YOUNG AMERICA IN FEATHERS.
"How like are birds and men!" said Emerson, and if he had known nature's loveliest creatures as well as he did his own race, he might have affirmed it more emphatically; for to know birds well is to be astonished at the "human nature" they display.
In our latitude July is distinctly the babies' month. When wild roses give place to sun-kissed meadow lilies, when daisies drop their petals and meadow-sweet whitens the pastures, when blueberries peep out from their glossy coverts and raspberries begin to redden on the hill, then from every side come the baby cries of younglings just out of the nest, and everywhere are anxious parents hurrying about, seeking food to stuff hungry little mouths, or trying to keep too venturesome young folk out of danger. For Young Americans in feathers are wonderfully like Young Americans in lawn in self-confidence and recklessness.
One evening in a certain July, up on the coast of Maine, I watched the frantic efforts of a pair of Maryland yellow-throats—tiny creatures in brown and gold—to coax their self-willed offspring to a more retired position than he chose to occupy. With genuine "Young America" spirit he scorned the conservatism of his elders. Though both parents hovered about him, coaxing, warning, perhaps threatening, not a feather stirred; stolid and wide-eyed he stood, while the father flitted about the bush in great excitement, jerking his body this way and that, flirting his wings, now perking his tail up like that of a wren, again opening and closing it like a fan in the hands of an embarrassed girl, and the mother added her entreaties to his, darting hither and thither, calling most anxiously,—both, in their distress, rashly exposing themselves to what might, for all they knew, be one of the death-dealing machines we so often turn against them.
Nothing had the slightest effect upon the yellow-throated youngster until his own sensations interested him, and his parents suddenly acquired new importance in his horizon. When hunger assailed him, and, looking about for supplies, he spied his provider on the next bush with a beak full of tempting (and wriggling) dainties, and when he found his wily parent deaf to his cries, and understood that not until he flew behind the leafy screen could he receive the food he craved, then he yielded, and joined his relieved relatives out of my sight.
VAGARIES OF A BABY.
Many times after that morning did the vagaries of that young yellow-throat give me opportunity to study the ways of his family. Having newly escaped from the nursery, in a thorny bush behind thick-growing alders, his strongest desire apparently was to see the world, and those outlying dead twigs, convenient for the grasp of baby feet, were particularly attractive to him. Every day for nearly a week, as I passed into the quiet old pasture, I stopped to interview the youngster, and always found him inquisitive, and evidently, in his own estimation, far wiser than his elders, who were nearly wild over his conduct.
This pasture of about forty acres, lying behind my temporary home, was the joy of my heart, being delightfully neglected and fast relapsing into the enchanting wildness of nature. In a deep bed fringed with a charming confusion of trees and bushes ran a tiny stream, which in the spring justified its right to the title of river. Scattering clumps of alders and young trees of many kinds made it a birds' paradise, while wild cherries and berries of all sorts, with abundant insect life, offered a spread table the whole summer long.
Of flowers it was the chosen home. From the first anemone to the last goldenrod standing above the snow, there was a bewildering confusion; fragrant with roses in June, gorgeous with meadow lilies in July, and rank upon rank of budded goldenrod promising glory enough for August, with all the floral hosts that accompany them. Great patches of sweet bayberry, yielding perfume if only one's garments swept it, and rich "cushions of juniper" frosted over with new tips, were everywhere, and acres were carpeted with lovely, soft, gray-colored moss, into which one's foot sank as into the richest product of the loom. Here and there was a close grove of young pines, whose cool, dim depths were most alluring on hot days; and indeed in every spot in Maine not fully occupied nature is sure to set a pine-tree.
Every morning, on entering this garden of delights, I hastened across an open space by the gate, and plunged into a thicket of alders sprinkled with young trees,—birch, elm, and wild cherry. Through this ran a path, and in a sheltered nook under a low pine I found a seat, where for many days I spent the forenoon, making acquaintance with the pretty little yellow-throats.