We have now described the American nuthatch quartette, and will turn to other fields no less inviting, albeit more remote. The nuthatch of central Europe, scientifically known asSitta caesia, is closely related to our American forms, resembling them in many of his habits. In studying the literature of the transatlantic species, we at once stumble upon the reason for calling this avian family by the somewhat peculiar and apparently inapt name of nuthatch. The older English form of the word was "nuthack," which unfortunately has been changed to "nuthatch," a word that gives an erroneous impression, for no bird ever hatches a nut. But with the last syllable "hack" the difficulty is all cleared up, as his habit of hacking or chipping nuts, which he places in chinks of the bark or wall, is well known.
The nuthatch of England belongs to the species just named. He does not wear a black hood or mantle, but merely a black ribbon on the side of his head, enclosing the eye. His upper parts are bluish gray, save the outer tail feathers, which are black; his cheeks and throat are white, his breast and belly buff, and his flanks and lower tail-coverts chestnut red. A graphic English writer, Dr. W. H. Hudson, gives the following enthusiastic description of the little tobogganist of his native woodlands:
"When I see him sitting quite still for a few moments on a branch of a tree in his most characteristic nuthatch attitude, on or under the branch, perched horizontally or vertically, with head or tail uppermost, but always with the body placed beetle-wise against the bark, head raised, and the straight, sharp bill pointed like an arm lifted to denote attention,—at such times he looks less like a living than a sculptured bird, a bird cut out of beautifully variegated marble—blue-gray, buff, and chestnut, and placed against the tree to deceive the eye. The figure is so smooth and compact, the tints so soft and stone-like; and when he is still, he is so wonderfully still, and his attitude so statuesque! But he is never long still and when he resumes his lively, eccentric, up-and-down and sidewise motions, he is interesting in another way. He is like a small woodpecker who has broken loose from the woodpecker's somewhat narrow laws of progression, preferring to be a law unto himself.
"Without a touch of brilliant color, the nuthatch is a beautiful bird on account of the pleasing softness and harmonious disposition of his tints; and, in like manner, without being a songster in the strict sense of the word, his voice is so clear and far-reaching and of so pleasing a quality, that it often gives more life and spirit to the woods and orchards and avenues he frequents than that of many true melodists. This is more especially the case in the month of March, before the migratory songsters have arrived, when he is most loquacious. A high pitched, clear, ringing note, repeated without variation several times, is his most often-heard call or song. He will sometimes sit motionless on his perch, repeating this call at short intervals, for half an hour at a time. Another bird at a distance will be doing the same, and the two appear to be answering one another. He also has another call, not so loud and piercing, but more melodious: a double note, repeated two or three times, with something liquid and gurgling in the sound, suggesting the musical sound of lapsing water. These various notes and calls are heard incessantly until the young are hatched, when the birds at once become silent."
The nesting habits ofcaesiaare quite similar to those of our American forms, with the following interesting exception: The doorway of the cavity constituting the bird's domicile is plastered up with clay, made viscid by the nuthatch's glutinous saliva, leaving in the center a circular hole just large enough to afford entrance and exit for the little owner. Says the author quoted above: "When the sitting bird is interfered with, she defends her treasures with great courage, hissing like a wryneck, and vigorously striking at her aggressor with her sharp bill." Like our common white-breast, the British bird may be attracted to human dwellings by furnishing him a regular supply of food suited to his taste, and may grow so trustful as to come when called, and even to catch morsels thrown to him in the air. In the forest he often hammers so loudly on a resonant branch that his tattoo is mistaken for that of a woodpecker. The interior of the nest "contains a bed of dry leaves, or the filmy flakes of the inner bark of a fir or cedar, on which the eggs are laid."
In northern Europe another form of the nuthatch guild is found, known scientifically asSitta europea, whose under parts are white without any washing of buff on the breast.
The Levant furnishes a most charming addition to the feathered brotherhood now under consideration. The scientific gentlemen have christened itSitta syriaca, and its common name is the rock nuthatch, an appellation that is most appropriate, for its chosen haunts are rocky cliffs, over the faces of which it scuttles in the most approved nuthatch fashion, head up or down, as the whim seizes it, clinging with its sharp claws to the chinks, ledges, protuberances, and rough surfaces of the rocky walls. A little larger than its European cousin, its markings are quite similar. In Syria it is common as far north as the southern shores of the Black Sea. Although somewhat shy, it is described as having "sprightly manners and a clear, ringing trill." Odd indeed are some of nature's evolutions, I had almost said caprices, for the rock nuthatch is just as much at home and apparently just as happy on its bleak precipices as is our merry whitebreast in his umbrageous home in the oak or maple forest.
But what kind of nests do the rock nuthatches construct on their limestone walls? That is one of the most interesting features of the life of these birds. One writer[1] who has observed them in their native haunts describes the rock nuthatch as "an expert clay mixer and molder." The bird does not chisel out a nursery in the rock—no, indeed; his method of constructing his nest is as follows: Having found a little hollow or indentation on the rocky wall, he will erect a cap or dome of mortar over it, plastering the structure so firmly against the surface that no rain or storm or predaceous creeping thing can demolish it until long after it has been abandoned by the little architect. The circular base of the nest is ten or twelve inches in diameter. The dome is not entirely closed up, but a small orifice is left in the center, upon the edges of which a narrow neck or funnel, also made of mortar, is raised, the hole just large enough to admit the body of the bird. The funnel is about three inches long.
The building material employed is fine clay softened and glutinated with the bird's saliva and mixed with plant fibers, for the little mason does not believe in making bricks without straw. So well packed is the inch-thick wall that a stiff knife blade must be used to cut through it. While the natural color of the adobe cottage is ash-gray, and therefore harmonizes with the general hue of its surroundings, and also with the mezzotints of the builder, yet he sometimes decorates it with the gaily colored wings of moths caught in the chase and attached to the plaster while it is fresh. The rock nuthatch is as expert a mixer of mortar as the well-known cliff swallows of our own country, and his adobe dwellings bear a close resemblance to theirs.
It is interesting to note that the European nuthatch, while nesting regularly in tree cavities, sometimes also chooses the crannies of rocks, when he goes a little more extensively into the plastering business; but his skill is not so well developed as that of his oriental cousin, whose mud cottage is a model of its kind.
[1] The writer referred to is Mr. H. C. Tracy, to whose charming article in "The Wilson Bulletin," published at Oberlin, Ohio, I am indebted for all my material on the rock nuthatch.
*Reprinted from Appleton's "Popular Science Monthly," with additions.
Nothing could more clearly prove that a common law runs through the whole domain of Nature than the fact that in every division of her realm there seems to be a class of parasites. In the vegetable world, as is well known, there are various plants that depend wholly on other plants for the supply of their vital forces. And in the human sphere there are parasites in a very real and literal sense—men and women who rely upon the toil and thrift of others to sustain them in worthless idleness.
In view of the almost universal character of this law it would be strange if these peculiar forms of dependence did not appear in the avian community. We do find such developments in that department of creation. Across the waters there is one bird that has won an unenviable reputation as a parasite: the European cuckoo relies almost wholly on the efforts of its more thrifty neighbors to hatch and rear its young, and thereby perpetuate the species. Strangely enough, our American cuckoos are not given to such slovenly habits, but build their own nests and faithfully perform the duties of nidification, as all respectable feathered folk should. However, this parasitical habit breaks out, quite unexpectedly, it must be conceded, in another American family of birds entirely distinct from the cuckoo group.
In America the cowbird, often called the cow bunting, is the only member of the avian household that spirits its eggs into the nests of other birds. The theory of evolution can do little toward accounting for the anomaly, and even if it should venture upon some suggestions it would still be just as difficult to explain the cause of the evolution in this special group, while all other avian groups follow the law of thrift and self-reliance.
Cowbird
Cowbird
The cowbird belongs to the family of birds scientifically known asIcteridae, which includes such familiar species as the bobolinks, orioles, meadowlarks, and the various kinds of blackbirds, none of which, I am glad to say, are parasites. The nameMolothrushas been given to the genus that includes the cowbirds. They are confined to the American continent, having no analogues in the lands across the seas. The same may be said, indeed, of the wholeIcteridaefamily. It may be a matter of surprise to many persons that there are twelve species and subspecies of cowbirds in North and South America, for most of us are familiar only with the common cowbird (Molothrus ater) of our temperate regions. Of these twelve species only three are to be found within the limits of the United States, one is a resident of western Mexico and certain parts of Central America, while the rest find habitat exclusively in South America. A fresh field of investigation is open to some enterprising and ambitious naturalist who wishes to study several of these species, as comparatively little is known of their habits, and indeed much still remains to be learned of the whole genus, familiar as one or two of the species are. Their sly, surreptitious manners render them exceedingly difficult to study at close range and with anything like satisfactory detail.
Are all of them parasites? Probably they are—at least to a greater or less degree—except one, the bay-winged cowbird of South America, which I shall reserve for notice later on in this chapter. We might assert that our common cowbirds are the parasitespar excellenceof the family, for, so far as I can learn from reading and observation, they never build their own nests or rear their own young, but shift all the duties of maternity, save the laying of the eggs, upon the shoulders of other innocent birds.
These avian "spongers" have a wide geographical range, inhabiting the greater part of the United States and southern Canada, except the extensive forest regions and some portions of the southern states. They are most abundant in the states bordering on the upper Mississippi River and its numerous tributaries. On the Pacific coast west of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada mountains, they occur only as stragglers. The most northern point at which they have been known to breed is the neighborhood of Little Slave Lake in southern Athabaska. In the autumn the majority of these birds migrate to southern Mexico, although a considerable number remain in our southern states, and a few occasionally tarry for the winter even as far north as New England and southern Michigan.
The male cowbird looks like a well-dressed gentleman—and may have even a slightly clerical air—in his closely fitting suit of glossy black, with its greenish and purplish iridescence, and his hood of rich metallic brown covering his head, neck, and chest. He makes a poor shift as a musician, but his failure is not due to lack of effort, for during courtship days he does his level best to sing a variety of tunes, expanding and distorting his throat, fluffing up his feathers, spreading out his wings and tail, his purpose evidently being to make himself as fascinating as possible in the eyes of his lady love. One of his calls sounds like "spreele," piped in so piercing a key that it seems almost to perforate your brain.
One observer maintains that the cowbirds are not only parasitical in their habits, but are also absolutely devoid of conjugal affection, practicing polyandry, and seldom even mating. This is a serious charge, but it is doubtless true, for even during the season of courtship and breeding these birds live in flocks of six to twelve, the males almost always outnumbering the females. However, if their family relations are somewhat irregular, no one can accuse them of engaging in brawls, as so many other birds do, for both males and females seem to be on the most amicable terms with one another, and are, to all appearances, entirely free from jealousy. Who has ever seen two cowbirds fighting a duel like the orioles, meadowlarks, and robins?
In obtruding her eggs into the nests of other birds, Madame Cowbird is sly and stealthy. She does not drive the rightful owners from their nests, but simply watches her opportunity to drop her eggs into them when they are unguarded. No doubt she has been on the alert while her industrious neighbors have been constructing their domiciles, and knows where almost every nest in the vicinity is hidden. Says Major Charles Bendire: "In rare instances only will a fresh cowbird's egg be found among incubated ones of the rightful owners. I have observed this only on a single occasion." From one to seven eggs of the parasite are found in the nests of the dupes. In most cases the number is two, but in the case of ground builders the cowbird seems to have little fear of overdoing her imposition. Major Bendire says that he once found the nest of an oven-bird containing seven cowbird's eggs and only one of the little owner's.
If parasitism were the only crime of the cowbird one would not feel so much disposed to put her into the Newgate Calendar; but she not only inflicts her own eggs upon her innocent victims, but often actually tosses their eggs out of the nests in order to make room for her own. Nor is that all; she will sometimes puncture the eggs of the owners to prevent their hatching, and thus increase the chances of her own offspring. Whether this is done with her beak or her claws is still an open question, Major Bendire inclining to the belief that it is done with the claws.
Her finesse is still further to be seen in the fact that she usually selects some bird for a victim that is smaller than herself, so that when her young hopefuls begin to grow they will be able to crowd or starve out the true heirs of the family. In this way it is thought that many a brood comes to an untimely end, the foster parents having no means of replacing their own little ones when they have been ejected from the nest. However, I doubt whether the cowbird's impositions are usually so destructive as some observers are inclined to believe. I once found a bush sparrow's nest containing one cowbird and four little sparrows, all of which were in a thriving condition. The sparrows were so well fed and active that as soon as I touched the nest they sprang, with loud chirping, over the rim of their cottage and scuttled away through the grass. They were certainly strong and healthy, in spite of the presence of their big foster brother. Before they flitted away I had time to notice how the little family were disposed. The cowbird was squatted in the center of the nest, while his little foster brothers and sisters were ranged around him, partly covering him and no doubt keeping him snug and warm. They were further advanced than he, for while they scrambled from the nest, he could do nothing but snuggle close on the bottom of the cup.
A wood thrush's nest that I found contained two young thrushes and two buntings. All of them were about half fledged. Being of nearly the same size, the queerly assorted bantlings lived in apparent peace in their narrow quarters. I watched them at frequent intervals, but saw no attempts on the part of the foundlings to crowd out their fellow-nestlings. The cowbirds were the first to leave the sylvan roof tree. Thus it appears that the intrusion of the cowbird's eggs does not always mean disaster to the real offspring of the brooding family, but of course it often prevents the laying of the full complement of eggs by the builders themselves.
Even after the youngsters have left the nest the mother cowbird does not assume the care of them, but still leaves them in charge of the foster parents. It is laughable, almost pathetic, to see a tiny oven-bird or redstart feeding a strapping young cowbird which is several times as large as herself. She looks like a pigmy feeding a giant. In order to thrust a tidbit into his mouth she must often stand on her tiptoes. Why the diminutive caterer does not see through the fraud I can not say. She really seems to be attached to the hulking youngster. By and by, however, when he grows large enough to shift for himself, he deserts his little parents and nurses and seeks companionship among his own blood kindred, who doubtless bring him up in the way all cowbirds should go.
It is surprising how many species are imposed on successfully by the cowbird. The number, so far as has been observed, is ninety, with probably more to be added. Among the birds most frequently victimized are the phoebes, the song sparrows, the indigo birds, the bush sparrows, and the yellow-breasted chats. Even the nests of the red-headed woodpecker and the rock wrens are not exempt. Some species, notably the summer warblers, detect the imposture and set about defeating the purposes of the interloper by building another story to their little cottage, leaving the obtruded eggs in the cellar, where they do not receive enough warmth to develop the embryo.
While it is surprising that acute birds should allow themselves to be imposed on in this way, perhaps, after all, they look upon the cowbird as a kind of blessing in disguise; at least, he may not be an unmixed evil. They may act on the principle of reciprocity—that "one good turn deserves another." What I mean is this: In my rambles I have often found the cowbirds the first to give warning of the approach of a supposed danger. Having no domestic duties of their own, they can well secrete themselves in a tall tree overlooking the entire premises, and thus play the useful role of sentinel. This, I am disposed to believe, is one of the compensating uses of this parasite, and may furnish the reason for his being tolerated in birdland. And he is tolerated. Has any one ever seen other birds driving the cowbird away from their breeding precincts, or charging him with desperate courage, as they do the blue jays, the hawks, the owls, and other predatory species? He evidently subserves some useful purpose in the avian community, or he would not be treated with so much consideration.
A young cowbird that I purloined from the nest and tried to rear by hand did not prove a pleasant pet. He was placed in a large cage with several other kinds of young birds. At first he was quite docile, taking his food from my hand and even allowing some of his feathered companions to feed him; but in a few weeks he grew so wild and manifested such a fierce desire for the outdoor world that I was glad to carry him out to the woods and give him his freedom. A young red-winged blackbird and a pair of meadowlarks developed a different disposition.
The dwarf cow-bird (Molothrus ater obscurus) is similar to his relative just described, except that he is smaller and his geographical range is more restricted. He is a resident of Mexico, southern Texas, southwestern Arizona, and southern California. His habits resemble those of the common cowbird. Another bunting having almost the same range, although a little more southerly, is the red-eyed cowbird, which is larger and darker than our common cowbird and has the same parasitical habits.
In South America three species have been studied by Mr. W. H. Hudson, who, in collaboration with Mr. P. L. Sclater, has published a most valuable work on Argentine ornithology. One of these is called the Argentine cowbird (Molothrus bonariensis). It is a blue-blooded parasite, and has been seen striking its beak into the eggs of other birds and flying away with them. The males, it is said, show little discrimination in pecking the eggs, for they are just as likely to puncture the cowbird eggs as those of other birds. Every egg in a nest is frequently perforated in this way. These buntings lay a large number of eggs, often dropping them on the ground, laying them in abandoned nests, or depositing them in nests in which incubation has already begun, in which case all of them are lost. However, in spite of this wastefulness the birds thrive, thousands of them being seen in flocks during the season of migration.
And, by the way, a description of their habits by Mr. Hudson has thrown interesting light on the subject of migration in the southern hemisphere. South of the equator the recurrence of the seasons is the exact reverse of their recurrence north of the equator, and therefore the breeding season of the birds is in the autumn instead of the spring; the flight from winter cold occurs in the spring instead of in the autumn, and is toward the north instead of toward the south. Thus, in February and March the Argentine cowbirds are seen flying in vast battalions in the direction of the equatorial regions—that is, northward—in whose salubrious clime they spend the winter. As our northern autumn draws near and the southern spring approaches these winged migrants take the air line for their breeding haunts in the Argentine Republic and Patagonia. At the same time the migrants of the northern hemisphere are pressing southward before the blustering north wind. It all seems wonderful and solemn, this world-wide processional of the seasons and the birds.
Naturally one would expect to find some other eccentricities in this aberrant family besides that of parasitism, and in this expectation one is not disappointed. There are two other species of cowbirds in the Argentine country—the screaming cowbird (Molothrus rufoaxillaris) and the bay-winged cowbird (Molothrus badius). The latter is only partly a trencher on the rights of other birds—only half a parasite. Indeed, it sometimes builds its own nest, which is quite a respectable affair; but, as if to prove that it still has some remnants of cowbird depravity in its nature, it frequently drives other birds from their rightful possessions, appropriates the quarters thus acquired, lays its eggs into them, and proceeds to the performance of its domestic duties like its respectable neighbors. Its virtue is that it never imposes the work of incubation and brood rearing on any of its feathered associates, even though it does sometimes eject them from their premises.
But what is to be said of the screaming cowbird? Instead of inflicting its eggs on its more distant avian relatives, it watches its chance and slyly drops them into the domicile of its bay-winged cousins, and actually makes them hatch and rear its offspring! This seems to be carrying imposture to the extreme of refinement, or possibly developing it into a fine art, and reminds one of those human good-for-naughts who "sponge" off their relatives rather than go among strangers.
Before closing this chapter I must call attention to one of the most surprising discoveries ever made by an American observer of bird ways. It was reported some time after my article on the cowbird was first published in Appleton's "Popular Science Monthly." The observer was Joseph F. Honecker, whose statement was printed in "American Ornithology" for June, 1902, and runs as follows:
"As ornithologists and all bird students think and believe that the cowbird will build no nest, but always lays in the nests of other birds, I am glad to give the results of my experiments. In order to get the desired results, in the spring of 1899 I secured a pair of cowbirds and placed them in a large cage, cared well for them, and supplied them with plenty of nesting material. To my surprise, the female built a nest, laid four eggs, hatched them, and reared the young, and on July twenty-eighth, young and old were given their
*Reprinted by permission from "The Evening Post," New York.
In his coat of light blue, trimmed with white and black, bearing his crest jauntily atop of his head, the blue jay presents an attractive picture. And, indeed, although I myself feel that the Baltimore oriole, the scarlet tanager, the ruby-throated hummingbird, and many of the wood warblers carry off the palm for brilliancy of plumage, there are persons who declare that the jay is the most handsomely colored bird in our temperate regions.
While the jay dons an engaging attire, not much can be said in the way of eulogy for his vocal talents or acquirements. Many of his calls are harsh, penetrating, and even raucous. Frequently, too, he indulges in a great to-do over nothing, fairly splitting your ears with his noisy cries. I have said it is a to-do over nothing, though Mr. Jay may think he has the best reason in the world for making a fuss. Often espying some coveted prize on the ground in my back yard, instead of quietly dropping down and taking it, he and his companions would dash about in the trees, swing their bodies sidewise and up and down in an excited way, and scream at the top of their voices, sometimes drawing me out of the house to see what had gone wrong in Jaydom. They seemed to be determined to attract the attention of every person on the premises to the fact that they wanted that morsel on the ground, but were afraid to venture down after it. Perhaps they meant by their objurgations to test their human neighbors, to ascertain whether any of them were prowling about with a gun or a sling, ready to do them harm. If there should be any such prowlers, probably the jays meant to induce them to come out of their ambush, to show themselves in the open, and give their jayships a chance to escape. Bird psychology, as you will have occasion to note more than once, is a good deal of an enigma. How often we would give a handsome bonus to a bird if he would let us know precisely what he was thinking about!
Blue Jay
Blue Jay
Although no musician, the jay has quite an extensive vocal repertory. Besides his loud, challenging call, he frequently utters a series of calls that have a pensive quality and that fill the mind with an indefinable foreboding, especially on chill autumn days when all the woods are bare and gray and the wind is moaning through the boughs. Sometimes when a jay is hidden in a copse, he utters a low, scolding sputter, that seems to express the very quintessence of disgust. It is simply his way of telling you what he thinks of a man who goes prowling about without leave in the precincts of the birds.
Have you ever heard the jay's brief musical roulade? It is only a wisp of melody, rarely rich and suggestive, heard a moment, then gone. You know something sweet has passed by, but something so brief and elusive that you scarcely know what it was. Long after it has dropped on your ear, it continues to haunt your memory, and you try again and again to reproduce it, but in vain. It has a kind of gurgling quality, as if the bird were pressing his notes through an aqueous lyre, if such a conception is possible. Besides, I have, on more than one occasion, heard a jay warble a soft, reserved little lay that was continued for many minutes. It sounded very like the song of the brown thrasher, much modulated and partly uttered under its breath—a sort of flowing, rythmical melody.
A question that disturbs all bird lovers more or less is this: Does the fine white vest of the jay cover a bad heart? Is he really a thief, a nest robber, or even worse, a cannibal, in plumes? May the guardian spirit of all feathered folk forbid that I should blacken the reputation of any bird, yet honesty compels me to give an affirmative answer to the foregoing question. I hasten, however, to say that I do not believe he is as black as he has been painted by some observers, who seem to delight in making out a verdict of capital guilt against him. Although a predatory bird, he is not engaged all the time in bloodthirsty pursuits, but only while his young are in the nest clamoring for food. What are some of the proofs of his vandalism? I will mention a few of them.
First, almost all the small birds make uncompromising war upon him, especially in the breeding season, and many of them show signs of dire distress when he goes near their nests. They often utter pitiful cries, droop their wings, and the bravest of them dash at him savagely, giving him many a cuff on the head and back. The wood pewee and the kingbird succeed, I think, in driving him away; but the vireos and warblers, being so much smaller, suffer greatly from his depredations. If there were no real cause for it, these birds would not be filled with panic and rage on account of the jay's presence. There is strong presumptive evidence that they know him for an outlaw only too well.
The following incident will furnish positive proof of the jay's cannibalistic proclivities: One spring my little boy brought home from the country a young house wren, thinking it would make a delightful pet. It was quite well fledged, but its short tail and white mouth border proclaimed the tenderness of its youth. Fearing that the little thing could not be reared by hand, as it refused all our proffered tidbits, and chirped continually for its parents, I persuaded the lad to give it its freedom. A mother wren living on our premises seemed inclined to adopt the little waif, and we decided to put it under her care. No sooner was the youngling let out of the cage than it flew to the side of the house and began to scramble up the brick wall. It had a hard tug, but at length succeeded in reaching a resting place on a window-shutter of the second story.
Presently the mother wren heard its calls and paid it a visit; but instead of feeding it, she seemed very anxious to drive it away, knowing, no doubt, that there were predaceous enemies in the neighborhood. In her attempts to drive it into hiding, she pecked it on the head and in the mouth. Then she dropped down into a thicket and secured a green worm, with which she flew up to the chirping waif's perch; but I could not make out that she fed the birdling, though she thrust the worm toward its open mouth. Soon after she had gone off the second time, the little bird clambered around the corner of the wall to the lower side of the house, where it rested a while on a narrow shelf.
All this time my boy and I were watching it intently. Suddenly a blue jay came flying over from one of the trees of an adjacent yard, moving in a rapid, stealthy way. First it plunged into an apple tree at the corner of the house; then, before I could collect my wits enough to know what was happening, it darted over to the brick wall, seized the little wren with its bill, and bore it off. The mother wren followed, uttering a pitiful chatter, while the little victim called loudly for help. The blue kidnapper darted to a tree in my neighbor's yard, where he put his booty under his claw on a limb, holding it by one slender leg, while its body dangled below. Hoping still to rescue the little captive, I sprang over into the adjacent yard with a loud shout and much waving of my hands; but my vigorous efforts only caused the jay to pick up the wren in its bill and continue its flight, and neither wren nor jay was seen by me again. This incident furnishes unimpeachable testimony against the character of the blue-coated Robin Hood. There was no faltering or hesitancy in his conduct, but he seized and carried off his little victim as if he were to the manner born, and had become hardened by practice in depredations of the sort.
A farmer once related the following incident to me: A pair of chipping sparrows had built a nest in a bush in his front yard. One day after the little ones had arrived, he heard a distressed chirping coming from the parent birds, and on going to the front yard, he caught a blue jay in the act of picking a callow bantling from the chippie's nest. Holding it in his bill, the jay flew across the field with his prize, and presently returned and bore off a second nestling. By this time the farmer's ire was aroused; he bolted into the house and secured his shotgun, and when the marauding jay came back on the third trip on robbery intent, the man brought him to the ground with a shot that ended his career.
Yet the jay is not wholly bad—indeed, not even half bad. Before me lies a valuable pamphlet entitled "The Blue Jay and His Food," written by F. E. L. Beal, Assistant Biologist of the Department of Agriculture at Washington, whose researches have converted him into something of an apologist for our blue gentleman in feathers. He dissected the stomachs of 292 jays, collected during every month of the year in twenty-two states, the District of Columbia, and Canada. After stating that mineral substances in the stomachs examined averaged over 14 per cent of the total contents, Mr. Beal says:
"The real food is composed of 24.3 per cent of animal matter and 75.7 per cent of vegetable matter, or a trifle more than three times as much vegetable as animal. The animal food is chiefly made up of insects, with a few spiders, myriapods, snails, and small vertebrates, such as fish, salamanders, tree frogs, mice, and birds. Everything was carefully examined which might by any possibility indicate that birds or eggs had been eaten, but remains of birds were found in only two, and the shells of small birds' eggs in only three of the 292 stomachs. One of these, taken on February tenth, contained the bones, claws, and a little skin of a bird's foot. Another, taken on June twenty-fourth, contained the remains of a young bird. The three stomachs with bird's eggs were collected in June, August, and October, respectively. The shell eaten in October belonged to the egg of some larger bird like the ruffed grouse and, considering the time of year, was undoubtedly merely an empty shell from an old nest. Shells of eggs which were identified as those of domesticated fowls, or some bird of equal size, were found in eleven stomachs, collected at irregular times during the year. This evidence would seem to show that more eggs of domesticated fowls than of wild birds are destroyed, but it is much more probable that these shells were obtained from refuse heaps about farm-houses."
Mr. Beal's dissections are very significant, proving that the jay is not only not so destructive of eggs and bantlings as was supposed, but also that he destroys many noxious insects, and is, therefore, a bird of real economic value. The great bulk of his insect diet consists of beetles, grasshoppers, and caterpillars, with a few bugs, wasps, and flies, and an occasional spider and myriapod. The average of insect food for the whole year was 23 per cent, varying from less than 1 per cent in January to over 66 per cent in August, and it is gratifying to know that predaceous beetles and tent caterpillars form a large part of the jay's bill of fare.
His demands upon domesticated fruits and grains are comparatively light. He cares more for acorns and mast than for corn. The last he does not greatly relish, but eats it chiefly when the snow covers his favorite food. It is a little surprising that he occasionally varies his diet with fish, salamanders, tree frogs, mice, and shrews. Mr. Beal's conclusion is put in the following sentence, which closes his valuable monograph: "In fact, the examination of nearly three hundred stomachs shows that the blue jay does far more good than harm."
An important question, therefore, from more than one point of view is: Should we ever kill the blue jay? Perhaps as sensible an answer to that question as can be given is this: We should by no means engage in a war of extermination upon the jays, but it might be wise, when they become too abundant, to thin out their numbers somewhat by shooting some of them or driving them away. It can scarcely be denied that if they are permitted to thrive without hindrance, and grow to large numbers, they will become sorely destructive of the eggs and nestlings of more desirable birds. I assure you, however, that I make this statement with reluctance and reserve, for the handsome blue-coat is one of our most cunning and interesting birds, and would be greatly missed if he were exterminated.
The blue jay is also a plucky bird, as I discovered one day not so very long ago. A pair of jays had a nest in a little park in front of my house, and one day one of the youngsters, which were still unable to fly, dropped to the ground. Fearing the cats or evilly disposed boys might catch the little fellow, I thought to do him and his parents a good turn by catching him and putting him up in one of the trees beyond the reach of his enemies. After quite a chase I succeeded in catching him. But the parent birds, flitting and calling in the trees, did not understand my well-meant intentions, and so one of them swung down and struck me on the top of the head with so much force that, either with his bill or his claws; he punctured the skin and made the blood come, leaving a scar on my crown for quite a while. The pesky thing! I think he might have known that I was his friend—but he didn't, his instinct not being a sure guide that time. But who can blame him? Not an hour afterwards the youngling again fell to the ground, when some children found it and killed it without the least excuse for their action. In such a case how could the parent birds distinguish between friend and foe? They found their little one lying dead on the ground, and mourned for it with heart-broken cries.
Some things cause a great to-do in the jay world. One day, while I was living in Kansas, the skeleton of a jay, with the feathers still attached, was found in the rubbish of an ash-pile in my rear yard, and exposed to view. An hour later a half dozen or more jays were flinging about in the peach tree above the feathers of their dead comrade, screaming at the top of their voices, "juking" their bodies, as is their wont when excited, and glaring at the disheveled plumes on the ground. If it was a funeral service, it certainly was a demonstrative one, and I do not believe that their grief and terror were affected.
*Reprinted by permission from "American Ornithology," with important additions.
In order to study the scissorstailed flycatcher (Milvulus forficatus), of which some friends had told me again and again in a glow of enthusiasm, I made a trip to southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma. Several days passed before an individual of this species put in appearance, as the scissorstails, which are migrants, had not yet returned from their winter quarters in a more southern clime, and so I had to wait for their arrival.
One day a friend and I were driving along a country road over the prairie, when a quaint bird form went swinging from the wire fence by the roadside toward a clump of willows in a shallow dip of the prairie. Dashing after him, I heard a clear, musical call that proclaimed a bird with which I had not yet become acquainted.
In a few moments he flew from the tree. My binocular was fixed upon him as he went flitting across the field and presently alighted on the ground. My surmise was correct; it was the scissorstail flycatcher, one of the most unique and handsome birds belonging to our American avifauna, one that merits more than a passing notice. To see him perched on a fence, or swinging gracefully through the air, and hear his bell-like calls and whistles makes you feel as if you were suddenly transported to a foreign land, like Australia or Borneo, where so many feathered curios are to be found.
In a fever of excitement I followed the bird, which presently flew back to the fence by the roadside. He flitted from point to point as my friend and I slowly pursued him, giving us an exhibition of his scissoring process. Sometimes he would alight on a post, then on the barbed wire, usually sitting flat on his breast. When open, the tail is bicolored, the outer border all around being white and the inner black. His general color is hoary ash, paler, almost white, below, giving out a slight iridescence in the sunshine; his wings are blackish, with white trimmings; his flanks are stained with salmon-red, and when his wings are spread, there appears a large blotch of scarlet at the inner angle of the intersection with the body. One individual that I afterwards saw wore a scarlet epaulet, which was almost concealed by the other plumes when the wing was closed, but was clearly seen when it was extended. An orange or scarlet gem adorns the crown, but is so well hidden by the other crest feathers that it is seldom noticed.
My friend and I were privileged to witness a rare and attractive scissorstail show, more gratifying than any circus performance. A loggerhead shrike suddenly appeared on the scene, and made an assault on the flycatcher. The two birds went gyrating, zigzagging, see-sawing through the air in a perfect jumble of white and black and ash. It must be remembered that the shrike himself makes a handsome picture on the wing, and when you come to mix up a scissorstail and a shrike in inextricable confusion, you have a feathery display worth seeing.
Nor was that the end of the exhibition, for in a moment a second scissorstail, the precisefacsimileof the first, appeared from somewhere, and the two flycatchers combined against their enemy. Then for a few minutes there was such a chaos of shrike and scissorstail that we could scarcely tell which was which. By and by the shrike wheeled away, when, as if to bring the gladiatorial show to a climax, the scissorstails engaged in a set-to that was really wonderful, coming together in the air, whirling around and around, rising in a spiral course, opening and closing their beautiful forked tails in quick succession, the black and white trimmings flashing momentarily, then disappearing, until the contestants finally descended, parted in the most graceful manner, and alighted on separate fence posts, none the worse for theirmelee.
In the evening I returned to the enchanted spot, but the scissorstails had disappeared. Not having had my fill of these charmers, I stopped, on my return home, for a day at Wellington, Kansas, where I was so fortunate as to find three birds of this species, who permitted me to watch them to my heart's content. They are not shy birds, but fly in a graceful, leisurely way from post to post along the fence as you walk or drive, sometimes sitting quietly to let you pass by. In this respect their habits are much like those of their cousin, the kingbird.
As his name indicates, our bird is the proud possessor of a genuine scissorstail, composed of two long, slender prongs that are spread far apart under certain conditions of flight. Let me describe the process minutely, for it is unique here in North America where fork-tailed birds are rare.
When the bird starts up from a perch, he spreads apart the prongs of his tail for a moment, as if to give himself a spring; then he closes them in a single slender stem, tapering outward to a point, keeping them closed during prolonged flight, and just as he sweeps down to another perch, he opens his ornamental scissors again, shutting them up as soon as he has settled upon his resting place. He does not open and close his tail at regular intervals during flight, as might be supposed, but keeps it closed until he descends to a perch, when it is opened for a moment in the act of alighting. However, if he has occasion to wheel or make a sudden turn in the air, either for an insect or in a playful prank, his scissors fly open, one might almost say spontaneously, no doubt serving the double purpose of rudder and balancing pole. When closed, the tail is very narrow, looking almost like a single plume. On the perch (except when he desires to shift his position, when he also makes use of his wings) his tail is closed. Therefore the picture of this bird in Dr. Coues's "Key to North American Birds" is not accurate, for it represents our bird in the sitting posture with the tines of his fork spread apart. If the wings were outstretched, representing the bird in the act of alighting or shifting his position, the picture would be true to scissorstail life.
The range of these birds is somewhat restricted, and for that reason, doubtless, so little is known about their habits. According to Ridgway, their proper home is in eastern Mexico and the southwestern prairie districts of the United States, though many of them come north as far as southern Kansas and southwestern Missouri to spend the summer and rear their families. In winter they go as far south as Costa Rico. Restricted as their habitat is, it is curious to note that they are "accidental" in a few unexpected places, such as Key West, Fla., Norfolk, Va., and also in several localities in New England, Manitoba, and Hudson Bay Territory. Prof. W. W. Cooke, of Colorado, says they are "rare, if not accidental," in that state. To show that our birds are unique, it is relevant to say that there are only two species of scissors-tailed flycatchers in North America, which have the genusMilvulusall to themselves. The other member of the genus is the forked-tailed flycatcher (Milvulus tyrannus), a resident of tropical America, migrating north normally as far as southern Mexico. He is a sort of southern twin of our scissorstail.
The nests of the scissorstails are set in the crotches of trees in the neighborhood of country homes on the prairie. Considering the size of the birds, their nests are quite small, not so large as those of the brown thrashers, though the cup is deeper and the architecture more compact and elaborate. A friend describes a nest which he found on a locust tree about sixteen feet from the ground. It was made mostly of dry grass and locust blossoms, with here and there a piece of twine braided into the structure. It had no special lining, but the grass was more evenly woven on the inside of the cup than elsewhere.
From three to five eggs are deposited. The ground color is white, either pure or creamy, sparingly mottled with rich madder-brown and lilac-gray, the spots being thicker and larger on the larger end. While the nest is undergoing examination, the owners circle and hover overhead, much after the fashion of the red-winged blackbirds, expressing their disapproval in loud and musical calls, and displaying their rich scarlet decorations.
My descriptions have related only to the male bird, whose beautiful forked tail is nine to ten inches long, and whose colors are clear and more or less intense. His spouse resembles him, but is slightly smaller, while her tail, though forked like her mate's, is from two and a half to three inches shorter. The salmon and scarlet ornaments on the sides, flanks, and axillars are paler than those of her lord, and the scarlet spot shows very indistinctly on her occiput. The young of both sexes don the dress of the mother bird during the first season, save that they fail to adorn themselves with a scarlet gem on the crown.
Like all the members of the flycatcher group, the scissorstails capture insects while on the wing, making many an attractive picture as they perform their graceful and interesting evolutions in the air.
It was a year or two later that I saw a scissorstail performing his ablutions in the northwestern part of Arkansas. How do you suppose he went about it? Not in the way birds usually do, by squatting down in the shallow water, twinkling their wings and tail, and sprinkling the liquid all over their plumage. No; this bird has a reputation to maintain for originality, and therefore he took his bath in this manner: First he perched on a telegraph wire by the roadside; then he swung gracefully down to a little pond, dashed lightly into the water, giving himself a slight wetting, after which he flew up to his original perch on the wire. A minute or less was then spent in preening his plumes; but they were not moist enough to suit his purpose, so he darted down to the pond again, making the spray rise as lie struck the water; then up to his perch he swung again, to arrange his feathers; and this was repeated a number of times, till his toilet was completed. It would not be safe to risk saying that the scissorstail always takes his bath in this way; but I know this one did. I once saw a kingbird doing the same thing, and so it may be a fashion in flycatcher circles.
I am minded, in order to make this monograph more complete, to borrow a couple of paragraphs from Mrs. Bailey's "Handbook of Birds of the Western United States." She has studied the bird in the Southwest, and gives the following graphic description of the bird and its habits:
"One of his favorite performances is to fly up and, with rattling wings, execute an aërial seesaw, a line of sharp-angled VVVVVVV's, helping himself at the short turns by rapidly opening and shutting his long white scissors. As he goes up and down he utters all the while a penetrating scream,Ka-quee-ka-quee-ka-quee-ka-quee-ka-quee, the emphasis being given each time at the top of the ascending line.
"Frequently when he is passing along with the even flight of a sober-minded crow, and you are quietly admiring the salmon lining of his wings, he shoots rattling into the air, and, as you stare after him, drops back as suddenly as he rose. He does this apparently because the spirit moves him, as a boy slings a stone at the sky, but fervor is added by the appearance of a rival or an enemy, for he is much like aTyrannusin his masterful way of controlling the landscape. He will attack caracaras and white-necked ravens, lighting on their backs and giving them vicious blows while screaming in their ears."