CHAPTER XIII

MEADOW LARK.

The old man sitting there, waiting for the meadow-lark to appear, thinks not of the insect people, but of the lark. With the tip of his strong cane he breaks off a piece of the serried bark, and a spider scurries down the side of the log and into the grass. He chips off another piece, and a bevy of sow-bugs make haste to tumble over and "play dead," curling their legs under their sides, but recovering their senses and scurrying off after the spider. The cane continues to chip off the bark, and down tumble all sorts of wood people, some of them hiding like a flash in the first moist earth they come to; others never stopping until they are well under the log, where experience has taught them they will be safe out of harm's way. And they declare to themselves, and to each other, that they will never budge from under that log until it is midnight "and that wicked meadow-lark is fast asleep."

Of course it is no other than the meadow-lark the insect people are running away from! They never saw the old man, nor the tip of his cane that was doing all the mischief. They know their feathered foe of old. What care they for his song? He is always on their trail. So when the old man sat down heavily on the log, and the point of his cane jarred the loose bark, out tumbled the tenants, expecting each of them to be presented with a bill. But the bill of their dreaded enemy is a rod or two away.

He has had his breakfast already. It was composed of all sorts of winged and creeping folk, including many an insect infant bundled all up in its swaddling-clothes and not half conscious of its fate.

It was for this very purpose that he was up so early. Of course the poets did not take his breakfast into account when they wrote verses about his "rising with the sun" and singing with "the first beam of day." Nothing in the world brought him out of bed save his ever-present appetite. And the farmers have cause to bless their stars that the meadow-lark has an appetite of his own. Also, that he and his spouse make their nest in the grass, and that the baby larks get about on the ground long before they are able to fly fence-high.

But we are leaving the old man sitting too long on that damp log. He may catch a cold. Of one thing we are certain, he will catch sight of "that rogue lark" if he waits half an hour. He used to wait just that way when he was a boy, though to keep still half as long in any other place for any other purpose would have been a physical impossibility. His specs are on the end of his nose now, for the old man has good far sight, and he squints knowingly at a bunch of meadow-grass three rods away. Who says the eye of the aged grows dim? The eye of this particular old man never shone brighter even when he climbed that identical elm and came near losing his balance, reaching after the orchard oriole's nest that swung, empty, just at tantalizing distance. What did the boy want of that nest? He just wanted to get it, that was all.

And what does the old man want of the meadow-lark caroling at the base of bunch-grass somewhere ahead of him? Why, he just wants his nest, that is all! Suddenly up pops the bird, right out of the waving mound he was "sure to be in," and he flies low to the nearest stone heap, looking the old man right in the eyes as if he had as easy a conscience asever reposed in the breast of man or bird. And no other conscience has the meadow-lark, to be sure. It is the same conscience that has descended to him through his ancient family down through countless generations.

But the old man isn't after the conscience of the dear bird. He is after what may develop at the base of that grassy mound. Over toward it he goes, feeling with his cane, poking the buttercups and smartweed and yarrow aside. "Ha," he laughs, "I've got it, Mary!"

"Mary" isn't anywhere in sight; but the old man's habit of telling "Mary" everything stands by him like any good friend. He has been telling her everything all his life, and why shouldn't he tell her about this lark's nest, the very latest discovery of his?

No deceiving this old boy! All these meadow-grasses, bent low and forming a rather awkward archway over a possible corridor, hold secrets. Out darts the mother lark with many a sign of maternal anxiety. And the singer discontinues his morning carol.

The old man kneels very stiffly down in the meadow (he thinks he is dropping down with a jerk, in boy fashion) and parts the grasses. He peers in and sees something. He laughs, parting his gums wide, exhibiting to a black and yellow bumblebee a solitary tooth, like the last remaining picket on the garden gate he swung on when he was a boy. Then he rises stiffly, and goes as fast as his legs can carry him, exactly as he has always done for seventy-five years, more or less, straight to "tell Mary."

Just as he reaches the doorstep and places his strong cane against the corner, preparatory to lifting his right foot, he turns to take a look at the spot he has just left, empty-handed,in the meadow. He shades his eye from the nine-o'clock sun, and sees a crouching form no bigger than was his own at the age of ten. He tries to shout, but that one tooth standing in the door of his lips like a faithful sentinel, or something back of and behind it in the years that are gone, prevents his voice from reaching farther than the stone wall at the garden's edge. "Mary," inside, darning hand-knit stockings, hears the voice that is dear to her, lo! these many years; and she does the shouting. Somehow her voice is the stronger of the two. "Get out of that meadow, boy! No stealing lark's eggs in here."

The "boy" slinks back down to the road fence, and bethinks him of another meadow "out of sight of folks," where no end of larks are singing.

When the nesting-season is over—and maybe there were a couple of broods—the larks will club together on a picnic excursion and wander off and on, nobody knows just where. Perchance they will turn up in the next town or the next county or the next state. As they wander, they will sing plaintively, stopping for meals where meals are served. Or they will chatter all together, recognized wherever their happy lot is cast, loved by the loving, perhaps eaten by the sensual.

It will be remembered that the lark was a wedding guest of no ordinary office at the marriage of Cock Robin and Jenny Wren. At the very last feature of the beautiful ceremony the ballad runs this wise:

"Then on her finger fair Cock Robin put the ring,While the lark aloud did sing:'Happy be the bridegroom,And happy be the bride;And may not man nor bird nor beastThis happy pair divide.'"

After the cruel blunder was done, which was the fault of neither bird nor beast nor man (by intention), and the question as to who should act the part of clerk at the last sad burial rites was raised, it was the lark who volunteered, though it is to be supposed that his heart was breaking.

"Who will be the clerk?'I,' said the lark,'If it's not in the dark,And I will be the clerk.'"

Now, why the lark should object to doing this very solemn service for his dead friend the robin, if it should happen to be "dark," we cannot tell. Perchance he really couldn't act the part of a clerk at night on account of his family having been forbidden, centuries and centuries ago, to lean any more against the moon in the first quarter. It used to be a habit of theirs to sing that way, and that is how they came by the crescent on their breast. The gods made up their minds that if all the larks in the world took to leaning their breasts against the moon all at one time it would result in toppling the old moon over. The meadow-lark being the last of the family of larks to obey the command, flew away with the shadow of the crescent under his throat. Anybody can see it for himself in plain sight. So, as intimated, the lark at the funeral, remembering that he couldn't have a moon to lean against, refused to do the part asked of him, if the ceremony occurred after dark. Though, come to think of it, this legend about the crescent must be of very recent date, for the lark of the ballad could have been no other than the English skylark, which has no crescent. But the moon has a crescent, and so has our meadow-lark, and so, if there be a grain of truth inthe ballad and the legend, our dear singer must have been spirited across the sea for that special occasion.

Our interest in this old ballad of Cock Robin would have died before it began had we not been informed of the whole affair with such precision as to details.

For the benefit of those who doubt the event having ever occurred "within the memory of man" and birds, we will refer our readers to the inscription on a certain very old tomb-stone in Aldermary Churchyard, England. If they do not find a single reference to Cock Robin and the lark which acted the part of clerk at the funeral, it will be because they have left their specs at home. Is is not a well-known fact that tombstones tell no falsehoods?

Thinking all these things very calmly over, it occurs to us that, after all, any other of the singing birds we have mentioned in this book might be as well fitted to act the part allotted to the lark as that bird himself. The plain, everyday facts are, it was a poet who reported the affair, and he was at his wit's end to find a word to rhyme with "clerk," and a clerk he must have at a funeral of that date. Now the English tongue, wherever it is spoken, is a curious language. It seems ready made to suit any figure, stout or slim, big or little. The poet knew that any person of good sense, accustomed to rhyming, would read the word "clerk" to sound like "dark." Hence the immortal rhyme,

"'I,' said the lark,'If it be not in the dark,And I will be clerk.'"

SKYLARK (HORNED LARK)

"Under the greenwood-tree,Who loves to lie with me,And tune his merry noteUnto the sweet bird's throat;Come hither, come hither, come hither;Here shall he seeNo enemyBut winter and rough weather."

In Shakespeare's play, "As You Like It," scene v., Amiens, a close student of nature, is made to sing this song.

It probably caused his companion, Jaques, to remember the skylark of his own boyhood, for he besought Amiens to "sing it again." But Amiens argued with his friend that it would make him "melancholy." However, he sang again, and it is supposed that the two lived over the days of their boyhood, when they lay on the grass under the greenwood-tree, just on the edge of a corn-field, and listened to the skylark tuning his merry note in his own sweet throat.

Dear to the heart of English boys and other people is the skylark, on account of which, and for the reason that Britishers of any age may like to meet an old friend should they chance to take up this book in their travels, we are giving a chapter to this bird. In the play, Jaques and Amiens sing later together all about their favorite lark (it is presumed):

"Who loves to live i' the sun,Seeking the food he eatsAnd pleased with what he gets."

Surely the skylark loves to live i' the sun, for he is always in the open, summer and winter, as if he would be sure to not miss a single sunbeam. As is the case with most of our birds who dwell or nest near our homes, the skylark does not seek man for his own sweet sake, but for the sake of what the farm holds; though no marauder is this lark, for it eats ground insects nearly the whole year—crickets, and beetles, and grubs, and worms, and little folk who see no further than their noses. To be sure, in late fall, after the farmer's buck-wheat and other grains are ripened and mostly harvested, the larks visit the fields in flocks to gather up the crumbs and grow fat on the change from a meat to a vegetable diet.

This growing fat, by reason of his generous diet in late fall, just before the snows come, serves the same purpose as does the fattening of bear just before winter. The snow covers lark's "meat victuals" all up, and the birds must fall back at times on their stores laid by under their skin for this very season. Though they do not hibernate, they still have use for their fat. So has the gunner, and the people with snares ready to set for the unwary and hungry birds.

A recent writer, commenting on this autumn sport of the Englishman, excuses their seemingly wanton destruction by observing that "were they not thus taken, large numbers would doubtless meet natural death in their autumn flights." To quote Shakespeare again, "Oftentimes, excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse."

There seems to be a sort of inconsistency in the fact that, from earliest times, the human family have been guilty of eating what most they love—or what most they do declare they love. The flavor of the flesh of a bobolink or skylark is hardly out of the mouth before the tongue takes to praising the favorite bird with a psalm or hymn; in due time the poet and singer bethinks him of his annual feast of flesh, and his spiritual appreciation grows thin.

HORNED LARK.

We are thankful, in spite of all this, that the poets and singers sing on. They have immortalized the skylark of Europe as no other known bird is immortalized.

Superstition claims the bird as peculiarly its own. Do not its prophets divine things mysterious and darkly subtle by the skyward flight of the bird? And its song! Any priest of the craft may read in its varying notes all sorts of fortunes to people and clans.

And the eggs of the skylark! Were they not speckled and streaked by passing night winds in the shape of fairies with garden gourds filled with the ink juice of the deadly night-shade berries? Were the skylark's eggs white they would be "moon-struck," and the hatchlings would sing the song of the night-owl. In spite of the speckled eggs and the usual grassy cover of the nest, these are too often the successful object of the prowling boy. Though it must be confessed that in this, as in the case of the robbery of other birds, it is not always the original finder of the nest who is guilty of theft. Shakespeare was aware of this fact, for in "Much Ado About Nothing" he makes Benedick speak of "the flat transgression of a school-boy, who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, andhesteals it."

The mistake was in "showing it his companion." Though, should the companion happen to be a girl, he need have no fear. The nest will be undisturbed next time he visits the spot.

For eight months of the English year does the skylark sing, prodding the lazy, comforting the sorrowful, accusing the guilty, making more merry the glad. On account of itsever-circling upward flight, the bird is believed to hold converse with heaven. In captivity it is supposed to be "longing for the sky" when it flings itself against the roof of its cage. To protect it against harm in this last, soft cloth is sometimes used for the cover to its home.

In winter, when the skylarks cover the sandy plains of Great Britain, they have but a single cry, having laid by their songs with which to "wake the spring"; or it may be with them as in the case of our bobolinks—after a diet of ripe grains they are "too full for utterance." But when spring is actually astir, then are the larks abroad in the sky. Francis Rabelais, as long ago as the fourteenth century, loved the English spring for the sake of the skylark, and the thoughts the bird inspired in him. Having no appetite, apparently, for the bird when he is fattened for eating, the poet longed for larks in the act of singing, as if, could he hold one of them in his hand when it was articulating, he might come by its written song, as the telegrapher reads the scroll as it unwinds. But he wouldn't be content with one bird, oh, no!—if ever the "skies should fall" he made up his mind to "catch larks" by the basketfuls. But the heavens never were known to fall in lark-singing time, and the poet is long since under the sod with the skylarks nesting above him.

To be like a singing bird has been the longing of human hearts in all ages; as if we realize that there is medicine in song as in nothing else—medicine to the singer. And so there is. No higher compliment could be paid by a poet to the memory of his friend than the following, dated in the seventeenth century. There is a happy lesson of work, and good nature, and lightness of heart in a trying occupation too good to lose.

"There was a jolly miller once,Lived on the River Dee;He work'd and sung from morn to night,No lark more blithe than he."

Several attempts to introduce the English skylark into America have been made, with no satisfactory results. It is hoped to some day have them feel at home on the Pacific coast, where the varying moist and dry climates of north and south would give them the pleasures of their natural migrations. But although we may never have the skylark with us, we have its relative in our horned or shore larks. In its habits it resembles its lark kindred in the Old World, singing on the wing, nesting on the ground, feeding on the same food, walking rapidly, reserving flight as the last resort when pursued.

The horned lark is so named on account of a little tuft of feathers on each side of the forehead, which it raises or lowers at pleasure. It nests in the North very early, even before the snow is all melted, and brings off two or more broods in a season. In the autumn it exchanges its beautiful song for a good appetite, and fattens itself on grains and berries in anticipation of possible winter hunger. It may be seen all over North America at some season of the year, in fall and winter in flocks.

In California we have the Mexican horned larks, which cover the mesas and rise reluctantly in large numbers when surprised. They love to follow the open country roads, running out of the track while we pass, but returning as soon as we have gone our way. On rainy days—which, by the way, are the best of bird days—we have taken our umbrellas and strolled out to the flat lands on purpose to see these larks intheir greatest numbers. They will fly, with a whirr of sound, and alight almost at our feet, to repeat the act for a mile if we choose.

In midsummer they are seen in the vicinity of their nesting-places, standing in rows under fences or plants with mouths wide open, seeming to choose hot sand to flying straight across the short desert to mountain retreats. The horned larks, wherever seen, suggest contentment, and pleasure in life as they find it.

BOBOLINK

"June! dear June! Now God be praised for June."'Nuff said; June's bridesman, poet o' the year,Gladness on wings, the bobolink is here;Half hid in tiptop apple-blooms he sings,He climbs against the breeze with quiverin' wings.Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair.Runs down, a brook o' laughter, through the air.Lowell.

"June! dear June! Now God be praised for June."

'Nuff said; June's bridesman, poet o' the year,Gladness on wings, the bobolink is here;Half hid in tiptop apple-blooms he sings,He climbs against the breeze with quiverin' wings.Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair.Runs down, a brook o' laughter, through the air.

Lowell.

He was just a bird to start with, half blackbird and the other half sparrow, with some of the meadow-lark's ways of getting along. As to the naming of him, everybody settled that matter at random, until one day he grew tired of being called nicknames and named himself.

Think of having "skunk-blackbird" called after a fellow when he deserved the title no more than half a dozen of his feathered friends! He could never imagine what gave him the disagreeable epithet, unless it be his own individual hatred for the animal whose name clung to him like mud.

To be sure, the coat of the bird was striped, something like that of the detestable beastie; but so were the coats of many other birds, and he could never tell why he should be called a blackbird, either.

True, he loved the marshes for personal reasons; but who has seen a blackbird twist its toes around a reed stalk and sing like mad?

BOBOLINK.

So, as we said, he named himself, constituting himself a town crier on behalf of his own concerns. "Bobolink! bobolink!" As often as the blackbird attempted to talk of himself, bobolink chimed in and drowned every other note. And he kept it up for two or three months, until everybody understood that he had given himself a proper name. And each year he returns to remind the skunk and blackbird that he is no other than himself, and to assure people that he is deserving of an original name, whatever else may be said of him.

But the skunk never has quite forgiven the bobolink his resentment of the name, for the ugly little creature haunts the bird in marsh and meadow, watching for the young bobolinks to get big enough for eating, exactly as the bobolink waits for the dandelion seeds to get ripe for his dinner. But dandelion seeds and little baby bobolinks are two different sorts of victuals; and father bobolink, swaying on his weed stem, wishes skunks were not so big, so he could turn on the whole family and devour them as he does the bumblebees in the next stone heap.

It is of no use wishing, for the old feud between the hated animal and the coveted bird is still on. And skunk knows very well how to get the best of the bobolink. Bobolinks see better by daytime, and besides they are tired out with singing all day long, and they sleep like Christians all night. It is then, when the moon is little, and the flowers have closed their eyes, and the grass stems are growing silently in the dew, and the cicada is absorbed in the courting of his sweetheart—ah! it is then that skunk walks abroad, sniffing. Tail straight out behind, gently swaying as he goes, nose well pointed toward the nearest grass tufts, thoughts intent on supper, and alas! baby bobolinks quietly sleeping. Skunk may take in the mother as well, while she broods, she, nodoubt, having a violent attack of nightmare, could she but live to tell her mate about it.

Yes, indeed! poor bobolink has his trials, and he is entitled to all the sweet melody of his family to help him rise above them. When he is tired of New England polecats and takes a run down South, it is but to meet his other enemy, the opossum. And he might as well be given the name of opossum-bird—for, like the skunk, the opossum loves the still, dark night—and fat old bobolinks.

Should the bobolink and his juvenile family take to a tree for a roosting-place, provided his supper has not made his body heavier than his wings are strong, opossum will climb after him.

So poor bobolink is pursued on every hand. Bird of the ground is he, everywhere; he is born on the ground and dies on the ground, usually, for the ground is his dinner-table. His human friends (or foes) take him pitilessly at his meals when he is too full for utterance or quick flight. And these human friends (or foes) dine upon him until they in turn are too full for utterance.

Oh, the bobolink has a hard time! But still he named himself out of the glee of his heart, and he sings a fourth part of the year as only a bobolink can sing.

You can make almost anything you please of the song. Children sit on the fence-rails and mimic him, and "guess" what he says, and cry, "Spink, spank, spink," "meadow wink, meadow wink," "just think, just think," "don't you wink, don't you wink," "want a drink, want a drink?" Coming back to his real name, "bobolink, bobolink," as if, after all, that were the nearest right.

Right under the swinging bare feet of the children, in adark, cool nest, Mother Skunk is fast asleep, making up for last night's carousals among the bobolink nests.

June would be no June without the bobolinks, where they are expected, and so ever so many things get ready for them. For what other purpose than for the bobolinks do the ground-beetles air themselves, and the crickets get out their violins, and the gray spiders spin yarn on their doorsteps? Of course it is all for purposes of their own, since nobody knows that beetles and crickets and spiders particularly love to be gobbled up by a bobolink. But it is one and the same to the bobolink family, who must have food of some sort. And they couldn't at this season of the year, and under the peculiar conditions of family life, get along reasonably well without meat of some sort. Later on, when the dandelions bethink themselves to turn into round white moons that fly away in the breeze, and the wild oats lift their shoulder-capes, the bobolinks can turn vegetarians.

Shy, suspecting little birds, sharp of eye, fresh from a winter tour in the West Indies, they come exactly when they are expected. They never disappoint people. The very earliest to arrive may sing their "Don't you wink, don't you wink," on April 1st. But bobolink makes no April fool of himself or anybody else, unless it be Master Skunk in his hollow tree, who rubs his eyes at the first word from Robert o' Lincoln. But the male birds have come in advance of their women folk, and roost high and dry out of reach of four-footed marauders. It is as if the mother bobolinks would be quite sure the spring storms are over before they put themselves in the way of housework.

Until their mates arrive, the male birds go on a lark, sailing low over meadows, singing as they sail, each outdoinghis friend, sitting now on a fence-post, and now on the budding branch of a maple or elm, calling their own names, and adding whole sentences or stanzas in praise of the Middle West country, and of New England in particular.

Then comes the fun of courtship, when the modest lady bobolinks appear on the ground. With the praise of them on their lips, the males come near and ask each for the hand of his lady-love. Should a rival seek an accepted sweetheart, the rightful mate drives him from the field, literally speaking, and the by no means dejected lover goes to another meadow for a bride. And that is all right, for aren't all lady bobolinks alike? No, indeed, they are not! or so think their devoted mates, for never was closer tie than binds the two to one another. The male never leaves the neighborhood of his family, but sings to his mate as she attends fondly to those affairs which gladden the heart of nature among bird or beast or insect. And she has not far to go for nesting materials. She may even shorten matters by shoving together a bunch of dry leaves and grass that served for the nest of a field-mouse last fall. And she eats as she works, for at every pull at blade or leaf an insect runs out of its hiding-place, right into her mouth, as it were. And if the farmer happen to be plowing, she will run along at the back of him, on the margin of the last furrow, for grub or larva, slipping back into the grass of the hay-field before ever he turns for the next furrow.

If the bobolinks flew north in the light of the moon they may expect good luck; and sometime in June, where before there were a pair of birds, there are now half a dozen or one more than that. The eggs are five or six, but, as with most birds, "there's no telling," and if the parents succeed in raisingthree or four children out of their single brood for the summer, they do well.

There's no better June fun than hunting for bobolinks' nests. When it comes to disturbing them, that is another question. The farmer may not like to have his meadow-grass trodden down before it is piled on the hay-wagon, but it can't be helped. And while the search is going on, there are so many other things coming to pass at the same time, quite unlooked for, that one sometimes laughs and sometimes cries. There are the bumblebees, for instance! The boys hadn't takentheminto account, and a fellow's shins begin to warn him of danger that is mostly past. And there are the nettles hiding in their own nooks on purpose to sting. And the little patches of smartweed which one has to cross in going from the east end of the meadow to the west end harbors crawling and hopping people that one doesn't see in time to avoid; and though they don't bite at all, theydolook and feel—well, most any boy knows how they feel if he cannot tell it. O, yes, it is fun hunting bobolinks' nests, if one respects the rights of one's neighbors in feathers. With note-book and pencil a boy can put down the date of hatch, and growth of quill and beak and strength, and a thousand things it is good to know about birds. Only, as a rule, a single boy never goes on a bobolink hunt. And it's of no use for a whole bevy of boys to load themselves with lead-pencils. They never have been known to put down a single item of observation under these circumstances. To make a business of studying bobolinks or other birds, a person must be all alone. And there isn't the temptation to pilfer when one is all alone. One catches sight of the father bobolink swinging and swayingon a stout but yielding weed stalk, singing for all he is worth, and one cannot steal, notthattime.

But a nest would seldom be found if the foolish birds would keep a close mouth about the matter. It does seem as if they would learn after a while, but they don't. As soon as a stranger with two legs or four comes within sight of the spot, the birds set up what they intend for a warning cry, but which is in reality an "information call." Under its spell one can walk straight to the nest, which even yet, on account of its color and surroundings, may be taken for an innocent bunch of grass, provided one has as good eyes as the skunk has nose.

But nesting-time passes, with all its pleasures and trials and dangers and happy-go-lucky affairs. Late summer sees the young bobolinks out of the nest and away to the weed stalks with their parents. The young males set up an independent though weakly melodious warble on their own account, though they have not yet forgotten their baby ways, and still coax the parents for a good bite of bug or beetle. It is about the only very young bird we are acquainted with that is as precocious in regard to song. It is by this only that it is recognized as a male in this first season, being clothed like the mother and sisters. And, strange to say, about this time the father bobolink begins to don another dress. His black and white are inconspicuous, as if faded with the summer sun, and he ceases to sing as formerly. The fact is, he has no time to sing now, with the young birds to help along, as it is getting almost "time to move." And this strange bird actually seems to forget which are his own children, for the whole neighborhood gathers together, males,females, and young, helter-skelter, each intent on gastronomic affairs and the growing of feathers. As the days wear away, and the sere and yellow leaf of sumac and beech and maple warn all good folk that winter is getting ready to travel back home, the bobolinks preen up. Slyly, like the Arab, they steal away; not suddenly as they came in the spring, but slowly and deliberately. The wings of the young must have time to expand, and season and endure fatigue. Besides, bird families are not able to carry lunch-baskets on an autumn outing. So the bobolinks pass slowly toward the South, feeding as they go, never exercising enough to lose weight, but actually fattening on the journey.

Now, taking all things into account, the bobolinks are the most sensible of people. Persons who ought to know better by experience and observation hurry on a journey, take no time to enjoy the scenery and the people that live along the route. At the journey's end they are depleted, tired, worn to skin and bone, and out of sorts with travel. Not so the bobolinks! They have no bones at the journey's end. They have fattened themselves into butter. They have put on flesh as the bare spring trees put on leaves, and the butternut takes in oil. All the way they eat and drink, and make as merry as they can with so much fat on them.

The yesterday's bird of mad music is to-day the bird of mad appetite. True, they may call out "chink" in passing, but "chink" means "chock-full," and people who delight in bobolink table-fare recognize the true meaning of the note.

Bobolink has forgotten to call his own name, so he answers to any nickname the epicurean lovers of him please to call him by—"rice-bird," "reed-bird," "butter-bird," anything oreverything that is appropriate. And "'possum" sits up on a stump and laughs.

Never mind, 'possum, it's your turn all the time. If bobolink could imitate you in the art of making-believe dead, he would fare better—until folks found him out. People have little use for a dead bobolink, unless shot-gun or snare be in at the death. But bobolinks never seem to learn of 'possums or anybody else. They follow in the wake of their ancestor bobolinks, over the selfsame route to the South; dining in the selfsame rice-fields; swinging on the selfsame reed stalks, exactly as the reed stalks come up each year in the place of last season's petiole.

It's a sad, pathetic tale. But wait! Spring is coming in the steps of last year's spring-time; over the selfsame route, to the selfsame end and fortunes. With the spring will return the bobolinks, as many as have survived disaster. Before you know it he will be calling himself in the meadows, exactly as he called last spring. The seasons and the birds are but echoes of themselves.

Robert o' Lincoln, with his latest striped coat, will sway on the stems and wait for his sweetheart. He will flirt with neither sparrow nor thrush until she arrives. He is true, is the bobolink! So is the polecat, growing lean under his winter stump, and licking his lips at the sound of the farmer calling to his children, "The skunk-blackbird has come!"

"When you can pipe in that merry old strain,Robert o' Lincoln, come back again."

AT NESTING-TIME

"I pray you hear my song of a nest.For it is not long."

In the preceding chapters we have said little about the female or mother birds. In referring to a single individual we have used the pronoun he, as if "he" and no other were worthy of affectionate notice.

As apology, we refer our readers to the title of our book, "Birds of Song and Story."

As it is mostly the male who sings, and also the male who wears the more beautiful plumage, we have given him the first or greater space. It is the male who figures in myth or legend, since it is he who speaks or is known for conspicuous markings.

But always, at the right season, is the wife bird or the mother bird loyal and true, sweet and modest of color and habit. It is she who "lives for a purpose"—if purpose ever moves the heart of a bird. It is she who sacrifices her own individual preferences and joys for the sake of others. It is she, mostly, who makes the family fortunes. It is she, save in a few instances, who builds the nest, and warms the eggs when once she has placed them where they ought to be.

As it is the vocation or pleasure of her mate to sing, it is hers to listen. And surely her family cares would be dreary enough were it not for the song she hears. It is always for her that her lord makes music, as if he knows her "mother term" is long and monotonous. Many a time his eye is on her, when the keenest human spy fails to "see where that nest is." No hiding the exact spot from old father bird. Didn't he help select it? Wasn't he there at the start? Of course he was!

SONG SPARROW.

In early spring, before actual nesting-time, a male bird is seen coaxing his mate to think of the conveniences of some certain spot. He flies to a corner or a crotch and turns and twists and makes signs, and grows excited, as if urging his mate to commence at that very moment and at that very spot. Wife bird, coming to his side, considers and accepts his suggestions, or laughs at them, as the case may be. Should she accept the site of his choice, it is not then, not just at that moment. It is as if she fears the noise and bustle of her companion may have attracted attention. She returns in some quiet hour, and all by herself begins her summer work.

We have seen a boisterous oriole lead his lady to a banana leaf and do his best to coax her into immediate acceptance of the location. It is not until the following day that we notice the first swinging threads. And it is the same with many other birds which nest near the house. Perhaps the linnet, or house-finch, is the most persistent in choosing a nest site. He is sometimes seen at the business late in the fall and early winter, turning about in corners and nest-boxes, chattering to his mate, and "making himself so silly." His mate, of more sense, looks on and lets him talk, seeming to smile at his foolishness. Doesn't he know, at his age, that she will be on hand at the proper time?

As a rule, it is the mother bird who does all the nest-work. We have seen her closely followed by the male, in the case of the linnet and many of the other finches; the song-sparrowand chippie and towhee and mocker and oriole each keeps at the side of his dear companion and follows her on the wing, singing, while her mouth is full of grass or other stuff. When she alights at the threshold of her nursery he alights too, on a near twig, to follow her back to the material in a moment or two. By hiding in the shrubbery one can see so much of interest at nesting-time. But first of all, would bird-lovers induce parent birds to choose the home grounds, preparation must be made some time in advance.

Trees must be planted and allowed to grow naturally, not in clipped or distorted forms. Birds love natural growth. They recognize wild things and nooks when these are planned and made to grow in private grounds. Now and then a tree root upturned; a pile of boughs; a heap of cuttings and prunings the gardener would have condemned to the fire; a bit of space overlooked by the lawn-mower, moist and grass-tangled; woodpiles and logs left where they are until moss and toadstools have covered them, and bugs have housed in them—a thousand things people, in their love of order and neatness, dispose of at sight—would prove untold attraction to the birds. Too many homes in city and country are not frequented by these visitors, who really prefer our grounds to the woods when once they learn their welcome. When induced for a single season to build in cultivated places, a pair of birds will return, often bringing several other pairs with them.

It seems as if certain birds are popular among their people, and "set the pace," as it were, in the matter of nesting habits. The places they frequent are sought after by the rest; and not only by their own kind or species, but by birds of different character.

It is with birds as with humankind—many different sortsmake up a popular neighborhood. Bird families do not choose to wander away to some remote part of the country and make a settlement. Indeed, as we have studied them, birds delight in fraternal good-fellowship.

Within an area of two hundred feet square in our grounds we have counted thirty-three varieties in this single season. Of these, fifteen have nested—the linnet, two varieties of goldfinch, chipping-sparrow, song-sparrow, humming-bird, towhee, mocker, pewee, phœbe, oriole, thrush, black-headed grosbeak, yellow warbler, and bush-tit. Some of these have nested twice or three times in our long season. These birds are not seen to quarrel nor to disagree as to the locations chosen. Each respects the other's rights, even to keeping guard over one another's children. Be a single family or even one little bird in trouble, each and all of these birds mentioned come to the rescue. At such times the varying notes are a sound both interesting and amusing. Food and water are always before these birds in shady places or in the sunshine. Materials for nest-building are spread before them the whole six months of the nesting-season, from horsehair and strings to mud, paper, rags, bark, feathers, cotton, dry grasses, lint, and a general assortment of lichens. The linnets, goldfinches, hummers, orioles, yellow warblers, and bush-tits lose their wits over the fluffy white cotton. Our song-sparrows and phœbes are not seen to use other than material of dark color, like brown rootlets and mud for phœbes, and old grass blades and dark horsehair for the sparrows. Mention has been made as to most of the others.

The linnets are the easier suited. A black last year's sparrow's nest put in the box under the eaves in place of a new white cotton one is accepted, with no questions asked.We have substituted nest for nest many times, and find there is no choice. Also, we have substituted young birds of the same species, and each and all are adopted. Sometimes we find an orphan birdling, which is sure to be cared for provided it be placed in the nest of any kind, motherly bird. Of course, in thus trading or causing to be adopted young birds, we are careful not to give a seed-eater to a meat-eater, and vice versa.

An insect fare would hardly agree with nurslings accustomed to regurgitated food, like the finches and hummers. Once we rescued a tiny young hummer from a "wicked boy," who had come to the treasure by theft. The little thing was nearly dead with cold and hunger. But we knew exactly where to find a dear, motherly old soul in the person of a humming-bird, who had just completed her nest. We placed the orphan in the frail cradle, so weak it could scarcely open its beak. The old bird came at once, cuddled and coddled the baby as only a humming-bird can do, with her small, soft breast. In ten minutes the wee one was having its supper, and it was raised by the foster-parent.

There seems to be something in the breast of mother birds at the nesting-season akin to human instinct. All these interesting studies go on with us at our door. No cats are allowed within certain bounds. And any home may be the same if the dwellers will take the trouble. An ideal corner in a school-yard would be one in which birds were taught confidence and dependence. Birds are subject to cultivation and encouragement.

If one is just making a start toward this, quick movement in the shrubbery should not be indulged in. Loud, sudden noises and throwing balls or other things, at the commencingof the nest season, frighten the birds. One must learn to stand stock-still and listen and look. Birds notice movement more than sound. Sidewise motions disturb, where straight, go-ahead methods are not noticed.

By gradually accustoming birds to one's presence, and then to one's voice, and then to the near approach, one may succeed in taming wild birds at nesting-time. We have had the finches and linnets and towhees and bush-tits and humming-birds perfectly trustful, even to some of the males, whose presence at the nests is not absolutely essential. We have had the parent birds feed the young from our hands, we standing at the nest. As to nesting itself, the fun to be had of a spring morning is beyond description. After learning this familiarity the birds will go on without noticing us. The towhee straggles across the grass, tugging a long rag much too heavy to fly with. The mocker pulls straws from the torn end of a garden cushion. The bush-tit gathers bits of lichen from the bough on which our hands rest. The phœbe scarcely waits for us to step aside that she may bite the shreds from the jute door-mat, to mix with her mud. The sparrow, scratching away under the tree for a bug and a bit of leaf at one and the same time, treads on our toes in her fearlessness. The hummer fans our faces with her wings, should we happen to be near the "cotton-counter."

When the young birds are just big enough to tumble out of the nest, then nursery-times fairly begin. The ground is alive with them. Of many sizes and features, more especially as to beak, they peep and scream and coax. By sundown those not old enough to hop or flutter to a safe place are the source of great anxiety. We are obliged to go out and help "put the babies to bed." And these twilight times, morethan the whole day, are the "cat-times." Pussy understands the turmoil. She skulks and prowls, and scarcely dares to breathe in her silent hopes. It is then that we dare breathe, and many other things. This incessant war on the feline tribe must be kept up would any one have birds around his home.

There is one thing at nesting-time that puzzles us. Why do mother birds pass carelessly by so much good material? They pick up this grass or string or feather, to drop it for another. And then, why do they pass by this or that fly or other insect and pick up another?

They probably have their reasons, the same as they choose between equally good nest locations. It is on this account that we are particular to have a variety of everything in their way.

It is at nesting-time that we take especial care of the garden table. We furnish everything we imagine acceptable. As soon as the young of finches or sparrows are out of the nest they are brought to the table by their parents. All the birds have a sweet tooth. They like cookies and pie and sugar and (as will be remembered in the case of the sparrows) good molasses. It was when the tourist robins were here that we thought about the molasses. The robins wouldn't take itclear, as the sparrows did, so we mixed it with meal. They came and looked at it and tasted, and liked it very well. Thinking to score a point for the temperance people, we mixed some old bourbon with the pudding. A tipsy robin would be a funny sight! But not a morsel of the meal would they ever touch. We kept up the game several days, it resulting at last in all the robins leaving the grounds in disgust. Then we tried it on the sparrows, but to no purpose.Every bird grew suspicious, and we had to give it up. This proved to us that birds cultivate the sense of smell.

Birds in general are like the donkey before whose nose is suspended a wisp of hay tied to the end of a pole, "to make him go." Of course in the case of the donkey the pole goes in advance of the nose, and it's a long while before the wisp and the appetite have a passing acquaintance. With the birds at our home the "wisp" is always out, so they are in no hurry to migrate. They do not leave us for so much as a short visit to their folks in Mexico until the molt is well under way. Some summer visitants even molt completely with us, and it is a sorry season. By the time a young bird is able to hustle for himself he wouldn't know his own mother. She has shed the feathers around the beak, leaving her nose or mouth so grotesque one has to laugh. Seeming to understand the joke is at their expense; some of our birds at this time keep well hidden, and come only to the edges of the shrubbery for food, or if overtaken in the open, they run as fast as their legs can carry them. A song-sparrow without a bit of tail is hopping now under the window, chirping her happy note, but hiding if we look at her.

A hummer, which yesterday took honey from the flowers we held in our lips, sits on a tiny twig, the picture of despair because her neck feathers are so thin. A mocker who has drank all summer from the dish with the bees, peeps at her shadow and preens imaginary quills. Half of them are on the ground by the table.

A phœbe sits alone on the housetop, wailing, thinking no doubt she is singing, and looking the picture of distress, with one tail-feather, and not enough of her ordinary neckerchief around her neck to cover the bare skin of it. And the nests,where are they? Just where they were. But they are faded and old and deserted. Never does a young bird go back to the nest after it has once left it, though some people believe they use it for a bed until long into the autumn. We have not seen them do so. They scorn the old thing! Isn't it as full of mites as it can hold? Of course it is, especially if it be a linnet's nest. When the third brood came out in the same nest we found it so infested with mites, almost invisible, that we could not touch it. And the poor little birdlings had to bide their time in getting away. It is supposed to be on account of these parasites that some birds compose their nests of strong-smelling weeds. However, we have not known any of the nests near us to be disturbed by these parasites save those in which several broods are reared. We have a seven-story flat, on each successive floor of which a linnet and a phœbe have nested. Phœbe's nest is mud, linnet's is straw and hair. Each builds atop of the others. It may grow to be a sky-scraper yet. Many of the mother birds sing at nesting-time. The house-finch, or linnet, keeps a continual twitter while incubating. So also the goldfinches. These notes are low and very musical and happy. The phœbe speaks her mournful note under the eaves while on the nest. By close listening, when other things are noiseless, one may detect the almost inaudible note of some of the hummers. The ear of a nature-lover grows keen by practice. There are low, nearly inarticulate whisperings among the birds in summer days never heard by those who have not learned the art of listening. The nest of the summer yellowbird may be within six feet of a person on the hunt for it, who, though of keen eye, may never find it, for lack of as keen an ear to hear the low note of the mother bird behind the foliage.

By close observation one may come to disprove many things said against the birds. For instance, a neighbor told us to be careful how we encouraged the orioles and phœbes to nest in our grounds if we didn't want them to eat up all our honey-bees. As usual with us in such cases, we accepted the warning "with a pinch of salt," and took to making observations on our own account.

Locating ourselves behind an open window near the beehives, we watched. A vine trellis with top bar uncovered offered safe footing to phœbe; on she came with five young phœbes hatched on the fourth-floor flat under the eaves. The young birds were whining for food. As plain as any words can be, they cried, "Bees, bees, please!" And bees they were to have for dinner! The mother led them to the trellis bar, where they squatted in a row, peeping their longings. Bees were flying thicker than hail. The mother canted her head from side to side, the black eye of the upward cant searching the homeward-bound insects. "Why don't you help yourself?" we wondered. In a few minutes the bum, bum, of the drones was heard. Then mother phœbe darted, and darted, and darted; each time she snapped a big, sting-less, bumming drone, which she killed by banging its head against the bar. Then it was taken by a little phœbe, or more often by two phœbes, who tugged at the creature until it came in two parts, or was cunningly appropriated as a whole by one of them. This meal-time went on until all were, for the time being, appeased, and the family flew off. By the middle of next day they returned and went through the same performances, very amusing to the witnesses inside the window. Now, not a single worker-bee was touched! And the mother phœbe knew the exact hour for the flying ofdrones. These lazy, shiftless, bumming fellows never leave the hives until the day is far advanced and the sun has warmed things up. So, not breakfast, but dinner, was made of the drones.

As for the orioles, we were willing to give them a chance to speak for themselves. They appeared about April 10th, as usual. And straight for the bee corner of the garden they went. "I told you so!" said the neighbor. We watched. There were rose-bushes and vines in that part of the grounds, and to these the orioles hastened as fast as their wings could take them. The beehives sit under a row of moss-roses so thickly covered with spines that one cannot take hold of them without gloves. But this pair of orioles ran up and down and in and out without fear. These and many other rose-bushes did they examine minutely, pecking away as fast as they could move their beaks. Right at the entrance to the hives they went, on straggling briers, but not a bee did they touch. We were as close to them as we wished to be. Suddenly we scared them away before they should have devoured every secret, and there was retreat for our neighbor! The orioles had been eating the little green plant-lice that infest rose-bushes early in the spring.

Later they took to watching the bees, and we resumed our watch of the orioles. It was midsummer, and the young birds were all about, crying for bread, or rather for "bees," though their pronunciation was not so distinct as that of the young phœbes. The parent orioles took their stand right on the doorstep of the hives, and waited with head slightly turned, alert, ready for "a bite." Not a worker did they touch, but when a drone came bumming along he was nabbed as quick as a wink. All drone-time (which lasts about twomonths with us) did the orioles patronize the beehives. Unmolested did the tireless workers come, pollen-loaded, and run in at the entrance.

When the summer yellowbirds have three or four hungry mouths to feed, just watch at the open window behind the snowball-bush and "see what you see." Little green caterpillars make nourishing food for baby yellowbirds. The parents might be running up and down amid the green and white of the bush, just for effect of color, but they are not. Those little, soft, green biscuits are the objects of their ramble.

It has been an open question as to whether old birds carry water to the young. In the case of tame canaries they have been seen to regurgitate a whole cropful of the liquid into waiting "parched throats." So we may conclude that young birds require water.

In the case of a very young humming-bird who was deprived of its mother, we raised it for a while, at least, on milk sweetened with honey, feeding it with an eye-dropper such as surgeons use. The milk was a good substitute for such animal food as the young of hummers are accustomed to. When young humming-birds come out of the nest, and for many weeks, they are either very fearless or their sight is not good. Surely it is not the latter, unless it be atoned for by greater sense of smell; for they come to flowers we hold up to them, and even light on our hands and faces, following us in the shrubbery.

As a rule, young birds are suspicious and wary. They know by instinct how and where to hide. After sundown is the time to see interesting events connected with supper and bedtime. By close and quiet watching one may see for one's self where and how young birds sleep. Some retire to thesame bough or bush each night. A family of bush-tits slept in a row on an orange twig every night for two weeks, in plain sight of us, and as near as six feet from our hands. The parents had been blessed with unusual success in this particular brood, bringing off six. These all slept in a row, "heads and tails," whispering the softest of notes until quite dark.

We have never been able to account for all the egg-shells that disappear in nesting-times. Now and then cracked bits are found in fields and woods, but only bits. One might get some information from the ants that are always prowling about for detached morsels of animal life. The birds themselves may eat or hide them, lest they tell tales. We have found shells far away from any nests, as if they had been carried on purpose. Sometimes they lie in the nest bottom in powder.

It is worth while to take a peep into every nest, just to get "pointers"—but never to get birdlings! And one's peeps should not be too frequent. It disturbs family order and confidence. Besides, if one takes to peeping when the birds are nearly fledged they often become frightened, and leave the nest too immature to warrant freedom and safety. Young birds are seen to sit or cling to the edge of the nest long before they are able to fly. At night they snuggle down into the warmth—and warmth as much as food is essential to young birds. But nesting-time has an end, like all good times.

When the late peaches turn their rosiest cheek to the autumn sun, and the husk of the beechnut opens its pale lips, then are the nests that were so lately the center of attraction tenantless and neglected. Old birds, in passing, take nonotice of them, and the hungry juveniles pay no visible heed. What care they for cradles, now that the universal cry is "Bread and butter, please"?

Baby zephyrs nap on the worn-out linings, and the rain runs its slim fingers through the fading meshes. Even the domestic feline, who was wont to peep into the heart of every one of them, no longer is discovered inquiring into the nesting habits of birds. Forsaken are the nests. Naked are the boughs. We will leave them for the winter winds to question—and the winter winds will ravel more bark for next year's nests, and they will make the meadow-grasses molt their softest wrappers for linings. And it is the winter winds that will swirl the dead leaves into lint, and pull the weed stalks into fiber.

Therefore, long live the winter winds!

THE ROMANCE OF ORNITHOLOGY

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