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 BIRDS

 A MONTHLY SERIAL

 ILLUSTRATED BY COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY

 DESIGNED TO PROMOTE

 KNOWLEDGE OF BIRD-LIFE


 VOLUME II.


 CHICAGO.
 NATURE STUDY PUBLISHING COMPANY.




 COPYRIGHT, 1897
 BY
 NATURE STUDY PUBLISHING CO.
 CHICAGO.




                       BIRDS.
         ILLUSTRATED BY COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY
         ================================
         VOL. II.     OCTOBER       NO. 4
         ================================




BIRDS IN CAPTIVITY.


It was our intention in this article to give a number of instances of
a pathetic nature concerning the sufferings of the various species of
birds which it has been, and still is, a habit with many people to keep
confined in cages totally inadequate for any other purpose than that of
cruelty. The argument that man has no moral right to deprive an innocent
creature of liberty will always be met with indifference by the majority
of people, and an appeal to their intelligence and humanity will rarely
prove effective. To capture singing birds for any purpose is, in many
states, prohibited by statute. But the law is violated. Occasionally an
example is made of one or more transgressors, but as a rule the officers
of the law, whose business it should be to prevent it, manifest no
interest whatever in its execution. The bird trappers as well know that
it is against the law, but so long as they are unmolested by the police,
they will continue the wholesale trapping. A contemporary recently said:
"It seems strange that this bird-catching industry should increase so
largely simultaneously with the founding of the Illinois Audubon
Society. The good that that society has done in checking the habit of
wearing birds in bonnets, seems to have been fairly counterbalanced by
the increase in the number of songsters captured for cage purposes.
These trappers choose the nesting season as most favorable for their
work, and every pair of birds they catch means the loss of an entire
family in the shape of a set of eggs or a nestful of young left to
perish slowly by starvation."

This is the way the trappers proceed. They are nearly all Germans. Bird
snaring is a favorite occupation in Germany and the fondness for the
cruel work was not left behind by the emigrants. More's the pity. These
fellows fairly swarm with their bird limes and traps among the suburbs,
having an eye only to the birds of brightest plumage and sweetest song.
"They use one of the innocents as a bait to lure the others to a
prison." "Two of the trappers," says one who watched them, "took their
station at the edge of an open field, skirted by a growth of willows.
Each had two cage traps. The device was divided into two parts by wires
running horizontally and parallel to the plane of the floor. In the
lower half of each cage was a male American Goldfinch. In the roof of
the traps were two little hinged doors, which turned backward and
upward, leaving an opening. Inside the upper compartment of the trap,
and accessible through the doorway in the roof, was a swinging perch.
The traps were placed on stumps among the growth of thistles and dock
weed, while the trappers hid behind the trees. The Goldfinches confined
in the lower sections of the traps had been the victims of the trappers
earlier in the season, and the sight of their familiar haunts, the
sunlight, the breeze, and the swaying willow branches, where so often
they had perched and sung, caused them to flutter about and to utter
pathetically the call note of their days of freedom. It is upon this
yearning for liberty and its manifestation that the bird trappers depend
to secure more victims. No sooner does the piping call go forth from the
golden throats of the little prisoners, than a reply comes from the
thistle tops, far down the field. A moment more and the traps are
surrounded with the black and yellow beauties. The fact that one of
their own kind is within the curious little house which confronts them
seems to send all their timidity to the winds and they fairly fall over
one another in their endeavor to see what it all means. Finally one
finds the doorway in the roof and drops upon the perch within. Instantly
the doors close and a Goldfinch is a prisoner."

Laurence Sterne alone, of sentimental writers, has put in adequate
language something of the feeling that should stir the heart of the
sympathetic, at least, on seeing the unjust confinement of innocent
birds. The Starling, which is the subject of his elevated sentiment,
will appear in an early number of BIRDS. Sterne had just been
soliloquizing somewhat favorably of the Bastile, when a voice, which he
took to be that of a child, complained "it could not get out." "I looked
up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, nor child, I
went out without further attention. In my return back through the
passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over, and looking up, I
saw it was a Starling hung in a little cage. 'I can't get out, I can't
get out,' said the Starling. I stood looking at the Bird, and to every
person who came through the passage, it ran fluttering to the side,
towards which they approached it, with the same lamentation of its
captivity. 'I can't get out,' said the Starling. 'God help thee!' said
I, 'but I'll let thee out, cost what it will;' so I turned about the
cage to get the door. It was twisted and double-twisted so fast with
wire, there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces. I
took both hands to it. The bird flew to the place where I was attempting
its deliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis, pressed his
breast against it as if impatient. 'I fear, poor creature,' said I, 'I
can't set thee at liberty.' 'No,' said the Starling, 'I can't get out,'
'I can't get out,' said the Starling. I vow I never had my affections
more tenderly awakened; or do I remember an incident in my life where
the dissipated spirits, to which my reason had been a bubble, were so
suddenly called home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune
to Nature were they chanted, that disguise thyself as thou wilt, still,
'Slavery,' said I,'still thou art a bitter draught; and though
thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less
bitter on that account. No, thou thrice sweet and gracious goddess
liberty, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till nature
herself shall change; no tint of woods can spot thy snowy mantle.'"

The bird in his cage pursued Sterne into his room, where he composed
his apostrophe to liberty. It would be well indeed, if a sentiment
could be aroused which would prohibit absolutely the caging of birds,
as well as their wanton destruction, and if the children are taught that
"tenderness which is the charm of youth," another generation will see it
accomplished.

                                                C. C. MARBLE.




 [Illustration: From col. Chi. Acad. Sciences.
                BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER.
                Copyrighted by Nature Study Pub. Co., 1897, Chicago.]

THE BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER.


If the children had had the naming of birds we venture to say that it
would have been more appropriately done, and "Blackburnian," as many
other names of Warblers, would have had no place in literature. There
are about seventy-five well known Warblers, nearly all with common
names indicating the most characteristic colors or habits, or partly
descriptive of the bird itself. The common names of this beautiful
Warbler are Orange-throated Warbler and Hemlock Warbler. Some one has
suggested that it should be called the Torch Bird, for "half a dozen
of them as they flash about in the pines, raising their wings and
jerking their tails, make the darkest shadows seem breaking into
little tongues of flame."

The Orange-throat is only migratory in Illinois, passing through in
spring and fall, its summer home being chiefly if not wholly, to
the northward, while it passes the winter in Central America and
northern South America. It is found in New York and in portions of
Massachusetts, frequenting the coniferous forests, and building its
nest in bushes or small trees a few feet above the ground. Dr. C. Hart
Merriam found a pair of these birds nesting in a grove of large white
pines in Lewis County, New York. In the latter part of May the female
was observed building, and on the second of June the nest contained
four fresh eggs of the Warbler and one of the Cow bird. The nest was
saddled on the horizontal limb about eight feet from the ground and
about ten feet from the trunk. Nests have been found in pine trees in
Southern Michigan at an elevation of forty feet. In all cases the
nests are placed high in hemlocks or pines, which are the bird's
favorite resorts. From all accounts the nests of this species are
elegantly and compactly made, consisting of a densely woven mass of
spruce twigs, soft vegetable down, rootlets, and fine shreds of bark.
The lining is often intermixed with horse hairs and feathers. Four
eggs of greenish-white or very pale bluish-green, speckled or spotted,
have usually been found in the nests.

The autumnal male Warblers resemble the female. They have two white
bands instead of one; the black stripes on the side are larger; under
parts yellowish; the throat yellowish, passing into purer yellow
behind. Few of our birds are more beautiful than the full plumaged
male of this lovely bird, whose glowing orange throat renders it a
conspicuous object among the budding and blossoming branches of the
hemlocks. Chapman says, coming in May, before the woods are fully
clad, he seems like some bright plumaged tropical bird who has lost
his way and wandered to northern climes. The summer is passed among
the higher branches in coniferous forests, and in the early fall the
bird returns to surroundings which seem more in keeping with its
attire.

Mr. Minot describes the Blackburnian Warbler's summer song as
resembling the syllables _wee-see-wee-see_, while in the spring its
notes may be likened to _wee-see-wee-see, tsee, tsee, tsee_, repeated,
the latter syllables being on ascending scale, the very last shrill
and fine.




THE LOST MATE.


    Shine! Shine! Shine!
    Pour down your warmth, great Sun!
    While we bask--we two together.

    Two together!
    Winds blow south, or winds blow north,
    Day come white, or night come black,
    Home, or rivers and mountains from home,
    Singing all time, minding no time,
    If we two but keep together.

    Till of a sudden,
    May be killed, unknown to her mate,
    One forenoon the she-bird crouched not on the nest,
    Nor returned that afternoon, nor the next,
    Nor ever appeared again.

    And thence forward, all summer, in the sound of the sea,
    And at night, under the full of moon, in calmer weather,
    Over the hoarse surging of the sea,
    Or flitting from briar to briar by day,
    I saw, I heard at intervals, the remaining one.

    Blow! blow! blow!
    Blow up, sea-winds, along Paumanok's shore!
    I wait and I wait, till you blow my mate to me.

                                          --WALT WHITMAN.




 [Illustration: From col. F. M. Woodruff.
                GOLDFINCH.
                Copyrighted by Nature Study Pub. Co., 1897, Chicago.]

THE AMERICAN GOLDFINCH.


"Look, Mamma, look!" cried a little boy, as one day late in June my
mate and I alighted on a thistle already going to seed. "Such a lovely
bird! How jolly he looks, with that black velvet hat drawn over his
eyes!"

"That's a Goldfinch," replied his mamma; "sometimes called the Jolly
Bird, the Thistle Bird, the Wild Canary, and the Yellow Bird. He
belongs to the family of Weed Warriors, and is very useful."

"He sings like a Canary," said Bobbie. "Just hear him talking to that
little brown bird alongside of him."

That was my mate, you see, who _is_ rather plain looking, so to please
him I sang my best song, "_Per-chic-o-ree, per-chic-o-ree_."

"That sounds a great deal better," said Bobbie; "because it's not sung
by a little prisoner behind cage bars, I guess."

"It certainly is wilder and more joyous," said his mamma. "He is very
happy just now, for he and his mate are preparing for housekeeping.
Later on, he will shed his lemon-yellow coat, and then you won't be
able to tell him from his mate and little ones."

"How they are gobbling up that thistle-down," cried Bobbie. "Just
look!"

"Yes," said his mamma, "the fluff carries the seed, like a sail to
which the seed is fastened. By eating the seed, which otherwise would
be carried by the wind all over the place, these birds do a great
amount of good. The down they will use to line their nests."

"How I should like to peep into their nest," said Bobbie; "just to
peep, you know; not to rob it of its eggs, as boys do who are not well
brought up."

My mate and I were so pleased at that, we flew off a little way,
chirping and chattering as we went.

"Up and down, up and down," said Bobbie; "how prettily they fly."

"Yes," said his mamma; "that is the way you can always tell a
Goldfinch when in the air. A dip and a jerk, singing as he flies."

"What other seeds do they eat, mamma?" presently asked Bobbie.

"The seeds of the dandelion, the sunflower, and wild grasses
generally. In the winter, when these are not to be had, the poor
little fellows have a very hard time. People with kind hearts, scatter
canary seed over their lawns to the merry birds for their summer
songs, and for keeping down the weeds."




THE GOLDFINCH.


According to one intelligent observer, the Finches are, in Nature's
economy, entrusted with the task of keeping the weeds in subjection,
and the gay and elegant little Goldfinch is probably one of the most
useful, for its food is found to consist, for the greater part, of
seeds most hurtful to the works of man. "The charlock that so often
chokes his cereal crops is partly kept in bounds by his vigilance, and
the dock, whose rank vegetation would, if allowed to cast all its
seeds, spread barrenness around, is also one of his store houses, and
the rank grasses, at their seeding time, are his chief support."
Another writer, whose study of this bird has been made with care,
calls our American Goldfinch one of the loveliest of birds. With his
elegant plumage, his rhythmical, undulatory flight, his beautiful
song, and his more beautiful soul, he ought to be one of the best
beloved, if not one of the most famous; but he has never yet had half
his deserts. He is like the Chickadee, and yet different. He is not so
extremely confiding, nor should I call him merry. But he is always
cheerful, in spite of his so-called plaintive note, from which he gets
one of his names, and always amiable. So far as I know, he never
utters a harsh sound; even the young ones asking for food, use only
smooth, musical tones. During the pairing season, his delight often
becomes rapturous. To see him then, hovering and singing,--or, better
still, to see the devoted pair hovering together, billing and
singing,--is enough to do even a cynic good. The happy lovers! They
have never read it in a book, but it is written on their hearts:

    "The gentle law that each should be
     The other's heaven and harmony."

In building his nest, the Goldfinch uses much ingenuity, lichens and
moss being woven so deeply into the walls that the whole surface is
quite smooth. Instead of choosing the forks of a bough, this Finch
likes to make its nest near the end of a horizontal branch, so that
it moves about and dances up and down as the branch is swayed by the
wind. It might be thought that the eggs would be shaken out by a
tolerably sharp breeze, and such would indeed be the case, were they
not kept in their place by the form of the nest. On examination, it
will be seen to have the edge thickened and slightly turned inward, so
that when the nest is tilted on one side by the swaying of the bough,
the eggs are still retained within. It is lined with vegetable down,
and on this soft bed repose five pretty eggs, white, tinged with blue,
and diversified with small grayish purple spots.

       *       *       *

A curious story is told of a caged Goldfinch, which in pleasant
weather always hung in a window. One day, hearing strange bird voices,
the owner looked up from her seat and saw a Catbird trying to induce
the Finch to eat a worm it had brought for it. By dint of coaxing and
feeding the wild bird, she finally induced it to come often to the
window, and one day, as she sat on the porch, the Catbird brought a
berry and tried to put it into her mouth. We have often seen sparrows
come to the window of rooms where canaries were imprisoned, but it has
uniformly been to get food and not to administer it. The Catbird
certainly thus expressed its gratitude.




 [Illustration: From col. Eugene Bliss.
                CHIMNEY SWIFT.
                Copyrighted by Nature Study Pub. Co., 1897, Chicago.]

THE CHIMNEY SWIFT.


Chief Pokagon, of the Pottawattamie Indians, in an article in _The
Osprey_, writes delightfully of the Chimney Swift, and we quote a
portion of it describing a peculiar habit of the bird. The chief was
a youth when he made the observation, and he writes in the second
person:

"As you look, you see the head of the young chief is turning slowly
around, watching something high in air above the stream; you now begin
to look in the same direction, catching glimpses every now and then,
of the segment of a wild revolving ring of small unnumbered birds
circling high above the trees. Their twittering notes and whizzing
wings create a musical, but wild, continued roar. You now begin to
realize he is determined to understand all about the feathered bees,
as large as little birds, the village boy had seen. The circle
continues to decrease in size, but increases the revolution until
all the living, breathing ring swings over the stream in the field
of your vision, and you begin to enquire what means all this mighty
ingathering of such multitude of birds. The young chief in admiration
claps his hands, leaping towards the stream. The twittering, whizzing
roar continues to increase; the revolving circle fast assumes a funnel
shape, moving downward until the point reaches the hollow in the stub,
pouring its living mass therein until the last bird dropped out of
sight. Rejoicing in wonder and admiration, the youth walks round the
base of the stub, listening to the rumbling roar of fluttering wings
within. Night comes on, he wraps his blanket closer about him, and
lies down to rest until the coming day, that he may witness the
swarming multitudes pass out in early morning. But not until the hour
of midnight does he fall asleep, nor does he wake until the dawn of
day, when, rising to his feet, he looks upward to the skies. One by
one the stars disappear. The moon grows pale. He listens. Last night's
familiar roar rings in his ears. He now beholds swarming from out the
stub the living, breathing mass, forming in funnel shape, revolving
like a top, rising high in air, then sweeping outward into a wide
expanding ring, until the myriads of birds are scattered wide, like
leaves before the whirlwind."

And then what do they do? Open the mouth of a swallow that has been
flying, and turn out the mass of small flies and other insects that
have been collected there. The number packed into its mouth is almost
incredible, for when relieved from the constant pressure to which it
is subjected, the black heap begins to swell and enlarge, until it
attains nearly double its former size.

Chimney Swallow is the name usually applied to this Swift. The habit
of frequenting chimneys is a recent one, and the substitution of this
modern artificial home for hollow trees illustrates the readiness with
which it adapts itself to a change in surroundings. In perching, they
cling to the side of the chimney, using the spine-pointed tails for a
support. They are most active early in the morning and late in the
afternoon, when one may hear their rolling twitter as they course
about overhead.

The question whether Chimney Swifts break off twigs for their nests
with their feet is now being discussed by ornithologists. Many curious
and interesting observations have been made, and the momentous
question will no doubt in time be placed beyond peradventure.




THE LARK.


    Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
      For thy song, Lark, is strong;
    Up with me! Up with me into the clouds!
          Singing, singing,
    With clouds and sky about thee ringing.
      Lift me, guide me till I find
    That spot which seems so to thy mind.

    I have walked through wildernesses dreary,
      And to-day my heart is weary;
    Had I now the wings of a Fairy
      Up to thee would I fly.
    There is madness about thee, and joy divine
      In that song of thine;
    Lift me, guide me high and high
    To thy banqueting place in the sky.

                                --WORDSWORTH.


SHORE LARK.


If the variety of names by which this Lark is known is any indication
of its popularity, its friends must be indeed numerous. Snow Lark,
Snowbird, Prairie Lark, Sky Lark, American Sky Lark, Horned Lark, are
a few of them. There is only one American Species, so far as known. It
breeds in northeastern North America and Greenland, wintering in the
United States. It also inhabits northern portions of the old world.
The common name is derived from the tufts of black feathers over each
ear, which the birds have the power of erecting at will like the
so-called horns of some owls.

In the Eastern States, during the winter months, flocks of Horned
Larks, varying in size from a dozen to those of a hundred or more, may
be seen frequenting open plains, old fields, dry shores of bays, and
the banks of rivers. According to Davie, as there are a number of
geographical varieties of the Horned Lark, the greatest uncertainty
has always attended their identification even by experts, and the
breeding and winter ranges of the various subspecies do not yet seem
to be clearly defined.

Audubon found this species on the low, mossy and sheltered hills along
the dreary coast of Labrador. In the midst of the mosses and lichens
that covered the rocks the bird imbedded its nest, composed of fine
grasses, arranged in a circular form and lined with the feathers of
grouse and other birds.

Chapman says these Larks take wing with a sharp, whistled note, and
seek fresh fields or, hesitating, finally swing about and return to
near the spot from which they were flushed. They are sometimes found
associated with Snowflakes. The pinkish grey coloring is very
beautiful, but in the Middle and Eastern States this bird is rarely
seen in his spring garb, says an observer, and his winter plumage
lacks the vivid contrasts and prime color.

As a singer the Shore Lark is not to be despised, especially in his
nesting haunts. He has a habit of singing as he soars in the air,
after the manner of the European Skylark.

 [Illustration: From col. F. M. Woodruff.
                HORNED LARK.
                Copyrighted by Nature Study Pub. Co., 1897, Chicago.]




THE YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER.

    When the veins of the birch overflow in the spring,
    Then I sharpen my bill and make the woods ring,
    Till forth gushes--rewarding my tap, tap, tap!
    The food of us Suckers--the rich, juicy sap.

                                          --C. C. M.


Many wild birds run up and down trees, and it seems to make little
difference which end up they are temporarily, skirmishing ever to the
right and left, whacking the bark with their bills, then quiet a brief
moment, and again skirmishing around the tree. Sometimes an apple
tree, says a recent writer, will have a perfect circle, not seldom
several rings or holes round the tree--holes as large as a buck shot.
The little skirmisher makes these holes, and the farmer calls it a
Sapsucker. And such it is. Dr. Coues, however, says it is not a bird,
handsome as it is, that you would care to have come in great numbers
to your garden or orchard, for he eats the sap that leaks out through
the holes he makes in the trees. When a great many holes have been
bored near together, the bark loosens and peels off, so that the tree
is likely to die. The Sapsucker also eats the soft inner bark which is
between the rough outside bark and the hard heart-wood of the tree,
which is very harmful. Nevertheless the bird does much good in
destroying insects which gather to feed on the oozing sap. It sweeps
them up in its tongue, which is not barbed, like that of other
woodpeckers, but has a little brush on the end of it. It lacks the
long, extensile tongue which enables the other species to probe the
winding galleries of wood-eating larvae.

Mr. William Brewster states that throughout the White Mountains of New
Hampshire, and in most sections of Northern Maine, the Yellow-Bellied
Woodpeckers outnumber all the other species in the summer season.
Their favorite nesting sites are large dead birches, and a decided
preference is manifested for the vicinity of water, though some nests
occur in the interior of woods. The average height of the nesting hole
from the ground is about forty feet. Many of the nests are gourd-like
in shape, with the ends very smoothly and evenly chiseled, the average
depth being about fourteen inches. The labors of excavating the nest
and those of rearing the young are shared by both sexes. While this
Sapsucker is a winter resident in most portions of Illinois, and may
breed sparingly in the extreme northern portion, no record of it has
been found.

A walk in one of our extensive parks is nearly always rewarded by the
sight of one or more of these interesting and attractive birds. They
are usually so industriously engaged that they seem to give little
attention to your presence, and hunt away, tapping the bole of the
tree, until called elsewhere by some more promising field of
operations. Before taking flight from one tree to another, they stop
the insect search and gaze inquisitively toward their destination. If
two of them meet, there is often a sudden stopping in the air, a
twisting upward and downward, followed by a lively chase across the
open to the top of a dead tree, and then a sly peeping round or over a
limb, after the manner of all Woodpeckers. A rapid drumming with the
bill on the tree, branch or trunk, it is said, serves for a love-song,
and it has a screaming call note.




THE WARBLING VIREO.


The Vireos are a family of singers and are more often heard than seen,
but the Warbler has a much