The Belted Kingfisher

Length about thirteen inches.

A long, bristling crest; bill longer than head, stout, straight, and sharp.

Leaden-blue above, with many white bands and spots on the short, square tail and long, pointed wings.

Below white, with a blue belt across the breast, and the female with a brown belt also.

A Citizen of North America.

Belonging to no useful guild, but a rather startling, amusing neighbor, who always minds Ins own business and is an industrious fisherman.

"What was the other bird, who cried, 'kuk kuk!' on the outside of the woods? There, it is calling again! I'm sure that it is a Woodp.e.c.k.e.r!"

"Wrong again--it is a Cuckoo; the Yellow-billed one, I think, for the voice is louder and harsher than that of his Black-billed brother."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Yellow-Billed Cuckoo.]

"What! a little blue and white bird like the one that bobs out of mother's carved clock at home? Oh, do let us try to find it! But this bird didn't say 'cuckoo'; it only cackled something like a Hen when she is tired of sitting."

"The clock Cuckoo is an imitation of the merry, heedless English bird, who lays her eggs in the wrong nests, as our Cowbird does. The Yellow-billed Cuckoo is quite different, being long, slender, and graceful, and a very patient parent--even though the nest she builds is rather a poor thing, made of a few twigs piled so loosely in a bush that the pale-green eggs sometimes drop out.

"Let us go over to the brush hedge where the bird seemed to be. Hush!

there he sits upon the limb of a maple. No--look a little higher up. He is perfectly still, and acts as if he was half asleep. See what a powerful bill he has! With that he tears away the ugly webs of tent-caterpillars from the fruit trees, and sometimes eats more than forty caterpillars without stopping--he is so fond of them. Look at him through the gla.s.s, and see if the following description fits him."

The Yellow-billed Cuckoo

Length about twelve inches.

Upper parts olive-gray or Quaker color all over, smooth and shiny; wings tinged with bright cinnamon, and most of the tail-feathers black, with large white spots at the ends.

Under parts pure white. Under half of bill yellow.

A Summer Citizen of temperate North America west to the plains. Travels south for the winter to the West Indies and South America.

A very valuable neighbor, and an officer of high rank in the guild of Tree Trappers.

His brother--the Black-billed Cuckoo--is very much like him, except that the tail is not black, its spots are smaller, and he has no yellow on the bill, but a red ring round the eye.

"Kuk-kuk-kuk--couk--co-uk--co-uk!" cried the bird, as he spread his wings and sailed off, giving the children a fine chance to see his long, rounded, black tail with the white spots. "Are there any Owls in these woods, Uncle Roy?" asked Nat. "You know we haven't seen an Owl yet, though we hear one almost every night."

"Doubtless there are; but the best place to find Owls is in the old wood, far up by the lake, where the lumbermen have their camp. The Great Horned Owl nests there, and many Hawks besides. I will take you all there some day, and, if you do not find the birds themselves, you can see the wild places where they like to nest."

"Couldn't we go very soon, uncle? Next week, perhaps?" urged Dodo.

"Fourth of July comes next week," said Nat, "and uncle said we could go down to the sh.o.r.e again, and take our fire-crackers! It will be such fun to stick them in rows in the sand and make them sizzle--more fun even than Owls! Don't you think so, Dodo?" he asked anxiously.

"Oh, yes; and then it wouldn't be polite either not to have fire-crackers on the Fourth of July. I think the American Eagle or the President or somebody expects children to have fire-crackers. Mammy Bun says the first American Eagle was hatched on the Fourth of July, you know," said Dodo earnestly. "Do you think he was, uncle?"

"No; it was the United States that were hatched on the Fourth of July, seventeen--seventy--six," said Nat, hesitating a little over the date.

"You are both right in a way," laughed the Doctor; "but you need not give up the Owls in order to celebrate the Eagle's birthday. We will have an Eagle's birthday party at the beach on the Fourth; and on the eighth--which is Dodo's birthday, if I am not mistaken--we will have an Owl party up at the lake!"

"Oh! oh, how lovely!" cried Dodo, giving her uncle such a sudden hug and kiss that his hat flew off. "And the lake is a long way off, so first we go in the cars, and then in a big hay wagon with straw in the bottom--at least, that is the way Olive said she went the last time!"

CHAPTER XXV

CANNIBALS IN COURT

Dodo's birthday and a disappointment came together on the eighth, and the disappointment took the shape of a rainy day. Not an early morning shower, with promise of warmth and clear weather; for it was one of the cold, northeasterly storms that are very trying at any time of the year, but doubly so when they come in July, and seem, for the time, to turn summer into autumn.

Dodo, Nat, Rap, and Olive stood under the shelter of the porch, the children vainly hoping that it might clear up before nine o'clock--the hour the train left--and Olive racking her brain for something that would soothe their feelings. "We might ask mammy to let us go into the kitchen and make candy," she said. "The weather is too damp and sticky for mola.s.ses candy, but b.u.t.ter-scotch will harden if we put it in the dairy." Even this did not seem to be very tempting to little people who had expected to go to the real Owl woods, and Quick barked and yelped as if he, too, felt cheated out of an expected excursion.

Presently the Doctor came out and saw the forlorn group, which, being quite heedless of the sharp slant of the rain, was rather wet and limp.

"Poor little bird-hunters!" he said--rather too cheerfully, they thought--"you look as unhappy as the party of astronomers who went all the way to Africa to photograph an eclipse of the sun, and when the time came were so excited that they forgot to open the camera, and so took no pictures. Come into the hall and I will tell you about a plan I have.

Catching cold isn't a nice game for a birthday party.

"You expected to hear something about the cannibal birds to-day, and see the woods where a great many of them live and make their nests, didn't you?"

"Yes," said Dodo; "we wanted to know why they are cannibals, and see where the wicked things live that eat little Chickens and song birds."

"Very well. Now do you know that though all Hawks and Owls sometimes eat other birds and help themselves to poultry from the barnyards, yet at the same time most of them are the farmer's best friends?"

"No," said Rap; "I thought they were all bad, evil birds, and that the Government often gave money to people for killing them; besides, I am sure that a Hawk took eleven of our little Chickens this very spring!"

"The Wise Men have been looking up the records of these cannibals--or Birds of Prey, as they are usually called--and find that very few of them--only two or three kinds, perhaps--should be condemned to death.

The others belong to the secret guild of the Wise Watchers who, sitting silently in the shadows of the woods, or perching in the trees around the edges of fields, wait for rats, mice, moles, rabbits, gophers, beetles, cutworms, and many other creatures which destroy vegetable life. The Wise Watchers kill these hurtful creatures, and so become the guardians of the fields."

"Oh, do tell us which ones do this and which took Rap's Chickens," said Dodo, forgetting her disappointment for the time.

"I am going to make a play for you. Some of the Owls and Hawks shall speak for themselves, and tell you about their own habits and customs.

In fact, the most familiar of these cannibals shall have a hearing this morning in the wonder room. The American Eagle is to be the judge, and I think that, as you cannot go to the woods, you will like to come into my room to hear what they have to say."

"Birds talking about themselves in the wonder room!" said Dodo in a puzzled way.

"What is a hearing?" asked Nat.

"I know what a hearing is," said Rap. "It is where people are accused of doing something wrong and they go down to the courthouse, and the judge hears what they have to say about it; and, if he thinks they have done the things, he binds them over for trial. They often have hearings down in the town hall in the East Village."