Part 64

“The Nighthawk builds no nest, but lays its eggs on a bare rock in a field, amid the stones of rocky ground, on roofs even of city houses. Again does colour protection aid a bird, for the arrangements of its markings blend the Nighthawk with granite as perfectly as those of the Whip-poor-will conceal it in the woods.

“The Nighthawk, whose erratic flight makes it a target that piques the skill of a certain class of sportsmen, has frequently been shot at for prowess, the excuse being that it ‘wasn’t any good, anyway.’ Aside from the list of insects harmful to agriculture and domestic animals that it destroys, let us remember its crowning virtue, and cry ‘Hands off!’ It kills mosquitoes, and has thus earned the local name of Mosquito-hawk.

“It is hard to believe that any one should insist that the Nighthawk and the Whip-poor-will are one and the same bird, but such has been the case, and among intelligent people also, though the mistake has been definitely settled by one of the Wise Men.

A NIGHTHAWK INCIDENT

A discussion of the specific distinctness of the Whip-poor-will and Nighthawk, following an address to Connecticut agriculturists some years ago, led to my receipt, in July, 1900, of an invitation from a gentleman who was present, to come and see a bird then nesting on his farm that he believed combined the characters of both the Whip-poor-will and Nighthawk; in short, was the bird to which both these names applied.

Here was an opportunity to secure a much-desired photograph, and armed with the needed apparatus, as well as specimens of both the Nighthawk and Whip-poor-will, I boarded an early train for Stevenson, Connecticut, prepared to gain my point with bird as well as with man.

The latter accepted the specimens as incontrovertible facts, and readjusted his views as to the status of the birds they represented, and we may therefore at once turn our attention to the Nighthawk, who was waiting so patiently on a bit of granite out in the hayfields. The sun was setting when we reached the flat rock on which her eggs had been laid and young hatched, and where she had last been seen; but a fragment of egg-shell was the only evidence that the bare-looking spot had once been a bird’s home. The grass had lately been mowed, and there was no immediately surrounding cover in which the bird might have hidden. It is eloquent testimony of the value of her protective colouring, therefore, that we should almost have stepped on the bird, who had moved to a near-by flat rock as we approached the place in which we had expected to find her.

Far more convincing, however, was her faith in her own invisibility. Even the presence of a dog did not tempt her to flight, and when the camera was erected on its tripod within three feet of her body, squatting so closely to its rocky background, her only movement was occasioned by her rapid breathing.

There was other cause, however, besides the belief in her own inconspicuousness to hold her to the rock: one little downy chick nestled at her side, and with instinctive obedience was as motionless as its parent.

So they sat while picture after picture was made from various points of view, and still no movement, until the parent was lightly touched, when, starting quickly, she spread her long wings and sailed out over the fields. Perhaps she was startled, and deserted her young on the impulse of sudden fear. But in a few seconds she recovered herself, and circling, returned and spread herself out on the grass at my feet. Then followed the evolutions common to so many birds but wonderful in all. With surprising skill in mimicry, the bird fluttered painfully along, ever just beyond my reach, until it had led me a hundred feet or more from its young, and then, the feat evidently successful, it sailed away again, to perch first on a fence and later on a limb in characteristic (length-wise) Nighthawk attitude.

How are we to account for the development in so many birds of what is now a common habit? Ducks, Snipe, Grouse, Doves, some ground-nesting Sparrows and Warblers, and many other species also feign lameness, with the object of drawing a supposed enemy from the vicinity of their nest or young. Are we to believe that each individual who in this most reasonable manner opposes strategy to force, does so intelligently? Or are we to believe that the habit has been acquired through the agency of natural selection, and is now purely instinctive? Probably neither question can be answered until we know beyond question whether this mimetic or deceptive power is inherited.—Frank M. Chapman, in Bird-Lore.

* * * * *

“Now comes the Chimney Swift, universally called the Chimney Swallow; with small, compact body, only a little larger than a Bank Swallow, and long, strong wings, it dominates the air in which it lives and feeds, and so little does it use its feet that it does not perch on them, but brackets itself against post, wall, or chimney, Woodpecker fashion, the sharp, pointed quills of its short tail acting as a brace.

“In colour the Chimney Swift is sooty gray, and as it darts about the sky it looks like a winged spruce cone, the wings being held further forward in flight than those of the average bird.

“Like their cousins the Nighthawks, they feed chiefly in early morning and late afternoon, though in the nesting season this work continues all day. In the old wild days, like many another bird, this Swift built its basket nest of twigs and bird glue on the inside wall of hollow trees, but when man came, hollow trees went, and so, with the happy adaptability of Heart of Nature himself, the bird moved to the hollow chimneys of man’s own invention, and so, unwittingly, descended from his sky parlour and became the one real fireside bird that we have. And for this companionship he is willing to brave the risk of being smoked out and having sparks scorch his nest.

“Now that wide-mouthed stone chimneys are also disappearing, what remains for this Swift? We do not know, unless he changes his home to the open air and builds his bracket nests on outside walls.

“The Swift folds his wings and dives down the chimney to his nest silently as a bird cleaves the water, but when he rises, a roar of rapidly whirring wings marks the ascent, so that sometimes it annoys the people in whose rooms the chimney opens. Last summer, in the old orchard-house where Miss Wilde lives, we used to sit before the wide fireplace and listen to the Swifts twittering and whirling in and out of the chimney, and by looking up on a bright day their nests could be seen plainly. Once in a while an accident would happen, and Goldilocks will show you a beautiful bracket nest and five white eggs that became loosened after a storm and fell out on to the hearth.”

“But now that there is a fire all the time and a coal stove at Swallow Chimney, won’t the birds choke if they live there?” asked Sarah Barnes. “Grandma says they can stand wood smoke, but that coal-gas ‘spixiates’ ’em; ’cause we’ve never had any at our house since we’ve been burning coal.”

“I believe that your grandmother is right,” said Gray Lady, “and for this reason I have planned to have a new outside chimney for the cooking stove, so that the real ‘Swallow Chimney’ may be only used for the wood hearth fires, and so continue to be their home for as long as I live or the birds wish to rent it.

TO A CHIMNEY SWIFT

Uncumbered neighbour of our race! Thou only of thy clan Hast made thy haunt and dwelling-place Within the walls of man.

Thy haughty wing, which rides the storm, Hath stooped to Earth’s desires, And round thy eery rises warm The smoke of human fires.

Still didst thou come from lands afar In childhood days as now,— Yet alien as the planets are, And elfin-strange art thou.

Thy little realm of quick delights, Fierce instincts, untaught powers— What unimagined days and nights Cut off that realm from ours!

Thy soul is of the dawn of Earth, And thine the secrets be Of sentient being’s far-off birth And round-eyed infancy.

With thee, beneath our sheltering roof, The starry Sphinx doth dwell, Untamed, eternally aloof And inaccessible!

—Dora Read Goodale.

THE RUBY-THROATED HUMMING-BIRD