In building their nest Mr. and Mrs. Ceryle select some high embankment where they excavate a small tunnel from three to six feet long, widened at the far end into a chamber perhaps fourteen inches in diameter. Here the silvery-white eggs are deposited usually on the bare floor. They frequently build their nest in a bank whose base is washed by the waters of a stream. On one occasion we opened a hole about half its length and could see eggs in the chamber. Bridging over the excavation with sticks and leaves, we returned in about a week, opened it up, and found the old bird on the eggs incubating. We replaced the sticks and leaves without disturbing the bird, and the following week the young were hatched. We thought our opportunity to photograph a kingfisher family had arrived. As the birds were too small to remove from the nest, we left them until the next week, when they were still too young to pose well. Upon our visit a week later, the nest was to all appearances undisturbed as we had left it, but an examination disclosed that it was empty save for the partly decomposed body of a half-fledged young bird. Whether the rest of the brood had fared forth into the world and this one, a weakling or cripple perhaps, had been put to death or deserted, or whether some dire fate had fallen upon the entire household, remains to us an unsolved mystery.
Another bird that is unprotected by our law makers is the green heron (Butorides virescens). For weeks we had been studying the habits of one of these birds and had about decided on the location of a blind or ambush for photographing. One day we saw our little friend rise from the pool where we had so often found him, and take to wing with neck stretched forward and legs backward, in one continuous line. He disappeared around a bend in the stream and presently we heard the report of a shotgun. I thought, perhaps audibly, “Good-bye, little heron, good-bye!” Sure enough, in a few minutes we met a party of three or four coming towards us with their guns, and a little later came to the place where the shots had been fired. There was the object of our study floating lifeless on the surface of the water, with wings spread out, not in flight, but in death. I deplored the untimely end of the little bird. While looking at his lifeless form I was startled by the appearance of a stranger, who seemed more than casually interested. As I talked with him about the death of the heron we heard the report of a gun several times, and I have no doubt each report rang out the death knell of one of our feathered friends. The stranger proved to be an officer of the law. I was anxious to have him prosecute the person who killed the heron, but he pulled out a copy of the statute that specifically permitted the deed. I was sorry to learn that such an act had been passed. As with the kingfisher so with the heron; it is of economic value in that it devours a great number of destructive insects, as well as crayfish, small water fry, and frogs.
Of the game birds, the ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus) is far superior to all others and well able to take care of itself against its most deadly foe—the breech-loading shotgun in the hands of a crack shot. He is more than a match for all comers. He outwits the most carefully trained setters, and only the old dogs after years of experience can take him unawares. At times, when flushed, grouse will alight on a limb of a tall tree, squatting near the trunk, where they remain unobserved, and this ruse frequently accounts for the dogs being unable to find the bird again. An “educated” bird will ofttimes “jump” from cover, make a bee-line for a tree, pass around it and continue its flight, thus hidden from sight until beyond gun reach. I have had a staunch point along a stake and rider fence—a flush, a whirr, leaves flying in every direction, and lo! the bird in flight passes between two rails of the fence and continues on the wing up the other side until out of sight. At times I have been fairly successful, occasionally making a “double,” then again, obliged to return home after a hard day’s hunt without a single bird. Hunting grouse in western Pennsylvania is a noble sport, one that requires strong endurance, a good dog, and skillful shooting to out-general the cunning, crafty fowl, who is a problem for most hunters. How it stirs one’s admiration to see the old dog, after “rhoding” backward and forward, take a trail, follow carefully, head erect, nostrils expanded, and every nerve at its highest tension in anticipation of a point! But the bird is running and ere the point is made, a whirr at the crest of the hill draws the eye, and behold! he is a-wing, sailing over the ravine to the other ridge.
Nest and Eggs of Ruffed Grouse
In the month of April the drumming of an old cock-bird can be heard a long way off, like the muffled beating of a bass drum, beginning soft and slow, then louder and faster until it reaches the highest pitch, and, receding, gradually dies away in the distance. He continues his love call, as some think it, for a considerable time, and if you approach carefully you may see him on an old log, strutting about like a pea-fowl, his tail expanded, erect, and in a semicircle, his head thrown back and his glossy black ruffs spread to their full extent, like the crimped and fluted adornment of the days of “Queen Bess.” About the middle of May he does not drum so much, for the courtship is over and his lady is “sitting” on the nest beside some old log, where she lays as many as fifteen creamy-white eggs in a little depression lined with a few dried leaves and grass. Their color harmonizes so nicely with the surroundings that it is almost impossible to see them. Grouse seem to understand the law of protective coloration, and will not flush from the nest until they are sure they have been discovered. Whether deliberately, I do not pretend to say, but frequently, as she rises from the nest, the hen grouse with her wings stirs the leaves so that they fall upon and partly conceal the eggs. When once disturbed she will not let you get so close again. As soon as the young are hatched they will run to hide, while the mother bird is feigning all kinds of decrepitude to attract your attention from the cute little brownish fluffs of feather scampering here and there for cover. I once knew a farmer boy who found a nest, took the eggs home, and put them under a hen. In due time they hatched out. How pretty, cute, and interesting were the little birds, and how the foster-mother strutted about, undoubtedly proud of her chicks! But ere long the little creatures, wild by nature, died for want of proper food and the maternal care required by their kind.
Quite different from the grouse in many respects is the other member of the same family, the bobwhite (Colinus virginianus), the first a woodland bird, the other a dweller in the fields. It is fascinating to follow a well trained dog as he jumps the rail fence, and if the wind is not favorable, slowly and carefully follows the fence line for fear of flushing the covey. When he gets to windward he increases his gait and “rhodes” backward and forward through the stubble until he gets a whiff of the odor so familiar to the experienced dog; then according to the strength of the scent he puts on the brakes. I have seen old Fan stop so suddenly that she turned a somersault, then recover herself sheepishly, if that term may be applied by way of accommodation to as brave a hunter as she.
