
ment to pick at the seeds appearing above the
snow, but soon they swept on toward the north.
146 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
XLII.
SCARLET TANAGEK.
LIKE the vireos, the scarlet tanager is asso-
ciated with green tree tops ; but if you ask just
where you will see him, it is hard to answer. In
Northampton, I remember finding him in three
quite dissimilar spots.
The bird of Paradise has become a familiar
sight in our museums, but the good people of
Northampton follow Dante and see " Paradise "
itself before they die. " Purgatory " is there,
too, for warning, and the river runs between the
two abodes ! They lie just outside the town, and
if you could get some kindly spirit to guide you,
they would surely seem well named.
" Purgatory " lies barren and desolate, strewn
with sand and stones on which the sun beats
down as if with intent to torture imprisoned
souls. Opposite stands "Paradise," a wood of
wondrous beauty, a true elysium for the im-
mortal spirits of birds and flowers ! In its heart
is a grove of musical pines, whose brown, pine-
needle carpet is garlanded with clumps of ferns.
Close to the river's edge, reaching their branches
low over it as it narrows to a stream, the maples
and birches offer cool green shade when the sun
is parching the banks of " Purgatory " ; and in
autumn, when the bare sand and stones grow cold,
SCARLET TANAGER. 147
the leaves of " Paradise " burn with the tints of
sunset.
On the desolate margin of " Purgatory " you
rarely see a human face, unless that of some poor
soul-tormented lunatic who has strayed from the
asylum on the hill. But in " Paradise " you meet
groups of merry children, college girls gathering
wild flowers, and all the town in gala-day attire.
This is the haunt of the birds, and here the
Smith Audubon Society has gathered about Mr.
Burroughs, listening to his interpretation of the
chippering of the swifts that circle far overhead ;
hearkening with him to the yellow hammer's cries,
and watching the happy goldfinches, busy in the
button-wood tops. Here each level has its bird
from the leaves, the oven-bird sends up his cres-
cendo ; from among the bushes comes the quarry-
ing note of the white-throats ; low on the boughs
of the trees the thrushes sit wrapt in meditation ;
in the top of a sapling the indigo-bird sings of
the white violets beneath him ; from the hemlocks
and pines come the screams of the blue jays;
over the river the kingfisher flies, sounding his
alarm on the wing ; and high overhead the soar-
ing hawk circles in silence.
One spring morning when we were in one of
the most beautiful spots of all Paradise, where a
tiny rill spreads out over the sand, bathing the
roots of the bright green grass and the blue for-
get-me-nots, a true bird of Paradise came flying
148 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
over our heads, and uttering a loud chuck ah, hid
away in the leaves. It was the scarlet tanager,
the bird of glowing coal, whose brilliancy passes
wonder. His black wings and tail seemed only
to intensify his flaming coat, which literally daz-
zled my eyes as I looked at him. Little marvel
that he takes pleasure in the green leaves ! and
chooses a wife in most " natural selection "
who is also his complemental color !
But how could Madam Tanager ever live with
such a fiery husband if her eyes did not find re-
lief in her own greens ? Even then it would seem
that she had to become accustomed to him by de-
grees, for in his youth her gay cavalier is relieved
by green, yellow, and black. Perhaps even his
own eyes get tired, for like the bobolink and gold-
finch in the fall he gets out his old clothes and
flies away south in as plain a garb as his lady's.
Strolling through Paradise on another day I
heard a song that I did not know, and leaving the
river edge with its green grass and forget-me-nots,
and clambering up the steep hillside where the
magic witch-hazel blooms and shoots its seeds afar,
I made my way cautiously to the tree from which
the voice came. There, high over my head, was
another scarlet tanager. He was evidently a
young gentleman, for there was still a yellowish
streak across his breast, but he sang his woodsy
song with all the gusto of an old bass. It is
loud and harsh, but in a rhythm that, as it has
SCARLET TANAGER. 149
been pertinently expressed, suggests the swinging
of a pendulum. Jree kree ee kree eah
kree kree ee kree eah back and forth, swing-
ing a little further each time, the whole song often
ending with an emphatic chip' chirr.
The third place where I found the tanager in
Northampton and this seemed to be more of a
true haunt was at Fort Hill on the south of
the town, where, across the meadows, Mount Hoi-
yoke and Mount Tom tower majestically. Here,
on a sunny eastern hillside that looks away toward
the Connecticut, the early adder tongues and hepa-
ticas are found, and the scarlet tanager shows a
friendliness that becomes the beautiful spot.
Close to the footpath I have stood and watched
him without exciting the least suspicion or fear.
Here at home I have seen one of the tanagers
in an ash that shades the house, and they sing in
various parts of our woods. Still, I feel most
sure of finding them in a swamp back of the
raspberry patch. While a botanical friend has
been looking for rare orchids among the moss and
ferns, I have followed one of the handsome birds
through the length of the swamp, punctuating his
song with broken bird talk. At times, as I stood
on an old moss-covered log, he would come almost
up to me, and then, just as I was admiring his
flaming coat, would fly back singing to himself
the loud swinging song that seemed to catch new
beauty from the rich, cool verdure of the swamp.
150 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
Like the vireos, although the tanagers seem to
prefer the higher branches and tree tops in sing-
ing and hunting, their nest, a "saucer shaped
structure," constructed of wiry dead grass-stems
and like materials, "is built usually on a low
branch. The eggs are pale bluish or greenish,
spotted or speckled with brown."
The tanagers belong in pigeon-hole No. 5, which
is marked " tanagers," and is between the -"finches,
sparrows, etc.," of No. 4 and the swallows of No.
6. Unlike the flycatchers and sparrows the males
are brilliant birds, whose plumage varies greatly
with the season, and whose plain wives are in
marked contrast to them. But compare their
unobtrusive ways with those of the catbird, the
restless kinglets, chickadees, and blue jays ; and
their habits with those of the ground-loving oven-
bird, the nuthatch, snowbird, and partridge, and
you will see that the difference lies deeper than
color.
XLIII.
BROWN THRASHER.
IN a Massachusetts sand flat, where nothing but
sand burrs and low scrubby bushes could flourish,
I heard my first thrasher song. There were a
pair of birds in a clump of bushes, and we came
up within a few yards without disturbing them.
Their backs were rich reddish-brown, and their
BROWN THRASHER. 151
breasts creamy or u buft'y white," spotted with
brown, while their sides were heavily streaked.
The thrashers are about the length and build of
the cuckoos, and before I had seen them near by
I confused the two. But you can distinguish be-
tween them even at a distance, for the breast of
the cuckoos is pure white, while that of the thrash
ers is heavily spotted. When you are near enough
to discern shades, you see that the rich reddish-
brown back of the thrasher is in strong contrast
to the dull grayish-brown of the cuckoo. While
the cuckoo is practically songless, the song of the
thrasher is excelled by few of our birds, combin-
ing the flexibility of the catbird with the sweetness
of the thrush.
The thrasher is said to show much intelligence
in choosing the position for its nest. In dry sandy
regions it seems to prefer the ground, but if the
soil is damp or clayey it builds in bushes ; and
along river banks in the west, where sudden
freshets would swamp a low nest, with notable
foresight it secures its nest in trees, sometimes as
high as fifteen or twenty feet from the ground.
During migration, last fall, I was looking for
warblers in the raspberry patch one morning be-
fore breakfast. When near the edge of the woods
I heard the suppressed shreea a gray squirrel
makes when scolding between its teeth. It was
so near that I looked down hoping to catch sight
of the impudent bright eyes, but not a squirrel
152 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA- GLASS.
could I see. A flock of warblers came just then
to take my attention, and it was some time before
I got across the patch. When I did, what was
my surprise and delight to find a brown thrasher
sitting near the ground on a drooping bass-wood
branch in the midst of a noisy company of white-
throats. He had evidently seen me, for his long
tail was perked up, his short wings hung at his
sides, and he looked up half appealingly, -as much
as to say: "Oh dear, what did you come here
for ? I wish you would n't hurt me ! I sup-
pose I 'd better hide," and so he hopped off to
another branch, looked back, saw me still staring,
and disappeared.
After breakfast I came back to the spot. Lis-
tening closely I heard the squirrel-like scold that
I had noticed before on the opposite side of the
patch, and something moving on the leaves under
the bushes by my side. What was this mysterious
creature ? Silently I turned toward it and gazed
through my glass, almost holding my breath to
hear. Again came the noise, and, between the
leaves, every few seconds I could catch sight of a
brown tail wagging up and down. Suddenly,
there it stood in full view, the thrasher ! I could
see even his yellow eyes ! He was only three or
four feet away, but hopped about quite uncon-
cernedly until I made myself too conspicuous;
then he vanished, and I hunted the patch over for
another glimpse of him. When I did find him,
ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK. 153
he was sitting quietly on the top of a small stump.
He had no objection to make to me then, but
when Balder began stalking around among the
bushes he stretched up till he made himself look
comically like a long narrow-necked bottle, when
he took a survey and departed.
XLIV.
ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK.
JUST back of the Smith College campus, on
the bank of Mill River, where the catbird talked
to himself in the sunny orchard, the handsome
purple finch made love to his lady bird, and the
cuckoo hid away among the leaves, the rose-
breasted grosbeak used to stop before beginning
housekeeping. A big maple in one corner of the
orchard by the river was his favorite cover, but
we have watched him sing quite fearlessly in a
small elm on the outside of the orchard, close to
the road.
What a beauty he was too ! He wore a deco-
rous glossy black coat and white vest, but where
his black choker touched his shirt front was it
a beautiful pink rose he had fastened on to catch
the eye of his lady ? And as he flew past, show-
ing white blotches on his tail and at its base, was
that rose powder with which he had touched the
under side of his wings ? His wife was as good
154 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
a foil to him as her cousins, the plain little pur-
ple finch and indigo-bird are to their handsome
husbands. She looked decidedly like a sparrow,
and had patches of saffron-yellow under her
wings, where the male had carmine. Both had
heavy finch bills. His was yellow, and he scraped
it on the side of a branch as a man would sharpen
a knife on a whetstone first on one side and
then on the other. Perhaps we should -say, men
sharpen their knives as birds do their bills, for it
is more likely that the birds set the fashion !
The song of the grosbeak is loud, clear, and
sweet, with a rhythm like the tanager's. It is
a longer song, however, with the rough edges
rounded off, and has, moreover, something of the
oriole quality. The call note is as characteristic
as the chip chirr of the tanager. It is a thin,
unsteady kick, and usually prefaces the song.
The nest of the grosbeak in " Paradise " was
in the border of a thicket, almost within our
reach, and when we discovered it, Mr. Grosbeak's
big black head and yellow bill were protruding
over the edge. We could not help laughing at
this domestic turn, he looked so out of place ;
but we liked him all the better for minding the
babies while his wife took a rest.
WHIP POOR WILL. WINTER WREN. 155
XLV.
WHIPPOORWILL.
IN the warm summer twilight as we drive along
the bank of Black Kiver, watching the sunset
glow fade in the west, and catching its glistening
reflection in the water, over the low foot-hills of
the Adirondacks on the east comes the big red
harvest moon. Then, as we stop the horses to
listen, even the sibilant whirr of the locusts'
wings and the subdued chirring of the crickets
are hushed, for out of the woods comes the loud
wild call whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will, whip-
poor-will.
The whippoorwill belongs to the family of
"goatsuckers, swifts, etc.," and so must be put
in the drawer where the chimney swift, humming-
bird, partridge, cuckoos, woodpeckers, and all the
others that did not belong to the order of " perch-
ing birds " were left by themselves.
XLVL
WINTER WREN.
ONE October day when the raspberry patch
was astir with fluttering kinglets and warblers,
and noisy with the quarrying of white-throats,
and the muttered excuses and wait, wait of tardy
156 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
crows flying hurriedly over to the caucus in the
next woods, I found the piquant little winter
wrens bobbing about among the bushes oblivious
to everything but their own particular business.
I gave one of them a start as I came on him
unexpectedly, and so, on catching sight of a sec-
ond, kept cautiously quiet. But, if you please,
as soon as he got a glimpse of me, the inquisitive
brown sprite came hurrying from one raspberry
stem to another, with his absurd bit of a square
tail over his back, and never once stopped till he
got near enough for a good look. There he clung,
atilt of a stem, bobbing his plump little body
from side to side, half apologetically, but saying
quip with an air that assured me he was afraid of
no giants, however big ! When I had admired
his mottled, dusky vest and his rusty brown coat
with its fine dusky barring, and noted the light
line over his eye, and the white edging of his
wing ; and when he had decided to his satisfac-
tion what I was doing there in the woods, he went
hopping along, under an arching fern, off to the
nearest stump.
When they are out hunting, their tails standing
over their backs, their necks bent forward and
their straight bills sticking out ahead, these little
wrens have a most determined air! First you
see one examining the sides and top of an old
stump, running about, dipping down into the hol-
low, and then flitting off among the bushes, chat-
WINTER WREN. 157
tering quip-quap as he goes. Then one flies
against the side of a tree to peck at a promising
bit of bark and clambers several feet up the
trunk to show what a good gymnast he is ; and
finally one pops up with a worm in his mouth,
shakes it well before eating, and afterwards wipes
his bill with the energy characteristic of the ac-
tive, healthy temper of the whole wren family.
On the twelfth of October the ground was cov-
ered with snow, and the woods were so white and
still I hardly expected to find anything in the
raspberry patch. But walking through I discov-
ered one of the little wrens, as active and busy as
ever. As I stood watching him he climbed into
the cosiest cover of leaves that a bush ever offered
a bird for shelter, and I supposed he would settle
himself to wait for the sun. But no ! he exam-
ined it carefully, turning his head on one side
and then the other, probably thinking it would
be a very nice place for some tender worm, and
then flew out into the cold snowy bushes again.
On the twenty-second of the month, when we
had had a still heavier fall of snow, and the
wrens found it too cold even to take dinner from
a golden-rod stem, one of the confiding little birds
came to hunt on the piazza right in front of my
study window. You should have seen him work I
He ignored the crumbs I threw out for him, but
flitted about, running over the shrivelled vines
trained over the piazza, and examining all the
158 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
cracks and crannies where a fly might edge itself
into the moulding. Once he dropped a worm,
and you should have seen him come tumbling
down after it !
The nest of this brave little bird is snug and
warm, made of moss, lined with soft feathers, and
lodged " in crevices of dead logs or stumps in
thick, coniferous woods." What a pleasure it
would be to follow him north, and study all his
pretty ways in the dark forest home, where he
furnishes mirth and sunshine all the summer
through.
The wren is found in pigeon-hole No. 10,
along with his cousins the thrasher and catbird.
" Wrens, thrashers, etc.," is on the door-plate
perhaps the catbird is left out because he always
takes pains to announce himself. All the house-
hold have long bills, and the catbird and thrasher
have also long tails, with very short wings , while
they all have a piquant way of perking up their
tails when startled.
In contrast to the vireos, tanagers, and orioles,
these birds spend most of their time in shrubs or
bushes rather than in high trees. Different birds
take various levels stories in their out-of-doors
house. The sparrows and chewinks live in the
basement on the ground-floor; the wrens and
thrashers on the first floor in bushes and shrubs ;
the indigo-bird on the third floor low trees ;
the vireos and tanagers and orioles on the fourth
RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 159
floor high, trees ; while the swallows and swifts
go above all in the air.
XLVII.
RED-HEADED WOODPECKER.
THE handsome red-head can be distinguished
at almost any distance by his sharply blocked
" tricolor " of glossy blue-black, bright crimson,
and clear white. Beginning with his red head,
the stripes of the French flag are reversed, for
the order is not red, white, and blue, but red,
blue (black), and white. Underneath he is pure
white. Mr. Burroughs speaks of his flitting
about the open woods, " connecting the trees by
a gentle arc of crimson and white ! "
When common, the red -headed woodpecker
may be found everywhere, in the orchards, gar-
dens, fields, and woods, but in many parts of
the country he is rather rare. He is an erratic
migrant, his residence in any district depending
on the nut supply ; so that you may not see him
for a year or more at a time.
Like the California woodpecker, the red-heads
are " hoarders." They have been found making
a business of storing away beech nuts. They
would hide them not only in knot-holes, between
cracks in the bark, and under strips of loosened
bark, but also in fence posts, railroad ties, and
160 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
between shingles on the roofs of houses ; and in
several instances when their store-house was full,
the woodpeckers would take the precaution to
roof it over with a layer of empty hulls, or bits
of wood and bark.
XLVIIL
YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER. *-
IN the spring the yellow-bellied woodpecker is
a mercurial Frenchman compared with the sober,
self-contained Englishmen, his cousins, the hairy
and downy. They contrast as scarlet and gray.
Even their dress marks them. The hairy and
downy are robed like grave philosophers in black
and white, the old fathers merely donning a red
cap for dignity. But though the sapsucker has
to be content with a mottled black and white coat,
besides a red cap, he wears a crimson frontlet, a
bib-shaped piece of crimson satin fastened close
under his chin, and bordering this a circlet of
black satin, below which, and falling to his feet,
is his pale yellow robe.
In April and May, especially during courting,
the air is full of his boisterous cries. In the edge
of the woods, in the orchard, by the side of the
house, the excited birds flicker from tree to tree,
chasing each other about. Sometimes two of
them march up opposite sides of the same tree,
YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER. 161
with arching necks and rapid, taunting cries of
chuck* ah, chuck 1 ah, chuck 1 ah, chuck 1 ah, and then
circle around the trunk after each other like a
pair of hot-headed suitors quarrelling over their
lady-love. When they are in a calmer mood their
cry, though still emphatic, loses much of its taunt-
ing tone, and is more like che whed, che whee 1 ,
che whee 1 , che whee'. They have a variety of call
notes, such as kree, kray ; yah', yah*, and kre 1 ah,
all full of spirited emphasis. But their ebullient
feelings cannot be expressed in that way ; they
must needs take to drumming and tinning. I
quote from an account of their performances pub-
lished ten years ago by my brother, Dr. C. Hart
Merriam. It is interesting to note that their
habits have not changed in that time. He says :
"At this season scarcely an hour passes from
daylight to sunset that one or more cannot be
heard drumming with commendable perseverance
upon the tin-roofs, eave-troughs, or escape-pipes
of our house or some of the out-buildings. They
strike the tin violently half a dozen or more times,
evidently enjoying the sound thus produced, and
then rest a few minutes before repeating the per-
formance. Each woodpecker usually returns to
the same spot, and on our roc f are several patches
the size of one's hand, from which the paint has
been entirely drummed off. On the escape-pipe
they sometimes follow around a joint, and by con-
stant and long-continued pounding so loosen the
162 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
solder that the dependent portion of the pipe falls
down. How they manage to cling to these verti-
cal pipes and the nearly perpendicular portions of
the roof is a mystery. I have seen both sexes
at work on our roof, but the female does not
often indulge in this pastime, and is rarely ob-
served to take part in the boisterous gambols
of the males. In the groves and forests where
tin-roofed buildings do not abound, th,e yellow-
bellied woodpeckers amuse themselves by pound-
ing upon such dry hollow trees and hard resonant
limbs as multiply the sound tenfold, so that one
can at a distance readily distinguish them from
other members of the family."
The name "sapsucker" is more appropriately
applied to the yellow-bellied woodpecker than to
the nuthatch, for instead of taking an occasional
taste of the sap at the sugar-bush in spring, he
spends much of his time riddling live trees with
squarish holes, to which he returns to drink the
oozing sap and feast upon the insects that gather.
The woodpeckers, I have noticed, all work in
about the same way, varying their methods to suit
the character of the wood. The only time I ever
watched the sapsucker drill a maple he worked
like the hairy, first giving a dozen or more quick
blows with his head turned on one side, and then
as many more with his head on the other side
just as a carpenter chisels, cutting out a wedge
instead of going straight down. After working
GREAT-CRESTED FLYCATCHER. 163
in this way for a time, he seemed to pick out bits
of wood his shavings and drop them to the
ground. When tired working at one hole he
would go on to another. The bark was torn from
an area of several inches, and this was riddled
with holes apparently in process of making. The
woodpeckers are not perching birds, and so must
be put in the drawer with the kingfisher, cuckoo,
humming-birds, and others. Of the five we have
had, the yellow hammer is the least of a wood-
pecker, building comparatively low, having a trill
that takes the place of a song, hunting on the
ground and fences as well as on trees for his food,
and, accordingly, assuming an earth-colored dis-
guise that would be of little use to the other
woodpeckers. The sapsucker and the yellow
hammer go south for the winter, but the downy
and hairy are permanent residents, while the red-
headed woodpecker's presence is entirely depen-
dent on the food supply. The sapsucker is the
most boisterous of the five the sombre hairy
and downy the most silent. Of them all the red-
head is the family beauty.
XLIX.
GREAT-CRESTED FLYCATCHER.
IN spring, when a loud piercing whistle comes
shrilling from the woods one note given in ris-
164 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
ing inflection I know that the great-crested fly-
catcher has arrived. There is always an excite-
ment about the event that prompts you to seize
your hat and rush out to find him. And a sight
of him up in a tree top is worth more than one
walk!
By the side of the other flycatchers in pigeon-
hole No. 1, he stands at the head of the family.
What an aristocratic bearing his great crest gives
him I And look at his olive coat, his ash-gray vest,
and his bright sulphur - yellow knickerbockers !
You almost expect him to produce wig and shoe-
buckles ! Then compare his manners with those
of his plain gray cousins. Do you .suppose he
could let his wings and his fine rufous tail hang
down as the least flycatcher, the pho3be, and the
wood pewee do ? And could such a dignified bird
demean himself with the petty bickerings of the
kingbird, or the recklessness of the warlike least
flycatcher ?
The great-crest flies restlessly among the tree
tops, uttering his shrill cry, and soliloquizing in a
low warbling twitter. He also has a loud short
chatter reserved for occasion, and I have seen him
on a tree by the house scolding away with a whee
ree.
His nest shows all the eccentricity of genius.
It is usually made in a knot-hole, at varying
heights from the ground. But the strangest thing
about it, and that which distinguishes it from the
BANK SWALLOW. 165
nests of all other North American birds, is the
remarkable fact that cast-off snake skins are used
in its construction. This is true even in localities
where snakes are so uncommon that an ordinary
person may spend a lifetime without finding one
of their skins. Surely the birds must possess keen
eyes and much local knowledge of the haunts of
the snakes when the shedding process is going on !
Mrs. Treat tells of a pair of great-crested fly-
catchers that built in a bird-house on top of the
stable. First, she says, they go to all the bird-
houses " scattered about on the posts " in the
vineyard, but as we would expect of such aristo-
crats, choose " the finest establishment on the
premises a three -storied, octagon house, sur-
mounted with a cupola and spire, with a weather
vane and ball attached." Though a pair of blue-
birds have kept all would-be tenants away for
several years, they offer no resistance to the fly-
catchers, who settle in the empty cupola.
L.
BANK SWALLOW; SAND MARTIN.
LIKE the kingfisher the bank swallow excavates
a hole for his nest, and when you are driving
through cuts in sand or clay banks you will often
see the birds pop out of their holes in the sides
and fly off up in the air. They are the plainest
166 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
of our common swallows, being dead grayish-brown
above and white below, with a band of grayish-
brown across the breast, so that vanity does not
interfere with their underground life.
LI.
EAVE SWALLOW; CLIFF SWALLOW.
THE cliff swallow is the common swallow that
we constantly see on telegraph wires and about
barns in company with the barn swallow. It is
easy enough to distinguish between them, because
the tail of the eave, instead of being deeply forked,
is almost square ; its back, instead of being glossy
steel-blue, is dull blackish, and it also lacks the
steel-blue collar.
The nest of the cliff swallow is "a gourd or
retort-shaped structure composed of pellets of mud
mixed with a few straws and lined with soft feath-
ers, attached to the face of overhanging cliffs or
underneath the eaves of buildings."
LIL
CROSSBILLS.
IN November, 1887, one of the commonest sounds
heard on my walks was an odd metallic Icimp,
kimp, Tdmp, coming from a flock of crossbills far
CROSSBILLS. 167
up in the air. They were often so high that I
could not see them, and one day several flocks
passed over my head, affording only a glimpse of
black dots for them all. Their note often came
from the hemlocks back in the woods, and on
Thanksgiving morning I had the satisfaction of
seeing the noisy strangers.
They had come out in the clearing, and lighted
near a milk-house, some on a tree and others on
the ground. I crept up as noiselessly as the crusty
snow would allow, and, screening myself behind
another building, watched them for some time.
They seemed nervous, for every few minutes they
started up simultaneously with a whirr, flew about
a few seconds, and then settled down again.
When they were resting, those that were not
chattering warbled to themselves in a sweet under-
tone, but when a new company joined their ranks
they all began jabbering, and it was a grave ques-
tion if any of them could hear what they were
asking, or their neighbors trying to tell. Then as
they broke up into groups and went wheeling
about in the air, the glittering gilt deer weather-
vane on top of a barn a few rods away attracted
them, and some of them lit on the horns a mo-
ment in passing. Several squads of them flew
away, and as the confusion decreased the others
grew less restless, and twenty or thirty flew down
under the milk-house door and began picking up
what they could find on the stones.
168 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
Such a mixture of colors ! The old gentlemen
were the handsomest, being some shade of red,
while their wives and children were olivaceous or
grayish. They seemed like a shifting kaleido-
scope of colors, as they hopped about busily hunt-
ing for food.
Among them were a few of their cousins, the
pine finches, and I thought I heard some gold-
finches with those that passed over. I got the
pretty visitors a basket of grain, and scattered it
on the crust for them, but they seemed to prefer
cone seeds, for they soon flew over to the spruces.
Unmindful of the laws of adaptation of which
these bills are such an interesting example, the
legend accounts for them in its own beautiful way.
It has it that the birds tried to pull the nails from
the cross, and in doing so twisted their bills in
such a way that wherever they go they will always
bear the symbol of their merciful deed.
The crossbills are very erratic in habit, and
wander over large areas where they do not remain
to build. They nest throughout the coniferous
forests of the northern United States and Canada,
and in mountains of the Southern States, notably
in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky.
A curious example of this bird's fondness for
salt is recorded by Mr. Romeyn B. Hough. An
old ice-cream freezer, after becoming permeated
with salt, was thrown out where the crossbills had
access to it, and throughout the winter flocks of
NIGHT-HA WK. 169
the birds came to it, like deer to a salt-lick. They
were so eager that, in some places, they actually
nibbled almost through the wood until, as Mr.
Hough says, the freezer looked as if mice had
been gnawing it.
LIIL
NIGHT-HAWK; BULL BAT.
JUST at twilight, above the chippering of the
chimney swifts, you will often hear sharp cries
that startle you into looking overhead. Circling
in the air after insects you will see large, dark
colored birds, with narrow, clear cut, crescent
shaped wings and slender bodies. If they come
near enough you will catch the white bars on their
wings as they fly rapidly by. If your eyes and
glass are both good perhaps you will get a glimpse
of their curious great mouths, wide open as they
fly ; and then the mysterious disappearance of the
swarms of insects that hover in the air will be
picturesquely explained.
A study of bills would be as suggestive as in-
teresting. With each group, as we have seen, the
form is modified to suit the needs of the birds,
the woodpeckers have long strong bills for ham-
mering and excavating ; the sparrows short stout
cones for seed cracking ; the vireos long slender
bills for holding worms ; and the flycatchers bills
170 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
hooked at the end for holding insects ; but per-
haps the most extreme cases of adaptation are to
be found in those of the kingfisher, humming-
bird, crossbill, and night-hawk. In the night-
hawk and whippoorwill the enormous fish-trap of
the kingfisher is exchanged for almost no bill
at all, merely a hook and eye for a wide gaping
mouth.
The night-hawk and whippoorwill are the most
nearly related of the four birds we have from the
order of "goatsuckers, swifts, etc." They are
both brown-mottled birds, and are similar in build
and general habit. The swifts resemble the night-
hawks in having narrow clear cut wings, small
bills, and big mouths, but in habit they are almost
GRASS FINCH. 171
as unlike them as the humming-bird. All four
birds have strong wings, however, and so, as a
group, contrast with the sparrows in No. 4, and
the wrens and thrashers in No. 10.
LIV.
GRASS FINCH ; VESPER SPARROW ; BAY-WINGED
BUNTING.
WHEN riding in the country it is well to carry
your opera-glass and examine the birds you find
on the fences along the road. Sparrows are very
common, and if you see one running along the
fence ahead of you, whose streaked back seems
too light for a song sparrow, you will do well to
watch him closely. When he flies up, if you see
white tail feathers, you know who your friend is
at once ; the meadow-lark and the grass finch are
two of the commonest of the few white tail-feath-
ered birds. His white breast and sides are streak-
ed, and the markings on his back almost give the
effect of stripes. But the chestnut-brown on his
wings and his white tail feathers are enough to
distinguish him among the sparrows. His song
resembles that of the song sparrow, but while it
wants the cheery brightness we love in that, its
plaintive element gives it a richness which the
other lacks.
The grass finch is a timorous little bird, and his
172 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
interest in the genus Homo seems to be confined
to the people who pass along the road. These
appear to fascinate him, and it is always with re-
luctance that he flies away before them. A grass
finch he certainly is. He nests in the grass, hops
about in the grass, lives upon seeds he finds in the
grass, and rarely gets much farther away than a
roadside fence, or a tree that is surrounded by
grass.
LV.
TREE SPARROW.
THE tree sparrows look much like their cousin
chippy, but have something of the free mountain
air and pine-tree atmosphere about them that the
domestic chippy lacks.
I find them in spring and fall along the edge of
the woods, or in the fields, eating grass seed ; and
a flock of them spent last April with us, sing-
ing with the fox sparrows in the evergreens, and
coming about the house in the most friendly man-
ner. Indeed the lordly little creatures quite took
possession of the corn boxes in front of the dining-
room window, and drove off the juncos with a sad
show of temper. I forgave them, however, for I
had a capital chance to observe them while they
were eating the buckwheat.
Chippy, you know, has a way of crouching close
to the ground. The tree sparrows, on the con-
WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW. 173
trary, are erect, dignified looking birds, and raise
their dark rufous caps with much more effect than
chippy ever does. They differ from him, too, in
having the lower part of their backs unstriped, in
having rusty washings on the sides of their ashy
breasts, and a dusky spot in the centre of the
breast similar to the song sparrow's breastpin.
Their song, though thinner than that of the song
sparrow, is sweet and pleasing.
LVI.
WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW.
DURING migration the white-crowns generally
keep by themselves, though sometimes they may
be seen in flocks of white-throated sparrows, so it
is well to inspect each bird carefully. The crown
will enable you to discriminate between them, for
in the white-crown the marking gives more the
effect of a soldier's cap, the bands of clear white
encircling the back of the head. This adds to
the distinguished air of the bird, which, with his
clearer grays and browns, his more shapely figure
and erect carriage, soon become enough to mark
him in themselves. For, as the great-crested fly-
catcher overshadows the plebeian phoabe, the
white - crowned sparrow is the aristocrat of his
family. But besides all this he lacks the yellow
seen on the head of the white-throat, and the
174 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
median white-crown stripe that separates the two
black lines is broader than in the white-throat.
His chin, too, is less markedly white.
The song of the two sparrows is entirely differ-
ent. The white-throat's is a plaintive whistle, both
rich and sweet, while the white - crowned has a
comparatively low, commonplace song, something
like
whe - he - he - he - hee - he
LVH.
FIELD SPARROW; BUSH SPARROW.
MR. BURROUGHS calls the bush sparrow chip-
py's " country cousin," and when you have once
seen him you will agree that no detail could de-
scribe him as well. Instead of having a smooth
tight fitting coat, his feathers are ruffled up care-
lessly while the clear ashy breast of chippy is re-
placed by a rusty one, and his cap is much duller.
Altogether his appearance is thoroughly rustic.
But he has not only these external marks of the
country cousin. Chippy is eminently sophisti-
cated, and assumes " airs," and indulges in petu-
lance that is foreign to the kindly sparrow race.
The little bush sparrow, however, is a pleasing
contrast. He has a genuine, simple nature, and
FOX SPARROW. 175
when he sings his sweet song wins your friendship
on the spot. But he has one habit that exasper-
ates an observer. There is a field of low bushes
on the north side of " Paradise," and I have chased
after him through it until I quite forgot that he
had any virtues! No sooner would I hear his
song, catch a glimpse of a brown back, and creep
up softly within opera-glass range, than lo ! there
he would be hopping about singing from a bush a
rod away !
Lvm.
FOX SPARROW.
IN the spring of 1887 the fox sparrows were
here for some time, coming occasionally to eat
buckwheat on the corn boxes with the tree spar-
rows and juncos. They were large, fat birds,
strikingly bluish-slate about the head, and rich
reddish-brown on the wings, lower part of back,
and tail. The centres of the breast markings
were set in an ochraceous suffusion.
They came to the boxes much more timidly
than the other birds, slipping in quietly for a few
mouthfuls, as if afraid of being seen. But they
made themselves at home in the saplings on the
edge of the woods right back of the house, singing
in the sun quite fearlessly, even when I was walk-
ing about on the crust, staring at them through
176 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
my glass, and taking liberties with their mother
tongue. Their song resembled that of the song
sparrow in arrangement of note, but was richer,
and had a plaintive cast.
LIX.
BROWN CREEPER.
AT last we have a bird to put into our empty
pigeon-hole, No. 2, the "creepers." Like the
"thrashers and wrens" in No. 10, his prevailing
color is brown, and he has a long slender bill,
while he resembles the nuthatch his neighbor
in No. 12 in habits. In his way, however, the
brown creeper is a unique bird. He is so nearly
the color of the brown bark of the trees you
often overlook him as he goes rocking up their
sides. When pecking at the bark he looks even
more convex than the yellow hammer ; for besides
the curve given by his tail as he braces himself
by it, and the continuing curve of his back as he
bends forward, his bill is long and curved, thus
completing the arc.
He is a systematic workman, going over his
ground in a painstaking fashion, sometimes even
flitting back a few feet to examine a piece of moss
over again. He usually begins at the bottom of
a tree and works up, sometimes circling, at others
flitting up, and again rocking straight up the
BROWN CREEPER. 177
side. He nests as close to the heart of the tree as
he can get, little brown wood sprite that he is,
creeping under a bit of loosened bark, or getting
into some cranny of the sort, that he can fit up
for his white eggs with felt and feathers.
WARBLERS.
WHEN you begin to study the warblers you will
probably conclude that you know nothing about
birds, and can never learn. But if you begin by
recognizing their common traits, and then study
a few of the easiest, and those that nest in your
locality, you will be less discouraged ; and when
the flocks come back at the next migration you
will be able to master the oddities of a larger
number. They belong in pigeon-hole No. 9, la-
belled " wood warblers," and are a marked family.
Most of them are very small much less than
half the size of a robin and are not only short
but slender. Active as the chickadee or kinglet,
they flit about the trees and undergrowth after
insects, without charity for the observer who is
trying to make out their markings. Unlike the
waxwing, whose quiet ways are matched by its
subdued tints, or the uniformly coated kinglets or
the greenlets in the pigeon-hole next to them, as
a group, the warblers are dashed with all the glo-
ries of the rainbow, a flock of them looking as if
a painter's palette had been thrown at them. You
can see no philosophy or poetry in the bewilder-
SUMMER YELLOW-BIRD. 179
ing combinations, and when you find that they
differ entirely with age and sex, you despair of
ever knowing them.
Why they should be called warblers is a puzzle,
as a large percentage of them have not as much
song as chippy nothing but a thin chatter, or a
shrill piping trill. If you wish a negative concep-
tion of them, think of the coloring and habits of
the cuckoo. No contrast could be more complete.
The best places to look for them during migration
are young trees, orchards, and sunny slopes. Here
I find them in old orchards, swamps, the rasp-
berry patch, and the edge of the woods. In
Northampton they showed an annoying fondness
for pine-tree tops, but atoned for it by giving us
the best views of them in the orchards and on the
steep bank of Mill River.
LX.
SUMMER YELLOW-BIRD ; GOLDEN WARBLER ; YEL-
LOW WARBLER.
IF you have caught glimpses of this little war-
bler building in your orchard or the shrubbery of
your garden, you may have wondered about his
relation to the other yellow-bird the goldfinch.
But when you look at them critically you will find
the two entirely distinct. The goldfinch dons a
bright canary suit, set off by black cap, wings,
180 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
and tail. The summer yellow-bird, on the con-
trary, wears heavier yellow, and is not only with-
out the contrasting black, but looks dull from the
" obsolete " brown streaks on his vest. The gold-
finch is a larger bird, and, as he lives on seeds
rather than insects, has the thick finch bill instead
of the fine one of the warbler. On the wing, at
a distance, the peculiar curved undulating flight
of the goldfinch marks him ; and when* -you are
near enough to hear him sing, you will find that
his canary-like song is totally unlike the warbler
trill of the summer yellow-bird.
One spring we discovered a golden warbler's
nest in the top of an apple-tree in the old North-
ampton orchard, near the nest a song sparrow had
built at the bottom of a brush heap, and the loose
bunch of twigs the catbirds had patched up with
newspaper in an apple-tree crotch. Perhaps the
little bird thought its persistent enemy, Madam
Cowbird, would be less likely to visit its nest if
other mother birds were on the watch near by
for the golden warbler is the bird spoken of as
having had to build three stories to rid itself of
the cowbird's eggs.
LXI.
REDSTART.
THE long tail of the redstart makes him appear
about the size of a chipping bird. In habits,
REDSTART. 181
however, lie is more like the flycatchers than the
sparrows. Indeed, you might imagine that it was
from his flycatcher-like way of starting up or fall-
ing through the air unexpectedly that he got his
name ; for then you can see the blotches of rich
salmon that mark his wings and tail. However
this may be, the rest of his plumage is as striking
as his tail. His back is glossy black, and each
side of his white breast is ornamented with a
patch of bright salmon or red. The female, as
usual, is plainer than her spouse has no black
on her breast, is olivaceous above, and light yel-
low where the male is salmon. The young birds
are like their mother, only browner above. As
the young males begin to put in coat or vest a
patch or a gore of their father's colors, they get
a ludicrously motley look ; and when they finally
come out in the full handsome suit of black and
red, you imagine them as proud as the college
senior with his silk hat.
Like the flycatchers, the redstarts are fluffy
birds and sit with drooping wings. But they
show warbler blood by the mad way they career
about, opening and shutting their tails fan-fash-
ion, turning somersaults, flitting from branch to
branch, stopping a second to give a little burst of
song, and then fluttering around again; chasing
helter-skelter among the bushes ; and suddenly
falling through the leaves as if they had been shot,
only to snap up their prey and dart off to begin
their gambols over again.
182 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
They are winning, friendly little things, and
make pretty nests of fine roots, birch bark, and
flower cotton, or some such dainty material. Ac-
cording to individual taste, they build in apple-
tree crotches, low roadside bushes, or in saplings
in open woods. In " Paradise " one once built in
a loop of grape-vine by the river, and when her
gray nest was nearly finished she had a pretty
way of sitting inside and leaning over the edge to
smooth the outside with her bill and neck, as if
she were moulding it. The redstarts take good
care to select bark the color of the tree, and in
that way defy any but the keenest scrutiny. A
little housewife will sometimes fly to her nest
with strips of bark four inches long streaming
from her bill.
The redstart's song is a fine, hurried warbler
REDSTART. 183
trill that he accents on the end as if glad it was
done.
Te - ka - te - ka - te - ka - te - ka - teek'.
One morning as I was watching a young hairy
woodpecker, the solicitude of a redstart diverted
me. Keeping up a nervous, worried cry, she eyed
me from all sides, and when I moved, followed
me in such a significant way that when I had
looked through the crotches for her nest without
finding it, I concluded the young were out. Fa-
ther Redstart, a young male with the scarlet
just appearing on the sides of his breast, mean-
while, showed about as much paternal anxiety as
Mr. Indigo on similar occasions. Suddenly I es-
pied one of the baby birds, a wee scrawny, gray
thing, sitting on the dead branch of a fallen tree.
As I came near him, his mother's terror was piti-
ful. She flew about as if distraught ; now trying
to draw me away, she cried out and fluttered her
wings beseechingly ; then, finding that I still kept
looking toward the little fellow, she flew down be-
tween us and tried to lure me off. I was very
anxious to see if she would " trail," and so was
merciless. Walking toward her trembling bird I
raised my hand as if to take him, at the same
time glancing over at her behold ! she was try-
ing another device assuming indifference, as if
divining that my interest in her was greater than
184 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
in her little one. Her eyes were fixed on me,
however, and just before the baby flew from my
approaching hand, she dashed down and flew
about wildly, trailing, as I had hoped. It was
pitiful to see her distress, and having taken a
good look at her I retreated as fast as possible.
Each bird has its own method of decoy : the
whippoorwill starts up the leaves that look like
her scampering babies ; the kingfisher .falls on
the surface of the water ; and the redstart, instead
of spreading her wings and tail and dragging
them on the ground as the oven-bird does, spreads
and drags her tail, while she flutters her wings
with a tremulous motion, which is much more ef-
fective, suggestive of weakness and helplessness
to the hungry animal, who finds a fat, full-grown
bird more appetizing than a scrawny youngster ;
suggestive of anguish to the man, to whom it
seems an appeal for mercy. The love of knowl-
edge gave little excuse for treating a poor little
mother to such a scare, but I consoled myself by
thinking that she would be all the more wary
when real danger threatened.
LXII.
BLACK AND WHITE CREEPING WARBLER.
As his name indicates, this creeper is entirely
black and white. Except on the underside of his
BLACK AND WHITE CREEPING WARBLER. 185
breast, where there is an area of plain white, the
colors are arranged mostly in alternate streaks.
Although much more slender, the creeper is just
about the length of the chickadee, of whom he re-
minds you by his fondness for tree trunks and
branches. His habits of work, though, are much
more suggestive of the nuthatch and brown
creeper, and as the three are often found together
during migration, it is easy to compare them.
The black and white creeper is more active than
the others ; that is, he has more of the restless
warbler habit of flitting. He is not as painstak-
ing nor as systematic as the brown creeper ; and
has neither as good head nor feet as the nuthatch.
Where the brown creeper would go over a tree
trunk twice, to be sure that nothing had escaped
him, the black and white creeper will run up the
side of a trunk a little way, then bob about on
the branches for a moment, and flit off to another
tree. He will hang head down from a branch to
peck at the bark, and circle round a small tree
horizontally, but I have never seen him go down
a tree head first, as the nuthatch does, or walk
around the underside of a branch. He will stand
and look over the edge of a branch as if trying
to see around underneath, but if he concludes to
go to the other side he will flit around instead of
walking. His song is a high-keyed trill, and as
he is protected by being nearly the color of the
gray bark he is usually clinging to, it is a grate-
ful help to the discovery of his whereabouts.
186 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
LXIIL
BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER; HEMLOCK WARBLER',
ORANGE-THROATED WARBLER.
THE Blackburnian is one of the handsomest
and most easily recognized of the warblers. His
throat is a rich orange or flame color, so brilliant
that it is enough in itself to distinguish him from
any of the others. His back is black with yel-
lowish markings. His crown is black, but has
an orange spot in the centre : and the rest of his
head, except near his eye, is the same flaming
orange as his throat. His wings have white
patches, and his breast is whitish, tinged with yel-
low. His sides are streaked with black. The
female and young are duller, the black of their
backs being mingled with olive ; while their
throats are yellow instead of orange.
Now and then you are fortunate enough to get
a near view of this exquisite bird, but he has an
exasperating fondness for the highest branches of
the tallest trees. You can see there is something
up there, but as you throw your head back and
strain through your opera-glass, you fancy it is
some phantom bird flitting about darkening the
leaves. The seconds wear into minutes, but you
dare not move. Your glasses don't help you to
see through the leaves, but you feel sure that
something will appear in a moment, over the edge
BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER. 187
of that spray or on the end of that bare twig, and
it won't do to miss it. So when your neckache
becomes intolerable you fix your eyes immovably
on the most promising spot, and step cautiously
backward till you can lean against a tree. The
support disappoints you, your hand trembles as
much as ever, and your neck is growing stiff. You
make a final effort, take your glass in both hands,
and change your focus, when suddenly a low, fine
trill that you recognize from being accented on
the end like a redstart's, comes from a branch sev-
eral feet higher than before over your head. Your
neck refuses to bend an inch more. You despair.
But all at once your tormentor comes tumbling
through th^e leaves after an insect that has gotten
away from him, and you catch one fleeting glimpse
of orange that more than repays you for all your
cramps.
LXIV.
BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER.
LIKE other ladies, the little feathered brides
have to bear their husbands' names, however inap-
propriate. What injustice ! Here an innocent
creature with an olive-green back and yellowish
breast has to go about all her days known as the
black - throated blue warbler, just because that
happens to describe the dress of her spouse ! The
most she has in common with him is a white spot
188 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
on her wings, and that does not come into the
name at all. Talk about woman's wrongs ! And
the poor little things cannot even apply to the
legislature for a change of name !
You do not blame them for nesting in the
mountains and the seclusion of northern woods,
to get away from the scientists who so ignore their
individuality. For in this case it is not their
mates who are at fault. They are as pleasing, in-
offensive birds as any in the warbler family, and
go about singing their z-ie guttural x^^
as they hunt over the twigs and 5 ^
branches, without the slightest assumption of con-
jugal authority.
Indeed, I saw one last August suing very hum-
bly for his little lady's favor. She was either out of
temper, or else inclined to coquette with him. He
would fly to her side in a prettily gentle, unobtru-
sive way, but she would not even sit on the same
branch with him. Off she would go to the next
tree. And he would meekly follow after !
The blue-back has a pretty way of turning up
his head for a look before he flies to the branch
above him, or clambering about by the help of a
stem here, or the side of a sapling there, for, as
Mr. Burroughs says, he is not a gymnast. He is
a winning, trustful little bird, and will often stop
his work as you come by, to look at you.
YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER. 189
LXV.
YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER; MYRTLE WARBLER.
DURING migration the yellow-rumped is one of
the most abundant warblers. It is a hardy, ro-
bust-looking bird ; the first of the family to ap-
pear in the spring, and one of the last to leave in
the fall. You can recognize an adult male very
easily in spring, because the black zouave jacket
he wears over his white vest has conspicuous
white and yellow side pieces.
The yellow-rump is a fearless bird, and fre-
quents undergrowth as well as tree tops, so, if you
can induce an adult male to keep still long enough
on a spring morning, you will readily note the
yellow crown that sets off his slaty-blue back, and
the white chin that gives the effect of a choker.
The adult female is dressed in much the same
way, but is duller, and offers less marked con-
trasts in color. In the winter, like many other
birds, they are both much altered above they
are washed with umber brown, and below, a paler
wash of the same obscures their summer mark-
ings.
Sometimes you will see large flocks of the yel-
low-rumped without any other warblers, but as a
general thing you will discover a few other spe-
cies, and sometimes there will be a dozen different
kinds together. The myrtle warbler has a coarse
190 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
z-ie call, and a trill that is heavier than that of
the golden warbler.
LXVI.
CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER.
WHEN I first saw the chestnut-sided warbler
he was flitting about the upper branches of the
saplings in the raspberry patch, about three rods
away, and I put down his yellow cap and wing
bars as white, and did not even see the chestnut
bands along his sides. I noted his pure white
breast, however, and his loud, cheerful whee-he-
he, so strikingly unlike the ordinary warbler trill
or the z-ie tones of some species. The next day,
after looking him up and finding what ought to
be there, I discovered, by the help of my glasses,
what, in fact, seemed little more than a maroon
line beside the wings. But in a few days I found
another bird whose chestnut sides were as the
books would have them, and I felt like shouting
Eureka !
Though I could not detect the nests that should
have been in the saplings bordering the clearing,
I found plenty of mother chestnuts leading their
broods about. They were among the pleasantest
acquaintances of the summer. Such charming lit-
tle birds as they are !
My first hint of what was going on was the
sight of one of the dainty little ladies peering at
MARYLAND YELLOW-THROAT. 191
me from under the leaves and twigs, with a mouth-
ful of worms. After hunting through the low
bushes for some time, I ferreted out some bird's
baby, a grayish mite with light wing bars, and
wavy shadowy markings across its breast. But it
was not until the next day that I had proof that
it belonged to my bird. While watching some
vireos in the bushes just in the edge of the clear-
ing, the mother suddenly appeared. Perking up
her tail and drooping her wings, she leaned over
so as to be able to see me, gave a few little ques-
tioning smacks, and then flew down into the bush
only a few feet from me, and fed the little bird
without fear.
Fear seems to be an instinct, an inheritance
with her, but her own confidence is strong enough
to conquer it. Indeed, she is altogether sensible,
straightforward, industrious, and confiding a
captivating, motherly body.
LXVII.
MARYLAND YELLOW - THROAT ; BLACK - MASKED
GROUND WARBLER.
IF your walks lead you through low under-
brush, weed-grown river banks, alder swamps, or
other rough, damp places, you will very likely no-
tice the loud, quick wJieS - che-tee, whee-che-tee,
whe&-che-tee that betrays the Maryland yellow-
192 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
throat. He is often shy and you may follow his
voice for a long time and not get a glimpse of
the bird, but see him once and you will never for-
get the picture. You will find him hopping about
either on the ground or near it, for he is truly a
ground warbler.
His back is olive-green, with the chin, throat,
and breast rich yellow. The forehead is black,
and there is a peculiar, mask-like, oblong black
patch on each side of his face that extends from
the bill back to the neck, and is separated from
the dark part of the head by a strip of ash. The
colors of the female are much duller, as she lacks
the black patch and the bright yellow.
If you would see the Maryland yellow-throat
at his best, you must invade the dense tangle of
an alder swamp, so often the fugitive's last ref-
uge, where you can get only mosaic glimpses of
blue sky overhead, and cannot distinguish a per-
son twenty feet away ; where you must push
through the interwoven boughs, picking your
steps around bogs, over slippery logs and tree
trunks, where luxuriant growths of wild grape-
vine, clematis, and the clinging galium beautify
the sturdy alders ; where the royal fern, stretch-
ing above your waist, flowers in obscurity.
Here, in this secure cover, our little friend
seems to lose his timidity and blossoms out in the
full beauty of his nature. We find him singing to
himself as he runs over the alder boughs, exam-
THRUSHES. 193
ining the leaves with the care of a vireo, or clam-
bering down the side of an alder stalk to hunt at
its roots. Whr-r-ree' -chee-tee, whr-r-ree' -chee-tee,
whr-r-ree' -chee-tee, the cheery rich song comes vi-
brating through the air, to be echoed from the
far-off corners of the swamp. We sit down on
an old moss-covered log to eat our lunch, and in
answer to my call the sociable little warbler comes
nearer and nearer till at last he catches sight of
us. With what charming curiosity he peers down
at us ! What can be his thoughts of the strange
intruders as he takes a half circle to inspect us,
first from one point and then from another !
A little further along I come upon a father
bird who is even more friendly. He is feeding
his hungry little ones, and goes about in a most
business-like way hunting for food, but still takes
time for an occasional warble. He sees me, but,
after a casual survey, keeps on with his work
with the calmness of preoccupation, answering
my call in a nai* ve, off-hand manner that is very
gratifying.
LXVIIL
THRUSHES.
AFTER spending a morning with a flock of
warblers, trying to fix your glass on the spot
overhead where the leaves stirred, striving to
catch the colors of the cap and wing bars of the
194 B[RDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
little object fluttering through the branches of a
sapling three or four rods away; making your
neck ache looking for the vexatious flitters that
hunt in the tops of the highest trees ; following
the hint of a faint chip here, while you keep your
eye on half a dozen of the rarer warblers that
have just come in sight over there ; losing track
of the whole flock as you stop to study the habits
of one ; and then having to trudge the woods
over, straining your ears till convinced that you
are deaf, as you try in vain to catch the chick-
a-dee-dee of the titmouse, or the yang, yang of
the nuthatch, which would give a clue to the
whereabouts of their companions, the runaways
after a morning spent in this way, you will
come back to the thrushes with a feeling of pos-
itive relief.
In the first place, they are large enough to be
seen, and give you the full benefit of their size
by keeping near the ground. Then, if you find
one, he is likely to stay and let you inspect him.
Moreover, it is possible to identify him without
knowing about each individual tail feather and
wing marking. Besides all this, you gain self-
respect in associating with the thrushes. When
you have chased after a flock of warblers half a
day, only to find, on comparing your notes with
descriptions in the books, that what you saw
applies equally well to three or four widely dif-
fering species, your opinion of yourself dwindles
THRUSHES. 195
unpleasantly ; depressing doubts creep into your
mind. But with the thrushes the case is reversed.
You can write essays in your note-book while they
sit and look at you. You can arrange their songs
in flats and sharps to suit your fancy, and they
will not demur.
Doubtless, you must treat them with respect.
But whoever thought of making a noise in the
presence of a philosopher, or taking liberties with
a sage? You feel flattered by being allowed to
watch them at a distance, and when you get home
and find Kidgway's Manual ready to indorse your
identifications, your self-respect is restored.
With the thrushes, our pigeon-holes are filled,
and it will be well to glance over their labels
again before leaving them : No. 1, flycatchers ;
No. 2, crows, jays, etc. ; No. 3, blackbirds, orioles,
etc. ; No. 4, sparrows, finches, etc. ; No. 5, tana-
gers ; No. 6, swallows ; No. 7, waxwings, etc. ; No.
8, vireos ; No. 9, wood warblers ; No. 10, wrens,
thrashers, etc. ; No. 11, creepers ; No. 12, nut-
hatches and titmice ; No. 13, kinglets, etc. ; No.
14, thrushes, etc. What a contrast between the
birds in the first hole and those in the last
what a distance between the bony, awkward fly-
catchers, with their undeveloped voices, and the
shapely dignified thrushes, the nightingales of
America !
But in their orcler, the birds of most of the
pigeon-holes show some obvious, external relation
196 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
to those in the hole above them. The flycatchers,
like the crows and jays, are songless birds ; the
crows and jays are similar to the blackbirds and
orioles in build and habit ; the blackbirds and ori-
oles are linked with the sparrows and finches by
the short, conical - billed bobolink and cowbird;
the sparrows and finches resemble the tanagers
in general build ; the swallows in No. 6 seem to
stand alone ; but the waxwings resemble the vi-
reos in elegance and tone of plumage ; the vireos
approach the wood warblers in size and form ; and
while there is a natural gap between Nos. 9 and
10, as two families are omitted, the wrens and
thrashers are like the creepers in shape of bill
and general coloring ; and the creeper is closely
connected with the nuthatch of No. 12, nut-
hatches and titmice, while the titmice in their
turn show the nearness of the family to the king-
lets. These resemblances, however, are mostly
superficial, not real.
The several thrushes are so closely allied that
there is difficulty in discriminating between them,
and I confess they puzzled me at first. I began
by studying the wood, the hermit, and the tawny.
These three all had brown backs, white speckled
breasts, and beautiful voices. But before long I
found they could be easily distinguished by varia-
tions in the shade of brown on their backs, by
size and arrangement of the speckles, and by the
quality of their songs.
THRUSHES. 197
Coloring of Back.
The brown of the wood thrush is reddest on
head and shoulders.
The brown of the hermit is reddest on the tail.
The tawny has a uniformly tawny back.
Speckling of Breast.
The wood is heavily speckled with large brown
spots, except on a plain middle area.
The hermit, in keeping with his smaller size,
is less heavily marked, with smaller speckles, and
has a plain area underneath, as well as on his
neck and breast.
The tawny is only lightly spotted on the sides
of his breast, and has a tawny chin and throat.
Character of Song.
The wood has a loud, rich, broken song.
The hermit's resembles the wood's in quality,
but is much superior. It has a trill inserted in
each phrase.
The tawny has a low sweet song consisting of
a succession of trills, in descending scale.
In many places the wood thrush is found in
the most open ground, and the hermit in the
densest forest, but this is not always the case.
The most remarkable of the groups of sweet-
voiced birds, the thrushes, are perhaps the most
completely protected, for they are not only incon-
spicuous in coloring and of quiet habits, but seek
the shelter of the forest for a home.
198 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
LXIX.
WILSON'S THRUSH; VEEEY; TAWNY THRUSH.
IN Northampton, I have heard the veery sing
in the orchard by the river, where the catbird, the
song sparrow, the yellow warbler, and the redstart
nested, and where the cuckoo, the rose - breasted
grosbeak, the yellow-throated vireo, and -flocks of
migrating warblers came to call. There it was
that the catbird tried to imitate the Wilson's
song. Perhaps the indignity drove the thrush on
to " Paradise " in any case, he made his home
there, choosing the most beautiful places to sing
in, and hopping about among the ferns over the
pine needles that matched the soft brown of his
coat.
How well I remember spending one Sunday
afternoon in the pine grove, sitting where the
ground was strewn with glistening needles, and
leaning against a rugged pine trunk flecked by
the sunlight. And how when the symphony of
wind spirits softly touching their harp strings
in the tree tops had soothed every sense into rest
and peace, across the grove, from the trees on
the hillside and the bushes by the river in anti-
phonal chorus, rang out the low trilling chant of
the veeries.
Here, at home, I know one Wilson's thrush
that sings in a locust-tree close to a house by the
WILSON'S THRUSH. 199
side of the road, apparently indifferent to the
baying of hounds, as well as the noisy play of
the children ; but I have also found others that
were shy, even in the seclusion of an alder
swamp.
In our woods there are five haunts of the veery.
Two are in a dry second growth, one of which is
on the western exposure of the woods where the
coldest winds sweep over the hill, and little is
heard save the woodpecker's reveille and the pen-
sive note of the wood pewee. Here the thrushes'
chief occupation is to turn the dry leaves aside
with their bills, and scratch among them, oven-
bird fashion, for worms. The three other places
are moist ferneries, two of them being in the
most protected part of the woods. One is in the
partridges' cover, the grove of maple saplings
where the redstart and the oven-bird nest, and
the sun streams in to light up great masses of the
arching hairy mountain fern, and warm the moss-
covered drumming log of the partridge. An-
other is an old swamp on whose border a giant
hemlock stands. Here the red morning sunlight
creeps up soon after the birds are awake, and
touches caressingly the smooth trunks of the
beeches. It always seems as if the veery were
more sociable here than on the dark western side
of the woods. If you find one running along on
the dark moss, you are sure to see another stand-
ing among the ferns ; if you stop to see how the
200 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
sunlight shimmers through the young hemlocks,
a friendly kree-ah from a bush near by will pre-
pare you for the low song that trills in descend-
ing scale through the cool morning air, and breaks
the hush of sunrise, as one after another of the
peaceful songsters takes it up and carries it along.
In this swamp, on the soft decayed wood in the
top of an old stump, five or six feet from the
ground, one of the veeries' nests was found, and
I think that careful search might have revealed
others. But although such places seem best
suited to their tastes, I have found a nest in a lo-
cality as dissimilar as could be imagined. It was
on the edge of a raspberry patch where the sun
beat down nearly all day long. The nest was de-
serted when I found it. Such a pretty structure
as it was ! Within a foot or so of the ground,
wedged in between the sides of a young beech, it
was made almost entirely of old leaves, and com-
pletely disguised by the crisp brown ones still
clinging to the twigs. The lining was of dead
leaves, roots, and stems. The four eggs were a
beautiful, unspotted, robin's-egg blue. What a
pity it seemed that such an attractive little home
should be broken up ! Who will ever know its
tragedy! Perhaps the lonely father bird still
haunts the woods mourning for his little mate !
In his own quiet way, the veery is a peculiarly
sociable bird. So, although his song is the least
remarkable of the three thrushes, his conversa-
WILSON'S THRUSH. 201
tional notes and calls are both varied and numer-
ous. His regular song is a series of trills descend-
ing the scale, and may be rendered as a trilled
trea, trea, trea. Another form of this is tree,
tree, trum, rea, rea.
Last spring I was greatly puzzled by hearing
in the woods what seemed like the bleating of a
lamb ; and although I soon suspected its source,
it was some time before I saw the veery making
this peculiar sound. It resembles a bleat so nearly
that it can be fairly represented by the syllables
ba-ah-ah. Mr. Brewster says it is a common note
from the mountains of North Carolina to Maine
and Labrador. I have heard it modified into a
rapid run resembling titaree. As far as I have
observed, this bleating call is usually connected
with flight, or motion of some kind.
The commonest calls of the veery when undis-
turbed are kree-ah and Jcree-up. His kree f -whee-a
is in a higher key and suggests alarm. One day
I went through the bushes where a family of
young were hiding. The mother sat on a branch
looking down whisking her tail in dismay. Whee-
ah ! she called, and then added in undertone what
seemed to be a warning, and sounded like be still,
be still !
Sitting on a stump in the raspberry patch, I
have drawn a number of veeries about me by imi-
tating their kree-ah, and one of the rarest forest
concerts I ever listened to began with this call.
202 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
It was on a June afternoon, when the sunbeams
slanted lazily through the heavy summer air, tip-
ping the fern fronds, and giving a touch of golden
enchantment to the brown leaves that strewed the
ground. Jree-ah, kree-up, came the sweet, rich
call, first from one side and then another, till a
dozen thrushes gathered. Then from their leafy
covers rose the grave beautiful song. It seemed
the choral of a dream, in which each note came
forth as an inspiration.
LXX.
HERMIT THRUSH.
IN literature and in the field the tawny and
hermit thrushes are constantly confounded. The
most marked differences have been given, but
there are a few lesser points that may be of use
in distinguishing them. The back of the hermit
is olive, while the tawny, as his name indicates,
has a tawny back. The hermit has the habit of
raising his tail and then letting it drop straight
down, while the tawny raises his tail higher, and
lowers it only to the horizontal. The hermit is
shy and solitary ; the tawny sociable and compar-
atively confiding. The veery nests in various
places ; the hermit, almost always on the ground
in a swamp, where he builds with leaves, sedges,
and moss.
HERMIT THRUSH. 203
The call of the tawny is greatly varied, but the
hermit has a peculiar, nasal chuck, which, Mr.
Bicknell says, suggests "the note of a distant
blackbird."
The low, sweet, trilled song of the tawny bears
little resemblance to the loud, richly modulated
song of the hermit ; but as they have been mis-
taken for each other, it may be well to give the
approximate relations of time and note in mu-
sical phrase. Like the song of the tawny, the
hermit's is divided into three parts, going down
the scale. But the trill is, here, only the middle
of each phrase
Variations from this occur in broken songs, as :
ah re oo-oo,
At a little distance this is probably the most
beautiful song of our woods. Mr. Burroughs
says that to him it is the finest sound in nature.
In the Adirondack region the retiring hermit is
appropriately known as the " swamp angel."
On the beautiful May morning when we found
the red-winged blackbirds " fluting their o-ka-lee "
over the field of cowslips, we went on to the woods
back of the alder swamp where the wild flowers
204 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS.
were blossoming. Pushing up through the dead
leaves hundreds of yellow adder tongues turned
back their petals and darted out their red sta-
mens ; colonies of spring beauties were springing
up in the woods, raising their tiny pearl stems,
spreading out their two slender green leaves, and
opening their delicate crowning cups of pure
white or delicate rose. At the foot of the tree
trunks clusters of " ladies and gentlemen,"
" squirrels' corn," some call them looked from
their luxuriant cover of green leaf filaments.
And close to the ground lay the children's shin-
ing red fungus " cups and saucers " to light up
the woods. But in the midst of all this mute
loveliness the minstrel of the forest came to sing
for the flowers their lay of the spring. Sitting
almost motionless on the dead branch of a fallen
tree top, the thrush poured forth his oh'-tir-a-lee-
lee in ever varying tone and melody, till the woods
seemed enriched by the marvellous song.
Each bird seems to voice some phase of nature.
The bobolink sings for the sunny meadow, the
vireo for the shaded tree top, the goldfinch for
the blue sky, the indigo -bird for the passing
breezes, and the whippoorwill for the night ; but
the hermit thrush chants the forest Te Deums
for sunrise and sunset. Ever since I was a child,
in the long summer evenings we have walked
through the woods to " William Miller Hill," to
see the sunset and listen to the hermit's vespers.
HERMIT THRUSH. 205
As we went along, watching the red light slant
across the trunks of the trees, we would some-
times be thrilled with his song, but not till we
had reached the brow of the hill overlooking the
village in the valley, and the dark line of wooded
hills beyond, not till
" The golden lighting of the sinking sun
O'er which clouds are brightening"
had all melted away, the sun dropped behind the
dark hills, and the rosy cloudlets training across
the sky had gradually disappeared ; not till the
afterglow of the sunset was turning to pale serene
light, would the song of the hermit stir us with
its full richness and beauty. Then from the
wooded hillside it would come to us, filling the
cool evening air with its tremulous yearning and
pathos, and gathering up into short waves of song
the silent music of the sunset nature's benison
of peace.
206
APPENDIX.
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APPENDIX.
207
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Grouse.
YeUow-biUed Cuckoo.
Black-billed Cuckoo.
Kingfisher.
Hairy Woodpecker.
Downy Woodpecker.
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker.
Red-headed Woodpecker.
Golden-winged Woodpecker.
Whippoorwill.
Night-hawk.
Swift.
Humming-bird*
208 APPENDIX.
GENERAL FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS OF BIRDS
TREATED.
CUCKOOS.
Long slender birds whose breasts are whitish and backs
brown, with a faint bronze lustre. Bill, long and curved.
Call, loud and prolonged. Song, wanting. Habits, eccen-
tric strange silent birds, living in undergrowth or low
trees.
KINGFISHERS.
Large top-heavy birds with long crests, slate-blue backs,
and white breasts. Bill, very large and strong for holding
fish. Flight, rapid and prolonged. Song, a loud hurried
trill. Fishermen by occupation, they live about rivers and
lakes, excavating nests in the banks.
WOODPECKERS.
Plumage, largely black and white. Bill, strong and long
for drilling through bark and wood. Flight, noisy, flicker-
ing. Call, loud and shrill. Song, wanting, except as they
drum on trees, etc. Habits, phlegmatic, most of time spent
clinging, erect, to sides of tree trunks. (Exception, yellow
hammer : plumage, brownish, instead of black and white ;
song, a loud full trill ; habits, more like ground woodpeck-
ers ; haunts ant-hills, fields, and fence-posts, etc.)
GOATSUCKERS.
Mottled brownish and grayish birds, with tiny bills and
enormous mouths for catching insects on the wing. Nest,
wanting eggs laid on bare ground or leaves.
SWIFTS.
Sooty or blackish birds that live on the wing, never
lighting except in chimneys, towers, or hollow trees where
APPENDIX. 209
they roost and nest. Bills small, mouths large, as in the
goatsuckers.
HUMMING-BIRDS.
Diminutive birds whose plumage shows brilliant metallic
lustre. Bills, slender and elongated for reaching insects
and nectar at bottom of flower tubes. Flight, rapid, darting.
FLYCATCHERS.
Dull, gray birds with big heads and shoulders. Males
and females similar in plumage. Bills, hooked at end.
Songless or with short song (wood pewee, three notes).
Habits, hunt by lying in wait for insects and then spring-
ing at them with nervous spasmodic movements. (Excep-
tion, kingbird.) Largely silent and motionless when not
watching for food.
CROWS AND JAYS.
Large conspicuous birds, with strong bill and claws.
Songless but clamorous. Active and boisterous espe-
cially the blue jay.
BLACKBIRDS AND ORIOLES.
Plumage, striking, black prominent. (Exception, meadow-
lark.) Females generally duller, and in some cases smaller
than males. Bills and claws, strong ; bills, long and conical.
(Exceptions, bobolink and cowbird, whose bills are short
and conical.)
SPARROWS AND FINCHES.
Fine songsters. Bills, short, stout, cone-shaped, for crack-
ing seeds.
Sparrows. Comparatively small, dull-plumaged birds,
with striped backs ; much the color of the ground and
bushes on which they live males and females similar.
Finches. Bright-plumaged birds, females duller than
males.
210 APPENDIX.
TANAGERS.
Shy, brilliantly-colored birds, with dull-plumaged wives.
They build low, but hunt for worms and sing their loud
swinging song mostly in the cover of tree tops.
SWALLOWS.
Small-billed, big-mouthed insect eaters. Not songless,
yet without musical power. When not flying they often
perch on telegraph wires and the ridge-poles of barns.
WAX WINGS.
Elegant, delicately-tinted birds. Usually silent and re-
tiring. They practise among themselves amazing courtesy
and gentleness.
VIREOS.
Small olive-green or gray-backed, white-breasted birds ;
much the color of the lights and leaf tints they live among.
Bills, long and slender for holding worms. Songs, loud and
continuous, from their tree-top covers. Nests pensile and
delicate.
WARBLERS.
Plumage, mostly variegated and brilliant. Females gen-
erally duller than males. Song, in many cases only a trill.
Food, insects. Habits, nervous, restless.
WRENS AND THRASHERS.
Small and large birds that sing their brilliant songs se-
cure in the protection of their inconspicuous brown or gray
dress and the dense thickets or forest undergrowth they
frequent. As they spend little time in flight their wings
are short, but the long tails of the thrashers are of great use
in helping them along from bush to bush.
CREEPERS.
Small obscure brown birds that spend their time creep-
APPENDIX. 211
ing up and down tree trunks, from which they get their liv-
ing and in which they nest. Bill long, slender and curved.
Tails stiff and bristly for bracing them as they work like
the woodpeckers'.
NUTHATCHES AND TITS.
Small tree birds usually found together in flocks except
when breeding.
Nuthatches. Slate-blue-backed birds that walk sedately
up and down tree trunks, and run along branches upside
down, like flies.
Chickadees. Fluffy grayish birds that flit among tree
tops
KINGLETS.
Small fluffy greenish birds that flit about the leaves of
shrubbery and trees after insects. Songs remarkable.
THRUSHES
Brown-backed, white-breasted birds, size of robin, or
smaller. Bills, long and slender, fitted for worm diet.
Habits, phlegmatic ; pensive birds, fond of sitting motion-
less. Finest of American songsters.
ARBITRARY CLASSIFICATIONS OF BIRDS DE-
SCRIBED.
I. BIRDS FOUND IN CERTAIN LOCALITIES.
1. About or near houses. Robin, chipping sparrow, song
sparrow, junco, chimney swift, crow blackbird, warbling vi-
reo, yellow-bellied woodpecker, tree sparrow, brown creeper,
oriole, phoebe, purple finch, chickadee, catbird, red-eyed vi-
reo, nuthatch, humming-bird, barn swallow.
2. In gardens and orchards. Catbird, bluebird, wax-
wing, cuckoo, oriole, kingbird, kinglets, humming-bird,
warbling vireo, yellow-throated vireo, yellow-bellied wood-
212 APPENDIX.
pecker, purple finch, goldfinch, summer yellow-bird, war-
blers, cowbird, least flycatcher, yellow hammer.
3. Infields and meadows. Meadow-lark, cowbird, night-
hawk, crow, bank swallow, barn swallow, cliff swallow, ves-
per sparrow, field sparrow, bobolink, red-winged blackbird,
snowflake, song sparrow.
4. In bushes and clearings. White-throated sparrow,
song sparrow, chipping sparrow, tree sparrow, field spar-
row, white-crowned sparrow, junco, Maryland yellow-throat,
kinglets, chewink, brown thrasher, rose-breasted grosbeak,
catbird, robin, purple finch, goldfinch, winter wren.
5. By streams and rivers. Phoebe, waxwing, bank swal-
low, kingfisher, yellow warbler, red- winged blackbird, Mary-
land yellow-throat, whippoorwill, barn swallow, bank swal-
low, cliff swallow.
6. In woods. Thrushes, wood pewee, oven-bird, black
and white creeper, woodpeckers, junco, nuthatch, grouse,
great-crested flycatcher, chewink, whippoorwill, tree spar-
row, fox sparrow, brown creeper, scarlet tanager, chickadee,
Blackburnian warbler, crossbills, vireos, redstart, black-
throated blue warbler, yellow-rumped warbler, winter wren.
7. Edge of woods. Rose-breasted grosbeak, cowbird,
redstart, wood pewee, woodpeckers, kingbird, cuckoo, oven-
bird, bluebird, humming-bird, chickadee, chewink, great-
crested flycatcher, brown thrasher, yellow-bellied wood-
pecker, tree sparrow, white-throated sparrow, white-crowned
sparrow, fox sparrow, brown creeper, thrasher, vireos, ori-
ole, purple finch, junco, warblers, yellow hammer, winter
wren.
8. Roadside fences. Bluebird, flicker, kingbird, red-
headed woodpecker, goldfinch, white - crowned sparrow,
field sparrow, vesper sparrow, song sparrow, white-throated
sparrow.
9. Thickets. White-throated sparrow, song sparrow,
Maryland yellow-throat, chickadee, junco, chewink, brown
thrasher, white-crowned sparrow, field sparrow, catbird,
APPENDIX. 213
Wilson's thrush, warblers (in migration), winter wren (in
migration), chestnut-sided warbler.
10. Pine woods. Warblers, kinglets, chickadee, brown
thrasher, whippoorwill, white-crowned sparrow, crossbills,
purple finch, nuthatch, woodpeckers.
II. SIZE COMPARED WITH THE ROBIN.
SMALLER THAN THE ROBIN.
1. Less thqn half as large. Kinglets, chipping sparrow,
goldfinch, chickadee, nuthatch, warblers, winter wren, least
flycatcher, humming - bird, tree sparrow, field sparrow,
brown creeper, yellow-throated vireo, warbling vireo.
2. About half as large. Swift, red-eyed vireo, oven-bird,
crossbills, wood pewee, purple finch, song sparrow, junco,
indigo-bird.
3. More than half as large. Phcebe, bluebird, waxwing,
downy woodpecker, barn swallow, bank swallow, cliff swal-
low, vesper sparrow, white-crowned sparrow, fox sparrow,
white-throated sparrow, bobolink, oriole, scarlet tanager,
snow bunting.
ABOUT THE SAME SIZE AS THE ROBIN.
Rose-breasted grosbeak, cowbird, red-headed woodpecker,
hairy woodpecker, yellow-bellied woodpecker, chewink,
great-crested flycatcher, red -winged blackbird, catbird,
thrushes, kingbird.
LARGER THAN THE ROBIN.
Yellow hammer, kingfisher, crow, grouse, brown thrasher,-
whippoorwill, meadow-lark, cuckoo, night-hawk, keel-tailed
blackbird, blue jay.
214 APPENDIX.
III. COLORS.
COLORS STRIKING OR BRIGHT.
1. Blue backs. Blue jay, bluebird (azure blue), nut-
hatch (slate-blue), kingfisher (slate-blue), indigo-bird, black-
throated blue warbler, barn swallow (steel-blue).
2. Chestnut or red breasts. Bluebird, robin, crossbills
(male), scarlet tanager (male), chewink.
3. Yellow or orange throats. Blackburnian warbler, Ma-
ryland yellow-throat, summer yellow-bird, yellow-throated
vireo.
4. Yellow or orange breasts. Yellow - throated vireo,
summer yellow-bird, goldfinch, oriole, meadow-lark, Black-
burnian warbler, Maryland yellow-throat.
5. Red patch on top or back of head in males. Ruby-
crowned kinglet, woodpeckers, kingbird.
6. Red heads (entire head and neck red or madder pink).
Red-headed woodpecker, purple finch (old males), crossbills
(males).
7. Birds wholly or largely black (males). Crow, black-
birds, cowbird, redstart (salmon patches on breast, wings,
and tail), bobolink (whitish patches on nape of neck and
back), rose - breasted grosbeak (carmine patch on breast,
belly white), chewink (white breast, brown sides), oriole
(orange below).
COLORS DULL OR PLAIN.
1. Upper parts olive-green. Breast unspotted: Kinglets
(patch of red or yellow in crown), vireos (top of head un-
marked), tanager (female), crossbills (females). Breast
spotted : Oven-bird (crown patch orange-brown bordered
with black).
2. Upper parts olive-gray. Cuckoos (tail very long, bill
curved), great-crested flycatcher.
3. Upper parts dusky grayish-olive. Phoebe (length about
APPENDIX. 215
seven inches), wood pewee (length about six inches), least
flycatcher (length about five inches).
4. Upper parts brown. a. Back without markings of any
kind: Indigo-bird (female), brown thrasher (breast spotted,
tail very long), Wilson's thrush (breast spotted, tail short),
hermit thrush (breast spotted, tail short and red), winter
wren (back barred).
b. Back more or less streaked: Meadow-lark (below yel-
low with black collar), female rose-breasted grosbeak (rose
of male replaced by saffron yellow), bobolink (female and
male in winter, buffish-yellow below), purple finch (female),
brown creeper, grouse.
Sparrows : c. Breast unspotted in adult : Chipping
(crown brick red), white-throated (yellow spot in front of
eye), white-crowned (crown-cap of five lines), field sparrow
(rusty look).
d. Breast spotted or streaked : Song (no white on tail),
tree (breast with spot in centre, cap reddish).
5. General color chiefly black and white. a. In large
patches or areas : Snowflake, bank swallow, rose-breasted
grosbeak (male), redstart (male), chewink (brown sides),
red-headed woodpecker (head and neck red).
b. In stripes. Black and white creeper.
c. In spots (above, white below) : Hairy woodpecker,
downy woodpecker.
6. Yellow band across end of tail. Waxwing (high crest).
7. White band across end of tail. Kingbird (low crest).
8. Crown and throat black (size small). Chickadee (back
dull ash-gray).
9. General color sooty. Chimney swift.
10. General color slate. Catbird, junco (belly and outer
tail feathers white).
BRILLIANT MALES CHANGING TO DULL COLORS OP FE-
MALES IN AUTUMN.
Bobolink (becomes almost sparrowy in appearance), gold-
216 APPENDIX.
finch (becomes flaxen-brown above and brownish-yellow be-
low), scarlet tanager (becomes greenish-yellow), yellow-
rumped warbler (becomes brownish).
BIRDS SHOWING WHITE ON TAIL FEATHERS IN FLIGHT.
Meadow-lark, vesper sparrow, junco, chewink (white tri-
angles on corners of tail), rose-breasted grosbeak, several
warblers, kingbird (white crescent bordering tail).
IV. SONGS.
SINGERS.
1. Particularly plaintive. Bluebird, white-throated spar-
row, hermit thrush, meadow-lark, wood pewee.
2. Especially happy. Bobolink, song sparrow, goldfinch,
indigo-bird, chickadee.
3. Short songs. Robin, chickadee, bluebird, Maryland
yellow- throat, meadow-lark, great- crested flycatcher, whip-
poorwill, white-crowned sparrow.
4. Long songs, with definite beginning, middle and end.
Hermit thrush, indigo-bird, thrasher, chewink, song, field,
tree, fox, white-crowned, and white-throated sparrows.
5. Long songs, without definite beginning, middle, and end.
Purple finch, catbird, goldfinch, warbling vireo.
6. Long loud songs. Oriole, scarlet tanager, oven-bird,
rose - breasted grosbeak, chewink, winter wren, brown
thrasher.
TRILLERS.
(Saying tee-ka-tee-ka-tee-ka, or words to that effect.)
Low. Redstart, summer yellow-bird, black and white
creeper, junco, chippy, brown creeper, swift (saying chippy-
chippy-chirio), nuthatch.
Loud. Yellow hammer (if -if -if -if -if -if -if ), kingfisher
(alarm), oven-bird (saying teacher).
APPENDIX. 217
V. PECULIARITIES OF FLIGHT.
Conspicuously tail-steering : Keel-tailed blackbird.
Undulated flight: Goldfinch, woodpeckers, snowbird, blue-
bird.
Circling flight : Swallows and night-hawks.
Labored flight : Bobolink, meadow-lark, sparrows.
Fluttering flight : Chimney swift.
Particularly direct flight : Robin, crow, keel-tailed black-
bird, kingfisher, oriole, blue jay.
VI. BIRDS WITH HABIT OF SONG-FLIGHT.
Cowbird, bobolink, oven-bird, bluebird, kingbird, swift,
woodpecker, red-shouldered blackbird, indigo -bird, song
sparrow, Maryland yellow-throat, meadow-lark, kingfisher,
cuckoo, goldfinch, night-hawk, purple finch.
VII. MARKED HABITS.
1. Phlegmatic, meditative, fond of sitting quietly. Wax-
wing, robin, thrushes, white-throated sparrow, meadow-lark,
wood pewee, woodpeckers, swallows, kingfisher.
2. Restless, constantly flitting about. Winter wren, king-
lets, chickadee, warblers.
3. Loquacious. Catbird, purple finch, crow blackbird,
blue jay, red-eyed vireo, warbling vireo, oven-bird, swift,
chippy, bobolink.
VIII. BIRDS THAT WALK INSTEAD OF HOPPING.
Keel-tailed blackbird, red-winged blackbird, crow, par-
tridge, cowbird, oven-bird, meadow-lark.
218 APPENDIX.
IX. SHAPE OF BILL ADAPTED TO FOOD.
1. Short and stout, for cracking seeds. Grosbeak, cross-
bills (crossed for getting out spruce and pine seeds), purple
finch, indigo-bird, junco, snow bunting, bobolink, sparrows,
chewink.
2. Long and slender for holding worms. Thrushes, war-
blers, orioles, kinglets, brown creeper.
3. Hooked at end to hold insects. Vireos, flycatchers.
4. Long and heavy for drilling holes in trees. Wood-
peckers.
5. Slender and delicate for reaching insects at bottom of
flower tubes. Humming-bird.
6. Large and long for holding fish. Kingfisher.
X. WHERE CERTAIN BIRDS NEST.
1. On the ground. Meadow-lark (meadows and fields),
white - throated sparrow, partridge, snow bunting, night-
hawk, bobolink, junco, oven-bird, song sparrow, hermit
thrush, Maryland yellow- throat, black and white creeper,
chewink, whippoorwitl, vesper sparrow.
2. In holes. a. Holes in trees and stubs: Woodpeck-
ers, nuthatch, chickadee, bluebird, great-crested flycatcher.
b. Holes in river and other banks : Kingfisher, bank
swallow.
3. In orchards. Kingbird, goldfinch, waxwing, summer
yellow-bird, chipping sparrow, catbird, robin, blue jay, red-
start, cuckoo, least flycatcher.
4. About houses, sheds, and barns. Robin, phcebe, eave
swallow, chimney swift, bluebird (in knot-holes in out-
houses or in bird boxes), chipping sparrow.
5. In bushes. Cuckoo, chipping sparrow, catbird, rose-
breasted grosbeak, red-eyed vireo, Wilson's thrush, red-
winged blackbird, song sparrow, yellow warbler, indigo
bunting, brown thrasher.
APPENDIX. 219
6. In low trees. Tanager, chestnut-sided warbler, yellow
warbler, redstart, red-eyed vireo, purple finch, kingbird,
humming-bird, least flycatcher.
7. In high trees. Robin, oriole (especially in elms),
crow, crow blackbird, purple finch, vireos, wood pewee,
Blackburnian warbler, crossbills, humming-bird.
8. In other birds 7 nests. Cowbird, cuckoo (rarely).
9. In crevices of logs or stumps. Winter wren.
10. Under bark on trees. Brown creeper.
XI. BIRDS THAT ARE SEEN IN FLOCKS WHEN NOT NEST-
ING.
Cedar-bird, night-hawk, bobolink, white-throated sparrow,
junco, chickadee (small parties), nuthatch (small parties),
blue jay (small parties), red-headed woodpecker, crossbill,
purple finch, bluebird, goldfinch, kinglet, warblers, snowbird,
blackbird, chimney swift, crow, swallows, vesper sparrow,
tree sparrow, grouse.
BOOKS FOR REFERENCE.
A.O.U. Check-List of North American Birds, 1895, $2.00 ;
abridged edition, 25 cents. L. S. Foster, New York.
Audubon, John James. Birds of America ; Ornithological
Biography. (Both out of print.)
Baird, S. F., T. M. Brewer, and R. Ridgway. A History
of North American Birds. 5 vols. Little, Brown &
Co., Boston. $48.00.
Bendire, Chas. E. Life Histories of North American Birds.
2 vols. Smithsonian Institution, Washington. $15.00.
Chapman, Frank M. Handbook of Birds of Eastern North
America. D. Appleton & Co., New York. $3.00;
pocket edition, $3.50. Bird- Life. D. Appleton & Co.,
New York. $1.75. With colored plates, $5.00.
Coues, Elliott. Key to North American Birds. Dana Estes
& Co., Boston. $7.50.
Elliot, Daniel G. The Gallinaceous Game Birds of North
America. Francis P.. Harper, New York. $2.50.
Merriam, Florence A. Birds of Village and Field. Hough-
ton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $2.00.
Minot, H. D. The Land-Birds and Game-Birds of New
England. Second edition, edited by William Brewster.
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $3.50.
Nehrling, Henry. Our Native Birds of Song and Beauty.
2 vols. George Brumder, Milwaukee. Unbound,
$16.00 ; bound, $18.00-$22.00.
Nuttall, Thomas. A Manual of the Ornithology of the
United States and Canada. (Out of print.) A Popu-
lar Handbook of the Ornithology of Eastern North
America, being a new edition of the Manual of Orni-
thology revised and annotated by Montague Chamber-
lain. 2 vols. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. $7.50.
222 APPENDIX.
Ridgway, Robert. A Manual of North American Birds. J.
B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia. 37.50.
Wilson, Alexander. American Ornithology. (Out of print.)
Wright, Mabel Osgood. Birdcraft. The Macinillan Co.,
New York. $2.50.
Wright, Mabel Osgood, and Elliott Coues. Citizen Bird.
The Macmillan Co., New York. $1.50.
PERIODIC \LS.
Auk, The. A Quarterly Journal of Ornithology. Published
for the American Ornithologists' Union by L. S. Foster,
New York. $3.00 per annum.
Osprey, The. An Illustrated Monthly Magazine of Orni-
thology. The Osprey Company, New York. $1.00
per annum.
BOOKS CONTAINING ORNITHOLOGICAL
ESSAYS AND SKETCHES.
Bolles, Frank. Land of the Lingering Snow ; At the North
of Bearcamp Water ; From Blomidon to Smoky.
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25 each.
Burroughs, John. Wake-Robin ; Winter Sunshine ; Birds
and Poets ; Locusts and Wild Honey ; Pepactou ; Fresh
Fields ; Signs and Seasons ; Riverby. Houghtou,
Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25 each.
Miller, Olive Thorne. Bird Ways ; In Nesting Time ; Little
Brothers of the Air ; A Bird-Lover in the West ; Upon
the Tree-tops. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston.
$1.25 each.
Robinson, Rowland E. In New England Fields and Woods.
Houghton, Miffliu & Co., Boston. $1.25.
Torrey, Bradford. Birds in the Bush ; A Rambler's Lease ;
The Foot-Path Way ; A Florida Sketch-Book ; Spring
Notes from Tennessee ; A World of Green Hills.
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25 each.
INDEX.
AMERICAN goldfinch, 76-80.
Arbitrary classification of birds de-
scribed, 211-219.
Baltimore oriole, 52-54.
Bank swallow, 165, 166.
Barn swallow, 55-57.
Bay-winged bunting, 171, 172.
Bee martin, 83-85.
Belted kingfisher, 57-60.
Bill, shape of, adapted to food, 218.
Blackbird, bronzed, 20-27.
crow, 20-27, 107.
keel-tailed, 20-27.
red-winged, 89-92, 107.
Blackbirds and orioles, general char-
acteristics, 209.
Blackburnian warbler, 186, 187.
Black-capped chickadee, 42-45.
Black-masked ground warbler, 191-
193.
Black-throated blue warbler, 187,
188.
Black and white creeping warbler,
184, 185.
Bluebird, 14-16.
Blue jay, 69-75.
Bobolink, 27-32, 107.
Bronzed grackle, 20-27.
Brown creeper, 176, 177.
Brown thrasher, 150-153.
Bull-bat, 169-171.
Bunting, bay-winged, 171, 172.
snow, 144, 145.
Bush sparrow, 174, 175.
Catbird, 18-20.
Cedar-bird, 112-115.
Chestnut-sided warbler, 190, 191.
Chewink, 115-119.
Chickadee, black-capped, 42-45.
Chimney swallow, 16-18.
swift, 16-18.
Chip-bird, 60-66.
Chipping sparrow, 60-66.
Chippy, 60-66.
Classification,
by colors, 214-216.
Classification by localities, 211-213.
by marked habits, 217.
by nesting habits, 218,219.
by peculiarities of flight, 217.
by shape of bill, 218.
by size, 213.
by song, 216.
Cliff swallow, 166.
Colors, classification by, 214-216.
Cowbird, 105-108.
Creeper, brown, 176, 177.
Creepers, general characteristics, 210,
Crossbills, 166-169.
Crow, 10-13.
rain, 46, 47.
blackbird, 20-27, 107, 108.
Crows and jays, general characteris-
tics, 209.
Cuckoo, 46, 47.
Cuckooa, general characteristics, 208.
Devil- down-head, 100-105.
Downy woodpecker, 99, 100.
Eave swallow, 166.
Field sparrow, 174, 175.
Finch, grass, 171, 172.
purple, 122, 123.
Finches, general characteristics, 209.
Fire-bird, 52-54.
Flicker, 48-51.
Flight, peculiarities of, 217.
Flycatcher, great-crested, 163-165.
kingbird, 83-85.
least, 87-89.
Flycatchers, general characteristics,
209.
Fox sparrow, 175, 176.
Goatsuckers, general characteristics,
208.
Golden-crowned thrush, 132-138.
Golden robin, 52-54.
Golden warbler, 179, 180.
Goldfinch, American, 76-80.
224
INDEX.
Grackle, bronzed, 20-27.
Grass finch, 171, 172.
Great-crested flycatcher, 163-165.
Grosbeak, rose-breasted, 153, 154.
Grouse, ruffed, 32-35.
Hair-bird, 60-66.
Hairy woodpecker, 92-98.
Hangnest, 52-54.
Hemlock warbler, 186, 187.
Hermit thrush, 202-205.
Humming-bird, ruby-throated, 36-40.
Humming-birds, general characteris-
tics, 209.
Indigo-bird, 119-122.
Jay, blue, 69-75.
Jays, general characteristics, 209.
Junco, 138-140.
Keel-tailed blackbird, 20-27.
Kingbird, 83-85.
Kingfisher, belted, 57-60.
Kingfishers, general characteristics,
208.
Kinglets, 140-144.
general characteristics, 211.
Lark, meadow, 40^2.
Least flycatcher, 87-89.
Localities, classification by, 211.
Marked habits, 217.
Martin, bee, 83-85.
sand, 165, 166.
Maryland yellow-throat, 191-193.
Meadow-lark, 40-42, 107, 108.
Myrtle warbler, 189, 190.
Nesting habits, classification by, 218,
219.
Night-hawk, 169-171.
Nuthatch, white-bellied, 100-105.
Nuthatches, general characteristics,
Orange-throated warbler, 186, 187.
Oriole, 52-54, 107, 108.
Orioles, general characteristics, 209.
Oven-bird, 132-138.
Partridge, 32-35.
Peculiarities of flight, 217.
Pewee, wood, 85-87.
Phoebe, 80-83.
Pigeon-holes for perching birds, 206,
207.
Purple finch, 122, 123.
Rain crow, 46, 47.
Red-eyed vireo, 124-129.
Red-headed woodpecker, 159, 160.
Redstart, 180-184.
Red-winged blackbird, 89-92, 107,
108.
Reed-bird, 27-32.
Rice-bird, 27-32.
Robin, 4-10.
golden, 52-54.
Rose-breasted grosbeak, 153, 154.
Ruby-throated humming-bird, 36-40.
Ruffed grouse, 32-35.
Sand martin, 165, 166.
Sapsucker, yellow-bellied, 160-163.
Scarlet tanager, 146-150.
Shape of bill adapted to food, 218.
Size compared with the robin, 213.
Slate-colored snowbird, 138-140.
Snowbird, slate-colored, 138-140.
Snow bunting, 144, 145.
Snowflake, 144, 145.
Social sparrow, 60-66.
Songs, classification by, 216.
Song flight, 217.
Song sparrow, 66-68.
Sparrow, bay-winged, 171, 172.
bush, 174, 175.
chipping, 60-66.
field, 174, 175.
fox, 175, 176.
junco, 138-140.
social, 60-66.
song, 66-68.
tree, 172, 173.
vesper, 171, 172.
white-crowned, 173, 174.
white-throated, 109-111.
Sparrows, general characteristics,
209.
Summer yellow-bird, 179, 180.
Swallow, bank, 165, 166.
barn, 55-57.
chimney, 16-18.
cliff, 166.
eave, 166.
Swallows, general characteristics,
210.
Swift, chimney, 16-18.
Swifts, general characteristics, 208,
209.
Tanager, scarlet, 146-150.
Tanagers, general characteristics,
210.
Tawny thrush, 198-202.
Thistle-bird, 76-80.
Thrasher, brown, 150-153.
Thrashers, general characteristics,
210.
Thrush, golden-crowned, 132-138.
hermit, 202-205.
tawny, 198-202.
INDEX.
225
Thrush, veery, 198-202.
Wilson's, 198-202.
Thrushes, general characteristics,
193-197, 211.
means of distinguishing, 197.
Titmouse, 42-45.
Tits, general characteristics, 211.
Towhee, 115-119.
Tree sparrow, 172, 173.
Veery, 198-202.
Vesper sparrow, 171, 172.
Vireo, red-eyed, 124-129.
warbling, 131, 132.
yellow-throated, 129, 130.
Vireos, general characteristics, 210.
Warblers, blackburnian, 186,187.
black-masked ground, 191-193.
black-throated blue, 187, 188.
black and white creeping, 184,
185.
chestnut-sided, 190, 191.
golden, 179, 180.
hemlock, 186, 187.
Maryland yellow-throat, 191-
193.
myrtle, 189, 190.
orange-throated, 186, 187.
redstart, 180-184.
summer, 179, 180.
yellow, 179, 180.
Warblers, yellow-rumped, 189, 190.
general characteristics, 178,
179, 210.
where to look for, 179.
Warbling vireo, 131, 132.
Waxwing, 112-115.
Waxwings, general characteristics,
210.
Whippoorwill, 155.
White-bellied nuthatch, 100-105.
White-crowned sparrow, 173, 174.
White-throated sparrow, 109-111.
Wilson's thrush, 198-202.
Winter wren, 155-159.
Woodpecker, downy, 99, 100.
hairy, 92-98.
red-headed, 159, 160.
yellow-bellied, 160-163.
Woodpeckers, general characteristics,
208.
Wood pewee, 85-87.
Wren, winter, 155-159.
Wrens, general characteristics, 210.
Yellow-bellied sapsucker, 160-163.
Yellow-bird, 76-80.
summer, 179, 180.
Yellow hammer, 48-51.
Yellow-rumped warbler, 189, 190.
Yellow-throated vireo, 129, 130.
Yellow warbler, 179,180.
1899
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THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
