Part 31

This bird is one of the few who will not bring up a cowbird baby. When the tiny mother finds a cowbird's egg in her nest, she builds another story on top of the nest, leaving the egg to spoil. Sometimes a cowbird finds the second nest, and then the warbler adds a third story. Nests have been found three stories high, with a dried-up cowbird egg in each of the two lower stories.

A strange thing happened once to a pair of yellow warblers. When the nest was done and the eggs laid, a storm threw it out of place, and tipped it over to one side, so that the little mother did not dare trust it for a cradle. So she built another nest in the same bush, and went to sitting on that.

One day a bird-lover chanced to see the two nests, one with the bird sitting, the other tipped partly over and left with the eggs still in it. To see what the birds would do, he put the fallen nest back in place, and made it firm, and then went away. The little pair looked at the nest, and had a great deal of chatter over it. It was their own nest and their own eggs, but the mother could not sit in two places.

Finally, the singer took his place on the restored nest. After that it was watched, and the two birds sat on the two nests till all the young were hatched, and then fed and reared them. When they were ready to fly, the happy birds had a big family to take care of.

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Besides these tiny fellows that we call warblers, there are four bigger birds classed with the family, who do not look or act like warblers. They are the golden-crowned thrush or oven-bird, the water-thrush, the Louisiana water-thrush, and the yellow-breasted chat.

The OVEN-BIRD gets his name from the nest, which is shaped like an old-fashioned oven. It is on the ground in the woods, often on the side of a little slope. It has a roof over it covered with sticks and leaves like the ground around it, so that it is hard to see.

If you were to see this bird walking about on the ground, as he does, you would think him a thrush. He is something the same color, and he has a speckled breast like a thrush. His mate is dressed in the same way, and they have a dull yellowish stripe over the crown.

He is the fellow you hear in the woods, calling "Teacher! teacher! teacher!" He is found all over the United States east of the Rocky Mountains.

The YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT is perhaps the drollest bird in North America. He is a beautiful bird, nearly as large as an oriole, olive green above and brilliant yellow below, and his mate is the same. He is found all over the country south of the latitude of Massachusetts. In the West and California, the chat is a little more gray in color, and has a longer tail. He is called the long-tailed chat, but a chat is the same funny fellow, wherever he is found.

He reminds one of a clown, he plays so many antics, and makes such queer sounds, hardly in the least like a song. He will whistle, bark like a puppy, mew like a cat, or laugh like an old man, all in a loud, strange voice.

Besides this, the chat is a ventriloquist, that is, can make his voice appear to come from some place far off, when he is near, and so fool us. The chat has a way of flying up into the air with wings fluttering and legs dangling as if they were not well fastened on, and looking as if he would fall to pieces himself. He does not like to be seen, either. He prefers to hide in a thick bush, and make all sorts of strange noises to deceive one.

The one thing a chat hates more than anything else is to have his nest found. I have known a chat to desert a nest with three lovely eggs in it, just because it was looked at, though neither nest nor eggs were touched.

I found that nest myself, and I wanted very much to see how the birds live and bring up the little ones, so I was careful not to disturb anything. I hid myself a long way off, where I could see the nest with a field-glass, and where I thought the birds would not notice me. I sat there perfectly still for hours, till the eggs had time to get cold, and I saw another bird carry them off. No doubt they saw me, however, for they never came back to the nest.

FOOTNOTE:

See Appendix, 8.

THE VIREO FAMILY

(Vireonidæ)

THE vireos are a small family, fifty species, found only in America. They are very quietly dressed in greenish olive hues, with hardly a bright color among them. They were once called greenlets.

They all live in trees and catch insects, going about over the twigs. They sing as they go, like the warblers, combining work and play. Some of them sing almost without stopping, and it gets to be rather tiresome after a while. One or two of them even sing on the nest, which hardly another bird does.

The vireos make the prettiest nests. They are swinging baskets, hung between the forks of a twig, and usually near the end, where they rock in every breeze. They are not often very high. The birds are easily tamed by one who is quiet, and careful not to frighten them.

Mr. Torrey found a vireo on her nest, and by gentle ways got her to let him stroke her. Next day he took some rose leaves with aphides on them, and holding one of the insects on his finger, he offered it to the bird on the nest. She took it, and then another and another, till finally she began to be very eager for them, and he could hardly feed her fast enough. Then he took a teaspoon full of water up to her, and she drank.

Another gentleman--Mr. Hoffmann--did still more. He coaxed a YELLOW-THROATED VIREO till she took food out of his lips. Black ants and cankerworms were the things he fed her. She preferred the ants, and would scold him a little at first when he offered the worms, though she took them at last. This bird was so tame she would let a man lift her off her nest and put her on his shoulder while he looked at the eggs. She would stay there till he put her back.

The yellow-throat, besides making a pretty hanging basket, covers the outside with lichens of different colors, green, dark and light, yellow, and almost black. It is said that these pretty things are put on by the male while his mate is sitting.

A pair was once watched at their building. The female was lining and shaping the inside, and her mate working silky-looking strips from plants into the framework, and then covering the whole with lichens. He was so happy, he sang as he worked.

The one of this family most widely spread over the country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is the WARBLING VIREO. His song is the most agreeable of the vireo songs, being truly a warble of six or eight notes, of which one does not get tired. The dress of the Western warbling vireo is a little paler, but the habits and manners are about the same as those of his Eastern brother.

Vireos were once common in the shade-trees of our city streets, and are still in some places where English sparrows have not taken everything, and boys are not allowed to throw stones or shoot. I know one city in Massachusetts where trees are very lovely and musical with yellow-throats.

We can still have these and other birds in our yards--we who do not live in the middle of a big city--by protecting them from cats and bad boys, and furnishing good places to nest. Mr. Lloyd Morgan tells of a garden near his own where there were fifty-three nests, besides swallows'. The owner planted thick bushes, and some cone-bearing trees. He put bird-boxes and old flower-pots and other things suitable to build in, in convenient places in the trees. The birds appreciated all this and came and stayed with him.