The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers

by John Burroughs

The junco impresses me as a fidgety, emphatic, feather-edged sort of bird; the two white quills in its tail which flash out so suddenly on every movement seem to stamp in this impression. My junco was a little nervous at first and showed her white quills, but she soon grew used to my presence, and would alight upon the chair which I kept for callers, and upon my hammock-ropes.

When an artist came to paint my portrait amid such rustic surroundings, the bird only eyed her a little suspiciously at first, and then went forward with her own affairs. One night the wind blew the easel with its canvas over against the haymow where the nest was placed, but the bird was there on her eggs in the morning. Her wild instincts did not desert her in one respect, at least: when I would flush her from the nest she would drop down to the floor and with spread plumage and fluttering movements seek for a moment to decoy me away from the nest, after the habit of most ground-builders. The male came about the barn frequently with three or four other juncos, which I suspect were the first or June brood of the pair, now able to take care of themselves, but still held together by the family instinct, as often happens in the case of some other birds, such as bluebirds and chickadees.

My little mascot hatched all her eggs, and all went well with mother and young until, during my absence of three or four days, some night-prowler, probably a rat, plundered the nest, and the little summer idyl in the heart of the old barn abruptly ended. I saw the juncos no more.

While I was so closely associated with the junco in the old barn I had a good chance to observe her incubating habits. I was surprised at the frequent and long recesses that she took during school-hours. Every hour during the warmest days she was off from ten to twelve minutes, either to take the air or to take a bite, or to let up on the temperature of her eggs, or to have a word with her other family; I am at a loss to know which. Toward the end of her term, which was twelve days, and as the days grew cooler, she was not gadding out and in so often, but kept her place three or four hours at a time.

When the young were hatched they seemed mainly fed with insects—spiders or flies gathered off the timbers and clapboards of the inside of the barn. It was a pretty sight to see the mother-bird making the rounds of the barn, running along the timbers, jumping up here and there, and seizing some invisible object, showing the while her white petticoats—as a French girl called that display of white tail-feathers.

Day after day and week after week as I look through the big, open barn door I see a marsh hawk beating about low over the fields. He, or rather she (for I see by the greater size and browner color that it is the female), moves very slowly and deliberately on level, flexible wing, now over the meadow, now over the oat or millet field, then above the pasture and the swamp, tacking and turning, her eye bent upon the ground, and no doubt sending fear or panic through the heart of many a nibbling mouse or sitting bird. She occasionally hesitates or stops in her flight and drops upon the ground, as if seeking insects or frogs or snakes. I have never yet seen her swoop or strike after the manner of other hawks. It is a pleasure to watch her through the glass and see her make these circuits of the fields on effortless wing, day after day, and strike no bird or other living thing, as if in quest of something she never finds. I never see the male. She has perhaps assigned him other territory to hunt over. He is smaller, with more blue in his plumage. One day she had a scrap or a game of some kind with three or four crows on the side of a rocky hill. I think the crows teased and annoyed her. I heard their cawing and saw them pursuing the hawk, and then saw her swoop upon them or turn over in the air beneath them, as if to show them what feats she could do on the wing that were beyond their powers. The crows often made a peculiar guttural cawing and cackling as if they enjoyed the sport, but they were clumsy and awkward enough on the wing compared to the hawk. Time after time she came down upon them from a point high in the air, like a thunderbolt, but never seemed to touch them. Twice I saw her swoop upon them as they sat upon the ground, and the crows called out in half sportive, half protesting tones, as if saying, "That was a little too close; beware, beware!" It was like a skillful swordsman flourishing his weapon about the head of a peasant; but not a feather was touched so far as I could see. It is the only time I ever saw this hawk in a sportive or aggressive mood. I have seen jays tease the sharp-shinned hawk in this way, and escape his retaliating blows by darting into a cedar-tree. All the crow tribe, I think, love to badger and mock some of their neighbors.

How much business the crows seem to have apart from hunting their living! I hear their voices in the morning before sun-up, sounding out from different points of the fields and woods, as if every one of them were giving or receiving orders for the day: "Here, Jim, you do this; here, Corvus, you go there, and put that thing through"; and Jim caws back a response, and Corvus says, "I'm off this minute." I get the impression that it is convention day or general training day with them. There are voices in all keys of masculinity and femininity. Here and there seems to be one in authority who calls at intervals, "Haw-ah, haw, haw-ah!" Others utter a strident "Haw!" still others a rapid, feminine call. Some seem hurrying, others seem at rest, but the landscape is apparently alive with crows carrying out some plan of concerted action. How fond they must be of one another! What boon companions they are! In constant communication, saluting one another from the trees, the ground, the air, watchful of one another's safety, sharing their plunder, uniting against a common enemy, noisy, sportive, predacious, and open and aboveboard in all their ways and doings—how much character our ebony friend possesses, in how many ways he challenges our admiration!

What a contrast the crow presents to the silent, solitary hawk! The hawks have but two occupations—hunting and soaring; they have no social or tribal relations, and make no show of business as does the crow. The crow does not hide; he seems to crave the utmost publicity; his goings and comings are advertised with all the effectiveness of his strident voice; but all our hawks are silent and stealthy.

Let me return to the red squirrel, because he returns to me hourly. He is the most frisky, diverting, and altogether impish of all our wild creatures. He is a veritable Puck. All the other wild folk that cross my field of vision, or look in upon me here in my fragrant hay-barn study, seem to have but one feeling about me: "What is it? Is it dangerous? Has it any designs upon me?" But my appearance seems to awaken other feelings in the red squirrel. He pauses on the fence or on the rail before me, and goes through a series of antics and poses and hilarious gestures, giving out the while a stream of snickering, staccato sounds that suggest unmistakably that I am a source of mirth and ridicule to him. His gestures and attitudes are all those of mingled mirth, curiosity, defiance, and contempt—seldom those of fear. He comes spinning along on the stone wall in front of me, with those abrupt, nervous pauses every few yards that characterize all his movements. On seeing me he checks his speed, and with depressed tail impels himself along, a few inches at a time, in a series of spasmodic starts and sallies; the hind part of his body flattened, and his legs spread, his head erect and alert, his tail full of kinks and quirks. How that tail undulates! Now its end curls, now it is flattened to the stone, now it springs straight up as if part of a trap, hind feet the while keeping time in a sort of nervous dance with the shrill, strident cackling and snickering. The next moment he is sitting erect with fore paws pressed against his white chest, his tail rippling out behind him or up his back, and his shrill, nasal tones still pouring out. He hops to the next stone, he assumes a new position, his tail palpitates and jerks more lively than ever; now he is on all fours, with curved back; now he sits up at an angle, his tail all the time charged with mingled suspicion and mirth. Then he springs to a rail that runs out at right angles from the wall toward me, and with hectoring snickers and shrill trebles, pointed straight at me, keeps up his performance. What an actor he is! What a furry embodiment of quick, nervous energy and impertinence! Surely he has a sense of something like humor; surely he is teasing and mocking me and telling me, both by gesture and by word of mouth, that I present a very ridiculous appearance.