Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes: And Other Papers

The life of the birds, especially of our migratory song-birds, is a series of adventures and of hairbreadth escapes by flood and field. Very few of them probably die a natural death, or even live outhalf their appointed days. The home instinct is strong in birds as it is in most creatures; and I amconvinced that every spring a large number of those which have survived the Southern campaignreturn to their old haunts to breed. A Connecticut farmer took me out under his porch, one Aprilday, and showed me a phoebe bird's nest six stories high. The same bird had no doubt returned yearafter year; and as there was room for only one nest upon her favorite shelf, she had each seasonreared a new superstructure upon the old as a foundation. I have heard of a white robin-analbino-that nested several years in succession in the suburbs of a Maryland city. A sparrow with avery marked peculiarity of song I have heard several seasons in my own locality. But the birds do notall live to return to their old haunts: the bobolinks and starlings run a gauntlet of fire from theHudson to the Savannah, and the robins and meadow-larks and other song-birds are shot by boysand pot-hunters in great numbers, -to say nothing of their danger from hawks and owls. But ofthose that do return, what perils beset their nests, even in the most favored localities The cabins ofthe early settlers, when the country was swarming with hostile Indians, were not surrounded by suchdangers. The tender households of the birds are not only exposed to hostile Indians in the shape ofcats and collectors, but to numerous murderous and bloodthirsty animals, against whom they haveno defense but concealment. They lead the darkest kind of pioneer life, even in our gardens andorchards, and under the walls of our houses. Not a day or a night passes, from the time the eggs arelaid till the young are flown, when the chances are not greatly in favor of the nest being rifled and itscontents devoured, -by owls, skunks, minks, and coons at night, and by crows, jays, squirrels, weasels, snakes, and rats during the day. Infancy, we say, is hedged about by many perils; but theinfancy of birds is cradled and pillowed in peril. An old Michigan settler told me that the first sixchildren that were born to him died; malaria and teething invariably carried them off when they hadreached a certain age; but other children were born, the country improved, and by and by the babiesweathered the critical period and the next six lived and grew up. The birds, too, would no doubtpersevere six times and twice six times, if the season were long enough, and finally rear their family, but the waning summer cuts them short, and but a few species have the heart and strength to makeeven the third trial.The first nest-builders in spring, like the first settlers near hostile tribes, suffer the most casualties.A large portion of the nests of April and May are destroyed; their enemies have been many monthswithout eggs and their appetites are keen for them. It is a time, too, when other food is scarce, andthe crows and squirrels are hard put. But the second nests of June, and still more the nests of Julyand August, are seldom molested. It is rarely that the nest of the goldfinch or the cedar-bird isharr