THE GALA DAYS OF BIRDS
Migration is over, and the great influx of birds which last month filled every tree and bush is now distributed over field and wood, from our dooryard and lintel vine to the furthermost limits of northern exploration; birds, perhaps, having discovered the pole long years ago. Now every feather and plume is at its brightest and full development; for must not the fastidious females be sought and won?
And now the great struggle of the year is at hand, the supreme moment for which thousands of throats have been vibrating with whispered rehearsals of trills and songs, and for which the dangers that threaten the acquisition of bright colours and long, inconvenient plumes and ornaments have been patiently undergone. Now, if all goes well and his song is clear, if his crest and gorgeous splashes of tints and shades are fresh and shining with the gloss of health, then the feathered lover may hope, indeed, that the little brown mate may look with favour upon dance, song, or antic—and the home is become a reality. In some instances this home is for only one short season, when the two part, probably forever; but in other cases the choice is for life.
But if his rival is stronger, handsomer, and—victorious, what then? Alas, the song dies in his throat, plumes hang crestfallen, and the disconsolate creature must creep about through tangles and brush, watching from a distance the nest-building, the delights of home life which fate has forbidden. But the poor bachelor need not by any means lose hope; for on all sides dangers threaten his happy rival—cats, snakes, jays, hawks, owls, and boys. Hundreds of birds must pay for their victory with their lives, and then the once discarded suitors are quickly summoned by the widows; and these step-fathers, no whit chagrined at playing second fiddle, fill up the ranks, and work for the young birds as if they were their own offspring.
There is an unsolved mystery about the tragedies and comedies that go on every spring. Usually every female bird has several suitors, of which one is accepted. When the death of this mate occurs, within a day or two another is found; and this may be repeated a dozen times in succession. Not only this, but when a female bird is killed, her mate is generally able at once somewhere, somehow, to find another to take her place. Why these unmated males and females remain single until they are needed is something that has never been explained.
The theme of the courtship of birds is marvellously varied and comparatively little understood. Who would think that when our bald eagle, of national fame, seeks to win his mate, his ardour takes the form of an undignified galloping dance, round and round her from branch to branch! Hardly less ridiculous—to our eyes—is the elaborate performance of our most common woodpecker, the flicker, or high-hole. Two or three male birds scrape and bow and pose and chatter about the demure female, outrageously undignified as compared with their usual behaviour. They do everything save twirl their black moustaches!
In the mating season some birds have beauties which are ordinarily concealed. Such is the male ruby-crowned kinglet, garbed in gray and green, the two sexes identical, except for the scarlet touch on the crown of the male, which, at courting time, he raises and expands. Even the iris of some birds changes and brightens in colour at the breeding season; while in others there appear about the base of the bill horny parts, which in a month or two fall off. The scarlet coat of the tanager is perhaps solely for attracting and holding the attention of the female, as before winter every feather is shed, the new plumage being of a dull green, like that of its mate and its young.
As mystery confronts us everywhere in nature, so we confess ourselves baffled when we attempt to explain the most wonderful of all the attributes of bird courtship—song. Birds have notes to call to one another, to warn of danger, to express anger and fear; but the highest development of their vocal efforts seems to be devoted to charming the females. If birds have a love of music, then there must be a marvellous diversity of taste among them, ranging all the way from the shrieking, strident screams of the parrots and macaws to the tender pathos of the wood pewee and the hermit thrush.
If birds have not some appreciation of sweet sounds, then we must consider the many different songs as mere by-products, excess of vitality which expresses itself in results, in many cases, strangely æsthetic and harmonious. A view midway is indefinable as regards the boundaries covered by each theory. How much of the peacock’s train or of the thrush’s song is appreciated by the female? How much is by-product merely?
In these directions a great field lies open to the student and lover of birds; but however we decide for ourselves in regard to the exact meaning and evolution of song, and what use it subserves among the birds, we all admit the effect and pleasure it produces in ourselves. A world without the song of birds is greatly lacking—such is a desert, where even the harsh croak of a raven is melody.
Perhaps the reason why the songs of birds give more lasting pleasure than many other things is that sound is so wonderfully potent to recall days and scenes of our past life. Like a sunset, the vision that a certain song brings is different to each one of us.
To me, the lament of the wood pewee brings to mind deep, moist places in the Pennsylvania backwoods; the crescendo of the oven bird awakens memories of the oaks of the Orange mountains; when a loon or an olive-sided flycatcher or a white-throat calls, the lakes and forests of Nova Scotia come vividly to mind; the cry of a sea-swallow makes real again the white beaches of Virginia; to me a cardinal has in its song the feathery lagoons of Florida’s Indian River, while the shriek of a macaw and its antithesis, the silvery, interlacing melodies of the solitaire, spell the farthest barrancas of Mexico, with the vultures ever circling overhead, and the smoke clouds of the volcano in the distance.
| So sweet, so sweet the calling of the thrushes, The calling, cooing, wooing, everywhere; So sweet the water’s song through reeds and rushes, The plover’s piping note, now here, now there. Nora Perry. |