Birds Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol 3. No 6, June 1898

This miniature Woodpecker is very social in its habits, far more so than other species, and is often found associated with other birds, in the woods, the orchards, along fence rows, and not infrequently in the cities. He is often seen in company with the White-breasted Nuthatch (See Vol. II, p. 118) and the Brown Creeper (Vol. III, p. 214).

Early in the spring the "Downies" retire to the woods to make their nests, preferring the vicinity of running water. The nest is begun about the second or third week in May, and consumes from two days to a week in building. The holes are usually excavated in dead willow, poplar, or oak trees, and the height varies from four to thirty feet, generally about fifteen feet. The entrance to the nest is about two inches in diameter, and the depth of the nest hole varies from eight to eighteen inches. The eggs are four or five, rarely six, and are pure glossy-white.

We know of no more interesting occupation than to observe this bird. It is fond of drumming on the stub of a dead limb whose center is hollow, and whose shell is hard and resonant. Upon such places it will drum for an hour at a time, now and then stopping to listen for a response from its mate or of some rival. At all times it is unsuspicious of man, and when engaged in excavating the receptacle for its nest it continues its busy chiseling, unheeding his near approach.

The Woodpecker is wrongfully accused of boring into the sound timber, and, by letting in the water, hastening its decay. As Dixon says: "Alas! poor harmless, unoffending Woodpecker, I fear that by thy visits to the trees thou art set down as the cause of their premature decay. Full well I know thy beak, strong as it is, is totally incapable of boring into the sound timber – full well do I know that, even if thou wert guilty of such offense, nothing would reward thy labors, for thy prey does not lurk under the bark of a healthy tree. Insects innumerable bore through its bark and hasten its doom, and it is thy duty in Nature's economy to check them in their disastrous progress."

THE NEW TENANTS

By Elanora Kinsley MarbleAnd now the little Wrens are fledgedAnd strong enough to fly;Wide their tiny wings they spread,And bid the nest "good-bye."

Such a chattering as greeted Mrs. Wren when she returned with a fine black spider in her bill. All the children talked at once. Bobbie alone never uttered a word.

"You naughty boy," exclaimed Mrs. Wren, turning to the crest-fallen Pierre, "did I not tell you to take care of your brothers and little sister? The idea of trying to fly before you have had a lesson! I have a good mind to whip every one of you," and the irate Mrs. Wren very unjustly did indeed peck every little head sharply with her bill.

Bobbie cowered in the nest much too frightened to whimper or even mention the injury to one of his legs which he had sustained in his fall.

Mr. and Mrs. Wren the next day proceeded to give the children a lesson or two in flying.

"My tail is so stubby," wailed Emmett at the first trial, "it brings me right down to the ground."

"Tho doth mine," lisped little Dorothy, "dess wish I had no tail at all, so I do," at which the others laughed very heartily.

Bobbie made a heroic effort to do as did the rest, but at the first movement sank back into the nest with a cry of pain.

"Such fortitude!" exclaimed Mrs. Wren when it was found one of his legs was broken, "not a whimper has the little fellow made since his fall. How heroic! How like my dear, dear papa!" and Mrs. Wren laughed, and then cried, from mingled pity and joy.

"H'm," commented Mr. Wren, "if Bobbie had remembered the motto I gave them before I left yesterday morning, this accident wouldn't have happened. Can you repeat it?" turning to the eldest of the brood.

"Be sure you're right, then go ahead," shouted Pierre, totally forgetting he had not heeded the rule any more than Bobbie.

"Yes, a safe rule to go by," said Mr. Wren, gravely stroking his chin with one claw. "Dear, dear," ruefully examining the injured limb, "now the the child will go stumping through life like his grandpa. I only hope," with a dry cough, "that he'll not turn out a rowdy and lose one eye, too."

"'He jests at scars who never felt a wound,'" loftily replied Mrs. Wren, who seemed never to forget a quotation. "For my part I am proud that one of my boys should turn out to be such a spirited little fellow. But there, Mr. Wren, the children are calling you from that bunch of weeds over yonder. Go down to them, while I fetch a nice canker-worm for Bobbie."

After a few days the lame Bobbie was able to leave the nest and go hopping around with the other children, adding his feeble chur chur to theirs. Mr. and Mrs. Wren led them from one place to another, always among the weeds and shrubbery where they were soon taught to earn their own livelihood.

"Moths, butterflies, gnats, flies, ants, beetles, and bugs constitute our bill of fare," said Mrs. Wren as they went whisking along, "together with thousand-legs, spiders, and worms. If we didn't eat them they would destroy the fruits in their seasons, so you see, my children, what valuable citizens we are in the world."

At nightfall Mr. and Mrs. Wren, with their brood, flew to the crotch of a tree, and in ten seconds every little head was under a wing, and every little Wren sound asleep.

"Well," said Mr. Wren one day, "the children are old enough now to take care of themselves, and we must begin, my dear, to build a nest in which once more to begin housekeeping."

"It will not be in an old tin pot this time," replied Mrs. Wren, with a toss of her head, "and furthermore, Mr. Wren, I intend to have entirely new furniture."

"Of course, of course," assented her mate, "whoever heard of a Wren raising a second brood in the same nest? We are much too neat and nice for that, my dear."

"We," sniffed Mrs. Wren, ever ready for quarrel. "I'd like to know, Mr. Wren, what you had to do with building the nest, I would, really! Humph!" and Mrs. Wren flirted her tail over her head and laughed shrilly.

"I brought the first sticks, my dear," he answered mildly, "and didn't I do all the house hunting? Besides, I forgot to tell you, that when looking about in April, I found two other apartments which, if the tin-pot had not appeared suitable, I intended to offer you. In order to secure them I partly furnished each, so that other house hunters would know they were not 'to let.'"

"Humph!" returned Mrs. Wren, though exceedingly well pleased, "I'll wager we'll find a Sparrow family in each one of them."

"No we won't," chuckled Mr. Wren "for the houses I selected were much too small for Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow to squeeze in."

"You clever fellow," exclaimed Mrs. Wren, pecking him gleefully with her bill. "I am proud of my hubby, I am, indeed," and Mr. Wren laughed, and hopped about, never hinting to his innocent spouse that all the gentlemen Wrens did the same thing every year.

The next day, while preening their feathers, and getting ready for a visit to the apartments Mr. Wren had spoken of, a cry of distress smote upon their ears.

"That sounds like our Dorothy's voice," said Mrs. Wren, her little knees knocking together in fright.

"It is Dorothy calling for help," assented Mr. Wren. "I left the children in the orchard. Come, let us fly over there as quickly as we can."

On the ground, under some bushes, they found huddled their frightened group of little ones, while above, on a limb of a tree, perched Mr. and Mrs. Jay, uttering at intervals their harsh cry of jay, jay, jay.

"Its our Bobbie," cried Mrs. Wren, aghast, after she had counted her brood and found one of them missing, "look at him fighting over there with that young Jay."

"That's it, give it to him," screamed the delighted Mr. Jay to his young son, "hit him in the eye, my boy, hit him in the eye."

Mr. and Mrs. Wren flew about Bobbie uttering cries of distress.

"Fair play, fair play," cried papa Jay, flying down almost upon Mr. Wren's back. "Give the young ones a chance, or – "

A loud, sharp twitter from the tree top caused Mr. Jay to glance up.

"My old enemy," he exclaimed, his crest falling at once, as a low crown encircling a pompon of orange-red showed itself among the green branches. "That tyrant, Mr. Kingbird. He's always meddling in other people's affairs, he is. I'd like to wring his neck. Come, Mrs. Jay; come, my son," he screamed, and off they flew to boast of the victory among their neighbors.

"I hope your little boy is not much hurt," said Mr. Kingbird rather pompously, "I arrived just in the nick of time, I think."

"Oh, my Bobby," wailed Mrs. Wren, wiping the blood from his face, "that dreadful Jay has scratched out one of his eyes."

"How did it happen?" sternly inquired Mr. Wren, "tell me the truth or – "

Dorothy interrupted her father with loud sobbing.

"I – I was flirting," she stammered "just a little, with young Mr. Jay, papa – you know how handsome he is, and bold – when Bobby steps up, and he says – he says – "

"Well, go on, my little miss," said Mr. Kingbird, deeply interested, "what did your brother say?"

"He said," wiping her eyes with a corner of her wing, "that 'birds of a feather flock together,' and a girl with such a grandpa as I had should be ashamed to associate with the son of a robber and coward like Mr. Bluejay, and so – "

"And so young Mr. Jay pitched into me," interrupted Bobbie, "and I pitched into him. I'd a licked him, too, Pop," he added, flourishing his crippled leg, "if his old pa and ma hadn't come up when they did and told him to hit me in the eye."

"A chip off the old block, ma'am," said Mr. Kingbird, who had heard of Mrs. Wren's fighting papa, "a chip off the old block, I see. Well, good-day all, good-day. As your son wisely says 'birds of a feather flock together,' and it wouldn't look well, you know, for a person of my aristocratic appearance to be seen in such humble company. So good-day, good-day," and off the pompous fellow flew leaving Mr. and Mrs Wren decidedly angry though grateful.

Another week found the pair building a nest in the cavity of a maple tree near the study window. To the sticks and straws which Mr. Wren had placed therein early in the season, Mrs. Wren added spider webs and cocoons, lining the nest, or furnishing it as she called it, with horsehair and the downiest goose and duck feathers she could procure.

"There!" said she, when all was completed and the first egg laid, "Mrs. John can't sneer at our home now. No coarse chicken feathers, or stable straw this time, Mr. Wren. We will use the other apartment you chose for the third brood, for three we are to have this summer as well as Mrs. John. When we go south in November, our family I intend shall be as large as hers."

Mr. Wren made no answer, but, possibly being such an uncommonly wise bird, inwardly marveled over that imperious force, that wonderful instinct which made it necessary for them and all the feathered tribe to reproduce their kind.

Very carefully, one winter's day, Bridget removed the nest from the tin-pot and wreathing it in ribbons, hung it above her chest of drawers in the the attic.

"It do same," said she to the children, who prided themselves upon their knowledge of the looks and habits of the House Wren, "that in sthudoin the birds this summer I do be afther learnin' a lesson I wasn't expectin' meself at all."

"A lesson?" said they curiously.

"Indade! Its young ye's aire, me darlint's, to be thinkin' of the same, but sure its not meself that'll ever be forgetten the patience, ingenuity, industhry, and conjoogal love of the wee pair. Faith but it was a purty sight. Dumb animals indade! Niver sphake to me of dumb animals, for be St. Patrick, if them two blessed little crathers didn't talk, schold, make love, and sing in a langwidge all their own, then me grandfather's name wasn't Dinnis, and I'm not Bridget O'Flaherty, at all, at all."

[THE END.]

THE OLD SQUAW DUCK

HERE is an instance where the female is the head of the family indeed, for by common consent the name includes the male of this species. It has numerous other names, however, as Old Wife, South-Southerly, Long-tailed Duck, Swallow-tailed Duck, Old Injun (Massachusetts and Connecticut;) Old Molly, Old Billy, Scolder, (New Hampshire and Massachusetts.)

The habitat of the Old Squaw is the northern hemisphere; in America, south in winter to nearly the southern border of the United States. It is distributed throughout the northern portions of the globe, but makes its summer home in Arctic regions. George Harlow Clarke, Naturalist, Peary Polar Expedition, in a recent article mentioned that, "in June the Old Squaw's clanging call resounded everywhere along shore, and the birds themselves were often perceived gliding to and fro amid the ice cakes drifting with the tide between the main ice-floe and the land." It is a resident in Greenland and breeds in various places in Iceland. The nests are made on the margins of lakes or ponds, among low bushes or tall grass, are constructed of grasses, and generally, but not always, warmly lined with down and feathers. The eggs are from six to twelve in number. In the United States the Long-tail is found only in winter. Mr. Nelson found it to be an abundant winter resident on Lake Michigan, where the first stragglers arrived about the last of October, the main body arriving about a month later and departing about the the first of April, a few lingering until about the last of the month.

The words south – south – southerly, which some have fancied to resemble its cry, and which have accordingly been used as one of its local names, did not, to the ear of Dr. Brewer, in the least resemble the sounds which the bird makes; but he adds that the names "Old Wives" and "Old Squaws" as applied to the species are not inappropriate, since when many are assembled their notes resemble a confused gabble. Hallock says that most of the common names of this Duck are taken from its noisy habits, for it is almost continually calling.

Mr. E. P. Jaques, asks, in Field and Stream, "What has become of our Waterfowl?" assuming that their numbers have greatly diminished. "The answer is a simple one," he goes on to say; "they have followed conditions. Take away their breeding and feeding grounds and the birds follow. Bring back their breeding and feeding grounds and lo! the birds reappear. For the past five years waterfowl have been about as scarce in the Dakotas as in Illinois or Indiana. The lakes were dry and conditions were unfavorable for them. In the spring of 1897 the lakes filled up once more. For the most part the bottoms of the lakes were wheat stubbles. This furnished food for the spring flight and thousands of birds nested there. When the wheat was gone the aquatic growth took its place and for every thousand Ducks that tarried there in the spring, ten thousand appeared in the fall."

THE WHITE-FACED GLOSSY IBIS

Ibises, of which there are about thirty species, are distributed throughout the warmer parts of the globe. Four species occur in North America. According to Chapman, they are silent birds, and live in flocks during the entire year. They feed along the shores of lakes, bays, and salt-water lagoons, and on mud flats over which the tide rises and falls.

The beautiful, lustrous White-faced Glossy Ibis inhabits the south-western United States and tropical America. It is found as far north as Kansas, and west through New Mexico and Arizona to California. In southern Texas it is very abundant, and in some localities along the banks of the Rio Grande swarms by thousands. Dr. J. C. Merrill in May, visited a large patch of tule reeds, growing in a shallow lagoon about ten miles from Fort Brown, in which large numbers of this Ibis and several kinds of Herons were breeding. The reeds grew about six feet above the surface of the water, and were either beaten down to form a support for the nests, or dead and partly floating stalks of the previous year were used for that purpose. Dr. Merrill states that it was impossible to estimate the number of Ibises and different Herons nesting here. "Both nests and eggs of the Ibises were quite unlike those of any of the Herons, and could be distinguished at a glance. The nests were made of broken bits of dead tules, supported by and attached to broken and upright stalks of living ones. They were rather well and compactly built, quite unlike the clumsy platforms of the Herons. The eggs were nearly always three in number, and at this date were far advanced toward hatching; many of the nests contained young of all sizes."

The walk of the Ibis is quiet and deliberate, though it can move over the ground with considerable speed whenever it chooses. Its flight is lofty and strong, and the bird has a habit of uttering a loud and peculiar cry as it passes through the air.

The Ibis was formerly invested with sacerdotal honors by the ancient Egyptians, and embalmed and honored after death with a consecrated tomb, in common with the bull and the cat. The bird probably owes its sacred character to the fact that its appearance denotes the rising of the Nile, an annual phenomenon on which depends the prosperity of the whole country.

The food of the Ibis consists mostly of mollusks, both terrestrial and aquatic, but it will eat worms, insects, and probably the smaller reptiles.

The sexes have similar plumage, but the female is smaller than her mate.

SOME LOVERS OF NATURE

Our Music's in the Hills. – EmersonThe groves were God's first temples. – BryantNature, the vicar of the Almighty Lord. – ChaucerThe liquid notes that close the eye of day, (the Nightingale). – Milton.When spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil. – Bishop Heber.O, for a seat in some poetic nook,Just hid with trees and sparkling with a brook. – Leigh Hunt.By shallow rivers, to whose fallsMelodious birds sing madrigals. – Christopher Marlowe.To me the meanest flower that blows can giveThoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. – Wordsworth.To him who in the love of nature holdsCommunion with her visible forms, she speaksA various language. – Bryant.And this one life, exempt from public haunt,Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,Sermons in stones, and good in everything. – Shakespeare.And now 'twas like all instruments,Now like a lonely flute;And now it is an angel's song,That makes the heavens be mute. – Coleridge.There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,There is a rapture in the lonely shore,There is society, where none intrudes,By the deep sea, and music in its roar;I love not Man the less, but Nature more. – Byron.In June 'tis good to be beneath a treeWhile the blithe season comforts every sense;Steeps all the brain in rest, and heals the heart,Brimming it o'er with sweetness unawares,Fragrant and silent as that rosy snowWherewith the pitying apple-tree fills upAnd tenderly lines some last-year's Robin's nest. – Lowell.

THE ARKANSAS KINGBIRD

ONE of the difficulties of the scientific ornithologist is to differentiate species. This bird is often confounded with the Flycatchers, and for a very good reason, its habits being similar to those of that family. It is almost a counterpart of the Kingbird, (See Birds, vol. ii, p. 157) possessing a harsher voice, a stronger flight, and, if possible, a more combative, pugnacious spirit. It is a summer resident, is common in the western United States, and occasionally a straggler far eastward, migrating southward in winter to Guatemala.

Col. Goss, in his history of the birds of Kansas, one of the most comprehensive and valuable books ever published on ornithology, says that the nesting places and eggs of this species are essentially the same as those of the Kingbird. They are brave and audacious in their attacks upon the birds of prey and others intruding upon their nesting grounds. Their combative spirit, however, does not continue beyond the breeding season. They arrive about the first of May, begin laying about the middle of that month, and return south in September. The female is smaller than the male and her plumage is much plainer.

Mr. Keyser "In Birdland" tells an interesting story which illustrates one of the well known characteristics of the Kingbird. "One day in spring," he says, "I was witness to a curious incident. A Red-headed Woodpecker had been flying several times in and out of a hole in a tree where he (or she) had a nest. At length, when he remained within the cavity for some minutes, I stepped to the tree and rapped on the trunk with my cane. The bird bolted like a small cannon ball from the orifice, wheeled around the tree with a swiftness that the eye could scarcely follow, and then dashed up the lane to an orchard a short distance away. But he had only leaped out of the frying-pan into the fire. In the orchard he had unconsciously got too near a Kingbird's nest. The Kingbird swooped toward him and alighted on his back. The next moment the two birds, the Kingbird on the Woodpecker's back, went racing across the meadow like a streak of zigzag lightning, making a clatter that frightened every echo from its hiding place. That gamy Flycatcher actually clung to the Woodpecker's back until he reached the other end of the meadow. I cannot be sure, but he seemed to be holding to the Woodpecker's dorsal feathers with his bill. Then, bantam fellow that he was, he dashed back to the orchard with a loud chippering of exultation. 'Ah, ha!' he flung across to the blushing Woodpecker, 'stay away the next time, if you don't fancy being converted into a beast of burden?'"

Eggs three to six, usually four, white to creamy white, thinly spotted with purple to dark reddish brown, varying greatly in size.

QUEER RELATIONS

AN English terrier, despoiled of her litter of puppies, wandered around quite inconsolable. A brood of ducklings one day attracted her attention. Notwithstanding their quacks of protest, she seized them in her mouth, bore them to her kennel, and with the most affectionate anxiety followed them about, giving them, in her own fashion, a mother's care.

When the ducklings at length took to water, her alarm knew no bounds. "You dreadful children," her sharp barks seemed to say when they returned to land, and taking them in her mouth bore them one by one back to safety, as she thought, to the kennel.

The year following, when again deprived of her puppies, she adopted two cock-chickens, rearing them with the same care she had bestowed upon the ducklings. Their voices, however, when they grew older, greatly annoyed her, and by various means their foster-mother endeavored to stifle their crowing.

A hen that had selected an unused manger in which to lay her eggs, and rear her brood, found that the barn cat had also selected the same place in which to pass her hours of repose. The hen made no objection to the presence of Mrs. Tabby, and vice-verse, so that a strong frendship in time grew up between the two.

Things went on very smoothly, the hen placidly sitting on her eggs, while Mrs. Tabby came and went at will, spending at least half her time beside her companion as friendly as though she were a sister cat.

Vainly did the hen sit, vainly did she turn her eggs. All the warmth in the world would not have hatched a chick from the stale eggs beneath her.

Mrs. Tabby, however, had better luck. To the hen's amazement she found beneath her very nose one morning five squirming furry little creatures which might have been chicks but were not. Certainly they were young of some sort, she reflected, and with true motherly instinct she lent her aid to their proper bringing up.

The kittens thrived, but unfortunately, when still of tender age were deprived, by death of their mother. All but one of her offspring found comfortable homes elsewhere, and that one received the devoted attention of the hen during the whole of that summer.

"To see it going between the house and barn clucking for the kitten," says Dr. Beadner in Our Animal Friends, "was indeed a funny sight, and quite as remarkable to see the kitten run to her when she made the peculiar call that chickens understand means something to eat. At night and during the resting hours of the daytime, kittie would crawl under the warm wings of her foster mother; and the brooding hen and her nestling kitten were happy and contented, little dreaming and caring less that they were so far from being related to each other."