THE BIRDS' CALENDAR.*
EVERY link in the chain which binds the Old World to the New—whether the link be science, theology, fiction, or fable —is in a large-hearted way welcomed on both sides of the water; but when that link is moulded in Nature's forge, it must be stronger and firmer, for Nature is the one master all must bow to, and the one author from whom all can learn. Field ornithology is a natural science "almost unique in its simplicity," so little preliminary study being needful before some absolute knowledge of bird-life can be attained, and it is a science which is not confined to those surrounded only, or mainly, by Nature's works :- "'Tis always morning somewhere ; and, above
The awakening continents from shore to shore, Somewhere the birds are singing evermore."
So in London, or New York, above the ceaseless throb of a giant city's heart, the song of a bird comes to cheer the worker and to bid the bread-winner God-speed. We who have studied birds in our London parks read with some envy The Birds' Calendar, by H. E. Parkhurst, which is now lying before us ; envy, because more birds can be seen in the Central Park than in Hyde Park, forgetting the tiny limits of our island home, and hardly realising the length and breadth of territory which surrounds the American metro- polis; forgetting, also, that there the birds of passage come from so many quarters on their way north, south, east, and west, and are not residents in New York. The book consists of an informal diary of a year's observations, made as business would permit, in Central Park. This park, the author tells us, is "scarcely half-a-mile in width and two and one-half miles long, and the observations here recorded, with slight exceptions, were all made in that small section known as ' The Ramble,' covering only about one-sixteenth of a
• Ms Birds' Calendar, By H. E. Parkhurst. London: J. 0. Nizamo.
square mile." This little calendar, which must interest ornithologists, while at the same time it bores the uninitiated, gives a list of birds month by month ; and as we travel with the author through the year, the " mystery of migration" becomes still more mysterious, and lands us in "confusion worse confounded." The American birds seem to be always migrating, and to the unscientific there is a strange contrari- ness in classification, which makes us wonder on what prin- ciple our American cousins have named their different species. Take the warblers, for instance. Mr. Parkhurst tells us that doubtless they are of avian-French descent, "that they are as a class strikingly beautiful—flashes of white and flame-colour,
blue and gold—but far inferior to the finches as vocalists, and that the name of warbler,' as designating a conspicuous trait
of the family, is a misnomer The finches are the more musical ; warblers more graceful in movement, and more charming in form and plumage." Wood declares our warblers to be, as their name denotes, remarkable for their sweet song, but very inconspicuous, brown, grey, and olive-green being the hues with which they are generally tinted. In another part of the Calendar we find the author saying that " science and sentiment do not always agree as to what really constitutes a song-bird. When there is any wrangling between these two authorities upon that point, I find that I get less truth, but a deal more of satisfaction, by taking sides with sentiment." Were there no ornithologists amongst the Pilgrim Fathers ?
or did their longing for a sound of a well-known name make them callous as to which bird it was bestowed upon ? The American whitethroat is a species of sparrow ; their best-loved songster is also called a sparrow ; their robin is a thrush, their yellowhammer is a woodpecker, twelve inches long. " What's in a name ?" A rose is ever a rose, call it a dandelion or a daisy ; but a bird which calls itself a yellowhammer, and yet does not say persistently " a little bit of bread and no cheese," offends our notions of propriety. But whatever be our differences in science, opinion, or sentiment, the following passage will find an echo in all our hearts, on whichever side of the water we find ourselves :—
"An enjoyment incident to ornithology that is worth mention- ing, is the fact that while other friends come and go, one never loses the friends he makes among the birds, for his attachment is to the class, not to the individual. Specimens die, but the species abide. One never thinks of age in connection with these creatures. They seem to have discovered the elixir of life, and to maintain the perennial freshness of youth. Year after year they arrive at just about the same time in the spring, sing the same old songs, repeat their love passages, nest in the same fashion, and perpetuate all their graceful ways and charming oddities. The old man finds his cherry-trees plundered by apparently the very same robins that he saw in his boyhood in his father's orchard, and drives away the everlasting crows from his cornfield. The woodpecker's vigorous tapping never becomes feeble, nor the song-sparrow less blithesome. The burden of sorrow is never lifted from the ever- lamenting wewee, and in season and out of season, with sometimes provoking equanimity, the chickadee is brimful of merriment. These sights and sounds are among the stabilities of life, the changeless things that give equilibrium to nature, binding the present to the past, and spreading a pleasant and restful aspect of permanence over the mutabilities of existence."
Many efforts have been made to import our favourite birds to America, but most efforts have proved fruitless. The noted species of Europe will not readily acclimatise in a strange land. Chaffinches and starlings have been immigrated in large numbers, but are soon lost to sight, our goldfinch being one of the few birds that consents to breed wild in the country. We are told they are superior to the American goldfinch, not in plumage only, but in song, "rich, liquid, and bubbling ; " but Mr. Park- hurst adds, in the musical parlance of the inner circle, "that it is not all that could be desired, for with all its luscious and exuberant qualities, it is characterless as regards form." " Form" is a musical term much in vogue, the good old word " tune " is out of fashion ; but though the former applies to Wagner's splendid themes and modern composi- tions, it is hardly a word applicable to a bird's song; nor can we picture to ourselves our jenny wren when described as "a specimen of highly concentrated nervous energy, bottled almost to bursting, explosively relieved in action or song, a bit of champagne with wings." We hear that the song-sparrow is the American harbinger of spring, and note that only one of the titmice honours New York, the chickadee, as they call our tole-tit. No long-tailed tit builds its beautiful lichen- covered nest; no blue-tit, or marsh-tit, or big ox-eye builds in holes, or prepared bird-boxes, and charms the bird-lover with endless antics. Mr. Parkhurst saw ninety-six different species in the year ; but Americans say that their birds never sing like our English songsters. In comparison with ours, they are silent, so no feeling of jealousy prevails, even though we cannot boast of whip-poor-wills, bobolinks, hum- ming-birds, or Baltimore orioles. One description is fasci- nating, and gives colour to the somewhat dull-toned pages :—
"Walking among the leafless trees, one hears a cracked and wheezy whistle, and, looking about, discovers, at the summit of a high tree, its form sharply outlined against the sky, this not alto- gether welcome arrival,—the grackle. Its position tallies with its disposition, holding itself aloof in evident dislike and suspicion of mankind,—and mankind warmly reciprocates the sentiment. Its iridescent colours gleam richly in the sunlight ; but at close range it is a bit uncanny, with its staring yellowish eye. It is a very gregarious bird, often found in large flocks, and has a varied diet, which makes it somewhat beneficial, but still more injurious, to husbandry, and it has the crow's disreputable habit of feeding on the eggs and young of other birds. As a songster (for scientifically it is one of the song-birds) it is a dismal failure. All the ills that ever attacked a singer's larynx seem concen- trated in its throat, yet, like many another suppositious and execrable vocalist, it persists in trying to sing. Whenever they appear, they show themselves vulgarly at home until they leave in the fall They are chiefly instructive as showing what a bird ought not to be. And yet even a grackle can somewhat quicken the pulse in March."
As a guide to ornithology, the book is of no real practical use in England, but as a glimpse of bird-life in a world separated from us by the merciless sea, it cannot fail to interest bird- lovers, while as a teacher it remains dumb.
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