Part 27

October Nineteenth

The bulky basket nests of the cedar-bird and kingbird are usually found saddled on a horizontal limb in an orchard. The kingbird prefers to be near water, and will often use an elm, willow, or thorn-tree for a nesting site. From the ground, the nests resemble each other. They are about eight inches across, are composed outwardly of sticks, leaves, and moss, lined with fine roots and the like, and sometimes wood or cotton is used.

October Twentieth

Crows usually build in pine-trees, but where there are no pines, they will choose an oak, chestnut, maple, or poplar, not always high ones either. The nest is made of sticks, leaves, bark, and mud, lined with dried grass or fine bark. Most of the large hawks make their nests in oak, maple, chestnut, or beech trees, in the groves or forests. They often occupy the same nest year after year.

October Twenty-first

Of the birds that build in bushes or small trees, the following are the common species: catbird (twigs, leaves, and grass, lined with fine roots), black-billed and yellow-billed cuckoo (a sort of stick platform with a few dried leaves for a lining), and yellow-breasted chat (leaves, sticks, and bark, deeply hollowed and lined with soft grasses). Song sparrows' nests are very common.

Notes

October Twenty-second

If it becomes necessary to protect their young, most birds seem to lose all fear. When surprised with her brood of chicks, the ruffed grouse and nearly all ground-dwelling birds will feign injury and flutter a few feet in front of the intruder, seemingly in great agony. The cries and actions are intended to lure you from the young. During the interval that you are watching or chasing her, the chicks have fairly melted into the earth.

October Twenty-third

The stickleback is a small fish that inhabits the brackish waters from Cape Ann to New Jersey. Mr. Hornaday says that the abdomen of the male has been provided with a gland filled with a clear secretion which coagulates into threads when it comes in contact with the water. By means of this, a hood-like nest large enough for the female to enter is fastened to the vegetation at the bottom of the sea, and the eggs are deposited in the nest.

October Twenty-fourth

Birds seem to have a common language, so far, at least, as conveying a warning of danger is concerned. The appearance of a hawk, or an owl, will cause a catbird, robin, vireo, or song sparrow to give a warning note which is at once heeded by every feathered neighbor within hearing. Instantly all is quiet until danger has passed.

Notes

October Twenty-fifth

Grebes are expert swimmers and divers. Before the invention of smokeless powder, the adult birds could easily dive at the flash of a gun and were beneath the surface of the water when the shot struck. On land these duck-like birds push themselves over the ground on their breasts, or waddle along in a very awkward manner. They cannot rise from the ground, and even when rising from the water they must flutter over its surface for a long distance before they are able actually to take wing.

October Twenty-sixth

A strong aversion for snakes prevails with many of us. Most people think that the majority of snakes are poisonous. In reality the only dangerously venomous snakes in the United States are the rattlesnakes (fourteen species), the moccasin, and the copperhead, and they are not so aggressive as is generally supposed.

October Twenty-seventh

How often the osprey or American fish-hawk is mistaken for an eagle! The fish-hawk is the only hawk that will poise in the air and then plunge into the water for its prey. Unlike the kingfisher, of which of course it is no kin, it carries its food in its talons instead of in its beak. In captivity it may be confined in an aviary with pigeons, quail, and other defenceless birds, and will not molest them.

Winter Plumage.]

Notes

October Twenty-eighth

The bull-frog, whose legs are considered such a delicacy, often attains a length of fifteen inches. Its food consists of insects, small frogs, birds, mice, and young water-fowl, and one has been killed which had eaten a bat. Birds have learned to look upon it as a foe. Bull-frogs are fast becoming extinct because of the demand for their legs.

October Twenty-ninth

The sharp-shinned hawk is smaller in body, but has about the same expanse of wing, as a domesticated pigeon. It is one of the few hawks that is destructive to birds and young poultry. Not only in the country, but in the city parks and villages, it is seen in late fall or in winter, skimming over the tops of the bushes ready to pounce upon a sparrow of any species the instant one appears.

October Thirtieth

Red squirrels and chipmunks differ in size, markings, and habits. The red squirrel is nearly twice as large as the chipmunk, it nests in trees, and is usually seen among the branches. It is red on the back and whitish beneath, sometimes having one black line along each side. Chipmunks live in the ground, hollow stumps, and roots. They are poor tree climbers and will not jump from tree to tree unless forced to do so. They have a black stripe down the back and two on each side.