Part 39

“There are others that are classed with game-birds that will surely everywhere be stricken from the list some day, and put with those birds that we wish to cherish at all seasons, and for whom there should be no hunting, either fair or foul.

“These birds, even though a couple of them are cousins to the Woodcock, are so small of body (their long wing in flight giving a deceptive idea of their size) that their flesh is of no account, save to either the starving, who are bound by no laws, or the glutton seeking for an article of food to whet a jaded palate, like the old emperors of Rome who ate nightingale’s tongues, forsooth! We do not wish to breed or encourage such barbarians in our America. At the same time, these birds have great value in their insect-eating capacity.”

“Pop says they always used to shoot Meadowlarks when he was a boy, and up to not very long ago,” said Tommy, “and Yellowhammers and Pigeons and Doves and Robins, too, but now nobody dares, except on the sly. Anyway, the Wild Pigeons grandfather tells of are all gone, and I’ve only seen a couple of Doves this year.”

“The birds you speak of are now protected by law, here in Connecticut,” said Gray Lady, “though in some states they are not, but the game-birds I mean are the little Killdeer Plover, and the Upland and other small Plovers, together with the Sandpipers, both of fresh and salt water.”

XV GAME-BIRDS?

The plea of the Meadowlark, Mourning Dove, Sandpiper, Plovers, and Bobolink, the Masquerader

“Spare us, please! We are too small for food.”

“You, children, who live with green fields about you, all know the Meadowlark by sight and sound, even if you never have had the curiosity to learn its name. It is the bird seen walking in old fields and lowlands. In size it is a little larger than a Robin, with a rather flat head and long, stout bill, its back speckled and streaked with brown and black, and a beautiful yellow throat and breast crossed by a crescent of black. When the bird is on the ground, if you came behind it, at a distance, you might think it a Flicker, but the moment it takes to the air with a whirring flight, the white feathers at the outside of the tail show plainly, and name it Meadowlark, just as the white rump names the Flicker.

“Then, you know its voice, that sometimes drops from a tree, sometimes rises from the grass, that Mr. Burroughs says calls, ‘Spring o’ the year—Spring o’ the year.’ The notes are clear as a flute, and, beautiful as our Meadowlark’s song is, that of his brother, the Prairie Lark, is still more melodious, and I shall never forget the first spring morning that I heard it from the border of one of those endless grain-fields that roll on to meet the sky like a glistening green sea with its waters stirred by the breeze.

“The Meadowlark is certainly a thing of beauty, but, at the same time, its greater service to man is its usefulness; not as a bit of meat, no matter how plump it may grow, but as the untiring guardian of the fields, where it spends its life and makes its nest home in a grass tussock. For this bird, of the eastern United States, is with us here in Southern New England, and southward, all the year, and those flocks that migrate do not leave until late fall, and are back again by the middle of March, while the Prairie Lark covers the western part of the country, as permanent warden of the meadow and hayfields. All the year they keep at work; from March to December insect food is the chief part of the diet; insects that are the farmer’s bane,—grasshoppers, cutworms, sow-bugs, ticks, weevils, plant-lice, and the click-beetle (the grown-up wire worm) being but a few of them. The remaining months, December, January, and February, insects failing, waste grain is eaten, and weed seeds, as pigeon grass, rag and smart weed, and black mustard.

“Happily for us, this beautiful bird is protected in all the New England and Middle States, but, if we have friends who live in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee, Missouri and Idaho, where the Larks are only considered as food, let us beg them to tell every one of this and the Prairie Lark’s merits, so that they may be placed on the list of the protected. And when you hear any one say that the Meadowlark is by rights a game-bird, say as politely as may be, but very firmly, ‘No; it is not! At least, not in staunch, common-sensed New England!’

The Mourning Dove

“Soft of plumage, gentle, and almost sad of voice is the Mourning Dove, the grayish brown bird with metallic lustres, whose name is taken from its plaintive accents. Its comings and goings are silent, and, in spite of its size, for it is as large as the Meadowlark, if it was not for its cooing, heard early in the morning, we should seldom know of its presence, for its flight is noiseless, and it chooses trees in secluded places for the little loose bunch of sticks that forms its nest.

“Formerly, this Dove, together with its cousin, the Passenger Pigeon, were everywhere to be found, while the Passenger Pigeon, a bird of fine flesh, was so plentiful as to be almost a staple article of food, and wagons loaded with birds were peddled through city streets. With the wastefulness of a people coming to a new and liberal country, the birds were often shot down in their roosts, from pure wantonness, and left to decay upon the ground, so that now the Passenger Pigeon and the wild buffalo have gone to the happy animal-country, where there is no hunting, together,—two valuable animals practically extinct,—and North America is the poorer for its thoughtlessness.

“With this warning before us, the Kind Hearts’, of which there are plenty everywhere, whether they are banded into clubs or not, should strive to have this gentle, harmless life protected.

“‘Why?’ says the farmer, in the states that refuse protection. ‘Maybe it doesn’t do any harm, but what good can it do that can make up to me for not eating it?’ To such a man say this: The Mourning Dove is a consumer of evil weeds, and its presence in flocks will lessen his labour and give his hoe arm a rest; that the crop of a dove, examined by the Department of Agriculture in Washington, was found to hold 9200 seeds of noxious weeds! Not to have these weeds grow would give the farmer, or his boy, time for a half holiday, wherein to go clamming or berry picking!

* * * * *

“Now we have some little birds whose names are still on the list of food- or game-birds, and I should like to see them wiped from it forever, or, at least, until they are once more plentiful in their haunts. These are the two cousins of the Woodcock,—Sandpipers, the Spotted and the Least, and two Plovers, also water-loving birds, the Killdeer and the Upland Plover.

“Most of you children, at some part of the season, go down to the shore of the bay yonder, perhaps it may be when your fathers gather seaweed in the spring and fall, in late summer for the snapper fishing, or all through the autumn and early winter for long-necked clams. Some of you, I know, like Tommy and Dave, have camped out there for several weeks. Have you not noticed the little prints of birds’ feet just above the edge of tide-water? Or have you not seen the little birds themselves, no bigger than Sparrows, with streaked, brown-gray backs and soft white feathers underneath, running to and fro, balancing when they feed, as if making a courtesy, all the while whispering softly among themselves?

“Or, again, others slightly larger, with ash and brown backs, and underparts spotted with round, black marks like a thrush, white spotted wings, and the outer tail-feathers white barred, showing in flight?

“These two gracious, confiding little birds are the Least and the Spotted Sandpiper. Their small size should keep them off the food list, for what are their dead bodies but a single mouthful? And what are they alive? Things of joy and mystery combined. For what is a more perfect picture of grace and happiness than these birds with a background of sand, seaweed, and shells, and all the sparkling water before?

“Of a gray day, their pleasant prattle is shut down by the fog, and sounds strange and mysterious, and when they spread their pointed wings, and vanish into the mist, that seems to pick them up as it rolls in, the picture is complete.

“The Least Sandpiper, the smallest of his tribe, is found in greater numbers on our beach than the Spotted. He comes to us in the migrations, as he nests only in the far North. I can remember, when as a girl I was fond of swiming in the bay until late in autumn, that a flock of these little birds flew over me so close that I could feel the beating of their wings. His use is to give interest to the landscape, and his plea for life his harmless littleness, his confidence, and his obedience in filling the place in nature which the great Plan has given him. Perhaps you may have heard the poem that he inspired in the heart of one woman, who lived on a sea-girt island, and, oftentimes, had only the birds for company; even if you have heard it, the verses are among those of which we never tire.

THE SANDPIPER

Across the narrow beach we flit, One little Sandpiper and I; And fast I gather, bit by bit, The scattered driftwood, bleached and dry. The wild waves reach their hands for it, The wild wind raves, the tide runs high, As up and down the beach we flit,— One little Sandpiper and I.

Above our heads the sullen clouds Scud black and swift across the sky; Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds Stand out the white lighthouses high. Almost as far as eye can reach I see the close-reefed vessels fly, As fast we flit along the beach,— One little Sandpiper and I.

I watch him as he skims along, Uttering his sweet and mournful cry; He starts not at my fitful song, Or flash of fluttering drapery. He has no thought of any wrong; He scans me with a fearless eye. Staunch friends are we, well tried and strong, The little Sandpiper and I.

Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night, When the loosed storm breaks furiously? My driftwood fire will burn so bright! To what warm shelter canst thou fly? I do not fear for thee, though wroth The tempest rushes through the sky; For are we not God’s children both, Thou, little Sandpiper, and I?