In the swamp in secluded recesses
A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.
Sing on! sing on, you gray-brown
bird!
Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour
Your chant from the bushes;
O liquid and free and tender!
O wild and loose to my soul!
O wondrous singer!
WALT WHITMAN.
I feel considerable reluctance in
approaching the subject of my small thrushes.
None but a poet should speak of them so
beautiful, so enchanting in song. Yet I cannot
bear to let their lovely lives pass in silence; therefore
if they must needs remain unsung, they shall at least
be chronicled.
There were two: one the gray-cheeked
thrush, the other the veery or Wilson’s, and
they passed a year in my house, filling it with a
marvelous rippling music like the sweet babble of a
brook over stones; like the gentle sighing of the
wind in pine-trees; like other of nature’s enchanting
sounds, which I really must borrow a poet’s words
to characterize:
“O liquid and free and
tender!
O wild and loose to my soul!
O wondrous singer.”
The gray-cheeked, most charming in
every look and motion, uttered his notes in a free
sweep or crescendo, which began low, gathered force
as he went on, and then gradually died out; all in
one long slur, without a defined or staccato note,
making a wonderful resemblance to wind sounds, as
Emerson expresses it:
“His music was the Southwind’s
sigh.”
The song of the veery was quite different,
low, rapid, interspersed with a louder, wild-sounding
cry, or, as aptly described by a listener, like the
gurgling sounds made by blowing through a tube into
soft water, with occasional little explosions.
The soft, whispered warble of a brown thrush added
a certain under-tone which combined and harmonized
both these, forming with them a rhapsody of a rippling,
bubbling character impossible to describe, but constantly
reminding one of running streams, and gentle water-falls,
and coming nearer to “put my woods in song”
than any other bird-notes whatever. Neither of
the performers opened his mouth, so that the trio
was very low, a true whisper-song.
It was somewhat curious that with
one exception all the birds in the room through these
months sang whisper-songs also, without opening the
bill. There were six of them, and every one delighted
in singing; the three thrushes, a bluebird, a female
orchard oriole, and a Mexican clarín. To
the thrushes, music seemed necessary to life; hour
after hour they stood on their respective perches
across the room, puffed out into balls, “pouring
out their souls,” and entrancing us not only
with their suggestive melody, but with graceful and
poetical movements, and a beauty of look and bearing
that moved one deeply. During the aria both birds
stood motionless, one with wings drooping, and accenting
every note, the other with tail slightly jerking for
the same purpose.
In character no less than in song
the birds differed; bright, active and high-spirited,
the gray-cheeked delighted in the freedom of the room,
feared nothing, came upon the desk freely, and calmly
met one’s eyes with his own, brave free soul
that he was, while his vis-a-vis was timid
and shy, could not be induced to leave the shelter
of his home though the door stood open all day.
He never resented the intrusion of a neighbor, nor
disputed the possession of his own dish.
Almost as interesting as his song
was a bewitching dance with which the gray-cheeked
charmed every one fortunate enough to see him.
His chosen hour was the approach of evening, when,
with body very erect and head thrown up in ecstasy,
he lifted his wings high above his back, fluttering
them rapidly with a sound like soft patter of summer
rain, while he moved back and forth on his perch with
the daintiest of little steps and hops: now up,
now down, now across the cage, with gentle noise of
feet and wings. No music accompanied it, and none
was needed it was music itself. Not
only did he dance away the long hours of twilight,
till so dark he could not be seen, but he greeted the
dawn in the same way; long before any other bird stirred,
before the hideous morning call of the first sparrow
in the street, the soft flutter of his wings, the
light patter of his feet was heard. In the night
also, if gas was lighted, however dimly, dancing began
and was continued in the darkness, long after the
light was out and every other feather at rest.
A sudden light stopped the motion, but revealed the
dancer agitated, stirred, with soft dark eyes fixed
upon the observer. This dance was not an attempt
or indication of a desire to escape, as I am sure for
several reasons. I can tell the instant that
longing for freedom sets in. It was a fresh sign
of the strange, mysterious emotion with which all thrushes
greet the rising and setting of the sun.
The singular use of the feet by this
bird was very peculiar, and not confined to his dancing
hours. While standing on the edge of the bathing-dish,
longing, yet dreading to enter the water, on alighting
upon an unaccustomed perch, or venturing on to the
desk, many times a day he took the little steps, lifting
first one, then the other foot very slightly, and
bringing it down with a sound without changing his
position. It seemed to be an evidence of excitement,
as another bird might exhibit by a quivering of the
wings. The veery was also a dancer, but in a
different way. He fanned his wings violently and
moved back and forth across the top of a cage, but
always in daylight, and then only on the rare occasions
when, by placing his food outside, he was coaxed from
his cage.
Bathing was next to singing the
dear delight of the gray-cheeked’s life, yet
no bird ever had more misgivings about taking the fatal
plunge. His first movement on leaving the cage
was to go to the bath, around which he hovered, now
this side, now that, one moment on the perch above,
the next on the edge of the dish, plainly longing to
be in, yet the mere approach of the smallest bird
in the room drove him away. Not that he was afraid,
he was not in the least a coward; he met everybody
and everything with the dignity and bravery of a true
thrush. Neither was it that he was disabled when
wet, which makes some birds hesitate; he was never
at all disordered by his bath, and however long he
soaked, or thoroughly he spattered, his plumage remained
in place and he was perfectly able to fly at once.
It appeared simply that he could not make up his mind
to go in. Then too, it soon became apparent that
he noticed his reflection in the water. He often
stood on the edge after bathing, as well as before,
looking intently upon the image. Before the glass
he did the same, looking earnestly and in a low tone
“uttering his thoughts to the ideal bird which
he fancied he saw before him.” Indeed,
I think this ideal thrush was a great comfort to him.
Once having decided to go into the
bath he enjoyed it exceedingly, though in an unusual
way, fluttering and splashing vigorously for a moment,
then standing motionless up to his body in the water,
not shaking or pluming himself, not alarmed, but quietly
enjoying the soaking. After several fits of splashing
alternated with soaking, he went to a perch and shook
and plumed himself nearly dry, and just when one would
think he had entirely finished, he returned to the
dish, and began again hesitating on the
brink, coquetting with the “ideal thrush”
in the water, and in fact doing the whole thing over
again.
My bird had a genuine thrush’s
love of quiet and dislike of a crowd, preferred unfrequented
places to alight on, and was quite ingenious in finding
them. The ornamental top of a gas-fixture a few
inches below the ceiling, which was cup-shaped and
nearly hid him, was a favorite place. So was
also the loose edge of a hanging cardboard map which,
having been long rolled, hung out from the wall like
a half-open scroll. This he liked best, for no
other bird ever approached it, and here he passed
much time swinging, as if he enjoyed the motion which
he plainly made efforts to keep up. His plan
was to fly across the room and alight suddenly upon
it, when, of course it swayed up and down with his
weight. The moment it came to a rest, he flew
around the room in a wide circle and came down again
heavily, holding on with all his might, and keeping
his balance with wings and tail. He enjoyed it
so well that he often swung for a long time.
Later he found another snug retreat
where no bird ever intruded. He discovered it
in this way: one day, on being suddenly startled
by an erratic dash around the room of the brown thrush,
which scattered the smaller birds like leaves before
the wind, he brought up under the bed on the floor.
The larger bird had evidently marked the place of his
retreat, for he followed him, and in his mad way rushed
under when the gray-cheeked disappeared. The
bedstead was a light iron one, high from the floor,
so that all this was plainly seen. No one being
in sight, the brown thrush came out and turned to
his regular business of stirring up the household
while the little thrush was not to be seen, and perfect
silence seemed to indicate that he was not there at
all. After some search, aided by an indiscreet
movement on his part, he was found perched on the
framework, between the mattress and the wall.
This narrow retreat, apparently discovered by accident,
soon became a favorite retiring place when he did
not care for society.
This interesting bird, with all his
dignity, had a playful disposition. Nothing pleased
him better than rattling and tearing to bits a newspaper
or the paper strips over a row of books, although he
had to stand on the latter while he worked at it;
and notwithstanding it not only rustled, but disturbed
his footing as well, he was never discouraged.
A more violent jerk than usual sometimes startled
him so that he bounded six or eight inches into the
air in his surprise, but he instantly returned to
the play and never rested till he had picked holes,
torn pieces out, and reduced it to a complete wreck.
All through the long winter this charming
thrush, with his two neighbors, delighted the house
with his peculiar and matchless music, and endeared
himself by his gentle and lovely disposition.
No harsh sound was ever heard from him, there was
no intrusion upon the rights of others, and no vulgar
quarrels disturbed his serene soul. But as spring
began to stir his blood he changed a little; he grew
somewhat belligerent, refused to let any one alight
in his chosen places, and even drove others away from
his side of the room. Now, too, he added to his
already melting song an indescribable trill, something
so spiritual, so charged with the wildness of the
woods, that no words even of a poet can
do it justice. Now, too, he began to turn longing
glances out of the window, and evidently his heart
was no longer with us. So, on the first perfect
day in May he was taken to a secluded nook in a park
and his door set open. His first flight was to
a low tree, twenty feet from the silent spectator,
who waited, anxious to see if his year’s captivity
had unfitted him for freedom.
Perching on the lowest branch, the
thrush instantly crouched in an attitude of surprise
and readiness for anything, which was common with
him, his bill pointed up at an angle of forty-five
degrees, head sunk in the shoulders, and tail standing
out stiffly, thus forming a perfectly straight line
from the point of his beak to the tip of his tail.
There he stood, perfectly motionless, apparently not
moving so much as an eyelid for twenty minutes, trying
to realize what had happened to him and in the patient,
deliberate manner of a thrush to adjust himself to
his new conditions. In the nook were silence and
delicious odors of the woods; from a thick shrub on
one side came the sweet erratic song of a cat-bird,
and at a little distance the rich organ-tones of the
wood-thrush. All these entered the soul of the
emancipated bird; he listened, he looked, and at last
he spoke, a low, soft, “wee-o.” That
broke the spell, he drew himself up, hopped about the
tree, flew to a shrub, all the time posturing and
jerking wings and tail in extreme excitement and no
doubt happiness to the tips of his toes. At last
he dropped to the ground and fell to digging and reveling
in the soft loose earth with enthusiasm. The
loving friend looking on was relieved; this was what
she had waited for, to be assured that he knew where
to look for supplies, and though she left his familiar
dish full of food where he could see it in case of
accident, she came away feeling that he had not been
incapacitated for a free life by his months with her.
One more glimpse of him made it clear
also that he could fly as well as his wild neighbors,
and removed the last anxiety about him. A wood-thrush,
after noticing the stranger for some minutes, finally
braved the human presence and made a rush for the little
fellow about half his size. Whether war or welcome
moved him was not evident, for away they flew across
the nook, not more than a foot apart, now sweeping
low over the grass, then mounting higher to pass over
the shrubs that defined it. A hundred feet or
more the chase continued, and then the smaller bird
dropped into a low bush, and the larger one passed
on.
Then lonely, with empty cage and a
happy heart-ache, his friend turned away and left
the beautiful bird to his fate, assured that he was
well able to supply his needs and to protect himself in
a word, to be free.