Charles Conrad Abbott

“ It might be argued that a single act of a bird, at some one time, and under peculiar circumstances, does not constitute a habit—that it simply chanced to do so and so; but a second occurrence of the kind would result differently. It must be remembered, however, that where a bird is noticed in its natural haunts, once, even if for more than an hour—which is an unusually long observation—there are weeks when this same bird is unseen, and therefore what its acts may be are absolutely unknown. For this reason, an ingenious act of a bird may be frequently repeated, and almost certainly is. ”

“ A careful and long-continued study of our birds in their chosen haunts, free from all unnatural (i. e., human) persecution, has enabled me to detect but little variation in the flight-powers of the individuals of any species of bird observed—far less than in the general range of their habits: but still, such individual variation, I think, does exist. A bird is not a perfectly-adapted machine, capable of faultlessly filling its destined place in Nature, and unerringly performing everything required of it. ”

“ This difference between the insect-eating and the granivorous birds, the more prolonged autumn stay of the latter, we think, explains itself. In the spring, there is an object ever in view, while on their journey north—in autumn, their sole care is to be home in time; not so much to escape the coming cold, as to avoid being pinched by hunger.
We have seen that the first frost that but little affects vegetation does materially decrease insect-life; the swallows even anticipate this first frost, and, gathering in immense flocks, wing their way southward long before it comes. ”

“ Now, merely clambering over the bark of trees would not enable them to secure sufficient food, and imitation could not extend beyond this point; but here experience comes into play, and the gradual acquirement of the whole routine is easily traced. The bark of trees is nearly always cracked, and in the crevices are more insects than on the surface, and the habit, soon acquired, of search in the cracks of the bark is the one step from searching over the exposed surface to search beneath. Imitation led the ignorant young bird to the thrifty growth of timber, and not the tangled hedge-rows. ”

“ The conditions not obtaining that necessitate migration, does it not become a case of survival of habit, just as in man many customs now exist, the origin and proper meaning of which are wholly lost? That this is true of the migration of all birds we do not believe, but that it partially holds good with some species we are fully convinced. As an inherited habit, but one now not absolutely necessary to the bird's welfare, we can see why it should be, as it frequently is, so greatly influenced by surrounding circumstances and conditions. ”

“ Indeed, our ignorance of bird-life is so great, that what seem to us "curious instances," because but seldom witnessed, are frequently daily occurrences, and ordinary features of the bird's life. It can scarcely have escaped the notice of close observers of our winter birds, that their comparative abundance is only during clear, pleasant weather, when they will be as lively and restless as spring birds in early summer, and that during the winter certain localities, as the southern outlooks of wooded hillsides and such sheltered spots, are those where these hardy species "most do congregate." ”

“ At the first white frost, the hollow maple, that throughout the summer has securely housed a family of short-eared owls, now gives us evidence of the fact, by dropping the leafy screen that hid them well from view. While the young were yet babies the old tree shielded them well—now they are able to shift for themselves, and the tree offers them shelter, but nothing more. With the departure of the sunlight the owls are all astir, and it is funny enough to see them. ”

“ Careful observation will enable any one to see clearly that every bird has a considerable range of utterance. Observe two birds immediately after mating, and what a laughable caricature of a newly-married couple—say on their wedding-journey—are their actions and their low, ceaseless twittering! They also have their petty vexations and their little quarrels, in which the feminine voice is ever the louder and more rapid in its utterance, and its owner enjoys the precious privilege of the last word. ”

“ Who, that has kept canaries, has not noticed that, while some are cross, others are affectionate, others lively, and, again, others moody—that their dispositions were nearly as varied as in mankind? If it is admitted that variation in disposition exists among birds, may we not go a step farther, and claim also differences in mental ability—that, in plain language, the "smarter" bird will build the better nest? ”

“ Having familiarized one's self with the various phases of bird-life, as it occurs in the open fields, dense thickets, along secluded streams, and in shady forests, one can scarcely conclude otherwise, if happily he has not entered upon his studies with some preconceived notion, than that these wild and wary falcons, timid sparrows, fiery little wrens, and cautious waterfowl, are creatures that, like man himself, are thrown upon the world dependent upon their own exertions, guided by their own reasoning powers. ”

“ Finally, in the chance occurrence of some peculiar habit have we not a trace of the former mode of life of some far-distant ancestral form; and, in the undeniable irregularity of all habits, can we not discern unmistakable indications of the gradual adoption of every habit, just as the various specific forms themselves gradually emerged from the archaic creature that, appearing in the dim past, foreshadowed the gigantic condor of the Andes, and the petulant humming-birds of our summer gardens? ”

“ Of a single owl but little can be said; but before the family separates, and while the young are receiving their lessons in mouse-hunting, it becomes very evident, first, that owls are great talkers; and, secondly, that they are decidedly intelligent. I was impressed with these facts during a pleasant moonlight evening last October, when, having taken my stand to watch the owls, I saw the whole family of six as they came from their nest in the tree. The old birds first appeared, flew directly toward the meadow, and disappeared in the long grass. ”

“ This, be it understood, is our supposition, and may be wholly untrue; but how are we to interpret the meaning of any habit or particular movement of a bird, except by the human standard? An act on the part of a bird is intelligible to us only as we would interpret a corresponding act in man; and these acts in birds and men, producing allied results, indicate that close connection between all animal life which is so readily comprehended from an evolution stand-point. ”

“ Soon the four young birds made their appearance, but only to creep cautiously along the limbs of the tree, and then settle themselves, in a lazy, muffled-up manner, as though nothing remained to be done. All the while the old birds kept up a peculiar call—more like a scream than a hoot—not altogether unpleasant to the ear. I am in doubt whether the young owls made any reply, though I took a faint clicking noise to be such. In a little while, however, they began to get hungry, and then they uttered unmistakable cries, to which the parent owls replied by returning to the tree. ”

“ In the beak of each owl was a mouse, or what I took to be such, and when they alighted on the maple I could detect, in the uncertain light, that they did not approach closely to the young birds, but, having removed the mice, which they now held in their claws, they chattered and screamed to their young, in a manner that could only be interpreted as, "Come over here and get your mouse." It was evident that the young owls were to be taught to help themselves, and to practice their power of flight. ”

“ It forced it from the edge of the nest, to which it clung with its feet. Once free, the little fellow struggled to keep itself up, throwing up its wings, as a child would straighten out its arms when falling. ”

“ It is not chance, but a consciousness of the uselessness of search, that determines its flight to some more distant rather than a nearer tree.
As an example of the knowledge gained by young birds through imitation, let us take young woodpeckers. On leaving the nest, they accompany their parents, but are not fed by them. Like the old birds, they immediately commence to climb the trunks and branches of the trees. Having been fed with insects when in the nest, they are already able to recognize their proper food, and devour the visible insects they may discover on the outer surface of the bark. ”

“ We feel quite confident that in exceptionally mild winters many more migratory birds winter in Southern New Jersey than ornithologists suspect; and we can see, in the lingering remnant of the great flight of warblers that annually pass through the State, that gradual adaptation to surrounding conditions, on the part of birds, that as centuries roll by, evolve, by that mystery of mysteries, the "survival of the fittest," new species from the old. ”

“ Given that knowledge which comes through direct and indirect instruction from the parent-birds, and a young bird, having the world before it, exercises just those mental powers that man exercises, but limited just so far as its own wants are less than man's wants as man. ”

“ Why indeed, a robin should line its nest with mud, and a cat-bird should not, is probably past finding out, but, as changes gradually brought about by man's agency have already effected changes in the habits of some of our birds, so these same changes, ever in progress in the haunts of our robin, may cause these birds to gradually omit this lining of mud in their nests, and so make them more like the nests of other thrushes ”

“ If we go back into the remote past, and recall the ancestral woodpecker, we can with no undue use of the imagination picture to ourselves the first steps that led the good climber to find in the half-decayed bark the nourishing food abounding there ”

“ Natural selection, or whatever may be the governing impulse that controls it, also indirectly causes the range of variation in the details of the construction of their nests, inasmuch as these variations of habit are the necessary result of changes wrought in the physical construction of the creatures themselves, for, stripped of the haze that metaphysics has gathered about it, as a bewildering gloom, we can see in the operations of the mind, in man and bird, only the curious results of the workings of those fatty atoms, intimately combined, we call the brain ”

“ The progenitor of our score of warblers, the one tyrant flycatcher, from which all our species have sprung, the vireos, the goatsuckers, and cuckoos, then very few in species, if indeed there were more than one of each, must have been influenced by the presence of the icy barriers that shut them off for the time being from a vast portion of the northern world, and at the close or closing of that wonderful period it may be that migration commenced, yet why and how, we can but guess. ”

“ We have so frequently noticed that certain birds, common to a locality during the summer, occasionally fail to visit it, except one or two individuals, that in April come for a few days, that it has appeared to us that these "pioneer" birds saw satisfactory reasons for believing that there would be a scarcity of food, and so return to meet their fellows, and informing them, they all depart to "fresh fields and pastures new," just as a single crow, discovering danger, will turn a whole colony from their course as they are going to their roosting-place. ”

“ This ceasing to bring the food to the young while yet in the nest is done in some instances, I judge, only to draw them from the nest; and then they feed them as before, but not as frequently, which leads the young to voluntarily move from point to point. The important fact must not be lost sight of, too, that the young birds, when once out of the nest, witness nearly every movement of their parents, and learn, undoubtedly, very much through imitation of their movements. ”

“ Their store of provisions was wholly chestnuts and acorns, and the shells of these nuts were all pushed into one of the passages, so that there should be no litter mingled with the soft hay that lined the nest. How long this underground life lasts, before hibernation really commences, it is difficult to determine; but as this torpid state does not continue until their food-supply is again obtainable out-of-doors, the chipmunks, no doubt, store away sufficient for their needs throughout the early spring, and perhaps until berries are ripe. ”

“ If we consider the several circumstances that would necessarily influence their migratory movements, this actual irregularity, in autumn, is just what should be expected; but in the spring, as every bird returns to its own home and former nest, if possible, they will not linger on the way, as they know too well the length of the journey, and the coming duties of incubation speed them on, and we wonder why they are not more regular in their movements. ”

“ One reason why nests do not vary more than they do, simply, is—a mud-lined nest being best suited to a robin's welfare—that a bird reared in a poorly-constructed nest may be of greater ability and more energetic than its parents, and this, joined with the fact that the bird's mate may have been reared in a nest of perfect construction, of itself would tend to remedy, in part, the defects its partner might allow ”

“ I submit, is he who fashioned the rude palæolithic implements, that, with bones of extinct and Arctic mammalia, are now found in the glacial drift of our river-valleys; and his "descendants," a rude people, with whom the Indian finally came in contact, were those who fashioned the plainly finished argillite arrow-heads and spears that are now, in part, commingled with the elaborate workmanship of the latest race, save one, that has peopled this continent. ”

“ We probably never take a walk in the woods that we are not watched by many creatures which we do not see; and many a squeak or whistle which, if heard at all, is attributed to some bird, is a signal-cry of danger made by some one animal which, having seen us, takes this method of warning its fellows. ”

“ This, we think, is shown by the irregularity of the movement that really occurs, and the tendency on the part of many species to modify the habit by occasionally halting much to the south of their usual breeding-grounds, and by remaining later and later in autumn; and, again, by the fact that many birds are now only partially migratory, and others by occasionally migrating simply in search of food, thus exhibiting, as it were, traces of a habit they have long lost, as to its full meaning and accomplishment. ”

“ Can one bird tell another anything? it will be asked. To this I answer that, if any one has watched a colony of brooding krakles, or paid close attention to a flock of crows, he has probably satisfied himself upon this point. Crows have twenty-seven distinct cries, calls, or utterances, each readily distinguishable from the other, and each having an unmistakable connection with a certain class of actions; some of which, as, for instance, the many different notes of the brooding-birds, are only heard at certain seasons. ”

“ They have really nothing else to do, if we except escaping from the attacks of their enemies, and this is taught them directly by their parents. I judge that the great majority of birds that fall victims to birds of prey and carnivorous mammals are young. To return to the feeding-habits of birds. These appear to be acquired, by every bird, through imitation of the movements of the parents when in search of food; judgment as to localities, on the part of the young, and allied circumstances connected with procuring food, come by experience. ”

“ A warbler that winters in Florida, and breeds near the arctic circle, is operated upon by a cause that exists at each terminus, or by two differing causes, each peculiar to its own location, and it is wholly incredible that it is the same cause that induces both the visit to northern regions and the return' to a southern clime; therefore there must be at least two causes for the habit—one inducing it in the spring, another compelling the migrating bird to return. ”

“ In Massachusetts, this bird is strictly migratory; the great bulk of those that depart from the north, and from New Jersey, wintering in the Carolinas and Georgia. In this species, therefore, we have an example of a migratory bird that is gradually becoming more and more accustomed, not to the rigors of winter which birds are better able to withstand than they are supposed to be, but to the methods of our winter residents, such as woodpeckers, jays, and titmice, in procuring such food as can then be procured. ”

“ But if, on the other hand, instead of one, we find a hundred scattered over a few square rods of ground, then we have evidence not simply that arrow and spear heads may be of various shapes and sizes, but that where they occur was once a village, it may be, or a battle has been fought at this point, or possibly that here an arrow-maker once plied his calling, the more definite decision being reached whether we find pottery and domestic implements also, or weapons only, or mingled with a multitude of the flakes of such mineral as that of which the weapons are made. ”