Part 4

That was truly an aboriginal abode which I came upon in the spruce woods in a region of perpetual twilight. The somber spruce was relieved only by some veteran yellow birches and by ghostly patches of false miterwort on a projecting ledge. High in a birch was a small hole from which the scarlet crown and chin of a sapsucker appeared in view, as the bird thrust out his head and looked inquiringly about. A harsh imperious call brought the female, who clung to the trunk till the male came out, whereupon she dived into the hole herself, while he in turn went foraging.

Whenever the pair were absent from the nest the insatiable young were heard squealing within. It was a fearsome place that was home to these young savages, a room within a tower, lighted by a single small window far above. To think of being born and raised in the dark heart of a tree! The old birds called to each other from time to time as they hunted over the neighborhood, and their speech was as that of wild men, the very rudiments of language--rude, uncouth and evidently of few words. But, as with the speech of savages, these words were doubtless packed with meaning, whole sentences and paragraphs in themselves, of hard and practical import. Now and then the scarlet crown appeared at the entrance of the dark wigwam. Any lurking foe would be espied from there. Probably not a twig moved below but it was noticed.

While the robin and the bluebird have come to wear a half domestic look, the woodpecker is the untutored savage still. As an Indian remains an Indian, a woodpecker remains a woodpecker. When he comes to the orchard he is an interloper from the forest. He carries the stamp of the wilderness with him. Defiance is in the poise of his head; his attitude is a challenge.

The life of owls and hawks is completely savage--a fierce, carnivorous, terrible existence which no circumstance can affect. Regarding their young with solemn ferocity, their fierce natures are not to be modified or softened in the least. A little red owl having her nest in the heart of a weeping willow, lived so secluded a life her presence was hardly suspected till she was discovered by the smaller birds dozing in a cedar. Some days later she appeared at dusk with four young owls, which she fed on large beetles. The owlets remained perched in a line on the fence while the old bird in ghostly silence departed into the night in search of food. It was wonderful to see what excess of dignity and ferocity was expressed in the personality of these little birds. As well have expected an Iroquois brave to ask for quarter. Approach them and they were on the defensive with all the tricks of appearance--staring eyes, snapping bill and uncanny wavering motion of the head. Like some phantom creature, the old bird came and went, leaping noiselessly into the darkness and reappearing as by magic.

The owlets took their beetles with avidity, swallowing them whole and gulping and gagging in the process in a manner indicative of discomfit rather than any satisfaction over the meal. Once the mother brought what in the darkness appeared to be a small mouse, and this too was swallowed by one little owl, but only after heroic and protracted efforts.

It was no great matter on the following day to gain the confidence of the young owls to a slight degree. But food was the only bond of affinity. So long as I fed them they were content to perch on my finger, fierce and solemn little ruffians, and devour bits of raw meat. Their manners remained sullen and forbidding, though they never refused to eat. Soon they lost even this slight contact with our world and disappeared into their own--the nocturnal and barbarous world of the owl.

Every year there is fresh evidence that the course of true love runs far from smoothly with the birds. A pair of yellow-throated vireos built no less than three nests one season and only succeeded in occupying the last. There were two suitors for the affection of the female, and they fought continually. The rejected lover harassed the pair while at work gathering material, and that he twice stole a march on them and actually tore down the nest appears from circumstantial evidence.

Great secrecy was observed in constructing the third nest, and the rejected one no longer harassed them. Either he had transferred his affections or been fairly vanquished. Life was strenuous and impassioned with these little birds, but see what constancy and perseverance! Fancy having two houses torn down, after completing them with your own hands, and having the courage to build still a third! There is something of the pioneer and frontiersman in this. The offspring of this pair were the children of vigorous and romantic times, and should have inherited some heroic traits.

Even if all goes well otherwise, the sanctity of the nest is liable to be profaned by the cowbird. This spring was an unusually favorable one for them. I noticed the least flycatcher and the Maryland yellow-throat mothering young cowbirds, and many vireos and warblers so engaged. It is a wary caution that leads the cowbird to choose the smaller birds for her victims.

It would be hard to say which of all the foster-mothers is the more solicitous of her charge. Now it appears to be the redeye, and again the chipping-sparrow. All alike are bent on bringing the birdling to maturity as though it were of first importance. That cowbird shall thrive though the heavens fall. The attention seems to be in proportion to the egregious demands of the foundling. Here at least is a waif well cared for, an upstart that takes precedence over the true and lawful heirs. Another year this same adventuress will invade the nests of her adopted sisters.

The yellow warbler is perhaps the oftenest chosen. Accessible and easily found, the nest is a beautiful cup-shaped structure lodged in the fork of a fruit tree, with perchance a spray of blossoms just over it--a house of silk, a satin bower. How awkward and uncouth must the cowbird appear squatting on this fragile silken thing to lay her eggs! Doubtless she watches the yellow bird stripping the dry grass stems and gathering the pappus of last year's cattails; squats low in the grass and looks all unconcerned while she marks the tree to which the fluffy material is carried, and bides her time till the nest is ready. Strange that she should never discover in herself the home-making instinct, for even nomads have their tents. Stranger still she should never once wish to undertake the duties of motherhood.

For a time, perhaps, the young cowbird is influenced by the habit of the bird that happens to mother it, whether this be a ground-sparrow or a tree-loving flycatcher. But it grows up a cowbird with all the inheritance of that peculiar tribe, and its brief contact with a superior race leaves no impress upon it.

In spite of cowbirds and the exigencies of life the woods are full of young birds, their tails not yet grown. This is their childhood--a brief one--as the days in the nest were their infancy. They are exacting children, yet they do not clamor to be amused, but only to be fed. I have seen a young chipping-sparrow, its tail half grown, showing how recently it was from the nest, pick up a straw and carry it about. So early does the maternal instinct show itself. This straw was its doll-baby, the only plaything it could know, and this its solemn play. There is a mild and innocent expression about young birds, as there is in the faces of children, apparent to a keen vision only. They have yet to be hardened by experience and vicissitude. The countenances of the old take on an astute and alert expression. These young black-and-white creepers and chestnut warblers, now shifting for themselves for the first time, come about with gentle confidence. They creep and flit through the trees, coming nearer and nearer, until you look directly into their small innocent faces and could put your hand upon them. Then as it would seem they were about to descend like blessings upon your head, they withdraw and recede from view into the wilderness of leaves where only your thoughts may follow them.

SONGS OF THE WOODS

We are drawn ever by the voices of birds. Even such as might be called monotonous and unmelodious are none the less significant and welcome. The fine lisping notes of warblers, as they industriously hunt for their food, seem expressive of the contentment of their minds. All over the hemlock swamp I hear the voices of black-throated green warblers. Not one may appear in view, but for hours together their musical conversation continues in the treetops. From somewhere in the branches above comes the call of a nuthatch, his speech wholly dissimilar from the rest, as if he might be an inhabitant of a very different world. Almost in the ear sounds the thin wiry note of a black-and-white creeper, as he winds around the trunk of a pine and approaches with his accustomed sociability. High above the others, the trill of the pine-warbler rings clear and sweet--a more resonant instrument surely. These voices all affect us agreeably, and bring us in immediate contact with their world and with wood life. They do not touch our world, however, nor set in motion the delicate mechanism of the emotions. But let a bluebird pass overhead all unseen, warbling his celestial "Pure! Pure! Pure!"--let that significant note fall on the ear and for reasons unknown it sinks into the soul, into the abyss of feeling, and this as mysteriously rises in a delicious flood to the surface. Whence has the bluebird his power, that by the mere quality of tone he can exert this spell?

Some bird voices are so positive, so emphatically cheerful, that one never hears them without feeling better for it. The chickadee in the winter woods is an instance of this. If you feel dreary, he does not. Nothing can dampen his spirits. He hopped out of the nest a cheery little chap, and it is never otherwise with him. In all his days he has never had a regret, never transgressed any law, never been unhappy. The voice of the chewink, too, is eminently sane, a mild, buoyant utterance indicative of an even disposition. He is never more hopeful, nor less so, but always exactly the same. Perhaps the birds have not what we call feeling, but if not, why do they express themselves? What else would prompt these songs? The clear sweet call of the bob-white is full of hope, and there is a quality of tenderness in this voice. One must believe it the outcome of the disposition and character of the bird, of some refinement of feeling; just as the raucous call of the English pheasant expresses grossness and density, and the quailing of the hawk pure savagery.

If we may speak of the temperament of birds, the thrushes must be accorded the religious temperament. They are the inspired singers; their songs are eminently sacred music. The woodthrush appears to be actuated by other than merely commonplace and personal motives. Upon him the forest has laid its spell, and he must deliver its message. He flits about with a dignity befitting his high calling. There is no abandon in his song; he does not sing about himself--has no moods--but repeats his solemn chant. It breaks the stillness of the woods with a sort of challenge to the gay fields beyond, like the call of the muezzin from the minarets of the mosque--a summons to all twittering sparrows and chattering squirrels to be silent and listen. That such fervor, such solemnity and beauty of utterance should be unconscious and unwitting seems incredible. Stand and listen to the hermit-thrush and see if you can think idle thoughts. You must hear his message and feel the spirit of his invocation--the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

Why is the hermit moved to be thus didactic, while in the fields beyond the field-sparrow lightly trills and the merry bobolink continually bubbles over with song? Such merry jingles, such uncontrollable outbursts of melody, such a rippling, bubbling medley as comes up from the meadows, while the thrush solemnly intones within the twilight shades of the woods! Surely in view of this we may speak of the temperament and the personality of birds. If the bobolink's medley is not evidence of a light heart, then are appearances deceptive indeed. Care rests easily--if at all--upon his hopeful nature, but the burden of his song is quite as well worth heeding as is that of the thrush. One is lyric, the other didactic. The bobolink communicates his joyous and irrepressible spirits, as the thrush his serene exaltation. It is certain the wood birds are of a different temperament from the field birds. Either they are influenced to their prevailing moods by their environments, or they are attracted thereto by their own peculiarities, as men are drawn to solitude or society.

The hidden, the subtle, find voice in the veery. His is perhaps the most spiritual strain of all, himself the high priest of the mystic lore of the forest. Of the thrush family he is the consecrated member, as the robin is the worldling among them. I believe there is no other bird voice so mysterious; so impersonal is it, so spiritlike, it appears to emanate from a world of higher motive than ours. In the devotional strain of the hermit, the forest prayer is breathed on the mountains. No hymn could be less impassioned, less material, more truly spiritual than the song of this thrush; it is nearest the speech of angels. Of all instruments the organ and the harp are alone capable of producing any such effect. On rare occasions I have heard the veery indulge in a reverie never to be forgotten. It appeared to be wholly inspired and original as though the bird were improvising like some Abt Vogler at his organ, rearing a palace of music. The motive was complex and involved, and sung so pianissimo as to be just audible, like the love-song of the catbird, a rapt utterance which admitted one to the sacred arcana of Nature.

It is not unprecedented for a bird to depart thus from its usual song and to improvise. You may detect even the jay in this mood, though it is wholly imitative with him. The love-song of the catbird and the autumn reverie of the song-sparrow are perhaps the best instances. I am not yet wholly familiar with the songs of the robin. It appears he is still studying music, and adds a phrase or varies a theme occasionally. He is the most romantic of the thrushes; his song is more personal and less spiritual than the others. When, in early spring, the robins sing together at sundown, there is an exquisite tenderness in their notes which accords with the sweet youthfulness of the year. It is later in the season, when his mate sits upon the nest, that the robin rises to the heights of lyric beauty and pours out his soul from the top of the tallest maple in the swamp,--a brave sweet love-song, sung with dignity and without hesitation, that all his world may hear.

At dawn he is moved a little more to the rapt and religious expression of the thrushes. Something there is in the solemnity of that hour which touches the hearts of all little birds. What it is we shall perhaps never know; shall never know enough of bird life to understand what emotions they may have which so powerfully sway them and become evident in their voices. The evidence is there; the cause is to be inferred. While the birds are everywhere more or less affected by the approaching day and give voice to their feelings, there appear to be musical centers in the bird world in which the expression is more concerted than in other localities,--favored sections where this hymn to Apollo is memorable indeed and hardly to be described. It is a great chant with all its solemnity, all its impressiveness.

Beginning with the desultory calls of wood-pewees, it is taken up by song-sparrows, robins and catbirds, dominated by the devotional song of the woodthrush who appears to act as chorister. Birds seem to congregate from near and far and to inspire one another to unusual efforts. The volume and stateliness of this chant, so measured and rhythmical, carries with it vibrations of power and cannot fail to communicate its influence to the listener, be he bird or man. Here is a multitude of birds actuated by a unity of purpose, impelled by a single motive, and though every one sings his own song, the myriad voices blend in one concordant whole. To arouse suddenly from a sound sleep in the woods at dawn while this chant is in progress, is like awakening in another sphere, where sings the choir celestial. We slip from sleep into the heaven of song, and it requires another awakening to bring us to consciousness of this actual world about us.

They are the troubadours these birds, the wanderers whose souls are in their voices. What bold romantic singers are the cardinal and the rose-breasted grosbeak--the lords of song! When the cardinal comes North he appears to feel out of his element and modestly withdraws. But in the South he dominates the swamp and adjoining cotton-fields with his rollicking, melodious voice. A gay minstrel, he compels attention. These voices of the cypress swamp are clear and bright in contrast with their dismal surroundings. The bell-like note of the tufted titmouse in the treetops, and the brave, cheery song of the Carolina wren lighten those fearsome shades. The wren carries his sunshine with him. There is no minor in his song; he is never discouraged, any more than the chickadee. Day after day that voice rings true--all's well with the world. Brave voices singing in the wilderness, they lighten vaster shades than any they know of, sound their note of courage and well-being for other ears than theirs. What blessed transformation from the songless ages--from that slimy reptilian world where was no music, no song--to this unpaid minstrelsy of the woods and fields! They have served us these many years--the sweet singers, the true birds of paradise, with power to lift us from our dull, unmelodious thoughts into their harmonious world.

As I was following the course of a mountain stream through the leafless woods early in April, the silence was broken by a strange musical alarm. It was the Louisiana water-thrush, but might have been the pipes of Pan, so wild and woodland was it. The first notes were high and startlingly loud and clear, while the song descended the scale and became softer and softer till it died away. This is one of the bird voices that are untamed, that seem to belong to impersonal Nature. It is wholly savage--a piece of the wilderness, untouched by the presence of man. These voices do not strike the human and sympathetic chords, but ally one with the wilderness. Such are the cry of the loon, the melody of the ruby kinglet and the song of the winter wren. The kinglet's song has a cadence unlike any other, reminding one of water murmuring underground, and for some reason a classic suggestion, as of faun and satyr. It is more truly sylvan than any other--sylvan in the old Greek sense, so elusive and shy it is, so mysterious.

Such voices give no evidence of self-consciousness; they are as impersonal as the winds or as the murmuring stream. But with the catbird, the thrasher and the mocking-bird, pre-eminently vocalists, there is a set and declamatory method which has the appearance of affectation. Their songs are brilliant and elaborately phrased, but they lack spontaneity, and in listening to them one wishes they had put their powers to a different use. The thrasher is particularly self-conscious and stagey, and yet he has a glorious voice. No bird has a finer quality of tone than he shows in some of his notes--clear, mellow, vibratory as in the voices of really great tenors. It is that quality which Nature alone supplies and no cultivation nor perfection of method can give. When he speaks to his mate in an undertone his voice would melt a heart of stone. There is a time, however, when the catbird rises above any suspicion of self-consciousness and is transported, and the listener with him, in a reverie of exceeding beauty. It is a wondrous love-song, an incomparable madrigal, blending with the morning sunshine and the first green leaves of the alders, soft and low as faint murmurings of a stream, a fluid melody uttered for chosen ears.

All too soon the only bird notes are those of the redeye and the pewee. For music we have the tree-toads and cicada. The sounds of this season are rhythmic and vibratory--virile songs of the year's manhood--the mature year, lusty and vigorous. But how soon they dwindle and wane, despite this sonorous protestation, grow silent and slip into the sear and yellow, and thence into the leafless, the glittering, the sublime aspects of winter! The last of September brings with it just a reminder of the sweet and winsome sounds of spring. At this season the song-sparrow indulges in a wonderfully ecstatic reverie, a bit of wild melody charged with feeling as of some larger consciousness, some tribal memories of that musical race, now finding voice in the waning year. So continuous and varied is the theme, and withal so complex and involved as compared with his usual simple and positive lay, that one must look at him twice to make sure it is he, and not some unknown minstrel from a distant shore.

Insects are the autumn singers and take the place of birds and frogs. The crickets are as musical in their way as the thrush family, though provided with but indifferent instruments. When you consider that these crickets and locusts will express themselves--will fill the day with song--though they are without vocal organs and must perforce do with legs and wings instead, you must respect them as musicians. It is a distinctly aboriginal music as compared with that of the birds, as tom-toms and pipes are to violins and cellos. And yet it is rhythmic withal and not wanting in sweetness. Contrast these merry crickets with the silent spider. There is no song in the annals of her race. She is unsocial and unmusical like the savage birds of prey. Yet before bees and birds had appeared on the earth there were crickets chirping. Theirs is the most ancient chant of the world--the Song of Sex.

Autumn nights are melodious with a voice, which in the distance is so like that of the hyla of early spring, though softer and more throbbing, that it is often mistaken for a kind of tree-toad. Heard near at hand it is singularly clear and almost bell-like, though ventriloquial in its elusiveness and difficult to locate, for as you approach, it ceases and is taken up by another a short distance away. Even when standing directly in front of it, it appears to come from several directions. It was only after prowling the woods with a lantern that I discovered the identity of the sweet singer, a small insect of a pale green hue, not over an inch in length, looking like a sort of locust, though classed with the crickets. The translucent wings are of a delicate ivory-white and the antennæ very long.