WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON.
Not much to find, not much to see;
But the air was fresh, the path was free.
W. Allingham.
A weed has been defined as a plant the use of which is not yet discovered. If the definition be correct there are few weeds. For the researches of others beside human investigators must be taken into the account. What we complacently call the world below us is full of intelligence. Every animal has a lore of its own; not one of them but is—what the human scholar is more and more coming to be—a specialist. In these days the most eminent botanists are not ashamed to compare notes with the insects, since it turns out that these bits of animate wisdom long ago anticipated some of the latest improvements of our modern systematists.[20] We may see the red squirrel eating, with real epicurean zest, mushrooms, the white and tender flesh of which we have ourselves looked at longingly, but have never dared to taste. How amused he would be (I fear he would even be rude enough to snicker) were you to caution him against poison! As if Sciurus Hudsonius didn't know what he were about! Why should men be so provincial as to pronounce anything worthless merely because they can do nothing with it? The clover is not without value, although the robin and the oriole may agree to think so. We know better; and so do the rabbits and the humblebees. The wise respect their own quality wherever they see it, and are thankful for a good hint from no matter what quarter. Here is a worthy neighbor of mine whom I hear every summer complaining of the chicory plants which disfigure the roadside in front of her windows. She wishes they were exterminated, every one of them. And they are homely, there is no denying it, for all the beauty of their individual sky-blue flowers. No wonder a neat housewife finds them an eyesore. But I never pass the spot in August (I do not pass it at all after that) without seeing that hers is only one side of the story. My approach is sure to startle a few goldfinches (and they too are most estimable neighbors), to whom these scraggy herbs are quite as useful as my excellent lady's apple-trees and pear-trees are to her. I watch them as they circle about in musical undulations, and then drop down again to finish their repast; and I perceive that, in spite of its unsightliness, the chicory is not a weed,—its use has been discovered.
In truth, the lover of birds soon ceases to feel the uncomeliness of plants of this sort; he even begins to have a peculiar and kindly interest in them. A piece of "waste ground," as it is called, an untidy garden, a wayside thicket of golden-rods and asters, pig-weed and evening primrose,—these come to be almost as attractive a sight to him as a thrifty field of wheat is to an agriculturalist. Taking his cue from the finches, he separates plants into two grand divisions,—those that shed their seeds in the fall, and those that hold them through the winter. The latter, especially if they are of a height to overtop a heavy snow-fall, are friends in need to his clients; and he is certain to have marked a few places within the range of his every-day walks where, thanks to somebody's shiftlessness, perhaps, they have been allowed to flourish.
It is not many years since there were several such winter gardens of the birds in Commonwealth Avenue,—vacant house-lots overgrown with tall weeds. Hither cause flocks of goldfinches, red-poll linnets, and snow buntings; and thither I went to watch them. It happened, I remember, that the last two species, which are not to be met with in this region every season, were unusually abundant during the first or second year of my ornithological enthusiasm. Great was the delight with which I added them to the small but rapidly increasing list of my feathered acquaintances.
The red-polls and the goldfinches often travel together, or at least are often to be found feeding in company; and as they resemble each other a good deal in size, general appearance, and ways, the casual observer is very likely not to discriminate between them. Only the summer before the time of which I speak I had spent a vacation at Mount Wachusett; and a resident of Princeton, noticing my attention to the birds (a taste so peculiar is not easily concealed), had one day sought an interview with me to inquire whether the "yellow-bird" did not remain in Massachusetts through the winter. I explained that we had two birds which commonly went by that name and asked whether he meant the one with a black forehead and black wings and tail. Yes, he said, that was the one. I assured him, of course, that this bird, the goldfinch, did stay with us all the year round, and that whoever had informed him to the contrary must have understood him to be speaking about the golden warbler. He expressed his gratification, but declared that he had really entertained no doubt of the fact himself; he had often seen the birds on the mountain when he had been cutting wood there in midwinter. At such times, he added, they were very tame, and would come about his feet to pick up crumbs while he was eating his dinner. Then he went on to tell me that at that season of the year their plumage took on more or less of a reddish tinge: he had seen in the same flock some with no trace of red, others that were slightly touched with it, and others still of a really bright color. At this I had nothing to say, save that his red birds, whatever else they were, could not have been goldfinches. But next winter, when I saw the "yellow-birds" and the red-poll linnets feeding together in Commonwealth Avenue, I thought at once of my Wachusett friend. Here was the very scene he had so faithfully described,—some of the flock with no red at all, some with red crowns, and a few with bright carmine crowns and breasts. They remained all winter, and no doubt thought the farmers of Boston a very good and wise set, to cultivate the evening primrose so extensively. This plant, like the succory, is of an ungraceful aspect; yet it has sweet and beautiful blossoms, and as an herb bearing seed is in the front rank. I doubt whether we have any that surpass it, the birds being judges.