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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bird Stories from Burroughs, by John Burroughs
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Bird Stories from Burroughs
+       Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs
+
+Author: John Burroughs
+
+Illustrator: Louis Agassiz Fuertes
+
+Release Date: July 12, 2008 [EBook #26046]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRD STORIES FROM BURROUGHS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Peter Vachuska, Chuck Greif, Stephen Blundell
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: GOLDFINCH (page 125)]
+
+
+
+
+         BIRD STORIES
+        FROM BURROUGHS
+
+     SKETCHES OF BIRD LIFE
+    TAKEN FROM THE WORKS OF
+
+        JOHN BURROUGHS
+
+
+      _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
+   BY LOUIS AGASSIZ FUERTES_
+
+
+           [Device]
+
+
+   BOSTON  NEW YORK  CHICAGO
+   HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+ The Riverside Press Cambridge
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1871, 1875, 1876, 1877, 1879, 1881, 1886, 1894, 1899, 1903,
+1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, BY JOHN BURROUGHS
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+    Hyphenation has been standardised. Minor typographical errors have
+    been corrected without note. The oe ligature is represented by [oe].
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHERS' NOTE
+
+
+John Burroughs's first book, "Wake-Robin," contained a chapter entitled
+"The Invitation." It was an invitation to the study of birds. He has
+reiterated it, implicitly if not explicitly, in most of the books he has
+published since then, and many of his readers have joyfully accepted it.
+Indeed, such an invitation from Mr. Burroughs is the best possible
+introduction to the birds of our Northeastern States, and it is likewise
+an introduction to some very good reading. To convey this invitation to
+a wider circle of young readers the most interesting bird stories in Mr.
+Burroughs's books have been gathered into a single volume. A chapter is
+given to each species of bird, and the chapters are arranged in a sort
+of chronological order, according to the time of the bird's arrival in
+the spring, the nesting time, or the season when for some other reason
+the species is particularly conspicuous. In taking the stories out of
+their original setting a few slight verbal alterations have been
+necessary here and there, but these have been made either by Mr.
+Burroughs himself or with his approval.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ THE BLUEBIRD                                            1
+
+   THE BLUEBIRD (_poem_)                                13
+
+ THE ROBIN                                              15
+
+ THE FLICKER                                            21
+
+ THE PH[OE]BE                                           28
+
+   THE COMING OF PH[OE]BE (_poem_)                      31
+
+ THE COWBIRD                                            33
+
+ THE CHIPPING SPARROW                                   36
+
+ THE CHEWINK                                            39
+
+ THE BROWN THRASHER                                     42
+
+ THE HOUSE WREN                                         47
+
+ THE SONG SPARROW                                       53
+
+ THE CHIMNEY SWIFT                                      61
+
+ THE OVEN-BIRD                                          69
+
+ THE CATBIRD                                            72
+
+ THE BOBOLINK                                           77
+
+   THE BOBOLINK (_poem_)                                82
+
+ THE WOOD THRUSH                                        83
+
+ THE BALTIMORE ORIOLE                                   91
+
+ THE WHIP-POOR-WILL                                     95
+
+ THE BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER: A SEARCH FOR
+   A RARE NEST                                         100
+
+ THE MARSH HAWK: A MARSH HAWK'S NEST, A YOUNG
+   HAWK, AND A VISIT TO A QUAIL ON HER NEST            106
+
+ THE WINTER WREN                                       119
+
+ THE CEDAR-BIRD                                        122
+
+ THE GOLDFINCH                                         125
+
+ THE HEN-HAWK                                          130
+
+ THE RUFFED GROUSE, OR PARTRIDGE                       133
+
+   THE PARTRIDGE (_poem_)                              137
+
+ THE CROW                                              138
+
+   THE CROW (_poem_)                                   144
+
+ THE NORTHERN SHRIKE                                   147
+
+ THE SCREECH OWL                                       151
+
+ THE CHICKADEE                                         157
+
+ THE DOWNY WOODPECKER                                  161
+
+   THE DOWNY WOODPECKER (_poem_)                       169
+
+ INDEX                                                 173
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ GOLDFINCH (_in color_). (page 125)         _Frontispiece_
+
+ A PAIR OF BLUEBIRDS                                     8
+
+ FLICKER (_in color_)                                   22
+
+ CHEWINK, MALE AND FEMALE (_in color_)                  40
+
+ WOOD THRUSH                                            84
+
+ BALTIMORE ORIOLE, MALE AND FEMALE                      92
+
+ WHIP-POOR-WILL                                         96
+
+ DOWNY WOODPECKER (_in color_)                         162
+
+
+
+
+BIRD STORIES FROM BURROUGHS
+
+
+
+
+THE BLUEBIRD
+
+
+It is sure to be a bright March morning when you first hear the
+bluebird's note; and it is as if the milder influences up above had
+found a voice and let a word fall upon your ear, so tender is it and so
+prophetic, a hope tinged with a regret.
+
+There never was a happier or more devoted husband than the male
+bluebird. He is the gay champion and escort of the female at all times,
+and while she is sitting he feeds her regularly. It is very pretty to
+watch them building their nest. The male is very active in hunting out a
+place and exploring the boxes and cavities, but seems to have no choice
+in the matter and is anxious only to please and encourage his mate, who
+has the practical turn and knows what will do and what will not. After
+she has suited herself he applauds her immensely, and away the two go in
+quest of material for the nest, the male acting as guard and flying
+above and in advance of the female. She brings all the material and
+does all the work of building, he looking on and encouraging her with
+gesture and song. He acts also as inspector of her work, but I fear is a
+very partial one. She enters the nest with her bit of dry grass or
+straw, and, having adjusted it to her notion, withdraws and waits near
+by while he goes in and looks it over. On coming out he exclaims very
+plainly, "Excellent! excellent!" and away the two go again for more
+material.
+
+I was much amused one summer day in seeing a bluebird feeding her young
+one in the shaded street of a large town. She had captured a cicada or
+harvest-fly, and, after bruising it awhile on the ground, flew with it
+to a tree and placed it in the beak of the young bird. It was a large
+morsel, and the mother seemed to have doubts of her chick's ability to
+dispose of it, for she stood near and watched its efforts with great
+solicitude. The young bird struggled valiantly with the cicada, but made
+no headway in swallowing it, when the mother took it from him and flew
+to the sidewalk, and proceeded to break and bruise it more thoroughly.
+Then she again placed it in his beak, and seemed to say, "There, try it
+now," and sympathized so thoroughly with his efforts that she repeated
+many of his motions and contortions. But the great fly was unyielding,
+and, indeed, seemed ridiculously disproportioned to the beak that held
+it. The young bird fluttered and fluttered, and screamed, "I'm stuck,
+I'm stuck!" till the anxious parent again seized the morsel and carried
+it to an iron railing, where she came down upon it for the space of a
+minute with all the force and momentum her beak could command. Then she
+offered it to her young a third time, but with the same result as
+before, except that this time the bird dropped it; but she reached the
+ground as soon as the cicada did, and taking it in her beak flew a
+little distance to a high board fence, where she sat motionless for some
+moments. While pondering the problem how that fly should be broken, the
+male bluebird approached her, and said very plainly, and I thought
+rather curtly, "Give me that bug," but she quickly resented his
+interference and flew farther away, where she sat apparently quite
+discouraged when I last saw her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One day in early May, Ted and I made an expedition to the Shattega, a
+still, dark, deep stream that loiters silently through the woods not far
+from my cabin. As we paddled along, we were on the alert for any bit of
+wild life of bird or beast that might turn up.
+
+There were so many abandoned woodpecker chambers in the small dead
+trees as we went along that I determined to secure the section of a tree
+containing a good one to take home and put up for the bluebirds. "Why
+don't the bluebirds occupy them here?" inquired Ted. "Oh," I replied,
+"bluebirds do not come so far into the woods as this. They prefer
+nesting-places in the open, and near human habitations." After carefully
+scrutinizing several of the trees, we at last saw one that seemed to
+fill the bill. It was a small dead tree-trunk seven or eight inches in
+diameter, that leaned out over the water, and from which the top had
+been broken. The hole, round and firm, was ten or twelve feet above us.
+After considerable effort I succeeded in breaking the stub off near the
+ground, and brought it down into the boat. "Just the thing," I said;
+"surely the bluebirds will prefer this to an artificial box." But, lo
+and behold, it already had bluebirds in it! We had not heard a sound or
+seen a feather till the trunk was in our hands, when, on peering into
+the cavity, we discovered two young bluebirds about half grown. This was
+a predicament indeed!
+
+Well, the only thing we could do was to stand the tree-trunk up again as
+well as we could, and as near as we could to where it had stood before.
+This was no easy thing. But after a time we had it fairly well
+replaced, one end standing in the mud of the shallow water and the other
+resting against a tree. This left the hole to the nest about ten feet
+below and to one side of its former position. Just then we heard the
+voice of one of the parent birds, and we quickly paddled to the other
+side of the stream, fifty feet away, to watch her proceedings, saying to
+each other, "Too bad! too bad!" The mother bird had a large beetle in
+her beak. She alighted upon a limb a few feet above the former site of
+her nest, looked down upon us, uttered a note or two, and then dropped
+down confidently to the point in the vacant air where the entrance to
+her nest had been but a few moments before. Here she hovered on the wing
+a second or two, looking for something that was not there, and then
+returned to the perch she had just left, apparently not a little
+disturbed. She hammered the beetle rather excitedly upon the limb a few
+times, as if it were in some way at fault, then dropped down to try for
+her nest again. Only vacant air there! She hovers and hovers, her blue
+wings flickering in the checkered light; surely that precious hole
+_must_ be there; but no, again she is baffled, and again she returns to
+her perch, and mauls the poor beetle till it must be reduced to a pulp.
+Then she makes a third attempt, then a fourth, and a fifth, and a
+sixth, till she becomes very much excited. "What could have happened? am
+I dreaming? has that beetle hoodooed me?" she seems to say, and in her
+dismay she lets the bug drop, and looks bewilderedly about her. Then she
+flies away through the woods, calling. "Going for her mate," I said to
+Ted. "She is in deep trouble, and she wants sympathy and help."
+
+In a few minutes we heard her mate answer, and presently the two birds
+came hurrying to the spot, both with loaded beaks. They perched upon the
+familiar limb above the site of the nest, and the mate seemed to say,
+"My dear, what has happened to you? I can find that nest." And he dived
+down, and brought up in the empty air just as the mother had done. How
+he winnowed it with his eager wings! how he seemed to bear on to that
+blank space! His mate sat regarding him intently, confident, I think,
+that he would find the clew. But he did not. Baffled and excited, he
+returned to the perch beside her. Then she tried again, then he rushed
+down once more, then they both assaulted the place, but it would not
+give up its secret. They talked, they encouraged each other, and they
+kept up the search, now one, now the other, now both together. Sometimes
+they dropped down to within a few feet of the entrance to the nest, and
+we thought they would surely find it. No, their minds and eyes were
+intent only upon that square foot of space where the nest had been. Soon
+they withdrew to a large limb many feet higher up, and seemed to say to
+themselves, "Well, it is not there, but it must be here somewhere; let
+us look about." A few minutes elapsed, when we saw the mother bird
+spring from her perch and go straight as an arrow to the nest. Her
+maternal eye had proved the quicker. She had found her young. Something
+like reason and common sense had come to her rescue; she had taken time
+to look about, and behold! there was that precious doorway. She thrust
+her head into it, then sent back a call to her mate, then went farther
+in, then withdrew. "Yes, it is true, they are here, they are here!" Then
+she went in again, gave them the food in her beak, and then gave place
+to her mate, who, after similar demonstrations of joy, also gave them
+his morsel.
+
+Ted and I breathed freer. A burden had been taken from our minds and
+hearts, and we went cheerfully on our way. We had learned something,
+too; we had learned that when in the deep woods you think of bluebirds,
+bluebirds may be nearer you than you think.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One mid-April morning two pairs of bluebirds were in very active and at
+times violent courtship about my grounds. I could not quite understand
+the meaning of all the fuss and flutter. Both birds of each pair were
+very demonstrative, but the female in each case the more so. She
+followed the male everywhere, lifting and twinkling her wings, and
+apparently seeking to win him by both word and gesture. If she was not
+telling him by that cheery, animated, confiding, softly endearing speech
+of hers, which she poured out incessantly, how much she loved him, what
+was she saying? She was constantly filled with a desire to perch upon
+the precise spot where he was sitting, and if he had not moved away I
+think she would have alighted upon his back. Now and then, when she
+flitted away from him, he followed her with like gestures and tones and
+demonstrations of affection, but never with quite the same ardor. The
+two pairs kept near each other, about the house, the bird-boxes, the
+trees, the posts and vines in the vineyard, filling the ear with their
+soft, insistent warbles, and the eye with their twinkling azure wings.
+
+ [Illustration: BLUEBIRD
+ Upper, male; lower, female]
+
+Was it this constant presence of rivals on both sides that so stimulated
+them and kept them up to such a pitch of courtship? Finally, after I had
+watched them over an hour, the birds began to come into collision. As
+they met in the vineyard, the two males clinched and fell to the
+ground, lying there for a moment with wings sprawled out, like birds
+brought down by a gun. Then they separated, and each returned to his
+mate, warbling and twinkling his wings. Very soon the females clinched
+and fell to the ground and fought savagely, rolling over and over each
+other, clawing and tweaking and locking beaks and hanging on like bull
+terriers. They did this repeatedly; once one of the males dashed in and
+separated them, by giving one of the females a sharp tweak and blow.
+Then the males were at it again, their blue plumage mixing with the
+green grass and ruffled by the ruddy soil. What a soft, feathery,
+ineffectual battle it seemed in both cases!--no sound, no blood, no
+flying feathers, just a sudden mixing up and general disarray of blue
+wings and tails and ruddy breasts, there on the ground; assault but no
+visible wounds; thrust of beak and grip of claw, but no feather loosened
+and but little ruffling; long holding of one down by the other, but no
+cry of pain or fury. It was the kind of battle that one likes to
+witness. The birds usually locked beaks, and held their grip half a
+minute at a time. One of the females would always alight by the
+struggling males and lift her wings and utter her soft notes, but what
+she said--whether she was encouraging one of the blue coats or berating
+the other, or imploring them both to desist, or egging them on--I could
+not tell. So far as I could understand her speech, it was the same that
+she had been uttering to her mate all the time.
+
+When my bluebirds dashed at each other with beak and claw, their
+preliminary utterances had to my ears anything but a hostile sound.
+Indeed, for the bluebird to make a harsh, discordant sound seems out of
+the question. Once, when the two males lay upon the ground with
+outspread wings and locked beaks, a robin flew down by them and for a
+moment gazed intently at the blue splash upon the grass, and then went
+his way.
+
+As the birds drifted about the grounds, first the males, then the
+females rolling on the grass or in the dust in fierce combat, and
+between times the members of each pair assuring each other of undying
+interest and attachment, I followed them, apparently quite unnoticed by
+them. Sometimes they would lie more than a minute upon the ground, each
+trying to keep his own or to break the other's hold. They seemed so
+oblivious of everything about them that I wondered if they might not at
+such times fall an easy prey to cats and hawks. Let me put their
+watchfulness to the test, I said. So, as the two males clinched again
+and fell to the ground, I cautiously approached them, hat in hand. When
+ten feet away and unregarded, I made a sudden dash and covered them with
+my hat. The struggle continued for a few seconds under there, then all
+was still. Sudden darkness had fallen upon the field of battle. What did
+they think had happened? Presently their heads and wings began to brush
+the inside of my hat. Then all was still again. Then I spoke to them,
+called to them, exulted over them, but they betrayed no excitement or
+alarm. Occasionally a head or a body came in gentle contact with the top
+or the sides of my hat.
+
+But the two females were evidently agitated by the sudden disappearance
+of their contending lovers, and began uttering their mournful
+alarm-note. After a minute or two I lifted one side of my hat and out
+darted one of the birds; then I lifted the hat from the other. One of
+the females then rushed, apparently with notes of joy and
+congratulation, to one of the males, who gave her a spiteful tweak and
+blow. Then the other came and he served her the same. He was evidently a
+little bewildered, and not certain what had happened or who was
+responsible for it. Did he think the two females were in some way to
+blame? But he was soon reconciled to one of them again, as was the
+other male with the other, yet the two couples did not separate till the
+males had come into collision once more. Presently, however, they
+drifted apart, and each pair was soon holding an animated conversation
+punctuated by those pretty wing gestures, about the two bird-boxes.
+
+These scenes of love and rivalry had lasted nearly all the forenoon, and
+matters between the birds apparently remained as they were before--the
+members of each pair quite satisfied with each other. One pair occupied
+one of the bird-boxes in the vineyard and reared two broods there during
+the season, but the other pair drifted away and took up their abode
+somewhere else.
+
+
+THE BLUEBIRD
+
+    A wistful note from out the sky,
+      "Pure, pure, pure," in plaintive tone,
+      As if the wand'rer were alone,
+    And hardly knew to sing or cry.
+
+    But now a flash of eager wing,
+      Flitting, twinkling by the wall,
+      And pleadings sweet and am'rous call,--
+    Ah, now I know his heart doth sing!
+
+    O bluebird, welcome back again,
+      Thy azure coat and ruddy vest
+      Are hues that April loveth best,--
+    Warm skies above the furrowed plain.
+
+    The farm boy hears thy tender voice,
+      And visions come of crystal days,
+      With sugar-camps in maple ways,
+    And scenes that make his heart rejoice.
+
+    The lucid smoke drifts on the breeze,
+      The steaming pans are mantling white,
+      And thy blue wing's a joyous sight,
+    Among the brown and leafless trees.
+
+    Now loosened currents glance and run,
+      And buckets shine on sturdy boles,
+      The forest folk peep from their holes,
+    And work is play from sun to sun.
+
+    The downy beats his sounding limb,
+      The nuthatch pipes his nasal call,
+      And Robin perched on tree-top tall
+    Heavenward lifts his evening hymn.
+
+    Now go and bring thy homesick bride,
+      Persuade her here is just the place
+      To build a home and found a race
+    In Downy's cell, my lodge beside.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROBIN
+
+
+Not long after the bluebird comes the robin. In large numbers they scour
+the fields and groves. You hear their piping in the meadow, in the
+pasture, on the hillside. Walk in the woods, and the dry leaves rustle
+with the whir of their wings, the air is vocal with their cheery call.
+In excess of joy and vivacity, they run, leap, scream, chase each other
+through the air, diving and sweeping among the trees with perilous
+rapidity.
+
+In that free, fascinating, half-work-and-half-play
+pursuit,--sugar-making,--a pursuit which still lingers in many parts of
+New York, as in New England,--the robin is one's constant companion.
+When the day is sunny and the ground bare, you meet him at all points
+and hear him at all hours. At sunset, on the tops of the tall maples,
+with look heavenward, and in a spirit of utter abandonment, he carols
+his simple strain. And sitting thus amid the stark, silent trees, above
+the wet, cold earth, with the chill of winter still in the air, there is
+no fitter or sweeter songster in the whole round year. It is in keeping
+with the scene and the occasion. How round and genuine the notes are,
+and how eagerly our ears drink them in! The first utterance, and the
+spell of winter is thoroughly broken, and the remembrance of it afar
+off.
+
+One of the most graceful of warriors is the robin. I know few prettier
+sights than two males challenging and curveting about each other upon
+the grass in early spring. Their attentions to each other are so
+courteous and restrained. In alternate curves and graceful sallies, they
+pursue and circumvent each other. First one hops a few feet, then the
+other, each one standing erect in true military style while his fellow
+passes him and describes the segment of an ellipse about him, both
+uttering the while a fine complacent warble in a high but suppressed
+key. Are they lovers or enemies? the beholder wonders, until they make a
+spring and are beak to beak in the twinkling of an eye, and perhaps
+mount a few feet into the air, but rarely actually deliver blows upon
+each other. Every thrust is parried, every movement met. They follow
+each other with dignified composure about the fields or lawn, into trees
+and upon the ground, with plumage slightly spread, breasts glowing,
+their lisping, shrill war-song just audible. It forms on the whole the
+most civil and high-bred tilt to be witnessed during the season.
+
+In the latter half of April, we pass through what I call the "robin
+racket,"--trains of three or four birds rushing pell-mell over the lawn
+and fetching up in a tree or bush, or occasionally upon the ground, all
+piping and screaming at the top of their voices, but whether in mirth or
+anger it is hard to tell. The nucleus of the train is a female. One
+cannot see that the males in pursuit of her are rivals; it seems rather
+as if they had united to hustle her out of the place. But somehow the
+matches are no doubt made and sealed during these mad rushes. Maybe the
+female shouts out to her suitors, "Who touches me first wins," and away
+she scurries like an arrow. The males shout out, "Agreed!" and away they
+go in pursuit, each trying to outdo the other. The game is a brief one.
+Before one can get the clew to it, the party has dispersed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first year of my cabin life a pair of robins attempted to build a
+nest upon the round timber that forms the plate under my porch roof. But
+it was a poor place to build in. It took nearly a week's time and caused
+the birds a great waste of labor to find this out. The coarse material
+they brought for the foundation would not bed well upon the rounded
+surface of the timber, and every vagrant breeze that came along swept it
+off. My porch was kept littered with twigs and weed-stalks for days,
+till finally the birds abandoned the undertaking. The next season a
+wiser or more experienced pair made the attempt again, and succeeded.
+They placed the nest against the rafter where it joins the plate; they
+used mud from the start to level up with and to hold the first twigs and
+straws, and had soon completed a firm, shapely structure. When the young
+were about ready to fly, it was interesting to note that there was
+apparently an older and a younger, as in most families. One bird was
+more advanced than any of the others. Had the parent birds intentionally
+stimulated it with extra quantities of food, so as to be able to launch
+their offspring into the world one at a time? At any rate, one of the
+birds was ready to leave the nest a day and a half before any of the
+others. I happened to be looking at it when the first impulse to get
+outside the nest seemed to seize it. Its parents were encouraging it
+with calls and assurances from some rocks a few yards away. It answered
+their calls in vigorous, strident tones. Then it climbed over the edge
+of the nest upon the plate, took a few steps forward, then a few more,
+till it was a yard from the nest and near the end of the timber, and
+could look off into free space. Its parents apparently shouted, "Come
+on!" But its courage was not quite equal to the leap; it looked around,
+and, seeing how far it was from home, scampered back to the nest, and
+climbed into it like a frightened child. It had made its first journey
+into the world, but the home tie had brought it quickly back. A few
+hours afterward it journeyed to the end of the plate again, and then
+turned and rushed back. The third time its heart was braver, its wings
+stronger, and, leaping into the air with a shout, it flew easily to some
+rocks a dozen or more yards away. Each of the young in succession, at
+intervals of nearly a day, left the nest in this manner. There would be
+the first journey of a few feet along the plate, the first sudden panic
+at being so far from home, the rush back, a second and perhaps a third
+attempt, and then the irrevocable leap into the air, and a clamorous
+flight to a near-by bush or rock. Young birds never go back when they
+have once taken flight. The first free flap of the wings severs forever
+the ties that bind them to home.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I recently observed a robin boring for grubs in a country dooryard. It
+is a common enough sight to witness one seize an angle-worm and drag it
+from its burrow in the turf, but I am not sure that I ever before saw
+one drill for grubs and bring the big white morsel to the surface. The
+robin I am speaking of had a nest of young in a maple near by, and she
+worked the neighborhood very industriously for food. She would run
+along over the short grass after the manner of robins, stopping every
+few feet, her form stiff and erect. Now and then she would suddenly bend
+her head toward the ground and bring eye or ear for a moment to bear
+intently upon it. Then she would spring to boring the turf vigorously
+with her bill, changing her attitude at each stroke, alert and watchful,
+throwing up the grass roots and little jets of soil, stabbing deeper and
+deeper, growing every moment more and more excited, till finally a fat
+grub was seized and brought forth. Time after time, during several days,
+I saw her mine for grubs in this way and drag them forth. How did she
+know where to drill? The insect was in every case an inch below the
+surface. Did she hear it gnawing the roots of the grasses, or did she
+see a movement in the turf beneath which the grub was at work? I know
+not. I only know that she struck her game unerringly each time. Only
+twice did I see her make a few thrusts and then desist, as if she had
+been for the moment deceived.
+
+
+
+
+THE FLICKER
+
+
+Another April comer, who arrives shortly after Robin Redbreast, with
+whom he associates both at this season and in the autumn, is the
+golden-winged woodpecker, _alias_ "high-hole," _alias_ "flicker,"
+_alias_ "yarup," _alias_ "yellow-hammer." He is an old favorite of my
+boyhood, and his note to me means very much. He announces his arrival by
+a long, loud call, repeated from the dry branch of some tree, or a stake
+in the fence,--a thoroughly melodious April sound. I think how Solomon
+finished that beautiful description of spring, "and the voice of the
+turtle is heard in our land," and see that a description of spring in
+this farming country, to be equally characteristic, should culminate in
+like manner,--"and the call of the high-hole comes up from the wood." It
+is a loud, strong, sonorous call, and does not seem to imply an answer,
+but rather to subserve some purpose of love or music. It is "Yarup's"
+proclamation of peace and good-will to all.
+
+I recall an ancient maple standing sentry to a large sugar-bush, that,
+year after year, afforded protection to a brood of yellow-hammers in its
+decayed heart. A week or two before the nesting seemed actually to have
+begun, three or four of these birds might be seen, on almost any bright
+morning, gamboling and courting amid its decayed branches. Sometimes you
+would hear only a gentle persuasive cooing, or a quiet confidential
+chattering; then that long, loud call, taken up by first one, then
+another, as they sat about upon the naked limbs; anon, a sort of wild,
+rollicking laughter, intermingled with various cries, yelps, and
+squeals, as if some incident had excited their mirth and ridicule.
+Whether this social hilarity and boisterousness is in celebration of the
+pairing or mating ceremony, or whether it is only a sort of annual
+"house-warming" common among high-holes on resuming their summer
+quarters, is a question upon which I reserve my judgment.
+
+[Illustration: FLICKER]
+
+Unlike most of his kinsmen, the golden-wing prefers the fields and the
+borders of the forest to the deeper seclusion of the woods, and hence,
+contrary to the habit of his tribe, obtains most of his subsistence from
+the ground, probing it for ants and crickets. He is not quite satisfied
+with being a woodpecker. He courts the society of the robin and the
+finches, abandons the trees for the meadow, and feeds eagerly upon
+berries and grain. What may be the final upshot of this course of living
+is a question worthy the attention of Darwin. Will his taking to the
+ground and his pedestrian feats result in lengthening his legs, his
+feeding upon berries and grains subdue his tints and soften his voice,
+and his associating with Robin put a song into his heart?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the cavity of an apple-tree, much nearer the house than they usually
+build, a pair of high-holes took up their abode. A knot-hole which led
+to the decayed interior was enlarged, the live wood being cut away as
+clean as a squirrel would have done it. The inside preparations I could
+not witness, but day after day, as I passed near, I heard the bird
+hammering away, evidently beating down obstructions and shaping and
+enlarging the cavity. The chips were not brought out, but were used
+rather to floor the interior. The woodpeckers are not nest-builders, but
+rather nest-carvers.
+
+The time seemed very short before the voices of the young were heard in
+the heart of the old tree,--at first feebly, but waxing stronger day by
+day until they could be heard many rods distant. When I put my hand upon
+the trunk of the tree, they would set up an eager, expectant chattering;
+but if I climbed up it toward the opening, they soon detected the
+unusual sound and would hush quickly, only now and then uttering a
+warning note. Long before they were fully fledged they clambered up to
+the orifice to receive their food. As but one could stand in the opening
+at a time, there was a good deal of elbowing and struggling for this
+position. It was a very desirable one aside from the advantages it had
+when food was served; it looked out upon the great, shining world, into
+which the young birds seemed never tired of gazing. The fresh air must
+have been a consideration also, for the interior of a high-hole's
+dwelling is not sweet. When the parent birds came with food, the young
+one in the opening did not get it all, but after he had received a
+portion, either on his own motion or on a hint from the old one, he
+would give place to the one behind him. Still, one bird evidently
+outstripped his fellows, and in the race of life was two or three days
+in advance of them. His voice was loudest and his head oftenest at the
+window. But I noticed that, when he had kept the position too long, the
+others evidently made it uncomfortable in his rear, and, after
+"fidgeting" about awhile, he would be compelled to "back down." But
+retaliation was then easy, and I fear his mates spent few easy moments
+at that lookout. They would close their eyes and slide back into the
+cavity as if the world had suddenly lost all its charms for them.
+
+This bird was, of course, the first to leave the nest. For two days
+before that event he kept his position in the opening most of the time
+and sent forth his strong voice incessantly. The old ones abstained from
+feeding him almost entirely, no doubt to encourage his exit. As I stood
+looking at him one afternoon and noting his progress, he suddenly
+reached a resolution,--seconded, I have no doubt, from the rear,--and
+launched forth upon his untried wings. They served him well, and carried
+him about fifty yards up-hill the first heat. The second day after, the
+next in size and spirit left in the same manner; then another, till only
+one remained. The parent birds ceased their visits to him, and for one
+day he called and called till our ears were tired of the sound. His was
+the faintest heart of all. Then he had none to encourage him from
+behind. He left the nest and clung to the outer bole of the tree, and
+yelped and piped for an hour longer; then he committed himself to his
+wings and went his way like the rest.
+
+The matchmaking of the high-holes, which often comes under my
+observation, is in marked contrast to that of the robins and the
+bluebirds. There does not appear to be any anger or any blows. The male
+or two males will alight on a limb in front of the female, and go
+through with a series of bowings and scrapings that are truly comical.
+He spreads his tail, he puffs out his breast, he throws back his head
+and then bends his body to the right and to the left, uttering all the
+while a curious musical hiccough. The female confronts him unmoved, but
+whether her attitude is critical or defensive, I cannot tell. Presently
+she flies away, followed by her suitor or suitors, and the little comedy
+is enacted on another stump or tree. Among all the woodpeckers the drum
+plays an important part in the matchmaking. The male takes up his stand
+on a dry, resonant limb, or on the ridgeboard of a building, and beats
+the loudest call he is capable of. A favorite drum of the high-holes
+about me is a hollow wooden tube, a section of a pump, which stands as a
+bird-box upon my summer-house. It is a good instrument; its tone is
+sharp and clear. A high-hole alights upon it, and sends forth a rattle
+that can be heard a long way off. Then he lifts up his head and utters
+that long April call, _Wick, wick, wick, wick_. Then he drums again. If
+the female does not find him, it is not because he does not make noise
+enough. But his sounds are all welcome to the ear. They are simple and
+primitive, and voice well a certain sentiment of the April days. As I
+write these lines I hear through the half-open door his call come up
+from a distant field. Then I hear the steady hammering of one that has
+been for three days trying to penetrate the weather boarding of the big
+icehouse by the river, and to reach the sawdust filling for a
+nesting-place.
+
+
+
+
+THE PH[OE]BE
+
+
+Another April bird whose memory I fondly cherish is the ph[oe]be-bird,
+the pioneer of the flycatchers. In the inland farming districts, I used
+to notice him, on some bright morning about Easter Day, proclaiming his
+arrival, with much variety of motion and attitude, from the peak of the
+barn or hay-shed. As yet, you may have heard only the plaintive,
+homesick note of the bluebird, or the faint trill of the song sparrow;
+and the ph[oe]be's clear, vivacious assurance of his veritable bodily
+presence among us again is welcomed by all ears. At agreeable intervals
+in his lay he describes a circle or an ellipse in the air, ostensibly
+prospecting for insects, but really, I suspect, as an artistic flourish,
+thrown in to make up in some way for the deficiency of his musical
+performance. If plainness of dress indicates powers of song, as it
+usually does, the ph[oe]be ought to be unrivaled in musical ability, for
+surely that ashen-gray suit is the superlative of plainness; and that
+form, likewise, would hardly pass for a "perfect figure" of a bird. The
+seasonableness of his coming, however, and his civil, neighborly ways,
+shall make up for all deficiencies in song and plumage.
+
+The ph[oe]be-bird is a wise architect and perhaps enjoys as great an
+immunity from danger, both in its person and its nest, as any other
+bird. Its modest ashen-gray suit is the color of the rocks where it
+builds, and the moss of which it makes such free use gives to its nest
+the look of a natural growth or accretion. But when it comes into the
+barn or under the shed to build, as it so frequently does, the moss is
+rather out of place. Doubtless in time the bird will take the hint, and
+when she builds in such places will leave the moss out. I noted but two
+nests the summer I am speaking of: one in a barn failed of issue, on
+account of the rats, I suspect, though the little owl may have been the
+depredator; the other, in the woods, sent forth three young. This latter
+nest was most charmingly and ingeniously placed. I discovered it while
+in quest of pond-lilies, in a long, deep, level stretch of water in the
+woods. A large tree had blown over at the edge of the water, and its
+dense mass of upturned roots, with the black, peaty soil filling the
+interstices, was like the fragment of a wall several feet high, rising
+from the edge of the languid current. In a niche in this earthy wall,
+and visible and accessible only from the water, a ph[oe]be had built her
+nest and reared her brood. I paddled my boat up and came alongside
+prepared to take the family aboard. The young, nearly ready to fly,
+were quite undisturbed by my presence, having probably been assured that
+no danger need be apprehended from that side. It was not a likely place
+for minks, or they would not have been so secure.
+
+
+THE COMING OF PH[OE]BE
+
+    When buckets shine 'gainst maple trees
+      And drop by drop the sap doth flow,
+    When days are warm, but still nights freeze,
+      And deep in woods lie drifts of snow,
+    When cattle low and fret in stall,
+    Then morning brings the ph[oe]be's call,
+                                    "Ph[oe]be,
+    Ph[oe]be, ph[oe]be," a cheery note,
+    While cackling hens make such a rout.
+
+    When snowbanks run, and hills are bare,
+      And early bees hum round the hive,
+    When woodchucks creep from out their lair
+      Right glad to find themselves alive,
+    When sheep go nibbling through the fields,
+    Then Ph[oe]be oft her name reveals,
+                                    "Ph[oe]be,
+    Ph[oe]be, ph[oe]be," a plaintive cry,
+    While jack-snipes call in morning sky.
+
+    When wild ducks quack in creek and pond
+      And bluebirds perch on mullein-stalks,
+    When spring has burst her icy bond
+      And in brown fields the sleek crow walks,
+    When chipmunks court in roadside walls,
+    Then Ph[oe]be from the ridgeboard calls,
+                                    "Ph[oe]be,
+    Ph[oe]be, ph[oe]be," and lifts her cap,
+    While smoking Dick doth boil the sap.
+
+
+
+
+THE COWBIRD
+
+
+The cow blackbird is a noticeable songster in April, though it takes a
+back seat a little later. It utters a peculiarly liquid April sound.
+Indeed, one would think its crop was full of water, its notes so bubble
+up and regurgitate, and are delivered with such an apparent stomachic
+contraction. This bird is the only feathered polygamist we have. The
+females are greatly in excess of the males, and the latter are usually
+attended by three or four of the former. As soon as the other birds
+begin to build, they are on the _qui vive_, prowling about like gypsies,
+not to steal the young of others, but to steal their eggs into other
+birds' nests, and so shirk the labor and responsibility of hatching and
+rearing their own young.
+
+The cowbird's tactics are probably to watch the movements of the parent
+bird. She may often be seen searching anxiously through the trees or
+bushes for a suitable nest, yet she may still oftener be seen perched
+upon some good point of observation watching the birds as they come and
+go about her. There is no doubt that, in many cases, the cowbird makes
+room for her own illegitimate egg in the nest by removing one of the
+bird's own. I found a sparrow's nest with two sparrow's eggs and one
+cowbird's egg, and another egg lying a foot or so below it on the
+ground. I replaced the ejected egg, and the next day found it again
+removed, and another cowbird's egg in its place. I put it back the
+second time, when it was again ejected, or destroyed, for I failed to
+find it anywhere. Very alert and sensitive birds, like the warblers,
+often bury the strange egg beneath a second nest built on top of the
+old. A lady living in the suburbs of an Eastern city heard cries of
+distress one morning from a pair of house wrens that had a nest in a
+honeysuckle on her front porch. On looking out of the window, she beheld
+this little comedy,--comedy from her point of view, but no doubt grim
+tragedy from the point of view of the wrens: a cowbird with a wren's egg
+in its beak running rapidly along the walk, with the outraged wrens
+forming a procession behind it, screaming, scolding, and gesticulating
+as only these voluble little birds can. The cowbird had probably been
+surprised in the act of violating the nest, and the wrens were giving
+her a piece of their minds.
+
+Every cowbird is reared at the expense of two or more song-birds. For
+every one of these dusky little pedestrians there amid the grazing
+cattle there are two or more sparrows, or vireos, or warblers, the less.
+It is a big price to pay,--two larks for a bunting,--two sovereigns for
+a shilling; but Nature does not hesitate occasionally to contradict
+herself in just this way. The young of the cowbird is disproportionately
+large and aggressive, one might say hoggish. When disturbed, it will
+clasp the nest and scream and snap its beak threateningly. One was
+hatched out in a song sparrow's nest which was under my observation, and
+would soon have overridden and overborne the young sparrow which came
+out of the shell a few hours later, had I not interfered from time to
+time and lent the young sparrow a helping hand. Every day I would visit
+the nest and take the sparrow out from under the potbellied interloper,
+and place it on top, so that presently it was able to hold its own
+against its enemy. Both birds became fledged and left the nest about the
+same time. Whether the race was an even one after that, I know not.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHIPPING SPARROW
+
+
+When the true flycatcher catches a fly, it is quick business. There is
+no strife, no pursuit,--one fell swoop, and the matter is ended. Now
+note that yonder little sparrow is less skilled. It is the chippy, and
+he finds his subsistence properly in various seeds and the larvae of
+insects, though he occasionally has higher aspirations, and seeks to
+emulate the pewee, commencing and ending his career as a flycatcher by
+an awkward chase after a beetle or "miller." He is hunting around in the
+grass now, I suspect, with the desire to indulge this favorite whim.
+There!--the opportunity is afforded him. Away goes a little
+cream-colored meadow-moth in the most tortuous course he is capable of,
+and away goes Chippy in pursuit. The contest is quite comical, though I
+dare say it is serious enough to the moth. The chase continues for a few
+yards, when there is a sudden rushing to cover in the grass,--then a
+taking to wing again, when the search has become too close, and the moth
+has recovered his wind. Chippy chirps angrily, and is determined not to
+be beaten. Keeping, with the slightest effort, upon the heels of the
+fugitive, he is ever on the point of halting to snap him up, but never
+quite does it; and so, between disappointment and expectation, is soon
+disgusted, and returns to pursue his more legitimate means of
+subsistence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Last summer I made this record in my notebook: "A nest of young robins
+in the maple in front of the house being fed by a chipping sparrow. The
+little sparrow is very attentive; seems decidedly fond of her adopted
+babies. The old robins resent her services, and hustle her out of the
+tree whenever they find her near the nest. (It was this hurried
+departure of Chippy from the tree that first attracted my attention.)
+She watches her chances, and comes with food in their absence. The young
+birds are about ready to fly, and when the chippy feeds them her head
+fairly disappears in their capacious mouths. She jerks it back as if she
+were afraid of being swallowed. Then she lingers near them on the edge
+of the nest, and seems to admire them. When she sees the old robin
+coming, she spreads her wings in an attitude of defense, and then flies
+away. I wonder if she has had the experience of rearing a cow-bunting?"
+(A day later.) "The robins are out of the nest, and the little sparrow
+continues to feed them. She approaches them rather timidly and
+hesitatingly, as if she feared they might swallow her, then thrusts her
+titbit quickly into the distended mouth and jerks back."
+
+Whether the chippy had lost her own brood, whether she was an unmated
+bird, or whether the case was simply the overflowing of the maternal
+instinct, it would be interesting to know.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHEWINK
+
+
+The chewink is a shy bird, but not stealthy. It is very inquisitive, and
+sets up a great scratching among the leaves, apparently to attract your
+attention. The male is perhaps the most conspicuously marked of all the
+ground-birds except the bobolink, being black above, bay on the sides,
+and white beneath. The bay is in compliment to the leaves he is forever
+scratching among,--they have rustled against his breast and sides so
+long that these parts have taken their color; but whence come the white
+and the black? The bird seems to be aware that his color betrays him,
+for there are few birds in the woods so careful about keeping themselves
+screened from view. When in song, its favorite perch is the top of some
+high bush near to cover. On being disturbed at such times, it pitches
+down into the brush and is instantly lost to view.
+
+ [Illustration: CHEWINK
+ Upper, male; lower, female]
+
+This is the bird that Thomas Jefferson wrote to Wilson about, greatly
+exciting the latter's curiosity. Wilson was just then upon the threshold
+of his career as an ornithologist, and had made a drawing of the Canada
+jay which he sent to the President. It was a new bird, and in reply
+Jefferson called his attention to a "curious bird" which was everywhere
+to be heard, but scarcely ever to be seen. He had for twenty years
+interested the young sportsmen of his neighborhood to shoot one for him,
+but without success. "It is in all the forests, from spring to fall," he
+says in his letter, "and never but on the tops of the tallest trees,
+from which it perpetually serenades us with some of the sweetest notes,
+and as clear as those of the nightingale. I have followed it for miles,
+without ever but once getting a good view of it. It is of the size and
+make of the mockingbird, lightly thrush-colored on the back, and a
+grayish-white on the breast and belly. Mr. Randolph, my son-in-law, was
+in possession of one which had been shot by a neighbor," etc. Randolph
+pronounced it a flycatcher, which was a good way wide of the mark.
+Jefferson must have seen only the female, after all his tramp, from his
+description of the color; but he was doubtless following his own great
+thoughts more than the bird, else he would have had an earlier view. The
+bird was not a new one, but was well known then as the ground-robin. The
+President put Wilson on the wrong scent by his erroneous description,
+and it was a long time before the latter got at the truth of the case.
+But Jefferson's letter is a good sample of those which specialists
+often receive from intelligent persons who have seen or heard something
+in their line very curious or entirely new, and who set the man of
+science agog by a description of the supposed novelty,--a description
+that generally fits the facts of the case about as well as your coat
+fits the chair-back. Strange and curious things in the air, and in the
+water, and in the earth beneath, are seen every day except by those who
+are looking for them, namely, the naturalists. When Wilson or Audubon
+gets his eye on the unknown bird, the illusion vanishes, and your
+phenomenon turns out to be one of the commonplaces of the fields or
+woods.
+
+
+
+
+THE BROWN THRASHER
+
+
+Our long-tailed thrush, or thrasher, delights in a high branch of some
+solitary tree, whence it will pour out its rich and intricate warble for
+an hour together. This bird is the great American chipper. There is no
+other bird that I know of that can chip with such emphasis and military
+decision as this yellow-eyed songster. It is like the click of a giant
+gunlock. Why is the thrasher so stealthy? It always seems to be going
+about on tip-toe. I never knew it to steal anything, and yet it skulks
+and hides like a fugitive from justice. One never sees it flying aloft
+in the air and traversing the world openly, like most birds, but it
+darts along fences and through bushes as if pursued by a guilty
+conscience. Only when the musical fit is upon it does it come up into
+full view, and invite the world to hear and behold.
+
+Years pass without my finding a brown thrasher's nest; it is not a nest
+you are likely to stumble upon in your walk; it is hidden as a miser
+hides his gold, and watched as jealously. The male pours out his rich
+and triumphant song from the tallest tree he can find, and fairly
+challenges you to come and look for his treasures in his vicinity. But
+you will not find them if you go. The nest is somewhere on the outer
+circle of his song; he is never so imprudent as to take up his stand
+very near it. The artists who draw those cozy little pictures of a
+brooding mother bird, with the male perched but a yard away in full
+song, do not copy from nature. The thrasher's nest I found was thirty or
+forty rods from the point where the male was wont to indulge in his
+brilliant recitative. It was in an open field under a low
+ground-juniper. My dog disturbed the sitting bird as I was passing near.
+The nest could be seen only by lifting up and parting away the branches.
+All the arts of concealment had been carefully studied. It was the last
+place you would think of looking in, and, if you did look, nothing was
+visible but the dense green circle of the low-spreading juniper. When
+you approached, the bird would keep her place till you had begun to stir
+the branches, when she would start out, and, just skimming the ground,
+make a bright brown line to the near fence and bushes. I confidently
+expected that this nest would escape molestation, but it did not. Its
+discovery by myself and dog probably opened the door for ill luck, as
+one day, not long afterward, when I peeped in upon it, it was empty. The
+proud song of the male had ceased from his accustomed tree, and the
+pair were seen no more in that vicinity.
+
+After a pair of nesting birds have been broken up once or twice during
+the season, they become almost desperate, and will make great efforts to
+outwit their enemies. A pair of brown thrashers built their nest in a
+pasture-field under a low, scrubby apple-tree which the cattle had
+browsed down till it spread a thick, wide mass of thorny twigs only a
+few inches above the ground. Some blackberry briers had also grown
+there, so that the screen was perfect. My dog first started the bird, as
+I was passing near. By stooping low and peering intently, I could make
+out the nest and eggs. Two or three times a week, as I passed by, I
+would pause to see how the nest was prospering. The mother bird would
+keep her place, her yellow eyes never blinking. One morning, as I looked
+into her tent, I found the nest empty. Some night-prowler, probably a
+skunk or a fox, or maybe a black snake or a red squirrel by day, had
+plundered it. It would seem as if it was too well screened; it was in
+such a spot as any depredator would be apt to explore. "Surely," he
+would say, "this is a likely place for a nest." The birds then moved
+over the hill a hundred rods or more, much nearer the house, and in some
+rather open bushes tried again. But again they came to grief. Then,
+after some delay, the mother bird made a bold stroke. She seemed to
+reason with herself thus: "Since I have fared so disastrously in seeking
+seclusion for my nest, I will now adopt the opposite tactics, and come
+out fairly in the open. What hides me hides my enemies: let us try
+greater publicity." So she came out and built her nest by a few small
+shoots that grew beside the path that divides the two vineyards, and
+where we passed to and fro many times daily. I discovered her by chance
+early in the morning as I proceeded to my work. She started up at my
+feet and flitted quickly along above the ploughed ground, almost as red
+as the soil. I admired her audacity. Surely no prowler by night or day
+would suspect a nest in this open and exposed place. There was no cover
+by which they could approach, and no concealment anywhere. The nest was
+a hasty affair, as if the birds' patience at nest-building had been
+about exhausted. Presently an egg appeared, and then the next day
+another, and on the fourth day a third. No doubt the bird would have
+succeeded this time had not man interfered. In cultivating the vineyards
+the horse and cultivator had to pass over this very spot. Upon this the
+bird had not calculated. I determined to assist her. I called my man,
+and told him there was one spot in that vineyard, no bigger than his
+hand, where the horse's foot must not be allowed to fall, nor tooth of
+cultivator to touch. Then I showed him the nest, and charged him to
+avoid it. Probably if I had kept the secret to myself, and let the bird
+run her own risk, the nest would have escaped. But the result was that
+the man, in elaborately trying to avoid the nest, overdid the matter;
+the horse plunged, and set his foot squarely upon it. Such a little
+spot, the chances were few that the horse's foot would fall exactly
+there; and yet it did, and the birds' hopes were again dashed. The pair
+then disappeared from my vicinity, and I saw them no more.
+
+
+
+
+THE HOUSE WREN
+
+
+A few years ago I put up a little bird-house in the back end of my
+garden for the accommodation of the wrens, and every season a pair have
+taken up their abode there. One spring a pair of bluebirds looked into
+the tenement and lingered about several days, leading me to hope that
+they would conclude to occupy it. But they finally went away, and later
+in the season the wrens appeared, and, after a little coquetting, were
+regularly installed in their old quarters, and were as happy as only
+wrens can be.
+
+One of our younger poets, Myron Benton, saw a little bird
+
+    "Ruffled with whirlwind of his ecstasies,"
+
+which must have been the wren, as I know of no other bird that so throbs
+and palpitates with music as this little vagabond. And the pair I speak
+of seemed exceptionally happy, and the male had a small tornado of song
+in his crop that kept him "ruffled" every moment in the day. But before
+their honeymoon was over the bluebirds returned. I knew something was
+wrong before I was up in the morning. Instead of that voluble and
+gushing song outside the window, I heard the wrens scolding and crying
+at a fearful rate, and on going out saw the bluebirds in possession of
+the box. The poor wrens were in despair; they wrung their hands and tore
+their hair, after the wren fashion, but chiefly did they rattle out
+their disgust and wrath at the intruders. I have no doubt that, if it
+could have been interpreted, it would have been proven the rankest and
+most voluble billingsgate ever uttered. For the wren is saucy, and he
+has a tongue in his head that can outwag any other tongue known to me.
+
+The bluebirds said nothing, but the male kept an eye on Mr. Wren, and,
+when he came too near, gave chase, driving him to cover under the fence,
+or under a rubbish-heap or other object, where the wren would scold and
+rattle away, while his pursuer sat on the fence or the pea-brush waiting
+for him to reappear.
+
+Days passed, and the usurpers prospered and the outcasts were wretched;
+but the latter lingered about, watching and abusing their enemies, and
+hoping, no doubt, that things would take a turn, as they presently did.
+The outraged wrens were fully avenged. The mother bluebird had laid her
+full complement of eggs and was beginning to set, when one day, as her
+mate was perched above her on the barn, along came a boy with one of
+those wicked elastic slings and cut him down with a pebble. There he
+lay like a bit of sky fallen upon the grass. The widowed bird seemed to
+understand what had happened, and without much ado disappeared next day
+in quest of another mate.
+
+In the mean time the wrens were beside themselves with delight; they
+fairly screamed with joy. If the male was before "ruffled with whirlwind
+of his ecstasies," he was now in danger of being rent asunder. He
+inflated his throat and caroled as wren never caroled before. And the
+female, too, how she cackled and darted about! How busy they both were!
+Rushing into the nest, they hustled those eggs out in less than a
+minute, wren time. They carried in new material, and by the third day
+were fairly installed again in their old quarters; but on the third day,
+so rapidly are these little dramas played, the female bluebird
+reappeared with another mate. Ah! how the wren stock went down then!
+What dismay and despair filled again those little breasts! It was
+pitiful. They did not scold as before, but after a day or two withdrew
+from the garden, dumb with grief, and gave up the struggle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The chatter of a second brood of nearly fledged wrens is heard now
+(August 20) in an oriole's nest suspended from the branch of an
+apple-tree near where I write. Earlier in the season the parent birds
+made long and determined attempts to establish themselves in a cavity
+that had been occupied by a pair of bluebirds. The original proprietor
+of the place was the downy woodpecker. He had excavated it the autumn
+before, and had passed the winter there, often to my certain knowledge
+lying abed till nine o'clock in the morning. In the spring he went
+elsewhere, probably with a female, to begin the season in new quarters.
+The bluebirds early took possession, and in June their first brood had
+flown. The wrens had been hanging around, evidently with an eye on the
+place (such little comedies may be witnessed anywhere), and now very
+naturally thought it was their turn. A day or two after the young
+bluebirds had flown, I noticed some fine, dry grass clinging to the
+entrance to the cavity; a circumstance which I understood a few moments
+later, when the wren rushed by me into the cover of a small Norway
+spruce, hotly pursued by the male bluebird. It was a brown streak and a
+blue streak pretty close together. The wrens had gone to housecleaning,
+and the bluebird had returned to find his bed and bedding being pitched
+out of doors, and had thereupon given the wrens to understand in the
+most emphatic manner that he had no intention of vacating the premises
+so early in the season. Day after day, for more than two weeks, the male
+bluebird had to clear his premises of these intruders. It occupied much
+of his time and not a little of mine, as I sat with a book in a
+summer-house near by, laughing at his pretty fury and spiteful onset. On
+two occasions the wren rushed under the chair in which I sat, and a
+streak of blue lightning almost flashed in my very face. One day, just
+as I had passed the tree in which the cavity was located, I heard the
+wren scream desperately; turning, I saw the little vagabond fall into
+the grass with the wrathful bluebird fairly upon him; the latter had
+returned just in time to catch him, and was evidently bent on punishing
+him well. But in the squabble in the grass the wren escaped and took
+refuge in the friendly evergreen. The bluebird paused for a moment with
+outstretched wings looking for the fugitive, then flew away. A score of
+times during the month of June did I see the wren taxing every energy to
+get away from the bluebird. He would dart into the stone wall, under the
+floor of the summer-house, into the weeds,--anywhere to hide his
+diminished head. The bluebird, with his bright coat, looked like an
+officer in uniform in pursuit of some wicked, rusty little street gamin.
+Generally the favorite house of refuge of the wrens was the little
+spruce, into which their pursuer made no attempt to follow them. The
+female would sit concealed amid the branches, chattering in a scolding,
+fretful way, while the male with his eye upon his tormentor would perch
+on the topmost shoot and sing. Why he sang at such times, whether in
+triumph and derision, or to keep his courage up and reassure his mate, I
+could not make out. When his song was suddenly cut short, and I glanced
+to see him dart down into the spruce, my eye usually caught a twinkle of
+blue wings hovering near. The wrens finally gave up the fight, and their
+enemies reared their second brood in peace.
+
+
+
+
+THE SONG SPARROW
+
+
+The first song sparrow's nest I observed in the spring of 1881 was in a
+field under a fragment of a board, the board being raised from the
+ground a couple of inches by two poles. It had its full complement of
+eggs, and probably sent forth a brood of young birds, though as to this
+I cannot speak positively, as I neglected to observe it further. It was
+well sheltered and concealed, and was not easily come at by any of its
+natural enemies, save snakes and weasels. But concealment often avails
+little. In May, a song sparrow, which had evidently met with disaster
+earlier in the season, built its nest in a thick mass of woodbine
+against the side of my house, about fifteen feet from the ground.
+Perhaps it took the hint from its cousin the English sparrow. The nest
+was admirably placed, protected from the storms by the overhanging eaves
+and from all eyes by the thick screen of leaves. Only by patiently
+watching the suspicious bird, as she lingered near with food in her
+beak, did I discover its whereabouts. That brood is safe, I thought,
+beyond doubt. But it was not: the nest was pillaged one night, either by
+an owl, or else by a rat that had climbed into the vine, seeking an
+entrance to the house. The mother bird, after reflecting upon her ill
+luck about a week, seemed to resolve to try a different system of
+tactics, and to throw all appearances of concealment aside. She built a
+nest a few yards from the house, beside the drive, upon a smooth piece
+of greensward. There was not a weed or a shrub or anything whatever to
+conceal it or mark its site. The structure was completed, and incubation
+had begun, before I discovered what was going on. "Well, well," I said,
+looking down upon the bird almost at my feet, "this is going to the
+other extreme indeed; now the cats will have you." The desperate little
+bird sat there day after day, looking like a brown leaf pressed down in
+the short green grass. As the weather grew hot, her position became very
+trying. It was no longer a question of keeping the eggs warm, but of
+keeping them from roasting. The sun had no mercy on her, and she fairly
+panted in the middle of the day. In such an emergency the male robin has
+been known to perch above the sitting female and shade her with his
+outstretched wings. But in this case there was no perch for the male
+bird, had he been disposed to make a sunshade of himself. I thought to
+lend a hand in this direction myself, and so stuck a leafy twig beside
+the nest. This was probably an unwise interference: it guided disaster
+to the spot; the nest was broken up, and the mother bird was probably
+caught, as I never saw her afterward.
+
+One day a tragedy was enacted a few yards from where I was sitting with
+a book: two song sparrows were trying to defend their nest against a
+black snake. The curious, interrogating note of a chicken who had
+suddenly come upon the scene in his walk first caused me to look up from
+my reading. There were the sparrows, with wings raised in a way
+peculiarly expressive of horror and dismay, rushing about a low clump of
+grass and bushes. Then, looking more closely, I saw the glistening form
+of the black snake, and the quick movement of his head as he tried to
+seize the birds. The sparrows darted about and through the grass and
+weeds, trying to beat the snake off. Their tails and wings were spread,
+and, panting with the heat and the desperate struggle, they presented a
+most singular spectacle. They uttered no cry, not a sound escaped them;
+they were plainly speechless with horror and dismay. Not once did they
+drop their wings, and the peculiar expression of those uplifted palms,
+as it were, I shall never forget. It occurred to me that perhaps here
+was a case of attempted bird-charming on the part of the snake, so I
+looked on from behind the fence. The birds charged the snake and
+harassed him from every side, but were evidently under no spell save
+that of courage in defending their nest. Every moment or two I could see
+the head and neck of the serpent make a sweep at the birds, when the one
+struck at would fall back, and the other would renew the assault from
+the rear. There appeared to be little danger that the snake could strike
+and hold one of the birds, though I trembled for them, they were so bold
+and approached so near to the snake's head. Time and again he sprang at
+them, but without success. How the poor things panted, and held up their
+wings appealingly! Then the snake glided off to the near fence, barely
+escaping the stone which I hurled at him. I found the nest rifled and
+deranged; whether it had contained eggs or young, I know not. The male
+sparrow had cheered me many a day with his song, and I blamed myself for
+not having rushed at once to the rescue, when the arch enemy was upon
+him. There is probably little truth in the popular notion that snakes
+charm birds. The black snake is the most subtle, alert, and devilish of
+our snakes, and I have never seen him have any but young, helpless birds
+in his mouth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If one has always built one's nest upon the ground, and if one comes of
+a race of ground-builders, it is a risky experiment to build in a tree.
+The conditions are vastly different. One of my near neighbors, a little
+song sparrow, learned this lesson the past season. She grew ambitious;
+she departed from the traditions of her race, and placed her nest in a
+tree. Such a pretty spot she chose, too,--the pendent cradle formed by
+the interlaced sprays of two parallel branches of a Norway spruce. These
+branches shoot out almost horizontally; indeed, the lower ones become
+quite so in spring, and the side shoots with which they are clothed
+droop down, forming the slopes of miniature ridges; where the slopes of
+two branches join, a little valley is formed, which often looks more
+stable than it really is. My sparrow selected one of these little
+valleys about six feet from the ground, and quite near the walls of the
+house. "Here," she thought, "I will build my nest, and pass the heat of
+June in a miniature Norway. This tree is the fir-clad mountain, and this
+little vale on its side I select for my own." She carried up a great
+quantity of coarse grass and straws for the foundation, just as she
+would have done upon the ground. On the top of this mass there gradually
+came into shape the delicate structure of her nest, compacting and
+refining till its delicate carpet of hairs and threads was reached. So
+sly as the little bird was about it, too,--every moment on her guard
+lest you discover her secret! Five eggs were laid, and incubation was
+far advanced, when the storms and winds came. The cradle indeed did
+rock. The boughs did not break, but they swayed and separated as you
+would part your two interlocked hands. The ground of the little valley
+fairly gave way, the nest tilted over till its contents fell into the
+chasm. It was like an earthquake that destroys a hamlet.
+
+No born tree-builder would have placed its nest in such a situation.
+Birds that build at the end of the branch, like the oriole, tie the nest
+fast; others, like the robin, build against the main trunk; still others
+build securely in the fork. The sparrow, in her ignorance, rested her
+house upon the spray of two branches, and when the tempest came, the
+branches parted company and the nest was engulfed.
+
+A little bob-tailed song sparrow built her nest in a pile of dry brush
+very near the kitchen door of a farmhouse on the skirts of the northern
+Catskills, where I was passing the summer. It was late in July, and she
+had doubtless reared one brood in the earlier season. Her toilet was
+decidedly the worse for wear. I noted her day after day, very busy about
+the fence and quince bushes between the house and milk house, with her
+beak full of coarse straw and hay. To a casual observer, she seemed
+flitting about aimlessly, carrying straws from place to place just to
+amuse herself. When I came to watch her closely to learn the place of
+her nest, she seemed to suspect my intention, and made many little
+feints and movements calculated to put me off my track. But I would not
+be misled, and presently had her secret. The male did not assist her at
+all, but sang much of the time in an apple-tree or upon the fence, on
+the other side of the house.
+
+The song sparrow nearly always builds upon the ground, but my little
+neighbor laid the foundations of her domicile a foot or more above the
+soil. And what a mass of straws and twigs she did collect together! How
+coarse and careless and aimless at first,--a mere lot of rubbish dropped
+upon the tangle of dry limbs; but presently how it began to refine and
+come into shape in the centre! till there was the most exquisite
+hair-lined cup set about by a chaos of coarse straws and branches. What
+a process of evolution! The completed nest was foreshadowed by the first
+stiff straw; but how far off is yet that dainty casket with its
+complement of speckled eggs! The nest was so placed that it had for
+canopy a large, broad, drooping leaf of yellow dock. This formed a
+perfect shield against both sun and rain, while it served to conceal it
+from any curious eyes from above,--from the cat, for instance, prowling
+along the top of the wall. Before the eggs had hatched, the docken leaf
+wilted and dried and fell down upon the nest. But the mother bird
+managed to insinuate herself beneath it, and went on with her brooding
+all the same.
+
+Then I arranged an artificial cover of leaves and branches, which
+shielded her charge till they had flown away. A mere trifle was this
+little bob-tailed bird with her arts and her secrets, and the male with
+his song, and yet the pair gave a touch of something to those days and
+to that place which I would not willingly have missed.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHIMNEY SWIFT
+
+
+One day a swarm of honey-bees went into my chimney, and I mounted the
+stack to see into which flue they had gone. As I craned my neck above
+the sooty vent, with the bees humming about my ears, the first thing my
+eye rested upon in the black interior was a pair of long white pearls
+upon a little shelf of twigs, the nest of the chimney swallow, or
+swift,--honey, soot, and birds' eggs closely associated. The bees,
+though in an unused flue, soon found the gas of anthracite that hovered
+about the top of the chimney too much for them, and they left. But the
+swifts are not repelled by smoke. They seem to have entirely abandoned
+their former nesting-places in hollow trees and stumps, and to frequent
+only chimneys. A tireless bird, never perching, all day upon the wing,
+and probably capable of flying one thousand miles in twenty-four hours,
+they do not even stop to gather materials for their nests, but snap off
+the small dry twigs from the tree-tops as they fly by. Confine one of
+these swifts to a room and it does not perch, but after flying till it
+becomes bewildered and exhausted, it clings to the side of the wall till
+it dies. Once, on returning to my room after several days' absence, I
+found one in which life seemed nearly extinct; its feet grasped my
+finger as I removed it from the wall, but its eyes closed, and it seemed
+about on the point of joining its companion, which lay dead upon the
+floor. Tossing it into the air, however, seemed to awaken its wonderful
+powers of flight, and away it went straight toward the clouds. On the
+wing the chimney swift looks like an athlete stripped for the race.
+There is the least appearance of quill and plumage of any of our birds,
+and, with all its speed and marvelous evolutions, the effect of its
+flight is stiff and wiry. There appears to be but one joint in the wing,
+and that next the body. This peculiar inflexible motion of the wings, as
+if they were little sickles of sheet iron, seems to be owing to the
+length and development of the primary quills and the smallness of the
+secondary. The wing appears to hinge only at the wrist. The barn swallow
+lines its rude masonry with feathers, but the swift begins life on bare
+twigs, glued together by a glue of home manufacture as adhesive as
+Spaulding's.
+
+The big chimney of my cabin "Slabsides" of course attracted the chimney
+swifts, and as it was not used in summer, two pairs built their nests in
+it, and we had the muffled thunder of their wings at all hours of the
+day and night. One night, when one of the broods was nearly fledged, the
+nest that held them fell down into the fireplace. Such a din of
+screeching and chattering as they instantly set up! Neither my dog nor I
+could sleep. They yelled in chorus, stopping at the end of every
+half-minute as if upon signal. Now they were all screeching at the top
+of their voices, then a sudden, dead silence ensued. Then the din began
+again, to terminate at the instant as before. If they had been long
+practicing together, they could not have succeeded better. I never
+before heard the cry of birds so accurately timed. After a while I got
+up and put them back up the chimney, and stopped up the throat of the
+flue with newspapers. The next day one of the parent birds, in bringing
+food to them, came down the chimney with such force that it passed
+through the papers and brought up in the fireplace. On capturing it I
+saw that its throat was distended with food as a chipmunk's cheek with
+corn, or a boy's pocket with chestnuts. I opened its mandibles, when it
+ejected a wad of insects as large as a bean. Most of them were much
+macerated, but there were two house-flies yet alive and but little the
+worse for their close confinement. They stretched themselves and walked
+about upon my hand, enjoying a breath of fresh air once more. It was
+nearly two hours before the swift again ventured into the chimney with
+food.
+
+These birds do not perch, nor alight upon buildings or the ground. They
+are apparently upon the wing all day. They outride the storms. I have in
+my mind a cheering picture of three of them I saw facing a heavy
+thunder-shower one afternoon. The wind was blowing a gale, the clouds
+were rolling in black, portentous billows out of the west, the peals of
+thunder were shaking the heavens, and the big drops were just beginning
+to come down, when, on looking up, I saw three swifts high in air,
+working their way slowly, straight into the teeth of the storm. They
+were not hurried or disturbed; they held themselves firmly and steadily;
+indeed, they were fairly at anchor in the air till the rage of the
+elements should have subsided. I do not know that any other of our land
+birds outride the storms in this way.
+
+In the choice of nesting-material the swift shows no change of habit.
+She still snips off the small dry twigs from the tree-tops and glues
+them together, and to the side of the chimney, with her own glue. The
+soot is a new obstacle in her way, that she does not yet seem to have
+learned to overcome, as the rains often loosen it and cause her nest to
+fall to the bottom. She has a pretty way of trying to frighten you off
+when your head suddenly darkens the opening above her. At such times she
+leaves the nest and clings to the side of the chimney near it. Then,
+slowly raising her wings, she suddenly springs out from the wall and
+back again, making as loud a drumming with them in the passage as she is
+capable of. If this does not frighten you away, she repeats it three or
+four times. If your face still hovers above her, she remains quiet and
+watches you.
+
+What a creature of the air this bird is, never touching the ground, so
+far as I know, and never tasting earthly food! The swallow does perch
+now and then and descend to the ground for nesting-material, but not so
+the swift. The twigs for her nest she gathers on the wing, sweeping
+along like children on a "merry-go-round" who try to seize a ring, or to
+do some other feat, as they pass a given point. If the swift misses the
+twig, or it fails to yield to her the first time, she tries again and
+again, each time making a wider circuit, as if to tame and train her
+steed a little and bring him up more squarely to the mark next time.
+
+Though the swift is a stiff flyer and apparently without joints in her
+wings, yet the air of frolic and of superabundance of wing-power is
+more marked with her than with any other of our birds. Her feeding and
+twig-gathering seem like asides in a life of endless play. Several times
+both in spring and fall I have seen swifts gather in immense numbers
+toward nightfall, to take refuge in large unused chimney-stacks. On such
+occasions they seem to be coming together for some aerial festival or
+grand celebration; and, as if bent upon a final effort to work off a
+part of their superabundant wing-power before settling down for the
+night, they circle and circle high above the chimney-top, a great cloud
+of them, drifting this way and that, all in high spirits and chippering
+as they fly. Their numbers constantly increase as other members of the
+clan come dashing in from all points of the compass. Swifts seem to
+materialize out of empty air on all sides of the chippering, whirling
+ring, as an hour or more this assembling of the clan and this flight
+festival go on. The birds must gather in from whole counties, or from
+half a State. They have been on the wing all day, and yet now they seem
+as tireless as the wind, and as if unable to curb their powers.
+
+One fall they gathered in this way and took refuge for the night in a
+large chimney-stack in a city near me, and kept this course up for more
+than a month and a half. Several times I went to town to witness the
+spectacle, and a spectacle it was: ten thousand swifts, I should think,
+filling the air above a whole square like a whirling swarm of huge black
+bees, but saluting the ear with a multitudinous chippering, instead of a
+humming. People gathered upon the sidewalks to see them. It was a rare
+circus performance, free to all. After a great many feints and playful
+approaches, the whirling ring of birds would suddenly grow denser above
+the chimney; then a stream of them, as if drawn down by some power of
+suction, would pour into the opening. For only a few seconds would this
+downward rush continue; then, as if the spirit of frolic had again got
+the upper hand of them, the ring would rise, and the chippering and
+circling go on. In a minute or two the same man[oe]uvre would be
+repeated, the chimney, as it were, taking its swallows at intervals to
+prevent choking. It usually took a half-hour or more for the birds all
+to disappear down its capacious throat. There was always an air of
+timidity and irresolution about their approach to the chimney, just as
+there always is about their approach to the dead tree-top from which
+they procure their twigs for nest-building. Often did I see birds
+hesitate above the opening and then pass on, apparently as though they
+had not struck it at just the right angle. On one occasion a solitary
+bird was left flying, and it took three or four trials either to make up
+its mind or to catch the trick of the descent. On dark or threatening or
+stormy days the birds would begin to assemble by mid-afternoon, and by
+four or five o'clock were all in their lodgings.
+
+
+
+
+THE OVEN-BIRD
+
+
+Every loiterer about the woods knows this pretty, speckled-breasted,
+olive-backed little bird, which walks along over the dry leaves a few
+yards from him, moving its head as it walks, like a miniature domestic
+fowl. Most birds are very stiff-necked, like the robin, and as they run
+or hop upon the ground, carry the head as if it were riveted to the
+body. Not so the oven-bird, or the other birds that walk, as the
+cow-bunting, or the quail, or the crow. They move the head forward with
+the movement of the feet. The sharp, reiterated, almost screeching song
+of the oven-bird, as it perches on a limb a few feet from the ground,
+like the words "preacher, preacher, preacher," or "teacher, teacher,
+teacher," uttered louder and louder, and repeated six or seven times, is
+also familiar to most ears; but its wild, ringing, rapturous burst of
+song in the air high above the tree-tops is not so well known. From a
+very prosy, tiresome, unmelodious singer, it is suddenly transformed for
+a brief moment into a lyric poet of great power. It is a great surprise.
+The bird undergoes a complete transformation. Ordinarily it is a very
+quiet, demure sort of bird. It walks about over the leaves, moving its
+head like a little hen; then perches on a limb a few feet from the
+ground and sends forth its shrill, rather prosy, unmusical chant. Surely
+it is an ordinary, commonplace bird. But wait till the inspiration of
+its flight-song is upon it. What a change! Up it goes through the
+branches of the trees, leaping from limb to limb, faster and faster,
+till it shoots from the tree-tops fifty or more feet into the air above
+them, and bursts into an ecstasy of song, rapid, ringing, lyrical; no
+more like its habitual performance than a match is like a rocket; brief
+but thrilling; emphatic but musical. Having reached its climax of flight
+and song, the bird closes its wings and drops nearly perpendicularly
+downward like the skylark. If its song were more prolonged, it would
+rival the song of that famous bird. The bird does this many times a day
+during early June, but oftenest at twilight.
+
+About the first of June there is a nest in the woods, upon the ground,
+with four creamy-white eggs in it, spotted with brown or lilac, chiefly
+about the larger ends, that always gives the walker who is so lucky as
+to find it a thrill of pleasure. It is like a ground sparrow's nest with
+a roof or canopy to it. The little brown or olive backed bird starts
+away from your feet and runs swiftly and almost silently over the dry
+leaves, and then turns her speckled breast to see if you are following.
+She walks very prettily, by far the prettiest pedestrian in the woods.
+But if she thinks you have discovered her secret, she feigns lameness
+and disability of both leg and wing, to decoy you into the pursuit of
+her. This is the oven-bird. The last nest of this bird I found was while
+in quest of the pink cypripedium. We suddenly spied a couple of the
+flowers a few steps from the path along which we were walking, and had
+stooped to admire them, when out sprang the bird from beside them,
+doubtless thinking she was the subject of observation instead of the
+rose-purple flowers that swung but a foot or two above her. But we never
+should have seen her had she kept her place. She had found a rent in the
+matted carpet of dry leaves and pine needles that covered the ground,
+and into this had insinuated her nest, the leaves and needles forming a
+canopy above it, sloping to the south and west, the source of the more
+frequent summer rains.
+
+
+
+
+THE CATBIRD
+
+
+It requires an effort for me to speak of the singing catbird as he; all
+the ways and tones of the bird seem so distinctly feminine. But it is,
+of course, only the male that sings. At times I hardly know whether I am
+more pleased or annoyed with him. Perhaps he is a little too common, and
+his part in the general chorus a little too conspicuous. If you are
+listening for the note of another bird, he is sure to be prompted to the
+most loud and protracted singing, drowning all other sounds; if you sit
+quietly down to observe a favorite or study a new-comer, his curiosity
+knows no bounds, and you are scanned and ridiculed from every point of
+observation. Yet I would not miss him; I would only subordinate him a
+little, make him less conspicuous.
+
+He is the parodist of the woods, and there is ever a mischievous,
+bantering, half-ironical undertone in his lay, as if he were conscious
+of mimicking and disconcerting some envied songster. Ambitious of song,
+practicing and rehearsing in private, he yet seems the least sincere and
+genuine of the sylvan minstrels, as if he had taken up music only to be
+in the fashion, or not to be outdone by the robins and thrushes. In
+other words, he seems to sing from some outward motive, and not from
+inward joyousness. He is a good versifier, but not a great poet.
+Vigorous, rapid, copious, not without fine touches, but destitute of any
+high, serene melody, his performance, like that of Thoreau's squirrel,
+always implies a spectator.
+
+There is a certain air and polish about his strain, however, like that
+in the vivacious conversation of a well-bred lady of the world, that
+commands respect. His parental instinct, also, is very strong, and that
+simple structure of dead twigs and dry grass is the centre of much
+anxious solicitude. Not long since, while strolling through the woods,
+my attention was attracted to a small densely-grown swamp, hedged in
+with eglantine, brambles, and the everlasting smilax, from which
+proceeded loud cries of distress and alarm, indicating that some
+terrible calamity was threatening my sombre-colored minstrel. On
+effecting an entrance, which, however, was not accomplished till I had
+doffed coat and hat, so as to diminish the surface exposed to the thorns
+and brambles, and, looking around me from a square yard of terra firma,
+I found myself the spectator of a loathsome yet fascinating scene. Three
+or four yards from me was the nest, beneath which, in long festoons,
+rested a huge black snake; a bird two-thirds grown was slowly
+disappearing between his expanded jaws. As he seemed unconscious of my
+presence, I quietly observed the proceedings. By slow degrees he
+compassed the bird about with his elastic mouth; his head flattened, his
+neck writhed and swelled, and two or three undulatory movements of his
+glistening body finished the work. Then he cautiously raised himself up,
+his tongue flaming from his mouth the while, curved over the nest, and,
+with wavy, subtle motions, explored the interior. I can conceive of
+nothing more overpoweringly terrible to an unsuspecting family of birds
+than the sudden appearance above their domicile of the head and neck of
+this arch-enemy. It is enough to petrify the blood in their veins. Not
+finding the object of his search, he came streaming down from the nest
+to a lower limb, and commenced extending his researches in other
+directions, sliding stealthily through the branches, bent on capturing
+one of the parent birds. That a legless, wingless creature should move
+with such ease and rapidity where only birds and squirrels are
+considered at home, lifting himself up, letting himself down, running
+out on the yielding boughs, and traversing with marvelous celerity the
+whole length and breadth of the thicket, was truly surprising. One
+thinks of the great myth of the Tempter and the "cause of all our woe,"
+and wonders if the Arch Enemy is not now playing off some of his pranks
+before him. Whether we call it snake or devil matters little. I could
+but admire his terrible beauty, however; his black, shining folds, his
+easy, gliding movement, head erect, eyes glistening, tongue playing like
+subtle flame, and the invisible means of his almost winged locomotion.
+
+The parent birds, in the mean while, kept up the most agonizing cry, at
+times fluttering furiously about their pursuer, and actually laying hold
+of his tail with their beaks and claws. On being thus attacked, the
+snake would suddenly double upon himself and follow his own body back,
+thus executing a strategic movement that at first seemed almost to
+paralyze his victim and place her within his grasp. Not quite, however.
+Before his jaws could close upon the coveted prize the bird would tear
+herself away, and, apparently faint and sobbing, retire to a higher
+branch. His reputed powers of fascination availed him little, though it
+is possible that a frailer and less combative bird might have been held
+by the fatal spell. Presently, as he came gliding down the slender body
+of a leaning alder, his attention was attracted by a slight movement of
+my arm; eyeing me an instant, with that crouching, utterly motionless
+gaze which I believe only snakes and devils can assume, he turned
+quickly--a feat which necessitated something like crawling over his own
+body--and glided off through the branches, evidently recognizing in me a
+representative of the ancient parties he once so cunningly ruined. A few
+moments later, as he lay carelessly disposed in the top of a rank alder,
+trying to look as much like a crooked branch as his supple, shining form
+would admit, the old vengeance overtook him. I exercised my prerogative,
+and a well-directed missile, in the shape of a stone, brought him
+looping and writhing to the ground. After I had completed his downfall
+and quiet had been partly restored, a half-fledged member of the
+bereaved household came out from his hiding-place, and, jumping upon a
+decayed branch, chirped vigorously, no doubt in celebration of the
+victory.
+
+
+
+
+THE BOBOLINK
+
+
+The bobolink has a secure place in literature, having been laureated by
+no less a poet than Bryant, and invested with a lasting human charm in
+the sunny page of Irving, and is the only one of our songsters, I
+believe, that the mockingbird cannot parody or imitate. He affords the
+most marked example of exuberant pride, and a glad, rollicking, holiday
+spirit, that can be seen among our birds. Every note expresses
+complacency and glee. He is a beau of the first pattern, and, unlike any
+other bird of my acquaintance, pushes his gallantry to the point of
+wheeling gayly into the train of every female that comes along, even
+after the season of courtship is over and the matches are all settled;
+and when she leads him on too wild a chase, he turns lightly about and
+breaks out with a song that is precisely analogous to a burst of gay and
+self-satisfied laughter, as much as to say, "_Ha! ha! ha! I must have my
+fun, Miss Silverthimble, thimble, thimble, if I break every heart in the
+meadow, see, see, see!_"
+
+At the approach of the breeding-season the bobolink undergoes a complete
+change; his form changes, his color changes, his flight changes. From
+mottled brown or brindle he becomes black and white, earning, in some
+localities, the shocking name of "skunk bird"; his small, compact form
+becomes broad and conspicuous, and his ordinary flight is laid aside for
+a mincing, affected gait, in which he seems to use only the very tips of
+his wings. It is very noticeable what a contrast he presents to his mate
+at this season, not only in color but in manners, she being as shy and
+retiring as he is forward and hilarious. Indeed, she seems disagreeably
+serious and indisposed to any fun or jollity, scurrying away at his
+approach, and apparently annoyed at every endearing word and look. It is
+surprising that all this parade of plumage and tinkling of cymbals
+should be gone through with and persisted in to please a creature so
+coldly indifferent as she really seems to be.
+
+I know of no other song-bird that expresses so much self-consciousness
+and vanity, and comes so near being an ornithological coxcomb. The
+redbird, the yellowbird, the indigo-bird, the oriole, the cardinal
+grosbeak, and others, all birds of brilliant plumage and musical
+ability, seem quite unconscious of self, and neither by tone nor act
+challenge the admiration of the beholder.
+
+If I were a bird, in building my nest I should follow the example of the
+bobolink, placing it in the midst of a broad meadow, where there was no
+spear of grass, or flower, or growth unlike another to mark its site. I
+judge that the bobolink escapes the dangers to which nesting birds are
+liable as few or no other birds do. Unless the mowers come along at an
+earlier date than she has anticipated, that is, before July 1, or a
+skunk goes nosing through the grass, which is unusual, she is as safe as
+bird well can be in the great open of nature. She selects the most
+monotonous and uniform place she can find amid the daisies or the
+timothy and clover, and places her simple structure upon the ground in
+the midst of it. There is no concealment, except as the great conceals
+the little, as the desert conceals the pebble, as the myriad conceals
+the unit. You may find the nest once, if your course chances to lead you
+across it, and your eye is quick enough to note the silent brown bird as
+she darts swiftly away; but step three paces in the wrong direction, and
+your search will probably be fruitless. My friend and I found a nest by
+accident one day, and then lost it again one minute afterward. I moved
+away a few yards to be sure of the mother bird, charging my friend not
+to stir from his tracks. When I returned, he had moved two paces, he
+said (he had really moved four), and we spent a half-hour stooping over
+the daisies and the buttercups, looking for the lost clew. We grew
+desperate, and fairly felt the ground over with our hands, but without
+avail. I marked the spot with a bush, and came the next day, and, with
+the bush as a centre, moved about it in slowly increasing circles,
+covering, I thought, nearly every inch of ground with my feet, and
+laying hold of it with all the visual power I could command, till my
+patience was exhausted, and I gave up, baffled. I began to doubt the
+ability of the parent birds themselves to find it, and so secreted
+myself and watched. After much delay, the male bird appeared with food
+in his beak, and, satisfying himself that the coast was clear, dropped
+into the grass which I had trodden down in my search. Fastening my eye
+upon a particular meadow-lily, I walked straight to the spot, bent down,
+and gazed long and intently into the grass. Finally my eye separated the
+nest and its young from its surroundings. My foot had barely missed them
+in my search, but by how much they had escaped my eye I could not tell.
+Probably not by distance at all, but simply by unrecognition. They were
+virtually invisible. The dark gray and yellowish-brown dry grass and
+stubble of the meadow-bottom were exactly copied in the color of the
+half-fledged young. More than that, they hugged the nest so closely and
+formed such a compact mass, that though there were five of them, they
+preserved the unit of expression,--no single head or form was defined;
+they were one, and that one was without shape or color, and not
+separable, except by closest scrutiny, from the one of the
+meadow-bottom. That nest prospered, as bobolinks' nests doubtless
+generally do; for, notwithstanding the enormous slaughter of the birds
+by Southern sportsmen during their fall migrations, the bobolink appears
+to hold its own, and its music does not diminish in our Northern
+meadows.
+
+
+THE BOBOLINK
+
+    Daisies, clover, buttercup,
+      Redtop, trefoil, meadowsweet,
+    Ecstatic pinions, soaring up,
+      Then gliding down to grassy seat.
+
+    Sunshine, laughter, mad desires,
+      May day, June day, lucid skies,
+    All reckless moods that love inspires--
+      The gladdest bird that sings and flies.
+
+    Meadows, orchards, bending sprays,
+      Rushes, lilies, billowy wheat,
+    Song and frolic fill his days,
+      A feathered rondeau all complete.
+
+    Pink bloom, gold bloom, fleabane white,
+      Dewdrop, raindrop, cooling shade,
+    Bubbling throat and hovering flight,
+      And jocund heart as e'er was made.
+
+
+
+
+THE WOOD THRUSH
+
+
+The wood thrush is the handsomest species of the thrush family. In grace
+and elegance of manner he has no equal. Such a gentle, high-bred air,
+and such inimitable ease and composure in his flight and movement! He is
+a poet in very word and deed. His carriage is music to the eye. His
+performance of the commonest act, as catching a beetle, or picking a
+worm from the mud, pleases like a stroke of wit or eloquence. Was he a
+prince in the olden time, and do the regal grace and mien still adhere
+to him in his transformation? What a finely proportioned form! How
+plain, yet rich, his color,--the bright russet of his back, the clear
+white of his breast, with the distinct heart-shaped spots! It may be
+objected to Robin that he is noisy and demonstrative; he hurries away or
+rises to a branch with an angry note, and flirts his wings in ill-bred
+suspicion. The thrasher, or red thrush, sneaks and skulks like a
+culprit, hiding in the densest alders; the catbird is a coquette and a
+flirt, as well as a sort of female Paul Pry; and the chewink shows his
+inhospitality by espying your movements like a detective. The wood
+thrush has none of these underbred traits. He regards me
+unsuspiciously, or avoids me with a noble reserve--or, if I am quiet and
+incurious, graciously hops toward me, as if to pay his respects, or to
+make my acquaintance. I have passed under his nest within a few feet of
+his mate and brood, when he sat near by on a branch eying me sharply,
+but without opening his beak; but the moment I raised my hand toward his
+defenseless household his anger and indignation were beautiful to
+behold.
+
+What a noble pride he has! Late one October, after his mates and
+companions had long since gone South, I noticed one for several
+successive days in the dense part of this next-door wood, flitting
+noiselessly about, very grave and silent, as if doing penance for some
+violation of the code of honor. By many gentle, indirect approaches, I
+perceived that part of his tail-feathers were undeveloped. The sylvan
+prince could not think of returning to court in this plight, and so,
+amid the falling leaves and cold rains of autumn, was patiently biding
+his time.
+
+[Illustration: WOOD THRUSH]
+
+It is a curious habit the wood thrush has of starting its nest with a
+fragment of newspaper or other paper. Except in remote woods, I think it
+nearly always puts a piece of paper in the foundation of its nest. Last
+spring I chanced to be sitting near a tree in which a wood thrush had
+concluded to build. She came with a piece of paper nearly as large as my
+hand, placed it upon the branch, stood upon it a moment, and then flew
+down to the ground. A little puff of wind caused the paper to leave the
+branch a moment afterward. The thrush watched it eddy slowly down to the
+ground, when she seized it and carried it back. She placed it in
+position as before, stood upon it again for a moment, and then flew
+away. Again the paper left the branch, and sailed away slowly to the
+ground. The bird seized it again, jerking it about rather spitefully, I
+thought; she turned it round two or three times, then labored back to
+the branch with it, upon which she shifted it about as if to hit upon
+some position in which it would lie more securely. This time she sat
+down upon it for a moment, and then went away, doubtless with the
+thought in her head that she would bring something to hold it down. The
+perverse paper followed her in a few seconds. She seized it again, and
+hustled it about more than before. As she rose with it toward the nest,
+it in some way impeded her flight, and she was compelled to return to
+the ground with it. But she kept her temper remarkably well. She turned
+the paper over and took it up in her beak several times before she was
+satisfied with her hold, and then carried it back to the branch, where,
+however, it would not stay. I saw her make six trials of it, when I was
+called away. I think she finally abandoned the restless fragment,
+probably a scrap that held some "breezy" piece of writing, for later in
+the season I examined the nest and found no paper in it.
+
+How completely the life of a bird revolves about its nest, its home! In
+the case of the wood thrush, its life and joy seem to mount higher and
+higher as the nest prospers. The male becomes a fountain of melody; his
+happiness waxes day by day; he makes little triumphal tours about the
+neighborhood, and pours out his pride and gladness in the ears of all.
+How sweet, how well-bred, is his demonstration! But let any accident
+befall that precious nest, and what a sudden silence falls upon him!
+Last summer a pair of wood thrushes built their nest within a few rods
+of my house, and when the enterprise was fairly launched and the mother
+bird was sitting upon her four blue eggs, the male was in the height of
+his song. How he poured forth his rich melody, never in the immediate
+vicinity of the nest, but always within easy hearing distance! Every
+morning, as promptly as the morning came, between five and six, he would
+sing for half an hour from the top of a locust-tree that shaded my
+roof. I came to expect him as much as I expected my breakfast, and I was
+not disappointed till one morning I seemed to miss something. What was
+it? Oh, the thrush had not sung this morning. Something is the matter;
+and, recollecting that yesterday I had seen a red squirrel in the trees
+not far from the nest, I at once inferred that the nest had been
+harried. Going to the spot, I found my fears were well grounded; every
+egg was gone. The joy of the thrush was laid low. No more songs from the
+tree-top, and no more songs from any point, till nearly a week had
+elapsed, when I heard him again under the hill, where the pair had
+started a new nest, cautiously tuning up, and apparently with his recent
+bitter experience still weighing upon him.
+
+There is no nest-builder that suffers more from crows and squirrels and
+other enemies than the wood thrush. It builds as openly and
+unsuspiciously as if it thought all the world as honest as itself. Its
+favorite place is the fork of a sapling, eight or ten feet from the
+ground, where it falls an easy prey to every nest-robber that comes
+prowling through the woods and groves. It is not a bird that skulks and
+hides, like the catbird, the brown thrasher, the chat, or the chewink,
+and its nest is not concealed with the same art as theirs. Our thrushes
+are all frank, open-mannered birds; but the veery and the hermit build
+on the ground, where they may at least escape the crows, owls, and jays,
+and stand a good chance of being overlooked by the red squirrel and
+weasel also; while the robin seeks the protection of dwellings and
+outbuildings. For years I have not known the nest of a wood thrush to
+succeed. During the season referred to I observed but two, both
+apparently a second attempt, as the season was well advanced, and both
+failures. In one case, the nest was placed in a branch that an
+apple-tree, standing near a dwelling, held out over the highway. The
+structure was barely ten feet above the middle of the road, and would
+just escape a passing load of hay. It was made conspicuous by the use of
+a large fragment of newspaper in its foundation,--an unsafe material to
+build upon in most cases. Whatever else the press may guard, this
+particular newspaper did not guard this nest from harm. It saw the egg
+and probably the chick, but not the fledgeling. A murderous deed was
+committed above the public highway, but whether in the open day or under
+cover of darkness I have no means of knowing. The frisky red squirrel
+was doubtless the culprit. The other nest was in a maple sapling, within
+a few yards of the little rustic summer-house already referred to. The
+first attempt of the season, I suspect, had failed in a more secluded
+place under the hill; so the pair had come up nearer the house for
+protection. The male sang in the trees near by for several days before I
+chanced to see the nest. The very morning, I think, it was finished, I
+saw a red squirrel exploring a tree but a few yards away; he probably
+knew what the singing meant as well as I did. I did not see the inside
+of the nest, for it was almost instantly deserted, the female having
+probably laid a single egg, which the squirrel had devoured.
+
+One evening, while seated upon my porch, I had convincing proof that
+musical or song contests do take place among the birds. Two wood
+thrushes who had nests near by sat on the top of a dead tree and pitted
+themselves against each other in song for over half an hour, contending
+like champions in a game, and certainly affording the rarest treat in
+wood-thrush melody I had ever had. They sang and sang with unwearied
+spirit and persistence, now and then changing position or facing in
+another direction, but keeping within a few feet of each other. The
+rivalry became so obvious and was so interesting that I finally made it
+a point not to take my eyes from the singers. The twilight deepened till
+their forms began to grow dim; then one of the birds could stand the
+strain no longer, the limit of fair competition had been reached, and
+seeming to say, "I will silence you, anyhow," it made a spiteful dive at
+its rival, and in hot pursuit the two disappeared in the bushes beneath
+the tree.
+
+
+
+
+THE BALTIMORE ORIOLE
+
+
+The nest of nests, the ideal nest, is unquestionably that of the
+Baltimore oriole. It is the only perfectly pensile nest we have. The
+nest of the orchard oriole is indeed mainly so, but this bird generally
+builds lower and shallower, more after the manner of the vireos.
+
+The Baltimore oriole loves to attach its nest to the swaying branches of
+the tallest elms, making no attempt at concealment, but satisfied if the
+position be high and the branch pendent. This nest would seem to cost
+more time and skill than any other bird structure. A peculiar flax-like
+material seems to be always sought after and always found. The nest when
+completed assumes the form of a large, suspended gourd. The walls are
+thin but firm, and proof against the most driving rain. The mouth is
+hemmed or over-handed with strings or horsehair, and the sides are
+usually sewed through and through with the same.
+
+Not particular as to the matter of secrecy, the bird is not particular
+as to material, so that it be of the nature of strings or threads. A
+lady friend once told me that, while she was working by an open window,
+one of these birds approached while her back was turned, and, seizing a
+skein of some kind of thread or yarn, made off with it to its
+half-finished nest. But the perverse yarn caught fast in the branches,
+and, in the bird's efforts to extricate it, got hopelessly tangled. She
+tugged away at it all day, but was finally obliged to content herself
+with a few detached portions. The fluttering strings were an eyesore to
+her ever after, and, passing and repassing, she would give them a
+spiteful jerk, as much as to say, "There is that confounded yarn that
+gave me so much trouble."
+
+ [Illustration: BALTIMORE ORIOLE
+ Upper, male; lower, female]
+
+One day in Kentucky I saw an oriole weave into her nest unusual
+material. As we sat upon the lawn in front of the cottage, we had
+noticed the bird just beginning her structure, suspending it from a
+long, low branch of the Kentucky coffee-tree that grew but a few feet
+away. I suggested to my host that if he would take some brilliant yarn
+and scatter it about upon the shrubbery, the fence, and the walks, the
+bird would probably avail herself of it, and weave a novel nest. I had
+heard of its being done, but had never tried it myself. The suggestion
+was at once acted upon, and in a few moments a handful of zephyr yarn,
+crimson, orange, green, yellow, and blue, was distributed about the
+grounds. As we sat at dinner a few moments later, I saw the eager bird
+flying up toward her nest with one of these brilliant yarns streaming
+behind her. They had caught her eye at once, and she fell to work upon
+them with a will; not a bit daunted by their brilliant color, she soon
+had a crimson spot there amid the green leaves. She afforded us rare
+amusement all the afternoon and the next morning. How she seemed to
+congratulate herself over her rare find! How vigorously she knotted
+those strings to her branch and gathered the ends in and sewed them
+through and through the structure, jerking them spitefully like a
+housewife burdened with many cares! How savagely she would fly at her
+neighbor, an oriole that had a nest just over the fence a few yards
+away, when she invaded her territory! The male looked on approvingly,
+but did not offer to lend a hand. There is something in the manner of
+the female on such occasions, something so decisive and emphatic, that
+one entirely approves of the course of the male in not meddling or
+offering any suggestions. It is the wife's enterprise, and she evidently
+knows her own mind so well that the husband keeps aloof, or plays the
+part of an approving spectator.
+
+The woolen yarn was ill-suited to the Kentucky climate. This fact the
+bird seemed to appreciate, for she used it only in the upper part of
+her nest, in attaching it to the branch and in binding and compacting
+the rim, making the sides and bottom of hemp, leaving it thin and airy,
+much more so than are the same nests with us. No other bird would,
+perhaps, have used such brilliant material; their instincts of
+concealment would have revolted, but the oriole aims more to make its
+nest inaccessible than to hide it. Its position and depth insure its
+safety.
+
+
+
+
+THE WHIP-POOR-WILL
+
+
+One day in May, walking in the woods, I came upon the nest of a
+whip-poor-will, or rather its eggs, for it builds no nest,--two
+elliptical whitish spotted eggs lying upon the dry leaves. My foot was
+within a yard of the mother bird before she flew. I wondered what a
+sharp eye would detect curious or characteristic in the ways of the
+bird, so I came to the place many times and had a look. It was always a
+task to separate the bird from her surroundings, though I stood within a
+few feet of her, and knew exactly where to look. One had to bear on with
+his eye, as it were, and refuse to be baffled. The sticks and leaves,
+and bits of black or dark-brown bark, were all exactly copied in the
+bird's plumage. And then she did sit so close, and simulate so well a
+shapeless, decaying piece of wood or bark! Twice I brought a companion,
+and, guiding his eye to the spot, noted how difficult it was for him to
+make out there, in full view upon the dry leaves, any semblance to a
+bird. When the bird returned after being disturbed, she would alight
+within a few inches of her eggs, and then, after a moment's pause,
+hobble awkwardly upon them.
+
+[Illustration: WHIP-POOR-WILL]
+
+After the young had appeared, all the wit of the bird came into play. I
+was on hand the next day, I think. The mother bird sprang up when I was
+within a pace of her, and in doing so fanned the leaves with her wings
+till they sprang up, too; as the leaves started the young started, and
+as they were of the same color, to tell which was the leaf and which the
+bird was a trying task to any eye. I came the next day, when the same
+tactics were repeated. Once a leaf fell upon one of the young birds and
+nearly hid it. The young are covered with a reddish down, like a young
+partridge, and soon follow their mother about. When disturbed, they gave
+but one leap, then settled down, perfectly motionless and stupid, with
+eyes closed. The parent bird, on these occasions, made frantic efforts
+to decoy me away from her young. She would fly a few paces and fall upon
+her breast, and a spasm, like that of death, would run through her
+tremulous outstretched wings and prostrate body. She kept a sharp eye
+out the mean while to see if the ruse took, and, if it did not, she was
+quickly cured, and, moving about to some other point, tried to draw my
+attention as before. When followed she always alighted upon the ground,
+dropping down in a sudden, peculiar way. The second or third day both
+old and young had disappeared.
+
+The whip-poor-will walks as awkwardly as a swallow, which is as awkward
+as a man in a bag, and yet she manages to lead her young about the
+woods. The latter, I think, move by leaps and sudden spurts, their
+protective coloring shielding them most effectively.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the shadows deepen and the stars begin to come out, the
+whip-poor-will suddenly strikes up. What a rude intrusion upon the
+serenity and harmony of the hour! A cry without music, insistent,
+reiterated, loud, penetrating, and yet the ear welcomes it; the night
+and the solitude are so vast that they can stand it; and when, an hour
+later, as the night enters into full possession, the bird comes and
+serenades me under my window or upon my doorstep, my heart warms toward
+it. Its cry is a love-call, and there is something of the ardor and
+persistence of love in it, and when the female responds, and comes and
+hovers near, there is an interchange of subdued, caressing tones between
+the two birds that it is a delight to hear. During my first summer in my
+cabin one bird used to strike up every night from a high ledge of rocks
+in front of my door. At just such a moment in the twilight he would
+begin, the first to break the stillness. Then the others would follow,
+till the solitude was vocal with their calls. They are rarely heard
+later than ten o'clock. Then at daybreak they take up the tale again,
+whipping poor Will till one pities him. One April morning between three
+and four o'clock, hearing one strike up near my window, I began counting
+its calls. My neighbor had told me he had heard one call over two
+hundred times without a break, which seemed to me a big story. But I
+have a much bigger one to tell. This bird actually laid upon the back of
+poor Will one thousand and eighty-eight blows, with only a barely
+perceptible pause here and there, as if to catch its breath. Then it
+stopped about half a minute and began again, uttering this time three
+hundred and ninety calls, when it paused, flew a little farther away,
+took up the tale once more, and continued till I fell asleep.
+
+By day the whip-poor-will apparently sits motionless upon the ground. A
+few times in my walks through the woods I have started one up from
+almost under my feet. On such occasions the bird's movements suggest
+those of a bat; its wings make no noise, and it wavers about in an
+uncertain manner, and quickly drops to the ground again. One June day we
+flushed an old one with her two young, but there was no indecision or
+hesitation in the manner of the mother bird this time. The young were
+more than half fledged, and they scampered away a few yards and
+suddenly squatted upon the ground, where their assimilative coloring
+rendered them almost invisible. Then the anxious parent put forth all
+her arts to absorb our attention and lure us away from her offspring.
+She flitted before us from side to side, with spread wings and tail, now
+falling upon the ground, where she would remain a moment as if quite
+disabled, then perching upon an old stump or low branch with drooping,
+quivering wings, and imploring us by every gesture to take her and spare
+her young. My companion had his camera with him, but the bird would not
+remain long enough in one position for him to get her picture.
+
+
+
+
+THE BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER
+
+A SEARCH FOR A RARE NEST
+
+
+I had set out in hopes of finding a rare nest,--the nest of the
+black-throated blue-backed warbler, which, it seemed, with one or two
+others, was still wanting to make the history of our warblers complete.
+The woods were extensive, and full of deep, dark tangles, and looking
+for any particular nest seemed about as hopeless a task as searching for
+a needle in a haystack, as the old saying is. Where to begin, and how?
+But the principle is the same as in looking for a hen's nest,--first
+find your bird, then watch its movements.
+
+The bird is in these woods, for I have seen him scores of times, but
+whether he builds high or low, on the ground or in the trees, is all
+unknown to me. That is his song now,--"twe-twea-twe-e-e-a," with a
+peculiar summer languor and plaintiveness, and issuing from the lower
+branches and growths. Presently we--for I have been joined by a
+companion--discover the bird, a male, insecting in the top of a newly
+fallen hemlock. The black, white, and blue of his uniform are seen at a
+glance. His movements are quite slow compared with some of the warblers.
+If he will only betray the locality of that little domicile where his
+plainly clad mate is evidently sitting, it is all we will ask of him.
+But this he seems in no wise disposed to do. Here and there, and up and
+down, we follow him, often losing him, and as often refinding him by his
+song; but the clew to his nest, how shall we get it? Does he never go
+home to see how things are getting on, or to see if his presence is not
+needed, or to take madam a morsel of food? No doubt he keeps within
+earshot, and a cry of distress or alarm from the mother bird would bring
+him to the spot in an instant. Would that some evil fate would make her
+cry, then! Presently he encounters a rival. His feeding-ground infringes
+upon that of another, and the two birds regard each other threateningly.
+This is a good sign, for their nests are evidently near.
+
+Their battle-cry is a low, peculiar chirp, not very fierce, but
+bantering and confident. They quickly come to blows, but it is a very
+fantastic battle, and, as it would seem, indulged in more to satisfy
+their sense of honor than to hurt each other, for neither party gets the
+better of the other, and they separate a few paces and sing, and squeak,
+and challenge each other in a very happy frame of mind. The gauntlet is
+no sooner thrown down than it is again taken up by one or the other, and
+in the course of fifteen or twenty minutes they have three or four
+encounters, separating a little, then provoked to return again like two
+cocks, till finally they withdraw beyond hearing of each other,--both,
+no doubt, claiming the victory. But the secret of the nest is still
+kept. Once I think I have it. I catch a glimpse of a bird which looks
+like the female, and near by, in a small hemlock about eight feet from
+the ground, my eye detects a nest. But as I come up under it, I can see
+daylight through it, and that it is empty,--evidently only partly
+finished, not lined or padded yet. Now if the bird will only return and
+claim it, the point will be gained. But we wait and watch in vain. The
+architect has knocked off to-day, and we must come again, or continue
+our search.
+
+Despairing of finding either of the nests of the two males, we pushed on
+through the woods to try our luck elsewhere. Before long, just as we
+were about to plunge down a hill into a dense, swampy part of the woods,
+we discovered a pair of the birds we were in quest of. They had food in
+their beaks, and, as we paused, showed great signs of alarm, indicating
+that the nest was in the immediate vicinity. This was enough. We would
+pause here and find this nest, anyhow. To make a sure thing of it, we
+determined to watch the parent birds till we had wrung from them their
+secret. So we doggedly crouched down and watched them, and they watched
+us. It was diamond cut diamond. But as we felt constrained in our
+movements, desiring, if possible, to keep so quiet that the birds would,
+after a while, see in us only two harmless stumps or prostrate logs, we
+had much the worst of it. The mosquitoes were quite taken with our
+quiet, and knew us from logs and stumps in a moment. Neither were the
+birds deceived, not even when we tried the Indian's tactics, and plumed
+ourselves with green branches. Ah, the suspicious creatures, how they
+watched us with the food in their beaks, abstaining for one whole hour
+from ministering to that precious charge which otherwise would have been
+visited every few moments! Quite near us they would come at times,
+between us and the nest, eying us so sharply. Then they would move off,
+and apparently try to forget our presence. Was it to deceive us, or to
+persuade himself and his mate that there was no serious cause for alarm,
+that the male would now and then strike up in full song and move off to
+some distance through the trees? But the mother bird did not allow
+herself to lose sight of us at all, and both birds, after carrying the
+food in their beaks a long time, would swallow it themselves. Then they
+would obtain another morsel and apparently approach very near the nest,
+when their caution or prudence would come to their aid, and they would
+swallow the food and hasten away. I thought the young birds would cry
+out, but not a syllable from them. Yet this was, no doubt, what kept the
+parent birds away from the nest. The clamor the young would have set up
+on the approach of the old with food would have exposed everything.
+
+After a time I felt sure I knew within a few feet where the nest was
+concealed. Indeed, I thought I knew the identical bush. Then the birds
+approached each other again and grew very confidential about another
+locality some rods below. This puzzled us, and, seeing the whole
+afternoon might be spent in this manner and the mystery unsolved, we
+determined to change our tactics and institute a thorough search of the
+locality. This procedure soon brought things to a crisis, for, as my
+companion clambered over a log by a little hemlock, a few yards from
+where we had been sitting, with a cry of alarm out sprang the young
+birds from their nest in the hemlock, and, scampering and fluttering
+over the leaves, disappeared in different directions. Instantly the
+parent birds were on the scene in an agony of alarm. Their distress was
+pitiful. They threw themselves on the ground at our very feet, and
+fluttered, and cried, and trailed themselves before us, to draw us away
+from the place, or distract our attention from the helpless young. I
+shall not forget the male bird, how bright he looked, how sharp the
+contrast as he trailed his painted plumage there on the dry leaves.
+Apparently he was seriously disabled. He would start up as if exerting
+every muscle to fly away, but no use; down he would come, with a
+helpless, fluttering motion, before he had gone two yards, and
+apparently you had only to go and pick him up. But before you could pick
+him up, he had recovered somewhat and flown a little farther; and thus,
+if you were tempted to follow him, you would soon find yourself some
+distance from the scene of the nest, and both old and young well out of
+your reach. The female bird was not less solicitous, and practiced the
+same arts upon us to decoy us away, but her dull plumage rendered her
+less noticeable. The male was clad in holiday attire, but his mate in an
+every-day working-garb.
+
+The nest was built in the fork of a little hemlock, about fifteen inches
+from the ground, and was a thick, firm structure, composed of the finer
+material of the woods, with a lining of very delicate roots or rootlets.
+There were four young birds and one addled egg.
+
+
+
+
+THE MARSH HAWK
+
+A MARSH HAWK'S NEST, A YOUNG HAWK, AND A VISIT TO A QUAIL ON HER NEST
+
+
+Most country boys, I fancy, know the marsh hawk. It is he you see flying
+low over the fields, beating about bushes and marshes and dipping over
+the fences, with his attention directed to the ground beneath him. He is
+a cat on wings. He keeps so low that the birds and mice do not see him
+till he is fairly upon them. The hen-hawk swoops down upon the
+meadow-mouse from his position high in air, or from the top of a dead
+tree; but the marsh hawk stalks him and comes suddenly upon him from
+over the fence, or from behind a low bush or tuft of grass. He is nearly
+as large as the hen-hawk, but has a much longer tail. When I was a boy I
+used to call him the long-tailed hawk. The male is of a bluish
+slate-color; the female reddish-brown, like the hen-hawk, with a white
+rump.
+
+Unlike the other hawks, they nest on the ground in low, thick marshy
+places. For several seasons a pair have nested in a bushy marsh a few
+miles back of me, near the house of a farmer friend of mine, who has a
+keen eye for the wild life about him. Two years ago he found the nest,
+but when I got over to see it the next week, it had been robbed,
+probably by some boys in the neighborhood. The past season, in April or
+May, by watching the mother bird, he found the nest again. It was in a
+marshy place, several acres in extent, in the bottom of a valley, and
+thickly grown with hardback, prickly ash, smilax, and other low thorny
+bushes. My friend took me to the brink of a low hill, and pointed out to
+me in the marsh below us, as nearly as he could, just where the nest was
+located. Then we crossed the pasture, entered upon the marsh, and made
+our way cautiously toward it. The wild, thorny growths, waist-high, had
+to be carefully dealt with. As we neared the spot, I used my eyes the
+best I could, but I did not see the hawk till she sprang into the air
+not ten yards away from us. She went screaming upward, and was soon
+sailing in a circle far above us. There, on a coarse matting of twigs
+and weeds, lay five snow-white eggs, a little more than half as large as
+hens' eggs. My companion said the male hawk would probably soon appear
+and join the female, but he did not. She kept drifting away to the east,
+and was soon gone from our sight.
+
+We presently withdrew and secreted ourselves behind the stone wall, in
+hopes of seeing the mother hawk return. She appeared in the distance,
+but seemed to know she was being watched, and kept away.
+
+About ten days later we made another visit to the nest. An adventurous
+young Chicago lady also wanted to see a hawk's nest, and so accompanied
+us. This time three of the eggs were hatched, and as the mother hawk
+sprang up, either by accident or intentionally she threw two of the
+young hawks some feet from the nest. She rose up and screamed angrily.
+Then, turning toward us, she came like an arrow straight at the young
+lady, a bright plume in whose hat probably drew her fire. The damsel
+gathered up her skirts about her and beat a hasty retreat. Hawks were
+not so pretty as she thought they were. A large hawk launched at one's
+face from high in the air is calculated to make one a little nervous. It
+is such a fearful incline down which the bird comes, and she is aiming
+exactly toward your eye. When within about thirty feet of you, she turns
+upward with a rushing sound, and, mounting higher, falls toward you
+again. She is only firing blank cartridges, as it were; but it usually
+has the desired effect, and beats the enemy off.
+
+After we had inspected the young hawks, a neighbor of my friend offered
+to conduct us to a quail's nest. Anything in the shape of a nest is
+always welcome, it is such a mystery, such a centre of interest and
+affection, and, if upon the ground, is usually something so dainty and
+exquisite amid the natural wreckage and confusion. A ground nest seems
+so exposed, too, that it always gives a little thrill of pleasurable
+surprise to see the group of frail eggs resting there behind so slight a
+barrier. I will walk a long distance any day just to see a song
+sparrow's nest amid the stubble or under a tuft of grass. It is a jewel
+in a rosette of jewels, with a frill of weeds or turf. A quail's nest I
+had never seen, and to be shown one within the hunting-ground of this
+murderous hawk would be a double pleasure. Such a quiet, secluded,
+grass-grown highway as we moved along was itself a rare treat.
+Sequestered was the word that the little valley suggested, and peace the
+feeling the road evoked. The farmer, whose fields lay about us, half
+grown with weeds and bushes, evidently did not make stir or noise enough
+to disturb anything. Beside this rustic highway, bounded by old mossy
+stone walls, and within a stone's throw of the farmer's barn, the quail
+had made her nest. It was just under the edge of a prostrate thorn-bush.
+
+"The nest is right there," said the farmer, pausing within ten feet of
+it, and pointing to the spot with his stick.
+
+In a moment or two we could make out the mottled brown plumage of the
+sitting bird. Then we approached her cautiously till we bent above her.
+
+She never moved a feather.
+
+Then I put my cane down in the brush behind her. We wanted to see the
+eggs, yet did not want rudely to disturb the sitting hen.
+
+She would not move.
+
+Then I put down my hand within a few inches of her; still she kept her
+place. Should we have to lift her off bodily?
+
+Then the young lady put down her hand, probably the prettiest and the
+whitest hand the quail had ever seen. At least it started her, and off
+she sprang, uncovering such a crowded nest of eggs as I had never before
+beheld. Twenty-one of them! a ring or disk of white like a china
+tea-saucer. You could not help saying, How pretty! How cunning! like
+baby hens' eggs, as if the bird were playing at sitting, as children
+play at housekeeping.
+
+If I had known how crowded her nest was, I should not have dared disturb
+her, for fear she would break some of them. But not an egg suffered harm
+by her sudden flight. And no harm came to the nest afterward. Every egg
+hatched, I was told, and the little chicks, hardly bigger than
+bumblebees, were led away by the mother into the fields.
+
+In about a week I paid another visit to the hawk's nest. The eggs were
+all hatched, and the mother bird was hovering near. I shall never forget
+the curious expression of those young hawks sitting there on the ground.
+The expression was not one of youth, but of extreme age. Such an
+ancient, infirm look as they had,--the sharp, dark, and shrunken look
+about the face and eyes, and their feeble, tottering motions! They sat
+upon their elbows and the hind part of their bodies, and their pale,
+withered legs and feet extended before them in the most helpless
+fashion. Their angular bodies were covered with a pale yellowish down,
+like that of a chicken; their heads had a plucked, seedy appearance; and
+their long, strong, naked wings hung down by their sides till they
+touched the ground: power and ferocity in the first rude draught, shorn
+of everything but its sinister ugliness. Another curious thing was the
+gradation of the young in size; they tapered down regularly from the
+first to the fifth, as if there had been, as probably there was, an
+interval of a day or two between the hatchings.
+
+The two older ones showed some signs of fear on our approach, and one of
+them threw himself upon his back, and put up his impotent legs, and
+glared at us with open beak. The two smaller ones regarded us not at
+all. Neither of the parent birds appeared during our stay.
+
+When I visited the nest again, eight or ten days later, the birds were
+much grown, but of as marked a difference in size as before, and with
+the same look of extreme old age,--old age in men of the aquiline type,
+nose and chin coming together, and eyes large and sunken. They now
+glared upon us with a wild, savage look, and opened their beaks
+threateningly.
+
+The next week, when my friend visited the nest, the larger of the hawks
+fought him savagely. But one of the brood, probably the last to hatch,
+had made but little growth. It appeared to be on the point of
+starvation. The mother hawk (for the male seemed to have disappeared)
+had perhaps found her family too large for her, and was deliberately
+allowing one of the number to perish; or did the larger and stronger
+young devour all the food before the weaker member could obtain any?
+Probably this was the case.
+
+Arthur brought the feeble nestling away, and the same day my little boy
+got it and brought it home, wrapped in a woolen rag. It was clearly a
+starved bantling. It cried feebly but would not lift up its head.
+
+We first poured some warm milk down its throat, which soon revived it,
+so that it would swallow small bits of flesh. In a day or two we had it
+eating ravenously, and its growth became noticeable. Its voice had the
+sharp whistling character of that of its parents, and was stilled only
+when the bird was asleep. We made a pen for it, about a yard square, in
+one end of the study, covering the floor with several thicknesses of
+newspapers; and here, upon a bit of brown woolen blanket for a nest, the
+hawk waxed strong day by day. An uglier-looking pet, tested by all the
+rules we usually apply to such things, would have been hard to find.
+There he would sit upon his elbows, his helpless feet out in front of
+him, his great featherless wings touching the floor, and shrilly cry for
+more food. For a time we gave him water daily from a stylograph-pen
+filler, but the water he evidently did not need or relish. Fresh meat,
+and plenty of it, was his demand. And we soon discovered that he liked
+game, such as mice, squirrels, birds, much better than butcher's meat.
+
+Then began a lively campaign on the part of my little boy against all
+the vermin and small game in the neighborhood, to keep the hawk
+supplied. He trapped and he hunted, he enlisted his mates in his
+service, he even robbed the cats to feed the hawk. His usefulness as a
+boy of all work was seriously impaired. "Where is J----?" "Gone after a
+squirrel for his hawk." And often the day would be half gone before his
+hunt was successful. The premises were very soon cleared of mice, and
+the vicinity of chipmunks and squirrels. Farther and farther he was
+compelled to hunt the surrounding farms and woods to keep up with the
+demands of the hawk. By the time the hawk was ready to fly, it had
+consumed twenty-one chipmunks, fourteen red squirrels, sixteen mice, and
+twelve English sparrows, besides a great deal of butcher's meat.
+
+His plumage very soon began to show itself, crowding off tufts of the
+down. The quills on his great wings sprouted and grew apace. What a
+ragged, uncanny appearance he presented! but his look of extreme age
+gradually became modified. What a lover of the sunlight he was! We would
+put him out upon the grass in the full blaze of the morning sun, and he
+would spread his wings and bask in it with the most intense enjoyment.
+In the nest the young must be exposed to the full power of the midday
+sun during our first heated terms in June and July, the thermometer
+often going up to ninety-three or ninety-five degrees, so that sunshine
+seemed to be a need of his nature. He liked the rain equally well, and
+when put out in a shower would sit down and take it as if every drop did
+him good.
+
+His legs developed nearly as slowly as his wings. He could not stand
+steadily upon them till about ten days before he was ready to fly. The
+talons were limp and feeble. When we came with food, he would hobble
+along toward us like the worst kind of a cripple, drooping and moving
+his wings, and treading upon his legs from the foot back to the elbow,
+the foot remaining closed and useless. Like a baby learning to stand, he
+made many trials before he succeeded. He would rise up on his trembling
+legs only to fall back again.
+
+One day, in the summer-house, I saw him for the first time stand for a
+moment squarely upon his legs with the feet fully spread beneath them.
+He looked about him as if the world suddenly wore a new aspect.
+
+His plumage now grew quite rapidly. One red squirrel a day, chopped fine
+with an axe, was his ration. He began to hold his game with his foot
+while he tore it. The study was full of his shed down. His dark-brown
+mottled plumage began to grow beautiful. The wings drooped a little, but
+gradually he got control of them, and held them in place.
+
+It was now the 20th of July, and the hawk was about five weeks old. In a
+day or two he was walking or jumping about the grounds. He chose a
+position under the edge of a Norway spruce, where he would sit for hours
+dozing, or looking out upon the landscape. When we brought him game, he
+would advance to meet us with wings slightly lifted, and uttering a
+shrill cry. Toss him a mouse or sparrow, and he would seize it with one
+foot and hop off to his cover, where he would bend above it, spread his
+plumage, look this way and that, uttering all the time the most exultant
+and satisfied chuckle.
+
+About this time he began to practice striking with his talons, as an
+Indian boy might begin practicing with his bow and arrow. He would
+strike at a dry leaf in the grass, or at a fallen apple, or at some
+imaginary object. He was learning the use of his weapons. His wings
+also,--he seemed to feel them sprouting from his shoulders. He would
+lift them straight up and hold them expanded, and they would seem to
+quiver with excitement. Every hour in the day he would do this. The
+pressure was beginning to centre there. Then he would strike playfully
+at a leaf or a bit of wood, and keep his wings lifted.
+
+The next step was to spring into the air and beat his wings. He seemed
+now to be thinking entirely of his wings. They itched to be put to use.
+
+A day or two later he would leap and fly several feet. A pile of brush
+ten or twelve feet below the bank was easily reached. Here he would
+perch in true hawk fashion, to the bewilderment and scandal of all the
+robins and catbirds in the vicinity. Here he would dart his eye in all
+directions, turning his head over and glancing up into the sky.
+
+He was now a lovely creature, fully fledged, and as tame as a kitten.
+But he was not a bit like a kitten in one respect,--he could not bear to
+have you stroke or even touch his plumage. He had a horror of your hand,
+as if it would hopelessly defile him. But he would perch upon it, and
+allow you to carry him about. If a dog or cat appeared, he was ready to
+give battle instantly. He rushed up to a little dog one day, and struck
+him with his foot savagely. He was afraid of strangers, and of any
+unusual object.
+
+The last week in July he began to fly quite freely, and it was necessary
+to clip one of his wings. As the clipping embraced only the ends of his
+primaries, he soon overcame the difficulty, and, by carrying his broad,
+long tail more on that side, flew with considerable ease. He made
+longer and longer excursions into the surrounding fields and vineyards,
+and did not always return. On such occasions we would go to find him and
+fetch him back.
+
+Late one rainy afternoon he flew away into the vineyard, and when, an
+hour later, I went after him, he could not be found, and we never saw
+him again. We hoped hunger would soon drive him back, but we have had no
+clew to him from that day to this.
+
+
+
+
+THE WINTER WREN
+
+
+An old hemlock wood at the head waters of the Delaware is a chosen haunt
+of the winter wren. His voice fills these dim aisles, as if aided by
+some marvelous sounding-board. Indeed, his song is very strong for so
+small a bird, and unites in a remarkable degree brilliancy and
+plaintiveness. I think of a tremulous, vibrating tongue of silver. You
+may know it is the song of a wren from its gushing, lyrical character;
+but you must needs look sharp to see the little minstrel, especially
+while in the act of singing. He is nearly the color of the ground and
+the leaves; he never ascends the tall trees, but keeps low, flitting
+from stump to stump and from root to root, dodging in and out of his
+hiding-places, and watching all intruders with a suspicious eye. He has
+a very pert, almost comical look. His tail stands more than
+perpendicular: it points straight toward his head. He is the least
+ostentatious singer I know of. He does not strike an attitude, and lift
+up his head in preparation, and, as it were, clear his throat; but sits
+there on a log and pours out his music, looking straight before him, or
+even down at the ground. As a songster, he has but few superiors. I do
+not hear him after the first week in July.
+
+The winter wren is so called because he sometimes braves our northern
+winters, but it is rarely that one sees him at this season. I think I
+have seen him only two or three times in winter in my life. The event of
+one long walk, recently, in February, was seeing one of these birds. As
+I followed a byroad, beside a little creek in the edge of a wood, my eye
+caught a glimpse of a small brown bird darting under a stone bridge. I
+thought to myself no bird but a wren would take refuge under so small a
+bridge as that. I stepped down upon it and expected to see the bird dart
+out at the upper end. As it did not appear, I scrutinized the bank of
+the little run, covered with logs and brush, a few rods farther up.
+
+Presently I saw the wren curtsying and gesticulating beneath an old log.
+As I approached he disappeared beneath some loose stones in the bank,
+then came out again and took another peep at me, then fidgeted about for
+a moment and disappeared again, running in and out of the holes and
+recesses and beneath the rubbish like a mouse or a chipmunk. The winter
+wren may always be known by these squatting, bobbing-out-and-in habits.
+
+As I sought a still closer view of him, he flitted stealthily a few
+yards up the run and disappeared beneath a small plank bridge near a
+house.
+
+I wondered what he could feed upon at such a time. There was a light
+skim of snow upon the ground, and the weather was cold. The wren, so far
+as I know, is entirely an insect-feeder, and where can he find insects
+in midwinter in our climate? Probably by searching under bridges, under
+brush-heaps, in holes and cavities in banks where the sun falls warm. In
+such places he may find dormant spiders and flies and other hibernating
+insects or their larvae. We have a tiny, mosquito-like creature that
+comes forth in March or in midwinter, as soon as the temperature is a
+little above freezing. One may see them performing their fantastic
+air-dances when the air is so chilly that one buttons his overcoat about
+him in his walk. They are darker than the mosquito,--a sort of dark
+water-color,--and are very frail to the touch. Maybe the wren knows the
+hiding-place of these insects.
+
+
+
+
+THE CEDAR-BIRD
+
+
+How alert and vigilant the birds are, even when absorbed in building
+their nests! In an open space in the woods I see a pair of cedar-birds
+collecting moss from the top of a dead tree. Following the direction in
+which they fly, I soon discover the nest placed in the fork of a small
+soft maple, which stands amid a thick growth of wild cherry-trees and
+young beeches. Carefully concealing myself beneath it, without any fear
+that the workmen will hit me with a chip or let fall a tool, I await the
+return of the busy pair. Presently I hear the well-known note, and the
+female sweeps down and settles unsuspectingly into the half-finished
+structure. Hardly have her wings rested before her eye has penetrated my
+screen, and with a hurried movement of alarm she darts away. In a moment
+the male, with a tuft of wool in his beak (for there is a sheep pasture
+near), joins her, and the two reconnoitre the premises from the
+surrounding bushes. With their beaks still loaded, they flit round with
+a frightened look, and refuse to approach the nest till I have moved off
+and lain down behind a log. Then one of them ventures to alight upon
+the nest, but, still suspecting all is not right, quickly darts away
+again. Then they both together come, and after much peeping and spying
+about, and apparently much anxious consultation, cautiously proceed to
+work. In less than half an hour it would seem that wool enough has been
+brought to supply the whole family, real and prospective, with socks, if
+needles and fingers could be found fine enough to knit it up. In less
+than a week the female has begun to deposit her eggs,--four of them in
+as many days,--white tinged with purple, with black spots on the larger
+end. After two weeks of incubation the young are out.
+
+Excepting the American goldfinch, this bird builds later in the season
+than any other, its nest, in our northern climate, seldom being
+undertaken till July. As with the goldfinch, the reason is, probably,
+that suitable food for the young cannot be had at an earlier period.
+
+I knew a pair of cedar-birds, one season, to build in an apple-tree, the
+branches of which rubbed against the house. For a day or two before the
+first straw was laid, I noticed the pair carefully exploring every
+branch of the tree, the female taking the lead, the male following her
+with an anxious note and look. It was evident that the wife was to have
+her choice this time; and, like one who thoroughly knew her mind, she
+was proceeding to take it. Finally the site was chosen upon a high
+branch, extending over one low wing of the house. Mutual congratulations
+and caresses followed, when both birds flew away in quest of
+building-material. That most freely used is a sort of cotton-bearing
+plant which grows in old worn-out fields. The nest is large for the size
+of the bird, and very soft. It is in every respect a first-class
+domicile.
+
+The cedar-bird is the most silent bird we have. Our neutral-tinted
+birds, like him, as a rule are our finest songsters; but he has no song
+or call, uttering only a fine bead-like note on taking flight. This note
+is the cedar-berry rendered back in sound. When the ox-heart cherries,
+which he has only recently become acquainted with, have had time to
+enlarge his pipe and warm his heart, I shall expect more music from him.
+But in lieu of music, what a pretty compensation are those minute,
+almost artificial-like, plumes of orange and vermilion that tip the ends
+of his wing quills! Nature could not give him these and a song too.
+
+
+
+
+THE GOLDFINCH
+
+
+About the most noticeable bird of August in New York and New England is
+the yellowbird, or goldfinch. This is one of the last birds to nest,
+seldom hatching its eggs till late in July. It seems as if a particular
+kind of food were required to rear its brood, which cannot be had at an
+earlier date. The seed of the common thistle is apparently its mainstay.
+There is no prettier sight at this season than a troop of young
+goldfinches, led by their parents, going from thistle to thistle along
+the roadside and pulling the ripe heads to pieces for the seed. The
+plaintive call of the young is one of the characteristic August sounds.
+Their nests are frequently destroyed, or the eggs thrown from them, by
+the terrific July thunder-showers. Last season a pair had a nest on the
+slender branch of a maple in front of the door of the house where I was
+staying. The eggs were being deposited, and the happy pair had a loving
+conversation about them many times each day, when one afternoon a very
+violent storm arose which made the branches of the trees stream out like
+wildly disheveled hair, quite turning over those on the windward side,
+and emptying the pretty nest of its eggs. In such cases the birds build
+anew,--a delay that may bring the incubation into August.
+
+It is a deep, snug, compact nest, with no loose ends hanging, placed in
+the fork of a small limb of an apple-tree, a peach-tree, or an
+ornamental shade-tree. The eggs are faint bluish-white.
+
+While the female is sitting, the male feeds her regularly. She calls to
+him on his approach, or when she hears his voice passing by, in the most
+affectionate, feminine, childlike tones, the only case I know where the
+sitting bird makes any sound while in the act of incubation. When a
+rival male invades the tree, or approaches too near, the male whose nest
+it holds pursues and reasons or expostulates with him in the same
+bright, amicable, confiding tones. Indeed, most birds make use of their
+sweetest notes in war. The song of love is the song of battle too. The
+male yellowbirds flit about from point to point, apparently assuring
+each other of the highest sentiments of esteem and consideration, at the
+same time that one intimates to the other that he is carrying his joke a
+little too far. It has the effect of saying with mild and good-humored
+surprise, "Why, my dear sir, this is my territory; you surely do not
+mean to trespass; permit me to salute you, and to escort you over the
+line." Yet the intruder does not always take the hint. Occasionally the
+couple have a brief sparring-match in the air, and mount up and up, beak
+to beak, to a considerable height, but rarely do they actually come to
+blows.
+
+The yellowbird becomes active and conspicuous after the other birds have
+nearly all withdrawn from the stage and become silent, their broods
+reared and flown. August is his month, his festive season. It is his
+turn now. The thistles are ripening their seeds, and his nest is
+undisturbed by jay-bird or crow. He is the first bird I hear in the
+morning, circling and swinging through the air in that peculiar
+undulating flight, and calling out on the downward curve of each stroke,
+"Here we go, here we go!" Every hour in the day he indulges in his
+circling, billowy flight. It is a part of his musical performance. His
+course at such times is a deeply undulating line, like the long, gentle
+roll of the summer sea, the distance from crest to crest or from valley
+to valley being probably thirty feet; this distance is made with but one
+brief beating of the wings on the downward curve. As he quickly opens
+them, they give him a strong upward impulse, and he describes the long
+arc with them closely folded. Thus, falling and recovering, rising and
+sinking like dolphins in the sea, he courses through the summer air. In
+marked contrast to this feat is his manner of flying when he indulges in
+a brief outburst of song on the wing. Now he flies level, with broad
+expanded wings nearly as round and as concave as two shells, which beat
+the air slowly. The song is the chief matter now, and the wings are used
+only to keep him afloat while delivering it. In the other case, the
+flight is the main concern, and the voice merely punctuates it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Among our familiar birds the matchmaking of none other is quite so
+pretty as that of the goldfinch. The goldfinches stay with us in loose
+flocks and clad in a dull-olive suit throughout the winter. In May the
+males begin to put on their bright summer plumage. This is the result of
+a kind of superficial moulting. Their feathers are not shed, but their
+dusky covering or overalls are cast off. When the process is only partly
+completed, the bird has a smutty, unpresentable appearance. But we
+seldom see them at such times. They seem to retire from society. When
+the change is complete, and the males have got their bright uniforms of
+yellow and black, the courting begins. All the goldfinches of a
+neighborhood collect together and hold a sort of musical festival. To
+the number of many dozens they may be seen in some large tree, all
+singing and calling in the most joyous and vivacious manner. The males
+sing, and the females chirp and call. Whether there is actual
+competition on a trial of musical abilities of the males before the
+females or not, I do not know. The best of feeling seems to pervade the
+company; there is no sign of quarreling or fighting; "all goes merry as
+a marriage bell," and the matches seem actually to be made during these
+musical picnics. Before May is passed the birds are seen in couples, and
+in June housekeeping usually begins. This I call the ideal of
+love-making among birds, and is in striking contrast to the squabbles
+and jealousies of most of our songsters.
+
+I have known the goldfinches to keep up this musical and love-making
+festival through three consecutive days of a cold northeast rainstorm.
+Bedraggled, but ardent and happy, the birds were not to be dispersed by
+wind or weather.
+
+
+
+
+THE HEN-HAWK[1]
+
+
+August is the month of the high-sailing hawks. The hen-hawk is the most
+noticeable. He likes the haze and calm of these long, warm days. He is a
+bird of leisure, and seems always at his ease. How beautiful and
+majestic are his movements! So self-poised and easy, such an entire
+absence of haste, such a magnificent amplitude of circles and spirals,
+such a haughty, imperial grace, and, occasionally, such daring aerial
+evolutions!
+
+With slow, leisurely movement, rarely vibrating his pinions, he mounts
+and mounts in an ascending spiral till he appears a mere speck against
+the summer sky; then, if the mood seizes him, with wings half closed,
+like a bent bow, he will cleave the air almost perpendicularly, as if
+intent on dashing himself to pieces against the earth; but on nearing
+the ground he suddenly mounts again on broad, expanded wing, as if
+rebounding upon the air, and sails leisurely away. It is the sublimest
+feat of the season. One holds his breath till he sees him rise again.
+
+If inclined to a more gradual and less precipitous descent, he fixes
+his eye on some distant point in the earth beneath him, and thither
+bends his course. He is still almost meteoric in his speed and boldness.
+You see his path down the heavens, straight as a line; if near, you hear
+the rush of his wings; his shadow hurtles across the fields, and in an
+instant you see him quietly perched upon some low tree or decayed stub
+in a swamp or meadow, with reminiscences of frogs and mice stirring in
+his maw.
+
+When the south wind blows, it is a study to see three or four of these
+air-kings at the head of the valley far up toward the mountain,
+balancing and oscillating upon the strong current; now quite stationary,
+except for a slight tremulous motion like the poise of a rope-dancer,
+then rising and falling in long undulations, and seeming to resign
+themselves passively to the wind; or, again, sailing high and level far
+above the mountain's peak, no bluster and haste, but, as stated,
+occasionally a terrible earnestness and speed. Fire at one as he sails
+overhead, and, unless wounded badly, he will not change his course or
+gait.
+
+The calmness and dignity of this hawk, when attacked by crows or the
+kingbird, are well worthy of him. He seldom deigns to notice his noisy
+and furious antagonists, but deliberately wheels about in that aerial
+spiral, and mounts and mounts till his pursuers grow dizzy and return to
+earth again. It is quite original, this mode of getting rid of an
+unworthy opponent,--rising to heights where the braggart is dazed and
+bewildered and loses his reckoning! I am not sure but it is worthy of
+imitation.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] The red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks are both called hen-hawks.
+
+
+
+
+THE RUFFED GROUSE, OR PARTRIDGE
+
+
+Whir! whir! whir! and a brood of half-grown partridges start up like an
+explosion, a few paces from me, and, scattering, disappear into the
+bushes on all sides. Let me sit down here behind the screen of ferns and
+briers, and hear this wild hen of the woods call together her brood. At
+what an early age the partridge flies! Nature seems to concentrate her
+energies on the wing, making the safety of the bird a point to be looked
+after first; and while the body is covered with down, and no signs of
+feathers are visible there, the wing-quills sprout and unfold, and in an
+incredibly short time the young make fair headway in flying.
+
+Hark! there arises over there in the brush a soft, persuasive cooing, a
+sound so subtle and wild and unobtrusive that it requires the most alert
+and watchful ear to hear it. How gentle and solicitous and full of
+yearning love! It is the voice of the mother hen. Presently a faint
+timid "Yeap!" which almost eludes the ear, is heard in various
+directions,--the young responding. As no danger seems near, the cooing
+of the parent bird is soon a very audible clucking call, and the young
+move cautiously in that direction. Let me step never so carefully from
+my hiding-place, and all sounds instantly cease, and I search in vain
+for either parent or young.
+
+The partridge is one of our native and most characteristic birds. The
+woods seem good to be in where I find him. He gives a habitable air to
+the forest, and one feels as if the rightful occupant were really at
+home. The woods where I do not find him seem to want something, as if
+suffering from some neglect of Nature. And then he is such a splendid
+success, so hardy and vigorous. I think he enjoys the cold and the snow.
+His wings seem to rustle with more fervency in midwinter. If the snow
+falls very fast, and promises a heavy storm, he will complacently sit
+down and allow himself to be snowed under. When you approach him at such
+times, he suddenly bursts out of the snow at your feet, scattering the
+flakes in all directions, and goes humming away through the woods like a
+bomb-shell,--a picture of native spirit and success.
+
+His drum is one of the most welcome and beautiful sounds of spring.
+Scarcely have the trees expanded their buds, when, in the still April
+mornings, or toward nightfall, you hear the hum of his devoted wings. He
+selects, not, as you would predict, a dry and resinous log, but a
+decayed and crumbling one, seeming to give the preference to old
+oak-logs that are partly blended with the soil. If a log to his taste
+cannot be found, he sets up his altar on a rock, which becomes resonant
+beneath his fervent blows. Who has seen the partridge drum? It is the
+next thing to catching a weasel asleep, though by much caution and tact
+it may be done. He does not hug the log, but stands very erect, expands
+his ruff, gives two introductory blows, pauses half a second, and then
+resumes, striking faster and faster till the sound becomes a continuous,
+unbroken whir, the whole lasting less than half a minute. The tips of
+his wings barely brush the log, so that the sound is produced rather by
+the force of the blows upon the air and upon his own body as in flying.
+One log will be used for many years, though not by the same drummer. It
+seems to be a sort of temple and held in great respect. The bird always
+approaches on foot, and leaves it in the same quiet manner, unless
+rudely disturbed. He is very cunning, though his wit is not profound. It
+is difficult to approach him by stealth; you will try many times before
+succeeding; but seem to pass by him in a great hurry, making all the
+noise possible, and with plumage furled he stands as immovable as a
+knot, allowing you a good view.
+
+The sharp-rayed track of the partridge adds another figure to the
+fantastic embroidery upon the winter snow. Her course is a clear, strong
+line, sometimes quite wayward, but generally very direct, steering for
+the densest, most impenetrable places,--leading you over logs and
+through brush, alert and expectant, till, suddenly, she bursts up a few
+yards from you, and goes humming through the trees,--the complete
+triumph of endurance and vigor. Hardy native bird, may your tracks never
+be fewer, or your visits to the birch-tree less frequent!
+
+
+THE PARTRIDGE
+
+    List the booming from afar,
+      Soft as hum of roving bee,
+    Vague as when on distant bar
+      Fall the cataracts of the sea.
+
+    Yet again, a sound astray,
+      Was it the humming of the mill?
+    Was it cannon leagues away?
+      Or dynamite beyond the hill?
+
+    'T is the grouse with kindled soul,
+      Wistful of his mate and nest,
+    Sounding forth his vernal roll
+      On his love-enkindled breast.
+
+    List his fervid morning drum,
+      List his summons soft and deep,
+    Calling Spice-bush till she come,
+      Waking Bloodroot from her sleep.
+
+    Ah! ruffled drummer, let thy wing
+      Beat a march the days will heed,
+    Wake and spur the tardy spring,
+    Till minstrel voices jocund ring,
+      And spring is spring in very deed.
+
+
+
+
+THE CROW
+
+
+The crow may not have the sweet voice which the fox in his flattery
+attributed to him, but he has a good, strong, native speech
+nevertheless. How much character there is in it! How much thrift and
+independence! Of course his plumage is firm, his color decided, his wit
+quick. He understands you at once and tells you so; so does the hawk by
+his scornful, defiant _whir-r-r-r-r_. Hardy, happy outlaws, the crows,
+how I love them! Alert, social, republican, always able to look out for
+himself, not afraid of the cold and the snow, fishing when flesh is
+scarce, and stealing when other resources fail, the crow is a character
+I would not willingly miss from the landscape. I love to see his track
+in the snow or the mud, and his graceful pedestrianism about the brown
+fields.
+
+He is no interloper, but has the air and manner of being thoroughly at
+home, and in rightful possession of the land. He is no sentimentalist
+like some of the plaining, disconsolate song-birds, but apparently is
+always in good health and good spirits. No matter who is sick, or
+dejected, or unsatisfied, or what the weather is, or what the price of
+corn, the crow is well and finds life sweet. He is the dusky embodiment
+of worldly wisdom and prudence. Then he is one of Nature's
+self-appointed constables and greatly magnifies his office. He would
+fain arrest every hawk or owl or grimalkin that ventures abroad. I have
+known a posse of them to beset the fox and cry "Thief!" till Reynard hid
+himself for shame. Do I say the fox flattered the crow when he told him
+he had a sweet voice? Yet one of the most musical sounds in nature
+proceeds from the crow. All the crow tribe, from the blue jay up, are
+capable of certain low ventriloquial notes that have peculiar cadence
+and charm. I often hear the crow indulging in his in winter, and am
+reminded of the sound of the dulcimer. The bird stretches up and exerts
+himself like a cock in the act of crowing, and gives forth a peculiarly
+clear, vitreous sound that is sure to arrest and reward your attention.
+This is, no doubt, the song the fox begged to be favored with, as in
+delivering it the crow must inevitably let drop the piece of meat.
+
+The crow has fine manners. He always has the walk and air of a lord of
+the soil. One morning I put out some fresh meat upon the snow near my
+study window. Presently a crow came and carried it off, and alighted
+with it upon the ground in the vineyard. While he was eating it,
+another crow came, and, alighting a few yards away, slowly walked up to
+within a few feet of this fellow and stopped. I expected to see a
+struggle over the food, as would have been the case with domestic fowls
+or animals. Nothing of the kind. The feeding crow stopped eating,
+regarded the other for a moment, made a gesture or two, and flew away.
+Then the second crow went up to the food, and proceeded to take his
+share. Presently the first crow came back, when each seized a portion of
+the food and flew away with it. Their mutual respect and good-will
+seemed perfect. Whether it really was so in our human sense, or whether
+it was simply an illustration of the instinct of mutual support which
+seems to prevail among gregarious birds, I know not. Birds that are
+solitary in their habits, like hawks or woodpeckers, behave quite
+differently toward each other in the presence of their food.
+
+The crow will quickly discover anything that looks like a trap or snare
+set to catch him, but it takes him a long time to see through the
+simplest contrivance. As I have above stated, I sometimes place meat on
+the snow in front of my study window to attract him. On one occasion,
+after a couple of crows had come to expect something there daily, I
+suspended a piece of meat by a string from a branch of the tree just
+over the spot where I usually placed the food. A crow soon discovered
+it, and came into the tree to see what it meant. His suspicions were
+aroused. There was some design in that suspended meat, evidently. It was
+a trap to catch him. He surveyed it from every near branch. He peeked
+and pried, and was bent on penetrating the mystery. He flew to the
+ground, and walked about and surveyed it from all sides. Then he took a
+long walk down about the vineyard as if in hope of hitting upon some
+clew. Then he came to the tree again, and tried first one eye, then the
+other, upon it; then to the ground beneath; then he went away and came
+back; then his fellow came, and they both squinted and investigated, and
+then disappeared. Chickadees and woodpeckers would alight upon the meat
+and peck it swinging in the wind, but the crows were fearful. Does this
+show reflection? Perhaps it does, but I look upon it rather as that
+instinct of fear and cunning so characteristic of the crow. Two days
+passed thus: every morning the crows came and surveyed the suspended
+meat from all points in the tree, and then went away. The third day I
+placed a large bone on the snow beneath the suspended morsel. Presently
+one of the crows appeared in the tree, and bent his eye upon the
+tempting bone. "The mystery deepens," he seemed to say to himself. But
+after half an hour's investigation, and after approaching several times
+within a few feet of the food upon the ground, he seemed to conclude
+there was no connection between it and the piece hanging by the string.
+So he finally walked up to it and fell to pecking it, flickering his
+wings all the time, as a sign of his watchfulness. He also turned up his
+eye, momentarily, to the piece in the air above, as if it might be some
+disguised sword of Damocles ready to fall upon him. Soon his mate came
+and alighted on a low branch of the tree. The feeding crow regarded him
+a moment, and then flew up to his side, as if to give him a turn at the
+meat. But he refused to run the risk. He evidently looked upon the whole
+thing as a delusion and a snare, and presently went away, and his mate
+followed him. Then I placed the bone in one of the main forks of the
+tree, but the crows kept at a safe distance from it. Then I put it back
+to the ground, but they grew more and more suspicious; some evil intent
+in it all, they thought. Finally a dog carried off the bone, and the
+crows ceased to visit the tree.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From my boyhood I have seen the yearly meeting of the crows in September
+or October, on a high grassy hill or a wooded ridge. Apparently, all
+the crows from a large area assemble at these times; you may see them
+coming, singly or in loose bands, from all directions to the rendezvous,
+till there are hundreds of them together. They make black an acre or two
+of ground. At intervals they all rise in the air, and wheel about, all
+cawing at once. Then to the ground again, or to the tree-tops, as the
+case may be; then, rising again, they send forth the voice of the
+multitude. What does it all mean? I notice that this rally is always
+preliminary to their going into winter quarters. It would be interesting
+to know just the nature of the communication that takes place between
+them.
+
+
+THE CROW
+
+
+I
+
+    My friend and neighbor through the year,
+    Self-appointed overseer
+
+    Of my crops of fruit and grain,
+    Of my woods and furrowed plain,
+
+    Claim thy tithings right and left,
+    I shall never call it theft.
+
+    Nature wisely made the law,
+    And I fail to find a flaw
+
+    In thy title to the earth,
+    And all it holds of any worth.
+
+    I like thy self-complacent air,
+    I like thy ways so free from care,
+
+    Thy landlord stroll about my fields,
+    Quickly noting what each yields;
+
+    Thy courtly mien and bearing bold,
+    As if thy claim were bought with gold;
+
+    Thy floating shape against the sky,
+    When days are calm and clouds are high;
+
+    Thy thrifty flight ere rise of sun,
+    Thy homing clans when day is done.
+
+    Hues protective are not thine,
+    So sleek thy coat each quill doth shine.
+
+    Diamond black to end of toe,
+    Thy counterpoint the crystal snow.
+
+
+II
+
+    Never plaintive nor appealing,
+    Quite at home when thou art stealing,
+
+    Always groomed to tip of feather,
+    Calm and trim in every weather,
+
+    Morn till night my woods policing,
+    Every sound thy watch increasing.
+
+    Hawk and owl in tree-top hiding
+    Feel the shame of thy deriding.
+
+    Naught escapes thy observation,
+    None but dread thy accusation.
+
+
+III
+
+    Hunters, prowlers, woodland lovers
+    Vainly seek the leafy covers.
+
+    Noisy, scheming, and predacious,
+    With demeanor almost gracious,
+
+    Dowered with leisure, void of hurry,
+    Void of fuss and void of worry,
+
+    Friendly bandit, Robin Hood,
+    Judge and jury of the wood,
+
+    Or Captain Kidd of sable quill,
+    Hiding treasures in the hill,
+
+    Nature made thee for each season,
+    Gave thee wit for ample reason,
+
+    Good crow wit that's always burnished
+    Like the coat her care has furnished.
+
+    May thy numbers ne'er diminish!
+    I'll befriend thee till life's finish.
+
+    May I never cease to meet thee!
+    May I never have to eat thee!
+
+    And mayest thou never have to fare so
+    That thou playest the part of scarecrow!
+
+
+
+
+THE NORTHERN SHRIKE
+
+
+Usually the character of a bird of prey is well defined; there is no
+mistaking him. His claws, his beak, his head, his wings, in fact his
+whole build, point to the fact that he subsists upon live creatures; he
+is armed to catch them and to slay them. Every bird knows a hawk and
+knows him from the start, and is on the lookout for him. The hawk takes
+life, but he does it to maintain his own, and it is a public and
+universally known fact. Nature has sent him abroad in that character,
+and has advised all creatures of it. Not so with the shrike; here she
+has concealed the character of a murderer under a form as innocent as
+that of the robin. Feet, wings, tail, color, head, and general form and
+size are all those of a song-bird,--very much like that master songster,
+the mockingbird,--yet this bird is a regular Bluebeard among its kind.
+Its only characteristic feature is its beak, the upper mandible having
+two sharp processes and a sharp hooked point. It usually impales its
+victim upon a thorn, or thrusts it in the fork of a limb. For the most
+part, however, its food seems to consist of insects,--spiders,
+grasshoppers, beetles, etc. It is the assassin of the small birds, whom
+it often destroys in pure wantonness, or merely to sup on their brains,
+as the Gaucho slaughters a wild cow or bull for its tongue. It is a wolf
+in sheep's clothing. Apparently its victims are unacquainted with its
+true character and allow it to approach them, when the fatal blow is
+given. I saw an illustration of this the other day. A large number of
+goldfinches in their fall plumage, together with snowbirds and sparrows,
+were feeding and chattering in some low bushes back of the barn. I had
+paused by the fence and was peeping through at them, hoping to get a
+glimpse of that rare sparrow, the white-crowned. Presently I heard a
+rustling among the dry leaves as if some larger bird were also among
+them. Then I heard one of the goldfinches cry out as if in distress,
+when the whole flock of them started up in alarm, and, circling around,
+settled in the tops of the larger trees. I continued my scrutiny of the
+bushes, when I saw a large bird, with some object in its beak, hopping
+along on a low branch near the ground. It disappeared from my sight for
+a few moments, then came up through the undergrowth into the top of a
+young maple where some of the finches had alighted, and I beheld the
+shrike. The little birds avoided him and flew about the tree, their
+pursuer following them with the motions of his head and body as if he
+would fain arrest them by his murderous gaze. The birds did not utter
+the cry or make the demonstration of alarm they usually do on the
+appearance of a hawk, but chirruped and called and flew about in a half
+wondering, half bewildered manner. As they flew farther along the line
+of trees the shrike followed them as if bent on further captures. I then
+made my way around to see what the shrike had caught, and what he had
+done with his prey. As I approached the bushes I saw the shrike
+hastening back. I read his intentions at once. Seeing my movements, he
+had returned for his game. But I was too quick for him, and he got up
+out of the brush and flew away from the locality. On some twigs in the
+thickest part of the bushes I found his victim,--a goldfinch. It was not
+impaled upon a thorn, but was carefully disposed upon some horizontal
+twigs,--laid upon the shelf, so to speak. It was as warm as in life, and
+its plumage was unruffled. On examining it I found a large bruise or
+break in the skin on the back of the neck, at the base of the skull.
+Here the bandit had no doubt gripped the bird with his strong beak. The
+shrike's bloodthirstiness was seen in the fact that he did not stop to
+devour his prey, but went in quest of more, as if opening a market of
+goldfinches. The thicket was his shambles, and if not interrupted, he
+might have had a fine display of titbits in a short time.
+
+The shrike is called a butcher from his habit of sticking his meat upon
+hooks and points; further than that, he is a butcher because he devours
+but a trifle of what he slays.
+
+
+
+
+THE SCREECH OWL
+
+
+At one point in the grayest, most shaggy part of the woods, I come
+suddenly upon a brood of screech owls, full grown, sitting together upon
+a dry, moss-draped limb, but a few feet from the ground. I pause within
+four or five yards of them and am looking about me, when my eye lights
+upon these gray, motionless figures. They sit perfectly upright, some
+with their backs and some with their breasts toward me, but every head
+turned squarely in my direction. Their eyes are closed to a mere black
+line; through this crack they are watching me, evidently thinking
+themselves unobserved. The spectacle is weird and grotesque, and
+suggests something impish and uncanny. It is a new effect, the night
+side of the woods by daylight. After observing them a moment I take a
+single step toward them, when, quick as thought, their eyes fly wide
+open, their attitude is changed, they bend, some this way, some that,
+and, instinct with life and motion, stare wildly around them. Another
+step, and they all take flight but one, which stoops low on the branch,
+and with the look of a frightened cat regards me for a few seconds over
+its shoulder. They fly swiftly and softly, and disperse through the
+trees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A winter neighbor of mine, in whom I am interested, and who perhaps
+lends me his support after his kind, is a little red owl, whose retreat
+is in the heart of an old apple-tree just over the fence. Where he keeps
+himself in spring and summer, I do not know, but late every fall, and at
+intervals all winter, his hiding-place is discovered by the jays and
+nuthatches, and proclaimed from the tree-tops for the space of half an
+hour or so, with all the powers of voice they can command. Four times
+during one winter they called me out to behold this little ogre feigning
+sleep in his den, sometimes in one apple-tree, sometimes in another.
+Whenever I heard their cries, I knew my neighbor was being berated. The
+birds would take turns at looking in upon him, and uttering their
+alarm-notes. Every jay within hearing would come to the spot, and at
+once approach the hole in the trunk or limb, and with a kind of
+breathless eagerness and excitement take a peep at the owl, and then
+join the outcry. When I approached they would hastily take a final look,
+and then withdraw and regard my movements intently. After accustoming my
+eye to the faint light of the cavity for a few moments, I could usually
+make out the owl at the bottom feigning sleep. Feigning, I say, because
+this is what he really did, as I first discovered one day when I cut
+into his retreat with the axe. The loud blows and the falling chips did
+not disturb him at all. When I reached in a stick and pulled him over on
+his side, leaving one of his wings spread out, he made no attempt to
+recover himself, but lay among the chips and fragments of decayed wood,
+like a part of themselves. Indeed, it took a sharp eye to distinguish
+him. Not till I had pulled him forth by one wing, rather rudely, did he
+abandon his trick of simulated sleep or death. Then, like a detected
+pickpocket, he was suddenly transformed into another creature. His eyes
+flew wide open, his talons clutched my finger, his ears were depressed,
+and every motion and look said, "Hands off, at your peril." Finding this
+game did not work, he soon began to "play possum" again. I put a cover
+over my study wood-box and kept him captive for a week. Look in upon him
+at any time, night or day, and he was apparently wrapped in the
+profoundest slumber; but the live mice which I put into his box from
+time to time found his sleep was easily broken; there would be a sudden
+rustle in the box, a faint squeak, and then silence. After a week of
+captivity I gave him his freedom in the full sunshine; no trouble for
+him to see which way and where to go.
+
+Just at dusk in the winter nights, I often hear his soft _bur-r-r-r_,
+very pleasing and bell-like. What a furtive, woody sound it is in the
+winter stillness, so unlike the harsh scream of the hawk! But all the
+ways of the owl are ways of softness and duskiness. His wings are shod
+with silence, his plumage is edged with down.
+
+Another owl neighbor of mine, with whom I pass the time of day more
+frequently than with the last, lives farther away. I pass his castle
+every night on my way to the post-office, and in winter, if the hour is
+late enough, am pretty sure to see him standing in his doorway,
+surveying the passers-by and the landscape through narrow slits in his
+eyes. For four successive winters now have I observed him. As the
+twilight begins to deepen, he rises up out of his cavity in the
+apple-tree, scarcely faster than the moon rises from behind the hill,
+and sits in the opening, completely framed by its outlines of gray bark
+and dead wood, and by his protective coloring virtually invisible to
+every eye that does not know he is there. Probably my own is the only
+eye that has ever penetrated his secret, and mine never would have done
+so had I not chanced on one occasion to see him leave his retreat and
+make a raid upon a shrike that was impaling a shrew-mouse upon a thorn
+in a neighboring tree, and which I was watching. I was first advised of
+the owl's presence by seeing him approaching swiftly on silent, level
+wing. The shrike did not see him till the owl was almost within the
+branches. He then dropped his game, and darted back into the thick
+cover, uttering a loud, discordant squawk, as one would say, "Scat!
+scat! scat!" The owl alighted, and was, perhaps, looking about him for
+the shrike's impaled game, when I drew near. On seeing me, he reversed
+his movement precipitately, flew straight back to the old tree, and
+alighted in the entrance to the cavity. As I approached, he did not so
+much seem to move as to diminish in size, like an object dwindling in
+the distance; he depressed his plumage, and, with his eye fixed upon me,
+began slowly to back and sidle into his retreat till he faded from my
+sight. The shrike wiped his beak upon the branches, cast an eye down at
+me and at his lost mouse, and then flew away.
+
+A few nights afterward, as I passed that way, I saw the little owl again
+sitting in his doorway, waiting for the twilight to deepen, and
+undisturbed by the passers-by; but when I paused to observe him, he saw
+that he was discovered, and he slunk back into his den as on the former
+occasion. Ever since, while going that way, I have been on the lookout
+for him. Dozens of teams and foot-passengers pass him late in the day,
+but he regards them not, nor they him. When I come along and pause to
+salute him, he opens his eyes a little wider, and, appearing to
+recognize me, quickly shrinks and fades into the background of his door
+in a very weird and curious manner. When he is not at his outlook, or
+when he is, it requires the best powers of the eye to decide the point,
+as the empty cavity itself is almost an exact image of him. If the whole
+thing had been carefully studied, it could not have answered its purpose
+better. The owl stands quite perpendicular, presenting a front of light
+mottled gray; the eyes are closed to a mere slit, the ear-feathers
+depressed, the beak buried in the plumage, and the whole attitude is one
+of silent, motionless waiting and observation. If a mouse should be seen
+crossing the highway, or scudding over any exposed part of the snowy
+surface in the twilight, the owl would doubtless swoop down upon it. I
+think the owl has learned to distinguish me from the rest of the
+passers-by; at least, when I stop before him, and he sees himself
+observed, he backs down into his den, as I have said, in a very amusing
+manner.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHICKADEE
+
+
+The chickadees we have always with us. They are like the evergreens
+among trees and plants. Winter has no terrors for them. They are
+properly wood-birds, but the groves and orchards know them also. Did
+they come near my cabin for better protection, or did they chance to
+find a little cavity in a tree there that suited them? Branch-builders
+and ground-builders are easily accommodated, but the chickadee must find
+a cavity, and a small one at that. The woodpeckers make a cavity when a
+suitable trunk or branch is found, but the chickadee, with its small,
+sharp beak, rarely does so; it usually smooths and deepens one already
+formed. This a pair did a few yards from my cabin. The opening was into
+the heart of a little sassafras, about four feet from the ground. Day
+after day the birds took turns in deepening and enlarging the cavity: a
+soft, gentle hammering for a few moments in the heart of the little
+tree, and then the appearance of the worker at the opening, with the
+chips in his, or her, beak. They changed off every little while, one
+working while the other gathered food. Absolute equality of the sexes,
+both in plumage and in duties, seems to prevail among these birds, as
+among a few other species. During the preparations for housekeeping the
+birds were hourly seen and heard, but as soon as the first egg was laid,
+all this was changed. They suddenly became very shy and quiet. Had it
+not been for the new egg that was added each day, one would have
+concluded that they had abandoned the place. There was a precious secret
+now that must be well kept. After incubation began, it was only by
+watching that I could get a glimpse of one of the birds as it came
+quickly to feed or to relieve the other.
+
+One day a lot of Vassar girls came to visit me, and I led them out to
+the little sassafras to see the chickadee's nest. The sitting bird kept
+her place as head after head, with its nodding plumes and millinery,
+appeared above the opening to her chamber, and a pair of inquisitive
+eyes peered down upon her. But I saw that she was getting ready to play
+her little trick to frighten them away. Presently I heard a faint
+explosion at the bottom of the cavity, when the peeping girl jerked her
+head quickly back, with the exclamation, "Why, it spit at me!" The trick
+of the bird on such occasions is apparently to draw in its breath till
+its form perceptibly swells, and then give forth a quick, explosive
+sound like an escaping jet of steam. One involuntarily closes his eyes
+and jerks back his head. The girls, to their great amusement, provoked
+the bird into this pretty outburst of her impatience two or three times.
+But as the ruse failed of its effect, the bird did not keep it up, but
+let the laughing faces gaze till they were satisfied.
+
+I was much interested in seeing a brood of chickadees, reared on my
+premises, venture upon their first flight. Their heads had been seen at
+the door of their dwelling--a cavity in the limb of a pear-tree--at
+intervals for two or three days. Evidently they liked the looks of the
+great outside world; and one evening, just before sundown, one of them
+came forth. His first flight was of several yards, to a locust, where he
+alighted upon an inner branch, and after some chirping and calling
+proceeded to arrange his plumage and compose himself for the night. I
+watched him till it was nearly dark. He did not appear at all afraid
+there alone in the tree, but put his head under his wing and settled
+down for the night as if it were just what he had always been doing.
+There was a heavy shower a few hours later, but in the morning he was
+there upon his perch in good spirits.
+
+I happened to be passing in the morning when another one came out. He
+hopped out upon a limb, shook himself, and chirped and called loudly.
+After some moments an idea seemed to strike him. His attitude changed,
+his form straightened up, and a thrill of excitement seemed to run
+through him. I knew what it all meant; something had whispered to the
+bird, "Fly!" With a spring and a cry he was in the air, and made good
+headway to a near hemlock. Others left in a similar manner during that
+day and the next, till all were out.
+
+
+
+
+THE DOWNY WOODPECKER
+
+
+The bird that seems to consider he has the best right to my hospitality
+is the downy woodpecker, my favorite neighbor among the winter birds.
+His retreat is but a few paces from my own, in the decayed limb of an
+apple-tree, which he excavated several autumns ago. I say "he" because
+the red plume on the top of his head proclaims the sex. It seems not to
+be generally known to our writers upon ornithology that certain of our
+woodpeckers--probably all the winter residents--each fall excavate a
+limb or the trunk of a tree in which to pass the winter, and that the
+cavity is abandoned in the spring, probably for a new one in which
+nidification takes place.
+
+The particular woodpecker to which I refer drilled his first hole in my
+apple-tree one fall four or five years ago. This he occupied till the
+following spring, when he abandoned it. The next fall he began a hole in
+an adjoining limb, later than before, and when it was about half
+completed a female took possession of his old quarters. I am sorry to
+say that this seemed to enrage the male very much, and he persecuted the
+poor bird whenever she appeared upon the scene. He would fly at her
+spitefully and drive her off. One chilly November morning, as I passed
+under the tree, I heard the hammer of the little architect in his
+cavity, and at the same time saw the persecuted female sitting at the
+entrance of the other hole as if she would fain come out. She was
+actually shivering, probably from both fear and cold. I understood the
+situation at a glance; the bird was afraid to come forth and brave the
+anger of the male. Not till I had rapped smartly upon the limb with my
+stick did she come out and attempt to escape; but she had not gone ten
+feet from the tree before the male was in hot pursuit, and in a few
+moments had driven her back to the same tree, where she tried to avoid
+him among the branches. There is probably no gallantry among the birds
+except at the mating season. I have frequently seen the male woodpecker
+drive the female away from the bone upon the tree. When she hopped
+around to the other end and timidly nibbled it, he would presently dart
+spitefully at her. She would then take up her position in his rear and
+wait till he had finished his meal. The position of the female among the
+birds is very much the same as that of women among savage tribes. Most
+of the drudgery of life falls upon her, and the leavings of the males
+are often her lot.
+
+[Illustration: DOWNY WOODPECKER]
+
+My bird is a genuine little savage, doubtless, but I value him as a
+neighbor. It is a satisfaction during the cold or stormy winter nights
+to know he is warm and cozy there in his retreat. When the day is bad
+and unfit to be abroad in, he is there too. When I wish to know if he is
+at home, I go and rap upon his tree, and, if he is not too lazy or
+indifferent, after some delay he shows his head in his round doorway
+about ten feet above, and looks down inquiringly upon me--sometimes
+latterly I think half resentfully, as much as to say, "I would thank you
+not to disturb me so often." After sundown, he will not put his head out
+any more when I call, but as I step away I can get a glimpse of him
+inside looking cold and reserved. He is a late riser, especially if it
+is a cold or disagreeable morning, in this respect being like the barn
+fowls; it is sometimes near nine o'clock before I see him leave his
+tree. On the other hand, he comes home early, being in, if the day is
+unpleasant, by four P.M. He lives all alone; in this respect I do not
+commend his example. Where his mate is, I should like to know.
+
+I have discovered several other woodpeckers in adjoining orchards, each
+of which has a like home, and leads a like solitary life. One of them
+has excavated a dry limb within easy reach of my hand, doing the work
+also in September. But the choice of tree was not a good one; the limb
+was too much decayed, and the workman had made the cavity too large; a
+chip had come out, making a hole in the outer wall. Then he went a few
+inches down the limb and began again, and excavated a large, commodious
+chamber, but had again come too near the surface; scarcely more than the
+bark protected him in one place, and the limb was very much weakened.
+Then he made another attempt still farther down the limb, and drilled in
+an inch or two, but seemed to change his mind; the work stopped, and I
+concluded the bird had wisely abandoned the tree. Passing there one
+cold, rainy November day, I thrust in my two fingers and was surprised
+to feel something soft and warm: as I drew away my hand the bird came
+out, apparently no more surprised than I was. It had decided, then, to
+make its home in the old limb; a decision it had occasion to regret, for
+not long after, on a stormy night, the branch gave way and fell to the
+ground:--
+
+    "When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
+    And down will come baby and cradle and all."
+
+Another trait our woodpeckers have that endears them to me is their
+habit of drumming in the spring. They are songless birds, and yet all
+are musicians; they make the dry limbs eloquent of the coming change.
+Did you think that loud, sonorous hammering which proceeded from the
+orchard or from the near woods on that still March or April morning was
+only some bird getting its breakfast? It is Downy, but he is not rapping
+at the door of a grub; he is rapping at the door of spring, and the dry
+limb thrills beneath the ardor of his blows.
+
+A few seasons ago, a downy woodpecker, probably the individual one who
+is now my winter neighbor, began to drum early in March in a partly
+decayed apple-tree that stands in the edge of a narrow strip of woodland
+near me. When the morning was still and mild I would often hear him
+through my window before I was up, or by half-past six o'clock, and he
+would keep it up pretty briskly till nine or ten o'clock, in this
+respect resembling the grouse, which do most of their drumming in the
+forenoon. His drum was the stub of a dry limb about the size of one's
+wrist. The heart was decayed and gone, but the outer shell was hard and
+resonant. The bird would keep his position there for an hour at a time.
+Between his drummings he would preen his plumage and listen as if for
+the response of the female, or for the drum of some rival. How swiftly
+his head would go when he was delivering his blows upon the limb! His
+beak wore the surface perceptibly. When he wished to change the key,
+which was quite often, he would shift his position an inch or two to a
+knot which gave out a higher, shriller note. When I climbed up to
+examine his drum, he was much disturbed. I did not know he was in the
+vicinity, but it seems he saw me from a near tree, and came in haste to
+the neighboring branches, and with spread plumage and a sharp note
+demanded plainly enough what my business was with his drum. I was
+invading his privacy, desecrating his shrine, and the bird was much put
+out. After some weeks the female appeared; he had literally drummed up a
+mate; his urgent and oft-repeated advertisement was answered. Still the
+drumming did not cease, but was quite as fervent as before. If a mate
+could be won by drumming, she could be kept and entertained by more
+drumming; courtship should not end with marriage. If the bird felt
+musical before, of course he felt much more so now. Besides that, the
+gentle deities needed propitiating in behalf of the nest and young as
+well as in behalf of the mate. After a time a second female came, when
+there was war between the two. I did not see them come to blows, but I
+saw one female pursuing the other about the place, and giving her no
+rest for several days. She was evidently trying to run her out of the
+neighborhood. Now and then, she, too, would drum briefly, as if sending
+a triumphant message to her mate.
+
+The woodpeckers do not each have a particular dry limb to which they
+resort at all times to drum, like the one I have described. The woods
+are full of suitable branches, and they drum more or less here and there
+as they are in quest of food; yet I am convinced each one has its
+favorite spot, like the grouse, to which it resorts especially in the
+morning. The sugar-maker in the maple woods may notice that this sound
+proceeds from the same tree or trees about his camp with great
+regularity. A woodpecker in my vicinity has drummed for two seasons on a
+telegraph-pole, and he makes the wires and glass insulators ring.
+Another drums on a thin board on the end of a long grape-arbor, and on
+still mornings can be heard a long distance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I watch these woodpeckers daily to see if I can solve the mystery as to
+how they hop up and down the trunks and branches without falling away
+from them when they let go their hold. They come down a limb or trunk
+backward by a series of little hops, moving both feet together. If the
+limb is at an angle to the tree and they are on the under side of it,
+they do not fall away from it to get a new hold an inch or half-inch
+farther down. They are held to it as steel to a magnet. Both tail and
+head are involved in the feat. At the instant of making the hop the head
+is thrown in and the tail thrown out, but the exact mechanics of it I
+cannot penetrate. Philosophers do not yet know how a backward-falling
+cat turns in the air, but turn she does. It may be that the woodpecker
+never quite relaxes his hold, though to my eye he appears to do so.
+
+
+THE DOWNY WOODPECKER
+
+    Downy came and dwelt with me,
+      Taught me hermit lore;
+    Drilled his cell in oaken tree
+      Near my cabin door.
+
+    Architect of his own home
+      In the forest dim,
+    Carving its inverted dome
+      In a dozy limb.
+
+    Carved it deep and shaped it true
+      With his little bill;
+    Took no thought about the view,
+      Whether dale or hill.
+
+    Shook the chips upon the ground,
+      Careless who might see.
+    Hark! his hatchet's muffled sound
+      Hewing in the tree.
+
+    Round his door as compass-mark,
+      True and smooth his wall;
+    Just a shadow on the bark
+      Points you to his hall.
+
+    Downy leads a hermit life
+      All the winter through;
+    Free his days from jar and strife,
+      And his cares are few.
+
+    Waking up the frozen woods,
+      Shaking down the snows;
+    Many trees of many moods
+      Echo to his blows.
+
+    When the storms of winter rage,
+      Be it night or day,
+    Then I know my little page
+      Sleeps the time away.
+
+    Downy's stores are in the trees,
+      Egg and ant and grub;
+    Juicy tidbits, rich as cheese,
+      Hid in stump and stub.
+
+    Rat-tat-tat his chisel goes,
+      Cutting out his prey;
+    Every boring insect knows
+      When he comes its way.
+
+    Always rapping at their doors,
+      Never welcome he;
+    All his kind, they vote, are bores,
+      Whom they dread to see.
+
+    Why does Downy live alone
+      In his snug retreat?
+    Has he found that near the bone
+      Is the sweetest meat?
+
+    Birdie craved another fate
+      When the spring had come;
+    Advertised him for a mate
+      On his dry-limb drum.
+
+    Drummed her up and drew her near,
+      In the April morn,
+    Till she owned him for her dear
+      In his state forlorn.
+
+    Now he shirks all family cares,
+      This I must confess;
+    Quite absorbed in self affairs
+      In the season's stress.
+
+    We are neighbors well agreed
+      Of a common lot;
+    Peace and love our only creed
+      In this charmed spot.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+ Blackbird, cow. See Cowbird.
+
+ Bluebird, arrival in spring, 1;
+   nest-building, 1, 2;
+   young and cicada, 2, 3;
+   a bewildered pair, 3-7;
+   love and rivalry, 7-12;
+   war with house wrens, 47-52.
+
+ _Bluebird, The_, poem, 13.
+
+ Bobolink, courtship, 77, 78;
+   concealment of nest, 78-81.
+
+ _Bobolink, The_, poem, 82.
+
+ Bob-white. See Quail.
+
+ Butcher-bird. See Shrike, northern.
+
+
+ Catbird, song of, 72, 73;
+   and black snake, 73-76;
+   a coquette, 83.
+
+ Cedar-bird, nest-building, 122, 123;
+   notes of, 124.
+
+ Chewink, markings of, 39;
+   Thomas Jefferson writes to Alexander Wilson about, 39-41;
+   inhospitality of, 83.
+
+ Chickadee, nesting of, 157-160.
+
+ Chippy. See Sparrow, chipping.
+
+ _Coming of Ph[oe]be, The_, poem, 31.
+
+ Cowbird, notes of, 33;
+   parasitic habits of, 33-35.
+
+ Crow, character of, 138, 139;
+   manners of, 139, 140;
+   wariness of, 140-142;
+   yearly meeting, 142, 143.
+
+ _Crow, The_, poem, 144.
+
+
+ _Downy Woodpecker, The_, poem, 169.
+
+
+ Flicker, call of, 21;
+   courtship, 22, 25, 26;
+   not satisfied with being a woodpecker, 22, 23;
+   excavating a nest, 23;
+   young, 23-25;
+   drumming, 26, 27.
+
+
+ Goldfinch, nesting, 125, 126;
+   notes of, 126-128;
+   flight of, 127, 128;
+   musical festivals, 128, 129.
+
+ Grouse, ruffed, 133-136.
+
+
+ Hawk, marsh, habits of, 106;
+   nest of, 106-108;
+   young, 111, 112;
+   a pet young one, 112-117.
+
+ Hawk, red-shouldered. See Hen-hawk.
+
+ Hawk, red-tailed. See Hen-hawk.
+
+ Hen-hawk, flight of, 130-132.
+
+ High-hole. See Flicker.
+
+
+ Jefferson, Thomas, 39, 40.
+
+
+ Oriole, Baltimore, nests of, 91-94.
+
+ Oven-bird, walk of, 69;
+   the two songs of, 69, 70;
+   nest of, 70, 71.
+
+ Owl, screech, a brood, 151, 152;
+   two owl neighbors, 152-156;
+   a captive, 153;
+   note of, 154;
+   disappearing in his hole, 154-156.
+
+
+ Partridge, 133-136.
+
+ _Partridge, The_, poem, 137.
+
+ Ph[oe]be, arrival in spring, 28;
+   nests of, 29, 30.
+
+ _Ph[oe]be, The Coming of_, poem, 31.
+
+
+ Quail, on nest, 109-111.
+
+
+ Robin, arrival in spring, 15;
+   a graceful warrior, 16;
+   the "robin racket," 16, 17;
+   nest and young, 18, 19;
+   boring for grubs, 19, 20.
+
+
+ Shrike, northern, 147-150;
+   raided by a screech owl, 155.
+
+ Snake, black, and song sparrows, 55, 56;
+   and catbirds, 73-76.
+
+ Sparrow, chipping, trying to catch a miller, 36;
+   feeding young robins, 37, 38.
+
+ Sparrow, song, unsuccessful nestings, 53, 54;
+   and a black snake, 55, 56;
+   a risky experiment, 56-58;
+   a bob-tailed song sparrow's nest, 58-60.
+
+ Swallow, chimney. See Swift, chimney.
+
+ Swift, chimney, nest of, 61, 62;
+   flight of, 61, 62;
+   young, 63, 64;
+   outriding the storms, 64;
+   habits of, 64-66;
+   great gatherings and aerial evolutions of, 66-68.
+
+
+ Thrasher, brown, stealthiness of, 42;
+   nests of, 42-46;
+   skulking, 83.
+
+ Thrush, wood, grace and elegance of, 83, 84;
+   newspaper in nests, 84-86;
+   the song and the nests, 86, 87;
+   unsuccessful nestings, 87-89;
+   song contests, 89, 90.
+
+ Towhee. See Chewink.
+
+
+ Warbler, black-throated blue, a successful search for the nest
+           of, 100-105.
+
+ Whip-poor-will, eggs of, 95;
+   assimilative coloration of, 95, 97, 99;
+   young, 96;
+   gait of, 97;
+   song of, 97, 98;
+   an old bird with her young, 98, 99.
+
+ Wilson, Alexander, 39-41.
+
+ Woodpecker, downy, a winter neighbor, 161-164;
+   drumming, 164-167;
+   the mystery of his hopping up and down the trunks and
+             branches, 167, 168.
+
+ _Woodpecker, The Downy_, poem, 169.
+
+ Woodpecker, golden-winged. See Flicker.
+
+ Wren, house, song of, 47;
+   war with bluebirds, 47-52.
+
+ Wren, winter, in his summer home, 119, 120;
+   in winter, 120, 121.
+
+
+ Yarup. See Flicker.
+
+ Yellowbird. See Goldfinch.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Bird Stories from Burroughs, by John Burroughs
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