Upon The Tree-Tops Part 3

So said Wilson, but subsequent writers have said terrible things about him: that he catches small birds and impales them on thorns; that he delights in killing more than he can eat. Could these things be true?

Where, then, was the larder of this family? Such a curious and wonderful place I must see. I resolved to devote myself to discovering the secrets of this innocent looking family in gray.

[Sidenote: _A Th.o.r.n.y MONSTER._]

The nest where they had first seen the light was in a low spruce-tree beside a constantly used gate, not more than eight feet from the ground, and across the road was a tree they much frequented. Next to that, and overshadowed by it, was, as I now discovered, a th.o.r.n.y tree, "honey locust" it is called. Ominous proximity! I resolved to investigate.

Perhaps I should find the birds' place of storage. I crossed the track and went to the tree. What a structure it was! A mere framework for thorns, and a finer array of them it would be hard to find, from the tiny affair an inch in length, suitable to hold a small gra.s.shopper, to foot-long spikes, big enough to impale a crow. Not only was every branch and every twig bristling with them, but so charged was the whole tree with the "feeling" of thorns, that it actually sent out great clumps of them from the bare trunk, where there was not a shadow of excuse for being. They grew in a confused ma.s.s, so that at first I thought there had been a hole which some person had stopped by crowding it full of those vegetable needles, at all angles, and of all sizes up to the largest. On one side alone of the trunk, not more than five feet high, were eight of these eruptions of thorns. Could the most bloodthirsty shrike desire a more commodious larder?

I looked carefully, dreading to see evidence of their use in the traditional way. Outside there, on the telegraph wire, sat one of the birds, very much at home; it was the height of the season, and the country was swarming with young birds. Now, if ever, they should lay up for the future, and prove their right to the name, or kill to amuse themselves, if that were their object. But the closest scrutiny failed to reveal one thorn that was, or, so far as I could see, ever had been, used for any purpose whatever. There was not another spiny tree in the vicinity, and I came away relieved.

One more interview I was happy enough to have with my little gray friends. Coming leisurely along on my way home from the glen one noon, I saw two of them sitting on the wire of a fence beside the road. I had never been so near them, and stopped instantly to have a close look, and perhaps settle the question whether the black band on the side of the head ended at the beak, or crossed over the forehead and met its fellow.

I found, at this short range, that the light part of the plumage was covered with fine but decided wavy bars, which gave it an exquisite look, and proved the bird to be the great northern, rather than the loggerhead shrike (I couldn't bear to have my bright beauty called a loggerhead).

Very gradually I drew nearer, till I was not more than six feet from them, and could see them clearly, while they remained perfectly self-possessed for ten or fifteen minutes that I stood there. So near was I that I could see the white eyelids, and the tiny feet, which seemed hardly strong enough to hold them on their perch, and explained their preference for wires to rest on.

[Sidenote: _FEATHERS OR FUR?_]

One of the little fellows had his back to me, showing the beautiful white markings on his wings as they lie closed and folded together. Near the end of them were white lines making on the black feathers a figure resembling what is known in needlework as a "crow's-foot," perhaps an inch in width, and, a little above this, two dainty waved bars met like a pair of eye-brows. The marking was elegant in the extreme.

While I looked, the bird nearest me suddenly lost what little interest he had in my doings, turned his eyes downward, and in a moment dropped upon a big gra.s.shopper, which he carried in his beak to a wire near the ground to dispose of. Evidently, however, he was not quite ready to eat, for he deliberately lifted one foot, took the gra.s.shopper in his claw, and instantly ejected upon the ground a dark-colored bolus, I should judge half an inch in diameter, and more than twice as long. Then he returned to his gra.s.shopper and made short work of it.

This seemed only to sharpen his appet.i.te, for in a moment he dragged out from the gra.s.s something which startled me. Was it feathers or fur or a bit of old rag?

I could soon tell, for he was not in the least ashamed or secretive about it. He pulled it to where a fallen wire lay very near the ground, threw it partly over the wire, plainly as a hold to pull against, and then jerked off a mouthful, which he ate. Again and again did he fling it over the wire, for it soon slipped off, and it was perfectly plain that the object was to give him purchase to pull against. Then I could see small legs on the fragment, and a tail like a mouse's. While I stood watching this feast in progress, a call came from across the road. It was not loud, and it was of a quality hard to express, not exactly harsh, nor yet musical. It was instantly answered by the two on the fence, and the one I was watching dropped his fresh meat and joined his parent. Then I examined the remains of his meat, and found that it had reddish brown fur, a tail not so long but resembling that of a mouse. It was on the borders of a recently cut field of wheat, and it was doubtless some species of ground mouse, a common field mouse, I have reason to believe.

And that was the last I saw of the pretty gray birds that year.

III.

A THORN-TREE NEST.

June was drawing to a close; hermit thrushes and veeries had turned their energies to seeking food for hungry young mouths; rose-breasted grosbeaks and golden orioles, as well as their more humbly clad fellow-creatures, were pa.s.sing their days near the ground, in the same absorbing work; tree-tops were deserted, and singing was nearly over.

It was well, then, that I should leave my beloved woods, and betake myself to a barren country road, where, in a lonely thorn-tree, a bird of another sort than these had set up late housekeeping, a shrike.

The reputation of this bird of solitary tastes is not attractive. He is quarrelsome and unfriendly with his kind, and aggressive and malicious toward others, says the Oracle. His pleasure is to torture and destroy; no sweet or tender sentiment may cling about his life; in fact, he is altogether unlovely. So declare the books, and so, with additions and exaggerations, says nearly every one who takes birds for his theme. He is branded everywhere as the "butcher-bird," and it seems to be the aim of each writer to discover in his conduct something a little more sanguinary, a shade more depraved, than any predecessor has done.

Now, if the truth is what we are seeking, is it not desirable to see for ourselves, or, as Emerson puts it, "leave others' eyes, and bring your own"? If one can give to the task patient observation, with a loving spirit, a desire to interpret faithfully and to see the best instead of the worst, may he not perchance find that the bird is not the monster he is pictured? And though the story be not so sensational, is it not better to clear up than to blacken the reputation of a fellow-creature, even a very small one in feathers?

This thing it had long been in my heart to do,--to see with my own eyes what enormities the beautiful butcher-bird is guilty of. I left hermits and veeries, I said adieu to sandpipers and grosbeaks, and went to the village to abide with the shrike family. No more delightful mornings in the blessed woods; no more long, dreamy twilights filled with the music of thrushes and the singing brook; no more charming views of the near Green Mountains, gray in the morning light, glorious rosy purple under the setting sun; no more solitary communion with helpful and healing nature. My household G.o.ds must now be set up among people, with their cares and troubles, where the immense tragedy of human life is constantly forced into notice; and in no place in the wide world is there more tragedy in every-day life than in peaceful and pious New England.

[Sidenote: _THE RoLE OF REPORTER._]

Change of residence was not so simple an affair with me as it is with the birds; would that it were! I had to spend half a day packing, and another half undoing the work. I had to secure another temporary home, where certain conveniences to which we human beings are slaves should not be lacking, and with a family one could endure under the same roof.

All this must needs be settled before I could call on my new neighbors.

Time and patience accomplished everything, although the mercury was soaring aloft among the nineties all the time; and at last came the morning when I seated myself before the household I proposed to interview for the benefit of the readers of our day, who demand (say the newspaper authorities) facts and details of daily lives that were of old considered private matters.

On these lines, therefore, I proceeded to study my shrikes. What I discovered by watching early and late, by peeping at them before breakfast and spying upon them after supper,--what they eat and drink, how they behave to one another and their neighbors, what they have to say or to sing, in fact, their whole story so far as it was revealed to me,--I shall set down, nothing extenuating. Other observers may have seen very different things, but that only proves what I am constantly a.s.serting: that birds are individuals; that because one shrike does a certain thing is no sign that another will do the same; it is not safe to judge the species _en ma.s.se_. This, therefore, is the true chronicle of what I saw of one pair of loggerhead shrikes (_Lanius ludovicia.n.u.s_), in the northern extremity of Vermont, about the first of July, 1894.

The discovery of the nest in the thorn-tree was not my own. A friend and fellow bird-lover, driving one evening up this road, startled a bird from the nest, and, checking her horse, looked on in amazement while, one after another, six full-grown shrikes emerged from the tree and flew away. Pondering this strange circ.u.mstance she drove on, and when returning looked sharply out for the thorn-tree. This time one bird flew from the nest, which seemed to settle the question of ownership. The next day and the next this experience was repeated, and then the news was brought to me in the woods.

[Sidenote: _A LONELY ROAD._]

It was a lonely road, leading to nothing except a pasture and a distant farm or two, and the presence of a member of the human race was almost as rare as it was in the forest itself. On one side stretched a pasture with high rail fence; on the other, a meadow guarded by barbed wire. A traveler over this uninviting way soon left the last house in the village behind, and then the only human dwellings in sight were some deserted farm buildings on a hill a mile or more away. Not a tree offered grateful shade, and not a bush relieved the bare monotony of this No Thoroughfare.

But it had its full share of feathered residents. Just beyond the last house, a wren, bubbling over with joy, always poured out his enchanting little song as I pa.s.sed. Under the deep gra.s.s of the meadow dwelt bobolinks and meadow larks; from the pasture rose the silver threadlike song of the savanna sparrow and the martial note of the kingbird.

Occasionally I had a call from a family of flickers, or golden-wings, from the woods beyond the pasture; the four young ones nave and imperative in their manners, bowing vehemently, with emphatic "peauk"

that seemed to demand the reason of my presence in their world; while the more experienced elders uttered their low "ka-ka-ka," whether of warning to the young or of pride in their spirit one could only guess. A hard-working oriole papa, with a peremptory youngster in tow, now and then appeared in the pasture; and swallows, both barn and eave, came in merry, chattering flocks from their homes at the edge of the village.

About the middle of the long stretch of road was a solitary maple-tree, and about thirty feet from it, and just within the pasture fence, the thorn, and the nest of my hopes. Approaching quietly on that first morning, I unfolded my camp-chair and sat down in the shade of the maple. The thorn-tree before me was perhaps fifteen feet high. It divided near the ground into two branches, which drew apart, bent over, and became nearly horizontal at their extremities. On one of these main stems, near the end, where it was not more than an inch and a half in diameter, with neither cross-branch nor twig to make it secure, was placed the nest. It was a large structure, at least twice the size of a robin's nest, made apparently of coa.r.s.e twigs and roots, with what looked like bits of turf or moss showing through the sides, and why it did not fall off in the first strong wind was a mystery. Parallel with the limb on which it rested, and only a few inches above it, was another branch, that must, one would think, be seriously in the way of the coming and going, the feeding and care-taking, inseparable from life in the nest.

[Sidenote: _THE NEST IN VIEW._]

From my post of observation, the thorn-tree was silhouetted against the sky, for it stood on the edge of a slight descent. Every twig and leaf was distinctly visible, while the openings in the foliage were so numerous that not a wing could flit by without my seeing it. The nest itself was partially veiled by a bunch of leaves. What the view might be from the other side I did not investigate that morning; I preferred to leave the birds the slight screen afforded by the foliage, for since there could be no pretense of hiding myself from them, my desire was to let them fancy themselves hidden from me, and so feel free from constraint and be natural in their actions. I hoped, by approaching quietly and un.o.btrusively, by being careful never to frighten or disturb them in any way, to convince them that I was harmless, and to induce them to forget, or at least ignore, my silent presence. And it seemed possible that I might be gratified, for I had been seated but a few minutes when a shrike flew up from the ground and entered the nest, and, I was pleased to see, with no apparent concern about me.

For the next three hours I took my eyes off the nest only to follow the movements of the owners thereof; and I learned that sitting had begun, and that the brooding bird was fed by her mate. He came, always from a distance, directly to the nest, alighted on the edge, leaned over and gave one poke downward, while low yearning or pleading cries reached my ears. Without lingering an instant he flew to a perch a foot above, stood there half a minute, and then went to the ground. Not more than thirty seconds elapsed before he returned to his mate, the cries greeted him, the mouthful was administered, and he took his leave in exactly the same way as before. He was a personage of methodical habits. This little performance of seeking food on the ground and carrying it to his partner on the nest was repeated five or six times in close succession, and then he rose higher than his tree and took flight for a distant hill, looking, as he flew, like a fluttering bit of black-and-white patchwork.

On further acquaintance, I found this to be the regular habit of the bird: to come to his nest and feed his mate thoroughly, and then to take himself away for about half an hour, though later he fell to lingering and watching me.

Left thus alone and well fed, madam was quiet for some time, perhaps ten minutes, and then she went out for exercise or for lunch; flying directly to the ground near the tree, and returning in a few minutes to her place.

[Sidenote: _FEEDING HIS MATE._]

On one occasion I saw what sort of food the shrike collected. He had alighted on the wire fence, apparently to inquire into my business, when his eyes fell upon something desirable--from his point of view.

Instantly he dropped to the road, picked up a black object, worm or beetle, an inch long, and took it at once to his mate. Sometimes he carried his prey to a post, and beat it a while before presenting it to her; and one evening, somewhat later than usual, he was found industriously gleaning food from the hosts of the air, flying up in the manner of a flycatcher, and to all appearance with perfect success.

The loggerhead shrike is one of our most beautiful birds, clear blue-gray above, and snowy white below. His black wings are elegantly marked with white, and his black tail, when spread like a fan, as he wheels to alight, showing broad tips and outer feathers of white, is one of his most striking marks. He is a little smaller than a robin, and his mate is of the same size, and as finely dressed as he. The resemblance he is said to bear to the mockingbird I have never been able to see. His form, his size, his coloring, and his movements are, to my sight, in every way different from those of the southern bird.

The manners of the shrike are as fine as one would expect from so distinguished-looking a personage, dignified, reposeful, and unusually silent. I have seen him, once or twice, flirt his half-opened tail and jerk his wings, but he rarely showed even so much impatience or restlessness. He sat on the fence and regarded me, or he drove away an intrusive neighbor, with the same calm and serious air with which he did everything. I have heard of pranks and fantastic performances, of strange, uncouth, and absurd cries, and of course it is impossible to say what vagaries he might have indulged in if he had thought himself un.o.bserved, but in many hours and days of close study of this bird I saw nothing of the kind. The only utterance I heard from him, excepting his song, of which I shall speak presently, was a rattling cry with which he pursued an intruder, and a soft, coaxing "yeap" when he came to the nest and found his mate absent.

One of the most prominent traits of this bird, as we find him depicted in the books and the popular writings, is his quarrelsome and cruel disposition; and "brigand," "a.s.sa.s.sin," "murderer," and "butcher" are names commonly applied to him.

[Sidenote: _FRIENDLY RELATIONS._]

I watched the shrike several hours daily for weeks, and from the first I was every moment on the alert for the slightest manifestation of these characteristics; and what did I find out? First as to his quarrelsome disposition, his unfriendliness with his own species. I have already spoken of the amicable a.s.sociation, in the very nesting-tree, of half a dozen of the birds, as reported by a trustworthy and experienced observer. On one occasion, somewhat later, I saw an exhibition of a similar friendliness among four adult shrikes. They were frolicking about another thorn-tree in the same pasture, in the most peaceful manner; and while I looked, one of them picked up a tidbit from the ground and flew to the nest I was watching, thus proving that the nesting-bird was one of the group. At least twice afterward, when silently approaching the nest, I found two other shrikes hopping about with the one I was studying, on the ground, almost under the tree. On my appearance the strangers flew, and the nest-owner went up to his mate with an offering. We do not think of calling the robin or bluebird particularly quarrelsome, yet fancy one of these birds allowing another of his species to come to his home-tree! Every close observer of bird-ways knows that it is apparently the first article in the avian creed to keep every other bird away from the nest.

And how did the terrible "brigand" treat his neighbors? The robin, indeed, he drove away, but meadow larks sang and "sputtered" at their pleasure, not only beside him on the fence, but on his own small tree; goldfinches flew over, singing and calling, and no notice was taken of them; sparrows hopped about among the branches of the thorn at their discretion; a chickadee one day made searching examination of nearly every twig and leaf, going close to and over the nest, where the sitting bird must have seen him, yet not a peep arose. Sometimes, when madam left her nest for refreshment, she would sweep by a bird who happened to be on the tree, thus making him fly, but she never followed or showed any special interest in him. Whatever other shrikes may be or do, at least this pair, and the three or four others who visited them, were amiable with their neighbors, small as well as great.

If bravery is a virtue,--and why is it not, in feathers as well as in broadcloth?--the shrike should stand high in our estimation, for he does not hesitate to attack and make his prey animals which few birds of his size dare touch; not only mice, but creatures as well armed as gophers and others.

I was particularly desirous to hear the song of the shrike. He is not cla.s.sed with singing birds, and is not, I think, usually credited with being musical. But Th.o.r.eau speaks of his song, and others mention it.

John Burroughs tells of a shrike singing in his vicinity in winter, "a crude broken warble,"--"saluting the sun as a robin might have done."

Winter, indeed, seems to be his chosen time for singing, and an ornithologist in St. Albans says that in that season he sings by the hour in the streets of the town.

[Sidenote: _THE SHRIKE'S SONG._]