Firebird

“ And what each bird sees of its fore-bird are the very whitest feathers of the whole goose, under the wings and towards the tail, and this, in dark nights, is of great assistance to the tired, half-sleeping creatures.
Thus each, except the pilot himself, has a fore-bird's white body in a line with one eye, and more they do not need to trouble about. They can put all their strength into the monotonous work of wing-flapping, as long as they merely keep the one eye half open and see that they have the fore-bird in his place. ”

“ At five years the bird has attained maturity; the plumage of the male is then of a beautiful glossy black, and that of the female of a soft grey, both having white wings and tails. In each wing there are twenty-four long white feathers, which, when the wing is spread out, hang gracefully round the bird like a lovely deep fringe—just as I have sometimes in Brazilian forests, seen fringes of large and delicate fern-fronds hanging, high overhead, from the branches of some giant tree. ”

“ Owing, perhaps, to its immunity from cruel treatment at the hands of man, the ladybird exhibits no fear whatever of him. While the spider will rush to a hiding-place, the caterpillar drop itself from a twig, and the flea endeavour to escape by the aid of its prodigious activity from the touch of man, the ladybird will run unconcernedly across his hand, and, indeed, appears to take a pleasure in so doing, until, tired of the amusement, it opens its wing-cases, and, after a preliminary flourish of its wings, goes off in a swift flight in search of its next meal. ”

“ The Blackbird
[Hopping about.] Oh, I see—The light!
[All make a violent motion in his direction; the Blackbird frightened, hides among the fagots.]
The Grand-duke
[Emphatically.] Never speak that word! When that word is spoken, Night at the horizon feels a crawling discomfort, a titillation underneath her wing.
The Blackbird
[Cautiously correcting himself.] The brightness of— [General start of dismay repeated; the Blackbird again dodges behind the fagots.]
An Owl
[Hurriedly.] Never utter that horrible grating word, which so hatefully suggests the scratching of a match! ”

“ American blackbirds do not sing well; the so-called crow-blackbird, so common in flocks in autumn, makes a noise like tonsillitis, or as if he had a boy’s voice in process of changing, or as if he were a hinge that needed oiling. Our redwing blackbird, with his scarlet epaulets, has a good-natured and perky wheeze, which can hardly be called singing. But the English and Continental blackbird pours out of his throat the most heavenly melody. One Winter day in Munich, in the midst of a snowstorm, I saw a blackbird perched on a tree directly in front of the University building. ”

“ The redbreast and the tomtit are among the first to hasten to the scene, followed by the finch, the blackbird, the jay, the thrush, and many others. Perched on a branch, the night-bird receives the aggressors with a grotesque balancing of its body, turning its big head this way and that in a ridiculous manner and rolling its great eyes as if thinking thus to terrify its persecutors. But all in vain. The smallest and weakest are the boldest in tormenting it; they assault their victim with beak and claw, pulling out its feathers before the hapless bird can muster courage to defend itself. ”

“ The king-bird, or tyrant fly-catcher, might serve as the type of the order.
The common pewee excites the most pleasant emotions, both on account of its plaintive note and its exquisite mossy nest.
The phœbe-bird is the pioneer of the fly-catchers, and comes in April, sometimes in March. It comes familiarly about the house and out-buildings and usually builds beneath hay-sheds or under bridges.
The fly-catchers always take their insect prey on [237] the wing, by a sudden darting or swooping movement; often a very audible snap of the beak may be heard. ”

“ Not less curious is the nest of the Tailor Bird, Orthotonia (Fig. 78) , which is formed of a large leaf, the two sides of which the bird has contrived to sew together; in the interior is placed the nest. Miraculous indeed is the produce of these little workers. The wonder is how the birds contrive to enter a nest on the wing when the opening seems scarcely so large as the bird's body, and yet it enters without disturbing a fibre. The hut of some savage races is left constantly open, their intelligence not suggesting a protecting door. The Spiders are more ingenious. ”

“ Male, black and white; female, brown and gray.
This species is often known as the White-winged Blackbird, not because it bears any resemblance to any of the Blackbirds, nor because any of the habits are the same, but simply because of its plumage. They are very gregarious and usually fly in flocks even in nesting time.
They seem to be very methodical and well trained; if one of a flock takes wing, the entire flock rises simultaneously and in a very compact body they fly until some leader chooses the next stopping place, when they as suddenly alight. ”

“ The male frigate-bird is jet black all over the body; having a red bill, very long, vertically flattened, and with the mandibles abruptly hooked downwards at the point. The female differs in colour: being sooty black above, and having a large white disc on the abdomen.
The legs are short in proportion to the bulk of the bird; the toes, as already stated, being furnished with talons,—the middle one scaly, and notched underneath; while the legs are feathered to the feet, showing another point of affinity with predatory birds of the land. ”

“ But the little birds, who lived nearer heaven than men, knew of the fire in the sun, and knew also what a fine thing it would be for the tribes without feathers if they could have some of the magic element.
One day the birds held a solemn meeting, when it was decided that men must have fire. Then some one must fly up to the sun and bring a firebrand thence. Who would undertake this dangerous errand? Already by sad experience the Kingfisher had felt the force of the sun's heat, while the Eagle and the Wren, in the famous flight which they had taken together, had learned the same thing. ”

“ About this time, too, the Blackbird noticed that many of his feathered friends were unusually busy. They seemed to have no time for talk. He met them flying hither and thither with feathers, small pieces of straw, or twigs, in their beaks. About this time also, the Blackbird himself felt a strong desire to have a nest of his own. But how could he build it by himself? He must find a partner to share his labours––and where could he find such a partner? He was almost in despair, so at last he determined to pour out his desire in song, as he perched one morning on the branch of a budding hawthorn. ”

“ When the morning light gladdens the face of nature, and while the warblers are yet waiting in silence the first rays of the sun, whose appearance they will hail with songs of joy, the Frigate Bird, on extended pinions, sails from his roosting place. Slowly and gently, with retracted neck he glides, as if desirous of quietly trying the renovated strength of his wings. Toward the vast deep he moves, rising apace, and before any other bird views the bright orb emerging from the waters. Pure is the azure of the heavens, and rich the deep green of the smooth sea below ”

“ With his glossy coat and yellow beak the Blackbird is a handsomer bird than the Thrush; his food is much the same: he builds his nest in similar places; he is a great glutton when gooseberries are ripe, and his rich mellow song is highly inspiriting. But he is suspicious and wary; however hard pressed he may be by hunger, you will rarely see him hunting for food in the open field. He prefers the solitude and privacy of 'the bush'. In a furze-brake, a coppice, a wooded water-course, or a thick hedge-row, he chooses his feeding ground, and allows no sort of partnership. ”

“ The old fire-hangbird confidently used to come and go,
As if she were indifferent to the bandit horde below!{41}
And sometimes clinging to her nest we thought we heard her chide
The callow brood whose cries betrayed the fear that reigned inside:
“Hush, little dears! all profitless shall be their wicked quest—
I knew my business when I built the old fire-hangbird’s nest!”
For many, very many years that mother-bird has come
To rear her pretty little brood within that cozy home. ”

“ Distressed at this, she urged the Fire Bird to still greater speed, until his track through the sky was like that of a shooting star. At length they swooped down and alighted on the balcony of the palace. The roaring of the Fire Bird's wings was stilled, but the hum of its feathers continued—a throbbing pulsation of musical sound. ”

“ Faster with every moment the pace increases, till the whole mad throng is swept into a wild whirl, which oscillates obedient to the Fire Bird’s waving arms. All at length collapse exhausted upon the ground, and yielding further to the Fire Bird’s mystic influence are presently sunk in slumber. Last to succumb is the thwarted ogre, but even he is forced to give way to the drowsiness which assails him.
Standing amongst the prostrate figures the Fire Bird points to the sleeping figure of Tsarevna, and with signs directs the wondering Ivan to remove her to a post of safety. ”

“ It was droll to see how this "meek and gentle" fellow met blackbird impudence. If one of the sable gentry came down too near a dove, the latter gave a little hop and rustled his feathers, but did not move one step away. For some occult reason the blackbird seemed to respect this mild protest, and did not interfere again.
Would one suspect so solemn a personage of joking? yet what else could this little scene mean? A blackbird was on the ground eating, when a dove flew down and hovered over him as though about to alight upon him. ”

“ What was sitting by the kitchen fire when they came in was Honeybird eating hot buttered toast.
Lull pulled up their stools to the fire, and took a plate of toast that she had made for them out of the oven. The rest of the evening was spent in rejoicing. Fly began to be elated.
It was she who had found Honeybird. The others had run on and left her, but she was the best finder after all. They praised her till she was only second to Honeybird in importance. The desire to shine still more got the better of her; though her conscience hurt she would not heed it. ”

“ There is nothing about our grackle that is in any way like the English blackbird.
A name is frequently the symbol of some striking characteristic as of color, or peculiarity of voice. Bluebird, redbird, yellow warbler, goldfinch and many others are full of color suggestion, while catbird, chat, phœbe, bobolink, towhee, song sparrow, and the like, appeal to the auditory sense. The bluebird, the nearest we have in this country to the English robin-redbreast and quite as lovable a bird in its way, has found a place in literature as it has in the hearts of all true lovers of the countryside. ”

“ The chant then enumerates the bird's tongue, one eye, two eyes, head, neck, one wing, two wings, one foot, two feet, body, back, feathers, tail; always returning to the statement that the bird, although it is divided up, persists in singing.
The French word merle stands both for thrush and for blackbird. The blackbird is held in reverence among ourselves in Salop and Montgomeryshire, and blackbird-pie was eaten in Cornwall on Twelfth Night. ”

“ Blackbirds seem such human, humorous birds one can almost fancy them playing such pranks just for the fun of it.
The blackbird colony was a busy one nesting-time. The builders would fly down to the road to get material, stepping along quickly, looking from side to side with an alert, business-like air, as if they knew just what they wanted. Some of them used the button-balls to line their nests.
A pair had built in one of the round mats of mistletoe at the end of a branch, and while looking at the nest one day I was amazed to see a butcherbird come flying in a straight line toward it. ”

“ A thrush of a much mellower strain is the blackbird, which is our robin cut in ebony. His golden bill gives a golden touch to his song. It was the most leisurely strain I heard. Amid the loud, vivacious, workaday chorus, it had an easeful, dolce far niente effect. I place the song before that of our robin, where it belongs in quality, but it falls short in some other respects. It constantly seemed to me as if the bird was a learner and had not yet mastered his art. The tone is fine, but the execution is labored; the musician does not handle his instrument with deftness and confidence. ”

“ It took but a minute to get the large, flat-bottomed row-boat ready for the start, and we were soon gliding along, an oar’s-length from shore, scanning every tree, bush, and bunch of rushes, in search of nests, those of the Red-winged Blackbird being very plenty and placed both in bushes or rushes in about equal numbers. A pair of Kingbirds had selected as the place for their summer home, a large, low willow limb which projected over the water; a peep into the nest revealed three eggs, common, yet so beautiful in their bed of wool and feathers. ”

“ The Blackbird could not at all understand it, but as he was well sheltered, and soon got warm in the ivy, he fell asleep and forgot all about it.
The Blackbird on a small white hillock.
The next morning, however, when he woke up and peeped forth from his green canopy, he was much astonished by the sight which met his eyes. Everything was white! The green fields were gone, the lawn where he found his worms, the flower-beds where he caught his insects,––all had disappeared, and a broad, white, sparkling covering lay over everything. ”