OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS

BY

ELIZABETH GRINNELL

AND

JOSEPH GRINNELL

BOSTON, U.S.A.

D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS

1899

Copyright, 1898,

By D. C. HEATH & CO.

TYPOGRAPHY BY J. S. CUSHING & CO., NORWOOD, MASS.

PRESSWORK BY ROCKWELL & CHURCHILL, BOSTON.

INTRODUCTION.

This volume really needs little by way of introduction. No one can mistake the evident love for our feathered friends, the kindly assistance that has been given them, and the success of the authors in imparting to others much of that pleasure which they have undoubtedly derived from their studies.

The same recreation lies within the power of all who through inattention and thoughtlessness neglect the almost priceless relief from daily burdens afforded by such pursuits. Every one can learn something of the ways and doings of our little friends, even though he may never write a book or put a pen to paper concerning them.

Knowledge thus acquired is not wasted; it elevates the mind and trains the senses, so that in after life the habits of observing and noting frequently become of great use, and are never a detriment.

Our authors have set forth the wanton destruction of bird life consequent upon the use of feathers and parts of birds to ornament hats. They have in no way misstated; for tens of thousands of birds are annually offered on the altar of fashion to gratify a cruel and barbarous survival of savage adornment. Yet the male friend of the lady who wears upon her head a gorgeous array of mutilated, misshapen, and dyed birdskins may have done something to assist in a similar destruction of bird life. As a boy perhaps he wantonly deprived some bird of her eggs; and later, when possessed of a gun, he may have shown little discretion or thought when depriving the nestling of a mother or father who alone could feed and protect it. And as a man, too often it may be, he has allowed savage instincts to dominate his acts instead of the knowledge derived from experience and thought.

It lies within the power of many who will read these pages to assist in the distribution of evidence and in the enlightenment of others, to the end that the useless slaughter of birds and the destruction of their eggs may be prevented, or at least greatly mitigated.

Within a few years past efforts have been made to have one day a year in the schools set aside to study and consider the ways and interests of our feathered friends. The matter is of national importance, and deserves the interest that has been taken in it; but without the hearty cooperation of teachers and their efforts to interest and instruct their charges, there is little likelihood of accomplishing the end desired.

Each farmer or occupier of a tract of land has it within his power to set aside some portion of otherwise non-usable land to afford shelter and concealment for many birds, and to protect those useful species that select and require special locations in which to rear their young. The presence of birds in a locality lends a charm to the landscape which nothing else can lend. An abundance of useful and attractive species may be encouraged to remain and breed if heed is paid to their requirements, and efforts to disturb them in their orderly pursuits be prevented. With slight care such species as are not a detriment or nuisance can be assisted, and thus the value of birds as a feature of the landscape, as insect destroyers, and as vocalists can be more and more demonstrated and appreciated.

There is a book, large and bulky, yet within the reach of every one; little work is required to handle it, for its pages are always open, and it is written in the universal language. It costs nothing to read many chapters, yet, as in all good things, a little patience and some experience will assist greatly in acquiring a fair understanding of its contents. In this great Book of Nature will be found much concerning that rich and varied division of animal life to which has been given the name of Birds, and its relation to the welfare and enjoyment of humanity.

Certain helps have been invented by the experiences and intelligence of man to assist those who through inattention, unfavorable environment, or otherwise, have been unable to acquire that knowledge of this book essential to a correct understanding of their relation to animated nature.

Such a help is this little volume, which it is hoped may prove useful and instructive to many whose knowledge of bird life is small, and also be well worth a reading by those whose more extended opportunities have permitted a wider knowledge of ornithology.

WILLIAM PALMER.

National Museum,
  Washington, D.C.

Pasadena, Cal.

CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT.

OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS.

CHAPTER I.

THE MESSAGE OF A MOCKING-BIRD.

It was in the year 1877, before any of the children who read this book were born. We were living on one of the great reservations in the Indian Territory. Some one knocked at the door. When the door was opened, there stood a little Indian girl, her head all covered up in a bright shawl. She was shy, as Indian girls were before they had seen many white people. Very timidly she drew her hand from under her shawl and gave to us a baby mocking-bird. Then she turned and ran down the prairie toward her buffalo-skin lodge not far away.

We understood. The little girl's name was Kitty-ka-tat. She had been to our house often. She knew that we liked pets of all kinds, and birds most of all, so she had captured this one for us by a kind of snare or trap. Of course we kept it, for we did not know where its nest was. We allowed it to use the whole house for a cage. It ate wherever we ate, and slept at night on the curtain pole above the window.

But the perch it liked best by day was the top of its master's head. As soon as this gentleman came in and sat down in the rocking-chair and put on his skullcap, the bird would fly to his shoulder. Sometimes it would take a nip at his ear or his hair. Then it would give a hop and a flutter, and land in the middle of the black skullcap, where it would sit for an hour if no one disturbed it. It liked to take crumbs from our hands, or bits of apple from our lips, standing on our shoulders. It bathed every day in a large pan of water placed in the middle of the carpet. Then, too wet to fly farther, it would flutter all dripping to a low stool, where it would dry its clothes after the wash. If a door chanced to be left open, the bird would fly to the top of it and preen its feathers and look about at us below in a very pretty way. So you see the little thing really washed and dried and ironed its clothes.

One day when it was perched on the top of the hall door, as happy as could be, a gust of wind quickly blew the door shut, with a loud noise. The bird gave a sharp scream and flew to the window. We looked and saw a strange sight,—a mocking-bird without a tail.

The little bundle of feathers had been shut in at the top of the door when the wind closed it; and there sat poor birdie, a mere chunk of a darling, turning its head from side to side and looking sadly back at the place where its tail had once been.

We opened the door, and down fluttered every one of the beautiful feathers. Birdie eyed them with a puzzled look, canting its head, as though it were saying, "I don't understand it at all." Then it looked backward again in a very pitiful way. We couldn't help laughing, though we were so sorry for the bird. In a short time the feathers grew again, and the little fellow showed great care in preening them and placing them just as it thought they ought to grow.

After a while there came to be a little baby in the house, and the mocking-bird seemed to understand. Two grown-up people had been its only friends before, but it was never afraid of the stranger baby from the first time it saw him. It would fly from any perch to where the baby lay and peep into the baby's face in the sweetest way, as if saying, "Glad to see you, little man." Then it would twitter a low song, which sounded very much as if it were singing, "Little one, when you grow up, be kind to the birds and love them."

"Be kind to the birds and love them" was the little mocking-bird's message, or so it seemed to us.

The baby and his mother never forgot the message of the mocking-bird. They have loved birds ever since. That is why they are writing this book about birds for the children.

CHAPTER II.

SOME PEOPLE WE LIKE TO KNOW.

We are always interested in our nearest neighbors. "Who lives in the next house?" we ask. "Are they pleasant persons to know?" and "How many children are there?"

These are questions one commonly asks. But we are not speaking just now of men and women and children who live near us on our street. We are speaking of people all about us in our yard, and in your yard perhaps,—little, winged, beautiful people, who make it so pleasant with song and chirp and flutter,—the birds.

We like to think of the birds as creatures better and more lovable than lizards and worms and other crawling things. We know a lady who calls them "Angels," because they have wings and seem to fly far off into heaven. No one ever jumps away from a bird, as some foolish people do from a snake or a mouse. Most snakes and mice are as harmless as birds, but they do not win their way to our hearts as the birds do.

The yard or field that has the most trees and shrubs in it will also have the most and the merriest birds. Very few birds choose to live on a desert. They like shade and grass and flowers as well as we do, and fruit trees and berry bushes, and the sound of life and fun.

When we see a big tree chopped down, we think of the birds who will miss it. Watch them yourselves. See how they light on the fallen boughs, and peep sadly under the wilting leaves, and twitter about their loss. Birds are like ourselves; they like to live in the places that are familiar to them, because here they feel at home and safe. We sometimes think we can hear them singing, "My country, 'tis of thee,—of thee I sing."

Their "country" is our yard, and your yard, or the woods or the city streets and house roofs, and they love it. We should respect their rights and let them have their little "America" in peace. We can apply the Golden Rule as well to our treatment of the birds as to one another.

There are enemies which are very troublesome to the birds. Two or three hawks, some owls, and a few boys, delight in scaring or killing them. We have never seen a little girl harm a bird, and we know many boys, as well, who would not hurt a bird "on purpose." Their worst enemies are the cats.

These enemies do not come sailing over into the birds' country in ships, or marching up the coast in troops, carrying guns and beating drams and making a great noise. They are cowardly, sneaking enemies. They jump one at a time over hedges and fences, and they crawl under bushes barefoot, and dart across the street when no one is looking. They are so still, gliding on their soft feet, that no one of the bird family can hear them coming. So whole nestfuls of baby birds are gone before their mothers know it.

Cats have learned that they are not welcome in our yard. If one of them slips in before we are up in the morning, the birds tell us by a sort of "shriek," and we hurry to help them. We have seen six or seven different kinds of birds crying at a cat and flying at him at one time. They even nip at his back, and dart up so quickly that the cat has no chance to spring at them.

The orioles and mocking-birds are our best watch-dogs, screaming with very angry voices at sight of a cat, and warning all the other birds in the yard to "look out." In the orchard there were some stray cats that nobody owned, and we thought it right to shoot the hungry, thieving things. One mocking-bird, who had been robbed once by these cats, would point out a cat to us, flying on ahead, and would not jump away at the sharp bang of the gun. She seemed to understand perfectly well that we were protecting her and aiming at the enemy she feared so much.

We have read how wild beasts from the jungle prowl around the homes of India to snatch the children and carry them off. How careful the mothers must be, always watching for the cruel animals and dreading their quick spring!

The mother birds in our yard are like those human mothers in India. You have only to watch them when a cat comes prowling around to see how very much like human mothers they are. They scream and dart about in fright, and if you go near they will fly not from you, but toward the cat. They are asking you for help.

Birds near your house soon learn to know the family if every one is kind to them, when they have once learned that you are their friend. They will allow you to call while they are eating their meals, or to watch them while nest-building, although they may be almost within reach of your hand. They will even wait around the door for you to shake the tablecloth after dinner, or to throw out the contents of the crumb-pan, hopping about at your feet without a thought of fear.

We never can learn all there is to know about birds. We can know only a little about them if we study them all our lives.

There is a great professor in a California university who has been trying all his life to get acquainted with fishes, and yet he says he has much more to learn about them. Very little people, like birds and fishes and insects, can interest very great men, and we often see the greatest men the kindest to small creatures.

We speak of birds in this book as "people," because they seem very near to us. They are beings who think and plan and love, and who know what it is to be sorry or glad, just like ourselves.

CHAPTER III.

CIVILIZED BIRDS.

In new parts of the country we do not find so many birds living near houses as we find in older towns. Where there is much wooded or uncultivated land for them to live and nest in, the birds prefer to stay at some distance from us. But after the fields are all ploughed, and the trees cut down, they become civilized and learn to love our gardens and barns and houses.

We speak of birds as "wild" or "civilized," just as we speak of the races of men. The birds in our yard are civilized. They will eat cooked food if we give it to them. They will bathe in a tub, if it is handy, as if it were a brook in the woods. They will nest in cosey nooks about the home in the vines and under the barn eaves, or in little houses which we build for them and set up on poles or in the arbors. They will follow the furrow which the plough makes, looking for worms, and will help themselves to our fruit without waiting for an invitation.

Many of them soon learn to prefer the barn-yard to the field, and will hop about with the chickens under the horse's feet. The sparrows and towhees come every day when the cow eats her pail of bran. They gather about close to her head and watch for her to finish her meal, very much as you have seen one dog watch another dog at his bone. When the cow is done, the birds take possession of her pail and pick out every crumb she has left.

The blackbird[1] is more civilized than most other birds. You are all acquainted with him, for we find him at home almost everywhere. Though he dresses differently in different parts of the country, he is always a blackbird. Where we live he has a white eye, like a tricky horse. He likes the company of sheep and cattle in our pastures and lanes.

We have seen these birds taking a free ride all over the fields, while the good-natured animals seemed to like it and did not try to shake them off. Once we laughed merrily when we saw a whole flock of blackbirds taking a ride "pig back," while the pigs rooted away in the ground, paying no attention to the birds on their backs.

Once when we were in Sitka, Alaska, a long way from home, we went out very early to watch the birds. We saw a great black raven on the back of a donkey that had been lying down all night on a bed of straw. The raven pecked the donkey's back and made him get up from his warm bed. Then the hungry bird made a breakfast of the insects that had crept under the donkey during the cold night to share his warmth. We were told that this raven was in the habit of getting his breakfast in this way.

In nesting time civilized birds are glad to get the odds and ends of strings and cotton which we give them. They chirp about it while they pull at the twine, as if they were saying, "What a blessing it is to live among civilized people, who give us strings and other things to make our cradles of."

They like to scratch in the hay and chaff for kernels of grain. When you see the birds about the barn-doors, or under the shed at the grain, watch them and notice that they do not really scratch, as at first sight they seem to do, but hop quickly on both feet with their toes spread far apart. They hop so fast that you can scarcely see their feet through the flying chaff.

It is hard to be quite certain whether a bird walks or hops when it is after its food on the ground. Some of them, like the sparrows and towhees, have a quick, jerky pace that looks like a very fast run.

Some birds never run or hop on their feet. The fly-catchers and humming-birds belong to this class. Yet these birds are not cripples. Their tiny legs are fitted only to hold them on the perch. If they wish to catch an insect the length of their bill away, they will fly to get it, just as if it were across the yard. Their wings are so strong and move so quickly that these birds do not need to walk or run. They sip their honey or snatch flies and spiders while on the wing.

All birds are alike in many habits, just as people all over the world have some ways in common. Yet there are some birds who are very different from all others. Indeed, there are so many things to know about them, that it is difficult to know just where to begin.

What kind of clothes do birds wear? What do they eat, and when is their meal-time, and how do they fly? How do they make their nurseries or nests, and how do they know just how large these ought to be? Do birds talk and laugh and play at games? What sort of a mother does a bird make, and what do the father birds think of the babies? Do birds have a childhood after their babyhood, and are they allowed by their parents to grow up idle and helpless? Will our wild birds grow tame and trustful if we love and pet them, and do they learn to prefer such food as we eat ourselves? In short, does it pay to cultivate the acquaintance of birds and to think of them as people?

We will talk about these things in this little book, and when we are done, perhaps you will wonder that you did not get up earlier and know more about the beautiful little winged people in your yard.

CHAPTER IV.

HOW BIRDS DRESS.

In temperate climates like this birds do not dress in such bright colors as they do in hot countries. Their coats and gowns are plainer. There are few extremes in color here, as there are few extremes in heat or cold.

We can tell almost any race or class of people by their style of dress or lack of dress. We can name the trees and shrubs and vines by their foliage, which is really their dress; so we know the different kinds of birds by their plumage or dress.

Many birds resemble in color the haunts or places which they like the best. Desert birds are pale or gray, like the sand. Many of those in the tropics are dressed in gay colors, like the bright blossoms about them, while many birds in the cold north are white like the snow. By this we see that in all nature, and especially among the bird people, dress is of great importance.

Some of the larger and coarser birds have been accused of being very untidy about their dress. They do not seem to care how they look, and do not show their clothes off proudly as others do. But people who think this have not observed them very closely. Birds like the hawks and vultures are really very neat and tidy.

Turkey buzzards[2] look very ugly and rough at first glance, but their plumage is suited to their needs, and they take great pains to be clean.

You will notice that the buzzard has no feathers on his head and neck, and it is this lack of hat or bonnet that makes this bird look so odd and unlovely. But we must not be in a hurry to blame him for this, nor call him hard names because he does not happen to wear a collar or head-dress. There are some things which we do not understand unless we first ask questions or get better acquainted with people.

You see the buzzard, like the scavengers who clean up our dirty streets, is always at work on dead things and scraps of garbage which we do not want. We respect him for doing a very necessary sort of work. He must dress to suit his occupation, like other sensible people, though we cannot help wishing the buzzard had a suit of Sunday clothes.

He wears nothing on his head because he is obliged to reach far in beneath bones and thick skin in search of food. If he wore a head-dress, like his neighbors, it would get very foul and ill-smelling, and we should think him far more untidy than he is. As it is, he can slip his naked head into marrow bones and out again without much trouble, and not be afraid of spoiling his hat, as other birds would.

We would not care to be daily companions of the buzzard and the carrion crow, although they are useful and interesting birds. We would prefer to be in the company of better dressed and better bred people.

Most of the birds we know think a great deal about their dress. They work much of their time to keep it tidy and in good order. They mend their clothes, too, although they do not use a needle and thread. A little girl we know laughed heartily one day when we told her that the robin mends her dress when it is torn.

The little girl had only to watch and see that Mrs. and Miss Robin, and other birds as well, smooth out and fix up the torn and rumpled feathers till they look as good as new.

Different kinds of birds have different fashions, but these fashions never change. A bird to-day dresses exactly as its grandmother did, and the birds never seem to make fan of one another for being old-fashioned.

Once in a long while we find a solitary bird different in color from others of its kind. We have seen a white blue jay, and there is in our yard a brown towhee which has two white feathers in its wing. Such birds are very rare, as are people who have a spot of white hair on their heads when all the rest is dark; or albinos, that is, persons with pink eyes and very white skin, although they belong to a dark race.

Two suits of clothes a year are quite enough for most birds, while one suit is all that others can afford. But birds are very careful of their clothes, although they never try to dress more gaily than their neighbors and friends. They only try to be clean, and so they set us a very good example.

Sit down on the grass under a tree, or on a seat in the park, and see the birds dress themselves. Every separate feather is cleaned and pulled and looked over, just as a woman cleans and stretches delicate lace and embroidery. See how the loose feathers are pulled out and dropped, like so many useless ravellings or worn threads. The bird watches the falling plume until it reaches the ground, canting her head to one side to see what becomes of her tatters, and then she goes on with her dressing.

Madam Bird manages very well to twist about and reach all of her clothes except her head-dress. Have you wondered how a bird can turn its head all around in a way that would cramp your own neck if you should try it? The neck of a bird is more flexible than yours; that is, it is furnished with more joints, so that the bird can turn its head readily and dress itself with ease.

A bird never changes the whole of its dress at once. Little by little the feathers drop out or are pulled away, so that they are not missed. If they should all come out in one day or one week, the bird would be helpless and unable to fly.

If you should attempt to smooth a bird's feathers without knowing how, you would very likely make her look very ragged. Naturalists, who know how because they have practised so much, can smooth and pull the feathers as well as the bird herself. They can pick up a hurt bird and by a few touches make her look respectable.