Wake-Robin. John Burroughs
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her arrival with much variety of motion and attitude, from the peak of the barn or hay-shed. As yet, you may have heard only the plaintive, homesick note of the bluebird, or the faint trill of the song-sparrow; and Phœbe’s clear, vivacious assurance of her veritable bodily presence among us again is welcomed by all ears. At agreeable intervals in her lay she describes a circle or an ellipse in the air, ostensibly prospecting for insects, but really, I suspect, as an artistic flourish, thrown in to make up in some way for the deficiency of her musical performance. If plainness of dress indicates powers of song, as it usually does, then Phœbe ought to be unrivaled in musical ability, for surely that ashen-gray suit is the superlative of plainness; and that form, likewise, would hardly pass for a “perfect figure” of a bird. The reasonableness of her coming, however, and her civil, neighborly ways, shall make up for all deficiencies in song and plumage. After a few weeks Phœbe is seldom seen, except as she darts from her moss-covered nest beneath some bridge or shelving cliff.
Another April comer, who arrives shortly after Robin-redbreast, with whom he associates both at this season and in the autumn, is the gold-winged woodpecker, alias “high-hole,” alias “flicker,” alias “yarup.” He is an old favorite of my boyhood, and his note to me means very much. He announces his arrival by a long, loud call, repeated from the dry branch of some tree, or a stake in the fence – a thoroughly melodious April sound. I think how Solomon finished that beautiful description of spring, “And the voice of the turtle is heard in the land,” and see that a description of spring in this farming country, to be equally characteristic, should culminate in like manner, – “And the call of the high-hole comes up from the wood.”
It is a loud, strong, sonorous call, and does not seem to imply an answer, but rather to subserve some purpose of love or music. It is “Yarup’s” proclamation of peace and good-will to all. On looking at the matter closely, I perceive that most birds, not denominated songsters, have, in the spring, some note or sound or call that hints of a song, and answers imperfectly the end of beauty and art. As a “livelier iris changes on the burnished dove,” and the fancy of the young man turns lightly to thoughts of his pretty cousin, so the same renewing spirit touches the “silent singers,” and they are no longer dumb; faintly they lisp the first syllables of the marvelous tale. Witness the clear, sweet whistle of the gray-crested titmouse, – the soft, nasal piping of the nuthatch, – the amorous, vivacious warble of the bluebird, – the long, rich note of the meadow-lark, – the whistle of the quail, – the drumming of the partridge, – the animation and loquacity of the swallows, and the like. Even the hen has a homely, contented carol; and I credit the owls with a desire to fill the night with music. All birds are incipient or would-be songsters in the spring. I find corroborative evidence of this even in the crowing of the cock. The flowering of the maple is not so obvious as that of the magnolia; nevertheless, there is actual inflorescence.
Few writers award any song to that familiar little sparrow, the Socialis; yet who that has observed him sitting by the way-side, and repeating, with devout attitude, that fine sliding chant, does not recognize the neglect? Who has heard the snow-bird sing? Yet he has a lisping warble very savory to the ear. I have heard him indulge in it even in February.
Even the cow-bunting feels the musical tendency, and aspires to its expression, with the rest. Perched upon the topmost branch beside his mate or mates, – for he is quite a polygamist, and usually has two or three demure little ladies in faded black beside him, – generally in the early part of the day, he seems literally to vomit up his notes. Apparently with much labor and effort, they gargle and blubber up out of him, falling on the ear with a peculiar subtile ring, as of turning water from a glass bottle, and not without a certain pleasing cadence.
Neither is the common woodpecker entirely insensible to the wooing of the spring, and, like the partridge, testifies his appreciation of melody after quite a primitive fashion. Passing through the woods, on some clear, still morning in March, while the metallic ring and tension of winter are still in the earth and air, the silence is suddenly broken by long, resonant hammering upon a dry limb or stub. It is Downy beating a reveille to spring. In the utter stillness and amid the rigid forms we listen with pleasure; and as it comes to my ear oftener at this season than at any other, I freely exonerate the author of it from the imputation of any gastronomic motives, and credit him with a genuine musical performance.
It is to be expected, therefore, that “Yellow-hammer” will respond to the general tendency, and contribute his part to the spring chorus. His April call is his finest touch, his most musical expression.
I recall an ancient maple standing sentry to a large sugar-bush, that, year after year, afforded protection to a brood of yellow-hammers in its decayed heart. A week or two before the nesting seemed actually to have begun, three or four of these birds might be seen, on almost any bright morning, gamboling and courting amid its decayed branches. Sometimes you would hear only a gentle, persuasive cooing, or a quiet, confidential chattering, – then that long, loud call, taken up by first one, then another, as they sat about upon the naked limbs, – anon, a sort of wild, rollicking laughter, intermingled with various cries, yelps, and squeals, as if some incident had excited their mirth and ridicule. Whether this social hilarity and boisterousness is in celebration of the pairing or mating ceremony, or whether it is only a sort of annual “house-warming” common among high-holes on resuming their summer quarters, is a question upon which I reserve my judgment.
Unlike most of his kinsmen, the golden-wing prefers the fields and the borders of the forest to the deeper seclusion of the woods, and hence, contrary to the habit of his tribe, obtains most of his subsistence from the ground, probing it for ants and crickets. He is not quite satisfied with being a woodpecker. He courts the society of the robin and the finches, abandons the trees for the meadow, and feeds eagerly upon berries and grain. What may be the final upshot of this course of living is a question worthy the attention of Darwin. Will his taking to the ground and his pedestrian feats result in lengthening his legs, his feeding upon berries and grains subdue his tints and soften his voice, and his associating with Robin put a song into his heart?
Indeed, what would be more interesting than the history of our birds for the last two or three centuries? There can be no doubt that the presence of man has exerted a very marked and friendly influence upon them, since they so multiply in his society. The birds of California, it is said, were mostly silent till after its settlement, and I doubt if the Indians heard the wood-thrush as we hear him. Where did the bobolink disport himself before there were meadows in the North and rice fields in the South? Was he the same blithe, merry-hearted beau then as now? And the sparrow, the lark, and the goldfinch, birds that seem so indigenous to the open fields and so averse to the woods, – we cannot conceive of their existence in a vast wilderness and without man.
But to return. The song-sparrow, that universal favorite and firstling of the spring, comes before April, and its simple strain gladdens all hearts.
May is the month of the swallows and the orioles. There are many other distinguished arrivals, indeed nine tenths of the birds are here by the last week in May, yet the swallows and orioles are the most conspicuous. The bright plumage of the latter seems really like an arrival from the tropics. I see them flash through the blossoming trees, and all the forenoon hear their incessant warbling and wooing. The swallows dive and chatter about the barn, or squeak and build beneath the eaves; the partridge drums in the fresh sprouting woods; the long, tender note of the meadow-lark comes up from the meadow; and at sunset, from every marsh and pond come the ten thousand voices of the hylas. May is the transition month, and exists to connect April and June, the root with the flower.
With June the cup is full, our hearts are satisfied, there is no more to be desired. The perfection of the season, among other things, has brought the perfection of the song and plumage of the birds. The master artists are all here; and the expectations excited by the robin and the song-sparrow are fully justified. The thrushes have all come; and I sit down upon the first rock, with hands full of the pink azalea, to listen. With me, the cuckoo does not arrive till June; and often the goldfinch, the king-bird, the scarlet tanager delay their coming till then. In the meadows the bobolink is in all his glory; in the high pastures the field-sparrow sings his breezy vesper-hymn; and the woods are unfolding to the music of the thrushes.
The cuckoo is one of the most solitary