Birds and Nature Vol. 9 No. 2 [February 1901]

THE ALASKAN SPARROW

 
There’s a far-away country, a wonderful land
That the twilight loves best, where the finger of God
Touched the land into shadows; unlighted they stand
As they stood at the first over-ocean and sod,
 
 
And the cloud and the mountain are one; all unheard
Is the murmur of traffic, the sigh of unrest,
And the King of the land is a golden-crowned bird
With a robe of plain brown and an ashy-gray vest.
 
 
Where the shadows are deepest a musical sound
Cleaves their darkness, the song of the golden-crowned King.
Never day is so dark but the sweet notes are heard,
Never forest so dense but the melodies ring.
 
 
Sing on, little King of the twilight land, sing,
Thy kingdom extend through the oncoming days,
Till the spaces between us with music shall ring,
And the world hush its breath but to listen and praise.
 

– Nelly Hart Woodworth.

THE DOWITCHER
(Macrorhamphus griseus.)

The range of the Dowitcher is limited to the eastern part of North America. It has been reported as far west as the Mississippi river. It breeds in the far north, usually within the Arctic Circle. Its migration is extensive for it winters in Florida, the West Indies and in the northern portion of South America.

The Dowitcher is one of the best known of our coast birds. It bears many popular names, such as Gray Snipe, Gray-back, Dowitch, Driver, Brown-back and Bay Bird. The generic name Macrorhamphus is derived from two Greek words, makros, meaning large, and rhamphos, meaning bill. The specific name griseus means gray, and probably has reference to the grayish color of the winter plumage.

The Dowitchers are the most numerous of the seaside snipes. Inland it is replaced by the Long-billed Dowitcher (Macrorhamphus scolopaceus), which has a longer bill and is a little larger. Mr. Wilson, in his Ornithology, gives the following interesting account of their habits: “They frequent the sandbars and mud of flats at low water in search of food and, being less suspicious of a boat than of a person on shore, they are easily approached by this medium and shot down in great numbers. I have frequently amused myself with the various actions of these birds. They fly rapidly, sometimes wheeling, coursing and doubling along the surface of the marshes; then shooting high in the air, there separating and forming in various bodies, uttering a kind of quivering whistle.” At the retreat of the tide flocks will frequently settle on the shore in such large numbers and so close together that several dozen have been killed at a single shot.

Mr. Chapman tells us that “they migrate in compact flocks, which are easily attracted to decoys by an imitation of their call. Mud-flats and bars exposed by the falling tide are their chosen feeding grounds. On the Gulf coast of Florida I have seen several hundred gathered in such close rank that they entirely concealed the sandbar on which they were resting.”

In summer the general color of these birds is dark-brown and the feathers are more or less edged with a reddish tinge. Underneath, the general color is light cinnamon, with white on the belly. In the winter the plumage is more gray and the under parts are much lighter in color.

This bird usually lays four eggs of a buffy olive color, which are marked by brown, especially near the larger end.

 
All the beautiful stars of the sky,
The silver doves of the forest of Night,
Over the dull earth swarm and fly,
Companions of our flight.
 

– James Thomson.

SOME THINGS WE MIGHT LEARN FROM THE LOWER ANIMALS

Man has been instructed in many things by lower animals, but there is yet much to be learned. It is said that the first suspension bridge across the Niagara was constructed after the plainest sort of hint from a spider. Yet we have never found the name of Mr. Spider cut upon the buttresses of a bridge. Who knows but that the builders of the pyramids of ancient Egypt copied their engineering plans from the ants who for generations had pursued similar methods in the architecture of their cities? Spiders had been ballooning for many centuries before man swung his first parachute to the breeze. In fact, there is a species of spider, which, although they have no wings, are able to spin for themselves a sort of apparatus by means of which they navigate the air; yet man, with all his boasted intelligence, has not accomplished this, even with the most complicated machinery. So I might go on to suggest many mechanical and economic contrivances used by lower animals, some of which man has copied but many of which he has as yet been unable to equal.

Before the first potter of old had fashioned a vase or a jug the Eumenes fraterna had constructed his dainty little jugs of mud. But the making of jugs is not the only art man might learn from this little wasp. Upon examination we find the jug filled with small green caterpillars. After depositing her egg Mrs. Wasp thus provides for her baby when it shall appear upon the field of action. Now the peculiar part of this proceeding to which I wish to call attention is that the worm is not dead, but is merely in a comatose state. If it had been killed it would have putrified and entirely disappeared before the young wasp was hatched. Furthermore, the young wasp is fond of fresh caterpillar steak, preferably from the living animal. So Mrs. Wasp must have a method of preserving the fresh living victim for her rapacious progeny next spring, while he is too young to hunt for himself, and while the caterpillars are still securely hiding in their mummy cases, Mrs. Wasp finds the venturesome young caterpillar crawling somewhere, and pouncing upon him, carefully inserts her sting into the nerve ganglia that are located in a line along his dorsal surface. We don’t know how she learned the exact location of the ganglia and that a few well-directed stabs will produce more effect than hundreds of misdirected thrusts in other parts of the body, but it is certainly true that she selects the very segments in which the ganglia are located to inflict the wound. And she had the location of these nerve centers for a long time before biologists made the discovery. What a fine thing it would be for the biologist if he could learn the secret of thus preserving living animals instead of the stiff, discolored and uninteresting alcoholic specimens. Then think of the economic value of such a discovery. Animals could be fattened in summer at much smaller expense and then injected and set away until needed. We would have no more difficulty in providing our armies with beef on the hoof, and fresh meat could be shipped at much less expense over long distances, as no ice would be necessary. We would have no more complaint of embalmed beef and putrid canned goods.

The common mud wasp that builds in old garrets fills his nest with a species of spider much relished by the young wasp and exhibits much judgment in supplying exactly the right number to provide for the growing wasp until he is able to sally forth and seize prey for himself. These spiders – often seventeen or eighteen of them – are stupefied in the same manner as in the case of the potter wasp, and are living when the young wasp begins his repast. This habit is peculiar to many species of wasp and is, I think, worthy of careful study. I wish I had space to tell of the almost fiendish ingenuity that certain parasites show in maintaining themselves at the expense of their hosts.

The ground hog has a knack of spending his winter in a way that is at once economical and pleasant. They generally hibernate in pairs, rolling themselves up into balls. They do not seem to breathe or to perform any of the life functions during their long six months’ sleep. There is, I fear, no foundation of fact for the ancient fiction of the ground hog appearing and making weather prognostications on the second of February. A gentleman writing in the New York Sun of some years since says: “I took the trouble once to dig into a woodchuck’s burrow on Candlemas day, and a warm, cloudy day it was; just such a day when the ground hog is said to come out of his hole and stay out. I found two woodchucks in the burrow, with no more signs of life about them than if they had been shot and killed. From all outward appearances I could have taken them out and had a game of football with them without their knowing it.”

Nor is it true that hibernating animals live upon their accumulated fat, for digestion, as well as other active life processes, ceases. Hibernating animals always begin their long sleep upon an empty stomach, and food injected into their stomach is not digested. The fat disappears, it is true, but it is not in any strict sense digested. Any experienced hunter is aware that unless the entrails are removed from the shot rabbit the fat will disappear from about the kidneys. The fat may, and no doubt does, assist in some way in the long sleep. It may act as fuel to keep up the right living temperature. At any rate, it is true that hibernating animals eat voraciously and grow very fat just before they go to sleep. It is a peculiar fact that many hibernating animals bring forth their young during this period. This is especially true of woodchucks and bears. It is a common experience with hunters that only male bears are killed during the winter season.

Mr. Andrew Fuller of Ridgewood, New Jersey, according to the article above quoted, had an interesting experience with a pair of Rocky Mountain ground squirrels. After missing them for a month he accidentally found them curled up under some straw, apparently frozen stiff. He brought them to the house to show his wife the misfortune that had befallen his pets. Soon they seemed to thaw out and scampered about as lively as ever. No sooner were they put out in the cold than they resumed their sleep, which continued all winter, their bodies maintaining a fairly constant temperature, seldom falling below three degrees above the freezing point of water. They came out in the spring as chipper as if they had been asleep but one night. Many hibernating animals will if wakened by being placed in a warm room, eat eagerly, but they soon show a desire to resume their nap.

The Loir, a peculiar little native of Senegal, never hibernates in its native clime, but every specimen brought to Europe becomes torpid when exposed to cold. The common land tortoise – wherever he may be and he is a voracious eater of almost anything – always goes to sleep in November, and wakes some time in May.

Just as in the north numerous animals hibernate upon approach of cold, so in the south there are species that may be said to estivate during the hottest weather. While the northern animals curl up so as to retain heat, his southern cousin straightens out as much as possible to allow the heat to escape from all parts of the body.

But it was not my intention to write an essay upon hibernation and allied phenomena, but merely to speak of it as a subject that should be investigated. What a splendid arrangement it would be for the poor, the sick, and the melancholy folk if they could just hibernate for six months occasionally.

I will merely speak of the light of the so called lightning bug, with its over ninety per centum efficiency and no heat and no consumption of fuel to speak of. Why doesn’t some genius learn her language and find out how she does it? She has been trying for centuries to demonstrate it but we are too stupid to learn her secret.

Rowland Watts.

THE GREAT-TAILED GRACKLE
(Quiscalus macrourus.)

The Great-tailed Grackle belongs to a family of birds that is “eminently characteristic of the New World, all the species being peculiar to America.” It is the family of the blackbird and oriole, of the bobolink and the meadowlark. It is called the Icteridae, from a Greek word ikteros, meaning a yellow bird. The majority of the one hundred and fifty or more species that are grouped in this family make their home in the tropics where their brilliant colors are emphasized by the ever green foliage and the bright sunshine.

The family is interesting because the species, though closely related, vary so widely in their habits. They “are found living in ground of every nature, from dry plains and wet marshes to the densest forest growth.” Here are classed some of the birds which are among the most beautiful of our songsters. Here, too, are classed some species that never utter a musical sound, and whose voices are harsh and rough. The sexes are usually dissimilar, the female being the smaller and generally much duller in color.

The Great-tailed Grackle is a native of Eastern Texas, and the country southward into Central America. The Grackles are sometimes called Crow Blackbirds. There are five species, all found in the United States, The Bronzed and the Purple Grackles are the most generally distributed and best known.

The Great-tailed Grackle, as well as the other species, usually builds rude and bulky nests in trees, sometimes at quite a height from the ground. It will also nest in shrubs and it is said that it will occasionally select holes in large trees. The males are an iridescent black in color and the females are brown and much smaller. Both sexes spend most of their time on the ground. Their feet are strong and large, and, when upon the ground, they walk or run and never hop.

THE EAGLE

 
He clasps the crag with hooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.
 
 
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
 

– Alfred Tennyson.