Bird neighbors; an introductory acquaintance with one hundred and fifty birds commonly found in the gardens, meadows, and woods about our homes

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CORNELL
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

LABORATORY
OF ORNITHOLOGY
LIBRARY

Gift of

aur te

Bird neighbors;an introductory acquainta

Cornell University

Library

The original of this book is in
the Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022527208

BIRD NEIGHBORS

GOLDFINCIL

NELTJE BLANCHAN
Otho

BIRD NEIGHBORS

An Introductory Acquaintance
With One Hundred and Fifty Birds
Commonly Found in the Gardens,
Meadows, and Woods
About Our Homes

INTRODUCTION BY JOHN BURROUGHS

With Fhotographic Illustrations
in Color and in Black and White

GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC.
GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT, 1904, 1922, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGB
& COMPANY. COPYRIGBT, 1897, BY DOUBLE-
DAY & MCCLURE COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RE-
SERVED. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. ¥.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION BY JOHN BuRROUGHS . . . ° .
PREFACE . . ‘ - 3 : é F ‘ s

I. Birp Famiuigs:
Their Characteristics and the Representatives of Each
Family included in ‘‘ Bird Neighbors” . ’
II, HapiTaTs OF Birps . . oe. cat. Sel wes, Ae
ail, SEASONS OF BiRDS . 2. ew + 4

iV. Birvs GrourPeD ACCORDING TO SIZE . .« 2

V. Descriptions OF BirDs GRouPeD ACCORDING TO COLOR :
Birds Conspicuously Black .« . o© «©
Birds Conspicuously Black and White . . .
Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored Birds . «© «©
Blue and Bluish Birds . ‘ 7 . . .
Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and

Gray Sparrowy Birds. a 3
Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yelluwish Olive
Birds. - P i F - %« .
Birds Conspicuously Yellow and Orange . F
Birds Conspicuously Red of any Shade. «Se

INDEX ». »o © © © © © © © «6

INTRODUCTION

I write these few introductory sentences to this volume only
to second so worthy an attempt to quicken and enlarge the gen-
eral interest in our birds. The book itself is merely an introduc-
tion, and is only designed to place a few clews in the reader’s
hands which he himself or herself is to follow up. I can say that
it is reliable and is written in a vivacious strain and by a real
bird lover, and should prove a help and a stimulus to any one
who seeks by the aid of its pages to become better acquainted
with our songsters. The pictures, with a few exceptions, are
remarkably good and accurate, and these, with the various group-
ing of the birds according to color, season, habitat, etc., ought to
render the identification of the birds, with no other weapon than
an opera glass, an easy matter.

When I began the study of the birds I had access to a copy
of Audubon, which greatly stimulated-my interest in the pursuit,
but I did not have the opera glass, and I could not take Audubon
with me on my walks, as the reader may this volume, and he
will find these colored plates quite as helpful as those of Audubon
or Wilson.

But you do not want to make out your bird the first time;
the book or your friend must not make the problem too easy for
you. You must go again and again, and see and hear your bird
under varying conditions and get a good hold of several of its
characteristic traits. Things easily learned are apt to be easily for-
gotten. Some ladies, beginning the study of birds, once wrote to
me, asking if I would not please come and help them, and set
them right about certain birds in dispute. I replied that that
would be getting their knowledge too easily; that what I and
any one else told them they would be very apt to forget, but that
the things they found out themselves they would always remem-
ber. We must in a way earn what we have or keep. Only thus
does it become ours, a real part of us.

Not very long afterward I had the pleasure of walking with
one of the ladies, and I found her eye and ear quite as sharp as
my own, and that she was in a fair way to conquer the bird king-
dom without any outside help. She said that the groves and
fields, through which she used to walk with only a languid inter-

Vit

est, were now completely transformed to her and afforded het
the keenest pleasure; a whole new world of interest had been
disclosed to her; she felt as if she was constantly on the eve of
some new discovery; the next turn in the path might reveal to
her a new warbler or a new vireo. I remember the thrill she
seemed to experience when | called her attention to a purple finch
singing in the tree-tops in front of her house, a rare visitant she
had not before heard. The thrill would of course have been
greater had she identified the bird without my aid. One would
rather bag one’s own game, whether it be with a bullet or an
eyebeam.

The experience of this lady is the experience of all in whom
is kindled this bird enthusiasm. A new interest is added to life;
one more resource against ennui and stagnation. If you have
only a city yard with a few sickly trees in it, you will find great
delight in noting the numerous stragglers from the great army of
spring and autumn migrants that find their way there. If you
live in the country, it is as if new eyes and new ears were given
you, with a correspondingly increased capacity for rural enjoyment.

The birds link themselves to your memory of seasons and
places, so that a song, a call, a gleam of color, set going a
sequence of delightful reminiscences in your mind. When a soli-
tary great Carolina wren came one August day and took up its
abode near me and sang and called and warbled as I had heard it
long before on the Potomac, how it brought the old days, the
old scenes back again, and made me for the moment younger by
all those years!

A few seasons ago I feared the tribe of bluebirds were on
the verge of extinction from the enormous number of them that
perished from cold and hunger in the South in the winter of ’94.
For two summers not a blue wing, not a blue warble. I seemed
to miss something kindred and precious from my environment—
the visible embodiment of the tender sky and the wistful soil.
What a loss, I said, to the coming generations of dwellers in the
country—no bluebird in the spring! What will the farm-boy
date from? But the fear was groundless: the birds are regaining
their lost ground; broods of young blue-coats are again seen
drifting from stake to stake or from mullen-stalk to mullen-stalk
about the fields in summer, and our April air will doubtless again
be warmed and thrilled by this lovely harbinger of spring.

Joun Burroucus.
August 17, a7.

viii

PREFACE

Nor to have so much as a bowing acquaintance with the birds
that nest in our gardens or under the very eaves of our houses:
that haunt our wood-piles; keep our fruit-trees free from slugs;
waken us with their songs, and enliven our walks along the road-
side and through the woods, seems to be, at least, a breach of
etiquette toward some of our most kindly disposed neighbors.

Birds of prey, game and water birds are not included in the
book. The following pages are intended to be nothing more than
a familiar introduction to the birds that live near us. Even in the
principal park of a great city like New York, . bird-lover has found
more than one hundred and thirty species; as many, probably,
as could be discovered in the same sized territory anywhere.

The plan of the book is not a scientific one, if the term scientific
is understood to mean technical and anatomical. The purpose
of the writer is to give, in a popular and accessible form, knowledge
which is accurate and reliable about the life of our common
birds. This knowledge has not been collected from the stuffed
carcasses of birds in museums, but gleaned afield. In a word,
these short narrative descriptions treat of the bird’s characteristics
of size, color, and flight; its peculiarities of instinct and tempera-
ment; its nest and home life; its choice of food; its songs; and of the
season in which we may expect it to play its part in the great
panorama Nature unfolds with faithful precision year after year.
They are an attempt to make the bird so live before the reader
that, when seen out of doors, its recognition shall be instant and
cordial, like that given to a friend.

The coloring described in this book is sometimes more vivid
than that found in the works of some learned authorities whose
conflicting testimony is often sadly bewildering to the novice.
In different parts of the country, and at different seasons of the
year, the plumage of some birds undergoes many changes. The
reader must remember, therefore, that the specimens examined
and described were not, as before stated, the faded ones in our
mses but live birds in their fresh, spring plumage, studied
afield.

The birds have been classed into color groups, in the belief
that this method, more than any other will make identification
most easy. The color of the bird is the first, and often the only,
characteristic noticed. But they have also been classified ac-'
cording to the localities for which they show decided preferences |

1x

and in which they are most likely to be found. Again, they have
been grouped according to the season when they may be expected.
In the brief paragraphs that deal with groups of birds separated
into the various families represented in the book, the character-
istics and traits of each clan are clearly emphasized. By these
several aids it is believed the merest novice will be able to quickly
identify any bird neighbor that is neither local nor rare.

To the uninitiated or uninterested observer, all small, dull-
colored birds are “common sparrows.” The closer scrutiny of
the trained eye quickly differentiates, and picks out not only the
Song, the Canada, and the Fox Sparrows, but finds a dozen
other familiar friends where one who “has eyes and sees not”
does not even suspect their presence. Ruskin says: “The more
I think of it, I find this conclusion more impressed upon me, that
the greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to
see something. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can
think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see
clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion—all in one.”

While the author is indebted to all the time-honored standard
authorities, and to many ornithologists of the present day—too
many for individual mention—it is to Mr. John Burroughs her
deepest debt is due. To this clear-visioned prophet, who has
opened the blind eyes of thousands to the delights that Nature
holds within our easy reach, she would gratefully acknowledge
many obligations; first of all, for the plan on which “ Bird Neigh-
bors” is arranged; next, for his patient kindness in reading and
annotating the manuscript of the book; and, not least, for the
inspiration of his perennially charming writings that are so largely
responsible for the ready-made audience now awaiting writers
on out-of-door topics.

It is hoped that the illustrations in this edition of “ Bird Neigh-
bors” will do much to add to the pleasure and profit of the reader.
Through the courtesy of the National Association of Audubon
Societies, the pictures painted by artists who are specialists in
bird portraiture embellish this book. Each portrait has been
examined and corrected when necessary by an authority. The
birds are pictured as they are in life, each according to its own
habit of existence.

‘The author takes this opportunity to express her appreciation
of the work the National Association of Audubon Societies has
done and is doing to prevent the slaughter of birds in all parts of
the United States, to develop bird sanctuaries and inaugurate
protective legislation. Indeed to it, more than to all other agen-
cies combined, is due the credit of eliminating so much of the
Prussianlike cruelty toward birds that once characterized Ameri-
can treatment of them, from the rising generation.

x NELTJE BLANCHAN.

BIRD FAMILIES

THEIR CHARACTERISTICS AND THE
REPRESENTATIVES OF EACH FAMILY
INCLUDED IN “BIRD NEIGHBORS”

BIRD FAMILIES

THEIR CHARACTERISTICS AND THE REPRESENTATIVES OF EACH
FAMILY INCLUDED IN “BIRD NEIGHBORS”

Order Coccyges: CUCKOOS AND KINGFISHERS
Family Cuculide: CUCKOOS

Long, pigeon-shaped birds, whose backs are grayish brown
with a bronze lustre and whose under parts are whitish. Bill long
and curved. Tail long; raised and drooped slowly while the
bird is perching. Two toes point forward and two backward.
Call-note loud and like a tree-toad’s rattle. Song lacking. Birds
of low trees and undergrowth, where they also nest; partial to
neighborhood of streams, or wherever the tent caterpillar is
abundant. Habits rather solitary, silent, and eccentric. Migratory.

Yellow-billed Cuckoo.
Black-billed Cuckoo.

Family Alcedinide: KINGFISHERS

Large, top-heavy birds of streams and ponds. Usually seen
perching over the water looking for fish. Head crested; upper
parts slate-blue; underneath white, and belted with blue or
rusty. Bill large and heavy. Middle and outer toes joined for
half their length. Call-note loud and prolonged, like a policeman’s
rattle. Solitary birds; little inclined to rove from a chosen local-

ity. Migratory.
- : Belted Kingfisher.

Order Pici: WOODPECKERS
Family Picide: WOODPECKERS

Medium-sized and small birds, usually with plumage black
and white, and always with some red feathers about the head.
3

Kird Families

(The flicker is brownish and yellow instead of black and white.)
Stocky, high-shouldered build; bill strong and long for drilling
holes in bark of trees. Tail feathers pointed and stiffened to
serve as a prop. Two toes before and two behind for clinging.
Usually seen clinging erect on tree-trunks; rarely, if ever, head
downward, like the nuthatches, titmice, etc. Woodpeckers feed
as they creep around the trunks and branches. Habits rather
phlegmatic. The flicker has better developed vocal powers than
other birds of this class, whose rolling tattoo, beaten with their
bills against the tree-trunks, must answer for their love-song.
Nest in hollowed-out trees.

Red-headed Woodpecker.

Hairy Woodpecker.

Downy Woodpecker.

Yellow-bellied Woodpecker.

Flicker.

Order Macrochires: GOATSUCKERS, SWIFTS, AND HUM-
MING-BIRDS

Family Caprimulgide : NIGHTHAWKS. WHIPPOORWILLS,
ETC.

Medium-sized, mottled brownish, gray, black, and white
birds of heavy build. Short, thick head; gaping, large mouth;
very small bill, with bristles at base. Take insect food on the
wing. Feet small and weak; wings long and powerful. These
birds rest lengthwise on their perch while sleeping through the
brightest daylight hours, or on the ground, where they nest.

Nighthawk.
Whippoorwill.

Family Micropolide: SWIFTS

Sooty, dusky birds seen on the wing, never resting except
in chimneys of houses, or hollow trees, where they nest. Tips
of tail feathers with sharp spines, used as props. They show their
kinship with the goatsuckers in their nocturnal as well as diurnal
habits, their small bills and large mouths for catching insects or

4

Bird Families

the wing, and their weak feet. Gregarious, especially at the

testing season.
Chimney Swift.

Family Trochilide : HUMMING-BIRDS

Very small birds with green plumage (iridescent red or
orange breast in males); long, needle-shaped bil! for extracting
insects and nectar from deep-cupped flowers, and exceedingly
rapid, darting flight. Small feet.

Ruby-throated Humming-bird.

Order Passeres : PERCHING BIRDS
Family Tyrannide ; FLYCATCHERS

Small and medium-sized dull, dark-olive, or gray birds, with
big heads that are sometimes crested. Bills hooked at end, and
with bristles at base. Harsh or plaintive voices. Wings longer
than tail; both wings and tails usually drooped and vibrating
when the birds are perching. Habits moody and silent when
perching on a conspicuous limb, telegraph wire, dead tree, or
fence rail and waiting for insects to fly within range. Sudden,
nervous, spasmodic sallies in midair to seize insects on the wing.
Usually they return to their identical perch or lookout. Pug-
nacious and fearless. Excellent nest builders and devoted mates.

Kingbird. :
Phoebe.

Wood Pewee.

Acadian Flycatcher.

Great Crested Flycatcher.

Least Flycatcher.

Olive-sided Flycatcher.
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher.

Say’s Flycatcher.

Family Alaudide : LARKS

The only true larks to be found in this country are the twe
species given below. They are the kin of the European skylark,
of which several unsuccessful attempts to introduce the bird bave

5

Bird Families

been made in this country. These two larks must not be con-
fused with the meadow larks and titlarks, which belong to the
blackbird and pipit families respectively. The horned larks are
birds of the ground, and are seen in the United States only in the
autumn and winter. In the nesting season at the North their
voices are most musical. Plumage grayish and brown, in color
harmony with their habitats. Usually found in flocks; the first
species on or near the shore.

Horned Lark.

Prairie Horned Lark.

Family Corvide: CROWS AND JAYS

The crows are large black birds, walkers, with stout feet
adapted for the purpose. Fond of shifting their residence at dif-
ferent seasons rather than strictly migratory, for, except at the
northern limit of range, they remain resident all the year. Gre-
garious. Sexes alike. Omnivorous feeders, being partly car-
nivorous, as are also the jays. Both crows and jays inhabit
wooded country. Their voices are harsh and clamorous; and
their habits are boisterous and bold, particularly the jays. De-
voted mates; unpleasant neighbors.

Common Crow.
Fish Crow.
Northern Raven.
Blue Jay.

Canada Jay.

Family leterida: BLACKBIRDS, ORIOLES, ETC.

Plumage black or a brilliant color combined with black.
(The meadow lark a sole exception.) Sexes unlike. These birds
form a connecting link between the crows and the finches. The
blackbirds have strong feet for use upon the ground, where they
generally feed, while the orioles are birds of the trees. They are
both seed and insect eaters. The bills of the bobolink and cow-
bird are short and conical, for they are conspicuous seed eaters.
Bills of the others long and conical, adapted for insectivorous
diet. About half the family are gifted songsters.

Red-winged Blackbird.
Rusty Blackbird.

6

Bird Families

Purple Grackle.
Bronzed Grackle.
Cowbird.

Meadow Lark.
Western Meadow Lark.
Bobolink.

Orchard Oriole.
Baltimore Oriole.

Family Fringillide: FINCHES, SPARROWS, GROSBEAKS,
BUNTINGS, LINNETS, AND CROSSBILLS

Generally fine songsters. Bills conical, short, and stout for
cracking seeds. Length from five to nine inches, usually under
eight inches. This, the largest family of birds that we have
(about one-seventh of all our birds belong to it), comprises birds
of such varied plumage and habit that, while certain family re-
semblances may be traced throughout, it is almost impossible to
characterize the family as such. The sparrows are comparatively
small gray and brown birds with striped upper parts, lighter
underneath. Birds of the ground, or not far from it, elevated
perches being chosen for rest and song. Nest in low bushes or
on the ground. (Chipping sparrow often selects tall trees.)
Coloring adapted to grassy, dusty habitats. Males and females
similar. Flight labored. About forty species of sparrows are
found in the United States; of these, fourteen may be met with
by a novice, and six, at least, surely will be.

The finches and their larger kin are chiefly bright-plumaged
birds, the females either duller or distinct from males; bills
heavy, dull, and conical, befitting seed eaters. Not so migratory
as insectivorous birds nor so restless. Mostly phlegmatic in
temperament. Fine songsters.

Chipping Sparrow.
English Sparrow.
Field Sparrow.

Fox Sparrow.
Grasshopper Sparrow.
Savanna Sparrow.
Seaside Sparrow.
Sharp-tailed Sparrow.

7

Bird Families

‘Song Sparrow.

Swamp Song Sparrow.
Tree Sparrow.

Vesper Sparrow.
White-crowned Sparrow.
White-throated Sparrow.
Lapland Longspur.
Smith’s Painted Longspur.
Pine Siskin (or Finch),
Purple Finch.

Goldfinch.

Redpoll.

Greater Redpoll.

Red Crossbill.
White-winged Red Crossbill.
Cardinal Grosbeak.
Rose-breasted Grosbeak.
Pine Grosbeak.

Evening Grosbeak.

Blue Grosbeak.

Indigo Bunting.

jJunco.

Snowflake.

Chewink.

* Family Tanagride: TANAGERS

Distinctly an American family, remarkable for their brilliant
plumage, which, however, undergoes great changes twice a year,
Females different from males, being dull and inconspicuous.
Birds of the tropics, two species only finding their way north,
and the summer tanager rarely found north of Pennsylvania.
Shy inhabitants of woods. Though they may nest low in trees,
they choose high perches when singing or feeding upon flowers,
fruits, and insects. Asa family, the tanagers have weak, squeaky
voices, but both our species are good songsters. Suffering the
fate of most bright-plumaged birds, immense numbers have been
shot annually.

Scarlet Tanager.
Summer Tanager.
8

Bird Families

Family Hirundinida : SWALLOWS

Birds of the air, that take their insect food on the wing.
Migratory. Flight strong, skimming, darting; exceedingly
graceful. When not flying they choose slender, conspicuous
perches like telegraph wires, gutters, and eaves of barns. Plu-
mage of some species dull, of others iridescent blues and greens
above, whitish or ruddy below. Sexes similar. Bills small ;
mouths large. Long and pointed wings, generally reaching the
tip of the tail or beyond. Tail more or less forked. Feet small
and weak from disuse. Song a twittering warble without power.
Gregarious birds.

Barn Swallow.
Bank Swallow.
Cliff (or Eaves) Swallow.
Tree Swallow.
Bough-winged Swallow.
Purple Martin.

Family Ampelide > WAXWINGS

Medium-sized Quaker-like birds, with plumage of soft
browns and grays. Head crested ; black band across forehead
and through the eye. Bodies plump fromindolence. Tail tipped
with yellow ; wings with red tips to coverts, resembling sealing-
wax. Sexes similar. Silent, gentle, courteous, elegant birds.
Usually seen in large flocks feeding upon berries in the trees or
perching on the branches, except at the nesting season. Voices
resemble a soft, lisping twitter.

Cedar Bird.
Bohemian Waxwing

Family Laniide : SHRIKES

Medium-sized grayish, black-and-white birds, with hooked
and hawk-like bill for tearing the flesh of smaller birds, field-
mice, and large insects that they impale on thorns. Handsome,
bold birds, the terror of all small, feathered neighbors, not ex-
cluding the English sparrow. They choose conspicuous perches
when on the lookout for prey : a projecting or dead limb of a

9

Bird Families

>

tree, the cupola of a house, the ridge-pole or weathier-vane of a
barn, or a telegraph wire, from which to suddenly drop upon a
victim. Eyesight remarkable. Call-notes harsh and unmusical.
Habits solitary and wandering. The first-named species is resi-
dent during the colder months of the year; the latter is a summer
resident only north of Maryland.

Northern Shrike.

Loggerhead Shrike.

Family Vireonide : VIREOS OR GREENLETS

Small greenish-gray or olive birds, whitish or yellowish
underneath, their plumage resembling the foliage of the trees
they hunt, nest, and live among. Sexes alike. More deliberate
in habit than the restless, flitting warblers that are chiefly seen
darting about the ends of twigs. Vireos are more painstaking
gleaners ; they carefully explore the bark, turn their heads up-
ward to investigate the under side of leaves, and usually keep
well hidden among the foliage. Bill hooked at tip for holding
worms and insects. Gifted songsters, superior to the warblers.
This family is peculiar to America.

Red-eyed Vireo.
Solitary Vireo.
Warbling Vireo.
White-eyed Vireo.
Yellow-throated Vireo.

Family Mniotiltide : WOOD WARBLERS

A large group of birds, for the most part smaller than the
English sparrow ; all, except the ground warblers, of beautiful
plumage, in which yellow, olive, slate-blue, black, and white are
predominant colors. Females generally duller than males. Ex-
ceedingly active, graceful, restless feeders among the terminal
twigs of trees and shrubbery ; haunters of tree-tops in the woods
at nesting time. Abundant birds, especially during May and
September, when the majority are migrating to and from regions
north of the United States; but they are strangely unknown to all
but devoted bird lovers, who seek them out during these months
that particularly favor acquaintance. Several species are erratic in

10

Bird Families

their migrations and choose a different course to return southward
from the one they travelled over in spring. A few species are sum-
mer residents, and one, at least, of this tropical family, the myrtle
warbler, winters at the north. The habits of the family are not
identical in every representative ; some are more deliberate and
less nervous than others ; a few, like the Canadian and Wilson’s
warblers, are expert flycatchers, taking their food on the wing,
but not usually returning to the same perch, like true flycatchers;
and a few of the warblers, as, for example, the black-and-white,
the pine, and the worm-eating species, have the nuthatches’ habit
of creeping around the bark of trees. Quite a number feed upon
the ground. All are insectivorous, though many vary their diet
with blossom, fruit, or berries, and naturally their bills are slen-
der and sharply pointed, rarely finch-like. The yellow-breasted
chat has the greatest variety of vocal expressions. The ground
warblers are compensated for their sober, thrush-like plumage by
their exquisite voices, while the great majority of the family that
are gaily dressed have notes that either resemble the trill of mid-
summer insects or, by their limited range and feeble utterance,
sadly belie the family name.

Bay-breasted Warbler.

Blackburnian Warbler.

Blackpoll Warbler.

Black-throated Blue Warbler.

Black-throated Green Warbler.

Black-and-white Creeping Warbler.

Blue-winged Warbler.

Canadian Warbler.

Chestnut-sided Warbler.

Golden-winged Warbler.

Hooded Warbler.

Kentucky Warbler.

Magnolia Warbler.

Mourning Warbler.

Myrtle Warbler.

Nashville Warbler.

Palm Warbler.

Parula Warbler.

Pine Warbler.

Prairie Warbler.

VW

Bird Families

Redstart.

Wilson’s Warbler.
Worm-eating Warbler.
Yellow Warbler.

Yellow Palm Warbler.
Ovenbird.

Northern Water Thrush.
Louisiana Water Thrush.
Maryland Yellowthroat.
Yellow-breasted Chat.

Family Motacillide: WAGTAILS AND PIPITS

Only three birds of this family inhabit North America, and
of these only one is common enough, east of the Mississippi, to
be included in this book. Terrestrial birds of open tracts near
the coast, stubble-fields, and country roadsides, with brownish
plumage to harmonize with their surroundings. The American
pipit, or titlark, has a peculiar wavering flight when, after being
flushed, it reluctantly leaves the ground. Then its white tai
feathers are conspicuous. Its habit of wagging its tail whea
perching is not an exclusive family trait, as the family name
might imply.

American Pipit, or Titlark.

Family Troglodytide : THRASHERS, WRENS, ETC.

Subfamily Mimine: THRASHERS, MOCKING-BIRDS, AND
CATBIRDS

Apparently the birds that comprise this large general family
are too unlike to be related, but the missing links or inter-
mediate species may all be found far South. The first subfamily
is comprised of distinctively American birds. Most numerous
in the tropics. Their long tails serve a double purpose—in assist~
ing their flight and acting as an outlet for their vivacity. Usually
they inhabit scrubby undergrowth bordering woods. They rank
among our finest songsters, with ventriloquial and imitative
powers added to sweetness of tone.

Brown Thrasher.
Catbird.
Mocking-bird.

Bird Families

Subfamily Troglodytine: WRENS

Small brown birds, more or less barred with darkest brown
above, much lighter below. Usually carry their short tails erect.
Wings are small, for short flight. Vivacious, busy, excitable,
easily displeased, quick to take alarm. Most of the species have
scolding notes in addition to their lyrical, gushing song, that
seems much too powerful a performance for a diminutive bird.
As a rule, wrens haunt. thickets or marshes, but at least one
species is thoroughly domesticated. All are insectivorous.

Carolina Wren.

House Wren.

Winter Wren.
Long-billed Marsh Wren.
Short-billed Marsh Wren.

Family Certhiide: CREEPERS

Only one species of this Old World family is found in Amer-
Ica. It is a brown, much mottled bird, that creeps spirally around
and around the trunks of trees in fall and winter, pecking at the
larva in the bark with its long, sharp bill, and doing its work
with faithful exactness but little spirit. It uses its tail as a prop
in climbing, like the woodpeckers.
Brown Creeper.

Family Paride: NUTHATCHES AND TITMICE

Two distinct subfamilies are included under this general head.

The nuthatches (Sitting) are small, slate-colored birds, seen
chiefly in winter walking up and down the barks of trees, and
sometimes running along the under side of branches upside down,
tike flies. Plumage compact and smooth. Their name is derived
from their habit of wedging nuts (usually beechnuts) in the bark
of trees, and then hatching them open with their strong straight

bills.
White-breasted Nuthatch.

Red-breasted Nuthatch.

The titmice or chickadees (Paring) are fluffy little gray birds,
the one crested. the other with a black cap. They are also

13

Bird Families

expert climbers, though not such wonderful gymnasts as the nut-
hatches. These cousins are frequently seen together in winter
woods or in the evergreens about houses. Chickadees are partial
to tree-tops, especially to the highest pine cones, on which they
hang fearlessly. Cheerful, constant residents, retreating to the
deep woods only to nest.

Tufted Titmouse.

Chickadee.

Family Sylviide: KINGLETS AND GNATCATCHERS

The kinglets (Reguline) are very small greenish-gray birds,
with highly colored crown patch, that are seen chiefly in autumn,
winter, and spring south of Labrador. Habits active; diligent
flitters among trees and shrubbery from limb to limb after minute
insects. Beautiful nest builders. Song remarkable for so smal

a bird.
Golden-crowned Kinglet.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet.

The one representative of the distinctly American subfamily
of gnatcatchers (Polioptiling ) that we have, is a small blue-gray
bird, whitish below. It is rarely found outside moist, low tracts
of woodland, where insects abound. These it takes on the wing
with wonderful dexterity. It is exceedingly graceful and assumes
many charming postures. A bird of trees, nesting in the high

‘branches. A bird of strong character and an exquisitely finished
though feeble songster.
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher.

Family Turdide: THRUSHES, BLUEBIRDS, ETC.

This group includes our finest songsters. Birds of moderate
size, stout build; as a rule, inhabitants of woodlands, but the
robin and the bluebird are notable exceptions. Bills long and
slender, suitable for worm diet. Only casual fruit-eaters. Slen-
der, strong legs for running and hopping. True thrushes are
grayish or olive-brown above; buff or whitish below, heavily
streaked or spotted.

Bluebird.
Robin. —

ig

Bird Families

Alice’s Thrush.

Hermit Thrush.
Olive-backed Thrush.
Wilson’s Thrush (Veery).
Wood Thrush.

Order Columba : PIGEONS AND DOVES
Family Columbide : PIGEONS AND DOVES

The wild pigeon is now too rare to be included among out
bird neighbors ; but its beautiful relative, without the fatally gre-
garious habit, still nests and sings @-coo-o0-00 to its devoted mate
in unfrequented corners of the farm or the borders of woodland.
Delicately shaded fawn-colored and bluish plumage. Small heads,
protruding breasts. Often seen on ground. Flight strong and
rapid, owing to long wings.

Mourning or Carolina Dove.

HABITATS OF BIRDS

HABITATS OF BIRDS

BIRDS OF THE AIR CATCHING THEIR FOOD AS THEY
FLY

Acadian Flycatcher, Great Crested Flycatcher, Least Fly-
catcher, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Say’s Flycatcher, Yellow-bellied
Flycatcher, Kingbird, Phoebe. Wood Pewee, Purple Martin,
Chimney Swift, Barn Swallow, Bank Swallow, Cliff Swallow,
Tree Swallow, Rough-winged Swallow, Canadian Warbler,
Blackpoll, Wilson’s Warbler, Nighthawk, Whippoorwill, Ruby-
throated Humming-bird, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher.

BIRDS MOST FREQUENTLY SEEN IN THE UPPER HALRB
OF TREES

Scarlet Tanager, Summer Tanager, Baltimore Oriole, Orchard
Oriole, Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, nearly
all the Warblers except the Ground Warblers; Cedar Bird, Bohe.
mian Waxwing, the Vireos, Robin, Red Crossbill, White-winged
Crossbill, Purple Grackle, Bronzed Grackle, Redstart, Northern
Shrike, Loggerhead Shrike, Crow, Fish Crow, Raven, Purple
Finch, Tree and Chipping Sparrows, Cardinal, Blue Jay, Kingbird,
the Crested and other Flycatchers.

BIRDS OF LOW TREES OR LOWER PARTS OF TREES

Black-billed Cuckoo, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, the Sparrows,
the Thrushes, the Grosbeaks, Goldfinch, Summer Yellowbird and
other Warblers; the Wrens, Bluebird, Mocking-bird, Catbird,
Brown Thrasher, Maryland Yellowthroat, Yellow-breasted Chat.

BIRDS OF TREE-TRUNKS AND LARGE LIMBS

Hairy Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Red-headed
Woodpecker, Yellow-bellied Woodpecker, Flicker, White-

16

Habitats of Birds

breasted Nuthatch, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper,
Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Ruby-
crowned Kinglet, Black-and-white Creeping Warbler, Blue-
winged Warbler, Worm-eating Warbler, Pine Warbler, Blackpoll
Warbler, Whippoorwill, Nighthawk.

BIRDS THAT SHOW A PREFERENCE FOR PINES AND
OTHER EVERGREENS

Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, the Nuthatches, Brown
Creeper, the Kinglets, Pine Warbler, Black-and-white Creeping
Warbler and all the Warblers except the Ground Warblers; Pine
Siskin, Cedar Bird and Bohemian Waxwing (in juniper and
cedar trees), Pine Grosbeak, Red Crossbill, White-winged Cross-
bill, the Grackles, Crow, Raven, Pine Finch.

BIRDS SEEN FEEDING AMONG THE FOLIAGE AND TER-
MINAL TWIGS OF TREES

The Red-eyed Vireo, White-eyed Vireo, Warbling Vireo,
Solitary Vireo, Yellow-throated Vireo, Golden-crowned King-
let, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Black-billed Cuckoo, Yellow-billed
Cuckoo, Yellow Warbler or Summer Yellowbird, nearly all the
Warblers except the Pine and the Ground Warblers; the Fly-
catchers, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher.

BIRDS THAT CHOOSE CONSPICUOUS PERCHES

Northern Shrike, Loggerhead Shrike, Kingbird, the Wood
Pewee, the Phoebe and other Flycatchers, the Swallows, King-
fisher, Crows, Grackles, Blue Jay and Canada Jay; the Song, the
White-throated, and the Fox Sparrows ; the Grosbeaxs, Cedar
Bird, Goldfinch, Robin, Purple Finch, Cowbird, Brown Thrasher
while in song.

BIRDS OF THE GARDENS AND ORCHARDS

Bluebird, Robin; the English, Song, White-throated, Vesper,
White-crowned, Fox, Chipping, and Tree Sparrows; Pheebe,
Wood Pewee, the Least Flycatcher, Crested Flycatcher, Kingbird,
Brown Thrasher, Wood Thrush, Mocking-bied, Catbird, House

26

Habitats of Birds

Wren; nearly all the Warblers, especially at blossom time among
the shrubbery and fruit trees; Cedar Bird, Purple Martin, Eaves
Swallow, Barn Swallow, Purple Finch, Cowbird, Baltimore and
Orchard Orioles, Purple Grackle, Bronzed Grackle, Blue Jay,
Crow, Fish Crow, Chimney Swift, Ruby-throated Humming-
bird, the Woodpeckers, Flicker, the Nuthatches, Chickadee, Tufted
Titmouse, the Cuckoos, Mourning Dove, Junco, Starting.

o

BIRDS OF THE WOODS

The Warblers almost without exception; the Thrushes, the
Woodpeckers, the Flycatchers, the Winter and the Carolina
Wrens, the Tanagers, the Nuthatches and Titmice, the Kinglets,
the Water Thrushes, the Vireos, Whippoorwill, Nighthawk,
Kingfisher, Cardinal, Ovenbird, Brown Creeper, Tree Sparrow,
Fox Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow,
Junco.

BIRDS SEEN NEAR THE EDGES OF WOODS

The Wrens, the Woodpeckers, the Flycatchers, the Warblers,
Purple Finch, the Cuckoos, Brown Thrasher, Wood Thrush, Cow-
bird, Brown Creepers, the Nuthatches and Titmice, the Kinglets,
Chewink; the White-crowned, White-throated, Tree, Fox, and
Song Sparrows ; Humming-bird, Bluebird, Junco, the Crossbills,
the Grosbeaks, Nighthawk, Whippoorwill, Mourning Dove,
Indigo Bird, Brown Thrasher.

BIRDS OF SHRUBBERY, BUSHES, AND THICKETS

Maryland Yellowthroat, Ovenbird (in woods); Myrtle
Warbler, Mourning Warbler, Yellow-breasted Chat, and other
Warblers during the migrations; the Shrikes; the White-throated,
the Fox, the Song, and other Sparrows; Chickadee, Junco, Che-
wink, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Cowbird, Red-winged Black-
bird, Catbird, Mocking-bird, Wilson’s Thrush, Goldfinch, Red-
polls, Maryland Yellowthroat, White-eyed Vireo, Hooded
Warbler.

BIRDS SEEN FEEDING ON THE GROUND

The Sparrows, Junco, Meadowlark, Horned Lark, Chewink,
Robin, Ovenbird, Pipit or Titlark, Redpoll, Greater Redpoll.

Habitats of Birds

Snowflake, Lapland Longspur, Smith’s Painted Longspur, Rusty
Blackbird, Red-winged Blackbird, the Crows, Cowbird, the Water
Thrushes, Bobolink, Canada Jay, the Grackles, Mourning Dove;
the Worm-eating, the Prairie, the Kentucky, and the Mourning
Ground Warblers; Flicker.

BIRDS OF MEADOW, FIELD, AND UPLAND

The Field and Vesper Sparrows, Bobolink, Meadowlark,
Horned Lark, Goldfinch, the Swallows, Pipit or Titlark, Cow-
bird, Redpoll, Greater Redpoll, Snowflake, Junco, Lapland Long-
spur, Smith’s Painted Longspur, Rusty Blackbird, Crow, Fish
Crow, Nighthawk, Whippoorwill; the Yellow, the Palm, and the
Prairie Warblers; the Grackles, Flicker, Bluebird, Indigo Bird.

BIRDS OF ROADSIDE AND FENCES

The Sparrows, Kingbird, Crested Flycatcher, Yellow-breasted
Chat, Indigo Bird, Bluebird, Flicker, Goldfinch, Brown Thrasher,
Catbird, Robin, the Woodpeckers, Yellow Palm Warbler, the
Vireos.

BIRDS OF MARSHES AND BOGGY MEADOWS

Long-billed Marsh Wren, Short-billed Marsh Wren; the
Swamp, the Savanna, the Sharp-tailed, and the Seaside Sparrows;
Red-winged Blackbird.

BIRDS OF WET WOODLANDS AND MARSHY THICKETS

Northern Water Thrush, Louisiana Water Thrush, Oven-
bird, Winter Wren, Carolina Wren, Phoebe; Wood Pewee and
the other Flycatchers; Wilson’s Thrush or Veery, Blue-gray
Gnatcatcher, Yellow-breasted Chat; the Canadian, Wilson’s
Black-capped, the Maryland Yellowthroat, the Hooded, and the
Yellow-throated Warblers.

BIRDS FOUND NEAR SALT WATER

Fish Crow, Common Crow, Bank Swallow, Tree Swallow,
Savanna Sparrow, Sharp-tailed Sparrow, Seaside Sparrow,
Horned Lark, Pipit or Titlark.

22

Habitats of Birds

BIRDS FOUND NEAR STREAMS AND PONDS

Kingfisher, the Swallows, Northern Water Thrush, Louisiana
Water Thrush, Phoebe, Wood Pewee, the Flycatchers, Winter
Wren, Wilson’s Black-capped Warbler, the Canadian and the
Yellow Warblers.

BIRDS THAT SING ON THE WING

Bobolink, Meadowlark, Indigo Bird, Purple Finch, Gold-
finch, Ovenbird, Kingbird, Vesper Sparrow (rarely), Maryland
Yellowthroat, Horned Lark, Kingfisher, the Swallows, Chimney
Swift, Nighthawk, Song Sparrow, Red-winged Blackbird, Pipit
or Titlark, Mocking-bird.

23

Il

SEASONS OF BIRDS

THE LATITUDE OF NEW YORK IS TAKEN AS
AN ARBITRARY DIVISION FOR WHICH ALLOW-
ANCES MUST BE MADE FOR OTHER LOCALITIES

THE SEASONS OF BIRDS IN THE VICINITY OF
NEW YORK OR, APPROXIMATELY, OF THE
FORTY-SECOND DEGREE OF LATITUDE

PERMANENT RESIDENTS

Hairy Woodpecker.
Downy Woodpecker.
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker.
Red-headed Woodpecker.
Flicker.

Meadowlark.

Prairie Horned Lark,

Blue Jay.

Crow.

Fish Crow.

English Sparrow.

Social Sparrow.

Swamp Sparrow.
Song Sparrow.
Cedar Bird.
Cardinal.
Carolina Wren.
White-breasted Nuthatch.
Tufted Titmouse.
Chickadee.
Robin.

Bluebird.
Goldfinch.
‘Starling.

WINTER RESIDENTS AND VISITORS

BIRDS SEEN BETWEEN NOVEMBER AND APRIL

English Sparrow.

Tree Sparrow.
White-throated Sparrow.
Swamp Sparrow.
Vesper Sparrow.
White-crowned Sparrow.
Fox Sparrow.

Song Sparrow.
Snowflake.

Junco.

Horned Lark.
Meadowlark.

Pine Grosbeak.

Redpoll.

Greater Redpoll.

Cedar Bird.

Bohemian Waxwing.
Hairy Woodpecker.
Downy Woodpecker.
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker.
Flicker.

Myrtle Warbler.

Northern Shrike.
White-breasted Nuthatch,

27

Seasons of Birds

Red-breasted Nuthatch.
Tufted Titmouse.
Chickadee.

Robin.

Bluebird.
Ruby-crowned Kinglet.
Golden-crowned Kinglet.
Brown Creeper.
Carolina Wren.

Winter Wren.

Pipit.

Purple Finch.

Goldfinch.

Pine Siskin.

Lapland Longspur.
Smith’s Painted Longspur.
Evening Grosbeak.
Cardinal.

Blue Jay.

Red Crossbill.
White-winged Crossbil.
Crow.

Fish Crow.

Kingfisher. ©

SUMMER RESIDENTS

BIRDS SEEN BETWEEN APRIL AND NOVEMBER

Mourning Dove.
Black-billed Cuckoo.
Yellow-billed Cuckoo.
Kingfisher.

Red-headed Woodpecker.
Hairy Woodpecker.
Downy Woodpecker.
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker.
Flicker.

Whippoorwill.
Nighthawk.

Chimney Swift.
Ruby-throated Humming-bird.
Kingbird.

Wood Pewee.

Phoebe.

Acadian Flycatcher.
Crested Flycatcher.

Least Flycatcher.
Olive-sided Flycatcher.
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher.
Say’s Flycatcher.
Bobolink.

Cowbird.

Red-winged Blackbird.
Rusty Blackbird.
Orchard Oriole.
Baltimore Oriole.
Purple Grackle.
Bronzed Grackle,
Crow.

Fish Crow.

Raven.

Blue Jay.

Canada Jay.

Chipping Sparrow.
English Sparrow.

Field Sparrow.

Fox Sparrow.
Grasshopper Sparrow.
Savanna Sparrow.
Seaside Sparrow.
Sharp-tailed Sparrow.
Swamp Song Sparrow.
Song Sparrow.

Vesper Sparrow.
Rose-breasted Grosbeak,
Blue Grosbeak.

Indigo Bird.

Scarlet Tanager.

Purple Martin.

Barn Swallow.

Bank Swallow.

Cliff Swallow.

Tree Swallow.
Rough-winged Swallow.
Red-eyed Vireo.
White-eyed Vireo.
Solitary Vireo.
Warbling Vireo.
Yellow-throated Vireo.
Black-and-white Warbler.

Black-throated Green Warbler.

Blue-winged Warbler.
Chestnut-sided Warbler.
Golden-winged Warbler.
Hooded Warbler.

Pine Warbler.

Prairie Warbler.

Parula Warbler.
Worm-eating Warbler.
Yellow Warbler.
Redstart.

Ovenbird.

Northern Water Thrush.
Louisiana Water Thrush.

Seasons of Birds

Yellow-breasted Chat.
Maryland Yellowthroat.
Mocking-bird.

Catbird.

Brown Thrasher.

House Wren.

Carolina Wren.
Long-billed Marsh Wren.
Short-billed Marsh Wren.
Alice’s Thrush.

Hermit Thrush.
Olive-backed Thrush.
Wilson’s Thrush or Veery.
Wood Thrush.
Meadowlark.

Western Meadowlark.
Prairie Horned Lark.
White-breasted Nuthatch.
Chickadee.

Tufted Titmouse.
Chewink.

Purple Finch,

Goldfinch,

Cardinal.

Robin.

Bluebird.

Cedar-Bird.

Loggerhead Shrike.

SPRING AND AUTUMN MIGRANTS ONLY, OR RARE
SUMMER VISITORS

The following Warblers:
Bay-breasted.
Blackburnian.
Black-polled.
Black-throated Blue.
Canadian.
Magnolia.
Mourning.
Myrtle.

Nashville.

Wilson’s Black-capped.
Palm.

Yellow Palm.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher.
Summer Tanager.

Seasons of Birds

MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS IN VICINITY OF NEW YORK

FEBRUARY 15 TO MARCH I5

Bluebird, Robin, the Grackles, Song Sparrow, Fox Sparrow,
Red-winged Blackbird, Kingfisher, Flicker, Purple Finch.

MARCH I5 TO APRIL I

Increased numbers of foregoing group; Cowbird, Meadow-
lark, Phoebe; the Field, the Vesper, and the Swamp Sparrows.

APRIL I TO 15

The White-throated and the Chipping Sparrows, the Tree
and the Barn Swallows, Rusty Blackbird, the Red-headed and
the Yellow-bellied Woodpeckers, Hermit Thrush, Ruby-crowned
Kinglet, Pipit; the Pine, the Myrtle, and the Yellow Palm War-
blers; Goldfinch.

APRIL 15 TO MAY I

Increased numbers of foregoing group; Brown Thrasher;
Alice’s, the Olive-backed, and the Wood Thrushes; Chimney
Swift, Whippoorwill, Chewink, the Purple Martin, and the Cliff
and the Bank Swallows; Least Flycatcher; the Black-and-white
Creeping, the Parula, and the Black-throated Green Warblers ;
Ovenbird, House Wren, Catbird.

MAY I TO 15

Increased numbers of foregoing group; Wilson’s Thrush or
Veery; Nighthawk, Ruby-throated Humming-bird, the Cuckoos,
Crested Flycatcher, Kingbird, Wood Pewee, the Marsh Wrens,
Bank Swallow, the five Vireos, the Baltimore and Orchard Ori-
oles, Bobolink, Indigo Bird, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Scarlet Tana
ger, Maryland Yellowthroat, Yellow-breasted Chat, the Water
Thrushes; and the Magnolia, the Yellow, the Black-throated
Blue, the Bay-breasted, the Chestnut-sided, and the Golden-
winged Warblers.

30

Seasons of Birds

MAY 15 TO JUNE }

\ Increased numbers of foregoing group; Yellow-bellied Fly-
catcher, Mocking-bird, Summer Tanager ; and the Blackburnian,
the Blackpoll, the Worm-eating, the Hooded, Wilson’s Black«
capped, and the Canadian Warblers.

JUNE, JULY, AUGUST

In June few species of birds are not nesting; in July they
may rove about more or less with their increased families, search-
ing for their favorite foods; August finds them moulting and mop-
ing in silence, but toward the end of the month, thoughts of
returning southward set them astir again.

AUGUST 15 TO SEPTEMBER 15

Robolink, Cliff Swallow, Scarlet Tanager, Yellow-bellied
Flycatcher, Purple Martin; the Blackburnian, the Worm-eating,
the Bay-breasted, the Chestnut-sided, the Hooded, the Mourning,
Wilson’s Black-capped, and the Canadian Warblers; Baltimore
Oriole, Humming-bird.

SEPTEMBER 15 TO OCTOBER 1

aticreased numbers of foregoing group; Wilson’s Thrush,
‘W.sod Thrush, Kingbird, Wood Pewee, Crested Flycatcher; the
Least, the Olive-sided, and the Acadian Flycatchers; the Marsh
Wrens, the Cuckoos, Whippoorwill, Rose-breasted Grosbeak,
Orchard Oriole, Indigo Bird; the Warbling, the Solitary, and
the Yellow-throated Vireos; the Black-and-white Creeping, the
Golden-winged, the Yellow, and the Black-throated Blue War-
blers; Maryland Yellowthroat, Yellow-breasted Chat, Redstart.

OCTOBER I TO I5

Increased numbers of foregoing group; Hermit Thrush, Cat~-
bird, House Wren, Ovenbird, the Water Thrushes, the Red-eyed
and the White-eyed Vireos, Wood Pewee, Nighthawk, Chimney
Swift, Cowbird, Horned Lark, Winter Wren, Junco; the Tree,
the Vesper, the White-throated, and the Grasshopper Sparrows;
the Blackpoll, the Parula, the Pine, the Yellow Palm, and the
Prairie Warblers; Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse.

3

Seasons of Birds

OCTOBER 15 TO NOVEMBER [5

Increased numbers of foregoing group; Wood Thrush, Wit-
son’s Thrush or Veery, Alice’s Thrush, Olive-backed Thrush, Robin,
Chewink, Brown Thrasher, Phoebe, Shrike; the Fox, the Field,
the Swamp, the Savanna, the White-crowned, the Chipping, and
the Song Sparrows; the Red-winged and the Rusty Blackbirds;
Meadowlark, the Grackles, Flicker, the Red-headed and the
Yellow-bellied Woodpeckers; Purple Finch, the Kinglets, the
Nuthatches, Pine Siskin.

IV
BIRDS GROUPED ACCORDING TO SIZE

BIRDS GROUPED ACCORDING TO SIZE

SMALLER THAN THE ENGLISH SPARROW

Humming-bird. The Redpolls.

The Kinglets. Goldfinch.

The Wrens. Pine Siskin.

All the Warblers not mentioned Savanna Sparrow.
elsewhere. Grasshopper Sparrow.

Redstart. Sharp-tailed Sparrow.

Ovenbird. Chipping Sparrow.

Chickadee. Field Sparrow.

Tufted Titmouse. Swamp Song Sparrow. '

Red-breasted Nuthatch. Indigo-Bunting.

White-breasted Nuthatch. Warbling Vireo.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. Yellow-throated Vireo.

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. Red-eyed Vireo.

Acadian Flycatcher. White-eyed Vireo.

Least Flycatcher. Brown Creeper.

ABOUT THE SIZE OF THE ENGLISH SPARROW

Purple Finch. Junco.

The Crossbills. Song Sparrow.

The Longspurs. Solitary Vireo.
Vesper Sparrow. The Water-thrushes.
Seaside Sparrow. Pipit or Titlark.
Tree Sparrow. Downy Woodpecker.

LARGER THAN THE ENGLISH SPARROW AND SMALLER
THAN THE ROBIN

Yellow-bellied Woodpecker. Kingbird.
Chimney Swift (apparently). Crested Flycatcher.
The Swallows (apparently). Pheebe.

a5

Birds Grouped According to Size

Olive-sided Flycatcher. Snowflake.

Wood Pewee, White-crowned Sparrow.
Horned Lark, White-throated Sparrow.
Bobolink. Fox Sparrow.

Cowbird. The Tanagers.

Orchard Oriole. Cedar Bird.

Baltimore Oriole. Bohemian Waxwing.

The Grosbeaks: Evening, Blue, Yellow-breasted Chat.
Pine, Rose-breasted, and Car- The Thrushes,
dinal. Bluebird.

ABOUT THE LENGTH OF THE ROBIN

Red-headed Woodpecker. Northern Shrike.

Hairy Woodpecker. Mocking-bird.

Red-winged Blackbird. Catbird.

Rusty Blackbird. Chewink.

Loggerhead Shrike. Purple Martin (apparently).
Starling

LONGER THAN THE ROBIN

‘Mourning Dove. Blue Jay.

The Cuckoos, * Canada Jay.

Kingfisher. ' Meadowlark.

Flicker. Whippoorwill (apparently).
Raven. Nighthawk (apparently).
Crow. The Grackles.

Fish Crow. Brown Thrasher.

V
DESCRIPTIONS OF BIRDS

GROUPED ACCORDING TO COLOK

BIRDS CONSPICUOUSLY BLACK

Common Crow

Fish Crow

American Raven
Purple Grackle
Bronzed Grackle
Rusty Blackbird
Red-winged Blackbird
Purple Martin

Cowbird
Starling

See also several of the Swallows; the Kingbird, the Phoebe, the Wood Pewee
and other Flvcatchers; the Chimney Swift; and the Chewink.

BIRDS CONSPICUOUSLY BLACK

The Common Crow
(Corous Americanus) Crow family

Called also: CORN THIEF

Length—16 to 17.50 inches.

Male—Glossy black with violet reflections. Wings appear saw-
toothed when spread, and almost equal the tail in length.

Female—Like male, except that the black is less brilliant.

Range—Throughout North America, from Hudson Bay to the
Gulf of Mexico.

Migrations—March. October. Summer and winter resident.

It we have an eye for the picturesque, we place a certain
value upon the broad, strong dash of color in the landscape, given
by a flock of crows flapping their course above a corn-field, against
an October sky ; but the practical eye of the farmer ‘looks only
for his gun in such a case. To him the crow is an unmitigated
nuisance, all the more maddening because it is clever enough to
circumvent every means devised for its ruin. Nothing escapes
its rapacity ; fear is unknown to it. It migrates in broad day-
light, chooses the most conspicuous perches, and yet its assur
ance is amply justified in its steadily increasing numbers.

In the very early spring, note well the friendly way in which
the crow follows the plow, ingratiating itself by eating the larve,
field mice, and worms upturned in the furrows, for this is its one
serviceable act throughout the year. When the first brood of
chickens is hatched, its serious depredations begin. Not only
the farmer’s young fledglings, ducks, turkeys, and chicks, are
snatched up and devoured, but the nests of song birds are made
desolate, eggs being crushed and eaten on the spot, when there
are no birds to carry off to the rickety, coarse nest in the high
tree top in the woods. The fish crow, however, is the much

At

Conspicuously Black

greater enemy of the birds. Like the common crows, this, their
smaller cousin, likes to congregate in winter along the seacoast
to feed upon shell-fish and other sea-food that the tide brings to
its feet.

Samuels claims to have seen a pair of crows visit an orchard
and destroy the young in two robins’ nests in half an hour. He
calculates that two crows kill, in one day alone, young birds that
in the course of the season would have eaten a hundred thousand
insects. When, in addition to these atrocities, we remember thc
crow’s depredations in the corn-field, it is sma!l wonder that
among the first laws enacted in New York State was one offering
a reward for its head. But the more scientific agriculturists now
concede that the crow is the farmer's true friend.

Fish Crow
(Corvus ossifragus) Crow family

Length—14to 16inches. About half as farge again as the robin.

Male and Female—Glossy black, with purplish-blue reflections,
generally greener underneath. Chin naked.

Range—Along Atlantic coast and that of the Gult of Mexico,
northward to southern New England. Rare stragglers on
the Pacific coast.

Migrations—March or April. September. Summer resident only
at northern limit of range. Is found in Hudson River valley
about half-way to Albany.

Compared with the common crow, with which it is often
confounded, the fish crow is of much smaller, more slender
build. Thus its flight is less labored and more like a gull’s,
whose habit of catching fish that may be swimming near the
surface of the water it sometimes adopts. Both Audubon and
Wilson, who first made this species known, record its habit of
snatching food as it flies over the southern waters—a race practice
at the north. Its plumage, too, differs slightly from the common
crow’s in being a richer black everywhere, and particularly
underneath, where the ‘‘corn thief” is dull. But it is the dif-
ference between the two crows’ call-note that we chiefly depend
upon to distinguish these confusing cousins. To say that the
fish crow says car-r-r instead of a loud, clear caw, means little

42

Conspicuously Black

until we have had an opportunity to compare its hoarse, cracked
voice with the other bird’s familiar call.

From the farmer's point of view, there is still another dis-
tinction: the fish crow lets his crops alone. It contents ttself
with picking up refuse on the shores of the sea or rivers not far
inland; haunting the neighborhood of fishermen’s huts for the
small fish discarded when the seines are drawn, and treading out
with its toes the shell-fish hidden in the sand at low tide. When
we See it in the fields it is usually intent upon catching field-
mice, grubs, and worms, with which it often varies its fish diet. It
is, however, the worst nest robber we have ; it probably destroys
ten times as many eggs and young birds as its larger cousin.

The fishermen have a tradition that this southern crow
comes and goes with the shad and herring—a saw which science
unkindly disapproves.

American Raven
(Corvus corax principalis) Crow family

Called also: NORTHERN RAVEN

Length—26 to 27 inches. Nearly three times as large as a robin.

Male and Female—Glossy black above, with purplish and greenish
reflections. Duller underneath. Feathers of the throat and
breast long and loose, like fringe.

Range—North America, from polar regions to Mexico. Rare
along Atlantic coast and in the south. Common in the
west, and very abundant in the northwest.

Migrations—An erratic wanderer, usually resident where it finds
its way.

The weird, uncanny voice of this great bird that soars in
wide circles above the evergreen trees of dark northern forests
seems to come out of the skies like the malediction of an evil
spirit. Without uttering the words of any language—Poe’s
“Nevermore” was, of course, a poetic license—people of all
nationalities appear to understand that some dire calamity, some
wicked portent, is being announced every time the unbirdlike
creature utters its rasping call. The superstitious folk crow with
an ‘I told you so,” as they solemnly wag their heads when they
hear of some death in the village after ‘‘the bird of ill-omen” has

43

Conspicuously Black

made an unwelcome visit to the neighborhood. it receives the
blame for every possible misfortune.

When seen in the air, the crow is the only other bird for
which the raven could be mistaken; but the raven does more
sailing and less flapping, and he delights in describing circles as
he easily soars high above the trees. On the ground, he is seen
to be a far larger bird than the largest crow. The curious beard
or fringe of feathers on his breast at once distinguishes him.

These birds show the family instinct for living in flocks large
and small, not of ravens only, but of any birds of their own gen:
era. In the art of nest building they could instruct most of theit
relatives. High up in evergreen trees or on the top of cliffs,
never very near the seashore, they make a compact, symmetrical
nest of sticks, neatly lined with grasses and wool from the sheep
pastures, adding soft, comfortable linings to the old nest from
year to year for each new brood. When the young emerge
from the eggs, which take many curious freaks of color and mark-
ings, they are pied black and white, suggesting the young of the
western white-necked raven, a similarity which, so far as plu-
mage is concerned, they quickly outgrow. They early acquire the
fortunate habit of eating whatever their parents set before them—
grubs, worms, grain, field-mice; anything, in fact, for the raven
is a conspicuously omnivorous bird.

Purple Grackle
(Quiscalus quiscula) Blackbird family

Called also: CROW BLACKBIRD; MAIZE THIEF; KEEL-
TAILED GRACKLE

tg? to 13 inches. About one-fourth as large again as the

robin.

Male—lridescent black, in which metallic violet, blue, copper,
and green tints predominate. The plumage of this grackle
has iridescent bars. Iris of eye bright yellow and conspice
uous. Tail longer than wings.

Female—Less brilliant black than male, and smaller.

Range—Gulf of Mexico to 57th parallel north latitude.

Migrations—Permanent resident in Southern States. Few are

ermanent throughout range. Migrates in immense flocks
in March and September.

4A

Conspicuously Black

This ‘trefined crow” (which is really no crow at all except
in appearance) has scarcely more friends than a thief is entitled
to; for, although in many sections of the country it has given up
its old habit of stealing Indian corn and substituted ravages upon
the grasshoppers instead, it still indulges a crow-like instinct for
pillaging nests and eating young birds.

Travelling in immense flocks of its own kind, a gregarious
bird of the first order, it nevertheless is not the social fellow that
its cousin, the red-winged blackbird, is. It especially holds
aloof from mankind, and mankind reciprocates its suspicion.

The tallest, densest evergreens are not too remote for it
to build its home, according to Dr. Abbott, though in other
States than New Jersey, where he observed them, an old
orchard often contains dozens of nests. One peculiarity of the
grackles is that their eggs vary so much in coloring and mark-
ings that different sets examined in the same groups of trees
are often wholly unlike. The average groundwork, however, is
soiled blue or greenish, waved, streaked, or clouded with brown.
These are laid in a nest made of miscellaneous sticks and grasses,
rather carefully constructed, and lined with mud. Another pecu-
liarity is the bird’s method of steering itself by its tail when it
wishes to turn its direction or alight.

Peering at you from the top of a dark pine tree with its
staring yellow eye, the grackle is certainly uncanny. There,
very early in the spring, you may hear its cracked and wheezy
whistle, for, being aware that however much it may look like a
crow it belongs to another family, it makes a ridiculous attempt
to sing. When a number of grackles lift up their voices at once,
some one has aptly likened the result to a ‘‘good wheel-barrow
chorus!” The grackle’s mate alone appreciates his efforts as,
standing on tiptoe, with half-spread wings and tail, he pours
forth his craven soul to her through a disjointed larynx.

With all their faults, and they are numerous, let it be res
corded of both crows and grackles that they are as devoted lovers
as turtle-doves. Lowell characterizes them in these four lines :

** Fust come the black birds, clatt’rin’ in tall trees,
And settlin’ things in windy Congresses ;
Queer politicians, though, for I'll be skinned
Mall on ’em don’t head against the wind.”

. ”

As

Conspicuously Black

The Bronzed Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula eneus) differs from
the preceding chiefly in the more brownish bronze tint of its
plumage and its lack of iridescent bars. Its range is more west-
erly, and in the southwest it is particularly common ; but as a
summer resident it finds its way to New England in large num-
bers. The call-note is louder and more metallic than the purple
grackle’s. In nearly all respects the habits of these two birds are
identical.

Rusty Blackbird
(Scolecopbagus carolinus) Blackbird family

Called also: THRUSH BLACKBIRD; RUSTY GRACKLE ;
RUSTY ORIOLE ; RUSTY CROW ; BLACKBIRD

Length—g to 9.55 inches. A trifle smaller than the robin.

Male—In full plumage, glossy black with metallic reflections,
intermixed with rusty brown that becomes more pronounced
as the season advances. Pale straw--colored eyes.

Female—Duller plumage and more rusty, inclining to gray.
Light line over eye. Smaller than male.

Range—North America, from Newfoundland to Gulf of Mexico
and westward to the Plains.

Migrations—April. November. A few winter north.

A more sociable bird than the grackle, though it travel in
smaller flocks, the rusty blackbird condescends to mingle freely
with other feathered friends in marshes and by brooksides. You
can identify it by its rusty feathers and pale yellow eye, and
easily distinguish the rusty-gray female from the female redwing
that is conspicuously streaked.

In April flocks of these birds may frequently be seen along
sluggish, secluded streams in the woods, feeding upon the seeds
of various water or brookside plants, and probably upon insects
also. At such times they often indulge in a curious spluttering,
squeaking, musical concert that one listens to with pleasure.
The breeding range is mostly north of the United States. But
little seems to be known of the birds’ habits in their northern
home.

Why it should ever have been called a thrush blackbird is one
of those inscrutable mysteries peculiar to the naming of birds

16

TOWHEE
(Upper figure, female; lower, male)

TREE SPARROW

Conspicuously Black

which are so frequently called precisely what they are not. In
spite of the compliment implied in associating the name of one
of our finest songsters with it, the rusty blackbird has a clucking
call as unmusical as it is infrequent, and only very rarely in the
spring does it pipe a note that even suggests the sweetness of
the redwing’s.

Red-winged Blackbird
(Agelaius pheniceus) Blackbird family

Called also: SVAMP BLACKBIRD; RED-WINGED ORIOLE;
RED-WINGED STARLING

Length—Exceptionally variable—7.50 to 9.80 inches. Usually
about an inch smaller than the robin.

Male—Coal-black. Shoulders scarlet, edged with yellow.

Female—Feathers finely and inconspicuously speckled with
brown, rusty black, whitish, and orange. pper wing-
coverts rusty black, tipped with white, or rufous and some-
times spotted with black and red,

Range—North America. Breeds from Texas to Columbia River,
and throughout the United States. Commonly found trom
Mexico to 57th degree north latitude.

Migrations—March. October. Common summer resident.

In oozy pastures where a brook lazily finds its way through
the farm is the ideal pleasure ground of this ‘bird of society.”
His notes, ‘‘ h’-wa-ker-ee” or ‘‘con-quer-ee” (on an ascending
scale), are liquid in quality, suggesting the sweet, moist, cool
retreats where he nests. Liking either heat or cold (he is fond
of wintering in Florida, but often retreats to the north while the
marshes are still frozen); enjoying not only the company of large
flocks of his own kind with whom he travels, but any bird
associates with whom he can scrape acquaintance; or to sit
quietly on a tree-top in the secluded, inaccessible bog while his
mate is nesting; satisfied with cut-worms, grubs, and insects, or
with fruit and grain for his food—the blackbird is an impressive
and helpful example of how to get the best out of life.

Yet, of all the birds, some farmers complain that the black-
bird is the greatest nuisance. They dislike the noisy chatterings
when a flock is simply indulging its secial instincts, They

47

Conspicuously Black

complain, too, that the blackbirds eat their corn, forgetting that
having devoured innumerable grubs from it during the summer,
the birds feel justly entitled to a share of the profits. Though
sccasionally guilty of eating the farmer’s corn and oats and rice,
yet jt has been found that nearly seven-eighths of the red-
wing’s food is made up of weed-seeds or of insects injurious to
agriculture.

This bird builds its nest in low bushes on the margin of
ponds or low in the bog grass of marshes. From three to five
pale-blue eggs, curiously streaked, spotted, and scrawled with
black or purple, constitute a brood. Nursery duties are soon
finished, for in July the young birds are ready to gather in flocks
with their elders.

“The blackbirds make the maples ring
With social cheer and jubilee;

The red-wing flutes his ‘O-ka-lee!’”
Emerson.

Purple Martin
(Progne subis) Swallow family

ra 7 to 8 inches. Two or three inches smaller than the
robin.

Male—Rich glossy black with bluish and purple reflections;
duller black on wings and tail. Wings rather longer than
the tail, which is forked.

Female—More brownish and mottled; grayish below.

Range—Peculiar to America. Penetrates from Arctic Circle to
South America.

Migrations—Late April. Early September. Summer resident.

In old-fashioned gardens, set on a pole over which honey-
suckle and roses climbed from a bed where China pinks, phlox,
sweet Williams, and hollyhocks crowded each other below,
martin boxes used always to be seen with a pair of these large,
beautiful swallows circling overhead. But now, alas! the boxes,
where set up at all, are quickly monopolized by the English spar-
row, a bird that the martin, courageous as a kingbird in attacking
crows and hawks, tolerates as a neighbor only when it must.

Bradford Torrey tells of seeing quantities of long-necked
squashes dangling from poles about the negro cabins all through

48

Conspicueusly Blaci

the South. One day he asked an old colored man what these
squashes were for.

“Why, deh is martine’ boxes,” said Uncle Remus. “No
danger of hawks carryin' off de chickens so long as de martins
am around.”

The Indians, too, have always had a special liking for this
bird. They often lined a hollowed-out gourd with bits of bark
and fastened it in the crotch of their tent poles to invite its friend-
ship. The Mohegan Indians have called it ‘‘the bird that nevet
rests” —a name better suited to the tireless barn sv. allow, Dr.
Abbott thinks.

Wasps, beetles, and all manner of injurious garden insects
constitute its diet—another reason for its universal popularity.
It is simple enough to distinguish the martins from the other
swallows by their larger size and iridescent dark coat, not to
mention their song, which is very soft and sweet, like musical
laughter, rippling up through the throat.

Cowbird
(Molotbrus ater) Blackbird family

Called also: BROWN-HEADED ORIOLE ; COW-PEN BIRD;
COW BLACKBIRD ; COW BUNTING

Zength—7 to 8 inches. About one-fifth smaller than the robin.

Male—lridescent black, with head, neck, and breast glistening
brown. Bill dark brown, feet brownish.

Female—Dull grayish-brown above, a shade lighter below, and
streaked with paler shades of brown.

Range—United States, from coast to coast. North into British
America, south into Mexico.

Migrations—March. November. Common summer resident.

The cowb'rd takes its name from its habit of walking about
among the cattle in the pasture, picking up the small insects
which the cattle disturb in their grazing. The bird may often
be seen within a foot or two of the nose of a cow or heifer, walk-
ing briskly about like a miniature hen, intently watching for its
insect prey.

Its marital and domestic character is thoroughly bad,

bo

Conspicuously Black

Polygamous and utterly irresponsible for its offspring, this bird
forms a striking contrast to other feathered neighbors, and indeed
is almost an anomaly in the animal kingdom. In the breeding
season an unnatural mother may be seen skulking about in the
trees and shrubbery, seeking for nests in which to place a sur-
reptitious egg, never imposing it upon a bird of its size, but se-
lecting in a cowardly way a small nest, as that of the vireos or
warblers or chipping sparrows, and there leaving the hatching and
care of its young to the tender mercies of some already burdened
little mother. It has been seen to remove an egg from the nest
of the red-eyed vireo in order to place one of its own in its
place. Not finding a convenient nest, it will even drop its eggs
on the ground, trusting them to merciless fate, or, still worse,
devouring them. The eggs are nearly an inch long, white speckled
‘with brown or gray. :

Cowbirds are gregarious. The ungrateful young birds, as
‘soon as they are able to go roaming, leave their foster-parents
‘and join the flock of their own kind. In keeping with its unclean
habits and unholy life and character, the cowbird’s ordinary note
is a gurgling, rasping whistle, followed by a few sharp notes.

The Starling
(Sturnus vulgaris)

Length—8 to 9 inches. Weight about equals that of robin, but
the starling, with its short, drooping tail, is chunkier in ap-
pearance.

Male—Iridescent black with glints of purple, green, and blue. On
back the black feathers, with iridescence of green, and bronze,
are tipped with brown, as are some of the tail and wing
feathers. In autumn and early winter feathers of sides of
head, breast, flanks and underparts are tipped with white,
giving a gray, mottled appearance. During the winter most
of the white tips on breast and underparts wear off. Until
the first moult in late summer the young birds are a dark
olive-brown in color, with white or whitish throat. These
differences in plumage at different seasons and different ages
make starlings hard to identify. Red-winged blackbirds
and grackles are often mistaken for them. From early spring
till mid-June, starling’s rather long, sharp bill is yellow.

50

Conspicuously Black

Later in summer it darkens. No other black bird of ours
has this yellow bill at any season.
Female—Similar in appearance.

Range—Massachusetts to Maryland. Not common beyond 100
miles inland. (Native of northern Europe and Asia.)

Migrations—Permanent resident, but flocks show some tendency
to drift southward in winter.

This newcomer to our shores is by no means so black as he
has been painted. Like many other European immigrants he
landed at or near Castle Garden, New York City, and his descen-
dants have not cared to wander very far from this vicinity, pre-
ferring regions with a pretty numerous human population. The
starlings have increased so fast in this limited region since their
first permanent settlement in Centra] Park about 1890 that farm-
ers and suburban dwellers have feared that they might become
as undesirable citizens as some other Europeans—the brown rat,
the house mouse, and the English sparrow. But a very thorough
investigation conducted by the United States Bureau of Biological
Survey (Bulletin No. 868, 1921) is most reassuring in its results.

Let us first state the case for the prosecution: (1) the starling
must plead guilty to a fondness for cultivated cherries; (2) he is
often a persecutor of native birds, like the bluebird and flicker;
(3) his roosts, where he sometimes congregates in thousands in the
autumn, are apt to become public nuisances, offensive alike to the
eye, the nose and the ear.

But these offences are not so very serious after all. He does
not eat so many cherries as our old friend the robin, though his
depredations are more conspicuous, for whereas the robins in ones
and twos will pilfer steadily from many trees for many days with-
out attracting notice, a crowd of starlings is occasionally observed
to descend en masse upon a single tree and strip it in a few hours.
Naturally such high-handed procedure is observed by many and
deeply resented by the owner of the tree, who suffers the steady
but less spectacular raids of the robins without serious disquiet.

Less can be said in defense of the starling’s scandalous treatment
of some native birds. ‘“Unrelenting perseverance dominates the
starling’s activities when engaged in a controversy over a nesting
site. More of its battles are won by dogged persistence in annoy-
ing its victim than by bold aggression, and its irritating tactics
are sometimes carried to such a point that it seems almost as if

50a

Conspicuously Black

the bird were actuated more by a morbid pleasure of annoying
its neighbors than by any necessity arising from a scarcity of nest-
ing sites. :

“In contests with the flicker the starling frequently makes up
in numbers what disadvantage it may have in size. Typical of
such combats was the one observed on May 9g, at Hartford, Conn.,
where a group of starlings and a flicker were in controversy over a
newly excavated nest. The number of starlings varied, but as
many as 6 were noted at one time. Attention was first attracted
to the dispute by a number of starlings in close proximity to the
hole and by the sounds of a tussle within. Presently a flicker
came out dragging a starling after him. The starling continued
the battle outside long enough to allow one of its comrades to slip
into the nest. Of course the flicker had to repeat the entire per-
formance. He did this for about half an hour, when he gave up,
leaving the starlings in possession of the nest. . . .

“Eeonomically considered, the starling is the superior of either
the flicker, the robin, or the English sparrow, three of the species
with which it comes in contact in its breeding operations. The
eggs and young of bluebirds and wrens may be protected by the
use of nest boxes with circular openings 14 inches or less in diam-
eter. This leaves the purple martin the only species readily
subject to attack by the starling, whose economic worth may be
considered greater than that of the latter, but in no case was
the disturbance of a well-established colony of martins noted.”

As for the nuisance of a big established roost of starlings, it
may be abated by nightly salvos of Roman candles or blank cart-
ridges, continued for a week or at most ten days.

So much for the starling in his aspect as an undesirable citizen.
Government investigators, by a long-continued study, have dis-
covered that his good deeds far outnumber his misdemeanors.
Primarily he feeds on noxious insects and useless wild fruits.
Small truck gardens and individual cherry trees may be occasion-
ally raided by large flocks with disastrous results in a small way.
But on the whole he is a useful frequenter of our door-yards who
pays his way by destroying hosts of cut-worms and equally noxious
insects. “A. thorough consideration of the evidence at hand in-
dicates that, based on food habits, the adult starling is the economic
superior of the robin, catbird, flicker, red-winged blackbird, or
grackle.” Need more be said for him?

s0b

8IRDS CONSPICUOUSLY BLACK AND WHITE

Red-headed Woodpecker

Hairy Woodpecker

Downy Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Chewink

Snowflake

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Bobolink

Black-poll Warbler
Black-and-white Creeping Warbler

See also the Swallows; the Shrikes; Nuthatches and Titmice; the Kingbind
and other Flycatchers; the Nighthawk; the Redstart; and the following Warblers:
the Myrtle; the Bay-breasted; the Blackburnian; and the Black-throated Blue
Warbler.

* MAMMA!”
Young mockingbird calling for breakfast

Home of the loggerhead shrike, with plenty of convenient
hooks for this butcher bird to hang meat on

BIRDS CONSPICUOUSLY BLACK AND WHITE

Red-headed Woodpecker
(Melanerpes erythrocephalus) Woodpecker family

Called also: TRI-COLOR, RED-HEAD

pang 8.50 to 9.75 inches. An inch or less smaller than the
ToDInN.

Male and Female—Head, neck, and throat crimson; breast and
underneath white; back black and white; wings and tail

ue black, with broad white band on wings conspicuous in
ight.

Range—United States, east of Rocky Mountains and north to
Manitoba.

Migrations—Abundant but irregular migrant. Most commonly
seen in Autumn, and rarely resident.

In thinly populated sections, where there are few guns
about, this is still one of the commonest as it is perhaps the most
conspicuous member of the woodpecker family, but its striking
glossy black-and-white body and its still more striking crimson
head, flattened out against the side of a tree like a target, where
it is feeding, have made it all too tempting a mark for the rifles
of the sportsmen and the sling-shots of small boys. As if suffi-
cient attention were not attracted to it by its plumage, it must
needs keep up a noisy, guttural rattle, ker-r-ruck, ker-r-ruck,
very like a tree-toad’s call, and flit about among the trees with
the restlessness of a fly-catcher. Yet, in spite of these invita-
tions for a shot to the passing gunner, it still multiplies in dis-
tricts where nuts abound, being “more common than the robin”
about Washington, says John Burroughs.

All the familiar woodpeckers have two characteristics most
prominently exemplified in this red-headed member of their
tribe. The hairy, the downy, the crested, the red-bellied, the
sapsucker, and the flicker have each a red mark somewhere about

§3

Conspicuously Black and White

their heads as if they had been wounded there and bled a little
some more, some less ; and the figures of all of them, from much
flattening against tree-trunks, have become high-shouldered and
long-waisted.

The red-headed woodpecker selects, by preference, a partly
decayed tree in which to excavate a hole for its nest, because
the digging is easier, and the sawdust and chips make a softer
lining than green wood. Both male and femaie take turns in
this hollowing-out process. The one that is off duty is allowed
‘‘twenty minutes for refreshments,” consisting of grubs, beetles,
ripe apples or cherries, corn, or preferably beech-nuts. At a
loving call from its mate in the hollow tree, it returns promptly
to perform its share of the work, when the carefully observed
“time is up.” The heap of sawdust at the bottom of the hollow
will eventually cradle from four to six glossy-white eggs.

This woodpecker has the thrifty habit of storing away nuts
in the knot-holes of trees, between cracks in the bark, or in
decayed fence rails—too often a convenient storehouse at which
the squirrels may help themselves. But it is the black snake that
enters the nest and eats the young family, and that is a more
deadly foe than even the sportsman or the milliner,

._The Hairy Woodpecker
(Dryobates villosus) Woodpecker family

Length—g to 10 inches. About the size of the robin.

Male—Black and white above, white beneath. White stripe
down the back, composed of long hair-like feathers. Bright-
red band on the nape of neck. Wings striped and dashed
with black and white. Outer tail feathers white, without
bars. White stripe about eyes and on sides of the head.

Female—Without the red band on head, and body more brown-
ish than that of the male.

Range—Eastern parts of United States, from the Canadian bor-
der to the Carolinas.

Migrations—Resident throughout its range.

The bill of the woodpecker is a hammering tool, well fitted
for its work. Its mission in life is to rid the trees of insects,

54

Conspicuously Black and White

which hide beneath the bark, and with this end in view, the bird
is seen clinging to the trunks and branches of trees through fair
and wintry weather, industriously scanning every inch for the
well-known signs of the boring worm or destructive fly.

In the autumn the male begins to excavate his winter quar-
ters, carrying or throwing out the chips, by which this good
workman is known, with his beak, while the female may make
herself cosey or not, as she chooses, in an abandoned hole. About
her comfort he seems shamefully unconcerned. Intent only on
his own, he drills a perfectly round hole, usually on the under
side of a limb where neither snow nor wind can harm him, and
digs out a horizontal tunnel in the dry, brittle wood in the very
heart of the tree, before turning downward into the deep, pear
shaped chamber, where he lives in selfish solitude. But when the
nesting season comes, how devoted he is temporarily to the mate
he has neglected and even abused through the winter! Will she
never learn that after her clear-white eggs are laid and her brood
raised he will relapse into the savage and forget all his tender
wiles?

The hairy woodpecker, like many another bird and beast, fur-
nishes much doubtful weather lore for credulous and inexact ob-
servers. “When the woodpecker pecks low on the trees, expect
warm weather” is a common saying, but when different individ-
uals are seen pecking at the same time, one but a few feet from
the ground, and another among the high branches, one may
make the prophecy that pleases him best.

The hairy woodpeckers love the deep woods. They are
drummers, not singers; but when walking in the desolate winter
woods even the drumming and tapping of the busy feathered
workmen on a resonant limb is a solace, giving a sense of life and
cheerful activity which is invigorating.

The Downy Woodpecker
(Dryobates pubescens) Woodpecker family

Length—6 to 7 inches. About the size of the English sparrow.

Male—Black above, striped with white. Tail shaped like a wedge.
Outer tail feathers white, and barred with black. Middle tail
feathers black. A black stripe on top of head, and distinct
white band over and under the eyes. Red patch on upper

55

Conspicuously Black and White

side of neck. Wings, with six white bands crossing them
transversely; white underneath.

Female—Similar, but without scarlet on the nape, which is white.
Range—Eastern North America, from Labrador to Florida.
Migrations—Resident all the year throughout its range.

The downy woodpecker is similar to his big relative, the
hairy woodpecker, in color and shape, though much smaller.
His outer tail feathers are white, barred with black, but the
hairy’s white outer tail feathers lack these distinguishing marks.

He is often called a sapsucker—though quite another bird
alone merits that name—from the supposition that he bores into
the trees for the purpose of sucking the sap ; but his tongue is ill
adapted for such use, being barbed at the end, and most orni-
thologists consider the charge libellous. It has been surmised
that he bores the numerous little round holes close together, so
often seen, with the idea of attracting insects to the luscious sap.
The woodpeckers never drill for insects in live wood. The
dlowny actually drills these little holes in apple and other trees ta
feed upon the inner milky bark of the tree—the cambium layer.
The only harm to be laid to his account is that, in his zeal, he
sometimes makes a ring of small holes so continuous as to inad-
vertently damage the tree by girdling it. The bird, like most
others, does not debar himself entirely from fruit diet, but enjoys
berries, especially poke-berries.

He is very social with birds and men alike. In winter he
attaches himself to strolling bands of nuthatches and chickadees,
and in summer is fond of making friendly visits among village
folk, frequenting the shade trees of the streets and grapevines
of back gardens. He has even been known to fearlessly peck at
flies on window panes.

In contrast to his large brother woodpecker, who is seldom
drawn from timber lands, the little downy member of the family
brings the comfort of his cheery presence to country homes,
beating his rolling tattoo in spring on some resonant limb under
our windows in the garden with a strength worthy of a larger
drummer.

i This rolling tattoo, or drumming, answers several purposes:
by it he determines whether the tree is green or hollow; it startles
insects from their lurking places underneath the bark, and it

also serves as a love song.
56

Conspicuously Black and White

Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
(Sphyrapicus varius) Woodpecker family

Called also; THE SAPSUCKER

Lengik—8 to 8.6 inches. About one-fifth smaller than the robin.

Male—Black, white, and yellowish white above, with bright-red

crown, chin. and throat. Breast black, in form of crescent.

A yellowish-white line, beginning at biil and passing below

eye, merges into the pale yellow of the bird underneath.

ings spotted with white, and coverts chiefly white. Tail
black; white on middle of feathers.

Female—Paler, and with head and throat white.
Range—Eastern North America, from Labrador to Central America.

Migrations—April. October. Resident north of Massachusetts.
Most common in autumn.

It is sad to record that this exquisitely marked woodpecker,
the most jovial and boisterous of its family, is one of the very
few bird visitors whose intimacy should be discouraged. For its
useful appetite for slugs and insects which it can take on the
wing with wonderful dexterity, it need not be wholly con-
demned. But as we look upon a favorite maple or fruit tree
devitalized or perhaps wholly dead from its ravages, we cannot
forget that this bird, while a most abstemious fruit-eater, has a
pernicious and most intemperate thirst for sap. Indeed, it spends
much of its time in the orchard, drilling holes into the freshest,
most vigorous trees; then, when their sap begins to flow, it
siphons it into an insatiable throat, stopping in its orgie only
long enough to snap at the insects that have been attracted to
the wounded tree by the streams of its heart-blood now trickling
down its sides. Another favorite pastime is to strip the bark off
a tree, then peck at the soft wood underneath—almost as fatal a
habit. It drills holes in maples in early spring for sap only. If it
drills holes in fruit trees it is for the cambium layer, a soft, pulpy,
nutritious under-bark.

These woodpeckers have a variety of call-notes, but their
rapid drumming against the limbs and trunks of trees is the
sound we always associate with them and the sound that Mr.
Bicknell says is the love-note of the family.

Unhappily, these birds, that many would be glad to have

57

Conspicnously Black and White

decrease in numbers, take extra precautions for the safety of their
young by making very deep excavations for their nests, often as
deep as eighteen or twenty inches.

The Chewink
(Pipilo erythrophthalmus) Finch family

Called also: GROUND ROBIN ; TOWHEE ; TOWHEE BUNT-
ING ; TOWHEE GROUND FINCH ; GRASEL

Length—8 to 8.5 inches. About one-fifth smaller than the robin.

Male—Upper parts black, sometimes margined with rufous. Breast
white; chestnut color on sides and rump. Wings marked
with white. Three outer feathers of tail striped with white,
Corspieuaue in flight. Bill black and stout. Red eyes; feet

rown.

female—Brownish where the male is black. Abdomen shading
from chestnut to white in the centre.

Range—From Labrador, on the nortii, to the Southern States ;
west to the Rocky Mountains.

Migrations—April. September and October. Summer resident.
Very rarely a winter resident at the north.

The unobtrusive little chewink is not infrequently mistaken
tor a robin, because of the reddish chestnut on its under parts.
Careful observation, however, shows important distinctions. It
is rather smaller and darker in color; its carriage and form are
not those of the robin, but of the finch. The female is smaller
still, and has an olive tint in her brown back. Her eggs are in-
conspicuous in color, dirty white speckled with brown, and laid
in a sunken nest on the ground. Dead leaves and twigs abound,
and form, as the anxious mother fondly hopes, a safe hiding
place for her brood. So careful concealment, however, brings
peril to the fledglings, for the most cautious bird-lover may, and
often does, inadvertently set his foot on the hidden nest.

The chewink derives its name from the fancied resemblance
of its note to these syllables, while those naming it ‘‘towhee”
hear the sound /o-whick, to-whick, to-whee. Its song is rich,
full, and pleasing, and given only when the bird has risen to the
branches above its low foraging ground.

It frequents the border of swampy places and bushy fields.

58 Z

Conspicuously Black and White

It is generally seen in the underbrush, picking about among the
dead leaves for its steady diet of earthworms and larve of in-
sects, occasionally regaling itself with a few dropping berries
and fruit.

When startled, the bird rises not more than ten or twelve
feet from the earth, and utters its characteristic calls. On ac-
count of this habit of flying low and grubbing among the leaves,
it is sometimes called the ground robin. In the South our modest
and useful little food-gatherer is often called grasel, especially in
Louisiana, where it is white-eyed, and is much esteemed, alas!
by epicures.

Snowflake
(Plectrophenax nivalis) Finch family

Called also: SNOW BUNTING; WHITEBIRD; SNOWBIRD;
SNOW LARK

Length—7 to 7.5 inches. About one-fourth smaller than the robin.

Male and Female—Head, neck, and beneath soiled white, with a/
few reddish-brown feathers on top of head, and suggesting an!
imperfect collar. Above, grayish brown obsoletely streaked
with black, the markings being most conspicuous in a band
between shoulders. Lower tail feathers black; others, white
and all edged with white. Wings brown, white, and gray.
Plumage unusually variable. In summer dress (in arctic
regions) the bird is almost white.

ange—Circumpolar regions to Kentucky (in winter only).

Migrations—Midwinter visitor; rarely, if ever, resident south of
arctic regions.

These snowflakes (mentioned collectively, for it is impossible
to think of the bird except in great flocks) are the ‘‘true spirits of
the snowstorm,” says Thoreau. They are animated beings that
ride upon it, and have their life in it. By comparison with the
climate of the. arctic regions, no doubt our hardiest winter weather
seems luxuriously mild to them. We associate them only with
those wonderful midwinter days when sky, fields, and woods
alike are white, and a ‘‘hard, dull bitterness of cold” drives
every other bird and beast to shelter. It is said they often pass
the night buried beneath the snow. They have been seen to dive
beneath it to escape a hawk.

Whirling about in the drifting snow to catch the seeds on

59

Conspicuously Black and White

the tallest stalks that the wind in the open meadows uncovers,
the snowflakes suggest a lot of dead leaves being blown through
the all-pervading whiteness. Beautiful soft brown, gray, and
predominating black-and-white coloring distinguish these capri-
cious visitors from the slaty junco, the ‘‘snowbird” more com-
monly known. They are, indeed, the only birds we have that
are nearly white; and rarely, if ever, do they rise far above the
ground their plumage so admirably imitates.

At the far north, travellers have mentioned their inspiriting
song, but in the United States we hear only their cheerful twitter.
Nansen tells of seeing an occasional snow bunting in that desola-
tion of arctic ice where the Fram drifted so long.

The Rose-breasted Grosbeak
(Habia ludoviciana) Finch family

Length—7.75 to 8.5 inches. About one-fifth smaller than the robin.

Male—Head and upper parts black. Breast has rose-carmine
shield-shaped patch, often extending downward to the centre
of the abdomen. Underneath, tail quills, and two spots on
wings white. Conspicuous yellow, blunt beak.

Female—Brownish, with dark streakings, like a sparrow. No
rose-color. Light sulphur yellow under wings. Dark brown,
heavy beak.

Range—Eastern North America, from southern Canada to Panama.
Migrations—Early May. September. Summer resident.

A certain ornithologist tells with complacent pride of having
shot over fifty-eight rose-breasted grosbeaks in less than three
weeks (during the breeding season) to learn what kind of food
they had in their crops. This kind of devotion to science may
have quite as much to do with the growing scarcity of this bird
in some localities as the demands of the milliners, who, however,
receive all of the blame for the slaughter of our beautiful songsters.
The farmers in Pennsylvania, who, with more truth than poetry,
call this the potato-bug bird, are taking active measures, how-
ever, to protect the neighbor that is more useful to their crop than
all the insecticides known. It also eats flies, wasps, and grubs.

Seen upon the ground, the dark bird is scarcely attractive with
his clumsy beak overbalancing a head that prutrudes with stupid-

60

Conspicuously Black and White

tooking awkwardness; but as he rises into the trees his lovely
rose-colored breast and under-wing feathers are seen, and before
he has had time to repeat his delicious, rich-voiced warble you
are already in love with him. Vibrating his wings after the
manner of the mocking-bird, he pours forth a marvellously sweet,
clear, mellow song (with something of the quality of the oriole’s,
robin’s, and thrush’s notes), making the day on which you first
hear it memorable. This is one of the few birds that sing at
night. A soft, sweet, rolling warble, heard when the moon is at
its full on a midsummer night, is more than likely to come from
the rose-breasted grosbeak.

It is not that his quiet little sparrow-like wife has advanced
notions of feminine independence that he takes his turn at sitting
upon the nest, but that he is one of the most unselfish and devoted
of mates. With their combined efforts they construct only a
coarse, unlovely cradle in a thorn-bush or low tree near an old,
overgrown pasture lot. The father may be the poorest of archi-
tects, but as he patiently sits brooding over the green, speckled
eggs, his beautiful rosy breast just showing above the grassy
rim. he is a sufiscient adornment for any bird’s home.

The Bobolink
(Dolichonyx oryzivorus) Blackbird family

Called also:REEDBIRD; MAYBIRD; MEADOW-BIRD; AMER-
ICAN ORTOLAN; BUTTER-BIRD; SKUNK BLACKBIRD '

Length—7 inches. A trifle larger than the English sparrow.

Male—In spring plumage: black, with light-yellow patch on
upper neck, also on edges of wings and tail feathers. Rump
and upper wings splashed with white. Middle of back
streaked with pale buff. Tail feathers have pointed tips. In
autumn plumage, resembles female.

Female—Dull yellow-brown, with light and dark dashes on back,
wings, and tail. Two decided dark stripes on top of head.
Range—North America, from eastern coast to western prairies.

Migrates in early autumn to Southern States, and in winter to
South America and West Indies.
Migraiions—Early May. From August to October. Common
summer resident.
61

Conspicuously Black and White

Perhaps none of our birds have so fitted into song and story
as the bobolink. Unlike a good child, who should ‘‘be seen
and not heard,” he is heard more frequently than seen. Very
shy, of peering eyes, he keeps well out of sight in the meadow
grass before entrancing our listening ears. The bobolink never
soars like the lark, as the poets would have us believe, but gen-
erally sings on the wing, flying with a peculiar self-conscious
flight horizontally thirty or forty feet above the meadow grass.
He also sings perched upon the fence or tuft of grass. He is one
of the greatest poseurs among the birds.

In spring and early summer the bobolinks respond to every
poet’s effort to imitate their notes. ‘‘Dignified ‘Robert of Lin-
coln’ is telling his name,” says one; ‘‘Spink, spank, spink,” an-
other hears him say. But best of all are Wilson Flagg’s lines:

‘ ‘* Now they rise and now they fly ;
They cross and turn, and in and out, and down the middle and wheel about,
With a ‘ Phew, shew, Wadolincon ; listen to me Bobolincon |?”

After midsummer the cares of the family have so worn upon
the jollity of our dashing, rollicking friend that his song is seldom
heard. The colors of his coat fade into a dull yellowish brown
like that of his faithful mate, who has borne the greater burden
of the season, for he has two complete moults each year.

lhe bobolinks build their nest on the ground in high grass.
The eggs are of a bluish white. Their food is largely insectivo-
rous: grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, spiders, with seeds of grass
especially for variety.

In August they begin their journey southward, flying mainly
by night. Arriving in the Southern States, they become the sad-
colored, low-voiced rice or reed bird, feeding on the rice fields,
where they descend to the ignominious fate of being dressed for
the plate of the epicure.

Could there be a more tragic ending to the glorious note of
the gay songster of the north?

Conspicuously Black and White

Blackpoll Warbler
(Dendroica striata) Wood Warbler family

Length—s5.5 to 6 inches. About an inch smaller than the English
sparrow.

Male—Black cap; cheeks and beneath grayish white, forming a
sort of collar, more or less distinct. Upper parts striped
gray, black, and olive. Breast and under parts white, with
black streaks. Tail olive-brown, with yellow-white spots.

Female—Without cap. Greenish-olive above, faintly streaked
with black. Paler than male. Bands on wings, yellowish.

Range—North America, to Greenland and Alaska. In winter, to
northern part of South America.

Migrations—Last of May. Late October.

A faint ‘‘screep, screep,” like ‘‘the noise made by striking
two pebbles together,” Audubon says, is often the only indication
of the blackpoll’s presence; but surely that tireless bird-student
had heard its more characteristic notes, which, rapidly uttered,
increasing in the middle of the strain and diminishing toward the
end, suggest the shrill, wiry hum of some midsummer insect.
After the opera-glass has searched him out we find him by no
means an inconspicuous bird. A dainty little fellow, with a
glossy black cap pulled over his eyes, he is almost hidden by the
dense foliage on the trees by the time he returns to us at the very
end of spring. Giraud says that he is the very last of his tribe te
come north, though the bay-breasted warbler has usually been
thought the bird to wind up the spring procession.

The blackpoll has a certain characteristic motion that distin-
guishes him from the black-and-white creeper, for which a hasty
glance might mistake him, and from the jolly little chickadee with
his black cap. Apparently he runs about the tree-trunk, but in
reality he so flits his wings that his feet do not touch the bark at
all; yet so rapidly does he go that the flipping wing-motion is
not observed. He is most often seen in May in the apple trees,
peeping into the opening blossoms for insects, uttering now and
then his slender, lisping, brief song.

Vivacious, a busy hunter, often catching insects on the wing
like the flycatchers, he is a cheerful, useful neighbor the short
time he spends with us before travelling to the far north, where
he mates and nests. A nest has been found on Slide Mountain,
in the Catskills, but the hardy evergreens of Canada, and some-

63

Conspicuously Black and White

times those of northern New England, are the chosen home of
this little bird that builds a nest of bits of root, lichens, and sedges,
amply large for a family twice the size of his.

Black-and-white Creeping Warbler
(Mniotilta varia) Wood Warbler family

Called also: VARIED CREEPING WARBLER ; BLACK-AND-
WHITE CREEPER ; WHITEPOLL WARBLER

Length—5 to 5.5 inches. About an inch smaller than the English
sparrow.

Male—Upper parts white, varied with black. A white stripe
along the summit of the head and back of the neck, edged
with black. White line above and below the eye. Black
cheeks and throat, grayish in females and young. Breast
white in middle, with black stripes on sides. Wings and
tail rusty black, with two white cross-bars on former, and
soiled white markings on tail quills.

Female—Paler and less distinct markings throughout.

Range—Peculiar to America. Eastern United States and west-
ward to the plains. North as far as the fur countries. Win-
ters in tropics south of Florida.

Migrations—April. Late September. Summer resident.

Nine times out of ten this active little warbler is mistaken for
the downy woodpecker, not because of his coloring alone, but
also on account of their common habit of running up and down
the trunks of trees and on the under side of branches, looking for
insects, on which all the warblers subsist. But presently the true
warbler characteristic of restless flitting about shows itself. A
woodpecker would go over a tree with painstaking, systematic
care, while the black-and-white warbler, no less intent upon
securing its food, hurries off from tree to tree, wherever the most
promising menu is offered.

Clinging to the mottled bark of the tree-trunk, which he so
closely resembles, it would be difficult to find him were it not
for these sudden flittings and the feeble song, ‘‘ Weachy,
weachy, weachy, "twee, "twee, ’tweet,” he half lisps, half sings
between his dashes after slugs. Very rarely indeed can his nest
be found in an old stump or mossy bank, where bark, leaves,
and hair make the downy cradle for his four or five tiny babies.

64

DUSKY AND GRAY AND SLATE-COLORED
BIRDS

Chimney Swift

Kingbird

Wood Pewee

Phoebe and Say’s Phoebe
Crested Flycatcher
Olive-sided Flycatcher
Least Flycatcher
Chickadee

Tufted Titmouse

Canada Jay

Catbird

Mocking-bird

Junco

White-breasted Nuthatch
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Loggerhead Shrike
Northern Shrike
Bohemian Waxwing
Bay-breasted Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Golden-winged Warbler
Myrtle Warbler

Parula Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler

See also the Grayish Green and the Grayish Brown Birds, particularly the Cedar
Bird, several Swallows, the Acadian and the Yellow-bellied Flycatchers; Alice’s and
the Olive-backed Thrushes; the Louisiana Water Thrush; the Blue-gray Gnat-
catcher; and the Seaside Sparrow. See also the females of the following birds: Pine
Grosbeak; White-winged Red Crossbill; Purple Martin; and the Nashville, the Pine,
and the Magnolia Warblers.

DUSKY, GRAY, AND SLATE-COLORED BIRDS

Chimney Swift
(Chetura pelagica) Swift family

Called also: CHIMNEY SWALLOW; AMERICAN SWIFT

Length—s5 to 5.45 inches. About an inch shorter than the Eng:
lish sparrow. Long wings make its length appear greater.

Male and Female—Deep sooty gray; throat of a trifle lighter gray.

Wings extend an inch and a half beyond the even tail, which
has sharply pointed and very elastic quills, that serve as props.
Feet are muscular, and have exceedingly sharp claws.

Range—Peculiar to North America east of the Rockies, and from
Labrador to Panama.

Migrations—April. September or October. Common summer
resident.

The chimney swift is, properly speaking, not a swallow at
all, though chimney swallow is its more popular name. Rowing
towards the roof of your house, as if it used first one wing, then
the other, its flight, while swift and powerful, is stiff and mechan-
ical, unlike the swallow’s, and its entire aspect suggests a bat.
The nighthawk and whippoorwill are its relatives, and it resem-
bles them not a little, especially in its nocturnal habits.

So much fault has been found with the misleading names of
many birds, it is pleasant to record the fact that the name of the
chimney swift is everything it ought to be. No other birds can
surpass and few can equal it in its powerful flight, sometimes
covering a thousand miles in twenty-four hours, it is said, and
never resting except in its roosting places (hollow trees or chim~
neys of dwellings), where it does not perch, but rather clings to
the sides with its sharp claws, partly supported by its sharpet
tail, Audubon tells of a certain plane tree in Kentucky where
he counted over nine thousand of these swifts clinging to the
hollow trunk.

67

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

‘Their nest, which is a loosely woven twig fattice, made of
twigs of trees, which the birds snap off with their beaks and carry
in their beaks, is glued with the bird’s saliva or tree-gum into a
solid structure, and firmly attached to the inside of chimneys, or
hollow trees where there are no houses about. Two broods in a
season usually emerge from the pure white, elongated eggs.

What a twittering there is in the chimney that the swifts
appropriate after the winter fires have died out! Instead of the
hospitable column of smoke curling from the top, a cloud of sooty
birds wheels and floats above it. A sound as of distant thunder
fills the chimney as a host of these birds, startled, perhaps, by some
indoor noise, whirl their way upward. Woe betide the happy
colony if a sudden cold snap in early summer necessitates the
starting of a fire on the hearth by the unsuspecting householder!
The glue being melted by the fire, “down comes the cradle,
babies and all” into the glowing embers. A prolonged, heavy
rain also causes their nests to loosen their hold and fall with the
soot to the bottom.

Thrifty New England housekeepers claim that bedbugs,
commonly found on bats, infest the bodies of swifts also, which
is one reason why wire netting is stretched across the chimney
tops before the birds arrive from the South.

_Kingbird
(Tyrannus tyrannus) Flycatcher family
Called also: TYRANT FLYCATCHER; BEE MARTIN

Length—8 inches. About two inches shorter than the robin.

Male—Ashy black above; white, shaded with ash-color, beneath.
A concealed crest of orange-red on crown. Tail black, ter-
minating with a white band conspicuous in flight. Wing
feathers edged with white. Feet and bill black.

Female—Similar to the male, but lacking the crown.

Range—United States to the Rocky Mountains. British provinces
to Central and South America.

Migrations—May. September. Common summer resident.

If the pugnacious propensity of the kingbird is the occasion
of its royal name, he cannot be said to deserve it from any fine
or noble qualities he possesses. He is a born fighter from the very

68

The cedar waxwing

Waiting for mamma. and fish

Young belted kingfisher on his favourite snag

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

love of it, without provocation, rhyme, or reason. One can but
watch with a degree of admiration his bold sallies on the big,
black crow or the marauding hawk, but when he bullies the
small inoffensive birds in wanton attacks for sheer amusement,
the charge is less entertaining. Occasionally, when the little vic-
tim shows pluck and faces his assailant, the kingbird will literally
turn tail and show the white feather. His method of attack is
always when a bird is in flight; then he swoops down from the
telegraph pole or high point of vantage, and strikes on the head or
back of the neck, darting back like a flash to the exact spot from
which he started. By these tactics he avoids a return blow and
retreats from danger. He never makes a fair hand-to-hand fight,
or whatever is equivalent in bird warfare. It is a satisfaction to
record that he does not attempt to give battle to the catbird, but
whenever in view makes a grand detour to give him a wide berth.

The kingbird feeds on beetles, canker-worms, and winged
insects, with an occasional dessert of berries. He is popularly
supposed to prefer the honeybee as his favorite tidbit, but the
weight of opinion is adverse to the charge of his depopulating the
beehive, even though he owes his appellation bee martin to this
tradition. One or two ornithologists declare that he selects only
the drones for his diet, which would give him credit for marvel-
lous sight in his rapid motion through the air. The kingbird is
preéminently a bird of the garden and orchard. The nest is
open, though deep, and not carefully concealed. Eggs are nearly
round, bluish white spotted with brown and lilac. With truly
royal exclusiveness, the tyrant favors no community of interest,
but sits in regal state on a conspicuous throne, and takes his
grand flights alone or with his queen, but never with a flock of
his kind.

Wood Pewee |
(Contopus virens) Flycatcher family

Length—6.50 inches. A trifle larger than the English sparrow.

Male—Dusky brownish olive above, darkest on head; paler on
throat, lighter still underneath, and with a yellowish tinge
on the dusky gray under parts. Dusky wings and tail, the
wing coverts tipped with soiled white, forming two indistinct
bars. Whitish eye-ring. Wings longer than tail.

Female—Similar, but slightly more buff underneath.

69

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

Range—Eastern North America, from Florida to northern British
provinces. Winters in Central America.

Migrations—May. October. Common summer resident.

The wood pewee, like the olive-sided flycatcher, has wings
decidedly longer than its tail, and it is by no means a simple
matter for the novice to tell these birds apart or separate them
distinctly in the mind from the other members of a family whose
coloring and habits are most confusingly similar. This dusky
haunter of tall shady trees has not yet learned to be sociable like
the phcebe; but while it may not be so much in evidence close
to our homes, it is doubtless just as common. The orchard is as
near the house as it often cares to come. An old orchard, where
modern insecticides are unknown and neglect allows insects to
riot among the decayed bark and fallen fruit, is a happy hunting
ground enough; but the bird’s real preferences are decidedly for
high tree-tops in the woods, where no sunshine touches the
feathers on his dusky coat. It is one of the few shade-loving
birds. In deep solitudes, where it surely retreats by nesting
time, however neighborly it may be during the migrations, its
pensive, pathetic notes, long drawn out, seem like the expression
of some hidden sorrow. Pe-a-wee, pe-a-wee, pewee-ah-peer is the
burden of its plaintive song, a sound as depressing as it is familiar
in every walk through the woods, and the bird’s most prominent
characteristic.

To see the bird dashing about in his aérial chase for insects,
no one would accuse him of melancholia. He keeps an eye on
the ‘‘main chance,” whatever his preying grief may be, and
never allows it to affect his appetite. Returning to his perch
after a successful sally in pursuit of the passing fly, he repeats his
‘sweetly solemn thought” over and over again all day long and
every day throughout the summer.

The wood pewees show that devotion to each other and to
their home, characteristic of their family. Both lovers work on
the construction of the flat nest that is saddled on some mossy or
lichen-covered limb, and so cleverly do they cover the rounded
edge with bits of bark and lichen that sharp eyes only can detect
where the cradle lies. Creamy-white eggs, whose larger end is
wreathed with brewn and lilac spots, are guarded with fierce
solicitude.

Trowbridge has celebrated this bird in a beautiful poem,

70

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

Pheebe
(Sayornis phabe) Flycatcher family

Called also: DUSKY FLYCATCHER; BRIDGE PEWEE;
WATER PEWEE

Length—7 inches. About an inch longer than the English sparrow.

Male and Female—Dusky olive-brown aboye ; darkest on head,
which is slightly crested. Wings and tail dusky, the outer
edges of some tail feathers whitish. Dingy yellowish white
underneath. Bill and feet black.

Range—North America, from Newfoundland to the South At-
lantic States, and westward to the Rockies. Winters south
of the Carolinas, into Mexico, Central America, and the
West Indies.

Wigrations—March. October. Common summer resident.

The earliest representative of the flycatcher family to come
out of the tropics where insect life fairly swarms and teems,
what does the friendly little phoebe find to attract him to the
north in March while his prospective dinners must all be still in
embryo? He looks dejected, it is true, as he sits solitary and silent
on some projecting bare limb in the garden, awaiting the coming
of his tardy mate; nevertheless, the date of his return will not vary
by more than a few days in a given locality year after year. Why
birds that are mated for life, as these are said to be, and such de-
voted lovers, should not travel together on their journey north,
is another. of the many mysteries of bird-life awaiting solution.

The reunited, happy couple go about the garden and out-
buildings like domesticated wrens, investigating the crannies on
piazzas, where people may be coming and going, and boldly
entering barn-lofts to find a suitable site for the nest that it must
take much of both time and skill to build.

Pewit, phoebe, phebe; pewit, phabe, they contentedly but
rather monotonously sing as they investigate all the sites in the
neighborhood. Presently a location is chosen under a beam or
rafter, and the work of collecting moss and mud for the founda-
tion and hair and feathers or wool to line the exquisite little home
begins. But the labor is done cheerfully, with many a sally in
midair either to let off superfluous high spirits or to catch a morsel
on the wing, and with many a vivacious outburst of what by
courtesy only we may name a song. ’

7

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

When not domesticated, as these birds are rapidly becoming
the phaebes dearly love a cool, wet woodland retreat. Here they
hunt and bathe ; here they also build in a rocky bank or ledge ot
rocks or underneath a bridge, but always with clever adaptation
of their nest to its surroundings, out of which it seems a natural
growth. Itis one of the most finished, teautiful nests ever found.

A pair of phcebes become attached to a spot where they
have once nested; they never stray far from it, and return to it
regularly, though they may not agai occupy the old nest. This
is because it soon becomes infested with lice from the hen's
feathers used in lining it, for which reason too close relationship
with this friendly bird-neighbor 1s discouraged by thrifty house-
keepers. When the baby birds have come out from the four or
six little white eggs. theit nelpless bodies are mercilessly attacked
by parasites, and are often so enfeebled that half the brood die.
The next season another nest will be built near the first, the fol-
lowing summer stil! another, until it would appear that a colony
of birds had made their homes in the place.

Throughout the long summer—for as the pheebe is the first
flycatcher to come, so it is the last to go—the bird is a tireless
hunter of insects, which it catches on the wing with a sharp click
of its beak, iike the other members of its dexterous family.

Say's Phoebe (Sayornis saya) is the Western representative
of the astern species, which it resembles in coloring and many
of *ts habits. It is the bird of the open plains, a tireless hunter
in midair sallies from an isolated perch, and has the same vibrat-
icg motion of the tail that the Eastern phoebe indulges in when
excited. This bird differs chiefly in its lighter coloring, but not
in habits, from the black pewee of the Pacific slope.

Great-crested Flycatcher
(Myiarchus crinitus) Flycatcher family

Called also: CRESTED FLYCATCHER

Length—8.50 tog inches. A little smaller than the robin.

Male and Female—Feathers of the head pointed and erect. Upper
parts dark grayish-olive, inclining to rusty brown on wings
and tail. Wing coverts crossed with two irregular bars of
yellowish white. Throat gray, shading into sulphur-yellow

72

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

underneath, that also extends under the wings. Inner vane
of several tail quills rusty red. Bristles at base of bill.

Range—From Mexico, Central America, and West Indies north-
ward to southern Canada and westward to the plains. Most
common in Mississippi basin ; common also in eastern
United States, south of New England.

Migrations—May. September. Common summer resident.

The most dignified and handsomely dressed member of his
family, the crested flycatcher has, nevertheless, an air of pensive
melancholy about him when in repose that can be accounted for
only by the pain he must feel every time he hears himself screech.
His harsh, shrill call, louder and more disagreeable than the king-
bird’s, cannot but rasp his ears as it does ours. And yet it is
chiefly by this piercing note, given with a rising inflection, that
we know the bird is in our neighborhood ; for he is somewhat of
a recluse, and we must often follow the disagreeable noise to its
source in the tree-tops before we can catch a glimpse of the
screecher. Perched on a high lookout, he appears morose and
sluggish, in spite of his aristocratic-looking crest, trim figure,
and feathers that must seem rather gay to one of his dusky
tribe. A low soliloquy, apparently born of discontent, can be
overheard from the foot of his tree. But another second, and he
has dashed off in hot pursuit of an insect flying beyond our sight,
and with extremely quick, dexterous evolutions in midair, he
finishes the hunt with a sharp click of his bill as it closes over the
unhappy victim, and then he returns to his perch. On the wing
he is exceedingly active and joyous; in the tree he appears just the
reverse. That he is a domineering fellow, quite as much of a
tyrant as the notorious kingbird, that bears the greater burden of
opprobrium, is shown in the fierce way he promptly dashes at a
feathered stranger that may have alighted too near his perch, and
pursues it beyond the bounds of justice, all the while screaming
his rasping cry into the intruder’s ears, that must pierce as deep as
the thrusts from his relentless beak. He has even been known
to drive off woodpeckers and bluebirds from the hollows in the
trees that he, like them, chooses for a nest, and appropriate the
results of their labor for his scarcely less belligerent mate. With
a slight but important and indispensable addition, the stolen
nest is ready to receive her four cream-colored eggs, that look as
if a pen dipped in purple ink had been scratched over them.

72

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

The fact that gives the great-crested flycatcher a unique in-
terest among all North American birds is that it invariably lines
its nest with snake-skins if one can be had. Science would
scarcely be worth the studying if it did not set our imaginations
to work delving for plausible reasons for Nature’s strange doings.
Most of us will doubtless agree with Wilson (who made a special
study of these interesting nests and never found a single one
without cast snake-skins in it, even in districts where snakes
were so rare they were supposed not to exist at all), that the
lining was chosen to terrorize all intruders. The scientific
mind that is unwilling to dismiss any detail of Nature’s work as
merely arbitrary and. haphazard, is greatly exercised over the
reason for the existence of crests on birds. But, surely, may not
the sight of snake-skins that first greet the eyes of the fledgling
flycatchers as they emerge from the shell be a good and sufficient
reason why the feathers on their little heads should stand on
end? ‘‘In the absence of a snake-skin, | have found an onion
skin and shad scales in the nest,” says John Burroughs, who calls
this bird ‘‘the wild Irishman of the flycatchers.”

Olive-sided Flycatcher
(Contobus borealis) Flycatcher family

Length—7 to 7.5 inches. About an inch longer than the English
sparrow.

Male and Female—Dusky olive or grayish brown above; head
darkest. Wings and tail blackish brown, the former some-
times, but not always, margined and tipped with dusky
white. Throat yellowish white ; other under parts slightly
lighter shade than above. Olive-gray on sides. A tuft of
Peale, downy feathers on flanks. Bristles at base
of bill.

Range—From Labrador to Panama. Winters in the tropics.
Nests usually north of United States, but it also breeds in the
Catskills.

Migrations—May. September. Resident only in northern part
of its range.

Only in the migrations may people south of Massachusetts
hope to see this flycatcher, which can be distinguished from the
rest of its kin by the darker under parts, and by the fluffy, yel-

74

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

lowish-white tufts of feathers on its flanks. Its habits have the
family characteristics: it takes its food on the wing, suddenly
sallying forth from its perch, darting about midair to seize its
prey, then as suddenly returning to its identical point of vantage,
usually in some distended, dead limb in the tree-top; it is pug-
nacious, bold, and tyrannical; mopish and inert when not on the
hunt, but wonderfully alert and swift when in pursuit of insect
or feathered foe. The short necks of the flycatchers make their
heads appear large for their bodies, a peculiarity slightly em-
phasized in this member of the family.

High up in some evergreen tree, well out on a branch, over
which the shapeless mass of twigs and moss that serves as a
nest is saddled, four or five buff-speckled eggs are laid, and by
some special dispensation rarely fall out of their insecure cradle.
A sharp, loud whistle, wheu—o-wheu-o-wheu-o, rings out from the
throat of this olive-sided tyrant, warning all intruders off the
premises ; but however harshly he may treat the rest of the
feathered world, he has only gentle devotion to offer his brooding
mate.

Least Flycatcher
(Empidonax minimus) Flycatcher family

Called also: CHEBEC

Length—5 to 5.5 inches. About an inch smaller than the English
sparrow.

Male—Gray or olive-gray above, paler on wings and lower part
of Beck and a more distinct olive-green on head. Under-
neath grayish white, sometimes faintly suffused with pale
se ae Wings have whitish bars. White eye-ring. Lower

alf of bill horn-color.

Female—|s slightly more yellowish underneath.
Range—Eastern North America, from tropics northward to Quebec.
Migrations—May. September. Common summer resident.

This, the smallest member of its family, takes the place of
the more southerly Acadian flycatcher, throughout New England
and the region of the Great Lakes. But, unlike his Southern rela-
tive, he prefers orchards and gardens close to.our homes for his
hunting grounds rather than the wet recesses of the forests.
Che-bec, che-bec, the diminutive olive-pated gray sprite calls out

75

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

from the orchard between his aérial sallies after the passing insects
that have been attracted by the decaying fruit, and chebec is the
name by which many New Englanders know him.

While giving this characteristic call-note, with drooping
jerking tail, trembling wings, and uplifted parti-colored bill, he,
looks unnerved and limp by the effort it has cost him. But in
the next instant a gnat flies past. How quickly the bird recovers
itself, and charges full-tilt at his passing dinner! The sharp click
of his little bill proves that he has not missed his aim; and after
careering about in the air another minute or two, looking for
more game to snap up on the wing, he will return to the same
perch and take up his familiar refrain. Without hearing this call-
note one might often mistake the bird for either the wood pewee
or the phaebe, for all the three are similarly clothed and have
many traits in common. The slightly larger size of the phcebe
and pewee is not always apparent when they are seen perching
on the trees. Unlike the ‘‘tuft of hay” to which the Acadian
flycatcher’s nest has been likened, the least flycatcher’s home is
a neat, substantial cup-shaped cradle softly lined with down or
horsehair, and placed generally in an upright crotch of a tree, wel}
above the ground.

The Chickadee

Penthestese & atr caf {Us

(Parus atricapillus) Titmouse family
Called also: BLACK-CAPPED TITMOUSE; BLACK-CAP TIT

Length—5 to 5.5 inches. About an inch smaller than the English
sparrow.

Wale and Female—Not crested. Crown and nape and throat
black. Above gray, slightly tinged with brown. A white
space, beginning at base of bill, extends backwards, widen-
ing over cheeks and upper part of breast, forming a sort of
collar that almost surrounds neck. Underneath dirty white.
with pale rusty-brown wash on sides. Wings and tail gray,
with white edgings. Plumage downy.

Range—Eastern North America. North of the Carolinas to Lab-
rador. Does not migrate in the North.

Migrations—Late September. May. Winter resident; perma-
nent resident in northern parts of the United States.

No ‘‘fair weather friend” is the jolly little chickadee. In the
depth of the autumn equinoctial storm it returns to the tops of
75

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

the trees close by the house, where, through the sunshine, snow,
and tempest of the entire winter, you may hear its cheery,
irrepressible chickadee-dee-dee-dee or day-day-day as it swings
around the dangling cones of the evergreens. It fairly over-
flows with good spirits, and is never more contagiously gay than
in a snowstorm. So active, so friendly and cheering, what
would the long northern winters be like without this lovable little
neighbor ?

It serves a more utilitarian purpose, however, than bracing
faint-hearted spirits. ‘‘ There is no bird that compares with it in
destroying the female canker-worm moths and their eggs,” writes
a well-known entomologist. He calculates that as a chickadee
destroys about 5,500 eggs in one day, it will eat 138,750 eggs in
the twenty-five days it takes the canker-worm moth to crawl up
the trees. The moral that it pays to attract chickadees about
your home by feeding them in winter is obvious. Mrs. Mabel
Osgood Wright, in her delightful and helpful book “ Birdcraft,”
tells us how she makes a sort of a bird-hash of finely minced raw
meat, waste canary-seed, buckwheat, and cracked oats, which
she scatters in a sheltered spot for all the winter birds. The
way this is consumed leaves no doubt of its popularity. A raw
bone, hung from an evergreen limb, is equally appreciated.

Friendly as the chickadee is—and Dr. Abbott declares i the
tamest bird we have—it prefers well-timbered districts, especially
where there are red-bud trees, when it is time to nest. It is very
often clever enough to leave the labor of hollowing out a nest in
the tree-trunk to the woodpecker or nuthatch, whose old homes
it readily appropriates; or, when these birds object, a knot-hole
or a hollow fence-rail answers every purpose. Here, in the sum-
mer woods, when family cares beset it, a plaintive, minor whistle
replaces the chickadee-dee-dee that Thoreau likens to “silver tink-
ling” as he heard it on a frosty morning.

“Piped a tiny voice near by,
Gay and polite, a cheerful cry—
Chick-chickadeedee! saucy note
Out of sound heart and merry throat,
As if it said, ‘Good-day, good Sir!
Fine afternoon, old passenger!
Happy to meet you in these places
Where January brings few faces.”
Emerson.

77

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored .

Tufted Titmouse /
(Parus bicolor) Titmouse family

Called also: CRESTED TITMOUSE; CRESTED TOMTIT

Length—6 to 6.5 inches. About the size of the English sparrow.

Male and Female—Crest high and pointed. Leaden or ash-gray
above; darkest on wings and tail. Frontlet, bill, and shoul-
ders black; space between eyes gray. Sides of head dull
wate Under parts light gray; sides yellowish, tinged with
red.

Range—United States east of plains, and only rarely seen so far
north as New England.

Migrations—October. April. Winter resident, but also found
throughout the year in many States.

‘A noisy titmouse is Jack Frost’s trumpeter” may be one
of those few weather-wise proverbs with a grain of truth in them.
As the chickadee comes from the woods with the frost, so it may
be noticed his cousin, the crested titmouse, is in more noisy evi-
dence throughout the winter.

One might sometimes think his whistle, like a tugboat’s,
worked by steam. But how effectually nesting cares alone can
silence it in April!

Titmice always see to it you are not lonely as you walk
through the woods. This lordly tomtit, with his jaunty crest,
keeps up a persistent whistle at you as he flits from tree to tree,
leading you deeper into the forest, calling out “ Here-bere-here!”
and looking like a pert and jaunty little blue jay, minus his gay
clothes. Mr. Nehrling translates one of the calls “ Heedle-dee.
dle-dee-dle-dee !”” and another “ Peto-peto-peto-daytee-daytee !”
But it is at the former, sharply whistled as the crested titmouse
gives it, that every dog pricks up his ears.

Comparatively little has been written about this bird, because
it is not often found in New England, where most of the bird
litterateurs have lived. South of New York State, however, it is
a common resident, and much respected for the good work it
does in destroying injurious insects, though it is more fond of
varying its diet with nuts, berries, and seeds than that all-round
benefactor, the chickadee.

78

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

Canada Jay
(Perisoreus canadensis) Crow and Jay family

Called also: WHISKY JACK OR JOHN; MOOSE-BIRD; MEAT-
BIRD; VENISON HERON; GREASE-BIRD; CANADIAN
CARRION-BIRD; CAMP ROBBER

Length—11 to 12 inches. About two inches larger than the robin,

Male and Female—Upper parts gray; darkest on wings and tail;
back of the head and nape of the neck sooty, almost black.
Forehead, throat, and neck white, and a few white tips on
wings and tail. Underneath lighter gray. Tail long. Plu-
mage fluffy.

Range—Northern parts of the United States and British provinces
of North America.

Migrations—Resident where found.

The Canada jay looks like an exaggerated chickadee, and
both birds are equally fond of bitter cold weather, but here the
similarity stops short. Where the chickadee is friendly the jay is
impudent and bold; hardly less of a villain than his blue relative
when it comes to marauding other birds’ nests and destroying
their young. With all his vices, however, intemperance cannot
be attributed to him, in spite of the name given him by the Adi-
rondack lumbermen and guides. ‘*Whisky John” is a purely
innocent corruption of ‘‘ Wis-ka-tjon,” as the Indians call this
bird that haunts their camps and familiarly enters their wigwams,
The numerous popular names by which the Canada jays are
known are admirably accounted for by Mr. Hardy in a bulletin
issued by the Smithsonian Institution.

“‘They will enter the tents, and often alight on the bow ofa
canoe, where the paddle at every stroke comes within eighteen
inches of them. 1! know nothing which can be eaten that they
will not take, and I had one steal all my candles, pulling them
out endwise, one by one, from a piece of birch bark in which
they were rolled, and another peck a large hole in a keg of cas-
tile soap. A duck which I had picked and laid down for a few
minutes, had the entire breast eaten out by one or more of these
birds. I have seen one alight in the middle of my canoe and
peck away at the carcass of a beaver I had skinned. They often
spoil deer saddles by pecking into them near the kidneys. They

"3

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

do great damage to the trappers by stealing the bait from traps
set for martens and minks and by eating trapped game. They
will sit quietly and see you build a log trap and bait it, and then,
almost before your back is turned, you hear their hateful ca-ca-ca!
as they glide down and peer into it. They will work steadily,
carrying off meat and hiding it. I have thrown out pieces, and
watched one to see how much he would carry off. He flew
across a wide stream, and in a short time looked as bloody as a
butcher from carrying large pieces; but his patience held out
longer than mine. I think one would work as long as Mark
Twain’s California jay did trying to fill a miner’s cabin with
acorns through a knot-hole in the root. They are fond of the
berries of the mountain ash, and, in fact, few things come amiss; §
believe they do not possess a single good quality except industry.”

One virtue not mentioned by Mr. Hardy is their prudent saving
from the summer surplus to keep the winter storeroom well sup-
plied like a squirrel’s. Such thrift is the more necessary when a
clamorous, hungry family of young jays must be reared while the
thermometer is often as low as thirty degrees below zero at the
end of March. How eggs are ever hatched at all in a tempera-
ture calculated to freeze any sitting bird stiff, is one of the mys-
teries of the woods. And yet four or five fluffy little jays, that
look as if they were dressed in gray fur, emerge from the eggs
before the spring sunshine has unbound the icy rivers or melted
the snowdrifts piled high around the evergreens.

Catbird
(Galeoscoptes cayolinensis) Mocking-bird family’

Called also: BLACK-CAPPED THRUSH

Length—g inches. An inch shorter than the robin.

Male and Female—Dark slate above; below somewhat paler; to
of head black. Distinct chestnut patch under the tail, whic
is black; feet and bill black also. Wings short, more than
two inches shorter than the tail.

Range—British provinces to Mexico; west to Rocky Mountains,
rarely to Pacific coast. Winters in Southern States, Central
America, and Cuba.

Migrations—May. November. Common summer resident,

80

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

Our familiar catbird, of all the feathered tribe, presents the
most contrary characteristics, and is therefore held in varied esti-
mation—loved, admired, ridiculed, abused. He is the veriest
‘*Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” of birds. Exquisitely proportioned,
with finely poised black head and satin-gray coat, which he
bathes most carefully and prunes and prinks by the hour, he ap-
pears from his toilet a Beau Brummell, an aristocratic-looking,
even dandified neighbor. Suddenly, as if shot, he drops head
and tail and assumes the most hang-dog air, without the least
sign of self-respect; then crouches and lengthens into a roll, head
forward and tail straightened, till he looks like a little, short gray
snake, lank and limp. Anon, with a jerk and a sprint, every
muscle tense, tail erect, eyes snapping, he darts into the air intent
upon some well-planned mischief. It is impossible to describe
his various attitudes or moods. In song and call he presents the
same opposite characteristics. How such a bird, exquisite in
style, can demean himself to utter such harsh, altogether hateful
catcalls and squawks as have given the bird his common name,
is a wonder when in the next moment his throat swells and be-
ginning phut-phut-coquillicot, he gives forth a long glorious song,
only second to that of the wood thrush in melody. He is a jes-
ter, a caricaturist, a mocking-bird.

The catbird’s nest is like a veritable scrap-basket, loosely
woven of coarse twigs, bits of newspaper, scraps, and rags, till
this rough exterior is softly lined and made fit to receive the four
to six pretty dark green-blue eggs to be laid therein.

As a fruit thief harsh epithets are showered upon the friendly,
confiding little creature at our doors; but surely his depredations
may be pardoned, for he is industrious at all times and unusually
adroit in catching insects, especially in the moth stage.

The Mocking-bird
(Mimus polyglottus) Mocking-bird family

Length—g to 1o inches. About the size of the robin.

Male and Female—Gray above; wings and wedge-shaped tail
brownish; upper wing feathers tipped with white; outer
tail quills white, conspicuous in flight; chin white; under
neath light gray, shading to whitish.

Range—Peculiar to torrid and temperate zones of two Americas,
Migrations—No fixed migrations; usually resident where seen.
8

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

North of Delaware this commonest of Southern birds is ak
too rarely seen outside of cages, yet even in midwinter it is not
unknown in Central Park, New York. This is the angel that
it is said the catbird was before he fell from grace. Slim, neat,
graceful, imitative, amusing, with a rich, tender song that only
the thrush can hope to rival, and with an instinétive preference
for the society of man, it is little wonder he is a favorite, caged
or free. He is a most devoted parent, too, when the four or six
speckled green eggs have produced as many mouths to be sup-
plied with insects and berries.

In the Connecticut Valley, where many mocking-birds’ nests
have been found, year after year, they are all seen near the
ground, and without exception are loosely, poorly constructed
affairs of leaves, feathers, grass, and even rags.

With all his virtues, it must be added, however, that this
charming bird is a sad tease. There is no sound, whether made
by bird or beast about him, that he cannot imitate so clearly as
to deceive every one but himself. Very rarely can you find a
mocking-bird without intelligence and mischief enough to appre-
ciate his ventriloquism. In Sidney Lanier’s college note-book
was found written this reflection: ‘‘A poet is the mocking-bird
of the spiritual universe. In him are collected all the individual
songs of all individual natures.” Later in life, with the same
thought in mind, he referred to the bird as ‘‘ yon slim Shakespeare
on the tree.” His exquisite stanzas, ‘‘To Our Mocking-bird,”
exalt the singer with the immortals ;

* Trillets of humor,—shrewdest whistle-wit~
Contralto cadences of grave desire,
Such as from off the passionate Indian pyre
Drift down through sandal-odored flames that split
About the slim young widow, who doth sit
And sing above,—midnights of tone entire,
Tissues of moonlight, shot with songs of fire ;==
Bright drops of tune, from oceans infinite
Of melody, sipped off the thin-edged wave
And trickling down the beak,—discourses brave
Of serious matter that no man may guess,—
Good-fellow greetings, cries of light distress
All these but now within the house we heard :
O Death, wast thou too deaf to hear the bird ?

82

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

“* Nay, Bird; my gnet gainsays the Lord’s best right.
The Lord was fain, at some late festal time,
That Keats should set all heaven’s woods in rhyme,
And Thou in bird-notes. Lo, this tearful night
Methinks I see thee, fresh from Death’s despite,
Perched in a palm-grove, wild with pantomime
O’er blissful companies couched in shady thyme.
Methinks I hear thy silver whistlings bright
Meet with the mighty discourse of the wise,—
’Till broad Beethoven, deaf no more, and Keats,
*Midst of much talk, uplift their smiling eyes
And mark the music of thy wood-conceits,
And half-way pause on some large courteous word,
And call thee ‘ Brother,’ O thou heavenly Bird 1”

Junco
(Junco, hyemalis) Finch family

Called also: SNOWBIRD ; SLATE-COLORED SNOWBIRD

Length—5.5 to 6.5 inches. About the size of the English sparrow.

Mate—Upper parts slate-colored; darkest on head and neck, which
are sometimes almost black and marked like a cowl. Gra
on breast, like a vest. Underneath white. Several outer tail
feathers white, conspicuous in flight.

Femaie—Lighter gray, inclining to brown.

Range—North America. Not common in warm latitudes. Breeds
in the Catskills and northern New England.

Migrations—September. April. Winter resident.

““Leaden skies above; snow below,” is Mr. Parkhurst’s sug~
gestive description of this rather timid little neighbor, that is only
starved into familiarity. When the snow has buried seed and
berries, a flock of juncos, mingling sociably with the sparrows
and chickadees about the kitchen door, will pick up scraps of
food with an intimacy quite touching in a bird naturally rather
shy. Here we can readily distinguish these ‘‘little gray-robed
monks and nuns,” as Miss Florence Merriam calls them.

They are trim, sprightly, sleek, and even natty; their disposi-
tions are genial and vivacious, not quarrelsome, like their sparrow
cousins, and what is perhaps best about them, they are birds we
may surely depend upon seeing in the winter months. A few
come forth in September, migrating at night from the deep

83

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

woods of the north, where they have nested and moulted during
the summer ; but not until frost has sharpened the air are large
numbers of them seen. Rejoicing in winter, they nevertheless
do not revel in the deep and fierce arctic blasts, as the snowflakes
do, but take good care to avoid the open pastures before the hard
storms overtake them.

Early in the spring their song is sometimes heard before they
leave us to woo and to nest in the north. Mr. Bicknell describes
it as ‘‘a crisp call-note, a simple trill, and a faint, whispered
warble, usually mucn broken, but not without sweetness.”

White-breasted Nuthatch
(Sitia carolinensis) Nuthatch family

Called also: TREE-MOUSE; DEVIL DOWNHEAD

Length—5.5 to 6 inches. A trifle smaller than the English sparrow.

Male and Female—Upper parts slate-color. ree of head and nape
black. Wings dark slate, edged with black, that fades to
brown. Tail feathers brownish black, with white bars.
Sides of head and underneath white, shading to pale reddish
under the tail. (Female’s head leaden.) Body flat and com-
pact. Bill longer than head.

Range—British provinces to Mexico. Eastern United States.

Migrations—October. April. Common resident. Most promi-
nent in winter.

“ Shrewd little haunter of woods all gray,
Whom I meet on my walk of a winter day—~
You're busy inspecting each cranny and hole
In the ragged bark of yon hickory bole ;

You intent on your task, and I on the law
Of your wonderful head and gymnastic claw !

The woodpecker well may despair of this feat—=
Only the fly with you can compete !
So much is clear ; but | fain would know
How you can so reckless and fearless go,
Head upward, head downward, all one to you,
Zenith and nadir the same in your view?”
—Ldith M. Thomas.

Could a dozen lines well contain a fuller description or more
apt characterization of a bird than these ‘‘To a Nuthatch”?
84

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

With more artless inquisitiveness than fear, this lively little
acrobat stops his hammering or hatcheting at your approach, and
stretching himself out from the tree until it would seem he must
fall off, he peers down at you, head downward, straight into
your upturned opera-glasses. If there is too much snow on the
upper side of a branch, watch how he runs along underneath it
like a fly, busily tapping the bark, or adroitly breaking the de-
cayed bits with his bill, as he searches for the spider’s eggs,
larve, etc., hidden there; yet somehow, between mouthfuls,
managing to call out his cheery quank ! quank ! hank! bank!

Titmice and nuthatches, which have many similar charac-
teristics, are often seen in the most friendly hunting parties on
the same tree. A pine woods is their dearest delight. There, as
the mercury goes down, their spirits only seem to go up higher.
In the spring they have been thought by many to migrate in
flocks, whereas they are only retreating with their relations away
from the haunts of men to the deep, cool woods, where they
nest. With infinite patience the nuthatch excavates a hole in a
tree, lining it with feathers and moss, and often depositing as
many as ten white eggs (speckled with red and lilac) for a single
brood. ’

Red-breasted Nuthatch’
(Sitia canadensis) Nuthatch family

Called also: CANADA NUTHATCH

Length—4 to 4.75 inches. One-third smaller than the English
sparrow.

Male—Lead-colored above; brownish on wings and tail. Head,
neck, and stripe passing through eye to shoulder, black.
Frontlet, chin, and shoulders white; also a white stripe over
eve, meeting on brow. Under parts light, rusty red. Tail
feathers barred with white near end, and tipped with pale
brown.

Female—Has crown of brownish black, and is lighter beneath
than male.

Range—Northern parts of North America. Not often seen south
of the most northerly States.

Migrations—November. April. Winter resident.

The brighter coloring of this tiny, hardy bird distinguishes
it from the other and larger nuthatch, with whom it is usually
8e

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

seen, for the winter birds have a delightfully social manner, s¢
that a colony of these Free masons is apt to contain not only both
kinds of nuthatches and chickadees, but kinglets and brown
creepers as well. It shares the family habit of walking about the
trees, head downward, and running along the under side of limbs
like a fly. By Thanksgiving Day the quank! quank! of the
white-breasted species is answered by the Zai-tai-tait/ of the red-
breasted cousin in the orchard, where the family party is cele-
brating with an elaborate menu of slugs, insects’ eggs, and oily
seeds from the evergreen trees.

For many years this nuthatch, a more northern species than
the white-breasted bird, was thought to be only a spring and
autumn visitor, but latterly it is credited with habits like its
congener’s in nearly every particular.

Loggerhead Shrike
(Lanius ludovicianus) Shrike family

Length—8.5 tog inches. A little smaller than the robin.

Male and Female—Upper parts gray; narrow black line across
forehead, connecting small black patches on sides of head at
base of bill. Wings and tail black, plentifully marked with
white, the outer tail feathers often being entirely white and
conspicuous in flight. Underneath white or very light gray.
Bill hooked and hawk-like.

Range—Eastern United States to the plains.
Migrations—May. October. Summer resident.

It is not easy, even at a slight distance, to distinguish the
loggerhead from the Northern shrike. Both have the pernicious
habit of killing insects and smaller birds and impaling them on
thorns; both have the peculiarity of flying, with strong, vigorous
flight and much wing-flapping, close along the ground, then
suddenly rising to a tree, on the lookout for prey. Their harsh,
unmusical call-notes are similar too, and their hawk-like method
of dropping suddenly upon a victim on the ground below is iden-
tical. Indeed, the same description very nearly answers for both
birds. But there is one very important difference. While the
Northern shrike is a winter visito1, the loggernead, being his South-
ern counterpart, does not arrive until after the frost is out of the
ground, and he can be sure of a truly warm welcome. A lesser

86

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

distinction between the only two representatives of the shrike
family that frequent our neighborhood-~and they are two too
many—is in the smaller size of the loggerhead and its lighter-gray
plumage. But as both these birds select some high, commanding
position, like a distended branch near the tree-top, a cupola,
house-peak, lightning-rod, telegraph wire, or weather-vane, the
better to detect a passing dinner, it would be.quite impossible at
such a distance to knew which shrike was sitting up there
silently plotting villainies, without remembering the season when
each may be expected.

Northern Shrike
(Lanius borealis) Shrike family

Called also: BUTCHER-BIRD; NINE-KILLER

Length—o.5 to 10.5 inches. About the size of the robin.

Male—Upper parts slate-gray; wing quills and tail black, edged
and tipped with white, conspicuous in flight; a white spot
on centre of outer wing feathers. A black band runs from
bill, through eye to side of throat. Light gray below, tinged
with brownish, and faintly marked with waving lines of
darker gray. Bill hooked and hawk-like.

Female—With eye-band more obscure than male’s, and with
more distinct brownish cast on her plumage.

Range—Northern North America. South in winter to middle
portion of United States.

Migrations—November, April. A roving winter resident.

“ Matching the bravest of the brave among birds of prey in
deeds of daring, and no less relentless than reckless, the shrike
compels that sort of deference, not unmixed with indignation, we
are accustomed to accord to creatures of seeming insignificance
whose exploits demand much strength, great spirit, and insatiate
love for carnage. We cannot be indifferent to the marauder who
takes his own wherever he finds it—a feudal baron who holds
his own with undisputed sway—and an ogre whose victims are
so many more than he can eat, that he actually keeps a private
graveyard for the balance.” Who is honestly able to give the
shrikes a better character than Dr. Coues, just quoted? A few
offer them questionable defence by recording the large numbers

87

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

of English sparrows they kill in a season, as if wanton carnage
were ever justifiable.

Not even a hawk itself can produce the consternation among
a flock of sparrows that the harsh, rasping voice of the butcher-
bird creates, for escape they well know to be difficult before the
small ogre swoops down upon his victim, and carries it off to
impale it on a thorn or frozen twig, there to devour it later
piecemeal. Every shrike thus either impales or else hangs up, as
a butcher does his meat, more little birds of many kinds, field-
mice, grasshoppers, and other large insects than it can hope to
devour in a week of bloody orgies. Field-mice are perhaps its
favorite diet, but even snakes are not disdained. ‘

More contemptible than the actual slaughter of its victims, if
possible, is the method by which the shrike often lures and
sneaks upon his prey. Hiding in a clump of bushes in the meadow
or garden, he imitates with fiendish cleverness the call-notes of
little birds that come in cheerful response, hopping and flitting
within easy range of him. His bloody work is finished in a
trice. Usually, however, it must be owned, the shrike’s hunt-
ing habits are the reverse of sneaking. Perched on a point of
vantage on some tree-top or weather-vane, his hawk-like eye
can detect a grasshopper going through the grass fifty yards
away.

What is our surprise when some fine warm day in March,
just before our butcher, ogre, sneak, and fiend leaves us for colder
regions, to hear him break out into song! Love has warmed
even his cold heart, and with sweet, warbled notes on the tip of
a beak that but yesterday was reeking with his victim’s blood,
he starts for Canada, leaving behind him the only good impres-
sion he has made during a long winter’s visit.

Bohemian Waxwing
(Ampelis garrulus) Waxwing family

Called also: BLACK-THROATED WAXWING; LAPLAND
WAXWING ; SILKTAIL

Length—8 to 9.5 inches. A little smaller than the robin.

Male and Female—General color drab, with faint brownish wash
above, shading into lighter gray below. Crest conspicuous

88

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

being nearly an inch and a half in length; rufous at the base,
shading into light gray above. Velvety-black forehead, chin,
and line through the eye. Wings grayish brown, with very
dark quills, which have two white bars; the bar at the edge
of the upper wing coverts being tipped with red sealing-wax~
like points, that give the bird its name. A few wing feathers
tipped with yellow on outer edge. Tail quills dark brown,
with yellow band across the end, and faint red streaks on
upper and inner sides.

Range—Northern United States and British America. Most com-
mon in Canada and northern Mississippi region.

Migrations—Very irregular winter visitor.

When Charles Bonaparte, Prince of Canino, who was the first
to count this common waxwing of Europe and Asia among the birds
of North America, published an account of it in his ‘‘ Synopsis,”
it was considered a very rare bird indeed. It may be these wax-
wings have greatly increased, but however uncommon they may
still be considered, certainly no one who had ever seen a flock
containing more than a thousand of them, resting on the trees of
a lawn within sight of New York City, as the writer has done,
could be expected to consider the birds ‘‘very rare.”

The Bohemian waxwing, like the only other member of the
family that ever visits us, the cedar-bird, is a roving gipsy. In
Germany they say seven years must elapse between its visitations,
which the superstitious old cronies are wont to associate with
woful stories of pestilence—just such tales as are resurrected from
the depths of morbid memories here when a comet reappears or
the seven-year locust ascends from the ground.

The goings and comings of these birds are certainly most
erratic and infrequent; nevertheless, when hunger drives them
from the far north to feast upon the juniper and other winter
berries of our Northern States, they come in enormous flocks,
making up in quantity what they lack in regularity of visits and
evenness of distribution.

Surely no bird has less right to be associated with evil than
this mild waxwing. It seems the very incarnation of peace and
harmony. Part of a flock that has lodged in a tree will sit almost
motionless for hours and whisper in softly hissed twitterings,
very much as a company of Quaker ladies, similarly dressed,
might sit at yearly meeting. Exquisitely clothed in silky-gray
feathers that no berry juice is ever permitted to stain, they are

89

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colorea

dainty, gentle, aristocratic-looking birds, a trifle heavy and indo-
lent, perhaps, when walking on the ground or perching; but as
they fly in compact squads just above the tree-tops their flight is
exceedingly swift and graceful.

Bay-breasted Warbler
(Dendroica castanea) Wood Warbler family

Length—5.25 to 5.75 inches. A little smaller than the English
sparrow.

Male—Crown, chin, throat, upper breast, and sides dull chest-
nut. Forehead, sides of head, and cheeks black. Above
olive-gray, streaked with black. Underneath buffy. Two
white wing-bars. Outer tail quills with white patches on
tips. Cream-white patch on either side of neck.

Female—Has more greenish-olive above.

Range—Eastern North America, from Hudson’s Bay to Central
America. Nests north of the United States. Winters in
tropical limit of range.

Migrations—May. September. Rare migrant.

The chestnut breast of this capricious little visitor makes him
look like a diminutive robin. In spring, when these warblers
are said to take a more easterly route than the one they choose in
autumn to return by to Central America, they may be so sud-
denly abundant that the fresh green trees and shrubbery of the
garden will contain a dozen of the busy little hunters. Another
season they may pass northward either by another route or leave
your garden unvisited; and perhaps the people in the very next
town may be counting your rare bird common, while it is simply
perverse.

Whether common or rare, before your acquaintance has had
time to ripen into friendship, away go the freaky little creatures
40 nest in the tree-tops of the Canadian coniferous forests.

Chestnut-sided Warbler
(Dendroica pennsylvanica) Wood Warbler family

Called also: BLOODY-SIDED WARBLER

Length—About 5 inches. More than an inch shorter than the
English sparrow.

Male—Top of head and streaks in wings yellow. A black line
y~

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

running through the eye and round back of crown, and a
black spot in front of eye, extending to cheeks. Ear coverts,
chin, and underneath white. Back greenish gray and slate,
streaked with black. Sides of bird chestnut. Wings, which
are streaked with black and yellow, have yellowish-white
bars. Very dark tail with white patches on inner vanes of
the outer quills.

Female—Similar, but duller. Chestnut sides are often scarcely
apparent.

Range—Eastern North America, from Manitoba and Labrador to
the tropics, where it winters.

Migrations—May. September. Summer resident, most common
in migrations.

In the Alleghanies, and from New Jersey and Illinois north.
ward, this restless little warbler nests in the bushy borders of
woodlands and the undergrowth of the woods, for which he for-
sakes our gardens and orchards after a very short visit in May.
While hopping over the ground catching ants, of which he seems
to be inordinately fond, or flitting actively about the shrubbery
after grubs and insects, we may note his coat of many colors—
patchwork in which nearly all the warbler colors are curiously
combined. With drooped wings that often conceal the bird’s
chestnut sides, which are his chief distinguishing mark, and with
tail erected like a redstart’s, he hunts incessantly. Here in the
garden he is as refreshingly indifferent to your interest in him as
later in his breeding haunts he is shy and distrustful. His song is
bright and animated, like that of the yellow warbler.

Golden-winged Warbler
(Helminthopbila cbrysoptera) Wood Warbler family

Length—About 5 inches. More than an inch shorter than the
English sparrow.

Male—Yellow crown and yellow patches on the wings. Upper
parts bluish gray, sometimes tinged with greenish. Stripe
through the eye and throat black. Sides of head, chin, and
line over the eye white. Underneath white, gravish on
sides. A few white markings on outer tail feathers.

Female—Crown duller; gray where male is black, with clive
upper parts and grayer underneath.

ot

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

Range—From Canadian border to Centrat America, where it
winters.

Wigrations—May. September. Summer resident.

After one has seen a golden-winged warbler fluttering hither
and thither about the shrubbery of a park within sight and sound
of a great city’s distractions and with blissful unconcern of them
all, partaking of a hearty lunch of insects that infest the leaves
before one’s eyes, one counts the bird less rare and shy than one
has been taught to consider it. Whoever looks for a warbler
with gaudy yellow wings will not find the golden-winged vari-
ety. His wings have golden patches only, and while these are
distinguishing marks, they are scarcely prominent enough feat-
ures to have given the bird the rather misleading name he bears.
But, then, most warblers’ names are misleading. They serve
their best purpose in cultivating patience and other gentle virtues
in the novice.

Such habits and choice of haunts as characterize the blue-
winged warbler are also the golden-winged’s. But their voices
are quite different, the former’s being sharp and metallic, while
the latter’s zee, zee, zee comes more lazily and without accent.

Myrtle Warbler
(Dendroica coronata) Wood Warbler family

Called also: YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER ; MYRTLE-
BIRD; YELLOW-CROWNED WARBLER

Length—s to 5.5 inches. About an inch smaller than the English
sparrow.

WUale—In summer plumage: A yellow patch on top of head,
lower back, and either side of the breast. Upper parts blu-
ish slate, streaked with black. Upper breast black ; throat
white; all other under parts whitish, streaked with black.
Two white wing-bars, and tail quills have white spots near
the tip. / winter: Upper parts olive-brown, streaked with
black; the yellow spot on lower back the only yellow mark
remaining. Wing-bars grayish.

Female—Resembles male in winter plumage.

fange—Eastern North America. Occasional on Pacific slope.
Summers from Minnesota and northern New England north-
ward to Fur Countries. Winters from Middle States south-

92

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

ward into Central America; a few often remaining at the
northern United States all the winter.

Migrations—April. October. November. Also, but more rarely,
a winter resident.

The first of the warblers to arrive in the spring and the last
to leave us in the autumn, some even remaining throughout the
northern winter, the myrtle warbler, next to the summer yellow-
bird, is the most familiar of its multitudinous kin. Though we
become acquainted with it chiefly in the migrations, it impresses
us by its numbers rather than by any gorgeousness of attire. The
four yellow spots on crown, lower back, and sides are its distin-
guishing marks; and in the autumn these marks have dwindled
to only one, that on the lower back or rump. The great diffi-
culty experienced in identifying any warbler is in its restless habit
of flitting about.

For a few days in early May we are forcibly reminded of the
Florida peninsula, which fairly teems with these birds ; they
become almost superabundant, a distraction during the precious
days when the rarer species are quietly slipping by, not to return
again for a year, perhaps longer, for some warblers are notoriously
irregular in their routes north and south, and never return by the
way they travelled in the spring.

But if we look sharply into every group of myrtle warblers,
we are quite likely to discover some of their dainty, fragile cous-
ins that gladly seek the escort of birds so fearless as they. By
the last of May all the warblers are gone from the neighborhood
except the constant little summer yellowbird and redstart.

In autumn, when the myrtle warblers return after a busy
enough summer passed in Canadian nurseries, they chiefly haunt
those regions where juniper and bay-berries abound. These latter
(Myrica cerifera), or the myrtle wax-berries, as they are some-
times called, and which are the bird’s favorite food, have given it
their name. Wherever the supply of these berries is sufficient to
last through the winter, there it may be found foraging in the
scrubby bushes. Sometimes driven by cold and hunger from
the fields, this hardiest member of a family that properly belongs
to the tropics, seeks shelter and food close to the outbuildings
on the farm.

93

Wusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

Parula Warbler
(Compsothlypis americana) Wood Warbler family

Called also: BLUE YELLOW-BACKED WARBLER

Length—4.5 to 4.75 inches. About an inch and a half shorter
than the English sparrow.

Male and Female—Slate-colored above, with a greenish-yellow or
bronze patch in the middle of the back. Chin, throat, and
breast yellow. A black, bluish, or rufous band across the
breast, usually lacking in female. Underneath white, some-
times marked with rufous on sides, but these markings are
variable. Wings have two white patches; outer tail feathers
have white patch near the end.

Range—Eastern North America. Winters from Florida southward.
Migrations—April. October. Summer resident.

Through an open window of an apartment in the very heart
of New York City, a parula warbler flew this spring of 1897,
surely the daintiest, most exquisitely beautiful bird visitor that
ever voluntarily lodged between two brick walls.

A number of such airy, tiny beauties flitting about among the
blossoms of the shrubbery on a bright May morning and swaying
on the slenderest branches with their inimitable grace, is a sight
that the memory should retain into old age. They seem the very
embodiment of life, joy, beauty, grace; of everything lovely that
birds by any possibility could be. Apparently they are wafted
about the garden; they fly with no more effort than a dainty
lifting of the wings, as if to catch the breeze, that seems to lift
them as it might a bunch of thistledown. They go through a
great variety of charming posturings as they hunt for their food
upon the blossoms and tender fresh twigs, now creeping like a
nuthatch along the bark and peering into the crevices, now grace-
fully swaying and balancing like a goldfinch upon a slender,
pendent stem. One little sprite pauses in its hunt for the insects
to raise its pretty head and trill a short and wiry song.

But the parula warbler does not remain long about the gar-
dens and orchards, though it will not forsake us altogether for
the Canadian forests, where most of its relatives pass the summer.
It retreats only to the woods near the water, if may be, or to just
as close a counterpart of a swampy southern woods, where the

94

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

Spanish or Usnea ‘‘ moss” drapes itself over the cypresses, as it
can find here at the north. Its rarely beautiful nest, that hangs
suspended from a slender branch very much like the Baltimore
oriole’s, is so woven and festooned with this moss that its con-
cealment is perfect.

Black-throated Blue Warbler
(Dendroica cerulescens) Wood Warbler family

Length—5.30 inches. About an inch shorter than the English
sparrow.

Male—Siate-color, not blue above; lightest on forehead and
darkest on lower back. Wings and tail edged with bluish.
Cheeks, chin, throat, upper breast, and sides black. Breast
and underneath white. White spots on wings, and a little
white on tail.

Female—Olive-green above ; underneath soiled yellow. Wing-
spots inconspicuous. Tail generally has a faint bluish tinge.

Range—Eastern North America, from Labrador to tropics, where
it winters.

Migrations—May. September. Usually a migrant only in the
United States.

Whoever looks for this beautifully marked warbler among
the bluebirds, will wish that the man who named him had pos+
sessed a truer eye for color. But if the name so illy fits the
bright slate-colored male, how grieved must be his little olive-
and-yellow mate to answer to the name of black-throated blue
warbler when she has neither a black throat nor a blue feather!
It is not easy to distinguish her as she flits about the twigs and
leaves of the garden in May or early autumn, except as she is
seen in company with her husband, whose name she has taken
with him for better or for worse. The white spot on the wings
should always be looked for to positively identify this bird.

Before flying up to a twig to peck off the insects, the birds
have a pretty vireo trick of cocking their heads on one side to in-
vestigate the quantity hidden underneath the leaves. They seem
less nervous and more deliberate than many of their restless family.

Most warblers go over the Canada border to nest, but there
are many records of the nests of this species in the Alleghanies
as far south as Georgia, in the Catskills, in Connecticut, northern

95

Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored

Minnesota and Michigan. Laurel thickets and moist undergrowth
of woods in the United States, and more commonly pine woods
in Canada, are the favorite nesting haunts. A sharp Zip, zip,
like some midsummer insect’s noise, is the bird’s call-note, but its
love-song, zee, 7ee, ee, or twee, twea, twea-e-e, as one authority
writes it, is only rarely heard in the migrations. It is a languid,
drawling little strain, with an upward slide that is easily drowned
in «he full bird chorus of May.

BLUE AND BLUISH BIRDS

Bluebird:

Indigo Bunting
Belted Kingfisher
Blue Jay

Blue Grosbeak

Barn Swallow ©

Cliff Swallow
Mourning Dove
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

” Look also among Slate-colored Birds in preceding group, particularly among the
Warblers there, or in the group of Birds conspicuously, Yellow and Orange.

BLUE AND BLUISH BIRDS

The Bluebird
(Sialia sialis) Thrush family

Called also: BLUE ROBIN

Length—7 inches. About an inch longer than the English sparrow.

Male—Upper parts, wings, and tail bright blue, with rusty wash
inautumn. Throat, breast, and sides cinnamon-red. Under-
neath white.

Female—Has duller blue feathers, washed with gray, and a paler
breast than male.

Range—North America, from Nova Scotia and Manitoba to Gulf
of Mexico. Southward in winter from Middle States to Ber-
muda and West Indies.

Migrations—March. November. Summer resident. A few some-
times remain throughout the winter.

With the first soft, plaintive warble of the bluebirds early in
March, the sugar camps, waiting for their signal, take on a bust-
ling activity; the farmer looks to his plough; orders are hurried
off to the seedsmen; a fever to be out of doors seizes one: spring
is here. Snowstorms may yet whiten fields and gardens, high
winds may howl about the trees and chimneys, but the little blue
heralds persistently proclaim from the orchard and garden that
the spring procession has begun to move. Trw-al-ly, tru-al-ly,
they sweetly assert to our incredulous ears.

The bluebird is not always a migrant, except in the more
northern portions of the country. Some representatives there are
always with us, but the great majority winter south and drop out
of the spring procession on its way northward, the males a fittle
ahead of their mates, which show housewifely instincts imme-
diately after their arrival. A pair of these rather undemonstrative,
matter-of-fact lovers go about looking for some deserted woode
pecker’s hole in the orchard; peering into cavities in the fence.

99

Blue and Bluish

rails, or into the bird-houses that, once set up in the old-fashioned
gardens for their special benefit, are now appropriated too often
by the ubiquitous sparrow. Wrens they can readily dispossess of
an attractive tenement, and do. With a temper as heavenly as
the color of their feathers, the bluebird’s sense of justice is not
always so adorable. But sparrows unnerve them into cowardice.
The comparatively infrequent nesting of the bluebirds about our
homes at the present time is one of the most deplorable results
of unrestricted sparrow immigration. Formerly they were the
commonest of bird neighbors.

Nest-building is not a favorite occupation with the bluebirds,
that are conspicuously domestic none the less. Two, and even
three, broods in a season fully occupy their time. As in most
cases, the mother-bird does more than her share of the work.
The male looks with wondering admiration at the housewifely
activity, applauds her with song, feeds her as she sits brooding
over the nestful of pale greenish-blue eggs, but his adoration of
her virtues does not lead him into emulation.

* Shifting his light load of song,
From post to post along the cheerless fence,”

Lowell observed that he carried his duties quite as lightly.

When the young birds first emerge from the shell they are
almost black; they come into their splendid heritage of color by
degrees, lest their young heads might be turned. It is only as
they spread their tiny wings for their first flight from the nest
that we can see a few blue feathers.

With the first cool days of autumn the bluebirds collect in
flocks, often associating with orioles and kingbirds in sheltered,
sunny places where insects are still plentiful. Their steady, undu-
lating flight now becomes erratic as they take food on the wing—~
a habit that they may have learned by association with the king-
birds, for they have also adopted the habit of perching upon some
conspicuous lookout and then suddenly launching out into the
air for a passing fly and returning to their perch. Long after their
associates have gone southward, they linger like the last leaves on
the tree. It is indeed ‘‘ good-bye to summer” when the blue-
birds withdraw their touch of brightness from the dreary Novem-
ber landscape.

The bluebirds from Canada and the northern portions of New

300

Blue and Bluisi

England and New York migrate into Virginia and the Carolinas;
the birds from the Middle States move down into the Gulf States
to pass the winter. It was there that countless numbers were

cut off by the severe winter of 1894-95, which was so severe in
that section.

Indigo Bunting
(Passerina cyanea) Finch family

Called also: INDIGO BIRD

Length—5.5 to 6 inches. Smaller than the English sparrow, of
the size of a canary.

Male—In certain lights rich blue, deepest on head. In another
light the blue feathers show verdigris tints. Wings, tail, and
lower back with brownish wash, most prominent in autumn
pomaae: Quills of wings and tail deep blue, margined with
ight.

Female—Plain sienna-brown above. Yellowish on breast and
shading to white underneath, and indistinctly streaked.
Wings and tail darkest, sometimes with slight tinge of blue
in outer webs and on shoulders.

Range—North America, from Hudson Bay to Panama. Most
common in eastern part of United States. Winters in
Central America and Mexico.

Migrations—May. September. Summer resident

The ‘glowing indigo” of this tropical-looking visitor that
so delighted Thoreau in the Walden woods, often seems only the
more intense by comparison with the blue sky, against which it
stands out in relief as the bird perches singing in a tree-top.
What has this gaily dressed, dapper little cavalier in common
with his dingy sparrow cousins that haunt the ground and de-
light in dust-baths, leaving their feathers no whit more dingy
than they were before, and in temper, as in plumage, suggesting
more of earth than of heaven? Apparently he has nothing, and
yet the Small brown bird in the roadside thicket, which you have
misnamed a sparrow, not noticing the glint of blue in her shoul-
ders and tail, is his mate. Besides the structural resemblances,
which are, of course, the only ones considered by ornithologists
in classifying birds, the indigo buntings have several sparrow-
like traits. They feed upon the ground, mainly upon seeds of
grasses and herbs, with a few insects interspersed to give relish

105

Blue and Bluis§

to the grain ; they build grassy nests in low bushes or tail, rank
grass ; and their flight is short and labored. Borders of woods,
roadside thickets, and even garden shrubbery, with open pasture
lots for foraging grounds near by, are favorite haunts of these
birds, that return again and again to some preferred spot. But
however close to our homes they build theirs, our presence never
ceases to be regarded by them with anything but suspicion, not
to say alarm. Their metallic cheep, cheep, warns you to keep
away from the little blue-white eggs, hidden away securely in
the bushes; and the nervous tail twitchings and jerkings are
pathetic to see. Happily for the safety of their nest, the brood-
ing mother has no tell-tale feathers to attract the eye. Dense
foliage no more conceals the male bird’s brilliant coat than it can
the tanager’s or oriole’s.

With no attempt at concealment, which he doubtless under-
stands would be quite impossible, he chooses some high, con-
spicuous perch to which he mounts by easy stages, singing as he
goes ; and there begins a loud and rapid strain that promises
much, but growing weaker and weaker, ends as if the bird were
either out of breath or too weak to finish. Then suddenly he
begins the same song over again, and keeps up this continuous
performance for nearly half an hour. The noonday heat of an
August day that silences nearly every other voice, seems to give
to the indigo bird’s only fresh animation and timbre.

The Belted Kingfisher
(Ceryle alcyon) Kingfisher family

Called also: THE HALCYON

ale Sr to 13 inches. About one-fourth as large again as the

robin.

Male—Upper part grayish blue, with prominent crest on head
reaching to the nape. A white spot in front of the eye. _ Bill
longer than the head, which is large and heavy. Wings and
the short tail minutely speckled and marked with broken
bands of white. Chin, band around throat, and underneath
white. Two bluish bands across the breast and a bluish
wash on sides.

Female—Female and immature specimens have rufous bands
where the adult male’s are blue. Plumage of both birds oily.

ro2

Blue and Bluish

Range—North America, except where the Texan kingfisher
replaces it in a limited area in the Southwest. Common from
Labrador to Florida, east and west. Winters chiefly from
Virginia southward to South America.

Migrations—March. December. Common summer resident.
Usually a winter resident also.

If the kingfisher is not so neighborly as we could wish, or as
he used to be, it is not because he has grown less friendly, but
because the streams near our homes are fished out. Fish he
must and will have, and to get them nowadays it is too often
necessary to follow the stream back through secluded woods to
the quiet waters of its source: a clear, cool pond or lake whose
scaly inmates have not yet learned wisdom at the point of the
sportsman’s fly.

In such quiet haunts the kingfisher is easily the most con-
spicuous object in sight, where he perches on some dead or pro-
jecting branch over the water, intently watching for a dinner that
is all unsuspectingly swimming below. Suddenly the bird drops
—dives ; there is a splash, a struggle, and then the ‘lone fisher-
man ” returns triumphant to his perch, holding a shining fish in his
beak. If the fish is small it is swallowed at once, but if it is large
and bony it must first be killed against the branch. A few sharp
knocks, and the struggles of the fish are over, but the kingfisher’s
have only begun. How he gags and writhes, swallows his
dinner, and then, regretting his haste, brings it up again to try
another wider avenue down his throat! The many abortive
efforts he makes to land his dinner safely below in his stomach,
his grim contortions as the fishbones scratch his throat-lining on
their way down and up again, force a smile in spite of the bird’s
evident distress. It is small wonder he supplements his fish diet
with various kinds of the larger insects, shrimps, and fresh-water
mollusks.

Flying well over the tree-tops or along the waterways, the
kingfisher makes the woodland echo with his noisy rattle, that
breaks the stillness Jike a watchman’s at midnight. It is, per-
haps, the most familiar sound heard along the banks of the inland
rivers. No love or cradle song does he know. Instead of soften-
ing and growing sweet, as the voices of most birds do in the
nesting season, the endearments uttered by a pair of mated king-
fishers are the most strident, rattly shrieks ever heard by lovers

103

Blue and Bluish

It sounds as if they were perpetually quarrelling, and yet they are
really particularly devoted.

The nest of these birds, like the bank swallow’s, is excavated
in the face of a high bank, preferably one that rises from a stream;
and at about six feet from the entrance of the tunnel six or eight
clear, shining white eggs are placed on acurious nest. All the fish-
bones and scales that, being indigestible, are disgorged in pellets
by the parents, are carefully carried to the end of the tunnel to form
a prickly cradle for the unhappy fledglings. Very rarely a nest is
made in the hollow trunk of a tree; but wherever the home is,
the kingfishers become strongly attached to it, returning again
and again to the spot that has cost them so much labor to exca-
vate. Some observers have accused them of appropriating the
holes of the water-rats.

In ancient times of myths and fables, kingfishers or halcyons
were said to build a floating nest on the sea, and to possess some
mysterious power that calmed the troubled waves while the eggs
were hatching and the young birds were being reared, hence the
term ‘‘halcyon days,” meaning days of fair weather.

Blue Jay
(Cyanocitia cristata) Crow and Jay family

Length—11 to 12 inches. A little larger than the robin.

Male and Female—Blue above. Black band around the neck, join-
ing some black feathers on the back. Under parts dusky
white. Wing coverts and tail bright blue, striped trans-
versely with black. Tail much rounded. Many feathers
edged and tipped with white. Head finely crested ; bill,
tongue, and legs black.

Range—Eastern coast of North America to the plains, and from
northern Canada to Florida and eastern Texas.

Migrations—Permanent resident. Although seen in flocks mov-
ing southward or northward, they are merely seeking hap-
pier hunting grounds, not migrating.

No bird of finer color or presence sojourns with us the year
round than the blue jay. In a peculiar sense his is a case of
“‘beauty covering a multitude of sins.” Among close students
of bird traits, we find none so poor as to do him reverence. Dis-
honest, cruel, inquisitive, murderous, voracious, villainous, are

704

Blue and Bluish

some of the epithets applied to this bird of exquisite plumage.
Emerson, however, has said in his defence he does ‘‘more good
than harm,” alluding, no doubt, to his habit of burying nuts and
hard seeds in the ground, so that many a waste place is clothed
with trees and shrubs, thanks to his propensity and industry.

He is mischievous as a small boy, destructive as a monkey,
deft at hiding as a squirrel. He is unsociable and unamiable,
disliking the society of other birds. His harsh screams, shrieks,
and most aggressive and unmusical calls seem often intended
maliciously to drown the songs of the sweet-voiced singers.

From April to September, the breeding and moulting season,
the blue jays are almost silent, only sallying forth from the woods
to pillage and devour the young and eggs of their more peaceful
neighbors. Ina bulky nest, usually placed in a tree-crotch high
above our heads, from four to six eggs, olive-gray with brown
spots, are laid and most carefully tended.

Notwithstanding the unlovely characteristics of the blue jay,
we could ill spare the flash of color, like a bit of blue sky dropped
from above, which is so rare a tint even in our land, that we
number not more than three or four true blue birds, and in Eng-
land, it is said, there is none.

Blue Grosbeak
(Guiraca cerulea) Finch family

Zength—7 inches. About an inch larger than the English sparrow.

Male—Deep blue, dark, and almost black on the back; wings and
tail black, slightly edged with blue, and the former marked
with bright chestnut. Cheeks and chin black. Bill heavy
and bluish.

Female—Grayish brown above, sometimes with bluish tinge on
head, lower back, and shoulders. Wings dark olive-brown,
with faint buff markings; tail same shade as wings, but with
bluish-gray markings. Underneath brownish cream-color,
the breast feathers often blue at the base.

Range—United States, from southern New England westward to
the Rocky Mountains and southward into Mexico and be-
yond. Most common in the Southwest. Rare along the
Atlantic seaboard.

Migrations—May. September. Summer resident.

This beautiful but rather shy and solitary bird occasionally
Tos

Blue and Bluish

wanders eastward to rival the bluebird and the indigo bunting
in their rare and lovely coloring, and eclipse them both in song.
Audubon, we remember, found the nest in New Jersey. Penn-
sylvania is still favored with one now and then, but it is in the
Southwest only that the blue grosbeak is as common as the
evening grosbeak is in the Northwest. Since rice is its favorite
food, it naturally abounds where that cereal grows. Seeds and
kernels of the hardest kinds, that its heavy, strong beak is well
adapted to crack, constitute its diet when it strays beyond the
rice-fields.

Possibly the heavy bills of all the grosbeaks make them look
stupid whether they are or not—a characteristic that the blue gros-
beak’s habit of sitting motionless with a vacant stare many min-
utes at a time unfortunately emphasizes.

When seen in the roadside thickets or tall weeds, such as the
field sparrow chooses to frequent, it shows little fear of man un-
less actually approached and threatened, but whether this fearless-
ness comes from actual confidence or stupidity is by no means
certain. Whatever the motive of its inactivity, it accomplishes an
end to be desired by the cleverest bird ; its presence is almost
never suspected by the passer-by, and its grassy nest on a tree-
branch, containing three or four pale bluish-white eggs, is never
betrayed by look or sign to the marauding small boy.

Barn Swallow
(Chelidon erythrogaster) Swallow family

Cength—6.5 to 7 inches. A trifle larger than the English sparrow.
peenty considerably larger, because of its wide wing
spread.

Male—Glistening steel-blue shading to black above. Chin, breast,
and underneath bright chestnut-brown and brilliant buff that
glistens in the sunlight. A partial collar of steel-blue. Tail
very deeply forked and slender.

Female—Smaller and paler, with shorter outer tail feathers, mak-
ing the fork less prominent.

ange—Throughout North America. Winters in tropics of both
Americas.

Migrations—April. September. Summer resident.

Any one who attempts to describe the coloring of a bird’s
plumage knows how inadequate words are to convey a just idea
nb

Blue and Bluish

of the delicacy, richness, and brilliancy of the living tints. But,
happily, the beautiful barn swallow is too familiar to need descrip-
tion. Wheeling about our barns and houses, skimming over the
fields, its bright sides flashing in the sunlight, playing ‘‘cross
tag” with its friends at evening, when the insects, too, are on
the wing, gyrating, darting, and gliding through the air, it is no
more possible to adequately describe the exquisite grace of a
swallow’s flight than the glistening buff of its breast.

This is a typical bird of the air, as an oriole is of the trees
and a sparrow of the ground. Though the swallow may often
be seen perching on a telegraph wire, suddenly it darts off \as if
it had received a shock of electricity, and we see the bird in its
true element.

While this swallow is peculiarly American, it is often con-
founded with its European cousin Hirundo rustica in noted
ornithologies.

Up in the rafters of the barn, or in the arch of an old bridge
that spans a stream, these swallows build their bracket-like nests
of clay or mud pellets intermixed with straw. Here the noisy
little broods pick their way out of the white eggs curiously spotted
with brown and lilac that were all too familiar in the marauding
days of our childhood.

Cliff Swallow
(Petrochelidon lunifrons) Swallow family

Called also: EAVE SWALLOW; CRESCENT SWALLOW;
ROCKY MOUNTAIN SWALLOW

Lengih—6 inches. A trifle smaller than the English sparrow.
Apparently considerably larger because of its wide wing-
spread.

Male and Female—Steel-blue above, shading to blue-black on crown
of head and on wings and tail. A brownish-gray ring
around the neck. Beneath dusty white, with rufous tint.
Crescent-like frontlet. Chin, throat, sides of head, and tail
coverts rufous.

Range—North and South America. Winters in the tropics.

Migrations—Early April. Late September. Summer resident.

Not quite so brilliantly colored as the barn swallow, nor
with tail so deeply forked, and consequently without so much
107

Blue and Bluish

grace in flying, and with a squeak rather than the really must
cal twitter of the gayer bird, the cliff swallow may be posi-
tively identified by the rufous feathers of its tail coverts, but more
definitely by its crescent-shaped frontlet shining like a new moon;
hence its specific Latin name from /una=moon, and frons=front.

Such great numbers of these swallows have been seen in the
far West that the name of Rocky Mountain swallows is some-
times given to them; though however rare they may have been
in 1824, when DeWitt Clinton thought he ‘‘ discovered” them
near Lake Champlain, they are now common enough in all parts
of the United States.

In the West this swallow is wholly a cliff-dweller, but it has
learned to modify its home in different localities. As usually
seen, it is gourd-shaped, opened at the top, built entirely of mud
pellets (‘‘ bricks without straw”’), softly lined with feathers and
wisps of grass, and attached by the larger part to a projecting
cliff or eave.

Like all the swallows, this bird lives in colonies, and the clay-
colored nests beneath the eaves of barns are often so close tox
gether that a group of them resembles nothing so much as a
gigantic wasp’s nest. It is said that when swallows pair they
are mated for life; but, then, more is said about swallows than
the most tireless bird-lover could substantiate. The tradition
that swallows fly low when it is going to rain may be easily
credited, because the air before a storm is usually too heavy with
moisture for the winged insects, upon which the swallows feed,
to fly high.

Mourning Dove
(Zenaidura macroura) Pigeon family

Called also: CAROLINA DOVE; TURTLE DOVE

ak ery to 13 inches. About one-half as large again as the
robin.

Male—Grayish brown or fawn-color above, varying to bluish
gray. Crown and upper part of head greenish blue, with
green and golden metallic reflections on sides of neck. A
black spot under each ear. Forehead and breast reddish
buff; lighter underneath. (General impression of color, bluish
fawn.) Bill black, with tumid, fleshy covering; feet red;
two middle tail feathers longest; all others banded with black

108

Biue and Biuisk

and Upped with ashy white. Wing coverts sparsely spotted
with black. Flanks and underneath the wings bluish.

female—Duller and without iridescent reflections on neck.

Range—North America, from Quebec to Panama, and westward
to Arizona. Most common in temperate climate, east of
Rocky Mountains.

Migrations—March. November. Common summer resident ;
not migratory south of Virginia.

The beautiful, soft-colored plumage of this incessant and
rather melancholy love-maker is not on public exhibition. To see
it we must trace the a-coo-0, co0-0, coo-00, coo-o to its source in
the thick foliage in some tree in an out-of-the-way corner of the
farm, or to an evergreen near the edge of the woods. The slow,
plaintive notes, more like a dirge than a love-song, penetrate to
a surprising distance. They may not always be the same lovers
we hear from April to the end of summer, but surely the sound
seems to indicate that they are. The dove is a shy bird, attached
to its gentle and refined mate with a devotion that has passed
into a proverb, but caring little or nothing for the society of other
feathered friends, and very little fo: its own kind, unless after the
nesting season has passed. In this respect it differs widely from
its cousins, the wild pigeons, flocks of which, numbering many
millions, are recorded by Wilson and other early writers before
the days when netting these birds became so fatally profitable.

What the dove finds to adore so ardently in the ‘‘shiftless
housewife,” as Mrs. Wright calls his lady-love, must pass the
comprehension of the phoebe, that constructs such an exquisite
home, or of a bustling, energetic Jenny wren, that ‘‘looketh well
to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idle-
hess.” She is a flabby, spineless bundle of flesh and pretty
feathers, gentle and refined in manners, but slack and incompe-
tent in all she does. Her nest consists of a few loose sticks,
without rim or lining; and when her two babies emerge from
the white eggs, that somehow do not fall through or roll out of
the rickety lattice, their tender little naked bodies must suffer
from many bruises. We are almost inclined to blame the incon-
siderate mother for allowing her offspring to enter the world
unclothed—obviously not her fault, though she is capable of just
such negligence. Fortunate are the baby doves when their lazy
mother scatters her makeshift nest on top of one that a robin has

tog

Blue and Bluish

deserted, as she frequently does. Jf is almost excusable to take
her young birds and rear them in captivity, where they invariably
thrive, mate, and live happily, unless death comes to one, when
the other often refuses food and grieves its life away.

In the wild state, when the nesting season approaches, both
dirds make curious acrobatic flights above the tree-tops; then,
after a short sail in midair, they return to their perch. This
appears to be their only giddiness and frivolity, unless a dust-
bath in the country road might be considered a dissipation.

In the autumn a few pairs of doves show slight gregarious
tendencies, feeding amiably together in the grain fields and retir-
ing to the same roost at sundown.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
(Polioptila cerulea) Gnatcatcher family

Called also» SYLVAN FLYCATCHER

Length—4.5 inches. About two inches smaller than the English
sparrow.

Malke—Grayish blue above, dull grayish white below. Grayish
tips on wings. Tail with white outer quills changing gradu-
ally through black and white to all black on centre quills.
Narrow black band over the forehead and eyes. Resembles
in manner and form a miniature catbird.

oat grayish and less blue, and without the black on
ea

Range—United States to Canadian border on the north, the Rockies
on the west, and the Atlantic States, from Maine to Florida ;
most common in the Middle States. A rare bird north of
New Jersey. Winters in Mexico and beyond.

Migrations—May. September. Summer resident.

In thick woodlands, where a stream that lazily creeps through
the mossy, oozy ground attracts myriads of insects to its humid
neighborhood, this tiny hunter loves to hide in the denser foliage
of the upper branches. He has the habit of nervously flitting
about from twig to twig of his relatives, the kinglets, but unhap-
pily he lacks their social, friendly instincts, and therefore is rarely
seen. Formerly classed among the warblers, then among the fly-
catchers, while still as much a lover of flies, gnats, and mosquitoes
as ever, his vocal powers have now won for him recognition.

1K:

Blue and Biuish

among the singing birds. Some one has likened his voice to the
squeak of a mouse, and Nuttall says it is ‘‘scarcely louder,” which
is all too true, for at a little distance it is quite inaudible. But in
addition to the mouse-like call-note, the tiny bird has a rathet
feeble but exquisitely finished song, so faint it seems almost as if
the bird were singing in its sleep.

If by accident you enter the neighborhood of its nest, you
soon find out that this timid, soft-voiced little creature can be
roused to rashness and make its presence disagreeable to ears and
eyes alike as it angrily darts about your unoffending head, peck-
ing at your face and uttering its shrill squeak close to vour very
ear-drums. All this excitement is in defence of a dainvy, lichen-
covered nest, whose presence you may not have even suspected
before, and of four or five bluish-white, speckled eggs well be-
yond reach in the tree-tops.

During the migrations the bird seems not unwilling to show
its delicate, trim little body, that has often been likened to a di-
minutive mocking-bird’s, very near the homes of men. Its grace-
ful postures, its song and constant motion, are sure to attract
attention. In Central Park, New York City, the bird is nat
unknown.

BROWN, OLIVE OR GRAYISH BROWN, ANP
BROWN AND GRAY SPARROWY BIRDS

House Wren

Carolina Wren

Winter Wren

Long-billed Marsh Wren

Short-billed Marsh Wren

Brown Thrasher

Wilson’s Thrush or Veery

Wood Thrush

Hermit Thrush

Alice’s Thrush

Olive-backed Thrush

Louisiana Water Thrush

Northern Water Thrush

Flicker

Meadowlark and Western
Meadowlark

Horned Lark and Prairie
Horned Lark

Pipit or Titlark

Whippoorwill

Nighthawk

Black-billed Cuckoo

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

Bank Swallow and Rough.
winged Swallow

Cedar Bird

Brown Creeper

Pine Siskin

Smith’s Painted Longspur

Lapland Longspur

Chipping Sparrow

English Sparrow

Field Sparrow

Fox Sparrow

Grasshopper Sparrow

Savanna Sparrow

Seaside Sparrow

Sharp-tailed Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Swamp Song Sparrow

Tree Sparrow

Vesper Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

White-throated Sparrow

See also winter plumage of the Bobolink, Goldfinch, and Myrtle Warbler. See
females of Red-winged Blackbird, Rusty Blackbird, the Grackles, Bobolink, Cow~
pird, the Redpolls, Purple Finch, Chewink, Bluebird, Indigo Bunting, Baltimore
Oriole, Cardinal, and of the Evening, the Blue, and the Rose-breasted Grosbeaks,
See also Purple Finch, the Redpolls, Mourning Dove, Mocking-bird, Robin.

%

BROWN, OLIVE OR GRAYISH BROWN, AND
BROWN AND GRAY SPARROWY BIRDS

House Wren
(Troglodytes aédon) Wren family

Length—4.5 to 5 inches. Actually about one-fourth smaller thar
the English sparrow; apparently only half as large because
of its erect tail.

Male and Female—Upper parts cinnamon-brown. Deepest shade
on head and neck; lightest above tail, which is more rufous.
Back has obscure, dusky bars; wings end tail are finely
barred. Underneath whitish, with grayis!i-brown wash and
faint bands most prominent on sides.

ange—North America, from Manitoba to the Gulf. Most com-~
mon in the United States, from the Mississippi eastward.
Winters south of the Carolinas.

Migrations—April. October. Common summer resident.

Early some morning in April there will go off under your
window that most delightful of all alarm-clocks—the tiny, friendly
house wren, just returned from a long visit south. Like some
little mountain spring that, having been imprisoned by winter
ice, now bubbles up in the spring sunshine, and goes rippling
along over the pebbles, tumbling over itself in merry cascades,
so this little wren’s song bubbles, ripples, cascades in a minia-
ture torrent of ecstasy.

Year after year these birds return to the same nesting places:
a box set up against the house, a crevice in the barn, a niche
under the eaves; but once home, always home to them. The
nest is kept scrupulously clean ; the house-cleaning, like the
house-building and renovating, being accompanied by the cheer-
iest of songs, that makes the bird fairly tremble by its intensity.
But however angelic the voice of the house wren, its temper can
put to flight even the English sparrow. Need description go
further ?

ALG

4
Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

Six to eight minutely speckled, flesh-colored eggs suffice ta
keep the nervous, irritable parents in a state bordering on frenzy
whenever another bird comes near their habitation. With tail
erect and head alert, the father mounts on guard, singing a per-
fect ecstasy of love to his silent little mate, that sits upon the nest
if no danger threatens; but both rush with passionate malice
upon the first intruder, for it must be admitted that Jenny wren
is a sad shrew.

While the little family is being reared, or, indeed, at any
time, no one is wise enough to estimate the millions of tiny in-
sects from the garden that find their way into the tireless bills of
these wrens.

It is often said that the house wren remains at the north all
the year, which, though not a fact, is easily accounted for by the
coming of the winter wrens just as tie others migrate in the
autumn, and by their return to Canada when Jenny wren makes
up her feather-bed under the eaves in the sp. ing.

Carolina Wren
(Thryothorus ludovicianus) Wren family

Called also: MOCKING WREN

Lengib—6 inches. Just a trifle smaller than the English sparrow

Male and Female—Chestnut-brown above. A whitish streak, be-
ginning at base of bill, passes through the eye to the nape of
the neck. Throat whitish. Under parts light buff-brown.
Wings and tail finely barred with dark.

Range—United States, from Gulf to northern Illinois and southern
New England.

Migrations—A common resident except at northern boundary of
range, where it is a summer visitor.

This largest of the wrens appears to be the embodiment of
the entire family characteristics: it is exceedingly active, nervous,
and easily excited, quick-tempered, full of curiosity, peeping into
every hole and corner it passes, short of flight as it is of wing.
inseparable from its mate till parted by death, and a gushing
lyrical songster that only death itself can silence. It also has the
wren-like preference for a nest that is roofed over, but not toa
near the homes of men.

416

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

Undergrowths near water, brush heaps, rocky bits of wood-
land, are favorite resorts. The Carolina wren decidedly objects
to being stared at, and likes to dart out of sight in the midst of
the underbrush in a twinkling while the opera-glasses are being
focussed.

To let off some of his superfluous vivacity, Nature has pro-
vided him with two safety-valves: one is his voice, another is
his tail, With the latter he gesticulates in a manner so expres-
sive that it seems to be a certain index to what is passing in his
busy little brain—drooping it, after the habit of the catbird, when
he becomes limp with the emotion of his love-song, or holding
it erect as, alert and inquisitive, he peers at the impudent intruder
in the thicket below his perch.

But it is his joyous, melodious, bubbling song that is his
chief fascination. He has so great a variety of strains that many
people have thought that he learned them from other birds, and
so have called him what many ornithologists declare that he is
got—a mocking wren. And he is one of the few birds that sing
at night—not in his sleep ot only by moonlight, but even in the
total darkness, just before dawn, he gives us the same wide
awake song that entrances us by day.

Winter Wren
(Troglodytes hiemalis) Wren family

Length—4 to 4.5 inches. About one-third smaller than the Eng-
lish sparrow. Apparently only half the size.

Male and Female—Cinnamon-brown above, with numerous short,
dusky bars. Head and neck without markings. Under-
neath rusty, dimly and finely barred with dark brown. Tail
short.

Range—United States, east and west, and from North Carolina to
the Fur Countries.

Migrations—October, April. Summer resident. Commonly a
winter resident in the South and Middle States only.

It all too rarely happens that we see this tiny mouse-like
wren in summer, unless we come upon him suddenly and over-

take him unawares as he creeps shyly over the mossy logs or
runs literally “like a flash” under the fern and through the tan-

12

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

gled underbrush of the deep, cool woods. His presence there is
far more likely to be detected by the ear than the eye.

Throughout the nesting season music fairly pours from his
tiny throat; it bubbles up like champagne; it gushes forth in a
lyrical torrent and overflows into every nook of the forest, that
seems entirely pervaded by his song. While music is every-
where, it apparently comes from no particular point, and, search
as you may, the tiny singer still eludes, exasperates, and yet
entrances.

If by accident you discover him balancing on a swaying
twig, never far from the ground, with his comical little tail erect,
or more likely pointing towards his head, what a pert, saucy
minstrel he is! You are lost in amazement that so much music
could come from a throat so tiny.

Comparatively few of his admirers, however, hear the exqui-
site notes of this little brown wood-sprite, for after the nest-
ing season is over he finds little to call them forth during the
bleak, snowy winter months, when in the Middle and Southerr
States he may properly be called a neighbor. Sharp hunger,
rather than natural boldness, drives him near the homes of men.
where he appears just as the house wren departs for the South.
With a forced confidence in man that is almost pathetic in a bird
that loves the forest as he does, he picks up whatever lies about
the house or barn in the shape of food—crumbs from the kitchen
door, a morsel from the dog’s plate, a little seed in the barn-yard,
happily rewarded if he can find a spider lurking in some sheltered
place to give a flavor to the unrelished grain. Now he becomes
almost tame, but we feel it is only because he must be.

The spot that decided preference leads him to, either win-
ter or summer, is beside a bubbling spring. In the moss
that grows near it the nest is placed in early summer, nearly
always roofed over and entered from the side, in true wren-fash-
ion; and as the young fledglings emerge from the creamy-white
eggs, almost the first lesson they receive from their devoted little
parents is in the fine art of bathing. Even in winter weather,
when the wren has to stand on a rim of ice, he will duck and
splash his diminutive body. It is recorded of a certain little
individual that he was wont to dive through the icy water on a
December day. Evidently the wrens, as a family, are not far
removed in the evolutionary scale from true water-birds.

118

‘Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

Long-billed Marsh Wren
(Cistothorus palustris) Wren family

Length—4.5 to 5.2 inches. Actually a little smaller than the Eng-
lish sparrow. Apparently half the size.

Male and Female—Brown above, with white line over the eye,
and the back irregularly and faintly streaked with white.
Wings and tail barred with darker cinnamon-brown. Un-
derneath white. Sides dusky. Tail long and often carried
erect. Bill extra long and slender.

Range—United States and southern British America.
Migrations—May. September. Summer resident.

Sometimes when you are gathering cat-tails in the river
marshes an alert, nervous little brown bird rises startled from the
rushes and tries to elude you as with short, jerky flight it goes
deeper and deeper into the marsh, where even the rubber boot
may not follow. It closely resembles two other birds found in
such a place, the swamp sparrow and the short-billed marsh
wren; but you may know by its long, slender bill that it is not
the latter, and by the absence of a bright bay crown that it is
not the shyest of the sparrows.

These marsh wrens appear to be especially partial to running
water; their homes are not very far from brooks and rivers,
preferably those that are affected in their rise and flow by the
tides. They build in colonies, and might be called inveterate
singers, for no single bird is often permitted to finish his bubbling
song without half the colony joining in a chorus.

Still another characteristic of this particularly interesting bird
1s its unique architectural effects produced with coarse grasses
woven into globular form and suspended in the reeds. Some-
times adapting its nest to the building material at hand, it weaves
it of grasses and twigs, and suspends it from the limb of a bush
or tree overhanging the water, where it swings like an oriole’s.
The entrance to the nest is invariably on the side.

More devoted homebodies than these little wrens are not
among the feathered tribe. Once let the hand of man desecrate
their nest, even before the tiny speckled eggs are deposited in it,
and off go the birds to a more inaccessible place, where they can
enjoy their home unmolested. Thus three or four nests may be
made in a summer.

11g

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

Short-billed Marsh Wren
(Cistothorus stellaris) Wren family

Length—4 to 5 inches. Actually about one-third smaller than the
English sparrow, but apparently only half its size.

Male and Female—Brown above, faintly streaked with white,
black, and buff. Wings and tail barred with same. Under-
neath white, with buff and rusty tinges on throat and breast.
Short bill.

Range—North America, from Manitoba southward in winter to
Gulf of Mexico. Most common in north temperate latitudes.

Migrations—Early May. Late September.

Where red-winged blackbirds like to congregate in oozy
pastures or near boggy woods, the little short-billed wren may
more often be heard than seen, for he is more shy, if possible,
than his long-billed cousin, and will dive down into the sedges
at your approach, very much as a duck disappears under water.
But if you see him at all, it is usually while swaying to and fro as
he clings to some tall stalk of grass, keeping his balance by the
nervous, jerky tail motions characteristic of all the wrens, and
singing with all his might. Oftentimes his tail reaches backward
aimost to his head in a most exaggerated wren-fashion.

Samuels explains the peculiar habit both the long-billed and
the short-billed marsh wrens have of building several nests in
one season, by the theory that they are made to protect the sit-
ting female, for it is noticed that the male bird always lures a
visitor to an empty nest, and if this does not satisfy his curiosity,
to another one, to prove conclusively that he has no family in
prospect.

Wild rice is an ideal nesting place for a colony of these little
marsh wrens. The home is made of sedge grasses, softly lined
with the softer meadow grass or plant-down, and placed in a
tussock of tall grass, or even upon the ground. The entrance is
on the side. But while fond of moist places, both for a home
and feeding ground, it will be noticed that these wrens have no
special fondness for running water, so dear to their long-billed
relatives. Another distinction is that the eggs of this species,
instead of being so densely speckled as to look brown, are pure
white.

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Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown; and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

Brown Thrasher
(Harporbynchus rufus) Thrasher and Mocking-bird family

Called also: BROWN THRUSH; GROUND THRUSH; RED
THRUSH; BROWN MOCKING-BIRD; FRENCH MOCK-
ING-BIRD; MAVIS

Length—11 to 11.5 inches. Fully an inch longer than the robin.

Male—Rusty red-brown or rufous above; darkest on wings, which
have two short whitish bands. Underneath white, heavily
streaked (except on throat) with dark-brown, arrow-shaped
spots. Tail very iong. Yellow eyes. Bill long and curved
at tip.

Female—Paler than male.

Range—United States to Rockies. Nests from Gulf States to
Manitoba and Montreal. Winters south of Virginia.

Migrations—Late April. October. Common summer resident.

© There’s a merry brown thrush sitting up in a tree;
He is singing to me! He is singing to me!
And what does he say, little girl, little boy ?
‘Oh, the world’s running over with joy !’”

The hackneyed poem beginning with this stanza that de~
lighted our nursery days, has left in our minds a fairly correct
impression of the bird. He still proves to be one of the peren-
nially joyous singers, like a true cousin of the wrens, and when
we Study him afield, he appears to give his whole attention to
his song with a self-consciousness that is rather amusing than
the reverse. ‘‘What musician wouldn’t be conscious of his own
powers,” he seems to challenge us, ‘‘if he possessed such a gift ?”
Seated on a conspicuous perch, as if inviting attention to his per-
formance, with uplifted head and drooping tail he repeats the
one exultant, dashing air to which his repertoire is limited, with-
out waiting for an encore. Much practice has given the notes a
brilliancy of execution to be compared only with the mocking-
bird's; but in spite of the name ‘‘ferruginous mocking-bird ”
that Audubon gave him, he does not seem to have the faculty of
imitating other birds’ songs. Thoreau says the Massachusetts
farmers, when planting their seed, always think they hear the
thrasher say, ‘‘ Drop it, drop it—cover it up, cover it up—pull it
up, pull it up, pull it up.”

21

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

One of the shatterings of childish impressions that age tor
often brings is when we learn by the books that our ‘‘ merry
brown thrush” is no thrush at all, but a thrasher—first cousin to
the wrens, in spite of his speckled breast, large size, and certain
thrush-like instincts, such as never singing near the nest and
shunning meznkind in the nesting season, to mention only two.
Certainly his bold, swinging flight and habit of hopping and run-
ning over the ground would seem to indicate that he is not very
far removed from the true thrushes. But he has one undeniable
wren-like trait, that of twitching, wagging, and thrashing his
long tail about to help express his emotions. It swings like a
penduium as he rests on a branch, and thrashes about in a most
ludicrous way as he is feeding on the ground upon the worms,
insects, and fruit that constitute his diet.

Before the fatal multiplication of cats, and in unfrequented,
sandy locations still, the thrasher builds her nest upon the ground,
thus earning the name ‘‘ ground thrush” that is often given her;
but with dearly paid-for wisdom she now most frequently selects
a low shrub or tree to cradle the two broods that all too early
in the summer effectually silence the father’s delightful song.

Wilson’s Thrush
(Turdus fuscescens) Thrush family

Called also: VEERY; TAWNY THRUSH

sane to 7.5 inches. About one-fourth smaller than the
robin.

Male and Female—Uniform olive-brown, with a tawny cast above.
Centre of the throat white, with cream-buff on sides ot
throat and upper part of breast, which is lightly spotted with
wedge-shaped, brown points. Underneath white, or with
a faint grayish tinge.

Range—United States, westward to plains.

Migrations—May. October. Summer resident.

To many of us the veery, as they call the Wilson’s thrush in
New England, is merely a voice, a sylvan mystery, reflecting the
sweetness and wildness of the forest, a vocal ‘‘ will-o’-the-wisp ”
that, after enticing us deeper and deeper into the woods, where
we sink ipto the spongy moss of its damp retreats and become

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Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

entangled in the wild grape-vines twined about the saplings
and underbrush, still sings to us from unapproachable tangles.
Plainly, if we want to see the bird, we must let it seek us out on
the fallen log where we have sunk exhausted in the chase.

Presently a brown bird scuds through the fern. It is a
thrush, you guess in a minute, from its slender, graceful body.
At first you notice no speckles on its breast, but as it comes
nearer, obscure arrow-heads are visible—not heavy, heart-shaped
spots such as plentifully speckle the larger wood thrush or the
smaller hermit. It is the smallest of the three commoner thrushes,
and it lacks the ring about the eye that both the others have.
Shy and elusive, it slips away again in a most unfriendly fashion,
and is lost in the wet tangle before you have become acquainted.
You determine, however, before you leave the log, to cultivate
the acquaintance of this bird the next spring, when, before it
mates and retreats to the forest, it comes boldly into the gardens
and scratches about in the dry leaves on the ground for the lurk-
ing insects beneath. Miss Florence Merriam tells of having drawn
a number of veeries about her by imitating their call-note, which
is a whistled wheew, whoit, very easy to counterfeit when once
heard. ‘* Taweel-ab, taweel-ab, twil-ab, twil-ab!” Professor
Ridgeway interprets their song, that descends in a succession of
trills without break or pause ; but no words can possibly con-
vey an idea of the quality of the music. The veery, that never
claims an audience, sings at night also, and its weird, sweet
strains floating through the woods at dusk, thrill one like the
mysterious voice of a disembodied spirit.

Whittier mentions the veery in “The Playmate”:

“And here in spring the veeries sing
The song of long ago.”

Wood Thrush

(Turdus mustelinus) Thrush family
Called also) SONG THRUSH; WOOD ROBIN; BELLBIRD

bats to 8.3 inches. About two inches shorter than the
robin.

Male and Female—Brown above, reddish on head and shoulders,
and shading into olive-brown on tail. Throat, breast, and
underneath white, plain in the middle, but heavily marked

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Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

on sides and breast with heart-shaped spots of very dark
brown. Whitish eye-ring.
Migrations—Late April or early May. October. Summer resident

When Nuttall wrote of ‘‘this solitary and retiring songster,’
hefore the country was as thickly settled as it is to-day, it possi-
bly had not developed the confidence in men that now distin-
guishes the wood thrush from its shy congeners that are distinctly
wood birds, which it can no longer strictly be said tobe. In city
parks and country places, where plenty of trees shade the village
streets and lawns, it comes near you, half hopping, half running,
with dignified unconsciousness and even familiarity, all the more
delightful in a bird whose family instincts should take it into
secluded woodlands with their shady dells. Perhaps, in its heart
of hearts, it still prefers ‘such retreats. Many conservative wood
thrushes keep to their wild haunts, and it must be owned not a
few liberals, that discard family traditions at other times, seek the
forest at nesting time. But social as the wood thrush is and
abundant, too, it is also eminently high-bred; and when contrasted
with its tawny cousin, the veery, that skulks away to hide in the
nearest bushes as you approach, or with the hermit thrush, that
pours out its heavenly song in the solitude of the forest, how
gracious and full of gentle confidence it seems! Every gesture is
graceful and elegant; even a wriggling beetle is eaten as daintily
as caviare at the king’s table. It is only when its confidence in
you is abused, and you pass too near the nest, that might easily
be mistaken for a robin’s, just above your head in a sapling, that
the wood thrush so far forgets itself as to become excited. Pit,
pit, pit, sharply reiterated, is called out at you with a strident
quality in the tone that is painful evidence of the fearful anxiety
your presence gives this gentle bird.

Too many guardians of nests, whether out of excessive hap-
piness or excessive stupidity, have a dangerous habit of singing
very near them. Not so the wood thrush. ‘‘Come to me,” as
the opening notes of its flute-like song have been freely trans-
lated, invites the intruder far away from where the blue eggs lie
cradled in ambush. ‘‘ Uoli-a-e-o-li-noli-nol-aeolee-lee!” is as
good a rendering into syllables of the luscious song as could very
well be made. Pure, liquid, rich, and luscious, it rings out from
the trees on the summer air and penetrates our home like a strain
of music from a stringed quartette.

124

RED-HEADED WOODPECKER

FLICKER

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

Hermit Thrush
(Turdus aonalaschke pallasii) Thrush family

Called also: SWAMP ANGEL; LITTLE THRUSH

Ce 1 to 7.5 inches. About one-fourth smaller than the
robin. : ,

Male and Female—Upper parts olive-brown, reddening near the
‘tail, which is pale rufous, quite distinct from the color of the
back. Throat, sides of neck, and breast pale buff. Feathers
of throat and neck finished with dark arrow-points at tip;
feathers of the breast have larger rounded spots. Sides
brownish gray. Underneath white. A yellow ring around
the eye. Smallest of the thrushes.

Range—Eastern parts of North America. Most common in the
United States to the plains. Winters from southern Illinois
and New Jersey to Gulf.

Migrations—April. November. Summer resident.

The first thrush to come and the last to go, nevertheless the
hermit is little seen throughout its long visit north. It may
loiter awhile in the shrubby roadsides, in the garden or the parks
in the spring before it begins the serious business of life in
a nest of moss, coarse grass, and pine-needles placed on the
ground in the depths of the forest, but by the middle of May its
presence in the neighborhood of our homes becomes only a mem-
ory. Although one never hears it at its best during the migra
tions, how one loves to recall the serene, ethereal evening hymn!
‘The finest sound in Nature,” John Burroughs calls it. ‘‘It is
not a proud, gorgeous strain like the tanager’s or the grosbeak’s,”
he says; ‘‘it suggests no passion or emotion—nothing personal,
but seems to be the voice of that calm, sweet solemnity one
attains to in his best moments. It realizes a peace and a deep,
solemn joy that only the finest souls may know.”

Beyond the question of even the hypercritical, the hermit
thrush has a more exquisitely beautiful voice than any other
American bird, and only the nightingale’s of Europe can be com-
pared with it. It is the one theme that exhausts all the ornithol-
ogists’ musical adjectives in a vain attempt to convey in words
any idea of it to one who has never heard it, for the quality of
the song is as elusive as the bird itself. But why should the
poets be so silent? Why has it not called forth such verse as the

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Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

English poets have lavished upon the nightingale? Undoubtedly
because it lifts up its heavenly voice in the solitude of the forest,
whereas the nightingales, singing in loud choruses in the moons
light under the poet’s very window, cannot but impress his
waking thoughts and even his dreams with their melody.

Since the severe storm and cold in the Gulf States a few win-
ters ago, where vast numbers of hermit thrushes died from cold
and starvation, this bird has been very rare in haunts where it
used to be abundant. The other thrushes escaped because they
spend the winter farther south.

Alice’s Thrush
(Turdus alicie) Thrush family

Called also: GRAY-CHEEKED THRUSH

Length—7.5 to 8 inches. About the size of the bluebird.

Male and Female—Upper parts uniform olive-brown. Eye-ring
whitish. Cheeks gray; sides dull grayish white. Sides of
the throat and breast pale cream-buff, speckled with arrow-
shaped points on throat and with half-round dark-brown
marks below.

Range—North America, from Labrador and Alaska to Central
America.

Migrations—Late Aprilor May. October. Chiefly seen in migra-
tions, except at northern parts of its range.

One looks for a prettier bird than this least attractive of all
the thrushes in one that bears such a suggestive name. Like the
olive-backed thrush, from which it is almost impossible to tell it
when both are alive and hopping about the shrubbery, its plu-
mage above is a dull olive-brown that is more protective than
pleasing.

Just as Wilson hopelessly confused the olive-backed thrush
with the hermit, so has Alice’s thrush been confounded by later
writers with the olive-backed, from which it differs chiefly in
being a trifle larger, in having gray cheeks instead of buff, and in
possessing a few faint streaks on the throat. Where it goes to
make a home for its greenish-blue speckled eggs in some low
bush at the northern end of its range, it bursts into song, but
except in the nesting grounds its voice is never heard. Mr.

rah

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

Bradford Torrey, who heard it singing in the White Mountains,
describes the song as like the thrush’s in quality, but differently
accented: ‘* Wee-o-wee-o-tit-ti-wee-o !”

In New England and New York this thrush is most often
seen during its autumn migrations. As it starts up and perches
upon a low branch before you, it appears to have longer legs and
a broader, squarer tail than its congeners.

Olive-backed Thrush
(Turdus ustulatus swainsonii) Thrush family

Called also: SWAINSON’S THRUSH

Length) to 7.50 inches. About one-fourth smaller than the
robin.

Male and Female—Upper parts olive-brown. Whole throat and
breast yellow-buff, shading to ashy on sides and to white
underneath. Buffring around eye. Dark streaks on sides
of a (none on centre), and larger, more spot-like marks
on breast.

Range—North America to Rockies ; a few stragglers on Pacific
slope. Northward to arctic countries.

Migrations—April. October. Summer resident in Canada.
Chiefly a migrant in United States.

Mr. Parkhurst tells of finding this ‘‘the commonest bird in
the Park (Central Park, New York), not even excepting the robin,”
during the last week of May on a certain year; but usually, it
must be owned, we have to be on the lookout to find it, or it
will pass unnoticed in the great companies of more conspicuous
birds travelling at the same time. White-throated sparrows
often keep it company on the long journeys northward, and they
may frequently be seen together, hopping sociably about the
garden, the thrush calling out a rather harsh note—puk / puk #—
quite different from the liquid, mellow calls of the other thrushes,
to resent either the sparrows’ bad manners or the inquisitiveness
of a human disturber of its peace. But this gregarious habit and
neighborly visit end even before acquaintance fairly begins, and
the thrushes are off for their nesting grounds in the pine woods
of New England or Labrador if they are travelling up the east
coast, or to Alaska, British Columbia, or Manitoba if west of the

"OF

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

Mississippi. There they stay all summer, often travelling south-
ward with the sparrows in the autumn, as in the spring,

Why they should prefer coniferous trees, unless to utilize the
needles for a nest, is not understood. Low trees and bushes are
favorite building sites with them as with others of the family,
though these thrushes disdain a mud lining to their nests. Those
who have heard the olive-backed thrush singing an even-song
to its brooding mate compare it with the veery’s, but it has a
break in it and is less simple and pleasing than the latter’s.

Louisiana Water Thrush
(Seiurus motacilla) Wood Warbler family

Length—6 to 6.28 inches. Just a trifle smaller than the English
sparrow.

Male and Female—Grayish olive-brown upper parts, with con-
spicuous white line over the eye and reaching almost to the
nape. Underneath white, tinged with pale buff. Throat
and line through the middle, plain. Other parts streaked
with very dark brown, rather faintly on the breast, giving
them the speckled breast of the thrushes. Heavy, dark bill.

Range—United States, westward to the plains; northward to
southern New England. Winters in the tropics.

Migrations—Late April. October. Summer resident.

This bird, that so delighted Audubon with its high-trilled
song as he tramped with indefatigable zeal through the hammocks
of the Gulf States, seems to be almost the counterpart of the
Northern water thrush, just as the loggerhead is the Southern
counterpart of the Northern shrike. Very many Eastern birds
have their duplicates in Western species, as we all know, and it is
most interesting to trace the slight external variations that differ-
ent climates and diet have produced on the same bird, and thus
differentiated the species. In winter the Northern water thrush
visits the cradle of its kind, the swamps of Louisiana and Florida,
and, no doubt, by daily contact with its congeners there, keeps
close to their cherished traditions, from which it never deviates

. farther than Nature compels, though it penetrate to the arctic
regions during its summer journeys.

With a more southerly range, the Louisiana water thrush
does not venture beyond the White Mountains and to the shores
of the Great Lakes in summer, but even at the North the same

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Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

woods often contain both birds, and there is opportunity to note
just how much they differ. The Southern bird is slightly the
larger, possibly an inch; it is more gray, and it lacks a few of the
streaks, notably on the throat, that plentifully speckle its Northern
counterpart; but the habits of both of these birds appear to be
identical. Only for a few days in the spring or autumn migra-
tions do they pass near enough to our homes for us to study
them, and then we must ever be on the alert to steal a glance at
them through the opera-glasses, for birds more shy than they
do not visit the garden shrubbery at any season. Only let them
suspect they are being stared at, and they are under cover in a
twinkling.

Where mountain streams dash through tracts of mossy,
spongy ground that is carpeted with fern and moss, and over-
grown with impenetrable thickets of underbrush and tangles of
creepers—such a piace is the favorite resort of both the water
thrushes. With a rubber boot missing, clothes torn, and temper
‘by no means unruffled, you finally stand over the Louisiana
thrush’s nest in the roots of an upturned tree immediately over
the water, or else in a mossy root-belaced bank above a purling
stream. A liquid-trilled warble, wild and sweet, breaks the still-
ness, and, like Audubon, you feel amply rewarded for your pains
though you may not be prepared to agree with him in thinking
the song the equal of the European nightingale’s.

Northern Water Thrush
(Seiurus noveboracensis) Wood Warbler family

Called also: NEW YORK WATER THRUSH; AQUATIC
WOOD WAGTAIL; AQUATIC THRUSH

Lengih—s to 6 inches. A trifle smaller than the English sparrow.

Male and Female—Uniform olive or grayish brown above. Pale
buff line over the eye. Underneath, white tinged with sul-
phur-yellow, and streaked like a thrush with very dark brown
arrow-headed or oblong spots that are also seen underneath
wings.

Range—United States, westward to Rockies and northward
through Britisn provinces. Winters from Gulf States south-
ward.

Migrations—Late April. October. Summer resident,

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Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

According to the books we have before us, a warbler; but
who, to look at his speckled throat and breast, would ever take
him for anything but a diminutive thrush; or, studying him from
some distance through the opera-glasses as he runs in and out of
the little waves along the brook ¢ river shore, would not name
him a baby sandpiper? The rather unsteady motion of his legs,
balancing of the tail, and sudden jerking of the head suggest an
aquatic bird rather than a bird of the woods. But to really know
either man or beast, you must follow him to his home, and if you
have pluck enough to brave the swamp and the almost impene-
trable tangle of undergrowth where the water thrush chooses to
nest, there ‘‘In the swamp in secluded recesses, a shy and hidden
bird is warbling a song;” and this warbled song that Walt Whit-
man so adored gives you your first clue to the proper classification
of the bird. It has nothing in common with the serene, hymn-like
voices of the true thrushes ; the bird has no flute-like notes, but
an emphatic smacking or chucking kind of warble. Fora few
days only is this song heard about the gardens and roadsides of
our country places. Like the Louisiana water thrush, this bird
never ventures near the homes of men after the spring and autumn
migrations, but, on the contrary, goes as far away from them as
possible, preferably to some mountain region, beside a cool and
dashing brook, where a party of adventurous young climbers
from a summer hotel or the lonely trout fisherman may startle it
from its mossy nest on the ground.

Flicker
(Colaptes auratus) Woodpecker family

Called also) GOLDEN-WINGED WOODPECKER; CLAPE;
PIGEON WOODPECKER; YELLOWHAMMER; HIGH-
HOLE OR HIGH-HOLDER; YARUP; WAKE-UP;
YELLOW-SHAFTED WOODPECKER

ee to 13 inches. About one-fourth as large again as the

robin.

Male and Female—Head and neck bluish gray, with a red crescent
across back of neck and a black crescent on breast. Male
has black cheek-patches, that are wanting in female. Golden
brown shading into brownish-gray, and barred with black
above. Underneath whitish, tinged with light chocolate

Tg0

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

and thickly spotted with black. Wing linings, shafts of
wing, and tail-quills bright yellow. Above tail white, con-
spicuous when the bird flies.

Range—United States, east of Rockies; Alaska and British Amer-
ica, south of Hudson Bay. Occasional on Pacific slope.

Migrations—Most commonly seen from April to October. Usue
ally resident.

If we were to follow the list of thirty-six aliases by which
this largest and commonest of our woodpeckers is known
throughout its wide range, we should find all its peculiarities of
color, flight, noises, and habits indicated in its popular names.
It cannot but attract attention wherever seen, with its beauti-
ful plumage, conspicuously yellow if its outstretched wings are
looked at from below, conspicuously brown and white if seen
upon the ground. At a distance it suggests the meadowlark.
Both birds wear black, crescent breast decorations, and the flicker
also has the habit of feeding upon the ground, especially in
autumn, a characteristic not shared by its relations.

Early in the spring this bird of many names and many voices
makes itself known by a long, strong, sonorous call, a sort or
proclamation that differs from its song proper, which Audubori
calls ‘‘a prolonged jovial laugh” (described by Mrs. Wright as
‘‘Wick, wick, wick, wick!’’), and differs also from its rapidly
repeated, mellow, and most musical cub, cub, cub, cub, cub,
uttered during the nesting season.

Its nasal kee-ver, vigorously called out in the autumn, is less
characteristic, however, than the sound it makes while associat-
ing with its fellows on the feeding ground—a sound that Mr.
Frank M. Chapman says can be closely imitated by the swishing
of a willow wand.

A very ardent and ridiculous-looking lover is this bird, as,
with tail stiffly spread, he sidles up to his desired mate and bows
and bobs before her, then retreats and advances, bowing and
bobbing again, very often with a rival lover beside him (whom
he generously tolerates) trying to outdo him in grace and general
attractiveness. Not the least of the bird’s qualities that must
commend themselves to the bride is his unfailing good nature,
genial alike in the home and in the field.

The ‘‘ high-holders” have the peculiar and silly habit of bor-
ing out a number of superfluous holes for nests high up in the

¥3I

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

trees, in buildings, or hollow wooden columns, only one of
which they intend to use. Six white eggs is the proper number
for a household, but Dr. Coues says the female that has been
robbed keeps on laying three or even four sets of eggs without
interruption.

Meadowlark
(Sturnella magna) Blackbird family

Called also: FIELD LARK; OLDFIELD LARK

Length—io to 11 inches. A trifle larger than the robin.

Male—Upper parts brown, varied with chestnut, deep brown, and
black. Crown streaked with brown and black, and with a
cream-colored streak through the centre. Dark-brown line
apparently running through the eye; another line over the
eye, yellow. Throat and chin yellow ; a large, conspicuous
black crescent on breast. Underneath yellow, shading into
buffy brown, spotted or streaked with very dark brown.
Outer tail feathers chiefly white, conspicuous in flight. Long,
strong legs and claws, adapted for walking. Less black in
winter plumage, which is more grayish brown.

Female—Paler than male.

Aange—North America, from Newfoundland to the Gulf of Mexico,
and westward to the plains, where the Western meadowlark
takes its ae: Winters from Massachusetts and Illinois
southward.

Migrations—April. Late October. Usually a resident, a few re-
maining through the winter.

In the same meadows with the red-winged blackbirds, birds
of another feather, but of the same family, nevertheless, may be
found flocking together, hunting for worms and larve, building
their nests, and rearing their young very near each other with
the truly social instinct of all their kin.

The meadowlarks, which are really not larks at all, but the
blackbirds’ and orioles’ cousins, are so protected by the coloring
of the feathers on their backs, like that of the grass and stub-
ble they live among, that ten blackbirds are noticed for every
meadowlark, although the latter is very common. Not until you
flush a flock of them as you walk along the roadside or through
the meadows and you note the white tail feathers and the black
crescents on the yellow breasts of the large brown birds that rise

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Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

towards the tree-tops with whirring sound and a flight suggest
ing the quail’s, do you suspect there are any birds among the
tall grasses.

Their clear and piercing whistle, ‘Spring o’ the y-e-a-r,
Spring o’ the year!” rings out from the trees with varying in-
tonation and accent, but always sweet and inspiriting. To the
bird’s high vantage ground you may not follow, for no longer
having the protection of the high grass, it has become wary and
flies away as you approach, calling out peent-peent and nervously
flitting its tail (again showing the white feather), when it rests a
moment on the pasture fence-rail.

It is like looking for a needle in a haystack to try to find a
meadowlark’s nest, an unpretentious structure of dried grasses
partly arched over and hidden in a clump of high timothy, flat
upon the ground. But what havoc snakes and field-mice play
with the white-speckled eggs and helpless fledglings ! The care
of rearing two or three broods in a season and the change of
plumage to duller winter tints seem to exhaust the high spirits of
the sweet whistler. For a time he is silent, but partly regains his
vocal powers in the autumn, when, with large flocks of his own
kind, he resorts to marshy feeding grounds. In the winter he
chooses for companions the horned larks, that walk along the
shore, or the snow buntings and sparrows of the inland pastures,
and will even include the denizens of the barn-yard when hunger
drives him close to the haunts of men.

The Western Meadowlark or Prairie Lark (Sturnella magna
neglecta), which many ornithologists consider a different species
from the foregoing, is distinguished chiefly by its lighter, more
grayish-brown plumage, by its yellow cheeks, and more espe-
cially by its richer, fuller song. In his “Birds of Manitoba” Mr,
Ernest E. Thompson says of this meadowlark: “In richness of
voice and modulation it equals or excels both wood thrush and
nightingale, and in the beauty of its articulation it has no superior
in the whole world of feathered choristers with which I am ac-
quainted.”

135

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

Horned Lark
(Otocoris alpestris) Lark family

Called also: SHORE LARK

Length—7.5 to 8 inches. About one-fifth smaller than the robin.

Male—Upper parts dull brown, streaked with lighter on edges
and tinged with pink or vinaceous; darkest on back of nead,
neck, shoulders, and nearest the tail. A few erectile teathers ‘
on either side of the head form slight tufts or horns that are
wanting in female. A black mark from the base of the bill.
passes below the eye and ends in a horn-shaped curve on
cheeks, which are yellow. Throat clear yellow. Breast has
crescent-shaped black patch. Underneath soiled white, with
dusky spots on lower breast. Tail black, the outer feathers
margined with white, noticed in flight.

Female—Has eerie eye-stripe; less prominent markings, espe~
cially on head, and is a trifle smaller,

Range—Northeastern parts of North America, and in winter
from Ohio and eastern United States as far south as North
Carolina.

Migrations—October and November. March. Winter resident.

Far away to the north in Greenland and Labrador this true
lark, the most beautiful of its genus, makes its summer home.
There it is a conspicuously handsome bird with its pinkish-gray
and chocolate feathers, that have greatly faded into dull browns
when we see them in the late autumn. In the far north only
does it sing, and, according to Audubon, the charming song is
flung to the breeze while the bird soars like a skylark. In the
United States we hear only its call-note.

Great flocks come down the Atlantic coast in October and
November, and separate into smaller bands that take up their resi-
dence in sandy stretches and open tracts near the sea or wher-
ever the food supply looks promising, and there the larks stay
until all the seeds, buds of bushes, berries, larve, and insects in
their chosen territory are exhausted. They are ever conspicu-
ously ground birds, walkers, and when disturbed at their dinner,
prefer to squat on the earth rather than expose themselves by
flight. Sometimes they run nimbly over the frozen ground to
escape an intruder, but flying they reserve as a last resort. When
the visitor has passed they quickly return to their dinner. If they
were content to eat less ravenously and remain slender, fewer

134

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

victims might be slaughtered annually to tickle the palates of the
epicure. It is a mystery what they find to fatten upon when
snow covers the frozen ground. Even in the severe midwinter
storms they will not seek the protection of the woods, but always
prefer sandy dunes with their scrubby undergrowth or open
meadow lands. Occasionally a small flock wanders toward the
farms to pick up seeds that are blown from the hayricks or scat-
tered about the barn-yard by overfed domestic fowls.

The Prairie Horned Lark (Ofocoris alpestris praticola) is
similar to the preceding, but a trifle smaller and paler, with a
white instead of a yellow streak above the eye, the throat yellow-
ish or entirely white instead of sulphur-yellow, and other minor
Alifferences. It has a far more southerly range, confined to north-
ern portions of the United States from the Mississippi eastward.
Once a distinctly prairie bird, it now roams wherever large
stretches of open country that suit its purposes are cleared in the
East, and remains resident. This species also sings in midair on
the wing, but its song is a crude, half-inarticulate affair, barely
audible from a height of two hundred feet.

American Pipit
(Antbus pensilvanicus) Wagtail family

Called also: TITLARK; BROWN OR RED LARK

Length—6.38 to '7 inches. About the size of a sparrow.

Male and Female—Upper parts brown; wings and tail dark olive-
brown; the wing coverts tipped with buff or whitish, and
ends of outer tail feathers white, conspicuous in flight.
White or yellowish eye-ring, and line above the eye. Un-
derneath light buff brown, with spots on breast and sides,
the under parts being washed with brown of various shades.
Feet brown. Hind toe-nail as long as or longer than the
toe.

Range—North America at large. Winters south of Virginia to
Mexico and beyond.

Migrations—April. October or November. Common in the
United States, chiefly during the migrations.

The color of this bird varies slightly with age and sex, the
under parts ranging from white through pale rosy brown to a

135

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

reddish tinge; but at any season, and under all circumstances,
the pipit is a distinctly brown bird, resembling the water thrushes
not in plumage only, but in the comical tail waggings and jerk-
ings that alone are sufficient to identify it. However the books
may tell us the bird is a wagtail, it certainly possesses two strong
characteristics of true larks: it is a walker, delighting in walking
or running, never hopping over the ground, and it has the angelic
habit of singing as it flies.

During the migrations the pipits are abundant in salt marshes
or open stretches of country inland, that, with lark-like preference,
they choose for feeding grounds. When flushed, all the flock
rise together with uncertain flight, hovering and wheeling about
the place, calling down dee-dee, dee-dee above your head until
you have passed on your way, then promptly returning to the
spot from whence they were disturbed. Along the roadsides
and pastures, where two or three birds are frequently seen to-
gether, they are too often mistaken for the vesper sparrows
because of their similar size and coloring, but their easy, graceful
walk should distinguish them at once from the hopping sparrow.
They often run to get ahead of some one in the lane, but rarely fly
if they can help it, and then scarcely higher than a fence-rail.
Early in summer they are off for the mountains in the north.
Labrador is their chosen nesting ground, and they are said to
place their grassy nest, lined with lichens or moss, flat upon the
ground—still another lark trait. Their eggs are chocolate-brown
scratched with black. °

Whippoorwill |
(Antrostomus vociferus) Goatsucker family

Length—g to 10 inches. About the size of the robin. Apparently
much larger, because of its long wings and wide wing-
spread.

asset a ae bird, mottled all over with reddish brown,
grayish black, and dusky white; numerous bristles fringing
the large mouth. A narrow white band across the upper
breast. Tail quills on the end and under side white.

¥emale—Similar to male, except that the tail is dusky in color
where that of the male is white. Band on breast buff instead
of white.

Range—United States, to the plains. Not common near the sea.

Migrations—Late April to middle of September. Summer resident.
136

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

_ The whippoorwill, because of its nocturnal habits and plain-
tive note, is invested with a reputation for occult power which
inspires a chilling awe among superstitious people, and leads
them insanely to attribute to it an evil influence ; but it is a
harmless, useful night prowler, flying low and catching enor-
mous numbers of hurtful insects, always the winged varieties, in
its peculiar fly-trap mouth.

It loves the rocky, solitary woods, where it sleeps all day;
but it is seldom seen, even after painstaking search, because of
its dull, mottled markings conforming so nearly to rocks and dry
leaves, and because of its unusual habit of stretching itself length-
wise on a tree branch or ledge, where it is easily confounded with a
patch of lichen, and thus overlooked. If by accident one happens
upon a sleeping bird, it suddenly rouses and flies away, making
no more sound than a passing butterfly—a curious and uncanny
silence that is quite remarkable. When the sun goes down and
as the gloaming deepens, the bird’s activity increases, and it begins
its nightly duties, emitting from time to time, like a sentry on
his post or a watchman of the night, the doleful call which has
given the bird its common name. It

“« Mourns unseen, and ceaseless sings
Ever a note of wail and woe,”

that our Dutch ancestors interpreted as ‘‘ Quote-kerr-kee,” and so
called it. They had a tradition that no frost ever appeared after
the bird had been heard calling in the spring, and that it wisely
left for warmer skies before frost came in the autumn. Prudent
bird, never caught napping !

It is erratic in its choice of habitations, even when rock and
solitude seem suited to its taste. Very rarely is this odd bird
found close to the seashore, and in the Hudson River valley it
keeps a half mile or more back from the river. 1

The eggs, generally two in number, are creamy white,
dashed with dark and olive spots, and laid on the ground on dry
leaves, or in a little hollow in rock or stump—never in a nest
built with loving care. But in extenuation of such careless-
ness it may be said that, if disturbed or threatened, the mother
shows no lack of maternal instinct, and removes her young,
carrying them in her beak as a cat conveys her kittens to secure
shelter.

137

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

Nighthawk

(Chordeiles virginianus) Goatsucker family

Called also: NIGHTJAR; BULL-BAT; MOSQUITO HAWK;
WILL-O’-THE-WISP; PISK; PIRAMIDIG; LONG-
WINGED GOATSUCKER

Length—g to 10 inches. About the same length as the robin, but
apparently much longer because of its very wide wing-spread.

Male and Female—Mottied blackish brown and rufous above, with
a multitude of cream-yellow spots and dashes. Lighter
below, with waving bars of brown on breast and under-
neath. White mark on throat, like an imperfect horseshoe;
also a band of white across tail of male bird. These latter
markings are wanting in female. Heavy wings, which are
partly mottled, are brown on shoulders and tips, and longer
than tail. They have large white spots, conspicuous in
flight, one of their distinguishing marks from the whippoor-
will. Head large and depressed, with large eyes and ear-
openings. Very small bill.

Range—From Mexico to arctic islands.
Migrations—May. October. Common summer resident.

The nighthawk’s misleading name could not well imply
more that the bird is not: it is not nocturnal in its habits, neither
is it a hawk, for if it were, no account of it would be given in
this book, which distinctly excludes birds of prey. Stories of its
chicken-stealing prove to be ignorant rather than malicious slan-
ders. Any one disliking the name, however, surely cannot com-
plain of a limited choice of other names by which, in different
sections of the country, it is quite as commonly known.

Too often it is mistaken for the whippoorwill. The night-
hawk does not have the weird and woful cry of that more dismal
bird, but gives instead a harsh, whistling note while on the wing,
followed by a vibrating, booming, whirring sound that Nuttal
likens to ‘‘the rapid turning of a spinning wheel, or a strong
blowing into the bung-hole of an empty hogshead.” This pecu
liar sound is responsible for the name nightjar, frequently given
to this curious bird. It is said to be made as the bird drops sud-
denly through the air, creating a sort of stringed instrument of its
outstretched wings and tail. When these wings are spread, their
large white spots running through the feathers to the under side

raf

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

should be noted to further distinguish the nighthawk from the
whippoorwill, which has none, but which it otherwise closely
resembles. This booming sound, coming from such a height that
the bird itself is often unseen, was said by the Indians to be made
by the shad spirits to warn the scholes of shad about to ascend
the rivers to spawn in the spring, of their impending fate.

The flight of the nighthawk is free and graceful in the ex~
treme. Soaring through space without any apparent motion of
its wings, suddenly it darts with amazing swiftness like an erratic
bat after the fly, mosquito, beetle, or moth that falls within the
range of its truly hawk-like eye.

Usually the nighthawks hunt in little companies in the most
sociable fashion. Late in the summer they seem to be almost
gregarious. They fly in the early morning or late afternoon with
beak wide open, hawking for insects, but except when the moon
is full they are not known to go a-hunting after sunset. During
the heat of the day and at night they rest on limbs of trees, fence-
rails, stone walls, lichen-covered rocks or old logs—wherever
Nature has provided suitable mimicry of their plumage to help
conceal them.

With this object in mind, they quite as often choose a hollow
surface of rock in some waste pasture or the open ground on
which to deposit the two speckled-gray eggs that sixteen days
later will give birth to their family. But in August, when family
cares have ended for the season, it is curious to find this bird of
the thickly wooded country readily adapting itself to city life,
resting on Mansard roofs, darting into the streets from the house-
tops, and wheeling about the electric lights, making a hearty sup-
per of the little, winged insects they attract.

Black-billed Cuckoo
(Coccyzus erythrophthalmus) Cuckoo family

Called also: RAIN CROW

Length—11 to 12 inches. About one-fifth larger than the robin.

Male—Grayish brown above, with bronze tint in feathers. Uns
derneath grayish white ; bill, which is long as head and
black, arched and acute. Skin about the eye bright red.
Tail long, and with spots on tips of quills that are small and
inconspicuous.

139

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

Female—Has obscure dusky bars on the tail.
Range—Labrador to Panama; westward to Rocky Mountains.
Migrations—May. September. Summer resident.

*€ QO cuckoo! shall I cali thee bird ?
Or but a wandering voice?”

From the tangled shrubbery on the hillside back of Dove
Cottage, Keswick, where Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy
listened for the coming of this ‘‘darling of the spring” ; in the
willows overhanging Shakespeare’s Avon; from the favorite
haunts of Chaucer and Spenser, where

“ Runneth meade and springeth blede,”

we hear the cuckoo calling ; but how many on this side of the
Atlantic are familiar with its American counterpart? Here, too,
the cuckoo delights in running water and damp, cloudy weather
like that of an English spring; it haunts the willows by our river-
sides, where as yet no ‘immortal bard” arises to give it fame.
it “loud sings ” in our shrubbery, too. Indeed, if we cannot study
our bird afield, the next best place to become acquainted with
it is in the pages of the English poets. But due allowance must
be made for differences of temperament. Our cuckoo is scarcely
a ‘‘merry harbinger” ; his talents, such as they are, certainly are
not musical. However, the guttural cluck is not discordant, and
the black-billed species, at least, has a soft, mellow voice that
seems to indicate an embryonic songster. ‘‘ K-k-k-k, how-how-
ow-kow-ow !”’ is a familiar sound in many localities, but the large,
slim, pigeon-shaped, brownish-olive bird that makes it, securely
hidden in the low trees and shrubs that are its haunts, is not
often personally known. Catching a glimpse only of the grayish-
white under parts from where we stand looking up into the tree
at it, it is quite impossible to tell the- bird from the yellow-billed
species. When, as it flies about, we are able to note the red
circles about its eyes, its black bill, and the absence of black tail
feathers, with their white ‘‘ thumb-nail” spots, and see no bright
cinnamon feathers on the wings (the yellow-billed specie’s dis-
tinguishing marks), we can at last claim acquaintance with the
black-billed cuckoo. Our two common cuckoos are so nearly
alike that they are constantly confused in the popular mind and
very often in the writings of ornithologists. At first glance the

140

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

birds look alike. Their haunts are almost identical ; their habits
are the same ; and, as they usually keep well out of sight, it is
not surprising if confusion arise.

Neither cuckoo knows how to build a proper home; a bunch
of sticks dropped carelessly into the bush, where the hapless
babies that emerge from the greenish eggs will not have far to
‘all when they tumble out of bed, as they must inevitably do,
may by courtesy only be called a nest. The cuckoo is said to
suck the eggs of other birds ; but, surely, such vice is only the
rarest dissipation. Insects of many kinds and ‘‘tent caterpillars”
chiefly are their chosen food.

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

(Coccyzus americanus) Cuckoo family
Called also: RAIN CROW

Length—11 to 12 inches. About one-fifth longer than the robin.

Male and Female—Grayish brown above, with bronze tint in
feathers. Underneath grayish white. Bill, which is as
rong as head, arched, acute, and more robust than the black-
billed species, and with lower mandible jello. Wings
washed with bright cinnamon-brown. Tail has outer quills
black, conspicuously marked with white thumb-nail spots.
Female larger.

Ranage—North America, from Mexico to Labrador. Most common
in temperate climates. Rare on Pacific slope.

Migrations—Late April. September. Summer resident.

“« Kak, h-kuk, k-huk, k-huk!”’ like an exaggerated tree-toad’s
tattle, is a sound that, when first heard, makes you rush out of
doors instantly to ‘‘name” the bird. Look for him in the depths
of the tall shrubbery or low trees, near running water, if there is
any in the neighborhood, and if you are more fortunate than most
people, you will presently become acquainted with the yellow-
billed cuckoo. When seen perching at a little distance, his large,
slim body, grayish brown, with olive tints above and whitish
below, can scarcely be distinguished from that of the black-billed
species. It is not until you get close enough to note the yellow
bill, reddish-brown wings, and black tail feathers with their white
**thumb-nail” marks, that you know which cuckoo you are

141

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

watching. In repose the bird looks dazed or stupid, but as it
darts about among the trees after insects, noiselessly slipping to
another one that promises better results, and hopping along the
limbs after performing a series of beautiful evolutions among the
branches as it hunts for its favorite ‘‘tent caterpillars,” it appears
what it really is : an unusually active, graceful, intelligent bird.

A solitary wanderer, nevertheless one cuckoo in an apple
orchard is worth a hundred robins in ridding it of caterpillars and
inch-worms, for it delights in killing many more of these than it
can possibly eat. In the autumn it varies its diet with minute
fresh-water shellfish from the swamp and lake. Mulberries, that
look so like caterpillars the bird possibly likes them on that
account, it devours wholesale.

Family cares rest lightly on the cuckoos. The nest of both
species is a ramshackle affair—a mere bundle of twigs and sticks
without a rim to keep the eggs from rolling from the bush, where
they rest, to the ground. Unlike their European relative, they
have the decency to rear their own young and not impose this
heavy task on others; but the cuckoos on both sides of the Atlan-
tic are most erratic and irregular in their nesting habits. The
overworked mother-bird often lays an egg while brooding over
its nearly hatched companion, and the two or three half-grown
fledglings already in the nest may roll the large greenish eggs out
upon the ground, while both parents are off searching for food to
quiet their noisy clamorings. Such distracting mismanagement
in the nursery is enough to make a homeless wanderer of any
father. It is the mother-bird that tumbles to the ground at your
approach from sheer fright ; feigns lameness, trails her wings as
she tries to entice you away from the nest. The male bird shows
far less concern ; a no more devoted father, we fear, than he is
alover. It is said he changes his mate every year.

Altogether, the cuckoo is a very different sort of bird from
what our fancy pictured. The little Swiss creatures of wood that
fly out of the doors of clocks and call out the bed-hour to sleepy
children, are chiefly responsible for the false impressions of our
mature years. The American bird does not repeat its name, and
its harsh, grating ‘‘kuk, kuk,” does not remotely suggest the
sweet voice of its European relative.

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

Bank Swallow
(Clivicola riparia) Swallow family

Called also: SAND MARTIN; SAND SWALLOW

Length—s to 5.5 inches. About an inch shorter than the English
sparrow, but apparently much larger because of its wide
wing-spread.

Male and Female—Grayish brown or clay-colored above. Upper
wings and tail darkest. Below, white, with brownish band
across chest. Tail, which is rounded and more nearly square
than the other swallows, is obscurely edged with white.

Range—Throughout North America south of Hudson Bay.
Migrations—April. October. Summer resident.

Where a brook cuts its way through a sand bank to reach
the sea is an ideal nesting ground for a colony of sand martins.
The face of the high bank shows a number of clean, round holes
indiscriminately bored into the sand, as if the place had just
received a cannonading; but instead of war an atmosphere of
peace pervades the place in midsummer, when you are most
likely to visit it. Now that the young ones have flown from
their nests that your arm can barely reach through the tunnelled
sand or clay, there can be little harm in examining the feathers
dropped from gulls, ducks, and other water-birds with which the
grassy home is lined.

The bank swallow’s nest, like the kingfisher’s, which it
resembles, is his home as well. There he rests when tired of fly-
ing about in pursuit of insect food. Perhaps a bird that has been
resting in one of the tunnels, startled by your innocent house-
breaking, will fly out across your face, near enough for you to
see how unlike the other swallows he is: smaller, plainer, and
with none of their glinting steel-blues and buffs about him.
With strong, swift flight he rejoins his fellows, wheeling, skim-
ming, darting through the air above you, and uttering his char-
acteristic ‘‘ giggling twitter,” that is one of the cheeriest noises
heard along the beach. In early October vast numbers of these
swallows may be seen in loose flocks along the Jersey coast,
slowly making their way South. Clouds of them miles in extent
are recorded.

143

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy. Birds

Closely associated with the sand martin is the Rough-winged
Swallow (Stelgidopteryx serripennis), not to be distinguished
from its companion on the wing, but easily recognized by its
dull-gray throat and the absence of the brown breast-band when
seen at close range.

Cedar Bird

(Ampelis cedrorum) Waxwing family

Called also: CEDAR WAXWING; CHERRY-BIRD; CANADA
ROBIN; RECOLLET

Length—7 to 8 inches. About one-fifth smaller than the robin.

Male—Upper parts rich grayish brown, with plum-colored tints
showing through the brown on crest, throat, breast, wings,
and tail. A velvety-black line on forehead runs through the
eye and back of crest. Chin black; crest conspicuous; breast
lighter than the back, and shading into yellow underneath.
Wings have quill-shafts of secondaries elongated, and with
brilliant vermilion tips like drops of sealing-wax, rarely seen
on tail quills, which have yellow bands across the end.

Female—With duller plumage, smaller crest, and narrower tail-
band.

Range—North America, from northern British provinces to Cen-
tral America in winter.

Migrations—A roving resident, without fixed seasons for migrat-
ing.

As the cedar birds travel about in great flocks that quickly
exhaust their special food in a neighborhood, they necessarily
fead a nomadic life—here to-day, gone to-morrow—and, like the
Arabs, they ‘‘silently steal away.” It is surprising how very
little noise so great a company of these birds make at any time.
That is because they are singularly gentle and refined; soft of
voice, as they are of color, their plumage suggesting a fine Japan-
ese water-color painting on silk, with its beautiful sheen and
exquisitely blended tints.

One listens in vain for a song; only a lisping ‘‘ Twee-twee-ze,”
or ‘‘a dreary whisper,” as Minot calls their low-toned commu-
nications with each other, reaches our ears from their high perches
in the cedar trees, where they sit, almost motionless hours at a
time, digesting the enormous quantities of juniper and whortle

144

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

berries, wild cherries, worms, and insects upon which they have
gormandized.

Nuttall gives the cedar birds credit for excessive politeness
to each other. He says he has often seen them passing a worm
from one to another down a whole row of beaks and back again
before it was finally eaten.

When nesting time arrives—that is to say, towards the end of
the summer—they give up their gregarious habits and live in pairs,
billing and kissing like turtle-doves in the orchard or wild crab-
trees, where a flat, bulky nest is rather carelessly built of twigs,
grasses, feathers, strings—any odds and ends that may be lying
about. The eggs are usually four, white tinged with purple and
spotted with black.

Apparently they have no moulting season; their prumage is
always the same, beautifully neat and full-feathered. Nothing
ever hurries or flusters them, their greatest concern apparently
being, when they alight, to settle themselves comfortably between
their over-polite friends, who are never guilty of jolting or crowd-
ing. Few birds care to take life so easily, not to say indolently.

Among the French Canadians they are called R&collet, from
the color of their crest resembling the hood of the religious order
of that name. Every region the birds pass through, local names
appear to be applied to them, a few of the most common of
which are given above.

Of the three waxwings known to scientists, two are found
in America, and the third in Japan.

Brown Creeper
(Certhia familiaris americana) Creeper family

Length—5 to 5.75 inches. A little smaller than the English
sparrow.

Male and Female—Brown above, varied with ashy-gray stripes and
small, lozenge-shaped gray mottles. Color lightest on head,
increasing in shade to reddish brown near tail. Tail paler
brown and long; wings brown and barred with whitish.
Beneath grayish white. Slender, curving bill.

Range—United States and Canada, east of Rocky Mountains.

Migrations—April. September. Winter resident.

This little brown wood sprite, the very embodiment of virs
145

Brown, Olive er Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

tuous diligence, is never found far from the nuthatches, titmice,
and kinglets, though not strictly in their company, for he is a
rather solitary bird. Possibly he repels them by being too ex-
asperatingly conscientious.

Beginning at the bottom of a rough-barked tree (for a smooth
bark conceals no larvz), the creeper silently climbs upward ina
sort of spiral, now lost to sight on the opposite side of the tree,
then reappearing just where he is expected to, flitting back a foot
or two, perhaps, lest he overlooked a single spider egg, but never
by any chance leaving a tree until conscience approves of his
thoroughness. And yet with all this painstaking workman’s care,
it takes him just about fifty seconds to finish a tree. Then off
he flits to the base of another, to repeat the spiral process. Only
rarely does he adopt the woodpecker process of partly flitting,
partly rocking his way with the help of his tail straight up one
side of the tree.

Yet this little bird is not altogether the soulless drudge he
appears. In the midst of his work, uncheered by summer sun-
shine, and clinging with numb toes to the tree-trunk some bitter
cold day, he still finds some tender emotion within him to voice
in a ‘‘ wild, sweet song” that is positively enchanting at sucha
time. But it is not often this song is heard south of his nesting
grounds.

The brown creeper’s plumage is one of Nature’s most success-
ful feats of mimicry—an exact counterfeit in feathers of the brown-
gray bark on which the bird lives. And the protective coloring
is carried out in the nest carefully tucked under a piece of loosened
bark in the very heart of the tree.

Pine Siskin
(Spinus pinus) Finch family

Called also: PINE FINCH; PINE LINNET

Length—4.75 to 5 inches. Over an inch smaller than the Eng-
lish sparrow.

Male and Female—Olive-brown and gray above, much streaked
and striped with very dark brown everywhere. Darkest on
head and back. Lower back, base of tail, and wing feathers
pale sulphur-yellow. Under parts very light buff brown,
heavily streaked.

146

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

Range—North America generally. Most common in north lati-
tudes. Winters south to the Gulf of Mexico.

Migrations—Erratic winter visitor from October to April. Un-
common in summer.

A small grayish-brown brindle bird, relieved with touches
of yellow on its back, wings, and tail, may be seen some winter
morning roving on the lawn from one evergreen tree to another,
clinging to the pine cones and peering attentively between the
scales before extracting the kernels. It utters a call-note so like
the English sparrow’s that you are surprised when you look up
into the tree to find it comes from a stranger. The pine siskin
is an erratic visitor, and there is always the charm of the unex-
pected about its coming near our houses that heightens our
enjoyment of its brief stay.

As it flies downward from the top of the spruce tree to feed
upon the brown seeds still clinging to the pigweed and golden-
rod stalks sticking out above the snow by the roadside, it dips
and floats through the air like its charming little cousin, the gold-
finch. They have several characteristics in common besides
their flight and their fondness for thistles. Far at the north,
where the pine siskin nests in the top of the evergreens, his
sweet-warbled love-song is said to be like that of our ‘‘ wild
canary’s,” only with a suggestion of fretfulness in the tone.

Occasionally some one living in an Adirondack or other
mountain camp reports finding the nest and hearing the siskin
sing even in midsummer; but it is, nevertheless, considered a
northern species, however its erratic habits may sometimes break
through the ornithologist’s traditions.

Smith’s Painted Longspur
(Calcarius pictus) Finch family

Length—6.5 inches. About the size of a large English sparrow.

Male and Female—Upper parts marked with black, brown, and
white, like a sparrow; brown predominant. Male bird with
more black about head, shoulders, and tail feathers, and a
whitish patch, edged with black, under the eye. Under-
neath pale brown, shading to buff. Hind claw or spur con-
spicuous.

147

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brows and Gray Sparrowy Birds

Range—Interior of North America, from the arctic coast to Illinois
and Texas.

Migrations—Winter visitor. Without fixed season.

Confined to a narrower range than the Lapland longspur,
this bird, quite commonly found on the open prairie districts of
the middle West in winter, is, nevertheless, so very like its cousin
that the same description of their habits might very well answer
for both. Indeed, both these birds are often seen in the same
flock. Larks and the ubiquitous sparrows, too, intermingle with
them with the familiarity that only the starvation rations of mid-
winter, and not true sociability, can effect ; and, looking out upon
such a heterogeneous flock of brown birds as they are feeding
together on the frozen ground, only the trained field ornithologist
would find it easy to point out the painted longspurs.

Certain peculiarities are noticeable, however. Longspurs
squat while resting ; then, when flushed, they run quickly and
lightly, and ‘‘rise with a sharp click, repeated several times in
quick succession, and move with an easy, undulating motion for
a short distance, when they alight very suddenly, seeming to fall
perpendicularly several feet to the ground.” Another peculiarity
of their flight is their habit of flying about in circles, to and fro,
keeping up a constant chirping or call. It is only in the mating
season, when we rarely hear them, that the longspurs have the
angelic manner of singing as they fly, tike the skylark. The
colors of the males, among the several longspurs, may differ
widely, but the indistinctly marked females are so like each other
that only their mates, perhaps, could tell them apart.

Lapland Longspur
(Calcarius lapponicus) Finch family

Called also: LAPLAND SNOWBIRD; LAPLAND LARK
BUNTING

Length—6.5 to 7inches. A trifle larger than the English sparrow.
Male—Color varies with season. Winter plumage: Top of head
black, with rusty markings, all feathers being tipped with
white. Behind and below the eye rusty black. reast and
wnderneath grayish white faintly streaked with black. Above,

348

sau 4ay UO ael anig

The red-headed woodpecker

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

reddish brown with black markings. Feet, which are black,
have conspicuous, long hind claws or spur.

shearer aa gray above, less conspicuously marked. Whitish
elow.

ange—Circumpolar regions; northern United States; occasional
in Middle States; abundant in winter as far as Kansas and
the Rocky Mountains.

Migrations—Winter visitors, rarely resident, and without a fixed
season.

This arctic bird, although considered somewhat rare with us,
when seen at all in midwinter is in such large flocks that, before
its visit in the neighborhood is ended, and because there are so
few other birds about, it becomes delightfully familiar as it nimbly
runs over the frozen ground, picking up grain that has blown
about from the barn, when the seeds of the field are buried under
snow. This lack of fear through sharp hunger, that often drives
the shyest of the birds to our very doors in winter, is as pathetic
as itis charming. Possibly it is not so rare a bird as we think,
for it is often mistaken for some of the sparrows, the shore
larks, and the snow buntings, that it not only resembles, but
whose company it frequently keeps, or for one of the other long-
spurs.

At all seasons of the year a ground Bird, you may readily
identify the Lapland longspur by its tracks through the snow,
showing the mark of the long hind claw or spur. In sum-
mer we know little or nothing about it, for, with the coming
of the flowers, it is off to the far north, where, we are told,
it depresses its nest in a bed of moss upon the ground, and lines
it with fur shed from the coat of the arctic fox.

Chipping Sparrow
(Spizella socialis) Finch family

Called also: CHIPPY; HAIR-BIRD; CHIP-BIRD; SOCIAL
SPARROW

Length—5 to 5.5 inches. An inch shorter than the English
sparrow.

Male—Under the eye, on the back of the neck, underneath, and
on the lower back ash-gray. Gray stripe over the eye, and a

149

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

blackish brown one apparently through it. Dark red-brown
crown. Back brown, slightly rufous, and feathers streaked
with black. Wings and tail dusty brown. Wing-bars not
conspicuous. Bill black.

Female—Lacks the chestnut color on the crown, which is streaked
with black. In winter the frontlet is black. Bill brownish.

ange—North America, from Newfoundland to the Gulf of Mexico
and westward to the Rockies. Winters in Gulf States and
Mexico. Most common in eastern United States.

Migrations—April. October. Common summer resident, many

birds remaining all the year from southern New England
southward.

Who does not know this humblest, most unassuming little
neighbor that comes hopping to our very doors ; this mite of a
bird with ‘one talent” that it so persistently uses all the day and
every day throughout the summer? Its high, wiry trill, like the
buzzing of the locust, heard in the dawn before the sky grows
even gray, or in the middle of the night, starts the morning
chorus; and after all other voices are hushed in the evening, its
tremolo is the last bed-song to come from the trees. But how-
ever monotonous such cheerfulness sometimes becomes when we
are surfeited with real songs from dozens of other throats, there
are long periods of midsummer silence that it punctuates most
acceptably.

Its call-note, chip! chip? from which several of its popular
names are derived, is altogether different from the trill which
must do duty as a song to express love, contentment, everything
that so amiable a little nature might feel impelled to voice.

But with all its virtues, the chi ppy shows lamentable weak-
ness of character in allowing its grown children to impose upon
it, as it certainly does. In every group of these birds throughout
the summer we can see young ones (which we may know by
the black line-stripes on their breasts) hopping around after their
parents, that are often no larger or more able-bodied than they,
and teasing to be fed; drooping their wings to excite pity for
a helplessness that they do not possess when the weary little
mother hops away from them, and still persistently chirping fot
food until she weakly relents, returns to them, picks a seed from
the ground and thrusts it down the bill of the sauciest teaser in
the group. With two such broods in a season the chestnut
feathers on the father’s jaunty head might well turn gray.

150

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

Unlike most of the sparrows, the little chippy frequents high
trees, where its nest is built quite as often as in the low bushes
of the garden. The horse-hair, which always lines the grassy
cup that holds its greenish-blue, speckled eggs, is alone responsi
ble for the name hair-bird, and not the chippy’s hair-like trill, as
some suppose.

English Sparrow

(Passer domesticus) Finch family
Called also: HOUSE SPARROW

Lengih—6.33 inches.

Male—Ashy above, with black and chestnut stripes on back and
shoulders. Wings have chestnut and white bar, bordered
by faint black line. Gray crown, bordered from the eye
backward and on the nape by chestnut. Middle of throat
and breast black. Underneath grayish white.

Female—Paler; wing-bars indistinct, and without the black mark-
ing on throat and breast.

Range—Around the world. Introduced and naturalized in Amer-
ica, Australia, New Zealand.

Migrations—Constant resident.

‘* Of course, no self-respecting ornithologist will condescend
to enlarge his list by counting in the English sparrow—too pes-
tiferous to mention,” writes Mr. H. E. Parkhurst, and yet of all
bird neighbors is any one more within the scope of this book
than the audacious little gamin that delights in the companion-
ship of humans even in their most noisy city thoroughfares P

In a bulletin issued by the Department of Agriculture it is
shown that the progeny of a single pair of these sparrows might
amount to 275,716,983,698 in ten years! Inasmuch as many
pairs were liberated in the streets of Brooklyn, New York, in
1851, when the first importation was made, the day is evidently
not far off when these birds, by no means meek, ‘‘shall inherit
the earth.”

In Australia Scotch thistles, English sparrows, and rabbits,
three most unfortunate importations, have multiplied with equal
rapidity until serious alarm fills the minds of the colonists. But
in England a special committee appointed by the House of Come

ex

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Browu and Gray Sparrowy Birds

mons to investigate the character of the alleged pest has yet to
learn whether the sparrow’s services as an insect-destroyer do
not outweigh the injury it does to fruit and grain.

Field Sparrow
(Spizella pusilla) Finch family

Called also: FIELD BUNTING; WOOD SPARROW; BUSH
SPARROW

Length—5.5 to 5.75 inches. A little smaller than the English
sparrow.

\ale—Chestnut crown. Upper back bright chestnut, finely
streaked with black and ashy brown. Lower back more
grayish. Whitish wing-bars. Cheeks, line cver the eye,
throat, pale brownish drab. Tail long. Underneath grayish
i with palest buff on breast and sides. Bill
reddish.

Fe:nmale—Paler; the crown edged with grayish.

Range—North America, from British provinces to the Gulf, and
westward to the plains. Winters from lilinois and Virginia
southward.

Migrations—April. November. Common summer resident.

Simply because both birds have chestnut crowns, the field
sparrow is often mistaken for the dapper, sociable chippy; and,
uo doubt because it loves such heathery, grassy pastures as are
dear to the vesper sparrow, and has bay wings and a sweet
song, these two cousins also are often confused. The field spar«
row has a more reddish-brown upper back than any of its small
relatives; the absence of streaks on its breast and of the white
tail quills so conspicuous in the vesper sparrow’s flight, sufficiently
differentiate the two birds, while the red bill of the field sparrow
is a positive mark of identification.

This bird of humble nature, that makes the scrubby pastures
and uplands tuneful from early morning until after sunset, flies
away with exasperating shyness as you approach. Alighting on
a convenient branch, he lures you on with his clear, sweet song.
Follow him, and he only hops about from bush to bush, farther
and farther away, singing as he goes a variety of strains, which
is one of the bird’s peculiarities. The song not only varies in
individuals, but in different localities, which may be one reason

152

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

why no two ornithologists record it alike. Doubtless the chief
reason for the amusing differences in the syllables into which the
songs of birds are often translated in the books, is that the same
Notes actually sound differently to different individuals. Thus,
to people in Massachusetts the white-throated sparrow seems to
say, ‘‘ Pea-bod-y, Pea-bod-y, Pea-bod-y!’’ while good British
subjects beyond the New England border hear him sing quite dis-
tinctly, ‘‘ Sweet Can-a-da, Can-a-da, Can-a-da!’* But however
the opinions as to the syllables of the field sparrow’s song may
differ, all are agreed as to its exquisite quality, that resembles the
vesper sparrow’s tender, sweet melody. The song begins with
three soft, wild whistles, and ends with a series of trills and
quavers that gradually melt away into silence: a serene and restful
strain as soothing as a hymn. Like the vesper sparrows, these
birds sometimes build a plain, grassy nest, unprotected by over-
hanging bush, flat upon the ground. Possibly from a prudent
fear of field-mice and snakes, the little mother most frequently
lays her bluish-white, rufous-marked eggs in a nect placed in a
bush of a bushy field. Hence John Burroughs has called the bird
the “bush sparrow.”

Fox Sparrow
(Passerella ilica) Finch family

Called also: FOX-COLORED SPARROW; FERRUGINOUS
FINCH; FOXY FINCH

Length—6.5 to 7.25 inches. Nearly an inch longer than the Eng-
lish sparrow.

Male and Female—Upper parts reddish brown, varied with ash
gray, brightest on lower back, wings, and tail. Bluish slate
about the head. Underneath whitish; the throat, breast, and
sides heavily marked with arrow-heads and oblong dashes of
reddish brown and blackish.

Range—Alaska and Manitoba to southern United States. Winters
chiefly south of Illinois and Virginia. Occasional stragglers
remain north most of the winter.

Migrations—March. November. Most common in the migra-
tions.

There will be little difficulty in naming this largest, most
plump and reddish of all the sparrows, whose fox-colored

153

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

feathers, rather than any malicious cunning of its disposition, are
responsible for the name it bears. The male bird is incomparably
the finest singer of its gifted family. His faint ¢seep call-note gives
no indication of his vocal powers that some bleak morning in early
March suddenly send a thrill of pleasure through you. It is the
most welcome “glad surprise’ of all the spring. Without a
preliminary twitter or throat-clearing of any sort, the full, rich,
luscious tones, with just a tinge of plaintiveness in them, are
poured forth with spontaneous abandon. Such a song at such a
time is enough to summon anybody with a musical ear out of
doors under the leaden skies to where the delicious notes issue
from the leafless shrubbery by the roadside. Watch the singer
until the song ends, when he will quite likely descend among the
dead leaves on the ground and scratch among them like any
barn-yard fowl, but somehow contriving to use both feet at once
in the operation, as no chicken ever could. He seems to take spe-
cial delight in damp thickets, where the insects with which he
varies his seed diet are plentiful.

Usually the fox sparrows keep in small, loose flocks, apart
by themselves, for they are not truly gregarious; but they may
sometimes be seen travelling in company with their white-
throated cousins. They are among the last birds to leave us in
the late autumn or winter. Mr. Bicknell says that they seem in-
disposed to sing unless present in numbers. Indeed, they are
little inclined to absolute solitude at any time, for even in the
nesting season quite a colony of grassy nurseries may be found
in the same meadow, and small companies haunt the roadside
shrubbery during the migrations.

Grasshopper Sparrow
(Ammodramus savannarum passerinus) Finch family

Called also: YELLOW-WINGED SPARROW

Length—5 to 5.4 inches. About an inch smaller than the Eng.
lish sparrow.

Male and Female—A cream-yellow line over the eye; centre of
crown, shoulders, and lesser wing coverts yellowish. Head
blackish; rust-colored feathers, with small black spots on
back of the neck; an orange mark before the eye. All other
upper parts varied red, brown, cream, and black, with a drab

154

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

wash. Underneath brownish drab on breast, shading to
soiled white, and without streaks. Dusky, even, poinied tail
feathers have grayish-white outer margins.

®ange—Eastern North America, from British provinces to Cuba.
Winters south of the Carolinas.

Migrations—April. October. Common summer resident.

It is safe to say that no other common bird is so frequently
overlooked as this little sparrow, that keeps persistently to the
grass and low bushes, and cnly faintly lifts up a weak, wiry
voice that is usually attributed to some insect. At the bend of
the wings only are the feathers really yellow, and even this
bright shade often goes unnoticed as the bird runs shyly through
an old dairy field or grassy pasture. You may all but step upon
it before it takes wing and exhibits itself on the fence-rail, which
is usually as far from the ground as it cares to go. If you are near
enough to this perch you may overhear the zee-e-e-e-e-e-e-e that
has earned it the name of grasshopper sparrow. If you persist-
ently follow it too closely, away it flies, then suddenly drops to
the ground where a scrubby bush affords protection. A curious
fact about this bird is that after you have once become acquainted
with it, you find that instead of being a rare discovery, as you had
supposed, it is apt to be a common resident of almost every field
you walk through.

Savanna Sparrow
(Ammodramus sandwichensis savanna) Finch family

Called also: SAVANNA BUNTING

Length—5.5 to 6 inches. A trifle smaller than the English sparrow.

Male and Female—Cheeks, space over the eye, and on the bend
of the wings pale yellow. General effect of the upper parts
brownish drab, streaked with black. Wings and tail dusky,
the outer webs of the feathers margined with buff. Under
parts white, heavily streaked with blackish and rufous, the
marks on breast feathers being wedge-shaped. In the au-
tumn the plumage is often suffused with a yellow tinge.

Range—Eastern North America, from Hudson Bay to Mexico.
Winters south of [linois and Virginia.

Migrations—April. October. A few remain in sheltered marshes
at the north all winter.

155

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

feathers, rather than any malicious cunning of its disposition, are
responsible for the name it bears. The male bird is incomparably
the finest singer of its gifted family. His faint ¢seep call-note gives
no indication of his vocal powers that some bleak morning in early
March suddenly send a thrill of pleasure through you. It is the
most welcome “glad surprise” of all the spring. Without a
preliminary twitter or throat-clearing of any sort, the full, rich,
luscious tones, with just a tinge of plaintiveness in them, are
poured forth with spontaneous abandon. Such a song at such a
time is enough to summon anybody with a musical ear out of
doors under the leaden skies to where the delicious notes issue
from the leafless shrubbery by the roadside. Watch the singer
until the song ends, when he will quite likely descend among the
dead leaves on the ground and scratch among them like any
barn-yard fowl, but somehow contriving to use both feet at once
in the operation, as no chicken ever could. He seems to take spe-
cial delight in damp thickets, where the insects with which he
varies his seed diet are plentiful.

Usually the fox sparrows keep in small, loose flocks, apart
by themselves, for they are not truly gregarious; but they may
sometimes be seen travelling in company with their white-
throated cousins. They are among the last birds to leave us in
the late autumn or winter. Mr. Bicknell says that they seem in-
disposed to sing unless present in numbers. Indeed, they are
little inclined to absolute solitude at any time, for even in the
nesting season quite a colony of grassy nurseries may be found
in the same meadow, and small companies haunt the roadside
shrubbery during the migrations.

Grasshopper Sparrow
(Ammodramus savannarum passerinus) Finch family

Called also: YELLOW-WINGED SPARROW

Length—5 to 5.4 inches. About an inch smaller than the Eng.
lish sparrow.

Male and Female—A cream-yellow line over the eye; centre of
crown, shoulders, and lesser wing coverts yellowish. Head
blackish; rust-colored feathers, with small black spots on
back of the neck; an orange mark before the eye. All other
upper parts varied red, brown, cream, and black, with a drab

154

Brown, Qlive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

wash. Underneath brownish drab on breast, shading to
soiled white, and without streaks. Dusky, even, pointed tail
feathers have grayish-white outer margins.

“ange—Eastern North America, from British provinces to Cuba.
Winters south of the Carolinas.

Migrations—April. October. Common summer resident.

It is safe to say that no other common bird is so frequently
overlooked as this little sparrow, that keeps persistently to the
" grass and low bushes, and cnly faintly lifts up a weak, wiry
voice that is usually attributed to some insect. At the bend of
the wings only are the feathers really yellow, and even this
bright shade often goes unnoticed as the bird runs shyly through
an old dairy field or grassy pasture. You may all but step upon
it before it takes wing and exhibits itself on the fence-rail, which
is usually as far from the ground as it cares to go. If you are near
enough to this perch you may overhear the 7ee-e-e-e-e-e-e-e that
has earned it the name of grasshopper sparrow. If you persist-
ently follow it too closely, away it flies, then suddenly drops to
the ground where a scrubby bush affords protection. A curious
fact about this bird is that after you have once become acquainted
with it, you find that instead of being a rare discovery, as you had
supposed, it is apt to be a common resident of almost every field
you walk through.

Savanna Sparrow
(Ammodramus sandwichensis savanna) Finch family

Called also: SAVANNA BUNTING

Length—5.5 to 6 inches. A trifle smaller than the English sparrow.

Male and Female-—Cheeks, space over the eye, and on the bend
of the wings pale yellow. General effect of the upper parts
brownish drab, streaked with black. Wings and tail dusky,
the outer webs of the feathers margined with buff. Under
parts white, heavily streaked with blackish and rufous, the
marks on breast feathers being wedge-shaped. In the au-
tumn the plumage is often suffused with a yellow tinge.

Range—Eastern North America, from Hudson Bay to Mexico.
Winters south of Illinois and Virginia.

Migrations—April. October. A few remain in sheltered marshes
at the north all winter.

155

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

Look for the savanna sparrow in salt marshes, marshy or
upland pastures, never far inland, and if you see a sparrowy
bird, unusually white and heavily streaked beneath, and with
pale yellow markings about the eye and on the bend of the wing,
you may still make several guesses at its identity before the weak,
little insect-like trill finally establishes it. Whoever can correctly
name every sparrow and warbler on sight is a person to be
envied, if, indeed, he exists at all.

In the lowlands of Nova Scotia and, in fact, of all the mari-
time provinces, this sparrow is the one that is perhaps most com-
monly seen. Every fence-rail has one perched upon it, singing
“* Ptsip, ptsip, ptsip, zee-e-e-e-e” close to the ear of the passer-by,
who otherwise might not hear the low grasshopper-like song. At
the north the bird somehow loses the shyness that makes it com-
paratively little known farther south. Depending upon the scrub
and grass to conceal it, you may almost tread upon it before it
startles you by its sudden rising with a whitmg noise, only to
drop to the ground again just 2° cuaaenly a few yards farther
away, where it scuds amoung the underbrush and is lost to sight.
Tall weeds and fence-rails are as high and exposed situations as
t is likely to select while singing. It is most distinctively a
ground bird, and flat upon the pasture or in a slightly hollowed
cup it has the merest apology for a nest. Only a few wisps of
grass are laid in the cavity to receive the pale-green eggs, that are
covered most curiously with blotches of brown of many shapes
and tints.

Seaside Sparrow
(Ammodramus maritimus) Finch family

Called also: MEADOW CHIPPY; SEASIDE FINCH

Lengtb—6 inches. A shade smaller than the English sparrow.

Male and Female—Upper parts dusky grayish or olivaceous brown,
inclining to gray on shoulders and on edges of some feathers.
Wings and tail darkest. Throat yellowish white, shading to
gray on breast, which is indistinctly mottled and streaked.
A yellow spot before the eye and on bend of the wing, the
bird’s characteristic marks. Blunt tail.

Range—Atlantic seaboard, from Georgia northward. Usually
winters south of Virginia.

Migrations—April. November. A few remain in sheltered
marshes all winter.

156

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

The savanna, the swamp, the sharp-tailed, and the song spar-
rows may all sometimes be found in the haunts of the seaside
sparrow, but you may be certain of finding the latter nowhere else
than in the salt marshes within sight or sound of the sea. Itis a
dingy little bird, with the least definite coloring of all the spar-
rows that have maritime inclinations, with no rufous tint in its
feathers, and less distinct streakings on the breast than any of
them. It has no black markings on the back.

Good-sized flocks of seaside sparrows live together in the
marshes; but they spend so much of their time on the ground,
running about among the reeds and grasses, whose seeds and
insect parasites they feed upon, that not until some unusual dis-
turbance in the quiet place flushes them does the intruder sus~-
pect their presence, Hunters after beach-birds, longshoremen,
seaside cottagers, and whoever follows the windings of a creek
through the salt meadows to catch crabs and eels in midsummer,
are well acquainted with the ‘‘meadow chippies,” as the fisher~
men call them. They keep up a good deal of chirping, sparrow~
fashion, and have four or five notes resembling a song that is
usually delivered from a tall reed stalk, where the bird sways and
balances until his husky performance has ended, when down he
drops upon the ground out of sight. Sometimes, too, these
notes are uttered while the bird flutters in the air above the tops
of the sedges.

Sharp-tailed Sparrow
(Ammodramus caudacutus) Finch family

Length—5.25 to 5.85 inches. A trifle smaller than the English
sparrow.

Male and Female—Upper parts brownish or grayish olive, the
back with black streaks, and gray edges to some feathers.
A gray line through centre of crown, which has maroon
stripes; gray ears enclosed by buff lines, one of which passes
through the eye and one on side of throat; brownish orange,
or buff, on sides of head. Bend of the wing yellow. Breast
and sides pale buff, distinctly streaked with black. Under-
neath whitish. Each narrow quill of tail is sharply pointed,
the outer ones shortest.

Range—Atlantic coast. Winters south of Virginia.

Migrations—April. November. Summer resident.
157

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

This bird delights in the company of the dull-colored seaside
sparrow, whose haunts in the salt marshes it frequents, especially
the drier parts; but its pointed tail-quills and more distinct mark-
ings are sufficient to prevent confusion. Mr. J. Dwight, Jr., who
has made a special study of maritime birds, says of it: ‘It runs
about among the reeds and grasses with the celerity of a mouse,
and it is not apt to take wing unless closely pressed.” (Wilson
credited it with the nimbleness of a sandpiper.) ‘‘It builds its
nest in the tussocks on the bank of a ditch, or in the drift left by
the tide, rather than in the grassier sites chosen by its neighbors,
the seaside sparrows.”

Only rarely does one get a glimpse of this shy little bird,
that darts out of sight like a flash at the first approach. Balancing
on a cat-tail stalk or perched upon a bit of driftwood, it makes a
feeble, husky attempt to sing a few notes; and during the brief
performance the opera-glasses may search it out successfully.
While it feeds upon the bits of sea-food washed ashore to the
edge of the marshes, it gives us perhaps the best chance we ever
get, outside of a museum, to study the bird’s characteristics of
plumage.

‘‘Both the sharp-tailed and the seaside finches are crepus-
cular,” says Dr. Abbott, in ‘‘The Birds About Us.” They run
up and dewn the reeds and on the water’s edge long after most
birds have gone to sleep.

Song Sparrow
(Melospiza fasciata) Finch family

Length—6 to 6.5 inches. About the same size as the English
sparrow.

Male and Female—Brown head, with three longitudinal gray bands
Brown stripe on sides of throat. Brownish-gray back.
streaked with rufous. Underneath gray, shading to white,
heavily streaked with darkest brown. A black spot on
breast. Wings without bars. Tail plain grayish brown.

Range—North America, from Fur Countries to the Gulf States.
Winters from southern Illinois and Massachusetts to the Gulf.

Migrations—March. November. A few birds remain at the
north ail the year.

Here is a veritable bird neighbor, if ever there was one ; at
home in our gardens and hedges, not often farther away than the
158

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

roadside, abundant everywhere during nearly every month in the
year, and yet was there ever onetoomany? There is scarcely an
hour in the day, too, when its delicious, ecstatic song may not
be heard; in the darkness of midnight, just before dawn, when
its voice is almost the first to respond to the chipping sparrow’s
wiry trill and the robin’s warble ; in the cool of the morning, the
heat of noon, the hush of evening—ever the simple, homely,
sweet melody that every good American has learned to love in
childhood. What the bird lacks in beauty it abundantly makes
up in good cheer. Not at all retiring, though never bold, it
chooses some conspicuous perch on a bush or tree to deliver its
outburst of song, and sings away with serene unconsciousness.
Its artlessness is charming. Thoreau writes in his ‘‘ Summer”
that the country girls in Massachusetts hear the bird say: ‘* Maids,
maids, maids, bang on your teakettle, teakettle-ettie-etile.” The
call-note, a metallic chip, is equally characteristic of the bird’s
irrepressible vivacity. It has still another musical expression,
however, a song more prolonged and varied than its usual per-
formance, that it seems to sing only on the wing.

Of course, the song sparrow must sometimes fly upward,
but whoever sees it fly anywhere but downward into the thicket
that it depends upon ‘o conceal it from too close inspection ?
By pumping its tail as it flies, it seems to acquire more than the
ordinary sparrow’s velocity.

Its nest, which is likely to be Iaid flat on the ground, except
where field-mice are plentiful (in which case it is elevated into
the crotch of a bush), is made of grass, strips of bark, and leaves,
and lined with finer grasses and hair. Sometimes three broods
may be reared in a season, but even the cares of providing insects
and seeds enough for so many hungry babies cannot altogether
suppress the cheerful singer. The eggs are grayish white,
speckled and clouded with lavender and various shades of
brown. ;

In sparsely settled regions the song sparrows seem to show
a fondness for moist woodland thickets, possibly because their
tastes are insectivorous. But it is difficult to imagine the friendly
little musician anything but a neighbor.

159 |

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

Swamp Song Sparrow
(Melospiza georgiana) Finch family

Called also: SWAMP SPARROW; MARSH SPARROW; RED
GRASS-BIRD; SWAMP FINCH

Length—5 to 5.8 inches. A little smaller than the English spar-
row.

Male—Forehead black; crown, which in winter has black stripes,
is a bright bay; line over the eye, sides of the neck
gray. Back brown, striped with various shades. Wing-
edges and tail reddish brown. Mottled gray underneath,
inclining to white on the chin.

Femaie—Without black forehead and stripes on head.
ange—North America, from Texas to Labrador.
Migrations—April. October. A few winter at the north.

In just such impenetrable retreats as the marsh wrens choose,
another wee brown bird may sometimes be seen springing up
from among the sedges, singing a few sweet notes as it flies and
floats above them, and then suddenly disappearing into the
grassy tangle. It is too small, and its breast is not streaked
enough to be a song sparrow, neither are their songs alike; it has
not the wren’s peculiarities of bill and tail. Its bright-bay crown
and sparrowy markings finally identify it. A suggestion of the
bird’s watery home shows itself in the liquid quality of its simple,
sweet note, stronger and sweeter than the chippy’s, and repeated
many times almost like a trill that seems to trickle from the
marsh in a little rivulet of song. The sweetness is apt to become
monotonous to all but the bird itself, that takes evident delight in
its performance. In the spring, when flocks of swamp sparrows
come north, how they enliven the marshes and waste places !
And yet the song, simple as it is, is evidently not uttered alto-
gether without effort, if the tail-spreading and teetering of the
body after the manner of the ovenbird, are any indications of
exertion.

Nuttall says of these birds: ‘‘ They thread their devious way
with the same alacrity as the rail, with whom, indeed, they are
often associated in neighborhood. In consequence of this perpet-
ual brushing through sedge and bushes, their feathers are fre-
quently so >vorn that their tails appear almost like those of rats.”

166

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

But the swamp sparrows frequently belie their name, and,
especially in the South, live in dry fields, worn-out pasture lands
with scrubby, weedy patches in them. They live upon seeds of
grasses and berries, but Dr. Abbott has detected their special
fondness for fish—not fresh fish particularly, but rather such as
have lain in the sun for a few days and become dry as a chip.

Their nest is placed on the ground, sometimes in a tussock
of grass or roots of an upturned tree quite surrounded by water.
Four or five soiled white eggs with reddish-brown spots are laid
usually twice in a season.

Tree Sparrow
(Spizella monticola) Finch family

Called also: CANADA SPARROW; WINTER CHIPPY; TREE
BUNTING; WINTER CHIP-BIRD; ARCTIC CHIPPER

Length—6 to 6.35 inches. About the same size as the English
sparrow.

Male—Crown of head bright chestnut. Line over the eye, cheeks,
throat, and breast gray, the breast with an indistinct black
spot on centre. Brown back, the feathers edged with black
and buff. Lower back pale grayish brown. Two whitist
bars across dusky wings; tail feathers bordered with grayisk
white. Underneath whitish.

Female—Smaller and less distinctly marked.

Range—North America, from Hudson Bay to the Carolinas, and
westward to the plains.

Migrations—October. April. Winter resident.

A revised and enlarged edition of the friendly little chipping
sparrow, that hops to our very doors for crumbs throughout the
mild weather, comes out of British America at the beginning of
winter to dissipate much of the winter’s dreariness by his cheer-
ful twitterings. Why he should have been called a tree spar-
row is a mystery, unless because he does not frequent trees—a
reason with sufficient plausibility to commend the name to sev-
eral of the early ornithologists, who not infrequently called a bird
precisely what it was not. The tree sparrow actually does not
show half the preference for trees that its familiar little counter-
part does, but rather keeps to low bushes when not on the

161

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

ground, where we usually find it. It does not crouch upon the
ground like the chippy, but with a lordly carriage holds itself
erect as it nimbly runs over the frozen crust. Sheltered from the
high, wintry winds in the furrows and dry ditches of ploughed
fields, a loose flock of these active birds keep up a merry hunt
for fallen seeds and berries, with a belated beetle to give the graip
arelish. As you approach the feeding ground, one bird gives a
shrill alarm-cry, and instantly five times as many birds as you
suspected were in the field take wing and settle down in the
scrubby undergrowth at the edge of the woods or by the way-
side. No still cold seems too keen for them to go a-foraging;
but when cutting winds blow through the leafless thickets the
scattered remnants of a flock seek the shelter of stone walls,
hedges, barns, and cozy nooks about the house and garden. It
is in midwinter that these birds grow most neighborly, although
even then they are distinctly less sociable than their small chippy
cousins.

By the first of March, when the fox sparrow and the blue-
bird attract the lion’s share of attention by their superior voices,
we not infrequently are deaf to the modest, sweet little strain
that answers for the tree sparrow’s love-song. Soon after the
bird is in full voice, away it goes with its flock to their nesting
ground in Labrador or the Hudson Bay region. It builds, either
on the ground or not far from it, a nest of grasses, rootlets, and
hair, without which no true chippy counts its home complete.

Vesper Sparrow
(Poocetes gramineus) Finch family

Called also: BAY-WINGED BUNTING; GRASSFINCH; GRASS-
BIRD

Length—5.75 to 6.25 inches. A little smaller than the English
sparrow.

Male and Female—Brown above, streaked and varied with gray.
Lesser wing coverts bright rufous. Throat and breast whit-
ish, striped with dark brown. Underneath plain soiled
white. Outer tail-quills, which are its special mark of iden-
tification, are partly white, but apparently wholly white as
the bird flies.

162

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

Range—North America, especially common in eastern parts from
Hudson Bay to Gulf of Mexico. Winters south of Virginia.

Migrations—April. October. Common summer resident.

Among the least conspicuous birds, sparrows are the easiest
to classify for that very reason, and certain prominent features of
the half dozen commonest of the tribe make their identification
simple even to the merest novice. The distinguishing marks of
this sparrow that haunts open, breezy pasture lands and country
waysides are its bright, reddish-brown wing coverts, prominent
among its dingy, pale brownish-gray feathers, and its white tail-
quills, shown as the bird flies along the road ahead of you to
light upon the fence-rail. It rarely flies higher, even to sing its
serene, pastoral strain, restful as the twilight, of which, indeed, it
seems to be the vocal expression. How different from the ecstatic
outburst of the song sparrow! Pensive, but not sad, its long-
drawn silvery notes continue in quavers that float off unended
like a trail of mist. The song is suggestive of the thoughts that
must come at evening to some New England saint of humble
Station after a well-spent, soul-uplifting day.

But while the vesper sparrow sings oftenest and most sweetly
in the late afternoon and continues singing until only he and the
rose-breasted grosbeak break the silence of the early night, his is
one of the first voices to join the morning chorus. No ‘early
worm,” however, tempts him from his grassy nest, for the seeds
in the pasture lands and certain tiny insects that live among the
grass furnish meals at all hours. He simply delights in the cool,
still morning and evening hours and in giving voice to his enjoy-
ment of them.

The vesper sparrow is preéminently a grass-bird. It first
opens its eyes on the world in a nest neatly woven of grasses,
laid on the ground among the grass that shelters it and furnishes
it with food and its protective coloring. Only the grazing cattle
know how many nests and birds are hidden in their pastures.
Like the meadowlarks, their presence is not even suspected until
a flock is flushed from its feeding ground, only to return to the
spot when you have passed on your way. Like the meadowlark
again, the vesper sparrow occasionally sings as it soars upward
from its grassy home.

363

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

White-crowned Sparrow
(Zonotrichia leucopbrys) Finch family

Length—7 inches. A little larger than the English sparrow.

Male—White head, with four longitudinal black lines marking off
a crown, the black-and-white stripes being of about equal
width. Cheeks, nape, and throat gray. Light gray under-
neath, with some buff tints. Back dark grayish brown,
some feathers margined with gray. Two interrupted white
bars across wings. Plain, dusky tail; total effect, a clear
ashen gray.

Female—With rusty head inclining to gray on crown. Paler
throughout than the male.

Range—From high mountain ranges of western United States
(more rarely on Pacific slope) to Atlantic Ocean, and from
Labrador to Mexico. Chiefly south of Pennsylvania.

Migrations—October. April. Irregular migrant in Northern States.
A winter resident elsewhere.

The large size and handsome markings of this aristocratic-
looking Northern sparrow would serve to distinguish him at once,
did he not often consort with his equally fine-looking white-
throated cousins while migrating, and so too often get over-
looked. Sparrows are such gregarious birds that it is well to
scrutinize every flock with especial care in the spring and autumn,
when the rarer migrants are passing. This bird is more common
in the high altitudes of the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains
than elsewhere in the United States. There in the lonely forest
it nests in low bushes or on the ground, and sings its full love-
song, as it does in the northern British provinces, along the Atlan-
tic coast; but during the migrations it favors us only with
selections from its repertoire. Mr. Ernest Thompson says, “Its
usual song is like the latter half of the white-throat’s familiar re-
frain, repeated a number of times with a peculiar, sad cadence and
in a clear, soft whistle that is characteristic of the group.” ‘‘ The
song is the loudest and most plaintive of all the sparrow songs,”
says John Burroughs. ‘‘It begins with the words fe-u, fe-u, fe-u,
and runs off into trills and quavers like the song sparrow’s, only
much more touching.” Colorado miners tell that this sparrow,
like its white-throated relative, sings on the darkest nights.
Often a score or more birds are heard singing at once after the

164

The flicker

The gorgeous Baltimore oriole

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

habit of the European nightingales, which, however, choose to
sing only in the moonlight.

White-throated Sparrow
(Zonotrichia albicollis) Finch family

Called also: PEABODY BIRD; CANADA SPARROW

Length—6.75 to '7 inches. Larger than the English sparrow.

Male and Female—A black crown divided by narrow white line.
Yellow spot before the eye, and a white line, apparently run-
ning through it, passes backward to the nape. Conspicuous
white throat. Chestnut back, varied with black and whitish.
Breast gray, growing lighter underneath. Wings edged
with rufous and with two white cross-bars. (

Aange—Eastern North America. Nests from Michigan and Mas-
sachusetts northward to Labrador. Winters from southern
New England to Florida.

Migrations—April. October. Abundant during migrations, and
in many States a winter resident.

**}-1, Pea-body, Pea-body, Pea-body,’’ are the syllables of the
white-throat’s song heard by the good New Englanders, who
have a tradition that you must either be a Peabody or a nobody
there; while just over the British border the bird is distinctly un-
derstood to say, ‘‘ Swee-e-e-t Can-a-da, Can-a-da, Can-a-da."’
“* All day, whit-tle-ing, whit-tle-ing, whit-tle-ing,” the Maine
people declare he sings; and Hamilton Gibson told of a per-
plexed farmer, Peverly by name, who, as he stood in the field
undecided as to what crop to plant, clearly heard the bird advise,
“* Sow wheat, Pev-er-ly, Pev-er-ly, Pev-er-ly.”’ Such divergence
of opinion, which is really slight compared with the verbal record
of many birds’ songs, only goes to show how little the sweet-
ness of birds’ music, like the perfume of a rose, depends upon a
name.

In a family not distinguished for good looks, the white-
throated sparrow is conspicuously handsome, especially after the
spring moult. In midwinter the feathers grow dingy and the
markings indistinct ; but as the season advances, his colors are
sure to brighten perceptibly, and before he takes the northward
iournev in April, any little lady sparrow might feel proud of the

265

Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

attentions of so fine-looking and sweet-voiced alover. The black,
white, and yellow markings on his head are now clear and beaue
tiful. His figure is plump and aristocratic.

These sparrows are particularly sociable travellers, and cor-
dially welcome many stragglers to their flocks—not during the
migrations only, but even when winter’s snow affords only the
barest gleanings above it. Then they boldly peck about the
dog’s plate by the kitchen door and enter the barn-yard, calling
their feathered friends with a sharp ¢seep to follow them. Seeds
and insects are their chosen food, and were they not well wrapped
in an adipose coat under their feathers, there must be many a
winter night when they would go shivering, supperless, to their
perch.

In the dark of midnight one may sometimes hear the white-
throat softly singing in its dreams,

GREEN, GREENISH GRAY, OLIVE, AND
YELLOWISH OLIVE BIRDS -

Tree Swallow

Ruby-throated Humming-bird
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Solitary Vireo

Red-eyed Vireo

White-eyed Vireo

Warbling Vireo

Ovenbird

Worm-eating Warbler
Acadian Flycatcher
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher '
Black-throated Green Warbler

Look also among the Olive-brown Birds, especially for the Cuckoos, Alice’s
and the Olive-backed Thrushes; and look in the yellow group, many of whose birds
are olive also. See also females of the Red Crossbill, Orchard Oriole, Scarlet
Tanager, Summer Tanager.

GREEN, GREENISH GRAY, OLIVE, AND
YELLOWISH OLIVE BIRDS

Tree Swallow
(Tachycineta bicolor) Swallow family

Called also: WHITE-BELLIED SWALLOW

LZength—5 to 6 inches. A little shorter than the English sparrow,
but apparently much larger because of its wide wing-spread.

Male—Lustrous dark steel-green above; darker and shading into
re on wings and tail, which is forked. Under parts soft
white.

Female—Duller than male.
ange—North America, from Hudson Bay to Panama.
Migrations—End of March. September or later. Summer resident.

*¢ The stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times: and the turtle and the
ctane and the swallow observe the time of their coming.”"—Jeremiah, viii. 7.

The earliest of the family to appear in the spring, the tree
swallow comes skimming over the freshly ploughed fields with
a wide sweep of the wings, in what appears to be a perfect
ecstasy of flight. More shy of the haunts of man, and less gre-
garious than its cousins, it is usually to be seen during migration
flying low over the marshes, ponds, and streams with a few
chosen friends, keeping up an incessant warbling twitter while
performing their bewildering and tireless evolutions as they catch
their food on the wing. Their white breasts flash in the sun-
light, and it is only when they dart near you, and skim close
along the surface of the water, that you discover their backs to
be not black, but rich, dark green, glossy to iridescence.

It is probable that these birds keep near the waterways
because their favorite insects and wax-berries are more plentiful
in such places: but this peculiarity has led many people to the

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Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds

absurd belief that the tree swallow buries itself under the mud of
ponds in winter in a state of hibernation. No bird’s breathing
apparatus is made to operate under mud.

In unsettled districts these swallows nest in hollow trees,
hence their name; but with that laziness that forms a part of the
degeneracy of civilization, they now gladly accept the boxes
about men’s homes set up for the martins. Thousands of these
beautiful birds have been shot on the Long Island marshes and
sold to New York epicures for snipe.

Ruby-throated Humming-bird '
(Trochilus colubris) Humming-bird family

Leng th—3.5 to 3.75 inches. A trifle over half as long as the Eng-
Stish aoae The smallest bird we have. .

Male—Bright metallic green above; wings and tail darkest, with
ruddy-purplish reflections and dusky-white tips on outer tail-
quills. Throat and breast brilliant metallic-red in one light,
orange flame in another, and dusky orange in another,
according as the light strikes the plumage. Sides greenish;
underneath lightest gray, with whitish border outlining the
brilliant breast. Bill long and needle-like.

Female—Without the brilliant feathers on throat; darker gray
beneath. Outer tail-quills are banded with black and tipped
with white.

Range—Eastern North America, from northern Canada to the
Gulf of Mexico in summer. Winters in Central America.

Migrations—May. October. Common summer resident.

This smallest, most exquisite and unabashed of our bird
neighbors cannot be mistaken, for it is the only one of its kin
found east of the plains and north of Florida, although about four
hundred species, native only to the New World, have been named
by scientists. How does it happen that this little tropical jewel
alone flashes about our Northern gardens? Does it never stir the
spirit of adventure and emulation in the glistening breasts of its
stay-at-home cousins in the tropics by tales of luxuriant tangles
of honeysuckle and clematis on our cottage porches; of deep-
cupped trumpet-flowers climbing over the walls of old-fashioned
gardens, where larkspur, narcissus, roses, and phlox, that crowd
the box-edged beds, are more gay and honey-laden than their

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Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds

fittle brains can picture? Apparently it takes only the wish to be
in a place to transport one of these little fairies either from the
honeysuckle trellis to the canna bed or from Yucatan to the Hud-
son. It is easy to see how to will and to fly are allied in the
minds of the humming-birds, as they are in the Latin tongue.
One minute poised in midair, apparently motionless before a
flower while draining the nectar from its deep cup—though the
humming of its wings tells that it is suspended there by no magic
—the next instant it has flashed out of sight as if a fairy’s wand
had made it suddenly invisible. Without seeing the hummer, it
might be, and often is, mistaken for a bee improving the ‘shin-
ing hour.”

At evening one often hears of a ‘‘humming-bird” going the
rounds of the garden, but at this hour it is usually the sphinx.
moth hovering above the flower-beds—the one other creature be
sides the bee for which the bird is ever mistaken. The postures
and preferences of this beautiful large moth make the mistake a
very natural one.

The ruby-throat is strangely fearless and unabashed. It will
dart among the vines on the veranda while the entire household
are assembled there, and add its hum to that of the conversation
in a most delightfully neighborly way. Once a glistening little
sprite, quite undaunted by the size of an audience that sat almost
breathless enjoying his beauty, thrust his bill into one calyx after
another on a long sprig of honeysuckle held in the hand.

And yet, with all its friendliness—or is it simply fearlessness P
—the bird is a desperate duellist, and will longe his deadly blade
into the jewelled breast of an enemy at the slightest provocation
and quicker than thought. All the heat of his glowing throat
seems to be transferred to his head while the fight continues,
sometimes even to the death—a cruel, but marvellously beautiful
sight as the glistening birds dart and tumble about beyond the
range of peace-makers.

High up in a tree, preferably one whose knots and lichen-
covered excrescences are calculated to help conceal the nest that
so cleverly imitates them, the mother humming-bird saddles her’
exquisite cradle to a horizontal limb. She lines it with plant-
down, fluffy bits from cat-tails, and the fronds of fern, felting
the material into a circle that an elm-leaf amply roofs over. Out-
side, lichens or bits of bark blend the nest so harmoniously with

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Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds

its surroundings that one may look long and thoroughly before
discovering it. Two infinitesimal, white eggs tax the nest ac-
commodation to its utmost.

In the mating season the female may be seen perching—a
posture one rarely catches her gay lover in—preening her dainty
but sombre feathers with ladylike nicety. The young birds doa
great deal of perching before they gain the marvellously rapid
wing-motions of maturity, but they are ready to fly within three
weeks after they are hatched. By the time the trumpet-vine is
in bloom they dart and sip and utter a shrill little squeak among
the flowers, in company with the old birds.

During the nest-building and incubation the male bird keeps
so aggressively on the defensive that he often betrays to a hitherto
unsuspecting intruder the location of his home. After the young
birds have to be ied he is most diligent in collecting food, that
consists not alone of the sweet juices of flowers, as is popularly
supposed, but also of aphides and plant-lice that his proboscis-like
tongue licks off the garden foliage literally like a streak of lightning.

Both parents feed the young by regurgitation—a process
disgusting to the human observer, whose stomach involuntarily
revolts at the sight so welcome to the tiny, squeaking, hungry
birds.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet
(Regulus calendula) Kinglet family

Called also) RUBY-CROWNED WREN; RUBY-CROWNED
WARBLER

Length—4.25 to 4.5 inches. About two inches smaller than the
English sparrow.

Male—Upper parts grayish olive-green, brighter nearer the tail;
wings and tail dusky, edged with yellowish olive. Two
whitish wing-bars. Breast and underneath light yellowish
gray. In the adult male a vermilion spot on crown of his
ash-gray head.

Female—Similar, but without the vermilion crest.

Range—North America. Breeds from northern United States
northward. Winters from southern limits of its breeding
range to Central America and Mexico.

Migrations—October. April. Rarely a winter yesident at the
North. Most common during its migrations,

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Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birés

A trifle larger than the golden-crowned kinglet, with a vere
milion crest instead of a yellow and flame one, and with a decided
preference for a warmer winter climate, and the ruby-crown’s chief
distinguishing characteristics are told. These rather confusing
relatives would be less puzzling if it were the habit of either to
keep quiet long enough to focus the »>pera-glasses on their
crowns, which it only rarely is while some particularly promising
haunt of insects that lurk beneath the rough bark of the ever-~
greens has to be thoroughly explored. At all other times both
kinglets keep up an incessant fluttering and twinkling among
the twigs and leaves at the ends of the branches, jerking their
tiny bodies from twig to twig in the shrubbery, hangirg head
downward, like a nuthatch, and most industriously feeding every
second upon the tiny insects and larve hidden beneath the bark
and leaves. They seem to be the feathered expression of perpet~
ual motion. And how dainty and charming these tiny sprites
are! They are not at all shy; you may approach them quite
close if you will, for the birds are simply too intent on their busi-
ness to be concerned with yours.

If a sharp lookout be kept for these ruby-crowned migrants,
that too often slip away to the south before we know they have
come, we notice that they appear about a fortnight ahead of the
golden-crested species, since the mild, soft air of our Indian sum-
mer is exactly to their liking. At this season there is nothing in
the bird’s ‘‘thin, metallic call-note, like a vibrating wire,” to
indicate that he is one of our finest songsters. But listen for him
during the spring migration, when a love-song is already ripen
ing in his tiny throat. What a volume of rich, lyrical melody
pours from the Norway spruce, where the little musician is simply
practising to perfect the richer, fuller song that he sings to his
nesting mate in the far north! The volume is really tremendous,
coming from so tiny a throat. Those who have heard it in
northern Canada describe it as a flute-like and mellow warble
full of intricate phrases past the imitating. Dr. Coues says of it:
“ The kinglet’s exquisite vocalization defies description.”

Curiously enough, the nest of this bird, that is not at all rare,
has been discovered only six times. It would appear to be over
large for the tiny bird, until we remember that kinglets are wont
to have a numerous progeny in their pensile, globular home. It
is made of light, flimsy material—moss, strips of bark, and plant-

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Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds |

fibre well knit together and closely lined with feathers, which must
be a grateful addition to the babies, where they are reared in
evergreens in cold, northern woods.

Golden-crowned Kinglet
(Regulus satrapa) Kinglet family

Called also) GOLDEN-CROWNED GOLDCREST; FIERY.
CROWNED WREN .

Length—4 to 4.25 inches. About two inches smaller than tne
English sparrow.

Male—Upper parts grayish olive-green; wings and tail dusky,
margined with olive-green. Underneath soiled whitish.
Centre of crown bright orange, bordered by yellow and en-
closed by black line. Cheeks gray ; a whitish line over the
eye.

Female—Similar, but centre of crown lemon-yellow and more
grayish underneath.

Range—North America generally. Breeds from northern United
States northward. Winters chiefly from North Carolina to
Central America, but many remain north all the year.

Migrations—September. April Chiefly a winter resident south
of Canada.

If this cheery little winter neighbor would keep quiet long
enough, we might have a glimpse of the golden crest that dis-
tinguishes him from his equally lively cousin, the ruby-crowned ;
but he is so constantly flitting about the ends of the twigs, peer-
ing at the bark for hidden insects, twinkling his wings and flut-
tering among the evergreens with more nervous restlessness than
a vireo, that you may know him well before you have a glimpse
of his tri-colored crown.

é When the autumn foliage is all aglow with yellow and flame
i this tiny sprite comes out of the north, where neither nesting not
moulting could rob him of his cheerful spirits. Except the hum-
ming-bird and the winter wren, he is the smallest bird we have.
And yet, somewhere stored up in his diminutive body, is warmth
enough to withstand zero weather. With evident enjoyment of
the cold, he calls out a shrill, wiry zee, zee, zee, that rings merrily
from the pines and spruces when our fingers are too numb to
hold the opera glasses in an attempt to follow his restless flittings

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Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds

from branch to branch. Is it one of the unwritten laws of birds
that the smaller their bodies the greater their activity ?

When you see one kinglet about, you may be sure there are
others not far away, for, except in the nesting season, its habits
are distinctly social, its friendliness extending to the humdrum
brown creeper, the chickadees, and the nuthatches, in whose
company it is often seen ; indeed, it is likely to be in almost any
flock of the winter birds. They are a merry band as they go ex-
ploring the trees together. The kinglet can hang upside down,
too, like the other acrobats, many of whose tricks he has learned ; :
and it can pick off insects from a tree with as business-like an ©
air as the brown creeper, but with none of that soulless bird’s
plodding precision.

In the early spring, just before this busy little sprite leaves us
to nest in Canada or Labrador—for heat is the one thing that he
can’t cheerfully endure—a gushing, lyrical song bursts from his
tiny throat—a song whose volume is so out of proportion to the
bird’s size that Nuttall’s classification of kinglets with wrens
doesn’t seem far wrong after all.

Only rarely is a nest found so far south as the White Moun-
tains. It is said to be extraordinarily large for so small a bird ;
but that need not surprise us when we learn that as many as ten
creamy-white eggs, blotched with brown and lavender, are no
uncommon number for the pensile cradle to hold. How do the
tiny parents contrive to cover so many eggs and to feed such a
mestful of fledglings P

Solitary Vireo
(Vireo solitarius) Vireo or Greenlet family
Called also: BLUE-HEADED VIREO

Length—5.5 to 7 inches. A little smaller than the English
sparrow.

Male—Dusky olive above ; head bluish gray, with a white line
around the eye, spreading behind the eye into a patch. Be-
neath whitish, with yellow-green wash on the sides. Wings
dusky olive, with two distinct white bars. Tail dusky, some
quills edged with white.

Female—Similar, but her head is dusky olive.

Range—United States to plains, and the southern British prove
inces. Winters in Florida and southward.

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Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds

Migrations—May. Early October. Common during migrations;
more rarely a summer resident south of Massachusetts.

By no means the recluse that its name would imply, the
solitary vireo, while a bird of the woods, shows a charming curi-
osity about the stranger with opera-glasses in hand, who has
penetrated to the deep, swampy tangles, where it chooses to
live. Peering at you through the green undergrowth with an
eye that seems especially conspicuous because of its encircling
white rim, it is at least as sociable and cheerful as any member of
its family, and Mr. Bradford Torrey credits it with ‘’ winning
tameness.” ‘‘ Wood-bird as it is,” he says, ‘‘it will sometimes
permit the greatest familiarities. Two birds I have seen, which
allowed themselves to be stroked in the freest manner, while sit-
ting on the eggs, and which ate from my hand as readily as any
pet canary.”

The solitary vireo also builds a pensile nest, swung from the
crotch of a branch, not so high from the ground as the yellow-
throated vireo’s nor so exquisitely finished, but still a beautiful
little structure of pine-needles, plant-fibre, dry leaves, and twigs,
all lichen-lined and bound and rebound with coarse spiders’ webs.

The distinguishing quality of this vireo’s celebrated song is its
tenderness: a pure, serene uplifting of its loving, trustful nature
that seems inspired by a fine spirituality.

Red-eyed Vireo

(Vireo olivaceus) Vireo or Greenlet family
Called also: THE PREACHER

Length—s.75 to 6.25 inches. A fraction smaller than the English
sparrow.

Male and Female—Upper parts light olive-green; well-defined
slaty-gray cap, with black marginal line, below which, and
forming an exaggerated eyebrow, is a line of white. A
brownish band runs from base of bill through the eye. The
iris is ruby-red. Underneath white, shaded with light green-
ish yellow on sides and on under tail and wing coverts.

Range—United States to Rockies and northward. Winters in
Central and South America.

Migrations—April. October. Common summer resident.

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Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds

**You see it—you know it—do you hear me? Do you be-
Heve it?” is Wilson Flagg’s famous interpretation of the song of
this commonest of all the vireos, that you cannot mistake with
such a key. He calls the bird the preacher from its declamatory
style: an up-and-down warble delivered with a rising inflection
at the close and followed by an impressive silence, as if the little
green orator were saying, ‘‘I pause for a reply.”

Notwithstanding its quiet coloring, that so closely resembles
the leaves it hunts among, this vireo is rather more noticeable
than its relatives because of its slaty cap and the black-and-white
lines over its ruby eye, that, in addition to the song, are its marked
characteristics.

Whether she is excessively stupid or excessively kind, the
mother-vireo has certainly won for herself no end of ridicule by
allowing the cowbird to deposit a stray egg in the exquisitely
made, pensile nest, where her. own tiny white eggs are lying;
and though the young cowbird crowd and worry her little fledg-
lings and eat their dinner as fast as she can bring it in, no dis-
pleasure or grudging is shown towards the dusky intruder that
is sure to upset the rightful heirs out of the nest before they are
able to fly.

In the heat of a midsummer noon, when nearly every other
bird’s voice is hushed, and only the locust seems to rejoice in
the fierce sunshine, the little red-eyed vireo goes persistently
about its business of gathering insects from the leaves, not flit-
ting nervously about like a warbler, or taking its food on the
wing like a flycatcher, but patiently and industriously dining
where it can, and singing as it goes.

When a worm is caught it is first shaken against a branch to
kill it before it is swallowed. Vireos haunt shrubbery and trees
with heavy foliage, all their hunting, singing, resting, and home-
building being done among the leaves—never on the ground.

White-eyed Vireo
(Vireo noveboracensis) Vireo or Greenlet family

Length—5 to 5.3 inches. An inch shorter than the English
sparrow.

Male and Female—Upper parts bright olive-green, washed with
grayish. Throat and underneath white; the breast and

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Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds

sides greenish yellow; wings have two distinct bars of
yellowish white. Yellow line from beak to and around the
eye, which has a white iris. Feathers of wings and tail
brownish and edged with yellow.

Range—United States to the Rockies, and to the Gulf regions and
beyond in winter.

Migrations—May. September. Summer resident.

‘Pertest of songsters,” the white-eyed vireo makes what-
ever neighborhood it enters lively at once. Taking up a resi-
dence in the tangled shrubbery or thickety undergrowth, it
immediately begins to scold like a crotchety old wren. It
becomes irritated over the merest trifles—a passing bumblebee,
a visit from another bird to its tangle, an unsuccessful peck at a
gnat—anything seems calculated to rouse its wrath and set every
feather on its little body a-trembling, while it sharply snaps out
what might perhaps be freely constructed into ‘‘ cuss-words.”

And yet the inscrutable mystery is that this virago meekly
permits the lazy cowbird to deposit an egg in its nest, and will
patiently sit upon it, though it is as large as three of her own tiny
eggs; and when the little interloper comes out from his shell the
mother-bird will continue to give it the most devoted care long
after it has shoved her poor little starved babies out of the nest to
meet an untimely death in the smilax thicket below.

An unusual variety of expression distinguishes this bird’s voice
from the songs of the other vireos, which are apt to be monoto-
nous, as they are incessant. If you are so fortunate to approach
the white-eyed vireo before he suspects your presence, you may
hear him amusing himself by jumbling together snatches of the
songs of the other birds in a sort of potpourri; or perhaps he will
be scolding or arguing with an imaginary foe, then dropping his
voice and talking confidentially to himself. Suddenly he bursts
into a charming, simple little song, as if the introspection had
given him reason for real joy. All these vocal accomplishments
suggest the chat at once; but the minute your intrusion is discov-
ered the sharp scolding, that is fairly screamed at you from an
enraged little throat, leaves no possible shadow of a doubt as to
the bird you have disturbed. It has the most emphatic call and
song to be heard in the woods; it snaps its words off very
short. ‘“‘Chick-a-rer chick’’ is its usual call-note, jerked out
with great spitefulness. ,

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Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds

Wilson thus describes the jealously guarded nest: ‘‘ This
bird builds a very neat little nest, often in the figure of an inverted
cone; it is suspended by the upper end of the two sides, on the
circular bend of a prickly vine, a species of smilax, that generally
grows in low thickets. Outwardly it is constructed of various
light materials, bits of rotten wood, fibres of dry stalks, of weeds,
pieces of paper (commonly newspapers, an article almost always
found about its nest, so that some of my friends have given it
the name of the politician); all these materials are interwoven
with the silk of the caterpillars, and the inside is lined with fine,
dry grass and hair.”

Warbling Vireo
(Vireo gilvus) Vireo or Greenlet family

Length—5.5 to 6 inches. A little smaller than the English spar-
row.

Male and Female—Ashy olive-green above, with head and neck
ash-colored. Dusky line over the eye. Underneath whitish,
faintly washed with dull yellow, deepest on sides ; no bars
on wings.

Range—North America, from Hudson Bay to Mexico.

Wigrations—May. Late September or early October. Summer
resident.

This musical little bird shows a curious preference for rows
of trees in the village street or by the roadside, where he can be
sure of an audience to listen to his rich, continuous warble.
There is a mellowness about his voice, which rises loud, but not
altogether cheerfully, above the bird chorus, as if he were a gifted
but slightly disgruntled contralto. Too inconspicuously dressed,
and usually too high in the tree-top to be identified without opera-
glasses, we may easily mistake him by his voice for one of the
warbler family, which is very closely allied to the vireos. Indeed,
this warbling vireo seems to be the connecting link between
them.

Morning and afternoon, but almost never in the evening, we
may hear him rippling out song after song as he feeds on insects
and berries about the garden. But this familiarity lasts only until
nesting time, for off he goes with his little mate to some unfree

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Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds

quented lane near a wood until their family is reared, when, with
a perceptibly happier strain in his voice, he once more haunts our
garden and row of elms before taking the southern journey.

, Ovenbird
(Seiurus aurocapillus) Wood Warbler family

Called also: GOLDEN-CROWNED THRUSH; THE TEACHER;
r WOOD WAGTAIL; GOLDEN-CROWNED WAGTAIL;
GOLDEN-CROWNED ACCENTOR

Lengtbh—6 to 6.15 inches. Just a shade smaller than the English
sparrow.

Male and Female—Upper parts olive, with an orange-brown
crown, bordered by black lines that converge toward the bill.
Under parts white: breast spotted and streaked on the sides,
White eye-ring.

Range—United States, to Pacific slope.

Migrations—May. October. Common summer resident.

Early in May you may have the good fortune to see this little
bird of the woods strutting in and out of the garden shrubbery
with a certain mock dignity, like a child wearing its father’s
boots. Few birds can walk without appearing more or less
ridiculous, and however gracefully and prettily it steps, this
amusing little wagtail is no exception. When seen at all—which
is not often, for it is shy—it is usually on the ground, not far
from the shrubbery or a woodland thicket, under which it will
quickly dodge out of sight at the merest suspicion of a footstep.
To most people the bird is only a voice calling, “TE4CHER,
TEACHER, TEACHER, TEACHER, TEACHER!” as Mr. Burroughs
has interpreted the notes that go off in pairs like a series of little
explosions, softly at first, then louder and louder and more shrill
until the bird that you at first thought far away seems to be
shrieking his penetrating crescendo into your very ears. But
you may look until you are tired before you find him in the high,
dry wood, never near water.

In the driest parts of the wood, here the ground is thickly
carpeted with dead leaves, you may some day notice a little bunch
of them, that look as if a plant, in pushing its way up through
the ground, had raised the leaves, rootlets, and twigs a trifle.

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Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds

Examine the spot more carefully, and on one side you find an
opening, and within the ball of earth, softly lined with grass, lie
four or five cream-white, speckled eggs. It is only by a happy
accident that this nest of the ovenbird is discovered. The con-
cealment could not be better. It is this peculiarity of nest con-
struction—in shape like a Dutch oven—that has given the bird
what DeKay considers its “trivial name.” Not far from the nest
the parent birds scratch about in the leaves like diminutive barn-
yard fowls, for the grubs and insects hiding under them. But at
the first suspicion of an intruder their alarm becomes pitiful.
Panic-stricken, they become fairly limp with fear, and drooping
her wings and tail, the mother-bird drags herself hither and
thither over the ground.

As utterly bewildered as his mate, the male darts, flies, and
tumbles about through the low branches, jerking and wagging
his tail in nervous spasms until you have beaten a double-quick
retreat.

In nesting time, at evening, a very few have heard the “lux-
urious nuptial song” of the ovenbird; but it is a song to haunt
the memory forever afterward. Burroughs appears to be the
first writer to record this “rare bit of bird melody.” “ Mounting
by easy flight to the top of the tallest tree,” says the author of
“Wake-Robin,” “the ovenbird launches into the air with a sort
of suspended, hovering flight, like certain of the finches, and
bursts into a perfect ecstasy of song—clear, ringing, copious,
rivalling the goldfinch’s in vivacity and the linnet’s in melody.”

Worm-eating Warbler
(Helmintherus vermivorus) Wood Warbler family

Length—5.50 inches. Less than an inch shorter than the English
sparrow.

Male and Female—Greenish olive above. Head yellowish brown,
with two black stripes through crown to the nape; also
black lines from the eyes to neck. Under parts buffy and
white.

Range—Eastern parts of United States. Nests as far north as
southern Illinois and southern Connecticut. Winters in the
Gulf States and southward.

Migrations—May. September. Summer resident.
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Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds

In the Delaware Valley and along the same parallel, this
inconspicuous warbler is abundant, but north of New Jersey it
is rare enough to give an excitement to the day on which you
discover it. No doubt it is commoner than we suppose, for its
coloring blends so admirably with its habitats that it is probably
very often overlooked. Its call-note, a common chirp, has noth-
ing distinguishing about it, and all ornithologists confess to hav-
ing been often misled by its song into thinking it came from the
chipping sparrow. It closely resembles that of the pine warbler
also. If it were as nervously active as most warblers, we should
more often discover it, but it is quite as deliberate as a vireo,
and in the painstaking way in which it often circles around a
tree while searching for spiders and other insects that infest the
trunks, it reminds us of the brown creeper. Sunny slopes and
hillsides covered with thick undergrowth are its preferred foraging
and nesting haunts. It is often seen hopping directly on the dry
ground, where it places its nest, and it never mounts far above it.
The well-drained, sunny situation for the home is chosen with
the wisdom of a sanitary expert.

Acadian Flycatcher
(Empidonax virescens) Flycatcher family

Called also: SMALL GREEN-CRESTED FLYCATCHER ;
SMALL PEWEE

Length—5.75 to 6 inches. A trifle smaller than the English
sparrow.

Male—Dull olive above. Two conspicuous yellowish wing-bars.
Throat white, shading into pale yellow on breast. Light
gray or white underneath. Upper part of bill black; lower
mandible flesh-color. White eye-ring.

Female—Greener above and more yellow below.

Range—From Canada to Mexico, Central America, and West
Indies. Most common in south temperate latitudes. Win-
ters in southerly limit of range.

Migrations—April. September. Summer resident.

When all our northern landscape takes on the exquisite, soft
green, gray, and yellow tints of early spring, this little flycatcher,
in perfect color-harmony with the woods it darts among, comes

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Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds

out of the south. It might be a leaf that is being blown about,
touched by the sunshine filtering through the trees, and partly
shaded by the young foliage casting its first shadows.

Woodlands, through which small streams meander lazily,
inviting swarms of insects to their boggy shores, make ideal
hunting grounds for the Acadian flycatcher. It chooses a low
rather than a high, conspicuous perch, that other members of its
family invariably select; and from such a lookout it may be seen
launching into the air after the passing gnat—darting downward,
then suddenly mounting upward in its aérial hunt, the vigorous
clicks of the beak as it closes over its tiny victims testifying to
the bird’s unerring aim and its hearty appetite.

While perching, a constant tail-twitching is kept up; and a
faint, fretful ‘‘ Tshee-kee, tshee-kee’’ escapes the bird when inace
tively waiting for a dinner to heave in sight.

In the Middle Atlantic States its peeping sound and the click-
ing of its particolored bill are infrequently heard in the village
streets in the autumn, when the shy and solitary birds are enticed
from the deep woods by a prospect of a more plentiful diet of
insects, attracted by the fruit in orchards and gardens.

Never far from the ground, on two or more parallel branches,
the shallow, unsubstantial nest is laid. Some one has cleverly
described it as ‘‘a tuft of hay caught by the limb from a load
driven under it,” but this description omits all mention of the
quantities of blossoms that must be gathered to line the cradle
for the tiny, cream white eggs spotted with brown.

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
(Empidonax flaviventris) Flycatcher family

Length—5 to 5.6 inches. About an inch smaller than the English
sparrow.

Male—Rather dark, but true olive-green above. Throat and
breast yellowish olive, shading into pale yellow underneath,
including wing linings and under tail coverts. Wings have

ellowish bars. Whitish ring around eye. Upper part of
bil black, under part whitish or flesh-colored.

Female—Smaller, with brighter yellow under parts and more
decidedly yellow wing-bars.

Range—North America, from Labrador to Panama, and westward
from the Atlantic te the plains. Winters in Central America.

w83

Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds

Migrations—May. September. Summer resident. More come
monly a migrant only.

This is the most yellow of the small flycatchers and the only
Eastern species with a yellow instead of a white throat. Without
hearing its call-note, ‘‘ pse-ek-pse-ek,” which it abruptly sneezes
rather than utters, it is quite impossible, as it darts among the
trees, to tell it from the Acadian flycatcher, with which even
Audubon confounded it. Both these little birds choose the same
sort of retreats—well-timbered woods near a stream that attracts
myriads of insects to its spongy shores—and both are rather shy
and solitary. The yellow-bellied species has a far more northerly
range, however, than its Southern relative or even the small
green-crested flycatcher. It is rare in the Middle States, not
common even in New England, except in the migrations, but
from the Canada border northward its soft, plaintive whistle,
which is its love-song, may be heard in every forest where it
nests. All the flycatchers seem to make a noise with so much
struggle, such convulsive jerkings of head and tail, and flutterings
of the wings that, considering the scanty success of their musical
attempts, it is surprising they try to lift their voices at all when
the effort almost literally lifts them off their feet.

While this little flycatcher is no less erratic than its Acadian
cousin, its nest is never slovenly. One couple had their home in
a wild-grape bower in Pennsylvania ; a Virginia creeper in New
Jersey supported another cradle that was fully twenty feet above
the ground; but in Labrador, where the bird has its chosen
breeding grounds, the bulky nest is said to be invariably placed
either in the moss by the brookside or in some old stump, should
the locality be too swampy.

Black-throated Green Warbler
(Dendroica virens) Wood Warbler family

Zength—5 inches. Over an inch smaller than the English sparrow.

Moale—Back and crown of head bright yellowish olive-green.
Forehead, band over eye, cheeks, and sides of neck rich
ia Throat, upper breast, and stripe along sides black.

nderneath yellowish white. Wings and tail brownish
olive, the former with two white bars, the latter with much

184

Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds

white in outer quills. In autumn, plumage resembling the
female’s.

Female—Similar ; chin yellowish ; throat and breast dusky, the
black being mixed with yellowish.

Range—Eastern North America, from Hudson Bay to Central
America and Mexico. Nests north of Illinois and New York.
Winters in tropics.

Migrations—May. October. Common summer resident north
of New Jersey.

There can be little difficulty in naming a bird so brilliantly
and distinctly marked as this green, gold, and black warbler, that
lifts up a few pure, sweet, tender notes, loud enough to attract
attention when he visits the garden. ‘* See-see, see-saw,” he
sings, but there is a tone of anxiety betrayed in the simple, syl-
van strain that always seems as if the bird needed reassuring,
possibly due to the rising inflection, like an interrogative, of the
last notes.

However abundant about our homes during the migrations,
this warbler, true to the family instinct, retreats to the woods to
nest—not always so far away as Canada, the nesting ground of
most warblers, for in many Northern States the bird is commonly
found throughout the summer. Doubtless it prefers tall ever-
green trees for its mossy, grassy nest; but it is not always par-
ticular, so that the tree be a tall one with a convenient fork in an
upper branch.

Early in September increased numbers emerge from the
woods, the plumage of the male being less brilliant than when
we saw it last, as if the family cares of the summer had proved
too taxing. For nearly a month longer they hunt incessantly, with
much flitting about the leaves and twigs at the ends of branches
in the shrubbery and evergreens, for the tiny insects that the
warblers must devour by the million during their all too brief visit.

185

BIRDS CONSPICUOUSLY YELLOW
AND ORANGE

Yellow-throated Vireo
American Goldfinch

Evening Grosbeak
Blue-winged Warbler
Canadian Warbler

Hooded Warbler

Kentucky Warbler

Magnolia Warbler

Mourning Warbler

Nashville Warbler

Pine Warbler

Prairie Warbler

Wilson’s Warbler or Blackcap
Yellow Warbler or Summer Yellowbird
Yellow Redpoll Warbler
Yellow-breasted Chat
Maryland Yellowthroat
Blackburnian Warbler
Redstart

Baltimore Oriole

Look also among the Yellowish Olive Birds in the preceding group; and among
the Brown Birds for the Meadowlark and Flicker. See also Parula Warbler (Slate)
and Yellow-bellied Woodpecker (Black and White).

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BOBOLINK
(Upper figure male; lower figure, female)

CROW

BIRDS CONSPICUOUSLY YELLOW AND
ORANGE

Yellow-throated Vireo
(Vireo flavifrons) Vireo or Greenlet family

Length—5.5 to 6 inches. A little smaller than the English spar-
row.

Male and Female—Lemon-yellow on throat, upper breast; line

around the eye and forehead. Yellow, shading into olive-

reen, on head, back, and shoulders. Underneath white.

ail dark brownish, edged with white. Wings a lighter

shade, with two white bands across, and some quills edged
with white.

Range—North America, from Newfoundland to Gulf of Mexico,
and westward to the Rockies. Winters in the tropics.

Migrations—May. September. Spring and autumn migrant ;
more rarely resident.

This is undoubtedly the beauty of the vireo family—a group
of neat, active, stoutly built, and vigorous little birds of yellow,
greenish, and white plumage; birds that love the trees, and
whose feathers reflect the coloring of the leaves they hide, hunt,
and nest among. ‘‘ We have no birds,” says Bradford Torrey,
“*so unsparing of their music: they sing from morning till night.”

The yellow-throated vireo partakes of all the family charac-
teristics, but, in addition to these, it eclipses all its relatives in the
brilliancy of its coloring and in the art of nest-building, which it
has brought to a state of hopeless perfection. No envious bird
need try to excel the exquisite finish of its workmanship. Hap-
pily, it has wit enough to build its pensile nest high above the
reach of small boys, usually suspending it from a branch over~
hanging running water that threatens too precipitous a bath to
tempt the young climbers.

However common in the city parks and suburban gardens
this bird may be during the migrations, it delights in a secluded

189

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

retreat overgrown with tall trees and near a stream, such as is
dear to the solitary vireo as well when the nesting time approaches.
High up in the trees we hear its rather sad, persistent strain, that
is more in harmony with the dim forest than with the gay flower
garden, where, if the truth must be told, its song is both monoton-
ous and depressing. Mr. Bicknell says it is the only vireo that
sings as it flies.

American Goldfinch
(Spinus tristis) Finch family

Called also: WILD CANARY; YELLOWBIRD; THISTLE
BIRD

(See frontispiece)
Length—5 to 5.2 inches. About an inch smaller than the English
sparrow.

Male—In summer plumage: Bright yellow, except on crown of

‘head, frontlet, wings, and tail, which are black. Whitish
markings on wings give effect of bands. Tail with white on
inner webs. In winter plumage: Head yellow-olive; no
frontlet; black drab, with reddish tinge; shoulders and throat
yellow; soiled brownish white underneath.

Female—Brownish olive above, yellowish white beneath.

Range—North America, from the tropics to the Fur Countries and
westward to the Columbia River and California. Common
throughout its range.

Migrations—May—October. Common summer resident, fre-
quently seen throughout the winter as well.

An old field, overgrown with thistles and tall, stalky wild
flowers, is the paradise of the goldfinches, summer or winter.
Here they congregate in happy companies while the sunshine
and goldenrod are as bright as their feathers, and cling to the
swaying slender stems that furr ish an abundant harvest, daintily
lunching upon the fluffy seeds of thistle blossoms, pecking at the
mullein-stalks, and swinging airily an ong the asters and Michael-
mas daisies; or, when snow covers the same field with a glis-
tening crust, above which the brown stalks offer only a meagre
dinner, the same birds, now sombrely clad in winter feathers,
cling to the swaying stems with cheerful fortitude.

At your approach, the busy company rises on the wing, and
with peculiar, wavy flight rise and fall through the air, marking

190

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

each undulation with a cluster of notes, sweet and clear, that
come floating downward from the blue ether, where the birds
seem to bound along exultant in their motion and song alike.

In the spring the plumage of the goldfinch, which has been
drab and brown through the winter months, is moulted or shed—
a change that transforms the bird from a sombre Puritan into the
gayest of cavaliers, and seems to wonderfully exalt his spirits.
He bursts into a wild, sweet, incoherent melody that might be
the outpouring from two or three throats at once instead of one,
expressing his rapture somewhat after the manner of the canary,
although his song lacks the variety and the finish of his caged
namesake. What tone of sadness in his music the man found
who applied the adjective tristis to his scientific name it is diffi-
cult to imagine when listening to the notes that come bubbling
up from the bird’s happy heart.

With plumage so lovely and song so delicious and dreamy,
it is small wonder that numbers of our goldfinches are caught and
caged, however inferior their song may be to the European species
recently introduced into this country. Heard in Central Park,
New York, where they were set at liberty, the European gold-
finches seemed to sing with more abandon, perhaps, but with no
more sweetness than their American cousins. The song remains
at its best all through the summer months, for the bird is a long
wooer. It is nearly July before he mates, and not until the tardy
cedar birds are house-building in the orchard do the happy pair
begin to carry grass, moss, and plant-down to a crotch of some
tall tree convenient to a field of such wild flowers as will furnish
food to a growing family. Doubtless the birds wait for this food
to be in proper condition before they undertake parental duties at
all—the most plausible excuse for their late nesting. The cares
evolving from four to six pale-blue eggs will suffice to quiet the
father’s song for the winter by the first of September, and fade all
the glory out of his shining coat. As pretty a sight as any garden
offers is when a family of goldfinches alights on the top of a sun-
flower to feast upon the oily seeds—a perfect harmony of brown
and gold.

191

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

Evening Grosbeak

(Coccothraustes vespertinus) Finch family

Length—8 inches. Two inches shorter than the robin.

Male—Forehead, shoulders, and underneath clear yellow: dull
yellow on lower back; sides of the head, throat, and breast
olive-brown. Crown, tail, and wings black, the latter with
white secondary feathers. Bill heavy and blunt, and yellow.

Female—Brownish gray, more cr less suffused with yellow.
Wings and tail blackish, with some white feathers.

Range—Interior of North America. Resident from Manitoba
northward. Common winter visitor in northwestern United
States and Mississippi Valley; casual winter visitor in north-
ern Atlantic States.

In the winter of 1889-90 Eastern people had the rare treat of
becoming acquainted with this common bird of the Northwest,
that, in one of its erratic travels, chose to visit New England and
the Atlantic States, as far south as Delaware, in great numbers.
Those who saw the evening grosbeaks then remember how
beautiful their yellow plumage—a rare winter tint—looked in the
snow-covered trees, where small companies of the gentle and even
tame visitors enjoyed the buds and seeds of the maples, elders,
and evergreens. Possibly evening grosbeaks were in vogue for
the next season’s millinery, or perhaps Eastern ornithologists
had a sudden zeal to investigate their structural anatomy. At
any rate, these birds, whose very tameness, that showed slight
acquaintance with mankind, should have touched the coldest
heart, received the warmest kind of a reception from hot shot.
The few birds that escaped to the solitudes of Manitoba could not
be expected to tempt other travellers eastward by an account of
their visit. The bird is quite likely to remain rare in the East.

But in the Mississippi Valley and throughout the northwest,
companies of from six to sixty may be regularly counted upon as
winter neighbors on almost every farm. Here the females keep
up a busy chatting, like a company of ccdar birds, and the males
punctuate their pauses with a single shrill note that gives little
indication of their vocal powers. But in the solitude of the north-
em forests the love-song is said to resemble the robin’s at the
start. Unhappily, after a most promising beginning, the bird sud-
denly stops, as if he were out of breath.

192

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

Blue-Winged Warbler
(Helminthopbila pinus) Wood Warbler family

Called also: BLUE-WINGED YELLOW WARBLER

Length—z4.75 inches. An inch and a half shorter than the Eng-
lish sparrow.

Male—Crown of head and all under parts bright yellow. Back
olive-green. Wings and tail bluish slate, the former with
white bars, and three outer tail quills with large white
patches on their inner webs.

Female—Paler and more olive.

Range—Eastern United States, from southern New England and
Minnesota, the northern limit of its nesting range, to Mexico
and Central America, where it winters.

Migrations—May. September. Summer resident.

In the naming of warblers, bluish slate is the shade intended
when blue is mentioned; so that if you see a dainty little olive
and yellow bird with slate-colored wings. and tail hunting for
spiders in the blossoming orchard or during the early autumn
you will have seen the beautiful blue-winged warbler. It has a
rather leisurely way of hunting, unlike the nervous, restless flit-
ting about from twig to twig that is characteristic of many of its
many cousins. The search is thorough—bark, stems, blossoms,
leaves are inspected for larve and spiders, with many pretty
motions of head and body. Sometimes, hanging with head
downward, the bird suggests a yellow titmouse. After blossom
time a pair of these warblers, that have done serviceable work in
the orchard in their all too brief stay, hurry off to dense woods
to nest. They are usually to be seen in pairs at all seasons. Not
to ‘‘high coniferous trees in northern forests”—the Mecca of
innumerable warblers—but to scrubby, second growth of wood-
land borders, or lower trees in the heart of the woods, dc these
dainty birds retreat. There they build the usual warbler nest of
twigs, bits of bark, leaves, and grasses, but with this peculiarity:
the numerous leaves with which the nest is wrapped all have
their stems pointing upward. Mr. Frank Chapman has admirably
defined their song as consisting of ‘‘two drawled, wheezy notes
—swee-chee, the tirst inhaled, the second exhaled.”

193

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

Canadian Warbler
(Sylvania canadensis) Wood Warbler family

Called also: CANADIAN FLYCATCHER; SPOTTED CANA
DIAN WARBLER

Length—5 to 5.6 inches. About an inch shorter than the English
sparrow.

Male—|mmaculate bluish ash above, without marks on wings or
tail; crown spotted with arrow-shaped black marks. Cheeks,
line from bill to eye, and underneath clear yellow. Black
streaks forming a necklace across the breast.

Female—Paler, with necklace indistinct.
Range—North America, from Manitoba and Labrador to tropics.

Migrations—May. September. Summer resident; most abun-
dant in migrations.

Since about one-third of all the song-birds met with in a
year’s rambles are apt to be warblers, the novice cannot devote
his first attention to. a better group, confusing though it is by
reason of its size and the repetition of the same colors in so many
bewildering combinations. Monotony, however, is unknown in
the warbler family. Whoever can rightly name every warbler,
male and female, on sight is uniquely accomplished.

The jet necklace worn on this bird’s breast is its best mark
of identification. Its form is particularly slender and graceful, as
might be expected in a bird so active, one to whom a hundred
tiny insects barely afford a dinner that must often be caught piece-
meal as it flies past. To satisfy its appetite, which cannot but be
dainty in so thoroughly charming a bird, it lives in low, boggy
woods, in such retreats as Wilson’s black-capped warbler selects
for a like reason. Neither of these two ‘ flycatcher” warblers
depends altogether on catching insects on the wing; countless
thousands are picked off the under sides of leaves and about the
stems of twigs in true warbler fashion.

The Canadian’s song is particularly loud, sweet, and viva-
cious. It is hazardous for any one without long field practice to
try to name any warbler by its song alone, but possibly this one’s
animated music is as characteristic as anv.

The nest is built on the ground on a mossy bank or elevated

194

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

into the root crannies of some large tree, where there is much
water in the woods. Bits of bark, dead wood, moss, and fine
rootlets, all carefully wrapped with leaves, go to make the pretty
cradle. Unhappily, the little Canada warblers are often cheated
out of their natural rights, like so many other delightful song-
birds, by the greedy interloper that the cowbird deposits in their
nest.

Hooded Warbler
(Sylvania miirata) Wood Warbler family

Lengitb—5 to 5.75 inches. About an inch shorter than the Eng-
lish sparrow.

Male—Head, neck, chin, and throat black like a hood in mature

male specimens only. Hood restricted, or altogether want-
ing in female and young. Upper parts rich olive. Forehead,
cheeks, and underneath yellow. Some conspicuous white
on tail feathers.

female—Duller, and with restricted cowl.

Range—United States east of Rockies, and from southern Michi-
gan and southern New England to West Indies and tropical
America, where it winters. Very local.

Migrations—May. September. Summer resident.

This beautifully marked, sprightly little warbler might be
snistaken in his immaturity for the yellowthroat ; and as it is
said to take him nearly three years to grow his hood, with the
completed cowl and cape, there is surely sufficient reason here
for the despair that often seizes the novice in attempting to distin-
guish the perplexing warblers. Like its Southern counterpart,
the hooded warbler prefers wet woods and low trees rather than
high ones, for much of its food consists of insects attracted by the
dampness, and many of them must be taken on the wing. Be-
cause of its tireless activity the bird’s figure is particularly slender
and graceful—a trait, too, to which we owe all the glimpses ot it
we are likely to get throughout the summer. It has a curious
habit of spreading its tail, as if it wished you to take special
notice of the white spots that adorn it; not flirting it, as the red-
start does his more gorgeous one, but simply opening it like a fan
as it flies and darts about.

Its song, which is particularly sweet and graceful, and with

195

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

more variation than most warblers’ music, has been translated
"‘Che-we-eo-tsip, tsip, che-we-eo,’’ again interpreted by Mr. Chap-
man as ‘‘ You must come to the woods, or you won't see me.”

Kentucky Warbler
(Geotblypis formosa) Wood Warbler family

Length—5.5 inches. Nearly an inch shorter than the English
sparrow.

Male—Upper parts olive-green; under parts yellow; a yellow
line from the bill passes over and around the eye. Crown
of head, patch below the eye, and line defining throat, black.

Female—Similar, but paler, and with grayish instead of black
markings.

Range—United States eastward from the Rockies, and from lowa
and Connecticut to Central America, where it winters.

Migrations—May. September. Summer resident.

No bird is common at the extreme limits of its range, and so
this warbler has a reputation for rarity among the New England
ornithologists that would surprise people in the middle South and
Southwest. After all that may be said in the books, a bird is
either common or rare to the individual who may or may not
have happened to become acquainted with it in any part of its
chosen territory. Plenty of people in Kentucky, where we might
judge from its name this bird is supposed to be most numerous,
have never seen or heard of it, while a student on the Hudson
River, within sight of New York, knows it intimately. It also
nests regularly in certain parts of the Connecticut Valley. ‘‘ Who
is my neighbor ?” is often a question difficult indeed to answer
where birds are concerned. In the chapter, ‘‘ Spring at the Cap-
ital,” which, with every reading of ‘‘ Wake Robin,” inspires the
bird-lover with fresh zeal, Mr. Burroughs writes of the Kentucky
warbler: ‘‘I meet with him in low, damp places, in the woods,
usually on the steep sides of some little run. | hear at intervals
a clear, strong, beli-like whistle or warble, and presently catch a
glimpse of the bird as he jumps up from the ground to take an
insect or worm from the under side of a leaf. This is his charac-
teristic movement. He belongs to the class of ground warblers,
and his range is very low, indeed lower than that of any othet
species with which I am acquainted.”

196

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

Like the ovenbird and comparatively few others, for most
birds hop over the ground, the Kentucky warbler walks rapidly
about, looking for insects under the fallen leaves, and poking his
inquisitive beak into every cranny where a spider may be lurk-
ing. The bird has a pretty, conscious way of flying up to a
perch, a few feet above the ground, as a tenor might advance
towards the footlights of a stage, to pour forth his clear, pene-
trating whistle, that in the nesting season especially is repeated
over and over again with tireless persistency.

Magnolia Warbler
(Dendroica maculosa) Wood Warbler family

Called also: BLACK-AND-YELLOW WARBLER; SPOTTED
WARBLER ; BLUE-HEADED YELLOW-RUMPED WAR-
BLER

Length—4.75 to 5 inches. About an inch and a half smaller than
the English sparrow.

Maie—Crown of head slate-color, bordered on either side bya
white line ; a black line, apparently running through the eye,
and a yellow line below it, merging into the yellow throat.
Lower back and under parts yellow. Back, wings, and tail
blackish olive. Large white patch on the wings, and the
middle of the tail-quills white. Throat and sides heavily
streaked with black.

Female—Has greener back, is paler, and has less distinct markings.

Range—North America, from Hudson Bay to Panama. Summers
from northern Michigan and northern New England north-
ward ; winters in Central America and Cuba.

Migrations—May. October. Spring and summer migrant.

In spite of the bird’s name, one need not look for it in the
glossy magnolia trees of the southern gardens more than in
the shrubbery on New England lawns, and during the migra-
tions it is quite as likely to be found in one place as in the other.
Its true preference, however, is for the spruces and hemlocks of
its nesting ground in the northern forests. For these it deserts us
after a brief hunt about the tender, young spring foliage and blos-
soms, where the early worm lies concealed, and before we have
become so well acquainted with its handsome clothes that we
will instantly recognize it in the duller ones it wears on its return

197

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

trip in the autumn. The position of the white marks on the tail
feathers of this warbler, however, is the clue by which it may be
identified at any season or any stage of its growth. If the white
bar runs across the middle of the warbler’s tail, you can be sure
of the identity of the bird. A nervous and restless hunter, it
nevertheless seems less shy than many of its kin. Another pleas-
ing characteristic is that it brings back with it in October the loud,
clear, rapid whistle with which it has entertained its nesting mate
in the Canada woods through the summer.

Mourning Warbler
(Geothlypis philadelpbia) Wood Warbler family

Called also: MOURNING GROUND WARBLER

Length—5 to 5.6 inches. About an inch smaller than the English
sparrow.

Male—Gray head and throat; the breast gray; the feathers with
black edges that make them look crinkled, like crape. The
black markings converge into a spot on upper breast. Upper
parts, except head, olive. Underneath rich yellow.

Female—Similar, but duller; throat and breast buff and dusky
where the male is black. Back olive-green.

Range—‘‘ Eastern North America; breeds from eastern Nebraska,
northern New York, and Nova Scotia northward, and south.
ward along the Alleghanies to Pennsylvania. Winters in
the tropics.” —Chapman.

Migrations—May. September. Spring arid autumn migrant.

Since Audubon met with but one of these birds in his inces-
sant trampings, and Wilson secured only an immature, imper-
fectly marked specimen for his collection, the novice may feel no
disappointment if he fails to make the acquaintance of this ‘‘ gay
and agreeable widow.” And yet the shy and wary bird is not
unknown in Central Park, New York City. Even where its
clear, whistled song strikes the ear with a startling novelty that
invites to instant pursuit of the singer, you may look long and
diligently through the undergrowth without finding it. Dr.
Merriam says the whistle resembles the syllables ‘“‘ ¢rue, true,
true, tru, too, the voice rising on the first three syllables and
falling on the last two.” In the nesting season this song is
198

\

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

repeated over and over again with a persistency worthy of a
Kentucky warbler. It is delivered from a perch within a few feet
of the ground, as high as the bird seems ever inclined to ascend.

Nashville Warbler
(Helminthophila ruficapilla) Wood Warbler family

Length—4.75 to 5 inches. About an inch and a half smaller than
the English sparrow.

Male—Olive-green above; yellow underneath. Slate-gray head
and neck. Partially concealed chestnut patch on crown.
Wings and tail olive-brown and without markings.

Female—Dull olive and paler, with brownish wash underneath.

Range—North America, westward to the plains; north to the Fur
Countries, and south to Central America and Mexico. Nests
north of Illinois and northern New England; winters in
tropics.

Migrations—April. September or October.

It must not be thought that this beautiful warbler confines
itself to backyards in the city of Nashville simply because Wil-
son discovered it near there and gave it a local name, for the
bird’s actual range reaches from the fur trader’s camp near Hud-
son Bay to the adobe villages of Mexico and Central America,
and over two thousand miles east and west in the United States.
It chooses open rather than dense woods and tree-bordered fields.
It seems to have a liking for hemlocks and pine trees, especially
if near a stream that attracts insects to its shores ; and Dr. War-
ren notes that in Pennsylvania he finds small flocks of these war-
blers in the autumn migration, feeding in the willow trees near
little rivers and ponds. Only in the northern parts of the United
States is their nest ever found, ier the northern British provinces
are their preferred nesting ground. One seen in the White
Mountains was built on a mossy, rocky ledge, directly on the
ground at the foot of a pine tree, and made of rootlets, moss,
needles from the trees overhead, and several layers of leaves out-
side, with a lining of fine grasses that cradled four white, speckled
eggs.

Audubon likened the bird’s feeble note to the breaking of
twigs.

r99

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

Pine Warbler
(Dendroica vigorsii) Wood Warbler family

Called also: PINE-CREEPING WARBLER

Length—5.5 to 6 inches. A trifle smaller than the English spar-
row.

Male—Yellowish olive above; clear yellow below, shading to
grayish white, with obscure dark streaks on side of breast.
Two whitish wing-bars; two outer tail feathers partly white.

Female—Duller; grayish white only faintly tinged with yellow
underneath.

Range—North America, east of the Rockies; north to Manitoba,
and south to Florida and the Bahamas. Winters from south-
ern Illinois southward.

Migrations—March or April. October or later. Common sum-
mer resident.

The pine warbier closely presses the myrtle warbler for the
first place in the ranks of the family migrants, but as the latter
bird often stays north ‘all winter, it is usually given the palm.
Here is a warbler, let it be recorded, that is fittingly named, for
it is a denizen of pine woods only; most common in the long
stretches of pine forests at the south and in New York and New
England, and correspondingly uncommon wherever the woods-
man’s axe has laid the pine trees low throughout its range. Its
‘‘simple, sweet, and drowsy song,” writes Mr. Parkhurst, is
always associated ‘‘ with the smell of pines on a sultry day.” It
recalls that of the junco and the social sparrow or chippy.

Creeping over the bark of trees and peering into every crevice
like a nuthatch; running along the limbs, not often hopping ner-
vously or flitting like the warblers; darting into the air for a pass-
ing insect, or descending to the ground to feed on seeds and
berries, the pine warbler has, by a curious combination, the
movements that seem to characterize several different birds.

It is one of the largest and hardiest members of its family,
but not remarkable for its beauty. It is a sociable traveller, cheer-
fully escorting other warblers northward, and welcoming to its
band both the yellow redpolls and the myrtle warblers. These
birds are very often seen together in the pine and other evergreen
trees in our lawns and in the large city parks.

200

Conspicuously Yellow and Orang,

Prairie Warbler
(Dendroica discolor) Wood Warbler family

Length—4.75 to 5 inches. About an inch and a half shorter than
the English sparrow.

Male—Olive-green above, shading to yellowish on the head, and
with brick-red spots on back between the shoulders. A
yellow line over the eye; wing-bars and all under parts
bright yellow, heavily streaked with black on the sides.
Line through the eye and crescent below it, black. Much
white in outer tail feathers.

Femate—Paler; upper parts more grayish olive, and markings less
distinct than male’s.

Range—Eastern half of the United States. Nests as far north as
aie England and Michigan. Winters from Florida south-
ward.

Migrations—May. September. Summer resident.

Doubtless this diminutive bird was given its name because
it prefers open country rather than the woods—the scrubby under=
growth of oaks, young evergreens, and bushes that border clear-
ings being as good a place as any to look for it, and not the
wind-swept, treeless tracts of the wild West. Its range is south.
erly. The Southern and Middle States are where it is most
abundant. Here is a wood warbler that is not a bird of the
woods—less so, in fact, than either the summer yellowbird
(yellow warbler) or the palm warbler, that are eminently neigh-
borly and fond of pasture lands and roadside thickets. But the
prairie warblers are rather more retiring little sprites than their
cousins, and it is not often we get a close enough view of them
to note the brick-red spots on their backs, which are their distin~
guishing marks. They have a most unkind preference for briery
bushes, that discourage human intimacy. In such forbidding
retreats they build their nest of plant-fibre, rootlets, and twigs,
lined with plant-down and hair.

The song of an individual prairie warbler makes only a
slight impression. It consists ‘‘ of a series of six or seven quickly
repeated zees, the next to the last one being the highest” (Chap-
man). But the united voices of a dozen or more of these pretty
little birds, that often sing together, afford something approach-
ing a musical treat.

201

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

Wilson’s Warbler
(Sylvania pusilla) Wood Warbler family

Called also: BLACKCAP; GREEN BLACK-CAPPED WAR-
BLER ; WILSON’S FLYCATCHER

Length—4.75 to 5 inches. About an inch and a half shorter than
the English sparrow.

Male—Black cap; yellow forehead ; all other upper parts olive-
green ; rich yellow underneath.

Female—Lacks the black cap.

Range—North America, from Alaska and Nova Scotia to Panama,
Winters south of Gulf States. Nests chiefly north of the
United States.

Migrations—May. September. Spring and autumn migrant.

To see this strikingly marked little bird one must be on the
sharp lookout for it during the latter half of May, or at the season
of apple bloom, and the early part of September. It passes north-
ward with an almost scornful rapidity. Audubon mentions hav-
ing seen it in Maine at the end of October, but this specimen
surely must have been an exceptional laggard.

In common with several others of its family, it is exceedingly
expert in catching insects on the wing ; but it may be known as
no true flycatcher from the conspicuous rich yellow of its under
parts, and also from its habit of returning from a midair sally to a
different perch from the one it left to pursue its dinner. A true
flycatcher usually returns to its old perch after each hunt.

To indulge in this aérial chase with success, these warblers
select for their home and hunting ground some low woodland
growth where a sluggish stream attracts myriads of insects to
the boggy neighborhood. Here they build their nest in low
bushes or upon the ground. Four or five grayish eggs, sprinkled
with cinnamon-colored spots in a circle around the larger end,
are laid in the grassy cradle in June. Mr. H. D. Minot found one
of these nests on Pike’s Peak at an altitude of 11,000 feet, almost
at the limit of vegetation. The same authority compares the
bird’s song to that of the redstart and the yellow warbler.

202

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

Yellow Redpoll Warbler
(Dendroica palmarum hypochrysea) Wood Warbler family

Called also: YELLOW PALM WARBLER.

Length—5.5 to 5.75 inches. A little smaller than the English
sparrow.

Male and Female—Chestnut crown. Upper parts brownish olive;
greenest on lower back. Underneath uniform bright yellow,
streaked with chestnut on throat, breast, and sides. Yellow
line over and around the eye. Wings unmarked. Tail
edged with olive-green; a few white spots near tips of outer
quills. More brownish above in autumn, and with a grayish
wash over the yellow under parts.

Range—Eastern parts of North America. Nests from Nova Scotia
northward. Winters in the Gulf States.

Migrations—April. October. Spring and autumn migrant.

While the uniform yellow of this warbler’s under parts in
any plumage is its distinguishing mark, it also has a flycatcher’s
trait of constantly flirting its tail, that is at once an outlet for its
superabundant vivacity and a fairly reliable aid to identification.
The tail is jerked, wagged, and flirted like a baton in the hands
of an inexperienced leader of an orchestra. One need not go to
the woods to look for the restless little sprite that comes north-
ward when the early April foliage is as yellow and green as its
feathers. It prefers the fields and roadsides, and before there are
leaves enough on the undergrowth to conceal it we may come to
know it as well as it is possible to know any bird whose home
life is passed so far away. Usually it is the first warbler one sees
in the spring in New York and New England. With all the
alertness of a flycatcher, it will dart into the air after insects that
fly near the ground, keeping up a constant chip, chip, fine and
Shrill, at one end of the small body, and the liveliest sort of tail
motions at the other. The pine warbler often bears it company.

With the first suspicion of warm weather, off goes this hardy
little fellow that apparently loves the cold almost well enough to
stay north all the year like its cousin, the myrtle warbler. It
builds a particularly deep nest, of the usual warbler construction,
on the ground, but its eggs are rosy rather than the bluish white
of others. ;

In the Southern States the bird becomes particularly neigh-

203

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

borly, and is said to enter the streets and gardens of towns with
a chippy’s familiarity.

Palm Warbler or Redpoll Warbler (Dendroica palmarum)
differs from the preceding chiefly in its slightly smaller size, the
more grayish-brown tint in its olive upper parts, and the uneven
shade of yellow underneath that varies from clear yellow to soiled
whitish. It is the Western counterpart of the yellow redpoll, and
is most common in the Mississippi Valley. Strangely enough,
however, it is this warbler, and not hypochrysea, that goes out of
its way to winter in Florida, where it is abundant all winter.

Yellow Warbler
(Dendroica estiva) Wood Warbler family

Called also: SUMMER YELLOWBIRD; GOLDEN WARBLER ;
YELLOW POLL

Length—4.75 to 5.2 inches. Over an inch shorter than the Eng-
lish sparrow.

Male— Upper parts olive-yellow, brightest on the crown; under
parts bright yellow, streaked with reddish brown. Wings
and tail dusky olive-brown, edged with yellow.

Female—Similar; but reddish-brown streakings less distinct.

Range—North America, except Southwestern States, where the
prothonotary warbler reigns in its stead. Nests from Gulf
States to Fur Countries. Winters south of the Gulf States,
as far as northern parts of South America.

Migrations—May. September. Common summer resident.

This exquisite little creature of perpetual summer (though to
find it it must travel back and forth between two continents)
comes out of the south with the golden days of spring. From
much living in the sunshine through countless generations, its
feathers have finally become the color of sunshine itself, and in
disposition, as well, it is nothing if not sunny and bright. Not
the least of its attractions is that it is exceedingly common every-
where: in the shrubbery of our lawns, in gardens and orchards,
by the road and brookside, in the edges of woods—everywhere
we catch its glint of brightness through the long summer days,
and hear its simple, sweet, and happv song until the end of July.

204

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

Because both birds are so conspicuously yellow, no doubt this
warbler is quite generally confused with the goldfinch; but their
distinctions are clear enough to any but the most superficial glance,
In the first place, the yellow warbler is a smailer bird than the
goldfinch; it has neither black crown, wings, nor tail, and it
does have reddish-brown streaks on its breast that are sufficiently
obsolete to make the coloring of that part look simply dull at a
little distance. The goldfinch’s bill is heavy, in order that it may
crack seeds, whereas the yellow warbler’s is slender, to enable it
to pick minute insects from the foliage. The goldfinch’s wavy,
curved flight is unique, and that of his ‘“‘double” differs not a
whit from that of all nervous, flitting warblers. Surely no one
familiar with the rich, full, canary-like song of the ‘‘ wild canary,”
as the goldfinch is called, could confuse it with the mild ‘‘ Wee-
chee, chee, cher-wee’’ of the summer yellowbird. Another distinc-
tion, not always infallible, but nearly so, is that when seen feed-
ing, the goldfinch is generally below the line of vision, while the
yellow warbler is either on it or not far above it, as it rarely goes
over twelve feet from the ground.

No doubt, the particularly mild, sweet amiability of the
yellow warbler is responsible for the persistent visitations of the
cowbird, from which it is a conspicuous sufferer. In the exqui-
site, neat little matted cradle of glistening milk-weed flax, lined
with down from the fronds of fern, the skulking housebreaker
deposits her surreptitious egg for the little yellow mother-bird to
hatch and tend. But amiability is not the only prominent trait
‘in the female yellow warbler’s character. She is clever as well,
and quickly builds a new bottom on her nest, thus sealing up the
cowbird’s egg, and depositing her own on the soft, spongy floor
above it. This operation has been known to be twice repeated,
until the nest became three stories high, when a persistent cow-
bird made such unusual architecture necessary.

The most common nesting place of the yellow warbler is it
low willows along the shores of streams.

ang

Conspicuously Yeliow and Ozange

Yellow-breasted Chat
(Icteria virens) Wood Warbler family

Called also: POLYGLOT CHAT; YELLOW MOCKING BIRD

Length—7.5 inches. A trifle over an inch longer than the Eng-
lish sparrow.

Male and Female—Uniform olive-green above. Throat, breast,
and under side of wings bright, clear yellow. Underneath
white. Sides grayish. White line over the eye, reaching to
base of bill and forming partial eye-ring. Also white line on
sides of throat. Bill and feet black.

Range—North America, from Ontario to Central America and
a to the plains. Most common in Middle Atlantic
tates.

Migrations—Early May. Late August or September. Summe:
resident.

This largest of the warblers might be mistaken for a dozen
birds collectively in as many minutes; but when it is known that
the jumble of whistles, parts of songs, chuckles, clucks, barks,
quacks, whines, and wails proceed from a single throat, the
yellow-breasted chat becomes a marked specimen forthwith—
a conspicuous individual never to be confused with any other
member of the feathered tribe. It is indeed absolutely unique.
The catbird and the mocking-bird are rare mimics; but while the
chat is not their equal in this respect, it has a large repertoire of
weird, uncanny cries all its own—a power of throwing its voice,
like a human ventriloquist, into unexpected corners of the thicket
or meadow. In addition to its extraordinary vocal feats, it can
turn somersaults and do other clown-like stunts as well as any
variety actor on the Bowery stage.

Only by creeping cautiously towards the roadside tangle,
where this “rollicking polyglot” is entertaining himself and his
mate, brooding over her speckled eggs in a bulky nest set in a
most inaccessible briery part of the thicket, can you hope to hear
him rattle through his variety performance. Walk boldly or
noisily past his retreat, and there is “silence there and nothing
more.” But two very bright ey2s peer out at you through the
undergrowth, where the trim, elegant-looking bird watches you
with quizzical suspicion until you quietly seat yourself and

206

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

assume silent indifference. “Whew, whew!” he begins, and then
immediately, with evident intent to amuse, he rattles off an inde-
scribable, eccentric medley until your ears are tired listening.
With bill uplifted, tail drooping, wings fluttering at his side,
he cuts an absurd figure enough, but not so comical as when he
rises into the air, trailing his legs behind him stork-fashion. This
surely is the clown among birds. But any though he is, he is
as capable of devotion to his Columbine as Punchinello, and re-
mains faithfully mated year after year. However much of a tease
and a deceiver he may be to the passer-by along the roadside, in
the privacy of the domestic circle he shows truly lovable traits.

He has the habit of singing in his unmusical way on moon-
light nights. Probably his ventriloquial powers are cultivated
not for popular entertainment, but to lure intruders away from
his nest.

Maryland Yellowthroat
(Geothlypis trichas) Wood Warbler family

Called also: BLACK-MASKED GROUND WARBLER

Length—5.33 inches. Just an inch shorter than the typical Eng-
lish sparrow.

Male—Olive-gray on head, shading to olive-green on all the other
upper parts. Forehead, cheeks, and sides of head black,
like a mask, and bordered behind by a grayish line. Throat
and breast bright yellow, growing steadily paler underneath.

Female—Either totally lacks black mask or its place is indicated
by only a dusky tint. She is smaller and duller.

Range—Eastern North America, west to the plains; most common
east of the Alleghanies. Nests from the Gulf States to Lab-
rador and Manitoba; winters south of Gulf States to Panama.

Migrations—May. September. Common summer resident.

“Given a piece of marshy ground with an abundance of
skunk cabbage and a fairly dense growth of saplings, and near
by a tangle of green brier and blackberry, and you will be pretty
sure to have it tenanted by a pair of yellowthroats,” says Dr. Ab-
bott, who found several of their nests in skunk-cabbage plants,
which he says are favorite cradles. No animal cares to touch
this plant if it can be avoided; but have the birds themselves ne
sense of smell?

20”

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

Before and after the nesting season these active birds, plump
of form, elegant of attire, forceful, but not bold, enter the scrubby
pastures near our houses and the shrubbery of old-fashioned,
overgrown gardens, and peer out at the human wanderer therein
with a charming curiosity. The bright eyes of the male masquer-
ader shine through his black mask, where he intently watches
you from the tangle of syringa and snowball bushes ; and as he
flies into the laburnum with its golden chain of blossoms that pale
before the yellow of his throat and breast, you are so impressed
with his grace and elegance that you follow too audaciously, he
thinks, and off he goes. And yet this is a bird that seems to de-
light in being pursued. It never goes so far away that you are
not tempted to follow it, though it be through dense undergrowth
and swampy thickets, and it always gives you just glimpse
enough of its beauties and graces before it flies ahead, to invite
the hope of a closer inspection next time. When it dives into the
deepest part of the tangle, where you can imagine it hunting about
among the roots and fallen leaves for the larve, caterpillars, spi-
ders, and other insects on which it feeds, it sometimes amuses
itself with a simple little song between the hunts. But the bird’s
indifference, you feel sure, arises from preoccupation rather than
rudeness.

If, however, your visit to the undergrowth is unfortunately
timed and there happens to be a bulky nest in process of con-
struction on the ground, a quickly repeated, vigorous chit, pit,
quit, impatiently inquires the reason for your bold intrusion.
Withdraw discreetly and listen to the love-song that is presently
poured out to reassure his plain little maskless mate. The music
is delivered with all the force and energy of his vigorous nature
and penetrates to a surprising distance. ‘‘ Follow me, follow me,
follow me,” many people hear him say; others write the syllables,
“*‘Wichity, wichity, wichity, wichity’’; and still others write
them, ‘‘/ beseech you, I beseech you, | beseech you,” though the
tones of this self-assertive bird rather command ‘than entreat.
Mr. Frank Chapman says of the yellowthroats: ‘‘They sing
throughout the summer, and in August add a flight-song to their
tepertoire. This is usually uttered toward evening, when the bird
springs several feet into the air, hovers for a second, and then
drops back to the bushes.”

208

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

Blackburnian Warbler
(Dendroica blackburnié) Wood Warbler family

Called also: HEMLOCK WARBLER; ORANGE-THROATED
WARBLER; TORCH-BIRD

Lengib—4.5 to 5.5 inches. An inch and a half smaller than the
English sparrow.

Male—Head black, striped with orange-flame; throat and breast
orange, shading through yellow to white underneath; wings,
tail, and part of back black, with white markings.

Female—Olive-brown above, shading into yellow on breast, and
paler under parts.

Range—Eastern North America to plains. Winters in tropics.
Migrations—May. September. Spring and autumn migrant.

“The orange-throated warbler would seem to be his right
name, his characteristic cognomen,” says John Burroughs, in ever=
delightful “Wake Robin”; “but no, he is doomed to wear the
name of some discoverer, perhaps the first who robbed his nest
or rifled him of his mate—Blackburn; hence, Blackburnian
warbler. The burn seems appropriate enough, for in these dark
evergreens his throat and breast show like flame. He has a very
fine warble, suggesting that of the redstart, but not especially
musical.”

No foliage is dense enough to hide, and no autumnal tint too
brilliant. to outshine this luminous little bird that in May, as it
migrates northward to its, nesting ground, darts in and out of the
leafy shadows like a tongue of fire.

It is by far the most glorious of all the warblers—a sort of
diminutive oriole. The quiet-colored little mate flits about after
him, apparently lost in admiration of his fine feathers and the
ease with which his thin tenor voice can end his lover’s warble in
a high Z.

Take a good look at this attractive couple, for in May they
leave us to build a nest of bark and moss in the evergreens of
Canada—that paradise for warblers—or of the Catskills and Adiron-
dacks, and in autumn they hurry south to escape the first frosts.

209

'Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

Redstart
(Setopbaga ruticilla) Wood Warbler family

Called also: YELLOW-TAILED WARBLER

Length—5 to 5.5 inches.

Male—In spring plumage: Head, neck, back, and middle breast
glossy black, with blue reflections. Breast and underneath
white, slightly flushed with salmon, increasing to bright ,
salmon-orange on the sides of the body and on the wing -
linings. Occasional specimens show orange-red. Tail feath-
ers partly black, partly orange, with broad black band across
the end. Orange markings on wings. Bill and feet black.
In autumn: Fading into rusty black, olive, and yellow.

Female—Olive-brown, and yellow where the male is orange.
Young browner than the females.

Range—North America to upper Canada. West occasionally, as
far as the Pacific coast, but commonly found in summer in
the Atlantic and Middle States.

Migrations—Early May. End of September. Summer resident.

Late some evening, early in May, when one by one the birds
have withdrawn their voices from the vesper chorus, listen for
the lingering ‘‘ ’tsee, “tsee,’tseet ’” (usually twelve times repeated
in a minute), that the redstart sweetly but rather monotonously
sings from the evergreens, where, as his tiny body burns in the
twilight, Mrs. Wright likens him to a ‘‘ wind-blown firebrand,
half glowing, half charred.”

But by daylight this brilliant little warbler is constantly on
the alert. It is true he has the habit, like the flycatchers (among
which some learned ornithologists still class him), of sitting pen~
sively on a branch, with fluffy feathers and drooping wings; but
the very next instant he shows true warbler blood by making a
sudden dash upward, then downward through the air, tumbling
somersaults, as if blown by the wind, flitting from branch to
branch, busily snapping at the tiny insects hidden beneath the
leaves, clinging to the tree-trunk like a creeper, and singing
between bites.

Possibly he will stop long enough in his mad chase to open
and shut his tail, fan-fashion, with a dainty egotism that, in the
peacock, becomes rank vanity.

210

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

The Germans call this little bird roth Stert (red tail), but, like
so many popular names, this is a misnomer, as, strictly speaking,
the redstart is never red, though its salmon-orange markings
often border on to orange-flame.

In a fork of some tall bush or tree, placed ten or fifteen feet
from the ground, a carefully constructed little nest is made ot
moss, horsehair, and strippings from the bark, against which
the nest is built, the better to conceal its location. Four or five
whitish eggs, thickly sprinkled with pale brown and lilac, like the
other warblers’, are too jealously guarded by the little mother-bird
to be very often seen.

Baltimore Oriole
(Icterus galbula) Oriole and Blackbird family

Called also: GOLDEN ORIOLE; FIREBIRD; GOLDEN ROBIN;
HANG-NEST; ENGLISH ROBIN

Length—7 to 8 inches. About one-fifth smaller than the robin.

Male—Head, throat, upper part of back glossy black. Wings
black, with white spots and edgings. Tail-quills black, with
yellow markings on the tips. Everywhere else orange,
shading into flame.

female—Y ellowish olive. Wings dark brown, and quills mar-
gined with white. Tail yellowish brown, with obscure,
dusky bars.

Range—The whole United States. Most numerous in Eastern
States below 55° north latitude.

Migrations—Early May. Middle of September. Common sum-
mer resident.

A flash of fire through the air; a rich, high, whistled song
floating in the wake of the feathered meteor: the Baltimore oriole
cannot be mistaken. When the orchards are in blossom he
arrives in full plumage and song, and awaits the coming of the
female birds, that travel northward more leisurely in flocks. He
is decidedly in evidence. No foliage is dense enough to hide his
brilliancy; his temper, quite as fiery as his feathers, leads him
into noisy quarrels, and his insistent song with its martial, inter-
rogative notes becomes almost tiresome until he is happily mated
and family cares check his enthusiasm.

air

Conspicuously Yellow and Orange

Among the best architects in the world is his plain but enere
getic mate. Gracefully swung from a high branch of some tall
tree, the nest is woven with exquisite skill into a long, flexible
pouch that rain cannot penetrate, nor wind shake from its horse-
hair moorings. Bits of string, threads of silk, and sometimes
yarn of the gayest colors, if laid about the shrubbery in the garden,
will be quickly interwoven with the shreds of bark and milk-
weed stalks that the bird has found afield. The shape of the
nest often differs, because in unsettled regions, where hawks
abound, it is necessary to make it deeper than seven inches (the
customary depth when it is built near the homes of men), and to
partly close it at the top to conceal the sitting bird. From four
to six whitish eggs, scrawled over with black-brown, are hatched
by the mother oriole, and most jealously guarded by her now
truly domesticated mate.

The number of grubs, worms, flies, caterpillars, and even
cocoons, that go to satisfy the hunger of a family of orioles in a
day, might indicate, if it could be computed, the great value these
birds are about our homes, aside from the good cheer they bring.

There is a popular tradition about the naming of this gorgeous
bird: When George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, worn out
and discouraged by various hardships in his Newfoundland colony,
decided to visit Virginia in 1628, he wrote that nothing in the
Chesapeake country so impressed him as the myriads of birds
in its woods. But the song and color of the oriole particularly
cheered and delighted him, and orange and black became the
heraldic colors of the first lords proprietors of Maryland.

Hush! ’tis he!
My Oriole, my glance of summer fire,
Is come at last; and ever on the watch,
Twitches the pack-thread I had lightly wound
About the bough to help his housekeeping.
Twitches and scouts by turns, blessing his luck,
Yet fearing me who laid it in his way.
Nor, more than wiser we in our affairs,
Divines the Providence that hides and helps.
Heave, bo! Heave, bo! he whistles as the twine’
Slackens its hold; once more, now! and a flash
Lightens across the sunlight to the elm
Where his mate dangles at her cup of felt.

—James Russell Lowell.

ate

BIRDS CONSPICUOUSLY RED OF ANY SHADE

Cardinal Grosbeak

Summer Tanager

Scarlet Tanager

Pine Grosbeak

American Crossbill and the White-winged Crossbill
Redpoll and Greater Redpoll

Purple Finch

Robin

Orchard Oriole

See the Red-winged Blackbird (Black). See also the males of the Rose-breasted
Grosbeak, the Woodpeckers, the Chewink (Black and White), the Red-breasted
Nuthatch, the Bay-breasted and the Chestnut-sided Warblers (Slate and Gray); the
Bluebird and Barn Swallow (Blue); the Flicker (Brown); the Humming-bird and the
Kinglets (Greenish Gray); and the Blackburnian and Redstart Warblers, and the
Baltimore Oriole (Orange).

213

oo mori ranean ci meena

BIRDS CONSPICUOUSLY RED OF ANY
SHADE

Cardinal Grosbeak

(Cardinalis cardinalis) Finch family

Called also: CRESTED REDBIRD; VIRGINIA REDBIRD;:
VIRGINIA NIGHTINGALE; CARDINAL BIRD

Length—8 tog inches. A little smaller than the robin.

Male—Brilliant cardinal ; chin and band around bill black. Beak
stout and red. Crest conspicuous. In winter dress, wings
washed with gray.

Female—Brownish yellow above, shading to gray below. Tail
shorter than the male’s. Crest, wings, and tail reddish.
Breast sometimes tinged with red.

Range—Eastern United States. A Southern bird, becoming more
and more common during the summer in States north of
Virginia, especially in Ohio, south of which it is resident
throughout the year.

Migrations—Resident rather than migrating birds, remaining
throughout the winter in localities where they have found
their way. Travel in flocks.

Among the numerous names by which this beautiful bird is
known, it has become immortalized under the title of Mr. James
Lane Allen’s exquisite book, “The Kentucky Cardinal.” Here,
while we are given a most charmingly sympathetic, delicate ac-
count of the bird “who has only to be seen or heard, and Death
adjusts an arrow,” it is the cardinal’s pathetic fate that impresses
one most. Seen through less poetical eyes, however, the bird
appears to be a haughty autocrat, a sort of “F. F. V.” among the
feathered tribes, as, indeed, his title, “Virginia redbird,”’ has been
unkindly said to imply. Bearing himself with a refined and
courtly dignity, not stooping to soil his feet by walking on the
ground like the more democratic robin, or even condescending

735

Conspicuously Red of any Shade

below the level of the laurel bushes, the cardinal is literally a shin-
ing example of self-conscious superiority—a bird to call forth
respect and admiration rather than affection. But a group of
cardinals in a cedar tree in a snowy winter landscape makes us
forgetful of everything but their supreme beauty.

As might be expected in one of the finch family, the cardinal
ts a songster—the fact which, in connection with his lovely plu-
mage, accounts for the number of these birds shipped in cages to
Europe, where they are known as Virginia nightingales. Come
mencing with a strong, rich whistle, like the high notes of a fife,
** Cheo-cheo-cheo-cheo,’’ repeated over and over as if to make per-
fect the start of a song he is about to sing, suddenly he stops,
and you learn that there is to be no glorious performance after all,
only a prelude to—nothing. The song, such as it is, begins,
with both male and female, in March, and lasts, with a brief in-
termission, until September—‘‘ the most melodious sigh,” as Mr.
Allen calls it. Early in May the cardinals build a bulky and loosely
made nest, usually in the holly, laurel, or other evergreen shrubs
that they always love to frequent, especially if these are near
fields of corn or other grain. And often two broods in a yea.
come forth from the pale-gray, brown-marked eggs, bearing
what is literally for them the ‘‘ fatal gift of beauty.”

Summer Tanager
(Piranga rubra) Tanager family

Called also: REDBIRD; SMOOTH-HEADED REDBIRD

Zength—7.5 inches. About one-fourth smaller than the robin.
Male—Uniform red. Wings and tail like the body.

female—Upper parts yellowish olive-green; underneath inclining
to orange-yellow.

Range—Tropical portions of two Americas and eastern United
States. Most common in Southern States. Rare north of
Pennsylvania. Winters in the tropics.

Migrations—In Southern States: April. October. Irregular mi-
grant north of the Carolinas.

Thirty years ago, it is recorded that so far north as New Jer-
sey the summer redbird was quite as common as any of the
thrushes, In the South still there is scarcely an orchard that does

216

Conspicuously Red of any Shade

hot contain this tropical-looking beauty—the redbird par excel-
lence, the sweetest singer of the family. Is there a more beauti-
ful sight in all nature than a grove of orange trees laden with
fruit, starred with their delicious blossoms, and with flocks of
redbirds disporting themselves among the dark, glossy leaves?
Pine and oak woods are also favorite resorts, especially at the
north, where the bird nowadays forsakes the orchards to hide his
beauty, if he can, unharmed by the rifle that only rarely is offered
so shining a mark. He shows the scarlet tanager’s preference for
tree-tops, where his musical voice, calling ‘‘ Chicky-tucky-tuk,”’
alone betrays his presence in the woods. The Southern farmers
declare that he is an infallible weather prophet, his “wz7, WET,
WET,” being the certain indication of rain—another absurd saw,
for the call-note is by no means confined to the rainy season.

The yellowish-olive mate, whose quiet colors betray no nest
Secrets, collects twigs and grasses for the cradle to be saddled on
the end of some horizontal branch, though in this work the male
sometimes cautiously takes an insignificant part. After her three
or four eggs are laid she sits upon them for nearly two weeks,
being only rarely and stealthily visited by her mate with some
choice grub, blossom, or berry in his beak. But how cheerfully
his fife-like whistle rings out during the temporary exile! Then
his song is at its best. Later in the summer he has an aggravat-
ing way of joining in the chorus of other birds’ songs, by which
the pleasant individuality of his own voice is lost.

A nest of these tanagers, observed not far from New York
City, was commenced the last week of May on the extreme edge
of ahickory limb in an open wood; four eggs were laid on the
fourth of June, and twelve days later the tiny fledglings, that all
look like their mother in the early stages of their existence, burst
from the greenish-white, speckled shells. In less than a month
the young birds were able to fly quite well and collect their food.

Conspicuously Red of any Shade

Scarlet Tanager
(Piranga erythromelas) Tanager family

Called also: BLACK-WINGED REDBIRD; FIREBIRD; CAN-
ADA TANAGER; POCKET-BIRD

~~

Length—7 to 7.5 inches. About one-fourth smaller than the robin.

Male—In spring plumage: Brilliant scarlet, with black wings and
tail. Under wing coverts grayish white. /n autumn: Simi-
lar to female.

Female—Olive-green above; wings and tail dark, lightly margined
with olive. Underneath greenish yellow.

ange—North America to northern Canada boundaries, and south:
ward in winter to South America.

Migrations—May. October. Summer resident,

The gorgeous coloring of the scarlet tanager has been its
snare and destruction. The densest evergreens could not alto.
gether hide this blazing target for the sportsman’s gun, too often
fired at the instigation of city milliners. ‘‘ Fine feathers make
fine birds ”—and cruel, silly women, the adage might be adapted
for latter-day use. This rarely beautiful tanager, thanks to them,
is now only an infrequent flash of beauty in our country roads.

Instinct leads it to be chary of its charms; and whereas it
ased to be one of the commonest of bird neighbors, it is now shy
and solitary. An ideal resort for it is a grove of oak or swamp
maple near a stream or pond where it can bathe. Evergreen
trees, too, are favorites, possibly because the bird knows how
exquisitely its bright scarlet coat is set off by their dark back-
ground.

High in the tree-tops he perches, all unsuspected by the vis-
itor passing through the woods below, until a burst of rich, sweet
melody directs the opera-glasses suddenly upward. There we
detect him carolling loud and cheerfully, like a robin. He is an
apparition of beauty—a veritable bird of paradise, as, indeed, he
is sometimes called. Because of their similar coloring, the tana-
ger and cardinal are sometimes confounded, but an instant’s
comparison of the two birds shows nothing in common except
red feathers, and even those of quite different shades. The incon-
spicuous olive-green and yellow of the female tanager’s plumage
is another striking instance of Nature’s unequal distribution of

218

Conspicuously Red of any Shade

gifts; but if our bright-colored birds have become shockingly
few under existing conditions, would any at all remain were the
females prominent, like the males, as they brood upon the nest ?
Both tanagers construct a rather disorderly-looking nest of fibres
and sticks, through which daylight can be seen where it rests
securely upon the horizontal branch of some oak or pine tree;
but as soon as three or four bluish-green eggs have been laid
in the cradle, off goes the father, wearing his tell-tale coat, to
a distant tree. There he sings his sweetest carol to the patient,
brooding mate, returning to her side only long enough to feed
her with the insects and berries that form their food.

Happily for the young birds’ fate, they are clothed at first in
motley, dull colors, with here and there only a bright touch of
scarlet, yellow, and olive to prove their claim to the parent whose
gorgeous plumage must be their admiration. But after the moult-
ing season it would be a wise tanager that knew its own father.
His scarlet feathers are now replaced by an autumn coat of olive
and yellow not unlike his mate’s.

Pine Grosbeak
(Pinicola enucleator ) Finch family

Called also: PINE BULLFINCH

Length—Variously recorded from 6.5 to 11 inches. Specimen
measured 8.5 inches. About one-fifth smaller than the robin.

Maie—General color strawberry-red, with some slate-gray fleck-
ings about head, under wings, and on legs. Tail brown;
wings brown, marked with black and white and slate. A
band-shaped series of markings between the shoulders.
Underneath paler red, merging into grayish green. Heavy,
conspicuous bill.

Female—Ash-brown. Head and hind neck yellowish brown,
each feather having central dusky streak. Cheeks and
throat yellowish. Beneath ash-gray, tinged with brownish
yellow under tail.

Range—British American provinces and northern United States.

Migrations—Irregular winter visitors; length of visits as uncer-
tain as their coming.

As inseparable as bees from flowers, so are these beautiful
winter visitors from the evergreen woods, where their red
219

Conspicnously Red of any Shade

feathers, shining against the dark-green background of the trees,
give them charming prominence; but they also feed freely upon
the buds of various deciduous trees.

South of Canada we may not look for them except in the
severest winter weather. Even then their coming is not to be
positively depended upon; but when their caprice—or was it an
unusually fierce northern blast P—sends them over the Canada
border, it is a simple matter to identify them when such brilliant
birds are rare. The brownish-yellow and grayish females and
young males, however, always seem to be in the majority with
us, though our Canadian friends assure us of the irreproachable
morals of this gay bird.

Wherever thete are clusters of pine or cedar trees, when
there is a flock of pine grosbeaks in the neighborhood, you may
expect to find a pair of birds diligently feeding upon the seeds
and berries. No cheerful note escapes them as they persistently
gormandize, and, if the truth must be confessed, they appear to
be rather stupid and uninteresting, albeit they visit us at a time
when we are most inclined to rapture over our bird visitors.
They are said to have a deliciously sweet song in the nesting
season. When, however, few except the Canadian voyageurs
hear it.

‘American Crossbill

(Loxia curvirostra minor) Finch family
Called also: RED CROSSBILL

Length—6 to 7 inches. About the size of the English sparrow.

Male—General color Indian red, passing into brownish gray, with
red tinge beneath. Wings (without bands), also tail, brown.
Beak crossed at the tip.

Female—General color greenish yellow, with brownish tints.
Dull-yellowish tints on head, throat, breast, and underneath.
Wings and tail pale brown. Beak crossed at tip.

Range—Pennsylvania to northern British America. West of Mis-
sissippi, range more southerly.

Migrations—Irregular winter visitor. November. Sometimes
resident until April.

It is a rash statement to say that a bird is rare simply because
vou have never seen it in your neighborhood, for while you are

220

Conspicuously Red of any Shade

going out of the front door your rara avis may be eating the
crumbs about your kitchen. Even with our eyes and ears con-
stantly alert for some fresh bird excitement, our phlegmatic
neighbor over the way may be enjoying a visit from a whole
flock of the very bird we have been looking and listening for in
vain all the year. The red crossbills are capricious little visitors,
it is true, but by no means uncommon.

About the size of an English sparrow, of a brick or Indian
red color, for the most part, the peculiarity of its parrot-like beak
is its certain mark of identification.

Longfellow has rendered into verse the German legend of the
crossbill, which tells that as the Saviour hung upon the cross, a
little bird tried to pull out the nails that pierced His hands and
feet, thus twisting its beak and staining its feathers with the
blood.

At first glance the birds would seem to be hampered by their
crossed beaks in getting at the seeds in the pine cones—a super-
ficial criticism when the thoroughness and admirable dexterity of
their work are better understood.

Various seeds of fruits, berries, and the buds of trees enlarge
their bill of fare. They are said to be inordinately fond of salt.
Mr. Romeyn B. Hough tells of a certain old ice-cream freezer that
attracted flocks of crossbills one winter, as a salt-lick attra tts deer.
Whether the traditional salt that may have stuck to the t ird’s tail
is responsible for its tameness is not related, but it is certain the
crossbills, like most bird visitors from the far north, are remark~-
ably gentle, friendly little birds. As they swing about the pine
trees, parrot-fashion, with the help of their bill, calling out Aimp,
kimp, that sounds like the snapping of the pine cones on a sunny
day, it often seems easily possible to catch them with the hand.

There is another species of crossbill, called the White-winged
(Loxia leucoptera), that differs from the preceding chiefly in have
ing two white bands across its wings and in being more rare.

Conspicuously Red of any Shade

The Redpoll
(Acantbis linaria) Finch family

Called also: REDPOLL LINNET; LITTLE SNOWBIRD;
LESSER REDPOLL

Length—5.25 to 5.5 inches. About an inch shorter than the Eng
lish sparrow.

Male—A rich crimson wash on head, neck, breast, and lower
back, that is sometimes only a pink when we see the bird in
midwinter. Grayish-brown, sparrowy feathers show under-
neath the red wash. Dusky wings and tail, the feathers
more or less edged with whitish. Soiled white underneath;
the sides with dusky streaks. Bill sharply pointed.

Female—More dingy than male, sides more heavily streaked, and
having crimson only on the crown.

ange—An arctic bird that descends irregularly into the northern
United States.

Migrations—An irregular winter visitor.

‘*Ere long, amid the cold and powdery snow, as it were a
fruit of the season, will come twittering a flock of delicate crim-
son-tinged birds, lesser redpolls, to sport and feed on the buds
just ripe for them on the sunny side of a wood, shaking down
the powdery snow there in their cheerful feeding, as if it were
high midsummer to them.” Thoreau’s beautiful description of
these tiny winter visitors, which should be read entire, shows
the man in one of his most sympathetic, exalted moods, and it is
the best brief characterization of the redpoll that we have.

When the arctic cold becomes too cruel for even the snow-
birds and crossbills to withstand, flocks of the sociable little red-
polls f ying southward are the merest specks in the sullen, gray
sky, when they can be seen at all. So high do they keep that
often they must pass above our heads without our knowing it
First we see a quantity of tiny dots, like a shake of pepper, in the
cloud above, then the specks grow larger and larger, and finally
the birds seem to drop from the sky upon some tall tree that they
completely cover—a veritable cloudburst of birds. Without
pausing to rest after the long journey, down they flutter into the
weedy pastures with much cheerful twittering, to feed upon
whatever seeds may be protruding through the snow. Every

222.

Conspicuously Red of any Shade

action of a flock seems to be concerted, as if some rigid discipli-
narian had drilled them, and yet no leader can be distinguished
in the merry company. When one flies, all fly; where one feeds,
all feed, and by some subtle telepathy all rise at the identical in-
stant from their feeding ground and cheerfully twitter in concert
where they all alight at once. They are more easily disturbed
than the goldfinches, that are often seen feeding with them in the
lowlands; nevertheless, they quite often venture into our gardens
and orchards, even in suburbs penetrated by the trolley-car.

Usually in winter we hear only their lisping call-note; but if
the birds linger late enough in the spring, when their ‘‘ fancy
lightly turns to thoughts of love,” a gleeful, canary-like song
comes from the naked branches, and we may know by it that
the flock will soon disappear for their nesting grounds in the
northern forests.

The Greater Redpoll (Acanthis linaria rostrata) may be dis-
tinguished from the foregoing species by its slightly larger size,
darker upper parts, and shorter, stouter bill. But the notes,
habits, and general appearance of both redpolls are so nearly
identical that the hirds are usually mistaken for each other.

Purple Finch
(Carpodacus purpureus) Finch family

Called also: PURPLE LINNET

Leng*h—6 to 6.25 inches. About the same size as the English
sparrow.

Male—Until two years old, sparrow-like in appearance like the
female, but with olive-yellow on chin and lower back.
Afterwards entire body suffused with a bright raspberry-red,
deepest on head, lower back, and breast, and other parts
only faintly washed with this color. More brown on back;
and wings and tail, which are dusky, have some reddish-
brown feathers. Underneath grayish white. Bill heavy.
Tail forked.

Female—Grayish olive-brown above; whitish below; finely
streaked everywhere with very dark brown, like a sparrow.
Sides of breast have arrow-shaped marks. Wings and tail
darkest.

Range—North America, from Columbia River eastward to Atlan-

223

Conspicuously Red of any Shade

tic, and from Mexico northward to Manitoba. Most com-
mon in Middle States and New England. Winters south of
Pennsylvania.

Migrations—March. November. Common summer resident.
Rarely individuals winter at the north.

In this ‘‘ much be-sparrowed country” of ours familiarity is
apt to breed contempt for any bird that looks sparrowy, in which
case one of the most delicious songsters we have might easily be
overlooked. It is not until the purple finch reaches maturity in
his second year that his plumage takes on the raspberry-red tints
that some ornithologists named purple. Oriental purple is our
magenta, it is true, but not a raspberry shade. Before maturity,
but for the yellow on his lower back and throat, he and his
mate alike suggest a song-sparrow; and it is important to note
their particularly heavy, rounded bills, with the tufts of feathers
at the base, and their forked tails, to name them correctly. But
the identification of the purple finch, after all, depends quite as
much upon his song as his color. In March, when flocks of
these birds come north, he has begun to sing a little ; by the be-
ginning of May he is desperately in love, and sudden, joyous
peals of music from the elm or evergreen trees on the lawn en-
liven the garden. How could his little brown lady-love fail to
be impressed with a suitor so gayly dressed, so tender and solici-
tous, so deliciously sweet-voiced? With fuller, richer song
than the warbling vireo’s, which Nuttall has said it resembles, a
perfect ecstasy of love pours incessantly from his throat during
the early summer days. There is a suggestion of the robin’s
love-song in his, but its copiousness, variety, and rapidity give
it a character all its own.

In some old, neglected hedge or low tree about the country-
place a flat, grassy nest, lined with horsehair, contains four or
five green eggs in June, and the old birds are devotion itself to
each other, and soon to their young, sparrowy brood.

But when parental duties are over, the finches leave our
lawns and garaens to join flocks of their own kind in more re-
mote orchards or woods, their favorite haunts. Their subdued
warble may be heard during October and later, as if the birds
were humming to themselves.

Much is said of their fondness for fruit blossoms and tree
buds, but the truth is that noxious insects and seeds of grain

224

Conspicuously Red of any Shade

constitute their food in summer, the berries of evergreens in
winter. To a bird so gay of color, charming of voice, social, and
trustful of disposition, surely a few blossoms might be spared
without grudging.

The American Robin |

(Merula migratoria) Thrush family

Called also: RED-BREASTED OR MIGRATORY THRUSH;
ROBIN-REDBREAST

Length—10 inches.

Male—Dull brownish olive-gray above. Head black; tail brown-
ish black, with exterior feathers white at inner tip. Wings
dark brownish. Throat streaked with black and white.
pete cyengs Entire breast bright rusty red; whitish below
the tail.

Female—Duller and with paler breast, resembling the male in
autumn.

Range—North America, from Mexico to arctic regions.

Migrations—March. October or November. Often resident
throughout the year.

It seems almost superfluous to write a line of description
about a bird that is as familiar as a chicken; yet how can this
nearest of our bird neighbors be passed without a reference?
Probably he was the very first bird we learned to call by name.

The early English colonists, who had doubtless been brought
up, like the rest of us, on “The Babes in the Wood,” named the
bird after the only heroes in that melancholy tale; but in reality
the American robin is a much larger bird than the English robin-
redbreast and less brilliantly colored. John Burroughs calls him,
of all our birds, “the most native and democratic.”

How the robin dominates birddom with his strong, aggres-
sive personality! His voice rings out strong and clear in the
early morning chorus, and, more tenderly subdued at twilight, it
still rises above all the sleepy notes about him. Whether lightly
tripping over the lawn after the “early worm,” or rising with his
sharp, quick cry of alarm, when startled, to his nest near by,
every motion is decided, alert, and free. No pensive hermit of
the woods, like his cousins, the thrushes, is this joyous vigorous
“bird of the morning.” Such a presence is inspiriting.

225

Conspicuously Red of any Shade

Does any bird excel the robin in the great variety of his vocal
expressions ? Mr. Parkhurst, in his charming ‘‘ Birds’ Calendar,”
says he knows of ‘‘no other bird that is able to give so many
shades of meaning to a single note, running through the entire
gamut of its possible feelings. From the soft and mellow quality,
almost as coaxing as a dove’s note, with which it encourages its
young when just out of the nest, the tone, with minute grada-
tions, becomes more vehement, and then harsh and with quick-
ened reiteration, until it expresses the greatest intensity of a bird’s
emotions. Love, contentment, anxiety, exultation, rage—what
other bird can throw such multifarious meaning into its tone?
And herein the robin seems more nearly human than any of its
kind.”

There is no one thing that attracts more birds about the house
that a drinking-dish—large enough for a bathtub as well; and
certainly no bird delights in sprinkling the water over his back
more than a robin, often aided in his ablutions by the spattering
of the sparrows. But see to it that this drinking-dish is well
raised above the reach of lurking cats.

While the robin is a famous splasher, his neatness stops
there. A robin’s nest is notoriously dirty within, and so care-
lessly constructed of weed-stalks, grass, and mud, that a heavy
summer shower brings more robins’ nests to the ground than we
like to contemplate. The color of the eggs, as every one knows,
has given their name to the tint. Four is the number of eggs
laid, and two broods are often reared in the same nest.

Too much stress is laid on the mischief done by the robins
in the cherry trees and strawberry patches, and too little upon
the quantity of worms and insects they devour. Professor Tread-
well, who experimented upon some young robins kept in cap-
tivity, learned that they ate sixty-eight earthworms daily—‘“‘ that
is, each bird ate forty-one per cent. more than its own weight in
twelve hours! The length of these worms, if laid end to end,
would be about fourteen feet. Man, at this rate, would eat
about seventy pounds of flesh a day, and drink five or six gallons
of water.”

Conspicuously Red of any Shade

Orchard Oriole
(dcterus spurius) Blackbird and Oriole family

Called also: ORCHARD STARLING ; ORCHARD HANG-NEST

ais lier to 7.3 inches. About one-fourth smaller than the
robin.

Male—Head, throat, upper back, tail, and part of wings black.
Breast, rump, shoulders, under wing and tail coverts, and
under parts bright reddish brown. Whitish-yellow mark-
ings on a few tail and wing feathers.

Female—Head and upper pes olive, shading into brown; brighter
on head and near tail. Back and wings dusky brown, with
ale-buff shoulder-bars and edges of coverts. Throat black.

nder parts olive, shading into yellow.

ange—Canada to Central America. Common in temperate lati-
tudes of the United States.

Migrations—Early May. Middle of September. Common sum.
mer resident.

With a more southerly range than the Baltimore oriole and
less conspicuous coloring, the orchard oriole is not so familiar a
bird in many Northern States, where, nevertheless, it is quite
common enough to be classed among our would-be intimates.
The orchard is not always as close to the house as this bird cares
to venture; he will pursue an insect even to the piazza vines.

His song, says John Burroughs, is like scarlet, ‘‘ strong, in-
tense, emphatic,” but it is sweet and is more rapidly uttered than
that of others of the family. It is ended for the season early
in July.

This oriole, too, builds a beautiful nest, not often pendent like
the Baltimore’s, but securely placed in the fork of a sturdy fruit
tree, at a moderate height, and woven with skill and precision,
like a basket. When the dried grasses from one of these nests
were stretched and measured, all were found to be very nearly the
same length, showing to what pains the little weaver had gone
to make the nest neat and pliable, yet strong. Four cloudy-
white eggs with dark-brown spots are usually found in the nest
in June.

INDEX

The figures in black-faced type indicate the page upon which the
biography of the bird is given.

Accentor, Golden-crowned (see Oven-
bird), 180.

Bellbird (see Wood Thrush), 123.
Bird, Blue (see Bluebird), 99.
Butcher (see Northern Shrike), 87.
Butter (see Bobolink), 61.
Cardinal (see Cardinal Grosbeak),
215,
Cedar, 9, 19, 20. 21, 27, 29, 36, 144.
Cow-pen (see Cowbird), 49.
Grass (see Vesper Sparrow), 162.
Grease (see Canada Jay), 79.
Meadow (see Bobolink), 61.
Meat (see Canada Jay), 79.
Moose (see Canada Jay), 79.
Myrtle (see Myrtle Warbler), 92.
Peabody (see Vesper Sparrow), 165.
Potato Bug (see Rose-breasted Gros-
beak), 60.
Thistle (see American Goldfinch),

Igo.
Blackbird (see Rusty Blackbird), 46.
and Oriole family, 6.
Cow (see Cowbird), 49.
Crow (see Purple Grackle), 44.
Red-winged, 6, 21, 22, 23, 28, 30,
32, 36, 47. :
Rusty, 6, 22, 28, 30, 32, 36, 46.
Skunk (see Bobolink), 61.
Swamp (see Red-winged Blackbird),

47.

Thrush (see Rusty Blackbird), 46,
Blackcap (see Wilson’s Warbler), 202.
Bluebird, 14, 19, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29,

30, 36, 99.
Bobolink, 7, 22, 23, 28, 30, 31, 36, 6x.
Bull-bat (see Nighthawk), 138.
Bullfinch, Pine (see Pine Grosbeak), 219.
Bunting, Bay-winged (see Vesper Spar-
row), 162,

Cow (see Cowbird), 49.

Field (see Field Sparrow), 152.

Indigo, 8, 21, 22, 23, 29, 30, 31,

35, 10x.

Bunting, Lapland Lark (see Lapland
Longspur), 148.
Savanna (see Savanna Sparrow), 155.
Snow (see Snowflake), 59.
Towhee (see Chewink), 58.
Tree (see Tree Sparrow), 161,
Buntings, the, 7,

Camp Robber (see Canada Jay), 79.
Canary, Wild (see American Goldfinch),

190.
Cardinal (see Cardinal Grosbeak), 215.
Carrion-bird, Canadian (see Canada Jay),

79.

Catbird, 12, 19, 20, 21, 22, 20, 30, 3%,
36, 80.

Catbirds, the, 12.

Cedar Bird (see Bird, Cedar), 144.

Chat, Polyglot (see Yellow-breasted Chat),
206.

Yellow-breasted, 12, I9, 21, 22, 2g,
30, 31, 36, 206.
Chebec (see Least Flycatcher), 75.
Cherry-bird (see Cedar Bird), 144.
Chewink, 8, 21, 29, 30, 32, 36, 58.
Chickadee, 14, 19, 20, 21, 27, 28, 2g,
31, 35, 76. .
family (see Titmouse family), 13.
Chip-bird (see Chipping Sparrow), 149.
Chipper, Arctic (see Tree Sparrow), 161,
Chippy (see Chipping Sparrow), 149.
Meadow (see Seaside Sparrow), 156.
Winter (see Tree Sparrow), r64.
Clape (see Flicker), 130.
Corn Thief (see Common Crow), 41.
Cowbird, 7, 20, 21, 22, 28, 30, 3L, 36,

49.

Creeper, Brown, 13, 20, 21, 28, 35, 145.
family, 13.

Crossbill, American, 8, 19, 20, 28, 220.
Red (see American Crossbill), 220
White-winged Red, 8, I9, 20, 2%

221,
Crossbills, the, 7, 21, 35-
Crow and Jay family, 6,

229

Index

Crow, Common, 6, 19, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28,
36, 41.
Fish, 6, 19, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 36,

42.

Rain (see Black-billed Cuckoo) 139 ;
also Yellow-billed Cuckoo, 141.

Rusty (see Rusty Blackbird), 46.

Cuckoo family, 3.

Black-billed, 3, 19, 20, 21, 28, 30,
31, 36, 139.

Yellow-billed, 3, 19, 20, 21, 28, 30,
31, 36, 141. '

Devil Downhead (see White-breasted Nut-
hatch), 84.
Dove, Carolina (see Mourning Dove), 108.
family (see Pigeon and Dove fam-
ily), 15.
Monurning, 15, 21, 22, 28, 36, 108,
Turtle (see Mourning Dove), 108.

Fieeh family, 7.

Ferruginous (see Fox Sparrow), 153.

Foxy (see Fox Sparrow), 153.

Gold (see Goldfinch), rgo,

Grass (see Vesper Sparrow), 162.

Pine (see Pine Siskin), 146.

Purple, 8, 19, 20, 21, 23, 28, 29, 30,
32, 35, 223.

Seaside ae Seaside Sparrow), 156.

Swamp (see Swamp Song Sparrow),
160.

Towhee Ground (see Chewink), 58.
Fwebird (see Scarlet Tanager), 218.
Vilicker, 4, 19, 21, 22, 27, 28, 30, 32, 36,

130.
epee, Acadian, 5,19, 22, 28, 31, 35,

162.
Canadian (see Canadian Warbler),

194.

Crested (sce Great Crested Fly-
catcher), 72.

Dusky (see Phoebe), 71.

family, 5, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23.

Great Crested, 5, 19, 20, 22, 28, 30,
31, 35, 72.

Least, 5, 19, 20, 22, 28, 30, 31, 35,

75+

Olive-sided, 5, 19, 28, 31, 36, 74.
y’s, 5, 19, 22, 28, 72.
all Green-crested (see Acadian
Flycatcher), 182,

Sylvan (see Blue-gray Gnatcatcher),
1I0,

Tyrant (see Kingbird), 68.

Wilson’s (see Wilson’s Warbler), 202.

ve oven 5, 19, 22, 28, 31, 35,
183.

Gaateatcher, Blue-gray, 14, 19, 20, 22,
29, 35, I10.

Gnatcatcher family, 14.
Goatsucker family, 4.
Long-winged (see Nighthawk), 138
Goldcrest, Golden-crowned (see Golden-
crowned Kinglet), 174.
Goldfinch, 8, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 28,
29, 30, 35, 190.
European, IgI.
Grackle, Bronzed, 7, 19, 20, 21, 22, 28,
30, 32, 36, 46.
Keel-tailed (see Purple Grackle), 44.
Purple, 7, 19, 20, 21, 22, 28, 30, 32,
36, 44.
Rusty (see Rusty Blackbird), 46.
Grasel (see Chewink), 58.
Grass-bird, Red (see Swamp Song Spar-
row), 160.
Greenlet family (see Vireo family), 10.
Grosbeak, Blue, 8, 28, 36, 105.
Cardinal, 8, 21, 27, 28, 29, 36, 235.
Evening, 8, 28, 36, 192.
Pine, 8, 20, 27, 36, 2X9.
Rose-breasted, 8, 21, 28, 30, 31, 36,

Grosbeaks, the, 7, 19, 20, 21.

Hair-bird (see Chipping Sparrow), 149.
Halcyon (see Belted Kingfisher), 102.
Hang-nest (see Baltimore Oriole), 211.
Orchard (see Orchard Oriole), 227.
AHlawk, Mosquito (see Nighthawk), 138.
Heron, Venison (see Canada Jay), 79.
High-hole or High-holder (see Flicker),

130.
Humming-bird family, 5.
Ruby-throated, 5, 19, 21, 28, 30, 31,
35 170,

Indigo Bird (see Indigo Bunting), ror.

Jay, Blue, 6, 19, 20, 21, 27, 28, 36, 104.
Canada, 6, 20, 21, 22, 28, 36, 79.
family (see Crow and Jay family), 6.

Junco, 8, 21, 22, 27, 31, 35, 83.
Kingbird, 5, 19, 20, 22, 23, 28, 30, 31,

35, OS.
Kingfisher, Belted, 3, 20, 21, 23, 28, 30,
36, 102.
family, 3.
Kinglet family, 14.
Golden-crowned, 14, 20, 21, 28, 32,
35, 174.
Ruby-crowned, 14, 20, 21, 28, 30,
32, 35; 172.

Lark, Brown or Red (see American Pipit),
135.
family, 5.
Field (see Meadowlark), 132.
Horned, 6, 21, 22, 23, 27, 3%, 36,
134.

230

Lark, Meadow (see Meadowlark), 132,
Oldfield (see Meadowlark), 132.
Pine (see Pine Siskin), 146.

Prairie (see Western Meadowlark),
133.

Prairie Horned, 6, 22, 27, 29, 135.

Purple (see Purple Finch), 223.

Redpoll (see Redpoll), 222,

Shore (see Horned Lark), 134.

Snow (see Snowflake), 59.

Tit (see American Pipit), 135.

Linnets, the, 7.

Longspur, Lapland, 8, 22, 28, 35, 148.
Smith’s Painted, 8, 22, 28, 35, 147.

Maize Thief (see Purple Grackle), 44.
Martin, Bee (see Kingbird), 68.

Purple, 9, 19, 21, 29, 30, 31, 36, 48.

Sand (see Bank Swallow), 143.
Mavis (see Brown Thrasher), 121.
Maybird (see Bobolink), 61.
Meadowlark, 7, 21, 22, 23, 27, 29, 30,

32, 36, 132.
Western, 7, 21, 22, 23, 27, 29, 36,

133.

Mocking-bird, 12, 19, 20, 21, 29, 36, 81.
Brown (see Brown Thrasher), 121.
French (see Brown Thrasher), 121.
Yellow, 206,

| Mocking-birds, the, 12.
Nighthawk, 4, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 28, 30,
31, 36, 138.

Nightingale, European, 125.

Virginia (see Cardinal Grosbeak),

215.
Nightjar (see Nighthawk), 138.
Nine-killer (see Northern Shrike), 87.
Nuthatch, Canada (see Red-breasted Nut-
hatch), 85.
family, 13, 21.
Red-breasted, 13, 20, 28, 32, 35, 85.
White-breasted, 13, 20, 27, 29, 32,
355 84.

Oriole, Baltimore, 7, 19, 21, 28, 30, 31,
36, 211.
Brown-headed (see Cowbird), 49.
family (see Blackbird and Oriole
family), 6.
Golden (sce Baltimore Oriole), 211.
Orchard, 7, 19, 21, 28, 30, 31, 36,

227.
Red-winged (see Red-winged Black-
bird), 47.

Rusty (see Rusty Blackbird), 46.
Ortolan, American (see Bobolink), 61.
beak 12, 21, 22, 23, 29, 30, 31, 35»

160.

Pewee, Bridge (see Phoebe), 71.
Small (see Acadian Flycatcher), 182.

Index

Pewee, Water (see Phoebe), 71.
Wood, 5, 19, 20, 22, 23, 28, 30, 31,
36, 9.
Pheebe, 5, 19, 20, 22, 23, 28, 30, 32, 35,
71,
Say’s, 72.
Pigeon ard Dove family, 15.
Pipit, American, 12, 21, 22, 23, 28, 30,
fay xe 35, 135.
Pipits, the, 12.
Piramidig (see Nighthawk), 138.
Pisk (see Nighthawk), 138.
Pocket-bird (see Scarlet Tanager), 218.
Preacher, the (see Red-eyed Vireo), 176.

Raven, American, 6, 19, 20, 28, 36, 43.
Northern (see American Raven), 43,
White-necked, 44.

Récollet (see Cedar Bird), 144.

Redbird, Black-winged (see Scarlet Tan-

ager), 218,
Crested (see Cardinal Grosbeak), 215.
(see Summer Tanager), 216.
Smooth-headed (see Summer Tana-
ger), 216.
Virginia (see Cardinal Grosbeak),

215.
Redhead (see Red-headed Woodpecker)

53.
Redpoll, 8, 21, 22, 27, 35, 222.
Greater, 8, 21, 22, 27, 35, 223.
Lesser (see Redpoll), 222.
Redstart, 12, 19, 29, 31, 35, 210.
Reedbird (see Bobolink), 61.
Robin, American, 14, 19, 20, 21, 22, 27, -
28, 29, 30, 32, 225.
Blue (see Bluebird), 99.
Canada (see Cedar Bird), r44.
English (see Baltimore Oriole), 22.
Golden (see Baltimore Oriole), 271.
Ground (see Chewink), 58.
Redbreast (see American Rebia),
225.
Wood (see Wood Thrush), 123.

Sapsucker (see Yellow-bellied Wood-

pecker), 57
Shrike family, 9.

Tagperiead, 10, 19, 20, 21, 29, 36,
Northern, 10, 19, 20, 21, 27, 32, 36,
7.
Silktail (see Bohemian Waxwing), 88.
Siskin, Pine, 8, 20, 28, 32, 35, 146,

Skylark, European, 5.
Snowbird (see Junco), 83; also Snow.

ake, 59.
Lapland (see Lapland Longspurh
148

48.
Little (see Redpoll), 222.
Slate-colored (see Junco), 83.

ag

tndex

Snowflake, 8, 22, 27, 36, 59.
Sparrow, Bush (see Field Sparrow), 152.

Canada (see Tree Sparrow), 161 ;
also White-throated Sparrow, 165.

Chipping, 7, 19, 20, 22, 27, 28, 30,
35, 149.

English, 7, 20, 22, 27, 28, ISI.

Field, 7, 22, 28, 30, 32, 152.

Fox, 7, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29, 32,
36, 153.

Fox-colored (see Fox Sparrow), 153.

Grasshopper, 7, 22, 28, 31, 35, 154.

House (see English Sparrow), 151.

ees (see Swamp Song Sparrow),
160.

Savanna, 7s 22, 28, 32, 35) 155.

Seaside, 7, 22, 28, 35, 156.

Sharp-tailed, 7, 22, 28, 35, 157.

Social (see Chipping Sparrow), 149.

Song, 8, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 28, 30,
35, 158.

Symp (see Swamp Song Sparrow),
I

Swamp Song, 8, 22, 27, 28, 30, 32,
35, 160.
Tree, 8, 19, 20, 21, 22, 27, 31, 35;
161,
Vesper, 8, 20, 22, 23, 27, 28, 30, 31,
35, 162.
White-crowned, 8, 20, 21, 22, 27,
32, 36, 164.
White-throated, 8, 20, 21, 22, 27,
30, 31, 36, 165.
Wood (see Field S
¥Yellow-winged
Sparrow), 154.
Sparrows, the, 7. 19, 21, 22.
Starling, 50
Orchard Starling, 227
Red-winged (see Red-winged Black-
bird), 47.
Swallow, Bank, 9, 19, 22, 23, 29, 30, 35,
143.
Barn, 9, 19, 21, 22, 23, 29, 30, 35,
106,

row), 152.
‘see Grasshopper

Chimney (see Chimney Swift), 67.

Cliff, 9, 19, 21, 22, 23, 29, 30, 31, 35,
107.

Crescent (see Cliff Swallow), 107.

Eave (see Cliff Swallow), 107.

family, 9, 20, 22, 23.

Rocky Mountain (see Cliff Swallow),

107.

Rough-winged, 9, 19, 22, 23, 29, 35,
144.

Sand (see Bank Swallow), 143.

Tree, 9, 19, 22, 23, 29, 30, 35, 169.

White-bellied (see Tree Swallow),

169.
Swamp Angel (see Hermit Thrush), 125.
Swift American (see Chimney Swift), 67.

Swift, Chimney, 5, 19, 3°, 23, 28, 3Q
31, 35, 67.
family, 4.

Tanager, Canada (see Scarlet Tanager),
218,
family, 8, 21.
Scarlet, 8, 19, 28, 30, 31, 36, 218,
Summer, 8, I9, 29, 36, 216.
Teacher, the (see Ovenbird), 180,
Thrasher, Brown, 12, Ig, 20, 21, 22, 20)
30, 32, 36, 21.
Thrashers, the, 12.
Thrush, Alice’s, 15, 29, 30, 32, 36, 126,
Aquatic (see Northern Water
Thrush), 129.
Black-capped (see Catbird), 80.
Brown (see Brown Thrasher), 121.
family, 14, 19, 21.
Gray-cheeked (see Alice’s Thrush),
126.
Golden-crowned (see Ovenbird), 180.
Ground (see Brown Thrasher), 121.
Hermit, 15, 29, 30, 31, 36, 125.
Little (see Hermit Thrush), 125.
Louisiana Water, 12, 21, 22, 23, 20,
30, 31, 35, 125.
New York (see Northern Water
Thrush), 129.
Northern Water, 12, 21, 22, 23, 29,
30, 31, 35, 126.
Olive-backed, 15, 29, 30, 32, 36,
127.
Red (see Brown Thrasher), 121.
Red-breasted or Migratory (see
American Robin), 225.
Song (see Wood Thrush), 123.
Swainson’s (see Olive-backed
Thrush), 127.
Tawny (see Wilson’s Thrush), 122.
Wilson's, 15, 21, 22, 29, 30, 31, 32,
36, 122,
Wood, 15, 20, 21, 29, 30, 31, 32, 36,

123.

Tit, Black-capped (see Chickadee), 76.

Titlark (see American Pipit), 135.

Titmouse Black-capped (see Chickadee),
6

76.
Crested (see Tufted Titmouse), 78.
family, 13, 21.
Tufted, 14, 19, 20, 21, 27, 28, 29,
31, 35, 78. ;
Tomtit, Crested (see Tufted Titmouse),
8

78.
Torch-bird (see Blackburnian Warbler).

209.
Towhee (see Chewink), 58.
Tree-mouse (see White-breasted Nut
hatch), 84.
Tricolor (see Red-headed Woodpecker

53-

232

YVeery (see Wilson's Thrush), r2z.
Vireo, Blue-headed (see Solitary Vireo),
175.
family, 10, 19, 21, 22.
Red-eyed, 10, 20, 22, 29, 30, 31, 35,
176,
Solitary, 10, 20, 22, 29, 30, 31, 35,
175.
Warbling, 10, 20, 22, 29, 30, 31, 35,

179.

White-eyed, 10, 20, 21, 22, 29, 30,
31, 35, 177.

Yellow-throated, 10, 20, 22, 29, 30,
31, 35, 189.

Wagtail, Aquatic Wood (see Northern
Water Thrush), 129.
Golden-crowned (see Ovenbird), 180.
Wood (see Ovenbird), 180.
Wagtails, the, 12.
Wake-up (see Flicker), 130.

Warbler, Bay-Breasted, 11, 29, 30, 31, |

go.

Black-and-white Creeping, I1, 20,
29, 30, 31, 64.

Black-and-yellow (see
Warbler), 197.

Blackburnian, 11, 29, 31, 209.

Black-masked Ground (see Maryland
Yellowthroat), 207.

Blackpoll, 11, 19, 20, 29, 63.

Black-throated Blue, 11, 29, 30, 31,

Magnolia

95-
Black-throated Green, II, 29, 30,

184.
‘ Bloody-sided (see Chestnut-sided
Warbler), go.

Blue-headed Yellow-rumped (see
Magnolia Warbler), 197.
Blue-winged, II, 20, 29, 193.
Blue-winged Yellow (see

winged Warbler), 193.
Blue Yellow-backed (see Parula
Warbler), 94.
Canadian, I1, Ig, 22, 23, 29, 31,

Blue-

194.
Chestnut-sided, 11, 29, 30, 31, 90.
Golden (see Yellow Warbler), 204.
Golden-winged, 11, 29, 30, 31, 91.
Green Black-capped (see Wilson’s
Warbter), 202.
Hemlock (see Blackburnian War-
bler), 209.
Hooded, 11, 21, 22, 29, 31, 195.
Kentucky, 11, 22, 196.
Magnolia, II, 29, 30, 197.
Mourning, I1, 21, 22, 29, 198.
Mourning Ground (see Mourning
Warbler), 198.
Myrtle, 11, 21, 27, 29, 30, 92.
Nashville, 11, 29, 100.

Index’

Warbler, Orange-throated (see Black-

burnian Warbler), 209.

Palm, II, 22, 29, 204.

Parula, 11, 29, 30, 31, 94.

Pine, 11, 20, 29, 30, 31, 200.

Pine Creeping (see Pine Warbler,
200.

Prairie, 11, 22, 29, 31, 201.

Redpoll (see Palm Warbler), 204.

Ruby-crowned (see Ruby-crownead
Kinglet), 172.

Spotted (see Magnolia Warbler), 197.

Spotted Canadian (see Canadiar
Warbler), 194.

Wilson’s, 12, 19, 22, 23, 29, 31, 202.

Worm-eating, 12, 20, 22, 29, 31,

181.

Yellow, 12, 19, 20, 22, 23, 29, 3C,
31, 204.

YVellow-crowned (see Myrtle War-
bler), 92.

Yellow Palm (see Yellow Redpoll
Warbler), 203.
Yellow Redpoll, 12, 22, 29, 30, 31,

203.
Yellow-rumped (see Myrtle Warbler),

2.

Yellow-tailed (see Redstart), 210.

Waxwing, Black-throated (see Bohemiam
Waxwing), 88.

Bohemian, 9, I9, 20, 27, 36, 88.

Cedar (see Cedar Bird), 144.

family, 9.

Lapland (see Bohemian Waxwing),

88.
Whisky Jack or John (see Canada Jay)

79.
‘Whitebird (see Snowflake), 59.
Whippoorwill, 4, 19, 20, 21, 22, 28, 31,

5 13 Lf
Will-o' the- Wisp (see Nighthawk), 138.
Woodpecker, Downy, 4, 19, 27, 28, 35,
55+
family, 3, 21, 22.
Golden-winged (see Flicker), 130.
Hairy, 4, 19, 27, 28, 36, 54.
Pigeon (see Flicker), 130.
Red-headed, 4, 19, 27, 28, 30, 32,

36, 53-
Yellow-bellied, 4, 19, 27, 28, 30, 32,

35, 57: is
Yellow-shafted (see Flicker), 130.
Wood Warbler family, 10, 19, 20, 21, 36.
Wren, nua, 13, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29,
116.

family, 13, I9, 21, 22, 35.

Fiery-crowned (see Golden-crowned
Kinglet), 174.

House, 13, 20, 29, 30, 31, 115.

Long-billed Marsh, 13, 22, 29, 9a
BI, 119.

233

Sndex

Wren, Mocking (see Carolina Wren), | Varup (see Flicker), 130.
116, Yellowbird (see American Goldfinch). 19a
Ruby-crowned (see Ruby-crowned Summer (see Yellow Warbler), 204.
Kinglet), 172. Yellowhammer (see Flickex), 130.
Short-billed Marsh, 13, 29, 30, 31,| Yellow Poll (see Yellow Warbler), 204.
120, Yellowthroat, Maryland, 12, 19, 21, 22
Winter, 13, 21, 22, 23, 28, 31, 117. 23, 29, 30, 31, 207,

LABORATORY OF ORNITHOLOGY
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
ITHACA, NEW YORK