THE VESPER SPARROW
When the meadows are brown or flushed with green
And the lark’s glad note rings clear,—
When the field sparrow’s voice like a silver bell
Chimes a melody sweet to hear,—
A small brown bird with bay-capped wings
And feathers white in his tail,
Flutters along by a roadside hedge
And alights on a zigzag rail,
And breathes forth a song entrancing,
Of a beauty surpassed by few—
A wistful, plaintive, minor strain—
“O Sweetheart, I love you!”
When a mist of green o’erspreads the trees,
And corals and rubies gay
Are hung on the maple and red-bud boughs,
And the brooks are babbling away,—
When the setting sun goes down in a glow
Of the purest primrose gold,
And the pearly east reflects a flush
From the glories the west doth hold,—
This brown bird then, with a soul in his voice,
Sings to his mate so true
The tenderest song of the April choir—
“O Sweetheart, I love you!”
CHIPPING SPARROW
THE CHIPPING SPARROW
Finch Family—Fringillidæ
Length: A little over 5 inches; the smallest of our common sparrows.
Male and Female: Crown reddish-brown, bill black; a black line extending through the eye; a gray line above the eye; back, wings, and tail brown; tail forked; rump gray; breast pale gray without streaks or spots. In the fall, the reddish crown becomes brown, streaked with black.
Call-note: Chip-chip.
Song: A monotonous trill, Chippy-chippy-chippy-chippy-chippy-chippy-chippy, more like the metallic sound made by a locust than the song of a bird.
Habitat: A “doorstep” bird that loves to spend the spring and summer near man. It is found in gardens, orchards, and plowed fields.
Nest: An unusually dainty nest made of grass and fine root-fibers, lined with horsehair, which has given to the chipping sparrow the name of “hair-bird.” The nest is built in trees or low bushes, sometimes very near the ground.
Eggs: Four or five pale-green eggs, mottled with dark markings.
Range: North America, from central Canada to Central America; commonest in the east.
This gentle, trustful sparrow is a general favorite. He is an unobtrusive little bird, seemingly contented to occupy his place in the world near to the haunts of man, unconsciously doing his important work without noisy demonstration. Like the brown creeper and the phœbe, he is of great economic value; like them, he is not particularly interesting, and he is without skill as a songster. But his monotonous trill is a pleasant part of the spring chorus, and his presence in our yards we should sorely miss.
Mr. Forbush speaks in high praise of this bird’s usefulness. He claims that the chippy is “the most destructive of all birds to the injurious pea-louse, which caused a loss of three million dollars to the pea-crop of a single state in one year.”[88] This sparrow eats the grubs that feed on beet-leaves, cabbages, and other vegetables; he devours cankerworms and currant worms, besides gypsy, brown-tail, and tent caterpillars, any one of which would entitle him to our protection. In the fall, with the decrease of life in the garden, he takes to the fields, where like other sparrows he feasts on seeds.
If it were more generally known how invaluable chipping sparrows are, people would guard them more carefully from marauding cats. I wish it might become as unlawful to let cats stalk abroad during the nesting season as it is to allow unmuzzled dogs to go about freely during dog-days. I know of a bird-lover near Painesville, Ohio, who never during nesting-time allowed her pet cat to stir outside of a good-sized enclosure without a weight attached to his collar. Some people have put bells on their cats’ necks, but while that is efficacious in alarming parent-birds, it is of no value in preventing the slaughter of young birds that have just left the nest. Mr. Forbush has written an appeal, which I wish was more widely known and heeded. It is called “The Domestic Cat” and was published under the direction of the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture.
Mr. Forbush wrote to such eminent experts and authorities on bird-life as Robert Ridgway, Dr. Frank M. Chapman, Dr. Witmer Stone, Dr. Henry W. Henshaw, Dr. William T. Hornaday, John Burroughs, William Dutcher, T. Gilbert Pearson, Dr. George W. Field, Dr. C. F. Hodge, Ernest Harold Baynes, Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright, and others, for their opinions regarding the relative destructiveness of cats to the bird-life of the country. They were unanimous in their denunciation of cats as the “greatest destructive agency to our smaller song and insectivorous birds.”
Mrs. Wright says: “If the people of the country insist upon keeping cats in the same number as at present, all the splendid work of Federal and State legislation, all the labors of game- and song-bird protective associations, all the loving care of individuals in watching and feeding, will not be able to save our birds in many localities.”
Young chipping sparrows are spoiled bird-babies. They “tag” their gentle little parents about with unusual persistence, knowing that they will get what they demand. They frequently look as if they might not turn out to be excellent bird-citizens like their ancestors. When a noted ornithologist first saw Mr. Horsfall’s original drawing of the accompanying family of chipping sparrows he remarked, “That baby looks a million years old and steeped in sin!” But the duties of parenthood sober the youngsters, and the following year, they become in turn pleasant, docile, lovable little “Bird Neighbors.”
THE WHITE-THROATED SPARROW
Finch Family—Fringillidæ
Length: About 6¾ inches.
General Appearance: One of the larger sparrows, with a black and white striped crown, a white throat, and a yellow spot before the eye.
Male and Female: Striped crown, with a narrow white line in the center, a broad black stripe on each side of the white; a broad white stripe over the eye edged with a narrow black line; a yellow spot in front of the eye, and at the outer curve of the wing. Back brown, streaked with black; rump and tail grayish-brown; wings with two white bars; breast gray, becoming whitish on the belly; sides brownish.
Notes: A sharp chip for the alarm-note; low, pleasant twitterings.
Song: A sweet whistle, usually pitched high. It consists of two or three notes that vary considerably. Sometimes the first note is an octave below the second; at other times it is a few tones higher than the second. I heard one recently that sang a perfect monotone as follows: Dee, dee, de′-de-de, de′-de-de, de′-de-de. The song has been interpreted in Massachusetts as
Sam, Peabody, Peabody, Peabody
/
Old /
and the bird is known as the “Peabody Bird.”
Habitat: Hedgerows and thickets along roadsides, in parks, on estates, and in woods.
Range: Eastern and central North America. Breeds from north-central Canada to southern Montana, central Minnesota and Wisconsin, and mountains of northern Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts; winters from Missouri, the Ohio Valley, southern Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, (casually in Maine), south to northeastern Mexico and Florida.
THE WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW
Finch Family—Fringillidæ
Length: Nearly 7 inches; a little larger than the white-throated sparrow.
Male and Female: Crown white, bordered on each side by a broad black stripe that extends from bill in front of the eye; a broad white stripe borders each black stripe; a narrow line of black borders the white. No yellow on head or wing like that of the white-throated sparrow. Cheeks, neck, throat, and under parts gray; belly white, sides buff; back, wings, and tail brown; back streaked; wings with two white bars.
Song: A sweet whistled strain.
Habitat: Thickets, woods, and fields.
Range: Breeds in Canada, the mountains of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, and thence to the Pacific Coast; winters in the southern half of the United States and in northern Mexico.
The White-crowned Sparrow is considered by some admirers to be the handsomest member of the sparrow tribe. It is not widely known in the East, and is sometimes confused with the white-throat. The gray throat of the white-crown and the absence of yellow on the wing and near the eye, distinguish it from the white-throat.
In Bulletin 513 of the Biological Survey occurs this description of the white-crown: “This beautiful sparrow is much more numerous in the western than in the eastern States, where indeed it is rather rare. In the East it is shy and retiring, but it is much bolder and more conspicuous in the far West and often frequents gardens and parks. Like most of its family it is a seed-eater by preference, and insects comprise very little more than 7 per cent. of its diet. Caterpillars are the largest item, with some beetles, a few ants and wasps, and some bugs, among which are black olive scales. The great bulk of food, however, consists of weed seeds, which amount to 74 per cent. of the whole. In California this bird is accused of eating the buds and blossoms of fruit trees, but buds or blossoms were found in only 30 out of 516 stomachs, and probably it is only under exceptional circumstances that it does any damage in this way. Evidently neither the farmer nor the fruit-grower has much to fear from the white-crowned sparrow. The little fruit it eats is mostly wild, and the grain eaten is waste.”
THE PURPLE FINCH
Finch Family—Fringillidæ
Length: About 6¼ inches; a little smaller than the English sparrow.
Adult Male: Body largely raspberry- or rose-red, streaked with brown. For two seasons the male is a brown sparrowlike bird, with a yellowish-olive chin and rump; the third season his body seems to have been washed with a beautiful red, not purple, the color richest on his head, breast, and rump. Head slightly crested; bill thick, with bristles at nostrils; cheeks and back brownish; under parts grayish-white; wings and tail brownish, edged with red; tail forked.
Female: Decidedly sparrowlike; body grayish-brown, heavily streaked, lighter underneath; patch of light gray extending from eye, another from beak; wings dark grayish-brown, with indistinct gray bands. She is not unlike the song sparrow, except for the absence of the three black spots on breast and throat.
Call-note: A sharp, metallic chip.
Song: A clear, sweet, joyous warble.
Habitat: Woods, orchards, and gardens.
Range: Eastern North America. Breeds in central and southern Canada, and northern United States, in North Dakota, central Minnesota, northern Illinois, and New Jersey, Maine, Massachusetts, the Pennsylvania mountains, and Long Island; winters from considerably north of the southern boundary of its breeding-range to the Gulf Coast, from Texas to Florida.
None of our smaller finches, except the goldfinch and indigo bunting are more beautiful in color than the PURPLE FINCH which wears a Tyrian purple, rather than the shade we commonly know.
Few members of the family sing more sweetly and joyously than this songster of the treetops. His delightful warble resembles somewhat the song of the rose-breasted grosbeak, and attracts attention wherever the bird is to be found. Several purple finches singing from neighboring elm trees at once, makes a May or June concert not easily excelled. Mr. Forbush says: “The song of the male is a sudden, joyous burst of melody, vigorous, but clear and pure, which no mere words can do justice. When, filled with ecstasy, he mounts in air and hangs with fluttering wings above the trees where sits the one who holds his affections, his efforts far transcend his ordinary tones, and a continuous melody flows forth, until, exhausted with his vocal efforts, he sinks to the level of his spouse in the treetop. This is a musical species, for some females sing, though not so well as the males.”[89]
The bird has been accused of eating the buds of fruit and shade trees, especially elms, and while he is at times guilty, he is not condemned by those who know his food-habits best, but commended for his fondness for weed seeds, especially ragweed, and for destroying plant-lice, cankerworms, cutworms, and ground beetles.[89]
His cousin, the HOUSE FINCH, or LINNET of California, who is brighter in color, is more beloved by tourists and more hated by fruit-growers than almost any bird in the state. Professor Beal writes: “This bird, like the other members of its family, is by nature a seed-eater, and before the beginning of fruit-growing in California probably subsisted upon the seeds of weeds, with an occasional wild berry. Now, however, when orchards have extended throughout the length and breadth of the state and every month from May to December sees some ripening fruit, the linnets take their share. As their name is legion, the sum total of the fruit that they destroy is more than the fruit-raiser can well spare. As the bird has a stout beak, it has no difficulty in breaking the skin of the hardest fruit and feasting upon the pulp, thereby spoiling the fruit and giving weaker-billed birds a chance to sample and acquire a taste for what they might not otherwise have molested. Complaints against this bird have been many and loud.... Whatever the linnet’s sins may be, grain-eating is not one of them. In view of the great complaint made against their fruit-eating habit, the small quantity found in the stomachs taken is somewhat of a surprise. When a bird takes a single peck from a cherry or an apricot, it spoils the whole fruit, and in this way may ruin half a dozen in taking a single meal. That the damage is often serious no one will deny. It is noticeable, however, that the earliest varieties are the ones most affected; also, that in large orchards the damage is not perceptible, while in small plantations the whole crop is frequently destroyed.”[90]
In spite of this troublesome habit, the linnet is a most engaging little bird. Its sweet bubbling song, not unlike that of the purple finch, adds much to the charm of California.
TOWHEE
THE TOWHEE OR CHEWINK
CALLED ALSO GROUND ROBIN AND CHAREE
Finch Family—Fringillidæ
Length: About 8½ inches; smaller than the robin and larger than the oriole.
General Appearance: A black bird with reddish-brown sides, black breast, and white belly; outer tail-feathers tipped with white.
Male: Head, back, throat, and breast, a glossy black; wings black, outer feathers edged with white; tail black, outer edge of outer feather white; three other feathers partly white, decreasing in size toward middle of tail; belly white; eyes dark red.
Female: Brownish, where male is black. The young are streaked with black.
Call-note: A cheerful cha-ree, uttered with a rising inflection. The note is also interpreted as tow hee′? chewink′? jaree′? An engaging trait of this bird is his almost invariable response to one imitating his note.
Song: Two notes, followed by a trill. The song may be translated into chip-chur, pussy-pussy-willow.
Habitat: Woodlands, where he is first found in April scratching among old leaves like fox sparrows, white-throats, and other members of his family.
Range: Eastern North America. Breeds from southern Canada and Maine to central Kansas and northern Georgia; winters from southeastern Nebraska, the Ohio and Potomac Valleys to central Texas, the Gulf Coast, and southern Florida.
The WHITE-EYED TOWHEE is found on the Atlantic Coast region from about Charleston, South Carolina, to southern Florida. He resembles his northern cousin except that his eyes are white, and that his wings and tail have less white on them. There are several species of towhee in our western states.
Before the trees are in leaf, there appears in our April woods a lively, trim, and attractive bird who makes himself known in no uncertain manner. So bustling and energetic is he, so cheerful and self-confident, without unpleasant aggressiveness, that he always attracts attention. The uninitiated frequently call him an oriole, whom he does resemble in having a glossy black head, throat, back, and tail, and white markings on his wings, with reddish-brown like that of the orchard oriole on his sides; but there the resemblance ceases, for the oriole has in addition a reddish-brown breast, belly, and rump. Then, too, the towhee arrives early, before larvæ have hatched; the oriole arrives in May, when swarms of insects have begun their work of fertilizing blossoms of fruit trees.
Professor Beal writes of the towhee as follows: “After snow has disappeared in early spring, an investigation of the rustling so often heard among the leaves near a fence or in a thicket will frequently disclose a towhee at work scratching for his dinner after the manner of a hen; and in these places and along the sunny border of woods, old leaves will be found overturned where the bird has been searching for hibernating beetles and larvæ. The good which the towhee does in this way can hardly be overestimated, since the death of a single insect at this time, before it has had an opportunity to deposit its egg, is equivalent to the destruction of a host later in the year.”[91]
While attending to business, this ground robin seems most materialistic and worldly-minded; but when satisfied with his quest for food, “a change comes over the spirit of his dreams.” He perches upon a low bough; in a sweet and joyous song he reveals his passionate devotion to his mate, and brings pleasure to listeners whose ears are attuned to the sounds of Nature.