Big Tom watched these proceedings for about one week, and then evidently rebelled at the taking of his kingdom away from him.
He first persuaded one brood to follow him into a field where grasshoppers bounded and abounded. This brood he kept over night housed under his great wings. His success pleased him, for in a few days a second brood was discovered to be missing, and two hen turkeys were idling away their time talking over their troubles or happiness through the bars of their wooden prisons.
But the climax was reached when in a distant field a few days later Big Tom was found chaperoning a party of twenty-seven young tourist turkeys of a very tender age, through a field where insect food was too plentiful for the farmer’s profit, but just right for sturdy bronze turkeys, both young and old.
The farmer attempted to drive his majesty, Big Tom, back to his quarters near the barn, but the young turks disappeared at their father’s first warning cluck or signal, and Big Tom showed plainly that he resented interference with his own plans for his children’s future.
The farmer returned to the house alone and finding the three turkey hens calmly gossiping through the slatted fronts of their coops, gave them their liberty, and went back to planting his crop in the distant field, where he found Big Tom happy with his party of young adventurers.
Big Tom never allowed one turkey chick to return night or day to its coop or its mother. In the fall, the farmer and his boys counted twenty-seven well grown turkeys perched on the fence back of the barn, with his majesty, their father, half way down the line, where his eyes could take in all their doings.
The hen turkeys had gone about their own work, raised other broods and brought them up in coops with various losses, but Big Tom of the red wattles has always been celebrated in that locality from that year down to the present date as the best manager of a turkey ranch ever known.
At Thanksgiving time Big Tom’s good qualities were enumerated by a large party gathered at the farmer’s table, and if his majesty could have heard the flattering remarks his pride would have perhaps caused him to give back an answering “gobble-obble-obble.”
THE VARIED THRUSH
The Varied Thrush is one of the most beautiful members of the family of thrushes. Its range is somewhat limited as it frequents only the coastal regions of the northwestern part of North America. In winter, however, it may be found in California and is occasionally seen as far south as Lower California. As a straggler, it is sometimes noticed in the New England states.
Mr. Mitchell says that the Varied Thrush reaches the Columbia river in its southward flight some time in October. He also states that “at this time they flit through the forests in small flocks, usually frequenting the low trees, on which they perch in perfect silence and are at times very timorous and difficult to approach, having all the sly sagacity of the robin.” In fact this bird, which is often called the Western Robin, is not only much more shy and retiring than our well known eastern friend, but their song is also very different, “consisting only of five or six notes in a minor key and a scale regularly descending.” Mr. Townsend speaks of the song as being louder, sharper and quicker than that of the robin and adds that its song just before its northward flight, in the spring, is pleasant. Its song is seldom heard except from the tree tops, and in summer, as a rule, only from the deeper forests.
Dr. Suckley describes the Varied Thrush as he studied it in Oregon and Washington. He says: “In winter it is a shy bird, not generally becoming noticeable in the open districts until after a fall of snow, when many individuals may be seen along the sand beaches near salt water. They are at such times tame and abundant. I suppose that they are driven out of the woods during the heavy snows by hunger. It may then frequently be found in company with the robin, with which it has many similar habits. At this time of the year it is a very silent bird, quite tame and will allow near approach. It appears to be fond of flying by short stages in a desultory manner, sometimes alighting on the ground, at other times on fences, bushes or trees.”
Mr. Cooper, speaking of the bird as he found it near San Francisco, says that they begin to appear in October, when “they are usually timid, but toward spring come more familiarly around houses and utter their shrill, low notes, which seem much more distant than the bird itself really is. If pursued they hide, and sit unmovable among the foliage.”
The bird is also known by several other names, such as the Spotted, Golden, Painted or Columbia Robin or Thrush, and sometimes it is called the Thrush-like Mockingbird. A marked characteristic of the male is the black crescent on the breast.
Mr. Davie describes the nest as found by Dr. Minor in Alaska: “Its base and periphery are composed of an elaborate basket-work of slender twigs. Within these is an inner nest consisting of an interweaving of fine dry grasses and long gray lichen.” The eggs are said to be a light greenish-blue, slightly sprinkled with spots of a dark umber-brown.
MISSOURI SKYLARK
“What thou art we know not
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see,
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.”
When the umber skylark is struck into glory of plume and of song by the rising sun, we can conceive that the song is indeed “the nearest approach, in animal nature, to the ringing of the hydrogen bells in the physics of light,” and that when “the music soars within the little lark and the lark soars,” he is almost an involuntary agent, the song, like the summer, owing its creation, as George MacDonald tells, to
“The sun that rises early,
Shining, shining all day rarely;
Drawing up the larks to meet him,
Earth’s bird-angels, wild to greet him.”
Although the skylark, more than any other of the aerial tribes, “holds the middle rank ’twixt heaven and earth, on the last verge of mortal being stand,” the fate of the Missouri skylark is more unhappy than that of a prophet, for, being so little known in comparison with his deserts, he is almost without honor in his own country or any other. Yet it was so long ago as May 19, 1843, that Audubon, near the headwaters of the Missouri, celebrated in his journal the glad tidings of his discovery: “Harris and Bell have returned, and, to my delight and utter astonishment, have brought two new birds, one a lark, small and beautiful.” And again, on June 22, he writes: “The little new lark, that I have named for Sprague, has almost all the habits of the skylark of Europe. Whilst looking anxiously for it on the ground, where we supposed it to be singing, we discovered it to be high over our heads, and that sometimes it went too high for us to see at all. When this species start from the ground they fly in succession of undulations, which renders aim at them quite difficult. After this, and in the same manner, they elevate themselves to some considerable height, as if about to sing, and presently pitch toward the ground, where they run prettily, and at times stand still and quite erect for a few minutes.”
On June 24 he continues: “This afternoon I thought would be a fair opportunity to examine the manners of Sprague’s lark on the wing. The male rises, by constant undulations, to a great height, say one hundred yards or more; and, whilst singing its sweetest sounding notes, beats its wings, poised in the air like a hawk, without rising at this time, after which, and after each burst of singing, it sails in divers directions, forming three-quarters of a circle or thereabouts, then rises again, and again sings. The intervals between the singing are longer than those the song occupies (the latter about fifteen to twenty minutes), and at times the bird remains so long in the air as to render it quite fatiguing to follow it with the eye. Sprague thought one he watched yesterday