As the spring to meet the sunshine?”
No doubt many a feathered swain is smitten, and smitten very deeply too, with Cupid’s arrow, flung by some charming capturer of hearts. A little boy’s love-letter to a lassie who had taken his throbbing heart by storm, ran thus: “I love you very dearly. You are so nice that I don’t blame anybody for falling in love with you. I don’t see why everybody doesn’t fall in love with you.” If one may judge from the impetuosity with which most feathered lovers press their suits, there must be many instances of such captivation in bird land.
Have you ever been witness of the wooing of that half-knightly, half-boorish bird, the yellow-hammer? In the grove near my house several pairs of these birds had a great time one spring settling their hymeneal affairs. For hours a lover would pursue the object of his affections around and around, never giving her a moment’s respite. No sooner had she gone bounding to another tree than he would dash after, often flinging himself recklessly right upon the spot where she had alighted, compelling her to hitch away, to avoid being struck by her impetuous lover. His policy seemed to be to take her heart by storm, to wear her out, to give her no time to think matters over, to compel her, nolens volens, to consent to his proposed marital alliance. No doubt she finally, said yes, merely to get rid of him, and then failed of her purpose. After the courtship has passed its first stage, and the wooed one has grown less shy, the bowings and scrapings of the yellow-hammers are truly ludicrous. The female will flit away only a short distance, and will sometimes turn toward her mottled suitor, when they will wag their heads at each other, now to this side, now to that, in the most serio-comical manner imaginable. It is the way these lords and ladies of woodpeckerdom make their royal obeisances.
On a pleasant day in February two downy woodpeckers were “scraping acquaintance.” The male pursued his sweetheart about in the trees after the manner of his kind; but occasionally she would stand at bay and apparently challenge him to come nearer if he dared. Then both of them would lift their striped forms to an almost perpendicular position, their heads and beaks pointing straight toward the sky, and their bodies swaying grotesquely from side to side. This little comedy over, the finical miss bolted to another tree, with her cavalier in hot pursuit.
Coy as the feathered ladies usually seem, many of them apparently are genuine flirts, and would feel greatly disappointed should their lovers give over the chase. They evidently want to be won, but not too easily. (Perhaps it might be said, en passant, there are belles in other than the bird community who resort to similar naïve and winsome ruses.) In a shady nook of the woods I once saw a gallant towhee bunting employing all the arts at his command to win a damsel who seemed very demure. He was an extremely handsomely formed and finely clad bird,—a real édition de luxe. He flew down to the ground, picked up a brown leaf in his bill, and flourished it at her, as much as to say, “It is time for nest-building, dear.” Then he spread his wings and handsome tail, and strutted almost like a peacock about on the leafy ground. But, no, she would not, and she would not, and there was no use in talking; she flitted, half contemptuously, to a more distant bush. That proud cockney need not think she cared for him! She wasn’t going to lose her heart to every lovelorn swain who came along. But, mark you, when I tried to separate them, by driving one to one side of the path and the other to the opposite side, the little hypocrite contrived every time, with admirable finesse, to flit over toward her knightly suitor. Three times the experiment brought the same result. Her maidenly reserve had a good deal of calculation in it, after all, innocent as she appeared. Perhaps she had conned Longfellow’s wise quatrain:
“How can I tell the signals and the signs
By which one heart another heart divines?
How can I tell the many thousand ways
By which it keeps the secret it betrays?”
That the course of true love does not always run smooth in the bird world as elsewhere, goes without saying. There are feuds and jealousies. Sometimes two beaux admire the same belle, and then there may be war to the death. I have seen two rival song-sparrows clutch in the air, peck and claw at each other viciously, and come down to the ground with a thud that must have knocked the breath out of them for a few moments. Incredible as it may seem, an acute observer of bird life declares that the females are most likely to quarrel and fight over their lovers. At such times the male stands by, looks on approvingly, and lets them fight it out, no doubt pluming himself on the fact that he is of sufficient importance to be the cause of a duel or a sparring-match among the ladies.