“He’s come back again, but he hasn’t brought suet this time; it’s some kind of a big seed that won’t stay in the shingle crack, so he’s pounding it in,” said Sarah, looking over Clary’s shoulder and dropping her sewing, so interested was she in the movements of the bird. “There, he’s going away and walking down the roof head first; I don’t see why he doesn’t slip and fall, the same as I did once when I tried to walk down the back stairs on my hands and knees head first, ’cause brother dared me.”

Gray Lady hurried to the window in time to see the Nuthatch give a final pound to the object that was wedged between the shingles. With her opera-glasses, she discovered that it was the empty shell of a beechnut.

“This little bird has been kind enough to write the meaning of its singular name here on the roof, evidently for the benefit of the Kind Hearts’ Club, for I have been expecting that some of you would ask from what the term ‘Nuthatch’ came.”

“I thought it was a funny name, but then lots of birds’ names seem queer, until you hear about them,” said Eliza Clausen.

“This bird is very fond of nuts,” continued Gray Lady, “not the very hard ones like butternuts, but the smaller acorns, chestnuts, and especially the little three-cornered beechnuts, with the sweet meat. Having no teeth to crack them like a squirrel, and not being able to use his beak for a nutcracker, he wedges the nut fast and then uses his sharp, strong bill for a hatchet and hatches the nut open; by this he has earned his name, ‘Nuthatch.’

“There is another name that Goldilocks once gave him that is quite as good, and that would remind you of him wherever you hear it,—the ‘Upside-down’ bird!—for what other bird that you know can climb about as he does?”

“Woodpeckers do,” cried Tommy and Dave, together.

“Yes, and there’s another bird, little and brown and striped, that’s only here in winter and goes up and down all over the tree-trunks. I saw one this morning when I was coming up,” said Sarah, “and I guess Chickadees can go upside down, too, for I saw one hanging on to a fir cone yesterday, and it was head down.”

TO A NUTHATCH

“This bird comes to us in middle New England only as a winter visitor, and well does it pay its way by eating grubs and insect eggs. It does not seem very shy, hereabouts, but in the nesting time it loves deep, silent forests and the cedar swamps of the North, and it is only in these places that its strange, sweet song may be heard, which is something that I have never heard successfully imitated or put into syllables, but Mr. Brewster, who is one of the Wise Men who knows, says it is like the soft sigh of the wind among the pine boughs.

“It is in these deep woods, also, that it nests. Discovering a tree where the bark is loose and yet does not strip off too easily, this little Creeper finds a nook of the right size, which he lines with soft bark, moss, or bits of wood so thoroughly decayed that it is like sponge, and in this bed are laid six or eight pretty little lavender eggs with brown spots wreathed about the larger end.

“When the Creeper comes to us, he has evidently forgotten home and family cares as well as his beautiful song, for he only favours us with a very scratchy squeak, as if a file at work on a wire and a couple of crossed tree branches were striving to see which could sing the better. But he is as busy as busy can be, and acts as if he were practising for a race in climbing the stairs of a lighthouse tower.

“At the bottom of the tree, he starts and goes up and around without a pause until he is two-thirds of the way up and the more frequent branches bother him. Then he stops a moment to rest, bracketing himself against the tree by the sharp point of his tail-feathers, which arrangement he possesses in common with the Chimney Swift and the Woodpeckers. Next, without warning, he flits with a backward tilt either to the base of another tree, or to the same one, and again begins to climb; so for him the Stair-climber would be a good name.

“He, also, when the trees are ice-plated, will come gladly to the lunch-counter, I know, for as a girl, long before I left home, this Creeper used to feed upon the scraps that I put upon my window-ledge; for, though people here have been feeding birds in winter this long while, it has only been since the Wise Men have told us of the particular needs of each bird family that we have been able to do it intelligently, and to the best advantage.

“There are some verses in my scrap-book about this tree-trunk bird, also, and it seems as if our poets were very fond of these songless birds who inspire them as much by their friendliness as the others do by melody. I hope that a couple of you will learn this to recite at Christmas. As there are four verses, each can learn two, and then alternate in repeating them.

THE LITTLE BROWN CREEPER

“Some Woodpeckers are pretty bad, though, ’cause grandpa caught a whole bunch of ’em early last spring sucking the juice out of the apple trees in the young orchard, and Uncle Bill, over the mountain, said they did the same to his sugar-maples. I saw what they did, myself, and you can see, too, if you stop up at our house some time when you are passing, for the marks are there,—little round holes, all in rows so as they make squares like the peppery holey plasters grandma wears for a lame back. They were awfully pretty birds, too—all red on the head and neck, and black and white speckled on top, and yellow underneath, and black across the front. I had a good chance to see it, ’cause grandpop was hoppin’ mad and tried to shoot them, and he did get one of the prettiest of them all. Some of them that were on the apple tree didn’t have so many colours in their feathers.”

“Perhaps those were females,” said Sarah Barnes.

“Even though this Sapsucker takes enough sap to have earned his title, he keeps up the family record as an insect eater, for he has a form of the pointed tongue with hooked bristles on the end, like all Woodpeckers, and this weapon acts both as a spear and trap to catch insects. Then, too, the Sapsucker is not a permanent resident, like many of his family, but nests early in the most northerly states and travels about during a great part of the year. As he can only suck sap during the growing season, and eats insects the year around, besides many wild berries—such as those of poison ivy, dogwood, etc.—that are of no use to us, I think he should be forgiven his sip of fresh spring sap, except where, as in the case of Bobby’s grandfather, he is caught in the act of hurting valuable trees.

THE SAPSUCKER

“How many kinds of Woodpeckers are there around here?” asked Eliza Clausen. “I didn’t know there was but one, the great big one, thick like a Pigeon, all speckled black and brown on top, with a red spot on his head and a big white spot over his tail. We had two down at our farm this summer, and they lived in a hole in the old wild cherry, and they laid real nice white eggs, just as white as our Leghorns.”

“How’d you know they had white eggs?” asked Clary. “You can’t see into a Woodpecker’s hole.”

“No; I could reach in, though. I didn’t keep the egg, and only looked at it, and one of the old birds bit me something fierce. They’re real plucky birds, anyway, whatever they are called, for nobody seems to give them the same name. Mother says they are Pigeon Woodpeckers, and Dad calls them Yallerhammers, and both names fit pretty well.”

“In spite of the fact that, owing to his size and plumpness, the Flicker has been until recently allowed to be shot as a game-bird, he is our commonest Woodpecker, and spring would not be the same in this woodland region if we did not hear the roll of the drum, as he beats on a branch, that announces the coming of the feathered procession of migrants.

“Then, too, it is such a jolly bird, it calls out ‘wick, wick, wick,’ as soon as the ponds are free of ice, and this call he changes to ‘wicker-wicker’ as soon as the courting begins; at this time the birds show to the best advantage. The rival birds are perfectly friendly, but ‘they play curious antics, each trying to outdo the other in the display of his golden beauty, that he may thus attract and hold the attention of the female. There is no fighting, but, in its place, an exhibition of all the airs and graces that rival dandies can muster. Their extravagant, comical gestures, rapidly changing attitudes, and exuberant cries, all seem laughable to the onlooker, but evidently give pleasure to the birds.’—Forbush.

“The Flicker spends more time on the ground, itself, than the others of its family; and it has a slightly curved beak, but its tongue is very long, and the fine points on the end are set backward like the barbs of a fish-hook. Its most valuable work is as an ant-eater, and as one of the Wise Men says: ‘This bird is more of an ant-eater than a Woodpecker. It may be seen in fields and open spaces, in woods and orchards, where it strikes its long bill into ant-hills, and then thrusts out its still longer tongue coated with sticky saliva and licks up the out-rushing ants by the dozen. Many kinds of ants are decidedly harmful, as they attend, protect, and help to spread plant-root, or bark-lice, which are among the greatest enemies of garden plants, also shrubs and trees. These lice the ants keep as cows to nourish their young with green, sappy milk. Ants also infest houses and destroy timber.’

“Some people complain that the Flicker bores holes in the attics of houses, and also under eaves when searching for nesting-places, and also for winter shelter. This is true, doubtless, but as the Nuthatch told me that my cornice was decayed and needed mending, so the working of a Flicker about any building should be a warning to the owner to look and see if repairs are not needed.

“Our neighbour, Mr. Burwood, the florist, on the next hill, who, in spite of the fact that he must keep his eyes indoors on the splendid carnations and roses he grows, still has a glance or two to spare for the birds, told me, not long ago, this story of a Flicker. It was in early spring, and he was thinking of turning the water into a great covered tank, mounted on high trestles, that supplies water for the houses, that had been empty all winter; in fact, he had given the men orders so to do. Early in the morning he heard a vigorous tapping high up in the air, and tried in vain to locate it. The next morning, the same sound came, when he traced it to a Flicker, hammering away at one of the stout oaken staves of which the tank was made.

“Thinking that the bird was trying an impossible task, he continued about his work, but, after the hammering had continued for several days, his suspicions were aroused, the tank was examined, and two holes were found, drilled entirely through the stave, which, in spite of appearances, was unsound and would, probably, have given out without warning at some inconvenient season when repairs would have cut off the water supply.

“Always deal kindly with the Flicker, and never make the mistake of confusing it with the Sapsucker; look for the white spot on the rump and the yellow wing-linings, and you will know it, and, though the young of the year lack these marks at first, they have no yellow upon their breasts that can excuse you for making a mistake.

MR. FLICKER WRITES A LETTER

“The Downy’s life is spent in the tree-trunks and hollow limbs, where he merely chisels his doorway large enough, but with not a bit to spare, and the hole within is nicely finished with a few soft chips by way of a bed for the eggs; nice white eggs like all the Woodpeckers, and this would seem to prove that thrifty Nature, knowing that the eggs would be hidden in the dark nesting-hole, did not think it necessary to decorate them for their better protection as she does the eggs laid in open nests.

“To name the injurious insects, moths, and caterpillars our little Downy eats would require a long list, but, as he is a lover of orchards in spring and summer, we may mention the apple-tree borer as one against whom he wages war, and here, by his delicate sense of touch, he locates the larvæ of the codling-moth. ‘Every stroke with which he knocks at the door of an insect’s retreat sounds the crack of doom. He pierces the bark with his beak, then with his barbed tongue drags forth an insect, and moves on to tap a last summons on the door of the next in line.’

“Boring beetles, bark beetles, weevils, caterpillars, ants, and plant-lice, the imagoes of night-moths, as well as the eggs of many insects, are also on his bill of fare. Sometimes he has been accused of boring holes for sap-sucking, but this is disproven; where a hole exists it is because insect prey, in one of its many forms, hide beneath.

“Fortunately, we have many families of the little Downy in the old orchard, and the fact that they are good patrons of Goldilocks’ lunch-counter does not seem to make them relax their vigilance about the apple trees, so that I wonder if it may not be their care, together with the other tree-trunk birds, to which we owe the keeping of the trees, during the ten long years they have been neglected by man. For, though the trees in Birdland are old, gnarled, and vine-draped, yet they are neither worm-eaten nor unsightly, but merely picturesque, and from the birds’ point of view cosy and homelike.

“Now, boys, back into the workroom, and if any one of you has not made a house for a tree-trunk bird, I am sure that he will begin one to-day.”

Grouse, Quail, Woodcock, and the Wood Duck

Together with the Grouse was a pair of Quail in rich, brown autumn coats and snowy throats that excel those of the White-throated Sparrow itself. Tommy’s father and his elder brother Joe, the Fair Meadows blacksmith, had taken two “days off,” and gone a-hunting up to the upland brush-country beyond the river woods, and these birds, a part of the result, were a gift for Gray Lady and Goldilocks. Not only were the birds in fine condition, but they were nicely tied together with some sprays of trailing ground-pine and a little tuft of pungent wintergreen with its coral berries.

Gray Lady took the birds, and as she thanked Tommy for them, glanced toward Goldilocks, who sat in the library window watching for the children to come. When the young girl saw the birds, she gave an exclamation, half of pleasure at their plumage, half of sorrow that they were dead, for to keep everything alive and as happy as possible was her inherent nature. But she knew that these were game- or “chicken-birds,” as she had once called them when a mere baby, whose fate was to be eaten, and that Tommy’s father had only followed a legitimate desire for outdoor life and its sports when he had tramped more than thirty miles for the hunting. So she merely said, as she smoothed the beautifully shaded feathers, “I wish the Kind Hearts’ Club could do something to make game-birds have a very comfortable, good time, the part of the year when they are not hunted; do you think we could, mother? For I don’t think that this shy kind of bird will come to the lunch-counter, and I’ve been wondering lately what they find to eat in such cold winters as the last. Miss Wilde has told me that for weeks last winter the snow was so deep that in going, from where she lived, a mile to school, she never even saw a fence top, so if game-birds ‘feed chiefly on the ground after the manner of barnyard fowls, roosting in low trees and bushes,’ as one of my books says, I do not see why they do not freeze and starve.”

“That’s what Pop and Grand’ther and Joe were talking about last night,” said Tommy; “they said that they travelled over miles of stubble-fields and brush-lots where there used to be lots of birds, and now, in spite of the laws in our place that are down on pot-hunters and won’t let game be sold or carried away, and our having a keen county warden, the birds seem to be melting away just the same.”

“What did your father think was the reason?” asked Gray Lady, for she remembered as a young girl that the General used to say, “Get a farmer interested in a subject enough to make him really think, and you cannot get better advice.”

“Pop said all these new stiff-edged stone roads that are pushing out the dirt and grass lanes may be mighty fine for automobiles and all the other dust-raisers, but they’re poor trash for horses’ feet and game-birds, ’cause the brush along the old roads both sides of the fences made good cover and kept the snow, when it drifted, sort of loose, so that the birds could get in and out to look for food. But when everything is trimmed smooth, the snow lies flat and hard and crusty, and the birds can’t get under to grub for food, and if they’re under and it freezes on top of ’em, they can’t get out.

“There, Goldilocks, you have your answer as to what the Kind Hearts’ Club can do to make these food-birds comfortable during the ten months of the year (in this state, Connecticut), when they may roam without fear of hunting by honest sportsmen. The dishonest hunters and pot-hunters, who do not care for law and order, we must watch and bring to justice, just as we do any other class of criminals.

“Some very good people are extremely careless about this, and would arrest a hungry man for stealing a bottle of milk from a doorstep, and yet even buy game from poachers whom they knew had taken it against the law; doing this is a far more serious offence, for one of our Wise Men has said that wild birds are not the property of the individual, but of the Commonwealth.”

“I wish these birds need never be shot; don’t you?” said Sarah Barnes. “They are much prettier than some song-birds, and I’m sure that Bob-white’s call is just as pleasant to hear as a song.”

“Yes, Sarah, I should like to protect the game-birds also, unless in cases where people, living away from places where other food can be had, are really hungry. But there are two sides to this question, and the Kind Hearts’ Club must always try to look at both, so as to be sure that in being just to one, the other may not be misjudged. All over the country there are hundreds of men who, for nearly all the year, are tied to desks in offices, and their heads are weary and their bodies cramped. The love of hunting is born in man, probably an inheritance from his ancestors, who hunted for their living, just as the bird inherits the instincts of migration from its parents and performs the journeys even when there is no need.

“This love of hunting leads the men out into the woods for a few weeks, or even days, each year, and, besides the hunting, they meet Nature face to face, and, whether they know it or not, come back better able to take up the work of life, which is a harder struggle as the world gets older and older.

“Some people may not agree with me, but I had a good warm-hearted father, who gave his life in the cause of humanity; yet he loved fair hunting, and Goldilocks’ father did, also. So I think that the Kind Hearts’ Club will not only be doing the game-bird a service, but man also, if it can make and carry out a plan to feed and shelter these birds, even in the space of Fair Meadows township.

“I have been talking this over with some men who know the haunts of these birds, and next month, if the big boys join us, I will tell you my plan; for it will need sturdy fellows to carry it out, though you can all help.”

“They make their nest on the ground, Dave,” said Gray Lady; “not much of a nest, merely a few leaves scratched together in a tree hollow. Now we have these real birds here (for later I know that Tommy will let me share them with Miss Wilde’s mother, who has been so ill, and her appetite needs tempting), let us spend the morning with the game-birds; Dave shall tell us of his Woodcock’s nest, and I have many little bits in the scrap-book about the others, besides remembrances of my own.

“Children, can you realize that when I was a girl of twelve, I could stand of a May morn, by the old orchard bars, where the Birdland gate is now, and hear twenty or thirty Bob-whites calling all the way across the fields and brush-lots, until the Ridge shut off the sound?

BOB-WHITE

“They rested in the orchard bushes and the edge of brush-lots, so that I was as sure of seeing broods of little Quail as of our own little barnyard chicks. In the autumn they seemed to know about the hunting as soon as a gun was fired in the distance; then they grew shy, but by Christmas the survivors, and they were many, would come about the hay-barns for food as familiarly as the tree-trunk birds come to the lunch-counter, and I have seen them eating cracked corn with the fowls in the barnyard.

“Not only is Bob-white a beautiful object in the landscape, when he sits on a fence top overlooking the fields, but his voice is a delight to the ear, when he either tells his own name, or gives the beseeching ‘covey call,’ in autumn, to gather his scattered flock for the night. Then, on the more useful or material side of the question, not only is his flesh good for food, but, all through the year, he is one of the farmer’s good friends, gleaning, day in and day out, besides the waste grain that he loves, weed seeds, harmful beetles, such as the cucumber beetle, potato and squash bugs, leaf beetles, the dreaded weevils, and the click beetles, that are wire worms in a further stage of their development.

PARTRIDGES
(Ruffed Grouse)