English
inging Birds
Reprinted from an article hy Theodore Roosevelt In The Outlook h* "pedal
trraiiHeinent with The Outlook, of which i Rooe.-wlt Is t. outrlhutlnn
Editor. Copyright, 1'JIO, to> The Outlook Company. All Rights Reserved
Like most Americans inter'- ted in
birds nnd books. 1 know a good deal
about English birds as they appear In
books. I know the lark of Shake
speare and Shelley and ihe Ettrick
Shepherd; I know the lnghtlngale of
Milton and Keats; 1 know Words
worth's cuckoo; 1 know mavis and
merile singing in the merry green wood
of the old ballads; I know Jenny Wren
and Cock Robin of the nursery books.
Therefore 1 have always much desired
to hear the birds in real life; and the
opportunity offered last June. As I
could snatch but a few hours from a
very exacting round of pleasures and
duties, it was necessary for me to be
with some companion who could iden
tify both song and singer. In Sir
Edward Grey, a keen lover of outdoor
life in all its phases, and a delight
ful companion, who knows the songs
and ways of English birds as very lew
do know them, 1 found the best pos
sible guide.
We left London on the morning of
June 9, 24 hours before 1 sailed from
Southampton. Getting off the train at
Basingstoke, we drove to the pretty,
smiling valley of the Itchen. Here
we tramped for three or four hours,
then again drove, this time to Ihe edge
of the New Forest, where we first
took tea at an inn, and then tramped
through the forest to an Inn on Its otli
er side, at Brockenhurst. At the con
clusion of our w'alk my companion
made a list of the birds we had seen,
putting an asterisk opposite those
which we had heard sing. There were
41 of the former and 23 of the 1 •’*r,
as follows:
•Thrush, *B»ackbird, ‘Lark, ‘Yellow
Hammer, ‘Robin, ‘Wren, ‘Golden
Crested Wren, ‘Goldfinch, ‘Greenfinch,
Pied Wagtail, Sparrow, ‘Dunnock
{Hedge Accentor), Missel Thrush,
Starling, Rook, Jackdaw', ‘Black Cap,
•Garden Warbler, ‘Willow Warbler,
•Chiff Chaff, ‘Wood Warbler, ‘Tree
Creeper, ‘Reed Bunting, ‘Sedge War
bler, Coot, Water Hen, Little Grebe
(Dabchick), Tufted Duck, Wood PI
geon, Stock Dove, ‘Turtle Dove, Pee
i wit. Tit (?Coal Tit). ‘Cuckoo, ‘Night
jar, ‘Swallow, Martin, Swift, Pheasant,
Partridge.
The bird that most Impressed me
on my walk was the blackbird. I had
already heard nightingales in abun
dance near Lake Como, and had also
listened to larks, but 1 had never heard
either the blackbird, the song thrush,
cr the black cap warbler; and while I 1
knew all three were good singers,
I did not know what really beau
tiful singers they were. Blackbirds
were very abundant, and they played a
prominent part in the chorus which we
heard throughout the day on every
band, though perhaps loudest the fol
lowing morning at dawn. In Its habits
and manners, the blackbird strikingly
resembles our American robin, and In
deed looks exactly like a robin, with
a yellow bill and coal-black plumage,
it hops everywhere over the lawns,
just as our robin does, and it lives in
nests in the gardens in the same fash
ion. Its song has a general resem
blance to that of our robin, but many
of the notes are far more musical,
more like those of our wood thrush.
Indeed there were individuals among
those we heard certain of whose notes
seemed to me almost to equal In point
of melody the chimes of the wood
thrush; and the highest possible praise
for any song bird is to liken its song
to that of the wood thrush or hermit
thrush. I certainly do not think that
the blackbird has received full justice
in the books. 1 knew that It was a
singer, but I really had no idea how
fine a singer he was. I suppose one of
hi 3 troubles has been his name, ju=>t
as with our own cat bird. When ho
* appears In the ballads as the merle,
bracketed with his cousin, the mavis,
the song thrush, it is far easier to rec
fgnize him as the master singer that
be Is. It is a fine thing for England
to have such an asset of the country
side, a bird so common, so much In evi
dence, so fearles3, and such a really
beautiful singer.
The most musical singer we heard
was the black cap warbler. To my
my ear its song seemed more musical
than that of the nightingale. It was
astonishingly powerful for so small a
bird; in volume and continuity It does
not come up to the songs of the
thrushes and of certain other birds,
but in quality, as an isolated bit of
melody, it can hardly be surpassed.
Among the minor singers the robin
was noticeable. We all know this
pretty little bird from the books, and
i was prepared to find him as friendly
and attractive as he proved to be, but
I had not realized how well he sang.
It was not a loud song, but very mu
• v.l and attractive, and the bird i<
said 'o sing practically all through the
year. The song of the wren inter
ested me much, because it was not in
the least like that of our house wrens,
but, on the contrary, like that of our
winter wren. The theme is the same
as the winter wren’s, but the song did
not seem to me to be so brilliantly mu
sical as that of the tiny singer of the
north woods. The sedgo warbler sang
in the thick reeds a mocking ventrtlo
quial lay, which reminded me at times
of the less pronounced parts of our
yellow breasted chat's song. The
eu:koo’s cry vims singularly attractive
and musical, far more so than the
rolling, many times repeated, note of
our rain-crow.
Ten days later, at Sagamore Hill, I
was among my own birds, and was
much interested ns 1 listened to and
looked at them in remembering the
notes and actions of the birds I had
seen in England. On the evening of
the first day I sat in my rocking
chair on the broad veranda, looking
across the sound towards the glory of
the sunset. The thickly grassed hill
side sloped down in front of me to a
belt of forest from which rose the
golden, leisurely chiming of (he wood
thrushes, chanting their vespers;
through the still air came the warble
of vireo and tanager; and after night
fall we heard the flight song of an
oven bird from the same belt of tim
ber. Overhead an oriole sang in the
weeping elm, now and then breaking
h'<- song to scold like an overgrown
wren. Song sparrows and cat birds
sang in the shrubbery; one robin had
built its nest over the front, and one
ver the back door, and there waS a
chippy's nest in the wisteria vino by
the porch. During the next 24 hours 1
saw and heard, either light around the
house or while walking down to bathe
through the woods, the following 42
birds;
Little Green Heron, Quail, Red Tail
ed Hawk, Yellow Billed Cuckoo,
Kingfisher, Flicker, Hummingbird,
Swift, Meadow Lark, Red Winged
Blackbird, Sharp Tailed Finch, Song
Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow, Bush
Sparrow, Purple Finch, Baltimore
Oriole, Cowbunting, Robin, Scarlet
Thrush, Thrasher, Cat Bird, Scarlet
Tanager, Red-Eyed Vireo, Yellow War
bler, Black-Throated Green Warbler,
King Bird, Wood Pewee, Crow, Blue
Jay, Cedar Bird, Maryland Yellow
Throat, Chickadee, Black and White
Creeper, Barn Swallow, White Breasted
Swallow, Oven Bird, Thlstlefinch, Ves
perflnch, Indigo Bunting, Towhee,
Grasshopper Sparrow and Screech
Owl.
I sent the companion of my English
walk John Burroughs’ "Birds and
Poets." John Burroughs’ life work is
beginning to have its full effect in
many different lines. When he first
wrote there were few men of letters
in our country who knew nature at
first hand. Now there are many who
delight In our birds, who know their
songs, who keenly love all that belongs
to out-of-doors lile. For instance, Mad
ison Cawein and Ernest McGaffy have
for a number of years written of our
woods and fields, of the birds and thp
flowers, as only those can write who
join to love of nature the gift of ob
servation and the gift of description
Mr. Cawein is a Kentuckian; and an
other Kentuckian, Miss Julia Stockton
Dinsmore, in the little volume of
poems which she has just published,
includes many which describe with
beauty and charm the sights and
sounds so dear to all of us who
know American country life. Miss
Dinsmore knows Kentucky, and the
gulf coast of Louisiana, and the great
plains of North Dakota; and she knows
also the regions that lie outside of
what can be seen with material vision.
For years in our family we have had
Eome of her poems in the scrap book
cut from newspapers when we knew
nothing about her except the initials
signed In the verses. Only one who
sees with the eyes of the spirit ns well
as the eyes of the body could have
written the “Threnody,” curiously at
tractive in its simplicity and pathos,
with which the little book opens. It
contains many poems that make a sim
ilar appeal. The writer knows blue
bird and robin, redbird and field lark
and whippoorwill, just as she knows
southern rivers and western plains;
she knows rushing winds and running
waters and the sights and sounds of
lonely places; and moreover, she
knows and almost tells those hidden
things of the heart which never find
complete utterance.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
No Cause for Alarm. i
"1 have decided,'■ said the theatrical ■
manager, “to give jou a trial, Miss
, Arlington. Please be ready to begin
rehearsing Monday afternoon.”
“Thank you so much. Dut before we
go any further I must inform you that
I shall positively refuse to wear tights
or a gown that is cut low in the neck.”
“Oh, that’s all right. In the part
that I'm going to give you, you will
merely have to stand behind a shed j
and help to scream when the cyclone
strikes town."
Still the 400.
Ward—They say there are about
275,000 automobiles owned by Individ
uals In the United States, or one tor
every 400 population.''
t McAllister—Well, are. you in the 400
yet?—Yonkers Statesmen.
Filling Up.
"What do you do when you have no
news? It must be hard to fill up.”
“When we have no news,” explained
the New York journalist, "we use larg
er type.”
IpATHI
)aT09®l^f(
c; o l isi v5.'
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IU I « t"M M I I I I I « I I I I M--++*
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