TWELVE MONTHS 
 
 WITH THE BIRDS 
 
 AND POETS 
 
 SAMUEL A. HARPER
 
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 : L_ A . H A R P E R^ 
 
 ATTORNEY AT LAW 
 
 33 SOUTH CLARK STREET 
 
 C HICAGO 
 
 BRADLEY, HARPER 5, KIGGINS 
 
 RANDOLPH 5157 
 
 ' Cuckoo calling from the hill, 
 Swallow skimming by the mill, 
 Swallows trooping in the sedge, 
 Starlings swirling from the hedge, 
 Mark the seasons, map our year, 
 As they show and disappear." 
 
 Matthew Arnold.

 
 My 
 
 To 
 
 Son Sa 
 
 The Companion of 
 
 You re Wrong, 
 Sir, Sparrows 
 Aren't Vandals 
 
 BY BOB BECKER. 
 
 At last the lowly English sparrow 
 has a real champion. This sassy little 
 gamin has been the target of many 
 verbal attacks lately. We have heard 
 from dozens of bird fans who are 
 down on the sparr> 
 
 But now conies Samuel A. Harper, 
 author of " Months with the 
 
 Birds and the Foots," to champion the 
 cause of the little Britisher. H : 
 ments in behalf of the sparrow are 
 as foil 
 
 "At the outset I a- Meltje 
 
 Blanchan, who says ' Ind 
 deal of nonsen.^' nit the 
 
 sparrov, .is. . . . 
 
 The sparrows are prepared to live 
 while others would starve. They kill 
 no other birds.' 
 
 " I feel." continues Mr. Harper, 
 '' that there are at least two very sub- 
 stantial reasons. why extermination of 
 the English sparrow should not be ad- 
 vocated. First, the grave danger that 
 uninformed persons would kill a large 
 number of other useful species of spar- 
 rows by mistake, and second, because 
 the English spar rremely use- 
 
 ful in certa; .-? of the country 
 
 by reason of its feeding habits. 
 
 "As to their destructiveness, they 
 certainly are no worse than some of 
 our favorite home birds. Robins often 
 destroy cherry, olive and other fruit 
 crops, and the bluejays and the black- 
 birds are quite as destructive as the 
 English sparrow. 
 
 " Much more good would be ac- 
 complished if we directed our fight 
 against the arch enemy of all birds, 
 the house cats, which many people 
 allow to roam at will, each killing at 
 least fifty birds in the course of every 
 year."
 
 TWELVE 
 MONTHS 
 
 WITH THE 
 
 BIRDS 
 
 AND 
 
 POETS 
 
 SAMUEL A. HARPER. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 RALPH FLETCHER SEYMOUE,
 
 Copyrighted, 1917 
 Ralph Fletcher Seymour
 
 This edition of "Twelve 
 Months With the Birds and 
 Poets," by Samuel A. Har- 
 per, is limited to two hun- 
 dred copies, of which this is 
 Number Ralph Fletcher 
 Seymour, Publisher/ 
 CHICAGO. MCMXVII.
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 This study of birds and poets is divided into 
 twelve chapters, one for each month of the year, 
 beginning with April, the opening of the birds' 
 year. The birds are discussed in the month most 
 appropriate to them by reason of habits of nesting, 
 migration or other distinguishing characteristics. 
 This plan enables the reader to live through the 
 year with the birds, and to learn when to look for 
 them. 
 
 The observations were made in Illinois, Indiana 
 and Michigan, and the book may be used as a safe 
 guide for the study of the more common birds of 
 this latitude from the Rocky Mountains east to the 
 Atlantic seaboard. 
 
 If out of the joy of writing it there has grown an 
 unconscious purpose in this little book it is that 
 busy men might pause and see the beauties of the 
 world all about them and "read nature like the 
 manuscript of heaven," for as surely as they do so 
 and life 
 
 "Hath yet one spring unpoisoned, it will be 
 Like a beguiling music to its flow." 
 
 SAMUEL A. HARPER. 
 
 Chicago, December I, 1917.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Surely the year begins in April, when the world 
 has her face freshly washed, a new dress of flower 
 draped green satin, and lifts up her voice in the 
 piping of a million spontaneous feathered song- 
 sters singing out their little hearts in the ecstasy 
 of the mating fever. 
 
 The birds and flowers are Nature's most exqui- 
 site gifts to man. Much as I love flower form, 
 colour and fragrance, and appreciate the medic- 
 inal value of many lovely herbs, with me the palm 
 always is awarded to the birds; because they have 
 flower colour, the grace of flight, the gift of song, 
 the instinct of home making and keeping, and are 
 wonderful insect and weed exterminators. 
 
 Every soul alive to beauty and music and even 
 slightly appreciative of benefits received must love 
 the birds, while from the beginning of time they 
 have been one of the greatest sources of inspiration 
 to poets and painters. The oldest painting pre- 
 served in the world is a picture of birds; while the 
 poets of all time have piped their lays concerning, 
 not only the nightingale, lark and bobolink, but 
 the owl, heron and buzzard, as well. Sweetly as 
 the birds have sung, the best of them never have
 
 8 Introduction 
 
 equalled the songs which they have called forth 
 from the hearts of the poets. 
 
 Some of the most inspired of these songs are 
 here quoted, and to them there has been added 
 much sane and careful observation of bird life and 
 habits. This is a book to love, to own and to give 
 to your discerning friend. 
 
 Limberlost Cabin, 
 October 21, 1917.
 
 io Twelve Months With 
 
 the old earth takes on her new livery of green. 
 At this season one feels the impulse of the little 
 mediaeval page, in Alexander William Percy's 
 "A Page's Road Song:" 
 
 "If Thou wilt make Thy peach trees bloom for me 
 And fringe my bridle path both sides 
 
 With tulips red and free, 
 If Thou wilt make Thy skies as blue 
 
 As ours in Sicily 
 And wake the little leaves that sleep 
 
 On every bending tree 
 
 I promise not to vexen Thee 
 
 That Thou shouldst make eternally 
 
 Heaven my home ; 
 But right contentedly 
 A singing page I'll be 
 
 Here in Thy Springtime." 
 
 It is commonly supposed that the origin of the 
 word "April" is the Latin aperio, meaning "I 
 open." To me this is a happier and more appro- 
 priate explanation of the genesis of the name than 
 the other tradition that April was Aprilis, 
 founded on the Greek name of Venus (Aphrodite) . 
 True, April might justly be called the Queen of 
 months, and as it is also the month of love making 
 for many animals and birds, it therefore may be 
 said to have some of the characteristics of the 
 Grecian Goddess.
 
 The Birds and Poets n 
 
 But when March has blown his windy trumpet, 
 and proclaimed the tyrant winter dead, and timid 
 April comes, with smiles and tears, it is as if the 
 trump of Gabriel had sounded, and all the earth 
 had "opened" unto heaven! It is the month of the 
 first spring buds. The bud says : 
 
 "My leaves instinct with glowing life 
 Are quivering to unclose; 
 My happy heart with love is ripe 
 I am almost a rose." 
 
 It is the month of nest building for our early 
 spring birds. It is the month when the lingering 
 snows on the shadowed hillside melt before the 
 ascending sun, and form the numberless little 
 spring runs in which the first spring green appears. 
 It is the month of the singing frogs, new born in 
 every swamp and meadow pool, whose chorus is: 
 "It is sprrrrrring! It is sprrrrrring!" As John 
 Vance Cheney sings, in his "Spring Song," it is the 
 glad time: 
 
 "When to pool and log 
 Come newt and frog, 
 
 And the first blade peers at the snowdrift's edge, 
 And there's dreamy green along the hedge." 
 
 It is the month of regeneration of the earth's 
 waiting soil, made ready by melting snows and 
 cleansing showers, for its new increase of all the 
 green things of earth. It is the month of burgeon-
 
 12 Twelve Months With 
 
 ing, of promise and of joy, as voiced by Louis 
 Untermeyer : 
 
 "God, I return to You on April days 
 
 When along country roads You walk with me, 
 And my faith blossoms like the earliest tree 
 
 That shames the bleak world with its yellow sprays 
 
 My faith revives, when through a rosy haze 
 The clover-sprinkled hills smile quietly, 
 Young winds uplift a bird's clean ecstasy * * * 
 
 For this, O God, my joyousness and praise!" 
 
 With what alert and expectant ear do we await 
 the first spring robin's call! With what a thrill of 
 ecstasy do we hear his first spring song! I never 
 find it necessary to record in my note book, the date 
 of the arrival of my first spring robin. I know the 
 dates for years back. His cheery call means for 
 me the beginning of a new year, and forgetfulness 
 of winter, as Thos. S. Jones so happily expresses it: 
 
 "You hold my winter in forgetfulness; 
 Without my window lilac branches swing, 
 Within my gate I hear 
 a robin sing." 
 
 And while the bluebird shares with the robin 
 the glory of being our most common and most 
 beloved April bird, 
 
 "When mid the budding elms the 
 
 bluebird flits, 
 As if a bit of sky had taken wings;"
 
 The Birds and Poets 13 
 
 he less often announces his arrival at our back 
 door. He makes an occasional welcome visit to 
 our lawn, or to a neighboring shrub or tree, but for 
 the most part prefers the more open country, yet 
 not too far removed from man and his habitations. 
 
 But the robin seems to love the intimate com- 
 panionship of man. He feeds in our home yards 
 and sings in our trees and shrubs. He often builds 
 his nest on a projecting timber of house or barn. 
 The attitude of the bird toward man is a sweet and 
 singular mixture of friendliness and timidity. 
 The natural instinct and art of all birds is to con- 
 ceal their nests, both as to position and material, 
 yet the love of the robin for man's society has so 
 far overcome his natural instinctive fear, that he 
 sometimes builds his nest on a window ledge or 
 over the door of our dwelling. Why should we 
 not return this affection, which on the part of the 
 bird represents a conquest over its fear for man? 
 
 This year of which I write (1916), on April 
 first a pair of robins began bringing grass and mud 
 to the ledge of a south second-story window of my 
 suburban home, for the purpose of making a nest. 
 It need hardly be said that they were not disturbed. 
 
 I considered the house worth an extra $1000 at 
 least, with this "addition." 
 
 Joyce Kilmer suggests the added glory that 
 comes to 
 
 "A tree that may in summer wear 
 A nest of robins in her hair."
 
 14 Twelve Months With 
 
 The window shade was carefully drawn, so that 
 the birds would not be disconcerted. While robins 
 are usually not easily frightened out of their deter- 
 mination to build a nest in a particular place, and 
 often fight for their right to choose the location of 
 their domicile, we did not intend to run any risks 
 of the birds changing their plans. All day Satur- 
 day and Sunday they were busy, with their 
 weaving and their masonry. The female after 
 depositing a circle of mud on the inside of the nest, 
 would nestle into it and softly mold it into a cup 
 by turning her breast round and round against its 
 rim, and churning her wings up and down to 
 smooth its edges. I observed after one such process 
 that she flew into a neighbor's yard and bathed 
 herself in a basin of water on the lawn, washing 
 the mud from her breast. My young son, who was 
 greatly excited during these building operations, 
 and who was with difficulty restrained from fright- 
 ening and annoying the birds, asked if we could 
 finish the nest if the birds became frightened 
 and deserted it, and I know I answered him 
 truly when I said that "no one but a bird can 
 build a nest!" The birds are the oldest miners, 
 masons, carpenters and builders, weavers and 
 basket makers. 
 
 "What nice hand, 
 
 With every implement and means of art, 
 And twenty years' apprenticeship to boot, 
 Could make us such another?"
 
 The Birds and Poets 15 
 
 By Sunday night the nest was apparently fin- 
 ished and ready for its eggs, and then for four 
 days no robin was seen to come near it. Our 
 household, from young son to grandmother, took 
 on a worried look! Had the nest been aban- 
 doned? My explanation to an anxious family 
 was that the robins, being experienced masons, 
 knew that the wet mud of the nest was no fit 
 receptacle for the eggs, and therefore the birds 
 would wait until it dried. A more probable expla- 
 nation for the four days' desertion of the new- 
 built nest, however, is that the egg of mother 
 robin was not yet ripe, and that the nest was there- 
 fore prepared too soon. Nature lovers in their 
 enthusiasm are all too likely to attribute to birds 
 and animals a wisdom and intelligence which they 
 do not possess. Just as the beauty of the bird and 
 its song is largely subjective, born of the spirit 
 of the bird lover, so its acts prompted solely by 
 instinct, sense communications and kindred influ- 
 ences are often, in the subjective imagination of 
 the enthusiastic nature student, mistaken for and 
 mis-called judgment. 
 
 If the mother robin really waited for the nest 
 to become dry, it is more reasonable to assume 
 that she waited from mere instinct, resulting from 
 the sum total of the experience of herself and her 
 ancestors in nest building, rather than that she 
 had any conscious knowledge that a wet nest was 
 not a good place for her eggs. 
 
 Both the barn swallow and the phoebe, who
 
 1 6 Twelve Months With 
 
 employ mud in their nest building, frequently 
 wait a day or two after the nest is finished before 
 laying their eggs, which action might be attributed 
 to instinctive solicitude for the future family, but 
 this practice is not peculiar to birds who use mud 
 in their nests, so that the delay is more likely due 
 in each case to the fact that the egg is not mature. 
 
 Mr. Burroughs relates a story of a creeping 
 warbler whose egg became ripe before the nest 
 was finished. After excavating the site for the 
 nest, the bird laid the egg, and then finished the 
 nest over it. So that if instinct sometimes errs 
 upon the one side and fails to prompt the bird 
 to build its nest in time, it may easily err on the 
 other side and urge nest building too soon. 
 
 But, to return to our nest on the window 
 ledge, whatever the reason may have been for 
 her four days' absence, at the expiration of that 
 time the female robin returned to the nest, and 
 then laid one egg a day until four were in the 
 nest, and as I write she is faithfully warming the 
 nest and its eggs, and clamorously protesting when 
 any one appears at the window, or at any window 
 in the vicinity. 
 
 This experience of the robin's nest on the win- 
 dow ledge reminds me of Wordsworth's lines on 
 the robin at his casement window: 
 
 "Stay, little cheerful Robin! stay, 
 
 And at my casement sing, 
 Though it should prove a farewell lay 
 And this our parting spring."
 
 The Birds and Poets 17 
 
 Lowell, in his beautiful lines "To the Dande- 
 lion," recalls the robin of his childhood: 
 
 "The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, 
 
 Who from the dark old tree 
 Beside the door sang clearly all day long, 
 
 And I, secure in childish piety, 
 Listened as if I heard an angel sing 
 
 With news from heaven, which he could bring 
 Fresh every day to my untainted ears 
 
 When birds and flowers and I were happy peers." 
 
 Stedman gives high praise to the early spring 
 notes of the robin: 
 
 "The sweetest sound our whole year round 
 'Tis the first robin of the spring! 
 The song of the full orchard choir 
 Is not so fine a thing." 
 
 He is loved by Wm. W. Caldwell as the har- 
 binger of spring: 
 
 "From the elm-tree's topmost bough, 
 Hark! the Robin's early song! 
 Telling one and all that now 
 Merry spring time hastes along; 
 Welcome tidings dost thou bring, 
 Little harbinger of spring, 
 
 Robin's come 1" 
 
 He means renewed faith for Charles G. D. 
 Roberts :
 
 1 8 Twelve Months With 
 
 "Have I fainted, have I doubted, 
 In the days that have gone by? 
 Have I said 'There is no rising 
 Unto mortals when they die?' 
 It is past, that blind self-wounding. 
 I have heard the robin sing, 
 I have caught the Easter message, 
 In the first breath of the spring." 
 
 The well known feeding habits of the robin, 
 in running through the grass and pulling earth 
 worms out of the sod, is very vividly, as well as 
 amusingly, told by Katherine Van D. Harkee in 
 the following stanzas: 
 
 "Abstracted, contemplative air, 
 
 A sudden run and stop, 
 A glance indifferent round about, 
 Head poised another hop. 
 
 A plunge well-aimed, a backward tug, 
 
 A well-resisted squirm, 
 Then calm indifference as before, 
 
 But oh, alack, the worm!" 
 
 Any one who has seen a robin feeding will vouch 
 for the dramatic accuracy of this description. 
 
 Almost three weeks after the nest on the win- 
 dow ledge was commenced, another pair of robins 
 began building a nest on a telephone pole about 
 fifty feet from my back porch. The father robin 
 in the window ledge family must be an attractive 
 fellow among the females, and a charming singer.
 
 The Birds and Poets 19 
 
 to have gained so long a lead over the rest of his 
 kind in the neighborhood in the matter of mating. 
 This pair seemed to be the earliest in nesting of 
 any in the whole vicinity. I saw many nests being 
 built, two and three weeks later. 
 
 Naturalists are a good deal divided in opinion 
 as to the object of the birds in singing, and as to 
 what relation it bears to the mating of the birds. 
 Certain it is that the bird's voice serves to express 
 various emotions, such as distress, fear, anger, tri- 
 umph, or mere happiness. It is also true with 
 many species that the female is attracted to the 
 male by his beautiful appearance, and his powers 
 of song, selecting the male that pleases her most 
 in these respects. I do not believe, as contended 
 by some; that the singing of birds is almost exclu- 
 sively the effect of rivalry and emulation. Birds 
 love beautiful and attractive things, as we do, 
 altho' of course with less conscious intelligence, 
 and the beauty of form, color and song of the 
 male, added to the natural mating instinct of the 
 female, determines her choice. With few excep- 
 tions the males, during the mating season, exhibit 
 something very like a definite desire and inten- 
 tion to ensnare the female, by whatever attractions 
 nature may have given them, whether it be of song 
 or plumage. It is altogether probable that the 
 male bird has a mixed purpose in singing, made 
 up of the mere joy of singing, emulation, and, 
 during the mating season, an instinctive desire to 
 excite, attract or fascinate the female bird.
 
 2O Twelve Months With 
 
 It is not necessary to go far into the fields or 
 deep into the woods to see many of our finest 
 birds. " 'Tis Eden everywhere to hearts that listen." 
 And it is by no means essential to a real enjoy- 
 ment of our birds that one should be a scientific 
 student of orders, families, and all the rest of the 
 technical lore of the professional ornithologist, 
 nor even to be able to identify all the birds that 
 he may see. If he only sees and hears them, it 
 is enough. For those whose hearts listen when 
 they are in the fields or woods, no bird will rise 
 to its perch without being seen and enjoyed, and 
 no bird will utter its call or sing its song, how- 
 ever soft or ventriloquous, without its being heard 
 and loved. 
 
 Emerson's lines are still true: 
 
 "Many haps fall in the field 
 Seldom seen by wishful eyes 
 But all her shows did Nature yield, 
 To please and win this pilgrim wise. 
 He saw the partridge drum in the woods; 
 He heard the woodcock's evening hymn; 
 He found the tawny thrushes' broods; 
 And the shy hawk did wait for him; 
 What others did at distance hear, 
 And guessed within the thicket's gloom, 
 Was shown to this philosopher, 
 And at his bidding seemed to come." 
 
 One may live and enjoy life without being able 
 to identify many of the more uncommon birds,
 
 The Birds and Poets 21 
 
 but God pity the man who never sees or hears 
 them, when they are all about him! 
 
 One must not be content to take only his body 
 with him into the woods and fields, if he would 
 see and hear and enjoy, for their sights and sounds 
 are a part of the natural scene, and he must make 
 his own spirit a part of such scene if he would 
 have full companionship with it. 
 
 "Lacking the heart-room the song lies dead; 
 Half is the song that reaches the ear, 
 Half is the hearing." 
 
 Bird notes, with some exceptions, are elusive 
 and indefinite, a part of the composite hum and 
 atmosphere of the woods, and to the careless and 
 unsympathetic ear are not naturally or easily 
 detected and detached from the general ensem- 
 ble of woods sounds. But to him who is "fellow 
 to leaf and flower, brook, bee, and bird," all the 
 little voices of woods and fields "speak a various 
 language." 
 
 " 'Kneel,' whispered the breeze; 
 On wistful knees 
 In the swaying grass I sank, 
 While, all around, 
 A soft choral sound 
 Swelled from bower and bank. 
 
 Two tender blows, 
 
 And I arose 
 
 Of sordid aims bereft,
 
 22 Twelve Months With 
 
 By the accolade 
 
 Of a green grass-blade 
 
 Ennobled and enfeoffed. 
 
 Now am I lord 
 
 Of weald and sward, 
 
 Fellow to leaf and flower! 
 
 Brook, bee and bird 
 
 Have passed the word 
 
 That owns me from this hour !" 
 
 By some such "Sylvan Ceremony," Charles 
 Shepard Parke would initiate us into the blessed 
 order of out-of-door spirits. 
 
 Thoreau once said that sometimes when he 
 went into the woods he was alarmed to find he 
 had left his spirit behind, and that he was only 
 projecting his body on its way into the forest. 
 
 But I am sure that one must not only be accom- 
 panied by his spirit on his outdoor rambles, but 
 that his spirit must also be "fellow to leaf and 
 flower," and in intimate correspondence with all 
 the soft, elusive and delicate sense communica- 
 tions which are transmitted by all nature to those 
 and to those only who are attuned to hear these 
 quiet messages. 
 
 "A child of nature, that is child of God, 
 I count these lovely kindred mine." 
 
 I would not leave the impression that this infi- 
 nite order of the spirits of nature is an exclusive
 
 The Birds and Poets 23 
 
 society of aristocrats, to which only a chosen few 
 may hope to be admitted. On the contrary, the 
 order is as wide and its appeal to all mankind is 
 as open and urgent and inviting as nature itself. 
 All the joys of fellowship and kinship with nature 
 are to be had for the mere asking. 
 
 I know of no plan whereby one may add more 
 to his happiness than by a study of our birds and 
 their habits. 
 
 Emerson called them his darlings: 
 
 "Darlings of children and of bard, 
 Perfect kinds by vice unmarred, 
 All of worth and beauty set 
 Gems in Nature's cabinet; 
 These the fables she esteems 
 Reality most like to dreams. 
 Welcome back, you little nations, 
 Far-travelled in the south plantations; 
 Bring your music and rhythmic flight, 
 Your colors for our eyes' delight." 
 
 The anxious hunt after a new and strange bird, 
 whose song, form or plumage has attracted one's 
 attention, is a source of never-ending interest and 
 enjoyment. It includes all the coarser joys of the 
 sportsman, and many finer and rarer spiritual 
 pleasures which are unknown to the mere hunter 
 of game. No matter how thoroughly acquainted 
 one may be with the birds, he may run into a sur- 
 prise in the woods or fields at any moment, and 
 happen upon a bird he has never seen, or which
 
 24 'Twelve Months With 
 
 may be exceedingly rare in the area of his observa- 
 tions. Bird study carries with it the satisfying of 
 an interested curiosity, which is ever on the alert 
 for a new discovery. It easily adapts itself to our 
 accustomed outdoor sports and recreations, such 
 as walking, hunting and fishing. And while, as 
 we have said, for one with eyes and ears for the 
 woods, it is not essential to the enjoyment of bird 
 life that one shall be able to idenitfy all the birds, 
 it is of course true that the more one knows of 
 them, the better he loves them, and he should be 
 familiar with the names and characteristics of our 
 more common birds. 
 
 In April the birds appear in such large num- 
 bers it is sometimes confusing to the student, who 
 finds all manner of strange and interesting birds 
 flying about him in the woods and fields. Before 
 he can concentrate upon one for a sufficient length 
 of time to observe its markings, song or habits, 
 others of perhaps greater interest divert his atten- 
 tion, until he, like a child who happens upon a 
 profusion of wild flowers in the woods, in his 
 anxiety to reach them all, misses many. It 
 reminds one of these lines from a poem by 
 Katherine Tynan : 
 
 "After the lark the swallow, 
 Blackbird in hill and hollow, 
 Thrushes and nightingales all roads I trod." 
 
 The best time of day for observing the birds 
 is the morning or the late afternoon, especially
 
 The Birds and Poets 25 
 
 on bright days, for then the birds are out in their 
 favorite haunts, feeding, and may, if carefully 
 approached, be studied at close range. 
 
 The eyesight and hearing of the birds is far 
 superior to that of man, so that walking in the 
 birds' haunts should be avoided as much as pos- 
 sible. Upon arrival at the place where one may 
 expect to find the birds, he should quietly stand 
 or sit, and wait for them to appear. A favorite 
 and very effective ruse to attract them is to kiss 
 the back of the hand, held closely against the 
 mouth. The squeaking sound thus produced 
 closely resembles the mating call of many birds, 
 and if practiced cautiously will often bring around 
 the observer a number of his feathered friends. 
 While the eyesight of birds is very keen, they are 
 frightened only by unusual sounds or by move- 
 ment, and if one stands or sits still he will find 
 abundant opportunities for studying their plumage 
 and habits. 
 
 Observing these few simple precautions, I have 
 found that the crow, the most cunning and alert 
 of all our birds, the fox of the feathered tribe, 
 will alight in a tree but a few feet distant, and 
 comport himself with the same unconcern as if 
 he were in the remotest forest, observed by no one. 
 
 Do not use a gun. It is unnecessary. 
 
 Opera or field glasses, however, are indis- 
 pensable. The distinguishing marks of many 
 birds are not discernible with the naked eye from 
 the distance at which one is usually compelled to
 
 26 Twelve Months With 
 
 observe them. With a good small glass, and the 
 sun at one's back, the markings become clear and 
 definite. Notes of the markings, methods of flight, 
 songs and calls should be made on the spot, first, 
 because the mere process of reducing them to 
 writing tends to accuracy of observation and 
 description, and second, because the memory is 
 faulty, and if many strange birds are seen the 
 marks and songs of different birds will become 
 confused in the mind of the student, so that he 
 cannot recall them definitely when he consults 
 his key, in an effort to identify them. 
 
 One or more simple guides to the classification 
 and identification of birds is essential. This, sup- 
 plemented by a book listing and describing the 
 birds of the local area in which the student lives, 
 will be sufficient for all his purposes. If, in addi- 
 tion, a good museum is available where the 
 mounted birds may be seen and studied, much 
 that is difficult will be made easy. 
 
 If these suggestions are followed, little real 
 difficulty will be experienced by the student in 
 identifying the more common birds, and many 
 that are not so common, and the joy that a new 
 identification will bring will more than compen- 
 sate for all his pains. Often, after a new bird 
 has been identified, the student will be surprised 
 to find how common it is, and will wonder how 
 he has passed it by, unseen and unheard, for so 
 many years. 
 
 In my own modest yard I am visited each April
 
 The Birds and Poets 27 
 
 by a goodly number of birds, and some of these I 
 would not even notice had I not previously met 
 them in the woods and fields and learned to love 
 them. 
 
 Judging from some stories which have been 
 written, doubtless there are nature enthusiasts 
 who would even ascribe to some of the birds a 
 knowledge of social proprieties and customs, for 
 certain it is that if you will but call on the birds 
 they will return the call, and you will know and 
 enjoy them when they come. If you continue treat- 
 ing them with indifference, and never care to see 
 or know them, it is quite certain you never will, 
 more's the pity. They will not first seek you out, 
 but if you will but cultivate their acquaintance, 
 you will see them often, either at your home or at 
 theirs. 
 
 In addition to our old friends the robins, I 
 have been visited this April by blue birds, flickers, 
 house wrens, towhees, white-throated sparrows, 
 cedar waxwings, blue jays, wood, Wilson and gray- 
 cheeked thrushes, meadowlarks, bronze grackles, 
 brown thrashers, song sparrows and a Grinnell's 
 water thrush, and I shall be happy indeed to 
 return the calls of each and every one. Some of 
 them live with me during the summer, and our 
 home life without them would lack something fine 
 which it now has. The song sparrow may be heard 
 almost any spring or summer day. 
 
 Henry Van Dyke claims him as an old friend:
 
 28 Twelve Months With 
 
 "There is a bird I know so well, 
 
 It seems as if he must have sung 
 Beside my crib when I was young; 
 
 Before I knew the way to spell 
 
 The name of even the smallest bird, 
 His gentle-joyful song I heard. 
 
 Now see if you can tell, my dear, 
 
 What bird it is that every year, 
 
 Sings 'Sweet sweet sweet very merry cheer'." 
 
 A song sparrow sang this refrain a few evenings 
 since from a shrub in a vacant lot adjoining mine, 
 in a sort of mixed chorus with two robins. The 
 robins were singing together their usual hymn- 
 like, warbling song, and the song sparrow broke 
 in at regular intervals with this sweet, musical 
 refrain, in the nature of an obligate, and the 
 chorus they made was far superior to the Met- 
 ropolitan Opera, and to be had for the mere 
 listening! 
 
 The beautiful white-throated sparrows arrive 
 near my back fence about the i8th of April, and 
 flit about quietly in the grass and leaves and 
 underbrush, emitting their characteristic low 
 
 whistle: J J ^3 and shyly scratch- 
 
 ing with both feet together among the old dead 
 leaves. Harrison Smith Morns' "Lonely-Bird" 
 well describes this beautiful sparrow: 
 
 "O dappled throat of white ! Shy, hidden bird ! 
 Perched in green dimness of the dewy wood, 
 And murmuring, in that lonely, lover mood, 
 
 Thy heart-ache, softly heard, 
 Sweetened by distance, over land and lake."
 
 The Birds and Poets 29 
 
 The gray-cheeked thrushes were a mystery to 
 me for one long season. They so closely resemble 
 the Bicknell's thrush and the olive-backed thrush, 
 and the Wilson's thrush or veery, that they can 
 be readily distinguished only by an experienced 
 observer. During my first summer at our sub- 
 urban home they appeared upon the lawn late in 
 April, in their trim olive-drab gowns, stealthily 
 hopping about in the grass, and quietly and some- 
 what anxiously watching any one who approached 
 near them. Their coyness was emphasized by 
 the light ring about the eye, which gave them an 
 alert, inquiring expression. Their song resembled, 
 as much as anything that could be suggested, the 
 musical twanging of a guitar. I was unable to 
 identify them with certainty until one day, after 
 a severe storm, I found a dead bird near the walk, 
 bordering a neighbor's premises, and readily iden- 
 tified it as a gray-cheeked thrush. Among the 
 little groups that have visited us each season since 
 that time, during the spring and fall migrations, 
 there has been an occasional olive-backed thrush, 
 but aside from the veery, which is common espe- 
 cially during migration, the gray-cheeked is per- 
 haps the most abundant. 
 
 Their modest appearance, their silent, coy man- 
 ners, and their beautiful and unique song combine 
 to make their semi-annual visits of unusual interest. 
 
 The flickers are always numerous with us in 
 April, and indeed all through the summer. Their 
 loud spring calls of "wick! wick! wick! wick!"
 
 30 Twelve Months With 
 
 and the vigorous, nasal "kee-yer!" are full of all 
 the joy and optimism of the season, and almost 
 any morning at the first streak of dawn one of 
 them may be heard vigorously hammering with 
 his bill upon any available object which offers a 
 good sounding board. He seems to enjoy the 
 rolling tattoo as much as his call, and it has a 
 certain music of its own. An old, dilapidated 
 wren box in my yard has been visited almost daily 
 by a flicker. After alighting upon it and looking 
 around him with a lordly air, he proceeds to ham- 
 mer on the top of the empty and unusually sonorous 
 old box, and after each strumming he raises his 
 head erect, and sends forth his ringing clarion of 
 "wick! wick! wick! wick!" as if to emphasize 
 his very great importance in the whole scheme 
 of nature, which program of alternate drum- 
 ming and calling is carried on usually for fifteen 
 or twenty minutes. He is thus seen to be equally 
 skilled in vocal and instrumental music. Flickers 
 are very obviously attracted by any object which 
 affords them a noisy sounding board for their 
 drumming. I have known them to hammer on 
 loose tin or metal on the roof of houses and barns 
 until it became necessary to remove or cover the 
 attractive metal to avoid the noisy din. As this tat- 
 tooing sound is heard chiefly during the breeding 
 season, it is considered by some as a love song, or 
 a love call to the bird's mate. 
 
 The flicker has many aliases, as many as thirty- 
 six having been compiled, including, among the
 
 The Birds and Poets 31 
 
 more common, high-hole, clape, yellow-hammer 
 and golden-winged woodpecker, and, while he is 
 listed in the family of picidae, he has never seemed 
 to me a true woodpecker. With characteristic 
 independence he constantly disregards almost all 
 the accustomed and well-known habits of his 
 tribe. Contrary to the custom of woodpeckers, he 
 is frequently seen disporting himself in the grass, 
 often in the company of robins or meadowlarks. 
 More often than otherwise he alights upon a hori- 
 zontal limb of a tree, rather than upon an upright 
 stem or trunk, after the manner of his kind. Now 
 and then, just contemptuously to show the world 
 that it is easily done, he flies against the side of 
 a tree, like a common woodpecker, grasps the 
 bark with his claws, and supports himself in an 
 upright position, with the aid of his heavy, stiff 
 tail feathers. Nor does he depend for his food 
 upon grubs pecked out of dead limbs, but, like 
 the robin, he seems to find worms and insects 
 more easily. He is extremely fond of ants, and 
 eats seeds and a great variety of food which the 
 red-head, hairy or downy woodpecker would not 
 touch. For a nest he always appropriates some 
 natural cavity, instead of boring a hole for him- 
 self, like his brother woodpeckers. I have won- 
 dered that Darwin did not cite the flicker as an 
 instance of variation from type, and speculate 
 upon his ultimate destiny as a member of some 
 other family. He seems dissatisfied with his class, 
 and destined for some other and different order.
 
 32 Twelve Months With 
 
 Who knows but that, with his joyous optimism 
 and his impudent, self-reliant spirit, he may not 
 some day be in a class by himself? 
 
 The flicker is one of the many common birds 
 which, like the perfume of some old-fashioned 
 garden flower, calls up old associations, as in Mr. 
 S. M. McManus' "Flicker on the Fence": 
 
 "Between the songs and silences of the flicker on the 
 
 fence, 
 A singing his old fashioned tune, full of meanin' and 
 
 of sense, 
 
 I fall into a musin' spell sometimes of other days, 
 When things was mostly different, leastwise in many 
 
 ways; 
 
 And I feel so kind of lon'some with the new things 
 
 round about, 
 And am like the taller candle, waitin' fer to be snuffed 
 
 out, 
 
 I look around to find a sign that I hain't lost my sense, 
 And get my bearin's when I hear the flicker on the 
 
 fence." 
 
 The cedar waxwings are peculiarly gentle and 
 attractive birds. They usually travel in small 
 troups of from five to nine birds, flying just high 
 enough to clear the treetops, quietly dropping 
 down into a tree now and then for the purpose 
 of feeding. They have as much individuality as 
 the flicker, but, unlike him, they are proverbially 
 gentle and refined, and their neat brown coats
 
 The Birds and Poets 33 
 
 always have the appearance of being "tailor 
 made." They are trim, neat and genteel, almost 
 to primness. A small flock of five flew into the 
 top of a soft maple in my yard about the aoth of 
 April, and announced their presence by their char- 
 acteristic subdued call, which Thoreau describes 
 as their "beady note." To one whose ears are 
 attentive to bird calls, this is usually the first 
 sign of the cedar-bird's presence, for the call 
 is unusual and absolutely distinctive, somewhat 
 resembling a subdued "z" sound made by breath- 
 ing through a comb covered with tissue paper. 
 The conspicuous crest and neat grayish-brown 
 plumage, with this characteristic call, make iden- 
 tification easy. 
 
 The saucy blue jay, with all his egg-stealing 
 proclivities and his quarrelsome habits, compels 
 our admiration. He is impudent and disdainful 
 in his conduct toward other birds, and shows his 
 contempt for many of them by mimicking their 
 call notes. He will seldom permit another bird 
 of any kind to perch in the same tree with him. 
 But, after all, his conduct seems more inspired 
 by an excess of hilarious spirits than by any ill 
 humor, and so we pardon him for his noise, and 
 love him for his saucy enthusiasm. While the 
 jay has a number of short notes which he uses 
 occasionally, apparently to mimic other birds, in 
 addition to his customary "jay! jay!" (or "make! 
 make!" as my small boy interprets it), few have 
 ever heard his real song. He has a pretty war-
 
 34 Twelve Months With 
 
 bling refrain, which I have heard rather happily 
 described as a mixture of the songs of the blue 
 bird and robin, and in many years of observation 
 of the birds I have never been sure of hearing 
 his song but once, on which occasion I was able 
 to observe the bird while singing. It is a pity 
 he doesn't take time to use his song oftener, but 
 apparently he thinks singing is effeminate or an 
 unworthy pastime, and therefore contents himself 
 with his noisy "make! make! make!" 
 
 The jay is another bird of strong individuality. 
 The blue jay is the only one of the family in this 
 latitude, east of the Rocky Mountains, and it has 
 therefore been the only jay with which I have 
 been familiar, and yet its individual traits are so 
 characteristic and distinctive, and therefore so 
 easily detected and identified in other members 
 of the jay family, that when I saw the mountain 
 jay for the first time in the Rockies a few years 
 ago I knew it instantly, and also when I saw the 
 Canada jay for the first time, in the summer of 
 1915, in the forests of Ontario, I identified it at 
 once without difficulty. A jay is a jay the world 
 over. His plumage may vary in color, but he 
 always discloses his identity by his characteristic 
 movements, and by what Riley called his "sass" : 
 
 "Mr. Bluejay, full o' sass, 
 In them baseball clothes o' his, 
 Sportin' 'round the orchard jes' 
 Like he owned the premises!"
 
 The Birds and Poets 35 
 
 Our blue jay has a very erect and conspicuous 
 crest, which has doubtless been gradually acquired 
 through years of sauciness, in accordance with the 
 laws of natural selection and variation! 
 
 Among my favorite April visitors is the towhee 
 or chewink. This fine bird has been neglected 
 by ornithologists and poets alike, and his beauti- 
 ful coat and quiet, graceful habits are "unhonored 
 and unsung." He is as beautiful in vernal 
 plumage as the Blackburnian warbler, or the 
 American redstart, but, compared with the host 
 of admirers of these forest favorites, "there are 
 very few to love and none to praise" the modest 
 towhee. I stood within fifteen feet of a beautiful 
 male towhee in woods bordering the Desplaines 
 River, about the i5th of April, and for several 
 minutes watched him scratch (both feet together) 
 and tumble the dead leaves about, in search of 
 food. His beautiful velvety black head and 
 shoulders, and his bright vest of reddish brown, 
 and his long, graceful body, and his conspicuous 
 white tail feathers, made him as exquisite a wood's 
 picture as one often sees. 
 
 The towhee is modest, without stealth; proud, 
 without arrogance; beautiful, without vanity. He 
 seeks "the untrodden ways," and is coy and retir- 
 ing in his habits. You will always find him 
 browsing among the leaves, or twitching about 
 among the low branches of shrubs or in brush piles. 
 He seldom or never even takes a high perch, so 
 that his beautiful coat may be seen and admired.
 
 36 Twelve Months With 
 
 He seeks no publicity, and seems not to care for 
 public favor or approval. These traits make him 
 none the less worthy of our love and apprecia- 
 tion; indeed, how much finer is it for virtue to 
 be found out, than that it should proclaim itself 
 from the treetops. If this towhee would come out 
 of his quiet haunts and perch himself upon a high 
 tree, and, facing the setting sun, sing us a ringing 
 song after the fashion of the robin or the wood 
 thrush, he would be instantly and eternally famous. 
 Isn't it fortunate that we love some birds for their 
 quiet, modest and gentle ways, and that we may 
 also love others for their impudence and noise! 
 Birds thus resemble men in their varying indi- 
 vidual traits and characteristics. 
 
 The meadowlarks do not often come into my 
 yard, altho' they will now and then alight in a 
 tree for a few moments in passing, but I can hear 
 their clear, ringing call every day in the meadows 
 adjoining the river, two blocks distant. Few bird 
 songs have the penetrating intensity of the meadow- 
 lark's. While traveling through the country by 
 rail I have frequently heard its ringing call at 
 intervals above the noise and rattle of the train, 
 recalling the lines of Ina D. Coolbrith: 
 
 "Sweet, sweet, sweet! Oh happy that I am! 
 
 (Listen to the meadow-larks across the fields 
 
 that sing!) 
 
 Sweet, sweet, sweet, O subtle breath of balm, 
 O winds that blow, O buds that grow, O rapture of 
 the spring!"
 
 The Birds and Poets 37 
 
 The visit of the Grinnell's water thrush to my 
 yard was a noteworthy event. While this bird is 
 perhaps the most common of the water thrushes 
 passing through this area, he is seldom seen away 
 from low, wet thickets, and I was much surprised 
 at his appearance on my lawn. While he is classed 
 as a warbler, he resembles the thrushes in appear- 
 ance, though he is smaller and less brown, having 
 a drab, white-striped coat, and he moves with a 
 marked tilt of his trim body as he pauses in his 
 course through the grass or among the low bushes. 
 
 However brief my visits to the woods in April 
 may be, I am always sure of a warm welcome 
 from the birds when I return their call, and it 
 is remarkable what a vast amount of pleasure one 
 may receive from short trips of this kind, stolen 
 here and there from the busy hours of the ordi- 
 nary workdays. The birds are busy much earlier 
 than we are, and it is not at all necessary that 
 one's appointments with them be either inter- 
 rupted or cancelled altogether because of the 
 business cares that "infest the day." We may see 
 them at all times in their homes in the early 
 morning, and still be at office or shop in ample 
 time for the day's work. 
 
 A thirty-minute walk which I took on the 
 morning of April i3th might be cited as an 
 example. I crossed a bridge over the Desplaines 
 River, and in the meadow lying to the west heard 
 the songs of both field and song sparrows (among 
 the most beautiful songsters of the sparrow fam-
 
 38 Twelve Months With 
 
 ily). To the east, across the bridge, is a high 
 wire fence, with a wooden cornice, the whole 
 covered with vines, which at this time were 
 still bare and brown. In. one of the angles of the 
 cornice, and partially concealed by the dark vines, 
 I noticed a robin building a nest. A few feet 
 farther I turned into a street bordering the woods 
 and leading into them, and in the front yard of a 
 vacant house saw, among the bare shrubbery, a 
 kinglet (a small king!), pluming his feathers, as 
 if he had just taken his morning's bath and was 
 making his toilet for the day. Watching him 
 carefully as he fluttered and turned about, I 
 caught sight of the tuft of bright red feathers 
 on the crown of his head, which marked him as 
 the ruby-crown, and then, his toilet finished, he 
 poured forth his joy in the finest little soft and 
 yet distinct wren-like song that it has ever been 
 my good fortune to hear. The kinglet's song, 
 while clear and distinct at close range, is not loud, 
 and cannot be heard at any considerable distance. 
 And, again, these little birds are usually so busy 
 hopping about the lower trunks of trees and among 
 the lower branches, feeding, that they apparently 
 have little time for singing. The small, wren-like, 
 olive-green bodies of the ruby-crowned and golden- 
 crowned kinglets are very similar in appearance, 
 and sometimes they are not easily distinguished, 
 except by the bright markings on the crown, which 
 give them their respective names, although the 
 golden-crowned is somewhat smaller. The names
 
 The Birds and Poets 39 
 
 of these little birds are sometimes misleading to 
 the student, because he expects to see a conspicuous 
 red or golden patch on the head, but as a matter 
 of fact the red or golden patch is not easily seen 
 unless the bird tips his head down, so one may see 
 the very top of his head (which he is sure to do 
 if one watches him a few moments, because of his 
 very great activity), but when he does so a very 
 few distinctly marked feathers in the center of 
 the crown will be visible. 
 
 In an adjoining meadow, just before reaching 
 the woods, I observed a sparrow hawk flying about 
 and "hanging up" over the field, in search of his 
 morning meal. 
 
 Passing into the woods skirting the river, I fol- 
 lowed a path which led through heavy brush and 
 second growth, as yet entirely bare, with no signs 
 of spring buds. The first bird note I heard was the 
 whistle of a cardinal in the distance, towards the 
 river, and I recalled Riley's tribute to the "red 
 bird" : 
 
 "Go, ye bards of classic themes 
 Pipe your songs of classic streams ! 
 I would twang the redbird's wings 
 In the thicket while he sings!" 
 
 Pausing to listen to this wonderful song, I was 
 startled to hear, among the bare bushes at my 
 right, a chorus of clicking noises which sounded 
 exactly like a shower of fine hail stones falling 
 among the leafless shrubs. The impression was
 
 40 Twelve Months With 
 
 so realistic that I involuntarily glanced skyward 
 to see if any passing leaden cloud could be respon- 
 sible for this commotion, when I discovered a 
 large flock of juncos, in their drab coats, flitting 
 about in the brush, showing their white tail 
 feathers with every "tsip! tsip!" that they uttered. 
 The familiar call of this little bird is almost icy 
 in its brittle staccato, and suggests the cold wintry 
 days when they are so plentiful, and which they 
 seem to enjoy quite as much as the warm days 
 of spring. But the balmy air and bright sunshine 
 of this April morning seemed also to fill the juncos 
 to the bursting point, for one or two of them 
 perched upon a neighboring tree and poured 
 forth their happiness in their rather rare and 
 unusual song. 
 
 In the meantime I had caught sight of the 
 female cardinal, on the opposite side of the path, 
 feeding among some old vines overhanging the 
 low trees, and while watching her some disturb- 
 ance along the river beyond her flushed her bril- 
 liant mate, who came flying directly over me, like 
 a ball of fire, alighting on the opposite side of 
 the path. 
 
 Retracing my steps to the entrance of the woods, 
 I observed a pair of yellow-bellied sapsuckers 
 chasing each other about through the trees, and 
 returning after each excursion to a small poplar 
 directly in front of me, where they would rest 
 a moment, clinging to an upright limb, or to the 
 tree trunk, talking confidentially to each other,
 
 The Birds and Poets 41 
 
 and then off they would go on another helter- 
 skelter through the naked branches, and back 
 again to the favorite poplar. While watching the 
 play of the sapsuckers, a myrtle warbler flew into 
 the poplar and exhibited his conspicuous yellow 
 rump, which makes his identification so easy. Just 
 as I was saying a reluctant farewell to my feathered 
 friends, a troup of five or six trim cedar-birds 
 flew into the tops of the trees bordering the woods, 
 coming from the direction of the village, and, after 
 pausing long enough to bid me "good morning," 
 continued their journey on into the woods. 
 
 This was by no means an unusual or exceptional 
 April morning for the bird lover. Indeed, the 
 number and variety of birds seen was insignificant 
 as compared with what might be observed upon a 
 longer trip, or one taken later in the migrating 
 season. 
 
 Yet when thirty minutes, by the way, will yield 
 so much of enjoyment and inspiration, why do 
 we not more often make these little saunterings a 
 part of our work-a-day lives, to cheer and brighten 
 them, thenceforth and forever? 
 
 I always regret the departure of April, but 
 she ushers in flowery May, thus reminding us 
 of the beautiful lines of Oliver Wendell Holmes: 
 
 "At last young April, ever frail and fair, 
 Wooed by her playmate with the golden hair, 
 Chased to the margin of receding floods 
 O'er the soft meadows starred with opening buds, 
 In tears and blushes sighs herself away, 
 And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of May."
 
 MAY. 
 
 In this May-month by grace 
 
 of heaven, things shoot apace. 
 The waiting multitude 
 
 of fair boughs in the wood, 
 How few days have arrayed 
 
 their beauty in green shade! 
 
 The golden willows lift 
 
 their boughs the sun to sift: 
 
 Their silken streamers screen 
 
 the sky with veils of green, 
 
 To make a cage of song, 
 
 where feathered lovers throng. 
 
 Hearing their song, I trace 
 
 the secret of their grace. 
 Ah, could I this fair time 
 
 so fashion into rhyme, 
 The poem that I sing 
 
 would be the voice of spring. 
 
 Robert Bridges. 
 
 jHE older poets loved to describe 
 May as a beautiful maiden, 
 clothed in sunshine and scattering 
 flowers on the earth, while she 
 danced to the music of birds and 
 brooks. 
 For example, Spencer wrote: 
 
 "Then came fair May, the fayrest mayd on ground, 
 
 Deckt all with dainties of her season's pryde, 
 And throwing flowers out of her lap around."
 
 44 Twelve Months With 
 
 It would be impossible for a poet to employ a 
 prettier or happier figure to express the freshness 
 and youthful beauty of the May time. Of course 
 the futurists and "cubists" of modern poetry never 
 write about anything so old and hackneyed as 
 "spring" or "May." They more often depend 
 upon genre pictures for inspiration for their vers 
 libre which probably accounts for their showing 
 so little of it ! 
 
 But to the real poet it was as natural as express- 
 ing his thoughts in rhyme to write of spring as a 
 beautiful maiden in all the fresh radiance of 
 youth. 
 
 "When the world that still was April 
 Was turning into May," 
 
 the transition was merely the fulfillment of the 
 wonderful promise of April. 
 
 The bud of April is the blossom of May. The 
 fresh fulfillment of so glorious a promise as April 
 holds could not well escape, in the order of nature, 
 its manifest destiny of fragrance and beauty. 
 
 May holds not the matronly maturity of June, 
 but it holds something sweeter and more lovable. 
 
 It is 
 
 "As if time brought a new relay 
 Of shining virgins every May." 
 
 Birds, like men, enjoy the beauties and the deli- 
 cious perfumes of May, and it is therefore not at
 
 The Birds and Poets 45 
 
 all strange that they prefer nesting and rearing 
 their little families among the May flowers. 
 Surely the beauties of nature were designed for 
 all creatures, as justly claimed by Christina 
 Rossetti : 
 
 "Innocent eyes not ours 
 
 Are made to look on flowers, 
 Eyes of small birds and insects small; 
 
 Morn after summer morn 
 
 The sweet rose on her thorn 
 Opens her bosom to them all. 
 
 The last and least of things 
 
 That soar on quivering wings, 
 Or crawl among the grass blades out of sight, 
 
 Have just as clear a right 
 To their appointed portion of delight 
 
 As queens or kings." 
 
 Man has always assumed a vast superiority 
 over all other created things, and has attempted 
 to establish it as a fact by making it a part of his 
 religion. To the Roman, all others are barba- 
 rians. To the Christian, all others are heathen. 
 To man, all other animals are inferior, and living 
 simply for his use and entertainment. Who knows 
 what the great truths of nature may be? As we 
 live and move upon our own little planet, man 
 appears to our vision to be nature's crowning 
 work, and we are now looking forward to a super- 
 man who shall eventually bridge the span between
 
 46 Twelve Months With 
 
 earth and heaven. Maeterlinck in his "Life of 
 the Bee" says : "We conclude that we stand on the 
 topmost pinnacle of life on this earth; but this be- 
 lief, after all, is by no means infallible." 
 
 As our little planet is probably the illimitable 
 universe of the ants, is it not quite as reasonable 
 to suppose our universe to be merely the little 
 world of some super-creature that we know not 
 of? The animals in "Alice in Wonderland" 
 seemed to regard Alice as an inferior because 
 of her different physical form. 
 
 I am quite sure the ants and many other tiny 
 creatures regard us as very awkward, clumsy, 
 elephantine, foolish folk, following after many 
 strange gods, and wholly missing the real pur- 
 pose of life, which is not to gain, but to be 
 success, merely to let life flow through us, in all 
 its fullness, in the same simple manner that the 
 flowers grow and the birds sing. 
 
 Emerson expresses this sentiment in "Musketa- 
 quid": 
 
 "Canst thou, thy pride forgot, like nature pass 
 Into the winter night's extinguished mood? 
 Canst thou shine now, then darkle, 
 And being latent, feel thyself no less?" 
 
 And Van Dyke prays for this power to live 
 naturally: 
 
 "By the faith that the flowers show when they bloom 
 unbidden,
 
 The Birds and Poets 47 
 
 By the calm of the river's flow to a goal that is hidden, 
 By the trust of the tree that clings to its deep 
 
 foundation, 
 By the courage of wild birds' wings on the long 
 
 migration, 
 (Wonderful secret of peace that abides in Nature's 
 
 breast!) 
 Teach me how to confide, and live my life, and rest." 
 
 Edwin Markham appropriately compares our 
 civilization with that of the ants, in a poem which 
 he has beautifully named "Little Brothers of the 
 Ground" : 
 
 "Little ants in leafy wood, 
 Bound by gentle Brotherhood, 
 While ye gaily gather spoil, 
 Men are ground by the wheel of toil; 
 While ye follow Blessed Fates, 
 Men are shriveled up with hates; 
 Yes, they eat the wayside dust, 
 While their souls are gnawed by rust. 
 
 Ye are f raters in your hall, 
 
 Gay and chainless, great and small ; 
 
 All are toilers in the field, 
 
 All are sharers in the yield. 
 
 But we mortals plot and plan 
 
 How to grind the fellow man; 
 
 Glad to find him in a pit, 
 
 If we get some gain of it. 
 
 So with us, the sons of Time, 
 
 Labor is a kind of crime,
 
 48 Twelve Months With 
 
 For the toilers have the least, 
 While the idlers lord the feast. 
 Yes, our workers they are bound, 
 Pallid captives to the ground; 
 Jeered by traitors, fooled by knaves, 
 Till they stumble into graves. 
 
 How appears to tiny eyes 
 
 All this wisdom of the wise?" 
 
 At least it becomes us not to magnify unduly 
 our own importance in the universe, and greedily 
 accept all the beautiful things of nature as our 
 rightful due, created expressly for our own par- 
 ticular use or pleasure, without at least showing 
 our appreciation and giving thanks! If we had 
 brought as much joy and beauty and harmony 
 into the world as the birds, we might then be 
 justified in claiming kinship with them, as Lowell 
 did when he recalled his untainted boyhood as the 
 time "when birds and flowers and I were happy 
 peers." 
 
 In this latitude the month of May is the very 
 height of the nesting and migration season. Per- 
 haps more birds nest with us in May than in any 
 other month of the year, and practically all of the 
 spring migration takes place between the fifteenth 
 of April and the first of June. 
 
 Our regular May birds, it seems, will not come 
 in April, no matter how favorable the weather 
 may be. I have often looked for some of the 
 usual May arrivals in April, because of early
 
 The Birds and Poets 49 
 
 warm weather, but the Baltimore oriole, the 
 scarlet tanager, the bobolink, many of the war- 
 blers and other birds will not come until May. 
 They are true to May, no matter how warm a 
 welcome April may offer them. 
 
 Contrary to the popular impression and the 
 early opinions of students of migration, tempera- 
 ture has but little influence upon the migratory 
 habits of the birds. Food supply is undoubtedly 
 the most controlling consideration. Those birds 
 whose favorite food can readily be obtained in 
 winter, uninterrupted by snow or other weather 
 conditions, are usually permanent residents, and 
 do not migrate southward in autumn. Birds have 
 wonderful breathing capacity, and hence great 
 animal heat, and seldom are seriously affected by 
 cold weather alone. Tiny chickadees, creepers 
 and nuthatches seem less inconvenienced by the 
 cold, sharp air of winter than we do. The food 
 of many birds is quite inaccessible in winter, how- 
 ever, and the ever-present and controlling impulse 
 of self-preservation unfailingly directs them to 
 their food supply. But, given an abundance of 
 its favorite food, a bird's movements no longer 
 seem to be governed by the calendar. Red-headed 
 woodpeckers, for example, were supposed to 
 migrate southward in the fall and pass the win- 
 ter south of Maryland, until Dr. Merriam, in 
 his interesting account* of the habits of this spe- 
 cies, tells that in one county in New York their 
 
 * Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, Hi, 1878, pp. 123-128.
 
 50 Twelve Months With 
 
 abundance in winter was in no way affected by 
 the seventy of the weather, but was entirely 
 dependent upon the success of the crop of beech- 
 nuts, which constituted their food. 
 
 Many of the nature poets refer to the birds as 
 seeking warmer climes. The subject of migration 
 very naturally appeals to the poet's imagination, 
 and the balmy air and sunshine of the southland 
 is a far more inspiring theme for the poet than 
 mere food, but the latter is the really practical, 
 essential, habit-producing thing, after all. 
 
 With all the scientific study and research that 
 has been given to the subject of migration of 
 the birds, especially during the last few years, 
 it still remains a mystery, and doubtless always 
 will, and it is not at all surprising that the poet's 
 imagination has been fired by it. One of the 
 most beautiful early- American poems was inspired 
 by a migrating bird, Bryant's lines "To a 
 Waterfowl": 
 
 "Whither, 'midst falling dew, 
 While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
 Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 
 Thy solitary way? 
 
 There is a power whose care 
 Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, 
 The desert and illimitable air 
 
 Lone wandering, but not lost.
 
 The Birds and Poets 51 
 
 All day thy wings have fanned, 
 At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere, 
 Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, 
 
 Though the dark night is near, 
 
 And soon that toil shall end; 
 Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest 
 And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall bend, 
 
 Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest." 
 
 Browning expressed the same faith in that 
 "power whose care" teaches his own path, as He 
 teaches the paths of the birds: 
 
 "I see my way as birds their trackless way. 
 I shall arrive, what time, what circuit first 
 I ask not * * * 
 
 In sometime, His good time, I shall arrive : 
 He guides me and the bird. In His good time !" 
 
 No other explanation than that given by these 
 poets has yet been offered for the unerring instinct 
 of the birds in seeking their old feeding grounds 
 and breeding haunts, often thousands of miles 
 removed from their winter base. 
 
 Many interesting facts, however, have been 
 established with reference to the regular semi- 
 annual migration of many of the birds, but how 
 they are able successfully to traverse such great 
 distances, often oversea for many hundreds of 
 miles, and return to the same area season after 
 season, is one of nature's riddles.
 
 52 Twelve Months With 
 
 Many influences, however, have a more or less 
 important bearing upon the migration of the 
 birds, among which may be mentioned coast lines, 
 river channels, food supply, sex impulses, hun- 
 ger, love, homing instinct, inherited or acquired 
 memory, temperature, storm conditions, magnetic 
 meridians, etc., all of which are good as far as 
 they go, but none of them, nor all of them together 
 can wholly account for the phenomenon. 
 
 The ancients observed that some birds visited 
 them only for short periods and at certain seasons, 
 but they apparently sought or found no explana- 
 tion for it, and some thought that the birds 
 hibernated, after the manner of certain animals 
 who thus survive the period when the food 
 supply is entirely cut off. 
 
 While flying is not the only way in which 
 animals migrate, it is the most effective, and most 
 of the birds are thus structurally well provided 
 with the means of escaping from the disastrous 
 effects of adverse circumstances, and in this way 
 nature has wisely provided against the necessity 
 for hibernation. 
 
 The fact that the birds are endowed with the 
 power of flight suggests some things which doubt- 
 less have had an influence upon the cause or 
 origin of migration. For example, this power 
 enables the birds to avoid many of their natural 
 enemies, and also to move rapidly from one feed- 
 ing ground to another. They have therefore 
 naturally traveled away from those things which
 
 The Birds and Poets 53 
 
 were disadvantageous to them, and sought condi- 
 tions that were more favorable. In the same 
 manner they formed habits of wandering in search 
 of food. In their wanderings, which gradually 
 have been extended over wider and wider areas, 
 they have discovered attractive feeding grounds 
 and suitable nesting places; and when to this are 
 added the other recognized influences, the cause of 
 or reason for migration is about as fully explained 
 as it ever will be. 
 
 When about to give birth to a calf, the domes- 
 ticated cow will sometimes break out of the barn 
 or yard and hide herself in the protecting woods 
 or brush. Although a pet cow, she will defend 
 the retreat against all comers, and allow no one 
 to approach her young. This action represents 
 a reversion to the habits of her wild ancestors, 
 forced to the surface by the great elemental fact 
 of reproduction. Many wild animals act in a 
 similar manner under these circumstances, often 
 travelling considerable distances. I have some- 
 times wondered if it might not have been a simi- 
 lar elemental impulse in the birds which in the 
 dim past was the real cause or origin of the present 
 fixed habit of long-distance migration. The ease 
 with which the birds might respond to this impulse, 
 with their wonderful powers of flight, would make 
 such movements on their part most natural. 
 
 Certain it is that as our northern spring 
 approaches, the sex impulse, the strongest of all 
 animal impulses, upon which reproduction and
 
 54 Twelve Months With 
 
 the very existence of the species depend, over- 
 comes all other desires, and the bird grows restless 
 and, guided by the hereditary instincts mentioned, 
 it seeks its breeding area. 
 
 Wanderings in search of food or in response 
 to the sex impulse might, of course, lead in any 
 direction, and be entirely aimless, as originally 
 they doubtless were, but, following the course 
 most obviously to their advantage, the birds now 
 usually travel south in search of food, and north 
 in search of home, and these journeys have grad- 
 ually been extended until they now cover hundreds 
 of miles over both land and sea. 
 
 Some very interesting facts have been definitely 
 ascertained with reference to the height that birds 
 attain during migration, and the speed and dis- 
 tances traveled. Birds, in migrating, often ascend 
 to great heights, for which two principal reasons 
 have been assigned: first, that it increases the range 
 of vision, and, second, that they thereby reach a 
 zone or stratum of atmosphere in which flight may 
 be more easy. In 1888 Dr. Frank M. Chapman 
 published an account of certain observations made 
 by him, in which he calculated that the birds 
 traveled at heights varying from 600 to 15,000 
 feet. A number of the birds which he observed 
 were seen flying upw r ards, crossing the moon there- 
 fore diagonally, "these evidently being birds which 
 had arisen in our immediate neighborhood, and 
 were seeking the proper elevation at which to
 
 The Birds and Poets 55 
 
 continue their flight."* Beginning their flight, 
 birds have been observed flying upwards in an al- 
 most perpendicular direction, until they reached 
 heights beyond the range of the natural vision. 
 They usually rise to the greatest heights when start- 
 ing upon oversea journeys. 
 
 Ducks and geese normally travel at about 40 
 to 50 miles per hour, but Prof. J. Stebbins and 
 Mr. E. A. Fath made careful calculations from 
 observations with a telescope, and found that birds 
 passed at rates varying from 80 to 130 miles per 
 hour.f With favorable winds, even these rates of 
 speed are sometimes greatly increased. 
 
 The distances traveled by the birds, some of 
 them so tiny that one would think they would be 
 wholly lost in the wide blue expanse of heaven, 
 are very remarkable. The palm warbler, which 
 is a common migrant with us in May, nests in 
 Canada, 3000 miles from Cuba, its winter home. 
 It is a tiny bird, about five inches long, less than 
 half the size of a robin. Similar long trips are 
 made by many of the other warblers that are so 
 small that the ordinary casual observer never sees 
 them at all as they flit about in our treetops in 
 May and September. 
 
 The American golden plover nests along the 
 Arctic coast from Alaska to Hudson Bay, and 
 winters in Argentina, in southern South America, 
 8000 miles distant, and in the course of its migra- 
 
 Auk, 1888, p. 37. 
 
 t Science [New York], rriv., 1906, p. 49.
 
 56 Twelve Months With 
 
 tion to its winter home makes the longest single- 
 flight oversea journey of which we have any 
 record. This flight is from the coast of Nova 
 Scotia across the Atlantic southward to South 
 America, a distance of 2500 miles. These birds 
 have magnificent powers of flight, and Mr. G. H. 
 Mackay thinks, with reason, that in making this 
 long oversea journey under favorable conditions 
 they travel at a speed of from 150 to 200 miles 
 per hour. 
 
 The Eastern or Pacific golden plover winters 
 in certain islands of the Southern Pacific Ocean, 
 including the Low Archipelago, which is 5000 
 miles, by direct air route, but about 11,000 miles, 
 by way of its migration route from Alaska, which 
 is also the summer home of this species. These 
 two golden plovers, therefore, which are sub-spe- 
 cifically distinct, nest in Alaska little more than 
 one hundred miles apart, and one travels east 
 through Nova Scotia, and south 8000 miles to 
 South America, and the other travels south-west to 
 Siberia and China, and then south-east to the 
 islands of the southern Pacific, a distance of about 
 1 1,000 miles. These two birds, very similar in gen- 
 eral appearance, nesting in the same area, never 
 fail to separate into two distinct migrating groups, 
 one travelling south-west 11,000 miles, and the 
 other south-east 8000 miles, to winter homes as 
 remote from each other as they could well be in 
 two widely divergent species. 
 
 Our robin makes a leisurely 3OOO-mile trip twice
 
 The Birds and Poets 57 
 
 a year, taking about seventy-eight days for each 
 trip. 
 
 Most of the birds when migrating, travel at 
 night, and feed by day. Many of the most inter- 
 esting and reliable observations on record have 
 been made at lighthouses, and elsewhere by view- 
 ing with a telescope the face of the moon, across 
 which the birds have been seen flying. 
 
 Many of our summer residents may be called 
 half-migrating, for while they usually migrate 
 southward in the fall, and return in the spring 
 they sometimes remain in the north during the 
 winter, especially in neighborhoods where the 
 requisite food may be had, thus proving again that 
 food is the most controlling consideration in the 
 migration of the birds. Among the common birds 
 that sometimes spend the winters with us may be 
 mentioned the robin, blue bird, meadowlark, 
 junco, kinglets, cardinal, nuthatch, woodpeckers, 
 chickadee, goldfinch, and certain of the sparrows. 
 The casual observer seldom sees any of them in 
 winter, but to eyes that see and hearts that listen, 
 they frequently bring a message of gladness into 
 the dreary wastes of winter. I have several times 
 seen the robin in midwinter, and the other birds 
 mentioned are not infrequent winter residents or 
 transient visitants. A bird lover friend of mine 
 whose home is adjacent to a dense wood adjoining 
 a river, where the cardinals nest every summer has 
 induced one of these beautiful birds to winter with 
 him, by feeding him all summer and late into the
 
 58 Twelve Months With 
 
 fall until the bird apparently forgets to migrate to 
 a warmer clime. Many winter and semi-migra- 
 tory birds may be attracted to one's home in both 
 summer and winter by a regular practice of feed- 
 ing, and by a permanent basin of water for the 
 birds to use for drinking and bathing. 
 
 The birds one may see and enjoy in May are 
 bewilderingly numerous. One of my May favor- 
 ites is the Baltimore oriole. To my mind he is 
 one of the few birds possessed of all the known bird 
 accomplishments. He has brilliant plumage, a 
 beautiful song, and is a master in the art of nest 
 building. When I hear his first golden whistle in 
 the spring, when the tulips are in full bloom, I am 
 reminded of Fawcett's beautiful lines : 
 
 "How falls it, oriole, thou hast come to fly 
 In tropic splendor through our Northern sky? 
 
 At some glad moment was its nature's choice 
 To dower a scrap of sunset with a voice? 
 
 Or did some orange tulip, flaked with black, 
 In some forgotten garden, ages back, 
 
 Yearning toward Heaven until its wish was heard, 
 Desire unspeakably to be a bird?" 
 
 My young son, anxious to supply the robins 
 who had nested on our window ledge, with what 
 he thought was suitable material for their nest, 
 carried some fine threads of flax into the yard and
 
 The Birds and Poets 59 
 
 laid them in the grass where he hoped the robins 
 would find them, although the robin's nest had 
 long been finished, and was built of much coarser 
 material, but a pair of orioles espied it and eagerly 
 appropriated it for the delicately woven, pensile 
 nest which I, by this means, discovered they were 
 building in a neighboring elm. 
 
 When I hear the first oriole sing in the spring, I 
 feel an impulse to run out into the sunshine and 
 stretch my hands out to him in glad welcome. 
 The golden buoyancy of his song is an invitation 
 out doors and is as brilliant as his beautiful coat. 
 He seems to say : 
 
 "Come out beneath the unmastered sky, 
 
 With its emancipating spaces, 
 And learn to sing as well as I, 
 
 Without premeditated graces." 
 
 His song and his nest recall Lowell's beautiful 
 lines : 
 
 * * * f rom the honeysuckle gray 
 
 The oriole with experienced quest 
 Twitches the fibrous bark away, 
 
 The cordage of his hammock-nest, 
 Cheering his labor with a note 
 Rich as the orange of his throat. 
 
 High o'er the loud and dusty road 
 
 The soft gray cup in safety swings, 
 
 To brim ere August with its load 
 
 Of downy breasts and throbbing wings,
 
 60 Twelve Months With 
 
 O'er which the friendly elm-tree heaves 
 An emerald roof with sculptured eaves. 
 
 Below, the noisy World drags by 
 In the old way, because it must, 
 
 The bride with heartbreak in her eye, 
 The mourner following hated dust : 
 
 Thy duty, winged flame of Spring, 
 
 Is but to love, and fly, and sing." 
 
 Another favorite May bird, quaint and Quaker- 
 like in character, which I have loved since my boy- 
 hood days when every country bridge offered a 
 shelter for his nest, is the phoebe, of which, also, 
 Lowell sings : 
 
 "Ere pales in Heaven the morning star, 
 
 A bird, the loneliest of its kind, 
 Hears Dawn's faint footfall from afar 
 
 While all its mates are dumb and blind. 
 
 It is a wee sad-colored thing, 
 
 As shy and secret as a maid, 
 
 That, ere in choir the robins sing, 
 
 Pipes its own name like one afraid. 
 
 It seems pain-prompted to repeat 
 The story of some ancient ill, 
 
 But Phoebe! Phoebe! sadly sweet 
 Is all it says, and then is still." 
 
 The phoebe is homey, domestic and trustful, 
 and his quiet ways win the affections of us all. His
 
 The Birds and Poets 61 
 
 rather insignificant song "pewit phoebe/' "pewit 
 phoebe," is as humble as the bird himself. 
 
 Indeed, Witter Bynner, with characteristic 
 naivete, finds his very silence golden : 
 
 "Under the eaves, out of the wet, 
 You nest within my reach; 
 You never sing for me and yet 
 You have a golden speech. 
 
 You sit and quirk a rapid tail, 
 
 Wrinkle a ragged crest, 
 Then pirouet from tree to rail 
 
 And vault from rail to nest. 
 
 And when in frequent, witty fright 
 
 You grayly slip and fade, 
 And when at hand you re-alight 
 
 Demure and unafraid, 
 
 And when you bring your brood its fill 
 
 Of iridescent wings 
 And green legs dewy in your bill, 
 
 Your silence is what sings. 
 
 Not of a feather that enjoys 
 
 To prate or praise or preach, 
 
 O Phoebe, with your lack of noise, 
 What eloquence you teach!" 
 
 We are glad to have him return every year, as 
 he frequently does, to the same bridge, barn or 
 porch, and build his nest of moss and mud. The
 
 62 Twelve Months With 
 
 phoebes seem less numerous of late years, perhaps 
 because .the old fashioned wooden bridges have 
 been replaced by steel and concrete, and they are 
 not so often seen near houses and barns, except in 
 the country districts. They arrive in April, and 
 usually begin nesting about the first of May. 
 Their nests are frequently infected with vermin of 
 various sorts, which sometimes kill the young 
 birds, and this may account for their building a 
 new nest when rearing a second family. They are 
 not noted for meticulous housekeeping. 
 
 In addition to the phoebe, which is perhaps the 
 most common of our flycatchers, we have the 
 wood pewee, the Acadian, Traill's and least fly- 
 catchers, all of which are demure, drab-colored 
 birds with quiet, plaintive notes. The wood pewee 
 also "pipes its own name" even more distinctly 
 than the phoebe, a mournful, delicate whistled 
 "pee-a-wee" which may be heard at all hours 
 almost any day in the shady woods in May, or 
 indeed all through the summer, when other birds 
 are silent. Trowbridge has honored him with 
 these verses : 
 
 "For so I found my forest bird, 
 
 The pewee of the loneliest woods, 
 Sole singer of these solitudes, 
 Which never robin's whistle stirred, 
 
 Where never blue bird's plume intrudes. 
 Quick darting through the dewy morn, 
 The redstart trilled his twittering horn, 
 And vanished in thick boughs: at even,
 
 The Birds and Poets 63 
 
 Like liquid pearls fresh showered from heaven, 
 The high notes of the lone wood-thrush 
 Fall on the forest's holy hush: 
 
 But thou all day complainest here, 
 'Pe-wee ! Pe-wee ! peer !' ' 
 
 Next to the humming bird, this little flycatcher 
 builds the most exquisite little nest of all the feath- 
 ered kingdom. It is always flattened out on a single 
 horizontal limb, is only about an inch in height, 
 lined with the finest root fibre, and covered with 
 crustaceous lichens held together with cobwebs 
 and caterpillar's silk with such skill and art that it 
 is almost impossible to distinguish it from a moss- 
 covered knot, natureVown handiwork. 
 
 The soft, pensive, plaintive note of this little 
 bird, in the midday heat of a summer day in the 
 woods, when all other birds are silent, has a peace- 
 ful, quieting influence, like the cooling shades of 
 the forest where alone the song may be heard. 
 
 When feeding it sits on a dead or projecting 
 branch of a tree from which it darts at intervals in 
 graceful undulations among the shadows of the 
 wood, catching its insect prey, and returning to its 
 perch, where it repeats its feeble song, usually 
 accompanied by a quivering of the wings, and a 
 downward tilt of the tail. 
 
 The Acadian flycatcher is also quite common in 
 this latitude, more common than the Traill's or the 
 least flycatcher. Of course the most distinguish- 
 ing trait of the flycatchers, and the first aid to
 
 64 Twelve Months With 
 
 identification, is the characteristic habit of darting 
 from the limb of tree or bush into the air and snap- 
 ping at insects and then fluttering back to the perch 
 to watch for the next quarry. Most other insect- 
 eating birds gather the insects from the surface of 
 trees or leaves. The Traill's is about six inches in 
 length, the Acadian somewhat smaller, and the 
 least flycatcher, the smallest of them all, is little 
 more than five and a half inches in length. All 
 three have olive-green and fuscous or brownish 
 backs, and are somewhat difficult to distinguish, 
 but the least flycatcher may usually be identified 
 by its smaller size and its horn-colored lower man- 
 dible, which in the other two species named is 
 white or flesh colored. The Acadian is perhaps 
 the most often seen in the Mississippi Valley. 
 
 My first experience with the Traill's flycatcher 
 was an interesting one, and may aid other bird 
 students in distinguishing this little flycatcher 
 from some of its similarly marked congeners. One 
 late afternoon in May I was attracted by a small 
 bird, darting up from a low bush in pursuit of 
 insects, and although there were other shrubs near, 
 I noticed that he always suddenly darted back 
 after capturing his meal to the very twig from 
 which he had flown. On several occasions he 
 darted out in a horizontal direction from his 
 perch, snapped up the insect, and then although 
 there was an equally desirable perch directly 
 beneath him, he would precipitately dart back to 
 the identical bush from which he had flown, all
 
 The Birds and Poets 65 
 
 of which was done so suddenly that the little bird 
 appeared to be tied to a rubber band which vio- 
 lently jerked him back to his perch. Sometimes 
 he would fly straight up into the air three or four 
 feet above the shrub, and then tumble over and 
 dart down again, as if he had been shot in his 
 flight. I remember one of his side-flights was so 
 quick and sudden, I thought he had left the bush 
 and flown away, and my eyes followed the direc- 
 tion of his flight for some distance, until I suddenly 
 lost him. Glancing back at his old perch, I was 
 surprised to find him there cooly waiting for 
 another dainty winged morsel to appear. 
 
 I was not then familiar with this peculiarity of 
 the bird, nor with the bird itself, but I felt con- 
 fident that this marked characteristic would be 
 mentioned by some authority as a distinguishing 
 trait. I hurried to consult a number of the modern 
 authorities, and to my surprise found that none of 
 them mentioned this as the peculiar habit of any 
 of the flycatchers. At last I referred to the 
 authority of all authorities, Audubon, and there 
 I found it at once : "returning with marked sudden- 
 ness to the same place to alight." Audubon, one 
 finds, settles many things that all the rest know not 
 of. He spent all of his long life in the woods and 
 fields observing the birds, and his record of his ob- 
 servations is marvelously free from mistakes, and 
 wonderfully full of just what one wants to know 
 about birds. His wisdom is born of his own expe- 
 riences, and is not mere knowledge gathered from
 
 66 Twelve Months With 
 
 books written by others. The habit of returning to 
 the same perch is common to a number of the fly- 
 catchers, but the helter-skelter haste of the Traill's 
 in doing so is unique. 
 
 Therefore should you ever observe a little fly- 
 catcher busily engaged in darting after insects 
 among low trees or shrubs, and invariably return- 
 ing with sudden precipitation to the same perch, 
 you may be quite certain it is Traill's. 
 
 The kingbird, the most common of all of our 
 flycatchers, and much larger than those we have 
 been considering usually returns to the spot from 
 which he started in pursuit of an insect, but not so 
 precipitately, and he cannot, of course, be confused 
 with the Traill's flycatcher. The scientific name 
 of the kingbird is tyrant flycatcher, but while he 
 vigorously assails anyone who approaches his nest, 
 as any bird of courage and spirit will do, I think 
 this name is a base slander, because the crow is the 
 only bird against whom he seems to have a grudge, 
 and for this special antipathy he doubtless has a 
 very sufficient reason. 
 
 I recall one time finding a nest of this bird in a 
 tree overhanging a small stream in Northern 
 Indiana. While rowing in the stream, I passed 
 directly under the nest, which I could easily reach 
 by standing up in the boat. I stopped the boat by 
 clinging to the overhanging branches, and rising 
 looked directly down upon the mother bird sitting 
 on the nest, from which she refused to move until 
 I actually touched her back. She then merely
 
 The Birds and Poets 67 
 
 hopped over to an adjacent limb, and scolded 
 me, with wings half spread and eyes glistening. 
 The male meanwhile kept violently darting down 
 to within an inch of my head, and making more 
 fuss than his mate. The courage and spirit of the 
 two birds was an inspiring sight. I took some pic- 
 tures of the nest with the mother bird half repos- 
 ing upon it, with her wings partially spread as if 
 ready to battle for her young if need be. I never 
 got a camera closer to a mother bird on the nest 
 than on this occasion. I was actually compelled 
 to back away some distance, to get the proper focus 
 for the picture. 
 
 While the kingbird is thus aggressive and full 
 of spirit, I have never known him to be tyrannical, 
 in any proper sense, or even quarrelsome. 
 
 The great-crested flycatcher is a rare summer 
 resident. I have seen this largest and finest of our 
 flycatchers in the deep woods along our rivers and 
 on the sand dunes at the south end of Lake Mich- 
 igan. About May 29, this year (1916) I saw a 
 number of them noisily flying about in old dead 
 tree tops as if they were mating. Their calls are 
 loud and clear, and some of their notes resemble 
 the whistle of the cardinal, and others sound very 
 much like the trilling tree-toad notes of the red- 
 headed woodpecker. But they are just enough 
 unlike either to attract attention and arouse one's 
 curiosity, and of course when the bird, (which is 
 larger than the cardinal, and something of the 
 same shape) is once seen, with its crest, and plain
 
 68 Twelve Months With 
 
 grayish-brown coat, and sulphur-yellow belly, he 
 is easily identified. He always uses snakeskins in 
 his nest, which he builds in a hole in a dead tree, 
 and he usually leaves a piece of it hanging out of 
 the hole for the purpose, as claimed by some 
 authorities, of frightening away his enemies. 
 
 The yellow-billed cuckoo is a common summer 
 resident arriving early in May. It is a long, thin> 
 dove-like bird, brownish gray in color, with a 
 slight greenish gloss, the long tail conspicuously 
 dotted with round white spots. He slips noise- 
 lessly into a tree, and disappears in its leafy depths 
 in an almost ghostly manner, and if you are able to 
 spy him out you will find him sitting absolutely 
 motionless, apparently in a sort of trance, from 
 which he awakes to hop stealthily about in search 
 of caterpillars. His song is strikingly character- 
 istic, and suited to his spirit-like movements, a 
 monotonous and unmusical "k6<w, kow, kow/' or 
 "ko kuk, koo, koo, koo, kuk," which sounds a 
 good deal like two wooden balls being struck to- 
 gether. Although the European Cuckoo's song 
 differs somewhat from ours, Wordsworth's poem 
 "To the Cuckoo" is a beautiful and apt descrip- 
 tion: 
 
 "O blithe New-comer ! I have heard, 
 I hear thee and rejoice. 
 O cuckoo ! shall I call thee Bird, 
 Or but a wandering Voice?
 
 The Birds and Poets 69 
 
 Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! 
 
 Even yet thou art to me 
 
 No bird, but an invisible thing, 
 
 A voice, a mystery; 
 
 The same whom in my school-boy days 
 I listened to; that Cry 
 Which made me look a thousand ways 
 In bush, and tree, and sky. 
 
 To seek thee did I often rove 
 Through woods and on the green; 
 And thou wert still a hope, a love ; 
 Still longed for, never seen. 
 
 O blessed Bird ! the earth we pace 
 Again appears to be 
 An unsubstantial, fa'ery place, 
 That is fit home for Thee!" 
 
 The notes of the cuckoo are sometimes soft and 
 ventriloquous in quality and one is likely to be 
 misled into thinking that the bird is far away, 
 when he is hidden in the foliage close at hand. 
 Maud Keary expressed the same thought as to his 
 retiring, spirit-like character: 
 
 "Primroses and cowslips, 
 Bluebells and sweet may, 
 And a cuckoo calling 
 Far, far away. 
 
 Forget-me-nots and cresses, 
 In the streamlet blue, 
 Fly a little nearer, 
 O cuckoo, do !"
 
 JO Twelve Months With 
 
 Our cuckoos are not often heard "kooing" how- 
 ever, except in certain localities where they are 
 very plentiful. One is more likely, if he sees the 
 bird at all, to run into him by accident, as he slips 
 quietly about the deep shadows of the trees. He is 
 quite as active by night as at any other time, which 
 may account for his stealthy, almost bat-like move- 
 ments by day. 
 
 It is said that the cuckoo sometimes deposits its 
 eggs in the nests of other birds, after the fashion of 
 the cowbird, although I have never seen an 
 instance of it. When it does build a nest of its 
 own, it is a poor excuse a few loose sticks which 
 scarcely serve either to conceal the eggs or hold 
 the young when hatched. A pair of these birds 
 once built a frail nest of this character on a hori- 
 zontal limb of a maple tree in my front yard, 
 through which one could easily see the blue sky. 
 
 The black-billed cuckoo is also quite common, 
 though not so frequently seen as his yellow-billed 
 cousin. The birds are very similar in appearance, 
 the only conspicuous distinguishing mark being 
 the color of the bill. 
 
 May always brings an army of silver tongued 
 thrushes, and myriads of tiny tree-haunting war- 
 blers. The wood thrush is the finest songster of the 
 thrushes that spend the summer with us. Izaak 
 Walton's tribute to the nightingale is none too fine 
 for the wood thrush :
 
 The Birds and Poets 71 
 
 "Lord, what music hast thou provided for 
 the saints in Heaven, when thou affordest 
 bad men such music on earth?" 
 
 John Vance Cheney's "Wood Thrush" is a 
 classic among nature poems: 
 
 "When lilies by the river fill with sun, 
 And banks with clematis are overrun; 
 When winds are weighed with fern-sweet from the 
 
 hill, 
 
 And hawks wheel in the noontide hot and still; 
 When thistle tops are silvered, every one, 
 And fly-lamps flicker e'er the day is done, 
 Nature bethinks her how to crown these things. 
 At twilight she decides: the wood-thrush sings." 
 
 He is a common summer resident, and may be 
 easily distinguished by his uniformly brown back 
 and tail, and large round black spots all over the 
 breast. 
 
 The hermit thrush is a common migrant, but 
 unfortunately he never sings on his journey to the 
 north. He apparently saves his song for his mate 
 at the time of the home building, in the twilight 
 northern woods. 
 
 As Lowell says : 
 
 "Through the dim arbor, himself more dim, 
 Silently hops the hermit thrush." 
 
 Some day I am going to take a train for the 
 north woods where he nests, just for the pleasure
 
 72 Twelve Months With 
 
 of hearing him sing, and then return home again 
 happy. As a songster, he certainly has no super- 
 iors, and very few equals. John Burroughs says 
 of his song: "It suggests a serene, religious beati- 
 tude, and expresses a deep and solemn joy which 
 only the finest souls may know." 
 And Cheney: 
 
 "Holy, Holy! In the hush 
 Hearken to the hermit thrush; 
 All the air 
 Is in prayer." 
 
 Nellie Hart Woodworth, in a similar spirit, 
 calls it the "Angelus" : 
 
 "Who rings New England's Angelus? 
 
 A little bird so plainly dressed 
 With robe of brown and spotted vest 
 He rings New England's Angelus." 
 
 While this rare spirit bird never favors us with 
 his wonderful song, he may often be seen late in 
 April and early in May, and his distinguishing 
 mark is his tail, which is conspicuously more red- 
 dish brown than his back. 
 
 Of the myriads of warblers passing through in 
 April and May to their nesting haunts, most of 
 them sing brief, warbling, insect-like notes, easily 
 heard by an alert bird-loving ear, but as easily 
 missed by others. 
 
 Among the warblers which may be seen in this
 
 The Birds and Poets 73 
 
 area may be mentioned the yellow, the black and 
 white, the black-throated blue, the black-throated 
 green, the magnolia, the myrtle, the bay-breasted, 
 the Blackburnian, the palm, the Tennessee, the 
 chestnut-sided, the cerulean, the blackpoll, the 
 Cape May, the Wilson's, the Connecticut, the Can- 
 adian, water thrushes, redstarts, Maryland yellow- 
 throats, etc. If these little feathered guests are 
 carefully looked for between April fifteenth and 
 June first, they may all be seen and identified with- 
 out much difficulty. Many of these varieties may 
 be seen in large numbers for the few days they are 
 with us, and most of them prefer woodland, brushy 
 pools, where they feed upon the tiny insects that 
 hover about the surface of the water. 
 
 Upon their return in September, they are not so 
 easily seen, because of the heavy foliage. Others, 
 like the prothonotary, blue-winged, golden- 
 winged, mourning and pine warblers may be seen 
 occasionally, but a sight of them is so rare an 
 occurrence that it may be considered an ornitho- 
 logical treat seldom to be enjoyed. 
 
 A few of the warblers remain with us during 
 the summer as permanent residents, including the 
 yellow warbler, Maryland yellow-throat, yellow- 
 breasted chat and the American redstart. 
 
 The Maryland yellow-throat is a friendly little 
 warbler, with bright yellow breast and head, and 
 a conspicuous black spot on the side of the head, 
 running back from the base of the bill. He is 
 usually quite tame, and will often comport himself
 
 74 With the Birds and Poets 
 
 with playful unconcern almost within reach of 
 one's hand, upon the low branches where he loves 
 to feed. I once approached within ten feet of 
 one perched upon an old dead weed stalk, and 
 watched him twitch about in his usual active quest 
 for insects. While perched on the stalk, he "about 
 faced" in exact soldier fashion on his perch, with- 
 out moving a fraction of an inch to the right or to 
 the left, and so quickly that I almost missed it by 
 winking. 
 
 This little warbler nests with us, and may be 
 seen in its favorite haunts until early in September. 
 
 When May has gone, with its host of warblers, 
 thrushes and other beautiful feathered visitors, its 
 sweet influence falls upon the spirit like a peaceful 
 benediction, and I think of Browning's exultation 
 over the beauties of May: 
 
 "Gone are they, but I have them in my soul."
 
 JUNE. 
 
 Far back in earth's gray dawn, 
 
 Before God's words 
 Had crystallized in suns, 
 
 Or stars had heard 
 
 That clear creative call, 
 
 "Let there be light 
 On all my works below, 
 For day and night" 
 
 When first earth's wrinkled face 
 
 Saw the white moon 
 Gleam on unfinished work, 
 
 There was no June, 
 
 But as the thoughts of God 
 
 Showed perfect spheres, 
 We think He called up June 
 
 To gem the years ! 
 
 Irene Elder Morton. 
 
 UR June is the month of the great- 
 est summer beauty, the month 
 when the trees are dressed in their 
 brightest and freshest garments, 
 and the flowers are the richest in 
 hue and profusion. It is the month 
 of birds of brilliant plumage, such as the scarlet 
 tanager, goldfinch, rosebreasted grosbeak, indigo 
 bunting, etc. The warmth of June's bright days 
 seems to bring out the ripe, mature colors of
 
 76 Twelve Months With 
 
 tree and flower and bird. Never a poet so humble 
 that he has not sung the beauties and glories of 
 June. It has been a favorite theme of poets from 
 Spencer to the modern imagists. Spencer, after 
 extolling the beauties of May, sings: 
 
 "After her came jolly June, arrayed 
 all in green leaves." 
 
 Coleridge calls it "the leafy month of June." 
 Leigh Hunt compares the beauties of May with 
 
 those of June, rather to the advantage of the latter 
 
 month : 
 
 "May's a word 'tis sweet to hear, 
 Laughter of the budding year; 
 Sweet it is to start and say 
 On May morning, 'This is May !' 
 But there also breathes a tune, 
 Hear it, in the sound of 'June.' 
 June's a month, and June's a name, 
 Never yet hath had its fame, 
 Summer's in the sound of June, 
 Summer and a deepened tune 
 Of the bees and of the birds, 
 And of loitering lovers' words, 
 And the brooks that, as they go, 
 Seem to think aloud, yet low; 
 
 O come quickly, show thee soon, 
 Come at once with all thy noon, 
 Manly, joyous, gypsy June."
 
 The Birds and Poets 77 
 
 The bees and the clover and the surge of summer 
 are often referred to in the poems celebrating the 
 month, for example, Mrs. Whitney's lines: 
 
 "Now it is June, and the secret is told; 
 Flashed from the buttercup's glory of gold, 
 Hung in the bumblebee's gladness, and sung 
 New from each bough where a bird's nest is swung; 
 Breathed from the clover beds when the winds pass; 
 Chirped in small psalms through the isles of the 
 grass." 
 
 After May, Emerson says : 
 
 "Then flows amain 
 
 The surge of summer's beauty; dell and crag, 
 Hollow and lake, hill-side and pine arcade, 
 Are touched with genius." 
 
 And William Vaughn Moody in his "Glouces- 
 ter Moors" has left us this exquisite description of 
 the beauties of which June is so prodigal: 
 
 "Jill-o'er-the-ground is purple blue, 
 Blue is the quaker-maid, 
 The wild geranium holds its dew 
 Long in the boulder's shade. 
 Wax-red hangs the cup 
 From the huckleberry boughs, 
 In barberry bells the grey moths sup 
 Or where the choke-cherry lifts high up 
 Sweet bowls for their carouse. 
 
 Over the shelf of the sandy cove 
 Beach-peas blossom late.
 
 78 Twelve Months With 
 
 By copse and cliff the swallows rove 
 
 Each calling to his mate. 
 
 Seaward the sea-gulls go, 
 
 And the land-birds all are here; 
 
 That green-gold flash was a vireo, 
 
 And yonder flame where the marsh-flags grow 
 
 Was a scarlet tanager." 
 
 Another modern poet, Angela Morgan, expresses 
 the rapture she feels for the beauties of a June 
 Day: 
 
 "Green ! what a world of green ! 
 My startled soul 
 Panting for beauty long desired, 
 Leaps in a passion of high gratitude 
 To meet the wild embraces of the wood; 
 Rushes and flings itself upon the whole 
 Mad miracle of green, with senses wide, 
 Clings to the glory, hugs and holds it fast, 
 As one who finds a long-lost love at last. 
 Billows of green that burst upon the sight 
 In bounteous crescendos of delight, 
 Wind-hurried verdure hastening up the hills 
 To where the sun its highest rapture spills; 
 Cascades of color tumbling down the height 
 In golden gushes of delicious light 
 God! Can I bear the beauty of this day, 
 Or shall I be swept utterly away? 
 
 Smite me, O Life, and bruise me if thou must; 
 Mock me and starve me with thy bitter crust,
 
 The Birds and Poets 79 
 
 But keep me thus aquiver and awake, 
 Enamoured of my life, for living's sake ! 
 This were the tragedy that I should pass, 
 Dull and indifferent through the flowing grass. 
 And this the reason I was born, I say 
 That I might know the passion of this day I" 
 
 And Riley adds: 
 
 "Month a man kin railly love, 
 June, you knowj I'm talkin' of." 
 
 i 
 
 Longfellow has given us a fine prose description : 
 
 "That delicious season when the coy and capricious 
 maidenhood of spring is swelling into the warmer, 
 riper and more voluptuous womanhood of summer.'* 
 
 All Nature seems to have a glad part in the 
 preparations of the birds for their summer nesting. 
 Through the sun and showers of April and May, 
 when the birds are coming up from the south and 
 noisily and joyously mating, in anticipation of the 
 domestic life which for them is to be Nature's ful- 
 fillment, the flowers, in sweet sympathy, are grow- 
 ing into the greatest beauty and profusion. The 
 trees, shrubs and grass in the same spirit are slowly 
 robing themselves in the full vesture of summer, 
 that they may offer themselves as suitable hiding 
 places for the little bird families that are to be. 
 
 At last when June comes, Nature seems gently 
 to whisper that she is ready. The happy, romping r
 
 80 Twelve Months With 
 
 noisy days of love making and courtship are ended, 
 and there settles down upon woods and fields the 
 peace and quiet of domestic life. 
 
 The more serious business of rearing the family 
 is at hand. No longer is every bush and tree vocal 
 with the music of birds, and if one would see them 
 he must now search them out in their favorite nest- 
 ing haunts, where he will find them often too busy 
 with household cares to give him much attention. 
 
 June is the great household month for the birds. 
 More nests may be found during this month than 
 in any other. To find the birds at this season one 
 must adopt the tactics of the fisherman. He must 
 go where they are. They will no longer come to 
 him at every turn in his morning's walk, but he 
 must find their meadow or woodland homes and 
 visit them there. 
 
 If the habits of the birds as to nesting are known 
 it is not difficult to find them and with them their 
 nests. At this season if a bird is seen regularly to 
 frequent certain bushes, trees or grass spots, of a 
 kind or in a location which it usually chooses for 
 its nest, a little patient, quiet observation will 
 reveal the bird's secret, especially when the nest 
 is being built or the young are being fed, for the 
 birds then make frequent trips to and from the 
 nest. 
 
 Rain fell almost constantly night and day, dur- 
 ing the first week of June this year (1916) with the 
 result that all the rivers and streams were over 
 their banks and all the bottom land whether of
 
 The Birds and Poets 81 
 
 marsh, or meadow or timber, was inundated, and 
 every piece of low ground in fields or woods was 
 transformed into a pond. It was a terrible tragedy 
 for thousands of birds whose homes were wiped 
 out by the floods. The meadows and fields were 
 filled with the nests of various sparrows, of bobo- 
 links, meadowlarks, dickcissels, etc., and the low 
 woodland shrubs held many nests of catbirds, 
 thrushes and other birds. The nests of hundreds 
 of shore and marsh birds such as sandpipers, bit- 
 terns, bank swallows, kingfishers, rails, etc., must 
 have been swept away. Of course swollen streams 
 are common in the early spring, and at that season 
 little damage is done to the birds because few, if 
 any, are then nesting, but when such a flood comes 
 early in June, at the time when the nesting season 
 is at its height, the ruin which follows in its wake 
 is appalling. 
 
 Imagine the little complement of eggs of the 
 spotted sandpiper laid in the grass along the 
 water's edge, and the water rising until it carries 
 them off down stream; or the anxiety and conster- 
 nation which must come to the bank swallow or 
 kingfisher who watches the tide rising steadily but 
 irresistibly to the opening in the river bank which 
 leads to her nest of eggs or young, while she sits 
 by powerless to prevent it; or what must be the 
 feelings of the usually jocund and hilarious bobo- 
 link who has joyously built his snug little nest close 
 among the thick grass or clover, to find the meadow 
 transformed into a pond, in which he cannot even
 
 82 Twelve Months With 
 
 discern the geography of the field which he had 
 selected as a fit place for his nest? I have often 
 seen field birds, after heavy rains, which inundated 
 the low places in the meadows fluttering over the 
 water, as if puzzling their little brains to locate the 
 nest which was covered with water, or sitting dis- 
 consolate on a bush or tuft of grass near by appar- 
 ently confused and dumb with grief at the 
 inexplicable tragedy which had befallen them. 
 
 After the heavy rains, which I have mentioned, 
 had abated I found many broken eggs and dead 
 young birds in the grass and on the sidewalks under 
 the trees. I also found, ten days or two weeks 
 later, new nests which were evidently built to 
 replace those destroyed, because they were later 
 than the normal nesting dates of the birds. 
 
 Shortly before the high water came I found the 
 nest of a catbird with four eggs in a wild goose- 
 berry bush in a small grove in the valley of the 
 Desplaines River. When, after the storm, I took 
 my young son to see the nest, we found ourselves 
 unable to get to it on account of the water which 
 entirely surrounded it. Fortunately the nest was 
 high enough to escape the flood which surged 
 beneath, and if the mother bird kept the rain and 
 wind from destroying the nest, the little family 
 doubtless prospered. 
 
 The catbird is a really fine singer, whose song 
 resembles that of the brown thrasher, to whose 
 family (troglodytidae) he belongs. But as he 
 usually lazily contents himself with his cat-like
 
 The Birds and Poets 83 
 
 "mew" from which he derives his name, reserving 
 his song for the depths of the thick shrubs, it is not 
 very often heard, considering that he is one of our 
 most common birds. He can offer no suitable 
 apology for prostituting his fine vocal powers to 
 his monotonous "mew, mew" when his song would 
 make proud any bird so fortunate as to possess it. 
 
 "You, who would with wanton art 
 Counterfeit another's part 
 And with noisy utterance claim 
 Right to an ignoble name, 
 Inharmonious I why must you, 
 To a better self untrue, 
 Gifted with the charm of song, 
 Do the generous gift such wrong? 
 
 Oh ! you much mistake your duty, 
 Mating discord thus with beauty, 
 'Mid these heavenly sunset gleams, 
 Vexing the smooth air with screams, 
 Burdening the dainty breeze 
 With insane discordancies. 
 
 I have heard you tell a tale 
 Tender as the nightingale, 
 Sweeter than the early thrush 
 Pipes at day dawn from the bush, 
 Wake once more the liquid strain 
 That you poured like music-rain, 
 When, last night, in the sweet weather, 
 You and I were out together.
 
 84 Twelve Months With 
 
 Unto whom two notes are given, 
 One of earth, and one of heaven, 
 Were it not a shameful tale 
 That the earth note should prevail?"* 
 
 The catbird is a motherly, generous bird, often 
 playing the part of a foster parent, feeding and 
 caring for the young birds of other species that 
 have been deserted or are neglected by their right- 
 ful parents. Unlike his serene, reposeful cousins, 
 the thrushes, he has a restless, active tempera- 
 ment, always hopping and jerking his graceful 
 body about, all the while fluffing his feathers, and 
 indulging himself in droll pranks and sprightly 
 performances. 
 
 Mr. William Henry Venable's remarkable 
 poem, in which all the art of this bird's wonderful 
 song, as well as his characteristic movements are 
 so vividly portrayed, must be quoted in full : 
 
 "Prime cantante! 
 Scherzo ! Andante 1 
 Piano, pianissimo! 
 Presto, prestissimo ! 
 
 Hark! are there nine birds or ninety and nine? 
 And now a miraculous gurgling gushes 
 Like nectar from Hebe's Olympian bottle, 
 The laughter of tune from a rapturous throttle ! 
 Such melody must be a hermit-thrush's ! 
 But that other caroler, nearer, 
 Out rivalling rivalry with clearer 
 
 * Anon.
 
 The Birds and Poets 85 
 
 Sweetness incredibly fine 1 
 
 Is it oriole, red-bird or blue-bird, 
 
 Or some strange un-Auduboned new bird? 
 
 All one sir, both this bird and that bird; 
 
 The whole flight are all the same catbird! 
 
 The whole visible and invisible choir you see 
 
 On one lithe twig of yon green tree. 
 
 Flitting, feathery Blondel ! 
 
 Listen to his rondel! 
 
 To his lay romantical, 
 
 To his sacred canticle. 
 
 Hear him lilting! 
 
 See him tilting 
 
 His saucy head and tail, and fluttering 
 
 While uttering 
 
 All the difficult operas under the sun 
 
 Just for fun ; 
 
 Or in tipsy revelry, 
 
 Or at love devilry, 
 
 Or disdaining his divine gift and art, 
 
 Like an inimitable poet 
 
 Who captivates the world's heart, 
 
 And don't know it. 
 
 Hear him lilt ! 
 
 See him tilt ! 
 
 Then suddenly he stops 
 
 Peers about, flirts, hops, 
 
 As if looking where he might gather up 
 
 The wasted ecstacy just spilt 
 
 From the quivering cup 
 
 Of his bliss overrun. 
 
 Then, as in mockery of all
 
 86 Twelve Months With 
 
 The tuneful spills that e'er did fall 
 From vocal pipe or evermore shall rise, 
 He, snarls, and mews, and flies." 
 
 Despite his strange preference for mewing, 
 when possessed of so fine a song, he is a very 
 friendly, interesting bird, well worth cultivating 
 and cherishing as one of the most intelligent, and 
 delightful of our common summer residents. 
 
 I took a June walk of rather unusual interest 
 along the banks of Bailey Creek, a shallow stream 
 which empties into the Vermilion River near its 
 junction with the Illinois, and my adventures on 
 this occasion might be offered as an example of the 
 pleasures which await the bird student at this sea- 
 son of the year, if he will but seek them. In dis- 
 tance the walk did not exceed a mile, but when 
 in search of birds or their nests, one should saun- 
 ter, and, when a bird is seen, stop and watch it 
 long enough to observe the details of its plumage 
 and its habits. Therefore I sauntered this mile 
 up Bailey Creek, taking three hours for the trip, 
 and fifteen minutes for the walk back. Just 
 before the creek joins the Vermilion River, it 
 plunges over a precipitous rocky ledge, to a fall of 
 some thirty or forty feet, called Bailey Falls, below 
 which the water tumbles over huge boulders into 
 the river. My walk began at this point. I saun- 
 tered along at the edge of the water, which here 
 was very shallow, running over a wide bed of flat 
 shale rock. Before I had advanced a hundred feet
 
 The Birds and Poets 87 
 
 I observed a female spotted sandpiper just ahead 
 tipping and teetering up and down in vigorous 
 fashion in the shallow water. After watching her 
 a few moments, I approached quietly, but she 
 refused to fly, and instead uttered two or three 
 sharp alarm notes "peet-<weet! peet-<weet!" 
 whereupon I naturally surmised that either her 
 nest or a family of young birds was near. 
 
 Presently I discovered running about over the 
 rocks, three young birds so small that I had over- 
 looked them; then their mother, uttering two or 
 three more alarm notes, led them hastily up the 
 rather steep bank into the grass. The young birds 
 were scarcely larger than the eggs which lately 
 held them, and were covered with thin gray down. 
 They almost constantly bobbed and teetered even 
 more vehemently than their mother, almost pitch- 
 ing themselves over. They must begin their tail 
 tipping by teetering themselves out of the eggs. 
 They certainly know all about it the moment they 
 are born. 
 
 At this time the father sandpiper having doubt- 
 less heard the mother bird's alarm notes from afar 
 came sailing down the creek, with a companion 
 bird which alighted on the opposite side of the 
 stream, while the head of the little family dropped 
 down at about the point where its members had 
 lately disappeared into the grass. Pausing a 
 moment, to look at me, he seemed to grasp the 
 situation, and uttering an alarmed "peet-isoeet" ran 
 up into the grass and joined his anxious loved ones.
 
 88 Twelve Months With 
 
 Shortly the male and female came out of the grass, 
 leaving the little ones in seclusion, and together 
 ran down to the water's edge, apparently quite 
 oblivious of me. They ran about with utter uncon- 
 cern, as much as to say "there is nothing of interest 
 to any one here, you might as well move on," but 
 very soon there began what appeared to be a spir- 
 ited argument between the two birds. They faced 
 each other, and raising their wings straight above 
 their heads "peeped" vigorously at each other. 
 The father bird was doubtless being scolded for 
 not properly looking after his family, and protect- 
 ing them against threatened dangers. But sud- 
 denly the mother bird's anxiety for her young 
 overcame her nonchalant strategy for me, and her 
 anger for her mate, and turning from him, she 
 looked earnestly toward the protecting grass for an 
 instant, and then hurriedly ran into it, evidently 
 concluding, after the argument, that she must take 
 care of the little ones herself. 
 
 The spotted sandpiper is the one commonly seen 
 along the shores of our inland streams, and is eas- 
 ily identified. It is ashy gray on the back, with 
 under parts all white, thickly covered with black 
 spots. Its note sounds like the noise made by a 
 frightened chick, and it always utters this note 
 when it takes flight up or down stream. Its flight 
 is an alternating flutter and soar, somewhat after 
 the fashion of the meadowlark, though more easy 
 and swallow-like.
 
 The Birds and Poets 89 
 
 Celia Thaxter's "One Little Sandpiper and I," 
 known to us all, is a classic among bird poems.* 
 
 As I passed on up the creek, the current became 
 slower, and the banks higher, and I kept a look- 
 out for bank swallows' nests, for I had already seen 
 a number of these birds darting about over the 
 water and the adjoining meadows. At the next 
 turn in the stream I saw one of them fly into a hole 
 in the bank, about three feet below the sod cornice, 
 and about six feet above the water. I walked along 
 the bank, and as I stepped on the spot directly over 
 the opening of the nest, the female bird fluttered 
 out with the familiar twitter which Bryant called 
 the "gossip of the swallows." I scrambled down 
 to the water's edge, and peered into the hole, which 
 was just two and one-quarter inches in diameter 
 at the opening. Having no mirror or artificial 
 light of any sort, I could not see the nest itself, 
 though some stems of heavy grass protruded to 
 within five or six inches of the opening, and the 
 nest appeared to be only about four inches farther 
 back. If so, it was unusually shallow, as the holes 
 are frequently two or three feet deep. Rather than 
 disturb the nest, or the approach to it, I adopted 
 another course to find out what was in it. Seating 
 myself on a stump near by, which commanded a 
 good view of the little round hole in the bank I 
 waited and within five minutes the female returned 
 and darted around the opening, making several 
 approaches to it without entering, apparently 
 
 * Copyright restrictions prevent its quotation.
 
 90 Twelve Months With 
 
 somewhat alarmed and suspicious because of the 
 marks I had left in the dirt. Finally her courage 
 and confidence returning she quickly darted 
 straight into the nest, as they usually do, without 
 alighting at the opening of the hole. I then waited 
 about ten minutes to see if she would come out 
 again, but she did not, and I therefore concluded, 
 probably correctly, that there were eggs in the nest 
 A large basswood tree had fallen into the stream 
 at this point, and the branches extended along near 
 the nest. I have noticed that frequently the nests 
 of this little bird are burrowed out adjacent to 
 fallen trees or roots in the bank, which they use as 
 a convenient perch, and which seem to determine, 
 in part at least, the location of the nest. 
 
 I discovered another nest a little farther up the 
 stream, on the opposite side in a similar bank, at 
 about the same height above the water. There was 
 a small overhanging bush near by, and some roots 
 running in and out of the bank, which several of 
 the birds were using as resting places between 
 flights up and down the stream. One male bird in 
 the group seemed bent on driving the father bird 
 away, and usurping his place in the affections of 
 the mother bird. The two male birds fought des- 
 perately, fluttering up through the air with bills 
 together; and then, tumbling down again until 
 they nearly touched the surface of the water, they 
 darted off in lively, spirited chase. They kept up 
 the fight for several minutes, and the unobtrusive 
 female, the apparent cause of all this discord,
 
 The Birds and Poets 91 
 
 looked on with utter unconcern, offering no aid in 
 the defense of her mate. Mayhap the female bird 
 is impressed with the prowess of the male who is 
 victorious in battles of this sort, for I have 
 observed a number of such altercations where the 
 female took no part, and seemed waiting and quite 
 ready to bestow herself upon the victor, whichever 
 it should happen to be. 
 
 Both bank and rough-winged swallows nest 
 every year in the canons in Deer Park near 
 Oglesby, Illinois, making their nests in the natural 
 crevasses of the sandrock strata which forms the 
 walls of the canons. The sand dunes and high 
 cliffs adjacent to the Great Lakes are also favorite 
 nesting resorts for the bank swallow. 
 
 This little bird is the smallest of our swallows, 
 and can be readily identified by its nesting habits, 
 and its size, and the conspicuous brownish gray 
 band across its upper breast. When perched on an 
 old root or branch, it appears to have no neck at 
 all, but merely a neat little cap-like head set down 
 upon its trim little shoulders. 
 
 The cliff and barn swallows are common sum- 
 mer residents. The purple martin is also common 
 where it is encouraged to build and is not driven 
 from the bird boxes by English sparrows. The 
 tree swallow, although a rare resident, is a com- 
 mon migrant in April and September. The latter 
 is conspicuously beautiful in his glossy green coat 
 and white vest, and the cliff and barn swallows are 
 easily distinguishable by their bright brown mark-
 
 92 Twelve Months With 
 
 ings. The long forked tail of the latter makes his 
 identification easy. 
 
 The swallows, by their darting, skimming, easy 
 flight have inspired a number of our poets to 
 express their longing for the power to fly, as this, 
 from Anna Boynton Averill : 
 
 "Oh, to feel the wild thrill of the swallow, 
 
 The wonder of the wing, 
 On the soft blue billows of air to follow 
 The summer, and soar to sing. 
 
 To drink blue air and to feel it flowing 
 Through every dainty plume 
 
 Uplifting, pillowing, bearing, blowing, 
 And the earth below in bloom. 
 
 Is it far to heaven, O swallow, swallow? 
 
 The heavy-hearted sings ; 
 I watch thy flight and I long to follow, 
 
 The while I wait for wings." 
 
 and these lines from Charlotte Smith : 
 
 "I wish I did his power possess 
 
 That I might learn, sweet bird, from thee, 
 What our vain systems only guess, 
 
 And know from what wild wilderness 
 Thou earnest o'er the sea." 
 
 But to return to Bailey Creek. A little farther 
 up stream I noticed a pair of phoebes sitting on 
 the exposed roots of a tree which hung out over the 
 water. Lying down on the bank, which at this
 
 The Birds and Poets 93 
 
 point was perpendicular and about eight feet high, 
 I watched the birds for about twenty minutes, hop- 
 ing and expecting that they would fly to their nest 
 somewhere among the roots. But the two little fly- 
 catchers only darted about snapping insects and 
 made no effort to approach their nest. I felt so 
 certain, however, that the nest would be found 
 among the roots, that without waiting longer I 
 climbed down the bank where I could examine the 
 roots closely, and looked them all over very care- 
 fully, and was considerably surprised and non- 
 plussed to find no nest. Exposed roots of this kind 
 are in high favor with these birds as nesting sites. 
 I went over every inch of the ground several times, 
 and peered into all the corners and grottos, and 
 examined every root individually, but no nest was 
 to be seen. I climbed up the bank again and 
 looked over the lower branches of the trees, but no 
 nest was visible. In desperation I got down again 
 under the roots, and extended my search farther up 
 the bank, when at last I caught sight of the nest 
 hung like a little round basket on a small root run- 
 ning along parallel to the bank, and about three 
 inches from it, the nest being saddled across the 
 root, and supported on one side by the perpendicu- 
 lar wall of the bank. It was almost directly under 
 the point where I had stretched myself on the bank 
 to watch the birds, which accounted for their 
 refusal to go near it. I laid myself down on the 
 sod above, and looked into the nest, which con- 
 tained four very young birds. The nest of mud
 
 94 Twelve Months With 
 
 was covered with very fine rootlets and moss, and 
 was one of the prettiest and cleanest phoebe's nests 
 I have ever seen. It was just about the color of the 
 adjacent bank, and was certainly in a very safe, 
 secure place. 
 
 Leaving the young family, which I feared might 
 by this time be hungry, I started through a little 
 grove which at this point bordered the creek, when 
 I heard what appeared to be a young bird of some 
 kind teasing for food. I soon located the bird on 
 a low branch of a maple tree. It was fussing and 
 teasing and fluffing its wings and feathers, after the 
 fashion of a young robin following its mother 
 about in the grass. Because of its obscure, imma- 
 ture markings I was unable to determine its iden- 
 tity. It was almost as large as a mature black bird 
 and resembled it somewhat in appearance. While 
 I was watching it a female field sparrow, not more 
 than half its size, flew upon the branch and fed 
 the bird a worm. I then knew that it was a young 
 cowbird, which had been hatched and reared by 
 the generous little field sparrow, and was still 
 imposing upon her kindness, although the young 
 bird was long since large and strong enough to 
 take care of itself. The poor little field sparrow 
 was worked almost to the point of exhaustion in 
 her efforts to satisfy the ravenous appetite of the 
 young cowbird who followed her about wherever 
 she went, teasing incessantly. The yellow warbler 
 and the vireos are also frequently imposed upon in 
 this way by the cowbirds.
 
 The Birds and Poets 95 
 
 The cowbirds are and ought to be outcasts in the 
 bird kingdom. They are outlaws and polygamists. 
 They travel about in groups of four or five and 
 never build a nest of their own. When a female 
 bird desires to deposit an egg, she leaves her com- 
 panions only long enough to seek out a convenient 
 nest of some other bird, where she lays her egg, and 
 then rejoins her companions, basely shirking her 
 duty and the responsibilities of motherhood, which 
 she shoulders upon some generous and unsuspect- 
 ing sparrow, towhee or other bird who knows no 
 better than to raise the young orphan with all the 
 care, affection and zeal which she bestows upon 
 her own legitimate offspring. Oftimes the young 
 cowbirds being twice the size of the other birds, 
 crowd them out of the nest, and devour most of the 
 food brought by the parent birds, to the very seri- 
 ous disadvantage of the young birds who are 
 entitled to the exclusive care and attention of their 
 parents. As stated, the young cowbirds partake of 
 the parasitic character of their unfaithful natural 
 parents, and compel their foster mother to feed 
 them long after they are abundantly able to care 
 for themselves and the other young birds have left 
 the nest to shift for themselves. By this circum- 
 stance the identity of the big clumsy young bird so 
 vigorously clamoring for food was quickly and 
 definitely established. 
 
 I know of no poem dedicated to this ignoble 
 bird and I would not quote it if I did. 
 
 It was an interesting adventure, however, and
 
 96 Twelve Months With 
 
 the pleasing note in it was the generous devotion 
 of the little field sparrow to an unworthy and unde- 
 serving fellow. 
 
 The cuckoo sometimes lays its eggs in the nest 
 of the sparrow or some other bird, and Shake- 
 speare puts into the mouth of the fool in King 
 Lear, this amusing reference to the same greedy 
 appetite which distinguishes the young cowbird : 
 
 "The hedge sparrow fed the cuckoo so long 
 That it had its head bit off by its young." 
 
 Resuming my walk up the creek, I noticed a 
 kingfisher sitting on an old dead stub above a high 
 bank, in which there were several holes one of 
 which looked promising. Crossing the stream I 
 examined the opening and found it marked with 
 bird tracks, and a few small fish bones, which led 
 me to conclude it was the kingfisher's nest. I 
 made no excavation, however, and the birds were 
 not seen entering or leaving, so that I was unable 
 to determine with certainty what the cavity con- 
 tained. One of the birds flew up and down the 
 stream, uttering its harsh rattle, resembling "tiny 
 castanets," such as Tennyson ascribes to the star- 
 ling. 
 
 Henry Van Dyke relates in rhyme how a certain 
 Vain King made a boastful wager with the River 
 God disguised as a peasant fisherman that he could 
 excel the fisherman in his art, and, upon losing the 
 wager was doomed to fish for minnows all his life,
 
 The Birds and Poets 97 
 
 "And still, along the reaches of the stream, 
 The vain Kingfisher flits, an azure gleam, 
 You see his ruby crest, you hear his 
 jealous scream." 
 
 In my boyhood days I doubt not I would have 
 dug into the hole for the purpose of making sure of 
 its contents, but the scientific exigency must be 
 strong and compelling indeed which would now 
 induce me to disturb a bird's nest, its eggs or 
 young. I confess to a good deal of eager curiosity, 
 however, as to the interior of that hole in the bank. 
 
 On the opposite side of the stream was a wide, 
 sandy point jutting into the water, dotted here and 
 there with tufts of grass and clumps of daisies. I 
 was not expecting any signs of birds at this point, 
 and was still somewhat under the spell of the king- 
 fisher, when a sparrow sprang up apparently some 
 ten feet in advance of me, which I thought at first 
 glance was a vesper sparrow, because of its con- 
 spicuous white tail feathers. Still I did not suspect 
 there was a nest, because of the unpromising char- 
 acter of the ground, altho' the bird when flushed 
 acted as if she had just left her nest. I stopped and 
 looked at the bird with my field glass, but it got 
 beyond the range of my glass before I had time to 
 examine it carefully. I glanced down at a small 
 tuft of grass at my feet, and there between two 
 daisy stems was the bird's nest containing three 
 white eggs, scrawled with dark spots. I was now 
 convinced that it was not the vesper sparrow,
 
 98 Twelve Months With 
 
 because the eggs of the latter are marked with 
 clear brown spots. The purple spots on these eggs 
 were so dark as to be almost black, and were 
 scrawled and strung out like the markings on the 
 eggs of the oriole. I was now very eager to see 
 more of the mother bird, so that identification 
 might be made certain. I sat down on a log a few 
 moments hoping she would return, but she did not. 
 I walked over to the phoebe's nest and watched 
 the birds feed their young a few moments and as I 
 started back I heard what sounded like young birds 
 teasing, and I thought it might be the young cow- 
 bird again. Upon looking up through the 
 branches I discovered an old dead stub with a 
 small hole in it, which seemed to be the place 
 whence the sound came. I stepped over and gently 
 rapped on the trunk and the teasing stopped 
 instantly. Waiting a moment, a female downy 
 woodpecker flew up and alighted just below the 
 hole, with her beak full of grubs for her young. 
 She paused a moment to look me over with some 
 apparent alarm, and then disappeared into the 
 hole. Very soon the male bird also flew up to the 
 hole with his beak full, playing the part of the 
 dutiful husband and father, in rather marked con- 
 trast to the neglect of the male spotted sandpiper 
 which I had observed earlier in the day. I once 
 timed a pair of downy woodpeckers feeding their 
 young, and found that each bird brought a grub 
 to the nest about every eight minutes, making the 
 feedings average one every four minutes.
 
 The Birds and Poets 99 
 
 Returning to the nest between the daisy stems, I 
 found the female on the nest. This time I made a 
 careful examination of her, and found it was a lark 
 sparrow, a very rare resident in this area. With 
 its nest there in the sand and gravel, I thought of 
 Edith Thomas' verse on the vesper sparrow: 
 
 "Upon a pasture stone, 
 Against the fading west, 
 A small bird sings alone, 
 Then dives and finds its nest." 
 
 The lark sparrow may be easily distinguished 
 from the vesper sparrow, for though both have the 
 white tail feathers, the former's tail is rounded, and 
 the tips of the outer feathers have more white, and 
 there are conspicuous white lines over the eye and 
 through the crown of the head. 
 
 Our camp hostess at Bailey Falls showed us a 
 cardinal's nest which she had discovered a few 
 days before about 100 feet from the camp. The 
 nest was about ten feet from the ground in a small 
 bush. The female bird stayed on the nest until we 
 pulled the branches aside to look at her, and then 
 she quietly slipped out on the opposite side. We 
 drafted an old table into service, and climbing 
 upon it looked into the nest, which contained three 
 pink-white eggs, marked with light brown spots. 
 The nest was made of strips of bark, coarse grass, 
 and rootlets, thrown together in neat yet careless 
 manner with all the art which the country lass 
 displays in doing up her hair.
 
 ioo Twelve Months With 
 
 It is a common misapprehension that our hum- 
 ming bird never alights, probably because it is 
 often confounded with the Sphinx moth, which 
 plays about the flowers in the evening. The mis- 
 take is not unnatural, and a correction is sometimes 
 received with incredulity. As a matter of fact, the 
 bird spends but a comparatively small part of its 
 time on the wing. Near our camp at Bailey Falls 
 a male humming bird perched day after day for 
 half an hour at a time upon a telephone wire. Evi- 
 dently there was a nest near by in which the little 
 outpost was interested, but we were unable to 
 locate the tiny thing in any of the neighboring 
 trees. It was doubtless there regardless of our 
 inability to find it. Because of its size, and the 
 fact that it is always saddled on a horizontal limb, 
 and covered with lichen and moss, it is very diffi- 
 cult indeed to discover, and except by the sharp- 
 est eyes will usually be mistaken for a knot on 
 the limb. 
 
 Humming birds are curiously fearless, and have 
 been known to feed upon sugar held between the 
 lips, and to probe a flower held in the hand. Not 
 infrequently they fly into houses, manifesting the 
 smallest degree of suspicion. Their white eggs 
 which are about the size of a navy bean, are so 
 fragile that egg collectors do not attempt to blow 
 them, as they do other eggs. 
 
 With its metallic ruby-red throat, and its shining 
 green back, it more clearly suggests the tropics 
 than any of our birds. Indeed, it is the only one
 
 The Birds and Poets 101 
 
 of an American genus of more than a hundred 
 species which ventures beyond the limit of tropical 
 climates. 
 
 George Murray's poem enquires: 
 
 "Com'st thou from forests of Peru, 
 
 Or from Brazil's savannahs, 
 Where flowers of every dazzling hue 
 Flaunt, gorgeous as Sultanas?" 
 
 And this reference to the valiant defense which 
 the female makes of her nest is wholly accurate: 
 
 "They say, when hunters track her nest 
 Where two warm pearls are lying, 
 She boldly fights, though sore distrest 
 And sends the brigands flying." 
 
 Of the many poems inspired by this beautiful 
 and dainty little bird, I quote the following by 
 John Banister Tabb : 
 
 "A flash of harmless lightning, 
 
 A mist of rainbow dyes, 
 The burnished sunbeams brightening, 
 From flower to flower he flies. 
 
 While wakes the nodding blossom, 
 
 But just too late to see 
 What lip hath touched her bosom 
 And drained her nectary."
 
 IO2 With the Birds and Poets 
 
 And these exquisite lines by John Vance 
 Cheney : 
 
 "Voyager on golden air, 
 Type of all that's fleet and fair, 
 
 Incarnate gem, 
 
 Live diadem ! 
 Stay, forget lost Paradise, 
 Star-bird fallen from happy skies 
 
 Vanished! Earth is not his home, 
 Onward, onward must he roam, 
 
 Swift passion-thought, 
 
 In rapture wrought; 
 Issue of the soul's desire, 
 Plumed with beauty and with fire." 
 
 As June departs this picture from Lowell's "Sir 
 Launfal" remains in my memory as the type and 
 symbol of this home month of the birds : 
 
 "The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 
 Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 
 And lets his illumined being o'errun 
 With the deluge of summer it receives ; 
 His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 
 And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; 
 He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, 
 In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?"
 
 JULY. 
 
 How well we loved, in Summer solitude 
 To stroll on lonely ridges far away, 
 Where beeches, with their boles of Quaker gray, 
 Murmured at times a sylvan interlude! 
 
 We heard each songster warble near her brood, 
 And from the lowland where the mowers lay 
 Came now and then faint fragrance from the hay, 
 That touched the heart to reminiscent mood. 
 
 We peered down wooded steeps, and saw the sun 
 Shining in front, tip all the grape-vines wild, 
 And edge with light the bowlders' lichened groups; 
 
 While, deep within the gorge, the tinkling run 
 
 Coiled through the hollows with its silvered loops 
 Down to the waiting River, thousand-isled. 
 
 Lloyd Mifflin. 
 
 ULY may properly be called the 
 month of rest among the birds. 
 With the nesting of May and June 
 over, the weary birds are enjoying 
 a well-earned rest, and the woods 
 and fields are almost silent, and 
 fewer bird notes and songs are heard and fewer 
 birds are to be seen in July than in any, except the 
 winter months. 
 It is the season of 
 
 "* * * stare-dumb dullness * * * 
 When e'en the cocks too listless are to crow.'
 
 IO4 Twelve Months With 
 
 By August the southward march of fall migra- 
 tion sets in, and the birds therefore become more 
 plentiful. July marks the weary close of the nest- 
 ing season, and the heat of summer seems to dis- 
 courage the few tired birds that favor us with their 
 society. Even the friendly musical robin is sel- 
 dom heard from the tree top at evening in the 
 cheering song with which he delights us in spring 
 and early summer. 
 
 Lowell says: 
 
 "The sobered robin, hunger silent now, 
 Seeks cedar berries blue, his autumn cheer." 
 
 I once attempted to raise a small family of blue 
 jays that for some reason had been deserted by their 
 parents, and since that arduous experience I have 
 had more respect for the industry and patience of 
 the birds in rearing their little families. The 
 quantity of food that three or four young birds 
 will consume from birth until they are ready to 
 fly, is really enormous, and the gathering of it 
 certainly leaves little time for rest or recreation for 
 the parents. 
 
 The nesting season is not wholly past by July, 
 because many of the birds rear two or three and 
 sometimes four broods of young birds, and these 
 later families are frequently found in July. Also 
 a few of our well known birds, although they have 
 been with us all season, do not settle down to 
 domestic life at all until July. I have often
 
 The Birds and Poets 105 
 
 observed that the second or third nests built late in 
 the season, noticeably of the robin and some of the 
 sparrows, are more carelessly constructed and lack 
 the art and comeliness of the first spring nests. 
 The female seems more anxious to deposit her 
 eggs than when making her first nest, which may 
 account in part for her more slovenly work. Fre- 
 quently the first brood have not yet started out for 
 themselves when the second nest is begun, so that 
 the attention of the parents is divided between the 
 young birds and the new nest. I have wondered 
 also if it were a part of the birds' instinct to know 
 that the first spring nest must be more carefully 
 and securely built in order safely to withstand the 
 more frequent and violent spring storms, against 
 which the buds and early leaves afford a some- 
 what inadequate protection as compared with the 
 heavy foliage of the summer months. 
 
 Among the more common songsters of July may 
 be mentioned the scarlet tanager, the indigo bunt- 
 ing, the rose-breasted grosbeak, the goldfinch, the 
 ubiquitous house wren and an occasional cardinal. 
 
 About the middle of the month a cardinal wan- 
 dered to my back yard, from her haunts along the 
 Desplaines River, and there "told her dream to 
 the dragon-fly" and to me, but these are rather rare 
 joys for July, for the cardinal is more often seen 
 in May and June, during the mating and nesting 
 season. While now common summer residents in 
 certain localities in Northern Illinois and Indiana, 
 twenty years ago they were rather rare. They pre-
 
 io6 Twelve Months With 
 
 fer the deep woods however and seldom in this 
 latitude wander near the habitations of man. 
 
 Cedar-birds nest with us in July, but they have 
 no song, and they no longer go about in small 
 flocks of five to nine birds as they do in the spring, 
 and therefore are not very frequently seen. I have 
 also found the yellow-billed cuckoo nesting as late 
 as the last week of July. 
 
 On the first day of July this year ( 1916) I visited 
 a small lake near Libertyville, 111., for the purpose 
 of observing a colony of yellow-headed blackbirds 
 which had nested there. These beautiful birds 
 were at one time quite plentiful in the area sur- 
 rounding Chicago and especially around Lake 
 Calumet, Indiana, but many of the large marshes 
 which these birds so enjoy have been drained, and 
 the birds are now rather uncommon. I was quite 
 happy therefore to travel some forty miles to pay 
 my respects to the colony at Libertyville. Their 
 nesting season was practically if not quite past; at 
 least I found no nests containing either eggs or 
 young birds, but the brightly colored male birds 
 were more tame than they are during the nesting 
 time, and I enjoyed their raucous, unmusical noise, 
 and their graceful antics in the marsh grass. These 
 blackbirds are more often seen in the fall, in small 
 flocks, on the ground sometimes in company with 
 cowbirds, but during the nesting season they 
 locate in colonies, in their favorite marshes. 
 
 The yellow-head is a beautiful blackbird, and 
 very appropriately named. The whole head, neck,
 
 The Birds and Poets 107 
 
 throat and breast of the male are bright orange yel- 
 low, with the region before the eye black like the 
 rest of his plumage. The white wing bars are 
 lower down than the red shoulder patch of his 
 cousin, the red-winged blackbird. 
 
 The red-wing, blithesome inhabitant of the cat- 
 tail marshes, companion of every boy who goes 
 fishing, is remembered in his "Lyrics of a Lad," by 
 Scharmel Iris: 
 
 "Fire bearer of the Gods! blue black 
 With flecks of sunshine on thy back! 
 Thou herald Mercury, with flame 
 Upon thy shoulders! Dost proclaim 
 In sweat and pangs the pregnant Night 
 Brings forth the wondrous infant Light? 
 
 When sunbeams dance in Dawn's ballet 
 Thou breakest through the blue of day; 
 A shaft of throbbing crimson flame, 
 Flown from God's Hand to earth ye came; 
 Darting bewildered woodlands through, 
 Unquenched by morning's pools of dew." 
 
 While not so musical as the red-wing, as he 
 "flutes his o-ka-lee," as Emerson so well expresses 
 it, the song of the yellow-head is a typical black- 
 bird song. Tennyson refers to the summer notes 
 of the blackbird as contrasted with his "silver 
 tongue" of early spring:
 
 io8 Twelve Months With 
 
 "And in the sultry garden-squares, 
 
 Now thy flute notes are changed to coarse, 
 I hear thee not at all, or hoarse 
 As when a hawker hawks his wares." 
 
 The usual raucous notes of the yellow-head are 
 not unlike a "hawker hawking his wares," rather 
 laborious and squeaky, yet with here and there an 
 agreeable whistle thrown in unexpectedly. 
 
 Upon the occasion of this visit to the yellow- 
 heads, I alighted from the train at a bridge over a 
 small stream, near which I expected to find the 
 colony of blackbirds. Before I had gotten down 
 the embankment I caught sight of a female blue- 
 bird carrying a grub to a hole in an old elm stub 
 beside the stream while the male bird was 
 
 "* * * shifting his light load of song 
 From post to post along the cheerless fence." 
 
 as Lowell so beautifully and aptly describes the 
 fluttering flight and bubbling song of this "April 
 poem that God has dowered with wings." 
 
 As the date was July first, this must have been 
 at least the third brood of young birds for this 
 pair, because they often begin nesting as early as 
 the first week in April. 
 
 A little farther down the stream, as I sat down 
 under an elm to rest and enjoy the cool shade for 
 a moment, I observed a pair of red-headed wood- 
 peckers regularly visiting an old dead sycamore, 
 and, upon inspecting the opposite side of the stub,
 
 The Birds and Poets 109 
 
 found the opening to the nest, some twenty feet 
 from the ground. 
 
 As I lay in the grass the hole in the tree was 
 just out of sight, but I could see the tail of the 
 bird protruding at right angles with the upright 
 trunk as it stopped momentarily on its way into 
 the nest, and, watching that particular point of 
 the side of the trunk, the bird's red head soon 
 appeared again. After a moment's survey it would 
 fly out to catch more insects for the young birds. 
 In addition to being a "grubber," the red-head is 
 quite an accomplished flycatcher, and during the 
 half hour that I watched this pair feeding their 
 young, they were almost constantly darting out 
 from the old dead branches of the sycamore, catch- 
 ing insects on the wing. Not once did I see either 
 bird alight, woodpecker fashion, on an upright 
 stem of tree or limb. 
 
 This was also a second or third brood, no doubt, 
 as the red-heads begin nesting from the loth to 
 the 1 5th of May. 
 
 The red-head is the most beautiful of our wood- 
 peckers, and Mr. Burroughs speaks of his flight 
 through the woods as "connecting the trees by a 
 gentle arc of crimson and white." 
 
 Resuming my saunter down the bank of the 
 stream, I came to an open grove in which were 
 a large number of thorn apple trees and bushes, 
 which seemed most favorable nesting places for 
 the cedar waxwing, and I resolved to keep a 
 sharp lookout for the little domicile of this July
 
 I io Twelve Months With 
 
 favorite. I had not walked far when I espied a 
 male cedar-bird perched upon one of the low 
 outer branches of a large elm, near which was a 
 large and very dense thorn apple tree. The male 
 bird uttered his well-known "beady note" several 
 times, and watched me anxiously, raising his crest, 
 as he frequently does when excited, and I con- 
 cluded there was a nest near at hand, where his 
 mate might be found. After watching him a few 
 moments without receiving any hint as to the 
 whereabouts of the nest, I approached the thorn 
 apple tree, and the male immediately flew over 
 the tree, showing considerable anxiety. After 
 careful search in the dense foliage I discovered 
 the nest out on the fork of a small limb, about 
 fifteen feet from the ground. The mother bird 
 was on the nest, her crest and tail appearing over 
 the edge. I pulled at the lower branches, but 
 she merely peered over at me with evident alarm. 
 I secured a stick and beat the foliage around her, 
 but she still refused to leave the nest. 
 
 The foliage of the tree was very dense, and, in 
 addition to its own closely hanging branches, a 
 large grape vine about three inches in diameter at 
 the base climbed up and wound itself among the 
 limbs, making an ideal place in which to secrete 
 a nest. Unable to curb my curiosity, I resolved 
 to climb, and, removing my coat to reduce, so far 
 as I might, the vulnerable surfaces for the wait- 
 ing thorns, essayed the ascent. I managed, with 
 a good deal of difficulty and after suffering a
 
 The Birds and Poets in 
 
 number of wounds, to get up among the smaller 
 branches, whereupon the female quietly slipped 
 out of the nest. The nest was far out, upon so 
 small a limb that I was just able to look into it 
 by climbing up near the center of the tree and 
 drawing the branches aside. It contained but one 
 egg, pale bluish-gray in color, spotted with umber. 
 The nest was therefore probably begun about the 
 25th of June, as the building usually consumes 
 about four days, and then four eggs are laid in as 
 many days, and the young birds are hatched within 
 two weeks of the time the first egg is laid. 
 
 The nest was a fine, soft structure, composed of 
 strips of bark, grasses, rootlets and moss, and lined 
 with finer materials of the same nature. 
 
 The descent from the thorn apple tree was a 
 good deal like withdrawing an embedded fish- 
 hook. All the thorns in the tree seemed to be 
 headed my way as I backed down between the 
 branches, and, not being able to see and avoid 
 them while making the return trip, the cedar-birds 
 were amply revenged by the good thorn tree for 
 the temporary annoyance to which I had subjected 
 them. 
 
 With the exception of the goldfinch, the cedar- 
 bird ,nests with us later than any of our birds, 
 seldom beginning to build until about the first of 
 July. No doubt the reason for this is that suit- 
 able food for the young cannot be found earlier 
 in the season, which is also the probable reason 
 for the similar delay in the case of the goldfinch.
 
 112 Twelve Months With 
 
 The cedar-bird is one of our earliest arrivals in 
 April, and yet it does not settle down to the serious 
 business of housekeeping until July. Some very 
 good reason, such as suitable food supply, must 
 exist for this very unusual practice. 
 
 The waxwing gets its name from the tipping 
 of bright red horny substance, resembling sealing 
 wax in appearance, on the short wing feathers, and 
 sometimes on the feathers of the tail. 
 
 Like the catbird, the cedar waxwing sometimes 
 shows its good will and brotherly love by feeding 
 the orphaned young of other birds, and on the 
 whole they should be classed among our most 
 gentle, refined and charming birds. Like the blue- 
 birds, flickers and some of the sparrows, they some- 
 times choose wild, remote places for their nests, 
 and at other times will select a fruit tree close to 
 house or barn. 
 
 Some reputable authorities contend that the 
 black tern does not subsist upon fish at all, but 
 upon this walk I observed two of these birds flying 
 over the river and the adjoining bottom land, and 
 one of them twice plunged head foremost into the 
 water, very much after the fashion of the king- 
 fisher, which would seem to be a wholly useless 
 performance if the bird were merely feeding upon 
 aquatic insects, as it is claimed it does. 
 
 The black tern is a beautiful, graceful bird, 
 with black head and body and slaty-gray wings. 
 The wings are very long and the body small and 
 the tail short, after the fashion of the swallow. It
 
 The Birds and Poets 113, 
 
 is sometimes called the black swallow, although 
 it is about twice the size of a barn swallow. It is 
 a not uncommon summer resident, usually nesting 
 adjacent to marshy lakes. 
 
 The western house wren is the species now so 
 common in all our suburbs and country towns^ 
 building in boxes erected on the lawns. I once 
 found a nest of this little bird in the side of a 
 straw stack, which presented a striking example 
 of the persistence of instinct. The house wren 
 always builds its nest of coarse sticks, and in build- 
 ing its nest in the straw stack the bird faithfully 
 followed the traditions of her race in this regard 
 and carried coarse dead twigs into the soft straw, 
 although the latter would have made a much more 
 suitable cradle for the eggs and young, but the 
 little wren, guided solely by instinct, was- not 
 capable of thinking this out for herself. 
 
 This bird sometimes nests in suitable holes 
 and natural cavities in the remote woods, and 
 I observed a pair back in the deep woods on the 
 occasion of my trip to Libertyville. When found 
 in the yards, in artificial boxes, it may be unmis- 
 takably set down as a house wren, but when seen 
 in the woods it must needs be distinguished from 
 the Carolina wren and the winter wren. This may 
 be done without much difficulty, because the Caro- 
 lina has a distinct white line over the eye, and 
 the winter wren is a migrant, to be seen only in 
 the spring and fall, and then always hopping 
 in and out under old stumps and logs in the
 
 114 Twelve Months With 
 
 woods. It is very short and stubby and notice- 
 ably browner than the house wren. The Caro- 
 lina wren has one of the most beautiful of all 
 bird songs, a clear, liquid whistle "<whee-dule! 
 vohee-dulel whee-dule!" - somewhat resembling 
 the whistle of the cardinal. 
 
 Early last spring I was delightfully entertained 
 for half an hour by a little winter wren which I 
 met in the woods. He was on his usual perch, 
 an old upturned, decaying stump. As soon as he 
 bobbed under one of the roots I quietly stepped 
 up close to the stump, without being observed, 
 and sat down to watch him, for I knew he would 
 soon bob out again on the other side of one of 
 the upturned roots. As I expected, he immedi- 
 ately hopped out and jerked his little tail about 
 and peered into all the dark holes and shadows 
 of the stump. After ducking under one root and 
 coming up again, he would jerk himself under 
 the next one, as pert and active as a jack-in-the- 
 box, wholly disdainful of my presence. This 
 characteristic habit, and his short, stubby body, 
 with his more brownish plumage and white wing 
 bars, mark him unmistakably as the winter wren. 
 
 The only other wren, in addition to those men- 
 tioned, which is common in this latitude is the 
 long-billed marsh wren. These saucy little inhab- 
 itants of the cattail marshes stay with us all sum- 
 mer. They nest in the marshes at the south end of 
 Lake Michigan, in the Calumet region, and similar 
 localities. They build a globular nest of coarse
 
 The Birds and Poets 115 
 
 grasses and reed stalks, which is strapped with 
 the same material to reeds or cattails, about eight 
 to twelve inches above the water, with the entrance 
 at the side. They are said to resort to the clever 
 strategy of building a number of nests, for the 
 sole purpose of misleading their enemies and 
 attracting them away from the real domicile. I 
 am constrained to concede them this wisdom, for 
 I have always found it necessary to look through 
 a number of equally promising nests before I 
 found one containing eggs. 
 
 The long-billed marsh wren is one of the most 
 active, nervous, excitable bits of feathered life one 
 ever sees. His song is louder and more musical 
 than the house wren's, but it is a typical rollick- 
 ing wren song, and after hearing the song I have 
 often watched the rushes whence the sound came, 
 unable to catch sight of the little reed-colored bird, 
 when suddenly he would virtually tumble up into 
 the air over the rushes, and as suddenly tumble 
 down again, out of sight, accompanying this aerial 
 performance with his rippling, bubbling, gurgling 
 song. At other times he will perch on a reed or 
 rush stem and, throwing his head back and his 
 tail straight up, sing until his little body is vibrant 
 with ecstasy. His tail is always brought straight 
 up in the air when he sings, unlike the house 
 wren, who brings his tail down while singing. I 
 once visited a colony of these birds near Millers, 
 Indiana, and while my companion and I were 
 watching one of them sing, he threw his little
 
 1 16 Twelve Months With 
 
 tail up and his little head back until they came 
 together over his back and played a little tattoo 
 accompaniment to his rippling song. 
 
 Any account of the July birds would be incom- 
 plete without mention of the American goldfinch, 
 the indigo bunting and the scarlet tanager, three 
 of the most conspicuous and beautiful summer 
 birds which sing more or less regularly all 
 summer. 
 
 The goldfinch, commonly called the wild canary 
 or yellow bird, is well known to all, and is easily 
 identified by its bright golden yellow body and 
 black cap, wings and tail. Its song is also charac- 
 teristic, closely resembling the notes of many cage 
 canaries. Its manner of flight is also unusual, and 
 will serve to identify the bird at a height where 
 its plumage is indistinguishable. Dr. Frank M. 
 Chapman gives a striking drawing in his "Birds 
 of Eastern North America," which shows the 
 characteristic combination of undulating flight and 
 song of this little bird. It is worth reproducing 
 here: 
 
 With each undulating movement of its flight the 
 little bird seems to shake out a "per-chic-o-ree," 
 which in turn seems to propel its little body ahead 
 for another undulation. This note made in flight 
 is not its real song, which is a fine, canary-like
 
 The Birds and Poets 117 
 
 varied melody, one of the most exquisite and dainty 
 of bird songs. England's poet laureate, Robert 
 Bridges, describes the song and flight of the 
 "yellow bird" in these delicately beautiful lines: 
 
 "What have I seen or heard? 
 
 It was the yellow-bird 
 Sang in the tree : he flew 
 
 A flame against the blue; 
 Upward he flashed. Again, 
 
 Hark! 'Tis his heavenly strain. 
 
 Another ! Hush ! Behold 
 
 Many like boats of gold, 
 From waving branch to branch 
 
 Their airy bodies launch. 
 What music is this, 
 
 Where each note is a kiss? 
 
 How the delicious notes 
 
 Come bubbling from their throats! 
 Full and sweet, how they are shed 
 
 Like round pearls from a thread! 
 The motions of their flight 
 
 Are wishes of delight." 
 
 Seed-bearing plants and thistles furnish them 
 with their favorite food of tiny seeds, and the 
 abundance of this food supply in July and August 
 probably accounts for their delay in nesting until 
 late summer. I once found a nest of the goldfinch, 
 with young, as late as the third of September.
 
 Ii8 Twelve Months With 
 
 The goldfinch's nest is composed of tender grass 
 and fine, slender strips of bark, and it is literally 
 filled with thistle down and silky materials for a 
 lining, upon which are nestled the dainty pale blue 
 eggs, like bits of blue sky peeping through fleecy 
 white clouds. 
 
 John Keats did not write many nature poems, 
 so called, but he chose a worthy subject when he 
 selected the goldfinch: 
 
 "Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop 
 From low hung branches; little space they stop, 
 But sip, and twitter and their feathers sleek, 
 Then off at once, as in a wanton freak; 
 Or perhaps, to show their black and golden wings, 
 Pausing upon their yellow flutterings." 
 
 Except when nesting, the goldfinches usually 
 travel about in flocks, but in July and August they 
 will be seen singly or in pairs, and almost every 
 despised thistle stalk by the roadside will be found 
 gloriously crowned with a goldfinch, either eating 
 the seeds or gathering down for its nest. 
 
 The indigo bunting is a trifle larger than the 
 goldfinch, with plumage of deep rich blue, tinged 
 with green, terminating in black on the wings and 
 tail. It may be seen almost any day in midsummer 
 on the margin of the woods, in the sun, which 
 position it seems greatly to prefer over the deep 
 shadows of the forest. Its beautiful warbling 
 song may be heard all through the summer at all 
 hours of the day, when most other birds seem
 
 The Birds and Poets 119 
 
 dumb and exhausted with the heat. Some of its 
 notes resemble the wiry, tenuous notes of the 
 goldfinch, but in general its song is much louder 
 and more open and warbler-like, and may be 
 suggested by "ch-ree! ch-ree! ch-ree! ch-ree! 
 ch-rah! rap-rep!" often ending with a jumble of 
 confused notes wholly untranslatable. 
 
 It feeds largely upon seeds, after the manner 
 of the goldfinch, and is readily reared in a cage 
 on the diet of the canary. 
 
 When nesting the male bird may be seen for 
 hours at a time perched upon a telephone wire or 
 low tree or shrub, singing joyously to its mate on 
 the nest near by. 
 
 It would not be summer without this blithe- 
 some little blue bunting, brilliant both in song 
 and plumage. 
 
 His blue plumage and glad song are celebrated 
 in the following stanzas by Ethelwyn Wetherald : 
 
 "When I see, 
 
 High on the tip-top twig of a tree, 
 Something blue by the breezes stirred, 
 But so far up that the blue is blurred, 
 So far up no green leaf flies 
 'Twixt its blue and the blue of the skies, 
 Then I know, ere a note be heard, 
 That is naught but the Indigo bird. 
 
 Blue on the branch and blue in the sky, 
 And naught between but the breezes high, 
 And naught so blue by the breezes stirred 
 As the deep, deep blue of the Indigo bird.
 
 I2O Twelve Months With 
 
 When I hear 
 
 A song like a bird laugh, blithe and clear, 
 
 As though of some airy jest he has heard 
 
 The last and most delightful word; 
 
 A laugh as fresh in the August haze 
 
 As it was in the full-voiced April days; 
 
 Then I know that my heart is stirred 
 
 By the laugh-like song of the Indigo bird. 
 
 Joy on the branch and joy in the sky, 
 And naught between but the breezes high, 
 And naught so glad on the breezes heard 
 As the gay, gay note of the Indigo bird." 
 
 The last of this trio of bright little midsummer 
 birds is by common consent one of the most beauti- 
 ful of all our birds the scarlet tanager. It is 
 the common "redbird" of our boyhood, almost as 
 well known as the robin, altho' far less common. 
 Except for black wings and tail, its body is almost 
 wholly a brilliant scarlet, and no aids to his iden- 
 tification beyond this are at all necessary. 
 
 Many poems have been written in praise of 
 him, from which I select the following, by Joel 
 Benton : 
 
 "A ball of fire shoots through the tamarack 
 In scarlet splendor, on voluptuous wings; 
 Delirious joy the pyrotechnist brings, 
 Who makes for us high summer's almanac. 
 How instantly the red coat hurtles back! 
 No fiercer flame has flashed beneath the sky,
 
 The Birds and Poets 121 
 
 Note how the rapture in his cautious eye, 
 The conflagration lit along his track. 
 Winged soul of beauty, tropic in desire, 
 Thy love seems alien in our northern zone; 
 Thou giv'st to our green lands a burst of fire 
 And callest back the fables we disown. 
 The hot equator thou might' st well inspire, 
 Or stand above some eastern Monarch's throne." 
 
 and the following beautiful lines by Mary Augusta 
 Mason: 
 
 "A flame went flitting through the wood; 
 The neighboring birds all understood 
 
 Here was a marvel of their kind; 
 And silent was each feathered throat 
 To catch the brilliant stranger's note, 
 And folded every songster's wing 
 To hide its sober coloring. 
 
 Against the tender green outlined, 
 He bore himself with splendid ease 
 As though alone among the trees. 
 The glory passed from bough to bough 
 The maple was in blossom now, 
 And then the oak remembering 
 The crimson hint it gave in spring, 
 And every tree its branches swayed 
 And offered its inviting shade; 
 Where'er a bough detained him long, 
 A slender, silver thread of song 
 Was lightly, merrily unspun. 
 From early morn till day was done 
 
 The vision flitted to and fro."
 
 122 Twelve Months With 
 
 Unlike the indigo bird, the tanager, during the 
 nesting season in July, prefers the depths of the 
 green woods. His mate is singularly unlike him 
 in appearance, the upper parts of her plumage 
 being light olive green, wings and tail dark gray, 
 and under parts greenish yellow. Florence A. 
 Merriam speaks of the male scarlet tanager as a 
 "bird of glowing coal, whose brilliancy passes 
 wonder." His song is a loud, cheery, rhythmical 
 carol, suggesting the song of the robin. 
 
 No day should be counted lost in which one has 
 seen a scarlet tanager! The oak and the sumac 
 refuse to deck themselves in their autumn colors 
 until the tanager has gone, lest they should suffer 
 by comparison! 
 
 One of the most common midsummer songs 
 about my home is that of the rose-breasted gros- 
 beak. This bird begins nesting the latter part of 
 May or early June, but continues to sing through 
 July. The song is generally compared to that of 
 the robin. If the robin sang its song with the 
 oriole's vocal equipment, I think the result would 
 be pretty close to the song of the rosebreast. In 
 short, the similarity to the robin's song is great 
 as to form, but the rosebreast's notes are much 
 more liquid and warbler-like, with the whistling, 
 fluting quality of the oriole. It is an exquisitely 
 pure carol and a perfect conductor of the bird's 
 happiness to one who is fortunate enough to hear 
 it. I once heard a robin answering the rosebreast's 
 call, evidently mistaking it for the song of its mate.
 
 The Birds and Poets 123 
 
 In the elm trees about our village this fine bird 
 may be seen all through the summer, hopping 
 about well up in the branches. He is so friendly 
 and unafraid that he will often continue his carol 
 in the trees above while one passes on the sidewalk 
 beneath. 
 
 Nuttall says that, with the solitary exception of 
 the mocking bird, he is not acquainted with any 
 of our birds superior in song to the rose-breasted 
 grosbeak. 
 
 The male rose-breasted grosbeak is easily iden- 
 tified by his bright rose-red breast. He resembles 
 a large sparrow in form and has a sparrow bill, 
 although it is heavier and stouter, with bristles at 
 its base. His head, throat, back and wings are 
 black, and his white rump and white tail feathers 
 are conspicuous. The female is more modestly 
 attired with colors less distinct, and a white line 
 over the eye. 
 
 The little olive green red-eyed vireo, with his 
 slaty gray cap and conspicuous white eye line, 
 is also a common summer resident, and in the 
 localities where he nests his song is incessant, 
 even during the heat of long summer days. Wil- 
 son Flagg's description reflects accurately the 
 character of this little bird's song: "We might 
 suppose him to be repeating moderately, with a 
 pause between each sentence, 'You see it you know 
 it do you hear me? do you believe it?' All 
 these strains are delivered with a rising inflection 
 at the close, and with a pause, as if waiting for
 
 124 With the Birds and Poets 
 
 an answer." The warbling and the yellow-breasted 
 vireos are also more or less common. The former's 
 song resembles the robin's, though it is more pure 
 and liquid in quality, and the latter is distinguish- 
 able by its larger size and bright yellow under 
 parts. 
 
 With these few choice summer songsters to 
 delight the long sultry days, we almost forget the 
 myriads of birds lost to us back in the new spring- 
 time, for, after all, July has a summer charm all 
 its own: 
 
 "A pleasing land of drowsy head it was, 
 
 Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; 
 And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, 
 Forever flushing round a summer sky."
 
 AUGUST. 
 
 All the long August afternoon, 
 The little drowsy stream 
 Whispers a melancholy tune, 
 As if it dreamed of June, 
 And whispered in its dream. 
 
 The thistles show beyond the brook 
 Dust on their down and bloom, 
 And out of many a weed-grown nook 
 The aster flowers look 
 With eyes of tender gloom. 
 
 The silent orchard aisles are sweet 
 With smell of ripening fruit. 
 Through the sere grass, in shy retreat 
 Flutter, at coming feet, 
 The robins strange and mute. 
 
 There is no wind to stir the leaves, 
 The harsh leaves overhead; 
 Only the querulous cricket grieves, 
 And shrilling locust weaves 
 A song of summer dead. 
 
 William Dean Howells. 
 
 ITH many of Nature's children, life 
 comes to its close with the success- 
 ful accomplishment of its sole pur- 
 pose for them, viz., reproduction, 
 or the bearing of fruit or seed. 
 This done, they leave their "out- 
 grown shell by life's unresting sea," willingly sur-
 
 126 Twelve Months With 
 
 rendering up their temporal, earthly forms, that 
 the divine purpose in them may be fulfilled. 
 Verily, everywhere in the midst of life there is 
 death. 
 
 As we observe the course of Nature through the 
 spring and summer months, with the regular and 
 immutable order of birth, growth and consumma- 
 tion, we are impressed with the indomitable per- 
 sistence of this all-pervading and all-powerful 
 supreme purpose in all living things. Truly, 
 "through the ages one increasing purpose runs." 
 While, therefore, the harvest and the increase 
 mean decay and death, they also mean hope's glo- 
 rious fulfillment and life's great purposes realized. 
 
 In August the birds and, indeed, all things in 
 Nature seem weary and spent with the toil and 
 travail of life. The birds drop their feathers or 
 change their brilliant vernal plumage for a more 
 sombre dress, the flowers fade, the foliage withers, 
 and ripened fruits and dry seeds replace the bright 
 blooms of summer. 
 
 There is something very beautiful about the 
 devotion of the birds to the yearly task which 
 Nature has set for them. For them, indeed, pro- 
 creation does not mean death and extinction, as 
 it does for some of the insects and lower forms 
 of animal life, but it means arduous toil each 
 summer through, which no one but the bird stu- 
 dent or naturalist really understands. With few 
 exceptions, the mating begins immediately upon 
 the birds' arrival from the south in the spring-
 
 The Birds and Poets 127 
 
 time, and, the courtship over, the serious domestic 
 life begins, and in most cases this family life, with 
 all its cares, ends only with the ripened fruit and 
 the golden leaves of autumn. The careless observer 
 is accustomed to think of birds as wild, care-free 
 creatures of the air, with little to do but soar and 
 sing, but he who has looked carefully into their 
 habits and followed them through the seasons 
 knows full well that when the frosts come, the 
 little feathered creatures have earned their winter 
 rest in the feeding grounds of the south. Many 
 birds rear two, three and sometimes four broods 
 of little ones in a season. When the United States 
 Bureau of Biological Survey estimates that one 
 brood of young chipping sparrows will consume 
 238 insects every day,* and it requires on an average 
 of three weeks for young altrices to reach the self- 
 supporting state, one may get some idea of the 
 amount of actual labor involved for the parents 
 during our comparatively brief summer. Is it 
 any wonder that by the first of August many of 
 them lay aside their feathers and forget their 
 songs? 
 
 The birds in this latitude come north for a home, 
 and go south for food. August marks the begin- 
 ning of the movement southward, and by this time 
 the young of most migrants are ready for the long 
 journey. 
 
 As early as the first days of July a number of 
 the common varieties of our birds gather in flocks 
 
 *Biol. Survey, Bui. 15, pp. 76-78.
 
 128 Twelve Months With 
 
 and wander about the woods and fields, feeding. 
 This early flocking habit of some of our birds 
 has no connection with migration. After the 
 young are grown and able to help themselves, 
 the young and old travel about together in search 
 of food, which is doubtless made necessary by the 
 increased number of birds, and the comparative 
 scarcity of food in particular localities. This 
 flocking habit is also due in some cases to the fact 
 that many birds, such as crows, grackles, swal- 
 lows, gulls, etc., roost every night in large numbers 
 at some favorite place at which they regularly 
 congregate. 
 
 I wonder if Marjorie Pickthall noticed this 
 flocking of the birds to a common roost when 
 she wrote: 
 
 "Oh little hearts, beat home, beat home, 
 
 Here is no place to rest. 
 Night darkens on the falling foam 
 
 And on the fading west. 
 Oh little wings, beat home, beat home, 
 
 Love may no longer roam." 
 
 This tendency to gregariousness is especially 
 noticeable in our common blackbirds, the bronze 
 grackles and the red-wings. Early in July a 
 flock of perhaps fifty grackles remained about 
 the neighborhood of my home for three or four 
 days, flying about in the trees and walking through 
 the grass in stately, dignified fashion, feeding upon 
 insects.
 
 The Birds and Poets 129 
 
 The bronze grackle, or common crow blackbird, 
 is a handsome creature. He never runs or hops, 
 but walks about as grave and dignified as a judge. 
 He greatly resembles his cousin, the purple 
 grackle, in appearance. Mr. Ridgway describes 
 the latter as "brassy olive or bronze," his neck as 
 "steel blue, violet, purple or brassy green," and 
 his wings and tail as "purplish or violet purplish." 
 Florence Merriam calls him the "black opal." 
 Seen in the shadow, he appears no more beautiful 
 than the crow, but when the sun's rays fall directly 
 upon his glossy back he reveals a beauty of plumage 
 almost tropical in the height of its coloring and the 
 brilliance of its sheen. "Tyrian purple is not like 
 unto the splendor of his dress." 
 
 Mr. Burroughs says of his song: "The air is 
 rilled with cracking, splintering, spurting, semi- 
 musical sounds, which are like pepper and salt to 
 the ear," which is an apt description of the late 
 season notes of either the grackle or the red-wing. 
 
 Lowell offers a similar description: 
 
 "* * * the blackbirds clattering in tall trees, 
 And settlin' things in windy congresses." 
 
 Early this month I observed a large flock of 
 red-wings gathering in a grove of maples in the 
 streets of a small village, and when the birds had 
 taken possession of the trees a saucy blue jay who 
 had preempted one of the trees was greatly dis- 
 pleased. Invoking his well-known powers of
 
 130 Twelve Months With 
 
 mimicry, he proceeded to make the "cracking, 
 splintering, spurting, semi-musical sounds" which 
 the blackbirds were emitting all about him, as 
 much as to say: "Those discordant notes are so 
 common and easy that any one can imitate them!" 
 
 Robins, swallows, jays, swifts and sparrows also 
 gather in flocks in late summer or early autumn, 
 sometimes in large numbers. Mr. William Brew- 
 ster records that he has seen as many as 25,000 
 robins sleeping together in one roost. Often as 
 early as June, flocks of robins, consisting of the 
 young of the first brood and the adult males, 
 may be seen roosting together, the females being 
 occupied with the care of the second family. 
 
 Mary Howitt, in "Birds in Summer," notices 
 this summer flocking habit of the birds: 
 
 "They have left their nests on the forest bough; 
 Those homes of delight they need not now; 
 And the young and the old they wander out, 
 And traverse their green world round about; 
 And hark! at the top of this leafy hall, 
 How one to the other in love they call! 
 'Come up! Come up!' they seem to say, 
 Where the topmost twigs in the breezes sway." 
 
 Like the hoarse call of the blackbird to which 
 Tennyson refers, most of the notes of our common 
 summer residents going about in flocks late in the 
 season are coarse and broken, with little of the 
 buoyant beauty and rollicking happiness of the 
 spring mating songs. Among the robins, for
 
 The Birds and Poets 131 
 
 example, one will hear the broken attempts of 
 the young birds learning to sing, mingled with 
 the listless, spiritless half-measured refrains of the 
 old birds. At this season the full evening hymn 
 of the robin, so familiar in spring and early sum- 
 mer, is never heard. Their songs are now at a 
 low ebb: 
 
 "The pulse that flutters faint and low 
 When summer's seething breezes blow." 
 
 Even the beloved bobolinks quit singing in July, 
 or limit themselves to a few unfamiliar notes. 
 These delightful birds come to us about the I5th 
 of May, and leave again for the rice fields of the 
 south, on their way to Brazil, about August 10. 
 It is not at all remarkable that opinion seems to 
 be well-nigh unanimous that the bobolink is one 
 of our most charming birds. Any comprehensive 
 anthology of bobolink poetry would in itself make 
 a volume of considerable proportions. Their bril- 
 liant black plumage, with white or cream buff 
 patches, the gurgling laughter of their song, and 
 their rollicking, topsy-turvy flight make up a group 
 of accomplishments and charms of which few of 
 our birds may boast. The fluttering flight over 
 the clover blossoms is always accompanied by the 
 bubbling song, as it "runs down, a brook o' laugh- 
 ter through the air," as Lowell happily expresses 
 it. And after witnessing this joyous performance
 
 132 Twelve Months With 
 
 we feel prompted to enquire with Helen Hunt 
 Jackson: 
 
 "I wonder what the clover thinks 
 Intimate friend of bobolinks?" 
 
 Thoreau gives us this characteristic description 
 of his song: "He is just touching the strings of 
 his theorbo, his glasschord, his water organ, and 
 one or two notes globe themselves and fall in liquid 
 bubbles from his tuning throat. It is as if he 
 touched his harp within a vase of liquid melody, 
 and when he lifted it out the notes fell like bubbles 
 from the trembling strings. Methinks they are the 
 most liquidly sweet and melodious sounds I ever 
 heard." 
 
 And Thomas Hill gives us these apt lines: 
 
 "A single note, so sweet and low, 
 Like a full heart's overflow, 
 Forms the prelude; but the strain 
 Gives us no such tone again; 
 For the wild and saucy song 
 Leaps and skips the notes among 
 With such quick and sportive play, 
 Ne'er was madder, merrier lay." 
 
 Any one familiar with the rapturous song of 
 the bobolink, as he flutters about among the clover 
 blossoms and teeters himself upon the meadow 
 grass and swings in the summer wind, will con- 
 fess to the accuracy of these descriptions of his
 
 The Birds and Poets 133 
 
 flight and song. During the mating and nesting 
 season he is one of the most hilariously joyful of 
 our summer residents. His bubbling song is so 
 overflowing with rapture that his trembling flight 
 over the clover tops seems the natural result of 
 his intense emotions. When no longer able to con- 
 tain himself, he drops down upon a clover stem or 
 tuft of grass and finishes his song on a more stable 
 footing than the thin air, which seems to be an 
 insufficient support for a bird possessed of such 
 delirious ecstasy. 
 
 It is very unfortunate that so fine a bird with 
 so infectious a song should unwisely select rice 
 as a favorite article of food, when there are so 
 many weed seeds which ought to be quite as 
 attractive a diet. By the first of September most 
 of the bobolinks have gone to the southern rice 
 fields. It is estimated by the Department of Agri- 
 culture that they annually destroy ten per cent of 
 the rice crop, and hence they are unfortunately 
 and with some reason considered the natural 
 enemies of the farmers, and large numbers of 
 "rice birds" are destroyed every autumn by 
 hunters. 
 
 In the case of the bobolink, however, Nature 
 again takes care of her own, for with all the 
 slaughter of the birds on their southward journey, 
 they are such successful home builders that there 
 seems to be no appreciable diminution in their 
 numbers from year to year, although they are now 
 less plentiful in some sections of New England.
 
 134 Twelve Months With 
 
 The bobolinks are also real pioneers, and while 
 now less numerous along the Atlantic coast, they 
 have traveled westward in greater numbers, even 
 so far as Nevada and Utah. 
 
 The bobolink's nest is perhaps more securely 
 hidden than the nests of any of our common birds. 
 It is always placed near the roots of deep grass 
 of luxuriant midsummer growth, usually well away 
 from the margin of the field, with nothing to mark 
 or trace it by but the nodding clover blossoms 
 or timothy tops, which are legion, and which all 
 look alike to one in quest of the nest It seems 
 that in many cases those birds whose struggle for 
 existence is most sharp are the most prolific, or 
 possess in the highest degree the art of concealing 
 their nests. Such birds as woodpeckers, orioles 
 and birds of prey, whose life struggle is less keen 
 by reason of their habits, seldom rear more than 
 one brood, while the sparrows, robins, phoebes and 
 thrushes frequently have two or three families of 
 young birds during the summer. Although the 
 bobolinks seldom if ever rear more than one 
 family of young in a season, and although large 
 numbers are shot by hunters, they persist and con- 
 tinue to be numerous, because of their unusual 
 skill in concealing their nests. 
 
 I remember an experience several summers ago 
 which illustrates the difficulties which confront 
 one in endeavoring to locate a bobolink's nest. 
 I was spending the month of June on a farm in 
 Southern Michigan. Every morning my walk
 
 The Birds and Poets 135 
 
 took me past a clover field which ran up to the 
 roadside, with no intervening fence. I had 
 observed a pair of bobolinks flying out of the 
 grass at almost the same spot every morning as 
 I passed along the road, and on one or two occa- 
 sions looked about in the clover, in a superficial 
 way, but found no signs of the nest. Continuing 
 to see the birds at the same point, however, and 
 feeling certain that the nest was there, I resolved 
 to find it if possible. One morning after a heavy 
 rain, when the grass was beaten down by the storm, 
 I marked off an area about forty feet square in 
 the clover, around the spot where I had so often 
 seen the birds, and in which I felt certain the nest 
 would be found. I then got down on my hands 
 and knees and crept through the patch of clover, 
 back and forth over the area I had set apart for 
 the search, looking into every clump of grass, and 
 covering as wide a strip as I could reach while 
 on all fours. On previous occasions, when flush- 
 ing the birds from the grass as I passed, although 
 I would hurry to the spot, they never seemed to 
 fly up from the exact location of the nest, which 
 had therefore remained a mystery. After going 
 over most of this area on my knees, feeling almost 
 every blade of grass with my hands, I at last found 
 the nest tucked in quite among the roots of the 
 clover. It contained five dead young birds, which 
 had evidently been drowned by the storm of the 
 previous night. 
 
 In speaking of the bobolink's art of concealing
 
 136 Twelve Months With 
 
 his nest, Mr. Burroughs says: "If I were a bird, 
 in building my nest I should follow the example 
 of the bobolink, placing it in the midst of a broad 
 meadow where there was no spear of grass or 
 flower or growth unlike another to mark its site." 
 
 His thoughtless, light-hearted, devil-may-care 
 spirit, from which you would scarcely suspect the 
 strategy he displays in secreting his nest, is inva- 
 riably the subject of the poems dedicated to him. 
 
 For example, Alexander McLachlan: 
 
 "How you tumble 'mong the hay, 
 Romping all the summer's day; 
 Now upon the wing all over 
 In and out among the clover 
 Far too happy e'er to think 
 Bobolink! Bobolink!" 
 
 And Lowell: 
 
 "Meanwhile that devil-may-care, the bobolink, 
 Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops 
 Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink, 
 And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops, 
 A decorous bird of business, who provides 
 For his brown mate and fledgings six besides, 
 And looks from right to left, a farmer mid his crops." 
 
 By August the bobolinks have either given up 
 their songs, or their few notes are so broken and 
 scattering as to be scarcely recognizable, and before 
 September comes they have all departed for the
 
 The Birds and Poets 137 
 
 south, to be seen no more in our meadows until 
 May. 
 
 Before leaving, the male puts on the sombre, 
 sparrow-like coat of the female, and the young, 
 following the usual order of nature, assume a garb 
 similar to that of the mother bird. When starting 
 south, therefore, the bobolinks are all dressed very 
 much alike. 
 
 The bobolink has many names given him at dif- 
 ferent points along his long migration route. In 
 the Delaware, Maryland and Virginia rice fields 
 he is called ricebird and reedbird. When he stops 
 off for a while in Jamaica in October, on his way 
 down to the head waters of the Paraguay River, 
 he is called the butterbird, because of his fatness, 
 and in Florida, where he arrives in April, on his 
 way north, he is called the Maybird. One of our 
 common names for him is skunk blackbird. 
 
 The bobolink's chief companions in the fields 
 during our summer, aside from the sparrows, are 
 the meadowlarks, the dickcissels and the bob- 
 whites. While the bobwhites may be heard 
 whistling in the wheat fields in August, the 
 meadow larks and dickcissels are mostly silent. 
 
 The dickcissel, sometimes called the little 
 meadowlark, is quite common in our meadows, 
 and may often be seen perched upon telephone 
 wires, fences, shrubs and trees bordering country 
 roads and lanes. It is not a characteristic August 
 bird, for few, if any, birds could be called char- 
 acteristic of this late summer month.
 
 138 Twelve Months With 
 
 They are the most numerous and the most 
 musical about the first of June. They resemble 
 in appearance a small-sized meadowlark, as they 
 have a black patch on the throat and a yellow 
 breast, and back streaked with black and pale 
 grayish-brown. Their manner of flying, however, 
 is wholly different, resembling more nearly the 
 irregular flight of the bobolink than the regular 
 alternate flutter and soar of the meadowlark. They 
 have the thick bill of the sparrow, and in 
 immature plumage may easily be mistaken for a 
 female bobolink or a large sparrow. There is 
 one sure guide to its identity, however, and that 
 is its song. It may be described as "Tsip! Tsipf 
 Tsee tsee tsee .tsee!" the first note higher than the 
 rest, and the last four notes running off almost 
 into a trill. 
 
 During the mating and nesting season this song 
 is repeated incessantly. The notes have a distinct 
 nasal quality and are earnestly and enthusiastically 
 rendered, time and again, the bird throwing its 
 head back and putting its whole soul into the 
 performance. 
 
 While the first nest of bobwhite is built in May, 
 I always associate him with the wheat fields of 
 July and August. Indeed, he whistles quite as 
 much then as earlier in the summer, calling to 
 his mate and to the large family of chicks they 
 have raised during the summer. 
 
 The poets have shown almost as much fondness 
 for bobwhite as they have for the bobolink, and
 
 The Birds and Poets 139 
 
 many of them associate him with the harvest, as 
 Hamlin Garland in his poem, "Wheat": 
 
 "When the quail whistles loud in the wheat fields, 
 That are yellow with ripening grain." 
 
 He is called the "siren of the fields" by Marion 
 Franklin Ham: 
 
 "Shrill and clear from coppice near, 
 A song within the woodland ringing, 
 A treble note from a silver throat 
 The siren of the fields is singing 
 
 Bob-bob-white ! 
 
 And from the height the answer sweet 
 Floats faintly o'er the rippling wheat 
 
 Bob-white !" 
 
 I once came upon a male bobwhite in a field 
 of wheat stubble, with a family of about a dozen 
 little ones, and before I could look twice the young 
 birds had squatted and scurried to cover, so that 
 not a single one of them was to be seen. 
 
 Trowbridge truly says: 
 
 "Quickly before me runs the quail, 
 Her chickens skulk behind the rail." 
 
 This wonderful faculty for sudden skulking out 
 of sight is also possessed by the grouse. The parent 
 bird, after giving the danger signal to the young, 
 usually flutters along the ground, with one or both 
 wings dragging, feigning injury, until one is drawn
 
 140 Twelve Months With 
 
 away far enough to give the brood time to skulk, 
 which they proceed rapidly to do, with marvelous 
 success. 
 
 Quails usually raise two broods of twelve or 
 more birds, and often the father bird conducts the 
 first little family of chicks about the fields, help- 
 ing them feed, while the mother lays and hatches 
 the second set of eggs. When the large family, 
 consisting of father, mother and two broods of 
 young, go about in August, and later in the hunt- 
 ing season, they are numerous enough to comprise 
 the covey so eagerly sought by the sportsman. At 
 night the family squats on the ground, the 
 younger and weaker birds in the center and the 
 older and stronger ones around the outside, 
 with tails to the center and heads pointed out- 
 ward. 
 
 Bobwhite has at least two calls in addition to 
 his well-known whistle, "Bob-bob-white/" One 
 "bob" is frequently omitted, and sometimes he 
 contents himself with a clearly whistled "white." 
 When a flock of quail is flushed and becomes scat- 
 tered about in the grass, if one quietly waits a few 
 moments he will hear them calling to each other 
 with three soft, cooing notes repeated several times, 
 about as follows: 
 
 with a little liquid gurgle connecting the first 
 two notes. By this means they learn the where-
 
 The Birds and Poets 141 
 
 abouts of the scattered company, and if undisturbed 
 will soon get together again. Riley refers to this 
 call of bobwhite : 
 
 "Watch * * * 
 
 the bobwhites raise and whiz 
 Where some other's whistle is." 
 
 The same poet, with a native accuracy all his 
 own, describes the peculiar flight of the bird: 
 
 "And the sudden whir and whistle 
 Of the quail that, like a missile, 
 Whizzes over thorn and thistle, 
 And, a missile, drops again." 
 
 The whippoorwill, another favorite of the poets, 
 is heard sometimes as late as September, although 
 he is more vocal in June and July. He reserves 
 his musical performances for the quiet of the 
 night, and spends his days in bat-like seclusion, 
 perched, unlike other birds, along, and not across, 
 a limb or fence rail. It cannot be properly said 
 that he perches at all, because he merely squats 
 down flat upon his daylight rest, sleepily awaiting 
 the soft rays of the moon to awake him to vocal 
 ecstasies. If aroused from his nap during the day 
 he awkwardly flops about through the trees and 
 brush, and suddenly drops down among the leaves 
 or dead logs, where the similarity of his dull 
 plumage affords him ample protection from his 
 enemies.
 
 142 Twelve Months With 
 
 Awakened one summer night, I heard the 
 whistle of a whippoorwill, and after I began 
 counting it repeated the call 327 times. It then 
 paused a moment, evidently for breath, and pres- 
 ently resumed with as much apparent zest as 
 before. Mr. Burroughs relates a similar expe- 
 rience, where even a much larger number of 
 calls were given in rapid succession, without 
 intermission. 
 
 "* * * Weirdly sounds the whippoorwill's wild 
 
 rhyme, 
 These nights of summer time." 
 
 A Canadian poet, Edward Burrough Brownlow, 
 has written one of the prettiest poems to this 
 quaint bird: 
 
 "When early shades of evening's close 
 The air with solemn darkness fill, 
 Before the moonlight softly throws 
 Its fairy mantle o'er the hill, 
 
 A sad sound goes 
 
 In plaintive trill; 
 
 Who hears it knows 
 
 The Whip-poor-will. 
 
 Repeated oft, it never grows 
 Familiar, but is sadder still, 
 As though a spirit sought repose 
 From some pursuing, endless ill.
 
 The Birds and Poets 143 
 
 The sad sound goes 
 In plaintive trill; 
 Who hears it knows 
 The Whip-poor-will." 
 
 The latter days of August bring renewed joy 
 and enthusiasm for the bird lover, for before the 
 first of September some of his many friends who 
 went to their northern homes in the spring are 
 back again on their return journey to the south, 
 and, except for the joyous springtime, no season 
 holds more of happiness for him.
 
 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 Sweet is the voice that calls 
 
 From babbling waterfalls 
 In meadows where the downy seeds are flying; 
 
 And soft the breezes blow, 
 
 And eddying come and go, 
 In faded gardens where the rose is dying. 
 
 Among the stubbled corn 
 
 The blithe quail pipes at morn, 
 The merry partridge drums in hidden places; 
 
 And glittering insects gleam 
 
 Above the reedy stream, 
 Where busy spiders spin their filmy laces. 
 
 Ah, soon on field and hill 
 
 The wind shall whistle chill, 
 And patriarch swallows call their flocks together,. 
 
 To fly from frost and snow, 
 
 And seek for lands where blow 
 The fairer blossoms of a balmier weather. 
 
 George Arnold. 
 
 HILE a few of our birds depart for 
 the south as early as July, Septem- 
 ber may properly be called the 
 favorite month for southward bird 
 travel. Under the harvest moon, 
 millions of warblers, vireos, fly- 
 catchers, sparrows and thrushes, seeking the pro- 
 tection of the night shadows, come out of the north
 
 146 Twelve Months With 
 
 and pass on to their winter homes in south tem- 
 perate and tropic latitudes. Also during the day 
 many of the more hardy species, including the birds 
 of prey, may be seen passing overhead upon their 
 long journey. 
 
 Mr. P. McArthur has dedicated a poem to the 
 autumn migration of the birds, from which I 
 quote these lines: 
 
 "From streams no oar hath rippled 
 
 And lakes that waft no sail, 
 From reaches vast and lonely 
 
 That know no hunter's trail, 
 The clamor of their calling 
 
 And the whistling of their flight, 
 Fill all the day with marvel, 
 
 And with mystery the night." 
 
 September, with its returning hosts from the 
 north, while it brings joy to the heart of the bird 
 lover, also brings its touch of sadness, for when 
 its days are gone many of the summer residents 
 have gone also, to return no more until spring. 
 
 But as they go we recall these reassuring lines 
 from Mrs. Sangster: 
 
 "They'll come again to the apple tree, 
 
 Robin: and all the rest, 
 When the orchard branches are fair to see 
 
 In the snow of blossoms dressed, 
 And the prettiest thing in the world will be 
 
 Th'e building of the nest."
 
 The Birds and Poets 147 
 
 As we have elsewhere observed, by far the larger 
 number of birds migrate at night. These include 
 the shore birds, thrushes, woodcock, warblers, 
 vireos, sparrows, tanagers and flycatchers, and 
 those birds of timid and retiring habits that are 
 less able to protect themselves against the hazards 
 of long flights by day, when they would be exposed 
 to the attacks of hawks and other enemies. In 
 their nesting haunts during the summer these 
 birds find little difficulty in protecting themselves, 
 among the thick summer foliage, against most of 
 their natural enemies, but in migrating the birds, 
 of course, ascend far above the protecting trees 
 and shrubs, and it seems to be their fear of attack 
 which has led them to await the cover of darkness 
 for their journey. Longfellow refers to these 
 night travels in his "Birds of Passage": 
 
 "But the night is fair, 
 And everywhere 
 
 A warm, soft vapor fills the air, 
 And distant sounds seem near: 
 
 And above, in the light 
 Of the starlit night, 
 
 Swift birds of passage wing their flight 
 Through the dewy atmosphere. 
 
 I hear the beat 
 Of their pinions fleet, 
 As from the land of snow and sleet 
 They seek a southern lea.
 
 148 Twelve Months With 
 
 I hear the cry 
 Of their voices high 
 Falling dreamily through the sky, 
 But their forms I cannot see." 
 
 And Cale Young Rice, in his epigram, "Lost" : 
 
 "The wild duck finds her way 
 Even at night: 
 Yet I cannot by day." 
 
 During the early part of this month, when the 
 harvest moon was at its full, I one evening visited 
 the top of a high building in Chicago, and from 
 twelve o'clock midnight until two o'clock A. M. 
 observed myriads of birds like tiny specks crossing 
 the face of the moon, and many passed so near that 
 their twitter and the noise of their wings was 
 distinctly audible. At the height of the migra- 
 tion season, either in the spring or fall, when the 
 moon is full and the weather favorable, one may 
 easily see, with the aid of a small telescope, many 
 birds cross the face of the moon. Dr. Frank M. 
 Chapman relates some interesting experiments of 
 this kind in which he timed the birds passing the 
 moon, that he might estimate the height at which 
 they were traveling. Some consumed three min- 
 utes in passing, indicating that they were flying 
 at a very great height. 
 
 Among the day flyers are many of the birds 
 that roost at night in flocks, such as crows, swal- 
 lows, chimney swifts, grackles, robins and jays.
 
 The Birds and Poets 149 
 
 Bluebirds, snow buntings and humming birds also 
 migrate by day. Ducks, gulls, geese, plover and 
 snipe travel by night or by day, as the fancy moves 
 them, depending largely upon weather conditions 
 and the opportunities for feeding. 
 
 The tiny humming bird, traveling by day, all 
 the way from northern United States to Central 
 America, is one of the many wonders of migration. 
 This little flash of tropic color is so small that he 
 often shelters his tiny lichen-covered nest under a 
 single leaf, and yet when autumn comes he boldly 
 darts away to his winter home, thousands of miles 
 distant, through 
 
 "The desert and illimitable air 
 Lone wandering but not lost" 
 
 Buffbn in his "Natural History" gives the 
 following exquisite description of the humming 
 bird: 
 
 "Of all animated beings this is the most elegant in 
 form and the most brilliant in colors. The stones and 
 metals polished by our arts are not comparable to this 
 jewel of Nature. She has placed it least in size of 
 the order of birds, maxime miranda in minimis. Her 
 master piece is the little humming-bird, and upon it she 
 has heaped all the gifts which the other birds may 
 only share. Lightness, rapidity, nimbleness, grace, and 
 rich apparel all belong to this little favorite. The 
 emerald, the ruby and the topaz gleam upon its dress. 
 It never soils them with the dust of earth, and in its
 
 150 Twelve Months With 
 
 aerial life scarcely touches the turf an instant. Always 
 in the air, flying from flower to flower, it has their 
 freshness as well as their brightness. It lives upon 
 their nectar, and dwells only in the climates where 
 they perennially bloom." 
 
 As we have elsewhere observed, this little bird 
 is singularly unafraid of man, and when feeding 
 seems entirely to ignore his presence. One cool 
 day in late August I had gone out on the lawn 
 and seated myself in the sun, to read. At my feet 
 some vines climbed over a pergola, among them 
 a scarlet runner, whose blossoms hung around my 
 book, not more than six inches from my knees. 
 Suddenly a ruby-throat flashed out of the blue 
 and hung in the air before one of the scarlet blos- 
 soms, thrust his slender bill far into the calyx and 
 daintily sipped its nectar. He then darted to other 
 flowers in rapid succession, as tho' he were fear- 
 ful some one would rob him of his treasure. He 
 was so near me I could have reached him with 
 my hand, but he appeared no more concerned 
 about me than if I had been a part of the natural 
 scene about him. While draining the honey from 
 one of the tiny flowers he suddenly discovered 
 that he was suspended immediately above a small 
 twig of the vine, and as suddenly dropped his little 
 feet upon it and perched there until he had robbed 
 the little cup of its sweets, when he darted away 
 and was lost to view, leaving me wondering 
 whether this was the visit of a real bird or some
 
 The Birds and Poets 151 
 
 brilliant fairy sporting in the summer sunshine. 
 The humming bird is a solitary, spirit-like, song- 
 less bird, and little is known about its migratory 
 habits. 
 
 "Thine is the nested silence, and the hush 
 That needs no song." 
 
 The orchard oriole and the American redstart 
 are the first of our birds to leave for the south. 
 
 The orchard oriole, while formerly common, is 
 now a rather uncommon summer resident, and 
 unfortunately it makes probably the shortest stay 
 at its nesting site of any of our birds. It arrives 
 early in May and leaves about the middle of July, 
 thus spending but two and one-half of the twelve 
 months of the year with us. 
 
 The orchard oriole, as his name implies, is fond 
 of fruit trees and orchards. He has not the bril- 
 liant feathers of his cousin, the Baltimore, but he 
 is a bird of the greatest refinement, both in song 
 and plumage. His coat is black and chestnut, 
 black head, neck, throat and upper back, and chest- 
 nut under parts and lower back. He is a dis- 
 tinguished songster, with an unusually rich and 
 flexible voice which he uses with rare skill and 
 expression. It is impossible to describe his song in 
 words, but once heard by any lover of bird music, 
 the bird will be sought out, and once seen he will 
 not soon be forgotten. 
 
 The redstart also leaves all too early. He
 
 152 Twelve Months With 
 
 departs as soon as his little family have learned the 
 art of flying, usually the latter part of July. Many 
 of them nesting to the north of us, however, may be 
 seen in the woods during their migration as late as 
 the first of October. 
 
 This brilliantly colored little inhabitant of the 
 woodlands is well named the "redstart" for he is 
 one of the most animated and active of all the 
 warblers. As he flits about among the leaves at the 
 edge of the woods, or in small patches of brush, 
 he seems to stop merely that he may start again, 
 a salmon flash among the green. In Cuba the 
 redstart's bright plumage has won for him the 
 name "Candelita," the little candle that flutters 
 in the depths of the tropical forest. The entire 
 upper parts, and the throat and breast of the male 
 are shining black, the wings and tail are margined 
 with salmon, and the sides of the breast and flanks 
 are deep reddish salmon. Even in Juvenal plum- 
 age the redstart is easily identified, for although 
 the salmon is then frequently replaced by yellow or 
 creamy white, the little bird has a very character- 
 istic habit of almost constantly fluffing and half 
 spreading his wings and tail, making his colors 
 very conspicuous. Dr. Chapman gives him a very 
 comprehensive description in a few words: 
 
 "Ching, Ching, Ghee; ser-ivee, swee, swee-e-e he 
 sings, and with wings and tail outspread whirls 
 about, dancing from limb to limb, darting upward, 
 floating downward, blown hither and thither like a 
 leaf in the breeze. But the gnats dancing in the
 
 The Birds and Poets 153 
 
 sunlight and the caterpillars feeding in the shade 
 of the leaves know to their sorrow that his erratic 
 course is guided by a purpose." * 
 
 Inasmuch as both the orchard oriole and the red- 
 start are summer residents in this latitude, they are 
 not to be considered among our true migrants, 
 although they migrate southward every summer 
 and northward again to their breeding sites in the 
 spring. 
 
 Among the most abundant of the true migrants, 
 nesting north of this latitude, and observed going 
 south in September, may be mentioned the 
 thrushes, warblers, white-throated, white-crowned, 
 and fox sparrows, juncos, kinglets and nuthatches. 
 This is by no means an inclusive list of our com- 
 mon September migrants, but during this month 
 one will seldom walk into the woods and fields 
 without seeing many of the birds mentioned. One 
 morning during the last week of September I 
 observed on my back lawn and within fifty feet of 
 my back porch a large number of white- throated 
 sparrows scratching about in the dead weeds and 
 grass, a flock of slate-colored juncos, also very busy 
 among the fallen leaves, a brown creeper, a red- 
 breasted nuthatch, a gray-cheeked thrush, a black- 
 throated green warbler, and a golden-crowned 
 kinglet, all of which are September migrants. My 
 yard is perhaps not above the average in attractive- 
 ness to the birds traveling southward, and similar 
 observations may be made almost any morning in 
 
 * Birds of Eastern North America, p. 375.
 
 154 Twelve Months With 
 
 September or early October, about any country or 
 suburban home. In the early morning these little 
 birds will be found very busily engaged in feeding, 
 for many of them have been journeying far by 
 night, and their tiny engines are much in need of 
 fuel to carry them over the next lap of the long 
 journey. The birds mentioned make but little 
 noise as they flit about in the trees or grass, save for 
 an occasional "chip!" or call note. Because of 
 their preoccupation in the arduous business of 
 feeding, the opportunities for observing them are 
 usually very favorable. Knowing they must be 
 here at this season the bird student will almost 
 invariably be rewarded for his pains, if he will but 
 go to their usual feeding places and seek them out. 
 . I have seen literally thousands of slate-colored 
 juncos this month scattered about everywhere, in 
 trees, shrubs and grass, and this year (1916) is no 
 exception to the rule as to the number of these 
 hardy little migrants. These birds are always seen 
 in flocks, except when breeding in the north, and 
 may be easily identified by their slate-colored 
 backs, dark heads and white outer tail feathers so 
 conspicuous in flight, and the flesh colored bill. 
 When disturbed they quickly make known their 
 displeasure by a sharp "check! check!" almost 
 staccato in quality, but when unmolested one more 
 often hears a rapidly uttered " chew-chew-cheiv," 
 indicating a very evident satisfaction with the won- 
 derful feeding grounds which they find here on 
 their way south. This little bird has little individ-
 
 The Birds and Poets 155 
 
 uality, and no striking characteristics which mark 
 it as peculiar in any way from the rest of the feath- 
 ered kingdom, either as to song, plumage or habits. 
 Arriving in late September, they stay with us until 
 the extreme cold weather comes, and inasmuch as 
 they return again as early as February, cheering us 
 with their company through several long weeks 
 when "woods are bare and birds are flown," it is 
 only natural that they should occupy a large place 
 in our affections, though their dress is plain, and 
 their song is seldom heard. A few of these juncos 
 remain with us during the more open winters and 
 will usually be found in company with snow birds 
 and winter sparrows. 
 
 Mr. Edward Clark relates an experience with 
 juncos in Lincoln Park, some years ago, which 
 demonstrates the unfortunate ignorance of chil- 
 dren with reference to our common birds. One 
 day in November he observed a large flock of 
 juncos scattered about in the grass in one of the 
 open spaces in the Park used as a play ground. 
 About a hundred students from the grammar 
 schools had congregated to witness a foot ball 
 game, and although the juncos were all about them, 
 none of the children seemed to notice them. Upon 
 calling their attention to the birds, he enquired of 
 one child after another what the birds were, and 
 most of them did not pretend to know, and those 
 who did hazard a guess, called them sparrows, 
 although the only possible resemblance between a 
 junco and a sparrow is that of size.
 
 156 Twelve Months With 
 
 Happily the schools of late years are doing much 
 to increase the knowledge and interest of the stu- 
 dents in our common birds, which also means a 
 large reduction in the number of birds wantonly 
 slaughtered by boys with sling shot and air gun. 
 
 The beautiful white-throated and white-crowned 
 sparrows, the aristocrats of the sparrow family, 
 have elsewhere received our homage and praise. 
 A friend once came to me with a description of the 
 white-throated sparrow which he called the 
 "wheelbarrow bird," because, he said, its whistle 
 resembled the squeak of a wheelbarrow long 
 unfamiliar with axle grease or other squeak elimi- 
 nating lubricant. The low whistle of this hand- 
 some sparrow is not wholly unlike the squeak of a 
 dry wheel, but when heard at close range it is clear, 
 beautiful and flute-like, although usually more 
 timid and hesitating than its mating song in the 
 north woods. Mr. A. West in his poem to this 
 bird calls him the "Northern Nightingale": 
 
 "Hark! 'tis our Northern Nightingale that sings 
 In far-off, leafy cloisters, dark and cool, 
 Flinging his flute-notes bounding from the skies! 
 
 Thou wild musician of the mountain-streams, 
 Most tuneful minstrel of the forest-choirs, 
 Bird of all grace and harmony of soul, 
 Unseen, we hail thee for thy blissful voice!" 
 
 The fox sparrow, one of the most beautiful of 
 his large family, is also an abundant migrant. He
 
 The Birds and Poets 157 
 
 is readily distinguishable by his large size and 
 bright rufous tail and brown back. He is often 
 found with small parties of juncos, and prefers the 
 hedgerows and meadow thickets. His song is not 
 surpassed by that of any of our sparrows. 
 Although it is said that he seldom sings in this lati- 
 tude, I have not infrequently heard his beautiful 
 song during the spring migration. Mr. Eugene P. 
 Bicknell describes it as "an emotional outburst 
 rising full-toned and clear, and passing all too 
 quickly to a closing cadence, which seems to linger 
 in the silent air." 
 
 The kinglets are appropriately named, because 
 both the golden and ruby-crowned are little kings 
 in their own right, with brilliant crowns upon their 
 tiny heads. The golden-crowned kinglet may be 
 distinguished from his cousin by his uniformly 
 lighter plumage, and the white line over the eye, 
 and his smaller size. Both are extremely small, 
 however, the golden-crown measuring about four 
 inches from the tip of his bill to the end of his tail, 
 and the ruby-crown being less than one-half inch 
 longer. The kinglets are the smallest of our birds, 
 with the single exception of the humming bird, 
 which measures about three and one-half inches. 
 The kinglets look considerably larger than the 
 ruby-throat, because their bodies are thick and 
 chubby. Except for the unusually long bill of the 
 humming bird, it would not measure over three 
 inches, whereas the bill of both the kinglets is short 
 and stubby. The kinglets' plumage is olive green
 
 158 Twelve Months With 
 
 on the back, and the ruby-crown has two whitish 
 wing bars, with a partly concealed bright red crest 
 in the midde of the crown. This red crest is 
 scarcely discernible, except when the little bird 
 tips his head toward the observer and the color is 
 caught in the rays of the sun, when it flashes out 
 with great brilliance and beauty. This crown 
 patch is absent with the female and immature 
 birds. In the center of the crown of the golden- 
 crown is a bright reddish orange patch bordered 
 by yellow and black, which in the male is quite 
 conspicuous. These delightful little birds are very 
 friendly and unafraid, as they hop around the tree 
 trunks and lower branches feeding upon micro- 
 scopic insects. These tiny balls of feathers are 
 occasionally seen in this latitude throughout the 
 winter, which is living evidence that, given an 
 abundance of food, temperature is a secondary fac- 
 tor in a bird's existence. The golden-crown may 
 often be heard singing during the spring migra- 
 tion. 
 
 Among the nuthatches, the white-breasted and 
 the red-breasted are both common migrants, and 
 according to my own observations the latter is the 
 more abundant. The former is also a not uncom- 
 mon summer resident, in the latitude of Northern 
 Illinois or Southern Michigan. Few birds are eas- 
 ier to identify than the nuthatches. Running up 
 and down the tree trunks they assume attitudes no 
 other bird would attempt and they accompany 
 these acrobatic feats with a loud nasal "yank.
 
 The Birds and Poets 159 
 
 yank" which usually tells us of their presence 
 before we see them. No other bird makes the same 
 noise, and once it is heard the bird may be easily 
 located and observed indefinitely for he is usually 
 too much interested in his own business of feeding 
 on small insects to pay any particular attention to 
 any observer. The nuthatch character seems 
 wholly devoid of all sentiment, and yet with all his 
 matter-of-fact ways, the white-breast cannot with- 
 stand the surging influences of spring, and at this 
 season he raises his voice in a peculiar monotone 
 which Dr. Chapman describes as "a tenor hah-hah- 
 hah-hah-hah, sounding like mirthless laughter." 
 
 As for the thrushes, if one will but go to the quiet 
 woods in early September and sit for a few 
 moments among the underbrush which they so 
 greatly love, he is more than likely to see two or 
 three varieties stealthily hopping about and shyly 
 peeping out from the protecting foliage. Among 
 the more or less common migrants may be men- 
 tioned the willow, the gray-cheeked, the olive- 
 backed, the Wilson's or veery and the hermit. 
 The first three named are quite similar in general 
 appearance, the colors of their plumage running 
 more into the grays, drabs, and olive, but the her- 
 mit is easily distinguished by his bright brown tail, 
 and the veery is more uniformly cinnamon brown. 
 Accurate identification of the other varieties is not 
 always easy, even with the aid of the most helpful 
 bird books, unless the bird is shot, and as for me 
 I would rather be possessed of doubts than possess
 
 160 Twelve Months With 
 
 a dead thrush! The aim of all real bird lovers 
 should be to realize the ideal of Emerson, which 
 prompted him to enquire: "Hast thou named all 
 the birds without a gun?" 
 
 As to the vast army of warblers which come 
 back to us in September, they are the same little 
 wood sprites which rejoiced our days in May and 
 June, and the more common ones which may be 
 seen in this latitude have already been mentioned. 
 It should be noted, however, that some migrants 
 have a different route in the fall from that trav- 
 elled in the spring, and this is true with reference 
 to one, at least, of the warblers, viz., the Connecti- 
 cut warbler. This little bird migrates northward 
 in the spring, up the Mississippi Valley, and south- 
 ward in the fall along the Atlantic coast except 
 that a few have been observed in autumn in the 
 area surrounding Chicago. This species is a not 
 uncommon spring migrant, but like the retiring 
 mourning warbler, it is not generally known as a 
 frequent visitor because it is a shy little bird and is 
 seldom found except in the bushy swamps and 
 heavy underbrush, where it is easily overlooked. 
 
 The warblers, at all times more or less puzzling 
 to the bird student because of their diminutive size 
 and their habit of hiding in the dense foliage of the 
 trees, are still more difficult to identify accurately 
 during the autumn migration because of the many 
 birds in Juvenal plumage, and because of the molt- 
 ing of the old birds, resulting in marked changes 
 in appearance.
 
 The Birds and Poets 161 
 
 The molting process of the birds after the nest- 
 ing season is most interesting. Of course if the 
 bird suddenly lost all its feathers, and then was 
 required to await the slow growth of new plumage, 
 it would not only suffer great inconvenience and 
 hardship on account of weather conditions, but its 
 power of flight would be entirely lost, and it would 
 fall an easy prey to its enemies. Among the flyers, 
 therefore, nature has wisely provided that the 
 molting shall proceed slowly and with regularity. 
 One feather in each wing is dropped at about the 
 same time, so that the bird's equilibrium may not 
 be disturbed, and when these two feathers are par- 
 tially replaced by new ones another feather in each 
 wing, in exactly the same relative position, is 
 dropped, and these again replaced, and so on until 
 the whole process is completed, with the result that 
 at no time is the bird lacking more than two full 
 wing feathers, and there is no impairment in flying 
 ability. The most remarkable transformation 
 wrought in the plumage of any of our common 
 birds by molting is in the case of the male scarlet 
 tanager, who, after rearing his young, changes his 
 beautiful scarlet coat for one of olive green, with 
 only his black wings and tail to distinguish him 
 from his mate. 
 
 Among the shore birds, the golden plover has 
 a different migration route for fall and spring, 
 travelling up the Mississippi Valley in the Spring, 
 and in the fall going south from Labrador and 
 Nova Scotia, across the Atlantic to South America.
 
 162 Twelve Months With 
 
 Like the woodchuck that lives upon its own fat in 
 winter, water and shore birds, making long over- 
 sea trips, live largely upon the fat with which their 
 bodies are stored in the rich feeding grounds of 
 the north. The American golden plover travels 
 slowly across the continent from Alaska to Labra- 
 dor, feeding all the way, and by the time it is ready 
 for its 2500 mile journey over sea to the south, it 
 is stocked with fuel fat, sufficient for its long jour- 
 ney. 
 
 A friend who has hunted the Pacific golden 
 plover in the Hawaiian Islands in the late fall, 
 tells me that when they arrive there they are poor 
 and thin, but that within a few days after their 
 arrival they have regained their normal amount of 
 fat. The American golden plover is sometimes 
 seen in Illinois and Indiana in the fall, but its 
 course of travel at this season is eastward and not 
 south, for they migrate southward only from the 
 northeastern coast of the United States. 
 
 There are various methods employed by the dif- 
 ferent birds in travelling to their winter homes in 
 the south. Some travel very rapidly, and cover 
 immense distances in a very short period of time. 
 Others travel slowly, and interrupt their trip with 
 more or less frequent stops of a day or sometimes 
 several days for feeding. Some travel singly, or 
 in pairs, some in company with birds of other 
 species, and still others travel in large flocks all of 
 the same species.
 
 The Birds and Poets 163 
 
 Some fly in close formation, like the ducks and 
 geese, and others move southward in loose flocks, 
 like the hawks. 
 
 One September morning as I was starting out for 
 a walk in the woods, I observed a red-tailed hawk 
 flying low over the village very much in the man- 
 ner described by Lowell : 
 
 "Silently overhead the hen-hawk sails, 
 With watchful measuring eye, and for his quarry 
 
 waits." 
 
 I had not expected a "flight" of hawks, and at 
 first noticed this one alone soaring low, evidently 
 in search of food. Presently, however, I saw two 
 or three more high in the heavens to the north and 
 after these had floated southward until they were 
 nearly over head, others were seen soaring into 
 view, circling about apparently in leisurely 
 fashion, and yet moving with a good deal of speed 
 in a general southerly direction. For at least an 
 hour I watched them as they continued to come 
 out of the sky to the north, three or four at a time, 
 until I had counted over a hundred, all soaring and 
 circling about in a graceful manner, and yet with 
 the ultimate southward movement, until one by 
 one they disappeared in the sky beyond. 
 
 Had the poet Wordsworth seen this flight of 
 hawks, the description which he gives in the fol- 
 lowing lines could not have been more graceful or 
 appropriate:
 
 164 Twelve Months With 
 
 * * Ever, while intent 
 On tracing and retracing that large round, 
 Their jubilant activity evolves 
 Hundreds of curves and circlets, to and fro, 
 Upward and downward, progress intricate 
 Yet unperplexed, as if one spirit swayed 
 Their indefatigable flight. 'Tis done 
 Ten times, or more, I fancied it had ceased; 
 But lo ! the vanished company again 
 Ascending. * * *" 
 
 This flight or migrating in loose flock formation 
 continued for nearly half a day, long after I had 
 continued to watch the birds. Most of them were 
 flying perhaps 500 or 600 feet high, but occasion- 
 ally one was seen flying low "with watchful 
 measuring eye." 
 
 These large hawks are much too dignified to 
 migrate in compact and hurried fashion, after the 
 manner of the ducks. It is quite in keeping with 
 their stately dignity gracefully to soar about, inde- 
 pendently of the movements of their fellows, and 
 yet, with a seeming reluctance born of a proud 
 spirit, accepting each other's society, because they 
 all were moved, and therefore more or less 
 attracted to each other by the common impulse to 
 migrate. Because of this loose flock method of 
 migration of the hawks, it is easy to overlook the 
 flight and to see one or two hawks only, but at this 
 season of the year these flights of hawks southward 
 may often be seen, and they have been known to 
 continue for ten or twelve hours.
 
 The Birds and Poets 165 
 
 Among the common birds that leave us in Sep- 
 tember are the swallows. They are usually all gone 
 by the middle of the month, and have never been 
 known to vary more than a few days in the date of 
 their annual departure. Swallows feed upon 
 insects captured while flying, so there is really no 
 apparent reason for their migrating so early, as 
 there are plenty of insects to be found long after 
 they have left us. 
 
 The chimney swift, one of the most interesting 
 subjects for the student of birds, is popularly con- 
 fused with the swallows, and is often mis-called 
 chimney swallow, but the resemblance is only 
 superficial, while the structural differences 
 between the two are numerous and important. 
 Structurally the swift is related to the humming 
 birds and not to the swallows. It feeds entirely on 
 the wing, and has never been seen perching any- 
 where except on the inside of a chimney or hollow 
 tree. Except when nesting or roosting therefore, 
 it is constantly on the wing, even drinking, and 
 gathering dead twigs for its nest while flying. 
 They skim over the surface of the water and dip 
 their bills into it while on the wing. Tennyson 
 speaks of the "skimming swallows," and Virgil 
 wrote : 
 
 "The twittering swallow skims the dimpled lake."* 
 
 They have been observed dashing swiftly past 
 old dead trees, catching at the ends of dead twigs, 
 
 * "Aut arguta lacus circumvolitavit hirundo."
 
 1 66 Twelve Months With 
 
 and carrying them off in their bills. Indeed their 
 feet are so slender and frail they are unable to 
 perch across a limb in the usual way, and they use 
 them to cling to the side of the wall of the chimney 
 after the manner of the woodpeckers, using the 
 tail as a support. Because of this habit, doubtless 
 long continued, the shafts of the tail feathers extend 
 beyond the vanes. 
 
 The swifts are very rapid flyers, and as they dart 
 about in the late afternoon, their rolling twitter 
 may be easily heard high overhead. Riley doubt- 
 less referred to the "chimney swallows" when he 
 wrote : 
 
 "Sweet as swallows swimming through 
 Eddyings of dusk and dew." 
 
 When flying they are similar in appearance to- 
 the swallows, but they are less graceful, and some- 
 times sail with their wings held aloft over their 
 heads, which is the attitude they always assume 
 when dropping into a chimney. Formerly they 
 nested in hollow trees and caves, but now they nest 
 and roost exclusively in disused chimneys. Their 
 nests are made of dead twigs glued to the chimney 
 wall by a mucilaginous saliva excreted from the 
 bird's mouth. They are generally found associated 
 in scattered companies, and when roosting and 
 nesting are eminently gregarious. It is an inter- 
 esting sight to watch a colony of swifts going to 
 roost in an old chimney which they have selected
 
 The Birds and Poets 167 
 
 for the purpose. When the roosting time comes 
 they rapidly approach the top of the chimney, and 
 the whole company darts back and forth over it, 
 time and again, showing every indication of drop- 
 ping into it but still continuing their flight. After 
 a number of preliminary approaches of this char- 
 acter, a small number drop into the chimney top 
 and disappear, while the rest continue their rapid, 
 reeling flight, and circling and sailing about over 
 the chimney again, another select few drop into 
 it, and thus they continue until at last all have dis- 
 appeared in the sooty depths of the chimney. 
 
 The swifts also leave about the middle of Sep- 
 tember, and the remarkable thing about it is that 
 no one knows where they go. Their winter base is 
 one of the unsolved mysteries of bird migration. 
 
 The late Mr. Wells W. Cooke, of the United 
 States Biological Survey, perhaps the foremost 
 American student of migration, could tell us no 
 more about this riddle than the merest novice. 
 
 He says : 
 
 "Much has been learned about bird migration in 
 these latter days, but much yet remains to be learned, 
 and the following is one of the most curious and inter- 
 esting of the unsolved problems. The chimney swift 
 is one of the most abundant and best-known birds of 
 eastern United States. With troops of fledglings catch- 
 ing their winged prey as they go and lodging by night 
 in tall chimneys, the flocks drift slowly south, joining 
 with other bands, until on the northern coast of the 
 Gulf of Mexico they become an innumerable host.
 
 1 68 With the Birds and Poets 
 
 Then they disappear. Did they drop into the water 
 or hibernate in the mud, as was believed of old, their 
 obliteration could not be more complete. In the last 
 week in March a joyful twittering far overhead 
 announces their return to the Gulf coast, but their 
 hiding place during the intervening five months is 
 still the swift's secret." * 
 
 However baffling the mystery of their winter 
 home, the happy fact remains that they do return 
 to us each spring, and we have the abiding confi- 
 dence of Adelaide Anne Procter that they always 
 will: 
 
 "Where are the swallows fled? 
 
 Frozen and dead, 
 Perchance, upon some bleak and stormy shore. 
 
 O doubting heart! 
 Far over purple seas 
 They wait, in sunny ease, 
 The balmy southern breeze, 
 To bring them to their northern homes once more." 
 
 Bull. No. 185, U. S. Dept. Agri., p. 47.
 
 OCTOBER. 
 
 There is something in the autumn that is native to my 
 blood 
 
 Touch of manner, hint of mood, 
 
 And my heart is like a rhyme, 
 
 With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keep- 
 ing time. 
 
 The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry 
 
 Of bugles going by. 
 
 And my lonely spirit thrills 
 
 To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills. 
 
 There is something in October sets the gypsy blood 
 
 astir, 
 
 We must rise and follow her, 
 When from every hill of flame 
 She calls and calls each vagabond by name. 
 
 Bliss Carman. 
 
 OW that the Tanager has laid aside 
 his brilliant scarlet coat and gone 
 to his winter home and left the 
 landscape bare, gentle Autumn, 
 with colors gay, creeps quietly over 
 the wooded hills and down into 
 the sleeping valleys, slowly touching the green 
 and gray with crimson and gold, until in mid- 
 October, finding none to dispute her royal right to 
 beautify the world, she boldly flings abroad her
 
 170 Twelve Months With 
 
 blazing banners until the wide, illumined land- 
 scape becomes aflame with her gorgeous colors. 
 
 The old earth has grown tired a little, and mute 
 of song. Though the brilliant coats of birds and 
 their happy voices are now largely a pleasant 
 memory of summer days that are gone, prodigal 
 nature hath other pleasures in store, and 
 
 "All the woods and mountains seem to shine 
 As if He turned their water into wine." 
 
 Although there is none of the noisy, joyous exu- 
 berance of spring, October brings a sweet autumnal 
 calm, as if the weary earth were resting a little ere 
 winter comes. The spirit of October days breathes 
 in these lines of Ellen P. Allerton : 
 
 "No loud, high notes for tender days like these ! 
 No trumpet tones, no swelling words of pride 
 Beneath these skies, so like dim summer seas, 
 Where hazy ships of cloud at anchor ride. 
 
 At peace are earth and sky, while softly fall 
 The brown leaves at my feet; a holy palm 
 Rests in a benediction over all, 
 O silent peace ! O days of silent calm." 
 
 This "silent calm" of October has its influence 
 upon the birds as upon other things in nature, and 
 at this season they are to be seen and not heard. 
 
 They come not to sing, but to give us a "back- 
 ward look," as Emily Dickinson expresses it.
 
 The Birds and Poets iji 
 
 Contrary to the popular notion, however, there 
 are more kinds of birds to be seen in this latitude 
 in October than in midsummer, if one will but 
 seek them out, for the southward march of the 
 army of autumn migrants, which reaches its flood 
 in September, continues with gradually diminish- 
 ing numbers well through the month of October. 
 
 A few of our birds which are commonly known 
 as permanent residents might be properly called 
 non-migratory. Some of them may move a bit 
 southward in winter, but the distance travelled is 
 comparatively short, while others of the species 
 nesting a few miles north of us, within the breeding 
 range, come down to us in winter and take the 
 place of those that have gone. Among these birds 
 may be mentioned the ruffed grouse, the quail, 
 cardinal, robin and meadowlark. The grouse and 
 quail are strictly non-migratory, for many of these 
 birds spend the sum of their days within the radius 
 of a few miles of the nest where they were hatched. 
 
 George Cooper furnishes the following autumn 
 picture of Bobwhite: 
 
 "I see you on the zigzag rails, 
 
 You cheery little fellow! 
 While purple leaves are whirling down, 
 
 And scarlet, brown and yellow, 
 I hear you when the air is full 
 
 Of snow-down of the thistle; 
 All in your speckled jacket trim, 
 
 'Bobwhite! Bobwhite!' you whistle.''
 
 172 Twelve Months With 
 
 Birds like the cardinal, robin or meadowlark, 
 migrate short distances, but oftimes the movement 
 is scarcely noticeable. Meadowlarks are fre- 
 quently found throughout the year in about this 
 latitude, notably on the Atlantic Coast, but doubt- 
 less the individuals of the species nesting in this 
 region move a few hundred miles south for the 
 winter, and their places are taken by other 
 migrants that have nested farther north. The geo- 
 graphical range of this bird covers the whole of the 
 United States from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, 
 and while those that nest in this latitude may pass 
 on to the southern states, many of the birds breed- 
 ing near the Canadian border, winter as far north 
 as Illinois and Massachusetts. 
 
 The robin offers a similar illustration of migrat- 
 ing within the geographical range. Its breeding 
 range is from the Arctic regions to near the south- 
 ern boundary of the United States, but it occurs 
 irregularly in winter from the Canadian border 
 south. Those that breed in Canada may often be 
 found in winter in southern Illinois and Indiana, 
 while none will be found along the Gulf coast until 
 winter when those nesting in the middle or southern 
 portions of the range have moved southward. 
 
 In other words, the migration of birds like the 
 meadowlark, robin and cardinal is almost if not 
 entirely within the area which is occupied by some 
 individual representatives of the species the year 
 round, the migration simply being a shifting of the 
 population within such area.
 
 The Birds and Poets 173 
 
 The true migrants, however, that pass this way 
 in September and October, have deserted the entire 
 region occupied by them as a summer home, and 
 are moving on to some distant district which has 
 been adopted by them solely as a winter home. 
 
 Among our most common long-distance 
 migrants may be mentioned the bobolinks, that 
 nest in this latitude and northward, and winter in 
 southern Brazil; the scarlet tanager, which 
 migrates from Canada to Peru; purple martins, 
 swallows, and thrushes, which breed from this lati- 
 tude northward, and migrate to Central South 
 America, and the nighthawks, which nest as far 
 north as Yukon, and spend their winters in Argen- 
 tina, 7000 miles distant. Many species of shore 
 birds breeding north of the Arctic Circle, visit 
 South America over a migration route of about 
 8000 miles. 
 
 The Arctic tern is called by the late Mr. Wells 
 W. Cooke, "the world's migration champion." 
 These little birds nest as far north as land has been 
 discovered, arriving there about June 15, where 
 they remain until about August 25, when they 
 leave for the south, and several months later they 
 are found in large numbers skirting the edge 
 of the Antarctic continent, 11,000 miles from the 
 nesting site. This bird thus covers a round trip 
 migration route of 22,000 miles every year with 
 scarcely twenty weeks for the round trip. This 
 means one hundred and fifty miles a day in a 
 straight line, but this distance is no doubt actually
 
 174 Twelve Months With 
 
 doubled or trebled by these birds every day, by 
 reason of their darting, irregular flight in search 
 of food. Mr. Cooke calls attention to an interest- 
 ing fact which results from the wonderful migra- 
 tion habits of this bird : 
 
 "The Arctic tern has more hours of daylight and 
 sunlight than any other animal on the globe. At the 
 most northern nesting site the midnight sun has already 
 appeared before the birds' arrival, and it never sets 
 during their entire stay at the breeding grounds. Dur- 
 ing two months of their sojourn in the Antarctic the 
 birds do not see a sunset, and for the rest of the time 
 the sun dips only a little way below the horizon, and 
 broad daylight is continuous. The birds therefore 
 have twenty-four hours of daylight for at least eight 
 months in the year, and during the other four months 
 have considerably more daylight than darkness."* 
 
 Very few observations have been made as to the 
 migration route of this bird and its exact route is 
 unknown, but it has been recorded as an irregular 
 visitant along the Atlantic Coast. 
 
 The only tern that is a common resident in the 
 Central States is the black tern. It is a summer 
 resident in this latitude, while the Caspian, com- 
 mon and Forster's terns are more or less common 
 migrants. The terns are beautiful, graceful birds, 
 the smaller varieties like the Arctic and black 
 resembling swallows in length of wing and general 
 appearance, while the larger ones, like the Cas- 
 
 Bull. No. 185, U. S. Dcpt. Agri., p. n.
 
 The Birds and Poets 175 
 
 pian, and Forster's are by careless observers some- 
 times confused with the gulls on the Great Lakes 
 because of their size and their similar white and 
 gray plumage. Terns may be easily distinguished 
 from gulls by the position of their bills, which are 
 always pointed downward, while flying, like a 
 huge mosquito, whereas the bill of the gull is- 
 always pointed straight ahead in the plane of its 
 body. 
 
 Another very common little migrant among the 
 shore birds, which may be seen in small flocks of 
 four to ten running along the sandy beach of Lake 
 Michigan or any of the Great Lakes in September 
 and October is the sanderling, familiarly called 
 "sand-snipe," by the natives along shore. It 
 is a small, snipe-shaped bird, measuring about an 
 inch longer than the common spotted sandpiper, 
 with rather long straight black bill which it pokes 
 into the soft wet sand in search of aquatic insects. 
 Its feet and legs are black and its plumage gen- 
 erally dull black and white. These little birds r 
 which are quite tame, run rapidly along the water's 
 edge ahead of anyone walking on the sand, until 
 they have moved up the beach at a safe distance 
 of thirty or forty feet, when they stop and feed 
 until one again approaches to within fifteen or 
 twenty feet of them, when they run on again. 
 Repeating this practice many times, they seem 
 loath to give up their feeding for flight. Their 
 long slender legs are stiff and set wide apart, and 
 when the birds are running and the stiff little legs
 
 176 Twelve Months With 
 
 are moving rapidly under their straight little 
 bodies, they have a singular mechanical appear- 
 ance, like a toy automaton. When they do reluc- 
 tantly prepare for flight when too nearly 
 approached, they quickly face the water, and seem 
 suddenly to run into flight as they skim out from 
 the edge of the water over the breaking waves. 
 Their colors and movements seem a veritable part 
 of the surf and sand, for their plumage is the color 
 of sand-encrusted foam, and their rolling running 
 movements in and out along the water's edge, and 
 across the sand, are beautifully like the alternate 
 rolling and receding of the spent waves up and 
 down the long beach. 
 
 "Thy flitting form comes ghostly dim and pale, 
 As driven by a beating storm at sea." 
 
 Circling out over the water a short distance, they 
 fly along the beach two or three hundred feet and 
 again alight on the sand at the water's edge and 
 continue their alternate feeding and running until 
 again flushed. 
 
 Another little shore bird frequently seen migrat- 
 ing at this season is the semipalmated sandpiper, 
 which is similar in appearance and habits to the 
 sanderling, but it is nearly two inches smaller in 
 size. The sanderling is always distinguishable by 
 the singular fact that it has only three toes. 
 
 One of the most interesting of our summer resi- 
 dents that migrates south this month is the night-
 
 The Birds and Poets 177 
 
 hawk, sometimes called Bull-bat, because of his 
 bat-like, erratic movements in flight, and his noc- 
 turnal habits. 
 
 The nighthawk passes the day in perching 
 lengthwise on a limb of a tree, after the manner 
 of the whippoorwill, and after sunset he rises high 
 in the air in search of insects. As he darts about, 
 his metallic "peet! peet!" may be distinctly heard, 
 sometimes long after the light of the closing day 
 has faded, for he is truly a nocturnal bird. 
 
 Nests of this bird are sometimes found on the 
 roofs of buildings. I once discovered a set of two 
 eggs in a little pocket in the stone cornice of a thir- 
 teen story building in Chicago, opposite my office 
 window, which I caught sight of one morning 
 while feeding pigeons. With the consent of the 
 manager I engaged one of the window washers of 
 the building to scale the cornice for me and secure 
 the eggs, which were easily identified as the night- 
 hawk's. The eggs were returned to their niche but 
 evidently they had been deserted, for no birds 
 appeared near them, and after a few days one of 
 the eggs disappeared, and later the other one was 
 missing. 
 
 The subject of bird migration is one of never 
 failing interest. Much has been and could still be 
 written about it, and yet the wonderful faculty of 
 these little animals to find their way about through 
 the air for such tremendous distances, is still very 
 largely a mystery. The birds seem to have an 
 exaggerated or highly developed sense of direction.
 
 178 Twelve Months With 
 
 Most animals, especially those whose natural 
 instincts have not been dulled by domestication, 
 have this sense in more or less marked degree, but 
 in the exercise of this faculty the birds unquestion- 
 ably excel. While man cannot navigate the seas 
 without the aid of chart and compass, birds 
 released from a ship many miles at sea will invari- 
 ably and unhesitatingly head their flight directly 
 toward the nearest land. It is interesting, in this 
 connection to recall what an important part 
 migrating birds had in the discovery of this con- 
 tinent by Columbus. When the great navigator 
 and his men were almost upon the point of aban- 
 doning the attempt to reach land and about a week 
 before they landed at San Salvador, great encour- 
 agement came to them from observing large 
 numbers of birds migrating to the southwest, as 
 they do now, near the Atlantic coast. When after 
 a few days they became very abundant Columbus 
 changed his course and followed them, ultimately 
 reaching the Bahamas. It follows that migratory 
 birds were responsible for the fact that the great 
 navigator first landed in the Bahama Islands, 
 rather than on the mainland of North America. 
 
 The homing instinct or sense of direction of 
 birds has been clearly demonstrated by some very 
 remarkable experiments conducted by Prof. Wat- 
 son, of Johns Hopkins University. Many thou- 
 sands of sooty and noddy terns nest on Bird Key, 
 a small island in the Dry Tortugas. Prof. Watson 
 took three or four of these birds first twenty, then
 
 The Birds and Poets 179 
 
 sixty, then one hundred and eight and lastly over a 
 thousand miles up the Atlantic coast, and again 
 eight hundred and fifty miles directly across the 
 Gulf of Mexico where there could be no possible 
 landmark to guide the birds' return, and in every 
 instance, after a reasonable length of time, depend- 
 ing upon the distance travelled, the birds were 
 found again occupying their nests at Bird Key. 
 
 Doubtless this sense of direction in the aborigi- 
 nal man was strong and perhaps as unerring as it is 
 now with the birds, but in the course of many gen- 
 erations of culture man came to rely so much upon 
 various mechanical devices and guides invented 
 and designed for his aid, and so little upon instinct, 
 that the latter ultimately became, as it were, atro- 
 phied from disuse, leaving him almost wholly 
 dependent upon artificial guides to enable him 
 safely to find his way about the world. No such 
 change, of course, has taken place with the birds. 
 With them this sixth sense is at least as strong as it 
 ever was. 
 
 Therefore it unfortunately happens that thou- 
 sands of birds during their migration are actually 
 lured to their death by one of the very devices 
 designed by man to assist him in avoiding the dan- 
 gers incident to his travels. Lighthouses for some 
 unknown reason seem to hold an almost irresistible 
 attraction for birds migrating at night, and the 
 brighter the light, the greater the attraction. 
 Especially upon dark or stormy nights, during the 
 migration season, the birds seem drawn to these
 
 180 Twelve Months With 
 
 lights as moths are attracted by a flame. After 
 flying within the radius of the rays of such a light 
 they appear to be blinded by it and, becoming con- 
 fused, dash themselves to death against the struc- 
 ture which sustains it. Many interesting observa- 
 tions of this kind have been made by ornithologists 
 at lighthouses, and such experiences are familiar 
 to all keepers of such coast lights. 
 
 Thousands of birds have met death in this way 
 at the Statue of Liberty Light, in New York har- 
 bor, and Dr. Chapman in referring to accidents 
 of this kind to birds at Fire Island Light, Long 
 Island, records the killing during one night of 
 three hundred and fifty-six black poll warblers 
 alone. Successful efforts have been made at some 
 of these stations to install lights of a kind which 
 will answer all the purposes of navigation, without 
 being so deadly to the migrating birds, and perches 
 have also been erected around some of the lights 
 in an effort to lure the birds away from the light to 
 a place of rest and safety. 
 
 Migration itself, like the homing instinct or 
 sense of direction, while not altogether peculiar to 
 the birds, is more highly developed with them than 
 with any other animals. Winter visitors to the 
 Pacific Coast may see sporting about in the warmer 
 California coast waters, seals which have migrated 
 thence from the Bering Sea. Doubtless moved by 
 the same primal surge which is felt by the birds in 
 the spring, salmon, eels and shad during the same 
 season travel up the streams to lay their eggs, and
 
 The Birds and Poets 181 
 
 some deer in the extreme north migrate southward 
 in winter. As with the birds, the two most com- 
 pelling influences in inducing these migrations are 
 the instinct for reproduction and the desire for 
 food. 
 
 By the end of October, all of the true migrants 
 save a few stragglers have gone to their winter 
 homes in the south, and the lonesome bird lover 
 begins to feel with Lowell that 
 
 "Autumn's here, and Winter soon will be, 
 Who snows his soft, white sleep and silence over all.'
 
 NOVEMBER. 
 
 The mellow year is hastening to its close; 
 
 The little birds have almost sung their last, 
 
 Their small notes twitter in the dreary blast, 
 That shrill-piped harbinger of early snows. 
 The patient beauty of the scentless rose, 
 
 Oft with the morn's hoar crystal quaintly glassed 
 
 Hangs, a pale mourner for the summer past, 
 And makes a little summer where it grows, 
 In the chill sunbeam of the faint, brief day, 
 
 The dusky waters shudder as they shine; 
 The russet leaves obstruct the straggling way 
 
 Of oozy brooks, which no deep banks confine, 
 And the gaunt woods, in ragged, scant array, 
 
 Wrap their old limbs with sombre ivy twine. 
 
 Hartley Coleridge. 
 
 ANY of the poets who should have 
 known better have seemed to think 
 that the month of November was 
 an appropriate subject only for a 
 dirge or an ode to despondency! 
 They have sung of both the nega- 
 tive and positive qualities of the month, but seldom 
 in a happy vein. They have rather made Novem- 
 ber the melancholy subject for the expression of 
 their sad and serious thought, because perchance 
 they have exhausted themselves over the beauties 
 and glories of spring and summer, or because of 
 necessity they must be sad and serious at some un- 
 fortunate season.
 
 184 Twelve Months With 
 
 The negative qualities of the month are humor- 
 ously depicted by Thomas Hood in the following 
 lines : 
 
 "No sun no moon! 
 
 No morn no noon! 
 
 No dawn no dusk no proper time of day 
 No sky no earthly view 
 No distance looking blue 
 
 No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, 
 
 No comfortable feel in any member 
 No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, 
 No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds, 
 November 1" 
 
 Most of the poets, however, have not been con- 
 tent with picturing merely the negative qualities of 
 the month, but have expressed a sense of profound 
 desolation in the whole November landscape. 
 
 Walter Malone gives us this dismal picture : 
 
 "No voice is heard in field or forest nigh 
 
 To break the desolation of the spell, 
 Save one sad mocking-bird in boughs near by, 
 Who sings like Tasso in his madman's cell." 
 
 S. Frances Harrison, poet though she be, con- 
 fesses to a lack of vision on dull November days :
 
 The Birds and Poets 185 
 
 "These are the days that try us; these the hours 
 That find, or leave us, cowards doubters of Heaven, 
 Skeptics of self, and riddled through with vain 
 Blind questionings as to Deity. Mute, we scan 
 The sky, the barren, wan, the drab, dull sky, 
 And mark it utterly blank. 
 
 When sodden leaves are merged in melting mire, 
 And garden plots lie pilfered, and the vines 
 Are strings of tangled rigging reft of green, 
 Crude harps whereon the winter wind shall play 
 His bitter music on a day like this, 
 We, harboring no Hellenic images, stand 
 In apathy mute before our window pane, 
 And muse upon the blankness." 
 
 C. L. Cleaveland makes a valiant effort to be 
 cheerful about it, but confesses his failure: 
 
 "In the high wind creaks the leafless tree 
 And nods the fading fern; 
 The knolls are dun as snow-clouds be, 
 And cold the sun does burn. 
 Then ho, hello ! though calling so, 
 I cannot keep it down; 
 The tears arise into my eyes, 
 And thoughts are chill and brown." 
 
 Burns' famous line: 
 
 "November's chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh," 
 makes one almost shiver!
 
 1 86 Twelve Months With 
 
 Henry Abbey writes in the same vein : 
 
 "An icy hand is on the land; 
 The cloudy sky is sad and gray;" 
 
 The predominant note with most of the poets 
 has been that the month at best was gray and dead. 
 Bird lovers and nature students know better. 
 November has as much color and as many birds as 
 
 July. 
 
 Some of the poets, like Edna Dean Proctor, take 
 a more hopeful view: 
 
 "This is the summer's burial-time; 
 She died when dropped the earliest leaves; 
 And cold upon her rosy prime, 
 Fell down the autumn's frosty rime; 
 Yet I am not as one that grieves, 
 
 For well I know o'er sunny seas 
 The blue bird waits for April skies; 
 And at the roots of forest trees 
 The May-flowers sleep in fragrant ease, 
 And violets hide their azure eyes." 
 
 Amos Bryant Russell writes these fine lines of 
 the late warm days of November: 
 
 "A wave of summer's overflow, 
 A fugitive which went astray, 
 That on its passage lost its way; 
 A prelude to an autumn dirge, 
 An interlude on winter's verge,
 
 The Birds and Poets 187 
 
 A narrow space twixt flower and snow, 
 
 An afterthought, an afterglow, 
 
 A smile upon the waning year, 
 
 A ray to shine through nature's tear." 
 
 Frances Laughton Mace refers to the season as 
 one of peace and prayer, after the joy and songs of 
 summer: 
 
 "Is it that Nature calls us 
 Her services of peace to share? 
 After the song the silence 
 After the praise the prayer." 
 
 Riley contributes this refreshing note of opti- 
 mism: 
 
 "While birds in scattered flight are blown 
 
 Aloft and lost in dusky mist, 
 And truant boys scud home alone 
 
 'Neath skies of gold and amethyst; 
 While twilight falls, and Echo calls 
 
 Across the haunted atmosphere, 
 With low, sweet laughs at intervals, 
 
 So reigns the rapture of the year. 
 
 Then ho! and hey! and whoop-hooray! 
 
 Though winter clouds be looming, 
 Remember a November day 
 Is merrier than mildest May 
 
 With all her blossoms blooming" 
 
 No month can be gray and dead that brings us 
 the hermit thrush. This finest of songsters may be
 
 1 88 Twelve Months With 
 
 seen in the woods almost any day in November. 
 Unfortunately he does not favor us with his song 
 as he pauses on his migration southward, and I 
 never see him in the woods that I do not long for 
 the power of a Svengali that I might make him 
 sing to me. 
 
 Indeed, so far as the birds are concerned, 
 November might be called the border-line month 
 between summer and winter, "an interlude on win- 
 ter's verge." During this month the last of the 
 migratory birds come to us and pass on to the south, 
 and the first of the northern residents pay us their 
 annual winter visits. Some of our summer resi- 
 dents also remain with us until November, includ- 
 ing the vesper, field, chipping and swamp 
 sparrows, the red-winged and crow blackbirds, the 
 kingfisher and the mourning dove. 
 
 The latter bird is the only dove left to us since 
 the extermination of the beautiful passenger 
 pigeon. He is an old favorite whose cooing, 
 mournful, ventriloquous notes are familiar to us 
 all. 
 
 He was loved by Nathaniel P. Willis : 
 
 " 'Tis a bird I love, with its brooding note 
 And the trembling throb in its mottled throat; 
 There's a human look in its swelling breast, 
 And the gentle curve of its lowly crest." 
 
 Mourning doves are rapid flyers, and often may 
 be seen in pairs, as late as November, scurrying
 
 The Birds and Poets 189 
 
 over the fields as if hurrying to some distant ren- 
 dezvous. 
 
 Among the late migrants, in addition to the her- 
 mit thrush, may be mentioned the juncos, the ruby- 
 crowned and golden-crowned kinglets, and some 
 of the shore birds. With one of the migrating shore 
 birds I had a rather unusual experience in Novem- 
 ber. 
 
 One bright day early in the month, feeling the 
 irresistible call of the fields, and being unable to 
 answer it, I stole an hour from my office and ran 
 away to Lincoln Park. I found many old nests 
 among the bushes that had bared their slender 
 limbs to the November wind, but finding few birds 
 I walked over to the lake where I hoped to see 
 some shore or water birds. A large flock of her- 
 ring and Bonaparte gulls were floating on the 
 water, while others circled about, "searching the 
 blue dome with keening cry." The beach at the 
 point where I approached the lake is in reality a 
 concrete breakwater, running down to the water's 
 edge, an ugly cement imitation of a sandy shore. 
 Along such a beach I had no hopes of seeing any 
 shore birds feeding at the water's edge. With my 
 attention fixed upon the gulls scattered about over 
 the lake I almost stepped upon a pair of red- 
 backed sandpipers running about at the edge of the 
 water, apparently as well satisfied as if the cement 
 were white sand. They seemed very tame, as unmo- 
 lested migrating birds usually are, uttering no cry 
 of alarm, and making no effort to run or fly away.
 
 190 Twelve Months With 
 
 I knew them at once by the slight downward curve 
 of their bills. In winter these little sandpipers are 
 called "leadbacks," having rather inconspicuous 
 dull brownish-gray plumage, but the downward 
 curve of their bills is a sure mark of identification, 
 as it is peculiar to this species. In summer plum- 
 age the upper parts are broadly margined with 
 rufous, or reddish brown, whence its name, and the 
 middle of the belly is marked with a large black 
 patch. The bird is about an inch and a half longer 
 than the semipalmated, and about a half inch 
 longer than the spotted sandpiper. Its unsuspi- 
 cious character makes it appear rather stupid, and 
 it is also less active than most members of its fam- 
 ily. It is quite a common bird in this latitude 
 during the spring and fall migrations. Generally 
 speaking the red-backs are shore or beach birds, 
 but they are sometimes to be found in grassy 
 marshes. 
 
 Another interesting member of the same family 
 (scolopacidae) which is always found in grassy 
 marshes and fresh water swamps is the Wilson's 
 or jack snipe. This little bird is a late migrant, 
 often remaining with us until the last of Novem- 
 ber. It is a favorite with sportsmen because of the 
 delicacy of its flesh and because it taxes the skill of 
 the hunter to the utmost. When I was a boy and 
 had yet acquired no scruples against shooting any- 
 thing called game, I once in the course of a day's 
 hunt came upon six of these little snipe in a 
 meadow swamp. The swamp was a small patch
 
 The Birds and Poets 191 
 
 of wet ground, grown up to thick grass and brush, 
 surrounded by dry pasture. My two companions 
 and I flushed the birds one after another, and upon 
 taking flight they rapidly darted off close over the 
 ground, in zigzag fashion, until they were some 
 distance away when they rose high in the air, 
 circled rapidly about in the leaden sky directly 
 over our heads, and then suddenly dropped down 
 with great velocity into the little swamp, as if they 
 had been thrown from a catapult. I remember full 
 well that several times we flushed the birds and 
 watched them go through the same gyrations, for 
 our youthful skill in marksmanship was not equal 
 to the birds' skill in flight. At each precipitous 
 descent a whistling, tremulous sound was heard, 
 produced by the rushing of the air through the 
 birds' feathers. They returned to the swamp after 
 each flight, however, apparently unwilling to trust 
 themselves elsewhere than in the dense thicket or 
 the high sky above. 
 
 While these birds have no song, the whistling, 
 bleating sound made when descending rapidly to 
 the earth, gives them a place among the instru- 
 mentalists, with the peacocks, grouse, woodpeckers 
 and some foreign species. The particular method 
 of the snipe in producing this instrumental music, 
 however, distinguishes it from all other instrumen- 
 talists. 
 
 Darwin, after discussing several species of birds 
 that practice certain forms of instrumental music,.
 
 192 Twelve Months With 
 
 refers to the peculiarity of the snipe's efforts in this 
 line: 
 
 "In the foregoing cases sounds are made by the aid 
 of structures already present and otherwise necessary; 
 but in the following cases certain feathers have been 
 specially modified for the express purpose of produc- 
 ing sounds. The drumming, bleating, neighing or 
 thundering noise (as expressed by different observers) 
 made by the common snipe (scolopax gallinago) must 
 have surprised every one who has ever heard it. This 
 bird, during the pairing season, flies to 'perhaps a thou- 
 sand feet in height' and after zigzagging about for a 
 time descends to the earth in a curved line with out- 
 spread tail and quivering pinions and surprising ve- 
 locity. The sound is emitted only during this rapid 
 descent. No one was able to explain the cause until 
 M. Meves observed that on each side of the tail the 
 outer feathers are peculiarly formed, having a stiff 
 saber-shaped shaft with the oblique barbs of unusual 
 length, the outer webs being strongly bound together. 
 He found that by blowing on these feathers, or by 
 fastening them to a long, thin stick and waving them 
 rapidly through the air, he could reproduce the drum- 
 ming noise made by the living bird."* 
 
 As early as 1773, Gilbert White, with character- 
 istic keenness and accuracy of observation sus- 
 pected that the snipe possessed this faculty for 
 instrumental music. In "Selborne" he writes: 
 "Whether the bleating or humming is ventrilo- 
 quous, or proceeds from the motion of their wings, 
 
 The Descent of Man, p. 427.
 
 The Birds and Poets 193 
 
 I cannot say; but this I know, that, when this noise 
 happens, the bird is always descending, and his 
 wings are violently agitated." 
 
 Wilson's snipe are small birds less than twelve 
 inches in length, including three inches of bill, and 
 their plumage is dark brown or black mottled with 
 cream buff, and as they skim rapidly over the 
 brown fields they can scarcely be seen. 
 
 Another peculiarity which fortunately makes 
 their slaughter difficult is that, like the woodcock, 
 they usually feed and migrate at night or on heavy, 
 dark days. 
 
 In the latitude of Northern Illinois the herring 
 gull and the ring-billed gull are winter residents 
 arriving from the north in November. Bona- 
 parte's gull is a transient that may be looked for in 
 April and again in the fall, sometimes as late as 
 the middle of November. These beautiful little 
 gulls frequently visit the lagoons in the Chicago 
 parks, adjacent to Lake Michigan, where they feed 
 upon minnows, diving after them tern-like. They 
 may also be seen frequently on all our large lakes. 
 They are easily distinguished from the common 
 herring gull by their small size and the black tips 
 of the wings, so conspicuous as they fly overhead. 
 The herring gull measures two feet in length, 
 while the Bonaparte is only about fourteen inches 
 long. The plumage of these two species is similar, 
 being gray above and white beneath, although the 
 head and neck of the Bonaparte is much darker, 
 sometimes almost black.
 
 194 Twelve Months With 
 
 The herring gull is very common in winter on 
 all the Great Lakes, and in spring may also be seen 
 on many of our inland rivers and lakes and over- 
 flowed meadows, feeding upon dead fish. 
 
 It must have been one of these spring excursions 
 inland that inspired the following from Stevenson: 
 
 "Far from the loud sea beaches, 
 
 Where he goes fishing and crying, 
 Here in the inland garden, 
 
 Why is the sea gull flying." 
 
 Or the poet may have observed the Franklin's 
 gull, an inland species, inhabiting the prairies of 
 Minnesota and the Dakotas. 
 
 Considering how common these fine water birds 
 now are, it is interesting to note the following 
 observation made by Mr. E. W. Nelson in his 
 "Birds of Northeastern Illinois" : "A single speci- 
 men, an adult female, was obtained in Chicago 
 harbor March 27, 1876." Very rare at that time, 
 the American herring gull was considered a 
 variety (Larus argentatus smithsonianus) of the 
 European species, known to this country only as a 
 very casual visitor to the Atlantic seacoast. 
 
 It is interesting to watch the gulls in winter hov- 
 ering near the outlets of the sewers along the lake 
 and river fronts in Chicago, where they feed upon 
 floating refuse. As the birds are never molested 
 they are very tame, and may be approached and 
 observed without difficulty. In these flocks I have 
 only succeeded in finding the three species named:
 
 The Birds and Poets 195 
 
 herring, Bonaparte and ring-billed. The latter is 
 similar in appearance to the herring gull, but 
 slightly smaller, and its light greenish bill is 
 crossed by a dark band near the tip. 
 
 The gulls are very welcome visitors to city- 
 bound folk in winter. They are wholly unmindful 
 of cold or winter storms, and remain with us until 
 spring when they go north to breed. Cale Young 
 Rice shows his appreciation for them in his "Gulls 
 at Land's End": 
 
 ""Hungry gulls, hungry gulls, hunters of the foam, 
 
 Leave not the shore for the ship that sets to sea 1 
 Harsh the night is falling and the hoarse waves roam, 
 Rest you in the cloven cliff's lea !" 
 
 Thousands of these gulls nest every spring on 
 rocky cliffs and small, barren islands near the 
 northern end of Lake Michigan, and on Lake 
 Superior, notably in Green Bay, Lake Michigan, 
 and on Gull Island in Lake Superior. A recent 
 study of the herring gull and its nesting habits at 
 these points was made by Mr. R. M. Strong, who 
 visited Gull Island in Lake Superior near Mar- 
 quette, Michigan, and Strawberry Islands, Sister 
 Islands and Hat Island, in Green Bay, Lake Mich- 
 igan, in the summer of 1911.* 
 
 It has been reported that herring gulls have 
 nested on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan 
 nearly as far south as South Haven, Michigan, but 
 
 * Smithsonian Rep. 1914, pp. 479-509.
 
 196 Twelve Months With 
 
 I have walked the beach north of this point for 
 several miles, and carefully examined the shore 
 and adjacent clay cliffs without finding any signs 
 of nests. There are thousands of herring gulls 
 along this shore in late summer, and the presence 
 of these large flocks is doubtless responsible for the 
 report that the birds breed in this area. I know 
 of no breeding colonies south of Hat Island in 
 Green Bay. The herring gull is the species com- 
 monly called "sea gull." 
 
 Among other visitants from the north that often 
 come to us in November, may be mentioned the 
 crossbills, redpolls, and pine and evening gros- 
 beaks. The American and the white-winged cross- 
 bills are rare and irregular winter visitants, the 
 redpoll (acanthis linaria) is a common winter resi- 
 dent, and the pine and evening grosbeaks are 
 irregular winter visitants, the latter being the more 
 common. 
 
 Some years ago I obtained several specimens of 
 the American crossbill in northern Indiana, where 
 I found a large flock of them feeding in the woods. 
 They are not infrequently found north of Chicago 
 in the woods bordering Lake Michigan. These 
 little birds are slightly smaller than the English 
 sparrow. Their upper and lower mandibles are 
 crossed at the tip, whence the name. The plum- 
 age is dull red, brighter on the rump, \vith dark 
 gray wings and tail. They always go about in 
 flocks, and against a back ground of snow a group 
 of these little red birds makes as delightful a winter
 
 The Birds and Poets 197 
 
 picture as one ever sees. They are very erratic 
 little wanderers coming upon us oftimes unexpect- 
 edly and unannounced from the coniferous forests 
 of the north. They seem to have no regard for the 
 laws of migration, and aimlessly wander about in 
 small groups, pausing only at those places which 
 afford them favorable opportunities for feeding. 
 They climb about in trees like parrots, and their 
 crossed bills are well adapted to aid them in open- 
 ing the scaled cones of coniferous trees to obtain 
 the seeds within. 
 
 The well known legend of this little bird, which 
 relates how it tried to pull the nails out of the Cross 
 with its bill, is told in a translation by Longfellow 
 from the German of Julius Mosen: 
 
 "On the cross the dying Saviour 
 
 Heavenward lifts His eyelids calm, 
 Feels, but scarcely feels, a trembling 
 In His pierced and bleeding palm. 
 
 And by all the world forsaken, 
 
 Sees He how with zealous care 
 
 At the ruthless nail of iron 
 
 A little bird is striving there. 
 
 Stained with blood and never tiring, 
 With its beak it doth not cease, 
 
 From the cross 'twould free the Saviour, 
 Its Creator's Son release. 
 
 And the Saviour speaks in mildness; 
 'Blessed be thou of all the good!
 
 198 Twelve Months With 
 
 Bear, as token of this moment, 
 
 Marks of blood and holy rood!' 
 
 And that bird is called the crossbill; 
 
 Covered all with blood so. clear, 
 In the groves of pine it singeth 
 
 Songs, like legends, strange to hear." 
 
 The redpoll, sometimes called snowbird, is 
 much more common, and may be seen almost any 
 winter after the first of November. This bird has 
 a red crown cap sometimes rather inconspicuous, 
 and the breast and rump are tinged with pink and 
 the rest of the plumage is grayish brown. He is 
 about the size of the goldfinch, which he resem- 
 bles somewhat in general habits. These birds are 
 often seen feeding upon dry weeds and grasses that 
 protrude through the snow. Indeed, it is the bury- 
 ing of these weeds and grasses by the heavy snows 
 in the north that drives them south for food. 
 They are lovable little birds, with a trustful and 
 confiding disposition. 
 
 How unexpectedly one may happen upon one of 
 the irregular visitants from the northern pine for- 
 ests most any day in winter is illustrated by a 
 pleasant little adventure I had one bleak morning 
 in November. Hurrying through the village 
 streets on my way to a suburban train, an unusual 
 and unexpected bird call "ravished my delighted 
 ear." I stopped in my tracks, and forgot my 
 train! 
 
 Bird calls in November are sufficiently infre-
 
 The Birds and Poets 199 
 
 quent to attract attention. Birds are numerous 
 enough, but at this season they are irregular and 
 their movements erratic, and few bird songs are 
 heard. The call of this bird resembled the clear 
 familiar chirp of the robin, and I immediately 
 concluded it was some bird with the robin's call, 
 rather than the robin itself, although the latter bird 
 sometimes surprises us with a transient visit in win- 
 ter. 
 
 Hearing the note again, I traced the bird to the 
 top of a tree across the block in an adjoining street. 
 I walked around the block, and into my neighbor's 
 yard, where I found the bird eating the seeds from 
 the dry keys of a large maple. As he moved about 
 feeding I caught sight of his black wings and tail 
 and his yellow rump, scapulars and belly, and my 
 hopes were realized, it was an evening grosbeak! 
 I felt the inspiration of Cale Young Rice, upon 
 hearing the unexpected song of a bird : 
 
 "There is no mountain, here, or sea, 
 Yet do I feel infinity, 
 For there in the top of a tulip-tree 
 A wild wild bird is singing to me! 
 
 And full is his throat, at every note, 
 
 Of God until my heart's afloat 
 
 In joy like every leaf unfurled 
 
 By May, the sweetheart of tHe world." 
 
 This beautiful bird, tho' not often seen, is eas- 
 ily identified. It is a trifle larger than the oriole,
 
 200 Twelve Months With 
 
 and has the thick heavy bill of the finch and spar- 
 row family. Its beautiful yellow and black plum- 
 age make its identification simple, for at this season 
 of the year it cannot be confused with any other 
 bird. 
 
 In addition to the robin-like call, it also has a 
 tree-toad note, similar to the spring cry of the red- 
 headed woodpecker. 
 
 Its real song is "a wandering, jerky warble, 
 beginning low, suddenly increasing in power, and 
 as suddenly ceasing, as though the singer were out 
 of breath." * 
 
 It will always be found feeding on the buds or 
 seeds of trees maple, elder and box elder, of 
 which there is an abundance in winter. During the 
 winters of 1886 and 1887 there were rather phe- 
 nomenal incursions of evening grosbeaks into the 
 Central States Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, 
 and many observations of them were recorded, but 
 of late they have been very irregular and erratic 
 winter visitants. The coniferous trees in Grace- 
 land Cemetery, Chicago, have on numerous occa- 
 sions in winter attracted these and other transients 
 from the north. 
 
 November is the month to begin preparations 
 for feeding our bird friends through the cold and 
 stormy days of winter. Plenty of food will be 
 available until snow falls, but when the heavy 
 snows come much of the material that the birds 
 depend upon for food will be covered up. Plans 
 
 * Birds of Eastern North America, p. 280.
 
 The Birds and Poets 201 
 
 should therefore be made not later than November 
 by all who claim to be real lovers of the birds, to 
 assist them in obtaining food through the winter. 
 
 We would not think of allowing any person 
 whom we love to go hungry if we could help them 
 to food. We all love the birds, and without doubt 
 they bring us a great deal of happiness, but unfor- 
 tunately the opinion is too general that in winter 
 there are no birds, and we resolutely shut ourselves 
 in doors and hugging the fireside forget that there 
 are hundreds of tiny feathered creatures battling 
 with the cold and struggling for a bare existence 
 outside. 
 
 Burns remembered and felt compassion for the 
 little winter bird: 
 
 "Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing! 
 THat in the merry months o' spring 
 Delighted me to hear thee sing, 
 
 What comes o' thee? 
 Whare wilt thou cow'r thy clittering win' 
 
 An' close thy ee?" 
 
 When we recall how the birds have delighted us 
 in the "merry months of spring," it should require 
 no argument to convince us that as a matter of sim- 
 ple justice we should take some thought of their 
 welfare at this season. 
 
 Mable Osgood Wright in "Bird-Lore" for Jan- 
 uary, 1909, makes an appeal for our winter birds 
 which should be heeded by all their friends:
 
 2O2 Twelve Months With 
 
 "As birds do not push trembling hands in our faces 
 and clamor for charity, we forget their needs, and 
 they too often disappear, deprived of natural food 
 and shelter by the very march of the civilization of 
 which we are proud. 
 
 If they cannot speak for themselves, their friends 
 should never cease to do it for them in the same old 
 words, winter after winter. 'Do not clear away the wild 
 hedges; leave some shocks of corn in your field, scatter 
 grain sweepings in likely places, fasten suet to your 
 orchard tree, and spread a lunch-counter under your 
 window, out of the reach of cats!' Do not use that 
 irresponsible argument, 'There are never any birds 
 in winter where I live,' for if there are none the respon- 
 sibility is yours for not aiding them to be there. For 
 we are all keepers of our brother, in one sense or 
 another, and the larger brotherhood includes all forms 
 of sensate life. When we deliberately shirk responsi- 
 bility we have ceased to live in the best sense." 
 
 Many different plans have been suggested and 
 adopted for feeding the birds in winter. In some 
 places large organizations have been formed 
 among people interested in birds and extensive 
 plans worked out for feeding them and encour- 
 aging them to remain in the neighborhood during 
 the winter. In addition to feeding devices erected 
 about the homes, general feeding places have been 
 established in adjacent fields and woods, and in 
 almost all such cases the number of winter birds 
 observed in the particular locality has been very 
 largely increased. Where these community plans
 
 The Birds and Poets 203 
 
 have been adopted the interest of the school chil- 
 dren has often been enlisted, and the larger boys 
 engaged to assist in maintaining the feeding 
 grounds. The usual plan is to clear away the 
 snow from a patch of ground fifteen or twenty 
 feet square, and then scatter seeds, nuts, suet and 
 scraps and crumbs from the table. The ground 
 should, of course, be kept clear of snow, and the 
 supply of food should be replenished daily. A 
 number of such feeding places should be main- 
 tained at reasonable distances apart, adjacent to 
 the town or village, and when this general com- 
 munity plan is supplemented by the maintenance 
 of individual feeding stands at the homes in the 
 neighborhood, the increase in the number of 
 winter birds will be gratifying. 
 
 In this way many good people living in this 
 latitude, believing that there are no birds in winter 
 except the English sparrows, have come to know 
 that while the birds are mostly silent and in seclu- 
 sion, there are a number of varieties which are 
 common residents. 
 
 Although this general community plan of feed- 
 ing the birds may not always be feasible, there 
 is no reasonable excuse to be offered for any real 
 lover of the birds who wholly forgets them in 
 winter and does not provide a feeding box or tray 
 near his home. A rough box, open at one side, 
 set above the ground, out of the reach of cats, at 
 a short distance from the house, is all that is 
 necessary. After the birds find the food and
 
 204 Twelve Months With 
 
 become accustomed to the surroundings, a tray 
 may be built at the window sill, and the birds 
 will surely find it and will ultimately become 
 quite tame. A roof to keep off the snow is desir- 
 able, and a very attractive one for the birds may 
 be made out of heavy branches of coniferous trees. 
 I have also found that the nuthatches and wood- 
 peckers prefer to peck nuts out of upright limbs 
 or posts, and I have accommodated them by boring 
 small holes in the supports of my bird tray, and 
 tucking pieces of the nuts into them. This plan 
 has the added advantage of protecting the food 
 from the ubiquitous English sparrow, who is 
 wholly unable to walk up and down a perpen- 
 dicular surface, howsoever hungry he may be. 
 
 Suet hung by a string from the lower branches 
 of a tree, or tied around the limbs, is always an 
 attractive food. Grain and nuts, especially pea- 
 nuts, will be eaten by most any of the winter birds. 
 In cold weather, meat scraps are acceptable, and 
 in line with modern ideas of conservation and 
 prevention of waste it would seem more reason- 
 able to place scraps of toast and crumbs from the 
 table just outside one's window for the birds, 
 rather than in the garbage can. I have found 
 that the occasional cardinal that comes my way 
 in winter is very fond of cantaloup seeds, and I 
 therefore save them every summer, and I dare 
 say my summer appetite for cantaloup is sharp- 
 ened by the thought that the seeds may attract a 
 cardinal to my window when the snows come.
 
 The Birds and Poets 205 
 
 It is an excellent plan to have a box or two 
 near the birds' lunch counter, with openings large 
 enough to admit the hairy woodpecker, because 
 in the extremely cold weather the winter birds 
 spend most of the time under cover, if they can 
 find any, and if they find both board and lodging 
 at the same place they appreciate it, and make 
 use of the advantages offered them. 
 
 Chickadees, nuthatches, hairy and downy wood- 
 peckers, tree sparrows, juncos and cardinals are 
 frequently attracted to these feeding stations, and 
 the English sparrow may be counted on as a regu- 
 lar daily visitor. The latter bird, though usually 
 considered a pest, is just as welcome to my feed 
 box as any of the rest, and my own experience 
 is that instead of driving other birds away, his 
 boldness in feeding off the window ledge often 
 attracts other birds to it. I am proud of my little 
 winter colony of fat English sparrows! Although 
 this little emigrant has few friends even among 
 the ornithologists, he is not wholly friendless 
 among the poets. With all his faults, Mary 
 Isabella Forsyth loves him still: 
 
 "From dawn until daylight grows dim, 
 
 Perpetual chatter and scold. 
 No winter migration for him, 
 
 Not even afraid of the cold! 
 
 Yet, from tip of his tail to his beak, 
 
 I like him, the sociable elf. 
 The reason is needless to seek, 
 
 Because I'm a gossip myself."
 
 206 With the Birds and Poets 
 
 Walter Von der Vogelweide, the greatest lyric 
 poet of Germany until Goethe, is said to have 
 acquired his art from the birds, and Longfellow 
 has perpetuated the pretty legend concerning the 
 poet's grave. It is said to have been provided in 
 his will that the birds should be fed daily at noon 
 upon the slab which covers his resting place: 
 
 "Thus the bard of love departed: 
 
 And, fulfilling his desire, 
 On his tomb the birds were feasted 
 By the children of the choir."
 
 DECEMBER. 
 
 In a drear-nighted December, 
 
 Too happy, happy Tree, 
 Thy branches ne'er remember 
 
 Their green felicity; 
 The north cannot undo them 
 With a sleety whistle through them, 
 Nor frozen thawings glue them 
 
 From budding at the prime. 
 
 In a drear-nighted December, 
 
 Too happy, happy Brook, 
 Thy bubblings ne'er remember 
 
 Apollo's summer look; 
 But with a sweet forgetting, 
 They stay their crystal fretting, 
 Never, never petting 
 
 About the frozen time. 
 
 John Keats. 
 
 LIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
 
 once said : "Those who are really 
 awake to the sights and sounds 
 which the procession of the months 
 offers them, find endless entertain- 
 ment and instruction. Yet there 
 are great multitudes who are present at as many as 
 threescore and ten performances, without ever 
 really looking at the scenery, or listening to the 
 music, or observing the chief actors." 
 
 This observation seems especially true with
 
 208 Twelve Months With 
 
 reference to the birds, their songs and nests. If 
 one should attempt to name a half dozen among 
 his friends who possess even an amateur's knowl- 
 edge of our common birds and their habits, he 
 would find the task difficult, if not impossible. 
 When we consider that the study of birds offers 
 such "endless entertainment and instruction," and 
 that it takes the student out into the woods and 
 fields, through the grass and flowers in summer, 
 and through the white snow in winter, when 
 
 * * the p OOres t twig on the elm tree 
 Is ridged inch deep with pearl," 
 
 one wonders at the lack of interest in this whole- 
 some subject. Of course we are all much too busy 
 nowadays collecting dollars to turn aside and 
 collect anything else, even so much as ideas about 
 other things! But, after all, the truly wise man 
 is he who always finds time for those broadening 
 and deepening influences which one never seeks in 
 vain in the woods and fields. 
 
 "In the urgent solitudes 
 Lies the spur to larger moods." 
 
 In some respects the winter months are more 
 favorable for bird study than summer, because 
 when trees are bare and many of the birds have 
 flown, the work of the student is naturally more 
 simple.
 
 The Birds and Poets 209 
 
 In the dense luxuriant foliage of midsummer 
 the casual observer seldom sees a bird's nest in 
 tree or bush, tho' there may be hundreds of them 
 near at hand. When December comes a large 
 number of nests are exposed which have been 
 securely hidden all summer, and the art of the 
 birds in concealing their little domiciles is 
 revealed. 
 
 I never walk in the woods in early winter that 
 I am not attracted by these old exposed nests. 
 Snow-crowned, against the gray winter sky, they 
 glow like white lights in a fog. Rose Terry Cook 
 sings of the snow-filled nest: 
 
 "All, all are gone! I know not where; 
 And still upon the cold gray tree, 
 Lonely, and tossed by every air 
 That snow-filled nest I see." 
 
 Aside from the birds themselves, there is no 
 subject of greater interest to the student than the 
 birds' homes. 
 
 Lowell's heart is touched to reminiscent mood 
 by the old nest, which he loves for what it has 
 been: 
 
 "Like some lorn abbey now, the wood 
 Stands roofless in the bitter air; 
 In ruins on its floor is strewed 
 
 The carven foliage quaint and rare, 
 And homeless winds complain along 
 The columned choir once thrilled with song.
 
 210 Twelve Months With 
 
 And thou, dear nest, whence joy and praise 
 The thankful oriole used to pour, 
 
 Swing'st empty while the north winds chase 
 Their snowy swarms from Labrador : 
 
 But, loyal to the happy past, 
 
 I love thee still for what thou wast." 
 
 In the same spirit Joseph Howe writes of the 
 old deserted nest, as attractive to the poet's eye: 
 
 "Deserted nest, that on the leafless tree 
 
 Waves to and fro with every dreary blast, 
 With none to shelter, none to care for thee, 
 Thy day of pride and cheerfulness is past. 
 
 Thy tiny walls are falling to decay, 
 
 Thy cell is tenantless and tuneless now, 
 
 The winter winds have rent the leaves away, 
 And left thee hanging on the naked bough. 
 
 But yet, deserted nest, there is a spell, 
 
 E'en in thy loneliness, to touch the heart, 
 
 For holy things within thee once did dwell, 
 The type of joys departed now thou art. 
 
 Then though thy walls be rent, and cold thy cell, 
 And thoughtless crowds may hourly pass thee by, 
 
 Where love and truth and tenderness did dwell, 
 There's still attraction for the poet's eye." 
 
 In addition to this appeal to the imagination 
 which the abandoned nest always brings, with 
 speculations as to the home life which has glori-
 
 The Birds and Poets 211 
 
 fied it, the mere examination of the structure of 
 the different varieties of nests within easy reach 
 in the winter thickets seldom fails to reveal some- 
 thing of interest. One December day I found an 
 old thrush's nest in the woods, and upon pulling 
 it apart discovered embedded in the bottom a small 
 piece of faded newspaper. The printing was 
 scarcely discernible, but I was able to decipher 
 a few lines about a modern design of shotgun, 
 which was stated to be very much superior to the 
 older models, and on the reverse side of the scrap 
 the only words that were distinct were "Would 
 you run?" And this advertisement of a modern 
 death-dealing weapon found its way into the little 
 home of the thrush ! One might in his fancy trace 
 those printed lines from the little nest in the forest 
 back to the news-stand, and to the printing office, 
 then perchance to the desk of the man who penned 
 the words, little thinking they ultimately would 
 be woven into the texture of a bird's home. 
 
 Scraps of paper and cloth are frequently found 
 interwoven into the texture of nests of various 
 birds. One day in May, while seated on my sum- 
 mer porch, a sharp storm came up, and a robin's 
 nest in an elm tree near by was blown down upon 
 the cement walk, and four young featherless, help- 
 less birds tumbled to their death. As I could do 
 nothing to restore the little robin household, I 
 contented myself with examining the nest, and at 
 the base of it, under the mud, I found a piece of 
 white cloth as large as a handkerchief. How the
 
 212 Twelve Months With 
 
 robin ever managed to carry it into the tree is a 
 mystery. 
 
 Almost every catbird's nest by the roadside has 
 scraps of paper interlaid with the sticks and other 
 building material, perhaps for the same reason 
 that the building contractor inserts paper between 
 the supporting walls of man's habitation. 
 
 I once found a small mummified hyla in an old 
 thrush's nest. It was impossible to tell by what 
 means he had come to his untimely end. These 
 little tree frogs frequently make an hibernaculum 
 under the leaf mold in winter, and as it was only 
 late autumn, perhaps he had hopped into the 
 abandoned nest as a temporary abode until winter 
 should come, and through some mishap it had 
 become his tomb. 
 
 In old shrikes' nests I have sometimes found 
 the small bones of little birds which have been 
 carried to the shambles by these feathered canni- 
 bals, and slaughtered without mercy. 
 
 Many deserted nests in winter are found full of 
 the hulls of grain, nuts and acorns, where mice 
 and squirrels have dined. Other nests have nuts 
 and acorns tucked away among the twigs, where 
 they have been stored for the future use of some 
 thrifty inhabitant of the woodlands. Both field 
 mice and squirrels sometimes appropriate old 
 birds' nests and roof them over with grass and 
 leaves, and after building an addition or two along 
 the lines of mouse or squirrel architecture, pro-
 
 The Birds and Poets 213 
 
 ceed to occupy the warm but incongruous structure 
 through the winter. 
 
 It is interesting to note that while man's imme- 
 diate ancestors originally occupied the trees, and 
 in the process of evolution became terrestrial 
 animals, the bird's immediate ancestors were 
 originally terrestrial, and in the process of evolu- 
 tion many of them became tree dwellers. Man's 
 conquest over the forces of nature has enabled 
 him to live in comparative safety on the earth's 
 surface, whereas many of the birds still seek 
 refuge from their natural enemies in the pro- 
 tective tree tops. 
 
 Even among the fishes and reptiles from which 
 it is said the birds have descended, the habit of 
 nest building is not unknown. Among the fishes, 
 both sexes of the bright-colored Crenilabrus massa 
 and melops work together in building their nests 
 with seaweed, shells, etc. The stickleback (G. 
 leiurus) also builds a nest, and the male of the 
 species performs the duties of a nurse with exem- 
 plary care and vigilance during a long time, and 
 is continually employed in gently leading the 
 young back to the nest when they stray too far.* 
 
 Many of the reptiles deposit their eggs in the 
 sand near the edge of the water, taking quite as 
 much care in depositing and protecting them as 
 some of our shore and water birds. Many of our 
 shore birds exhibit striking structural resemblances 
 to their reptile ancestors, in their long legs and 
 
 * Darwin, Descent of Man, 2nd Ed., p. 391.
 
 214 Twelve Months With 
 
 bills, and their nesting habits also seem to indicate 
 their reptilian origin. Few of these birds build 
 elaborate nests. Many merely lay their eggs in 
 the sand or gravel, after the manner of a snake 
 or turtle, but they have made some advance over 
 their ancient progenitors in the matter of incuba- 
 tion, as they sit upon their eggs, and do not depend 
 upon the sun to hatch them. 
 
 The higher we go in the order of nature, the 
 greater is the attachment to home and family, and 
 the more highly developed the species of birds, 
 the more attention do we find given to the nest 
 and eggs. 
 
 In most cases perhaps the nest should be called 
 the nursery rather than the home, because, with 
 few exceptions, there is little real abiding affection 
 for nest, young or mate. Among our birds only 
 the eagle and the osprey mate for life. While 
 the higher order of our song birds mate for the 
 season, if one of a pair disappears during the 
 nesting time, its place is usually filled by another 
 within a few hours, and among the lower orders 
 of birds, polygamy is common. 
 
 The greatest devotion to home and family is 
 found in those species whose young are helpless 
 when hatched. They are called altrices or altri- 
 cials, as distinguished from praecoses or precocials, 
 who run or swim as soon as they are born. Altrices 
 is derived from the Latin altrix, meaning "to 
 nurse." The precocials therefore may be called 
 chicks, and the altricials, nestlings. Among the
 
 The Birds and Poets 215 
 
 former may be mentioned quail, grouse, sand- 
 pipers, snipe and plover, and among the latter, 
 bluebirds, robins, sparrows and all our song birds. 
 The precocial chicks are born covered with 
 feathers or down, and actively toddle about as 
 soon as they break through the shell. I once 
 found a nest of the spotted sandpiper with four 
 eggs in it, and upon returning only one week later 
 discovered that all the young birds had hatched 
 and run away. 
 
 The altricials, on the other hand, are born naked 
 and helpless, blind and dumb, and require the 
 most careful and protracted nursing to bring them 
 to the self-supporting stage. In this nurturing 
 process, of course, the family tie is strengthened, 
 and the nest of an altricial is at least a nursery, 
 and not a mere precocial birthplace. In some 
 instances the birds show considerable affection for 
 the nest itself long after the young are gone and 
 the nesting season is over, roosting upon or near 
 it until migration. 
 
 Some birds use their nest homes for rearing two 
 or three little broods during the summer, and some 
 return to the old home the following season. The 
 eagle, if not molested, returns to the old nest year 
 after year, adding a few sticks each season until 
 it often becomes of enormous size and thickness. 
 
 It requires about five weeks for a pair of robins 
 to build a nest and nurse the first little family 
 to the point where they can fly, and if the parent 
 birds rear two or three broods from the same nest,
 
 216 Twelve Months With 
 
 as sometimes happens, they acquire some love of 
 home and family. 
 
 Among the precocial grouse and quail the old 
 birds look after their active little chicks and 
 teach them the ways of the wicked world and how 
 to feed and protect themselves, with a truly 
 parental solicitude. The altricials of necessity 
 build more safe and secure nests, because of the 
 helpless condition of their young families, whereas 
 some of the precocials build none at all. But even 
 among the former the cuckoos, doves and herons 
 build a rude nest of a few scattered sticks, through 
 which one may often see the eggs. The altricial 
 cowbird, the degenerate, builds no nest at all, but 
 foists her eggs and her helpless young nestlings 
 upon some unsuspecting sparrow, warbler or 
 vireo. 
 
 Each species builds a characteristic nest, and 
 all nests of a particular species are very similar, 
 so that one may often identify a bird solely by 
 the kind of nest he finds. 
 
 Almost all the trades are represented among the 
 birds, in the nests they build for rearing their 
 young. An anonymous poet has left these lines 
 referring to some of the many different bird crafts : 
 
 "The swallow is a mason, 
 
 And underneath the eaves 
 He builds a nest and plasters it 
 With mud and hay and leaves.
 
 The Birds and Poets 217 
 
 The woodpecker is hard at work, 
 
 A carpenter is he; 
 And you may find him hammering 
 
 His house high up a tree. 
 
 The bullfinch knows and practices 
 
 The basketmaker's trade; 
 See what a cradle for his young 
 
 The little thing has made. 
 
 Of all the weavers that I know, 
 
 The oriole's the best; 
 High on the apple tree he weaves 
 
 A cozy little nest. 
 
 The goldfinch is a fuller; 
 
 A skillful workman he ! 
 Of wool and threads he makes a nest 
 
 That you would like to see. 
 
 Some little birds are miners, 
 Some build upon the ground; 
 
 And busy little tailors, too, 
 Among the birds are found. 
 
 The cuckoo laughs to see them work; 
 
 'Not so,' he says, 'we do; 
 My wife and I take other nests 
 
 And live at ease cuckoo P ' 
 
 Our cuckoos usually build nests, however, 
 though it is said their eggs are sometimes found 
 in the nests of other species.
 
 21 8 Twelve Months With 
 
 Three of the most remarkable of the bird archi- 
 tects are natives of India, the land of the Taj 
 Mahal! the tailor bird (Sylvia sutoria), the 
 hornbill (Buceros) and the sociable grosbeak 
 (Ploeceus socius Cuvier). 
 
 Every one has heard of the tailor bird, that 
 sews the edges of leaves together with stitches as 
 regular as those of an experienced seamstress, and 
 then fills the receptacle with its nest. 
 
 The female hornbill fashions her nest with 
 especial care for her protection during incuba- 
 tion. She plasters up with her own excrement 
 the orifice of the cavity in which she sits on her 
 eggs, leaving only a small opening through which 
 the male feeds her, being thus kept a close prisoner 
 during the whole period of incubation. 
 
 The sociable grosbeak perhaps exhibits the most 
 remarkable instinct for real bird architecture of 
 any living species. As many as eight hundred or 
 one thousand of the nests of this bird have been 
 found in one tree, "covered with one general roof, 
 resembling that of a thatched house, and project- 
 ing over the entrance of the nest. 
 
 Beneath this roof there are many entrances, each 
 of which forms, as it were, a regular street, with 
 nests on either side, about two inches distant from 
 each other." * 
 
 One of the most ingenious and interesting nests 
 of the birds of our latitude is that of the orchard 
 oriole. It is pensile, or suspended, like that of 
 
 * Nuttall, Birds of U. S. and Can., p. rxx.
 
 The Birds and Poets 219 
 
 its cousin, the Baltimore, but, with the exception 
 of hair, it is always constructed of tough grass, 
 woven and platted like a straw hat, and the work 
 is so excellently done that some of the nests look 
 like they were made by a knitting machine. 
 Indeed, the ornithologist, Wilson, relates how a 
 woman of his acquaintance, when shown a nest 
 of this bird, enquired "if he thought it could be 
 taught to darn stockings." 
 
 The hanging, gourd-shaped nest of the Balti- 
 more oriole is a familiar sight in winter as it 
 hangs tenaciously to the tip of some drooping 
 limb through winter winds and snows. 
 
 The nest of the oven-bird is unique and unusual. 
 It is placed on the ground, made of coarse grass, 
 weed stalks, leaves, etc., and roofed over, with the 
 opening at the side. 
 
 "Daintily the leaves he tiptoes; 
 Underneath them builds his oven, 
 Arched and framed with last year's oak leaves, 
 Roofed and walled against the rain drops." 
 
 The nests of the wood pewee and the humming 
 bird are among the daintiest of all bird homes, 
 as well as the most difficult to find. Both resemble 
 lichen-covered knots, and are lined with the finest 
 down, "fine as the mother's softest plumes allow." 
 The ruby-throat sometimes weaves into the lichen 
 cover of its nest a bit of colored feather, thus 
 exhibiting, as claimed by some, a love for the 
 beautiful. The nests of the warblers,
 
 22O Twelve Months With 
 
 "Whose habitations in the tree tops even 
 Are half-way houses on the road to heaven," 
 
 are all dainty creations and usually difficult to 
 find, because they are often placed high in the 
 treetops. 
 
 The instinct for nest building persists in caged 
 birds, who sometimes in spring make pitiful 
 attempts to collect material about the cage for 
 making a nest. Sarah Orne Jewett writes of her 
 caged canary: 
 
 "She gathers piteous bits and shreds, 
 
 This solitary, mateless thing, 
 To patient build again the nest 
 
 So rudely scattered spring by spring." 
 
 Any one who has observed this phenomenon, I 
 dare say, would thenceforth find it difficult if not 
 impossible to deprive a bird of its liberty. Riley, 
 in humorous dialect, says it is ridiculous to do 
 so when the woods and fields are full of birds: 
 
 "Jes' the idy, now, o'layin' 
 Out your money, and a-payin' 
 
 Fer a wilier-cage and bird, 
 When the medder-larks is wingin' 
 Round you, and the woods is ringin' 
 With the beautifullest singin' 
 
 That a mortal ever heard." 
 
 The locations chosen by different species for 
 their nests are about as various as the styles in
 
 The Birds and Poets 221 
 
 nest building. The bank swallows and king- 
 fishers and burrowing owls make excavations 
 underground; many of the song birds, including 
 sparrows, meadowlarks, bobolinks, etc., nest in 
 the grass; the warblers usually nest in the branches 
 of bushes or trees; some of the shore birds deposit 
 their eggs upon the bare sand; some of the ducks 
 construct nests that float upon the water; the 
 woodpeckers bore holes in the trees for their 
 homes; the swift always glues its nest to the wall 
 of a chimney; the nighthawk lays its eggs on the 
 bare ground or a flat rock, or sometimes on the roof 
 of a building. 
 
 Wherever it is built, and of whatever materials, 
 the nest of a bird is always an object of interest 
 and inspiration. One needs but quote these lines 
 from Wordsworth : 
 
 "The imperial Consort of the Fairy-King 
 Owns not a sylvan bower, or gorgeous cell 
 With emerald floored, and with purpureal shell 
 Ceilinged and roofed, that is so fair a thing 
 As this low structure, for the tasks of spring 
 Prepared. * * *" 
 
 When the secret of the bird's nest is disclosed, 
 and the eggs or young revealed, one approaching 
 it feels that he may be violating the sanctity of 
 the little unprotected home, like the poet who 
 
 "* * * looked at it and seemed to fear it; 
 Dreading, though wishing, to be near it."
 
 222 With the Birds and Poets 
 
 There is woven into the texture of the nest 
 much that is not mere sticks or grass, just as 
 there is in a home much that is not mere walls 
 and ceilings. Would that we might always look 
 upon the building of a nest with the eyes and the 
 spirit of the poet John Vance Cheney: 
 
 "Weave, bird in the green, green leaves! 
 
 Wind in with every thread 
 The shine of the earth and sky; 
 
 Twine heaven's blue and the rose's red, 
 And the wind-sweet singing by. 
 
 Weave, bird in the green, green leaves! 
 
 The lustre from east to west, 
 The melody line by line, 
 
 Braid it, shade it, into the nest, 
 The home in the heart of the vine. 
 
 Weave, bird in the green, green leaves ! 
 
 All happy color and sound, 
 By love's own cunning curled, 
 
 Wind it, bind it, round and round; 
 Build in the bliss of the world."
 
 JANUARY. 
 
 Endlessly stretches the snow 
 
 The sun stays low 
 
 The pinched airs flow 
 
 Through shivering tree-heads bare, 
 
 Scant windy birds are in air 
 
 And the lead-blue film is everywhere; 
 
 The deeps of the woods lie near 
 
 The footless ways are clear 
 
 Sconced in the sleep of the year. 
 
 Glisten and freeze on field and pond 
 
 The lines are unbound! 
 
 And the gamut is stript to the ends and beyond. 
 
 It is now that the four winds meet 
 'Tis now that the world's in my feet, 
 Call of my heart, be fleet, be fleet! 
 
 lo 
 
 The snow! 
 
 L. H. Bailey. 
 
 OME years ago an eminent naturalist 
 said that January was a favorable 
 time to begin the study of birds. 
 Since then the same opinion and 
 the same reasons supporting it have 
 been urged by a number of writers 
 of bird literature. 
 
 I can neither agree with the opinion nor the 
 reasons assigned in support of it. It is true that
 
 224 Twelve Months With 
 
 birds are few in January, as compared with the 
 bewildering hordes that come up from the south 
 in the springtime, and it may therefore be less 
 difficult to identify them. It is also true, of course, 
 that the woods are bare, and the birds cannot 
 hide away in dense foliage, as they do in summer; 
 but these facts by no means prove that January is 
 a good time to begin the study of birds. 
 
 Though the woods are bare, the winter birds 
 are not always easy to find, for they are generally 
 quiet and retiring. They often occupy holes in 
 trees, abandoned nests and other places of protec- 
 tion during extremely cold or stormy weather, 
 venturing forth only for the purpose of feeding. 
 They usually wander aimlessly about in flocks. 
 Their habits are irregular, and their movements 
 erratic and uncertain. Here today, they may be 
 gone tomorrow. Again, the January coats of some 
 of our birds are dull and quite unlike their well- 
 marked summer plumage, and the spring change 
 to another dress would confuse the student. 
 
 The greatest objection, however, to commencing 
 bird study in January is that it is a winter month, 
 and the spirit has not yet awakened to the inspira- 
 tion which comes with the birds and flowers of 
 spring. Enthusiasm is even more important in 
 nature study than in other pursuits, and to the 
 beginner the winter landscape is sometimes 
 dispiriting. But when
 
 The Birds and Poets 22$ 
 
 "The year's at the spring 
 
 ****** 
 
 God's in his heaven 
 All's right with the world!" 
 
 It is then that we long for the woods and fields 
 and we begin the study of birds with a warmth 
 of zeal that sharpens our powers of observation 
 and perception. Though there be hosts of birds 
 at this season, and many that it may be difficult 
 to identify, a full year of study will make one 
 familiar with a goodly number of the common 
 birds, and the following spring the identification 
 of new acquaintances will be comparatively easy. 
 
 By all means, spring is the season in which to 
 begin the study of birds. 
 
 Many of the erroneous opinions about birds 
 have gained currency by being hastily accepted 
 and quoted without personal investigation of the 
 subject. Nothing should be stated as a fact unless 
 it has been actually observed, and the opinions 
 of others should not be adopted, and thus given 
 added authority, except they be verified by per- 
 sonal experience. 
 
 In this connection I regret to say that the 
 ornithologists themselves are largely responsible 
 for some unfounded prejudices which exist as to 
 our most abundant winter bird, the English spar- 
 row. That this hardy little foreigner is nothing 
 but an unmitigated nuisance at all times and at 
 all places seems now to be the settled opinion. It
 
 226 Twelve Months With 
 
 is said that he drives away other birds, that he is 
 filthy in his habits, that he destroys immense quan- 
 tities of grain, beans, fruit, etc., and that he is an 
 all-around pest! 
 
 As to the charge of driving away other birds, 
 my own observation has been that, considering 
 their numbers, they are no more quarrelsome than 
 other birds. I have many times seen them worsted 
 in fights with little house wrens, and have often 
 observed one robin scare away a half dozen spar- 
 rows with one fluff of his wing or tail. Bluebirds 
 are not quarrelsome, but if the right sort of a 
 box is erected in a suitable place they will rout 
 the sparrows and occupy the box. 
 
 A recent writer goes to the ridiculous extreme 
 of giving statistics as to the number of attacks 
 made by sparrows on other birds. Such figures 
 prove nothing. A startling table of this kind 
 might be made as to a great many of our common 
 and much beloved birds. 
 
 The statement that the sparrows drive away the 
 other birds comes with ill grace from those who 
 never offer an invitation to the "other birds" to 
 nest near their homes, and never give them any 
 sort of encouragement or protection, winter or 
 summer. 
 
 I rejoice to find one ornithologist who is not 
 blinded by the popular prejudices. Mrs. Nellie 
 B. Doubleday (Neltje Blanchan, pseud.), in her 
 delightful book, "How to Attract the Birds," 
 writes :
 
 The Birds and Poets 227 
 
 "Indeed, a great deal of nonsense is talked about 
 sparrows driving away other birds. Like the down- 
 trodden Italian and other peasants from the Old 
 World, the sparrows are prepared to live here where 
 others would starve. They kill no birds. We are 
 too wont to attribute the results of our own misdeeds 
 or shortcomings the barbarities of millinery fashions, 
 wanton slaughter masquerading as sport, the lack of 
 good bird laws and the enforcing of them, where such 
 exist upon these troublesome, noisy, quarrelsome little 
 feathered gamins * * *. In spite of the sparrows, 
 there is already noticeable a large increase in the num- 
 ber of song birds wherever protective laws, reinforced 
 by Audubon Societies and public sentiment have oper- 
 ated for even a few years. Sparrows drive no birds 
 from England." 
 
 I know full well that the English sparrow's 
 record is not all white. He is an untidy little 
 buster, and he has been the subject of inquiry by 
 the United States Government, and the statistics 
 show him to be a heavy destroyer of grain, beans, 
 fruit, etc., in certain localities. But what shall 
 we say of the bobolinks that annually eat thousands 
 of pounds of rice, and of the robins that often 
 devastate cherry, olive and other fruit crops, to 
 say. nothing of the blue jays, blackbirds, crows 
 et al., all of whom enjoy fairly respectable repu- 
 tations? It has sometimes only been possible to 
 save the California olive crop from the hungry 
 robins by the most prompt and vigorous action.* 
 
 * Farmers' Bui. 513, p. 7, IL S. Dept. of Agr.
 
 228 Twelve Months With 
 
 These birds are not universally condemned, how- 
 ever, because of the local damage done to the olive 
 crop. Neither are the bobolinks universally con- 
 demned because of the serious damage done every 
 year in the rice fields of the south. On the con- 
 trary, the robin and the bobolink are two of our 
 most beloved birds. 
 
 In some sections of the country, and at certain 
 seasons, from fifty to sixty-five per cent of the Eng- 
 lish sparrow's diet consists of grain,* and in some 
 states growing wheat and oat crops have been 
 heavily damaged by these birds, but in most sec- 
 tions where grain constitutes a considerable portion 
 of their food, it is waste grain, of no value to any 
 one. No reason is perceived for universal con- 
 demnation of the English sparrow because of occa- 
 sional local depredations. 
 
 A recent investigation made by the Bureau of 
 Biological Survey, however, shows that in the 
 west these birds are effective enemies of the alfalfa 
 weevil, and that during the month of May, in the 
 Salt Lake Valley, Utah, thirty-six per cent of their 
 food consisted of alfalfa weevils, and about nine- 
 teen per cent caterpillars, and that later in the 
 season, from July i to 15, thirty-five per cent con- 
 sisted of grasshoppers. Furthermore, these spar- 
 rows have practically exterminated the measuring 
 caterpillars from our cities, and they have been of 
 more help than all other birds combined in gather- 
 ing up the seeds of noxious weeds about yards and 
 
 Bull. 107, U. S. Dept. Agr., p. 2.
 
 The Birds and Poets 229 
 
 lawns. Mr. E. R. Kalmbach, who contributes a 
 Bulletin from the Biological Survey on the investi- 
 gation referred to, sums up on the English sparrow 
 as follows: 
 
 "Considering the various phases of the economic 
 relation of the English Sparrow to the alfalfa weevil, 
 it may safely be asserted that this bird is a most 
 effective enemy of the pest. This is particularly true 
 of nestling birds in May and June. In view, how- 
 ever, of the ability of this bird to do serious damage 
 (not its doing it, be it observed!) to standing grain, 
 and to take heavy toll from the farmers' chicken feed, 
 legal protection for the species cannot be advocated."* 
 
 We are making some progress! While legal 
 protection is not advocated, the bird is no longer 
 regarded as a useless "pest," as he was only two 
 years before by Mr. Ned Dearborn, expert biolo- 
 gist of the Biological Survey: 
 
 "They are noisy, filthy and destructive. They drive 
 native birds from villages and homesteads. Though 
 they are occasionally valuable as destroyers of noxious 
 insects, all things considered they do far more harm 
 than good." f 
 
 As a matter of common sense and common 
 justice to the bird, the English sparrow should 
 be considered as purely a local question. Undoubt- 
 
 * Bull. 107, U. S. Dept. Agr., p. 56. 
 
 t Farmers' Bull. 493, U. S. Dept. Agr., p. 24.
 
 230 Twelve Months With 
 
 edly in some country districts, on account of their 
 numbers, they are very injurious to grain, and 
 should be killed. The record made up by avowed 
 enemies of the bird, however, shows that in most 
 urban communities it does more good than harm. 
 
 The English sparrows are also very common, 
 which is always a misfortune for anything or any- 
 body! Doubtless many people are prejudiced 
 against them on that account. The beautiful 
 dandelions are despised for the same reason, but 
 Lowell has honored this "dear common flower" 
 with one of the finest of nature poems. 
 
 English sparrow verses are as rare as the birds 
 are common, and for that reason, and also because 
 of its merit, I quote the whole of James J. Daly's 
 poem: 
 
 "The sparrow has no holiday gear, 
 
 Nor whistles a jolly stave; 
 But in romance no buccaneer 
 Has ever been so brave. 
 
 He scorns your threats and stays to scoff, 
 
 He challenges and usurps. 
 Does blustering Winter scare him off? 
 
 He tilts his head and chirps. 
 
 He meets the North's artilleries 
 
 As cool as Bonaparte; 
 No hungry siege of frost can freeze 
 
 The courage in his heart.
 
 The Birds and Poets 231 
 
 While refugees take gentle cheer 
 
 In lands of palm and spice, 
 He drudges in the trenches here 
 
 With wings incased in ice. 
 
 Then when Spring starts her northern drive 
 
 And Winter's long line reels, 
 The foppish refugees arrive 
 
 Fresh from the far Antilles. 
 
 The oriole, that gay young spark, 
 The thrush, swift, robin, wren, 
 
 The martin, and the meadowlark 
 Come back to us again. 
 
 And fawning honors we must do 
 
 Unto this dandy rout. 
 This debonair, soft-fluting crew 
 
 Must drive the sparrow out! 
 
 The gable-angle, come what will, 
 Must serve the martin's rest. 
 
 The elm-crutch near the window-sill 
 Must hold the robin's nest. 
 
 The drooping maple-bough must sway 
 
 For the oriole's silken ease. 
 Woe to the sparrow that says nay 
 
 To our sublime decrees I 
 
 I do not like the sparrow's dress, 
 
 It is as dull as dirt; 
 I do not like his quarrelsomeness; 
 
 He's impudent and pert.
 
 232 Twelve Months With 
 
 But as for me, he's free to hold 
 
 What's his by gallant fight. 
 No silver song or coat of gold 
 
 Shall blind me to his right." 
 
 Most of us are blinded to his rights by unthink- 
 ing prejudice. He is entitled to a square deal, 
 but he has not received it. 
 
 The English sparrows are our only constant 
 daily household birds in winter, and we would 
 sorely miss them if they were gone. While they 
 sometimes appear quarrelsome among themselves, 
 they are really friendly, sympathetic little gossips. 
 One January day I found one in the snow beside 
 the walk, with one of its wings injured. I stooped 
 to pick it up, and as I was just closing my hand 
 over it, it fluttered off. It tumbled down in the 
 snow a few feet away, and I stopped to see what 
 would happen. In a moment another sparrow 
 flew down beside it in the snow, and hopped about 
 with sympathetic concern, and soon several more 
 joined them, all making as much fuss as a flock 
 of crows. One of them flew into the road near by 
 and picked up something in his bill, and then flew 
 back to the wounded bird, and apparently dropped 
 the material in the snow beside it. 
 
 The question of the usefulness of any bird 
 depends upon whether we consider its general 
 aesthetic and economic utility in nature, or merely 
 its tendency under certain circumstances to destroy
 
 The Birds and Poets 233 
 
 what man in his vanity considers his exclusive 
 property. 
 
 I have heard of a Massachusetts gentleman who 
 preserves his cherry trees for the exclusive benefit 
 of the robins. If they do not eat all the cherries, 
 he takes what is left. He considers the fruit more 
 valuable as food for the robins than for any other 
 purpose. It all depends upon the point of view! 
 
 Mischievous birds that steal grain or fruit 
 always incur the enmity of that class of conscien- 
 tious people who cut down their fruit trees that 
 the boys may not be tempted to break the eighth 
 commandment! * 
 
 January is the month of typical winter birds. 
 Some fall stragglers remain with us until Decem- 
 ber, and a few spring birds arrive as early as 
 February, but January is the month of the real 
 winter bird. 
 
 Some winters the birds seem quite abundant, 
 but they are never so numerous that they may be 
 considered commonplace. At this season 
 
 "* * * no plumed throng 
 Charms the woods with song." 
 
 Winter birds are always rare enough that a sight 
 of one makes the pulse beat quicker. 
 
 Birds in winter frequently go about in flocks, 
 in which will be found representatives of two or 
 
 Wilson Flagg, Birds & Seasons, p. 375.
 
 234 Twelve Months With 
 
 three species. Tree sparrows and juncos are often 
 seen together, goldfinches and redpolls frequently 
 associate with one another, and woodpeckers, 
 nuthatches and chickadees sometimes feed in com- 
 pany. Sufficient food supply is the common 
 anxiety of the birds in winter, and the flocking 
 of the birds seems to indicate that all are taking 
 advantage of the common search for food. A few 
 of our summer residents, like the robins, bluebirds 
 and cardinals, remain with us during the winter 
 in neighborhoods where suitable food is to be 
 found. If attractive feeding places are main- 
 tained, the first heavy snow will often bring one 
 of our hidden summer favorites "out of the every- 
 where into the here," as if he had suddenly fallen 
 from the clouds. 
 
 One very cold morning in December, following 
 a heavy snow, a male robin was observed eating 
 the suet tied to a limb of my cherry tree. As the 
 temperature was below zero, he fluffed his feathers 
 and squatted down over his feet, and seemed very 
 cheerless and dispirited. I felt the sentiment 
 expressed by Mr. Burroughs in his stanza to the 
 winter bird: 
 
 "O cheery bird of winter cold, 
 I bless thy every feather; 
 Thy voice brings back dear boyhood days, 
 When we were gay together." 
 
 Thereafter during the winter the robin visited 
 my feeding box many times, and we were sure
 
 The Birds and Poets 235 
 
 to see him after every snowstorm, when most 
 of the available food in the neighborhood was 
 covered up. 
 
 The winter was exceptionally cold, and there 
 were several periods of high northwest winds, with 
 sub-zero temperatures, but the robin was a fairly 
 regular boarder at my pantry window ledge, prov- 
 ing again that food, and not temperature, is the 
 controling factor in fall migration. 
 
 . The bird did not seem at all inconvenienced by 
 ordinary winter weather, and usually appeared 
 well fed and happy. He was quiet most of the 
 time, but one morning, while perched in the cherry 
 tree, I heard his familiar spring "Chirp, Chirp!" 
 but in a rather disconsolate key. I answered him 
 with a mimicking whistle, and he immediately 
 became greatly excited, chirping loudly, and as 
 I continued to return his call he jumped and 
 twitched about among the branches, all aquiver 
 with eager expectancy, uttering the alarm note 
 frequently heard during the nesting season. This 
 solitary straggler was doubtless very lonesome for 
 his fellows in the south, and he was overjoyed 
 for the moment, thinking he had found one of 
 them. He shortly discovered the fraud and 
 stopped chirping, in apparent disgust. I have 
 often mimicked a robin's call in the summer, but 
 have seldom been successful in getting any response 
 from the bird, probably because the genuine robin 
 calls were all around me, but this winter robin's 
 response was so sudden as to startle me. The lordly
 
 236 Twelve Months With 
 
 manner in which he walked up and down the 
 feeding tray and pushed the sparrows aside, with- 
 out so much as deigning to glance at them, showed 
 pretty clearly that there was no very grave danger 
 of the sparrows driving him away, as they are 
 often accused of doing. The sparrows showed no 
 signs of fright, and appeared to acknowledge the 
 robin's superior rights, which he calmly accepted 
 with becoming dignity, and even friendliness. 
 One day during a cold winter rainstorm the robin 
 and a number of sparrows perched side by side 
 in friendly fashion on a telephone wire, under 
 the protecting gable of the roof. 
 
 Long periods of severe weather and the result- 
 ing scarcity of food sometimes prove too much 
 for those robins that winter in the northern por- 
 tions of their range. Large numbers were killed 
 off by the severe winter of 1895-6 in Tennessee 
 and Kentucky, and for several years thereafter the 
 robins were not so abundant in summer in the 
 Central and Northern States. 
 
 Upon almost any country walk in January 
 one may see a few crows, one or all of the three 
 resident woodpeckers hairy, downy and the red- 
 head, chickadees, nuthatches, juncos, tree spar- 
 rows and blue jays, and usually a goldfinch or two 
 in sombre winter garb of gray, feeding upon the 
 seeds of mullen or other weeds protruding through 
 the snow. Song sparrows, snowflakes, Lapland 
 longspurs and redpolls are less frequently seen. 
 
 Emerson describes a weed as a plant whose
 
 The Birds and Poets 237 
 
 virtues have not been discovered, but one virtue 
 of the dry winter weeds which almost justifies 
 their existence is the supply of seeds they furnish 
 to hundreds of these little winter birds. 
 
 The woodpeckers roost at night and during bad 
 weather in holes in trees, and they may sometimes 
 be observed in winter cleaning out old cavities 
 for roosting purposes. The hairy and downy 
 woodpeckers are the more common. They are 
 similar in appearance, but the downy is at least 
 two inches shorter, and his feathers have a fluffy, 
 ruffled, downy appearance, from which he derives 
 his name. 
 
 Downy is also more often seen outside the 
 woods, and he is not so noisy and active as hairy. 
 
 Referring to the wide white mark along downy's 
 black back, Thoreau remarked: "His cassock is 
 open behind, showing his white robe." 
 
 Joel Benton puts two winter birds, the crow 
 and chickadee, into his winter picture: 
 
 "When the crow has new concern, 
 
 And early sounds his raucous note; 
 And where the late witch-hazels burn 
 The squirrel from a chuckling throat 
 
 Tells that one larder's space is filled, 
 And tilts upon a towering tree; 
 
 And, valiant, quick, and keenly thrilled, 
 Up starts the tiny chickadee."
 
 238 Twelve Months With 
 
 Because of the size, color, voice and abundance 
 of the crow, he is perhaps the best known of all 
 our birds. While he has many acquaintances, he 
 has few friends. He has incurred the displeasure 
 of the farmers by his fondness for corn, but in 
 justice to the outlaw be it said that he seldom 
 eats any corn except when it is sprouting in the 
 fields. On the other hand, he is an efficient 
 scavenger, and he consumes a large quantity of 
 harmful weevils, cutworms, May beetles and grass- 
 hoppers, so that he is not so black inside as out! 
 He is a merry madcap withal, who seems to enjoy 
 his rakish reputation, and talks noisily about it 
 to his fellows. 
 
 He is the American representative of the Euro- 
 pean rook. The rooks are protected in England 
 on account of their service to agriculture, not- 
 withstanding the mischief they do. Mr. Wilson 
 Flagg calls attention to the difference in the atti- 
 tude of America and some of the older countries 
 with reference to the birds: 
 
 "The farmers of Europe, having learned by ex- 
 perience that without the aid of mischievous birds their 
 crops would be sacrificed to the more destructive insect 
 race, forgive them their trespasses as we forgive the 
 trespasses of cats and dogs, who in the aggregate are 
 vastly more destructive than birds. The respect shown 
 to birds by any people seems to bear a certain ratio to 
 the antiquity of the nation. Hence the sacredness with 
 which they are regarded in Japan, where the popula- 
 tion is so dense that the inhabitants would not consent
 
 The Birds and Poets 239 
 
 to divide the products of their fields with the feathered 
 race unless their usefulness had been demonstrated."* 
 
 During many years of persecution the crow has 
 developed a cunning and sagacity that is remark- 
 able. He seems to be able accurately to judge, 
 upon the approach of any person, whether his 
 intentions are hostile or friendly. He pays no 
 particular attention to children or others aimlessly 
 wandering about the woods, but he immediately 
 becomes as wild as a hare when a hunter attempts 
 to approach him. This wariness and cunning 
 should be considered more of a virtue than a vice, 
 however, because, surrounded by all sorts of perils, 
 it has been necessary to his very existence. 
 
 While the crow has never been regarded as a 
 handsome fellow, at close range he makes a very 
 pleasing appearance in his glossy black plumage 
 with its purple reflections. The poise of the head 
 and the stately, graceful gait give him a grave 
 and dignified appearance as he stalks about the 
 fields. 
 
 Robert Burns Wilson makes him the subject of 
 a graceful and befitting sonnet: 
 
 "Bold, amiable, ebon outlaw, grave and wise ! 
 For many a good green year hast thou withstood 
 By dangerous, planted field and haunted wood 
 All the devices of thine enemies. 
 Gleaning thy grudged bread with watchful eyes 
 And self-relying soul. Come ill or good, 
 
 * Birds & Seasons, p. 379.
 
 240 Twelve Months With 
 
 Blithe days, thou see'st, thou feathered Robin Hood I 
 Thou mak'st a jest of farm-land boundaries. 
 Take all thou may'st, and never count it crime 
 To rob the greatest robber of the earth; 
 Weak-visioned, dull, self-lauding man, whose worth 
 Is in his own esteem. Bide thou thy time ; 
 Thou knowest far more of Nature's lore than he, 
 And her wise lap shall still provide for thee." 
 
 Our common nuthatches, both of which are 
 permanent residents, are the white-breasted and 
 the red-breasted. Both have characteristic notes, 
 consisting of a nasal "Yank! Yank!" in an alto 
 key, but the notes of the white-breast are decidedly 
 the more vigorous, and he is a third larger than 
 his cousin, the red-breast. Because of his won- 
 derful acrobatic feats in running about under 
 limbs and branches, and along tree trunks, head 
 downward, the nuthatch has sometimes been called 
 "Devil-down-head." 
 
 Maurice Thompson describes him thus: 
 
 "The busy nuthatch climbs his tree, 
 Around the great bole spirally, 
 
 Peeping into wrinkles gray, 
 Under ruffled lichens gay, 
 
 Lazily piping one sharp note 
 From his silver mailed throat." 
 
 When in his downward course he arrives near 
 the base of a tree, he flies high into a neighboring
 
 The Birds and Poets 241 
 
 tree, and again heading earthward, proceeds in 
 spirals round and round, ever moving downward, 
 searching every crevice in the bark for the micro- 
 scopic eggs and larvae of tree insects, upon which 
 he feeds. Both species have long, sharp bills well 
 suited for the careful search of the crannies in 
 the rough bark which contain their food. 
 
 Edith M. Thomas has written an amusing 
 description of the acrobatic powers of the 
 nuthatch : 
 
 "Shrewd little haunter of woods all gray, 
 Whom I met on my walk of a winter day 
 You're busy inspecting each cranny and hole 
 In the ragged bark of yon hickory bole ; 
 You intent on your task and I on the law 
 Of your wonderful head and gymnastic claw! 
 
 The woodpecker well may despair of this feat 
 Only the fly with you can compete ! 
 So much is clear; but I fain would know 
 How you can so reckless and fearless go, 
 Head upward, head downward, all one to you, 
 Zenith and nadir the same in your view." 
 
 The black-capped chickadee, or titmouse, is a 
 universal favorite. His tameness, quaint notes 
 and sprightly ways make him very popular. 
 
 He is almost as skillful an acrobat as his winter 
 friend, the nuthatch, as he 
 
 "Shows feats of his gymnastic play, 
 Head downward, clinging to the spray."
 
 242 Twelve Months With 
 
 In temperament he is a curious mixture of friend- 
 liness and audacity. He seems utterly disdainful 
 at times of any one who stops to observe him, 
 showing him not the slightest attention. At other 
 times he appears purposely friendly, hopping up 
 close to the observer apparently from pure love of 
 human companionship. He is so anxious every one 
 should know him that he industriously repeats his 
 own name, "Chick- a- dee! Chick-a-dee-dee-dee!" 
 This is usually the first sign of his presence in 
 the neighborhood. He is so tiny that he would 
 be easily overlooked if it were not for his cheery 
 notes, which seldom fail to attract the most inat- 
 tentive ear, although they are soft and ventrilo- 
 quous in quality. 
 
 "Far distant sounds the hidden chickadee 
 Close at my side," 
 
 is Lowell's accurate description. 
 
 In addition to these notes from which he derives 
 his name, the chickadee sometimes utters two very 
 plaintive notes somewhat resembling those of the 
 pewee, though they are more cheerful and more 
 distinctly marked. He is not a singing bird, but 
 his notes are cheering and pleasant, and he utters 
 them at all times of the year. I have watched 
 these little birds many hours, both in summer and 
 winter, and they have never appeared in the least 
 timorous or irritated at my presence. Many times 
 I have stood within easy reach of them as they
 
 The Birds and Poets 243 
 
 tripped about over and under leaves and branches, 
 feeding, but have never yet had the good fortune 
 to have one of them alight on my hand. Dr. 
 Chapman tells of the delight which has come to 
 him from such experiences: 
 
 "On two occasions chickadees have flown down and 
 perched upon my hand. During the few seconds they 
 remained there I became rigid with the emotion of this 
 novel experience. It 'was a mark of confidence which 
 seemed to initiate me into the ranks of woodland 
 dwellers."* 
 
 They nest in old woodpecker holes, which they 
 fill with the finest down. The tiny eggs are white, 
 marked with beautiful cinnamon brown spots, and 
 triere are often as many as eight in a nest. 
 
 It is also said that chickadees sometimes make 
 their own excavations, but I have never observed 
 them doing this, and am of the opinion that it is 
 rarely, if ever, done. Their tiny slender bills 
 are adapted to picking out microscopic objects 
 from crevices in the bark of trees, and not to 
 boring holes. 
 
 I have seen these little birds on winter days, 
 cheerily hopping about in zero temperature with 
 the utmost unconcern, when almost all visible 
 things in nature seemed paralyzed with the cold. 
 The minute seeds and insects upon which they 
 feed must constitute a fierce fuel for their little 
 
 * Birds of Eastern North America, p. 390.
 
 244 Twelve Months With 
 
 engines to enable them to brave the rigors of our 
 northern winters, apparently with no suffering or 
 real inconvenience. 
 
 Emerson does homage to the brave little mite 
 in these lines: 
 
 "Chic-chic-a-dee dee ! saucy note 
 Out of sound heart and merry throat, 
 As if it said, 'Good day, good sir 1 
 Fine afternoon, old passenger! 
 Happy to meet you in these places, 
 Where January brings few faces.' 
 
 Here was this atom in full breath, 
 Hurling defiance at vast death; 
 This scrap of valor just for play 
 Fronts the north-wind in waist coat gray. 
 
 'You pet! what dost here? and what for? 
 In these woods, thy small Labrador, 
 At this pinch, wee San Salvador! 
 What fire burns in that little chest 
 So frolic, stout and self-possesst?' ' 
 
 And Trowbridge remembers him as a cheerful 
 winter bird: 
 
 "But cheerily the chickadee 
 Singeth to me on fence and tree; 
 The snow sails round him as he sings, 
 White as the down of angels' wings." 
 
 The chickadee roosts at night in the soft lining 
 of old nests, after the manner of the woodpeckers,
 
 The Birds and Poets 245 
 
 where he is safe and secure from the winter blasts. 
 Other birds in winter resort to old nests for warmth 
 and protection from the rigors of the weather. 
 Goldfinches sometimes roost in old orioles' nests. 
 Mr. Frank M. Woodruff, Curator of the Academy 
 of Sciences, in Lincoln Park, Chicago, has an old 
 oriole's nest, from which a dead goldfinch is sus- 
 pended. After roosting in the nest he apparently 
 hanged himself by flying out through a noose at 
 the top of the nest. 
 
 Many holes about barns and outbuildings are 
 used by all sorts of birds in winter for roosting 
 purposes, but the birds are early risers, and their 
 sleeping quarters are not often discovered. 
 
 I have even observed sparrows clustering about 
 arc lights in the street at roosting time, evidently 
 for the twofold purpose of securing protection 
 from the winter winds, and warmth from the 
 lights. 
 
 The northern shrike, or butcher-bird, sometimes 
 spends the winter in this latitude. I knew of one 
 that lived through a cold winter at Highland 
 Park, Illinois, and waxed fat upon English spar- 
 rows, slain with deliberate cruelty and eaten with 
 the evident appreciation of an epicure. This 
 comely bird is a cannibal, who is no respecter 
 of persons, and while some people excuse and 
 even praise him for murdering the English spar- 
 rows, he also eats a good many fine song birds, 
 for which all must condemn him. It is said that 
 if the hunting is good and he has no difficulty in
 
 246 Twelve Months With 
 
 killing plenty of birds, he eats only the brains, 
 but if hunger presses he will eat the whole bird. 
 By impaling the slaughtered birds upon thorns or 
 barbs, he keeps a larder well stocked with dainties 
 for his epicurean taste, to which he may resort 
 in any emergency. Despite his bloody habits, the 
 shrike is not properly a bird of prey. He has 
 passerine feet, like all our small birds, and is 
 unable to hold his prey in his claws while eating 
 it, which is his real reason for impaling it upon 
 thorns and barbs. 
 
 This bird is easily identified by his colors. The 
 upper parts are gray, wings and tail black, marked 
 with white. He is also easily known by the con- 
 sternation caused by his appearance among a flock 
 of sparrows. His flight is also characteristic, being 
 steady and somewhat labored, with much flapping. 
 He flies close to the ground until he nears his 
 intended perch, when he turns suddenly upward 
 and alights somewhat like a flicker. 
 
 Among other birds occasionally seen in winter 
 are the kinglets, the brown creeper and the cedar 
 waxwing, which we have elsewhere discussed. 
 
 With the exception of the birds and a few small 
 animals, Nature closes up and goes indoors in 
 January, and no signs of her outdoor life remain. 
 Frogs bury themselves in mud and under leaf 
 mold, and millions of insects, grubs and other 
 small animals, stilled by the winter cold, are 
 buried in trees and logs and under the ground, 
 to be awakened in spring by the warm rays of
 
 The Birds and Poets 247 
 
 the ascending sun. Eggs and larvae of many spe- 
 cies of insects are deposited in late summer and 
 early fall, and lie dormant until the spring 
 opening. 
 
 The terminal buds of the thornapple, poplar 
 and other trees start to swell during the warm 
 Indian Summer days of November, and then, 
 before their protecting covering breaks, they are 
 stopped by the frosts, where they remain through 
 the winter, "patient, and awaiting the soft breath 
 of Spring." 
 
 In January Nature's great family still lives, but 
 its members are withdrawn from our view, and 
 few venture forth before February or March, 
 when the spring sun renews their motive power. 
 
 Although, as we have seen, January has its own 
 birds, like the other months of the year, we are 
 glad that, like Janus, it faces both ways, and while 
 looking back upon the old, it also looks forward 
 to the new, and opens the door to the new bird 
 year. We cannot much regret its departure when 
 we know it means the approach of the first spring 
 birds. It must have been January when Riley 
 wrote : 
 
 "Go Winter ! Go thy ways ! We want again 
 The twitter of the blue bird and the wren." 
 
 About the first of February one begins to long 
 for the feathered refugees "fresh from the far 
 Antilles," and to hear again their spring songs.
 
 248 With the Birds and Poets 
 
 Alice Brown breathes the very soul of the bird 
 lover at this season in these lines: 
 
 "My birds, come back! the hollow sky 
 
 Is weary for your note. 
 
 (Sweetthroat, come back! O liquid, mellow throat!) 
 Ere May's soft minions hereward fly, 
 Shame on ye, laggards, to deny 
 The brooding breast, the sun-bright eye, 
 The tawny, shining coat."
 
 FEBRUARY. 
 
 When first the pussy-willow shows 
 
 Her fairy muffs of gray, 
 While still amid the poplar tree 
 The blithe, familiar chickadee 
 
 His morning suet gratis gets, 
 When first the consternating crows 
 Break on the winter-keen repose 
 
 Of February day 
 
 Their strident cawings, 
 Startling with Stygian silhouettes 
 
 The virgin snows 
 
 To wake, and with faint thawings, 
 
 Like speech half audible, 
 Murmur of spring, until we houslings feel 
 
 Or dream we feel the breath 
 
 Of blowing violets * * * 
 
 Percy Mackaye. 
 
 HE early days of winter bring with 
 them a sense of rest and calm after 
 the tumultuous joys and volup- 
 tuous beauties of summer. For the 
 nature-lover, summer is packed 
 with exhilaration, and after its 
 emotional excesses the peace and quiet of early 
 winter is a soothing influence to his tired nerves. 
 
 As autumn fades, and the frosts come, Nature's 
 beautiful and interesting forms quietly retire for 
 their season of rest, "awaiting the requiem of 
 winter's snows."
 
 250 Twelve Months With 
 
 "What says the world? 
 
 Winter's my rest; 
 After a revel 
 Slumber is best." 
 
 But by the time February has come we begin 
 to look forward to another debauch. Winter has 
 outworn its welcome, and we have rested enough. 
 We long for the life and stimulating joys of spring 
 and summer. 
 
 Nature's army of reanimated things is gather- 
 ing to drive grim fighting February from the field, 
 and although He marshals all the scattering forces 
 of Winter, they are never able to do more than 
 cover His inevitable retreat. While He blusters 
 and storms in His valiant efforts to save the frozen 
 fortresses and crystal palaces of Winter from .the 
 advancing hosts of Spring, the high-ascending sun 
 looks into His face, and, blinded by its new light, 
 He slowly backs across the fields and woods into 
 the receding north, leaving the ruins of Winter 
 about Him. 
 
 Ethelwyn Wetherald pictures His overthrow in 
 her lines "To February" : 
 
 "Build high your white and dazzling palaces, 
 Strengthen your bridges, fortify your towers. 
 Storm with a loud and portentous lip. 
 And April with a fragmentary breeze, 
 And half a score of gentle golden hours, 
 Shall leave no trace of your stern workmanship!"
 
 The Birds and Poets 251 
 
 February having been driven into the north, the 
 winds of March bring upon their tide the advance 
 guard of our feathered friends from the south. 
 February's chief claim to interest in the bird cal- 
 endar is that it makes way for the season that 
 
 * * * bears upon its wing 
 The swallows and the songs of spring." 
 
 And yet, like all the months of the year, it has 
 its own interesting birds. No bird seems more 
 typical of the cold, gray, fitful days of February 
 than the cold, gray, fitful owl! He blusters and 
 he mopes, he storms and he sleeps, by turns. At 
 times he is viciously and noisily aggressive, and 
 again he is characterized by a feline silence and 
 softness of movement that is uncanny. How 
 appropriate that he should choose February for 
 mating and establishing his home! 
 
 With us the great horned owl and the barred 
 owl nest in February. Once very plentiful, both 
 species are now comparatively rare. The clear- 
 ing away of the heavy timber in which they always 
 prefer to nest has scattered them, and they are 
 now to be found only in the more remote patches 
 of deep woods, usually along the rivers or larger 
 streams. 
 
 The great horned owl is called by Nuttall the 
 "eagle of the night, the king of the nocturnal tribe 
 of American birds." He is the largest of all the 
 owls, measuring sometimes twenty-five inches in
 
 252 Twelve Months With 
 
 length, with a wing spread of three feet. He has 
 large and conspicuous ear tufts, from which he 
 derives his name. Like many of the owls, his 
 plumage is variable. It is mottled black, and 
 various shades of brown, buff and tawny. He has 
 a white band around his throat, like a collar, and 
 usually a white stripe down the breast. He has 
 the yellow eyes common to his race. 
 
 Some years ago, in Northern Indiana, during 
 the last week of February, I discovered the nest 
 of a great horned owl in an abandoned red-tailed 
 hawk's nest, some ninety feet from the ground. 
 I had observed the hawks at this nest during the 
 previous spring, and as I was walking through 
 the woods on a dull February day, the nest loomed 
 large before me in the naked trees, and I looked 
 at it with my glass, to see if there were any signs 
 of the hawks returning and repairing the old nest. 
 I immediately noticed something which very much 
 resembled the ear tufts of a large owl protruding 
 over the bulky nest. I approached the tree and 
 hammered on the trunk, but there was no move- 
 ment about the nest. Looking around under the 
 nest, among the dead leaves, I found fragments 
 of aegagropila, or balls of fine hair and bones. 
 
 The regurgitation of the hair and bones of mice, 
 rabbits and other animals eaten by owls often 
 furnishes a helpful clew to one searching for 
 their nests. Usually quantities of this material 
 may be found on the ground about any tree 
 inhabited by owls, and as the birds are very retir-
 
 The Birds and Poets 253 
 
 ing by day, and difficult to see, and often nest, as 
 well as roost, in hollow trees, this regurgitated 
 material is one of the safest and surest guides to 
 the bird's retreat. 
 
 I therefore concluded the old hawk's nest was 
 occupied by owls. It was a difficult climb, and 
 the nest was well out on a long upper limb, but 
 after half an hour's work I pulled up alongside. 
 Not until I raised up beside the nest and looked 
 into it did the female leave the nest. She looked 
 immense as she softly floated off, soaring down to 
 a lower perch in an adjoining tree. There was 
 one round white egg in the nest. The eggs of the 
 great horned owl are nearly spherical, and thin 
 shelled. When seen in a dark cavity in a hollow 
 tree, in shape and color they remind one of large 
 turtle eggs. While pulling myself up to a more 
 comfortable position beside the nest, the owl noise- 
 lessly flew back into the nest tree, about twenty- 
 five feet from the nest, and back and a little above 
 my head. I did not for the moment realize that 
 this was her first strategic move in a plan of attack 
 she was blinking out as best she could under the 
 handicap of daylight. The day, however, was 
 dull and dark, which may in part account for 
 her subsequent villainous activity. Fortunately I 
 had thrown my main climbing strap around two 
 small branches which supported one side of the 
 large nest, and was partly resting against a limb 
 and partly against the strap. I looked over my 
 shoulder to see what the owl was doing, and noticed
 
 254 Twelve Months With 
 
 the male owl perched beside her. As it was diffi- 
 cult for me to turn about far enough to watch 
 them, I decided to move around the nest a short 
 distance, where I might observe them without 
 effort. Almost the very instant that I turned back 
 to the nest to carry out this plan the unexpected 
 assault was made. I was struck a violent blow 
 across my right shoulder and neck, and my cap was 
 torn from my head. Had I not been strapped to 
 the tree I would have fallen ninety feet to the 
 ground. I was so astonished at this sudden 
 onslaught that for a moment I could not realize 
 what had happened. Neither owl was to be seen. 
 I almost immediately started for the safe and 
 friendly sod, and strange to say saw nothing more 
 of the owls that day. I found my cap on the 
 ground with an ugly tear on the right side where 
 I had been struck. I was very fortunate not to 
 have had my face badly lacerated. I have since 
 read of similar attacks by great horned owls upon 
 persons molesting nests where severe injuries have 
 been inflicted by the bird's talons. 
 
 They fly so noiselessly and so rapidly, that they 
 usually strike before they are seen, and an angry 
 bird of this size and speed with talons extended 
 crashing into a person is no insignificant assailant. 
 Indeed, this owl has been not inappropriately 
 called the- "tiger among birds." 
 
 I frequently saw the owls about this nest during 
 that spring but needless to say I did not again 
 attempt to molest them! They raised their brood
 
 The Birds and Poets 255 
 
 of young owlets and fed them huge quantities of 
 mice, rats, rabbits, birds, etc. The following sea- 
 son they were gone somewhere into the dense forest. 
 Ever since that early experience I have enter- 
 tained a very wholesome respect for the great 
 horned owl. Truly he is the Eagle of the night 
 and the King of nocturnal birds. One of the 
 acknowledged classics among bird poems, is "The 
 Owl," by Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall, 
 pseud.) : 
 
 "In the hollow tree, in the old gray tower, 
 The spectral Owl doth dwell; 
 Dull, hated, despised in the sunshine hour, 
 But at dusk he's abroad and well! 
 Not a bird of the forest e'er mates with him; 
 All mock him outright, by day; 
 But at night, when the woods grow still and dim, 
 The boldest will shrink away. 
 O, when the night falls, and roosts the fowl, 
 Then, then, is the reign of the Horned Owl! 
 
 So, when the night falls, and dogs do howl, 
 Sing, Ho! for the reign of the Horned Owl! 
 
 We know not alway 
 
 Who are Kings by day; 
 But the King of the night is the bold brown Owl" 
 
 He is the "Hoot Owl" of our childhood days. 
 His usual call is a loud, deep-toned "ivhoo, hoo-
 
 256 Twelve Months With 
 
 hod-hod, whddd, whooo!" all the syllables being on 
 the same note. 
 
 The barred owl is usually a little later in nest- 
 ing, but he often begins to mate in February. This 
 species is four or five inches shorter than the great 
 horned owl, and is also distinguished by absence 
 of "horns" or ear-tufts and by its black eyes. I 
 once found a nest of this owl in a shallow cavity in 
 the fork of an elm only about ten feet from the 
 ground. An unusual experience led to the discov- 
 ery of the nest. I found an unbroken barred owl's 
 egg at the foot of the tree, among some chips on 
 the ground. The eggs of this species are dirty 
 white, and the shells are unusualy thick and heavy, 
 indeed they are so hard that it is difficult to drill 
 holes in them for the insertion of a blow pipe. 
 How this egg could have fallen ten feet to the 
 ground, however, without breaking, is a mystery. 
 After discovering it, I noticed some regurgitated 
 hair massed together with small bones in tell-tale 
 fashion at the foot of the tree, and soon located the 
 nest above in the decayed crotch. 
 
 The barred owl is also called "Hoot Owl." 
 His call is similar to that of the great horned 
 owl, but it is more sonorous and more varied in 
 tone. 
 
 Among the other owls more or less common in 
 this latitude may be mentioned the American 
 long-eared owl, the short-eared owl, the saw- 
 whet owl and the little screech owl. None of 
 these is now common, except in certain localities.
 
 The Birds and Poets 257 
 
 The screech owl is probably the most abundant. 
 This little owl is one of the smallest of the owl 
 family, measuring about an inch shorter than the 
 robin. It often makes its home near dwellings. 
 Old apple orchards are favorite retreats, where 
 numerous cavities in the trees offer a secure refuge 
 from the hosts of small birds which constantly 
 attack them if they show themselves by day. They 
 are strictly nocturnal like the two species already 
 discussed, and when darkness falls their tremulous, 
 wailing whistle may often be heard, especially 
 upon moonlight nights. Stupid by day, they 
 appear very differently when the western sky fades 
 and night falls. Dr. Chapman inquires: "Is any 
 bird more thoroughly awake than a hungry screech 
 owl? With ear-tufts erected and his great, round 
 eyes opened to the utmost, he is the picture of alert- 
 ness." * 
 
 I have often heard them whistle in the trees 
 beside my village home; and a friend recently told 
 me of one that came into his sleeping porch and 
 perching on the post of a bed, uttered its tremulous 
 cry in the semi-darkness, frightening his daughter 
 almost into hysterics. In plumage they have two 
 phases, one reddish brown and one gray. These 
 color phases are not dependent upon age, sex or 
 season, and both phases are often found in the 
 young of a single brood. 
 
 John Vance Cheney's "Little Warm Owl" must 
 have been a February screech owl: 
 
 * Birds of Eastern North America, p. 219.
 
 258 Twelve Months With 
 
 "Darkness, grow and blacker fold, 
 Rattle, hail, and blast be bold. 
 
 Old trees, blow together 
 
 In the cold, roaring weather; 
 Louder you howl 
 
 The jollier he, 
 
 In his nest in the breast of the hollow tree, 
 The warm little owl, the little warm owl. 
 Play up, wild pipes i' the forest bare, 
 Gallop, goblins, down the air. 
 
 Ride, hug to the back 
 
 Of the scudding rack; 
 Fiercer it scowl 
 
 The jollier he, 
 
 In his nest in the breast of the hollow tree, 
 The warm little owl, the little warm owl." 
 
 All the owls named are nocturnal in their habits, 
 except the short-eared owl, which feeds and moves 
 about by day. It is between the barred owl and 
 the screech owl in size, and frequents the grassy 
 marshes, instead of the deep woods. The plumage 
 is brown and buff, and the ear-tufts are very short, 
 and the eyes the usual yellow. 
 
 The long-eared owl is a little smaller, has very 
 conspicuous ear-tufts, an inch or more in length, 
 and the brown and buff plumage is mottled with 
 white. Unlike its short-eared cousin, this little 
 owl is rarely found in open places. Thick willow 
 swamps or heavy coniferous trees furnish favorite 
 daytime roosts. The bird is tame and will not fly 
 until closely approached. When conscious of
 
 The Birds and Poets 259 
 
 being observed it draws itself up in rigid fashion 
 until it more nearly resembles a dead limb than a 
 live bird. 
 
 The saw-whet or Acadian is the smallest of our 
 owls, being two inches shorter than a robin. Its 
 small size and absence of ears at once distinguish 
 it from our other owls. It is now very rare in this 
 latitude. The notes of this species are harsh and 
 rasping, somewhat resembling the noise made by 
 filing a saw, hence its name. 
 
 The owls are among the most interesting of our 
 birds. Their resemblance to the feline race has 
 been frequently noted. Like the cat they see best by 
 twilight or moonlight, feed at night and spend most 
 of the day in sleep. Their ear-tufts resemble the 
 ears of a cat. Watchfulness and stealth are charac- 
 teristics of both, and both feed upon mice, rats and 
 birds. 
 
 The disk of flat feathers about the eyes, the 
 hooked, nose-shaped bill, the big blinking eyes and 
 the upright position produce a grave and dignified 
 appearance which is almost human. It was doubt- 
 less because of this that the owl was chosen by the 
 ancients as the emblem of wisdom and consecrated 
 to Minerva. 
 
 Another peculiarity that marks his stiff and 
 stately bearing is his inability to turn his eyes in 
 their sockets. The eyes are fixed, and to look from 
 one point to another he is obliged to turn his head, 
 which he does in a slow, mechanical manner that 
 is as interesting as it is unusual.
 
 26o Twelve Months With 
 
 The sense of hearing is very acute in all birds, 
 but the owls excel all other birds in this faculty, 
 and being practically noiseless in flight, they are 
 usually able to pounce upon any prey which their 
 very acute hearing reveals to them in the darkness. 
 
 The fluffy wings of the owls, with their rounded, 
 downy edges, furnish one of the many interesting 
 examples of adaptation to be found among the 
 birds. Obliged to hunt their food at night by 
 stealth, they have acquired a flying apparatus that 
 is practically noiseless, no matter how rapid the 
 flight. The woodcock, also a night feeder, has no 
 such peculiar structure of the wing feathers, be- 
 cause it obtains its food by probing into the ground 
 with its long bill, and takes none of it on the wing. 
 "Nature makes no useless provisions for her 
 creatures." 
 
 When to all these unusual characteristics of the 
 owl there is added the weird, almost human voice 
 it is small wonder that the ancients regarded the 
 bird with awe and superstitious dread. 
 
 Another interesting February bird which fur- 
 nishes a remarkable instance of early breeding, is 
 the prairie horned lark, sometimes called shore 
 lark, because in winter it frequently resorts to the 
 shores of lakes and rivers for feeding. The horned 
 larks (of which there are two species) are the only 
 American representatives of the large and famous 
 lark family. The prairie horned lark resembles 
 the vesper sparrow somewhat in appearance. Its 
 distinguishing marks are black ear-tufts extending
 
 The Birds and Poets 261 
 
 back from either side of the head, and black 
 patches at the front of the crown, from the base of 
 the bill to the eye, and extending down to the side 
 of the throat, and a black band across the upper 
 breast. One of the surest means of identification 
 is the persistent habit of remaining on the ground. 
 They are strictly terrestrial birds and never perch 
 in a tree. Also, they always run and never hop. 
 They are frequently seen running along country 
 roads. High roads between unfenced fields are 
 almost certain to yield a few horned larks. I know 
 a number of country roads where I usually may be 
 sure of finding some of these birds almost any day 
 in the year. When flushed they often utter a rather 
 inconspicuous whistle, as they dart off in their 
 irregular flight over the adjoining fields. The 
 chief song of the bird, a mincing warble, is some- 
 times poured forth as it tumbles about in its irregu- 
 lar flight and sometimes while perched on some 
 clod in the fields. This habit of singing in flight 
 is characteristic of the European Skylark, of which 
 George Sylvester Viereck writes : 
 
 "Sweet is the high road 
 When the skylarks call" 
 
 as though he might be speaking of one of our shore 
 larks on a country road. 
 
 Some years ago I found a nest of this bird the 
 last week in February. It was placed in a tuft of 
 grass, along a railroad right of way. The ground
 
 262 Twelve Months With 
 
 was frozen hard, and the grass filled with light 
 snow. The nest contained three eggs. How the 
 bird can keep the eggs warm and bring them to 
 incubation under such circumstances is a mystery, 
 and the little larks must be a hardy lot to with- 
 stand the rough weather of late February and early 
 March. 
 
 These birds generally may be seen the year 
 round, but in February when birds are scarce, they 
 begin mating, and may then be found in consider- 
 able numbers in their accustomed haunts. 
 
 Being the first of all our small perching birds to 
 nest, they have an unusual claim upon our interest 
 and affections. 
 
 Among the first spring birds that sometimes 
 return to us as early as February is the bluebird. 
 Sarah Piatt, after hearing one of the European 
 larks sing, compares its song with the velvety, 
 chuckling gurgle of our bluebird, very much to 
 the advantage of the latter : 
 
 "If this be all, for which I've listened long, 
 
 Oh, spirit of the dew! 
 You did not sing to Shelley such a song 
 As Shelley sung to you. 
 
 Oh, Lark of Europe, downward fluttering near, 
 
 Like some spent leaf at best, 
 You'd never sing again if you could hear 
 
 My Blue-Bird of the West!"
 
 The Birds and Poets 263 
 
 February begins the mating and nesting season 
 which is to last with some of our birds through to 
 September. It also brings the first of our birds 
 back from the South, so that the claim upon our 
 affections of the old gray, fitful month is large and 
 urgent. It stimulates our first interest in the 
 returning season of birds and flowers, which will 
 reach its flood tide of happiness by April. 
 
 Let us dismiss old Winter, and usher in bluff 
 March, with these lines by William Gilmore 
 Simms: 
 
 "Now are the winds about us in their glee, 
 Tossing the slender tree; 
 Whirling the sands about his furious car, 
 March cometh from afar; 
 Breaks the sealed magic of old winter's dreams, 
 And rends his glassy streams; 
 Chafing with potent airs, he fiercely takes 
 Their fetters from the lakes, 
 And with a power by queenly Spring supplied 
 Wakens the slumbering tide. 
 
 With a wild love he seeks young Summer's charms 
 
 And clasps her in his arms; 
 
 Lifting his shield between, he drives away 
 
 Old Winter from his prey; 
 
 The ancient tyrant whom he boldly braves 
 
 Goes howling to his caves; 
 
 And, to his northern realm compelled to fly, 
 
 Yields up the victory; 
 
 Melted are all his bands, o'erthrown his towers, 
 
 And March comes, bringing flowers."
 
 MARCH. 
 
 Why chidest thou the tardy spring? 
 The hardy bunting does not chide ; 
 The blackbirds make the maples ring 
 With social cheer and jubilee; 
 The red-wing flutes his o-ka-lee, 
 The robins know the melting snow; 
 The sparrow meek, prophetic-eyed, 
 Her nest beside the snow-drift weaves, 
 Secure the osier yet will hide 
 Her callow brood in mantling leaves, 
 And thou, by science all undone, 
 Why only must thy reason fail 
 To see the southing of the sun? 
 
 The world rolls round, mistrust it not, 
 Befalls again what once befell; 
 All things return, both sphere and mote, 
 And I shall hear my blue bird's note, 
 And dream the dream of Auburn dell." 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 ARCH brings the first hesitating 
 hints of spring. Weary winter has 
 retreated into the north, but Spring 
 has not yet come, though now and 
 then she peeps out between the al- 
 ternating warm thunder showers 
 
 and wintry snow storms of this capricious season. 
 
 Riley sums it up as: 
 
 "Jest rain and snow! and rain again! 
 And dribble ! drip ! and blow ! 
 Then snow ! and thaw ! and slush ! and then 
 Some more rain and snow!"
 
 266 Twelve Months With 
 
 Percy Mackaye says March 
 
 "* * * bows before the beauty of the year, 
 And spurns presumptuous Winter with his heel." 
 
 Indeed the chief charm of bluff March is that 
 he comes to announce the beauties of the awaken- 
 ing year, which we are so eager to glimpse behind 
 him that we sometimes grow impatient and wish 
 he would cease his blustering ceremony and move 
 on. We are interested in what is, largely because 
 of our eagerness for what is to be. No other days 
 in the round year so touch the imagination and fill 
 the soul with longing. 
 
 The season is one of suggestion. March is dotted 
 with delightful intimations of the joyous days of 
 which April brings definite promise. A new cycle 
 of life is about to begin, and we feel the first stir- 
 ring of the primal impulses felt by all of Nature's 
 children. 
 
 "For now the Heavenly Power 
 
 Makes all things new, 
 And thaws the cold and fills 
 The flower with dew." 
 
 It is the time when new life begins to flow in our 
 veins and through the arteries of the trees, and we 
 feel that life is good! 
 
 Bryant welcomes March as the first spring 
 month :
 
 The Birds and Poets 267 
 
 "Oh, passing few are they who speak, 
 
 Wild stormy month ! in praise of thee; 
 Yet, though thy winds are loud and bleak, 
 Thou art a welcome month to me. 
 
 For thou, to northern lands again, 
 
 The glad and glorious sun dost bring, 
 
 And thou hast joined the gentle train 
 
 And wear'st the gentle name of spring." 
 
 John Vance Cheney hails the month with enthus- 
 iasm: 
 
 "The pussy-willow and the hazel know, 
 
 The blue bird and the robin, what rings true; 
 I trust to such, and let the whiners go. 
 
 Bravo ! bluff March; I swing my hat to you I" 
 
 The bluebirds and the robins come back to us 
 with the pussy-willows. The few that we see in 
 winter are doubtless summer residents of Canada, 
 and those that come back to us in February and 
 March, our summer residents, have wintered far- 
 ther south. 
 
 The robin that was an almost daily visitor at my 
 feeding box during the winter has not been seen 
 for nearly a month. He has doubtless been jour- 
 neying by easy stages, according to the robin 
 method of migration, to his northern nesting site. 
 The new robins which have arrived from the south 
 have not yet come down out of the sky and the tree 
 tops, and sought our intimate companionship.
 
 268 Twelve Months With 
 
 They are still few in numbers, and give the impres- 
 sion of straggling transients on the way, or new 
 arrivals that are yet without a permanent abiding 
 place. Through force of habit in migrating, they 
 alight in the tree tops, and in early March are 
 seldom seen elsewhere. By April our own robins 
 will come down out of the sky, into the green grass, 
 and run about with us in that intimate association 
 which lasts through the summer, and makes them 
 dear to our hearts. 
 
 March is also the month for erecting suitable 
 nesting homes as invitations to the returning blue- 
 birds to stop and make their summer homes with 
 us. If the ubiquitous sparrows are driven away 
 and not permitted to preempt the house before the 
 bluebirds find it the latter will establish them- 
 selves, and thereafter defend their domicile against 
 all comers. 
 
 Maurice Thompson has inscribed these lines to 
 "An Early Bluebird": 
 
 "Leap to the highest height of spring, 
 
 And trill thy sweetest note, 
 Bird of the heavenly plumes and twinkling wing 
 And silver-toned throat! 
 
 Sing, while the maple's deepest root 
 
 Thrills with a pulse of fire 
 That lights its buds. Blow, blow thy tender flute, 
 
 Thy reed of rich desire I
 
 The Birds and Poets 269 
 
 Thou first sky-dipped spring-bud of song, 
 
 Whose heavenly ecstasy 
 Foretells the May while yet March winds are strong, 
 
 Fresh faith appears with thee!" 
 
 The red-winged black birds come back in 
 March and sing from the bare willows along the 
 swollen streams, and the fox sparrow passes as 
 early as March on his way back to the north woods. 
 He seldom sings on the way his song of exceptional 
 sweetness, but he permits us to admire his bright 
 spring coat, and there is no more beautiful brown 
 in the world than his back. The song, swamp and 
 field sparrows, of our own summer colony, also 
 begin returning this month. The mourning dove 
 which did not leave us until November returns 
 before the first of April. Among other March 
 arrivals may be mentioned the meadowlark, whose 
 early spring call from the bare fields is dynamic, 
 and the cowbird, the phoebe and a few snipe and 
 plovers. Of the latter, the killdeer is one of the 
 most typical of March birds. His vigorous, dart- 
 ing flight over the dun, windy fields, with his 
 clarion call "kill-deer! kill-deer! kill-deer!" seem 
 part and parcel of the early spring landscape. 
 This bird always speaks his own name, like the 
 chickadee, and he is easily identified by his famil- 
 iar call. He is most frequently found in meadows 
 and pastures in the vicinity of water. At all times 
 noisy and querulous, in the breeding season nothing 
 can exceed the killdeer's exuberance. The chorus
 
 270 Twelve Months With 
 
 of their incessant cries "kill-deer! kill-deer! kill- 
 deer!" as they fly about overhead, is more inspirit- 
 ing than the music of a fife corps. 
 
 Their eggs, laid on the ground with little or no 
 nest, are of peculiar shape. They are pointed at 
 the smaller end, and very wide across the larger 
 end, giving them the appearance of a toy top. It 
 is said that eggs of this shape, which are peculiar 
 to ground-nesting and shore birds, are examples of 
 protective adaptation, and that they have gradually 
 taken on this top shape, as an advantageous confor- 
 mation to their environment, and therefore as a 
 means of protection. Eggs of this shape laid on 
 the sand or rocks will not roll off the scant nest 
 into the water, or be easily blown away by the 
 wind, but will roll and pivot about in a circle, 
 around the small end of the egg. 
 
 Many similar examples of protective adaptation 
 are to be found in the eggs, plumage and physical 
 characteristics of birds. The eggs of woodpeckers 
 and owls laid in dark holes in trees are white, while 
 the eggs of ground nesting birds are almost without 
 exception so marked with protective coloring as to 
 make it difficult to see them in the grass or leaves. 
 Birds like whippoorwills, grouse, quail and wood- 
 cock, as well as their eggs and young are so marked 
 that it is next to impossible to distinguish them 
 from their natural surroundings. 
 
 I once flushed a whippoorwill from her nest, and 
 looked for several seconds directly at her eggs laid 
 on the ground among some dead leaves and old
 
 The Birds and Poets 271 
 
 bark before I was really able to visualize them and 
 detach them from their sombre protective back- 
 ground. 
 
 The ptarmigans, the grouse of Labrador and the 
 Arctics, wear gray and brown plumage in summer 
 to conform to the colors of the ground, and in win- 
 ter they put on a coat as white as the snow which 
 drifts about them. 
 
 In winter the toes of the ruffed grouse are pro- 
 vided with a curious fringe of strong, horny points 
 which operate as tiny snowshoes, which always fall 
 away as soon as spring comes. Birds like the spar- 
 rows and grosbeaks have acquired heavy stout bills 
 which enable them to break the seeds which consti- 
 tute their chief diet. The flycatchers have hair 
 bristles at the base of the bill, and the upper man- 
 dible closes over the lower, scissors fashion, so that 
 snapping flying insects is made comparatively sim- 
 ple. The tail shafts of such birds as swifts and 
 woodpeckers that brace themselves with their tails 
 while perching are very stiff and strong and some- 
 times extend beyond the vanes. 
 
 The long slender bill of the humming bird is 
 admirably adapted to probing the perfumed 
 depths of the tiniest calyx. The nuthatches and 
 chickadees have long slender bills with which to 
 search the tiny crevices of the bark where the 
 minute tree insects and larvae upon which they feed 
 are to be found. The woodpeckers have veritable 
 little trip-hammers with which to bore for grubs 
 and make excavations for their nests.
 
 272 Twelve Months With 
 
 All of these and countless other instances of 
 adaptation have doubtless been acquired through 
 many years of struggle for existence. 
 
 March and April always bring to mind my 
 youthful days of collecting, when the hawks of a 
 small area in Northeastern Indiana must have 
 found it extremely discouraging to attempt to raise 
 their brood of small accipiters and buteos. I do 
 not recall these youthful days when my ardor for 
 collecting was at its height with feelings altogether 
 pleasurable, because I remember all too well that 
 I plundered a good many nests, and collected a 
 good many sets of hawk eggs of various kinds. 
 The Cooper, red-shouldered and red-tailed hawks 
 were the most abundant as they are still in this 
 latitude, and of these species I collected many sets 
 during March and April, in 1888 and 1889. 
 
 But let me say a word or two in defense of col- 
 lecting. It is of course true that one of the worst 
 of the birds' enemies is that type of professional 
 egg collector, who, disgracing the respected title 
 of oologist, concentrates his purpose upon getting 
 as many sets of eggs together as possible, even to 
 securing several sets of the same species, for the 
 mere vulgar satisfaction of possessing more birds' 
 eggs than any other man on earth. He has a lust 
 for ownership, and collects eggs like some other 
 men collect dollars, just for the selfish pleasure of 
 gathering as many as possible, and parting with as 
 few as possible. 
 
 Elbert Hubbard once said that one of the inci-
 
 The Birds and Poets 273 
 
 dents of collecting any one thing, was that in 
 pursuit of such pastime one casually collected 
 other things. The man who concentrates exclu- 
 sively on dollars collects also vanity, envy, dissatis- 
 faction, a distorted vision, a distempered spirit and 
 ennui! The professional collector of eggs for 
 profit fares but little better, to say nothing of the 
 cruelty and desecration of which he is guilty. 
 
 But all men are, by nature, collectors, whether 
 it be of postage stamps or old armor, or just dollars. 
 The important thing is that the collecting be wisely 
 diverse and that it be done naturally and with an 
 unselfish, open spirit, born of the wholesome long- 
 ing to collect and an innocent joy in the collection, 
 rather than of the selfish wish merely to out-rival 
 some other collector. There is no vanity, jealousy 
 or guile in the heart of the true collector of say, 
 old books, clocks, prints, or of birds' eggs, because 
 his collecting keeps sweet his spirit, renews his 
 youth, stirs his imagination, and prevents his soul 
 from becoming sordid. His mind remains child- 
 like and ingenuous. All the poets have been col- 
 lectors, (and all true collectors are poets,) and 
 all of them have loved the birds, and sung about 
 them. 
 
 But to return to the hawks. Although quite a 
 young lad, during this time I climbed many a tall 
 tree, usually sycamore or elm, sometimes to the 
 height of seventy or eighty feet, to secure the eggs 
 of the red-shouldered or red-tailed hawk. The 
 red-shouldered were the most numerous, the red-
 
 274 Twelve Months With 
 
 tailed next, and occasional nests of the Cooper, 
 sharp-shinned and marsh hawks were found. 
 These are still the common resident hawks in this 
 latitude. The beautiful little sparrow hawk, was 
 also abundant, as it is now, nesting in natural cav- 
 ities in old trees in the woods. The eggs of this 
 little hawk are as beautifully mottled with various 
 shades of brown as the birds themselves. Usually 
 the red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks nest high 
 up in the largest trees in the woods, building a 
 large nest of coarse sticks. I distinctly remember 
 one nest of the red-shouldered hawk ninety feet 
 from the ground, in a giant sycamore hanging 
 almost over a railroad track which cut through 
 the woods. 
 
 The red-shouldered and red-tailed hawks, the 
 "chicken hawks" of the farmers, are much abused 
 and greatly misunderstood birds. The ordinary 
 farmer usually has very erroneous ideas as to the 
 damage done by some of the more common birds 
 with which he is familiar. Several years ago I 
 knew of a farmer living near Chicago who suc- 
 ceeded in driving away a colony of black-crowned 
 night herons nesting in a small swamp oak grove 
 on his farm. He killed a hundred or more birds, 
 under the mistaken belief that they were damaging 
 his crops. Had he taken the trouble to inquire, he 
 would have found that the birds were really a great 
 benefit and advantage to him, because they do no 
 harm to crops but on the contrary they eat many 
 grasshoppers and coleopterous insects and beetles,
 
 The Birds and Poets 275 
 
 all of which are very damaging to growing crops. 
 It is only after these birds have been long teased 
 and plundered that they finally abandon the old 
 station where the colony has made its home, but 
 this farmer was devilishly persistent, and the birds 
 finally left for parts unknown, to return no more. 
 The colony has not been heard of in this area since. 
 
 The crow as we have elsewhere observed is 
 another bird which is misjudged by the farmer. 
 The popular idea among farmers is that he eats up 
 much of the newly planted seed corn, and he there- 
 fore gets blamed for all the empty hills in the corn- 
 field. As a matter of fact, the crow will seldom 
 eat the dry kernels of seed corn, unless it is broken 
 up, either by his own beak or by other means, and 
 he seldom takes the trouble to break it up himself 
 if other food is available. The fact is that being a 
 very omnivorous bird, he by no means depends 
 upon corn or other grain to gratify his appetite, 
 but eats carrion, fish, birds' eggs, and many injuri- 
 ous insects and worms. He is unquestionably more 
 beneficial than harmful. 
 
 The buteos, including the red-shouldered and 
 red-tailed hawks, commonly called "chicken 
 hawks," destroy very few chicks. They feed 
 chiefly upon crop-destroying rodents. There are 
 about seventy-three species and sub-species of 
 hawks in America, and only six of these are injuri- 
 ous, yet in the popular mind every hawk that 
 appears in the sky is a "chicken hawk" deserving 
 death. Only two of these six are at all common
 
 276 Twelve Months With 
 
 throughout this latitude, the Cooper hawk (accipi- 
 ter Cooperii), and the sharp-shinned hawk 
 (accipiter velox). The accipiters who do all the 
 damage, are treacherous and stealthy, like most vil- 
 lains, whereas the buteos, who are blamed for all 
 their rascalities, innocently soar above in the open 
 blue of heaven, wholly unconscious of all the popu- 
 lar prejudice against them. 
 
 A Cooper hawk, whose flight is as swift and 
 unerring as any arrow, will suddenly swoop down 
 out of nowhere and harry a poultry yard and kill 
 three or four chicks in a flash and get away without 
 being seen, and in the meantime a red-tailed or 
 red-shouldered hawk, entirely innocent of any 
 wrong doing or evil intentions, will soar into view, 
 and down comes the vindictive shot gun, and down 
 comes the innocent bird, murdered in cold blood 
 for the crimes of another. 
 
 The buteos on the western plains are fond of 
 prairie dogs, and some years ago the farmers and 
 ranchmen, possessed of the common prejudice 
 against these birds, killed large numbers of them, 
 and the prairie dogs soon became so numerous as 
 to be a very serious pest, and at the request of these 
 same farmers and ranchmen, United States Bio- 
 logical Survey officials endeavored to find some 
 means to abate the plague, and one of the first 
 recommendations made was that the hawks be pro- 
 tected. This is another striking illustration of the 
 unwisdom of interfering with nature's laws. 
 
 The hawks, as a family, are admirable birds, and
 
 The Birds and Poets 277 
 
 with a very few exceptions deserve protection. 
 Even as to the injurious accipiters, the bird lover 
 finds it difficult to withhold a sneaking admiration 
 for the race, for cannibals and murderers though 
 they be, their lives are typical of the freedom of 
 the fields, and the wildness of the woodlands. 
 
 Upon the occasion of one of my youthful hawk 
 trips, to which I have referred, I observed a turkey 
 vulture perched upon the top of a broken and 
 decayed trunk of a very large tree, which had been 
 broken off squarely some twenty feet from the 
 ground. I had noticed two buzzards in the neigh- 
 borhood several times, and though I never had 
 before seen or heard of their nesting farther north 
 than the latitude of Central Indiana or Illinois, I 
 suspected there might be a nest in the cavity at the 
 top of the tall trunk, if there were such a cavity, of 
 which I was yet uncertain. I planned to visit the 
 spot again soon for the purpose of definitely ascer- 
 taining if there were a nest in the old tree, or else- 
 where in the vicinity. Within a few days I 
 returned, properly equipped with climbers, har- 
 ness and hand axe, and quietly approached the old 
 tree, but no buzzard was in sight. I pounded nois- 
 ily on the trunk with my axe, and to my great joy 
 the female turkey vulture flew out of the cavity at 
 the top. It was a straight stem, easily climbed, 
 and, greatly excited, I immediately began the 
 ascent. I soon reached the top where I found that 
 the trunk of the old tree at that point was a mere 
 shell, the cavity being over two feet in diameter. I
 
 278 Twelve Months With 
 
 reached down into the dark hole the full length of 
 my arm, and touched nothing. I had no means 
 with me of making an artificial light, and I was 
 therefore unable to discern anything in the deep 
 shadows of the cavity, or determine how far down 
 below the top of the stub the nest was located. I 
 therefore descended some three or four feet ham- 
 mering on the outside as I went to locate by the 
 deadened sound the bottom of the cavity where I 
 might expect to find the nest. Having settled upon 
 the spot with as much certainty as possible under 
 the circumstances I chopped a hole through the 
 hard, dead trunk, a laborious task, only to find that 
 I was immediately below the nest. I was therefore 
 compelled to move up about twelve inches, and cut 
 another hole, but I was finally rewarded by secur- 
 ing a set of two fine eggs, beautifully mottled with 
 heavy dark brown and purple markings. This set 
 of eggs was taken in 1889 in Northeastern Indiana, 
 at about the latitude of Chicago, and I know of no 
 recent record of this bird nesting in this latitude. 
 
 The buzzards are larger than the largest hawks, 
 having a wing spread of at least four feet. They 
 are not beautiful in plumage, and their bloody 
 scavenger habits sometimes makes them appear 
 repulsive. In bearing and flight, however, they 
 are noble birds, and when on outstretched, immove- 
 able wings they soar far overhead in graceful 
 circles, they are inspiring pictures of grace and 
 majesty.
 
 The Birds and Poets 279 
 
 Mary A. Townsend dedicates these lines to the 
 graceful flight of the turkey buzzard : 
 
 "Aloft on horizontal wing, 
 We saw the buzzard rock and swing; 
 That sturdy sailor of the air 
 Whose agile pinions have a grace 
 That prouder plumes might proudly wear, 
 And claim it for a Kinglier race." 
 
 The spirit of the bird lover glows with ecstacy 
 
 "When March just ready to depart, begins 
 To soften into April", 
 
 for 'tis then the birds' year really begins. At this 
 happy time the birds seem to ride in on every 
 southern breeze, and to fall from the heavens with 
 every spring shower, and the world once again is a 
 riot of color and song. 
 
 Let March pass therefore, with these lines by 
 Robert Burns Wilson : 
 
 "The braggart March stood in the season's door 
 
 With his broad shoulders blocking up the way, 
 Shaking the snow-flakes from the cloak he wore, 
 
 And from the fringes of his kirtle gray. 
 Near by him April stood with tearful face, 
 
 With violets in her hands, and in her hair 
 Pale, wild anemones; the fragrant lace 
 
 Half-parted from her breast, which seemed like fair 
 Down-tinted mountain snow, smooth-drifted there.
 
 280 With the Birds and Poets 
 
 She on the blusterer's arm laid one white hand, 
 
 But he would none of her soft blandishment, 
 Yet did she plead with tears none might withstand, 
 
 For even the fiercest hearts at last relent. 
 And he, at last, in ruffian tenderness, 
 
 With one swift, crushing kiss her lips did greet, 
 Ah, poor starved heart! for that one rude caress, 
 
 She cast her violets underneath his feet."
 
 COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENT 
 
 The author and publisher are indebted to the Houghton Mifflin 
 Company for special permission to use selections from the works of 
 John Vance Cheney, Lowell, Stedman, Charles G. D. Roberts, Emer- 
 son, Holmes, Browning, Edgar Fawcert, John Burroughs, William 
 Vaughn Moody, Longfellow, Anna Boynton Averill, Edith M. Thomas, 
 William Dean Howells, Thoreau, Lloyd Mifflin, Trowbridge, A. West, 
 . Maurice Thompson, Joseph Howe and Percy Mackaye; and to D. 
 Appleton & Company for selections from Bryant's poems, "March" 
 and "To a Waterfowl" and for selections from Dr. Frank M. Chap- 
 man's "Birds of Eastern North America" ; to the Macmillan Company 
 for selections from the poems of Maud Keary and Percy Mackaye; 
 to Little, Brown & Company for a poem by Christina Rossetti; to 
 J. B. Lippincott Company for a selection from "The Lonely-Bird," 
 by Harrison Smith Morris; for a number of selections from poems by 
 Riley, from the Biographical Edition of the complete works of James 
 Whitcomb Riley, copyright 1913, and by special permission of the 
 publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company; to Charles Scribner's Son 
 for selections from "The Builders and Other Poems" and "Music and 
 Other Poems" and "God of the Open Air," by Henry Van Dyke, and 
 for the poem "January," by L. H. Bailey; to Small, Maynard & Com- 
 pany for selections from the poems of Bliss Carman and John B. Tabb; 
 to Doubleday, Page & Company for the poem "Little Brothers of the 
 Ground," from "The Man With the Hoe," by Edwin Markham, and 
 for selections from "Far Quests," by Cale Young Rice; to Stewart & 
 Kidd Company for the poem "My Catbird," by William H. Venable; 
 to the Yale University Press for a selection from "A Page's Road 
 Song," by Alex. William Percy; to Mitchell Kennerley for th<, poem 
 "Phoebe," by Witter Bynner; to The Baker & Taylor Company for a 
 selection from "June Rapture," by Angela Morgan; and to Dr., Frank 
 M. Chapman for a quotation from "Bird Lore." 
 
 Thanks are also due to the authors already named and to the fol- 
 lowing authors for the use of selections from their poems: Ethelwyn 
 Wetherald, Irene Elder Morton, Joyce Kilmer, Louis Untermeyer, 
 Thos. S. Jones, Jr., Wm. W. Caldwell, Catherine Van D. Harkee, 
 Charles Shepard Parke, Katherine Tynan, Ina D. Coolbrith, Nellie 
 Hart Woodworth, Charlotte Smith, George Murray, Robert Bridges, 
 Joel Benton, Mary Augusta Mason, Marjorie Pickthall, Mary Howitt, 
 Thomas Hill, Hamlin Garland, Marion Franklin Ham, P. McArthur, 
 Adelaide Proctor, Ellen P. Allerton, S. Frances Harrison, C. P., Cleave- 
 land, Henry Abbey, Edna Dean Proctor, Amos Bryant Russell, Frances 
 Mace, Mary Isabella Forsythe, Sarah Orne Jewett, James J. Daly, 
 Alice Brown, George S. Vireck, Sarah Piatt, Wm. Gilmore Simms, 
 Rose Terry Cook, Mary A. Townsend; and to Angela Morgan for 
 quotation from the poem "June Rapture" in "The Hour Has Struck 
 and Other Poems."
 
 INDEX 
 
 Acadian flycatcher 65 
 
 Adaptation, as protection 270 
 
 Altricials 214 
 
 American crossbill 196 
 
 American goldfinch 105, 117 
 
 American redstart 151 
 
 April 9 
 
 August 125 
 
 B 
 
 Bird architecture 218 
 
 Bird feeding 200 
 
 Birds, origin of 213 
 
 Bird study 24, 208, 223 
 
 Blackbird, crow 129 
 
 Blackbird, red-winged 107, 129, 269 
 
 Blackbird, yellow-headed 106 
 
 Black-crowned night heron 274 
 
 Bluebird 108, 234, 262 
 
 Bluebird, early spring 12 
 
 Blue jay 33, 129, 236 
 
 Bobolink 131 
 
 Bobolink's nests 135 
 
 Bobwhite 138 
 
 Bonaparte's gull 193
 
 284 Index 
 
 Brown creeper 246 
 
 Bronze grackle . . . 129 
 
 Bunting, indigo -. . 105, 118 
 
 Butcher bird 245 
 
 Buzzard 277 
 
 c 
 
 Cardinal 99, 105, 204 
 
 Carolina wren 113 
 
 Catbird 82 
 
 Cedar-bird 32, 106, 109, 246 
 
 Cedar waxwing 32, 106, 109, 246 
 
 Chewink 35 
 
 Chickadee 236, 237, 241 
 
 Collecting eggs 272 
 
 Cooper hawk 276 
 
 Cowbird 94, 269 
 
 Creeper, brown 246 
 
 Crossbill 196 
 
 Crow 236, 237, 238, 275 
 
 Cuckoo, black-billed 70 
 
 Cuckoo, yellow-billed 68, 96, 106 
 
 D 
 
 December 207 
 
 Dickcissel 137 
 
 E 
 
 Eggs, adaptation of 270 
 
 English sparrow 205, 225 
 
 Evening grosbeak 196, 19?
 
 Index 285 
 
 February 249 
 
 Feeding birds 200 
 
 Flicker, calls of 30 
 
 Flocking, in winter 233 
 
 Flocking of birds 127, 130 
 
 Flycatchers 62 
 
 Flycatcher, great-crested 67 
 
 Food for birds 204 
 
 Franklin's gull 194 
 
 G 
 
 Goldfinch 105, 116, 236 
 
 Goldfinch, in winter 236 
 
 Goldfinch, roosting 245 
 
 Crackle 129 
 
 Great-crested flycatcher 67 
 
 Grinnell's water thrush 37 
 
 Grosbeak, cardinal 99, 105, 204 
 
 Grosbeak, evening 196, 198 
 
 Grosbeak, pine 196 
 
 Grosbeak, rose-breasted 105, 122 
 
 Grosbeak, sociable 218 
 
 Grouse, ruffed 271 
 
 Gull, Bonaparte's 193 
 
 Gull, Franklin's 194 
 
 Gull, herring 193 
 
 Gull, ring-billed 193 
 
 H 
 
 Hawks 272 
 
 Hawks, migrating 163
 
 286 Index 
 
 Hawks, prejudices against 275 
 
 Heron, black-crowned night 274 
 
 Herring gull 193 
 
 Homing instinct 178 
 
 Hornbill 218 
 
 Horned lark 260 
 
 House wren 113 
 
 Humming bird 100, 149, 150 
 
 Indigo bunting 105, 118 
 
 January 223 
 
 Jay, blue 33 
 
 July 103 
 
 Junco 40, 154, 236 
 
 June 75 
 
 K 
 
 Killdeer 269 
 
 Kingbird 66 
 
 Kingfisher 96 
 
 Kinglets 38, 157. 246 
 
 L 
 
 Lapland longspur 236 
 
 Lark, horned 260 
 
 Lighthouses, as attractions to birds 179 
 
 Long-billed marsh wren 114
 
 Index 287 
 
 M 
 
 Man, place and purpose in nature 45 
 
 March 265 
 
 Marsh wren, long-billed 114 
 
 Martin, purple 91 
 
 Mating, for life or season 215 
 
 May 43 
 
 Meadowlark 36, 269 
 
 Migrants 153, 189 
 
 Migration 49, 145, 171, 177 
 
 Migration, by day 148 
 
 Migration, by night 147 
 
 Migration, long distance 173 
 
 Migration, methods of 162 
 
 Migration, of animals 180 
 
 Molting process 161 
 
 Mourning dove 188, 269 
 
 N 
 
 Nest building, robin 15 
 
 Nest, of chickadee 243 
 
 Nesting 105 
 
 Nests, exposed in winter 209 
 
 Nests, structure of 2IO 
 
 Nests, of bobolinks 135 
 
 Nests, of humming bird 219 
 
 Nests, of wood pewee 219 
 
 Nighthawk 177 
 
 November 183 
 
 Nuthatches, in winter 236, 240 
 
 Nuthatch, red-breasted 158, 240 
 
 Nuthatch, white-breasted 158, 240
 
 288 Index 
 
 O 
 
 October 169 
 
 Oriole, Baltimore 58 
 
 Oriole, orchard 151 
 
 Oriole, orchard, nest of 218 
 
 Oven-bird, nest of 219 
 
 Owl, barred 251, 256 
 
 Owl characteristics 259, 260 
 
 Owl, great horned 251 
 
 Owl, long-eared 256, 258 
 
 Owl, saw-whet 256, 259 
 
 Owl, screech 256 
 
 Owl, short-eared 256, 258 
 
 P 
 
 Pewee 62 
 
 Phoebe 60, 92, 269 
 
 Pine grosbeak 196 
 
 Plover, golden 161 
 
 Poems (see poets) 
 Poets: 
 
 Abbey, Henry 186 
 
 Allerton, Ellen P 170 
 
 Arnold, George 145 
 
 Arnold, Matthew I 
 
 Averill, Anna Boynton 92 
 
 Bailey, L. H 223 
 
 Benton, Joel 120, 237 
 
 Bridges, Robert . . 43, 117 
 
 Brown, Alice 248 
 
 Browning, Robert 51, 74
 
 Index 289 
 
 Brownlow, Edward Burrough 142 
 
 Bryant, William Cullen 50, 266 
 
 Burns, Robert 185, 201 
 
 Burroughs, John 234 
 
 Caldwell, Wm. W 17 
 
 Carman, Bliss 9, 169 
 
 Cheney, John Vance . . n, 71, 72, 102, 222, 258, 267 
 
 Cleaveland, C. L. 185 
 
 Coleridge, Hartley 183 
 
 Cook, Rose Terry 209 
 
 Coolbrith, Ina D 36 
 
 Cooper, George 171 
 
 Daly, James J 230 
 
 Fawcett, Edgar 58 
 
 Forsyth, Mary Isabella 205 
 
 Garland, Hamlin 139 
 
 Ham, Marion Franklin 139 
 
 Harkee, Katherine Van D 18 
 
 Harrison, S. Frances 184 
 
 Hill, Thomas 132 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell 41 
 
 Hood, Thomas 184 
 
 Howe, Joseph 210 
 
 Howells, Wm. Dean 125 
 
 Howitt, Mary 130 
 
 Hunt, Leigh 76 
 
 Iris, Scharmel 107 
 
 Jackson, Helen Hunt 132 
 
 Jewett, Sarah Orne 220 
 
 Jones, Thos. S 12 
 
 Keats, John 118, 207 
 
 Kilmer, Joyce 13 
 
 Longfellow, Henry W 79, 147, 197. 206
 
 290 Index 
 
 Lowell, Jas. Russell 17 
 
 59, 60, 71, 102, 104, 108, 129, 136, 163, 181, 209, 242 
 
 McArthur, P 146 
 
 McManus, S. M 32 
 
 McLachlan, Alexander 136 
 
 Mackaye, Percy 249, 266 
 
 Mace, Frances Laughton 187 
 
 Malone, Walter 184 
 
 Markham, Edwin 47 
 
 Mason, Mary Augusta 121 
 
 Mifflin, Lloyd '. 103 
 
 Moody, Wm. Vaughn 77 
 
 Morgan, Angela 78 
 
 Morris, Harrison Smith 28 
 
 Morton, Irene Elder 75 
 
 Murray, George 101 
 
 Parke, Charles Shepard 21 
 
 Percy, Alex. Wm 10 
 
 Piatt, Sarah 262 
 
 Pickthall, Marjorie 128 
 
 Proctor, Edna Dean 186 
 
 Rice, Cale Young 148, 195, 199 
 
 Riley, Jas. Whitcomb . 34, 39, 79, 141, 166, 187, 247, 265 
 
 Roberts, Charles G. D 18 
 
 Rossetti, Christina 45 
 
 Russell, Amos Bryant 186 
 
 Sangster, Margaret 146 
 
 Shakespeare, Wm 96 
 
 Smith, Charlotte 92 
 
 Spencer, Edmund 43, 76 
 
 Stedman, Edmund C 17 
 
 Stevenson, Robt. L 194 
 
 Tabb, John Banister 101
 
 Index 291 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred 107 
 
 Thomas, Edith 99, 241 
 
 Thompson, Maurice 240, 268 
 
 Townsend, Mary A 279 
 
 Trowbridge, John T 62, 139, 244 
 
 Tynan, Katherine 24 
 
 Untermeyer, Louis 12 
 
 Van Dyke, Henry 28, 46, 97 
 
 Venable, Wm. Henry 84 
 
 Viereck, Geo. Sylvester 261 
 
 Virgil 165 
 
 Wetherald, Ethel wyn 119, 250 
 
 Whitney, Adeline D. T 77 
 
 Willis, Nathaniel P. 188 
 
 Wilson, Robert Burns 239, 262, 279 
 
 Woodworth, Nellie Hart 72 
 
 Wordsworth, Wm. 16, 68, 164, 220 
 
 Prairie horned lark 260 
 
 Precocials 214 
 
 Protective coloring 270 
 
 Ptarmigans .271 
 
 Q 
 
 Quail 138 
 
 R 
 
 Redpoll 196, 198, 236 
 
 Redstart, American 151 
 
 Red-shouldered hawk . . 273 
 
 Red-tailed hawk 273 
 
 Red-winged black bird 107, 269 
 
 Ring-billed gull 193
 
 292 Index 
 
 Robin, early spring .12, 267 
 
 Robin, feeding 18 
 
 Robin, in winter 234 
 
 Robin, nesting on window-ledge 13 
 
 Rooks 238 
 
 Roosting of birds in winter 245 
 
 S 
 
 Sanderling 175 
 
 Sandpiper, red-backed 189 
 
 Sandpiper, semipalmated 176 
 
 Sandpiper, spotted 87 
 
 Sand-snipe 175 
 
 Scarlet tanager 105, 120, 161 
 
 September 145 
 
 Sharp-shinned hawk 276 
 
 Shore lark 260 
 
 Shrike, Northern 245 
 
 Snipe, Wilson's (jack) 190 
 
 Snowflake 236 
 
 Sociable grosbeak 218 
 
 Songs of birds, purpose of 19 
 
 Sparrow hawk 274 
 
 Sparrow, English 205, 225 
 
 Sparrow, field 269 
 
 Sparrow, fox 156, 269 
 
 Sparrow, lark 99 
 
 Sparrow, song 27, 236, 269 
 
 Sparrow, swamp 269 
 
 Sparrow, vesper 99 
 
 Sparrow, white-throated 28, 156 
 
 Sparrow, white-throated, song of 28 
 
 Swallow, bank 89, 91
 
 Index 
 
 293 
 
 Swallow, barn 91 
 
 Swallow, cliff 91 
 
 Swallow, rough-winged 91 
 
 Swallow, tree 91, 236 
 
 Swallows, migrating 165 
 
 Swift, chimney 165 
 
 Swifts, migrating 167 
 
 T 
 
 Tailor bird 218 
 
 Tanager, scarlet 105, 120, 161 
 
 Tern, Arctic, migration of 174 
 
 Tern, black 112 
 
 Tern, Caspian 174 
 
 Tern, common 174 
 
 Tern, Forster's 174 
 
 Thrush, gray-cheeked 29 
 
 Thrush, hermit 7 J J ^7 
 
 Thrush, olive-backed 29 
 
 Thrush, Wilson's 29 
 
 Thrush, wood 7 
 
 Thrushes, migrating 29, 159 
 
 Towhee 35 
 
 Traill's flycatcher 66 
 
 Turkey buzzard (vulture) 277 
 
 v 
 
 Veery 29 
 
 Vireo, red-eyed I 2 3 
 
 Vireo, warbling I2 4 
 
 Vireo, yellow-breasted 124 
 
 Vulture 277
 
 294 ' Index 
 
 W 
 
 Warblers : 
 
 Bay-breasted -73 
 
 Black and white 73 
 
 Blackburnian 73 
 
 Blackpoll 73 
 
 Black-throated blue 73 
 
 Black- throated green 73 
 
 Blue-winged 73 
 
 Canadian 73 
 
 Cape May -73 
 
 Cerulean 73 
 
 Chat, yellow-breasted . 73 
 
 Chestnut-sided 73 
 
 Connecticut 73 
 
 Golden-winged 73 
 
 Grinnell's water thrush 37 
 
 Magnolia 73 
 
 Maryland yellow-throat 73 
 
 Mourning 73 
 
 Myrtle 73 
 
 Oven-bird 219 
 
 Palm .' 73 
 
 Pine 73 
 
 Prothonotary 73 
 
 Redstart 73, 151 
 
 Tennessee 73 
 
 Water thrush 73 
 
 Wilson's 73 
 
 Yellow 73 
 
 Warblers, migrants 73, 160 
 
 Water thrush . 37
 
 Index 295 
 
 Waxwings, cedar. * .... 32, 246 
 
 White-winged crossbill 196 
 
 Whippoorwill 141, 142 
 
 Wild canary . . 116 
 
 Winter, animals retire in 246 
 
 Winter birds 196, 205, 234, 236 
 
 Winter feeding 2OO 
 
 Winter houses 205 
 
 Winter wren 113 
 
 Woodpecker, downy 98, 237 
 
 Woodpecker, hairy 237 
 
 Woodpecker, red-headed 108 
 
 Woodpeckers, in winter 236, 237 
 
 Wood pewee 62 
 
 Wood thrush 70 
 
 Wren, Carolina 113 
 
 Wren, house 113 
 
 Wren, long-billed marsh 114 
 
 Wren, winter 113
 
 A 000102661 
 
 MAN'S HIGH ADVENTURE 
 
 SAMUEL A. HARPER 
 
 Cf To become aware of the infinite cosmos, of 
 the relation of his small planet thereto, of his 
 common origin and kinship with everything 
 that shines and lives, of his participation in 
 the creative processes of evolution; 
 
 C[ And to direct the &reat forces of nature, of 
 himself and of his society to the ultimate, 
 supreme &ood of the human race, this is 
 
 MAN'S HIGH ADVENTURE 
 
 nit/ 
 
 Copyright, 1931 ^ 
 By Samuel A. Harper
 
 ' 
 
 *