In Bird Land

Part 1

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IN BIRD LAND

BY LEANDER S. KEYSER

Hast thou named all the birds without a gun? Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk? Ralph Waldo Emerson: Forbearance

Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow The world should listen then, as I am listening now! Percy B. Shelley: To a Skylark

CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 1894

Copyright By A. C. McClurg and Co. A.D. 1894

NOTE.

The articles comprising this volume having been previously published in various periodicals of the country, I would desire to tender my grateful acknowledgments to the several publishers and editors for their uniform courtesy in permitting me to reprint the papers. My observations on birds have been made, except when otherwise indicated, in various haunts in and about Springfield, Ohio,—a region well adapted for ornithological research or pastime. L. S. K.

August, 1894.

CONTENTS.

Chapter Page

I. Wayside Rambles 9

II. Bird Curios 24

III. Winter Frolics 40

IV. February Outings 58

V. Arrival of the Birds 64

VI. Winged Voyagers 76

VII. Plumage of Young Birds 87

VIII. Nest-Hunting 92

IX. Midsummer Melodies 110

X. Where Birds Roost 116

XI. The Wood-Pewee 127

XII. A Pair of Night-Hawks 135

XIII. A Birds’ Gala-Day 141

XIV. Rife with Birds 152

XV. Various Phases of Bird Life: I. Bird Courtship 160 II. Bird Nurseries 169 III. Bird High Schools 185 IV. Bird Work 193 V. Bird Play 201 VI. Bird Deaths 207

XVI. The Secret of Appreciation 216

Part 2

XVII. Browsings in Other Fields 226

XVIII. A Bird Anthology from Lowell 242

My Bird List 263

Index 267

This way would I also sing, My dear little hillside neighbor! A tender carol of peace to bring To the sunburnt fields of labor Is better than making a loud ado; Trill on, amid clover and yarrow! There’s a heart-beat echoing for you, And blessing you, blithe little sparrow! Lucy Larcom.

IN BIRD LAND.

I. WAYSIDE RAMBLES.

Looking out of my study window one fair spring morning, I noticed a friend—a professional man—walking along the street, evidently taking his “constitutional.” Having reached the end of the brick pavement, he paused, glanced around a moment undecidedly, and then, instead of walking out into the beckoning fields and woods, turned down another street which led into a thickly populated part of the city. Surely, I mused, we are not all cast in the same mould. While he carefully avoided going beyond the suburbs and the beaten paths, as if afraid he might soil his polished shoes, I should have plunged boldly into the country, “across lots,” to find some sequestered nook or grass-grown by-way, “far from human neighborhood,” to hold undisturbed converse with Nature. My friend’s conduct, however, did not put me in a critical mood, but rather stirred some grateful reflections on the wise adaptation of all things in the world of being. How fortunate that men are so variously constituted! If some did not naturally choose the bustle and stir and excitement of the city, where would be our philanthropists, our Howards and Peabodys and Dodges? On the other hand, if others did not voluntarily seek quiet and solitude in Nature’s unfrequented haunts, the world would never have been blessed with a Wordsworth, an Emerson, or a Lowell; and in that case, for some of us at least, life would have been bare and arid.

It is true, we cannot accept Pope’s dictum, “Whatever is, is right.” We know that many things that are, are wrong; but doubtless more things in this paradoxical old world are right than moralists sometimes suppose. To the genuine lover of Nature, and especially to the lover of her unbeaten pathways, the ringing lines of Emerson come home with thrilling power:—

“If I could put my woods in song And tell what’s there enjoyed, All men would to my gardens throng, And leave the cities void.”

Yet I doubt if any spot in Nature’s domain could be made so attractive as to overcome most persons’ natural love of human association. Mayhap even if this could be done, it would not be desirable. Should all men hie to the woods and leave the cities void, it would spoil both the woods and the cities. The charm of the woods is their quiet, their solitude; the enchantment of the city, its thronging life and activity. While I may be lonesome in a crowd, my neighbor is almost sure to feel lonesome in the marsh or the deep ravine. If all men loved Nature with a passion that could not be controlled, much work would be left undone that is indispensable to human life and happiness. I am glad, therefore, that there are many birds of many kinds; glad, too, that there are many men of many minds. The apostle does well to remind his brethren in the church that there are “diversities of gifts” and “diversities of operations,” even if all do spring from “the same Spirit.”

Albeit, as for me, give me

“A secret nook in a pleasant land, Whose groves the frolic fairies planned.”

Emerson voices my own feeling when he sings:—

“A woodland walk, A quest of river-grapes, a mocking thrush, A wild rose, or rock-loving columbine, Salve my worst wounds;”

for,

“What friend to friend cannot convey, Shall the dumb bird instructed say.”

And it is true that a wayside ramble will often do, by way of self-revelation and conviction, what no human voice of chastisement can accomplish. Mr. Howells says, in one of his most trenchant analytical novels: “If you’re not in first-rate spiritual condition, you’re apt to get floored if you undertake to commune with Nature.” There are times when the very immaculateness of the sky, or the purity of a woodland flower, rebukes one, gives one a keen sense of one’s sins, and makes one long for absolution; or when the pensive moaning of the wind through the gray, branchless trees on a winter’s day forces on the mind a prevision of a judgment about to be visited upon one’s misdoings. Yet this is seldom my own experience while idling in out-of-the-way places. Usually I feel soothed and comforted, or, at most, a sort of glad melancholy steals over me, which is as enchanting as a magician’s spell; while I often win exhilaration from the whispering breezes, as if they carried a tonic on their pulsing wings.

On the spring morning on which my friend so studiously avoided Nature’s by-paths, my stint of labor for the day was soon despatched, and then, flinging my lunch-bag over my shoulders, I hurried across the fields, anxious to put a comfortable distance between myself and bothering human tenements. By noon I had reached a green hollow at the border of a woodland, where Nature, to a large extent at least, has had her own sweet way. Here, on the grassy bank of a rivulet, I sat down to eat my luncheon. The spring near by filled my cup with ale that sparkles, but never burns; that quenches thirst, but never creates it. Not a human habitation was in sight; nothing but the tinkling brook, the sloping hills, the quiet woods, and the overarching sky. The haunt was not without music. The far-away cadences of the bush-sparrows on the hillside filled the place like melodious sunshine. A short distance down the hollow a song-sparrow thrummed his harp, while a cooing dove lent her dreamy threnody to the wayside trio. Although engaged in the prosaic act of eating my luncheon, I breathed in an atmosphere of poetry and romance, and half expected a company of water-witches and dryads to leap upon the greensward before me and dance to the music of bird and brook. A pagan I am not,—at least, such is my hope; but moods subjunctive sometimes seize me when I do not blame the Greeks—aye, rather, when I praise them—for peopling the woods with Pan and his retinue; for I feel the influence of a strange, mystical, and more than impersonal presence.

Yes, one’s dreams sometimes take on a speculative cast, even on a day that seems to be “the bridal of the earth and sky.” In this unfrequented spot the birds sing their sweetest carols, be there a human ear to hear or not. Do they sing merely for their own delectation, these little creatures of a day? Is there not far too much sweetness wasted on the desert air? Would there not be more purpose in Nature could these dulcet strains be treasured in some way, so that they might be poured into man’s appreciative ear? Why has Nature made no phonographs? Wherefore all this waste of ointment? Does Nature encourage the habits of the spendthrift? I recall a summer day when I strolled along a deep, lonely ravine. It was at least a mile to the nearest human dwelling. Suddenly a clear, melodious trill from a song-sparrow’s lusty throat rippled through the stillness, making my pulses flutter. Here, doubtless, the little Arion had sung his roundels all summer long, and perhaps I had been the only person who had heard him, and then I had caught only a few tantalizing strains—simply enough to give a taste for more. Why was the peerless triller apparently burying his talents in this solitary haunt?

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