About two miles from town, along the banks of a small creek, was the nest of that interesting little bird, the summer warbler,—a dainty structure, composed of downy material, and deftly lodged among the twigs of a sapling at the foot of a cliff. A cold spring gurgled from the rocks near by; the willows and buttonwood trees bent to the balmy breezes, and the tinkling of the brook mingled with the songs of many birds. A place for day-dreams truly, and the summer warblers were the dryads and nymphs flitting through the realms of fancy. If all birds were as astute as the summer warbler, the race of cow-buntings would soon become extinct, or would soon have to change their methods of propagation, and go to rearing their own families. Our little strategist, when she comes home and finds a cowbird’s egg dropped into her nest, begins forthwith to add another story, and thus leaves the interloper in the cellar, with a floor between it and her warm breast. It is a genuine case of “being left out in the cold.” I have found several of these exquisite towers that were three stories high, on the top of which the little bird sat perched like a goddess on the summit of Olympus. (My simile may seem a trifle farfetched, but I shall let it stand.) But why, you dear little sprite, do you not merely pitch the offensive egg out of the nest, instead of going to all the trouble of building a loft? No answer, save an untranslatable trill, comes from the throat of the dainty minstrel.[3]
Some years ago I witnessed a curious bit of bird-behavior that I have never seen described in any of the numerous books on ornithology which I have consulted. I make reference to it here for the first time. I was strolling along the banks of a broad river in northern Indiana on the first of June, when a warm, steady rain set in. How the birds contrive to keep their eggs and nestlings dry during a shower had long been an enigma to me, and now was my time to find out. Knowing where a summer warbler had built her nest in some bushes, I cautiously approached, and then stood looking down on the bird before me, which showed no disposition to leave her progeny to the mercy of the elements. It was a picture indeed! The darling little mother—how can one help using an endearing term!—sat with her wings and tail spread out gracefully over the rim of the nest all the way round, thus making a perfect umbrella of her lithe, dainty body.
Nothing could differ more from the airy out-door nest of the summer warbler than the dark subterranean caverns of the swallows in the bank of the creek. One day, while sauntering along a stream, I noticed a hole in the opposite bank. I passed on, but on second thought turned to look at the excavation a little more closely, when a swallow darted like an arrow into it, and in a few moments made as quick an exit. Wading across the creek, I thrust my walking-stick, which was almost four feet long, into the orifice over its entire length without reaching the end! Why a bird, so neat in attire and so agile on the wing, should build her nest in a dark Erebus like that, is a Sphinx’s riddle that must be left to wiser heads to solve.
What a contrast is the open-air hammock of the Baltimore oriole, swinging from the flexible branches of a buttonwood tree a little farther up the stream! How softly the chirping brood within is rocked by the breezes that sweep down from the slopes, laden with the odor of clover blossoms! Somewhere near there must be a warbling vireo’s nest, for one of these birds is singing in the trees; but my eyes are not sharp enough to descry its pensile domicile.
On my way home, on the top of a hill, I step casually up to a small thorn-bush, whose branches and leaves are thickly matted together, and, as I push the foliage aside, there is a flutter of wings, followed by a rapid chirping, and a little bird flits away, pretending to be seriously wounded. It is a bush-sparrow. Cosily placed beneath the leafy roof among the thick boughs is the procreant cradle. What could be more dainty! A little nest, woven of fine grass-fibres, deftly lined with hair, and containing four speckled eggs, real gems. How “beautiful for situation” is this tiny cottage on the hill! Here the feathered poets may sit on their leafy verandas, look down into the green valleys, and compose verses on the pastoral attractions of Nature. One is almost tempted to spin a romance about the happy couple.
On returning, one day, from an ornithological jaunt, I met my friend, the young farmer, who knows something about my furor for the birds. There was a knowing smile on his sunburned face. “I know where there’s a killdeer’s nest,” he said; “would you like to see it?” Tired out as I was with my long walk, I exclaimed: “Yes, sir! I’ll follow you to the end of the world to see a plover’s nest.” The sentence was added merely by way of mild (not wild) hyperbole. A shallow pit in the open corn-field, lined with a few chips and pebbles, constituted the nest of the plover, not having so much as a spear of grass to protect it from rain and storm. It contained one egg and a callow youngster, the egg being quite large at one end and pointed at the other, which gave it a very uncouth shape. My young friend informed me that there had been five eggs when he found the nest, all lying with their acute ends toward the centre; the next time he went to look there were only four, then three, and finally only two. Evidently the parent birds were having a serious time guarding their homestead from marauders. On going to the place some days later, I found both the egg and the baby plover gone, and I could only hope that no mischance had befallen them.
Strange as it may seem, the winter is a favorable season for nest-hunting. True, the birds are not then at home, to speak with a good deal of license, or engaged in rearing families; but the deserted structures may be more readily found after the leaves have fallen from the trees and bushes. As I stroll through the woods or the marsh on a winter day, scores of nests that escaped my eye during the summer are to be seen. Especially is this the case after a snowfall, for the nests catch the descending flakes which are piled up in them in downy mounds, and thus attract the attention of the observer. I have often felt inclined to heap upon myself the most caustic epithets for having passed again and again, during the breeding-season, so near the nest of an interesting bird without knowing of its existence until winter’s frosts had stripped the coppice of its leaves, and have resolved as often that the next season shall not find me napping.
In the marsh which is one of my favorite trudging-grounds, I made a quaint discovery some winters ago, which has raised more than one query in my mind. One day, after a snowfall, I found many deserted nests in the thickets. Brushing the snow out of them revealed, in the bottom of each basket, a small pile of the seeds and broken shells of wild-rose and thorn berries. Why had the birds put them there—if it was the birds? Perhaps the winter birds, when they arrived in the autumn, found these old nests good storehouses in which to lay by their winter supplies. I have never seen the birds feeding on them, but, as spring approached, the berry seeds had nearly all disappeared.
Come with me, for I know a pleasant, half-cloistered field of clover which is the habitat of a number of charming little birds. Just where it is shall remain one of my semi-sylvan secrets, for one must not betray all the confidences of one’s feathered intimates. The field cuts a right angle in a woodland, by which it is, therefore, bounded on the east and north, while toward the west and south the undulating country stretches away like a billowy sea of green. The woods themselves, on the sides adjacent to the field, are hemmed and fringed with a thick growth of saplings, bushes, and brambles, where the feathered husbands sit and hymn their joy by the hour to their little mates hugging their nests in the clover and the copse. It is a quiet spot,—one of Nature’s nunneries. Human dwellings may be seen in the distance; but it is seldom that any one, save a mooning rambler like myself, goes there to disturb the peace of the feathered tenants.
Here, one summer a few years ago, a pair of those wary birds the yellow-breasted chats built a nest, which they placed snugly in the blackberry bushes that bordered and partly hid the rail fence. I kept close reconnoissance on this little homestead until the nascent inmates were about half-fledged, when, to my dismay, every one of them was kidnapped by some despicable nest-robber. My own sorrow was equalled only by the inexpressible anguish of the bereaved parents. To add to my troubles, a nestful of young indigo-birds came to grief in the same way. There must be, it seems, a system of brigandage in every realm, be it human or faunal.