The most attractive and sociable pet among wild creatures of its size I have found to be a coon. One which when I was a boy I brought up from the time it was very young, was as playful and affectionate as any little dog, and used its little black paws just as if they were hands. Coons, by the way, sometimes appear in political campaigns. Frequently when I have been on the stump in places where there was still a strong tradition of the old Whig party as it was in the days of Henry Clay and Tippecanoe Harrison, I have reviewed processions in which log cabins and coons were prominent features. The log cabins were usually miniature representations, mounted on wheels, but the coons were genuine. Each was usually carried by some enthusiast, who might lead it by a chain and collar, but more frequently placed it upon a platform at the end of a pole, chained up short. Most naturally the coon protested violently against the proceedings; his only satisfaction being the certainty that every now and then some other parader would stumble near enough to be bitten. At one place an admirer suddenly presented me with one of these coons and was then swept on in the crowd; leaving me gingerly holding by the end of a chain an exceedingly active and short-tempered little beast, which I had not the slightest idea how to dispose of. On two other occasions, by the way, while off on campaign trips I was presented with bears. These I firmly refused to receive. One of them was brought to a platform by an old mountain hunter who, I am afraid, really had his feelings hurt by the refusal. The other bear made his appearance at Portland, Ore., and, of all places, was chained on top of a wooden platform just aft the smokestack of an engine, the engine being festooned with American flags. He belonged to the fireman, who had brought him as a special gift; I being an honorary member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. His owner explained that normally he was friendly; but the surroundings had curdled his temper.
Usually birds are very regular in their habits, so that not only the same species but the same individuals breed in the same places year after year. In spite of their wings they are almost as local as mammals and the same pair will usually keep to the same immediate neighborhood, where they can always be looked for in their season. There are wooded or brush-grown swampy places not far from the White House where in the spring or summer I can count with certainty upon seeing wrens, chats, and the ground-loving Kentucky warbler, an attractive little bird, which, by the way, itself looks much like a miniature chat. There are other places, in the neighborhood of Rock Creek, where I can be almost certain of finding the blue-gray gnatcatcher, which ranks just next to the humming-bird itself in exquisite daintiness and delicacy. The few pairs of mocking-birds around Washington have just as sharply defined haunts.
Nevertheless it is never possible to tell when one may run across a rare bird; and even birds that are not rare now and then show marked individual idiosyncrasy in turning up, or even breeding, in unexpected places. At Sagamore Hill, for instance, I never knew a purple finch to breed until the summer of 1906. Then two pairs nested with us, one right by the house and the other near the stable. My attention was drawn to them by the bold, cheerful singing of the males, who were spurred to rivalry by one another’s voices. In September of the same year, while sitting in a rocking-chair on the broad veranda looking out over the Sound, I heard the unmistakable “ank-ank” of nuthatches from a young elm at one corner of the house. I strolled over, expecting to find the white-bellied nuthatch, which is rather common on Long Island. But instead there were a couple of red-bellied nuthatches, birds familiar to me in the Northern woods, but which I had never before seen at Sagamore Hill. They were tame and fearless, running swiftly up and down the tree-trunk and around the limbs while I stood and looked at them not ten feet away. The two younger boys ran out to see them; and then we hunted up their picture in Wilson. I find, by the way, that Audubon’s and Wilson’s are still the most satisfactory large ornithologies, at least for nature lovers who are not specialists; of course any attempt at serious study of our birds means recourse to the numerous and excellent books and pamphlets by recent observers. Bendire’s large work gives admirable biographies of all the birds it treats of; unfortunately it was never finished.
In May, 1907, two pairs of robins built their substantial nests, and raised their broods, on the piazza at Sagamore Hill; one over the transom of the north hall door and one over the transom of the south hall door. Another pair built their nest and raised their brood on a rafter in the half-finished new barn, quite undisturbed by the racket of the carpenters who were finishing it. A pair of scarlet tanagers built near the tennis ground; the male kept in the immediate neighborhood all the time, flaming among the branches, and singing steadily until the last part of July. To my ears the song of the tanager is like a louder, more brilliant, less leisurely rendering of the red-eyed vireo’s song; but with the characteristic “chip-churr” every now and then interspersed. Only one pair of purple finches returned to us last summer; and for the first time in many years no Baltimore orioles built in the elm by the corner of the house; they began their nest but for some reason left it unfinished. The red-winged blackbirds, however, were more plentiful than for years previously, and two pairs made their nests near the old barn, where the grass stood lush and tall; this was the first time they had ever built nearer than the wood-pile pond, and I believe it was owing to the season being so cold and wet. It was perhaps due to the same cause that so many black-throated green warblers spent June and July in the woods on our place; they must have been breeding, though I only noticed the males. Each kept to his own special tract of woodland, among the tops of the tall trees, seeming to prefer the locusts, and throughout June, and far into July, each sang all day long—a drawling, cadenced little warble of five or six notes, the first two being the most noticeable near by, though, rather curiously, the next two were the notes that had most carrying power. The song was usually uttered at intervals of a few seconds; sometimes while the singer was perched motionless, sometimes as he flitted and crawled actively among the branches. With the resident of one particular grove I became well acquainted, as I was chopping a path through the grove. Every day when I reached the grove, I found the little warbler singing away, and at least half the time in one particular locust tree. He paid not the slightest attention to my chopping; whereas a pair of downy woodpeckers and a pair of great-crested fly-catchers, both of them evidently nesting near by, were much put out by my presence. While listening to my little black-throated friend, I could also continually hear the songs of his cousins, the prairie warbler, the redstart, the black-and-white creeper and the Maryland yellow-throat; not to speak of oven-birds, towhees, thrashers, vireos, and the beautiful golden-voiced wood thrushes.
The black-throated green warblers have seemingly become regular summer residents of Long Island, for after discovering them on my place I found that two or three bird-loving neighbors were already familiar with them; and I heard them on several different occasions as I rode through the country roundabout. I already knew as summer residents in my neighborhood the following representatives of the warbler family: the oven-bird, chat, black-and-white creeper, Maryland yellow-throat, summer yellow-bird, prairie warbler, pine warbler, blue-winged warbler, golden-winged warbler (very rare), blue yellow-backed warbler and redstart.
The black-throated green as a breeder and summer resident is a newcomer who has extended his range southward. But this same summer I found one warbler, the presence of which, if more than accidental, means that a southern form is extending its range northward. This was the Dominican or yellow-throated warbler. Two of my bird-loving neighbors are Mrs. E. H. Swan, Jr., and Miss Alice Weekes. On July 4th Mrs. Swan told me that a new warbler, the yellow-throated, was living near their house, and that she and her husband had seen it there on several occasions. I was rather skeptical, and told her I thought that it must be a Maryland yellow-throat. Mrs. Swan meekly acquiesced in the theory that she might have been mistaken; but two or three days afterward she sent me word that she and Miss Weekes had seen the bird again, had examined it thoroughly through their glasses, and were sure that it was a yellow-throated warbler. Accordingly on the morning of the 8th I walked down and met them both near Mrs. Swan’s house, about a mile from Sagamore Hill. We did not have to wait long before we heard an unmistakably new warbler’s song, loud, ringing, sharply accented, just as the yellow-throat’s song is described in Chapman’s book. At first the little bird kept high in the tops of the pines, but after a while he came to the lower branches and we were able to see him distinctly. Only a glance was needed to show that my two friends were quite right in their identification and that the bird was undoubtedly the Dominican or yellow-throated warbler. Its bill was as long as that of a black-and-white creeper, giving the head a totally different look from that of any of its brethren, the other true wood-warblers; and the olive-gray back, yellow-throat and breast, streaked sides, white belly, black cheek and forehead, and white line above the eye and spot on the side of the neck, could all be plainly made out. The bird kept continually uttering its loud, sharply modulated, and attractive warble. It never left the pines, and though continually on the move, it yet moved with a certain deliberation like a pine warbler, and not with the fussy agility of most of its kinsfolk. Occasionally it would catch some insect on the wing, but most of the time kept hopping about among the needle-clad clusters of the pine twigs, or moving along the larger branches, stopping from time to time to sing. Now and then it would sit still on one twig for several minutes, singing at short intervals and preening its feathers.
THE STONE WALL
From a photograph by Mrs. Herbert Wadsworth
After looking at it for nearly an hour we had to solve the rather difficult ethical question as to whether we ought to kill it or not. In these cases it is always hard to draw the line between heartlessness and sentimentality. In our own minds we were sure of our identification, and did not feel that we could be mistaken, but we were none of us professed ornithologists, and as far as I knew the bird was really rare thus far north; so that it seemed best to shoot him, which was accordingly done. I was influenced in this decision, in the first place because warblers are so small that it is difficult for any observer to be absolutely certain as to their identification; and in the next place by the fact that the breeding season was undoubtedly over, and that this was an adult male, so that no harm came to the species. I very strongly feel that there should be no “collecting” of rare and beautiful species when this is not imperatively demanded. Mocking-birds, for instance, are very beautiful birds, well known and unmistakable; and there is not the slightest excuse for “collecting” their nests and eggs or shooting specimens of them, no matter where they may be found. So, there is no excuse for shooting scarlet tanagers, summer redbirds, cardinals, nor of course any of the common, well-known friends of the lawn, the garden and the farm land; and with most birds nowadays observations on their habits are of far more value than their skins can possibly be. But there must be some shooting, especially of obscure and little-known birds, or we would never be able to identify them at all; while most laymen are not sufficiently close observers to render it possible to trust their identification of rare species.
In one apple tree in the orchard we find a flicker’s nest every year; the young make a queer, hissing, bubbling sound, a little like the boiling of a pot. This same year one of the young ones fell out; I popped it back into the hole, whereupon its brothers and sisters “boiled” for several minutes like the cauldron of a small and friendly witch. John Burroughs, and a Long Island neighbor, John Lewis Childs, drove over to see me, in this same June of 1907, and I was able to show them the various birds of most interest—the purple finch, the black-throated green warbler, the redwings in their unexpected nesting place by the old barn, and the orchard orioles and yellow-billed cuckoos in the garden. The orchard orioles this year took much interest in the haying, gleaning in the cut grass for grasshoppers. The barn swallows that nest in the stable raised second broods, which did not leave the nest until the end of July. When the barn swallows gather in their great flocks just prior to the southward migration, the gathering sometimes takes place beside a house, and then the swallows seem to get so excited and bewildered that they often fly into the house. When I was a small boy I took a keen, although not a very intelligent, interest in natural history, and solemnly recorded whatever I thought to be notable. When I was nine years old we were passing the summer near Tarrytown, on the Hudson. My diary for September 4, 1868, runs as follows: “Cold and rainy. I was called in from breakfast to a room. When I went in there what was my surprise to see on walls, curtains and floor about forty swallows. All the morning long in every room of the house (even the kitchen) were swallows. They were flying south. Several hundred were outside and about seventy-five in the house. I caught most of them (and put them out of the windows). The others got out themselves. One flew on my pants where he stayed until I took him off.”