BALTIMORE ORIOLE.
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 totwigs 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.
Here in southern California we are best acquainted with the Arizona hooded, which comes to us from Mexico as early as March or April and remains until autumn. We have also the Bullock, and have watched both at nesting-time. None of the orioles is gregarious. They come in single file, never in flocks, and go the same way, often a solitary bachelor or maid lingering behind. When they come in spring it is always the male first, two or three days ahead of his mate. And only one male appears first on the grounds, who makes known his presence exultantly, as if declaring, "I've come, see me!" The oranges are ripe about this time, and the coat of the gay bird is quite in keeping with the prevailing color. One associates any of the orioles, save the orchard, with oranges and buttercups and dandelions and summer goldenrod.
These birds love the habitation of man, and where encouraged and tempted by fruits, remain about our homes by choice, returning each year to the old homestead. We have had orioles return to our home four consecutive seasons, weaving the new nests on to last year's, like a lean-to, sewing the two together with threads. Three pairs of these double-apartment nests are swinging from a single gum-tree twenty-five feet above the driveway.
Often a pair of orioles will suspend their hammocks under the cloth awnings of windows, if provision is made for them. A strong string or little rope, put in and out of the cloth, close up under the corner, will tempt them. We have not known an oriole to pierce firm, untransparent texture of any sort, with her needle beak. On this account we tempt her with the rope.
If corn leaves were high enough, the orioles would doubtless take them for nesting-places in their season. Not so very different from corn is our banana leaf, only a good deal broader and higher. It closes in the middle of the day like a corn leaf, opening again at night or with the sunset.
When the orioles first come to us in the spring they examine all the banana leaves. They soon make up their minds that these are either too young and tender or too old and tattered for a nesting site, and resort to the trees. Any tree will answer, but a favorite is the blue-gum, whose extreme height offers inducements. Though why the birds should take height into consideration we do not know, for later, when the leaves have matured, they select a low banana stock with its broad leaf, so low the hand can reach it. It may be they learn confidence as the season advances.
We have seen no nests with us made of other material than the light yellow fiber which the birds strip from the edge of the palm-leaves, the identical leaf of which the big broad fans are made. When the leaf is green it drips small threads from the edges of its midribs, which you see in the fan as thick grooves. These threads the orioles may be seen pulling out or off any hour in the day if the nest be located in a tree. If they have found a suitable banana leaf they work only in the morning and evening, as the leaf folds up like a book in the daytime, and the sharp apex under which the nest cuddles is difficult to reach.
An oriole works only from below, pushing the thread up, and pulling it down the width of two or three veins away from the first stitch, making a good hold. She first leaves a dozen or twenty threads swinging, after doubling her stitches to make them fast. Then she ties and twists the ends of thethreads together at suitable length and width for the inner lining of the hammock; thus fashioning the inner space first and adding to the outside. When the whole is completed, she lines it with soft materials, using but one kind of material in the same lining. The banana-leaf hammock has two openings, back and front, through either of which the birds enter or emerge. As the nest progresses in size the leaf is spread apart, until on completion the thick midrib passes directly over the nest and fixes the shape of the whole like a roof or a tent. It is cool and always swinging, and on the whole is an ideal nursery.
The adaptation of the oriole's feet for clinging and perching is a good thought of nature, else the bird could never weave from below as she does. She sticks her sharp toes through the mesh of the leaf, clinging to a rib while she works.
This custom of beginning on the inside of the nest marks the building instincts of all the hang-birds, for should they reverse the order they would make a mere tangle without inside proportions. It would be impossible to weave from without. As the nest progresses the outer threads are coarser and less closely woven, brought together at certain points of attachment to the twig or the leaf rib, and making a nest the winds might play with, but not steal away.
The oriole's nest is the poetry of bird architecture, be it swung in an apple-tree or an elm or a maple, or under a leaf. Her slender beak is her needle, her shuttle her hands, her one means of livelihood. We may call her fabric a tangle if we will; to the eye of Mother Nature it is a texture surpassing human ingenuity, the art for making which has descended by instinct to all her family. It is as beautiful as seaweed,as intricate as the network of a foxglove leaf, and suggests the indefinite strands of a lace-work spider's cocoon. All homage to the oriole!
What a piece of good fortune it is that theyCome faithfully back to us every May;No matter how far in the winter they roam,They are sure to return to their summer home.What money could buy such a suit as this?What music can match that voice of his?And who such a quaint little house could build,To be with a beautiful family filled?O happy winds that shall rock them soft,In their swinging cradle hung high aloft;O happy leaves that the nest shall screen.And happy sunbeams that steal between.Celia Thaxter.
What a piece of good fortune it is that theyCome faithfully back to us every May;No matter how far in the winter they roam,They are sure to return to their summer home.
What money could buy such a suit as this?What music can match that voice of his?And who such a quaint little house could build,To be with a beautiful family filled?
O happy winds that shall rock them soft,In their swinging cradle hung high aloft;O happy leaves that the nest shall screen.And happy sunbeams that steal between.
Celia Thaxter.
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A CANARY-BIRD
Sing away, aye, sing away.Merry little bird,Always gayest of the gay.Though a woodland roundelayYou ne'er sung nor heard;Though your life from youth to agePasses in a narrow cage.Near the window wild birds fly.Trees are waving round;Fair things everywhere you spyThrough the glass pane's mystery.Your small life's small bound;Nothing hinders your desireBut a little gilded wire.Mrs. Craik.
Sing away, aye, sing away.Merry little bird,Always gayest of the gay.Though a woodland roundelayYou ne'er sung nor heard;Though your life from youth to agePasses in a narrow cage.
Near the window wild birds fly.Trees are waving round;Fair things everywhere you spyThrough the glass pane's mystery.Your small life's small bound;Nothing hinders your desireBut a little gilded wire.
Mrs. Craik.
He didn't look very much like a bird, being mostly a big little stomach, as bare of feathers as a beechnut just out of the burr, with here and there on the head and back a tuft of down. His eyelids bulged prominently, but did not open, sight being unnecessary in consideration of the needs of his large stomach. Said needs were partially satisfied every few minutes with the nursing-bottle.
And a very primitive nursing-bottle it was, being no other than the beak of the parent bird thrust far down the little throat, as is the family custom of the rest of the finches.
From somewhere in the breast of the mother a supply was always forthcoming, and found its way down the tinythroat of the baby and into the depths of its pudgy being. This food, which was moist and smooth, was very nourishing indeed, and sweet as well, for it tasted good, and left such a relish in the mouth that said mouth always opened of itself when the mother bird came near. But no more than its own share of the victuals did Dicky get, though he did his very best to have it all. There were other babies in the same cradle to be looked after and fed. And they all five were as much alike as five peas, excepting that Dicky was the smallest of all and was kept pushed well down in the bottom of the nest. This did not prevent his mother from noticing his open mouth when it came his turn to be fed.
Canary mothers have sharp eyes; so have canary fathers, as will be seen.
Now, when this particular pair of birds began to look about the cage for a good place to fix upon for family affairs, some kind hand from outside fastened a little round basket in one corner, exactly of the right sort to stimulate nesting business. It was an old-fashioned basket, with open-work sides and bottom, airy and clean. Now, had this basket been a box instead, we should have had no tragedy to record; or had the mesh been closely woven, no fatal mistake (though well meant) would have darkened the sky of this domestic affair. But alas! the truth must be told, since the biography we are writing admits of no reservations.
It all came about by the interference of the father bird, whose presence in the nursery should have been forbidden at the start. The mother was more than once alarmed by his activity and misapplied zeal about the nest, and she had scolded him away with emphatic tones.
CANARY.
CANARY.
Not having anything of importance to do save to eat all day and sleep all night, he was on the alert for employment. One dreadful morning, when the mother was attending to breakfast, this father canary espied some, tatters sticking out of the bottom meshes of the nest basket, bits of string ends and threads, carelessly and innocently overlooked.
"Ah," thought he, "here is something that ought to be attended to at once."
And he went to work! He thrust his sharp beak up between the round meshes of the basket bottom and pulled at every thread he could lay hold of, struggling beneath, fairly losing his foothold in his eagerness to pull them out. Having succeeded in dragging most of the material from beneath the birdlings, he caught sight of a few more straight pink strings lying across the meshes, and began tugging at them. The mother, feeding the babies from the edge of the nest above, noticed the little ones each in its turn crouching farther and farther into the bottom of the cradle, faintly opening their mouths as if to cry, but being too young and weak to utter a sound. It was a mystery, but the deepest mystery of it all was the fact that little Dicky, the dwarf of the family, came to the top as the rest worked down, and was getting more than his share of the breakfast.
About this time the mistress of the canary-cage came to see after her pets, and beheld a sight which made her scream as hard as if she had seen a mouse. There, beneath the nest, was the father bird tugging at protruding feet and legs of baby birds with all his might, growing more and more excited as he saw his supposed strings resisting his attempts to pull them through.
When the affair was looked into, there was but one bird left alive of the five little infants no more than five days old,and they were released from their predicament to have a decent burial in the garden at the foot of a motherly-looking cabbage head that stood straight up in disgust of the cruel affair, "as if she would ever have such a thing happen to her little cabbages!" True, she had no little cabbages of her own, but that made no difference.
Now that we have tucked away these four little canary-birds, who never saw the light of day, and therefore never could realize what they missed by not holding on harder to what little they had by way of feet and legs, we will drop the painful subject and attend to Dicky.
Of course the father bird was excluded from the nursery, as he should have been weeks before, and there was only one mouth to feed. And that mouth was never empty unless the owner of it was sleeping. In fact, the babe was stuffed; though, strange to say, his stomach grew no bigger, but less and less, as the rest of his body filled out.
At the end of a couple of weeks he had a pretty fair shirt on his back, of delicate down, softer than any shirt of wool that ever warmed a human baby's body. And the mother stood on the edge of the basket and admired it. She didn't make it, of course, but she was in some way responsible for it, and no doubt felt proud of the bit of fancy work. She noticed, also, that the eyes of the little one did not bulge so much as they did, and a tiny slit appeared at the center, widening slowly, until one happy hour they opened fairly out, and "the baby had eyes." But they were tired eyes to start with, like the eyes of most young things, and they wearied with just a glimpse of the light. So the lids closed, and it was several days before Dicky actually took in the situation as he ought.
There being no other baby to crowd, he kept to the nest longer than birds commonly do, and when at last he got on his feet he was pretty well fledged.
Now, when he had obtained his first youthful suit of clothes, his mother looked surprised, as did also his father, it is to be supposed, he in his solitary cage hanging close to the other. Both parent birds were pure-bred Teneriffe canaries, the male as green as emerald and the female more dusky and lighter. By a strange freak of nature, which happens sometimes by breeding these birds in captivity, the young fellow was bright yellow, of the tint of a ripe lemon, beak white, and eye black, while his feet and ankles retained their original baby pinkness. Oh, he was a pretty bird! But it was foreordained in his case, as in similar cases, that he should not be so sweet a singer as though his color had been like that of his parents. He was not conscious of this fact, however, and it mattered not to him that he was yellow instead of green. Nor did he care in the least that the price of him was marked down to a dollar and a half when it should have been double. Away he went in a new cage, after his new mistress had paid the sum named into the hand of his former owner. He peeked out of the bars as he was carried along swinging at every step; that is, he peeped out as well as he could, considering that a cloth was covered over the cage. The wind blew the cloth aside now and then and Dicky saw wonderful sights—sights that were familiar and "so soul-appealing." Not that he, in his own short life, had ever seen such sights, but that somehow in his little being were vague memories or conceptions of what his ancestors had seen. It is hard to explain it, but everything cannot be explained. When we come to one of these things we call it"instinct," with a wise shake of our heads, just as we were told to say "Jerusalem" when we came to a word we couldn't pronounce when we were very young and read in the Second Reader.
Well, Dicky had a good home of his own, and lived for a purpose, although he never developed into a trained singer. In the heart of him he longed for a mate, and often expressed his desires in low, musical notes. But no mate came to him, and he would sit for hours pondering on his bachelor's lot, and singing more notes.
Now, wild birds are constantly having something "happen" to them. They fly against a wire or get a wing hurt, or the young fall out of the nest and can't find their mother. Dicky's mistress was always on the lookout for such accidents, and she brought such birds into the house and nursed them and brought them back to health when possible. It occurred to her to offer a "calling" or "vocation" to Dicky. So she made a small private hospital of his cage, into which she placed the victims of accident or sickness as she found them. Dicky was surprised, never having seen a bird save his parents, and his lady-love in his dreams, and at first he stood on tiptoe and was frightened.
But he learned to be kind after a while, and to show his visitors where the food and water were kept, and to snuggle up to them on the perch when it came bedtime. Many and many a poor invalid did he aid in restoring to freedom and flight, until he became pretty well acquainted with the birds that nest in our grounds.
Year after year the good work went on, and Dicky developed more musical talent, until he sang sweetly, imitating the finches and linnets outside. In the fall of the year, whenthe wild birds were thinking of their annual migrations, Dicky himself grew restless and quit his songs. Then his mistress opened his door and told him he might "go." Not far away, of course, but all about in the room, that seemed to this caged bird as big as any world could be. In his quest for new nooks he came by accident upon the mirror above the fireplace. Standing on the edge of a little vase before the glass, just in front of the beveled edge of it, he espied two yellow birds, one in the glass itself and another in the beveled edge, as a strict law of science had determined should be the case.
In a second the whole bearing of the bird was changed. His feathers lay close, his legs stood long and slim, and his eyes bulged, as they never had bulged since the lids parted when he was two weeks old. Then he found voice. He sang as never a green bird sang sweeter. He turned his head and the two birds in the glass turned their heads. He preened his wing and the two birds preened each a wing. His little throat swelled out in melody, the tip of his beak pointing straight to the ceiling of the big room as if it were indeed the blue sky, and the two birds sang with uplifted beaks and swelling throats. They were of his own kind, his own race, his own ancestral comrades. And they were not green! The low mesas of the Canary Islands never resounded to such melody.
But melody was not food, at least so thought Dicky's mistress, as she tempted the bird in vain to eat. Not a crumb would he touch until placed back in his cage, where he straightway forgot his recent discoveries. As usual, he took his bread and cooky to the water-dish and set it to soak for dinner, and scattered his seeds about the cage floor in hiseagerness to dispose of the non-essentials, the hemp only being, in his opinion, suitable for his needs. Of course he was obliged to pick up his crumbs after he had thus assorted the varieties.
Every day when the door was open he flew straight to the mirror. If we moved the vase to the middle, away from the beveled edge, he found the place by himself and stood on tiptoe exactly where the reflection accorded him the companionship of two birds, and he would resume his melody. It was real to him, this comradeship, and it lasted until actual and personally responsible companions were provided for him.
Now, let not the reader conjure up a picture of many birds in a cage with Dicky as governor or presiding elder. It was midsummer, when the sands are hot and inviting to the retiring and modest family known by name as "lizards." The particular branch of this family to which we refer, and to which Dicky was referred, is known to scientists, who would be precise of expression, as Gerrhonotus. But the familiar name of "lizard" is sufficient for the creatures we placed in a large wire cage on the upper balcony and designed for Dicky's summer companions.
Now, it should not seem strange to any one that we chose the lizard people to associate with this yellow-as-gold canary. Were they not one and the same long ages ago? And this is no legend, but fact. Have they not both to this day scales on their legs and a good long backbone? To be sure, the birds now have feathers on most of their bodies, so they may be able to fly; but a long while ago the bird had only scales, and not a single feather. And are not baby lizards hatched from eggs laid by the mother lizard? Ah, it is a long story,this, dating back too far to count. But long stories are quite the accepted fashion in natural science, and from reading them we resolved to make some observations of our own. There is more to be gained sometimes in making observations on one's own account than by adopting those of others.
We captured half a dozen lizards and gave them the names of Lizbeth, Liza, Liz, and Lize. That is, four of them, being of the same order, received these names; there were two little ones besides, with peacock-blue trimmings, which have nothing to do with this story. The four named were about eight inches in length, speckled above and silver beneath. Their other beauties and characteristics will not be discussed except as it becomes necessary in treating of Dicky's further development.
From the day when these five creatures became fellow-captives they were friends. The lizards took to sleeping in the canary's food-box, so that in getting at his meals he was obliged to peck between them, and sometimes to step over them and crowd them with his head after hidden seeds. As the afternoon sunshine slanted across the cage the five took their dry bath all in a heap, bird on top with wings outspread, lizards in a tangle, each and all thankful that there was such a thing as a sun bath or family descent. Later, as the sun was going down and the lizards became drowsy, as lizards will, Dicky sang them a low lullaby, now on the perch above them, now on the rim of the feed-box. At times another comrade joined them, especially at this choral hour.
One of those red and white striped snakes seen in ferns and brakes along watercourses made a home in the cage with the bird and the lizards. This snake had an ear for music; at the first notes he emerged from his lair slowly and cautiously, lifted his graceful head toward the singer, and glidedin his direction. If the bird were on the perch the snake would crawl up the end posts, taking hold with his scales, which, of course, were his feet, and lie at length on the perch at Dicky's feet, watching out of its beautiful eyes. At other times it would merely glide toward the bird, lift its head erect some five or six inches, and remain motionless until the song was finished. A big, warty hop-toad, also an inmate of this asylum, was a friend of Dicky's, as indeed was every creature, even to the big grasshopper. This toad and the bird were often seen in the bath together, the toad simply squatting, as is the custom of toads, the bird splashing and spattering the water over everything, including, of course, the toad. The toad blinked and squatted flatter to the bottom of the bath, hopping out when the bird was done, and the two sunning themselves after nature's own way of using a bath-towel.
It would be too long a story were one to tell of the songs Dicky sang to the drone of the drones bumming away against the wire, sorry perhaps that they were to become dinner to lizards before summer was half over. But we must bring the biography to an end, hoping that these few reminiscences will tend to interest people in the "Dickies" that are about them in wire cages, too often neglected and never half comprehended.
But we should by all means give an account of the last we ever saw of this particular Dicky.
During his stay on the balcony he had become acquainted with the finches and linnets and mocking-birds of the yard, holding quiet talks with them in the twilight, and growing more thoughtful at times, even to the extent of watching for opportunities to escape. One evening, just as we lifted the door to set in a fresh pan of water, out darted Dicky. Straightto a tree near by he flew, and called himself over and over again. We cried to him, "Dicky, O Dicky, come back."
Ah, but here was a taste of freedom—the freedom which his ancestral relatives had enjoyed on the low slopes of Teneriffe before ever a foreign ship had carried them away captive. And Dicky had never read a word about his ancestors and their freedom! Therefore, what did he know about it? Scientists call it "instinct." It is a word too hard for us, and we will say "Jerusalem" and let it pass. Away across the street flew Dicky, the bird of prison birth, the bird of only two comrades of his kind and color, and these but shadows in a mirror.
The lizards heard us call, and peeped lazily over the edge of the hammock seed-box, blinking sleepily, and then cuddled down again without sense of their loss.
Running after the bird did not bring him back, as everybody knows to his sorrow who has once tried it. A glint of gold in the pine-tree, a radiance as of lemon streamers in and out of the cypress hedge, and we saw Dicky no more.
My bird has flown away,Far out of sight has flown, I know not where.Look in your lawn, I pray,Ye maidens kind and fair,And see if my beloved bird be there.Find him, but do not dwellWith eyes too fond on the fair form you see,Nor love his song too well;Send him at once to me,Or leave him to the air and liberty.From the Spanish.
My bird has flown away,Far out of sight has flown, I know not where.Look in your lawn, I pray,Ye maidens kind and fair,And see if my beloved bird be there.
Find him, but do not dwellWith eyes too fond on the fair form you see,Nor love his song too well;Send him at once to me,Or leave him to the air and liberty.
From the Spanish.
Some day a budding ornithologist, more eager than wise, with note-book and pencil, will possibly record a "newspecies" among the foothill trees—a species that resembles both yellow warbler and goldfinch. And the young man will look very knowing, all alone out in the woods; and he will send his specimen to the National Museum for identification. And the museum people will shake their wiser heads and inform the "ornithologist" that, in their opinion, there is more of the ordinary tame canary "let loose" in the individual than goldfinch or warbler.
Let it pass.
A bird for thee in silken bonds I hold,Whose yellow plumage shines like polished gold;From distant isles the lovely stranger came,And bears the far-away Canary's name.Lyttleton.
A bird for thee in silken bonds I hold,Whose yellow plumage shines like polished gold;From distant isles the lovely stranger came,And bears the far-away Canary's name.
Lyttleton.
SPARROWS AND SPARROWS
What is it, then, to be a queen, if it is not like the silver linden-tree to cast a protecting shadow over the world's sweetest song-birds?Carmen Sylva.
What is it, then, to be a queen, if it is not like the silver linden-tree to cast a protecting shadow over the world's sweetest song-birds?
Carmen Sylva.
Grudge not the wheatWhich hunger forces birds to eat;Your blinded eyes, worst foes to you,Can't see the good which sparrows do.Did not poor birds with watching roundsPick up the insects from your grounds?Did they not tend your rising grain,You then might sow to reap in vain?John Clare.
Grudge not the wheatWhich hunger forces birds to eat;Your blinded eyes, worst foes to you,Can't see the good which sparrows do.Did not poor birds with watching roundsPick up the insects from your grounds?Did they not tend your rising grain,You then might sow to reap in vain?
John Clare.
No bird, unless it be the crow, is so nicknamed as the sparrow. None is so evil spoken of, none so loved. Accepted enemy of the farmer, it is the farmer's dearest friend.
It is a good, large family, that of the sparrows, ninety or more varieties occurring in the United States. Always, of whatever tint or markings, it is recognized by its stout, stalky shape, short legs, and strong feet; but more surely by its bulging, cone-like bill, pointed toward the end. This beak is the bird's best characteristic, just as a certain nose is the leading feature of some human families. And there is character in a sparrow's nose. It is used for original research and investigation, on account of which the sparrow, of all the birds, deserves the degree of doctor of philosophy conferred upon him; omitting, of course, one single member of the family, the English sparrow. And why the English sparrow shouldcome in for any notice among the song-birds we cannot tell, unless it be the fact that it really does haunt them, and they have to put up with it almost everywhere they go. Surely it needs no picture to introduce this little vagrant, save in a few regions sacred as yet from its presence. Even this little foreign rogue has lovable traits, were it not for the prejudice against him. What persistence he has in the face of persecution and death! What philosophy in the production of large families to compensate for loss! What domestic habits! What accommodation to circumstances! What cheerful acceptance of his lot! Surely the English sparrow presents an example worthy of imitation.
To those whose preferences are for cooked little birds, what suggestions are stirred by the hosts of these sparrows invitingly arrayed on roof and porch and fences. They make as good pot-pie as the bobolink or robin, and it would seem less sacrilege to so appropriate them. The rich and poor alike might indulge in the delicacy. Especially might the weak little starvelings in the cities, whose dipper of fresh, new milk is long in coming, or never to come at all, find in sparrow broth a nourishing substitute. Who knows but for this very purpose the birds are sent to the large cities. We read of a story of "quails" in a certain Old Book, and more than half believe the wonderful tale. Why not make a modern story of sparrows sent "on purpose," and cultivate a taste for the little sinner? And its eggs! Why, a sparrow hen will lay on, indefinitely, like a real biddy. Only be sure to respect the "nest-egg," so the old bird may have one always by her "to measure by."
ENGLISH SPARROW.
ENGLISH SPARROW.
Think of the "little mothers" of the big cities, raising baby weaklings on sparrow broth and poached sparrow's eggs. It is a pity to waste such fat, little scraps of meat as are thrown about. Besides, making good use of the birds, if they must be killed, is good for the soul of boys. It would teach them thrift and a good purpose. Our best ornithologists declare the English sparrow "a nuisance without a redeeming quality." Pity they hadn't thought about the pie.
But there are sparrows and sparrows. Some of the family are our sweetest singers. Take the song-sparrow, the bird of the silver tongue. It is known throughout the Eastern United States and Canada; and on the Pacific coast and elsewhere it is still the song-sparrow, though it varies slightly in color in different regions. In many states it remains all winter, singing when the snow is falling, and keeping comradeship with the chickadee.
Everybody knows the little fellow by his voice if not by his coat. Nothing fine about the coat or gown save its modest tints. But, as with many another bird of gray or brown plumage, its song is the sweetest. Hearty, limpid, cheerful in the saddest weather, always ending in the melody of an upward inflection, as if he invited answer.
The song-sparrow is the only one we have noticed to gargle the song in its throat, swallowing a few drops with each mouthful; or it may be that he stops to take a breath between notes. We have seen him sing, sprawled flat on a log in a hot day, with wings outspread, and taking a sun bath. The song is always very brief, as if he would not tire his listeners, though he gives them an encore with hearty grace. Individual birds differ in song, no two singing their dozen notes exactly alike.
While his mate is patiently waiting to get the best results from her four or five party-colored eggs, the song-sparrowsings constantly, never far from the nest in the bush or the low tree, or even on the ground, where cats are debarred from the vicinity. One never can depend on the exact color of the eggs, for they vary in tint from greenish white to browns and lavender, speckled or clouded, "just as it happens."
And the feathers of the birds have all these colors mingled and dotted and striped, and dashed off, as you may see for yourself, by looking out of the window or taking a still stroll down along the creek.
The song-sparrow has a pert little way of sticking its tail straight up like a wren when it runs—and it is always running about. In our grounds they follow us like kittens, keeping up their happy chirp as if glad they ever lived and were blessed with feet and a beak.
The nest of the song-sparrow is compact and snug, with little loose material about the base of it. We have had a long hunt many a time to find it. If we are in the vicinity of it the two birds follow us, chirping, never going straight to the nest, but wandering as we wander, picking up food in the way, and appearing to hold a chatty conversation. It is not evident that they are trying to conceal the fact that they have a nest and that we are near it; for if we sit down and wait, the mother goes straight to it without a sign of fear. But we must wait a long while sometimes, until dinner is over, for these birds seem to remain away from the nest longer at a time than most birds do. They feed their young on larvæ, pecked out of the loose earth, and tiny seeds from under the bushes, or soft buds that have fallen. They pick up a whole beakful, never being satisfied with the amount collected. So it drips from the corners of their mouths in an odd fashion,and some of it escapes, especially if it have feet of its own.
We have not seen a nest of any other than a dark color. Horsehairs make almost half of it, and the outside is of grass closely woven around. The young birds are not "scared out of their wits," as are some birdlings, if a stranger appears, but will snuggle down and look one in the face. Once off and out they are always hungry, following the parent birds with a merry chirp, with the usual upward inflection. They come early to our garden table, where crumbs of cake and other things tempt them to eat too much. After they are filled they hop a few feet away, and sit ruffled all up, and blinking with satisfaction.
Once we played a pretty trick on the sparrows. Knowing their preference for sweets, we placed a saucer of black New Orleans molasses on the table, with a few crumbs sprinkled on the top. Of course the birds took the crumbs, and of course, again, they took a taste of the molasses. It wasn't a day before they dipped their beaks into the molasses that had now no sprinkling of crumbs, and seemed surprised at its lack of shape. It tasted good, and yet they couldn't pick it up like crumbs. Then they took to leaving the tip of the bill in the edge of it and swallowing like any person of sense. When they were done they flew away with the molasses dripping from their faces and beaks in a laughable style, returning almost immediately with more birds.
The fact is, a sparrow is a boy when it comes to eating. Were it not for its good appetite, it couldn't put up with "just anything." Sparrows love the towns and cities because they find crumbs there. Our friend the baker knows them, and many a meal do they find ready spread at his back door.So does Bridget the cook, and even Lung Wo, if their hearts happen to have a soft place for the birds. As for the boy around the corner, who walks about on crutches, he knows all about the sparrows' preferences. In fact, sparrows seem to have a special liking for boys on crutches. One little fellow we knew used to lay his crutch down flat on the ground and place food up and down on it when the sparrows were hungry in the morning. And the crutch came to be the "family board," around which the birds gathered, be the crutch laid flat or tilted aslant on the doorstep. In this way Johnny of the crippled foot came to have a good understanding with the birds, and many a quiet hour was spent in their company. Johnny may turn out to be a great ornithologist some day, all on account of his crutch. What will it matter that he may never shoulder a gun and wander off to the woods to shoot "specimens"? His knowledge of bird ways will serve a better purpose than a possible gun. It was Johnny who first told us to notice how a sparrow straddles his little stick legs far apart when he walks, spreading his toes in a comical way.
Eastern and Western song-sparrows differ, and so do individual birds everywhere—not only in their songs, but in the distribution of specks and stripes on their clothes. What we have said about our song-sparrows may not wholly apply to the family elsewhere. These differences lead bird-lovers to study each of the birds about his own door and forests without placing too much credit upon what others say.
There is much of the year when sparrows live almost solely on seeds, and this is the time when they join hands with the farmer, so to speak, and help him with the thistles and other weeds, by work at the seed tufts and pods. Sparrows love to run in and out of holes and cracks and between cornstalks anddry woodpiles. It was this habit of peeping into everything, on the part of the birds, that led the olden poet to write:
"I love the sparrows' ways to watchUpon the cotter's sheds.So here and there pull out the thatchThat they may hide their heads."
"I love the sparrows' ways to watchUpon the cotter's sheds.So here and there pull out the thatchThat they may hide their heads."
It was a pretty idea and a charitable one, that of the poet's. In a country where roofs are shingled with thatch, or dry sticks and leaves overlapping, the sparrows are familiar residents; and where somebody remembers to "pull out the thatch" or make a loose little corner on purpose, they sleep all night. We have ourselves made many a pile of brush on purpose for the sparrows.
The white-crowned sparrows winter with us, going far up the Alaskan coast to nest in the spring, as do also the tree-sparrow, the golden-crowned, savanna, and some others, including the beautiful fox-sparrow. These birds arrive in the Far North as soon as the rivers are open, and to the gold-seekers, who get to their dreary work with pick and spade, are like friends from home. Many a homesick miner stops a moment to listen to their clear, ringing songs, almost always in the rising inflection, as if a question were asked. And for answer, the man who sometimes would "give all the gold he ever saw" for one glimpse of home, draws his sleeve across his eyes.
Some of the sparrows which nest in Alaska use pure white ptarmigan feathers for nest-lining; while their cousins in the east, on the opposite side, breeding in Labrador, use eider-down. In these far northern latitudes these birds scratch in the moss and dead leaves of summer-time, often coming to ice at the depth of three or four inches. The summers are soshort that insect life is very scarce, excepting the mosquitoes. But there are berries! And an occasional hunter's or gold-seeker's cabin always furnishes meals at short notice. Men may pass the birds at home in civilization with scarcely a thought; but when away and alone, the presence of a bird they have known in other climes brings them to their senses. It is then they recognize the fact that birds are their comrades and friends, to be cherished and fed, not always hunted and eaten.
On account of the distribution of sparrows the world over, many legends have been written of them. The very earliest we have read is the one that assures us the sparrow was seen by Mother Eve in the Garden of Eden, on the day she ate of the forbidden fruit. In fact, the "tree" was full of sparrows warning the woman not to eat, though the birds themselves were making for the fruit with might and main.
In the story of Joseph it is recorded that the "chief baker" had a dream. In his dream he bore three baskets on his head. In the uppermost basket were all kinds of "bake-meats for the king." While the baker was walking to the palace with the baskets on his head the sparrows came and ate all the meat there was in the upper basket.
In the narrative the name of the birds is not given, but the fact that they "ate up the meat," going in at the little wickerwork spaces, leads us to believe they were sparrows. It was only a dream; but people dream their waking thoughts and habits. It is supposed that this chief baker was fond of birds, and it was customary for him to feed them on the king's victuals.
Well, the king is no poorer off now that the birds hadtheir fill. And we wish peace to the soul of the baker for his kindness.
In the ballad of the "Babes in the Wood" it was the sparrow who made the fatal mistake which took off Cock Robin before the wedding feast was over. Poor sparrow! He has never been known to carry a bow and arrow under his coat from that day to this. Thinking of that old ballad, we have often watched the robins and the sparrows together, and are never able to make out that the robin holds any grudge against his ancient friend and guest who made the blunder.
In nearly all the markets of the Old World sparrows have been sold as food, bringing the very smallest price imaginable. In Palestine two of them were sold for the least piece of money in use, though what anybody wants of two sparrows, unless to make a baby's meal, we do not know.
The tree-sparrow of England is common in the Holy Land, and it was probably this bird to which the New Testament alludes.
Of our American sparrows, the fox-sparrow is probably the most beautiful in markings. By its name one might imagine it had something to do with foxes, and so it has, but in color only, being a rich foxy brown in its darker tints. This bird is seen all winter in Washington on the Capitol grounds, scratching in the leaves for food and singing its loyal melody. The fox-sparrow has been sometimes detained in captivity, but as a rule grows too fat for a good singer. It seems to be the same with them as with our domestic fowls—if too fat they give poor returns. The hen and the sparrow and most people must scratch for a living, would they make a success in life. But who would want to cage a sparrow unless it be an invalid who can never go out of the room?Even here, if the invalid have a window-sill it were better; for the window-sill is sparrow's own delight, if it be furnished with crumbs. Or, if one would see some fun, let the crumbs be in a good round loaf tightly fastened. This, let the sparrow understand, is for him alone, and he will burrow to the heart of it. Caged birds make sorry companions.
The farmer sometimes wishes he had all the sparrows he ever saw in a cage. Well, farmer, were it not for the sparrows, there would be more abandoned farms than you can imagine. Therefore, let them live and have their freedom. And let the farmer's daughter make bread on purpose for them. They will make no complaints about her first attempts, nor call it sour or heavy. Let the children play at camp-fire and throw their biscuits to the birds. It will give them happy hearts, each of them, the birds and the children. The sparrows will respond with a single word of thanks, but it will be hearty.