nr ME;

ECKSTORM

-Uiivvi^iiiljii'.

6-^

I

\-

c

i FOR THE PEOPLE
' FOR EDVCATION
: FORSCIENCE

LIBRARY

OF

THE AMERICAN MUSEUM

OF

NATURAL HISTORY

THE BIRD BOOK

BY

FANNIE HARDY ECKSTORM

3><KC

BOSTON, U.S.A.

D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS

1901

Copyright, 1901,
By D. C. Heath & Co.

plfrnpton press

rtlMPTON \ CO., PRINTERS *
NORWOOD. MASS, U.S.A.

PREFACE.

Science is the green pasture of enthusiasms, and in the
study of it there is no denying Shakespeare's dictum, —

" ^o 2)roJit grows where is no pleasure ta'en."

So if we adopt bird-study as the representative of zoological
science, as we seem likely to do, it must be not only because it
is fairly illustrative of zoological principles, and because its
materials are abundant and easily referred to, but because it
is pleasurable to beginners.

Bird-study, or any other special science, is justified in de-
manding an educational hearing if it contribute generously
either to a knowledge of the principles and methods of science
in general or to the training of the powers of observation.

As far as possible I have tried to open opportunities for
work in both directions, dwelling upon what to see and how
to see it, but not neglecting those larger problems which are,
after all, the non-personal end of all observation ; and I have
tried to do this in such a way that the pupils might be led
to work independently and intelligently if so minded, or, at
the least, to acquire, even if unconsciously, some notion of
scientific method.

To keei3 the nature study free from memorization of any
text-book, however good, to deliver it from the incubus of
ranking pe?- centum, to put a premium upon the child's own
efforts at discovery, is to make the nature work effective. If
the author has a message, it is that a child's value, or a man's
value as for that, is rated by his self-reliance, — not by what

IV Pin: I Act:.

he guesses he knows, hut hy Avliat he knows he knows, which
lor most of us does not so very much exceed the limits of
whj\t we have seen and experienced. To have seen something
ch'aily, to be able to tell about it with precision, to have done
something as well as it could be done, even if the sight, the
tale, the deed, were not notable, gives power and poise. All
studies that increase this effective force of the student are
l)roiitable. Theoretically, all studies do increase it, — but not
for all students. But nature study, under any except the
poorest instruction, must give a first-handed acquaintance
with facts and an assurance of knowledge.

It should be remembered, too, that the collection and study
of facts by direct observation is scientific work. The com-
parison and analysis of them also is scientific work. Observar
tion and comparison — not learning hard names — is science.
Therefore the pupil who can tell one new fact about a bird
has done more real work of the kind that counts than the
other pupil who has learned all its Latin names.

Yet I am not discouraging the acquisition of the scientific
terminology. Intelligent children find the Latin names as
easy to learn as the English, and, with a little assistance, can
master all the commoner botanical, or ornithological, or ento-
mological names. This, however, is not the science that the
teacher is supposed to teach, and it should not be required,
but only permitted to those who desire to do extra work.

It has been urged against many books on birds that they
are New England treatises. In making this one, special care
has been taken to have a book that could be used in any part
of the country. It is true that the author has frankly " harked
back " to a childhood spent in Maine, —

" East, West,
Hame's best ; " —

but all the birds selected for special study, with the exceptions
of the sooty grouse and the pine grosbeak, are birds that are

PREFACE. V

well-kno^vn, abundant, easily observed, and resident in nearly
all parts of the country.

The arrangement of the book has two ends in view : to adapt
the study to the school year, and to present it so that when
the pupil begins field work he shall be able to do it with some
general idea of what is worth observing. The study of unfa-
miliar types gives some notion of the breadth of the subject, —
its extent ; and it furnishes a store of facts to be applied to its
intent, the study of comparisons, in the next section ; it also
helps to fix in mind the definite relation between a living
organism and its environment, which, treated from the evolu-
tionary standpoint, forms the subject of the third section.
When spring appears the pupil is ready for field work, which
can be successfully begun only when the birds are in full song
and full i)lnmage ; he comes to it as an unhackneyed subject,
but one concerning which he already has a store of knowledge.

The authenticity of the text has been an object of solicitude.
Whatever is not my own — and most of it is mine — is given
on the authority and by the permission of some of our best
field naturalists. For such permissions I am indebted to Mr.
William Brewster, whose admirable treatise on migration I
have quoted freely, because his words could hardly be either
condensed or simplified; also to Mr. A. W. Anthony, Mr.
Chase A. Littlejohn, and Captain D. P. Ingraham, by whose
courtesy several valuable papers are quoted almost entire.
Some lesser obligations are noted in their places. The manu-
script was read by the well-known author and ornithologist,
Mr. C. J. Maynard, to whom hearty thanks are due.

FANNIE HARDY ECKSTORM.

CONTENTS.

PAET I.
WATER-BIRDS IN THEIR HOMES:

Little Studies in Environment.

PAGB

AaioxG THE Reeds and Rushes — The Grebe ; The Loon . . 3

An Alaskan Island — The Ancient Murrelet .... 14

Off Grand Manan — Jaegers 18

The Herring Gull 23

On the Farralones — Feeding Habits of Gulls on the Pacific Coast 30

The Little People of the Junk o' Pork — Leach's Petrel . 33
Feeding Habits of the Fulmars off the Coast of Southern

California .......... 38

The Neighborhood of Perce — Gannets 42

A Cypress Swamp — The Anhinga 48

The Life History of the American Flamingo . . . .52

The Sea-birds of the Plains — Pelicans 57

PART II.
STRUCTURE AND COMPARISON:

Little Studies in Differentiation.

Comparing Bones 67

The Foot of a Swimming Bird 71

The Wing of a Bird 75

A Feather 81

The Bird in the Air ......... 84

vii

Vlll

coyrhWTs.

CoMi'AKiNr. Feet . . . . .
CoMTAKiNG Hills . . . . .

Eyes and Cameras . . . . .

The Iius of Birds

White Blackbirds and Other Freaks

09
108
112
115

PART III.

PROBLEMS OF BIKl) LIFE:

Little Studies in Zoological Tluory.
The Basis of Classification ,
The Degrees in Classification
How Birds are named .
Concerning the Bird's Latin Name

A Subspecies

The Three Great Prohlkms of Bikd
The First Problem of Bird Life
The Second Problem of Bird Life
The Third Problem of Bird Life
Protection by Color
Zoogeography ....
Distribution ....
Migration ....

121

126
128
130
1.32
135
138
142
146
149
155
157
163

PART IV.
SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS:

Little Studies in the Ar-t of Observation.

About Birds' Drinking

How A Hawk eats his Food ......

The Small Flycatchers

175
179
183

CONTENTS.

IX

PAGE

Sprjng in Western Oregon — The Booming of the Sooty Grouse 188

A Winter Resident — The Ruffed Grouse 194

The Eaves-swallow : now she came and built her Nest . 201

The Eaves-swallow : how she changed her Style of Building 208

Knights and Castles — The Purple Martin ..... 213

Some Caged Pine Grosbeaks 219

The Bird Invisible — The Cuckoo . ...... 225

A Dead Beat — The Cow-bird ....... 230

The Nest in the Pasture Spruce ...... 236

How THE Shrike hunts ......... 242

How the Robin gets his Worm ....... 248

The Strange Things Birds do and the Strange Things they

SAY 253

APPENDIX.

Zoogeographical Divisions of the World
Migration ......

Hints on observing Birds

Hints on identifying Strange Live Birds

Certain Questions answered

Lists of Books .....

263
264
267
269
270
273

ILLUSTRATIONS.

1.

Pied-bill Grebe

. I

''act

2.

Loon

.

3.

Ancient Murrelets

if.

4.

Jaeger

u

5.

Cormorant and Herring-Giill

((

6.

Petrel

i,(.

7.

Gannets

^■■

8.

Anhinga

"

9.

Flamingoes

((

10,

Head of White Pelican in Breeding Season

11.

Skeletons of Man and Bird

12.

Bones of Wing of Bird and Arm of Man .

13.

Leg Bones of the Loon ....

14.

Wing Bones of Bat

15.

Wing of Bird

16.

Diagram of Technical Terms

17.

Gulls flying

18.

Gulls flying (from an instantaneous photograph

)

19.

Gulls flying (fifty images per second)

20.

Semi-palmate Foot of Sandpiper

21.

Lobate Foot of Phalarope ....

22.

Excised Webbed Foot of Black Tern .

23.

Palmate or Webbed Foot of Duck

24.

Toti-palmate Foot of Gannet

25.

Zygodactyl (or Yoke-toed) Foot of Woodpecker

26.

Syndactylous Foot of Kingfisher

4

10
14

18
30
34
42

48
52
63
67
69
72
75
76
78
85
86
87
94
94
95
95
95
96
97

xu

ILLUSTRATIONS.

27. Foot of Longspur

28. Head of Swift .

29. Head of Long-billed Ciuiew
00. Bills of Frigate Bird, Hawk, Shrike, Vireo
:n. Head of Black Skimmer
82. Spoon -billed Sandpiper

33. Head of Roseate Spoonbill

34. Bill of Crook-billed Plover

35. Diagram of Human Eye

36. The Eye of the Hawk and of the Owl

37. Head of Goosander (male) .

38. Head of Goosander (female)

39. Qead of Hooded Merganser (male)

40. Head of Red-breasted Merganser (male)

41. Sharp-shinned Hawk .

42. Phoebe

43. Sooty Grouse

44. Ruffed Grouse

45. Nests of Eaves-Swallows
4G. Purple Martins .

47. Pine Grosbeak .

48. Cuckoo

49. Cow-bird .

50. Shrike

51. Sparrow hung up by Shrike

52. Centipede impaled by Shrike

53. Robin

54. Hermit Thrush .

55. Vireo

56. White-throated Sparrow

and

Bhu:

bird

FaciiKj

Facing

Fnci

ng

Fit cinq

Map, showing Zoogeograpiiical Divisions of the World

262

PART I.

WATER-BIKDS IN THEIR HOMES,

LITTLE STUDIES IN ENVIRONMENT.

" His interest in the flower or the bird lay very deep in his mind, —

was connected with nature, — and the meaning of nature was never

attempted to be defined by him. He would never offer a memoir of hia

observations to the Natural History Society. ' Why should I ? To

detach the description from its connections in my mind would make it

no longer true or valuable.'' "

— Emekson on Thoreau.

THE BIRD BOOK.
AMOXG THE EEEDS AISTD RUSHES.

THE GKEBE.

' ' Dear marshes ! vain to him the gift of sight
Who cannot in their various incomes share.
*******
In spring they lie one broad expanse of green,
O'er which tlie light winds run with glimmering feet :
Here yellower stripes track out the creek unseen,
There darker growths o'er hidden ditches meet ;
And purpler stains show where the blossoms crowd,
As if the silent shadow of a cloud
Hung there becalmed with the next breath to fleet."

— James Russell Lowell,

An Indian Summer Bevery.

Birds that cannot fly we may have heard of, but did you
ever hear of birds that cannot walk ? Here is a picture of
one of them. I am sure it cannot walk, for I once had one for
a short time as a pet, and it never made an attempt to escape.
Had I left it over night on a table, I should have found it in
the same place in the morning. No worse accident could
happen to this poor bird than to be dropped on the land a
little distance from water ; she could not rise from the land to
fly, and she could not reach the water unless the slope toward
it were steep. Most birds would die if they had to spend their
whole life in the water, but the grebe would die on the land.

4 WATETi-BIRDS IX THETR HOMER.

Would you like to see her at home ? Then early some
summer morning, if you live near a meadow stream that
wanders off behind beds of bulrushes and thickets of alders,
and widens out between broad, grassy meadows, take a little
voyage in your boat up the stream, paddling slowly and
quietly. There are carpets of lily leaves, both the round pad
of the white water-lily, dark green above and red l)eneath,
and the long, lighter green leaves of the yellow "cow-lily," or
spatterdock; by the water's edge there are scattered spears
of arrow-head with its white blossoms and clumps of tall
pontederia, which in Maine we call both " pickerel-weed " and
"moose-ear," the latter name being given because its long,
pointed leaves look like the ears of the moose. Its blue spikes
of gold-spotted flowers draw the insects to it, and the ducks
love to hide in the thick cover of its leaves.

Perhaps from behind the ranks of tall moose-ear that stand
up off the end of yonder point our grebe may come swimming
out. Perhaps we may see her settle slowly into the water
among that patch of floating water-target that spreads its little
oval pads like a carpet. Perhaps she may be up the side-run,
whose course is marked by a line of the tall red thoroughwort,
and by waving ribbons of cat-tail leaves.

Watching motionless, we may sometime see her glide out
from such a place as this, floating like a little duck, for which
you would at first mistake her. She picks up an insect from
the water, or rises to snatch one from the stalk of some water-
plant. IVfany a gauze-winged blue and green dragon-fly goes
to satisfy her appetite. For insects form by far the larger
portion of her diet, though she sometimes eats fish. Indeed,
in the West, the grebes are often found in alkaline ponds
where no fish can live. But why does the grebe swallow her
own feathers ? The gizzard of the grebe as commonly con-

Fig. 1. - pied-billed GREBE.

Facing page 4.

AMONG THE HEEDS AND RUSHES. 5

tains a small mass of feathers as that of the domestic fowl
contains gravel. The fact is known to every naturalist, but
no one is sure of the reason for it.

The commoner grebe of our streams and ponds is a plain
little brown-eyed bird, grayish brown above, and grayish
white below. In the spring, for a few weeks, a black band
encircles the bill, which gives it the name of "pied-billed";
and it has then a throatpatch of jetty black that also dis-
appears later in the year.

The other grebe, not so common as this except ii^ the North,
is a red-eyed bird with a grayish black upper and a pure
white under surface. In the spring this bird also puts on a
bridal dress, which entirely alters its appearance. Above it
is glossy black; the throat and front of the neck become rich
chestnut, which follows down each side in a stripe near the
wings ; around the head, back of the eyes, springs a great
muf9.e of black silky plumes that stand out like the frill to a
bonnet, and long, buffy-brown plumes start out near the ears.
These feather ornaments give the bird its name of "horned"
grebe. All the grebes put on a gay breeding dress in the
spring. It is odd that after wearing these fine feathers only
a few weeks, they should shed them and put on their plain
everyday dress. In the West the horned grebe is replaced by
the American eared grebe, with golden tufts instead of brown
ones.

It is scarcely likely that you will learn much about the
colors of the grebe in one trip or in two or three ; probably
you will not be able to decide which species you are observ-
ing, for she is a suspicious little body, and if she does not
like your looks she will glide back under the cover of the
plants, or will sink slowly beneath the surface of the water.
If you do not watch her every moment, she will disappear

6 WAT h: II lURDS IN TIIFJR HOMES.

without leavin<^ a ripple, and you may never see her again ; for
she can swim a long way with only lier bill out of the water.
If she is suddenly alarmed, she will plunge in with a splash,
head down and heels up, and so quickly that she can dodge
a bullet after she sees the flash of the gun. So the com-
monest names of the grebe are " devil-diver," or " hell-diver,"
or '' water-witch."

The grebe builds her nest in the water, making it of rushes
and water-plants, which she nips off with her sharp bill and
piles together, either upon the bottom, upon the shore close
to the water's edge, or around some tall reed which securely
moors the little floating nest. On leaving the nest she covers
it with grass and weeds, so that it may be less easily detected.
The nest is usually wet, and often the eggs lie partly in the
water that gathers in it. But this seems to make no difference
to the little grebes, who, as soon as they are hatched, are ready
to sail off after their mother. What a very damp life a grebe
must lead, always in the water, whether asleep or awake, and
even when in the shell hatched in a leaky cradle !

Yet it is not an unpleasant life. The grebe has few enemies,
and the most of these she can escape by diving. Food is
always abundant. Those pleasant little excursions among the
giant bulrushes and the fields of lily-pads bring her many a
gay dragon-fly and dancing may-fly and swift water-skater. It
is fun for her to follow a school of minnows, nipping them
right and left. Besides, she has many games with her
mates, running upon the water and diving just for the fun
of it.

The grebe's nearest neighbors among the rushes are two
solemn, long-legged fellows called the heron and the stake-
driver, or bittern, who fish in the shallow water ; a family of
wood-ducks that paddle around among the pads and cat-tails,

AMONG THE REEDS AND BUSHES. 7

or sit sunning tliemselves on a slanting drift-log; a big gray
bird called a coot and his smaller cousins, the rails, that come
stealing through the tall grass, or walk out on the lily-pads
with slow placing of their long-toed feet, or when they are
invisible, grunt and whistle among the fowl meadow-grass and
wild rice jungle ; and two kinds of busy, scolding marsh wrens,
which make the snuggest little round nests you ever saw, and
hang them among the stout stalks of bulrushes, cat-tails, and
tall grasses. These nests are made of coarse grasses, reeds,
and flags, and some of them are woven most curiously out of
the flat, dry leaves of the cat-tail. They are as waterproof
as our own houses, for the nest is spherical and the doorway
is a little round hole in the side.

Such are the life and the home surroundings of the grebe.
She is fit for no other. Her broad, flat breast and long body
make her float like a little boat, and her silky, elastic feathers,
with a full undersuit of thick down, keep her warm and dry
in all weathers. To keep out of the rain she need only go
beneath the surface of the water! She can swim under the
surface as well as above it, and her feet, affixed at the very end
of her body, serve both as rudder and propeller. Strange feet
they are ; they look as if the grebe had once been like other
birds, but its feet had afterward been laid down sidewise and
stamped upon. They seem to be crushed flat. The toes are
thin, the shank is like a knife-blade, and the flattened toenails
seem to have been driven into the flesh. The whole foot is
neither horny like a crow's, nor plump and fleshy like a
duck's ; but a smooth-scaled, fleshless, unnatural foot. It
always seems to me to feel " fishy." Yet for its use it is
admirable. How swiftly it drives the bird ahead, cutting the
water with the least possible resistance ! How well it enables
the bird to run upon the surface or to dive beneath !

8 WATER-BIRDS IN THEIR HOMES.

But the grebe cannot fly well. Her wings are small, her
breast muscles very weak, her body so badly balanced that
when she is getting upon the wing it drags down like that of
a hornet until she is fairly under way ; after that, with neck
straight out in front, and legs as stiffly stretched back to steer
her, she flies fairly well. Even then she cannot fly under all
conditions : she must get her start by flapping and spattering
along the surface, working with both A\dngs and feet ; and she
must have some space to run in, and a breeze to run against,
or she cannot mount upon the wing.

Indeed, but for two circumstances, we may suppose the grebe
would never fly at all. In the fall of the year she sees that she
must leave her summer home. Soon the ponds will be frozen,
and her food supply will be killed or covered with ice. If she
is not frozen to death, she will be starved, unless she leaves
before winter. So when a breezy day comes the grebes mount
and are off — the pied-billed grebes to southern quarters, the
horned grebes to the ocean which never freezes. But with the
spring back come the grebes. For those that winter in the
ocean this is almost as necessary as their going south. Nor
is it hard to see why it should be so. As the grebe cannot
walk she must always nest close to the water's edge. But at
the seashore the water's edge at high tide may be half a mile
away from the low-tide mark. Even where there are but a
few rods between the two the grebe would have to take her
choice between a day on the nest and a day in the water, as it
is twelve hours from tide to tide. So if she would raise a
brood, she must fly to some pond or inland lake where there is
no tide to incommode birds that cannot walk. Therefore,
while the grebe lives in the North in summer she must be able
to make these journeys. To be unable to fly would mean the
extermination of the race by cold and starvation.

AMONG THE EEEDS AND RUSHES. ^

THE LOON.

" Pale fireflies pulsed within the meadow mist

Their halos, wavering thistledowns of light.

The loon that seemed to mock some goblin tryst,
Laughed, and the echoes, huddled in affright,

Like Odin's hounds, fled baying down the night."

— James Russell Lowell,

The Washers of the Shroud.

The loon can fly more easily than the grebe, though it
needs a breeze and a run on the water before it can mount
unsteadily on its short and narrow wings. Though it cannot
walk at all, it has a shuffling movement on land that is better
than the grebe's utter helplessness, and it can get on shore
and build a nest out of reach of the water.

Unlike the grebe, the loon does not nest on a raft of grass,
but on " a right little, tight little island." Those on which I
have known loons to nest were islets a rod or two across,
sometimes marshy, but more often dry and rocky and covered
with a thick growth of grass. All Mother Loon asked was
grass enough for a nest, and to conceal herself while sitting.
The nest is not very well made, but there is a slight hollow
that holds the two big mud-colored eggs dotted with dark
brown spots. In time there come out two of the smuttiest-
colored little youngsters you ever saw, about the size of gos-
lings, dusty black all over at first but later with a whitish belly
and with comical little bills entirely unlike their mother's.

But perhaps you are not acquainted with Mother Loon. She
is a large bird, as big as a Christmas turkey ; that is, she will
weigh ten pounds if in good condition. It always seems to me
that there is something very motherly about her stout, heavy
body, squatting close down upon her big feet, with her wise
old green head, as soft as the softest plush, and her two white

10 WATEIt-niltDS IN Til El n HOMES.

striped collars at the throat; a iiiiich milder-looking, more do-
mestic bird on her little island than when she is sailing around
in the big lake, hallooing to wake echoes.

She is very fond of her little loon chicks, and has more
worries than most land-birds. We hardly realize the number
of their enemies. Hawks are always ready to devour them
(and whatever may be said in favor of hawks, they leave many
feathers along the pond sides where they have picked and
eaten water-fowl). The old herring gulls would not hesitate
to stoop and take one, for fat young loon is a delicious morsel
to them. Then the big pickerel in the lakes often catch young
birds, much oftener than you imagine. The great bull-frogs of
the Northern ponds also gobble up little ducks. (Do not be
surprised ; for if you ever saw one of those great frogs, you
would readily believe the statement, and I know it to be true.)
The great mud-turtles that root about in the ooze of the pond
bottoms, huge fellows, that will walk off with a man standing
on their back, eat many water-fowl ; and there are mink and
otter and men as occasional dangers, so that the poor Mother
Loon has a constant worry for a few weeks. Still, every other
water-bird has just the same, and most of them have more
children to look after.

Mother Loon has a great advantage over other birds, in her
size and courage. She is afraid of nothing, can swim better
under water than upon the surface, and is armed with a terri-
ble bill that can be driven entirely through the body of the
largest fish in the lake.

She eats nothing but fish, and is very expert at catching
them. As it often is not convenient to swallow a fish tail fore-
most on account of its fins and spines, she is clever in tossing
them in air and catching them head first, so that they slide
down her throat as smoothly as if they were sardines.

AMONG THE REEDS AND RUSHES. 11

Though there are several species of loons in North America,
only one is common in the United States, and this one varies
so much in color with age and the season that we might easily
suppose that we had seen two kinds of loons. Young and
winter birds are gray above, indistinctly spotted, and the white
of the breast runs up to the chin, while the head and neck are
no darker than the back. The " gray loon " of the fishermen
is a smaller species, the red-throated diver, which lives farther
north, and comes as a winter visitor to the seacoast of the
United States.

If you ever get well acquainted with the loons you will
always be wondering whether they are the j oiliest people
afloat, or the most lonesome maniacs that ever lived outside an
asylum. Sometimes they have little parties with races run
from a given starting-point to a set goal. Great is the shout-
ing and clamor as they run on the water, feet and wings both
helping, each one plainly doing his best to get first to the win-
ning post — an imaginary post of course, but it will be noticed
that all stop at just the same point. Then they put their
heads together and talk it over with merry ha-ha-has and
chucklings that set the observer to laughing too, and all
swim slowly back to the starting-point to run once more.

Often when alone the loon laughs to himself, and often, lift-
ing his head, he gives his long, wild call — " not his laughter,
but his looning," as Thoreau puts it in his book on the "Maine
Woods." Except when he is at play with others the loon's
heart never seems to be in his laughter ; and you wonder if this
terrible crazy yell, hollow, mad, and meaningless, echoed back
by the woods and mountains that surround the lake, does not
better tell you what a desperately lonesome and demented
creature he is. " As crazy as a loon " is a current Northern
saying. Yet of all the mad noises the bird can make, nothing

12 WATER-IUHDS IN THEIR HOMES.

compares with the hoarse haw-haw-haw, haw-haw-haw, of a
flock of looiis Hying in a strong breeze.

I well recollect a trip we once made down Caiicomgoraoc
Lake in the northern Maine wilderness. The morning broke
squall}' and threatening more wind, but as we had been de-
tained by heavy rains, and as the wind was aft, we hoped
by starting early to make the run before the sea rose dan-
gerously. In that we did not succeed. The clouds flocked
thicker, the waves ran white as sheep, and before we were
halfway over they were washing level with the gunwales of
the canoe, and slopping in-board, to remind us that there
would be worse ahead. The land-line began to waver in the
rising steam until we could Iiot tell whether it was near
or far away. The sun, " drawing water," sent down a great
fan of purple bars edged with coppery reflections that made
both sky and water black.

It was a wild-looking lake and sky, and for us every
moment was worse than the last. We were not only driving
into a heavier sea, but in making the outlet we must cross a half
mile or more of shoal ground, where on our trip up the lake we
had seen many sharp rocks sticking above the water and more
just beneath the surface. The waves were now running so high
that as the canoe rode over them she split them, and they stood
in hills of water above either rail. The canoe grew hard to
handle in such a flawy wind and broken sea, and we could get
no clew to the dangers hidden where we knew we must run.

Meanwhile, three loons had mounted and were racing on the
wing. A fiendish glee seemed to fill them. Under the black
sky they looked as black as ink. Round and round they
coursed, necks and legs extended, their pointed wings beating
a double quick, as they cackled their malevolent laughter, and
called for more speed and a better breeze. It was a witches'

AMONG THE REEDS AND RUSHES. 13

carnival in broad clay, and under its spell the stormy lake
seemed to grow more tempestuous. But we drove through all
right, just dodged the upright fluke of an old anchor left by
the river-drivers in the outlet, rounded in beneath the lee of a
bank, and safe in a sheltered nook where no wind disturbed
the calm, blew the water from our noses and wiped it from our
eyes with much love of the land.

The loon is the spirit of the lake. Nothing in our Northern
waters so entirely fits the framework of the wild, mysterious
forest that hems them round. To hear the loon's cry at night
is almost as if the lake were speaking.

Once, while camping on the shores of Chesuncook Lake in
Maine, I witnessed an impressive incident. It was late after-
noon before a rain, and I had stepped down to the shore and
stood looking at Big Spenser Mountain across the lake, feeling
the quiet and grayness and flatness that falls upon a landscape
with an approaching storm. There was no sound but that of
a cricket; no ripple on the great smooth lake; nothing had
moved recently enough to leave a circle on its surface within
half a mile ; yet, slowly, not five rods from me, out of the
heart of the quiet water, rose the green head and neck of a
loon. I could see its velvety softness, every white line on its
little collars, the keen bill and the keener red eye, a head
without a body, alone in the vastness of the great lake. Then
it sank, slow, noiseless, mysterious, without a wake. So sank
the sword Excalibur when Sir Bedivere at Arthur's bidding
cast it in the lake.

" Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him ;
But when I looked again, behold, an arm,
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
That caught him by the hilt, and brandished him
Three times, and drew him under in the mere."

AN ALASKAN ISLAND.^

" There dark they lie and stark they lie — rookery, dune, and floe,
And the Northern Lights come down o' nights to dance witli the house-
less snow,
And God who clears the grounding berg and steers the grinding floe
lie hears the cry of the little kit fox and the lemning in the snow."

— RuDYARi) Kipling, Tht Bhyme of the Three Sealers.

THE AXCIENT MUKRELET.

The Ancient Miirrelet, or the " Old Man," as the Kussians
call him, is one of the sea-birds of the Alaskan and Siberian
coast. The following account of his habits is so good that we
may make place for him : —

We were about one hundred and eighty miles east by south
from Unga (a small island off the Alaskan peninsula) when
these hardy birds were first seen. At first one would think
they were amusing themselves, for they would fly a short dis-
tance ahead of the ship, dropping into the water, and swim-
ming so as to be near the vessel's bows as she passed ; then
diving beneath the hull and coming up just under the stern.
After they had dropped astern a few hundred feet, they took
wing and repeated this manoeuvre with unvarying precision
throughout the entire day. By close watching I found that it
was not for pleasure they did this, but that they were feeding
on small invertebrates, such as are found on ships' bottoms.

By June second their nesting grounds were reached, but no
birds were to be found, and to one unacquainted with their

1 Abridged by permission of the author, Mr. Chase Littlejohu, fron. an
article published in The Auk.

14

Fig. 3. - ANCIENT MURRELETS.

Facing page 14,

AN ALASKAN ISLAND. 15

habits there was no sign of their having arrived. Nevertheless,
we land, pitch our tent, and wait until the close of that long
twilight which is found only in the far North ; and just as it
merges into the night we see a bat-like form flit by, and pres-
ently from somewhere in the gloom comes an abrupt and
starting kroo-kroo-coo, which is at once answered with a like
call, or with the nerve-destroying kwee-ke-ke-ke in a very high,
shrill key, the call note of the Leach's petrel.

Presently we hear a whirr of wings in different directions,
then more voices, pitched in various keys, and before we are
fairly aware of it, both heaven and earth seem to vibrate with
rumbling noises and whirring wings.

As we step out of our tent perfectly astonished at this sud-
den change, and move to the foot of a small knoll near by,
listening to the violent outburst of noises, a muffled sound
comes from right under our feet. We stoop and discover a
small burrow in the earth, and from it come the cooing love-
notes of a petrel, k-r-r-r, k-r-r-r. This is its home.

From a somewhat larger burrow, only a few feet to our
right, comes another sound, and moving cautiously in this
direction we listen to the love-notes of Cassin's auklet, which
remind me of the sounds produced by a squeaky saw while
passing through a hard knot, somewhat like kivee-kew, kwee-
keiv, which fortunately lasts only for three or four hours each
night. These noises, coming from hundreds of anklets and
thousands of petrels, become almost distracting, and effectually
banish sleep for the first few nights on the island.

These, then, are some of our murrelet's neighbors, but where
is he ? We listen in vain for some note of his, but hear none.
As we walk on a little distance among the tall grass of last
year's growth, we notice a small dark object flapping about,
and after a short chase we manage to caj)tiire it, and discover

16 WATER-BIRDS IN THEIR HOMES.

our Old Man, but fail to locate his nest. We did not then
know the places — under rank, matted grass — which are mostly
preferred by the murrelet for nesting sites.

We remained on this desolate, wind-swept island for two
weeks. After losing about a week's sleep, owing to their
squeaking, I, at least, felt like choking the whole lot. As if
not satisfied with the constant babble of their neighbors, the
murrelets took especial delight in alighting at the foot of our
A-shaped tent, toe-nailing it up to the ridgepole, resting there
a moment, and then sliding down the other side. This exer-
cise seemed to amuse them, and it certainly did us until the
novelty wore off.

In a short time after the first birds arrive on their breeding
grounds, and before one has time to realize it, the entire sur-
face of certain favorite islands is literally alive with murrelets
and auklets, and both Leach's and fork-tailed petrels. When
one walks about at this time the murrelets and auklets become
frightened, running, flopping, and flying about in such numbers
that one has to be careful when he steps lest they be crushed
under foot.

If it is windy, and it usually is, they are on the wing as soon
as disturbed ; but when a calm prevails they have to flop to the
side of a steep bank, from which they can jump and thereby
gain sufficient headway to keep on the wing. In their frantic
efforts to be off, they become bewildered and are as apt to fly
in one's face, or against the cliffs, as anywhere.

We soon discovered that the murrelets were not especially
particular in the selection of a nesting site. An abandoned
burrow of Cassin's auklet, a deep crevice in the cliffs, under
large broken rocks which had fallen from the latter, or under
rank tussocks of grass, with which the higher portion of the
island was covered, would answer equally well. Under these

AN ALASKAN ISLAND. 17

almost solid bunches (the grass remaining from many years) the
murrelets would force their way, leaving only a slight hole in
the mass, which was usually very hard to detect. After once
gaining an entrance into this matted vegetation, and working
their way in for two or three feet, a shallow cavity about five
inches in diameter and two or three inches deep was scratched
out. This was nicely lined with dry grass of last year's growth,
carried in from the outside, making a neat and snug home in
which two beautiful eggs, comprising a set, were deposited.

Some of their nests were found fully two hundred yards
from the water. In the other situations mentioned little and
often no nest is made, and the eggs are deposited on the
bare rocks, in soft sand, or on the wet, muddy soil. I even
took several sets on the bare ice at the bottom of some auklets'
burrows, the ground being still frozen immediately beneath
the grass and moss on July third, when 1 left the island.

Like the auklets, they exchange places nightly, and while
one attends to the home cares, the other is usually a number
of miles out at sea on the feeding grounds. What their food
consists of at this time of the year I am unable to say.

Great numbers of these birds are taken by Peale's falcon.
As I have already stated, the murrelets are mainly found at
some distance from land during the day ; and here, too, this
falcon pursues them, watching for a chance to seize any mur-
relet he succeeds in driving from the water. After having
secured its prey, the falcon circles about for a short time, and
then partakes of its meal. To do this he hovers, remaining
almost stationary for several minutes at a time ; in the mean-
time the prey is raised well up to the beak with both feet and
promptly devoured. When the murrelets return to land at
nightfall, the falcon is there also to meet them, and soon
again secures his nightly repast.
o

OVV GlIAXl) MAXAX\

From gray sea-fog, from icy drifts,

From peril and from pain,
The home-bound fisher greets thy lights,

O hundred-harbored Maine !"

— John G. Whittiek, 21ie Dead Ship of Ilarpswell.

JAEGERS.

The life of the great sea is not to be realized from the deck
of an ocean liner. You must be close down to the heave of
the ocean, tossed by it, and fully at its mercy, to know the sea.

Suppose some day we were to join the porpoise fleet of the
Passamaquoddy Indians as they set out at sunrise in their
birch-bark canoes from the summer camp at Grand Manan Isl-
and— the great bluff island off the mouth of the St. Croix River.
Theirs is a dangerous trade, but there are no bolder or more
skilful navigators of small boats in the world than these
Indians, who take the risks of a rock-bound coast, with sunken
ledges, sudden storms, the densest fogs, and a tide of almost
incredible height, that rushes through the narrows and sets in
motion great tidal currents and whirlpools. All sailors meet
hardships and see strange sights, but these Indians, hunters
of the ocean, see and know more strange and wonderful things
and take greater risks than the ordinary seafarer.

What might befall us if we started with them some summer
morning at sunrise, when the surface of the sea is smooth and

1 Pronounced ya-ger, with g hard; also spelled ja^er.
18

Fig. 4. — jaeger.

Facing page IS.

OFF GRAND 3£AXAN. 19

oily-looking, and a morning fog hangs over it, smoking in thin
curtains that narrow the horizon to a little circle, and make
the sun a bright blur in the mist ?

Mile after mile we are paddled, steered by the compass,
breaking the fog before us and seeing it close in behind, lifted
on the long ocean rollers that pulse in from outside as smooth as
glass, twenty feet from trough to roll, — the slow, long heave
of the slumbering ocean. This " old swell," which follows a
blow or rolls in from a distant oceanic gale, is rarely absent
from the open sea on our Eastern coasts. It throbs contin-
ually even in the calmest weather, and the " rote " of it as it
breaks against the cliffs, or drags down the rounded stones
upon the seaward beaches and rolls them up again, is a
ceaseless din.

The long swells, green and bubbly like thick glass, as you
look into them under the shadow of the rosy fog, make no
noise, for they do not break ; but out of sight in the mist we
hear them thunder upon a sunken ledge.

We hear, too, the snufEing and snarling of the seals fishing
in shallow water, which the Indian always regards as a warn-
ing to " ' Ware there ! " For the seal spends most of his idle
time lying upon the ledges, or else swimming around, waiting
for the tide to go down and uncover some half-tide rock. A
black guillemot — a " sea-pigeon," an Indian or fisherman
would call him — bobs upon the surface, or flies by on short,
quick-moving wings that, being party-colored, look like two
l^airs of wings, one white, the other black. He is a useless,
harmless, confiding little bird, with his red feet and pretty,
soft, mottled feathers, one of the auk family, and the only one
common along this coast in summer.

Perhaps there is a tide streak where opposing currents
throw up a line of seaweed and ocean-drift in a long, winding

20 WATER-BIRDS IN THEIR HOMES.

ribbon ; and on this we may at times see a flock of IJouaparte's
gulls sitting (juietly on the water like white doves, or a troop
of phalaropes feeding with nervous, uncertain actions. These
tiny creatures, dainty in all their ways and colors, stretch up
their necks to an astonishing length, suspicious of our inten-
tions. We see now why the fishermen call them " sea-geese,"
though they are no more geese than they are robins.

Gulls and terns pass and repass continually, growing out of
the mist and melting into it ; and perhaps a shark's fin cuts
the water, or we hear the puff of a porpoise off under the fog ;
or, of a sudden, a roller larger than the rest, and rising from a
deeper trough, trips on a sunken ledge, and rears a straight
wall of water with a comb of foam, before it thrashes down
roaring. This is one of the dangers of a sealer's life ; and no
peril of storm or wreck is more dreaded by the fishermen than
these " blind breakers," unless it is the sudden looming of a
steamer's sides above them in the fog.

While paddling in this way over a smooth, almost silent sea,
suddenly a little group of gulls dashes across the opening in the
fog, screaming wildly and hurrying at top speed. Behind them,
silent but swifter of wing, darts a blackish bird of medium size.
We may see a glimpse of yellowish about the throat and catch
sight of its tail, carried fully spread, with the two middle tail
feathers sticking out beyond all the rest but held close to each
other. The Indians call it the " gull-hawk," because it chases
the gulls as hawks do smaller land-birds. Indeed, he resembles
a hawk not only in his habits, but in his bill, which is hooked
at the tip and provided with a cere, or waxy plate, at the base.
This bill serves at once to distinguish him from all the gulls
and terns with which he associates. The books call him the
jaegar (which means hunter), or the skua; the fishermen
name him the " marlingspike," from his long middle tail

OFF GRAND MANAN. 21

feathers. He is the giill's robber cousin, a dreaded foe of theirs,
the pirate of the sea. It is interesting to know that the jaegers,
or jagers, from whom the birds get their name, were not peace-
ful hunters, but a wikl tribe of robbers who lived in Germany
centuries ago, and got their living by plunder.

The jaeger well deserves the name of pirate. He is perfectly
able to get his own living, but all observers agree that he
seldom if ever fishes for himself, although he is reported to
pick up worms and mollusks. It would seem far easier to get
an honest living than to follow the trade he does, for every fish
he obtains by robbery means a long chase.

The terns may be fishing together, plunging and screaming,
without thought of interruption, when suddenly this black rob-
ber, swift and silent, is seen among the flock, following the one
that has just caught a fish. If the fish is already swallowed it
makes no difference to him, and he never mistakes an empty bird
for a full one.

How, when he appears so suddenly, so unexpectedly, he can
always tell just which birds have been successful, has been a
puzzle to observers, but it seems easily answered. There is no
panic except among the terns that have just caught fish, and
perhaps their terror reveals their secret to the pirate's quick
eye. Having once selected his victim, he pursues that one and
no other, flying now above him, now beneath him, threatening
him with his bill until the frightened tern at last disgorges
what he has eaten, and the victorious jaeger snatches it up as
his prize. So quick is he that he often catches the coveted
morsel before it can reach the water.

The jaeger is not a mild or a docile bird. His disposition
is naturally fierce and his temper intractable. Something in
his look, aside from the hooked beak, reminds us of the birds
of prey. Therefore it is probable that, loving the chase for its

22 WATER-BIRDS IN THEIR HOMES.

own sake, and for the excitement it brings, the jaeger has taken
up his parasitic habits, not because they secure him an easier
livelihood, but because they gratify his love of the chase.

One very curious fact which characterizes some families of
sea-birds, but is rarely observed of the land-birds, must be
noted of the jaegers. The species have two different colora-
tions or "color-phases." Soine birds will be dark all their
lives, others will be light-colored for life. They are the same
bird in everything but color, although some are almost as
light as a sea-gull, and some look nearly black. The light
birds much resemble gulls, except in having more or less pale
yellow about the throat and head, a darker upper surface which
is not a " mantle," as in the gulls, but extends down over the
rump and tail end, and a dark crown, which no gull has. The
elongated middle tail feathers are a sure mark, as is also the
habit of carrying the tail spread. The dark phase is a sooty
brown, sometimes, but not always, with a little yellow about
the head. The younger birds are mottled brown and white.

There are three species of jaegers found in the United States,
and while not often seen, even offshore, they sometimes travel
in winter far to the south along the coast, and are occasionally
seen about the Great Lakes and down the ^lississippi Valley,
always the same bold pirates that we met off Grand Manan.

THE HERRING GULL.

" The low bare flats at ebb-tide, the rush of the sea at flood,
Through inlet and creek and river, from dike to upland wood ;
The gulls in the red of morning, the fish-hawk's rise and fall.
The drift of the fog in moon-shine, over the dark coast-wall."

— John G. Whittier, Marguerite.

The best known of all sea gulls is the herring gull. He
ranges from the warm regions in winter to the Arctic Circle
in summer, inland and coastwise, in both eastern and western
hemispheres.

On the Pacific the American herring gull is duplicated by a
relative, so nearly similar in size and color that only a scientist
could mark the difference, and he associates with the Western
gull, of the same size and appearance but with a slightly darker
mantle.

Even those who live in the largest cities know the herring
gull as he flies up and down the channels among the shipping,
or floats lightly in the citj^ reservoirs, a winter visitor who
finds it easier to make a living near city wharves than in the
open sea. In summer he is up and away, far to the North, to
the ledges along the coast of Maine and Labrador, or to the
Great Lakes in the interior. Along the Maine coast, however,
there is usually an abundance of herring gulls in summer, and
at one place their numbers have become a proverb. " As thick
as the gulls at Eastport " is not an uncommon saying for num-
bers beyond computation.

Indeed, it is a beautiful sight at times to see the immense
numbers of gulls that throng "Quoddy Bay," as Passama-

23

24 WATER-BIRDS IN THEIR HOMES.

quoddy Bay, on the eastern coast of Maine, is usually called by
the people living coastwise. The sun shiuint,^ on them lights
every bird, so that even when two miles away you can see them
filling the air like a snowstorm, rising, falling, hovering, set-
tling, a cloud of white flakes. There may be ten thousand,
or there may be a hundred thousand of them, but the mind
does not grasp the number, and any estimate is a guess.
Nearer to the flock, instead of a cloud of silent white flakes,
we discover a busy, screaming tangle of birds, each intent on
looking out for himself. All is excitement, and their enormous
appetites make them able to find fun in their fishing long after
it would seem they must be gorged with food.

The gentle little Bonaparte's gull loves to sit and rest on
the water for long intervals ; the kittiwake will often float
and eat what is floating beside him; but the herring gull,
when in large flocks, is nervous and fierce, and rarely rests
long, but takes its prey while on the wing, patting the water
with its feet, arching its neck down to the water level while
its uplifted wings hold it steady above the waves. Unlike
the terns the gulls do not dive. While there usually are ex-
ceptions to all rules, it is almost certain that an uninjured
herring gull never dives.

If you were to ask what brings these great numbers of
gulls together, and I were to tell you that the tides do
it, the answer, though correct, would seem frivolous. The
tides of Eastport are the highest of any place upon the sea-
coast of the United States — twice as high as those of Bos-
ton, five times those of New York, and seven times those of
San Francisco.

In filling and emptying this great bay twice a day through
narrow channels, tremendous whirlpools and currents are
formed, and immense quantities of fish are borne back and

THE HERRING GULL. 25

forth with the tides. Incalculable numbers of little herring

are swept along, and these are followed by the larger fish and
by the gulls that feed upon the herring. At times the water
boils with the rushes of great armies of young herring try-
ing to escape their enemies, while the pollock striking them
from below or leai)ing out of the water, until the sea seems
planted with fishes standing on their heads, and the screaming
gulls dipping from above to seize the little fish as the pollock
drive them up, make a scene not soon forgotten.

Nor are the birds and fishes the only enemies the little
herring have to fear. Thousands of hogsheads of them are
taken in the nets of the fishermen and become sardines in oil
or sardines in mustard. The chief industry of the towns upon
Quoddy Bay is packing sardines.

The gulls nest both inland and along the ocean shore.
While canoeing on the great lakes of Maine, I have found
their nests on the ledges far out from shore. The prettiest
were little rims of reindeer moss laid upon a bed of the same
dainty material, surrounding three dark eggs, larger than a
hen's eggs, blotched with darker brown. Along the seacoast
the nest is made of dried seaweed. It is the habit of gulls
to nest upon the ground, but when robbed and persecuted,
they both build and roost in trees.

The herring gull is one of our wariest and most suspicious
birds, its only superior in these traits being the great black-
backed gull, which can scarcely be snared, trapped, shot, or
poisoned. So alert are the black-backed gulls that even the
wary black ducks, themselves among the shyest and most
cautious of birds, sometimes have a black-backed gull act as
sentinel for them, and warn them of danger while they sleep
or feed.

When Pau-Puk-Keewis, in the story of Hiawatha, kills the

26 WATER-BIRDS IN TUEIIi HOMES.

birds, and flings tlieir bodies down the crag, it is Kayoslik,
the sea gull, that discovers them and gives the alarm.

"Till at once Kayoshk, the sea gull,
Perched upon a crag above them,
Shouted : ' It is Pau-l*uk-Keewis !
He is slaying as by hundreds !
Send a message to our brother,
Tidings send to Hiawatha ! ' "

The poet makes a mistake when he says that the gull makes
his outcry '' from a crag " ; it is his custom to give the alarm
on the icing.

But nothing could be more appropriate than choosing the
seagull to raise the alarm. Many a time the Indian seal-
hunter creeping over the tide-ledges of the bay, with every
advantage of wind and sun, hears the harsh scream of a gull
or tern flying over, and curses Kayoshk for betraying him.
Every bird and beast about the seashore knows that warning,
just as in the woods every creature halts and scurries off when
the little chipmunk raises his sharp alarm. " A man ! a man ! "
he seems to say ; " run ! run ! a man ! " and the old crow,
flapping over, adds gruffly, '' Go ! go ! go ! " Thus it is that
the birds and beasts stand guard for each other.

Again Longfellow speaks of the sea gulls as they work upon
the carcass of the great sturgeon within which Hiawatha is
imprisoned, and in the description we mark two fine points
and one little error.

"Then he heard a clang and flapping,
As of many wings assembling,
Heard a screaming and confusion,
As of birds of prey contendiiuj^
Saw a <;leaui of light above him,
Shining through the ribs of Nahma,
Saw tlie glittering eyes of sea gulls^

THE H EBBING GULL. 27

Of Kayoshk, the sea gulls peering,
Gazing at him through the opening,
Heard them saying to each other,
'Tis our brother, Hiawatha !

*******
And the wild and clamorous sea gulls,
Toiled idth beak and claios together."

This vigorous and truthful picture is not at all what we
who are not poets would have imagined. Because of its white-
ness most of us think the gull the emblem of purity and
gentleness, and would not have written —

"As of birds of prey contending."

Yet that just describes the fierceness and rapacity of sea gulls.
Few of our most savage hawks are more bloodthirsty than
fiea gulls, just as the crow is hardly more shrewd and ingen-
ious, and as no bird is at once so bold and so wary.
Nor is the error in the line —

" Saw the glittering eyes of sea gulls ; "

ioT the kind the poet is describing — the kind he must be
describing, both because his words fit that and no other, and
because it is the gull he used oftenest to see when he was a
boy and man along the Portland shore and up the river
Charles — has yelloiu eyes that are as fierce and unflinching as
a hawk's. (The eyes of young gulls and of the smaller species
are brown.)

But does the gull work with his feet ? Not unless he
braces with them to get tearing-hold. His nails are not made
for scratching, and his thumb or fourth toe is too high up on
his leg to help him grasp any object. This is the touch over-
much in the description, something the poet remembered in-
correctly, or added from his imagination. But there are few
naturalists equal to the poets.

28 WATER-BIRDS IN THEIR HOMES.

When we are at the seashore we may be puzzled to see so
many different kinds of gulls. But while there are very many
species of gulls, it is rare for more than three or four to be
seen in one locality, and these may be ])etter distinguished by
their size than by their colors. Adult gulls are always pure
white, with or ^v^thout a pearl-gray " mantle " on the back and
upper surface of the wings, and with or without black wing-
tips. Adult gulls never show any other colors except upon
the bill and feet, which may be flesh-color, red, or yellow.
The only other conspicuous marking is a black or dark gray
head which is seen in some of the smaller species during the
breeding season, and which disappears later.

Young gulls are more or less brown according to their age,
and the young of some species show a black bar across the end
of the tail, a black crescent between the shoulders, or a brown
mantle. These are all sure marks of immature birds.

The largest of our common gulls is the American herring
gull, which is seen on both seacoasts, about the Great Lakes,
and near most of the large lakes of the interior. The Western
gull which largely rei3laces it upon the Pacific coast, is scarcely
distinguishable in life. Of the medium-sized gulls — those
about eighteen inches long — the kittiwake of the northern
Atlantic, the black-headed laughing gull of the southern
Atlantic, the ring-billed gull of the plains and interior
states, and the beautiful Heerman's gull of the Pacific, with
its gray body, white head, and red feet and bill, are the more
conspicuous. The black-headed Franklin's rosy gull of the
interior, often called the " prairie dove " by the farmers, be-
longs to the group of small-sized gulls, and the black-headed
Bonaparte's gull is a smaller bird, everywhere well known,
both East, West, and in the interior. However, we very rarely
see a Bonaparte's gall with a black head, as this is the mark

THE HERRING GULL. 29

of the breeding season and is worn only for a few weeks.
The Bonaparte's gull is the common small species of the
Atlantic coast, so often seen floating in large flocks on the
water.

It is not difficult to distinguish gulls from terns, which
somewhat resemble them in color. All our United States
gulls are square-tailed and blunt-billed, and float on the water
but never dive, while all our terns are fork-tailed, sharp-billed,
md dive from the air but do not float upon the surface. The
terns commonly have very brilliant red or yellow feet and
bills, and in the adult plumage a black cap, but never a black
head. Young terns lack the cap but do not show any brown
piarkings like the young gulls.

ON THE FARRALONES.

FEEDING IIAIilTS OF GULLS OX THE PACIFIC COAST.'

"For of all runes and rhymes
Of all times,
Best like I the ocean's dirges,
When the old harper heaves and rocks,

His hoary locks
Flowing and flashing in the surges."
— Henry W, Longfellow, Tlie Saga of Kimj Olaf.

The Farralones are a group of rough and barren islands thirty
miles out from San Francisco. No tree grows on them, and
scarcely a plant, except the long, spongy weed called Farralone
weed, can hold its own against the sea storms in that infer-
tile soil. On one of the islands is a lighthouse. No other
houses are there, and few men except those who gather eggs
for the market ever visit the place.

Thus being comparatively undisturbed, birds nest here in
vast numbers. There are great colonies of cormorants, black
as midnight, stretching up their long necks; companies of
tufted puffins with their gay red and green bills and yellow
ear-plumes curling like a ram's horns ; murres by the myriad,
lifting their brown necks above their snowy breasts; pigeon
guillemots, much like the " sea pigeon " of the East ; Cassin's
auklets and petrels mingle wdth them according to their na-
tures, solitary or in companies ; and everywhere the snowy

1 Facts drawn from Dr. Walter E. Bryant's " Birds of the Farralones " and
H. W. Taylor's " Story of the Farralones."

30

ON THE FABRALONES. 31

Western gull, in size and color almost the counterpart of the
herring gull of the East, stands his watch over a nest that is
safer from intruders than any of the other nests.

The gull of the East is a persecuted creature. He is robbed
of his eggs ; he is killed by gunners for his wings and feathers,
to put into feather-beds when they are not put on hats ; he is
forced from his chosen home, and is even compelled to build
his nest in trees, contrary to his nature.

Our sympathies are too much with the gull of the East to
make us inquire if he has faults ; but when we see the gull of
the West, free, secure, little molested, we find his honesty ques-
tionable and a trait of low cunning highly developed. The
sea gull is so like our old friend the crow in his boldness,
impudence, and intelligence, that it is easy to believe that he is
honest only under compulsion ; and that the Western gull acts
out his real nature while the Eastern one lacks opportunity.

As soon as the breeding season opens the gulls begin repair-
ing their old nests, which are large, comfortable affairs, made
of the dry, ravelled Farralone weed. At the very outset they
show their nature ; for they steal their materials from the
cormorants that nest near them. The cormorant is heavy,
long-necked, ill-balanced, and awkward, so that picking up
nesting stuff is hard work for him, while the active gulls can
gather it as readily as any land-birds.

In their feeding we find the gulls eating their own honestly
earned fish and crabs and sea-urchins, and also the fish that
they steal from the nests of the cormorants. Not content
with this, they eat the cormorants' eggs, and later in the season
their black, bare-skinned, greasy -looking babies. It is almost
incredible that a bird so spotless and dainty in its appearance
can have so black a heart, but live young cormorant is part
of the gull's bill of fare.

32 WATER-niliDS IN THEIIi HOMES.

When the cormorants' eggs are all hatched, and the gull
still wishes to mix a little egg with his diet, he torments the
murres. Now the murres are foolish birds that bow their
long, brown necks and silly heads continually, and grunt
harshly, but they love their one big, pear-shaped egg. Always
one or the other stays by it, hugging it between his or her
long thighs and brooding over it. For all their folly they
know enough not to trust a gull. As they are more than half
the size of the gulls, the gulls prefer stratagem to force. A
number of them combine to attack the murre in concert, and
so harass and frighten her that she tries either to escape or to
confront them. This is the gull's opportunity. The big egg
must be exposed for a moment. While the rest keep up their
clamor and feigned attacks, one of the gulls steals in and
seizes the egg in his bill. It must be a very large mouthful,
for a murre's egg is much larger than a hen's egg, and the
gull's bill is but little over two inches long. He breaks the
egg by rolling it about the rocks until dented by rough usage,
after which he sucks its contents. Not only do the gulls
rob the birds, but they rob the eggers. Unless the heaps of
eggs which the eggers pile up are covered very closely, the
gulls will work their way under the cloths and carry off every

But eggs are not all their plunder. They just as willingly
take the live young murres or a dead old bird. And they
have a particular fondness for young rabbits. They will sit
and watch by the rabbit burrows an hour waiting for the
little rabbit to come out, and then will work fifteen minutes
in trying to swallow him.

THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE JUNK 0' POEK.

" Well, ah fare you well, and it's Ushanti gives the door to us,
Whirling like a windmill on the dirty scud to lea :
Till the last, last flicker goes
From the tumbling water-rows,
And we're off to Mother Carey
(Walk her down to Mother Carey !)
Oh, we're bound for Mother Carey where she feeds her chicks at sea ! "
— RuDYARD Kipling, Anchor Song,

Near the entrance to Casco Bay, on the coast of Maine,
close by the route of steamers going into Portland, is a
curious island which never fails to attract the attention of
the tourist. At low tide it may show half an acre, but at
high water there appears only a bluff-sided island perhaps
twenty-five feet above the sea and forty feet in length,
slightly curving, and on top bare of house, or tree, or bush,
but green with short grass. Some facetious sailor in years
gone by, remembering the fat " rounds " that were always
kept in the pickle barrel of the farm-houses, called it the
" Junk o' Pork." It looks very much like a piece of fat pork,
twice as long as it is thick, lying rind toward you. The little
island is uninhabited, and almost inaccessible by man. A few
years since, and probably it is the same to-day, all that lived

1 An island off the coast of France, whose lighthouse is the last sighted
as the ship steers out into the Atlantic.
p 33

34 WATEll-llUiDS IN THKin HOMES.

on it were birds and field-mice ; and chief among the birds
were the Leach's petrel, which fifty years ago was found
on all our outer islands.

The Scotch have a pretty way of speaking of fairies as
" the good people " or " the little people," to win their good-
will; and when we recollect the superstitious respect all
seafaring folk have for the petrels, or " Mother Carey's
chickens," it seems quite fitting to give them the same title.
That there are to-day few petrels breeding where there used
to be hundreds is due to city gunners and scientists ; for even
a few years ago not a fisherman or island gunner anywhere
along the coast could be induced to kill a petrel lest ill-luck
should follow.

These *' little people" are small and dark-colored and flit
about toward evening like little shadows, coming from and
going to their nesting-place. Dusk and dawn are their hours
of greatest activity, though all day long one of the pair will
be out at sea feeding, while its mate is at home on the nest.
It is the custom of the petrels to lay their eggs in under-
ground burrows about two feet in depth. In this dark
chamber, when there are eggs to be hatched, one bird sits
all day long sleeping and brooding ; and at evening, welcom-
ing her mate with a harsh-sounding but loving greeting, she
changes places and goes out to seek her own food.

Apparently the petrels see better in the twilight than in
broad day, as one might imagine from their large full eyes,
which have a near-sighted look, and a pupil so large that the
eye appears to be black, though the iris really is brown.

There is something wonderfully soft and dove-like about
the petrels. Their plumage, though dark colored and greasy,
is as full and deep as a gull's. Their manners are gentle and
-winning, and they do not resent being handled, but look at

Fig. 6. — PETREL.

Facing page 34.

THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE JUNK O' POIiK. 35

you with their great round, liquid eyes, or go tiptoeing about
the floor with an audible patter of their soft feet.

Having no hind toe, and being unused to spreading their
feet upon a level surface, they walk unsteadily on the outer
joints of their toes, bending forward with awkward bobs, and
partly spreading their wings to balance themselves. I have
never seen one of those I have had in captivity try to fly,
though I have had a dozen of them at a time moving about
like dusky little shadows. But for the impossibility of get-
ting them the proper food, and for their rank, oily smell, they
would make pretty pets.

All sea-birds keep their feathers well oiled to exclude the
water, but the petrels and their near relatives are provided
with an oil that has an odor quite unmistakable and not
attractive. In addition to what is used upon the feathers,
the Leach's petrel has in its stomach from a teaspoonful to
a tablespoonful of heavy, oily liquid, exceedingly limpid and
of an unpleasant odor. He can disgorge this at will, and
sometimes, in captivity at least, becomes much bedraggled
with it. The use of this supply is hard to determine.

How the petrels with their weak, webbed feet, which seem
wholly unfit for such work, can dig such holes in the hard
earth of our outer islands is a mystery. Of course the holes
remain from one year to another, so that unless a colony is
largely increased it is not necessary to dig new ones ; but I
think they have a helper whose services have received little
credit in books. All our outer islands are overrun with field-
mice, whose holes are found on all sides. On landing on an
uninhabited island, almost the first thing one notices is the
scampering of mice through the short grass. It seems likely
that the petrels often take possession of these mouse-holes,
enlarging them to meet their own needs.

36 WATER B runs tx their homes.

The i>etrel lays but one large white egg, and the parents, as
we have said, share the work of hatching it. Rarely both
parents are found in the burrow, and more rarely still the egg
is found alone, yet it is still unknown which parent takes the
responsibility. With most birds it is the mother that cares
for the eggs and nestlings; but there are cases known, as
among the phalaropes, where the female leaves all the work to
her mate. With the petrels no one knows certainly what hap-
pens. Some naturalists report that nearly all the birds found
with eggs were females and others that the majority of those
they saw on the nest were males.

Out of eighteen old birds that I examined one season twelve
were males, and there was a curious indication that the male
did a large share of the work. Among searbirds it is custom-
ary for the female to tear off a patch of feathers from her body
just the size of the egg, so that the warmth of the body may
heat the egg directly. Often the exact number of eggs can be
told by the number of these "brooding spots." It is usually
taken for granted that the bird with these incubating spots is
the female ; but in every Leach's petrel that I have examined
during the breeding season, the male had the " brooding spot "
and the female lacked it. However, we must know more about
their habits before we can say that all the housework is left
for the male to do.

Often on a sea voyage, even a short one, if it take us outside
of harbors, one may see the petrels following the vessel or
dancing over the waves in little groups. Their flight, which
is graceful and easy, resembles that of a purple martin; and,
as the birds are about the size of swallows and dark colored, it
would be natural to mistake them for swallows unless we
knew the habits of both birds.

When they find food the petrels gather around, raising their

THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE JUNK O' PORK. 37

wings above their backs and droppiug their long, thin legs.
They hold themselves stationary by fluttering their wings and
pattering with their webbed feet, much as a boy balances him-
self on a barrel by keeping both feet and hands in motion.
The name " petrel," or little Peter, is an allusion to St. Peter's
attempt to walk upon the water. The Germans call them
" Petersvogel," or Peter's birds, from the same pretty conceit.

Can we understand the life of these petrels ? The glimpse
we have had of them is their one visit to the land in all the
year. After their little chick is out of the shell and able to
go to sea, the petrel never comes to shore again unless driven
in by storms. No birds are so near to the sailor in all his
voyages nor so remote from the landsman's travels as the
petrels and their near relatives. Their peculiar odor gives us
a hint — and a strong one — of train oil, and whaling voyages,
and long months out of sight of land. Day after day, month
after month, they are alone upon the ocean.

Picture to yourself the solemn loneliness of such a life. All
they eat must come by fishing, or from the ocean drift, and
when they drink it must be salt water. They can never alight
on anything more stable than the rocking billows. Does it
storm ? There is no protection to them from rain or cold un-
less they fly above the storm or beyond it. They sleep on the
wing or on the wave, homeless wanderers, driven up and down
the sea with no rest except in motion. What a solitary life,
fit only for a savage bird that hates man and his own kind!
Yet these houseless and homeless creatures are more sociable
than solitary, more confiding than morose; they seek the
neighborhood of ships, are easily caught, readily tamed; and
the smaller kinds are gentle in disposition, if not affectionate.
It is one of the mysteries of the great ocean, what makes its
loneliness and immensity so dear to these little sailor birds.

FEEDING HABITS OF THE FULMARS OFF THE
COAST OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.*

*' Sun, wind, and cloud shall not fail from the face of it,
Stinging, ringing spindrift, nor the fulmar flying free ;
And the ships shall go abroad
To the glory of the Lord
Who heard the silly sailor-folk and gave them back their sea ! "
— RuDYARD Kipling, The Last Chantey.

Ten miles west of Point Lorn a, at the entrance of Sau Diego
Bay, is an extensive fishing bank extending parallel with the
coast for a distance of several miles. This bank is resorted to
during fair weather from October first to March first by the
San Diego fishermen, who obtain large quantities of rock-cod
there for the markets of southern California. The fishing is
all done in from seventy-five to one hundred fathoms of water.
There are often large schools of small fish on the surface which
attract great numbers of sea-birds, including the fulmars, and
it is along this bank that fulmars are to be found if anywhere
near shore.

Some time about the last of SejDtember the first of them
make their appearance, the exact date being somewhat uncer-
tain and due in a measure to the food supply, and quite possi-
bly also to the weather. They are hardly what one would call
gregarious, although several are often seen in company flying
along in a loose, straggling flock. More often they are seen in

1 Abridged, with author's permission, from an article by A. W. Anthony
in The Auk, April, 1«95.

FEEDING HABITS OF THE FULMARS. 39

flocks of black-vented shearwaters, one or two in a flock of
fifty.

Unlike the shearwaters, however, they seldom pass a craft
without turning aside at least to make a circuit about it before
flying on. If the vessel is a fishing sloop, sounding on the
banks, the chances are in favor of the shearwaters being forgot-
ten and allowed to disappear in the distance while the fulmar
settles lightly down on the water within a few yards of the
fisherman. The next fulmar that passes will, after having
made the regulation circuit, join the first, until within a few
minutes a flock of six or eight of these most graceful and
handsome petrels have collected, dancing about on the waves
as light and buoyant as corks.

As the lines are hauled up after a successful sound, the long
string of often twenty or thirty golden-red fish is seen
through the limpid water while still several fathoms down,
and great excitement prevails. Any fulmars that have grown
uneasy and have started out on the periodical circuit of the
craft, immediately alight a few yards to the windward. Those
that are on the water and have drifted away hasten to the
spot, with wings outspread and feet pattering along on the
water.

It is more than likely that in hauling up the line one or
more fish have become detached from the hooks ; such fish,
if loosened after having been raised from twenty fathoms,
are sure to rise to the surface a few feet to the windward
of the boat. The pressure of the deep water being suddenly
removed, the air in the air-bladder expands so quickly that
the fish is greatly distended, and rises helpless to the surface.

With a hoarse croak and wings outspread the nearest ful-
mar pounces upon the unfortunate cod, keeping all others at
bay with threatening beak. A few hasty snaps at the eyes.

40 WATER-BIRDS IN THEIR HOMES.

or air-bladder protruding from the mouth, convinces him that
codfish are tough, and the first floater, if a large one, is aban-
doned for a moment for the second, should there be more than
one, or for a snap at the bait on the hooks.

Their excitement by this time has attracted the attention
of several Western and American herring gulls, which hover
screaming over the sloop, too shy to attempt to touch the fish
while it is so near. Another ocean wanderer meantime has
arrived ; a short-tailed albatross, sweeping along, has noticed
the commotion among his lesser brethren, and with a groan-
ing note settles down by the floating fish, keeping all trespass-
ers away by a loud clattering of his mandibles ; though not
infrequently a fulmar will dispute possession for some time
with an albatross before leaving a fish he has torn open, and
I think a fulmar will usually rout a Western gull completely.

In attacking a fish under the above conditions, the eyes and
air-bladder are first eaten, after which the abdomen is torn
open, if possible, and the entire contents of the skin torn out
piecemeal. I have, however, seen birds seated on the water
by the side of a fish from which they had eaten the eyes,
though they were unable to tear open the tough skin.

In diving the fulmars use both feet and wings, the latter
only half open, the primaries seeming to be used very little,
if any, but kept drawn back with the secondaries. Once
under water they make good headway, seizing the fish, which
is swallowed immediately upon reaching the surface.

Although mention has been made of their following fishing
sloops, fish form a very small part of their diet while on the
coast. In fact it is the exception. I have never found a
small fish in the stomachs of those I have taken, nor have
I seen them catch fish themselves, though I have no doubt
regarding their ability to do so, should they fall in with a

FEEDING HABITS OF THE FULMARS. 41

school of small herring or anchovies ; and from their associat-
ing with flocks of shearwaters I infer that they derive a part
of their food from such schools of small fry when they are
common.

There is, however, a large jellyfish that is usually abun-
dant along the coast during the time of the fulmars' sojourn,
and these are never disregarded by the ever hungry birds. I
have often seen a fulmar sitting on the water by the side of
a jellyfish, part of which it had eaten, so filled that it could
scarcely move out of the way of the boat. I think the ful-
mars enjoy a monopoly of this diet, for I have never seen any
other species eating it ; nor ^vill gulls, nor any of the sea-birds
that I have observed, pay any attention to a fulmar that is
eating a jellyfish, though they all claim their share if the
food is of a kind that they care for.

In flight the fulmars much more resemble the shearwaters
than the albatrosses, though they have the habit, common to all
these families, of sailing over the water at an angle of about
forty -five degrees, with the tip of the lower wing but just
above the waves. The wing-beats are rapid, about as with
the shearwaters ; and there is at a distance little to distinguish
the fulmars in the dark phases from the dark-bodied shear-
waters, except the shorter, less pointed wings and heavier body
of the fulmars.

In rising from the water the fulmars, shearwaters, and both
species of albatross found with us (the black-footed and short-
tailed albatrosses) spread the wings and run along the water
for a distance to gain sufficient momentum to lift them clear
of the waves. The fulmars will almost invariably, according
to my observations, rise toward an approaching boat; while
both the shearwaters and albatrosses always fly from any-
thing disturbing them, and rise preferably against the wind.

THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF PEEC£.'

GANXETS.

" Now, brothers, for the icebergs
Of frozen Labrador,
Floating spectral in the moonshine

Along the low, black shore !
Where like snow the gannets' feathers

On 'Brador's rocks are shed

And the noisy murres are flying

Like black scuds overhead."

— John G. Whittier, Tlie Fishermen.

You may go with me to the coast of Labrador, sailing
among the bluff and dangerous islands off the mouth of the
St. Lawrence in a cold wind, a chilling fog, and a short, chop-
ping sea. This was the region that Jacques Cartier visited
hundreds of years ago, and the scene is not so very different
now from that he saw then. It does not take much imagina-
tion to fancy ourselves in his rude ship, beating up to the
shores of this new-found and dangerous land. Still we find
the rough rocks, topped with dark evergreens, stunted by the
cold winds, still the same sullen sea and inhospitable climate,
and still the hosts of gannets whitening the tops of the ledges
— "a great and infinite number of gannets which are white
and bigger than any geese," wrote Cartier, "and which bite
even as dogs."

Within the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, formed by the open
jaws of the bay and the great island of Newfoundland, are the

1 Pronounced per-say, in two syllables, though the fishermen make but one
syllable, perse.

42

THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF PERCE. 43

brBecling-places of the gannets — the Bird Rocks of the Magdar
len Island group and Bonaventure Island near the Isle Perce
off the north shore of the Bale des Chaleurs. " Warm Bay " it
means, but we may judge the warmth of the region when the
first of June sees the stunted little cattle dragging the wooden
ploughs through ground hardly thawed as yet, while snow-
drifts still lie in the fields. It is a bleak and sterile land,
pinched with cold, and chilled with vapor steaming up from
the melting icebergs that drift past in summer.

But sometimes a clear morning of midsummer comes to glad-
den the poor fishermen of the coast. The sea.is as blue as the
sky, and as calm too ; the rough rocks and stunted trees bask
in sunshine, and, a clear note of color in a scene usually too
gloomy, shines out the red mass of Perce Rock.

Nearly three hundred feet high, steep from the sea, springs
the great Arch Rock, inaccessible except to the birds that
cover it. A thousand feet long, and nearly a third as wide, its
broad and nearly level top harbors myriads of birds that
scream and fish about. They nest there by the acre, black for
the cormorants and white for the sea-gulls, sitting in colonies
as close as they can huddle ; and a mile off is Bonaventure,
whose whiteness is the snowy backs of gannets that breed here
by themselves.

The great Arch Rock, or Pierced Rock, in literal translation,
gets its name from a lofty arch like a great doorway worn
through it near one end — an open door, as it were, through
which boats may pass, and we may see the blue water beyond.
Perse Rock it is called by the fishermen, who ignore the second
syllable in this as they do in the little town of Perce (or Perse)
which you can find on your maps. Imagine the low rude huts
of this hamlet strewn about with nets, si:)ars, lobster traps, and
fishing-gear, and the little fleet of black-hulled, broad-bowed

44 WATER-BIRDS IN THEIR HOMES.

boats, with red, tanned sails, making ready at sunrise for a
day's fishing. A fair day is a day of gladness in that region ;
air and sea are full of life.

At dawn the cormorants set out on heavy wings for their
fishing grounds, flapping laboriously and stretching out their
long necks against the flush of morning red, as black them-
selves as midnight spectres. To Gaspe Bay and Bale Chaleurs
they go a-fishing, and with them go the white gannets from
Bonaventure. There is a turmoil of gulls clamoring and bark-
ing, and the shrill screams of restless terns, ever noisy and sus-
picious, keeping, up an incessant alarm or complaint.

On the water about the bases of the crags little guillemots
bob like corks, diving and fishing, and a solitary loon comes up
to shout a prolonged halloo to some invisible mate ; or a big
seal lifts above the water like a mermaid, and, tossing a fish in
air, catches it as it descends head foremost and swallows it
with a groan.

All day long the gulls wheel and scream about the Great
Arch Rock, the cormorants crane their long black necks over
the beetling walls, and gannets plunge about it ; but in gen-
eral both cormorants and gannets prefer to go farther for their
fishing, to the shoal water of the bays, where the tremendous
tides sweep great schools of fishes this way and that.

Neither of these birds ever tires of fishing or can ever be
satisfied with eating. They will eat till the tails of the little
fishes stick out of the corners of their mouths before they will
stop. There is a record otf a cormorant which was seen to catch
and eat one hundred and eighty fishes in one and a half hours,
or two fish a minute. All fish-eating birds have these insatia-
ble appetites, and the amount they consume is beyond compu-
tation, though it should be said that they do not much disturb
the species most prized by man.

THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF PERCE- 45

Gannets are not found everywhere. Their only breeding-
places in numbers, if the small breeding-ground near Grand
Manan has been broken up, are in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence,
although they not infrequently visit the coast of Maine, where
they can be easily distinguished from gulls by their shape and
habits. Their bold and beautiful action on the wing at once
calls attention to them, as do their habits of flying in lines and
plunging from the wing. Larger, longer-winged than a gull,
longer-necked and longer-billed, with a longer tail, they more
resemble gigantic terns in their graceful flight and easy evolu-
tions on the wing. A most beautiful, bold, fierce bird is our
great gannet, with his cold, white eye, and his taper, knife-
edged bill that bites, not " like a dog," as Cartier says, but a
great deal worse, cutting to the bone. A terrible weapon it is
against man or fish, yet sometimes it brings the gannet to
grief. It used to be the custom in the Bay of Gaspe to fasten
a dead fish to a floating shingle or bit of driftwood just large
enough to buoy him. The gannets, seeing the fish, and diving
like an arrow, often from a great height, would spear not only
the fish, but the board as well, and become victims to their too
headlong speed.

It is the gannet's peculiar way of diving that makes such a
capture possible. Most diving birds, if they wish to dive deejD,
spring from the water and take a header exactly as a boy
would do. The loon and the cormorant dive in this way.
The gull fishes from the wing without diving. But the tern
and gannet dive with a splash. The gannet is incomparably
the bolder and more expert of the two. He hunts on the wing
at all distances above the water, but oftenest at seventy-five
or a hundred feet above the surface, if the fish are swimming
deep, flying in straggling flocks.

When a fish is seen the gannet draws in his wings till they

4G WATER BIRDS /A' THEIR HOMES.

are nearly closed, thus leaving little surface to bear the body
u^), and, throwing himself headlong in the air, he falls like
a })lunimet. Just above the water the nearly closed wings are
flexed tight to the body to remove all resistance to the water,
and, with a slight splash, the gannet cleaves the water and
secures his prey. It is a bold but wise plan, for any swimmer
will tell you that in diving from a great height it is ab-
solutely necessary to take a perpendicular course in order not
to " knock the breath out of one."

The gannet has a peculiar provision for his needs in the abun-
dant and very large air cells which lie like cushions between
his skin and his flesh, taking the place of the fat layer which
we And on most birds. It is supposed that these break the jar
of his plunge from so great a height. When the fish are
swimming near the surface the gannet alters his methods of
pursuit, flies low, and dives at a slant, knowing that he will not
have to use much force, nor sustain any great shock, in order
to penetrate the water far enough to get his prey.

The adult gannet is pure white, with black ends to the
wings and a yellowish wash about the head, — the only color
other than black, white, and brown, it may be remarked, that
is ever found on any of the strictly seafaring birds (the eider
drake only excepted), unless about their bills and feet.

The gannets of the year are a dark brown, speckled with
white as if by tiny snowflakes. The baby gannet in the nest,
like the cormorant's young, is a naked, greasy, helpless squab,
very slow to learn how to care for itself, and therein entirely
unlike the little gulls, terns, and ducks, which chip the shell
only to take up active life at once. The gannets are some nine
or ten weeks in the nest, and at the end of eight weeks are
still covered with down and have wings only feebly developed.

So slowly do they come to the possession of their wonderful

THE NEIGllBOliHOOD OF PERCE. 47

p3wers of flight that we are reminded of Hans Christian
Andersen's tale of the discouragements that befell the ugly
duckling which was after all born a swan.

AYhat they are at their prime we can best learn from the
words of Mr. William Brewster, one of our most distinguished
naturalists, who describes them as he saw them, "floating idly
on the blue sea ; skimming close to the waves in the teeth of
a stiff breeze ; hovering excitedly over schools of capelin,
among which they plunged with fierce energy ; and at evening
stringing out in long lines against the sunset sky, as they
flapped their way homeward to the rookery. But most vivid
of all is the recollection of their presence on a certain occasion
when our vessel was overtaken by a squall in the middle of the
Gull At the height of the confusion, when the voices of the
men struggling to take in sail were drowned by the rush of
the wind, and the sea, a moment before so calm, was furrowed
by furious gusts, overhead, against the black storm clouds,
where lightning flashed and thunder rolled incessantly, a score
of the majestic birds sailed ; calm, impassive, emotionless,
breasting the gale as easily as if it were the gentlest summer
breeze. How often must such a group have been the sole
witnesses of still wilder scenes, when vessels less fortunate
than oui's have foundered and sunk with all on board."

A CYPRESS SWAMP.

THE AXHINGA.

"Over their heads the towering and tenebrous boughs of the cypress
Met in a dusky arch, and the trailing mosses in mid-air
Waved like banners that hang on the vealls of ancient cathedrals.
Deathlike the silence seemed, and unbroken, save by the herons
Home to their roosts in the cedar trees returning at sunset,
Or by the owl, as he greeted the moon with demoniac laughter."
— Henry W. Longfellow, Evangeline.

To Florida next, the home of the herons and that strange
cousin of the gannet and the cormorant, the darter, or anhinga,
or snake-bird, or water-turkey.

The cypress swamp is the home of these birds, who build
their nests among the hummocks. To seek them we must
have a boat ; for these swamps are vast morasses largely over-
flowed in the rainy part of the year, and always threaded with
black, winding creeks full of alligators and poisonous water-
snakes.

The scene is semi-tropical. Vegetation luxuriates. The
trees grow so tall and are so thickly leaved that the sun is
shut out ; and beneath the canopy of their tops, among the
great gray trunks which rise like pillars, there is a gloom, so-
lemnity, and grandeur like that of some many-columned cathe-
dral, religiously quiet and dim. The cypress trees, rising from
the water, among large-leaved water-plants, grow to gigantic
size, and are draped with banners of the hanging gray tilland-
sia, which we know as " Spanish moss," or with air-plants that
trail their tendrils and blossoms from trunk and branches.

48

Fig. 8. — ANHINGA.

Facing pajje 48.

A CYPRESS SWAMP, 49

Here and there the land rises a little above the level of the
water into green mounds called " hummocks," where grow scat-
tered palmettoes, waving their palm-like crests above the sur-
rounding trees. Here the great ivory-billed woodpecker, the
largest and most beautiful of his race, may perhaps be heard
knocking with his great white beak to rout out the palmetto-
borer. In the fringe of buttonwood, and other brush about
the edges of the hummocks, herons breed, or did breed before
they were so nearly exterminated for millinery. There was a
time when hundreds and thousands of them — the great blue
Ward's heron, nearly like our largest heron of the North, the
medium-sized reddish egret, the little blue heron, and the
little white egret, with the whole tribe of night herons

— used to be here in countless numbers, building their
loose platforms of sticks among the branches, and keeping
their awkward guard over the beautiful blue-green eggs and
squabby young. What a clamor rose ! What a smell of de-
cayed fish from the fragments dropped beneath the nests ! A
few remnants of the former host remain still and breed in the
bushes. The fish-crows lurk about picking up the leavings on
the ground, or stealing an egg or a young heron from the nest
when they can. The boat-tailed grackle, — the " jackdaw " of
the South, — croaks in the willows, and a Florida white-
breasted nuthatch, inspecting the larger trees, threads his way
up and down, indifferent which end of him is uppermost. It
may be that a flock of wdiite ibises, distinguished from the
white herons by their black wing-tips and outstretched necks,
a roseate spoon-bill, — the " pink curlew " of the South, a
great bald-headed wood ibis, — locally known as a " gannet,"

— or a hoarse-voiced brown crane will pass by where they
can be seen through the tree-tops.

And off in the distance, low down among the water-plants

50 \VA/i':i: iuuds ia tiikiu homes.

or uu the plash}' border of the hummock, one hears the iiiehin-
choly mourning of that gigantic rail, the linipkin or courlan, a
curious brown and white striped bird, not exactly rail and
hardly a crane, whose doleful wailing gives it the local name
of the "crying bird" or " mourning widow."

Among such neighbors lives the anhinga, the cousin of the
gannet and the cormorant of the rocks. Seeing them side by
side you would not admit the relationship until you looked at
their feet. For while the gannet is shapely and graceful, a
heavy bird strongly built, this slender relative looks as if he
were patched up out of the pieces left over after all the other
totipalmate birds were made. They are alike, however, in
both having the webbing of their feet extend along the inner
side of the foot, from the hind toe to the inner front toe,
which gives them three webs instead of two, like ducks and
other swimming birds.

The anhinga has a long neck, excessively slender, drawn
out into a sharp and slender bill ; a light, long, thin body ;
wings like great fans; fully webbed feet apparently unfit for
tree-perching, and a great, stiff tail, like corrugated sheet-iron.
His color is inconspicuous — black for the ground color, usu-
ally glossed with green reflections, with gray stripes down the
shoulders. The female has a brown neck and breast.

Concealment is easy for the anhinga. The cypress swamp
is full of gloomy, half-lighted corners, and his black and
slender figure fits into shadowy recesses of the forest swamp.
Even the light stripes on his back, though they look conspicu-
ous, are a protection to him, resembling as they do the ridges
on the cypress bark with their light tops and darker grooves
between.

But the snake-bird does not rely entirely upon his color for
protection. When alarmed he drops quietly from his perch,

A CYPEESS SWAMP. 51

and tlie water closes over him without a ripple. If he is
floating high, according to his custom when undisturbed, he
will disappear like a grebe, sinking in the exact spot where
he has been floating. He can swim at any depth. Some-
times the whole long neck will be above the surface, rising
from the black swamp water like some venomous serpent,
whence the name of " snake-bird." Often only the bill is put
up for breathing, and for a considerable time he can swim
under water without coming up to breathe.

In common with many other birds, the anhinga can fly
under water, and will at times rise from the water-flight
into the air-flight without a break in the motion. We would
hardly expect that a bird so expert in the water would fly
strongly and well, but the snake-bird is easy on the wing ; and
when seen with its broad wings and tail extended, and its
slender neck and body lying between the three nearly equal
lobes, it looks, as one observer says, " like an ace of clubs on
the wing."

Fishing in these dark \xaters, flying over the hummocks,
sitting with wings half outstretched to dry, in social little
groups, or caring for their blue eggs in their nest that is
always built overhanging the water, the anhinga is a bird of
the swamps, and may be seen only in some such place as we
have described.

THE LIFE llIST(mY OF THE AMERICAN
FLAMINGO.^

My first experience with these birds was in the winter of
1884-85, We were east of the easternmost Cape Sable, the
extreme south point of Florida, when late in the afternoon we
entered a bay about seven by fifteen miles in extent, almost
every rod of which was shallow enough to be waded by the
flamingo.

The bottom largely consisted of a soft, sticky clay, as though
composed of fine particles of disintegrated coral, so soft that
with one hand I could set a pole two fathoms down into the
mud, and so sticky that one cannot wash the mud from any-
thing without rubbing it. Although the water in these bays
is so shallow, much of it being not above eighteen inches deep,
it is so permeated with this soft white mud, which is stirred
up by the action of the wind, that it is impossible to see the
bottom, and after a day or two. of more than usually heavy
wind the whole bay reminds one of a large bowl of milk.

When about halfway across this bay — it being ebb-tide —
our boat stuck in the mud and we could go no farther. After
lowering sail, I climbed to the mast-head to learn if anything
could be seen. Almost to the east of us, where the setting sun
reflected the light to the best advantage, was a long line of
red extending fully a half mile, reminding one of a prairie fire
at night.

1 Abridged, by the author's permission, from Captain D. P. Ingraham's
"Observations on the American Flamingo," a paper presented before the
World's Congress on Ornithology, 1893.

62

Fig. y. — flamingoes.

Facing page 52.

LIFE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN FLAMINGO. 53

I doubt whether De Soto felt any more pride when he first
saw the broad waters of the Mississippi than I did at the sight
before me. I took off my hat and swung it, and shouted,
" The flamingoes ! the flamingoes ! " It was then that I first
recognized the import of the name " flamingo," — flame-colored.
The flock was fully four miles away, and consisted of not
less than twenty-five hundred birds. I had spent fully two
months each of the two preceding years to find these birds ;
and I now felt I almost had them in my grasp — vain delusion.

For six successive days each week, and for six successive
weeks, did we devise every plan that we could conceive of,
every day looking out upon that beautiful flock of not less
fhan twenty-five hundred birds. In all that time we could
never get within eight hundred yards of them. Then our
water supply became exhausted, and we set sail for Key West,
about one hundred and twenty miles away, for new supplies ;
and thus ended the flamingo campaign of 1884.

The bird is related to the Anatidce, or duck family, crush-
ing its food between the mandibles, and sifting out such
portions as it does not wish to swallow, as does the duck.
This leads the natives in the West Indies to say that the
flamingo lives on dirt. Its food is small mollusks, crustar
ceans, and other marine animals gathered from the mud. The
peculiar shape of the beak is specially adapted to its manner
of feeding. With its long legs to wade, and its long neck to
reach down into the water to collect its food, it brings the
upper portion of the upper mandible directly on the bottom,
so that it may be almost literally said to stand on its head
when it eats.

It is very interesting to see a flock feeding, especially when
the bottom chances to be a little hard, so that they have to dig
their food out from the earth. The water prevents their

54 WATER-BIRDS IN THEIR HOMES.

scratching like a fowl, but they go through the same motions,
ouly not so fast; and as their long legs go u}) and down it re-
minds one of a regiment of soldiers marking time. After they
have stirred up tlie earth for a while, they put their heads
down into the water, gather up the results of their labor, and
then "mark time" again, constantly swinging around and
gathering the earth up into a mound. When they are through,
there will frequently be a mound live or six inches high and
three or four feet across.

The nesting habits of the flamingo are peculiar. They nest
in great colonies, and when not disturbed occupy the old nests
the iol' owing year, — not perhaps the same bird using its own
nest of the former year, but the colony as a whole occupying
the same nests. I have seen not less than four thousand nests
in one group, as close together as they could be placed.

The most desirable locality seems to be some very shallow
and very muddy lagoon, where the nests are almost unap-
proachable. They are made of soft mud which is worked up
into a pyramid, eighteen or twenty inches across at the base,
perhaps fifteen inches high the first season, and about ten
inches across on to]D. This mud dries and becomes exceed-
ingly hard, so as to retain its form for years. The birds each
year add a little to the top of the nest, so that the nests fre-
quently become two feet high or more.

The nest is hollowed out a little on top, and the eggs, usually
two, are deposited on the bare earth. The egg is large, averag-
ing about three and a half by four and a half inches, and when
first laid is pure white, being covered with a flaky substance,
but it becomes bluish when this is removed. The bird takes a
position on the nest like that of most other birds, but sits a
little farther back on account of its long legs, thus bringing
the eggs a little more toward the breast. It does not sit

LIFE niSTORY OF THE AMERICAN FLAMINGO. 55

astride of the nest, as it has so often been represented, but
doubles its legs under its body like other long-legged birds.

I know of no authentic data as to the age the flamingo may-
reach, but I judge that its life must be fully fifty years. The
bird of the first year is nearly gray, but after it sheds its first
winter plumage, it assumes a reddish color. One familiar with
flamingoes can easily distinguish their ages, at least to the
fourth year, and it is evident that they do not reach their full
brightness before the seventh year.

The natives used to be in the habit of taking large numbers
of them for food during the moulting season, when the birds
cannot fly, the feathers being so few and the body so heavy.
The plan adopted was for a number of persons to go out with
long ropes, surround a flock, drive them together in a huddle,
then stretch a line of rope around them, and at a given signal
rush toward the flock. The birds, in their efforts to escape,
attempted to run past their pursuers, but were tripped up by
the rope. When thrown down into the water it took them
some moments to regain their feet, and thus their captors
gathered them in.

Fifty years ago they used to be taken in large numbers and
carried to Key West, where they were sold for food, and about
the same time they were not uncommon in almost every suit-
able locality from the mouth of the Eio Grande to Cape Florida.
In these days the only locality in the United States where they
are common, so far as I have been able to learn, is the extreme
western and southern coast of Florida. '

One of the most interesting observations I m'ade was dur-
ing my last year's work. We always called ijb the "dress
parade." We were watching a flock of three hundred or more,
standing at rest some four hundred yards from shore. About
an hour after sunset a few birds commenced to feed, and soon

56 WATER-BIRDS IX THEIR HOMES.

a dozen or two of the largest males began to march backward
and forward in the rear of the flock. Nearly every male
soon joined in this concourse.

The line of the flock lay about parallel with the shore, and
the males took their position directly in the rear in a solid
body. As though at a given signal every bird commenced to
march, passed to the extreme farther end of the flock, and
halted, making a great noise, as if every bird in his loudest
voice said, " Don't I wear a splendid uniform ? " After a
moment's pause, all faced about, marched back to the other
end of the line, and then cried again, " Am I not a beautiful
bird ? " When marching back and forth, they moved in almost
as perfect order as a platoon of soldiers. Thus the parade con-
tinued for nearly an hour, until one by one the birds dropped
out of the ranks and began to feed again.

THE SEA BIRDS OF THE PLAINS.

PELICANS.

" The wondrous, beautiful prairies,
Billowy waves of grass ever rolling in shadow and sunshine,
Bright with luxuriant clusters of roses and purple amorphas.
Over them wandered the buffalo herds, and the elk and the roebuck ;
Over them wandered the wolves and herds of riderless horses ;
Fires that blast and blight, and winds that are weary with travel ;
Over them wandered the scattered tribes of Ishmael's children,
Staining the desert with blood ; and above their terrible war-trails
Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the vulture,
Like the implacable soul of a chieftain slaughtered in battle.
By invisible stairs ascending and scaling the heavens."

— Henry W. Longfellow, Evangeline.

If you were to ask me the best place in the world to study
sea birds, I would tell you to go to our Western plains and
prairies. It is strange, but true, that nowhere else can one find
as many kinds of water-birds as in the interior of the country.
Eare ducks, found on the Maine coast only in winter, breed
among the Rocky Mountains ; the little phalaropes that we
met floating off Grand Manan, flock more abundantly to the
prairies ; the cormorant of the North builds her nest among the
inland lakes beside the pelican of the South ; and swans,
cranes, plovers, sandpipers, terns, and sea-gulls breed in vast
numbers about all the little ponds of water that dot the
prairie. Birds that never mingle upon the coasts dwell there
side by side.

It is a pretty sight to see their white plumage shining about
the blue pools, the green uneven prairie behind. How shall I

57

58 WArEIi-BlIiDS IN THEUi HOMES.

make you see it — the Prairie d'l Coteau du Missouri, the
hill and lake country of northeastern Dakota and of the
British province just to the northward? The broad prairie,
treeless except along the river courses, which thus outline
themselves as in a map, rolls away in low, melting ridges that
shut out the sky more than would seem possible to you who
imagine that the prairie is as flat as the ocean. And so it is

— but sometimes monotonously level like an ocean calm, and
sometimes breaking in ripples and swells and ridges of green
grass like the green waves of the sea, capped with the white
foam of flowers.

In color it varies according to the latitude, from the gray
barrens of Assiniboia, where, the last of June, the whole
country is as brown as a mouse's ear, to the lively green of
Dakota that at the same season ripples in grass and wheat.
Not that our expectations of wheat to the saddlebow and grass
above a horse's head are met there. The wheat of Dakota is
shorter strawed than the Eastern grain ; it has too much to do
in tilling its heavy head in the short summer season to grow
the long stalks that we find in wheat and grass farther south.

The abundant wild flowers bloom on a level with the prairie

— little striped pink and white roses scarcely s'ix inches high,
but sweet as a June morning, the light blue prairie crocus, the
purple wild indigo, and a multitude of showy blossoms, among
them that treacherous cactus, the prickly pear, with its
yellow flowers.

An eye that knows the signs will see everywhere on the
prairies the buffalo-wallows and buffalo-trails trod out in years
past by millions of the great shaggy bison, of whom nothing is
now left but these worn paths that led them to water, the
saucer-shaped wallows where they rolled in the mud, and their
white bones, lying where they fell or gathered into great heaps

THE SEA BIBDS OF THE PLAINS. 59

to be carried to market for use in sugar refining. In a few
years these too will have vanished.

Everywhere over the prairies near or far, in all the little
hollows, are pools of water. Some are alkaline and unwhole-
some to drink ; some are salt, and there grow about them
the same plants that you pick by the sea-shore; some are
fresh, with little streams flowing in and out. About the first
two is generally a whitish rim of salt or soda left by the evap-
oration of the water ; the fresh-water pools are of tener edged
with water plants and rushes.

Here the sea birds congregate. Great pelicans spread their
broad pinions in graceful flight or sit in rows with their bills
upon their breasts meditating over a good meal. The gulls fly
swiftly back and forth, with a strong rowing motion; terns
clii3 past in sharp zigzags, like those of the dragon-flies they
follow ; ducks, grebes, and loons float on the ponds or dive for
food; sandpipers and plovers trip about the borders of the
pools with melancholy pipings ; little rails skulk in and out of
the water weeds ; and great white and brown cranes stalk
about over the plains like birds on stilts, eating rose-hips or
dancing uncouth dances to woo their mates.

Here the birds live and breed, building nests upon the open
prairies of such materials as they can find. A photograph of
a Foster's tern's nest from South Dakota shows that it is built
principally of sticks, some of them large and long, a much
more substantial nest than the scooped-out hollow in the sand
or the trivial fencing of twigs that I have found among the
Eastern terns.

Their food, too, varies much from their diet in the East ; less
fish because fish is not always easy to find even in fresh-water
ponds, and more insects of different sorts. In Minnesota, the
beautiful Franklin's gull follows the plough, and picks up

60 WATEIi-UUiDS IN THEIR HOMES.

grubs as a crow or a blackbird might, whence the pretty name
the farmers there give it of Prairie Dove. The gulls are good
grasshopper catchers, and the terns eat dragon-flies in large
numbers.

But the pelican is the bird most unlike any we know in the
East. His great bulky figure and fully Avebbed feet, his
wrinkled, swinging pouch and long, flat bill, though familiar
enough to city children, are quite unknown to those who do
not live near parks or menageries.

Any child who lives near Lincoln Park in Chicago, where
the water-birds are given full liberty, and neither confined nor
maimed, but trusted to remain where they are well treated,
may see them fishing in the ponds, or sitting quietly about the
shores preening their feathers.

In Central Park, New York, where the birds are not so well
cared for, but have their wing-tips cut off at the joint, and their
liberty largely taken from them, the chief interest is to watch
them fight. A gannet and crane there used to have a perpetual
difference of opinion, and to carry on a most amusing duel.
The long-legged, long-necked crane appeared to have every
advantage of his short-legged, short-necked antagonist, which
could not reach up to the crane's body. The crane would
torment the gannet until the latter opened his mouth, when the
crane would strike with the evident intention of spearing the
gannet down the throat. But the gannet was always a little
too quick, and in the end he revenged himself on the crane's
legs. He used also to punish that notorious bully, the black
swan, till only interference saved the swan's life. Yet the
keeper said that the slo\v, unwieldy European pelican was the
master even among these fighting characters.

In this country we have two pelicans differing much in color
and in habits. The white pelican is more abundant in the

TUE SEA BIRDS OF TUE PLAINS. 61

interior than on the coast, while the brown pelican is common
along the Gulf of Mexico and less abundant inland. All along
the Florida coast the brown pelicans may be seen soaring above
the blue water, or fishing in flocks, and sunning themselves
on the sand bars.

In the West the great white pelican takes its x^lace. Their
habits are rather similar, except in a single particular. The
brown pelican plunges from the wing after its fish, but the
white pelican hunts its prey by swimming. Often a flock will
band together and drive a school of fishes into shallows, where
they gather up large numbers at every scoop of their big bag.
The. water taken in is allowed to drain out of the corners of
their mouths, and the fish are swallowed.

If the bird is fishing to feed her young, she still does the
same, and afterward disgorges the fish ; for she could not fly
if her pouch were filled with fishes, as many books teach us,
because then her body would be out of balance.

Though they live together in large flocks, the pelican so
naturally seeks dreary and lonesome places that it has been
taken as an emblem of desolation. " And the pelican of the
wilderness shall possess it," says the Scripture, frequently
choosing the pelican and the bittern, because they dwell in
remote and sedgy marsh-lands, to typify utter ruin and
desolation.

For centuries the pelican has been chosen as the symbol of
one thing or another. An odd conceit in its natural history
is» connected with the days of chivalry. When knights used
to ride out in full armor, each man carried a shield, and on it,
partly because few could read, and partly because it was im-
portant to know friend or foe while still a long way off, each
man painted some device which stood instead of his name.
Usually it was a bird or an animal ip a certain attitude, — a

62 WATER-BIRDS IN TUFAR HOMES.

lion rampant, a lion couchant, a pelican " in her piety," a
peacock " in his pride."

In such a device the pelican was represented above a nestfiil
of young with upturned bills, her own head turned down upon
her breast. She was the symbol of fostering care and self-
sacrifice, for, so the fable ran, she fed her young with the
life-blood drawn from her own breast. It is a pretty tale,
though untrue, and may have arisen from a curious error in
observation.

Those mediaeval heralds were poor naturalists, never careful
to see all they might, and perhaps unable to approach very
near to so shy a bird as the pelican. Thus what they thought
they saw was all one to them with what they actually did see.
If you notice, the pelican in her piety is usually painted with
the beak and the talons of a hawk instead of with webbed feet.
The state seal of Louisiana which bears a pelican in her piety
does not fall into this old error — perhaps because pelicans live
in Louisiana and the people there know how they look.

It may interest any child living near one of our large parks
to see how the heralds made their mistake. Watch the old
pelicans sunning themselves, standing erect, with their long,
straight bills laid low on their white breasts, and their pale
eyes squinting at you across their noses. The pelican of
Europe has a pinkish bill with a bright red nail at the tip.
The heralds, having seen this at a distance as it lay against the
white plumage, called it a streak of blood ; whence rose the
fable of the pelican " in her piety." Much poor natural his-
tory has become current because men did not see things as
they are.

A far more interesting and curious characteristic of our Amer-
ican white pelican may be observed by any child who Avill take
the pains to make a fe\^ trips to the park. Go first in early

THE SEA BIRDS OF THE PLAINS.

63

spring. If you are looking at our American white pelican you
will see a bird without a crest, and with a yellowish bill, very flat
on top. Go again in May or June and observe the same bird.
He has a mane of white feathers nearly the whole length of his
neck ; his bill and the bare skin about his eyes are blood-red,
and on the top of his bill, as seen in the picture, rises a jagged
" centre-board," perhaps two inches tall and three inches long.

Fig. 10. Head of White Pelican in Breeding Season.

Both sexes show the centre-board, the red bill, and the breed-
ing plumes, and both lose them soon after the mating season is
over. The crest and the " horn " fall off, the bill fades to
yellow again, and by July or August the pelican is once more
without adornment, except the little grayish crest, quite unlike
his white mane ; this, in turn, is shed a little later in the
year.

It is hardly more than twenty years since this interesting fact

64 WATER- lilRDS IN THEIR HOMES.

was discovered, and we canuot get a better idea of the way in
which sea-birds formerly thronged the prairie than by quot-
ing from the original discoverer, Mr. Kobert Ridgway. In
July, 1867, ]\Ir. Ridgway visited Pyramid Lake, Nevada, and
saw the whole beach covered " with a dense crowd of these
gigantic snow-white creatures, who . scarcely heeded us as we
arose ; as we approached them, however, they pushed one
another awkwardly into the water, or rose heavily and con-
fusedly from the ground, and flying some distance out upon
the lake, alighted upon the water."

The next year, in May, when Mr. Ridgway returned, he was
surprised to find most of the pelicans had a " conspicuous
prominence on the top of the upper mandible, known among
the white people of the neighborhood as the 'centre-board,'
so called from some fancied resemblance to the centre-board of
a sailboat. At this season both sexes were highly colored, the
naked soft skin of the face and feet being fiery orange-red, or
almost blood-red, instead of pale, ashy straw-yellow, as in all,
both old and young, in August, . . . Soon the number of
birds distinguished by the ' centre-board ' daily decreased,
while, to account for this phenomenon, a corresponding num-
ber of the cast-off ones was found upon the ground. Some of
these loosened ornaments had been but recently dropped, as
was plainly shown by their freshness, while others, which had
been cast for some time, were dry and warped by the sun.
Toward the last of the month no birds possessing this excres-
cence were to be seen, but the appendages themselves w^ere
scattered so numerously over the ground that a bushel could
have been gathered in a short time, though upon our first
arrival in the island not one was to be seen."

PART II.

STRUCTURE AND COMPARISON.

LITTLE STUDIES IN DIFFERENTIATION.

" The point of the comparative method is that it brings before us a

great number of objects so nearly alike that we are bound to assume for

them an origin and general history in common, while at the same time

they present such differences in detail as to suggest that some have

advanced further than others in the direction in which all are travelling ;

some, again, have been abruptly arrested, others perhaps even turned

aside from the path. In the attempt to classify such phenomena the

conception of development is presented to the student with irresistible

force."

— John Fiske, A Century'' s Progress in Science.

#

COMPARING BOXES.

When we have plucked the feathers off our Thanksgiving
turkey and have eaten the meat, there are the bones left. We
do not always realize that under our ov/n skin and flesh there

Fig. 11. Skeletons of Man axd Bird.

(By courtesy of McClure's Magazine. Copyrighted, 1S97, by the S. S. McClure Co.)

are bones, too. This picture of the bones of a bird and of a man,
drawn to the same scale, reminds us that after all we are much
like the bird. If j^ou will save the leg-bones, the breast-bone,
and the wing and shoulder bones of a cooked fowl, — a boiled

67

68 SriiUCTURE AXD COMPATilSON.

fowl is cleanest, — and also the feet which have been cnt off
in dressing the fowl, you will be able to see wherein your
bones are like a bird's.

Let us take the leg and compare it with our own. First, we
notice that there are the same number of joints, but not the
same number of toes nor of bones. I am not sure, however,
but you will disagree with me as to the number of the joints,
and we are likely to have trouble in naming them unless we
begin at the right end of the leg, — first the hip, then the knee,
then the heel. But where is the bird's knee and where is his
heel?

There is an old Greek tale that the rival philosopher, at-
tempting to make fun of Plato for calling man a featherless
biped, presented a cock plucked of his feathers to Plato's
students with the explanation that this was Plato's man.
Thoreau's ready-witted Canadian woodchopper thought that
the philosopher overlooked the fact that the cock's knees bent the
wrong icay. Most of us have the same impression — that
a bird's knees bend the wrong way. But let us begin at the
hip and count dowuAvard, — hip, knee, heel, — and we shall
see where we find the chicken's knee. Where is his heel ?
Where is a dog's knee ? a horse's ? a cat's ? and which way
do they bend ? (Only remember that a four-footed creature's
fore legs are arms and their joints correspond to the joints of
our arm numbered from the shoulder.) A knee always hinges
forward, an elbow backward ; a wrist always hinges forward,
a heel backward. Therefore a horse's " fore knees " are his
wrists, and what you have been calling the chicken's knee
is really his heel.

Having determined the principal joints, we may look at the
larger bones of the leg. There is the thigh-bone, which lies
between the hip and the knee, the shin-bone, or " drumstick "

COMPARING BONES.

69

(called in birds the tibio-tarsus), which runs from knee to
ankle, and the tarso-metatarsus (usually called the " tarsus "),
which is the part of the leg between the heel and the toe joints,
the part we see in life and call the " leg " of the bird. You
will not find anything in your own body resembling this,
though it really takes the place of the bones in your own foot
and instep, and is made up by the welding together of several
little bones. All you need to remember is that the name is
tarsus and the plural of it is tarsi. The name is important
because it means just that part of the leg between the heel and

Fig. 12. Bones of Wing of Bird and Akm of Man.

(By courtesj^ of McClure's Magazine. Copyriglited, 1S9T, by the S. S, McClure Co.)

the toes, the exposed, scaly portion that we commonly see in
the live bird. It is frequently highly colored, so that books
often speak of " tarsi red," or of " yellow tarsi."

We will not delay to study the chicken's foot, — except to
notice that it has only four toes, — but will take up the wing,
with its shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints clearly equivalent
to our own, an upper arm-bone and two fore-arm bones very
similar though differently modelled at the joints, and two long
hand-bones unlike our five in being solidly fastened together
at the end. There are three fingers in place of our five,
though little nestling birds show traces of the other two fingers

70 sTiiucruEE A XT) comparison:

which, not being needed, do not develop. The only name we
need to learn here is carjms, the scientific name for the wrist,
whether in man, birds, or mammals. As this is sometimes
marked by a band of bright color, books on birds sometimes
speak of the carpus, or carpal joints, or the " bend of the
wing," as being brown or yellow.

Next, let us turn to the breast- and shoulder-bones. We have
a breast-bone, — a little straight slip of a bone that we cannot
feel distinctly, — but it has no ridge down the centre like the
great keel of the chicken's breast-bone, for we have not the
heavy muscles that need such a bone to support them. Do we
have a wish-bone ? Yes, or something that corresponds. Our
two collar-bones do the same work as the chicken's wish-bone,
in bracing the shoulder out. Perhaps some of you may re-
member what happens to the arm when the collar-bone is
broken. Did you ever notice the differences in wish-bones?
Collect a few of different game birds and see how they brace
the shoulder in different ways. The bird has shoulder blades,
much longer and narrower than our own ; and, in addition, he
has "shoulder blades in front," — the coracokls, those flat,
wide, straight bones that are braced against the top of the
keel to hold the shoulder up and out. Study the relation of
these bones as they lie on the carcass of the fowl, and you
will see how much it reminds you of the rowlock of a racing
scull, heavily braced far out from the side of the boat, so as to
give a greater purchase to the oar. By means of this tripod
of bones the shoulder is held far enough out from the centre
of the body for the muscles to get a good purchase.

We see that while the larger bones of a bird are about the
same as our own in number, they are different in shape and
proportions. Now we are ready to go on and learn how they
are fitted to the life the bird leads and how he swims and flies.

THE FOOT OF A SWIMMING BIRD.

How do birds swim? Why do some swim better tlian
others ?

We must not think that in order to swim a bird must be
web-footed: The phalaropes, with only a little border of
webbing along the toes, are expert swimmers ; so are the
gallinules, with round toes entirely unwebbed ; the sand^^ipers,
with their long, slender toes, can swim when it is necessary,
and the water ouzel, a near relative of the cat-bird, plunges in
boldly and dives and swims fearlessly. In the palm house
of Lincoln Park, Chicago, there used to be a number of little
rails wandering freely among the tropical plants and swimming
in their little pool, a proof to any Chicago child who watched
them that webbed feet may be a convenience but are not a
necessity to a swimming bird.

Yet for birds that live much in the water, and especially for
those that fly poorly, it is scarcely more important to be able
to swim at all than to be able to swim well. Speed is essential.
Therefore, because it is the simplest device for securing swift-
ness, the webbed foot is the typical swimming foot. We find
the webs of all shapes and extent from the scalloped lobes of
the coot and the narrow web of some terns to the extra-ample
webbing of the gannets, pelicans, and cormorants, where all
four toes are connected by the membrane.

If we wish to understand how a bird swims, we should think
of a boat. Let us say that the bird's body is paddled by his feet
just as a man paddles a boat, and we shall understand how the

71

72

sTurcTuiii: asd comparison:

bird reaches his foot forward and i)ulls until he lias drawn his
body ahead of his feet, and then (continuing the stroke but
changing the kind of action) pushes against the water until his
feet trail behind.

If we think of the water as less easily moved than the bird's
body, we can easily understand the paddling motion. In order
to paddle faster a man must take either more strokes or longer
strokes in a minute, or else use a longer or ci wider paddle; that
is, he must displace more water in a given time. The bird, in
order to swim fast, must do the same, — quicken his stroke,
or lengthen it, or oppose a greater surface to the water. The
bird that can do all three without exhausting his strength is an
expert swimmer.

Fig. 13. Leg-boxes of a Loon.
A Thigh-bone. B Knee. G Tarsus. D Heel.

If you will compare your chicken's leg-bones with this
picture of the leg-bones of a loon, you will observe some
marked differences in the relative length of bones, the arrange-
ment of toes, and in that little bony spur that stands up in
front of the knee joint, which the chicken does not have.

THE FOOT OF A SWIMMING BIRD. 73

Though the loon appears to be a short-legged bird, on account
of its very short thigh, we see by the length of the bones
that it can swim with a very long stroke. Its large, webbed
foot presses back a great amount of water. And the little bony
splinter at the front of the knee is a capital device (found only
in the grebes and the loons) for quickening the stroke. The
tendons fastened to the point of this extension throw the foot
forward with great force and quickness, as any boy can see
who makes a tip-up with uneven arms, and tries to raise the
long arm by strings tied at different places along the short arm.
The farther from the central pivot the string is tied the less
force will be required to move the arm; and so, the farther
beyond the knee joint the pulling tendon is attached, the less
force will be required to draw the loon's leg forward into
position for the stroke. The short thigh is also an advantage
in the backward stroke.

But the man paddling has one great advantage over the bird.
When he has finished his stroke he carries his paddle back
through the air, while the bird's foot must return through the
water to make its forward stroke. The paddle meets little
resistance on the return, but the foot will meet nearly as much
as it created on the stroke, unless there is some special remedy.
The folding of the foot, which diminishes the surface, meets
this difficulty.

In all web-footed birds the toes fold close together on the
return so that the webs do not catch the water ; but in the loon
and grebe they are not only arranged to fold one behind the
other but are flattened besides, so that they make the least pos-
sible resistance. And in both the loon and grebe the tarsus is
compressed until it is scarcely thicker than a knife-edge at the
back, and cuts the water before it. The last device for speed
is the arrangement of the legs at the very end of the body.

74 STRUCTURE AND COMPARISON.

where they sweep past each other alternately in long straight
strokes, giving the greatest possible force and efficiency.

Everything that could give speed in the water has been
adopted in the grebe and the loon, and with what wonderful
success! In all kinds of aquatic feats they lead all other
birds. Yet at what a cost do they hold this supremacy in one
particular ! When we see the grebe's foot, put on at the very
hinder end of the body, flattened as if crushed by a boot heel,
with its toe's set in the same straight line as its shank, and its
flexed heels nipping close together so that the toes turn out-
\vard, we see at once that this bird cannot walk.

A perfect swimmer, fitted with all appliances for speed and
endurance in swimming, he has been over-developed in one
direction, and is good for nothing but swimming. He is put
at the very foot of the list as the lowest organization of all,
while our little bluebird and robin, that seem to have no
special accomplishments but are good " all-round " birds, stand
at the very top. It is a harm to a bird as well as to a man
to be so much developed along one line that he is weak in
other directions. So in science we say that " the most special-
ized" forms are the lower, and the "most generalized" forms
— that is, the "good all-rouud" forms — are the higher
structures.

THE WING OF A BIRD.

Now we will see how wings are fitted for flying.

That a good wing must be large, strong, light, and safe
against accidents hardly needs to be said ; and yet not until
we compare a bird's wing with a bat's do we observe that
a wing may have all these points and yet be an inferior
wing. The great skinny hand of the bat is badly shaped
for speed and it baffles with the wind, not being made to

Fig. 14. Wing-bones of Bat.

shed it on the upward stroke. The superiority of the bird's
wing is that it is practically made of slats which swing
in their places to let the air pass through on the up-stroke.
A very simple change it seems to be, and yet to make it
practical there have been a hundred and one alterations from
the primitive hand-wing of the bats and of the ancient flying

75

76

STRUCTURE AND COMPARISON.

lizards. The bat's wing was the simplest possible device ; the
bird's wing is a great invention.

The bird's wing was not made hit-or-miss, but by the
nicest adjustments and by the correct solution of many prob-
lems. First of all, the use to be made of it, which decides
its shape. Then, its size, which depends largely, but not
entirely, upon the weight of the bird's body. Then there are
the problems of making the wing strong enough to resist the
pressure of the air; of making it as light as possible; of
giving to the individual feather lightness, stiffness, and a firm
attachment to the bone ; of making the feather impervious to
the air on the downward stroke ; of making it shed the air on
the upward beat; of providing muscles strong enough to spread
these great fans and to keep them moving ; of placing these

4^^^

^r^

Fig. 15.
(By courtesy of McClure's Magazine.

WlXG OF BiliD.

Copyrighted, 1S95, by the S. S. McClure Co.)

muscles where they will not make the bird top-heavy ; of pro-
viding lungs large enough to keep the blood fresh and warm,
and of devising some way of breathing that will not interfere
with the motions of flying. The invention and construction
of a great locomotive are simplicity itself to the skill required
to make iu possible for a bird to fly with a bird's wings.

THE WING OF A BIRD. 77

The problems come under two heads, — how the wing is
made and how it is managed, — which we will take up
separately.

Let us study the wing as it looks in life, and see what we
can discover. The one here pictured is the same from which
the bones figured on page 69 were drawn and lies with the bones
in the same position as in that cut.

We notice first that when the wing is spread the bones are
not stretched out as straight as those in our arms when they
are fully extended, but that there is a permanent crook at the
elbow which is filled in with skin covered with feathers. A
plucked chicken shows us that this extension is a fold of skin
with a stout tendon running along the double of it like the
drawstring of a bag. When the wing is closed this tendon
puckers up and holds the wing neatly folded by the bird's
side. When the wing is extended this skinny flap greatly
increases its area, and the tendon makes a firm selvedge along
the margin. Even the bat has such a membrane along the
front edge of the wing, and undoubtedly it assists both bird
and bat in steering their flight up or down, while it probably
aids, as a jib aids the mainsail of a vessel, in equalizing the
pressure of the wind against the after part of the wing.

In examining the covering of feathers we see that they are
of different lengths, differently attached. There are the short
ones which cover the skinny portions of the wing in over-
lapping layers, and the long ones which are attached to the
back edge from tip to body in a single line of strong, wide,
long quills whose use is to increase the area of the wing by
adding the least possible weight. These quills are arranged in
series according to the place where they grow. Those that
spring from the tip of the wing, or hand, are called primaries ;
those that are attached to the forearm are the secondaries, and

78

STRUCTriiE AND COMPARTSON.

those that lie alonc^ the ii})per arm-bone are the tertiaries, or
scapulars, as they are sometimes called, that is, shoulder
feathers. The primaries are always either nine or ten in
number, and never vary in birds of the same family ; they are
also unevenly webbed and often have the broader web sheared

HG FEDCB A

Fig. 16. Diagram of Technical Terms.
A Primaries. B Secondaries. C Primary Coverts. I) Greater Coverts.
E Tertiaries. F Throat. G Chin. H Bill. / Front. J Crown.
K Lesser Coverts. L Interscapular region. 31 Leg (tarsus). N
Abdomen. 0 Kump. P Upper tail coverts. Q Under tail coverts.

away toward the tip, making emarginate primaries. The second-
aries vary much in number, are evenly webbed or nearly so,
are never emarginate, and differ from the primaries in one
other important respect, — they are movable.

With the bird's wing in our hand we should notice one other

THE WING OF A BIRD. 79

point, — its extreme lightness. Here are strong bones, power-
ful muscles, stiff, long quills, a wing of large extent made to
bear up a heavy bird and to propel him faster than a railroad
train can travel ; yet the whole machine weighs but a few ounces
even in a bird of the largest size. We have noticed how a
membrane stretched out in front and a band of feathers thrown
out behind, without any heavy frame to support them, save
weight; but the same economy is even more apparent when
we observe that the wing-bones themselves are hollow.

The general shape of the wing is such as to beat down the
air with a firm, clean stroke, for which it is concave below to
hold the air on the downward, convex above to shed it on the
upward beat. We must not conceive of the air as having no
weight and no resistance ; en the contrary, every time the wing
rises it has to lift all the air above it, and special provisions
are made, not only in the shape but also in the structure of the
wing, to relieve it of as much weight as possible. The second-
aries are movable, and lie between little ridges across the larger
fore-arm bone, in which they turn, like oars in rowlocks, edge
up on the upward stroke, face down on the descending beat.

It is generally believed that the hollow bones of a bird help
it to rise in the air, and that all a bird's bones are hollow.
This is a gross error, as you will see if you examine the leg-
bones of a chicken or a duck. Indeed, I do not now remember
any bird of this country which has not marrow in its leg-bones.
On the other hand, the leg-bones of the ostrich, which cannot
fly at all, contain more air-cells than those of our strongest
flyers. While nearly all a bird's bones are full of air-cells,
none but the wing-bones are hollow, and even these in some
of our strongest fliers are solid. The swifts, for example,
have long, slender, solid wing-bones. The swallows have
only the upper arm-bone hollow. Hollow bones, therefore,

80 STRrcruRE and comparison.

are not necessary. The first thing a])sohitel3' required is
strength to stand all strains put upon the wing ; the second is
surface enough to fasten the muscles, tendons, and strong
flight feathers firmly. We can imagine the wing-bones as
being made of the right size and shape, and then bored out
inside until the weight is reduced as much as is safe. We can
see thus that a long and very slender wing-bone like the swift's
or swallow's might not perhaps be bored out at all without
making it liable to break.

Lightness is only an advantage, not a necessity in the wing.
Safety is the prime essential. To secure this the weight is
never reduced to the danger point, and a number of neat
devices are arranged to guard against accidents. If you
examine the wing of a chicken you will see that while there
is considerable freedom of movement in the joints as they
lie by the side in the closed wdng, as soon as the wing is
extended the joints lock and become rigid, so that the wing
cannot be twisted back by any sudden flaw. Only at the
shoulder is there any flexibility, and this is guarded by the
strong muscles that draw the wing up and down.

Thus we see how perfectly the bird's wing is planned to
secure speed and safety with the least exertion. It is not
so simple as at first appeared, and there is still more which
we shall have no time to study.

A FEATHEK.

Ix order to understand how the bird's wing can resist the
pressure of the air, we must examine the wing-quill of some
large bird. Our Christmas or Thanksgiving turkey may
furnish us with a stout wing-feather, or we may pick some
up in the parks in summer when the ducks and geese are
moulting, or we may, if nothing better can be obtained, pull
a feather from the turkey-tail duster, remembering always that
we have a tail-feather, not a wing-feather. But having pro-
'Bured a broad-webbed feather, study it carefully. Eub your
linger along the webs to test its elasticity. Notice the effect
of pressing it in different directions and observe how it
stretches under pressure like a piece of jersey cloth, breaking
apart only under rough usage or great strain, and readily
being coaxed back into place again.

What makes the web of the feather so elastic ? The ques-
tion is not easy to answer clearly, for a feather is complicated
and its parts are minute. With the unaided eye we see too
little and with the microscope we see too much. We shall
understand best by taking for the first a feather whose parts
can be readily made out without a microscope. An ostrich
plume, for example, is made up of a multitude of little
plumes, called barbs, attached to a quill, or shaft; and each
of these barbs is itself a miniature plume with its own shaft
and barbs, to which is given the name of barbules. Few
feathers show the barbules as plainly as these plumes of the
ostrich, but the ostrich's barbules are not connected, so the
G 81

82 STRUCTUliE AND COMPARISON.

plumes would bo wholly useless for flight even if the wings
were large enough to lift the bird.

In the long feathers of the peacock's tail-coverts we see a
feather that is fringed with scattered disconnected barbs near
the base, but is tipped with interlocking barbs. We notice too
that the barbs are set upon the shaft at an angle, so that where
they come close together they overlap like clapboards on a
house ; and the barbules, being hooked at the end, catch hold of
the barb next in front of them, and hold to it. Thus at the tip
of the peacock's feather there is the beginning of a true web.
The barbules, we notice, are all upon the upper side of the
barb, or upon the upper edge of the ])arb-shaft, if we observe
more closely ; for the barb-shafts have been greatly flattened,
and they lie side by side like the thin leaves we see beneath
a toadstool on turning it over. This is an arrangement to
give stiffness without increasing the weight, and it greatly
strengthens the feather to bear the upward pressure of the air.

In the hawk and eagle this arrangement is even more remark-
able, though we cannot see it so easily. And in these strong-
flying birds the barbules interlock much more firmly, so that
the feather is impervious to air, and is stiff enough to resist
the pressure of the wind.

Without a microscope we cannot see the little barbicels, split
up like shavings partly cut from a stick, and like them hooked
at the ends, which reach out from barbule to barbule binding
the feather together still more closely. Some of the other
arrangements are too minute to be seen by the naked eye and
not easily understood from description, but in every part we
find the feather wonderfully planned to resist the pressure of
the air without the slightest unnecessary weight.

These little barbules have to hold tight to each other; for
if they lost their grip the wind would blow up through the

A FEATHER. 83

gap, and much of the effectiveness of the feather would be
lost. If a bird is to fly well it must have firmly webbed
feathers, and all flying birds have them. If the ostrich had
wings as large as thunderclouds, he could not fly unless his
airy plumes were replaced by good quills fit to beat down
the air under them.

We observe that all the long quills overlap each other like
the shingles of a roof, and that the unevenly webbed primaries
lie with their narrow edge uppermost, and their wide web
caught under the quill next nearer to the body. This greatly
aids in making the wing air-tight; for, on the downward
stroke, the wide web is pressed so firmly against the strong
quill and stiff outer web of the next feather that the air cannot
pass through.

But on the up stroke there is nothing to hold the weak
web, which is borne down by the air, and thus the pressure
on the wing is relieved. While this would happen anyway,
it is such a help to the bird in flying that a special appa-
ratus is provided along the back of the forearm for turning
the secondaries on edge to let the air pass through on the
upward stroke. By these arrangements the bird is able to
press down a large quantity of air with every wing-beat, but
is not required to lift an almost equally large amount when
the wing rises. The inability to do this is what makes the
bat so much less swift and capable upon the wing, although
in comparison with the weight of his body his wing area is
very much greater than the bird's.

THE BIRD IN THE AIR.

As long ago as King Solomon, who was the first naturalist,
"the way of the bird in the air " was one of the stock mysteries
for men to wonder over. How does a bird fly ? It is only
recently that the secret has been discovered.

In order to fly a bird must have wings large enough to
support his weight, and muscles strong enough to move his
wings; there seems to be nothing else required beyond a
proper adjustment of power and supporting surface. We do
not at first observe any such wonderful adaptations in wings
as we saw in the loon's foot to fit it for a life in the water —
merely more or less wing, longer or shorter, pointed or rounded.
But the wonderful thing is that the bird can fly at all.

Here we have the problem in its simplest form : how is an
eagle, weighing ten pounds, to raise himself in the air by
flapping two broad fans that spread from tip to tip some seven
feet ? Some say that his hollow bones and the air-sacs in his
body help to lift him, — as if a bird were a balloon. But a
balloon, if filled with air, would rise no more than a grocery
bag blown full and tied ; a balloon is always filled with a gas
lighter than air. An eagle can never, by any kind of puffing
himself up with air, diminish that ten pounds in weight,
even by a single ounce. The balloon theory finds two other
obstacles — a balloon must sail before the wind, and it can
travel no faster than the breeze that bears it, while the bird's
speed is voluntary, and he usually prefers to fly against the
wind. The bird's power to fill himself with air does not
account for his flying.

84

THE BIRD IN THE AIR.

85

86

STRUCTURE AND COMPARISON.

Otliers say that the bird tiies like a kite, and this is pajtly
right. The bird's body does act very much like the string of
the kite, serving as a weight to hold it steady. But the kite
cannot lift the boy at the end of the string; if it could, the
kite would fall just as we see it do when the string breaks.

That laughable story for boys, '' Phaeton Rogers," tells us
how Phaeton made his great kite draw his wagon down the
road, and how the kite ran away with him while the whole
town raced after to find out what the matter was. Now we
know that the kite would not fly at all unless it could keep
a taut string; and the faster the wagon moved the nearer it
would be to outrunning the kite, so that it is hardly probable
that Phaeton's wagon would travel as fast as the story says.
Did you never underrun your kite and bring it down even

Fig. 18. Gulls Flvixu — Fkom Instantaneous Photograph.

(After Marey.)

(The dotted line shows successive positions of wrist joint in flight.)

when there was a good breeze ? Now in most instances a
bird outruns the breeze, and he has no stationary weight;
for his body, the weight, travels as fast as the wings. So we
see that a bird does not resemble the kite.

More nearly does the bird resemble the swimmer, who supports
himself in the water by striking out with his arms, pushing him-
self up and forward by the resistance of the water to his stroke.
The bird rises and moves ahead by the forward and downward
sweep of his wings, falls a little in air as he again raises them,
and once more moves ahead and up with the new stroke.

THE BinD IN THE AIR.

87

Like the swimmer he advances by a series of undulatiors,
a long incline upward (Fig. 19) when his wings press the air, a
little drop downward as he raises them to get them in position
once more. But the bird's stroke is different from the swim-
mer's. As soon as his wings are at their highest point, they
begin to turn forivard and downward with a strong, even
sweep that lifts the body and carries it ahead.

The air is driven backward less by the direction in which
the wmg is moved than by the curvature of the under surface,
by its general shape, and by the rotary motion at the shoulder
joint. When it is necessary to recover for the next stroke,
see by the picture how neatly it is done. The wing bends at
the joint, leaving only half as great a resisting surface, the

Fig. 19. Gulls Flying — 50 Images per Second. (After Marey.)

(The line shows the centre of gravity in successive positions.)

secondaries roll on edge, removing still more pressure ; the
body drops a little by its own weight, and up flies the wing
into place so quickly that the camera can get but two pictures,
though it takes four of the descending stroke. Please notice
carefully that the wing-beat is a forward motion ; the tip of
the wing never drags far back ; even when it is ready to be
raised it is still on a line with the eye. The bird is always
reaching ahead to cut into air not yet disturbed by his own
movement.

We know that the bird rises by the resistance of the air,
using his wings as levers and the air as a fulcrum. But how

88 STRUCTURE AXD COMPARISON.

does he get his start? How does he guide his course? How-
does he stop ?

Watch different birds taking flight. The okl crow on the
fence-rail, if there is no breeze, throws himself forward and
drops a little, which gives him his first wing stroke with
all the momentum of his falling body. When there is a
wind he turns to face it, even if he intends to fly in the other
direction, stretches up on his legs to his full height, and lifts
his wings. The wind fills them. He leans down upon it, and
his first stroke gives him headway and bears him up.

Many birds give a little leap in air as a help in rising from
the ground. From a tree it is easy for any bird to get upon
the wing, but starting from a level surface the difficulties are
greater and they increase with the weight of the bird, whether
he be a good flyer or not. The turkey-buzzard, a majestic
bird on the wdng, makes a slow, ungraceful start. The eagle,
even when in danger of his life, has been reported to stop
to run in awkward leaps several rods because he could not at
once gain momentum enough for his wings to get their
leverage. The loon is habitually in a worse plight, for he
can get no chance to spring from the water, and must get his
momentum by running along the surface, flapping his wings.
Even then his wings are too small to lift his heavy body unless
there is a breeze blowing.

What is momentum ? — an impulse to go ahead. A body
at rest has only a tendency to stay still, its inertia, until some-
thing sets it moving. The bird starting to fly must overcome
its inertia. If it can once get the going-ahead motion, all it
needs to do is to hold its body in the right position and lift
itself with its wings.

Holding the body in this or that position alters the direction
of the bird's flight. If he wishes to rise he throws the body

THE BIRD IN THE AIR. 89

into a more or less vertical position, according to the angle at
which he wants to ascend; if he wishes to glide down, he just
lets himself fall forward. The straighter the body is held the
straighter up the bird goes. The straighter it is held the more
directly he descends.

If you should ever see a game bird " tower " you will notice
how erect the body is. I know no flight among our American
birds so nearly vertical as the towering of the ruffed grouse,
but it is an exhibition not often seen unless one is with a gun-
ner, as the birds seldom or never tower unless wounded in the
head.

We have already described the forward movement of the
bird in studying the stroke. Let us notice again the peculiar
folding of the upraised wing and the rolling secondaries which
spill the air and make the work of lifting the wing both quick
and easy.

Speed in flight is attained in two ways — by the shape of the
wings, and by the quickness with which they are moved. A
small-winged bird may fly very fast by moving its wings with
great rapidity, and a large-winged bird may be a slow flyer if
it move its wings very slowly. But if two birds move their
wings the same number of times a minute, that one will fly
the faster which has the longer wings, because it has the
greater leverage on the air. We shall notice too that all swift-
flying birds have very strong primaries, and the stronger flyers
have also very long primaries. Long wings, long primaries,
strong primaries, make the work easier for the bird.

Very swift birds one may expect to find with narrow wings.
The reason is that the wings are levers and their length and
strength give them their efficiency without regard to their
width. So the swifts and swallows and terns have very long,
narrow wings. Birds with wings both wide and long must

90 STRUCTURE AND COMPARISON.

oitlier be rather slow tiyers or else in the habit of soaring, for
which they need a large area of wing. But a very long-winged
bird, even though its wings are narrow, may be able to soar if,
like the albatross and man-of-war bird, its wings are long enough
to furnish the required area in spite of their narrowness.

In steering the tail does most of the work, though a part of
the work is, and the whole may be, done by the wings. Birds
making quick evolutions are commonly long-tailed. The terns,
goshawk. Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks are good examples
of this. On the other hand, the chimney-swift is rather short-
tailed. Birds with short tails and long legs usually trail the
legs behind in flight, so that a boy of my acquaintance described
a heron as " a big bird with only one tail feather, which was a
yard long." The loon also, though his legs are not long,
stretches them out behind him with the webs of the feet held
close together to steer him. Finally, a bird that loses his tail
has to learn how to steer himself. A cat-bird that I once knew,
having lost his tail by accident, was hard put to tell where he
was going until he learned to steer a more certain course with
his wings.

In hovering, also, the tail plays an important part. Watch
the humming-bird before the flower, the king-bird over the
grass, the sparrow-hawk above the hole of the meadow-mouse.
You will see that the tail is held full spread and nearly at
right angles to the body, unless the body itself is dropped, as
it often is in the humming-birds. Thus the tail holds a large
part of the air fanned back by the wings, and acts as a drag
on the bird to hold him stationary or nearly so.

One of the prettiest sights I ever saw was a common tern
that, attracted by my fishing, came and hovered within ten feet
of me, keenly curious, his scarlet bill and feet, black cap,
silvery mantle, and white body gay as a picture against the

THE BIRD IN THE AIR. 91

blue water of the bay. For nearly a minute lie held himself
as stationary as if suspended on a wire, hovering with head
bent down, wings partly flexed, and his long forked tail dipped
almost at right angles to the body and spread so wide that it
looked nearly square across the end — a position in which the
forces that naturally would have borne him ahead were bal-
anced by others that held him back.

Stopping is accomplished by both wings and tail. A bird in
swift flight, wishing to check his course immediately, spreads
his tail to the fullest extent, throws up his wings, and drops
as nearly vertically as his momentum will permit him. Watch
pigeons and you will observe that they are experts in this
method of alighting. But commonly a bird merely draws in
his wings, spreads his tail more or less to check his motion,
and comes gliding down on an easy slant.

Aside from these necessary motions the bird has a number
of tricks no more a part of flying than riding on one wheel is a
part of bicycling, but very pretty sport. We sometimes see a
bird glide until his momentum is gone, when, with a stroke or
two, he sends himself forward and rests on his wings till the
new impulse is exhausted.

Sometimes birds play with the wind, mounting by merely
turning to face it, and then sliding down the breeze a short
distance, when they turn once more to the wind and let it raise
them. Again one bird, the tumbler pigeon, is noted for its
habit of falling backward in mid-air, a habit thought by some
to have its root in the method by which wild pigeons some-
times escape the onslaught of a hawk.

But the most beautiful flight trick of all is the common one
of soaring. No one knows all about it, and yet it is easy to see
that under most conditions the bird is playing with a breeze,
letting himself be borne up as he faces it, gliding downward a

92 STRUCTURE AND COMPARISON.

little as he wheels about the circle, which will once more bring
him breast to the wind. Hawks are among our best soaring
land-birds; but some sea-birds excel all others in the sport,
wheeling about hour after hour on motionless pinions, keeping
their course and their elevation entirely by some slight adjust-
ment of the body or by an inclination of the tail. Sailors
declare that an albatross will follow a ship for days together,
circling above her without rest. It is certain that on moon-
light nights the man-of-war bird may be seen for hours to-
gether floating far above the sea. iS"or is a soaring bird easily
disturbed. I have seen a soaring goshawk, when a bullet
clipped a secondary from one of its wings, answer with its
wild scream of defiance, and without haste or change of motion
fill out an unbroken curve of its ascending spiral.

COMPAEING FEET.

Not until we see many birds together do we realize how
very unlike they are. Xo bird looks out of place in its own
home unless we catch it doing something quite out of the
ordinary. When a wounded heron tries to swim, or a breeding
sandpiper alights in a tree, it looks strange and uncouth. But
what could be more in keeping than a sandpiper trotting
along a pond-side, or a still heron standing in a pool?
Structure and habits are so interwoven that from either one
something may be inferred of the other.

Does a bird spend his life on the wing chasing fish or
insects ? Then look to find him furnished with very long
wings and very short legs. Short legs, as in the humming-
birds, the night-hawks, the swifts, the terns, and others may
be taken as almost certainly indicating that the bird has long
wings ; for if he does not get his food afoot he must get it on
the wing, or else spend all his time in the water. Almost
the only exception to this is the wood23ecker family, where
short legs indicate nothing as to the shape of the wings, their
convenience in climbing being enough to explain why they
are short.

On the other hand, long legs are a sign that they have some
peculiar use, probably to help the birds to get their food.
Though long-legged birds often have very good wings, we find
that they use their wings chiefly for safety, and depend upon
their legs in picking up a living. It is always safe to infer
that a long-legged bird finds most of its food in shallow water.

94 STRVCTU-RE AND COMPARISON.

and that a web-footed bird seeks its living in water too deep
for wading.

When we compare all the different birds, we see that there
are no great jiimi)s from one extreme to another, — from very-
short legs to those ridiculously long, from tiny bills to those
enormously long or thick or wide. Somewhere in nature we
may expect to find a bird which just fills in the gap and
makes a graded series.

From the man-of-war bird with his abbreviated legs, for
which, short as they are, he seems to have almost no use at
all, to the stilt perched up on his absurd, artificial-looking
shanks, extends all the long procession of birds — the terns
and gulls and the whole race of sandpipers and others that
take their food less and less by pursuing it
on the wing, and more and more by running
or wading after it. The changes, after all,
are gradual.

Watch the growth of the idea of a swim-
ming foot and see how the need of more
or less surface to oppose the water is met
Fig. 20. Skmii-al- ^^ different ways. The first hint we get of
MATE Foot of i p ^ • • ^i t- ■>. . 7 ^. j?

Sandpiper (Life ^ web-foot IS m the slight semijKllmatton Ot

Size). some of the sandpipers. We need not

suppose necessarily that this is a sign that

the sandpiper swims much, for we find

semipalmation in some land-birds, even in

the hen, and we know that this is to bear

them up in walking over snow. Perhaps in

the sandpipers the principal use of this slight

webbing is to help them in walking over soft ^^'

° ^ ° Foot of Phala-

mud. But soon it becomes evident that it ^^^^ (slightly
aids in swimming, and the little phalaropes, reduced).

COMPARING FEET.

95

close cousins of the sandpipers, have the webbing extended
along both sides of their toes, in a scalloped edge.

Again we find another variation for increasing the surface
in the excised tveb, in which the space between the toes is still

Fig. 22. Excised Web Foot of
Black Tern (Life Size).

Fig. 23. Palmate or Webbed Foot
OF Duck (reduced).

more filled up, though the word signifies that the foot looks as

if it had once been full-webbed and then cut out, or excised.

In the ducks and geese we see the webbing carried out to the

toe-nails, and the surface increased by spreading the toes wide

apart. In the loons it is still further increased by lengthening

the toes, which make the

webs long as well as wide.

But one other device seems

possible, and that we find in

the totipalmate birds, where

all four toes are joined by

the web. Observe, please,

that in these the outer toe is

longest while in all other web- footed birds the third, or middle,

toe exceeds the others.

Most palmate birds swim with alternate strokes, now right,
now left, or with one foot a little behind the other, seldom
with both exactly together. The swans often swim with only

Fig. 24. Totipalmate Foot of
Gannet (greatly reduced).

96

STRlCrrRE AND COMPAllISOX.

one foDt, sticking the other up behind. To keep a straight
course a swan swimming with one foot must ''bear off" with
every stroke, just as a canoeman does wlien using a single-
bladed paddle ; otherwise he woukl swim in a circle.

Some of the totipalmate birds are said to swim with both
feet together. We can see that such a stroke would be a very-
strong, effective one. The feet would be held together like
an inverted triangle ; and the loi^est, strongest toes, the outer
ones, would form the lower edge of a V where the greatest
resistance would be met. With feet so placed a powerful
backward and downward stroke would bring every part of the
webbing into full use, and give a great impulse to the bird.

Fig. 25. Zygodactyl (or Yoke-toed) Foot of Woodpecker
(Life Size).

After we get into the higher orders the feet differ less
noticeably; yet many oddities occur. Notice the yoke-toed
foot of the woodpeckers, the cuckoos, and the parrots, or the
still odder foot of the kingfisher, in which two of the toes are
grown together for a part of their length.

What is the origin or use of such a foot never seems to have

Fig. 20. Synbactylous Foot of

COMPARING FEET. 97

been guessed. We can see, however, that the kingfishers use
their feet only in clasping small perches, and that parts
so little exercised would naturally be small and weak as we
find these. Instead of learning the hard names for these
forms of feet, it may be better to tell you that dactyl comes
from an old Greek word for a
finger or toe, and that any
word of which it forms a park
always tells you something of
fingers or toes. Syndactylous Kingfisher (Life Size).

means "with toes joined together"; zygodactylous means
" yoke-toed " ; now what does pterodactyl mean ? Look it up,
and you will have mastered another word from the Greek, which
is often used in science, as in apteryx and in other compounds.
We must not forget to notice the differences in birds' claws.
Here, too, are all sorts of variations, hinting something of the
bird's ways of living. Do not a hen's short, stubby nails look
like those of a hand that has scratched in the ground ? The
crooked claws of the hawk and owl, sharp and shining,
indicate a very different mode of living. Birds of prey
keep their claws in scrupulously neat condition, never pressing
them against any hard perch

but lifting them as a cat lifts .^^^^^^^ ' ' ^^^j*^
her claws, or turning them to
one side that they may not be
blunted. Whenever we see a
bird with extremely long nails
on the hind toes, like the long- Fig. 27. Foot of Longspdr (Life
spurs, the skylarks, the horned Size).

larks, and the meadow lark, we may be sure that the bird
frequents the ground. Probably he will be found to be strictly
terrestrial.

98 STRUCTURE AND COMPARISON.

Wliile most birds have claws tliat are flattened or hollowed
beneath, the claws of birds of prey are generally rounded.
Yet hawks' claws have a slight groove beneath, owls' claws
have a flange on one side, and the foot of the fish-hawk, or
osprey, has a rounded or terete claw without either groove or
flange. Why these differences ? Perhaps no one can explain
them any more than why the long-legged heron and the short-
legged night-hawk — birds of utterly dissimilar habit and form
— should each have a comb-like ridge along the inner edge of
the middle toe-nail. The fact that differences exist in birds
of similar habits and that likenesses are found in birds of dis-
similar habits shows how hard it is to make a theory that will
cover all cases.

COMPAEING BILLS.

To walk through a museum, looking at the different kinds
of bills that the birds have, and wondering how they are used,
is almost as much fun as choosing the pretty things in a store
window. Until one tries it, it is hard to believe that there
can be so many shapes, — noses that tip up and tip down,
Roman-nosed and straight-nosed birds, and a hundred noses
that we have no name for. For bills are noses — and mouths
too. The bird's nostrils always open somewhere along the
upper portion of the bill, so that the whole upper mandible
forms an exaggerated nose. Indeed, one of our commonest
names for describing a certain kind of nose, the word aquilirie,
indicates the resemblance of a bold, humped nose to the
hooked beak of aquila, the eagle.

Fig. 28. Head of Swift.

Among our North American birds the smallest bills of all
are those of insect-hunters like the swifts, swallows, and
night-hawks, which have merely a tiny triangle of bill pierced
by the two nostrils. But what a mouth they have ! Open it

99

100

STRUCTriiE AND COMPAIiTSON.

and the whole head seems to have disappeared down its own
throat. Though the bill itself is so small, the fissure, or yajip,
of the mouth extends nearly the whole length of the jaws, so
that the nioutli begins to open as far back as the eye.

The night-hawks and wliii)-poor-wills, which fly with their
mouths open, have the sides of the gape fenced in with rows
of bristles which prevent insects trapped in the wide mouth
from escaping at the sides.

The swallows and swifts, which fly with closed mouths and
catch each insect separately with a snap, have few bristles,
or, in most cases, none. These birds that hawk after insects
have very small tongues. The swifts have a pouch just be-
neath the tongue, in which they keep the flies that they carry
home to their little ones.

Fig. 29. Head of Long-billed CurleWc

Of the long-billed birds in this country none compares with
the long-billed curlew, which uses his sensitive slender probe
in searching out food that lies deeply buried in the mud.
Near relatives of his, as the snipe and the woodcock, have

COMPARING BILLS. 101

bills, equally sensitive and nearly as long in proportion to
their own size, and capable of being opened at the tip with-
out opening the whole length of the gape. I have noticed
the same peculiarity in woodpeckers' bills, and these, like
the snipe, seek their food by digging it out of deep holes.
Sometimes when walking through alder ground, or in muddy
places, we may see the "borings" made by woodcock and
snipe where they have fed at night. At first we might mistake
them for wormholes, but there are no "casts" about, and
they are too numerous and too near together to be made by
worms, and if you look intently perhaps you may see the
prints of a bird's foot.

The white pelican's is the longest bill without reference to
the bird's size. Watch him some day in the park and see
the flat upper mandible pointing straight down his breast as
he sits thinking, or lifted with its pendulous pouch beneath
as he looks up in anger or expectation. Surely this bird with
a bag is grotesque enough.

A bill hooked at the tip is almost a sure sign that the bird
lives on animal food, and the sharpness of the tip and decision
of the curve are guides to the strength and liveliness or to the
toughness of the flesh of the prey it contends with. So we
find a slight hook at the tip of the bill of the insect-eating
flycatchers, a stronger point to the fish-eating frigate pelican's,
and an abruj)t hook in the bills of the hawks, owls, and
eagles.

Some fish-eating and insect-eating birds, as the terns, herons,
and humming-birds, have straight bills; but a hooked beak,
which is the characteristic mark of the raptores or birds of
prey, often indicates a more or less raptorial character.

Sometimes a hooked beak may have another use, as in parrots
and cross-bills. But you will notice that the hawk's bill is

102

STIiUCTUUE AXD COMPAlilSON.

made for tearing food, the parrot's for crushing it, and the
cross-bill's for reaching into out-of-the-way crevices, and that
the hawk's beak is really far less like a parrot's, for example,
than it is like a shrike's, whose habits are more like the
hawk's.

Fig. 30. Bills of n) Frigate Bird, (2) Hawk, C') Shrike, (*> Vireo,

AND (^) BlUEIIIRD.

Of the compressed bills, — that is, those that are very deep
but thin, — the puffin's is a prominent example; but even odder
is the l)ill of the ani, or tick-eater, a bird sometimes seen in
Florida, which is thinner for its height than the puffin's, and
more rounded at the tip. The bird is a relative of the cuckoos,
and, as its name shows, gets part of its food by eating the

COMPARING BILLS. 103

ticks and other vermin that cling to the legs and hides of cattle
in hot countries.

The opposite of this form, the dejyressed or flattened bill, is
well shown in the duck tribe, some of which have very broad,
flat bills. The broadest of these are ridged along the inside
with little laminae, or plates, that act like a strainer, holding
the selected morsels tight, while the mud and water are
drained away. This is a convenience to birds that pick up
most of their food under water and must take it without
cleansing. The flamingo's bill is furnished with a similar
strainer. In spite of its size, the flamingo's bill is extremely
light, being made up of a spongy, bony tissue, full of air-cells.
Few large bills are as heavy as they look to be, since, unless
great strength is needed, the interior of the bill is made up of
this cellular or aerated bone, as it is called.

If you were to draw all the kinds of bills you could imagine,
I could agree to match most of them from birds now living
in some part of the world. Do you make one that turns
down at the tip ? You have already seen the long-billed
curlew's; and the bills of some of the foreign humming-
birds and sun-birds are curved in a quarter-circle at the
tip. But if you make one that curves up, we can match that,
too, in the avocet, a bird of our shores and prairies, with his
tilted bill, and as great an oddity as any. With such a bill
one would suppose that any bird must be handicapped in
getting a living, yet the avocet seems to fare well.

" It is a beautiful sight," writes one who knows them, " to
see a flock of these birds feeding. Wading along in the shal-
lows, the bills are moved regularly from side to side, through
the water or mud, with the motion a man makes when mowing,
each bird keeping to the side and a little behind the leader, and
if the water is deep the head and neck are frequently immersed.

104 STUUCTl'RE AM) COMPAIilSON.

They advance into the water up to their bellies, and if it should
suddenly deei)en they keep right on by swimming, not at all
incommoded by the loss of their foothold."

Here is a shape you would hardly have dared invent, a bird
with the under mandible much longer than the upper and as
thin as a knife-edge. There are but three such bills in the
world, and all belong to different species of skimmers.

Fig. 31. Head of Black Skimmer.

"This bird," says Wilson, "is formed for skimming, while
on the wing, the surface of the sea for its food, which consists
of small fish, shrimps, young fry, etc., whose usual haunts are
near the shore and towards the surface. That the lower man-
dible, when dipped into and cleaving the water, might not retard
the bird's way, it is thinned and sharpened like the blade of a
knife ; the upper mandible, being at such times elevated above
the water, is curtailed in its length, as being less necessary,
but tapering gradually to a point, that, on shutting, it may
offer less oj^position. To prevent inconvenience from the
rushing of the water, the moiUh is confined to the mere open-
ing of the gullet, which indeed prevents mastication taking
place there; but the stomach, or gizzard, to which this business
is solely allotted, is of imcommon hardness, strength, and

cu
Q
?<;

CO

Q

■ o

o

a:

I

COMPARING BILLS. 105

muscularity ; far surpassing, in these respects, any other water-
bird with which I am acquainted. To all these is added a vast
expansion of wing to enable the bird to sail with sufficient
celerity while dipping in the water."

It is interesting to know that the young skimmers have the
mandibles very nearly equal in length.

Fig. 33. Head of Roseate Spoonbill.

Of spoonbill ed birds we have in this country the well-known
roseate spoonbill, or pink curlew, of the South, with his bald
head, and this rare little sandpii)er (Fig. 32), that a few times
has straggled over to our coasts from its Asiatic home. See
what a dainty poise it has upon the slippery ledge, confident
and alert, not at all awkward, — a true shore-bird, although its
blunt-ended bill is so unlike the delicate little probe of its
sandpiper cousins. It looks like an accident to find a bill
otherwise unknown except among the family of spoonbills, in a
group of birds that are noted for the length and true taper of
their bills ; yet undoubtedly the reason for this form would be

106 STRUCTURE AND COMPARISON.

fully explained if \ve knew what food the bird preferred when
at home.

We have had bills that turned up and down, but no one
would admit that a bill that turned
sideways could be possible except
^^^^^^^^^^ by accident. Yet here is that " ac-

^^^'^^'^'^^" "'"^-^^v cident." Every egg laid by this

y^ ^^ little plover produces a bird with

Fig. :34. Bill of Ckook- the bill crooked to the right. It

BILLED Plover- ^g ^ New Zealand bird, but unlike

the spoon-billed sandpiper, it has

never strayed to our shores.

What is a bird with such a bill to do ? How can any bird
be better fitted for his work by having a bill bent to one side
so that he cannot feed unless his food is on the right side of
him ? But this bird gets his food by trotting along rocky
river-beds and picking up small forms of animal life that creep
in under the loose stones of the dry channels for greater security
and moisture. Therefore, since his course lies never in a
straight line and usually in a circular direction, it is no disad-
vantage to him to travel always in one direction, or perhaps
it is a decided advantage not to have to turn in his tracks so as
to face the stone at every stop he makes.

A very curious point about this bird's coloration is worthy
of notice. His constant habit of turning to the right leaves
the left side open to danger ; all his foes must approach him
on that side. He has across his breast for ornament a black
band ; and it has been noticed that while this is three-fourths
of an inch wide on the right side, it is not more than half an
inch wide and is much lighter in shade on tlie exposed left
side, thus varying both in width and color. Think of it, — all
the other birds in the world are bisymmetrical ; that is, alike

COMPARING BILLS. 107

on both sides, so that a picture of one side of them is precisely
like a picture of the other ; but this, the only bird in the world
that is colored unsymmetrically, is also the only bird that
moves always in the same direction while feeding, thus keeping
the same side exposed to its enemies. This is a wonderful
instance of what is called protective coloration, about which we
shall soon study.

EYES AND CAMERAS.

WiiEX you have longed to own a camera, did it ever occur to
you that you already had two, and that you could not avoid
taking pictures all day long unless you closed your eyes ?

The eye, like the camera, is a box, blackened on the inside
and divided into two unequal chambers by a partition with a
lens in it that, like a little round window, is directly in line
with a hole in the front. These are the essentials of a good
camera, though the little " pin-hole " cameras that boys some-
times use are even simpler.

Fig. 85. Diagram of IIiman Eye.
C Cornea. L Lens. I Iris. ON Optic nerve. CP Ciliary processes.

])ut some one who has owned a camera and who knows all
about them says that though our eyes may be black inside, and

108

EYES AND CAMERAS. 109

may have lenses and even holes in them (though he has yet to
see the hole), they cannot be good cameras unless they have a
shutter to keep out light when not in use, a diaphragm before
the lens to exclude the light when it is too strong, a movable
lens so that they may be focussed, and a sensitive plate or
film for the picture to fall upon. "And eyes," says the man
who owns the camera, " have no shutters, nor diaphragms, nor
focus-screws, nor sensitive films."

But our eyelids are shutters ; whenever we open our eyes
we " make an exposure," and we take pictures till we close
the lids over them. The eye is the first and best of cameras,
more wonderful than any other. That colored ring, the iris,
which sometimes is narrow and sometimes wide, is the device
which lets in more or less light as it is required. It adjusts
itself without thought on our part. The black spot in the
centre, the pupil, is the hole we spoke of. It is covered by a
transparent plate, the cornea, which keeps out the dust, but
through which we can look just as we do through a window.
The blackness of the pupil is merely a portion of the black
lining of the inner surface of the eyeball which we see through
the opening in the iris. Watch the eye of your cat, your dog,
or any other creature, and observe the way in which the iris
expands and contracts, and notice the varying shape of the
pupil. How does the pupil of a horse^s or a cow's eye differ
from a cat's, and how do both differ from a dog's ?

But if an eye is a camera, how is it focussed ? Not by
turning a screw to regulate the distance of the lens from the
object j)ictured, but by changing the shape of the lens itself.
We need not think about this change at all, for it acts of itself,
or automatically, as we say. It will be long before any camera
is advertised with an automatic focus. As to sensitive films,
our eyes are furnished with the best to be had, one that does

110

.ST1UCTL1:±: AM) (OMl'AJilsON.

not need to be renewed, and on which any number of pictures
may be taken, one after.the other, and carried to the brain to be
deveh)i>ed. And the retina, as it is called, takes not only form
and lij^dit and sliade, but color.

\V(^ liave not tried to explain how we see, because that would
need much study. It is eiu)ugli for us to know that our eyes
have all the parts of a perfect camera, and that they take
pictures in just the same way. And not only our eyes, but
those of all beasts, birds, fishes, and reptiles are formed on
the same plan. TJie et/e of the vertebrate animal is a little
camera.

We must not conclude that all eyes are alike, only that
they all are made on the same plan. They vary in shai)e and
size and in sojue points of construction, just as cameras do,
but the essential parts are the same. These diagrams of the

Fig. 36. The Eye of the Hawk and of the Owl.
CP Ciliary processes. ON Optic nerve. P Pecten.

eyes of a hawk and an owl show the differences in shape.
In structure they are almost precisely like our own eyes except

EFES AND CAMERAS. Ill

that they have inside them a little folded membrane called the
2)ecten, which our eyes lack. Its use is not known, but it has
been suggested that it helps to focus the eye instantaneously,
so that the hawk, swooping from a height, or the gannet, diving
from the air like an arrow, may ahvays keep a clear and un-
blurred vision of its prey. Our own eyes could not be adjusted
for such rai)id motion. It is interesting to compare the elon-
gated eyeball and round lens of the nocturnal owl with the
flattened eyeball and lens of the diurnal hawk. Contrary to
popular opinion, the owl can see very well by day also, because
his eye is capable of great adjustment to the amount of light,
and can either collect the scattered, feeble rays of dusk and
darkness, or exclude the strong glare of day.

Eyes are not only the most perfect cameras, but they are also
the smallest. Small as our own eyes are, there are others far
tinier. Think of the birds about us, the swallow chasing the
fly, the vireo tripping along a bough, the chickadee clinging to
a twig, searching for food too small for us to discover. Probably
the smallest cameras known are the eyes of the humming-birds.
The tiny Princess Helena humming-bird of Cuba is only two
and a quarter inches from bill-tip to tail-end, and its eye is
about the size of the head of a round-headed black pin. Can
there be a smaller camera than this ? But the little humming-
birds, when they first open their eyes, are not nearly as large
as their mother, and yet their eyes are as perfect as hers.
Surely these are the smallest cameras in all the world.

THE IRIS OF BIRDS.

If we look at the birds about us, we shall soon notice that
not all of them have the same colored eyes. Can you tell
the color of a dove's iris? of a crow-blackbird's? of a gray
parrot's ? You will find more difference among them than
among boys and girls with their brown, blue, and gray eyes.
When we begin to observe these differences, we ask certain
questions as : How many colors do birds' eyes have ? Is the
color always the same in the same kind of bird? Is it the
same all through the bird's life ?

There are birds with white, blue, green, red, purple, orange,
yellow, and brown eyes. Black eyes are among the rarest, for
most of our black-eyed birds, like our black-eyed boys and
girls, have a dark brown iris. If you ever held an English
sparrow in your hand, you may have noticed what a clear
brown the iris is. The old pelican waddling about the park
has a white iris ; the puffins are blue-eyed ; cormorants are
green-eyed; most wild pigeons have eyes of some shade of
pink or purple ; while owls and herons are usually yellow-eyed,
and hawks are either yellow, red, or brown eyed. Nearly all
our small ])irds have dark brown eyes. We must remember
that it is only the iris which is colored ; the pupil of every
healthy eye is black. Notice the eyes of different animals.
Did you ever see a white-eyed horse ? or a blue-eyed cat ? or a
yellow-eyed dog ? What are the commonest colors seen in the
eyes of horses, dogs, and cats ?

Naturalists think that wild birds and animals of the same

112

THE IRIS OF BIRDS.

113

kind and the same age always have the same colored eyes.
Often this makes an easy way to tell one species from another.
The red-eyed vireo and
the white - eyed vireo
conld easily be distin-
guished by the color of
the eye alone. So, too,
the common towhee of
the North with his red eye is readily distin-
guished from the white-eyed towhee of the
South, which otherwise is almost precisely
similar. But here we find a curious fact.
The white-eyed towhee is not a distinct spe-
cies, but is a race of the red-eyed, and we find
that part way between the northern and the
southern limits of the two forms, — in Geor-
gia, for example, — the towhees are neither Fig. 37. — Head of
white-eyed nor red-eyed, but have brownish ^^o^^n^^^(^^^^)'
eyes.

A curious in-
stance of seasonal
change has been
observed in the
Louisiana egret.

In the spring, during nesting time,
both the male and female have a red
eye, surrounded by bare blue skin.
In the female the iris gradually
changes to yellow after the breeding
season is over, while the blue skin

becomes yellow also. The male keeps „ „„ „

•^ ^ Fig. 38. — Head of Goos=

his red eye. ander (Female).

114 STRUCTURE AXD COMPARISON.

A notable difference in colors in the two sexes is that of the
sheldrake, or goosander, which we have already studied. The
male's eye is red, the female's yellow. The red-breasted mer-
ganser, however, has a red eye in both sexes, and the hooded
merganser has a yellow eye in both sexes. "What is odd is that
though the males of the first two species are remarkably
different, the females are so nearly alike that they can hardly
be told apart excei)t by the color of their eyes and by their
nesting habits.

There is sometimes a change of color with age in birds as in
cats. A young crow, or raven, is as blue-eyed as a kitten, but as
he grows older his eye becomes as black as his reputation. I
have seen a young goshawk, taken from the nest, which was
blue-€yed, though at a later period the goshawk's eyes are
yellow, and at maturity they are red. From blue to yellow,
yellow to red, what a change for one bird !

We have seen that the color may vary with age, sex, and
season, or may even form a racial mark, as in the towhee, yet
that it is usually constant in the same individual and species
through life.

There is another interesting thing about birds' eyes. Any
one who has watched an owl will remember the third eyelid,
or " winking membrane," which the owl draws sleepily over
his eyes. You may observe something similar, though not
nearly so complete, in your cat when she is lying on the rug
half asleep. Even in your own eye there is a trace of this
winking membrane in the little folds of membrane in the
inner corner of the eye; but you have no power to draw it
over the eye as the cat and the owl do.

WHITE BLACKBIKDS AND OTHER FREAKS.

It is the hope of seeing something new and strange that keeps
the naturalist always enthusiastic : there is always a chance of
seeing white blackbirds, and he lives in expectation of the rare
chance falling to him.

White blackbirds are not of uncommon occurrence, I have
seen the cowbird, the rusty grackle, the Brewer's blackbird,
and the red- winged blackbird — besides crows and meadow-
larks, which are relatives of the blackbird's — either partially
or entirely white. Of course these were mounted birds, for so
much good luck would not fall to any one person in the field.
It is an accident of nature, but by no means a rare one, that
every now and then a bird will be hatched without the usual
amount of coloring matter in its feathers, in which case it will
be either wholly or partly white. These accidents are called
albinos, ov partial albinos, as the case may be. When the bird
is an entire albino, it usually has pink eyes. Similar accidents
occur among animals with the same accompaniment of pink
eyes if the albinism is entire. The white of such birds is seldom
pure white, oftener a yellowish, or grayish, or dirty white, and
ofteneronly partial, being confined to a few wing or tail feathers,
or a patch of grayish white about the head and neck. Among
English sparrows it is not unusual to see a bird thus marked
Take note of such birds to see whether you ever meet them
again; they are curious, but have no other interest.

It is very odd that albinism appears to run in some genera
of birds more than it does in others. White crows are not un-

115

116 sTurcTrnE and roMPARiso:^.

common, nor arc white blackbirds, as lias been said. T have
seen a white meadow-lark also almost pure white with only a
faint yellow tinge on the breast, yet I have never heard of
an albino among the jays and orioles, though they are nearly
related. Ducks are frequently albinistic, and so are quail and
grouse; but hawks are rarely, if ever, affected in this way.
Sparrows are another family among which albinos are com-
mon. I have had a snow-white eaves swallow brought to me,
and have seen a cherry bird all white except the yellow tip of
the tail. Thrushes also not infrequently show signs of albi-
nism, but I have never seen an albino warbler nor a white fly-
catcher. This is not saying that these freaks will not be
discovered by sharp eyes ; rather it shows that in certain
groups the accident is rarer than in others.

Even rarer than albinism and certainly far prettier is an
occasional paleness of plumage that gives the whole bird a
delicate cafe-au-lait color — just the shade of coffee with cream.
I have seen this in ducks, and a remarkable case of it in a robin,
where the whole head and upper parts were delicate creamy
brown, while the breast was as red as in an ordinary robin.

Another accident sometimes noticed is just the reverse of
albinism. Instead of being white, the bird is black or much
darker colored than usual, sometimes a dark chocolate or
deep blackish brown. This is called melanism, from the Greek
word for black, just as albinism comes from the Latin for white.
Melanism is most frequent among the hawks, which so seldom
show traces of unusual whiteness. In certain hawks, as the
red-tailed, Swainson's, and the rough-legged, this occurs so
often that it is probably not an accident, but a " color phase."
Robins are particularly subject to melanotic changes. Some-
times they have been reported " as black as grackles."

While albinism seems to be permanent, melanism is not

WHITE BLACKBIRDS AND OTHER FREAKS. 117

always so. Caged birds sometimes turn dark in moulting,
and then moult back again. A robin that was black in
infancy afterward acquired white wings and a white tail;
while another that was caged for six years was normally
colored for the first two years, on the third showed some
white and some black feathers, on the fourth, white wings
and tail and a black breast, with red under the wings and a
white belly. The fifth year it was normally colored, and the
last year it was red below and black above, with white wings
and tail.

The " color phases " already mentioned form another class of
oddities. No one knows the reason, but among certain groups
of birds it is common or usual for individuals to be some of
one color, some of another, all their lives. They look like
entirely different species of birds, and yet scientists agree that"
they are not. This is a very common freak among some of
the sea-birds, especially the jaegers and the shearwaters, in
which the light and dark phases are well recognized. In one
genus of owls, and in one or two of the heron kind, something
like it occurs. Of two little screech owls from the same nest,
one will sometimes be gray and the other reddish brown, and
so far as is known they will keep their color all their lives.
This phenomenon is sometimes called dichromatism or double
coloring. In one of the little bitterns a supposed black di-
chromatism has been discovered, while in the reddish egret a
white dichromatism has been known for many years. The
young of certain herons are white, while the old birds are very
dark colored ; but this is not called dichromatism, because the
color depends upon the age of the bird. However, among the
reddish egrets specimens are frequently seen which are white
all their life. It is not albinism, because the white is always
pure white, and the iris is not pink, but white. The dark

118 STIiUCTUIiE AND COMPARISON.

phase of the bird has a white iris also, and a dark and a light
bird will frequently mate together.

These are some of the oddities of the coloring of birds which
scientific men are now investigating in the hope of discovering
a reason for them.

PART 111.
PROBLEMS OF BIRD LIFE.

LITTLE STUDIES IN ZOOLOGICAL THEORY.

" Science is nothing but trained and organized common
sense." — Huxley.

THE BASIS OF CLASSIFICATION.

We come now to another kind of science work. We are no
longer asking : What is this ? or, How does this happen ? but
Why is this so ? Our eyes will not help us as much now, but if
we have used them to train our imaginations and have laid up
a good store of facts, we are ready to begin these more diffi-
cult but far more interesting studies.

As you study, you will see more and more that science is
not purposely dry and hard and uninteresting, but that it is
an attempt to make study easier by grouping together related
facts so that you will have fewer of them to remember. A
scientific arrangement is always the easiest arrangement. A
great deal of scientific work is only an attempt to sort things
of a kind in an orderly manner, so that they may be referred
to with the least time and trouble.

If a scientist had ten thousand living creatures of all sorts,
from bees and spiders up to birds and beasts, to arrange and
name, how would he do it ?

What would you do if you were given twenty kinds of peas
and beans mixed together in a basket, and were told to sepa-
rate each kind without mistakes ? You would not begin by
sorting them into twenty baskets ; that would give too many
chances for errors. And you would not put the dwarf peas
with the dwarf beans, and the tall peas with the pole beans,
merely because their habits were similar ; nor the white peas
and beans together, because they were of the same color, for
you would say that any bean is more like every other bean
than it is like any pea.

121

122 PiiOBLEMS OF nun) life.

First, you would throw all the boans iuto one dish and all
the peas iuto auother ; theu you would tako oue of these dishes
and separate the plain white beans from the spotted ones, and
finally you would sort out the white bush beans from the
white limas, and the spotted yellow-eyes from the streaked
cranberry beans, putting each by itself. You would have
dassijied the beans. Then you would classify the peas in the
same way. To classify means to sort out into kinds.

Now this is what the scientist would do with his ten thou-
sand specimens. He would classify them. For convenience
and exactness he would first divide them into but two classes,
each of which he would divide again and again into two more
classes, until at last he had separated each kind out by itself.
It is never safe to divide into more than two classes at a step
for fear of making some mistake.

In his classification the scientist would try to find out the
plans on which these creatures were made. With the peas
and beans you very rightly judged that there was something
within the seed more important than the shape or color of it,
and you soon saw that the kidney shape of the bean and the
globular shape of the pea stood for that difference within
them — was the index, as we say, of the plan on which each
was made, while the size and color only served to tell bean
from bean, and pea from pea.

In the same way the scientist studies his animals to find
out the plan on which each is made and the index of that
plan. He finds two great divisions which are well marked
by a number of differences, among others by having, or not
having, bones. It seems to him that bones are the index to
two distinct kinds of life, so he culls out all the shellfish,
worms, spiders, insects, and other boneless creatures into
a group by themselves. Those with bones he puts into

THE BASIS OF CLASSIFICATION. 123

another group. The last he calls vertebrate, or backboned
animals.

But the vertebrates are not all planned alike. Let us sort
these into classes as we did the peas and beans : —

Vertebrates, creatures with a backbone

tVithout a skull With a skull
:. Lancelets |

Skull imperfect Skull perfect
II. Lampreys |

Breathina; by gills all their life
III. Fishes

Not breathing by gills
all their life

1

1
Having a metamorphosis
IV. Batrachians (Frogs,
^ toads, etc.)

Not having a meta-
morphosis

Cold blooded
V. Reptiles

1

Always cov^
with featl
Vl. Birds

ered
lers

Mai

1
Warm blooded

' 1

Never covered
with feathers
1

VII.

iimals

Thus we get seven classes of vertebrates. In some such
manner as this the scientist would sort out his living crea-
tures, and then he w^ould test his work to see whether he had
made any error. He would ask questions about each group,
and then would make out a little table of answers. Are
mammals warm or cold blooded ? Do birds have lungs ?
How do fishes breathe? How are reptiles clothed? How
are mammals protected ? His table will look like this : —

1-24

]'i:(h:li:ms or luui) life.

Vertebrate Animals.

Are they warm or cold

blooded ?
Have they a iiiotamorphosis

(or change of shape) ?
How do they breathe ?
Do they lay eggs ?
How are they covered ?
What sort of limbs have

they?

Fishes

Hatrocliiuns

Reptiles

Binlh

Maiiunals

By writing an answer to each question and reading the
columns do^vnward, he will make a definition of each class of
creatures. Try this yourself and see how well you succeed.
At least you will lind yourself giving definitions very differ-
ent from those you would have given a few minutes before. I
suspect that had you been asked what a fish is, you would
have said, " A fish is a swimming creature," and you would
have defined a bird as " a creature that flies." Then what a
tangle we should have been in 1 There are birds that swim
nearly all the time, and mammals that cannot live out of
water, reptiles that swim as w^ell as fishes, and fishes that
come out on dry land. And there are lizards that fly, and
reptiles that fly, and mammals that fly, not perhaps as well
as most birds, but much better than some birds, which do not

fly at all.

You see now the difference between a scientific definition
and an unscientific one. The scientific definition refers to one
thing or class of things and to nothing else. It is accurate.
You have seen how scientific definitions are made; indeed,

THE BASTS OF CLASSIFICATION. 125

you have been told how to make them yourself. You will
not be troubled in this book with either making or learning
. definitions that are not necessary, but you have seen that the
scientist does his work of classifying just as you would do
yours, that is, in the most accurate way, which in the end is
the easiest way.

THE DEGREES IN CLASSIFICATION.

AYe have discovered that the basis of classification is differ-
ence in- structure. We have arrived at a detinition of a bird
which enables us to separate all winged, feathered, egg-lay-
in l^, warm-blooded vertebrates into a class by themselves. We
call them a class because the line is so well marked between
them and all other living creatures. They form a group by
themselves as distinct as a class in a school — a collection of
individuals that do the same work in the same way.

But each of these classes may be sorted out still farther.
Let us take the class Birds. What do we notice first ? The
differences between them. We see that some are simple in
structure and some are complex, that they are of all degrees
of simplicity and complexity. So we divide them by their
rank into orders, just as classes in school are often divided
into sections according to their scholarship. An order is a
division by grade. Really an order means a row or line com-
posed of different objects of the same kind, especially a file
of soldiers. But we so often compare the lower orders and
the higher orders that it is perfectly correct to think of them
as divisions into grades. This grade is decided by men who
have studied every bone and muscle in the bird and who
know what each one means. They take no notice of the size
and color of the bird, but study its structure and decide
whether it is built on a simple or on a complex plan.

The orders are divided mto families. While it takes a very
wise man to decide what birds make up an order, it is not

126

THE DEGREES IN CLASSIFICATION. 127

usually very difficult to decide which belong to the same
family. A family is a division by relationship. The members
need not be of the same size or color, but they usually have
the same look or similar habits. Who would not say that
all the horned owls belonged to one family? They may be
very unlike in ^ize, but they have the family nose and eyes.

The next division below a family is a genus. A genus com-
prises those kinds so closely related that we judge they may have
had a common ancestor. Birds of the same genus are usually
nearly alike in size and often have some peculiar color pattern
which makes them look alike, but the surest marks are re-
semblances in feet, bill, wings, and tail.

A species is the next and final division. We cannot go any
farther in our classification. A species includes all the birds
so near alike that they cannot be told apart by any permanent
pecnliarity. Each species has its own marks, colors, and shapes,
and mates with its own kind, never (except by a rare accident)
with any other species.

A\'hen we have separated our specimens into species, we
have found the unit of classification.

HOW lUPvDS ARE NAMED.

If we were asked to find names for all the many hnndreds
of different species of birds that live in this country, we should
understand better than we can now how hard it is to invent
appropriate names. Some we would naturally name from their
actions, as woodpeckers, creepers, divers, and humming-birds.
To some we would give good old names that have no meaning
to us now, but that have come over the ocean with our ancestors,
as ducks, thrushes, snipe, grebes, and gulls. Some good names
are suggested by the calls and songs of birds, as whippoorwill,
bobolink, towhee, phoebe, pewee, and cuckoo. Others are gay-
colored, and we readily select their color as their most strik-
ing peculiarity and call them bluebirds, redbirds, yellowbirds,
or blackbirds. But still there are more birds than names for
us to give them.

We see that it is not a simple task to name all the birds of
a country, much less all those of the world. But the scientist,
who must first of all be exact in all he does, must have a differ-
ent name for each bird. So he selects the best of the popular
names, and by adding descriptive words, as red-headed wood-
pecker, black-backed gull, ring-necked duck, he makes a com-
pound name that will describe the bird ; or he names it from
the i)lace it lives in, as Californian cuckoo, Carolina chickadee,
Arizona sparrow.

There is still a great difficulty. Many times the same name
is applied to very different birds in various parts of the coun-
try. What is a partridge? The New Englander says it is
the ruifed grouse ; the Virginian says that the ruffed grouse

128

HOW BIRDS ABE NAMED. 129

is a pheasant and the little quail is a partridge ; the man from
the Pacific coast when speaking of pheasants means the beauti-
ful ring-necked pheasant imported from China. When they
talk together, they are sure to disagree, .because they have in
mind entirely different birds. With other birds it is even
worse. A gannet is usually supposed to be a short-legged sea-
bird that dives from the wing, but in Florida a long-legged
wading bird, elsewhere known as the wood-ibis, is called a
gannet. In Louisiana a white egret, a kind of heron, is called
a grosbeak, but in other places a grosbeak is a small perching
bird. The water-turkey of Florida is the snake-bird, or
anhinga, a great web-footed creature, a cousin of the cormo-
rant ; but with Nevada miners the little water-ousel, a relation
of the cat-bird, is a "water-turkey." In Colorado the same
bird is known as a " water-wren," a much better name than
either of the others. There is no limit to the number of
interchanges of name like these. And the situation is not
improved by some birds having ten, twenty, or even thirty
names in different parts of the country.

What is the scientist to do ? He gives the bird a Latin name
that is to apply to that one bird and to nothing else ; and he
either translates the Latin name into English, or selects the
best-known English name as the standard English name. So
every bird has at least two names that in the usage of science
apply to itself and to no other bird.

Who names the birds ? It used to be that the man who dis-
covered them gave them both an English and a Latin name ;
but now the discoverer less often names them himself. Instead,
he sends the bird to some man whose whole time is spent in
studying birds, to determine whether it is really new or not ;
and if this man decides that the bird is something never seen
before, he gives it a name.

C0XCERX1X(^ THE BIRD'S LATl^' NAME.

Do not think that Latin names are useless or meaningless.
Do not think that anything in science is done without a
reason. We shall neither use Latin names nor talk about
them after this chapter, because you ought not to get the im-
pression that learning hard names is studying science ; but in
this short chapter I wish to tell you why these long names are
useful.

In the first place, the hard names in science enable you to
say exactly what you mean to say. Of course, it is of no
advantage for you to know the words themselves if you use
them inaccurately ; but if you know precisely what they mean,
these scientific terms will make it possible for you to speak
with so much exactness that you cannot be mistaken. The
Latin names of birds, like all other scientific terms, have this
precision, and are ordinarily preferred to the English names,
which may be indefinite.

A bird's Latin name is made up in a particular way and has
a particular significance. The same is true of the Latin name
of every fish, insect, reptile, or living creature, and also of all
the botanical names, so that what we are about to say of the
names of birds holds true of the Latin names of all other
creatures or plants.

If you understand Latin and Greek, the name will tell
you something about the bird. Is not Oceanites, " the sons
of the ocean," a pretty name for a group of petrels ? Another
genus of the same birds has a name meaning '" wave dancers,"
which beautifully describes their habits. Take Pinicola enu-

130

CONCERNING THE BIRD'S LATIN NAME. 131

cleator, the name of the pine grosbeak. It means " the bird
that dwells in the pine woods and shells out nuts," a name
which tells us something of the habits of the bird. Some
names tell us of the color, or the shape, or the home of the
bird; but all have some appropriate meaning.^

The Latin name of every plant and animal is made up of
either two or three words, usually of two. The first always is
the name of the genus, and the second is the descriptive word
added to point out the species. So that birds' names are like
boys' names — a Christian name, like James, and a surname,
like Brown, together making up the whole name of the bird.
Only in the case of a bird the surname is placed first, and the
Christian name after it, as Brown, James, and Brown, John,
are sometimes written in directories and lists of voters. This
places all the Browns together, and is more convenient for
ready reference. For the same reason the bird's generic name
is always written first; it makes it easier to refer to all the
birds that are nearly related, and it is also better Latin.

Let us take the name Dryobates pubescens, the name of the
downy woodpecker. The first name, which means "one that
walks on trees," tells us that it belongs to the genus Dryobates,
so that we know at once what other birds it most resembles ;
the second name tells us that it is a soft and downy bird. But
what are we to think when we meet with Dryobates imbescens
medianus, the name of the little downy woodpecker of New
England, our smallest and one of our commonest w^oodpeckers ?
Why do some birds have two and some have three names ?
The third name shows that the bird is a subspecies of Dryo-
bates pubescens. But this opens a very puzzling question,
which we must discuss in another chapter.

1 Barring, of course, the few "nonsense names" of some of the earlier
naturalists.

A SUBSPECIES.

You will recollect that we said classification does not go
below species; that the species is the nnit of daHsification.
This is very true. But may we not divide a unit ? A sub-
species is a fraction of a species}

We can see by a little illustration what is meant. A red-
cheeked apple may sometimes be divided so that one half will
appear to be entirely red and the other entirely green ; yet
when the halves are put together, it is impossible to tell where
the green fades and the red begins. Taken separately, we
might suppose they were halves of two different apples, but
when put together they fit perfectly. It takes both the red
and the green parts to make a whole apple.

As we travel from east to west or from north to south, we
shall often find the birds that we know well singing different
songs, showing a different shade of color, or we shall see that
they are larger or smaller than the same bird was in our own
home. If we were to compare one from the extreme East with
one from the far South, we should not believe them to be the
same bird, and yet as we travelled we could nowhere say,
"These birds to-day are different from those I saw yester-
day." There were all possible gradations of color and habit,
like that play of color between the red cheek of the apple and
its greener side. The change came little by little, as the rosy
flush grew on the sunny side of the apple. So we cannot say

^ These are not given as definitions of species and subspecies, but as con-
venient descriptions. As definitions they would " beg the question."

132

A SZ^BSPECIES. 133

that all these birds are not the same species, because there
is no fixed difference between them.

But it becomes convenient to have some way of showing
that there are differences. So we cut the species up into
pieces, as it were, just as we did the apple. We take the
whole range of the species and divide the country up into as
many portions as there are peculiar varieties of the species,
and give to all the birds of the species that live in each section
a name that tells the scientist just what part of the country
the bird comes from. Most birds do not have any sub-
species ; that is, they are alike wherever we find them. Of
the rest, most do not have more than one subspecies besides
the original form, one of them being found in the East and
the other in the West. But some, and they are usually among
our best-known birds, have three or four or a half-dozen sub-
species. The ruffed grouse has four, the downy woodpecker
five, the hairy woodpecker six, the horned owl five, the
screech owl nine, the horned lark eleven, and our common
song sparrow twelve recognized forms. Sometimes a sub-
species will be found only on a small island far off from land,
sometimes on a desert, or sometimes confined within other
narrow limits, but most of them are spread over a large extent
of country. Because these subspecies are found in different
parts of the country, they are frequently called '' geographical
races."

It is often supposed that the birds with two Latin names
are the only ones of any importance, and that those with
three names are a mere after-thought of science or nature.
This is an error. When a species is split up into different
forms, all the forms composing it are subspecies, and one is no
more important than another unless it is more abundant.
When you cut an apple, all the parts are fractions ; when you

134 PROBLEMS OF BIIID LIFE.

divide a species, all the divisions are sul)si)ecies. l)Ut out of
respect for the iiuiii who tirst discovered the bird, it is cus-
tomary to reserve for the subspecies which he described the
name that he gave it, so that the form first described always
holds first place on the list and has but two words in its
Latin name, while the other races follow usually in the order
of discovery, with three-word names. It usually happens,
as the East was settled first, that the Eastern birds were
described first and stand at the head of the list of divisions
of species. Sometimes the reverse is the case. The bronzed
grackle, the crow blackbird of New England, is a subspecies of
the more Western crow blackbird, the purple grackle. Every-
body knew the bird, but until recently no one had noticed that
the gloss of its feathers was unlike that of the more abundant
and earlier described purple grackle. When this was observed,
the northeastern bird was marked off as a new subspecies,
because the birds first described, the " type specimens," were
of the other sort.

Perhaps we see now wdiy the Latin name is a help to the
naturalist, and how it is that the same bird will look and
act differently in various parts of the country.

Indeed, it is much easier to see why there should be sub-
species than to decide to which subspecies a bird belongs.
But that is the work of the scientist; all that is important
for us to know is why he separates a species into smaller
groups, and what a three-word Latin name indicates.

THE THKEE GREAT PROBLEMS OF BIRD LIFE.

I WOULD like to have you think of a bird that is not some par^
ticular kind of a bird, not a sparrow, nor a dove, nor a robin,
but just a bird. Do not imagine it as either large or small,
as having any peculiar shape, or any particular color, as a bird
that lives in some special place or feeds upon a certain kind
of food ; but such a bird as you might hear calling in the dark
and know it was a bird, yet know -nothing more. I want you
to think just jjilain bird.

This is easiest done by imagining that you are a bird your-
self.

What is the first thing you would really long for ? What
is your greatest need ?

If you were a boy you would say, " Something to eat."
Because you are a bird would your wants be so very differ-
ent? Men and birds are alike in that both have to spend
most of their lives hunting for something to satisfy their
appetites. Food is the first problem.

What will be your next want? Warmth, do you say? It
is very necessary to keep warm, but with a good coat of
feathers and two wings, you would fly to a warmer region
just as naturally as a boy goes into the house when the air
nips too keenly. You will not be anxious on that score,
unless some accident befalls you.

A more important question with the bird is how to keep
away from his enemies. These hunt him constantly while
he is seeking his necessary food. To get his food without

135

136 PROBLEMS OF lilUl) LIFE.

being rauglit himself is the bird's most imixjrtant study.
Shall we not put down Safety as the second problem ?

The third problem is not so easily hit upon as these last;
but we know that though the life of each particular bird is
short, it is necessary that the same kinds of birds should
exist as long as possible. Unless a bird has little ones, that
kind of bird will die out ; it will become an extinct species.
Kow it is not intended that any bird or plant or living
creature should become extinct until it has been fairly crowded
out of existence by some better or stronger kind of plant or
animal. To prevent this happening by the creature's own
fault there was implanted in it an instinct almost as strong
as its desire for food, and stronger than its love of safety,
which urges it to choose a mate and to spend its time and risk
its life in rearing a family of little ones. This is the family
instinct, and this whole problem of the bird's life is called by
the name of Reproduction.

Food, Safety, Reproduction, — these are the three great
interests of a bird's life. We may of course carry the analysis
one step farther and say that food and safety are the means of
preserving' the bird's own life, and are selfish instincts, while
reproduction is an unselfish instinct, which gives us two prob-
lems, self-preservation and self-perpetuation. But for our
study it is best to stop with the three, food and safety and re-
production. Of these three the bird must be constantly think-
ing, and to secure them he must be continually working.

Now it is a law, both of your life and of every creature's,
that what he thinks of constantly and works for continually
has an effect both upon his body and upon his mind. Often
we can tell a man's trade and opinions by his look, his walk, or
his figure. For the same reason what a bird eats, how he
secures it, how he provides for his safety, and how he brings

THE THREE GREAT PROBLEMS OF BIRD LIFE. 137

up bis little ones will have a large effect upon his shape, his
color, and his habits. If you knew nothing of a bird but
what he fed on, how he got it, and how he nested, you could
tell a great deal about his appearance. It was that you might
better understand what is to follow concerning the changes
of a bird's structure, color, and habits that are brought about
by the way he solves these problems of bird life, that I asked
you to suppose that you were plain birds.

THE FIRST PROBLEM OF BIRD LIFE.

FOOD AND ITS UELATIOX TO STRUCTURE.

Here we are, we plain birds, and we are hungry. What
shall we eat ?

If we were boys, we should say, " Whatever we can get easi-
est, if we like it." Our choice would depend on whether we
preferred to gratify our appetites or our laziness ; also, though
all boys appear to have the same powers, on the presence or
absence of some peculiar accomplishment or intrepidity. The
skilful fisherman would catch fish, the daring climber might
climb trees for nuts, and perhaps those without such special
gifts would pick berries. Though all might prefer the same
food, some would be so much more active that they would
secure the whole of it before the others could get any. Rather
than go hungry the others would take second choice or third
choice or whatever was left, according to their strength and
skill. The art of getting your own dinner is to make up your
bill of fare of what you can get easily and in abundance —
provided it suits your taste.

Now if we plain birds must hunt our dinners, we ought, as
the boys say, " to have an eye out for the main chance." We
have our preferences, no doubt. We also have our fitness or
unfitness for getting what we prefer. Our " main chance "
lies, first of all, in our swiftness of locomotion, of one sort or
another. The one that flies better than he walks, covers most
ground by flying. He will, therefore, be most likely to secure
a dinner quickly l)y flying around in search of it. The one
that swims well, but flies poorly, travels farthest with least

138

THE FIRST PROBLEM OF BIRD LIFE. 139

exertion by swimming, and will find it to his advantage to
seek his prey in or near the water. The bird with strong legs
and short wings will cover ground more easily by running than
by flying, so he will naturally look for his food on the ground.
Each one would employ his natural advantage or accomplish-
ment as the easiest way of getting his food.

Now hunting for something to eat takes up nearly all the
time of these plain birds, so that the one that is fond of swim-
ming spends most of his time in the water ; the one that likes
to ran trots about so steadily that he flies very little unless
frightened or in danger ; wdiile the one that is light and swift
of wing spends his day in the air. You can guess the result.
Each one grows more and more adept in his own favorite
mode of hunting and less and less adapted to following any
other method. As the swimmer neither flies nor walks much,
he may at last become incapable of doing either with any ease :
the penguins that cannot fly and the grebes that cannot walk
are such birds. The runner may, like the ostrich, become as
swift of foot as a horse, yet lose his power of flight. The
strong-winged flying bird may, like the swallow, be tireless on
the wing and yet scarcely able to walk. Not only do they
grow unlike in the parts they exercise constantly, but also in
the parts they neglect to use. The limbs and muscles in con-
stant use grow large and strong ; those that are disused become
feeble and pine away, or else stay undeveloped.

But some one asks if I mean to say that a penguin, an
ostrich, and a swallow were ever one bird. No, I do not mean
to say that. But I wished you to notice that if there ever
was a time — as many believe — when all the birds were just
plain birds (undifferentiated, a scientist would say), they could
not have remained so. They were bound to change, and
they were bound to grow unlike.

140 ntoBLEMis OF niiii) life.

For see how it is with men. The bUicksiiiith is not like the
soldier, nor the bicycler like the tailor. They use different
sets of muscles, and the men are unlike in size, shape, and
accomplishments. The blacksmith can bend an iron bar, but
he could not catch a runner in a race ; and neither he nor the
runner could make his fingers fly like the slender white fin-
gers of the musician. If blacksmiths' sons were always black-
smiths and musicians' children musical, we might expect much
more remarkable differences.

In like manner, a bird's work changes its shape and struc-
ture ; eating one kind of food, using one form of exercise, the
bird, like the man, grows better and better fitted to follow his
own trade and more unfitted to take up any other. We say-
he becomes adapted to his kind of life, and that his structure
is modified (that is, changed) by his search for food.

This is the first problem of bird life — to find food. This is
the principle, — The search for food results in modifications of
structure. Take this principle and see how it will explain the
shape of many kinds of birds that you see. Why is the swal-
low so swift and light of wing ? He hunts little dancing, flit-
ting flies. Why is the humming-bird so slender-billed and
quick-winged ? He seeks his insects out of the long tubes of
flowers as he poises buzzing before the blossoms. Why is the
yellow warbler so trim and dainty ? He, too, eats insects,
but such as he finds in his pathway as he trips along the
branches, and so he needs neither strong wings nor long prob-
ing bill. All three feed on insects, but they find them in
different places and hunt for them in different ways. The
way they find their food — not the kind of food itself —
decides what the structure of the bird will be.

You may be able to discover for yourselves why the heron,
the loon, and the sea gull, which all live on fish, are yet so

THE FIRST PROBLEM OF BIRD LIFE. 141

very different from each other. Find out the places each pre-
fers to live in and how he hunts his food, then see if these
facts will not explain why the heron's neck and beak and legs
are so long, why the gull's wings are so strong, and why the
loon, though it cannot walk much nor fly easily, is a better
fisherman than either of the others.

THE SECOND PROBLEM OF BIRD LIFE.

SAFETY AND ITS RELATION* TO COLOR.

From plain birds structuralh' alike we have become trans-
formed into birds of very different shapes, — long-billed and
short-billed, long-legged and short-legged, large and small.
Let us learn how the second problem of bird life, that of
providing for our own safety, affects us.

We have enemies. Other creatures, which like ourselves
have their first problem to solve, are trying to kill us for food.
Some fishes will swallow us greedily when we are swimming ;
other birds have learned to prey on their own kind and hover
in air ready to swoop down upon us; snakes creep up to
our nests and devour us ; even large spiders will occasionally
terrify and capture the tiniest of us ; but most numerous and
most destructive are the quadrupeds of prey that hunt us
incessantly and with great success. How are we to get our
necessary food while exposed to these persecutions ?

Our greatest security would come not from weapons but
from some- means of escaping observation. In the days when
men fought the Indians, how did they avoid being seen?
Partly by silent, secret habits, and partly by their suits of
homespun and dull colors which blended with their surround-
ings. The British soldier with his scarlet coat was a mark
that could be seen far off, and the straps crossing on his breast
gave the Revolutionary marksman a sure guide to his heart.
Many a British soldier fell because his uniform prevented
any concealment. The modern khaki, which has been adopted

142

THE SECOXD PROBLEM OF BIRD LIFE. 1-1:3

instead, offers protection to the soldiers because it is not
easily distinguished from its surroundings.

But how are we birds that cannot change our coats to
take advantage of such means of concealment ? Let us take
a broad view of the subject. If we were to fly far above
the earth, it would appear to us, I fancy, very much like
those colored plates of hemispheres and continents in our
geographies. So, indeed, it appears looking down from a
mountain top. All the country round is spread out before
us like a painted card. The sandy stretches shine white in
the sunlight; the less barren, but still infertile, spots show
buff or brown ; ploughed lands appear in squares of all
colors, from yellow to black, according to the soil; and
meadows, grain fields, gardens, and forests are each green
after its own kind. If our view could be extended to in-
clude a whole hemisphere, we should still find it marked off
in fields not less vivid in color than these laid out by men,
but less regular in outline. We should see the deserts sparkle
with sand, the plains lying bare and buff with clay beds, the
river courses and watered coimtries spread out in green cham-
paigns, the mountain chains standing like rows of crystals
and striped like tourmalines from their green bases to their
white and icy summits. And the whole glowing picture
would shade away from the luxuriant and almost sombre
vegetation of the green tropics to the wind-cropped mosses
of the brown and barren north.

What colors would best befit a bird of the tropics? or a
bird of the deserts ? or a bird of the arctic north ? Greens
for one, dusty browns or tawny for the next, and brown or
white for the last. As a matter of fact we find this actually
true. The birds of the tropics wear the gayest of coats, and
have among them a large proportion of bii-ds wholly or partly

144 PROBLEMS OF BIRD LIFE

green. IMrds of toiii])orate re.t^nons are rarely gay in color,
most of them being of soft browns or grays or blues or dull
olive shades. Many of the most northern land-birds and
mammals undergo a remarkable seasonal change, so that
they are brown in summer to match the heaths about them
and white in winter like the driven snow. Indeed, among the
few birds that you know yourself, do you not find sparrows
most commonly on the open fields and dusty roadsides, while
the greenish vireos and flycatchers, and the bright orioles and
tanagers, stay among the tree-tops and the blossoms ? It is a
hint of what Nature is doing on a large scale the world over.
Unless there is some good reason for another color, we shall
find the bird harmonizing with the prevailing surface color of
the region he inhabits, or with the light and shade of his
favorite haunts.

But the very first birds that ever were, plain birds, such as
we imagined ourselves to be, must have been either of one
tint, or of we do not know what shades and mixtures. How
can we explain the change from this unknown primitive color
to the kaleidoscopic colors of birds to-day? Could we plain
birds change our colors as we changed our shapes ?

Yes, we could change our colors, not as a man does his coat
(except in the seasonal moult, which is another problem), but
just as we changed our shape. Let us go back to our analogy
of boys and birds. If we were boys, could we not change our
color? Does your mother never say after a summer at the
seashore : " How your hair has faded ! How tanned and sun-
burned you are ! " And, after a long illness, your visitors
notice how pale you have grown. These are instances of boys
changing their color. Wind, sun, and rain — in other words,
climate — will alter a man's complexion very much. ^ In time
it will change a whole nation's so that a certain complexion

THE SECOND PROBLEM OF BIRD LIFE. 145

becomes national, as the olive skin and dark hair of the
Italian, and the fair hair and white skin of the Scandinavian.

If climate can alter a man's color, why should it not affect
the birds' ? It does. The suns of the desert bleach them ;
the humidity of wet and dripping forests removes the brighter
hues and leaves dull blues and grays and browns predominant ;
and tropical warmth and brightness seem to tone up the colors
by some secret chemistry of the sun. It is not so much that
birds choose regions that correspond to them in tone, as that
they are changed to harmonize with the surroundings they
prefer to live in. The object of safety is not so vividly before
the bird that he would leave his favorite food because his coat
did not match the scenery ; but natural causes work upon him
against his will to secure for him what he would not seek for
himself.

The result here is safety. The principle is, — Animals
involuntarily tend to acquire a color that accords ivitJi their usual
habitat ; or, in simpler words, they become like the color of
the places they live in.

We have touched the secret spring of a great truth in this
principle, and now that the door is open before us we have no
time to go farther. We cannot fully appreciate how well this
principle explains many difficulties until we know more;
until we have seen how the gayest bird even may be pro-
tected by his brilliancy and the plainest favored by his shad-
ings ; how certain patterns of coloration resemble inanimate
things, and how, unless a bird is favored by its color or by its
sense, it is likely to have a short life. But we have learned
that even if in the beginning all birds had been of one color,
they could not always have remained alike, and that there is
safety in a color that blends with the surroundings.

THE TPIIRD PROBLEM OF BIRD LIFE.

KKPKODUCTIOX AND ITS EFFFX'T UPON HABITS.

The search for food and for safety has resulted in making
our plain birds over inside and outside. They are transformed
in structure and in color. What is there left to be done by
this third problem ?

The care of a bird's young is in a great measure a repetition
of its care for itself. They must be fed and protected. Of
course it makes no difference whether the food sought is to be
eaten by the bird itself or to be given to its young ones;
whether the color-change merely protects the old bird's life
or her own and her nestlings'. To a very great degree the
cares and labors of reproduction must produce the same eifects
as the other two great demands of the bird's life. But does it
do nothing else ? Is an instinct as resistless as that of hun-
ger, requiring the bird's closest attention several months in
the year, to have no effect of its own ? No other of the bird's
labors is so absorbing, so exacting, so unceasing, as the care of
its young. It demands the bird's greatest energy, it taxes to
the utmost her courage, discretion, and forethought; all her
mind is occupied with building the nest, and afterward with
feeding and defending the helpless young. Shall this leave
no mark that can be seen ?

Here we find the principal effect of reproduction — what we
call its specific effect, because it seems to belong to this prob-
lem more than to any of the others. The specific effect of
the first problem was a change of structure ; the specific effect

146

TUE TUIED PROBLEM OF BIRD LIFE. 147

of the second problem was a change of color ; the specific effect
of reproduction is cut improvement in the bird's intelligence. It
is not that the other problems do not also have a similar
effect. Many a shrewd trick has the bird for hiding himself,
and many an inventive turn helps him in getting his food;
but food and safety can usually be secured without any great
tax upon his brain. It is working for a half-dozen helpless,
ignorant, fearless, stupid little nestlings that makes the bird
shrewd and ready.

We seldom see birds do anything remarkable except at
their nesting season, or on their breeding grounds. We can-
not be said to know a bird's character unless we have met
him in his summer home, with his family. There he usually
has a peculiar song, and often a different dress and habits
than are seen elsewhere ; sometimes he appears to be an
entirely different bird. Who would suspect that our North-
ern dandy, the bobolink, with his harmless rollicking ways,
gay suit, and glorious song, was the same bird as the dull-
colored, songless, mischievous rice-bird of the South? You
will notice, too, that the stupid birds are as a rule the least
affectionate. There is a very close relation between love and
intelligence. iSTothing makes a man or a bird so quick to
learn and to invent as having to do for some one he loves.
We must admit that affection is one of the greatest possible
spurs to improvement. It seems to have done more than
anything else to develop the mind and character of the
bird.

We cannot study changes of this sort as we can color and
structure. Those can be touched, seen, judged by the senses ;
but mental changes can be judged only by their effect upon
the actions of the bird. We see them in the habits of the
bird. Habits are ways of doing things. There are habits of

148 PliOIiLEMS OF BIRD LIFE.

perching, habits of swimming, habits of hunting, and habits
of eating, but the most remarkable habits of the bird are
those in some way connected with roi)roduction.

What would have been the effects of reproduction on us
plain birds is a question no man can answer. We cannot
reason from the resemblances between birds and men in
answering that, for we do not know that the minds of both
are as near alike as their bodies are. But if we study birds,
we shall find among them two very remarkable habits which
no other creatures have so universally or in such perfection.
And they are habits which students tell us are due to this
instinct of reproduction. Nearly all birds make nests, and
nearly all that live in temperate and polar regions migrate,
or move to warmer winter homes, returning in the spring to
their breeding grounds. Mujration and nest-huilding are im-
portant habits, arising from the instinct of reproduction.

Structure and color are the two points about a bird that we
notice first, bat his habits are just as interesting, and have a
meaning. They tell us about the bird's intellect and char-
acter, and by studying them, we may know how well educated
the bird is. Are you disappointed that the other problems
produced such great results, while this seems to give us so
little change? When we study migration and the other
changes of habits, we shall find them not less remarkable
than the thousand shapes and myriad colorings of the bird.

PROTECTION BY COLOR.

The problem of safety, as we learned some time ago, put a
premium upon a bird whose color helped him to pass unob-
served. It was a very pretty theory, but we are to see how it
works in practice. When we think of the red and blue and
yellow birds we know, it seems hard to realize that they are
included in any such design ; when we think of the odd-
colored ornaments that birds wear, bands, crescents, stripes,
and patches, often of the most brilliant hues, we fail to under-
stand why such markings are not a sure clew to discovery;
when we recollect how unlike the different sexes of the same
bird often are, and how frequently young birds are very dis-
similar to their parents both in colors and markings, we must
think that it is a poor law that does^not apply to all the birds
of one species, but explains the plumage of one age or sex, and
leaves the others still unaccounted for.

We cannot go into all the details of this subject, — even
men of science are agreed to dispute about them, — but we can
at least notice among the birds of our acquaintance instances
where their color helps to conceal them from our eyes. If all
our sparrows, for example, had blue or red backs, how much
more readily we should discover them ; for sparrows have a
way of staying near the ground, either directly upon it, or in
low bushes, or about fences, where a bright-colored back and
breast would serve to distinguish them instantly. Now most
of our common sparrows, we find, are dull-colored little birds
varied with stripes about the back, breast, and head that seem

149

loO VROllLEMS OF lilRI) LIFE.

to blend with tlie colors of the earth and with the grass stems
they live among.

But the sparrows have cousins, like the grosbeaks, cardi-
nals, and buntings, that are among our gayest birds, brill-
iant in red, blue, yellow, and striking combinations. Are
these ground-birds ? Not at all, they swing and sing among
the tree-tops where there are green leaves about them and
blue sky for a background, and the keen edge of their own
color is, as it were, taken off. I have often thought, seeing an
indigo bird swinging on the top of a balsam fir, that he was
just the proper weather-vane for such a tree, his rich blue coat
with peacocky hints of green seeming to stand exactly between
the clear blue of the sky and blue green of the fir tree. And
in the case of so brilliant a bird as the male scarlet tanager, the
brightest color possible, unrelieved by any shading, there seems
to be an advantage taken of the law of complemental colors
which makes you see scarlet after gazing too steadily at green,
or green by looking too intently upon scarlet. He cannot be
hidden, and yet you do not see him among the leaves much
more quickly than you would a duller-colored bird.

Another thing that has struck me is that the brightest-
colored birds are found most often near civilization. You do
not find the orioles and grosbeaks and tanagers so abundant
away from farms and gardens. Why this is so I cannot tell
you now ; all we wish to infer from it is that their colors evi-
dently do not expose them to so much danger that they avoid
men ; in some way they either blend with their surroundings
or are able to take care of themselves in spite of their brilliant
plumage. Tliey are the birds that most of all plunge into the
midst of blossoms and frolic in the snowy drifts of apple and
cherry blooms.

Another family of our gayest birds, the warblers, are quite

PROTECTION BY COLOR. 151

commonly tricked out with yellow and green. In watching
them, I have sometimes noticed how much yellow there is in
the green of foliage, how they accord with leaves just opening
or with leaves just fading. This is scarcely color protection,
but it is color harmony, which is much the same thing.

The dull-mottled coloring of the owls, we may suppose, has
less to do with their hunting by night than with their lying
still by day, when in shape and color they often much resemble
dead and broken branches such as abound in a forest. An owl
alighting on the top of a dead stub will seem to be a part of it,
he sits so stiff and shapeless, and looks so square-headed.
Nearly all the sandpipers, snipe, and other shore-birds are
streaked or dotted upon the back with brown and buffy like
the light grass stems and the dark background behind them, a
coloring which often protects the sandpiper, especially the
mother bird upon the nest, from observation. But the plovers,
which are nearly related to the sandpipers, have plain-colored
backs, so that they come under a different protective device.
They are less spotted than the sandpipers, and often have dark
bands, bars, or marks about the breast and head that may
help to efface the outline.

When you have opportunity, notice how much the backs of
nighthawks and whippoorwills look like some of the dark-
spotted, night-flying moths that lie still by day under brown
leaves and upon tree trunks. In the same way, these birds
that hunt during the hours of dark and twilight, and crouch
upon the ground or upon the branch of a tree during the day,
closely resemble the surface they alight on. The back of the
woodcock is quite similarly mottled. The back and sides of
grouse and quail are also protectively colored.

The outline of a bird is often more readily recognized than
a spot of color would be ; we see the familiar line, and infer

1;")!^ PROBLEMS OF llllll) LIFE.

that it belongs to a bird, tlieruiore iiiaiiy oi the bird's orna-
ments are a protection against discovery. "This makes, for
instance, the mallard's dark green head tend to detach itself
from his body and to join the dark green of the shady ledge,
or the ruby of the humming-bird to desert him and to appear
to belong to the glistening flower he is searching." In this
way, bright or strongly contrasting crown patches, throat
patches, necklaces, and collars may be seen to have a use other
than mere ornament, and crests often help to conceal birds by
disguising familiar outlines. The cedar bird and the ruffed
grouse are experts in evading notice by throwing themselves
into strange attitudes and erecting their crests. Curves are
what betray the bird; broken outlines or stiff lines conceal
him. Therefore the ruffed grouse, when in a tree, lays all his
feathers flat, stands stiffly at his greatest height, with his neck
stretched as far as he can reach or crooked sharply at an angle.
I have stood within two rods of a ruffed grouse, in fair sight,
and that not many years since, and have decided that he was
a very strange branch on a willow bush, before it flashed
upon me what I was looking at.

The most beautiful arrangement for protective color is also
the commonest, and though nearly every bird and animal prof-
its by it, no man ever discovered it until a few years ago. It is
called the " law of gradation^ Nearly every bird, you know,
is lighter on the breast than on the back, and it is almost a rule
that birds not uniformly colored, like the crow and the black-
birds, shall be white or gray or buffy along the belly and beneath
the tail, even if they have dark breasts and throats. Why this
is so, is as simple as it is interesting.

Every bird, standing in his usual positions, cuts off a portion
of the light that falls from above and so casts a shadow on
his own breast and under surface. We do not see the shadow,

PROTECTION BY COLOR. 163

we do not know of its existence, but it is there. If the bird's
breast were the same color as his back, the shadow, mak-
ing it appear darker than it is (that is, darker than the back),
would bring out the line of the breast sharply against the
background. The shadow on a light breast cancels the effect
of light upon a dark back and causes the outline to blend with
the background.

Nothing could be simpler than the experiment by which
Mr. Abbott H. Thayer, the artist who painted the ^' Madonna
Enthroned " and other well-known pictures, proved his discovery
of this " law of gradation " to a large number of scientists. Any
child can perform the experiment with very little trouble. We
quote from the original report of the experiment : " Mr. Thayer
placed three sweet potatoes, or objects of corresponding shape
and size, horizontally on a wire a few inches above the ground.
They were covered with some sticky material, and dry earth
from the road on which they stood was sprinkled over them so
that they would be of the same color as the background. The
two end ones were then painted white on the under side, and
the white color was shaded up and gradually mixed with the
brown of the sides. When viewed from a little distance these
two end ones, which were white below, disappeared from sight,
while the middle one stood out in strong relief and appeared
much darker than it really was. Mr. Thayer explained that
terrestrial birds and mammals which are protectingly colored
have the under parts white or very light in color, and that the
color of the under parts usually shades gradually into that of
the upper parts. This is essential in order to counteract the
effect of the shadow, which otherwise, as shown by the middle
potato, makes the object abnormally conspicuous and causes it
to appear much darker than it really is. Some of the wit-
nesses could liardly believe that the striking difference in the

154 PROBLEMS OF 111 III) LIFE.

visibility of the throe potatoes was entirely due to the coloring
of the under side, and M v. 'IMiayer was asked to color the middle
one like the two others in order that the effect might be
observed. Mr. Thayer complied with the re(iiiest, painting
the under side of the middle potato white, and shading the
white up into the sides as in the case of the others. The effect
was almost magical. The middle potato at once disappeared
from view. A similar experiment was tried on the lawn. Two
potatoes were painted green to resemble the green of the grass
above which they were suspended. One was painted white on
the under side and at once became invisible when viewed from
a little distance, while the other showed plainly and seemed
very dark, the shadow, superadded to the green of the under
side, making it remarkably conspicuous. The experiments
were an overwhelming success."

Try this experiment yourself and then notice how almost
invariable is this law of gradation by which Nature helps the
birds and beasts to escape detection, however gayly they are
colored.

ZOOGEOGRAPHY.

Whex you look in your geographies and see the continents
all marked out into countries and states, you forget that any-
thing except men inhabits those lands. How would you like
to see a bird geography of those regions ? Or what would you
say to an animal or a plant geography, showing where each
kind of animal and plant was to be found ? There are such
maps, and if you were to see a book full of them, with all sorts
of plants and insects and birds and mammals claiming the
country you are living in, you would feel as if you had been
crowded out yourself. Yet as a matter of fact we all live on
the same territory very comfortably. Did you ever have a
dish full of apples and then fill the spaces between the
apples with hazel nuts, and shake rice kernels down the
crevices between the nuts and the apples, and grains of
sugar through the whole ? There were as many apples in
the dish as if there had been no nuts, rice, or sugar, were
there not ? These smaller articles merely filled in the waste
room. So it is with the animals on the globe. Innumerable
creatures may live on the same ground if they do not get in each
other's way, and each one can and does have a geography all
its own without interfering with the states and territories laid
out by men. The geography of any kind of plant or animal is
called its distribution, and it tells us where that species lives.

If we had the maps of the distribution of all kinds of plants
and animals, each with its own home marked in a bright color,
and all the rest of the map blank, we should be surprised to
see that the maps could be sorted out into a few patterns so

155

156 I'noiiLi'JMs OF Bin I) life.

near alike as to be very remarkable. For instance, one kind
of bird would be found in northern Maine and New Hampshire,
in the Adirondack Mountains, in the Catskills and down along
the Alleghany chain even as far south as the Carolinas, but
nowhere else in the United States except perhaps in northern
Michigan and Minnesota. Then another bird, entirely unlike
the first, would be found in the same places and in no others.
Then a third and a fourth and many more, until it dawned
upon you that you had discovered a bird state. Then you would
find other birds visiting southern Florida, but never getting
north of a line drawn from Tampa Bay to Cape Malabar ; and
others still that were found only in a little point of land at the
very southern part of Texas ; some that lived on the Great
Plains only, and some that were found in the Great Basin,
and others that followed mountain ranges, and though they
travelled south the whole width of the United States, never
strayed more than a few miles east or west. These limits
would mark the bounds of other bird states, which we could
increase until the whole continent was divided among them.

The curious point would be the fantastic shape of these
bird states. Why should Arctic birds be found along a nar-
row strip leading far down into Mexico ? Why should birds
of the warm Mississippi Valley push up into the cold North
as far as the Saskatchewan and Athabaska rivers ? Why
should the different kinds all agree to make the same skips
and jumps ?

The men who study the geography of animals and draw
maps of their states undertake to explain these puzzles.
They say that there is a reason for the shape of these bird
and animal states, and they call the whole study zoogeography,
or the geography of animals ; or, when speaking of a single
species or of a few species, they talk of their distribution.

MSTEIBUTIOK.

There are two questions to be answered in studying the
distribution of plants and animals : What in the past caused
them to be so scattered, and what in the present holds them
where they are ?

The first could not be determined without the help of
the geologist, but the second flows naturally out of what we
have been studying.

Birds are like people. Some need and enjoy much greater
heat than most others, and some few cannot live in regions even
moderately warm, but all of them desire and seek a place just
warm enough for their own constitutions. Furthermore, no
bird, however hardy he may be, can exist where his food will
be destroyed by cold or will be buried under snow and ice for
many months in the year. So choice and necessity, acting
together, drive the birds back and forth as the cold and the
food supply increase and diminish. For many months in
the year the bird is homeless, but as it comes summer he
always seeks some spot that promises just the right degree
of warmth and food enough for himself and family. The
breeding grounds are always reckoned as the home of the
bird, and maps showing distribution are supposed to show
us where the birds are found in the height of summer.

Why is it then that birds whose natural home is in the
North leave behind them such lagging rear columns in lands
of sunshine and almost tropical heat ? Why are the three-
toed woodpeckers, which are found elsewhere only in the
most northern of the Northern states, found aJso in a narrow,

157

lo8 pnoiiLEMS OF bji:t) life.

southward streamer tliat straggles south ahnost to Mexico ?
Why is the red-breasted nuthatch never seen in summer south
of the northern tier of states except along a narrow line in the
East and another in the West reaching hundred of miles south
of his natural home ? In answering these questions we shall
show that distribution is princii)ally a matter of temperature,
or of temperature aiul moisture, which is climate.

Did you ever notice in your geographies (but not all geog-
raphies have them) little, fine, brown lines that wave about
over the map like a filmy cobweb, now looping downward,
now hooping up, but in general travelling east and west?
They are called isothermal lines, — that is, lines of equal heat,
— because all the places through which they pass have the
same average temperature. There are also isotherms for
every month in the year passing through all the places that
have the same heat in summer and the same degree of cold in
winter, but these are not put down on our maps.

In a general way, we Avere aware that it is warm in the
South, and that it grows colder as we go north, but perhaps
it is new to us that the change is not uniform ; in other words,
that the isotherms do not run straight across the map parallel
with the degrees of latitude. It is much more interesting as
it is. The isothermal lines now tell us considerable about
the country they cross, so that if all the lakes, rivers, and
mountains were removed from the map and only these lines of
average temperature left, we still might know something of
the surface of the country, while a map of the summer iso-
therms would tell us a great deal.

When an isotherm takes a northward bend, we know that
the heat is greater inside the loop than it is outside it.
Usually we find within the loop either a flat plain that re-
flects the heat, or a lower level of land along some river

DISTBIBUTION. 159

valley. Isotherms travel around the upper edge of such
places. But they travel around the lower edge of a mountain
chain. A decided bend to the southward, therefore, means
that a chain of mountains bars the line of equal heat, which
is deflected, or turned out of its course, by the obstruction.
Near the seacoast the isotherm may turn either up or down.
A warm ocean current with warm, moist winds will turn the
isotherm upward, as on the Pacific coast; the outswinging of
the Gulf Stream from the Gulf of Maine turns the isotherm
downward and gives the cool summers of the New England
coast. The temperature line may be thought of as like a tiny
cobweb attached at both ends and driven up and down by
warm winds or cold, or turned out of its course by obstructions
that would cause a change of temperature. Thus it may be
that a place far to the north and one far to the south may
have the same climate, one isotherm passing through both.
But it is not only winds, currents, and distance north
that make temperature. There must be some reason why a
mountain chain will deflect the isotherm. Why is it? We
know very well that the top of a mountain is cooler than the
valleys about it, not only because it feels every breeze, but
because it is higher. We can see that it is cooler than the
country round about, for the snow lies upon its top long
after it has disappeared from the valleys, and the higher
the mountain the longer the snow lingers. Thus we infer
that temperature decreases imth elevation. Places of the same
latitude and having the same level above the sea, if there
were no disturbing influences, would have the same climate.
There would be one climate at sea-level, another at two
thousand feet above, another at five thousand, and so on,
every few hundred feet showing more or less difference in
climate. In a single lone and lofty mountain we should find

IGO PROBLEMS OF HI]! I) LIFE.

zones or belts around it all the way up to the top, each
inhabited by slightly ditterent trees, insects, birds, and mam-
mals, until we reached the summit of perpetual ice, barren
of life and vegetation.

We may regard the earth itself as such a mountain, its
ice-capped pole the summit, surrounded by zone below zone
of vegetation each more luxuriant than the one above it
until we reach the equator, or base of our world mountain.
There is a curious similarity between the belts on a moun-
tain and the zones of the earth. Very often on the hills
and mountains of New England I have ])icked the spicy
mountain cranberry, the goosefoot potentilla with its starry
flowers, or the scrubby little Corema, and have recognized the
land I was on as like the coast of Labrador; it was as if
I had travelled north five hundred miles instead of climbing
up half a mile. Still more remarkable is the case of higher
mountains farther to the south. On San Francisco Mountain
in Arizona, which rises 12,800 feet above the sea, have been
found Arctic plants identical with those of the extreme North. ^
Nine species found on this mountain have proved to be pre-
cisely similar to those brought by General Greely from Lady
Franklin Bay, latitude eighty-two degrees north. By climb-
ing a mountain two miles and a half in height, we would be
able to see plants growing for which we must go more than
three thousand miles if we journeyed due north. Thus the
tops of high mountains give us an arctic climate.

Now we see why it is that northern birds are sometimes
found far to the south. They follow down the mountain
peaks and find at different elevations the zone which gives
them the climate they would naturally seek in the north.
Or if they have wintered south and would return in summer
1 Davis, Elementary Meteorology , p. ^3.

DISTIUBUTION. 161

to a cooler climate, instead of travelling hundreds of miles
north, they go up into the mountains a mile or two and find
just the degree of coolness they desire. So the three-toed
woodpecker and the arctic ptarmigan, the leucostictes and the
snow buntings, drift southward along the lines of lofty peaks
in the Western ranges, and in the East the red-breasted nut-
hatch, the chickadee, and the junco follow down the Appa-
lachian system, finding a climate that is in most respects
the same as their Canadian home.

In the northward extension of southern birds, we find that
they follow plains and river valleys. The flat, barren plains
reflect the heat, and the winds across them are often burning
hot, withering all vegetation like a fire. Such winds and
such heat bear the lines of summer temperature far to the
north, even to the plains of the Saskatchewan and the interior
of British America. Here the birds find a summer as hot as
that upon the seacoast fifteen or twenty degrees farther south.
It does not matter that in winter these same plains are many
times colder than the seacoast, for the bird's distribution is
influenced by the summer climate.

The map of faunal provinces and subprovinces shows us
very nearly the course of the summer isotherms marking
each ten or fifteen degrees difference in average heat. The
north and south division through the centre of the map is,
however, not a temperature division, but it cuts off the dry
western half from the moist eastern half of the country — the
green and luxuriant prairies and woodlands from the parched
and scanty herbage of the plains. And, of course, with the
change in amount of rainfall and the consequent change
in vegetation, follow changes in the insect life and in the
birds that live upon insects and berries. There is often a
very close connection between birds and certain plants or

Hyi riioiiLKMs OF nil: I) life.

trees. Who would expect to tiiul ii sage cock away from
sage brush ? or a spruce partridge (Canada grouse) outside of
the spruce forests ? It nuiy not be chance alone that makes
the pine warbler haunt the i)itcli-pine country, and the blue
yellow-backed warbler always seek the neighborhood of the
hanging usnea, or swamp-moss. All these are facts of distri-
bution, and it is part of the good naturalist's work to observe
whether certain birds and plants always are found together.

The study of distribution needs long training and wide
observation to be of any great worth, but a beginner may do
several things that will have a scientific value. One of the
simplest is to make a list of all the birds found within certain
limits ; another is to notice carefully the kind of locations
preferred by each bird, whether open hard-wood, soft-wood,
thickets, brook-sides, meadows, and the like ; wdiile a third is
to explore carefully some hill or mountain near home, with
the aid of a map, marking every hundred feet in elevation,
and to note carefully the elevations at which every kind of bird
and flower is seen, together with the slope of the hill, north,
east, south, or west, on which they are seen. By such explora-
tions, year after year, over any mountain, noting its zones and
the trees, plants, birds, and insects, the exposure to sun, the
amount of rain received, the character of the rock beneath, and
always the elevation, a patient observer could accomplish
much. But studies of this kind require more time and pains-
taking observation than most amateur naturalists are able to
spend.

MIGKATION.

Besides this regular distribution in summer over certain
well-marked areas, most birds have another winter home far-
ther south, and in going from one to the other they make
long flights called migrations, or movings. The causes of this
remarkable custom are so remote that, without the aid of the
geologist, we can hardly understand how the habit was ac-
quired, nor why, when once the birds are driven south by
cold, they do not stay there. But simpler questions than
these, questions which might not seem too hard for ourselves
to answer, as, in what manner they travel these great distances ;
how they find their way back to the same place, to the same
porch or bush, after a thousand miles of wanderings ; why
we so seldom see them going, but only wake up to find them
come or gone — these apparently easy questions have, until
recently, been a standing puzzle to the world. Many foolish
guesses have been made, wide of the mark, but at last, by
patient study, the facts have been discovered; and now all
seems so simple, so much like what we would do ourselves,
that we wonder at our not knowing it years ago.

In the first place, it was settled that most of the smaller
birds flew by night, which sufliciently explained why we
neither saw them come, nor saw them leave. One moonlight
night in September, a number of years ago, I was awakened
from a very bad dream of burglars by hearing in my room a
noise that could not be explained as cat, rat, bat, or mouse.
The windows were open, and there was out of doors the dying
glimmer of a setting moon, but the room was dark; nothing

163

104 PROBLEMS OF BIUT) LIFE.

could be seen, 3'et the noise continued. Lighting the gas, I
found a poor little bird bumping his head against the ceiling, in
frantic efforts to escape. He was easily caught, and proved to
be a young yellow-runiped warbler, much frightened, but unhurt
except from a temporary baldness where lie had rul)bed his
head against the ceiling. Evidently he had been flying by
moonlight, and the chances were that he was not going alone
on this unknown journey, but that all his tribe were on their
fall migration. But I could not see the passing armies, and
when I looked out in the morning the little warblers flitting
about in the shrubbery were apparently the same that had been
there for days.

It is not often that one really has an opportunity to see the
flood sweep past ; and, because it is, perhaps, the most vivid
story ever written of the way a great army of birds makes
its marches, I am going to quote to you the account written
by Mr. William Brewster of his studies of the migration of
birds at Point Lepreaux lighthouse, near the Bay of Fundy.
Of the experience of one stormy night he gives the following
description : —

" A clear, cool day ; the evening perfectly clear up to ten
o'clock, when a heavy curtain of clouds rolled overhead from
the northwest, and it became very dark. An hour later dense
fog set in, and at midnight it began to rain, hea\y showers
succeeding one another at frequent intervals. Wind south;
puffy, at times strong.

"As soon as the sky became overcast small birds began to
come about the light. Their numbers increased steadily from
ten to eleven o'clock, but during this time the majority kept
at a safe distance, and only two or three struck. With the
advent of the fog they multiplied tenfold in the course of a
few minutes. For the next hour from fifty to one hundred

MIGBATION. 165

were constantly in sight, and from one to eight or ten dashing
at the lantern. ... I remained on the lighthouse from ten
o'clock until two the next morning. During this time fully
two hundred birds came against the lantern. Of these at least
fifty were killed or disabled, and I caught and examined prob-
ably fifty more which were too wet or exhausted to fly after
dropping on the platform.

" At the height of the melee the scene was interesting and
impressive beyond almost anything that I ever witnessed.
Above, the inky black sky ; on all sides, dense wreaths of
fog scudding swiftly past and completely enveloping the sea
which moaned dismally at the base of the cliffs below ; about
the top of the tower, a belt of light projected some thirty yards
into the mist by the powerful reflectors ; and in this belt
swarms of birds, circling, floating, soaring, now advancing,
next retreating, but never quite able, as it seemed, to throw
off the spell of the fatal lantern. Their rapidly vibrating
wings made a haze about their forms which in the strong light
looked semitransparent. At a distance all appeared of a pale,
silvery-gray color, nearer, of a rich yellow. They reminded me
by turns of meteors, gigantic moths, swallows with sunlight
streaming through their wings. I could not watch them for
any length of time without becoming dizzy and bewildered.

" When the wind blew strongly, they circled around to lee-
ward, breasting it in a dense throng, which drifted backward
and forward, up and down, like a swarm of gnats dancing in
the sunshine. Dozens were continually leaving this throng
and skimming toward the lantern. As they approached they
invariably soared upward, and those which started on a level
with the platform usually passed above the roof. Others
sheered off at the last moment, and shot by with arrowlike
swiftness, while more rarely one would stop abruptly and,

106 PllOliLEMS OF nilil) LIFK.

poising a few feet from the glass, inspect the lighted space
within. Often for a minute or more not a bird would strike.
Then, as if seized by a panic, they would come against the
glass so rapidly, and in such numbers, that the sound of their
blows resembled the pattering of hail. ]\Iany struck the tin
roof above the light, others the iron railing which enclosed the
platform, while still others pelted me on the back, arms, and
legs, and one actually became hopelessly entangled in my
beard. At times it fairly rained birds, and the platform, wet
and shining, was strewn with the dead and dying."

Few of us will ever see the like of this, and yet, watching
the play of insects about an electric light, do we not see
something very similar, so nearly the same that the question
at once rises. Why are not birds killed by electric lights as well
as by lighthouses ? To a small extent they undoubtedly are
killed by striking electric lights, especially the tall clustered
lights used in some cities; but there are two good reasons
why more of them are not so destroyed: first, the light-
houses are placed along the migration routes while the
electric lights are more ofteu away from these paths of
travel; and, second, foggy weather is needed to bewilder
them, especially a sudden fog arising after a clear day, an
occurrence common at the seashore, but rare inland. If
there is no fog, the birds do not strike the light, and unless
the fog comes in after they have begun their night's journey,
they will not travel that night. Mr. Brewster infers that
they migrate only on clear, cool nights, and that they are
unable to forecast the weather for a single night even, else
such fatal trips as the one he describes would not occur.

But why, once involved in a fog, having lost their bear-
ings and the sight of land, they seek the lighthouse as the
only object visible is plain, and why once within the circle

MIGRATION. 167

of its rays they hasten to their own destruction we can also
see by looking at an electric light on a foggy evening, seeing
the halo it builds out upon the mist and the solid pencils of
light that stream out from it. A bird striking one of these
beams of light and seeing nothing beyond but a blank wall of
darkness, dazzled and bewildered, follows up the ray in which
he is confined, a cage of light that he cannot break out from,
until he dashes against the lantern.

What birds migrate by day and what by night and why
they differ in their habits, is another interesting problem of
migration, and those who wish to study further will find in
the appendix Mr. Brewster's list and his conclusions, reached
after twenty years of study, which show that not even in
selecting a time to travel do the birds act without good
reasons.

But another point much more likely to attract our attention
is the way this army is guided, why the birds all go at one
time, and how those born in a northern home can find their
way thousands of miles to places they have never seen. We
shall find that they do not all start at one time, as we com-
monly think, but begin to slip away weeks before we take
notice of their departure, the places of those we have been
acquainted with in our gardens being filled with strangers
from the north. About the earliest to leave in a body are
the swallows, the dates of whose departure are easily deter-
mined, but the others are passing and passing for many
weeks in a leisurely procession. We cannot give a better
idea of the way the migration is accomplished than by quot-
ing again from Mr. Brewster : —

" The conditions which cause one flock, or family, or individ-
ual to start southward are ordinarily so widespread and gen-
erally operative, that countless flocks, families, and individuals

168 PliOBLEMS OF lUIil) LIFE.

are set in motion at nearly tlie same time, and the nieml)ers of
each flock or family, instead of flying in close order, scatter
abont sntflciently to ai)proach or mingle with the stragglers of
other flocks or families. Thus in effect they form a continuous
but straggling army, often hundreds of miles in length, and
varying in breadth according to the character of the country
over which it is passing.

" Over a wide, level, and generally uniform region the host
spreads out in thin order ; following a river valley, it contracts
and thickens; and at narrow passes, such as the Straits of
Mackinac, it focusses its myriads into a solid stream.

"As is well known, there are certain definite routes or paths
of migration along which birds pass in especially great num-
bers. These are usually coast lines, river valleys, or continuous
mountain ranges. Toward them converge innumerable less
frequented paths, each of which in turn has still smaller tribu-
taries of its own. Thus bird streams, like brooks, flow into
common channels, and each particular region may be said to
have its bird, as well as water, shed. An important consid-
eration is that the tributary bird streams follow courses in no
wise strictly dependent on points of the compass.

" Bearing these facts in mind, the manner in which birds
find their way seems very simple. From the height at which
they fly the country presents the appearance of a map on
which, in the light of the moon or stars, the mountain ranges,
plains, lakes, rivers, and seacoasts are more or less distinctly
outlined for a hundred miles or more in any direction. (Any
one who has spent a clear night on the summit of a mountain,
will not question this statement.) Guided by such landmarks,
the older birds can have no difficulty in following paths which
they have repeatedly traversed before, and they unquestion-
ably direct and perhaps lead all the larger flights, although it

MIGRATION. 169

is by no means certain that they do this in a systematic man-
ner, or that their leadership is distinctly recognized or realized
by the younger birds who accompany or follow them. On the
contrary, the latter are probably directed as well as perhaps
urged onward, simply by the contagion of general example and
a desire to keep within sight or hearing of their companions,

— both strong influences with birds, especially very young ones
which have only lately passed from a state of complete de-
pendence and are still not wholly independent. That a very
few experienced old birds could thus direct and guide the
movements of thousands of inexperienced young is to my mind
obvious. . . .

" It is not necessary to assume, nor in my opinion is it likely
that these flocks keep intact throughout the whole of their long
journey. . . . But whether among friends or strangers, the
contagion of example would not fail to act on every favorable
occasion, at least as long as old birds were present. , . .

" It may be asked in this connection how the various species
which start together or join one another during the early stages
of their journey separate again, as must be the case, when
they reach a point beyond which their routes diverge. An
answer to this was suggested at Point Lepreaux by the fact
that, while many species of birds arrived together on the same
night, and mingled indiscriminately in the neighboring woods
during the following day, they did not invariably depart to-
gether or in exactly the same direction. This leads me to
believe that similar places along every route constitute what
may be called stations or points of departure. At such places

— ordinarily promontories extending into the sea, points of tim-
ber bordering extensive plains, or the extremities of mountain
ranges — the migratory tide hesitates and halts before ventur-
ing on the dangerous stage ahead, and (as we know to be the

170 PIl(^BLK^fS OF niRD LIFE.

case) birds of various species quickly collect, often iu extraor-
dinary numbers. This pause allows the stragglers to come up,
and when the host again starts, the different leaders are natu-
rally followed by all the members of their own particular
species. I believe further that the southern extremity of the
Alleghanies is the chief point of departure in the eastern
United States.

" It may be further objected that the adults of many or, as
I believe of all, species migrate soutlnvard first, and often
several Aveeks in advance of the young. It is perfectly true,
nevertheless, that a few old birds are always to be found in
the larger flights, although the latest of these are certainly
composed mainly of young. The two facts taken in connec-
tion, however, seem to me to strengthen rather than to weaken
the conclusions just advanced, for it is evident on the one hand
that many of the smaller parties must be entirely w^ithout ex-
perienced leaders, and equally clear on the other, that a few
such guides must alw^ays mingle in the armies which these
parties collectively form.

" Another possible objection which has occurred to me is
that the flood-tide of migration is preceded, as well as closed,
by more or less local or limited movements, during which the
birds at any one time on the wing must be too few and too
scattered to constitute an uninterrupted stream. How, then,
do they find their way ? It may be answered that the earlier
flights can have no difficulty, for, as already stated, they are
made up chiefly, if not wholly, of old birds, who, being familiar
with the route, are independent. AVith the closing flights
there is more trouijle, for these, as we have also seen, are com-
posed chiefly, and in some cases entirely, of young. But is it
necessary to assume that such tardy travellers often reach
their southern destination, unless fortuitously and after long

MIGBATION. 171

wanderings ? Are they not much more likely to perish of
cold or hunger, or to furnish some of the many recorded cases
of excejitional wintering or other unusual occurrence ? As far
as I have seen, accidental visitors to Massachusetts, almost
without exception, are young birds, and the majority also are
taken very late in autumn — facts of obvious significance in
this connection."

There is one thing connected with migration that as Amer-
icans we cannot pass by without mention. Mr. Frank M.
Chapman has shown us very plainly that without the help of
the birds, Columbus would not have discovered America. All
the historians tell us how he was cheered by the sight of land-
birds " that came singing in the morning and flew away again
in the evening." For more than three weeks before they
sighted land they were thus visited by land-birds ; " some of
them, such as sing in the fields, came flying about the ships,
and these continued toward the southwest, and others were
heard, also, flying by night." A week before they came to
land, Columbus, persuaded that the birds knew whither they
were going, turned his course also to the southwest, taking
them as his pilots. And just as he predicted, they did lead
him to land two hundred and fifteen miles, according to the
historian Fiske, nearer than the coast of Florida for which he
had been steering. That he could ever have held his muti-
nous sailors in check long enough to cross so great a distance
is hardly possible. He was well guided and was happy in
trusting his heaven-sent pilots.

But we do not yet understand how almost by miracle it was
that he fell in with these flights of birds. Mr. Chapman was
the first to point out to us the real significance of the event.
The Bermuda Islands are one of the " stations " on the way of
the migrating armies, and the Bahamas, where Columbus

172 rnoBLEMs of niiii) life.

landed, are another. All the land-birds that touch at the Ber-
mudas take a southwest course to the IJahanuis, so that Colum-
bus was running across the line of their annual Hight before
he changed his course and followed them. But this migration,
though it carries myriads of birds, lasts but a short season.
Had Columbus come too early, he would have seen no birds,
and a few days later the hosts would have been already in
their Southern homes. As Mr. Chapman says : " After nearly
twenty years of disappointment, a delay of ten days at Palos
would not have seemed of much importance. But if Columbus
had sailed from Palos September IGth, or, using the 'new
style,' September 26th, he would have seen few migratory land-
birds, or none. Whether, in their absence, he would have had
sufficient influence over his men to force them to continue a
\vestward course, is an open question ; but we can clearly see
that, without the presence of birds, his efforts at allaying their
fears would have been seconded by no really conclusive signs
of land."

And so all good Americans must be thankful to the birds.
Had it not been for their guidance, the whole course of Ameri-
can history would have been changed, and, indeed, the history
of the whole world would have been different. For all we
owe to the birds, both in protecting our fields and orchards,
and in guiding Columbus to land, are we not bound to be bird
protectors, and good friends of theirs ?

PART TV.

SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS.

LITTLE STUDIES IN THE ART OF OBSERVATION.

" As for fowling;, during the last that I carried a giin, my excuse was
that I was studying ornithology, and sought only new or rare birds.
But I confess, I am now inclined to think that there is a finer way of
studying ornithology than this. It requires so much closer attention
to the habits of the birds, that, if for that reason only, I have been will-
ing to omit the gun." — Thoreau, Waldeu.

ABOUT BIRDS' DRINKING.

If you wish to make an experiment that will cost little
trouble and will give much pleasure, try for a summer the
plan of keeping a drinking dish for the birds, in some spot
loved by them. A bit of shrubbery, the neighborhood of the
grape vine, the side of a hedge, are usually spots that they
frequent, and the best of all is near a tree or bush which bears
fruit worthless to any one but the birds. An old tin baking-
pan, not so deep as to be dangerous, or else a little tilted so
that the water may shoal off gradually, is a bath tub that will
attract birds all summer long.

Birds love fresh water, and unless the dish is kept neat
and clean, they will not use it much. If it is kept in good
order and freshly filled, you will find that all the birds know
about it. Keep a list of the different kinds that come, and,
if you can, of the different birds. Some birds, by their voices,
tVieir manners, or some peculiar marking, will be readily
recognized, and you will know Billy, or Peep, or Spot, or
whatever you choose to name him. Notice the time of day
when each kind prefers to come to bathe, and you will see
that they have preferences. There are early birds, just as
the proverb tells us, and there are birds that are late abroad,
birds that are particular about the temperature of their bath,
and others that find nothing too cold for them. I have seen
the little j uncos, early in March, splashing in an ice-edged
pool, and singing as cheerily as if March were May.

Birds differ in their dispositions as much as people, and it
is not a little amusing to watch the selfish bird, or the timid

175

176 SO^fE COMMON LAXD-niRDS.

bird, or the bird who knows it all. Some demand the whole
bath for themselves; others are content to share it; some dip
and spatter in one way, while others dress and preen them-
selves after quite a different fashion. It was always amusing
to me to see a certain motherly old robin, who was in the
greatest temper if any other bird attempted to use the bath
while she was in it. She always intended to have the whole
pan — and got it, though not at other times noticeably over-
bearing to the other little birds. There, too, those feathered
ruffians, the English sparrows, met their match in the purple
finches, whose company the sparrows seemed to desire so much
that they acted the toady quite humanly, and meekly followed
their bright-coated cousins about, pretending to peck at the
fallen mountain ash berries, though they despised such food.

While you are watching birds drink, please observe the way
a pigeon drinks. All pigeons drink in the same way, and no
other birds drink like them. The difference is well worth
observing if you do not remember what it is. But there are
other points of interest about birds' drinking; not only how,
but what they drink. What do you suppose the albatrosses
drink, and the fulmars, the shearwaters, the petrels, and all
those birds that wander continually on the high seas and never
come to land except to nest ? Salt water undoubtedly. There
is no record that they do this, and some persons have supposed
that because a man would die of thirst if he drank sea-water,
it would affect these birds in the same way, and that therefore
they never drink at all. This certainly is bad reasoning. All
the probabilities are against it, as we shall see.

There is a class of birds that live part of the year on the
seacoast and part of the year inland, like the grebes, the loons,
and those gulls and terns that nest upon the prairies and by
the shores of inland lakes. Half the year they can get noth-

ABOUT BIRDS" DRINKING. 177

ing but salt water to drink, and the other half they are unable
to get anj^thing but fresh water. Either they must drink both
or they live without drinking half the year.

There is a pretty little story that shows their need of water.
Some years ago a gentleman had two little downy kittiwake
gulls which he intended to keep as pets. He gave them food
and water, but they would not drink, and in two days one was
dead and the other was not likely to live long. Everything
possible was done for him, and at last to please him a bucket
of salt water was dipped up to give him a bath end a swim.
To the surprise of every one he drank the salt water eagerly.
He was dying of thirst, but of thirst for salt water, never
having learned to drink anything else. He grew up to be a
beautiful bird and a great pet, but he never changed his habit
of drinking salt water.

Yet this is not an invariable habit with sea-birds, for terns,
when nesting on low, sandy islands like Muskeget, have been
observed to drink from the pools of rain-water standing in
the hollows of the island. Therefore these birds can drink
both fresh and salt water, and often are unable to get any-
thing but salt water. Which is more reasonable to suppose,
that the petrels and albatrosses do not drink at all, or that,
like the terns, they drink salt water ?

The hunters along the Maine coast have told me an inter-
esting fact. They especially prize the black mallard, or dusky
duck, often called the " black duck," though it is not black ;
yet they find him so wary that he is hard to approach.
Now the dusky duck is naturally an inland bird, and goes
to salt water only when his food supply is cut off by the
freezing of the ponds. But he has a craving for fresh water
to drink, which the hunters know and take advantage of.
In winter after a thaw with heavy rains, the brooks rise sud-

178 SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS.

deiily and pour out a great volume of fresh water, which, being
lighter than the salt water of the ocean, runs out upon it as
it would upon ice before the two commingle. So after a rain
the dusky ducks gather about the mouths of streams running
into the ocean to drink the fresh water, and here the hunters
come to find them. It is worth noticing that the scoters or
'' coots," which are true sea ducks, never come inshore to drink.
Here are some little points for bright eyes to settle. Who
can make a list of the birds that quench their thirst by eating
snow ? Does a hawk ever drink, when wild ? And who has
ever seen a woodpecker drinking or bathing ? And wdiat birds
take dust baths instead of water baths ?

HOW A HAWK EATS HIS FOOD.

We must not forget that there are very many kinds of hawks
which feed on everything from grasshoppers and snakes to
squirrels and partridges, so that their ways of eating must vary
somewhat ; but we will study only one, the one that even city
children may sometime chance to see, our little sharp-shinned
hawk, the boldest fellow for his inches that wears feathers,
excepting only the humming-bird. Since the sparrows became
so abundant, he has learned to come into the cities after them,
and in winter he may sometimes be seen in our parks or along
our avenues, chasing the sparrows, without fear of the multi-
tudes of passers-by or of the thundering traffic of the streets.
He is equally at home in the silent recesses of the forest and
about the wind-swept tops of our bald mountains, where I have
often found a little heap of quill-feathers that told me who had
been eating my friends the junco and the chickadee in that
lonely place.

It is odd, too, that my only two opportunities to learn any-
thing of the feeding habits of this bold killer of little birds
should have been once in the heart of the crowded city and
once in the solemn quiet of the great woods.

My first chance came to me in the city of Charlestown, Massa-
chusetts, along its busiest street. I looked out at just the
right moment, and there in an elm tree, on a level with the
second-story window and not thirty feet away, his long tail
blowing in the winter wind, was a sharp-shinned hawk with
a sparrow pinned under one foot. What a fierce, alert bird
he was, with his keen yellow eye ranging on all sides for

179

1<S0 SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS.

danger, as he crouched there, pluekin.f^ his victim and letting
the feathers drift away on the wind. Wliat his next work
wouhl have been after the bird was phicked I could not tell,
I only saw the long wing- and tail-quills drop slowly down-
ward, and the lighter feathers float away like thistle-down ; for
some noise or sight alarmed him and he sailed away, bearing his
victim in his claws.

A year later, in the Maine woods, where the river leaps
tumultuously over the Indian Falls on Webster Stream, I
took from the claws of a hawk just killed the yet warm body
of a little warbler that he was eating. It could not be identified
further, for the head was gone and every feather had been
stripped from it so neatly that not one was left to name it by.
The intestines also had been taken out by a rip down the back
and all the blood had been drunk up. It was the second stage
of the sharp-shinned hawk's preparations for dinner — or the
first course, we may say; for most carnivorous creatures are
fond of the brain of their quarry, and all the hawks that I have
seen wdll eat the head for their first mouthful. The sharp-
shin is also bloodthirsty in its most literal sense, and will drink
the blood with evident relish while it is warm. More than
once I have seen him taken fresh from the killing, and his bill
was bloody to the cere.

Unless his large cousin, the Cooper's hawk, is equally
dainty, the sharp-shinned is the nicest of our raptores. The
broad-winged hawk will not trouble to skin a squirrel or even
the portions of a rabbit that he eats, and the goshawk, after
stripping off the quills and a few of the larger feathers, will
bolt a large hen, joint by joint, in less time than it would take
to describe the process. With his strong claws he tears out
the wings at the shoulder and the legs at the hip and swal-
lows them at a gulp. None of our hawks is so bold, so power-

Fig. 41. — sharp-shinned HAWK.

Fivcing page 181.

HOW A HAWK EATS HIS FOOD. 181

fill, and so cruel as this great robber of the north which comes
in winter to the Northern states and is at once conspicuous by
his boldness, by his long tail and round wings, and by his steel-
blue upper parts when in full plumage, or his striped breast
when immature.

These three — the goshawk which is rare, the little sharp-
shinned hawk, and his large cousin, the Cooper's hawk, which
you would probably mistake for a very large sharp-shinned
hawk unless you noticed critically the shape of the end of the
tail and the color of the top of the head — are the three most
destructive hawks. For all the others some good word can
be said.

The sharp-shinned hawk has a double, the pigeon hawk, so
near like himself in size and color that even if you had both
in your hand you probably could not distinguish them until
advised how to do so. But besides differences in the bill,
the pigeon hawk's wings are sharp and pointed, while the
sharp-shinned hawk's are round. The two birds also fly very
differently, so that it is not hard to distinguish them in life.

Are their feeding habits alike ? I never saw the j)igeon
hawk eat, but I have watched him clean himself up after a
meal. He Avas very leisurely about it, and must have spent at
least thii'ty minutes on his toilet, opening his tail and laying
the feathers in perfect order, spreading each wing and dress-
ing the quills with his bill, and putting up his claws to clean
his bill of feathers. I had not supposed that making its toilet
was such serious business with a hawk.

Before we leave the subject let us look for a moment at the
hawk's foot. The sharp-shinned hawk, as you have guessed,
gets its name from its long slender legs. The tarsi and toes
are so thin that the bird looks spindle-shanked, and we note a
peculiar modification of the foot on this account. There are

182 SOME COMMON LAND-IU l!I)S.

lieavy pads under each joint, it is true, to enable the bird to
grasp as tirnily as possible whatever it lays hold of; but that
is not what 1 mean. Do you see that the middle toe is so long
that it will wrap almost around a small bird, and its claw will
be struck in near the claw of the hind toe ? This is a weak-
ness. For a strong grip the claws should oppose each other
fairly and strike the body of the victim, not on the same side,
but on opposite sides. In the other hawks we find this ar-
rangement, and we notice that the middle toe bears the largest,
strongest claw. In this bird we see that it is the inner toe,
the second toe, that has the largest nail. This toe, then, does
the same w^ork as the middle toe of the other hawks in the
capture of small prey, and the long middle toe is of particular
service with larger game, giving a wdder grip and enabling
the hawk, whether he strikes small game or large, to hold
with equal security. It is well known that this bold little
hawk frequently attacks birds larger than himself, which he
cannot paralyze and cannot carry off at once. By this device
he is enabled to hold on until he tires them out. The very
possession of such a foot is an evidence of his ferocity and
bloodthirstiness.

THE SMALL FLYCATCHERS.

The old proverb of " a bird in the hand " gets a stiff rebuff
among the small flycatchers. To the amateur naturalist, for the
purpose of identification, a live flycatcher in the bush, if decently
tame and sociable, is worth half a dozen dead ones in the hand.

Those who know about birds may consider it ill-advised
to introduce young beginners to this puzzling group of the
little flycatchers ; but the best lesson a novice can learn is
to single out the largest lion that lies in his pathway, and,
" having killed him, to go on singing.'' The small flycatchers
are hard to study, esx)ecially when they are dead and unable
to speak for themselves, but as we learn about them we
find out a remarkable fact. It is that two birds may have
scarcely a feather's difference betwe*^n them, may be so near
alike that only experts can determine the differences, and yet
may be entirely distinct, so unlike that no one would think
of calling them the same species. Much as we sometimes envy
the man who shoots little birds his opportunities for looking at
every feather, in the case of the little flycatchers the advantage
lies all on the side of the man who hunts them without a gun.
Their habits are unlike, their haunts are different, their notes are
individual, and the nests and eggs vary with each species so that
they are identified even more readily than the birds themselves.

Up to a certain point no bird is easier to determine than a
flycatcher. As far off as you can see or hear him you know
his ways and his voice. At one hundred and ten measured
feet I have been able, without a glass, to recognize a phoebe
merely by the way he sat on a limb, and after a little experi-
ence any one can readily pick out a flycatcher when no one

183

184 SOME COMMON LAND-IilRDS.

color or mark is visible. They are fond of particular places,
usually a dry twig, which gives a clear view and a small perch
for their tiny feet. Day after day they return to the same
twit; and keep up a patient watch for flies. The wood pewee,
which has this habit in the most marked degree, in the South is
called the " dead-limb bird." Often, when he is not at home, one
can pick out his favorite perch by the signs of long occupation.

For all that the flycatchers sit so still, they are nervous
birds. The snapping of their bills, the quick twitching of
their tails, and their short, abrupt motions are a strong
contrast to the composed industry of the vireos and warblers.
As they sit on their perches, the flycatchers are big-headed,
square-shouldered, erect little birds, and their tails hang straight
down over the limb. Close at hand one notices the large, round,
buff-ringed eyes, full of intelligence and decision, and the
breadth of bill, which gives them a wide-mouthed look. In
color, all the small flycatchers — except a bright scarlet one
that lives in Mexico and along the southwestern boundary —
are much alike, — a dull brownish olive, with lighter, sometimes
quite yellowish, underparts and with two light wing-bands.
The shade varies, especially with the season, but the pattern
of coloration never does.

The flycatching habit from which they get their name
is not peculiar to this family. Some woodpeckers are ex-
pert flycatchers; a numlicr of the w^arblers find much of
their food in this way ; I have seen chipping sparrows
catching insects at odd intervals and other birds, the king-
fisher for example, will do it now and then ; but the
manner of sitting still and erect, the habit of twitching the tail,
and the tuneless voice, are characteristic of the flycatchers.
From three to five of these little birds are found in most
localities, the species varying with the place.

Fig. 42. — PHCEBE.

Facinp l>age 1S5.

THE SMALL FLYCATCHEBS. 185

No bird is more sociable than the least flycatcher, or chebec.
He likes to live with people, in orchard and shade trees, and
prefers to nest in an apple tree. He is fond of society, and
will, by preference, take a perch that commands your windows
or your piazza, where he will sit and snap his bill and chebec
at you with intelligent sprightliness. How much the little
fellow wants to talk ! What sensible remarks he appears capa-
ble of making ! His big head seems full of ideas ; he wants
to tell you something, and men are so stupid ! There is good
reason for his sharp, snappy remarks, interrupted now and
then by little turns of flycatching.

The wood pewee is quite a different bird. He does not
court society, but sits high up in a tree, an elm or maple when
in village streets, and from his retirement drawls out his slow
X>ee-e-wee or pee-er-ree. It is hot weather music, languid and
listless, as fitted to the warmth of June and July as is the
cicada's z-ing to the heat of August. We see little of the wood
pewee, though he is common enough. Every year he nests in
my garden ; but, as he builds some thirty or forty feet above
the ground, in the limbs of the bushiest maples, I never find
his nest till autumn strips off the leaves. I am accustomed to
his retired, listless, melancholy ways, credit him with being
here when I hear his pee-er-ree, and do not much court his
companionship when he seems not to care for mine.

Phoebe is larger and browner than the others, seeks more
open locations, and builds about outhouses, and farms, and
beneath bridges, especially in deserted houses and the horse-
sheds attached to country churches. Phoebe is a brisk, alert
bird, always calling ow.i phoebe! phcebe! pewit phoebe, and click-
ing her bill as she snaps her tail back and forth. Sometimes,
on one of her sallies, she will catch several insects before
returning to her perch. Few birds are so domestic as phoebe.

186 SOME COMMON LAXD-BIRDS.

She builds near man, and spends her time among his groves
and orchards. As slie is an early comer, her spring greeting
is always welcome ; and as she has no bad habits, she never
wears her welcome out.

These are the commonest small flycatchers of the East, and
with the kingbird make up the bulk of those we meet. Some-
times a great-crested flycatcher will build her nest, wreathed
with snakeskins, in a hole in a tree, or an olive-sided fly-
catcher will mount guard over some remote meadow and warn
off all intruders with his harsh cries ; but more often the new
bird, if we find a new one, will be a small bird, of the size and
color of the chebec. He will be a source of perplexity wher-
ever he occurs because he will do things that the chebec
does not do. I first noticed him because he acted so much like
a chebec gone crazy. There were half a dozen of them in a
fringe of willows between a sloping field and the marsh where
the red-winged blackbirds lived. Instead of sitting out in
plain view, they kept inside the willows out of sight ; instead
of darting out after flies, they flew upward, with a loud, pecul-
iar note, turned a somersault above the tree, and dived again
into the middle of it. It was quite impossible to believe that
they were sedate, inquisitive little chebecs like those that
nested in our garden and perched on the bean-poles to inspect
the hoeing and to talk to us. As indeed they were not, but
the alder flycatcher, the Eastern subspecies of the Traill's fly-
catcher. This bird is fond of the neighborhood of water, and
is seldom seen far away from low land ; just as the least fly-
catcher, or chebec, is not common away from cultivated
grounds, as the Acadian, or green-crested flycatcher is the
inhabitant of upland groves of beeches, and as the yellow-
bellied flycatcher is a denizen of evergreen growth.

The nests are almost a sui-e means of identifying all these

THE SMALL FLYCATCHEBS. 187

little flycatchers. The phoebe is the only bird that habitually
builds under bridges or inside of deserted houses, and any fly-
catcher's nest discovered in such a place may be safely called
hers. A nest in an evergreen tree near the water, saddled
high up on an outstretched limb, is the olive-sided flycatcher's;
but this is a rare, northern species. A flycatcher's nest found
upon the ground is the yellow-bellied flycatcher's, and this
will be sure to be a bulky nest of moss and leaves sunk in a
mossy bank or between tree roots, in evergreen growth and
usually near running water. A flycatcher's nest found low
down in a bush near water is the Traill's, or the alder fly-
catcher's, which builds a bulky nest about four feet from the
ground, in the upright forks of a willow, alder, or aspen, or
even, in the Northwest, among ferns. The chebec builds a
smaller nest, puts it higher up, usually selects an apple tree or
some bush or tree near cultivated land. She lays a bufly
white egg, not speckled like the Traill's flycatcher and the
wood pewee's, and very much smaller than the big spotted egg
of the kingbird, which chooses similar places. The Acadian,
or green-crested flycatcher, lives among beech woods prin-
cipally ; and there in the end fork of a drooping branch, such
a x)lace as a red-eyed vireo would choose, constructs a shallow,
flimsy nest, not to be mistaken for the vireo's deep cup
wrought of birch-bark and hornet's nest. The wood pewee
builds a shallow nest and saddles it upon a limb high up in
a maple or other shade tree — a nest noticeably unlike the
deeper, cup-shaped nests of most of the other small flycatch-
ers. Thus each one has her own way of building, though all
dress and look nearly alike, and by the house they leave be-
hind them, we may identify the bird that made it, though if
we had the bird in our own hands we might not be able to tell
its name.

SPRING IX WESTERN OREGON.

THE BOOMING OF THE SOOTY GROUSE.

Spring in western Oregon is perhaps as Avelcome and as
beautiful as spring in any part of the country ; for if it does
not follow a cold and snowy winter, it brings sunshine after
a season of cloud and constant rain. What a joy it is to see
]\[ount Hood blinking in the steam drawn up by the warm
sun from the water-soaked ground, while a Western meadow-
lark on a fence, with the sunshine in his beautiful breast,
sings us into summer ! Mount Hood and the Western meadow-
larks always seem to belong together as two of the surpassing
creations of the Lord. As the mountains of the East are less
grand than these snow-capped monarchs of the Coast Range,
so the Eastern meadow-lark, with his sweet, melancholy te-lee-
e-ri-6, is no way to be compared with this glorious songster of
the West, who is thrush and skylark and nightingale in one.
If he is not our best singer, — and on that point there has
been some discussion, — he at least comes upon the stage
when his presence is most effective ; " For, lo, the winter is
past, the rain is over and gone ; the flowers appear on the
earth; the time of the singing birds is come."

Late March and early April in western Oregon are a time
of gladness to the woods wanderer. The mud is drying
enough to render roads and woods passable, and the birds and
blossoms are making everything gay. From the brilliant
yellow skunk-cabbage, that looks like a callarlily, and the
golden clumps of the Mahonia, or "Oregon grape," to the

188

Fig. 43. — sooty GROUSE.

Facing page 18S.

SPRING IN WESTERN OREGON. 189

soft-pink salmon berry and fire-pink wild currants, the native
spring flowers by tlie roadside strike a high note of color.
There is a marked contrast to our own delicate, j^^le-colored,
spring blossoms.

What most impresses an Easterner going to the North-
west coast is that all is so familiar and yet so different.
It becomes confusing, like well-known voices speaking from
unknown presences. When we stop to think, it seems as
if something had happened to us instead of to the flowers.
Here are white trilliums, dog-tooth violets, yellow violets,
and lady's-sorrel, among other old favorites, but all twice
as large as those at home and many of them curiously
different in color. There are more yellow flowers than at
home ; blue flowers are replaced by white ; white ones take
a flush of pink. It seems quite homelike to see a familiar
flower until it turns up a strange face when you stoop to pet it.

And yet there is much that is the same. The coast of
Puget Sound might be the Maine seacoast, but that it is less
rocky and irregular. The woods of Washington and Oregon
have much in common with the primeval forest, now almost
gone, that once overspread all New England. In many
sections there are no round-topped, hardwood trees to fill up
the distant prospect, and the tall, spire-pointed pines march
up the foothills in loose ranks, — but they are pines ; and the
fir tree does not badly simulate the old-growth hemlock of
our Eastern forests. And when, in some upland gully, among
brakes and alders, I have scared the ruffed grouse from his
drumming-log, it all seemed home once more. But the alders
overhead were a forest ; the brakes in the open rose above
my shoulders ; the drumming-log was five feet through. In
this enchanted forest only the partridge and myself were of
the right dimensions, and he, too, was different. The familiar

190 SOME COMMON LAND-BJUDS.

aspect wore away and left me once more bewildered by a
newness that was not new.

Among the birds many are old friends, some jnst the same
and some a little changed. Eave and barn and tree swallows
twitter and sport in the air, and with them is a new acquaint-
ance, the violet-green swallow. The social chimney swift is
lacking, but his jjlace in the air, if not in our affections, is
filled by the rarer and more retiring Yaux's swift, which still
nests in hollow trees as a bird of the wilderness. A towhee
in black and white and chestnut, apparently our own, shows
his unlikeness by mewing at you from the lower boughs of
an evergreen. It is the Oregon towhee, an unfamiliar species,
though from his color you would never guess it. A junco
spreads his white-edged tail as he flits to one side ; but it is
the Oregon junco, a little browner on the back and sides than
ours, though similar in habits. When I found its nest in a
horse's hoof-print in a deserted woods-road, it seemed to me in
all respects like our little Eastern j unco's home in bank sides
and under tree roots. In the woods, the ruffed grouse that you
hear drumming is the Oregon ruffed grouse — our bird in all
save the brighter red-brown tinge of the back. On a high
branch a flicker — but the red-shafted flicker of the North-
west coast — whickers familiarly, and where the timber is
heavy our old Maine friend, the pileated woodpecker, the
king of all the Northern woodpeckers, raps unseen at his work,
or cackles on his undulating flight from tree to tree.

Mingled with those we recognize are other birds new
and strange, — the dark-colored Steller's jay that replaces our
blue jay; the red-breasted sapsucker, a gayer substitute for
our yellow-bellied sapsucker, at a distance nearly resembling
our red-headed woodpecker ; the Oregon jay, as hoary-headed
a villain as our Canada jay, and no improvement in either

SPRING IN WESTERN OREGON. 191

manners or morals on that soft-spoken reprobate. The pygmy
nuthatch runs up and down the tree trunks, the Audubon's
and the hermit warblers sport in the branches on the edge of
the woods, and to a lone tree in a clearing a Lewis's woodpecker
flaps her heavy flight, betraying the secret of her nest to all
observers. These are the familiar sights near the borders
of an Oregon forest.

Sometimes in following up one of the clear mountain streams
of Oregon, cold, green, and sparkling, that sweep down through
the deep, narrow canons from their sources among the moun-
tain snows, one may hear among the scattered firs or pines
above the undergrowth, the love-call of the sooty grouse. It is
a sound equally hard to locate and to describe. The residents
sometimes call it "hooting" and sometimes " booming." You
may look high for it, you may look low for it, but you will not
be able to tell wiiether it is near at hand or far away. The
best way, perhaps, is not to seek the voice but to look out
from some convenient resting-place halfway up the canon
side, where you are on a level with the branches of the trees
below you. From such an outlook you may sometimes see the
male grouse in the very act of booming.

He is a bird as large as a hen, dull-colored and unin-
teresting in appearance, a mingled black and slatey black,
with a few whitish markings that only help to blend
his color with the dark shadows of the Oregon forest.
Above each eye is a featherless tract, and on the neck
of the male are two pouches of bare skin, which ordinarily
are hidden from view by the feathers. In the spring,
however, when the male bird booms, these pouches undergo
a change and become a pinkish orange. During the act of
booming they stand out like small oranges on each side of the
bird's head. Whether the noise is caused in taking the air

li>2 SOME COMMON LAN I)-JUI! I)S.

into the pouches, or in letting it escape no one can say ; but it
seems not unlikely that it is the escaping air, rushing through
the vocal cords, that creates the sound, just as in penny- whis-
tles it is the escape of the air from the inflated rubber bag
that does the whistling. At least, if you watch the sooty
grouse, you will see that his bill is ojx'r when the noise is
made. On the other hand, when a horned owl hoots his bill is
closed.

AVhen he booms, the male grouse takes up his position on a
horizontal limb fifty feet or more from the ground, and, sitting
crosswise of his perch, crouches low, with wings drooping and
tail spread. The air sacks swell till they almost hide the
head, the red skin above the eye rises like a comb, the bill is
opened, the sacks contract and dilate and " jwom-j^oom-jyoom-
um-i^oom " sounds the mellow love-call over the caiion. Five
or six times in succession is the '^ poom-poom-pooin-um-poom^^
repeated before the bird stops to rest.

The female is not visible. Perhaps, as in the case of
the ruffed grouse, her presence makes no difference in the
performance, which is for the male's own delight rather than
to attract a mate. While the male is booming, she may be
dusting her feathers on some dry knoll, or she may be
hopping from branch to branch as she leisurely climbs to
the top of a tall fir tree, or she may be sitting cross-
wise of a limb looking out over the canon. She listens to the
mellow love-call of her mate, she basks in the warm spring
sun, and, while the spring lasts, before the summer cares of
the family have come, or the autumn fear of gunners in the
" open season," or the dripping winter rains have made the
woods a sodden swamp, she enjoys the greatest peace and
leisure of her life.

If it were possible to linger in the oozy, mossy forests of

SPRING IN WESTERN OREGON. 193

the Northwest, we should meet many new birds and should
become more and more impressed with the effect of climate
upon a bird's color. A bright winter day is rare. Everything
is wet, mossy, oozy. Houses, rocks, and trees are covered with
moss. The hardwood trees are draped with moss, the ever-
greens with ferns that grow up the trunks and along the
branches, and hang down like the fringes on buckskin leggings.
A thousand rivulets and streams gush from the edges of the
forest and pour into the larger streams and rivers. A rising
vapor or a falling mist marks the difference between fair
weather and foul. The effect of all this gloom and moisture
becomes very apparent when we notice the birds that do not
migrate. The summer visitors, who stay only during the
bright and beautiful season, would hardly be much affected by
the climate. The residents, on the other hand, are apt to be
larger than their Eastern relatives, darker, and with a dull
slate-gray cast which matches well the gloomy woods about
them, as if the clear colors had been soaked out of their plu-
mage. The song-sparrow becomes a streaked brown, the flicker
grows dull-colored, the jays are dark, the bright rufous fox
sparrow turns to a slatey brown. The sooty grouse which
we have just been observing is notably dull-colored. There is
one exception. The ruffed grouse of the Northwest coast
loses his cool clear grays and browns and becomes distinctly
rufous. Why is it that the climate should affect one bird in
one way and another in a different way ? This is one of the
naturalist's problems ; even a child might ask the question,
but the wise men have not yet answered it.

A WINTER RESIDENT.

THE RUFFED GROUSE.

" The north wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow,
And what will poor robin do then ?
Poor thing !

" He'll sit in the barn,
And keep himself warm.
And hide his head under his wing,

Poor thing !"

But Robin Hood's bam, where the ruffed grouse spends his
days and nights, is sometimes a very cold house, especially up
in Maine, where the mercury shrinks down into the bulb, and
the snow often lies level with the fences. No matter how
cold it is, the grouse never goes south; no matter how deep
the snow is, he must get a living of vegetable food, for never,
except in summer, when he catches a few grasshoppers, does
the grouse eat anything else. But what is there in the woods
in winter for the grouse to eat? How does he get a living
when not a leaf, or berry, or green thing is above the snow ?

If you are driving along country roads in early morning or
at nightfall, you may expect to see him gathering one of his two
daily meals. Up in a poplar, or a birch tree, he will be stand-
ing, snapping off the brittle ends of the twigs. Sticks, noth-
ing but sticks, are his supper. And for many months in the
year he feeds on sticks. Sometimes, in the city, warm even

194

--'■'•iv-x^'ir*!^! !?«;\5^'& \^f^-¥Wiif ij'i^-" ■'

Fig. 44. — RUFFED GROUSE.

Facing page 194.

A WINTER RESIDENT. 195

in winter nights under the blanket of smoke which overhangs,
and abounding in dainties of all kinds, my thoughts turn to
the ruffed grouse in a bare tree-top, picking his supper of
frozen twigs before he goes to his bed in the cold snow;
houseless, unsheltered, knowing no change of diet the long
winter through, yet always plump and contented. Brave bird !
he loves the cold and his plain, bitter food.

To us, poplar is unpalatable, but it is the ruffed grouse's
staff of life. Not only does he eat poplar buds and twigs all
winter, varying them only by the addition of yellow- and white-
birch buds, and occasionally by the buds of apple, hornbeam, or
willow; but he resorts to poplar long before the snows have
driven him into the tree-tops. He not only '^buds" as the
hunters say, during the fall, but sometimes, even in August,
when his bill of fare is almost unlimited, he eats heartily of the
hard, sapless leaves of the poplar. And late in spring, too, he
continues to live by the poplar, eating the catkins even when
they are three inches long, and look like great woolly cater-
pillars. But in spring he also eats the willow buds and the
pretty "pussies,'*' or willow catkins. As the willow contains a
purple dye, a grouse that has been feeding long on them will
have its stomach and intestines dyed bright purple.

As the snow melts, the grouse goes down upon the ground and
picks the young leaves just coming up and the older ones that
have remained green under the snow — checkerberry leaves and
berries, goldthread leaves, clover and strawberry leaves, and,
later, the strawberries, together with raspberries and black-
berries in summer, rose-hips when they ripen, sweet elder-
berries, thorn plums in the fall, black alder berries to some
extent, and rarely a little rock fern or tree-growing fungus.
Beechnuts are a favorite food, as they are for deer, bear, porcu-
pines, and other wood's creatures. The ruffed grouse will eat as

196 S03IE COMMON LAND-BIRDS.

iiuiiiy as eiglity of the sliarp-aiigled little nuts and appear not
to mind their points and corners.

It takes a great quantity of food to satisfy the grouse. Of
poplar twigs he will eat a cupful for a meal if left to satisfy
his appetite undisturbed. After a full meal his crop is swelled
enormously, for he keeps them in his eroj) until he has col-
lected his full supply. Thus, like the cow and other ruminant
animals, he can gather a supply quickly and digest at his
leisure, in some more retired and safer spot, if necessary.

Supper gathered, the ruffed grouse seeks his bed. Some-
times he settles down in a sheltered nook; sometimes, and
especially in snowy weather, he dives quite beneath the light
snoAV and lets it fall upon him like a coverlet of down. These
are his warmest nights. If he likes his quarters, he may stay
beneath the snow for several days, picking up goldthread
leaves, or beechnuts, or checkerberry leaves, or whatever food
lies beneath the snow. Is it dark there ? Not mirk dark, I
fancy, but like being down cellar when the windows are
blocked with snow^, for the snow is translucent — a soft light
comes through it as through a porcelain lamp-shade. Soft,
dry snow also contains a large amount of air, so that the
grouse can breathe easily under the snow.

If the storm change to rain, forming a stiff crust above him,
he has, as it were, a glass roof to his house. But that he is ever
imprisoned beneath the crust and dies there, as we so often
read, there is little likelihood. I have never known a case that,
when followed up, proved to be more than hearsay. Wher-
ever the snow is deep, the grouse lives easily beneath the
crust, wandering at will beneath it in search of food, and com-
ing out either by bursting up through it or by picking an exit in
some place where the crust is weak. The only accident I ever
knew to happen to a grouse in winter was when one ^ad his

A WINTER RESIDENT. 197

tail feathers frozen into the damp snow so that a man caught
him alive. After the greatest ice storm on record in eastern
Maine, when the crust would bear up a two-horse team and the
trees were bowed to the ground with the weight of the ice
frozen upon every bough and twig, the grouse were budding
as usual the next day. But they had changed their habits to
meet the emergency. They were feeding at noon instead of
at night ; and, instead of sitting quietly to eat, they flew from
perch to perch, striking the limbs with such force as to rattle
off showers of crystal fragments that fell tinkling on the hard
crust below. Had the}^ waited till their usual hour, the even-
ing frosts would have set the ice immovably upon the twigs,
while now it was loosened by the warm noon sun.

It may seem to you not difficult to discover a bird nearly as
large as a hen, sitting in the top of a leafless tree ; but I think,
indeed I know, that jou will find it hard to see the budding
grouse even when it is pointed out to you, and that you will
not, without aid or experience, be able to discover half of those
that are in plain sight. Unexperienced observers see the grouse
only by accident. John, James, and Jack go clattering home
from town at sunset with rattling whiffletrees and creaking
bob-sleds, shouting from team to team about the March meet-
ing or market prices, and the noise does not startle the old
cock ruffed grouse, budding almost over their heads as they
pass. Ask John if they are common, and he will tell you:
" There ain't scursely no patridge this year. I ain't seen one.
They was all killed off by last winter's snow." The birds are
there but he does not know how to see them.

When sitting still the grouse blends with the background
against which he is seen, or else he resembles some inani-
mate object so nearly that it is more a matter of instinct
than of eyesight to pick him out from his surroundings.

198 SOME COMMON LAND-liTTlDS.

At a distance, against the red sunset, you call liini a l)un('li
of dead leaves; close at hand, if back to you, he blends
with the tree trunk behind him ; side to, the dark back clings
to the poplar bark, the light breast melts into the pale blue
sky; front to, his breast appears a bit of white birch stem,
while the dark sides take the color of the thick birch twigs.
Every new position seems to hide him and to confuse you.
But once find him and, like the hidden animals in puzzle pic-
tures, he becomes so plainly seen that you wonder at your own
blindness. The grouse knows very well when he is detected,
and however unsuspicious he may have been before he felt
human eyes fairly fixed upon him, he is apt to become restless
or alarmed soon after. Noise he does not mind. Often from
the windows of a railroad train we may see them, undisturbed
by the shriek of the locomotive, still quietly budding while
the train rattles by. Yet, on the other hand, crack a stick, or
break the crust, or make any noise in approaching them and
they are alert at once.

The winter night must be long and tedious to the grouse,
whether he spends it upon the ground or in some sheltered
corner among evergreens. As he drowses in the muffle of his
feathers, he hears the harping of the north wind through the
thin birch twigs, or the snap and squeal of frozen trees, crack-
ing to the heart under the knife of the bitter frost ; he hears
on the crust the heavy thump of the white hare's feet or the
ring and tinkle of the wind-packed drift, telegraphing the wild-
cat's long, soft-footed stride. The wings of his arch enemy,
the horned owl, brush the fir bough over him, or he wakes
from dreams of summer to smell the warm breath of a fox so
near that his terror causes a delay that is almost fatal.

A light snowfall would have left all the night's adven-
tures written in bold head-lines on nature's daily news-

A WINTER RESIDENT. 199

paper — the fresh fallen snow. A shrewd observer can read
there the whole story. AVhere the trefoil tracks are thickest
was the scene of the hare's dinner party, — poplar on the
stick was the 2n^ce-de-Tesistance , — and a very merry party
it was to judge by the number of tracks, until the old
horned owl swooped down and seized poor Long-ears. How
scared the others were can be read in these tremendously
long leaps toward the alder thicket. These light, triple-
pointed tracks are the grouse's where he alighted and walked
a few feet toward that little fir tree with down-hanging limbs,
which stands sheeted in snow like a pointed soldier's tent.
His bedroom was the slanting lower bongh, walled and roofed
by the drift. Thfs beaded chain straight to his hiding place
was the fox's track; that long-paced, round-pitted track the
wildcat made. And mark the broken level where he tossed
the snow from the bough above him as he burst up in terror,
and the wing-strokes in the snow where he strnck it three or
four times before he could gather headway and rise clear.

So it is written in the snow. Every little while Nature
prepares a new edition of the great blanket sheet newspaper,
powders all the fields afresh, and lets the creatures of the
woods write again the story of their woes and pleasures among
the personals and in the society columns. There it is reported,
plain as if in print, that the flying squirrels had a frolic about
the hollow apple tree ; that the mink caught a trout in the
open water below the mill-dam ; that the red squirrels had a
sapping party in the maples, and ate the burrs of the juni-
pers for dessert; of the snow-bunting's feast of weed-seed
eaten from a snow table-cover ; how the old porcupine has
broken out his lumber road between his den in the rocks
and the tall hemlock; and the shrew-mouse's wanderings
beneath the snow were not so crooked and out of the

200 so^fE COMMON LAX D-n inns.

light tliat lie could keep them out of the papers, for this
winding ridge marks the line of his devious tunnelling. It
is not hard to tell who is out of doors in winter. Whenever
a creature puts his foot down in the new snow, he signs him-
self with an unmistakable mark. Only the birds do not
write themselves in full, but they leave other signs. There
are the quill feathers dropped by the hawk as he stripped
them from liis prey ; the bark hammered off by the wood-
pecker ; bud scales scattered by the grosbeaks ; fine weed-seed
set adrift by linnets, red-polls, snow-buntings, and the hardy
tree sparrow; the grouse's track, like a line of feather-
stitching across the snow. It was a cock grouse, too — see
the line where he dragged his wings, as he spread his tail and
strutted like a turkey cock. Long life to you, my fine fellow !
But look out for the fox and for the man with a gun !

THE EAVES-SWALLOW: HOW SHE CAME AND
BUILT HER NEST.

Your great-granclfatlier probably never saw an eaves-
swallow until he was a man grown. As you pass the barn
and the mother swallow puts out her head and twitters at
you, as friendly as a kitten, showing the forks of the light
crescent above her beady eyes, you cannot believe that this
social little creature was not here to make friends with the
Pilgrims when they landed. Yet men now living probably
saw the eaves-swallow arrive from the West.

We have noticed that the eaves-swallow loves open, sunny
places, overhanging cliffs, and good, sticky mud. Now a
hundred years ago the whole of this country west to Ohio
was a thickly wooded country but little broken by clearings,
and with no extensive natural meadows. The clay banks were
covered by forests ; the cliffs, of which there Avere indeed
enough, were under the shadow of great trees, and the whole
aspect of it to a bird looking down from a height must have
been dark, green, and gloomy, quite unlike the warm sunshine
over the Western prairies. There great rivers flowed through
channels cut in lofty cliffs, and receding with the summer
heat, left beds of mud for the swallows to work on. Here
there was nothing to attract a lover of wide space and sunny
plains. So the eaves-swallows from times unrecorded fluttered
and digged in the mud banks of the West and plastered their
nests against the cliffs above. There they were first seen by
naturalists ; by Forster, who gave the first description of them
in 1772 ; by Audubon, who notes them in 1815 at Henderson,

201

202 SOMt: COMMON LA\I)-llIRl)S.

Ohio, and in 1819 at Newport, Keutueky ; by Major Long
and Sir John Franklin, who observed them the next year,
one in the Rocky Mountains, the other in l>ritish America.
All these early mentions are from the West and very far west
for those days.

But, after the Revolutionary War, the country began to
grow. Farms spread out and met each other, while the forests
vanished. The swallow, soaring overhead, could see new open
spaces to the East, new nesting-places in a region full of
better cliffs than he had known, and, what was more, full of
strange, square artificial clift's that were hollow inside, and
filled with men and children and cattle, and surrounded by
house-flies. The abundance of food was an attraction. Houses
and barns were a new experience to our wild Western swal-
lows; but they came trustingly, and plastered their cradles
up under the eaves of the new barns in the clearings, as much
at home as if they had always been civilized. Every year
the farms grew and the swallows spread along the line of
them to the East, where houses and barns were still more
numerous, where hawks seldom dared molest them, and where
flies were abundant. By the middle of the present century
they were established in all the New England states as com-
mon residents.

Though so numerous where they are found at all, the swal-
lows are very irregular in their distribution. We may find
several species in one town, and but one or two in a neighbor-
ing village, or we may find large tracts almost unvisited by
swallows. The causes for this are various. A great storm
has l)een known to kill nearly all the swallows resident in
certain places — as a few years since a storm annihilated the
purple martins of Cambridge, Massachusetts. It may be years
before a region thus depopulated will be stocked again, since the

THE EAVES-SWALLOW. 203

young birds naturally return to the place where they were born.
Or the English sparrows may have driven out the swallows
from the houses erected for them, as has happened m most
of our larger New England towns. Or suitable nesting-places
may be scarce and the materials for building wanting; for
each species of swallow has some peculiar requirement.

The bank swallow not only desires, but must have, a bank
to dig in, and the soil must be not too stiff for him to excavate
with his feeble feet and not so sandy as to cave in upon him
while he is digging. The rough-winged swallow, which less
often makes his own hole, likes the deserted burrows of the
kingfisher. The barn swallow wants a barn whose doors stand
open or whose owner has kindly made little openings large
enough for his going in and out. The blue-backed swallow
demands snug crannies, natural or artificial, and often builds
in old woodpecker's holes or in the gutters of old-fashioned
houses. The eaves-swallow wants mud. ISTo less necessary
is a suitable x^lace on which to plaster it, either a cliff or an
overhanging clay bank, or the sides of a barn or house with
sheltering eaves. As human dwellings are now far more
abundant and convenient than suitable cliffs, the eaves-swallow,
except in the remotest regions, has entirely lost the original
cliff-building habit, and is now seldom called by her old name
of cliff-swallow, but by the new one of eaves-swallow.

The eaves-swallow cannot use all kinds of mud. To make a
nest strong enough to support four or five full-grown young
and one or both parent birds, requires mud that is adhe-
sive and tenacious, that is, sticky mud, which will not be
brittle or crumbling wlien dry. Clay has these properties ; so
the eaves-swallow and the brickmaker, who also helps to build
houses out of mud, work together on the clay beds. Nearly
always about brickyards you will see eaves-swallows if

204 SO^fE COMMON LA.\D-IURDS.

there are any in the country. The brick maker bakes his
clay by fire; but the swallow hardens hers in the sun, and
makes it more tenacious by mingling with it rootlets and bits
of vegetable fibre to hold it closer together. So in the days
of ancient Egypt, when men built of sun-dried brick, they
mingled straw with the clay to keep it from crumbling.

After a shower, when the puddles are still standing in the
roads or have dried away just enough to leave a creamy
stretch of mud about their edges, you may have seen a cluster
of swallows gathered as thick as butterflies around a puddle
and not unlike them in appearance; for every swallow
balances itself on its tin}' feet with its wings raked high in
air and fluttering above its head. The whole cluster flickers
its wings unceasingly, and when one rises all the others fly too,
and they travel home together. Why do they keep their wings
up so ? And how do they carry their mud ? The first ques-
tion you may answer for yourself, the last one we can easily
settle by looking at the spot they have just left. There are
the little pinholes left by their toe-nails, and in front of these
are creases an inch long, where the mud was taken. Evidently
they take the mud with their bills, not with their feet, else
we should not see the toe marks so distinctly. It is equally
evident that they must carry the mud in their mouths, for
their bills are too small to hold any considerable amount. In-
deed, if you watch them through an opera glass, you will see
that when they fly home their throats stick out like a chip-
munk's when his pouches are full of nuts.

They come and go in companies from the barn to the mud-
hole. If one gets his mud sooner than the others, he flies
about once or twice waiting for them to get their loads. Per-
haps he does not get his full load at one place and rises in a
circle to drop again and finish filling his throat elsewhere.

TUE EAVES-SWALLOW. 205

Usually mates do not go together. One stops by the nest and
rests or works upon it while the other flies after mud. They
stop and chat a moment together and then change places, the
loaded newcomer remaining to plaster and build up the home
while the other joins the outgoing mud-seekers. When the
nest is small, one bird starts out just as the other arrives ;
they say, " How do you do ? " in passing and waste no time ;
but when it is nearly finished, and time is not so important to
them, the}^ sit in the nest and converse a little while. The
colony I am speaking of went about five hundred yards for its
mud, ^- that is, rather more than quarter of a mile, — but no
doubt they sometimes go much farther.

The bird with the load of mud, on arriving at the nest,
rests a moment, then begins retching violently and ejects a
large ball of mud, which it adds to the edge of the nest. This
is immediately followed by one or two smaller mouthfuls.
These are placed more carefully than the first and often seem
to be mixed in the bird's mouth before they are deposited.
Perhaps some sticky saliva is worked into them to make them
adhere more closely to the mass. There is need that the nest
should be made as firm as possible, for when the young are
well grown it must support a considerable weight. With us
the swallows use both the white clay and the blue sea clay.
The blue marine clay, containing seashells and sea plants and
still smelling of the briny ocean, underlies the white fresh-water
clay, which was deposited later. In making bricks men have
used up the white clay and have worked down to the blue sea-
deposit. This is valueless for brick-making, but, oddly enough,
the swallows seem to find it just as good as the other, of which
they can get any amount and quite as near.

One might watch some time and yet not see the swallow
lay the foundations of her house ; and, without seeing it done,

20C} SOME COMMON LAND- BIRDS.

it would be hard to tell how she strikes so true a curve in set-
ting her first course of mud pellets. She may not always use
the same method, but I have seen her proceed as scientifically
as a mason. Coming with lier load of mud, she clings to the
side of the barn with both feet and braces herself by her tail
at such an angle as to begin at one of the upper " corners " of
the nest. Then she deposits her mud in little dabs, not in
large lumps as she lays it on later in the work, turning on her
feet as a pivot and still keeping her tail fast applied to the
wall, although it is spread quite out of shape by the turning
of her body. She has struck out a circle, her feet the centre,
her bill making the circumference ; and by working in this
way, from the mud carried at that first load, she lays a line of
pellets nearly half around the circumference of the intended
nest. I do not know whether one bird is architect and master
mason, and the other merely a hod-carrier, but it is interest-
ing to see that they know the use of the compasses and that,
rather than lose their line, they prefer to hang in a cramped
position, sometimes almost head down.

Eude as the work looks to us, these little masons are
skilful builders. They must also be trained architects or
their work would not stand the strain put upon it. What
do they allow for the weight of their families ? How do
they calculate the effect of the drought and sun on the
dry mud ? What are their tests for the adhesiveness of
their clay ? These are their masonic secrets, which they
never divulge.

Wherever you find a large colony of eaves-swallows, you
will find conditions most favorable for mud-gathering. As
such choice places are not abundant, and as the birds are
social, large communities build together. Nearly always
their nests are on the south side of a barn, grouped under the

THE EAVES-SWALLOW. 207

overhanging eaves. In one case I know of their buikling on
the east, and in another on the north side of a barn, but this
was because these were more sheltered. However, the north
side is often occupied by a few pairs tliat have arrived too
late to take up a house lot under the warmer eaves. Rather
than be separated from their friends, they will build on an
undesirable homestead.

Near my home is a barn that has, for many years, been the
resort of a large colony of eaves-swallows. The owner had
wisely protected them, and they visited him every year in great
numbers. I imagine that several other colonies near there
are made up of swallows of this original community forced to
emigrate and seek a home elsewhere for lack of room here. In
1898 there were seventy nests in the colony, two years before
there were one hundred and eleven, and the year before there
were one hundred and sixty -five. The last two years the num-
bers decreased, and this year the whole colony has removed.

In the winter of 1896, the English sparrows roosted all
winter in these old swallows' nests and in the spring built
in them, intending to raise their broods in nests they had
not made. But when the swallows came, there was war.
The sv/allows pulled down the nests, — eggs, young ones, and
all, — and fought the sparrows till they were glad to escape
with their lives. However, the north side of the building
was not needed by the swallows that year, only a few
pairs building there; and a pair of sparrows that re-
sisted the onslaughts of these few came off victorious. They
occupied an old swallow's nest, and a pair of swallows lived
next-door neighbor to them. The next year the sparrows again
wintered in the barn and tried to occupy the ground for their
nesting, but bag and baggage they were packed off, and the
swallows gloried in their complete possession.

THE EAVES-SWALLOW: HOW SHE CHANGED HER
STYLE OF BUILDING.

When the eaves-swallow first came about the homes of men,
she built a diti'erent nest from that she builds to-day. Her
home had been the sides of cliffs, not so smooth and straight
as the sides of a barn, and not protected b}^ any overhanging

Fig. 45. Nests of Eaves-Swallow.

eaves. The roughness of the rock was an advantage to the
bird, as it helped to support the nest, but the lack of cover was
a disadvantage so great as to require some special provision ;
for if the rain beat into the swallow's nest, it would drown the
little ones, or soak the nest until it fell from the cliff. The
mud nest of the swallow is water-tight, and rain cannot drip
through, as it might through a nest of sticks. So, in her wild
state, the eaves-swallow built a covered nest of a form commonly
known as the ^'bottle-nosed nest." It -was like a rudely mod-
elled, round-bodied, short-necked flask of mud, stuck against
the cliff by the bottom end, so that the bird could enter by the
mouth of the flask. The neck of the bottle was a little passage-

208

THE EAVES-SWALLOW. 209

way that led to a round and- comfortable chamber. Though
not pretty, this nest was very ingenious, and it answered per-
fectly the swallow's requirements.

To-day the swallow makes a very different nest. It is a
little pocket hung against the wall of the barn close under the
eaves, partly supported by the side of the barn, partly by the
roofing eaves, with no tunnel to enter it and no mud roof.
Instead of being like a mud bottle, complete but for the bottom,
which the rock supplied, the commonest form to-day resembles
a quarter section of an orange peel stuck up beneath the rafters
and entered by a hole scooped out at the top.

Why has the swallow changed her architecture within fifty
years ? All the older swallows built mud bottles even for
years after they frequented barns. Your grandfather will tell
you that when he was a boy he saw nothing else. Yet you
perhaps never saw one in your life.

The swallow is a bird that learns much by experience.
When she first began nesting against barns she had a great
deal of trouble. A modern barn presents quite a different
problem from a cliff of rock or a bank of hard clay. In the
first place, it is much smoother, and it is much more nearly
perpendicular, so it offers no natural support to the nest. We
speak of perpendicular cliffs, but we rarely see one. The partial
support that the slope of the cliff afforded was wanting in the
barn. Then, the rock was always moist while the barn grew
very dry in summer. The moisture that condensed upon the
rock was just sufficient to keep the mud from growing too dry
at the point of contact, so the nest held securely. But the dry
boards robbed the nest of its natural moisture, and the rack-
ing of summer tempests, or the jar of heavy carts across
the barn floor, or the weight of the birds in the nest, would
often send the whole household tumbling to the ground.

210 SOME CO^fM<)N LA\I)-IiIIiDS.

These calamities were so frequent that the swallows began
to consider. They liked their new quarters too well to re-
turn to nesting against cliffs. On the whole, men were good
to them, flies were abundant, and it was warmer here than in
the wilderness. So they remained ; and they took the sensible
way of remedying their distresses. They began to remodel
their nests. The first thing to do was to diminish the weight.
They cut away the long, bottle-nosed entrance, and they
altered the shape of the body of the nest. Its greatest length
had been perpendicular to the side of the barn, so that gravity
tended to drag it off; now they made the greatest length par-
allel with the barn, thus exposing the structure less to the pull
of gravity, and giving a greater surface of attachment. No
roof was needed now, for the eaves formed that. No en-
trance passage was needed, and that was sacrificed. The
eaves-swallow's nest had been perfectly adapted to its new
conditions.

And yet there arose circumstances wherein the new house
was not an entire success. Once, on a trip in the jNIaine woods,
we came to a farm ten miles from the nearest house and about
thirty from the nearest town. It was kept up to raise hay
for the lumbermen's horses in winter, and had a fine new barn,
with the eaves finished out at right angles to the sides. Here
a colony of swallows had built their nests, and to my surprise
they were the old-fashioned, bottle-nosed structures that civil-
ized swallows had abandoned forty years before. There are
two possible explanations of this. Perhaps these backwoods
swallows had never learned to alter their nests; perhaps,
as they were outside the limits of civilization, they held old-
fogy notions of letting well enough alone, or perhaps they
had some method in their work.

This barn was painted, very smoothly finished, and much

THE EAVES-SWALLOW. 211

more difficult to build against than the ordinary rough struc-
ture. The eaves, too, were at right angles. If we make some
diagrams we can see what shape would be best fitted for these
conditions and for the old style of barn. Under sloping,
unfinished eaves the bottle nest does not tit well ; a pocket is
better. But under square-finished eaves the flask-shaped nest,
with slight modification, fits perfectly. When we recollect that
mud does not stick to smooth paint very well, we shall see that
under eaves of this sort the bottle nest gives a greater support-
ing surface than the pocket. The nest is stronger for being
of that shape. It is more work to make it, but the work pays
in the end. Whether these swallows built their nests so
because they were wise, or because they did not know any
better, we cannot tell; but we shall see that they are still
capable of making improvements and of adapting themselves
to varying circumstances.

The bottle-nosed nest is not entirely gone yet. There has
been a revival of it in a colony near my home within a few
years. When this colony grew so large that it found its favor-
ite barn too small, there was a great demand for nesting-places
among the swallows, and much ingenuity was shown in building
on badly shaped house-lots. This is an old-fashioned barn with
sloping rafters, unfinished beneath. The nests not only follow
the side of the barn close beneath the eaves, but they extend
down both sides of the rafters, and are placed in tiers one
below the other, clinging partly to the wall and i)artly to the
nests above. The lowest nests, that is, those nearest the edge
of the eaves, are most exposed to the weather, and these are
often built with bottle necks. The nests built first are not of
this type because the birds take the most desirable places and
build the nest requiring least work. But, later in the season,
the bottle necks ai^pear.

'2\-2 SOME COMMON LAND-BIIiDS.

Once I saw a new sliape of nest in a peculiar situation.
In two or three colonies 1 have seen the same, but the location
for it is so unusual that I can only regard it as a new departure
in swallow architecture. The site chosen in these cases was
just above the window frame of clapboarded buildings. The
only support was a finish about an inch wide around the win-
dow and what little additional support came from the outward
slant of the clapboards. Two objects evidently must be held
in view, — sufficiently large attachment surface to make the
nest secure, and protection from the weather. The first was
gained by making the nest nearly round and perhaps five
inches in diameter, which gave it a wide circle for its point
of support. The last was provided for by making it entirely
covered, the entrance being by a small round hole near the
centre. The nests looked like big mud pies, with holes in them,
stuck against the sides of the houses. These colonies were
small, but all nested in the same way. Sometimes these hemi-
spherical nests were not attached to the side of the building,
but were placed upon one another till they formed a great,
shapeless mass of mud, full of holes ; for even in this swallow
apartment-house, every nest still had its own private entrance.

In the colony near my home I see scarcely two nests alike.
Each one is fitted to its own place, or to its maker's whim, but
there is a reason in it. Allowing for individual preferences, we
find that they fall into certain well-marked types. There are
the pocket nests, lying entirely under the eaves, the bottle-nosed
nests placed near the edge of the eaves where the exposure is
greater, and the hemispherical nests fully exposed on the face
of a vertical surface.

It has taken not more than fifty years for the birds to learn
all this, and they still are learning. Men never began to learn
so much about building houses in so short a time.

KKIGHTS AND CASTLES.

THE PURPLE MARTIN.

As a fighter of unimpeachable courage, address, and bokl-
ness that never takes up the gauge of battle without reason,
nor lays it down without honor, the purple martin stands peer-
less. He is a knightly character, amiable, gentle, courteous,
and wholly devoted to his lady wife whom he adores and
caresses with sweet words; but very valiant toward any
enemy, and, though unarmed in either bill or claws, both of
which are small and weak, willing to engage in battle with
any that affronts him. Like the knights of old he wears a
steel-blue suit that shines like polished metal (but his
lady's gown is white beneath) ; and, like the ancient knight,
he prefers to live in a castle.

I do not see them so often now, but in my childhood no
carpenter in New England considered that he had finished a
barn until he had built and placed upon its gable a martin
box. These were sometimes elaborate affairs, and occasionally
were so large that, instead of being perched above the peak of
the barn on a short pole, they were erected in the middle of
the farmyard upon a staff of their own as large as a small
mast. In this case they spun a weather-vane upon their
roofs, a horse, or a fish, or a gaudy cockerel that tried to run
before the breeze, and could do nothing but turn round and
round as it whiffled east or west. In this case, too, they were
usually not snug little cottages, but pyramidal palaces of many
stories, each with a wide balcony in front, and with many little
round-topped doors opening into as many snug chambers, in

213

214 SOME COMMON LAXD-BIIiDS.

each of wliicli a pair of martins or blue-backed swallows
nested. Indeed, were it not for its inaccessibility, we should
call this a swallow hotel instead of a swallow castle.

How these martin houses came to be so generally built,
especially in scattered farming sections, it is hard to say.
Perhaps the early settlers had some real fondness for the
pretty, social bird ; perhaps they were reminded in him of
the old country over the sea ; but quite as likely, in their
sensible, unsentimental way, they encouraged him as a protec-
tor to their chickens. There was a time, with the woods
creeping up to the edge of every farm, when crows and hawks
were far bolder and more troublesome than to-day, and when
a colony of martins not only gave the chickens a cry of danger
which they understood, and brought out the farmer with
his gun, but joined battle themselves, and held the thief
and assassin from his plundering by their furious assaults.
The farmer of the old times was not particularly intelligent
or sentimental or merciful ; he neither knew nor cared what a
bird ate so long as it did not eat anything he could sell ; he was
not the least grateful to the martin for destroying insects, and
he tolerated no bird or beast that " wasn't some good." If he
encouraged the martin, the chances are that he was merely
retaining him as a sky watchman on his chickens. The lazy
dog got no bone of charity in the old-time farm-house, and the
martin paid his rent, no doubt, in hard work. But for some
reason he had a house provided for him.

It was always a glad sound in the spring to hear the martins
coming back with loud chirps of joy as the}'' saw at a distance
and recognized their old home. " There it is ! Don't you see
it ? Oh, hurry, hurry up ! " they called to each other, and
swift and straight as a flight of cross-bow bolts they sped to
it. All the rest of the day they would sit about their door-

KNIGHTS AND CASTLES. 215

ways, talking in loud, sweet voices, much above their usual key.
Their excitement and joy were delightful to witness.

In time they began to think of nest building. The old
castles underwent a spring cleaning, and the furniture was
thoroughly renovated. They are cleanly birds, and love sweet
fresh beds and pleasant situations. Do you recollect how
Shakespeare's Scottish general in the play of " Macbeth " men-
tions this daintiness of the English martin — a bird which in
habits more nearly resembles our eaves-swallows than our

martin ?

" This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his lov'd mansionry. that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here ; no jutty, frieze,
Nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendant bed, and procreant cradle.
Wiere they much breed and haunt, I have observed
Tlie air is delicate.'''

A wonderfully accurate observation, as you see, for that
early day, and an excellent naturalist this Banquo, or
Shakespeare.

The martin is equally j)articular about her bed. Other
swallows, except those building mud nests, gather their
material on the Aving, but the martin is deliberate and critical
in her choice. Near our neighbor's martin house there once
was a field of oats bounded by a high board fence that,
by reason of a convenient knot-hole, was a fine place for
spies and eaves-droppers to birds' private business. From
behind it one could observe the martins. In the spring much
of the oat-straw, still clean and bright, was left among the
stubble, and to it the martins came for nesting-stuff. The
knight and his lady always came together and dropped among
the stubble. They would chat a little together softly, and

21() SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS.

the female would look about for suitable straws, picking one
or two long, heavy ones. She always made her own selection
and carried her own load, though the male made every journey
with her. Whether she discouraged male interference and
wished to choose the furniture herself, or whether he escorted
her to defend her, was never plain; but the males of that
community, while kind, loving, and full of deference to
their wives, never carried any burden. The nest was finished
with a few fresh feathers ; but how it was constructed was
one of the secrets of the martin house that no boy ever
was reckless enough to try to discover.

There was a time when the martins nested in holes in trees,
and in Southern California they still do that. In the South,
gourds or calabashes were often hung where they could build in
the hollow shell. And it seems probable that at some time they
may have built a mud nest like the English martin and our
eaves-swallow ; for there is a record that a jiair that were
troubled by water dripping from the eaves of their house and
running under the nest, built a wall of mud two inches wide
and six long, weighing half a pound, as a water-guard, showing
that they had not forgotten the mason's trade.

When men are friendly, the martin lives without fear. Cats
cannot climb to his castle, hawks cannot overtake him on the
wing, none have an enmity against him, and he bears ill will
to none, with a single exception. One year, when he came
back from the South, the martin found the muddy tracks of
a strange bird on his verandas, his castle filled with rubbish,
and a harsh-voiced ragamuffin in possession. The English
sparrow had moved in. And the English sparrow was invited
to move out again with more speed than ceremony. How the
angry martins flew at him, how they tossed every stick of his
dirty furniture after him, and raged in their wrath against the

KNIGHTS AND CASTLES. 217

foreign interloper ! The sparrow was a bully and a tyrant over all
the other birds, but he learned that the martins were his masters.

However, when winter came and the air was frosty, the empty
martin houses were too inviting to be resisted. Back the spar-
rows went, and who would leave earlier in the spring than he
had to ? They always forgot to leave until the day the martins
came and they were whipped into ignominious retreat, their
nests, eggs, and half-fledged young being pitched out after them.

Nor were these bloodless encounters. They were battles
royal to be sung by Homers of the swallow tribe, each hero
called by name ; for here was foughten field, beleaguered
castle, the storming of a citadel, the rout of the entrenched
where those unarmed and unprotected fought against stout
and well-armed ruffians sheltered behind walls that could not
be breached nor broken. The best and most knightly tales
we can remember are scarcely too grand to be compared with
this story of some little birds fighting for a toy house stuck
up on a pole. I am wholly serious in admiring them. These
battles lasted two or three days, as much, in proportion
to the length of their lives, as two or three weeks would
be to a man. We think that perhaps the pulls and pecks
and pinches did not hurt, they being birds ; but these
were battles to the utterance; these birds killed each other.
At one of the two martin houses nearest my home, one
year two dead sparrows and two dead martins were found
on the ground — perhaps a fifth of all those engaged in
the fight; and at the other house I am told that more were
killed, though not more in proportion to the contestants.
The martins always were victorious. The only time when
they were not completely so, was once when the colony was
so small that they could occupy only the upper stories of the
house, when they permitted the sparrows to build below them.

218 SOME COMMON LAXD-BTUDS.

If you wish to know how dauntless is the spirit of the mar-
tin let me tell you a little story. For many years a colony
of martins have nested in a house on the gable of one of the
tannery sheds in Brewer, Maine. The tannery itself, a large
wooden structure, stood not more than thirty feet from the
shed, but disconnected. In the year 1897, the martins returned
on the twenty-second of April, fought their annual battle with
the English sparrows, and settled down for a few days before
they began to keep house. There were six or eight in the
flock, which was never a large one. On the first day of May,
just at dusk, the tannery caught* fire. The martins were
asleep for the night and must have been awakened by the
shouts of men and by the glare and crackling of the fire.
From the first the building was doomed, though the firemen
made an effort to save it, and took their stand on the wind-
ward side near by the martin house. But the heat there was
terrible, and they were forced to fall back to a much greater
distance. Not so with the martins, however; it was their
home, and they would fight fire as they had fought sparrows.
They never retreated from it, but wheeled round it with the
fierce battle-love of war-eagles, drenched by the heavy streams
of water so that they could hardly fly, scorched by the heat,
but heeding neither fire nor water, the roar of the flames, the
rending of timbers, the puffing of engines, nor the noise of the
crowd. They had no nest nor eggs to protect, but they never
thought of deserting the house they had fought for even if it
cost them their lives. It is pleasant to know that their house
was saved and that they bred and brought up their families
there, and sang to them little home-made ballads of the great
events of the year, the fire and the fight with sparrows, a sort
of swallow-saga of exultation.

SOME CAGED PINE GKOSBEAKS.

The pine grosbeak comes down from the North only in
winter, and seldom goes far south of New England; but a
little account of a pair that I held captive for a time, may
give some hints of what can be learned from watching a
caged bird.

On those winters when food is scarce in the north the pine
grosbeaks come south in large flocks to eat the berries of the
mountain ash and black alder and the buds of maple, ash, and
pine trees. Our first notice of their coming is hearing their
wild, sweet whistle overhead, or seeing the ground strewn
with the scales of leaf-buds, which they drop in feeding.
They are the largest of our tamer winter birds, and look like
a magnified sparrow, being about the size of a robin and more
heavily built. Though they vary in color, from gray Avith a
yellow rump and crown in the female and young, to a rosy red
all over in the adult male, all ages and sexes have two broad
white wing-bars which give an easy mark of identification.

During the great flights of grosbeaks in 1897, four were
brought me alive, and for a few hours all were put into one
cage. In this interval one of them lost all the long quills
from both wings, either by self-injury or by malice on the part
of the others. The poor fellow could not fly, and his wings
needed attention, so it was decided to keep him and one com-
panion, and to release the others. The birds were so near
alike in color that the sexes could not be distinguished, but
the gentlest tempered bird was selected to remain with this
one, which, by his determined resistance, his fierce biting, and
his loud snapping of the bill, was supposed to be a male.

219

220 SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS.

The pair were put in a large parrot cage with a swinging ring
and lived there for six weeks, apparently happy and certainly
well fed. They were very much pleased with the swinging
ring, and became quite expert in leaping into it without losing
their balance, although I often altered the position of the
perches below, so they must strike the ring at a new and
inconvenient angle. They swung in it singly and together, and
at night always slept in it side by side — a forest habit, no
doubt, of sleeping in a high place for safety. At first they
slept soundly, with their heads tucked under their wings ; but
frequent interruptions and night alarms caused them either to
give up the habit entirely or to sleep much more lightly, for
after a few days we never caught them napping.

They ate apples, both fresh and the " frozen-thawed " from
the trees, preferring the seeds, but eating a portion of the
pulp also. The berries of the mountain ash they ate eagerly,
rejecting most of the pulp. They loved the terminal buds of
fir and maple twigs, and one day, when loose in the room,
cropped their mistress's carnations and azaleas of every leaf-
bud. Bird-seed formed their principal diet after the first two
weeks, and they showed a decided preference for canary seed.
When fed the mixed hemp, rape, millet, and canary seed they
appeared to reject all but the latter. At first they carefully
shelled all their bird-seed, as they do their apple-seeds, and
the cage was littered with the chaff ; but toward the end of
their stay they seemed to learn that there was no necessity
for this extra work, and few husks were found on the floor.
When the fresh seed was first x^ut in, the male usually stood
in the middle of the seed-dish and made his little wife watch
him while he'enjoyed himself. When their hunger was satis-
fied, and they were eating for the fun of it, they would take
several seeds in their mouths and hop up on the perch, where

SOME CAGED PINE GROSBEAKS. 221

they would chew each separately under the corner of their
beaks. Gravel they ate eagerly and seemed to need fre-
quently, but cuttle-bone they either did not desire or its use
they could not understand.

They were exceedingly particular about their water, drank
much if it was good, but went thirsty rather than touch any
that had stood in the cage over night. A bath was their great-
est pleasure, and they threw the spray in such quantities as to
wet the floor for three feet around the cage. But the bath
must be fresh or they would go without it. They seemed to
need it to keep their feathers trim. For the first week it was
not offered them because we knew that in winter they could
get no water to bathe in but dusted themselves in snow ; yet
when given them regularly the bath produced an immediate
improvement in their personal ax)pearance. It was noteworthy
what a difference life indoors made in their figures. They
always look to be stout, puffy birds when wild, because they
fluff out their feathers so as to make a loose, thick garment
that holds the heat of the body ; but in captivity, needing no
extra warmth, they laid their feathers flat, and became trim
and elegant in figure, rather slenderer, it seemed to me, than
most birds.

The little grosbeaks became very tame. Though they would
not willingly allow us to handle them, they were never afraid
of any grown person. Of a child they were suspicious ; in the
presence of the baby they showed positive alarm. The dog
terrified them ; but the sight of a cat made them frantic, and
often their cries of terror would draw one of us from another
room in time to see a strange cat slink away from the low ve-
randa windows. This excessive fright at a cat was at least
partly explained by a narrow escape they had one day from a
neighbor's pussy, which, having the liberty of the house, got

222 SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS.

into the room wliere they were and witli her claws tore the
neck of the little female. But why should they have been
afraid of the baby unless they classed four-footed beasts and
creeping things together ?

When lirst captured they had two notes, — their low, pleas-
ant, conversational talk with each other, and their shrill alarm
note, which they uttered when they saw flocks of their mates
outside, a peculiar, piercing call, fit for the company of pine
trees and a home in the North. The last of February the male
began to sing, a little whispering warble, sweet and ventrilo-
quial, performed with the bill shut, and so hard to be located
that when the birds were not more than a foot away it was
difficult to tell which was the singer. Yet through a closed
door the song could be heard, apparently just as loud. It is
probable that the male would have improved in his singing in
a few weeks, for his nearest relatives are good songsters, and
he himself is not without a reputation.

We were now able to be sure that the singer was a male,
for, during the few weeks that the birds had been with us, one
of them had been slowly, but unmistakably, turning red. Had
this one been alone we should hardly have believed the change
had occurred ; but, knowing that in the beginning both were
alike, it was easy to see that the male's color had spread and
deepened, had suffused his breast and crept down his back
and brightened on his head and rump till these parts were no
longer yellow, but a coppery red. And yet the change had
come about without the loss of a single feather, except the
primaries torn out in battle and two tail feathers broken by
the cage. If new feathers grew, we did not see them, though
the birds were often in our hands. Here was a case of " color-
change without moult," a subject of great interest to scientists
and not yet fully explained.

SOME CAGED PINE GROSBEAKS. 223

Another point worth notice was that both of them were right-
handed. Whenever they clung to the bars of their cage, the
right foot was put lowest down to bear the strain; and not only
was this seen by constant observation to be their preference,
but it was proved by the tails, which became very much worn
upon the left side, where they rubbed against the bars. A lady
who once kept a wild swamp sparrow captive, noticed that it
always wet its food with its right foot and became lame in its
left hip in consequence of the strain. Still, it is a matter of
dispute whether animals are naturally right-handed. The
parrot, it is said, is left-handed. Can you guess why ? Do
you know whether it is so ?

After a few days the little grosbeaks became very tame.
They would allow no one to fondle them, and seemed to have
no favorites among their attendants; but they were not at all
timid, and could be given the liberty of the room in which
they were kept for an hour or two every day. There were
some hard knocks against the window-panes before they
learned that glass is solid, although so clear, but they learned
the lesson. Nor did they seem anxious for their liberty.
After an hour or two of freedom they would go into their cage,
or allow themselves to be caught in the hand. There was
something so brave and trustful in the way they would look
up with their clear hazel eyes, as if to say, " You don't mean
to hurt us ; we are sure you don't." All this time the wing-
quills of the male had been growing, and he was now able to
fly as well as ever. They were great pets, and we tried to
make them happy. Our last attempt succeeded so well that it
ends this story ; for there came a day in March when to do
them a j)leasure they were taken out on the veranda for an
airing. The bottom of the cage dropped out, and the male,
wild for the freedom of the fresh air, leaped from his cage.

224 SOME COMMON LAyD-BlllDS.

and with joyful cries flew to the top of the highest maple.
His little mate did not attempt to follow him, but a gentle
hand drew her out and made her feel the breeze beneath her
wings, when she joined her mate, and neither ever came back
to thank us for six weeks' entertainment.

This simple story contains nothing that any child might not
observe ; but it shows that something may be learned even
from caged birds, and it happens to illustrate three disputed
points in science : whether wild birds sleep with their heads
beneath their wings, whether they are naturally right-handed,
and the color change without a moult. However, unless some
accident, like that to our pine grosbeak, disables a bird, no wild
bird should ever be kept in captivity unless it has perfect
freedom, like a tame crow or blackbird.

Fig. 48. — cuckoo.

Facing page 225.

THE BIRD INVISIBLE.

THE CUCKOO.

Who knows Cuckoo ? Listen ! Koiv-koiv-koiv-koic, you
hear it in the apple tree, and koiv-koiv-koiv-koiv off by the
brookside, and wp along the fringe of willows kow-koic-kozv
just as loud as before.

The farmer's boy snaps together his jack-knife and sets off
in the direction of the sound, grumbling that the old turkey is
straying again, and the fox in the swamp will get him as he
richly deserves. He never suspects that it is not the turkey
at all but a cuckoo leading him off into the wet and oozy
thickets. Perhaps he thought she shouted out her name
as clearly as the little birds on the Swiss clocks that sing
cuck-oo, cuck-oo, with the hours; perhaps he thought that
any bird which the poets had praised so highly ought to be
able to sing at least a little. This hoarse koiv-koiv-kow is
nothing but a noise, and a very harsh one at that; so that
it was an apt retort, as well as a witty one, when Shake-
speare's heroine declared, —

" He knows me as the blind man knows the cuckoo,
By the bad voice/''

That is as good a way as any to recognize Cuckoo. Not only
is her voice bad, except when crooning her soft coo-coo-coo,
coo-coo, but it is unmistakable, and usually it is the only
warning of her presence. She flits and calls and wanders
from bush to tree, restless as a ghost and nearly as invisible,
but proclaiming her whereabouts by her loud and frequent
Q 225

220 SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS.

calling. But long shall you watch before you catch her
crying out her kow-kow-koiv. Let her come upon you lying
in the grass and there is not a more silent bird anywhere
than our shy, soft-mannered cuckoo. She will regard you
shrinkingly a moment, and then fade away before your eyes.
Xot a rustle of a leaf, not a stir of a twig, not a flip of wings,
but a ghostly vanishing. The slender, soft-colored, long-tailed
bird that looked at you out of a clear hazel eye evaded you just
at the moment when you winked or glanced aside. Perhaps
she merely hopped a little way and drew herself into some
uncouth position, as long and slender as a dead apple-branch ;
or perhaps her hazy colors hid her ; or perhaps she removed
quite away from you, and you hear her koiv-koic-koiv ' fvom.
another leafy cover.

You must not expect a closer acquaintance. Cuckoo is so
shy, so quiet, so unwilling to be looked at, that unless you have
a good glass or unlimited patience you must be satisfied with a
glimpse of the soft brow^n back and the long, graduated tail. In
time you will learn her peculiar flight, her size, and her notes
so well that even a half glimpse will be all you need to be cer-
tain of her neighborhood.

The two kinds of cuckoos which we have in this country look
much alike, but they differ enough in their haunts, their habits,
and their call notes to be quite readily distinguished, even
without a sight of the black on the tail which marks the
yellow-billed, and the red stripe around the eye which dis-
tinguishes the black-billed cuckoo. In many parts of the
country both species are found ; in some but one is common,
and the other rare or wanting altogether. Do you know
whether both sorts live near you ? Which do you have ? How
do you tell them apart ? If you have ever heard them called
rain crow?, as they are in many places, perhaps you can tell

THE BIRD INVISIBLE. 227

us why they get the name. Do not look for the black-billed
cuckoo west of the Rocky Mountains, nor for the yellow-billed
at the farthest northern limits of the country, for it is rare
north of Massachusetts. In the farthest South there is some-
times seen a third kind called the Mangrove cuckoo. When
both kinds are found in the same region, the black-billed will
be most commonly detected along wet lowlands, where a little
growth of willows or alders borders a meadowy rivulet, while
the yellow-billed cuckoo haunts the dry upland pastures, with
scattered tufts of shrubby trees and near access to taller,
thicker growth.

Some day you may find Cuckoo's nest. Cuckoo is a poor
nest builder, so you may easily guess whose house it is
even if the owner is not home. " As a nest builder," says
one observer, " the cuckoo is no genius, or if a genius he
belongs to the impressionist school. The nest is but a raft of
sticks flung into the fork of a bough." If you find such a nest,
— so shallow that the x^ale, blue-green eggs may easily be rolled
out if the wind blows hard, — thrust into the side of a quickset
hedge, or on the low bough of an evergreen, there is little doubt
it is Cuckoo's. She usually further advertises herself by twist-
ing a piece of rag into her structure, just as the red-eyed vireo
always uses a piece of hornet's nest, and the Baltimore oriole
twists strings into her woven pocket, and the great-crested fly-
catcher wreathes a snakeskin about her nest rim.

It is not wise to go too near Cuckoo's nest, nor to visit it
often. She is the most suspicious of mothers, and often deserts
her nest when she finds that it has been discovered. Instead,
keep away from the pretty green eggs and the ugly black babies
until some day you see Madam Cuckoo bringing caterpillars to
what you think are little Plymouth Kock chickens. Then you
may watch her if you will. Naturally you will be rather aston-

228 SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS.

ished till j'ou reflect that, in bird-land, to feed a young bird and
to worry over it always means either an own child or an ado})ted
one. These little short-tailed, mottled slate-and-white nestlings
are certainly the own children of our elegant, graceful, long-
tailed cuckoo. In time they will outgrow the difference and
will look like her.

There hav^e been all kinds of stories about Cuckoo. Some
say that she lays her eggs in other birds' nests, and some that
she sucks eggs to make her voice clear. But we all know that
she is as hoarse as a crow, and the best naturalists to-day,
though they admit that they suspect her of egg-stealing, do
not say that they ever caught her at it. All that I am sure
of is that the other birds call her very bad names and try to
drive her away. This looks suspicious, but proves nothing.
Of the other charge there is rather more evidence, but even
that is not wholly against Cuckoo. She makes her own nest and
takes care of her own brood, as a rule. Occasionally she lays
an egg in some other bird's nest, but so rarely that you are
never likely to see it, or at most only in a. certain particular
case. The black-billed cuckoo is rather prone to lay her
eggs in her yellow-billed cousin's nest, and yellow-bill just
as frequently returns the compliment. You can tell the eggs
apart by their color. But who cares ? Aren't they all cuckoos ?
And who cares if the cuckoo drops an egg now and then into
the nest of some other bird ? A young cuckoo is as useful
as any other young bird, and is no more trouble to his foster
parents than their own birdlings.

The most important fact about Cuckoo is that she is our
greatest caterpillar hunter, and one of the best friends the
fruit grower has. When the ugly tent caterpillars have
twisted their webs about the ends of the apple-tree boughs,
and are beginning to crawl down the trunk in an endless

THE BIRD INVISIBLE. 229

procession, she is there to make war upon them. When the
canker-worms are cutting up the leaves till the trees are stark
naked, then Cuckoo comes to fight them. She cannot eat them
all, but she abates the nuisance even at its worst ; and more
often than we know for she nips the devastation before it has
grown great. The cuckoos are almost the only birds that will
touch a hairy caterpillar, but they eat the hairy, spiny sorts by
the hundreds at a meal. Being such a quiet, shy bird she is
present oftener than we think for ; and, working without pay
and without vacations, she is not a bad bird to keep around
the farm and garden.

A DEAD REAT.»

THE COW-BIKD.

The habit of laying its eggs in other birds' nests, which
we remarked had been a few times observed in our American
cuckoos, and which is the regular habit of the European
cuckoo, has a name of its own. It is called parasitism.

Parasite is an old Greek name for one who eats at another
man's expense. Nowadays we call such a person a dead beat.
Any animal that does not work for its own living, or that
expects some other animal to bring up its young, is called
a parasitic animal. Our cuckoos are only occasionally para-
sitic, and then without doing any harm ; but we have another
group of birds that are dead beats of the lowest class.

Little can be said in favor of our common cow-bird.^ Not
only does he shirk the labor of building a nest, and of caring
for his young, but the youngsters themselves are worthless
fellows, and they always cause the death of all the young
in the nest of their foster parents. So every cow-bird that
you see is responsible for the death of four or five useful and
pretty insectivorous birds, while he himself is good for nothing
except eating a few bugs and a little weed-seed. The cow-
bird is not only useless and morally disreputable, but he is
actually criminal.

1 The facts concerning cow-birds are principally drawn from Major C. E.
Bendire's "Life Histories of North American Birds"; the theory, except
the comparison with cuckoos, from Sclater and Hudson's work on the " Birds
of the Arpjentine Republic."

2 The cuckoo is often called cow-bird, too, from its note ; but the true cow-
bird is the cow-blackbird, shiny-eye, clodhopper, lazy bird, or buffalo bird of
different localities.

230

Fig. il).— cow-bird.

Facing page 230.

A DEAD BEAT. 231

But even if we do not approve him, we may study him with
profit. Naturalists agree that there is a great deal about his
crooked ways that is not yet known or explained, and that the
study of the cow-bird is one of the best fields open to observers.

We need have no trouble in identifying him. He gets his
name from his fondness for cattle, in whose company he is
often seen, sometimes even riding on their backs to pick up
the vermin on them. (But other birds, like the ani and
Brewer's blackbird, also do the same.) His color is a good
mark. The male, in spring, is a glossy black, with brown head
and shoulders ; the female, dull brown. But his note is his
most unmistakable characteristic. It has something of the
reedy vibrancy of the other blackbirds, but more harshness ;
and it is uttered with strange contortions of his body, with
wings and tail quivering, head depressed, and throat swelled
out — an effect wholly disproportioned to the harsh and brassy
" chuck-see-e ^' which he finally jerks out. A flock of these
birds in a tree-top sounds like a congregation of rusty door-
hinges.

A curious fact about the cow-birds is that the males so
outnumber the females that there are usually three or four to
a single female. And instead of a large crop of old bachelors,
she goes with all of them. Polyandry — having many husbands
— this rare habit is called. Polygamy — that is, being married
to many wives, like our barnyard cock — is the reverse of
this. It is rather a curious observation that in a polygamous
society the females have to work very hard ; but in a poly-
androus society they do not work at all. Perhaps this may
account for the lazy ways into which these birds have fallen.

There are twelve species of these birds in the 'New World
and none (except rarely one of them) is known to build a nest,
though one South American species raises its own brood in

232 SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS.

the nests built by other birds. The three species occurring
in the limits of the United States neither build nor care for
their young. This carelessness is the more notable because
the blackbirds, as a rule, build very respectable nests, and
their relatives, the orioles, are among the most famous weavers
in the world. Why is it that a single genus has entirely given
up the habit of nest building ?

The female cow-bird lays an unending succession of eggs all
summer long in any nest that comes handiest, or sometimes
on the ground, as if not caring what became of them. Cow-
birds' eggs have been found in the nests of ninety different
species of North American birds, some in such strange places
as the eaves-swallow's high-hung cradle, the hole of the red-
headed woodpecker, and the long tunnel of the rock wren.
Usually she selects the nests of some smaller bird, and those
most commonly imposed upon are the phcebe, the song-spar-
row, the towhee, the indigo bunting, the oven-bird, and the
yellow-breasted chat. Often these contain several eggs of
the cow-bird and none of their rightful owner's. As many as
seven cow-bird's eggs have been found in one nest, though
it is not usual to find more than one. When this hatches, it
crowds out, smothers out, or starves out the young of the
rightful owner, and becomes sole occupant. It is estimated
that each female cow-bird^ lays from eight to twelve eggs.
These are usually laid singly in nests that should contain
from four to five eggs of another bird. If all the cow-birds'
eggs hatched, each female cow-bird would be responsible for
starving from thirty to sixty little birds of our most benefi-
cial sorts. Perhaps it is fortunate that the males are in excess
of the females, or the destruction might be greater.

1 Hudson estimates that the female Argentine cow-bird lays from sixty to a
hundred eggs in a season, and gives good reasons.

A DEAD BEAT. 233

Luckily, accidents happen to the cow-bird's eggs. She lays
many on the ground ; she lays some in deserted nests of the
year before;' others she puts in new nests that are scarcely
completed, and these are frequently deserted by the owners
or another story is built over the intruding egg. But too
many of them are received and tended. Once the foster
mother adopts the big egg, her own brood is doomed.
The new egg gets more than its share of warmth ; it has
wonderful vitality; it hatches very quickly, and its thick
shell protects it from accident, for the cow-bird has a habit
of breaking the eggs in the nests she visits, even her own if
she finds there one laid previously. It is not known whether
she pricks them with her beak or with her claws, but each one
is punctured so that it will not hatch. How she does it, young
naturalists may attempt to discover.

The instance of that South American cow-bird, which takes
care of its young in a nest built by other birds, indicates that
at some remote period the others probably did the same. It
has been suggested that several females might have been in
the habit of laying in the same nest to avoid the work of
building; and that thus they got into the habit of turning
over their eggs to each other's care, each expecting some other
bird to do her work for her, until at last in order to hatch any
young they were obliged to lay in the nests of unrelated
species that were better mothers. Whether laziness or in-
ability to build good nests be the cause of the parasitic habit
we cannot determine, but it is noteworthy that the cuckoos,
the only other North American birds that are much inclined
to similar habits, are poor builders.

But there is another theory, more ingenious and perhaps
equally true. In South America many birds build large,
domed nests, and these prove so attractive that other species

234 SOME COMMON LAND-IURDS.

seek them to nest in just as our martins and sparrows and wrens
hunt for martin houses. In time, some of them have lost the
art of buikling nests for themselves, or else rarely practise it.
Among these birds is the honest cow-bird. She can build her
own nest and sometimes does do it, but she prefers to fight
for one of these line, domed dwellings. She usually gets it,
and no sooner has she taken possession than she makes a
window in the side to let the light in. Here is a bird that
can make an open nest, but that prefers to live in a covered
nest.

Now, it is observed that the other species of cow-birds of
South America, which are never known to build for themselves,
are greatly attracted to these domed nests. They examine
them, linger about them, seem inclined to enter, but are afraid
to do so, and after a half day's debating between their desire
to go in and their fear of the dark, they back away reluctantly.
If the inside is light, they will lay in it, but they will not
make a hole to let in the light as the honest cow-birds do. A
lost instinct seems to prompt them to enter holes, indicating
that they once bred in such places, or else built a partially
covered nest.

Among these South American cow-birds we observe three
stages in acquiring parasitic habits. The bay-winged cow-bird
often makes its own nest and brings up its own young, though
it more commonly uses the empty nests of other birds; the
screaming cow-bird is parasitic on the bay-winged, and more
rarely on other birds ; the Argentine cow-bird is parasitic on
many other birds but not on other cow-birds. One takes an
empty nest to avoid the work of building ; one lays her eggs
in her cousin's nest to escape the care of her young ; one goes
entirely out of the family and imposes upon birds that are not
related.

A DEAD BEAT. 235

Among the cuckoos, the first stage of borrowing a nest seems
not to have been observed; but the second, of laying in the
nests of other birds of the same family, is not infrequent
among the American cuckoos ; and the third, of complete para-
sitism, though rare among the American, is habitual in the
European cuckoo, which neither builds its nest nor cares for
its eggs. It would seem that parasitism must be a habit Avhich
has been increasing among these birds, and that our American
cuckoos are yet in the earlier stages, while our cow-bird and
the European cuckoo have passed on to the extreme form of
the habit. But habits are not acquired by a perfectly regular
and imperceptible advance. There are always some birds that
are ahead of the rest and some that are behind in learning the
new ways ; even after the habit has become a settled one, there
are survivals of the older habit or reversions to it, just as in
forming a new habit there are anticipations of it by the most
progressive birds. Who knows then but some day sharp eyes
may yet discover an old-fashioned cow-bird, not yet educated
up to this end-of-the-century new-birdism, feeding her young
in a nest of her own building ; or perhaps may be able to prove
that our cuckoos have as yet just begun their career of para-
sitism, and, like the cow-bird, are degenerating into bird-
hoboes, and gradually but surely becoming bad bird-citizens.

THE NEST IN THE PASTURE SPRUCE.

THE LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE.

Out in the half-cleared New England pasture, where check-
erberry leaves glisten on the hillocks, and, in spring, rhodora
grows among the pools in the hollows, stands the old pasture
spruce, — not tall and stately like its forest brothers, but a
sturdy, knotty tree that reaches its long arms out to shelter
the sheep and cattle on hot August noons. In a thousand
New England pastures stand just such spruce trees, among
the clumps of bayberry and huckleberry bushes. In many
of them a-gray-and-Avhite bird must have her nest, as she does
in this. Not many birds care for such an exposed place,
which must seem like living on a lighthouse far out from
land; but this bird seems to prefer that isolation. In eight
nests of Which I have records near my old Maine home, six
were found in pasture spruces, one in a birch tree, and one in
an apple tree, all isolated trees.

The nest was always placed upon the south side of the
tree, saddled upon the broad, flat palm of an extended spruce
bough at about ten feet from the ground, and built with so
much superfluous material that one wonders at the bird's
patience in collecting it. An old one which I have just
weighed, weighs a quarter of a pound. If you wish to see
how much work it was to make it, try to pick up that weight
of hairs, dry grasses, and tiny sticks.

But you can by no means judge the work she puts out
upon *her nest until you work as she does, carrying them

236

Fig. .50. — shrike.

Facing page 2-36.

THE NEST IN THE PA STUB E SPRUCE. 237

singly from one rod, or five, to a quarter of a mile from
the spot where she finds them. Birds often carry their nest-
ing-stuff very long distances. I know some crows that used
to line their nests with cow's hair which they must have
collected fully a mile from the nest. This was evident because
we could see that the hair was such as is scraj)ed from hides
at the vats of tanneries ; it was in mats that had been
soaked ; and the only tannery was a full mile away.

Let us examine the nest in the spruce tree. "First there is
a coarse platform of twigs of birch and juniper, intermingled
with tough spruce roots. These must have been pulled by
great effort out of the hard, stony ground. It would be as
easy for you to jerk up a five-year-old apple tree, and the bird
must have gone to work very much as you would have done
with the apple tree, first separating each of the side roots, so
that only the largest one was left to be pulled off by main
strength. There are a number of large roots, more dead
twigs, much cedar bark, moss, fine roots, string, and rope yarn
in tiie outer and coarser part of the nest, each with, a history
when we think where the nest came from.

The cedar bark was stripped from the rail fence surround-
ing the pasture. I suspect that the rhodora lent these fine
rootlets, and these dried, smooth suckers look to me like dried
witch-grass stems. (Do not call them I'oots ; the witch-grass
spreads by an underground stem.) Here is the gray moss that
grows on ledges. The nearest boulder, where this could be
obtained, is twenty rods away from the spruce tree. Here is
string — hard-twisted cord, in pieces eight inches and a foot
long, as if bitten into convenient lengths by the gray bird;
loose-twisted wicking, which could be used in bulk; fine
thread; materials that I cannot identify; rope-yarn — un-
twisted; cotton-waste from the railroad track; sheep's wool,

238 f^OME COMMOX LAND-niRDS.

or woollen waste; and store twine, — so much of the last that
it would seem she must have begged it of the butcher's boy
before he got to the door. Probably she did pick it up early
mornings in the yards of houses near by, long before men
were stirring.

Did you ever think that some bird's sharp eye was on
the lookout for every bit of twine which you throw away ?
We begin to appreciate how much our habit of using strings
freely means to the birds when we notice the use they make
of threads, cords, and twines. Time and labor are saved to
the birds when men are generous with their strings ; and we
can make a variety of interesting and simple observations by
noting what happens when a good supply of string is at their
disposal. A veranda roof is a good place to put them if you
spend much time upstairs. Shut the blinds and peep through
the cracks to see what kinds of birds come for string. Vary
the experiment by putting out weak strings, like worsted, and
strong ones, like twine, to see whether the strength of the
string is of any importance to them. Place colored strings
with the white ones, and notice whether they prefer or avoid
the colored ones. Perhaps you may be able to tell whether it
is lack of an eye for color or fear of betraying their nests that
makes them avoid the colors ; and perhaps you will find some
species preferring the colors when a choice is given them.
Try them with long strings and short, to see whether they
judge their material before they carry it off. Fasten some of
the strings in various ways to see whether they notice the dif-
ference between those that are free and those that are tied,
and how much ingenuity they have in clearing them of
obstructions. The more systematic and careful you are in
making such experiments the more you will see that is worth
notice. Random experiments amount to very little. When

rilE NEST IN THE PASTURE SPRUCE, 239

you wish to establish one fact, make your arrange^neiits so
that your experiment or series of experiments will clearly
show what you wish to be proved. This string experiment is
the simplest possible, but it is worth trying.

But we are far enough away from our nest in the spruce
tree. The outer structure we have already analyzed. Inside
this is a layer of hair. There is sheep's wool among it,
though I do not know of a sheep in the neighborhood. These
white horse hairs certainly came from the tail of old Dobbin,
though Dobbin and the Deacon, his master, live half a mile
away. If there is any other white horse in that vicinity, the
graybird knows her neighbors better than I do. This soft
white hair, still lying in little parcels just as the industrious
bird collected it in her beak, I recognize as the winter coat of
the Squire's cow which must have been gathered hair by hair
in such places as the cow was wont to rub her sides while she
waited for spring to come. Thus three kinds of animals have
furnished the second layer of the graybird's nest.

But there is still a third, softer than any of the others.
The widow's hens furnished that, yet her stock is not fairly
represented. Here are feathers and feathers, but all of two
sorts, — either the white hackles from the neck of some white
Cochin cock, or the soft, mottied feathers of Plymouth Eock
fowls. There are no gaudy bronze and red plumes from the
ruffs of strutting barnyard lords ; none of the brown feathers
of the Polish, nor black ones from the Spanish fowl. If I
did not know better I should think the widow and her neigh-
bors raised little else but Plymouth Rocks. On the contrary,
they were not abundant in this neighborhood when this
nest was made. If I had not seen other nests, I should
think the graybird had "happened" to take these dull,
spotted feathers so near her own color. But every nest

240 SOMK COMMON LAND-BIRDS.

I ever saw contains more of riyniouth Rock or of plain
white feathers than of every other kind taken together,
and observers from other localities near by note the same.
Evidently, in this section, the bird chooses these dull feathers,
hunts till she linds them, and then arranges them in a curious
manner that well bears out the assertion that her choice is
reasonable.

At first sight you would call this a rough nest. Any bird,
you would think, would know better than to leave feathers
sticking up all around her nest in this unfinished way. But
more careful observation will show you that the feathers are
sticking up only around the rim of the nest ; that they are put
in carefully so that the tips curve inward over the hollow of
the nest. Fifteen Plymouth Rock hen's feathers arch over
this deep warm nest, and shade the mother as she sits upon it.

Do you recollect that the bird built in a lone tree in an open
pasture, where she was much exposed to enemies ? There is
a good reason why she should wish to hide herself while on
her nest, and why she chose dull, mottled feathers that har-
monize with the color of her back and of the nest, for a
screen.

It is true that I have not told you the name of the graybird.
There is a prejudice against the name of shrike, and when a
bird has such an unattractive title as " loggerhead shrike," it is
hard for her to get justice done. But really, she is not at all
a bad bird, and she does know how to make the softest, warm-
est nest you ever saw. In the South and West she does not
build in a spruce tree nor use so many feathers ; there you
would best look for her in some thorny thicket.

We have two kinds of shrikes, — the great northern, or
winter shrike, and the loggerhead, or summer shrike. The
former is seen only in the more northern states, and there

THE NEST IN THE PASTURE SPRUCE. 241

only in winter; the latter, with its subspecies, is found in
summer all over the United States, and in the more southern
portions is the only shrike ever seen. The two look so much
alike when alive that the surest way of identifying them is by
the season when they are seen. In Maine the great northern
shrike arrives about the first of October and leaves about the
first of March, while the loggerhead arrives from the South
just in time to relieve him, and stays till the great northern
returns in the fall. Farther south, the northern bird spends a
shorter time and the southern bird a longer time on the field.
The only one known to nest in the United States is the logger-
head, with its subspecies, the Calif ornian and the white-rumped
shrikes. Both species are medium-sized birds, gray above and
white below, with black wings and tail, marked with white,
and a black stripe across the forehead, extending down the
side of the head. Young birds lack the black markings and
are of a brownish color. Shrikes may be easily identified by
their color and by their habits, especially by their choice of
the topmost branches of a lone tree or of a fence-post, and by
their flying as if intending to alight below their perch and
suddenly rising to it with a bound.

HOW THE SHRIKE HUNTS.

Every boy considers the shrikes fair game. He may pop
pistols and snap slingshots at them in virtuous indignation,
because they are so cruel to the little birds. It is generally
believed that they love to torture little birds, and have a habit
of hanging them all alive on thorns, and that they are barbar-
ously cruel.

Is it not true that the reason why we think the shrike
a bad fellow is not so much because we pity the little
birds, as because we feel that if he were only big enough he
would like to hang us up on hooks too ? We make a bug-a-boo
out of the shrike when really he is not a particle more cruel
than the crow or the blackbird, not to mention the hawks and
owls.

Let us do him justice. He does not torture his victims,
but kills them speedily by pecks on the head, or by throttling
them ; he does not hang them up alive ; and though he kills
more than he needs, he does not seem to do it wantonly, but
tidily hangs up the carcass where he can find it some day
when he needs food.

Here is a picture of an English sparrow killed and hung up
by a great northern shrike in the fork of an alder twig,
drawn from nature so that you may be sure it is correct.
It is an honest witness to the fact that the sparrow was dead
when dropped into the fork of the branch. Had a spark of
life remained, he must have fluttered out of such a wide-angled
crotch of a tree which has no thorns or side limbs to hold the

242

HOW THE SHRIKE HUNTS.

243

bird. And though very often the shrike hangs up its prey-
by driving a sharp thorn through its neck, the bird must be
dead before this is done, because the shrike has neither the

strength nor the sharp claws needed

to carry a struggling and frantic

bird from a quarter to half as heavy

as himself. It is his custom either

to peck his victim on the head, or

to throttle it by pinching its throat,

but not to torture it. Hanging it

up is a mere matter

of convenience, and

shows that the shrike

has forethought for

the rainy day that is

coming, when dinner

will not be so easily obtained. If

any young observer finds where the

shrike has left his meat, he should

leave it and watch it occasionally,

to see whether the bird ever comes

back for it.

Since the shrike has a bad name,
let us see what harm it does. In
winter the great northern shrike has
a very limited bill of fare. A few
chickadees, nuthatches, downy wood-
peckers, red - polls, crossbills, pine
linnets, snow buntings, and tree-spar-
rows, with possibly, now and then,
a pine grosbeak are all the birds,
except the English sparrow, small enough for him to master,

Fig. 51. Sparrow huno up
BY Shrike.

244 SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS.

and, except the first three, none of these are beneficial. Like
the shrike, the others are winter emigrants from the North
and do no helpful work while they are here.

Indeed, the shrike is one of our most useful birds, for
he is a champion sparrow killer. We have no bird so
utterly depraved, destructive, and altogether odious as the
English sparrow. Aside from all the other harm he does, he
is estimated to eat or destroy not less than five million dollars'
worth of grain and fruits yearly. Any one who makes one
English sparrow live where there were two before does more
good than the man in the proverb who set himself to raising
grass. We ought to thank any bird that devotes his time to
thinning the ranks of this pest.

It has long been well known that the great northern shrike,
though a shy bird, naturally averse to the society of man and
even of his own kind, is a regular visitor to the parks
of great cities and to town and city gardens where sparrows
resort. Though not visible every day and all the time, like
some birds, he is much more commonly seen there than in
the unsettled country.

In my own neighborhood he first became conspicuous a
few years after the English sparrow arrived, and his entrance
into city life in this vicinity seems to have dated from
about that time. Though never an abundant bird, he has
become a regular instead of a rare winter visitor, and is still
rare, so far as my experience goes, a few miles from town.
One city church surrounded with hedges and trees, the favor-
ite resort of sparrows, is his headquarters also ; and it is not
uncommon while passing the jjlace, to see him make a dash
among them and drive them screaming in all directions. How-
ever, it was only recently that I realized that he had reduced
sparrow-hunting to a science.

HOW THE SHRIKE HUNTS. 245

At nightfall of a very cold day, as I went out for a walk, I
noticed that the sparrows had gone to bed. It was not dark,
for a mellow golden light filled the west ; but, on account of
the cold,the birds had gone to roost early and sat quietly muffled
in their feathers. Half a mile farther on, as I paused on the top
of a hill to look at the after-glow in the west, I saw a bird
flying directly toward me with the greatest speed and a per-
fectly true course. He must have come from the city across
the river, a half mile away, and the manner of his flight
showed that he knew whither he was bound.

As he whizzed past, I saw his black, gray, and white
livery, and marked his peculiar wing-beat, like the stroke of a
strong rower, who rests on his oars a moment between each
pull. It was a great northern shrike. He was heading
straight for a clump of thick cedars a hundred feet beyond.
As he approached he scaled downward, and, when near the
ground, gave the peculiar upward bound that marks the
shrike's manner of alighting. For a moment all was still.
Perhaps ten seconds or more passed without a stir in the
cedars. Then there rose a clamor of sparrows and out buzzed
a flock of them while the shrike in pursuit singled out one
of them, and the chase began.

The sparrow did his best, but he made a mistake, heading
for the open and flying a straight course. The shrike was
far the better bird on the wing, and it was only a ques-
tion of time what the end would be. A house prevented
my witnessing the actual capture, and I was rather glad
that I did not see it, even if it was one sparrow less. But
I had learned something new to me about the shrike : that
he has hunting-grounds at some distance from his head-
quarters; that he visits them probably with some regularity;
that he knew there would be sj)arrows in this place at

246

SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS.

this time of night; and that he hunted after other birds
were abed to take advantage of their habits. When he
arrived he did not dash in and give the alarm at once, but
entered quietly and low down where he could not be so
easily seen, waiting there till he had located his victims,
when he charged at them in such a way as to drive them
out into the open rather than through another clump of

Fig. 52. Centipede Impaled by Shkike.

cedars close at hand. Evidently he knew all about sparrow-
hunting, and I suspect that this was his regular night beat.

There is a record of a shrike that killed two sparrows, and,
holding one in each foot, tried to pursue a third. It has been
somewhat disputed whether the shrike carries his prey in his
feet or in his bill, but young naturalists can easily settle that
for themselves by watching the bird. Besides, how do birds
always carry heavy weights ? and what reasons are there that

HOW THE SHEIK E HUNTS. 247

they must carry heavy objects differently than they might carry
light ones ?

The character of the loggerhead shrike, our summer visitor,
seems to me scarcely to need much defence. If any questions
are asked, here is the picture of a mesquite branch which a
friend of mine brought me from Arizona as a sample of the
work of the white-rumped shrike. He said he had several
others, all with centipedes on them. A bird that spends
its time sticking centipedes on thorns, and killing Jerusalem
crickets, is worthy of encouragement. The Southern planter
will tell you that in his fields the shrikes kill mice like
cats ; and you yourself may find the beetles and grasshoppers
which she has caught, but not eaten, stuck upon the sharp spurs
of wire fences and behind slivers in the fence-rails. In Florida,
it is reported that they come day after day bringing their
grasshoppers and beetles to eat them on some favorite spot,
as a tree stump, and that one of their dining tables may be
known by the quantity of hard wing shards and legs of insects
dropped about it. So far as I know, the loggerhead shrike is
largely an insect eater. It may be that she eats little birds
now and then, and I would not invite her to build too near my
favorite chipping sparrows ; but her bird neighbors give her a
good name, and sit fearlessly in her spruce tree, while they
cry out in wrath if a crow, or a blackbird, or a cuckoo, or a
bluejay, comes too near their nests.

HOW THE ROBIN GETS HIS WORM.

The robin is the one bird among those which most frequent
our lawns and gardens that makes a practice of eating earth-
worms. One of our most familiar sights is to see him go trot-
ting over the lawn, apparently stamping harder than he needs
to as he comes down heavily on his hind toes — " heels," I had
almost said, forgetting for a moment where a bird's heel is —
as if to wake up the worms, then cocking his black head to listen
as they try to crawl back into their burrows. How shrewd he
looks ! How capable he is ! How quick in his actions ! He
has that worm by the head in an instant. When the worm
feels Robin's sharp bill, he tries to crawl back into his hole,
and if he is large there is a pretty little tug-of-war to be wit-
nessed on the lawn ; but bold Robin sags back and pulls so well
that it is seldom a w^orm escapes him when once fairly nipped.

You may have noticed that Robin is oftenest seen on the
lawn in wet weather. When it has been fair for some days
he is not there to pull worms. The reason of this is not hard
to seek.

You may remember some morning having seen the neat
walks of your garden pierced with little round holes, sur-
rounded by piles of dirt, and of being told that these were "worm
casts," and that seeing them was always a sign of rain. The
earthworm is fond of moisture; he must have it. In dry
weather he gets it by burrowing deep, where the ground is still
cool and damp ; but in wet weather he comes to the surface
and perhaps crawls about on the top of the ground. We say
sometimes, when we see the angleworms on the concrete walks

248

HOW TUK ROBm GETS BIS WORM. 249

of a town after a rain, that they "rained clown." The truth
is that they were wandering about the surface, enjoying
the moisture, and were drowned or crushed before they could
get back.

The robin knows very well this point in the natural history of
earthworms, and that rainy weather is the time to look for
them. His spirits rise with the dampness, and he becomes
more active, carolling his loud rain-song, gathering mud for
his nest, digging worms, and feeling unusually chirk and
happy just when other birds look depressed. If you wish to
see what a robin knows about angleworms, set the lawn-
sprinkler out some bright day. If Kobin is as hungry for
worms as usual, he will be there, hopping and digging right
under the shower of drops. Of course he is getting his back
wet when he might easily keep dry, but he knows that where
the ground is wettest the earthworms will come nearest the
surface.

I must confess that I never watched a robin carefully to see
how he ate his worm, but the narrative is so interesting that
I will quote from Mr, Daniel E. Owen's account of a pet her-
mit thrush, a description of the way the thrush ate its worms.
As the robin is a thrush, perhaps the description may serve for
both. " The bird began by worrying the worm, much as a cat
does a mouse, nipping, pecking, and slatting its victim vio-
lently. The attack seemed to be directed mainly at the ex-
tremities of the worm. Thus, in one case, the head of the
worm was pecked ten times, the tail seventeen times, and the
middle twice. The worm, of course, struggled vigorously at
first ; but after a time lost, in a measure, the power of motion.
Now and then the bird's beak would miss the worm, or would
slip off. At such times the mandibles came together with an
audible snap, conveying a suggestion of the torturing pinches

250 SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS.

to which the unfortunate worm was being subjected. The
pommelling and nipping having gone on for from one and a
half to three and a half minutes, the thrush would next essay
to swallow the worm, beginning, almost invariably, at the tail.
In the case of a big worm, the process of swallowing was dis-
tressingly prolonged by the efforts of the worm to escape, in
which it often succeeded so far as to crawl out of the bird's
mouth almost as fast as it was drawn in. The fact that the
thrush swallowed its worms tail first, gains something in inter-
est when the structure of the earthworm is taken into account.
As is well known, the earthworm's body consists of from one
hundred to two hundred rings or segments. Every segment,
except the anterior two or three and the tail, affords insertion
to four groups of short bristles, to which muscles are attached
and by means of which the worm progresses. Now a x^erson
would suppose that the presence of- several hundred little bris-
tles, all pointing the wrong way, would interfere with easy and
pleasurable deglutition ; and, inasmuch as a worm normally
crawls ahead and not back, I expected to see my thrush swal-
low worms head first, when it is to be presumed the bristles
in question would not retard the process. As a matter of fact,
the contrary method was followed."

This hermit thrush always ate at least half its own weight
of raw beef a day, or a much greater amount of worms, which
were not so hearty. Careful experiments indicated that it
would have eaten its own weight of worms in three or four
hours. How hard it would be to feed children if they ate in
proportion ! The thrush had a keen sense of taste and would
refuse worms that came from a dirty place, " making a great
splutter" or " rejecting them with every symptom of nausea
and abhorrence, wiping its bill on the nearest object which
was, generally, my hand." Though taken captive when very

HOW THE BOBiy GETS HIS WORM. 251

young, the bird showed an instinct for hunting worms, and
would alight on its master's table and pull over all the sheets
of paper, just as it would have searched beneath the dead
leaves in its home in the woods.

What has most interested me in Robin's worm-hunting is the
way he gets his worms in early spring. When he first comes
in the spring to his far Northern home in Maine he arrives
long before the snow is gone. In ordinary years he reaches
here by the middle of March, when it is spring by the almanac.
At that season, even in the best of years, every fence carries a
great snow-drift along its northern side, which often does not
melt till the middle of April. Looking from my window to-
day, the thirteenth of April, 1898, I can see snow-drifts in
gardens where peas are already planted. When the robins
first come, one would expect to see them avoid this snow and
seek the open fields and gardens ; but I most frequently find
them, often in small flocks, hopping along the edges of the
drifts, eating food that they find there. In any field I would
expect to find most robins on the south side, which is of
course the one where the snow lies, as it is shaded by the
fence, or stone wall, or row of trees that bounds the field and
shuts off the southern sun. Whatever you may think, the
northern side of a field will dry sooner than the southern side,
the northern sidewalk will dry sooner than the southern one,
if the field have a fence and the sidewalk have houses on
the southern edge.

To settle why the robins followed the drifts was a matter
that required some thinking. What was the advantage to
them?

I have just been out and examined the drifts I spoke
of, to be sure that no one can think me mistaken in assign-
ing a reason. These drifts are made up of granulated icy

252 SOME COMMON LAND-HIRDS.

snow, resting upon a bed of solid ice formed by their settling
and packing. On the southern side, next the high fence, the
slope of the drift is steep and but little ice shows at the foot —
an inch or two perhaps ; on the northern side of the drift, where
the sun strikes soonest as it looks down over the fence, the slope
is more gradual and a rim of ice four or five inches wide bor-
ders the drift. Everybody knows that in March there is always
a muddy line about a snow-drift that he must leap across.
This bank has soaked a line from one to three feet wide, ac-
cording to the slope of the soil, so that the mud is from three
inches deep to one inch deep around the snow-bank, according
to the amount of water that has been absorbed. The nar-
rower the width of the muddy line, the deeper the mud at
that point.

Here we come to the point that aj^peals to the robin. Food
is hard to get in March. Every night the fields freeze up to
the edge of the drift, and the next day they are dry. But as
the snow melts, the waste water thaws the ground and leaves
a muddy line in the track by which it retreats, a soft space
which can be worked over easily by the birds, who gather to
pick out seeds and torpid insects or such bits of food as they
can find a little beneath the surface. In this way the robin
takes advantage of the forces of nature just as a man would,
and turns even ice and snow to good account.

Wise robin ! coming early, with a song, with a brave dis-
regard for winter only partly vanquished, and a good heart
to fare hard if need be, spring in the North would lack its
best delight if it missed your annual return.

"THE STEANGE THINGS BIEDS DO AND THE
STKANGE THINGS THEY SAY."

There is a delightful uncertainty of expectation in study-
ing birds. You never can be sure but the bird you know so
well will next moment do something so unexpected that you
will feel that no one else in all the world has seen such a
strange, true thing.

Most birds can swim a little under compulsion. The pecto-
ral sandpiper voluntarily alights on the ocean. The woimded
stilt swims, the wounded least sandpiper dives, and even a
heron will swim if it falls into the water; yet none of these
are swimming birds by habit.

And often, too, a bird will suddenly change its habits, as
when swallows alight in trees, and when domestic pigeons
alight in bushes to eat berries, or when one builds its nest
in a tree, as I have known one to do ; or, when such exclusively
ground birds as the willet, the yellow-legs plover, the whistling
plover, the Wilson's snipe and other waders, during their breed-
ing season, perch by preference on the branches of trees. But
what shall we say when a hawk eats choke cherries; when
owls hunt by day, and bitterns hunt by night ; when king-
fishers eat insects, and chickadees eat meat, and sea-gulls are
said to live on corn ?

It is not unusual to hear of a bird adopting a family of an
entirely different species, as cats sometimes adopt rabbits or
puppies, and as dogs have been known to become responsible
for broods of chickens. There is a record of a male cardinal
grosbeak becoming foster-father to two young Baltimore orioles j

253

254 SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS.

of a scarlet tanager feeding young chipping sparrows ; of a chest-
nut-sided warbler caring for some young redstarts that were not
orphans, and a wren-tit feeding a young lazuli bunting. We
may any day expect to happen upon an incident of this kind, or
to find where some bird has laid in another's nest, as the quails
often do and as the roseate and Wilson's terns have been re-
ported to do.

Who would expect a woodpecker to turn cannibal and eat
little birds ? Or to rob birds' nests of their eggs and young ?
We have no more staid and respected birds than these wood-
peckers, who are not commonly regarded as "eaters of little
children " even by jealous bird mammas ; but now and
then some lunatic or hopelessly degenerate woodpecker will
commit a ghastly crime. The crow-blackbirds are not gener-
ally supposed to be above temptations of green corn, but they
were not till recently accused of playing the thug to little
birds and of poaching live fish from private ponds. But both
these serious charges have been fully proved against them in
several instances and the different observers agree that in such
cases the blackbirds pick out and eat the brains of their prey.
The honest eaves-swallow has been seen to steal her neighbor's
mud and to build it into her own nest ; and I have seen the
blue-backed swallow which is supposed invarial^ly to eat
nothing but little flies, taken by coursing after them, flying
round by the dozen and alighting on a cherry tree to pick
off the caterpillars that had nearly stripped it of its leaves. It
was a strange thing, too, for a Baltimore oriole to eat green
poplar leaves, as it was observed to do year after year.

There is always a chance of seeing something new and in-
credible, though the chance comes to him who knows best what
is usual and even more than credible — tiresomely familiar.
And over and above the pleasure that comes from w^atching

Fig. 54. — hermit THRUSH.

Facing page 255.

" THE STRANGE THINGS BIBDS BO.'' 255

the ways of birds, is the enjoyment to be taken in their songs
and calls, which often tell us as much as our eyes could dis-
cover.

If your musical ear is not good, and you cannot whistle a
bird's song or write it in musical notes, you may put it into
words that will say as nearly as possible what the bird seems
to be singing.

" For what are the voices of birds,

Ay, and of beasts, but words — our words,

Only so much more sweet ? "

This exercise will fix your mind upon the bird's song and
will help you to carry this in your memory from year to
year, though it has no other value unless it is very well
done. There is, however, always the chance of doing it well,
so well that it becomes a classic, and everybody after you will
quote your version because now they can hear nothing else
than what you heard. Do we not always remember Thoreau's
version of the brown thrasher's talk to the farmer : " Cover it
up ! cover it up ! cover it up ! Pick it up ! pick it up ! pick it
up ! Pull it up ! pull it up ! pull it up ! " — a song that shows
properly enough that their relationship is with those nervous
little scolds, the wrens, rather than with the divinely placid
spotted thrushes. How Mr. John Burroughs's "0 spheral,
spheral ! 0 holy, holy ! " the ringing vesper hymn of the hermit
thrush, doth " serenely exalt the spirit ! " It brings up
before us the birch wood veiled with a misty gauze of half-
unfolded leaves and sweet with the earthy fragrance of early
May, where, in religious solitude, these saintly singers, like
nuns in chapel, chant an evening service. " 0 spheral, spheral !
0 holy, holy ! "

We are indebted to Mr. Burroughs for many of these clear
transcriptions of songs we have known always. "Teacher!

25G SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS.

teacher ! ! Teaciiek ! ! ! " calls the oven-bird to Mr. Burroughs,
and it is clear how he got it ; he must have been tliinking of
the school days of his youth, when the boy who knew the ques-
tion, but wasn't asked, took advantage of the mortified silence
of the boy who had been asked, but didu't know, to call atten-
tion to himself by sliding far forward on the seat, snajjping
the fingers of his uplifted hand, and calling, " Teacher !
teacher ! ! Teacher ! ! ! " When you hear the oven-bird high in
a tree-top calling that sharp crescendo, you will think of the
boy in the old-time country school and wonder how any one
could have been so unobservant as to tell of his we-cher or
beecher notes.

I find in my notebooks a rendering of the goldfinch's spring
song, which I am very sure must have come from Mr. Burroughs.
The goldfinch, our little " yellow bird," with the black cap
and the black wings and tail, called by the scientists
" tristis, the sad one," hits the heart of melancholy with his
plaintive late summer and fall song. But in the springtime
he is a joyous lover, and his mating song is a pretty compli-
ment to his beloved : " Sweet, sweet, sweet, Marjo?'ie, Marjorie."

To me the yellow-throated vireo seems to say, " Here I am !
Mary ! Mary ! Here I am ! " Xo doubt ^lary is very fond of
him ; they always seem entirely devoted to each other, and
they build one of the prettiest nests a proud mother ever
introduced us to, trusting us to admire and not to injure it.

The scarlet tanager is generally set down as saying chip-churr,
a remark equally without originality and meaning, but to me
he always seems convulsed with laughter at his little green
wife's doings, and like to burst his waistcoat buttons as he
chuckles, " Oh, dear, kick her ! kick her ! "

" Who, who, who are you ? " Thoreau says is the question
of the great horned owl. Those big eyes and tall ears cer-

Fig. 55. — VIREO.

Facing page 256.

''THE STRANGE THINGS BIRDS BO.'' 257

tainly indicate curiosity. Isn't the remark appropriate ? for
before you hear him talk you must go into the forest, his own
castle, and he has a right to inquire, " Who, who, who are
you ? "

There are the low-spirited goatsuckers, with their " ivhip-
poor-will" and ^' chuck-wiWs-widoivJ^ They remind us of people
who take pleasure in going to funerals ; all their news is dole-
ful, but they tell it at length and over and over again. In some
parts of the South the chuck-will' s-widow is called the " chip-
the-red-oak-white-oak " bird, which is certainly a more cheerful
if not a more sensible remark. All of you can think of other
birds that go about telling their own names. Chick-a-clee-dee !
Phoebe! Pee-e-wee! Chebec ! you cannot help imitating the
sagacious, businesslike tone of the first ; the rather impatient
call of the second, as of a mother calling out of a window
to a truant child ; the discouraged, hot weather drawl of
the wood pewee ; and the sharp snappy click of the least
flycatcher as he jerks out " chebec ! chebec ! " like a tart
but bright-eyed girl who intends to bang the door together if
you ask her another question. There is so much individuality
about all these birds that have given themselves their own
names.

There is, too, our white-throated sparrow, who, in the North,
gets all sorts of names from his song. He is called the Pea-
body bird, the Asa Peabody bird, or the Old Sam Peabody
bird, and on Prince Edward Island the Kennedy bird, from
the syllables he speaks so plainly. High up or low down the
scale he sings his "a" syllable, then drops or rises to the "see/'
and sings off in a succession of ringing triplets his " Peabody,
Peabody, Peabody, Peabody.'' He sings in the evening or early
morning ; but if he is heard later than nine o'clock, rain is com-
ing in a few hours. Unfortunately he is silent until he gets

258 SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS.

as far north as ^Massachusetts, so that few of us may hear his
clear, thrilling notes. Some say that he sings, " Hear me,
holy Theresa," as if supplicating a saint ; but on Prince
Edward Island they declare that he sings, " Good Lord,
pity me, pity me, pity me ! " which is a true litany put to most
fitting music.

Few birds are easier to tell by their music and harder to tell
without it than the vireos. By all means put their song into
words. Remember the yellow-throated vireo's song already
given and Mr. Chapman's rendering of the white-eyed vireo's
abrupt little, " Who are you, eh ? " and that one by which
Wilson Flagg described once and forever the red-eyed vireo's
incessant homily, "You see it — you know it — do you hear
me ? — do you believe it?" as he trips al)0ut the tree trunks,
picking up insects between the phrases.

And here is one of the bobolink's worth remembering. If
run through rather quickly and with increasing rapidity and a
rising inflection, it mimics admirably the spring song of this
jolly, careless, light-hearted, and boisterously happy fellow,
who doesn't try to sing, but just opens his mouth and lets the
music bubble out. "Tom Noodle, Tom Noodle, you owe me,
you owe me ten shillings and sixpence ! " — "I paid you, I paid
you ! '' — " You didn't, you didn't ! " — " You lie, you lie ; you
cheat ! " And then the black-and-white dandy who has been
singing l)oth parts of the duo, just tumbles down into the
grass to rest himself.

" June's bridesman, poet of the year,
Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here ;
Plalf hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings,
Or climbs against the breeze with quivering wings,
Or, giving way to 't in a mock despair,
Runs down, a brook of laughter, through the air."

Fig. 56. — white-throated SPARROW,

Facing page 258.

''THE STRANGE THINGS BIRDS DO.'' 259

These are among the pleasures of the study of birds — the
unexpectedness of so much that we see, and the novelty that
we can create for ourselves by trying to find interpretations of
their songs and habits. Yes, and the uncertainties. It is
these that make birding a true sport, not inferior to angling to
those who find their hearts set upon it. It is the gentlest
of the sporting pleasures, and yet it has the attractions of the
keenest. Here is an object for a well-earned outing, a chance
of failure, the thrill of the quest, the premium on knowing
how, the acquisition of skill and patience, the recollection of
delight that will help in dull and dreary hours. And there
are advantages over the other sports of the chase, which not
only end in bloodshed that is not pleasant to remember, but
which are forbidden at times and seasons. For there is no
law against birding with an opera glass, and it yields more
varied delight than either rod or gun. How few are the kinds
of game or fish which the sportsman counts as fit for his pur-
suit ! how many are the kinds that are accounted game for the
opera glass ! There is no anticipating the results of a day's
sport with an opera glass. Science may not be attractive to
us ; we may not desire knowledge ; but who is able to deny
the attractions of days with the birds when we reckon them
with our sports ?

APPENDIX,

1VEAF» sh:otvii>3"GJ-

SOME OF THE

CHIEF ZOOGEOGRAPHICAL DIVISIONS

NORTH AMERICA

ARCTIC REALM

I ARID PROVINCE

COLD TEMPERATE SUB-REGION
'-'^"^1 ANTILLEAN REGION

HUMID PROVINCE

IDIAN FAUNA
TEMAULIPAN FAUNA
LUCAS

NCRS.. BCtTOH.

262

ZOOGEOGPvAPHICAL DIYISIOXS OF THE WOELD

After Dr. J. A. Allex.

REALMS, REGIONS, SUBREGIOXS, PROYIXCES, SUBPROVINCES,
DISTRICTS, FAUX^.

1. Arctic .

2. North
Tem-
perate

North
Ameri-
can

Cold
Tem-
perate

Warm
Tem-
perate

C Appalachian

Humid I

I Barren Ground
1^ Arctic Alaskan

Aleutian
Sitkan
Hudsonian
Canadian

f Allesrhanian

Carolinian

Austroriparian Louisianian

^ Great ]
Plains I (not yet
Great I divided

I Basin f into
Pacific faunae)

f Campestrian .

Arid

Coast

Sonoran (not yet divided into
faunae)

t Eurasian (Europe and Asia, except India)

3. Amer- f Central American

ican I r Floridian

Tropical [ Antillean I Temaulipan

[ St. Lucas

4. Indo-African (including India and adjacent islands and Africa except

northern part).

5. South- American Temperate (including all outside Realm 3).

6. Australian (Australia and surrounding islands).

7. Lemurian (Madagascar).

263

204 APPEXDTX.

8. Antarctic (Antarctic circunipolar region).

All the realms may be subdivided like Realm 2, which alone is shown
in this table.

MIGKATIOX.

I. Mr. William Brewster's list of birds which migrate freely,
chiefly, or exclusively by day : —

The Robin. The Waxwing family.

The Bluebird. The Swallow family.

The Horned Lark. The Shrike family.

The Titlark. The Hummingbird family.

The Kingbird. The Crow family.

The Chimney Swift. The Hawk family.

The Oriole family (except the The Dove family.
Meadow Lark and the Orioles proper).

Also from the other list, Pine Grosbeak, Purple Finch, etc.,
etc.

The manner of the migration of the Kingfisher is not known.

The Nighthawk, Whippoorwill, Owls, and birds that are
habitually nocturnal or crepuscular naturally migrate b}' night.

II. Mr. Brewster's list of birds that migrate exclusively by
night : —

The Thrush family (except Robin The Finch family (except Pine

and Bluebird). Grosbeak, Purple Finch (?),Cross-

The Kinglet family. bills, Redpolls, Goldfinch, Pine

The Titmouse and Chicadee family. Linnet, and Snow Bunting).

The Nuthatch family. The Meadow Lark.

The Creeper family. The Orioles.

The Wren family. The Flycatcher family (except

The Warbler family. Kingbird).

The Vireo family. The Cuckoo family.

The Tanager family. The Woodpecker family.

Several of these take short flights by day, but never make
any extended migration until night, merely seeking their food
in the direction they intend to fly by night so as to lose no
ground.

MIGRATION. 265

III. Mr. Brewster's Theory of Migration.

" 1. Species which migrate exclusively hy night habitually
feed in or near the shelter of trees, bushes, rank herbage or
grass, and when not migrating are birds of limited powers of
flight and sedentary habits, restricting their daily excursions
to the immediate vicinity of their chosen haunts. As a rule
they are of timid, or at least retiring disposition, and when
alarmed or pursued seek safety in concealment rather than by
extended flights.

"2. Species which migrate chiefly, or very freely by day,
habitually feed in open, exposed situations, and in their daily
excursions for food often cover considerable distances. As a
rule they are of a bold, restless disposition, and when alarmed or
pursued seek safety in long flights rather than by concealment.

"3. Species which migrate exclusively by day, habitually
feed either on the wing or over very extensive areas. In dis-
position they are either trustful and unsuspecting, or wary
and self-reliant. Without exception they are birds of strong,
easy flight, and rely solely on. their wings for escape from
danger.

" These premises lead easily, if not irresistibly, to the con-
clusion that : —

" Timid, sedentary, or feeble-winged birds migrate by night
because they are either afraid to venture on long, exposed
journeys by daylight, or unable to continue their journeys day
after day without losing much time in stopping to search after
food. By taking the nights for travelling they can devote
the days entirely to feeding and resting in their favorite haunts.
Good examples are the Thrushes (except the Eobin), Wrens,
Warblers, and Yireos.

" Bold, restless, strong-winged birds migrate chiefly, or very
freely, by day, because, being accustomed to seek their food
in oi)en situations, they are indifferent to concealment, and
being further able to accomplish long distances rapidly and
with slight fatigue, they can ordinarily spare sufficient time

2(;G appendix,

l)y the way for brief stojjs in places where food is abundant
and easily obtained. Under certain conditions, however, as
when crossing large bodies of water or regions scantily sup-
jtlicd Avith food, they are sometimes obliged to travel partly,
or pi'rhaps even exclusively, by night. Excellent examples
are the Kobin, Horned Lark, and most of the Oriole family.

" Birds of easy, tireless wing, which habitually feed in the
air or over very extensive areas, migrate exclusively by day,
because, being able to obtain their usual supply of food as they
fly, or to accomplish the longest journeys so rapidly that they
do not require to feed on the way, they are under no necessity
of changing their usual habits. The best examples are the
Swallows, Swifts, and Hawks.

" Nocturnal and crepuscular birds, at least migratory sjoecies,
are all strong-winged and accustomed to seek their food over
wide areas. Hence, like the Swallows, Swifts, and Hawks,
they migrate during the hours of their habitual activity.

" The conclusions just reviewed will apply also to the wading
and swimming birds ; for their migrations, making due allow-
ance for the peculiar habits of certain species and groups, are
easily explainable by considerations either identical with, or
similar to, those above mentioned.

"The Bittern, Woodcock, Wilson's Snipe, Spotted Sand-
piper, and the Eails without exception, migrate exclusively by
night. They are all sedentary birds addicted to feeding in
particular and usually limited areas, and all but the Spotted
Sandpiper seek safety in concealment. Accordingly, it is in
line with the previous reasoning that they should migrate by
night and rest and feed by day. The case is not, however,
exactly parallel with that of any of the land birds, for these
waders (except, perhaps, the Spotted Sandpiper) feed habitu-
ally more by night than by day. But all — even the Wood-
cock— also feed freely by day during the migrations.

" The remainder of the wading and all the swimming birds
migrate indifferently by both night and day. This was to be

HINTS ON OBSERVING BIRDS. 267

expected when we consider that they feed more or less indiffer-
ently and freely at all hours, and are not accustomed to seek
safety in concealment.

" Certain species of Ducks, as well as all the Loons, Grebes,
and Auks do, however, frequently or habitually elude their
various enemies by diving. Thus water is in one respect to
them what grass, rushes, etc., are to Snipe and Quail, — a
refuge from danger. This doubtless explains a fact which I
have often observed ; viz., that while most diving birds migrate
freely by day along our coast they invariably perform long
overland journeys by night. The reason is obvious. In one
case flying directly over a continuous expanse of water they
are able to avail themselves of its shelter at a moment's notice ;
in the other they would be quite without this resource, if
suddenly threatened or attacked.

" The manner of migration of our birds is determined by one,
two, or all of the following considerations : habitual manner of
procuring food, disposition, wing-power. It evidently has little
or nothing to do with relationship or affinities exce^^t within
very narrow limits."

HINTS ON OBSEEVING BIEDS.

Briefly stated, these hints fall under a few heads, — tools,
time, what to look for, how to see it, where to go, what to
notice. The last is treated under hints on identification.

Of tools. — Besides books, a teacher needs a note-book and, if
possible, a good glass. A beginner's note-book should be kej^t
after his own whim, and with little elaboration beyond a fixed
set of abbreviations. This is nobody's but his own, and it
makes no difference if the birds all fly away before they have
been described. An elaborate note-book is possible only when
one is well acquainted with the commoner birds.

Children should not be urged to keep note-books; they see
more and see it better when there is no effort at composition.

268 APPENDIX.

If you own an opera glass, use it. Any glass is a help,
but in buying one always buy a better one! In buying be
generous with yourself, recollecting that cheap glasses are not
good and good glasses are not cheap. And yet the price is no
surety of excellence. A friend, who had bought six, told me
that the best of them was much the cheapest. A field glass
is better than an opera glass. Select a good maker, whose
name is a guarantee. A glass must be achromatic, stiff-framed,
of large field and fair power. Sacrifice power to field rather
than field to power. A high power necessitates a longer frame,
which tires th(3 neck and the arm, and a small field, which
makes it difficult to locate the bird. An aluminum frame is
best on account of its light weight. The new Bausch and
Lomb Trieder glasses, being made on a different principle,
give a high power, a large field, light weight, and a compact,
short frame, but the price puts them beyond the reach of the
ordinary amateur. With these, one of the night glasses may
be found to be less trying to the eyes for sustained observation
than the regular day glass.

Time. — The morning is worth many times any other part of
the day, because it is generally cool, bright, free from wind; it
is also the period of the bird's greatest activity. Enthusiasts
rout you out with the sun, but unless it is proposed to visit
crow, robin, or swallow roosts it seems to me that the uncer-
tain light, malarial fogs, heavy dews, and moruing chill must
damp the enthusiasm of even the " four-o' dockers." Six o'clock
is early enough, and from seven to nine is the best time for the
most people. Afternoon work is seldom satisfactory, as the
wind rises, the light is weak and bad, and the birds are tired
and silent.

Look for birds you know. Don't hunt rarities. They will
come to you if they are in the neighborhood, but if you hunt
them you will be losing good notes on the familiar but not less
interesting species.

Go to gardens, groves, shrubbery, and thickets near town.

HINTS Oy IDEXTIFYING STRANGE LIVE BIRDS. 269

especially wooded ravines near water. There are no birds to
speak of in the wilderness and few in deep woods. One's
best resort will nsually be near houses, though the beginner
never believes this. Go to the same places repeatedly rather
than to many at intervals; you will see as much and will learn
more, after having learned to recognize thirty or forty birds,
than by wandering.

Hoiu to see birds is an art not to be communicated. The first
step to it is patience ; learn to wait for them. But never lie or
sit upon the ground or on rocks until full summer time unless
you have a coat or wrap or are proof against rheumatism.
This is more important to observe than the birds. Learn
to take the same advantage of the sun that you would in
photographing.

HINTS ON IDENTIFYING STEANGE LIVE BIEDS.

Notice as many as you can of the following points : —

Size (in inches from the tip of the bill to the tip of the tail, remembering

that the live bird is always longer than he appears to be).
Color (if you can be sure of it, but at all events the color areas) :
wing bars, number and color, if present ;
stripes on head and how placed ;
white outer tail feathers, if present ;
rump, if differently colored from back and tail ;
under tail-coverts, if different from belly ;
flanks and sides, if brightly colored ;

odd ornaments or patches of color, as collars, necklaces, breast-
spots, etc.
Shape : of body, slender, bulky ;

of tail, long, short, square, forked, rounded ;
of wings, round, pointed (in fliglit);
long or short, judged by the distance they measure off on the
tail (while sitting) ;
of bills, length, shape, color ;
of crest, if present, pointed, erectile, etc.

•210 APPESDIX.

Habits : walking, hopping ; soaring, hovering ; terrestrial, arboreal, climb-
ing ; perch preferred, — trunk, limb, tree-top, dead twig, etc. ;
manner of sitting, — erect, crouched, lengthwise of iimb (as the
night hawks) ; manner of flying, — direct, undulating, heavy,
flapping, etc. ; disposition, — restless, quiet, stupid, shy, tame,
unsuspicious.

Food and how procured (if this can be observed with certainty ; often it
cannot be determined).

Song: chirp, trill, twitter, melody, scream, hoot, etc., describe as nearly
as possible.

Xest : place, — ground, bush, tree, hole, limb, twig ;
placed how, — saddled, pensile, in fork, etc. ;
materials, — grass, moss, feathers, hair, twigs, etc. ;
eggs, — number and color.

The more of these points that are determined the surer will
be the identification, but often one or two of them will suffice
to identify a bird. The secret is to seize on the really distinc-
tive mark, whether of habit, voice, or color. A note " walks
head downward down tree-trunks '' surely means a nuthatch ;
"tail with yellow band across tip" means the cherry bird, even
if there is nothing more said or seen about the bird.

Always write the notes while the bird is before you. Use
your own code of abbreviations. Whatever is doubtful write,
but mark it by a sign of interrogation in parentheses follow-
ing, thus : " crested (?)." 'Whatever is absolutely certain, if
either strange or apparently important, mark with an exclama-
tion point not enclosed in marks, thus : '• crested (?), a band of
yellow across the tip of tail ! small vermilion spots apparently
on rump I " There is no doubt here that the cedar waxwing
has been seen, and that the bird must have had a crest.

CERTAIN QUESTIONS ANSWERED.

There are a few questions so sure to come up that they may
as well be answered now.

Do I think a school mk/ht ov:n a few mounted birds? I do
not see why it might not. A few well-chosen, well-mounted

CEBTAIX qU EST IONS AXSWERED. 271

birds, kept away from dust and moths are an invaluable aid.
It is the fate of the vast majority of birds to die violent deaths,
and it seems to me that it is no worse for the bii*d to live in
effigy for the interests of science than to die uncounted by the
talons of the hawk and owl and by the teeth of fox, skunk,
and weasel. Full well I know the thirst for knowledge that
prompts the boy to make a closer acquaintance of what he
only half sees at a distance ; full well I know, if parents and
policemen do not, the mysteries of the deadly air-gun and pop-
gun and sling-shot. "Better the eyes should see than that
desire should wander,'' said the Preacher, who perhaps remem-
bered that he had once been a boy.

A representative and fairly satisfactory collection would be :
One of any species of Grebe, Gull, Duck, Grouse, Heron (the
least Bittern would be the smallest, the Bittern more fairly
representative). Sandpiper (or Plover, or both), Hawk, Owl,
Cuckoo or Kingfisher, Woodpecker, Blackbird, Sparrow, Fly-
catcher, Bluejay, Swift, Swallow, Warbler, Eobin. This would
give types of eighteen of the best-known families.

Specimens of the commoner species are not expensive, —
from 75 cents to $1.50. Small birds, if not of rare species,
cost less than large ones. All specimens should be mounted
on stands and fully labelled. All must be kept in air-tight
glass cases with locked doors, and with camphor or naphthaline
in the case to drive away moths and dermestes. If this is not
done, the collection is sure to be ruined shortly.

While a local taxidermist may be able to supply good speci-
mens, I take pleasure in naming (without their permission)
two firms well known for their fair dealin;^: H. A. Ward,
2 College Ave., Rochester, N.Y., and Charles K. Worthen,
Warsaw, Hancock, 111. By merely stating that the collection
is for school use and the amount of money to be expended
on it, these firms will furnish a better selection of well-
prepared specimens than the novice would be able to choose
for himself.

272 APPENDIX.

Do I approve of hof/s nudiiKj collections of birds? By no
means. It was to ])rt'vent just this that 1 advocated a school
collection })repared by a competent naturalist.

Do I approve of dissections in class? Not in the lower
grades certainly. In high school and college work nothing
takes the place of actual dissection ; but is it best to exploit
the whole world of wonders for children too young to api)re-
ciate them ? I have purposely left out of this book all physi-
ology and anatomy that could not be illustrated by chicken
bones, in order to avoid any necessity or excuse for dissections,
for which most children have a distaste and to which many
parents have objections. In this book the mechanism of the
bird is taken up instead of its anatomy. Even the study of the
eye is conducted by means of a comparison with a mechanical
instrument.

Is there any substitute for collections? No two-dimension
representation can take the place of a three-dimension object
in teaching children. They need the "real thing." Still,
where economy is necessary, there is a substitute which is
not without merit. The little monthly magazine. Birds and
Nature, published by the Nature Publishing Co. of Chicago at
$1.00 a year, gives many colored photographic reproductions
of mounted birds, accompanied by a simple and usually correct
text. Back numbers may be obtained at moderate rates. The
same pictures may be bought separately of the Perry Pictures
Company.

What books do I recommend for teachers? Among so many
excellent texts, I decline to make invidious distinctions. It
is scarcely possible that there is a mind so abnormally de-
veloped that there has not been a bird book written to fit its
needs ! Still, it must be conceded by all, that for the earnest
student, especially for one who already knows thirty or forty
species, nothing competes in price and quality with Mr. Frank
M. Chapman's " Handbook of Birds of North America" ($3.00).
A young beginner should have a more elementary book

LISTS OF BOOKS 273

Another book, in a class by itself and of liigh value to tlie
field student, is Mr. C. J. Maynard's " Handbook of the
Sparrows, Finches, etc., of New England " ($1.50). This gives
a simple but trustworthy guide to every one of this large and
difficult family visiting New England. Any bird book not
to be locally obtained may be purchased at any time of L. S.
Foster, 30 Pine St., New York, who makes a specialty of bird
books.

LISTS OF BOOKS.

I. Books that will be helpful to a beginner in identifying
birds : —

Merriam, Birds through an Opera Glass. $.75.
~ Fifty common land birds of New England and Northern New York ;
illustrated. An admirable " first book " for children.
Grant, Our Common Birds. $1.50.

Ninety species found near New York City ; with photogravures from
mounted specimens.
Howe, Every Bird. $1.00.

One hundred and twenty-four genera of New England birds, illus-
trated in outline, and too briefly treated for field work.
Maynard, Handbook of the Sparrows, Finches, etc., of New England.
$1.50.
Forty-six species, with colored plates. The colors do not print well,
but the book is a very satisfactory handbook for this difficult group,
and is especially adapted for field work.
Wright and Coues, Citizen Bird. $1.50.

A story of bird-life, exquisitely illustrated, and especially good for
children.
Merriam, Birds of Village and Field. $2.00.

One hundred and fifty species of our better-known birds, finely
illustrated.
Chapman, Bird-life : a guide to the study of our common birds. $1.75.
Seventy-five full-page drawings and ample text ; a vade mecum for
beginners.
Chapman, A Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America. $3.00.

This book includes every species and subspecies known east of the
Mississippi Kiver, and is the best brief, scientific ornithology ever

T

274 APPKxnrx.

written ; not adapted, however, to students too young to use a
standard botany, though it is as little technical as p(jssible.
Wright, Bird-craft. $3.00.

Two hundred birds pictured and ably described.
MiNOT, Land and Game Birds of New England. 83.50.

Accurate and untechnical, an excellent book to get one into the spirit
of the study, but scantily illustrated.
McIlwuaith, Birds of Ontario. $2.00.

Good not only for the birds of Canada, but for the more northern
states as well ; illustrated.
Blanohan, Bird Neighbors. $2.00.

Fifty colored plates.
Blanohan, Birds that Hunt and are Hunted. $2.00.

Forty-eight colored plates. These two books cover most of the better-
known land and water birds, and give good colored pictures to
guide in identification.
Eliot, North American Shore Birds. $2.50.

Includes all the snipe, sandpipers, plovers, etc., with fine drawings of
each species, and accurate technical descriptions ; also short account
of habits.
Eliot, Gallinaceous Game Birds of North America. $2.50.

Treats theturkeys, grouse, quail, etc., afterthesamemethod as theabove.
Corey, How to Know the Ducks, Geese, and Swans of North America.
Paper covers, $1.00.

A fully illustrated and thoroughly prepared manual.
Corey, How to Know the Shore Birds of North America. Paper, $.75.

Similar to the above in scope and plan ; fully illustrated.
Langille, Our Birds in their Haunts. $3.00.

A high authority on songs, habits, etc., and long a favorite work with
beginners.
Fisher, Hawks and Owls of the United States. (United States Bulletin.)
Has very fine colored plates of each species, with full account of the
economic value of each.
Nuttall, Handbook of Ornithology. Revised by Chamberlain. 2 vols.,
$9.00.

A modernized reprint of an old and valuable work.
Belding, Land Birds of the Pacific Coast. $2.50.
Goss, Birds of Kansas. $7.50.

Five hundred and twenty-nine species treated ; thirty-five plates ; a
recognized authority, not only on the birds of Kansas, but of all
the Mississippi Valley.

LISTS OF BOOKS. 275

CouES, Birds of the Colorado Valley. |4.00.
CouES, Birds of the Northwest. $4.00.

Two old books, but still high authorities on the regions covered.
Corey, Key to the Water Birds of Florida. .$1.75.
Samuels, Birds of New England and Adjacent States.
Stearns and Coues, New England Bird Life. 2 vols.

Two books of good value, but displaced by later and better illus-
trated works.

The following standard works are either very large, rare,
costly, or highly technical works such as the ordinary pur-
chaser would not care to buy. They are invaluable in their
place, and can be consulted in any large library. It should be
remembered that the older works, like Audubon and Wilson,
use a different nomenclature, so that sometimes a bird will not
bear the same name as to-day ; also that many new species
have been discovered since these books were published.

Audubon's Birds ; colored plates of all species.

Wilson's Ornithology.

Baird, Brewer, and Ridgwat, Land Birds (3 vols.) and Water Birds

(2 vols.).
Bendire's Life Histories of North American Birds. 2 vols.

This work was left unfinished by the death of the author, but the
part completed is an acknowledged authority on the habits and
nests of the Hawks, Grouse, Woodpeckers, Flycatchers, etc.
Colored plates of eggs only.
Ridgway's Manual of North American Birds.
Coues' s Key to North American Birds.

These two are the standard technical works on North American birds,
but are not intended for field work, and contain nothing about the
habits of birds.
Maynard, Birds of Eastern North America.

A large and valuable work, fully illustrated, and with ample notes
on the habits of birds.

11. Books that treat of birds descriptively and infor-
mally ; good books to draw from the public library for home
reading.

276

FUANK lioLLE

APPENDIX.

Wilson Flagg,

C. C. Ahhott,
John Burroughs,

IIknry D. Thoreau,

Land of the Lingering Snow,

North of Bearcanip Water.

From Bloniidon to Smoky.

Birds and Seasons of New England.

Field and Forest.

Woods and Byways of New England.

Birds about us.

Travels in a Tree-top ; and other volumes.

Birds and Poets.

Locusts and Wild Honey.

Wake-robin ; and his other nature books.

Walden.

The Maine Woods.

Early Spring in Massachusetts.

Summer.

Autumn.

Winter.

The Bird's Kalendar.

Song Birds and Water Fowl.

Byways and Bird Notes ; and other books.

Birds in the Bush.

A Rambler's Lease.

The Footpath Way.

A Florida Sketch Book.

Spring Notes from Tennessee.

In the White Mountains.
Florence A. Merriam, A-birding on a Bronco.

My Summer in a Mormon Village.
Leander S. Keyser, In Bird-land.

Bird-dom.
Olive Tiiorne Miller, Little Brothers of the Air.

In Nesting Time.

Bird Ways.

A Bird Lover in the West.

H. E. Parkhurst,

Maurice Thompson,
Bradford Torre y,

INDEX.

Aerated bones, 103.
Air-cells in bones, 79.
Albatross, 90, 92, 1T6, 177.

black-footed, 41.

short-tailed, 41.
Albinism, def., 115.
Albinos, 115.
Anhinga, 50-51.
Ani, 102.

Anthony, A. W., quoted, 3S-41.
Assiniboia, 58.
Audubon, John James, 201.
Auklet, Cassiu's, 15, 16, 80.
Avocet, 103.

Bahama Islands, 172.

Bale des Chaleurs, 43.

Barbs, def., 81.

Barbules, def., 81.

Bats, 76, 77, 83.

Bermuda Islands, 171.

Big Spenser Mountain (Maine), 13.

Bills of birds, 99-107.

BisoE 58.

Bitten, 6, 61, 253, 266.

Blackl.irds, Brewer's, 115,

croN.-, 134, 254.

red-^■.ing■ed, 115, 186.

See Iso Grackle and Cowbird.
Bluebir 74, 264.
Bobolink, 147, 258.
Bob-white, see Quail.
Bonaventure Island (St. Lawrence), 43.
" Booming " of sooty grouse, 191.
Breeding grounds, 157.
Brewster, William, quoted, 47, 164, 167-171,

264-267.
" Brooding spots," 36.
Browning, Robert, quoted, 255.
" Budding" of ruffed grouse, 195.
Buffalo trails, 58.
Bunting, indigo, 150, 232.

lazuli, 254.

snow, 199, 200, 243, 264.
Burroughs, John, quoted, 255, 256.

Camera, compared to the eye, 108-111.
Cape Sable (Florida), 52.

Cardinal, Virginia, 150.

Carpus, def., 70.

Cartier, Jacques, quoted, 42.

Casco Bay (Maine), 33.

Catbird, 90.

Caucomgomoc Lake (Maine), 12.

Cedar-bird, 116, 152.

Central Park (New York), 60.

Cere, def., 20.

Chapman, Frank M., quoted, 171, 258.

Charlestown (Mass.), 179.

Chat, yellow-breasted, 232.

Chebec, see Least flycatcher.

Cherry-bird, see Cedar-bird.

Chesuncook Lake (Maine), 13.

Chickadee, 161, 243, 253.

Chipmunk, 26.

Chuck- will' s-widow, 257.

Classification, basis of, 126.

method of, 121-125.
Chmate, effect of, on color, 144.
Color phases, 22, 117.
Coloration, asymmetrical, 106.

protective," 50, 143-145, 140-154.
Columbus, guided by birds, 171.
Compressed bills, 102.
Coot ("mud hen"), 7.

(duck), see Scoter.
Coracoids, 70.

Cormorant, 31, 44-50, 57, 112.
Courlan, 50.
Cowbird, 115, 230-234.

Argentine, 234.

bay-winged, 234.
Cow blackbird, see Cowbird.
Cranes, 57, 59-60.

brown, 49.
Cross- bUl, 101, 102, 243, 264.
Crow, 26, 27, 31, 88, 114, 116. 237, 264.

fish, 49.
Crow blackbird, 112, 134.
" Crjnng bird," see Courlan.
Cuckoo, 96, 235, 264.

black-billed, 225-228.

European, 235.

mangrove, 227.

yellow-billed, 226, 228.
Curlew, pink, see Spoonbill.
277

278

LXDEX.

Curlew, long-bilkMl, 100, 102.
Cypress swauij), 4b.

Dakota, 5S.

" Dead-liiul) bird," see Wood pewee.
Detiiiitions, liow to make theui, 124.
Depressed bills, def., 108.
" Devil-diver," see Grebe.
DiohrDiiiatisiii, def., IIT.
Distribution, 15r>-102.
Diver, red-throated, 11.

great northern, see Loon.
Dove. 112. See also Pigeon, domestic.
Drinking habits of birds, 1 75-178.
" Drumming" of rulTed grouse, 189.
Ducks, 57, 58, 95, 103.

black, 25, 177.

dusky, see Black.

mallard, 15.

wood, 6.

See also Goosander, Merganser, and Scoter.

Eagle, 82, 88, 101.
Easti)<)rt (Maine). '23.
Kgrct, little white. 49, 129.

reddish, 49, 117.
Emarginate, def., 78.
"Exealibur," 13.
Excised feet, def., 95.
Ej-es of birds, lOb-lU.

Falcon, Peale's, 17.
Families, def., 126.
Farallons (California), 30.
Feet of birds, 93-9S.
Finch, purple, 176, 264.

pine, see Linnet.
Fish-hawk, 98.
Fiske, John, quoted, 66, 171.
Flagg, Wilson, 258.
Flamingo, 52-55, 103.
Flicker, see Woodpecker.
Flight, 84-92.

false analogies, 85-86.

problems of, 85.

speed, 89.

starting, 88.
Florida, 4s.
Flycatchers, 101, 116, 183, 184.

Acadian, 186, 187.

alder, 186, 187.

great-crested, 186, 227.

green-crested, see Acadian.

least, 185, 187.

olive-sided. 1S6, 187.

yeUow-bellied, 186, 187.

Flycatchers, see alsoChebec, Kingbird, Wood

pewee, Ph<ebe.
Foes of bird-life, U), 142.
Food of grouse, 195.
Forster, 201.
Frankhn, Sir John, 202.
Frigate pelican, or Frigate bird, see Man-o'-

war bird.
Fuhnars, 38-41, 176.

Gallinule, 71.

Gannet, 43-50, 60, 71, 129.

"Gannet," see Wood ibis.

Gape, def., 100.

Gasi)c Bay (St. Lawrence), 44.

Geese, 95.

Genus, def., 127.

Goldfinch, 256, 264.

Goosander, 113.

Coshawk, 90, 92, 114.

(irackle, boat-tailed, 49.

bronzed, see Crow blackbird.

purple, see Crow blackbird.
Grand Manan (Maine), 18, 45.
Grebe, 1-8, 59, 73, 139, 176.

American eared, 5.

horned, 5.

pied-billed, 5.
Greely, Gen. Alonzo, 160.
"Grosbeak," see Egret, 129.
Grosbeak, cardinal, 153.

pine, 131, 219-233, 243, 264.
Guillemot, 44.

black, 19.

pigeon, 30.
Gull, 141, 176.

black-backed, 25.

Bonaparte's, 20, 24, 28.

Franklin's ro.sy, 28, 59.

Ileerman's, 28.

herring, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 40.

kittiwake, 24, 28, 177.

laughing, 28-.

Western, 23, 28,31,40.
"Gull hawk," see Jaeger.

Hare, 128.

Hawk, 82, 92, 97, 98, 101, 102, 112, 116, 178,
200, 253.

broad-winged, 180.

Cooper's, 180, 181.

pigeon, 181.

red-tailed, 116.

rough-legged. 116.

shari)-shinned, 90, 179-182.

sharp-shinned, foot of, 182.

INDEX.

279

Hawk, Swainson's, 116.

See also Goshawk.
" Hell-diver," set- (irebe.
Heron, 6, 98, 9S, lol, 141.

little blue, 49.

Louisiana, 113.

night, 49.

Ward's, 49.

See also Egret.
Hints on identifying birds, 269.
Hovering, 90.

How birds are named, 128-131.
Humming-bird, 90, 93, 101, 140, 179.

Princess Helena, 111.

ruby -throated, 152.
"Hummocks," 48-49.
Huxley, Thomas H., quoted, 120.

Ibis, white, 49.

wood, 49, 129.
Indian Falls (Maine), ISO.
Indigo bird, see Bunting.
Inertia, def., 88.

Ingraham, Capt. D. P., quoted, 52-56.
Iris of birds, 112-114.
Isothermal lines, 158.

"Jackdaw," see Boat-tailed grackle.
Jaeger, lS-22, 117.
Jay, blue, 190.

Canada, 190.

Oregon, 190.

Steller's, 190.
Junco, Oregon, 190.

slate-colored, 161, 175.
Junk o' Pork (Maine), 33.

Kingbird, 186.

Kingfisher, 97, 1S4, 264.

Kipling, Kudyard, quoted, 14, 33, 38.

Kittiwake, see Gulls.

Knee of birds, 68.

L.\BKADOR, 42.

Lamina^ of bills, 103.
Lark, horned, 97, 133, 264.

meadow, see Meadow-lark.
Law of gradation, 152.
Leucosticte. 161.

Lighthouses as bird destroyers, 164-166.
Limpkin, see Courlan.
Lincoln Park (Chicago), 60, 71.
Linnet, pine, 200, 243, 264.
List of bird books, 273.
Littlejohn, Chase A., quoted, 14-17.
Lobate feet, 94.

Long, Major, 202.

Longfellow, Henry W., quoted, 26, 30, 48, 57

Longspur, 97.

Loon, 9-13, 45, 59,72, 73, 88, 90,95, 141,176,267

Louisiana state seal, 62.

Lowell, James liussell, quoted, 1, 9, 258.

Macbeth, quoted, 215.

Magdalen Islands, 43.

Mahonia, 183.

Man-o'-war bird, 90, 92, 94, 101, 102.

Mallard, see Duck.

black, see Black duck.
" Marlingspike," see Jaeger.
Martin, purple, 202, 213-218.
Meadow-lark, 116, 264.

western, 188.
Melanism, 116.
Merganser, hooded, 114.

red-headed, 114.
Migration, 163-172, 264-266.
Mink, 199.

Momentum, def, 88.
" Moose-ear," see Pouted eria.
" Mother Cary's chickens," see Petrel.
Mount Hood (Oregon), 188.
Mountains, effect upon climate, 159.
" Mourning widow," see Courlan.
Murrelet, ancient, 14-17.
Murres, 30, 32.
Muskeget Island (Mass.), 177.

New Zealand, 106.
Newfoundland, 42.
Night-hawk, 93, 98, 99, 100, 151.
Nostrils of bii-ds, 99.
Nuthatch, p\-gmy, 191.

red-breasted, 158, 161.

white-breasted, 99.

Observing birds, hints on, 267, 268.

Ocean currents, effect on climate, 159.

"Old man," see Ancient murrelet.

"Old swell" of sea, 19.

Orders, def., 126.

" Oregon grape," see Mahonia.

Oriole, Baltimore, 150, 227, 232, 253, 254, 264.

Ostrich, 79, 81, 139.

Oven-bird, 256.

Owls, 97, 98, 101, 111, 112, 151, 253.

horned, 133, 192, 198.

screech, 133.

Palmate feet, 95.
Parasitism, def., 230,

280

INDEX.

Parrot, 96. 101, 102.

pray, 112.
" Partridge," si-i' Kiitn-d frrouse.

S|)ruci', si'i' Canada p'i'H'^i'-
Passama(|uud(ly Hay iMaiiu-). 24.
" Poabody-bird," see White-throated spar-
row.
Peacock, 82.
Pi'Cti-n, 111.
Polican, 57, 59, 01 -(>4, 71, 112.

brown, CI.

European, 60.

while-, 61, 101.
Penpuin, 139.
Perce, 42, 43.
Petersvogel, see Petrel.
Petrel, 15, 30, 176, 177.

fork-tailed. 16.

Leach's, 16, 34-3s.
Pewee, see Wood pewee or Phoebe.
'• Phaeton Rogers," 86.
Phalaropcs, 20, 57, 71, 94.
Pheasant, 129.

rinp-necked or Denny, 129.
Ph.ebe, l^^:3, 1S4, 187, 232.
" Pickerel weed," see Pontederia.
Pigeons, 176.

domestic, 253.

wild, 91, 112.
Plover, 57, 59, 151.

crook-billed, 106.

whistHng, 25:3.

yellow-legged, 253.
Point Lepreaux (Bay of Fundy), 164.
Point Loma (California), 38.
Polyandry, among birds, 231.
Polygamy, among birds, 231.
Pontederia, 4.
Poplar, food for grouse, 195.
Porcupine, 199.

" Prairie dove," see Franklin's Rosy gull.
Prairie du Couteau (North Dakota), 58.
Prairie flowers, 58.
Primaries, 77, 78, 83, 89.
Prince Edward Island, 258.
Problems, of food and structure, 18s-141.

of reproduction and habits, 145-14S.

of safety and color, 142-145.
Protective coloration, 50, 149-154, 197, 198.
Ptarmigan, 161.
Puffin, 102.

tufted, 80.
Pyramid Lake (Nevada), 64.

QcAiL, 116, 129, 151, 254.
Questions answered, 270.

IJaces, geographical, 133.

Kail, 7, 71.

" Uaincrow," see Cuckoo.

Ra]tt()res, birds of prey, def., 101.

Raven, 114.

Red-poll, 200, 243.

Redstiirt, see Warbler.

Reproduction, 146-14'^.

" Ricebird," see UoboHnk.

Robin, 74, 116, 117, 170, 248-261,

S.\GE-COCK, 162.

St. Croi.x River, 18.

.St. Lawrence River, 42.

San Francisco Mountain (Arizona), 160.

Sandpiper, 57-59, 71, 93, 94, 151.

pectoral, 253.

spoon-billed, 105.

spotted, 266.
Sapsucker, red-breasted, 190.

yellow-bellied, 190.
Scapulars, def., 78.
Scoter, 178.

" Sea geese," see Phalarope.
" Sea pigeon," see Black Guillemot.
Seal, 19, 44.
Secondaries, 77, 83, 89.
Semipalmation, def, 94.
Shaft, of feathers, 81.
Shakespeare, quoted, 215, 225.
Shearwater, 117, 176.

black-vented, 39, 41.
Sheldrake, see Goosander.
Shrew mouse, 199.
Shrike, 102. 242-247.

great northern, 240.

loggerhead, 236-241.
Skimmer, black, 104.
Skua, see Jaeger.
Skylark, 97.

"Snake bird," see Anhinga.
Snipe, 100, 101, 151, 266.
Snowbird, .see Bunting and Junco.
Snow bunting, see Bunting.
Soaring, 91.

Spanish moss, see Tillandsia.
Sparrow, English, 112, 115, 176, 179, 207,216,
217, 242, 244.

chipping, 184, 254.

fox, 193.

song, 133, 232.

swamp, 223.

tree, 200, 243.

western song, 193.

white-throated, 257.

Sparrow hawk, see Hawk.

INDEX.

281

Species, def.. 127.
Specific efl'ect, def., 146.
Spoonbill, roseate, 49, 105.
Squirrel, red, 199.

flying, 199.
"Stake-driver," see Bittern.
Steering flight, 90.
StUt, 253.

Stopping flight, 91.
Straits of Mackinac, 168.
Strings, used by birds, 238.
Sub-species, def., 132.
Sunbirds, 103.
Swallow, T9, 89, 99, 100, 139, 140, 253.

bank, 203.

barn, 190.

blue-backed, 203, 254.

clifl", see Eaves swallow.

eaves, 116, 190, 201-212, 232, 254.

rough-winged, 203.

tree, see Bkn- -hacked.

violet-green, 190.
Swan, 57, 96.

black, 60.
Swift, 79, 89, 93, 99, 100.

chimney, 90, 190.

Vaux's!i 190.
Swimming, 71-74.
Syndactylous, def., 97.

Tanager, scarlet, 150, 254, 256.

Tarso-metatarsus, 69.

Tarsus, 69.

Tennyson, Alfred, quoted, 13.

Terete, def., 98.

Tern, 29, 57, 59, 89, 90, 93, 94, 176, 177

Forster's, 59.

roseate, 254.

Wilson's or common, 101, 254.
Tertiaries, def., 78.
Thayer, Abbott H., quoted, 153, 154.
Thoreau, Henry D., quoted, 68, 174, 255,

256.
Thrasher, brown, 255.
Thrush, hermit, 249-251.
Tibio-tarsus, def., 69.
"Tick-eater," see Ani.
TillandHia, 48.
Totipaluiate, 50, 95, 96.
" Towering," 89.
Towhee, 113, 232.

Oregon, 190.

white-eyed, 113.

Tricks of flight, 91.
Turkey-buzzard, 88.

Unga Island (Alaska), 14.
Unsymmetrical coloration, 106, 107.

Variation, geographical, 132, 133.
Vireo, red-eyed, 113, 187, 227, 258.

white-eyed, 113, 258.

yellow-throated, 256, 258.

Warbler, 116, 150, 184.

Audubon's, 191.

blue }-ellow-backed, 162.

chestnut-sided, 254.

hermit, 191.

pine, 162.

redstart, 254.

yellow, 140.

yellow-rumped, 164.
Water ousel, 71, 129.
" Water turkey," see Anhinga.
" Water witch," see Grebe.
" Water wren," see Water ousel.
Webbed feet, 71, 73.
Whip-poor-will, 151.
Whittier, John G., quoted, IS, 23, 42.
Wild cat, 198.
Willet, 253.

Willow, food of grouse, 195.
Wilson, Alexander, quoted, 104.
Wings, requirements of, 75.

problems of construction, 76.

shape, 79.
Winking membrane, 114.
Wishbones, 70.
Wood pewee, 184, 185, 187.
Woodcock, 100, 101, 151, 266.
Woodpecker, 93, 96," 100, 104, 178, 200, 254.

downy, 131, 133, 243.

hairy, 133.

ivory-billed, 49.

Lewis's, 191.

pileated, 190.

red-headed, 232.

three-toed, 157, 161. See also Sapsucker.
Wren, marsh, 7.

rock, 232.

Zoogeographical divisions, 263.
Zoogeography, 155, 156.
Zygodactyl, def., 96,

ADVERTISEMENTS.

Supplementary Reading

A Classijied L ist/or all Grades.

GRADE I. Bass's The Beginner's Reader ,
Badlam's Primer ....
Fuller's Illustrated Primer
Griel's Glimpses of Nature for Little Folks
Heart of Oak Readers, Book I
Regal 's Lessons for Little Readers

GRADE n. Warren's From September to June with Nature

Badlam's First Reader

Bass's Stories of Plant Life.

Heart of Oak Readers, Book I

Snedden's Docas, the Indian Boy

Wright's Seaside and Wayside Nature, Readers No.
GRADE III, Heart of Oak Readers, Book II

Pratt's America's Story, Beginner's Book

Wright's Seaside and Wayside Nature Readers, No. 2

Miller's My Saturday Bird Class .

Firth's Stories of Old Greece

Bass's Stories of Animal life

Spear's Leaves and Flowers

GRADE IV. Bass's Stories of Pioneer Life
Brown's Alice and Tom
Grinnell's Our Feathered Friends
Heart of Oak Readers, Book III .
Pratt's America's Story — Discoverers and Explorers
Wright's Seaside and Wayside Nature Readers, No. 3

GRADE V. Bull's Fridtjof Nansen . . . ,

Grinnell's Our Feathered Friends
Heart of Oak Readers, Book III .
Pratt's America's Story — The Earlier Colonies
Kupfer's Stories of Long Ago

GRADE VI. Starr's Strange Peoples .
Bull's Fridtjof Nansen
Heart of Oak Readers, Book IV .
Pratt's America's Story — The Colonial Period
Dole's The Young Citizen

GRADE VII. Starr's American Indians
Penniman's School Poetry Book .

Pratt's America's Story — The Revolution and the Republic
Eckstorm's The Bird Book
Heart of Oak Readers, Book IV .
Wright's Seaside and Wayside Nature Readers, No. 4

GRADES VIII and IX. Heart of Oak Readers, Book V
Heart of Oak Readers, Book VI ,
Dole's The American Citizen
Shaler's First Book in Geology (boards)
Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield .
Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley .

Descriptive ciradars seni/ree on request.

D. C. HEATH & CO., Publishers, Boston, New York, Chicago

Elementary English.

Allen's School Grammar of the English Language. A clear, concise, adequate, teach

able book, lor iipi)c'r grades. 175 pages, (kj tciits.

Badlam's Suggestive Lessons in Language and Reading. A manual for primary
teachers. Plain and practical. #1.50.

Badlam's Suggestive Lessons in Language, Being Part 1 and Appendix of Suggestive
Lessons in Language and Reading. 50 cents.

Benson's Practical Speller. Contains nearly 13,000 words. Part I, 261 Lessons, 18 Cents;
Part II, 270 Lessons, iS cents. Parts I and II bound together, 25 cents.

Benson and Glenn's Speller and Deflner. 700 spelling and defining lists. 30 cents.

Branson's Methods in Reading. With a chapter on spelling. 15 cents.

Buckhee's Primary Word Book. Drills' in articulation and in phonics. 25 cents.

Fuller's Phonetic Drill Charts. Exercises in elementary sounds. Per set (3) 10 cents.

Hall's How to Teach Reading. Also discusses what children should read, ascents.

Hyde's Two-Book Course in English, Book I. Practical lessons in the correct use of Eng.
lish, with the rudiments of grammar. 35 cents.

Hyde's Two-Book Course in English, Book II. A carefully graded course of lessons in
language, composition and technical grammar. 60 cents.

Hyde's Practical Lessons in English, Book I. For the lower grades. Contains exercises
for reproduction, picture lessons, letter writing, uses of parts of speech, etc. 35 cents.

Hyde's Practical Lessons in English, Book II. For grammar schools. Has enough
technical grammar for correct use of language. 50 cents.

Hyde's Practical Lessons in English, Book II with Supplement. The supplement
contains 118 pages of technical grammar. 60 cents. Supplement bound alone, 30 cents.

Hyde's Practical English Grammar. For grammar and high schools. 50 cents.

Hyde's Derivation of Words. With exercises on prefixes, suffixes, and stems. 10 cents.

MacEwan's The Essentials of the English Sentence. A compendious manual for re-
view in technical grammar preparatory to more advanced studies in language. 75 cents.

Mathews's Outline of English Grammar. With Selections for Practice. 70 cents.

Penniman's New Practical Speller. Contains 6500 words that are in common use and

difficult to spell. 20 cents.

Penniman's Common Words Difficult to Spell. Graded list of 3500 common words. 20
cents.

Penniman's Prose Dictation Exercises. For drill in spelling, punctuation and use of
capitals. 25 cents.

Philips 's History and Literature in Grammar Grades. 15 cents.

Sever'S Progressive Speller. Gives spelling, pronunciation, definition, and use of words.

Vertical script is given for script lessons. 25 cents.

Smith's Studies in Nature, and Language Lessons. A combination of object lessons
with language work. 50 cents. Part 1 bound separately, 25 cents.

Spalding's Problem of Elementary Composition. Practical suggestions for work in
grammar grades. 40 cents.

Set also our lists 0/ books in Higher English, English Classics^
Supplementary Reading, and English Literature.

D. C. HEATH & CO., Publishers, Boston, New York, Chicago

Heath's English Classics,

Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. Edited by W. H. Hudson, Professor in the
Leland vStanford Junior University. Cloth. 232 pages. Nine full-page illustrations and
two maps. 35 cents.

Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America. Edited by A. J. George, Master in
the Newton (Mass.) High School. Cloth. 119 pages, accents.

Carlyle'S Essay on Burns. Edited, with introduction and notes, by Andrew J. George.
Cloth. 159 pages. Illustrated. 25 cents.

Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Edited by Andrew J. George, Cloth. 96
pages. Illustrated. 20 cents.

Cooper's Last of the Mohicans. Edhed by J. G. Wight, Principal Girls' High School,
New York City. Cloth. Maps and illustrations. 659 pages. 50 cents.

DeQuincey's Flight of a Tartar Tribe, Edited by G. A. Wauchope, Professor in the
University of South Carolina. Cloth. 112 pages. 25 cents.

Dryden's Palamon and Arcite. Edited by William H. Crawshaw, Professor in Colgate
University. Cloth. 158 pages. Illustrated. 25 cents.

George Eliot's Silas Mamer. Edited by G. A. Wauchope, Professor in the University of
South Carolina. Cloth. 288 pages. Illustrated. 35 cents.

Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. With introduction and notes by William Henry
Hudson. Cloth, seepages. Seventeen full-page illustrations by C. E. Brock. 50 cents.

Macaulay's Essay on Milton. Edited by Albert Perry Walker, editor of Milton's
"Paradise Lost," Master in the English High School, Boston. Cloth. 146 pages.
Illustrated. 25 cents.

Macaulay's Essay on Addison. Edited by Albert Perry Walker. Cloth. 192 pages.
Illustrated. 25 cents.

Milton's Paradise Lost. Books I and II. Edited by Albert Perky Walker. Cloth.
188 pages. Illustrated. 25 cents.

Milton's Minor Poems. Edited by Albert Perry Walker. Cloth. 190 pages. Illus-
trated. 25 cents.

Pope's Translation of the Iliad. Books I, VI, XXII, and XXIV. Edited by Paul
Shokey, Professor in the University of Chicago. Cloth. 174 pages. Illustrated.
25 cents.

Scott's Ivanhoe. Edited by Porter Lander MacClintock, Instructor in the University
of Chicago. Cloth. 556 pages. Seventeen full-page illustrations by C. E. Broclc
50 cents.

Shakespeare's Macbeth. Edited by Edmund K. Chambers, In the A rde7i S/iakesJ>ear\,
series. Cloth. 188 pages. 25 cents.

Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Edited by H. L. Withers. In the Arden Sliake
sj>eare strics. Cloth. 1 78 pages. 25 cents.

Tennyson's Enoch Arden and the two Locksley Halls. Edited by Calvin S. Brown,
Professor in the University of Colorado. Cloth. 168 pages. 25 cents.

Tennyson's The Princess. With introduction and notes by Andrew J. George, Master
in the Nevston (Mass.) High School. Cloth. 148 pages. Illustrated. 25 cents.

Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration. With introduction and notes by Andrew J. George
Boards. 55 pages. 20 cents.

See also our lists 0/ books in English Literature ami Higher English.

D. C. HEATH & CO., Publishers, Boston, New York, Chicago

Music.

Whiting's Public School Music Course, six books, forming a complete course for

tach class from primary to hii;hest grammar grades. Books I to V, Boards, each 25

cents. Book VI. Boards. 54 cents.

" For a general, all-round, well balanced system, capable of use in all schools,
taught by the school-room teachers, for sweetness and completeness of general
musical culture, the Whiting System is by far the most satisfactory." — L. H. Jones,
Supt. 0/ Schools, Cleveland, O.

Whiting's Sixth Music Reader, Girls" Edition. Designed for use in the last years

of the grammar school, girls' high schools, ladies' seminaries, and colleges. 54 cents.

Whiting's Complete Music Reader, a complete course for high school, academies,

etc. Boards. Octavo. 75 cents.

Whiting's Part-Song and Chorus Book. For high and other schools. Vocal exer-
cises; solfeggios; three- and four-part songs (for mixed and female voices); sacred
choruses, etc. Boards. Octavo. 96 cents.

Whiting's Young People's Song-Book. A text-book for ungraded schools. Contains
complete elementary course, with songs, choruses, hymns and patriotic selections.
Boards. 35 cents.

Whiting's Music Charts. First Series, 30 charts, bound, $6.00. Second Series, 14
charts, bound, $3.00. (Easel for Music Charts, $1.50.)

Emerson's School and College Hymnal. Hymns, patriotic songs, and responsive
Scripture readings. Square 8vo. Cloth. 50 c:ents. Bo.ards. 35 cents.

Hart's School Manual of Classic Music. Contains portraits, sketches of the lives
of and selections from the great masters. Boards. Octavo, fi.oo.

Pray' S Motion Songs. For primary and intermediate grades. Contains sixty pleasing
songs, with gestures indicated. Boards. Illustrated. 40 cents.

Supplementary Music for Public Schools. Eight page numbers, 3 cents. Twelve

page numbers, 4 cents. Sixteen page numbers, 5 cents. Send for complete list.

Thomas's Modulator. A chant, 34 x 45 inches, mounted on rollers. Gives the nine

keys. 75 cents.

Whittlesey and Jamieson's Harmony in Praise. A collection of Hymns with

responsive Biblical selections, for college and school chapel exercises and for families.
Cloth. Octavo. 75 cents.

Wilson's Infant School Drill. Exercises, with music, for the healthy development
of the body. 32 pages. Square 8vo. Illustrated. Limp cloth. 25 cents.

Descriptive circulars and full information free on request. Correspondence is invited.

D. C. HEATH & CO., Publishers, Boston,New York,Chicago