Bird Stories

by Edith M. Patch

Honored for how long a time we do not know. Longer than the memory of man has known the rice-fields of South Carolina! Days long before that, when elephants trod upon that ground, did those great beasts hear the spring song of the bobolinks? Is the answer to that question buried in the rocks with the elephants? Bob didn't know. He flew over, with never a thought in his little head but for the Great Rice Trail leading him southward to Florida.

While there, some travelers would have gone about and watched men cut sponges, and have found out why Florida has a Spanish name. But not Bob! The Feast of the Vagabonds, which had lasted well-nigh all the way from Maryland, was still being observed, and even the stupidest person can see that rice is better to eat than sponges or history.

Then, as suddenly as if their "Chink, chink, chink" meant "One, two, three, away we go," the long feast was over, and their great flight again called them to wing their way into the night. How they found Cuba through the darkness, without knowing one star from another; what brought them to an island in the midst of the water that was everywhere alike—no man knows. But in Cuba they landed in good health and spirits. This was in September,—a very satisfactory time for a bird-visit,—and Bob and his comrades spent some little time there, it being October, indeed, when they arrived on the island of Jamaica. Now Jamaica, so people say who know the place, has a comfortable climate and thrilling views; but it didn't satisfy Bob. Not for long! Something south of the Amazon kept calling to him. Something that had called to his father and to his grandfather and to all his ancestors, ever since bobolinks first flew from North America to South America once every year.

How many ages this has been, who knows? Perhaps ever since the icy glaciers left Maine and made a chance for summer meadows there. Long, long, long, it has been, that something south of the Amazon has called to bobolinks and brought them on their way in the fall of the year. So the same impulse quickened Bob's heart that had stirred all his fathers, back through countless seasons. The same quiver for flight came to all the Band of Vagabonds. Was it homesickness? We do not know.

Something south of the Amazon kept calling to him.

We only know that a night came when Bob and his companions left the mountains of Jamaica below them and then behind them. Far, far behind them lay the island, and far, far ahead the coast they sought. Five hundred miles between Jamaica and a chance for rest or food. Five hundred miles; and the night lay about and above them and the waters lay underneath. The stars shone clear, but they knew not one from another. No guide, no pilot, no compass, such as we can understand, gave aid through the hours of their flight. But do you think they were afraid? Afraid of the dark, of the water, of the miles? Listen, in your fancy, and hear them call to one another. "Chink," they say; and though we do not know just what this means, we can tell from the sound that it is not a note of fear. And why fear? There was no storm to buffet them that night. They passed near no dazzling lighthouse, to bewilder them. No danger threatened, and something called them straight and steady on their way.

Oh, they were wonderful, that band! Perhaps among all living creatures of the world there is nothing more wonderful than a bird in his migrant flight—a bird whose blood is fresh with the air he breathes as only a bird can breathe; whose health is strong with the wholesome feast that he takes when and where he finds it; whose wings hold him in perfect flight through unweary miles; whose life is led, we know not how, on, on, on, and ever in the right direction.

Yes, Bob was wonderful when he flew from the mountains of Jamaica to the great savannas of Venezuela; but he made no fuss about it—seemed to feel no special pride. All he said was, "Chink," in the same matter-of-fact way that his bobolink forefathers had spoken, back through all the years when they, too, had taken this same flight over sea in the course of their vagabond journey.

From Venezuela to Paraguay there was no more ocean to cross, and there were frequent places for rest when Bob and his band desired. Groves there were, strange groves—some where Brazil nuts grew, and some where oranges were as common as apples in New England. There were chocolate trees and banana palms. There were pepper bushes, gay as our holly trees at Christmastime. Great flowering trees held out their blossom cups to brilliant hummingbirds hovering by hundreds all about them. Was there one among them with a ruby throat, like that of the hummingbird who feasted in the Cardinal-Flower Path near Peter Piper's home? Maybe 't was the self-same bird—who knows? And let's see—Peter Piper himself would be coming soon, would he not, to teeter and picnic along some pleasant Brazilian shore?