All thrushes except the robin are mottled on the breast, and the breast of the young robin is mottled for the first season, so the young can be readily told from the old birds. The robin is a great lover of angleworms. The young follow the mother while she gathers worms to feed them, and about the time for weaning the young birds I have frequently seen the mother bird pick up straws and sticks and offer them to her young instead of food. This may be done to discourage them from following her any longer, but I think it is more probably caused by a return of the nest-building instinct to the mother.
Some years ago I put a small bird box on a post in our yard, which was soon occupied by a pair of summer wrens, and all went nicely with them until a pair of English sparrows concluded to drive the wrens away and take the house for themselves, and for three or four days the wrens and sparrows were constantly fighting, but the wrens finally won and held possession of the house, although at a great sacrifice, for after the fight was over I raised the lid of the box and found the young birds dead, the fight evidently taking so much of the time and attention of the old birds that they allowed their young to starve. I removed the dead birds, and in a short time the wrens rebuilt the nest, and this time they closed the hole for entrance until it was scarcely large enough to admit my thumb.
The box was occupied by wrens for several years, but the entrance was never closed afterward, and I kept the sparrows from any further interference. In this connection I would say that, at least so far as the English sparrow is concerned, the male selects the site for the nest. When I shot the female the male soon returned with another mate, but when I shot the male the female did not return. The wren builds a very coarse nest, and fills the box nearly half full of sticks three or four inches long. As these sticks are carried in the birds’ bills by the middle, they would naturally strike the hole crosswise and could not enter, so when the birds get near the box they turn sideways and poke the sticks in end first, following in and arranging them afterward.
The merganser is a fish duck nearly as large as our common domestic duck, and is known under the names of sheldrake and sawbill duck. The male is considerably larger than the female; he has a jet-black head, and the black extends down the neck for about two inches, where the color changes to a pure white, the line being as regular and distinct as the painting on the smokestack of a steamship. The body is generally white, with black markings on the wings and some black on the body; the breast is a beautiful salmon color when the bird is killed, but if mounted soon fades to a pure white. The male merganser in full plumage is one of our most beautiful birds.
The female, besides being smaller, is of a grayish color, and the plumage and general appearance are entirely unlike the male, so that the sex can be easily determined even at a long distance.
This bird is common on the Champlain and waters of the Adirondacks. Like all fish ducks, it has a long, sharp bill, which is serrated with sawtooth-shaped notches strongly suggesting teeth, a fact which has given this bird much interest to our evolutionary scientists.
I have noticed a habit of this bird that I believe is entirely unique, and one I am surprised that our authorities on birds have not mentioned—that is, that the males are entirely migratory and the females are not. After the lakes and still waters freeze the mergansers go to the rivers which are open in some places on the rapids all winter. For more than twenty years I have seen female mergansers on the Au Sable River all winter, and I have frequently seen them on the other Adirondack rivers; but I have never seen a male merganser in the winter, and in the late fall the males and females gather in separate flocks, and when the male mergansers appear in the spring they are always in flocks by themselves.
I think the merganser lives entirely on fish, and it is surprising to one who has made no observations on the subject to know what an enormous number of young fish a flock of these ducks will destroy in a season. I quote the following from my notebook: “October 13, 1882, killed fish duck (female merganser) in Slush Pond, and found in her throat and stomach one pickerel, four black bass, and eleven sun perch. Bob (my brother) present. October 18, 1882, killed same kind of duck on Lake Champlain, and took out of her sixty small perch. James R. Graves present.”
Our most valuable game bird is the ruffed grouse or partridge. He stays with us all the time. He is a strong, swift flier, and taxes the nerve and skill of the sportsman to a high degree, and to bring down a partridge under full wing in the evergreens in November sends a thrill of delight through one’s veins.
The partridge is a gallinaceous bird, and the young leave the nest as soon as hatched, running around with the mother like chickens. Upon the approach of danger the young hide themselves under the leaves in an incredibly short time, and the mother flutters off with an apparently broken wing, keeping just out of reach to lure you away from the hiding place of her young. This ruse is employed by many birds, but in none, so far as I know, to as large an extent as the partridge. Naturally a very timid bird, the partridge will put up quite a bluff for a fight in defense of her young, and on two occasions I knew a partridge to show fight without any young. Experience has satisfied me that a partridge knows enough to try and get a tree between himself and the huntsman, and to keep it there until he is out of range.