A SILVER-TONGUED FAMILY

THE BLUEBIRD

"It will be difficult for you to mistake this little blue-coal for any other bird. He is 'true blue,' which is as rare a color among birds its it is among flowers. He is the banner-bearer of Birdland also, and loyally floats the tricolor from our trees and telegraph wires; for, besides being blue, is he not also red and white?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bluebird.]

"To be sure, his breast is perhaps more brown than red, but when the spring sun shines on his new feathers, as he flits to and fro, it is quite bright enough to be called red. All sorts and conditions of people love and respect the Bluebird; all welcome him to their gardens and orchards. The Grossest old farmer, with his back bent double by rheumatism, contrives to bore some auger holes in an old box and fasten it on the side of the barn, or set it up on the pole of his hayrick; while the thrifty villager provides a beautiful home for his blue-backed pets--a real summer hotel, mounted on a tall post above a flower-bed, with gables and little windows under the eaves.

"Why does this bird receive so much attention? There are many others with gayer plumage and more brilliant songs. It is because the Bluebird is gentle, useful, brave, and faithful under adversity, while he and the Robin are the first two birds that children know by name. We must live in a very cold, windswept part of the country not to have some of these birds with us from March until Thanksgiving day, and then, when a week has pa.s.sed and we have not seen a single one, we say winter has come in earnest. When weeks go by and our eyes grow tired of the glare of the snow, or our hearts discouraged at the sight of bare lifeless trees and stretches of brown meadow--suddenly, some morning, we hear a few liquid notes from an old tree in a sunny spot. All eagerness, we go out to see if our ears have deceived us. No, it is a Bluebird! He is peeping into an old Woodp.e.c.k.e.r's hole and acting as if he had serious thoughts of going to housekeeping there, and did not intend waiting to move in until May-day either. When you see him you may know that, though there is still ice on the water-trough and on the little streams, spring is only around the corner, waiting for her friend, the sun, to give her a little warmer invitation to join him in their old, old play of turning the sluggish sleeping brown earth into a wonderful green garden again.

"As a Citizen the Bluebird is in every way a model. He works with the Ground Gleaners in searching the gra.s.s and low bushes for gra.s.shoppers and crickets; he searches the trees for caterpillars in company with the Tree Trappers; and in eating blueberries, cranberries, wild grapes, and other fruits he works with the Seed Sowers also.

"So who would not welcome this bird, who pays his rent and taxes in so cheerful a manner, and thanks you with a song into the bargain? A very few straws are all that he asks for his housekeeping, and every time he promises a meal for his household, scores of creeping, crawling, hopping garden enemies are gobbled up. Then he, modest little fellow that he is, comes to the roof of the shed and murmurs his thanks for your hospitality, as if you and not he had done the favor; he continues to whisper and warble about it all the way down the meadow until, having caught another gra.s.shopper, his mouth is too full for singing."

As the Doctor was speaking the shower cloud pa.s.sed over, and the sun burst out full upon the Bluebirds that were building by the woodshed.

"Oh, they _are_ red, white, and blue!" cried Dodo in great glee, "though the red is a little dirty,--not so fresh and bright as the color in our new flag."

"It is more the red of the ragged old flag they keep down in the Town Hall--the one that has seen service," said Rap thoughtfully.

Some things to remember about the Bluebird

Length (from tip of beak over head to end of tail) seven inches.

Upper parts clear bright blue.

Throat and breast reddish earth color.

Belly white.

A Summer Citizen of the United States, and a Citizen of the milder parts, of our country.

A member of the guilds of Ground Gleaners, Tree Trappers, and Seed Sowers.

THE AMERICAN ROBIN

[Ill.u.s.tration: American Robin.]

"Another home bird, first cousin to the Bluebird, coming with it in the spring, and often lingering through the winter in places that the Bluebird is obliged to leave--"

"The Robin a cousin of the Bluebird!" interrupted Nat; "why, they don't look one bit alike--how can it be, Uncle Roy?"

"I expected you to ask that question," said the Doctor. "The relationship of bird families, like that of other animals, is based upon a likeness in the formation of their bodies, and not upon mere size or color. That sort of likeness proves that their ancestors of long ago were the same, so that they are descended from one pair of very great-great-grandparents; and that always makes cousins, you know. It runs in the blood; thus, a cat and a tiger are blood relations; the little c.o.o.n and the great black bear are nearly akin. A tall broad-shouldered man, with black hair and a full beard, may have a cousin who is short and thin, with yellow hair and no beard. You see nothing strange in this, because it is something to which you are accustomed. But with bird families it takes the trained eye of the student to see the likeness there really is between all birds who have had the same ancestors, though it may be hidden under many differences in their size, shape, color, voice, and habits.

"The Robin, like the Bluebird, is found in almost all parts of North America. In the far Southern States, like Florida, where they take refuge from winter storms, Robins begin to sing in chorus while the weather in the Middle and Northern States is still so cold that it would freeze the music before any one could hear it, even if the birds had courage to sing. But delightful as the climate is there, where it also provides a plentiful table of berries, these Robins break away from the land of plenty and begin their northern journey before the first shad dares venture up the rivers.

"On and on they go, this great army of Robins, flying in flocks of ten and hundreds. Here and there they meet with smaller flocks, which have been able to spend the winter in roving about not far from their nesting places, and then there is a great deal of talking; for the Robin has a great many ways of making remarks. Some of his numerous notes sound as if he were asking a long list of questions; others express discontent; then again he fumes and sputters with anger. It is easy to tell the plump, well-fed birds, just home from the South, from those who have been obliged to live on half rations during the northern winter.

"Before this flying army quite leaves the Southern States some of them halt for nest-building, and then the Robin sings the best of all his songs,--his happy, cheery melody,--all about the earth, the sky, the sun, the tree he and his mate have chosen to build in,--a song of the little brook where he means to get the water to wet the clay to plaster his nest,--a ballad of the blue eggs it will hold, and the greedy little Robins, all eyes and mouth, that will come out of them. But as he sings something frightens him; then he cries, 'quick! quick! quick!' and hurries away in a rather clumsy fashion. If any one could understand the meaning of all that the Robin says and put it into our words, we should be able to make a very good dictionary of the language of Birdland."

"I've noticed how different his songs are," said Rap eagerly, "and how some of his ways are like the Bluebird's, too. We had a Robin's nest last season in the grape vine over the back door, and I used to watch them all the time--" and then Rap hesitated in great confusion, for fear that he had been impolite in stopping the Doctor.

"Tell us about your Robins, my boy; we shall like to hear the story.

Don't look so troubled, but say exactly what you saw them do."

Rap wriggled about a little, then settled himself comfortably with his chin resting on the top of his crutch, and began: "It was the year that my leg was hurt. The miller was chopping a tree and it fell the wrong way on me and squeezed my leg so that it couldn't be mended; so I was around home all the time. It was a terribly cold day when the Robins came back, along in the first part of March. If it hadn't been for the Robins, anybody would have thought it was January. But in January we don't have big Robin flocks about here, only just twos and threes that pick round the alder bushes and old honeysuckles for berries. It was such a cold day that the clothes froze to the line so that mother couldn't take them off, and we didn't know what to do. Well, we were looking at them, mother and I, when a big Robin flew out of the pine trees and hopped along the clothes-line as if he wanted to speak to us.

'Maybe he's hungry,' said mother. 'I guess he is,' said I; 'the ground is too hard for worms to come out, so he can't get any of them. Can't I give him some of the dried huckleberries?' We always dry a lot every summer, so as to have pies in winter. Mother said I might, so I scattered some on the snow under the pine trees, and we went in the house and peeped out of the kitchen window. At first the Robins chattered and talked for a while, looking squint-eyed at the berries, but then the bird that came on the clothes-line started down and began to eat."

"How did you know that Robin from all the others?" asked Dodo.

"He had lost the two longest quills out of his right wing, and so he flew sort of lop-sided," said Rap readily. "As soon as he began the others came down and just gobbled; in two minutes all the berries were gone, but the birds stayed round all the same, hinting for more. We hadn't many berries left, so mother said, 'Try if they will eat meal.' I mixed some meal in a pan with hot water and spread it in little puddles on the snow. The Robins acted real mad at first, because it wasn't berries, but after a while one pecked at it and told the others it was all right, and then thirty Robins all sat in a row and ate that meal up, the same as if they were chickens." Here Rap paused and laughed at the thought of the strange sight.

"Pretty soon after that the snow melted, and by April Robins were building around in our yard, in the maples by the road, and all through this orchard. One day I noticed some little twigs and a splash of mud on our back steps, and when I looked up I saw that something was building a nest in the crotch of the old grape vine. 'That's a queer place for a nest,' I said to myself, 'not a leaf on the vine and my window right on top. I wonder what silly bird is doing it.'

"Flap, and my Robin with the broken feathers came along with his mouth full of sticks; but when he saw me he dropped them and went over on the clothes-pole, and called and scolded like everything. Then I went up to my window and looked through the blind slats. Next day the nest was done. It wasn't a pretty nest--Robins' never are. They are heavy and lumpy, and often fall off the branches when a long rain wets them. This one seemed quite comfortable inside, and was lined with soft gra.s.s.

"Mrs. Robin looked like her husband, but I could tell the difference; for she didn't sit in the pines and sing, and her breast wasn't so red.

When the nest was done, she laid a beautiful egg every day until there were four, and then one or the other of the birds sat on the eggs all the time. Robins' eggs are a queer color--not just blue or quite green, but something between, all of their own."

"Yes," said Olive, "it is their own color, and we give it a name; for it is called 'robin's-egg blue' in our books."

"The old birds had been sitting for ten days, and it was almost time for the little ones to come out, when one night there was a great wind and the grape vine, that was only fastened up with bits of leather and tacks, fell down in a heap. In the morning there was the nest all in a tangle of vine down on the ground. The vine must have swung down, for it hadn't tipped the nest over, and the mother bird was sitting on it still.

"'That will never do,' said my mother; 'the first cat that strays by will take the poor thing.' While I was looking at it mother went in the house and came back with a little tin pail. She picked some branches and tied them round it so that the tin didn't show. 'Now,' she said to the Robin, the same as if it understood our language, 'get up and let me see if I can't better you a bit.' Then the bird left the nest, making a great fuss, and crying 'quick! quick!' as if all the woods were afire.

"'Oh, mother!' I cried, 'the eggs will get cold. What are you taking the nest away for? It was better to chance the cats.'

"'Don't you fret, sonny,' said she; 'your mammy has some common sense if she don't trampoose all over creation watching birds.' And before I understood what she was doing she had put the nest in the top of the tin pail and hung it on a hook under the shed roof. 'Now,' she said, 'Mrs. Robin, try how you like that!'

"I watched and after a few minutes first one Robin flew under the shed and then the other, and the next thing one was sitting on the pail-nest as nice as you please!"

"Did the birds hatch?" asked Olive, Nat, and Dodo, almost in the same breath.

"Yes, they hatched all right; and then I noticed something funny. The backs and b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the little birds were almost naked when they were hatched, and their eyes closed tight; but when the feathers came they were spotted on their backs and b.r.e.a.s.t.s and not plain like their parents. Do you know," added Rap after a little pause, "that when Bluebirds are little, their backs and b.r.e.a.s.t.s are speckled too, though afterward they moult out plain? So there is something alike about Bluebirds and Robins that even a boy can see."

"You are quite right," said the Doctor; "the 'something alike, that even a boy can see,' is one of the things that shows these birds to be cousins, as I told you. Every one of the Silver-tongued Family is spotted when it gets its first feathers. It is strange," he added in an undertone, as if talking to himself, "how long it took some of us to find out what any bright boy can see."

The American Robin--Remember This

Length ten inches.

Upper parts slate color with a tinge of brown.

Head black on top and sides, with white spots around the eyes. Tail black with white spots on the tips of some feathers.

Under parts brick-red, except the black and white streaked throat and under the tail.