Birds and Nature Vol. 11 No. 2 [February 1902]. Various
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swimming freely for a few days our shells began to form and we found ourselves unable to swim long distances. They soon weighted us down and we began to sink. I heard a mother oyster pitifully calling, ‘Baby, baby, come to mamma.’ I wondered if it were my mamma, but I could not get to her. I came along by a piece of tile. Being tired and worn out, as that was the first clean thing I had seen I clutched to it, thinking that after I had rested a few moments I could go on. But I found that I could not loosen myself. Looking around, I could see tile after tile looking like they had just been scrubbed. Just like my piece, every one was soon thickly covered with ‘spat,’ as the oystermen called us. As fretting has no part in an oyster’s life we contented ourselves thinking that we might in some way again get loose.
“‘Perhaps,’ said one, ‘some of those big things we saw may come along and brush some of us off.’ ‘Perhaps,’ said another, ‘the owner may take up his tile and clean it off for other use some day; it certainly is of no use with us crowding on it.’ So we lived in hope.”
“How large were you?” asked Willis.
“I can not tell how fast I grew.”
Book again made himself useful. “Men who have watched and measured their growth claim that at two weeks of age a young oyster is as large as a pinhead; at that of three months as large as a pea. Its shell grows about an inch in diameter each year for the first three years. After that its size does not increase so fast.”
Mrs. Oyster again resumed her story. “At last one day they said that we would soon be large enough for ‘seed.’ A few days later we found ourselves broken off from our clutching places and shut up in some dark place. The next thing we knew we were being lowered on a sandy bottom not so deep down as our old home. Now, when we catch and grow on something we like a vertical position. At first our two valves are alike, but in time the left one becomes more convex. If the shell of one of us becomes so heavy that it breaks off, the convex side, in dropping, goes to the bottom. When they planted us the men were kind enough to lay us in that position.
“When I was about a year old I began to spawn. It is needless to say that I lived over again the sad experiences of my poor mother. Some of the spat attached themselves to my shell and I gladly adopted them. For a while we were very happy. Then one day, those great iron tongs again disturbed us. The ‘seed’ were broken off and I was replaced childless. Next time I spawned I understood what it all meant. I begged my second set of adopted children if one of them ever had a chance to do so to send me a message. I lived with the great hope that I might be allowed to remain there until I had heard from some of them.”
“Did you ever hear from any of them?”
“From only two of my great family, but other oyster mothers have not had even that much good luck. One day a diving bird came along hunting me. He said that another bird with great strong wings had a message for me from one of my children.
“How excited I became! One of my stolen children had been seen at the New York harbor.
“About two years later,” continued Mrs. Oyster, “a fish brought me a letter.” Taking a crumpled paper from out of her pocket and wiping her watery eyes on her mantle frill she read:
Dear Mamma:
I have begged one of the students to write this. When he goes fishing again he will try to find a fish who will promise to take it to you.
Since I was torn away from you I have been in several places. I am now a fine oyster – a “beauty,” I heard some one say. I am at present in a great building called a college. Another of those wise men who look at you through glasses and whom they call “professor” is making plans to analyze several of us raised in different places. People want to know, it is said, of what value we are as food. It breaks my heart to think of what we must come to.
Farewell,
While Mrs. Oyster again wiped her eyes Book said, “It is too late for me to tell you much about this Prof. Atwater. I will only tell that he says that one quart of oysters contains about as much nutriment as one quart of milk. As food, oysters form flesh and make heat and force in the human body. You can at any time consult the books farther.”
“Finally,” said Mrs. Oyster, “I was taken away from my sea home and lived in a place where the water was nearly fresh for a little while. After ‘floating’ here for a couple of days I was sent to the market and sold as an extra fine oyster. They called me a ‘blue point.’”
Just then Aunt Jennie shook Willis and asked him why he had not gone to bed. He rubbed his eyes and looked around, surprised to see his oyster lying quietly in its dish, with no snail nor book in sight.
The next morning he told Joseph and his aunt about his dream. “After this,” said he, “when I wish to know things which I cannot notice and understand, I will ask the books. They know so much. Mrs. Oyster did not get to tell me about her cousins who make pearls. I mean to consult some books about them this very day.”
THE CALIFORNIAN THRASHER
(Harporhynchus redivivus.)
One of the finest songsters among birds is the California Thrasher. Though confined to the coast regions of California, it is quite abundant and seems to bear to that locality the same relation that the brown thrush, or thrasher, does to the thickets further east. The song of this Western Thrasher is exquisitely sweet, and by some it is considered far superior to that of any of the numerous songsters that frequent the woods and brush of the Pacific coast. These lines, written by Mr. Wasson regarding the song of the brown thrasher, apply equally well to the bird of our illustration:
O, hark to the brown thrush! Hear how he sings!
Now he pours the dear pain of his gladness!
What a gush! And from out what golden springs!
What a rage of how sweet madness!
It is in the morning and in the evening that this Thrasher pours forth its song from some prominent and exposed perch. Then, as it were, with all care dismissed from its mind, all the energy of its being is thrown into a hymn of nature. By some this song is considered richer than that of the mockingbirds, though the Thrasher has but one air.
As a rule the California Thrasher frequents wooded thickets, though it is often found in shrubby fields and hedges, and the dense thickets bordering streams are especially attractive, for here it finds the quiet that its nature seems to crave. Unusually shy and distrustful of man, it generally avoids his habitations, and, like the brown thrasher, resents intrusion with a peculiar and complaining note. Yet the female is inclined to remain on her nest and allow close inspection.
Because of its short wings the movements of this Thrasher are rather heavy. Its flights are short and usually from bush to bush, while constantly opening and shutting its tail. Its life is not confined to trees and shrubs, for it moves easily on the ground, hopping rapidly with accompanying jerks of its tail. It is said that it will scratch in the layer of old leaves under trees, like a domestic fowl when hunting for its food. It prefers insect food and seldom eats fruit of any kind, except when food of its choice is scarce.
Its favorite haunts seem to be the regions of scrubby oak and greasewood brush of the deep mountain gorges. Here it builds its home, which “is a coarse, widely constructed platform of sticks, coarse grass and mosses, with but a very slight depression. Occasionally, however, nests of this bird are more carefully and elaborately made. It is always well hid in the low scrub bushes.”
Both the sexes assist in the care of the eggs, though the male, as befits the father of a family, usually stands guard over the nest, giving a quiet note of warning on the approach of danger. Both sexes are said to be adepts at misleading an intruder, for they will fly away from the nest to the ground or to some thicket at a distance from their home, and there by plaintive notes soon attract the intruder, especially if he is a nest hunter. In this, as well as in all its habits, it so resembles the brown thrasher that it may be considered its representative on the Pacific Coast.
WINTER’S SECRET
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