There are two reasons why April birds are particularly attractive. One is, there are fewer of them, and again, there is practically no foliage to conceal them. Better one bird in full view than a dozen half hidden. Their songs, too, have a flavor of novelty, and ring so assuringly through the leafless woods. The ear forever bends graciously to promises, even though we know they will be broken; but birds, unlike men, are not given to lying. When they promise May flowers and green leaves they mean it, and, so far as history records, there has never been a May without them, not even the cold May of 1816, when there was ice and snow. But aside from their singing, April birds offer the opportunity of studying their manners, which is better to know than the number of their tail-feathers or the color of their eggs. The brown thrush that sings so glibly from the bare branch of a lonely tree shows now, by his way of holding himself and pointing his tail, that he is closely akin to the little wrens and their big cousin, the Carolina mocker, so called, which does not mock at all. Of all our April birds, I believe I love best the chewink, or swamp-robin. To be sure, he is no more a feature of April than of June, and many are here all winter; but when he scatters the dead leaves and whistles his bi-syllabic refrain with a vim that rouses an echo, or mounts a bush and sings his few notes of real music, we forget that summer is only on the way, but not yet here. Of all our birds, I always fancied this one was most set in his singing, as he surely is in his ways; but Cheney tells us that "this bird, like many others, can extemporize finely when the spirit moves him. For several successive days one season a chewink gave me very interesting exhibitions of the kind. He fairly revelled in the new song, repeating it times without number. Whether he stole it from the first strain of ‘Rock of Ages’ or it was stolen from him or some of his family, is a question yet to be decided." Now, the chewink is a bird of character, and, above all things, dislikes interference, and he sings “for his own pleasure, for he frequently lets himself out lustily when he knows he is all alone,” as Dr. Placzeck has said of birds in general. I shall never forget a little incident I once witnessed, in which a chewink and a cardinal grosbeak figured. They reached the same bush at the same moment, and both started their songs. The loud whistle of the red-bird quite smothered the notes of the chewink, which stopped suddenly before it was through and, with a squeak of impatience, made a dash at the intruder and nearly knocked him off his perch. Such haps and mishaps as these—and they are continually occurring—can only be seen in April or earlier, when we can see through the woods, and not merely the outer branches of the trees when in leaf. In April we can detect, too, the earliest flowers, and they fit well with the songs of the forerunning birds. There is more, I think, for all of us in an April violet than in a June rose; in a sheltered bit of turf with sprouting grass than in the wide pastures a month later. We do not hurry in-doors at the sudden coming of an April shower. The rain-drops that cling to the opening leaf-buds are too near real gems not to be fancied a veritable gift to us, and we toy with the baubles for the brief moment that they are ours. The sunshine that follows such a shower has greater magic in its touch than it possesses later in the year; the buds of the morning now are blossoms in the afternoon, so quickening is the warmth of the first few days of spring. The stain of winter is washed away by an April shower, and the freshest green of the pasture is ever that which is newest. There is at times a subtle element in the atmosphere that the chemist calls “ozone,” but a better name is “snap.” It dwells in April sunshine and is the inveterate foe of inertia. It moves us, whether we will or not, and we are now in a hurry even when there is no need of haste. The “spring fever” that we hear of as a malady in town never counts as its victim the lover of an April outing. The beauty of novelty is greater than the beauty of abundance. Our recollection of a whole summer is but dim at best, but who forgets the beginnings thereof? We passed by unheeding many a sweet song before the season was over, but can recall, I venture to say, our first glimpse of the returning spring. Though the sky may be gray, the earth brown, and the wind out of the north, let a thrush sing, a kinglet lisp, a crested tit whistle, and a tree-sparrow chirp among the swelling leaf-buds, and you have seen and heard that which is not only a delight in itself, but the more pleasing that it is the prelude announcing the general coming of the birds.
CHAPTER
FOURTH
THE BUILDING OF THE
NEST
There are probably very few children who are not more or less familiar with birds’ nests, for they are not by any means confined to the country, but are to be found in the shade trees of every village street, to say nothing of the old-time lilac hedges, gooseberry bushes, and homely shrubbery of fifty years ago. Even in our large cities there are some few birds brave enough to make their homes in or very near the busiest thoroughfares. As an instance, it was not so long ago that a yellow-breasted chat—a shy bird—nested in the yard of the Pennsylvania Hospital, at the corner of Eighth and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia, and soon learned to mimic many a familiar street sound. Such instances as these were more common before the unfortunate blunder of introducing the English sparrow. But it is in the country only that we find boys really posted in the matter of nests, and I wish I could add that they always adopt the rules of “hands off” when these nests come under their notice. It means far more mischief than most people think to disturb a nest, and so let every boy decide that he will not be guilty of such wanton cruelty. This, however, does not shut off every boy and girl in the land from studying these nests, and a more delightful subject can never come under youthful investigation.
What is a bird’s nest? Every one knows, after a fashion, and yet few have ever considered how much that bunch of twigs, hollow in a tree, or hole in the ground really means. Like so much that is familiar, we glance at it in a careless way and never stop to consider its full significance. Except in a very few instances, a bird’s nest is never the result of a single individual’s labor. Even if but one bird does all the work, there has previously been a decision reached by two birds as to where the nest shall be placed, and how much this means! At once we are brought to consider that an interchange of thought has taken place. The pair have discussed, literally, the merits and drawbacks of the situation, and have had in mind not only their own safety, but that of their offspring. The fact that they make mistakes at times proves this. Were this not the case, or if nests were placed hap-hazard in any tree or bush or anywhere on the ground, bird enemies would have a happy time for a short season, and then birds, like many of the world’s huge beasts, would become extinct. On the contrary, birds have long since learned to be very careful, and their ingenuity in this apparently simple matter of choosing a nest site is really astonishing. This, too, has resulted in quickening their wits in all directions, and the bird that is really a booby is scarcely to be found.
Birds suffer at times from their misjudgment or over-confidence, and this, it must be added, reflects upon us. The instances are numberless where birds have quickly learned that certain people love them, and they lose all fear. Again, naturally very timid birds soon learn when they are free from persecution. The writer frequently passes in the cars by a zoological garden on the bank of a river, and has been impressed with the abundant illustration of birds’ intelligence to be noticed there. The crows have learned that fire-arms are not allowed to be used anywhere near, and so they fearlessly hop about not only the enclosure of the garden, but the many tracks of the railroad just outside, showing no timidity even when the locomotives rush by. Stranger still, wild ducks gather in the river almost directly under the railroad bridge, and do not always dive out of sight as the trains pass by, and I have never seen them take wing, even when the whistle blew the quick, short, penetrating danger signal.