THE EDGE OF THE WOOD. 



ELLA F. MOSBY. 



THE ideal place for birds, says 

 Mr. Frank Chapman, is the 

 ed^e of the wood where field 

 and forest meet, and a stream 

 is not far off. If an orchard be in 

 sip^ht, so much the better. It was my 

 delight to spend a summer, or part of 

 it, in just such a spot not long ago, and 

 I made many charming discoveries 

 here. In the first place I learned that 

 tt is by no means necessary for birds 

 t;0 "be of a feather" in order "to flock 

 ogether," I came one bright morning 

 on a flock of indigo buntings near the 

 water's edge, the proud father, in ex- 

 quisite blue, like finest silk, with shim- 

 mering lights of green playing over it, 

 the mother in siena brown, and the 

 babies, neither blue nor brown, but a 

 sooty black, with only a solitary wee 

 feather now and then to show the blue 

 that was coming. What an odd, but 

 what a pretty, happy little family! 



The banks of the stream were thickly 

 overgrown with milk-white elder, 

 orange butterfly-weed, and a thousand 

 feathery grasses and nodding leaf- 

 sprays, already touched on edge with 

 crimson or gold "thumb-marks." On 

 the tall stalks swung the goldfinches, 

 " a little yellow streak of laughter in 

 the sun," and every stake or post in the 

 fence near by made a " coigne of vant- 

 age" for the merry wrens to call and 

 whistle. The calls of birds express, 

 bird-fashion, every feeling that the 

 heart of man knows — surprise, fear, joy, 

 hope, love, hate, and sorrow. If we 

 could only contrive to think bird- 

 thoughts, as perhaps an Audubon may 

 have done, or a Wilson, we might un- 

 derstand these strange signals and 

 cries, often uttered by invisible speak- 

 ers from a world above ours. 



I learned at this time that the quails, 

 or Bob-Whites, have many calls instead 

 of the one from which they are named. 

 There is the low, sweet mother-talk to 

 the brood, the notes of warning, the 

 "scatter calls" of autumn from the 

 survivors of an attack, " Where are 



you? Where are yotif" and a sort of 

 duet between male and female at nest- 

 ing time. When she leaves the nest, 

 she calls Loii-is-c! and he strikes in on 

 the last syllable with " Bob ;"" she 

 repeats, and he bursts forth ''Bob 

 White/" with emphasis. Then the clear, 

 ringing whistles through midsummer 

 sound up and down the meadow from 

 one quail to another. The old farmer 

 interprets their colloquy thus: — 



" Bob White, Bob White, 



Pease ripe, pease ripe?" 

 " Not quite, not quite. " 



These birds are very tame during the 

 spring and fall, and will come into 

 town, on the edges of the streets, and 

 call from roof and door-step without 

 fear, sometimes even mounting into a 

 tree close beside a window and whis- 

 tling for an hour or two. 



On the contrary, it is by the edge of 

 the wood and after the brood is reared, 

 that tree-top birds, like tanagers and 

 cardinals, grow most friendl}' and fear- 

 less. Frequently, when I raised my 

 glasses to look at some plain brown or 

 gray bird, the scarlet of a tanager 

 would flash across the field, and the 

 rose glow of the cardinals appear in the 

 grass. The female cardinal, with her 

 lovely fawn tints and rose linings, and 

 her beautiful voice, equals the male in 

 interest. She is a bird of lively emo- 

 tions, and being rebuffed by a catbird 

 one day, made the lawn ring with her 

 aggrieved cries, while her mate sought 

 to comfort her most tenderly. They 

 are not graceful on the ground, but 

 they have a stout air of proprietorship 

 that is not unpleasing. Both of our 

 tanagers, the summer and scarlet, the 

 cardinals, and the brilliant orioles, live 

 together very peaceabl}', nor have I 

 seen any sign of envy, malice, or spite 

 among them. I suppose each one of 

 us has his own Arcadia ; mine — and that 

 of these winged neighbors — assuredly 

 lies at the boundary - line between 

 shadowy forest and sunny meadow — at 

 the edge of the wood! 



68 



