English song birds

sn, 177

English Song Birds

By Theodore Booseve/l

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T1?? Outlook

volume: 95

JULY 23, 1910

NUMBER 12

bride, whereupon sne arose ana carmiy
indorsed his statement (her composure
that of a veteran club woman), adding a
cordial invitation for all present to the
wedding, including the strangers present,
the pastor thereupon addressing his guests
personally, expressing the wish that they
would accept. Ho\Ncan the Spectator or
his friend after that ever believe again
that the Mennonites are too clannish for
ordinary courtesy ? In fact, the Spectator
lost several fixed impressions concern¬
ing the Mennonites that Sunday. An¬
other was that they are utterly devoid of
the sense of humor. “ What will happen
to us Perizzites, and Girgasites, and Hjt-
tites, and all of the other ‘ ites,’ when you.
Mennonites get full possession here in
this valley ?” the promoter had asked in
friendly conversation with the brethren
after the service. “ Oh, we’ll see you
running round barefooted,” was the reply.

B

Now any good reference library, the
Spectator is well aware — or any good en¬
cyclopaedia — furnishes ample information
about the Mennonites. But what he
wanted most was to be gained only in
social converse with the brethren (they
belonged mostly, they told him, to the
branch Des Bundes Conferenz dcr Men¬
nonites Briidergemeinde) . Many of them
were from Kansas. The pastor came to
the United States with the large Men-
nonite immigration from Russia follow¬
ing Russia’s annulment in 1870 of her
pledge to exempt the sect from military and
civil service — the immigrants mostly Ger¬
mans, their second exile for conscience’
sake ; the Mennonites of the United States
contributed generously in paying the cost
of the transportation of their brethren,
who were soon settled in our Western
States and Canada. Three emigrations

mg au ii ic Mine. arty granaiamer was
an old hooks-and-eyes ; with him wear¬
ing buttons and to have buttonholes was
a sin. My mother wears the Amish cap
and cape ; but my sisters ! well, you
saw diem in our choir.” . . . “ Oh, no,
they never read novels," most emphati¬
cally ; nor did they ever dance or play
cards. The discipline of the Church was
very strict ; rectitude of conduct more
important than knowledge of doctrines ;
suspension or excommunication a not
infrequent penalty for violation of the
severe exactions of the code. Did the
Mennonite boys go to the Sunday ball
games ? The question shocked the breth¬
ren to an extent unanticipated.

S3

What a contrast between the two settle¬
ments meaning so much to the future of
the valley ! Would there ever be “ a uni¬
fication, \ as Hegelians would say, in the
conflicting'notions of each ? Which of the
two was likely to prove the greater bless¬
ing ? The Spectator’s friend had resumed
describing the attractions of the new town-
to-be : a picnic grove, a dancing pavilion,
a ball-ground —

“And, of course, \ a church,” rather
faintly suggested the Spectator.

“ Perhaps,” after a paivse. “ But there
are churches enough in this valley already
if the support they get me^ns anything.
There’ll always be a Mennonite service,
you see, and that will be an attractive
novelty — a good thing on the\Sunday
programme. How those Mennonites do
sing!” — the hilarious greetings frohj a
passing tally-ho on its way to the ball gain
interrupting his low, sweet rendering of
the old German hymn that the Spectator
will not soon forget. And did the Spec¬
tator find a name for the new town ?

He has not as vet. Selah.

English Song Birds

By ' Theodore Roosevelt

LIKE most Americans interested in
birds and books, I know a good
deal about English birds as they
appear in books. I know the lark of
Shakespeare and Shelley and the Ettrick
Shepherd ; I know the nightingale of
Milton and Keats ; I know Wordsworth’s
cuckoo ; I know mavis and merle sing¬
ing in the merry green wood of the old
ballads; I know Jenny Wren and Cock
Robin of the nursery books. Therefore
I have always much desired to hear the
birds in real life ; and the opportunity
offered last June. As I could snatch but
a few hours from a very exacting round
of pleasures and duties, it was necessary
for me to be with some companion who
could identify both song and singer. In
Sir Edward Grey, a keen lover of out¬
door life in all its phases, and a delightful
companion, who knows the songs and
ways of English birds as very few do know
them, I found the best possible guide.

We left London on the morning of June
9, twenty-four hours before I sailed from
Southampton. Getting off the train at
Basingstoke, we drove to the pretty, smil¬
ing valley of the Itchen. Here we tramped
for three or four hours, then again drove,
this time to the edge of the New Forest,
where we first took tea at an inn, and
then tramped through the forest to an
inn on its other side, at Brockenhurst.
At the conclusion of our walk my com¬
panion made a list of the birds we had
seen, putting an asterisk opposite those
which we had heard sing. There were
forty-one of the former and twenty-three
of the latter, as follows :

^Thrush, ^Blackbird, *Lark, ^Yellow
Hammer, * Robin, *Wren, *Golden Crested
Wren,*Goldfinch,#Chaffinch,*Greenfinch,
Pied Wagtail, Sparrow, *Dunnock (Hedge
Accentor), Missel Thrush, Starling, Rook,
Jackdaw, *Black Cap, ^Garden Warbler,
* Willow Warbler, *Chiff Chaff, *Wood
Warbler, *Tree Creeper, *Reed Bunting,
*Sedge Warbler, Coot, Water Hen, Little
Grebe (Dabchick), Tufted Duck, Wood
Pigeon, Stock Dove, ^Turtle Dove, Pee-

014

wit, Tit (? Coal Tit), ^Cuckoo, ^Nightjar,
^Swallow, Martin, Swift, Pheasant, Par¬
tridge.

The valley of the Itchen is typically the
England that we know from novel and
story and essay. It is very beautiful in
every way, with a rich, civilized, fertile
beauty — the rapid brook twisting among
its reed beds, the rich green of trees and
grass, the stately woods, the gardens and
fields, the exceedingly picturesque cot¬
tages, the great handsome houses standing
in their parks. Birds were plentiful ; I
know but few places in America where
one would see such an abundance of indi¬
viduals, and I was struck by seeing such
large birds as coots, water hens, grebes,
tufted ducks, pigeons, and peewits. In
places in America as thickly settled as the
valley of the Itchen, I should not expect
to see any like number of birds of this
size ; but I hope that the efforts of the
Audubon societies and kindred organiza¬
tions will gradually make themselves felt
until it becomes a point of honor not only
with the American man, but with the
American small boy, to shield and protect
all forms of harmless wild life. True
sportsmen should take the lead in such a
movement, for if there is to be any shoot¬
ing there must be something to shoot ;
the prime necessity is to keep, and not kill
out, even the birds which in legitimate
numbers may be shot.

The New Forest is a wild, uninhabited
stretch of heath and woodland, many of
the trees gnarled and aged, and its very
wildness, the lack of cultivation, the rug¬
gedness, made it strongly attractive in my
eyes, and suggested my own country.
The birds of course were much less
plentiful than beside the Itchen.

The bird that most impressed me on
my walk was the blackbird. I had already
heard nightingales in abundance near
Lake Como, and had also listened to larks,
but I had never heard either the blackbird,
the song thrush, or the black cap warbler ;
and while I knew all three were good
singers, I did not know what really beau-

ENGLISH SONG BIRDS

615

tiful singers they were. Blackbirds were
very abundant, and they played a promi¬
nent part in the chorus which we heard
throughout the day on every hand, though
perhaps loudest the following morning at
dawn. In its habits and manners, the
blackbird strikingly resembles our Amer¬
ican robin, and indeed looks exactly like
a robin, with a yellow bill and coal-black
plumage. It hops everywhere over the
lawns, just as our robin does, and it lives
in nests in the gardens in the same fash¬
ion. Its song has a general resemblance
to that of our robin, but many of the
notes are far more musical, more like
those of our wood thrush. Indeed there
were individuals among those we heard cer¬
tain of whose notes seemed to me almiost
to equal in point of melody the chimes of
the wood thrush ; and the highest possible
praise for any song bird is to liken its song
to that of the wood thrush or hermit
thrush. I certainly do not think that the
blackbird has received full justice in the
books. I knew that he was a singer, but
I really had no idea how fine a singer he
was. I suppose one of his troubles has
been his name, just as with our own cat
bird. When he appears in the ballads as
the merle, bracketed with his cousin the
mavis, the song thrush, it is far easier to
recognize him as the master singer that
he is. It is a fine thing for England to
have such an asset of the countryside, a
bird so common, so much in evidence, so
fearless, and such a really beautiful singer.

The thrush is a fine singer too, a better
singer than our American robin, but to
my mind not at the best quite as good
as the blackbird at his best; although often
I found difficulty in telling the song of
one from the song of the other, especially
if I only heard two or three notes.

The larks were, of course, exceedingly
attractive. It was fascinating to see them
spring from the grass, circle upwards,
steadily singing, and soaring for several
minutes, and then return to the point
whence they had started. As my com¬
panion pointed out, they exactly fulfilled
Wordsworth’s description : they soared but
did not roam. It is quite impossible
wholly to differentiate a bird’s voice from
its habits and surroundings. Although in
the lark song there are occasional musical
notes, the song as a whole is not very

musical, but it is so joyous, buoyant and
unbroken, and uttered under such condi¬
tions as fully to entitle the bird to the
place he occupies with both poet and
prose writer.

The most musical singer we heard was
the black cap warbler. To my ear its
song seemed more musical than that ol
the nightingale. It was astonishingly
powerful for so small a bird ; in volume
and continuity it does not come up to the
songs of the thrushes and of certain other
birds, but in quality, as an isolated bit of
melody, it can hardly be surpassed.

Among the minor singers the robin
was noticeable. We all know this pretty
little bird from the books, and I was pre¬
pared to find Tim as friendly and attract¬
ive as he proved to be, but I had not
realized how well he sang. It is not a
loud song, but very musical and attract¬
ive, and the bird is said to sing practically
all through the year. The song of the
wren interested me much, because it was
not in the least like that of our house
wren, but, on the contrary, like that of
our winter wren. The theme is the same
as the winter wren’s, but the song did
not seem to me to be as brilliantly musical
as that of the tiny singer of the north
woods. The sedge warbler sang in the
thick reeds a mocking ventriloquial lay,
which reminded me at times of the less
pronounced parts of our yellow breasted
chat’s song. The cuckoo’s cry was sin¬
gularly attractive and musical, far more
so than the rolling, many times repeated,
note of our rain-crow.

We did not reach the inn at Brocken-
hurst until about nine o’clock, just at night¬
fall, and a few minutes before that we
heard a nightjar. It did not sound in the
least like either our whippoorwill or our
night hawk, uttering a long-continued call
of one or two syllables, repeated over and
over. The chaffinch was very much in
evidence, continually chaunting its unim¬
portant little ditty. I was pleased to see
the bold, masterful missel thrush, the
storm cock as it is often called ; but this
bird breeds and sings in the early spring,
when the weather is still tempestuous,
and had long been silent when we saw it.
The starlings, rooks, and jackdaws did
not sing, and their calls were attractive
merely as the calls of our grakles are

616

THE OUTLOOK

attractive ; and the other birds that we
heard sing, th< ugh they played their part
in the generai chorus, were performers
of no especial note, like our tree creepers,
pine warblers, and chipping sparrows.
The great spring chorus had already
begun to subside, but the woods and
fields were still vocal with beautiful bird
music, the country was very lovely, the
inn as comfortable as possible, and the
bath and supper very enjoyable after our
tramp ; and altogether I passed no
pleasanter twenty-four hours during my
entire European trip.

Ten days later, at Sagamore Hill, I
was among my own birds, and was much
interested as I listened to and looked at
them in remembering the notes and actions
of the birds I had seen in England. On
the evening of the first day I sat in my
rocking-chair on the broad veranda,
looking across the Sound towards the
glory of the sunset. The thickly grassed
hillside sloped down in front of me to a
belt of forest from which rose the golden,
leisurely chiming of the wood thrushes,
chanting their vespers ; through the still
air came the warble of vireo and tanager ;
and after nightfall we heard the flight
song of an oven bird from the same belt
of timber. Overhead an oriole sang in
the weeping elm, now and then breaking
his song to scold like an overgrown wren.
Song sparrows and cat birds sang in the
shrubbery ; one robin had built its nest
over the front, and one over the back
door, and there was a chippy's nest in
the wistaria vine by the porch. During
the next twenty-four hours I saw and
heard, either right around the house or
while walking down to bathe, through the
woods, the following forty-two birds :

Little Green Heron, Quail, Red 'bailed
Hawk, Yellow Billed Cuckoo, Kingfisher,
Flicker, Hummingbird, Swift, Meadow
Lark, Red Winged Blackbird, Sharp
'bailed Finch, Song Sparrow, Chipping
Sparrow, Bush Sparrow, Purple Finch,
Baltimore Oriole, Cowbunting, Robin,
Wood Thrush, Thrasher, Cat Bird, Scarlet
Tanager, Red Eyed Vireo, Yellow War¬
bler. Black-Throated Green Warbler, King
Bird, Wood Peewee, Crow, Blue Jay,
Cedar Bird. Maryland Yellow Throat,
Chickadee, Black and White Creeper,
Barn Swallow, White Breasted Swallow,

Oven Bird, Thistlefinch, Vesperfinch,
Indigo Bunting, Towhee, Grasshopper
Sparrow, and Screech Owl.

The birds were still in full song, for on
Long Island there is little abatement in
the chorus until about the second week
of July, when the blossoming of the chest¬
nut trees patches the woodland with
frothy greenish yellow.

I sent the companion of my PInglish
walk John Burroughs’s “ Birds and Poets.”
John Burroughs’s life-work is beginning to
have its full effect in many different lines.
When he first wrote there were few men
of letters in our country who knew nature
at first hand. Now there are many who
delight in our' birds, who know their
songs, who keenly love all that belongs to
out-of-doors life. For instance, Madison
Cawein and Ernest McGaffy have for a
number of years written of our woods
and fields, of the birds and the flowers, as
only those can write who join to love of
nature the gift of observation and the
gift of description. Mr. Cawein is a
Kentuckian ; and another Kentuckian,
Miss Julia Stockton Dinsmore, in the lit¬
tle volume of poems which she has just
published includes many which describe
with beauty and charm the sights and
sounds so* dear to all of us who know
American country life. Miss Dinsmore
knows Kentucky, and the Gulf Coast
of Louisiana, and the great plains of
North Dakota ; and she knows also,
the regions that lie outside of what
can be seen with material vision. For
years in our family we have had some of
her poems in the scrap-book cut from
newspapers when we knew nothing about
her except the initials signed to the verses.
Only one who sees with the eyes of the
spirit as well as the eyes of the body could
have written the “ Threnody,” curiously
attractive in its simplicity and pathos, with
which the little book opens. It contains
many poems that make a similar appeal.
The writer knows bluebird and robin, red-
bird and field lark and whippoorwill,
just as she knows Southern rivers and
Western plains ; she knows rushing
winds and running waters and the sights
and sounds of lonely places ; and. more¬
over. she knows, and almost tells, those
hidden things of the heart which never
find complete utterance.

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