Citizen Bird Part 18

"Because, for one reason, his feet have the three toes in front and the one behind, all on the same level; this makes him a perching bird."

"Don't all birds sit on a perch when they go to sleep?" asked Dodo.

"By no means. The perching birds grasp a twig firmly with their very limber toes and sharp claws, and put their head under their wing; but many others, like tame Geese and Ducks, sleep standing on the ground on one foot or sometimes floating on the water.

"The Thrasher is a Ground Gleaner, who spends most of his time in the underbrush, having a great appet.i.te for the wicked May beetle; but he does not live near the ground only, mounting high in a tree when he wishes to sing, as if he needed the pure high air in order to breathe well, and he never sings from the heart of a thick bush, as the Catbird does so frequently.

"But I am wrong in saying that he _only_ goes up into trees to sing, for there is no denying that he visits cherry trees to pick cherries, in spite of the fact that he is neither invited nor welcome. Yet we must remember that if he does like fruit for dessert he has also first eaten caterpillar-soup and beetle-stew, and so has certainly earned some cherries."

"Hus.h.!.+" whispered Olive; "our Thrasher is singing now in the birch tree, where you can both see and hear him."

"That's a sure sign his nest is not very near," said Rap; "for they never sing close by their nests." This Thrasher was clinging to the end of a slender branch, one claw above the other, so that his head, which was thrown back, looked straight up to the sky. He seemed to be half talking and half singing, as if giving directions to some unseen performer, then following these by two or three clear notes.

"What is he saying?" said Dodo.

"He is telling you who he is, and what he sees from the tree-top," said the Doctor. "Olive, dear, I am going to repeat to the children the jingle you made about the Thrasher." Though Olive then blushed and said it was only nonsense, the children were delighted with it.

"My creamy breast is speckled (Perhaps you'd call it freckled) Black and brown.

"My pliant russet tail Beats like a frantic flail, Up and down.

"In the top branch of a tree You may chance to glance at me, When I sing.

"But I'm very, _very_ shy, When I silently float by, On the wing.

"_Whew_ there! _Hi_ there! Such a clatter!

What's the matter--what's the matter?

Really, really?

"Digging, delving, raking, sowing, Corn is sprouting, corn is growing!

Plant it, plant it!

Gather it, gather it!

Thresh it, thresh it!

Hide it, hide it, do!

(I see it--and you.) Oh!--I'm that famous scratcher, _H-a-r-p-o-r-h-y-n-c-h-u-s r-u-f-u-s_--Thrasher-- Cloaked in brown."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Brown Thrasher]

The Brown Thrasher

Length eleven inches.

Above bright reddish-brown, with two light bands on each wing.

Beneath yellowish-white, spotted with very dark brown on the breast and the sides.

Very long tail--about five inches--fan-shaped.

A Summer Citizen of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains.

A famous Ground Gleaner and Seed Sower.

THE ROCK WREN

When the children had finished applauding Olive's poetry--or was it really the Thrasher's own performance?--the Doctor went on:

"We have seen that the West has one sort of a Thrasher in the sage-brush, and the East another, in our own gardens. I also told you that these birds were a kind of overgrown Wren; and before we call upon Mrs. Jenny Wren, I want to tell you about a bigger relative of hers that Olive and I knew when we were in the Rocky Mountains. He is called the Rock Wren--"

"Oh! I know--because he lives in the Rocky Mountains," said Dodo, clapping her hands at this discovery.

"Yes, that is partly the reason," resumed the Doctor, after this interruption, "but those mountains are very many, and varied in appearance, like most others: covered in most places with pine trees, but including in their recesses gra.s.sy meadows and silvery lakes. Some parts of those mountains are the home of the Rock Wren, but the little fellow is quite as well satisfied anywhere else in the western parts of the United States, if he can find heaps of stones to play hide-and-seek in with his mate, or great smooth boulders to skip up to the top of and sing. So you see the mountains and the Wrens are both named for the rocks.

"Do these Wrens look like our kind and act that way?" asked Nat. "Ours always make me think of mice."

"All kinds of Wrens are much alike," answered the Doctor. "They are small brownish birds with c.o.c.ked up tails, not at all shy about showing themselves off, when they choose, but they must have some hiding-place to duck into the moment anything frightens them, and some odd, out-of-the-way nook or cranny for their big rubbishy nests. Some prefer to hide in marshes among the thickest reeds, some live in dry brush heaps, and some, like the Rock Wren, choose piles of stones. Their wings are not very strong, and they seldom venture far from their favorite retreats, except when they are migrating.

"When your cousin Olive and I were in Colorado we climbed a mountain one day above the timber-line"--

"Do _all_ the trees out there grow in straight lines?" asked Dodo anxiously.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Rock Wren.]

"No, my dear little girl, trees don't grow in straight lines anywhere,"

said the Doctor, laughing--"except when they are planted so. The 'timber-line' of a mountain is the edge of the woods, above which no trees grow, and we see nothing but bare rocks, and the few low plants that cling to the cracks among them. Well, we had hardly rested long enough to get our breath after such a climb, when we heard a rich ringing song, something like a House Wren's, but louder and stronger, and very quick, as if the bird were in a great hurry to get through. But he wasn't, for he kept saying the same thing over and over again.

Presently we spied him, on the tiptop of a pile of stones, standing quite still, with his head thrown back and his bill pointing straight up. He looked gray, dusted over with pepper-and-salt dots on the back, and his bill was very straight and sharp--almost an inch long, it looked. This was a Rock Wren."

"He must have had a nest somewhere in those rocks," said Rap. "Wrens most always have nests near where they sing."

"No doubt he had, as it was the nesting season--June," answered the Doctor; "but it was growing late in the day, we had a long scramble down the mountain before us, and could not wait to hunt for it. Most likely, too, if we had found the very place where it was, we should not have been able to see it, for probably it was tucked away too far in a crooked pa.s.sage under a shelving rock.

"When we were half-way down the mountain we pa.s.sed a miner's cabin. He was at home, and we sat down on a bench by the door to rest. Thinking he might know about the nest of the Rock Wren,--for an old miner knows a great many things he never thinks of making a book about,--I asked him if there were any Wrens around there.

"'Wall, I should smile, stranger! Lots on 'em--more'n one kind, too--but mostly not the reg'lar kind they have where you tenderfoots live--bigger, and pickeder in front, and make more fuss. When they fust come, 'long about May, or nigh onter June, they act kinder shy like, but they get uster to yer, soon's they find n.o.body ain't goin' to bother with 'em, and stay around altogether, mostly in the rocks. Last y'ar there was two on 'em come nigh c.h.i.n.king up this shebang with trash they hauled in for a nest, afore they got it fixed to suit 'em, and had it chuck full o' speckled eggs. Then one of these yere blamed pack-rats tore it all up, and they had to start in to hauling more trash.'

"So you see, children, this miner knew a Rock Wren--do you know a Jenny Wren?"

The Rock Wren

Length nearly six inches.

Back gray, with fine black-and-white dots.

Under parts no particular color.

Some of the tail-feathers with black bars and cinnamon-brown tips.

A Citizen of the United States from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.