KILLDEER
Order—Limicolæ Family—Charadriidæ
Genus—Ægialitis Species—Vocifera
“The young chicks are the prettiest little creatures; even when first hatched, they are well covered with down, and have strong, useful legs, with which they can follow their parents all day long until their pinions have developed to let them fly. It is a peculiarity of the game-bird that, like our domestic poultry, the chick comes from the egg open-eyed, well covered, and able, in a measure, to care for itself from the moment that it is hatched. The song-birds, birds of prey, and others are hatched blind and naked, and require several weeks’ time before they are fit for independent life.
“No prettier scene of young bird-life can be drawn than that of Mother Killdeer, walking through the dewy meadows, with stately gait, followed by her four chicks, now brooding them with a warning cry, if the shadow of a hawk appears; now turning over leaves and bits of dead wood in search of their insect food. When danger is near, the young squat, and the blending of their colours with those of the ground gives them the benefit of what is known as ‘colour protection,’ a wise plan of Heart of Nature for the benefit of the weaker species. If threatened danger does not pass by, then the old birds become aggressive, and sometimes fly at the intruder, be he man or animal. The peculiar call of the bird, ‘Killdee-Killde-e-e-Killdeer,’ has given it its name, though it has several other cries when brooding and protecting its young.
“The desire to protect this charming bird, that the National Association of the Audubon Societies is endeavouring to have made a law, state by state, is, after all, nothing new. Listen to what Audubon himself wrote about the Killdeer, beginning with the nesting time: ‘At this period the parents, who sit alternately on the eggs, never leaving them to the heat of the sun, are extremely clamorous at the sight of an enemy. The female droops her wings, emits her plaintive notes, and endeavours, by every means she can devise, to draw you from her nest or young. The male dashes over you in the air and vociferates all the remonstrances of an angry parent whose family is endangered. If you cannot find pity for the poor birds at such a time, you may take up their eggs and see their distress, but if you be at all so tender hearted as I would wish you to be, it will be quite unnecessary for me to recommend mercy.’
“So, children of the Kind Hearts’ Club, ask all those you meet to help put the little Killdeer upon the protected list; say that it is too small to be counted as food, and, in addition, whisper to every farmer you meet (and farmers north, south, east, and west should be interested, for the bird inhabits the whole of temperate North America), ‘The Killdeer is an insect eater, taking grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, boll weevils, and the dreaded Rocky Mountain locust.’ If this is not enough, add that the Kind Hearts wish to protect all these gentle little birds, that are out of place on the list of food-birds, and we all know that when a kind heart wishes to do a thing, it usually finds the way!”
“Somebody told Dad at the last Farmers’ Institute that the Reed birds, that the big boys go gunning for down in the marsh meadows along in August, are changed Bobolinks,” said Tommy, “and that we mustn’t shoot them any more, because Bobolinks are singing-birds, and I just guess they are. My! can’t they sing, and fly right up at the same time, as if going so fast shook the song out of them, and they couldn’t help it!”
Gray Lady laughed at Tommy’s description, which was certainly very true, and expressed in vigorous boy language.
“Yes, Tommy, the black-white-and-buff Bobolink of May, after the midsummer moult, becomes a dull, brown-striped bird like his wife, and, shedding his lovely voice and glowing feathers together, he keeps only a call note. In this masquerade he leads a double, and somewhat vagabond, life, travelling by slow degrees toward his winter home and then back again in the spring, all the while eating many things which the owners do not wish him to have, one being rice,—rice in the ear and the sprouting rice in spring.