| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: Travels in a Tree-top
Author: Abbott, Charles C. (Charles Conrad)
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Travels in a Tree-top" ***
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note:
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.
The several full-page illustrations have been repositioned slightly to
avoid falling in mid-paragraph. The captions appeared on a separate
page. These illustrations were not included in the pagination. Multiple
unnumbered blank pages associated with them have been removed.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details.
[Illustration]
---------------------------------------------------------
BY CHARLES CONRAD ABBOTT
---------------------------------------------------------
THE FREEDOM OF THE FIELDS. With Frontispiece by Alice
Barber Stephens, and three photogravures. Buckram,
TRAVELS IN A TREE-TOP. With Frontispiece by Alice
Barber Stephens, and three photogravures. Buckram,
_Abbott’s Fireside and Forest Library_
THE FREEDOM OF THE FIELDS AND TRAVELS IN A TREE-TOP.
Two volumes in a box. 12mo. Buckram, ornamental,
$3.00
RECENT RAMBLES; Or, In Touch with Nature. Illustrated.
12mo. Cloth, $2.00
THE HERMIT OF NOTTINGHAM. A novel. 12mo. Cloth,
WHEN THE CENTURY WAS NEW. A novel. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00
A COLONIAL WOOING. A novel. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00
BIRD-LAND ECHOES. Profusely illustrated by William
Everett Cram. Crown 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, $2.00
THE BIRDS ABOUT US. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $2.00
_Abbott’s Bird Library._
THE BIRDS ABOUT US and BIRD-LAND ECHOES. Two volumes
in a box. 12mo. Cloth, gilt top, $4.00
_TRAVELS IN
A TREE-TOP_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
_An Old-fashioned Garden_
By Alice Barber Stephens
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRAVELS IN
⧫ ⧫ A ⧫ ⧫
TREE-TOP BY
CHARLES C. ABBOTT
[Illustration]
J. B. LIPPINCOTT CO.
PHILADELPHIA 1898
COPYRIGHT, 1894 AND 1897,
BY
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
CONTENTS
_Page_
_Travels in a Tree-top_ 9
_A Hunt for the Pyxie_ 61
_The Coming of the Birds_ 71
_The Building of the Nest_ 83
_Corn-stalk Fiddles_ 97
_The Old Kitchen Door_ 103
_Up the Creek_ 109
_A Winter-Night’s Outing_ 119
_Wild Life in Water_ 125
_An Old-fashioned Garden_ 133
_An Indian Trail_ 147
_A Pre-Columbian Dinner_ 155
_A Day’s Digging_ 167
_Drifting_ 173
_Footprints_ 187
_Bees and Buckwheat_ 195
_Dead Leaves_ 203
ILLUSTRATIONS
_Page_
_An Old-fashioned Garden_ Frontispiece
By Alice Barber Stephens
_The Chesapeake Oak_ 22
_The Old Drawbridge, Crosswick’s 116
Creek_
_The Camp-Fire_ 187
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER FIRST
_TRAVELS IN A TREE-TOP_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A pearly mist shut out the river, the meadows, and every field for
miles. I could not detect the ripple of the outgoing tide, and the
heartiest songster sent no cheerful cry above the wide-spreading and
low-lying cloud; but above all this silent, desolate, and seemingly
deserted outlook there was a wealth of sunshine and a canopy of
deep-blue sky. Here and there, as islands in a boundless sea, were the
leafy tops of a few tall trees, and these, I fancied, were tempting
regions to explore. Travels in a tree-top—surely, here we have a bit of
novelty in this worn-out world.
Unless wholly wedded to the town, it is not cheering to think of the
surrounding country as worn out. It is but little more than two
centuries since the home-seeking folk of other lands came here to trick
or trade with the Indians, wild as the untamed world wherein they dwelt;
and now we look almost in vain for country as Nature fashioned it. Man
may make of a desert a pleasant place, but he also unmakes the forest
and bares the wooded hills until as naked and desolate as the fire-swept
ruins of his own construction. It is but a matter of a few thousand
cart-loads of the hill moved to one side, and the swamp that the farmer
dreads because it yields no dollars is obliterated. He has never
considered its wealth of suggestiveness. “A fig for the flowers and
vermin. I must plant more corn.”
But here and there the tall trees are still standing, and their tops are
an untravelled country. I climbed an oak this cool midsummer morning;
clambered beyond the mists, which were rolling away as I seated myself
far above the ground, safe from intrusion, and resting trustfully on
yielding branches that moved so gently in the passing breeze that I
scarcely perceived their motion.
How much depends upon our point of view! The woodland path may not be
charming if the undergrowth too closely shuts us in. In all we do, we
seek a wider vision than our arm’s length. There may be nothing better
beyond than at our feet, but we never believe it. It is as natural to
ask of the distant as of the future. They are closely akin. Here in the
tree-top my wants were supplied. I was only in the least important sense
cribbed, cabined, and confined.
Wild life, as we call it, is very discriminating, and that part of it
which notices him at all looks upon man as a land animal; one that
gropes about the ground, and awkwardly at that, often stumbling and ever
making more noise than his progress calls for; but when perched in a
tree, as an arboreal creature, he is to be studied anew. So, at least,
thought the crows that very soon discovered my lofty quarters. How they
chattered and scolded! They dashed near, as if with their ebon wings to
cast a spell upon me, and, craning their glossy necks, spoke words of
warning. My indifference was exasperating at first, and then, as I did
not move, they concluded I was asleep, dead, or a dummy, like those in
the corn-fields. The loud expostulations gave place to subdued
chatterings, and they were about to leave without further investigation,
when, by the pressure of my foot, I snapped a dead twig. I will not
attempt description. Perhaps to this day the circumstance is discussed
in corvine circles.
It is difficult to realize the freedom of flight. Twisting and turning
with perfect ease, adapting their bodies to every change of the fitful
wind, these crows did not use their wings with that incessant motion
that we need in using our limbs to walk, but floated, rose and fell, as
if shadows rather than ponderable bodies. Until we can fly, or, rather,
ride in flying-machines, we cannot hope to know much of this flight-life
of birds, and it is the better part of their lives. But it was something
to-day to be with even these crows in the air. Following their erratic
flight from such a point of view, I seemed to be flying. We are given at
times to wonder a great deal about birds, and they have equal reason to
constantly consider us. Who can say what these crows thought of me? All
I can offer to him who would solve the problem is that their curiosity
was unbounded, and this is much if their curiosity and ours are akin. Of
course they talked. Garner need not have gone to Africa to prove that
monkeys talk, and no one can question that crows utter more than mere
alarm-cries.
A word more concerning crows. What so absurd, apparently, as this?
“A single crow betokens sorrow,
Two betoken mirth,
Three predict a funeral,
And four a birth.”
Yet it is a very common saying, being repeated whenever a few, or less
than five, fly over. It is repeated mechanically, of course, and then
forgotten, for no one seems to worry over one or three crows as they do
when a looking-glass breaks or the dropped fork sticks up in the floor.
Seems to worry, and yet I strongly suspect a trace of superstition
lingers in the mind of many a woman. Those who will not sit as one of
thirteen at a table are not dead yet. Can it be that all this weakness
is only more concealed than formerly, but none the less existent?
I watched the departing crows until they were but mere specks in the
sky, and heard, or fancied I heard, their cawing when half a mile away.
It is ever a sweet sound to me. It means so much, recalls a long round
of jolly years; and what matters the quality of a sound if a merry heart
prompts its utterance?
I was not the only occupant of the tree; there were hundreds of other
and more active travellers, who often stopped to think or converse with
their fellows and then hurried on. I refer to the great, shining, black
ants that have such a variety of meaningless nicknames. Its English
cousin is asserted to be ill-tempered, if not venomous, and both Chaucer
and Shakespeare refer to them as often mad and always treacherous. I saw
nothing of this to-day. They were ever on the go and always in a hurry.
They seemed not to dissociate me from the tree; perhaps thought me an
odd excrescence and of no importance. No one thinks of himself as such,
and I forced myself upon the attention of some of the hurrying throng.
It was easy to intercept them, and they grew quickly frantic; but their
fellows paid no attention to such as I held captive for the moment. I
had a small paper box with me, and this I stuck full of pin-holes on
every side and then put half a dozen of the ants in it. Holding it in
the line of the insects’ march, it immediately became a source of
wonderment, and every ant that came by stopped and parleyed with the
prisoners. A few returned earthward, and then a number came together,
but beyond this I could see nothing in the way of concerted action on
the part of the ants at large looking towards succoring their captive
fellows. Releasing them, these detained ants at once scattered in all
directions, and the incident was quickly forgotten. Where were these
ants going, and what was their purpose? I wondered. I was as near the
tree’s top as I dared to go, but the ants went on, apparently to the
very tips of the tiniest twigs, and not one that I saw came down laden
or passed up with any burden. It is not to be supposed they had no
purpose in so doing, but what? There is scarcely an hour when we are not
called upon to witness just such aimless activity,—that is, aimless so
far as we can determine.
Nothing molested these huge black ants, although insect-eating birds
came and went continually. One lordly, great-crested fly-catcher eyed
them meditatively for some seconds, and then my identity suddenly dawned
upon him. His harsh voice, affected by fear, was more out of tune than
ever, and, coupled with his precipitant flight, was very amusing. The
bird fell off the tree, but quickly caught himself, and then, as usual,
curiosity overcame fear. Students of bird-ways should never forget this.
The fly-catcher soon took a stand wherefrom to observe me, and, if
intently staring at me for thirty seconds was not curiosity, what shall
we call it? Is it fair to explain away everything by calling it mere
coincidence? It is a common practice, and about as logical as the old
cry of “instinct” when I went to school. To have said, when I was a boy,
that a bird could think and could communicate ideas to another of its
kind, would have brought down ridicule upon my head out of school, and
brought down something more weighty if the idea had been expressed in a
“composition.” I speak from experience.
To return to the cheerier subject of curiosity in birds: our large hawks
have it to a marked degree, and advantage can be taken of this fact if
you wish to trap them. I have found this particularly true in winter,
when there is a general covering of the ground with snow. Food, of
course, is not then quite so plenty, but this does not explain the
matter. An empty steel trap on the top of a hay-stack is quite as likely
to be tampered with as when baited with a mouse. The hawk will walk all
around it, and then put out one foot and touch it here and there. If we
can judge from the bird’s actions, the question, What is it, anyway? is
running through its mind. I once played a trick upon a splendid black
hawk that had been mousing over the fields for half the winter. It often
perched upon a stack of straw instead of the lone hickory near by. Early
one morning I placed a plump meadow-mouse on the very top of the stack,
to which I had attached a dozen long strands of bright-red woollen yarn
and a bladder that I had inflated. This was secured to the mouse by a
silk cord, and all were so concealed by the snow and straw that the hawk
noticed the mouse only. The bird was suspicious at first: it was too
unusual for a mouse not to move when a hawk hovered above it. Then the
bird alighted on the stack and walked about the mouse, pecking at it
once, but not touching it. Then putting out one foot, he seized it with
a firm grip, the talons passing through the carcass, and at the same
time spread his wings and moved slowly towards the lone hickory that
towered near by. I was near enough to see every movement. It was evident
that the hawk did not look down at first, and saw nothing of the
streaming threads and bobbing bladder; but it did a moment later, and
then what a quickening of wings and hasty mounting upward! The hawk was
frightened, and gave a violent jerk with one foot, as if to disengage
the mouse, but it was ineffectual. The sharp claws had too strong a
hold, and the effect was only to more violently bob the bladder. Then
the hawk screamed and dashed into the trees near by, and was out of
sight.
A curious and disappointing occurrence, while sitting aloft, was the
frequent discovery of my presence by birds and their sudden right-about
movement and departure. Occasionally I could see them coming as if
directly towards me, but their keen eyes noticed the unusual object, and
they would dart off with a promptness that showed how completely at home
they were while on the wing. Even the bluebirds, usually so tame, had
their misgivings, and came to rest in other trees. But if the birds were
not always about and above me, there were many below, and the sweet song
of the wood-robin from the tangled underbrush seemed clearer and purer
than when sifted through a wilderness of leaves.
It was not until noon that the wood and open fields became silent or
nearly so, for the red-eye came continually, and, whether insect-hunting
in the tree or on the wing, it seemed never to cease its singing, or
querulous cry, which more aptly describes its utterance. To hear this
sound throughout a long summer day is depressing, particularly if you
hear nothing else, for the steady hum of insect-life hardly passes for
sound. It was only when I listened for it that I was aware that millions
of tiny creatures were filling the air with a humming that varied only
as the light breeze carried it away or brought it nearer and clearer
than before. There is a vast difference between absolute and comparative
or apparent silence. The former is scarcely ever a condition of the open
country unless during a still, cold winter night, and never of one of
our ordinary woodland tracts. We do find it, however, in the cedar
swamps and pine-land, even during summer. I have often stood in “the
pines” of Southern New Jersey and tried to detect some sound other than
that of my own breathing, but in vain. Not a twig stirred. The dark
waters of the pools were motionless; even the scattered clouds above
were at rest. It was to be absolutely alone, as if the only living
creature upon earth. But ere long a gentle breeze would spring up, there
was a light and airy trembling of the pines, and the monotone of a
whispered sigh filled the forest. Even this was a relief, and what a joy
if some lonely bird passed by and even lisped of its presence! The
_dee-dee_ of a titmouse at such a time was sweeter music than the choral
service that heralds the coming of a bright June morning.
At noon, the day being torrid, there was comparative silence, and yet as
I looked about me I saw ceaseless activity in a small way. The ants were
still journeying, and red admiral and yellow swallow-tailed butterflies
came near, and the latter even passed high overhead and mingled with the
chimney-swifts. Had I been on the ground, walking instead of waiting, I
should have sought some sheltered spot and rested, taking a hint from
much of the wild life I was watching.
AT NOONTIDE.
Where cluster oaks and runs the rapid brook,
Repose the jutting rocks beneath the ferns;
Here seeks the thrush his hidden leafy nook,
And wandering squirrel to his hole returns.
Afar the steaming river slowly wends
Its tortuous way to mingle with the sea;
No cheerful voice its languid course attends;
The blight of silence rests upon the lea.
Where the wide meadow spreads its wealth of weeds,
Where the rank harvest waves above the field,
The testy hornet in his anger speeds,
And stolid beetle bears his brazen shield.
Give them the glowing, fiery world they love,
Give me the cool retreat beside the stream;
While sweeps the sun the noontide sky above,
Here would I linger with the birds and dream.
[Illustration: _The Chesapeake Oak_]
And now what of the tree itself? Here I have been the better part of a
long fore-noon, and scarcely given this fine young oak a thought. A
young oak, yet a good deal older than its burden; an oak that was an
acorn when the century was new, and now a sturdy growth full sixty feet
high, straight of stem to its undermost branches and shapely everywhere.
Such trees are not remarkable of themselves, though things of beauty,
but at times how suggestive! Think of pre-Columbian America; then there
were oaks to make men marvel. “There were giants in those days.”
Occasionally we meet with them even now. A year ago I camped on the
shore of Chesapeake Bay near an oak that measured eighteen feet six
inches in circumference four feet from the ground, and in St. Paul’s
church-yard, not a great way off, are five big oaks, one of which is
twenty feet around shoulder high from the roots. Such trees are very
old. The church-yard was enclosed two centuries ago, and these were big
trees then, and so older by far than any monument of white men on the
continent, except possible traces of the Norsemen. If a tree such as
this in which I have been sitting is full to overflowing with
suggestiveness, how much more so a noble patriarch like that upon the
bay shore! It is usually not easy to realize the dimensions of a huge
tree by merely looking at it, but this mammoth impressed one at first
sight. The branches were themselves great trees, and together cast a
circular patch of shade, at noon, three paces more than one hundred feet
across. As a tree in which to ramble none could have been better shaped.
The lowest branches were less than twenty feet from the ground, and
after reaching horizontally a long way, curved upward and again outward,
dividing finally into the leaf-bearing twigs. Course after course
continued in this way, the size decreasing gradually, and the whole
forming, as seen from a distance, a magnificent dome-shaped mass.
Comparisons with the tree’s surroundings were full of suggestiveness.
The ground immediately about was densely covered with rank ferns and the
acorn sprouts of one or two years’ growth. Yet, where they were, it
seemed but a smoothly-shaven lawn, so insignificant were they when seen
with the tree; and the sproutland beyond, which would otherwise have
been a wood, was absolutely insignificant. Yet, in truth, everything
here was on a grand scale. The ferns were tall, and to prove it I sat
upon the ground among them and so shut out all view of the great tree
and its surroundings. I spent many hours seated upon different branches
of this oak, and every one had features all its own. From those nearest
the ground I surveyed the bird-life in the thicket beneath, and was
entertained by a pair of nesting cardinal red-birds that came and went
as freely as if quite alone, and whistled cheerfully morning, noon, and
night. I fancied I made friends with these birds, for early one morning
the male bird came to camp, as if to inspect my nest, thinking I was not
up, and he expressed his favorable opinion in most glowing terms. A pair
of doves, too, had a nest in sight, and their melancholy cooing seemed
out of tune here, where Nature had done her work so well. Once, at
least, while I was there, the bald eagle came for a few moments, and,
big bird as he is, was not conspicuous, and had not a flash of sunlight
fallen upon his yellow beak and white head, I should not have been aware
of his presence, as he certainly was not of mine. What I took to be a
duck-hawk, a few days later, interested me much more. He was a splendid
bird, and tarried but a short time. The leaves so concealed him that I
was not sure, having no field-glass at the time, but do not think I was
mistaken. The eagle did not appear to disturb the fish-hawk’s temper in
the least, but the great hawk did, and he was much excited until the
bird disappeared in the steam and smoke that as a great cloud rested
above Baltimore.
The birds of this retired spot may be divided into two classes,—those of
the oak and of the sproutland growths about it, and the birds of the
air, principally swallows, which hung over the tree as a trembling
cloud. Never were swallows more numerous, except when flocked prior to
migration. In the tree and bushes were always many birds, yet often they
were far from each other. This gave me an excellent idea of what a great
oak really is. Birds quite out of sight and hearing of each other were
resting on branches from the same trunk. Although the middle of July,
there was no lack of song, and second nesting of many familiar birds is,
I judge, more common in Maryland than in New Jersey. Of all the birds
that came, the little green herons were the most amusing. A pair
doubtless had a nest near by, or young that were not yet on the wing.
They walked sedately along the level branches, as a man might pace up
and down his study, buried in deep thought. I listened carefully for
some expression of content, but they made no sound except when they were
startled and flew off. I was much surprised to find the beach-birds
occasionally darting among the branches, and once a spotted sandpiper
rested a moment near me. These birds we associate with water and the
open country, although this species is less aquatic than its fellows.
They were always in sight from the door of my tent, and always an
earlier bird than I. I recall now standing upon the beach long before
sunrise, marking the promises of the coming day, as I interpreted them.
The fish-hawks were ahead of me; so, too, the little sand-pipers. Their
piping at this time was very clear and musical. It was a delightful
accompaniment to the rippling water. The dear old song-sparrows were
quiet, and I was very glad; but with the first flooding of the sea with
sunlight they all sang out, and the Chesapeake was afar off and I in the
home meadows on the Delaware. I prefer novelty when away. It is well to
utterly forget, at times, that which we most prize. What boots it to
stand on the hill-top, if your thoughts are forever in the lowlands?
Twice, from the branches of the old oak, I saw a splendid sunset, but
nothing equal to the sunrise of to-day. With many a matter of this life
the beginning is better than the end. We had a superb sunset last night.
The color was gorgeous, but it was plain and commonplace compared to the
sunrise of to-day. Perhaps no tint was really brighter in one case than
in the other, but my mind was. The sunset was too closely linked with
the death of the day; there was the idea of a grand finale before the
curtain drops, and this tends to dull enthusiasm. It is not so with
sunrise. It is all freshness,—a matter of birth, of beginning, of a new
trial of life,—and with so happy an entrance, the exit should be one of
gladness only; but there is no trace of pity in Nature. In awful
certainty the night cometh.
I was not surprised at every visit to this tree to find some new form of
life resting on its branches. A beautiful garter-snake had reached a low
branch by climbing to it from a sapling that reached a little above it.
There was no break in the highway that led to its very summit. The grass
leaned upon ferns, these upon shrubs, these again upon saplings, and so
the tree was reached. Any creeping thing could have climbed just eighty
feet above the earth with far less danger than men encounter clambering
over hills.
And not only a zoological garden was this and is every other old tree,
but the oak had its botanic garden as well. When we consider that many
of the branches were so wide and level that one could walk upon them, it
is not strange that earth, dead leaves, and water should lodge in many
places. Indeed, besides the two gardens I have mentioned, the oak had
also an aquarium. But I cannot go into particulars. The parasitic
plant-life—not truly such, like the mistletoe—was a striking feature.
Maple seeds had lodged and sprouted, and in a saucer-shaped depression
where dust and water had lodged a starved hawkweed had got so far
towards maturity as to be in bud.
* * * * *
It may appear as utter foolishness to others, but I believe that trees
might in time become tiresome. Whether in leaf or bare of foliage, there
is a fixedness that palls at last. We are given to looking from the tree
to the world beyond; to hurrying from beneath their branches to the open
country. To live in a dense forest is akin to living in a great city.
There is a sense of confinement against which, sooner or later, we are
sure to rebel. We long for change. The man who is perfectly satisfied
has no knowledge of what satisfaction really is. Logical or not, I
turned my attention from the tree at last, and thought, What of the
outlook? Directly north, in the shallow basin, hemmed in by low hills,
lies the town. A cloud of smoke and steam rests over it, and barely
above it reach the church-spires and tall factory chimneys, as if the
place was struggling to be free, but only had its finger-tips out of the
mire of the town, of which I know but little. My wonder is that so many
people stay there, and, stranger still, wild life not only crowds its
outskirts, but ventures into its very midst. In one town, not far away,
I found the nests of seventeen species of birds, but then there was a
large old cemetery and a millpond within its boundaries. Time was when
through the town before me there flowed a creek, and a pretty wood
flourished along its south bank. The creek is now a sewer, and an open
one at that, and yet the musk-rat cannot quite make up his mind to leave
it. Stranger than this was seeing recently, in a small creek discolored
by a dyeing establishment, a little brown diver. How it could bring
itself to swim in such filth must remain a mystery. A queer old
character that had lived all his life in the country once said of the
nearest town, “It is a good place to dump what we don’t want on the
farm.” This old fellow would always drive me out of his orchard when
apples were ripe, but I liked him for the sentiment I have quoted.
I am out of town now, and what of the world in another direction?
Turning to the east, I have farm after farm before me; all different,
yet with a strong family likeness. This region was taken up by English
Quakers about 1670 and a little later, and the houses they built were as
much alike as are these people in their apparel. The second set of
buildings were larger only and no less severely plain; but immediately
preceding the Revolution there were some very substantial mansions
erected. From my perch in the tree-top I cannot see any of the houses
distinctly, but locate them all by the group of Weymouth pines in front
and sometimes both before and behind them. The old-time Lombardy poplar
was the tree of the door-yards at first, but these, in this
neighborhood, have well-nigh all died out, and the pines replace them.
One farm-house is vividly pictured before me, although quite out of
sight. The owner made it a home for such birds as might choose to come,
as well as for himself, and what royal days have been spent there! There
was no one feature to attract instant attention as you approached the
house. The trees were thrifty, the shrubbery healthy, the roses
vigorous, and the flowering plants judiciously selected; but what did
strike the visitor was the wealth of bird-life. For once let me
catalogue what I have seen in and about one door-yard and what should be
about every one in the land. At the end of the house, and very near the
corner of the long portico, stood a martin-box, occupied by the birds
for which it was intended. In the porch, so that you could reach it with
your hand, was a wren’s nest, and what a strange house it had! It was a
huge plaster cast of a lion’s head, and between the grim teeth the bird
passed and repassed continually. It promenaded at times on the lion’s
tongue, and sang triumphantly while perched upon an eyebrow. That wren
certainly saw nothing animal-like in the plaster cast as it was, and I
have wondered if it would have been equally free with a stuffed head of
the animal. My many experiments with animals, as to their recognition of
animals as pictured, have demonstrated everything, and so, I am afraid I
must admit, nothing. In the woodbine on the portico were two nests,—a
robin’s and a chipping-sparrow’s. These were close to each other, and
once, when sitting in a rocking-chair, I swayed the woodbine to and fro
without disturbing either bird. In the garden were a mocking-bird,
cat-bird, thistle-finch, song-sparrow, brown thrush, yellow-breasted
chat, and red-eyed vireo. In the trees I saw a great-crested
fly-catcher, purple grakle, a redstart, spotted warbler, and another I
failed to identify. In the field beyond the garden were red-winged
blackbirds and quail, and beyond, crows, fish-hawks, and turkey-buzzards
were in the air; and, as the day closed and the pleasant sights were
shut out, I heard the clear call of the kill-deer plover as they passed
overhead, heard it until it mingled with my dreams. “Providence Farm” is
indeed well named, for the birdy blessing of Providence rests upon it;
but were men more given to considering the ways and wants of wild life,
we might find such pleasant places on every hand. Farms appear to be
growing less farm-like. The sweet simplicity of colonial days has been
well-nigh obliterated, and nothing really better has replaced it. On the
other hand, a modern “country place,” where Nature is pared down until
nothing but the foundation-rocks remain, is, to say the least, an
eyesore. There is more pleasure and profit in an Indian trail than in an
asphaltum driveway.
Westward lie the meadows, and beyond them the river. Seen as a whole,
they are beautiful and, like all of Nature’s work, will bear close
inspection. The bird’s-eye view to-day was too comprehensive to be
altogether enjoyable: it was bewildering. How completely such a tract
epitomizes a continent! The little creek is a river; the hillock, a
mountain; the brushland, a forest; the plowed tract, a desert. If this
fact were not so generally forgotten we would be better content with
what is immediately about us. Mere bigness is not everything. So, too,
with animal life. We spend time and money to see the creatures caged in
a menagerie, and never see the uncaged ones in the thicket behind the
house. Every lion must roar, or we have not seen the show; a lion
rampant is everything, a lion couchant, nothing. There was no visible
violence in the meadows to-day; Nature was couchant, and I was thankful.
When the tempest drives over the land I want my snug harbor by the
chimney-throat. The sparks can fly upward to join the storm if they
will. The storms I enjoy are matters of hearsay.
Take up a ponderous government quarto of the geological survey and
glance over the splendid plates of remarkable rocks, cañons, and high
hills, and then look out of your window at the fields and meadow. What a
contrast! Yes, a decided one, and yet if you take an open-eyed walk you
will find a good deal of the same thing, but on a smaller scale. You
have not thought of it before; that is all. I put this matter to a
practical test not long ago, and was satisfied with the result. The last
plate had been looked at and the book was closed with a sigh, and a
restless youth, looking over the wide range of fields before him, was
thinking of the grand mountains, strange deserts, and deep cañons
pictured in the volume on his lap, and comparing such a country with the
monotonous surroundings of his home.
“What a stupid place this part of the world is!” he said at last. “I
wish I could go out West.”
“Perhaps it is not so stupid as it looks,” I replied. “Let’s take a
walk.”
I knew what the book described at which the lad had been looking, and
had guessed his thoughts. We started for a ramble.
“Let us follow this little brook as far as we can,” I suggested, “and
see what a stupid country can teach us,” purposely quoting my
companion’s words, with a little emphasis.
Not fifty rods from beautiful old trees the collected waters, as a
little brook, flowed over an outcropping of stiff clay, and here we
voluntarily paused, for what one of us had seen a hundred times before
was now invested with new interest. There was here not merely a smooth
scooping out of a mass of the clay, to allow the waters to pass swiftly
by; the least resisting veins or strata, those containing the largest
percentage of sand, had yielded quickly and been deeply gullied, while
elsewhere the stiff, black ridges, often almost perpendicular, still
withstood the current, and, confining the waters to narrow limits,
produced a series of miniature rapids and one whirlpool that recalled
the head-waters of many a river.
Near by, where, when swollen by heavy rains, the brook had filled the
little valley, temporary rivulets had rushed with fury over the clay,
and cut in many places deep and narrow transverse channels. From their
steep sides projected many a pebble that gave us “overhanging rocks,”
and one small bowlder bridged a crevice in the clay, and was in use at
the time as a highway for a colony of ants. Near it stood slender,
conical pillars of slightly cemented sand, some six inches in height,
and every one capped with a pebble of greater diameter than the apex of
the supporting sand. These were indeed beautiful.
“I have never seen them before,” remarked the boy.
“Very likely,” I replied, “but you have crushed them under foot by the
dozens.” They were not to be overlooked now, though, and in them he saw
perfect reproductions of wonderful “monument rocks” which he had so
lately seen pictured in the ponderous government geological report.
Withdrawing to the field beyond, where a bird’s-eye view of the brook’s
course could be obtained, we had spread out before us a miniature, in
most of its essentials, of a cañon country. The various tints of the
clay gave the many-colored rocks; the different densities of the several
strata resulted in deep or shallow ravines, fantastic arches, caverns,
and beetling precipices. On a ridiculously small scale, you may say.
True, but not too small for the eyes of him who is anxious to learn.
A few rods farther down the stream we came to a small sandy island which
divided the brook and made a pleasant variety after a monotonous course
through nearly level fields. A handful of the sand told the story. Here,
meeting with so slight an obstruction as a projecting root, the sandy
clays from above had been deposited in part, and year after year, as the
island grew, the crowded waters had encroached upon the yielding banks
on either side, and made here quite a wide and shallow stream. Small as
it was, this little sand-bar had the characteristic features of all
islands. The water rippled along its sides and gave it a pretty beach of
sloping, snow-white sand, while scarcely more than half a foot inland
the seeds of many plants had sprouted, and along the central ridge or
backbone the sod was thick set, and several acorns, a year before, had
sprouted through it. We found snails, spiders, and insects abundant, and
faint footprints showed that it was not overlooked by the pretty
teetering sand-piper.
Now came a total change. Abruptly turning from its former
straightforward course, the brook entered a low-lying swamp, crowded to
the utmost with dense growths of tangled vines and stunted trees. The
water was no longer sparkling and colorless, but amber-tinted, and in
many a shallow pool looked more like ink. Life here appeared in many
forms. Small mud-minnows, turtles, and snakes were found in the gloomy,
weed-hidden pools, and numberless insects crowded the rank growths above
as well as the waters beneath. The mutual dependence of vegetation and
animal life was here very striking. Previously we had found
comparatively little either in the brook or about it, but now our eyes
were gladdened not only with what I have mentioned, but birds, too, were
in abundance.
Bent upon freeing my native county from the charge of stupidity, I led
the way through this “dismal swamp.” It was no easy task. Nowhere were
we sure of our footing, and it required constant leaping from root to
root of the larger trees. There was at times no well-defined channel,
and often we could hear the gurgling waters hurrying beneath our feet,
yet catch no glimpse of them.
Here, too, other springs welled to the surface, and the augmented volume
of waters finally left the swamp a stream of considerable size, which,
after a tortuous course through many fields, entered a deep and narrow
ravine. After untold centuries the brook has worn away the surface soil
over which it originally flowed, then the gravel beneath, and so down to
the clay, thirty feet below. Upon this now rest the bowlders and such
coarser material as the waters could not transport.
Clinging to the trees growing upon the sides of the ravine, we closely
followed the course of the troubled, bubbling, foamy waters, stopping
ever and anon to look at the exposed sections of sand and gravel here
shown in curious alternate layers. The meaning of the word “deposits,”
so frequently met with in descriptive geology, was made plain, and when
we noticed of how mixed a character was the coarse gravel, it was easy
to comprehend what had been read of that most interesting phase of the
world’s past history, the glacial epoch, or great ice age. The gravel
was no longer an unsuggestive accumulation of pebbles, but associated
rolled and water-worn fragments of a hundred different rocks that by the
mighty forces of ice and water had been brought to their present
position from regions far away.
The ravine ended at the meadows, through which the waters passed with
unobstructed flow “to join the brimming river.” As we stood upon the
bank of the mighty stream I remarked, “This is a stupid country,
perhaps, but it has some merits.” I think the boy thought so, too.
* * * * *
The meadows are such a comprehensive place that no one knows where to
begin, if the attempt is made to enumerate their features. There is such
a blending of dry land and wet, open and thicket-grown, hedge and brook
and scattered trees, that it is bewildering if you do not choose some
one point for close inspection. From the tree-top I overlook it all, and
try in vain to determine whether the azure strip of flowering iris or
the flaunting crimson of the Turk’s cap lilies is the prettier. Beyond,
in damper soil, the glistening yellow of the sunflowers is really too
bright to be beautiful; but not so where the water is hidden by the huge
circular leaves of the lotus. They are majestic as well as pretty, and
the sparse bloom, yellow and rosy pink, is even the more conspicuous by
reason of its background. How well the birds know the wild meadow
tracts! They have not forsaken my tree and its surroundings, but for one
here I see a dozen there. Mere inky specks, as seen from my point of
view, but I know them as marsh-wrens and swamp-sparrows, kingbirds and
red-wings, that will soon form those enormous flocks that add so marked
a feature to the autumn landscape. It needs no field-glass to mark down
the passing herons that, coming from the river-shore, take a noontide
rest in the overgrown marsh.
I had once, on the very spot at which I was now looking, an unlooked-for
adventure. For want of something better to do, I pushed my way into the
weedy marsh until I reached a prostrate tree-trunk that during the last
freshet had stranded there. It was a wild place. The tall rose-mallow
and wavy cat-tail were far above my head, and every trace of
civilization was effectually shut out. It was as much a wilderness as
any jungle in the tropics. Nor was I alone. Not a minute elapsed before
a faint squeak told me that there were meadow-mice in the hollow log on
which I sat. Then the rank grass moved and a least bittern came into
view and as quickly disappeared. I heard continually the cackle of the
king-rail, and the liquid twittering of the marsh-wrens was a delight.
The huge globular nests of these birds were everywhere about me; but the
birds did not think of me as having any evil designs upon them, so they
came and went as freely as if alone. This is bird-viewing that one too
seldom enjoys nowadays. Often, and very suddenly, all sound ceased and
every bird disappeared. I did not recognize the cause at first, but was
enlightened a moment later. A large bird passed over, and its very
shadow frightened the little marsh-dwellers. If not, the shadow and
fright were a coincidence several times that morning. The day, for me,
ended with the unusual chance of a close encounter with a great blue
heron. I saw the bird hover for a moment directly overhead, and then,
letting its legs drop, it descended with lead-like rapidity. I leaned
backward to avoid it, and could have touched the bird when it reached
the ground, it was so near. I shall never know which was the more
astonished. Certainly, had it chosen, it could have stabbed me through
and through.
I was glad to be again on drier land and in open country. There had been
adventure enough; and yet, as seen from a distance, this bit of marsh
was but weeds and water.
Southward there stands the remnant of a forest: second- and third-growth
woodland usually; for trees of really great age are now generally alone.
I can see from where I sit three primeval beeches that are known to be
over two centuries old, and not far away towered one giant tulip-tree
that since the country’s earliest settlement had stood like a faithful
sentinel, guarding the south bank of a nameless spring brook. Ever a
thing of beauty, it shone with added splendor at night, when the rising
full moon rested in its arms, as if weary at the very outset of her
journey. My grandfather told me that in his boyhood it was known as the
“Indian tree,” because a basket-maker and his squaw had a wigwam there.
That was a century ago, and often, of late years, I have hunted on the
spot for some trace of these redskins, but found nothing, although all
about, in every field, were old Indian relics, even their cherished
tobacco-pipes. Small, recent growths of timber, even where they have
succeeded an ancient forest, are not, as a rule, attractive. Their
newness is too evident, and, except for a few passing birds, they are
not apt to harbor much wild life. As I look at the mingled foliage of
oaks and elms, beeches, hickories, and wild cherry, I give little heed
to that before me and recall forests worthy of the name, doing precisely
what I have declared unwise. A naturalist could find more material in
these few acres of woodland than he could “work up” in a lifetime. I
have underrated them. From the little thicket of blackberry vines I see
a rabbit slowly loping, as if in search of food. It is a full-grown
fellow, and suggests the round of the traps in late autumn and the woods
in winter.
I never knew a boy brought up in the country who was not at one time an
enthusiastic trapper. Just as mankind in the infancy of the world were
forced to pit their energy and skill against the cunning of the animals
needed for food or of such that by reason of their fierceness endangered
human life, so the country boy of to-day puts his intelligence to work
to circumvent the superiority of such animal life as by fleetness of
foot or stroke of wing can avoid the pursuer. It is a question largely
of brain against anatomical structure. No Indian, even, ever outran a
deer, nor savage anywhere by mere bodily exertion stopped the flight of
a bird. Men were all sportsmen, in a sense, when sport, as we call it,
was necessary to human existence. As centuries rolled by, such animals
and birds as came in daily contact with man necessarily had their sleepy
wits aroused, and now it is a case of cunning against cunning. We are
all familiar with such phrases as “wild as a hawk” and “shy as a deer.”
In the morning of man’s career on earth there were no such words as
“shy” and “wild.” They came into use, as words are constantly coming
into our language, because circumstances make them a necessity; and as
men were trappers before they were traders or tillers of the field, so
the words are old, and while animal life lasts they will be retained.
Nowadays we generally outgrow this love of trapping, or it remains in
the love of sport with gun or rod. But, old Izaak Walton and Frank
Forrester to the contrary notwithstanding, I hold that nothing in
fishing or shooting has that freshness, that thrilling excitement, that
close touch with nature, that clings to our early days, when, in autumn
and winter, we went the round of the traps. How through the long night
we had visions of the rabbit cautiously approaching the box-trap on the
edge of the swamp! How clearly we saw in the corner of the weedy old
worm-fence the stupid opossum bungling along, and awoke with a start as
the clumsy creature sprang the trap from the outside! I pity the boy who
has not had such a distressing dream.
No boy ever turned out before sunrise with a smiling countenance to milk
or help in any way with farm work; but how different when it was a
matter of the traps he had set the night before! The anticipation of
success is an all-sufficient incentive, and neither bitter cold nor
driving storm deters him. Of a winter dawn much might be said. No boy
ever was abroad so early that the squirrels were not before him, and in
the fading light of the stars he will hear the crows cawing and the
blue-jays chattering in the woods. To the naturalist, of course, such
time of day is full of suggestiveness; but the general belief that it is
a proper time to sleep will never be given up. Indeed, judging others by
myself, as the boy gets well on in his teens there is a growing
disposition to let the traps go until broad daylight and even until
after breakfast. This is unfortunate in two ways: there is a likelihood
of seeing animal life in the full flush of activity in the pre-sunlit
hours that is unknown as the day advances; the night-prowlers are all
gone to their dens, and the birds that roost in colonies have dispersed
for the day. One seldom overtakes a raccoon or a weasel at or near
noontide, and in the woods where a thousand robins have roosted there
may now not be one. Then, again, your visit to the traps may be
anticipated if you are too deliberate in starting on your rounds. This
is an experience that no boy of spirit can calmly undergo, and no
wonder. The rude box-trap was not easy to make, considering the usual
condition of tools upon a farm. The hunt for likely places whereat to
set it had been real labor. The long tramp in the gloaming when tired
out from a day at school; the early tramp, before sunrise perhaps, for
he must be on time at school that morning,—all this is to be considered;
but if success crowns the effort, all is well. On the other hand, to
find that some rascal has been ahead of you and your labor has gone for
nothing—— I never knew a boy to be a saint at such a time.
I can recall a well-marked rabbit-path I once found, half a mile from
home, and with great secrecy carried one of my traps to the place. It
was on the next farm, and so I had to be more than usually careful.
Nothing could be done in daylight for fear the boys living on that farm
would find me out, and this sort of poaching was not tolerated. At first
I was successful, catching two fine rabbits, and then, alas! was so
elated that, boylike, I said too much. Some one must have tracked me,
for I caught no more, although it was evident that the trap had been
disturbed. Straightway I suspected treachery, and prepared for revenge.
Now, auntie had a fur tippet, or “boa,” as she called it, which was just
six feet long. The moths one summer had ruined it, and for some time it
had been lying around uncared for and a plaything for the younger
children. This I appropriated, and fastened to one end of it a rabbit’s
head, with the ears wired up and with huge painted marbles bulging from
the sockets for eyes. It was a startling if not life-like creature.
Armed with this, I started after dark to the trap, and soon had all in
readiness for my victim. I coiled the “boa” into the rear of the box and
placed the head near the opening of the trap. The “figure-of-four”
triggers were laid outside in such a way as to suggest that the trap had
been sprung by an animal. Then I went home.
The next morning I went to school without visiting the spot, fearing I
might meet with the supposed offender. All day long I wondered. No boy
had any marvellous tale to tell and no one looked at all guilty. There
soon came over me a feeling that perhaps I had played a trick upon
myself, and by sundown I was rather reluctant to determine if anything
had happened; but go I did. The trap had evidently been disturbed. The
“boa” with the rabbit’s head was lying at full length outside and the
bushes were broken as if a bull had rushed through them. But who or what
had been there?
Two days of most distressing doubt passed, and then came Saturday. I was
ill at ease and took no pleasure in my holiday; but about noon our
neighbor came over, and I heard him tell grandfather how, on Fifth-day,
while the family were at breakfast, Bill, the bound boy, came rushing
into the room and exclaimed, excitedly, “Something from the menagerie’s
broke loose and got in the rabbit-trap!”
I had had my revenge.
A wood, to be at its best, should be located on the shore of a lake or
river, or, perhaps better still, a river should run through it. Here are
my impressions of such a wood, from my note-book of 1892, under date of
May 1:
Nothing could have been more fitting than to take a May-day outing at
such a place. The swift current of the Great Egg Harbor River rolled
resistlessly along, its waters black as night, save where, over the
pebbly shallows, it gleamed like polished amber. The wind that swayed
the tall crowns of the towering pines made fitting music, according well
with the rippling laugh of the fretted river, while heard above all were
the joyous songs of innumerable warblers.
We had placed our boat upon a wagon six miles below our point of
departure, and partly realized on our way what this pine region really
was. The cedar swamp, the oak openings, the arbutus that gave color to
the narrow wagon-track, the absence of man’s interference,—all tended to
give us the full significance of that most suggestive word, wilderness.
We needed but to catch a glimpse of an Indian to see this part of
creation precisely as it was in pre-Columbian days. I sat for some time
in the boat before taking up the anchor. This was but the entrance, I
was told, to spots more beautiful, but it was hard to believe. Here was
a river hidden in a forest, and what more could one wish? The warblers
well knew that May-day had come again, and every one of the mighty host
greeted the brilliant sunshine. There seemed literally to be hundreds of
them. Flashing like gems were redstarts, light as swallows upon the
wing. Bright-spotted warblers, and others sombre gray, laughed as they
tarried on the trembling twigs; then, mounting into the sunlight, sang
loudly as they flew, or darted into gloomy nooks so hidden that not even
a sunbeam could follow them.
The river with its attendant birds could not claim all the merit; the
land was no less beautiful. The oaks were not yet in leaf, but there was
no lack of green. The holly’s foliage was bright as May, the polished
leaves of the tea-berry shone as a midsummer growth, the ink-berry had
defied the winter’s storms, and the maples glowed as a great ruddy
flame. Really distinct as was every object, yet, as a whole, the outlook
was dreary, hazy, half obscure, as we looked directly into the wood,
where the drooping moss festooned the branches of the smaller oaks.
No voyager ever set forth from so fair a port.
My companion knew the route, and with an oar he took his place astern to
guide the boat safely down the swift stream. It was all right as it
proved, but at times I forgot that I had come to see the forest.
Instead, an element of doubt as to the guide’s ability came painfully to
the front. With devilish malignancy, as I thought, trees had prostrated
themselves and rested just beneath the water’s surface, or stood up,
with outreached arms, as if defying us. How we passed many a crook and
turn I cannot now remember. I was too much occupied with desperately
clutching at anything within reach to notice the “when” or “how,” but
there still remains the delicious sensation of suddenly shooting into
smooth water and feeling—brave as a lion.
For several miles on either side of the stream we had a typical mixed
forest. The willow-oak predominated at times, and the delicate foliage,
so unlike other oaks, was very beautiful. The leaves appeared
translucent in the bright sunlight, fairly sparkled, and once made a
splendid background to scarlet tanagers that flashed through them. In
this long reach of dense woods there were fewer birds than at our
starting-point, or perhaps they held back as we passed. But other life
was not wanting. From many a projecting stump there slid many a turtle
into the dark waters, and a mink or musk-rat crossed our bow. Careful
search would no doubt have revealed numerous creatures, for here was a
safe retreat for all the fauna of the State. The deer are not yet quite
gone, possibly a few bears remain. Certainly the raccoon and otter must
be abundant. I was constantly on the lookout for minks, for the river
abounds in fish. This animal is sometimes mistaken for a huge snake, as
it rises several inches above the water at times, and has then a rather
startling appearance. An old fisherman on Chesapeake Bay told me that he
had seen a mink with a huge eel in its mouth come to the surface, and
then the wriggling fish and long, lithe body of the mink together looked
like two serpents fighting. I can readily imagine it. Birches,
liquidambars, and pines in clusters would next command attention, and
usually there was a dense undergrowth. Holding the boat, at times, we
could hear the water rushing through the roots of this tangled mass, and
found that what we had supposed was firm land afforded no certain
footing, and a bluff of firm earth was very welcome when we thought of
landing for a hasty lunch. This _firm_ earth did indeed support us, but
in reality it was the most unstable of shifting sands, being held in
place by reindeer-moss, partridge-berry, and other pine-barren growths.
Nothing was in sight but the scrubby pines, and we had to be very
careful that our fire did not get among the “needles” and dash through
the woods. I found here absolutely no birds. They seem all to prefer the
tracts covered by deciduous trees; but insect-feeders could have
flourished here. The steam of our dinner-pot brought more substantial
forms than mosquitoes, one house-fly being determined to share my
Frankfurter and successfully defying all attempts at capture.
Again afloat, we soon came to the mouth of an inflowing stream called
Dead River, said to be very deep. This point was perhaps the wildest of
all. The open water here was very wide, and a forest of projecting
stumps of various heights showed plainly that we were on the edge of an
area of drowned land. In the distance was an unbroken background of
pines, which now looked black. At wide intervals could be seen huge
pines that had escaped the charcoal-burner or lumberman. The stems and
lower branches were, of course, concealed, but in the hazy atmosphere
the tops were as floating islands of darkest green, standing boldly out
against the pearly sky behind them.
Here, at the mouth of Dead River, we beheld a pretty sight. A wood-duck
with her brood rushed over the water in a most lively manner, flecking
the black expanse with patches of white foam. Such incidents add much to
such a journey. An empty forest is as forbidding as an empty house.
In the coves there were changes from the surrounding scenery that were
not to be overlooked. A rank growth of golden-club resting on the dark
waters was very striking. The picture was such as we see on a Claude
Lorrain glass. Near by fresh sphagnum in a shallow pool was bronze and
green: a place for frogs to squat unseen, but I could find none. How
often this happens! At the very places where we think animal life will
be in abundance we can find no trace of it. Then, looking up, we see but
trees. No break in the line that hems us in. Trees old and young, trees
living and dead, great and small; nothing but trees.
The wind freshened as the day grew old, and doubly troubled were the
waters. There was no rest for them now, even in sheltered nooks, and it
was only by sturdy strokes of the oars that we made headway at all.
There was no perceptible current to bear us along as before. The waves
dashing against the bare trunks of trees long dead and now bent by the
wind added much to the wild scene. Novel as it all was, I could not
quite enjoy it. It was something to be contemplated from the shore, I
thought. I know I was laughed at, but the many “blind” stumps, or those
just beneath the surface, of which my companion spoke so unconcernedly
came too prominently to mind when I least expected them, and added much
significance to the fact that I cannot swim.
As we neared home the scene abruptly changed, and the river was lost in
a wide expanse that might be called a lake if the fact was not so
evident that it is a mill-pond. This, however, did not detract from the
beauty of the surroundings, and before our final landing we drew up to a
bold bit of shore and searched, while it was yet day, for pyxie. There
was an abundance of blooming andromeda, too, and arbutus, with clubmoss
of richest green. I almost placed my hand on a centipede that glowed
like an emerald. It was resting on ruddy sphagnum, and made a splendid
picture. I could not capture the creature. An attempt to do so on my
part was followed by its disappearance with a suddenness that could be
likened only to the flashes of light that played upon its back. Here I
heard many frogs, but could find none. The rattle and peep were not like
the voices of those in the meadows at home, and I wondered about Cope’s
new tiger-frog and the little green hyla that is so rare here in Jersey.
Possibly I heard them both; probably not.
We returned to prosy life when the boat was lifted over the dam, and the
incidents were few and commonplace in the short drift that carried us to
an old wharf, a relic of the last century.
* * * * *
What a difference between such a forest and a few hundred oaks and ashes
at home! and yet these are far better than treeless fields. It is these
few trees that hold many of our migratory birds, and through them, in
spring, troop the north-bound warblers. In the gloaming a small tract of
woodland widens out, and, seeing no open country beyond, what does it
matter, if we walk in a circle, whether it be one acre or one thousand?
There is good philosophy in “Small favors thankfully received.” Here in
this little wood are beautiful white-footed mice, a shy, nocturnal
jerboa, flying-squirrels, and, if I mistake not, a whole family of
opossums. Here, until autumn, are wood-robins that never weary us by
overmuch singing, and cat-birds, chewinks, and the rose-breasted
grosbeak. I do not complain, but as the summer passes I regret that
these birds have their appointed time and will soon be gone. Why so
soon? I often wonder, for their haunts do not lose their loveliness for
weeks after they have disappeared.
No wall of green above, about,
They silently steal away;
With but a carpet of withered leaves,
The minstrel will not stay.
But the spot is no “banquet-hall deserted,” for all that; the departure
of the summer birds is but to make way for those who have gladdened
Canadian woods for many weeks. The purple finch will soon be here, and
tree-sparrows in great companies, and the gentle white-throat; and
these, with our stately cardinal for a leader, will hold forth
melodiously, though the north winds blow and the angry east wind brings
the snow upon its wings.
In the smile of winter sunshine there will be enacted another drama, but
now it is comedy rather than tragedy. There are no conflicting interests
now, no serious quarrels, no carking cares—the world is really in good
humor and our days of early darkness are misunderstood.
Let him who doubts—and there are but few who do not—turn from the worn
lines of travel, go well out of the beaten path, and find, in the
way-side nooks his neighbors have neglected, most excellent company:
birds of brave heart that can sing in the teeth of a storm; and many a
creature, wrapped in his furry coat, laughs at the earnest efforts of
winter to keep him from his outings.
Did I dare sit in this same oak when the leaves have fallen, I should
have strange tales to tell,—tales so strange that the summertide would
be commonplace in comparison.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER SECOND
_A HUNT FOR THE PYXIE_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
No storm raged to defeat a long-cherished plan, and we must laugh at
threatening clouds or miss many an outing. In dreams the pyxie had been
blooming for weeks, and to prove that not all dreams go by contraries, I
started on a flower-hunt. This is not always so tame and adventureless a
matter as one might think. There are wood-blooms that scorn even a trace
of man’s interference, and the pyxie is one of them. Nature alone can
provide its wants, and only where Nature holds undisputed sway can it be
found. To find this beautiful flower we must plunge into the wilderness.
It was a long tramp, but never wanting a purpose for every step taken.
Each turn in the path offered something new, and if ever for a moment a
trace of weariness was felt, it was because even to our hungry eyes the
wilderness was overfull. Bewildering multitudes are more to be feared
than possible dangers. There is no escape from the former. Not a tree or
bush, not a bird or blossom, but to-day offered excellent reason why
with them we should spend our time; and how often they all spoke at
once!
Except the ceaseless rattle of small frogs, there was no sound, for that
sad sighing of the tall pines seems but the rhythmic breathing of
silence; or, passing from the wet grounds to the higher, drier, and more
barren tracts, we heard only the crisp crackling of the reindeer-moss we
crushed at every step. Although
“It is the bright day that brings forth the adder,
And that craves wary walking,”
we gave no thought to possible danger,—for rattlesnakes are still to be
found. Not even when we stooped to pick the bright berries of
winter-green did we think of a coiled serpent buried in dead leaves; and
what opportunity for murder the serpent had as we buried our faces in
pillows of pink and pearly arbutus!
At last we reached South River (in Southern New Jersey), and just here
was no place to tarry, unless to court melancholy. It was not required
that my companion should enumerate the reasons why the one-time farm
along the river-bank had been abandoned. A glance at the surrounding
fields told the whole story. There was, indeed, barrenness,—and very
different, this, from what obtains in localities near by to which the
same term is applied. In the so-called pine barrens there is a luxuriant
vegetation; but here about the deserted house and out-building there was
nothing but glistening sand, moss, and those pallid grasses that suggest
death rather than life, however feeble. And how widely different is it
to be surrounded by ruin wrought by man, and to be in a forest where man
has never been! Could I not have turned my back upon the scene and
looked out only upon the river, the day’s pleasure would have vanished.
But we were soon away, and a naturalist’s paradise was spread before us.
What constitutes such a place? Not necessarily one where man has never
been: it will suffice if Nature has withstood his interference; and this
is true of these pine barrens, this weedy wilderness, this silent
battle-field where the struggle for existence never ceases, and yet, as
we see it, peaceful as the fleecy clouds that fleck an April sky.
Though the wind that swept the wide reach of waters close at hand still
smacked of wintry weather, there was a welcome warmth on shore. The oaks
even hinted of the coming leaf. Their buds were so far swollen that the
sharp outlines of bare twigs against the sky were rounded off. The ruddy
stems of the blueberry bushes gave to the river-bank a fire-like glow,
and yet more telling was the wealth of bright golden glow where the tall
Indian grass waved in all its glory. The repellent desolation of
midwinter, so common to our cold-soil upland fields, was wholly wanting
here; for, while nothing strongly suggested life as we think of it, even
in early spring, yet nothing recalled death, the familiar feature of a
midwinter landscape.
The scattered cedars were not gloomy to-day. Their green-black foliage
stood out in bold relief, a fitting background to the picture of
Spring’s promises. That the sea was not far off is evident, for even
here, a dozen miles from the ocean, many of these trees were bent and
squatty at the top, as are all those that face the fury of storms along
the coast. Every one harbored north-bound migrating birds; restless,
warbling kinglets principally. No other tree seemed to attract these
pretty birds, many a flock passing by scores of oaks to the next cedar
in their line of march. The clustered pines were not similarly favored,
not a bird of any kind appearing about them, and life of all kinds was
wholly absent in the long aisles between their stately trunks. Our path
led us through one great grove where every tree grew straight and tall
as a ship’s mast. The light that filled this wood was strangely
beautiful. Nothing stood out distinctly. To have passed here in the
gloaming would have tried weak nerves. Even in the glare of noonday my
imagination was abnormally active, every stunted shrub and prostrate log
assuming some startling shape. Think of such a place after sunset! Let
an owl whoop in your ears when hedged in by thick-set trees!
Philosophize as one will in daylight, it goes for little now, and the
days of Indians, cougars, and all ill-natured beasts come trooping back.
This distrust of darkness is not mere cowardice, and I would accept no
one’s statement that he is wholly free of it. Every sound becomes unduly
significant when we are alone in a wilderness; often unpleasantly so,
even during the day, and
“in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!”
Out of the pines and into the oak woods: the change was very abrupt, and
as complete as possible. Every feature of the surroundings was bathed in
light now, and the emergence from the pine forest’s gloom restored our
spirits. We are ever craving variety, and there was positive beauty in
every stunted oak’s ugliness, and from them we needed but to turn our
heads to see thrifty magnolias near the river-bank. These have no
special enemy, now that the beavers are gone, and thrive in the black
mud by the water’s edge; better, by far, than the gum-trees near them,
for these were heavy laden with pallid mistletoe,—to me a most repugnant
growth.
We reached open country at last, and here were birds without number. How
quickly all else fades at such a time! The whole valley trembled with
the ringing whistle of a thousand red-wings. A few swallows—the first of
their kind to return—darted over the wide waters and rested on
projecting branches of trees that floods had stranded on the islands.
The sprightly kill-deers ran with such dainty steps over the sand that I
could not find their footprints. They, too, were pioneer birds, but none
the less light-hearted because alone. They sang with all their last
year’s earnestness, scattering music among the marshes where frogs were
now holding high carnival. They were very tame, at least so far as we
were concerned, but a little in doubt as to what a stray hawk might be
about. But they left us only to make room for others, and whether we
looked riverward or landward mattered not: it was birds, birds, birds!
Here a hundred sparrows in an oak, there a troop of snow-birds in the
bushes, a whistling titmouse sounding his piercing notes, the plaintive
bluebird floating overhead, the laugh of the loon at the bend of the
river, and buzzards searching for stranded herring where the seine had
been drawn.
A flock of herons, too, passed overhead, and, had they not seen us,
might have stopped here on the river-shore. What an addition to a
landscape! and yet now so seldom seen. No birds can be more harmless
than they, yet not even the hawks are subject to greater persecution.
Not long since these birds were abundant, and a “heronry” was one of the
“sights” of many a neighborhood; but people now scarcely know what a
“heronry” is. The very word suggests how rapidly our large birds are
disappearing, and their roosting-places, where hundreds gathered and
nested, too, in season, are matters of “ancient history.” In fear and
trembling, the herons that linger about our watercourses singly seek
secluded trees wherein to rest, and, I fear, even then sleep with one
eye open. A fancy, on the part of women, for heron plumes has wrought a
deal of mischief.
But where is the pyxie? We knew it must be near at hand, but why make
haste to find it? All else was so beautiful here, why not wait even
until another day? The river-bank was itself a study. At the top, sand
of snowy whiteness; then a ribbon of clay over which water trickled
carrying iron in solution, that was slowly cementing a sand stratum
beneath, where every degree of density could be found, from solid rock
to a paste-like mass that we took pleasure in moulding into fantastic
shapes, thereby renewing our dirt-pie days.
A little later in the year, this bluff, now streaked and spotted, will
be green with the broad-leaved sundews, curious carnivorous plants that
here take the place of grasses. There is a filiform sundew that grows
near by, where the ground is high, if not dry; but it, too, waits for
warmer days. Not so the pyxie. Almost at first glance, as we left the
bluff, we saw it, sparkling white, nestled among the gray mats of
reindeer-moss, or fringed by shining winter-green still laden with its
crimson fruit.
Here the earth was strangely carpeted. Sphagnum, beautiful by reason of
rich color, gray-green moss, and the object of our long tramp,—pyxie. No
botany does it justice, passing it by with the mere mention of its
barbarous name, _Pyxidanthera barbulata_. It might be thought the
meanest of all weeds, but is, in truth, the chiefest glory of this
wonderful region.
Is it strange we regretted that Time would not slacken his pace? I know
not where else, in these northern regions, so much is to be seen, and so
soon. Spring, elsewhere, is the round year’s strangest child, often too
forward, and too often backward; but her accomplishments here and now
are beyond criticism. Such perfect work, and yet she is not out of her
teens. The day was April 1.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER THIRD
_THE COMING OF THE BIRDS_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The moon in April is an important factor in the progress of that
event—the coming of the birds—which makes every spring memorable. While
not disposed to wait upon it too long, still, there is little doubt but
that the birds that have been wintering afar south travel very largely
by its light, and when it happens that the moon fulls between the middle
and the twenty-fifth of the month, the flights of thrushes, orioles,
wrens, and other migrants reach us a week earlier than when the nights
are dark during the same period. Temperature, storms, and general
backwardness of the season do not seem to have a like importance in bird
economy.
Of course, by the coming of the birds I do not refer to the pioneers
that are in advance of every company. Indeed, I have seldom announced
the first of the season, but I have been met by the man who was at least
one day ahead of me; so firstlings are not favorites.
There is every year the one memorable morning when we can say, in broad
terms, “The birds are here.” When the oriole whistles from the tallest
tree in the lawn; when the wren chatters from the portal of his old-time
home; when the indigo-finch sings in the weedy pasture; when lisping
warblers throng every tree and shrub; while over all, high in air, the
twittering swallows dart in ecstasy; and at last, the day-long concert
over, whippoorwills in the woods pipe their monotonous refrain. The
Indians were right: when there came such days as this, they had no
further fear of frost, and we need have but little. Our climate
certainly has changed slightly since their time, but we have in such a
bird-full day an assurance that the clinging finger-tips of Winter have
at last relaxed and his hold upon our fields and forests is lost.
A word again of the advance guard. The brown thrush came on the
seventeenth of the month (April, 1892), when there were no leafy
thickets and the maples only were in bloom. What a glorious herald he
proved! and so he always proves. Before the sun was up I heard him in my
dreams, and later the fancy proved a fact. Perched at the very top of an
old walnut-tree, where the wintry world was spread before him, he sang
that song peculiarly his own.
No hint of blushing roses on the hill,
The buds are sleeping yet upon the plain,
The blight of dreary winter clingeth still,
The forest weeps where falls the chilly rain.
Scarce hopeful leaf-buds shrink—death’s solemn hush
Rests on the field, the meadow brook along,
Till breaks the day, O happy day! the thrush
Foretells the coming summer in a song.
Two days later it was almost summer, and tripping along the river’s
pebbly beach were spotted sand-pipers. They were ahead of time this
year, I thought, but none the less happy because the trees were bare and
the water cold; but, stranger still, in the sheltered coves of the
mill-pond, that now reflected the gold of the spice-wood and the crimson
of the overhanging maples, there were warblers, merry as in midsummer,
and a pair, at least, of small thrushes. A bittern, too, stood in the
weedy marsh. There they had gathered on that sunny, summery day, as if
warm weather was an established fact; but how different the next
morning, when a cold north-east storm prevailed! How well it showed that
one such sunny day does not make a season! How clearly it proved that
birds have no prophetic insight! They were caught and suffered and
disappeared. Did they fly above the clouds and go to some distant point,
free of chilling rain, or did they hide in the cedar swamps? This
problem I did not essay to solve. In the few cedars along the
river-shore I found nothing but winter residents, but I made no careful
search. A few days later and spring-like conditions again prevailed and
every day some new bird was seen, but not until May 1 could we say, “The
birds have come.”
These uncertain April days are not disappointing. We are not warranted
in expecting much of them, and whatsoever we do meet with is just so
much more than we had reason to look for,—an added bit of good luck that
increases our love for the year’s fourth month; but if no migrant came,
there is little likelihood that the pastures and rivershore would be
silent. There never was an April that had not its full complement of
robins and blithe meadow-larks, of glorious crested tits and gay
cardinals, of restless red-wings and stately grakles, and these are
quite equal to driving dull care away, and keeping it away, if the
migrants did not come at all. Even in March, and early in the month, we
often have a foretaste of abundant bird-life; an intimation of what a
few weeks will bring us. A bright March morning in 1893 was an instance
of this. I walked for miles along the river-bank with a learned German
who was enthusiastic about everything but what interested me. This may
not seem to be a promising outlook, but we undertook to convert each
other. I was to give up my frivolity, he determined. My effort was to
get his dry-as-dust whimsies out of him. The great ice-gorge of the past
winter was now a torrent of muddy waters and huge cakes of crystal that
rushed and roared not only through the river’s channel, but over half
the meadow-land that bordered it. It was, I admit, an excellent
opportunity to study the effects of such occurrences, for to them is due
the shaping of the valley, and gravel transportation, and all that; but
then there was the effect of light and shade upon the wonderful scene,
and beauty like this crowded out my taste for geology. The sky was
darkly blue, flecked with great masses of snow white-cloud that drifted
between the sun and earth, casting shadows that blackened the ice and
brought winter back again; but a moment later a flood of sunshine as
promptly changed all, and the bluebirds hinted of spring. Then, too, the
gulls and crows screamed above the roar and crunching of the ice as it
struck the scattered trees, while in every sheltered nook was a full
complement of song-sparrows. Why any one should bother about geology at
such a time I could not see; but my companion was intent upon problems
of the ice age, and continually remarked, “Now, if” or “Don’t you see?”
but I always cut him short with “See that crow?” or “Hear that sparrow?”
No, he had not seen or heard the birds, and neither had I his particular
impressions. At last the sunshine broke upon him, and he laughed aloud
when he saw the crows trying to steal a ride on ice-rafts that
continually upset. I was hopeful now, and he soon heard the birds that
sang, and whistled after a long line of kill-deer plover that hurried
by, every one calling to his fellows. It was something to know that the
coming of the birds can rouse a German out of his everlasting problems.
He had more to say of the springtide so near at hand than had I, and,
nosing over the ground, found nine vigorous plants in active growth, and
spoke so learnedly of _Cyperus_, _Galium_, _Allium_, and _Saponaria_
that I as glibly thought, in jealous mood, “Confound him!” for now he
was taking possession of my province and showing me my littleness; but
then I had dragged him out of his problems.
The truth is, I was in something like despair when we started out, for I
feared a lecture on physical geography, and, indeed, did not quite
escape; but the bitter was well mixed with the sweet, and he in time
listened with all my ardor to the birds that braved the boisterous wind
and were not afraid of a river wilder than they had ever seen before.
The day proved to be of more significance than as regards mere glacial
geology. It was a foretaste of what was coming in April. I drew a
glowing picture of what our April meant, and pictured a peaceful river
and violets and meadow blossoms as bright as they were fragrant. My
learned friend smiled, then grew enthusiastic; must come again to see
the birds as they arrived, and—must I say it?—spoke of beer. Alas! it
was Sunday.
There are two reasons why April birds are particularly attractive. One
is, there are fewer of them, and again, there is practically no foliage
to conceal them. Better one bird in full view than a dozen half hidden.
Their songs, too, have a flavor of novelty, and ring so assuringly
through the leafless woods. The ear forever bends graciously to
promises, even though we know they will be broken; but birds, unlike
men, are not given to lying. When they promise May flowers and green
leaves they mean it, and, so far as history records, there has never
been a May without them, not even the cold May of 1816, when there was
ice and snow. But aside from their singing, April birds offer the
opportunity of studying their manners, which is better to know than the
number of their tail-feathers or the color of their eggs. The brown
thrush that sings so glibly from the bare branch of a lonely tree shows
now, by his way of holding himself and pointing his tail, that he is
closely akin to the little wrens and their big cousin, the Carolina
mocker, so called, which does not mock at all. Of all our April birds, I
believe I love best the chewink, or swamp-robin. To be sure, he is no
more a feature of April than of June, and many are here all winter; but
when he scatters the dead leaves and whistles his bi-syllabic refrain
with a vim that rouses an echo, or mounts a bush and sings his few notes
of real music, we forget that summer is only on the way, but not yet
here. Of all our birds, I always fancied this one was most set in his
singing, as he surely is in his ways; but Cheney tells us that "this
bird, like many others, can extemporize finely when the spirit moves
him. For several successive days one season a chewink gave me very
interesting exhibitions of the kind. He fairly revelled in the new song,
repeating it times without number. Whether he stole it from the first
strain of ‘Rock of Ages’ or it was stolen from him or some of his
family, is a question yet to be decided." Now, the chewink is a bird of
character, and, above all things, dislikes interference, and he sings
“for his own pleasure, for he frequently lets himself out lustily when
he knows he is all alone,” as Dr. Placzeck has said of birds in general.
I shall never forget a little incident I once witnessed, in which a
chewink and a cardinal grosbeak figured. They reached the same bush at
the same moment, and both started their songs. The loud whistle of the
red-bird quite smothered the notes of the chewink, which stopped
suddenly before it was through and, with a squeak of impatience, made a
dash at the intruder and nearly knocked him off his perch. Such haps and
mishaps as these—and they are continually occurring—can only be seen in
April or earlier, when we can see through the woods, and not merely the
outer branches of the trees when in leaf. In April we can detect, too,
the earliest flowers, and they fit well with the songs of the
forerunning birds. There is more, I think, for all of us in an April
violet than in a June rose; in a sheltered bit of turf with sprouting
grass than in the wide pastures a month later. We do not hurry in-doors
at the sudden coming of an April shower. The rain-drops that cling to
the opening leaf-buds are too near real gems not to be fancied a
veritable gift to us, and we toy with the baubles for the brief moment
that they are ours. The sunshine that follows such a shower has greater
magic in its touch than it possesses later in the year; the buds of the
morning now are blossoms in the afternoon, so quickening is the warmth
of the first few days of spring. The stain of winter is washed away by
an April shower, and the freshest green of the pasture is ever that
which is newest. There is at times a subtle element in the atmosphere
that the chemist calls “ozone,” but a better name is “snap.” It dwells
in April sunshine and is the inveterate foe of inertia. It moves us,
whether we will or not, and we are now in a hurry even when there is no
need of haste. The “spring fever” that we hear of as a malady in town
never counts as its victim the lover of an April outing. The beauty of
novelty is greater than the beauty of abundance. Our recollection of a
whole summer is but dim at best, but who forgets the beginnings thereof?
We passed by unheeding many a sweet song before the season was over, but
can recall, I venture to say, our first glimpse of the returning spring.
Though the sky may be gray, the earth brown, and the wind out of the
north, let a thrush sing, a kinglet lisp, a crested tit whistle, and a
tree-sparrow chirp among the swelling leaf-buds, and you have seen and
heard that which is not only a delight in itself, but the more pleasing
that it is the prelude announcing the general coming of the birds.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER FOURTH
_THE BUILDING OF THE_
_NEST_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are probably very few children who are not more or less familiar
with birds’ nests, for they are not by any means confined to the
country, but are to be found in the shade trees of every village street,
to say nothing of the old-time lilac hedges, gooseberry bushes, and
homely shrubbery of fifty years ago. Even in our large cities there are
some few birds brave enough to make their homes in or very near the
busiest thoroughfares. As an instance, it was not so long ago that a
yellow-breasted chat—a shy bird—nested in the yard of the Pennsylvania
Hospital, at the corner of Eighth and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia, and
soon learned to mimic many a familiar street sound. Such instances as
these were more common before the unfortunate blunder of introducing the
English sparrow. But it is in the country only that we find boys really
posted in the matter of nests, and I wish I could add that they always
adopt the rules of “hands off” when these nests come under their notice.
It means far more mischief than most people think to disturb a nest, and
so let every boy decide that he will not be guilty of such wanton
cruelty. This, however, does not shut off every boy and girl in the land
from studying these nests, and a more delightful subject can never come
under youthful investigation.
What is a bird’s nest? Every one knows, after a fashion, and yet few
have ever considered how much that bunch of twigs, hollow in a tree, or
hole in the ground really means. Like so much that is familiar, we
glance at it in a careless way and never stop to consider its full
significance. Except in a very few instances, a bird’s nest is never the
result of a single individual’s labor. Even if but one bird does all the
work, there has previously been a decision reached by two birds as to
where the nest shall be placed, and how much this means! At once we are
brought to consider that an interchange of thought has taken place. The
pair have discussed, literally, the merits and drawbacks of the
situation, and have had in mind not only their own safety, but that of
their offspring. The fact that they make mistakes at times proves this.
Were this not the case, or if nests were placed hap-hazard in any tree
or bush or anywhere on the ground, bird enemies would have a happy time
for a short season, and then birds, like many of the world’s huge
beasts, would become extinct. On the contrary, birds have long since
learned to be very careful, and their ingenuity in this apparently
simple matter of choosing a nest site is really astonishing. This, too,
has resulted in quickening their wits in all directions, and the bird
that is really a booby is scarcely to be found.
Birds suffer at times from their misjudgment or over-confidence, and
this, it must be added, reflects upon us. The instances are numberless
where birds have quickly learned that certain people love them, and they
lose all fear. Again, naturally very timid birds soon learn when they
are free from persecution. The writer frequently passes in the cars by a
zoological garden on the bank of a river, and has been impressed with
the abundant illustration of birds’ intelligence to be noticed there.
The crows have learned that fire-arms are not allowed to be used
anywhere near, and so they fearlessly hop about not only the enclosure
of the garden, but the many tracks of the railroad just outside, showing
no timidity even when the locomotives rush by. Stranger still, wild
ducks gather in the river almost directly under the railroad bridge, and
do not always dive out of sight as the trains pass by, and I have never
seen them take wing, even when the whistle blew the quick, short,
penetrating danger signal.
To come back to their nests: birds have other enemies than man to guard
against, and so are never in a hurry in the matter of determining where
to build. Time and again a location has been discovered to be unsuitable
after a nest has been commenced, and the structure abandoned. I have
observed this many times. Indeed, my own curiosity has led the birds to
move, they not quite approving my constant watching of what was going
on. I well remember seating myself once in a shady nook to eat my lunch,
and being almost attacked by a pair of black-and-white tree-creeping
warblers. Their actions were plainly a protest against my staying where
I was, and on looking about, I found that I had almost sat upon their
nest, which was then just completed, but contained no eggs. I visited
the spot the next day and found a single egg; but my coming was a
mistake, for the birds now believed I had sinister designs, and
abandoned their new-made home.
The method of building, of course, varies as much as the patterns of
nests. Even when the same materials are used, they are differently
treated, and a nest of sticks only may in one case be merely thrown
together, as it were, while in another they are so carefully interlaced
that the structure is a basket, and holds together if held by the rim
only. Another, the same in general appearance, would immediately fall to
pieces if similarly treated. A reason for this is discoverable in some
cases, but not in all. If we examine a great many nests, the rule will
hold good, I think, that where they are very loosely put together, the
locality is such that no natural disturbing causes, as high winds, are
likely to bring disaster. Until I studied this point the occurrence of
exceedingly frail nests was ever a matter of surprise, for it is to be
remembered that the same species, as a cat-bird or cardinal red-bird,
does not build after a uniform fashion, but adapts its work to the spot
chosen for the nest. It would be very hazardous to say that a nest was
built by this or that bird, unless the builder was seen in possession.
So difficult is it to watch a pair of birds while building, that the
method of their working is largely to be guessed at from the work
itself, but by means of a field-glass a good deal can be learned. It
would appear as if a great many twigs were brought for the foundation of
a nest, such as a cat-bird’s or song-sparrow’s, that were unsuitable. I
have occasionally seen a twig tossed aside with a flirt of the head very
suggestive of disappointment. The builders do not always carry with them
a distinct idea of what they want when hunting for material, and so
labor more than would be necessary if a little wiser. Very funny
disputes, too, often arise, and these are most frequent when wrens are
finishing their huge structures in a box or some corner of an
out-building. A feather, or a bit of thread, or a small rag will be
carried in by one bird and tossed out by the other with a deal of
scolding and “loud words” that is positively startling. But when the
framework of any ordinary open or cup-shaped nest is finally completed,
the lining is not so difficult a matter. Soft or yielding materials are
used that to a greater or less extent have a “felting property,” and by
the bird’s weight alone assume the shape desired. This is facilitated by
the bird in two ways: the builder sits down, as if the eggs were already
laid, and with its beak pushes the loose material between it and the
framework, and tucks odd bits into any too open crevices. While doing
this, it slowly moves around until it has described a complete circle.
This brings to light any defects in the outer structure, and the bird
can often be seen tugging away at some projecting end, or its mate,
outside of the nest, rearranging a twig here and there, while the other
bird—shall I say?—is giving directions.
Surprise has often been expressed that the common chipping sparrow can
so neatly curl a long horse-hair into the lining of its little nest. It
cannot be explained, perhaps, but we have at least a clue to it. One end
of the hair is snugly tucked in among stouter materials, and then,—I ask
the question only,—as the bird coils it about the sides of the nest with
its beak, does it break or dent it, or is there some chemical effect
produced by the bird’s saliva? The hairs do not appear to be merely
dry-curled, for in that case they would unroll when taken from the nest,
and such as I have tried, when just placed in position, retained the
coiled condition when removed. But old hair, curled by long exposure to
the air and moisture, is often used, and this is far more tractable.
When we come to examine woven nests, such as the Baltimore oriole and
the red-eyed vireo, as well as some other small birds, build, there is
offered a great deal more to study, for how they accomplish what they
do, with their only tools their feet and beak, is not wholly known. That
the tropical tailor-bird should run a thread through a leaf and so bring
the edges together and make a conical-shaped bag, is not so very
strange. It is little more than the piercing of the leaf and then
putting the thread through the hole. This is ingenious but not
wonderful, because not difficult; but let us consider a Baltimore oriole
and his nest. The latter is often suspended from a very slender elm or
willow twig, and the bird has a hard time to hold on while at work. One
experienced old oriole has for years built in the elm near my door, and
occasionally I have caught a glimpse of him. I will not be positive, but
believe that his first move is to find a good stout string, and this he
ties to the twig. I use the word “tie” because I have found in many
cases a capitally-tied knot, but how the bird, or birds, could
accomplish this I cannot imagine. Both feet and beak, I suppose, are
brought into play, but how? To get some insight into the matter, I once
tied a very long string to the end of a thread that the oriole had
secured at one end and left dangling. This interference caused some
commotion, but the bird was not outwitted. It caught the long string by
its loose end and wrapped it over and over various twigs, and soon had a
curious open-work bag that served its purpose admirably. The lining of
soft, fluffy stuff’s was soon added. This brought up the question as to
whether the bird ever ties short pieces together and so makes a more
secure cable that gives strength to the finished nest. In examining
nests, I have seen such knots as might have been tied by the birds, but
there was no way to prove it. That they do wrap a string several times
about a twig and then tie it, just as a boy ties his fishing-line to a
pole, is certain. With my field-glass I have followed the bird far
enough to be sure of this. When at work, the bird, from necessity, is in
a reversed position,—that is, tail up and head down. This has an obvious
advantage, in that the builder can see what is going on beneath him, and
shows, too, how near the ground the nest will come when finished; but it
sometimes happens that he gets so absorbed in his work that a person can
approach quite near, but I never knew him to become entangled in the
loose ends that hang about him.
The oriole at times offers us a wonderful example of ingenuity. It
occasionally happens that too slight a twig is selected, and when the
nest is finished, or, later, when the young are nearly grown, the
structure hangs down too low for safety or sways too violently when the
parent birds alight on it. This is a difficulty the bird has to contend
with, and he has been known to remedy it by attaching a cord to the
sustaining twigs and tying them to a higher limb of the tree, thus
securing the necessary stability.
A more familiar evidence of the intelligence of birds is when the vireos
are disturbed by the presence of a cow-bird’s egg in their nest. To get
rid of it, they often build a new floor to the nest, and so leave the
offending egg to spoil. But there is displayed here an error of judgment
that I am surprised to find. The birds that take this trouble certainly
could throw the egg out, and, I should think, preserve their own eggs,
which invariably are left to decay when a new structure is reared above
the old. I believe even three-storied vireos’ nests have been found.
There is one common swallow that is found well-nigh everywhere, which
burrows into the sand; and when we think of it, it seems strange that so
aerial a bird should build so gloomy an abode for the nesting season.
This bank swallow, as it is called, selects a suitable bluff, facing
water, and, with closed beak, turns round and round with its head to the
ground, thus boring a hole big enough to crawl into. It turns into a
gimlet for the time, and uses its beak as the point of the tool. This is
odd work for a bird that almost lives in the air; and then think, too,
of sitting in a dark cave, sometimes six feet long, until the eggs are
hatched. On the other hand, the barn swallow makes a nest where there is
plenty of light and air, and is a mason rather than a carpenter or
miner. The mud he uses is not mere earth and water, but is made more
adherent by a trace of secretion from the bird’s mouth; at least, my
experiments lead me to think so. To build such a nest would be slow work
did not the two birds work together and carry their little loads of
mortar with great rapidity. They waste no time, and use only good
materials, for I have noticed them, when building, go to a quite distant
spot for the mud when a pool was directly outside of the barn in which
they were building. To all appearance the nest is of sun-dried mud, but
the material has certainly undergone a kind of puddling first that makes
it more adherent, bit to bit, and the whole to the rafter or side of the
building. Again, these swallows have the knack of carrying a little
water on the feathers of their breasts, I think, and give the structure
a shower-like wetting from time to time. At last the structure “sets”
and is practically permanent.
There are birds that build no nests, like the kill-deer plover and the
woodcock, and yet they exercise a faculty of equal value intellectually;
for to be able to locate a spot that will be in the least degree exposed
to danger is a power of no mean grade. The kill-deer will place its eggs
on sloping ground, but somehow the heaviest dashes of rain do not wash
out that particular spot. There are sand-pipers that lay their eggs on a
bit of dead grass, just out of reach of the highest tides. As we look at
such _nests_, we conclude that the birds trust a great deal to good
luck; but, as a matter of fact, the destruction of eggs when in no
nests, or next to none, is very small. Why, on the other hand,
woodpeckers should go to such an infinity of trouble to whittle a nest
in the firm tissue of a living tree, when a natural hollow would serve
as well, is a problem past finding out. I have even seen a woodpecker
make a new nest in a tree which already contained one in every respect
as good.
Going back to the fields and thickets, it will be seen that birds, as a
rule, desire that their nests should be inconspicuous, and their efforts
are always largely in this direction in the construction. The foliage of
the tree or bush is considered, and when not directly concealed by this,
the nest is made to look marvellously like a natural production of the
vegetable world, as the beautiful nest of our wood pee-wee or the
humming-bird shows. These nests are then not merely the homes of young
birds, but are places of defence against a host of enemies. The parent
birds have no simple task set before them that can be gone through with
mechanically year after year. Every season new problems arise, if their
favorite haunts suffer change, and every year the birds prove equal to
their solution.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER FIFTH
_CORN-STALK FIDDLES_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is a merit of our climate that at no time of the year are we, as
children, shut out from healthy out-door pleasure. There are shady nooks
along our creeks and rivers and delightful old mill-ponds wherein we may
bathe in midsummer, and there are acres of glassy ice over which to
skate in midwinter. Spring and autumn are too full of fun to
particularize, the average day being available for scores of methods
whereby to make life a treasure beyond compare, spending it, to the mind
of a boy, in that most rational way, having sport. I do not know why we
always played marbles at one time of the year and flew our kites at
another: this is for the folk-lore clubs to fathom. Suffice it, that
there has been for centuries a time for every out-door amusement as
fixed as the phases of the moon. So much for the sport common to all
boys. And now a word concerning an old-time musical instrument that may
be now quite out of date,—the corn-stalk fiddle.
This very primitive musical instrument is associated with the dreamy
Indian-summer days of late November. Then it discoursed delicious music,
but at other times it would have been “out of tune and harsh.” Did the
Indians give the secret to the children of our colonial forefathers? It
would be a pleasing thought whenever the toy comes to mind, as the mere
suggestion is a pleasant fancy.
The husking over, the corn-stalks carted and stored in a huge rick by
the barn-yard, the apples gathered, the winter wood cut, and then the
long quiet, with almost nothing to do. Such was the routine when I was a
boy, and if the uncertain, dreamy days would only come, there was sure
to be a short round of pleasure wherein the fiddle figured more
prominently than all else.
It was no small part of the fun to see Billy make a fiddle; it was such
a curious combination of mummery and skill. Having whetted his keen,
old-fashioned Barlow knife on the toe of his boot, he would flourish it
above his head with a whoop as though he was looking for an enemy
instead of a corn-stalk. Finding one that was glossy and long enough
between the joints, he would press it gently between his lips, trying
the several sections, and then selecting the longest and most glossy
one. So much of the proceeding was for our benefit, as the cunning old
fellow well knew that it added to his importance in our eyes.
What followed was skill. Having cut off the stalk above and below the
ring-like joints, he had now a convenient piece about eight or ten
inches in length. This he warmed by rubbing it violently with the palm
of his hand, and then placing the point of the knife as near the joint
as practicable, he drew it quickly down to the next joint or lower end.
It must be a straight incision, and Billy seldom failed to make it so. A
parallel one was then made, not more than one-sixteenth of an inch
distant. A space of twice this width was left, and two or three more
strings were made in the same manner. These were freed of the pith
adhering to their under sides, and held up by little wooden “bridges,”
one at each end. The bow was similarly fashioned, but was made of a more
slender section of corn-stalk and had but two strings.
It was indeed surprising how available this crude production proved as a
musical instrument. Youth and the environment counted for a great deal,
of course, and my Quaker surroundings forbidding music, it was a sweeter
joy because a stolen one.
I can picture days of forty years ago as distinctly as though a matter
of the present. My cousin and myself, with Black Billy, would often
steal away and carry with us one of the smaller barn doors. This we
would place in a sunny nook on the south side of the stalk-rick, and
while the fiddle was being made, would part with our jackets that we
might dance the better. Billy was soon ready, and with what a joyful
grin, rolling of his huge black eyes, and vigorous contortion of the
whole body would our faithful friend draw from the corn-stalk every note
of many a quaint old tune! And how we danced! For many a year after the
old door showed the nail-marks of our heavily-heeled shoes where we had
brought them down with a vigor that often roused the energy of old
Billy, until he, too, would stand up and execute a marvellous _pas
seul_. Then, tired out, we would rest in niches in the stalk-rick, and
Billy would play such familiar airs as had penetrated even into the
quiet of Quakerdom. It was no mere imitation of the music, but the thing
itself; and it would be an hour or more before the fiddle’s strings had
lost their tension, the silicious covering had worn away, and the sweet
sounds ceased.
Almost the last of my November afternoons passed in this way had a
somewhat dramatic ending. The fiddle was one of more than ordinary
excellence. In the height of our fun I spied the brim of my
grandfather’s hat extending an inch or two around the corner. I gave no
sign, but danced more vigorously than ever, and as the music and dancing
became more fast and furious the crown of his stiff hat appeared, and
then my grandfather’s face. His countenance was a study. Whether to give
the alarm and run or to remain was the decision of an instant. I gave no
sign, but kept one eye on him. “Faster!” I cried to Billy, and, to my
complete astonishment, the hat moved rapidly up and down. Grandfather
was keeping time! “Faster!” I cried again, and the music was now a
shrieking medley, and the broad-brimmed hat vibrated wonderfully fast.
It was too much. I gave a wild yell and darted off. Circling the barn
and stalk-rick, I entered the front yard with a flushed but innocent
face, and met grandpa. He, too, had an innocent, far-away look, but his
hat was resting on the back of his head and his checks were streaming
with perspiration, and, best of all, he did not seem to know it.
“Grandpa,” I asked at the supper-table that evening, “does thee know why
it is that savage races are so given to dancing?”
"Charles," he replied, gravely, and nothing more was said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER SIXTH
_THE OLD KITCHEN DOOR_
The white porch, with its high roof and two severely plain pillars to
support it; the heavy door, with its ponderous knocker; the straggling
sweetbrier at one side; the forlorn yellow rose between the parlor
windows; the grass that was too cold to welcome a dandelion; the low box
hedge, and one huge box bush that never sheltered a bird’s nest; all
these were in front to solemnly greet that terror of my early
days,—company.
To me these front-door features all meant, and still mean, restraint;
but how different the world that lingered about the old farm-house
kitchen door! There was no cold formality there, but freedom,—the
healthy freedom of old clothes, an old hat; ay, even the luxury of an
open-throated shirt was allowed.
After a tramp over the meadows, after a day’s fishing, after the round
of the rabbit-traps in winter, what joy to enter the kitchen door and
breathe in the delectable odor of hot gingerbread! There were appetites
in those days.
I do not understand the mechanism of a modern kitchen: it looks to me
like a small machine-shop; but the old farm kitchen was a simple affair,
and the intricacies and mystery lay wholly in the dishes evolved. It is
said of my grandmother that a whiff of her sponge-cake brought the
humming-birds about. I do know there was a crackly crust upon it which
it is useless now to try to imitate.
But the door itself—we have none such now. It was a double door in two
ways. It was made of narrow strips of oak, oblique on one side and
straight on the other, and so studded with nails that the whole affair
was almost half metal. It was cut in two, having an upper and a lower
section. The huge wooden latch was hard and smooth as ivory. At night
the door was fastened by a hickory bar, which, when I grew strong enough
to lift it, was my favorite hobby-horse.
The heavy oak sill was worn in the middle until its upper surface was
beautifully curved, and to keep the rain out, when the wind was south, a
canvas sand-bag was rolled against it. A stormy-day amusement was to
pull this away on the sly, and sail tiny paper boats in the puddle that
soon formed on the kitchen floor. There was mischief in those days.
Kitchens and food are of course inseparably connected, and what
hunting-ground for boys equal to the closets where the cakes were kept?
I do not know that the matter was ever openly discussed, but as I look
back it seems as if it was an understood thing that, when our cunning
succeeded in outwitting auntie, we could help ourselves to jumbles. Once
I became a hero in this line of discovery, and we had a picnic behind
the lilacs; but, alas! only too soon we were pleading for essence of
peppermint. Over-eating is possible, even in our teens.
Recent raids in modern kitchen precincts are never successful. Of late I
always put my hand in the wrong crock, and find pickles where I sought
preserves. I never fail, now, to take a slice of a reserved cake, or to
quarter the pie intended for the next meal. Age brings no experience in
such matters. It is a case where we advance backward.
Of the almost endless phases of life centring about the kitchen door
there is one which stands out so prominently that it is hard to realize
the older actor is now dead and that of the young on-lookers few are
left. Soon after the dinner-horn was sounded the farm hands gathered at
the pump, which stood just outside the door, and then in solemn
procession filed into the kitchen for the noonday meal. All this was
prosy enough, but the hour’s nooning after it,—then there was fun
indeed.
Scipio—“Zip,” for short—was not ill-natured, but then who loves too much
teasing? An old chestnut burr in the grass where he was apt to lie had
made him suspicious of me, and I had to be extra cautious. Once I nearly
overstepped the mark. Zip had his own place for a quiet nap, and, when
stretched upon the grass under the big linden, preferred not to be
disturbed. Now it occurred to me to be very funny. I whittled a cork to
the shape of a spider, added monstrous legs, and with glue fastened a
dense coating of chicken-down over all.
It was a fearful spider.
I suspended the sham insect from a limb of the tree so that it would
hang directly over Zip’s face as he lay on the ground, and by a black
thread that could not be seen I could draw it up or let it down at
pleasure. It was well out of sight when Zip fell asleep, and then I
slowly lowered the monster until it tickled his nose. It was promptly
brushed aside. This was repeated several times, and then the old man
awoke. The huge spider was just touching his nose, and one glance was
enough. With a bound and a yell he was up and off, in his headlong
flight overturning the thoughtless cause of his terror. I was the more
injured of the two, but never dared in after-years to ask Zip if he was
afraid of spiders.
And all these years the front door never changed. It may have been
opened daily for aught I know, but I can remember nothing of its
history.
Stay! As befitting such an occurrence, it was open once, as I remember,
when there was a wedding at the house; but of that wedding I recall only
the preparations in the kitchen for the feast that followed; and, alas!
it has been opened again and again for funerals.
Why, indeed, should the front door be remembered? It added no sunshine
to the child’s short summer; but around the corner, whether dreary
winter’s storm or the fiercest heat of August fell upon it, the kitchen
door was the entrance to a veritable elysium.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER SEVENTH
_UP THE CREEK_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is greater merit in the little word “up” than in “down.” If, when
in a place new to me, I am asked to go “up the creek,” my heart leaps,
but there is less enthusiasm when it is suggested to go down the stream.
One seems to mean going into the country, the other into the town. All
this is illogical, of course, but what of that? The facts of a case like
this have not the value of my idle fancies. After all, there is a
peculiar merit in going up-stream. It is something to be going deeper
and deeper into the heart of the country. It is akin to getting at the
foundations of things.
In the case of small inland streams, generally, the mouth is a
commonplace affair. The features that charm shrink from the fateful
spot, and we are put in a condition of anticipation at the start which,
happily, proves one of abundant realization at the finish.
A certain midsummer Saturday was not an ideal one for an outing, but
with most excellent company I ventured up the creek. It was my friend’s
suggestion, so I was free from responsibility. Having promised nothing,
I could in no wise be justly held accountable. Vain thought! Directly I
suffered in their estimation because, at mere beck and nod, polliwogs
were not forthcoming and fishes refused to swim into my hand. What
strange things we fancy of our neighbors! Because I love the wild life
about me, one young friend thought me a magician who could command the
whole creek’s fauna by mere word of mouth. It proved an empty day in one
respect, animal life scarcely showing itself. To offer explanations was
of no avail, and one of the little company recast her opinions. Perhaps
she even entertains some doubt as to my having ever seen a bird or fish
or the coveted polliwog.
It is one thing to be able to give the name and touch upon the habits of
some captured creature, and quite another to command its immediate
presence when we enter its haunts. This always should, and probably
never will, be remembered.
But what of the creek, the one-time Big-Bird Creek of the Delaware
Indians? With ill-timed strokes we pulled our languid oars, and passed
many a tree, jutting meadow, or abandoned wharf worthy of more than a
moment’s contemplation. But, lured by the treasure still beyond our
reach, we went on and on, until the trickling waters of a hillside
spring proved too much for us, and, turning our prow landward, we
stopped to rest.
Among old trees that afforded grateful shade, a spring that bubbled from
an aged chestnut’s wrinkled roots, a bit of babbling brook that too soon
reached the creek and was lost, and, beyond all, wide-spreading meadows,
boundless from our point of view—what more need one ask? To our credit,
be it said, we were satisfied, except, perhaps, that here, as all along
our course, polliwogs were perverse. Birds, however, considerately came
and went, and even the shy cuckoo deigned to reply when we imitated his
dolorous clucking. A cardinal grosbeak, too, drew near and whistled a
welcome, and once eyed us with much interest as we sat lunching on the
grass. What did he think of us? Eating, with him, is so different a
matter, and perhaps he could give us a few useful hints. The trite
remark, “Fingers came before forks,” has a significance in the woods, if
not in the town. While eating we listened, and I heard the voices of
nine different birds. Some merely chirped in passing, it is true, but
the marsh-wrens in the cat-tail thicket just across the creek were not
silent for a moment. Here in the valley of the Delaware, as I recently
found them on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, the wrens are quite
nocturnal, and I would have been glad to have heard them sing in the
moonlight again; for our enthusiasm would have been strengthened by a
few such glimpses of the night side of Nature.
No bird is so welcome to a mid-day camp as the white-eyed vireo, and we
were fortunate in having one with us while we tarried at the spring. Not
even ninety degrees in the shade has any effect upon him, and this
unflagging energy reacts upon the listener. We could at least be so far
alive as to give him our attention. Mid-day heat, however, does affect
many a song-bird, and now that nesting is well-nigh over, the open woods
are deserted for hidden cool retreats, where the songster takes its
ease, as we, far from town, are taking ours. There is much in common
between birds and men.
How, as we lingered over our glasses, counting the lemon-seeds embedded
in sugar, we would have enjoyed a wood-thrush’s splendid song or a
rose-breasted grosbeak’s matchless melody! but the _to-whee_ of the
pipilo scratching among dead leaves, the plaint of an inquisitive
cat-bird threading the briers, the whir of a humming-bird vainly seeking
flowers,—these did not pass for nothing; and yet there was comparative
silence that suggested a sleeping rather than a wakeful, active world.
Here let me give him who loves an outing a useful hint: be not so
anxious for what may be that you overlook that which is spread before
you. More than once to-day our discussion of the “silence” of a
midsummer noontide drowned the voices of singing-birds near by.
How often it has been intimated to us that "two’s company and three’s a
crowd"! but to really see and hear what transpires in the haunts of wild
life, _one_ is company and _two’s_ a crowd. We cannot heed Nature and
fellow-man at the same moment; and as to the comparative value of their
communications, each must judge for himself.
Certainly the human voice is a sound which animals are slow to
appreciate. How often have I stood in silence before birds and small
animals and they have shown no fear! A movement of my arms would put
them on guard, perhaps; but a word spoken, and away they sped. Not a
bird, I have noticed, is startled by the bellow of a bull or the neigh
of a horse, and yet my own voice filled them with fear. Even snakes that
knew me well and paid no attention to my movements were startled at
words loudly spoken. It is a bit humiliating to think that in the
estimation of many a wild animal our bark is worse than our bite.
A midsummer noontide has surely some merit, and when I failed to find
fish, frog, or salamander for my young friend, it became necessary to
point to some feature of the spot that made it worth a visit. To my
discomfiture, I could find nothing. Trees have been talked of overmuch,
and there were no wild flowers. The August bloom gave, as yet, only a
hint of what was coming. I had hit upon a most unlucky interim during
which no man should go upon a picnic. In despair and empty-handed, we
took to our boat and started up the creek. It was a fortunate move, for
straightway the waters offered that which I had vainly sought for on
shore. Here were flowers in abundance. The pickerel-weed was in bloom,
the dull-yellow blossoms of the spatterdock dotted the muddy shores,
bind-weed here and there offered a single flower as we passed by, and
never was golden-dodder more luxuriant. Still, it is always a little
disappointing when Flora has the world to herself, and while we were
afloat it was left to a few crows and a single heron to prove that she
had not quite undisputed sway.
Up the creek with many a turn and twist, and now on a grassy knoll we
land again, where a wonderful spring pours a great volume of sparkling
water into the creek. Here at last we have an object lesson that should
bear fruit when we recall the day. Not a cupful of this clear cold water
could we catch but contained a few grains of sand, and for so many
centuries has this carrying of sand grains been in progress that now a
great ridge has choked the channel where once rode ships at anchor. An
obscure back-country creek now, but less than two centuries ago the
scene of busy industry. Perhaps no one is now living who saw the last
sail that whitened the landscape. Pages of old ledgers, a bit of diary,
and old deeds tell us something of the place; but the grassy knoll
itself gives no hint of the fact that upon it once stood a warehouse.
Yet a busy place it was in early colonial times, and now utterly
neglected.
It is difficult to realize how very unsubstantial is much of man’s work.
As we sat upon the grassy slope, watching the outgoing tide as it
rippled and broke in a long line of sparkling bubbles, I rebuilt, for
the moment, the projecting wharf, of which but a single log remains, and
had the quaint shallops of pre-Revolutionary time riding at anchor.
There were heard, in fact, the cry of a heron and the wild scream of a
hawk; but these, in fancy, were the hum of human voices and the tramp of
busy feet.
[Illustration: _The Old Drawbridge, Crosswick’s Creek_]
The scattered stones that just peeped above the grass were not chance
bowlders rolled from the hill near by, but the door-step and foundation
of the one-time warehouse. The days of buying, selling, and getting gain
came back, in fancy, and I was more the sturdy colonist than the
effeminate descendant. But has the present no merit? We had the summer
breeze that came freighted with the odors gathered from the forest and
the stream, and there were thrushes rejoicing in our hearing that the
hill-sides were again as Nature made them. It meant much to us to tarry
in the shade of venerable trees spared by the merchants that once
collected here, whose names are now utterly forgotten. Stay! there are
two reminders of ancient glory. A beech that overhangs the brook has its
bark well scarred, and, now beyond decipherment, there are initials of
many prominent naturalists of Philadelphia. A few rods up-stream is
another beech that has remained unchanged. On it can be seen the
initials T. A. C., 1819; those of the celebrated paleontologist, Conrad,
born near here in 1803.
The shadows lengthen; the cooler hours of eventide draw on; the languid
thrushes are again abroad; music fills the air. We are homeward bound
and hurrying down-stream. Our minds are not so receptive as when we
started. How shrunken to a few rods is every mile! Trees, flowers, and
birds are scarcely heeded; but the good gathered as we went up the creek
we bring away, and, once again in the dusty village street, we realize
that we have but to turn our back upon the town to find the world a
picture.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER EIGHTH
_A WINTER-NIGHT’S
OUTING_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not long since I was asked—and not for the first time—if I could date
the beginning of my taste for natural history pursuits or give any
incident that appeared to mark a turning-point in my career.
It did not seem possible to do this, on first consideration; but a
recent living over of days gone by recalled an incident which happened
before I was eleven years old, and, as it was almost my first regular
outing that smacked of adventure, it is probable that it impressed me
more forcibly than any earlier or, indeed, later events.
Heavy and long-continued rains had resulted in a freshet, and then three
bitter cold days had converted a wide reach of meadows into a frozen
lake. Happier conditions could not have occurred in the small boy’s
estimation, and, with boundless anticipation, we went skating.
After smooth ice, the foremost requirement is abundant room, and this we
had. There was more than a square mile for each of us. The day had been
perfect and the approaching night was such as Lowell so aptly describes,
“all silence and all glisten.”
As the sun was setting we started a roaring fire in a sheltered nook,
and securely fastening our skates without getting at all chilled,
started off. Then the fun commenced. We often wandered more than a mile
away, and it was not until the fire was reduced to a bed of glowing
coals that we returned to our starting-point.
Here a great surprise awaited us. The heat had drawn from the wooded
hill-side near by many a meadow-mouse that, moved by the warmth or by
curiosity, ventured as near as it dared. These mice were equally
surprised at seeing us, and scampered off, but, it seemed to me, with
some show of reluctance, as if a chance to warm themselves so thoroughly
should not be missed.
We freshened the fire a little and fell back a few paces, but stood near
enough to see if the mice would return. This they did in a few minutes,
and, to our unbounded surprise and amusement, more than one sat up on
its haunches like a squirrel. They seemed to be so many diminutive human
beings about a camp-fire.
It was a sight to give rise to a pretty fairy tale, and possibly our
Indians built up theirs on just such incidents. These mice were, to all
appearances, there to enjoy the warmth. There was little running to and
fro, no squeaking, not a trace of unusual excitement, and, although it
was so cold, we agreed to wait as long as the mice saw fit to stay.
This resolution, however, could not hold. We were getting chilled, and
so had to draw near. As we did this, there was a faint squeaking which
all noticed, and we concluded that sentinels had been placed to warn the
congregated mice of our approach.
The spirit of adventure was now upon us, and our skates were but the
means to other ends than mere sport. What, we thought, of the gloomy
nooks and corners where thickets stood well above the ice? We had
shunned these heretofore, but without open admission that we had any
fear concerning them. Then, too, the gloomy gullies in the hill-side
came to mind. Should we skate into such darkness and startle the wild
life there?
The suggestion was made, and not one dared say he was afraid.
We thought of the fun in chasing a coon or skunk over the ice, and
bravely we ventured, feeling our way where we knew the ice was thin and
rough.
At a bend in the little brook, where a large cedar made the spot more
dark and forbidding, we paused a moment, not knowing just how to
proceed.
The next minute we had no time for thought. A loud scream held us almost
spellbound, and then, with one dash, we sought the open meadows.
Once there, we breathed a little freer. We could see the fast-fading
light of the fire, and at last could flee in a known direction if
pursued. Should we hurry home? We debated this for some time, but were
more fearful of being laughed at than of facing any real danger, and
therefore concluded, with proper caution, to return.
Keeping close together, we entered the ravine again, stopped near the
entrance and kindled a fire, and then, by its light, proceeded farther.
It was a familiar spot, but not without strange features as we now saw
it.
Again we were startled by the same wild cry, but for a moment only. A
barn owl, I think it was, sailed by, glaring at us, as we imagined, and
sought the open meadows.
We turned and followed, though why, it would be hard to say. The owl
flew slowly and we skated furiously, trying to keep it directly
overhead. Now we were brave even to foolhardiness, and sped away over
the ice, indifferent to the direction taken. To this day I have credited
that owl with a keen sense of humor.
On we went, over the meadows to where the swift but shallow creek flowed
by, and then, when too late, we knew where we were. The ice bent beneath
us, then cracked, and in an instant we were through it, our feet well in
the mud and the water about our necks. Just how we got out I never knew,
but we did, and the one dry match among us was a veritable treasure. It
did not go out at the critical moment, but started ablaze the few twigs
we hastily gathered, and so saved us from freezing. As we dried our
clothes and warmed our benumbed bodies, I, for one, vowed never again to
chase an owl on skates, but to go at it more soberly. From that eventful
night the country has been attractive by reason of its wild life. It was
there I became—if indeed I ever have become—a naturalist.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER NINTH
_WILD LIFE IN WATER_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“The antelope has less reason to fear the lion than has the minnow to
dread the pike. We think of timid antelopes and roaring lions, but the
former has good use of its limbs, and so a fighting chance for its life;
but the minnows have little advantage in the struggle for existence, and
none at all when the predatory fishes are in pursuit of them.”
This was written in a note-book more than thirty years ago, and I let it
stand as evidence of how easy it is to be in error in matters of natural
history.
When I went to school there was but one teacher of the five that knew
anything about such matters, and he had the old-time views. Then a fish
was a mere machine so far as intelligence was concerned. We were told of
the cunning of foxes and the instinct of ants and bees, but never a word
of fishes.
The truth is, I might very properly speak of wild “wit” in the water
instead of “life,” for there can be not the shadow of a doubt but that
many of our fishes are really cunning. We need but watch them carefully
to be readily convinced of this. How else could they escape danger?
The pretty peacock minnows throng the grassy beach at high tide, playing
with their fellows in water just deep enough to cover them, and are,
when here, very tame and careless. They even get stranded upon the airy
side of floating leaves, and enjoy the excitement. They realize, it
would seem, that where they are no pike can rush down upon them, no
snake work its way unseen among them, no turtle crawl into their
playground; but as the tide goes out and these minnows are forced nearer
to the river’s channel, they lose their carelessness and are suspicious
of all about them.
To call this instinctive fear and result of heredity sounds well; but
the naturalist is brought nearer to the wild life about him when he
credits them simply with common sense. The charm of watching such “small
deer” vanishes if we lean too much on the learned and scientific
solutions of the comparative psychologist, and possibly, too, we wander
further from the truth. All I positively know is, that when danger
really exists the minnows are aware of it; when it is absent they throw
off the burden of this care, and life for a few hours is a matter of
pure enjoyment.
Brief mention should be made of the protective character of the coloring
of certain fishes. If such are fortunate enough to be protectively
colored, there is little to be said; but are they conscious of this?
Does a fish that is green or mottled green and gray keep closely to the
weeds, knowing that it is safer there than when in open water or where
the bottom is covered with white sand and pebbles? This may be a rather
startling question, but there is warrant for the asking. Float half a
day over the shallows of any broad pond or stream, study with care and
without preconception the fishes where they live, and you will ask
yourself not only this question, but many a stranger one. If fish are
fools, how is it that the angler has so generally to tax his ingenuity
to outwit them? How closely Nature must be copied to deceive a trout!
Having said so much of small fishes, what now of the larger ones that
prey upon them? A pike, for instance? Probably many more people have
studied how to catch a pike than have considered it scientifically. It
is tiresome, perhaps, but if a student of natural history really desires
to know what a fish actually is, he must watch it for hours, being
himself unseen.
At one time there were several large pike in my lotus pond. Under the
huge floating leaves of this splendid plant they took refuge, and it was
difficult to catch even a glimpse of them. At the same time the schools
of minnows seemed to enjoy the sunlight and sported in the open water.
More than once, however, I saw a pike rush out from its cover, and
finally learned that it systematically lay in wait for the minnows; and
I believe I am justified in adding that the minnows knew that danger
lurked under the lotus leaves.
The situation was not so hap-hazard a one as might appear at first
glance, and hours of patient watching convinced me that there was a
decided exercising of ingenuity on the part of both the pike and the
minnows; the former ever on the lookout for a victim, the latter
watchful of an ever-present danger. Day long it was a tragedy where
brute force counted for little and cunning for a great deal.
Another very common fish in my pond was likewise very suggestive in
connection with the subject of animal intelligence. I refer to the
common “sunny,” or “pumpkin-seed.” A shallow sand-nest had been scooped
near shore and the precious eggs deposited. A school of silvery-finned
minnows had discovered them, and the parent fish was severely taxed in
her efforts to protect them.
So long as this school of minnows remained together, the sunfish, by
fierce rushes, kept them back; but soon the former—was it accident or
design?—divided their forces, and as the parent fish darted at one
assaulting party, the other behind it made a successful raid upon the
nest. This continued for some time, and the sunfish was getting quite
weary, when, as if a sudden thought struck it, its tactics changed, and
it swam round and round in a circle and sent a shower of sand out into
the space beyond the nest. This effectually dazed the minnows.
Little incidents like this are forever occurring and effectually set
aside the once prevalent idea that fish are mere living machines. Look a
pike in the eye and you will detect something very different from mere
instinctive timidity.
But fish are not the only creatures that live in the water; there are
one snake and several species of turtles, and frogs, mollusks, and
insects innumerable. These are too apt to be associated with the land,
and, except the two latter forms, are usually thought of as taking to
the water as a place of refuge, but really living in the open air. This
is a great mistake. There is a lively world beneath the surface of the
water, and the tragedy of life is played to the very end, with here and
there a pretty comedy that wards off the blues when we look too long and
see nothing but the destruction of one creature that another may live.
Here is an example of cunning or wit in a water-snake. A friend of mine
was recently sitting on the bank of a little brook, when his attention
was called to a commotion almost at his feet. Looking down, he saw a
snake holding its head above the water, and in its mouth struggled a
small sunfish. Now, what was the snake’s purpose? It knew very well that
the fish would drown in the air, and not until it was dead could it be
swallowed with that deliberation a snake loves. The creature was cunning
enough to kill by easy means prey that would otherwise be difficult to
overcome, for while crosswise in the snake’s mouth it could not be
swallowed, and if put down for an instant the chances of its recapture
would be slight.
To suppose that a turtle, as you watch it crawling over the mud, has any
sense of humor in its horny head seems absurd; yet naturalists have
recorded their being seen at play, and certainly they can readily be
tamed to a remarkable degree. Their intelligence, however, shows
prominently only in the degree of cunning exhibited when they are in
search of food. The huge snapper “lies in wait,” and truly this is a
most suggestive and comprehensive phrase. I believe, too, that this
fierce turtle buries surplus food, and so gives further evidence of
intellectual activity.
To realize what wild life in the water really is it must be observed
where Nature has placed it. It is perhaps not so much set forth by
exceptional incidents that the student happens to witness as by that
general appearance of common sense which is so unmistakably stamped upon
even the most commonplace movements. Writers upon animal intelligence do
not need to be constantly on the lookout for special exhibitions of
cunning in order to substantiate the claims they make in favor of life’s
lower forms. It is plainly enough to be seen if we will but patiently
watch whensoever these creatures come and wheresoever they go and the
manner of their going and coming.
Do not be so intent upon watching for the marvellous that ordinary
incidents are not seen. In studying wild life everywhere, and perhaps
more particularly in the water, to be rightly informed we must see the
average individual amid commonplace surroundings. Doing this, we are not
misinformed nor led to form too high an opinion. It is as in the study
of humanity. We must not familiarize ourselves with the mountebank, but
with man.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER TENTH
_AN OLD-FASHIONED
GARDEN_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The world at large is a most intricate machine, and parts viewed
separately give no hint of their importance to what appear quite
independent objects. Man may dissociate without destroying, but, when he
does so, his constant attention must then take the place of the acts
that Nature designed other conditions of life should perform. The
isolated plant, for instance, is destroyed by insects unless we protect
it by a glass covering or a poison-bath: Nature gave it to the birds to
protect the plant, and in so doing find food for themselves. This law of
interdependence is made very plain in the case of a modern garden or the
trim lawns of a large city, and in less degree applies to towns and
villages. The caterpillar nuisance that requires the collaring of
shade-trees with cotton-wool to protect their foliage illustrates this;
and what an example is a modern garden filled to overflowing with exotic
plants! An all-important feature is wanting,—birds; for, except English
sparrows, we have none, and these are worse than useless.
It was not always so, and the cause of the deplorable change is not hard
to find. Whenever we chance, in our wanderings, to come upon some
long-neglected corner of colonial times, there we will find the bloom
and birds together. I have said “neglected;” not quite that, for there
was bloom, and the birds are excellent gardeners.
Let me particularize. My garden is a commonplace affair, with the single
innovation of a tub sunk in the ground to accommodate a lotus,—so
commonplace, indeed, that no passer-by would notice it; and yet during a
single summer afternoon I have seen within its boundaries fifteen
species of birds. At that hottest hour of the midsummer day, two P.M.,
while looking at the huge pink blossoms of the classic lotus, my
attention was called to a quick movement on the ground, as if a rat ran
by. It proved to be an oven-bird, that curious combination of thrush and
sand-piper, and yet neither, but a true warbler. It peered into every
nook and corner of the shrubbery, poised on the edge of the sunken
lotus-tub, caught a wriggling worm that came to the surface of the
water, then teetered along the fence and was gone. Soon it returned, and
came and went until dark, as much at home as ever in the deep recesses
of unfrequented woods. As the sun went down, the bird sang once with all
the spring-tide ardor, and brought swiftly back to me many a long
summer’s day ramble in the country. It is something to be miles away
from home while sitting on your own door-step.
Twice a song-sparrow came, bathed in the lotus-tub, and, when not
foraging in the weedy corners, sang its old-fashioned song, now so
seldom heard within town limits. The bird gave me two valuable hints as
to garden management. Water is a necessity to birds as well as to any
other form of life, and shelter is something more than a mere
attraction. Was it not because the birds happened to be provided with
them to-day that I had, as I have had the summer long, more birds than
my neighbors?
How seldom do we see the coral honeysuckle, and how generally the
trumpet-creeper has given place to exotic vines of far more striking
bloom, but, as will appear, of less utility! If the old-time vines that
I have mentioned bore less showy flowers, they had at least the merit of
attracting humming-birds, that so grandly rounded out our complement of
summer birds. These feathered fairies are not difficult to see, even
though so small, and, if so inclined, we can always study them to great
advantage. They become quite tame, and in the old-fashioned gardens were
always a prominent feature by reason of their numbers. They are not
forever on the wing, and when preening their feathers let the sunshine
fall upon them, and we have emeralds and rubies that cost nothing, but
are none the less valuable because of this. In changing the botanical
features of our yards we have had but one thought, gorgeous flowers; but
was it wise to give no heed to the loss of birds as the result? I fancy
there are many who would turn with delight from formal clusters of
unfamiliar shrubs, however showy, to a gooseberry hedge or a lilac
thicket with song-sparrows and a cat-bird hidden in its shade. We have
been unwise in this too radical change. We have abolished bird-music in
our eagerness for color, gaining a little, but losing more. We have paid
too clear, not for a whistle, but for its loss. But it is not too late.
Carry a little of the home forest to our yards, and birds will follow
it. And let me here wander to an allied matter, that of the
recently-established Arbor Day. What I have just said recalls it.
To merely transplant a tree, move it from one spot to another, where
perhaps it is less likely to remain for any length of time than where it
previously stood, is, it seems to me, the very acme of folly. The
chances are many that the soil is less suitable, and so growth will be
retarded, and the world is therefore not one whit the better off. There
is far too much tree-planting of this kind on Arbor Day. In many an
instance a plot of ground has been replanted year after year. I fancy we
will have to reach more nearly to the stage of tree appreciation before
Arbor Day will be a pre-eminent success. Can we not, indeed, accommodate
ourselves a little more to the trees growing where Nature planted them?
I know a village well, where the houses are placed to accommodate the
trees that stood there when the spot was a wilderness. The main street
is a little crooked, but what a noble street it is! I recall, as I write
these lines, many a Friends’ meeting-house, and one country school,
where splendid oaks are standing near by, and to those who gather daily
or weekly here, whether children or grown people, the trees are no less
clear than the buildings beside them. The wanderer who revisits the
scenes of his childhood looks first at the trees and then at the houses.
Tree-worship, we are told, was once very prevalent, and it is not to be
regretted that in a modified form it still remains with us.
As a practical matter, let me here throw out the suggestion that he will
be doing most excellent work who saves a tree each year. This is a
celebration that needs no special day set forth by legislative
enactment. How often I have heard farmers remark, "It was a mistake to
cut those trees down"! Of course it was. In nine cases out of ten the
value of the trees felled proves less than was expected, and quickly
follows the realization of the fact that when standing their full value
was not appreciated. Think of cutting down trees that stand singly or in
little groups in the middle of fields because it is a trouble to plant
around them, or for the reason that they shade the crops too much! What
of the crop of comfort such trees yield to both man and beast when these
fields are pastures? “But there is no money in shade-trees.” I cannot
repress my disgust when I hear this, and I have heard it often. Is there
genuine manhood in those who feel this way towards the one great
ornament of our landscape?
It is not—more’s the pity—within the power of every one to plant a tree,
but those who cannot need not stand idly by on Arbor Day. Here is an
instance where half a loaf is better than no bread. Many a one can plant
a shrub. How often there is an unsightly corner, even in the smallest
enclosure, where a tall tree would be a serious obstruction, whereon can
be grown a thrifty bush, one that will be a constant source of pleasure
because of its symmetry and bright foliage, and for a time doubly
attractive because of its splendid blossoming! We know too little of the
many beautiful flowering shrubs that are scattered through every
woodland, which are greatly improved by a little care in cultivation,
and which will bear transplanting. We overlook them often, when seen
growing in the forest, because they are small, irregular, and often
sparse of bloom. But remember, in the woods there is a fierce struggle
for existence, and when this is overcome the full beauty of the shrub’s
stature becomes an accomplished fact.
Here is a short list of common shrubs, every one of which is hardy,
beautiful in itself, and can be had without other cost or labor than a
walk in the country, for I do not suppose any land-owner would refuse a
“weed,” as they generally call these humble plants. The spicewood
(_Lindera benzoin_), which bears bright golden flowers before the leaves
appear; the shad-bush (_Amelanchier canadensis_), with a wealth of snowy
blossoms, which are increased in number and size by a little attention,
as judicious trimming; and the “bush” of the wild-wood can be made to
grow to a beautiful miniature tree. The well-known pinxter flower
(_Azalea nudicaule_) is improved by cultivation, and can be made to grow
“stocky” and thick-set, instead of scragged, as we usually find it. Its
bright pink blossoms make a grand showing in May. There is a little wild
plum (_Prunus spinosa_) which only asks to be given a chance and then
will rival the famous deutzias in profusion of bloom, and afterwards
remains a sturdy tree-like shrub, with dark-green foliage that is always
attractive. This, too, blooms before the foliage is developed, and hints
of spring as surely as the robin’s song. A larger but no less handsome
bush is the white flowering thorn (_Cratægus crus-galli_), and there are
wild spireas that should not be overlooked, and two white flowering
shrubs that delight all who see them in bloom, the deer-berry
(_Vaccinium stamineum_), and the “false-teeth” (_Leucothoe racemosa_).
All these are spring flowers. And now a word about an August bloomer,
the sweet pepper-bush (_Clethra alnifolia_). This is easily grown and is
a charming plant.
It happens, too, that a place can be found for a hardy climber, and as
beautiful as the coral honeysuckles of our grandmother’s days is the
climbing bittersweet (_Celastrus scandens_). The plant itself is
attractive. Its vigorous growth soon covers the support provided for it,
and in autumn and throughout the winter its golden and crimson fruit
hangs in thick-set clusters upon every branch.
Considering how frequently near the house there are unsightly objects,
and how depressing it is to be forever looking upon ugliness, it is
strange that the abundant means for beautifying waste places are so
persistently neglected. With one or more of the plants I have named, an
eyesore may be changed to a source of pleasure, and it was Beecher, I
think, who said, “A piece of color is as useful as a piece of bread.” He
never spoke more truly.
And what of the old-time arbors, with the straggling grape-vine, and
perhaps a rude wren-box perched at the entrance? Is there better shade
than the grape-vine offers, a sweeter odor than its bloom affords, or
more charming music than the song of the restless house-wren? Certainly
there have been no improvements upon these features of the old-time
garden: yet how seldom do we see them now! We must travel far, too, to
find a martin-box. As a matter of fact, the bluebird, wren, and martin
might, if we chose, be restored to the very hearts of our largest towns.
People have no more terror for them than for the English sparrow, and
they can all hold out against these piratical aliens, if we would
consider their few and simple needs. The wrens need but nesting-boxes
with an entrance through which the shoulders of a sparrow cannot pass;
and the bluebirds and martins require only that their houses be closed
during the winter and very early spring, or until they have returned
from their winter-quarters. This is easily done, and when the birds are
ready to occupy the accommodations provided for them they will take
possession and successfully hold the forts against all intruders. This
is not a fancy merely, suggested as the basis of experimentation, but is
the result of the experience of several people in widely-separated
localities. I vividly recall visiting at a house in a large town, where
purple martins for more than fifty years had occupied boxes placed upon
the eaves of a one-story kitchen.
While stress is laid upon the importance of regaining the presence in
town of these birds, it must not be supposed that they are all that are
available. There are scores of wild birds, known only to the
ornithologist, that can be “cultivated” as readily as the wild shrubbery
that under startling names figures in many a florist’s catalogue. Give
them a foothold, and they will come to stay. Orioles, thrushes, vireos,
fly-catchers, are not unreasonably afraid of man, and would quickly
acquire confidence if they were warranted in so doing. How long would a
scarlet tanager or a cardinal grosbeak remain unmolested if it appeared
in any city street? Here is the whole matter in a nutshell: the birds
are not averse to coming, but the people will not let them. This is the
more strange, when we remember that hundreds of dollars were spent to
accommodate the pestiferous imported sparrow, that is and always must be
a positive curse. Hundreds for sparrows, and not one cent for a
bluebird! While the mischief can never be undone, it can be held in
check, if we will but take the trouble, and this is a mere matter of
town-garden rearrangement; and why, indeed, not treat our ears to music
as well as our eyes to color and our palates to sweetness? Plant here
and there a bush that will yield you a crop of birds. That this may not
be thought merely a whim of my own, let me quote from the weather record
of Dr. John Conrad, who for forty years was the apothecary of the
Pennsylvania Hospital, in Philadelphia. This institution, bear in mind,
is in the heart of the city, not in its outskirts. Under date of March
23, 1862, he records, “Crocus and snow-drop came into bloom last week
and are now fully out.” Again, he says, “Orioles arrived on April 8,
after the fruit-trees burst into bloom.” Here we have a migratory bird
in the city three weeks earlier than its usual appearance in the
country, but I do not think the doctor was mistaken. I have positive
knowledge of the fact that he was a good local ornithologist. Under date
of June, 1866, Conrad writes, “A very pleasant June. Fine bright
weather, and only one week too warm for comfort. The roses bloomed well
(except the moss-rose) and for the most part opened better than usual.
The garden full of birds, and insects less abundant than usual. Many
blackbirds reared their young in our trees, and as many as sixteen or
twenty have been counted on the lawn at one time. Cat-birds, orioles,
thrushes, wrens, vireos, robins, etc., abound and make our old hospital
joyous with their sweet songs.”
During the summer of 1892 I was twice in the hospital grounds, with
which I was very familiar during my uncle’s—Dr. Conrad’s—lifetime, and I
heard only English sparrows, although I saw two or three native birds.
It was a sad change. Think of being able to speak of your garden as
“full of birds,”—as “joyous with their sweet songs.” This, not long ago,
could truthfully be done. Will it ever be possible to do so again?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER ELEVENTH
_AN INDIAN TRAIL_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was a strange coincidence. A farmer living near by employed an Indian
from the school at Carlisle, and now that the work of the summer was
over, this taciturn youth walked daily over a hill to a school-house
more than a mile away, and the path leading to it was an Indian trail.
Not long since I met the lad on this very path returning from school,
and when he passed I stood by an old oak and watched him until lost
among the trees, walking where centuries ago his people had walked when
going from the mountain village and rock shelters along an inland creek
to the distant town by the river.
As you looked about from the old oak there was no public road or house
in sight; nothing but trees and bushes, huge rocks, and one curious
jutting ledge that tradition holds is a veritable relic of prehistoric
time,—a place where council fires were lit and midnight meetings held.
Whether tradition is true or not, the place was a fitting one whereat to
tarry and fall a-thinking. Happy, indeed, could the old oak have spoken.
Many a public road of recent date has been built on the line of an old
trail, as many a town and even city have replaced Indian villages; but
take the long-settled regions generally, the ancient landmarks are all
gone, and a stray potsherd or flint arrow-point in the fields is all
that is left to recall the days of the dusky aborigines.
Only in the rough, rocky, irreclaimable hills are we likely now to be
successful, if such traces as a trail are sought for.
It was so here. Bald-top Hill is of little use to the white man except
for the firewood that grows upon its sides and the scattered game that
still linger in its thickets. As seen from the nearest road, not far
off, there is nothing now to suggest that an Indian ever clambered about
it. The undergrowth hides every trace of the surface; but after the
leaves drop and a light snow has fallen, a curious white line can be
traced from the base of the summit; this is the old trail.
It is a narrow path, but for so long a time had it been used by the
Indians that, when once pointed out, it can still be followed without
difficulty. It leads now from one little intervale to another: from
farmer A to farmer B; but originally it was part of their long highway
leading from Philadelphia to Easton, perhaps. It matters not. Enough to
know that then, as now, there were towns almost wherever there was land
fit for dwellings, and paths that led from one to the other. It is clear
that the Indians knew the whole country well. The routes they finally
chose resulted from long experience, and were as direct as the nature of
the ground made possible.
The study of trails opens up to us a broader view of ancient Indian life
than we are apt to entertain.
We find the sites of villages on the banks of the rivers and larger
inflowing streams; travel by canoes was universal. No locality was so
favorable as the open valley, and here the greater number of Indians
doubtless dwelt. But the river and its fertile shores could not yield
all that this people needed: they had to draw from the resources of the
hills behind them. They soon marked the whole region with a net-work of
trails leading to the various points whence they drew the necessities of
life. The conditions of the present day are laid down on essentially the
same lines as then.
An Indian town was not a temporary tent site, or mere cluster of
wigwams, here to-day and miles away to-morrow; nor did these people
depend solely upon the chase. Beside the trail over which I recently
passed was a great clearing that had been an orchard. We can yet find
many a barren spot that is rightly known to the people of to-day as an
Indian field. So persistently were their cornfields cropped that at last
the soil was absolutely exhausted, and has not yet recovered its
fertility.
There was systematic bartering, too, as the red pipe-stone or catlinite
from Minnesota and obsidian from the more distant Northwest, found on
the Atlantic coast, as well as ocean shells picked up in the far
interior, all testify. There was also periodical journeying in autumn
from inland to the sea-coast to gather supplies of oysters, clams, and
other “sea food,” which were dried by smoking and then “strung as beads
and carried as great coils of rope” back to the hills to be consumed
during the winter.
Many small colonies, too, passed the winters on the coast in the shelter
of the great pine forests that extended to the very ocean beach. It was
no hap-hazard threading of a wilderness to reach these distant points.
The paths were well defined, well used. For how long we can only
conjecture, but the vast accumulations of shells on the coast, often now
beneath the water, point to a time so distant that the country wore a
different aspect from what it now does; a time when the land rose far
higher above the tide and extended seaward where now the ocean rolls
resistlessly.
Returning inland, let us trace another of these old-time paths from the
river-shore whereon the Indians had long dwelt, over hill and dale until
we reach a valley hemmed in by low, rolling hills.
It is a pretty spot still, although marred by the white man’s work; but
why was it the goal of many a weary journey?
Here is found the coveted jasper, varied in hue as autumn leaves or a
summer sunset. The quick eye of some wandering hunter, it may be, found
a chance fragment, and, looking closer, saw that the ground on which he
stood was filled with it; or a freshet may have washed the soil from an
outcropping of the mineral. Who can tell? It must suffice to know that
the discovery was made in time, and a new industry arose. No other
material so admirably met the Indian’s need for arrow-points, for the
blades of spears, for knives, drills, scrapers, and the whole range of
tools and weapons in daily use.
So it came that mining camps were established. To this day, in these
lonely hills, we can trace out the great pits the Indians dug, find the
tools with which they toiled, and even the ashes of their camp-fires,
where they slept by night. So deeply did the Indian work the land
wheresoever he toiled that even the paths that led from the mines to the
distant village have not been wholly blotted out.
The story of the jasper mines has yet to be told, and it may be long
before the full details are learned concerning the various processes
through which the mineral passed before it came into use as a finished
product. Much vain speculation has been indulged in; the fancied method
of reducing a thick blade to a thin one has been elaborately described,
although never carried out by any human being; in short, the impossible
has been boldly asserted as a fact beyond question.
The Indian’s history can be read but in small part from the handiwork
that he has left behind.
One phase of it, in the valley of the Delaware, is more clearly told
than all else,—the advance from a primitive to a more cultured status.
There were centuries during which jasper was known only as
river-pebbles, and its discovery in abundance had an influence upon
Indians akin to that upon Europe’s stone-age people when they discovered
the use of metals. At least here in the valley of the Delaware this is
true.
It is vain to ask for the beginning of man’s career in this region; what
we find but hints at it. But he came when there were no trails over the
hills, no path but the icy river’s edge; only as the centuries rolled by
was the country developed to the extent of knowing every nook and corner
of the land, and highways and by-ways became common, like the roads that
now reach out in every direction.
A “trail,” then, has a wealth of meaning, and those who made it were no
“mere savages,” as we so glibly speak of the Indians, thanks to the
average school-books.
The haughty Delawares had fields and orchards; they had permanent towns;
they mined such minerals as were valuable to them; they had weapons of
many patterns; they were jewellers in a crude way, and finished many a
stone ornament in a manner that still excites admiration. They were
travellers and tradesmen as well as hunters and warriors.
Although my day’s search for relics of these people had yielded but a
few arrow-points, potsherds, and a stone axe, when I saw the Indian on
his way from school, walking in the very path his people had made long
centuries ago, the story of their ancient sojourn here came vividly to
mind in the dim light of an autumn afternoon, when a golden mist wrapped
the hills and veiled the valleys beyond, and I had a glimpse of
pre-Columbian America.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER TWELFTH
._A PRE-COLUMBIAN
DINNER_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A ponderous geologist, with weighty tread and weightier manner, brought
his foot down upon the unoffending sod and declared, “These meadows are
sinking at a rapid rate; something over two feet a century.” We all knew
it, but Sir Oracle had spoken, and we little dogs did not dare to bark.
Not long after I returned alone to these ill-fated meadows and began a
leisurely, all-day ramble. They were very beautiful. There was a wealth
of purple and of white boneset and iron-weed of royal dye. Sunflower and
primrose gilded the hidden brooks, and every knoll was banked with
rose-pink centaury. Nor was this all. Feathery reeds towered above the
marsh, and every pond was empurpled with pontederia and starred with
lilies. Afar off, acres of nut-brown sedge made fitting background for
those meadow tracts that were still green, while close at hand, more
beautiful than all, were struggling growths held down by the
golden-dodder’s net that overspread them.
It does not need trees or rank shrubbery to make a wilderness. This
low-lying tract to-day, with but a summer’s growth above it, is as wild
and lonely as are the Western plains. Lonely, that is, as man thinks,
but not forsaken. The wily mink, the pert weasel, the musk-rat, and the
meadow-mouse ramble in safety through it. The great blue heron, its
stately cousin, the snowy egret, and the dainty least bittern find it a
congenial home.
The fiery dragon-fly darts and lazy butterflies drift across the
blooming waste; bees buzz angrily as you approach; basking snakes bid
you defiance. Verily, this is wild life’s domain and man is out of
place.
It was not always so. The land is sinking, and what now of that older
time when it was far above its present level,—a high, dry, upland tract,
along which flowed a clear and rapid stream? The tell-tale arrow-point
is our guide, and wherever the sod is broken we have an inkling of
Indian history. The soil, as we dig a little deeper, is almost black
with charcoal—dust, and it is evident that centuries ago the Indians
were content to dwell here, and well they might be. Even in colonial
days the place had merit, and escaped not the eager eyes of Penn’s
grasping followers. It was meadow then, and not fitted for his house,
but the white man built his barn above the ruins of his dusky
predecessor’s home. All trace of human habitation is now gone, but the
words of the geologist kept ringing in my ears, and of late I have been
digging. It is a little strange that so few traces of the white man are
found as compared with relics of the Indian. From the barn that once
stood here and was long ago destroyed by a flood one might expect to
find at least a rusty nail.
The ground held nothing telling of a recent past, but was eloquent of
the long ago. Dull indeed must be the imagination that cannot recall
what has been here brought to light by the aid of such an implement as
the spade. Not only were the bow and spear proved to be the common
weapons of the time, but there were in even greater abundance, and of
many patterns, knives to flay the game. It is not enough to merely
glance at a trimmed flake of flint or carefully-chipped splinter of
argillite, and say to yourself, “A knife.” Their great variety has a
significance that should not be overlooked. The same implement could not
be put to every use for which a knife was needed; hence the range in
size from several inches to tiny flakes that will likely remain a puzzle
as to their purpose.
Besides home products, articles are found that have come from a long
distance, and no class of objects is more suggestive than those that
prove the widely-extended system of barter that prevailed at one time
among the Indians of North America. There are shells and shell ornaments
found in Wisconsin which must have been taken there from the shores of
the Gulf of Mexico; catlinite or red pipe-stone ornaments and pipes
found in New Jersey that could only have come from Minnesota. Shell
beads are often found in graves in the Mississippi Valley that were
brought from the Pacific coast, and the late Dr. Leidy has described a
shell bead, concerning which he states that it is the _Conus ternatus_,
a shell which belongs to the west coast of Central America. This was
found, with other Indian relics, in Hartman’s Cave, near Stroudsburg,
Pennsylvania. Two small arrow-points found in New Jersey a year or more
ago proved to be made of obsidian. These specimens could only have come
from the far South-west or from Oregon, and the probabilities are in
favor of the latter locality. It is not unlikely that objects like the
above should find their way inland to the Great Lakes, and so across the
continent and down the Atlantic coast. On the other hand, arrow-points
could have had so little intrinsic value in the eyes of an Indian that
we are naturally surprised that they should have been found so far from
their place of origin. Obsidian has occurred but very rarely east of the
Alleghanies, so far as I am aware. In the Sharples collection, at West
Chester, Pennsylvania, is a single specimen, reported to have been found
near that place, and a few traces have since been discovered in the
uplands immediately adjoining these Delaware meadows, and really there
is no reason to suppose that objects of value should not have passed
quite across the continent, or been carried from Mexico to Canada. There
were no vast areas absolutely uninhabited and across which no Indian
ever ventured.
It has been suggested that, as iron was manufactured in the valley of
the Delaware as early as 1728, the supposed obsidian arrow-points are
really made of slag from the furnaces, but a close examination of the
specimens proves, it is claimed, this not to have been the case, and at
this comparatively late date the making of stone arrow-points had
probably ceased. Just when, however, the use of the bow as a weapon was
discarded has not been determined, but fire-arms were certainly common
in 1728 and earlier.
A careful study, too, of copper implements, which are comparatively
rare, seems to point to the conclusion that very few were made of the
native copper found in New Jersey, Maryland, and elsewhere along the
Atlantic coast, but that they were made in the Lake Superior region and
thence gradually dispersed over the Eastern States. The large copper
spear from Betterton, Maryland, recently found, and another from New
Jersey, bear a striking resemblance to the spear-heads from the
North-west, where unquestionably the most expert of aboriginal
coppersmiths lived. Of course, the many small beads of this metal
occasionally found in Indian graves in the Delaware Valley might have
been made of copper found near by, but large masses are very seldom met
with.
Speaking of copper beads recalls the fact that a necklace comprising
more than one hundred was recently found on the site of an old Dutch
trader’s house, on an island in the Delaware. They were of Indian
manufacture, and had been in the fur trader’s possession, if we may
judge from the fact that they were found with hundreds of other relics
that betokened not merely European, but Dutch occupation of the spot.
This trader got into trouble and doubtless deserved his summary taking
off.
It is not “a most absurd untruth,” as was stated not long ago in the
_Critic_ in a review of a New York history, that the Indians were “a
people of taste and industry, and in morals quite the peers of their
Dutch neighbors.” They had just as keen a sense of right and wrong.
There never was a handful of colonists in North America whose whole
history their descendants would care to have known. The truth is, we
know very little of the Indian prior to European contact. Carpet-knight
archæologists and kid-gloved explorers crowd the pages of periodical
literature, it is true, but we are little, if any, the wiser.
It is supposed, and is even asserted, that the Indian knew nothing of
forks; but that he plunged his fingers into the boiling pot or held in
his bare hands the steaming joints of bear or venison is quite
improbable. Now, the archæologist talks glibly of bone awls whenever a
sharpened splinter of bone is presented him, as if such instruments were
only intended to perforate leather. They doubtless had other uses, and I
am sure that more than one split and sharpened bone which has been found
would have served excellently well as a one-tined fork wherewith to lift
from the pot a bit of meat. Whether or not such forks were in use, there
were wooden spoons, as a bit of the bowl and a mere splinter of the
handle serve to show. Kalm tells us that they used the laurel for making
this utensil, but I fancied my fragment was hickory. Potsherds
everywhere spoke of the Indians’ feasting, and it is now known that,
besides bowls and shallow dishes of ordinary sizes, they also had
vessels of several gallons’ capacity. All these are broken now, but,
happily, fragments of the same dish are often found together, and so we
can reconstruct them.
But what did the Indians eat? Quaint old Gabriel Thomas, writing about
1696, tells us that “they live chiefly on _Maze_ or _Indian Corn_ rosted
in the Ashes, sometimes beaten boyl’d with Water, called _Homine_. They
have cakes, not unpleasant; also Beans and Pease, which nourish much,
but the Woods and Rivers afford them their provision; they eat morning
and evening, their Seats and Tables on the ground.”
In a great measure this same story of The Indians’ food supply was told
by the scattered bits found mingled with the ashes of an ancient hearth.
Such fireplaces or cooking sites were simple in construction, but none
the less readily recognized as to their purpose. A few flat pebbles had
been brought from the bed of the river near by, and a small paved area
some two feet square was placed upon or very near the surface of the
ground. Upon this the fire was built, and in time a thick bed of ashes
accumulated. Just how they cooked can only be conjectured, but the
discovery of very thick clay vessels and great quantities of
fire-cracked quartzite pebbles leads to the conclusion that water was
brought to the boiling-point by heating the stones to a red heat and
dropping them into the vessel holding the water. Thomas, as we have
seen, says corn was “boyl’d with Water.” Meat also was, I think,
prepared in the same manner. Their pottery probably was poorly able to
stand this harsh treatment, which would explain the presence of such
vast quantities of fragments of clay vessels. Traces of vegetable food
are now very rarely found. A few burnt nuts, a grain or two of corn,
and, in one instance, what appeared to be a charred crab-apple, complete
the list of what, as yet, have been picked from the mingled earth and
ashes. This is not surprising, and what we know of vegetable food in use
among the Delaware Indians is almost wholly derived from those early
writers who were present at their feasts. Kalm mentions the roots of the
golden-club, arrow-leaf, and ground-nut, besides various berries and
nuts. It is well known that extensive orchards were planted by these
people. It may be added that, in all probability, the tubers of that
noble plant, the lotus, were used as food. Not about these meadows, but
elsewhere in New Jersey, this plant has been growing luxuriantly since
Indian times.
Turning now to the consideration of what animal food they consumed, one
can speak with absolute certainty. It is clear that the Delawares were
meat-eaters. It needs but little digging on any village site to prove
this, and from a single fireplace deep down in the stiff soil of this
sinking meadow have been taken bones of the elk, deer, bear, beaver,
raccoon, musk-rat, and gray squirrel. Of these, the remains of deer were
largely in excess, and as this holds good of every village site I have
examined, doubtless the Indians depended more largely upon this animal
than upon all the others. Of the list, only the elk is extinct in the
Delaware Valley, and it was probably rare even at the time of the
European settlement of the country, except in the mountain regions. If
individual tastes varied as they do among us, we have certainly
sufficient variety here to have met every fancy.
With a food supply as varied as this, an ordinary meal or an
extraordinary feast can readily be recalled, so far as its essential
features are concerned. It is now September, and, save where the ground
has been ruthlessly uptorn, everywhere is a wealth of early autumn
bloom. A soothing quiet rests upon the scene, bidding us to
retrospective thought. Not a bit of stone, of pottery, or of burned and
blackened fragment of bone but stands out in the mellow sunshine as the
feature of a long-forgotten feast. As I dreamily gaze upon the
gatherings of half a day, I seem to see the ancient folk that once dwelt
in this neglected spot; seem to be a guest at a pre-Columbian dinner in
New Jersey.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER THIRTEENTH
_A DAY’S DIGGING_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As long ago as November, 1679, two Dutchmen, Jasper Dankers and Peter
Sluyter, worked their way laboriously across New Jersey from Manhattan
Island, and reached South River, as the Delaware was then called, at
least by the Hollanders. They were all agog to see the falls at the head
of tide-water, and spent a miserable night in a rickety shanty, which
was cold as Greenland, except in the fireplace, and there they roasted.
All this was not calculated to put them in excellent humor, and so the
next day, when they stood on the river-bank and saw only a trivial rapid
where they had expected a second Niagara, their disgust knew no bounds.
These travel-tired Dutchmen quickly departed, rowing a small boat
down-stream, and growling whenever the tide turned and they had to row
against it.
When they reached Burlington, they recorded of an island nearly in front
of the village, that it “formerly belonged to the Dutch Governor, who
had made it a pleasure ground or garden, built good houses upon it, and
sowed and planted it. He also dyked and cultivated a large piece of
meadow or marsh.” The English held it at the time of their visit, and it
was occupied by “some Quakers,” as the authors quoted called them.
One of these Dutch houses, built in part of yellow bricks, and with a
red tiled roof, I found traces of years ago, and ever since have been
poking about the spot, for the very excellent reasons that it is a
pretty one, a secluded one, and as full of natural history attractions
now as it was of human interest when a Dutch beer-garden.
Had no one who saw the place in its palmy days left a record concerning
the beer, I could, at this late day, have given testimony that if there
was no beer, there were beer mugs, and schnapps bottles, and
wineglasses, for I have been digging again and found them all; and then
the pipes and pipe-stems! I have a pile of over five hundred. The Dutch
travellers were correct as to the place having been a pleasure-garden.
It certainly was, and probably the very first on the Delaware River. But
there was “pleasure,” too, on the main shore, for the men who referred
to the island stayed one night in Burlington, and, the next day being
Sunday, attended Quaker meeting, and wrote afterwards, “What they
uttered was mostly in one tone and the same thing, and so it continued
until we were tired out and went away.” Doubtless they were prejudiced,
and so nothing suited them, not even what they found to drink, for they
said, “We tasted here, for the first time, peach brandy or spirits,
which was very good, but would have been better if more carefully made.”
They did not like the English, evidently, for the next day they went to
Takanij (Tacony), a village of Swedes and Finns, and there drank their
fill of “very good beer” brewed by these people, and expressed
themselves as much pleased to find that, because they had come to a new
country, they had not left behind them their old customs.
The house that once stood where now is but a reach of abandoned and
wasting meadow was erected in 1668 or possibly a little earlier. Its
nearest neighbor was across a narrow creek, and a portion of the old
building is said to be still standing. Armed with the few facts that are
on record, it is easy to picture the place as it was in the days of the
Dutch, and it was vastly prettier then than it is now. The public of
to-day are not interested in a useless marsh, particularly when there is
better ground about it in abundance, and whoever wanders to such uncanny
places is quite sure to be left severely alone. This was my experience,
and, being undisturbed, I enjoyed the more my resurrective work. I could
enthuse, without being laughed at, over what to others was but
meaningless rubbish, and I found very much that, to me, possessed
greater interest than usual, because of a mingling of late Indian and
early European objects. With a handful of glass, porcelain, and amber
beads were more than one hundred of copper; the former from Venice, the
latter the handiwork of a Delaware Indian. With a white clay pipe, made
in Holland in the seventeenth century, was found a rude brown clay one,
made here in the river valley. Mingled with fragments of blue and white
Delft plates, bowls, and platters, were sundried mud dishes made by
women hereabouts during, who can say how many centuries? How completely
history and pre-history here overlapped! We know pretty much everything
about Dutchmen, but how much do we really know of the native American?
After nearly thirty years’ digging, he has been traced from the days of
the great glaciers to the beginnings of American history; but we cannot
say how long a time that comprises. The winter of 1892-1893 was, so far
as appearances went, a return to glacial times. Ice was piled up fifty
feet in height, and the water turned from the old channel of the river.
The cutting of another one opened up new territory for the relic hunter
when the ice was gone and the stream had returned to its old bed. Many
an Indian wigwam site that had been covered deep with soil was again
warmed by the springtide sun, and those were rare days when, from the
ashes of forgotten camps, I raked the broken weapons and rude dishes
that the red men had discarded. It was reading history at first hands,
without other commentary than your own. The ice-scored gravel-beds told
even an older story; but no one day’s digging was so full of meaning, or
brought me so closely in touch with the past, as when I uncovered what
remained of the old Dutch trader’s house; traced the boundaries of the
one-time pleasure-garden, hearing in the songs of birds the clinking of
glasses, and then, in fancy, adding to the now deserted landscape the
fur-laden canoes of the Indians who once gathered here to exchange for
the coveted gaudy beads the skins of the many animals which at that time
roamed the forests.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER FOURTEENTH
_DRIFTING_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Make an early start if you wish an eventful outing. Why know the world
only when the day is middle-aged or old? A wise German has said, “The
morning hour has gold in its mouth.” For many a rod after leaving the
wharf the river still “smoked,” and the scanty glimpses between the
rolling clouds of mist spurred the imagination. There was nothing
certain beyond the gunwales. The pale-yellow color of the water near at
hand and the deep-green and even black of that in the distance had no
daytime suggestiveness. It was not yet the familiar river with its
noonday glitter of blue and silver.
It is not strange that the initial adventure to which the
above-mentioned conditions naturally gave rise occurred while this state
of uncertainty continued. Very soon I ran upon a snag. To strike such an
object in mid-river was rather startling. Was I not in or near the
channel? Steamboats come puffing and plowing here and sailing craft pass
up and down, so my only care had been to avoid them; but now there came
in my path the twisted trunk of an old forest tree and held me fast. All
the while the mist rose and fell, giving no inkling of my whereabouts.
In the dim, misty light what a strange sea-monster this resurrected
tree-trunk seemed to be! Its thick green coat of silky threads lay
closely as the shining fur of the otter, a mane of eel-grass floated on
the water, the gnarly growths where branches once had been glistened as
huge eyes, and broken limbs were horns that threatened quick
destruction. There was motion, too. Slowly it rose above the water and
then as slowly sunk from view. Could it be possible that some
long-necked saurian of the Jersey marls had come to life? Nonsense; and
yet so real did it seem that I was ready for the river-horse to rise
“from the waves beneath,
And grin through the grate of his spiky teeth.”
With such an uncanny keeper, I was held a prisoner. At last I struck it
with an oar to beat it back, and rocked the frail boat until I feared
plunging into the deep water and deeper mud beneath. Deep water? It
suddenly occurred to me to try its depth, and the truth was plain. I was
far from the channel, and might with safety have waded to the shore. As
usual, I had rashly jumped at conclusions. The mouth of an inflowing
creek was near at hand, and this sunken tree, a relic of some forgotten
freshet, had been lying here in the mud for several years. The tide
lifted and let fall the trunk, but the root-mass was still strongly
embedded. I knew the spot of old, and now, fearing nothing, was rational
again.
Such sunken trees, however, are well calculated to alarm the unthinking.
It is said of one yet lying in the mud of Crosswicks Creek, that it rose
so quickly once as to overturn a boat. This is not improbable. That
occurrence, if true, happened a century ago, and the same tree has since
badly frightened more than one old farmer. I am told this of one of them
who had anchored his boat here one frosty October morning and commenced
fishing. While half asleep, or but half sober, the tree slowly raised up
and tilted the boat so that its occupant felt compelled to swim. His
view of the offending monster was much like my own fevered vision of
to-day. He not only swam ashore, but ran a mile over a soft marsh. To
him the _sea_-serpent was a reality, although he saw it in the _creek_.
It is of interest to note that among the early settlers of this region,
for at least three generations, the impression was prevalent that there
might be some monster lurking in the deep holes of the creek or in the
river. The last of the old hunters and fishermen of this region, who had
spent all his life in a boat or prowling along shore, was ever talking
of a “king tortle” that for forty years had defied all his efforts to
capture it. “Mostly, it only shows its top shell, but I have seen it
fair and square, head and legs, and I don’t know as I care to get very
close, neither.” This was his unvaried remark whenever I broached the
subject. To have suggested that it was a sunken log, or in some other
way tried to explain the matter, would only have brought about his ill
will. I once attempted it, very cautiously, but he effectually shut me
up by remarking, “When this here creek runs dry and you can walk over
its bottom, you’ll larn a thing or two that ain’t down in your books
yet, and ain’t goin’ to be.” The old man was right. I do not believe in
“king tortles,” but there certainly is “a thing or two” not yet in the
books. Stay! How big do our snappers grow? Is the father of them all
still hiding in the channel of Crosswicks Creek?
A description in an old manuscript journal, of the general aspect of the
country as seen from the river, bears upon this subject of strange wild
beasts and monsters of the deep, as well as on that of sunken trees that
endangered passing shallops.
“As we pass up the river,” this observant writer records, "we are so
shut in by the great trees that grow even to the edge of the water, that
what may lye in the interior is not to be known. That there be fertile
land, the Indians tell us, but their narrow paths are toilsome to travel
and there are none [of these people] now that seem willing to guide us.
As we approached ffarnsworth’s the channel was often very close to the
shore, and at one time we were held by the great trees that overhung the
bank and by one that had been fallen a long time and was now lodged in
the water. As I looked towards the shore, I exclaimed, ‘Here we are
indeed in a great wilderness. What strangeness is concealed in this
boundless wood? what wonder may at any time issue from it, or fierce
monster not be lurking in the waters beneath us?’ Through the day the
cries of both birds and beasts were heard, but not always. It was often
so strangely quiet that we were more affected thereby than by the sounds
that at times issued forth. At night there was great howling, as we were
told, of wolves, and the hooting of owls, and often there plunged into
the stream wild stags that swam near to our boat. But greater than all
else, to our discomfort, were the great sunken trunks of trees that were
across the channel, where the water was of no great depth."
What a change! and would that this old traveller could revisit the
Delaware to-day. My boat is free again and the mists are gone. Through
the trees are sifted the level sunbeams. There is at least a chance now
to compare notes. The forest is now a field, the trackless marsh a
meadow; wild life is largely a thing of the past; silence, both day and
night, replaces sound. No, not that; but only the minor sounds are left.
There are still the cry of the fish-hawk and the sweet song of the
thrush. No stags now swim the river, but there remain the mink and the
musk-rat. It has not been long since I saw a migration of meadow-mice,
and at night, I am sure, many an animal dares to breast the stream, a
mile wide though it be. Too cunning to expose itself by day, it risks
its life at night; and how tragic the result when, nearly at the
journey’s end, it is seized by a lurking foe; dragged down, it may be,
by a snake or a turtle!
The world is just as full of tragedy as ever, and, let us hope, as full
of comedy. In a bit of yonder marsh, above which bends the tall wild
rice, there is daily enacted scene after scene as full of import as
those which caused the very forest to tremble when the wolf and panther
quarrelled over the elk or deer that had fallen.
It has been insisted upon that a goal-less journey is necessarily a
waste of time. If on foot, we must keep forever on the go; if in a boat,
we must keep bending to the oars. It is this miserable fallacy that
makes so many an out-door man and woman lose more than half of that for
which they went into the fields. Who cares if you did see a chippy at
every turn and flushed a bittern at the edge of the marsh? If you had
been there before them, and these birds did the walking, you would have
gone home the wiser. It is not the mere fact that there are birds that
concerns us, but what are they doing? why are they doing it? This the
town-pent people are ever anxious to know, and the facts cannot be
gathered if you are forever on the move. Suppose I rush across the river
and back, what have I seen? The bottom of the boat. I came to see the
river and the sky above, and if this is of no interest to the reader,
let him turn the leaf.
Does every storm follow the track of the sun? As the sun rose there were
clouds in the east and south and a haziness over the western sky. Had I
asked a farmer as to the weather probabilities, he would have looked
everywhere but due north. Why does he always ignore that quarter? There
may be great banks of cloud there, but they go for nothing. “Sou-east”
and “sou-west” are forever rung in your ears, but never a word of the
north. Sometimes I have thought it may be for this reason that about
half the time the farmer is all wrong, and the heaviest rains come when
he is most sure that the day will be clear.
Looking upward, for the sky was clear in that direction now, I saw that
there were birds so far above me that they appeared as mere specks. Very
black when first seen, but occasionally they flashed as stars seen by
day from the bottom of a well. They could not be followed, except one
that swept swiftly earthward, and the spreading tail and curve of wings
told me it was a fish-hawk. What a glorious outlook from its
ever-changing point of view! From its height, it could have seen the
mountains and the ocean, and the long reach of river valley as well. If
the mists obscure it all, why should a bird linger in the upper air? The
prosy matter of food-getting has nothing to do with it. While in camp on
Chesapeake Bay, I noticed that the fish-hawks were not always fishing,
and often the air rang with their strange cries while soaring so far
overhead as to be plainly seen only with a field-glass. Every movement
suggested freedom from care as they romped in the fields of space. It is
not strange that they scream, or laugh, shall we say? when speeding
along at such rate and in no danger of collision. If I mistake not, the
cry of exultation is coincident with the downward swoop, and I thought
of old-time yelling when dashing down a snow-clad hill-side; but how
sober was the work of dragging the sled up-hill! The hawks, I thought,
were silent when upward bound. If so, there is something akin to
humanity in the hawk nature.
I have called the cry of the fish-hawk a “laugh,” but, from a human
stand-point, do birds laugh? It is extremely doubtful, though I recall a
pet sparrow-hawk that was given to playing tricks, as I called them, and
the whole family believed that this bird actually laughed. Muggins, as
we named him, had a fancy for pouncing upon the top of my head and,
leaning forward, snapping his beak in my face. Once an old uncle came
into the room and was treated in this fashion. Never having seen the
bird before, he was greatly astonished, and indignant beyond measure
when the hawk, being rudely brushed off, carried away his wig. Now the
bird was no less astonished than the man, and when he saw the wig
dangling from his claws he gave a loud cackle, unlike anything we had
ever heard before, and which was, I imagine, more an expression of
amusement than of surprise. I think this, because afterwards I often
played the game of wig with him, to the bird’s delight, and he always
“laughed” as he carried off the prize. On the contrary, the unsuccessful
attempt to remove natural hair elicited no such expression, but
sometimes a squeal of disgust.
In the _Spectator_ of October 1, 1892, page 444, I find a most
thoughtful article, entitled “The Animal Sense of Humor,” and I quote as
follows: “The power of laughter is peculiar to man, and the sense of
humor may be said, generally speaking, to be also his special property.”
Again, “We never saw the slightest approach to amusement in one animal
at the mistakes of another, though dogs, so far as we can venture to
interpret their thoughts, do really feel amusement at the mistakes of
men.” Possibly the author is right, but do not cats show a sense of
humor at the rough-and-tumble gambols of their kittens? Is not the sly
cuff on the ear that sends a kitten sprawling indicative of a sense of
fun on the part of tabby? Our author says, “so far as we can venture to
interpret their thoughts.” "Ay, there’s the rub." No one can tell how
far it is safe to venture, but I go a great deal beyond my neighbors.
Our author concludes, “In animals, as in man, humor is the result of
civilization, and not as we understand it, a natural and spontaneous
development.” I cannot subscribe to this. I know little of domestic
animals, but have got the idea of an animal’s sense of humor from wild
life, and confirmed it by what I have seen of cats and dogs.
While I have been drifting, and using my eyes and ears instead of legs
and arms, as is advocated, the clouds, too, have been creeping this way,
and, while the morning is yet fresh, it is certainly going to rain. Had
I consulted the barometer, I would have known this; but then, knowing
it, might I not have stayed at home? Why not enjoy part of a day? That
the rain will soon be here does not diminish one’s pleasure, unless
there is a fear of getting wet, and this is all too common. I hope that
it does not mean that you have but one suit of clothes.
The approaching rain, the increasing cloudiness, the shut-in appearance,
made the river exceedingly attractive. With the down-dropping clouds
dropped down the birds, and the swallows now skimmed the water as they
had been skimming the sky. The fish-hawks departed, but a host of
land-birds crossed the stream, as if comparing the shelter afforded by
the cedars on one side and pines on the other. These birds chattered as
they flew by, and turned their heads up- and downstream, as if curious
as to all that might be going on. Suddenly the water ceased to be
rippled, and far down-stream a cloud appeared to have reached the river.
It was the rain. It seemed to march very slowly, and every drop made a
dimple on the river’s breast. Then I could hear the on-coming host, the
sound having a distinct bell-like tinkle as each drop touched the
surface and disappeared. A curious effect, too, was produced by the wind
or the varying density of the cloud above, in that the drops were very
near together where I happened to be, and much farther apart and larger
some distance beyond the boat. I could of course make no measurements,
but appearances suggested that in the middle of the river the drops were
less numerous in the proportion of one to five. Does it usually rain
harder over land than over water? Heretofore I had seen the rain upon
the river while on shore, and was now very glad to have been caught
adrift, so as to observe it from a new point of view. It was a beautiful
sight, well worth the thorough wetting that I got and which drove me
home soon after with pleasant thoughts of my goalless journey.
[Illustration: _The Camp-Fire_]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER FIFTEENTH
_FOOTPRINTS_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the camp-fire was smoking, for the wood was green and I was
willing that my companion should worry over it, I strolled up the long,
sandy beach with no particular object in mind and quite ready to meet
and parley with any creature that I overtook. I saw only evidences of
what had been there, or what I supposed had been. There were tracks that
I took to be those of herons, and others that suggested a raccoon in
search of crayfish. Here and there a mouse had hurried by. What lively
times had been kept up at low tide within sight of the tent door! and
yet we knew nothing of it. But these tracks were not well defined, and
therefore why not misinterpreted? I have not suggested all the
possibilities of the case—— Here my meditations were checked by the call
to breakfast, but I took up the subject again as I walked alone in the
woods, for I was but the companion of a worker, not one myself.
It occurred to me that when we read of hunters, or perhaps have followed
a trapper in his rounds, we have been led to think that footprints are
animal autography that the initiated can read without hesitation. To
distinguish the track of a rabbit from that of a raccoon is readily
done, and we can go much further, and determine whether the animal was
walking or running, made a leap here or squatted there; but can we go to
any length, and decipher every impress an animal may have made in
passing over the sand or mud? I think not. I have seen a twig sent
spinning a long distance up the beach at low tide, making a line of
equidistant marks that were extremely life-like in appearance. A cloud
of dead leaves have so dotted an expanse of mud that a gunner insisted
there had been a flock of plover there a few moments before he arrived.
All depends, or very much does, on the condition of the surface marked.
If very soft and yielding, the plainest bird-tracks may be distorted,
and a mere dot, on the other hand, may have its outline so broken as to
appear as though made by a bird or mammal. Still, tracks are a safe
guide in the long run, and, whether our opinion as to them be correct or
not, the rambler finds something worth seeing, and he goes on anything
but a wild-goose chase who sometimes finds himself mistaken. It is well
to check our confidence occasionally and realize the limits of our
power.
Opportunity afforded while in camp, and I made a short study of
footprints. With a field-glass I noted many birds, and then going to the
spot, examined the impressions their feet had made. A night-heron did
not come down flatly upon its feet with outspread toes, and so the
tracks were quite different from the impressions made when the bird
walked. Crows, I noticed, both hopped and walked, and the marks were
very different, the former being broad and ill-defined in comparison
with the traces of the same bird’s stately tread. Had the bird not been
seen, any one would have supposed two creatures had been keeping close
company, or that some one individual had passed by in the very path of
another. The purple grakle and red-winged blackbird made tracks too much
alike to be distinguished, yet these birds have not the same size or
shape of foot. A water-snake came up over the mud and left a line of
marks upon the sand that could not be recognized as that of any animal,
except it might be a faint resemblance to the trail of a mussel. I
chased a dozen crayfish over a mud flat, and their backward and sidewise
leapings caused an old gunner to say there had been plover about. A
blue-winged teal made a long double line of dents in the sand before it
rose clear of the beach, and these were very like many a footprint I had
previously seen. What, then, must we think of the fossil footprints of
which so much has been written? As different species, a long series of
these impressions in the rock have been described and given
high-sounding titles. I am not entitled to an opinion, but have doubts,
nevertheless, of the wisdom of considering every slightly different form
as made by a different creature. I have given my reasons, and will only
add another instance, one of greater significance than all as bearing
upon the question. I startled a slumbering jumping-mouse last summer and
it bounded across the smooth sand bared by the outgoing tide. Its track
then was one made by its body rather than the extremities, and a curious
dent in the river-shore’s smooth surface it was; but before taking again
to the woods it walked in its peculiar way, and the little footprints
were quite distinct and unmistakably those of a small mammal. Had the
two sets of markings been preserved in a slab of sandstone, no
ichnologist would have recognized the truth, but probably would have
said, “Here is a case where some leaping creature has overtaken a small
rodent and devoured it.”
Difficult as fossil footprints may be to decipher, they call up with
wonderful distinctness the long ago of other geologic ages. It is hard
to realize that the stone of which our houses are built once formed the
tide-washed shore of a primeval river or the bed of a lake or ocean gone
long before man came upon the scene.
But the footprints of to-day concern me more. Looking over the side of
the boat, I saw several mussels moving slowly along and making a deep,
crooked groove in the ripple-marked sand, “streaking the ground with
sinuous trace,” as Milton puts it; and the school of blunt-headed
minnows made little dents in the sand wherever the water was shallow,
when they turned suddenly and darted off-shore. This sand seemed very
unstable, and a little agitation of the water caused many a mark to be
wiped out; and yet we find great slabs of ripple-marked and foot-marked
sandstone. I picked up such a piece not long ago on which were rain-drop
marks. This is the story of a million years ago; but who ever found
Indian moccasin-marks not two centuries old? The footprints that could
tell us many a wonderful story are all gone and the tale of a rain-drop
remains. This is a bit aggravating. Here where we have pitched our camp,
or very near it, was a Swedish village in 1650 and later, and for two
days I have been hunting for evidence of the fact,—some bit of broken
crockery, rusty nail, glass, pewter spoon, anything,—but in vain.
History records the village, and correctly, without a doubt, but there
are no footprints here, nor other trace to show that a white man ever
saw the place until our tent was pitched upon the beach.
Towards evening I had occasion to renew my youth,—in other words, “run
on an errand,” as my mother put it,—and going half a mile through the
woods, I came to a narrow but well-worn path. This was so akin to my
footprint thoughts of the morning that I gladly followed it instead of
making a short cut. It was fortunate, for the path led directly to where
I wished to go, and our theoretical geography, as usual, was terribly
out of joint. As it was, on the edge of an old village I found a very
old man in a very old house. His memory as to the earlier half of the
century was excellent, and he gave me the desired information and more.
I spoke of the path through the woods, and he chuckled to himself.
“Through the woodses, eh? Well, when I made the path, goin’ and comin’
through the brush that wasn’t shoulder-high, there was no trees then.
That was more’n forty years ago.”
"No, John, ’twa’n’t," piped a weak voice from the interior of the little
cottage; “’twa’n’t mor’n——”
"Laws, man, don’t mind her. She disputes the almanac, and every winter
gets in New Year’s ahead of Christmas."
I did not stop to argue the matter, but hurried campward, glad that, if
I could find no footprints of human interest and historic, I at least
had followed a path made forty years ago,—a path that had been worn
among bushes and now led through a forest. It was indeed suggestive. By
the camp-fire that night I vowed to plant a forest where now there was
but a thicket, and in my dreams I walked through a noble wood.
Think how much might be done to beautify the world, and how little is
accomplished.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER SIXTEENTH
_FOOTPRINTS_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The great storm of yesterday cleared the air as well as cleaned the
beaches, and the river was fresh and sparkling as though the tempest had
added new life, so that the listless midsummery water was now as
champagne, “with beaded bubbles winking at the brim.” The air was heavy
with sweetness and with song, the fields and meadows painted as the
rose. The buckwheat was in bloom, and a million bees were humming. The
pasture was gay with pink gerardia, or reflected the summer sky where
the day-flower blossomed. There was no commingling of these late
flowers. Each had its own acre, exercised squatter sovereignty, and
allowed no trespassing. The only evidence of man’s interference, except
the buckwheat-field, was a dilapidated worm-fence, and this is one of
several instances where beauty increases hand in hand with decay. The
older such a fence, the better; when merely a support for Virginia
creeper or the rank trumpet-vine, it is worthy the rambler’s regard.
Wild life long ago learned what a safe snug-harbor such ruined fences
offer. It puzzles even a mink to thread their mazes, and the shy rabbit
that has its “form” in a brier-hidden hollow of the crooked line feels
that it is safe.
There are traces of these old fences of which no record remains, placed
perhaps by the very earliest settler in a tract that he had cleared and
which has since gone back to an almost primitive state. In an old
woodland I once traced a fence by the long line of cypripediums in
bloom, which were thriving in the mould of decayed fence-rails, a pretty
if not permanent monument to departed worth.
A word more of these old fences in winter. When the snow beats across
the field, it stops here and gracefully curves above it, arching the
rails and vines until all is hidden, unless it be some lonely projecting
stake, by which alone it communicates with the outside world. I rashly
attempted once to go across-lots over a new country, and made a
discovery. The snow-bound fence was but a drift, I thought, but it
proved to be far different. The thick mat of hardy growths had kept back
the snow, which was but a roof and did not wholly exclude the light. For
some distance I could dimly make out the various growths, and each
little cedar stood up as a sentinel. A loud word sounded and resounded
as if I had spoken in an empty room or shouted in a long tunnel. The
coldest day in the year could not inconvenience any creature that took
shelter here, and I found later that life, both furred and feathered,
knew the old fence far better than I did.
But this is the last day but one of August, and so nominally the end of
summer. Only nominally, for these flowery meadows and sweet-scented
fields contradict the almanac. This quiet nook in the Delaware meadows
offers no intimation of autumn until October, and late in the month at
that. The bees and buckwheat will see to this, or seem to, which is just
as much to the purpose. To-day along the old worm-fence are many
kingbirds, and, although mute, they are not moping. There is too much
insect life astir for that. With them are orioles and bluebirds, the
whole making a loose flock of perhaps a hundred birds. The bluebirds are
singing, but in a half-hearted, melancholy way, reminding me of an old
man who spent his time when over ninety in humming “Auld Lang Syne.”
Before the buckwheat has lost its freshness these birds will all be
gone, but at what time the bluebirds part company with the others I do
not know. They certainly do not regularly migrate, as do the others.
There was a colony of them that lived for years in and about my barn,
and one was as sure to see them in January as in June. No English
sparrows could have been more permanently fixed.
When the buckwheat is ripe and the fields and meadows are brown, there
will be other birds to take their place. Tree-sparrows from Canada and
white-throats from New England will make these same fields merry with
music, and the tangle about the old fence will ring with gladness. But
it is August still, and why anticipate? High overhead there are black
specks in the air, and we can mark their course, as they pass, by the
bell-like _chink-chink_ that comes floating earthward. It is one of the
sounds that recall the past rather than refer to the present. The
reed-bird of to-day was a bobolink last May. His roundelay that told
then of a long summer to come is now but a single note of regret that
the promised summer is a thing of the past. It is the Alpha and Omega of
the year’s song-tide. Not that we have no other songs when the reed-bird
has flown to the Carolina rice-fields. While I write, a song-sparrow is
reciting reminiscences of last May, and there will be ringing rounds of
bird-rejoicing from November to April. Still, the initial thought holds
good: bobolink in May, and only a reed-bird in August; the beginning and
the end; the herald of Summer’s birth and her chief mourner; Alpha and
Omega.
Where the brook that drains the meadow finds its way, the little
rail-birds have congregated. Many spent their summer along the
Musketaquid, where Thoreau spent his best days, but they bring no
message from New England. They very seldom speak above a whisper. Not so
the king-rail. He chatters as he threads the marsh and dodges the great
blue barrier that sweeps above the cat-tail grasses and has to be
content with a sparrow or a mouse.
These late August days are too often overfull, and one sees and hears
too much,—so very much that it is hard to give proper heed to any one of
the many sights and sounds. But how much harder to turn your back upon
it! All too soon the sun sinks into the golden clouds of the western
sky.
That was a happy day when the buckwheat was threshed in the field, on a
cool, clear, crisp October morning. The thumping of the Hails on the
temporary floor put the world in good humor. No bird within hearing but
sang to its time-keeping. Even the crows cawed more methodically, and
squirrels barked at the same instant that the flail sent a shower of
brown kernels dancing in the air. The quails came near, as if impatient
for the grains eyes less sharp than theirs would fail to find. It was
something at such a time to lie in the gathering heap of straw and join
in the work so far as to look on. That is a boy’s privilege which we
seldom are anxious to outgrow. A nooning at such a time meant a fire to
warm the dinner, and the scanty time allowed was none too short for the
threshers to indulge in weather prognostications. This is as much a
habit as eating, and to forego it would be as unnatural as to forego the
taking of food. As the threshers ate, they scanned the surroundings, and
not a tree, bush, or wilted weed but was held to bear evidence that the
coming winter would be “open” or “hard,” as the oldest man present saw
fit to predict. No one disputed him, and no one remembered a week later
what he had said, so the old man’s reputation was safe.
The buckwheat threshed, the rest is all a matter of plain prose. Stay!
In the coming Indian summer there was always a bee-hunt. The old man
whom we saw in the buckwheat-field in October was our dependence for
wild honey, which we fancied was better than that from the hives. He
always went alone, carrying a wooden pail and a long, slender oaken
staff. How he found the bee-trees so readily was a question much
discussed. “He smells it,” some one suggested; “He hears ’em a-buzzin’,”
others remarked. Knowing when he was going, I once followed on the sly
and solved the mystery. He went without hesitation or turning of the
head to a hollow beech, and straightway commenced operations. I did not
stay to witness this, but came away recalling many a Sunday afternoon’s
stroll with him in these same woods. What he had seen in August he had
remembered in December, and, wise man that he was, said nothing
meanwhile. Why, indeed, should he throw aside the opportunity to pose as
one having superior knowledge, when others were so persistent in
asserting it of him? There is that much vanity in all men.
But a year later his superior knowledge failed him. I had found the same
tree in my solitary rambles, and was there ahead of him. Still, I never
enjoyed my triumph. I felt very far from complimented when he remarked,
as an excuse for his failure, that “a skunk had been at the only
bee-tree in the woods. He saw signs of the varmint all about;” and when
he said this he looked directly at me, with his nose in the air.
It is winter now, and when in the early morning I find cakes and honey
upon the breakfast-table, excellent as they are in their way, they are
the better that they call up the wide landscape of those latter August
days and of frosty October, for I see less of the morning meal before me
than of bees and buckwheat.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH
_DEAD LEAVES_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have often wondered why the Indians did not call November the month of
dead leaves. The out-of-town world is full of them now. They replace the
daisies and dandelions in the open fields, the violets and azaleas in
the shady woods. They are a prominent feature of the village street.
Many will cling to the trees the winter long, but millions are scattered
over the ground. Even on the river I find them floating, borne slowly by
the tide or hurrying across the rippled surface, chased by the passing
breeze.
The pleasure—common to us all—we take in crushing them beneath our feet
savors of heartlessness. Why should we not recall their kindness when,
as bright-green leaves, each cast its mite of grateful shade, so dear to
the rambler, and now, when they have fallen, let them rest in peace? We
should not be ugly and revengeful merely because it is winter. There is
nothing to fret us in this change from shade to sunshine, from green
leaves to brown. The world is not dead because of it. While the sun
looks down upon the woods to-day there arises a sweet odor, pleasant as
the breath of roses. The world dead, indeed! What more vigorous and full
of life than the mosses covering the rich wood-mould? Before me, too,
lies a long-fallen tree cloaked in moss greener than the summer
pastures. Not the sea alone possesses transforming magic; there is also
“a _wood_-change into something rich and strange.” Never does the
thought of death and decay centre about such a sight. The chickadee
drops from the bushes above, looks the moss-clad log over carefully,
and, when again poised on an overhanging branch, loudly lisps its
praises. What if it is winter when you witness such things? One swallow
may not make a summer, but a single chickadee will draw the sting from
any winter morning.
I never sit by the clustered dead leaves and listen to their faint
rustling as the wind moves among them but I fancy they are whispering of
the days gone by. What of the vanished springtide, when they first
timidly looked forth? They greeted the returning birds, the whole merry
host of north-bound warblers, and what startling facts of the bird-world
they might reveal! There is no eye-witness equal to the leaf, and with
them lives and dies many a secret that even the most patient
ornithologist can never gain. How much they overhear of what the birds
are saying! to how much entrancing music they listen that falls not upon
men’s ears! What a view of the busy world above us has the fluttering
leaf that crowns the tall tree’s topmost twig! Whether in storm or
sunshine, veiled in clouds or beneath a starlit sky, whatsoever happens,
there is the on-looking leaf, a naturalist worth knowing could we but
learn its language.
A word here as to the individuality of living leaves. Few persons are so
blind as to have never noticed how leaves differ. Of every size and
shape and density, they have varied experiences, if not different
functions, and their effect upon the rambler in his wanderings is by no
means always the same. At high noon, when the midsummer sun strives to
parch the world, let the rambler stand first beneath an old oak and then
pass to the quivering aspen, or pause in the shade of a way-side locust
and then tarry beneath the cedar, at whose roots the sunshine never
comes. It needs but to do this to realize that there are leaves and
leaves: those that truly shelter and those that tease you by their
fitfulness.
It is winter now and the leaves are dead; but, although blighted, they
have not lost their beauty. Heaped in the by-paths of this ancient wood,
they are closely associated with the pranks of many birds, and for this
alone should be lovingly regarded. Even now I hear an overstaying
chewink—for this is a warm wood the winter long—tossing them in little
clouds about him as he searches for the abundant insects that vainly
seek shelter where they have fallen. The birds seem to seek fun as well
as food among the leaves. I have often watched them literally dive from
the overhanging bushes into a heap of leaves, and then with a flirt of
the wings send dozens flying into the air. It is hard to imagine any
other purpose than pure sport. When, as often happens, two or three
follow their leader, I always think of a string of boys diving or
playing leap-frog. “Coincidence,” cries old Prosy, with a wise shake of
his head. Perhaps; but I think old Prosy is a fool.
The strange, retiring winter wren is equally a lover of dead leaves. He
plays with them in a less boisterous manner, but none the less delights
in tossing them to and fro. It is at such a time that a few notes of his
marvellous summer song occasionally escape him. The white-throated
sparrows fairly dance among or upon the heaped-up leaves, and play
bo-peep with the clouds of them they send aloft; and in February the
foxie sparrows play the same pranks. Squirrels and mice are equally at
home, and abandon all prudence when they frolic among the windrows. The
more clatter and cackle, the better they are pleased. When freed from
the restraint of fear, wild life is fun-loving to the very brim.
Dead leaves are never deserted unless the weather is extremely cold or a
storm has prevailed until they are a sodden mat. Even from such a
wetting they soon recover and respond to the passing breeze’s gentlest
touch. Dead leaves are the matured fruit of summer, and what an
important part they really play as the year closes! They are not now of
the air, airy, but of the earth, earthy. Dead, it is true, yet living.
Passive, yet how active! They are whispering good cheer now to the
sleeping buds that await the coming of a new year, and faithfully guard
them when the storm rages. For such deeds we owe them our kindliest
thoughts.
In the golden sunshine of this dreamy day the leaves have yet another
visitor that makes merry with them. The little whirlwind, without a
herald, springs laughingly upon them, even when the profoundest quiet
reigns throughout the wood. Touched by this fairy’s wand, the leaves
rise in a whirling pillar and dance down the narrow path into some even
more secluded nook. Dead leaves, indeed! Never did the wildest madcap of
a courting bird play livelier pranks.
Time was when I would have searched the woods for winter-green and worn
it gayly. I am content to-day to carry a withered leaf.
INDEX
A. _Allium_, 77.
_Amelanchier_, 140.
_Andromeda_, 57.
_Ants_, 14, 36.
_Arbutus_, 51, 57, 62.
_Arrow-point_, 156.
_Azalea_, 141.
B. _Bear_, 54.
_Beaver_, 66.
_Beech_, 43.
_Birch_, 54.
_Bittern_, 73, 180.
_least_, 42.
_Bittersweet_, 142.
_Blackbird_, 32, 41, 67, 75, 189.
_Blueberry_, 64.
_Bluebird_, 18, 67, 143, 197.
_Boneset_, 155.
_Butterflies_, 20, 156.
_Buzzards_, 67.
C. _Cardinal bird_, 23, 59, 75, 80, 87, 111, 144.
_Cat-bird_, 32, 59, 87, 137, 146.
_Caterpillar_, 133.
_Catlinite_, 150, 158.
_Cat-tail_, 42.
_Cedar_, 64.
_Celastrus_, 142.
_Centaury_, 155
_Centipede_, 57.
_Chat_, 32, 83.
_Cherry, wild_, 43.
_Chewink_, 59, 80, 206.
_Chickadee_, 204.
_Chimney-swift_, 20.
_Clay_, 35.
_Clethra_, 141.
_Cougars_, 65.
_Cow-bird_, 93.
_Crayfish_, 187, 190.
_Crocus_, 145.
_Crow_, 11, 32, 47, 76, 86, 189, 200.
_Cyperus_, 77.
D. _Day-flower_, 195.
_Deer_, 54, 179
_Deer-berry_, 141.
_Deutzia_, 141.
_Diver_, 29.
_Dodder_, 116, 156.
_Dove_, 24.
_Dragon-fly_, 156.
_Ducks, wild_, 86;
_wood-_, 56.
E. _Eagle_, 24.
_Eel_, 54.
_Elk_, 179.
_Elm_, 43.
F. “_False-teeth_,” 141.
_Finch, indigo_, 72;
_purple_, 59;
_thistle_, 32.
_Fly-catcher_, 15, 32, 144.
_Frogs_, 58, 67.
G. _Galium_, 77.
_Gerardia_, 195.
_Golden-club_, 56.
_Grakle_, 32, 75, 145, 189.
_Grosbeak, rose-breasted_, 59.
_Gulls_, 76.
_Gum-tree_, 66.
H. _Harrier_, 199.
_Hawk, black_, 17.
_duck-_, 24.
_fish-_, 26, 32, 179, 181.
_sparrow-_, 182.
_Heron, blue_, 42;
_green_, 25;
_night_, 189.
_Herons_, 41, 67, 187.
_Herring_, 67.
_Hickory_, 17, 44.
_Holly_, 51.
_Honeysuckle_, 136.
_Humming-bird_, 136.
_Hyla_, 58.
I. _Indian grass_, 64.
_relics_, 148, 152, 157, 160.
_Ink-berry_, 52.
_Iris_, 40.
_Iron-weed_, 155.
J. _Jasper_, 151.
_Jay, blue-_, 47.
_Jerboa_, 59.
K. _Kill-deer plover_, 32, 67, 77, 95.
_Kingbird_, 41, 197.
_Kinglet_, 65, 82.
_King-rail_, 42, 199.
L._Leucothoe_, 141.
_Lindera_, 140.
_Liquidambar_, 54.
_Loon_, 67.
_Lotus_, 41, 134.
M. _Magnolia_, 66.
_Maple_, 28, 52, 72.
_Martin_, 31, 143.
_Mink_, 53, 156, 179.
_Minnow, mud-_, 39.
_Minnows_, 126, 191.
_Mistletoe_, 28, 66.
_Mocking-bird_, 32.
_Moss, club-_, 57;
_reindeer_, 54, 62.
_Mouse, meadow-_, 17, 42, 156, 179.
_white-footed_, 59.
_Musk-rat_, 29, 53, 156, 179.
_Mussel_, 191.
O._Oak_, 10, 21, 44, 64, 138.
_willow-_, 53.
_Obsidian_, 150, 159.
_Opossum_, 46, 59.
_Orioles_, 71, 90, 144, 197.
_Oven-bird_, 135.
_Owl, barn_, 123.
P. _Panther_, 179.
_Partridge-berry_, 54.
_Pepper-bush, sweet_, 141.
_Pike_, 125.
_Pine, Weymouth_, 30.
_Pinxter flower_, 141.
_Pipilo_, 113.
_Plover_, 188.
_Plum, wild_, 141.
_Pontederia_, 155.
_Poplar, Lombardy_, 30.
_Primrose_, 155.
_Pyxie_, 57, 61, 68.
Q. _Quail_, 32, 200.
R. _Rabbit_, 44, 188, 196.
_Raccoon_, 47, 187.
_Rail-bird_, 199.
_Raven_, 146.
_Red-eye_, 19, 32.
_Redstart_, 32.
_Reed-bird_, 198.
_Reeds_, 155.
_Relics, Indian_, 43.
_Robin_, 32, 47, 75, 146.
_Rose-mallow_, 41.
_Roses_, 145.
S. _Sand-piper_, 25, 38.
_Saponaria_, 77.
_Sedge_, 156.
_Shad-bush_, 140.
_Snake, garter-_, 27.
_water-_, 130, 179, 190.
_Snow-birds_, 67.
_Sparrow, chipping_, 32, 180.
_foxie_, 207.
_song-_, 25, 32, 76, 88, 135.
_swamp-_, 41.
_tree-_, 59, 82, 198.
_white-throated_, 59, 198, 207.
_Sphagnum_, 56, 57, 69.
_Spice-wood_, 73, 140.
_Spiders_, 37.
_Spirea_, 141.
_Squirrel, flying-_, 59.
_Sundew_, 69.
_Sunfish_, 129.
_Sunflower_, 41, 155.
_Swallow, bank_, 93;
_barn_, 94.
T. _Tanager, scarlet_, 53, 144.
_Tea-berry_, 52.
_Teal, blue-winged_, 190.
_Thorn, white_, 141.
_Thrush, brown_, 32, 72, 82.
_Thrushes_, 71, 144.
_Titmouse_, 20, 67, 75.
_Trout_, 127.
_Trumpet-creeper_, 136.
_Tulip-tree_, 43.
_Turkey-buzzard_, 32.
_Turtle, snapping-_, 132, 179.
V. _Vireo, red-eyed_, 32, 90;
_white-eyed_, 112.
W. _Warbler, spotted_, 32, 51.
_tree-creeping_, 87.
_Warblers_, 51, 73, 205.
_Weasel_, 156.
_Whippoorwill_, 72.
_Winter-green_, 62, 69.
_Wolf_, 179.
_Wood-robin_, 18.
_Wren_, 31, 72, 142.
_Carolina_, 79.
_marsh-_, 41.
_winter_, 207.
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and
are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.
The following issues should be noted, along with the resolutions.
95.10 Why, on the other hand, wood[ /-]peckers Added.
140.9 and often sparse of bloom[,/.] But Replaced.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Travels in a Tree-top" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.