MOURNING DOVE (Zenaidura macroura) Pigeon family

Called also: CAROLINA DOVE; TURTLE DOVE

Length — 12 to 13 inches. About one-half as large again as the robin. Male — Grayish brown or fawn-color above, varying to bluish gray. Crown and upper part of head greenish blue, with green and golden metallic reflections on sides of neck. A black spot under each ear. Forehead and breast reddish buff; lighter underneath. (General impression of color, bluish fawn.) Bill black, with tumid, fleshy covering; feet red; two middle tail feathers longest; all others banded with black and tipped with ashy white. Wing coverts sparsely spotted with black. Flanks and underneath the wings bluish. Female — Duller and without iridescent reflections on neck. Range — North America, from Quebec to Panama, and westward to Arizona. Most common in temperate climate, east of Rocky Mountains. Migrations — March. November. Common summer resident not Migratory south of Virginia.

The beautiful, soft-colored plumage of this incessant and rather melancholy love-maker is not on public exhibition. To see it we must trace the a-coo-o, coo-o, coo-oo, coo-o to its source in the thick foliage in some tree in an out-of-the-way corner of the farm, or to an evergreen near the edge of the woods. The slow, plaintive notes, more like a dirge than a love-song, penetrate to a surprising distance. They may not always be the same lovers we hear from April to the end of summer, but surely the sound seems to indicate that they are. The dove is a shy bird, attached to its gentle and refined mate with a devotion that has passed into a proverb, but caring little or nothing for the society of other feathered friends, and very little for its own kind, unless after the nesting season has passed. In this respect it differs widely from its cousins, the wild pigeons, flocks of which, numbering many millions, are recorded by Wilson and other early writers before the days when netting these birds became so fatally profitable.

What the dove finds to adore so ardently in the "shiftless housewife," as Mrs. Wright calls his lady-love, must pass the comprehension of the phoebe, that constructs such an exquisite home, or of a bustling, energetic Jenny wren, that "looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness." She is a flabby, spineless bundle of flesh and pretty feathers, gentle and refined in manners, but slack and incompetent in all she does. Her nest consists of few loose sticks. without rim or lining; and when her two babies emerge from the white eggs, that somehow do not fall through or roll out of the rickety lattice, their tender little naked bodies must suffer from many bruises. We are almost inclined to blame the inconsiderate mother for allowing her offspring to enter the world unclothed — obviously not her fault, though she is capable of just such negligence. Fortunate are the baby doves when their lazy mother scatters her makeshift nest on top of one that a robin has deserted, as she frequently does. It is almost excusable to take her young birds and rear them in captivity, where they invariably thrive, mate, and live happily, unless death comes to one, when the other often refuses food and grieves its life away.

In the wild state, when the nesting season approaches, both birds make curious acrobatic flights above the tree-tops; then, after a short sail in midair, they return to their perch. This appears to be their only giddiness and frivolity, unless a dust-bath in the country road might be considered a dissipation.

In the autumn a few pairs of doves show slight gregarious tendencies, feeding amiably together in the grain fields and retiring to the same roost at sundown.

BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER (Polioptila coerulea) Gnatcatcher family

Called also: SYLVAN FLYCATCHER

Length — 4.5 inches. About two inches smaller than the English sparrow. Male — Grayish blue above, dull grayish white below. Grayish tips on wings. Tail with white outer quills changing gradually through black and white to all black on centre quills. Narrow black band over the forehead and eyes. Resembles in manner and form a miniature catbird. Female — More grayish and less blue, and without the black on head. Range — United States to Canadian border on the north, the Rockies on the west, and the Atlantic States, from Maine to Florida most common in the Middle States. A rare bird north of New Jersey. Winters in Mexico and beyond. Migrations — May. September. Summer resident.

In thick woodlands, where a stream that lazily creeps through the mossy, oozy ground attracts myriads of insects to its humid neighborhood, this tiny hunter loves to hide in the denser foliage of the upper branches. He has the habit of nervously flitting about from twig to twig of his relatives, the kinglets, but unhappily he lacks their social, friendly instincts, and therefore is rarely seen. Formerly classed among the warblers, then among the flycatchers, while still as much a lover of flies, gnats, and mosquitoes as ever, his vocal powers have now won for him recognition among the singing birds. Some one has likened his voice to the squeak of a mouse, and Nuttall says it is "scarcely louder," which is all too true, for at a little distance it is quite inaudible. But in addition to the mouse-like call-note, the tiny bird has a rather feeble but exquisitely finished song, so faint it seems almost as it the bird were singing in its sleep.

If by accident you enter the neighborhood of its nest, you soon find out that this timid, soft-voiced little creature can be roused to rashness and make its presence disagreeable to ears and eyes alike as it angrily darts about your unoffending head, pecking at your face and uttering its shrill squeak close to your very ear-drums. All this excitement is in defence of a dainty, lichen-covered nest, whose presence you may not have even suspected before, and of four or five bluish-white, speckled eggs well beyond reach in the tree-tops.

During the migrations the bird seems not unwilling to show its delicate, trim little body, that has often been likened to a diminutive mocking-bird's, very near the homes of men. Its graceful postures, its song and constant motion, are sure to attract attention. In Central Park, New York City, the bird is not unknown.



BROWN, OLIVE OR GRAYISH BROWN, AND BROWN AND GRAY SPARROWY BIRDS

House Wren Yellow-billed Cuckoo Carolina Wren Bank Swallow and Winter Wren Rough-winged Swallow Long-billed Marsh Wren Cedar Bird Short-billed Marsh Wren Brown Creeper Brown Thrasher Pine Siskin Wilson's Thrush or Veery Smith's Painted Longspur Wood Thrush Lapland Longspur Hermit Thrush Chipping Sparrow Alice's Thrush English Sparrow Olive-backed Thrush Field Sparrow Louisiana Water Thrush Fox Sparrow Northern Water Thrush Grasshopper Sparrow Flicker Savannah Sparrow Meadowlark and Western Seaside Sparrow Meadowlark Sharp-tailed Sparrow Horned Lark and Prairie Song Sparrow Horned Lark Swamp Song Sparrow Pipit or Titlark Tree Sparrow Whippoorwill Vesper Sparrow Nighthawk White-crowned Sparrow Black-billed Cuckoo White-throated Sparrow

See also winter plumage of the Bobolink, Goldfinch, and Myrtle Warbler. See females of Red-winged Blackbird, Rusty Blackbird, the Grackles, Bobolink, Cowbird, the Redpolls, Purple Finch, Chewink, Bluebird, Indigo Bunting, Baltimore Oriole, Cardinal, and of the Evening, the Blue, and the Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. See also Purple Finch, the Redpolls, Mourning Dove, Mocking-bird, Robin.

BROWN, OLIVE OR GRAYISH BROWN, AND BROWN AND GRAY SPARROWY BIRDS

HOUSE WREN (Troglodytes aedon) Wren family

Length — 4.5 to 5 inches. Actually about one-fourth smaller than the English sparrow; apparently only half as large because of its erect tail. Male and Female — Upper parts cinnamon-brown. Deepest shade on head and neck; lightest above tail, which is more rufous. Back has obscure, dusky bars; wings and tail are finely barred. Underneath whitish, with grayish-brown wash and faint bands Most prominent on sides. Range — North America, from Manitoba to the Gulf. Most common in the United States, from the Mississippi eastward. Winters south of the Carolinas. Migrations — April October. Common summer resident.

Early some morning in April there will go off under your window that most delightful of all alarm-clocks — the tiny, friendly house wren, just returned from a long visit south. Like some little mountain spring that, having been imprisoned by winter ice, now bubbles up in the spring sunshine, and goes rippling along over the pebbles, tumbling over itself in merry cascades, so this little wren's song bubbles, ripples, cascades in a miniature torrent of ecstasy.

Year after year these birds return to the same nesting places: a box set up against the house, a crevice in the barn, a niche under the eaves; but once home, always home to them. The nest is kept scrupulously clean; the house-cleaning, like the house-building and renovating, being accompanied by the cheeriest of songs, that makes the bird fairly tremble by its intensity. But however angelic the voice of the house wren, its temper can put to flight even the English sparrow. Need description go further.

Six to eight minutely speckled, flesh-colored eggs suffice to keep the nervous, irritable parents in a state bordering on frenzy whenever another bird comes near their habitation. With tail erect and head alert, the father mounts on guard, singing a perfect ecstasy of love to his silent little mate, that sits upon the nest if no danger threatens; but both rush with passionate malice upon the first intruder, for it must be admitted that Jenny wren is a sad shrew.

While the little family is being reared, or, indeed, at any time, no one is wise enough to estimate the millions of tiny insects from the garden that find their way into the tireless bills of these wrens.

It is often said that the house wren remains at the north all the year, which, though not a fact, is easily accounted for by the coming of the winter wrens just as the others migrate in the autumn, and by their return to Canada when Jenny wren makes up her feather-bed under the eaves in the spring.

CAROLINA WREN (Thryothorus ludovicianus) Wren family

Called also: MOCKING WREN

Length — 6 inches. Just a trifle smaller than the English sparrow Male and Female — Chestnut-brown above. A whitish streak, beginning at base of bill, passes through the eye to the nape of the neck. Throat whitish. Under parts light buff-brown Wings and tail finely barred with dark. Range — United States, from Gulf to northern Illinois and Southern New England. Migrations — A common resident except at northern boundary of range, where it is a summer visitor.

This largest of the wrens appears to be the embodiment of the entire family characteristics: it is exceedingly active, nervous, and easily excited, quick-tempered, full of curiosity, peeping into every hole and corner it passes, short of flight as it is of wing, inseparable from its mate till parted by death, and a gushing lyrical songster that only death itself can silence. It also has the wren-like preference for a nest that is roofed over, but not too near the homes of men.

Undergrowths near water, brush heaps, rocky bits of woodland, are favorite resorts. The Carolina wren decidedly objects to being stared at, and likes to dart out of sight in the midst of the underbrush in a twinkling while the opera-glasses are being focussed. To let off some of his superfluous vivacity, Nature has provided him with two safety-valves: one is his voice, another is his tail. With the latter he gesticulates in a manner so expressive that it seems to be a certain index to what is passing in his busy little brain — drooping it, after the habit of the catbird, when he becomes limp with the emotion of his love-song, or holding it erect as, alert and inquisitive, he peers at the impudent intruder in the thicket below his perch.

But it is his joyous, melodious, bubbling song that is his chief fascination. He has so great a variety of strains that many people have thought that he learned them from other birds, and so have called him what many ornithologists declare that he is not — a mocking wren. And he is one of the few birds that sing at night — not in his sleep or only by moonlight, but even in the total darkness, just before dawn, he gives us the same wide-awake song that entrances us by day.

WINTER WREN (Troglodytes biemalis) Wren family

Length — 4 to 4.5 inches. About one-third smaller than the English sparrow. Apparently only half the size. Male and Female — Cinnamon-brown above, with numerous short, dusky bars. Head and neck without markings. Underneath rusty, dimly and finely barred with dark brown. Tail short. Range — United States, east and west, and from North Carolina to the Fur Countries Migrations — October, April. Summer resident. Commonly a winter resident in the South and Middle States only.

It all too rarely happens that we see this tiny mouse-like wren in summer, unless we come upon him suddenly and overtake him unawares as he creeps shyly over the mossy logs or runs literally "like a flash" under the fern and through the tangled underbrush of the deep, cool woods. His presence there is far more likely to be detected by the ear than the eye.

Throughout the nesting season music fairly pours from his tiny throat; it bubbles up like champagne; it gushes forth in a lyrical torrent and overflows into every nook of the forest, that seems entirely pervaded by his song. While music is everywhere, it apparently comes from no particular point, and, search as you may, the tiny singer still eludes, exasperates, and yet entrances.

If by accident you discover him balancing on a swaying twig, never far from the ground, with his comical little tail erect, or more likely pointing towards his head, what a pert, saucy minstrel he is! You are lost in amazement that so much music could come from a throat so tiny.

Comparatively few of his admirers, however, hear the exquisite notes of this little brown wood-sprite, for after the nesting season is over he finds little to call them forth during the bleak, snowy winter months, when in the Middle and Southern States he may properly be called a neighbor. Sharp hunger, rather than natural boldness, drives him near the homes of men, where he appears just as the house wren departs for the South. With a forced confidence in man that is almost pathetic in a bird that loves the forest as he does, he picks up whatever lies about the house or barn in the shape of food-crumbs from the kitchen door, a morsel from the dog's plate, a little seed in the barn-yard, happily rewarded if he can find a spider lurking in some sheltered place to give a flavor to the unrelished grain. Now he becomes almost tame, but we feel it is only because he must be.

The spot that decided preference leads him to, either winter or summer, is beside a bubbling spring. In the moss that grows near it the nest is placed in early summer, nearly always roofed over and entered from the side, in true wren-fashion; and as the young fledglings emerge from the creamy-white eggs, almost the first lesson they receive from their devoted little parents is in the fine art of bathing. Even in winter weather, when the wren has to stand on a rim of ice, he will duck and splash his diminutive body. It is recorded of a certain little individual that he was wont to dive through the icy water on a December day. Evidently the wrens, as a family, are not far removed in the evolutionary scale from true water-birds.

LONG-BILLED MARSH WREN (Cistothorus palustris) Wren family

[Called also: MARSH WREN, AOU 1998]

Length — 4.5 to 5.2 inches. Actually a little smaller than the English sparrow. Apparently half the size. Male and Female — Brown above, with white line over the eye, and the back irregularly and faintly streaked with white. Wings and tail barred with darker cinnamon-brown. Underneath white. Sides dusky. Tail long and often carried erect. Bill extra long and slender. Range — United States and southern British America. Migrations — May. September. Summer resident.

Sometimes when you are gathering cat-tails in the river marshes an alert, nervous little brown bird rises startled from the rushes and tries to elude you as with short, jerky flight it goes deeper and deeper into the marsh, where even the rubber boot may not follow. It closely resembles two other birds found in such a place, the swamp sparrow and the short-billed marsh wren; but you may know by its long, slender bill that it is not the latter, and by the absence of a bright bay crown that it is not the shyest of the sparrows.

These marsh wrens appear to be especially partial to running water; their homes are not very far from brooks and rivers, preferably those that are affected in their rise and flow by the tides. They build in colonies, and might be called inveterate singers, for no single bird is often permitted to finish his bubbling song without half the colony joining in a chorus.

Still another characteristic of this particularly interesting bird is its unique architectural effects produced with coarse grasses woven into globular form and suspended in the reeds. Sometimes adapting its nest to the building material at hand, it weaves it of grasses and twigs, and suspends it from the limb of a bush or tree overhanging the water, where it swings like an oriole's. The entrance to the nest is invariably on the side.

More devoted homebodies than these little wrens are not among the feathered tribe. Once let the hand of man desecrate their nest, even before the tiny speckled eggs are deposited in it, and off go the birds to a more inaccessible place, where they can enjoy their home unmolested. Thus three or four nests may be made in a summer.

SHORT-BILLED MARSH WREN (Cistothorus stellaris) Wren family

[Called also: SEDGE WREN, AOU 1998]

Length — 4 to 5 inches. Actually about one-third smaller than the English sparrow, but apparently only half its size. Male and Female — Brown above, faintly streaked with white, black, and buff. Wings and tail barred with same. Underneath white, with buff and rusty tinges on throat and breast. Short bill. Range — North America, from Manitoba southward in winter to Gulf of Mexico. Most common in north temperate latitudes. Migrations — Early May. Late September.

Where red-winged blackbirds like to congregate in oozy pastures or near boggy woods, the little short-billed wren may more often be heard than seen, for he is more shy, if possible, than his long-billed cousin, and will dive down into the sedges at your approach, very much as a duck disappears under water. But if you see him at all, it is usually while swaying to and fro as he clings to some tall stalk of grass, keeping his balance by the nervous, jerky tail motions characteristic of all the wrens, and singing with all his might. Oftentimes his tail reaches backward almost to his head in a most exaggerated wren-fashion.

Samuels explains the peculiar habit both the long-billed and the short-billed marsh wrens have of building several nests in one season, by the theory that they are made to protect the sitting female, for it is noticed that the male bird always lures a visitor to an empty nest, and if this does not satisfy his curiosity, to another one, to prove conclusively that he has no family in prospect.

Wild rice is an ideal nesting place for a colony of these little marsh wrens. The home is made of sedge grasses, softly lined with the softer meadow grass or plant-down, and placed in a tussock of tall grass, or even upon the ground. The entrance is on the side. But while fond of moist places, both for a home and feeding ground, it will be noticed that these wrens have no special fondness for running water, so dear to their long-billed relatives. Another distinction is that the eggs of this species, instead of being so densely speckled as to look brown, are pure white.

BROWN THRASHER (Harporhynchus rufus) Thrasher and Mocking-bird family

Called also: BROWN THRUSH; GROUND THRUSH; RED THRUSH; BROWN MOCKING-BIRD; FRENCH MOCKING-BIRD; MAVIS

Length — 11 to 11.5 inches. Fully an inch longer than the robin. Male — Rusty red-brown or rufous above; darkest on wings, which have two short whitish bands. Underneath white, heavily streaked (except on throat) with dark-brown, arrow-shaped spots. Tail very long. Yellow eyes. Bill long and curved at tip. Female — Paler than male. Range — United States to Rockies. Nests from Gulf States to Manitoba and Montreal. Winters south of Virginia. Migrations — Late April. October. Common summer resident

"There's a merry brown thrush sitting up in a tree; He is singing to me! He is singing to me! And what does he say, little girl, little boy? 'Oh, the world's running over with joy!'"

The hackneyed poem beginning with this stanza that delighted our nursery days, has left in our minds a fairly correct impression of the bird. He still proves to be one of the perennially joyous singers, like a true cousin of the wrens, and when we study him afield, he appears to give his whole attention to his song with a self-consciousness that is rather amusing than the reverse. "What musician wouldn't be conscious of his own powers," he seems to challenge us, "if he possessed such a gift?" Seated on a conspicuous perch, as if inviting attention to his performance, with uplifted head and drooping tail he repeats the one exultant, dashing air to which his repertoire is limited, without waiting for an encore. Much practice has given the notes a brilliancy of execution to be compared only with the mockingbird's; but in spite of the name "ferruginous mocking-bird" that Audubon gave him, he does not seem to have the faculty of imitating other birds' songs. Thoreau says the Massachusetts farmers, when planting their seed, always think they hear the thrasher say, "Drop it, drop it — cover it up, cover it up — pull it up, pull it up, pull it up."

One of the shatterings of childish impressions that age too often brings is when we learn by the books that our "merry brown thrush" is no thrush at all, but a thrasher — first cousin to the wrens, in spite of his speckled breast, large size, and certain thrush-like instincts, such as never singing near the nest and shunning mankind in the nesting season, to mention only two. Certainly his bold, swinging flight and habit of hopping and running over the ground would seem to indicate that he is not very far removed from the true thrushes. But he has one undeniable wren-like trait, that of twitching, wagging, and thrashing his long tail about to help express his emotions. It swings like a pendulum as he rests on a branch, and thrashes about in a most ludicrous way as he is feeding on the ground upon the worms, insects, and fruit that constitute his diet.

Before the fatal multiplication of cats, and in unfrequented, sandy locations still, the thrasher builds her nest upon the ground, thus earning the name "ground thrush" that is often given her; but with dearly paid-for wisdom she now most frequently selecting a low shrub or tree to cradle the two broods that all too early in the summer effectually silence the father's delightful song.

WILSON'S THRUSH (Turdus fuscescens) Thrush family

Called also: VEERY {AOU 1998]; TAWNY THRUSH

Length — 7 to 7.5 inches. About one-fourth smaller than the robin. Male and Female — Uniform olive-brown, with a tawny cast above. Centre of the throat white, with cream-buff on sides of throat and upper part of breast, which is lightly spotted with wedge-shaped, brown points. Underneath white, or with a faint grayish tinge. Range — United States, westward to plains. Migrations — May. October. Summer resident.

To many of us the veery, as they call the Wilson's thrush in New England, is merely a voice, a sylvan mystery, reflecting the sweetness and wildness of the forest, a vocal "will-o'-the-wisp" that, after enticing us deeper and deeper into the woods, where we sink into the spongy moss of its damp retreats and become entangled in the wild grape-vines twined about the saplings and underbrush, still sings to us from unapproachable tangles. Plainly, if we want to see the bird, we must let it seek us out on the fallen log where we have sunk exhausted in the chase.

Presently a brown bird scuds through the fern. It is a thrush, you guess in a minute, from its slender, graceful body. At first you notice no speckles on its breast, but as it comes nearer, obscure arrow-heads are visible — not heavy, heart-shaped spots such as plentifully speckle the larger wood thrush or the smaller hermit. It is the smallest of the three commoner thrushes, and it lacks the ring about the eye that both the others have. Shy and elusive, it slips away again in a most unfriendly fashion, and is lost in the wet tangle before you have become acquainted. You determine, however, before you leave the log, to cultivate the acquaintance of this bird the next spring, when, before it mates and retreats to the forest, it comes boldly into the gardens and scratches about in the dry leaves on the ground for the lurking insects beneath. Miss Florence Merriam tells of having drawn a number of veeries about her by imitating their call-note, which is a whistled wheew, whoit, very easy to counterfeit when once heard. "Taweel-ah, taweel-ah, twil-ah, twil-ah!" Professor Ridgeway interprets their song, that descends in a succession of trills without break or pause; but no words can possibly convey an idea of the quality of the music. The veery, that never claims an audience, sings at night also, and its weird, sweet strains floating through the woods at dusk, thrill one like the mysterious voice of a disembodied spirit.

Whittier mentions the veery in "The Playmate":

"And here in spring the veeries sing The song of long ago."

WOOD THRUSH (Turdus mustelinus) Thrush family

Called also: SONG THRUSH; WOOD ROBIN; BELLBIRD

Length — 8 to 8.3 inches. About two inches shorter than the robin. Male and Female — Brown above, reddish on head and shoulders, shading into olive-brown on tail. Throat, breast, and underneath white, plain in the middle, but heavily marked on sides and breast with heart-shaped spots of very dark brown. Whitish eye-ring. Migrations — Late April or early May. October. Summer resident.

When Nuttall wrote of "this solitary and retiring songster," before the country was as thickly settled as it is to-day, it possibly had not developed the confidence in men that now distinguishes the wood thrush from its shy congeners that are distinctly wood birds, which it can no longer strictly be said to be. In city parks and country places, where plenty of trees shade the village streets and lawns, it comes near you, half hopping, half running, with dignified unconsciousness and even familiarity, all the more delightful in a bird whose family instincts should take it into secluded woodlands with their shady dells. Perhaps, in its heart of hearts, it still prefers such retreats. Many conservative wood thrushes keep to their wild haunts, and it must be owned not a few liberals, that discard family traditions at other times, seek the forest at nesting time. But social as the wood thrush is and abundant, too, it is also eminently high-bred; and when contrasted with its tawny cousin, the veery, that skulks away to hide in the nearest bushes as you approach, or with the hermit thrush, that pours out its heavenly song in the solitude of the forest, how gracious and full of gentle confidence it seems! Every gesture is graceful and elegant; even a wriggling beetle is eaten as daintily as caviare at the king's table. It is only when its confidence in you is abused, and you pass too near the nest, that might easily be mistaken for a robin's, just above your head in a sapling, that the wood thrush so far forgets itself as to become excited. Pit, pit, pit, sharply reiterated, is called out at you with a strident quality in the tone that is painful evidence of the fearful anxiety your presence gives this gentle bird.

Too many guardians of nests, whether out of excessive happiness or excessive stupidity, have a dangerous habit of singing very near them. Not so the wood thrush. "Come to me," as the opening notes of its flute-like song have been freely translated, invites the intruder far away from where the blue eggs lie cradled in ambush. is as good a rendering into syllables of the luscious song as could very well be made. Pure, liquid, rich, and luscious, it rings out from the trees on the summer air and penetrates our home like "Uoli-a-e-o-li-noli-nol-aeolee-lee! strait of music from a stringed quartette.

HERMIT THRUSH (Turdus aonalaschkae pallasii) Thrush family

Called also: SWAMP ANGEL; LITTLE THRUSH

Length — 7.25 to 7.5 inches. About one-fourth smaller than the robin. Male and Female — Upper parts olive-brown, reddening near the tail, which is pale rufous, quite distinct from the color of the back. Throat, sides of neck, and breast pale buff. Feathers of throat and neck finished with dark arrow-points at tip; feathers of the breast have larger rounded spots. Sides brownish gray. Underneath white. A yellow ring around the eye. Smallest of the thrushes. Range — Eastern parts of North America. Most common in the United States to the plains. Winters from southern Illinois and New Jersey to Gulf. Migrations — April. November. Summer resident.

The first thrush to come and the last to go, nevertheless the hermit is little seen throughout its long visit north. It may loiter awhile in the shrubby roadsides, in the garden or the parks in the spring before it begins the serious business of life in a nest of moss, coarse grass, and pine-needles placed on the ground in the depths of the forest, but by the middle of May its presence in the neighborhood of our homes becomes only a memory. Although one never hears it at its best during the migrations, how one loves to recall the serene, ethereal evening hymn! "The finest sound in Nature," John Burroughs calls it. "It is not a proud, gorgeous strain like the tanager's or the grosbeak's," he says; "it suggests no passion or emotion — nothing personal, but seems to be the voice of that calm, sweet solemnity one attains to in his best moments. It realizes a peace and a deep, solemn joy that only the finest souls may know."

Beyond the question of even the hypercritical, the hermit thrush has a more exquisitely beautiful voice than any other American bird, and only the nightingale's of Europe can be compared with it. It is the one theme that exhausts all the ornithologists' musical adjectives in a vain attempt to convey in words any idea of it to one who has never heard it, for the quality of the song is as elusive as the bird itself. But why should the poets be so silent? Why has it not called forth such verse as the English poets have lavished upon the nightingale? Undoubtedly because it lifts up its heavenly voice in the solitude of the forest. whereas the nightingales, singing in loud choruses in the moonlight under the poet's very window, cannot but impress his waking thoughts and even his dreams with their melody.

Since the severe storm and cold in the Gulf States a few winters ago, where vast numbers of hermit thrushes died from cold and starvation, this bird has been very rare in haunts where it used to be abundant. The other thrushes escaped because they spend the winter farther south.

ALICE'S THRUSH (Turdus alicia) Thrush family

Called also: GRAY-CHEEKED THRUSH; [now separated into two species: the more mid-western GRAY-CHEEKED THRUSH and the New England and Adirondack BICKNELL'S THRUSH, AOU 1998]

Length — 7.5 to 8 inches. About the size of the bluebird. Male and Female — Upper parts uniform olive-brown. Eye-ring whitish. Cheeks gray; sides dull grayish white. Sides of the throat and breast pale cream-buff, speckled with arrow-shaped points on throat and with half-round dark-brown marks below. Range — North America, from Labrador and Alaska to Central America. Migrations — Late April or May. October. Chiefly seen in migrations, except at northern parts of its range.

One looks for a prettier bird than this least attractive of all the thrushes in one that bears such a suggestive name. Like the olive-backed thrush, from which it is almost impossible to tell it when both are alive and hopping about the shrubbery, its plumage above is a dull olive-brown that is more protective than pleasing.

Just as Wilson hopelessly confused the olive-backed thrush with the hermit, so has Alice's thrush been confounded by later writers with the olive-backed, from which it differs chiefly in being a trifle larger, in having gray cheeks instead of buff, and in possessing a few faint streaks on the throat. Where it goes to make a home for its greenish-blue speckled eggs in some low bush at the northern end of its range, it bursts into song, but except in the nesting grounds its voice is never heard. Mr. Bradford Torrey, who heard it singing in the White Mountains, describes the song as like the thrush's in quality, but differently accented: "Wee-o-wee-o-tit-ti-wee-o!"

In New England and New York this thrush is most often seen during its autumn migrations. As it starts up and perches upon a low branch before you, it appears to have longer legs and a broader, squarer tail than its congeners.

OLIVE-BACKED THRUSH (Turdus ustulatus swainsonii) Thrush family

Called also: SWAINSON'S THRUSH [AOU 1998]

Length — 7 to 7.50 inches. About one-fourth smaller than the robin. Male and Female — Upper parts olive-brown. Whole throat and breast yellow-buff, shading to ashy on sides and to white underneath. Buff ring around eye. Dark streaks on sides of throat (none on centre), and larger, more spot-like marks on breast. Range — North America to Rockies; a few stragglers on Pacific slope. Northward to arctic countries. Migrations — April. October. Summer resident in Canada. Chiefly a migrant in United States.

Mr. Parkhurst tells of finding this "the commonest bird in the Park (Central Park, New York), not even excepting the robin," during the last week of May on a certain year; but usually, it must be owned, we have to be on the lookout to find it, or it will pass unnoticed in the great companies of more conspicuous birds travelling at the same time. White-throated sparrows often keep it company on the long journeys northward, and they may frequently be seen together, hopping sociably about the garden, the thrush calling out a rather harsh note — puk! puk! — quite different from the liquid, mellow calls of the other thrushes, to resent either the sparrows' bad manners or the inquisitiveness of a human disturber of its peace. But this gregarious habit and neighborly visit end even before acquaintance fairly begins, and the thrushes are off for their nesting grounds in the pine woods of New England or Labrador if they are travelling up the east coast, or to Alaska, British Columbia, or Manitoba if west of the Mississippi. There they stay all summer, often travelling southward with the sparrows in the autumn, as in the spring.

Why they should prefer coniferous trees, unless to utilize the needles for a nest, is not understood. Low trees and bushes are favorite building sites with them as with others of the family, though these thrushes disdain a mud lining to their nests. Those who have heard the olive-backed thrush singing an even-song to its brooding mate compare it with the veery's, but it has a break in it and is less simple and pleasing than the latter's.

LOUISIANA WATER THRUSH (Seiurus motacilla) Wood Warbler family

Length — 6 to 6.28 inches. Just a trifle smaller than the English sparrow. Male and Female — Grayish olive-brown upper parts, with conspicuous white line over the eye and reaching almost to the nape. Underneath white, tinged with pale buff. Throat and line through the middle, plain. Other parts streaked with very dark brown, rather faintly on the breast, giving them the speckled breast of the thrushes. Heavy, dark bill. Range — United States, westward to the plains; northward to southern New England. Winters in the tropics. Migrations — Late April. October. Summer resident.

This bird, that so delighted Audubon with its high-trilled song as he tramped with indefatigable zeal through the hammocks of the Gulf States, seems to be almost the counterpart of the Northern water thrush, just as the loggerhead is the Southern counterpart of the Northern shrike. Very many Eastern birds have their duplicates in Western species, as we all know, and it is most interesting to trace the slight external variations that different climates and diet have produced on the same bird, and thus differentiated the species. In winter the Northern water thrush visits the cradle of its kind, the swamps of Louisiana and Florida, and, no doubt, by daily contact with its congeners there, keeps close to their cherished traditions, from which it never deviates farther than Nature compels, though it penetrate to the arctic regions during its summer journeys.

With a more southerly range, the Louisiana water thrush does not venture beyond the White Mountains and to the shores of the Great Lakes in summer, but even at the North the same woods often contain both birds, and there is opportunity to note just how much they differ. The Southern bird is slightly the larger, possibly an inch; it is more gray, and it lacks a few of the streaks, notably on the throat, that plentifully speckle its Northern counterpart; but the habits of both of these birds appear to be identical. Only for a few days in the spring or autumn migrations do they pass near enough to our homes for us to study them, and then we must ever be on the alert to steal a glance at them through the opera-glasses, for birds more shy than they do not visit the garden shrubbery at any season. Only let them suspect they are being stared at, and they are under cover in a twinkling.

Where mountain streams dash through tracts of mossy, spongy ground that is carpeted with fern and moss, and overgrown with impenetrable thickets of underbrush and tangles of creepers — such a place is the favorite resort of both the water thrushes. With a rubber boot missing, clothes torn, and temper by no means unruffled, you finally stand over the Louisiana thrush's nest in the roots of an upturned tree immediately over the water, or else in a mossy root-belaced bank above a purling stream. A liquid-trilled warble, wild and sweet, breaks the stillness, and, like Audubon, you feel amply rewarded for your pains though you may not be prepared to agree with him in thinking the song the equal of the European nightingale's.

NORTHERN WATER THRUSH (Seiurus noveboracensis) Wood Warbler family

Called also: NEW YORK WATER THRUSH; AQUATIC WOOD WAGTAIL; AQUATIC THRUSH

Length — 5 to 6 inches. A trifle smaller than the English sparrow. Male and Female — Uniform olive or grayish brown above. Pale buff line over the eye. Underneath, white tinged with sulphur yellow, and streaked like a thrush with very dark brown arrow headed or oblong spots that are also seen underneath wings. Range — United States, westward to Rockies and northward through British provinces. Winters from Gulf States southward. Migrations — Late April. October. Summer resident.

According to the books we have before us, a warbler; but who, to look at his speckled throat and breast, would ever take him for anything but a diminutive thrush; or, studying him from some distance through the opera-glasses as he runs in and out of the little waves along the brook or river shore, would not name him a baby sandpiper? The rather unsteady motion of his legs, balancing of the tail, and sudden jerking of the head suggest an aquatic bird rather than a bird of the woods. But to really know either man or beast, you must follow him to his home, and if you have pluck enough to brave the swamp and the almost impenetrable tangle of undergrowth where the water thrush chooses to nest, there "In the swamp in secluded recesses, a shy and hidden bird is warbling a song;" and this warbled song that Walt Whitman so adored gives you your first clue to the proper classification of the bird. It has nothing in common with the serene, hymn-like voices of the true thrushes; the bird has no flute-like notes, but an emphatic smacking or chucking kind of warble. For a few days only is this song heard about the gardens and roadsides of our country places. Like the Louisiana water thrush, this bird never ventures near the homes of men after the spring and autumn migrations, but, on the contrary, goes as far away from them as possible, preferably to some mountain region, beside a cool and dashing brook, where a party of adventurous young climbers from a summer hotel or the lonely trout fisherman may startle it from its mossy nest on the ground.

FLICKER (Colaptes auratus) Woodpecker family

Called also: GOLDEN-WINGED WOODPECKER; CLAPE; PIGEON WOODPECKER; YELLOWHAMMER; HIGH HOLE OR HIGH-HOLDER; YARUP; WAKE-UP; YELLOW-SHAFTED WOODPECKER

Length — 12 to 13 inches. About one-fourth as large again as the robin. Male and Female — Head and neck bluish gray, with a red crescent across back of neck and a black crescent on breast. Male has black cheek-patches, that are wanting in female. Golden brown shading into brownish-gray, and barred with black above. Underneath whitish, tinged with light chocolate and thickly spotted with black. Wing linings, shafts of wing, and tail quills bright yellow. Above tail white, conspicuous when the bird flies. Range — United States, east of Rockies; Alaska and British America, south of Hudson Bay. Occasional on Pacific slope. Migrations — Most commonly seen from April to October. Usually Resident.

If we were to follow the list of thirty-six aliases by which this largest and commonest of our woodpeckers is known throughout its wide range, we should find all its peculiarities of color, flight, noises, and habits indicated in its popular names. It cannot but attract attention wherever seen, with its beautiful plumage, conspicuously yellow if its outstretched wings are looked at from below, conspicuously brown and white if seen upon the ground. At a distance it suggests the meadowlark. Both birds wear black, crescent breast decorations, and the flicker also has the habit of feeding upon the ground, especially in autumn, a characteristic not shared by its relations.

Early in the spring this bird of many names and many voices makes itself known by a long, strong, sonorous call, a sort of proclamation that differs from its song proper, which Audubon. calls "a prolonged jovial laugh" (described by Mrs. Wright as "Wick, wick, wick, wick!") and differs also from its rapidly repeated, mellow, and most musical cub, cub, cub, cub, cub, uttered during the nesting season.

Its nasal kee-yer, vigorously called out in the autumn, is less characteristic, however, than the sound it makes while associating with its fellows on the feeding ground — a sound that Mr. Frank M. Chapman says can be closely imitated by the swishing of a willow wand.

A very ardent and ridiculous-looking lover is this bird, as, with tail stiffly spread, he sidles up to his desired mate and bows and bobs before her, then retreats and advances, bowing and bobbing again, very often with a rival lover beside him (whom he generously tolerates) trying to outdo him in grace and general attractiveness. Not the least of the bird's qualities that must commend themselves to the bride is his unfailing good nature, genial alike in the home and in the field.

The "high-holders" have the peculiar and silly habit of boring out a number of superfluous holes for nests high up in the trees, in buildings, or hollow wooden columns, only one of which they intend to use. Six white eggs is the proper number for a household, but Dr. Coues says the female that has been robbed keeps on laying three or even four sets of eggs without interruption.

MEADOWLARK (Sturnella magna) Blackbird family

Called also: FIELD LARK; OLDFIELD LARK; [EASTERN MEADOWLARK, AOU 1998]

Length — 10 to 11 inches. A trifle larger than the robin. Male — Upper parts brown, varied with chestnut, deep brown, and black. Crown streaked with brown and black, and with a cream-colored streak through the centre. Dark-brown line apparently running through the eye; another line over eye, yellow. Throat and chin yellow; a large conspicuous black crescent on breast. Underneath yellow, shading into buffy brown, spotted or streaked with very dark brown, Outer tail feathers chiefly white, conspicuous in flight. Long, strong legs and claws, adapted for walking. Less black in winter plumage, which is more grayish brown. Female — Paler than male. Range — North America, from Newfoundland to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward to the plains, where the Western meadowlark takes its place. Winters from Massachusetts and Illinois southward. Migrations — April. Late October. Usually a resident, a few remaining through the winter.

In the same meadows with the red-winged blackbirds, birds of another feather, but of the same family, nevertheless, may be found flocking together, hunting for worms and larvae, building their nests, and rearing their young very near each other with the truly social instinct of all their kin.

The meadowlarks, which are really not larks at all, but the blackbirds' and orioles' cousins, are so protected by the coloring of the feathers on their backs, like that of the grass and stubble they live among, that ten blackbirds are noticed for every meadowlark although the latter is very common. Not until you flush a flock of them as you walk along the roadside or through the meadows and you note the white tail feathers and the black crescents on the yellow breasts of the large brown birds that rise towards the tree-tops with whirring sound and a flight suggesting the quail's, do you suspect there are any birds among the tall grasses.

Their clear and piercing whistle, "Spring o' the y-e-a-r, Spring o' the year!" rings out from the trees with varying intonation and accent, but always sweet and inspiriting. To the bird's high vantage ground you may not follow, for no longer having the protection of the high grass, it has become wary and flies away as you approach, calling out peent-peent and nervously flitting its tail (again showing the white feather), when it rests a moment on the pasture fence-rail.

It is like looking for a needle in a haystack to try to find a meadowlark's nest, an unpretentious structure of dried grasses partly arched over and hidden in a clump of high timothy, flat upon the ground. But what havoc snakes and field-mice play with the white-speckled eggs and helpless fledglings! The care of rearing two or three broods in a season and the change of plumage to duller winter tints seem to exhaust the high spirits of the sweet whistler. For a time he is silent, but partly regains his vocal powers in the autumn, when, with large flocks of his own kind, he resorts to marshy feeding grounds. In the winter he chooses for companions the horned larks, that walk along the shore, or the snow buntings and sparrows of the inland pastures, and will even include the denizens of the barn-yard when hunger drives him close to the haunts of men.

The Western Meadowlark or Prairie Lark (Sturnella magna neglecta), which many ornithologists consider a different species from the foregoing [as does AOU 1998], is distinguished chiefly by its lighter, more grayish-brown plumage, by its yellow cheeks, and more especially by its richer, fuller song. In his "Birds of Manitoba" Mr. Ernest E. Thompson says of this meadowlark: "In richness of voice and modulation it equals or excels both wood thrush and nightingale, and in the beauty of its articulation it has no superior in the whole world of feathered choristers with which I am acquainted."

HORNED LARK (Otocoris alpestris) Lark family

Called also: SHORE LARK

Length — 7.5 to 8 inches. About one-fifth smaller than the robin. Male — Upper parts dull brown, streaked with lighter on edges and tinged with pink or vinaceous; darkest on back of head neck, shoulders, and nearest the tail. A few erectile feathers on either side of the head form slight tufts or horns that are wanting in female. A black mark from the base of the bill passes below the eye and ends in a horn-shaped curve on cheeks, which are yellow. Throat clear yellow. Breast has crescent shaped black patch. Underneath soiled white, with dusky spots on lower breast. Tail black, the outer feathers margined with white, noticed in flight. Female — Has yellow eye-stripe; less prominent markings, especially on head, and is a trifle smaller. Range — Northeastern parts of North America, and in winter from Ohio and eastern United States as far south as North Carolina. Migrations — October and November. March. Winter resident

Far away to the north in Greenland and Labrador this true lark, the most beautiful of its genus, makes its summer home. There it is a conspicuously handsome bird with its pinkish-gray and chocolate feathers, that have greatly faded into dull browns when we see them in the late autumn. In the far north only does it sing, and, according to Audubon, the charming song is flung to the breeze while the bird soars like a skylark. In the United States we hear only its call-note.

Great flocks come down the Atlantic coast in October and November, and separate into smaller bands that take up their residence in sandy stretches and open tracts near the sea or wherever the food supply looks promising, and there the larks stay until all the seeds, buds of bushes, berries, larvae, and insects in their chosen territory are exhausted. They are ever conspicuously ground birds, walkers, and when disturbed at their dinner, prefer to squat on the earth rather than expose themselves by flight. Sometimes they run nimbly over the frozen ground to escape an intruder, but flying they reserve as a last resort. When the visitor has passed they quickly return to their dinner. If they were content to eat less ravenously and remain slender, fewer victims might be slaughtered annually to tickle the palates of the epicure. It is a mystery what they find to fatten upon when snow covers the frozen ground. Even in the severe midwinter storms they will not seek the protection of the woods, but always prefer sandy dunes with their scrubby undergrowth or open meadow lands. Occasionally a small flock wanders toward the farms to pick up seeds that are blown from the hayricks or scattered about the barn-yard by overfed domestic fowls.

The Prairie Horned Lark (Otocoris alpestris praticola) is similar to the preceding, but a trifle smaller and paler, with a white instead of a yellow streak above the eye, the throat yellowish or entirely white instead of sulphur-yellow, and other minor differences. It has a far more southerly range, confined to northern portions of the United States from the Mississippi eastward. Once a distinctly prairie bird, it now roams wherever large stretches of open country that suit its purposes are cleared in the East, and remains resident. This species also sings in midair on the wing, but its song is a crude, half-inarticulate affair, barely audible from a height of two hundred feet.

AMERICAN PIPIT (Anthus pensilvanicus) Wagtail family

Called also: TITLARK; BROWN OR RED LARK

Length — 6.38 to 7 inches. About the size of a sparrow. Male and Female — Upper parts brown; wings and tail dark olive-brown; the wing coverts tipped with buff or whitish, and ends of outer tail feathers white, conspicuous in flight. White or yellowish eye-ring, and line above the eye. Underneath light buff brown, with spots on breast and sides, the under parts being washed with brown of various shades. Feet brown. Hind toe-nail as long as or longer than the toe. Range — North America at large. Winters south of Virginia to Mexico and beyond. Migrations — April. October or November. Common in the United States, chiefly during the migrations.

The color of this bird varies slightly with age and sex, the under parts ranging from white through pale rosy brown to a reddish tinge; but at any season, and under all circumstances, the pipit is a distinctly brown bird, resembling the water thrushes not in plumage only, but in the comical tail waggings and jerkings that alone are sufficient to identify it. However the books may tell us the bird is a wagtail, it certainly possesses two strong characteristics of true larks: it is a walker, delighting in walking or running, never hopping over the ground, and it has the angelic habit of singing as it flies.

During the migrations the pipits are abundant in salt marshes or open stretches of country inland, that, with lark-like preference, they choose for feeding grounds. When flushed, all the flock rise together with uncertain flight, hovering and wheeling about the place, calling down dee-dee, dee-dee above your head until you have passed on your way, then promptly returning to the spot from whence they were disturbed. Along the roadsides and pastures, where two or three birds are frequently seen together, they are too often mistaken for the vesper sparrows because of their similar size and coloring, but their easy, graceful walk should distinguish them at once from the hopping sparrow. They often run to get ahead of some one in the lane, but rarely fly if they can help it, and then scarcely higher than a fence-rail. Early in summer they are off for the mountains in the north. Labrador is their chosen nesting ground, and they are said to place their grassy nest, lined with lichens or moss, flat upon the ground — still another lark trait. Their eggs are chocolate-brown scratched with black.

WHIPPOORWILL (Antrostomus vociferus) Goatsucker family

[Called also: WHIP-POOR-WILL, AOU 1998]

Length — 9 to 10 inches. About the size of the robin. Apparently much larger, because of its long wings and wide wingspread. Male — A long-winged bird, mottled all over with reddish brown, grayish black, and dusky white; numerous bristles fringing the large mouth. A narrow white band across the upper breast. Tail quills on the end and under side white. Female — Similar to male, except that the tail is dusky in color where that of the male is white. Band on breast buff instead of white. Range — United States, to the plains. Not common near the sea. Migrations — Late April to middle of September. Summer resident.

The whippoorwill, because of its nocturnal habits and plaintive note, is invested with a reputation for occult power which inspires a chilling awe among superstitious people, and leads them insanely to attribute to it an evil influence; but it is a harmless, useful night prowler, flying low and catching enormous numbers of hurtful insects, always the winged varieties, in its peculiar fly-trap mouth.

It loves the rocky, solitary woods, where it sleeps all day; but it is seldom seen, even after painstaking search, because of its dull, mottled markings conforming so nearly to rocks and dry leaves, and because of its unusual habit of stretching itself length-wise on a tree branch or ledge, where it is easily confounded with a patch of lichen, and thus overlooked. If by accident one happens upon a sleeping bird, it suddenly rouses and flies away, making no more sound than a passing butterfly — a curious and uncanny silence that is quite remarkable. When the sun goes down and as the gloaming deepens, the bird's activity increases, and it begins its nightly duties, emitting from time to time, like a sentry on his post or a watchman of the night, the doleful call which has given the bird its common name. It

"Mourns unseen, and ceaseless sings Ever a note of wail and woe,"

that our Dutch ancestors interpreted as "Quote-kerr-kee," and so called it. They had a tradition that no frost ever appeared after the bird had been heard calling in the spring, and that it wisely left for warmer skies before frost came in the autumn. Prudent bird, never caught napping!

It is erratic in its choice of habitations, even when rock and solitude seem suited to its taste. Very rarely is this odd bird found close to the seashore, and in the Hudson River valley it keeps a half mile or more back from the river.

The eggs, generally two in number, are creamy white, dashed with dark and olive spots, and laid on the ground on dry leaves, or in a little hollow in rock or stump — never in a nest built with loving care. But in extenuation of such carelessness it may be said that, if disturbed or threatened, the mother shows no lack of maternal instinct, and removes her young, carrying them in her beak as a cat conveys her kittens to secure shelter.

NIGHTHAWK (Chordeiles virginianus) Goatsucker family

Called also: NIGHTJAR; BULL-BAT; MOSQUITO HAWK; WILL-O'-THE-WISP; PISK; PIRAMIDIG; LONGWINGED GOATSUCKER; [COMMON NIGHTHAWK, AOU 1998]

Length — 9 to 10 inches. About the same length as the robin, but apparently much longer because of its very wide wing-spread. Male and Female — Mottled blackish brown and rufous above, with a multitude of cream-yellow spots and dashes. Lighter below, with waving bars of brown on breast and underneath. White mark on throat, like an imperfect horseshoe; also a band of white across tail of male bird. These latter markings are wanting in female. Heavy wings, which are partly mottled, are brown on shoulders and tips, and longer than tail. They have large white spots, conspicuous in flight, one of their distinguishing marks from the whippoorwill. Head large and depressed, with large eyes and ear-openings. Very small bill. Range — From Mexico to arctic islands. Migrations — May. October. Common summer resident.

The nighthawk's misleading name could not well imply more that the bird is not: it is not nocturnal in its habits, neither is it a hawk, for if it were, no account of it would be given in this book, which distinctly excludes birds of prey. Stories of its chicken-stealing prove to be ignorant rather than malicious slanders. Any one disliking the name, however, surely cannot complain of a limited choice of other names by which, in different sections of the country, it is quite as commonly known.

Too often it is mistaken for the whippoorwill. The night hawk does not have the weird and woful cry of that more dismal bird, but gives instead a harsh, whistling note while on the wing, followed by a vibrating, booming, whirring sound that Nuttall likens to "the rapid turning of a spinning wheel, or a strong blowing into the bung-hole of an empty hogshead." This peculiar sound is responsible for the name nightjar, frequently given to this curious bird. It is said to be made as the bird drops suddenly through the air, creating a sort of stringed instrument of its outstretched wings and tail. When these wings are spread, their large white spots running through the feathers to the under side should be noted to further distinguish the nighthawk from the whippoorwill, which has none, but which it otherwise closely resembles. This booming sound, coming from such a height that the bird itself is often unseen, was said by the Indians to be made by the shad spirits to warn the scholes of shad about to ascend the rivers to spawn in the spring, of their impending fate.

The flight of the nighthawk is free and graceful in the extreme. Soaring through space without any apparent motion of its wings, suddenly it darts with amazing swiftness like an erratic bat after the fly, mosquito, beetle, or moth that falls within the range of its truly hawk-like eye.

Usually the nighthawks hunt in little companies in the most sociable fashion. Late in the summer they seem to be almost gregarious. They fly in the early morning or late afternoon with beak wide open, hawking for insects, but except when the moon is full they are not known to go a-hunting after sunset. During the heat of the day and at night they rest on limbs of trees, fence-rails, stone walls, lichen-covered rocks or old logs — wherever Nature has provided suitable mimicry of their plumage to help conceal them.

With this object in mind, they quite as often choose a hollow surface of rock in some waste pasture or the open ground on which to deposit the two speckled-gray eggs that sixteen days later will give birth to their family. But in August, when family cares have ended for the season, it is curious to find this bird of the thickly wooded country readily adapting itself to city life, resting on Mansard roofs, darting into the streets from the housetops, and wheeling about the electric lights, making a hearty supper of the little, winged insects they attract.

BLACK-BILLED CUCKOO (Coccyzus erythrophthalmus) Cuckoo family

Called also: RAIN CROW

Length — 11 to 12 inches. About one-fifth larger than the robin. Male — Grayish brown above, with bronze tint in feathers. Underneath grayish white; bill, which is long as head and black, arched and acute. Skin about the eye bright red. Tail long, and with spots on tips of quills that are small and inconspicuous. Female — Has obscure dusky bars on the tail. Range — Labrador to Panama; westward to Rocky Mountains. Migration — May. September. Summer resident.

"O cuckoo! shalt I call thee bird? Or but a wandering voice?"

From the tangled shrubbery on the hillside back of Dove Cottage, Keswick, where Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy listened for the coming of this "darling of the spring"; in the willows overhanging Shakespeare's Avon; from the favorite haunts of Chaucer and Spenser, where

"Runneth meade and springeth blede,"

we hear the cuckoo calling; but how many on this side of the Atlantic are familiar with its American counterpart? Here, too, the cuckoo delights in running water and damp, cloudy weather like that of an English spring; it haunts the willows by our river-sides, where as yet no "immortal bard" arises to give it fame. It "loud sings" in our shrubbery, too. Indeed, if we cannot study our bird afield, the next best place to become acquainted with it is in the pages of the English poets. But due allowance must be made for differences of temperament. Our cuckoo is scarcely a "merry harbinger"; his talents, such as they are, certainly are not musical. However, the guttural cluck is not discordant, and the black-billed species, at least, has a soft, mellow voice that seems to indicate an embryonic songster.

"K-k-k-k, kow-kow-ow-kow-ow!" is a familiar sound in many localities, but the large. slim,, pigeon-shaped, brownish-olive bird that makes it, securely hidden in the low trees and shrubs that are its haunts, is not often personally known. Catching a glimpse only of the grayish-white under parts from where we stand looking up into the tree at it, it is quite impossible to tell the bird from the yellow-billed species. When, as it flies about, we are able to note the red circles about its eyes, its black bill, and the absence of black tail feathers, with their white "thumb-nail" spots, and see no bright cinnamon feathers on the wings (the yellow-billed specie's distinguishing marks), we can at last claim acquaintance with the black-billed cuckoo. Our two common cuckoos are so nearly alike that they are constantly confused in the popular mind and very often in the writings of ornithologists. At first glance the birds look alike. Their haunts are almost identical; their habits are the same; and, as they usually keep well out of sight, it is not surprising if confusion arise.

Neither cuckoo knows how to build a proper home; a bunch of sticks dropped carelessly into the bush, where the hapless babies that emerge from the greenish eggs will not have far to fall when they tumble out of bed, as they must inevitably do, may by courtesy only be called a nest. The cuckoo is said to suck the eggs of other birds; but, surely, such vice is only the rarest dissipation. Insects of many kinds and "tent caterpillars" chiefly are their chosen food.

YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO (Coccyzus americanus) Cuckoo family

Called also: RAIN CROW

Length — 11 to 12 inches. About one-fifth longer than the robin. Male and Female — Grayish brown above, with bronze tint in feathers. Underneath grayish white. Bill, which is as tong as head, arched, acute, and more robust than the black-billed species, and with lower mandible yellow. Wings washed with bright cinnamon-brown. Tail has outer quills black, conspicuously marked with white thumb-nail spots. Female larger. Range — North America, from Mexico to Labrador. Most common in temperate climates. Rare on Pacific slope. Migrations — Late April. September. Summer resident.

"Kak, k-kuh, k-kuk, k-kuk!" like an exaggerated tree-toad's rattle, is a sound that, when first heard, makes you rush out of doors instantly to "name" the bird. Look for him in the depths of the tall shrubbery or low trees, near running water, if there is any in the neighborhood, and if you are more fortunate than most people, you will presently become acquainted with the yellow-billed cuckoo. When seen perching at a little distance, his large, slim body, grayish brown, with olive tints above and whitish below, can scarcely be distinguished from that of the black-billed species. It is not until you get close enough to note the yellow bill, reddish-brown wings, and black tail feathers with their white "thumb-nail" marks, that you know which cuckoo you are watching. In repose the bird looks dazed or stupid, but as it darts about among the trees after insects, noiselessly slipping to another one that promises better results, and hopping along the limbs after performing a series of beautiful evolutions among the branches as it hunts for its favorite "tent caterpillars," it appears what it really is: an unusually active, graceful, intelligent bird.

A solitary wanderer, nevertheless one cuckoo in an apple orchard is worth a hundred robins in ridding it of caterpillars and inch-worms, for it delights in killing many more of these than it can possibly eat. In the autumn it varies its diet with minute fresh-water shellfish from the swamp and lake. Mulberries, that look so like caterpillars the bird possibly likes them on that account, it devours wholesale.

Family cares rest lightly on the cuckoos. The nest of both species is a ramshackle affair — a mere bundle of twigs and sticks without a rim to keep the eggs from rolling from the bush, where they rest, to the ground. Unlike their European relative, they have the decency to rear their own young and not impose this heavy task on others; but the cuckoos on both sides of the Atlantic are most erratic and irregular in their nesting habits. The overworked mother-bird often lays an egg while brooding over its nearly hatched companion, and the two or three half-grown fledglings already in the nest may roll the large greenish eggs out upon the ground, while both parents are off searching for food to quiet their noisy clamorings. Such distracting mismanagement in the nursery is enough to make a homeless wanderer of any father. It is the mother-bird that tumbles to the ground at your approach from sheer fright; feigns lameness, trails her wings as she tries to entice you away from the nest. The male bird shows far less concern; a no more devoted father, we fear, than he is a lover. It is said he changes his mate every year.

Altogether, the cuckoo is a very different sort of bird from what our fancy pictured. The little Swiss creatures of wood that fly out of the doors of clocks and call out the bed-hour to sleepy children, are chiefly responsible for the false impressions of our mature years. The American bird does not repeat its name, and its harsh, grating "kuk, kuk," does not remotely suggest the sweet voice of its European relative.

BANK SWALLOW (Clivicola riparia) Swallow family

Called also: SAND MARTIN; SAND SWALLOW

Length — 5 to 5.5 inches. About an inch shorter than the English sparrow, but apparently much larger because of its wide wing-spread. Male and Female — Grayish brown or clay-colored above. Upper wings and tail darkest. Below, white, with brownish band across chest. Tail, which is rounded and more nearly square than the other swallows, is obscurely edged with white. Range — Throughout North America south of Hudson Bay. Migrations — April. October. Summer resident.

Where a brook cuts its way through a sand bank to reach the sea is an ideal nesting ground for a colony of sand martins. The face of the high bank shows a number of clean, round holes indiscriminately bored into the sand, as if the place had just received a cannonading; but instead of war an atmosphere of peace pervades the place in midsummer, when you are most likely to visit it. Now that the young ones have flown from their nests that your arm can barely reach through the tunnelled sand or clay, there can be little harm in examining the feathers dropped from gulls, ducks, and other water-birds with which the grassy home is lined.

The bank swallow's nest, like the kingfisher's, which it resembles, is his home as well. There he rests when tired of flying about in pursuit of insect food. Perhaps a bird that has been resting in one of the tunnels, startled by your innocent housebreaking, will fly out across your face, near enough for you to see how unlike the other swallows he is: smaller, plainer, and with none of their glinting steel-blues and buffs about him. With strong, swift flight he rejoins his fellows, wheeling, skimming, darting through the air above you, and uttering his characteristic "giggling twitter," that is one of the cheeriest noises heard along the beach. In early October vast numbers of these swallows may be seen in loose flocks along the Jersey coast, slowly making their way South. Clouds of them miles in extent are recorded.

Closely associated with the sand martin is the Rough-winged Swallow (Stelgidopteryx serripennis), not to be distinguished from its companion on the wing, but easily recognized by its dull-gray throat and the absence of the brown breast-band when seen at close range.

CEDAR BIRD (Ampelis cedrorum) Waxwing family

Called also: CEDAR WAXWING [AOU 1998]; CHERRY-BIRD; CANADA ROBIN; RECOLLET

Length — 7 to 8 inches. About one-fifth smaller than the robin. Male — Upper parts rich grayish brown, with plum-colored tints showing through the brown on crest, throat, breast, wings, and tail. A velvety-black line on forehead runs through the eye and back of crest. Chin black; crest conspicuous; breast lighter than the back, and shading into yellow underneath. Wings have quill-shafts of secondaries elongated, and with brilliant vermilion tips like drops of sealing-wax, rarely seen on tail quills, which have yellow bands across the end. Female — With duller plumage, smaller crest, and narrower tail-band. Range — North America, from northern British provinces to Central America in winter. Migrations — A roving resident, without fixed seasons for migrating.

As the cedar birds travel about in great flocks that quickly exhaust their special food in a neighborhood, they necessarily lead a nomadic life — here to-day, gone to-morrow — and, like the Arabs, they "silently steal away." It is surprising how very little noise so great a company of these birds make at any time. That is because they are singularly gentle and refined; soft of voice, as they are of color, their plumage suggesting a fine Japanese water-color painting on silk, with its beautiful sheen and exquisitely blended tints.

One listens in vain for a song; only a lisping "Twee-twee-ze," or "a dreary whisper," as Minot calls their low-toned communications with each other, reaches our ears from their high perches in the cedar trees, where they sit, almost motionless hours at a time, digesting the enormous quantities of juniper and whortleberries, wild cherries, worms, and insects upon which they have gormandized.

Nuttall gives the cedar birds credit for excessive politeness to each other. He says he has often seen them passing a worm from one to another down a whole row of beaks and back again before it was finally eaten.

When nesting time arrives — that is to say, towards the end of the summer — they give up their gregarious habits and live in pairs, billing and kissing like turtle-doves in the orchard or wild crabtrees, where a flat, bulky nest is rather carelessly built of twigs, grasses, feathers, strings — any odds and ends that may be lying about. The eggs are usually four, white tinged with purple and spotted with black.

Apparently they have no moulting season; their plumage is always the same, beautifully neat and full-feathered. Nothing ever hurries or flusters them, their greatest concern apparently being, when they alight, to settle themselves comfortably between their over-polite friends, who are never guilty of jolting or crowding. Few birds care to take life so easily, not to say indolently.

Among the French Canadians they are called Recollet, from the color of their crest resembling the hood of the religious order of that name. Every region the birds pass through, local names appear to be applied to them, a few of the most common of which are given above.

Of the three waxwings known to scientists, two are found in America, and the third in Japan,

BROWN CREEPER (Certhia familiaris americana) Creeper family

Length — 5 to 5.75 inches. A little smaller than the English sparrow. Male and Female — Brown above, varied with ashy-gray stripes and small, lozenge-shaped gray mottles. Color lightest on head, increasing in shade to reddish brown near tail. Tail paler brown and long; wings brown and barred with whitish. Beneath grayish white. Slender, curving bill. Range — United States and Canada, east of Rocky Mountains. Migrations — April. September. Winter resident

This little brown wood sprite, the very embodiment of virtuous diligence, is never found far from the nuthatches, titmice, and kinglets, though not strictly in their company, for he is a rather solitary bird. Possibly he repels them by being too exasperatingly conscientious.

Beginning at the bottom of a rough-barked tree (for a smooth bark conceals no larvae, the creeper silently climbs upward in a sort of spiral, now lost to sight on the opposite side of the tree, then reappearing just where he is expected to, flitting back a foot or two, perhaps, lest he overlooked a single spider egg, but never by any chance leaving a tree until conscience approves of his thoroughness. And yet with all this painstaking workman's care, it takes him just about fifty seconds to finish a tree. Then off he flits to the base of another, to repeat the spiral process. Only rarely does he adopt the woodpecker process of partly flitting, partly rocking his way with the help of his tail straight up one side of the tree.

Yet this little bird is not altogether the soulless drudge he appears. In the midst of his work, uncheered by summer sunshine, and clinging with numb toes to the tree-trunk some bitter cold day, he still finds some tender emotion within him to voice in a "wild, sweet song" that is positively enchanting at such a time. But it is not often this song is heard south of his nesting grounds.

The brown creeper's plumage is one of Nature's most successful feats of mimicry — an exact counterfeit in feathers of the brown-gray bark on which the bird lives. And the protective coloring is carried out in the nest carefully tucked under a piece of loosened bark in the very heart of the tree.

PINE SISKIN (Spinus pinus) Finch family

Called also: PINE FINCH; PINE LINNET

Length — 4.75 to 5 inches. Over an inch smaller than the English sparrow. Male and Female — Olive-brown and gray above, much streaked and striped with very dark brown everywhere. Darkest on head and back. Lower back, base of tail, and wing feathers pale sulphur-yellow. Under parts very light buff brown, heavily streaked. Range — North America generally. Most common in north latitudes. Winters south to the Gulf of Mexico. Migrations — Erratic winter visitor from October to April. Uncommon in summer.

A small grayish-brown brindle bird, relieved with touches of yellow on its back, wings, and tail, may be seen some winter morning roving on the lawn from one evergreen tree to another, clinging to the pine cones and peering attentively between the scales before extracting the kernels. It utters a call-note so like the English sparrow's that you are surprised when you look up into the tree to find it comes from a stranger. The pine siskin is an erratic visitor, and there is always the charm of the unexpected about its coming near our houses that heightens our enjoyment of its brief stay.

As it flies downward from the top of the spruce tree to feed upon the brown seeds still clinging to the pigweed and goldenrod stalks sticking out above the snow by the roadside, it dips and floats through the air like its charming little cousin, the goldfinch. They have several characteristics in common besides their flight and their fondness for thistles. Far at the north, where the pine siskin nests in the top of the evergreens, his sweet-warbled love-song is said to be like that of our "wild canary's," only with a suggestion of fretfulness in the tone.

Occasionally some one living in an Adirondack or other mountain camp reports finding the nest and hearing the siskin sing even in midsummer; but it is, nevertheless, considered a northern species, however its erratic habits may sometimes break through the ornithologist's traditions.

SMITH'S PAINTED LONGSPUR (Calcarius pictus) Finch family

[Called also: SMITH'S LONGSPUR, AOU 1998]

Length — 6.5 inches. About the size of a large English sparrow. Male and Female — Upper parts marked with black, brown, and white, like a sparrow; brown predominant. Male bird with more black about head, shoulders, and tail feathers, and a whitish patch, edged with black, under the eye. Underneath pale brown, shading to buff. Hind claw or spur conspicuous. Range — Interior of North America, from the arctic coast to Illinois and and Texas; Migrations — Winter visitor. Without fixed season.

Confined to a narrower range than the Lapland longspur, this bird, quite commonly found on the open prairie districts of the middle West in winter, is, nevertheless, so very like its cousin that the same description of their habits might very well answer for both. Indeed, both these birds are often seen in the same flock. Larks and the ubiquitous sparrows, too, intermingle with them with the familiarity that only the starvation rations of midwinter, and not true sociability, can effect; and, looking out upon such a heterogeneous flock of brown birds as they are feeding together on the frozen ground, only the trained field ornithologist would find it easy to point out the painted longspurs.

Certain peculiarities are noticeable, however. Longspurs squat while resting; then, when flushed, they run quickly and lightly, and "rise with a sharp click, repeated several times in quick succession, and move with an easy, undulating motion for a short distance, when they alight very suddenly, seeming to fall perpendicularly several feet to the ground." Another peculiarity of their flight is their habit of flying about in circles, to and fro, keeping up a constant chirping or call. It is only in the mating season, when we rarely hear them, that the longspurs have the angelic manner of singing as they fly, like the skylark. The colors of the males, among the several longspurs, may differ widely, but the indistinctly marked females are so like each other that only their mates, perhaps, could tell them apart.

LAPLAND LONGSPUR (Calcarius lapponicus) Finch family

Called also: LAPLAND SNOWBIRD; LAPLAND LARK BUNTING

Length — 6.5 to 7 inches. trifle larger than the English sparrow. Male — Color varies with season. Winter plumage: Top of head black, with rusty markings, all feathers being tipped with white. Behind and below the eye rusty black. Breast and underneath grayish white faintly streaked with black. Above reddish brown with black markings. Feet, which are black, have conspicuous, long hind claws or spur. Female — Rusty gray above, less conspicuously marked. Whitish below. Range — Circumpolar regions; northern United States; occasional in Middle States; abundant in winter as far as Kansas and the Rocky Mountains. Migrations — Winter visitors, rarely resident, and without a Fixed season.

This arctic bird, although considered somewhat rare with us, when seen at all in midwinter is in such large flocks that, before its visit in the neighborhood is ended, and because there are so few other birds about, it becomes delightfully familiar as it nimbly runs over the frozen ground, picking up grain that has blown about from the barn, when the seeds of the field are buried under snow. This lack of fear through sharp hunger, that often drives the shyest of the birds to our very doors in winter, is as pathetic as it is charming. Possibly it is not so rare a bird as we think, for it is often mistaken for some of the sparrows, the shore larks, and the snow buntings, that it not only resembles, but whose company it frequently keeps, or for one of the other longspurs.

At all seasons of the year a ground bird, you may readily identify the Lapland longspur by its tracks through the snow, showing the mark of the long hind claw or spur. In summer we know little or nothing about it, for, with the coming of the flowers, it is off to the far north, where, we are told, it depresses its nest in a bed of moss upon the ground, and lines it with fur shed from the coat of the arctic fox.

CHIPPING SPARROW (Spizella socialis) Finch family

Called also: CHIPPY; HAIR-BIRD; CHIP-BIRD; SOCIAL SPARROW

Length — 5 to 5.5 inches. An inch shorter than the English sparrow. Male — Under the eye, on the back of the neck, underneath, and on the lower back ash-gray. Gray stripe over the eye, and a blackish brown one apparently through it. Dark red-brown crown. Back brown, slightly rufous, and feathers streaked with black. Wings and tail dusty brown. Wing-bars not conspicuous. Bill black. Female — Lacks the chestnut color on the crown, which is Streaked with black. In winter the frontlet is black. Bill brownish. Range — North America, from Newfoundland to the Gulf of Mexico And westward to the Rockies. Winters in Gulf States and Mexico. Most common in eastern United States. Migrations — April. October. Common summer resident, many birds remaining all the year from southern New England southward.

Who does not know this humblest, most unassuming little neighbor that comes hopping to our very doors; this mite of a bird with "one talent" that it so persistently uses all the day and every day throughout the summer? Its high, wiry trill, like the buzzing of the locust, heard in the dawn before the sky grows even gray, or in the middle of the night, starts the morning chorus; and after all other voices are hushed in the evening, its tremolo is the last bed-song to come from the trees. But however monotonous such cheerfulness sometimes becomes when we are surfeited with real songs from dozens of other throats, there are long periods of midsummer silence that it punctuates most acceptably.