In Bird Land

IX.
MIDSUMMER MELODIES.

Several times has the statement been made in print that it is scarcely worth one’s while to attempt to study the birds during the midsummer months, the reason alleged being that at that time they are silent and inactive, and their behavior devoid of special interest. Now, nothing ministers so gratefully to the pride of the original investigator as to prove untrue the theories that have been advanced in books and that are current among scientific men. During the summer of 1891 I resolved to discover for myself what the birds were doing, and so, spite of drought, heat, and mosquitoes, I visited the haunts of my winged companions at least every other day. The result was a surprise to myself, proving that the unwisest thing a naturalist can do is to lay down absolute canons of conduct for feathered folk.

It is just possible that physical stupor, induced by the extreme heat of summer, has caused some ornithologists to observe carelessly and listlessly, and for that reason they have supposed that the birds were as languid as themselves; but the wide-awake student, who can brave heat and cold alike, will never find the feathered creation failing to repay the closest attention. Some birds are almost as active when the mercury is wrestling with the nineties as on the fairest day of May, and those are the ones to be studied in midsummer.

My special investigations began about the middle of July. It is true that at that time what are usually regarded as the songsters of the first class—the brown thrashers, wood-thrushes, cat-birds, and bobolinks—had gone into a conspiracy of silence, not a musical note coming from their throats, although some of them always remain in this latitude until far into September. But when the first-class minstrels are mute, one appreciates the minor vocalists all the more. Yet I must not omit to say that on the thirtieth of July I caught a fragment of a wood-thrush’s song, the last I heard for the season.

Let me recall one day in particular. It was the tenth of August, and the weather was broiling,—hot enough to drive the thermometer into hysterics, just the day to see how the heat would affect the feathered tenants of the groves; and so, overcoming my physical inertia as best I could, I stalked to the woods in the afternoon in quest of bird lore. With the perspiration running from every pore, I trudged about for some time without seeing or hearing a single bird. Were the books correct, after all? Was I to be deprived of the pleasure of proving them in error? It began to appear as if such might be the case. Presently, however, as I pushed out into a gap at one side of the woods, an uneasy chirping in the clumps of bushes and brambles near by sent a thrill of gladness through my veins. I felt intuitively that there were birds in abundance in the neighborhood, and my presentiment proved correct; for before my brief search was completed, I was permitted to record the songs of the indigo-bird, the cardinal grossbeak, the towhee bunting, the wood-pewee, the Baltimore oriole, and the black-capped chickadee; while, no sooner had I stepped out of the woods into the adjoining swamp, than the song-sparrow chimed merrily, “Oh, certainly, certainly, you mustn’t forget me-me-me! No-sirree, no-sirree!”

One of the most blithesome trillers of midsummer was the grass-finch, which sang his canticles until about the twelfth of August, when he suddenly took leave for parts unknown. It seemed to me he sang more vigorously in July than in May, for several times he prolonged his trill with such splendid musical effect as to make me rush out to the adjoining field to find a lark-sparrow. The black-throated bunting remained here almost as long, rasping his harsh notes until he also took his flight. I was somewhat disappointed in the meadow-larks, having heard but one note from their tuneful throats during August; but when September came, they resumed their shrill choruses, which lasted until November, increasing in vigor as the autumn advanced.

The robins were chary of their music, only two songs having been heard during August, one of them on the fourteenth. But the little bush-sparrow made ample compensation, chanting his pensive voluntaries almost every day at the border of the woods until about the twentieth of August. Still more lavish of his melody was the indigo-bird, which on several occasions was the only songster, besides the wood-pewee, heard during a long stroll through the woods. An irrepressible minstrel, he is the most cheery member of the midsummer chorus. My notes say that the Maryland yellow-throat was singing in splendid voice on the first of August, but I am positive I heard him later in the month, as he is one of our most rollicksome midsummer choralists. The goldfinch sang cheerily on the first, eighteenth, and nineteenth of August, and I cannot say how often in July and August I heard the loud refrain of the Carolina wren.

On the tenth, twelfth, fourteenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth of August, the Baltimore oriole piped cheerily, though he had partly doffed his splendid vernal robes, and was beginning to don his modest autumnal garb. The cardinal bird fluted frequently during July and August, and, besides, regaled me with a vocal performance on the third of September. The last record I have of the towhee bunting’s trill is the tenth of August; but before that date he was quite lavish of his music. On many of my tramps to the woods the sad minor whistle of the black-capped chickadee pierced the solitudes, making one dream of one’s boyhood days,—

as Lowell would phrase it.

One of my surprises was a warbler’s trill on the twelfth of August. The little tantalizer kept itself so far up in the trees as to baffle all attempts at identification, but I am disposed to think it was a cerulean warbler. On the nineteenth of August two warbler trills, one of them, I feel almost sure, from the throat of the chestnut-sided warbler, were heard, which is all the more novel because these birds are not residents, but only migrants in this latitude. I should have felt amply repaid for all my efforts, had I proved nothing more than that warblers will sometimes regale one with an aftermath of song in the dog days.

The most persistent minstrel of the midsummer orchestra was the wood-pewee,—the only bird whose song I heard on every excursion to the woods during July and August; and even when September came, there seemed to be little abatement in his musical industry. All the year round, the song-sparrow is the most prolific lyrist of my acquaintance, but in midsummer he is distanced by his sylvan neighbor, the wood-pewee. During my walks on the twenty-ninth and thirty-first of August the pewee’s was the only song heard.

Then, he does not confine himself wholly to his ordinary song, Phe-e-w-e-e or Phe-e-e-o-r-e-e-e, for one day in July he twittered a quaint medley in a low, caressing tone, as if singing a lullaby to his nestlings. At first I could not tell what bird was the author of the new style of melody, but presently the song glided sweetly into the well-known Pe-e-w-e-e. On another occasion I was charmed by the vocal rehearsals of a young pewee. His youth was evident from the fact that he twinkled his wings and coaxed for food from the mother bird, who rewarded his vocal efforts by feeding him. The song was extremely beautiful, spite of the crudeness of its execution; a clear continuous strain, repeated quite loudly, with here and there a partially successful attempt to emit the ordinary pewee notes. Occasionally the parent bird would respond, as if setting the ambitious novice a musical copy, and then he would make a heroic effort to pipe the notes he had just heard, and several times he succeeded admirably. He had a voice of excellent quality, but did not have it under perfect control; still, the immature song was so innocent, so naïve and striking, that it was a temptation to wish he would never learn to sing otherwise.

Permit me to add, in conclusion, that, while the birds are not equally musical or plentiful all the year round, yet there is never a time when their behavior is not worth careful attention. Moreover, midsummer is the most favorable time for the study of the quaint behavior and varied plumage of young birds,—a theme connected with our avian fauna that merits more consideration than it has yet received.

X.
WHERE BIRDS ROOST.

One winter evening found me tramping through a swamp not far from my home, listening to the dulcet trills of the song-sparrows, which had recently returned from a brief visit to a more southern latitude. There was no snow on the ground, and the day had been pleasant; but, as evening approached, the west wind blew raw across the fields. For some reason which I cannot now recall, an impulse seized me to clamber over the fence into the adjacent meadow, where I stalked about somewhat aimlessly for a minute or two, little thinking that I was on the eve of a discovery,—one that was destined to lead me into a delightful field of investigation.

The ground was rather soggy, but a pair of tall rubber boots make one indifferent to mire and mud. The dusk was now gathering rapidly, and it was time for most birds to go to bed. I soon found, too, that they were going to bed, and, moreover, were taking lodgings in the most unexpected quarters. Imagine my surprise when, as I trudged about, the little tree-sparrows, which are winter residents in my neighborhood, flew up here and there out of the deep grass. They seemed to be hidden somewhere until I came near, and then they would suddenly dart up as if they had emerged from a hole in the ground.

This unexpected behavior led me to investigate; and I soon found that in many places there were cosey apartments hollowed out under the long, thick tufts of marsh grass, with neat entrances at one side like the door of an Eskimo hut. These hollows gave ample evidence of having been occupied by the birds, so that there could be no doubt about their being bird bedrooms. Very frequently they were burrowed in the sides of the mounds of sod raised by the winter frosts, and were thus lifted above the intervening hollows, which contained ice-cold water. In every case the overhanging grass made a thatched roof to carry off the rain.

I do not mean to say that these little dugouts were made by the birds themselves. Perhaps they were, but it is more probable that they had been scooped out the previous summer by field-mice, and had only been appropriated for sleeping-apartments by the sparrows. However that may be, they were exceedingly cunning and cosey; and soft must have been the slumbers of the feathered occupants while the wintry blasts howled unharming above them.

Prior to that discovery I had supposed, with most people, that all birds roost in trees and bushes. Later researches have proved how wide of the truth one’s unverified hypotheses may be. A week or so afterward, while strolling one evening at dusk through a favorite timber-belt, I noticed the snowbirds, or juncos, darting up from the leaves and bushes and small brush-heaps, beneath which they had found dainty little coverts from the storm. In many places crooked twigs and branches, covered with leaves, lay on the ground, leaving underneath small spaces overarched and sheltered, and into these cosey nooks the juncos had crept for the night. No enemies, at least in winter, would find them there, and their hiding-places were snug and warm. Long after dark I lingered in the woods, and everywhere startled the snow-birds from their leafy couches. At one place a whole colony of them had taken lodgings. When my passing frightened them away, they flew through the darkness into the neighboring trees. After waiting at some distance for several minutes, I returned to the spot, and found that some of the birds had gone back to their bedrooms on the ground.

In my nocturnal prowlings through the fields and lowlands, I have frequently frightened the meadowlarks from the grass, and that long before nest-building or incubation had begun. Of course, they were recognized by their nervous alarm-calls, as well as by the peculiar sound of their fluttering wings. What surprises me beyond measure is that they so often select low, boggy places for their roosts, instead of the dry pleasant upland slopes. But there is no accounting for tastes in the bird world. The grass-finches and lark-sparrows, like their relatives just mentioned, seek little hollows in the ground for bed-chambers, usually sheltered by grass tufts.

Long before day, one April morning, I made my way to the marsh so frequently mentioned in this volume. The moon was shining brightly in the southern sky. Early as it was—for as yet there was no sign of daybreak—the silvery trills of the song-sparrows rose from the bushes like a votive offering to the Queen of Night. From one part of the swamp a sweet song would ring out on the moonlit air, and would at once be taken up by another songster not far away. Then another would chime in, and another, until the whole enclosure was filled with the antiphonal melody. A silence would then fall upon the marsh like a dream-spirit, to be broken soon by another outburst of minstrelsy; and thus the nocturne continued until day broke, and it merged into the glad matin service.

But my object is to tell about bird roosts rather than about bird music. When I reached the farther end of the marsh, several sparrow songs came up from the ground. I walked with a tentative purpose toward a spot whence a song came, when the little triller sprang up affrighted. The same experiment with a number of other songsters brought a like result in each case, proving beyond doubt, I think, that at least some of the song-sparrows roost on the ground, and begin their matins before they rise from their couches, so anxious are they to put in a full day of song.

On the same morning—it was still before daybreak—a bevy of red-winged blackbirds, which had been roosting in the long grass, flew up with vociferous cries and protests at the rude awakening I had given them, just when they were enjoying their morning nap. Blame them who will for making loud ado, for there are many people who would do the same under similar provocation. Thus it will be seen that many birds sleep on the ground. My investigations lead me to this conclusion: As a rule, those birds which nest on or near the ground, and spend a considerable portion of their time in the grass, like the meadow-larks and song-sparrows, roost on the ground, while others find bushes and trees more to their taste. Still, there are exceptions to this rule; for on several occasions, while bent on my nocturnal prowlings, I have driven the turtle-dove from the ground, although this bird usually roosts in the thorn-trees and willows.[4]

The robins choose thick trees and even wild rose-bushes for roosts. In the apple-trees and pines of a neighbor’s yard across the fields these birds find sleeping-apartments early in the spring, before nest-building is begun, for a perfect deluge of robin music often pours from that locality, both morning and evening.

The white-throats, wood-sparrows, and brown thrashers make use of the thick thorn-trees of the marsh for lodgings. They flutter about in sore dismay as I approach, until I start back, lest they should impale themselves on the sharp thorns. Sometimes the thrasher ensconces himself for the night in the brush-heaps which the wood-choppers have made on the slopes, making his presence known by his peculiar way of scolding at my officious intrusion.

One cannot help admiring the wise forethought displayed by many birds in creeping into the thick thorn-bushes at night, where they may sleep without fear of attack from their nocturnal foe, the owl. Full well they seem to know he cannot force his bulky form through the thick network of branch and thorn. How he must gnash his teeth with rage—if owls ever do that—when he espies his coveted prey sleeping peacefully just beyond the reach of his talons! Still, it sometimes happens that even a small bird ventures into too close quarters in these terrible prickly bushes; for I once found a dead sparrow completely wedged in among the fierce thorns, where it had evidently been caught in such a way as to prevent its escape.

Something over a year after the preceding facts were published, I was seized with a whim to resume my investigations on bird roosts. One of my nocturnal rambles seems to be deserving of somewhat minute description. It was a delightful evening of early spring, with a warm westerly breeze stirring the bursting leaves. The sun had set, and the dusk was falling over fields and woods. The bright moon, a little more than half full, lengthened out the gloaming and added many precious minutes to the singing hours of the birds. Such a woodland chorus as I was permitted to listen to that evening! It was a rare privilege. How the wood-thrushes vied with the towhee buntings! Which would sing the latest? That seemed to be the question. At length there were several moments of silence, and I supposed all the birds had gone to sleep, when a white-throated sparrow and a wood-pewee struck in with their sweet strains; and so the chorus continued until it was really night. The wood-thrushes, I think, got in the last note of the twilight serenade.

Before it had become quite dark, I espied a wood-thrush sitting in the fork of a dogwood-tree, looking at me in a startled way; but she did not fly. I walked off some distance, remained awhile, and then returned, to find her still in her place. Then I strolled about until night had fully come; the moon shone brightly, so that it was not dark. When I went back to the dogwood-tree, the speckled breast of the thrush was still visible in the fork which she had chosen for her bed-chamber, and I wished her pleasant dreams.

While stalking about, I startled another wood-thrush, which had selected a loose brush-heap on the ground instead of a sapling or tree for a roost. The indigo-birds and bush-sparrows flew up from the blackberry bushes as I pushed my way through them. Several times the towhee buntings leaped scolding out of bed, having selected brush-heaps, or dead branches lying on the ground, for roosting-places.

A discovery was also made in regard to the sleeping-apartments of the red-headed woodpecker. As the dusk was gathering, a red-head dashed in front of me into the border of the woods, alighting on a sapling stem, and then began to shuffle upward toward a hole plainly visible from where I sat; but just as he reached the hole, another red-head appeared with a challenging air on the inside of the cavity, and red-head number one darted away with a cry of alarm. Now was my time to discover, if possible, where red-head number two would roost. So I kept a close watch on the cavity, waiting about, as previously said, until nightfall, and then, keeping my eye on the hole, so that the bird could not fly out without being seen, I made my way to the sapling. Intently watching the hole with my glass, I tapped the stem of the tree with my heel, when, in the moonlight, a red head and long, black beak were protruded from the opening above. The woodpecker was within, that much was proved; and when I had beaten against the tree, he had sprung up to the orifice to see who was thus impolitely disturbing his evening slumbers. He turned his head sidewise, and looked down at me with his keen beady eyes; but although I tapped against the tree again and again, he would not leave the cavity. There can be no doubt that it was his bedroom,—that cosey apartment in the sapling,—for it was still too early in the season for the bird to begin nesting, as he had arrived only two or three days before from his winter residence in the south. Very likely most woodpeckers roost in the cavities which they hew in trees, for I do not see why the one into whose private affairs I pried that evening should have been an exception. He most probably was only following the customs of his tribe from time immemorial.[5]

A number of experiments made with young birds purloined from the nest—I must beg the feathered parents’ forgiveness—have added several interesting facts to the subject in hand. One spring I became guardian, purveyor, and man-of-all-work to a pair of young flickers, taken from a cavity in an old apple-tree. They were kept in a large cage, in which I placed sapling boughs of considerable size. They had not become my protégés many days before they insisted on converting these upright branches into sleeping-couches, clinging to the vertical boles with their stout claws, and pillowing their heads in the feathers of their backs. In this position they slept as comfortably as the thrushes and orioles confined in other cages slept on their horizontal perches, or, for that matter, as I slept in my own bed. They even slept on the under side of an oblique branch. One of them passed one night on a horizontal perch, although apparently his slumbers were not quite so sound and refreshing as they would have been had he roosted in the wonted upright position. Queerest of all, these woodpeckers sometimes selected the side of the cage itself for a roosting-place, thrusting their claws into the crevice between the door and its frame. Wherever they roosted, their tails were made to do duty as braces, by being pressed tightly against the wall to which they clung. A pair of young red-headed woodpeckers behaved in much the same way, always preferring to sleep on an upright perch.

During the spring of 1893 I placed in a cage the following birds, all taken while in a half-callow state, from the nest: Two cat-birds, one red-winged blackbird, one cow-bunting, and two meadow-larks. In a few days all of them proclaimed their species, as well as the inexorable law of heredity, by selecting such roosts as were best adapted to them, and that without any instruction whatever from adult birds. The meadow-larks almost invariably squatted on the grass with which the floor of the cage was lined, usually scratching and waddling from side to side until they had made cosey hollows to fit their bodies; while the remaining inmates flew up to the perches when bed-time came.

It was quite interesting to look in upon my group of sleeping pets of an evening, part of them roosting in the lower story of the cage and the rest in the upper story. Several times, however, one of the larks slept on a perch, and the red-wing, after the cat-birds and bunting had been removed from the cage, occasionally seemed to think the upstairs a little lonely, and so he cuddled down on the grass below, edging up close to the larks. The strangely assorted bedfellows slept together in this way like happy children.

XI.
THE WOOD-PEWEE.
A MONOGRAPH.

Almost every person living in the country or the suburbs of a town is familiar with the house-pewee, or phœbe-bird. It is usually looked upon as the sure harbinger of spring. In my boyhood days my parents and grandparents were wont to say, “Spring is here; the phœbe is singing.” And if blithesomeness of tone and good cheer have anything to do with the advent of the season of song and bursting blossoms, the pewit, as he is often called, must be a true herald and prophet. He seems to carry the “subtle essence of spring” in his tuneful larynx, and in the graceful sweep of his flight as he pounces upon an insect. It is quite easy to make the transition from his familiar song of Phe-e-by to the exclamation, Spring’s here! by a little stretch of the fancy.

But the phœbe has a woodland relative, a first cousin, with which most persons are not so well acquainted, because he is more retiring in his habits, and seeks out-of-the-way places for his habitat. I refer to the wood-pewee. If your eyes and ears are not so sharp as they should be, you may get these two birds confounded; yet there is no need of making such a blunder. The woodland bird is smaller, slenderer, and of a darker cast than his relative; and, besides, there is a marked difference in the musical performances of these birds. The song of the phœbe is sprightly and cheerful, and the syllables are uttered rather quickly, while the whistle of the wood-pewee is softer and more plaintive, and is repeated with less emphasis and more deliberation. There is, indeed, something inexpressibly sad and dreamy about the strain of the wood-pewee, especially if heard at a distance in the “emerald twilight” of the “woodland privacies.” Mr. Lowell seldom erred in his attempts to characterize the songs and habits of the birds, but in his exquisite poem entitled “Phœbe” he certainly must have referred to the wood-pewee and not to the phœbe-bird, as his description applies to the former but not to the latter. He calls this bird “the loneliest of its kind,” while the pewit is a familiar species about many a country home. Taking it for granted that he meant the wood-pewee, how happy is his description!

This poetical tribute is certainly very graceful, and would be true to life if the phonetic representation were a little more accurate. Instead of Phœbe, imagine the song to be Pe-e-w-e-e-e or Phe-e-w-e-e-e, and you will gain a clear idea of the minstrelsy of this songster of the wildwood. However, he frequently varies his tune,—to prevent its becoming monotonous, I opine. He sometimes closes his refrain with the falling inflection or circumflex, and sometimes with the rising, as the mood prompts him. In the former case the first syllable receives the greater emphasis and is the more prolonged, and in the latter this order is precisely reversed. When the last syllable is uttered with the rising circumflex, it is usually, if not always, cut off somewhat abruptly. Moreover, this minstrel often runs the two syllables of his song together,—a peculiarity that I have represented in my notes, taken while listening to the song, in this way: Phe-e-e-o-o-w-e-e-e! There is a characteristic swing about the melody that refuses to be caught in the mesh of letters and syllables.

In some of the pewee’s vocal efforts he does not get farther than the end of the first syllable. The song seems to be cut off short, as if the notes had stuck fast in the singer’s throat, or as if something had occurred to divert his mind from the song. Perhaps this hiatus is caused by the sudden appearance of an insect glancing by, which attracts the musician’s attention. This bird usually chooses a dead twig or limb in the woods as a perch, on which he sits and sings, turning his head from side to side, so that no flitting moth may escape him.

And what a persistent singer he is! He sings not only in the spring when other vocalists are in full tune, but also all summer long, never growing disheartened, even when the mercury rises far up into the nineties. What a pleasant companion he has been in my midsummer strolls as I have wearily patrolled the woods! On the sultriest August days, when all other birds were glad to keep mute, sitting on their shady perches with open mandibles and drooping wings, the dreamful, far-away strain of the wood-pewee has drifted, a welcome sound, to my ears through the dim aisles. He seems to be a friend in need. How often, when the heat has almost overcome me, as I pursued my daily beat, that song has put new vigor into my veins! When Mr. Lowell wrote that

he must have been listening to a far lazier specimen than those with which I am acquainted.

Most birds fall occasionally into a kind of ecstasy of song, and the wood-pewee is no exception. One evening, after it had grown almost dark, a pewee flew out into the air directly above my head from a tree by the wayside, and began to sing in a perfect transport as he wheeled about; then he swung back into the tree, keeping up his song in a continuous strain, and in sweet, half-caressing tones, until finally it died away, as if the bird had fallen into a doze during his vocal recital. I lingered about for some time, but he did not sing again. Why should he repeat his good-night song?

I have frequently heard young pewees in midsummer singing in a continuous way, instead of whistling the intermittent song of their elders. It sounds very droll, giving you the impression that the little neophyte has begun to turn the crank of his music-box and can’t stop. His voice is quite sweet, but his execution is very crude. Wait, however, until he is eight or nine months older, and he will show you what a winged Orpheus can do. My notes say that on the thirtieth of July, 1891, I heard a “pewee’s quaint, prolonged whistle, interlarded with his ordinary notes.” Thus it will be seen that he is a somewhat versatile songster, proving the poet’s lines half true and half untrue:—

Younger readers may, perhaps, need to be informed that the wood-pewee belongs to the family of flycatchers, as do also the king-bird or bee-martin, the phœbe-bird, the great-crested flycatcher, and a number of other interesting species, all of which have a peculiar way of taking their prey. The pewee will sit almost motionless on a twig, lisping his plaintive tune at intervals, until a luckless insect comes buzzing near, all unconscious of its peril, when the bird will make a quick dash at it, seize it dexterously between his mandibles, and then circle around gracefully to the same or another perch, having made a splendid “catch on the fly.” If the quarry he has taken is small, it slips at once down his throat; but should it be too large to be disposed of in that summary way, he will beat it into an edible form upon a limb before gulping it down. Agile as he is, he sometimes misses his aim, being compelled to make a second, and occasionally even a third attempt to secure his prize. I have witnessed more than one comedy which turned out to be a tragedy for the ill-starred insect. Sometimes the insect will resort to the ruse of dropping toward the ground when it sees the bird darting toward it, and then a scuffle ensues that is really laughable, the pursuer whirling, tumbling, almost turning somersault in his desperate efforts to capture his prize. Once an insect flew between me and a pewee perched on a twig, when the bird darted down toward me with a directness of aim that made me think for a moment he would fly right into my face; but he made a dexterous turn in time, caught his quarry, and swung to a bough near by. If one were disposed to be speculative, one might well raise Sidney Lanier’s pregnant inquiry at this point, the reference being to the southern mocking-bird, and not to our pewee,—

It has been my good fortune to find one, but only one, nest of this bird. It was placed on a horizontal branch about fifteen feet above the ground, and was a neat, compact structure, decorated on the outside with grayish lichens and moss, giving it the appearance of an excrescence on the limb.[6] It is said by those who have closely examined the nests, that they are handsomely built and ornamented, and are equalled only by the dainty houses of the humming-bird and the blue-gray gnat-catcher. The eggs, usually four in number, are of a creamy white hue, beautifully embellished with a wreath of lavender and purplish-brown around the larger end or near the centre.

Though our bird prefers solitary places for his home, he is far from shy, if you call on him in his haunt in the wildwood. He will sit fearless on his perch, even if you come quite near, looking at you in his staid, philosophical way, as if you were scarcely worth noticing. Nor will he hush his song at your approach, although he does not seem to care whether you listen to him or not. It is seldom that he can be betrayed into doing an undignified act; and even if he does almost turn a somersault in pursuing a refractory miller, he recovers his poise the next moment, and settles upon his perch with as much sang froid as if nothing unusual had occurred. Altogether, the wood-pewee is what Bradford Torrey would call a “character in feathers.”

XII.
A PAIR OF NIGHT-HAWKS.

The night-hawk and the whippoorwill are often confounded by persons of inaccurate habits of observation. It is true, both birds are members of the goatsucker family; but they belong to entirely different genera, and are therefore of much more distant kin than many people suppose. The whippoorwill is a forest bird, while the night-hawk prefers the open country. Besides, the whippoorwill is decidedly nocturnal in his habits, making the woods ring at night, as every one knows, with his weird, flutelike melody; whereas the night-hawk is a bird of the day and evening. Then, a peculiar mark of the night-hawk is the round white spot on his wings, visible on the under surface as he performs his wonderful feats overhead,—a mark that does not distinguish his woodland relative.

As a rule, the gloaming is the favorite time for the night-hawk’s wing-exercises; then he may be seen whirling, curveting, mounting, and plunging, often at a dizzy height, gathering his supper of insects as he flies; but his petulant call is often heard at other hours of the day, perhaps at noon when the sun is shining with fierce warmth. Even during a shower he seems to be fond of haunting the cloudy canopy, toying with the wind.

His call, as he tilts overhead, is difficult to represent phonetically, both the vowels and consonants being provokingly elusive and hard to catch. To me he seems usually to say Spe-ah. Sometimes the S appears to be omitted, or is enunciated very slightly, while at other times his call seems to have a decidedly sibilant beginning. On several occasions he seemed to pronounce the syllable Scape.

I had often watched the marvellous flight of these birds, as they passed like living silhouettes across the sky; but they had always seemed so shy and unapproachable that, prior to the summer of 1891, I had despaired of ever finding a night-hawk’s nest. However, one evening in June, while stalking about in the marsh, I suddenly became aware of a large bird fluttering uneasily about me in the gathering darkness. Presently it was joined by its mate, and then the two birds circled and hovered about, often coming into uncomfortable proximity with my head, and muttering under their breath, Chuckle! chuckle! Several times one of them alighted for a few moments on the rail-fence near by, and then resumed its circular flight. Even in the darkness I recognized that my uncanny companions were night-hawks, and felt convinced that there must be a nest in the neighborhood, or they would not display so much anxiety. It was too late to discover their secret that evening, and, besides, I really felt a slight chill creeping up my back, with those dark, ghostly forms wheeling about my head, and so I went reluctantly home.

Two days later I found time to visit the marsh. On reaching the spot where the two birds had been seen, presto! a dark feathered form started up before me from the ground. It was the female night-hawk; and there on the damp earth, without the least trace of a nest or a covering of any kind, lay two eggs. At last I had found a night-hawk’s nest! The ground-color of the eggs, which were quite large, was of a dirty bluish-gray cast, mottled and clouded with darker gray and brown.

The behavior of the mother bird was curious. She had fluttered away a few rods, pretending to be hurt, and then dropped into the grass. On my driving her from her hiding-place, she rose in the air and began to hover about above my head, and then, to my utter surprise, she swooped down toward me savagely, as if she really had a mind to attack me. As I walked away, she seemed to grow angrier and bolder, making a swift dash at me every few minutes, and actually coming so near my head as to cause me involuntarily to raise my cane in self-defence. A quaver of uneasiness went through me. I really believe she would have struck me had I given her sufficient provocation. There was a brisk shower falling at the time, and so, fearing the eggs might become addled, I hurried to the remote end of the marsh. Suddenly my feathered pursuer disappeared. Wondering if she had resumed her place on the nest, I sauntered back to settle the doubt, but presently espied her sitting lengthwise on a top rail of the fence, while her eggs lay unprotected in the rain. Her dark, mottled form and sleepy, half-closed eyes made a quaint picture. I slowly withdrew, and as long as I could see her with my glass, she kept her perch on the rail without moving a pinion.

On the twenty-third of June another call was made on the night-hawk family, when I found two odd-looking bairns in the nest, if nest it could be called. They were covered with soft down, the black and white of which presented a wavy appearance. Their short, thick bills were covered with a speckled fuzz, except the tips. I stooped down and smoothed their downy backs with my hand, but there was no expression of fear in their sluggish eyes.

Both parents were present on the twenty-sixth of June. For a while the male bird pursued his mate savagely through the air, as if venting on her his anger at my intrusion, and then, mounting far up toward the sky and poising a moment, he plunged toward the earth with a velocity that made my head dizzy, checking himself, as is his wont, with a loud resounding Bo-o-m-m. The female again pursued her unwelcome visitor, swooping so near my head two or three times that I could have reached her with my cane. The cock bird, curiously enough, never displayed so much courage, but kept at a safe distance.

On the twenty-ninth the young birds had been moved about a half rod from the original site of the nest, and hopped off awkwardly into the grass when I tried to clasp them with my hand. The benedict was absent this time, and was never seen on any of my subsequent visits while the young birds were fledging. By the first of July the bantlings hopped about in a lively manner at my approach to their domicile, and wheezed in a frightened way, spreading out their mottled pinions. On the seventh of July neither of the parents was to be seen, and the youngsters sat so cosily side by side on the ground that I had not the heart to disturb their slumbers. Approaching cautiously on the tenth, I almost stepped on the mother bird before she flew up. At the same moment both young birds started from the ground, and fluttered away in different directions on their untried wings, their flight being awkward and labored. A few weeks later four night-hawks were circling about above the marsh,—no doubt the family that had been affording me such an interesting study. What was my surprise when one of them resented my presence by swooping down toward me, as the female had done a few weeks before!

Reference has already been made incidentally to the night-hawk’s curious habit of “booming,” as it is called. This sound is always produced as he plunges in an almost perpendicular course from a dizzy height,—or, more correctly, at the end of that headlong plunge, just as he sweeps around in a graceful curve. There is something almost sepulchral about the reverberating sound. How it is produced is a problem over which there has been no small amount of discussion in ornithological circles. But after considerable study of this queer performance, I am persuaded that it is a vocal outburst, produced either for its musical effect (though it is far from musical), or else to give vent to the bird’s exuberance of feeling as he makes his swift descent.

His thick, curved bill seems admirably adapted to produce this sound, as do also his arched throat and neck. It has seemed to me, too, that his mandibles fly open at the moment the boom is heard, although I cannot be sure such is the case. Besides, the peculiar chuckle, previously referred to, had about it a quality of sound suggestive of kinship with the bird’s resounding boom. The hollow, wheezy alarm-call of the young birds, heard on several of my visits to the nest in the marsh, corroborates this theory. But there is still further proof that this hypothesis is correct. The night-hawk often makes his headlong plunge without booming at all, but merely utters his ordinary rasping, aerial call, which has been translated by the syllable Spe-ah. Then he sometimes combines the two calls, and on such occasions both of the sounds are uttered with a diminished loudness, as one would expect if both are vocal performances, but as one would not expect if the booming were made by the concussion of the bird’s wings with the resisting air, as some ornithologists suppose. The female sometimes booms, but her voice obviously lacks the strong, resounding quality that characterizes the voice of her liege lord.

XIII.
A BIRDS’ GALA-DAY.

In Mr. Emerson’s poem entitled “May Morning” this stanza occurs:—

It would seem, therefore, that to be a poet does not always give one the coign of vantage in observing Nature, but may, on the contrary, prove a positive disadvantage. Should the rambler go about “crooning rhymes” and making an over-sweet melody to himself, instead of keeping his ear alert to the music around him, he would be likely to miss many a wild, sweet song fully as enchanting as his own measured lines. No music of my own, however, diverted my mind from Nature’s blithe minstrels as, on the twenty-ninth of April, 1892, I pursued my avian studies in some of my favorite resorts.

It was nine o’clock when I reached the quiet woodland lying beyond a couple of fields. The first fact noted was the return of a number of interesting migrants which had not been present on the preceding day. They had, as is their wont, come by night from some more southern rendezvous. Among them was the oven-bird or accentor, announcing his presence with his startling song, which at first seemed to come from a distance, but gradually drew nearer, like a voice walking toward me as it grew louder and more accelerated. On account of this quaint ventriloquial quality of voice, the little vocalist is often very difficult to find, and you are sure to look in a dozen places before you at last descry him. What a sedate genius he is, as he sits atilt on a twig, or walks in his leisurely fashion on the leaf-carpeted ground, looking up at you at intervals out of his sage, beady eyes.

I have hinted that the oven-bird was first seen and then heard. In this respect the habits of different species of birds differ widely. The accentors, meadow-larks, orioles, bobolinks, Bewick’s wrens, summer warblers, white-crowned sparrows, and some other species usually begin at once to celebrate with pæans their return to their old haunts; whereas the wood-thrushes, brown thrashers, and white-throated sparrows seem to wait several days after their arrival before they tune their harps,—a diversity of behavior difficult to explain. Scarcely less inexplicable is the fact that some species arrive in scattered flocks, others in battalions and armies, and others still, one by one. My notes made on this day contain this statement: “Yesterday I heard a single call of the red-headed woodpecker; to-day the woods are full of these birds.”