Читать книгу Birds and Nature Vol. 9 No. 5 [May 1901] - Various - Страница 6

In early spring Robin Redbreast returned to Leafy Lawn and selected a new site for his nest in the same apple tree his father and grandfather had occupied during preceding summers. No other birds had yet arrived and Robin jumped about on the sprouting lawn master of all he surveyed.

He soon discovered to his sorrow that those selfish, quarrelsome sparrows who tormented the birds last summer and drove away the wrens, had gone no farther during the winter than to the eaves of a near barn, and were already back to their nest in the tall poplar, scolding and threatening as disagreeably as ever. But Robin noticed that the limb which held their nest so high was dead and he hoped a strong wind would dash limb, nest and ugly sparrows all to the ground.

Robin looked very handsome in his crimson vest, hopping over the grass in a scalloped path, with his modest little mate following in a similar path beside him. Suddenly they stopped and listened.

“Surely that is Mr. Woodpecker pounding on the tin roof-drain,” said Robin; and Mrs. Robin looked about curiously and spied Mrs. Woodpecker on a near tree listening to her husband’s wonderful drumming. Mrs. Woodpecker was thinking what a fine nest such a strong husband could cut out and what quantities of corn and nuts he could hammer into the bark of the trees for an extra food supply. In a very short time the woodpeckers selected the balm-of-Gilead tree by the gate for their home and the work began of cutting and tossing the tiny shavings and so making a hole large enough to accommodate Mrs. Woodpecker while she sat over the ivory eggs waiting the day of their hatching.

Mr. Woodpecker was recognized as king of Leafy Lawn, perhaps because of his lordly manner and fine clothes. He always wore a jet black coat and white satin vest, and what was queer on a king, a large scarlet bonnet.

A few days after the arrival of the Woodpeckers, Robin saw Mr. Blue Jay making a circuitous route to the tall pine and he knew the Jays had located there. Though Mr. Blue Jay was always cautious, trying to deceive every one concerning the whereabouts of his home, he himself knew every other nest in the yard.

So persistent was he in patrolling Leafy Lawn, jumping from tree to tree and from branch to branch, reporting his presence, and in case of danger threatening, squawking so loudly and repeatedly, that it was agreed, as he already had a blue uniform, that he should be the policeman for this precinct.

There came a day early in the season when Mr. Woodpecker, Robin Redbreast and Mr. Blue Jay all assembled within speaking distance on the lower branches of a silver maple tree and excitedly discussed the arrival of a number of birds which they had heard early that morning but had been unable to find.

“My wife,” said Robin, “awakened me from the twig near her nest, where I usually sleep and keep guard, and she said that one of our kin had arrived for she had heard a voice exactly like mine from the plum tree. Hoping it was one of my brothers I searched eagerly until sunrise, and though I heard him twice I could not find him.”

Mr. Blue Jay was more excited than before and turned about, twitched his tail violently, scolded and sputtered that he had had just such an experience and he believed the sparrows had added witchcraft to their other sins and were trying to hoodoo the birds of Leafy Lawn.

A frightened sparrow overheard this accusation and came near enough to protest that they were not guilty and had been themselves trying in vain to find their newly-arrived English relatives, whom they had believed they heard that morning.

Mr. Woodpecker said it might be no personal affair of his as he had heard no drumming nor mocking of his song, but if Leafy Lawn were to be occupied by kildares, bobolinks, meadow larks and blackbirds he thought there would be scarce picking of worms, bugs or seeds for the old settlers who were the rightful possessors of these premises and it was a serious condition of things. In closing his pompous speech he shook his scarlet bonnet furiously, smoothed his waistcoat and jumped upon a higher limp and called off his “chit-it-it-it-it-it” so shrill and high that his companions were for the moment alarmed lest he should split his throat. But he stopped as suddenly as he had begun, and upon the silence that followed the birds heard, as surely as they saw the blossoms on the apple trees, the song of the thrush.

“It is undoubtedly a hobgoblin,” hoarsely whispered Mr. Woodpecker, “for Mr. Blue Jay swore to me this morning that during the seasons he and his ancestors have patrolled this lawn never have they seen a thrush even alight here.”

It was decided that the three birds make one more immediate and thorough search for the monster hobgoblin which infested the Lawn.

Imagine their chagrin when they saw tilting upon the unleaved twig of a late catalpa tree a modest little gray bird with keen, bright eyes, who commenced a garble of all their songs called off in such merriment that the birds could not but appreciate the sport. Then the stranger, who was no other than Mr. Cat-bird, a cousin to the brown mocking-bird of the south, gave a weird cry exactly like a cat’s meow which so frightened the birds they flew hastily away to their several homes.

Mr. Cat-bird was welcomed to Leafy Lawn, for his beautiful voice was an esteemed acquisition to the morning chorus, but he could not deceive the birds again with his imitative songs.

Many a time, however, he would sit upon the corner of the house roof and perpetrate his joke on the boy in the hammock below, who thought he knew much about birds, but who could not understand why, when he heard so many different voices, there was only a little gray cat-bird within sight.

Gertrude Southwick Kingsland.