Part 9

From three to five eggs are deposited. The ground color is white, either pure or creamy, sparingly mottled with rich madder-brown and lilac-gray, the spots being thicker and larger on the larger end. While the nest is undergoing examination, the owners circle and hover overhead, much after the fashion of the red-winged blackbirds, expressing their disapproval in loud and musical calls, and displaying their rich scarlet decorations.

My descriptions have related only to the male bird, whose beautiful forked tail is nine to ten inches long, and whose colors are clear and more or less intense. His spouse resembles him, but is slightly smaller, while her tail, though forked like her mate's, is from two and a half to three inches shorter. The salmon and scarlet ornaments on the sides, flanks, and axillars are paler than those of her lord, and the scarlet spot shows very indistinctly on her occiput. The young of both sexes don the dress of the mother bird during the first season, save that they fail to adorn themselves with a scarlet gem on the crown.

Like all the members of the flycatcher group, the scissorstails capture insects while on the wing, making many an attractive picture as they perform their graceful and interesting evolutions in the air.

It was a year or two later that I saw a scissorstail performing his ablutions in the northwestern part of Arkansas. How do you suppose he went about it? Not in the way birds usually do, by squatting down in the shallow water, twinkling their wings and tail, and sprinkling the liquid all over their plumage. No; this bird has a reputation to maintain for originality, and therefore he took his bath in this manner: First he perched on a telegraph wire by the roadside; then he swung gracefully down to a little pond, dashed lightly into the water, giving himself a slight wetting, after which he flew up to his original perch on the wire. A minute or less was then spent in preening his plumes; but they were not moist enough to suit his purpose, so he darted down to the pond again, making the spray rise as lie struck the water; then up to his perch he swung again, to arrange his feathers; and this was repeated a number of times, till his toilet was completed. It would not be safe to risk saying that the scissorstail always takes his bath in this way; but I know this one did. I once saw a kingbird doing the same thing, and so it may be a fashion in flycatcher circles.

I am minded, in order to make this monograph more complete, to borrow a couple of paragraphs from Mrs. Bailey's "Handbook of Birds of the Western United States." She has studied the bird in the Southwest, and gives the following graphic description of the bird and its habits:

"One of his favorite performances is to fly up and, with rattling wings, execute an aërial seesaw, a line of sharp-angled VVVVVVV's, helping himself at the short turns by rapidly opening and shutting his long white scissors. As he goes up and down he utters all the while a penetrating scream, Ka-quee-ka-quee-ka-quee-ka-quee-ka-quee, the emphasis being given each time at the top of the ascending line.

"Frequently when he is passing along with the even flight of a sober-minded crow, and you are quietly admiring the salmon lining of his wings, he shoots rattling into the air, and, as you stare after him, drops back as suddenly as he rose. He does this apparently because the spirit moves him, as a boy slings a stone at the sky, but fervor is added by the appearance of a rival or an enemy, for he is much like a Tyrannus in his masterful way of controlling the landscape. He will attack caracaras and white-necked ravens, lighting on their backs and giving them vicious blows while screaming in their ears."

AN ALPINE ROSY FINCH*

*Part of the material used in this chapter has already appeared in the author's work entitled "Birds of the Rockies," but it is here printed in different form, that of a monograph, with a number of additional facts. The writer feels that the readers of the present volume will relish at least a taste of bird study among the alpine heights of the Rocky Mountains. The article is reprinted from the "Denver Post," whose courtesy is hereby acknowledged.

The common name of the subject of this sketch is the brown-capped rosy finch; in the scientific works on ornithology he is called the brown-capped leucosticte. He is certainly a bird of peculiar habits and out-of-the-way preferences. Should he send you his card from his summer residence, it would read something like this: "At home in the mountains of Colorado, from 10,000 feet above sea-level to the summits of the highest peaks." There is only one other bird in Colorado that has so high a summer range, and that is the white-tailed ptarmigan, usually called, in hunter's parlance, the "mountain quail."

The rosy finch is slightly larger than the bluebird. His general color is light brown, suffused with a beautiful pink or rosy tint, the dark shaft lines and pale edges of the feathers of the back giving it a striped appearance. The forepart of the top of the head is blackish, and the cap is brown, from which he gets the qualifying adjective of his name. In the best nuptial plumage the rosy coloring is heightened to an intense crimson, especially on the wings, tail coverts, and the under parts. The female's attire is paler and duller of tint, the pink being sometimes almost obsolete. Oddly enough, in summer the bills of these birds are deep black, while in winter they become yellow, only the tip remaining black or blackish.

My introduction to the leucostictes occurred on the summit of Pikes Peak, at an elevation of 14,147 feet above the level of the sea. With exhausting toil I climbed the peak one night, and the next morning, when I stepped out of the signal station, where I had secured lodging, a flock of the brown-caps were flitting merrily about the garbage heap, helping themselves to an early breakfast. Their blithe chirping sounded very much like conversation all among themselves, and proclaimed two pleasant traits of character--cheerfulness and good temper. It was evident that they were happy and contented in their alpine home, in the upper story of the world, the rare, cool, exhilarating air, the majestic panoramas, and the unlimited freedom all contributing to the blithesomeness of their spirits. The keepers of the signal station told me that the birds came to the refuse pile every day for their meals.

Two years later, on the twenty-eighth of June, a friend and I clambered up Grays Peak, which is several hundred feet higher than Pikes Peak. It was a long and toilsome climb, winding about the snowbeds of the mountain side. Sometimes we scaled straight up the acclivity on "all fours," throwing ourselves down on the rocks at frequent intervals to rest our aching limbs and fill our lungs with the rarefied air; up and up and up, until at last, with a long pull and a strong pull, we stood on the sky-haunting ridge above all the surrounding elevations, looking down upon the rest of the world, which seemed to be crouching at our feet.

Long before we reached the summit we were saluted by a new bird voice--one that had not been heard farther down the mountain. It was a cordial chirp, which seemed to bid us welcome to the alpine region and to assure us that there was no risk in climbing to these sky-aspiring summits. A glance proved that our little salutarian was the brown-capped rosy finch, which I had not seen since my ascent of Pikes Peak. Down in the green, copsy valley at the base of the mountain we had met with the white-crowned sparrows and Wilson and Audubon warblers; then, as we began to climb the steep shoulder of the mountain, the American pipits had become our comrades, accompanying us about half way up the elevation; now all other birds had disappeared and we entered the arctic precincts of the leucostictes, which, like a gallant bodyguard, escorted us to the summit, cheering us on with their friendly chirping. The bailiwicks of the pipits and the rosy finches slightly overlapped, as did also those of the pipits and the white-crowned sparrows near the great mountain's base. However, no pipits ventured to the upper story of this elevated region--at least, not at the time of our visit, although they may have ascended to the summit later in the season.

How blithe and cheerful were the pretty leucostictes! Now they darted fearlessly about in the air over the summit and the gorges; now they alighted on the wall of the dilapidated old signal station, and anon hopped and flitted about over the extensive snow beds, picking up dainties that were evidently to their taste, all the while beguiling the time with their companionable, half-musical chirping. So far as I observed, they have no real song. If they have, it is strange that they did not furnish a sample of their lyrical gifts on so calm and sweet a summer day in the season of courtship.

What billsome morsels did they find on the snow? We examined their white tablecloth and found a number of small beetles and other insects creeping up through it or crawling around over its surface. Thus Nature spreads her banquet everywhere for her feathered children.

One cannot help falling into the speculative mood as one reflects on these little birds and their remarkable habits. Why do they, of all birds, choose the highest mountain peaks for their summer homes? Might the cause be physiological? Are their lungs, muscles, and nervous systems so constructed as to be adapted to a dry, rare, crisp atmosphere, which would prove injurious, perhaps fatal, to birds of a different structural organization? Who can tell? At all events, they live on these towering elevations all summer long, woo their plainly-clad mates, build their nests, and rear their happy families.

Their nests are set amid the rocks, and are quite bulky, the walls composed of grasses and the lining consisting of soft feathers. In order to procure the grasses required, they must descend at least to the belt of scant vegetation just below the region of bare rocks and boulders. Where they get the downy feathers for the carpet of their nurseries I have not been able to ascertain. No nest has yet been discovered below an elevation of 12,000 feet. Our little bird may, indeed, be called a "haunter of the sky." The height of the breeding season is in the latter part of July. The broods having left the nests, old and young gather in small flocks and range over the peaks and ridges, feeding on the insects to be found on the fields of snow.

No less interesting are the habits of these birds in winter. In October and November most of them descend only to the timber line, where they remain throughout the winter, save as they are driven down into the denser forests by the fierce tempests of this arctic region. What feathered Vikings they are! They do not even make for themselves snow huts for protection from the winter storms. However, a few descend almost to the base of the foothills, while others--perhaps the less hardy--seek a blander climate in the northern part of Mexico.

There are in North America four other species of the genus Leucosticte; the Aleutian, whose habitat is the Aleutian and Prybilof islands and east as far as the island of Kadiak; the gray-crowned, which breeds in British America near the Rocky Mountains, comes to Colorado in winter, and has been taken as far east as western Iowa; the Hepburn, dwelling chiefly in the mountain ranges of the Pacific coast, breeding mostly in the far North, and in winter coming as far south and east as Nevada and Colorado; and, lastly, the black leucosticte, which winters in the central latitudes in the Rocky Mountains and whose summer range and breeding home is unknown to men of science.

HAPPENINGS BY THE WAY

If one were to keep on writing monographs of all our interesting avian species, the books that would result would make a good-sized library. The few examples that have been given will illustrate what can be done in this direction with the help of the field glass and the handbook. A few chapters will now be given on what might be called "odds and ends of bird life," and these are written not only for the information they may impart, but also for the purpose of showing how many interesting facts can be gathered along the way by the method of bird study commended in our opening chapter.

The prince of American ornithologists, Dr. Elliott Coues, has somewhere said that he would travel a long distance to discover a new kind of bird, or even to ascertain a new fact about a familiar species. I would applaud and echo that sentiment, for by all means let us have bird news that really is news, instead of revamping the familiar facts again and again, as some amateurish writers do. While I am not able to add any new species to science, I have made note of many pleasing incidents in the bird realm, and these, I venture to hope, may be of not a little general interest.

There is the companionable white-breasted nuthatch which goes scudding up and down the tree trunks with as much ease and aplomb as a fly gliding over a window-pane. I have already told you something about him. I had long been aware that he wedged grains of corn, sunflower seeds, and kernels of nuts in the crannies of the bark; but one day he invented a trick that was a surprise to me. It occurred at a summer resort in northern Indiana, where I noticed a nuthatch hitching up and down and around the slender stem of a sapling, pausing at intervals to thrust something into the crevices of the bark. My curiosity led me to pry into the bird's affairs. Stepping smartly forward, I drove him away, not heeding his vigorous protest of "yank, yank," and examined the bark of the sapling. What did I discover? A colony of black ants were scuttling up and down the tree, apparently under stress of great excitement; and good reason they had, for here and there one of their number was tightly wedged into a chink of the bark, often doubled up into a bow or an angle. They were not killed, at least not all of them, for they were still wiggling their legs and antennas; but they were evidently benumbed, or some of their backs were broken, and they were fastened so securely in the fissures that they could not escape. Does it not look as if the forehanded nuthatch was laying by a supply of ants for a coming time of hunger?

One day a family of wood pewees visited the dooryard of my tent. A multitude of gnats circling about in the air, seemed to be precisely to the taste of the pewee parents and their hungry bairns. The bantlings sat chirping in the saplings, or flitted from twig to twig, twinkling their wings in the coaxing way that is characteristic of young birds, while the papa and mamma swung out into the air, nabbed the insects on the wing, and flew back to the trees, describing many circles, ellipses, and festoons of rare grace and beauty. The snapping of their mandibles could often be heard as they closed upon the fated insects. Most of the gnats thus captured were thrust into the mouths of the young birds, the parents dashing up to them and feeding them without alighting. As lavish a minstrel as the pewee pater familias is under most circumstances, that morning he was too busy to tune his wind harp.

Speaking of the voracious appetites of birds, as exhibited by the young pewees, which never seemed to get enough, I am reminded of something I witnessed one day in a deep, wooded hollow. A red-eyed vireo suddenly appeared in the branches above me, holding an immense green worm in his beak. Then followed a tussle for the "upper hand" that was worth seeing. The bird, holding its squirming victim by one end, proceeded to beat it against the limb, though it was almost too big and recalcitrant for him to handle. Presently the vireo, after a good deal of effort, succeeded in passing his quarry through his bill from end to end, thus reducing it to somewhat smaller dimensions. Still, it was a large morsel for so small a diner.

However, there were some intimations that the bird intended to bolt the worm whole. And that was just what he was planning to do! What a struggle ensued! I would have wagered that the little gourmand had reckoned without his host when he undertook to swallow that immense worm. He twisted his neck this way and that, gulped and squeezed and pried, until I feared he would burst his throat open. At length the worm was partly bolted, but it seemed to stick fast, and the bird stood there with his mandibles pressed far apart, the end of his dinner bulging out of his mouth, and I felt uneasy for a time lest he should choke to death before my very eyes. But, after resting a minute, he gave his neck a number of convulsive twists, and at last succeeded in forcing the unwilling worm down his throat, after which he wiped his bill on the limb with a self-satisfied air and flitted away as happy as a lark, knowing that his faithful craw would do the rest.

A slate-colored junco did a pretty thing in the woods one day of early spring--much more pleasing to see than the incident just described. He had rinsed his feathers in a pool of the little stream down in the hollow, and now he was squatting flat on his belly on the ground in a soft bed of brown leaves, preening and primping his plumes with his little white, conical bill. Now he gave his quills a deft touch, now the feathers of his wing, now those of his dainty breast. Lying there in the sun he presented a perfect picture of feathery laziness. Many a bird I have seen arranging his toilet after a bath while perching on a limb or a twig, and even, as in the case of the brown creeper, while clinging to the bole of a tree, but never before did I see one doing this while lolling on the ground. He was not sick or hurt, simply lazy; for when I went near him he flew away as chipper as a bird could be.