Part 70

“You will be disappointed when first you see the bird itself, for it does not in the least resemble the bird of the English poets, who lives in Cuckoo clocks and bobs out to tell the hours. Neither is it a lazy bird who refuses to build a nest and leaves its eggs to the care of others like the Cowbird.

“This Yellow-billed Cuckoo is a slender bird cloaked in brownish gray, of a soft hue and with a light belly. The tail-feathers are tipped with white, so that, as you look at the bird from below, it shows large white spots. This Cuckoo takes its name because the lower part of its bill is yellow, but you will scarcely notice this when he is in the trees, where he spends the greater part of his time in searching for insects and caterpillars, which are his favourite food.

“The nest is a shallow, rather shiftless sort of an affair, and very often has so little lining that if the vine or bush in which it is placed tips a little, the pale blue eggs are in danger of rolling out. What the Cuckoos lack in housekeeping thrift they make up as destroyers of harmful insects, and here it has helped to keep the old orchard alive by tearing apart the nests of the tent-caterpillar and eating the inhabitants. These mischievous caterpillars used to be content to live in the wild cherry trees that line the roads and old pastures. People cut these down in consequence, so after a time the caterpillar found that apple trees were quite as much to his taste and seized upon the orchards. Then comes Master Cuckoo, and wherever the tent worms are, there we find him also. So many has he been known to devour that one of the Wise Men, upon examining the stomach of a Cuckoo that had been killed, found it lined with a sort of felt made from the hairs of the caterpillars.

“So, if you hear the harsh call near by, be very glad; the sound may not please the ear, but the bird is a pleasure to the sight as he slips away silently through the trees to do work for us that we cannot do as well.

“The Red-eyed Vireo, excepting the Catbird, is the most talkative bird that we have; in fact, so fond is he of the sound of his own voice that he is rarely silent during the daylight hours. Then, too, his eloquence has a questioning and arguing quality that made Wilson Flagg give him the nickname of ‘The Preacher,’ by which he will always be known. ‘You see it—you know it—do you hear me? Do you believe it?’ he hears this voice say, and if you keep these words in your mind, you will recognize the bird the first time that you hear his song. You may hear the Vireo’s words twenty times for every peep that you may get of his person; not that he is at all shy, but he is restlessness in feathers, while unlike many talkers he both talks and works at the same time. Now he is at the end of a branch close to you, then on the opposite side of the tree, from whence he works his way to the very top, clearing the small limbs and twigs of insects as he goes.

“After trying in vain to see him, one day when you are not thinking of this or any other bird, you will pass a familiar tree, one of the apples, perhaps, whose branches nearly sweep the ground. Your eye in going idly over the leaves halts at an object that is partly suspended between the forked twigs of a branch almost under your eye. You look again; it is a nest, pocket-shaped, and fastened between the twigs as the heel of a stocking is held between knitting needles. The nest itself is finely woven of plant-down, soft bark, and perhaps a few shreds of paper.

“You step nearer; a little head with a long, curved beak rises slightly above the nest,—Madam is at home. An eye holds your own,—a red eye with a long, clear, white mark over it by way of an eyebrow. Then you notice the head wears a gray cap bordered with black. The bird perhaps breathes a little faster, and the prettily shaded olive-green back heaves and the wings twitch as if to make ready to fly, otherwise the bird does not budge, but simply sits and waits for you to go; this, if you are really one of the Kind Hearts, you will do very soon.

“True, you may come back the next day and the next, and from a comfortable distance watch the Vireo’s housekeeping and the progress of her brood, only please do not touch either the nest or its contents. After she has done with it and autumn comes, you may have it for your own and see for yourself how wonderfully it is made.

“All sorts of amusing bits of printing from newspapers have been found woven into these nests, and there is one in Goldilocks’ cabinet, that I will show you later, that says upon the shred of paper,—‘an eight-room flat,—electric light and —— —— improvements,’ the missing words being concealed where the paper was woven under the plant fibres.

“There are several other Vireos with richer, more melodious voices that you will learn to name after you have made your first bowing and speaking acquaintances in Birdland. The Red-eyed, however, is the largest and most easily named of them all if you remember his love of preaching, his white eyebrow, and gray, black-edged cap. He will be with us all summer, leaving in early October with the last flocks of Barn Swallows.

RED-EYED VIREO

When overhead you hear a bird Who talks, or rather, chatters, Of all the latest woodland news, And other trivial matters, Who is so kind, so very kind, She never can say no, And so the nasty Cowbird Drops an egg among her row Of neat white eggs. Behold her then, The Red-eyed Vireo!

—Faith C. Lee, in Bird-Lore.

THREE LISPERS AND A VENTRILOQUIST

“When the trees are putting on their best and greenest leaves, many new sounds mingle with the hum of insects among the branches. You pause and look up in the confusing mass of fluttering green and sunbeams to find, if possible, the origin of these sounds.

“Many feathered shapes are fluttering about, some flying after the manner of birds, while others flit and move in the irregular fashion of butterflies, while the notes they utter, instead of being full-throated, have a sort of childish lisp.

“These birds belong to the tribe of Warblers; a few do really warble, but for the majority the Lispers would be a more appropriate title. Listen! there comes a little call now, as if the bird had kept his beak half closed, ‘Sweet-sweetie-sweazy!’ and a bird of light build and no larger than a Chippy flits backward from the twig where he was perching and alights on one below, following in his flight one of the insects of which he is a valiant destroyer, as he belongs really to both the order of Tree Trappers and Sky Sweepers.

“Now is your chance; he is at rest for a moment; look at him,—black of back, head, and breast, some salmon-red feathers on wings and tail, and the sides of breast rich, pure salmon, and the belly white. What a brave little uniform, almost the Oriole colours. One of the Wise Men who has met the Redstart in his winter home in Cuba says that there he is called ‘Candelita, the little torch that flashes in the gloomy depth of tropical forests.’

“There is nothing secluded about him, however, except the depths of shade where he feeds and weaves his nest, in texture much like the Vireo’s. His mate is also a very dainty bird, but his flame colour and black is replaced by pale yellow and gray.

“The Redstart is a bird to know in May and June, though it does not leave until early in October.

The Summer Yellowbird

“From the apple trees or shrubs near the house comes a cheerful lisping song that constantly declares that life up among the leaves is ‘Sweet-sweet-sweet-sweet-sweeter,’ ending this remark by a warble full of melody. Then a little bird smaller than a Chippy flits out with a bit of green worm hanging from his beak and disappears in another tree. Brief as the glimpse is, you see that the bird is rich olive-yellow, with cinnamon streaks on the breast. If he pauses a moment, you will notice that the underparts are almost the colour of gold. This is the Yellow Warbler of many names,—Wild Canary, Summer Yellowbird, or simply Yellowbird; though this name is also commonly given to the seed-eating Goldfinch of the Sparrow tribe who wears a jaunty black cap, and stays with us all the year, while the Yellow Warbler goes southward before leaf-fall in September.

“The Yellow Warbler’s nest is one of the most beautiful and interesting bird-homes, and shares the fame of that of the Baltimore Oriole, Wood Pewee, Humming-bird, and Vireo. It is cup-shaped and deep, woven of fibres and plant-down, and is placed in the fork of a bush or in a fruit tree, where it is as firmly lashed by cords of vegetable fibre and cobwebs. The female is the builder and a very rapid workwoman. This nest is often used by the Cowbird, but little Mrs. Yellow Warbler is more clever than many other small birds and refuses to be imposed upon. She is evidently afraid to push out the alien egg, so she swiftly walls it in by building a second nest on top of the first. If this does not check the Cowbird, a third nest is sometimes added, like the one that Tommy brought me last fall, and there is a two-story nest in Goldilocks’ cabinet.

“This Warbler is not only beautiful to look at and pleasant to hear, but he is a very valuable tree trapper, for he eats the spinning cankerworms and also tent-caterpillars, pulling apart webs of the latter and using them ‘for cordage’ to bind the nest. He is also a destroyer of plant-lice and something of a flycatcher as well.

Maryland Yellowthroat

“Here is a merry bird that you cannot miss seeing or fail to name if you have eyes and ears. Olive on head and back, this bird certainly has a yellow throat, also much yellow on tail, wings, and underparts, but if I had the naming of it I should call him the ‘Yellow, Black-masked Warbler,’ for he wears a narrow mask of black across his face, through which his keen eyes peer provokingly as he flits ahead calling for you to follow, ‘Follow me—follow me—follow!’ When you see the bird, of two points you may be sure at once; it is yellow, and it wears a black mask, but whether it is yellowest on back, throat, or breast will require a second look.

“This bird is here about the garden and lane from May to September, and last June we found its long, bulky nest, partly covered like an Indian cradle, in the bushes between the garden and orchard, but it usually is so clever at going into the bushes and then darting along close to the ground to its nest, that we had known of this nest for several days before we discovered that it belonged to Black Mask, for his wife, who kept the nearest to the nest, wears no mask, and we thought her some other kind of Warbler.

THE MARYLAND YELLOWTHROAT