About the Chicadees,FOR MERRY’S MUSEUM.
FOR MERRY’S MUSEUM.
A goodmany years ago, a man named Alexander Wilson, a Scotchman by birth, wrote a large book, called “AmericanOrnithology,” in which he described almost all the birds belonging to this country, and gave an account of their nests and eggs, their food and habits, and migrations, or removing from one part of the country to another, &c. He also made pictures of all the birds described in his book, which were beautifully colored with the natural colors of the birds themselves. Since then, another celebrated naturalist, (as those men are called, who study the works of nature,) Mr. John J. Audubon, has made a still larger book, with pictures, of the size of life, of all the birds described by Mr. Wilson and many others, and colored also in the same beautiful manner, and sometimes having several pictures of the same bird, in different attitudes, and showing its different habits, such as procuring its food, building or sitting on its nest, defending its young, &c. One copy of these books, (which consists of five very large volumes, as large as a small table, besides the volumes which contain the descriptions and accounts of the habits or biography of the birds,) costs the very great sum of one thousand dollars. It is very beautiful indeed, and I hope all Robert Merry’s black and blue-eyed friends will one day have an opportunity to look at either this or Mr. Wilson’s book, and see such beautiful pictures as they contain.
As almost all good boys and girls are fond of seeing birds, and hearing about them, I think they will like to read something more about them in Merry’s Museum; and this is the reason why I propose to write about some of them. I hope, too, that none of those children who read the Museum, will be guilty of wantonly killing the little birds, or robbing their nests of the eggs and young, as some cruel boys do, but will learn to love them and treat them kindly. I will here copy a short story from Mr. Audubon’s book, that I have been telling about.
“On the 4th of January, we stopped at Bonnet Carré, where I entered a house to ask some questions about birds. I was received by a venerable French gentleman, whom I found in charge of about a dozen children of both sexes, and who was delighted to hear that I was a student of nature. He was well acquainted with my old friend Charles Carré, and must, I thought, be a good man, for he said he never suffered any of his pupils to rob a bird of her eggs or young, although, said he with a smile, ‘they are welcome to peep at them and love them.’ The boys at once surrounded me, and from them I received satisfactory answers to most of my inquiries respecting birds.”
This shows what feelings good children should have towards birds.
I will now say something about the Chicadee, or Black-capped Titmouse, as the naturalists name him. He is a beautiful bird, although his colors are very plain and simple. His head is covered with a black spot, that looks like a cap; from which he takes the designation ofBlack-capped. Why he is calledTitmouse, I cannot tell. The sides of his head and neck are of a very pure white, but he has another black spot on his throat, which ends in a point on each side of his neck. The contrast of the deep black spots on his head and neck with the pure white around them, gives him a beautiful appearance. His back and wings are brownish ash-color, or bluish-brown, the wings rather darker, and underneath he is a brownish white. I presume almost all my little readers, in the country especially, know him and call him the Chicadee; for he is so called from his note or song, which sounds very much like Chicadee-dee-dee, Chicadee-dee-dee-dee, and which you may hear almost continually while he is hopping about from tree to tree, and from limb to limb, and exhibiting himself in almostevery imaginable position, gathering his food.
Mr. Wilson has a beautiful picture of one hanging on the under side of a twig and bending his black-capped head over it to pick something from it, as you may frequently see them do. Mr. Wilson says in his book, “They also frequently visit the orchards, particularly to fall, the sides of the barn and barn-yard in the same pursuit,—trees in such situations being generally much infested with insects. We, therefore, with pleasure, rank this little bird among the farmer’s friends, and hope our rural citizens will always recognise him as such.” In the same account he tells us how they make their nests, &c., as follows: “About the middle of April they begin to build, choosing the deserted hole of a squirrel, or woodpecker, and sometimes, with incredible labor, digging out one for themselves. The female lays six white eggs, marked with minute specks of red; the first brood appear about the beginning of June, and the second towards the end of July; the whole of the family continue to associate together during winter.
“They always go in little flocks, or companies, probably, in general, of more than one brood, and frequently are accompanied with the white-breasted nuthatch, or tomtit, as he is sometimes called in the country, and also with the small woodpecker, and sometimes, in spring and fall, with the golden-crested wren,—a beautiful and very small bird, with a bright flame-colored spot on the crown of his head,—and sometimes by the brown creeper. Their food consists, in a great part, of insects, though at some times in the year, partly of seeds and of various kinds of oily substances. They frequently in the winter come around our houses and woodsheds, to pick among whatever offal is thrown out from the kitchen, and often become very familiar. I sometimes hang up bones and little bits of meat by my woodshed, to which many of them continue to resort and pick at them, day after day. Sometimes they venture into my wash-room; and one day this winter, they were so bold that I clapped my hand on one as he was feeding, and caught him and took him into my kitchen, where, after a few minutes, he began to feed upon a bone that I hung up there. He also sung his chicadee-dee-dee several times while I kept him in the house.
“He has another note or song, which, although not so merry and cheerful as his common one of chicadee, is much softer and sweeter, but is not so often heard. On fine pleasant days of summer, and especially on a delightful spring morning, you may hear him, perched on the top of a tree, utter at short intervals a note of two syllables, sounding like the word Phe-be,—the sound rising on the first syllable, and falling on the last, and sounding delightfully sweet.”