The Children's Book of Birds Part 20

He has a large foot, which shows that he lives on the ground, and a very long claw on the hind toe.

The nest of the pipit is made by hollowing out a little place in the ground and lining it with fine gra.s.ses. Though on the ground, it is one of the hardest to find, because it is lightly covered with the dry gra.s.ses, and when the bird is sitting, she matches the gra.s.ses so well that one can hardly see her, even when looking right at her.

The birds eat insects and weed seeds, and go about in flocks. Even then they are hard to see, because when they are startled they do not flutter or fly, but crouch or squat at once, and stay perfectly still.

This bird is noted, as I said, for his song. It is said to be as fine as that of the English skylark of which we hear so much. Perhaps his way of singing makes it still more interesting. He starts up on wing, flies a little one way, then the other, all the time going higher and higher. So he climbs on up, up, up, in a zigzag way, till he is fairly out of sight, all the time giving a wonderfully sweet song. It is not very loud, but of such a kind that it is heard when the bird is far out of sight. When he can no longer be seen, one may still follow him with a good field-gla.s.s. He will sing without stopping for fifteen or twenty minutes.

Then suddenly he stops, closes his wings, and comes head first towards the ground. It seems as if he would dash his brains out against the earth, but just before he touches, he opens his wings and alights like a feather, almost where he started from. He should be as famous as the English bird, and will be, no doubt, when he is better known.

One of the things which make bird-study so interesting to us is that there is so much to be found out about our birds. European birds have been studied much longer, but we have still many beautiful ones whose manners and ways of living are almost unknown. These things are left for you young folk to find out when you are grown up.

FOOTNOTE:

[8] See Appendix, 7.

X

THE WARBLER FAMILY

(_Mniotiltidae_)[9]

THE gayest, the liveliest, and almost the smallest of our birds are the warblers. Some of them are not over five inches long from the tip of the beak to the end of the tail. Almost all wear bright colors, and the pair are never alike, while the youngsters are different from both.

But few of them warble. Then why are they named so? Well, I haven't found out; but we must call them warblers because that is their name in the books. Most of them have funny little songs of a few notes, which they jerk out every minute as they scramble about on the trees.

We have seventy species of these little birds in the United States, and every one is working as hard as he can from morning till night, for our benefit. For every one eats insects, and enormous numbers of them. Some scramble over trees and pick them out from bud and blossom and under leaves, others go over the bark, and others fly out like flycatchers.

Some of them work in the tops of tall trees, others work in the orchards, some in bushes, and some on the ground. But wherever they live, they are beautiful to look at, and bewitching to study.

Though they are little, they have plenty of spirit. I know of one kept in a room with several other birds, all bigger than himself. You might think he would be treated as big boys would treat a little one. But no, indeed! the tiny fellow made himself ruler of the whole party. He took the biggest bathing-dish, the best seed-cup, and the most desirable perch, and drove away any big bird who dared to claim either.

The YELLOW WARBLER, found all over the country, is often called the wild canary, for, as you see him fly, he appears to be entirely yellow, but when you get nearer, you will see that on his breast are fine stripes of reddish brown. His mate is all in yellow-olive color.

They are very sweet little creatures, and make one of the prettiest nests in America. It is usually in an upright fork of a tree, or bush.

It is made of fine material, among the rest a good deal of a gray silky stuff which gives it a beautiful look.

This bird is one of the few who will not bring up a cowbird baby. When the tiny mother finds a cowbird's egg in her nest, she builds another story on top of the nest, leaving the egg to spoil. Sometimes a cowbird finds the second nest, and then the warbler adds a third story. Nests have been found three stories high, with a dried-up cowbird egg in each of the two lower stories.

A strange thing happened once to a pair of yellow warblers. When the nest was done and the eggs laid, a storm threw it out of place, and tipped it over to one side, so that the little mother did not dare trust it for a cradle. So she built another nest in the same bush, and went to sitting on that.

One day a bird-lover chanced to see the two nests, one with the bird sitting, the other tipped partly over and left with the eggs still in it. To see what the birds would do, he put the fallen nest back in place, and made it firm, and then went away. The little pair looked at the nest, and had a great deal of chatter over it. It was their own nest and their own eggs, but the mother could not sit in two places.

Finally, the singer took his place on the restored nest. After that it was watched, and the two birds sat on the two nests till all the young were hatched, and then fed and reared them. When they were ready to fly, the happy birds had a big family to take care of.

Besides these tiny fellows that we call warblers, there are four bigger birds cla.s.sed with the family, who do not look or act like warblers.

They are the golden-crowned thrush or oven-bird, the water-thrush, the Louisiana water-thrush, and the yellow-breasted chat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT]

The OVEN-BIRD gets his name from the nest, which is shaped like an old-fashioned oven. It is on the ground in the woods, often on the side of a little slope. It has a roof over it covered with sticks and leaves like the ground around it, so that it is hard to see.

If you were to see this bird walking about on the ground, as he does, you would think him a thrush. He is something the same color, and he has a speckled breast like a thrush. His mate is dressed in the same way, and they have a dull yellowish stripe over the crown.

He is the fellow you hear in the woods, calling "Teacher! teacher!

teacher!" He is found all over the United States east of the Rocky Mountains.

The YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT is perhaps the drollest bird in North America.

He is a beautiful bird, nearly as large as an oriole, olive green above and brilliant yellow below, and his mate is the same. He is found all over the country south of the lat.i.tude of Ma.s.sachusetts. In the West and California, the chat is a little more gray in color, and has a longer tail. He is called the long-tailed chat, but a chat is the same funny fellow, wherever he is found.

He reminds one of a clown, he plays so many antics, and makes such queer sounds, hardly in the least like a song. He will whistle, bark like a puppy, mew like a cat, or laugh like an old man, all in a loud, strange voice.

Besides this, the chat is a ventriloquist, that is, can make his voice appear to come from some place far off, when he is near, and so fool us.

The chat has a way of flying up into the air with wings fluttering and legs dangling as if they were not well fastened on, and looking as if he would fall to pieces himself. He does not like to be seen, either. He prefers to hide in a thick bush, and make all sorts of strange noises to deceive one.

The one thing a chat hates more than anything else is to have his nest found. I have known a chat to desert a nest with three lovely eggs in it, just because it was looked at, though neither nest nor eggs were touched.

I found that nest myself, and I wanted very much to see how the birds live and bring up the little ones, so I was careful not to disturb anything. I hid myself a long way off, where I could see the nest with a field-gla.s.s, and where I thought the birds would not notice me. I sat there perfectly still for hours, till the eggs had time to get cold, and I saw another bird carry them off. No doubt they saw me, however, for they never came back to the nest.

FOOTNOTE:

[9] See Appendix, 8.

XI

THE VIREO FAMILY

(_Vireonidae_)[10]

THE vireos are a small family, fifty species, found only in America.

They are very quietly dressed in greenish olive hues, with hardly a bright color among them. They were once called greenlets.

They all live in trees and catch insects, going about over the twigs.

They sing as they go, like the warblers, combining work and play. Some of them sing almost without stopping, and it gets to be rather tiresome after a while. One or two of them even sing on the nest, which hardly another bird does.

The vireos make the prettiest nests. They are swinging baskets, hung between the forks of a twig, and usually near the end, where they rock in every breeze. They are not often very high. The birds are easily tamed by one who is quiet, and careful not to frighten them.