Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. 1, No. 3

And modeled it within with wood and clay.
And by and by, with heath-bells gilt with dew,
There lay her shining eggs as bright as flowers,
Ink-spotted over, shells of green and blue:
And there I witnessed, in the summer hours,
A brood of nature’s minstrels chirp and fly,
Glad as the sunshine and the laughing sky.”

THE BROWN THRUSH

Dear Readers:

My cousin Robin Redbreast told me that he wrote you a letter last month and sent it with his picture. How did you like it? He is a pretty bird – Cousin Robin – and everybody likes him. But I must tell you something of myself.

Folks call me by different names – some of them nicknames, too.

The cutest one of all is Brown Thrasher. I wonder if you know why they call me Thrasher. If you don’t, ask some one. It is really funny.

Some people think Cousin Robin is the sweetest singer of our family, but a great many like my song just as well.

Early in the morning I sing among the bushes, but later in the day you will always find me in the very top of a tree and it is then I sing my best.

Do you know what I say in my song? Well, if I am near a farmer while he is planting, I say: “Drop it, drop it – cover it up, cover it up – pull it up, pull it up, pull it up.”

One thing I very seldom do and that is, sing when near my nest. Maybe you can tell why. I’m not very far from my nest now. I just came down to the stream to get a drink and am watching that boy on the other side of the stream. Do you see him?

One dear lady who loves birds has said some very nice things about me in a book called “Bird Ways.” Another lady has written a beautiful poem about my singing. Ask your mamma or teacher the names of these ladies. Here is the poem:

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!
Hush! Look! In my tree,
I am as happy as happy can be.”

And the brown thrush keeps singing, “A nest, do you see,
And five eggs, hid by me in the big cherry tree?
Don’t meddle, don’t touch – little girl, little boy —
Or the world will lose some of its joy!
Now I am glad! now I am free!
And I always shall be,
If you never bring sorrow to me.”

So the merry brown thrush sings away in the tree
To you and to me – to you and to me;
And he sings all the day – little girl, little boy —
“Oh, the world’s running over with joy!
But long it won’t be,
Don’t you know? don’t you see?
Unless we’re good as good can be.”

THE JAPAN PHEASANT

ORIGINALLY the Pheasant was an inhabitant of Asia Minor but has been by degrees introduced into many countries, where its beauty of form, plumage, and the delicacy of its flesh made it a welcome visitor. The Japan Pheasant is a very beautiful species, about which little is known in its wild state, but in captivity it is pugnacious. It requires much shelter and plenty of food, and the breed is to some degree artificially kept up by the hatching of eggs under domestic hens and feeding them in the coop like ordinary chickens, until they are old and strong enough to get their own living.

The food of this bird is extremely varied. When young it is generally fed on ants’ eggs, maggots, grits, and similar food, but when it is full grown it is possessed of an accommodating appetite and will eat many kinds of seeds, roots, and leaves. It will also eat beans, peas, acorns, berries, and has even been known to eat the ivy leaf, as well as the berry.

This Pheasant loves the ground, runs with great speed, and always prefers to trust to its legs rather than to its wings. It is crafty, and when alarmed it slips quickly out of sight behind a bush or through a hedge, and then runs away with astonishing rapidity, always remaining under cover until it reaches some spot where it deems itself safe. The male is not domestic, passing an independent life during a part of the year and associating with others of its own sex during the rest of the season.

The nest is very rude, being merely a heap of leaves and grass on the ground, with a very slight depression. The eggs are numerous, about eleven or twelve, and olive brown in color. In total length, though they vary considerably, the full grown male is about three feet. The female is smaller in size than her mate, and her length a foot less.

The Japan Pheasant is not a particularly interesting bird aside from his beauty, which is indeed brilliant, there being few of the species more attractive.

THE FLICKER

AGREAT variety of names does this bird possess. It is commonly known as the Golden Winged Woodpecker, Yellow-shafted Flicker, Yellow Hammer, and less often as High-hole or High-holer, Wake-up, etc. In suitable localities throughout the United States and the southern parts of Canada, the Flicker is a very common bird, and few species are more generally known. “It is one of the most sociable of our Woodpeckers, and is apparently always on good terms with its neighbors. It usually arrives in April, occasionally even in March, the males preceding the females a few days, and as soon as the latter appear one can hear their voices in all directions.”

The Flicker is an ardent wooer. It is an exceedingly interesting and amusing sight to see a couple of males paying their addresses to a coy and coquettish female; the apparent shyness of the suitors as they sidle up to her and as quickly retreat again, the shy glances given as one peeps from behind a limb watching the other – playing bo-peep – seem very human, and “I have seen,” says an observer, “few more amusing performances than the courtship of a pair of these birds.” The defeated suitor takes his rejection quite philosophically, and retreats in a dignified manner, probably to make other trials elsewhere. Few birds deserve our good will more than the Flicker. He is exceedingly useful, destroying multitudes of grubs, larvæ, and worms. He loves berries and fruit but the damage he does to cultivated fruit is very trifling.

The Flicker begins to build its nest about two weeks after the bird arrives from the south. It prefers open country, interspersed with groves and orchards, to nest in. Any old stump, or partly decayed limb of a tree, along the banks of a creek, beside a country road, or in an old orchard, will answer the purpose. Soft wood trees seem to be preferred, however. In the prairie states it occasionally selects strange nesting sites. It has been known to chisel through the weather boarding of a dwelling house, barns, and other buildings, and to nest in the hollow space between this and the cross beams; its nests have also been found in gate posts, in church towers, and in burrows of Kingfishers and bank swallows, in perpendicular banks of streams. One of the most peculiar sites of his selection is described by William A. Bryant as follows: “On a small hill, a quarter of a mile distant from any home, stood a hay stack which had been placed there two years previously. The owner, during the winter of 1889-90, had cut the stack through the middle and hauled away one portion, leaving the other standing, with the end smoothly trimmed. The following spring I noticed a pair of flickers about the stack showing signs of wanting to make it a fixed habitation. One morning a few days later I was amused at the efforts of one of the pair. It was clinging to the perpendicular end of the stack and throwing out clipped hay at a rate to defy competition. This work continued for a week, and in that time the pair had excavated a cavity twenty inches in depth. They remained in the vicinity until autumn. During the winter the remainder of the stack was removed. They returned the following spring, and, after a brief sojourn, departed for parts unknown.”

From five to nine eggs are generally laid. They are glossy white in color, and when fresh appear as if enameled.

The young are able to leave the nest in about sixteen days; they crawl about on the limbs of the tree for a couple of days before they venture to fly, and return to the nest at night.

THE BOBOLINK

“When Nature had made all her birds,
And had no cares to think on,
She gave a rippling laugh,
And out there flew a Bobolinkon.”

O American ornithologist omits mention of the Bobolink, and naturalists generally have described him under one of the many names by which he is known. In some States he is called the Rice Bird, in others Reed Bird, the Rice or Reed Bunting, while his more familiar title, throughout the greater part of America, is Bobolink, or Bobolinkum. In Jamaica, where he gets very fat during his winter stay, he is called the Butter Bird. His title of Rice Troopial is earned by the depredations which he annually makes upon the rice crops, though his food “is by no means restricted to that seed, but consists in a large degree of insects, grubs, and various wild grasses.” A migratory bird, residing during the winter in the southern parts of America, he returns in vast multitudes northward in the early Spring. According to Wilson, their course of migration is as follows: “In April, or very early in May, the Rice Buntings, male and female, arrive within the southern boundaries of the United States, and are seen around the town of Savannah, Georgia, sometimes in separate parties of males and females, but more generally promiscuously. They remain there but a short time, and about the middle of May make their appearance in the lower part of Pennsylvania. While here the males are extremely gay and full of song, frequenting meadows, newly plowed fields, sides of creeks, rivers, and watery places, feeding on May flies and caterpillars, of which they destroy great quantities. In their passage, however, through Virginia at this season, they do great damage to the early wheat and barley while in their milky state. About the 20th of May they disappear on their way to the North. Nearly at the same time they arrive in the State of New York, spread over the whole of the New England States, as far as the river St. Lawrence, and from Lake Ontario to the sea. In all of these places they remain during the Summer, building their nests and rearing their young.”

The Bobolink’s song is a peculiar one, varying greatly with the occasion. As he flys southward, his cry is a kind of clinking note; but the love song addressed to his mate is voluble and fervent. It has been said that if you should strike the keys of a pianoforte haphazard, the higher and the lower singly very quickly, you might have some idea of the Bobolink’s notes. In the month of June he gradually changes his pretty, attractive dress and puts on one very like the females, which is of a plain rusty brown, and is not reassumed until the next season of nesting. The two parent birds in the plate represent the change from the dark plumage in which the bird is commonly known in the North as the Bobolink, to the dress of yellowish brown by which it is known throughout the South as the Rice or Reed Bird.

His nest, small and a plain one, too, is built on the ground by his industrious little wife. The inside is warmly lined with soft fibers of whatever may be nearest at hand. Five pretty white eggs, spotted all over with brown are laid, and as soon

“As the little ones chip the shell
And five wide mouths are ready for food,
‘Robert of Lincoln’ bestirs him well,
Gathering seeds for this hungry brood.”

BOBOLINK

Other birds may like to travel alone, but when jolly Mr. Bobolink and his quiet little wife come from the South, where they have spent the winter, they come with a large party of friends. When South, they eat so much rice that the people call them Rice Birds. When they come North, they enjoy eating wheat, barley, oats and insects.

Mr. and Mrs. Bobolink build their simple little nest of grasses in some field. It is hard to find on the ground, for it looks just like dry grass. Mrs. Bobolink wears a dull dress, so she cannot be seen when she is sitting on the precious eggs. She does not sing a note while caring for the eggs. Why do you think that is?

Mr. Bob-Linkum does not wear a sober dress, as you can see by his picture. He does not need to be hidden. He is just as jolly as he looks. Shall I tell you how he amuses his mate while she is sitting? He springs from the dew-wet grass with a sound like peals of merry laughter. He frolics from reed to post, singing as if his little heart would burst with joy.