The Burgess Bird Book for Children, Thornton W. Burgess [best reads .txt] 📗

“Certainly; why not?” twittered Banker as he snapped up a fly just over Peter’s head.

“I don’t know any reason why you shouldn’t,” confessed Peter. “But somehow it is hard for me to think of birds as living in holes in the ground. I’ve only just found out that Rattles the Kingfisher does. But I didn’t suppose there were any others. Did you make that hole yourself, Banker?”

“Of course,” replied Banker. “That is, I helped make it. Mrs. Banker did her share. ‘Way in at the end of it we’ve got the nicest little nest of straw and feathers. What is more, we’ve got four white eggs in there, and Mrs. Banker is sitting on them now.”

By this time the air seemed to be full of Banker’s friends, skimming and circling this way and that, and going in and out of the little holes in the bank.

“I am like my big cousin, Twitter the Purple Martin, fond of society,” explained Banker. “We Bank Swallows like our homes close together. You said that you had just learned that Rattles the Kingfisher has his home in a bank. Do you know where it is?”

“No, replied Peter. “I was looking for it when I discovered your home. Can you tell me where it is?”

“I’ll do better than that;” replied Banker. “I’ll show you where it is.”

He darted some distance up along the bank and hovered for an instant close to the top. Peter scampered over there and looked up. There, just a few inches below the top, was another hole, a very much larger hole than those he had just left. As he was staring up at it a head with a long sharp bill and a crest which looked as if all the feathers on the top of his head had been brushed the wrong way, was thrust out. It was Rattles himself. He didn’t seem at all glad to see Peter. In fact, he came out and darted at Peter angrily. Peter didn’t wait to feel that sharp dagger-like bill. He took to his heels. He had seen what he started out to find and he was quite content to go home.

Peter took a short cut across the Green Meadows. It took him past a certain tall, dead tree. A sharp cry of “Kill-ee, kill-ee, kill-ee!” caused Peter to look up just in time to see a trim, handsome bird whose body was about the size of Sammy Jay’s but whose longer wings and longer tail made him look bigger. One glance was enough to tell Peter that this was a member of the Hawk family, the smallest of the family. It was Killy the Sparrow Hawk. He is too small for Peter to fear him, so now Peter was possessed of nothing more than a very lively curiosity, and sat up to watch.

Out over the meadow grass Killy sailed. Suddenly, with beating wings, he kept himself in one place in the air and then dropped down into the grass. He was up again in an instant, and Peter could see that he had a fat grasshopper in his claws. Back to the top of the tall, dead tree he flew and there ate the grasshopper. When it was finished he sat up straight and still, so still that he seemed a part of the tree itself. With those wonderful eyes of his he was watching for another grasshopper or for a careless Meadow Mouse.

Very trim and handsome was Killy. His back was reddish-brown crossed by bars of black. His tail was reddish-brown with a band of black near its end and a white tip. His wings were slaty-blue with little bars of black, the longest feathers leaving white bars. Underneath he was a beautiful buff, spotted with black. His head was bluish with a reddish patch right on top. Before and behind each ear was a black mark. His rather short bill, like the bills of all the rest of his family, was hooked.

As Peter sat there admiring Killy, for he was handsome enough for any one to admire, he noticed for the first time a hole high up in the trunk of the tree, such a hole as Yellow Wing the Flicker might have made and probably did make. Right away Peter remembered what Jenny Wren had told him about Killy’s making his nest in just such a hole. “I wonder,” thought Peter, “if that is Killy’s home.”

Just then Killy flew over and dropped in the grass just in front of Peter, where he caught another fat grasshopper. “Is that your home up there?” asked Peter hastily.

“It certainly is, Peter,” replied Killy. “This is the third summer Mrs. Killy and I have had our home there.”

“You seem to be very fond of grasshoppers,” Peter ventured.

“I am,” replied Killy. “They are very fine eating when one can get enough of them.”

“Are they the only kind of food you eat?” ventured Peter.

Killy laughed. It was a shrill laugh. “I should say not,” said he. “I eat spiders and worms and all sorts of insects big enough to give a fellow a decent bite. But for real good eating give me a fat Meadow Mouse. I don’t object to a Sparrow or some other small bird now and then, especially when I have a family of hungry youngsters to feed. But take it the season through, I live mostly on grasshoppers and insects and Meadow Mice. I do a lot of good in this world, I’d have you know.”

Peter said that he supposed that this was so, but all the time he kept thinking what a pity it was that Killy ever killed his feathered neighbors. As soon as he conveniently could he politely bade Killy good-by and hurried home to the dear Old Briar-patch, there to think over how queer it seemed that a member of the hawk family should nest in a hollow tree and a member of the Swallow family should dig a hole in the ground.

CHAPTER XXIII Some Big Mouths.

Boom! Peter Rabbit jumped as if he had been shot. It was all so sudden and unexpected that Peter jumped before he had time to think. Then he looked foolish. He felt foolish. He had been scared when there was nothing to be afraid of.

“Ha, ha, ha, ha” tittered Jenny Wren. “What are you jumping for, Peter Rabbit? That was only Boomer the Nighthawk.”

“I know it just as well as you do, Jenny Wren,” retorted Peter rather crossly. “You know being suddenly startled is apt to make people feel cross. If I had seen him anywhere about he wouldn’t have made me jump. It was the unexpectedness of it. I don’t see what he is out now for, anyway, It isn’t even dusk yet, and I thought him a night bird.”

“So he is,” retorted Jenny Wren. “Anyway, he is a bird of the evening, and that amounts to the same thing. But just because he likes the evening best isn’t any reason why he shouldn’t come out in the daylight, is it?”

“No-o,” replied Peter rather slowly. “I don’t suppose it is.”

“Of course it isn’t,” declared Jenny Wren. “I see Boomer late in the afternoon nearly every day. On cloudy days I often see him early in the afternoon. He’s a queer fellow, is Boomer. Such a mouth as he has! I suppose it is very handy to have a big mouth if one must catch all one’s food in the air, but it certainly isn’t pretty when it is wide open.”

“I never saw a mouth yet that was pretty when it was wide open,” retorted Peter, who was still feeling a little put out. “I’ve never noticed that Boomer has a particularly big mouth.”

“Well he has, whether you’ve noticed it or not,” retorted Jenny Wren sharply. “He’s got a little bit of a bill, but a great big mouth. I don’t see what folks call him a Hawk for when he isn’t a Hawk at all. He is no more of a Hawk than I am, and goodness knows I’m not even related to the Hawk family.”

“I believe you told me the other day that Boomer is related to Sooty the Chimney Swift,” said Peter.

Jenny nodded vigorously. “So I did, Peter,” she replied. “I’m glad you have such a good memory. Boomer and Sooty are sort of second cousins. There is Boomer now, way up in the sky. I do wish he’d dive and scare some one else.”

Peter tipped his head ‘way back. High up in the blue, blue sky was a bird which at that distance looked something like a much overgrown Swallow. He was circling and darting about this way and that. Even while Peter watched he half closed his wings and shot down with such speed that Peter actually held his breath. It looked very, very much as if Boomer would dash himself to pieces. Just before he reached the earth he suddenly opened those wings and turned upward. At the instant he turned, the booming sound which had so startled Peter was heard. It was made by the rushing of the wind through the larger feathers of his wings as he checked himself.

In this dive Boomer had come near enough for Peter to get a good look at him. His coat seemed to be a mixture of brown and gray, very soft looking. His wings were brown with a patch of white on each. There was a white patch on his throat and a band of white near the end of his tail.

“He’s rather handsome, don’t you think?” asked Jenny Wren.

“He certainly is,” replied Peter. “Do you happen to know what kind of a nest the Nighthawks build, Jenny?”

“They don’t build any.” Jenny Wren was a picture of scorn as she said this. “They don’t built any nests at all. It can’t be because they are lazy for I don’t know of any birds that hunt harder for their living than do Boomer and Mrs. Boomer.”

“But if there isn’t any nest where does Mrs. Boomer lay her eggs?” cried Peter. “I think you must be mistaken, Jenny Wren. They must have some kind of a nest. Of course they must.”

“Didn’t I say they don’t have a nest?” sputtered Jenny. “Mrs. Nighthawk doesn’t lay but two eggs, anyway. Perhaps she thinks it isn’t worth while building a nest for just two eggs. Anyway, she lays them on the ground or on a flat rock and lets it go at that. She isn’t quite as bad as Sally Sly the Cowbird, for she does sit on those eggs and she is a good mother. But just think of those Nighthawk children never having any home! It doesn’t seem to me right and it never will. Did you ever see Boomer in a tree?”

Peter shook his head. “I’ve seen him on the ground,” said he, “but I never have seen him in a tree. Why did you ask, Jenny Wren?”

“To find out how well you have used your eyes,” snapped Jenny. “I just wanted to see if you had noticed anything peculiar about the way he sits in a tree. But as long as you haven’t seen him in a tree I may as well tell you that he doesn’t sit as most birds do. He sits lengthwise of a branch. He never sits across it as the rest of us do.”

“How funny!” exclaimed Peter. “I suppose that is Boomer making that queer noise we hear.”

“Yes,” replied Jenny. “He certainly does like to use his voice. They tell me that some folks call him Bullbat, though why they should call him either Bat or Hawk is beyond me. I suppose you know his cousin, Whippoor-will.”

“I should say I do,” replied Peter. “He’s enough