Birds and all Nature, Vol. VII, No. 4, April 1900

His favorite resting-place was on my shoulder or head and he seemed to be very fond of company.

One morning I saw Jack and Jill flying from tree to tree with him and that is the last I ever saw of any of them.

BIRDLAND SECRETS

SARA E. GRAVES

Tell me what the bluebird sings
When from Southland up he springs
Into March's frosty skies
And to our New England flies,
Where, upon some sunny morn
Hear we first his note lovelorn.

Now he 'mong the maple flits,
Now upon a fencepost sits,
Lifting wings of heaven's own blue
As he warbles, clear and true,
Song so plaintive, soft and sweet,
All our hearts with welcome beat.

What the message full he brings
When in March's ear he sings?
Tell me what our robins think
When our April airs they drink,
Following close in Bluebird's train
With their blither, bolder strain.

Sit they high on maple tall
Chirping loud their earnest call,
Redbreasts glowing in the sun,
Then across the sward they run
Scampering briskly, then upright,
Flirt their tails and spring to flight.

Or, when drops the light of day
Down the westward golden way,
Robin mounts the tallest branch
Touched by sunset's quivering lance;
Carols forth his evening tune
Blithe as Earth were in her June.

Tell me what the sparrow says
In those first glad springtime days,
When the maples yield their sweet,
When Earth's waking pulses beat,
When the swollen streams and rills
Frolic down the pasture hills.

Winter birds and squirrels then
Grow more lively in the glen,
And, when warmer airs arise,
Sparrow sings her sweet surprise
From the lilac bushes near,
Song of faith and hope and cheer.

Tell me, when the longer train
Up from Southland sweeps again,
Filling fields and glens and woods —
Wildest, deepest solitudes —
With more brilliant life and song,
Golden lyre and silver tongue,
Bells that ring their morning chimes
Wood nymphs voicing soothing rhymes
Stirring all the sun-filled air
With hymns of praise and love and prayer.

Tell me whence their motive power,
Tell me whence so rich a dower,
Tell me why are birds so gifted;
Whence their imprisoned spirits drifted;
Whither swells this tide of love
Flooding all the air above?
Whither these enchantments tend?
A brief bird life – is this its end?

THE MASSENA QUAIL

(Cyrtonyx Massena.)

THIS beautiful species is said to be by far the most gentle and unsuspicious of our quails, and will permit a very close approach by man, showing little or no fear of what most animals know so well to be their most deadly enemy. While feeding they keep close together, and constantly utter a soft clucking note, as though talking to one another.

This species is about the size of the eastern variety. Its head is ornamented with a beautifully full, soft occipital crest. The head of the male is singularly striped with black and white. The female is smaller and is quite different in color, but may be recognized by the generic characters. The tail is short and full, and the claws very large.

The quail makes a simple nest on the ground, under the edge of some old log, or in the thick grass on the prairie, lined with soft and well-dried grass and a few feathers. From fifteen to twenty-four white eggs are laid. The female sits three weeks. The young brood, as soon as they are fairly out of the shell, leave the nest and seem abundantly strong to follow the parent, though they are no bigger than the end of one's thumb – covered with down. The massena quail is an inhabitant of the western and southwestern states.

IN THE OLD LOG HOUSE

BY BERTHA SEAVEY SAUNIER

THE big orchard on the Triggs place was also the old orchard. Grandpa Triggs had planted it long ago in his young days when the country was new. The year before he had hauled logs from yonder forest with his ox-team and built the strong little house that still stands at the foot of the orchard.

He brought young crab trees, too, and set them all about the house and though, after the orchard was started, he often threatened to cut them down, he never did it and they grew into a tangle of friendship and protection until the little one-roomed house was nearly hidden.

The house was desolate now. The catbirds built their nests in the crotches of the crabs and the jays came over from the woods across the river and quarreled with them. An old zigzag rail fence separated the orchard from the hay-field at one end and a tall uncared-for osage hedge did scant duty at two sides. Once in a great while a sheep would leave the aftermath and step through the wide spaces of the hedge and, entering the doorless house, would walk curiously about and then return. But that was all – no, not quite all. The children built fires in the great fireplace and roasted potatoes or experimented at cooking carrots, artichokes, apples and occasionally a pair of kidneys rolled each in several thicknesses of brown paper and slowly cooked under the hot ashes and coals. To be sure, the smoke came out into the room and got into the children's eyes and passed out at the door – for the chimney had crumbled to half its old time height – but the playtimes went on in spite of that and the birds shouted and sang outside.

One would expect that all this activity above board to be happily interested without looking for new and startling circumstances under ground. But, withal, life went on among the "underground lights," with its busy unconcern of affairs which it could not share or even comprehend. Rarely when the fire warmed the bricks about the fireplace did comely, plump Mrs. Acre Tidae fail to raise her song. She had a way of building a home had Mrs. House Cricket. She tossed out a few grains of earth from under the brick tiling of the hearth and presto! she entered in backward and sat down waving her long slender antennæ with a happy content that would shame many a one who, having more, is not satisfied. Mr. Field Cricket, who happens also to be named Acre Tidae, had built his home at the edge of the path in the sandy loam just without the door. Two bodies of the same name and family would be expected to live in the same house, but they couldn't quite come to do that on account of tastes. For one thing they differed in the matter of dress, though that was the least objection one to the other. Mrs. House Cricket wore a grayish yellow dress, marked a little with brown and Mr. Field Cricket wore darker colors. He built his home deeper, too, which would never suit Mrs. Acre Tidae at all. Sometimes his home is twelve inches deep, and six it is sure to be. And then, big fellow that he is, quite a bit larger than she, he does not mind the cold. He snuggles down in the deep darkness as soon as he sees the dew frozen in the tiny crystals all over the long grass blades, and sleeps the time away, however long and cold the winter may be; and such a life is scorned by bright Mrs. House Cricket, who chooses the hearth on account of the warmth and who chirps joyfully throughout the year, except when the fire goes out, as it often does in the little old log house; for there were days and days when the children did not come to play. At such times Mrs. House Cricket was forced unwillingly to fall asleep. "Shameful!" she would mutter, as the last flicker of feeling departed. "Such a waste of time. If I had built in a bakery or by a brick oven how much busier I might be – and happier. I'm no better than those cousins of mine who make it a business to sleep half the year around." These last words were so soft as she scraped them off on the ridges of her wing covers that the children, who were just going home, stopped and Linsey said, "Do hear the cricket – it says, 'Good night; good night.'"

"By-by, Crick!" called Harry, as he leaped through the hedge and ran to the brook to stamp on the thin ice with his heel. "I shall move out," moaned Mrs. Cricket with her faintest note. But moving day did not arrive for many weeks and Mrs. Cricket awoke and went to sleep as many times; and finally the long hot days found her contentedly basking in the field among the warm grasses, having forgotten the troubles of the winter. "Dear me," she was softly drumming with her wing covers as she stopped in her evening search for food. "Dear, dear! how that big cousin of mine does scream! Perhaps he calls it music, but I don't."