The owlets took their beetles with avidity, swallowing them whole and gulping and gagging in the process in a manner indicative of discomfit rather than any satisfaction over the meal. Once the mother brought what in the darkness appeared to be a small mouse, and this too was swallowed by one little owl, but only after heroic and protracted efforts.
It was no great matter on the following day to gain the confidence of the young owls to a slight degree. But food was the only bond of affinity. So long as I fed them they were content to perch on my finger, fierce and solemn little ruffians, and devour bits of raw meat. Their manners remained sullen and forbidding, though they never refused to eat. Soon they lost even this slight contact with our world and disappeared into their own—the nocturnal and barbarous world of the owl.
Every year there is fresh evidence that the course of true love runs far from smoothly with the birds. A pair of yellow-throated vireos built no less than three nests one season and only succeeded in occupying the last. There were two suitors for the affection of the female, and they fought continually. The rejected lover harassed the pair while at work gathering material, and that he twice stole a march on them and actually tore down the nest appears from circumstantial evidence.
Great secrecy was observed in constructing the third nest, and the rejected one no longer harassed them. Either he had transferred his affections or been fairly vanquished. Life was strenuous and impassioned with these little birds, but see what constancy and perseverance! Fancy having two houses torn down, after completing them with your own hands, and having the courage to build still a third! There is something of the pioneer and frontiersman in this. The offspring of this pair were the children of vigorous and romantic times, and should have inherited some heroic traits.
Even if all goes well otherwise, the sanctity of the nest is liable to be profaned by the cowbird. This spring was an unusually favorable one for them. I noticed the least flycatcher and the Maryland yellow-throat mothering young cowbirds, and many vireos and warblers so engaged. It is a wary caution that leads the cowbird to choose the smaller birds for her victims.
It would be hard to say which of all the foster-mothers is the more solicitous of her charge. Now it appears to be the redeye, and again the chipping-sparrow. All alike are bent on bringing the birdling to maturity as though it were of first importance. That cowbird shall thrive though the heavens fall. The attention seems to be in proportion to the egregious demands of the foundling. Here at least is a waif well cared for, an upstart that takes precedence over the true and lawful heirs. Another year this same adventuress will invade the nests of her adopted sisters.
The yellow warbler is perhaps the oftenest chosen. Accessible and easily found, the nest is a beautiful cup-shaped structure lodged in the fork of a fruit tree, with perchance a spray of blossoms just over it—a house of silk, a satin bower. How awkward and uncouth must the cowbird appear squatting on this fragile silken thing to lay her eggs! Doubtless she watches the yellow bird stripping the dry grass stems and gathering the pappus of last year's cattails; squats low in the grass and looks all unconcerned while she marks the tree to which the fluffy material is carried, and bides her time till the nest is ready. Strange that she should never discover in herself the home-making instinct, for even nomads have their tents. Stranger still she should never once wish to undertake the duties of motherhood.
For a time, perhaps, the young cowbird is influenced by the habit of the bird that happens to mother it, whether this be a ground-sparrow or a tree-loving flycatcher. But it grows up a cowbird with all the inheritance of that peculiar tribe, and its brief contact with a superior race leaves no impress upon it.
In spite of cowbirds and the exigencies of life the woods are full of young birds, their tails not yet grown. This is their childhood—a brief one—as the days in the nest were their infancy. They are exacting children, yet they do not clamor to be amused, but only to be fed. I have seen a young chipping-sparrow, its tail half grown, showing how recently it was from the nest, pick up a straw and carry it about. So early does the maternal instinct show itself. This straw was its doll-baby, the only plaything it could know, and this its solemn play. There is a mild and innocent expression about young birds, as there is in the faces of children, apparent to a keen vision only. They have yet to be hardened by experience and vicissitude. The countenances of the old take on an astute and alert expression. These young black-and-white creepers and chestnut warblers, now shifting for themselves for the first time, come about with gentle confidence. They creep and flit through the trees, coming nearer and nearer, until you look directly into their small innocent faces and could put your hand upon them. Then as it would seem they were about to descend like blessings upon your head, they withdraw and recede from view into the wilderness of leaves where only your thoughts may follow them.