Identifier: birdcraftfield00wrig (find matches)
Title: Birdcraft : a field book of two hundred song, game, and water birds
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Wright, Mabel Osgood, 1859-1934 Fuertes, Louis Agassiz, 1874-1927
Subjects: Birds -- United States
Publisher: New York : Macmillan Co.
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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times on the terminal spray of the hemlock-spruce. Itis suspended lightly, like a watch-pocket with the openingon one side, and made of a delicate lace-work from the gray-white usnea moss, that grows on old trees. The wholefabric swaying in the breeze is the work of the two littlebirds with slate-blue backs and yellow breasts, who arewatching you so anxiously. No, you must not take it now;it will keep until they are through with it, for it is muchmore durable than it appears. The biulding of the nest will raise many questions in yourmind. Do both birds take part in building? Does thefemale select the site and do the work and the male simplysupply her with materials ? Very pretty tales are told ofthe rejection of unsuitable stuff by the particular wife ofa non-discriminating spouse and the consequent squabble.Alack! did not the labour question, as well as that of theequality of the sexes, begin as near to Eden as the buildingof the nest ? But in spite of this there are still nests I 20
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THE WATER-BIRDS. With mingled sound of horas and bells,A far-heard clang, the Wild Geese fly, Storm sent from Arctic moors and fells,Like a great arrow through the sky. — Whittier. Whex you think of the Water-birds, you say, perhaps,that they are uninteresting, have no song, and inhabitmarshy and desolate places; the Gulls are picturesque, to besure, but as for the others, Snipe, Rail, and Ducks, they areonly Game-birds and so much food, of a variety that doesnot particularly suit your palate. This is because you haveregarded them as mere merchandise, and have never seenor considered them as living birds, winging their way overthe lonely marshes and wind-swept beaches, clad in feathersthat blend in their hues the sky, the water, the mottledsands of the shore, the bronzed splendour of the seaweeds,and the opalescence that lines the sea-shell. Though in asense they are songless, their call notes are keyed in harmonywith the winds that they combat, and the creaking reeds thathide their

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