A Hermit Thrush

I

THE scientific information which, in a popular way, is looked for in the record of ornithological studies does not altogether prevail in this bit of history. It includes, with its more exact observations, the seeking of less obvious things — the leisurely pursuit of an idea, a bit of character study. This was, perhaps, not so much a departure, as an individual interpretation of the common stock in trade. If it touches the hem of the garment of science, it is a hem familiar with the dews of swamp and pasture, and the common brambles of country byways and woods and fields.

Yet this should not mislead — not all of science dwells in far places. ‘The gods are not chained to their altars.’ Evolutionary science, at least, is ever in touch with common daily things, and the door of understanding once ajar, there is no keeping out the troop of visions beyond. Science is not alone for the scientist: its revelations are equally for the plain man; and it needs but the remembering eye to perceive always the luminous and immortal panorama.

The dustiest wayfarer, who watches on summer days the jeweled flash of dragon-flies, or the flitting gold of turnus’s wings above the purple thistles, may be led back in thought to the bugs and butterflies of that ancient mausoleum of Miocene time, the Florissant shales. Here, a member of turnus’s own tribe, Prodryas persephone, lay entombed some millions of years, awaiting that amazing day, his resurrection in human discovery and understanding.

Or, to reverse the shield, who may not know that strange little monster, the newly hatched robin, with long snakelike neck uplifting his blind bulging head and enormous gaping mouth, and be filled with amaze, that here, in living miniature, should be the ancient reptile — the naked, wingless, fourlimbed ancestral form from which the robin is descended and evolved? And he perceives forthwith a new answer to the old interrogation, ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? ’ Verily, he can and he has.

It was a question from this side of things which suggested thoughts that lent new charm to the thrushes, and set me on the trail of a more intimate acquaintance with them than I had hitherto known, intimate as I had thought that to be; for, in common expression, I had been brought up with them. They were a tradition, a sort of family institution. There were years made memorable by their music, long summers whose golden days were rimmed about with their melody. The soft gloom of their ‘cathedral woods’ was a daily sanctuary, where vespers and silver chanting rose from the dusky solitude, with calm benediction to the listening heart. Through the long June twilights they sang, till night fell fully dark. The tall spires of the spruces grew black against the western sky, and only the chorus of the distant marshes filled the quiet country night.

There is something mystical in this song, as of some serene and lofty vision transmuted into sound. Cheney characterized it as ‘ spiritual, full of sublimity.’ Those who know it, know the hopelessness of its description; though there are exceptions to this, and especially fine is Burroughs’s line, ‘A silver horn which he winds in the most solitary places.’ Its tone-quality is elusively that of the flute, while its form has something of the far-off challenge of a bugle. It is musical beyond words, mellow and fluted, yet strangely clear and ringing.

Then one day all this was changed. The green aisles of the woods were still. In other phrase, I, who was conscious of all the world’s beauty, found myself to that world nine tenths deaf. Its life and reality were swallowed up like a landscape in a fog. The old haunting songs were gone, the wraith of a lost memory, which sang only in dreams.

But the personality of the thrush had been too real and vivid to pass and be relinquished absolutely. It held its place subjectively, with a sort of subconscious resistance to finality; and though there is no substitute for sound, yet in course of time, by way of unusual opportunities, I came back into touch with the subject, sufficient to be worth while, inasmuch as I made observations and studies, in a way, perhaps, as profitable as any I had made in the past. The identity of the bird, its haunts and habits, its comings and goings, had been so many times verified for me that I knew what and where to seek.

II

Perhaps many people nowadays know what the most famous songbirds of America are like — generally speaking, soft light browns above, spotted creamy beneath. The hermit thrush is identified at once by his tail. It is brighter — that is, redder — than the rest of him. His breast may also help to place him, for it is distinctly spotted with large, dark spots, while that of the veery (Wilson’s thrush) is very palely marked, and the olive-back, which has much the same breast and is of the same region as the hermit, is eliminated by his color — olive, not brown. If your hermit is of the northern woods, Maine or New Brunswick, the wood thrush will not be found there.

In its common habitat, the hermit thrush is considered, as most writers state, a bird of remote woodlands — the cool solitudes of the northern woods. Its very name carries that idea. But it is not all that its name implies. It does not always prefer deep woods, or shun the reasonable proximity of man. For this reason, it is not always hard to find or difficult to observe — indeed, not half as hard as the veery, that thrush having all but baffled me in my efforts to study it and find its nest.

The nest of the hermit is always on the ground, often sunk in the deep green moss under a small evergreen tree, which may be scarcely two feet high, and always lined with the fragrant dead pine-needles so like itself in color. Only by lifting up the flat branches growing almost on a level with the ground, can such a nest be seen. In this hidden place the bird sometimes will not be flushed till almost stepped on.

But it was a special instance in my experience, where the hermit thrush appeared, at first thought, not only to depart from accepted ideas regarding seclusion and remoteness, but to have forsaken tradition entirely. On closer thought, however, I think the matter is explainable on wholly natural grounds, rather than as a case of individuality.

Although I have not seen the statement in print, I think it is a fact that, on some of the outer islands of the northern New England coast, certain of the thrushes spend their breeding season. It was on such an island, scarcely a mile in length and ten miles from the mainland, that I found the hermit thrush nesting. On the edge of a bold high headland facing northeast, in a thick but narrow fringe of heavy stunted spruces and tangled undergrowth, perhaps a dozen feet wide, the nest was hidden. Day and night, the surf broke and thundered on the rocks below. In easterly storms and summer gales, fine spray flung itself far up the face of the bluff. Seventyfive feet back and high above, from sunset to sunrise glowed the great light of a lighthouse. In these surroundings it seemed as if no hour of the twentyfour was remotely like the quiet places of the thrush’s usual native woods. Yet in its wildness was the very heart of seclusion.

Though I never dared to penetrate the tangle, it being too rough and sloping, to explore for the nest, the bird, doubtless the male, was often under my field-glasses at this close range, from my seat in the window in the base of the tower. And always when day waned and the splendor of sunset flamed long behind the crest of the hill, from the top of the sheltering spruces he lifted his song to the sea and sky.

The peculiarity of this nesting — if it be peculiarity, for the bird was strictly within its natural zone — is explainable in the completeness of its security. This thrush, being a ground bird, has much trouble, as Nuttall long ago observed, in raising its young. In my own knowledge, perhaps it is not too much to say that one nest in three or four is destroyed.

Now, on this island there were no natural enemies. There was no squirrel, or snake other than the little green field snake. Mephitis putrida never had reached, and never could reach, its shores. The same was true of the fox, the weasel, and even the rabbit . Crows dared not come so near a building. Generations of birds safely bred under these conditions could but tend to perpetuate or naturalize the circumstance.

Yet, all these things in observation and experience were now but the acquisition of cold facts — the activity of the mind, not the thrill of the heart. The old æsthetics were gone, and I wondered if there were no untried path, no undiscovered means, whereby one might come nearer to reality — to some far echo of the lost charm of the old way.

One day I came across the query, ‘Had the birds begun to sing when man began to talk?’ A series of questions sprang up. What were time’s hoary secrets in regard to the singing of birds? Had a thrush sung to the wilderness when there was no man to listen? Was there music in the world when Pithecanthropus erectus, striking the first flake from an eolith, groped, afar and unaware, toward mind and thought? The reptile and the lower mammal we know were millenniums the older; but was there an æsthetic force in nature, a humanizing power, more ancient than the heart of man itself? Did Orpheus sing in the morning of the world — and a rock move?

Hastily I sought a little reviewing look into the sequences of geologic time and the findings of palæontologists, to learn what was the correlation, or rather, the entire lack of correlation, between the two events— for I knew there was a vast lapse of time between them, since avian evolution was well differentiated several millions of years before the time of the later mammals had come in.

I found that a thrush ‘similar to existing European forms¹ did exist in Mid-Pliocene Europe — that is, a million years, more or less, before any respectable sort of a homo had arrived.

This, indeed, is not saying that that particular thrush sang, but it is a somewhat reasonable conclusion that he had reached that stage before the end of these years — or the appearance of proman.

Whatever the possibilities, they all centre around the facts of geologic timeappearance, unless, indeed, the palæontologists have some possible settlement of the question by way of anatomy. Even the color of Persephone’s wing was knowable after the lapse of more than two million years.

As I pondered these things, the old questions about the ‘personality’ of the thrush came back. What was that inwardness, whose outward form was such divine melody; that quality, whose voicing called always to beauty and feeling in the mind of man? There was little answer to such questions, even if intimate intrusion into the bird’s life and environment were possible. Such intrusion produces instant unnaturalness; and manifestly, one did not study thrushes as one did chipped flints, on the corner of one’s desk.

Then all at once there seemed a congruity between the two things, which fascinated me. Both held their secrets of the ages, the one in his golden throat, the other in its immutable story. Why not study the thrushes there? They could not be more inscrutable than certain of my flints.

But in the nature of things, the idea seemed bizarre, impossible. A natural bird was full of fear and shyness. A thrush would not lend itself to observation at first hand, barring some purchased specimen. But I had wandered through bird stores more than once. That kind was far from my idea. It would not serve my purpose, which was to get a glimpse into the real nature of the bird and his individuality.

Yet in the end, — dismissing, of course, all connection of my speculations with the subject, — in spite of all the difficulties, a thrush I meant to have. I would have it just for my own pleasure. I could not have imagined what an interesting experience it would be

III

And so, shortly, I fared forth in quest of it. It was plain that, with the conditions which I had laid down, only a nest of young thrushes would furnish a source of supply. Therefore, to take one just out of the nest was my aim; and I turned to the small country boy, who is almost sure to have at least one ‘swamp-robin’s’ nest in his list. Though this is as liable to be the olive-back or Wilson’s as the hermit, — they are all ‘swamp-robins’ to him, — it was the only opportunity I could think of.

I will not recount all my disappointments. Two nests, one of which I knew to be the hermit’s, were destroyed while the eggs were in them. My scheme was very easy to propose, but far from easy to accomplish. First, to know of a nest of young hermits, and then, to know with some certainty when they should leave it, which is somewhere about the eleventh day, to have no accident befall them, and to be able to get one at the last moment, requires, not only nice observation, but a deal of luck into the bargain. In all my efforts I failed that year.

My ultimate success the next year was due to the invaluable help of a friend, who has a genius for finding birds’ nests. But we, too, had our disappointments from loss of nests before we were successful. We watched our third nest from the day of the first egg, but dreading on every visit that we should find that something had befallen it. We went as infrequently as possible, in order to make no faintest trail to its vicinity.

On the tenth day of the birds, we dared not risk another twelve hours, for, if they escaped harm, they were due to be out of the nest within twenty-four hours; so that, at five o’clock in the afternoon, I took my thrush. It was well-timed, for one of the remaining two left the next morning, the other in the afternoon. I had never known this experiment to be carried out before, though doubtless it had been.

I can hardly define my delight as I held the little fellow in my hand. He seemed a big little bird, dark-eyed and handsome. I carried him in a small covered basket, bedded with hayscented fern. I had about two miles to walk out of the woods and home. The sun was lowering as I hurried over the last half of my journey.

Then an unexpected thing happened. Suddenly he sent out a loud, long, richly musical call, — clear and full, and distinctly double-toned or fluted, — exactly that tone which people try to make plain—and not wholly in vain— when they use that much-worn word ‘ fluted. ’ It was so melodiously and plainly double as to seem almost like two harmonious notes held on the keyboard.

I was astonished — not so much that the bird should attempt to call, considering the circumstances, but that in this, the first sound of its life, the vocal cords should be in such full and native form, capable of such loud, musical, typical thrush tone. Under normal conditions, the thrush may be heard to perfect advantage nearly an eighth of a mile away. The fact that the full, ringing sound was practically in direct contact bridged the difficulty for me in a very sufficient degree.

The experience was one of delight. I had hoped for some pleasure and enlightenment in this scheme of having a thrush ‘loose’ in my house, if it could be done; but I did not expect, from so immature a bird, a single note. To hear measurably the clear, true thrush sound was not among my wildest hopes.

My great concern was his fright and wildness, which I expected to meet when I should open the basket that night and in the morning. I had lively recollections of a young red-eyed vireo, which I had possessed for half a day, and which I struggled to feed till I was in despair. I did not know, till I had learned from experience, that there is a considerable time in the life of a young bird — at least, of many species — when it will starve to death in the very midst of plenty, unless the food is put into its mouth, or rather, into its throat. Helping itself is a matter of slow learning.

Though his call was the greatest of my surprises, I had others. When I reached home, I knew that he ought to have food, but was doubtful whether I could get him to take it before morning. But when I removed the piece of netting from the top of the basket, the little fellow held up his head, opened his mouth, and remained in that position till I had inserted in his throat the piece of shredded beefsteak that I had previously prepared. It was a perfect success. I was immensely relieved. Whatever else had happened to him, at least his ‘reflexes’ were all right, and his responsiveness was a sort of ‘sweet reasonableness’ which was wholly unlooked for. It should be said, however, that these things are governed entirely by instinct, and not by ‘reasonableness’ of any sort; and the necessary stimulus was, in this case, the little commotion above him of removing the netting.

This finished the day for us, though I was of many minds and uncertainties all night as to his welfare. I was up at four o’clock, to find my fears unfounded. He was bright and vigorous and eager for food, which I gave him without the slightest difficulty. It seemed like the most charming amenableness of manners, the most surprising sense.

But what interested me more than everything else was the fact that he had not the slightest fear of me or of his surroundings. To the uninitiated, this may seem nothing out of the ordinary; but all species of young birds large enough to be out of the nest, with very few exceptions, show strong fear of human beings and contact with human hands. While, in this case, it was modified by the matter of food, yet, as compared with other birds, it is the nature of the species. This thrush is neither shy nor afraid.

It was a thrilling moment when, as I started to take him out of the basket, he voluntarily adjusted himself with a firm grip on my thumb, and stood looking at me with calm, fearless eyes. There was no sound or flutter — nothing but an air of prolonged interest and perfect dignity, as he gazed serenely at me. I returned his scrutiny fourfold.

When we had taken stock of each other several minutes, I deposited him in a large, shallow clothes-basket on the floor, in which I had put branches and a bottom of moss. He would have none of it. He suddenly found his legs, and for ten minutes he quietly traversed it over and across, up and down, till he finally got onto the edge of it.

Much of the room was white. I felt that he did not like this — it set at naught all his protective color, and it was now also flooded with sunshine. Down one half of the window, outside the screen, was a woodbine; and reasoning that to give him a sense of being hidden was the right thing, I placed him between the muslin curtain and the screen. It suited him at once. The sun had warmed the window-sill, and he stood straight up and puffed out his feathers, to let the warmth steal in to his body. The sun was a great discovery — he had never been in it before, and he was so well contented with it that he sat down. He was full-fed and warm, the new sunshine was delightful, and with the royal serenity of his race strong within him, he began to take life with tranquil enjoyment.

When he had spent nearly an hour behind the curtain, he seemed to remember his legs and wings, and scrambled and tumbled from the sill to the floor. Being a ground bird, this new region, with its shadows under the furniture and the feel of the straw-matting, quite suited him. He trotted about a good deal, though I could pick him up any time, which I was obliged to do, since I had to feed him every half hour or oftener.

His one occupation for all time was preening his feathers — removing bits of the little remaining quills at their base. He began this before leaving the window, by drawing every feather of his wing, one by one, through his bill. He did this over and over, then stretched it to the utmost. Next to eating, this was always the chief business of the day. But it was varied by the most captivating little doings, whose fascination I could no more resist than if I had been hypnotized. In fact, the bird monopolized me while I had him. I abandoned everything else. He would yawn prodigiously, scratch his head, and take many naps. It was an event when he could scratch his head without losing his balance and falling over. One of the drollest things he ever did was when a partly disabled fly was put before him. He would lean far down, open his mouth wide, and wait for the fly to get in. As this never happened, he would come a step nearer, and turn his mouth sidewise, first one side and then the other. It was days before he would pick it up and swallow it.

His daytime sleeping surprised me — half a dozen naps a day, or more. There was no place which he so habitually sought as the cupped palm of my hand. It was the prettiest sight in the world to watch him settle down, his handsome eyes closing drowsily, his little head tipping to one side till it rested on my thumb.

Though he had the freedom of three rooms, his particular quarters were a quantity of leafy branches in a screened window, until he discovered the fireplace. He took possession of that at once; and when I had put in some branches, a shovelful of earth, and a litter of old moss, the whole dusky interior, with the rough black andirons, met his color-protection beautifully, and he knew it. That instinct at least was satisfied.

Speaking of instinct, I have always held that it accounts for most things in true wild life which have often been ascribed to something else. But a somewhat wide latitude must be conceded to individuality. It is useless to go to either extreme. For instance, this thrush did not care for his baths, taking them gingerly or not at all. But a hermit I had the next year could not be kept out of the water. Wherever he heard it running, he appeared, a big iron sink being his special delight. There he would patter about till every feather was sopping wet, and I would have to take him out and put him in the sun to dry. When this was accomplished, he was quite likely to do it all over again if he got the chance.

While my thrush spent long hours in the fireplace and the window, he flew about a good deal, often flying to my knee and standing there motionless, watching me. If I looked at him at these times, his soft gaze met mine as directly as if he were pondering my entity as deeply as I was his. In his flights, he took notice of all small objects, especially if they were black. If I was lying down, my eyelashes and eyebrows came in for investigation, and I often had to rescue them from his too vigorous attention. A black pin always challenged him, and a lead pencil he could never leave alone. When I sat down at the table to write up my notes, if he was on the other end, or anywhere about, he always came over, got into the middle of the notebook, and began to work on the pencil. If I gave it up to him, it would eventually roll across the table and drop off, when he would look over the edge to see it fall, and then fly down and begin another tussle with it.

Discovering the scissors was always an occasion of lively interest. When young birds are about to be fed, they ’twinkle’ their wings, that is, quiver them excitedly, begging for food. All the raw beef I gave him, I first cut with a pair of bright scissors into little shreds. Whenever he ran across these scissors in his wanderings, he would stop short and twinkle his wings, coaxing them to feed him. When they did not respond, he would dance all round them, trying from all sides.

His one sickness was due to swallowing a length of yarn, — for he was always bewitched by a string of any sort, — and no little ‘jackdaw of Rheims,’ with his cardinal’s curse, ever looked nearer disintegration than did he. Yet he survived, and got as well as ever, after a night when I was sure he would die before morning.

One thing which I was told he did almost constantly when sitting still, and which I had never known was possible, was to make the softest, most musical little whispering of song in his throat. It came almost to be the rule with those who came to see him, to listen and say, ‘He is singing.’ If he had been an older bird, I should not have thought it strange. After I knew it, I could well conceive, as I watched him, of its strange hushed sweetness.

Having his picture taken at a studio proved a matter-of-fact affair. When I went to interview the photographer, however, I was told it would be impossible— it would require ‘time-exposure,’ and perfect ‘posing,’ and various difficult things. When I stated that all these things were quite in my thrush’s line, the photographer was incredulous. It proved a simple task.

When he had become well developed, strong of wing and leg, I used to take him out of doors every day. I did it, primarily, to induce him to pick up the running insects. While he would pick up the little black ants crossing the walk, certain larger insects he eyed askance and would not touch. All his food — his shredded beef, bread and milk, fruit, berries, insects, and water — had appeared before him whenever he wanted them, and his air over this new business was one of being vastly bored. It set me to thinking.

But the world above him held his attention. His gaze was always turned upward to the wide blue spaces of the sky, the waving elms, and the sound of the wind. These called to him. He flew actively all over the lawn and into the shrubbery. When he would fly far up into a tree, I always wondered what was to be the outcome. Eventually, he always flew down onto the back of the seat where I was sitting.

It had always been my intention from the first to put him back into the woods, in due course of time. But I began uneasily to understand that this meant more than I had thought. Apparently, he was absolutely without the sense of fear. He knew nothing about hunting for his own food, and was indifferent to it. If left alone for half an hour, he would dash across the room as I opened the door, and alight on my head or shoulders. In fact, the influence of changed environment had been so much greater than I had had any idea it could be, that I found I was confronted, in the end, with a bigger question than I had been in the beginning. In short, if one is to make such an experiment, he must devote time and care, at the last, to readapting the bird to his natural life — to making him once more a wild bird. But if he is kept long, it is a question in my mind whether this can be done successfully; and as a matter of fact, I do not recommend this experiment with young birds, generally speaking. I justify myself only because the case seemed somewhat different.

Only a part of the history of this bird can be given—bits here and there from many pages of notes. All the story of those interesting days would be much too long. Likewise, his restoration to the woods was almost a tale in itself. Doubtless it had the faults of inexperience; but these were amended with the thrush of the next year, although he, indeed, was truly a bird of another feather.

But I had had my study — a thrush on the corner of my desk, among my flints, who had watched me for hours from that spot, who had kept me sweet company, and made soft music that I did not hear. In the early hours of resplendent mornings, I had waked to find that he had flown to my room, and stood within reach of my hand, waiting and watching for me to begin the day. Much of the way of a thrush had certainly been revealed to me: the ingrained poise and refinement, the charming dignity, the high-bred patience, the calmness of temperament — all the serene beauty of the tribe. Truly, no other bird is like him. I perceived that with the ineffable beauty of the thrush’s song went an exceeding beauty of personality. He was indeed fit to have called in the voice of melody to the primal heart of man.