Citizen Bird Part 50

It took some time to work their way to the centre of the island. There the ground was drier in spots, between the little pools, and there were some high trees.

"Stop here," said Olaf cautiously, "and look well before."

They did so just as the crackling twigs startled some dusky shapes that flapped among the trees.

"The Herons!" exclaimed Rap, settling his crutch more firmly and preparing to watch closely.

As soon as their eyes became accustomed to the dim light, the party saw many large birds, some in the trees, some in the decaying underbrush, and others on the ground. Here and there among the trees were nests, looking like flat heaps of sticks. They were empty; but their sides, the trees, and the ground were all spattered and befouled with the chalky-white droppings of the careless colony. "Ugh!" s.h.i.+vered Dodo, who had a very keen nose, "what an ugly place to live in, and such a horrid smell! Please, uncle, don't these birds have dreadful headaches very often?"

"I think House People would have wretched headaches if they lived here--in fact, we must not stay very long; but it agrees with Herons, who are built to be the wardens of just such places."

"There are two kinds of Herons here," said Rap. "Some black and white, with a topknot, and some striped brown ones. Aren't the brown ones Bitterns? They look like one I saw in the miller's woods, and he called it a Bittern."

"The striped ones are the young birds, now wearing their first plumage.

Bitterns prefer to live in freshwater meadows, or near ponds. They are solitary birds, keeping house in single pairs, and after nesting-time wander about entirely alone."

"Isn't it very hard to tell young Night Herons from Bitterns?" asked Nat.

"It would be easy for you to mistake them, but the habits of the two species are quite different. The Bittern nests on the ground, in a reedy bog, not in the woods, and may be seen flying in broad daylight, with his long legs trailing behind him. But in spite of this, he is a difficult bird to find; for if anything is 'remote, unfriendly, solitary, slow,' it is the American Bittern, who often stands motionless among the reeds for hours."

"That is just what the Bittern did that the miller and I saw," said Rap.

"We were hunting for a calf--the miller's things are always straying away, because he never mends his fences--and this Bittern was among some very tall gra.s.ses and dry flags; for it was along in the fall, when things were turning brown. I don't know how I ever came to see him; but when I did, he looked so queer that he almost scared me, and I said to the miller, 'Whatever is that?'

[Ill.u.s.tration: American Bittern.]

"For a minute he couldn't see anything, and then he said, 'Pshaw! that's only a Bittern; but I do wish I had my gun.'

"'Why doesn't he move?' said I. 'Look at the way he holds his head straight up, like a stick. I'm going round behind him to see what his back looks like.'

"'He's a stupid thing, and thinks we don't see him,' said the miller. I walked round and round until I began to get dizzy, but that bird was all front, and all I could see was his striped breast and neck. Then I saw the miller was laughing.

"'That bird isn't as stupid as he looks,' said he. 'He turns around just as fast as you walk, so you won't have a chance to get behind him.' Then we heard the calf low, and we went away."

"That was a sight worth seeing, my boy," said the Doctor; "for it is one of the best proofs that birds understand the value of protection of color. The Bittern and the old reeds blended their colors together, and by stretching up its neck the bird adapted his shape as much as possible to the straight, stiff lines of the reeds, while by keeping his front parts toward you, the curves of his back were concealed. You might have pa.s.sed his hiding-place a hundred times without seeing him. But come--let us leave this Heron hotel, and find a way to the lane road."

The open air seemed doubly sweet and fresh, after the fishy smell of the Heronry. Dodo stopped under the first shade tree, and begged for her tables.

The Black-crowned Night Heron

(The Night Watchman)

Length about two feet.

Upper parts glossy greenish black in front, but ashy-gray behind and on the neck, wings, and tail; the forehead white, and two slender white plumes sticking out six or eight inches behind the head.

Under parts whitish, including the long throat or front of the whole neck.

Bill black, with greenish bare skin between it and the red eyes; legs yellow.

s.e.xes alike, but young very different, being grayish-brown above with many white or buff spots, and white below with black streaks.

A Summer Citizen of North America, useful in keeping down frogs and small reptiles, but too untidy to be a pleasant neighbor.

A member of the guild of Wise Watchers.

The American Bittern

(The Stake-Driver Or Thunder-Pumper)

Length from twenty-three to thirty-four inches, which is a very unusual difference in birds of the same species. Upper parts all freckled with brown, black, and tan color of various shades, as if sun-burnt, with a velvety black patch on each side of the neck, and the longest wing-feathers plain blackish with brown tips; top of head plain brown.

Under parts tawny whitish or pale buff, every feather with a dark streak, and the middle line of feathers along the whole throat white with brown streaks.

Bill blackish and yellowish; legs greenish; claws brown; eyes yellow.

A Citizen of temperate North America, but a very shy and solitary bird, who will not be neighborly and is oftener heard than seen in the bogs where he likes to live alone. He makes a loud noise that sounds like chopping wood with an axe or driving a stake in the ground with a mallet; so he is called the Stake-driver by some people, while others name him Thunder-pumper and Bog-bull. His body is about as big as a Hen's, and he is sometimes known as Indian Hen, though his very long beak, neck, and legs are not at all like those of a Hen.

A member of the guild of Wise Watchers, who keeps a sharp lookout for the reptiles and little fishes he spears with his strong pointed bill, and places his nest on the ground; the eggs are drab-colored, not pale green like those of most members of the Heron family.

A BONNET MARTYR AND A BLUE GIANT

"You promised to tell us about four Herons--please, who are the other two?" asked Dodo, when she had finished writing these tables, and had b.u.t.toned her book into the pocket of the long gray linen ap.r.o.n which the Doctor had taught both Olive and herself to wear on those excursions, whether they hunted birds, flowers, or b.u.t.terflies.

"Boys have pockets--how I wish I was a boy!" Dodo had said, after she had been at Orchard Farm a couple of days. "So do I," had echoed Olive; "there is always something to carry, and everything seems either to fall out of girls' pockets, or to be smashed flat."

"If you will only promise not to turn into boys, I will furnish you with pockets," the Doctor had said, and he had kept his word as usual.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Snowy Egret Or Bonnet Martyr.]

"Did I say four Herons?" he now asked. "Yes, to be sure; there are two more that will interest you--the Snowy Egret or Bonnet Martyr, and the Great Blue Heron or Blue Giant."

"Bonnet Martyr? What a strange name for a bird! Why do you call him that? Do they live about here?" asked Nat.

"They do not live so far north as this, though they sometimes stray through the Middle and Northern States. But in the Southern States, and Florida in particular, they used to live in vast colonies. Now they are being surely and quickly put out of the world by the cruelty and thoughtlessness of House People--the particular kind of House People who wear women's hats and bonnets.

"Once these Egrets covered the southern lowlands like drifting snow--for they are beautifully white. In the nesting season, when many birds are allowed some special attraction in the way of plumage, bunches of long, slender, graceful plumes grow on their backs between the shoulders and curl up over the tail.

"In an evil moment some woman, imitating the savages, used a bunch of these feathers to make a tuft upon her headgear. From that day the spotless bird was doomed to martyrdom. Egrets, as the plumes are called like the birds themselves, became a fas.h.i.+onable tr.i.m.m.i.n.g for bonnets and have continued so to this day, in spite of law and argument; for many women seem to be savages still, notwithstanding their fine clothes and other signs of civilization.

"These Herons only wear their beautiful plumes in the nesting season, when it is the height of cruelty to kill birds of any kind, and this is what happens: When the nests, which are built of sticks in bushes and trees above the lagoons, are filled with young, as yet too feeble to take care of themselves, and the beautiful parents are busy flying to and fro, attending to the wants of their helpless nestlings, the plume-hunters glide among them noiselessly, threading the watercourses in an Indian dug-out or canoe, and when once within the peaceful colony, show themselves with bold brutality. For well they know that the devoted parents will suffer death rather than leave their young in such danger.

"Shot upon shot rings out in repeated volleys, each followed in turn by the piteous cries of wounded birds, till the ground is strewn with hundreds of the dead and dying. Then the cruel hunters tear off the plume-tuft from the back of each victim, as the savage does a human scalp, and move on in search of another heronry, to repeat this inhuman slaughter of the innocents.

"But this is not all--what becomes of the young birds? They must either perish slowly of hunger, or be swallowed by the snakes that infest such places and are attracted to the nests by the clamoring of the starving orphans. Now do you wonder that I call this beautiful Snowy Egret the Bonnet Martyr?"

"I never, never will wear any kind of bird's feathers again," said Dodo; "and when I go back to school I am going to make a guild for people who will promise not to either. Are Ostriches killed for their feathers, Uncle Roy? Because my best winter hat has a curly row all round the crown."