The School of the Birds

Any one who watches the birds for a time will be surprised at the marks of their intelligence. They have difficulties to meet. And often they sit down, so to speak, and after having apparently thought it all over, attack the problem before them with vigor.

If at the first attempt they are not successful, they try again, and seek different expedients until they accomplish their purpose. The young birds, as well, are taken through a course of instructions by their parents. Sometimes these young birds do not attend school with any better grace than some young folks I have known. But, with the birds, as with children, it is best for them, and they usually find it out.

A pair of wrens in the man’s garden last summer had five little wrens to care for, and when the young birds left the nest, the noise in that garden was something immense. One of the parent birds would come near with its tempting morsel of food. The little wrens would stretch themselves out to the utmost, and chatter a perfect pandemonium of appeal, as if saying, “O, give it to me! O, give it to me!”

But it was the young bird that flew after the food that got it, no matter how much or how little he appealed. To the watcher it was clear enough that the parents were simply enticing the little creatures to use their wings, teaching them how to fly and alight. The tiny creatures soon saw what was wanted, and before long there was a moving of wings back and forth across the garden, as the little ones chased the parents to secure the tempting food.

But no sooner was the lesson well learned than another task confronted the little upstarts. They were next enticed to the grape arbor, and taught to capture their own food. It was surprising to see how quickly they learned. In an amazingly short time they were flying in and out of the vines, seeking and devouring their prey.

Many incidents of a character similar to this schooling of the wrens have been recorded, and any one who will use his eyes for one summer will gather many others. Olive Thorne Miller, in her wonderful little book, “Bird Ways,” tells of the schooling of a number of birds. She has made a very close study of the birds, and has become versed in a large amount of valuable information concerning them. For instance, she tells of a robin to which she was attracted by a furious calling.

The bird was fluttering his wings and in evident trouble, though she could not at first imagine the cause. Looking more closely, she saw, perched on a cedar branch, a fat, stupid-looking bird, fully as big as the robin, with a speckled breast, and no tail worth mentioning. He sat on the limb, looking like a lump of dough, his head well down in his shoulders, and his bill stretching almost straight up in the air. Neither the most tender appeals nor the loudest scoldings seemed to move him in the least.

He looked, to all appearance, dead, save that he occasionally winked. Stupid and stolid as he looked, the old bird loved him just the same, and fluttered about wildly while Mrs. Miller found a stick and jarred the branch a little as a delicate hint for the youngster to obey his papa. He accepted the well-meant advice, and flew away, as well as any bird, to the other side of the walk.

And then began Master Robin’s first lesson in the worm industry. He was now to be taught how to till the ground with profit and pleasure. The father bird hopped ahead a few feet and called persuasively, “Come on!” The slow-moving youngster answered loudly, “Wait! wait!” and moved forward a few steps.

Then the old bird dug up a worm just to show him how, and tenderly offered it to him by way of encouragement. In this way they kept on for some time, the clumsy youngling led on by his greedy desire for worms, and the patient teacher, encouraging and working for him. If he ever thought of such a thing as making an effort for himself, it certainly was not manifest. And yet this is just what in time he would be left to learn or else starve.

And besides teaching the young birds how to fly and hunt food, they must also be given their lessons in music. In the early morning they have more than once been heard rehearsing a vocal lesson. Usually the old robin places himself in the thickest part of the tree, with his pupil near by, and begins, “Cheery! cheery! be cheery!” in a loud, clear voice. Then follows a feeble, wavering, uncertain attempt, on the part of the young bird, to copy the song.

Again the father chants the first strain, and the baby pipes out his funny notes by way of imitation. This is kept up till in a surprisingly short time, with a good deal of practise, no one can tell father from son. A great many different kinds of birds have thus been seen to teach their young. Some time you will perhaps see a young sparrow, squatted in a lump on a post or the roof of the shed, while his father or mother are coaxing him to another flight.

If the crumb they offer the lazy youngster is not enough inducement, perhaps the little peck in the head he gets will be, and so, one way or the other, he ventures out into the seeming danger of thrusting himself headlong. Not always do the bird children obey their parents, but I am glad to say that, as a general thing, they do.

Once two old birds had a nest in a spruce tree. When the young were large enough to care for themselves, the old birds tried to get the young birds to go away.

The old birds wanted the home for themselves. But the young birds did not care to go away.

They loved the old home place. First the mother bird tried to drive them away. She would bluster after them, flutter her wings, and scold loudly.

Then she rushed at one of the youngsters, making as if to injure him severely; but when she came too near for comfort, it simply hopped to another branch, apparently quite unconcerned. Then she turned on another of the birds, with no better result.

Plainly, she was trying to teach them that they must seek a residence for themselves somewhere else, as she wanted that tree in which to bring up another family. But they knew that she still loved them, and did not seem to think she could really be very serious about it.

Certainly their own mother did not intend to turn them out into the hard, cold world. All the afternoon the sparrow mother worked at the task of disposing of the little family, but as soon as she had driven away one of them, another returned.

At evening the young, trustful little creatures calmly placed themselves in the native spruce tree for the night. The mother having failed so signally, in the morning the father took up the task. He acted as if he intended to make short work of the whole affair. He assumed his most warlike attitude, bristled up his feathers, trailed his wings, with his back bent downward, and his tail erect.

In this absurd attitude he went after them, calling, scolding, and making noise enough for a colony of birds. Now and then he made a drive at one of the younglings, if perchance he came too near, but in the main he simply kept up a sort of bluster and a constant scolding.

This sort of thing does not seem to make the young birds mind any better than it does children. Anyway, the youngsters did not seem to be frightened in the least, for they hopped about and ate and argued within arm’s reach of their blustering father. If he rushed at one of them, it took refuge on the other side of the tree. If he had really gone at them as he would have attacked an enemy, there is no doubt the matter would soon have been settled, but evidently he was somewhat proud of their pluck and perseverance, and had in his heart still an affectionate regard for them, which softened his own spirit, and made his efforts at discipline a failure.

Nevertheless, he kept up his appearance of hostility. Occasionally he ran madly down a branch as if to annihilate somebody, but as no one was there, no one happened to get hurt.

When an infant did take flight before him, he invariably stretched his neck to watch the flight, as if to see that the little one arrived in safety. The mother aided the father to some extent. The young birds plainly knew what was wanted of them, but they did not seem willing to accept the fate offered to them.

They did not usually “answer back,” but when one did, the irate father went after him in a way that showed when he really meant business. Near the close of the day it looked as if the father had been successful. He perched in a tree near by to shake himself out and plume his feathers. The young birds were gone, and he felt that he had done a good job.

Just as he was congratulating himself on this happy ending, there sounded a flutter of wings, and back came the little fellows from around the corner of the house, and into the tree they went. The old bird was plainly disconcerted. He stopped his toilet-making, and indulged in a few remarks, expressed in some very harsh notes, and craned his neck to take it all in. The next day four more young birds joined them, and now there were double the number of children in the old spruce.

For nine days the old birds kept up the attempt to drive the young birds away. But by that time the old birds seemed willing to give it up, and went away to find a home elsewhere.

William J. Long, in his “Fowls of the Air,” tells of an eagle and her nestling, which illustrates, not only a text in the Bible, but the fact we are attempting to present here; namely, that the young birds are taught by their elders.

He had found an eagle’s nest in a tree many hundreds of feet up in the side of a mountain. One day when he came to visit the nest, he found one of the eaglets gone.

The other stood on the edge of the nest, looking down fearfully into the deep abyss below, calling disconsolately the while. He seemed hungry and cross and lonesome. Soon the mother eagle came swiftly up from the valley with food in her talons. Coming to the edge of the nest, she hovered over it a moment, so as to give the young eaglet a sight and a smell of the food she carried.

He saw the food, and his appetite clamored for the morsel. Then the mother bird turned and went slowly down the valley, still holding the food, and, in this way, invited the young bird to follow her if he would have it.

The eaglet called after her loudly, and several times spread his wings as if to follow. The plunge, however, was too forbidding; his heart failed him, and he settled back into the nest.

Settling his head down into his shoulders and shutting his eyes, he acted as if trying to forget the fact that he was hungry. The mother was seeking to teach him that the time had come for him to use his wings. But he was afraid, and loved his nest.

He hated to be stirred out of it. Soon again came the mother, and this time without food. Again she hovered over the nest and sought to get the eaglet to leave. At last she succeeded, but the clumsy little fellow only sprang up and flapped from the nest to the side of the mountain, but a few feet away.

Here he sat for a few moments and looked out upon the valley below. Then he flapped back into the nest once more, and paid no further attention to all his mother’s assurance that he should fly farther and learn to be an eagle indeed.

It was pleasant to the eaglet to stay in the nest and be fed. But his mother knew there were greater possibilities for his eagle nature in learning to use his broad pinions and thus soar in the very realm of the clouds.

But the little eagle was short-sighted, and was content to let well enough alone. He did not know that for him to have his own way would mean his ruination as an eagle. Suddenly, as if grown desperate, the parent eagle rose well above the nest. It was a moment of suspense for the watcher, and he held his breath.

The little fellow stood on the edge of the nest, looking down at the plunge which he dared not take. There was a sharp cry behind, which made him alert, tense as a watch-spring. The next instant the mother eagle had swooped, striking the nest at his feet, and had sent both nest and eaglet out into the air together. He was out now into the broad expanse of the heavens itself, and he flapped wildly for life.

But he was not alone; over him, under him, beside him, the mother hovered on trained and tireless wings, calling softly to him the while to calm his fearful spirit. And then, as if disconcerted by the lance tops of the spruces just below him, his flapping grew more wild.

He fell faster and faster. Suddenly, perchance from fright, he lost his balance and tipped head downward in the air. He seemed to realize that all was over now, and folded his wings to be dashed in pieces among the trees. But like a flash the mother eagle shot beneath him.

His little feet touched her shoulders, between her wings. He clutched, righted himself, rested an instant, and found his head. In a moment more she dropped like a shot from under him, leaving him to try his wings and come down alone. A handful of feathers, torn out by his claws, drifted slowly down after them.

The two birds passed from sight among the trees. A little later, through his glass, the watcher saw the eaglet resting in the top of a great pine, and the mother was feeding him. And then the watcher thought of the saying of the wise prophet who spoke in the ages now gone, and this man watching in the wilderness of America beheld what the man of the wilderness of the Midian desert had seen when he wrote: “As the eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings, so the Lord.”