Outings at Odd Times
by Charles C. Abbott · English · Gutenberg #48916 · 401,176 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Outings at Odd Times
Author: Charles C. Abbott
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUTINGS AT ODD TIMES ***
[Illustration]
OUTINGS
AT ODD TIMES
BY
CHARLES C. ABBOTT, M. D.
AUTHOR OF A NATURALIST’S RAMBLES ABOUT HOME,
DAYS OUT OF DOORS, ETC.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1890
------------------------------------------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT, 1890,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREFATORY.
-------
Nature, and Books about it.
Often, during a long and dusty walk in midsummer, I have chanced
suddenly upon a wayside spring, and stooping drank directly from the
bosom of Mother Earth. Filled with the pleasant recollections of such
moments, how tame is all other tipple, even though the crystal is a
marvel of art, with “beady bubbles winking at the brim”!
So, too, I find it with matters of graver import. I would that no one
should aid me in gathering my stores, but with my own hands I would
delve at the fountain-head. The spirit of such an aim is a spur to
youth, but becomes a source of amusement rather than a more serious
matter in our maturer years. I am more than willing now to take nature
at second hand. But is this safe? How far can we trust another’s eyes,
ears, and sense of touch and smell? There are critics scattered as
thickly as motes in a sunbeam, veritable know-alls, who shriek “Beware!”
when nature is reported; but, for all this, outdoor books are very
tempting to a host of people, and in the long run educate rather than
misinform. That ever two naturalists should wholly agree, after careful
study of an animal, is not probable. There will be the same differences
as exist between two translations of the same book. What a crow, a
mouse, or a gorgeous cluster of blooming lotus is to me, these will
never be to another; but, because of this, do not persist that your
neighbor is blind, deaf, or stupid. I recently had a horse ask me to let
down the bars; to another it would have been merely the meaningless fact
that the horse neighed.
Having an outdoor book in hand, when and how should it be read? It is no
doubt very tempting to think of a shady nook, or babbling brook, or
both, in connection with the latest outdoor volume. Possibly, as you
start out for a quiet day, you string together a bit of rhyme concerning
the book, as Leigh Hunt did and others have done since. It is a common
practice to carry a book into the fields, but not a logical one. How can
a book, even one of outdoor topics, compete with Nature? Certainly if
Nature is to the reader but a convenient room, a lighter and more airy
one than any at home, does it not signify a serious lack in the mind of
that person? From a notice of a recent publication I clip the following:
“A capital book to slip into one’s pocket when taking an outing.” If,
because of its size, it could be readily slipped into one’s pocket, then
it was a capital way of getting rid of it. What sort of an outing can
one have who reads all the while? Is not the cloud-flecked sky something
more than a ceiling, the surrounding hills more than mere walls, the
grass and flowers more than carpet? There is one pleasure even greater
than that of reading, and that is being out of doors. To read at such a
time seems to imply one of two things: either that the reader knows
Nature thoroughly, or is indifferent to such knowledge. The former
phenomenon the world has never seen; the latter, to speak mildly,
deserves our pity. To escape ridicule, which is something, to insure
happiness, which is more, to avoid great dangers, which is of even
greater importance, one must know something of Nature. In one sense she
is our persistent foe. She mantles with inviting cover of rank grass her
treacherous quicksands; she paints in tempting colors her most poisonous
fruits; she spreads unheralded the insidious miasma from the meadow and
the swamp; but neither the quicksand, the unwholesome fruit, nor noxious
vapors is an unmixed evil. Let us take them as they are, see them as
parts and parcels of a complete whole, and each hour of every outing is
an unclouded joy. Nature never excuses our ignorance.
Whatever one’s position in life, does a knowledge of Nature prove
unneeded? Should we not know that potatoes grow beneath the sod, as well
as apples grow upon trees? Gather a crowd at random on the streets, or
corner a half-dozen at some social gathering, and how many can tell you
the life-history of a mushroom or a truffle? “Do potatoes grow upon
bushes?” was asked not long since. This was positively painful, but
worse things have happened. A young lady, from a city renowned for its
schools, startled her country cousins by asking, while toying with an
ear of corn, “Which end, when you plant, do you put in the ground, the
blunt or the pointed one?” If botany is impracticable in the curriculum
of the public schools, ought not, at least, the natural history of our
common articles of food to be taught? Can not such ignorance as this
implied be banished from the land?
But I have wandered; let us come back to books. If books, even those
descriptive of nature, are out of place in the woods, meadows, or by the
brook-side, when should they be read? Clearly, when the scenes they
treat of are not accessible. Why should we be entertained with a
description of a bird or flower, when they are both before us? It seems
incredible that any one should be better pleased with another’s
impressions, however cunningly told, than with those of his own senses.
It is a strange mental condition that can delight in the story of a
bird, and yet have no desire to see the creature; to be a witness to all
the marvelous cunning that this bird exhibits. Few are those among us
whose outings cover a lifetime; and when the happy days of freedom come
to us, let books be kept behind, and with untrammeled eyes and ears let
us drink in the knowledge that comes to us at no other time. Summer is
all too short a season for other occupation than enthusiastic
sight-seeing and sound-hearing.
Long before autumn most of us must be back to the busy town. Business
demands our work-day hours; and now, during the leisure of long winter
evenings, with what delight one may recall vacation-days, reading
outdoor books! The library now becomes the mountain, lake, or river.
With Thoreau, Burroughs, or Jeffries at hand, one can hear the summer
birds in the shrill whistle of the wind, and the babbling of summer
brooks in the rattle of icy rain.
For permission to reprint, in this collected form, the brief essays here
brought together, the author is indebted to Messrs. Harper & Bros., D.
Appleton & Co., the editors of the Christian Union, Christian at Work,
and of Garden and Forest, of New York; and to the editor of the
American, of Philadelphia Pa.
C. C. A.
TRENTON, NEW JERSEY, _September 1, 1890_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS.
_PART I.—IN WINTER._
PAGE
A WINTER SUNRISE 1
MIDWINTER MINSTRELSY 8
A COLD WAVE 14
THE WOODS IN WINTER 22
OLD ALMANACS 29
A QUAKER CHRISTMAS 41
A NEW PLACE TO LOAF 46
ROUND ABOUT A SPRING IN WINTER 51
A BAY-SIDE OUTING 60
FREE FOR THE DAY 66
AN OPEN WINTER 82
A FOGGY MORNING 89
THE OLD FARM’S WOOD-PILE 96
_PART II.—IN SPRING._
THE APRIL MOON 105
CONCERNING SMALL OWLS 111
A HIDDEN HIGHWAY 117
WEATHERCOCKS 127
APPLE-BLOSSOMS 133
THE BUILDING OF THE NEST 139
A MEADOW MUD-HOLE 147
AN OPEN WELL 164
_PART III.—IN SUMMER._
A NOISOME WEED 171
A WAYSIDE BROOK 178
WAYSIDE TREES 183
SKELETON-LIFTING 186
WHY I PREFER A COUNTRY LIFE 190
A MIDSUMMER OUTING 197
A WORD ABOUT KNOWLEDGE 203
THE NIGHT-SIDE OF NATURE 207
THE HERBS OF THE FIELD 215
_PART IV.—IN AUTUMN._
A LAKE-SIDE OUTING 221
DEW AND FROST 227
A HERMIT FOR THE DAY 232
SNOW-BIRDS 243
BLUE JAYS 249
THE GROWTH OF TREES 257
FOSSIL MAN IN THE DELAWARE VALLEY 260
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PART I.
IN WINTER.
-------
A Winter Sunrise.
The waning moon was scarcely visible in the western sky and not a star
shone overhead, when I ventured out of doors, at the call of the
gathering crows. These noisy scavengers of the river’s shore had
evidently slept with one eye open, and at the first faint glimmering of
the dawn signaled, in no uncertain tones, the coming day. Across the
brown meadows floated their clamorous cries and roused me when my own
slumber was most profound; but I responded promptly, willing at least,
if not wildly anxious, to witness a winter sunrise.
I have said the meadows were brown; such was their color when I saw them
last; but now, every wrinkled blade of last year’s grass was daintily
feathered with pearly frost. A line, too, of steel-gray crystals topped
every rail of the old worm fence, and capped the outreaching branches of
the scattered trees. The glint of splintered glass filled the landscape.
Knowing the view would there be least obstructed, I walked leisurely to
a high knoll in the lower meadows, leaving a curiously dark streak
behind me where I brushed away the frost as I passed. Not a bird greeted
me. The sparrows and chickadees of yesterday were still asleep. The
crackling of brittle twigs beneath my feet was the only sound I heard,
save, of course, the blended voices of the distant crows. The
brightening of the eastern sky proceeded slowly. Cloud above cloud
threatened to shut out the light until the day had well advanced; while
from the river rose a filmy bank of smoke-like fog that settled in huge
masses over the intervening marshes. But still the crows were clamorous,
and I had been told that their songs at sunrise augured a fair day; so,
’twixt hope and fear, I reached the high knoll in my neighbor’s meadow.
It was at the nick of time. Without a heralding ray in the whole
horizon, a flood of rosy light leaped through a rift in the clouds and
every cold gray crystal of the frost glowed with ruddy warmth. Then
deafening loud was the din of the foraging crows, as though they exulted
at the fullfillment of their prediction; and from that moment on, the
day was beautiful.
And if crows could be so enthusiastic over a bright winter day, why not
other birds? What of that host of arctic finches that tarry with us
until spring? I listened in vain for the foxie sparrow’s warble, the
call of the Peabody bird, and whistling of the purple finch. These were
all here yesterday and making merry; now every one was mute. The
ceaseless cawing of the crows may have drowned their voices, but I think
not. However, in other ways and no less cheerful ones, the vivifying
effect of sunrise was soon apparent everywhere about me.
My friends, the meadow mice, were in their glory. Their grass-walled
runways were roofed with ice, and not a breath of the chilly breeze that
fretted the outer world could reach them. I quite forgot the increasing
beauty of the eastern sky in my eagerness to watch the mice. I could
look down upon them, through the transparent roofs of their crystal
palaces, and wonder what might be their errands. Every one was in a
hurry, and none stopped to nibble at a blade of grass or tarried at a
cluster of seed-pods. Was it the mere pleasure of activity that prompted
them? It was very warm beneath the ice and far from cold above it. But
all the while I might be frightening the poor creatures, so I withdrew,
at the thought, to the cover of a clump of bushes. Quiet then seemed
partially restored, and soon one mouse came from an opening in the roof,
where many runways met. It picked its painful way over the frost, as
though every crystal was a pricking needle. I moved and away it darted,
but not to tell its fellows. Another and another came, and, like the one
first seen, they simply ran from post to pillar and back from pillar to
post. Perhaps a weasel was on their track—but, if we commence surmising,
there will never be an end to it. Let me declare dogmatically, these
mice were taking a sun bath, and with this thought, leave them.
As I looked about me, the crows again became the most prominent feature
of the landscape. They hovered in a loose flock over all the meadows;
literally, in thousands, and as the rays of the sun struck them, they
too glistened as though the frost crystals had incased their feathers.
Higher and higher they rose into the misty air and soon dispersed in
every direction; but they will gather again as the day closes, for over
the river, somewhere in the woods, they have a roosting-place. I have
seen this knoll, now thickly tenanted by mice, black with crows, day
after day, within a fortnight. What then became of the mice? Surely
their cunning stood them well in need to escape these ravenous birds,
and yet they have done so. Stupid as they seem when studied
individually, these mice must have a modicum of mother-wit, to thrive in
spite of so many odds against them.
But now, as the day advanced, the wooded bluff a mile away and the
willows on the river-shore gave evidence that not alone were the crows
and mice awake to the beauty and warmth of a winter sunrise. The
feathered world was now astir and music from a hundred throats filled
the crisp air. There was, it is true, not that volume of sound that
greets the daybreak in June, and no one voice was as tuneful as a
thrush. This mattered not. The essential feature of a pleasant stroll,
evidence that I was not alone, was present; for I can not keep company
with meadow mice. I call it a dead day, when there are no birds, and he
who would know what such a day is should be on the marshes or the river
when not a sound rises from the wild waste about him.
I stood long listening to the afar-off choir, and then, turning my steps
homeward, fancied I could distinguish the different birds that now made
the woods fairly ring. There was a ditch to cross before reaching the
hillside, and right glad am I that I looked before leaping it, for I saw
a lazy frog slowly responding to the increasing warmth of the sunshine.
All night long this creature had been sleeping in a cosy nook, a foot
deep in the soft mud which was protected here from the north and west
and has never been known to freeze. One eye and a small fraction of the
frog’s head were visible, but the former was bright, and I was sure that
no accident had happened to bring it even so far above the surface. I
stood very still, expecting much, but it was like watching the hour-hand
of a clock. In time the whole head was exposed, then the fore-limbs, and
this, for many minutes, was the extent of the frog’s activity. I
ventured finally to assist, and lifting up the clammy creature, placed
it on a floating fence rail, whereon the sun shone as in summer. The
frog was happy. Its expression showed this, its pulsing sides proved it,
and could I have heard it croak, my own satisfaction would have been
complete; but this it would not do. But let it be remembered, the
croaking can not be forced, either in June or January, and the voices of
frogs have been heard frequently during the latter month. Even when the
winter has been very severe, a typical January thaw has led them to give
tongue, to croak unmistakably, although in thinner tones than during a
summer’s night chorus.
There were hours yet before noon, and my little adventure with the
languid frog prompted me to explore the ditch in a rude way. All forms
of aquatic life seemed as active as in spring. Fish, salamanders,
snakes, turtles, and insects, were not only active but alert, and as
difficult to capture as I had ever found them. Actual sluggishness
characterized the frogs only, and yet these creatures are supposed to be
less susceptible to cold than all the others. The truth is, the winter
habits of every form of life are little known, and what impressions, if
any, most have upon the subject are more or less erroneous. We have had
no winter as yet, but the same conditions that I found to-day were true
of the ditch-dwellers last year and the year before, when we had not
only winter, but winter intensified.
I did not enumerate the many birds aright as I approached the hillside.
My attention was suddenly called from the ditch to the green-brier
thicket beyond by a familiar sound, yet which now, late in January,
seemed quite out of place if not out of tune and harsh. It was the
querulous cry of a cat-bird. This familiar thrush is no _rara avis_ at
such a time, although probably in Audubon’s day few if any remained in
New Jersey during the winter. No author makes mention, I believe, of
such an occurrence. The number seen each winter gradually increases, and
the disposition to remain affects apparently these birds over a steadily
extending area. So, at least, from correspondence, I am led to believe.
I found but three flowers as I neared my home—a dandelion, a violet, and
a pale spring beauty; but earlier in the month, a friend had been more
successful, and gathered not only those I have named, but others.
Doubtless these superlatively early blossomings have to do with the
present extraordinary winter, now more than half gone, but not
altogether, perhaps. Many a plant is more vigorous than we suspect, and
stray flowers are hidden beneath the fallen leaves more often than we
know.
When, in the forbidding gloom of a winter dawn, I ventured out of doors,
it was with the anticipation of a cheerless walk, if not fear of actual
discomfort; but the brilliant sunrise promptly dispelled all this, my
fears giving way to hopes that were more than realized.
Midwinter Minstrelsy.
It is a common impression, I find, that when the Northern song-birds
come in autumn from Canada to the Middle and Southern States, they leave
their music behind them, and during their sojourn here they only chirp
and twitter at best, and far oftener are moody and silent. This
absurdity is not readily explained, unless it be that lovers of birds
are persistently indoors from November until May. I do not pretend to
say that a keen, cold, frosty morning is rendered the more charming by
reason of the best efforts of the winter wren, purple finch, or
white-crowned sparrow, but that not one of them is necessarily mute
because the mercury is down to zero. Indeed, temperature alone seems to
have almost nothing to do with the movements or habits generally of our
birds, either the resident or migratory species. All depends upon the
food-supply, and a feast in winter is followed by a merry heart as
surely as a successful wooing in May results in ecstatic song. I think
this is borne out by the fact that during the present season—as yet
winter only in name—there has been really less activity and disposition
on the part of all our birds to sing than when we have had snow and ice
in abundance. I worked my way recently through a tangled, trackless bit
of swamp, and, while climbing over the prostrate trunk of a huge tree,
startled a winter wren as it crept from beneath a smaller log near by.
It seemed as astonished that I should have ventured so far from the open
meadow as I was to see any bird less mopish than an owl. The wren stood
contemplating me for at least one minute—a long time for a wren to
remain in one spot—and then gave vent to its astonishment by, not a
chirp, but a short series of sweet notes, that well repaid me for my
recent labors. Then, darting into the thicket, the wren was gone, but I
was not left alone. At the same moment, a troop of tree-sparrows settled
upon the clustered water-birches, and their united voices rose to the
dignity of a bird’s song. Such it evidently was intended to be, for the
chattering of birds, when they merely chirp or twitter—which is but
their conversation—is never so softly modulated, but pitched in a
hundred different keys. This became noticeable directly afterward, for
the birds scattered among the undergrowth, and the short, quick
utterances that I soon continually heard bore no resemblance to the two
or three notes, which, before they had separated, they uttered in
concert.
And as I returned home, while crossing a wide meadow where the rank
grasses afforded excellent cover, I found many small brown birds that
ran through them as aimlessly as frightened mice; they were titlarks, as
it proved. None sang until I was near at hand, when one after the other
rose a short distance from the ground, flew a few feet, and uttered,
while on the wing, a sharp, but bell-like note that was truly musical.
Another and another started up, at almost every step, but only to alight
again directly. At times there were four or five in sight at once, and
then their united voices sounded sweetly in the still air. Quickening my
steps, the flock finally rose in a body, and, so fitful and irregular
was their progress, had there been a stiff breeze at the time they might
have been mistaken for drifting autumn leaves. I need not pursue this
feature of winter bird life further, so far as the migratory species are
concerned; but a word with reference to those birds which are here
throughout the year—the resident species. The robin, Carolina wren,
song-sparrow, and thistle-bird sing, I am sure, with unabated ardor, in
spite of the cold. A miserably damp, foggy, or even windy day has a
depressing effect, and at such a time I usually find the woods, meadows,
and the river shore quite silent, unless, indeed, there be crows in
abundance. During the last week in January, 1889, when much of the time
there was a chilly northwest wind and often a clouded sky, the
song-sparrows thronged the willow hedges, and sang their May-day
melodies. I heard them soon after sunrise, at midday, and once after the
sun had gone down and it was fast growing dark.
There is yet another feature of bird music which is characteristic of
winter—the singing of passing flocks when high in the air. Day after
day, of late, soon after sunrise, a merry company of bluebirds fly over
the house, and each one sings as he passes by. Toward sunset they return
to the cedar and pine woods across the river, and then, too, they may be
heard. Their movements are as regular as those of the crows that roost
somewhere in the same neighborhood. I have often failed to see them,
they flew at so great an elevation, but their song is not to be
confounded with that of any other bird; nor are they like the
chats—ventriloquists. Somewhere in the upper regions they were floating
along, and their music, drifting earthward, brightens the winter
landscape until we think of early spring. But the bluebirds are not
always so unsociable. There is a rick of cornstalks not far away, about
which I find a pair almost daily, and did not the pestiferous
house-sparrows worry them so much, I am sure they would sing more
frequently. They appear to realize that their songs may be heard, and so
bring down upon them an attack; so, if they warble at all, it is very
softly, as though not quite discouraged, and hopeful of better times.
They have held their little fort, however, since early autumn, and I am
in hopes will outwit their enemies when nesting time arrives.
No, it is not true that the country is desolate, even in midwinter. I
heard a bluebird sing during the great storm of March, 1888, and since
then have been hopeful, although for more than one mile, during my
recent outings, comparative silence reigned. And now, what of to-day,
the last one of the month? I heard the crested tit whistling in the
far-off woods before the sun had risen, and not less musical was the
distant cawing of the myriad crows that were just leaving their roost.
Overhead, in the tops of the tall pines, were nuthatches and chicadees,
and shortly after a host of pine finches. They were all fretting, as I
fancied, because the wide reaches of meadow near by were still shut from
view, but it was not harsh scolding, after all; and as the day
brightened, their voices cleared, until later, when the birds had
scattered among the hedges, they all sang sweetly; for at such a time
the ear is not critical, and even the plaint of the nuthatch is not out
of tune. On and on I walked, expecting in the wilder woods and about the
marshy meadows to find birds and birds—many that sang and others that
would interest by virtue of their ways. I confidently looked for the
host of winter finches and the overstaying herons, but I saw none, heard
none. By noon the whole country was sadly silent, and not even a crow
passed by. Yet the day was perfect; save a little cooler, it was typical
Indian-summer weather. Plant life responded to the inviting sunshine,
and I gathered violets and spring beauty. Even the saxifrage shone
through the brown leaves, its white buds almost unfolded. It is in vain
to conjecture what had become of the birds of the early morning. Let it
suffice to say that I was greatly disappointed, and had I not been astir
so very early would have been the more sorely puzzled. As it was, the
birds had not utterly forsaken us, and proved in their own way and in
their own time that midwinter minstrelsy is not a myth.
A Cold Wave.
When Mr. Isaac Norris, of Philadelphia, merchant and man of observation,
recorded the weather in the vicinity of that city, 1749 and earlier, he
did not mention “cold waves,” as such, but remarked that there was
greater irregularity then than formerly, adding the significant
statement, “at present it is warm, even the very next day after a severe
cold, and sometimes the weather changes several times a day.”
Whether since 1749 these sudden changes of temperature have become more
frequent or not, I have no satisfactory means of determining, but am
inclined to think such to be the case; but new or old as a
meteorological freak, a cold wave is worthy of the rambler’s study, in
spite of the discomforts sure to be encountered, for it necessarily
affects all animal life that was astir before it reached us. Yesterday,
there were birds in the woods and about the meadows; even spiders had
spread their webs in the sunny glades, and stray flies hummed in the
sheltered hollows of the hill; so that thoughts of an early spring came
continually to the fore, as I watched and listened to the busy life
about me, myself reclining at full length, on a prostrate tree.
Had there been no intimation of the cold wave’s coming in the morning
paper, it would have been suspected as on its way, for all day the
barometer was suspiciously low, and soon after sunset a faint moaning in
the chimney corner and a far shriller sound among the tree-tops
suggested a coming change. The sudden up-leaping of sparks, too, from
the back-log counts for something. For an hour or more the coals had
been red or purple and scarcely a flame, however small, shot from the
glowing mass; then, at the whisper of the fretful wind, suddenly long
trains of brilliant sparks flew upward, and again, both the back-log and
the black fore-sticks were ablaze. Doubtless, in the good old times,
this never passed unnoticed and every one ventured a prediction when
there was no likelihood of erring. So he who spake first, in the days of
our grandfathers, became the greater weather-prophet.
During the night the cold wave came. As I write, we are having the first
ice-making weather of the season, although February is well advanced.
The chill, gray clouds scarcely concealed the sun as it rose, and later,
when the sky was clear, a rosy blush tinted the drifted snow upon the
fields. What now of the busy birds, the spiders, and humming flies of
yesterday? Have they folded their tents like Arabs and silently
disappeared?
Facing the north wind, I pushed through brake and brier, listening at
every step for the chirp of a startled bird. For some time I neither saw
nor heard a living creature, nor, indeed, did I wonder at their absence.
At last a solitary crow struggled against the fierce wind and uttered at
times a most melancholy plaint. It was all but sufficient to send me
home, and I stood for a moment pitifully undecided; but the crow, I saw,
did make some headway, and I took a hint of it. The icy gusts that swept
the hillside soon forced me, however, to seek shelter, and I crept for
some distance along the bed of a deep dry ditch overhung by blackberry
canes and smilax. Here I found a more spring-like temperature, and was
not surprised when from the clusters of dead grass blue jays hopped
before me. They were evidently startled at my appearance in their snug
retreat, but still were not timid, as when in the open woods. I often
approached within a few paces, and they hid, I am sure, in the tangled
vines and bushes on the banks of the ditch, instead of flying out into
the meadow. But if jays, there should be other birds I thought, and I
stopped again and again to listen. It was the same old story—nothing was
to be heard but the roar of the wind overhead. Weary at last with
creeping through such cramped quarters, I sat down to rest at a
convenient point, and never have I been so fortunate in the choice of an
outlook.
It is clearly evident that our resident birds and mammals soon know
every nook and corner of their chosen haunts, and more, that they pass
from point to point in accordance with fixed plans and do not wander
aimlessly about. If you overtake in broad daylight, as sometimes
happens, any animal larger than a mouse, it is not likely to be
confused, not knowing which way to turn. Such indecision would
invariably prove fatal. Their actions under such circumstances indicate
full knowledge of their surroundings, and convince one of this fact. If
not true, then every surprised animal must take in at a glance every
tree, burrow, ditch, and path, and select between them, in the twinkling
of an eye. My own observations lead me to conclude that our mammals,
which are largely nocturnal, survey at night the whole country and know
every inch of the ground. Every tanglewood is to them a city with its
main thoroughfares and side alleys, and it is this knowledge that
enables them to outwit their foes. Within a few days, a skunk came
boldly into the yard, in broad daylight; defied the dog by assuming a
bold front, and was making for the only near place of safety within easy
reach, when in the yard, an opening under a side porch. By mere accident
only it was run down and killed. This dreaded creature had evidently
been belated, and coming home after sunrise used wonderful tactics when
it encountered the dog. It played with him. It ran this way and that,
but never far, and always faced the half-timid mastiff. It shook its
huge tail, bristled its long fur, snapped, squeaked, and all the while
approached in short stages the porch. At last, seeing more than an even
chance of reaching it, the cunning creature bolted, and I am almost
sorry that it did not escape.
So, too, with our birds. Not all of them act upon foreknowledge of a
coming cold wave, and temporarily migrate. On the other hand, had they
no places of refuge, the majority would perish. No bird could have
weathered the cold cutting winds that prevailed last night, with the
air, too, at times, filled with stinging sleet. Yet, hunt the country
over, after such a night, and how seldom will you find a dead bird lying
upon the ground. Even after such a storm as the historic blizzard of a
year ago, birds that had succumbed through exposure, were comparatively
few. The fact that the alien sparrows in our cities were destroyed in
large numbers, strengthens my previous assertion, for they, unlike wild
life, are largely deprived of the advantage of snug harbors, such as the
country affords our native birds; and their semi-domesticated condition
has rendered them less provident and observing. Such, at least, was the
tenor of my thoughts while resting in my sheltered outlook.
Before many minutes had elapsed the expected chirping of winter finches
was heard; at first in the distance, but directly almost overhead; then,
everywhere about me. A moment later, and a dozen were in full view.
Myself, a shapeless mass upon a mossy log, the birds mistook me for a
part of it, and I had but to look and listen. Foxie sparrows threaded
the tangled maze of vine and cane, singing a few sweet notes at times,
as the wind lulled and the warm sunshine flooded the shelter with a
brighter glow; white-throats warbled in their listless way, and one
fearless winter wren peered into every cranny of the hollowed earth,
spider-hunting wherever the waters of the last freshet had caverned the
overhanging banks. As it drew near, I almost held my breath, hoping it
would venture to creep over me. Once it came very near, stopped and
looked me squarely in the face, but without its suspicions being
aroused. Probably I needed but a few cobwebs to have brought it even
closer.
For long the light-hearted birds, in joyous mood, passed up and down
this hidden highway, often within arm’s reach, and not one recognized
me. It was much like being alone in a strange city, where the feeling of
desolate isolation can best be realized. Much as I might desire it, I
could in no sense become a part of the happy world about me. Here, at
times, is the shadow that rests upon the rambler’s path—to feel that at
best he is but tolerated, and to know that had these happy creatures the
power they would drive him into the bleak world beyond.
One interesting feature of bird life was to-day very apparent. Never did
two or more individuals meet upon the same twig but a low, scarcely
audible twitter was uttered. I could often see a slight movement of the
beak, without hearing a sound, and notice a gentle tremor of the wings,
that doubtless meant much to them, but can not be interpreted by us.
Then away they would go, following the line of the long ditch without
grazing the tiniest twig that bent above them. Why many a sparrow,
apparently in reckless haste, did not come to grief, is indeed a puzzle;
for never, I thought, had I found thorns so sharp, so slender, and so
thickly set.
But not birds alone had sought shelter here; the mice also had been
driven from the wind-swept meadows, and these ventured into the
sunlight, but were cautious to a marked degree. None came very near, and
when I was in full view they stopped, sat upon their haunches and felt
sure, if I correctly read their thoughts, that all was not quite right.
Not one passed by me. Their keen noses detected what the proverbially
keen sight of the birds had failed to discover, that I was not a
harmless bit of driftwood. Or did the sense of hearing catch the sound
of my breathing? Explain it as one may, meadow-mice were never before so
knowing, and I recall the charge that I have often made, that they are
stupid.
So here I sat for two whole hours, yet not aware that so long a time had
elapsed. It mattered nothing that the fierce wind raged above me; that
the bending oaks echoed its heartless boast:
“I come from the fields of the frozen north,
O’er the waste of the trackless sea,
Where the winter sun looks wearily forth,
And yieldeth his strength to me.”
This lessened not my comfort nor quickened my homeward steps. Wrapping
my cloak the closer, I recalled the day’s adventures as I withdrew,
thinking how true it was that pleasant surprises are ever in store for
the earnest rambler and many a loss for him who is faint-hearted. It is
not well to judge the world through a window.
The Woods in Winter.
When I walk in the woods in summer I think of the trees as a shelter.
They go to form a protection alike against the sun and passing shower.
And if I turn from the old cart-path it is but to enter some one-side
compartment of a great labyrinth of rooms. No one tree calls for
observation. They are as the inner walls of a great house, and what they
surround alone commands attention. It is going out of doors as much to
leave the thick woods as to pass from your dwelling. But now, during
December’s bright, cheery, winter days, every tree in these same woods
becomes my companion. We are exposed to the same sunny sky, and as I
wander from one to another, each has its pleasant greeting for me. This
has been a life-long fancy of mine. Walk up to a century-old oak, and
how promptly it speaks to you of giant strength and sturdy independence;
turn then to a stately liquidambar and you are greeted with exquisite
grace. I can point out in the old woods here at home the counterparts of
many a man I know. The lonely wild apple on a gravelly knoll is as
crabbed as my crusty neighbor who begrudges me a few flint arrow-heads.
I think I should be soured by wandering half a day in a forest of
wild-apple trees. There is no such feeling when with the oaks, beeches,
chestnuts, and silver birch. They recall no unfortunates among one’s
acquaintance. Every tree of them is content with the world as it finds
it, and so too am I when surrounded by them.
The woods were quiet when I entered. Not a twig trembled, and the dead
leaves were too limp to crackle beneath my feet. Dainty frost crystals
were plentifully strown over the dwarfed bushes by the roadside, and a
film of glittering ice with jagged sides reached out from the banks of a
little brook near by. Nowhere did the ice reach wholly across the
stream, and so was the more beautiful by reason of the inky waters that
flowed sluggishly beneath it.
Where, about the roots of a massive beech, the brook had become a little
pool, I stood for many minutes, alternately watching the waters that
here seemed roused to a semblance of activity, and then listening to the
welcome cawing of the over-flying crows. Brooks, birds, and trees! Your
choice of such good company, and yet there are those who would have gone
mad here from loneliness! For the time I gave heed to the brook,
wondering as usual what might be beneath the surface, and all the while,
as ever happens, the creatures of the brook were wondering about myself.
If one turns to the text-books he will find much said of the instinct
that leads the lower forms of life to seek a safe shelter as winter
approaches. The lower forms of life in this brook had no such intention.
First, I detected dainty little frogs—the peeping hylodes—squatted on
dead leaves and yellow pebbles, and so spotted, splotched, and wrinkled
were they that it took sharp eyes to find them. Their idea of a shelter
in winter is from enemies, and not from the frosty air; a little warmer
sunshine to-day would have moved them to sing. Time and again during
November they rattled and “peeped” almost as shrilly as ever in April,
and they will again, if we are treated to a green Christmas.
The spirit of exploration seized me now, and I brushed the shallow
waters with a cedar branch. Lazy mud minnows were whipped from their
retreats, and a beautiful red salamander that I sent whizzing through
the air wriggled among the brown leaves upon the ground. It was only
after a hard chase that I captured it, and, holding it in my hand until
rested, I endeavored to induce it to squeak, for it is one of a very few
that has a voice; but it was not to be coaxed. It suffered many
indignities in silence, and so shamed me by its patience that I gently
placed it in the brook. Soon, black, shining whirligigs—the
gyrinus—suddenly appeared, and a turtle, as if wondering what might be
the cause of the commotion, thrust its head in the air, stared angrily
at me, and returned to its hidden home. There was no dearth of life in
the brook, yet this is a winter day. The ground is frozen, and the
rattle of wagons upon the highway penetrates even to this remote recess
in the deep woods.
As a child soon tires of one toy, so I longed, after an hour’s play, for
a new field and other forms of life, and so much for serious study as
that I might vary my amusement; but let not this apparent aimlessness be
held unworthy of the rambler. Call it play, if you choose, but the
incidents of such a day come back in bold relief when, with or without
an effort, they are recalled. I have found it most fortunate that
unconscious cerebation is so active when I wander about, toying, as here
by the forest brook, with many forms of life. More than half the acts of
every creature I meet are apparently meaningless at the moment of their
occurrence, but their full significance is evident when in thought I
wander a second time over the same ground. Scarcely regarded incidents
come well to the fore and throw a flood of light upon what lacked at the
time any evidence, on the creature’s part, of complicated thought.
Herein, I think, lies the secret of so much disappointment when some
people—and they are many—wander in the fields. Filled with enthusiastic
desire upon laying down the teeming pages of Thoreau and Burroughs, they
expect to see with another’s eyes and appreciate with another’s brain.
They see a bird, a mammal, or a host of butterflies, and then ask
themselves upon the spot, Well! what of them? The bare fact of their
presence is all that the minds of inexperienced ramblers encompass. The
wild life they have met excites a passing thrill and they give no
further heed to it. And it never occurs to many to recall the incidents.
Being a bit disappointed then, why give heed to the subject later? On
the contrary, if at the close of the day, in the hills and hollows of
the blazing wood upon the andirons, if the walk was in winter, we
picture the scenes of the recent ramble, these same birds or mammals, or
whatsoever else we saw, will be seen again in a new light. Why those
birds and not others were where we found them; why the field-mice or
rabbits or a weasel were where we saw them or it, will become evident.
The various features of every visited spot will be remembered; and the
cheery blaze upon the hearth tells us, as it were, the story that could
not be read when facing Nature’s open page. Some of us inveterate
ramblers read more than others, when in the fields, but no one can
afford to trust to this alone. To extract the whole truth, the past must
be recalled again and again.
As I whiled away the time with the tenants of the brook, so I gave heed
to every passing bird, and what a strange panorama, as one kind after
another flitted by! The happy association of woods and water here, as it
attracted me, drew them to the spot, yet no one loitered long. The busy
brown tree-creeper traced the crannies of the wrinkled oaks; the
nuthatches followed, and their complaining squeaks seemed expressive of
disappointment that so little food was to be found. Was this true? Were
these little birds really complaining? It certainly seemed so. But how
treacherous is this impression of seeming so! Too often, I fear, the
rambler is content with it and goes his way convinced that what was
vaguely apparent was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing more nor
less. I hold it probably true that if every bird which found itself too
late was disposed to complain, there would be a vast deal more
quarreling than actually occurs. How little contention there is in the
bird-world! While it is true that birds of a feather flock together, it
is equally so that widely different species also amicably associate, and
flagrant is the act that calls for punishment. Better luck next time is
the homely proverb that actuates all non-predatorial bird life.
But the merit of birds is their suggestiveness. Promptly following the
nuthatches came the ever-welcome song-sparrow. It hopped, with
springtide liveliness, among the dead leaves near the brook, and then,
flying to a hazel bush near by, it sang that sweet song that not even
the mocking-bird ventures to repeat. The woods vanished, and the old
garden with its gooseberry hedge was before me. I was a wondering child
again, listening and looking at the happy bird, happy as itself.
It is December, the day is cold, the trees are leafless, the ground
frozen; but not a thought of all this had clouded my joy for half a day.
There is the elixir of perpetual summer even in the woods in winter, and
happy is he who can find it.
Old Almanacs.
It is a dilapidated outbuilding now, and the merest ghost of its former
self. Scarcely one of the many marked features of the old kitchen is
left. The cavernous fireplace, the corner cupboard, the narrow box
staircase, the heavy double doors, with their long strap hinges, the
long narrow table by the south windows, have all been removed. And sad,
too, to think that, one by one, the sturdy farmer folk that lived in and
loved this now dark and dingy room have all passed away. For me, it is
the Mecca to which I most fondly turn when indulging in retrospection.
In and about it were passed many of those peculiarly happy days, the
recollection of which grows brighter as the years roll by. From late
autumn until spring, when for five months the nights were long, this
kitchen was the favorite rendezvous, and conversation, rather than
reading, the popular amusement. Not that there were no books in the
house. There were fifty volumes, at least, in the old book-case, but I
can not recall one in the hands of a reader. There are many of them now
on my own shelves—Gibbon, Johnson, Goldsmith, Burns, and the journal of
many a Quaker of colonial times. It would be unfair to say that books
were unpopular, but rather that conversation was held in higher esteem.
Then, certainly, every neighborhood had its characters, and their like
has not been transmitted to the present generation. I saw the last of a
native folk who had occupied my neighborhood since 1680. Now a new
people, and as different as black from white, occupy the land; but
during my early childhood, my grandfather’s help, like himself, had
always lived in the neighborhood. They had been boys together, and
little wonder that, when a day’s work was done, the evening should have
been spent in reminiscent talk. The farmer was not off to his book at
candle-light, and the “hands” left to their thoughts.
How glad, now, am I, that I caught, even in early youth, a glimpse of
simpler times! In one way, however, the world has not changed;
conversation continually turned upon the weather, and there was one book
to which reference was often made and quite frequently consulted—the
almanac. How plainly I can see my grandfather adjust his heavy-rimmed
spectacles and turn to the record of the current month! “Yes, thee is
right, Abijah; the moon changes in the forenoon.” Then the thin pamphlet
was hung again in its place in the chimney corner. Hard-headed and
alertly observant as were the farmers of fifty years ago, they all
deferred to the almanac’s dictum. Men might say, perhaps, what they
pleased; but if he who could write an almanac ventured to predict, who
were they to dispute it? So they thought, and if snow had been foretold
for the Fourth of July, they would have explained the reason why it did
not come, and pity, not scorn, the prophet.
I do not know when the first almanac was hung in the chimney corner, but
the custom, once started, continued to the end, and when the kitchen was
dismantled, a great pile of “Poor Richards” were brought to light from a
dark hole in the cavernous corner cupboard. The wisdom crowded upon
those torn and tattered pages seems to have been lost, and the later
generations were content, if I do not misunderstand them, with the
commonplaces and predictions to which reference has been made. But with
all their unquestioning reliance upon the almanac, the men who were
daily out of doors were prophets unto themselves, and proud of the petty
discoveries they claimed to have made. This it was that spiced their
conversation and made the meeting of two or three in a cozy kitchen an
attractive occurrence to young ears. I do not wonder that books were
ignored, when every laboring man laid claim to peculiar knowledge, and,
of course, formulated weather proverbs, the like of which have never got
into print. For while the neighborhood had, like all others, its common
stock of accepted “sayings,” not a man for miles around but had some two
or three that he had framed for his own guidance. Every discussion
teemed with “according to Joshua,” or “Jeremiah’s saying is,” but every
man was largely a follower of himself. Looking backward, and studying my
grandfather’s “help,” and even my farmer neighbors, I see, in the light
of the present, that these men were both ignorant and wise; having a
rich store of facts from which they drew illogical deductions.
Apropos of this, let me add that of a series of sixteen newspaper
clippings, from papers published in October and November, 1889, fifteen
of them were predictions of a winter of unusual severity in the Middle
States. The one that maintained the coming of a mild winter gave no
reasons for such a conclusion, but stated very briefly that “certain
never-failing signs pointed that way.” It is a pity that such signs were
not generally known, now that the “ground-goose, hog-bone” theory has
proved unreliable.
And so it was, a year earlier. During the autumn of 1888, I gathered, by
the aid of several friends, a considerable number of newspaper clippings
concerning the character of the coming winter. Most of them predicted a
very severe season and a late spring; a few were somewhat more moderate
in the use of superlatives, and one long essay on the breast-bone of the
goose made me shiver to read, although the day was warm, and in spite of
the assurance that each of the “phenomenally cold periods” would be
alternated by “spells of fall-like weather.” Not one hit the nail upon
the head and foretold that December and January would be winter with
winter left out. And only to-day (January 31) I find in a local paper
that the musk-rats are stopping up the entrances to their homes, and
February will be very cold. Perhaps! On the other hand, I have just
received Volume I of the Geological Survey of New Jersey, in which is a
most interesting chapter on the climate of this State. Looking over a
tabulated statement of the weather, as characteristic of seasons, I find
that we have had six notably mild winters in the past forty years, that
of ’81-’82 being “one of the warmest on record.” Armed with these facts,
I hunted up our oldest neighbor, Zephaniah Blank, and plied him with
questions. Of course, as I intended, the conversation turned upon the
weather, as it usually does, and he was very positive that we had had no
such winter as the present for “nigh on to thirty years.” The old
gentleman could recollect the moderately warm winter of ’57-’58, but
that of ’81-’82 had passed from his mind. Had a reporter overheard our
talk upon the subject, the local paper would doubtless have recorded the
present as the warmest winter in thirty years, which is not the fact.
Besides, we are not yet out of the woods, for February is often very
cold, and March, to put the best face upon it, exceedingly tricky.
Considering that weather is the most talked-of of subjects, is it not
strange that upon no other is so much ignorance displayed?
It has been said that every man is a fool or a physician at forty.
Whether true or not, every sexagenarian hereabouts is a weather prophet,
and their combined wisdom is, as might be seen, valueless. Every one of
these worthy men, as such, is a delusion and a snare, but all have
faithful followers. Uncle Zephaniah, for instance, was very impatient,
to express it mildly, when I spoke of the winter of 1881-’82. The curl
of his lip, the glitter of his eyes and wave of his hand, when he
remarked, “As if I didn’t know!” spoke volumes. Yet, in spite of his
eighty years, he did not know. There is still another feature of weather
wisdom, if I can call it such, that is even more remarkable—the
proneness to forget the character of a season so soon after it has
passed. It may be hard to believe, but many a person will stop to think
when the question is put whether the great March blizzard was last year
or the year before. Unless such a storm is coupled with some political
event or a great disaster, as fire or shipwreck, it passes almost
directly out of mind, and its magnitude dwindles in comparison to some
lesser event with which the world’s history was connected. And the moral
of all this is: keep a diary, swear only by it, and give nothing more
than a respectful hearing to unlettered historians and weather prophets.
But if the people have changed, the country has not; and from the same
woodland almanac from which they drew their facts we can draw ours. Can
any one read it aright? Verily, is not Nature a tricksy author? There
are the flowers that many a town dweller thinks truly report the
seasons. Pshaw! Away up in Massachusetts, Bradford Torrey found over
seventy plants in bloom during a November afternoon; and full well I
know of a meadow where violets, bluets, dandelions, and blue-curl can be
gathered, even at Christmas, and all the year round, when we have, as
now (1889-’90) a typical open winter.
What of the birds? For of these and blossoms is a naturalist’s year made
up. The woodland almanac goes for little so far as they are
concerned—unless, indeed, you have a trained ear for varying twitters.
Bird music is never lacking, and I have long held it an open question if
we may not spare the thrush, when there are foxy-sparrows among the
briers. So far as weather is concerned, we can not build upon our birds,
and no one of our seasons lacks them. It is the whim of closet
ornithologists and petty critics to assert that winter is comparatively
birdless, but even this is not true. There are not so many species, but
often quite as many individuals, and oftener more. Birdless, indeed!
Redbirds, meadow-larks, song-sparrows, and blue jays at this moment are
making merry in my garden. Notwithstanding all this, there will always
be those who will strive to the end to decipher the woodland almanac,
and where is he who claims not to have solved its meaning? It were well
if every one spelled over a few pages of it every day. It is healthy
exercise, fitting one to duties of all kinds, and never tending to sour
the temper of a sane person if, at the close of threescore years and
ten, he finds that he is sure of but the first lesson—there are four
seasons. Weather wisdom, as we all know, meets us at every turn, and
while usually irritating, occasionally proves a source of amusement.
Some such experience as the following, may have been the fate of many
more than I suppose.
John Blank is one of those unfortunates who desire to be thought a
genius. To float with the current is beneath his dignity. Uz Gaunt
described him well as one who persists in looking toward the west to see
the sun rise. Knowing my love for the open fields, this would-be genius
has kindly treated me, of late, to innumerable accounts of recent
observations of beasts, birds, reptiles, and wild life’s less noble
forms, and certainly the man has remarkable powers in one direction—he
can misinterpret admirably. “Think of it!” he exclaimed excitedly; “here
it is December, and I have heard a frog croak! It was not a springtime
croak, of course, but a cry of pain, and I believe a musk-rat dug it out
of its winter quarters, and the sound I heard was a cry of pain.” It is
a wonder that he did not hear the musk-rat’s chuckle over a good dinner,
also. Here we have three assumptions—that frogs never sing in winter;
that they habitually hibernate; and that musk-rats dig them out of the
mud. The aforesaid John Blank had lived forty-odd years on a farm, and
did not know that frogs voluntarily sang or croaked during mild winter
days. Like many another, finding that it is cold in December, he turns
his back on winter sunshine.
Here are some statistics concerning frogs in winter. Previous to Oct.
20, 1889, there had been white frost, some chilly days as well as
nights, and yet the frogs sang merrily on that date. There was frost,
snow, and ice during the following week, and then these same frogs were
again in full chorus; and later, in November, as late as the 19th, they
rattled and piped, not only in the sheltered marshes, but among the
wilted stalks of lotus in an exposed upland field. Then a long interim,
when I was constantly in town, but at noon, December 19, I heard them
again, and on Jan. 12, 1890, frogs of at least two species were
croaking; and, too, bees were about, snakes were sunning themselves,
turtles crawled from the mud, and salamanders squatted on dead oak
leaves in the full glare of an almost midsummer sun. When John Blank was
told of this he looked his name; but he was not disconcerted. “Did you
ever examine the marshes in winter?” I asked.
“Certainly not,” he replied, and added: “What’s to be found in frozen
mud, cold water, and about dead grass?”
“More life than you ever saw in midsummer,” was the impatient reply, and
with this I moved off.
Blank maintained his reputation and declined to take a hint. “Did you
ever see wild violets at Christmas?” he asked. I laughed, and assuming
good-nature, said, “Come along,” and started with the conceited nuisance
to a sheltered meadow. The grass was not dead, although Christmas was at
hand; there were even green leaves on the sassafras sprouts; the water
was not cold, although its surface had been frozen; the mud was very
soft. Clustered about the roots of a noble tulip tree were claytonias in
bloom; in the moist meadows were pale-blue violets, and beyond, exposed
to the sweep of every chilly breeze from the west, were houstonias, and
scattered here and there were single dandelions. “This,” I remarked, “is
no unusual matter, referable to midwinter, and ought to be familiar to
you; but you have probably not looked in the proper places for these
things”; and, taking my cue from dear old Uz Gaunt, added, “don’t look
in the west to see the sun rise.”
Then, pleading an engagement with solitude, I bade John Blank
“Good-morning.”
The landscape lightened as the bore disappeared. And how an hour’s
outing with nature soothes the irritation of an unwelcome interview! If
I were an editor, I would have a cage of frogs, with a bit of green moss
and a pool of water like that now at my elbow. To this I could turn for
mental refreshment the moment the retiring intruder faced the door of
the sanctum. There is nothing so reviving as to contemplate a frog, or,
better yet, a tree-toad. Here is one from Florida that takes the world
philosophically. When it is too cool on the shady side of his home he
creeps to the sunny side; and as the sun will not stand still, the toad
moves with it; This seems too trivial to mention, but really is not.
There are people in my neighborhood who growl because the sun does not
shine through the north windows, and more than one old farmer who
persists in shivering in the wagon-house, under protest, of course,
while the woodshed is warm and sunny. There is a chance for every man
born in the world, but this same world is not to be molded to every
crank’s convenience. Even my tree-toad knows that a fly may be on the
wrong side of the glass for him; although it took months of vain bumping
of his precious head before the idea reached his brain, and even now he
sometimes forgets the lesson so painfully learned. On the other hand,
there is little reason to believe that John Blank will look in the sunny
meadows next year for belated blossoms. If he finds one by accident in a
corner of a cold upland field, it will be heralded as a great discovery.
There is another tree-toad in the frog-pen that is a happy philosopher.
Of late, either the food offered is not the proper sort, or the creature
habitually fasts at this time of year, which is not improbable. Be this
as it may, there is no giving way to despondency because of an empty
stomach, and when his companions are taking noonday naps, or recalling
the outer world that once they knew, this little fellow, from the door
of his mossy cave, or perched upon a dead twig near by, sings merrily.
There are doubtless some who would be stupid enough to declare it the
cry of despair; but there is no trace of trouble in the sound; no
tremulous quaver as though fraught with grief. It is the clear, joyous
exultation of supreme content, as we hear it in the woods during bright
October days. Again, perhaps those gifted with an ear for music would
call the tree-toad’s song a “squeak.” This matters not, for when that
tree-toad pipes his single note, I take an outing. My study walls
vanish; the hillside and meadow, the winding creek, rolling field, and
shady orchard are again, as of old, the playground of my rambling life.
A Quaker Christmas.
The winters seemed colder, whether they were or not, when I was a boy;
and some thirty years ago there was one Christmas week when it seemed as
if the glacial period had suddenly returned. There was snow on the
ground, and thick blue-black ice on the creeks and flooded meadows. One
had not to take a circuitous route to reach whatever point he wished,
and this to the boys of the neighborhood made the outdoor world more
attractive. Not an old hollow tree, even, in the treacherous swamps, but
could now be reached, and so the home of every owl, coon, or opossum,
was at every boy’s mercy. What, then, if it were cold! Boots and
overcoat were equal to every need, and the wide and wild world was
before us. There was a skeleton in my closet, nevertheless. Christmas
was approaching, but never a sign of it within the walls of the old
farm-house. For years it had come and gone with scarcely a mention made
of the fact; and now, having heard something of holiday festivities from
city cousins, I vowed I would revolutionize the family custom in one
respect. But how? A hundred plans came as if by magic, but each was
handicapped by impracticability—a condition of affairs that is very
common to most men’s maturer years. It must be a secret, of course. The
opposition would prove formidable indeed if the matter were openly
discussed. Never a Christmas had been celebrated for a full century in
the old house, and why now? But I was determined, and so it came about
that I had a merry Christmas.
It was a simple matter, after all; and how often it happens that, after
days of puzzling over the impossible, an easy solution of a difficulty
comes at the proper moment! When it was time to act, all was plain
enough. On one plea or another, I went from house to house, as if the
call was by mere accident, and made known my wishes to a judicious
member of each family visited. All agreed to broach the subject, and so
it resulted that two or more members of five families, each group in
blissful ignorance of his neighbor’s movements, determined to spend the
day with my grandfather. It was the first surprise party in that staid
Quaker neighborhood, and never before so merry a Christmas. Of course
the originator was all innocence; but the puzzled expression on his
grandfather’s face and the perplexity of the women-folk were fun indeed
to him. “There’s company coming,” I remarked, as a carriage turned in
the lane. “Sure enough!” remarked my aunt, who, turning to her sister,
added, “And there is almost nothing for dinner.” I grinned. Before the
first carriage drove up to the house, a second was in sight, and the
third was not far behind.
“Truly,” remarked neighbor A to neighbor B, “we did not expect to meet
thee here. We’ve been intending to drive over for some time, but the
work at home prevented.”
“And that is what I was about to remark; the same impulse has moved us
both.” A certain small boy smiled.
“This is quite a Christmas celebration,” the somewhat bewildered host
replied, and no sooner had the sound of his voice died away than
neighbor C was announced; and neighbors D and E followed in his wake. I
lingered to hear the result, but did not dare show myself. My face was
very red, for poor sedate grandfather was stuttering! “Really, truly;
this is, treally, ruly”—I heard no more, but made a dash for the back
yard. Unlucky dash! I collided with my portly aunt, and both sprawled
upon the entry floor. The company came streaming from the parlor, but
what came of it I never learned. I was up and away before the mystery
was solved. A rest on the far side of the barn finally restored me. Joy
and fear made it a merry and mad Christmas both, but the point was
gained. The monotony of winter farm-life was broken—very much broken, in
fact—for now the tables were turned, and voices were calling for me,
some in persuasive, some in authoritative, tones. At last I responded;
and oh! what relief, when the one thing needed was to run down chickens.
“How many?” I quietly asked, “a dozen?” It was an unfortunate question.
A glitter, full of meaning, flashed in the eyes of my portly aunt. She
held me responsible for the day’s excitement and extra labor, and I knew
it; but I grinned whenever I caught glimpses of the gathered neighbors,
who could not cease to wonder over the strange coincidence.
Dinner was served in due time. It took two tables to seat the guests,
and the old kitchen was full for once. All went well until the portly
lady, who still smarted from her fall, asked of me “what all this
meant?”
“What does what mean?” I asked in reply.
“That all these friends should happen here to-day?”
“How should I know?” I asked.
“Thee does know all about it,” the old lady insisted, and so a
confession was forced. What else could I do? Twenty curious faces were
centered upon me, and the truth came out.
“Never mind, never mind!” chimed in my good grandfather, at the proper
moment. “I was sure a committee was about to take me to task for some
offense, and as I have come off so well, so shall he.”
“That boy will make something some of these days,” remarked one
long-headed man; but, alas! his usual good judgment failed for once.
That boy, so far as he is aware, has not made much since then—much worth
the making; but has, no end of blunders.
Who cares? It was my first jolly Christmas and a complete success; and
would that the same season could once again be jolly!
A New Place to Loaf.
One must plow deeply nowadays to unearth novelty. The world has been
written up, and that which we now read is but the echo of some well-nigh
forgotten author. Many will be quick to question this, and battle for
their originality, but a few days of honest search on their part among
really old books will bring them to confusion. It is with living writers
as with the “oldest inhabitants” who declare they never knew such
weather—they had better not face statistics. Blooming orchards in
January are on record, and February roses gladdened our
great-grandmothers.
“Is there nothing more to be said?” I had been asking of myself as I
daily tramped about the farm, or, on rainy days, ruminated in the attic
in a forest of discarded furniture. The outlook, for a while, was
certainly discouraging, and then suddenly the hay-mow came to mind. As a
boy, I loved the hay-mow; how is it now, in my maturer years?
Spurred by the impulse of so bright a thought, I went to the stable, and
with old-timed suppleness clomb the straight ladder. What memories of
summer days in the meadows rushed in with the odor of the heaped-up hay!
A fancy, perhaps; but even the sweet-scented vernal grass that yearly
adds its charm to a single corner of one field seemed stored in the dark
loft. It matters not; that corner, with its wealth of bright blossoms,
the glittering sunshine of May’s perfect mornings, the song of nesting
thrushes, and the rose-throated grosbeak’s matchless song, were plainly
seen and heard. It mattered not that it was January instead of June, and
the shrill north wind whispered its well-nigh forgotten warnings—summer
reigned in the hay-mow. The noontide glare that webbed the dark with
trembling threads of light aided my fancy, and I reveled in day-dreams.
That was a painful pleasure when the past was measured, and forty years
marked off the distance between my first visit and the present. Would
life have appeared as rosy-hued could I have looked as far forward as
unto to-day? Perhaps not. And what of the retrospective glances that
dimly discern the timid child floundering then in the half-filled mow?
With what wonder were the darting swallows marked as they sped to their
nests upon the rafters, and then fled through a gaping chink to the
outer world! What mystery shrouded the hastening mice that ran across
the mow’s wide window-sill, squeaked as they met, and hurried on their
way! Why would they not stop and speak to the little child? Even then,
birds and mice gave rise to strange and painful thoughts, for why,
indeed, should they fear the child that longed to be their playmate?
That fancy has not fled unto this day. I love them now as then, and, no
longer wondering why they fear man, regret the fact almost as keenly as
in days gone by.
And later, when a sturdy lad—but lazy—what a favorite hiding-place when
there were distasteful tasks to be shirked! The rattle of a loose
shingle to-day became the familiar calling of my name when errands were
to be run, when the hated churn was ready, wood to be cut or burdens to
be carried. But, like all else that this world offers, the hay-mow was
not perfection. I paid dearly for my thoughtlessness more than once.
There was much evidence of a busy day about the house, some thirty years
ago, and at breakfast I imagined that I would be in demand; but to even
think of work upon such a perfect day for idling was painful, and, as
usual, I soon disappeared. But nature was perverse. Not a familiar nook
about the farm responded as it usually did. Even the trees were so
wrapped in their own affairs as to turn the cold shoulder. Everything
went wrong, and hours before noon I longed to be called. I listened for
some familiar voice or the regulation toot-toot of the dinner-horn. The
old roosters about the barn crowed in a bantering way, as if calling me
the foolish boy that I was. It was irritating beyond endurance, and so,
with the usual unreason of piqued youth, I crept into the hay-mow, and,
while smarting from self-inflicted pain, fell asleep. Hours passed, and
then, starting from a nightmare dream, I went sullenly to the house.
Every one smiled as I entered. What was the matter? Every one was
silent, but the secret could not be kept. A picnic party had called for
me. “It is so seldom thee hears me,” remarked my aunt, “that I did not
think it worth my while to call thee to-day,” and then every one smiled
exasperatingly. No dinner, no picnic, no appetite for supper; but my
eyes were opened.
It is the same hay-mow as forty years ago, when first I saw it; the same
as eighty years ago, when my father watched it building, and made it his
playground, if not a lazy lad’s refuge. Here is the same loose floor
that needs a thick mat of hay to render it safe to walk over, and, in
one sense, the same dusty festoons of cobwebs clinging to every corner;
while the roof, as of old, is starred with mud-wasps’ nests and dotted
with the swallows’ masonry. My father’s playground! Did he, too, I
wondered, often linger here, thinking much the same thoughts and
planning his life’s battles while idly resting on the hay? It is not
upon record, nor need be, but the old hay-mow bears testimony to his
one-time presence here. Flinging open the heavy shutter of the south
window, I glanced at the shining oaken sill and frame. Both were covered
with rudely carved letters, initials of many a lad long since grown to
manhood, and not one of them now living. How closely I was linked to a
long-gone past! In the bright sunshine of this January day there was no
trace of winter in the landscape. From my outlook I saw nothing of the
familiar fields and distant river so dear to my own boyhood, but that
wilder valley and more rugged fields that were the pet theme of my
father’s stories when he charmed his hearers telling of his youth. How
tame is the present when compared with what has been! What though the
world has wonderfully advanced, there is not for me, for one—and I voice
many another—aught in the present, or aught that imagination conjures up
as the possible future, that can charm as does the sweet calling back of
days gone by.
Round about a Spring in Winter.
We dwellers in the northern hemisphere naturally think of winter as
cold, and shudder at the idea of plunging into the water at this season.
The common demand is, if cold must be endured, let it at least be rid of
moisture. But all animals are not of this way of thinking. To avoid the
cutting blasts of the north wind, the stinging sleet, the pelting hail,
and driving snow, many a creature boldly plunges in or hovers about the
sparkling waters of every bubbling spring. The reason is, at such spots
there is a uniform and not low temperature.
The impression is well-nigh universal that the great majority of
animals, other than a few hardy birds, are asleep from autumn until
spring; that they are hibernating, as it is called. It is quite true
when we walk across an exposed field or follow a wood-path over some
high hill, such an impression will not be disturbed by anything that we
see or hear; but these are not the only routes open to us. Stroll along
the river shore, even when it is blocked with ice, and in the little
ponds of open water you will be pretty sure to see abundant forms of
life; but, better yet, stray over the meadows, where, in more senses
than one, perpetual summer reigns. Break the thick ice, if necessary,
that shuts from view the shallow pool, scoop up the dead pond weeds that
mat the soft mud below, and see how every bit of it teems with curious
life. The brilliant dragon-flies that darted so angrily about you last
summer dropped their eggs here in the water, and these, hatching,
produced creatures so widely different from their parents that few
people suspect any kinship. Veritable dragons, on a small scale, they
are none the less active because ice and snow have shut out the
sunlight. With their terrible jaws they tear to fragments in a moment
every insect within their reach.
Like the dragon-flies, better known perhaps as “devil’s
darning-needles,” there are many other insects that likewise spend their
early days in the meadow pools, and, as the collector will find, every
scoopful of mud and leaves will be tenanted by a range of forms, some
grotesque, others graceful, and all of abounding interest.
These curious creatures have not their little world to themselves. There
are many fishes continually plowing up the mud with their gristly
snouts, and ready to swallow every protesting wriggler that dares show
itself in spite of the nipping jaws. Whether the slim and slippery
salamanders, commonly called lizards, do the same, I do not know, but
they tunnel the mud and burrow under every heap of water-soaked leaves,
and are so active, be the weather what it may, that some nourishment
must be taken. And there are frogs; not one of them disposed to
exertion, perhaps, but none the less able to leap or burrow headlong in
the yielding mud the instant they suspect danger. During the present
winter I have even heard them faintly croaking at midday, but this, of
course, is quite unusual.
During January not a turtle need be looked for, sunning itself, however
warm may be the weather, but, like the other creatures I have named,
they are not asleep. In a shallow basin, lined with the cleanest of
white sand, through which bubbled an intermitting stream of sparkling
water, I recently surprised a mud-turtle poking anxiously about,
evidently in search of food. The creature had a lean and anxious look,
and its bright eyes meant mischief, as it proved, when I reached forward
to pick it up. I was bitten after a fashion, and therefore delighted,
for I had never before known these turtles to be snapping, and a
discovery, however insignificant, is truly delightful.
Active life, then, in many of its varied forms, can be found during the
winter in the mud, sand, and water of almost every spring, and this fact
very naturally has its influence round about the spot. There is no small
winter bird, sparrow, titmouse, wren, or creeper, that evidently prefers
the immediate surroundings of a spring to all other spots, but every one
of twenty or more delights to make daily visits to such a locality, and
the sight of the green growths that crowd the water’s edge prompts them
all to greater cheerfulness, I have thought, than when treading the
mazes of upland thickets or scanning the dreary outlook of a snow-clad
field. But yesterday, more like June than January, it is true, I stood
by a little spring that welled up from among the roots of an old maple,
to watch the movements of a minnow that had strayed from the creek near
by. While there a wee nuthatch came darting down from the trees and
perched upon a projecting root, scarcely an inch above the water. It sat
for a moment, like a fairy kingfisher, and then plunged into the shallow
depths with all the grace of an accomplished diver. More than this, as
it shook the glittering drops from its feathers upon emerging it sang
sweetly. This unlooked-for conclusion of its bathing frolic was the more
remarkable, as the ordinary utterance of the bird is anything but
musical.
There are large birds also that frequent the springs habitually in
winter, and the fact of their presence is of itself evidence that other
active animal life must also abound. I refer to herons, bitterns, and I
may add crows. The former two subsist almost exclusively upon frogs and
fish, while the latter are content with anything not absolutely
indigestible.
How vividly I can recall my astonishment when stooping once to drink
from a bubbling spring at the base of the river bluff a dark shadow
passed over me, and I sprang with such a sudden motion to my feet that I
lost my balance! A great blue heron, unheeding my presence or ignoring
it, was slowly settling down to the very spot where I stood, and had I
remained quiet it would have perched upon me, I believe. As it was, it
gave an impatient flirt to its whole body, showing annoyance and not
fear, and flew slowly down the river. Before I had wholly regained my
composure and had time to step aside, the huge bird returned, and at
once took its stand in the shallow water, as silent, motionless, erect
as a sentinel is supposed to be. This was many years ago, and I have
seldom failed to see them, sometimes many together, winter after winter
since. The moody bittern, on the other hand, is much more disposed to
migrate in autumn; but at least a single one is likely to be found on
sheltered hillsides, particularly where there are springs with marshy
areas surrounding them. I have learned this recently of these birds, and
either have overlooked them in years past, or it is a new departure for
them. It is not unlikely that the latter should be true. Our familiar
cat-bird is losing its migratory instinct very rapidly, judging from the
numbers that winter in the valley of the Delaware River. I have seen
several recently, and every one of them was in a green-brier thicket,
and feeding on the berries of this troublesome vine.
But if there were no green things in or about the springs in winter they
would be cheerless spots, after all, in spite of the many forms of
animal life that we have seen frequent them. The fact that it is winter
would constantly intrude if the water sparkled only among dead leaves.
Happily this is not the case. At every spring I saw—and there were many
of them—during a recent ramble there was an abundance of chickweed,
bitter-dock, corydalis, and a species of forget-me-not; sometimes one or
two of these only, and more often all of them; none in bloom, but all as
fresh and bright as ever a plant in June. Then, too, in advance of the
plant proper, we find the matured bloom of the skunk-cabbage—would that
it had as pretty a name as the plant deserves!—with its sheath-like
covering, bronze, crimson, golden, and light green, brightening many a
dingy spot where dead leaves have been heaped by the winds all winter
long. These fresh growths cause us to forget that the general outlook is
so dreary, and give to the presence of the abundant animal life a
naturalness that would otherwise be wanting.
And not only about the springs, but in them, often choking the channels
until little lakes are formed, are found many plants that know no summer
of growth and then a long interval of rest. The conditions of the season
are too nearly alike, and while in winter there is less increase, growth
never entirely ceases, and certainly the bright green of the delicate
foliage is never dulled. Anacharis, or water-weed, I find in profusion
at all the larger springs; if not, then callitriche, or water-starwort.
The latter is as delicate as the finer ferns, and often conceals much of
the water in which it grows, as it has both floating and submerged
leaves.
In both these plants fish, frogs, and salamanders and large aquatic
insects congregate, and are so effectually hidden that when standing on
the side of the spring basin a person is not likely to see any living
thing, and if the spirit of investigation does not move him he will go
away thinking animal life is hibernating, for so indeed it is set down
in many books. But it does not always do to plunge the hand in among the
weeds, and so try to land whatever may be tangled in the mass you pull
ashore. Some of the insects resent such interference by biting
severely—the water-boatmen, or _Notonectæ_, for instance—and they have
the advantage of seeing all that is going on in the world about them,
for they swim upon their backs.
A delicate and beautifully marked sunfish that is silvery white with
inky black bands across it is common in the Delaware tide-water meadows,
and is found nowhere else. Recently in a spring pool, where the flow of
water was almost stopped by aquatic mosses, _Hypnum_ and _Fontinalis_, I
found nearly a hundred of these fish gathered in a little space. All
were active, and so vigorous that an abundant food supply can be
presupposed; but I did not bring the microscope to bear upon this
question, and it is upon minute forms of life such as would be readily
overlooked by the casual observer that they subsist. But, as is
everywhere the case, these fish are not free from molestation, although
to the onlooker they seem to be dwelling in a paradise. There is a huge
insect, murderous as a tiger, that singles them out, I have thought,
from the hosts of more commonplace species which we can easily spare. It
is known as a _Belostoma_, and has not, so far as I can learn, any
common name. If they were better known they probably would have a dozen.
They are “wide and flat-bodied aquatic insects, of more or less ovate
outline, furnished with powerful flattened swimming legs,” and the front
ones are “fitted for seizing and holding tightly the victims upon which
they pounce.” When I found the timid banded sunfish huddled together in
the water moss I thought of the savage _Belostoma_ and hunted for them.
None seemed to be lurking in the moss, but just beyond, in an open space
where twigs had drifted and dead leaves lay about, I found two of them,
and I doubt not they were lying in wait, knowing where the fish then
were and that sooner or later some would pass that way. To determine by
means of crude experiments how far a water-bug has intelligence is a
difficult if not impracticable undertaking, but I can assure the reader
that the many I have watched in aquaria _seemed_ to be very cunning, and
constantly planning how they might surprise the fish, for these, on the
other hand, knew the danger of their presence, and shunned them in every
possible way.
It is much to be regretted, I think, that aquaria have fallen into
disrepute. They are not, as has been said, failures; but if the labor of
their care can not be undertaken, let him who would know more of common
aquatic life not fail to occasionally ramble round about the springs in
winter.
A Bay-Side Outing.
A cool, gray mist overspread the wide reach of meadows, and shut from
view the still wider reach of water beyond. The clouds were sullen, and
with each gusty sweep of sharp east wind were dashes of chilling rain.
The outlook was dismal; the more so that my companions and myself had
journeyed scores of miles to reach the Pleasantville meadows. Perhaps
the village itself was pleasant, but now its suburbs were forbidding.
Let me misquote Euripides:
What _the morning_ is to be
Human wisdom never learns.
So it proved; the east wind was soon tempered to three shorn lambs, the
sun peeped out upon us from time to time, and long before noon Nature
was smiling and contentment reigned.
That which most impressed me as I neared the water was the painful
silence that prevailed over all the scene. Not a sound save that of
one’s own footsteps was to be heard. The impression of an absolutely
deserted country, of a region that had been swept by a pestilence fatal
even to insect life, took strong hold of me; but only for a moment.
Presently, up from the tufts of tall grass rose, on every side,
whistling meadow-larks, filling the air at once with sweet sounds. How
my heart leaped, my cheeks tingled! With what eagerness I strove to
catch their every note! for dear to me now as, when a boy, the world
daily opened up a new scene of delights, is that old, ever-new refrain
of the meadow-lark—_I see you—you can’t see me_.
But I did see them. To the few scattered, stunted trees they flew, and,
perching at the very tops, were sharply limned against the pale-gray
sky. Did I exert some subtle influence over them? Whether or not, they
soon returned, and from hidden by-ways in the rank grass sang again and
again, to cheer me, while at work. For not as a rambler merely, but to
labor diligently, had I come so far.
Separated from the bay by a narrow strip of meadow, rises a little
hillock that tall weeds would have hidden. This was one of our objective
points; the other was an adjoining sand-ridge. Over the former we
proposed to search for whatsoever the Indians had left behind; into the
latter we proposed to dig, believing some of these people had been
buried there; all this we did. The little hillock was a shell-heap, or
“kitchen refuse-heap,” as they are called by European archæologists.
Probably nothing tells so plainly the story of the past as do these
great gatherings of burned and broken shells. So recent was every
fire-mark, so fresh the bits of charcoal, so sharp the fragments of
roasted shells, it would not have startled the relic-hunters had the
Indians filed past on their way to the adjoining fishing grounds; and
yet, when critically examined, this particular spot had evidently been
long deserted. Careful and long-protracted search failed to bring to
view any trace of other than most primitive Indian handiwork. One
patient searcher, in fact, had to content himself with a few flint
flakes and the tiniest bits of rude pottery; while another hunter was
more fortunate and drew from the side of a deep and narrow path a pretty
quartz knife; and later, two slender, shapely arrow-heads were found.
A beggarly show, perhaps, but what if our hands were not busy picking up
relics; our fancies were up and doing. We had evidences and to spare
that a primitive people had once dwelt here, and imagination supplied
all deficiencies as to the matter of when and why and of the manner of
their simple lives. Such ever is the charm of an outing like this. One
has to deal so continually with stern facts in every-day life that fancy
is the better company when out for a stroll. Nor need we deceive
ourselves. A bit of burned clay in hand means the primitive potter in
the near foreground. Given a single flake of stone, and the knife,
spear, arrow, and all their belongings are in the hands of men who stand
out boldly before us. Fancy within bounds is the twin-sister of fact,
but mischief brews when she oversteps the mark. An hour with potsherds
is monotonous. One longs for some more shapely trace of human handiwork,
but among heaps of broken and burned shells, these are not frequent.
Herein the kitchen-middens of the New Jersey coast differ, as a rule,
from the former village sites in the river valleys. It would appear that
the Indian’s life as a coast-dweller was simplicity itself. It meant the
mere gathering of food from the shallow water. No contrivances were
called for, so no specialized tools were left behind, and in their
annual pilgrimages to the coast, the inland people either took but
little with them, or were very careful to carry back everything they had
brought. No wonder, then, we grow restive when a richer harvest is
promised by the mere leaping of a fence. There, in a grassy field, it
was reported, Indians had been buried, and how exciting it is to know
that a skeleton may be brought to light by the mere turning of the sod.
It has been cruelly said that he who removes from the ground a recently
buried body is a ghoul, but if we wait until the flesh has decayed, then
the collector of dry bones becomes an archæologist. It is not a fair
statement; but whether true or not, we gave it no heed, but proceeded to
dig. Scanning each spadeful of dirt for traces of bones, we soon found
them, and all was excitement. Little by little, whole bones were exposed
to view, and, following these up with the greatest care, that first of
prizes to an archæologist, a skull, was secured. Later a second and a
third were found. Our day was full. No, not quite full. We knew that
often a bowl, trinkets, and a weapon or two were buried with the body,
but nothing of the kind was found. It was a matter of dry bones only,
unless we except the one instance where the upper shell of a large
turtle rested on one of the skulls. This was a cap that would scarcely
prove comfortable to a living person, although not without the merit of
being quite water-proof.
The longest summer’s day is all too short for such eventful outings; so
little wonder that the early setting of the sun in February prompted our
discontent. Who was ever satisfied in this world? He is a half-hearted
rambler, at best, that loves to quit such work; but the night came down
upon us, nevertheless. Silence brooded over the broad meadows, and the
larks that had cheered us until sunset ceased to sing. Could there have
been a happier combination? Meadow-larks and Indian relics; aye, even
the bones of the Indians themselves; to say nothing of a soft sea-breeze
and a clear sky.
Laden with valued spoils, we at last reluctantly drew near the village,
and would that it had been wrapped in Egyptian darkness! How the aged
villagers scowled at us as we passed by! The lame, the halt, the blind,
all came hobbling to the front windows of their homes and hurled silent
imprecations after us. What a sad ending to our happy day! and why,
forsooth? In our innocent zeal, we had disturbed the bones of a few
Indian fishermen that for centuries had been resting in perfect peace.
We, the irate villagers claimed, being in full possession of good
health, could withstand the fury of the outraged spirits of departed
red-skins, but not so the afflicted villagers. Every rheumatic crone
averred that her pains had grown to agony since we broke the sod.
Invisible arrows had whizzed by their ears, and more than one sufferer
had been struck, as the red marks upon their persons proved. Vengeance
had gone astray and sorely pressed the innocent; while the guilty walked
without shame through the long village street. This was indeed adding
insult to injury.
Speaking for myself, did I know the meaning of the word “impatience,” I
should have been vexed. As it was, the day deserved to be recorded in
red letters.
As a lover of quiet country strolls, I had been happy beyond measure,
but the way of the archæologist, it would seem, is beset with thorns.
Free for the Day.
Free for the day! I scarce need tell the rest:
An aimless youth again, and Nature’s guest.
If magic lurks in any four words of the queen’s English, it is to be
looked for here. Free for the day! Neither in books nor out of them have
I met with a phrase more full of meaning, one more comprehensively
suggestive. To me, eight weeks in the noisy city had seemed almost a
year, and at last came a pause in my occupation and a day to myself. No
decision could be reached in a reasonable time by calmly thinking the
matter over, so, closing my eyes, I spun myself on one heel, determined
to walk a good ten miles in whatever direction I faced when my whirling
body came to rest. Fortune favored me, for I found myself looking
directly toward the river. This put an end to my walking ten miles in a
bee line, for the river was not one mile distant, and, except at a
distant point, could not be crossed. With a light heart I made for the
river, and, reaching the shore, sat in a cozy nook where driftwood had
conveniently lodged. Walking is capital sport at all times, but a
comfortable outlook never comes amiss, and resting at the end of one
mile is as natural as at the end of a dozen. Thoreau speaks of looking
seaward while at Cape Cod and having all America behind him. I took my
cue from him, and, looking only down stream and not far beyond, saw only
the rippling waters. Every ripple carried its atom of the town dust from
my eyes, and in an hour I saw the world again with clear vision.
Something of the old self thrilled my veins, but still I was loath to
leave so sweet a spot. I had no promise of better things, and, though
early February, the wild words of an ancient chronicler came to mind.
Wrote a mendacious Englishman in 1648, of this river—the Delaware—that
it was “scituate in the best and same temper as Italy,” and goes on to
say, it “is freed from the extreme cold and barrennesse of the one [New
England] and heat and aguish marshes of the other [Virginia]”; all of
which is a (to put it mildly) mistake. And then the romancer adds, the
Delaware Valley “is like Lombardy, ... and partaketh of the healthiest
aire and most excellent commodities of Europe.” Then follows a bit of
nonsense about the wild beasts and agricultural capabilities. Why could
not those old travelers be truthful? There is not one but deals in
absurdities, and it would appear that they rounded off every paragraph
with a flight of the imagination. If his account be true, reindeer and
moose, as well as elk and deer, tramped these river shores but three
centuries ago, and the buffalo roamed over the Crosswicks meadows. This
is extremely improbable. Moose and reindeer bones have been found, it is
true, and even traces of the musk-ox, but all goes to show that it was
far longer ago than three centuries. That there are traces, too, of man
found associated with them goes for nothing. Such association does not
bring the now arctic animals down to a recent date in this river valley,
but places man in an indefinitely long ago. If there is any one fact
well established, it is the antiquity of man in America, and those who,
even in scientific journals, say the evidences so far are not
trustworthy, and all that, utter greater absurdities than the old
chronicler I have quoted.
A word more. If the author quoted had in mind such a winter as this,
perhaps he can not be held as intentionally wrong as to the climate; but
why need he have exaggerated? As if the round of the seasons in Jersey
could be better, when they are as they should be! The truth, two hundred
and odd years ago, would not have frightened a would-be settler; but
such a winter as this might. The present meteorological “flummux,” which
plays the fool with all animate nature, is what the old-time Indians
called _niskelan_—ugly weather; and they gave it the proper name.
But hang the whole crew of historians and scientists! this is my
holiday! The water is very blue to-day, very ripply, and flaked here and
there with a dainty bit of foam. This is running water at its best. It
smells sweetest now. And what an odor that is which rises from a broad
river! The essence of the mountains many a mile away, the ooze of the
black-soiled meadows over which I have just passed, the dead leaves and
brushwood, and, too, the grand old trees that line the river’s shore,
all give up some subtle perfume, which, mingling over the river, is
wafted to the shore. It intoxicates. Every breath indrawn thrills the
nerves and cleanses the city-soiled fibers of our being. But let no more
be said. As I stood, straight as a signal-light upon the shore, my eye
caught a strange mound of bleached driftwood in the distance, and
curiosity at once drew me toward it—a recently drowned cow that dogs had
torn. Such possible drawbacks warn one against enthusiasm as to country
odors. As for myself, I walked down stream, thinking new thoughts.
Having an odd fish in sight when by the river’s side, I am never lonely.
Odd fish are too plentiful in town; never a glut of them—the proper
sort—in the water. The average minnow is an endless source of amusement.
Its rough and tumble existence is encouraging to striving mortals. The
minnow’s ingenuity is hourly taxed to escape danger, yet never have I
seen one in despair. To-day was a red-letter one in this respect. Off in
a shallow pool, not two yards square, was a huge hump-backed minnow. Its
spine was as twisted as a corkscrew, and its locomotion as erratic as
lightning. How could such a fish secure its prey? was the question that
puzzled me; and, failing to hit upon a solution, I tried to capture the
fish for my aquarium. When one has neither net, line, nor other device,
fishing is uncertain, except with the professional liars. I tried
scooping with my hands, and have only to relate as a result that the
hump-backed minnow appeared to make a springboard of its tail and leap
over my hands with the grace and ease of a professional acrobat. After
several attempts on my part to circumvent the minnow, it suddenly
disappeared. I looked in vain for it all through the little pool. It had
gone. At last I stepped back to turn to new scenes, when the hump-backed
minnow leaped from a pebble on the water’s edge, with about the agility
of a frog! Of course, this will go the way of all fish stories; but I do
not mind telling it, for all that.
It is the unexpected that happens—a remark, by the way, that dates B.
C.—when the rambler has no particular quest in mind. I had almost
forgotten that birds were in existence, when a large one ran along the
pebbly beach, not more than a rod before me. It was a king-rail. With
the thoughtlessness characteristic of a half fool, I hurled a stone
after it, with the usual result of frightening it and so losing a golden
opportunity to observe a rather rare bird at a most unusual season. Why
will people be such ninnies? If a companion had been with me and
attempted this, I would have prevented him; yet, nine times in ten, I
give way to the unfortunate impulse to capture, if not destroy, the
rarer creatures I meet. Had I been born without arms, I would by this
time have become a naturalist. This tendency is due, without doubt, to
our non-human ancestry, but will we never outgrow it?
The king-rail is a noble bird, and a few haunt the marshes all summer
long, nesting where the tall grass is too rank and tangled even to tempt
a restless cow. Perhaps they have in mind the danger of meddlesome
mankind, and dwell in such spots accordingly. Taking the whole range of
bird life into consideration, it certainly would appear that birds give
a good deal of attention to such matters. And, before leaving the
subject, I will add that, to be intelligible in discussing birds’ ways,
one must assume that they have minds akin to ours; and this leads to the
suspicion on the part of some, and conviction in my own case, that the
birds’ mind and that of man are too closely akin to warrant much
distinction.
Birds, then, as usual, trooped to the fore as I rambled down the river.
I saw nothing else, yet not a bird was in view. The old histories came
to mind, and closed my eyes to other than an inner vision. “Greate
stores of swannes, geese, and ducks, and huge cranes, both blue and
white.” Is it not exasperating to think of the change wrought in two
centuries? A mile-wide river, and banks of old-time wildness still
remaining, yet not a feather rests upon the one or shadow of a walking
bird falls upon the other. Far and near, up and down, and high overhead
I scan the country for a glimpse of some one bird, but in vain. The
crows nowadays have the river to themselves, and none of these were
about to-day.
The day has been a marked one for its emptiness. Tracing the river’s
shore for miles ought to yield rich results, but here, at my journey’s
end, I am empty-handed. What little I have seen has but soured my
temper. It is most unwise to be ever mourning over the unrecoverable
past, but how can one avoid it? Such a walk, productive of nothing worth
recording, may not, I hope, be in vain. It at least provokes me to say,
Can not wild life, or what little remains of it, be effectually
protected? Can not swans, geese, and ducks be induced to return? They
can never prove an obstruction to navigation, so why should legislation
on this point be, as at present, a mere farce? The day will never come,
perhaps, when people who prefer a living to a dead bird will be
acknowledged as having a claim to the wild life that would appear to be
no man’s peculiar property. By an overwhelming majority, mankind hold,
if a creature is good to eat, it must be killed. But the insignificant
minority still feel they have a claim. I would walk twenty miles to see
a wild swan on the Delaware; my neighbor would walk forty if sure of
shooting it.
Water birds are safe on the Back Bay in Boston, and seem to know it. I
have watched them with delight, morning after morning, while dressing;
but here, miles from town, you may pass a week and see no trace of even
a duck. A few come and go, but there are men with guns lying in wait,
both day and night. Time was when there were wild fowl and to spare—not
so now; and the day is quickly coming when geese even will rank with the
great auk and the dodo.
It is probably not difficult to prove that a return ramble is less
suggestive, even if more objects cross our path than when we were
outward bound. At the close of a long day, we are, without suspecting
it, brain-weary, as well as physically tired. What interested us in the
morning falls flat in the evening; the mingled voices of many birds
roused enthusiasm at sunrise, and proved irritating at sunset. It was so
to-day. My one thought was to reach home, but not without lazily
thinking, as I retraced my steps. I discussed with myself, as often
before, that important question—how to see. Then, again, I have often
been asked the same question by various people. On one occasion, I
replied, “With your wits as well as your eyes.” But this does not cover
the ground. After all, how is a person to recognize a thrush from a
sparrow among birds, or a perch from a minnow among fishes? When the
question was last put, I found that I had but one course to pursue—to
admit that I could not tell. The occurrence was somewhat mortifying, and
I have, time and time again since then, endeavored to discuss, upon
paper, this very interesting subject.
The result, to date, is flat failure; but a history of nugatory effort
may prove of some value. Can it be done? Is there a secret, through
knowledge of which a young person or an inexperienced adult can be
taught to intelligently observe and correctly interpret the course of
nature? Are not those, in truth, who do see to advantage, and quickly
comprehend the purport of what they see, born with a faculty that can
not be acquired through any course of training? I believe this to be
true.
But, on the other hand, there are those who, though less favored, have
their interest aroused whenever out of doors; and these are spurred to
the acquisition of knowledge, however toilsome, because of the demands
of that interest. Such find the pursuit of natural knowledge far from
easy, but are compensated by the fact that “the play is worth the
candle.” With due modesty, I speak now from experience.
“How am I to know,” asked my friend, “that the bird I see or hear is
what it is?” I, for one, can not solve the problem. Certainly, even if
our language was adequate to describe the appearance, voice, and habits
of a bird, for instance, so accurately that it would instantly be
recognized, it is not to be expected that any one, save a professional
naturalist, will know our ornithology by heart; and even he falls very
short of that. In hopes of simplifying the matter, I have been
endeavoring to recall my own experiences; not that I am a trained
observer, but because I can not remember when I did not know the more
common objects of wild life that I met with. This knowledge—a life-long
source of pleasure—was acquired at an early age, probably because I had
a naturalist-mother, who correctly explained the little mysteries that
perplexed me, and, above all, taught me to be considerate toward and
respect the rights of every living creature. So it happened that I came
to love even every creeping thing; and with love came knowledge. But the
names of things! Until he knew its name, Thoreau looked upon a flower,
however beautiful, as a stranger, and held aloof. Certainly one feels a
great lift in his pursuit of knowledge as soon as he learns the name of
an object; and until then, however interesting that object may be, it
baffles him. Let the observer, if an adult, remember, and the child be
assured, that every creature has a name, and that it can sooner or later
be determined; and now what remains is to so closely examine it that,
when opportunity affords to describe it to a specialist, or a
description is found in a book, the creature will at once be recognized.
Years before I had access to Audubon’s or Wilson’s American Ornithology,
I was delighted, one summer day, with a large bird that played bo-peep
with me in the orchard. I watched it carefully, studied to repeat its
cries, and then attempted to describe it. The bird was pronounced a
creation of my imagination, and my labors rewarded with a lecture on
romancing; but long afterward I recognized the bird in a museum, and
found that I had seen a rare straggler from the Southern States. But
nothing of all this bears much, if any, upon my friend’s question, and
no definite conclusion has, perhaps, been reached; so I put myself in my
friend’s place, and ask, Will some one give me the information required?
The more the question, as originally put, is conned over, the more it is
like unto asking, How do we learn to talk? Let there be a desire for
knowledge, and the problem will solve itself. And as to natural history,
the earnest observer will invent names for objects, which will serve his
purpose until he learns those, as in time he will, by which they have
been recognized by others and are in common use. He who does this will
have taken the first and most important step, and all that follows will
be pleasure rather than toil.
Another phase of this subject is that of properly observing. Do we
always “see straight”? I prefer this homely phrase in putting the
question, because I was so often asked, when reporting the results of
youthful rambles, “Did you see straight? Are you sure?” And so the
familiar questions come to mind now: Have the summer tourists seen
straight? Was everything they saw really as they saw it? “Can I not
believe my own eyes?” is the usual reply. It is the commonly accepted
opinion that we can, certainly; but may not many an error arise from
such testimony? Undoubtedly; but, on the other hand, if the sight-seer
is really anxious to learn the exact truth, if he guards himself
continuously against false impressions, the danger is comparatively
slight, and diminishes to practically nothing by repetition of
observation. It must be remembered, too, that an occurrence may be very
rare, and, if observed by one not familiar with the ordinary conditions,
he may be misled so far as to suppose it not unusual; but it is far from
justifiable to assert that he did not “see straight.”
This is particularly true in the study of nature; by which is meant, at
this time, the observation of objects, animate and inanimate, as they
are and where they belong, not the study of “specimens” taken from their
proper places. If a bird is seen out of season, or out of place, or
copies the song and manners of a far different species, the observer is
not true to himself if he withholds a statement as to the fact, although
others may not have been so fortunate as to witness this; and no less
imperative is it to express his opinions and give his own
interpretations of what he sees. To say that it is indiscreet to set his
“unsupported opinion against the facts gathered by a host of observers”
is simply absurd. To fail to speak out boldly is miserable cowardice;
and he who advises silence because an honest conviction wars with
others’ opinions is contemptible. Evidently, having no opinions or
knowledge of his own, he champions the cry of the crowd, be it right or
wrong. When a friend returns from a distant land, or even from a walk in
the country, we do not ask concerning what we have often seen for
ourselves, or know from hearsay, is a feature of the land, but of those
peculiarities that particularly impress him, and his personal
adventures; and, by proper questioning, a dozen ramblers over the same
area will tell as many different stories. If every observer or traveler
was a mere cataloguing machine what a cool welcome would each receive on
his return from an outing.
How are we to know whether or not we “see straight”—whether or not we
correctly interpret? Time alone will decide this; adding thereto the
experiences of others. From the sum total of many observers will
ultimately spring the truth, if happily we shall ever possess it; but no
one experience must be suppressed. I saw the Niagara River recently
where it is crossed by the suspension bridge, and the water was
intensely black save where flecked with snowy foam. I had seen this
river at this same spot previously, and had seen it since, and always,
except this one instance, the water was deeply blue or brilliantly
green. It may never have been black before, and may never be so again,
but this has no bearing upon the fact that once, at least, that torrent
was as a torrent of ink. And so it certainly is in one’s observations of
animal life, if one is a persistent, painstaking observer. His
experience will teem with unique occurrences; but they are none the less
valuable and worthy of record because of their character.
We hear now and then of misconception of nature—some pretentious critic
assuming that another sees what is not to be seen, hears what is not to
be heard, and attributes to the lower forms of life faculties beyond
their capabilities. By what authority comes this—provided absurdity does
not enter into the case? Has the whole region of the United States been
so ransacked by a handful of professionals that the habits of every
living creature other than man are known even to the minutest details?
If so, where is this vast store of learning garnered? It must still be
religiously guarded by this same handful. The world at large knows this
is nonsense. There have not been enough facts gathered to enable one to
more than conclude tentatively. A botanist, not far away, remarked in my
hearing that he had tramped over the whole neighborhood in search of
sun-dews. He was positive that none grew within miles of his home.
Another, with keener vision, tramped the same ground, and found them in
abundance. A host of careful, earnest, and devoted observers may be
unsuccessful, but that does not prove that some one may not succeed
where the others failed; nor can the animadversions of the critical
alter the fact that some one has succeeded.
Have any of those who have spent the summer in the country amused
themselves by watching some one animal as it was busy with life’s cares?
I hope so; and while so doing, was the creature credited with
intelligence or blind instinct? I trust with the former. But “Stay!”
shouts the critic, “do you realize the danger of loose interpretation?”
How are we to decide whether or not an animal thinks as we do? Hereon
hinges the whole matter. Obviously, it can never be demonstrated with
what may be called mathematical certainty; but the average, unbiased
observer will admit that when a creature acts under given circumstances
precisely as he would do, that the brain directing those movements is
essentially such a brain as his own. To prove that it is something else
is left with those who deny the position that I take. Animals think;
they are not mere machines; this position is as rational as to claim it
of some of the lowest existing races of mankind, for the claim is laid
upon the same class of occurrences. To wander abroad, whether in the
forest or on the plain, and not to look upon animate creation as endowed
with intelligence—of course, of varying degrees—is to go, not as an
observer in the true sense, but as one deaf and blind. To ramble with
this conviction, one will not misread the book of nature, and so be
guilty of a literary crime if he gives his story to the world.
An Open Winter.
I have heard or read that one may experience a sense of weariness when
surrounded by the best that Nature has to offer—a cloying with too many
sweets, as it were. It seems hard to believe, so rejoiced is the average
rambler at the return of spring, but that it is true has recently dawned
upon me, here in the wilds of Jersey, after some six weeks of merely
nominal winter.
Wherever there is a little shelter from the occasional north winds, the
immediate outlook is suggestive of early April, but the growing
daffodils and blooming hunger-plant, dead-nettle, chickweed, spring
beauties, violets, and dandelions, do not give us a springtide
landscape, although columbine, giant hyssop, motherwort, self-heal,
yellow corydalis, alum root, false mitrewort, and star of Bethlehem, are
all green in the sheltered nooks, and the waters of many a spring-basin
glow as emeralds with their wealth of aquatic plant life. It avails
nothing that these springs and outflowing brooks teem with fish, frogs,
salamanders, and spiders; nor does it matter that the sun gives us
summer heat and that birds throng the underbrush as in nesting days;
still it is winter. This is the crowning fact that colors every thought,
and though we can not step but we crush a flower, winter will not be
ignored. Nor would I have it so. January has its merits as well as June,
and I hail with pleasure that spot where frost has gained a foothold.
Here is one such spot; a circle of dead weeds bordering one of moss, and
blackberry canes in rank profusion arising as an oval mound within all.
It is an odd-looking spot to-day, and sure to attract attention. It is
unlike the average clump of briers, and properly should be, as it is the
sorry monument to a giant that for century after century dwelt here in
glory. It was my good fortune to know him well, but my misfortune to be
too young to assume the role of historian. Here stood the Pearson Oak.
Perhaps my learned botanical friends may take exceptions, but I hold
that this tree was nearly, if not quite, one thousand years old. How the
Indian looms up when we think of such a tree! Here was a silent witness
to the every-day life of an Indian village that in part rested in the
mighty shadows that it cast. And later, from one huge limb dangled the
rude pole swing that was the delight of the first of my people born in
America. Being the most prominent feature of the neighborhood, this oak
was brought within the boundary line of two great plantations, and the
half acre beneath its branches was the common playground of two
families. Little wonder, then, that in time it was also common courting
ground. Indeed, the phrase common in several families now, referring to
engaged couples, “under the oak,” has reference to this tree and the
engagements that arose from frequently meeting there, during the first
half-century after the place was settled.
But what has this to do with winter? Nothing, perhaps, but it seemed
fitting that a film of ice should cover the little pool in the circle,
as frost had blighted every shrub about, when recalling that long-gone
past that seems to us so rosy-hued when comparing it with the present.
Ruin is stamped upon every feature of the landscape here, and it is well
that the old oak that witnessed more mirth than sadness should have
passed away.
To those who can walk eight furlongs and see only a milestone, winter
may be a dreary season: but Nature at rest, for those who love her, is a
sleeping beauty. Again, if it so happens death is everywhere about you,
it should not prove repulsive. Death is the law of life, and not a
flower in June can boast greater beauty than the empty seed-pods of many
a decaying plant. Shudder, if you will, at the word “skeleton,” but
handle that of many a creature or plant, and enthusiastic admiration is
sure to follow. In June, we glory in the deadly struggle for existence
that everywhere is raging; charmed by the flaunting banners, the music,
the “pomp and circumstance of glorious war”; why not then be rational
and cull beauty as well as profit from the battle-field when the
struggle is over? If a shrub is beautiful clad in motley garb, should
not its filmy ghost in silvery gray merit a passing glance?
So ran my thoughts as I crossed my neighbor’s field, seeking new traces
of frost’s handiwork, but here I failed. The general aspect was wintry,
but definite results of wintry weather could not be found. Even on cold
clay soil dandelions bloomed, and tissue-ice in the wagon ruts had no
discouragement for the grass that bordered it. To sum up the result,
rambling in January during such winter as this is not attractive, unless
one is carried away by the novelty of plants blooming out of season, or
hearing sounds when he expected silence. And a word here of winter
sounds. Except immediately before a snow-storm, the country is never
silent. Here and there, the fields may be deserted, but birds are
somewhere, and these, of both sexes, can not keep quiet long. Of our
winter birds, it can be said that they are essentially noisy, and chirp
more, if they sing less, than birds in summer; and in the anomalous
condition of the outdoor world, at present it was a relief to reach a
hedge with its complement of birds. Their listless chirping now recalled
days with the mercury near zero, when, defying the keen wind from the
north, they sang a hearty welcome to the season and hailed every
snow-squall as a gift from the gods. Nowhere else, however, and I walked
several miles, were birds to be found, save here and there a solitary
crow, and the conclusion is, that such a season drives off rather than
attracts certain species, while others having no incentive to migrate,
have not wandered this far south. I do not know what the result of
observation in general has been, but certainly over my own rambling
ground birds have been noticeably scarce. Flowers out of season are no
compensation for the losses that a thoroughly open winter brings upon
us; the more so, if an open winter lessens the number of our birds.
As the sun rose to-day, the thought “what splendid weather!” was
uppermost, and, impelled by it, I struck across lots for the
uncultivated nooks that are so pitifully few near by. The result has
been given—not a single satisfactory feature in the whole range of half
a dozen miles. A little here and there to wonder over, disappointment at
nearly every turn; more, many more somber than merry thoughts; and not
one successful effort at thinking any thought to a logical conclusion.
To what is this due? Without doubt, to the “open” season. Nor is it
strange. In no respect is nature soul-satisfying when unseasonable. A
cool June morning is not a contradiction, and is delightful; but sultry
January days are an utter abomination. Midwinter kicks over the traces
when daffodils sport in January sunshine, as they are doing this morning
about the crooked maple wherein I sit and write. The truth is, the
present conditions offer no pronounced feature of the open country;
nothing hot or cold, but all in that lukewarm condition tending to
nausea. Nor is this feeling of dissatisfaction that takes so strong a
hold upon mankind confined thereto. It is seen in half the creatures
that one meets. A meadow-mouse is no sluggard at other times, and a lazy
deer-mouse is a contradiction; but with what measured steps and slow a
mouse comes hobbling over the dead leaves about the maple I am perched
in! The creature looks at the sky, then at the ground, and finally at a
sorry shrub with seedless pods. Not a bit of animation in its motions,
but the same dejected feelings I recognize in myself evidently held the
mouse in bondage. Then I moved suddenly, but the creature merely looked
up, as if surprised at so much energy on my part. This was irritating,
so I sprang cat-like to the ground, but only to find the mouse just out
of reach and evidently not alarmed. Climbing again into the maple, I
awaited further developments, and saw at last a white-footed or
deer-mouse that seemed to me to drop from branch to branch, as it
descended from its bush nest, a dozen feet from the ground. This was
indeed discouraging. Usually there is no more graceful sight in the
woods, during autumn or winter, than that of this dainty mammal, picking
its way a-down a crooked highway of a tangled brier-patch. It is a sight
sure to be recorded in full in my note-books, as every time I witness it
some new grace marks the event, so I anticipated the old delight when I
caught my first glimpse of the mouse, and such a result!
It is true that if one’s feelings are out of tune, there may be a
distorted vision, but not so to-day. The world was askew, and has been
since the first frost, for whoever knew the crows to be
silent—positively silent, as compared with crows—on a crisp, frosty
morning? There were forty, by count, that flew over the maple, and only
one gave tongue. Here I may be charged with fancy, but that one crow
gave out no ringing _caw_, that is music to him who loves the country.
It was rather a fretful, long-drawn _pshaw!_ and fittingly voiced the
surroundings.
A winter in the tropics may be very delightful, but an “open” winter in
New Jersey is an utter abomination.
A Foggy Morning.
We know too little of the world except when bathed in sunshine. Not that
I recognize any advantage in groping in darkness—this is too like
dogmatizing on a theory; but between the obscurity of night and
brilliancy of the day there are happy mediums, too commonly neglected. I
have lately been wandering through a thick fog. Not a metaphysical, but
a material one; nor was it gloomy. The fog was thick, yet through it
streamed the level rays of the rising sun, gilding the topmost twigs of
the forest trees, roofing with gold a trackless wild beneath. So changed
for an hour or more was every long-familiar scene that, as I wandered, I
was a stranger in a strange land.
The late John Cassin, the ornithologist, has left on record how a vast
multitude of crows tarried for some time in Independence Square,
Philadelphia, having, after leaving their roosting grounds, lost their
reckoning in a dense fog. He tells us how the masses obeyed a few
leaders, and how methodically they all departed, led by their appointed
scouts. It was an incident that thrilled him more than all else that he
had witnessed; and none knew our birds in their homes better than he.
The bewildered crows this morning recalled this story, for the poor
birds were in a hopeless plight. Perhaps their leaders were at
loggerheads, or, being none, it was a case of each for himself and
ill-luck catch the hindmost. Be this as it may, their party-cries filled
the misty air and relieved me of all feeling of loneliness. From the
open meadows I ventured into a gloomy wood, leaving the crows to solve
their own problems. Here the fog proved an enormous lens, and, at the
same time obscuring the tops of even dwarfed undergrowth, made them
appear as trees, and the taller grasses that had withstood the winter
were as shrubbery. It was this most strange effect that made my old
playground as a land unknown. But as the wild cries of the troubled
crows grew faint, the sense of loneliness, against which one naturally
rebels, assumed mastery, and I longed for at least sunlight, that the
familiar trees might be stripped of their masks. One’s own thoughts
should be acceptable company at all times, but mine are not in the gray
of a winter morning, and fog-wrapped at that. Nevertheless, longing as I
did for others’ voices, I protested then and there against my dependence
upon bird-life. “Are there no other creatures astir?” I asked, and
pushed on yet deeper, where the old oaks were clustered. Into whatever
seemed a shelter I peered, and often thrust my arm, in hopes of feeling
some furry yet not too responsive mass. Nothing resented my unmannered
intrusion. Then into sundry hollow trees I thrust my cane, thinking at
least an owl might be roused from his slumbers; but ill-luck attended
me.
A little later, as the sun rose fairly high, the upper fog descended,
and so far increased the gloom in the forest; but beyond it, as I looked
down a long wood-path, I saw the cold gray light that brightened the
outer world. Among the trees there was no dispelling force, and the fog
became denser, until, overcome by its own weight, it turned to rain, and
such a shower! The mists of the open air had fled, while through the
woods the rain-drops, touched with a mellow light, shone as molten
metal. Rebounding from the interlacing twigs above and the carpet of
matted leaves below, these golden drops rang up, as might a myriad of
bells, the laggard life about me. Rang up the timid shrews, and one
darted among the dead leaves and moss, as though hotly pursued; aroused
the squirrels, and creeping stealthily down an oak’s extended arms, a
pair passed by, thinking by their cunning to escape my notice; called
forth a white-footed mouse, daintiest of all our mammals, that picked
its tortuous way to the meadow from its bush-nest in the briers. What
folly to suppose there is no life about you because it eludes your
search! The quickening rays of the sun have keener vision than any man,
however gifted in woodcraft, and these to-day peered directly into every
creature’s lair.
I might have searched in vain for half a day, yet found nothing among
the trees. Even the nest of the mouse in the bushes I had mistaken for a
cluster of thorn-pierced autumn leaves. It would seem as if every
creature anticipated the possible visit of a Paul Pry, and was cunning
enough to outwit him. The greater the effort made by the intruder, the
less are his chances of seeing much. Let him be patient. Often a moment
or two spent leaning against a tree effects more than a mile of noisy
plowing through the brittle, crackling leaves. The careless snapping of
a twig may not startle you, but it telegraphs your whereabouts to
creatures many a rod away. How do I know this? In this way: Not long
since I was watching a weasel as it tipped along the rough rails of an
old worm fence. It was intently engaged, following the trail of a ground
squirrel perhaps. Suddenly, as if shot, it stood in a half-erect
posture; turned its head quickly from one side to the other; then rested
one ear on or very near the rail, as I thought; then reassumed a
semi-erect position, gave a quick, bark-like cry, and disappeared. There
was no mistaking the meaning of every movement. The animal had heard a
suspicious sound, and recognizing it as fraught with danger, promptly
sought safety.
Extremely curious myself to learn what the weasel had heard, for I was
sure it was the sound of an approaching object, I sat perfectly still,
awaiting coming events. The mystery was quickly solved; a man drew near.
In about two minutes I heard footsteps, and in two more saw the man
approaching. Calculating the element of time in the succession of
events, it appeared that the weasel heard the approaching footsteps
first, fully one minute before I did, and about six elapsed before the
man reached me from the time of the weasel’s disappearance; in all, some
seven minutes. Now, allowing twenty paces to the minute and two and one
half feet to the pace, this man was considerably more than one hundred
yards distant. Indeed, I think he was walking faster and took longer
steps than I have allowed in my calculation, and was really still
farther away than 116 yards when the weasel caught the sound of his
approach. Is it any wonder, then, that the woods seem silent as we
saunter carelessly along?
The question now arises, Can any animal distinguish between the sounds
of the footsteps of our many wild and domestic animals? Can any one of
them recognize the difference between the steps of a man, fox, cow, or
rat? Now, a weasel, for instance, would not fear a cow or a sheep, but
would flee ordinarily from a man or a dog, and so such power of
discrimination would be very useful to it. I am positive that they can
distinguish, in the manner pointed out, between friend and foe, and so
are not required to seek safety at every unusual sound. I know that the
most dolorous screeching made by branches rubbing together whenever the
wind blew had no terror for squirrels or rabbits, yet they must have
trembled when they first heard it; I remember very well that I did. That
fish can recognize the approach of a man and will hide, and yet pay not
the slightest attention to galloping horses or tramping cattle that come
near, is well known; and I can see no reason to deny a like
discriminating ability to those animals whose very existence depends
upon it. The fact that such a power is the mainspring of their safety is
of itself a warrant for our belief that they possess it. And from what I
have observed of animal life, I am further convinced that the power
grows with the animal’s growth; hence the necessity of the young
remaining, as they do, with their parents until well matured. The sense
of hearing in a weasel, raccoon, or other creature is one that develops,
and doubtless varies, in efficiency among individuals. There is no
cut-and-dried instinct about it. I have often thought how much there is
in the saying common among trappers concerning very cunning animals of
any kind, “He is too old to be caught.” As chance has offered, I have
experimented upon our wild animals as to this very point, and though the
results were largely negative, there was nothing in them that showed my
inference, or conviction rather, to be untrue; and, on the other hand,
much that pointed unmistakably the other way.
But what of the clearing fog? True enough, I have drifted from it, and
it has passed earthward and away. So may it ever be! Let but a bird pass
by, singing or silent, it matters not; let but the shadow of a fleeing
creature cross my path, and clouds, sunshine, storm, or fairest weather
are alike one.
The Old Farm’s Wood-Pile.
“In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire
With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
Of woful ages long ago.”
This was my wont just forty years ago; but such nights were never
tedious; nor were the ages woful of which the old folks chatted. Sitting
by the fire to-night, I am led to contemplate, not so much the heaped-up
logs and cheerful blaze before me as that other feature of days gone by,
the old farm’s wood-pile.
Recalling both what I saw and heard when a lad of a few summers, I am
startled to find that, one after the other, the prominent features of my
childhood’s days have largely disappeared. Improved farm machinery may
delight the economist, but its introduction has added no new charm to
country life, and robbed it of more than one. Was there not a subtle
something in the swish of the scythe to be preferred to the click of the
modern mower? Harvest comes and goes now without a ripple of excitement
upon the farm. A hum of the reaper for a few hours, and the work is
done. A portable steam-engine puffs in the field for a day, and the
threshing is over. But what a long series of delights, at least to the
onlooker, when grain was cradled, shocked, and then carted to the barn!
And, later, far in the winter, what music was the measured thumping of
the flails!
In due course came the present order, the natural outcome of relentless
evolution, and it is affectation to decry it. Mankind in the long run
has been benefited, and all should be thankful. But with these major
changes have come minor ones that I trust can be mourned without risking
a charge of silliness. I need not name them. Mention of any one calls up
the rest, so closely related were they all. Who can think of the old
wood-pile, a maze of gnarly sticks, huge chopping-log, and the rudely
hafted axe, without a vision also of the old kitchen with its cavernous
fireplace, and, just outside the door, the mossy well with its ungainly
sweep! All these were practically out of date in my time, but here and
there were retained on more than one old farm I knew, and are still in
use within walking distance of my home.
To many, perhaps, a wood-pile is but a pile of wood; but it is something
more. Can you not see that the ground is depressed, as though the earth
had been beaten down by the continued blows of axe and beetle? Do you
not notice that the outlying weeds are different from those that are
scattered elsewhere about the dooryard? Here, there is not only a
wood-pile now, but there has been one for many a long year, perhaps for
more than a century. Turn up the soil and you will find it black;
examine it with a lens, and you will find it filled with wood fiber in
every stage of decomposition. Dig deeper and you will find many a relic
of a by-gone generation. Pewter buttons that once shone like silver, the
pride of beaux who, though Quakers, loved a smart-looking coat; buckles
worn at the knee and upon the shoes; bits of spectacle rims that once
held circular glasses of enormous diameter; a thousand odds and ends,
indeed, of metal, glass, and china, discarded, one by one, as they were
broken; for the wood-pile was a dust-heap as well, and the last
resting-place of every small object that could not be burned.
My own earliest recollection of outdoor sport is of “playing house”
about the generous heap of gnarly logs and crooked branches that had
been brought from the woods during the winter. At some convenient corner
the loose earth would be scooped away, water brought until the hollow
was filled, and a long row of mud pies molded in clamshells, the product
of a happy morning’s work. It was usually when thus engaged that some
curious object would be brought to light and referred for explanation to
the wood-chopper, if he were present. I can see two old men now, whose
sole occupation in their later years, so far as I can recall, was to
split wood. These two men, Uz Gaunt and Miles Overfield, were “master
hands with an axe,” as they promptly said of themselves. With one foot
resting upon the chopping-block, and leaning upon his axe, Uz or Miles
would critically examine whatever I had found; and then, after silently
gazing into the distance to recall the past, with what an air of wisdom
would the information be forthcoming! Nor would either of these old men
ever promptly resume his labor. Such an interruption was sure to call up
a flood of memories, and delightful stories of long ago made me quite
forget my play. Nothing that my own or another’s brain could suggest
ever equaled in interest these old men’s stories. I can not clearly
recall a single one of them now, but simply the effect they produced and
the sad fact that, in their estimation, the present never favorably
compared with the days when they were young. And is it not ever so? If I
have learned nothing else since then I have learned this—that the
glorious future to which as a child I looked forward has proved
everything but what my fancy painted.
There was a comic side to my interviews with the wood-choppers which I
recall even now with grim satisfaction, for I think it was right that I
outwitted an unreasonably cross-grained aunt. Often my heart was sorely
troubled because, in the midst of a most exciting story, Aunt would call
out, “Thee is hindering Miles at his work; he doesn’t like to be
bothered;” all of which was in the interest of the work being done, and
not Miles’s comfort. Not like to be bothered, indeed! Neither he nor Uz
disapproved of loitering, for both were old, and Aunt knew this as well
as they. Before summer was over, a stratagem was devised that succeeded
admirably. I had merely to take my place on the off side of the
wood-pile, where I was quite out of sight, and Miles or Uz would work,
oh, so diligently! at the light wood for half a day, which needed next
to no exertion, and all the while could talk as freely as when taking
his nooning. Perhaps it was not well, but, young as I then was, I
learned that in human nature the real and the apparent are too often as
widely apart as the poles.
The wild life that forty years ago lurked in the woods and swamps of the
old farm was not different from what is still to be found there, but
there has been a great decrease in the numbers of many forms. The wild
cat and fox, perhaps, may be considered as really extinct, although both
are reported at long intervals in the immediate neighborhood. These, it
is certain, are stragglers—the former from the mountains to north, the
latter from the pine regions toward the sea-coast. But it has not been
long since the raccoon was regularly hunted during the moonlit winter
nights and the opposum found security in half the hollow trees along the
hillside. The dreaded skunk was then abundant. None of these, however,
can be said to be of common occurrence now, and their discovery produces
a ripple of excitement at present, while in my early days their capture
excited scarcely a word of comment. Then the old wood-pile was not
infrequently the hiding-place of one or more of these “varmints,” which
raided the hen-roost, kept the old dog in a fever of excitement, and
baffled the trapping skill of the oldest “hands” upon the farm. Now, at
best, when the last sticks are cut and stored in the woodshed, the
burrow of a rat is all we find.
With what glee do I still recall an autumn evening, years ago, when the
unusually furious barking of the old mastiff brought the whole family to
the door! In the dim twilight the dog could be seen dashing at and
retreating from the wood-pile, and at once the meaning of the hubbub was
apparent. Some creature had taken refuge there. A lantern was brought,
and as every man wished to be the hero of the hour, my aunt held the
light. The wood-pile was surrounded; every stick was quickly overturned,
and finally a skunk was dislodged. Confused or attracted by the light, I
do not know which, the “varmint” made straightway for the ample skirts
of the old lady, followed by the dog, and, in a second, skunk, dog,
lady, and lantern were one indistinguishable mass. My aunt proved the
heroine of the evening, nor did the men object. I often pause at the
very spot, and fancy that “the scent of the roses” doth “hang round it
still.”
A wood-pile, if it be not too near the house, has many attractions for
birds of various kinds, and I am at a loss to know why the
whip-poor-will should, of recent years, have forsaken it. Formerly, the
first of these birds heard in early spring was that which perched upon
the topmost stick and whistled his trisyllabic monologue from dark to
dawn. Now they frequent only the retired woodland tracts. Various
insect-eating birds continually come and go, attracted by the food they
find in the decayed wood, but the house-wren remains throughout its
summer sojourn here—that is, from April to October; while during the
colder months the winter wren takes the other’s place. These little
brown birds are exceedingly alike in appearance, in habits, and in size,
and I shall never forget my communicating the fact that they were not
the same to Miles Overfield. It was almost my last conversation with
him.
“Not the same?” he exclaimed. “You might as well tell me that a
snow-bird isn’t a chippy in its winter dress!”
“They are not, indeed!” I replied, astonished to hear so remarkable a
statement.
“So you set up book-learnin’ against me about such things as that, eh?”
Miles remarked, with unlimited scorn in both his voice and manner; and
from that time I lost favor in his eyes. Such crude ideas concerning our
common birds are still very common, nor is it to be wondered at.
Knowledge of local natural history is still at a discount. Is there a
country school where even its barest rudiments are taught?
The heaped-up logs that, burning brightly, made cheery my room when I
sat down for a quiet evening’s meditation, are now a bed of ashes and
lurid coals. They typify the modern wood-piles about our farms—mere
heaps of refuse sticks and windfall branches of our dooryard trees. Fit
for kindling, perhaps, but never for a generous fire upon an open
hearth. As I linger over them, the irrecoverable past, with all its
pleasures to the fore, comes back with painful vividness. The fantastic
shapes of the ruddy coals, the caverns in the loose ashes, the shadows
of the andirons, the filmy thread of smoke, are a landscape to my fancy,
upon which my eyes can never dwell again. In the faint moaning of the
wind that fills the chimney corner I hear a voice, long stilled, whose
music led me dancing through the world. Place and people are alike
changed. “All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PART II.
IN SPRING.
-------
The April Moon.
Of the thirteen moons of the year, not one is of such significance to
the outdoor naturalist as that of April. I think that there can be no
doubt but that a clear sky, rather than temperature, is the important
factor in the migratory movement of our birds that come from the South
in spring. Certainly the morning of April 14th, of this year, was cool
enough to have retarded birds sensitive to cold. Ice formed on shallow
ponds and a heavy frost rested upon all the upland fields; yet at
sunrise the old beeches were alive with those beautiful birds, the
yellow red-polled warblers. Nor were they numb or dumb. There was not an
instant that they rested, nor a moment that they did not sing. The April
moon, too, has the merit of brightening the marshes, when in fullest
force the frog-world comes to the fore, and perhaps never are these
slimy batrachians so noisy as when the night is warm, the sky clear, and
the moon full in April. Take a midnight ramble then, and see if I am not
right. Of course, no one wishes to be confined to the company of
croaking frogs, but other creatures will doubtless cross your path, and
I assume the reader does not live in an utterly desolate region. My
reference to frogs may seem to imply contempt, but it is not deserved.
If they are not overwise, neither are they wholly stupid, and it is well
for all men to be chary of their judgments. There are times and
occasions when a frog may outwit a philosopher. Try to catch one on
slippery mud, and see which sprawls the more gracefully.
I recently rambled for half a night over acres of wild marsh, and, while
I often wished myself at home or that I could grasp the arm of a friend,
yet am heartily glad, now that it is over, that I undertook to trespass
upon the haunts of owls, frogs, bitterns, and a host of minor creatures.
But let me be more explicit, and a word further concerning frogs. In the
tide marshes, where the shallow water has been warmed by the noonday
sun, the pretty little _hylodes_ were holding high carnival. I strolled
leisurely, at this stage of my ramble, to the water’s edge, but only to
find that the creatures could only be heard, not seen; unless, indeed,
the trembling specks upon the glimmering pools, which faded out at my
approach, were they. The piercing shrillness of their united songs was
something wonderful. It was not so much a chorus as the wildest orgies
of Lilliputian fifers. At times the song of this same frog is the sharp
clicking of a castanet, hence their name in zoölogy, _Acris crepitans_,
but none were crepitating that night. Yesterday I waded into a wet
meadow and crouched upon a projecting hassock. Thousands of the fifing
frogs were about me, but I could see none. I long sat there, hoping that
my patience would be rewarded in time, and so it was. At last one came
cautiously from its hiding-place in the submerged grass, thrusting but
its head above the water’s surface, and scanned closely its
surroundings. It eyed me most suspiciously, and then slowly crawled out
upon outreaching grass until quite above the water. It seemed very long
before it was suited to its perch but when comfortably fixed, appeared
to gulp in a great mouthful of air; in fact, must have done so, for
immediately an enormous globular sac formed beneath its lower jaw. The
sunlight being favorable, I could see that the sac contained about two
drops of water. Then the fifing commenced. The motion of the mouth was
too slight to be detected, but the membranous globe decreased or
increased with each utterance. At no time did it wholly disappear.
Noting so much, I then moved slightly to attract the creature’s
attention. Immediately it ceased fifing, but the sac remained slightly
diminished in size. As I was again perfectly quiet, its confidence
returned, and the shrill monotonous “peep!” was resumed, but pitched in
even a higher key, as though to make good the loss of time my slight
interference had caused.
When Peter Kalm, the Swedish naturalist, was studying the natural
history of New Jersey, he was much struck with the noises made by
certain small frogs which he heard, and supposed that he saw; but it
would appear, from a recent study of the subject by Prof. Garman, of
Cambridge, Mass. that Kalm attributed the voices of one species to a
very different and much larger frog. The reasons given for this opinion
by Prof. Garman are conclusive; that author remarks; “Apparently the
frog Kalm heard was not the one he caught. The cry is that of _Hyla
Pickeringii_; the frog taken was probably ... the leopard, frog.” So
far, Garman; but I am convinced my friend is mistaken, and that Kalm
heard the shrill peeping of the little _Acris crepitans_, which is
extraordinarily abundant, while, in the locality where Kalm was,
Pickering’s _hyla_ is comparatively rare.
I lingered long by the resounding marsh—so long that the chilly damp
provoked an aguish pain, and admonished by it I turned toward the
leafless trees upon the bluff, where I hoped to find a drier atmosphere.
The moon was well upon her westward course when I reached higher ground,
and what a change from the open meadows to gloomy woodland! The dark
shadows of noonday are not repeated during a moonlit night. They are not
only less distinct, but quivering, as though they, too, shivered as the
air grew cold. It is not strange that one peoples the distance then with
uncouth shapes, and sees a monster wherever moves a mite. However one
may argue to himself that this is the same wood-path down which he daily
passes without a thought, and that since sunset no strange creatures can
have come upon the scene, he sees a dozen such, it may be, in spite of
every effort to laugh them out of existence. Let a spider crawl over
your face at noon, and you brush the creature from you almost
unconsciously. Let a filmy cobweb rest upon your damp forehead at
midnight, and you struggle to be rid of it, as though bound with a rope.
The mingled sounds of myriad frogs, the hooting of owls, the rustling
leaves beneath the shrew’s light tread, even the chirping of a dreaming
bird, can not assure you. Every tree is the ambush of a lurking elf;
ghosts and hobgoblins follow in your steps. I have abundant sympathy for
those who, walking through moonlit woods, whistle to keep their courage
up.
Such, in a measure, were my own feelings until I reached a glade where
the light fell softly upon the wind-swept sod. There the immaterial
world vanished, and I was no longer the companion of uncanny sprites.
Resting from a long journey, yet not disposed to sleep, a pair of
woodcocks stalked leisurely across my path without deigning to notice my
approach. I drew back a pace or two, and watched them pass by. They did
not leave the glade, but seemed to be scanning every foot of it, perhaps
discussing its merits as a summer resort. Then first one and then the
other took a short upward and circuitous flight, and in a few seconds
returned. This was frequently done. Was it to hail passing migrants? I
ask this seriously, for I have known several pairs to frequent a cluster
of rhododendrons all through the month of March, and yet none nested
until late in April: _per contra_, I have found their eggs in February.
The movements of this pair, as I saw them, were mysterious, but I could
do nothing in so uncertain a light toward unraveling the mystery, and
contented myself with attracting their attention. I whistled shrilly but
a single note, and as if shot the birds came to a halt. I whistled
again, and they drew nearer to me, as I thought; but if so, I became no
mystery to them, and upward and outward over the meadows, with a great
whirring of their wings, they vanished.
This was so trivial an incident that, had it no sequel, would not be
worthy of record. I have said I whistled shrilly a single note. It
roused a sleeping cardinal near by, which straightened its crest, shook
out its rumpled down, stared into vacant space, and whistled in return.
I quickly replied, and so we had the woods to echo with our calls. “What
can the matter be?” asked another and another of these birds, until the
whole hillside sounded with their cries. I was lonely no longer. The
moon shone with added luster, the grewsome shadows of the dwarfed cedars
fled, and, but for the twinkling of a million stars, I might have
thought it day. But the pleasing fancy was of short duration. Bird after
bird resumed its slumbers. Silence and a deeper gloom reigned in the
forest, nor did my heart cease to beat nervously until I reached my
home.
Concerning Small Owls.
It may be April according to the almanac, and yet midwinter, judging by
the thermometer; and perhaps, as a rule, March winds continue their
chilly gustiness until the fourth month is well advanced. I have scoured
a weather-wise neighborhood for some “saying” about this feature of our
climate, but gathered nothing not absolutely childish; but, if so run
the days, the nights of April have a merit peculiarly their own; by the
light of the waxing moon, let the temperature be high or low, the
north-bound migratory birds begin to come. I saw a few of them during
the last week in March; but it was when the April moon was eight days
old that field sparrows trooped hitherward by thousands, and how the
bare upland fields rang with their glee!
There is another happy feature of spring’s initial days. The winds, be
they never so boisterous from dawn to sunset, rest during the night, and
nocturnal life rejoices. What a mighty volume of sound arises from the
marshes when the wind-tossed waters are at rest! The tiny hylodes, the
smallest of our frogs, is fairly ecstatic now, and, were there no other
voices to be heard, this creature alone would dispel all feeling of
loneliness.
But what of a ramble during an April night? After an almost tempestuous
day, there was little promise of anything akin to adventure, judging the
landscape from my open door. However confirmed in the strolling habit
might be the saunterer, rambling at night, with but frogs for company,
is scarcely tempting, even though the moon shines brilliantly. Then, it
occurred to me, is it not enough that the wind had ceased, and that
out-of-doors it is something more than merely April in name? Therefore,
expecting little and hoping less, I ventured abroad, directing my steps,
as usual, meadow-ward. And it was not with, as might seem at first, an
altogether undesirable and non-receptive frame of mind. One is far more
likely to be content with little, and not wholly disappointed if his
walk proves without adventure. But the latter is seldom or never the
result. It is a strange night that finds the whole world asleep.
Certainly I never found it so before, and did not to-night. By the pale
light of the cloud-wrapped moon, stately herons wended their way from
the river to the meadows, and twice a little owl hooted at me as I
passed by the hollow hickory that stands as a lonely sentinel in the
midst of a wide reach of pasture. Here was an instance when to be hooted
at was a positive pleasure. The little owlet questioned the propriety of
my being abroad at night, nor was he at all mealy-mouthed. He did not
complain merely, but scolded unmistakably; and hovering above me as well
as when flitting from branch to branch, he snapped his little beak most
viciously. It was evident that fear of myself did not influence the owl
at all, but he was provoked because my presence interfered with his
plans. The bird knew well enough that I would keep the mice away by
standing in full sight out in the open meadow. I have been puzzled, at
times, to interpret the chirps and twitters of excited birds, and this
irate little owl cried “Get out!” as plainly as man could speak it, and
I got out.
In all works treating of the intelligence of animals there is much said
of the mental status of parrots, and little or nothing of the mother-wit
of owls. Why this oversight is a mystery, unless it arises from the fact
that “from the nocturnal preferences of most owls their habits are very
slightly known, and many interesting facts are doubtless to be
discovered in this direction. More often heard than seen, even their
notes are only imperfectly known as yet.” Notwithstanding this, owls are
well known in a general way—better known, indeed, than any other family
of birds. Their appearance is striking, their expression intelligent,
and that they were selected, in ancient and more poetical times, as the
emblem of wisdom, is not to be wondered at. The bird of Minerva does not
belie its looks. To speak of an owl’s wisdom in a Pickwickian sense, is
to publish one’s own ignorance. I would that I might venture to give in
merited detail an account of the wise doings, if not sayings, of little
red owls that I have held captives for months. And, better yet, narrate
the summer histories of owls at freedom that nested in the old orchard.
Or write of the cunning ways of the handsome barn-owls, those beautiful
cosmopolite birds, that made their home in a hollow oak upon an upland
field.
To do this would be to place our common owls where, in the scale of
intelligence, they rightfully belong. Of all our birds, they are the
least governed by mere impulse, and pass their days, as it has appeared
to me, in a most methodical and reasonable manner. It has been admitted
by many a traveler that to shoot a monkey was too like murder; they
could not do it. Would that every farmer in the land had the same
feeling with reference to the owls; for the same reason holds good, only
to a less extent.
It is true that we know very little about the various cries of owls, but
every country lad, at least, knows that the bird’s utterances are not
merely slight variations of a typical hoot, or the _to-whit to-whoo_ of
the poets. Well I remember how, evening after evening, when in camp in
southern Ohio, the great horned owls made night melancholy rather than
hideous, by their sonorous _hoo-hoo-hoo!_ At first afar off, and then
nearer and clearer, sounded their incessant call, as, flitting from one
tall sycamore to another, they slowly approached the red glare of the
camp-fire. Their hooting varied not a whit, but merely grew more
distinct, and for long I thought them capable of no other utterance, but
how great an error this was evident, when at last one of these huge
birds perched in the oak that sheltered my tent. The melancholy
_hoo-hoo-hoo!_ was the same, but with this were a host of minor notes,
and these were once followed by a series of explosive, ill-tempered
ejaculations when the little red owls that had their home in this same
oak scolded without ceasing at the intrusion. I can liken the hubbub to
nothing but the subdued clamor of excited geese. In like manner I was
scolded by the little owl on the meadow hickory. The moonlit September
night on the bluff of Brush Creek was vividly recalled.
Owls need but to be more closely studied, and, if in confinement, to be
treated with kindness and attended by one person, to demonstrate that
all the wisdom seeming to lurk behind their expressive faces is really
there. In matters of animal intelligence I know that I am heterodox, for
I give the crow prominence equal to the parrot, and strongly doubt if
owls should stand much behind them.
A Hidden Highway.
A wide tract of meadows that skirt the river near my home, and upon
which much wealth and labor have been expended in years past, was the
abode of desolation in the eyes of the sturdy settlers two hundred years
ago, and so treacherous the footing in every direction—so the record
runs—that the hunted bears and deer would come to a stand rather than
plunge headlong into the trackless waste. With proper caution the tract
was finally explored, mapped, and ditched, and now there is small chance
of disaster unless the rambler is culpably negligent.
I hold that one should think kindly of a ditch. The commonly imputed
repulsiveness of such a waterway is more often wanting than present, and
nearly all that I have seen have teemed with interesting life. What are
the brooks, indeed, that turn a poet’s head, but Nature’s own ditches?
As to those of man’s creation, they need but a little time, and they
will assume every function of a natural watercourse.
As I stood recently upon rising ground overlooking a pasture meadow that
was brown as a nut with its carpet of dead grass, I noticed a long,
straight line of weed-like growths still showing a tinge of green, as if
the frost had spared a narrow strip of the exposed tract. Viewing it
from other points, it was evident that a ditch had once been dug where
these ranker grasses grew, and through long neglect it had finally been
choked with weeds and almost obliterated. It was a delightful discovery.
Armed with a spade, a hoe, and sundry tools of greater or less
efficiency, I set out to explore this one-time watercourse, thinking it
child’s play to move tons of matted weeds and mud. How much or how
little I accomplished it matters not, but the fierce onslaught of
unreasoning enthusiasm broke in the door of a zoölogical El Dorado.
Jetsam and flotsam from the yearly freshets, showers of wind-tossed
autumn leaves, a forest of rank growths that revel in the mud, all had
added their quota, unchecked, to the baneful work of damming the little
stream, which finally had been shut from view, but, as it proved, not
wholly overcome. A narrow, tube-like channel still remained, with the
mud below and upon each side almost as yielding as the water itself.
Here fish, turtles, and creeping things innumerable not only lived, but
wended their darksome way from the open ditch not far off to the basins
of the sparkling springs at the hill-foot. I had discovered a hidden
highway, a busy thoroughfare that teemed with active life.
Except with those forms of life that by their construction are solely
adapted to a subterranean existence, as the earth-worm, or to a fixed
one, as the oyster, we commonly associate our familiar forms of wild
animals with unlimited freedom of movement, and suppose that they have
the wide world before them to wander where they list; and, again, that
of creatures as high in the scale as fishes and upward the supposition
is that in proportion to their freedom of movement are their chances of
escape when pursued. Now these, like many another common impression, are
true in a general way, but fairly bristle with exceptions. For instance,
there are many extremely sluggish fishes, yet what creatures are more
agile and swift than the minnows in our brooks? And there are fishes
that can walk on the mud with their bodies entirely out of the water.
Dr. Gunther tells us that “the Barramunda is said to be in the habit of
going on land, or at least on mud-flats; and this assertion appears to
be borne out by the fact that it is provided with a lung.... It is also
said to make a grunting noise, which may be heard at night for some
distance.”
So far Australia; and now what of New Jersey mud-flats and the fishes
that frequent them? As I continued to explore the hidden highway of
snakes, turtles, and fishes, I found in almost every spadeful of mud and
matted weeds one or more brown-black fishes that were as much at home as
ever an earth-worm in the firmer soil. Blunt-headed, cylindrical,
thick-set, and strongly finned, these fishes were built to overcome many
an obstacle that would prove insuperable to almost any other. How,
indeed, they burrowed even in soft mud is not readily explained; that
they do advance head-foremost into such a trackless mass is
unquestionable.
How long these mud-fish tarry in such spots I can not say, but during
the long-dry summer this one-time ditch must be almost as dry as dust,
and then probably it is quite forsaken; but their powers of endurance
may be underestimated. Of the African “Lepidosiren” Dr. Gunther remarks:
“During the dry season specimens living in shallow waters which
periodically dry up form a cavity in the mud, the inside of which they
line with a protecting capsule of mucus, and from which they emerge
again when the rains refill the pools inhabited by them. While they
remain in this torpid state of existence the clay balls containing them
are frequently dug out, and if the capsules are not broken the fishes
imbedded in them can be transported to Europe, and released by being
immersed in slightly tepid water.”
The many mud-fishes that I tossed upon the dead grass had clearly no
liking for an atmospheric bath, and floundered about in a typical
fish-like fashion; but not for long. Finding no open water near, they
became quiet at once when by chance they fell into some little cavity of
the mud masses from which the water had not drained. All such fortunate
fishes seemed quite at ease, and remained motionless where their good
luck had brought them; but the moment I attempted to pick them up they
twisted like eels upon their muddy beds, and buried themselves
head-foremost with a rapidity that was simply marvelous. This perhaps is
what the reader would expect, but it struck me as a little strange,
because, when I startled others of these fishes as they rested among the
weeds or on the sand of the open ditches, they usually gave a twist of
the tail that dug a pit in a twinkling, and in this the fishes sank,
tail-foremost.
When in the mud these curious minnows can only feel their way, and if
they procure any food at all at such a time it can only be such objects
as come directly in contact with their mouths. But how different is it
when these same fishes are in open water! They are expert fly-catchers
then, and capture many an insect that would be lost to a trout or chub.
They have not to wait for flies to fall upon the surface, but seize
those that happen to alight upon overhanging blades of grass or any
projecting twig. The distance that they will leap above the water is
remarkable, the spring being preceded by a withdrawal from the object
and a slight sigmoid curvature of the body, involving, I suppose, the
same principle as that of a short run before jumping. Mud minnows two
inches in length, which I kept in an aquarium, were proved capable of
leaping above the water a distance equal to twice their length; but
others, much larger, could not or would not leap so far. So far as my
own observations extend, exhibitions of this leaping from the water to
seize insects are not often witnessed, and it was my aquarium studies
that led me to watch these fishes closely when in the muddy ponds and
ditches. Once, when so engaged, I saw the following: One of these
minnows, little more than an inch in length, sighted an insect at the
same moment that it was seen by a huge female minnow more than thrice
the other’s length. The little fellow had all the advantage, however, as
it was much nearer the fly, and at the proper instant away it leaped,
caught the insect, and sank back—but not to the water. That hungry
ogress was willing to be fed by proxy, as it were, and, permitting the
little minnow to swallow the fly, she promptly swallowed both.
Tiring of the fish at last, and having long since wearied of reopening
the ditch, I turned my attention to the other creatures that I had
unearthed. Among them were four species of turtles, each represented by
several individuals. One of these was the Muhlenberg tortoise, the
rarest of American chelonians. Probably just here, over a few hundred
acres of the Delaware meadows, there are more of them than in the whole
world besides. The fact of their great rarity makes them the more
interesting to a naturalist; but to-day they proved exceedingly stupid,
far more so than the others, which in a mild way resented my
interference, and pranced over the dead grass quite energetically,
reaching the nearest open ditch in good time, and to my surprise they
all seemed governed by a sense of direction. They went but little if any
out of their way. Not so with the “Muhlenbergs”; they seemed dazed for a
long time, and finally, after much looking about, they started, the four
together, in the wrong direction, and would have had a weary journey to
reach open water. Again and again I faced them about, but they would not
go as I wished. Such obstinate turtles I had never seen before, and I
almost felt convinced that they were impelled by some common impression
very different from that which actuated the others. As is often the
case, I was all at sea in my efforts to interpret their purposes.
Letting them alone, they waddled through the grass for a few yards only,
when they reached little pools that met all their needs.
About what time the summer birds have arrived, and golden-club blooms in
the tide-water creeks, gilding the mud-flats that have so long been
bare, the turtles, or three at least of our eight aquatic species, begin
“sunning” themselves, as it is usually said, but they continue the
practice through rainy and cloudy days. Every projecting stump, stranded
fence-rail or bit of lumber capable of bearing any weight is sure to be
the resting-place of one, and if there is room, of a dozen turtles. I
once counted seventeen on a fence-rail, and thirty-nine on a raft-log
that the freshets had stranded on the meadows. Why, at such a time,
should these creatures be so timid? They certainly have no enemies about
here, and their horny shields would effectually protect them if fishing
mammals like the mink and otter should acquire aldermanic tastes; and
yet, so far as I can determine by experimentation, there is scarcely an
animal more timid than the painted or spotted water-turtle. Fear, with
nothing to be afraid of, is a contradiction, and I am led to suggest
that the timidity is hereditary. Something over two centuries ago the
Delaware Indians hunted and fished these meadows without ceasing; and
there can still be gathered the bones of such animals as they ate from
the ashes of their camp-fires. Turtle-bones almost equal in number those
of our larger fishes. Have we a clew here to the mystery? Do the turtles
of to-day inherit a fear of man? This may seem an absurdity, or verging
toward it, but it is not. A critic at my elbow—a plague upon their
race!—reminds me that I once commented upon the tameness of the turtles
at Lake Hopatcong, in northern New Jersey, and adds, aggravatingly, that
that region was a favorite resort of the Indians. If this stricture
holds, then I can suggest for the Delaware Valley turtles that it is a
fear, born with each generation, of the railway cars that hourly rumble
over an elastic road-bed, and cause the whole meadows to tremble. Terror
may seize the turtles when they feel their world shake beneath them, and
this disturbance they may attribute to man’s presence. This is not so
rational, and I do know that turtles distinguish between men and
domestic animals. They are not afraid of cows; of this I have abundant
proof, although I do not accept as true the remark of Miles Overfield:
“Afeard o’ cattle? Not much. Why, I’ve seen tortles line a cow’s back,
when she stood flank-deep in the water.”
I had noticed that the narrow, tube-like channel of the obliterated
ditch grew less defined as I dug in one direction, so I paced off a rod
in advance and made a cross-section. Here it could not be traced, but a
half-dozen very small openings, circular in outline, could be seen, and
through some of these the water slowly trickled. I found a single
mole-cricket, and attribute to it and others of its kind these little
tunnels. Certainly more persistent burrowers do not exist, and I have
known them to cause mischief to a mill-dam which was attributed to
musk-rats. “They are,” says Prof. Riley, “the true moles of the insect
world, and make tortuous galleries, destroying everything that comes in
their way, cutting through roots, and eating the fine underground twigs,
as well as the worms and grubs, which they meet with during their
burrowings.”
A volume would not suffice to enumerate the invertebrate or insect-like
life that lived in this dark passage-way beneath the sod; nor do we
wonder at finding such low forms groping in utter darkness; but why
higher animals that are found, and far more frequently, in the open air
and sunlit waters should delight to crowd these same gloomy quarters, is
a problem not so easily solved. We are left to conjecture, and
invariably do so, and are often overwhelmed when an army of objections
confront our theories. Notwithstanding this, there is a pleasure in
reopening an obliterated ditch, in letting in the light upon a hidden
highway, for by so doing we also let in light upon ourselves, seeing
with clearer vision the wonderful world about us.
Weathercocks.
During a six-mile drive, recently, I passed by eleven barns, upon nine
of which were weathercocks. No two, I am positive, pointed in the same
direction, and only one was very near to being right. Such, at least,
was the conclusion, testing them by the compass, the movement of the
clouds, and the wetted fingers which my companion and myself held up.
Alas! I and my friend were at odds so far as the last test was
concerned. It is little wonder that weather-prophets are so apt to be at
loggerheads, if the direction of the wind admits of discussion. Could
the various shapes of these weathercocks have had to do with the matter,
assuming that the nine we saw were in working order? If so, what is a
reliable pattern? I remember a remarkable wooden Indian with one foot
raised as if the fellow was hopping, and with an impossible bow so held
as to indicate that an arrow was about to be discharged. This wooden man
obediently twirled to and fro in every passing breeze; but you were left
in a quandary as to whether the wind’s direction was indicated by the
uplifted foot or by the bow and arrow; for they pointed in opposite
directions. “That is the merit of the vane,” once said the owner of the
barn over which this “shapeless sculpture” towered; “you can use your
own judgment.” Of the weathercocks seen on our ride there were one deer,
two fishes, three arrows, a wild goose, and two gilded horses at full
gallop. Only the wild goose told the truth, or almost told it. Now, as
each farmer judges the weather of the day by the direction of the wind,
think of bringing the owners of these nine differing weathercocks
together! Each puts implicit faith in his own vane, and we all know what
subject is first broached when two or twenty men are gathered together.
Something like this would be the classification of the unhappy nine: Two
positive clear-weather folk, two hopefully ditto, and five that
predicted rain before night. Put it in another way: Four men would
think, if they did not call, five men fools; and, all being equally
obstinate, there would be the same division whatever was discussed. So,
at least, the world wags in one section of our country.
There is much more stress laid upon the direction of the wind, in this
matter of the weather, than is warranted by the facts. Those deadly
statistics, that are gall and wormwood to the weather-wise, prove this.
Even a northeast wind may blow for three days without one drop of rain.
When this happens, we hear of a “dry storm”—curious name for bright,
clear days, perhaps with a cloudless sky, that, by virtue of the cool
breeze, from the east, are well-nigh perfect. Or we are told that the
moon held back the water and the next storm will be doubly wet. Ay! even
that Jupiter or Mars had a finger in the pie and disturbed the proper
order of wind and rain. It is painful to think that so many thousands
still believe that not only ourselves, but even the poor weather, is
under the domination of the moon and stars. How little the planets must
have to do, to trouble themselves about our little globe! “I don’t like
to see that star so shiny,” a wiseacre recently remarked, pointing to
Venus; “it’s a bad sign”; but of what, the simpleton could not or would
not tell. And as to comets, or even meteors, if they are more numerous
than usual, they make hundreds miserable. The truth is, that the
valuable treatises upon weather, the outcome of patient study and
scientific method, still go a-begging, while the crudities of
weather-cranks find ready credence. And the day is still distant, I
believe, when it will be otherwise.
What can not be said of weathercocks as symbols of disappointment? To
how many a country-bred boy has fallen the unhappy lot of being
storm-bound when a fishing frolic has been planned! My initial grief was
that an April day proved stormy that should have been clear as crystal.
The time, the tide, the moon, all the essential and unessential
requirements of shad-fishing in Crosswicks Creek, were favorable, and
to-morrow, Saturday, I was to be one of the party. A mere onlooker, to
be sure, but what mattered that? I had heard of shad-fishing all winter
long, and now, being seven years old, was allowed to be one of the
party. O tedious Friday! Would school never be dismissed? O endless
Friday night! Had the sun forgotten to rise? And all Saturday it rained!
That horrid wooden Indian, of which we have heard, fairly grinned with
fiendish delight as it faced the leaden east and received the driving
rain with open arms. It never moved an inch from dawn to sunset. Yes,
once it moved. During a lull I slipped out-of-doors, and bribed an older
lad to stone the obstinate vane. One sharp pebble mutilated the
head-dress and sent the Indian spinning about, regardless of wind or
weather; but when at rest again the face was looking eastward. O
pestiferous weathercocks that point to the east on Saturday!
Why vanes should have been so generally shaped like a crowing
chanticleer as to give rise to the more common name of “weathercocks” is
not easily determined. Of a few explanations seen or heard, none had a
modicum of common sense. When and where, too, the first vane was set up,
whether cock or arrow, is an unsolvable problem. Possibly it is
necessary to grope backward into prehistoric times; although Rütimeyer
does not give the common fowl as one of the birds found in the _débris_
beneath the ancient lake-dwellings of Switzerland. It may be added, too,
that chickens are not weather prophets, as are geese and peacocks;
notwithstanding they figure somewhat conspicuously in all animal
weather-lore, and have done so since 250 B. C., if not earlier. Aratus,
in his Diosemeia, or Prognostics, for instance, claims that a cock, when
unusually restless or noisy, foretells a coming storm, and this nonsense
is believed to-day by a fair proportion of our rural population. Of
course, modifications of this are well-nigh innumerable, and one of
them, when a small boy, I found useful. If a cock came to the open
kitchen door, company was coming—such was the firm conviction of a trio
of aunts who ruled the household. Now, company-coming meant pie or
pudding, and to a small boy this means a great deal. Acting upon it, the
crowing of a cock was faithfully practiced in the woods, and then, while
my brother singled out a rooster and drove it to the door, I crowed
lustily from behind the lilac-bushes; and the _ruse_ brought pie and
pudding more than once, but not too often to weaken these credulous
women’s faith.
I have mentioned a dry storm with the wind due east. There was one such
at the close of the first week in April, 1889. The air was
exasperatingly chilly. Even the frogs in the marshes were silent, and
humanity was ill-natured and despondent. While standing on the lee side
of an old oak I chanced upon a glorious weathercock—one that would shame
the despairing thoughts of any reasonable man. That prince of winter
birds, a crested tit, sat long upon a leafless twig facing the cruel
east wind, sat there and sang, clinging, as for dear life, to the
swaying branch, _T’sweet here! T’sweet here!_ the burden of its song;
the ever-hopeful story of this incomparable bird. What if the east wind
did blow? Was there not, here and there, a trembling violet in the
woods; a filmy veil of white where the whitlow grasses bloomed; a
flashing of the maple’s ruddy fire where the fitful sunshine fell? All
these gave promise to the brave-hearted bird, of spring as coming, if
not quite here. Let me take the hint. Give me just such a weathercock
for each day of the year.
Apple-Blossoms.
During the whole of April, the old apple-trees in the lane are closely
watched, and not without a deal of impatience, too. “Will they blossom
freely?” is asked almost daily, and what a world of anticipation hinges
upon this wondrous wealth of bloom!
To linger in the lane when the old trees are flower-laden; when the air
is heavy with a honeyed scent; when the bees’ low hum fills the long,
leafy arch, and every summer bird is happiest—this is an experience too
valued to be lost; one that sweetens life until spring shall come again.
The trees are old. They have more than rounded a full half-century, and
now bend with the weight of many winters. They are ragged rather than
rugged; yet, game to the last, are again sturdily upholding to the
bright sunshine of merry May mornings a marvelous wealth of bloom.
As seen from the crests of the rolling hills beyond, this double row of
trees recalls a huge snow-bank, such as has often filled the lane in
winter—recalls such as I have seen at sunrise, when they were tinged
with a rosy light. In winter, I have often thought of the blossoming
trees in May: now I recall the lifeless beauty of midwinter snows. In
winter the beauty of the marble statue held me: now, the joy of a living
form.
But apple-blossoms bear well a close inspection. Better than a
comprehensive view from the neighboring fields is to draw near, to walk
beneath and beside them, to linger in their scented shade. Time after
time, until now, a shadow of doubt has crossed our paths, when we
gathered early bloom. The wail of winter winds still sounded in every
passing breeze, although we plucked violets from the greensward beneath
budding trees. Too often, in April, we are over-confident; but there is
little danger of disaster now. Apple-blossoms are the first assuring
gift of fruitful summer. Grim winter is powerless now, to wound us.
Tricksy April can play no heartless pranks.
What summer sound is more suggestive than the hum of bees? Certainly not
even the song of the returning birds. As I look among the flower-laden
boughs above me, I can see not only the bees from the hive, the true
honey-gatherers, but burly humble-bees go whizzing through the rosy
labyrinths, or, dipping down to a level with my upturned face, threaten
fierce vengeance if I draw too near. Again and again they come, one
after another, and each time, I think, a little nearer, yet never,
despite their bluster, venturing to sting. To be sure, I make no threats
in return, nor run away, and so my bold front may deter them, for they
really seem to read our thoughts at times. Not so their cousins, the
autumn wasps. They brook nothing. I remember, one October morning,
throwing a stone at and bringing down an apple, upon which, as it
happened, a wasp was feeding at the time. The ruffled insect came the
first to the ground, and not only promptly stung me when I stooped to
pick up the apple, but followed me across the lawn, into the house, and
darted most viciously at my face, time after time.
When the old bee-bench, with its half-dozen rude boxes, stood by the
gooseberry hedge in my grandfather’s garden, the lane, when the trees
were in blossom, was, as I recall that time, even more thronged by bees
than now, and the mighty humming of their wings forcibly suggested the
rapid flow of water; as the roar of the mill-dam, after a heavy rain. So
great a volume of sound, indeed, was there all day, that the night was
silent in comparison. So ran my thoughts; so returned vague visions of
past years, as I lingered in the lane to-day. But after all, may it not
be that I, rather than the conditions, have changed? How often have I
longed to hear the songs, to see the bloom, to catch the fragrant breeze
that held me spellbound when a boy; and all these later, fleeting years,
I have hoped for them in vain!
With the apple-blossoms come the birds’ nests, and who that has lived in
the country knew not of a robin’s home in some old apple tree? And did
ever a bird sing merrier strains than this same robin at sunrise? Or,
even better, as the sun shone forth again, after a shower, the rapid
roll of his rejoicing, as he perched upon his home-tree’s loftiest
branch.
It is the rule, apparently, that very old apple-trees have great hollows
in them. If the entire trunk is not a shell, then here and there, where
branches have decayed and fallen, caves of considerable depth are found,
and how quickly wild life tenants such snug quarters! A few of our
mammals, many birds, several snakes, besides one species of salamander,
and the tree-toad, have been found at home in hollow apple-trees. If,
therefore, such a tree stands not too near a dwelling, its occupants may
epitomize the fauna of a farm. Although, after a rain, I have found
pools of water in old trees, there were no fish, and these need not be
looked for, unless some venturous mud-minnow, that now can work its way
over narrow mud-flats, shall, in time, take to climbing trees, as does a
perch that is well known to ichthyologists. “In 1794, Daldorf,” says Dr.
Gunther, “in a memoir ... mentions that in 1791 he had himself taken an
Anabas in the act of ascending a palm-tree which grew near a pond. The
fish had reached the height of five feet above the water, and was going
still higher.”
When I peer into the hollow trees in the lane, here, at home, I only
expect to find birds, and seldom have been disappointed, except so far
as the English sparrow has ousted the old-time bluebird. It is
exasperating to think that the latter have been crowded out and now
gather in the more retired woodland areas to breed. What song better
fitted with apple-blossoms of a bright May morning, than that of the
bluebird? And now, we have instead, the ill-tempered chirping of an
alien sparrow!
But apple-blossoms are none the less beautiful because of the
unfortunate changes meddlesome men have brought about. They hold their
ancient glory still and yield, as of old, that rich, rare fragrance
which never cloys. Surely no one ever walked among rows of blooming
apple-trees, and said, “It is too sweet.” Not even of our native wild
crab-apple is this lightly to be said, and it is unquestionably of
deeper tints and richer fragrance than the average cultivated tree. I
know of one exception. At the end of the row upon one side of the lane,
there stands a vigorous apple-tree. It has more the appearance of the
trees in the forest than of those in an orchard, and if its fruit is not
quite so small as that of the wild crab, it is but one remove therefrom.
This tree rests its glory upon its blossoms, and well it may! Upon these
go out all its strength, offering, therefore, beauty to the eye, rather
than food for the body. It is a tree with a history, perhaps, not worth
relating. When set where it now stands, it appears to have been more
exposed to the wind than its companions and was twice blown down. When
last put back, my grandfather remarked, rather impatiently, “Now stay,
at least, if you never bear an apple!” And the tree stood, still stands.
What of the fruit it bears? Tough, wrinkled as a toad, and sour; it is
said that even the pigs refuse it, squealing in disgust when, by
mistake, they crunch it. So, if my grandfather’s muttered curse fell
upon the fruit, the tree revenged itself by adding beauty to its
blossoms, and to-day, though twice hoar-frost has chilled the open buds,
if judged by the eye alone, it stands, among a goodly number, brightest
of them all.
The Building of the Nest.
Those who have lived a part or all of their lives in the country know
from observation, while those who have spent their days in town know
from hearsay or books, that a very large proportion of our birds remain
with us only from April to October or later; while yet others, on the
approach of winter, come from the north to escape the rigors of an
arctic climate, and a considerable number of most interesting species
are strictly resident. This striking feature of bird life is by no means
confined to North America, and perhaps it is, in most respects, more
suggestive as observed on other continents. However this may be, it is
so noticeable an occurrence on our Atlantic seaboard, that the coming
and going of this or that bird has passed into our folk-lore, and more
than one weather proverb is based upon the arrival or departure of
wild-geese, fish-hawks, and the swallows.
Although very much more is now known of these seasonal movements of our
birds than was but a few years ago, it is not yet, and probably never
will be, possible to determine the “law” of migration, for the simple
reason that the springtide northward and autumnal southward flight of
our inland birds has not that element of regularity as to dates or
method that has been so frequently insisted upon. They come and go, but
beyond this we can be sure of nothing from year to year. Sooner or
later, our warblers, thrushes, and fly-catchers come as the world grows
green; sooner or later, as the meadows and upland grow drearily brown,
these same birds depart.
But if, as to birds collectively, we can not be positive in this matter
of the time, place, and manner of migration, we can feel moderately
confident of a return, summer after summer, of certain individual birds,
if they have escaped life’s perils in the mean while. Says Dr. Robert
Brown (Birds of Passage): “The individual swallow, it is now
ascertained, returns from the Canaries or North Africa to the very spot
on which it built its little mud mansion the previous summer; and,
according to the observations of the celebrated Jenner, marked birds
were caught at their old nests every year for three successive seasons.”
I find the home hillside luxuriantly green to-day, although the first
week of May has not yet passed. Even the tardy oaks are well in leaf,
and from every nook and corner of the woods and fields there floats the
merry song of a nesting bird. Among them, are there any friends of a
year ago? Surely I recognize one. Long before sunrise on the morning of
April 26th I heard a loud chatter near my chamber windows. There was no
mistaking the creature that uttered it, and I knew, although it had
rained violently all the night, and was still storming, that the
house-wren had come back to his old castle on the post. I peeped through
the shutter as soon as there was sufficient light, and there stood the
little bird, braving a keen east wind and singing with all his might.
Now, the day before there were no wrens near; not one was skulking along
the hillside looking for nesting sites. Had there by chance been even a
straggler ahead of time, as is not uncommon with many migratory birds,
it would have been heard, if not seen, for wrens are never silent for a
day, if indeed for any five minutes of it, unless asleep. Therefore I am
confident that the plucky bird that I saw in the dawn of April 26th had
been guided by the prominent landmarks, such as the river, meadows, and
the wooded bluff, and had come directly to his home of the past summer,
hastening, when once he started, to the inconspicuous box that is
perched upon a pole close to my house, and hidden by two great
locust-trees and a towering wild-cherry. No stranger wren while yet it
was dark could have found the spot and proved himself so promptly at
home, for early that same day, while yet alone, the bird commenced
house-cleaning, preparatory to the one great event of the coming
summer—nest-building.
While not quite true that all worth knowing of a bird is centered in the
few weeks occupied in rearing its young, certainly at no other time is
it seen to the same advantage. Every faculty is quickened then, and all
that a bird is capable of effecting is apparent. Something more
important than food-getting commands its attention, and reason is
exercised almost if not quite to the exclusion of instinct, for the nest
of every bird must meet its builder’s peculiar needs, and is not
fashioned blindly after the homes of its ancestors. It is true that a
family likeness runs through the nests of a given species of bird, but
to say of a deserted one in autumn this or that bird built it is a rash
procedure.
Not every bird builds a nest, although all lay eggs, and, as has been
intimated, all nests are not alike. Perhaps the cup-shaped structure
built of twigs and lined with fine grass may be said to be the typical
form, but many are the modifications of this simple pattern. And now
this beautiful May morning the birds are building. Not here and there a
sparrow or a thrush, but birds of many kinds, and building everywhere. I
can not even mention them by name, or my article would run into a
catalogue. Suffice it to say they are building in the barn and on it, in
my house and down in the chimney; under the floor of the bridge in the
lane is a nest, and the trees, shrubbery, and bare ground are all
occupied. There is now a nest for every nook and corner, and I would
that the young people of everywhere were my guests to-day, provided they
would live up to the law I long ago passed for my own government—eyes
on; hands off.
And now what of the building of particular nests? I know of twenty
within a stone’s-throw of my front door, and the making of each one had
its serious as well as comic side. At the very outset a conflict of
interests arose on account of some bits of material being equally
valuable in the minds of several birds; and when an oriole, a wren, and
an English sparrow wish to pull at the frayed end of a rope at the same
time, something more than a mere ripple of excitement is likely to
ensue. In short, nest-building brings out in a bird not only all its
belligerency, which during the rest of the year is dormant, but a great
deal of strategic skill as well, for many a time I have seen the smaller
bird succeed through cunning in outwitting the bully that depended on
mere strength of beak and claws.
The burden of each bird’s mind in spring being, “I must build me a
nest,” let us follow the wakeful wren that came on a stormy morning to
his old home. He evidently was sure of his mate, and was for four days
ceaselessly at work. Perhaps he found odd moments when he could eat, as
he constantly did to sing, but never a leisurely meal was his, I am very
sure. The old homestead must be made habitable again. And how he worked!
All the old rubbish of last summer was pulled from the box, and none of
it taken back, I fancy. While I watched the busy bird two days after his
arrival, I recalled an occurrence of last summer, and wondered if there
might be a repetition of it, with my aid; and at all events the bird’s
movements would tend to show whether it was the same wren or not. So I
placed tempting material for nest-building on a piece of very thin
board, and set it afloat in a huge basin. It was directly discovered;
the old wren was looking for it, I am sure now, but last year’s tactics
were not repeated as a whole. Then the bird alighted on the strands of
hemp and submerged them and almost itself, and only after many trials
hit upon the plan of dipping down and seizing a strand while on the
wing. Would it do this now, a year later? I was all impatience while the
wren flittered nervously about the basin, but was encouraged by its
contemplative manner. At last it attempted to alight on the mass, and I
felt angry at its stupidity and my own overconfidence. But no! it proved
only to be an attempt; last year’s experience was remembered, and strand
after strand was deftly picked up while the bird was flying. I am
confident now that I am listening, while I write, to the very wren that
comforted me last summer.
While some of our birds content themselves with but shallow depressions
in the ground, and many others place together so few sticks (and these
ill-arranged) that the nest might readily be overlooked, there is one
bird that is too lazy to do even so much, but drops an egg in the nest
of another bird. This is the habit, too, of the European cuckoo, but our
cuckoos are nest-builders, and the bird to which I have referred belongs
to a very different group. Few people seem to know it at all, and yet it
is abundant over a wide range of country, and has a dozen names, mostly
meaningless. The best, perhaps, of them is “cowpen bird,” a name
derived, I suppose, from the fact that the bird is often found in
pastures where there are cattle or sheep. Indeed, I have often seen them
standing upon the backs of cows and sheep, catching flies, I presume,
though they seem to be quite inactive when upon such a perch. Although
not nest-builders, they have something to do with the building of nests.
When that tireless songster the red-eyed vireo builds its pensile nest
on the hillside, the necessity for concealment does not occur to the
bird, and so its home is often invaded by the female cow-bird, and a
single egg dropped into the structure as soon as, if not before, it is
finished. Sometimes this is put up with, sometimes not. I have many
times found nests that were two-storied, the intrusive egg being, of
course, in the basement, and destroyed. This is one of the best examples
of bird wit of which I know. A vast deal is taken into consideration
while the decision is being reached to build a floor over the obnoxious
egg, and so prevent its hatching. There can be nothing of all this
ascribed to instinct, for then all such eggs would be destroyed by this
means, and the bird become extinct. On the other hand, it is but a very
small percentage that have the wit or courage to undertake the work,
which is evidence enough that, of a given species of bird, the variation
in intelligence among individuals is very marked. This, indeed, we see
on every hand when birds are building. Particularly noticeable is it
when the female bird stays at home and arranges the material which her
mate brings to her. This is mere drudgery to the male bird, and too
often worthless bits are brought which the toiling builder promptly
rejects, and not always with becoming patience either. She speaks her
mind in unmistakable tones, and if not heeded after the second or third
scolding, open war is declared on the spot, followed too often by a
wreck of all their hopes.
A word more. If people, young or old, would get a correct knowledge of a
wild bird’s ways, would know what is meant by animal intelligence, let
them study a pair of nest-building birds while they are at work. Let
them draw near, but not too near, and see how carefull
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