Oh! it would be so pleasant to fly and tilt in the air, to dash from twig to twig, to make long aerial voyages to foreign countries! Do I hear you say that? Wait a moment. Have you ever thought that even the long, bounding flight of the swallows and swifts, accomplished apparently without effort, may sometimes become a weariness to the flesh, especially when insects are scarce and their maws empty? Then, those long nocturnal journeys that birds make during the migrating season may often tax their strength to the utmost. Indeed, if you will listen to their feeble chirping, as they sweep overhead through the darkness, you will often detect a note of fatigue running through it, as much as to say, Ah, I wish we were at our journeys end! No, bird life is not all roseate. It has its humdrum and drudgery, its wear and tear, its prose as well as its poetry, its hard realism as well as its romance.
One of the tasks of bird life is the building of nests. It is true, the birds always do this work with a zest that makes it seem half play; but, after spending a day in gathering material and weaving it into the nest, scarcely taking time to stop for meals, I have no doubt the little toilers are ready to retire when bedtime comes. Have you ever watched these little artists constructing their nests? They first lay the foundation, which is usually made of rather coarse material, and is more or less loosely woven; and then they proceed to build the superstructure. Some birds, like the robin and the bluebird, will have their mouths full of material every time they come to the nest; while others, such as the dainty warblers, will return with a single fibre. Usually the bird leaps into the cup of the nest, and deftly weaves in the new material with its bill; and then shifts around with a quivering motion of body and wings, to give the structure proper shape and size. The nest must be made to fit the body of the bird like a glove, so that she may rest easily in it during the long period of incubation. The robin and the wood-thrush bring mud and clay; this they mix, no doubt, with their own saliva, which gives it its viscid character. The dainty, blue-gray gnat-catcher collects lichens of various kinds, with which she decorates the high walls of her compact little cottage. Does this tiny artist sometimes build nests just for fun or æsthetic effect? I watched the building of two nests one spring that were never used. With what a graceful touch the feathered dots laid the lichen bricks in the walls!
The hatching of the eggs must be a severe tax on the patience of the mother bird, for the principal part of this work devolves upon her. Sitting hour by hour upon the nest, looking out upon the wide spaces of air waiting to be conquered by her active wings; with nothing except hope to feed her mind; with not even a book or a newspaper to read,well, here is a chance to let patience have her perfect work. Then think of her uneasiness at the approach of every foe. It is work; it is not mere idleness. As for her lord, it may seem only like holiday sport to sit in the tree-top and sing all the livelong day, to beguile the weary hours of his sitting mate. But perhaps it often takes on the hue of work, too, when singing becomes a duty. Small wonder, if the choralists vocal chords often become jaded and sore, while there may be danger of bringing on throat or lung trouble. Besides, he must often carry a dainty morsel to his spouse when he would much prefer to eat it himself. Then, he must take his turn on the nest while his partner goes off for a constitutional to get the stiffness out of her joints, or gathers a relay of food and preens her ruffled plumes.
One of the most unpleasant tasks of the time of incubation and brood rearing is the warding off of enemies. And they are numerous. No feathered parents can feel sure that they shall be able to tide their little family safely over this perilous period. Have you ever seen the plucky wood-pewee engaging in a contest with that highwayman in feathers, the blue jay? How he dashes at the bloodthirsty villain, snapping his mandibles viciously at every onset, and sometimes pecking a feather from his enemys back! Nor will he give up the battle until the jay steals off with a hangdog expression on his face. The little warbling vireo is no less game when the jay comes too near his precincts.
One day in spring 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 king-birds nest. The king-bird swooped toward him, and alighted on his back. The next moment the two birds, the king-bird on the woodpeckers 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 woodpeckers back until he reached the other end of the meadow. I cannot be sure, but he seemed to be holding to the woodpeckers 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 dont fancy being converted into a beast of burden!
A large part of a birds toil, after there are children in the nest, consists in providing victuals for them. For this purpose the whole country around must be scoured, and sometimes long journeys must be made. I have watched a kingfisher flying again and again from a winding creek in the valley to her nest on a hillside nearly a half-mile distant, with a minnow in her bill, while the sun was pouring a sweltering deluge upon the fields. It kept her busy every moment to supply the imperious demands of her hungry brood in the bank. A common field-bird, which I watched one day for a long while, would often return to her nest every minute with an insect. Many, many times have I obeyed Lowells injunction,
Come up and feel what health there is
In the frank Dawns delighted eyes,
As, bending with a pitying kiss,
The night-shed tears of Earth she dries.
But even at that early hour the feathered toilers have always been ahead of the human wage-workers in beginning the labors of the day. The nestlings must have a twilight breakfast; and then, in the evening, as long as the gloaming lasts, they noisily demand just one more mouthful for supper.
Young birds are ravenous feeders. They seem to live to eat, and have no thought of eating to live. For an hour and a half, one August day, I kept watch of a nestful of bantlings, and during that time the parent birds were so shy that they fed their infants only twice. At last the little things became fairly desperate for food, springing up in the nest and opening their mouths with pitiful cries every time the breeze stirred the bushes about them. They were so famished that I hurried away lest they should go to preying on one another, for they would sometimes greedily seize one another by the bills or heads, and try to gobble one another down. Incidents like this prove that the old birds must be on the jump every moment to procure a sufficient supply of food for their young. Even after they have left the nest, the juvenile members of the family must be fed for several weeks. As long as mamma and papa will get their luncheons for them, they will make little effort to help themselves. I have seen the dainty little accentor feeding a great, overgrown mossback of a cow-bunting, which had to juke down to her like a giant to a dwarf to receive the morsel she offered him. What a drudgery it must have been to collect victuals enough to fill his capacious maw! Think of a toil-worn, care-fretted little mother feeding a strapping boy that will not work!
Moreover, adult birds often are kept busy for hours supplying their own craving for food. One April day a hooded warbler, natty little beau, near an old gravel-bank in the woods, was watched by me for an hour and a half. During that time he must have caught an insect almost every minute, and sometimes no sooner had he gulped down one than he made a swift dash for another. Had he not been so very, very handsome, I should have dubbed him a gourmand.
At certain seasons of the year what an active life the red-headed woodpeckers are compelled to lead, in order to satisfy the demands of their stomachs! With intervals of scarcely more than a few seconds, they bound out from a perch, seize an insect on the wing, and wheel back again. For hours this half work, half frolic is kept up. By the way, almost all birds sometimes engage in this flycatcher game of taking their prey on the wing. The Baltimore orioles, the bluebirds, the yellow-bellied woodpeckers, the crested tits, the chippies, the indigo-birds, and even the white-breasted nuthatches and English sparrows, to say nothing of many species of warblers, catch insects in this way.
Many birds have to scratch for a living, and that in a literal sense. There is the towhee bunting, for example. Instead of getting down on his breast, however, like the hen or the partridge, he stretches himself up on his legs as if they were stilts, and then bobs up and down in an amusing fashion, while he scatters leaves and dirt to side and rear. I do not know whether the robins scratch or not, but they often jerk the leaves from the ground with their bills, and hurl them away with a half-disdainful air. Several young wood-thrushes kept in a cage removed obstructions in the same way.
Even the merry bobolink, the Beau Brummel of our meadows and clover-fields, cannot spend every day
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony;
for the time comes when he must do the work of a staid husband and father, and help to take care of the growing brood. With all his pirouetting in the air, he carries in his bosom an anxious heart, as you will quickly see if you go too near his snuggery in the grass. The wild scramble in which birds of all kinds often have to engage, in order to secure a refractory insect, proves that there is ample room for the play of their best energies. Thus we see that the birds have plenty to do besides rollicking, singing, enjoying gala-days, and taking excursions to gay watering-places. Like their human brothers and sisters, they must toil patiently on through the every-dayness of this work-day world. They, too, may have their literatureunwritten, howeveron the dignity of labor.
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