Birds and All Nature, Vol. V, No. 4, April 1899

"No dis-pu-ting a-bout tastes!" chirps chipping sparrow. He prefers a dress of sober tints and thinks nothing so durable as gray and black and brown. Though not a slave to fashion, he does freshen up a bit in the spring and puts on a new cap of chestnut, not to be too old fogyish. But he believes in wearing courting clothes all the year round. Young chippies put on striped bibs until they are out of the nursery, but the old folks like a plain shirt front.

No such notion has the barn-swallow. He believes in family equality, even in the matter of clothes; and having been born in a pretty and becoming suit, wears it all the time. When the cinquefoil fingers the grass, you may look for his swallow-tailed coat in the air; and if the April sun strikes its steel-blue broadcloth, and discloses the bright chestnut muffler and the pale-tinted vest, you will rejoice that old fashions prevail in swallow-land. These swift-flying birds have something higher to think about than changing their clothes.

It seems otherwise with some birds of the meadow. That gay dandy, the bobolink, for instance, lays himself out to make a sensation in the breast of his fair one. When he started on his southern trip last autumn, he wore a traveling-suit of buff and brown, not unlike Mistress Bobolink's and the little Links'. No doubt he knew the danger lurking in the reeds of Pennsylvania and the rice-fields of Carolina, and hoped to escape observation while fattening there. In the spring, if fortunate enough to have escaped the gunner, he flies back to his northern home, "dressed to kill," in human phrase, happily not, in bird language. Robert o'Lincoln is a funny fellow disguised as a bishop. Richard Steele, the rollicking horse-guardsman, posing as a Christian hero, is a human parallel. With a black vest buttoned to the throat, a black cap and choker, bobolink's front is as solemn as the end-man's at a minstrel show. But what a coat! Buff, white and black in eccentric combination; and at the nape of the neck, a yellow posy, that deepens with the buttercups and fades almost as soon. Bobby is original, but he conforms to taste, and introduces no discordant color-tone into his field of buttercups and clover. In his ecstatic flight he seems to have caught a field flower on his back; and if a golden-hearted daisy were to speak, surely it would be in such a joyous tongue.

A red, red rose never blooms in a clover meadow, and the grosbeak does not go there for his chief spring adornment. Red roses do bloom all the year, though none so lovely as the rose of June; and so the grosbeak wears his distinctive flower at his throat the round year, but it is loveliest in early summer. I do not know a prettier fashion – do you? – for human kind or bird, than a flower over the heart. I fancy that a voice is sweeter when a breast is thus adorned. If ever the rich passion of a red, red rose finds expression, it is in the caressing, exultant love-song of the rose-breasted grosbeak. The one who inspires it looks like an overgrown sparrow; but grosbeak knows the difference, if you do not. If that wise parent should ever be in doubt as to his own son, who always favors the mother at the start, he has but to lift up the youngster's wings, and the rose-red lining will show at once that he is no common sparrow.

That pretty fashion of a contrast in linings is not confined to the grosbeak. The flicker, too, has his wings delicately lined with – a scrap of sunset sky. I do not know whether he found his material there or lower down in a marsh of marigolds; but when he flies over your head into the elm tree and plies his trade, you will see that he is fitly named, golden-winged woodpecker. He makes no fuss over his spring clothes. A fresh red tie, which, oddly enough, he wears on the back of his neck, a retinting of his bright lining, a new gloss on his spotted vest and striped coat, and his toilet is made. Madame Flicker is so like her spouse that you would be puzzled to tell them apart, but for his black mustache.

The flicker fashion of dressing alike may come from advanced notions of equality; whatever its source, the purple finch is of another mind. He sacrifices much, almost his own identity, to love of variety; and yet he is never purple. His name simply perpetuates a blunder for which no excuse can be offered. Pokeberry is his prevailing hue, but so variously is it intermingled with brown at different times and seasons and ages, that scarcely two finches look alike. The mother-bird wears the protective colors of the sparrow, while young males seem to be of doubtful mind which parent to copy; and so a purple finch family presents diversity of attire puzzling to a novice.

But why, pray, should a bird family wear a uniform, as if a charity school or a foundling hospital? The gay little warblers are not institutional to that degree. An example of their originality is redstart – another misnamed bird. He wears the colors of Princeton College, or rather, the college wears his; and a lordly male privilege it is, in both cases. His mate contents herself with pale yellow and gray, while the young male waits three years before putting on his father's coat. The first year he wears his mother's dress; the second, a motley betwixt and between; the third, he is a tree "candelita," or little torch, lighting up his winter home in a Cuban forest, and bringing Spanish fashions to New England with the May blossoms.

When dame nature in the springFor her annual openingHas her doors and windows washed by April showers;When the sun has turned the key,And the loosened buds are freeTo come out and pile the shelving rocks with flowers;When the maple wreathes her headWith a posy-garland red,And the grass-blade sticks a feather in his cap;When the tassels trim the birch,And the oak-tree in the lurchHurries up to get some fringes for his wrap;When the willow's yellow sheenAnd the meadow's emerald greenAre the fashionable colors of the day;When the bank its pledges oldPays in dandelion gold,And horse-chestnut folds its baby hands to pray —Then from Cuba and the islesWhere a tropic sun beguiles,And from lands beyond the Caribbean sea,Every dainty warbler flocksWith a tiny music-boxAnd a trunk of pretty feathers duty-free.And in colors manifold,Orange, scarlet, blue, and gold,Green and yellow, black, and brown and grays galore,They will thread the forest aislesWith the very latest styles,And a tune apiece to open up the score.But they do not care to partWith their decorative art,Which must always have the background of a tree;And will surely bring a curseTo a grasping mind or purse,Since God loves the birds as well as you and me.

BIRDS THAT DO NOT SING

SINGING is applied to birds in the same sense that it is to human beings – the utterance of musical notes. Every person makes vocal sounds of some kind, but many persons never attempt to sing. So it is with birds. The eagle screams, the owl hoots, the wild goose honks, the crow caws, but none of these discordant sounds can be called singing.

With the poet, the singing of birds means merry, light-hearted joyousness, and most of us are poetic enough to view it in the same way. Birds sing most in the spring and the early summer, those happiest seasons of the year, while employed in nest-building and in rearing their young. Many of our musical singers are silent all the rest of the year; at least they utter only low chirpings.

Outside of what are properly classed as song birds there are many species that never pretend to sing; in fact, these far outnumber the musicians. They include the water birds of every kind, both swimmers and waders; all the birds of prey, eagles, hawks, owls, and vultures; and all the gallinaceous tribes, comprising pheasants, partridges, turkeys, and chickens. The gobble of the turkey cock, the defiant crow of the "bob-white," are none of them true singing; yet it is quite probable that all of these sounds are uttered with precisely similar motives to those that inspire the sweet warbling of the song-sparrow, the clear whistle of the robin, or the thrilling music of the wood-thrush. —Philadelphia Times.

THE HYACINTH

I sometimes think that never blows so redThe rose as where some buried Cæsar bled;That every hyacinth the garden wearsDropt in her lap from some once lovely head.– Omar Khayyam.

HYACINTH, also called Jacinth, is said to be "supreme amongst the flowers of spring." It was in cultivation before 1597, and is therefore not a new favorite. Gerard, at the above date, records the existence of six varieties. Rea, in 1676, mentions several single and double varieties as being then in English gardens, and Justice, in 1754, describes upwards of fifty single-flowered varieties, and nearly one hundred double-flowered ones, as a selection of the best from the catalogues of two then celebrated Dutch growers. One of the Dutch sorts, called La Reine de Femmes, is said to have produced from thirty-four to thirty-eight flowers in a spike, and on its first appearance to have sold for fifty guilders a bulb. Others sold for even larger sums. Justice relates that he himself raised several very valuable double-flowered kinds from seeds, which many of the sorts he describes are noted for producing freely.

It is said that the original of the cultivated hyacinth (Hyacinthus orientalis) is by comparison an insignificant plant, bearing on a spike only a few small, narrow-lobed, wash, blue flowers. So great has been the improvement effected by the florists that the modern hyacinth would hardly be recognized as the descendant of the type above referred to, the spikes being long and dense, composed of a large number of flowers; the spikes not infrequently measure six or seven inches in length and from seven to nine inches in circumference, with the flowers closely set on from bottom to top. Of late years much improvement has been effected in the size of the individual flowers and the breadth of their recurving lobes, as well as in securing increased brilliancy and depth of color. The names of hyacinths are now almost legion, and of all colors, carmine red, dark blue, lilac-pink, bluish white, indigo-blue, silvery-pink, rose, yellow, snow-white, azure-blue. The bulbs of the hyacinths are said to be as near perfection as can be; and if set early in well-prepared soil, free from all hard substances, given plenty of room, and mulched with leaves and trash, which should be removed in the spring, they will be even more beautiful than any description can indicate. When potted for winter bloom in the house, good soil, drainage, and space must be given to them and they must be kept moist and cool, as well as in the dark while forming roots preparatory to blooming. After they are ready to bloom they do best in rooms having a southern exposure, as they will need only the warmth of the sunlight to perfect them. The hyacinth does not tolerate gas and artificial heat.

There is a pretty legend connected with the hyacinth. Hyacinthus was a mythological figure associated with the hyacinthia, a festival celebrated by the Spartans in honor of Apollo of Amyclæ, whose primitive image, standing on a throne, is described by Pausanias. The legend is to the effect that Hyacinthus, a beautiful youth beloved by the god, was accidentally killed by him with a discus. From his blood sprang a dark-colored flower called after him hyacinth, on whose petals is the word "alas." The myth is one of the many popular representations of the beautiful spring vegetation slain by the hot sun of summer. The sister of Hyacinthus is Polyboca, the much-nourishing fertility of the rich Amyclæan valley; while his brother is Cynortas, the rising of the dog (the hot) star. But with the death of the spring is united the idea of its certain resuscitation in a new year. The festival took place on the three hottest days of summer, and its rites were a mixture of mourning and rejoicing.

C. C. M.

A QUARREL BETWEEN JENNY WREN AND THE FLYCATCHERS

C. L. GRUBER,State Normal School, Kutztown, Pa

FOR a number of years a crested flycatcher has built his nest in a hole in an apple tree in my yard, about twenty feet from a house constructed for the habitation of the wrens. Jenny usually showed no animosity toward her neighbor; but one spring, while nest-building was in progress, she suddenly seemed to have decided that the flycatcher's abode was in too close proximity to her own domicile and deliberately invaded the flycatcher's domains and dumped the materials of his nest on the walk beneath the tree. When the flycatcher returned the air was filled with his protests, while the wren saucily and defiantly answered him from the roof of her own dwelling. The flycatcher immediately proceeded to build anew, but before he had fairly commenced, the pugnacious wren made another raid and despoiled his nest again. This happened a third time; then the flycatcher and his mate took turns in watching and building. While one went out in search of building material the other remained on guard just inside the door. The situation now became exceedingly interesting, and at times ludicrous. Jenny Wren is a born fighter, and can whip most birds twice her size, but she seemed to consider the flycatcher more than a match for her. The first few times after the flycatcher made it his business to stay on guard, the wren would fly boldly to the opening, but would flee just as precipitately on the appearance of the enemy from the inside. After each retreat there was a great deal of threatening, scolding, and parleying, and Jenny several times seemed fairly beside herself with rage, while the flycatcher coolly whistled his challenge on the other side of the line of neutrality. The wren now adopted different strategy. She flew to the tree from a point where the flycatcher could not see her, then hurried along the limb in which the flycatcher lay concealed and circled around the hole, all the time endeavoring to take a peep on the inside without herself being observed, in the vain hope that her enemy might not be at home. Suddenly there would be a flutter of wings and a brown streak through the air, followed by another as the flycatcher, shot like a bullet from the opening in the tree; but the active marauder was safely hidden amid the grapevines, and the baffled flycatcher returned to his picket line, hurling back epithets and telling Jenny that he would surely catch her next time. In this manner the strife continued for several days. Then a truce seemed to have been arranged. Certainly the flycatcher was still on guard, but the wrens went about their work and did not molest the flycatchers except at long intervals. I thought the flycatchers had conquered; but one morning when I came out, there on the walk were three broken, brown-penciled eggs, nest, snakeskin, and all. The flycatcher had put too much trust in the wren's unconcernedness, and came back to find himself once more without a nest. But Jenny seemed to have desired only one more stroke of revenge, and the flycatchers finally succeeded in raising their family in front of the home of Jenny Wren.

1

When I said "Wilson" above I find I was slightly mistaken. I remembered reading it long ago in the first edition I possessed of this writer's works – the little four-volume set edited by Prof. Jameson for "Constable's Miscellany," Edinburgh, 1831, and taking down the book now, which I have not opened for years, I find the passages in question (Vol. iv, pp. 245 et seq.) form part of an appendix drawn from Richardson and Swainson's "Northern Zoology," and that the real authority is Audubon.

2

Note. – Further to the west and extending at least to Wisconsin, the following list of early woodland flowers may take the place of the above, blooming in the order given: Erigenia (or harbinger of spring), hepatica, bloodroot, and dog-tooth violet, or perhaps the dicentra (Dutchman's breeches) may come before the last.

The skunk cabbage, which is not a woodland flower, and therefore not included in the above list, is the first flower probably in all New England and the northern states.

3

Note. – In the West several conspicuous flowers, particularly the pretty hepatica, precede the cowslip.