REMEMBERED SONGS
I walked an autumn lane, and ne'er a tune
Besieged mine ear from hedge or ground or tree;
The summer minstrels all had fared from me
Far southward, since the snows must flock so soon.
And yet the air seemed vibrant with the croon
Of unseen birds and words of May-tide glee;
The very silence was a melody
Sown thick with memoried cadences of June.
Shall we not hold that when our little day
Is done, and we are of men no more,
We still live on in some such subtle way,
To make some silence vocal by some shore
Of Recollection, or to only play
Soft songs on hearts that loved us long before?
– Richard Burton.
THE YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD
(Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus.)
THE geographical distribution of this member of the blackbird family is western North America to the Pacific Ocean, east to Wisconsin, Illinois, Kansas, and Texas. The bird is accidental in the Atlantic states. It is found generally distributed on the prairies in all favorable localities from Texas to Illinois. It is a common bird in the West, collecting in colonies to breed in marshy places anywhere in its general range, often in company with the red-winged blackbird. The nests are usually placed in the midst of large marshes, attached to the tall flags and grasses. Davie says they are generally large, light, but thick-brimmed, made of interwoven grasses and sedges impacted together. The eggs are from two to six in number, but the usual number is four. Their ground color is dull grayish-white, in some grayish-green, profusely covered with small blotches and specks of drab, purplish-brown and umber. The average size is 1.12 × .75.
Mr. Nelson says that the yellow-headed blackbird is a very common resident of Cook County, Ill., in large marshes. It arrives the first of May and commences nesting the last of that month. Owing to the restricted localities inhabited by it, it is but slightly known among farmers; even those living near the marshes think it an uncommon bird. The only difference in the habits of the male and female is the slightly greater shyness of the former. Colonies nest in rushes in the Calumet marshes, are bold and interesting, and adults are sometimes seen on the ground along country roads some distance from water.
The food of these birds during the nesting season is worms and grubs, which are fed each day to the young birds by the hundreds. In this way they help protect the crops of the farmer. In the autumn, when the young can fly as well as their parents, they collect in large flocks and start on their southern journey. At this time young and old travel together. Many of them are killed by hawks, which often follow a flock for days, dashing into their midst whenever they see a chance to capture one.
The blackbirds are alike in general characteristics. They all walk and get most of their food on the ground. In spring, when large flocks are roaming in all directions, one may easily be confused by them. Miss Merriam says that with a little care they will easily be distinguished. The crow blackbirds may be known by their large size and long tails. The male cowbird may be told at a glance, she says, by his chocolate-colored head, the red-wing by his epaulettes, and, we may add, the yellow-headed by the brilliant yellow of his whole head and neck, "as if he had plunged up to his shoulders in a keg of yellow paint, while the rest of his attire is shining black." He utters a loud, shrill whistle, quite unlike any sound produced by his kinsmen.
How sweet the harmonies of afternoon,
The blackbird sings along the sunny breeze
His ancient song of leaves and summer boon;
Rich breath of hayfields streams thro' the whispering trees,
And birds of morning trim their bustling wings,
And listen fondly, while the blackbird sings.
– Frederick Tennyson.
THE YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD
E. K. M
THE little readers of Birds and All Nature will not have much respect for me, I am afraid, after reading what Mr. Wood Thrush said of my family in the last number of the magazine.
Probably you don't recollect it. Well, he said that my cousin, Mr. Red-Wing Blackbird, was often found in the company of Mr. Cowbird, and that Mr. Cowbird was a very disreputable creature, being no better than an outcast and a tramp.
Humph! Just as though birds, like boys and girls, are to be judged by the company they keep. Why, I associate with Mr. Cowbird, too; he is a distant relative of mine, and certainly nobody who looks at my picture can call me disreputable. See what a glossy black coat I wear and what a fine yellow collar and hat. We are only free in our manners, that is all, helping ourselves liberally to the grain planted by our dear friend, Mr. Farmer.
I am not lazy, either, like my relative, Mr. Cowbird, for I build a new house every spring, locating it among the tall flags and grasses in a nice damp piece of marshland.
Though I am a blackbird, I'm not found from the Atlantic to the Pacific, as Mr. Red-Wing is and others of our tribe. For that reason you can't call me common, you know. But, then, our manners and customs are about the same. We do not hop like other birds, but walk very much as you do, putting one foot before the other, a bit awkwardly, perhaps, but I am sure with considerable dignity. Indeed, my mate says but for cocking my head on one side when strutting on the ground one might take me for a bishop – in feathers – I have such a solemn, serious air, as though burdened with a sense of my own importance.
Like the generality of birds, I find a warm climate in winter conducive to my health, so in November I leave the north and hie me to the south, returning about the first of May, not so early as my cousin, Mr. Red-Wing, and the other common members of the blackbird family. They, like some visitors, welcome or unwelcome, usually come early and stay late.
It strikes me, for that reason, the blackbird family should be considered of some importance, even if they do associate with Mr. Cowbird, tramp that he is, for when the first flocks of blackbirds are seen sailing overhead, like leaves blown by the wind against the sky, you know that spring is near, no matter how cold or chill the weather may be. Crowds and crowds of us are then seen circling and wheeling above our last year's nesting-place, talking and laughing like little children and making just as much noise.
Con-cur-ee is the only song we know, but we utter that in different tones, so that our mates consider it very pleasing, and so may you.
WITH OPEN EYES
OLIVE SCHREINER
… And now we turn to nature. All these years we have lived beside her, and we have never seen her; now we open our eyes and look at her.
The rocks have been to us a blur of brown; we bend over them, and the disorganized masses dissolve into a many-colored, many-shaped, carefully arranged form of existence. Here masses of rainbow-tinted crystals, half-fused together; there bands of smooth gray methodically overlying each other. This rock here is covered with a delicate silvery tracery in some mineral, resembling leaves and branches; there on the flat stone, on which we so often have sat to weep and pray, we look down, and see it covered with the fossil footprints of great birds, and the beautiful skeleton of a fish. We have often tried to picture in our mind what the fossilized remains of creatures must be like, and all the while we sat on them. We have been so blinded by thinking and feeling that we have never seen the world.
The flat plain has been to us a reach of monotonous red. We look at it, and every handful of sand starts into life. That wonderful people, the ants, we learn to know; see them make war and peace, play and work, and build their huge palaces. And that smaller people we make acquaintance with, who live in the flowers. The citto flower had been for us a mere blur of yellow; we find its heart composed of a hundred perfect flowers, the homes of the tiny black people with red stripes, who moved in and out in that little yellow city. Every bluebell has its inhabitant. Every day the karroo (plain) shows up a new wonder sleeping in its teeming bosom. On our way we pause and stand to see the ground-spider make its trap, bury itself in the sand, and then wait for the falling in of its enemy. Farther on walks a horned beetle, and near him starts open the door of a spider, who peeps out carefully, and quickly puts it down again. On a karroo-bush a green fly is laying her silver eggs. We carry them home, and see the shells pierced, the spotted grub come out, turn to a green fly, and flit away. We are not satisfied with what nature shows us, and will see something for ourselves. Under the white hen we put a dozen eggs, and break one daily to see the white spot wax into the chicken. We are not excited or enthusiastic about it; but a man is not to lay his throat open, he must think of something. So we plant seeds in rows on our dam-wall, and pull one up daily to see how it goes with them. Alladeen buried her wonderful stone, and a golden palace sprang up at her feet. We do far more. We put a brown seed in the earth, and a living thing starts out, starts upward – why, no more than Alladeen can we say – starts upward, and does not desist till it is higher than our heads, sparkling with dew in the early morning, glittering with yellow blossoms, shaking brown seeds with little embryo souls on to the ground. We look at it solemnly, from the time it consists of two leaves peeping above the ground and a soft white root, till we have to raise our faces to look at it; but we find no reason for that upward starting.
A fowl drowns itself in our dam. We take it out, and open it on the bank, and kneel, looking at it. Above are the organs divided by delicate tissues; below are the intestines artistically curved in a spiral form, and each tier covered by a delicate network of blood-vessels standing out red against the faint blue background. Each branch of the blood-vessels is comprised of a trunk, bifurcating into the most delicate hair-like threads, symmetrically arranged… Of that same exact shape and outline is our thorn-tree seen against the sky in mid-winter; of that shape also is delicate metallic tracery between our rocks; in that exact path does our water flow when without a furrow we lead it from the dam; so shaped are the antlers of the horned beetle. How are these things related that such deep union should exist between them all? Is it chance? Or, are they not all the fine branches of one trunk, whose sap flows through us all?
… And so it comes to pass, in time, that the earth ceases for us to be a weltering chaos. We walk in the great hall of life, looking up and around reverentially. Nothing is despicable – all is meaning – full; nothing is small – all is part of a whole, whose beginning and end we know not. The life that throbs in us is a pulsation from it; too mighty for our comprehension, not too small. —Story of an African Farm.
BIRD NOTES
ANNE WAKELY JACKSON
DURING the late autumn days, when the summer chorus has dispersed, and only a few winter soloists remain to cheer us, one is more than ever impressed by the wonderful carrying power of bird notes. Many of these notes are not at all loud; and yet we hear them very distinctly at a comparatively long distance from their source.
The ear that is trained to listen will distinguish a bird's note above a great variety of loud and distracting noises. This is due, not to the loudness of the note, but to the quality of its tone.
We all know by experience, though few of us, alas, profit by it that when we wish to make ourselves heard, it is not always necessary to raise our voices, but only to use a different quality of tone.
Thus, some singers, when you hear them in a small room, seem to completely fill it with sound, while if they sing in a large hall, they can scarcely be heard at all beyond a certain distance. Their voices lack carrying power, and their notes apparently escape almost directly after leaving their mouths.
It is this carrying quality, which can be cultivated to a large extent in the human voice, that we find in bird notes. They produce their notes in a perfectly natural way. They do not, like us, have to be trained and taught to sing naturally.
I believe that nearly every human voice has some sweet or agreeable quality in it. If the owner would but use that part, instead of inflicting the harsh or strident or shrill part upon the unfortunate listener, what a musical world we should live in! No discordant voices! Think of it!
To go back to the birds. Here is an example of the penetrating quality of tone they possess. One morning I was busily engaged in the back part of the house, when my ear caught the sound of a bird's note, and I determined to follow it up.
It led me to the front part of the house, out of the front door, down the walk, across the street, and into a neighbor's yard where I found my "caller," a white-breasted nut-hatch, carefully searching the bark of a tall soft maple. His note did not sound particularly loud when I stood there near him. Yet I had heard it with perfect distinctness in the rear of the house.
What a penetrating quality there is in the high, faint "skreeking" of the brown creeper, and in the metallic "pip" of the hairy woodpecker.
The birds could teach us many a lesson on "voice production," if we would but listen to them.
The person who has never learned to listen, misses much of the beauty of life. For him "that hath ears to hear," when he goes abroad, the air is full of subtle music. Not merely the music of the birds, but other voices of nature as well; the wind in the trees, the rustle of leaves.
The unthinking person walks along the street, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. What does he miss? Many things. He misses yon tall tree, which suggests such strength, such enduring majesty. He misses the beautiful leaf that lies in his path, a marvel of exquisitely blended coloring. He misses the delicate tracery of slender twigs and branches, with their background of blue sky or gray cloud. He misses the voices of his feathered friends who would gladly cheer him on his way. If he thinks of nature at all, he is apt to think her beauties have departed with the summer. Not so. If you love nature, she will never withhold some part of her beauty from you, no matter how cold or windy or rainy the day may be. If you see no beauty it is not because it is entirely lacking, but because you are blind to it.
The love of nature is a great gift, a gift that is within the reach of all of us. Let us, then, cultivate this gift, and we shall find beauty and harmony and peace, such as we never dreamed of before. Our lives will become better and nobler for the contact with nature, and we shall be brought into a closer understanding of nature's God.