Birds and all Nature Vol VII, No. 3, March 1900

THE RUDDY DUCK

(Erismatura rubida.)

FEW, if any, ducks have so many popular names as this species, which is known as spine-tailed, heavy-tailed, quill-tail coot, stiff-tail, bristle-tail, sleepy-duck, sleepy coot, fool-duck, deaf-duck, shot-pouch, daub-duck, stubble-and-twist, booly-coot, blather scoot, hickory-head, greaser, paddy, noddy, paddy-whack, dinkey, hard-tack, etc., according to the locality or the particular individual who is asked to name the species. It has characteristics which justify the use of any one or all of these names. Its range is the whole of North America, which extends south to Guatemala and Colombia, Cuba and other West Indian islands. Probably no North American duck has so extensive a breeding-range as the present species, since it breeds as far south as Guatemala, perhaps even farther; as far north as Great Stone Lake, York Factory, and other localities in the sub-Arctic portions of the continent, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. According to Professor Cook it winters from southern Illinois southward. This duck seems to be equally fond of salt, brackish, and fresh water. In the Southern states it is found in great flocks. Its flight is rapid, with a whirring sound, occasioned by the concave form of the wings. It rises from the water with considerable difficulty, being obliged to assist itself with its broad webbed feet, and for that purpose to run on the surface for several yards. From the ground, however, it can spring up at once. It swims with ease and grace, is expert at diving, and when wounded, often escapes in this way, hiding in the grass if there is any accessible. The locality usually selected for a nest is some deep, sluggish stream, lake, or pond, and the nests are always built close to the water's edge, being composed of reeds, dry rushes, and grass. The structure is often made so that it will float, similar to a grebe's nest. It is asserted that this bird prefers the abandoned nests of coots for nesting purposes to those constructed by itself. The eggs appear large for the size of the bird; they are grayish white, oval in shape, with a finely granulated surface; sizes range from 2.35 to 2.50 long by 1.70 to 1.80 broad. Audubon says that the adult female in summer presents the same characteristics as the male. He describes the male one year old as having a similar white patch on the side of the head; upper part of head and hind neck dull blackish brown; throat and sides of neck, lower part of the neck dull reddish brown waved with dusky; upper parts as in the adult but of a duller tint, lower parts of a grayish white.

WINGS

 
Wings that flutter in sunny air;
Wings that dive and dip and dare;
Wings of the humming-bird flashing by;
Wings of the lark in the purple sky;
Wings of the eagle aloft, aloof;
Wings of the pigeon upon the roof;
Wings of the storm-bird, swift and free,
With wild winds sweeping across the sea —
Often and often a voice in me sings —
Oh for the freedom, the freedom of wings!
 

– Mary F. Butts.

I KNOW NOT WHY

 
I lift mine eyes against the sky,
The clouds are weeping – so am I;
I lift mine eyes again on high,
The sun is smiling – so am I.
Why do I smile? Why do I weep?
I do not know, it lies so deep.
I hear the winds of autumn sigh.
They break my heart, they make me cry.
I hear the birds of lovely spring,
My hopes revive, I help them sing.
Why do I sing? Why do I cry?
It lies so deep I know not why.
 

– Morris Rosenfeld.

THE BRAVE BOAR

ELLA F. MOSBY

 
"Upstairs, downstairs,
And in my lady's chamber,"
 

THE French chronicles of the reign of Francis I. tell the following wonderful story of a boar hunt: "'Twas in a grand forest that stretched for miles around a castle – an old-fashioned castle of ramparts and towers, of wide halls and winding stairways.

Oliver, the twelve-year old son of the master of the castle, had set his heart on going with his father to hunt the wild boar with the gentlemen of the neighborhood. The forest was the home of a great many wild creatures, great and small. Squirrels and hares lived there; wide-antlered stags and timid does with their young fawns beside them, foxes, boars that feasted on the black acorns and chestnuts that covered the ground, and fierce gray wolves, seen chiefly in winter. The boars were the fiercest of all, even the sows would fight for their young ones, and there was one old boar who was by this time quite famous for his courage, his cunning and his great age. He was called Pique-Mort, which means death-thrust, because he had in his savage onslaughts fatally wounded so many men, horses and dogs.

"Oliver's father had ordered the great hunt against this very old warrior, who, by the way, had grown so shrewd that he could not always be roused from his secret lair even by the beaters and prickers who went ahead of the hunters. But he surely would appear to-day. The forest was ringing with horns and bugles, the neighing of horses, the baying of noble hounds, the hallooing and joyous clamor of the sportsmen.

"Oliver was well prepared for the occasion. Old Bertrand had taught him all the calls and recalls on bugle and horn, had trained him to thrust with the long boar-spear, and to use the short, thick sword kept for the last when the brute was near, and the big boar-hounds Vite-Vite, and the others, turned and obeyed his voice when it rang out in its clear, boyish treble. Most important of all, his mother had consented to his going.

"But alas, and alas! when the morning dawned fair and sweet, poor Oliver was racked with grievous pain and burning with fever! The chase swept away with shout and cry and bugle-blast, and Oliver barely heeded it or turned his head when his father called back: 'We'll bring old Pique-Mort home with us.' However, by the afternoon the fever had slackened, and the pain abated, and Oliver lay white and weak on his couch, and with piteous tears on his cheeks over the mischance that had held him fast at home. He turned his face to the wall in a burst of passionate grief as they heard, at first far off, and then nearer and nearer, the excited yelps of the dogs, then the trampling of horses, the hoarse cries of the men, and oh, the bugle! – note of 'La Mort!' which meant victory over the famous boar!

"'Oliver,' said his mother tenderly, – and then all at once came a sound at which both started, and threw their arms about each other. In the hall below, up the stairs, came a heavy creature, panting, snorting, and the furious Pique-Mort suddenly burst upon their amazed vision! Sinister and savage did he look, the little, round greedy eyes red with rage, the bristles standing up like a cuirass, the sharp and cruel tusks ready for assault, and foam and blood churned at their base into a streaked froth by his heat and anger. He was within the chamber. Oliver's arm dropped nerveless at his side, and his frightened eyes sought vainly for any weapon.

"The mother had a quicker wit, and stooping down, she seized with both arms a large Eastern rug, and threw it over the beast's head, blinding him for the while, as well as blunting the thrust of the terrible tusks. As he struggled desperately in its smothering and heavy folds, the whole following – dogs, men and the master at their head, were up the stairs also, and the death-stroke was quickly given. It was the end of the veteran of so many chases in morass and thicket – Pique-Mort was dead.

"After a moment's half-stupefied stare, the lord of the castle broke forth:

"'Well, my boy, you were at the finish after all.' The dogs could not be held off their old foe, and the brave boar was furious at their baiting, and so broke away. My lady, you have the glory, and Oliver his wish.'

"Old Bertrand stroked his grizzled beard.

"''Twas a gallant brute,' he said. 'Had he been a man they would have styled him hero. He had a high courage and loved freedom well.'"

We have grown since those rough days into more compassion for animals, but even yet we are not altogether just to their side of the question, to the recognition of their right to life and its joys as their merciful Creator has given it to them.

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE TEACHER

JESSIE P. WHITAKER

IN the summer of 1897, wandering in the woods of Pigeon Cove, on the outer point of Cape Ann, the prolonged call of a bird often came to my ears, which aroused my curiosity. I was not then much acquainted with birds, but was beginning to "take notice" and usually carried my field glass on my walks, and if I saw or heard a bird unfamiliar to me, tried to look him up in my books. I had with me "Our Common Birds and How to Know Them," by John B. Grant; also Florence Merriam's "Birds Through an Opera Glass" – very good books to aid beginners in identifying birds. The call of which I speak was so marked and so often repeated that I eagerly searched for the bird, but could not get a glimpse of him, nor even locate the sound accurately.

I soon perceived, however, that it was a regular chant, increasing in an even crescendo, vibrating through the woods. I remembered reading descriptions of such a call in the books, and soon found my bird to be the oven-bird, golden-crowned thrush, or teacher bird.

But why "teacher" bird?

I was constantly asking this question, for to my ears the sound always came as ti-chee, ti-chee, ti-chee, with accent always on the final syllable. By no exercise of the imagination could I make it sound like "teacher." Never during that summer nor during the two succeeding summers have I heard these birds at Pigeon Cove say "teacher."

The little brown walker kept out of my sight very persistently during that first summer, but in September, walking in the woods near Star Lake in the Adirondacks, I had a good, near view of two little olive-green birds walking on some low branches. Their white speckled breasts proclaimed them thrushes, while the beautiful crown of brownish orange inclosed in lines of black, plainly marked them the "golden-crowned." Often as I have seen the bird since, his golden crown has never appeared as conspicuous as it did on that September day by the mountain lake. But I had to go to Skaneateles Lake in central New York to hear him say "teacher." On a May morning in in 1899, sitting on a mountain side overlooking this beautiful sheet of water, the chant of a bird came vibrating through the woods to my ears, teach-ah, teach-ah, teach-ah, teach-ah, teach-ah very distinctly.

Accent clearly on the first syllable this time.

Ah! Mr. Burroughs, at last I have found your little "teacher."

Will anyone tell me why this bird with olive back and speckled, thrush-like breast, is placed in the family Mniotiltidæ, or wood warblers, instead of with the Turdidæ, or thrushes? And why is the "water thrush" also classed with wood warblers, when his olive back and speckled breast make him seem almost a twin brother to the oven bird, while both are so unlike other members of the warbler family, and so much resemble the true thrushes? It was at Glen Haven, beside a mountain brook tumbling down into Skaneateles Lake that I had my first and only view of a water thrush.

His clear song, repeatedly ringing out above the noisy music of the brook, kept luring me onward and upward over the rough banks, till at length I saw the little walker peering about among the stones for his food. Another bird closely resembling the thrushes and bearing the name, yet placed in another family, is the brown thrasher, or thrush. I look in my book for his classification. Family Troglodytidæ! I can scarcely believe my eyes! Can any one give me any earthly reason why the ornithologists in their wisdom have seen fit to place this bird, with his reddish brown back, speckled breast and beautiful thrush-like song, in the same family with catbirds and wrens? Truly the mysteries of ornithology are past my comprehension.

To return to our "teacher." My acquaintance with him has not yet advanced to the stage of finding him "at home" in his dwelling. As Neltje Blanchan says, "it is only by a happy accident" that one might "discover the little ball of earth raised above the ground, but concealed by leaves and twigs and resembling a Dutch oven, which gives the bird its name of oven-bird." Last summer at Pigeon Cove the warning cries of a mother-bird led me to suspect a nest, but I failed to find it. The brood had evidently left their home, for a sudden loud outcry from the mother-bird startled me as the little thrushes scurried out of the path from almost under my feet, while Madame Thrush fluttered about with a pretense of a broken wing to distract my attention. Her "trailing" was quite effective, for by the time I had turned my attention from her performance to the babies, they were quite out of sight.

THE MUSKRAT

(Fiber Zibethicus.)

THAT part of North America which is included between the thirtieth and sixtieth parallels of north latitude is the home of this species of muskrat, which is the most numerous of the family. It is most plentiful in Alaska and Canada, which are so rich in lakes and rivers. It is described as a large water mole, with a long tail, broad hind paws, a blunt snout, and short, hair-covered ears, which may be closed to exclude water. The fur is close, smooth, soft, and lustrous, the woolly under fur being extremely delicate, fine, and short; the outer coat has a strong luster, and is double the length of the former. Adult males attain a total length of twenty-three inches, the tail occupying about half of this. Grassy banks of large lakes or wide, slowly flowing streams and swamps are its favorite haunts, though it is frequently seen about large ponds, grown with reeds and aquatic plants, where it erects a permanent home and dwells either in small colonies or communities of considerable numbers. The mode of life of a muskrat is in many respects like that of the beaver, for which reason the Indians call the two animals brothers, and affirm that the beaver is the older and more intelligent of the two. The burrows of the muskrat consist of plain underground chambers, with several tunnels, all terminating under water, or of strongholds above ground. These are of a round or dome shape, stand on a heap of mud, and rise above the surface of the water. They are lined with reeds, reed grass, and sedge, cemented with mud; the interior of the "lodge" contains a single chamber from sixteen to twenty-four inches in diameter. A tunnel which opens beneath the water leads to it. In winter it lines its chambers softly with water lilies, leaves, grasses, and reeds, providing for ventilation by loosely covering the center of the dome-shaped roof with plants, which admit a sufficient quantity of fresh air and let the vitiated air out. As long as the pond or swamp does not freeze to the very bottom it is said to lead a highly comfortable existence in its warm habitation, which is often protected by a covering of snow. Some observers say that the food of the muskrat consists almost wholly of aquatic plants, but Audubon saw captive muskrats which were very fond of mussels. They are very lively, playful creatures when in the water. On a calm night many of them may be seen in a mill-pond or some other sequestered pool, "disporting themselves, crossing and recrossing in every direction, leaving long, glittering ripples in their wake as they swim, while others stand for a few moments on little tufts of grass, stones, or logs, from which they can reach their food floating on the water; others sit on the banks of the pond and then plunge one after the other into water like frogs."

From three to six young are born in a burrow. If caught young they are easily tamed, and are of an equable and gentle disposition. Although some people dislike the fur on account of the odor of musk which clings to it for a long time, it is often used for trimming clothing or in the manufacture of collars and cuffs, especially in America and China. The best pelts are deprived of the long outer fur, dyed a dark brown color and used as a trimming which resembles sealskin. The animal is caught in traps baited with apples. The Indians know exactly which "lodges" are inhabited; they only eat the flesh, as the odor does not seem to be disagreeable to them.