With a more southerly range, the Louisiana water thrush does not venture beyond the White Mountains and to the shores of the Great Lakes in summer, but even at the North the same 128

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woods often contain both birds, and there is opportunity to note just how much they differ. The Southern bird is slightly the larger, possibly an inch; it is more gray, and it lacks a few of the streaks, notably on the throat, that plentifully speckle its Northern counterpart; but the habits of both of these birds appear to be identical. Only for a few days in the spring or autumn migrations do they pass near enough to our homes for us to study them, and then we must ever be on the alert to steal a glance at them through the opera-glasses, for birds more shy than they do not visit the garden shrubbery at any season. Only let them suspect they are being stared at, and they are under cover in a twinkling. Where mountain streams dash through tracts of mossy, spongy ground that is carpeted with fern and moss, and overgrown with impenetrable thickets of underbrush and tangles of creepers—such a place is the favorite resort of both the water thrushes. With a rubber boot missing, clothes torn, and temper by no means unruffled, you finally stand over the Louisiana thrush’s nest in the roots of an upturned tree immediately over the water, or else in a mossy root-belaced bank above a purling stream. A liquid-trilled warble, wild and sweet, breaks the stillness, and, like Audubon, you feel amply rewarded for your pains, though you may not be prepared to agree with him in thinking the song the equal of the European nightingale’s.

Northern Water Thrush (Seiurus noveboracensis) Wood Warbler family Called also: NEW YORK WATER THRUSH; AQUATIC

WOOD WAGTAIL ; AQUATIC THRUSH

Length— 5 to 6 inches. A trifle smaller than the English sparrow. Male and Female—Uniform olive or grayish brown above. Pale buff line over the eye. Underneath, white tinged with sulphur-yellow, and streaked like a thrush with very dark brown arrow-headed or oblong spots that are also seen underneath wings. Range—United States, westward to Rockies and northward through British provinces. Winters from Gulf States south- Migrations—Lateward. April. October. Summer resident. 129

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According to the books we have before us, a warbler; but who, to look at his speckled throat and breast, would ever take him for anything but a diminutive thrush; or, studying him from some distance through the opera-glasses as he runs in and out of the little waves along the brook or river shore, would not name him a baby sandpiper? The rather unsteady motion of his legs, balancing of the tail, and sudden jerking of the head suggest an aquatic bird rather than a bird of the woods. But to really know either man or beast, you must follow him to his home, and if you have pluck enough to brave the swamp and the almost impenetrable tangle of undergrowth where the water thrush chooses to nest, there “ In the swamp in secluded recesses, a shy and hidden bird is warbling a song; ” and this warbled song that Walt Whit-man so adored gives you your first clue to the proper classification of the bird. It has nothing in common with the serene, hymn-like voices of the true thrushes; the bird has no flute-like notes, but an emphatic smacking or chucking kind of warble. For a few days only is this song heard about the gardens and roadsides of our country places. Like the Louisiana water thrush, this bird never ventures near the homes of men after the spring and autumn migrations, but, on the contrary, goes as far away from them as possible, preferably to some mountain region, beside a cool and dashing brook, where a party of adventurous young climbers from a summer hotel or the lonely trout fisherman may startle it from its mossy nest on the ground.

Flicker (Colaptes auratus) Woodpecker family Called also: GOLDEN-WINGED WOODPECKER; CLAPE;

PIGEON WOODPECKER ; YELLOWHAMMER ; HIGH-

HOLE OR HIGH-HOLDER; YARUP; WAKE-UP;

YELLOW-SHAFTED WOODPECKER

Length— 12 to 13 inches. About one-fourth as large again as the robin. Male and Female—Head and neck bluish gray, with a red crescent across back of neck and a black crescent on breast. Male has black cheek-patches, that are wanting in female. Golden brown shading into brownish-gray, and barred with black above. Underneath whitish, tinged with light chocolate

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FLICKER ¾ Life-size.

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and thickly spotted with black. Wing linings, shafts of wing, and tail-quills bright yellow. Above tail white, conspicuous when the bird flies. Range—United States, east of Rockies; Alaska and British America, south of Hudson Bay. Occasional on Pacific slope. Migrations—Most commonly seen from April to October. Usually resident.

If we were to follow the list of thirty-six aliases by which this largest and commonest of our woodpeckers is known throughout its wide range, we should find all its peculiarities of color, flight, noises, and habits indicated in its popular names. It cannot but attract attention wherever seen, with its beautiful plumage, conspicuously yellow if its outstretched wings are looked at from below, conspicuously brown and white if seen upon the ground. At a distance it suggests the meadowlark. Both birds wear black, crescent breast decorations, and the flicker also has the habit of feeding upon the ground, especially in autumn, a characteristic not shared by its relations.

Early in the spring this bird of many names and many voices makes itself known by a long, strong, sonorous call, a sort of proclamation that differs from its song proper, which Audubon calls “ a prolonged jovial laugh ” (described by Mrs. Wright as " Wick, wick, wick, wick!”), and differs also from its rapidly repeated, mellow, and most musical cub, cub, cub, cub, cub, uttered during the nesting season.

Its nasal kee-yer, vigorously called out in the autumn, is less characteristic, however, than the sound it makes while associating with its fellows on the feeding ground—a sound that Mr. Frank M. Chapman says can be closely imitated by the swishing of a willow wand. A very ardent and ridiculous-looking lover is this bird, as, with tail stiffly spread, he sidles up to his desired mate and bows and bobs before her, then retreats and advances, bowing and bobbing again, very often with a rival lover beside him (whom he generously tolerates) trying to outdo him in grace and general attractiveness. Not the least of the bird’s qualities that must commend themselves to the bride is his unfailing good nature, genial alike in the home and in the field.

The “ high-holders” have the peculiar and silly habit of boring out a number of superfluous holes for nests high up in the

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trees, in buildings, or hollow wooden columns, only one of which they intend to use. Six white eggs is the proper number for a household, but Dr. Coues says the female that has been robbed keeps on laying three or even four sets of eggs without interruption.

Meadowlark (Sturnella magna) Blackbird family

Called also: FIELD LARK; OLDFIELD LARK Length— io to 1 1 inches. A trifle larger than the robin. Male—Upper parts brown, varied with chestnut, deep brown, and black. Crown streaked with brown and black, and with a cream-colored streak through the centre. Dark-brown line apparently running through the eye; another line over the eye, yellow. Throat and chin yellow; a large, conspicuous black crescent on breast. Underneath yellow, shading into buffy brown, spotted or streaked with very dark brown.

Outer tail feathers chiefly white, conspicuous in flight. Long, strong legs and claws, adapted for walking. Less black in winter plumage, which is more grayish brown. -Female—Paler than male. -Range—North America, from Newfoundland to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward to the plains, where the Western meadowlark takes its place. Winters from Massachusetts and Illinois southward. Migrations—April. Late October. Usually a resident, a few remaining through the winter.

In the same meadows with the red-winged blackbirds, birds of another feather, but of the same family, nevertheless, may be found flocking together, hunting for worms and larvae, building their nests, and rearing their young very near each other with the truly social instinct of all their kin.

The meadowlarks, which are really not larks at all, but the blackbirds’ and orioles’ cousins, are so protected by the coloring of the feathers on their backs, like that of the grass and stubble they live among, that ten blackbirds are noticed for every meadowlark, although the latter is very common. Not until you flush a flock of them as you walk along the roadside or through the meadows and you note the white tail feathers and the black crescents on the yellow breasts of the large brown birds that rise

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towards the tree-tops with whirring sound and a flight suggesting the quail’s, do you suspect there are any birds among the tall grasses. Their clear and piercing whistle, “Spring o’ the y-e-a-r. Spring o’ the year! ” rings out from the trees with varying intonation and accent, but always sweet and inspiriting. To the bird’s high vantage ground you may not follow, for no longer having the protection of the high grass, it has become wary and flies away as you approach, calling out peent-peent and nervously flitting its tail (again showing the white feather), when it rests a moment on the pasture fence-rail.

It is like looking for a needle in a haystack to try to find a meadowlark’s nest, an unpretentious structure of dried grasses partly arched over and hidden in a clump of high timothy, flat upon the ground. But what havoc snakes and field-mice play with the white-speckled eggs and helpless fledglings! The care of rearing two or three broods in a season and the change of plumage to duller winter tints seem to exhaust the high spirits of the sweet whistler. For a time he is silent, but partly regains his vocal powers in the autumn, when, with large flocks of his own kind, he resorts to marshy feeding grounds. In the winter he chooses for companions the horned larks, that walk along the. shore, or the snow buntings and sparrows of the inland pastures, and will even include the denizens of the barn-yard when hunger drives him close to the haunts of men.

The Western Meadowlark or Prairie Lark (Sturnella magna neglecta), which many ornithologists consider a different species from the foregoing, is distinguished chiefly by its lighter, more grayish-brown plumage, by its yellow cheeks, and more especially by its richer, fuller song. In his “ Birds of Manitoba” Mr.' Ernest E. Thompson says of this meadowlark: “In richness of voice and modulation it equals or excels both wood thrush and nightingale, and in the beauty of its articulation it has no superior in the whole world of feathered choristers with which 1 am acquainted.”

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Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds

Horned Lark (Otocoris alpestris) Lark family Called also: SHORE LARK Length—7. 5 to 8 inches. About one-fifth smaller than the robin. Male—Upper parts dull brown, streaked with lighter on edges and tinged with pink or vinaceous; darkest on back of head, neck, shoulders, and nearest the tail. A few erectile feathers on either side of the head form slight tufts or horns that are wanting in female. A black mark from the base of the bill passes below the eye and ends in a horn-shaped curve on cheeks, which are yellow. Throat clear yellow. Breast has crescent-shaped black patch. Underneath soiled white, with dusky spots on lower breast. Tail black, the outer feathers Female—Hasmargined yellowwith white,eye-stripe;noticedlessin flight.prominent markings, especially on head, and is a trifle smaller. Range—Northeastern parts of North America, and in winter from Ohio and eastern United States as far south as North Migrations—OctoberCarolina. and November. March. Winter resident.

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