Part 8

Small events like these are welcome breaks in the monotony of a long ocean voyage, but are soon forgotten at the end of the trip.

Two of these ocean waifs were once brought to me. One was a young European heron which flew on board a vessel when it was about two hundred and five miles southeast of the southern extremity of India. A storm must have driven the bird seaward, as there is no migration route near this locality.

The second bird was a European turtle dove which was captured not less than seven hundred and fifty miles from the nearest land--Ireland. When caught it was in an exhausted condition, but it quickly recovered and soon lost all signs of the buffeting of the storm. The turtle dove migrates northward to the British Islands about the first of May, but as this bird was captured on May 17th, it was not migrating, but, caught by a gust of wind, was probably blown away from the land. The force of the storm would then drive it mile after mile, allowing it no chance of controlling the direction of its flight, but, from the very velocity, making it easy for the bird to maintain its equilibrium.

Hundreds of birds must perish when left by storms far out at sea, and the infinitely small chance of encountering a vessel or other resting-place makes a bird which has passed through such an experience and survived, interesting indeed.

In winter ruffed grouse have a habit of burrowing deep beneath the snow and letting the storm shut them in. In this warm, cosey retreat they spend the night, their breath making its way out through the loosely packed crystals. But when a cold rain sets in during the night, this becomes a fatal trap, an impenetrable crust cutting off their means of escape.

Ducks, when collected about a small open place in an ice-covered pond, diving for the tender roots on which they feed, sometimes become confused and drown before they find their way out. They have been seen frozen into the ice by hundreds, sitting there helplessly, and fortunate if the sun, with its thawing power, releases them before they are discovered by marauding hawks or foxes.

In connection with their food supply the greatest enemy of birds is ice, and when a winter rain ends with a cold snap, and every twig and seed is encased in a transparent armour of ice, then starvation stalks close to all the feathered kindred. Then is the time to scatter crumbs and grain broadcast, to nail bones and suet to the tree-trunks and so awaken hope and life in the shivering little forms. If a bird has food in abundance, it little fears the cold. I have kept parrakeets out through the blizzards and storms of a severe winter, seeing them play and frolic in the snow as if their natural home were an arctic tundra, instead of a tropical forest.

A friend of birds once planted many sprouts of wild honeysuckle about his porch, and the following summer two pairs of hummingbirds built their nests in near-by apple trees; he transplanted quantities of living woodbine to the garden fences, and when the robins returned in the spring, after having remained late the previous autumn feeding on the succulent bunches of berries, no fewer than ten pairs nested on and about the porch and yard.

So my text of this, as of many other weeks is,--study the food habits of the birds and stock your waste places with their favourite berry or vine. Your labour will be repaid a hundredfold in song and in the society of the little winged comrades.

Worn is the winter rug of white, And in the snow-bare spots once more, Glimpses of faint green grass in sight,-- Spring's footprints on the floor. Spring here--by what magician's touch? 'Twas winter scarce an hour ago. And yet I should have guessed as much,-- Those footprints in the snow! Frank Dempster Sherman.

DWELLERS IN THE DUST

To many of us the differences between a reptile and a batrachian are unknown. Even if we have learned that these interesting creatures are well worth studying and that they possess few or none of the unpleasant characteristics usually attributed to them, still we are apt to speak of having seen a lizard in the water at the pond's edge, or of having heard a reptile croaking near the marsh. To avoid such mistakes, one need only remember that reptiles are covered with scales and that batrachians have smooth skins.

Our walks will become more and more interesting as we spread our interest over a wider field, not confining our observations to birds and mammals alone, but including members of the two equally distinctive classes of animals mentioned above. The batrachians, in the northeastern part of our country, include the salamanders and newts, the frogs and toads, while as reptiles we number lizards, turtles, and snakes.

Lizards are creatures of the tropics and only two small species are found in our vicinity, and these occur but rarely. Snakes, however, are more abundant, and, besides the rare poisonous copperhead and rattlesnake, careful search will reveal a dozen harmless species, the commonest, of course, being the garter snake and its near relative the ribbon snake.

About this time of the year snakes begin to feel the thawing effect of the sun's rays and to stir in their long winter hibernation. Sometimes we will come upon a ball of six or eight intertwined snakes, which, if they are still frozen up, will lie motionless upon the ground. But when spring finally unclasps the seal which has been put upon tree and ground, these reptiles stretch themselves full length upon some exposed stone, where they lie basking in the sun.

The process of shedding the skin soon begins; getting clear of the head part, eye-scales and all, the serpent slowly wriggles its way forward, escaping from the old skin as a finger is drawn from a glove. At last it crawls away, bright and shining in its new scaly coat, leaving behind it a spectral likeness of itself, which slowly sinks and disintegrates amid the dead leaves and moss, or, later in the year, it may perhaps be discovered by some crested flycatcher and carried off to be added to its nesting material.

When the broods of twenty to thirty young garter snakes start out in life to hunt for themselves, then woe to the earthworms, for it is upon them that the little serpents chiefly feed.

Six or seven of our native species of snakes lay eggs, usually depositing them under the bark of rotten logs, or in similar places, where they are left to hatch by the heat of the sun or by that of the decaying vegetation. It is interesting to gather these leathery shelled eggs and watch them hatch, and it is surprising how similar to each other some of the various species are when they emerge from the shell.

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APRIL

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SPRING SONGSTERS

Early April sees the last contest which winter wages for supremacy, and often it is a half-hearted attempt; but after the army of the North has retreated, with its icicles and snowdrifts, spring seems dazed for a while. Victory has been dearly bought, and April is the season when, for a time, the trees and insects hang fire--paralysed--while the chill is thawing from their marrow. Our northern visitors of the bird world slip quietly away. There is no great gathering of clans like that of the tree swallows in the fall, but silently, one by one, they depart, following the last moan of the north wind, covering winter's disordered retreat with warbles and songs.

One evening we notice the juncos and tree sparrows in the tangled, frost-burned stubble, and the next day, although our eye catches glints of white from sparrow tails, it is from vesper finches, not from juncos, and the weed spray which a few hours before bent beneath a white-throat's weight, now vibrates with the energy which a field sparrow puts into his song. Field and chipping sparrows, which now come in numbers, are somewhat alike, but by their beaks and songs you may know them. The mandibles of the former are flesh-coloured, those of the latter black. The sharp chip! chip! is characteristic of the "chippy," but the sweet, dripping song of the field sparrow is charming. No elaborate performance this, but a succession of sweet, high notes, accelerating toward the end, like a coin of silver settling to rest on a marble table--a simple, chaste vespers which rises to the setting sun and endears the little brown singer to us.

We may learn much by studying these homely little frequenters of our orchards and pastures; each has a hundred secrets which await patient and careful watching by their human lovers. In the chipping sparrow we may notice a hint of the spring change of dress which warblers and tanagers carry to such an extreme. When he left us in the fall he wore a dull-streaked cap, but now he comes from the South attired in a smart head-covering of bright chestnut. Poor little fellow, this is the very best he can do in the way of especial ornament to bewitch his lady love, but it suffices. Can the peacock's train do more?

This is the time to watch for the lines of ducks crossing the sky, and be ready to find black ducks in the oddest places--even in insignificant rain pools deep in the woods. In the early spring the great flocks of grackles and redwings return, among the first to arrive as they were the last to leave for the South.

Before the last fox sparrow goes, the hermit thrush comes, and these birds, alike in certain superficialities, but so actually unrelated, for a time seek their food in the same grove.

The hardier of the warblers pass us in April, stopping a few days before continuing to the northward. We should make haste to identify them and to learn all we can of their notes and habits, not only because of the short stay which most of them make, but on account of the vast assemblage of warbler species already on the move in the Southern States, which soon, in panoply of rainbow hues, will crowd our groves and wear thin the warbler pages of our bird books.