Birds and Nature, Vol. 12 No. 4 [September 1902]

Yes, November is an old gypsy dame, but she is not always melancholy. She is the month of whom artists are especially fond. While she lacks the glow of midsummer, there is compensation for the absence of bloom and radiance in the ripening of all vegetation; there is still a touch of splendid color on the hills, and the grass is green with the aftermath of summer. Beautiful mists veil the mountain tops. There is an exquisite beauty in the tints of sepia and the rich brown tones of the landscapes and in the tender grays and clear blues of November skies.

Ah, she knows, does November, that she, too, in her old age, gives promise of something sweet to come. All the trees are filled with next year’s buds; the trailing things of the woods, too, are budded and wait but a few months until the first snows are gone to blossom in fragrance and gladden the bright wedding days of Spring.

Calmly she smokes, the dear old dame, sitting at the door of her tent. Near by, dim and misty, are the marshy fens, in which stand the herons like sculptured figures, where the bulrushes have turned yellow amongst the tawny tussocks. Around her the Indian creeper weaves its still brilliant strands of red and gold. Softly the willow bands drop their trailing leaves. Heavy and purple still hang the berries on the elder boughs that languidly wave in the faint breeze as if they still felt the ghosts of summer kisses.

The nut-brown face of old November looks impassively on all the changes of her season. She knows nothing is dying about her that shall not live again. Her eyes, dark, liquid, somberly deep and tranquil, have seen all the things beautiful that our eyes have missed – the wild flowers trodden down by careless feet; moonlight on far off lakes at midnight; the first pink flush of dawn on stately mountains. Ah, yes, she knows of Love; of dead folded hands, and she remembers the buds of her last year’s reign. She knows that, like the sleeping buds about her now, Love shall give all things back again in the sweet springtime of Paradise, even as these same buds shall waken to bloom and beauty when their winter sleep is over.

But now the night is coming on. Deep shadows are filling the dusky stalls of the drooping hemlocks on yonder hill. Faint spicy odors of sweet fern and illusive witch hazel rise on the misty air. Dame November rises slowly, knocks the ashes from her pipe, gazes broodingly for a few moments over the fading landscape, then turns and softly closes her door. All night the solemn winds intone the requiem of Spring and Summer glories past, but at intervals listen and you will hear the sweet, thin flute of the wood-frog, faintly but hopefully voicing the promise of another Spring, with more bloom, more gladness and glory to come.

Dear old Dame November! A few more days and she will no longer be sitting at the door of her wayside tent. We love her mists, her mellow rains, her dull, rich tones of brown and faded gold. December shall disturb the brooding calm that she has left with us, but we know he cannot harm with his icy mail and glittering frost spears the tightly folded promises which the gypsy November has prepared for next year’s blooming.

Belle A. Hitchcock.

THE ARKANSAS GOLDFINCH

(Spinus psaltria.)

The Goldfinch, social, chirping, bright,Takes in those branches his delight.A troop like flying sunbeams passAnd light among the vivid grass,Or in the end of some long branch,Like acrobats, in air they launch,And in the wild wind sway and swing,Intent to twitter, glance and sing.– Rose Terry Cooke, “My Apple Tree.”

These lines of the poet were inspired by the beautiful goldfinch so familiar to all, and usually called yellow-bird and thistle-bird. They form an appropriate introduction to a few words regarding the thistle-bird’s sister species of the Pacific coast – the Arkansas Goldfinch. This bright and sprightly bird enlivens the shrubby ravines and weedy places from Oregon southward through the United States, and from the Pacific coast eastward into Colorado. Throughout its range it is quite common and nests on the plains and also in the mountains to a height of nine thousand feet. Abundant in many mountainous regions, it has been given the name Rocky Mountain Goldfinch, and the olive-green color of the plumage of its back has given it the very appropriate name Arkansas Green-backed Goldfinch.

Like the common thistle-bird, it has a social disposition and feeds with its fellows in flocks of a greater or less number. Not infrequently several individuals will alight on the same plant and immediately begin a diligent search for their food of seeds. Active and of a seemingly impatient temperament, it seldom remains long in any one locality, yet a garden rich in sunflower blossoms or a field full of blooming thistles furnished so tempting a larder that a flock may patiently labor therein for some time, gathering an abundance of goldfinch dainties.

Its notes are similar to those of the thistle-birds. “The ordinary note is a plaintive mellow, whistling call, impossible to describe and so inflected as to produce a very mournful effect.” While pursuing its undulating flight, it utters a sweet song which is in harmony with the rise and fall of its onward motion and is indicative of its sweet disposition. Its nest is a dainty structure built of fine bark and other vegetable fibers, fine grasses and moss compactly bound together and quite thickly lined with plant down.

TRAGEDY IN BIRD LIFE

For the friends of birds there are, in cold days of wind and storm, opportunities of loving service.

In the drama of bird-life the scenes are ever shifting, and struggle for existence is not always under sun-lighted, genial skies.

It is true that creative love has endowed the birds with facilities for resisting the havoc of storms. The feathered tribes, nested in chosen coverts, defy the elements and shake out their plumage in fearless defiance of tempests before which man stands in dismay.

A little bit of feathered anatomy will sway cheerily on unprotected twigs, disdaining the shelter close at hand, while the storm beats on wayside.

The endurance of these creatures of the air may well astonish men, who, with all their vitality and size, succumb, of necessity, to the warring elements.

But, in spite of their powers of endurance, the storm-periods are for the birds bitter intervals of life, when hunger and thirst and cold combine to sweep them into the vortex of the lost.

It is not the cold, unaccompanied by other influences, which devastates the ranks of the birds during extreme winter storm-periods, however; it is, chiefly, the dearth of food.

While the harvest of seeds over the meadows is available the bleak blast moans about our birds innoxiously; but it is when the feathery snowflakes cover this well-stocked granary, clinging about the seed-vessels of weed and flower, and closing it in a frozen locker, or the ice-storm wraps it in glittering ice, that the lairds are beaten before the winds, and perish of cold and starvation.

There are few, if any, bird lovers who have not some scene of tragedy to recount; some memory of storm-periods when the birds flew to the habitations of men for help, finding no hope but in the fragments cast away by some human hand.

That more thought is not given to the needs of the birds about our doors, at such periods, is due more to the prevailing impression that the birds have the means of providing, even in times of emergency, for their own needs, than to a disregard of the interests of these little friends of the air.

Unless we have awakened to pathetic struggle of bird life under some conditions we are not apt to be aroused to any obligation in the matter of aiding in providing for birds in seasons of peril.

But it is true, nevertheless, that the little visitor upon our doorsill who stays with us during the long winter suffers the anguish of cold and hunger, frequently of starvation, during the periods of intense cold and storm – anguish which might be prevented by a little thoughtfulness on man’s part, in casting a trifle of food in sheltered nooks – crumbs from the table; cracked corn or coarse meal; cracked nuts; a bit of suet, the latter being best served by being nailed upon some neighboring tree, high enough to be beyond the reach of any but the intended guests.

By such provision one phase of the tragedy of bird-life would be abated, and the friendliness of the little strangers developed, to the pleasure of many bird lovers, who would receive in return for their kindness the gladness sure to be theirs in watching the feast of the joyous birds.

The day when earth and sky meet in one maze of blinding snow, or in the mist of rain which freezes where it falls, is hard enough for the birds; but while there is light there is also a hope of a scanty meal to be caught somewhere through the swirl of the storm. But, when this hope fails and darkness lowers into deepening night; when bleak winds rage on every side; the forests creak and moan; the tormented air sobs and wails like a tortured soul; when every sound is swept into the cadence of despair and the outposts of hills are lost in the labyrinth of tumultuous night, then how bitter is life’s tragedy for the hunger-racked birds; how marvelous it is that so many little storm-beaten breasts survive to meet the struggle for existence at the dawn of a new storm-beaten day.

George Klingle.

THE LIFE OF AIRY WINGS

One beautiful day last May my mother laid a tiny green egg on the under side of a leaf on a milkweed plant. I know that its color was green and that it was laid on the back of the leaf because Mother Milkweed Butterfly did not want any fly or worm to eat me up, so she made its green like the leaf and hid it away in a safe place. There I rested quietly within the egg for about four days, when I burst open the shell to see what was out in the world.

I shook myself and found that I could crawl. I was also very hungry. I had come out a green caterpillar with a black head. How strange that was! Now I expected to be a butterfly with wings to sail through the air. Never mind, I thought, if I am a caterpillar I must do all that a caterpillar ought to do, and not make a fuss because I am not a handsome butterfly.

The first thing a caterpillar has to do is to eat his eggshell so that the ichneumon fly – the fellow is an enemy to my family – will not be able to find any traces of him on the leaf. Where did I learn that? I think Mother B. must have folded that thought in the eggshell, for it came out with me. After doing that duty I was so hungry that I ate the leaf on which I found myself, all day long and far into the night. Then I curled up and went to sleep feeling very quiet and comfortable.

When I awakened the sun was up. I was warm and hungry, so I began to eat again. Suddenly I heard a buzzing noise overhead. Oh, dear me! I was frightened and kept perfectly still, for I thought it was that miserable fly after me, but it proved to be only a jolly bumble-bee, and I went on eating.

After several days of this life – eating, and watching for enemies – something happened. I suppose that I had eaten so much milkweed that my skin got too tight to hold me, for it felt very uncomfortable and then began to crack. I had spun a little silk on the leaf to get a better foot-hold and remained very quiet for I did not feel like moving. I stretched my head a little, after awhile, and the old head-case came off, falling to the ground. Then I made violent exertions, or movements, with the muscles of my body, and finally the old skin came off. I was very much fatigued and was quiescent, not caring to stir, for several hours. I thought of the fly too, that might sting me now while my new jacket was soft, and that kept me still also. When it became harder I had to eat up the old one, and then was hungry as ever.

Eat! Why I did nothing for about four weeks but devour milkweed, keep a watch out for enemies and grow too big for my jacket. I moulted four times in all, and at the end you should have seen me. My body was striped yellow, black and green, and was nearly two inches long. My head was black-banded; my face yellow with two parallel black bows, and I had two pairs of long slender, flexible filaments, like a hair, on my body.

I had grown so large and strong that I wanted to see more of the world. I crawled off my leaf, down the stalk of the plant onto the ground. What a queer sensation it was, to be sure, to feel the grass and the ground! There was a rail-fence near my old home. I began to feel very weary and sleepy. I crept cautiously along until I reached the fence; crawled up to next the top rail and under it to rest awhile. My, how tired I was! I did not want anything to eat. I did not care to move, nor to speak. I caught hold of the rail and hung there for about twelve days.

I have learned since, that I was a chrysalis and was a beautiful object of emerald green, with gold and black dots. I was fastened to the fence-rail by a slender shining black peduncle, or stem. Nothing disturbed me, and on the eleventh day the bright green disappeared, the golden spots faded, and on the twelfth day I burst open the shell of the chrysalis, found that I had wings and sailed away through the air. How delightful! So much easier than crawling. At last I was a butterfly. This is what patience and perseverance does for the “ugly duckling,” at least that is what a friend on the milkweed leaf told me one day.

I saw another butterfly a short distance ahead of me having the same colors I had – yellow and black with white dots on the wings – and I flew faster to catch up with her. She was very beautiful and knew more of the world than I did, therefore I determined to keep close to her. I found her very modest and unassuming. She made me feel as if I knew it all, and that is the chief qualification that even a butterfly wants in a wife. After a little hesitation I asked her to be my mate. She said she would, and away we raced in the sunshine to a field of clover. She showed me how to get honey out of the flowers with my tongue, which is like a watch-spring coiled up in the lower part of my head. When I am excited in probing to the bottom of a flower it uncoils and half coils again, “acting like a little force-pump” to bring up the juice of the flower.

My mate and I had a jolly time flying over the clover-field, where we met more of our family, the milkweed butterflies, and others. The flowers we like best are the clover, milkweed, goldenrod, thistle and phlox.

I soon discovered that birds and insects did not trouble us much, because we do not suit their appetites. They say that we taste bitter and disagreeable, like the milkweed, so they seldom disturb us, and we lead a happy-go-lucky life. We often spread our wings wide and float along in the air with little fear of foes. They see our colors – yellow and black, the badge of the milkweed butterfly – and off they go seeking a choicer tidbit.

Whenever there is a heavy wind storm I fly out to battle with it. What fun to have the angry wind hurl you back – only to get your wings fluttering again, and flying a distance to meet another fling! It is great sport.

I must tell you of something that happened to my mate one day. She was flying near a piazza where there were some phlox plants. She darted down towards them, keeping an eye out on a sparrow that had been flying after her, when her right wing caught in a spider-web that was in the piazza rail. She fluttered and fluttered, frightening the spider out of his web, until she got her wing loose; but it was not so strong after that, as a little piece was torn off.

I saw some beautiful flowers lying on a table on the same piazza soon afterwards and, as no one was out there, winged down on them. Queer: they had no honey in them. A little girl in the window exclaimed, “Oh, sister! a butterfly is on our paper flowers.”

Then a boy sprang out with a hat in his hand and I flew quickly away. My mate and I were so terrified that we did not go near that piazza again.

The lovely warm summer passed very soon and I had such a happy time that I was sorry when our family flocked together and began to talk of going South in September. We held our meetings on the underside of the branches of trees and, perhaps, some of you saw us there.

Oh! the life of a butterfly is sweet, and there is just enough excitement in keeping out of the reach of enemies to make the struggle for existence interesting.

M. Evelyn Lincoln.

THE CELESTIAL BIRD

The ancients called the eagle the celestial bird because it flies high with its eye fixed on the sun.

According to the myths of the birds they are older than the gods and to them mankind is deeply indebted; for the hawk created man, the wren, and not Prometheus, brought down fire for his use, the crow taught him marital laws, while the eagle gave him the brew from the fountain of song. Just why the eagle – who is no musician – should have interested himself in this way, legend does not explain, but, as he is of majestic appearance, and imperial in character, there can be no possible objection to his acting as cup-bearer to the poets! They all like him – or, at least, like to describe him. Tennyson says —

He clasps the crag with crooked handsClose to the sun in lonely landsRing’d with the azure world he stands.The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls,He watches from his northern walls,And like a thunderbolt he falls.

But the eagle takes part in the affairs of birds and beasts, as well as in those of men, for, according to an oriental legend, in ancient times beasts and birds were at war with each other. While victory was still uncertain the owl withdrew from the winged army quite prepared to go over to the enemy. But the eagle fought with such valorous prowess that the birds were finally victorious. The owl, seeing this, flew back to join them. But the eagle observed his movements, and forbade him ever again to mix with his subjects or show his face to the sun.

Although the eagle is a bird of prey he is used as a national emblem on Persian, Roman and United States coins. Indeed, the eagle is often used for heraldic emblems, standards and various emblematic devices. The eagle is cosmopolitan. The so-called bald-eagle takes three years to complete its plumage; it is called the “black” eagle the first year, the “gray” the second and the “bald” the third year, when the white plumage on neck and head, which gives it the name, is complete. After shedding its feathers in the spring, even the old birds assume the appearance of youth, hence David speaks of the “youth which is renewed like the eagle’s.” An unusual fact in reference to this bird is that the female is said to be larger and braver than the male.

A story is told of a pair of eagles in the New York Zoological Park who made a nest in the root of a tree, in a cavity of the ground and lined it with moss. As no eggs were yet ready the birds brought a smooth round stone to the nest on which they sat, male and female, on alternate days. Some such habit as this may account for the idea of the ancients that the eagle carried stones to her nest to facilitate the laying of her eggs.

The eagle lives to be very old. It is not especially difficult to tame. A young one caught in the Territory could not be bought. The Indian woman who was taming it refused all offers. She said, “Ah-cha-fa-tona wants young eagle, she not want white man’s money!”

“Old Abe” – named for Lincoln – was caught and tamed by soldiers during the civil war. He went through the war delighted with battles. One of his feathers, dropped on the battlefield, was framed and now hangs in Washington.

Belle Paxson Drury.

THE BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER

(Charadrius squatarola.)

The Black-bellied Plover is quite cosmopolitan, though its range is practically confined to the northern hemisphere, passing southward in the winter to the West Indies and northern South America and breeding in the far North. Not only is its range extensive, but also its list of common or local names. Some of the better known of these are Whistling Field Plover, May Cock, Beetle-head, Black-breast and Bottle-head. Its large head has given it the name Bull-head and its large, brilliant and expressive dark colored eyes, which in summer are surrounded by a white ring, have led some of its admirers to call it the Ox-eye.

The Black-bellied Plover is grouse-like in appearance and differs from all the other plovers in having a rudimentary hind toe. It varies greatly in the color of its plumage, both with age and with the seasons. As it stands upon the beach, decked in its summer plumage, it is a striking and beautiful bird. As winter approaches its plumage assumes a more somber hue and becomes a mixture of dark brown and gray above, while below the plumage is white with lines and spots of dark brown on the neck and breast.

This bird is one of the largest of the plover species. It will run rapidly for a few yards and suddenly stopping will elevate its head and closely survey its environment. The older birds are shy, but the younger ones will quite readily respond to the call of the hunter and will usually approach his decoys. Its call notes are of two kinds. One is loud and penetrating and may be heard at a long distance. This call consists of a number of distinct notes, the second of which is accented. The notes of the other call are uttered in a low and satisfied tone as if the bird were perfectly contented. Mr. George H. Mackay found much to admire in the life of this Plover. He says: “There is something very aristocratic in the bearing of the adult birds as you watch them standing on the marsh with their heads erect, their black and white plumage strikingly defined, and their large, dark, liquid eyes ever on the alert for danger. With the yellowish green marsh grass for a background, they make a most interesting study in black and white, which, coupled with that clear penetrating note of alarm when danger is discovered, cannot fail to impress one.”

When migrating it may fly alone or in flocks. At times the flocks will assume a wedge-shaped or a crescent-like form. The latter seems to be the more common form, and the ends of the crescent may point either forward or backward. The solitary birds are more frequent in the interior, while the flocks are more common near the sea coast. The slow and measured stroke of the long wings is well fitted to a continuous and prolonged flight. When tired from flying at sea it will rest on masses of seaweed or float upon the water.

The Black-bellied Plover feeds largely on minute mollusks, shrimps, worms, sea insects and on various larvae found in the marshes. It also eats grasshoppers and late in the season, at the North, berries form a large part of its diet. It is at this time that its flesh is most eagerly sought by the connoisseur of game food. Food is gathered with a quick stroke and from the surface, for the bird cannot probe for its food as do the sandpipers.

This Plover is a tide bird, “seeking a large portion of its food on those extensive sand flats left by the receding waters, which may be adjacent to marshes where the grass is short, and which are interspersed with barren places where there is no grass, also to uplands and fields where the grass is scanty or closely fed down by sheep or cattle. It is to such places that they like to resort when driven from their feeding grounds on the sand flats by the incoming tide. They also frequent, at such times, the crest and dry sand of the beaches and shoals; here they remain until the tide has sufficiently ebbed to permit them again to return to feed.”

The Black-bellied Plover gives but little attention to home building. Its nest is a mere depression in the ground lined with grass and leaves.

SOME BIRD WONDERS

Geologically considered, the migration of birds had its origin in the beginning of the Post-Tertiary period of our globe’s history. Prior to the Glacial Epoch there was no migratory instinct among the feathered tribes of the earth’s fauna for the simple reason that there was no necessity for such a change of habitat.

Thus the annual recurrence of this phenomenon has been going on not since the creation, as many suppose, but for units of ages whose lapse can be reckoned only by millenniums of calendar years. It is not the time and place here to discuss the means by which this length of time can be even approximately determined, but there are certain inferences and conclusions which are well endorsed by scientific research.