Homeward, hermit for the day.
Snow-Birds.
If my memory serves me no tricks, I have never known an October without snow-birds. This year, they appeared as early as the second day; and as I have seen them daily since, it has been a source of wonder that they should ever have been called “snow-birds.” Peter Kalm, writing of them in 1749, remarks: “A small kind of birds which the Swedes call snow-bird and the English chuck-bird, came into the houses about this time (Jan. 21). At other times they sought their food along the roads. They are seldom seen but when it snows.” The same author, thirty pages further on, says the English called it “snow-bird,” and the reason is that it is only seen in winter, “when the fields are covered with snow.” This impression, which there is no reason to believe was correct when Kalm wrote, still prevails, and yet there is not a tittle of reason for associating the bird with snow, as there is with the snow-bunting, an Arctic bird that you may or may not see when the snow-storms come.
Neither Wilson nor Audubon gives any reason for such a name, and what has been written since is of little moment. Wilson’s reference to one phase of the bird’s habits would make the name “snow-bird” more appropriate, but Wilson repeated ill-considered hearsay in this case, for these birds care less about weather changes than many another. They enjoy a foul day, whether it rains or snows, and hunt for food wherever it is to be found. Being nearly black, of course they are very conspicuous against a white background, and not at all so when the ground is bare. Possibly this may have given rise to the name. Well, this miscalled bird is now here, and has been for three weeks; and to-day is twittering gayly over wilted asters, and so intent on seed-hunting that I can almost reach it with my hand. It has always seemed to me an autumn rather than a winter bird, and is one of several that is loved because of association rather than for any marked trait of its own. I never see them but I recall my first experience in trapping. One December day, forty years ago, it was snowing, and I murmured that I must remain indoors. As a recompense, I was allowed to trap. A sieve was tilted up and rested upon a stick, to which was tied a string reaching to the kitchen door. A few crumbs were sprinkled under the sieve. How I watched! How quickly the stormy morning passed! The snow-birds came and went, and at last, spying a crumb that had not been covered, a bird hopped beneath the sieve. I pulled the string at the right moment. For once there was a happy mortal upon earth. How impetuously I rushed out to the sieve and, raising it, saw the frightened snow-bird fly away! Oh, the bitterness of my grief! My bird had been fairly caught, but it would not stay a captive. And I have had such adventures since. Painfully often have I failed to make good my captures. A deal of labor and empty hands at last!
But let us back to our ornithology. October 20th was a perfect day. There were snow-birds in the gardens and the old maiden-blush apple tree was in bloom. Nutty October and flowery May, each a delight, and here commingled! There should have been music, but every bird was mute, and the hyla piped his one note at long-drawn intervals.
So undemonstrative in every way, so silent save the occasional faint twitterings, these birds of the summer-like afternoon might readily have been passed by unnoticed; but it will not be so later. They gather energy as the mercury falls, and when the next hoar-frost whitens the meadows and the uplands’ weedy fields, then will they shake tall grass and rattle the dry twigs as you approach. They are timid birds, and your shadow or that of a hawk creates a riot in their ranks; but they find their wits as soon as they lose them, and if you but stand quietly, orderly, seed-hunting is promptly resumed. What, then, is their peculiar merit, that attention should be asked to them? I am sure that I do not know, unless it be that I love them. This is merit enough in my eyes; and who that spent his youth in the country but recalls the birds of winter? It may be that there was too much work to be done at other times of the year to give heed to the summer songsters; but never in winter were the days too short to set a rabbit trap, to follow a covey of quails, or, less murderously inclined, to listen to the squirrel’s bark or the chirping of the sparrows in the hedge. Seldom, indeed, are the snow-birds alone. There are several other species of the same family (the finches) here in the same weedy pastures, and far oftener all are singing than that any are silent. Autumn, either early or late, is never a dismal season. As you wander in the woods or near them, you can not say—
“I walk as one
Who treads alone
Some banquet hall deserted.”
What Summer took away with her Autumn has replaced. There has been a shifting of scenes, but the actors are as numerous as before. The round of the seasons is a serio-comic drama with no heroes, or with every creature one, as you happen to view it.