Little Brothers of the Air Part 12

After the morning of our happy discovery the cuckoo path became part of our regular route home from the woods. Our first care was to dispel the fears of the bird, and accustom her to seeing us, so for several days we pa.s.sed her without pausing, though we looked at her and spoke to her in low tones as we went by.

Three times she flew at sight of us, but on the fourth morning she remained, though with tail straight up and ready for instant flight. But finding that we did not disturb her, she calmed down, and became so fearless that she did not move nor appear agitated when at last we did stop before her door, spoke to her, and identified her as the black-billed cuckoo.

On the eighth day of our visits it happened that I went to the woods alone. I found the bird at home, as usual, and armed with an opera-gla.s.s, I placed myself at some distance to watch her. Half an hour pa.s.sed before she stirred a feather, but I was not lonely. A mourning-warbler came about, eating and singing alternately, after the manner of his kind, and the pretty trill of the black-throated green warbler came out of the woods. Then a crow mamma created a diversion by helping herself to an egg for her baby's breakfast, when a robin and a vireo--curious pair!--took after her with loud cries of indignation and reproach.

When this excitement was over, the trio had disappeared in the woods, and silence had fallen upon us again, I heard the cuckoo call at a little distance, and in a moment the bird himself alighted on a twig three feet above the nest. He was a beauty, but he appeared greatly excited. He threw up his tail till it pointed to the sky over his head, then let it slowly drop to the horizontal position. This he did three times, while he looked down upon his household, so absorbed that he did not see me at all.

Then the patient sitter vacated her post, and he flew down to the nest.

The top was hidden by leaves, so that I cannot positively affirm that he sat on the eggs, but it is certain that he remained perfectly silent and motionless there for forty-five minutes. Then I caught sight of Madam returning. She came in from the woods, behind and at the level of the nest; there was a moment's flutter of wings, and I saw that her mate was gone, and she in her usual place.

The next day there was a change in the programme. It happened that I arrived when the mother was away, and the head of the household in charge. No sooner did I appear on the path than he flew off the nest with great hustle, thus betraying himself at once; but he did not desert his post of protector. He perched on a branch somewhat higher than my head, and five or six feet away, and began calling, a low "coo-oo." With every cry he opened his mouth very wide, as though to shriek at the top of his voice, and the low cry that came out was so ludicrously inadequate to his apparent effort that it was very droll. In this performance he made fine display of the inside of his mouth and throat, which looked, from where I stood, like black satin.

The calls he made while I watched him sounded so far off that if I had not been within six feet of him, and seen him make them, I should never have suspected him:--

"A cry Which made me look a thousand ways, In bush and tree and sky."

Finding that his voice did not drive me away, the bird resorted to another method; he tried intimidation. First he threw himself into a most curious att.i.tude, humping his shoulders and opening his tail like a fan, then spreading his wings and resting the upper end of them on his tail, which made at the back a sort of scoop effect. Every time he uttered the cry he lifted wings and tail together, and let them fall slowly back to their natural position. It was the queerest bird performance I ever saw.

During all this excitement there sounded from a little distance a low single "coo," which, I suppose, was the voice of his mate. Not wis.h.i.+ng to make a serious disturbance in the family, and seeing that he was not to be conciliated, I walked slowly on, looking in the nest as I pa.s.sed.

It contained one egg that looked like a robin's, and beside it a small bundle of what resembled black flesh stuck full of white pins. This, then, was the cuckoo baby; surely an odd one!

On the third day after this experience we were fortunate enough again to find the nest uncovered. A second youngster lay beside the first, and the two entirely filled the nest. They were perhaps two and a half inches long, and resembled, as said above, mere lumps of flesh. After looking at the young family, we seated ourselves a little way off to wait for some one to come home.

The place the cuckoo had chosen to nest was one of the most attractive spots on the grounds, an opening in the woods in which, after the loss of the trees, had grown up a thicket of wild berries. The bushes were nearly as high as one's head, and so luxuriant that they made an impenetrable tangle, through which paths were cut in all directions, and kept open by much work each year.

In the middle of the opening was a clump of larger saplings, around the foot of two or three very tall old ba.s.swood-trees, part of the original forest. It was the paradise of small fruits. Early in the season elderberries ripened, and offered food to whoever would come. Before they were gone the bushes were red with the raspberry, and blackberries were ready to follow; choke-cherries completed the list, and lasted till into the fall. The insect enemies of fruit were there in armies.

Its constant supply of food, its shelter from the winds on every side, and its admirable hiding-places for nests, made this warm, sunny corner the chosen home of many birds. Warblers were there from early spring, heard, though not always seen. Veeries nested on its borders, woodp.e.c.k.e.rs haunted the dead trees at the edge, and all the birds of the neighborhood paid visits to it.

We had not waited long when the head of the cuckoo family appeared. He saw us instantly, and, I regret to say, was no more reconciled to our presence than he had been on the previous occasion; but he showed his displeasure in a different way. He rushed about in the trees, crying, "cuck-a-ruck, cuck-a-ruck," running out even to the tip of slender branches that seemed too slight to bear his weight. When his feelings entirely overcame him he flew away, and though we remained fifteen minutes, no one came to the nest.

The day after this display of unkindly feeling toward us we pa.s.sed down the cuckoo path, saw Madam on the nest, and at once determined to wait and see what new demonstration her mate would invent to express his emotions. My comrade threw herself down full length on the dead leaves beside the path, where she could bask in the sunlight, while I sat in the shade close by.

After some time we saw the cuckoo stealing in by a roundabout back way through the low growth in the edge of the wood. He was coming with supplies, for a worm dangled from his beak. He had nearly reached the nest--in fact was not two feet away--when his eyes fell upon us. He stopped as if paralyzed. We remained motionless, almost breathless, but he did not take his eyes off us, nor attempt to relieve himself of that worm. Still we did not move; arms began to ache, feet tingled with "going to sleep," every joint stiffened, and I began to be afraid I should find myself turned to stone. Still that bird never moved an eyelid, so far as we could see.

It was fully twenty-five minutes that we three stared at each other, all struck dumb. But Nature a.s.serted herself in us before it did in him. The sun was hot, and the mosquitoes far from dumb. We yielded as gracefully as we could under the circ.u.mstances, and left him there as motionless as a "mounted specimen" in a gla.s.s case.

The next morning we started out rather earlier than usual, half expecting to find Master Cuckoo grown to that perch. It appeared, however, that he had torn himself away, for he was not to be seen. The little mother, who was on the nest, had readily learned that we intended no harm, but her peppery little spouse learned nothing; he was just as unreconciled to us the last day as the first.

This time he tried to keep out of sight. First we heard his call far off, then a low "cuck-a-ruck" quite near, to which she replied with a gentle "coo-oo" hardly above her breath.

It was soothing, but it did not altogether soothe. He came up from behind us with another dangling worm in his mouth, slipped silently through the bushes to the nest, and in a moment departed by the back way without a word. Then we went nearer, looked once more upon the shy but brave little mother, and went our way.

We did not suspect it, but that was our last sight of the cuckoo family at home; the next day the place was empty and deserted.

I was smitten with remorse. Were we the cause of the calamity? Had the poor birds carried off the babies? Or had, perchance, another nest tragedy occurred? We looked carefully; there were no signs of a struggle. They had apparently flown in peace. Yet six days before one was still in the egg and the other newly hatched. Only two days ago the pair looked like tiny black cus.h.i.+ons covered with white pins, and not a quarter the size of the parents. Moreover, they had been sat upon every day.

In this painful uncertainty we were obliged to leave the matter; but although we saw no more of them, they did not pa.s.s out of our minds.

Every day we looked in the woods and listened for cuckoo voices, but every day we were disappointed, until about eleven days later.

We were walking slowly down what we called the veery road in the woods, far over the other side from the cuckoo's nest, when we heard a very low but strange baby cry in some thick bushes. It was a constant repet.i.tion of one note, a gentle "tut, tut, tut."

We were naturally eager to see the youngster, and we carefully approached the spot. As we came near, a cuckoo flew up, scrambled through a tree, and disappeared. Could it be a cuckoo baby we had heard?

In an instant the fugitive seemed to think better of her intention to fly. Perhaps she was conscience-smitten for deserting the little one, for she returned in plain sight, though at some distance. She began at once calling and posturing, clearly for our benefit. We, of course, understood her tactics. She wished to draw us away from the neighborhood of her infant, and as it was impossible to penetrate the thicket, and we did not enjoy torturing an anxious mother, we decided to yield to her wishes, and see what she would do.

She cried every moment, "tut, tut, tut," in a low tone, and ten or twelve times repeated. At the same time she lifted her long tail, and slowly let it fall, with a beautiful and graceful motion. She crouched on the branch, and put her head down to it, then suddenly rose and threw up her head and tail, making herself as conspicuous and as remarkable as she could. We moved a little toward her. That encouraged her to go on; and easily, in a sort of careless, inconsequent way, she hopped to the next branch farther. So we let ourselves be drawn away, she keeping up all the time the low call, while the infant, which we are sure was there, had become utterly silent.

She was a beautiful creature, a picture of grace; and when she had beguiled us some distance away from where we heard the baby-cry, she suddenly slipped behind a branch and was gone; and we felt repaid for missing the young one by the beautiful exhibition she had made of herself. We never saw her again.

XXI.

TWO LITTLE DRUMMERS.

Last summer I made the acquaintance of an outlaw; an unfortunate fellow-creature under the ban of condemnation, burdened with an opprobrious name, and by general consent given over to the tender mercies of any vagabond who chooses to torture him or take his life. One would naturally sympathize with the "under dog," but when, instead of one of his peers as opponent, a poor little fellow, eight inches long, has arrayed against him the whole human race, with all its devices for catching and killing, his chances for life and the pursuit of happiness are so small that any lover of justice must be roused to his defense, if defense be possible.

The individual of whom I speak is, properly, the yellow-bellied woodp.e.c.k.e.r, though he is more commonly known as the sapsucker, in some places the squealing sapsucker; and I hailed with joy his presence in a certain protected bit of woods, a little paradise for birds and bird lovers, where, if anywhere, he could be studied. There is some propriety in applying to him the strange epithet "squealing," I must allow, for the bird has a peculiar voice, nasal enough for the conventional Brother Jonathan; but "sapsucker" is, in the opinion of many who have studied his ways, undeserved. Dr. Merriam, even while admitting that the birds do taste the sap, says positively, "It is my firm belief that their chief object in making these holes is to secure the insects which gather about them."

My introduction to the subject of my study took place just after sundown on a beautiful June evening. We were riding up from the railway station, three miles away. The horses had climbed to the top of the last hill, and trotted gayly through a belt of fragrant woods which reached like an arm around from the forest behind, as if lovingly inclosing the attractive scene,--a pleasant, old-fas.h.i.+oned homestead, with ample lawn sloping down toward the valley we had left, and looking away over low hills to the apparently unbroken forests of the Adirondacks.

At this moment there arose a loud, strange cry, of distress it seemed, and I turned hastily to see a black and white bird, with bright red crown and throat, bounding straight up the trunk of an elm-tree, throwing back his head at every jerk with a comical suggestion of Jack's "Hitchety! hatchety! up I go!" as he joyously mounted his beanstalk, in the old nursery story. There was surely nothing amiss with this little fellow, and, knowing almost nothing of the

"Greys, whites, and reds, Of pranked woodp.e.c.k.e.rs that ne'er gossip out, But always tap at doors and gad about,"

I eagerly demanded his name, and was delighted to hear in answer, "The sapsucker." I was delighted because I hoped to see for myself whether the bird merited the offensive name bestowed upon him, or was the victim of hasty generalization from careless observation or insufficient data, like others of his race. The close investigations of scientific men have reversed many popular decisions. They have proved the crow to be the farmer's friend, most of the hawks and owls to be laborers in his interest, the kingbird to fare almost entirely upon destructive insects rather than bees, and other birds to be more sinned against than sinning.

The first thing noted was the sapsucker's peculiar food-seeking habit.

One bird made the lawn a daily haunt, and we, living chiefly on the veranda, saw him before us at all hours, from dawn to dusk, and thus had the best possible chance to catch him in mischief, if to mischief he inclined. He generally made his appearance flying in bounding, wave-like fas.h.i.+on, uttering his loud mournful cry, which, though an apparent wail, was evidently not inspired by sadness. Alighting near the foot of a tree-trunk, with many repet.i.tions of his complaining note, he gayly bobbed his way up the bark highway as if it were a ladder. When he reached the branches, he flew to another tree. This bird's custom of delivering his striking call as he approached and mounted a tree not far from his "food tree" may be a newly acquired habit; for Dr. Merriam, who observed this species ten years ago on the same place, says that he "never heard a note of any description from them, either while in the neighborhood of these trees, or in flying to and fro between them and the forests." On his own trees the sapsucker was not in such haste, but lingered about the prepared rings, evidently taking his pick of the insects attracted there.

The array of traps prepared for the woodp.e.c.k.e.r's use was most curious, and readily explained how he came by his name. The clever little workman had selected for his purpose two trees. One was a large elm, and around its trunk, about fifteen feet from the ground, he had laboriously cut with his sharp beak several rings of cups. These receptacles were somewhat less than half an inch in diameter, and nearly their own width apart, and the rings encircled the trunk as regularly as though laid out with mechanical instruments. His second depot of supplies was one of a close group of mountain ashes, which seemed to spring from one root, and were thickly shaded by leaves to the ground. The elm would naturally attract the high-flying insects, and the ash those which stay nearer the earth, though I do not presume to say that was the bird's intention in so arranging them. The mountain-ash trunk was perforated in a different way from the elm, the holes being in lines up and down, and the whole trunk covered five or six feet above the root. These places were not at all moist or sticky on the several occasions when I examined them, and both trees were in a flouris.h.i.+ng condition.

The habit of the author of this elaborate arrangement was to fly from one tree to the other almost constantly. It appeared to lookers-on that he visited the traps on one and secured whatever was caught or lingered there, then went to the other for the same purpose; thus allowing insects a chance to settle on each while he was absent. At almost any hour of the day he could be found vigorously carrying on his insect hunt in this singular fas.h.i.+on.

It was too late in the season to see the sapsucker in his most frolicsome humor, although occasionally we met in the woods two of them in a lively mood, eagerly discussing in garrulous tones their own private affairs, or chasing each other with droll, taunting cries, some of which resembled the boy's yell, "oy-ee," but others defied description. During courts.h.i.+p, observes Dr. Merriam, they are inexpressibly comical, with queer rollicking ways and eccentric pranks, making the woods ring with their extraordinary voices. At this time, early in June, the season of woodp.e.c.k.e.r wooing was past. Each little couple had built a castle in the air, and set up a household of its own, somewhere in the woods surrounding the house.

The two storehouses on the lawn seemed to belong to one family, whose labor alone had prepared them; certainly they were the property of the sapsuckers. But the bird world, like the human, has its spoilers. A frequent visitor to the elm, on poaching bent, was a humming-bird, who treated the beguiling cups like so many flowers, hovering lightly before them, and testing one after another in regular order. The owner naturally objected, and if present flew at the dainty robber; but the elusive birdling simply moved to another place, not in the least awed by his comparatively clumsy a.s.sailant. Large flies, perhaps bees also, buzzed around the tempting bait, and doubtless many paid with their lives for their folly.

The most unexpected plunderer of the sapsucker stores was a gray squirrel, who lay spread out flat against the trunk as though glued there, body, arms, legs, and even tail, with head down and closely pressed against the bark. I cannot positively affirm that he was sucking the sap or feeding upon the insects attracted to it, but it is a fact that his mouth rested exactly over one of the rings of holes; and his position seemed very satisfactory, for some reason, for he hung there motionless so long that I began to fear he was dead. All these petty pilferers may possibly have regarded the treasure as nature's own provision, like the flowers, but one visitor to his neighbor's magazine certainly knew better. This was the brilliant cousin of the sapsucker, the red-headed woodp.e.c.k.e.r, whose vagaries I shall speak of a little later.

Nothing about the tri-colored family is more interesting than its habit of drumming,--

"The ceaseless rap Of the yellow-hammer's tap, Tip-tap, tip-tap, tip-tap-tip.

'Tis the merry pitter-patter Of the yellow-hammer's tap."

Whether or not it is mere play is perhaps yet an open question. The drumming of the sapsucker, one of the most common sounds of the woods and lawn, seemed sometimes simply for amus.e.m.e.nt, but again it appeared exceedingly like a signal. A bird frequently settled himself in plain sight of us, on one of the trespa.s.s notices in the woods, and spent several minutes in that occupation, changing his place now and then, and thus producing different sounds, whether with that intention or not. Now he would tap on top of the board, again down one side, and then on a corner, but always on the edge. Nor was it a regular and monotonous rapping; it was curiously varied. One performance that I carefully noted down at the moment reminded me of the click of a telegraph instrument.

It was "rat-tat-tat-t-t-t-t-rat-tat,"--the first three notes rather quick and sharp, the next four very rapid, and the last two quite slow.