Edith M. Patch

“ Right in the very heart of Christmas-tree Land there was a forest of firs that pointed to the sky as straight as steeples. A hush lay over the forest, as if there were something very wonderful there, that might be meant for you if you were quiet and waited for it to come. Perhaps you have felt like that when you walked down the aisle of a church, with the sun shining through the lovely glass in the windows. Men have often called the woods "temples"; so there is, after all, nothing so very strange in having a preacher live in the midst of the fir forest that grew in Christmas-tree Land. ”

“ Now, of course, Ardea could not know about this, or that the Plume-Hunters had come to steal her wedding feathers. But she knew well enough that danger was at hand, and that in times of trouble a mother's place is beside her babies. Her heart beat quickly with a new terror, but she stayed, the brave bird stayed! And all about her the other herons stayed also. They had no way to fight for their lives, and they might have flown far and safely on their strong wings; but none of them would desert the home built with love while the frightened babies were calling to their fathers and mothers. ”

“ Fear and disappointment entered their quick hearts, which had been beating in confidence and hope. People who climbed ladders were not beings to trust, after all, but frightful and destroying creatures. This had the hand of That Boy brought to Eve and Petro, who looked at the empty place where their nest had been, and went away.
Bad luck it brought to an artist who drew pictures of birds; and when he knew what had happened, a sudden light flamed in his eyes. The name of this light is anger—the kind that comes when harm has been ruthlessly done to the weak and helpless. ”

“ Perhaps among all living creatures of the world there is nothing more wonderful than a bird in his migrant flight—a bird whose blood is fresh with the air he breathes as only a bird can breathe; whose health is strong with the wholesome feast that he takes when and where he finds it; whose wings hold him in perfect flight through unweary miles; whose life is led, we know not how, on, on, on, and ever in the right direction.
Yes, Bob was wonderful when he flew from the mountains of Jamaica to the great savannas of Venezuela ”

“ For getting acquainted with birds, we no more need books than we need books for getting acquainted with people. One bird, if rightly known,—as with one person understood,—will teach us more than we can learn by reading. But since no one has time to learn for himself more than a few things about many birds, or many things about a few birds, it is pleasant and companionable and helpful to have even a second-hand share in what other people have learned. For myself, I like to watch both the bird in the bush through my own eyes and the bird in the book through the eyes of some other observer. ”

“ Never think that Nature has been less kind to boys and girls than to birds. Unto Bob was given the fields to seek, and he had no other choice. Unto Peter the shores, and that was all. But unto us is given a chance to choose what we will seek. If it is as far away as the prairies of Paraguay, shall we let a dauntless little vagabond put our faith to shame? If it is as near as our next-door meadow, shall we not find a full measure of happiness there—mixed with the bobolink's music of June? ”

“ If you do not understand exactly what instinct is, do not feel worried, for there are some things about that secret of Mother Nature that even the wisest men in the world have not explained. But this we do know, that when her instincts led Mother Nomer to choose the pebbly roof as a background for her mottled feathers, she did just naturally very much the same thing that the soldiers in the world-war did when they made use of great guns painted to look like things they were not, and ships painted to look like the waves beneath them and the clouds in the sky above. ”

“ So Gavia went off to one side and stirred the water up as if she were trying to scare fish toward the others, who waited quietly. Then they all dived, and what their black sharp-pointed bills found under water tasted good to those hungry birds.
After that the loon party broke up, and each pair went to their own home cove, where they had left their young. It had been a pleasant way to spend the time sociably together; and loons like society very much, if they can select their own friends and have their parties in a wilderness lake. ”

“ Of course they found it as all cliff swallows must, for cliff-hunting is a part of their springtime work. It was very high and very straight. Its wall was of boards, and the gray shingled roof jutted out overhead just as if inviting Eve and Petro to its shelter.
It was a good cliff, and mankind had been so busy building the same sort all across the country for the past hundred years that there was no lack of them anywhere, and swallows could now choose the ones that pleased them best. Yes, civilization had been kind to them and had made more cliffs than Nature had built for them ”

“ And did the fish belong to the osprey or to Uncle Sam?
What would you call a man who, by power of greater strength, took away the food another man had earned?
Are we, then, to call Uncle Sam a thief and a bully?
Ah, no; because it is not with an eagle as it is with a man.
For the wild things of the world there is only one law, and that is the Law of Nature. They must live as they are made to live, and that is all that concerns them. There is nothing for bird or beast or blossom to learn about "right" or "wrong," as we learn about those things. ”

“ Thus, long after he would have been weaned, for his own good, from such care, had he remained wild, Corbie, the tame crow, claimed protection with cunning, cuddling ways that taught the Blue-eyed Girl and her brother and the Grown-Ups, too, something about crows that many people never even guess. For all their rollicking care-free ways, there is, hidden beneath their black feathers, an affection very tender and lasting; and when they are given the friendship of humans, they find touching ways of showing how deep their trust can be. ”

“ No sooner had the sound of his whistle gone from the roof, than Mother Nomer came back to her houseless home—any spot doing as well as another, now that the twins were hatched and able to walk about. As she called her babies to her and tucked them under her feathers, her heart still beating quickly with the excitement of her scare, it would be easy to guess from the dear way of her cuddling that it isn't a beautiful woven cradle or quaint walls of clay that matter most in the life of young birds, but the loving care that is given them. ”

“ Soft and fine and vivid green it was, of the kind that had been gathered for Larie's nest and had turned yellowish in drying. Under the carpet, in underground lanes as long as a man's long arm, lived Larie's young neighbor-folk—little petrels, sometimes called "Mother Carey's Chickens."
There was even more on the island yet: for high on the rocks stood a lighthouse; and the man who kept the signal lights in order was no other than Larie's policeman himself. A useful life he lived, saving ships of the sea by the power of light, and birds of the sea by the power of law. ”

“ And the next time you raise your gun to needlessly take a feathered life, think of the marvellous little engine which your lead will stifle forever; lower your weapon and look into the clear bright eyes of the bird whose body equals yours in physical perfection, and whose tiny brain can generate a sympathy, a love for its mate, which in sincerity and unselfishness suffers little when compared with human affection. ”

“ Yet it was a tidy room, fresh and sweet enough for anybody to live in; for a crow, young or old, is a clean sort of person.
The father of the Brown-eyed Boy and the Blue-eyed Girl looked over the five homely, floundering little birds, and, choosing Corbie, put him into his hat and climbed down with him. He was a nimble sort of father, or he never could have done it, so tall a tree it was, with no branches near the ground.
Corbie, even at ten days old, was not like the spry children of Peter Piper, who could run about at one day old, all ready for picnics and teetering along the shore. ”

“ For the life of the world, whether it flies through the air or grows in the ground, is greatly in your care; and though you may never win a prize of money for finding the dove that other people lost, there is a reward of joy ready for anyone who can look at our good old Mother Earth and say, "It will not be my fault if, as the years go by, you lose your birds and flowers." ”

“ He strewed the vegetable garden with torn and tattered squash-blossoms—gorgeous [Pg 111] bits of color that it was such fun to find hidden under the big green leaves! He strutted to the flower-garden, and pulled off all the yellow pansies, piling them in a heap. He jumped for the golden buttercups, nipping them from their stems. He danced for joy among the torn dandelion blooms he threw about the lawn. For Corbie was like a human baby in many ways. He must handle what he loved, and spoil it with his playing. ”

“ The meadows of Maine had been his choice for his honeymoon, and a glad time of it he and May had had with their snug little home of woven grass. That home was like an anchor to them both, and held their hearts fast during the days it had taken to make five grown-sized birds out of five eggs. But now that their sons and daughters were strong of wing and fully dressed in traveling suits like their mother's, it was well that Bob had put off his gay wedding clothes and donned a garb of about the same sort as that worn by the rest of his family; for dull colors are much the best for trips. ”

“ If the architect can answer all those questions, ask him one more: ask him if he could make such a nest with the same materials the birds used, and with no more tools?
Well, Eve and Petro could and did. It was big enough and strong enough and shaped just right; and when it was nearly done and nearly ready for the soft warm lining, That Boy climbed the ladder and knocked it down with his hand.
There it lay, Eve and Petro's wonderfully modeled nest of clay, broken to bits on the ground and spoiled, oh, quite spoiled. There is a saying that it brings bad luck to do harm to a swallow. ”

“ At least, Dot liked it; and Peter must have had some fondness for it, too, for he slipped on when Dot was not there herself. It just fitted their little bodies, and there were four eggs in it of which any sandpiper might well have been proud; for they were much, much bigger than most birds the size of Dot could ever lay. In fact, her little body could hardly have covered them snugly enough to keep them warm if they had not been packed just so, with the pointed ends pushed down into the middle of the rather deep nest. ”

“ Only, the soldiers did not use their protective coloration naturally and by instinct. They did this by taking thought; and very proud they felt, too, of being able to do this by hard study. They talked about it a great deal and the French taught the world a new word, camouflage, to call it by. And their war-time camouflage was wonderful, even though it was only a clumsy imitation of what Mother Nature did when the feathers of Mother Nomer were made to grow dappled like little blotches of light and dark ”

“ Then they grew drowsy; and what could have been pleasanter than going to sleep floating, with the whole cove for a cradle?
You could never guess how those youngsters got ready for their nap. Just like a grown-up! Each Olair rolled over on one side, till the white under-part of his body showed above water. Then he waved the exposed leg in the air, and tucked it away, with a quick flip, under the feathers of his flank. Thus one foot was left in the water, for the bird to paddle with gently while he slept, so that he would not be drifted away by the wind. ”

“ Is it strange that his wings quivered with the joy of voyaging as surely as the sails of a boat tighten in the tugging winds?
What would you give to see this miracle—a bobolink flying through the night? For it has been seen; there being men who go and watch, when their calendars tell them 't is time for birds to take their southward flight. Their eyes are too feeble to see such sights unaided; so they look through a telescope toward the full round moon, and then they can see the birds that pass between them and the light. ”

“ Had not his fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers given high-air circus performances of a springtime, in the days when bison and passenger pigeons inherited their full share of the earth, before our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers had even seen America?
Was it, then, just for the joy of the season that he played in the air, or was there, after all, someone besides himself to be pleased with the sport? Who knows [Pg 137] whether the little acrobat was showing his mate what a splendid fellow he was, how strong of wing and skillful in the tricks of flight? ”

“ Well, if Jay, the bold dashing fellow, held noisy revel during the dazzling winter days, night came every once in so often; and then a quavering call, tremulous yet unafraid, told the listening world that an elf of the moonlight was claiming his own. And if some shivered at the sound, others there were who welcomed it as a challenge to enter the realm of a winter's night.
For, summer or winter, the night holds much of mystery, close to the heart of which lives a little downy owl, who wings his way silent as a shadow, whither he will. ”

“ For if every girl makes up her mind for good and all that she will never wear a feather that costs a bird its life; and if every boy makes up his mind for good and all that he will never be a feather-hunting dragon—why there will not be anybody growing up in America to harm Ardea, will there? ”

“ Eve and Petro let their brick bake, too, and the fire they used was the same one the Egyptians used in the days of Pharaoh—a fire that had never in all that time gone out, but had glowed steadily century after century, baking many bricks for folk and birds. Of course you know what fire that is, for you see it yourself every day that the sun shines.
Every now and again Eve and Petro and all the rest of the swallow colony left off their brick-building and went on a hunting trip. They hunted high in the air and they hunted low over the meadow. ”

“ As we have seen, the lungs of a bird are small and non-elastic, but this is more than compensated by the continuous passage of fresh air, passing not only into but entirely through the lungs into the air-sacs, giving, therefore, the very best chance for oxygenation to take place in every portion of the lungs. When we compare the estimated number of breaths which birds and men take in a minute,—thirteen to sixteen in the latter, twenty to sixty in birds,—we realize better how birds can perform such wonderful feats of song and flight. ”

“ Why, Bob had a gift that made him fortunate beyond the understanding of men. Nature has dealt generously with Man, to be sure, giving him power to build ships for the sea and the air, and trains for the land, whereon he may go, and power to print time-tables to guide the time of travel. But to Bob also, who could do none of these things, Nature had, nevertheless, been generous, and had given him power to go four thousand miles without losing his way, though he had neither chart nor compass. ”