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THE SPORT OF BIRD STUDY

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THE SPORT OF
BIRD-STUDY

A BOOK FOR YOUNG OR ACTIVE PEOPLE

BY

HERBERT KEIGHTLEY JOB

Author of “Wild Wings” and ‘Among The Water-Fowl.”
Member of The American Ornithologists’ Union, ete.

PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS FROM
LIFE BY THE AUTHOR

NEW YORK

THE OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY

MCMVIII
Ry

Copyright, 1908, by
THE OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY

All Rights Reserved

TO MY SON

GEORGE CURTISS JOB
and all other
Real Live American Boys

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I Tae APPEAL OF THE SvorRT . : : ‘ - : 1

I Houwntine Game-Birps WITH THE CamerA. (Upland Game

Birds.) ; : ; i : ‘ : . 18

TI Tue Ropsers or THE Faits, AND OTHers. (Hawks.) . 34
IV Tue Birp or Nicut. (Owls.) ‘ : ; «BY
V Svrance Bep-Fettows. (Cuckoos and apa) A:
VI Kyicuts or Tan Cuisey. (Woodpeckers.) . 2 . 87
VIL Birps wira a Hanpicap. (Goatsuckers and Hummers.) 101
VIII Proresstonat Fry-Carcuine. (Flycatchers.) . : . 124
IX Crow Rexatives. (Crows, Jays, Blackbirds, etc.) . . 139
X A PuzziE in Birps. (Finches, Sparrows, etc.) s . 156
XI Our Pricetess SwaLtLows AnD SwIrTs . : 178

XII Four Neicuzors Diversn. (Tanagers, Waxwings, Shrikes,

Vireos.) : : : F ; : . 191
XIII Featuerep Gems. (The Warblers.) 3 ; : 206
XIV TurusH Cousins. (Thrashers, Wrens, Titmice, eee.

Thrushes, etc.) . - ; : - x : . 230

XV Warer-Birp Wairs. (Wading and Swimming Birds.) . 251
Tse Brirp-Hovse or Science or N. E. NortH America . 277
A Birp CALENDAR F é : ; e ‘ . 280

InDEXx

ILLUSTRATIONS

Broad-winged Hawk . : : 3 ; ; . Frontispiece

"PAGE
Dusky or Black Duck ; ‘ : : : ‘ : a ee
Great Horned Owl incubating. : P : : : . 4
Ruffed Grouse on nest : ; ; : 3 : ‘ 2. 26
Nighthawk incubating; normal pose. : ; . 8
Northern Yellow-throat (female) about to a young . : . 10
Woodcock on nest. : ; , : ‘ : ; . 16
Woodcock on nest, showing surroundings. ‘ : ‘ . 20
Young Woodcock : ; ‘ . : : ; . 20
Wilson’s Snipe . : ; F : : , : ; s. 29
Bob White on nest . , : : : : : : =. 24
Nest and brood of Quail. : : ‘ ‘ : . . 24
Ruffed Grouse incubating . ; : : j ; ; . 380
Ruffed Grouse in confinement. ; ; ‘ : : . 380
Broad-winged Hawk on nest : : : : . , . 42
Young Broad-wings . ; : : : : : . 46
Home life of the Red-tailed Hawk ; : ; : : . 50
Red-tailed Hawk : : : : F ; . 50
Three little Sharp-shinned Hovis ; : : i : . 54
Nest of Marsh Hawk ; ; : : : : i . 54
Nest of Red-shouldered Hawk . : : ; : : . 58
The Cooper’s Hawks’ nest by the falls : . , : . 58
Young Barred Owl . : : : : ; . : . 62
Great Horned Owl . ; : : : 5 ’ : . 62
Young Long-eared Owl hiding . ‘ : : : : . 66

ix

ILLUSTRATIONS

‘Young Long-eared Owls

Young Screech Owl in position of atise
Screech Owl .

“On it sat a Black-billed Cuckss”

Nest of Black-billed Cuckoo

Young Black-billed Cuckoos in nest
Kingfisher (adult) :
Young Kingfisher leaving nest-burrow .
Young Kingfishers

“A Flicker stuck its head out of the nest- hole”
Flicker, or Yellow-hammer (female), feeding young in hole
Family of Young Flickers .

Ned got the Hairy Woodpecker .

Downy Woodpecker attracted by suet .
Downy Woodpecker .

Whippoorwill on nest

Young Whippoorwills in nest

Nighthawk

Young Nighthawks

Nighthawk on eggs, alarmed

Nighthawk by her eggs

Hummer “in the midst of the feeding omeay”
Humming Bird incubating .

Hummer and young .

Young Hummers in nest

Kingbird on nest

Kingbird scolding

The entire Kingbird family: ;
Phoebe and her new husband in the gables
Phcebe on nest .

Snapshot of Wood Pewee

Young Least Flycatcher

The Alder Flycatcher

FACING
PAGE

66
72
72
18
80
80
82
84
84
90
90
94
98
98
. 98
. 106
. 106
. 108
. 108
. 110
. 110
. 116
. 116
. 120
. 120
. 124
. 126
. 126
. 130
. 130
. 134
. 134
. 136

ILLUSTRATIONS

Typical nest of Alder Flycatcher

Alder Flycatcher

Young Crows in nest .

Young Crows

Blue Jay . :

Rusty Grackle .

Nest of Meadowlark .

Nest of Orchard Oriole

Young Orchard Orioles

Male Bobolinks

Five young Bobolinks in nest .
Tree Sparrow eating hay seed thrown on the snow
Pine Grosbeak about to drink :
Female Rose-breasted Grosbeak incubating .
Pair of White-winged Crossbills .

Young Field Sparrows in nest

Young Goldfinches, ready to leave nest

Nest of Swamp Sparrow

Nest of Vesper Sparrow

Nest of Chippy .

Chipping Sparrows -

Young Barn Swallows on nest

Young Barn Swallow

Eave Swallows .

Fledgling Eave Swallow

Tree Swallow (male) and nest

Tree Swallow

Young Tree Swallows :
Purple Martins near their nest in ae of sik
Bank Swallow at nest—hole in gravel bank .
Young Chimney Swifts by their nest

Young Chimney Swift

Nest of Scarlet Tanager

FACING
PAGE

. 138
. 138
. 140
. 142
- 146
. 148
. 148
. 150
. 150
. 152
. 152
. 160
. 160
. 162
. 162
. 164
. 164
. 170
. 170
. 172
- 172
. 180
. 180
. 182
. 182
. 184
. 184
. 184
. 186
. 186
. 188
. 188
. 194

ILLUSTRATIONS

Young Cedar Waxwings

Red-eyed Vireo incubating .

Red-eyed Vireo near young

Red-eyed Vireo feeding young Cowbieds
Black and White Creeping Warbler
Black and White Creeping Warbler on nest .
Nest of Black-throated Blue Warbler .
Nest of Yellow-breasted Chat
Oven-bird on nest :
Louisiana Water Thrush on nest .
Redstart on nest ‘ :
Chestnut-sided Warbler on nest .

Nest of Chestnut-sided Warbler .

The condition of the Chestnut-sided Warbler’ s nest two dave’ inter :

Yellow Warbler feeding young in nest .

Northern Yellow-throat

Brown Thrasher (male) and young

Brown Thrasher (female)

Male Brown Thrasher, shielding young in nest
Catbird in shrubbery . .

Catbird on nest

House Wren entering nest . :

House Wren emerging from nest in old can .
Short-billed Marsh Wren ‘

Nest of Short-billed Marsh Wren

Chickadees

White-breasted Nuthatch

Wood Thrush incubating :

Young Wood Thrushers, ready to jive nest : .
Spotted Sandpiper scolding : : : 3 .
Semi-palmated Sandpiper feeding F . $ .
Nest of Sora . :

Young American Bitterns .

xii

FACING
PAGE

. 194
. 202
. 202
. 204
. 208
. 208
. 218
. 218
. 222
. 222
. 224
. 224
. 226
226
. 228
. 228
. 234
. 236
. 236
. 238
. 238
. 240
. 240
. 242
. 242

244
. 244
. 250
. 250
. 254
. 254
. 258
. 258

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING

PAGE
Young Least Bittern . ; z : : . : a . 260
Green Heron and nest : ‘ 3 - P . : . 262
Green Heron incubating. : ‘ “ : ‘ P . 262
Young Wood Duck . : 2 : : : : . . 266
The Horned Grebe ashore . - ‘ ' : : : . 270
Red-breasted Merganser. ; : 5 : . ; . 272
The Horned Grebe . : ‘ . is 2 : : . 272

xiii

THE SPORT OF BIRD STUDY

THE SPORT OF BIRD STUDY

CHAPTER I
THE APPEAL OF THE SPORT

°VE got the Wood Duck, I’ve got the Wood Duck,
I’ve got him, Tve got him! This excited
yelling brought me through the thicket in a
hurry, out to the margin of the boggy pond. I arrived
‘just in time to see my fifteen-year-old enthusiast caper-
ing like a jumping-jack, and catch a glimpse of a flying
duck disappearing like a meteor.

“Got him, have you?” Isaid. <‘‘ Produce him, then!
Spread him out and let’s look him over. Then we'll
have roast duck!’

«‘He’s just gone out there through those trees,” cried
Ned, indicating the course of the recent meteorite, “and
I’m dead sure it’s a Wood Duck, positive! ‘That makes
number 149 on my year’s list, and I know there’s a
brood of Black Ducks in here, too; I heard one quack-
ing. If I see them, that will make 150. Oh, it just
makes me crazy!”

“Yes, that was a Wood Duck all right. I saw it go,”
I replied, ‘“‘and you’ve certainly got him to your credit,

1

THE APPEAL OF THE SPORT

but you mustn’t get so excited this hot August weather,
or you'll have a sunstroke.”

‘Hang the sunstroke,” exclaimed Ned, “I’m awful
glad you brought me in here. You said I’d get the
Wood Duck, but I’d tried so many times I was afraid
I’d miss it again. This is certainly a dandy place, and
I’m coming here every day for awhile. But when is
the best time of day for ducks? I want to see the
whole flock of Wood Ducks, and of course the Black
Ducks, though I saw some of those fellows last year.”

“You would be liable to start them up at any time,
while they are resting and sunning themselves in the
swamp,” I told him, “but at dusk they begin to fly
around to feed, and dawn is another good time, too.
But it would be hard for you to get here so early, and
the grass would be drenching wet.”

‘Hard!’ he cried. ‘You’re a great man to talk so,
for I’ve heard you tell of your getting up at two and
driving twenty miles before light to shoot ducks in the
fall. Don’t you think I’ve got some sporting blood as
well as yourself, even if I don’t murder them the way
you used to?”

“Well, now, you’re getting on to a rather delicate
subject,” I replied. ‘I know you’re an early bird, and
I’m glad you are an enthusiast, and that we both know
how to find more fun with the birds than by killing
them. Of course there’s nothing wrong in shooting
lawful game in moderation, but it’s simply this, that
the new way is so much better than the old that we

2

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THE APPEAL OF THE SPORT

don’t care for shooting. Gunners can hunt only in the
fall, but our hunting lasts the whole year. Their
game, too, is limited to a few kinds, while we have
every sort of bird that flies.”

So we talked along till we came to the village, agreeing
to go to the pond next day at dusk and try to “get” the
Black Duck. ‘

While Ned is gone, it is a good chance to talk behind
his back and tell a little about him.

A great many people nowadays are interested in
birds, and many schools have taken it up as a study
and recreation combined. This is the case in the school
which Ned attends. They have colored pictures of
native birds pinned up on the walls, and charts which
explain in an easy way the classification of birds, the
groups into which they are divided, and which kinds,
or species, of birds are likely to be found in that locality,
and at what seasons. The teachers take parties of
their pupils out on excursions or “bird walks,” noticing
the flowers and trees as well, or any other interesting
objects, and grand good times they have. Several
members of a party have field or opera glasses to see
the shier birds more plainly, and so tell what they are.
These boys or girls soon come to recognize all the com-
mon birds about as far off as they can see them, and are
able to give them their right names. At school they
keep a list of the birds seen and identified during the
year, and each scholar is given credit for the ones he is
the first to find, so that competition becomes very keen.

3

THE APPEAL OF THE SPORT

One day I went out to the athletic field to see the
boys play a game of baseball. It was the fifth of May,
and just across the road which bordered the field I saw
and heard two male Bobolinks, the first arrivals in
that locality. I wondered whether the boys would
notice them, but they did, and after the game there
was a grand race to report the Bobolink for the list.

Out of school hours some of the boys, on their own
hook, scour the fields and woods for miles around, and
Ned is one of these. Young as he is, he has already
come to know the birds wonderfully well, and he seldom
meets one he cannot recognize, if only he has a good
glance at it. There is keen rivalry among these boys
as to who can see and identify the largest number of
kinds of birds each year. This sends them actively
scouring around outdoors in all sorts of places, and -at
all times, too, winter as well as summer. It is splendid
exercise, especially the climbing of the steep wooded
hills, up over the rocks, scrambling through thickets of
mountain laurel. There is genuine sport in this in
itself, yet an incentive, such as an old Hoot Owl some-
where in those wild, secluded woods up near the sum-
mit, makes it doubly exciting. There are plenty of
Ruffed Grouse in these fastnesses which can be pur-
sued, either with the gun in the fall, or without the gun
at any time—to find their nests, to watch the mother
lead her brood, to learn where they stay at different
hours of the day, where they go when flushed, how
many times one can put up the same bird, and so on.

4

r

¥)
ie
&

ee re

Great Horned Owl incubating. “An incentive such as an old Hoot Owl” (p. 4).

THE APPEAL OF THE SPORT

The wild places also contain birds which are rare, or
not so well known, and there is always a feeling of
expectancy and excitement, because at any moment
something may turn up. This is particularly true of
the seasons of migration, in spring and fall. Spring is
inspiring, with its soft breezes and opening flowers, the
fragrant odors of earth and woods, the procession of
the birds in their choicest plumages, full of song and
joy. Autumn is energizing with its snappy air, bidding
one be active, the falling of the nuts, the whirring flight
of game birds, the restless activity of passing migrant
hordes whose song is now dissolved into motion. As
the leaves shower down, how fine it is to see through
the woods again, and to get the grand views from the
hillsides.

Best of all, perhaps, is the nesting season. Ned does
not collect eggs, because there are museums available,
and there is nothing worth while to be learned from
the mere possession of eggshells of his own. Indeed,
he is a member of the Audubon Society, whose motto
is “A bird in the bush is worth two in the hand,”
and prefers to have plenty of birds to see and enjoy
rather than to join in the robbing and killing which is
stripping this country of its beautiful wild life. In
nesting time the birds are more familiar and intimate.
Find a nest, and one can then visit the bird at will,
watch the pretty creatures at close range, learn their
habits, how the young are fed and cared for, and also
secure photographs from life. Besides, one learns the

5

THE APPEAL OF THE SPORT

haunts of the various birds, the times each season when
the different species breed, how they build their nests,
and any number of other interesting things.

The boys, however, do not have this fun all to them-
selves. It appeals just exactly as much to strong,
active men. I began when I was a young boy, and
now, after thirty years of the sport, I like it just as well
as ever. And. there are thousands, increasing thou-
sands, of men who have the same feeling. The sport
has in it the elements of adventure and activity, just
the thing to alternate with the strain and confinement
of professional or business life, a means of health and
strength, of keeping enthusiasm and youthful freshness.
Of course any outdoor sport is useful in this direction,
yet the quest of the study of Nature, in some of its
departments, has special advantages for providing
refreshing resource for the mind, as well as for the
body. Bird study has a peculiar inducement in that
it is seasonable the year round, and deals with living
subjects, which are beautiful and of special fascination
because of their power of flight. The gunner and the
fisherman at the close of their short season—all too
brief it seems—put away their implements of the chase
with regret, for it will be many long months before it
will be time again to start out. But the ornithologist
may go whenever his time permits, when the longing
for the wild floods his soul.

If there were any question of the right of bird study
to rank as a sport, and a leading one at that, a certain

6

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THE APPEAL OF THE SPORT

discovery, made not many years ago, banishes all pos-
sible doubt. This was the discovery that photography
could be employed in bird study with splendid suc-
cess. At once this gave to the bird student a weapon,
an implement, putting him in the class of sportsmen.
Nearly everyone now knows about this new thing
which is, indeed, a sport by itself, <chunting with the
camera.”’ ‘This is not confined to any one department
of natural history, but is the capture upon a photo-
graphic plate of the image of any wild living creature—
mammal, bird, fish, or even insect. Birds offer special
inducements for this pursuit, as they are far more
numerous than the wild mammals. Moreover, fish
can seldom be photographed save in captivity, and
insects are small and not popular.

Studying bird and animal life with the camera cer-
tainly is a splendid sport. It destroys no life, yet yields
results far superior to those of gun and flesh-pot in our
stage of civilization where we need not shoot to eat.
How often nowadays one reads the admission of some
hunter who comes close upon some fine game, that he
wished he had had a camera instead of his gun. To
shoot successfully with the camera requires far more
skill, nerve, patience, brain-power, than with the gun,
and yet is not hard enough to be impracticable. In
the highest essentials of sport, to my mind, the camera
stands far ahead of the gun.

My boy friend, of course, has caught the fever, and
has a lightly-built long-focus camera, using a 4x5 inch

7

THE APPEAL OF THE SPORT

plate, the very thing to begin with. I have one much
like his except that mine has rather longer bellows, so
as to allow the use of the single members of the doublet
lens, and a larger size of lens at that, one intended for
the next larger size of camera. This gives a larger
image of a bird at a given distance, and is very useful
with shy birds, or when one has to climb and photo-
graph from tree to tree, or from branch to branch, and
cannot get as near as is desirable to one’s subject.
Later Ned will probably get one like mine, and, if he
succeeds well enough to warrant the outlay, a reflecting
camera for photographing birds on the wing. ‘These
are costly and require a rapid and expensive lens.
A 4x5 size, long-focus, is best for the purposes of most
people, though a 5x7, if not of too heavy a make, has
longer bellows, and admits of a larger lens.

This sport of bird study can be fitted to any person
and any need. Pursued to the full it means adventure
on land and water, hardihood, climbing trees or cliffs,
danger, travel and exploration to the remotest parts of
the earth, if one wish. But it can be limited to ac-
cessible local birds, the smaller birds of garden or field,
in which even an invalid can take a world of comfort.
A multitude of girls and women in these days are de-
voted to it. Though they do not usually venture, for
instance, upon climbing lofty trees to inspect hawks’
nests, like their brothers, many of them have done fine
work and made valuable contributions to science. The
girls in the high school, not far from the one which Ned

8

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THE APPEAL OF THE SPORT

attends, carry on a keen rivalry with the boys in this
bird study sport, and not infrequently bear off the
laurels, as in getting the first record of the season of
some species, or some new one for the list, or in the
prize photographic competitions in the magazines for
the best pictures of wild birds or animals from life. So
there is room in the sport for all, and whole families,
parents and children, may all be bird-study sportsmen!

In writing this book I have in my heart a very
warm place for the boys and young men who live in
the country. Some think that life in the country is
dull, and long to get upon city pavements. But if I
can get them to catch my spirit, they will change their
minds, and country life will take on new interest and
joy. Though I was born and brought up in the city,
the country was where I wanted to be. On every
Saturday holiday, and on many an afternoon after
school, I might have been seen making tracks for
woods or waters. During spring and Christmas vaca-
tions I would take the train for Cape Cod. I never can
get over the peculiar thrill which I felt whenever I
crossed the boundary of a “‘Cape” town and felt that I
was actually on Cape Cod. Somehow it seemed like
sacred ground, a land of bliss unspeakable. I was
under a spell of excitement, of exhilaration. It was
country, bird country—‘“‘ God’s country,” as they say
out West.

A country town appeals to me as a sort of gold mine.
Those wooded hills are treasure houses, these swamps

9

THE APPEAL OF THE SPORT

are more luscious than marsh mallows, those fields
produce harvests of rarities. I am eager to start forth
and ramble on, to seize and conquer this rich province
with mind and eye, to make it mine. Nothing do I
care to own it, as other men do, and pay taxes, if they
will but tolerate my roamings, letting me visit, watch,
study, photograph its glorious wild citizens. Really I
pity the person who cannot enjoy the country, who has
so few resources of mind as to need to be amused by
the passing throng, who must forever get, in order to be
happy, and has little or nothing to give.

I want to start out many healthy boys, girls and
youth on this enticing combination of sport and study
to enlarge their lives, and make them happier and more
contented with their lot in life. So I shall try, with the
help of my lively young enthusiast and companion, to
show that ornithology, or bird study, can be made a
live thing, a sport, a fine pursuit for any active person,
as it has surely proved to be for a growing boy like Ned.
Sometimes, to inspire and educate him, I take him off
with me to some wild and distant region, to camp out
and rough it, and develop his manliness and self-
reliance. I shall proceed to tell what he and I, or I
alone, find in quest of birds in an ordinary inland
country town, not a remarkable one, but an average
one, any country town, indeed, in the Eastern or Middle
United States, just such a town, very likely, as the one
in which you, Reader, dwell, or spend your vacation.
I shall try to tell, in the main, what birds you will be

10

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THE APPEAL OF THE SPORT

likely to find in such a town, how we found them, and
what fun we had in doing so. You had better have a
complete text-book with descriptions of birds and keys
to identify them, such as Chapman’s, or Hoffmann’s
Handbook, and also a field or opera glass, the more
powerful the better. Later you can buy a camera, if
the sport appeals to you.

Most of the birds here told about are found also in
other parts of the country and in Canada, and the
general idea of the book will apply as well there, for
the sport of bird study is not limited to any narrow
boundaries.

It is a good idea for all who study birds to know
something of their classification, the principal groups
and families into which bird species are divided. ‘There
are not so very many of these, and they are very distinct
one from another, and one can easily carry the whole
scheme in mind. In coming upon an _ unfamiliar
specimen, it is pleasant to be able, from its general
appearance or habits, to recognize at once to what
family it belongs. All there is to do, then, is to take
the Handbook and find which of several species it is.
Most of them, indeed, one will probably know already—
the thrushes, warblers, swallows, finches, woodpeckers,
hawks, grouse, gulls, and so on. In the chapters fol-
lowing I tell about the different groups of birds in their
order of classification, except that the swimming and
wading birds are transferred, for convenience, from
first to last. It will be a good idea to learn the scheme

11

THE APPEAL OF THE SPORT

of classification, which is given elsewhere in this book,
and then, when afield, see what pleasure it gives to be
able to instantly assign each bird as it appears to its
proper family apartment in the big bird-house of
Science. One feels that he has a grasp upon the sub-
ject and knows just about what to expect. Ned is
already an expert in this.

But now here he comes running back to remind me
that I forgot to return his precious jack-knife, so we
must stop talking about him.

12

CHAPTER II
HUNTING GAME BIRDS WITH THE CAMERA
(Upland Game Birds)
A’ the fall the gunners were at it. The weather

was mostly fine, and the guns seemed to be

barking in all directions nearly every day.
Birds were plenty, tempting some hunters to kill more
than the law allowed, and the game warden caught
some of them red-handed. It certainly seemed as if
there would be no birds left by the time that the law
went on again, the first of December.

So I was pleased enough, during my winter rambles,
to flush good numbers of the Ruffed Grouse on the
woody hillsides and in the swampy woods, and, when
the first mild days of early March arrived, to find that
there had returned to their old haunts in the alder
swamps quite a number of the Woodcock, generally
recognized as the king of the game birds. With the
coming of freezing weather the Woodcock had left us
for a milder climate, where things were made warm for
them by gunners all winter long. It was a wonder
that any of them had lived to come back.

Game birds are ranked by sportsmen not so much
by their size as by the degree in which they “‘lie to the

13

HUNTING BIRDS WITH CAMERA

dog.” The Ruffed Grouse is all too apt to run away
as the hunting dog approaches, and flush from a dis-
tance. The Wilson’s Snipe of the meadows lies closely
enough some days, but on others sneaks off, and flies
wildly to safety. The Bob-white, or Quail, is a fine
bird to hunt with the dog. Sometimes I have had
almost to kick them up before they would fly. But the
closest squatter of them all is Sir Woodcock, and he is
king without a rival, with our friend Bob White, Es-
quire, as a close second. These are the four real game
birds of eastern districts and the subjects of this chap-
ter. We shall see what sort of game they make for
hunting with the camera.

In this hunting, as well as in the other, Woodcock is
king. Though he does not seem to be particularly a
proud bird, yet he does have great confidence in himself,
in his ability to escape the prying eyes of enemies, and
rightly so, for his colors and markings are so closely
like those of his surroundings in the woods and swamps
that he can defy most eyes to detect him. Naturalists
call this ‘protective coloration,” and a splendid pro-
tection it is. So the Woodcock learns that all he has to
do, ordinarily, to be safe, is just to keep still, and well
has he learned the lesson.

One April day Ned and I were following along a
brook which flows through a pasture and is fringed with
alders. ‘Hullo,’ said I, “I wonder what sort of a
last year’s nest that is on that low bush over there!’
So I went over to see, and stooping over to examine it,

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with my face not more than a yard from the ground,
something happened so suddenly that I almost fell over
backwards. A Woodcock flushed from right under-
neath my nose and almost hit me in the face. I gave
an exclamation of surprise, and of joy too, for surely
this must be the nest. Ned saw the bird go off twitter-
ing and alight in the swamp beyond. He hurried up
to see the eggs, for it was nesting time, and we were
hunting for Woodcocks’ nests. No! I could hardly
credit my senses. No nest there, and the bird so
tame? Butit wasevenso. More disappointed hunters
it would be hard to find. The other bird of the pair,
meanwhile, had been lying close, not ten yards away,
and in our search for the nest we finally flushed it too,
though we did not get quite so near.

There were various other alder swamps in the
neighborhood, where Woodcock had been seen, and
one day I induced a resident hunter, who was Wood-
cock-wise, to bring his dog for a tramp with me, to try
to find a nest. The dog did not lead us to anything,
but his owner happened to see some eggshells lying on
the ground, the remains of three Woodcock’s eggs
which had been eaten by some animal, for the prints
of sharp teeth were in the shells. The place was a
bushy tract at the edge of a meadow, and the nest was
a small hollow on a grassy hummock beside a low alder.

But back along the same brook where we flushed the
birds someone else had better luck. A young man
came in to cut alders for bean poles. After chopping

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nearly an hour near one place, all of a sudden a brown
bird darted up from almost beneath his feet, and there
lay four handsome drab eggs, spotted with lilac. I had
advertised a reward for a Woodcock’s nest, so early the
next morning the youth came and told me, and I went
with him immediately in a fever of excitement, for in
all my travels I had never yet found a Woodcock’s nest.

The alders grew in clumps about twenty feet high in
the part of the swamp to which my guide took me.
Presently he stopped to look. ‘‘She’s on the nest,”’ he
said. ‘Don’t show me,” I exclaimed, “let me make
her out.” I had to look very sharply, but quite soon I
spied her, about fifteen yards away. It was a wonderful
protective blending of colors. The varying shades of
rather bright browns and yellows of the dead leaves
almost perfectly corresponded with the browns in the
plumage of the bird.

The spot she had chosen was on the mound around
the base of one of the innumerable clumps of alders.
There lay the bird among the dead leaves, without any
protection of undergrowth, right out boldly in the open,
relying solely upon the blending of her color and form
with the surroundings. Then I approached nearer,
more cautiously than I needed to have done, for I could
hardly bring myself to believe that she would sit there
if a man came striding up close to her, so plainly was
she now visible to me. Yet she stirred not; her large,
soft, brown eyes, the most conspicuous part of her, did
not move or wink.

16

“The fearless and motionless little mother” (p. 18).

Woodcock on nest.

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Taking from my pocket a crisp two-dollar bill, I
bestowed it upon the modest youth, who hardly thought
that he could rightfully earn so easily a day’s wages.
Then he departed, leaving me alone with the bird.
The day was April 18th, one of the last cold days of a
vigorous and hard-dying winter. With the mercury
below forty degrees, dark and cloudy, a cold wind
raging, and occasional snow squalls, it might not seem
a very favorable time for photographing birds. But I
dared not wait. By to-morrow she might easily have
hatched and led away her nimble young. To-night a
wildcat, fox, raccoon, or skunk might discover her and
end my hopes and plans. So I went right to work.
Dark as it was, there was time enough for exposures,
for this bird would keep as still as the towering hills
before me.

Setting up the camera on the tripod, I went to work
taking pictures of her, at first from a little distance, so
as to make sure of some result, in case she should fly,
but presently as near as anyone could wish, the lens
being within a yard of her. During the two hours I
was at it, the only motion she made was to wink once
when a pellet of sleet struck her on her unprotected
eyeball.

By this time I had taken nine pictures, from different
positions, and I might have continued all day, had not
my foot cracked a dry twig close to her head. This was
too much even for her steady nerves, and away she
darted, not fluttering off as though wounded, like the

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Wilson’s Snipe when flushed from the nest, but with
quick, direct flight.

This gave me a chance to examine and photograph
the eggs which lay in a simple hollow in the dead leaves.
Then I withdrew to a distance and hid behind a bush
to watch for her return. Just then it began to snow
hard, and soon the ground was white, though the
crystals melted on the warm eggs. Fearing that my
presence might be keeping her away, I went off and
explored a neighboring wooded hill, where I found a
hawk’s nest. ‘The Woodcock had not returned in one
hour, nor in two, but at the end of four hours she was
brooding again, as tame as ever.

Of course at an early opportunity I had to bring Ned
to see the wonderful sight. After taking some more
pictures, we sat on a rock only six feet away to eat our
lunch, watching with keen interest the fearless and
motionless little mother. Never had we seen a bird
lie so splendidly to dog, man, camera, or anything else.
To our minds the title royal was fairly earned, and
Woodcock was certainly king.

We had, however, one final and severe test for her—
to try to make her stand up to be photographed. After
getting the camera aimed and focused, and being all
ready, with one hand I presented to her the end of a
short stick. She did not move when it touched her,
nor even when I pried her up off the eggs and finally
pushed her over on to one side. She would not stand
up for me, but at last, crouching as low as possible, she

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gave a sudden spring and went up like a glass ball from
a trap. Even if I had tried to make the exposure, I
know that I should have been far too slow. I have no
doubt but that we could have handled her, had we tried
to do so. Then I set the camera, attached a thread to
the shutter, and hid behind a bush at a distance, to get
a picture of her as she came back, meanwhile letting
Nedgohome. There I sat with eyes glued to that spot
in the leaves for four mortal hours. The bird did not
appear, the sun went down, and I had to give it up.

Of course the eggs would be chilled and spoiled, and
I wondered how long she would sit on them. I made a
few more calls on Madam, and then neglected her
until the second day of May. Four neatly split shells
lay in the nest. The hardy eggs had hatched after all,
and four little Woodcocks were somewhere following
their devoted mother and learning to bore for worms
along the soft margin of the brook.

That same year, late in July, one of my other boy
friends caught a young Woodcock as he returned from
fishing and was walking along the railroad track. ‘The
bird flew up. from the road-bed and alighted in the
grass, where it hid and allowed him to catch it. It was
fully fledged, but not yet very strong on the wing.
Ned and I kept it for a month, and had very interesting
times with it. We kept it in a wire chicken run, and
fed to it as many as 175 earth worms a day. It soon
got so that it would run up and take worms from our
hands, and sometimes it would even try to swallow my

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finger, mistaking it for a nice fat worm. It would
grasp a worm with the end of its long bill, using the
tip of the upper mandible independently of the rest of
the bill, like a thumb, and then gulp the worm down.
Most of the worms were put in a pan of moist earth,
through which they burrowed to the bottom. This
was at night, and in the morning we would find the
earth completely perforated with round holes where
the bird had bored for its game. It was seldom that
a single worm could long escape.

Sometimes I would take the bird out for exercise and
picture-making, tying a thread to its leg to prevent it
from flying away. It would run about the lawn erecting
its pretty tail, which it spread out pompously after the
manner of a turkey cock. In like manner it would
drink or dabble along the margin of the river, and it
was a sight to watch it bore for worms in the soft mud
of the sink drain. Finally after a month’s captivity, I
let it go, and the last I saw of it, it was trotting off under
the bushes on the river’s brink. We all thought every-
thing of “Woodie,” whose only fault, according to Ned,
was its enormous appetite, that fairly tired him out
digging worms to appease it.

But he had a harder task yet in store. Time flew
along, like the birds, and it was April again. One day
a young man brought me an adult Woodcock, which he
had caught by the roadside. It had hurt its wing
against a telegraph wire and could no longer fly. It
could eat, however, and we soon found that it was no

20

Woodcock on nest, showing surroundings. “Don’t show me . . . let me
make her out” (p. 16).

Young Woodcock. “Erecting its pretty tail” (p. 20).

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play to dig worms for it so early in the season—a cold,
backward spring, too. Ned had not much time after
school, and I was busy. One day I dug for over an
hour and did not find worms enough for half a day’s
rations. Later in the day, as I passed a store in the
town, I saw a boy standing idle, and an idea came to
me. ‘Don’t you want to earn some money?” I asked
him. “Yes, sir,” he replied. <All right,” said I, «if
you will dig me some worms for my pet Woodcock I'll
give you ten cents a pound for them.”” That night he
brought a tomato can full and said he would get more.
The news spread rapidly among the boys that a sort of
gold mine had been discovered. There was a regular
procession of boys with worms, and I was kept busy
weighing worms and finding change for my “worm
brigade,” as I called them.

None were wasted, for the Woodcock was a marvel-
ous eater. When it first came it weighed five ounces.
Hearty eating soon brought it up to six and one-half,
and then it dropped to a good full six, where it remained
for months, until it was drowned one night in a terrific
thunder shower. I weighed the food carefully, and
found that it averaged about ten ounces of worms every
twenty-four hours. Seldom did it eat less than eight
ounces, often eleven, and once, when I weighed the
food, it disposed of an even twelve, twice its own weight.
“Ned,” I said, “how much do you weigh?” “A hun-
dred and ten,” he replied.

‘Well, if you were as big an eater as the Woodcock,

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it would take about two hundred pounds of meat a day
to keep you. Do you suppose your father would sup-
port you and send you to college if you ate forty dollars’
worth of meat a day?’ Ned thought that his fond
Papa would have to send him to work instead of to
college, so it is well that his appetite is not quite so
tremendous.

The game bird which is the nearest relative of the
Woodcock is the Wilson’s Snipe. Not many people
except sportsmen know it at all, but the trouble is that
a good many are as afraid as cats of getting their feet
wet. But it never in the world will hurt a healthy per-
son, if one only keeps warm by exercising and takes off
the wet things before sitting down. Often I have
walked home through the town with the water squeaking
in my boots like a suction pump, but I never caught
cold that way. But with long rubber boots, unless we
fall into some bog hole, we can probably keep dry, and
vigorous tramping in boggy meadows in April or early
May, or in September or October, can probably add
the Snipe to our acquaintance and our bird list. Ve
shall see its rapid, irregular flight, and hear its curious
note—‘‘escape,”’ it seems to say, which it proceeds to
do admirably, unless the intruder be a gunner and a
good shot besides! Often have I chuckled to see the
would-be snipe shooter’s bang-bang, miss-miss!

The bird goes mostly north of the United States to
breed, though a few do so along the northern border.
I have found just one nest in my life thus far, up in the

22

“In the act of brooding” (p. 23).

Wilson’s Snipe.

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Magdalen Islands, in-the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The
male seems to give warning to his brooding mate when
an intruder approaches the nest, and the pair dart
around very swiftly up in the air, making a humming
with their wings and sharp scolding notes. One of my
bright-eyed young friends hid and watched a female
until she alighted near her nest, which he then found,
and we all had chances to see her go fluttering up as
though desperately wounded. She was very tame in
returning, and by setting the camera on the ground,
focused on the nest, and pulling the thread, I secured
several good pictures of her in the act of brooding her
four dark mottled eggs.

Previous to the severe winter of 1903-4, Bob-white
was an abundant bird in our locality. Sitting on my
piazza, I could hear ringing calls issuing from the out-
lying clover fields, as the proud little roosters challenged
one another from their observatories on stone wall or
rail fence. Sometimes, especially when driving, I have
passed quite close to our noisy little friend on the fence,
but he is off in a hurry, if one stops to look at him. In
the autumn J have followed up coveys to see what they
would do. Once, in September, I saw a number of
them on a stone wall. They flew down as I drove by,
into some bushes close at hand, and I hitched the horse
and went after them. Standing on the wall, I studied
over the ground under the bushes very carefully, but
could not make out a single bird. But when I tossed
in a big stone, up they all went like rockets, nearly

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twenty of them, right from the very place I had so
carefully examined.

How well protected they are by their colors I once
had a fine chance to see. A single bird flushed before
the hunting dogs, and took to a patch of scrub pines.
I went in to look for it, and, as I was standing where
the shade was dense, but the ground clear of under-
growth, I happened to see it lying flat on the ground on
the smooth carpet of pine needles only two or three
steps from me. Before I had time to get my camera
ready it realized that it was discovered and flew off. _
So I got no picture, and, indeed, had never shot quail
with the camera. But opportunities came, at length.
Mrs. Robert White, like the old woman of shoe-resi-
dence fame, usually has a great many children. She
raises a big batch of them in June, and then often tries
it again in July and August. She is apt to nest in hay
fields, and the mowing-machine discovers this second
nesting. So one day, late in July, a farmer told me
that he had found a nest. Sure enough, in the corner
of his field by the stone wall was a nest with sixteen
eggs, in a clump of grass which the kind man had left
to protect them. It was easy enough to photograph
the eggs, but the mother bird was afraid of the camera,
so I had to take it away without getting her picture. I
made another visit very soon with Ned, and was just
in the nick of time, for fourteen of the sixteen eggs had
hatched, and the cunning little things which looked for
all the world like little brown-leghorn chickens, only

24

<<

Nest and brood of Quail. “Like little brown leghorn chickens” (p. 24).

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about half their size, were all in the nest, just dried off
ready to leave, as they always do very shortly after
hatching. The mother was brooding them, and she
fluttered off, while the young scrambled out of the nest
in an instant and hid in the grass. Between us both we
managed to find ten, which we put back in the nest,
where I photographed them and the egg shells. Each
one of the eggs had the larger end neatly split off to let
out the chick. The membrane held the piece like a
lid, and in most cases it had shut down again so neatly
that one would hardly notice but that the eggs were
round and full as ever of young quail. As soon as I
went away the anxious mother, who had been whining
at us from the wall, sneaked back to her chicks and
doubtless led them away at once. It was disappointing
that it was a dark showery day, so that I could not try
for a snapshot at the family as they left their happy
home for the wide, wide world.

“My, but wasn’t it great luck!’ About a week later
another farmer mowed by a nest and found it. This
one was not half a mile from the other, right beside a
much-traveled road, under the end of a pile of fence
rails. This bird was very different in disposition from
the other. She was so tame that Ned and I could
stroke her on the back without making her leave her
eggs, so accustomed had she become to seeing people,
who were constantly passing so near that they surely
would have stepped on her, had it not been for the
protecting rails. She was in plain sight now, without

25

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the long grass, and yet no one else discovered her. I
set up the camera as near as I could wish, and photo-
graphed her without the least trouble. Then Ned
poked her off the nest. I got her picture as she was
leaving, out in the grass, where he “shooed’’ her to
make her stand still, before she flew. Having to drive
past on the following day in the evening, I stopped
my buggy within a yard of her and watched her awhile.
As usual, she never moved or winked. The next day
eleven split shells told the story of the birth of eleven
little Bobby-whites to roam the grain fields and pastures
of their beautiful valley.

I had now secured photographs from wild life of
three of the four important game birds, and was eager
now to conquer the remaining one, the Ruffed Grouse.
In past years I had often found their nests. A favorite
location is in a pine grove, under some little bush or
sprout. One day, some ten years before this, I had
found two in one tract of pines, within half an hour.
Another favorable place is swampy woods, beside a
fallen log or underbrush, as well as in drier woodland.
Confident of success, through past experience, the fol-
lowing spring, in May, I began the hunt for a nest in
woods where the birds were common. It is largely a
matter of chance—though of persistence, too—to walk
close to the brooding bird, practically invisible by her
protective coloration, and flush her from her eggs.
What a tremendous whirring she makes as she leaves!

Somehow luck was plainly against me at the first.

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Day after day I had ranged the woods for miles and
miles, but I did not happen upon just the right spot.
But at length, while I was thus hunting, I met a man
burning brush, who told me of an Indian hunter who
recently, while guiding a surveying party, had found
two “Partridge” nests. That evening I saw the Indian,
and arranged to have him show me his finds.

Two days later, in the morning, we started up a trail
over a very mountainous tract. For nearly two miles
it followed a rocky ravine by a roaring brook. A
rattlesnake sprung his wavering alarm, but I was too
eager in the quest to care that day for snake trophies.
Three miles back from the road we reached the neigh-
borhood of the nests. One was in a swampy hollow
along the line of the surveyors’ blazings, beside a stump.
We finally found it, after quite a search, but some wild
animal had eaten the eggs and the shells were scattered
about. The other was a little further on, beside the
trail we had been following. The bird was on the
nest, directly at the base of a clump of chestnut sprouts.
Despite her solitude, or else because of it, she was one
of the wary sort and ran off, trailing her wings, before
I could get with the camera within fifteen feet of her.
She had twelve eggs.

Leaving the vicinity for a time, when I returned she
was not on, though the eggs were warm. ‘Then I hid
and watched. In half an hour she came walking back,
with head erect, jerking her tail. After waiting a
quarter of an hour for her to get composed, again I

Q7

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tried to approach, but she ran the instant she saw me
coming. Evidently this method was hopeless, so I
rigged the camera up in some bushes in front of the
nest, covering it with leaves. Then came a tedious
wait in hiding, with thread attached to the shutter, but
no sign of the bird. So I extended my line of thread
away off in the woods, went off for an hour, and then
pulled at a venture. This time the bird was at home,
having become used to the camera. It was now late
afternoon, so I had to return home, after fixing an
imitation of the camera to keep the bird accustomed to
the instrument. The plate proved to be hopelessly
under-exposed, though the exposure was for one sec-
ond, with full aperture, but with a single lens of the
doublet.

The next two days brought pouring rain, but I tried
it again on Memorial Day, arising at 4 a. M., as I had
to be back at noon for public exercises. The bird
skulked off again, so I set the camera as before, but
she had not returned in over three hours. It was then
eleven o’clock. I left the camera set, ran the three
miles down the trail in twenty-eight minutes, jumped
into the buggy, and barely was in time for my appoint-
ment. ‘The exercises were over by the middle of the
afternoon, and I hustled back up the mountain, reach-
ing the nest at 4.15. The bird was on, and I pulled
the thread, the shutter set for its longest movement,
about a second and a half, and with the doublet lens,
giving four times the illumination of the single lens.

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By 4.30 I had the plate changed and was in hiding.
At 5.05 the hen returned to her eggs. When she was
still I was about to pull the thread when a wonderful
thing happened. Just in the rear of the sprouts under
which she was sitting I caught sight of some large
creature, apparently sneaking up to kill her. At first,
through the foliage, I took it to be a hog or dog. When
it got almost to her, I saw it was a big bird, all bristled
up, a turkey gobbler, I thought. Suddenly it made a
tush right into the nest. Involuntarily I almost shouted
and leaped to my feet to rush out and save the eggs
from vandalism, when it suddenly dawned upon me
that it was the male bird making love in his own way.
The hen was too quick for him. She flushed like a
projectile from a gun and was gone, leaving her admirer
beside the nest. For fully a minute he stood there,
perfectly still, the very picture of pomposity. His tail
was erected and spread to its widest extent, as was the
glorious black ruff on his neck. The head was raised
and the wings drooped. After thus duly surveying
the situation he finally strutted proudly off into the
bushes. Meanwhile I was undergoing counter-blasts
of excitement, delighted with the scene, and chagrined
that he was just out of the field and focus for which
the camera was set. What a picture that would have
been!

The hen returned to her brooding within five minutes,
and I made the exposure. But somewhere in the
bushes the old rooster was watching, and again, in

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about three minutes, he tried to rush her. She darted
off when he was six feet away and again he struck his
pose, proud even in defeat.

Not certain of success, owing to the darkness of the
woods, I left the camera set over night, well covered.
with arubber cloth. It was well I did so, for the plates
were still badly under-exposed. I was back the next
morning soon after nine o’clock. The bird was on,
and the light much better, shining from in front of the
nest. I made the exposure and set the shutter for
another trial, this time for prolonged time exposure. ,
It took the bird over three hours to come back, but the
weather was warm and the eggs would not suffer.
This time the shutter went wrong and stayed open.
Again I set it and late in the afternoon obtained an-
other shot. The bird stayed perfectly still when I
pulled the string which opened the shutter, so I let it
remain open for ten seconds, and this time I had a
well-exposed plate. The first one of the morning was
also good. So at last I had my reward for three days’
labor, walking twenty-four miles and driving sixteen,
to complete my series of game bird portraits.

That very day my next door neighbor found another
nest, with eight eggs, within ten minutes walk of home.
It was in a beautiful grove of white birches under the
trunk of a fallen tree, which was prettily overgrown
with vines. This bird also was shy and would not let
me come within sight of her on the nest without whirring
off, not skulking like the other. I had learned now

30

Ruffed Grouse incubating. Secured

Ruffed Grouse in confinement. “Saying, ‘quit, quit,’ like a turkey” (p. 31).

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how to work. In the morning I would hide the camera
among the débris of the upturned tree near the nest.
I would leave it out and return about noon to pull the
thread, allowing ten or fifteen seconds’ exposure. In
this way I secured the best of all my pictures of the
Ruffed Grouse.

In early autumn the young of the year have a curious
habit of flying blindly into all sorts of places. The
theory has been advanced that these are the profligate
young men of the tribe, off on drunken sprees; that
they eat too freely of poke-berries, or other fruit, and
thereby become intoxicated. Of this there is no certain
proof. Perhaps they are trying to escape from hawks,
or get bewildered in their wanderings. At any rate
they do it and I have observed, or been told of, various
instances. Once I found one in my church cellar, and
recently one dashed against the window of a neighbor’s
house and fell dazed to the piazza. It was brought to
me and for a month I kept it in a hen-coop to study and
photograph. It ate freely of berries and green corn,
strutted about, saying “‘quit, quit,” like a turkey, now
and then making a purring sound, like a sitting hen,
and some whining noises. After a time I sent it to
Bronx Park, New York City, where afterward I saw it
in one of the pheasant pens.

Ned was not on hand for the grouse shooting just
described, but has seen enough to become enthusiastic
over this sort of game hunting. As for myself, I have
shot the game birds both with gun and camera and,

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while I would not despise the former sort of hunting, I
like the other much better.

Had this book been written a century or so ago, there
would have been several other species to enroll among
the upland game-birds of the Eastern and Middle
Districts. One of these, the Wild Turkey, has long
since disappeared from the region, but is still found in
some parts of the South. In a very wild part of central
Florida, miles from any dwelling of man, in the year
1902, I happened upon a nest of the Wild Turkey. It
was a mere hollow, lined with a few feathers, under a
small palmetto, just on the border of the prairie and a
great cypress forest. The dozen or so of eggs had
recently hatched and the shells, neatly split in halves,
lay in the nest. Then there was the Heath Hen,
similar to the Pinnated Grouse or Prairie Hen, abundant
in those days, but now exterminated, save a small
remnant which hide in the tangled scrub-oak tracts on
the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. The State
and other agencies are trying to save them, but the
result trembles in the balance. The Wild or Passenger
Pigeon which visited the region in countless multitudes
has likewise disappeared, with the possible exception
of a few stragglers. Various persons report that they
have seen them, but, as with supposed. ghosts, they
never show themselves to a competent witness, and
certainly in most cases people have mistaken them for
the common Mourning Dove.

This latter bird is still with us in small numbers,

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HUNTING BIRDS WITH CAMERA

though in the West they are still abundant. One of
the most pleasing sounds of spring is the “‘cooing”’ of
these gentle creatures, ‘‘coo, coo, coo-0,” it comes,
seemingly from afar, it is so soft and ventriloquial.
Indeed it sounds to me quite like the distant hooting
of the Great Horned Owl. 'The Mourning Dove used
to be considered a game bird, and open seasons were
allowed for hunting it. But now, in most States, it is
protected like a song-bird, as indeed it should be. It
nests in scattered pairs in woods or pastures, building a
frail loose nest of twigs, generally in some low crotch
of a tree, in a thicket, or even on the ground, where I
have now and then seen them. Several times also I
have found their two white eggs in old Robins’ nests.
In late summer and fall they gather into small flocks
and resort to grain or stubble fields to feed. They do
not hurt the grain, but merely glean the kernels which
have fallen.

33

CHAPTER III
THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS, AND OTHERS
(Hawks)
HIS beautiful May morning, the twelfth, the falls

were simply glorious. The recent heavy rain

had filled the mountain brook with a rushing
torrent which took its fifty-foot leap into the dark rocky
gorge with an unusual roar. Thence it thundered
down a series of cascades to join the river below, past
the dark hemlock forest on both sides which added its
dignified whisperings to the tumult of the waters. Here
and there among the dark green of the hemlocks showed
the pale yellows of the oaks, chestnuts, and birches,
which were just beginning to unfold their verdure.

It was warbler-time, and as I scrambled along half-
way up the steep declivity, following up the stream on
the left bank, I was watching a little company of
warblers, among which were several of the beautiful
Blackburnians, ceaselessly active in the upper branches
of the hemlocks. Just then I caught sight of something
which made me lose the warblers. Not far away from
me was an oak, in whose second crotch, forty feet up,
was a sizable nest of sticks, from which projected,
with an upward slant, a stubby thing which looked

34

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

like a hawk’s tail. Was it really that? It is easy to
see what one wants to see, and sometimes an old stick
will prove deceptive. I do not like the feeling of the
collapse of one’s hopes, but I do enjoy exciting anticipa-
tion. My powerful Zeiss glasses showed me that it
was surely a hawk and so I stood there awhile enjoying
the sight. Now I cautiously advanced and came nearly
to the tree before the hawk heard my steps above the
din of the waters. She stood up in the nest, and away
she went, with a shrill, high-pitched scream—‘‘whe-e-e,”’
and alighted upon a tall tree a hundred feet away,
where she continued to squeal her displeasure.
‘*Broad-wing! Fine!’ I ejaculated. Not our com-
monest hawk by any means! And an obliging Broad-
wing! I had no climbing irons with me, but as I
examined the situation, it seemed as though the bird
had had my convenience in mind in selecting the site
for her nest. About fifteen feet away was a rather
large hemlock, with step-ladder branches beginning
about fifteen feet up, and close beside it a young hem-
lock, making another step-ladder up to the first branch
of the big tree. To run upstairs was the simplest thing
in the world, if one did not mind elevation, and very
soon I was overlooking the nest with its two sizable
dirty white eggs blotched with brown, lying on a bed
of bark, dry leaves and twigs, with a few green hemlock
sprays on the side for ornament. It was too nice up
there to hurry down. The tree was on the edge of
quite a steep declivity, and far below I could see the
35

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

swirling water, which roared away unceasingly, almost
loud enough to drown the angry screams of the hawk,
which was now making dashes at my head, sheering
off just out of reach.

But it would not do to stay there longer and lose the
golden moments, so I descended, crossed the brook on
some projecting rocks, and entered an extensive and
beautiful hemlock grove. Within a few rods of the
great fall I recalled that there was an old hawk’s nest
high in a hemlock, which I had examined year by year,
hoping to find it again occupied, as hawks often return
to their old nest, or else it is taken by other hawks even
after the tenement has had years of disuse. Seven
springs successively I had looked at it, but I was not
hopeless, so long as it held together. This time it
certainly looked large and fresh, as though it had been
added to. Under it were freshly-broken sticks and
one hawk’s feather. Though no one answered to my
stormy knocks at the door, I went upstairs without
invitation, and looking into the airy bedroom I found
three plain bluish-white eggs characteristic of the
Cooper’s Hawk, laid, as is usual with this species, on
scales or chunks of hard, rough bark without any other
lining to the big stick nest. And now, seeing that the
game was up, Mrs. Cooper announced her displeasure
by an angry demand as to what business I had up there
without her permission—“ cack-cack-cack-cack-cack-
cack!’ “Oh, none at all; your humble servant,” I
said, meekly descending, when I had looked her home

36

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

over to my satisfaction. “But what made you desert
me in all these eight years?”

Wasn’t this great to find two hawks’ nests in the
same woods not a quarter of a mile apart! Here was fun
enough laid out for Ned and me. But it will be danger-
ous for other birds and squirrels and rabbits which live
here. These falls will witness many a tragedy. Little
do the picnic parties which come here almost daily
realize that four savage robbers are watching them
from the tree tops. How blind the average people
seem, for I can hardly imagine myself not discovering
at least this nest right in the picnic grove before I had
been there an hour.

It will seem strange if these robber families which
make their living by killing every smaller creature that
comes in their way manage not to disagree among
themselves and have some terrible fights. But the
probability is that each pair will stay on its own side of
the brook and attend strictly to its own business. If
either is the aggressor, I think it will be the Cooper’s
Hawks, for they are bold, pestilent fellows, the worst
nuisance of the whole tribe to the farmers, like their
smaller relative the Sharp-shinned Hawk, while the
Broad-wing is a slow-moving, sedate sort of bird, con-
tenting itself mostly with the humbler sorts of prey
and seldom troubling poultry.

I am wondering another thing, too, whether these
numerous mountain brooks of this hilly country, with
their falls and deep rocky gorges, do not all have their

37

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

robbers. Only two days before this I was descending
the gorge of another similar mountain stream hardly
two miles from here, when I noticed a hawk’s nest in
an oak tree over the water. It was an old one, not
occupied, and presently, as I went on, I came to an-
other in the top of a tall dead birch tree, also right over
the stream. It was evidently not occupied, but I
clapped my hands loudly to inquire, and was surprised
to see a Broad-wing fly away from somewhere lower
down, though not from the nest. Innocently assuming
that she was preparing to use this nest and had been
perching silently near it, I was about to go on without
climbing, as I had no irons with me, and to return later,
when I happened to espy a neat new nest in a low hem-
lock, not half as high as the nest in the birch, well con-
cealed in the branches. White down clung to the twigs
all about it and there was now no question as to where
the hawk had flown from. It was only thirty feet up,
with branches all the way, and I was quickly examining
the two eggs, similar to those of the broad-winged
robber of the other falls. Growing beside this tree, at
just the right distance to set a camera, was a slender
but strong young oak. I had never photographed the
Broad-wing Hawk from life, and now, with these two
nicely situated nests, certainly there was a fine chance.

My friend Ned was as yet inexperienced in the joys
and triumphs of hawking and I had him with me a
few days later when I made the first try at snapping
the Broad-wings, selecting the nest at the big falls.

38

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

Meanwhile, one afternoon, I had gone the rounds
again, and by each of the three raptores’ nests—“rap-
tores,’’ meaning robbers, is the Latin scientific name of
the order of hawks, owls, and the like—I had tied up a
small cereal box with a round hole in one end, to
represent a camera and lens, with a piece of burlap or
sacking pinned over it, like a focusing cloth, placing
this in the hemlock tree just where I planned to set the
camera. The hawks generally get used to the novelty
after awhile, and, when the real camera is set there,
they do not mind it at all. The main trouble is to
make them believe you have left the woods, for they
will not go to the nest as long as they think anyone is
near.

The hawk was at home, having become used to my
dummy camera. With my own 4x5 camera slung
over my shoulder in its case and other necessary instru-
ments in my pocket, I began to climb and told Ned to
come up after me. By the time he was halfway up the
tree he hesitated, for it seemed a long way down to that
roaring brook. I told him to keep his eyes on a level
and not mind the rocks below, because there were
plenty of strong branches and he could not fall. So he
got up where he could look into the nest and watched
me fix the camera.

It took me quite a while to rig it up, screwing it with
a bolt and ball-and-socket clamp to the right hand side
of the trunk, so it could point toward the nest and
nothing be in the way of the plate-holder. I took off

39

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

the back lens of the doublet and used the single front
member, of eighteen inches focus, which gave a good
large image of the nest even from that distance. When
it was focused and everything ready I tied the end of
the spool of strong black linen thread to the shutter,
dropped the spool to the ground, set the shutter, and
then we climbed carefully down, so as not to pull the
thread and spoil the plate.

The next thing was to find a good hiding place from
which to watch for the return of the hawk. About a
gunshot away, up the hill, a large chestnut tree had
fallen, and under it seemed a good chance to hide.
Ned held the thread so the shutter would not be re-
leased, while I further unwound it and laid it out
carefully, to avoid tangling, to the old trunk. Crawling
in under, I called Ned, and he hurried up and came in
too. From a peek hole I could just see the nest through
the leaves and branches. The only thing to do now
was to watch when the hawk came back to the nest,
and then pull the thread carefully so as not to jar the
camera while the shutter opened for the required half
second. The bellows were so long that in the woods
this was none too much, even with the lens at full
opening.

We lay perfectly still and listened to the hawk
music. Both of the pair were flying around and
screaming away like good ones. It seemed as though
they surely would stop in a few minutes and get to work
at housekeeping again, but they kept right at it. In

40

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

half an hour we felt pretty well cramped. Ned com-
plained that his neck ached like fury, and mine was in
the same condition. The hawks were still alarmed
and something was evidently wrong.

**T don’t believe it’s the camera that disturbs them,”’
I said to Ned. “I think they know we have not gone.
What do you say to going off out of sight, making
plenty of racket as you go, and see if the birds can count
and remember there was another fellow?”

*‘All right,” he replied, and he left me, secretly glad,
I am sure, to straighten out the kinks in his persecuted
neck.

He had not been gone two minutes before the yelling
ceased. There was dead silence awhile, and then I
saw a hawk alight in a tree near the nest. Next she
flew to another branch, and then glided right on to the
nest and stood erect, looking and listening. This was
my chance, and steadily and slowly I pulled the thread
taut. The hawk gave no sign of having heard the
shutter and settled down to brood. I gave her ten
minutes to get over her alarm and watched her through
my field glass. Now and then she would turn her head
and then would settle back with a sleepy air, just like
an old sitting hen.

The exciting question now was whether or not the
shutter had sprung, or had the thread got tangled.
Quietly I crawled out from my retreat and away fro
it, so as not to show the hawk where I had hidden.
As soon as I walked boldly, she flew, and I hurried to

41

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

climb the tree and was overjoyed to find the shutter
closed.

“Good work!” I shouted to Ned. “I’ve got a pic-
ture, and we'll try for another.” So I changed the
plate, set the shutter again, and this time walked off
noisily beyond the log and to one side of it. Then I
dropped to the ground and crept silently to it on my
hands and knees. The hawk did not see or hear me.
She was silent, after a few moments, and seemed to go
off somewhere. But in a quarter of an hour I suddenly
saw a shadow and something glided swiftly through
the woods, and almost immediately she was on the
nest. This time I let her settle down to incubate before
I pulled, and I “got” her sidewise, a fine clear picture.

The hawk was becoming accustomed to my ap-
proaches, and, anyhow, Broad-wings are the tamest of
the hawks. As I changed the plate I called to Ned,
for he was anxious to be in the game, and I thought
that our robber friend would now give us permission.
We both hid, and this time she thought the coast was
clear and soon came back. She flew straight toward
the nest and seemed to go to it, yet absolutely disap-
peared.

“Where is she?” whispered Ned excitedly. “I can’t
see her at all.”” “I think,” I hurriedly answered, “‘that
she is close to the nest behind that big branch. Anyhow
I’m going to try it.” So I pulled the thread and the
hawk flew from just where I thought. What luck
that I pulled then! This picture was a wonder. The

42

a

Broad-winged Hawk on nest. “Let her settle down to incubate”? (p. 42).

/ ¢

Broad-winged Hawk on nest. The better of the pictures saved from the accident
(pp. 44-6).

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

hawk stands on the stub, in the act of entering the
nest with a chunk of bark. Why did she bring it?
Others can answer as well as I. I have seen other
hawks bring things, too. They carry in fresh green
sprays or leaves each day, apparently for ornament,
just as we have our house plants, but it is not so clear
why they bring lining when the nest has long been
built. Possibly it is because the nest keeps breaking
down, or the rotten sticks crumble, so they have to
keep adding to it, and get in the habit of bringing
something each time they return not otherwise laden,
so as to save steps, just as the farmer’s boys are told to
bring in an armful of wood every time they come to
the kitchen.

We got three more good shots that day, six in all, the
best day’s hawking I ever had, for every one of them
was good. I let Ned pull the thread once, so that he
could say that he had taken a picture of a wild hawk
from life.

I was alone when I photographed the other Broad-
wing and Ned missed one of the times of his life! The
hawk would not go near the nest while I was in the
woods and I had no one with me to go away, so next
time I brought my little brown umbrella tent and
pitched it down the stream, where I could just see if
the hawk went to the nest, though I could not see her
upon it. It was no fun rigging the camera in that
slender oak, with nothing but the trunk to hold on to,
one foot in a small crotch, the other supported by the

43

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

iron spur. There were sharp rocks beneath and I
had to be exceedingly careful. Indeed one could not
be enough so, having to use both hands at times to
adjust the camera. It was awkward, nerve-trying
work, and took a long time, but it was finally done, the
thread cable laid, and I crawled into the tent. The
hawk was suspicious, and it was only after hours of
waiting with eyes at the peek hole and neck almost
paralyzed, that I secured two shots at her on the nest,
and then, with the precious plates, I followed the path
back to the “rig.”

I had driven the horse up a rocky wood road until the
ascent became too steep and rough for further progress,
and hitched to a tree in a little opening. It was two
o’clock when I drove down, and, as I had not brought
much lunch, I was hungry. Just then I remembered
an apple in my pocket which a boy whom I met had
given me. It proved quite hard, so I opened my
knife to cut it and let the horse climb unguided down
the declivity. I only looked off for a moment, but it
was a moment too long. The horse swerved slightly
and made the wheel on the right strike a steep rock
projecting close to the trail. As quick as a flash the
buggy was overturned and I was pitched out into the
bushes, knife in hand. Fortunately I was not cut, but
I lost the reins and the frightened horse ran away,
galloping down the rocky trail, the buggy bottom-side-
up, camera, plates, tripod, everything, being scattered
to the winds. Then with a flying leap down a steep

44

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

pitch, where there was a sharp turn in the road, the
horse and buggy disappeared and all was still.

My state of mind may be imagined as I hurried after
the flying apparition. Rather singularly, the first
thought that came to me was that after working nearly
all day for those hawk pictures, they were all smashed
to pieces. But I passed the plates and camera where
they had fallen and rushed on to see what had become
of the horse. When I came to the pitch and bend in
the road I saw the sight of a lifetime. There was the
overturned buggy and a capsized horse entangled in
the harness, helpless from lying with her legs uphill.
These members were feebly waving in the air, as though
set on a derelict for signals of distress.

A man in the field below had seen the final catas-
trophe and hurried to the rescue. Together we man-
aged to unhitch the “fool” animal and drag away the
buggy with its two dished wheels. But the horse could
not get up, though I could see no injury save a slight
cut on one leg. I suggested that it only needed to turn
turtle and roll down hill, but, as it would not do this,
we must do the little trick for it ourselves. It seemed
rather ungracious to ask the farmer to take the business
end of the animal, so I had him grasp the front legs,
while I gingerly laid hold of the “‘kickers,”’ and we bent
our backs. Presto! The horse rolled over and then
struggled to its feet, where it stood taking in the situa-
tion. Then its head drooped. Was it going to die?
It was a young and valuable horse which I had recently

45

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS
bought, and I felt anxious. What do you think it did?

The strongest instinct asserted itself, even in the hour
of trial. The horse was even hungrier than I. Graz-
ing, as I live! We men looked at one another and
laughed.

Then I hurried to take further account of stock.
The camera was unbroken; the precious plates were
sound, and produced two good pictures after all. We
pushed the spokes back into the hub and in a quarter
of an hour I was driving home as though nothing had
happened, slowly though, for the wheels might break
down again, and actually, the horse for the next week
seemed afraid to “step lively,” evidently fearing lest it
should again fall down!

When I met Ned and told him the story, the first
question he asked was—“Did you photograph the
wreck?” Well, I never! What a brilliant idea and
what a stupid omission to be so concerned about a
horse as to overlook this wonderful opportunity. I
almost wanted to go back and try it over again. But
it was not to be. “Next time, Ned,” I replied regret-
fully, ‘‘such a bright boy as you must surely be along
when anything interesting happens.” ‘You can count
on me, if I know it,” he said.

The young hawks hatched in due time, one only in
the great falls nest, but both in the other. The evening
before Ned’s birthday, the second of June, as we
climbed to the latter, we could hear a “cheep, cheep,”
as from under a mother hen. What was our surprise

46

‘(LF -d) ..sunod ay} paydeasZoyoyd aa att} O} SUIT} WOIY,, ‘ssuIM-prorg Sunox

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

to find eggs still in the nest. But each one had a hole
in it and a yellow hooked bill sticking through. “Your
birthday will be the Broadwings’ birthday,” I said to
Ned.

From time to time we came and photographed the
young in both nests until they were ready to leave, in
early July, and also the young Cooper’s Hawks, only two
of which hatched. I had placed a dummy camera six
feet away in the next hemlock, after the young hatched,
but I did not get time to experiment on the mother.
She was a shy rascal and one could hardly get a
glimpse at her, even by stealing toward the nest on tip-
toe. One day I went to the nest, leaving Ned at the
foot of the great fall sailing chip boats. This time
Mrs. Cooper came to meet me and, perched on a
low branch quite near, gave me a terrible scolding.
Ned could not hear my yells above the roar of the
cataract, so I went to summon him for the fine sight,
but when I returned with him the hawk had gotten
over her sudden streak of boldness and taken herself
off.

By far the best way to get familiar with hawks is to
find their nests and then from time to time visit them
at home and study their habits. At other times one
can get only occasional glimpses at them, as they soar
overhead, or dive into the poultry yard, or dash upon
one in the woods, or perch upon some tree by the road-
side. But one can learn more of hawks in a season by
finding a few of their nests than would be possible

AT

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

otherwise in years. They are such fine, large, spirited
birds, their nests big, in big trees, in big woods, and
there is a peculiar fascination in hunting for them.
The boy who catches the hawk fever will find it almost
impossible to cure. I had a severe attack of this fever
when about fifteen years old, and there is no sign yet of
my getting over it. I fear that Ned has caught it from
me and will be in for it for life.

During the late fall and winter I usually have some
fine tramps exploring the groves or woodland tracts
where there is the tallest timber, looking up likely
nesting places and old nests which may be occupied
another year. Hawk’s nests are built entirely of
sticks; those built wholly or in part of leaves belong to
squirrels. Then there are crow’s nests, which cannot
always be distinguished from those of hawks.

In the nesting season the signs of a new, occupied
nest are these: the ends of the sticks in the nest ap-
pearing a lighter color, freshly broken; similar sticks
on the ground beneath the nest; bits of white down
clinging to the nest or to twigs near it. The ques-
tion is often settled by seeing the hawk fly off as we
approach.

It is great fun to hunt up the nests of the big ““Hen
Hawks”’—Red-tails and Red-shoulders—in the first of
the season, during April. The temperature is fine for
vigorous tramping and climbing, and it is splendid,
exhilarating sport. Each pair of these birds stay in
the same woods year after year, and either use the same

48

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

nest, or another not far from it. Sometimes they
alternate between two or three nests, which remain as
landmarks for years.

This was the case with a pair of Red-tails about four
miles from my home. About every other year they
would go off to some nest which I did not succeed in
locating, but the next year they would be in either of
two nests about two hundred yards apart. One was a
big affair, sixty feet up a giant oak which grew from
the foot of quite a precipice. From the top of this
ledge, by climbing a sapling, one could see into the nest.
It was a hard matter, though, to climb the old oak to
the nest, the trunk was so thick and the bark so loose.
But Ned did it with the help of a rope, and photographed
the nest and eggs very successfully.

The other nest was in a chestnut stub, forty feet up.
Back from it the hill sloped up quite abruptly. There
was a thick hemlock tree with branches down to the
ground on this slope near the nest. One day I pitched
my umbrella tent under the hemlock, and the next
afternoon when she had become accustomed to it, I
had Ned leave me hidden in it and took three pictures
with my high-powered telephoto lens of the mother
hawk as she returned to the nest.

This last season the pair occupied a new nest in the
same woods, in a chestnut tree which grew near a
hemlock. There was one young hawk in the nest,
hatched about the twenty-seventh of April. Up in the
hemlock I rigged a dummy camera which was so well

49

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

concealed by the evergreen foliage that the wary hawks
paid no attention to it. Down the side hill, as far off
as I could see the nest through the woods, I pitched my
brown tent and left it there indefinitely. By rigging
my camera in place of the dummy, connecting it with
the tent by a thread and hiding there, I secured some
interesting pictures, after a number of attempts, and
long vigils. The mother hawk would perch on a
distant hemlock on the ridge of the mountain and
silently watch for over an hour. Then she would fly
off and be gone a couple of hours longer before return-
ing to the nest. One afternoon after watching steadily
for four hours from the peek hole in the tent, I fell asleep
—the only time I ever did such a thing afield. I only
dozed for a few minutes, but it was just at the critical
time, for the old hawk came and fed her young one
and flew off just as I had awakened and was in the act
of pulling the thread. The day was wasted, and I felt
unutterable things. However I tried again and again.
Another time the shutter stuck and made useless a
long vigil. But finally, after some rather poor expos-
ures, I snapped the keen and wary creature standing
quietly by her chick, enjoying its society—a beautiful
picture. Another day, as I watched, the old bird
came with a snake dangling from her claws. She
circled around three times, then hastily deposited the
snake and was off before I dared to pull, as I had set
the shutter for half a second. I watched for her return
for several hours, and then she came and proceeded to
50

ies , Ye j
Ys 4 f VS SI

Home life of the Red-tailed Hawk. “The wary creature standing quietly by her
chick” (p. 50).

~ eam

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

tear up the snake for her young one, and the camera
this time caught her in the act. On the sixth of June I
photographed the youngster, fully fledged, about to
leave the nest, at the ripe age of forty days.

Sometimes hawks betray the locations of their own
nests. Usually they are pretty careful about ap-
proaching them, but the Red-tails and Red-shoulders
are often noisy in the woods near the nest, and can be
seen circling over it. Noticing this, people living or
working near the woods can often put one on the track
of a nest. The Cooper’s and Sharp-shinned Hawks
often cackle angrily when one comes near the treasure,
and thus betray their secret. Whenever a small hawk
sets up a “cack-cack-cack”’ in the woods in nesting
time, one may be confident that a nest is close by.

A Cooper’s Hawk which I once photographed on the
nest used to build every year in the same tract of woods.
A friend of mine was unfortunate enough to live near
these woods and was trying to raise chickens. Though
he had ropes stretched all about hung with bottles and
rags, and every corner had its scarecrow—or “‘scare-
hawk!’—neighbor Cooper was accustomed to visit
him on friendly errands several times a day and each
time had to have a chicken. So I told him I would
break up the nest for him, and went in there one after-
noon. After exploring nearly the whole woods in vain,
I came back and entered a grove of tall trees so near
his house that I had no idea that a hawk would build
there. Immediately the hawks set up a prodigious

51

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

cackling. It took but a little time to find the nest in
the tip-top crotch of a chestnut, forty feet from the
ground, the twigs all around fairly bristling with down.
This was the twenty-first of May, and the amount of
down indicated that incubation was well under way.
Strapping on my climbing irons, I went up, and brought
down the four eggs to give to an egg collector. This
stopped the raids on the chickens, for the hawks
forthwith disappeared.

Later that same season Ned and I found a nice nest
of the closely related Sharp-shinned Hawk, the second
one of this bird I have found on the fourth of July.
We were exploring a very wild mountainous region,
in a swampy tract of black spruce woods. We entered
it after skirting a typical wet sphagnum swamp, and
about the first thing I saw was a nest of sticks in a small
spruce, fifteen feet up. Ned and I climbed the tree,
and we stayed up there some time, enjoying the interest-
ing sight. Three little Sharp-shinned Hawks in white
down, and two unhatched eggs were our prize in the
neatly built nest of small sticks. As we studied them,
the old hawk came dashing up, and from trees near by
made a great ado. The wind up there on the moun-
tains was blowing almost a gale, and the trees were
swaying like so many reeds. By waiting patiently for
momentary lulls in the wind, I finally accomplished it.

These five species of hawks are the only ones that
we are liable to find in our woods in the nesting time.
The Bald Eagle is only a big hawk, but it is scarce

52

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

and seldom nests in this region. I have seen many
nests in the South, and it is probable that most of
those we see have wandered up thence after the nest-
ing season. The small Pigeon Hawk is a common
migrant.

The Osprey breeds in colonies in a few places along
the seacoast. They are beloved and protected, and
build on isolated trees on farms, often right in the door-
yard of ahouse. I only wish they would build in a tree
on my front lawn! Any person who tried to molest
them would find me looking for trouble. The nests are
as big as haycocks and look out of place up in the trees.
They are made of large sticks and all sorts of rubbish.
One that I examined had an old umbrella woven into
it, another an old dried dead hen! I sat in the nest
myself, though, and found it very comfortable. But it
is hard getting there. You come up underneath, and
the thing bulges out beyond you like a balloon, and
there seems no easy way to get up on top.

Hunting Marsh Hawks’ nests is very different from
this other “hawking.” They build on the ground in a
bushy swamp or wet pasture, and one has to tramp
around at random until he comes within a few steps of
the sitting bird. She will fly up and go through an
astonishing performance of diving at one’s head and
screaming, but I never knew one to actually strike.

Then there is the little Sparrow Hawk which stays
with us only in small numbers, nesting in hollow trees
or in Flickers’ holes along the borders of farms, or in

53

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

pastures. He is a harmless and useful little fellow,
feeding on mice, moles, and insects.

Most of the hawks appear only infrequently in winter,
but I have seen about all of them, at rare intervals,
even the little Sparrow Hawk. On a bitter cold day,
the tenth of February, a neighbor caught one in his
barn, where the poor little thing hoped to catch a
mouse to keep itself from starving. Red-tails are the
commonest, and frequently I meet them perched on a
large tree by the edge of the woods or by the roadside.
One had better look sharply at the supposed Red-tail,
for it might prove to be the rarer American Rough-
legged Hawk from the North, a large bird of the same
size, but with feathered legs like the Golden Eagle.

At long intervals there is a winter when the fierce
Goshawk is common, following unusual migrations of
northern birds. The winter of 1906—7 was such a one,
and these hawks were frequently seen well down into
the Middle States, or further. Sometimes they came
almost in flocks—loose, straggling, companies. I saw
one Goshawk from the window of a train as it hovered
over a river. In the town where I live a boy shot one
sitting on his henyard fence. Its crop was stuffed full
of the flesh of a fowl which it had just killed and was in
the act of eating. In the next town a friend of mine
shot one of these hawks as it perched on a fence at the
edge of some woods. The snow was deep, and, as he
picked up the dead hawk, a Ruffed Grouse darted
from the snow close at his feet. Evidently the hawk

54

“Three little Sharp-shinned Hawks . . . and two unhatched eggs were our
prize” (p. 52).

Fa

Li = SHY, INE

Nest of Marsh Hawk. “They build on the ground”’ (p. 53).

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

had been in pursuit of it and the poor bird had dived
headlong into the snow to escape its fury. The hawk
had then alighted on the fence and waited for it to
come out. As I write this, he looks down on me re-
proachfully with glass eyes from the top of my case.
Ah, you rascal, you will kill no more grouse! Yet,
after all, who has a better right? I am not so sure that
we, out of our luxurious abundance, had better make
the claim.

Ned and I are so fond of hunting hawks with the
camera and studying these bold, breezy people of the
forest, that we fairly mourn to see them exterminated.
Of course we do not blame those for killing them whose
property they devastate, yet we wish that people would
in justice discriminate between the pestiferous and the
harmless or useful kinds, and cultivate enough of the
modern “outdoor”? spirit to make them enjoy seeing
wild life in nature and get away from the ignorant,
worn-out notion that the only good hawk is a dead
one.

The Biological Survey, of the U. S. Department of
Agriculture has shown that only the Accipitrine hawks
—Cooper’s, Sharp-shin, and Goshawk—are injurious.
The so-called “Hen Hawks” only occasionally attack
poultry, especially in the winter, when driven to it by
starvation, but by killing the smaller varmints and
insects do more good than harm. Now and then an
individual, like the tiger, acquires a taste for the wrong
sort of meat, and may properly be suppressed. So,

55

THE ROBBERS OF THE FALLS

kind reader, I beg of you, do, please, not shoot a hawk
because he is a hawk, but only if you are sure he is
the culprit. Learn from a handbook of birds to
distinguish the different kinds. You will enjoy their
acquaintance and then will not be in danger of mis-
taking your friend and helper for a murderer.

Now and then we shall probably see a large black
bird with enormous spread of wing soaring on almost
motionless pinions, drifting easily along with the breeze,
It is the Turkey Vulture, or Turkey Buzzard, which is
classed in this group of raptorial birds. Though from
afar it would seem a beautiful creature, so graceful in
flight, it is distance which lends the enchantment, for
at close quarters it is a foul-smelling carrion-monger,
with an ugly, featherless red head and neck. Yet for
all that it is a useful scavenger and an interesting bird,
and I wish we had more of them in the northern dis-
tricts to give us exhibitions of graceful, easy flight.
They are accidental in New England, where I have
seen only two, but are more frequent in the Middle
States, and, of course, abundant in the South. They
build no nest, but lay their two large handsomely-
marked eggs on the ground under a bush, or in a
hollow log or stump.

CHAPTER IV
THE BIRD OF NIGHT
(Owls)

F all classes of birds were as hard to become ac-
I quainted with as the owls, the increasing thousands
of boys and girls, men and women, who discover
for themselves the fascination of the sport of bird study
would mostly get discouraged and try other things.
Even I must confess that I should need to see a bird
now and then to keep up my enthusiasm. But, as far
as the bird of night is concerned, sometimes, in spite of
all my efforts, whole seasons slip by without my meeting
with a single owl. Even Ned, with all his activity, has
but very few times in his life discovered an owl in the
wilds, other than what I had first located. The owls
are both scarce and secretive, usually remaining in
hiding during the daytime, and the student need not
be too much chagrined at being unable to find them.
Fortunately there are plenty of other birds to interest
and occupy one afield. So hunt away, keeping the
eyes peeled for the hid treasure, and some time, surely,
you will find the bird with the big eyes, and get such a
thrill of delicious excitement in your success that you
will not begrudge the waiting which made the joy of
attainment so keen.
57

THE BIRD OF NIGHT

Fortunately, though, the owls have voices, and most
of them are inclined, at times, to lift them up in singing
—if one may so call it. This makes an intelligent and
persistent hunt for them quite likely to succeed, pro-
vided, of course, that there are any owls there to find.
And owls there almost certainly are within the limits
of any country town which is reasonably well wooded
with fairly large timber and is not too suburban.

Our two principal “hooters’’ are the Great Horned
Owl and the Barred Owl, both of which are confused
under the popular name of ““Hoot Owl.” ‘They are
both big birds, especially the former, which is also
distinguished from the other by having large ear tufts,
which look like horns. They do not migrate to any
great extent, though they wander more or less in winter
when food is scarce, but stay, for the most part, in the
same general region or tract of woodland in which they
nest. In the autumn they begin their loud hootings.
One can easily distinguish the two by these sounds, for
the Great Horned Owl has but three hoots to his song,
while the Barred .fellow’s vocal effort is much longer
and more elaborate. They are most apt to hoot about
sundown on mild or moist days when it threatens to
rain or snow, and, indeed, they are pretty good weather
prophets. Probably they “feel it in their bones”” when
a storm is brewing, though there is no likelihood that
these hardy creatures are rheumatic. These hootings
are their love notes, their mating cries, and I just wish
I could find out from them why their fondness deepens

58

4a Sa

Nest of Red-shoul

a4

The Cooper’s Hawks’ nest by the falls. “Only two of which hatched” (p. 47).

THE BIRD OF NIGHT

with the suggestion of stormy weather. If they were
accustomed to have comfortable nests, we might think
that the approaching storm aroused longing for the
luxuries of home. But as their homes are most un-
comfortable places, and only one of the pair occupies
it at the same time, we cannot explain the mystery so
easily. ‘The only plausible reason I can think of is
that the rise of temperature which accompanies the
approach of storm, together with the increasing damp-
ness, brings some conditions of early spring, at which
time they are accustomed to nest. Yet hardly has the
light spring fancy of love awakened before the cold
northwest wind in the rear of the storm area puts it to
sleep again. But these are the times to take advantage
of, to learn where the owl lives. Don’t stick in the
house those winter afternoons. A good winter’s tramp,
or drive, with a bird quest in view, is exhilarating and
delightful. Why shouldn’t you enjoy the distinction
among your admiring and almost envious bird-loving
cronies of having yourself found a big owl’s nest? I
never can forget how I felt, when a boy, attending the
Boston Latin School, when one Monday morning one
of my schoolmates announced in tones of exultation
that on the preceding Saturday he had found a Barred
Owl’s nest. I had never found any sort of an owl’s
nest, and that youth became, in my eyes, a real hero, a
mighty Hercules, almost. If he had become President
of the United States in later years I should have felt
but the tiniest fraction of the hero-worship which I then
59

THE BIRD OF NIGHT

accorded him. So, if it be such a glorious achievement
in the eyes of some people to find a big owl’s nest, and
if you know of a tract of woods where you keep hearing
the owls hoot in winter, there is no reason in the wide
world why you shouldn’t be the one to find the nest.

But when is the time to search? Long before most
people imagine. In the cold and snowy weather of
1906-7 a friend of mine found one of my old pairs of
Great Horned Owls in the pineries of Plymouth County,
Mass., doing business at the old stand in the middle of
February! A cold sleet storm was raging, but he
donned his wet-day uniform of rubber—boots, coat, and
hat—and found the big owl sitting on her open plat-
form of sticks high up in a tall white pine on her two
nearly fresh eggs. He took these as trophies, and early
in March the great birds had twins again, which he
allowed to hatch, and enjoyed photographing them as
they grew up. That is the true sportsman’s spirit, to
defy cold and wet, and what a pleasure it is to add such
an achievement to the repertoire of one’s sporting
experiences!

By the last week in February, probably Washington’s
birthday, every well-regulated family of Great Horned
Owls in the latitude of from New Jersey to Massa-
chusetts ought to have eggs, or not later than the tenth
or fifteenth of March even up in northern New England
or southern Canada. The Barred Owls are a little
later, and I have usually found them to have fresh eggs
by the first of April, and sometimes as early as the

60

THE BIRD OF NIGHT

middle of March. Both these hardy birds seem to go
more by the calendar than by the weather, and at the
regular time they will have their nests and eggs, blow it
high or low, and be the temperature as bitter as it may.
Some years, as the time came around, amid a succession
of blizzards I would say—‘‘Surely those owls will not
be laying now.” But they were, none the less.

Some pairs are earlier or later than others as a regular
habit each season, so each owl family has its own
schedule and will nest each year at about its own accus-
tomed time. One pair of Barred Owls, for instance, I
would always find nesting by the middle of March, but
in the next township another pair would not complete
their set of two or three eggs till about “April Fool’s
Day.”

The way to find the nest of either of these large owls,
when one has found out where they usually hoot, is to
go in and make a thorough canvass of whatever large
timber is there. Generally they will either occupy the
old nest of a hawk, crow, or squirrel, which consists
of a platform of sticks in the crotch of a tall tree, ever-
green or other, or, if there is a large hollow cavity,
pretty well up from the ground, they will use that. If
the large owl is brooding in the cavity, she will fly out
if the tree is rapped. In case the nest is an open one,
she will usually fly out when one approaches, though
not always, for sometimes she will wait until the tree is
thumped, and once I found a Great Horned Owl which
would not leave even then, though I could see her great

61

THE BIRD OF NIGHT

round face looking out over the edge of the nest. One
must get to know the region and explore it thoroughly,
not overlooking a single old weather-beaten crow’s
nest, for that may prove to be just the one chosen by
the owl. As in searching for hawks’ nests, the very
best sign of a nest being occupied is to see bits of downy
feathers clinging to its edge. ‘The hawk’s down is
white, that of owls gray or yellowish. If you can see
the down, climb, or get someone else to do it for you
if you cannot, for the nest is probably occupied, or
about to be, unless, possibly, an owl has merely eaten
a grouse up there.

In my book “Wild Wings” I have detailed so many
finds of Great Horned and Barred Owls’ nests that I
must not go into this here, but I will tell about a very
remarkable owl’s nest which was recently found by a
friend, and which I went with him to see.

Not far from Providence, Rhode Island, across the
line of Massachusetts, is a little patch of woods, hemmed
in on all sides by roads, houses, and a trolley line.
Strangely enough, a pair of Barred Owls stayed there,
and often during the winter and early spring were seen
from the cars in the early morning perched by the road-
side. A friend of mine lived near by, and on the first
of April he saw one of the owls sitting on a large new
nest twenty feet up a small maple, and flushed her by
rapping the tree. In fact he had seen her on or about
the nest several times before this. It happened that
I was in Providence giving a bird lecture, and the result

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THE BIRD OF NIGHT

was that I went with him on April second to try to
photograph the owl, which was quite tame. Getting
ready my reflecting camera to snap her as she flew, I
advanced toward the nest, when, to my astonishment,
a Red-shouldered Hawk flew out, too far off for a
picture. My friend was perfectly dumfounded, for he
was an experienced ornithologist and was positive be-
yond question that a Barred Owl had been occupying
the nest, which now contained three hawk’s eggs.
However, I remembered that another friend had once
found a nest in which both a Barred Owl and a Red-
shouldered Hawk had laid, and hoped that this might
be a similar case. Sure enough, it was. Someone
shortly after this took the hawk’s eggs, but later an-
other friend visited the nest and found it to contain one
hawk’s egg—probably the last one of the previous set
—and two Barred Owl’s eggs. It was unfortunate that
the nest was in such a public place, for the mixed family
were not allowed to hatch, so nothing could be learned
of the developments of this remarkable occurrence.
There is another good-sized owl which we are liable
to find nesting, the Long-eared Owl, which is somewhat
smaller than the Barred Owl. Unfortunately it is not
addicted to hooting and is one of the most secretive
birds I have ever met. Sometimes I start one out from
the shade of a thick cedar swamp, or other dense tangle,
but it only allows the merest glimpse as it goes flopping
away. It generally occupies some old nest and sticks
to it so closely that one is likely to pass it by, after
63

THE BIRD OF NIGHT

pounding the tree, without a suspicion that the sly
brown bird is snuggled closely on her eggs.

There is one time at least when this silent bird utterly
changes its usual behavior, and that is when she has
young, and her nest is invaded. I must tell about one
such experience which I had. I was camping one
spring with a party of friends in a wild region, on the
wooded shore of a large lake. One day, in early June,
a furious storm was raging, the wind blowing almost a
hurricane directly on shore, raising surf that would
have done credit to the ocean. Clad in rubber clothing,
we were exploring the woods near camp. At length, as
I struggled through the wet branches, I caught sight of
what appeared to be a crow’s nest, about twenty feet
up a small oak. Upon close approach I noticed two
brownish knobs or tufts sticking up from the nest and
waving in the gale. Then a head was raised, and a
shrewd-looking face with a pair of bright yellow eyes
was turned toward me. Beckoning to my friends to
approach cautiously, I whispered excitedly as they
drew near—“A Long-eared Owl, for all the world!”
We were nearly under the nest, and had a fine chance
for mutual staring. ‘Then I began to ascend the tree,
and the owl flitted silently off into the shrubbery. The
nest was certainly an old crow’s nest of the previous
season, slightly repaired on top by the addition of a few
sticks and leaves; in it were four owlets and an addled
egg. ‘The young were clad in whitish down, with the.
“juvenal”’ plumage beginning to show, and were prob-

64

THE BIRD OF NIGHT

ably about three weeks old. As I was examining the
odd little fellows, the mother suddenly alighted upon a
branch a dozen feet from me, ear-tufts erect, eyes fairly
blazing, feathers ruffled, snapping her bill with a sharp
clicking sound, and uttering wailing cries which sounded
much like the yowling of an angry cat. Indeed she
was the ideal of a vixen, as she flitted from limb to
limb, with an occasional angry swoop at my head, so
near as to strike it with her wings, uttering a harsh
exclamation, as she did so, which, I fear, was an owl
“swear word.” After we all had inspected this prize,
we withdrew, and saw the mother go back, almost at
once, to her brooding.

By afternoon the rain had about ceased to fall, and,
though it was dark and cold and blustering, as we were
to leave the locality early next morning, I decided to try
to photograph the owl. A neighboring tree, only six
feet from the nest, gave an ideal view point for the
camera. I had just finished screwing up the instru-
ment, when the owl, who had been making great
protests all along, fairly outdid herself. She actually
alighted on my head, struck her claws into my cap and
really tried to drag me out of the tree. Though spare
in build, I proved too heavy for her, and she passed on,
assisted by an accelerating shove. Then for awhile I
warded her off, but, when I was off my guard, she
turned her attention to the camera and alighted on the
bellows, into which she sank her claws in vicious frenzy.
Finding that she could not drag either of us off, she

65

THE BIRD OF NIGHT

desisted from the attack. So I attached my linen
thread to the shutter, dropped the spool to the ground,
descended, and laid my line of communication to a tree
some rods away, behind which I hid.

After a little investigation the owl returned to her
nest and settled down right before the staring lens. I
could now have pulled the thread but for the fact that,
owing to the very dull light, I had been obliged to set
the shutter for a timed exposure of one second, and the
trees were swaying violently, lashed by the gale. In
order to see clearly if there was a lull, I crept up close
to the owl tree unobserved and waited, thread in hand,
for the desired opportunity. Half an hour passed,
without a moment in which there was any chance of
success. While thus waiting, I was treated to a deli-
cious little episode of owl life. The male owl, a little
smaller than the efficient guardian of his children,
sailed suddenly through the shrubbery and alighted
upon a branch near the ground, hardly ten feet from
me. He had seen the camera and was all alert. In
one of his fluffy paws dangled a mouse, held by the
head, which he had evidently just caught and was
bringing to feed his family. He did not see me, and in
a moment, satisfied that the camera was harmless, he
flitted up to the nest. His mate arose to welcome him
and took the mouse, whereupon he flew off energetically
in search of another. Being so far underneath the
nest I could not see just what happened, but the
mother was evidently tearing the mouse, dividing it up

66

THE BIRD OF NIGHT

amongst her hungry young, who were moving about
actively, each ready for its share. This took two or
three minutes, and they all settled down as before. It
was fairly maddening not to have light for a snapshot
of the six owls as the mouse was being delivered over.
And now, as there seemed to be no prospect of any-
thing better, I made several exposures on the old owl
incubating, and on the young, before I removed the
camera, all of which proved to be blurred by the swaying
of the trees.

The next morning was clear and cold and I was
there at five o’clock, but the old owl would not return
to the nest in the time at my disposal. My chum at
length came and fairly dragged me away. We had to
drive thirty miles to take a train to a point further
south. A week later we returned and the first thing I
did was to visit the owls. The nest was empty, alas.
But, as the old owl was “‘yowling’’ about, I made
search and found the youngsters roosting in the trees
within a radius of ten rods. As long as they were not
handled they remained in their “hiding pose,”’ motion-
less, erect, feathers drawn tightly together, making
themselves look like dead stubs and blending wonder-
fully with their surroundings. I took various pictures
of them in the hiding places, as well as when replaced
in the nest. The old bird was still rather aggressively
inclined, yet it was very hard to get her picture. Finally
I noticed that she often alighted upon a dead treetop
before swooping. So I rigged my cumbersome tele-

67

THE BIRD OF NIGHT

photo apparatus up in the tree, focused it upon the
branch where I expected she would come, and waited.
For a long time she went everywhere but to the right
branch, but at length she alighted just where I wanted
her and was still for exactly the required half second.
Just as the shutter closed the restless head turned, but
photographically the owl was mine!

Whenever I think of those Long-eared Owls, I laugh
to recall the vision of a man up a tree, a savage owl
trying to lift his scalp, making such a tremendous wail-
ing and screeching that a party of dogs lifted up their
voices and finally came and stood, howling, too, around
the tree, until some men from the neighboring farm,
amazed at the commotion, joined in the assembly, and
I, to “save my face” and avert the suspicion of insanity,
was compelled to add my voice to the tumult in explana-
tion of the comedy.

There is only one other large owl which we are very
likely to meet, the Short-eared Owl, a bird about the
size of the Long-eared, but without noticeable ear-
tufts. It generally nests further north, but in autumn
we are likely to flush it from the ground as we tramp
over marshes and meadows, or sometimes moist, bushy
pastures. Because it likes such places it is often called
the Marsh Owl. I have found their nests in the grass
out on the wild prairies of the Northwest.

In the Middle States and in the South one may find
the singular looking monkey-faced Barn Owl, which
hides itself away by daytime in hollow trees or old

68

THE BIRD OF NIGHT

buildings. But the only other common ow/l is the little
Screech Owl. Were it not for its tremendous cries,
resembling the trilling of the tree toad, which are often
heard even in towns or small cities, one might well
suppose that the bird is very scarce indeed. The Great
Horned and Barred Owls do not mind the broad day-
light, but our little friend Screecher prefers to hide in a
hollow tree, or even a building until the dusk of even-
ing. If discovered by day, it appears dazed and torpid,
and generally refuses to come out of its hole, unless
dragged by force. I have often found it in winter by
examining the ground or snow under woodpeckers’
holes, or in hollow limbs, in orchards or woods. When
I find rounded masses of bones and hair, called pellets,
the indigestible remains of its food which the owl
throws up, I climb to the hole above, put in my hand,
and pull out the owl, which usually is too sleepy to
make much resistance.

One day in early autumn I took a walk out into the
country. At the edge of some woods I noticed an old
apple tree with a hollow trunk and a hole about as high
up as my head. I thought it a good place for a Screech
Owl, and so I went and looked in. Something was in
there sure enough, for I could see two round shining
orbs. After my eyes became used to the darkness I
could see that they were the eyes of a Screech Owl, so
I put in my hand and found I could just reach it. It
did not struggle or bite as I pulled it out, and I put it in
my pocket and rode home with it on my bicycle, to

69

THE BIRD OF NIGHT

keep it awhile as a pet. Captive owls do not get very
tame, but they feed heartily on raw meat and do well
if they have room enough to exercise.

Another time I was taking a bicycle ride when I came
across a boy who had caught one of these owls in the
same way in his orchard. I happened to want one then
to study, so I paid him for it, put the owl in my pocket,
and, taking the precaution to pin down the lapel,
started homeward. When I was about halfway back,
I felt to see how the owl was getting on, and found, to
my chagrin, that it had escaped!

Last winter one of these owls spent his sleepy days
in a hole in a tree right on the main street of the village,
about twenty-five feet from the ground. At dusk it
would poke its head out of the hole and gaze around
for awhile, then crawl out and perch on a limb nearby
for a few moments before flying off on a mousing
expedition or to catch a fat English Sparrow—for its
breakfast, I suppose we would call it, as our night is
the owl’s day. The boys soon discovered the owl’s
retreat, and would throw snowballs at the hole, to
make the big-eyed bird come to the door. It would
only look out, though, toward night. Some of the boys
were for climbing up to catch it, but Ned persuaded
them to let it alone.

In bitter winter weather the poor little owls had a
hard time of it, for they, as well as some other kinds of
owls, do not migrate very much, and they crawl in
almost anywhere to try to keep warm. One of them

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THE BIRD OF NIGHT

used to occupy my next door neighbor’s bird box. One
Sunday morning the sexton was starting a fire in the
church furnace when he discovered a poor little Screech
Owl, blinking in the smoke, and pulled it out just in
time to save its life. It well deserved to be spared this
or any disaster, for it is a fine thing for a town to have
resident Screech Owls to keep down the English Spar-
row nuisance. ‘There is a village not far from where I
live where one winter a Screech Owl stayed all the time
in a thick spruce right by the post office and ate so
many sparrows that by spring there were hardly any
left. They are great mousers, too, as are most kinds
of owls, and no one ought to kill them. The one
exception is the Great Horned Owl, which is liable to
make great inroads on poultry, if it once finds its way
to their quarters, though generally it stays in the woods
and feeds mostly on rabbits, skunks, and, unfortunately,
the Ruffed Grouse.

A friend of mine has a nice aviary of domesticated
wild geese and ducks, a tract of meadow close to the
brook beside his home, fenced in with wire, but not
covered overhead. This summer he began to lose his
ducks; every morning one was missing. Finally, when
he found a beautiful Pintail drake dead and partly eaten
he decided that the intruder must be the Great Horned
Owl which hooted off on the mountain. So he put up
a fifteen-foot pole at one corner of the yard, with a steel
trap set on top of it. The owl will always alight on
some commanding perch and look around before

71

THE BIRD OF NIGHT

pouncing. He expected that the owl would alight on
this stake in the trap, and sure enough, at daybreak the
next morning, the guilty owl was hanging ignobly from
the pole, caught by one foot. A charge of shot put an
end to its thieving career. But this is the exception,
and most owls deserve better treatment. It would not
be fair to hate all boys because one boy was mischievous,
would it, Ned?

The Screech Owl lays four or five eggs, which are
white, like all other owl’s eggs, about the middle of
April, at the bottom of a cavity in a tree. It likes an
old orchard very well, but is just as likely to locate in
the woods. Seldom is there any sign of occupancy
about the hole, and the owl will not show herself, how-
ever much one may pound the tree. The nest may be
right by one’s home, but it is hard to find. The only
way I know is to keep looking in likely holes, especially
in a neighborhood where the owls are heard at night.
I have found several nests, but only because I looked in
several thousand holes. The brooding owl is as tame
as a sitting hen, and, like them, some will peck and
some will not, when you pull them off their eggs. The
young are queer little fellows, at first covered with
whitish down, which changes to a soft gray plumage.
Later, when fully feathered, it may be either red or
gray in general hue, and we do not know any satis-
factory reason for this variation, any more than why
some people have brown hair and others red.

There is another little owl, even smaller than the

72

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THE BIRD OF NIGHT

Screech Owl, which we may happen upon some time.
It is called the Saw-whet Owl because its love song in
the spring reminds one of the rasping of sharpening a
saw. Most specimens are seen in fall or winter, in
bushy pastures or cedar swamp thickets, or are found
dead in severe weather about houses, whither they have
been driven in a last vain hope of finding a mouse to
keep them from starving.

A hunter whom I knew caught one of them in a steel
trap set for mink in the woods in March. He had the
little sprite in a room in his house, where it was flying
around actively, alighting on the furniture. I was glad
enough when he offered it to me, and took it home in a
box, to photograph and study it. The next day I
should have secured a series of pictures of it from life,
but a furious easterly gale was raging with a pouring
rain, and it was very dark. As the conditions were
most unfavorable, I waited till the next day, and was
sorry that I had not done the best I could even in the
storm, for the little creature lay dead under its perch,
and I have never yet had another chance to photograph
one.

Had I begun to hunt birds with the camera a little
sooner than I did, I should have had a splendid oppor-
tunity to picture this rather rare owl, for I was so
fortunate as to find a nest eleven years ago. The bird
usually goes further north to breed, and this was the
only nest I ever have seen. I described the adventure
quite fully in “Wild Wings,” but may say that it was

13

THE BIRD OF NIGHT

in a Flicker’s hole, in a pine stub, and the bird was so
tame that I could have done almost anything with her.
She had five incubated eggs on the eighteenth of April.

However, I did manage to take a picture of a Saw-
whet. Three of us were out for a tramp and came to a
horse shed at the edge of the woods. It was open, so I
looked in, and there sat a tiny Saw-whet Ow] on a beam
close by. The owl and I were face to face, and we
both just stood and stared at each other in blank amaze-
ment. Presently I recovered my presence of mind and
backed off to get my camera. But the owl likewise
came to itself, and, flying across the stable, alighted at
-a hole in the partition which led into an outer shed
which was entirely open on one side. If once it got
out there, it was a “goner’’ for me.

Seizing my camera and tripod which I had stood up
outside the door, in as few words as possible I told
Ned what was up and sent him around on the run to
keep the Owl from flying through. When he appeared
the owl faced backward toward me, seemingly un-
decided what to do. Calling to Ned to wait, I planted
the camera in the greatest hurry, focused on the bird,
and exposed two plates, long-timed, of course, in such a
dark place, but fortunately the queer little subject kept
quite still.

Just as this was done, the owl decided to flee from
Ned, and came back into the shed. Ned stopped up
the hole, and then we all tried to catch Mr. Saw-whet,
one of us guarding the entrance, as there was no door.

74

THE BIRD OF NIGHT

I threw my cap over the owl and it fell to the floor.
We each made a grab for it and there was a general
mix-up, but somehow the bird which so many people
think is blind by daylight dodged through the array of
legs and hands, flying out of the door. ‘‘Well, I never!”
I exclaimed in disgust. ‘‘What made you so awkward,
Ned?” “Yes, how about yourself?” he retorted.
Severe winter weather is liable to bring certain rare
boreal owls to us from the North. The best known
and most beautiful of these is the Snowy Owl, that
splendid white bird which we associate with the polar
bear and icebergs. There is apt to be a flight of them
in early December, if at all, and one is liable to meet a
specimen anywhere inland, though the seacoast is the
best sort of region to find them. I have met but one in
my life, on a salt marsh. Another greater rarity is the
Great Gray Owl, a Northern species closely related to
the Barred Owl, but larger. I have never seen it alive.
The severe winter of 1906-7 brought to us many
Northern birds. On the twelfth of November, 1906, a
lady was driving along a road in the outskirts of the
town where I live. She came upon an Indian woman
who was examining something lying in the road. It
was a small owl which had somehow perished. Think-
ing it a “cute” little thing, she brought it to me to have
it mounted. I was not at home, but met her at the
post office. “Could I get you to stuff it for me?’ she
asked. ‘Really,’ said I, “I don’t seehowIcan. Iam
just going away, and am very busy.”’ But she looked so
75

THE BIRD OF NIGHT

disappointed that I relented and took it, knowing that
it would keep a long time in the cold weather. It was
getting dark and the owl appeared to be a Saw-whet.
I stuffed it in my pocket, and on reaching home tossed
it up on a shelf in the woodshed, where it remained for
weeks. Finally I got it down one afternoon and was
at once impressed by its size, for I now saw that it was
nearly as big as a Screech Owl. ““That’s no Saw-whet,”
my wife exclaimed, as I rushed for the reference books.
“Richardson’s Owl!’ I shouted. ‘What a find!” It
proved to be the second one ever taken in Connecticut,
the only other having been recorded by Dr. William
Wood, away back in 1861. To this day I have not
gotten over the sensation which comes over me when I
think of how near I came to missing such a rare find.

716

CHAPTER V
STRANGE BED-FELLOWS
(Cuckoos and Kingfishers)

CAN’T see for the life of me,” said Ned one day, as

we were driving home after photographing a

Black-billed Cuckoo on her nest, “why in the
world the scientists have put the cuckoos and the king-
fishers together in the same group in their classification.
Why, anyone can see that they are as different as day
is from night. ‘They both wear feathers and fly, and
that is about all the likeness I can see!”

“We mustn’t be hard on the poor scientists,” I replied.
“They have a hard nut to crack. There are a number
of groups of species which are so different that they do
not know what to do with them. Formerly they just
gave it up and dumped them all into one miscellaneous
rag bag—Picarian or woodpecker-like birds they called
them, nicknaming them after the largest of the groups.
Now, however, they have found a better home for each
of the poor orphans, all except the unfortunate cuckoos
and kingfishers and some foreign tribes, so they fixed
up a smaller catch-all and named it after the cuckoos
—Coccyges, the Greek for cuckoos.”

77

STRANGE BED-FELLOWS

“Well,” said Ned, “I should think that such strange
bed-fellows would get to fighting, but I suppose that
they don’t realize that they are in such close quarters.”

This scientific discourse grew so absorbing that, as
we approached the railroad track I forgot to “look out
for the engine,” as the old signs used to say. Just as
we were about to cross, I saw the evening express train
swiftly rushing down upon us, only a few rods away. I
had to think quickly what to do. If I stopped right
there, the horse would certainly shy down the embank-
ment, though, of course, we could jump out. But I
thought we could get across barely in time, so I plied
the whip, and with a leap we went flying over, having
just a few yards to spare as the train thundered past.
We were so much excited that we forgot all about the
Coccyges and set to berating the engineer for not having
blown the whistle on approaching the grade crossing.
But birds are very fascinating, and ornithology was not
knocked out of us for very long, though we resolved to
put prudence ahead of it in future when crossing the
railroad track. And now that we are safely escaped
we will return to the cuckoos.

The nest which I had just found was in a dense
thicket of bushes, a few rods back from the road which
passed near the pond, and about opposite the latter.
It was the seventh of June, and we were tramping about
in a large tract of scrub and briers, searching for birds’
nests. For some time we had had no especial luck,
until, as I poked my head into this particular thicket,

78

“On it sat a Black-billed Cuckoo” (p. 79).

STRANGE BED-FELLOWS

there right before me I saw a flimsy nest of twigs and
stems. On it sat a Black-billed Cuckoo, gazing at me
in alarm with her large hazel eyes which were bordered
by red eyelids. When Ned came up I made signs to
him to keep very quiet, so he looked on while I set up
the small, long-focus camera on the tripod, with the
eighteen-inch lens. Fortunately there was a small
opening through the bushes to the nest, with nothing
much to obstruct the view, and, after taking one small
picture of the bird from where I was, to make sure of
something, I pushed the tripod and camera nearer and
nearer. At each halt I made another exposure and
secured a larger image of the bird on the plate. Of
course I was very careful not to rustle the leaves or
step on a dry twig or make any sudden motion. The
bird actually let me photograph her within four feet
before she slipped off the nest and disappeared in the
shrubbery. No wonder she was tame, for it was just
hatching time. There was one pipped egg in the nest,
and one newly hatched young one. When it had
crawled out of the shell, it had taken with it the rounded
end, which it wore on its head as a close-fitting blue
skull-cap, and it certainly looked very comical. While
I was at work with the camera, Ned’s sharp eyes spied
out a Wood Thrush sitting on her nest in a low sapling
just outside the brier thicket, not more than twelve
feet from the cuckoo’s nest.

A few days later we visited Mrs. Cuckoo again, and
found her brooding. She was in a better position, with

79

STRANGE BED-FELLOWS

the whole of her long tail showing, so I took some more
pictures of her, as before. When she left, I photo-
graphed the two youngsters in their rude, hard cradle.
Ugly brats they were at this stage, with great ungainly
beaks, all out of proportion to their size, and bristling
with pin feathers. The nest, as usual, was almost flat
on top, and somewhat tilted over besides. It always
seems a wonder if the young cuckoos succeed in hanging
on to the nest. That they sometimes do not, I know
for a fact, for soon afterward I found this nest deserted,
and a few years before I had watched another nest of
this species in the same locality, down by the pond in
a bushy swamp.

This nest also had two small young, which, after a
severe thunder shower and wind, disappeared. ‘Their
home was a most unusual one. It was in an ordinary
situation, six or eight feet up a sapling. But near by
in the swamp was a willow bush which was just getting
past its flowering by the middle of May, when the
cuckoos began to build. Instead of picking up sticks
and making a platform so frail that one could see the
eggs through it from below, these birds had constructed
a big, soft, nest, very deep, though flat on top, almost
entirely out of willow catkins and down. They de-
served better fortune than to have their young blown
out of such a palatial nursery—for a cuckoo!—and
drowned. But this is the lot of many a young bird,
even from the best of bird homes.

We have two kinds of cuckoos—Black-billed and

80

Nest of Black-billed Cuckoo. Showing the newly hatched youngster with its blue
cap (p. 79).

Young Black-billed Cuckoos in nest.. “Bristling with pin-feathers” (p. 80).

STRANGE BED-FELLOWS

Yellow-billed, which are hard to tell apart, unless one
gets very near them, which is not easy todo. ‘They are
shy, retiring birds, and keep mostly in the thick foliage.
Bird students seldom have a better chance to examine
a cuckoo in life and see how useful a tribe these birds
are than did a certain company of young ladies. I was
giving a bird lecture at Bradford Academy, Mass., and
the next morning took an early bird walk with a party
of the girls and a teacher. Beside the path was a wild
cherry tree which was stripped bare of foliage and
contained the nest of the despoilers, some sort of canker
worm or caterpillar. Perched beside this was a Black-
billed Cuckoo, breakfasting. We were all within
twenty feet of it, and watched it for some minutes eat
worm after worm, which it took from the nest. If we
could only raise cuckoos enough, we might conquer the
gypsy moth, that most expensive pest.

Were it not for the loud, harsh “‘cow-cow”’ notes of
the cuckoos, we certainly should think them much
rarer than they are. But they are both all too scarce,
and generally the Yellow-billed kind has seemed to me
the rarer of the two. When I have hunted for their
nests I usually have had no success. But now and then
I have happened upon a nest of either kind when I was
least expecting it. Though I have found more nests
of the Yellow-billed in old, retired orchards, I have also
found the Black-billed breeding in such places, and I
am not sure that they differ materially in the sorts of
places which they frequent.

81

STRANGE BED-FELLOWS

The very opposite in temperament is the Belted King-
fisher, our only species of this interesting sub-order.
No bird is more conspicuous than this most royal
fisherman of all our small land birds, sounding its loud
rattle as it flies over land or stream, or perching on
some conspicuous stub by the shore from which it can
watch for the small fish to rise to the surface. Suddenly
it plunges headlong into the water with a loud splash,
and, emerging, flies off with a triumphant announce-
ment, like the hen, which tries to publish world-wide
the glorious fact that she has laid an egg.

Sometimes, though rarely, the kingfishers are seen
in the land of ice and snow during the winter, but at
any rate they come back early, toward the end of
March or in early April. Before long they get to work
digging their nesting burrows in some gravel bank not
far from water, though not necessarily right by the
shore. Often they choose a cut in a road or railway,
or a spot where a farmer has excavated for sand or
gravel. ‘They are great diggers and go in as much as
six feet, with turns in the tunnel, too, to avoid rocks.
At the end there is a wider chamber or pocket where
six or seven good-sized white eggs are laid on the earth,
surrounded by an ever-increasing pile of fish bones,
the remains of the regular fish dinners.

In years past I had seen various kingfishers’ holes,
and had dug one out to examine the nest and young,
but I had no photographs. So, when I realized that
a certain chapter must be written and needed king-

82

‘(68 ‘d) ..qnjs snonotdsuoa autos uo supieg,, *(qupe) Joysysury

STRANGE BED-FELLOWS

fisher adornments, I had to hustle to get some pictures,
before it was too late in the season. Ned was a good
fellow to consult on such important business, and he
remembered two places where he had seen kingfisher
burrows, so we rounded them up at once. The first
was in a pasture, where road makers had dug out
gravel, and left a steep bank. There was no burrow
there this year, though later in the season I saw where
the pair had nested, in a bank about half a mile further
on, by the roadside. The other location was near the
pond, where the railroad had been cut through. It
did not take long to discover two round clear-cut holes
of just the right size—kingfishers’ work without a
doubt. One did not go in very far, as the birds had
struck rock. So they had tried again a few feet away,
and this one was evidently complete, for it went in
further than I could reach. No birds were in sight,
yet I felt sure it was a new burrow.

It was so late in the season that I feared the young
had already flown. So the next day, the twenty-sixth
of June, as I was about to drive by this spot with my
wife and baby girl, I took along a shovel, and hitched
the horse by the roadside at the nearest point to the
burrow, telling my wife—with some misgivings—that
it would only take me a few minutes to dig in far
enough to find out whether the nest was occupied, and
if it was I would take the photographs later. I took
the camera along, though, to photograph the site be-
fore I disfigured it. After taking the picture, I started

83

STRANGE BED-FELLOWS

to dig, when suddenly a kingfisher popped out its head
and was just preparing to fly away, when I grabbed it.
“Aha!” thought I, “here is the mother bird, and Ill
have her picture too!’ Just then another bird came
out of the burrow, almost like a cannon ball, and flew
off before I could try to stop it. So the father bird was
in there also? Then, to my astonishment out went
another, and then another tried it, but this one I caught,
putting both into my camera case. A regular eruption
of kingfishers was in progress, a miniature Vesuvius
in action. Really I cannot tell how many kingfishers
came out; I lost count in the excitement; but I think
it was eight, possibly only seven. Of course I knew
now that this was the brood of young ones, fully grown
and fledged, in beautiful plumage. I had caught four;
the others flew over to the pond, all but one which
alighted on the railroad track. Fearing that a train
would come along and kill it, I tried to drive it off, but
it kept flying along the rail and alighting on it, and I
had to chase it a quarter of a mile before it flew off to
one side.

Here was a pretty quandary. A heavy thunder
shower was fast approaching, the wife and baby were
there in the woods, but if I left the young kingfishers,
it would probably be all up with my kingfisher photo-
graphs for this chapter. So I thought I would get a
few, any way, and hurried to focus the camera on the
entrance to the burrow, after which I put one of the
young back into the hole. Immediately it tried to get

84

STRANGE BED-FELLOWS

out again, but the lens caught it, and then my hand,
this operation being repeated several times. Then I
put two of the lively youngsters up on an overturned
tree stump and roots, which the workmen had dug out
when they straightened the railroad. Like most young
birds, they acted in an exasperated manner, delaying
me while the shower came nearer and nearer. I was
determined, now, to get this picture at almost any cost,
knowing that with a top buggy my family would not
be quite drowned. Finally I made my last of several ex-
posures just as the first of the big drops began to fall.
Under the rubber cloth I packed away my camera.
Then I put the young birds back into the burrow,
waiting a moment to drive them back as they tried to
come out. Then, gathering up my things, I raced for
the buggy in the increasing downpour. The family
were not there. In alarm at the approach of the
tempest they had put for the next farmhouse, where I
found them when the storm had nearly spent itself.
They were none the worse for it, nor was I, though wet
and plastered with mud. But I am glad that I did it,
because I have the pictures to show for my pains.

This episode amused Ned very much. He wished
he had been present to see it all, and I certainly had
earnestly wished that he was there to help me manage
those contrary young birds. I could have finished
then before it rained. Sometimes, in photographing
birds it is best to be alone, but again an assistant is an
exceedingly great convenience. But Ned had his

85

STRANGE BED-FELLOWS

innings before very long, and had the fun all to himself
at that. He was fishing on the river bank, sitting
among some nettles. A very small fish got hooked,
and before taking it off he allowed it to stay in the
water and watched it as it tried to get away. But
other sharp eyes were watching, too. A kingfisher
had been flying about, catching a fish now and then.
It spied the fish that was hooked and became so in-
terested that it forgot Ned. What should it do, before
deciding to pounce on the fish, but alight on the fish-
pole which Ned was holding, out near the end. Ned
was so surprised that he almost dropped the pole, but,
recovering his presence of mind, hung on and enjoyed
the strange proceeding. The bird looked big and felt
very heavy, so much so that after about a minute,
which seemed like quite a long time, Ned could not
help dropping the pole a little, and the eager fisher,
which was about to dive after the fish, became alarmed
and flew away. I showed Ned a stuffed kingfisher,
but he says that his kingfisher was larger and hand-
somer, better in every way.

86

CHAPTER VI
KNIGHTS OF THE CHISEL
(Woodpeckers)

ED,” said I one day, “I wish you’d keep your eyes
open for a good woodpecker’s hole situated so
that I might be able to get some pictures of the

old bird at the entrance. You know we've got pictures
of some of them eating suet, but I haven’t anything
about their nesting, and we must have it for the book.”

“What kind you want?” he asked, stopping for a
moment his operations on his broken butterfly net.

“Why, an Arctic Three-toed, or a Pileated, would
suit me tiptop,” I ventured.

“Oh, you go chase yourself!’ exclaimed the fancier
of the ‘‘butterfly étude.”” (Ned was as fond of music
as of birds and butterflies.) “Do you think I’m going
to climb the North Pole to find those rare things?
Give me something easier.”

“All right,” said I. “Tl relent and give you the
commonest kind there is, the fellow so well known that
he has any number of names—Flicker, Yellow-hammer,
High-hole, or, if you want to be more swell, Golden-
winged Woodpecker. Do you think you could find
one?”

87

KNIGHTS OF THE CHISEL

“I’m sure I can find Flickers’ nests,” he responded,
but maybe they'll all be up in rotten stubs a mile high.
“But I'll see what I can do.”

So we both were rivals as to who would do the best.
I found the first, because I was out the most, while
poor Ned was shut up in school studying Latin, which
he doesn’t enjoy overmuch, yet finds it useful in learn-
ing the scientific names of the birds. I tell him that
if he doesn’t get his Latin lessons those big long bird
names will stick in his throat. It needs considerable
vocal lubrication from classical study to call a Red-
headed Woodpecker a Melanerpes erythrocephalus, but
it can be done, for Ned has accomplished it. But we
will let him escape from school this fourteenth of May
and drive five miles to see a few hawks’ nests— Broad-
winged, Cooper’s, and Red-tailed, all within less than
a mile, and incidentally my Flicker’s hole. The bird
was still digging it out, and as we approached we could
see some long thing sticking out and jerking up and
down like a pump handle. It was the Flicker’s tail!
She had chiseled into the chestnut stub with her power-
ful bill deep enough to hide all of her but her tail.
And she was working hard, too, but she did not keep
it up long enough to violate the rules of the labor
union—‘‘the I. O. K. C’—Ned and I call it, or the
“Independent Order of the Knights of the Chisel.”
They do not allow even an eight-hour day on a house
contract, but on the other hand compel a frightfully
long service in chiseling for the festive grub. This

88

KNIGHTS OF THE CHISEL

bird was building only about ten feet up, at the edge
of the Cooper’s Hawk grove, and, though there was
no other tree close by on which to rig the camera, I
thought I could manage somehow to get a picture, if
nothing better turned up.

But we discovered plenty more nests. One day I
found as many as half a dozen in a tract of woods
where the trees were dying from an excess of water.
Unfortunately every one of them was high up. Another
nest was in the midst of unusual life and activity,
though in lonely woods well up the side of a hill. The
Flickers had dug a hole twenty feet up a dead chestnut
stub. Fifteen feet higher, at the top, a pair of flying
squirrels had young in the Flicker’s last year hole. At
the base of the stub, under some rocks, were two en-
trances to an occupied fox burrow. Evidently the
young foxes played there, for the ground was thoroughly
trampled, and at one front door were turkey bones
and feathers and some fresh green leaves. Within a
few rods a pair of Oven-birds had a nest on the ground,
surprisingly well concealed, for even the foxes had not
found it. Besides this, a Red-eyed Vireo couple had
built in the fork of a sapling, just out of Reynard’s
reach, and a somber-hued female Scarlet Tanager
brooded higher up, out on the extended branch of an
oak.

But after all Ned beat me, for he found the best nest
of all, and handy to home at that. It was in an apple
tree in an orchard, on the west side where it had some

89

KNIGHTS OF THE CHISEL

of the late afternoon sun, up in the spreading part of
the tree, with branches in front of the hole where a
camera could be remarkably well hidden. So, one
bright afternoon, I made a visit there. Madam Flicker
flew out, and I screwed up the small camera in the
favorable spot, covering it with green branches, and
then, having attached the thread, hid behind the next
apple tree. In a short time I heard the Flicker’s
‘“‘yawp.” She flew from a tree near by directly to the
entrance of the hole, where she paused for an instant,
giving me a good chance for the exposure, and then
went in to her eggs without noticing the camera, or
paying more than momentary heed to the click of the
shutter.

I walked off for a few minutes to let her warm her
eggs, and then, as I approached, a Flicker flew from
the tree. I changed the plate and then waited and
waited, but no bird came back. This was puzzling,
for everything seemed to be right, and I was pretty
well concealed. At last, just as I was about to go to
see if anything was wrong, a Flicker stuck its head out
of the nest hole, and then withdrew it, after I had pulled
the thread and got a good picture. I went to the camera
but no bird flew out. “Can it be,” I thought, “that
the bird was a full-fledged young one, for it is only the
eighth of June?’ However, I decided to make sure,
so I put my hand and arm into the hole. I could feel a
bird, but it did not peck or bite, so I drew it out by the
bill, though it hung back some. It was the mother

90

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afoy ut Sunod Surpao} (afeuiay) saururey-Mo][aX JO ‘ayo ] “(06 °d) ,,270Y4-ysau ayy Jo No pray s}t yonys JOxIIL V,,

? Tia

KNIGHTS OF THE CHISEL

bird. After stroking her I opened my hand and away
she went. Now I could just touch eggs at the bottom,
as deep down as I could reach.

The picture of the bird by the hole was not very good,
as the side of her toward the camera was shaded, so I
tried again, and set a mirror on the grass throwing a
strong beam on the hole and below it. Now I was in
for all sorts of trouble. The bird was afraid of the
mirror and would not brave it for quite a while, though
she did in time. Meanwhile the sun changed position
and the reflection fell too low. When I went and
altered it the bird saw me and stayed away longer.
Then, as I waited I noticed that the light was cut off
and returned in rather an erratic manner. I was down
the slope of the hill and could not see the mirror, so
crept up higher to investigate, and was surprised and
amused to see a cow standing with her head lowered,
gazing threateningly at the imaginary cow before her.
I really think that in another moment she would have
“tossed” her likeness had I not driven her off. Some-
how she had managed to step over the thread without
touching it, which was fortunate, as she might have
wrecked the shutter before breaking the strong linen
thread. She was bound, though, to come back and
get satisfaction from the supposed bovine usurper, so
I had to keep driving her back. The bird returned
several times, though the light was never where I
wanted it. I tried short timed exposures, but in each
the bird proved to have moved, for the young, now

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KNIGHTS OF THE CHISEL

hatched, were clamoring for food, making that horrible
buzzing noise which sounds like a nest of snakes.
Naked and scrawny, they looked as hideous as they
sounded. But I secured one instantaneous exposure
on the bird in dull light, which, though very thin,
printed quite well on contrasty developing paper, and
was the best which I secured.

I waited a few days more till I thought the youngsters
would have some feathers, and went to photograph
them. No buzzing greeted me, and I was shocked.
Putting my hand into the hole, I drew out the putrid
body of one of the young, without feathers. Appar-
ently the others, unable to endure this horrible condi-
tion, had climbed out before their full time, or else they
had grown faster than I had supposed possible. But
what should I do for photographs of young woodpeckers
for my series? It was now so late in the season that I
feared that all young Flickers had left their nests. As
soon as I could, I made the round of most of the nests
I had previously seen. In every case I was too late.
Then I heard of a nest on someone’s front lawn, in a
maple tree, where very recently the young were looking
out and being fed by their parents. That very evening
I drove to the place, and to my joy found that the young
were there and in just the right condition to photograph.

The next morning, July fifth, I was early at work.
The hole was twenty feet up the elm, an enlarged knot
hole. The young drew back when I tried to get hold
of them. The hole was too small for my hand, and

92

KNIGHTS OF THE CHISEL

the wood too hard for my knife, so I borrowed a dull
hatchet and finally, standing on the spikes of my
climbing irons, with great difficulty managed to enlarge
the entrance enough to reach in. There were three
young, which I put in my creel, and a dead one full of
maggots. What a horrible time young woodpeckers
must have in these pestilential holes! I noticed,
though, that they kept up from the bottom, and clung
to the sides near the entrance, thus being able to stand
it—in more senses than one.

At first when I tried to pose them before the camera
—clinging to a tree trunk, on a post, or ranged along a
branch—they were very unruly. But in time, like
most young birds, they finally wearied of trying to
escape and submitted to the inevitable. One was
particularly lively and troublesome, doubtless the one
which got the most food. The people of the house had
been watching the feeding process, and had noticed
that one youngster seemed to cling by the entrance for
hours at a time and block the others, getting most of
the feeding from the stupid or partial parents. Having
photographed them, I put them back in the hole, after
cleaning it out and partly filling it with grass. The
old birds had been quite concerned and soon one of
them came sliding down the trunk, making a rather
pretty plaintive whining call which set the youngsters
almost frantic, for they well knew what it meant. She
was a little shy of the group watching her, but she soon
went and fed the first one that stuck out his head. It

93

KNIGHTS OF THE CHISEL

was the smallest of them which I had stationed at the
entrance that he might get the start of his tyrannical
stronger brother.

Ned was too deep in Fourth of July and its aftermath
to come with me. He wanted to photograph them,
though, so next day we made another visit, but the
tender-hearted mistress of the place was so fearful that
the old birds would get frightened off by too much
photographing that we gave it up, and drove on to
more exciting adventures, which shall later be described.

As our minds were on woodpeckers, it was but
natural that we should talk about them. Ned asked
me to tell him about some of the kinds which he had
never seen alive, and I was willing enough, for it is
always pleasant to share with others the enjoyment we
have had with the birds. Besides the Flicker, the only
others which were familiar to Ned were the Downy and
Hairy Woodpeckers, both of which, especially the
former, are common with us all the year around.
Besides these he has seen the beautiful one with varie-
gated plumage, the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, which
we have only as a spring and fall migrant and never
seems very common, though they say that plenty of
them nest in the forests of northern New England.
This is the kind which bores so many small round holes
in apple trees, sometimes for finding grubs, but also to
drink the sap.

Then there is the Red-headed Woodpecker, red,
white and blue, a gaudy bird, with its flaming brilliant

94

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KNIGHTS OF THE CHISEL

red head and neck. This spring about the middle of
May, a pair of them put in their appearance at a farm
some two miles from where I live. They seemed to
like it and stayed about the row of fine old sugar
maples and other shade trees along the street. Ned and
I did hope that they would remain for the summer, but
in a few days they grew restless and moved on. Years
and years ago they used to be quite plenty in New
England, but now they are rare and we must go further
south and west to find them. When I was a boy, a
flock of them came to the suburbs of Boston and stayed
all the fall, and a few well into the winter. I could
almost always find them in a certain grove of nice large
oaks, and I improved this only opportunity I ever had
to know them till I extended my bird searchings to
other sections.

There is another of this gentry of the chisel which
has mostly disappeared from the middle districts where
it was once well known, the great black and white
Pileated Woodpecker, which is as big as a crow. It is
common yet in the north woods, and, curiously, in the
extreme south. I have met it in Florida, and it seemed
strange enough to see these great climbers, which
seemed too large to be woodpeckers. ‘They make a
prodigious noise with their hammering, and tear off
great strips of bark from decaying trees. They are
only rarely seen in southern New England. I know
two reliable people who have seen them in western
Connecticut quite recently; one instance was of a

95

KNIGHTS OF THE CHISEL

specimen in winter, and the other of a pair actually
breeding.

There is always a bare possibility in winter of running
across one of the rare northern woodpeckers charac-
terized by having but three toes on each foot. Of these
there are two kinds, the Arctic Three-toed and the
American Three-toed Woodpeckers. Though I never
have had the luck to meet one alive, I look carefully at
every woodpecker I see in winter, hoping that it may
prove to be one of these. A very few have been recorded
south of the northern tier of States, and some fine day
Ned or I may be among the fortunate discoverers.

We began this chapter with a common woodpecker,
so we will end it by telling of two familiar birds which
are so much alike that many people see no difference
between them—the Hairy and the Downy Woodpeckers.
These are the black and white spotted ones, so often
seen about our homes, especially in the winter, when
hunger and cold drive them to us for succor. They
are almost exactly alike in plumage, but the Hairy
Woodpecker is much the larger, having about double
the weight of the little Downy. But why this one
should have been called “Hairy” instead of the other is
too much of a sticker for me. Both kinds have hairy
bristles protecting the base of the bill. The larger one
may have been named first, and so the little fellow had
to take any old name they could fix up. Surely it is no
more downy in plumage than any other small bird.
But this is just as reasonable as many other names—of

96

KNIGHTS OF THE CHISEL

birds or of people. The male of each of these wears
a distinguishing patch of red on the back of his head,
while the females are plain black and white.

“Hairy” is the more northerly in range of the two, and
its nest is not so often found as the Downy’s. Both of
them generally nest in the woods or swamps, but Downy
often does so in an orchard or in shade trees near the
house. The first nest of the Hairy which I ever found
was in the woods near a Barred Owl’s nest. I was
making an afternoon call on Mrs. Owl, when I heard a
woodpecker hammering away very steadily. Follow-
ing the sound, I found a female Hairy Woodpecker
excavating her hole about fifteen feet up in the trunk
of a perfectly sound young oak. This bird is very
hardy and is among the first of the birds to set up
housekeeping in the spring, along with the Bluebird
and Robin. This was the middle of April, and on the
twenty-ninth I found her incubating four eggs in her
completed mansion. The wood was as hard as flint,
and it seems wonderful that any bird by “butting”’ its
head against material that turns the edge of a knife
blade should be able to dig out a burrow a foot and a
half deep.

In the overflowed tract of woodland to which I have
already alluded, where Flickers breed so abundantly,
every year the Hairy and Downy are also to be found—
if one is willing to put on long rubber boots and wade
about among the slippery and slimy submerged branches
tumbling now and then into a hole. Almost always I

97

KNIGHTS OF THE CHISEL

get in over my boot tops when I try it. My wife thinks
it is an abominable place, but Ned and I call it one of
the best in town, and that is saying a good deal. Both
of these woodpeckers drill their holes in the dead stubs,
pretty well up, especially Hairy, who has young well
grown by the time Downy has eggs. Both kinds make a
great fuss when we intrude upon their eggs, especially
if they have young. Indeed, the Hairies are so inclined
to borrow trouble that they begin to scold and chatter
as soon as they see us coming, and give away the very
secret which they are so anxious to conceal.

When the cold winds blow from the icy north and
the ground is white with its winter carpet, everyone
ought to feed the birds. It is delightful to see how
general this custom has become. Hang up a piece of
fat meat on a tree near your window, out of reach of
cats and dogs, or even on the window sill, and you will
be delighted to watch the bird visitors, with their
animated ways and eagerly sparkling eyes. Among
them will almost surely be our friend “Downy,” and
sometimes “Hairy,” too. They are such nervous,
restless, ceaselessly active little bodies, the very embodi-
ment of perpetual motion—especially Hairy. Yes, I
see that I can get along nicely by describing Downy,
and adding that Hairy is even more so. Really it seems
as though two Downies had been concentrated in
making one Hairy. It is always especially Hairy!
Hairy’s nervous “specialty,” though, makes him the
shier of the two, as might be expected.

98

Ned got the Hairy Woodpecker Downy Woodpecker attracted by suet.
(p. 100). “Every one ought to feed the
birds” (p. 98).

Downy Woodpecker. Angry at a cat, raising its crest (p. 99).

KNIGHTS OF THE CHISEL

This lunch counter arrangement offers a fine chance
to secure photographs of our visitors. The camera
does not alarm them much, except Hairy!—so we may
set it up on the tripod, focus on the food, and, with all
in readiness for an instantaneous exposure, lay the line
of thread in through the keyhole or under the window,
and watch for a good shot. When the bird is just
right, pull the thread. This seems easy, and yet it is
surprising how many plates one will spoil. The bird
is so seldom still that it is very apt indeed to move just
as the shutter opens and give a blurred image. The
only way is to keep trying, and some of the pictures
will be good. Of course one should do this only on a
bright day, and use the fastest kind of plate, with lens
wide open and the quickest possible exposure.

One day I got a particularly interesting picture of a
Downy Woodpecker. A female bird was feeding on
some suet nailed under a stub. The camera was all
ready, and I was about to pull the thread when I noticed
a cat sneaking along the path, hoping to spring on the
bird. No sooner did Downy espy the great enemy
than she set up an excited and angry chirping, and at
the same time erected the feathers on the back of her
head and neck to a sharp pointed crest. I pulled, and
had her in all her glory. Few people, probably, realize
that Woodpeckers can become crested, even the kinds
which, unlike the Pileated, have no topknot.

There was little trouble, comparatively, in photo-
graphing Downy, but Hairy was quite another proposi-

99

KNIGHTS OF THE CHISEL

tion. A fine male of his persuasion was visiting me
daily, but he was so shy and nervous. Before coming
to eat he would jerk and dodge, back and forth, till it
seemed that he would never come to eat after all.
However, in time he would make up his mind, and dart
down to the piazza to strike the suet telling knockout
blows; with an excited chirp now and then, he would
quickly chisel off all he wanted and dart away.

I wasted so much time trying to pull the thread on
him and get even a single picture for this book, that
Ned thought that he would try to beat me. So he
propped up a stick out in the snow with a piece of suet
on top, focused the camera on it, and sat for hours at a
window, reading and watching, ready to pull the thread.
Now and then the bird appeared, but went off, afraid of
the camera. At last, just for an instant, he alighted
on the stick, under the meat, and Ned “got” him, as
nice as you please. I fear that it will be a long time
before Ned stops crowing about how he beat me photo-
graphing Hairy Woodpeckers.

100

CHAPTER VII
BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP
(Goatsuckers and Hummers)

ED thinks he is going to stick me this morning.

He wants to know why the order of birds which
includes the goatsuckers, hummers and swifts

is called ‘“Macrochires,” which the book says means
long-handed, that is, long-winged, and the gulls are
called “Longipennes,” which means long-winged, too.
I told him the last was derived from the Latin and
the other from the Greek language. But this did not
satisfy him. He thinks the gulls are well named, but
not the others, because among the land birds the swal-
lows are long-winged, too, and the birds of prey, and
that ‘‘small-footed’’ would have been a better name,
because all these species have small, weak legs and feet.
The goatsuckers perch along a branch because their
feet are too weak to clasp it easily, and the swifts can
only cling, while the hummers, though they can perch,
have frail enough little “hands.” I had to admit that
there was a good deal of reason in what he said and
told him I hoped that some day, when he had become
a great scientist, he would have some things changed.
Meanwhile, now, since we are getting up a book of our

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BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

own, we are going to call things whatever we like, so
we shall speak of this order as the “handicapped” birds,
because their weak hands seem so unfitted for the
world’s work. Were it not for their strong wings, the
handicap would be too much for them.

For convenience sake only, I shall speak of the swifts
in the chapter with the swallows, and go on now to these
most singular of our birds, the Whippoorwill and the
Nighthawk. The ancients called birds of this order
“goatsuckers,” from the absurd superstition that they
sucked the milk from goats with their large mouths, as
vampire bats have been said to do. Slander is hard to
down, and the bad name has stuck to them ever since.

“Are the Whippoorwill and Nighthawk the same
birds?” This is a question which people ask me over
and over again. Well, I should say not! They re-
semble each other in form and size, and are closely
related species, belonging to the same family group,
but their habits are very different. The difference is
about like that between the Song and Chipping Spar-
rows, the Wood Thrush and the Veery among thrushes,
or the Oven-bird and the Redstart among warblers.
The Whippoorwill is probably partly to blame for this
confusion, for it will seldom give people a good look at
it, coming out of its retreat in the woods only after dusk.
It looks like the Nighthawk in form, as it flies, so peo-
ple imagine that the familiar “‘whip-poor-will’” is the
Nighthawk’s evening song and use both names as for
the same bird.

102

BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

Some of Ned’s boy friends have tried very hard to
“get” the Whippoorwill, that is, to get a good look at it.
When it begins its song in the evening, they follow the
sound and try to creep up close to the bird. But it is
so dark that the sly rascal usually flits away some dis-
tance and begins again its tantalizing call. One boy
had the good luck one night to trace the bird to a rock
in an open field near the edge of the woods. It was
moonlight, and he stole up near enough to see it very
plainly. Ned once got a pretty good view of a Whip-
poorwill on the top of a rail fence, and another night
he and I watched for quite a while as it perched length-
wise on the ridge pole of a low roof. What a racket it
was making! The people in the house came out to see
what was up.

But see now what great differences there are between
the Whippoorwill and the Nighthawk. The Whip-
poorwill is brown, the Nighthawk gray, with a white
bar on its wings. The Nighthawk is the long-winged
bird seen flying about well up in the air in the daytime,
especially during the afternoon, uttering a peculiar
squeak, and then diving swiftly almost to the earth,
making a loud booming sound as it suddenly checks
its flight and saves itself from having its brains dashed
out. The Whippoorwill, on the other hand, only flies
about at dusk and after, not rising high up, but gliding
from perch to perch in short sallies, and then, as it
perches, it utters the well-known cry which is inter-
preted—“‘whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will.” ‘The Whip-

103

BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

poorwill stays during the day in the woods and lays
two white eggs sparsely marked with faint lilac on the
dead leaves on the ground among the woodland shades;
the Nighthawk, when not flying about, suns itself during
the day upon a rock or dusty place out in a field or
pasture, and lays its two darkly-marked eggs on or
beside a low flat rock which just crops out from the
ground in an open lot. In cities people sometimes find
Nighthawks’ eggs on the flat tar and gravel roofs of
blocks of houses.

The entire food of both these birds consists of insects,
and they are exceedingly useful. In the south the
Nighthawk is popularly known as “Bull-bat,” and is
often called familiarly simply “Bat.” It is most un-
fortunate that there, in some quarters, the custom has
arisen of shooting Nighthawks as game. They eat
enormous quantities of mosquitoes, gnats and flies, also
potato bugs, ants, and a variety of noxious insects, and
the same is true of the Whippoorwill. Everything
possible ought to be done to protect these birds. Pos-
sibly the name Nighthawk is responsible for the shooting
of this species by ignorant persons who imagine that,
as they are “hawks,” they must kill chickens. But
the poor bird is no hawk at all, rather more like a large
swallow, and it is decidedly a day bird, so it badly
needs a new name.

The most likely way of obtaining photographs of
birds of this class is by first finding their nests. If we
should happen upon them in their ordinary haunts

104

BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

while at rest in the hot part of the day, we might be
allowed to steal up fairly near and be allowed time for
a snapshot. But such good fortune is rare and at best
we should not be able to approach very near. But
when the nest is found, particularly when incubation is
well under way, the sitting bird is often very tame and
the careful worker can be reasonably sure of success.

To speak first of the Whippoorwill, the eggs are
usually laid, in northern or middle districts, about the
last of May or the first week in June. The best place
to look is in second growth woods, where there is a
moderate amount of undergrowth, usually near an
opening, and particularly where there is a pile of dry
brush or a fallen tree. The bird makes no nest, but
merely selects a spot on the dead leaves on the ground,
in the shade, where her two handsome eggs are de-
posited. The way I find a nest is to notice in the
evenings where Whippoorwills first begin to call in the
woods, and then by day tramp back and forth, round
and round, in that territory, beating the bushes with a
stick. The brown mother sits very closely, and her
colors and markings blend so wonderfully with the
surroundings that there is not one chance in a thousand
of seeing her thus. However, if we walk within a few
feet of her she will fly up and away, and then the white
eggs are conspicuous enough.

A few years ago there was a patch of woods and
shrubbery, a sort of island surrounded by open fields,
in which a pair of Whippoorwills nested each season.

105

BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

I first discovered the nest by accident. Walking
through the woods I passed near a pile of brush, when
up flew a long-winged brown bird from a shaded spot
beside a clump of small saplings and flitted off with
silent flight like a bat. There were her two eggs—on
the seventh of June—the first Whippoorwill’s eggs I
had ever found. I secured a fine picture of her by
placing the camera close to the nest, covered with
leaves, and then, with a thread attached, withdrawing
for an hour to let the bird come back, when I pulled the
thread for an exposure of one second. The male bird,
I found, was accustomed to roost lengthwise along the ,
trunk of a fallen sapling, where I could almost always
find him in daytime, but he would not let me come
very near. Each year after that, at about the same
time, I would visit these woods and flush the female
from her eggs, not in the same spot, but within a
hundred yards of it. The male always found his old
log again, until one day I failed to start him, and
scattered brown feathers showed that some hawk or
prowling “varmint” had probably made a meal of him.
Next winter the grove was cut off and no more Whip-
poorwills came there.

In the cold, backward spring of 1907, on the twenty-
sixth of June, I was walking with a friend in a grove
near his home, when I heard a Scarlet Tanager chirping
excitedly, and also a Vireo. We altered our course and
went to see what was the matter. The disturber proved
to be a marauding jay skulking in the foliage, and the

106

li

“Within two or three feet”’ (p.

wo meee od ¢ AA

Young Whippoorwills in nest, heads apart. “Two queer little chicks” (p. 108).

BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

smaller birds were trying to drive it off. As we stood
in a little open place in the woods, it chanced that I was
within three feet of a Whippoorwill on its nest. I
should never in the world have seen it even then, had
not the bird become uneasy over our talking and
flushed. There were the two eggs, unusually elongated
and very beautifully marked, evidently freshly laid.

A heavy rain storm was just beginning, so I had to
postpone my photographing, and was not able to return
till the next week. The bird was on the nest, but so
still and inconspicuous that for the life of me I could
not see where she was, until in my blundering I started
her off. As on the previous occasion, I set the camera
on a pile of dead leaves, on a very short tripod. It was
a couple of hours before she was back on the nest, and
then I pulled the thread, first to open the shutter, and
ten seconds later to close it. I could see that she re-
mained motionless. ‘Then I crept up silently on hands
and knees to change the plate behind the camera,
thinking that possibly she might not start. She was
now tamer than I had dared to hope. Not only did
she let me change the plate and take her again, but she
allowed me to move the camera nearer, within two or
three feet, and take long-timed exposures for fine detail,
with the lens stopped down to a very small opening.
The resulting pictures were all that I could possibly
desire. I visited her again from time to time with Ned.
He took some fine pictures all by himself, as good as
mine, and I got a few more. Now we could walk

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BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

right up boldly and plant the camera within two feet
of her without alarming her. Once I was there after
sundown. Having taken a picture in the soft light, I
thought I would see if she would let me touch her, but
she gave a little hop and flutter and perched upon a
fallen branch close by the nest. There she sat motion-
less, not along the limb, as ordinarily, but almost, if
not quite, directly across it. Carefully I turned the
camera toward her, after hurriedly screwing on my lens
of longest focus, and moving the tripod slowly a little
nearer. It was so dark that I could hardly see to focus,
and it required quite a long exposure. I made two,
the longest and best—as it proved—taking two whole
minutes, yet the bird never winked or moved, giving me
a fine picture of an unusual sort.

In the morning of the thirteenth of July, seventeen
days after I first found the nest, my friend saw a Whip-
poorwill’s eggshell lying in the road, two gunshots from
the nest, so he surmised that the eggs I was watching
had just hatched. ‘Two days later I found the mother
brooding two queer little chicks covered with yellowish
down, right in the hollow where the eggs had been.
She was reluctant to leave them, and when she did
they scurried away a foot or two, and squatted in the
leaves. JI photographed them at once, for I knew that
they were liable any day to scramble off, as one spot to
them is as good as another. It was well that I did so,
for when I came again, the next week, they had dis-
appeared. Sometimes, it is said, the mother removes

108

Gece ‘ sky

Young Nighthawks. “Singular little striped fellows” (p. 110).

BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

the young, or even the eggs, in her mouth to a place of
safety when they have been intruded upon.

The Nighthawk, like the Whippoorwill, is very
tenacious of its nesting location. Year after year the
pair will resort to the same identical low flat rock in
the old pasture or hay field, or to another close by.
The eggs are laid at about the same time as the Whip-
poorwills’. It is often fearfully hot on the unshielded
rock, out in the glare of the summer sun, but the bird
sticks bravely to her task and seems to know no such
thing as sunstroke.

Just as the Whippoorwill blends with the brown of
the dead leaves, so does the Nighthawk with the gray
of the weather-beaten rock. Not long ago I conducted
a party of ladies, members of a bird club, to inspect a
Nighthawk on her nest. There were ten of them, and
in extended line we approached the spot, a low flat
rock just projecting from the ground, in a hay field.
When we were perhaps twenty feet away, we stopped,
and I pointed to the motionless bird. Ten pairs of
field glasses were leveled at the poor, modest creature.
This aggregation must have looked about as formidable
to her as a company of soldiers aiming their rifles would
have done to us. She was relying, though, on her pro-
tective coloration, and, indeed, not one of the enthusiasts
was able at first to make her out. At last, one by one,
each with a squeal of delight, made the great discovery.
They fairly stared her out of countenance, for, as we
drew a little nearer, she fluttered off, dragging her wings

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BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

over the grass as though badly wounded, to tempt us
to follow her.

Though I knew of various Nighthawk locations, and
found their eggs from year to year, this bird was es-
pecially tame, and was my preferred stalking-horse for
photographs. I first snapped her in 1900, using a
thread, from a distance. Every season she set up
business at the old stand, and in 1907 I found her—late,
like the Whippoorwill—on the first day of July with two
fresh eggs. By creeping up very carefully and making
every movement slowly, I was able to place the camera,
on the tripod, within less than a yard of her, and took
as many pictures as I needed, without having to retire
and wait. Ned tried to “get” her that day with the
camera, but he was in too much of a hurry and scared
her off; but later he snapped her with the “Reflex,”
as she sat on a rock.

On July sixteenth the eggs were evidently about to
hatch, and the Nighthawk was tamer than I had ever
known one to become. Not only could I photograph
her, but I poked her with a short stick and made her
stand up and raise her wings beside the eggs without
flying. On the nineteenth I found the young hatched,
the eggshells still lying near by on the rock. It was well
that I photographed the singular little striped fellows
when I did, for next day the field was mowed. The
men put the little birds on a higher rock so that they
might not be injured, but a few days later, when I came,
they had disappeared. Either the old birds moved

110

| ae kh YO i DE ? Maat
Nighthawk on eggs, alarmed. “My preferred stalking-horse for photographs”
(p- 110).

ty, hia Ai os

Sie op
a

Nighthawk by her eggs. “Made her raise her wings” (p. 110).

BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

them, or else some prowling varmint got them, which
last we trust did not occur.

It seemed but a few days till the last of August, when
the Nighthawks began to appear in straggling flocks,
flying southward in a leisurely manner, catching insects
as they went. On the eighth of September the sky
for hours was dotted with them in every direction. It
was reassuring to any bird lover to see so many, proving
that there must yet be some places where they are
abundant. But there came with it also a minor cadence,
a thought as of sere and yellow autumn. “Ned,” I
said to him, “those migrants are telling us that we shall
photograph no more nesting Nighthawks this year.”

Though the art museums of Europe may have some
treasures of which America cannot boast, our continent
has the distinction of a monopoly of the world’s supply
of Hummingbirds, the gems of all the feathered crea-
tion. Of these there are said to be some four hundred
species—the four hundred we may call them!—nearly
all of which are peculiar to the tropical regions. Only
eighteen cross the borders of the United States from
Mexico, and appear only in our southwestern States,
except one, our familiar little ““Ruby-throat,”’ which is
found throughout the United States and up as far north
as Labrador. Nothing in bird life is comparable with
these wonderful tiny creatures. They are literally gems,
in that their feathers flash brilliant, wonderful hues
which vary as in the kaleidoscope at every angle of

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vision. Their motions are too rapid for the eye clearly
to follow. Though they have no song, and emit only
an insect-like chirp or squeak, the hummer, as a writer
has prettily said, “needs none. Its beauty gives it dis-
tinction, and its wings make music.”

Nearly everyone knows the little hummer—the
Ruby-throated Hummingbird, the books call it—which
darts about in the garden from flower to flower. Its
tiny wings move so rapidly that they appear only as a
blur, and produce the humming sound from which the
bird takes its name. Almost fearless of man, it hovers
by the blossom close beside us, like some large insect.
Though it measures a trifle over three inches long,
there are insects which can easily be mistaken for it.
A certain large moth has often deceived me for the
moment; but the fact that it comes in the dusk, when
the little hummer has gone to bed, may guard one
against being deceived.

The popular idea is that the hummer lives only on
honey gathered from flowers. This is a mistake. ‘The
bird does secure some honey, but its food consists
mainly of the small insects which frequent the flowers.
Some of these insects are injurious to the blossom and
the tiny bird fulfills a useful function in destroying them.
That the hummer is insectivorous is also shown by its
habit of catching tiny insects on the wing, which is
occasionally observed.

So familiar are Hummingbirds toward man that they
will readily enter open windows of houses if they see

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BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

flowers within. I have even read of their visiting the
artificial flowers on a lady’s hat when she was walking
out, and other writers speak of their taking sugar from
between a person’s lips. In a room they become con-
fused, and, being so frail, are apt to injure themselves
by striking against objects. More than once I or mem-
bers of my family have caught the frightened little
waifs for their good, and released them in the open air.
It is of no use to try to keep them in captivity, unless,
possibly, it were in a greenhouse where there were
plenty of flowers, for no artificial food has ever been
found which will nourish them. Yet even there they
would probably kill themselves by flying against the
glass.

We may expect the little hummer in the Middle
States or New England early in May each year. They
seem to come paired and resort each time to the familiar
hunting grounds. At least we are apt to see Humming-
birds in the same places year after year. By early June
each pair has its dainty nest and two tiny white eggs
hardly larger than peas. A favorite site for the nest is
an old lichen-grown apple tree in an orchard, generally
not high up. But often they will choose some shade
tree, like a maple, in the garden or along the street.
Sometimes it is on a tree in a swamp or in deep woods.

It was in the latter situation that I found my first
occupied nest of the hummer, though, when a small
boy, I remember discovering the home of a pair that
frequented our garden, saddled to the lower limb of a

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BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

larch tree close by the house, but only after the birds
had left it. It was one Memorial Day, and with a
friend I was looking for birds in some tall white pine
woods. My attention was attracted by a Veery, or
Wilson’s Thrush, which flew up from the ground into
a pine. Just as it alighted it was attacked in the most
violent manner by a tiny bird, which was so quick in
its motions that I could hardly tell what was going on.
The thrush, though a far larger bird, unable to rival
such velocity and deftness of attack, was driven off in a
hurry. Naturally we assumed that there was a nest
near, and sure enough, there it was, about two-thirds
way out on one of the lower branches of the pine, some
fifteen feet up, not in a crotch, but built on to the
branch itself, as though it were a knot or excrescence of
the same. While we examined it the female buzzed
and darted about our heads like an angry bee. As for
the male, he did not put in his appearance, and I have
reason to fear that he is a shirk. Since then I have
found various nests, but I do not in any case recall
seeing the male about when his wife was in distress
over the intrusion. Some writers state that he leaves
to her all the care of eggs and young. Formerly he was
very ardent in his protestations of affection and devo-
tion, but now, as the flowers expand in greater profusion,
he finds them more interesting than the prosaic duties
of home.

This home, howbeit, is one of the most remarkable
and artistic creations of all bird architecture. It is a

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BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

tiny, delicate cup, made of the softest plant down, sad-
dled upon some rather slender branch, so deftly that it
seems a part thereof. Delicate cobweb threads are
used to compact and secure the material, and likewise
to coat the exterior with the gray-green lichens so gen-
erally found upon trees. This makes it so assimilate
with the surroundings that it is a very difficult object
to discover. And thereby hangs a tale. A gentleman
had told me that, if I would call upon him, he would
show me an occupied nest of a Hummingbird in his
orchard. When I came he was out of town, but I
thought I would see if I could not find the nest myself.
So I made inspection from tree to tree, and presently
the female hummer began to fly about me anxiously.
We played a game of hot and cold until it became
evident that the nest must be in a certain low apple tree
which had many dead, lichen-covered branches. Some
of these came down nearly to the ground, and for quite
a while I stood by the tree, running my eyes along each
branch in order, trying to make out the nest, while the
female kept darting frantically at my head. It must
have been nearly a quarter of an hour before I dis-
covered that I was standing almost touching the nest
with my hands, having been looking right over it all
the time. It contained two fresh eggs, this being in
the early part of June. The branch upon which it was
built was completely overgrown with lichens, and the
nest, covered with them too, was wonderfully disguised,
though there were no leaves to hide it.
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BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

Another nest I found in a similar fashion, but much
more easily. I was in a patch of swampy thicket of
low trees and bushes adjoining a meadow. A hummer
began to dart about, so I looked for the nest and almost
at once saw it, well out on a low branch of a maple.
There were no lichens on this green branch, though they
had been plastered on the nest, as usual, so that it was
more conspicuous than in the other case. This nest
also had two eggs.

These hatch in less than two weeks, probably ten to
twelve days, and in two weeks more the young have
grown up and gone. There is easily time, then, for a
second brood to mature before the nights grow cool, and
the hummers often take advantage of this fact. One
day in July a little girl came running in to tell us that
she had found a hummer’s nest in the orchard back
of our home. It was placed on a low branch, about
breast high from the ground, and contained but one
egg. The little mother darted about, alighting here
and there on slender twigs as I examined the nest.
When I withdrew a few yards she would quickly return
to her duty. It was a beautiful sight to see her enter
the nest. She did not perch upon the edge, but hovered
over it, and, with wings speeding like the wheel of a
dynamo, would then drop right into her little cup just
as a piece of thistle-down might have settled upon it,
lightly and airily, making one of the prettiest bird sights
that I have ever seen.

Evidently it was a fine chance to photograph, not

116

fa Zz é

Humming Bird incubating. “Would quickly return to her duty” (p. 116).

Hummer “in the midst of the feeding comedy”’ (p. 120).

BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

only the nest, but the bird upon it as well. This was a
decade ago, when I was just beginning to photograph
wild birds, and I did not utilize the opportunity as fully
as I should have done later. However, I set up the
camera upon the tripod, very close to the nest, and,
attaching the thread to the shutter, sat down under the
next tree to await my opportunity. The hummer
returned to the nest at once, paying no heed to the
instrument. Unfortunately the foliage obscured the
light, and at that time I was under the false impression
that a slow plate would give the best results, with most
detail, in this sort of work. This necessitated a timed
exposure, and the bird was almost sure to turn her
head when the shutter opened. ‘Thus I accumulated a
series of pictures of a double-headed hummer, a species
which is not recognized by scientists. One negative,
from a snapshot, was sharp but very faint. Yet there
is hope even thus of a valuable exposure, if only there
be detail, however weak. The best thing to do is to
print or enlarge on the most contrasty grade of glossy
lamplight paper, which will give a strong, plucky print.
If it is too black, reduce it to the proper degree with red
prussiate of potassium reducer, as one would a plate,
giving local reduction where it is needed. ‘Then photo-
graph the print in a way not to show the grain of the
paper, and the resulting negative, as compared with the
original, will prove a surprise and a delight. A rare
and valuable picture is well worth this trouble, and I
have saved many undertimed snapshots in this way.
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BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

In this case there was no opportunity for camera studies
of the young hummer, for the egg never hatched. The
faithful mother brooded it week after week till she lost
heart and quit. Then I took possession and blew the
egg, finding in it nothing but water.

The time came, at length, when I was to have every
facility for this study and when, with wider experience,
I could take full advantage of it. It came at a season
when I had no idea of any more pictures of bird nesting,
unless of the ever tardy Goldfinch—in mid-August. A
road was being cut through a tract of woods, just back
from the shore of a small lake. One afternoon they
cut down a black birch tree, and the next morning,
when one of the men was cutting it up, he heard a
continued chirping, and, upon making investigation,
found the nest of a Hummingbird out on a slender
branch of the fallen tree, about twenty-five feet up from
the base. It was tipped over to one side, yet in it was
a young hummer, clinging to the soft lining, and on
the ground beneath it was another. They were nearly
fledged and just about able to fly. Taking pity on the
poor little things, the man cut off the limb with the nest,
fixed it firmly between two trees about five feet from
the ground, and placed the little hummers upon it.
At first they fluttered out, and, indeed, they seemed so
much too large for the tiny cup that it appeared almost
impossible for them both to fit in. But what man
could not do the birds did themselves, when they got
good and ready. The men on the estate were much

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BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

interested in the tiny creatures, and, fearing that they
were abandoned to starve, sent to me to learn how to
feed them. Fortunately, however, there was no need
for clumsy human effort, which would have been
unavailing. The mother bird soon found them, as
she may have done already, and was busy feeding
them long before I arrived, which was not until the
next day.

It was a sight which well repaid me for the drive up
the steep mountain road. The nest itself was beautiful,
but even more so were the tiny mites of bird life which
occupied it. The old saying that there is always room
for one more may be true in human affairs, but it cer-
tainly would not apply to this hummer’s nest. Both
birds were side by side, facing the same way, tails and
bills projecting over the rim of the nest. The green
and gray of their plumage harmonized beautifully with
the greenish lichens which adorned the nest. ‘There
was a pretty, confiding air about the little beauties.
They did not seem afraid and I could approach them
as closely as I wished without alarming them.

As it was already mid-afternoon, I set about photo-
graphing them at once. Presently, as I was arranging
the camera, I heard a buzzing sound, and the young
began to chirp and struggle excitedly. The mother had
come to feed them, but she went off when she saw me.
As soon as I had photographed the young in the nest,
I tied a thread to the shutter and sat down a few rods
away, hoping for a shot the next time that the mother

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BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

came with food. After some little waiting, I again
heard the buzzing sound. It was the old bird; yet she
did not come directly to the nest, but alighted well up
in a tree near by. Then she perched on a twig near the
nest, where she stood quivering her wings. ‘The young
were greatly excited; they chirped with all their might,
quivering with eagerness, and opened their outstretched
bills, begging for food. ‘Then the mother hovered close
over them, but darted away, not liking the camera.
After doing this a few times, she alighted on the branch
close to the nest, and I sprung the shutter. Its snap
frightened her away, and I changed the plate. She
soon returned, and this time I waited till she was in
the midst of the feeding comedy before I pulled.

This is a most remarkable performance. The parent
alights on the edge of the nest and stands quietly for a
moment, while the young are begging with all the
eloquence and earnestness which would betoken a mat-
ter of life and death—as it certainly is to them, poor
little things! Perhaps she is deciding which youngster
to favor and making inward preparation for what
naturalists call the act of regurgitation. Selecting the
fortunate hopeful, she inserts her bill into the widely-
opened mouth and forces it deep down into the anatomy
of the youngster. Then she rams it violently up and
down, and with each jerk ejects from her crop the
luscious nectar, a mixture of partly digested insects and
honey. Sometimes she would bring a small whitish
insect held at the tip of her bill, but when she fed this

120

Hummer and young. “Sometimes she would bring a small whitish insect” (p. 120)

bee
Young Hummers in nest. “ A pretty confiding air about the little beauties” (p. 119).

BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

to the chick, she also continued the meal with other
food from the store below. Meanwhile the other little
fellow would appear terribly disappointed. Then the
shutter would click and she would dart away, but we
may believe that the next time she knew enough to feed
the other chick.

T had only one more shot that afternoon, and then
the sun sank behind the tops of the forest. In the
little clearing the light only served from eleven to four
o’clock, and the next day I gave this space of time to
the work. At first I moved the nest lower down and
secured even better pictures of the young than I had
done the day before. Just as I had made the last
exposure which I desired, the old bird began to buzz
around. One of the young became very uneasy. It
stirred about in the nest and began to whir its wings.
At first this had no effect, but presently the wings took
hold upon the air, and the little one floated upward as
slowly and gently as a feather and reached a branch a
dozen feet from the ground. I tried to catch it and put
it back, but only made it fly up higher into the forest,
and I saw it no more, though at times I could hear its
little insect-like chirp.

The nest was now in shadow, so I moved it a few
yards out into open sunlight and set the camera.
Presently the mother bird returned, but did not see the
nest and went off. Time dragged by and she did not
return. Alarmed and remorseful I put the nest back
close to its former location. The sun’s rays came to it,

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but not the mother. Meanwhile, the poor chick chirped
hungrily and made my heart ache for it. Finally, well
along in the afternoon, I heard the familiar buzz, and
when the mother came and fed the chick gratitude and
delight welled up in my soul. The old hummer now
returned at frequent intervals and I secured four more
pictures.

On this trip I had the pleasure of the genial and lively
society of Ned. He was greatly interested in the
various sights and proceedings and assisted me in a
number of ways. But the long wait for the return of
the mother bird proved too slow for his sanguine
temperament. The lake shimmered enticingly through
the woodland foliage, and there were fish in it too! I
saw that Ned was casting wistful glances in that direc-
tion and then toward the nest and the expected hum-
mer. He wanted to see the feeding process, but he did
want to “go fishin’,’—like any other boy. Ned was
certainly a remarkably good ornithologist for his years,
but we would not give the impression that he was any
little old man, or a “dry-as-dust.” That was not the
case, for he is a real live American boy and reads a
publication of that name. 1 knew just how he felt and
told him to go ahead and get a mess for supper. That
was the last I saw of him for quite a while. Toward
the end of the afternoon he came back with a string of
twenty-five and he was in time to see the mother hummer
give her youngster some supper.

The following afternoon I drove my wife up to see

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BIRDS WITH A HANDICAP

the wonder, if, indeed, it were not too late. To our
joy the tiny bird was still in the nest and its mother
was so attentive that within an hour I had seven more
pictures to the good. Pictures of the little dear perching
on a twig, ready for his exit into the great wide world,
crowned the successful labors. Next day the workmen
found only the empty nest which had served well its
purpose of giving to the world two more art treasures

of bird life.

123

CHAPTER VIII
PROFESSIONAL FLY-CATCHING
(The Flycatchers)

NE day I had a fine reward for giving a little girl

a ride in my buggy. She was trudging to her

home over a mile away, so, as I overtook her,

I stopped and let her get in. ‘‘Have you seen the bird’s
nest on top of the post?’ was about the first thing she
said. “No, where is it?’ I inquired. “‘Just on beyond
here,” she replied, “T’ll show you when we come to it.”
“There she is on the nest!’ presently exclaimed the
child. Sure enough, there sat a bird flat on top of one
of the posts of the wire fence which separated the high-
way from the railway track. As we came nearer I saw
it was a Kingbird. I slowed the horse down to a walk,
and watched to see how near the bird would let us come.
The country road was very narrow, and when we were
opposite the devoted little mother she was just about
within arm’s reach, yet there she sat. I stopped the
horse, and then she flew up on the telegraph wires over-
head, where she expressed noisily her disapproval of
my loitering on her premises. She did not mind, the
little girl said, if people went along past and attended to

124

Kingbird on nest. “A most remarkable situation” (p. 125).

PROFESSIONAL FLY-CATCHING

their own business, but she had no use for inquisitive
persons.

The top of the post, I found, had become rotted out
in the center, forming a nice little cup. In this the
birds had built a very frail nest, nothing like the bulky
one they usually make, and the female had laid the
three usual handsomely blotched eggs. Besides being
so close to vehicles passing on the road, on the other
side the railway trains whizzed by within a yard of her,
and altogether it was a most remarkable situation for
birds which usually prefer an orchard. Right across
the road was an apple orchard, just the place for them,
one would think, but the queer selection they made
was no one’s affair but their own, and I am glad they
made the choice they did.

I was afraid that, in such a public place some mis-
creant would break up the nest before I could get
photographs. Bright and early the next morning, the
first day of July, I drove down there, and was delighted
to find everything all right. ‘The mother was incubat-
ing, but she would not let me walk up to her with the
camera. So I set it up on the tripod reasonably near
the nest, and went off a little way with the thread.
After some hesitating and flying angrily at the camera,
the bird decided that it would not hurt her, and settled
down upon her eggs. Of course I “got’’ her, and after
this she would come back almost at once, and I soon
had as many pictures of her as I wished, in all sorts of
positions. While I was working, an express train

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PROFESSIONAL FLY-CATCHING

went thundering by. The concussion of the air almost
blew her off the nest, but she hung on and sat as firmly
as a cowboy in his saddle. It was usually the same
story, though once she left when a blundering freight
was half way by.

The best fun came when the young were out and
about half grown. The mother, I think it was, usually
stood beside them, sometimes shielding them from the
sun, for there was no shade whatever. There was a
pond close by, and the father spent most of his time
watching the dragon flies darting about over the water,
now and then giving chase to one. They were nearly
a match for him in flight. Sometimes he would fail
and go back to his perch, but often enough he captured
his prey. As he approached home with his prize, he
always chattered a sort of triumphal march to announce
his coming. If his mate was not on the nest, she
hurried to it, both arriving at about the same time.
The young begged hard for food and their father would
begin to feed them. But mother yearned to assist, so
she would often lay hold of the dragon fly and pull
away till she had torn off a piece, which she would then
feed to the young. Meanwhile the camera was in
place and all ready, so at the favorable instant at differ-
ent stages of the process I pulled the thread and thus
secured a fine series of pictures.

Of course Ned had to come in for his share of the
fun. One day I sat down in the shade and watched
him while he took my camera, set it up by the nest,

126

Kingbird scolding. “Indignant when any one comes near the nest” (p. 127).

i

The entire Kingbird family. ‘The young begged hard for food” (p. 126).

PROFESSIONAL FLY-CATCHING

focused, put in the plate, removed the slide, attached
the thread, set the shutter, and made the exposure when
the birds were feeding. One that he got was especially
fine, showing very plainly the dragon fly with its long
gauzy wings held by the bill of the male, and “getting”’
the whole family at one shot.

To my great satisfaction no one molested the King-
birds, though everyone in the neighborhood knew of
the curiosity. I saw them the afternoon before they
left the nest for good. The little fellows looked very
pretty with their snow-white little shirts, standing up
on the post with their mother beside them, and I got a
snapshot of them thus with my reflecting camera as I
walked along the road past them. With some difficulty
I obtained another picture as the father fed them, but
the old birds were shier of the camera now, and the
young were not fed so often. I praised the boys for
not disturbing the nice family and promised each of
them a picture.

Nearly everyone knows how boldly the Kingbirds
defend their nests and has seen them chase the thieving
crows, flying at them from above and pecking them
sorely as they try vainly to escape. They even keep
off hawks from the farmer’s premises and destroy such
a multitude of insects that it is a fine thing to have a
pair of them located in the orchard. So indignant are
they when anyone comes near the nest that I have
taken advantage of this to snap them with my reflecting
camera. I use a single “22-inch” lens of my eleven-

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PROFESSIONAL FLY-CATCHING

inch-focus doublet, and an aperture of the curtain of
about an inch and a half, with a moderate speed.
Taking the bird perched upon a branch, one can thus
get a good large image with plenty of detail in bright
sunlight.

The Kingbird gets its name from its pugnacious ways
when it must stand for its rights. It does not, however,
bully other birds without good reason; yet, when it
decides to assert itself, it is usually able to enforce its
simple requirement that the undesirable intruder shall
“get out.” It has fighting blood in its veins, for all the
other species of this distinct and interesting order of
flycatchers are good fighters. Their main business is
to catch flying insects, and they all have their art down
to a fine point. Their method is different from that
of the swallows, for instead of keeping long a-wing, as
the latter, the true “flycatcher” stations itself on some
perch which commands a view, like a hawk, dashes to
catch the unwary insect, and returns at once to its
observatory. Various other birds dart after flying
insects, but have other means of livelihood, while the
“‘flycatcher’’ confines itself largely to this one way.

We have another “Tyrant Flycatcher,’ which prob-
ably is equally tyrannical with the bird that bears the
royal name—the Crested Flycatcher. Few people
know it, for it is rather scarce and very shy. Though
it generally chooses orchards for residence, it prefers
those that are abandoned or off from houses, at the edge
of the woods. Even there it is rather hard to see the

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PROFESSIONAL FLY-CATCHING

bird, which is about as large as the Kingbird, for it
gets out of the way when it notes our approach; but
its presence may be known by the single loud ringing
whistle which is different from any other bird note I
know. They nest in a hollow limb, and it is notorious
that in building they almost always use cast-off snake
skins. The eggs are very handsomely and heavily
marked with lines and scrawls.

There are two common flycatchers which are liable
to be confused, the Phoebe and the Wood Pewee.
Both are small gray birds with whitish and partly dusky
breasts. The Phcebe is our familiar home bird which
builds its nest of moss and mud under some sheltered
part of our buildings, even over our very door, or under
the piazza. ‘The Wood Pewee may also be seen about
the premises, but it keeps to the tall shade trees, where
it builds a frail lichen-covered nest flat on some branch
or fork. It is a good deal like the architecture of a
hummingbird and is just about as hard to discover.
The note of the Wood Pewee is that clear plaintive
whistle—‘‘pee-wee-ee’’—and we surely know the short,
throaty note “phe-be”’ of our Phoebe. Another way of
distinguishing the Wood Pewee is that it is rather more
slender than Phcebe, generally with a darker breast,
and it seldom jerks its tail, which last it is Phcebe’s
constant delight to do.

The Pheebe is a hardy bird and comes back for the
summer at a very unsummerlike time, the last week of
March, setting one to wondering how it finds flying

129

PROFESSIONAL FLY-CATCHING

insects in such cold weather. Yet notice on the sunny
side of the building, when the sun shines brightly, how
many flies are buzzing about, which proves that there
are flies, if one only knows where to look for them, and
surely our professional fly-catcher knows that much.
But if anyone claims to have heard a Phoebe back in
mid-winter, do not believe it, for the Chickadee makes a
“‘pewee”’ note, and many are the people who are fooled
and publish their mistake in the local paper. We are
safe to assume that, no flies, no Phoebes.

The hardy bird has its nest built some time in the
latter half of April, according to the sort of season that
prevails, and lays five white eggs, sometimes sparsely
spotted. Before the country was settled, the usual
nesting place was under an overhanging rock, and even
now some of them keep up the old custom. I have
discovered a number of such, and Ned found one close
by where I was photographing the nest of another bird,
a little way below the foot of a beautiful waterfall.

For the past three years a pair of Phcebes have
nested in my barn, and reared two broods of young
each season—six broods in all, laying five eggs the first
time, and four the second, and usually hatching and
rearing them all, or all but one. The nest was on the
projecting end of a board nailed across two ceiling
beams, just over where I drove in with the horse and
buggy. Each year the Phcebe found the old nest all
right, so she used it five times in succession, but this
last time she built another nest at the other end of the

130

ARORES Lip

Pheebe on nest. ‘Nested in my barn” (p. 130).

PROFESSIONAL FLY-CATCHING

barn in a similar situation. At first I wondered why
she deserted such a nice nest, but I found out. One
day I put my hand into the new nest to see how many
young there were, and presently I began to scratch my
head. Oh, how I did itch all that night! My sus-
picions were aroused, so I touched the young again,
and looked at my hand. A whole army of lice were
hurrying to run up my sleeve and I fled to the water
faucet and put a stop to the migration. Ned does not
see how the young can stand it, and neither do I.

We both photographed the Phcebe bird on the nest.
The way I did it was to bring three barrels nearly
under the nest and set up the tripod with full extension,
so that the camera was away up to the ceiling. Stand-
ing on a step ladder, I could focus on the sitting bird,
but the light was so dim that I had to set up a large
mirror outdoors and throw a sunbeam on the nest.
Then I could make short exposures on her, or remove
the mirror and make the exposure last two minutes.
The dear little bird sat perfectly still, and I had the best
results the latter way; the picture was not so harsh.

In the early spring, this last season, soon after the
Pheebes arrived, a sad accident occurred. It was a
windy day and I saw the barn door slam violently.
I was minded to go and prop it, but kept on and did
not. Later in the afternoon a member of my family
brought in the dead body of the male Pheebe, still
warm, with his neck broken. The little fellow had
alighted on the door, and it caught him as it slammed.

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PROFESSIONAL FLY-CATCHING

I felt very sorry, for I thought that now there would
be no Pheebes in the barn. But in a few days I saw
the female on the old nest, preparing to lay, and her
mate perched on the apple tree by the door. Husbands
were evidently plenty and cheap, especially for a rich
widow with such fine property. The new bridegroom
looked exactly like the former one, and our mourning
was turned into gladness.

That same season another tragedy occurred in the
family of a pair of Wood Pewees. ‘These birds are not
so hardy or so early in nesting as the Phoebes, and it
was not till the middle of June that I noticed, in driving
frequently through a grove of locust trees, that a pair
of Wood Pewees were always there in the same spot.
“TI declare, Ned,” I exclaimed, as we drove past again
and saw a Wood Pewee in the accustomed place, “‘there
must be a nest right here, and I’m going to stop and
look.” So I got out of the buggy and immediately
saw the shallow nest built over a crotch of an extended
branch over the road above my head, about twenty
feet above the ground. It contained two young.

We could not stop then, but a few days later we
returned, hoping to photograph the nest and get snap-
shots of the old birds, which were not shy. First I got
out the reflecting camera, and had Ned climb the tree,
hoping that the female would come at him and let me
snap her with my twenty-two-inch lens. But she was a
meek little body and merely wailed her “pee-ee-ee”
from the surrounding trees. I had to chase her around

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PROFESSIONAL FLY-CATCHING

for half an hour, but got some quite good snapshots,
as she perched on dead stubs where the sunlight hap-
pened to strike on her through the leaves.

Then we turned our attention to the nest and Ned’s
sharp eyes were the first to discover that the whole
bottom had fallen out and one of the young had
tumbled through, had become entangled, and dangled
dead from the bottom of the nest. Nothing was left
of it but the rim and the other youngster was perched
upon that. I failed to get any satisfactory photograph,
as the only possible location for the camera was too
far away to show so small an object, and the brittle
locust limb would not bear one’s weight. The next
time I went by, the dead young one had disappeared.
The other stayed on the rim of the nest or the branch
for some days. Then came a terrific wind and thunder
storm, and the next day, when I passed, the youngster
was gone, probably blown off and drowned, poor thing!

There is another flycatcher closely related to the
Wood Pewee, the Olive-sided Flycatcher, which we
may look for only in the migrations as it usually goes
further north to breed. It looks much like the Wood
Pewee, but is larger, nearly the size of the Crested
Flycatcher. It is rather rare and I have only met with
it a few times, generally seeing it chasing flies from some
perch in a high tree on the edge of woods or along
a shaded, retired road.

Except for the Kingbird and Crested Flycatcher, all
our flycatchers are dull-colored gray and white birds,

133

PROFESSIONAL FLY-CATCHING

and some of them are hard to tell apart. ‘Those already
spoken of can be distinguished by differences in size
or build, but there are several little fellows which are
so much alike that it takes a sharp eye and careful
study of the Handbook, to identify them. ‘Those which
may cause confusion are the Alder, Acadian, and Least
Flycatchers. The Yellow-bellied Flycatcher may be
recognized by what its name implies. The Acadian
Flycatcher, a greenish-hued little bird, is seldom seen
north of the Middle States.

Of small species the Least Flycatcher is by far the
best known. It is the familiar little fellow that nests
in orchards and shade trees, and it is constantly repeat-
ing its sharp, scolding note, from which they call it
“Chebec.” One year, in June, I was about to start on
a trip up north into the Province of Quebec, and every
morning one of these little birds, perched just outside
my open bedroom windows, would begin at the first
early ray of dawn and wake me up by calling out
“Quebec, Quebec.” We had a lot of fun over it,
because members of my family said the bird was very
anxious to get me off to Quebec so that I should not
be annoying it with my camera-fiend tricks.

The nest is apt to be out on a slender branch and is
not easy to photograph. But I took pictures of one
with a brood of young about ready to leave by standing
on a ladder, against which I leaned the camera on the
tripod and managed to keep it still enough. Another
time there was a nest out on the end of a branch of a

134

Snapshot of Wood Pewee. ‘As she perched on dead stubs” (p. 133).

A :
Young Least Flycatcher. ‘‘They call it ‘Chebec’” (p. 134).

PROFESSIONAL FLY-CATCHING

pear tree, about a dozen feet up. I secured the picture
of the mother bird incubating by standing on a step-
ladder with my reflecting camera and the big lens,
having a young lady throw light upon the subject, not
by means of her discourse or countenance, but by a
mirror which reflected a sunbeam upon the shaded nest.

All my life until the past June I had never been able
to find the nest of the Alder Flycatcher—which is a
recent name for the eastern form of the species long
known as Traill’s Flycatcher. A friend of mine in a
town not far from where I live, at a higher elevation,
finding this interesting little bird quite common there,
invited me to visit him and see the rare flycatcher and
its nesting. They are late breeders, seldom laying
before the middle of June, and I did not go till the
twenty-seventh.

The bird is known to be one of the most timid and
secretive of the smaller species and to frequent alder
swamps. I had always supposed that the place to
look for it was in dense alder thickets, so I was quite
surprised when my friend conducted me into a moist
pasture where there were only scattered branches of
low alder bushes, most of them not over a yard high.
In one of these he had located a nest some days before,
in process of building. Here it was now, only a foot
from the ground, with one pretty, pinkish egg with
reddish spots around the larger end—a neat nest, not
unlike that of the Chestnut-sided Warbler. ‘The owner

did not appear.
135

PROFESSIONAL FLY-CATCHING

We spent the rest of that day with other birds and
the next morning went to another nest site, in a pasture
through which flows a large meadow brook. There
were scattered clumps of alders, some of them of good
height, but plenty of small ones, too. This nest, how-
ever, was not in an alder, though close to some, but in
some other sort of bush, two feet from the ground. It
contained four eggs, slightly incubated. They were
warm, but the shy bird had slipped away. Setting the
camera, well concealed, in the next bush, for a short
timed exposure, with thread’ attached, we went off for
over an hour to give the bird a chance to return. The
Alder Flycatcher is so very shy that I had my doubts
as to whether she would ever return to the nest with a
camera near it.

When we returned, I crept up within twenty yards
of the nest to where I had left the spool and pulled the
thread. The eggs were warm, so the bird was doubt-
less on when the shutter opened. Yes, and to my
horror it was still open and the plate spoiled! Taking
apart the shutter, I found that some of the delicate
mechanism had collapsed and that photography was
all up for the present. Luckily the jeweler in town was
able to repair it, and early the next morning, my last
day there, I was at the nest. It was cloudy so I had
to allow for a half-second exposure.

After setting the camera I made a slight opening in
the bushes so that I was able to watch the nest with my
strong Zeiss glass from quite a distance. To my de-

136

“(LET °d) , aft] wuogy aye} toa arngord ysrg ayy A[qeqorg,, “saypyeod TT JOPTY aTLT,

PROFESSIONAL FLY-CATCHING

light, within five minutes the bird hopped back on to
the nest and did not move at the click of the shutter.

To make this story short, I repeated this operation a
dozen times, securing a fine array of pictures, probably
the first ever taken of the Alder Flycatcher from life.
The camera was within a yard of the nest and I used
the single twelve-inch lens. The bird became so
accustomed to my presence that she would return to
her task sometimes the moment I withdrew. I could
walk up within a few feet of her as she sat on the nest,
and once she let me change the plate and photograph
her by hand without leaving. The last few times I
pulled the thread as she stood erect on the rim of the
nest preparatory to descending into it.

Evidently the shyness of the Alder Flycatcher is not
unconquerable and is due rather to a natural timidity
than to dislike for our sort of people. But shy the bird
certainly is. Except for this one drawn to the nest by
maternal instinct, it was hard to get even a glimpse of
them. They are very silent, too. The only sounds I
heard from those intruded upon was a very soft, low
“‘pweet.”” In the distance the song of the male was
hardly audible, if, indeed, it deserves to be called a
song, only two syllables like “‘pe-weet.”

Leaving this spot, perfectly delighted at my success, I
drove to the other nest to see if the eggs were laid and
how that bird would act. Other birds that I met
delayed me, and, missing the exact clump of alders,
as there was not time for a careful search I was about

187

PROFESSIONAL FLY-CATCHING

to give up, when I put my hand into the very last likely
clump of small alders in the open, at the edge of a high
alder thicket. I almost touched a bird, which darted
off in a great fright. Actually it was another Alder
Flycatcher’s nest, with two eggs, within only a few
yards of the one I had missed, situated much as was
that one—so much so that I would not have believed
it the same, only it was on the opposite side of the
clump. Just then it began to rain, but I managed to
take two photographs of it, and, by driving fast, barely
caught my train to return home.

188

Alder Flycatcher. “As she stood erect on the rim of her nest” (p. 187).

CHAPTER IX
CROW RELATIVES
(Crows, Jays, Blackbirds, Orioles, Larks)

TARTING off bright and early that elegant
morning, the fifteenth of May, Ned and I drove
twenty miles over the roughest sort of roads

through a wild hill country and explored many a fine
timber tract. It was just the day for active exercise,
bright, but with a cool easterly breeze. Hosts of
interesting bird migrants were streaming through on
their way north and kept us busy identifying them.
We found five occupied hawks’ nests with eggs, and
it was a great day for crows’ nests, too.

In the second piece of woods which we tackled, we
were searching for a hawks’ nest, which we found a
little later, when I discovered a large platform of new
sticks about thirty-five feet up a hemlock tree, with a
bird’s tail sticking out over the edge. At first we both
thought it was the hawk, but the glass showed the
plumage to be “black as a crow,” and crow it was.
It was no come-down either, for I especially wanted a
really good photograph of a nest with a brood of young
crows. The old bird was sitting like a rock and

139

CROW RELATIVES

would not leave till I rapped the tree. Then I went
upstairs to the nursery, after strapping on the climbers,
and found three ugly, nearly naked young. They
were too small to work upon successfully, so I left them
to grow larger.

After this we drove up a long hill through the woods.
The timber was mostly small, but we came to some
that was of good size, where we hitched the horse and
took a scramble up the steep hillside. In a few mo-
ments I saw a large nest high up in a large chestnut
tree. A crow was brooding on this one, too, and she
was as loath to depart as the other bird. The nest was
so inaccessible for photographing that we did not
climb, but drove on a number of miles further, devouring
an ample lunch, as we proceeded, with keen appetites.

The next tract which we decided to explore was a
grove of moderate-sized oak timber which proved to be
smaller than I had thought, and I was at first sorry
that we had bothered with it. There were several
squirrels’ nests, and presently I saw a nest that looked
promising. It was only about twenty feet up a slender
young oak, and there was a bird on it, a crow, I saw,
as I came nearer. Beside her, at the edge of the nest, I
could see some bright red objects which puzzled me
until I made out that they were the widely opened
mouths of young crows which were poking out their
heads from under the brooding mother and begging for
food.

The old bird left when I came very near and I saw

140

“Five red-flannel mouths stretched agape” (p. 141).

Young Crows in nest.

CROW RELATIVES

that here was a splendid chance for just the picture I
wanted. Another small oak grew close alongside the
one with the nest, at just the right distance and in the
right direction, on the sunny side of the nest. Ned ran
to get the small camera and the tree apparatus, while
I climbed the tree next to the nest and looked in. Five
hungry little crows, nearly fledged, raised their heads
and opened their mouths as wide as they knew how,
beseeching me to appease their gnawing appetites.
Pretty soon Ned came back with the camera, and,
after going down to get it and climbing back, I went to
work to screw it up. It took certainly a quarter of an
hour to make everything ready. By this time the
youngsters had settled sleepily down into the nest and
would not rouse up to beg for food, till I bethought
myself to cut a switch and stir them up. No sooner
done than, presto, up popped five black heads, with
five red-flannel mouths stretched agape, from which
were issuing excited caws, because they thought that
mother had arrived. Instantly I squeezed the bulb
and had them just as I wanted them. I barely had
time to finish the work when it clouded over darkly,
so we drove off.

I planned to photograph these youngsters again
when they were about to leave the nests, so I drove
back there alone some days afterward. But I had
waited just too long. My subjects were there, but they
had left the nest and could fly from tree to tree, so that
it would have required the help of a gun to capture

141

CROW RELATIVES

them. On the way home I visited the other two nests,
but the young had left the one in the tall chestnut, and
in the hemlock nest all that was left was about half of
one of the young ones. My friend the hawk had been
finding the gentle art of eating crow not as disagreeable
as some suppose. This was proper enough, in all
justice, to avenge the pillaging of many a small bird’s
nest by the black rascals.

The only way that I knew of at this late day to get
young crows to photograph, was to hustle and find
some. ‘Truly I worked hard, but I had no success till
I came across a friend who recently, while resting in
some woods, had seen a crow fly to a nest in a low
fork of a big chestnut tree. One may be sure I lost
no time in having him show me the nest, the only
delay being to examine the nest of an Ovenbird which
fluttered from her eggs almost at my feet. All was
silent at the crow’s nest, but I took the camera with
me up a sapling which grew beside the other tree, and
saw three young crows almost fully fledged squatting
low in the nest. ‘They were too old to beg for food,
having learned to fear, so I photographed them as they
were, in the nest; then I climbed to the nest, took
them down in a creel, photographed them on a log, and
restored them to their home, though my friend was for
wringing their necks. After I was gone I suspect that
they went the way of all the world!

Although the crow is usually a shy bird, it is perfectly
possible to photograph it at the nest, provided that one

142

“(oF ‘d) ,. Soy @ uo wey} poyd

“SMOLD 9

”

CROW RELATIVES

find a nest favorably situated. I have not attempted
it owing to pressure of other work, but once I placed
a dummy camera close to a nest with young, and the
old birds soon learned to ignore it and fed their off-
spring. In the West the crows are much tamer than
here in the East. Out in North Dakota, I have been
able to walk within a few steps of crows incubating
in low trees, and it probably would not have been very
hard to photograph them, had I been able to take
the time.

Everyone knows how tame they become in severe
winter weather when the snow is deep. Chilled and
emaciated, they come close to houses and barns seeking
food. Some years ago one came to a city street so
exhausted that it could not fly, and I rescued it from
a gang of cruel boys who were kicking it to death. I
saw the remains of one on the snow in the woods,
which a fox had eaten, as was shown by the many
tracks, and they sometimes fall victims to hawks and
owls. Near a certain hawk’s nest recently, one lay
dead on the ground, with the flesh of its breast torn
out. Next day nothing was there but a few feathers.

They breed quite early and it is time to find their
eggs during the last half of April. In regions where
there are pines they build in these, and high up, where
the nests are generally hard to see from the ground.
In such country as that where I now live, pines are
scarce, and Ned and I hunt for crows’ nests in decidu-
ous trees or hemlocks.

143

CROW RELATIVES

Most people do not realize that the Blue Jay is a
member of the Crow family. But it is, and has all the
mischievous, destructive, thieving instincts of the crow,
and with a lot of audacity, or “cheek,” thrown in for
good measure. It robs the nests of other birds and is
very unpopular with them. The appearance of a jay
about their homes is the signal for the breaking forth
of a general clamor, till the rascal, seeing that it is
found out, beats a retreat. Hardy, like the crow, it is
found throughout the year. Ordinarily it is rather shy
about making friends with man, but it often shrewdly
senses when it is wanted and comes to him for food in
cold weather. A friend of mine puts peanuts in the
shell out on his piazza roof, and early in the morning
I have watched the jays come and eat down the peanuts
whole, shucks and all.

The Blue Jays’ nest is a rather neat structure of twigs
and rootlets and is built in some low tree in woods,
swamp or pasture, and generally by early May contains
four or five dark spotted eggs. Now and then a jay,
especially when the young are hatched, is very bold in
the defense of its home. There are many cases where
the bird has braved the intruder and even allowed
itself to be handled. But I have not yet had the good
fortune myself to meet with such an individual. The
nearest I came to it was with one which I found incubat-
ing on the first day of May in a low crotch of a small
tree at the edge of the woods, about as high up as my
head. This jay allowed me to step up on a stump

144

CROW RELATIVES

six or eight feet from her, but only because I moved
very slowly. At that time I had a camera with only a
small lens and short bellows, and the best I could get
was a small picture, as she would not return while the
camera was set up near the nest.

Various friends of mine have beaten me on Blue Jay
pictures, but some day I hope to get even with them.
I tried to do this last spring and had most exasperating
luck, though I made an encouraging start, finding three
nests the first day I looked. Early in May I was going
to a hawks’ nest and passed some pasture cedars,
bordering the woods, when I saw a jay go skulking
from them. There was a nest near by, just ready for
eggs. This set me to searching the cedars—always a
favorite resort for jays—and further along I came upon
a jay sitting on four eggs, and further still another
on five. The birds were all shy, and, strange to say,
a few days later, every nest was deserted or robbed.
This only made me the more determined, and, one
after another, I found six more nests, nine occupied
nests in all, besides several other new ones that had
been recently abandoned. But to be brief—not one of
these pairs raised its family. Only three of them
hatched, and in these cases the young disappeared
before they grew a feather. I had not disturbed them
in any way, save one pair at whose nest I set a dummy
camera awhile, and I charged the mischief upon crows
or other jays, though I have no means of definitely
knowing. All I could do in line of pictures was to

145

CROW RELATIVES

get a few snapshots with the reflecting camera of the
jays that had young, as they scolded from the foliage
above me. I shall keep on looking, though, and some
fine day, I expect I shall find a bold pair of jays after
my own heart. If Ned should succeed first, though, I
know I should never hear the last of it.

There is a group, or Family, of birds which comes
next after the Corvide, or Crows, called Icteride,
which means oriole-like birds. It includes the various
blackbirds, so that it is easy to think of them along
with the crow. One of its members is the Meadow-
lark, which is really not a lark at all. The Family of
true Larks comes in the classification just before the
Crows, and, as we have just one species, we may as
well mention it here with the Meadowlark. It is the
Horned Lark, or Shore Lark. During the winter
months they come down to us from the cold North,
especially along the seacoast, on beaches or sand
dunes. How I have enjoyed midwinter seashore
strolls, and this pretty lark, with its salmon tints,
black half-moon on the breast and curious little feathery
“horns.” ‘They go in scattered flocks, often with the
handsome white Snowflake, or Snow Bunting. We
trace them by their mellow chirpings and find them
here and there among the beach grass, picking up the
seeds. Like enough we alarm them and away goes
the flock all at once. For a while they circle about in
the air, and finally return, perhaps, to nearly the same
place. Inland they are not so common, yet we are

146

be 8 st \ a ‘

Blue Jay. “Incubating on the first day of May” (p. 144).

Blue Jay. “Scolded from the foliage above me” (p. 146).

CROW RELATIVES

liable to run across them now and then in winter, in
open fields, especially with flocks of Snow Buntings.
There is also a pale Western form of this species called
the Prairie Horned Lark. This occasionally breeds
with us anywhere in the East, frequenting dry fields
and barren pastures or hillsides. If one see a pale,
bleached-looking lark, look out, for it is something
worth while! A pair stopped one spring late in April
about two miles from where I live. Ned kept track of
them for me and often heard their sweet warbled songs.
We surely thought they were intending to breed and
spend the summer, but in two weeks they disappeared.

In these same fields the Meadowlark is found, fairly
commonly, but not as much so as it used to be. For-
merly it was hunted as game, but now it is protected
as one of our most valuable destroyers of grubs and
insects that damage the grass land. About the middle
of May they have eggs in a well-concealed nest in a
bunch of dry grass, arched over on top. The male is
very watchful and gives his sitting wife the alarm when
he sees anyone coming, and at once she sneaks off
without flying directly from the nest. Consequently
the nest is very hard to find. But now and then I
have taken the sentinel off his guard, especially in the
evening, and by mere chance flushed the female from
her eggs when I had almost trodden upon her. The
farmer in mowing his fields is the most apt of anyone
to find this hid treasure, for the bird often rears two
broods, the last even as late as July or August. One

147

CROW RELATIVES

farmer showed me a nest late in August which a day
or two before I saw it had contained two unsound
eggs and two young birds nearly grown. When I
came, one of these had traveled off in the grass on his
stout long legs, and somehow an egg had disappeared,
but I photographed what was left, glad enough of the
chance.

The Western form of this species, called the Western
Meadowlark, is a beautiful singer and is perhaps the
most beloved of birds to the settler upon the vast
prairie. And I, too, on my expeditions, have enjoyed
them and their fine music.

Next come our Orioles, and not everyone knows that
we have two kinds. The brilliant Baltimore Oriole
that builds its remarkable hanging nest from the tips
of the elm boughs along our shaded town or village
streets is the one that is so widely known. Very
promptly each spring on the fourth to sixth of May,
Ned and I hear its clear notes again, after its long trip
to South or Central America and back since we last
saw it. As with many birds, the males arrive some
time before the females. But before long they are all
here and mated, and then begins the making of their
very remarkable suspended pouch nests. Everyone
knows of the wonderful skill with which they weave
into these structures all sorts of material in ways that
would defy our ingenuity. When I was a boy my
mother hung out some nice lace work from the window
of our home, in the suburbs of Boston, to bleach and

148

Rusty Grackle. “Emitting a flood of saucy expletives” (p. 155).

CROW RELATIVES

dry. A pair of orioles were building a nest in the elm
close by and they appropriated the lace. We never
knew what had become of it till in the autumn a great
gale blew down the branch on which hung the orioles’
nest, and there was the lace woven into it so skillfully
that it took a long time to get it out, somewhat the worse
for wear. But we like to hang out less expensive
material, strings and yarn, and see the orioles tug at
it and carry it off to their nests. A little girl up in our
section of the country had a fine scheme. She prepared
warp and woof for the orioles’ use, and to each piece
tied a label with her name and the date. The orioles
made good use of it and were willing to give her their
free advertising, for a number of fluttering tags hung
from the nest announcing that the firm of “Helen
Pease’? had supplied building material.

The other species is the Orchard Oriole, a somewhat
smaller bird, less brilliantly colored, and much rarer
than the Baltimore. It is seldom seen further north
than the latitude of southern New England. As its
name implies, it is partial to orchards. There, in a
pear or apple tree, often close to houses, it builds its
nest, which is not so deep or elaborate as the Baltimore’s,
nor so pensile, and is made of dry grass.

On a certain farm one or two pairs of both kinds of
orioles were accustomed to build. Both of them liked
the pear trees for a nesting site, but the brilliant bird
also used the elms and the other the apple trees. It is
a hard matter, usually, to photograph any orioles’

149

CROW RELATIVES

nest in situ. Many a nest hanging tantalizingly before
me I have been unable to reach. But one year, on
this farm, a pair of Orchard Orioles built their nest in
the middle of a large apple tree, though among the
topmost twigs, and it seemed as though here must be a
chance for a picture, if ever I was to have one. After
discussing the situation with Ned, we borrowed a tall
ladder and set it up against the tree. Then I went up
with camera and tripod to the top of the ladder and
climbed into the slender boughs above. The only
accessible side of the nest was shaded, so a short-timed
exposure on the tripod was necessary. J managed to
stick the spike of each tripod-leg into a slender branch
or crotch, and, by keeping very still at the critical
moments, fairly holding my breath, secured some good
pictures. ‘There were three well-grown young in the
nest, and one picture shows an open bill projecting out,
begging for food. After succeeding there, I placed
two of the young on a branch in a more favorable
position, and Ned and I both added pictures of young
Orchard Orioles to our series.

All our other species which are classed in this group
of birds have some claim to be called Blackbirds.
Even the prattling Bobolink often gets the name of
“Skunk Blackbird’? because the male is black and
white. This interesting bird is a regular “Jekyll and
Hyde” in leading a double life. As Bobolinks they
arrive in early May and settle down in the meadows
and clover fields for about ten weeks of love, song and

150

Ue ddl? bi: ey ,
Nest of Orchard Oriole, with bill of young projecting (p. 150).

Z

Young Orchard Orioles. “Placed two . . . ona branch” (p. 150).

CROW RELATIVES

familiarity with men. But before July is out, presto,
they are “Reedbirds,” plain in dress, shy roamers in
flocks, which levy toll upon the growing grain.

It is no easy task to find the Bobolinks’ nest, hidden
away snugly in the long grass. The garrulous male
gives warning of our approach and the female sneaks
from the nest, so that in vain do we try to flush her.
But Ned and I have learned a trick or two. We get a
rope a hundred feet or more in length, and in the
evening or on a rainy day, having secured permission of
the owner of the land, course systematically over the
fields the distance of the length of the rope apart,
dragging it between us and watching its progress.
Suddenly up goes a brown bird, perhaps midway along
the rope where it has just swished over the grass.
Keeping our eyes on the spot where it started, we drop
the rope and hurry there, and, on hands and knees,
presently find the frail nest of dry grass with its five or
six handsomely marked eggs, or an equal number of
thriving young for which the meadow has produced
abundance of insect or other foods.

Another of these quasi-blackbirds is that parasite,
the enemy of the small birds, generally known as Cow-
bird, but it is also called Cow Bunting, or even Cow
Blackbird. 'The latter name it deserves well enough,
for the male is shiny black, all but its brown head and
neck. The “cow” part of its various names it has
earned by its fondness for the company of cattle. I
have seen them on the backs of the cattle like big flies

151

CROW RELATIVES

—especially out West where there are plenty of both
cattle and Cowbirds. They are good friends to the
cattle because they pull out grubs or maggots from the
animals’ hides or sores, and thus perform a useful
service. We can only wish that they were as helpful
to their nearer relatives among the birds. But the
existence of every Cowbird proclaims the death of a
brood of useful destroyers of insects or weed-seeds,
which have perished because of the strong and greedy
parasite. The female Cowbird lays one egg or more
in the nests of these other birds, and in the struggle for
existence the young Cowbird always wins. In other
chapters where figure the victimized species, I shall
show how the parasite works and fares.

The Red-winged or Swamp Blackbird is a familiar
and abundant bird over most of the United States.
Few fresh water marshes there are where we may not
hear the ‘“‘conk-a-ree”’ song or the harsh alarm note of
this conspicuous bird. But common as it is, we must
go where it lives in order to see it. A lady of my
acquaintance thought that the Red-wings had decreased
sadly in her vicinity; she had not seen one all that
season. But that very day in walking to her home I had
seen dozens of them in the meadows along the road.

They begin nesting by the middle of May, and the
nests are easy enough to find if one cares to don the
long rubber boots and go wading. The Red-wings,
both the black male with his flashy scarlet epaulettes
and his somber-hued streaky wife, will be hovering

152

* Aue a a

Male Bobolinks. ‘‘Settle down in the meadows” (p. 150).

rd 4
Lt sit ea, ‘

Five young Bobolinks in nest. “Found by dragging a rope” (p. 151).

CROW RELATIVES

excitedly overhead or scolding from perches near by.
There are so many pairs to the average boggy swamp
that it is no hard matter to find nests, either built in
the grass on top of tussocks, or suspended among reeds
or rushes. It is said to be hard to photograph the
female on the nest, but if one have a reflecting camera
and wade near their homes, he is reasonably sure of
good camera shooting, taking the birds both in flight
and after they alight. They are a hardy species and
now and then appear even in midwinter as far north as
southern New England.

The Crow Blackbird is another common and widely
known blackbird, though scientists have surrounded
our old friend with some mystery by carving him up
into Bronzed and Purple Grackle. If the specimen
has the purple color of the neck and head extend down
into the bronze color of the back, it is a Purple Grackle,
but if the bronze is without purplish streaks, it is the
Bronzed Grackle. One cannot, however, tell these
races apart without shooting the birds, and for all but
technical purpose the plain Crow Blackbird is good
enough for most of us. With us it generally nests in
gardens in towns, especially in evergreen trees, such as
the Norway spruce. By the middle of May they have
built their nests, which are much like those of the
Robin, being lined with mud. There is quite a colony
on the street where I live and every year the handsome
birds are seen on our trees and lawns. Unfortunately
they sometimes pull up sprouting corn, and this season

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CROW RELATIVES

in June some farmer whom they had annoyed put out
poisoned grain in his field. ‘The next day there were
heaps of dead grackles under the trees where they
nested and the young all starved. Not a single one
was henceforth to be seen in the locality. It was a
mean thing to do, for not only did it kill blackbirds,
but probably various other more useful birds.

Out in the wilder parts of the country I have found
the grackles nesting in hollow trees. In one instance,
near my home, I found anestinaswamp. I was hiding
to photograph a Green Heron on its nest, and watched
a male grackle spread his wings and tail and “‘squeak”’
his love song in a tree above me. Presently I noticed
the female low down sneak along through the alder
bushes and go on to a nest in the low fork of a very
small one which grew out of water. This nest was
built only about a foot above the surface—a most
unusual location. Yet the grackles resort all the time
to this swamp to feed, and I was not surprised that one
pair were sensible enough to break away from old fogy
custom and locate by their base of supplies.

The flocking of the grackles in August and early
autumn is interesting. As I sit on my piazza I hear a
rushing sound as of an approaching tempest, and with
a chorus of harsh grating notes, a compact body of the
black fellows almost darken the sky as they whirl past
just over the treetops. Sometimes they alight and
then our ears are regaled with a symphony as from a
lot of unoiled axles of wheelbarrows.

154

CROW RELATIVES

Our remaining species is the Rusty Blackbird.
This is a little smaller than the last, about the size of
the Redwings. The male is all black, which makes his
white eyes conspicuous, while his mate is much less
showy, of a dull rusty grayish brown. ‘They are with
us in April, on their way north, and then again rather
late in the fall. None are known to nest further south
than northern New England, but I have been at the
Magdalen Islands in June when the young were just
leaving their nests in the spruce swamps. These
looked like Robins’ nests and were built on the lower
branches of the spruces. What a fuss the old birds
made over my presence, not to lionize, but to berate!
I took my revenge by setting up my camera near a
small spruce and focussed on the top where the female
Rusty was inclined to alight. The next time she did
it I pulled the thread and caught her in the act, her
open mouth emitting a flood of saucy expletives. This
I shall use against her in court if the occasion ever
requires it.

155

CHAPTER X
A PUZZLE IN BIRDS
(Finches, Sparrows, etc.)

HIS family of bird species, called by naturalists
Fringillide, or finch-like birds, comes the
nearest to “flooring” Ned of anything in bird

study. Not only is it the largest group among our
North American birds, including about one-seventh
of all our species, but many of these species look so
much alike, especially as one usually sees them afield
—skulking in grass or thick foliage, and shy in the
bargain—that it is a very difficult matter to identify
them. Try it, for instance, in the autumn, along the
country road, where swarms of little brownish birds
are constantly flitting on ahead of you and diving out
of sight into the grass or bushes. ‘They are sparrows,
you say. Yes, but what kind? I can think of at least
a dozen species which may be represented in that one
flock. After studying them more or less all my life, I
have to confess that very, very many times I am unable
to identify these restless, nervous, timid, nondescript,
elusive little rascals in the fleeting glimpse at them
which they allow. I tell Ned not to get discouraged,
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A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

but just to do the best he can, and he will surely know
a good deal about them, as, indeed, he already does.

Not only are there sparrows, but grosbeaks, finches,
buntings and various others. ‘They are the great
seed-eating group of birds, with strong cone-shaped
bills, just adapted to splitting or crushing many kinds
of seeds, or extracting them from various sorts of pro-
tecting covers. I was trying to think out some easy
way to help Ned memorize and classify this difficult
family, and I finally hit upon one which makes it very
clear to him. Taking the species in the order in
which they are ranked in the Handbooks, we may
think of them in three groups. The main group is in
the middle, the sparrows, or sparrow-like finches—
brownish-streaked birds, which mainly stay on or near
the ground. Before these are put the hardy finches
other than sparrows, which are found with us in winter,
many of them coming from the far north—such as the
Pine Grosbeak, Crossbills, Redpolls, Pine Siskin,
Goldfinch, Snow Bunting, Purple Finch. After the
sparrow group we find given the more southerly
finches—the Chewink, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Car-
dinal, Indigo-bird and several distinctly Southern
species. This certainly simplifies the general plan
and also helps one to remember the species, each of
which it is then “‘up to” the bird student to learn. In
telling of them in this chapter we will follow that
order.

About twice in every decade, I should think, there

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A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

comes a winter when various birds from the far North
visit us in good numbers, and notably the species in
this first group of the finch family. Deep snow which
covers up the tops of the weeds with their load of seeds,
the failure of the spruces and other evergreens to bear
cones, or both these events in conjunction, drive them
south to us. When I was a boy, the winter of 1882-3
first introduced me to these Northern visitors. J was
out after them at every possible opportunity and what
an exciting time I did have!

As early as October the Pine Siskins arrived. They
are closely related to the Goldfinch, but are easy to
tell from them because they are streaked all over. I
was out hunting partridge and woodcock, when, in an
opening in the woods, I saw a very large flock of these
birds, then new to me, alight on an isolated tree, fairly
covering the branches. Trembling with excitement, I
fired into the midst of them and am ashamed to tell
now the number I killed. I have never seen so many
together since, but have met them at various times, usu-
ally along roadsides, or in woods where there were
birches or hemlocks. They seemed to be very fond of
the birch buds. Years later, in northern Nova Scotia,
I found them in June on their nesting grounds. In the
shade trees along the streets of Pictou, I saw them and
heard them singing prettily—Northern Canary Birds,
one might call them, for they and the Goldfinch are
closely related to the Canary.

In November the beautiful little Redpolls put in

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A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

their appearance and in flocks were wandering around
the stubble fields, feeding on the seeds of the various
weeds. At a distance they look much like the Pine
Siskin, or even the Goldfinch in winter plumage. But
a closer view shows a pretty crimson patch on top of
the head, and now and then there is one, an adult male,
with a crimson wash over the breast. I remember
that I took a very great fancy to them and all that
winter I loved to watch the Redpolls. ‘They are hardy
birds, breeding in Greenland and the lands nearest
the North Pole.

But I was equally fond of the grosbeaks and cross-
bills. The occasion when I first saw these species
stands out in my memory among the great events. of
my life. I was walking home one afternoon that same
bird-eventful winter, in December, along a street in
Jamaica Plain, a suburb of Boston, when I saw a flock
of a dozen birds, the size of Robins, eating the buds
of a maple tree in a garden, just over the sidewalk.
Hurrying on toward them, I saw that they were dark
gray in color, with yellow on the heads and backs,
except two, which were of a beautiful rosy hue. They
were Pine Grosbeaks, the rosy ones being adult males.
Though it seems that, on the whole, I never enjoyed
life more than I do now, at the same time I realize that
familiarity has probably made me incapable of ever
experiencing again the intense, overpowering excite-
ment and delight which I experienced in that first sight
of the Pine Grosbeak, hardy denizen of the North,

159

A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

whose very presence pictured before my inflamed imag-
ination the boreal solitudes in their silent, icy grandeur,
as did just once the rare Evening Grosbeak.

And the crossbills! I was out sleigh riding in Brook-
line and was driving on a road that led through a
wooded estate, when I noticed a group of birds on a
limb of a pine tree which extended out low over the
road. I stopped the horse almost under the strange
birds. Some were dull red or pink, some greenish, and
a few of each sort had white bars on their wings. ‘They
were a mixed flock of White-winged and Red Cross-
bills, birds the points of whose upper and lower mandi-
bles of the bill cross one another. It would appear,
with this seemingly awkward arrangement, as though
they could not eat; yet here they were skillfully ex-
tracting the seeds from the pine cones, their favorite
diet. For five minutes or so I fairly devoured those
rare birds with my eager eyes.

The rest of that winter I revelled in the Northern
birds, but it was not till several years afterward that I
saw any more, so irregular are their occurrences. How-
ever, they did reach us occasionally, and some years I
held tryst with the crossbills and siskins in summer
up in their Northern homes in the Maritime Provinces
of Canada. One season they stayed with us very late.
Pine Siskins visited the larch trees in my garden in
May, and on the seventh of May I was amazed, while
looking for birds in a pine grove, to have a flock of
White-winged Crossbills fly up from the ground and

160

i
£ J

>

Tree Sparrow eating hay seed thrown on the snow. “The happy little fellow’
(p. 165).

Lo “ _ 4

Pine Grosbeak about to drink. “Our . . . constant visitors” (p. 161).

A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

then stand and look at me from the lowest branches of
the pines. Usually all these Northern birds have dis-
appeared by the last of March or first of April.

In the winter of 1899-1900 both the crossbills were
abundant, especially the usually rarer White-winged
bird. It was a beautiful sight to see a flock of them
almost daily on my lawn, picking up maple seed or
other food. ‘They were fairly tame, yet never so much
so as a pair of White-wings that I found on the top of
Bird Rock, far out at sea, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
These were so tame that I actually caught them as they
fed on some oats which I put out on the grass for them.
They were very much emaciated, so I put them in a
cage to have a good meal, but there they acted so
frightened that we let them go and they returned at
once to the oats. While they munched away at a pile
of these, like little horses, I set up a camera on the
tripod within two feet of them and photographed them
without alarming them in the least.

Early one morning in January, 1907, Ned came
rushing in to inform me that a flock of Pine Grosbeaks
were right by the doorstep. Sure enough, there were
half a dozen of them, feeding in the path where the
heavy snowfall had been shovelled off. They seemed
to be picking up little sticks and biting off the ends, but
I soon found that these were the winged seeds of our
ash and maple trees, from which they were extracting
the kernels. From that time on till the middle of
March, they were our almost constant visitors. ‘They

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A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

were so tame that it was quite easy to photograph them
with the reflecting camera. I met one little boy in
town carrying around a paper bag of salt, trying to
catch grosbeaks by putting salt on their tails, which he
had been told was the proper method! Yet for all their
familiarity they were timid in a way, for at any sudden
noise, as of a wagon or a train, the flock would unitedly
spring up with a twitter and a whir of wings and dart
off, not to return for an hour or two. Sometimes there
would be three dozen grosbeaks on our lawn at the
same time, mostly gray birds, though once I saw seven
rosy males.

When they finally disappeared it really seemed
lonely without their intimate companionship, but kind
Nature provided a most appropriate substitute in an
equally large flock of Purple Finches, which stayed
with us from late March pretty well through April.
The carmine-hued males were, in this case, about equal
in number to the somber females. After a time the
flocks, which I often met in the woods as well as gar-
dens, broke up into pairs, and presently they were nest-
ing in scattered cedars or other evergreens in pastures
or gardens. They are quite hardy birds and are some-
times found as far north as New England in the dead
of winter, though they are not as northerly as the
species we have been describing.

With them we may well associate the beautiful Gold-
finch, sometimes, but improperly, called the Wild
Canary. They are interesting birds, original in their

162

ac

al) 2a) a ie

Female Rose-breasted Grosbeak incubating. ‘Let me work on her within a yard”
(p. 174).

A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

ways and no slaves to fashion. The male in summer,
with his resplendent yellow and black plumage, is gay
enough, yet he lays all this grandeur aside for the
winter and goes garbed like his plainer wife. Hardy
birds, they often flock about us through our coldest
winters, and well might they be, we should think,
among our earliest breeders. Yet they spend the
spring and summer in play and at the last possible
moment, as though it was a stupid task from which
they shrank, they finally set to work to build nests and
rear babies. ‘The eggs are usually laid in a soft, dainty
nest on a bush or sapling in a swamp or by the roadside
in late July or early August. The young are not awing
till well along in August and it is often pitiful, when
September frosts come, to find the callow fledglings in
the garden, barely able to flutter from their nest,
chilled and piping plaintively. Ned called my atten-
tion to some in this predicament on a very cold day, the
fifteenth of September. That same year I photo-
graphed a brood of them in a willow thicket beside
the railroad track about the twentieth of August, and
I tried hard to snap the parents feeding them, but
when the camera was near the nest they would not
approach, no matter how long I waited.

It would be a great omission not to speak of the
Snow Bunting, that hardy boreal bird which has well
earned also the name Snowflake, from the whiteness of
its plumage. I have seen them by hundreds on the
wintry seacoast, on beach, marsh or sand dunes. I wish

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A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

they were as common inland where I now live, yet
they are there no strangers to Ned and me, whirring
over the snow and the projecting stubble in open places.
One very wintry day they afforded us a beautiful
spectacle. We were out sleigh riding, on a road which
followed the open summit of quite a high hill. A snow
squall came up, driving fiercely in our faces. Pres-
ently we saw what at first I thought was a cloud of the
light, newly fallen snow stirred up by a squall of wind,
blowing toward us across a weedy field. Instead it
proved to be a large flock of Snow Buntings. Their
advance guard were alighting to eat the seeds of the
weeds, while those in the rear were continually flying
over those ahead of them and themselves becoming
leaders. Thus the flock rolled over and over as it were,
like a great white wheel, ever advancing.

Associating with the Snow Bunting we are liable
occasionally to meet the Lapland Longspur, a bird of
about the same size, but darker colored, the males
black on the breast and throat. They are much rarer
than the other, enough so to make it a red-letter day
when one is identified. How delighted I was when I
saw my first Lapland Longspur! I was driving in a
sleigh in February, along a country road, when I saw
three birds ahead of me feeding in the road. Two
were clearly Snow Buntings, as their white wings
showed. The other was unfamiliar. I drove up
within a few feet of them and stopped. The stranger
had buffy cheeks and some black on the breast. It was

164

le Fa
te & ae i.
Young Field Sparrows in nest. “On the ground” (p. 169).

c 4 ¢. ys,
a RY 4

Young Goldfinches, ready to leave nest. “In a willow thicket” (p. 163).

A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

not a Horned Lark and I instantly recognized the Lap-
land Longspur, for which I had so long looked in vain.

And now for the Sparrows. The Tree Sparrow, or
Arctic Chippy and the slate-colored Junco, or Snow-
bird, are the only native sparrows which are common
in winter. We do not count that foreign pest, the
English Sparrow, which does not deserve to be con-
sidered as a bird, but rather as a feathered rat, a
pestiferous mongoose to destroy bird life and drive out
our beloved native birds. The pretty little warbled
song which comes from the weedy patch or the line of
shrubs or stubble along the fence on a bitter cold
February morning is the good cheer of the happy little
fellow from the far north, the Tree Sparrow, and it is
almost the only real song that we are likely to hear at
this season, though the Chickadee has some pleasant
notes, and the Junco will begin in March to practice
its simple trill. The Tree Sparrows are a bit timid,
but I have had them come up on the window-sill
to be fed and photographed. Ordinarily, though, they
will not venture quite so much, but we can scatter hay-
seed or small grain on the frozen snow in the garden
and they will greatly appreciate it. Associated with
them we shall often see the Junco, which is even shier.

A few of that commonest of our sparrows, the Song
Sparrow, linger in sheltered places through the long
cold winter, and the whole tribe of them are back in
March. Early in the month we first hear their familiar
and beautiful song ringing out from the shrubbery

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A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

along the roadsides, or in the garden. One can dis-
tinguish them by their heavily marked breast with a
conspicuous brown spot in the middle.

Soon after the middle of March we are likely to notice,
on the edge of the woods, or along retired wooded
roads, a bird of deep rich brown color. It is the Fox
Sparrow, the largest and handsomest of the sparrows.
It is fond of scratching among the dead leaves, and is
a great musician, though, unfortunately, it seldom sings
until it approaches its Northern breeding grounds, for it
never remains with us. I have twice found its large,
well-built nest on the Magdalen Islands and have heard
there many a time its wonderful song.

Probably the next to arrive will be the Swamp Spar-
row, late in March. It frequents bushy swamps or
meadows interspersed with brush, and, though it
resembles the Song Sparrow, can be readily distin-
guished from it by its reddish head and unmarked
ashy breast. ‘The song is a loud, simple trill, not unlike
that of the Junco. The rare Lincoln’s Sparrow, related
closely to this and the Song Sparrow, is also possible
reward for careful scrutiny.

Late in March or early in April comes the Field
Sparrow, and about the middle of April the nearly
related Chipping Sparrow. These and the Tree Spar-
row are a good deal alike—slender, long-tailed little
fellows, with brownish-red crowns. The best way to
distinguish them is that the Tree Sparrow has a con-
spicuous dark spot on the middle of the breast, the

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A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

Field Sparrow a plain breast and reddish bill, the
Chippy a distinct white stripe over each eye and a gray
rump, with the whitest breast of them all.

About the same time as the Field Sparrow, or soon
after it, comes the Vesper Sparrow, or Grass Finch, with
its simple but pretty song. This is the species with the
bay-colored patch on the bend of the wing and the
white outer tail feathers. This last is especially char-
acteristic of the Junco, but one cannot confuse that
slate-colored bird with the brownish Vesper, and at any
rate the former disappears on its northward migration
soon after the other begins to arrive.

Somewhat similar in haunts and habits is the Savanna
Sparrow, which also arrives in early April. They are
found in dry open fields, but also in meadows or salt
marshes. ‘They have streaked breasts, like the Song
Sparrow, but are smaller birds. In most inland locali-
ties they are not common, but in many seacoast regions,
and notably along the Northern coast, any sparrow
which one may see is more than likely to be a Savanna.
They haunt the grassy wind-swept headlands or even
the sand dunes.

On the coast we also may meet the Sharp-tailed and
Seaside Sparrows on the salt marshes, skulking in the
long grass, and in late fall and winter the rather rare
Ipswich Sparrow. I have found a number of the latter
in dry open places not far back from the sea, or on
islands.

But we have not yet exhausted the possibilities of the

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A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

migration inland. There is a very queer little fellow
called the Grasshopper Sparrow, so named because its
funny weak little song sounds more like this insect’s
attempt than a bird’s. It is a small bird, dull-colored,
with plain ashy-colored under-parts and is very secre-
tive, one of the hardest of birds to locate and observe.
It frequents dry fields, but might be common all about
one without its presence being detected, unless one
noticed the faint, locust-like song. A somewhat similar
bird, but rarer, is the Henslow’s Sparrow, which, how-
ever, prefers moist grass land, notably springy hillsides
where the bush known as shrubby cinquefoil abounds.

Last of all, in May, come those beautiful sparrow
migrants, the White-throated and White-crowned Spar-
rows, both of which nest well to the north. The latter
is rather rare, more’s the pity, for it is a very striking
bird, with its conspicuously white crown-patch. It is
only once in a great while that I am able to see one.
The White-throat is much better known. The male
has a pronounced white bar on each side of the head,
and sometimes may be mistaken for the other. But
when one really meets the White-crown, he will know
it. “Pee, pee, peabody, peabody,” sings the White-
throat in long-drawn, high-pitched piping, and thus
gains the name of Peabody-bird. The male sings his
peabody song vociferously in Maine and Canada, but
I have heard it all too seldom further south.

There, now, we have gone through with every one of
our numerous Sparrows which we are at all likely to

168

A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

meet. Do you suppose now you can go out and
identify them? Remember there are the confusing
plumages of the young, which help to make the muddle
all the worse. No, you must study hard on them, be
patient, and get to know them one at a time. With a
little intelligent care, and referring to the descriptive
books, you will be surprised how quickly the common
birds can be tolerably well learned. So there is no
need of being discouraged. If we could learn every-
thing easily at once, there would be far less fun in
studying birds. We need some difficulties to arouse
the spirit of true sport.

When it comes nesting time the nests of most of the
sparrows are to be sought and found on the ground,
and usually in grass. The Chippy, however, builds in
a tree or bush near the house, though once I found its
nest on the ground in an orchard. The Song Sparrow
sometimes gets lofty ideas and builds in a bush even as
high as one’s head, but the vast majority of nests are on
the ground in grass or beside a bush. This is the nest
with four or five darkly blotched eggs which one so
often finds in the pasture or by the roadside by almost
stepping on it and having the sitting bird pop off at
one’s very feet.

In wading the meadow, I expect to start the Swamp
Sparrow from its nest in the tussock. The Field Spar-
row likes the clump of weeds in pasture or orchard for
the temporary home, and it will be either on the ground
or within a foot of it among the stems of the weeds or

169

A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

in a tiny sprout. The eggs are smaller and more finely
marked than those of the Song Sparrow, and thus can
be distinguished.

It is not so easy to find the Vesper Sparrow’s nest,
though it is built usually where the grass is scant, for
the bird sees an intruder and usually flies off before he
comes dangerously near.

The Savanna Sparrow, though it often builds in
similar situations, is more tame and less shrewd, and
I have found their nests by dozens through flushing
them, in regions where they are common, as on open
headlands by the sea. But the Grasshopper Sparrow
—how it can hide its treasures! I have found but one
of their nests and it was on this wise. I was crossing
a dry, sandy field, with very sparse grass, when out
fluttered a small sparrow right from my very feet. Of
course I knew there was a nest, though none was in
sight. Down I dropped on hands and knees, laying
my handkerchief on the grass about where the bird
was first seen. I felt like a fool when, after a quarter
of an hour spent in examining every inch of ground, I
could not for the life of me find the nest. The only
thing to do was to withdraw, mark the spot and try
again. So in half an hour I came back and this time
I saw exactly where the bird flushed. But even then
it was a couple of minutes before I detected the tiny
tunnel, overhung by dry grass which led in under a
small tussock. There, clear out of sight, was the
simple nest of grass with its five white, sparsely marked,

170

ataining three larger

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A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

handsome eggs, very different from those of our other
sparrows.

Sparrow’s eggs are usually so much alike that in
most cases it is necessary to identify them by clearly
seeing their owners, and often this is a very difficult
task. I have spent hours waiting or searching about,
trying to make the secretive, skulking bird show herself.
Even if the pesky thing does come out for an instant,
it is more than likely that it will be gone again before
the glass can be brought to bear.

Almost everyone who lives in the country has the
pleasure of seeing the familiar Chippy nest on the
premises, in perfect confidence of good treatment.
Chippy nests in my orchard, on any bush or low tree
in the garden, or even on my piazza porch in the wood-
bine. There I took her picture while she gazed at me
beseechingly, hoping that I had not now become her
foe. This last spring a pair built their nest on the
trellis right at the entrance of our front door, but there
was so much passing that the little bird became fright-
ened and the eggs were not laid there.

Chippy is a good subject to photograph in the act of
feeding her young. Some sparrows are too shy and
nervous to brave the camera, but she will do it. A
pair had a nest in our mulberry tree, and on the day
that the four little fellows left the nest I caught two of
them and made them sit on a stick in front of the
camera which was all ready for business. At first
mother Chippy was a little afraid, but she soon plucked

171

A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

up courage and at frequent intervals came with an
insect and fed the little fellows in turn. In a short
time I had a dozen as good feeding pictures as I could
want.

Leaving the Sparrows, now, to be studied afield, I
must tell a little about that other group of birds in this
finch family which we referred to at the beginning of
the chapter as the more southerly fellows which are
large of beak. The next one after the sparrows, as
numbered in the American Ornithologists’ Union
Check List, is the handsome and common bird variously
known as Towhee or Chewink, and I have also heard
it called Swamp Robin. This is the black and white
fellow, with brown markings, who plays hide and seek
with us in the bushy pasture, the scrub land, or along
the roadside. He is bound to see who you are, but
does not intend that you shall see him very much,
though he calls out a pert inquiring “‘tow-hee,” or
“chewink,” as he seems to different observers to say.
But when he thinks there is no one around to bother
him, he stands up proudly on the top of a bare tree
that towers above the thicket of scrub and sings a
happy and more pretentious song. The nest is hidden
away in a brush heap or under a small bush and about
the only way I know of finding it is to flush from it the
brownish female, who will soon return with her black-
gowned husband and set up a great outcry. Once I
was shown a nest out in the open in the hollow of a
grassy bank in a pasture. The female was in charge

172

Nest of Chippy. “On my porch in the woodbine” (p. 171).

A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

of the five pretty eggs and allowed me to come quite
near, but she crouched down so deep into the hollow
that a picture showed nothing but her bill.

Then there is the Rose-breasted Grosbeak. The
male is a beautiful black and white bird with a rose-
colored spot on his breast and under each wing, and is
a sweet singer, with clear, liquid notes. But the female
is a plain brownish little lady, looking like an enlarged
sparrow. ‘They are moderately common in many local-
ities, and it would be well if they were more so, for
they have a habit which will commend them to all who
know of it. If they are seen in the garden, do not as-
sume that they are working mischief; though sometimes
they eat buds, they are mostly insectivorous and are
among the few birds that will eat potato bugs. I have
known them to go day after day to the potato patch to
feed upon these vermin as long as they lasted. I tell
Ned that they are more useful in that line than he, for
he is not fond of “picking potato bugs,’’ though his
mother tells that when he was a baby she found him
one day munching a horrid black squash bug. But in
time he proved not to be insectivorous after all!

This grosbeak builds a frail nest of small sticks and
rootlets in a low tree or bush in a swamp or thicket,
usually from five to ten feet from the ground. Both
birds incubate and they are not very shy, only the nest
is rather hard, usually, to get at to photograph, unless
one raise the camera on stilts and focus, say, from a
step-ladder. In one case a nest was out on a horizontal

* 173

A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

bough and I bent it down and tied it so that the nest
was on a level with my camera on the fully extended
tripod. When I came, sometimes the male was on,
but more often the female. He would not let me walk
up with the camera, but she allowed me to do so and
even to work on her within a yard, if I moved slowly
and kept very quiet.

Still another interesting and striking species is the
Indigo-bird, or Indigo Bunting. It is a small species,
of sparrow size, the male of which is of a rich dark
blue color all over, very gaudy and conspicuous. One
would not suppose that the dull brownish female could
be any near relative of his. They are fond of bushy
pastures and the neat nest is suspended in a thicket or
brier patch. One that I found was beautifully lined
with black horse-hair. Another was discovered through
the anxiety of the male that I should not find it. I was
passing through some scrub and brier thicket one hot
day in June, looking for nests to photograph. Sud-
denly this male Indigo-bird appeared on a poplar tree
near by and began to advise me in his language that
the best thing I could do was to get right straight out.
Instead of doing this, I began to look about all the
more sharply and soon I found his nest, nearly com-
pleted, close to where I had just passed. Later it held
three bluish-white eggs. I photographed them, but
could not catch either of the birds with the lens, though
IT hid the camera quite well in a clump of bushes near
by, covering it with foliage.

174

A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

In the Middle States, up as far as New York City,
we may see the brilliantly colored male Cardinal Gros-
beak and his more somber-clad mate. Their beautiful
songs are a delight about the garden, and their nest
may be found in the adjoining shrubbery. The further
south we go the more plenty they become. During
my trips to the South I have greatly enjoyed the
Cardinal.

Besides the Cardinal, there are other distinctly
Southern species in this family of which it is beyond
my present purpose to write. But instead, seeing that
I mentioned above the American Ornithologists’ Union,
and also the difficulty of studying such birds as this
finch family, I want to advise every one of my bird-
loving readers to become an associate member of this
organization, if he or she has not already done so.
Though it is the greatest ornithological society of
America, and includes in its membership the leading
scientists, it is intended just as much for beginners in
bird study, to increase and cultivate the friendly interest
in birds which has now become so widespread. Its
‘‘Associate” class of members numbers many hundreds,
all over the United States and Canada, including boys
and girls, and ladies as well as men. My young friend
Ned is an enthusiastic “Associate,” and it helps him
very much. Through it he knows many other bird-
lovers. Its large quarterly magazine, The Auk, the
leading bird publication in America, which everyone
belonging to it receives, is very instructive and enables

175

A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

him to keep up with whatever is being done by other
students. Now and then he goes to its “Annual Con-
gress,” which is a most delightful social occasion.
There he gets acquainted with many other young
ornithologists, and also with the great scientists, who
are glad to see all who are beginning to take interest
in birds, no matter how little they know about the
subject at present. It costs three dollars a year as
membership fee, which includes subscription for The
Auk, and I hope that many young bird lovers, or others,
after reading this will write to the Treasurer of the
A. O. U., Dr. Jonathan Dwight, 134 West 71st Street,
New York City. He will send you any desired informa-
tion. The more membership fees the Union has, the
better magazine they can publish, with more illustra-
tions, and the more they can do for bird study and bird
protection.

If you could only have a talk with Ned, I am sure he
would seon persuade you to join and make you feel
that because you love birds you are just exactly the
kind of a person that they want on the roll of member-
ship.

Both he and I want also to say a good word for the
Audubon Society, whose special work is to interest in
birds those who have not thought much about them,
to train the growing generation of children and youth
to love and befriend the birds, and to secure money,
laws and public sentiment for their protection. In each
State there is a local Audubon Society, all of which

176

A PUZZLE IN BIRDS

are incorporated as “The National Association of
Audubon Societies.” For a few cents annually any-
one can be a member, and for a dollar a year more
have that delightful little illustrated magazine, Bird-
Lore, the organ of the Association, which every beginner
in bird study ought to have and all bird lovers as
well. ‘To secure further funds for the educational and
humanitarian crusade, for enforcement of protective
laws, for guarding breeding-colonies of birds and the
like, there are various degrees of honorary membership,
attainable through certain money payments. Inquiries
addressed to the headquarters of the Association, the
office of its President, Mr. William Dutcher, 141 Broad-
way, New York City, will secure all information needed.
Those who take delight in our wild birds and are in-
terested in their protection will both get and give a
great deal by being associated in these organized ways
with other bird lovers, and “‘the sport of bird study”
will thus be found far more fascinating than by “going
it alone.”

177

CHAPTER XI
OUR PRICELESS SWALLOWS AND SWIFTS

ED came into my study one summer day, when I
N was trying to write a bird article, just as I made
a slap at a tormenting housefly and almost

upset my inkstand. “Your intention was good,” he
remarked, “but you aren’t as graceful as the swallows
yet in your fly-killing. But. how did so many flies get
in here?’ “Oh, someone left the screen door open,” I
replied; “that is one reason, and, since you have men-
tioned swallows, you remind me of another, and that
is that we haven’t swallows enough to catch all these
flies. If they were as common as they used to be, I
don’t think there would be so many flies to bother us.”
“Did they use to be very plenty?” inquired Ned. “Yes,”
I said, “according to all accounts the familiar kinds
were quite abundant up to about twenty years ago, when
the hateful English Sparrow drove them away by
fighting them or taking their nests. I remember well
when I was small what lots of swallows there were
around Boston, where I lived, far more than there are
now. Of course 1 don’t mean to say that there weren’t
any flies then, but there was a big colony of Barn and
Eave Swallows on our next door neighbor’s barn, and

178

OUR PRICELESS SWALLOWS

with such a swarm catching flies all day about our
place you couldn’t make me believe that there were not
less flies than there would have been without them.”

“Don’t they catch other insects beside flies?’ asked
Ned, becoming evidently interested. ‘Yes,’ I told
him, “they are great on mosquitoes and about every
sort of small flying insect. The Government ornithol-
ogists of the Biological Survey say that in the South
swallows feed upon the dreaded boll weevil, and they
are getting up a crusade to try to protect the swallows
and introduce them to regions from which they have been
driven out. One good method is to kill off the English
Sparrows around their colonies, and also to put up
suitable boxes for the kinds that use them. Of course
boys ought not to disturb them, and the owners of barns
where they build should welcome them, even though
they make some dirt to clean up. They are well worth
any trouble they may cause.”

After this little talk about swallows, Ned helped me
drive out the flies so that there would be none of them
on my bird article, and I went to work again in peace.
Besides helping me in this swallow-like occupation of
chasing flies, Ned promised to go with me that after-
noon and help me photograph a nice Barn Swallows’
nest with four nearly fledged young, which were now
about to leave.

It was a pretty hard proposition, Ned thought, when
he saw the nest, on the projecting end of a timber inside
a barn, away up under the roof where it was quite dark

179

OUR PRICELESS SWALLOWS

and almost inaccessible. However, I thought there was
a way. We got a long ladder, and I climbed up on a
beam which went rather near the nest. I pulled the
ladder up after me and placed it across two beams.
Then Ned handed me up some boards and I made a
little platform on the ladder to stand the camera and
tripod upon. The camera set up on the tripod could
now stand close to the nest, but it was too dark even
to focus. However, I was ready for that difficulty. I
had brought a good-sized mirror, and now I asked Ned
to stand just outside the barn door in the strong sun-
light and throw up the reflected light upon the nest.
It was easy now to focus. Then I held up a smaller
mirror which I carried in my pocket and had Ned
throw the light on my mirror, and I in turn threw it
down into the nest upon the backs of the young birds,
and thus I made some successful quite short exposures.
Then I brought down a young swallow, posed and
photographed it outdoors, put it back into the nest,
and the work was done, and well done—thanks to my
valuable assistant.

Probably the Barn Swallow is the best known of the
six species found in our Northern and Eastern districts
—the bird with the forked tail, reddish breast and
shiny blue-black upper parts. They build nests of
mud and straw on beams inside barns and sheds. The
settlement of North America by the white man has
changed the habits of many of the birds, notably the
swallows, and among them this particular kind. Its

180

Young Barn Swallows.

Young Barn Swallow.

x

“Threw light down into the nest”

¥

fi a

“Brought down a young Swallow”

(p. 180).

y
(p. 180).

OUR PRICELESS SWALLOWS

original preference was for rocky caves as a nesting site.
Just once in my life have I found a nest thus situated.
It was in a cave on lonely Seal Island, which lies twenty
miles off the rugged coast of Maine, in Penobscot Bay.

Our Barn Swallow is such a happy, friendly bird that
nearly everyone who knows it loves and admires it.
We enjoy its merry twitterings as it darts about the
barn, and are pleased at the grace with which this
greyhound of the air doubles and turns. When we go
out for a drive, it is a pretty sight to see them circle
about us, catching the insects which our advance starts
from the grass or weeds along the country roadside.

Perhaps next in familiarity comes the Eave or Cliff
Swallow. This is the other kind which frequents the
barns. It builds bottle-shaped nests of mud pellets
up under the eaves, which are often clustered thickly
together and partly built one upon the side of the other.
In the primitive days these colonies of nests were built
on cliffs, and in some parts of the West they are built
there even yet. So the bird is the genuine Cliff Swallow
out there, and the Eave Swallow with us. Originally
there were no Cliff Swallows where there were no cliffs,
but with the country’s settlement they spread nearly
everywhere, and the dates are on record when they
first appeared in various localities. This bird looks
quite different from the Barn Swallow, and can be told
by its nearly square tail, the pale reddish patch at the
base of the bill and on the upper rump, and the light
under-parts.

181

OUR PRICELESS SWALLOWS

I have photographed the nests by putting up a ladder
under the eaves, driving my screw bolt into the side of
the barn, screwing the small camera to it and making
long-timed exposures, since the nests are in the shade.
To get the adult birds from life, I await quietly beneath
the nests on some low barn, with my reflecting camera
in hand, and snap the birds as they fly to their nests.
When the young are just beginning to fly they are quite
tame and one can often walk up close to them with the
camera.

The nests of many swallows get very lousy, like the
Pheebes’, and it was owing to this that I once had a
rather severe punishment for meddling with the Eave
Swallows when I was a boy. I wanted some swallows’
eggs, and, after climbing up to some nests by means of
a ladder, was trying to get my fingers into the narrow
entrance of one of them, when down came the nest and
smashed all over my bare head. In a moment I was
swarming with bird lice from head to foot—and what
a time I did have! It was days before I got rid of them
all, and I was sore in every member from their bites
and my scratching. Fortunately it was vacation time,
and I was able to keep aloof from most of mankind.

Then there is the Tree Swallow, the kind with the
pure white breast and glossy steel-blue back. How
they used to swarm on the marshes and on the telegraph
wires, when I was a boy, in August when they were
getting ready to migrate! But now their numbers seem
pitifully small in comparison. Originally they nested

182

Eave Swallows. “Snap the birds as they fly to their nests” (p. 182).

OUR PRICELESS SWALLOWS

in cavities of trees. Then, in well settled localities,
they changed to the bird boxes which kindly disposed
people put up for them. But the English Sparrow
came and drove them out, and now they have gone
back to the hollow trees again.

Out in North Dakota, I have seen pairs of them
flying in and out of hollows in low trees along the
shores of rivers and lakes, and I was wishing that I
had taken the time to photograph them. So it was
pleasant to me to find a colony of them near my home
nesting in stubs in the overflowed woodland where I
have told of the woodpeckers nesting so abundantly.
Some of the stubs which they had chosen stood out in
pretty deep water and the holes were rather high up.
I was standing on the “corduroy” roadway across the
swamp and wondering how in the world I was going to
work it to get some pictures, when I saw a Tree Swallow
fly into a hole near the top of a low stub only about five
feet from the water, the stub being only a yard out from
the road. I waited two weeks or more till the young
were hatched, and then with my reflecting camera and
a lot of plate holders, I paid a visit to the nest. The
male bird sat on a low branch of another stub, quite
near the nest hole, and let me walk quietly up and snap
him. He flitted to another stub and I got some more
pictures of him. Meanwhile the female flew to the
nest with a fly, so I sat down on the edge of the roadway
partly behind a bush, with the camera on my knees,
aimed at the nest. For a few minutes the birds flew

183

OUR PRICELESS SWALLOWS

about twittering, excited by my presence. But I sat
still, and presently the male ventured. I snapped him
as he approached the stub, and he flew back without
entering. But in a moment he alighted at the entrance
with a fly, and, not heeding the sound of the shutter,
entered, fed the young, and emerged carrying a sac of
excrement. By this time I had changed the plate and
caught him as he left. Then the female came, and
they were constantly going and coming, giving me all
the snapshots I wanted. Later, when the five young
were about ready to leave, I took out two of them and
posed them, and then put them carefully back into the
hole.

One day I came out from the woods on the adjoining
hill, hundreds of feet above this morass, overlooking
the whole tract. It was a lovely panorama of high
rolling hills, with two lakes nestling in the valley, and,
aided by my strong field glass, I actually could see the
old woodpecker hole in the swallow stub, and see the
swallows enter and leave the cavity as they fed their
young.

Still another familiar species is the Bank Swallow,
the small brownish fellow that digs out burrows in
gravel banks near ponds or streams. They are quite
common, and a number of banks or cuts in my neigh-
borhood each boast of a little colony of a dozen or more
pairs. The birds arrive toward the end of April, and
presently go to work digging their burrows, and then
make trips to poultry yards to pick up feathers with

184

Tree Swallow (male) at nest. Tree Swallow. “Snapped him as he
“Alighted at the entrance with approached the stub” (p. 184).
a fly” (p. 184).

Young Tree Swallows. “About ready to leave” (p. 184).

OUR PRICELESS SWALLOWS

which to make soft lining for the nests, that the very
fragile pure-white eggs which are to be deposited may
not be broken.

One day I visited a colony situated in a gravel cut,
just off a main road. The burrows were not deep, and
from one of them I took out a parent bird which was
incubating, having previously set up my camera
focused on a hole, and, placing it at the entrance,
secured a snapshot before it escaped. Meanwhile I
had allowed the horse to graze by the roadside un-
hitched, watched over by Ned. Just ahead there was
a rise of ground and a turn in the road. JI had not
thought about the possibility of an automobile coming
along, but, as luck would have it, one came just then,
going at very moderate speed. Before I could get back
the horse broke away from Ned, shied into the fence,
and then dashed off with the shafts, leaving the rest of
the vehicle hung up. The animal only ran to the next
farmyard, where it stopped and was caught. The
driver of the machine was a gentleman. He stopped,
proffered assistance, gave his number, and so on.
Though I was out a buggy, I did not sue him, as he
had been so polite, and I was at fault for leaving the
horse as I did. But the country roads are very narrow,
and these engines put residents and visitors in the
country in jeopardy of their lives. It is not only ill-
mannered, but lawless and criminal for anyone to
invade country roads with an automobile and not drive
with the utmost care, stop when he is asked by the

185

OUR PRICELESS SWALLOWS

driver of a horse, and in every way be considerate, in
view of the peril to life and limb which he is creating.
Machines are impracticable in the country for at least
half the year, and people living there are compelled
to keep horses. Were all autoists gentlemen like this
one just mentioned, people in the country would not
be put to as much inconvenience and danger as at
present they suffer, many, especially women and chil-
dren, being afraid to drive or ride out, and thus are
compelled to stay at home.

There is another swallow, similar in appearance and
habits to the Bank Swallow, which is not so well known
—the Rough-winged Swallow. They are not often
seen north of the Middle States and are common only
in the West. At a distance they are distinguishable
from the Bank Swallow mainly by being a little larger
and having uniformly dark under-parts. Frequently
they nest on the timbers under bridges, or in crevices
of abutments, although they also nest like the Bank
Swallow. Even Audubon did not distinguish them
from Bank Swallows until he happened to shoot some
specimens. So it will be well to watch for them among
the supposed Bank Swallows, and some day we may
add this rather rare bird to our list.

Some people call the Tree Swallow the Martin, but
the genuine Martin is the Purple Martin, a larger
species, the male of which is entirely of a dark glossy
steel-blue color, the female duller, and paler below.
They are beautiful and useful birds, but unfortunately

186

Purple Martins near their nest in hole cf stub. ‘“‘ Took a picture of a pair” (p. 187).

ie - ee . 2 LE aa La
y “s y It ‘bs
Dias te 4 4 j Winds

LAs. 2 de Wie WE ie Pee 7

Bank Swallow at nest—hole in gravel bank. ‘‘Secured a snapshot”’ (p. 185).

OUR PRICELESS SWALLOWS

are very tender, and late cold storms, combined with
the attacks of the English Sparrow, have almost ex-
terminated them in the New England States. In
populated regions at present they generally breed in
bird-boxes which people are glad to prepare for them.
Sometimes, after prolonged cold rain storms in June,
whole colonies of Martins, old and young alike, have
been found dead in their nesting boxes. I never see
them now except as migrants. Their original manner
of nesting was in hollow trees, like the Tree Swallow.
Out in the Turtle Mountains of North Dakota I once
found them breeding quite plentifully in the poplar
timber, and took a picture of a pair of them as they
alighted on the branch of a stub near their nest cavity,
an old woodpecker hole.

We have just one more bird to tell of in this chapter,
the one that people persist in calling the Chimney
Swallow. In general appearance and habits it is
swallow-like, but in structure it is quite different, and
belongs to the family called Swifts. So let us get
used to calling it by its right name, Chimney Swift,
and be accurate.

Its feet are so weak and cramped that it does not
perch, but clings to a perpendicular surface, such as
the inside of a chimney or a hollow tree, propping itself
from behind with its peculiar tail, each feather of which
ends in a sharp spine or spike. But in flight it is master
of the situation, and well deserves its university degree
of Swift. Almost ceaselessly, oftentimes by night as

187

OUR PRICELESS SWALLOWS .

well as day, it is awing, tireless in pursuit of flying
insects. It has been estimated that each swift flies a
thousand miles every day, yet it never seems to weary.

Under primitive conditions, before the settlement of
the country, the swift resorted to hollow trees for rest,
shelter and nesting. But now it seldom occupies any
other retreat than a chimney. In the autumn, when
flocking preparatory for its migration south, I have
seen assemblages of them at dusk drop into some
selected chimney in a steady stream, until thousands
must have been clinging to every available inch of
brick inside.

They return to us about the last of April, but are
late in nesting, for ordinarily the eggs are not laid till
July. During June they may be seen darting over the
dead tops of trees, hardly pausing an instant in their
flight as they grasp and wrench off a twig. Having
secured one, the bird takes it down the chimney and
sticks it to the brick wall with gummy saliva, which
she ejects. This is continued till the curious basket-
like structure has been completed, and then four or
five elongated pure white eggs are laid. Many acci-
dents occur. Rains wash down the nest, or the young
fall down into the fireplace or pipe below, where they
are likely to be left to starve. The brood of swifts
make considerable racket, and the descent of the old
birds into the chimney causes a rumbling sound like
distant thunder. They drop a good deal of dirt, too,
down the chimney. But they amply pay for their

188

Young Chimney Swifts by their nest. “Clinging . . . like so many bats”
(p. 189).

Young Chimney Swift. “How they cling and brace themselves” (p. 189).

OUR PRICELESS SWALLOWS

misdemeanors in the multitude of flies and mosquitoes
which they destroy.

It is a hard matter to photograph a nest, owing to
the narrowness of the chimneys. But I was fortunate
in happening upon a very peculiar nesting site. A
pair of swifts chose to build in a barn. Up near the
top of the hayloft, near an open window, for the past
three years they have stuck their curious nest to the
plain board wall inside. The first year they raised but
one youngster and the next season four. The third
season they built the nest, but for some reason did not
lay the eggs there.

I photographed this nest in the same way that I
photographed the young Barn Swallows, with the help
of Ned, the ladder and the mirrors. The second year
I paid my visit when the young had just crawled from
the nest and were clinging to the boards near it like so
many bats. One flew off, but I photographed the
other three, and then put one back in the nest and took
a picture of it there. After that I carried one outdoors
in the light and took some pictures showing in detail
how they cling and brace themselves with the tail.

A pair of them build every year in one of my chimneys,
and this year, for some reason, the eggs did not hatch.
Ned wanted to get them as curiosities, so he made a
small scoop net at the end of his butterfly net pole and
succeeded in landing the nest and two out of four of
the eggs.

A well-known naturalist once told me that it seemed

189

OUR PRICELESS SWALLOWS

to him that the swift in flight used its wings alternately.
It would be an interesting bit of sport and scientific
research combined to secure a series of flight pictures
of the swift and try to find this out. I have thought
that sometimes I would squat on the ridge pole by some
favorably located chimney to which swifts resorted
and see if I could get some pictures. Who else will
try it?

190

CHAPTER XII
FOUR NEIGHBORS DIVERSE
(Tanagers, Waxwings, Shrikes, Vireos)

ED came in one day in May, when the migration
was at its height, and reported that he had seen
a flock of male Scarlet Tanagers, six of them
together, along a roadside, and asked if it was not a
rare thing to find so many at once. I told him that it
was rather unusual, but that I had occasionally seen
such an occurrence at this time of year. They winter
in Central and South America, and the males start first
for the North, as is the case with many other birds,
trusting to the females to come along later and help
in setting up housekeeping. 'To see so many of these
black and scarlet birds at once would make one think
that they were more abundant than they are. But
most people think it quite an event when they see even
one. ‘Though they are not rare, they are retiring birds
and keep mostly to the woods, so the average person
hardly ever sees them.

I went on to tell Ned that, if we lived in tropical
America, the brilliant tanagers would not seem so
remarkable to us, for there they have great numbers

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FOUR NEIGHBORS DIVERSE

of them. Indeed there are so many kinds that instead
of telling about tanagers, waxwings, shrikes and vireos
all in one chapter to even things up, as we are doing
now, we might have to make a whole book about
the tanagers alone, for, actually, there are said to be
three hundred and fifty species of tanager in Central
and South America, a good many more kinds of birds
than we are telling about in this whole book. Of all
these tanagers, only five reach the southern border of
the United States, and only one, the Scarlet Tanager,
is found, except as a straggler, in our northeastern
districts.

The four bird families named in the heading of this
chapter follow each other in this order in the classifica-
tion, except that we have taken out the swallows to
treat by themselves—yet it is curious and remarkable
how diverse these neighbors are. Not only are they
entirely distinct in form, habits and coloration, but,
taken as families, there are other interesting points of
difference. For instance, the tanagers, as we have
said, are a tremendously large group and are confined
to the Western Hemisphere; but of the waxwings,
which are American also, there are only two known
species that certainly belong to this group. The
shrikes, on the other hand, belong largely to the Eastern
Hemisphere, for out of two hundred kinds America
can boast of but two. ‘The vireos are peculiarly
American, and there are fifty species, but of these we
only see six in northern and eastern North America.

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FOUR NEIGHBORS DIVERSE

The female Scarlet Tanager is not a scarlet tanager
at all, but a dull greenish-olive one, and very few people
would suspect her relationship to her brilliant husband.
Indeed, she generally comes into publicity, if at all, as
it were in his reflected light. First we see the male,
about the most conspicuous object in the woodland
landscape, and then, looking about very sharply for
his companion, we finally make out her demure and
inconspicuous form among the foliage. It is well that
she is not as conspicuous as her husband, for every
marauder would discover the nest, and presently there
might be no more Scarlet Tanagers.

The nest is generally built in the woods out toward
the end of some horizontal branch, often in an oak, and
as high as twenty feet from the ground. But I have
also found them in saplings no higher than one’s head,
in pastures close to the edge of the woods, in wild
apple trees or abandoned orchards grown to scrub.
In one spot of this latter sort I recently found three old
nests, in early June, and saw the pair of tanagers
loitering about, but could not trace them to their new
home.

There is another decadent orchard spot near my
home, on a hillside, by the edge of woods, all grown up
to briers and scrub. The season before the one just
mentioned, on the twenty-fifth of May, I noted a new
but uncompleted nest on an extending branch of an
apple tree. No bird was about, and I was uncertain
to what species it belonged—either Rose-breasted

193

FOUR NEIGHBORS DIVERSE

Grosbeak or Purple Finch I thought it would prove to
be. On June first the nest held four eggs, which looked
like tanagers’, but there was no bird in sight. Next
time, however, the female tanager was on the nest.
It was not favorably situated to photograph, but I
thought I would pose the young later, when they were
of the right age. But young land birds grow surpris-
ingly fast and I must have waited just a little too long,
for in a Wood Thrush’s nest near by, in which the eggs
were laid at about the same time, the young were ready
to leave, and the tanagers’ nest was empty. But I
photographed a nest with eggs on a sapling in the woods
and so have at least that much to show. Once I came
near getting a good snapshot picture of a male on a
wire fence with my reflecting camera. I crept up quite
near, but the bird started to fly just as I snapped, so
the picture was not very good.

Of the two species of waxwings, the Bohemian Wax-
wing is a very rare winter visitor from the far North,
and I have never seen it alive. The other, the Cedar-
bird, is a common and familiar bird, much admired
for its soft brown plumage, its wavy crest, the yellow-
bordered tail, and the little red “sealing wax” feather
tips that some of them have on their wings. Most of
the year they go in compact flocks, making a lisping
note as they fly, and alighting close together on the
trees. These flocks sometimes appear in the winter,
and one of my earliest recollections about birds is that
one bitter cold day in February a large flock of these

194

Young Cedar Waxwings. “Assumed pretty positions” (p. 196).

FOUR NEIGHBORS DIVERSE

birds was flying about our garden, and we picked up
one dead, which we had mounted. How I did admire
it!—much, I suppose as my baby girl feels, who pats
the stuffed birds in my study every day, saying, “Chicky,
chicky.”

In early spring, usually by March, one begins to see
more and more flocks. These large companies break
up soon into smaller ones. But after all the other
birds have paired and are nesting, still we see flocks of
Cedar-birds and Goldfinches, our two greatest delin-
quents. The Cedar-bird is the first of these two to
yield to the inevitable, and by late June or early July
we begin to miss them. But if we use our eyes a little
we can find a nest here and a nest there, preferably in
an orchard tree, but also in shade trees in gardens or
along village streets. The pretty mother sits quietly
on her compact nest of straws and rootlets, incubating
her four or five spotted eggs, which can be distinguished
at once from those of any other kind. If we disturb
her we shall hear the lisping notes which were familiar
in the spring. One day in midsummer a boy came to
ask me what sort of a bird it was that had a nest in an
apple tree by his home and kept saying, “‘Listen to me,
listen to me.” I told him that I never heard a bird
say that, so I went with him to see, and found that it
was a Cedar-bird.

- They sometimes nest in my apple trees, and I find

nests elsewhere readily enough, but most of them are

out on slender branches or in deep shade, giving little
195

FOUR NEIGHBORS DIVERSE

chance for photography. However, as though to reward
my forbearance in not cutting down a nest to pose
in unnatural surroundings, I had an unusual chance
to photograph a pair of Cedar-birds from life. In
a neighbor’s yard, a nest blew down in a thunder-
storm, and all but two of the young were drowned
or otherwise disappeared. A kind lady rescued the
neglected orphans and fed them till they were fully
grown and feathered. When I saw them they were at
liberty in the garden, and were so tame that almost at
once they would fly upon my head or shoulder and beg
for food. They were very fond of raspberries, and
every few minutes they would clamor to be fed—in
their lisping dialect and by beseeching gestures. Hand-
ling them did not alarm them in the least, so I focused
the camera on a small bush, and fed the little fellows
on the desired branch, when they assumed all sorts of
pretty positions as I snapped them. After a few days
they wandered off, and one afternoon a lady who
stepped out on the sidewalk in front of her house was
amazed to have a Cedar-bird suddenly alight on her
head and then hop to her shoulder, where she could see
that it was begging for food. She fed it, and the other
one appeared, and they stayed about her home all
day. It is not good, though, for birds to be too con-
fiding, for a cat caught one of them, and it is more
than likely that the other perished before long in some
such way.

Very different in temperament from the gentle wax-

196

FOUR NEIGHBORS DIVERSE

wing is the carnivorous shrike. Of the two species,
the bold Northern Shrike, or Butcher-bird, is the one
with which I am the more familiar. We only have it
in winter, from November to about early April. Most
often it appears to our view as a solitary, gray-colored
bird, nearly as large as a Robin, perched up on the
topmost twig of some isolated tree, in a field or by
the roadside. While we watch, it may suddenly dive
down into the bushes or grass below, perhaps returning
to its perch without result, or it may be with a mouse
or a poor Tree Sparrow or Junco, grasped by the neck
by the strong, toothed beak. If hungry, it will proceed
to devour the victim like a little hawk. But at times
it seems to kill merely from habit, and will impale its
slaughtered victim on a thorn in the thicket, or suspend
it in a crotch, and leave it. It is doubtful if this is
done to provide for the future. Surely, in cold winter
weather, when the meat would freeze solid, the shrike
could hardly be supposed to eat it. Sometimes, when
one of these birds of murderous taste locates in a town
and practices its talents on English Sparrows, we come
to feel friendly toward it.

I remember how surprised I was the first time I
heard the Butcher-bird sing. It was in March, and on
the topmost twig of a small elm on the edge of a field
stood a bird which at once I called a shrike. As I
drew near I was greatly surprised to hear it warbling
away very prettily. At that time I had not read that
butchering and musicianship could unite in an indi-

197

FOUR NEIGHBORS DIVERSE

vidual. I should about as soon have expected a hawk
to rival the pet Canary. However, I saw that it was a
Butcher-bird without doubt, so that day I added to my
little stock of bird-lore.

The Butcher-bird nests far to the north, but the
other species, the Loggerhead Shrike, is more southerly,
and is quite widespread, though rare in the northeastern
States. I have found its nest in Florida and seen it a
few times as far west as North Dakota. In habits it is
a good deal like the Butcher-bird, though more of the
sort of singer that one would expect a butcher to be. I
have noticed that it seems to like pretty well to perch
on telegraph wires.

Somewhat resembling the shrikes in structure, hav-
ing in common with them the strong, notched bill,
the vireos are yet a very different group of birds.
They are birds of the foliage, clad in dull green and
olive garb which renders them inconspicuous, great
destroyers of insects, and of considerable ability in
song. They all build neat cup-shaped nests which
they hang in a slender fork, usually near the end of a
bough. Of the six species that visit us, the first to
come in spring, toward the latter part of April, is the
Blue-headed or Solitary Vireo. These species are all
pretty much of a size and quite similar in plumage,
and we must look carefully to distinguish them. This
one is particularly distinct with the bold white ring
around the eyes, bluish-gray crown and sides of head,
and short, stubby bill. It is a northerly species, but it

198

FOUR NEIGHBORS DIVERSE

sometimes nests as far south as southern New England
and in the Alleghany Mountains.

I have been fortunate enough to find one nest. As
I was passing along the edge of a pine grove one June
seventeenth, I noticed a vireo’s nest in the fork of an
extended branch of a sapling, not quite as high as my
head. ‘The owner, a Solitary Vireo, was at home, and
was surprisingly tame. Though I stood close to her,
she did not move, and it was only when I almost put my
hand on her that she hopped off and began to scold
very angrily. There were four small young in the nest.
Unfortunately this was before the days of bird photog-
raphy, in my boyhood, when the portrait photographer
fixed one’s head in a vise and made one sit rigid for a
fearfully long time. I am certain that the vireo would
not have submitted to that.

Last summer I came pretty near finding another nest
of this bird. A friend and I had been exploring a
typical Northern sphagnum swamp, around which grew
a tract of black spruce, making ideal conditions for
tempting Northern birds to linger south of their usual
range. It was getting toward evening, and we were
just coming out of the woods when we heard a vireo
singing away with all its might from a pine tree near by.
“That song doesn’t sound to me just like the common
Red-eye,” said my friend. “It certainly does sound a
little peculiar,” I replied, “‘let’s look it up.” The pine
was a large one, and for a quarter of an hour we vainly
craned our necks, while the bird sang on. Finally my

199

FOUR NEIGHBORS DIVERSE

friend threw a stone at random and almost hit the
singer, which darted out over my head and went down
into the swamp. Presently it began again to sing and
we followed it up. For some time it kept itself con-
cealed in the top of another tall pine, but at last it flew
down low and gave us a fine view. It was a Blue-
headed Vireo. This was in late June and of course the
nest was somewhere near by. We made a long, careful
search for it, but at last had to give it up and return for
supper. It proved impossible for me to visit the spot
again.

Another species that is easy to distinguish is the
Yellow-throated Vireo. Its bright-yellow throat re-
veals its identity in a moment. Though found in
woodland, it is quite partial to the shaded street or
garden, where it finds delight and food in the tall shade
trees, from which it sings away blithely all the day.
One of my earliest recollections is of a beautiful nest
of this species in our garden in Boston, ornamented
with many bits of white paper and cotton and lined
with beautiful soft plant down. More latterly a pair
built at the extremity of a slender limb of an ash tree
quite near a window of my present home.

The Warbling Vireo is another species which fre-
quents the tall shade trees of town or village, or even
city. It is a plainly-garbed little bird, perhaps the
most demure of all the vireos, greenish above and
yellowish white below, without distinct markings.
The nest is nearly always inaccessible, and were it not

200

FOUR NEIGHBORS DIVERSE

for its voluble singing, it would seem much scarcer than
it really is. There is another vireo which is quite like
it, a rare migrant, the Philadelphia Vireo, which may
be distinguished by uniform pale greenish-yellow color
of its entire under-parts.

The remaining other two kinds are named after the
color of their eyes, or iris—White-eyed and Red-eyed
Vireo. The former has a ring of yellowish feathers
around the eyes, and is a bird of the swampy thicket,
a hard bird to study, as its haunts are so impenetrable.
However, I have managed to find its nest, suspended
in a low bush in the dense tangle of a swamp, though
were it not for the fact that the little fellow is such a
capital singer and mimic, the most accomplished
vocally of all our vireos, even the bird lover might not
suspect its presence. Even as it is, with all its fine
singing, few people know of its existence.

If there is any vireo at all well-known, it is the Red-
eyed Vireo, or “Preacher-bird,” as some have called it,
readily distinguishable by white stripe over the eye.
It is one of our most abundant woodland birds, and is
also often found in shade trees or orchards. No bird’s
nest is more often found in the woods than the Red-
eye’s. One winter day, while taking a walk in the
woods with Ned and another boy, I noticed a number
of these nests on the bare branches. “Boys,”’ said I,
“stop a moment and tell me how many vireos’ nests
you can discover right from where you stand.” ‘The
boys began to peer about, and after some little time

201

FOUR NEIGHBORS DIVERSE

they made out to find the six which I had already noted.
In late spring and pretty much throughout the summer
it seems as though one could hardly go anywhere into
woodland without hearing the simple monotonous carol
of the Red-eye “preacher.” If no one listens to his
discourse, it makes no difference, for his “preaching”’ is
only intended for home consumption, the expression to
his mate of his affection and of their mutual happiness.

The nest is generally in the fork of a sapling, low
down, often within four feet of the ground. The
mother bird sits tamely upon her three or four white,
sparsely-dotted eggs. I have found it easy to stand
the camera near by and photograph her, though she
snuggles down so deeply into the cup that little of her
can be seen save her head and the top of her back.

Of all the many Red-eyes’ nests which I have seen,
none have proved as interesting as one which I found
this last June. I was just coming out of the woods
back from the shore of a pond, when one of these vireos,
flying into the shrubbery, suddenly encountered me
face to face. At once it began to scold, and I saw the
nest on a low sprout, just to one side. It was newly
finished and contained only one egg, not the vireo’s,
but of the Cowbird parasite. 'To help the vireo, I
removed it, thinking that now the birds might raise
their brood in peace. I kept the nest in mind, and,
wishing to photograph young vireos, I returned to it
twenty-three days later, at the time when the brood
ought to be nearly fledged. As I peered into the nest

202

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“(£06 ‘d) astaduns jo asod ‘sunod reau oat pade-poy SHS plIq Joyjour sfp,, “Sueqnout oa, pada-pey

FOUR NEIGHBORS DIVERSE

I saw that there were young, but imagine my surprise
when these young proved to be, not vireos, but two
lusty young Cowbirds, about ready to fly. There is
no way of knowing whether one Cowbird had laid
three times in this nest, or whether it was the work of
three different Cowbirds. No doubt these youngsters
had thrown out or trampled to death the whole brood of
young vireos. I had a good mind to wring their necks,
but the foster mother came and acted so distressed, that
I decided she had had trouble enough.

But anyhow I was going to photograph the young
rascals. It was dark there in the woods, so I carried
them some rods out into an open clearing, where I
posed them on a branch and used up my last few
plates. By this time the old vireo had found us and
scolded plaintively from a branch close by. Then it
began to dawn upon me that I had been rash in using
up my plates so soon. I withdrew a few yards, leaving
the camera where it was, close to the young. Within
a minute the vireo flew down and gave one of her
adopted children a worm, utterly ignoring the camera.
I do not know when I ever felt more utterly disgusted
at myself for having made such a blunder. Oh, if I
only had a few plates! My reflecting camera was in
the buggy half a mile away and the sun nearly setting!
Putting the young Cowbirds in the carrying case, to
keep them from fluttering away in my absence, I ran
as fast as I could, got the other camera and plates,
and rushed back again. I put the youngsters on the

203

FOUR NEIGHBORS DIVERSE

branch and sat down near by with the big camera, ready
for business. The vireo, to my delight, went right to
feeding the clamorous Cowbirds and I scored half-a-
dozen shots before the western hill cut off the yellow
sunshine. I put the youngsters back in the nest, hoping
against hope that they would not be gone on the mor-
row, for I knew that these pictures already taken must
be under-exposed, as they proved to be.

All in a flutter of excitement, the next morning, I
peered through the foliage as I neared the nest. ‘Oh,
joy, they are there!” I exclaimed. I thought surely I
was all right now, but my troubles were to begin. I
posed the young, but they were determined not to stay
on the branch, and I had to replace them again and
again—scores of times. Besides this, the mother did
not show up. After waiting over an hour, I feared all
sorts of things, as she had not appeared at the nest
while I was removing the young. Finally, just as I
was thinking of returning them to the nest, I heard the
old bird, and presently she came and gave one a worm.
But now it had clouded up darkly and threatened rain,
being too dark to photograph. I sat there another hour
or more and watched her tuck grubs, flies, raspberries
and the like into the hungry mouths. There was the
camera staring helplessly at all those splendid poses
two or three feet away, and I fairly gnashing my teeth,
my proverbial patience almost a complete wreck.

But at length the clouds began to break. The sun
peered out, and I scored a shot as a big red raspberry

204

Red-eyed Vireo feeding young Cowbird. “Save one a worm”’ (p. 204).

Red-eyed Vireo feeding Cowbirds. “A big red raspberry . . . shoved into
: mouth’”’ (pp. 204-3).

FOUR NEIGHBORS DIVERSE

was being shoved into a widely opened mouth. Pres-
ently another gleam, just in time to catch on the plate
the offer of a great fat worm. For about an hour there
were intervals of sunshine, during which feeding was
in active operation, and shooting, too! I fired away
with that camera till it was, metaphorically, red-hot
and when the dark leaden pall shut in again over the
sky before the shower broke, I went away rejoicing,
leaving the devoted and deluded vireo still cramming

the insatiable maws of those murderers of her own
offspring.

205

CHAPTER XIII
FEATHERED GEMS
(The Warblers)

ALKING about a day in June being “rare”
always makes me feel like standing up for May.

Really I should like to know whether any day

in June can surpass a real “warbler day” in May—
when the fruit trees are white and pink with their
canopies of blossoms, when the tints of the young
foliage are so exquisite, when the air is soft but not hot,
and when trees and shrubbery in woods, swamp,
garden, orchard and village streets are fairly alive with
variegated warblers, flashing about in their greens,
blues, reds and yellows. Yesterday we noticed none,
but to-day, this thirteenth of May—lucky day it is
indeed—we can hardly look at an apple tree without
having our eyes arrested by movements which are not
those of blossoms swayed by the wind. As though the
wedding garb of this bridal tree were not rich enough
to express the springtime joy, she must be further
decked with feathered gems, the crowning jewelry of
Nature. It is indeed a joy to live and move and have
one’s being at such a time—outdoors, of course, for it

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FEATHERED GEMS

were a sin to stay under a roof and behind glass on one
of these rare May warbler days.

No sooner had I set foot even upon the piazza than
my eye caught the flash as of rubies, and there, in the
larch tree on the front lawn were a little company of
half a dozen Bay-breasts, the first I had seen in several
years. In the clump of honeysuckle bushes was a
flashy Magnolia Warbler busily looking for his break-
fast. From the Norway spruces bordering the street
I heard a snatch of unfamiliar song, and there was the
first and only Cape May Warbler I had ever met, a
beautiful adult male, whose distinguishing mark was
the tan—I almost said sun-burn—of his cheeks. The
shade trees rang with the joyous notes of the Redstart,
that flame of a bird—and for that matter with a perfect
babel of other bird-notes and songs, of Robins, Orioles,
Vireos, Purple Finches, Grosbeaks, Wrens, Grackles,
and others. The orchard was a place of delight.
Parula Warblers, with their bright hues of blue and
yellows were fluttering before the blossoms; Myrtle
Warblers were making sallies for flies from the bower
of petals; Black-throated Greens, more leisurely in
motions, were droning out their soporific little ditty.
To make more brilliant the occasion, the common but
conspicuous Yellow Warbler had loaned us his charms,
as had also the spectacular and rarer Blackburnian.

It was fortunate for Ned that he did not have to
attend school that day, so we started off to see how
many kinds of warblers we could note for the day’s

207

FEATHERED GEMS

list. Most of the morning we spent in the woods well
up the slope of a range of hills on the west side of the
river. Warblers of one sort or another were within
sight or hearing all the time. Of course the Oven-
birds were calling for “teacher” as volubly as usual.
The familiar Black and White Creeper was perambulat-
ing the tree trunks and larger branches, singing his
simple little trill. One of them stopped for a moment
on a branch close beside us to see what we were up to,
and I just had time to snap him with my “Reflex”
before he started off on his travels. Blackburnians
and Bay-breasts were unusually common. In one spot
several of both of these were searching for food, in
some low undergrowth. I sat down upon a rock near
by, keeping perfectly quiet, and presently the pretty
little things were close around me, occasionally even
within arm’s reach, and I secured some snapshots of
both species, though the May sun was rather fickle,
dodging in and out behind the broken cloud masses
that had begun to rise. ‘There was considerable moun-
tain laurel undergrowth, and the male Black-throated
Blues were there in full song, and thus conspicuous,
whereas it took careful searching to find their silent
and somber-hued little brides, some of whom were
already, doubtless, choosing nesting-sites, for they build
rather early and are common here with us. Redstarts,
Myrtles, and Black-throated Greens were also numerous
in the woods.

Coming down and out, we ate our lunch upon the

208

Me

Black and White Creeping Warbler on nest. ‘By throwing rays ot ight upon
her’’ (p. 227).

FEATHERED GEMS

beautiful river bank, and then followed the “river
road,” with its variety of over-arching trees and fringe
of swampy thickets. It is usually a fine place for birds,
and to-day it fairly outdid itself. We had gone but a
little way when there was a flash of yellow in the road-
side thicket and here was the Canadian Warbler, with
the necklace of black beady spots hung across his yellow
breast, the brilliancy of which was enhanced by the
more somber grayish back. This one was but the first
of many, for we kept meeting them every few minutes.
And now came an even yellower, though smaller, ap-
parition, a Wilson’s Warbler, or Wilson’s Black-cap,
skipping blithely about in a clump of bushes, quaint in
his shiny black little feather cap. In the thickets along
the river bank were any number of Northern Yellow-
throats, and their “witchery-witchery” songs stood out
above the general chorus. In the same haunts we spied
out an occasional Water “Thrush,” or Wagtail, near
relative of the Oven-bird, but darker of back and even
more heavily streaked on the breast. They were
walking sedately through the débris of the swamp,
teetering their bodies from time to time. Of course
the familiar Chestnut-sided Warblers, they that disport
the brown side-stripes, were abundant all along the
road, as were Redstarts, Parulas, Yellow Warblers,
Black-throated Greens and Myrtles. Up from the
road, in a patch of chestnut scrub part way up the
hillside, we heard the versatile Yellow-breasted Chat
pouring forth his medley, and presently saw him
209

FEATHERED GEMS

perched on a sun-bathed limb, warbling away. Further
along, a mountain brook, which flowed through a dark,
rocky hemlock-shaded ravine, crossed the road, and
here, by the little bridge, we saw a Louisiana Water
Thrush, distinguishable from the other species by the
throat being pure white, instead of streaked. It is a
bird of very similar habit, though southern New Eng-
land is about its northern breeding-range, whereas the
other goes further north. Out more in the open, in a
willow, I detected the rather inconspicuous Nashville
Warbler, a tiny fellow who has some reddish hair—
or feathers—on the top of his head.

This made twenty kinds of warblers seen in one day,
and we thought we had done pretty well. I wanted to
follow up this fine flight on the morrow and perhaps
find some more of the varieties. In good season,
therefore, I was out and at it, but, strange to say, I
could find but very few warblers, save the resident
kinds. The host, having fed bountifully that nice day,
under the impulse of that strange, restless longing for
the spruce and balsam forests of the North, had started
on during the night, and by this time were very many
miles away. But it was a good season for warblers,
and before it closed we both had seen more kinds than
we had ever met before in a season, including some
which, like the Cape May, were entire strangers. What
a delight it is, after one has studied birds for decades
and thinks he has met about every species around home
which he is likely ever to meet, and that he knows them

210

FEATHERED GEMS

all, suddenly to encounter one which he has never in his
life seen alive.

Such an event occurred this same season one day
toward evening. It was about twenty minutes before
supper time. I had already been afield that day, and
my first impulse was to play on the piano. But some-
thing moved me to stroll out back of the village street
and look for bird-migrants. On the edge of a cemetery
is a narrow strip of woodland bordering a meadow,
growing on a rather steep bank. Hardly had I looked
over the edge when I saw a warbler in some low shrub-
bery, half way down the slope. Just as I raised my
field-glass it flew, but in that instant I thought I saw
bold stripes on the head. Instantly Audubon’s picture
of the Worm-eating Warbler flashed into my mind. I
am fortunate enough to own a set of Audubon and it
was probably that which started me out as a child with
a passion for birds. ‘Though confident that I had just
seen my first ““Worm-eater,” I must have a better view
to be sure. So I followed after it along the strip of
trees and shrubbery, hoping that I might start it again.
About a hundred yards further on a bird flew from the
ground which I thought was the one. It kept flitting
on and on, after brief stops among the patches of fern,
until I was about in despair of getting a good look at it.
Finally it seemed to stay in one spot and I stole up
with caution. Peering through the bushes, I was
thrilled and delighted to see it sitting motionless on a
log, within a very few feet of me, an undoubted Worm-

211

FEATHERED GEMS

eating Warbler, with the bold stripes on its head. With
my powerful glasses I could see it as well as though it
were in my hands. There it sat for fully five minutes,
perhaps about ready for bed. Then I startled it and
it darted off. As I returned home I also saw its mate.
I hoped they would breed there, as it was an ideal
situation for them, but I never could find them after-
ward. ‘This was the very last of May.

Another rarity to me that I had met a few days before
was a male Golden-winged Warbler, splendid with his
conspicuous yellow wing-bars, feeding in an apple tree
near my home. Still another was a Tennessee Warbler
which I encountered during a furious cold rainstorm
in a pasture. The poor little fellow flew out from
where he had been sheltering himself under a rock.
He was bedraggled and shivering, but he flitted to an
apple tree and set to work hunting for supper among
the blossoms. In the same pasture I saw a Canadian
Warbler so benumbed that it could hardly fly, and I
almost caught it. Other birds were about in the same
condition, so I was thankful that immediately after
this the weather cleared. ‘The storm had been on for
three days, and such bad weather in the migration or
breeding period is very destructive of bird life.

There are a few of the warblers which we are liable
to meet which I have not mentioned. Such is the
Yellow Palm Warbler, a common and early species,
quite flycatcher-like in habits, which comes to us about
mid-April. On the warbler day described above we

212

FEATHERED GEMS

did not see any, and probably they had mostly migrated
beyond us. The last of all the tribe to appear is the
Black-poll Warbler. It looks a little like the Black
and White Warbler, but is different enough, and has
none of the “creeper” habits, keeping in the foliage
pretty well up and droning out a lisping little ditty.
We usually have it lingering till the last of May or the
first of June, and in the tardy season of 1907 it remained
at least till June 12th. Both the Mourning and Con-
necticut Warblers are rare; they are found, like their
nearest “Swamp-Warbler”’ relatives—as certain scien-
tists have classed them—mostly on or near the ground,
and they are easily confused, as both are much alike,
with dark ashy throat-patch. A careful reading of the
descriptions in the Manuals is advisable to fix in mind
their points of difference. Then there is the Pine
Warbler, the bird with dull, plain yellow breast which
runs creeper-like over the trunks and branches of pines,
especially the yellow or pitch pine, in regions of poor
and sandy soil. With it we may think of the Prairie
Warbler, which is likewise locally distributed, in scrubby
and bushy tracts, an inconspicuous little fellow, and, in
my experience, rather hard to find, unless one is in a
region that they have chosen as a center of abundance.
Even less conspicuous is the Blue-winged Warbler,
which somewhat resembles the Yellow Warbler, but has
grayish or ashy wings. It is fond of the edge of woods,
and usually is far from common. Where I live they
are more apt to be seen in August, after the breeding
213

FEATHERED GEMS

season. The Hooded and Kentucky Warblers are
rather common in parts of the Middle States, and there
are several rare or accidental species which one might
possibly meet, such as the Prothonotary, Brewster’s
(probably a hybrid), Cerulean and Yellow-throated
Warblers.

This makes about thirty-five species of this remark-
able family which we may meet in the Eastern and
Middle States. About twice that number are known
to occur in the entire United States, and there are some
thirty more tropical species, making about one hundred
known species of Wood Warblers, a group which is
peculiar to the Western Hemisphere. Thus the group
is second with us in number of species to the puzzling
finch family, and it has almost as many puzzles for
the beginner in bird-study. The task is easiest in
spring, when all of them are in their bright and distinc-
tive nuptial dress. But by autumn they have become
more or less dull-colored and nondescript, especially
the young, some of which latter can hardly be identified
without shooting—such as young Black-polls and young
Bay-breasts.

Most of the warblers are slender, active little birds,
living mostly in dry or swampy woodland, where from
the foliage they glean their living of insects, grubs and
larve. They cannot endure much cold, so most of
them migrate in autumn to the tropics. A few kinds
winter in our Southern States, but only one, the Myrtle
Warbler, recognizable by its yellow rump-patch, ever

214

FEATHERED GEMS

stays to brave the snow and cold of our Northern win-
ters. They are mostly among the last of our migrants
to return to us in spring, May being the great flight
time, though we begin to have a few in April, such as
the Myrtle, Yellow Palm, Pine, and Black-throated
Green.

One nice thing in studying warblers is that in migra-
tion they come to our very doors, fairly forcing them-
selves upon our attention. At such times, careless of
their accustomed haunts, they pour, as it were, across
the country like a tidal wave. Wherever there is a tree
with young leaves or blossoms, we are liable to find
warblers at such times, even on eity streets. They
pour into city parks, and such a place as Central Park,
New York City, is one of the very best warbler grounds,
for they are fairly congested in such green spots amid
weary miles of pavement, which are, for them, truly
oases in the desert. So everyone who will may study
the beautiful warblers right at home, and, with opera
glass to see them and text-book to identify them, learn
and enjoy much.

A disadvantage and disappointment, to the contrary,
is that the abundance of the migration, as we see it,
varies very much from year to year. Some years, as
we have been showing, warblers are everywhere. But
then again we shall hardly find them at all. In these
years, for some reason, the hosts either take another
route in their travels or else pass over us at night, and
we look in vain for their welcome presence on the

215

FEATHERED GEMS

blossom-laden fruit trees. Investigations to learn the
reason for this are on foot, but as yet it is largely a
mystery.

The autumnal migration is by no means a repetition
of the delightful experiences of the spring. Silently and
almost stealthily the warblers slip past us and are gone
ere we realize that they have been with us at all, unless
we look carefully for them. No longer do their exuber-
ant spirits reveal themselves in snatches of character-
istic song. The pretty nuptial garb is exchanged for
the traveler’s costume, as though they were expecting
to rough it on the long journey amid increasing cold.
Nor do they come so much at this season into the gar-
dens and orchards, but keep more to woods and thickets.
They are shier, too, and in every way harder to identify.
Yet we love them for what they were, and what they
will be next spring again. Small bands of them begin
to appear in August, and during September the bulk
of them pass. By early October most of them have
gone.

We should expect from the name “warbler” that
these birds were great singers, whereas they are not.
Each species in spring has some characteristic, short,
simple phrase, or phrases, of song, more or less varied,
consisting of several rather weak notes, seldom as many
as a dozen. Some of these songs resemble those of
other species, while others are quite distinctive. But
it is possible for any person of quick ear who will care-
fully observe these songs to become able to recognize

216

FEATHERED GEMS

the warblers by their notes. This is a great advantage
in field work, and, for that matter, to know all bird-
notes as far as possible. It will save one a great deal of
needless searching and instantly call one’s attention
to the presence of rare species which otherwise would
probably be overlooked.

To a great many people there is a special fascination
connected with the nesting of the warblers, just as there
is in finding the various species on their spring migra-
tion. Their little houses are so dainty, and ordinarily
so well concealed and hard to find, that the discovery
of a warbler’s nest is a distinctly interesting and en-
livening event. Most of them nest well to the north.
Only about seven kinds breed at all commonly in most
Middle-Eastern districts—namely, the Yellow, Chest-
nut-sided and Black-throated Green Warblers, Oven-
bird, the Northern Yellow-throat, Redstart, and Black
and White Creeper or Warbler. A few more breed
sparingly or locally—such as the Chat, Kentucky,
Hooded, Blue-winged Yellow and Worm-eating War-
blers, especially in the Middle States; and casually
there or in the latitude of southern New England the
Nashville, Golden-winged, Parula, Black-throated Blue,
Pine and Canadian Warblers and the Louisiana Water
Thrush. Out of about sixteen kinds which at all
normally breed in the regions where I have lived—
Massachusetts and northern Connecticut—I have found
the nests of twelve. The number grows very slowly,
and only by persistent and assiduous searching. But

217

FEATHERED GEMS

it is one of the beauties of this delightful “Sport of Bird
Study” that the unexpected is always liable to happen.

It was thus unexpectedly that I happened upon my
only nest of the Nashville Warbler. Ned and I were
going up into some woods where a pair each of Broad-
winged and Cooper’s Hawks nested, on the fifteenth
of May. We were following an old cart-road bordering
a field and the woods on a side-hill. On the side toward
the field was a low grassy bank, about three feet high.
Just as I passed close to a certain spot, out darted a
small warbler from the grass of the bank, within arm’s
reach of me, and fluttered over the road, quivering its
wings. Now, when a warbler quivers its wings one
may be very sure that there are either nest or young
near by, so I was on the alert. The bird then flew up
into a low tree and began a scolding “chip, chip.”
After identifying it positively as a Nashville, we went
eagerly to work to look for the nest. But, though we
examined carefully every inch of the ground, there was
absolutely no sign of it, except a little hollow amid
some dry grass. I told Ned that I believed the bird
had just scratched it out preparatory to beginning to
build and that we would look again later.

On the 29th of May we were there once more. No
bird flew out and no nest could we discover. Just as
I was wondering if we could not have mistaken the
spot, Ned’s sharp eyes detected a little opening in the
dry grass, and in underneath was a dainty little cup of
moss lined with grass, and five tiny white eggs with

218

k-throated Blue Warbler. “A neat, compactly woven little cup”
(p. 219).

es Wh
Nest of Blac

X<°% ,!
om 3

Nest of Yellow-breasted Chat, with one runt egg. “Amid the densest tangle of
briars” (p. 222).

FEATHERED GEMS

reddish spots. They were cold, so I thought the bird
would lay another egg, for some warblers occasionally
lay six. However, I took a photograph of the nest and
eggs and came back several days later, in a downpour
of rain—a genuine lover of birds doesn’t mind such a
trifling inconvenience, if one is dressed for it. There
the same five eggs were, cold and wet. I took them
and the nest home and found that incubation had
proceeded three or four days before the mother dis-
appeared. I suspected the Cooper’s Hawks of the
murder of the female, so Ned and I went and robbed
them of their eggs that there might not be four more of
them there to eat warblers. It was fortunate that I
identified the Nashville the first time, or I should never
have known to what bird the nest belonged and the
experience would have been without scientific value.
Another good warbler find I shall have to lay to the
credit of my wife. Ned and I conducted a party, con-
sisting of a bird-club of ladies, up a steep road back
into the hill country where the Black-throated Blue
Warblers nested quite abundantly in the woods where
there was an undergrowth of mountain laurel. As two
of the ladies were following an old wood road, up flitted
a little olive-colored bird from close beside them, and
my wife discovered the nest in the fork of a low sassafras
sprout, about a foot from the ground. It was a neat,
compactly woven little cup and contained four eggs.
They called to me and I examined the nest and then
hid, to try to see the owner. Presently she began to
219

FEATHERED GEMS

hop about chirping, and I saw at once that she was of the
above species from the rather conspicuous white wing-
bar, which is very characteristic. The male with his
dark blue back and black throat is a very distinguished
citizen, with a lovely little song, but his little wife is
very plain indeed. This was the tenth of June, and
the eggs were nearly ready to hatch.

Another season, on the twelfth of June, after climbing
to examine the young “robbers of the falls,” mentioned
in the third chapter, Ned and I sat on the rocks below
the great fall, eating our lunch. Presently I noticed a
female Louisiana Water Thrush pattering about among
and over the rocks, teetering as usual. At first I did
not pay much attention to her, but after she had gone
off and returned several times, it began to dawn upon
me that we might be near her nest and that she was
anxious. So we withdrew, hid behind a bowlder and
watched. After climbing about for perhaps five minutes
longer, the bird flew up into a recess of the steep side
of the ravine, just behind where we had been eating,
and disappeared. Waiting to make sure that she had
settled down, we stole up cautiously, and out she
popped from a hole in the mossy declivity, close beside
us. There was the nest with five white, finely speckled
eggs, built into the recess in the green moss and dry
leaves which had lodged there. Some of these latter
stuck up and partly concealed the entrance, which was
five feet up from the bottom of the ravine. The owner
was now running about near by, chirping excitedly.

220

FEATHERED GEMS

After photographing the nest with the camera on the
tripod, I thought I would try for a picture of the old
bird on the nest. It was rather a hard problem to hide
the camera properly. The only way seemed to be to
tie it on the projecting rock on the side of the gully, a
little above and in front of the nest. At first there seemed
to be no place to stand to focus, but Ned generously
offered to let me stand on his head with one foot, having
the other over a rock, grasping a sapling with one hand
while I adjusted the camera with the other. It was
hard work and took quite a while, but at last the camera
was rigged, connected by a thread, and covered with
dead leaves. From over the brook we watched, till, in
a quarter of an hour, the bird stole back to the nest,
when I went around and pulled the thread for timed
exposure, once to open the shutter, and in ten seconds
to close it. In this way I exposed four plates suc-
cessively, securing one picture only, as in the other
cases the shutter did not work properly, closing too
quickly to get an image there in the deep shadow.
When we came again later to photograph the young,
we were sorry to find all but one thrown out of the nest,
with wounds on their bodies, and the other wounded
so badly that it soon died—crows or jays this time, I
suspect.

In the tall dark hemlocks around the falls, the Black-
throated Green Warblers are abundant, as they are in
nearly every grove of evergreens. One can hardly
listen a minute without hearing their dreamy little song

221

FEATHERED GEMS

which well fits in with the murmuring voices of the
grove. I do not doubt but that I have walked under
literally thousands of their nests, yet I never have
found but one, and that was built in a pine grove near
a Sharp-shinned Hawks’ nest, and was deserted before
the eggs were laid, the warblers, probably, being killed
by the hawks. The nests are built out on the branches,
usually high up, where they cannot be seen from the
ground, and hence they are very hard to find, among
so many thick trees. Speaking of the destruction of
these various birds or their nests, according to my
experience a considerable portion of the birds fail to
rear their young owing to predatory vermin or cold
storms. Indeed, it seems almost remarkable that any
of the birds survive the many dangers to which they
are exposed, and the very least we can do, in order
that they may not be exterminated, is not to injure or
needlessly disturb them ourselves, and, better still, to do
all that we can for their protection.

Another warbler that conceals its nest in a different
way is the Chat. It builds a rather bulky structure
amid the densest tangle of briers, entirely hidden from
sight. It was only by struggling through acres and
miles of brambles, with plenty of scratches and rents
in clothing, that I have found nests of this retiring bird.
To hear it sing, imitating other birds and pouring
forth the loud, striking medley that it does, one would
expect to find it of a bold, audacious disposition,
whereas it is just the opposite. So shy is it that I have

222

L

: (2S
Louisiana Water Thrush on nest. ‘‘The bird stole back to the nest” (p. 221).

FEATHERED GEMS

never been able to surprise or photograph one on the
nest.

A very singular structure is that of the Parula War-
bler. All the nests that I have found or known were
built in the pendent streamers of the gray usnea moss
which hangs in beards from trees. In the northern
States this moss is not plentiful, and where it does
occur the Parula is quite apt to colonize. I have found
such colonies of a few pairs, or a dozen, in some moss-
grown swamp, especially in larch or spruce trees. In
one place there was an old apple orchard with trees all
overgrown with streamers of this moss, and those
streamers held a number of sets of eggs. ‘The warbler
does not appear to build a nest, but rather to scrape
out a hollow in a swaying beard of moss and lay the
eggs in this hanging basket.

I must now tell of the nesting of our common summer
resident warblers, those whose nests we are most liable
to come across. The one whose nest is most often
found is the familiar Yellow Warbler, the kind which
is practically all yellow, and which is emphatically not
a wild Canary, though many people call it so. It
builds a rather bulky, soft nest of plant down and
fibers on a bush in a swamp, especially, in my experi-
ence, a willow bush, or near the end of a low branch
of some small maple or bushy clump in the garden.
A friend of mine showed me the nest of a pair in a lilac
bush, right under his bedroom window. A wet bushy
pasture is also a good place to search, and in such an

223

FEATHERED GEMS

one I recently found two nests with young. I set up
my camera by one, which was built only four feet from
the ground, and, after decking the instrument and
tripod with bushes and lying in wait a few rods off with
a thread, I was able to make exposures when one or
other of the parents came with food for the nestlings.
One of these pictures shows the male tucking a fly into
a widely opened mouth.

Another bush-nester is the familiar and interesting
Chestnut-sided Warbler. This one prefers dry scrub
land, brier patches, and the like. The nest is less
ornate than that of the Yellow Warbler and is placed
habitually lower down, seldom more than waist high,
whereas the other often builds above one’s head. I
usually find the nest by plunging through the bushes,
thrashing about at random with a switch. If I happen
to pass near, the little bird flies out and there is the nest
concealed from above in the foliage. Chestnut-side is
a tame, confiding little fellow, an easy bird to photo-
graph. I have set up the camera close to a nest, con-
cealing it by drawing bushes around it and trimming
it with leaves and boughs. After no more than rea-
sonable hesitation, the pretty warbler hopped back into
the nest, and, after standing there a moment to take
in the situation, settled down to incubate. Then I pulled
the thread and “got” my unhurt quarry. It would fly
off, and when it returned I took it before it settled
down. After a few such incidents, it would pay no
further attention to the click of the shutter, and would

224

me Le er
Redstart on nest. ‘“‘Their home is pretty and trim” (p. 225).

Chestnut-sided Warbler on nest. “A tame, confiding little fellow” (p. 224).

FEATHERED GEMS

even let me photograph it by hand and change plates
- without stirring.

One day, as I was driving, a boy stopped me and
showed me a nest in a strip of hazel bushes by the road-
side of a pair of Chestnut-sided Warblers. It contained
the odd combination of a rotten egg, a young warbler
and a larger young Cowbird. After some trouble I
photographed the uneasy things, and, having thrown
out the egg in the hope of making enough room for the
ill-matched pair, returned two days later to see how
affairs progressed. It was the old story. The parasite
had thrown out the rightful offspring, which had dis-
appeared, leaving the fat, ugly intruder filling the nest
and clamoring for all the food that both the deluded
warblers could bring. Probably this is what happens
in nearly every case in which the Cowbird’s egg, laid in
the nest of another and smaller species, hatches.

The Redstart is surely one of the most charming of
our birds. Its song is simple, but how incessantly it
sings, fairly bubbling over with the joy of life—this
flame of a brilliant male, whose little flame of a wife
burns yellow instead of red, and who can make some
music as well as he. Their home is as pretty and trim
in its way as are they. It is very firmly woven into
and around the fork of a sapling or of some up-sloping
limb, usually from five to twenty feet from the ground,
so firmly as to seem a part of the tree, and often coming
through the winter storms perfectly intact, though
made of rather soft material. While it is not always

225

FEATHERED GEMS

hidden by foliage, it is usually quite hard to discover,
so well does it harmonize with its surroundings. There’
was a spot in a grove where a pair of Redstarts were in
evidence all the time, and I was sure there must be a
nest close by. One evening I watched the female
hopping uneasily about, and I peered and peeped,
scanning every limb, without result. The next morn-
ing I went to the same spot, and the very first thing I
spied her sitting on her nest five feet up a sapling in a
crotch, within a few feet of where she had been the
night before. I set up the camera near the nest, and
she went right on again with hardly any hesitation.
The shade was dense, so I got a mirror, threw light on
her and the nest, and by the thread made a number of
exposures, both as she sat on her four eggs and as she
was coming to them.

Very hard to find are the nests of the ground-building
Warblers. Indeed if it were not for flushing them by
chance from their nests, the quest would be almost
hopeless. The Black and White Warbler is one of
these. Withal that it is so common in the woods, its
nest is very hard to discover, and I have only found it
twice, with eggs and with young. In the former case I
flushed the female by the base of a tree in swampy
woods. In the other, one June 14th, Ned and I heard
the female chirping in some dry hemlock woods. We
hid to watch, and presently saw her run down a trunk
and disappear in the dry leaves. After a few minutes
we stole up and surprised her on the nest. She went

226

Nest of Chestnut-sided Warbler, illustrating how the young foster Cowbird destroys
the brood. Nest now contains a Cowhird, a young Warbler and an egg (p. 225)

~...

The condition of the Chestnut-sided Warbler’s nest two days later. The young
Cowbird has ejected the young Warbler, and fills the nest (p. 225).

FEATHERED GEMS

out almost from under my feet, trembling her wings,
as she ran stumbling over the ground. The nest was
a frail affair, built partly under some dead leaves, and
in it were five tiny, naked young. I withdrew for
awhile, and, on returning, saw her on the nest. Pro-
ceeding to set up the camera on the shortened tripod,
by working very slowly I was able to bring the lens
within about three feet and focus on the little mother.
It was quite dark under the hemlocks, but fortunately
I carried a small pocket mirror for such purpose, and
by throwing rays of light upon her was able to secure
some good pictures, as she kept very still. ‘To reward
her I withdrew without flushing her from her babies.

The Oven-bird, which is so abundant in the woods,
builds its nest on the ground under dead leaves which
are arched over it so as to make the entrance in the
side, as in an old-fashioned oven—whence the bird’s
name. I have been especially fortunate in stumbling
across these nests, I suppose because I have been a
good deal in the woods and kept industriously in mo-
tion. One day I found two nests by flushing the birds
when I had almost stepped on them. It was mid
’ June and the eggs looked fresh. This species, and
most of the warblers in this latitude, have eggs, ordi-
narily, by the first of June, or the last week in May,
but in 1907 most of them delayed till toward the middle
of June, which is very unusual. As it was toward
evening and I had a long drive home, I came again, a
week later. One of the nests had been robbed by some

227

FEATHERED GEMS

varmint, but the other housekeeper was at home and
allowed me to photograph her there, amid the low
mountain laurel, as nice as you please. She left the
nest when I moved the camera very near, but came
back in a few minutes and then let me work and change
plates without using the thread, except the first time.

The other ground-builder is the Northern Yellow-
throat. It prefers a bushy swamp, with bunches of
grass, in one of which latter the nest is usually placed.
Not only by flushing the bird, but also by looking in
tussocks when the bird began to scold, I have spied
the nest. It also builds on the ground among thickets
or in weeds, and on top of a skunk cabbage in a swamp
it often finds a desirable location for its tenement.
Such a home I once found with five eggs, and returned
to it when the young were just ready to fly. Only two
of them were alive, for the nest had partly tipped over
and the other three had fallen out and starved or chilled
within a foot of home, the parents not having had
intelligence enough to help them back, feed or brood
them, which they surely could have done. Just as I
reached the nest the sky had become overcast. The
two remaining young were determined to escape, but
I tied them on a log, and, with the camera set close to
them, the male came again and again and fed them.
It was simply maddening that the sun would not shine
out for even one instant. I secured portraits of the
young by timed exposures, but the few feeding pictures
that I attempted had hardly a trace of an image on the

228

‘
Ais

Yellow Warbler feeding young in nest. “The male tucking a fly into a widely-
opened mouth” (p. 224).

ie

Northern Yellow-throat. “Depositing the tidbit” (p. 229).

FEATHERED GEMS

plates. Next day the sun was bright, but I could not
find the young, though they were near, as the anxiety
of the parents proclaimed.

A year later, on the edge of a thicket by a brook
flowing through a field, a pair of these birds scolded
at me, appearing now and then with a worm for the
young. I hid and watched and made up my mind
that there were young out in the grass. After a search
I found one, a fledgling, and then I knew what to do.
Making a perch, I set him on it before the camera,
and retired with the end of my spool of thread into the
bushes out of sight. The male would not venture in
this case, but the female did, and in the course of two
hours she gave me sixteen pictures of herself lugging
some fat worm or depositing the tidbit in the open
mouth of the little bird. In another case I snapped
her—though only with head and shoulder on the
plate—as she was trying to ram down the youngster’s
throat a big harvest-fly that was altogether too large
for a fit. It stuck fast, and the old bird had to come
back and ram and shove before the luscious mouthful
was forced down. It was the best series of feeding
pictures I had ever secured and I drove home delighted
with the day’s work.

The American Pipit, or Titlark, is closely related to
the warblers. ‘These birds appear in flocks as rather
early spring and late fall migrants, frequenting open
pastures or barren ground, where they walk about
jerking their tails.

229

CHAPTER XIV
THRUSH COUSINS
(Thrashers, Wrens, Titmice, Kinglets, Thrushes, Etc.)

UCH a bird as the Brown Thrasher is often popu-
larly thought of as a kind of thrush, but, though this
is not strictly correct, it has so much in common

with the thrushes that we can quite naturally talk of the
group to which it belongs, and those between it and the
thrushes in the classification, along with the true thrushes.

Our thrasher, together with the familiar Catbird and
the various wrens, are classed in a family called Troglo-
dytide, or wren-like birds. This scientific name literally
means “cave-dwellers,”’ suggesting that they are all birds
of a sort of under-world, fond of seeking out holes and
crevices and impenetrable tangles, sly and artful dodgers.
Though willing enough to show themselves upon occa-
sion, they seldom get very far from the possible place of
refuge, into which they can dive upon the slightest alarm.
Wherever a bird of their size can penetrate, they can do
likewise with their enchantments, or even go it one better.

Most people know—or at any rate ought to know—
the Brown Thrasher, the rather large bird with rich
reddish-brown back and a long tail, which is so fond

230

THRUSH COUSINS

of dusting itself in the road and which one sees flitting
into the thickets. It returns from the South about the
last of April, and when it mounts up on a roadside
bush or sapling and pours out a flood of song, it is sup-
posed by farmers, according to the old adage, to be
calling out, “Plant corn, plant corn.” The thrasher
probably is no farmer, but it arrives and begins to sing
at about the usual corn-planting season. It is really
a remarkable songster, one of the most gifted of our
feathered musicians. Toward the end of May the
nest with its four or five eggs finely dotted all over with
brown may be found by the sharp-eyed and persistent
searcher in a thicket, either on the ground, or, more
generally, several feet up in the bushes.

I used to wonder why the bird was called a thrasher.
But after I had actually received a real thrashing from
a pair of them, I thought I had some light upon the
subject. Ordinarily they are quite timid and retiring,
and, though I had heard of cases where they were very
bold in defending their nests, in all my experiences I
had found them as timid as most song birds. But on
the afternoon of June 18, 1906, toward sundown, I was
driving homeward along a country road, on one side of
which was a farmhouse, on the other a bushy pasture.
Here I saw a Brown Thrasher fly across the road just
ahead of me, carrying in its bill a large worm. It flew
down into the pasture and alighted upon the top of a
dead sprout which projected from a thick clump of
bushes. After pausing for a moment to look around

231

THRUSH COUSINS

in order to be sure that the coast was clear, down it
went into the midst of the thicket.

It was evident that there was a nest somewhere near
that spot, so I hitched the horse, took my 4x5 camera
and tripod, and went to investigate. First of all I made
a careful inspection of the thicket into which the
thrasher had gone, but could see no sign of a nest.
Puzzled, I looked it through again, but with the same
result. Just as I was going off, to look further away,
I heard a series of sharp hissing sounds, which increased
in vehemence as I followed up this clue. Even then
it was some moments before I discovered the author,
not a snake, but the Brown Thrasher, sitting close on
a nest which was built into a cavity of the ground under
the bushes. There the bird remained, though I was
but a step away, looking up into my face and continuing
to hiss, braving me and daring me to touch it.

Of course I withdrew a little and made ready the
camera on the tripod. But the presentation of that
blunderbuss was too much for the thrasher’s nerves.
It ran off into the bushes where it was joined by its
mate, and both of them set up a great outcry. I could
now see them both at times and discovered that the
brighter colored one, the male, was the one which had
been on the nest. No wonder they were angry and
anxious, for they had five young ones, ragged and un-
couth in appearance, but lusty and promising, of quite
good size.

Opening up the bushes temporarily to let in a little

232

THRUSH COUSINS

light upon this interesting subject, I set the camera
upon the shortened tripod, decked it with foliage,
attached a thread, set the shutter for one second ex-
posure, and retired for awhile. The birds soon stopped
scolding, so I sneaked up and discovered that the male
thrasher was upon the nest. So I pulled the thread,
and was glad to see that the bird sat still. He then
allowed me to creep up behind the camera, change
plates, and make exposures by hand, using a long-
focus, eighteen inch single lens. But when I tried
to push the camera nearer he beat a retreat. It was
now getting too dark for further work that day, so I
put back the bushes in order and went home.

Owing to trips away and rainy weather, it was not
till four days later, June 22d, that I was able to resume
the work, this time with a reflecting camera. Again
the male was on duty. He slipped off as before, and
again I opened the bushes, and, very innocently, put
out my hand to the nest to remove an obstructing leaf.
I was so surprised and startled that I almost fell over
backward when instantly the male thrasher dashed
from the shrubbery behind the nest and struck the
offending hand a stinging blow. Quickly he withdrew
again and took his station behind the nest with his five
big offspring, waiting to see what I would do. As I
was not looking for a fight, but for the pictures, I
stepped back a bit and squatted, quietly waiting for
the brave defender to make the next move. ‘Though it
was mid-afternoon, the June sun was quite warm, and

233

THRUSH COUSINS

in a very short time the young, though now too old to
be injured thus, became a bit restless. ‘The devoted
father noticed this, and came at once to their relief.
Running out from his shelter, he took his stand over
them, spreading out wings and tail so as to perfectly
shield them from the sun. How fine and noble a bird
he looked as he bravely did his duty, with an air both
fearless and at the same time resigned to whatever fate
might befall him. The female was back in the thicket
exhorting him, I took it, to be brave. But, despite this
intrusion for the sake of my studies, I came as a friend,
and would not, nor did not, hurt them.

With the reflecting camera I then advanced, and, pre-
senting the instrument as near to him as I pleased,
snapped and snapped again. Then I wanted a differ-
ent pose of the brave bird, so I extended my foot toward
him. Quick as a flash he pounced at my leg, struck it a
quick, angry blow, and hastened back to the young, this
time sitting on the nest as though incubating. After
getting his picture in this position, I decoyed him off
several times again. After each attack he would either
return to the nest directly, or go off into the thicket a
few moments before coming back home to assume
some new and striking pose. One such was when he
stood over the young and some of them poked out their
heads to see for themselves what was going on. Some-
times, when I made only a slight feint, he would run
part way to meet me and stand out in the open in a
defiant attitude, while I snapped him.

234

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THRUSH COUSINS

During the course of this fracas the young had one
by one crawled just outside the nest into the shade
close by, all but one, which was more puny than the
rest and could not get out of the rather deep cup. It
was fortunate for me that this one stayed, for the noble
parent was as ready to incur danger for one as for all.
His fine example at length seemed to inspire his rather
faint-hearted mate, for she began to grow more threaten-
ing and even ran out in front of the nest, where I
secured just one snapshot of her standing on a low rock.

Having now used up quite a number of plates and
secured pictures of about every possible position, I
thought I would see what they would do if I actually
handled the young. So I started to lay hold of the
chick in the nest. But no sooner had I touched it than
like a whirlwind, with shrieks of rage and despair, both
thrashers precipitated themselves upon me. Seizing
my fingers with their claws, they hung on, scratching
like vixens, nipping my hand here and there with their
sharp bills and beating it furiously with their wings.
Then they darted off into the thicket, and again and
again I tried to touch the young one, with the same
result. The whole thing so touched and interested me
that I felt no injury from their attack, but when I be-
thought myself to look at my hand I saw that it was
dotted with little drops of blood, where they had
scratched or bitten through the skin. Then I wrapped
a handkerchief around the injured member and let
them try to tear that for a change. If I stood up and

235

THRUSH COUSINS

put my foot near the nest they attacked that, clinging
to my pant leg and mauling that to the utmost of their
ability.

My only lack was of an assistant to photograph the
birds in the act of attacking me. It was too late, though
to secure one that afternoon.' The next day I would
have brought Ned, but the rain poured down unceas-
ingly, and by the day following the thrashing thrashers
and their offspring had retired safely from the field
of the hard fought battle and the glorious victory. No
doubt they believe that they worsted and routed a man,
and henceforth and forever thrasher art, folk-song and
literature will, of course, prate of arms and of the
man who on that memorable day backward reeled from
the stubborn birds and a barren field. And, as for the
man in the case, he no longer doubts the thrasher
prowess, and enjoys recounting the sensations of the
thrashing administered by these professional thrashers.

The melodious thrasher likes the dry thicket and
patches of bushy scrub, whereas his vocal rival and
near relative, the Catbird, prefers the swampy thickets,
or those bordering upon wet ground. ‘Though called
Catbird from its ordinary scolding, mewing note, the
bird is a really magnificent singer, with an amazingly
extensive repertoire. After watching it on some perch
and hearing it warble away and imitate various birds,
if we invade its chosen thicket a striking change occurs
as it turns from singing to scolding, about as radical as
though at a concert the prima donna should suddenly

236

>
=

Be! Lat a re 4, - ae AZ
Brown Thrasher (female). “Ran out in front of the nest” (p. 235).

Male Brown Thrasher, shielding young in nest. “Perfectly shield them from the
sun” (p. 234).

THRUSH COUSINS

begin to swear. However we are not surprised, for we
know the Catbird to be a great scold.

One will find the rather bulky nests of this bird almost
everywhere in the thickets. Some are old and aban-
doned; the new ones, from the last of May and on,
will contain four or five very dark blue eggs, and
later young. When one comes near the bird flies off,
and then begins to mew and scold at a great rate, yet
I never heard of one turning “thrasher.” For all that,
though, the average Catbird is bolder then than the
average Brown Thrasher. At such times I have been
able to “‘snapshoot”’ them with the reflecting camera,
watching the opportunity when the bird comes out for
a moment upon some open branch where the sunlight
strikes it. If we pose the camera near the nest, our
formerly bold friend becomes very suspicious and it
is no easy matter to get a photograph. At one time
when I tried it, I could not for the life of me see the
old bird on the nest when I crept up. The eggs were
warm, and I knew she had sneaked off when she heard
me coming, so I laid the thread away out into the
pasture and pulled it from afar, after waiting a good
long time to give her the chance to return. Twice I
tried it, and in both cases, when I developed the nega-
tive, I saw that I had caught the sly fox.

The Mockingbird, celebrated for its song, belongs to
the same order as Catbird and Thrasher. Though it
is doubtless the best singer among them, these others
are not so very far behind. It is a good deal like the

237

THRUSH COUSINS

Catbird in appearance and in some of its traits. I have
watched and heard it a good deal in the South, but it
also comes up sparingly into the Middle States, and I
have met it as far north as Boston.

And now for the most wren-like of all the Troglody-
tide, for there is nothing so like wrens as the wrens
themselves. They all look a good deal alike, little
brown fellows, artful dodgers indeed, that run into
about every imaginable crevice or cranny, hunting out
insects and their eggs or larvee, surely a useful tribe.
Best known of them all, and most beloved, is the House
Wren. How glad we are in May to hear again the
merry, bubbling song in the garden and around the
house, and in due time to see the little people hunting
for a building-site. Almost any sort of a hole will do,
in a building, in a tree, a bird-box, an old tin can, or
any crevice. As soon as they have chosen the place,
they go right to work to fill it up with twigs, in the
midst of which they make a soft nest of grass and
feathers and the like.

Some of the sites which they select are perfectly
ridiculous. JI have known them to build in the pocket
of a coat hung up in a shed, and in a hat or pot laid
on a shelf. ‘The funniest and most audacious thing I
ever saw a bird do I am almost afraid to tell, lest I
should injure my reputation for truthfulness. But,
having a reliable witness, I will venture to tell it. I
was off on an expedition in the West with Dr. L. B.
Bishop, of New Haven, Conn., a well-known ornithol-

238

SAT

Catbird in shrubbery. ‘*When the bird comes out for a moment” (p. 237).

Catbird on nest. Had caught the sly fox (p. 237).

THRUSH COUSINS

ogist. In a grove by our camp he was engaged each
day for about a week in skinning birds. The guide
had provided him with an old upholstered chair, the
lining of which hung down beneath. While the learned
doctor sat doing up bird specimens in scientific form,
a House Wren (of the race called Bewick’s), fearless of
being itself consecrated to science, actually went to
work building its nest in the lining of the chair while the
doctor was sitting on it, finished the structure, and before
we moved camp had laid a part of her litter of eggs.
These wrens seem especially fond of an old tin can
with a small hole in one end, put up for their benefit,
and I have known them to set to work building within
half an hour of the time the can was nailed up. Ned
nailed one to an apple tree, about five feet up the
trunk, and the wrens took possession and raised a
brood. Every few minutes during the day they would
feed the six hungry young, which gave a fine oppor- -
tunity for photographs. I stood the camera boldly up
on the tripod near the nest, without any attempt to
conceal it, and sat a little way off holding the thread
ready to pull, throwing light upon the can with a mirror.
When the parent was entering or leaving I would pull
the string and get a picture. After their young had
gone, the pair wanted to raise a second brood, in July,
and began looking around for a new site, as the old
nest swarmed with bird lice. Ned nailed up another
can under the eaves of a low shed, and at once the
wrens went to work building in it. There they raised
239

THRUSH COUSINS

the other brood, which soon became as lousy as the
first had been.

If you see a wren in midwinter hopping about a
brush pile or a stone wall, do not imagine it to be the
familiar House Wren. It is the kind known as the
Winter Wren, distinguishable from the other by having
upper parts of a brighter, reddish brown. It breeds
mostly well to the north, in the dark spruce forests, but
Ned and I met two pairs of them in early July in a
wild, mountainous part of Connecticut, whither we
had gone to explore for Northern birds. How won-
derfully these males did sing, a tinkling, bell-like
warble, that lasted each time I should think as much
as fifteen seconds, one of the longest bird songs I have
heard. The larger Carolina Wren is also a famous
singer. It rarely reaches New England, but appears in
the Middle States, and more abundantly as we proceed
southward.

We have two more wrens, very different in their
habits from either of the above—the Long-billed Marsh
Wren and the Short-billed Marsh Wren. These also
are artful dodgers, but they do their hiding and climb-
ing amid the reeds or grass of the marsh or meadow.
Though neither of them are as gifted singers as the
others, they have pleasing little ditties which add to the
attractiveness of their wet surroundings. The Long-
billed kind is generally much the more common and
conspicuous of the two. One sees them hopping about
among the reeds or rushes, tails sticking straight up in

240

House Wren entering nest. “Another can under the eaves”’ (p. 239).

House Wren emerging from nest in old can. “Ned nailed one to an apple tree”
(p. 239).

THRUSH COUSINS

jaunty fashion, singing away as every happy little wren
should. ‘They build a conspicuous globular nest sus-
pended well up among the reeds or rushes. Entrance
is by a little round hole in one side. The chamber is
softly lined with plant down, and rather late in June
contains from five to nine very dark little eggs of a
mahogany-brown color. A curious trait of this wren
is that it builds a number of dummy nests, apparently
to mislead intruders. One will often examine half a
dozen nests before the finished and occupied one is
found.

The Short-billed Marsh Wren is similar in many of
its habits, but is even more secretive and mouse-like
than the other. It keeps more to low, thick meadow
grass, and builds a nest similar to that of the other,
but low down in a tussock. The equally numerous
eggs are, however, pure white. The sitting bird will
sneak off the nest and be hiding in the grass close by,
despite all one’s efforts to kick it out. I succeeded
once in getting a photograph of one near its nest in a
meadow by setting the camera focused on a nearby
bush on which I saw it several times alight. Standing
off in the distance, holding the thread connected with
the shutter, I had a friend chase the little rascal. It
took short flights from bush to bush, until once it
alighted just where I wanted it. Often it would get
just under the bush, and I would walk up and poke at
it with a switch to try to make it fly up higher. But
instead it would run like a mouse off into the grass.

241

THRUSH COUSINS

Between the wrens and thrushes come four small
groups of birds, about which we must say just a few
words. One is the creeper family, of which we have
but one species in America, our Brown Creeper, that
slender little brownish fellow with a rather long bill
and stiff spiked tail which we see in the colder months
running up the trunks of trees, uttering faint lisping
sounds as it does so. It is a timid little creature and
is pretty hard to locate, even when we are hearing its
deceptive notes. It usually nests well to the north,
but sometimes as far south as southern New England,
and builds behind a loose, rotten sheath of bark on a
decaying tree.

Next are the nuthatches, two of which we have—
White-breasted and Red-breasted Nuthatches. Their
name was earned by skill in cracking nuts. They are
the funny little blue-gray fellows that climb about on
the trees saying, “‘ank, ank,”’ hanging or feeding head
down as easily as any other way. The smaller Red-
breast we have mostly as a migrant to and from the
North, but now and then it stays in winter. The White-
breast we have resident with us the year round. In
winter it becomes very familiar and accepts our hospi-
tality of nuts, crumbs, or suet. It is not a bit afraid
of the camera, and many a person, myself for one, have
photographed it by focusing the camera upon the
“lunch counter” and pulling the thread when the bird
seems to be posing just right. Some use a pneumatic
tube and bulb, but this device cracks and leaks air or

242

—

Nest of Short-billed Marsh Wren. “ Builds low down on a tussock” (p. 241).

THRUSH COUSINS

fails to move the shutter, and I very much prefer a
thread. Quite early in spring friend Nutty ignores our
charity and makes a nest in a hollow limb of some
shade or orchard tree, where it raises a family of from
five to eight.

The sub-family of titmice are now classed with the
nuthatch sub-family in the family Paride, or titmice,
and well so, for they all have much in common in their
mode of life.

Our common little Chickadee is enough to make us
think well of this group. ‘They are so animated and
interesting that it is a delight to have them about our
homes in the winter, feeding on the suet. Everyone
ought to tie or nail up a piece of fat meat for the birds,
out of reach of cats, and as an investment it pays big
dividends in the pleasure which their company in the
long, cold season affords. Like the nuthatch they are
easy to photograph, and like them they forsake us with
the passing of the snow, and, betaking themselves to
the woods and swamps, in May they excavate a tiny
burrow in a rotten stub, in my experience generally a
birch, which is very soft. Like the nuthatches also
they rear large families, and it is remarkable how the
young birds escape being smothered, for they fill the
hole about solid full when they are well grown. If we
take them out it is a real problem how to get them all
in again.

Toward the end of winter the Chickadee has a fine
trick of fooling people by a note which they think is

243

THRUSH COUSINS

made by the Phoebe. It is a long-drawn, plaintive
whistle—“‘pee-wee-e,” but it is not so very much like
the Phoebe’s note, if one could hear both together.
Yet the correspondent of the local country paper reports
the first Phoebe heard—though never seen!—in January
or February, and the knowing ones smile. In Canada
there is also the Hudsonian Chickadee, which wears a
brown cap instead of a black one, and says “‘dee-dee”’
instead of “‘chicka-dee-dee,” and in the Middle States
and southward they have the Tufted Titmouse, which
has a topknot, and the Carolina Chickadee.

In still another group, the Sylvizde, or birds of the
“Old World Warbler” type, we have several dainty
little midgets, next in size to the hummers, which are
very interesting. One is the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher,
found in the Middle States and southward. I have had
no opportunity to know and study it afield, as I have
the two other species, the Kinglets—Golden-crowned
and Ruby-crowned. They are both tiny birds, greenish
olive above and white beneath, with a brilliant crown
color-patch which the Manuals describe, which, how-
ever, is lacking in the female and immature Ruby-
crown. They are spring and fall migrants with us,
sometimes wintering. How such fragile little mites of
birds can keep from freezing in cold weather is a
mystery. They are fond especially of evergreen woods,
but appear in other timber as well. If in the woods one
hears repeated faint lisping sounds which are hard to
locate in the treetops, they probably are made either

244

Chickadees. ‘‘ Feeding on the suet” (p. 243).

White-breasted Nuthatch. ‘Accepts our hospitality” (p. 242).

THRUSH COUSINS

by the Brown Creeper while running up some trunk
and hiding behind it, or else by either or both of these
Kinglets. They go in small parties, sometimes the
two species together, and often in company with the
Chickadees, flitting merrily from branch to branch in
their hunt for larve, lisping away in their almost
insect-like dialect. In northern New England and
Canada they build globular nests of moss, with side
entrance, suspended well out on the limbs of evergreens
in the forests.

Now we come to the thrushes, another of our rather
puzzling groups, though they are not as hard to master
as the finches or warblers in that we have not nearly
so many species of them. In the Eastern and Middle
districts of the United States and Canada there are but
eight species and forms to learn, and most of these are
perfectly distinct, some of them very well known. For
instance, no one can mistake the Robin or the Blue-
bird—these are both thrushes. Then there is the
familiar Wood Thrush, the bird with bright reddish-
brown upper parts and heavily spotted breast. The
common Veery, or Wilson’s ‘Thrush, has also bright
upper parts, though less so than the preceding, but
smaller and jainter markings below. The Hermit
Thrush has a bright rufous tail, much brighter than the
brown of the back. The only great confusion can
occur with the dark-backed thrushes, which are the
Olive-backed and Alice’s—the latter having under it
another form or geographical race known as Bicknell’s

245

THRUSH COUSINS

Thrush, the only difference being that it averages a
little brighter and smaller than the Alice’s Thrush.
Both these two species have upper parts dark ole
brown and light but spotted under-parts; they differ
mainly in that the Alice’s Thrush has the light color
of the under-parts, throat, sides of head, and eye-ring,
pure white, while in the Olive-backed Thrush these
parts have a buffy suffusion.

If the bird student can bear these points of the
thrushes in mind, there will be little trouble in identify-
ing them, if one can only get a good view of the birds.
But, “aye, there’s the rub.” The thrushes, all except
the Robin and Bluebird, are timid, retiring creatures,
fond of deep woods or swampy woodland solitudes.
The latter are especially the Veery’s choice, and we
can oftener hear than see him, as he utters his ordinary
“‘whee-u”’ call, or chants his simple “‘veery-veery-veery”’
lay. All the thrushes are good singers, with flute-like
tones, and more continuous and elaborate songs than
most birds. The Hermit Thrush is the finest singer
of them all, with the Wood Thrush as a close second,
and honorable mention for the efforts of the Olive-
backed and Alice’s Thrushes. The Robin’s familiar
outpourings have a homely beauty and strike a re-
sponsive chord in all hearts, while few sounds of
Nature delight us more than the ethereal eolian harp
of the Bluebird, especially as heard from the skies in
March mingling with the sighing of the cool northwest
wind—our harbinger of spring.

246

THRUSH COUSINS

The Bluebird is usually the first thrush to arrive, fol-
lowed soon, or even accompanied, by the Robin. The
next to come is the hardy Hermit Thrush during the
first half of April. We find it searching for larvee among
the dead leaves in the woods, and sometimes I have
met it when Ned and I were gathering the first blossoms
of the ever-welcome trailing arbutus. Early in spring,
it is also late in fall, and it appears mostly as a migrant,
though I have found it as far south as Connecticut in
the breeding season in high mountainous wooded
regions. The Wood Thrush comes rather late in
April, followed by the Veery in early May, and both of
these beautiful species remain with us to breed. About
the middle of May the Olive-backed and Alice’s
Thrushes usually appear, in the height of the warbler
migration, soon to pass us by for the silent northern
spruce forests.

The Bluebird is the first of the group to go to nesting.
Early in April they begin to build in the bird-box, or
the hollow limb or woodpecker’s hole in the orchard,
by the roadside, or in swamp or pasture. By the tenth
of the month some pairs have their five pale blue eggs.
Ordinarily they raise at least two broods, and it is
August before all of them are through with these
household cares. Then they gather into flocks and
have a good easy time here till they leave us in Novem-
ber. It is pleasant to have them nest on our premises,
and it is well worth while to put up boxes for their use.
The surest form of architecture to attract them is a

247

THRUSH COUSINS

section of a hollow limb, closed except for one quite
small hole in the side, and nailed upright in a tree.

Soon after the Bluebird, the Robins get busy with
housekeeping, from April 20th and on. Everyone is
familiar with their operations, and knows of the curious
sites which they select for nests. In my garden and
premises a pair has built on the piazza in the woodbine,
another on a branch extending over the front walk, and
two pairs close together at the same time in a shed.
They are fond of the apple orchard, and a hole in a
bank by the roadside is quite attractive. One foolish
pair built flat on the ground by a roadside under a
projection of turf, and a kindly neighbor had to put
some branches in front of it to keep away cats. The
mother bird was so shy that she would hop out whenever
anyone passed by, but for a wonder she raised her
brood of three. This is the usual number for the
second brood, but it is generally four for the first, and
very rarely five. I only remember seeing three nests
with five eggs, out of the many hundreds I have ex-
amined. Once Ned put his hand into a Robin’s nest
to see what was in it and broke an egg, the only time
I ever knew him to have such a mishap. When he
looked in, he saw that it was a rare set of five. How-
ever, the bird still had the usual number!

Since the Robin builds so near houses it is easy and
interesting to watch the family life. One of the prettiest
sights in bird life, I think, is to see the mother Robin,
on a rainy day, stand in the nest and spread out her

248

THRUSH COUSINS

wings over the youngsters like an umbrella, thus
keeping them dry, despite the downpour.

The Veery generally builds on the ground in the
woods, among shrubbery, or very near mother earth
in a clump of low bushes. Generally it is not easy to
find the nest except by flushing the brooding bird from
it, but in this way I have often found nests and photo-
graphed them. The Veery will let one come quite
close before leaving, and I have tried to snap her by
walking up with the camera in hand, but she could not
quite muster up courage to wait for me. Sometime,
when I get round to it, I imagine it will not be so very
hard to get a picture by setting the camera. I had a
good chance this last season and would have tried it,
had not some bad boys broken up the nest. It was on
the edge of a little wood road quite near home, in some
low weeds, about a foot from the ground, right in plain
sight of any passer-by. It is strange what pleasure
anyone can find in destroying a bird’s home and eggs
without purpose, not even for collecting, but just in
wanton destruction. How infinitely much more real
fun it would be to watch this family from the first to
the time when the young were grown—seeing when
each egg was laid, how long it took to hatch, how the
parents fed the young, how long it took them to grow
up, how they left the nest, and so on. But to destroy
a bird’s nest “‘for the fun of it” is lower than brutish,
for even a “rascal” crow or jay robs nests for food.

The nest of the Wood Thrush is generally built in

249

THRUSH COUSINS

the fork of a sapling or low tree in the woods, from four
to eight feet up. It is quite bulky, stiffened with mud
like the Robin’s nest, and the three to five blue eggs
look almost exactly like the eggs of that bird. The
dead leaves of which the foundation for the nest is
usually made, though, “give it away,” as to identity.
The incubating Wood Thrush varies individually as
to tameness, but generally it will allow a near, and
sometimes a close approach. Several times I have
been able to place my tripod and camera very near a
nest and take pictures without flushing the birds, but
only because I made every motion very slowly and
carefully, taking a long time to do the work. On one
such occasion Ned watched me, and thought it looked
easy, but when he tried it, away went the bird, simply
because he was in too much of a hurry. In such work
with timid birds, after every new movement one must
._pause for the bird to become accustomed to that con-
dition, ere it is ready for the next innovation. One
mother Wood Thrush was so obliging that she let me
reach within one foot of her and bend aside leaves
without being startled to flight. But the next time I
went, when she had young, I could not get within
fifteen yards of her. The best rule in working with
birds is to take advantage of their varying moods, and
when a bird is “nice,” use the present opportunity for
all it is worth, as though there would never be another,
for, indeed, very likely there never will be just such
another again.
250

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CHAPTER XV

WATER-BIRD WAIFS
(Wading and Swimming Birds)

HE water-birds as a class, both waders and
swimmers, though often neglected by bird
students, to me seem exceedingly fascinating,

as much so as any other group of birds, if not even
more. This may be because I am almost a sort of
water-bird myself. I have a fellow-feeling for the
ducks because I swim, and for the white-winged gulls
because for years I have loved to spread the white
yacht sails to the breeze and skim over the brine. And
as for the wading-birds, the mysteries of swamp and
morass make strong appeal to my imagination, and I
love to wade and scramble about and enjoy the free
unconventionality of the realm where land and water
intermingle. Such things, too, appeal to a boy like
Ned, as they are bound to appeal to any lively boy.
I think and hope that I must still be a boy, and I mean
to be one as long as I live.

One great trouble in studying the water-birds is their
general scarcity. No matter how shy and retiring they
are, if they only were somewhere, I would risk the

251

WATER-BIRD WAIFS

enthusiast’s ability to get in touch with them. But no
one can see a thing which does not exist. Birds of this
class are large enough to be conspicuous, and some of
them are good to eat, and both these facts have served
to invite persecution from gunners. So it is a lament-
able fact that most of the wading or swimming birds,
certainly in inland localities, can seldom be seen. You
cannot walk out any day and say you will watch ducks,
herons, or shore-birds. Unless you know a spot where
some one pair or species breeds, you might go forth
dozens of times and not see one solitary water-bird.
Some time, we hope, there may be better conditions,
as public sentiment is being aroused against the wanton
extermination of our beautiful wild bird-life, and many
excellent laws are being enacted and enforced.

It would make this book too large if I were to go
into full accounts of the wading and swimming birds,
so I must simply and briefly mention the birds of this
class which may be found in any typical inland country
town, and refer my readers to my other books where I
describe these birds and their ways, both in text and in
photographs. “Among the Water-Fowl’ deals with
the swimming-birds, both of the ocean and of inland
waters. Additional studies of these are given in
“Wild Wings” with extended accounts of the shore-
birds, besides other material. The system of classi-
fication now accepted begins with our lowest order of
birds, nearest to reptiles and fishes, the grebes, and
works up to the highest, the thrushes. In this book we

252

WATER-BIRD WAIFS

started in part way up the scale, with the gallinaceous
birds, so now we will work backward thence to the
beginning.

The first group to mention in this plan is the shore-
birds, and of these, unfortunately, there are now few,
indeed, that visit our inland towns. A century or less
ago, for instance, almost every barnyard had its Kil-
deers (plovers), and every field its Upland Plovers
(Bartramian Sandpipers). But to-day they are gone,
save in rare instances. Great flocks of the beautiful
Golden Plover used to descend upon the fields in their
southward flight in late August and September, but
now they are all but extinct. ‘Too bad, too bad! Along
the shores of the larger ponds or lakes we may occa-
sionally see a few Semipalmated Plovers, or Ring-
necks, occasional Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers,
perhaps in small flocks, and the Greater and Lesser
Yellow-legs on shores or in meadows. The time for
any of these is August and September, and for the
Greater Yellow-legs even October.

The only shore-bird which breeds is the Spotted
Sandpiper, the little bird popularly called “Teeter,”
which runs along the margin of pond or river, teetering
its body up and down in nervous fashion. Medical
authorities decry our “teetering”? with the rocking
chair as conducive to nervous disorders, but this little
chap teeters all his life and does not appear to suffer
for it. Possibly it might add fifty per cent. to his years
if we could teach him to calm himself and “be aisy!”’

253

WATER-BIRD WAIFS

By early June each sandpiper pair has scratched a
little hollow, lined it with a few straws, and laid four
pointed, heavily spotted eggs. The mother flutters
and limps away when you surprise her upon them, and
is even more solicitous when they have hatched and
the odd little chicks are hiding from you, squatted
flat on the ground, where it is very hard to see
them.

One day Ned and his mother were walking along the
river bank, following a cart road, when away fluttered
a Spotted Sandpiper, and there, just beside the road,
under some weeds, was the nest with the usual four
eggs. Of course I had to go and see it, and Ned very
proudly brought me to the find. Off went the anxious
bird, and I could then see her running along the pebbly
river margin, saying “‘peet-weet, peet-weet.” After
setting the camera on the ground near by, with some
rocks piled over it, we hid in the bushes and watched
for the bird’s return, ready to pull the thread. We had
been quiet for only a few minutes when she came
cautiously walking back, teetering almost constantly.
She went right past the camera without noticing it,
then to her nest, and settled down, poking and arranging
the eggs with her bill. At the snap of the shutter she
darted off. I set it again, and she soon came back.
After securing several pictures, we went away and left
her in peace. This nest was located, as is generally
the case, near open water, but quite often a mere
brook will suffice, and not infrequently the location is

254

Pg. SSS as Ne

Spotted Sandpiper scolding. ‘Even more solicitous when they have hatched”
(p. 254).

‘id ie ae sa sit is é itera fd
Semialmated Sandpiper feeding. “Along theshoresof . . . lakes” (p. 253).

WATER-BIRD WAIFS

well back from any water at all. I have found nests
in such places as fields of potatoes or corn.

There is another species closely related to the last
which should not be confused with it—the Solitary
Sandpiper. In May, or in August or September, we
are liable now and then to meet one feeding along the
muddy or spongy edge of some little pond hole, or in
almost any sort of a wet place. Sometimes there will
be a pair of them, but more often the bird is alone,
solitary in reality, asin name. It nests in the far north, |
and until very recently its breeding habits were un-
known, till its eggs began to be discovered, in the
Canadian Northwest, in abandoned Robins’ nests up
in trees. It is not known to breed in the United States.
One can tell it from the Spotted Sandpiper by its
much darker back, and from the Yellow-legs by its
greenish legs. It is a beautiful, gentle bird, and I love
to sit and watch one feed in a bog, so graceful, so neat
in person, with the bearing of real refinement—sand-
piper good breeding.

Next comes the order of marsh-dwellers, the Paludi-
cole of science. Of these our principal group is the
rails. These are birds which the average person
never sees and has never heard of. But if one find
the right place, some very oozy bog, overgrown with
‘‘cat-tails,’’ and will throw a stone into it, so as to make
a loud splash, like as not there will instantly arise a
series of loud, wailing, craking cries. These are the
rails, not fence rails, but real live ones, called thus,

255

WATER-BIRD WAIFS

perhaps, because they are narrow across, “thin as a
rail,” so that they can the more easily slip through the
dense tangles in which they live. One may suppose
that the fat ones got stuck, but the thin survived, and
gave rise to a thin race!

With us there are two common kinds of rails—the
Virginia Rail and the Sora, the latter being the best
known, especially to sportsmen, for rails are hunted
with dogs, and their flesh is good eating, as those things
go. But in these days of decreasing bird-life, the true
bird-lover is more inclined to look to the butcher for
meat and to the wild birds for pleasure of eye and ear
rather than of palate. ‘To esteem a bird in accordance
with its edibility is getting to seem a little uncouth and
old-fashioned. A while ago I was showing to a gen-
tleman of foreign extraction some of my best bird
pictures, enlarged and hand-colored, which I really
thought were pretty nice. As I showed him each
picture, his one and repeated question was, “Is it good
to eat?’ If I said “yes,” he looked rather pleased;
if I said “no,” he gave a sort of impatient grunt of
disgust—no good! I soon began to have “tired feel-
ings,” and was not sorry to depart.

These rails are rather small birds, about the size of
the Bobolink, short of tail but long of toe, and well
developed in the legs. The Sora is dark colored, with
short bill, while the Virginia Rail, though but a trifle
larger, can be told by its reddish-brown color and
longer bill. Neither of them likes to fly, and they only

256

WATER-BIRD WAIFS

do so when migrating, or when compelled by the close
approach of some intruder. Then they will flutter
feebly up and drop into the grass before going many
rods. They have their run-ways through the tangle
of grass and weed, and run and climb with the greatest
of nimbleness. They are especially active at twilight,
and perhaps at night. In the dusk of the evening I
have seen them appear again and again at the edge of
some marsh, or scurry across open spaces from one
clump of reeds to another, and I have seen them run
on lily pads. I have found their nests, not so much
in the thickest tangles as near the border of a meadow
or bog, in the rather sparse meadow grass, where the
water is only a few inches deep. They build up
a little hollowed platform of dead grass among the
green stems, slightly above the water, and draw and
tie the ends of the grass over it, to form a nice little
canopy. All rails lay a large number of eggs, six to
thirteen ordinarily, and once I found sixteen in a
Sora’s nest.

The young of all rails with which I am acquainted
are covered with a black down, and, almost from birth,
are great runners. Once I tried to catch a young rail.
It ran out into a place where there were few stems of
grass, almost an open mud-flat. I sprinted along,
plastering myself with mud, but sure of my prize,
which I only wanted to photograph before releasing.
Just as I thought I could seize it, suddenly it stopped,
out there in the open, with next to nothing to conceal

257

WATER-BIRD WAIFS

it. But for the life of me I could not see where it had
gone, and I finally had to give it up.

When I was of high school age I took a companion
of about my years into a famous rail-bog, where many
pairs nested, as he wanted to find some of their eggs.
The place was a sort of bottomless ooze, and we had
to lay out planks and step on them. Though I had
cautioned him, he soon slipped off and got into the
mud. We were rather near shore, and he was so
frightened that instead of climbing back on the plank,
he started to wade ashore, despite my protests. Deeper
and deeper he sank, till he was in all over. Now he
was frantic with terror and began to cry. I thought
surely he would drown, but he finally crawled out on
shore, plastered with black oozy slime from head to
foot. Choking with mud and sobs, in about equal
proportions, he started for home spluttering that I’d
never have the chance to get him into such a scrape
again—how ungrateful! This was just on the border
of the city of Boston, and I badly wanted to hear all
about his trip through the city streets in that rig. But
he hardly would speak to me after that, much less go
into detail. ‘This incident goes to show that if anyone
is afraid of mud and water, he or she had better let the
rails alone and study the safe and darling little chippy-
birds!

There are some other rails that must receive only
scant mention. The Little Black Rail and the Yellow
Rail are both very rare, and have almost more the

258

By

Nest of Sora. “They build a little hollowed platform” (p. 257).

Young American Bitterns. “A rude nest of stems’’ (p. 261).

WATER-BIRD WAIFS

habits of meadow mice than birds, as they run through
the grass, and it is next to impossible to make them fly.
Sometimes they are caught alive by the hunting dogs.
Then there is the large species called King Rail, found
in Middle and Southern States, seldom plentifully,
and the Clapper Rail, or Marsh Hen, of the salt marshes
along the coast from Connecticut southward. The
Florida Gallinule is much like a large rail, and is found
sparingly in fresh-water bogs, being common only in
the South, where I have found their nests, similar to
the rails’, among the rushes in bogs. The American
Coot, sometimes called “Blue Peter,’’ or Mud Hen, is
rather common, in the same sort of haunts, in migra-
tion. Having lobed feet and compact plumage, it
swims, as does the webless gallinule, and is often mis-
taken for a duck. It is a gray bird about the size of a
pullet, with bill like the latter and a patch of white
above its base. They bob their heads back and forth
as they swim. Out in the Northwest I have found
hundreds of their nests in the great sloughs in the
reeds, basket-like affairs of reed stems, with from six
to a dozen finely speckled eggs.

Next we have the heron tribe, and interesting birds
they are. The Great Blue Heron is the biggest of
them, so tall that it gets the popular name of Blue
Crane, which is inaccurate, for it is no crane at all.
They are not plenty, and nest now mostly in the North,
but also in wild Southern swamps, in both of which
regions I have found their nests, generally in colonies,

259

WATER-BIRD WAIFS

and up giant trees. But we may now and then run
across a solitary Great Blue by the edge of some
body of water or feeding in a morass. They are
among the wariest of birds, and will not allow a
person to come anywhere near them—not if they
know it.

Another well-known Northern heron, famous for its
great nesting-colonies, is the Black-crowned Night
Heron, familiarly called Quawk. On the seacoast
they are more common than in the interior, in which
latter region they are very locally distributed. In the
locality where I now live they are seldom seen, except
in migration, when I sometimes hear the harsh “quak,
quak,” as one flies over in the evening, high in air.
I have often been into their rookeries in lonely swamps
where from a dozen to thousands of pairs had built
their rude nests, sometimes half a dozen or more in one
tree. Everything there is nasty and ill-smelling. One
of my earliest recollections of herons is of climbing to
one of these nests, in a small colony in a cedar swamp,
and having the young, according to their habit, vomit
out partly digested fish from their crops into my face
as I climbed. This bird is of good size, the adults
quite light in color, but the immature birds are of a
dull mottled brown.

The American Bittern, Stake-driver, or Post-driver,
as it is variously called, is of about the same size, and
somewhat resembles the young of the preceding, only
the brown is of a darker, richer shade, and the adult

260

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WATER-BIRD WAIFS

has a prominent black stripe down each side of the
neck. This is the bird which makes the booming or
pumping noise out in the meadow or bog. In such
places it lives, never in woods, nor in colonies, unless
one can call a few pairs scattered over a big swamp
such. ‘They nest with us, and each pair makes a rude
nest of stems on the wet ground in the bog, gener-
ally among reeds or rushes, sometimes grass, and
lays from four to six large deep olive brown eggs,
very different from the pale blue eggs of the other
herons.

Like it in some respects in haunts and habits is its
relative, the Least Bittern, a tiny fellow that is much
like a rail in size and appearance, though its long neck
serves to distinguish it. It is yellowish in color, with
dark greenish back and crown. Its life is spent slipping
about amid the tangles of the bog, where it builds its
frail platform of a nest suspended between the reed
stems in a clump, usually three or four feet up. The
four or five eggs are bluish-white.

Probably the best known and most generally dis-
tributed of our herons is the common Green Heron, or
Poke, a rather small, dark-colored species. Any
wood-bordered pond or wooded or bushy swamp is
liable to have from one to several pairs inhabiting it.
They live on small fish, frogs, lizards, and the like,
and nest in solitary fashion, either in some low ever-
green in the woods just up from the pond, or in a bush
out in the swamp. When one approaches the nest,

261

WATER-BIRD WAIFS

the old bird will fly away and then return and perch a
little way off and say all sorts of unutterable things in
the uncouth heron-language.

In a certain swamp near my home several pairs of
Green Heron usually nest. The place is a tract of
alder bushes overflowed from the pond. The water
is from knee to waist-deep, and the bushes grow out
of the water. Once I undertook to photograph a
Green Heron on a nest which was favorably situated,
very low down. I set up the tripod near by, under the
next bush, tied the focus-cloth about the top to suggest
a camera, decked it with leaves, and left it over night,
for the heron to become accustomed to it. Next
morning I found her on the nest all right, so I sub-
stituted my camera for the cloth, covered and arranged
it with thread attachment, and then hid about thirty
yards away between three tree sprouts which grew
from a stump, a nice little island nook. After about
half an hour’s wait, the heron came sneaking back,
climbing almost parrot-like from bush to bush. All the
time she was jerking her little tail in such a nervous,
comical fashion that I felt like laughing right out,
which, of course, would not do if I was to get a photo-
graph. After some hesitation she stepped into the
nest and settled down, but the instant I drew in my
slack of thread she saw it move, and departed in as
great terror as though I had fired a cannon. After
awhile she plucked up courage to return, and this time
I saw to it that the shutter would spring the instant I

262

Green Heron and nest. “Came sneaking back”’ (p. 262).

s eS. i

Green Heron incubating. “Plucked up courage to return” (p. 262).

WATER-BIRD WAIFS

pulled. I finally “got” her, three times on the nest
and once just stepping upon it.

These are the five common herons that are ordinarily
seen in the Eastern and Middle States. A number of
other species are well known in the South, and nearly
all of them have appeared accidentally as far north as
New England, particularly the Little Blue Heron, the
American Egret (celebrated for its aigrette plumes),
and more rarely the Yellow-crowned Night Heron.

We come now to the swimming-birds, and find the
Anatide, or ducks and geese, in order. Almost every-
one is interested in wild ducks. If a flock are known
to alight in a pond, it is the talk of the neighborhood,
and, unfortunately, every person owning a gun is crazy
to get a shot. Consequently they are scarce in our
Eastern districts, and with the growth of population
are becoming more and more so. It seems so strange
and delightful out in the Northwest to see companies
of wild ducks swimming about in small ponds or pools
right by the homes of settlers, fearless and unmolested,
raising their broods in the neighboring grassy sloughs,
practically in the barnyard pasture. How delightful
if it could be so here! Once, indeed, recently, I came
upon a brood of young Black Ducks, with their mother,
within two minutes’ walk of my house, on the edge of
a meadow, but that was a rare treat.

This species just mentioned, properly the Dusky
Duck, but popularly known as the Black Duck, is the
best known and most common fresh-water duck of the

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WATER-BIRD WAIFS

eastern part of our country. They are shy birds and
keep pretty well out of sight by day in the swamps.
At dusk they begin to fly about and come into the
ponds to swim and feed. I have stood silently on the
edge of a morass, listened to their subdued quackings
as they fed, heard the whistle of their wings, and seen
their shadowy forms as they passed overhead. I have
found their nests, too, now and then, but always by
accident. The nest is always on the ground, hidden
among the rank vegetation, or by the edge of a body
of water among the rushes or under a bush. Not
long ago I was shown one under an isolated thorn
bush right out in an open field, not far back from the
bank of a river. A trout fisherman happened along
and flushed the bird from her eggs. ‘These are usually
from eight to twelve in number, as is true of nearly all
ducks, and they are laid usually by the middle of April,
sometimes earlier. The nests of all ducks are lined
softly with down which the mother plucks from her
breast. These ducks remain with us in winter as long
as they can find water. I have seen them swimming
in brooks in the swamps when the ponds were frozen
over.

There is one other species which breeds in all our
Eastern States, the beautiful Wood or Summer Duck.
The drake is one of the most gorgeously beautiful of
all our native birds. It is deplorable that they are
decreasing so rapidly as to be on the brink of extermina-
tion. Some states are entirely prohibiting their being

264

WATER-BIRD WAIFS

shot for terms of years, and this should be done in all.
A few pairs still remain in the locality where I live,
and it is very interesting to run across them from time
to time. They feed in the ponds and swamps, but
when it comes to nesting, they are very different from
the Black Duck, for they resort to hollow trees, and
apparently are liable to go almost anywhere. Their
favorite choice seems to be an old hollow apple tree in
an orchard. In certain orchards they nest year after
year. Becoming familiar with man, particularly if
not disturbed, they grow very bold and select the
strangest sort of places for nesting-sites.

By all odds the most remarkable incident of this
sort in my experience was when a pair selected a barn.
The female would go through a broken clapboard into
the hayloft. Scooping a hollow in the top of the hay-
mow, she lined it with her down and laid ten eggs.
While she was laying, the owner of the place would
see the happy pair at daybreak perched on the ridge-
pole of the barn, making love. In another barn a nest
was begun, but the birds were driven off. Another
pair chose a hollow in a maple tree bordering the road,
within a few rods of a house. The hole was only about
five feet from the ground, and most of the neighbors
knew of the nest, and would look in as they went by.
Still another odd nesting-site came to my notice. Near
where I live a farmer had a pig-pen just back of his
house, and in it grew a hollow apple tree. On the
eleventh of April this tree was cut down, and it was

265

WATER-BIRD WAIFS

discovered that in the hollow trunk were eleven fresh
eggs of the Wood Duck.

That same spring there was a legislative hearing
regarding the abolition of spring shooting of wildfowl
in the State, the existing law allowing shooting up to
the first of May. Speaking for the proposed change,
I showed by this instance and others the folly and
enormity of a law which allowed these valuable and
fast disappearing birds to be shot when they actually
had eggs. I am glad to say that the obnoxious law
was repealed, and all shooting forbidden after the first
of January, which is as it should be. The wildfowl
mate very early in the spring, or even in winter. In
the spring the mated birds are tame and easily shot.
Moreover, they are usually in poor flesh at this time and
almost worthless as food. At any rate, it is a case of
killing the goose that lays the golden egg, and every
bird-lover ought to use all influence against such
atrocities as spring shooting, and in every way take a
public-spirited stand for the preservation of all our
beautiful harmless wild life, the existence of which adds
so great charm to the outdoor world. As I heard it
well put by a teacher at the legislative hearing, ““Why
have not we, who are as fond of birds as you hunters,
just as much right to demand that we shall have birds
to see and study as you to demand that you shall have
them to shoot?”

There are various other ducks which drop into our
ponds and rivers from time to time, especially in

266

(ggg ‘d) ,uteular [YS * * * MOP Y,, “Yond poosy Sunox

WATER-BIRD WAIFS

migration, which must at least be mentioned, though
their numbers are but small. Some of these casual
migrant visitors are, for instance, the fine large Mallard,
which is more of a Western species; the Pintail, Bald-
pate, and Gadwall, which are grayish, rather nonde-
script in the fall plumage, when we generally see them,
and hard to tell apart; the Red-head, somewhat
similar to the larger, whiter and rarer Canvasback,
which latter is now very rare with us; the curious
little Ruddy Duck, a tame brownish bird, with a stiff
tail, now and then appearing in flocks, which are soon
shot off; those miniature ducks, the Blue-winged and
Green-winged Teals, delightful, sprightly little people,
all too scarce. The Greater and Lesser Scaups, or
Blue-bills, sometimes flock in to the larger ponds or
lakes late in the fall, when we may also see the Ameri-
can Golden-eye, or Whistler, which makes a pleasing
zolian-harp humming sound with its wings as it flies.
Its small near relative, the Bufflehead, I used to see,
but less often of late years. A heavy easterly gale in
October and November will often drive in certain sea
ducks from the ocean to ponds far inland. Such are
the three large black or dusky species called Scoters—
the Surf, White-winged and American Scoter—and the
black and white, noisy “Old Squaw,” or Long-tailed
Duck. I remember one storm, in the middle of one
October, which drove hundreds of these sea ducks
into ponds a hundred miles from the coast.

Besides the above there are also three species classed

267

WATER-BIRD WAIFS

as Fish Ducks, or Shelldrakes, species with long serrated
bills, well adapted to seizing fish. ‘They are the Red-
breasted Merganser, the Goosander, and the Hooded
Merganser, that being the order of their abundance.
The first two are quite often seen from November to
April in rivers or ponds, and, when these partly freeze
up, in air holes, or even on the ice. In winter they are
grayish birds above, and white beneath, with white on
the wings. The head is crested, brown usually, but
the heads of the males change to a dark green in early
spring.

All these marine or Fish Ducks are poor eating,
despite the best of cooking and parboiling, but with
ordinary culinary methods they are impossible. On a
southern yachting cruise one of our party shot two
Red-breasted Shelldrakes, which the darky steward
served up for dinner, as he would have done Mallards
or Canvasbacks. Each man got the first mouthful at
about the same time, and there was a simultaneous
scramble for the hatchway to dispose thereof. The
remainder was promptly fed to the fishes, and we
indulged no more in roast shelldrake!

There is but one species of wild goose which we can
expect to visit us inland, the Canada Goose, which we
ordinarily see in wedge-shaped flocks in early spring
or late fall, gliding along with measured wing-beats,
and honking forth those wild calls that send thrills
through everyone who is capable of being stirred by
the sights and sounds of the wilds. Sometimes they

268

WATER-BIRD WAIFS

descend into the ponds, and there is a scurrying among
the gunners. I have found their nests out in the wilder
parts of the Northwest, and there studied them as there
is little chance to do here in civilization.

People usually think of the graceful and beautiful
gulls and terns as being found only by the sea. In the
East this is mainly true, but in the Northwest many of
the marshy or alkaline lakes fairly teem with a number
of kinds. But with us in the inland country town all
we can hope for is to see a straggler now and then, if
we have any ponds or lakes of fair size. In the early
fall we may occasionally see a tern, probably the Com-
mon Tern, a white bird, about the size of a pigeon,
gray on the back, and black-capped, whose long narrow
wings move rapidly as it darts about, plunging headlong
into the water after the small bait fish upon which it
lives. Now and then the Black Tern, a smaller,
slaty-colored bird of similar form and habits, may
appear. Later in the season, about November, an
occasional gull may winnow about the lakes. Probably
it will be a Herring Gull, or perhaps the Ring-billed
Gull, a trifle smaller. These are both much larger
than terns, of heavier build and slower in motions.
Adults are mainly white, while the younger birds are
brown in their first autumn and gray in their second.
A good time for the dweller inland to watch the gulls
is when visiting some seaport city like New York,
from November to April. Go down to the wharves
or out in a ferry boat, and one will see more gulls in an

269

WATER-BIRD WAIFS

Grebe, and the Pied-billed Grebe or Dabchick. The
Horned Grebe is so called because in the spring plumage
it has, particularly the male, a sort of muff of long
feathers on its head, some of which stick up like little
horns. They are otherwise strikingly colored with
varied rich browns and black, but in autumn they are
reduced to plain gray back and white breast. The
Dabchick, which is by far the commoner of the three,
can be distinguished by its browner upper breast, and,
in spring, its plainer garb. Most of the grebes seen
will prove to be this latter. The time to expect them
is during May and in September and October. They
look so pretty, floating on the surface of the pond, often
among lily pads, dabbling in the water with the bill.
Usually we see each bird alone, but they are apt to
migrate in small flocks, and the other members of the
party are probably scattered about the pond, perhaps
hiding in the reeds along the margin, or crawled out
upon the shore to sun themselves and preen their
feathers. ‘They do this last also when afloat, and we
can see them turn over on one side to get at the lower
feathers, and the silky white under-parts will flash in
the sun. It is even harder for them than for the loon
to fly, for their wings are very small, and they likewise
migrate by night. They are great divers, and if
alarmed will plunge or sink into the depths, come up
a long way off, stick out only the bill for a breath of air,
sink again, and get out of sight without showing them-
selves even once. Knowing their powers they are not
271

WATER-BIRD WAIFS

very shy, and will not fly away as would wild ducks
when we approach. So we may quietly watch the
grebe from the shore, and, especially if one has a strong
field glass, it is a beautiful sight. ‘The popular name
of “Water Witch” is a tribute to the tribe’s aquatic
skill. .

Though out in the West I have seen thousands of
these grebes, and others, in their breeding colonies, I
never had a better chance to observe one intimately
than one May right at home. A pair of Horned Grebes
alighted in a brook, but could not fly out, because, with
their small wings, they require a lot of room to flutter
and patter over the water in getting started. One of
them disappeared, but the other stayed in the part of
the brook near a house with a flock of tame ducks. A
netting had been placed at the upper end to keep the
ducks from swimming upstream, and below there was
a bridge, under which the bird apparently did not like
to go. The brook was hardly two feet wide, and Ned
and I went there for several days and watched and
photographed His Majesty. When we approached,
the pretty fellow, a male in fine plumage, would dive
and. paddle off under water like a streak, and it was
so shallow that he was in plain sight, and we saw that
- he used only his feet, not the wings, as propellers.
Sometimes he would flutter along the surface of water,
and then dive. After a time he became used to us, so
I would sit quietly on the bank with the reflecting
camera, while Ned would make him swim back and

272

The Horned Grebe in the brook. ‘Giving me splendid camera shots” (p. 272).

WATER-BIRD WAIFS

forth past me, giving me splendid camera shots. 'Then
he would float quietly, a little apart from the ducks,
preen his feathers, flap his wings, or dive and chase
small fish. We could see him darting after them with
great eagerness, now this way, now that.

Finally, we stretched a mesh of chicken wire for a net
across the brook. Ned chased the grebe into the wire,
and I seized him as he was struggling to get through.
When I took him out of water he would wave his
muscular paddles so fast that they fairly blurred to our
sight. ‘These join the body down by the tail, so that
the grebe must walk almost upright. He made awk-
ward work of it on land, falling flat when he tried to
run. After photographing him, we boxed him up and
expressed him to the Bronx Zodlogical Park, in New
York City, where I think he lived very happily with a
mate they happened to have for him.

This brings me to the end of the pleasant task of
telling in a familiar way of the pleasure which I, by
myself, or in the lively, cheerful company of a boy, or
of others, have found in following up the birds of a
typical country region and becoming better and better
acquainted with them. I hope that Ned may find
bird-study a life-long delight and means of health and
vigor, as I have done, and with him a host of others—
boys and girls, men and women.

This is not saying that there are not a great many
other interesting things in life. Indeed, as for myself,
I am not a mere bird-specialist, but am interested in

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WATER-BIRD WAIFS

various other lines, aside from bird-study and my
regular profession, such, for instance, as music. I do
think, however, that it is a great advantage for everyone
to have some sort of avocation, certainly at least one
outdoor hobby, for the sake of health, and in any case
a deep and abiding love of the beauties and glories of
Nature, which makes for the strengthening of power
of observation, the broadening and deepening of the
life, and the cultivation of a spirit of calmness, optimism
and buoyancy, which, if gained, will keep one in spirit
ever young.

All too long, notably during the greater part of the
nineteenth century, there has run riot a craze for the
slaughter, for one purpose or other, of all the wild bird
and animal life of this country. Some valuable and
interesting species have been exterminated, and others
are all but gone. Surely it is high time to call a halt!
Fortunately, during recent years, and notably in the
last two decades, there has set in a mighty tide of in-
terest in these wild creatures—of sympathetic study of
their habits, of kindness to them and of laws for their
protection. The more universal this humane sentiment
becomes, the better for our beautiful and harmless wild
life, and the enjoyment of it by increasing multitudes.
Many factors aid in the spread of this movement, min-
imizing the desire to kill and multiplying enjoyment of
wild bird and animal life unharmed and at peace in
natural surroundings, not the least of which is already
proving to be “the sport of bird study.”

Q74

THE BIRD-HOUSE OF SCIENCE
AND

A BIRD CALENDAR

THE BIRD-HOUSE OF SCIENCE

OF NORTHEASTERN NORTH AMERICA

SIMPLIFIED FOR THE BEGINNER,
WITH ONLY POPULAR ENGLISH NAMES

A.—SWIMMING BIRDS

I. ORDER OF DIVING BIRDS.
1. Grebe Family.
2. Loon Family.
3. Auk, Murre and Puffin Family.

II. ORDER OF LONG-WINGED SWIMMERS.
1. Jaeger Family.
2. Gull and Tern Family.

Ill. ORDER OF TUBE-NOSED SWIMMERS.
1. Petrel and Shearwater Family.

IV. ORDER OF FOUR-TOES-WEBBED SWIMMERS.
1. Gannet Family.
2. Cormorant Family.

Vv. ORDER OF GOOSE-LIKE SWIMMERS, OR WILDFOWL.

1. Duck, Goose and Swan Family.

B.—WADING BIRDS

I. ORDER OF HERON-LIKE WADERS.

1. Heron, Egret and Bittern Family.
Tl. ORDER OF MARSH-DWELLING WADERS.

1. Rail, Gallinule and Coot Family.

Q77

Ii.

III.

IV.

VII.

THE BIRD-HOUSE OF SCIENCE
ORDER OF SHORE-DWELLING WADERS, OR SHORE-

BIRDS.

1. Phalarope Family.

2.

Snipe and Sandpiper Family.

8. Plover Family.

4.

Oystercatcher Family.

C.—LAND BIRDS

ORDER OF GALLINACEOUS OR HEN-LIKE BIRDS.

1.

Grouse and Quail Family.

2. Pheasant Family. (Introduced.)

ORDER OF PIGEON-LIKE BIRDS.
1. Pigeon and Dove Family.

ORDER OF BIRDS OF PREY.

1. Vulture Family.

2. Hawk Family. (Hawks, Falcons and Eagles.)
3. Owl Family.

ORDER OF CUCKOO-LIKE BIRDS.
1. Cuckoo Family.
2. Kingfisher Family.

ORDER OF WOODPECKER-LIKE BIRDS.
1. Woodpecker Family.

ORDER OF LONG-WINGED LAND BIRDS.
1. Nighthawk and Whippoorwill Family.
2. Swift Family.

3.

Hummingbird Family.

ORDER OF PERCHING BIRDS. (This includes nearly all

Or 69 te

our smaller Land Birds.)

. Flycatcher Family.

. Lark Family.

. Crow and Jay Family.

. Starling Family. (Introduced.)

. Blackbird, Oriole, Meadowlark Family.

278

THE BIRD-HOUSE OF

. Finch and Sparrow Family, etc.
. Tanager Family.

. Swallow Family.

. Waxwing Family.

. Shrike Family.

. Vireo Family.

. Wood Warbler Family.

. Pipit Family.

. Thrasher and Wren Family.

. Creeper Family.

. Nuthatch and Chickadee Family.
. Kinglet and Gnatcatcher Family.
. Thrush and Bluebird Family.

SCIENCE

A BIRD CALENDAR

WINTER

Winter conditions begin with November and last till March.
The winter visitors from the North may arrive from early Novem-
ber and on. Watch for them among evergreens, in sheltered
swamps, in pastures, or on open land where weeds have gone to
seed. These birds can sometimes be approached and photo-
graphed with a long-focus reflecting camera.

In woods, or along their edge, Northern hawks or owls may be
found, as well as those species which are resident. Flights of
the Snowy Owl are most apt to occur, if at all, in early December,
particularly along the coast.

Before the snow gets too deep, explore heavily timbered tracts
to look up old nests of hawks and owls, which are likely to be
occupied again. This will save time when the busier season
comes. Look up new timber tracts. These woodland explora-
tions in cold weather are fine, exhilarating exercise, especially if
in hilly country. The wintry woods are interesting.

Put out food for birds around home. Hang up suet for
woodpeckers, nuthatches and the Chickadee. Put trays of seed
under some improvised shelter for Juncos, Tree Sparrows, etc.
If there are quail in the vicinity, put out grain for them, sheltered
so that the snow will not bury it. A large pile of hayseed is good,
which can be readily dug out and turned over after each snowfall.
By setting a camera focused on these baits, with thread attached
to shutter, many a fine photograph may be secured.

From the latter part of January and through February locate
by the hootings of the large owls the part of the woods which they
frequent, for there they will probably nest.

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A BIRD CALENDAR

Regular daily exercise in the open air throughout the winter
is the best prevention for colds and pulmonary diseases, and will
keep one in fine, vigorous condition. In this way alone the sport
of bird study would save thousands of lives, giving an interesting
incentive to exercise outdoors.

SPRING

Spring is the harvest time for photographing birds, in which
the nesting season gives by far the greatest opportunities, notably
the last week of May and the first three of June. Incubation and
rearing of young lasts from slightly over three weeks with the
smaller birds to over two months with large ones like hawks or
owls.

Marcu (first half). The first harbinger of spring, the Great
Horned Owl, deposits its eggs from the last of February to the
early days of March, seldom later, and is ready (?) to be photo-
graphed. Bluebirds, Song Sparrows, Robins and Red-winged
Blackbirds arrive, early or late, according to the weather.

Marcu (last half). The Barred Owl lays from the middle of
the month to early April. Early in this period expect the Fox
Sparrow, Meadowlark, Rusty Blackbird, Cowbird and Wood-
cock, and somewhat later therein the Kingfisher, Grackle, Phoebe,
Mourning Dove, Wilson’s Snipe, Swamp and Field Sparrows,
with Cedar birds, wild ducks and Canada Geese in flocks. Be
keen to get the first records of the season for the birds’ arrivals,
and the last ones of their departures.

Aprit (early). Red-tailed Hawk and Woodcock lay, also
Long-eared, Screech and Saw-whet Owls, and some of the Red-
shouldered Hawks. A few more arrivals straggle in, such as the
Ruby-crowned Kinglet and more of the hardier Golden-crown,
which also winters, Vesper and Savanna Sparrows, Purple Finch,
Mpyrile and Yellow Palm Warblers, Great Blue Heron, American
Pipit. Various ducks, the Loon, and the Holboell’s Grebe are
in transit, and may visit any inland waters.

Apri (middle). Most of the Red-shouldered Hawks have
laid by this time, also the Dusky Duck. Bluebirds, Crows and

281

A BIRD CALENDAR

Robins also begin to lay. _ Notable arrivals are the Hermit Thrush,
Sapsucker, and the first straggling swallows—Tree, Bank and
Barn.

Apri (late). Hairy Woodpecker, White-breasted Nuthatch
and Song Sparrow lay, and quite a number of birds arrive—all
the swallows, the herons, Whippoorwill, Chimney Swift, ‘Towhee,
Brown Thrasher, Chebec, and a few warblers, such as Black-
throated Green, Black and White, and Oven-bird.

May (first third). During this time the following hawks lay
their eggs, usually finishing by the 10th: Fish, Cooper’s, Marsh,
Sparrow, and Broad-winged, the latter sometimes later. Night
Heron colonies have eggs early in the month. Blue Jay, King-
fisher, Vesper Sparrow, Grackles, Wood Duck and Ruffed Grouse
lay—the latter sometimes earlier and later, and the Wood Duck
sometimes earlier. In this period the great majority of our smaller
birds not already mentioned begin to appear. The migration of
all the warblers is in full progress by about the 10th. Horned
and Pied-billed Grebes appear in the ponds or streams. Most
of our small summer-resident birds arrive.

May (second third). The following lay their eggs: Swamp,
Field, Chipping and Savanna Sparrows, Meadowlark, Phebe,
Barn Swallow, Green Heron, Louisiana Water Thrush, Sharp-
shinned Hawk. By this time all summer residents have arrived.
The migration of shore-birds is at its height, especially, of course,
in evidence along the coast, and likewise of the warblers and
small land-birds in general. At this time there are more kinds
and larger numbers of birds to be seen than at any other time of
year. This is the time of times to detect rarities, and the bird-
lover might well wish to be afield every minute and to be multiplied
a thousand-fold.

May (last third). Another contingent are now busy laying:
Downy Woodpecker, Flicker, Chickadee, Purple Finch, Brown
Thrasher, Wood Thrush, Chewink, Veery, Spotted Sandpiper,
Oven-bird, and early individuals of any of the warblers. The
migrants are disappearing, the last being the Blackpoll Warbler
in the early days of June.

June. By the first few days of the month nearly all the small

282

A BIRD CALENDAR

birds have ordinarily completed their sets, unless the season be
very backward, and many individuals in the last week of May.
The great bulk of the small birds are now incubating, and by the
10th many eggs are hatching. The month from May 25th to
June 25th offers more photographic opportunities bird-wise than
all the rest of the year combined.

Some species which breed late are the following: Kingbird,
Crested Flycatcher, Orchard Oriole, about the 10th; Vireos and
Wrens are often somewhat late; Wood Pewee, 15th to 20th; Cedar-
bird and Chimney Swift from 20th to early July; the Goldfinch
last of all, usually the last week in July or first in August.

SUMMER

Most of the species have finished or are finishing breeding by
the time of the summer solstice. A few, just mentioned, habitually
breed in summer. Some, whose eggs have been destroyed lay a
second litter, and others habitually rear two broods, in consequence
of which facts occupied nests in sparing numbers may be found
till late in the summer. The following species are among those
which often raise two broods: Bob-white, Phoebe, Robin, Catbird,
Bluebird, House Wren, Yellow-throat, most sparrows and swal-
lows, Red-winged Blackbird, Meadowlark, and various others
occasionally.

By July most of the birds become silent and secretive, having
begun the molt. Some species, before migrating South, wander
from their breeding localities, and species unfamiliar to a locality,
like certain Southern herons, are noted as far north as New Eng-
land or Nova Scotia. From mid-July and on, the flocking of
certain species occurs preparatory to the migration, such as
Swallows, Sparrows, Blackbirds, Bobolinks, Nighthawks. A few
migrant warblers appear in August.

The return migration of the shore-birds begins about the
middle of July, and is at its height in August. The latter month
is a good time to visit the sea-coast to study shore-birds, Terns,
etc., and for yachting trips offshore among the ocean birds, such

283

A BIRD CALENDAR

as Shearwaters, Petrels, Jaegers, and Phalaropes. Good localities
to find the latter class are the shoals off the southeastern end of
Cape Cod, Massachusetts, or off Cape Sable, Nova Scotia. They
can often be baited up with fish-livers close to the vessel and be
successfully photographed.

AUTUMN

Before autumn has really arrived, many of the smaller birds
have left for the South. The migratory species are now harder
to find and to identify, being largely silent and in dull, nondescript
plumage. Yet for all that it is interesting to be afield and to keep
tally on the migration, recording dates of first and last appearance
of all species observed. If done in friendly rivalry with others,
this is very interesting, and it is a joy to exercise in the cool air
amid the glories of autumn colors.

By the latter part of September, migratory ducks and grebes
begin to appear on the various bodies of water, and during Octo-
ber the duck migration is at its height. Late October and early
November bring many Northern sea-birds along the coast, some
of which occasionally stray into inland lakes. A trip to the sea-
coast at this time among the hordes of wildfowl is a delight. The
sea in an autumnal or wintry hurricane—what is grander!

Autumn is the shooting season for wild game. If you shoot,
be content with a few game morsels for the table, and disdain to
be so low-minded, in these days of growing scarcity of game, as
to glory in a big bag. Learn to enjoy the pursuit more than the
killing, the live wild creature in all its natural glory more than the
dead trophy. Try for wildfow] and big game photographs, and
as much as possible, let the camera usurp in your heart the altar
formerly consecrated to the gun.

284

INDEX

Baldpate, 267

Bittern, American, 260-1
Least, 261

Blackbird, Cow, 151
Crow, 153-4
Red-winged, 152-3
Rusty, 155
Swamp, 152-3

Bluebill, 267

Bluebird, 97, 245-8

Blue Peter, 259

Bobolink, 150-1

Bob-white, 23-6

Bufflehead, 267

Bull-bat, 104

Bunting, Cow. See Cowbird.
Indigo. See Indigo-bird.
Snow, 157, 163-4

Butcher-bird, 197-8

Buzzard, Turkey, 56

Canary, Wild, 162, 223
Canvasback, 267
Cardinal, 157, 175
Catbird, 230, 236-7
Cedar-bird, 194-6
Chat, Yellow-breasted, 209, 217, 222
Chebec, 134-5
Chewink, 157, 172-3
Chickadee, 130, 165, 243-4
Carolina, 244
Hudsonian, 244
Coot, American, 259
Cowbird, 151-2, 202-5, 225
Crane, Blue, 259
Creeper, Black and White, 208, 213, 217
Brown, 242, 245
Crossbill, 157, 160
American, 160
Red, 160
White-winged, 160-1

Crow, American, 64, 139-43
Cuckoo, Black-billed, 77-81
Yellow-billed, 81

Dabchick, 271
Dove, Mourning, 32-3
Duck, Black, 1, 2, 263-4
Dusky, 1, 2, 263-4
Greater Scaup, 267
Lesser Scaup, 267
Duck, Long-tailed, 267
Ruddy, 267
Summer, or Wood, 1, 2, 264-6

Eagie, Bald, 53
olden, 54
Egret, American, 263

Finch, Pine. See Siskin. .
Purple, 157, 162, 194, 207
Flicker, 74, 87-94
Flycatcher, Acadian, 134
Alder, 135-8
Crested, 128-9
Least, 134-5
Olive-sided, 133
Traill’s, 135
Yellow-bellied, 134

Gadwall, 267

Gallinule, Florida, 259

Gnatcatcher, Blue-gray, 244

Golden-eye, American, 267

Goldfinch, American, 118, 157, 162-3

Goosander, 268

Goose, Canada, 268-9

Goshawk, American, 54-5

Guns Bronzed, 153
Purple, 153

Grebe, Holboell’s, 270-1
Horned, 270-3
Pied-billed, 270-1

INDEX

Grosbeak, Evening, 160
Pine, 157, 159, 161-2
Rose-breasted, 157, 173-4, 193

Grouse, Ruffed, 13, 26-31, 54
Pinnated, 32

Gull, American Herring, 269
Ring-billed, 269

Hawk, American Rough-legged, 54
American Sparrow, 53-4
Broad-winged, 35-47, 88
Cooper’s, 36-7, 47, 51-2, 55, 88, 219
Fish, 53
Hen, 55
Marsh, 53
Pigeon, 53
Red-shouldered, 48, 51, 63
Red-tailed, 48-51, 54, 88
Sharp-shinned, 51-2, 55, 222
Sparrow, 53-4

Hen, Heath, 32
Marsh, 259
Mud, 259
Prairie, 32

Heron, Black-crowned Night, 260
Great Blue, 259-60
Green, 261-3
Little Blue, 263
Yellow-crowned Night, 263

High-hole, 87

Hummingbird, Ruby-throated, 111-23

Indigo-bird, 157, 174

Jay, Blue, 144-6
Junco, 165-7

Some

Kingbird, 124-8

Kingfisher, Belted, 82-6

Kinglet, Golden-crowned, 244-5
Ruby-crowned, 244-5

Lark, Horned, 146
Prairie Horned, 147
Shore, 146

Longspur, Lapland, 164-5

Loon, 270

Mallard, 267
Martin, Purple, 186-7

Meadowlark, 147-8
Western, 148
Merganser, American, 268
Hooded, 268
Red-breasted, 268
Mockingbird, 237-8
Mud-hen, 259

Nighthawk, 102-4, 109-11
Nuthatch, Red-breasted, 242
White-breasted, 242-3

Old Squaw, 267
Oriole, Baltimore, 148-9
Orchard, 149-50
Osprey, American, 53
Oven-bird, 89, 102, 208-9, 217, 227-8
Owl, Barn, 68
Barred, 58-63, 69, 75, 97
Great Gray, 75
Great Horned, 33, 58, 60-1, 69, 71-2
Hoot, 4, 58
Long-eared, 63-8
Marsh, 68
Richardson’s, 75-6
Saw-whet, 73-5
Screech, 69-72
Short-eared, 68
Snowy, 75

Partridge, 27

Peabody-bird, 168

Peter, Blue, 259

Pewee, Wood, 129, 132-3

Pheebe, 129-32, 244

Pigeon, Passenger, 32

Pintail, 71, 267

Pipit, American, 229

Plover, American Golden, 253
Semi palmated, 253
Upland, 253

Quail. See Bob-white,

Rail, Carolina. See Sora.
Clapper, 259

Fe, 259
Little Black, 258-9

Virginia, 256-7
Yellow, 258-9

INDEX

Redhead, 267

Redpoll, 157-9

Redstart, 102, 207-9, 217, 225-6
Reedbird, 151

Ring-neck, 253

Robin, American, 33, 97, 207, 245-9, 255

Swamp, 172

Sandpiper, Bartramian, 253
Least, 253

Semi-palmated, 253
Solitary, 254
Spotted, 253-5

Sapsucker, Yellow-bellied, 94

Scoter, American, 267
Bae 267 “

ite-winged, 267

Shelldrake, 268

Shrike, Nerthern, 197-8
Loggerhead, 198

Siskin, Pine, 157-8, 160

Snipe, Wilson’s, 22-3

Snowbird, 165

Snowflake, 163

Sora, 256-7

Sparrow, Chipping, 102, 166, 169, 171
English, 165, 178-9
Field, 166, 169
Fox, 166
Grasshopper, 168, 170
Henslow’s, 168
Ipswich, 167
Lincoln’s, 166
Savanna, 167, 170
Seaside, 167
Sharp-tailed, 167
Song, 102, 165-6, 169
Swamp, 166, 169
Tree, 165-6
Vesper, 167, 170
White-crowned, 168
White-throated, 168

Swallow, Bank, 184-6
Barn, 178-80
Chimney, 187
Cliff. See Eave.
Eave, 178, 181-2
Rough-winged, 186
Tree, 182-4

Swift, Chimney, 187-90

ili

Tanager, Scarlet, 89, 106, 191-4
Teal, Blue-winged, 267
Green-winged, 267
Tern, Black, 269
Common, 269
Thrasher, Brown, 230-6
Thrush, Alice’s, 245-7
Bicknell’s, 245-6
Hermit, 245-7
Louisiana Water, 210, 217, 220-1
Olive-backed, 245-7
Water, 209
Wilson’s, 245-7, 249
Wood, 102, 194, 245, 247, 249-50
Titlark, 229
Titmice, 243
Towhee, 172-3
Turkey, Wild, 32

Veery, 102, 245-7, 249
Vireo, Blue-headed, 198-200
Red-eyed, 89, 199, 201-5

Solitary, 198-200

Warbling, 200-1

White-eyed, 201

Yellow-throated, 200
Vulture, Turkey, 56

Warbler, Bay-breasted, 207-8, 214

Black and White, 208, 213, 217, 226-7

Blackburnian, 34, 207-8

Blackpoll, 213-4

Black-throated Blue, 208, 217, 219-20

Black-throated Green, 207-9, 215, 217,
221-2

Blue-winged, or Blue-winged Yellow,
213, 217

Ceerulean, 214

Canadian, 209, 212, 217

Cape May, 207

Chestnut-sided, 135, 209, 217, 224-5

Connecticut, 213

Golden-winged, 212, 217

Hooded, 214, 217

Kentucky, 214, 217

Magnolia, 207

Mourning, 213

Myrtle, 207-9, 214-5

Nashville, 210, 217-9

Parula, 207, 209, 217, 223

INDEX

Warbler, Pine, 213, 215, 217 Woodpecker, Arctic Three-toed, 87, 96
Prairie, 213 Downy, 94, 96-9
Tennessee, 212 Golden-winged, 87-94
Wilson’s, 209 Hairy, 94, 96-100
Worm-eating, 211-2 Pileated, 87, 95-6, 99
Yellow, 207, 209, 213, 217, 223-4 Red-headed, 88, 94-5
Yellow-Palm, 212, 215 Wren, Carolina, 240
Yellow-Redpoll, 212, 215 House, 238-9
Yellow-throated, 214 Long-billed Marsh, 240-1
Water Witch, 272 Short-billed Marsh, 240-1
Waxwing, Bohemian, 194 Winter, 240
Cedar, 194
Whippoorwill, 102-9 Yellow-hammer, 87
Whistler, 267 Yellow-legs, Greater, or Winter, 253
Woodcock, American, 13-22 Lesser, or Summer, 253

Woodpecker, American Three-toed, 96 Yellow-thrgat, Northern, 209, 217, 228-9

Set up, electrotyped, printed and bound at

THE OUTING PRESS
Deposit, New York

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