BIRDS OF SONG AND
STORY

FOX SPARROW.

BIRDS OF SONG AND
STORY

BY

ELIZABETH AND JOSEPH GRINNELL

Authors of "Our Feathered Friends"

"And now, wouldst thou, O man, delight the ear
With earth's delicious sounds, or charm the eye
With beautiful creations, then pass forth
And find them midst those many-colored birds
That fill the glowing woods. The richest hues
Lie in their splendid plumage, and their tones
Are sweeter than the music of the lute."

CHICAGO

A. W. MUMFORD, Publisher

1901

[CONTENTS]

[THE BIRDS]

They are swaying in the marshes,
They are swinging in the glen,
Where the cat-tails air their brushes
In the zephyrs of the fen;
In the swamp's deserted tangle,
Where the reed-grass whets its scythes;
In the dismal, creepy quagmire.
Where the snake-gourd twists and writhes.

They are singing in arroyos,
Where the cactus mails its breast.
Where the Spanish bayonet glistens
On the steep bank's rocky crest;
In the canon, where the cascade
Sets its pearls in maiden-hair,
Where the hay and holly beckon
Valley sun and mountain air.

They are nesting in the elbow
Of the scrub-oak's knotty arm,
In the gray mesh of the sage-brush,
In the wheat-fields of the farm;
In the banks along the sea beach,
In the vine above my door.
In the outstretched, clumsy fingers
Of the mottled sycamore.

While the church-bell rings its discourse
They are sitting on the spires;
Song and anthem, psalm and carol
Quaver as from mystic lyres.
Everywhere they flirt and flutter.
Mate and nest in shrub and tree.
Charmed, I wander yon and hither,
While their beauties ravish me,
Till my musings sing like thrushes,
And my heart is like a nest,
Softly lined with tender fancies
Plucked from Nature's mother-breast.

Elizabeth Grinnell.

[SINGERS AND THEIR SONGS]

And hark! The nightingale begins its song,—
"Most musical, most melancholy bird."
A melancholy bird? Oh, idle thought.
In nature there is nothing melancholy.
.... 'Tis the merry nightingale
That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates
With fast, thick warble his delicious notes.

Coleridge.

Some barbarous peoples possess a rude taste for the beautiful plumage of birds, decorating their bodies in feathers of softest and brightest tints. But we have record of few, if any, savage tribes the world over which delight in bird melody. True, the savage may seek his food by sound, or even song, but to feast the ear on music for music's sake—ah, this is reserved for culture.

An ear cultivated to melody is one of the soul's luxuries. Attuned to sweet and varied sound, it may become the guide to bird secrets never imparted to the eye.

Sitting in the close shrubbery of a home garden, or crouching moveless in a forest, one may catch whispers of bird language never imparted to human ears when the listener is moving about or talking with a comrade.

If one has accidentally or by patience discovered the evening resort of shy birds, let him precede the birds by half an hour. Sitting low among rocks or fallen trees, having the forethought to wear plainly colored clothes, and as moveless as the neighboring objects, one may be treated to such a feast of sounds as will both surprise and entertain him. The birds will come close, and even hop over one's coat sleeves and shoes, though so much as a full-fledged wink may dissipate the charm.

Just before bedtime there are whisperings, and salutes, and low-voiced conversations, and love notes, and "O's" and "Ah's" at sight of a belated insect, and lullaby ditties, and if one be possessed of a good deal of imagination, "evening prayers."

Birds that fly from their night-time perches in the thick shrubbery in the morning dusk with a whirr, and a scream, or emphatic call-note, in evening time just whisper or sing in half-articulate tones.

To be out in their haunts late in the day and very early in the dawn is to learn things about birds one never forgets. And if one chance to remain late at night, one may often hear some feathered person mumble, or talk, or scold, or complain, or sing a short melody, in his sleep. Some students of bird-lore suggest that all-night singers, like the mockers, and some thrushes, do "talk in their sleep," instead of from intent and choice. If one will watch a tame canary in its cage one may hear a very low, sweet warble from the bird while its head is tucked under its feathers. This act wakens the little creature, and it may be seen to finish its note while it looks about in the lamp-light in a half-bewildered way.

Take our domestic fowls! Go noiselessly out to the chicken roost and stand stock-still for a while. Now and then some hen or cock will speak a few words in its own language, in a rambling, dozing way. Then the suggestion passes on, and perhaps half a dozen individuals engage in nocturnal conversation. One, more "nervous" from yesterday's overwork perhaps, actually has a nightmare, and cackles in fright. All this has no connection with the usual time for the head of the family to give his warning crow that midnight or daytime is close at hand and there is scarcely time for another wink of sleep.

Once in the secret of bird notes, even a blind person may locate the immediate vicinity of a nest. And he may identify species by the call-notes and songs. We have a blind girl neighbor who declares she would rather have her hearing than her sight, she has learned so well to hear what her sight might deprive her of.

When once the ear has learned its better lessons, glimpses, so to speak, of bird life flutter to it as naturally as leaves flutter to the sward in autumn. It is the continual chatter, chatter, that deprives many of us of the best enjoyments of life. We talk when we should listen. Nature speaks low more often than she shouts. A taciturn child or person finds out things that are worth the habit of keeping still to know.

These remarks are in the interest of singing birds. A bird is sometimes interrupted, and comes to a sudden stop. A footstep, a word, a laugh, and the very next note is swallowed by the singer. By studying our songsters one may come to know for one's self how individuals differ even among the same species.

There is the sad-voiced phœbe! Even she forgets her customary dismal cry at certain times when flies are winging their midday dance on invisible floors that never were waxed. It is when she takes a "flat stand" an the roof-corner and "bewails her lot" that her notes are utterly disconsolate. Take a couple of phœbes on a cloudy day, just after "one's folks have gone away from home on a long visit," and nothing lends an aid to sorrow like their melancholy notes. Really we do believe phœbe thinks he is singing. But he has mistaken his calling. Some of the goldfinches have a plaintive note, especially while nesting, which appeals to the gloomy side of the listener, if he chance to have such a side. Were Coleridge listening to either of these, the phœbe or the goldfinch, he would doubtless say, in answer to the charge of sadness:

"A melancholy bird? Oh, idle thought!
In nature there is nothing melancholy."

And he would have us believe the birds are "merry" when they sing.

And so they shall be merry. Even the mourning dove shall make us glad. She does not intend to mourn; the appearance of sadness being only the cadence of her natural voice. She has not learned the art of modulation; though the bluebird and the robin and all the thrushes call her attention to the matter every year.

If one will closely watch a singer, unbeknown to him, when he is in the very act, one may note the varying expression of the body, from the tip of his beak to the tip of his tail. Sometimes he will stand still with closely fitting plumage and whole attitude on tiptoe. Sometimes he will crouch, and lift the plumage, and gyrate gracefully, or flutter, or soar off at random on quick wings.

Sometimes he sings flat on the breast like a song-sparrow, or again high up in the sky like the lark. However he sings, heaven bless the singer! "The earth would be a cheerless place were there no more of these."

But legend tells the story of singing birds in its own way—the story of a time long, long eons ago, when not a single bird made glad the heart of anything or anybody.

True, there were some large sea birds and great walking land birds, too deformed for any one to recognize as birds in these days, but there was no such thing as a singing bird.

One day there came a great spring freshet, the greatest freshet ever dreamed of, and all the land animals sought shelter in the trees and high mountains. But the water came up to the peaks and over the treetops, and sorrow was in all the world. Suddenly a giraffe, stretching its long neck in all directions, espied a big boat roofed over like a house. The giraffe made signs to the elephant, and the elephant gave the signal, as elephants to this day do give signals that are heard for many a mile, so they say! Then there came a scurrying for the big boat. A few of all the animals got on board, by hook or crook, and the rain was coming down in sheets. All at once along came the lizards, crawling up the sides of the boat and hunting for cracks and knot-holes to crawl into, just as lizards are in the habit of doing on the sly to this day. But not a crack or knot-hole could they find in the boat's side; for the loose places, wide enough for a lizard to flatten himself into, had all been filled up with gum, or something.

Then the lizards began to hiss, exactly the way they hiss to this day when they are frightened; and the big animals inside the boat poked out their noses to see what was to pay.

"Oh, they are nothing but lizards!" exclaimed the giraffe to the elephant, who had naturally taken possession of more than his share of the only foothold in existence. "Let them drown in the freshet."

But a big, awkward land bird, with teeth, and a tail like a church steeple, took pity on the lizards and gnawed a hole in the wall of the boat.

Of course in trooped the lizards. Once in, they disposed themselves in nooks and corners, and right under the flapping ears of the elephant and between the pointed ears of the giraffe. And they began to whisper.

It was a very low, hissing whisper, as if they had never gotten farther than the s's in the alphabet, but the big animals understood.

Plenty of room was made for the lizards, and they were allowed to make a square meal now and then on the flies that had come in at the boat's door, uninvited, plenty of them.

After a few days the spring freshet came to an end, and the giraffe opened the door of the boat-house and looked out. He made signs to the elephant, and the elephant gave the signal, and out walked all the animals on "dry ground," which, to tell the truth, was rather muddy.

When all the other creatures were out of the boat it came the lizard's turn. But the elephant and the giraffe bethought them of something, and turned back to the boat "You promised us! You promised us!" they cried, to the wriggling lizards that hadn't a single thing about them to make anybody desire their company in land or sea.

"So we did promise," they answered, hissing their words.

Then the lizards all turned facing each other in rows, and stuck out their long tongues just as lizards do to this day, and breathed on one another, and made a sizzling noise. Suddenly, from each side of their long tails appeared pin-feathers, which grew very fast, till the scales were all disappeared. And then little baby feathers appeared on their backs, and breasts, and fore legs, or arms, which overlapped each other like scales, and were beautiful and soft and many-tinted. Beaks grew in place of the wide mouths; only the hind legs were left as they were. But these, too, began to change! They grew long, and slim, and hard, but the nails remained as they were before, only stronger. Then the lizards were reptiles no longer, but beautiful birds. And with one accord they began to sing, each singing a different song from his neighbor, and making the clear air ring with melody.

And the giraffe made signs to the elephant, and the elephant signaled all the other animals to return. And so they returned. And they could hardly believe their eyes when the elephant told them these were the crawling lizards that had come into the boat-house the last thing. But he assured them they were the "very same." And then he told them how the lizards had promised him and the big giraffe that if they would be permitted to stay in the boat with the rest until the spring freshet was over, they would be "angels" ever afterward, and spend all their time, when they were not eating and sleeping, in making glad melody for all the animal world.

While the giraffe was speaking the birds lifted their wings, which an hour before were bare arms, and soared out and up into the blue sky, singing as they went.

And this was the origin of the singing birds. To explain how, to this day, there are plenty of lizards of all sizes and colors, the legend hints a sequel to the story. Not all of the lizards were able or even willing to go into the boat-house, being naturally shy, and the holes the big bird pecked in the walls were all too soon sealed up.

Almost drowned, the remaining lizards crept up on the backs of the great water dragons, the leviathan, and behemoth, which nobody knows anything about in our days, and so were saved.

Anyhow, we have them, on warm days sunning themselves on fence-rails and bare rocks, or scurrying under the stumps and stones. But they are always on good terms with the birds, for we have seen them basking in the sun together, and they eat the selfsame insects.

The lizards are no doubt discussing with the birds the approach of another spring freshet, when they, too, will bethink them of the boat-house, and so come by feathers and songs.

Harmless they are, as the birds, whom they resemble in many ways. We have taught some of them to drink milk and honey from a teaspoon, and to peck at insects in our fingers, to come at our call, and to lie in our hands. To some they are beautiful creatures; to others they are "nothing but lizards." Boys throw stones at them, and girls wish there were no lizards, they "are so ugly."

Oh, the pity of it! If these would but turn the creatures tenderly over, they would see beautiful colors on the under side, that sparkle and glisten like the breast of a brightly tinted bird. We are acquainted with one lizard as long as a mocking-bird, with a breast as silver-gray. And we love to think of the time (of course it is imagination, though they do say there is possibly some truth in it) when another spring freshet, or something, will turn the little reptile into the bird he resembles.

[CHAPTER I]

OUR COMRADE THE ROBIN

Robin, Sir Robin, gay-vested knight,
Now you have come to us, summer's in sight;
You never dream of the wonders you bring—
Visions that follow the flash of your wing.
How all the beautiful by and by
Around you and after you seems to fly;
Sing on, or eat on, as pleases your mind.
Well have you earned every morsel you find.
"Aye! ha! ha! ha!" whistles Robin. My dear,
Let us all take our own choice of good cheer.

Lucy Larcom.

On account of its generous distribution, and the affection for the bird in the heart of Young America and England alike, the robin shall be given first place among the singing birds. He is the "Little Wanderer"—as the name signifies—the "Robin-son Crusoe" of almost every clime and race.

True, he may be a warbler instead of a thrush in the Old World; but what does that signify? To whatever class or family he may belong by right of birth and legend, the bird of the red breast is the bird of the human breast.

It is impossible to study the early history of birds in any language and not stumble upon legend and superstition. And the more we read of these the more we come to delight in them. There may not be a bit of truth in the matter, but there is fascination. It is like delving among the dust and cobwebs of an old attic. The more dust and cobwebs, the more fun in coming upon things one never went in quest of.

Of course superstition has its objections; but when the robin is the point at issue, we may waive objections and go on our merry ways satisfied that the oldest and clearest head in the family will concur.

Legends concerning our comrade the robin are full of tender thought of him. They have kept his memory green through the rain and shine of centuries, even going so far as to embalm him after death, as will be seen.

It is well-nigh impossible to give the earliest date in which the robin is mentioned as a "sacred bird." Certain it is that he ranks with characters of "ye olden time," for myth and superstition enshrined him. The literature of many tongues has preserved him. Poetry and sculpture have embodied him and given him place among the gods and winged beings that inhabit the "neighbor world." Did he not scorch his original gray breast by taking his daily drop of water to lost souls? Did he not stain it by pressing his faithful heart against the crown of thorns? Or, did he not burn it in the Far North when he fanned back into flame the dying embers which the polar bear thought to have trampled out in his wrath that white men invaded his shores? Was he not always the "pious bird?"—though it must be confessed that his beak alone seemed to be possessed of religious tendencies. Was he not the original church sexton who covered the dead, with impartial beak, from eye of sun and man, piling high and dry the woodland leaves about them? The wandering minstrel, the orphan child, or the knight of kingly robe, each shared his sweet charity.

ROBIN.

The English ballad of the "Babes in the Wood" immortalized his memory in poetical sentiment:

"Their little corpse the robin-redbreast found,
And strewed with pious bills the leaves around."

Earlier than the pathetic career of these Babes, homage was paid to the robins,

"Who with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men."

This superstition of the robin's art in caring for the dead runs through many of the old poets, Drayton, Grahame, Hood, Herrick, and others. Strict justice in the matter would have divided the praise of him with the charitable night winds, for it was they more than he who "covered friendless bodies." The sylvan shades of the Old World being then more comprehensive than now, unburied men, from any cause, found their last resting-place in the lap of the forest, sleeping wherever they fell, since no laws of "decent burial" governed the wilds. The night winds, true to their instincts then as now, swirled the fallen leaves about any object in their way, in the fashion of a burial shroud. As a matter of course, credit was given to the robin, whose voracious appetite always led him to plunder litter of any sort in search of food. Up bright and early, as is still his habit (since at this hour he is able to waylay the belated night insect), the robin was spied bestirring the forest leaves, and unbeknown to himself was sainted for all time.

And his duties were not confined to those of sexton alone, for, according to good witnesses, he became both sculptor and clergyman—

"For robin-redbreasts when I die
Make both my monument and elegy,"

—stripping, as they were supposed to do, the foliage from the trees on which to write their elegies, and so leaving the uncovered trunks as monumental shafts.

According to tradition, it was the robin who originated the first conception of decorating the graves of martyrs.

"The robin-redbreast oft at evening hours
Shall kindly lend his aid,
With hoary moss and gathered flowers
To deck the grave where thou art laid."

And again from one of the old poets, who was naturally anxious that his own last rites should be proper as well as pathetic:

"And while the wood nymphs my old corpse inter,
Sing thou my dirge, sweet-warbling chorister;
My epitaph in foliage next write this:
'Here, here, the tomb of Robert Herrick is.'"

And so it came to pass, by the patronage of the poets, that in the early centuries this little bird came to be protected by an affectionate, unwritten law. To molest a redbreast was to bring the swift vengeance of lightning on the house. The ancient boy knew better, if he cherished his personal safety, than to steal a young bird for the purpose of captivity, for

"A robin in a cage
Sets all heaven in a rage."

The "sobbing, sobbing of pretty, pretty robin" would surely call down upon the head of the luckless thief the dire displeasure of the deities; as runs the rhyme, meant in all reverence (as it should also be quoted);

"The robin and the wren
Are God Almighty's cock and hen.
Him that harries their nest
Never shall his soul have rest."

Terrible punishments were thus meted out to the ancient urchin whose instincts would lead him to rob bird's nests.

In Pilgrim's Progress, Christiana is said to have been greatly astonished at seeing a robin with a spider in its beak. Said she, "What a disparagement it is to such a little, pretty bird as the robin-redbreast is, he being also a bird above many, that loveth to maintain a kind of sociableness with man; I had thought they had lived on crumbs of bread—I like him worse than I did-."

And the wordy-wise Interpreter, to clinch a moral lesson in the mind of the religious woman, explained how the robins "when they are by themselves, catch and gobble up spiders; they can change their diet (like the ungodly hypocrite), drink iniquity, and swallow down sin like water." And so, obedient to her spiritual adviser, Christiana liked the robin "worse than she did." Poor soul; she should have observed for herself that for a robin to gobble up a spider is no "iniquity." Did she think that crumbs grew on bushes, ready made for early breakfast, or that the under side of woodland leaves was buttered to order?

Spiders the robin must have, else how could he obtain the strings for his harp? Wherever the spider spins her thread, there is her devotee, the robin. He may not be seen to pluck and stretch the threads, but the source of them he loves, and he says his best grace above this dainty of his board. Our pet robin was known to stand patiently by the crack of a door, asking that it be opened wider, as, in his opinion, a spider was hiding behind it. He heard her stockinged tread, as he hears also the slippered feet of the grub in the garden sod—provided the grubs have feet, which it is known they can do tolerably well without.

Sure it is the world over, be he thrush or warbler, the robin is partial to bread and butter; to bread thrice buttered if he can get it. Fat of any sort he craves. The more practical than sentimental believe that he uses it in the preparation of the "colors done in oil" with which he tints his breast. For lack of oil, therefore, where it is not provided by his friends, or discovered by himself, his breast is underdone in color, paling even to dusky hue; so that, would you have a redbreast of deepest dye, be liberal with his buttered bread.

And his yellow mouth! Ah, it is the color of spring butter when the dandelions are astir, oozing out, as it were, when he is very young, as if for suggestion to those who love him.

The historical wedding of Cock Robin to Jenny Wren was the result of anxiety on the part of mutual friends who would unite their favorite birds. The "courtship," the "merry marriage," the "picnic dinner," and the rest of the tragedy are well described. Alas, for the death and burial of the robin-groom, who did not live to enjoy the bliss of wedded life as prearranged by his solicitous friends. But the affair went merry as a marriage-bell for a while, and was good until fortunes changed.

All the birds of the air combined to make the event a happy one, and they dined and they supped in elegant style.

"For each took a bumper
And drank to the pair;
Cock Robin the bridegroom,
And Jenny Wren the fair."

Just as the dinner things were being removed, and the bird guests were singing "fit to be heard a mile around," in stalked the Cuckoo, who it is presumed had not been invited to the wedding, and was angry at being slighted. He rudely began pulling the bride all about by her pretty clothes, which aroused the temper of the groom, naturally enough, as who could wonder? His best man, the Sparrow, went out and armed himself, his weapons being the bow and arrow, and took his usual steady aim to hit the intruder, but, like many another excited marksman, he missed his aim, and, oh, the pity of it! shot Cock Robin himself. (It was an easy way for the poet to dispose of the affair, as he knew very well a robin and a wren couldn't mate, in truth.)

Nor did the Sparrow deny his unintentional blunder when it came to the trial. There were witnesses in plenty; and Robin was given a splendid burial—Robin who had himself officiated at many a ceremony of the same sad sort.

It is a pathetic tale, as any one may see who reads it, and served the purpose of stimulating sympathy for the birds. We have forgiven the sparrow for his blunder, as will be seen later on; for in consequence of it, the birds were called up in line and made to do something, thus distinguishing themselves as no idlers.

The mating of Robin with Jenny Wren proved a failure, of course, so we have our dear "twa birds," the robins, as near alike as two peas, when the male is not singing and the female is not cuddling her nest. A trifle brighter of tint is the male (in North America), but the two combine, like any staid farmer and his wife, in getting a living out of the soil. Hand in hand, as it were, they wander about the country anywhere under the flag, at home wherever it rains; but returning to the same locality, with true homing instinct, as often as the spring-time suggests the proper season for family affairs; completing these same affairs in time to look after their winter outfit of clothes. This last more on account of their annual shabby condition than by reason of the rigors of cold, for they change climate as often as health and happiness (including, of course, food) require.

True, some penalties attach to this sudden and frequent change, but the robins accept whatever comes to them with a protest of song, returning good for evil, even when charged with stealing more fruit than the law allows. It is impossible to compare the good they do with any possible harm, since the insect harvest-time is always, and the robin's farming implements never grow rusty.

Always in the wake of the robins is the sharp-shinned hawk and many another winged enemy, for their migrations are followed by faithful foes who secrete themselves in the shadows. We deprived one of these desperadoes of his dinner before he had so much as tasted it, also of his pleasure in obtaining another, for we brought him down in the very act, and rescued his victim only by prying apart the reluctantly dying claws.

But whatever may be said of hawks and such other hungry beings who lay no claim to a vegetable diet, their so-called cruelty should be overlooked, since it is impossible to draw the lines without affecting the robin himself. For see with what excusable greed he snatches at winged beings which happen to light for a rest in their flight, or draws the protesting earth-worm from its sunless corridors. It is a law of nature, and grace must provide absolution. So must also the bird-lover, supposing in his charitable heart that worms and flies delight in being made over into new and better loved individuals.

Would the bird-lover actually convert this redbreast from the error of his victual ways, he may do so by substituting cooked or raw food from his own table. The robin is an apt student of civilization, and adopts the ways of its reformers with relish. As to the statement that robins require a diet of worms to insure life and growth, we can say that we have raised a whole family on bread and milk alone with perfect success. True, we allowed them a bit of watermelon in melon season, but they used it more as a newfangled bath than as a food, actually rolling in it, and pasting their feathers together with the sticky juice. The farmer's orchard is the robin's own patch of ground, and he revels in its varied bounties. A pair of them know at a glance the very crotch in the apple-tree which grew three prongs on purpose for their nest. The extreme center, scooped to a thimble's capacity, suggests the initial post-hole for a proper foundation. The said post may be placed directly across it, but that does not change the idea. Above is the parting of the boughs, across whose inverted arches sticks alternate, and so on up. And atop of straws and leaves and sticks is the "loving cup" of clay, with its soft lining of vegetable fiber and grasses. What care the robins that little cover roofs them and their young? Are they not water birds by nature, and wind birds as well? (Our pet sat for hours at a time in hot weather emersed to his ears in the bath, and even sang low notes while he soaked.) Birds of spring freshets and June winds, they dote on the weather, and bring off their young ones as successfully as their neighbors. What if a nest be blown down now and then? The school-boy, in passing, puts it back in its place and sees that every birdling goes with it; while the old birds above him, shedding water like a goose, thank him for his pains.

The orchardist who plants a mulberry-tree in his apple rows, though he himself scorns the insipid sweetness of the fruit, ranks with any philanthropist in that he foresees the needs of a little soul which loves the society of man more than anything else in the world.

By the planting of the mulberry-tree he plants a thought in the breast of his little son. "I don't like mulberries, father. What makes you set out a mulberry-tree in an apple orchard?"

"For the robins, my son. Haven't you heard that luck follows the robins?"

"What is luck, father?"

"Luck, my son, is any good thing which people make for themselves and the folks they think about."

And the little boy sits down on a buttercup cushion and meditates on luck, while he watches the robins knocking at the doors of the soft-bodied larvæ, engaged in making luck for other folks. And the boy's own luck takes the right turn all on account of his father setting out a mulberry-tree.

Whole school-rooms full of children are known to be after the same sort of luck when they plant a tree on Arbor Day; a cherry-tree or mulberry-tree, or even an apple, in due time is sure to bring forth just the crotch to delight the heart of mother robin in June. Not that the robins do not select other places than apple-trees to nest in. An unusual place is quite as likely to charm them. Let a person interest himself a little in the robin's affairs and he will see startling results by the summer solstice. An old hat in the crotch of a tree, an inverted sunshade, or even a discarded scarecrow, terrible to behold, left over from last year and hidden in the foliage, one and all suggest possibilities to the robins.

Mud that is fresh and sweet is essential to a robin's nest. Stale, bad-smelling, sour mud isn't fit for use. Sweet, clay-like stuff is what they want. A pack of twigs made up loosely, soft grass and fiber, all delight the nest-builders, who are as sure to select a location near by, as they are sure to stay all summer near the farmer on account of the nearness of food.

Anywhere from four to thirty feet one may find the nests with little trouble, they are so bulky, all but the delicate inside of them, which is soft as down; nest-lining being next thing to nest-peopling—the toes of the little new people finding their first means of clinging to life by what is next to them. A well-woven lining gives young robins a delicious sense of safety, as they hold on tight—the instinct to hold on tight being about the first in any young thing, be it bird or human baby, except, perhaps, the instinct of holding its mouth open.

Some people who do not watch closely suppose the young robin who holds its mouth open the longest and widest gets the most food. We are often mistaken in things. Mother robin understands the care of the young, though she never read a book about it in all her life. Think of her infant, of exactly eleven days, leaving the nest and getting about on its own legs, as indeed it does, more to the astonishment of its own little self than anybody else. And before the baby knows it, he is singing with all the rest,

"Cheer up;
Cheerily, cheerily,
Cheer up."

The very same song we heard him sing within the Arctic circle, far up to the snow line of the Jade Mountains, alternating his song with the eating of juniper berries.

But one might go on forever with the robin as he hops and skips and flies from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Alaska to Mexico and other parts; but one would never get to the end of loving him.

When poor robin at last meets with disaster and cannot pick himself up again, in short, is "gone to that world where birds are blest," the leaves shall remember to cover him, while we imagine, with the poet who thought it not time and talent wasted to write an epitaph to the redbreast,

"Small notes wake from underground
Where now his tiny bones are laid.
No prowling cat with whiskered face
Approaches this sequestered place;
No school-boy with his willow bow
Shall aim at thee a treacherous blow."

But the funeral of even a robin is a sad event; so we will bring him back in the spring, for

"There's a call upon the housetop, an answer from the plain,
There's a warble in the sunshine, a twitter in the rain."

[CHAPTER II]

THE MOCKING-BIRD

Wit, sophist, songster, Yorick of thy tribe,
Thou sportive satirist of nature's school;
To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe,
Arch-mocker, and Mad Abbot of Misrule.
For such thou art by day; but all night long
Thou pour'st soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain,
As if thou didst in this thy moonlight song
Like to the melancholy Jaques complain,
Musing on falsehood, folly, vice, and wrong.
And sighing for thy motley coat again.

Wilde.

In his native town, or district, the mocker stands at the head of the class as a song-bird. He is not distinguished for his gorgeous plumage, like a parrot, nor yet for the mischief he does, like the crow. His virtue is all in his throat. And yet he can scarcely be honored as an original genius. Were he original he would be no mocker. But he has an original way with him for all that, when he takes a notion to mimic any person. Were he a man as gifted, we should have no trouble in seeing ourselves "as ithers see us"; or better, in hearing ourselves "as ithers hear us." He is the preacher, the choir leader, the choir itself, the organ. He gives out the hymns, chants the "Amen," and pronounces the benediction in the garden church. Few verses have been inscribed to the mocking-bird, for the reason, it is supposed, that sentiment intended for any known singer fits the mocker, though it must be conceded that he is humorist more than poet. It is impossible to listen to his varied songs and keep from laughing, especially if the mood be on one. Where the weather is very mild he sings all winter, and nearly all the year. His fall molt takes but a few weeks, and then "Richard is himself again."

His humor does not desert him even at the trying season of molting his coat, for he is seen to stand on a bough and preen himself of his old tatters, catching a falling feather in his beak, and turning it about in a ludicrous way, as if laughing to himself at this annual joke of his. Dropping the remnant of his summer plumage, he cants his wise little head and gives a shrill cry of applause as it floats away.

Whatever may be said of his musical powers, the mocker exceeds his fellows in the art of listening. We have known him to sit the better part of an afternoon, concealed in thick foliage, listening with all his might to the various songs about him, with full intention of repeating them at midnight. And repeat them he does, not forgetting the postman's whistle, nor the young turkeys just learning to run (in the wet grass) to an untimely grave.

He has an agreeable way of improving upon the original of any song he imitates, so that he is supposed to give free music lessons to all the other birds. His own notes, belonging solely to himself, are beautiful and varied, and he sandwiches them in between the rest in a way to suit the best.

We imagine that he forgets, from year to year, and must have his memory stirred occasionally. This is particularly so in his imitation of the notes of young birds. We never hear them early in spring or very late in autumn after he has completed his silent molt. In late summer, however, when the baby birds have grown into juveniles, then "old man mocker" takes up his business of mimicking the voices of the late nursery.

AMERICAN MOCKING BIRD.

Until we knew his methods we would start at peculiar sounds in the garden and cry to one another, "There's a late brood of young ones!" and run to locate the tardy family.

From his perch on the chimney the mocker laughs at us, while he squeals, like his own little son of a month old, or coaxes, like a whole nestful of baby linnets.

No matter who is the victim of his mimicry, he loves the corner of a chimney better than any other perch, and carols out into the sky and down into the "black abyss" as if chimneys were made on purpose for mocking-birds.

A neighbor of ours has a graphophone which is used on the lawn for the entertainment of summer guests. Think you that big brass trumpet-throat emits its uncanny sounds for human ears alone? Behind it, or above it, or in front of it, listening and taking notes, is the mocker. Suddenly, next day or next week, we hear, perhaps at midnight, a concert up in the trees—song-sparrows, and linnets, and blackbirds, and young chickens, and shrikes, and pewees, and a host of other musicians, clear and unmistakable. Then as suddenly the whole is repeated through a graphophone, and we listen and laugh, for well we know that the only source of it all is our dear mocker. How he gets the graphophone ring we do not know any more than we know how he comes by all his powers of reproduction. Of practice he has a plenty, and his industry in this respect may be the key to his success.

The male differs so slightly from his mate that the two are indistinguishable save at song-time. They pair in early spring, and are faithfully united in all their duties. They nest mostly in bushes or low branches from four to twenty feet from the ground. The nests are large and often in plain sight. Like the robin and other thrushes, the mocker's first thought is for the foundation. This is made of large sticks and grasses, interlaced and crossed loosely. Upon these the nest proper is placed, of soft materials lined with horsehair or grasses.

With the mockers, as with other birds, there is not a fixed rule as to nesting materials. Outside of a few fundamental principles as to foundations, etc., they select the material at hand. Where cotton is to be obtained they use it, and strings in place of grass. Leaves in the foundation are bulky and little trouble to gather.

We have found a pair of mockers very sly and silent just at nesting-time. Or the female will be at the nest work, while her mate is singing at a distance as if to distract us from the scene of action. However, in our grounds, where we have taught all birds extreme confidence, the good work progresses in plain sight. One writer has declared that a pair of mockers will desert a nest if you so much as look at it. This is true only where they are very wild and unaccustomed to human friends.

When once the young are hatched the fun begins. During the day the male ceases to sing, and devotes himself to giving exact information as to where the nest may be found. Of course this information is unintentional. He flies at us if we step out in sight, screaming with all his might. The nearer we approach the nest the louder and nearer he cries, until he actually has an attack of hysterics and turns somersaults in the air or quivers in the foliage. If it be possible to reach you from behind, he dives at your shoulder and nips at your hair. Always from behind, never facing you. His quiet mate flits through the boughs as if she understands her husband's exaggerated solicitude, and half smiles to see his performances.

In a day or two the young birds are able to speak for themselves, and from this on until the next brood of their parents is hatched, the youngsters keep up a coaxing squeal. Getting out of the nest in about two weeks, they fly awkwardly about, easy prey to cats and other thieves. From a nest of four or five eggs a pair of mockers do well if they raise two or even one. Night birds find them easy to steal, for they sleep on the ground or under a bush at first, being several days in learning to fly; and a much longer time in learning to eat by themselves. This year three sets of young mockers were raised on raspberries. They were brought to the patch as soon as they left the nest, where they remained on the ground along the drooping canes. The old birds kept with them, putting in all their time at teaching the awkward things the art of helping themselves. The parent bird would hop up a foot or two, seize a tip end of a twig on which was the usual group of berries, and bring it down to the ground, holding it there and bidding the young ones "take a bite." Not a bite would they take, squealing with mouth wide open and waiting for the old bird to pick the berry and place it in the capacious throat, the yellow margins of the base of the beak shining in the sun like melted butter. And butter these birds like, as well as the robins, for they come to the garden table and eat it with the bread and doughnuts and pie like hungry tramps.

Unlike the ashy white of the parent breast, the juveniles have a dotted vest very pretty to look at, which disappears at the first molt.

The natural food of the mocking-bird is fruit and meat. They catch an insect on the wing with almost the cunning of a flycatcher, and listen on the ground like a robin, for the muffled tread of a bug under a log or in the sward. They are not the tyrants they are sometimes accredited with being. The mocker does not fight a pitched battle with other birds as often as opportunity offers. Like many another voluble being, his bark is worse than his bite. Not his weapon, but his word, is law. So fraternal are the mockers, as we see them, that the close coming of them near the house in spring insures us the company of many other birds.

It is hard to outwit the mockers. They love fruit of any sort as well as they love insects. They dote on scarecrows, those "guardian angels" of domestic birds, and have been seen to kiss their cheeks or pick out their eyes.

We caused one of these terrors to stand in the Christmas persimmon-tree in the garden, thinking that, for fright of him, the mockers would stand aloof. It rained, and the first bird that came along snuggled under his chin with the hat-brim for an umbrella. That was a linnet. Along came a mocker and took refuge under the other ear of the angel. We tied paper bags around the fruit, but the mockers bit holes in the bags and took the persimmons. We pinned a sheet over the whole treetop, but peep-holes were sufficient. In went the mockers like mice and held carousals under cover.

Tamed when young, and given the freedom of the whole house, a mocking-bird feels fairly at home and is good company, especially if there be an invalid in the family. The bigger the house the more fun, for the limits of the cage in which birds are usually confined form the greatest objection to keeping them in captivity. Few cages admit of sufficient room for the stretch of wing in flight, or even for a respectable hop.

We know of no bird save a parrot which chooses to be caressed. Birds are not guinea-pigs, to be scratched into good terms. It spoils the plumage and disagrees with the temper. A mocker on the ground never trails his coat-skirt. He lifts his tail gracefully, as if he knows that contact with the grass will disarrange his feathers.

In "Evangeline," Longfellow immortalized the mocking-bird thus:

"Then from a neighboring thicket, the mocking-bird, wildest of singers,
Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the waters,
Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music
That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to listen.
Plaintive at first were the tones, and sad; then soaring to madness,
Till having gathered them all, he flung them abroad in derision,
As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the treetops
Shakes down a rattling of rain in a crystal shower on the branches."

[CHAPTER III]

THE CAT-BIRD

Why, so I will, you noisy bird,
This very day I'll advertise you;
Perhaps some busy ones may prize you.

He is not always the cat-bird, O no! He is one of our sweetest singers before day has fairly opened her eyes. Before it is light enough to be sure that what one sees be a bird or a shadow, the cat-bird is in the bushes.

Singing as he flits, this early riser and early eater passes from bush to bush on the fringed edge of morning, conscious of happiness and hunger. With a quaint talent for mimicry he tries to reproduce the notes of other birds, with partial success; giving only short snatches, however, as if afraid to trust himself.

In the hush of evening when the cricket's chirp has a drowsy tone, the cat-bird makes his melody, each individual with cadences of his own. Now like a thrush and now like a nightingale, he sings, though he is not to be compared with the mocking-bird in powers of mimicry. Yet his own personal notes are as sweet as the mocker's.

But, like most persons, he has "another side," on which account he came by his name. And his mate is Mrs. Cat-bird as well, for she, too, imitates the feline foe of all birds, more especially at nesting-time.

There is a legend to fit the case, as usual. This bird was once a great gray cat, and got its living by devouring the young of such birds as nest in low bushes.

CAT BIRD.

All the birds met in convention to pray the gods they might be rid of this particular cat.

As no created thing may be absolutely deprived of life, but only transformed into some other being, this cat was changed into a bird, henceforth doomed to mew and scream like a kitten in trouble.

Its note long since ceased to have much effect upon the birds, who seldom mistake its cry for that of their real enemy in fur and claws.

Not so its human friends, for it takes a fine ear indeed to distinguish the bird from a cat when neither is in sight.

Now this bird, doomed, as the superstition runs, to prowl and lurk about in dark places near the ground, seldom flies high, nor does it often nest in trees. This does not prevent the singer from exercising his musical talents, however, more, than it does the meadow-lark or the song-sparrow.

It is in midsummer that the cat-bird is best known as the bird that "mews." Then both birds, if one approaches the nest, fly at the intruder, wings drooping, tail spread, beak open, whole attitude one of scolding anger.

In this mood the bird fears nothing, even making up to a stranger, and pecking at him. If it would pass with the waning summer and the maturing of the young birds, this bad temper of the cat-bird would be more tolerable; but once acquired, the habit clings to it, and it may be that not till next winter will it get over the fit.

The favorite site of the cat-bird for nesting, as we have observed it, is the middle of a patch of blackberry bushes, so dense and untrimmed it would be impossible for any one save a bird to reach it. Even the parent birds must creep on "all twos" or dodge along beneath the briers. We have known it to build in a thick vine over the door.

The cat-bird and brown thrasher were always together in our Tennessee garden; each fearless, nesting near the door, eating the same food, but differing in personal habits. The cat-bird's nest was in the blackberries, the thrasher's in the honeysuckle. We often borrowed the young thrashers for exhibition to our friends in the parlor. After the first time or two the parents did not care, but watched quietly from the vine for the return of their darlings.

The cat-bird neighbor, always prying about, took note of our custom and played "spy" in the honeysuckle. At the first opening of the door out peeped a black beak, from which proceeded the familiar cat-cry we had learned to not heed. Paying no attention to this self-appointed guardian of the little thrashers, we took them into the parlor, where they would remain for half an hour.

All this time the cat-bird kept up its mewing and screaming at the door, outside, nor did it cease until the birds were placed back in the nest.

The custom of the cat-birds everywhere to play the detective, and sound the note of warning in behalf of all the other birds, is well known. Is there danger anywhere, they rush to the rescue with imploring cry, setting up a great agony of sound and posture, very ludicrous if not pathetic.

And the poor cat-bird is always at swords' points with the farmer. Scarecrows a plenty deck the orchards and ornament the gardens. More do these historical and sometimes artistic beings serve to ease the farmer's conscience than to intimidate the birds; for it is well known that cat-birds thrive best under the grotesque shadows of the scarecrow. And the more horrible of face and figure are these individuals created, the more are they sought after by the very birds they are intended to scare out of their wits.

It will probably take another generation of fruit-men to wake up to the fact that these and other birds habitually mistake the scarecrow for a guide-board to "ways and means," or a sign for "home cooking."

Would the farmer stop when he has finished the very worst scarecrow he can conjure up out of last year's trousers and coat and hat and straw from the bedding mow, the birds would have fair play. But the shot-gun, alas! picks off the poor little mew bird almost as fast as he himself picked off the berries an hour before, and so the farmer is accused of having "no heart."

But the farmer's boy of the bare feet and brown legs loves the funny bird. He will sit for an hour near its brier-bound nest, chuckling at its screams and gestures, and wondering "why it isn't a cat for good and all."

Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
—O, be my friend and teach me to be thine.

Emerson.

[CHAPTER IV]

THE HERMIT-THRUSH

Thrush, thrush, have mercy on thy little bill;
I play to please myself, albeit ill;
And yet—though how it comes to pass I cannot tell—
My singing pleases all the world as well.

Montgomery.

Hermit that it is, this little thrush is known and loved in nearly all of North America. True, there are several of its relatives about in fields and woods, which are taken for the hermit by those who have not compared the different birds; the plain, deep olive-brown above, with dotted creamy vest, being a popular dress with the thrushes.

The hermit answers to several names, suiting the location in which it is found. In low parts of the South it is known as the swamp-robin. You meet it in the damp, shady places where it is always twilight, in the fascinating grounds of the snails and water-beetles.

It likes such clammy, silent neighbors, with their retiring habits and proper manners, for the reason that it is able to turn them to some account at meal-time, which, as is the case with most birds, is all the time, or any time. (It is said to resemble in habits and notes the English song-thrush, which is known to spend most of its time at certain periods of the year hunting snails, which it has learned to dress for eating by slapping them against a stone. It will choose a stone of the proper shape, to which it carries its snails as often as it has good luck in the hunt, leaving little heaps of shell by the stone to mark its picnic-ground.)

HERMIT THRUSH.

Family affairs bring little labor to a pair of hermits, for they have not far to go in search of nesting materials. They take what is close at hand, little dry twigs, lichens, and last year's leaves crumbled and moist, which soon lose their dampness and adhere together in a thick mass.

But few have found it, this nest of the hermit, hidden under the bushes where it is always shadowed, and where the fledglings may help themselves to rambling insects without so much as stepping out of the door. They are supposed to take advantage of this nearness to food by remaining about the nest later than most birds; or if they run, returning on foot of course, having tardy use of their wings, but learning to stretch their legs instead. And well may they learn to "stretch their legs," as they will come to their fortunes by "footing it" mostly, when they are not migrating on the wing.

Like the thrashers, the hermit must scratch for a living when berries are not ripe. By listening one may hear the bird at its work, and by slipping quietly in the dusk of the early morning to the lowlands, or the thick woods, and standing stock-still for a while, even see it. But nearly always it is under cover on the edge of thickets, where the leaf-mold is unstirred and richest. And always by its own self is the hermit, as if it loves nature better than the company of its fellows, listening now and then for underground or overhead sounds, and dwelling on the beauty of the leaf skeletons it overturns like a botanist.

Lace-work and dainty insertion in delicate threads does Madam Hermit find in her resorts—fabric so marvelous and fascinating she could admire it forever; cast-off finery of such insects as outgrow their clothes, grasshopper nymphs, and whole baskets full of locusts' eggs hidden in half-decayed logs, and making a nourishing breakfast, "rare done" and delicious. She delights in the haunts of the praying-mantis at egg-laying season, surprising the wonderful insect in her devotions, who scarcely has time to turn her head on her foe before she disappears from sight.

It is well for her thus to disappear suddenly, for she is spared witnessing the fate of her newly laid eggs just above her on the twig, their silken wrapper being no obstruction in the way of Madam Hermit finishing her meal on them.

These habits of the hermit-thrush mark the dwarf-hermit in southern California. We see it in the orange-groves after irrigation or during a wet winter. Plenty of mulching in the orchards invites the dwarf (where it is a hermit like its relative), and we find it scratching away in the litter, overturning frail little toadstool huts and umbrellas, and exchanging greetings with its neighbor, the varied thrush, under the next tree.

Here in the cañons, where the brooks turn right side up for one brief season in the long, dry year, we see the little olive-brown bird with its speckled breast. Its sight and hearing are keen, so that it detects the whereabouts of the stone-flies, lingering among the moist rocks until they come out for a drink or a bath, when—that is the last of them.

The dwarf brown beauty, which, of course, must have victuals by hook or crook, never breaking a single law in either case, loves the watery haunts of the dragon-flies.

It passes by the pupa-skin drying on its leaf-stalk just as it was outgrown, with perchance a glance at the reflection in the water; but the cunning bird neglects not to take in the pupa itself, making its own breakfast on undeveloped mosquitoes in the water's edge.

All winter long about our home lives the dwarf hermit, eating crumbs at the garden table and looking for belated raspberries on the ever-green canes. Early, before the sun is up, the bird runs along under our windows, where the myrtle covers the tracks of night insects, and rings its tinkling notes. These resemble the familiar bell-notes that belong to the wood-thrush, cousin of the hermit and the dwarf hermit.

Not so numerous as its relatives, the wood-thrush is seen only in Eastern North America. It nests in trees or bushes, packing wet, decaying leaves and wood fiber into a paste, which dries and resembles the mud nest of the robin. It, too, gets its food in the litter of leaves and wet places, choosing fens and cranberry bogs in the pastures. All the thrushes delight in berries, and any berry-patch, wild or cultivated, is the bird's own patch of ground.

The sadder the day the sweeter the song of the wood-thrush. Nature-lovers who stroll into the thickest of the woods of a cloudy day on purpose to make the acquaintance of the thrush will find

"The heart unlocks its springs
Wheresoe'er he singeth."

The notes of all the thrushes are singularly sweet, and may be recognized by their low, tinkling, bell-like tones.

At the funeral of Cock Robin, who did not survive his wedding-day in the legend, it was the thrush who sang a psalm, and he was well qualified, "as he sat in a bush," if such a thing were possible, no doubt bringing tears to his feathered audience.

The "throstle with his note so true" in the garden of Bottom, the fairy in "Midsummer Night's Dream," was the thrush of Shakespeare's own country. No fairy's garden is complete without this sweet singer described so truly by Emily Tolman.

"In the deep, solemn wood, at dawn I hear
A voice serene and pure, now far, now near,
Singing sweetly, singing slowly.
Holy; oh, holy, holy;
Again at evening hush, now near, now far—
Oh, tell me, art thou voice of bird or star?
Sounding sweetly, sounding slowly.
Holy; oh, holy, holy."

[CHAPTER V]

THE GROSBEAKS

Have you ever heard of the sing-away bird,
That sings where the run-away river
Runs down with its rills from the bald-headed hills
That stand in the sunshine and shiver?
Oh, sing, sing away, sing away!
How the pines and the birches are stirred
By the trill of the sing-away bird!

And beneath the glad sun, every glad-hearted one
Sets the world to the tune of its gladness;
The swift rivers sing it, the wild breezes wing it.
Till earth loses thought of her sadness.
Oh, sing, sing away, sing away!
Oh, sing, happy soul, to joy's giver—
Sing on, by Time's run-away river!

Lucy Larcom.

You would recognize it anywhere by its beak. And you may call this feature of the face a beak, or a nose, or a hand, or a pair of lips. In either case it is thick, heavy, prominent, the common characteristic of the grosbeaks. Individuals may differ in plumage, but always there is the thick, conical bill.

"Oh, oh, what a big nose you've got!" and "Oh, oh, what a red nose it is!" we exclaimed, when we first met the cardinal face to face in a thicket. In a moment we had forgotten the shape and tint of the beak in the song that poured out of it. It was like forgetting the look of the big rocks between which gushes the waterfall in a mountain gorge.

Not that the mouth of the grosbeak was built to accommodate its song, but, that being formed for other purposes, it nevertheless is a splendid flute.

Whichever he may be, the cardinal or the black headed, or the blue or the rose breasted, the grosbeak is a splendid singer.

On account of its gorgeous coloring, the cardinal is oftenest caged. But to those who love the wild birds best in their native freedom, the cardinal grosbeak imprisoned lacks the charm of manner which marks it in the tangle of wild grape-vines and blackberry thickets. Seldom still in the wild, unless it be singing, the red beauty flits and dodges between twigs, and dips into brush and careens through the thickest undergrowth of things that combine to hide it, now here, now there, and everywhere. One would think its bright coat a certain and quick token of its whereabouts, but so active is the lively fellow that it eludes even the sharpest eye, a stranger mistaking its gleam for a rift of sunlight through the treetops.

Legend tells us that the beak of this bird was once ashen gray and the face white. Once on a time, a whole flock of them were discovered in the currant rows of a mountaineer, who called on the gods of the woods to punish them, since he himself was unable to overtake the thieves. The gods, willing to appease the old man, yet loving the grosbeaks better, dyed their beaks crimson from that moment, and set black masks on their faces. Thus was a favor done to the cardinals, for ever after the juice of berries left no stain on their red lips, while the black masks set off their features to the best advantage, interrupting the tint of the beak and the head. He is no ecclesiastic, though he wear the red cap of the cardinal, which he lifts at pleasure, for he gets his living by foraging the woods and gardens for berries at berry-time.

ROSE BREASTED GROSBEAK.

The cardinal's companion is modest of tint, ashy brown with only traces of red below, deepening on wings, head, and tail. Bird of the bush is she, and she places her loosely made nest in the thicket, where she can easily obtain bark fiber and dry, soft leaves and grass. In it she sees that three or four chocolate-dotted eggs, like decorated marbles, are placed. And she repeats the family history two or three times a season, where the season is long. At first the lips of the baby birds are dark; but they soon blush into the family red. In plumage they resemble the mother for a time, but before cold weather the males put on a coat of red with the black mask.

In the respect of molting the cardinals differ from their young cousins, the rose-breasted, the latter requiring two or three years to complete the tints of adult life.

But born in the thickets are the rose-breasts, just like the cardinals, the nest being composed of the selfsame fibers and woodland grasses. Strange craft of Mother Nature is this, to bring the rose-breast and the cardinal from eggs of the very same size and markings. But so she does; so that a stranger coming upon either nest in the absence of the mother bird might mistake it for that of the other. You can't be certain until you see the old birds.

The rose-breasted grosbeaks are found east of the Rocky Mountains and north into Canada. It migrates south early, and returns to its summer habitat rather late in spring. The lips of the rose-breast are white, not red, while the feet are grayish blue, differing from the brown feet of the cardinal.

How did it come by its breast? Why, legend has it that the breast was white at the start. One day he forgot himself, not knowing it was night, he was so happy singing the funeral hymn of a robin-redbreast that had died of a chill in molting time, as birds do die when the process is belated. And the grosbeak sang on, until a night-owl spied him and thought to make a supper of a bird so plump. But the owl mistook his aim and flew away with only a beakful of the breast feathers, he not taking into account the nearness of the molt. The grosbeak escaped, but lacking a vest.

The robins gathered pink wild-rose leaves and laid them on the heart of the singer, not forgetting to line the wings, and so from that day to this the psalm singer is known as the rose-breasted grosbeak.

The head and neck of the male and most of the upper parts are black, the tail white and black combined, wings black variegated with white, and the middle breast and under wing-coverts the rich rose that deepens into a carmine. The beak is white.

The mother bird is streaked with blackish and olive brown above, below white tinged with dusky, under wing-coverts the tint of saffron. Her beak is brown.

These beautiful birds may be seen in the haunts of autumn berries, early spring buds that are yet incased in winter wrappings, and orchards in the remote tops of whose trees have been left stray apples. By the time these are frost-bitten they are "ready cooked" for the belated rose-breasts, whose strong beaks seem made on purpose to bite into frozen apples. But frozen apples have a charm of taste for any one who takes the trouble of climbing to the outer limbs for a tempting recluse. Better were more of them left in the late harvest for boys and girls and the rose-breasted grosbeaks.

An invisible thread fastened to a solitary apple on a high twig, and connected inside of the attic window of a cottage, suggests winter fun of a harmless sort. The grosbeaks fish for the apple, which all of a sudden is given a jerk from a watchful urchin inside the window; and the bird realizes the historical "slip 'twixt the cup and the lip." The string being, to start with, almost invisible, is from necessity very weak as well, and breaks at about the third jerk. The fun for the participants inside the window at the other end of the string is over for a time, and before it is readjusted the apple has several bites in it. And besides, there are other apples.

On the Pacific coast we have the black-headed grosbeak, cousin of the others and equally gifted in song.

The sides of the head, back, wings, and tail of this male are black, though the back and wings are dotted with white and cinnamon-brown. The neck and under parts are rich orange-brown, changing to bright, pure yellow on the belly and under wing-coverts. The bill and feet are dark grayish blue. The female and her young differ in the under parts, being a rich sulphur-yellow. Upper parts are olive shaded, varied with whitish or brownish stripes. The habits of the black-headed grosbeak are like those of the others described.

From our custom of making the grounds as attractive to all wild birds as possible, never relenting our vigilance in regard to the feline race, we have had splendid opportunities of studying this bird. They have nested with us for three years, beginning in wary fashion and ending in perfect confidence.

The first of the season we saw only the male, and he kept high in the blue-gum trees, fifty or sixty feet or more above ground, singing as soon as everybody was out of sight, but disappearing if a door opened. We thought him a belated robin, so do the songs of the two birds impress a stranger. For weeks we could catch not so much as a glimpse of the singer, though we hid in the shrubbery. Shrubbery was no barrier to the sight of the keen little eye and ear above. Then we took to the attic, and from a little roof corner-pane beheld the musician.

But his song was short and ended unfinished, so suspicious was the bird. Gradually he came to understand that no shot-gun disturbed the garden stillness, even though he sat on an outer bough, and no cat lurked in the roses. He also appeared to notice that nobody played ball on the greensward, nor threw stones at stray chickens. Altogether circumstances seemed favorable to Sir Grosbeak, and he brought Madam along down from the mountain cañons.

By midsummer of the second season the two were seen at sunrise as low as the tallest of the orange-trees, but they flew higher or disappeared if the door were opened. It was the year that we first planted the row of Logan berries, a new cross between the blackberry and raspberry. It was between the orange and lemon trees, in a quiet corner of the orchard, and the grosbeaks espied them, reddening a month before they ripened. By getting up at dawn we made sure that nesting operations had begun within twenty feet of the Logan berries. But which way? It was not until the eggs were laid that we found the site on a low limb of a fig-tree adjoining the berry row. The nest was made solely of dry dark-leaf spines, and so transparently laid that we could distinguish the three eggs from below. There was no lining, plenty of ventilation in this and other of these grosbeaks' nests observed in the foothills being the rule. Perhaps the climate induces the birds to this sanitary measure. Certain it is that this nest could be no harbor for those insect foes that too often make life miserable for the birdlings.

The summer passed, and we gave up the row of berries to the grosbeaks. There were but few anyway, and we wanted the birds. And there was other fruit they were welcome to.

This season the grosbeaks have brought off three broods within fifty feet of the house. The male sings in the low bushes and trees, and does not think of punctuating his notes with stops and pauses, even though we stand within a few feet of him. In fact, the birds are now as tame as robins. Young striped fledglings grope about in the clover, or flutter in the bushes as fearless as sparrows. If we pick them up they will support themselves by a grip on the hand and swing by their strong great beaks, screaming at the top of their shrill voices to "let go!" when it is themselves that are holding on with might and main. If they scream long enough, and their beaks do not weaken in their clutch, the mocker comes to the rescue and scolds us, while we explain the situation, extending our hands with the grosbeak clinging to the palm.

So far as we have known, all the nests in our grounds have been built in the crotch of a fig-tree. The fig has sparse foliage and affords little shelter. But then there are figs that ripen most of the summer—and figs are good for baby grosbeaks. Once we discovered a nest by accident. The bees at swarming-time settled in the top of a fig-tree, a place not at all suitable, in our opinion. We were busily engaged in tossing dust into the tree to frighten the bees out, when a grosbeak appeared, scolding so hard in her familiar, motherly tone that we knew we were "sanding" her nest as well as the bees. And we found it all right! She went on with her work after we had attended to the bees.

On account of the fondness of the birds for fruit and buds, the grosbeaks might easily become resident in any home grounds. Low shrubbery they love when once they have become familiar; unlike the thrushes, not caring particularly for damp places. Dry, baked-in-the-sun nooks, crisp undergrowth, and especially untrimmed berry rows fascinate them. During mating-season the male sings all the time when he is not eating, singing as he flies from perch to perch, and like others of the family, has been accused of night serenades. We are unable to know certainly if it is our grosbeak or the mocker that wakes us at midnight. It is probably the mocker, who has stolen notes from all the birds.

[CHAPTER VI]

THE ORIOLES

A rosy flush creeps up the sky,
The birds begin their symphony.
I hear the clear, triumphant voice
Of the robin, bidding the world rejoice.
The vireos catch the theme of the song.
And the Baltimore oriole bears it along,
While from sparrow, and thrush, and wood-pewee,
And deep in the pine-trees the chickadee.
There's an undercurrent of harmony.

Harriet E. Paine.

It's a merry song, that of the oriole. It belongs to the family, and once heard will be always recognized. Sometimes it is a happy laugh; sometimes a chatter, especially at nesting-time, when a pair of birds are selecting a place for the hammock. Always, wherever heard, the song of an oriole suggests sunshine and a letting-go of winter and sad times.

The name itself is characteristic of the bird, for it signifies yellow glory. And a yellow glory the oriole surely is, whether it be found in Europe or America, and whether it be called hang-bird, or yellow robin, or golden robin, or fiery hang-bird. The term "hang-bird" suggests the fate of a convict, but the oriole is no convict. His transgressions against any law are few and far between. The name simply denotes the conditions of its start in life. The "hanging" of an oriole occurs before it is out of the shell, at the very beginning of its career. The skill of the orioles in the art of weaving nests is unsurpassed by any other bird. Always it is nest-weaving; not nest-building. Not a stick or piece of bark do they use, nor a bit of mud or paste.

The beak of the orioles differs so widely from that of the grosbeaks that one has but to compare them to be interested. One might almost imagine the bill of a grosbeak to be a drinking-cup, or a basket with an adjustable lid or cover shutting slightly over; while that of the orioles is sharp and pointed, sometimes deflected, longer than the head of the bird, parting, it is true, but the upper and lower mandibles meeting so exactly together at the tip that they form a veritable needle or thorn. And a needle it is, on the point of which hangs a tale—the tale that has given to this lovely being the nom de plume of "hang-bird."

True, the orchard oriole fastens its nest in the forks, giving it a more fixed condition than is the case with the strictly pensile nests, but it, too, is woven with artistic designs, the threads interlacing in beautiful patterns. No more could a grosbeak weave an oriole's nest, with its big, clumsy, thick bill, than could an oriole crack pine cones to pieces with its needle beak. Each to its own tools when it comes to individual tricks. And there are the feet of the birds, fitted only for perching, not for walking! The nearest we ever came to catching an oriole on the ground was when we compelled a July grasshopper to sit in a bird-cage under a tree. The oriole went in at the door and the grasshopper went out of the door. We tried it again, and each time the bird and the hopper went out together, the oriole assisting its friend, for whom it has a special fondness. The fondness is not returned on the part of the hopper.

We were sorry for the grasshopper, and wishing to continue our experiments, secured the dry skin of an insect, which we tied to the perch of the cage. The oriole entered warily, took a bite, discovered the trick, and never came back.

BALTIMORE ORIOLE.

Perhaps the Baltimore oriole is best known, not being confined to the city whose name it bears. It came by its name very much as many other birds came by their names and will continue to come by them. About 1628 Lord Baltimore, on an important visit to America, heard a chatter in the top of a maple, and looking up beheld the colors of his own livery, black and yellow. The colors were animated and flitted from place to place, at last seeming to laugh at the Englishman who had come so far from home to find his coat of arms out of reach. Baltimore recognized the bird as an aristocrat, and bestowed upon it his own name on the spot. And a lord the oriole is to this day, black and orange in color, varying in tint with age and season of the year. New clothes, whether on birds or people, fade with wear and sunshine, and lose the luster of newness.

Everybody knows the oriole: you can't make a mistake. That is, you know the male; you may not be so certain of the female and young, for these are always duller of color, more olive, and without the bright black of the male. Moreover, the young male orioles dress very much like their sisters until they are a year or two old, when they dress like a lord.

A neighbor of ours was sure she had discovered a new species hanging their nest under the awning of a window. Both birds were dull yellow, exactly similar in size and color. There was no mistaking the oriole's nest, however; and when we went to see we found the male to be an immature only, mating, as is their custom, the second year, before his best clothes arrived.

The Baltimore oriole attaches its nest or hammock to twigs pretty well up out of reach, and weaves the same of grasses and string, or horsehairs, or all combined. Some of the strings and hairs are very long, and are passed back and forth in open-work fabric, crazy-quilt fashion, and really very beautiful. The cradles swing with every passing breeze, suggesting the origin of the Indian lullaby song, "Rock-a-Bye Baby, in the Treetop." The eggs are four or five in number, bluish white, with many and various markings in brown. These are laid on a soft bed of wool or other suitable material. No wind can blow the young from the nest, though sorry accidents do sometimes happen to them. We have found them caught by the toes in the meshes of the nest, helplessly suspended on the outside, thus earning the name of "hang-bird" in a particular case. Not so very different from the Baltimore is the Bullock oriole, which was also named for an English gentleman who discovered the gay fellow up in a tree, laughing at him. There is less black on the head and neck of the Bullock than on the Baltimore, but the two relatives are alike in habits and manners.

The hooded oriole differs from both the others in the fact that he wears a hood or cowl of yellow, falling over the face like a mask. Perhaps the bill is more slender and decurved than in the Bullock.

The orchard oriole differs from the others in lacking the bright orange or yellow with the black of his dress. His bright chestnut breast, however, with the pointed bill and familiar manners, distinguish him as a member of the family. The nest is more compact than that of the others, woven sometimes of green grasses, which mature into sweet-smelling hay, retaining the green tint, which helps to hide its exact location in the foliage where it is placed.

To know one member of the oriole family is to know them all in a sense, and to know them is to love them.