Citizen Bird Part 34

Female: plain brown above and whitey brown below, with a few streaks, including a sharp black one under her beak.

A pleasant neighbor and good Citizen, belonging to the southern branch of the Finch family.

A Tree Trapper and a Weed Warrior.

A Summer Citizen of the eastern United States, west to Kansas and north to Canada. From Kansas to the Pacific Ocean he is replaced by his brother, the Lazuli Bunting.

CHAPTER XVII

A MIDSUMMER EXCURSION

It was that wonderful week after the middle of June. The week that holds the best of everything; the longest days of the whole fly-away year; the biggest strawberries and the sweetest roses. Everything at its height; birds in full song; bees in the flowers; children in hammocks under the trees, and a Wise Man humming happily to himself as he breathed it all in.

"I don't think that anything nicer than this can happen," said Nat, swinging so hard in his hammock that he rolled out into the long gra.s.s.

"It doesn't seem as if it _could_" answered Dodo; "only here at Orchard Farm there is so much niceness you never can tell what is the very nicest."

The Wise Man laughed to himself, and then whistled an imitation of the White-throated Sparrow's call--at which sound Dodo promptly rolled out of her hammock and b.u.mped into Nat, who was still lying in the gra.s.s; then both the children sat up and listened.

"All day--whittling--whittling--whittling," whistled the notes.

"You ought to be further north building your nest," said Nat. "Don't you know that, Mr. Peabody?"

"It's Uncle Roy!" cried Dodo, spying him back of the apple-tree perch.

"How would you like to go down to the seash.o.r.e to-morrow, little folks?"

"There!" exclaimed Dodo; "you see there is more niceness yet!"

"I suppose by that you mean 'yes,'" laughed the Doctor. "Olive and I have planned to take the six-seated surrey, with a hamper of good things to eat, and drive down to the sandy sh.o.r.e where the river broadens into salt water. There is a house on the bay where we can have our dinner, and the meadows and marshes are full of birds--don't quite smother me, Dodo! Then in the cool of the afternoon we can return and have a picnic supper at some pretty place on the way, for to-morrow night the moon is full!"

"Can Rap go with us--for he hardly ever gets down to the sh.o.r.e?"

"Certainly!"

"How far is it?" asked Nat.

"About fifteen miles by the road, though not more than ten in a straight line."

"Are the birds different down there?"

"Some of them are; there is a great colony of Blackbirds I want you to see, for our next family is a very interesting one. It contains a harlequin, a tramp, a soldier, a tent-maker, a hammock-maker, and a basket-maker; and we shall probably see them all, sooner or later, but certainly one or two of them to-morrow.

"No, I won't tell you a word about them now. But go down and invite Rap, and tell him we will call for him by half-past six o'clock in the morning, because we must have time to drive slowly, stop where we please, and use our eyes." Early next morning the party set out. Five happy children--the youngest eight and the oldest fifty-eight--started from Orchard Farm behind a pair of comfortable white horses that never wore blinkers or check-reins. These big members of the party were human enough to look around as the children scrambled into the surrey, and then p.r.i.c.k up their ears as if they knew the difference between a picnic and a plough, and were happy accordingly.

They trotted down the turnpike a mile, and then turned into a cross-road bordered by hay-fields almost ready for cutting. Olive was driving, for she loved the old white horses. Rap, Nat, and Dodo sat in the middle seat, and the Doctor behind.

"Please, Doctor, what is the name of the Bird family we are going to visit?" asked Rap.

"The family of the Blackbirds and Orioles; but it has a Latin name, _Icteridae_, when it walks in the procession."

"Listen! listen!" cried Dodo. "Oh, Olive, do stop; there's some kind of a bird on top of those bars that is singing as if he had started and couldn't stop, and I'm sure his voice will fly away from him in a minute!"

Olive said "whoa" immediately.

"It's only a Bobolink!" said Rap, as the bird spread his wings and soared into the air still singing, leaving a little stream of music behind him, as a dancing canoe leaves a train of ripples in the water.

"It is a Bobolink, surely," said the Doctor, "and not 'only a Bobolink,'

but the very bird we should be most glad to see--the first of the Blackbird and Oriole family--the harlequin in his summer livery."

THE BOBOLINK

(THE REED BIRD. THE RICE BIRD)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bobolink.]

"Why do you call the Bobolink a 'harlequin,' Uncle Roy? What is a harlequin?" asked Dodo.

"Don't you remember that Harlequin was the name of the man in the pantomime we saw last winter, who wore clothes of all sorts of colors, changed from one thing to another, and was always dancing about as if he could not possibly keep still?" "Y-e-s, I remember," said Dodo, "but I don't think he was a bit like this Bobolink; for that harlequin didn't say a word, only made signs, and the Bobolink sings faster than any bird I ever heard before."

"Yes, he sings now; but it is only for a short time. Next month he will be dumb, and before you know it his beautiful shining black coat, with the white and buff tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, will have dropped off. Then he will be changed to dull brown like his wife, and keep as quiet as poor Cinderella sitting in the ashes.

"Do you see any birds in that meadow of long gra.s.s?" asked the Doctor.

"I don't see any in the gra.s.s," said Rap; "but there are some Bobolinks all about in the trees along the edges, and more of them up in the air.

Where are their nests, Doctor? I've never found a Bobolink's nest!"

"Their nests are hidden in that long gra.s.s, and their mates also.

Whoever would find them must have the patience of an Indian, the eyes of a bird, and the cunning of a fox.

"Mrs. Bobolink finds a little hollow in the ground where the roots grow, and rounds up a nest from the gra.s.s stalks with finer gra.s.s tops inside.

Then she so arranges the weeds and stems above her home that there is no trace of a break in the meadow; and when she leaves the nest she never goes boldly out by the front door or bangs it behind her, but steals off through a by-path in the gra.s.s. When she flies out of shelter at last, she has already run a good way off, so that, instead of telling the watcher where her home is, she tells him exactly where it is not.

"Bob earns his living these days by singing and going to market for the family, but he does both in a tearing hurry; for his housekeeping, like his honeymoon, is short. He must lead his children out of the gra.s.s before the mowers overtake him, or the summer days grow short; for then he will have to spend some time at his tailor's before he can follow the warm weather down South again.

"Twice a year Bob has to make the most complete change of plumage that falls to the lot of any bird. His summer toilet is so tiresome and discouraging that he retires into the thickest reeds to make it. Out he comes in August, leaving his lovely voice behind with his cast-off clothes, dressed like his wife, with hardly a word to say for himself, as he joins the flock into which various families have united. He even loses his name, and is called Reedbird, after his hiding-place. He grows reckless and says to his brothers, 'What do we care? If we can't sing any more, we can eat--let us eat and be merry still!' So they eat all they can, and wax exceedingly fat; the gunners know this, and come after them.

"Meanwhile, in southern lowlands the rice-fields, that have been hoed and flooded with water all the season to make the grain grow, are covered with tall stalks of rice, whose grains are not quite ripe, but soft and milky like green corn.

"Some morning there is a great commotion on the plantation. 'The Ricebirds have come!' is the cry--this being only another name for the Bobolink.

"Out fly the field-hands, men, women, and children, waving sticks, blowing horns, and firing off guns, to frighten the invaders away.

Fires are lighted by night to scare them, for the birds travel both night and day. The Bobolinks do not stop for all this noise, though of course a great many are shot, ending their lives inside a pot-pie, or being roasted in rows of six on a skewer. But the rest fly on when they are ready, leaving the United States behind them, and go through Florida to Brazil and the West Indies.

"In spring, on the northward journey, the rice-fields suffer again. The males are jolly minstrels once more, all black, white, and buff, hurrying home to their nesting grounds. They think that rice newly sown and sprouting is good for the voice, and stop to gobble it up in spite of all objections.