Birds and All Nature, Vol. V, No. 4, April 1899

SINGING is applied to birds in the same sense that it is to human beings – the utterance of musical notes. Every person makes vocal sounds of some kind, but many persons never attempt to sing. So it is with birds. The eagle screams, the owl hoots, the wild goose honks, the crow caws, but none of these discordant sounds can be called singing.

With the poet, the singing of birds means merry, light-hearted joyousness, and most of us are poetic enough to view it in the same way. Birds sing most in the spring and the early summer, those happiest seasons of the year, while employed in nest-building and in rearing their young. Many of our musical singers are silent all the rest of the year; at least they utter only low chirpings.

Outside of what are properly classed as song birds there are many species that never pretend to sing; in fact, these far outnumber the musicians. They include the water birds of every kind, both swimmers and waders; all the birds of prey, eagles, hawks, owls, and vultures; and all the gallinaceous tribes, comprising pheasants, partridges, turkeys, and chickens. The gobble of the turkey cock, the defiant crow of the "bob-white," are none of them true singing; yet it is quite probable that all of these sounds are uttered with precisely similar motives to those that inspire the sweet warbling of the song-sparrow, the clear whistle of the robin, or the thrilling music of the wood-thrush. —Philadelphia Times.

THE HYACINTH

I sometimes think that never blows so red
The rose as where some buried Cæsar bled;
That every hyacinth the garden wears
Dropt in her lap from some once lovely head.

    – Omar Khayyam.
HYACINTH, also called Jacinth, is said to be "supreme amongst the flowers of spring." It was in cultivation before 1597, and is therefore not a new favorite. Gerard, at the above date, records the existence of six varieties. Rea, in 1676, mentions several single and double varieties as being then in English gardens, and Justice, in 1754, describes upwards of fifty single-flowered varieties, and nearly one hundred double-flowered ones, as a selection of the best from the catalogues of two then celebrated Dutch growers. One of the Dutch sorts, called La Reine de Femmes, is said to have produced from thirty-four to thirty-eight flowers in a spike, and on its first appearance to have sold for fifty guilders a bulb. Others sold for even larger sums. Justice relates that he himself raised several very valuable double-flowered kinds from seeds, which many of the sorts he describes are noted for producing freely.

It is said that the original of the cultivated hyacinth (Hyacinthus orientalis) is by comparison an insignificant plant, bearing on a spike only a few small, narrow-lobed, wash, blue flowers. So great has been the improvement effected by the florists that the modern hyacinth would hardly be recognized as the descendant of the type above referred to, the spikes being long and dense, composed of a large number of flowers; the spikes not infrequently measure six or seven inches in length and from seven to nine inches in circumference, with the flowers closely set on from bottom to top. Of late years much improvement has been effected in the size of the individual flowers and the breadth of their recurving lobes, as well as in securing increased brilliancy and depth of color. The names of hyacinths are now almost legion, and of all colors, carmine red, dark blue, lilac-pink, bluish white, indigo-blue, silvery-pink, rose, yellow, snow-white, azure-blue. The bulbs of the hyacinths are said to be as near perfection as can be; and if set early in well-prepared soil, free from all hard substances, given plenty of room, and mulched with leaves and trash, which should be removed in the spring, they will be even more beautiful than any description can indicate. When potted for winter bloom in the house, good soil, drainage, and space must be given to them and they must be kept moist and cool, as well as in the dark while forming roots preparatory to blooming. After they are ready to bloom they do best in rooms having a southern exposure, as they will need only the warmth of the sunlight to perfect them. The hyacinth does not tolerate gas and artificial heat.

There is a pretty legend connected with the hyacinth. Hyacinthus was a mythological figure associated with the hyacinthia, a festival celebrated by the Spartans in honor of Apollo of Amyclæ, whose primitive image, standing on a throne, is described by Pausanias. The legend is to the effect that Hyacinthus, a beautiful youth beloved by the god, was accidentally killed by him with a discus. From his blood sprang a dark-colored flower called after him hyacinth, on whose petals is the word "alas." The myth is one of the many popular representations of the beautiful spring vegetation slain by the hot sun of summer. The sister of Hyacinthus is Polyboca, the much-nourishing fertility of the rich Amyclæan valley; while his brother is Cynortas, the rising of the dog (the hot) star. But with the death of the spring is united the idea of its certain resuscitation in a new year. The festival took place on the three hottest days of summer, and its rites were a mixture of mourning and rejoicing.

    C. C. M.

A QUARREL BETWEEN JENNY WREN AND THE FLYCATCHERS

C. L. GRUBER,

State Normal School, Kutztown, Pa

FOR a number of years a crested flycatcher has built his nest in a hole in an apple tree in my yard, about twenty feet from a house constructed for the habitation of the wrens. Jenny usually showed no animosity toward her neighbor; but one spring, while nest-building was in progress, she suddenly seemed to have decided that the flycatcher's abode was in too close proximity to her own domicile and deliberately invaded the flycatcher's domains and dumped the materials of his nest on the walk beneath the tree. When the flycatcher returned the air was filled with his protests, while the wren saucily and defiantly answered him from the roof of her own dwelling. The flycatcher immediately proceeded to build anew, but before he had fairly commenced, the pugnacious wren made another raid and despoiled his nest again. This happened a third time; then the flycatcher and his mate took turns in watching and building. While one went out in search of building material the other remained on guard just inside the door. The situation now became exceedingly interesting, and at times ludicrous. Jenny Wren is a born fighter, and can whip most birds twice her size, but she seemed to consider the flycatcher more than a match for her. The first few times after the flycatcher made it his business to stay on guard, the wren would fly boldly to the opening, but would flee just as precipitately on the appearance of the enemy from the inside. After each retreat there was a great deal of threatening, scolding, and parleying, and Jenny several times seemed fairly beside herself with rage, while the flycatcher coolly whistled his challenge on the other side of the line of neutrality. The wren now adopted different strategy. She flew to the tree from a point where the flycatcher could not see her, then hurried along the limb in which the flycatcher lay concealed and circled around the hole, all the time endeavoring to take a peep on the inside without herself being observed, in the vain hope that her enemy might not be at home. Suddenly there would be a flutter of wings and a brown streak through the air, followed by another as the flycatcher, shot like a bullet from the opening in the tree; but the active marauder was safely hidden amid the grapevines, and the baffled flycatcher returned to his picket line, hurling back epithets and telling Jenny that he would surely catch her next time. In this manner the strife continued for several days. Then a truce seemed to have been arranged. Certainly the flycatcher was still on guard, but the wrens went about their work and did not molest the flycatchers except at long intervals. I thought the flycatchers had conquered; but one morning when I came out, there on the walk were three broken, brown-penciled eggs, nest, snakeskin, and all. The flycatcher had put too much trust in the wren's unconcernedness, and came back to find himself once more without a nest. But Jenny seemed to have desired only one more stroke of revenge, and the flycatchers finally succeeded in raising their family in front of the home of Jenny Wren.

notes

1

When I said "Wilson" above I find I was slightly mistaken. I remembered reading it long ago in the first edition I possessed of this writer's works – the little four-volume set edited by Prof. Jameson for "Constable's Miscellany," Edinburgh, 1831, and taking down the book now, which I have not opened for years, I find the passages in question (Vol. iv, pp. 245 et seq.) form part of an appendix drawn from Richardson and Swainson's "Northern Zoology," and that the real authority is Audubon.

2

Note. – Further to the west and extending at least to Wisconsin, the following list of early woodland flowers may take the place of the above, blooming in the order given: Erigenia (or harbinger of spring), hepatica, bloodroot, and dog-tooth violet, or perhaps the dicentra (Dutchman's breeches) may come before the last.

The skunk cabbage, which is not a woodland flower, and therefore not included in the above list, is the first flower probably in all New England and the northern states.

3

Note. – In the West several conspicuous flowers, particularly the pretty hepatica, precede the cowslip.