The Moulting
“After the nesting season is over, and a pair of birds have raised one, two, and, as with the Wrens, sometimes three broods, the feathers of the parents become worn and broken, and not fit for winter covering, nor are the wing quills strong enough for the fall flight.
“At this time, when the young birds are able to care for themselves, the pairs no longer keep alone together, but, leaving their nesting-haunts, travel about either in a family party or in larger friendly flocks, and, although some birds, like the Song Sparrow and Meadowlark, sing throughout the season, the general morning chorus and the nesting season end together, in early or middle July.
“It is quite difficult to name the birds when young and old travel in flocks, for when a male is bright-coloured and the female dull, the first coat of the young is often such a mixture of both that it is easily mistaken for a wholly different and strange bird.
“In August or September almost all of our birds change their spring feathers. This is called moulting. And the brightly coloured birds often drop their wedding finery for dull-coloured travelling cloaks, so that they may not be seen when they fly southward through the falling leaves.
“After this season Father Tanager, of the scarlet wedding coat with black sleeves, appears in yellowish-green, like his wife, and the little Tanagers sometimes have mixed green, yellow, and red garments, for all the world like patchwork bedquilts pieced without regard to pattern.
SCARLET TANAGER
1. Adult Male., 2. Adult Male, Changing to Winter Plumage., 3. Adult Female.
Order—Passeres Family—Tanagridæ
Genus—Firanga Species—Erythromelas
“The jolly Bobolink, also, who in May was the prize singer of the meadows, and disported in a coat of black, white, and buff, now wears dull brown stripes, and, having forgotten his song, he mixes with the young of the year and becomes merely the Reed Bird of the gunners. But in early spring he will change again, and, before the nesting time, reappear among us with every black feather polished free from rusty edges and glistening as of old.
“When Father Tanager comes back, he is brave and red again, though it takes little Tommy Tanager two moultings to grow an equally red coat.
“Even with the more quietly marked birds their colours are less distinct after the summer moult, so that what is known as the bird’s perfect or typical plumage is in many species that of the nesting season alone.”
“I didn’t think that there was so much to know about birds; they seem to have ways of doing things just like people. I’d love to know all about them every Friday, but I suppose that’s too nice to happen,” said Sarah Barnes, as Gray Lady paused and moved her chair back from the bright light that was now shining through the door directly in her face, for the clouds had rolled away down behind the hills, leaving one of the clear, bright, early September afternoons when the sun lends its colour to the field of early goldenrod, until sunset seems to reach to one’s very feet.
“No, it isn’t too nice to happen,” said Gray Lady, laughing; “but it would certainly be very pleasant for me, also, if Miss Wilde could give you to me for an hour or so every other Friday, then perhaps some other day you could come to the General’s house and return my call, and see all the birds and pictures and books that belonged to my Goldilocks’ father. How would you like that?”
“Bully!” cried Tommy Todd, “and there’s more kinds of birds in the General’s old orchard than anywhere else hereabout. I haven’t ever taken any eggs from there,” he added hastily, “only jest peeked and watched, an’ once I got a three-story nest from there, along late in the fall when the birds were done with it. If I brought it along, ma’am, could you tell me what sort of a bird it belongs to? I can’t find out!” he added eagerly.
“Yes, I think I can tell you,” Gray Lady answered, “and I’m very glad if you know about my orchard and its tenants, because very likely you may be able to introduce me to some that I do not know.
“Now, children, before next week is over I will see Miss Wilde and tell her my plans, but one thing I will tell you now—I have a little daughter Elizabeth, whom Sarah Barnes calls Goldilocks. She is twelve years old, but because of an accident her back is not strong, and instead of running about as you do she has had to be wheeled about in a chair. I have taken her to the best doctors, and they say that she is getting well slowly, and that now all that she needs is to live out-of-doors and be with children of her own age, who will be kind and gentle to her, yet treat her as one of themselves. She cannot bear to hear of anything being killed or hurt, and she has been loved so well all her life that she loves everything in return.
“Will you come to the General’s house and help Goldilocks to grow strong and forget all the pain she has suffered?”
“Yes, ma’am,” came the reply as with one voice.
Sarah Barnes had the honour of taking Gray Lady’s hand as she went to the carriage, and Tommy Todd closed the door without any one giving him a hint.
Then, before closing the schoolhouse for the night, his special duty, he began a hunt for the rat-trap, which he soon found in the wood-box, but instead of taking the rats home as usual for Mike, his father’s terrier, to “have fun” with, he drowned them as quickly as possible in the brook that ran below the hill, for he thought to himself as they were things that must be killed Goldilocks would think this the kindest way.
IV
THE ORCHARD PARTY
Not only did Miss Wilde hear every detail of Gray Lady’s visit from her scholars, but the middle of the following week she received a letter from Gray Lady herself as well as one from the president of the school board.
Gray Lady wrote that if she could succeed in interesting the children of the school at Foxes Corners in the birds and little animals about, then she meant to arrange another season so that the other four schools in the scattered district might have the same opportunity. For this reason she had asked and obtained leave of the school committee to have two Friday afternoons of each month given to the purpose. She also promised to send some bird books and pictures to the school and a large wall map of North America, so that after the children had learned to know a bird by sight and name they might trace its journeys the year through, and thus realize to what perils it is exposed.
Then followed the most interesting part of the letter to Miss Wilde and her children, and this is what it said:—
“It is all very well to show children pictures and read them stories about the birds and tell them that it is their duty to be kind to them, but I wish them also to see and judge for themselves and learn to love their bird neighbours because they can’t help themselves. This is best done outdoors and under the trees, and there is no such charming place to meet the birds and be introduced to them as in an old apple orchard such as ours.
“Of course at this season birds are growing fewer every day, but this makes it all the easier to name those that remain, with less chance of confusion than in spring.
“I propose to have an Orchard Party next Saturday, and I should be happy to have you bring as many of your pupils as possible to spend the day here. We will have luncheon in the orchard and the children will find there many bird-homes that the tenants have left, that will show them that man is not the only housebuilder and thoughtful parent.
“If there are any children who do not care to come, pray do not force them in any way, but if possible let me know by Friday morning how many I may expect.”
It was Wednesday when Miss Wilde told the children of the invitation, just before she rang the bell for noon recess. Then she asked all those who wished to go to the Orchard Party to stand up, and instantly thirteen of the fifteen present were on their feet, the two exceptions being Eliza and Dave.
Miss Wilde of course noticed this. However, she said nothing about it, knowing that with these two discontented ones the reason would be told before long and that very plainly. But when they returned from dinner she gave each one a sheet of clean paper and told them to write answers either of acceptance or regret, as they felt inclined, to Gray Lady, first writing a short note upon the blackboard herself so that they might see how to begin and end, and where to put the date, because some children who can spell separate words do not know how to put them together so as to express clearly and concisely what they wish to say in a note.
Soon thirteen pens were scratching away industriously, while Eliza and Dave fingered theirs, fidgeted with the paper, and wriggled in their seats as if uncertain what to say or whether they would write at all.
Finally the teacher said, “If any one of you is needed at home on Saturday or cannot for any other reason go to the party, you may write that, but each child must send a reply; and be very careful, for I shall send the notes as they are written without corrections.”
Sarah Barnes was deputed to collect the papers, and after school was dismissed Miss Wilde glanced over the notes before enclosing them in one large envelope. Eliza’s read:—
“I would like to go to the party but my ma says to look at birds is silly and that when folks looks much at birds they get afraid to trim their hats with them, and my ma and me has birds on our Sunday hats and they look tastie, and we don’t want to get afraid so there’s no use in my going to the party ’xcept to eat the lunch, which wouldn’t be fare.”
Miss Wilde’s first impulse was to leave out this curiously worded and badly spelled letter; then, as she read it a second time she smiled and said to herself, “Who knows but what this note will give Gray Lady a good idea of the other side of the question and of the objections she will meet?”
Dave’s note was no more agreeable, though expressed rather more clearly:—
“I’d like to go up to your house, but when I told father bout the other day and you wanting us not to get birds’ eggs, he says he knows what some people want, and next thing will be to get me to sign that I won’t go trappin or shootin nothin, and spoiling my fun, and birds are only knuisances, except the kinds we can eat.”
This note also went with the others, but by Friday morning the two children, who had heard nothing talked of for two days but the party, began to wish that they were going, Eliza especially, for her mother said that morning, “You weren’t smart to refuse; you could have had a peep inside the General’s house, maybe, and I don’t believe she’d dassed said a word about birds on hats, with one of the company wearing ’em!”
On Friday afternoon, when Miss Wilde asked the children to meet her at the hedge half a mile above the schoolhouse at ten o’clock the following morning, so that they might take a short cut across the fields, she noticed that Eliza and Dave hung behind the others, who as usual raced off in different directions toward home, and then Eliza, who was walking beside her, mumbled something about “wishing she hadn’t refused and supposing that it was too late now,” etc.
“Of course, it is not very polite to change one’s mind about an invitation,” said the teacher, “but Gray Lady wrote me last night that if you and Dave should feel differently about wishing to come, I might bring you, but that after to-morrow it would be too late.”
At ten o’clock this bright September morning Gray Lady came out on the porch of the big white house, with the row of columns in front, that was known the country-side over as “the General’s.” There was a wide lawn in front of the house and on either side, arched by old elms, the leaves of which were now turning yellow, but there had been no frost and the flowers in the buds were still bright.
Back of the house was a flower garden, with grape and rose arbours on either side, under which chairs and little tables were placed invitingly. Beyond this garden was a maze of fruit bushes and the young orchard, and beyond this the old orchard, now running half wild, stretched downhill toward the river woods.
A lovelier place could not have been planned for either children or birds, or the people who love both, nor a more perfect place for all three to live together in peace and comfort.
Goldilocks was already out, and her faithful Ann Hughes was pushing her chair to and fro, for when one is eager and impatient it is very hard to have to sit still. Goldilocks was growing stronger every day and could walk a few yards all alone, but it tired her, and her mother thought the excitement of seeing so many children would be enough for one day.
Presently a head, with a cap on it, bobbed up over the last hump in the road below the house, and then another with a ribbon-trimmed hat upon it, the pair belonging to Tommy Todd and Sarah Barnes, who led the procession; and in a few minutes more the entire group had reached the porch and Sarah Barnes was repeating their names to Goldilocks. The five boys rather hung back, but that was to be expected of them.
As a little later Gray Lady led the way down to the garden, she turned to Ann and gave her some directions for the house and was going to push the chair herself when Tommy Todd came forward and seized the handle, saying earnestly, “I can do that first-rate. When dad fell out of the haymow and broke his leg, I used to tote him all round the farm, and never bumped him a bit,—only in ploughed land and off roads you’ve got to go jest so easy.” And to illustrate he raised the front wheels of the chair and bearing on the handles lowered them again as they left the garden path for the rough grass-grown track that led to the orchard. Goldilocks looked up and smiled at him, and then at Sarah and Miss Wilde, who walked one on each side, neither of the four dreaming at that moment how much happier their lives would be because they had met.
“Why, the bars are gone and there is a brand new gate!” exclaimed Sarah Barnes, as they reached the opening in the stone fence that had been spanned by rough-hewn bars ever since she could remember. There, between strong cedar posts, hung a rustic gate, and above it was a double arch of the same material, into which the word BIRDLAND was interwoven in small sticks of the same wood.
“That is a surprise that Jacob Hughes made for to-day, for this is my birthday party, you see, and some day mother is going to have a flagpole for Birdland with an eagle on top. Jacob is Ann’s brother,” she continued by way of explanation. “He used to be a sailor once, but now he’s come to live with us always. He is a carpenter, too, and he can whittle almost anything with his knife, and he makes the most beautiful bird-houses. I should really like to live in one myself—that is, of course, if I were a bird!”
“If you were a bird you’d be a bluebird, I guess,” said Sarah Barnes, as she glanced at the deep blue sailor suit, with the crimson shield in front, that Goldilocks wore.
“I’d rather be a big owl,” said Tommy Todd, “and sit up in a tree in the woods and call out ‘Woo-oo-oo’ when people go by in the dark and scare ’em.” And he gave such a good imitation of an owl’s hoot that Bruce, the Collie dog, who always either walked or sat beside Goldilocks’ chair, began to bark and circle wildly about, nose in air.
“I’m very sure I shouldn’t care to be an owl, for then I should have to eat meadow-mice and moles, and swallow them, fur and all, and that would taste so mussy,” said Goldilocks.
So it came about that all the children were in very good humour when they entered Birdland on Goldilocks’ birthday, and Gray Lady smiled happily as she looked at the group with her precious daughter in the midst and thought that her experiment had begun with a happy omen.
Though many of the apples that grew on the trees of the old orchard would not have taken prizes at the country fair, they looked very tempting to the youngsters,—Baldwins, Spitzenburghs, and russets of two sorts, the green and the golden, were still on the trees, but there were great heaps of earlier varieties on the ground, and Jacob and another man were busy sorting them over.
Reading in the children’s eager faces what they would like to do, Gray Lady said, “You may run off now and have all the apples you want, and an hour for playing ‘hide-and-seek,’ ‘red lion,’ or ‘Indians,’ in all the orchard and meadows and woodland yonder, and then when you hear a horn blow come back and you will find us over in the corner where the table and seats are placed.” Then, seeing that some of the girls had brought wraps or jackets with them, and also that the Sunday-best hats that they wore would be in the way of romping, Gray Lady told them to hang them on the tree nearest where she and Miss Wilde were seated.
At first Sarah and Tommy were not going with the others, but Goldilocks insisted that they should leave her in a gap where the rows of trees formed a long lane through which she could see across the meadows to the woods.
These two children were quite at home in this neighbourhood, for had there not been a particular gap in the old fence through which they had taken a “short cut” down to the village ever since they could remember?
“I wonder if Goldilocks knows that Quail nest in this brush and scratch around here like chickens,” said Tommy, as they left the orchard for the meadow.
“Yes, and you got that three-story nest of yours last fall in the bough-apple tree,” said Sarah.
Eliza and Dave soon forgot all about their reasons for having at first refused to go to the party, and when they heard the horn tooting it seemed so soon that they could hardly believe that it was noon and luncheon time. And such a luncheon as it was! Around the trunk of the largest tree in the orchard, four tables were so placed that when covered they looked like one big table, with the tree growing through the centre.
The white cloth was bordered with russet and gold beech leaves, bleached ferns, and the deep red leaves of maples and oaks; grapes and oranges were piled high in baskets made of hollowed-out watermelons. Hard-boiled eggs were arranged in nests built of narrow, dainty sandwiches, little iced cakes rested upon plates of braided corn-husks, and Goldilocks’ birthday cake, with its twelve candles, was ornamented with little doves made of white sugar. When, last and best of all, the ice-cream appeared, without which no party is complete, it was in the form of a large white hen with a very red comb, while from beneath her peeped ice-cream eggs of many colours, chocolate-brown, pistachio-green, lemon-yellow, and strawberry-red, the nest being woven of spun sugar that so closely resembled fine straw that it was not until the children had tasted it that they were convinced that it really was candy.
Country children are usually very silent when on their good behaviour, but such ice-cream had never been heard of either at Foxes Corners, the Centre, or the near-by manufacturing town, and muffled “ohs” and “ahs” of satisfaction would break out until, Miss Wilde having given no rebuking glance, a perfect babble of enthusiasm arose that lasted until the meal was ended.
“Why, what is that?” asked Ruth Banks, glancing as she spoke toward a very old tree that, having partly blown over, was resting on four of its branches that served as legs and made it appear like some strange goblin animal. On the upper side of this fallen tree, built around an upright branch, was a platform made of old wood with the bark on, and on the different sections of this were peanuts, shelled corn, pounded up dog crackers and buckwheat, while on a series of blunt spikes driven into the branch, were some lumps of suet and bits of bacon rind. As Ruth spoke a little black-and-white bird, with short tail and legs, was picking vigorously at the suet, using his stout bill with the quick sharp blows of a hammer.
“That? Oh—” said Goldilocks, “that is another birthday surprise that mother and Jake made for me. That is, mother planned it, and Jake did the work. It is a birds’ lunch-counter, and this winter we are going to keep all the different kinds of food on it that the birds like, so that they need never leave us because they are hungry.”
“There’s lots of things all around now that they can eat,” said Tommy Todd.
“Yes, of course, but we want them to become accustomed to the table, to know where the food is before they need it and think about going away, and wild birds are always suspicious of new things,” said Gray Lady.
There was one more feature of the luncheon, but, as it was something that could not be put upon the table, it was hung in the tree overhead. This thing looked like a great bunch of gayly coloured autumn leaves tied tight together, and from it hung a number of red strings, as many in fact as there were people at the party.
Gray Lady explained that each child in turn was to pull a string and, as they held back as if in doubt as to the result, she herself pulled the first cord and out dropped from the ball a long motto in yellow-fringed paper that, on being unrolled, contained beside the snapper a little paper roll on which was printed, “I am Mazulm, the Night Owl,” and when Gray Lady carefully unfolded the paper it proved to be a cap with strings, shaped like an owl’s head, which seemed to the children to wink its yellow tinsel eyes as Gray Lady placed it upon her fluffy hair.
Then everybody pulled a string, and soon there hopped about a startling array of birds with human legs and arms, for every one entered fully into the fun of the thing, even quiet Miss Wilde wearing her Blue Jay cap and calling the bird’s note with good effect.
“Now run about and see all that you can before playtime is over, and we go into the study for our first bird lesson,” said Gray Lady.
“I wish we could have a lunch-counter for birds at our school,” said Sarah, “but we haven’t any near-by tree.”
“Perhaps you may be able to have one—a tree is not always necessary. I have several ideas for lunch-counters in my scrap-book,” said Gray Lady.
As the children walked along, some swung their hats by the elastics in rhythm with their steps. The elastic of Eliza Clausen’s hat was new and strong and all of a sudden it gave a snap, and the hat flew into Goldilocks’ lap. She had stretched out her hand to return it to its owner when she glanced at the hat, and her whole face changed and the smile faded from her lips. “Oh, Eliza!” she exclaimed appealingly, “you don’t know that those feathers on your hat are wings of dear, lovely Barn Swallows, or you wouldn’t wear it, would you?”
“ ’Course I do,” said Eliza, taken off her guard and at heart now provoked and ashamed at having her hat seen, “and I’ve got lots more kinds at home. Ma’s got feathers on her hat, too—tasty feathers. Miss Barker from New York that boarded with us gave ’em to her; they cost a lot and stick right up in a nice stiff long bunch. They’re called regrets, and they don’t grow round here, but they’re ever so stylish.” And Eliza held her nose in the air with a sniff of scorn, a vulgar travesty that the pounding of her heart belied.
“I don’t think those stiff regret feathers in your mother’s hat are stylish,” said Sarah Barnes, quickly taking up the cudgels; “I think they look like fish bones!” Then Eliza began to cry, and both Goldilocks and Sarah looked distressed.
Gray Lady hesitated a moment and then said, “Eliza, dear, I’m sorry that this has happened just now. It is not generally a good plan for us to criticise one another’s clothing or habits, but there are times when it is necessary. Sooner or later I should have told you the reasons why people who stop to think and have kind hearts are no longer willing to wear the feathers of wild birds, and I’m sure that presently, when you stop and think, you will see that it is so.”
Then they all walked very quietly up to the library that had belonged to Goldilocks’ father, and when they were seated and had time to look about they saw that the walls above the book-cases were covered by pictures of birds in their natural colours.
On the table at one end of the room were piled some books, and by this Gray Lady seated herself, her scrap-book by her elbow,—a book, by the way, with which, before another season, they were to become as well acquainted as with their friend herself.
Tommy Todd could not take his eyes from a picture of a tall white bird, with long neck and legs and a graceful sweep of slender feathers that drooped from its back over the tail. Holding up his hand, which at school always means that you wish to ask a question, Tommy said, “Please, what is that bird’s name? There’s a big, dark, gray one, shaped something like it, that I’ve seen by the mill-pond, but it’s not half so pretty. I’ve never seen one like this, here.”
“That bird,” said Gray Lady, “is the Snowy Heron, Egret, or Regret Bird, as Eliza called it a few minutes ago, and I think that you will agree that the name is a very suitable one when I tell you the bird’s story.”
V
REASONS WHY
When the children had satisfied their curiosity by looking about the room at the pictures and stuffed birds in cases as much as they wished and were comfortably seated, Gray Lady drew a chair into the midst of the group and began to talk, not a bit like a teacher in school, but as if she had dropped in among them to have a little chat.
“When one has looked at something from one side all one’s life it is hard to realize that there is another,” she said, smiling brightly at Eliza and Dave, who chanced to be sitting together and who looked not only unhappy but very sullen.
“I have always happened to be with people who love everything that lives and grows. They have always been kind to birds because it never occurred to them to be otherwise. In watching them and learning their ways, they also learned that these winged beings had another value beside that of beauty of colour and song, that by fulfilling their destiny and eating many destructive bugs and animals they not only earn their own livelihood but help keep us all alive by protecting the farmers’ crops.
“Thus, when I went down to the school at Foxes Corners, I took it too much for granted that you all cared for birds and would naturally wish to protect them. I thought that all I had to do was to try to tell you interesting stories that would help you to remember the names and habits of the various birds. But Eliza’s hat, and a little note that I received from one of the boys which showed that he and his family considered all birds that are not good to eat as worse than useless, show me that some of you look at birds from another side. Those that do certainly have a right to, as a lawyer would say, have the case argued before them so that they may see for themselves why they are on the wrong side of the tree.
“The birds were on the earth before man came, and in those far-back times they were able to look after and protect themselves, because the warfare they waged was only with animals often less intelligent than themselves. Do you remember the beautiful allegory of the creation of this earth written in Genesis which is also written and proven in the records the geologists find buried in the earth, and quarry from the rocks themselves?
“When man came, in order that he might live comfortably and safely, many of his improvements brought death to his feathered friends. Take, for example, two objects that you all know,—the lighthouse at the end of the bar by the harbour head, and the telegraph and telephone wires that follow the highway near your schoolhouse. Men have need of both these things, and yet, in their travels on dark nights, thousands of birds, by flying toward the bright tower light that seems to promise them safety, or coming against the innumerable wires, are dashed to death.
“Of all the mounted birds that you see in the cases there, not one was deliberately killed by my husband, but they were picked up and sent to him by various lighthouse keepers along the coast who knew his interest and that he would gladly pay them for their trouble. By and by, when we come to the stories of the flight of some of those birds, you will be amazed to see what frail little things have ventured miles away in their travels; even tiny Humming-birds came to my husband in this way. This danger grows greater every day because of the many tall buildings in the cities that are almost always located by rivers, for to follow these waterways seems to be the birds’ favourite way of travelling.