Notes from Field and Study 



295 



An incident which occurred a year ago 

 and might readily have developed into a 

 tragedy, had it not been for some of my 

 own nocturnal habits, was announced by 

 a sudden, loud fluttering and screeching 

 noise, the like of which I had not heard 

 before, coming from our box-elder tree 

 at about eleven o'clock p.m. 



I suspected the trouble, and hurriedly 

 arming myself with a stout club I made 

 my way as fast as my legs could carry me 

 to the scene of the disturbance. There, 

 in the faint moonlight, I could see the 

 outline of the birds' greatest enemy, the 

 stray cat! and its fiery yellow eyes were 

 staring at me in the darkness under the 

 tree! It had crawled up the tree and 

 through the branches until it was about 

 two feet from the birds' nest when the 

 alarm was given. Well, the reader may 

 rest assured that if I had had a shot-gun 

 instead of my Bushman's weapon, the 

 town ordinance against shooting within the 

 corporation would have been broken into 

 small bits right then and there. As it 

 was, I could only let my club go with all 

 my might in the direction of the thief, 

 and, contrary to my usual luck and 

 expectation, I hit the feline square. Cat 

 and club came to the ground with a thud, 

 but before I could make any further 

 hostile demonstrations the cat had dis- 

 appeared into the darkness, and not to 

 return, so far as I know, for the birds 

 continued to sing and feed their young 

 till they were fledged, and took their 

 journey on stout and tireless wings to 

 the sunny Southland. 



But the incident which I wanted 

 especially to relate in this paper is one 

 of more recent occurrence. This spring 

 of 191 2, as usual, these birds made their 

 appearance about May i, but did not 

 make active preparations for house- 

 keeping till some weeks later, and, by 

 the last of May, their new nest in the 

 box-elder was nearing completion. On 

 June I, while strolling in the orchard, my 

 attention was called to the box-elder by a 

 lot of vigorous fluttering and scolding 

 near the Catbirds' nest. One bird was 

 visible from my position and seemed to 



be watching those near-by, who, as I 

 thought, were having an argument as to 

 which one of the two should occupy the 

 nearly completed nest. They were hidden 

 from my view, however, by the foliage. 

 The trouble seemed to me to last an 

 unusually long time and I began to 

 wonder at the apparent pugnacity of 

 these attractive little songsters. My 

 curiosity led me to approach a little 

 closer and closer, and still the racket went 

 on. When I came directly under the nest 

 the one bird which had been visible to 

 me all the time and had been sitting 

 perfectly still, not giving me any atten- 

 tion before, noticed me and flew away, 

 and, to my astonishment, I saw that the 

 other two birds were not fighting, as I 

 had supposed, but were tangled up in 

 some ordinary white pack-cord, such as 

 dry-goods merchants use in tying up 

 their wares. The children had been play- 

 ing with this cord about the yard, and 

 evidently these birds had picked it up 

 and carried it to the tree, and, in their 

 struggles to get some ten or twelve feet 

 of it through the branches to the nest, 

 got so tangled up in it that had I not 

 discovered them, and, with the assistance 

 of a handy step-ladder, set them free, 

 they would no doubt both have perished 

 in a few hours. I found that one of the 

 birds had the cord looped about its neck 

 several times and was literally "hung up 

 by the neck;" the other bird had the cord 

 about one wing and one leg, also one coil 

 around its body. When I approached 

 them closely they made such frantic 

 efforts to get away that one of them 

 broke the cord and flew away taking the 

 coils about its neck along, but the other 

 was tied up so securely that I had to 

 loosen the cord before it could get 

 away. I took the cord out of the tree 

 and on measurement found there were 

 between ten and twelve feet of it in one 

 piece. 



I supposed that the injuries the birds 

 might have received, together with their 

 fright, would keep them away for this 

 season, but, as I am writing (this is six 

 days since that, the birds' eventful day). 



