Female—Without black forehead and stripes on head.Range—North America, from Texas to Labrador.Migrations—April. October. A few winter at the north.In just such impenetrable retreats as the marsh wrens choose, another wee brown bird may sometimes be seen springing up from among the sedges, singing a few sweet notes as it flies and floats above them, and then suddenly disappearing into the grassy tangle. It is too small, and its breast is not streaked enough to be a song sparrow, neither are their songs alike; it has not the wren's peculiarities of bill and tail. Its bright-bay crown and sparrowy markings finally identify it. A suggestion of the bird's watery home shows itself in the liquid quality of its simple, sweet note, stronger and sweeter than the chippy's, and repeated many times almost like a trill that seems to trickle from the marsh in a little rivulet of song. The sweetness is apt to become monotonous to all but the bird itself, that takes evident delight in its performance. In the spring, when flocks of swamp sparrows come north, how they enliven the marshes and waste places! And yet the song, simple as it is, is evidently not uttered altogether without effort, if the tail-spreading and teetering of the body after the manner of the ovenbird, are any indications of exertion.Nuttall says of these birds: "They thread their devious way with the same alacrity as the rail, with whom, indeed, they are often associated in neighborhood. In consequence of this perpetual brushing through sedge and bushes, their feathers are frequently so worn that their tails appear almost like those of rats."But the swamp sparrows frequently belie their name, and, especially in the South, live in dry fields, worn-out pasture lands with scrubby, weedy patches in them. They live upon seeds of grasses and berries, but Dr. Abbott has detected their special fondness for fish—not fresh fish particularly, but rather such as have lain in the sun for a few days and become dry as a chip.Their nest is placed on the ground, sometimes in a tussock of grass or roots of an upturned tree quite surrounded by water. Four or five soiled white eggs with reddish-brown spots are laid usually twice in a season.Tree Sparrow(Spizella monticola) Finch familyCalled also: CANADA SPARROW; WINTER CHIPPY; TREE BUNTING; WINTER CHIP-BIRD; ARCTIC CHIPPER(Illustration facing p.167)Length—6 to 6.35 inches. About the same size as the English sparrow.Male—Crown of head bright chestnut. Line over the eye, cheeks, throat, and breast gray, the breast with an indistinct black spot on centre. Brown back, the feathers edged with black and buff. Lower back pale grayish brown. Two whitish bars across dusky wings; tail feathers bordered with grayish white. Underneath whitish.Female—Smaller and less distinctly marked.Range—North America, from Hudson Bay to the Carolinas, and westward to the plains.Migrations—October. April. Winter resident.A revised and enlarged edition of the friendly little chipping sparrow, that hops to our very doors for crumbs throughout the mild weather, comes out of British America at the beginning of winter to dissipate much of the winter's dreariness by his cheerful twitterings. Why he should have been called a tree sparrow is a mystery, unless because he does not frequent trees—a reason with sufficient plausibility to commend the name to several of the early ornithologists, who not infrequently called a bird precisely what it was not. The tree sparrow actually does not show half the preference for trees that its familiar little counterpart does, but rather keeps to low bushes when not on theground, where we usually find it. It does not crouch upon the ground like the chippy, but with a lordly carriage holds itself erect as it nimbly runs over the frozen crust. Sheltered from the high, wintry winds in the furrows and dry ditches of ploughed fields, a loose flock of these active birds keep up a merry hunt for fallen seeds and berries, with a belated beetle to give the grain a relish. As you approach the feeding ground, one bird gives a shrill alarm-cry, and instantly five times as many birds as you suspected were in the field take wing and settle down in the scrubby undergrowth at the edge of the woods or by the way-side. No still cold seems too keen for them to go a-foraging; but when cutting winds blow through the leafless thickets the scattered remnants of a flock seek the shelter of stone walls, hedges, barns, and cozy nooks about the house and garden. It is in midwinter that these birds grow most neighborly, although even then they are distinctly less sociable than their small chippy cousins.By the first of March, when the fox sparrow and the bluebird attract the lion's share of attention by their superior voices, we not infrequently are deaf to the modest, sweet little strain that answers for the tree sparrow's love-song. Soon after the bird is in full voice, away it goes with its flock to their nesting ground in Labrador or the Hudson Bay region. It builds, either on the ground or not far from it, a nest of grasses, rootlets, and hair, without which no true chippy counts its home complete.Vesper Sparrow(Poœcetesgramineus) Finch familyCalled also: BAY-WINGED BUNTING; GRASSFINCH; GRASS-BIRDLength—5.75 to 6.25 inches. A little smaller than the English sparrow.Male and Female—Brown above, streaked and varied with gray. Lesser wing coverts bright rufous. Throat and breast whitish, striped with dark brown. Underneath plain soiled white. Outer tail-quills, which are its special mark of identification, are partly white, but apparently wholly white as the bird flies.Range—North America, especially common in eastern partsfrom Hudson Bay to Gulf of Mexico. Winters south of Virginia.Migrations—April. October. Common summer resident.Among the least conspicuous birds, sparrows are the easiest to classify for that very reason, and certain prominent features of the half dozen commonest of the tribe make their identification simple even to the merest novice. The distinguishing marks of this sparrow that haunts open, breezy pasture lands and country waysides are its bright, reddish-brown wing coverts, prominent among its dingy, pale brownish-gray feathers, and its white tail-quills, shown as the bird flies along the road ahead of you to light upon the fence-rail. It rarely flies higher, even to sing its serene, pastoral strain, restful as the twilight, of which, indeed, it seems to be the vocal expression. How different from the ecstatic outburst of the song sparrow! Pensive, but not sad, its long-drawn silvery notes continue in quavers that float off unended like a trail of mist. The song is suggestive of the thoughts that must come at evening to some New England saint of humble station after a well-spent, soul-uplifting day.But while the vesper sparrow sings oftenest and most sweetly in the late afternoon and continues singing until only he and the rose-breasted grosbeak break the silence of the early night, his is one of the first voices to join the morning chorus. No "early worm," however, tempts him from his grassy nest, for the seeds in the pasture lands and certain tiny insects that live among the grass furnish meals at all hours. He simply delights in the cool, still morning and evening hours and in giving voice to his enjoyment of them.The vesper sparrow is preëminently a grass-bird. It first opens its eyes on the world in a nest neatly woven of grasses, laid on the ground among the grass that shelters it and furnishes it with food and its protective coloring. Only the grazing cattle know how many nests and birds are hidden in their pastures. Like the meadowlarks, their presence is not even suspected until a flock is flushed from its feeding ground, only to return to the spot when you have passed on your way. Like the meadowlark again, the vesper sparrow occasionally sings as it soars upward from its grassy home.White-crowned Sparrow(Zonotrichia leucophrys) Finch familyLength—7 inches. A little larger than the English sparrow.Male—White head, with four longitudinal black lines marking off a crown, the black-and-white stripes being of about equal width. Cheeks, nape, and throat gray. Light gray underneath, with some buff tints. Back dark grayish brown, some feathers margined with gray. Two interrupted white bars across wings. Plain, dusky tail; total effect, a clear ashen gray.Female—With rusty head inclining to gray on crown. Paler throughout than the male.Range—From high mountain ranges of western United States (more rarely on Pacific slope) to Atlantic Ocean, and from Labrador to Mexico. Chiefly south of Pennsylvania.Migrations—October. April. Irregular migrant in Northern States. A winter resident elsewhere.The large size and handsome markings of this aristocratic-looking Northern sparrow would serve to distinguish him at once, did he not often consort with his equally fine-looking white-throated cousins while migrating, and so too often get overlooked. Sparrows are such gregarious birds that it is well to scrutinize every flock with especial care in the spring and autumn, when the rarer migrants are passing. This bird is more common in the high altitudes of the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains than elsewhere in the United States. There in the lonely forest it nests in low bushes or on the ground, and sings its full love-song, as it does in the northern British provinces, along the Atlantic coast; but during the migrations it favors us only with selections from its repertoire. Mr. Ernest Thompson says, "Its usual song is like the latter half of the white-throat's familiar refrain, repeated a number of times with a peculiar, sad cadence and in a clear, soft whistle that is characteristic of the group." "The song is the loudest and most plaintive of all the sparrow songs," says John Burroughs. "It begins with the wordsfe-u, fe-u, fe-u, and runs off into trills and quavers like the song sparrow's, only much more touching." Colorado miners tell that this sparrow, like its white-throated relative, sings on the darkest nights. Often a score or more birds are heard singing at once after thehabit of the European nightingales, which, however, choose to sing only in the moonlight.White-throated Sparrow(Zonotrichia albicollis) Finch familyCalled also: PEABODY BIRD; CANADA SPARROW(Illustration facing p.170)Length—6.75 to 7 inches. Larger than the English sparrow.Male and Female—A black crown divided by narrow white line. Yellow spot before the eye, and a white line, apparently running through it, passes backward to the nape. Conspicuous white throat. Chestnut back, varied with black and whitish. Breast gray, growing lighter underneath. Wings edged with rufous and with two white cross-bars.Range—Eastern North America. Nests from Michigan and Massachusetts northward to Labrador. Winters from southern New England to Florida.Migrations—April. October. Abundant during migrations, and in many States a winter resident."I-I, Pea-body, Pea-body, Pea-body," are the syllables of the white-throat's song heard by the good New Englanders, who have a tradition that you must either be a Peabody or a nobody there; while just over the British border the bird is distinctly understood to say, "Swee-e-e-t Can-a-da, Can-a-da, Can-a-da." "All day, whit-tle-ing, whit-tle-ing, whit-tle-ing," the Maine people declare he sings; and Hamilton Gibson told of a perplexed farmer, Peverly by name, who, as he stood in the field undecided as to what crop to plant, clearly heard the bird advise, "Sow wheat, Pev-er-ly, Pev-er-ly, Pev-er-ly." Such divergence of opinion, which is really slight compared with the verbal record of many birds' songs, only goes to show how little the sweetness of birds' music, like the perfume of a rose, depends upon a name.In a family not distinguished for good looks, the white-throated sparrow is conspicuously handsome, especially after the spring moult. In midwinter the feathers grow dingy and the markings indistinct; but as the season advances, his colors are sure to brighten perceptibly, and before he takes the northward journey in April, any little lady sparrow might feel proud of theattentions of so fine-looking and sweet-voiced a lover. The black, white, and yellow markings on his head are now clear and beautiful. His figure is plump and aristocratic.These sparrows are particularly sociable travellers, and cordially welcome many stragglers to their flocks—not during the migrations only, but even when winter's snow affords only the barest gleanings above it. Then they boldly peck about the dog's plate by the kitchen door and enter the barn-yard, calling their feathered friends with a sharptseepto follow them. Seeds and insects are their chosen food, and were they not well wrapped in an adipose coat under their feathers, there must be many a winter night when they would go shivering, supperless, to their perch.In the dark of midnight one may sometimes hear the white-throat softly singing in its dreams.SONG SPARROWSONG SPARROWTREE SPARROWTREE SPARROWGREEN, GREENISH GRAY, OLIVE, AND YELLOWISH OLIVE BIRDSTree SwallowWarbling VireoRuby-throated Humming-birdOvenbirdGolden-crowned KingletWorm-eating WarblerRuby-crowned KingletAcadian FlycatcherSolitary VireoYellow-bellied FlycatcherRed-eyed VireoBlack-throated Green WarblerWhite-eyed VireoLook also among the Olive-brown Birds, especially for the Cuckoos, Alice's and the Olive-backed Thrushes; and look in the yellow group, many of whose birds are olive also. See also females of the Red Crossbill, Orchard Oriole, Scarlet Tanager, Summer Tanager.Tree Swallow(Tacbycineta bicolor) Swallow familyCalled also: WHITE-BELLIED SWALLOW(Illustration facing p.171)Length—5 to 6 inches. A little shorter than the English sparrow, but apparently much larger because of its wide wing-spread.Male—Lustrous dark steel-green above; darker and shading into black on wings and tail, which is forked. Under parts soft white.Female—Duller than male.Range—North America, from Hudson Bay to Panama.Migrations—End of March. September or later. Summer resident."The stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times: and theturtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of theircoming."—Jeremiah, viii. 7.The earliest of the family to appear in the spring, the tree swallow comes skimming over the freshly ploughed fields with a wide sweep of the wings, in what appears to be a perfect ecstasy of flight. More shy of the haunts of man, and less gregarious than its cousins, it is usually to be seen during migration flying low over the marshes, ponds, and streams with a few chosen friends, keeping up an incessant warbling twitter while performing their bewildering and tireless evolutions as they catch their food on the wing. Their white breasts flash in the sunlight, and it is only when they dart near you, and skim close along the surface of the water, that you discover their backs to be not black, but rich, dark green, glossy to iridescence.It is probable that these birds keep near the waterways because their favorite insects and wax-berries are more plentiful in such places; but this peculiarity has led many people to theabsurd belief that the tree swallow buries itself under the mud of ponds in winter in a state of hibernation. No bird's breathing apparatus is made to operate under mud.In unsettled districts these swallows nest in hollow trees, hence their name; but with that laziness that forms a part of the degeneracy of civilization, they now gladly accept the boxes about men's homes set up for the martins. Thousands of these beautiful birds have been shot on the Long Island marshes and sold to New York epicures for snipe.WHITE-THROATED SPARROWWHITE-THROATED SPARROWTREE SWALLOWTREE SWALLOWRuby-throated Humming-bird(Trochilus colubris) Humming-bird family(Illustration facing p.171)Length—3.5 to 3.75 inches. A trifle over half as long as the English sparrow. The smallest bird we have.Male—Bright metallic green above; wings and tail darkest, with ruddy-purplish reflections and dusky-white tips on outer tail-quills. Throat and breast brilliant metallic-red in one light, orange flame in another, and dusky orange in another, according as the light strikes the plumage. Sides greenish; underneath lightest gray, with whitish border outlining the brilliant breast. Bill long and needle-like.Female—Without the brilliant feathers on throat; darker gray beneath. Outer tail-quills are banded with black and tipped with white.Range—Eastern North America, from northern Canada to the Gulf of Mexico in summer. Winters in Central America.Migrations—May. October. Common summer resident.This smallest, most exquisite and unabashed of our bird neighbors cannot be mistaken, for it is the only one of its kin found east of the plains and north of Florida, although about four hundred species, native only to the New World, have been named by scientists. How does it happen that this little tropical jewel alone flashes about our Northern gardens? Does it never stir the spirit of adventure and emulation in the glistening breasts of its stay-at-home cousins in the tropics by tales of luxuriant tangles of honeysuckle and clematis on our cottage porches; of deep-cupped trumpet-flowers climbing over the walls of old-fashioned gardens, where larkspur, narcissus, roses, and phlox, that crowd the box-edged beds, are more gay and honey-laden than theirlittle brains can picture? Apparently it takes only the wish to be in a place to transport one of these little fairies either from the honeysuckle trellis to the canna bed or from Yucatan to the Hudson. It is easy to see how to will and to fly are allied in the minds of the humming-birds, as they are in the Latin tongue. One minute poised in midair, apparently motionless before a flower while draining the nectar from its deep cup—though the humming of its wings tells that it is suspended there by no magic—the next instant it has flashed out of sight as if a fairy's wand had made it suddenly invisible. Without seeing the hummer, it might be, and often is, mistaken for a bee improving the "shining hour."At evening one often hears of a "humming-bird" going the rounds of the garden, but at this hour it is usually the sphinx-moth hovering above the flower-beds—the one other creature besides the bee for which the bird is ever mistaken. The postures and preferences of this beautiful large moth make the mistake a very natural one.The ruby-throat is strangely fearless and unabashed. It will dart among the vines on the veranda while the entire household are assembled there, and add its hum to that of the conversation in a most delightfully neighborly way. Once a glistening little sprite, quite undaunted by the size of an audience that sat almost breathless enjoying his beauty, thrust his bill into one calyx after another on a long sprig of honeysuckle held in the hand.And yet, with all its friendliness—or is it simply fearlessness?—the bird is a desperate duellist, and will longe his deadly blade into the jewelled breast of an enemy at the slightest provocation and quicker than thought. All the heat of his glowing throat seems to be transferred to his head while the fight continues, sometimes even to the death—a cruel, but marvellously beautiful sight as the glistening birds dart and tumble about beyond the range of peace-makers.High up in a tree, preferably one whose knots and lichen-covered excrescences are calculated to help conceal the nest that so cleverly imitates them, the mother humming-bird saddles her exquisite cradle to a horizontal limb. She lines it with plant-down, fluffy bits from cat-tails, and the fronds of fern, felting the material into a circle that an elm-leaf amply roofs over. Outside, lichens or bits of bark blend the nest so harmoniously withits surroundings that one may look long and thoroughly before discovering it. Two infinitesimal, white eggs tax the nest accommodation to its utmost.In the mating season the female may be seen perching—a posture one rarely catches her gay lover in—preening her dainty but sombre feathers with ladylike nicety. The young birds do a great deal of perching before they gain the marvellously rapid wing-motions of maturity, but they are ready to fly within three weeks after they are hatched. By the time the trumpet-vine is in bloom they dart and sip and utter a shrill little squeak among the flowers, in company with the old birds.During the nest-building and incubation the male bird keeps so aggressively on the defensive that he often betrays to a hitherto unsuspecting intruder the location of his home. After the young birds have to be fed he is most diligent in collecting food, that consists not alone of the sweet juices of flowers, as is popularly supposed, but also of aphides and plant-lice that his proboscis-like tongue licks off the garden foliage literally like a streak of lightning.Both parents feed the young by regurgitation—a process disgusting to the human observer, whose stomach involuntarily revolts at the sight so welcome to the tiny, squeaking, hungry birds.Ruby-crowned Kinglet(Regulus calendula) Kinglet familyCalled also: RUBY-CROWNED WREN; RUBY-CROWNED WARBLER(Illustration facing p.187)Length—4.25 to 4.5 inches. About two inches smaller than the English sparrow.Male—Upper parts grayish olive-green, brighter nearer the tail; wings and tail dusky, edged with yellowish olive. Two whitish wing-bars. Breast and underneath light yellowish gray. In the adult male a vermilion spot on crown of his ash-gray head.Female—Similar, but without the vermilion crest.Range—North America. Breeds from northern United States northward. Winters from southern limits of its breeding range to Central America and Mexico.Migrations—October. April. Rarely a winter resident at the North. Most common during its migrations.A trifle larger than the golden-crowned kinglet, with a vermilion crest instead of a yellow and flame one, and with a decided preference for a warmer winter climate, and the ruby-crown's chief distinguishing characteristics are told. These rather confusing relatives would be less puzzling if it were the habit of either to keep quiet long enough to focus the opera-glasses on their crowns, which it only rarely is while some particularly promising haunt of insects that lurk beneath the rough bark of the evergreens has to be thoroughly explored. At all other times both kinglets keep up an incessant fluttering and twinkling among the twigs and leaves at the ends of the branches, jerking their tiny bodies from twig to twig in the shrubbery, hanging head downward, like a nuthatch, and most industriously feeding every second upon the tiny insects and larvæ hidden beneath the bark and leaves. They seem to be the feathered expression of perpetual motion. And how dainty and charming these tiny sprites are! They are not at all shy; you may approach them quite close if you will, for the birds are simply too intent on their business to be concerned with yours.If a sharp lookout be kept for these ruby-crowned migrants, that too often slip away to the south before we know they have come, we notice that they appear about a fortnight ahead of the golden-crested species, since the mild, soft air of our Indian summer is exactly to their liking. At this season there is nothing in the bird's "thin, metallic call-note, like a vibrating wire," to indicate that he is one of our finest songsters. But listen for him during the spring migration, when a love-song is already ripening in his tiny throat. What a volume of rich, lyrical melody pours from the Norway spruce, where the little musician is simply practising to perfect the richer, fuller song that he sings to his nesting mate in the far north! The volume is really tremendous, coming from so tiny a throat. Those who have heard it in northern Canada describe it as a flute-like and mellow warble full of intricate phrases past the imitating. Dr. Coues says of it: "The kinglet's exquisite vocalization defies description."Curiously enough, the nest of this bird, that is not at all rare, has been discovered only six times. It would appear to be over-large for the tiny bird, until we remember that kinglets are wont to have a numerous progeny in their pensile, globular home. It is made of light, flimsy material—moss, strips of bark, and plant-fibrewell knit together and closely lined with feathers, which must be a grateful addition to the babies, where they are reared in evergreens in cold, northern woods.Golden-crowned Kinglet(Regulus satrapa) Kinglet familyCalled also: GOLDEN-CROWNED GOLDCREST; FIERY-CROWNED WREN(Illustration facing p.187)Length—4 to 4.25 inches. About two inches smaller than the English sparrow.Male—Upper parts grayish olive-green; wings and tail dusky, margined with olive-green. Underneath soiled whitish. Centre of crown bright orange, bordered by yellow and enclosed by black line. Cheeks gray; a whitish line over the eye.Female—Similar, but centre of crown lemon-yellow and more grayish underneath.Range—North America generally. Breeds from northern United States northward. Winters chiefly from North Carolina to Central America, but many remain north all the year.Migrations—September. April. Chiefly a winter resident south of Canada.If this cheery little winter neighbor would keep quiet long enough, we might have a glimpse of the golden crest that distinguishes him from his equally lively cousin, the ruby-crowned; but he is so constantly flitting about the ends of the twigs, peering at the bark for hidden insects, twinkling his wings and fluttering among the evergreens with more nervous restlessness than a vireo, that you may know him well before you have a glimpse of his tri-colored crown.When the autumn foliage is all aglow with yellow and flame this tiny sprite comes out of the north, where neither nesting nor moulting could rob him of his cheerful spirits. Except the humming-bird and the winter wren, he is the smallest bird we have. And yet, somewhere stored up in his diminutive body, is warmth enough to withstand zero weather. With evident enjoyment of the cold, he calls out a shrill, wiryzee, zee, zee, that rings merrily from the pines and spruces when our fingers are too numb to hold the opera glasses in an attempt to follow his restless flittingsfrom branch to branch. Is it one of the unwritten laws of birds that the smaller their bodies the greater their activity?When you see one kinglet about, you may be sure there are others not far away, for, except in the nesting season, its habits are distinctly social, its friendliness extending to the humdrum brown creeper, the chickadees, and the nuthatches, in whose company it is often seen; indeed, it is likely to be in almost any flock of the winter birds. They are a merry band as they go exploring the trees together. The kinglet can hang upside down, too, like the other acrobats, many of whose tricks he has learned; and it can pick off insects from a tree with as business-like an air as the brown creeper, but with none of that soulless bird's plodding precision.In the early spring, just before this busy little sprite leaves us to nest in Canada or Labrador—for heat is the one thing that he can't cheerfully endure—a gushing, lyrical song bursts from his tiny throat—a song whose volume is so out of proportion to the bird's size that Nuttall's classification of kinglets with wrens doesn't seem far wrong after all.Only rarely is a nest found so far south as the White Mountains. It is said to be extraordinarily large for so small a bird; but that need not surprise us when we learn that as many as ten creamy-white eggs, blotched with brown and lavender, are no uncommon number for the pensile cradle to hold. How do the tiny parents contrive to cover so many eggs and to feed such a nestful of fledglings?Solitary Vireo(Vireo solitarius) Vireo or Greenlet familyCalled also: BLUE-HEADED VIREOLength—5.5 to 7 inches. A little smaller than the English sparrow.Male—Dusky olive above; head bluish gray, with a white line around the eye, spreading behind the eye into a patch. Beneath whitish, with yellow-green wash on the sides. Wings dusky olive, with two distinct white bars. Tail dusky, some quills edged with white.Female—Similar, but her head is dusky olive.Range—United States to plains, and the southern British provinces. Winters in Florida and southward.Migrations—May. Early October. Common during migrations;more rarely a summer resident south of Massachusetts.By no means the recluse that its name would imply, the solitary vireo, while a bird of the woods, shows a charming curiosity about the stranger with opera-glasses in hand, who has penetrated to the deep, swampy tangles, where it chooses to live. Peering at you through the green undergrowth with an eye that seems especially conspicuous because of its encircling white rim, it is at least as sociable and cheerful as any member of its family, and Mr. Bradford Torrey credits it with "winning tameness." "Wood-bird as it is," he says, "it will sometimes permit the greatest familiarities. Two birds I have seen, which allowed themselves to be stroked in the freest manner, while sitting on the eggs, and which ate from my hand as readily as any pet canary."The solitary vireo also builds a pensile nest, swung from the crotch of a branch, not so high from the ground as the yellow-throated vireo's nor so exquisitely finished, but still a beautiful little structure of pine-needles, plant-fibre, dry leaves, and twigs, all lichen-lined and bound and rebound with coarse spiders' webs.The distinguishing quality of this vireo's celebrated song is its tenderness: a pure, serene uplifting of its loving, trustful nature that seems inspired by a fine spirituality.Red-eyed Vireo(Vireo olivaceus) Vireo or Greenlet familyCalled also: THE PREACHERLength—5.75 to 6.25 inches. A fraction smaller than the English sparrow.Male and Female—Upper parts light olive-green; well-defined slaty-gray cap, with black marginal line, below which, and forming an exaggerated eyebrow, is a line of white. A brownish band runs from base of bill through the eye. The iris is ruby-red. Underneath white, shaded with light greenish yellow on sides and on under tail and wing coverts.Range—United States to Rockies and northward. Winters in Central and South America.Migrations—April. October. Common summer resident."You see it—you know it—do you hear me? Do you believe it?" is Wilson Flagg's famous interpretation of the song of this commonest of all the vireos, that you cannot mistake with such a key. He calls the bird the preacher from its declamatory style: an up-and-down warble delivered with a rising inflection at the close and followed by an impressive silence, as if the little green orator were saying, "I pause for a reply."Notwithstanding its quiet coloring, that so closely resembles the leaves it hunts among, this vireo is rather more noticeable than its relatives because of its slaty cap and the black-and-white lines over its ruby eye, that, in addition to the song, are its marked characteristics.Whether she is excessively stupid or excessively kind, the mother-vireo has certainly won for herself no end of ridicule by allowing the cowbird to deposit a stray egg in the exquisitely made, pensile nest, where her own tiny white eggs are lying; and though the young cowbird crowd and worry her little fledglings and eat their dinner as fast as she can bring it in, no displeasure or grudging is shown towards the dusky intruder that is sure to upset the rightful heirs out of the nest before they are able to fly.In the heat of a midsummer noon, when nearly every other bird's voice is hushed, and only the locust seems to rejoice in the fierce sunshine, the little red-eyed vireo goes persistently about its business of gathering insects from the leaves, not flitting nervously about like a warbler, or taking its food on the wing like a flycatcher, but patiently and industriously dining where it can, and singing as it goes.When a worm is caught it is first shaken against a branch to kill it before it is swallowed. Vireos haunt shrubbery and trees with heavy foliage, all their hunting, singing, resting, and home-building being done among the leaves—never on the ground.White-eyed Vireo(Vireo noveboracensis) Vireo or Greenlet familyLength—5 to 5.3 inches. An inch shorter than the English sparrow.Male and Female—Upper parts bright olive-green, washed with grayish. Throat and underneath white; the breast andsides greenish yellow; wings have two distinct bars of yellowish white. Yellow line from beak to and around the eye, which has a white iris. Feathers of wings and tail brownish and edged with yellow.Range—United States to the Rockies, and to the Gulf regions and beyond in winter.Migrations—May. September. Summer resident."Pertest of songsters," the white-eyed vireo makes whatever neighborhood it enters lively at once. Taking up a residence in the tangled shrubbery or thickety undergrowth, it immediately begins to scold like a crotchety old wren. It becomes irritated over the merest trifles—a passing bumblebee, a visit from another bird to its tangle, an unsuccessful peck at a gnat—anything seems calculated to rouse its wrath and set every feather on its little body a-trembling, while it sharply snaps out what might perhaps be freely constructed into "cuss-words."And yet the inscrutable mystery is that this virago meekly permits the lazy cowbird to deposit an egg in its nest, and will patiently sit upon it, though it is as large as three of her own tiny eggs; and when the little interloper comes out from his shell the mother-bird will continue to give it the most devoted care long after it has shoved her poor little starved babies out of the nest to meet an untimely death in the smilax thicket below.An unusual variety of expression distinguishes this bird's voice from the songs of the other vireos, which are apt to be monotonous, as they are incessant. If you are so fortunate to approach the white-eyed vireo before he suspects your presence, you may hear him amusing himself by jumbling together snatches of the songs of the other birds in a sort of potpourri; or perhaps he will be scolding or arguing with an imaginary foe, then dropping his voice and talking confidentially to himself. Suddenly he bursts into a charming, simple little song, as if the introspection had given him reason for real joy. All these vocal accomplishments suggest the chat at once; but the minute your intrusion is discovered the sharp scolding, that is fairly screamed at you from an enraged little throat, leaves no possible shadow of a doubt as to the bird you have disturbed. It has the most emphatic call and song to be heard in the woods; it snaps its words off very short. "Chick-a-rer chick" is its usual call-note, jerked out with great spitefulness.Wilson thus describes the jealously guarded nest: "This bird builds a very neat little nest, often in the figure of an inverted cone; it is suspended by the upper end of the two sides, on the circular bend of a prickly vine, a species of smilax, that generally grows in low thickets. Outwardly it is constructed of various light materials, bits of rotten wood, fibres of dry stalks, of weeds, pieces of paper (commonly newspapers, an article almost always found about its nest, so that some of my friends have given it the name of the politician); all these materials are interwoven with the silk of the caterpillars, and the inside is lined with fine, dry grass and hair."Warbling Vireo(Vireo gilvus) Vireo or Greenlet familyLength—5.5 to 6 inches. A little smaller than the English sparrow.Male and Female—Ashy olive-green above, with head and neck ash-colored. Dusky line over the eye. Underneath whitish, faintly washed with dull yellow, deepest on sides; no bars on wings.
Female—Without black forehead and stripes on head.
Range—North America, from Texas to Labrador.
Migrations—April. October. A few winter at the north.
In just such impenetrable retreats as the marsh wrens choose, another wee brown bird may sometimes be seen springing up from among the sedges, singing a few sweet notes as it flies and floats above them, and then suddenly disappearing into the grassy tangle. It is too small, and its breast is not streaked enough to be a song sparrow, neither are their songs alike; it has not the wren's peculiarities of bill and tail. Its bright-bay crown and sparrowy markings finally identify it. A suggestion of the bird's watery home shows itself in the liquid quality of its simple, sweet note, stronger and sweeter than the chippy's, and repeated many times almost like a trill that seems to trickle from the marsh in a little rivulet of song. The sweetness is apt to become monotonous to all but the bird itself, that takes evident delight in its performance. In the spring, when flocks of swamp sparrows come north, how they enliven the marshes and waste places! And yet the song, simple as it is, is evidently not uttered altogether without effort, if the tail-spreading and teetering of the body after the manner of the ovenbird, are any indications of exertion.
Nuttall says of these birds: "They thread their devious way with the same alacrity as the rail, with whom, indeed, they are often associated in neighborhood. In consequence of this perpetual brushing through sedge and bushes, their feathers are frequently so worn that their tails appear almost like those of rats."
But the swamp sparrows frequently belie their name, and, especially in the South, live in dry fields, worn-out pasture lands with scrubby, weedy patches in them. They live upon seeds of grasses and berries, but Dr. Abbott has detected their special fondness for fish—not fresh fish particularly, but rather such as have lain in the sun for a few days and become dry as a chip.
Their nest is placed on the ground, sometimes in a tussock of grass or roots of an upturned tree quite surrounded by water. Four or five soiled white eggs with reddish-brown spots are laid usually twice in a season.
Tree Sparrow(Spizella monticola) Finch family
Called also: CANADA SPARROW; WINTER CHIPPY; TREE BUNTING; WINTER CHIP-BIRD; ARCTIC CHIPPER(Illustration facing p.167)
Length—6 to 6.35 inches. About the same size as the English sparrow.
Male—Crown of head bright chestnut. Line over the eye, cheeks, throat, and breast gray, the breast with an indistinct black spot on centre. Brown back, the feathers edged with black and buff. Lower back pale grayish brown. Two whitish bars across dusky wings; tail feathers bordered with grayish white. Underneath whitish.
Female—Smaller and less distinctly marked.
Range—North America, from Hudson Bay to the Carolinas, and westward to the plains.
Migrations—October. April. Winter resident.
A revised and enlarged edition of the friendly little chipping sparrow, that hops to our very doors for crumbs throughout the mild weather, comes out of British America at the beginning of winter to dissipate much of the winter's dreariness by his cheerful twitterings. Why he should have been called a tree sparrow is a mystery, unless because he does not frequent trees—a reason with sufficient plausibility to commend the name to several of the early ornithologists, who not infrequently called a bird precisely what it was not. The tree sparrow actually does not show half the preference for trees that its familiar little counterpart does, but rather keeps to low bushes when not on theground, where we usually find it. It does not crouch upon the ground like the chippy, but with a lordly carriage holds itself erect as it nimbly runs over the frozen crust. Sheltered from the high, wintry winds in the furrows and dry ditches of ploughed fields, a loose flock of these active birds keep up a merry hunt for fallen seeds and berries, with a belated beetle to give the grain a relish. As you approach the feeding ground, one bird gives a shrill alarm-cry, and instantly five times as many birds as you suspected were in the field take wing and settle down in the scrubby undergrowth at the edge of the woods or by the way-side. No still cold seems too keen for them to go a-foraging; but when cutting winds blow through the leafless thickets the scattered remnants of a flock seek the shelter of stone walls, hedges, barns, and cozy nooks about the house and garden. It is in midwinter that these birds grow most neighborly, although even then they are distinctly less sociable than their small chippy cousins.
By the first of March, when the fox sparrow and the bluebird attract the lion's share of attention by their superior voices, we not infrequently are deaf to the modest, sweet little strain that answers for the tree sparrow's love-song. Soon after the bird is in full voice, away it goes with its flock to their nesting ground in Labrador or the Hudson Bay region. It builds, either on the ground or not far from it, a nest of grasses, rootlets, and hair, without which no true chippy counts its home complete.
Vesper Sparrow(Poœcetesgramineus) Finch family
Called also: BAY-WINGED BUNTING; GRASSFINCH; GRASS-BIRD
Length—5.75 to 6.25 inches. A little smaller than the English sparrow.
Male and Female—Brown above, streaked and varied with gray. Lesser wing coverts bright rufous. Throat and breast whitish, striped with dark brown. Underneath plain soiled white. Outer tail-quills, which are its special mark of identification, are partly white, but apparently wholly white as the bird flies.
Range—North America, especially common in eastern partsfrom Hudson Bay to Gulf of Mexico. Winters south of Virginia.
Migrations—April. October. Common summer resident.
Among the least conspicuous birds, sparrows are the easiest to classify for that very reason, and certain prominent features of the half dozen commonest of the tribe make their identification simple even to the merest novice. The distinguishing marks of this sparrow that haunts open, breezy pasture lands and country waysides are its bright, reddish-brown wing coverts, prominent among its dingy, pale brownish-gray feathers, and its white tail-quills, shown as the bird flies along the road ahead of you to light upon the fence-rail. It rarely flies higher, even to sing its serene, pastoral strain, restful as the twilight, of which, indeed, it seems to be the vocal expression. How different from the ecstatic outburst of the song sparrow! Pensive, but not sad, its long-drawn silvery notes continue in quavers that float off unended like a trail of mist. The song is suggestive of the thoughts that must come at evening to some New England saint of humble station after a well-spent, soul-uplifting day.
But while the vesper sparrow sings oftenest and most sweetly in the late afternoon and continues singing until only he and the rose-breasted grosbeak break the silence of the early night, his is one of the first voices to join the morning chorus. No "early worm," however, tempts him from his grassy nest, for the seeds in the pasture lands and certain tiny insects that live among the grass furnish meals at all hours. He simply delights in the cool, still morning and evening hours and in giving voice to his enjoyment of them.
The vesper sparrow is preëminently a grass-bird. It first opens its eyes on the world in a nest neatly woven of grasses, laid on the ground among the grass that shelters it and furnishes it with food and its protective coloring. Only the grazing cattle know how many nests and birds are hidden in their pastures. Like the meadowlarks, their presence is not even suspected until a flock is flushed from its feeding ground, only to return to the spot when you have passed on your way. Like the meadowlark again, the vesper sparrow occasionally sings as it soars upward from its grassy home.
White-crowned Sparrow(Zonotrichia leucophrys) Finch family
Length—7 inches. A little larger than the English sparrow.
Male—White head, with four longitudinal black lines marking off a crown, the black-and-white stripes being of about equal width. Cheeks, nape, and throat gray. Light gray underneath, with some buff tints. Back dark grayish brown, some feathers margined with gray. Two interrupted white bars across wings. Plain, dusky tail; total effect, a clear ashen gray.
Female—With rusty head inclining to gray on crown. Paler throughout than the male.
Range—From high mountain ranges of western United States (more rarely on Pacific slope) to Atlantic Ocean, and from Labrador to Mexico. Chiefly south of Pennsylvania.
Migrations—October. April. Irregular migrant in Northern States. A winter resident elsewhere.
The large size and handsome markings of this aristocratic-looking Northern sparrow would serve to distinguish him at once, did he not often consort with his equally fine-looking white-throated cousins while migrating, and so too often get overlooked. Sparrows are such gregarious birds that it is well to scrutinize every flock with especial care in the spring and autumn, when the rarer migrants are passing. This bird is more common in the high altitudes of the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains than elsewhere in the United States. There in the lonely forest it nests in low bushes or on the ground, and sings its full love-song, as it does in the northern British provinces, along the Atlantic coast; but during the migrations it favors us only with selections from its repertoire. Mr. Ernest Thompson says, "Its usual song is like the latter half of the white-throat's familiar refrain, repeated a number of times with a peculiar, sad cadence and in a clear, soft whistle that is characteristic of the group." "The song is the loudest and most plaintive of all the sparrow songs," says John Burroughs. "It begins with the wordsfe-u, fe-u, fe-u, and runs off into trills and quavers like the song sparrow's, only much more touching." Colorado miners tell that this sparrow, like its white-throated relative, sings on the darkest nights. Often a score or more birds are heard singing at once after thehabit of the European nightingales, which, however, choose to sing only in the moonlight.
White-throated Sparrow(Zonotrichia albicollis) Finch family
Called also: PEABODY BIRD; CANADA SPARROW(Illustration facing p.170)
Length—6.75 to 7 inches. Larger than the English sparrow.
Male and Female—A black crown divided by narrow white line. Yellow spot before the eye, and a white line, apparently running through it, passes backward to the nape. Conspicuous white throat. Chestnut back, varied with black and whitish. Breast gray, growing lighter underneath. Wings edged with rufous and with two white cross-bars.
Range—Eastern North America. Nests from Michigan and Massachusetts northward to Labrador. Winters from southern New England to Florida.
Migrations—April. October. Abundant during migrations, and in many States a winter resident.
"I-I, Pea-body, Pea-body, Pea-body," are the syllables of the white-throat's song heard by the good New Englanders, who have a tradition that you must either be a Peabody or a nobody there; while just over the British border the bird is distinctly understood to say, "Swee-e-e-t Can-a-da, Can-a-da, Can-a-da." "All day, whit-tle-ing, whit-tle-ing, whit-tle-ing," the Maine people declare he sings; and Hamilton Gibson told of a perplexed farmer, Peverly by name, who, as he stood in the field undecided as to what crop to plant, clearly heard the bird advise, "Sow wheat, Pev-er-ly, Pev-er-ly, Pev-er-ly." Such divergence of opinion, which is really slight compared with the verbal record of many birds' songs, only goes to show how little the sweetness of birds' music, like the perfume of a rose, depends upon a name.
In a family not distinguished for good looks, the white-throated sparrow is conspicuously handsome, especially after the spring moult. In midwinter the feathers grow dingy and the markings indistinct; but as the season advances, his colors are sure to brighten perceptibly, and before he takes the northward journey in April, any little lady sparrow might feel proud of theattentions of so fine-looking and sweet-voiced a lover. The black, white, and yellow markings on his head are now clear and beautiful. His figure is plump and aristocratic.
These sparrows are particularly sociable travellers, and cordially welcome many stragglers to their flocks—not during the migrations only, but even when winter's snow affords only the barest gleanings above it. Then they boldly peck about the dog's plate by the kitchen door and enter the barn-yard, calling their feathered friends with a sharptseepto follow them. Seeds and insects are their chosen food, and were they not well wrapped in an adipose coat under their feathers, there must be many a winter night when they would go shivering, supperless, to their perch.
In the dark of midnight one may sometimes hear the white-throat softly singing in its dreams.
SONG SPARROWSONG SPARROW
TREE SPARROWTREE SPARROW
GREEN, GREENISH GRAY, OLIVE, AND YELLOWISH OLIVE BIRDS
Tree SwallowWarbling VireoRuby-throated Humming-birdOvenbirdGolden-crowned KingletWorm-eating WarblerRuby-crowned KingletAcadian FlycatcherSolitary VireoYellow-bellied FlycatcherRed-eyed VireoBlack-throated Green WarblerWhite-eyed Vireo
Look also among the Olive-brown Birds, especially for the Cuckoos, Alice's and the Olive-backed Thrushes; and look in the yellow group, many of whose birds are olive also. See also females of the Red Crossbill, Orchard Oriole, Scarlet Tanager, Summer Tanager.
Tree Swallow(Tacbycineta bicolor) Swallow family
Called also: WHITE-BELLIED SWALLOW(Illustration facing p.171)
Length—5 to 6 inches. A little shorter than the English sparrow, but apparently much larger because of its wide wing-spread.
Male—Lustrous dark steel-green above; darker and shading into black on wings and tail, which is forked. Under parts soft white.
Female—Duller than male.
Range—North America, from Hudson Bay to Panama.
Migrations—End of March. September or later. Summer resident.
"The stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times: and theturtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of theircoming."—Jeremiah, viii. 7.
"The stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times: and theturtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of theircoming."—Jeremiah, viii. 7.
The earliest of the family to appear in the spring, the tree swallow comes skimming over the freshly ploughed fields with a wide sweep of the wings, in what appears to be a perfect ecstasy of flight. More shy of the haunts of man, and less gregarious than its cousins, it is usually to be seen during migration flying low over the marshes, ponds, and streams with a few chosen friends, keeping up an incessant warbling twitter while performing their bewildering and tireless evolutions as they catch their food on the wing. Their white breasts flash in the sunlight, and it is only when they dart near you, and skim close along the surface of the water, that you discover their backs to be not black, but rich, dark green, glossy to iridescence.
It is probable that these birds keep near the waterways because their favorite insects and wax-berries are more plentiful in such places; but this peculiarity has led many people to theabsurd belief that the tree swallow buries itself under the mud of ponds in winter in a state of hibernation. No bird's breathing apparatus is made to operate under mud.
In unsettled districts these swallows nest in hollow trees, hence their name; but with that laziness that forms a part of the degeneracy of civilization, they now gladly accept the boxes about men's homes set up for the martins. Thousands of these beautiful birds have been shot on the Long Island marshes and sold to New York epicures for snipe.
WHITE-THROATED SPARROWWHITE-THROATED SPARROW
TREE SWALLOWTREE SWALLOW
Ruby-throated Humming-bird(Trochilus colubris) Humming-bird family
(Illustration facing p.171)
Length—3.5 to 3.75 inches. A trifle over half as long as the English sparrow. The smallest bird we have.
Male—Bright metallic green above; wings and tail darkest, with ruddy-purplish reflections and dusky-white tips on outer tail-quills. Throat and breast brilliant metallic-red in one light, orange flame in another, and dusky orange in another, according as the light strikes the plumage. Sides greenish; underneath lightest gray, with whitish border outlining the brilliant breast. Bill long and needle-like.
Female—Without the brilliant feathers on throat; darker gray beneath. Outer tail-quills are banded with black and tipped with white.
Range—Eastern North America, from northern Canada to the Gulf of Mexico in summer. Winters in Central America.
Migrations—May. October. Common summer resident.
This smallest, most exquisite and unabashed of our bird neighbors cannot be mistaken, for it is the only one of its kin found east of the plains and north of Florida, although about four hundred species, native only to the New World, have been named by scientists. How does it happen that this little tropical jewel alone flashes about our Northern gardens? Does it never stir the spirit of adventure and emulation in the glistening breasts of its stay-at-home cousins in the tropics by tales of luxuriant tangles of honeysuckle and clematis on our cottage porches; of deep-cupped trumpet-flowers climbing over the walls of old-fashioned gardens, where larkspur, narcissus, roses, and phlox, that crowd the box-edged beds, are more gay and honey-laden than theirlittle brains can picture? Apparently it takes only the wish to be in a place to transport one of these little fairies either from the honeysuckle trellis to the canna bed or from Yucatan to the Hudson. It is easy to see how to will and to fly are allied in the minds of the humming-birds, as they are in the Latin tongue. One minute poised in midair, apparently motionless before a flower while draining the nectar from its deep cup—though the humming of its wings tells that it is suspended there by no magic—the next instant it has flashed out of sight as if a fairy's wand had made it suddenly invisible. Without seeing the hummer, it might be, and often is, mistaken for a bee improving the "shining hour."
At evening one often hears of a "humming-bird" going the rounds of the garden, but at this hour it is usually the sphinx-moth hovering above the flower-beds—the one other creature besides the bee for which the bird is ever mistaken. The postures and preferences of this beautiful large moth make the mistake a very natural one.
The ruby-throat is strangely fearless and unabashed. It will dart among the vines on the veranda while the entire household are assembled there, and add its hum to that of the conversation in a most delightfully neighborly way. Once a glistening little sprite, quite undaunted by the size of an audience that sat almost breathless enjoying his beauty, thrust his bill into one calyx after another on a long sprig of honeysuckle held in the hand.
And yet, with all its friendliness—or is it simply fearlessness?—the bird is a desperate duellist, and will longe his deadly blade into the jewelled breast of an enemy at the slightest provocation and quicker than thought. All the heat of his glowing throat seems to be transferred to his head while the fight continues, sometimes even to the death—a cruel, but marvellously beautiful sight as the glistening birds dart and tumble about beyond the range of peace-makers.
High up in a tree, preferably one whose knots and lichen-covered excrescences are calculated to help conceal the nest that so cleverly imitates them, the mother humming-bird saddles her exquisite cradle to a horizontal limb. She lines it with plant-down, fluffy bits from cat-tails, and the fronds of fern, felting the material into a circle that an elm-leaf amply roofs over. Outside, lichens or bits of bark blend the nest so harmoniously withits surroundings that one may look long and thoroughly before discovering it. Two infinitesimal, white eggs tax the nest accommodation to its utmost.
In the mating season the female may be seen perching—a posture one rarely catches her gay lover in—preening her dainty but sombre feathers with ladylike nicety. The young birds do a great deal of perching before they gain the marvellously rapid wing-motions of maturity, but they are ready to fly within three weeks after they are hatched. By the time the trumpet-vine is in bloom they dart and sip and utter a shrill little squeak among the flowers, in company with the old birds.
During the nest-building and incubation the male bird keeps so aggressively on the defensive that he often betrays to a hitherto unsuspecting intruder the location of his home. After the young birds have to be fed he is most diligent in collecting food, that consists not alone of the sweet juices of flowers, as is popularly supposed, but also of aphides and plant-lice that his proboscis-like tongue licks off the garden foliage literally like a streak of lightning.
Both parents feed the young by regurgitation—a process disgusting to the human observer, whose stomach involuntarily revolts at the sight so welcome to the tiny, squeaking, hungry birds.
Ruby-crowned Kinglet(Regulus calendula) Kinglet family
Called also: RUBY-CROWNED WREN; RUBY-CROWNED WARBLER(Illustration facing p.187)
Length—4.25 to 4.5 inches. About two inches smaller than the English sparrow.
Male—Upper parts grayish olive-green, brighter nearer the tail; wings and tail dusky, edged with yellowish olive. Two whitish wing-bars. Breast and underneath light yellowish gray. In the adult male a vermilion spot on crown of his ash-gray head.
Female—Similar, but without the vermilion crest.
Range—North America. Breeds from northern United States northward. Winters from southern limits of its breeding range to Central America and Mexico.
Migrations—October. April. Rarely a winter resident at the North. Most common during its migrations.
A trifle larger than the golden-crowned kinglet, with a vermilion crest instead of a yellow and flame one, and with a decided preference for a warmer winter climate, and the ruby-crown's chief distinguishing characteristics are told. These rather confusing relatives would be less puzzling if it were the habit of either to keep quiet long enough to focus the opera-glasses on their crowns, which it only rarely is while some particularly promising haunt of insects that lurk beneath the rough bark of the evergreens has to be thoroughly explored. At all other times both kinglets keep up an incessant fluttering and twinkling among the twigs and leaves at the ends of the branches, jerking their tiny bodies from twig to twig in the shrubbery, hanging head downward, like a nuthatch, and most industriously feeding every second upon the tiny insects and larvæ hidden beneath the bark and leaves. They seem to be the feathered expression of perpetual motion. And how dainty and charming these tiny sprites are! They are not at all shy; you may approach them quite close if you will, for the birds are simply too intent on their business to be concerned with yours.
If a sharp lookout be kept for these ruby-crowned migrants, that too often slip away to the south before we know they have come, we notice that they appear about a fortnight ahead of the golden-crested species, since the mild, soft air of our Indian summer is exactly to their liking. At this season there is nothing in the bird's "thin, metallic call-note, like a vibrating wire," to indicate that he is one of our finest songsters. But listen for him during the spring migration, when a love-song is already ripening in his tiny throat. What a volume of rich, lyrical melody pours from the Norway spruce, where the little musician is simply practising to perfect the richer, fuller song that he sings to his nesting mate in the far north! The volume is really tremendous, coming from so tiny a throat. Those who have heard it in northern Canada describe it as a flute-like and mellow warble full of intricate phrases past the imitating. Dr. Coues says of it: "The kinglet's exquisite vocalization defies description."
Curiously enough, the nest of this bird, that is not at all rare, has been discovered only six times. It would appear to be over-large for the tiny bird, until we remember that kinglets are wont to have a numerous progeny in their pensile, globular home. It is made of light, flimsy material—moss, strips of bark, and plant-fibrewell knit together and closely lined with feathers, which must be a grateful addition to the babies, where they are reared in evergreens in cold, northern woods.
Golden-crowned Kinglet(Regulus satrapa) Kinglet family
Called also: GOLDEN-CROWNED GOLDCREST; FIERY-CROWNED WREN(Illustration facing p.187)
Length—4 to 4.25 inches. About two inches smaller than the English sparrow.
Male—Upper parts grayish olive-green; wings and tail dusky, margined with olive-green. Underneath soiled whitish. Centre of crown bright orange, bordered by yellow and enclosed by black line. Cheeks gray; a whitish line over the eye.
Female—Similar, but centre of crown lemon-yellow and more grayish underneath.
Range—North America generally. Breeds from northern United States northward. Winters chiefly from North Carolina to Central America, but many remain north all the year.
Migrations—September. April. Chiefly a winter resident south of Canada.
If this cheery little winter neighbor would keep quiet long enough, we might have a glimpse of the golden crest that distinguishes him from his equally lively cousin, the ruby-crowned; but he is so constantly flitting about the ends of the twigs, peering at the bark for hidden insects, twinkling his wings and fluttering among the evergreens with more nervous restlessness than a vireo, that you may know him well before you have a glimpse of his tri-colored crown.
When the autumn foliage is all aglow with yellow and flame this tiny sprite comes out of the north, where neither nesting nor moulting could rob him of his cheerful spirits. Except the humming-bird and the winter wren, he is the smallest bird we have. And yet, somewhere stored up in his diminutive body, is warmth enough to withstand zero weather. With evident enjoyment of the cold, he calls out a shrill, wiryzee, zee, zee, that rings merrily from the pines and spruces when our fingers are too numb to hold the opera glasses in an attempt to follow his restless flittingsfrom branch to branch. Is it one of the unwritten laws of birds that the smaller their bodies the greater their activity?
When you see one kinglet about, you may be sure there are others not far away, for, except in the nesting season, its habits are distinctly social, its friendliness extending to the humdrum brown creeper, the chickadees, and the nuthatches, in whose company it is often seen; indeed, it is likely to be in almost any flock of the winter birds. They are a merry band as they go exploring the trees together. The kinglet can hang upside down, too, like the other acrobats, many of whose tricks he has learned; and it can pick off insects from a tree with as business-like an air as the brown creeper, but with none of that soulless bird's plodding precision.
In the early spring, just before this busy little sprite leaves us to nest in Canada or Labrador—for heat is the one thing that he can't cheerfully endure—a gushing, lyrical song bursts from his tiny throat—a song whose volume is so out of proportion to the bird's size that Nuttall's classification of kinglets with wrens doesn't seem far wrong after all.
Only rarely is a nest found so far south as the White Mountains. It is said to be extraordinarily large for so small a bird; but that need not surprise us when we learn that as many as ten creamy-white eggs, blotched with brown and lavender, are no uncommon number for the pensile cradle to hold. How do the tiny parents contrive to cover so many eggs and to feed such a nestful of fledglings?
Solitary Vireo(Vireo solitarius) Vireo or Greenlet family
Called also: BLUE-HEADED VIREO
Length—5.5 to 7 inches. A little smaller than the English sparrow.
Male—Dusky olive above; head bluish gray, with a white line around the eye, spreading behind the eye into a patch. Beneath whitish, with yellow-green wash on the sides. Wings dusky olive, with two distinct white bars. Tail dusky, some quills edged with white.
Female—Similar, but her head is dusky olive.
Range—United States to plains, and the southern British provinces. Winters in Florida and southward.
Migrations—May. Early October. Common during migrations;more rarely a summer resident south of Massachusetts.
By no means the recluse that its name would imply, the solitary vireo, while a bird of the woods, shows a charming curiosity about the stranger with opera-glasses in hand, who has penetrated to the deep, swampy tangles, where it chooses to live. Peering at you through the green undergrowth with an eye that seems especially conspicuous because of its encircling white rim, it is at least as sociable and cheerful as any member of its family, and Mr. Bradford Torrey credits it with "winning tameness." "Wood-bird as it is," he says, "it will sometimes permit the greatest familiarities. Two birds I have seen, which allowed themselves to be stroked in the freest manner, while sitting on the eggs, and which ate from my hand as readily as any pet canary."
The solitary vireo also builds a pensile nest, swung from the crotch of a branch, not so high from the ground as the yellow-throated vireo's nor so exquisitely finished, but still a beautiful little structure of pine-needles, plant-fibre, dry leaves, and twigs, all lichen-lined and bound and rebound with coarse spiders' webs.
The distinguishing quality of this vireo's celebrated song is its tenderness: a pure, serene uplifting of its loving, trustful nature that seems inspired by a fine spirituality.
Red-eyed Vireo(Vireo olivaceus) Vireo or Greenlet family
Called also: THE PREACHER
Length—5.75 to 6.25 inches. A fraction smaller than the English sparrow.
Male and Female—Upper parts light olive-green; well-defined slaty-gray cap, with black marginal line, below which, and forming an exaggerated eyebrow, is a line of white. A brownish band runs from base of bill through the eye. The iris is ruby-red. Underneath white, shaded with light greenish yellow on sides and on under tail and wing coverts.
Range—United States to Rockies and northward. Winters in Central and South America.
Migrations—April. October. Common summer resident.
"You see it—you know it—do you hear me? Do you believe it?" is Wilson Flagg's famous interpretation of the song of this commonest of all the vireos, that you cannot mistake with such a key. He calls the bird the preacher from its declamatory style: an up-and-down warble delivered with a rising inflection at the close and followed by an impressive silence, as if the little green orator were saying, "I pause for a reply."
Notwithstanding its quiet coloring, that so closely resembles the leaves it hunts among, this vireo is rather more noticeable than its relatives because of its slaty cap and the black-and-white lines over its ruby eye, that, in addition to the song, are its marked characteristics.
Whether she is excessively stupid or excessively kind, the mother-vireo has certainly won for herself no end of ridicule by allowing the cowbird to deposit a stray egg in the exquisitely made, pensile nest, where her own tiny white eggs are lying; and though the young cowbird crowd and worry her little fledglings and eat their dinner as fast as she can bring it in, no displeasure or grudging is shown towards the dusky intruder that is sure to upset the rightful heirs out of the nest before they are able to fly.
In the heat of a midsummer noon, when nearly every other bird's voice is hushed, and only the locust seems to rejoice in the fierce sunshine, the little red-eyed vireo goes persistently about its business of gathering insects from the leaves, not flitting nervously about like a warbler, or taking its food on the wing like a flycatcher, but patiently and industriously dining where it can, and singing as it goes.
When a worm is caught it is first shaken against a branch to kill it before it is swallowed. Vireos haunt shrubbery and trees with heavy foliage, all their hunting, singing, resting, and home-building being done among the leaves—never on the ground.
White-eyed Vireo(Vireo noveboracensis) Vireo or Greenlet family
Length—5 to 5.3 inches. An inch shorter than the English sparrow.
Male and Female—Upper parts bright olive-green, washed with grayish. Throat and underneath white; the breast andsides greenish yellow; wings have two distinct bars of yellowish white. Yellow line from beak to and around the eye, which has a white iris. Feathers of wings and tail brownish and edged with yellow.
Range—United States to the Rockies, and to the Gulf regions and beyond in winter.
Migrations—May. September. Summer resident.
"Pertest of songsters," the white-eyed vireo makes whatever neighborhood it enters lively at once. Taking up a residence in the tangled shrubbery or thickety undergrowth, it immediately begins to scold like a crotchety old wren. It becomes irritated over the merest trifles—a passing bumblebee, a visit from another bird to its tangle, an unsuccessful peck at a gnat—anything seems calculated to rouse its wrath and set every feather on its little body a-trembling, while it sharply snaps out what might perhaps be freely constructed into "cuss-words."
And yet the inscrutable mystery is that this virago meekly permits the lazy cowbird to deposit an egg in its nest, and will patiently sit upon it, though it is as large as three of her own tiny eggs; and when the little interloper comes out from his shell the mother-bird will continue to give it the most devoted care long after it has shoved her poor little starved babies out of the nest to meet an untimely death in the smilax thicket below.
An unusual variety of expression distinguishes this bird's voice from the songs of the other vireos, which are apt to be monotonous, as they are incessant. If you are so fortunate to approach the white-eyed vireo before he suspects your presence, you may hear him amusing himself by jumbling together snatches of the songs of the other birds in a sort of potpourri; or perhaps he will be scolding or arguing with an imaginary foe, then dropping his voice and talking confidentially to himself. Suddenly he bursts into a charming, simple little song, as if the introspection had given him reason for real joy. All these vocal accomplishments suggest the chat at once; but the minute your intrusion is discovered the sharp scolding, that is fairly screamed at you from an enraged little throat, leaves no possible shadow of a doubt as to the bird you have disturbed. It has the most emphatic call and song to be heard in the woods; it snaps its words off very short. "Chick-a-rer chick" is its usual call-note, jerked out with great spitefulness.
Wilson thus describes the jealously guarded nest: "This bird builds a very neat little nest, often in the figure of an inverted cone; it is suspended by the upper end of the two sides, on the circular bend of a prickly vine, a species of smilax, that generally grows in low thickets. Outwardly it is constructed of various light materials, bits of rotten wood, fibres of dry stalks, of weeds, pieces of paper (commonly newspapers, an article almost always found about its nest, so that some of my friends have given it the name of the politician); all these materials are interwoven with the silk of the caterpillars, and the inside is lined with fine, dry grass and hair."
Warbling Vireo(Vireo gilvus) Vireo or Greenlet family
Length—5.5 to 6 inches. A little smaller than the English sparrow.
Male and Female—Ashy olive-green above, with head and neck ash-colored. Dusky line over the eye. Underneath whitish, faintly washed with dull yellow, deepest on sides; no bars on wings.