In Nesting Time   By: Olive Thorne Miller (1831-1918)

BY

OLIVE THORNE MILLER

[Illustration]

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1893

Copyright, 1888, BY H. M. MILLER.

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.

"Very few people have the least idea what wild creatures are like. Their notion generally is to shoot them, and then pick them up for examination; which is the same thing as if some being of superior race, seeing children at play, were to shoot a few at long range, and then turn them over and describe them and consider himself learned in their structure, habits, and appearance." JEAN INGELOW.

INTRODUCTORY.

The sketches of bird manners and customs in this little collection are the record of careful observation, and scrupulously true in every particular. The facts may not all be new to Science, but since they are genuine studies from life, and each bird whose acquaintance I make is as truly a discovery to me as if he were totally unknown to the world, I venture to hope that lovers of birds may find in these pages real, live, individuals in feathers, honestly "brothers of ours."

OLIVE THORNE MILLER.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. BABY BIRDS 1

Purple Crow Blackbird. Quiscalus quiscula. Redwing Blackbird. Ageloeus phoeniceus. Yellow Throated Warbler. Dendroica dominica. Baltimore Oriole. Icterus galbula. White Bellied Nuthatch. Sitta carolinensis. American Robin. Merula migratoria. Phoebe. Sayornis phoebe.

II. BIRD STUDY IN A SOUTHERN STATE 19

Great White Heron. Ardea occidentalis. Bald Eagle. Haliæetus leucocephalus. Wilson's Tern. Sterna hirundo. Ring Plover. Ægialitis hiaticula.

III. THE MOCKING BIRD'S NEST 33

Mocking Bird. Mimus polyglottos.

IV. A TRICKSY SPIRIT 65

Mocking Bird. Mimus polyglottos.

V. THE "WISE BLUEBIRD" 95

Bluebird. Sialia sialis.

VI. THE GOLDEN WING 113

Golden Wing Woodpecker. Colaptes auratus.

VII. A STORMY WOOING 129

Orchard Oriole. Icterus spurius.

VIII. FLUTTERBUDGET 145

Brown Thrush, or Thrasher. Harporhynchus rufus.

IX. "O WONDROUS SINGERS" 159

Wilson's Thrush. Turdus fuscescens. Gray Cheeked Thrush. Turdus aliciæ.

X. A BIRD OF AFFAIRS 173

Blue Jay. Cyanocitta cristata.

XI. THE BLUE JAY AGAIN 189

XII. VIRGINIA'S WOOING 205

Virginia Cardinal. Cardinalis cardinalis.

XIII. FRIENDSHIP IN FEATHERS 221

Scarlet Tanager. Piranga erythromelas. English Goldfinch. Fringilla carduelis.

XIV. THE ROSY SHIELD 237

Rose Breasted Grosbeak. Habia ludoviciana.

XV. THE BIRD OF MYSTERY 251

Birds of Paradise. Paradisæa.

BABY BIRDS.

And oft an unintruding guest, I watched her secret toils from day to day; How true she warped the moss to form the nest, And modeled it within with wood and clay. And by and by, like heath bells gilt with dew, There lay her shining eggs as bright as flowers, Ink spotted over, shells of green and blue: And there I witnessed in the summer hours A brood of Nature's minstrels chirp and fly, Glad as the sunshine and the laughing sky.

JOHN CLARE.

I.

BABY BIRDS.