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It was dangling from the outer twigs of a small bush by the side of the woodland path which I was pursuing. In fact, it could be distinctly seen from the path. In spite of the mother's pleadings, protests, and objurgations, I stepped over to inspect her pendant domicile, whose holdings were four baby white-eyes, their eyelids still glued together.
The parrots are the most striking example, but we have also a group of green pigeons in the East; and the barbets, leaf-thrushes, bee-eaters, white-eyes, turacos, and several smaller groups, have so much green in their plumage as to tend greatly to conceal them among the foliage.
They are tiny birds, not much larger than white-eyes. The upper plumage is chocolate brown, becoming a rich chestnut about the head and neck, while the breast and abdomen are mottled black and white, hence the popular name. The black spots on the breast and abdomen cause these to look like the surface of a nutmeg grater; for that reason this munia is sometimes spoken of as the nutmeg-bird.
White-eyes invariably go about in flocks; each member of the company utters unceasingly a cheeping note in order to keep his fellows apprized of his movements. These birds feed largely on insects, which they pick off leaves in truly tit-like manner, sometimes even hanging head downwards in order to secure a morsel. It is not a true bulbul.
The inconspicuous pigeons crouch motionless but alert, their eyes fixedly following the circles of the enemy; the readily detected graucalus fly straight to a forest tree, whence there is a clear get-away; the companies of yellow white-eyes, with a unanimous note of alarm, dart into the jungle; the caterpillar-eaters and the honey-eaters, peering about, drop discreetly down among the lower branches, and silence prevails.
But when they hastened for their towns they found them in danger from the Lord Dunmore column. Governor Dunmore sent Chief White-eyes, of the Delawares, who had not joined in the war, to ask Chief Cornstalk for a talk. Chief White-eyes returned with no answer, for the Cornstalk chiefs were in bitter council.
It is no uncommon thing for a flock to contain all of the four species of tit just described, a number of white-eyes, some nuthatches, warblers, tree-creepers, a woodpecker or two, and possibly some sibias and laughing-thrushes. The Crateropodidæ form a most heterogeneous collection of birds, including, as they do, such divers fowls as babblers, whistling-thrushes, bulbuls, and white-eyes.
There were three, especially: Simon Girty, Matthew Elliott, and Alexander McKee, who was part Indian. They were three traitors who had deserted from the American garrison at Fort Pitt, in 1778, and had spread false reports among White-eyes' Delawares, and elsewhere.
"Never a sign of Injun anywhere around," he and Martin Wetzel and the others declared. The warning by White-eyes seemed to have been a false alarm, or else the Indians had learned of the preparations and had backed out.
It is said that Isaac Zane, the white Wyandot, sent the word of danger to the commanding officer at Fort Pitt. At any rate, on the first day of August, 1777, Chief White-eyes the friendly Delaware appeared there with warning that the Indians of the Northern Confederacy, helped by the British, were making ready "to take Wheeling home with them."
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