Birds Illustrated by Color Photography Vol 3. No 5.
TextTHE DOUBLE YELLOW-HEADED PARROT
I came from Mexico. Once I talked Spanish, but at the present time I speak the English language altogether. Lucky, isn't it? My neck might be wrung did I cry "Viva Espana!" just now.
The reason why I spoke Spanish in Mexico was because I boarded with a Spaniard there; now I live in the United States and make my home with an American family. As I only repeat what I hear I must, of course, talk just as they do.
I was born, however, in the finest Parrot country in the world. My mother built her nest in a deep hollow in the highest tree trunk in a swamp or jungle, and there laid just two eggs. She was wise to choose a high tree, for there she thought her nest was out of danger.
When we were hatched, my brother and I, our parents fed us only twice a day, in the early morning and late evening. Two meals a day was enough for little babies, my mother said.
Well, maybe it was, but in our case it would have been better had she not fed us at all. You see the Parrot hunters were about, and as my parents always kept up such a loud "clucking" when feeding us, and we did the same, why, the hunters found out in which tall tree we lived.
It was easy then for a "peon" or poor Mexican to climb the tree, and so all of our family were made prisoners. Being Double Yellow-headed Parrots we were very valuable because we can talk. My master paid $20.00 for me.
The gentleman who owns me now sells tickets in a theatre. My cage hangs near the window, and I used to hear him say when there was a rush to buy tickets, "One at a time, gentlemen; one at a time, please!" I hadn't learned to speak English very well, then, but I heard the sentence so often that I stored it up for future use.
My master, one day, went to the country and took me with him. The sight of the trees made me think of my old home, so I escaped from the cage and flew off to the woods.
They searched for me all day but not till nightfall did they find me. Such a sorry looking bird as I was, sitting far out on the end of a limb of a tree, with my back humped, and half the gay feathers plucked out of me. Around me were a flock of Crows, picking at me whenever they got a chance.
"One at a time, gentlemen," I kept saying, hitching along the limb, "one at a time, please;" but instead of tickets they each got a feather.
SPRING THOUGHTS
AND now there is such a fiddling in the woods, such a viol creaking of bough on bough that you would think music was being born again as in the days of Orpheus. Orpheus and Apollo are certainly there taking lessons; aye, and the Jay and Blackbird, too, learn now where they stole their "thunder." They are perforce, silent, meditating new strains.
* * * *
Methinks I would share every creature's suffering for the sake of its experience and joy. The Song Sparrow and the transient Fox-colored Sparrow, have they brought me no message this year? Is not the coming of the Fox-colored Sparrow something more earnest and significant than I have dreamed of? Have I heard what this tiny passenger has to say while it flits thus from tree to tree? God did not make this world in jest, no, nor in indifference. These migratory Sparrows all bear messages that concern my life. I love the birds and beasts because they are mythologically in earnest. I see the Sparrow chirps, and flits, and sings adequately to the great design of the universe, that man does not communicate with it, understand its language, because he is not alone with nature. I reproach myself because I have regarded with indifference the passage of the birds. I have thought them no better than I.
* * * *
I hear the note of a Bobolink concealed in the top of an apple tree behind me. Though this bird's full strain is ordinarily somewhat trivial, this one appears to be meditating a strain as yet unheard in meadow or orchard. He is just touching the strings of his theorbo, his glassichord, his water organ, and one or two notes globe themselves and fall in liquid bubbles from his tuning throat. It is as if he touched his harp within a vase of liquid melody, and when he lifted it out the notes fell like bubbles from the trembling strings. Methinks they are the most liquidly sweet and melodious sounds I ever heard. They are as refreshing to my ear as the first distant tinkling and gurgling of a rill to a thirsty man. Oh, never advance farther in your art; never let us hear your full strain, sir! But away he launches, and the meadow is all bespattered with melody. Its notes fall with the apple blossoms in the orchard. The very divinest part of his strain drops from his overflowing breast singultim, in globes of melody. It is the foretaste of such strains as never fell on mortal ears, to hear which we should rush to our doors and contribute all that we possess and are. Or it seemed as if in that vase full of melody some notes sphered themselves, and from time to time bubbled up to the surface, and were with difficulty repressed.
– Thoreau.
THE MAGNOLIA WARBLER
IN this number of Birds we present two very interesting specimens of the family of Warblers, the Magnolia or Black and Yellow Warbler, ranking first in elegance. Its habitat is eastern North America as far west as the base of the Rocky Mountains. It breeds commonly in northern New England, New York, Michigan, and northward. According to Mr. William Brewster it is found everywhere common throughout the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Its favorite resorts are little clumps of firs and spruce shrubs, also willow thickets near streams and ponds and other damp places. "Its gay colors and sprightly song will at once attract the attention of even the casual observer. The nest is usually placed in the horizontal twigs of a fir or spruce at heights ranging from four to six feet, five being the average elevation, and the favorite localities are the edges of wood paths, clearings, or roads bordered by woods. Sometimes the nests are built in the tops of young hemlocks ten or fifteen feet up, or in the heart of the forest thirty-five feet above the ground." Mr. Brewster describes the nest as loosely put together, of fine twigs, preferredly hemlock, coarse grasses and dry weed-stalks. The lining is fine black roots, closely resembling horse-hair. The eggs are four, very rarely five, of creamy white, spotted and blotched with various shades of reddish brown, hazel and chestnut. The markings are generally large and well defined and often form wreaths about the larger ends.
Ridgway mentions the Magnolia Warbler as "one of the most agile of its tribe, its quick and restless movements being more like those of the Redstart than those of its nearest kindred. The tail is carried somewhat elevated and widely expanded, to display the broad white band across the middle portion of the inner web of the feathers, which together with the bold contrasts of black, yellow, and blue-gray of the plumage, render it both conspicuous and beautiful."
Mr. Langille describes the song of the Magnolia Warbler as "a loud, clear whistle, which may be imitated by the syllables chee-to, chee-to, chee-tee-ee, uttered rapidly and ending in the falling inflection."
I CAN BUT SING
"O little bird of restless wing,
Why dost thou sing so sweet and loud?
Why dost thou sing so strong and proud?
Why dost thou sing?"
"Oh I have drunk the wine of spring,
My mate hath built a nest with me:
My hope flames out in song," said he,
"I can but sing."
BIRDS PAIRING IN SPRING
TO the deep woods
They haste away, all as their fancy leads,
Pleasure, or food, or secret safety prompts;
That nature's great command may be obeyed,
Nor all the sweet sensations they perceive
Indulged in vain. Some to the holly hedge
Nestling, repair, and to the thicket, some;
Some to the rude protection of the thorn
Commit their feeble offspring; the cleft tree
Offers its kind concealment to a few,
Their food its insects, and its moss their nests;
Others apart, far in the grassy dale
Or roughening waste their humble texture weave;
But most in woodland solitudes delight,
In unfrequented glooms or shaggy banks,
Steep, and divided by a babbling brook,
Whose murmurs soothe them all the livelong day,
When by kind duty fixed. Among the roots
Of hazel pendent o'er the plaintive stream,
They frame the first foundation of their domes,
Dry sprigs of trees, in artful fabric laid,
And bound with clay together. Now 'tis nought
But restless hurry through the busy air,
Beat by unnumbered wings. The swallow sweeps
The slimy pool, to build his hanging house
Intent; and often from the careless back
Of herds and flocks a thousand tugging bills
Steal hair and wool; and oft when unobserved,
Pluck from the barn a straw; till soft and warm,
Clean and complete, their habitation grows.
As thus the patient dam assiduous sits,
Not to be tempted from her tender task
Or by sharp hunger or by smooth delight,
Though the whole loosened spring around her blows,
Her sympathizing lover takes his stand
High on the opponent bank, and ceaseless sings
The tedious time away; or else supplies
Her place a moment, while she suddenly flits
To pick the scanty meal.
– James Thomson.