NATURAL HISTORY. 



NATURE'S PROVISION FOR WINTER 

 BIRDS. 



SARAH T. WOODWORTH. 



When the summer is past and the young 

 birds have been safely reared to maturity, 

 the great tide of bird migration begins to 

 set backward from the Northern woods. 

 This is the time of year when frugal Na- 

 ture forgets her economies and is in a 

 bounteous mood. Through the long sum- 

 mer days and sunny autumn, while insects 

 and caterpillars furnished ample repasts 

 for her feathered children, she was ac- 

 cumulating treasures of seeds, grain and 

 berries against the return of the wan- 

 derers, to whom she gave such stinted 

 largess in the spring. Nearly every tree, 

 shrub and vine holds a store of food. All 

 the gay meadow possessions of the past 

 season — grass, sedge and flaunting flowers, 

 even coarse and unsightly weeds — are 

 heavy with harvest. This is the season 

 when birds need a generous diet. They 

 are thin and worn with the care of young 

 and the moulting and renewal of their 

 plumage. Why wonder then if they give 

 themselves up to banqueting? 



At this time families are broken up. 

 The various tribes gather in flocks, for- 

 getting their song, and proceed leisurely 

 to literally eat their way through to the 

 South. The insect eaters pass through at 

 a comparatively early date, but the seed 

 and berry eaters remain until driven 

 Southward by the cold. Numerous as 

 these are, it is impossible for them to ex- 

 haust the seeds, but by the time the last 

 travelers have departed most of the berries 

 are consumed. All the low growing va- 

 rieties of Cornus — white, black and blue 

 berries — are swept clean. One morning 

 you may find a tree of Cornus Horida lit- 

 erally alive with robins and golden winged 

 woodpeckers, and an hour later not a berry 

 of its shining red coral will be left. 



The ash trees bear a wealth of winged 

 seeds fashioned like tiny Indian paddles. 

 These hold out for perhaps a month, but 

 even they gradually disappear, until naught 

 is left of summer's garnering but a shower 

 of empty seed cases beneath the trees. 

 Successive flocks of hungry birds hold 

 high revels here. One day it will be the 

 pine finches, on another the chattering 

 thistle birds, and again the redpoll linnets, 

 their rosy plumage gleaming like satin in 

 the morning sun. 



Out in the open fields and roadways nu- 

 merous flocks of the sparrow family find 

 rich harvesting. Great patches of pig weed 

 and climbing false buckwheat form tangled 

 coverts where security and plenty are 



381 



assured. A quiet approach to one of these 

 spots will afford a surprise. Not a feather 

 is in sight, but beneath you can hear the 

 birds feeding, the cracking of seeds and 

 the clicking of innumerable little bills 

 swelling to quite a volume of sound. 

 Shake the thicket and out rush the birds 

 with a great whirring of wings. Tree 

 sparrows, whitethroats, song and swamp 

 sparrows, goldfinches and juncos are 

 there, the twinkling white feathers of the 

 latter showing conspicuously as they pitch 

 about in their peculiar flight. For a mo- 

 ment they appear like a torrent of leaves 

 swept before a November gale, and then 

 disappear in the next tangle of weeds. 



For the most part the birds feed si- 

 lently, but the tree sparrows always sing 

 light little notes, sweet and tinkling. 

 When November has past, most of the 

 summer visitors and birds of passage have 

 departed for the South, that land of plenty 

 and perpetual summer. Were it not for 

 this wise provision of Nature the food sup- 

 ply, great as it is, would not hold out 

 until the coming of another warm season. 

 Under the working of this migratory 

 impulse there is comparative plenty left 

 for the winter residents. Pines and hem- 

 locks hold within each scale of their cones 

 the tiny nuts which the hooked mandibles 

 of those erratic wanderers, the crossbills, 

 will open later. The waxwing likewise has 

 his own especial preserves. There are the 

 blue green berries of the cedar and the 

 frozen fruits of orchards and wild apple 

 trees, which grow in thickets and hedge- 

 rows. The waxwing is the cultured gen- 

 tleman of his tribe, quiet of tone, gentle 

 and refined in manners, never quarreling 

 over his food. 



A friend assures me he has seen a row 

 of these birds sitting on a bough and sys- 

 tematically passing a frozen crab apple up 

 and down the line, each one taking a bite 

 and passing it on to the next, just as con- 

 vivial souls would send around a bottle. 

 That was in the hungry time of the year, 

 too, when the instinct of self preservation 

 might well engender selfishness. 



The fruit of the sumac and bittersweet 

 seem to be reserved for necessity, for only 

 late in the spring, when food is scarce, 

 have I seen any birds attempt to eat it; 

 but the white berries of the poison ivy are 

 acceptable to many of the finches. Al- 

 most anything will do for the jays and 

 crows. They are omnivorous, taking any 

 thing they can get; but the grubs and 

 larvae imbedded in the trunks and limbs of 

 trees furnish food for the woodpeckers. 

 Their stout bills are able to chisel through 



