Part 6

Several days were spent by the oak-tree household in shaking out the wings, taking observations of the world, dressing the feathers, and partaking of luncheon every few minutes. Such a nestful of restlessness I never saw; the constant wonder was that they managed not to fall out. Often the three sat up side by side on the edge, white breasts shining in the sun, and heads turning every way with evident interest. The dress was now almost exactly like the parents'. No speckled bib, like the bluebird or robin infant's, defaces the snowy breast; no ugly gray coat, like the redwing baby's, obscures the beauty of the little kingbird's attire. He enters society in full dress.

But each day, now, the trio grew in size, in repose of manner, and in strength of voice; and before long they sat up hours at a time, patient, silent, and ludicrously resembling the

"Three wise men of Gotham Who went to sea in a bowl."

In spite of their grown-up looks and manners, they did not lose their appetite; and from breakfast, at the unnatural hour of half past four in the morning, till a late supper, when so dark that I could see only the movement of feeding like a silhouette against the white clouds, all through the day, food came to the nest every two minutes or less. Think of the work of those two birds! Every mouthful brought during those fifteen and a half hours required a separate hunt. They usually flew out to a strip of low land, where the grass was thick and high. Over this they hovered with beautiful motion, and occasionally dropped an instant into the grass. The capture made, they started at once for the nest, resting scarcely a moment. There were thus between three and four hundred trips a day, and of course that number of insects were destroyed. Even after the salt bath, which one bird took always about eleven in the morning, and the other about four in the afternoon, they did not stop to dry their plumage; but simply passed the wing feathers through the beak, paying no attention to the breast feathers, which often hung in locks, showing the dark part next the body, and so disguising the birds that I scarcely knew them when they came to the nest.

The bath was interesting. The river, so called, was in fact an arm of the Great South Bay, and of course salt. To get a bath, the bird flew directly into the water, as if after a fish; then came to the fence to shake himself. Sometimes the dip was repeated once or twice, but more often bathing ended with a single plunge.

Two weeks had passed over their heads, and the three little kings had for several days dallied with temptation on the brink before one set foot outside the nest. Even then, on the fifteenth day, he merely reached the door-step, as it were, the branch on which it rested. However, that was a great advance. He shook himself thoroughly, as if glad to have room to do so. This venturesome infant hopped about four inches from the walls of the cottage, looked upon the universe from that remote point, then hurried back to his brothers, evidently frightened at his own boldness.

On the day of this first adventure began a mysterious performance, the meaning of which I did not understand till later, when it became very familiar. It opened with a peculiar call, and its object was to rouse the young to follow. So remarkable was the effect upon them that I have no doubt a mob of kingbirds could be brought together by its means. It began, as I said, with a call, a low, prolonged cry, sounding, as nearly as letters can express it, like "Kr-r-r-r! Kr-r-r-r!" At the same moment, both parents flew in circles around the tree, a little above the nest, now and then almost touching it, and all the time uttering the strange cry. At the first sound, the three young kings mounted the edge, wildly excited, dressing their plumage in the most frantic manner, as if their lives depended on being off in an instant. It lasted but a few moments: the parents flew away; the youngsters calmed down.

In a short time all the nestlings were accustomed to going out upon the branch, where they clustered together in a little row, and called and plumed alternately; but one after another slipped back into the dear old home, which they apparently found it very hard to leave. Often, upon coming out of the house, after the imperative demands of luncheon or dinner had dragged me for a time away from my absorbing study, not a kingbird, old or young, could be seen. The oak was deserted, the nest perfectly silent.

"They have flown!" I thought.

But no: in a few minutes small heads began show above the battlements; and in ten seconds after the three little kings were all in sight, chirping and arranging their dress with fresh vigor, after their nap.

Not one of the young family tried his wings till he was seventeen days old. The first one flew perhaps fifteen feet, to another branch of the native tree, caught at a cluster of leaves, held on a few seconds, then scrambled to a twig and stood up. The first flight accomplished! After resting some minutes, he flew back home, alighting more easily this time, and no doubt considered himself a hero. Whatever his feelings, it was evident that he could fly, and he was so pleased with his success that he tried it again and again, always keeping within ten or fifteen feet of home. Soon his nest-fellows began to follow his example; and then it was interesting to see them, now scattered about the broad old tree, and then, in a little time, all back in the nest, as if they had never left it. After each excursion came a long rest, and every time they went out they flew with more freedom. Never were young birds so loath to leave the nursery, and never were little folk so clannish. It looked as if they had resolved to make that homestead on the top branch their headquarters for life, and, above all, never to separate. That night, however, came the first break, and they slept in a droll little row, so close that they looked as if welded into one, and about six feet from home. For some time after they had settled themselves the mother sat by them, as if she intended to stay; but when it had grown quite dark, her mate sailed out over the tree calling; and she,--well, the babies were grown up enough to be out in the world,--she went with her spouse to the poplar-tree.

Progress was somewhat more rapid after this experience, and in a day or two the little kings were flying freely, by short flights, all about the grove, which came quite up to the fence. Now I saw the working of the strange migrating call above mentioned. Whenever the old birds began the cries and the circling flight, the young were thrown into a fever of excitement. One after another flew out, calling and moving in circles as long as he could keep it up. For five minutes the air was full of kingbird cries, both old and young, and then fell a sudden silence. Each young bird dropped to a perch, and the elders betook themselves to their hunting-ground as calmly as if they had not been stirring up a rout in the family. Usually, at the end of the affair, the youngsters found themselves widely apart; for they had not yet learned to fly together, and to be apart was, above all things, repugnant to the three. They began calling; and the sound was potent to reunite them. From this side and that, by easy stages, came a little kingbird, each flight bringing them nearer each other; and before two minutes had passed they were nestled side by side, as close as ever. There they sat an hour or two and uttered their cries, and there they were hunted up and fed by the parents. There, I almost believe, they would have stayed till doomsday, but for the periodical stirring up by the mysterious call. No matter how far they wandered,--and each day it was farther and farther,--seven o'clock always found them moving; and all three came back to the native tree for the night, though never to the nest again.

No characteristic of the young kingbirds was more winning than their confiding and unsuspicious reception of strangers, for so soon as they began to frequent other trees than the one the paternal vigilance had made comparatively sacred to them, they were the subjects of attention. The English sparrow was first, as usual, to inquire into their right to be out of their own tree. He came near them, alighted, and began to hop still closer. Not in the least startled by his threatening manner, the nearest youngster looked at him, and began to flutter his wings, to call, and to move toward him, as if expecting to be fed. This was too much even for a sparrow; he departed.

Another curious visitor was a red-eyed vireo, who, being received in the same innocent and childlike way, also took his leave. But this bird appeared to feel insulted, and in a few minutes stole back, and took revenge in a most peculiar way; he hovered under the twig on which the three were sitting, their dumpy tails hanging down in a row, and actually twitched the feathers of those tails! Even that did not frighten the little ones; they leaned far over and stared at their assailant, but nothing more. I looked carefully to see if the vireo had a nest on that tree, so strange a thing it seemed for a bird to do. The tree was quite tall, with few branches, an oak grown in a close grove, and I am sure there was no vireo nest on it; so that it was an absolutely gratuitous insult.

In addition to supplying the constantly growing appetites of the family, the male kingbird did not forget to keep a sharp lookout for intruders; for, until the youngsters could take care of themselves, he was bound to protect them. One day a young robin alighted nearer to the little group than he considered altogether proper, and he started, full tilt, toward him. As he drew near, the alarmed robin uttered his baby cry, when instantly the kingbird wheeled and left; nor did he notice the stranger again, although he stayed there a long time. But when an old robin came to attend to his wants, that was a different matter; the kingbird went at once for the grown-up bird, thus proving that he spared the first one because of his babyhood.

It was not till they were three weeks old that the little kings began to fly any lower than about the level of their nest. Then one came to the fence, and the others to the top of a grape-trellis. I hoped to see some indication of looking for food, and I did; but it was all looking up and calling on the parents; not an eye was turned earthward. Now the young ones began to fly more nearly together, and one could see that a few days' more practice would enable them to fly in a compact little flock. Shortly before this they had ceased to come to the native tree at night, and by day extended their wanderings so far that sometimes they were not heard for hours. Regularly, however, as night drew near, the migrating cry sounded in the grove, and upon going out I always found them together,--three

"Silver brown little birds, Sitting close in the branches."

These interesting bantlings were twenty-four days old when it became necessary for me to leave them, as they had already left me. It was a warm morning, near the end of July, and about half an hour before I must go I went out to take my last look at them. Their calls were still loud and frequent, and I had no difficulty in tracing them to a dead twig near the top of a pine-tree, where they sat close together, as usual, with faces to the west; lacking only in length of tail of being as big as their parents, yet still calling for food, and still, to all appearances, without the smallest notion that they could ever help themselves.

Thus I left them.

III.

THE BABES IN THE WOOD.

The little home in the wood was well hidden. About its door were no signs of life, no chips from its building, no birds lingering near, no external indication whatever. In silence the tenants came and went; neither calls, songs, nor indiscreet tapping gave hint of the presence of woodpeckers in the neighborhood, and food was sought out of sight and hearing of the carefully secluded spot. No one would have suspected what treasures were concealed within the rough trunk of that old oak but for an accident.

Madam herself was the culprit. In carrying out an eggshell, broken at one end and of no further use, she dropped it near the foot of the tree. To her this was doubtless a disaster, but to me it was a treasure-trove, for it told her well-kept secret. The hint was taken, the home soon found in the heart of an oak, with entrance twenty feet from the ground, and close watching from a distance revealed the owner, a golden-winged woodpecker.

The tree selected by the shy young pair for their nursery stood in a pleasant bit of woods, left wild, on the shore of the Great South Bay, "where precious qualities of silence haunt," and the delicious breath of the sea mingled with the fragrance of pines. One must be an enthusiast to spy out the secrets of a bird's life, and this pair of golden-wings made more than common demand on the patience of the student, so silent, so wary, so wisely chosen, their sanctum. Before the door hung a friendly oak branch, heavy with leaves, that swayed and swung with every breeze. Now it hid the entrance from the east, now from the west, and with every change of the vagrant wind the observer must choose a new point of view.

Then the birds! Was ever a pair so quiet? Without a sound they came, on level path, to the nest, dropped softly to the trunk, slipped quickly in, and, after staying about one minute inside, departed as noiselessly as they came. Their color, too! One would think a bird of that size, of golden-brown mottled with black, with yellow feather-shafts and a brilliant scarlet head-band, must be conspicuous. But so perfectly did the soft colors harmonize with the rough, sun-touched bark, so misleading were the shadows of the leaves moving in the breeze, and so motionless was the bird flattened against the trunk, that one might look directly at it and not see it.

For a few days the woodpeckers were so timid that I was unable to secure a good look at them. The marked difference of manner, however, convinced me that both parents were engaged in attending upon the young family; and as they grew less vigilant and I learned to distinguish them, I discovered that it was so. The only dissimilarity in dress between the lord and lady of the golden-wing family is a small black patch descending from the beak of the male, answering very well to the mustache of bigger "lords of creation." In coming to the nest, one of the pair flew swiftly, just touched for an instant the threshold, and disappeared within; this I found to be the head of the household. The other, the mother, as it proved, being more cautious, alighted at the door, paused, thrust her head in, withdrew it, as if undecided whether to venture in the presence of a stranger, and, after two or three such movements, darted in. Always in one minute the bird reappeared, flew at once out of the wood, at about the height of the nest, and did not come down till it reached, on one side, an old garden run to waste, or, on the other, far over the water, a cultivated field. At that tender age, the young flickers received their rations about twice in an hour.

Although the golden-wings were silent, the wood around them was lively from morning till night. Blackbirds and cuckoos flew over; orioles, both orchard and Baltimore, sang and foraged among the trees; song-sparrows and chippies trilled from the fence at one side: bluebird and thrasher searched the ground, and paid in music for the privilege; pewees and kingbirds made war upon insects; and from afar came the notes of redwing and meadow-lark. Others there were, casual visitors, and of course it did not escape the squawks and squabbles of the English sparrow,--

"Irritant, iterant, maddening bird."