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diff --git a/27285.txt b/27285.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..49da2f3 --- /dev/null +++ b/27285.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5182 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Foot-path Way, by Bradford Torrey + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Foot-path Way + +Author: Bradford Torrey + +Release Date: November 17, 2008 [EBook #27285] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FOOT-PATH WAY *** + + + + +Produced by Robin Monks, Carolyn Bottomley, Joseph Cooper +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +[Transcriber's Note: Author's irregular hyphenation has been kept.] + + + + +[Illustration: Front cover] + +[Illustration: Author] + + +Books by Mr. Torrey. + +BIRDS IN THE BUSH. 16mo, $1.25. + +A RAMBLER'S LEASE. 16mo, $1.25. + + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. + BOSTON AND NEW YORK. + + +[Illustration: Title page] + + +THE FOOT-PATH WAY + +BY + +BRADFORD TORREY + + + Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way, + And merrily hent the stile-a: + A merry heart goes all the day, + Your sad tires in a mile-a. + + THE WINTER'S TALE + + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY + The Riverside Press, Cambridge + 1893 + + Copyright, 1892, + BY BRADFORD TORREY. + +_All rights reserved._ + +SECOND EDITION. + + _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A._ + Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. + + + + +CONTENTS. + PAGE + +JUNE IN FRANCONIA. 1 + +DECEMBER OUT-OF-DOORS. 36 + +DYER'S HOLLOW. 67 + +FIVE DAYS ON MOUNT MANSFIELD. 90 + +A WIDOW AND TWINS. 111 + +THE MALE RUBY-THROAT. 135 + +ROBIN ROOSTS. 153 + +THE PASSING OF THE BIRDS. 176 + +A GREAT BLUE HERON. 197 + +FLOWERS AND FOLKS. 205 + +IN PRAISE OF THE WEYMOUTH PINE. 232 + + + + +THE FOOT-PATH WAY. + + + + +JUNE IN FRANCONIA. + + "Herbs, fruits, and flowers, + Walks, and the melody of birds." + MILTON. + + +There were six of us, and we had the entire hotel, I may almost say the +entire valley, to ourselves. If the verdict of the villagers could have +been taken, we should, perhaps, have been voted a queer set, familiar as +dwellers in Franconia are with the sight of idle tourists,-- + + "Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air, + And they were butterflies to wheel about + Long as the summer lasted." + +We were neither "rapid" nor "gay," and it was still only the first week +of June; if we were summer boarders, therefore, we must be of some +unusual early-blooming variety. + +First came a lady, in excellent repute among the savants of Europe and +America as an entomologist, but better known to the general public as a +writer of stories. With her, as companion and assistant, was a doctor of +laws, who is also a newspaper proprietor, a voluminous author, an art +connoisseur, and many things beside. They had turned their backs thus +unseasonably upon the metropolis, and in this pleasant out-of-the-way +corner were devoting themselves to one absorbing pursuit,--the pursuit +of moths. On their daily drives, two or three insect nets dangled +conspicuously from the carriage,--the footman, thrifty soul, was never +backward to take a hand,--and evening after evening the hotel piazza was +illuminated till midnight with lamps and lanterns, while these +enthusiasts waved the same white nets about, gathering in geometries, +noctuids, sphinges, and Heaven knows what else, all of them to perish +painlessly in numerous "cyanide bottles," which bestrewed the piazza by +night, and (happy thought!) the closed piano by day. In this noble +occupation I sometimes played at helping; but with only meagre success, +my most brilliant catch being nothing more important than a "beautiful +Io." The kind-hearted lepidopterist lingered with gracious emphasis upon +the adjective, and assured me that the specimen would be all the more +valuable because of a finger-mark which my awkwardness had left upon one +of its wings. So--to the credit of human nature be it spoken--so does +amiability sometimes get the better of the feminine scientific spirit. +To the credit of human nature, I say; for, though her practice of the +romancer's art may doubtless have given to this good lady some peculiar +flexibility of mind, some special, individual facility in subordinating +a lower truth to a higher, it surely may be affirmed, also, of humanity +in general, that few things become it better than its inconsistencies. + +Of the four remaining members of the company, two were botanists, and +two--for the time--ornithologists. But the botanists were lovers of +birds, also, and went nowhere without opera-glasses; while the +ornithologists, in turn, did not hold themselves above some elementary +knowledge of plants, and amused themselves with now and then pointing +out some rarity--sedges and willows were the special desiderata--which +the professional collectors seemed in danger of passing without notice. +All in all, we _were_ a queer set. How the Latin and Greek polysyllables +flew about the dining-room, as we recounted our forenoon's or +afternoon's discoveries! Somebody remarked once that the waiters' heads +appeared to be more or less in danger; but if the waiters trembled at +all, it was probably not for their own heads, but for ours.[1] + +[1] Just how far the cause of science was advanced by all this activity +I am not prepared to say. The first ornithologist of the party published +some time ago (in _The Auk_, vol. v. p. 151) a list of our Franconia +birds, and the results of the botanists' researches among the willows +have appeared, in part at least, in different numbers of the _Bulletin +of the Torrey Botanical Club_. As for the lepidopterist, I have an +indistinct recollection that she once wrote to me of having made some +highly interesting discoveries among her Franconia collections,--several +undescribed species, as well as I can now remember; but she added that +it would be useless to go into particulars with a correspondent +entomologically so ignorant. + +Our first excursion--I speak of the four who traveled on foot--was to +the Franconia Notch. It could not well have been otherwise; at all +events, there was one of the four whose feet would not willingly have +carried him in any other direction. The mountains drew us, and there was +no thought of resisting their attraction. + +Love and curiosity are different, if not incompatible, sentiments; and +the birds that are dearest to the man are, for that very reason, not +most interesting to the ornithologist. When on a journey, I am almost +without eyes or ears for bluebirds and robins, song sparrows and +chickadees. Now is my opportunity for extending my acquaintance, and +such every-day favorites must get along for the time as best they can +without my attention. So it was here in Franconia. The vesper sparrow, +the veery, and a host of other friends were singing about the hotel and +along the roadside, but we heeded them not. Our case was like the boy's +who declined gingerbread, when on a visit: he had plenty of that at +home. + +When we were nearly at the edge of the mountain woods, however, we heard +across the field a few notes that brought all four of us to an instant +standstill. What warbler could that be? Nobody could tell. In fact, +nobody could guess. But, before the youngest of us could surmount the +wall, the singer took wing, flew over our heads far into the woods, and +all was silent. It was too bad; but there would be another day +to-morrow. Meantime, we kept on up the hill, and soon were in the old +forest, listening to bay-breasted warblers, Blackburnians, black-polls, +and so on, while the noise of the mountain brook on our right, a better +singer than any of them, was never out of our ears. "You are going up," +it said. "I wish you joy. But you see how it is; you will soon have to +come down again." + +I took leave of my companions at Profile Lake, they having planned an +all-day excursion beyond, and started homeward by myself. Slowly, and +with many stops, I sauntered down the long hill, through the forest (the +stops, I need not say, are commonly the major part of a naturalist's +ramble,--the golden beads, as it were, the walk itself being only the +string), till I reached the spot where we had been serenaded in the +morning by our mysterious stranger. Yes, he was again singing, this time +not far from the road, in a moderately thick growth of small trees, +under which the ground was carpeted with club-mosses, dog-tooth +violets, clintonia, linnaea, and similar plants. He continued to sing, +and I continued to edge my way nearer and nearer, till finally I was +near enough, and went down on my knees. Then I saw him, facing me, +showing white under parts. A Tennessee warbler! Here was good luck +indeed. I ogled him for a long time ("Shoot it," says Mr. Burroughs, +authoritatively, "not ogle it with a glass;" but a man must follow his +own method), impatient to see his back, and especially the top of his +head. What a precious frenzy we fall into at such moments! My knees were +fairly upon nettles. He flew, and I followed. Once more he was under the +glass, but still facing me. How like a vireo he looked! For one instant +I thought, Can it be the Philadelphia vireo? But, though I had never +seen that bird, I knew its song to be as different as possible from the +notes to which I was listening. After a long time the fellow turned to +feeding, and now I obtained a look at his upper parts,--the back olive, +the head ashy, like the Nashville warbler. That was enough. It was +indeed the Tennessee (_Helminthophila peregrina_), a bird for which I +had been ten years on the watch. + +The song, which has not often been described, is more suggestive of the +Nashville's than of any other, but so decidedly different as never for a +moment to be confounded with it. "When you hear it," a friend had said +to me several years before, "you will know it for something new." It is +long (I speak comparatively, of course), very sprightly, and peculiarly +staccato, and is made up of two parts, the second quicker in movement +and higher in pitch than the first. I speak of it as in two parts, +though when my companions came to hear it, as they did the next day, +they reported it as in three. We visited the place together afterwards, +and the discrepancy was readily explained. As to pitch, the song _is_ in +three parts, but as to rhythm and character, it is in two; the first +half being composed of double notes, the second of single notes. The +resemblance to the Nashville's song lies entirely in the first part; the +notes of the concluding portion are not run together or jumbled, after +the Nashville's manner, but are quite as distinct as those of the +opening measure. + +As there were at least two pairs of the birds, and they were +unmistakably at home, we naturally had hope of finding one of the nests. +We made several random attempts, and one day I devoted an hour or more +to a really methodical search; but the wily singer gave me not the +slightest clue, behaving as if there were no such thing as a bird's nest +within a thousand miles, and all my endeavors went for nothing. + +As might have been foreseen, Franconia proved to be an excellent place +in which to study the difficult family of flycatchers. All our common +eastern Massachusetts species were present,--the kingbird, the phoebe, +the wood pewee, and the least flycatcher,--and with them the crested +flycatcher (not common), the olive-sided, the traill, and the +yellow-bellied. The phoebe-like cry of the traill was to be heard +constantly from the hotel piazza. The yellow-bellied seemed to be +confined to deep and rather swampy woods in the valley, and to the +mountain-side forests; being most numerous on Mount Lafayette, where it +ran well up toward the limit of trees. In his notes, the yellow-belly +may be said to take after both the least flycatcher and the wood pewee. +His _killic_ (so written in the books, and I do not know how to improve +upon it) resembles the _chebec_ of the least flycatcher, though much +less emphatic, as well as much less frequently uttered, while his +_twee_, or _tuwee_, is quite in the voice and manner of the wood pewee's +clear, plaintive whistle; usually a monosyllable, but at other times +almost or quite dissyllabic. The olive-sided, on the other hand, +imitates nobody; or, if he does, it must be some bird with which I have +yet to make acquaintance. _Que-que-o_ he vociferates, with a strong +emphasis and drawl upon the middle syllable. This is his song, or what +answers to a song, but I have seen him when he would do nothing but +repeat incessantly a quick trisyllabic call, _whit, whit, whit_; +corresponding, I suppose, to the well-known _whit_ with which the +phoebe sometimes busies himself in a similar manner. + +Of more interest than any flycatcher--of more interest even than the +Tennessee warbler--was a bird found by the roadside in the village, +after we had been for several days in the place. Three of us were +walking together, talking by the way, when all at once we halted, as by +a common impulse, at the sound of a vireo song; a red-eye's song, as it +seemed, with the faintest touch of something unfamiliar about it. The +singer was in a small butternut-tree close upon the sidewalk, and at +once afforded us perfectly satisfactory observations, perching on a low +limb within fifteen feet of our eyes, and singing again and again, while +we scrutinized every feather through our glasses. As one of my +companions said, it was like having the bird in your hand. There was no +room for a question as to its identity. At last we had before us the +rare and long-desired Philadelphia greenlet. As its song is little +known, I here transcribe my notes about it, made at two different times, +between which there appears to have been some discussion among us as to +just how it should be characterized:-- + +"The song is very pretty, and is curiously compounded of the red-eye's +and the solitary's, both as to phrase and quality. The measures are all +brief; with fewer syllables, that is to say, than the red-eye commonly +uses. Some of them are exactly like the red-eye's, while others have +the peculiar sweet upward inflection of the solitary's. To hear some of +the measures, you would pass the bird for a red-eye; to hear others of +them, you might pass him for a solitary. At the same time, he has not +the most highly characteristic of the solitary's phrases. His voice is +less sharp and his accent less emphatic than the red-eye's, and, so far +as we heard, he observes decidedly longer rests between the measures." + +This is under date of June 16th. On the following day I made another +entry:-- + +"The song is, I think, less varied than either the solitary's or the +red-eye's, but it grows more distinct from both as it is longer heard. +Acquaintance will probably make it as characteristic and unmistakable as +any of our four other vireo songs. But I do not withdraw what I said +yesterday about its resemblance to the red-eye's and the solitary's. The +bird seems quite fearless, and keeps much of the time in the lower +branches. In this latter respect his habit is in contrast with that of +the warbling vireo." + +On the whole, then, the song of the Philadelphia vireo comes nearest to +the red-eye's, differing from it mainly in tone and inflection rather +than in form. In these two respects it suggests the solitary vireo, +though it never reproduces the indescribably sweet cadence, the real +"dying fall," of that most delightful songster. At the risk of a seeming +contradiction, however, I must mention one curious circumstance. On +going again to Franconia, a year afterwards, and, naturally, keeping my +ears open for _Vireo philadelphicus_, I discovered that I was never for +a moment in doubt when I heard a red-eye; but once, on listening to a +distant solitary,--catching only part of the strain,--I was for a little +quite uncertain whether he might not be the bird for which I was +looking. How this fact is to be explained I am unable to say; it will be +least surprising to those who know most of such matters, and at all +events I think it worth recording as affording a possible clue to some +future observer. The experience, inconsistent as the assertion may +sound, does not in the least alter my opinion that the Philadelphia's +song is practically certain to be confused with the red-eye's rather +than with the solitary's. Upon that point my companions and I were +perfectly agreed while we had the bird before us, and Mr. Brewster's +testimony is abundantly conclusive to the same effect. He was in the +Umbagog forests on a special hunt for Philadelphia vireos (he had +collected specimens there on two previous occasions), and after some +days of fruitless search discovered, almost by accident, that the birds +had all the while been singing close about him, but in every instance +had passed for "nothing but red-eyes."[2] + +[2] _Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club_, vol. v. p. 3. + +For the benefit of the lay reader, I ought, perhaps, to have explained +before this that the Philadelphia vireo is in coloration an exact copy +of the warbling vireo. There is a slight difference in size between the +two, but the most practiced eye could not be depended upon to tell them +apart in a tree. _Vireo philadelphicus_ is in a peculiar case: it looks +like one common bird, and sings like another. It might have been +invented on purpose to circumvent collectors, as the Almighty has been +supposed by some to have created fossils on purpose to deceive ungodly +geologists. It is not surprising, therefore, that the bird escaped the +notice of the older ornithologists. In fact, it was first +described,--by Mr. Cassin,--in 1851, from a specimen taken, nine years +before, near Philadelphia; and its nest remained unknown for more than +thirty years longer, the first one having been discovered, apparently in +Canada, in 1884.[3] + +[3] E. E. T. Seton, in _The Auk_, vol. ii. p. 305. + +Day after day, the bare, sharp crest of Mount Lafayette silently invited +my feet. Then came a bright, favorable morning, and I set out. I would +go alone on this my first pilgrimage to the noble peak, at which, always +from too far off, I had gazed longingly for ten summers. It is not +inconsistent with a proper regard for one's fellows, I trust, to enjoy +now and then being without their society. It _is_ good, sometimes, for a +man to be alone,--especially on a mountain-top, and more especially at a +first visit. The trip to the summit was some seven or eight miles in +length, and an almost continual ascent, without a dull step in the whole +distance. The Tennessee warbler was singing; but perhaps the pleasantest +incident of the walk to the Profile House--in front of which the +mountain footpath is taken--was a Blackburnian warbler perched, as +usual, at the very top of a tall spruce, his orange throat flashing fire +as he faced the sun, and his song, as my notebook expresses it, "sliding +up to high _Z_ at the end" in his quaintest and most characteristic +fashion. I spent nearly three hours in climbing the mountain path, and +during all that time saw and heard only twelve kinds of birds: +redstarts, Canada warblers (near the base), black-throated blues, +black-throated greens, Nashvilles, black-polls, red-eyed vireos, +snowbirds (no white-throated sparrows!), winter wrens, Swainson and +gray-cheeked thrushes, and yellow-bellied flycatchers. Black-poll and +Nashville warblers were especially numerous, as they are also upon Mount +Washington, and, as far as I have seen, upon the White Mountains +generally. The feeble, sharp song of the black-poll is a singular +affair; short and slight as it is, it embraces a perfect crescendo and a +perfect decrescendo. Without question I passed plenty of white-throated +sparrows, but by some coincidence not one of them announced himself. The +gray-cheeked thrushes, which sang freely, were not heard till I was +perhaps halfway between the Eagle Cliff Notch and the Eagle Lakes. This +species, so recently added to our summer fauna, proves to be not +uncommon in the mountainous parts of New England, though apparently +confined to the spruce forests at or near the summits. I found it +abundant on Mount Mansfield, Vermont, in 1885, and in the summer of 1888 +Mr. Walter Faxon surprised us all by shooting a specimen on Mount +Graylock, Massachusetts. Doubtless the bird has been singing its +perfectly distinctive song in the White Mountain woods ever since the +white man first visited them. During the vernal migration, indeed, I +have more than once heard it sing in eastern Massachusetts. My latest +delightful experience of this kind was on the 29th of May last (1889), +while I was hastening to a railway train within the limits of Boston. +Preoccupied as I was, and faintly as the notes came to me, I recognized +them instantly; for while the gray-cheek's song bears an evident +resemblance to the veery's (which I had heard within five minutes), the +two are so unlike in pitch and rhythm that no reasonably nice ear ought +ever to confound them. The bird was just over the high, close, +inhospitable fence, on the top of which I rested my chin and watched and +listened. He sat with his back toward me, in full view, on a level with +my eye, and sang and sang and sang, in a most deliciously soft, far-away +voice, keeping his wings all the while a little raised and quivering, as +in a kind of musical ecstasy. It does seem a thing to be regretted--yes, +a thing to be ashamed of--that a bird so beautiful, so musical, so +romantic in its choice of a dwelling-place, and withal so characteristic +of New England should be known, at a liberal estimate, to not more than +one or two hundred New Englanders! But if a bird wishes general +recognition, he should do as the robin does, and the bluebird, and the +oriole,--dress like none of his neighbors, and show himself freely in +the vicinity of men's houses. How can one expect to be famous unless he +takes a little pains to keep himself before the public? + +From the time I left my hotel until I was fairly above the dwarf spruces +below the summit of Lafayette, I was never for many minutes together out +of the hearing of thrush music. Four of our five summer representatives +of the genus _Turdus_ took turns, as it were, in the serenade. The +veeries--Wilson's thrushes--greeted me before I stepped off the piazza. +As I neared the Profile House farm, the hermits were in tune on either +hand. The moment the road entered the ancient forest, the olive-backs +began to make themselves heard, and halfway up the mountain path the +gray-cheeks took up the strain and carried it on to its heavenly +conclusion. A noble processional! Even a lame man might have climbed to +such music. If the wood thrush had been here, the chorus would have been +complete,--a chorus not to be excelled, according to my untraveled +belief, in any quarter of the world. + +To-day, however, my first thoughts were not of birds, but of the +mountain. The weather was all that could be asked,--the temperature +perfect, and the atmosphere so transparent as to be of itself a kind of +lens; so that in the evening, when I rejoined my companions at the +hotel, I found to my astonishment that I had been plainly visible while +at the summit, the beholders having no other help than an opera-glass! +It was almost past belief. I had felt some dilation of soul, it was +true, but had been quite unconscious of any corresponding physical +transformation. What would our aboriginal forerunners have said could +they have stood in the valley and seen a human form moving from point to +point along yonder sharp, serrated ridge? I should certainly have passed +for a god! Let us be thankful that all such superstitious fancies have +had their day. The Indian, poor child of nature, + + "A pagan suckled in a creed outworn," + +stood afar off and worshiped toward these holy hills; but the white man +clambers gayly up their sides, guide-book in hand, and leaves his +sardine box and eggshells--and likely enough his business card--at the +top. Let us be thankful, I repeat, for the light vouchsafed to us; ours +is a goodly heritage; but there are moods--such creatures of hereditary +influence are we--wherein I would gladly exchange both the guide-book +and the sardine box for a vision, never so indistinct and transient, of +Kitche Manitoo. Alas! what a long time it is since any of us have been +able to see the invisible. "In the mountains," says Wordsworth, "did he +feel his faith." But the poet was speaking then of a very old-fashioned +young fellow, who, even when he grew up, made nothing but a peddler. Had +he lived in our day, he would have felt not his faith, but his own +importance; especially if he had put himself out of breath, as most +likely he would have done, in accomplishing in an hour and forty minutes +what, according to the guide-book, should have taken a full hour and +three quarters. The modern excursionist (how Wordsworth would have loved +that word!) has learned wisdom of a certain wise fowl who once taught +St. Peter a lesson, and who never finds himself in a high place without +an impulse to flap his wings and crow. + +For my own part, though I spent nearly three hours on the less than four +miles of mountain path, as I have already acknowledged, I was +nevertheless somewhat short-winded at the end. So long as I was in the +woods, it was easy enough to loiter; but no sooner did I leave the last +low spruces behind me than I was seized with an importunate desire to +stand upon the peak, so near at hand just above me. I hope my readers +are none of them too old to sympathize with the boyish feeling. At all +events, I quickened my pace. The distance could not be more than half a +mile, I thought. But it was wonderful how that perverse trail among the +boulders did unwind itself, as if it never would come to an end; and I +was not surprised, on consulting a guide-book afterwards, to find that +my half mile had really been a mile and a half. One's sensations in such +a case I have sometimes compared with those of an essay-writer when he +is getting near the end of his task. He dallied with it in the +beginning, and was half ready to throw it up in the middle; but now the +fever is on him, and he cannot drive the pen fast enough. Two days ago +he doubted whether or not to burn the thing; now it is certain to be his +masterpiece, and he must sit up till morning, if need be, to finish it. +What would life be worth without its occasional enthusiasm, laughable in +the retrospect, perhaps, but in itself pleasurable almost to the point +of painfulness? + +It was a glorious day. I enjoyed the climb, the lessening forest, the +alpine plants (the diapensia was in full flower, with its upright snowy +goblets, while the geum and the Greenland sandwort were just beginning +to blossom), the magnificent prospect, the stimulating air, and, most of +all, the mountain itself. I sympathized then, as I have often done at +other times, with a remark once made to me by a Vermont farmer's wife. I +had sought a night's lodging at her house, and during the evening we +fell into conversation about Mount Mansfield, from the top of which I +had just come, and directly at the base of which the farmhouse stood. +When she went up "the mounting," she said, she liked to look off, of +course; but somehow what she cared most about was "the mounting itself." + +The woman had probably never read a line of Wordsworth, unless possibly, +"We are Seven" was in the old school reader; but I am sure the poet +would have liked this saying, especially as coming from such a source. +_I_ liked it, at any rate, and am seldom on a mountain-top without +recalling it. Her lot had been narrow and prosaic,--bitterly so, the +visitor was likely to think; she was little used to expressing herself, +and no doubt would have wondered what Mr. Pater could mean by his talk +about natural objects as possessing "more or less of a moral or +spiritual life," as "capable of a companionship with man, full of +expression, of inexplicable affinities and delicacies of intercourse." +From such refinements and subtleties her mind would have taken refuge in +thoughts of her baking and ironing. But she enjoyed the mountain; I +think she had some feeling for it, as for a friend; and who knows but +she, too, was one of "the poets that are sown by Nature"? + +I spent two happy hours and a half at the summit of Lafayette. The +ancient peak must have had many a worthier guest, but it could never +have entertained one more hospitably. With what softly temperate breezes +did it fan me! I wish I were there now! But kind as was its welcome, it +did not urge me to remain. The word of the brook came true again,--as +Nature's words always do, if we hear them aright. Having gone as high as +my feet could carry me, there was nothing left but to go down again. +"Which things," as Paul said to the Galatians, "are an allegory." + +I was not asked to stay, but I was invited to come again; and the next +season, also in June, I twice accepted the invitation. On the first of +these occasions, although I was eight days later than I had been the +year before (June 19th instead of June 11th), the diapensia was just +coming into somewhat free bloom, while the sandwort showed only here and +there a stray flower, and the geum was only in bud. The dwarf paper +birch (trees of no one knows what age, matting the ground) was in +blossom, with large, handsome catkins, while Cutler's willow was already +in fruit, and the crowberry likewise. The willow, like the birch, has +learned that the only way to live in such a place is to lie flat upon +the ground and let the wind blow over you. The other flowers noted at +the summit were one of the blueberries (_Vaccinium uliginosum_), +Bigelow's sedge, and the fragrant alpine holy-grass (_Hierochloa +alpina_). Why should this sacred grass, which Christians sprinkle in +front of their church doors on feast-days, be scattered thus upon our +higher mountain-tops, unless these places are indeed, as the Indian and +the ancient Hebrew believed, the special abode of the Great Spirit? + +But the principal interest of this my second ascent of Mount Lafayette +was to be not botanical, but ornithological. We had seen nothing +noteworthy on the way up (I was not alone this time, though I have so +far been rude enough to ignore my companion); but while at the Eagle +Lakes, on our return, we had an experience that threw me into a nine +days' fever. The other man--one of the botanists of last year's +crew--was engaged in collecting viburnum specimens, when all at once I +caught sight of something red in a dead spruce on the mountain-side just +across the tiny lake. I leveled my glass, and saw with perfect +distinctness, as I thought, two pine grosbeaks in bright male +costume,--birds I had never seen before except in winter. Presently a +third one, in dull plumage, came into view, having been hidden till now +behind the bole. The trio remained in sight for some time, and then +dropped into the living spruces underneath, and disappeared. I lingered +about, while my companion and the black flies were busy, and was on the +point of turning away for good, when up flew two red birds and alighted +in a tree close by the one out of which the grosbeaks had dropped. But +a single glance showed that they were not grosbeaks, but white-winged +crossbills! And soon they, too, were joined by a third bird, in female +garb. Here was a pretty piece of confusion! I was delighted to see the +crossbills, having never before had the first glimpse of them, summer or +winter; but what was I to think about the grosbeaks? "Your determination +is worthless," said my scientific friend, consolingly; and there was no +gainsaying his verdict. Yet by what possibility could I have been so +deceived? The birds, though none too near, had given me an excellent +observation, and as long as they were in sight I had felt no uncertainty +whatever as to their identity. The bill alone, of which I had taken +particular note, ought in all reason to be held conclusive. So much for +one side of the case. On the other hand, however, the second trio were +unmistakably crossbills. (They had been joined on the wing by several +others, as I ought to have mentioned, and with their characteristic +chattering cry had swept out of sight up the mountain). It was certainly +a curious coincidence: three grosbeaks--two males and a female--had +dropped out of a tree into the undergrowth; and then, five minutes +later, three crossbills--two males and a female--had risen out of the +same undergrowth, and taken almost the very perch which the others had +quitted! Had this strange thing happened? Or had my eyes deceived me? +This was my dilemma, on the sharp horns of which I tried alternately for +the next eight days to make myself comfortable. + +During all that time, the weather rendered mountain climbing +impracticable. But the morning of the 28th was clear and cold, and I set +out forthwith for the Eagle Lakes. If the grosbeaks were there, I meant +to see them, though I should have to spend all day in the attempt. My +botanist had returned home, leaving me quite alone at the hotel; but, as +good fortune would have it, before I reached the Profile House, I was +overtaken unexpectedly by a young ornithological friend, who needed no +urging to try the Lafayette path. We were creeping laboriously up the +long, steep shoulder beyond the Eagle Cliff gorge, and drawing near the +lakes, when all at once a peculiarly sweet, flowing warble fell upon +our ears. "A pine grosbeak!" said I, in a tone of full assurance, +although this was my first hearing of the song. The younger man plunged +into the forest, in the direction of the voice, while I, knowing pretty +well how the land lay, hastened on toward the lakes, in hopes to find +the singer visible from that point. Just as I ran down the little +incline into the open, a bird flew past me across the water, and +alighted in a dead spruce (it might have been the very tree of nine days +before), where it sat in full sight, and at once broke into song,--"like +the purple finch's," says my notebook; "less fluent, but, as it seemed +to me, sweeter and more expressive. I think it was not louder." Before +many minutes, my comrade came running down the path in high glee, +calling, "Pine grosbeaks!" He had got directly under a tree in which two +of them were sitting. So the momentous question was settled, and I +commenced feeling once more a degree of confidence in my own eyesight. +The loss of such confidence is a serious discomfort; but, strange as it +may seem to people in general, I suspect that few field ornithologists, +except beginners, ever succeed in retaining it undisturbed for any long +time together. As a class, they have learned to take the familiar maxim, +"Seeing is believing," with several grains of allowance. With most of +them, it would be nearer the mark to say, Shooting is believing. + +My special errand at the lakes being thus quickly disposed of, there was +no reason why I should not accompany my friend to the summit. Lafayette +gave us a cold reception. We might have addressed him as Daniel Webster, +according to the time-worn story, once addressed Mount Washington; but +neither of us felt oratorically inclined. In truth, after the outrageous +heats of the past few days, it seemed good to be thrashing our arms and +crouching behind a boulder, while we devoured our luncheon, and between +times studied the landscape. For my own part, I experienced a feeling of +something like wicked satisfaction; as if I had been wronged, and all at +once had found a way of balancing the score. The diapensia was already +quite out of bloom, although only nine days before we had thought it +hardly at its best. It is one of the prettiest and most striking of our +strictly alpine plants, but is seldom seen by the ordinary summer +tourist, as it finishes its course long before he arrives. The same may +be said of the splendid Lapland azalea, which I do not remember to have +found on Mount Lafayette, it is true, but which is to be seen in all its +glory upon the Mount Washington range, in middle or late June; so early +that one may have to travel over snow-banks to reach it. The two flowers +oftenest noticed by the chance comer to these parts are the Greenland +sandwort (the "mountain daisy"!) and the pretty geum, with its handsome +crinkled leaves and its bright yellow blossoms, like buttercups. + +My sketch will hardly fulfill the promise of its title; for our June in +Franconia included a thousand things of which I have left myself no room +to speak: strolls in the Landaff Valley and to Sugar Hill; a walk to +Mount Agassiz; numerous visits--by the way, and in uncertain weather--to +Bald Mountain; several jaunts to Lonesome Lake; and wanderings here and +there in the pathless valley woods. We were none of us of that unhappy +class who cannot enjoy doing the same thing twice. + +I wished, also, to say something of sundry minor enjoyments: of the +cinnamon roses, for example, with the fragrance of which we were +continually greeted, and which have left such a sweetness in the memory +that I would have called this essay "June in the Valley of Cinnamon +Roses," had I not despaired of holding myself up to so poetic a title. +And with the roses the wild strawberries present themselves. Roses and +strawberries! It is the very poetry of science that these should be +classified together. The berries, like the flowers, are of a generous +turn (it is a family trait, I think), loving no place better than the +roadside, as if they would fain be of refreshment to beings less happy +than themselves, who cannot be still and blossom and bear fruit, but are +driven by the Fates to go trudging up and down in dusty highways. For +myself, if I were a dweller in this vale, I am sure my finger-tips would +never be of their natural color so long as the season of strawberries +lasted. On one of my solitary rambles I found a retired sunny field, +full of them. To judge from appearances, not a soul had been near it. +But I noticed that, while the almost ripe fruit was abundant, there was +scarce any that had taken on the final tinge and flavor. Then I began to +be aware of faint, sibilant noises about me, and, glancing up, I saw +that the ground was already "pre-empted" by a company of cedar-birds, +who, naturally enough, were not a little indignant at my poaching thus +on their preserves. They showed so much concern (and had gathered the +ripest of the berries so thoroughly) that I actually came away the +sooner on their account. I began to feel ashamed of myself, and for once +in my life was literally hissed off the stage. + +Even on my last page I must be permitted a word in praise of Mount +Cannon, of which I made three ascents. It has nothing like the celebrity +of Mount Willard, with which, from its position, it is natural to +compare it; but to my thinking it is little, if at all, less worthy. Its +outlook upon Mount Lafayette is certainly grander than anything Mount +Willard can offer, while the prospect of the Pemigewasset Valley, fading +away to the horizon, if less striking than that of the White Mountain +Notch, has some elements of beauty which must of necessity be lacking +in any more narrowly circumscribed scene, no matter how romantic. + +In venturing upon a comparison of this kind, however, one is bound +always to allow for differences of mood. When I am in tune for such +things, I can be happier on an ordinary Massachusetts hilltop than at +another time I should be on any New Hampshire mountain, though it were +Moosilauke itself. And, truly, Fortune did smile upon our first visit to +Mount Cannon. Weather conditions, outward and inward, were right. We had +come mainly to look at Lafayette from this point of vantage; but, while +we suffered no disappointment in that direction, we found ourselves +still more taken with the valley prospect. We lay upon the rocks by the +hour, gazing at it. Scattered clouds dappled the whole vast landscape +with shadows; the river, winding down the middle of the scene, drew the +whole into harmony, as it were, making it in some nobly literal sense +picturesque; while the distance was of such an exquisite blue as I think +I never saw before. + +How good life is at its best! And in such + + "charmed days, + When the genius of God doth flow," + +what care we for science or the objects of science,--for grosbeak or +crossbill (may the birds forgive me!), or the latest novelty in willows? +I am often where fine music is played, and never without being +interested; as men say, I am pleased. But at the twentieth time, it may +be, something touches my ears, and I hear the music within the music; +and, for the hour, I am at heaven's gate. So it is with our appreciation +of natural beauty. We are always in its presence, but only on rare +occasions are our eyes anointed to see it. Such ecstasies, it seems, are +not for every day. Sometimes I fear they grow less frequent as we grow +older. + +We will hope for better things; but, should the gloomy prognostication +fall true, we will but betake ourselves the more assiduously to lesser +pleasures,--to warblers and willows, roses and strawberries. Science +will never fail us. If worse comes to worst, we will not despise the +moths. + + + + +DECEMBER OUT-OF-DOORS. + + "December's as pleasant as May." + _Old Hymn._ + + +For a month so almost universally spoken against, November commonly +brings more than its full proportion of fair days; and last year (1888) +this proportion was, I think, even greater than usual. On the 1st and +5th I heard the peeping of hylas; Sunday, the 4th, was enlivened by a +farewell visitation of bluebirds; during the first week, at least four +sorts of butterflies--Disippus, Philodice, Antiopa, and Comma--were on +the wing, and a single Philodice (our common yellow butterfly) was +flying as late as the 16th. Wild flowers of many kinds--not less than a +hundred, certainly--were in bloom; among them the exquisite little +pimpernel, or poor man's weather-glass. My daily notes are full of +complimentary allusions to the weather. Once in a while it rained, and +under date of the 6th I find this record,--"Everybody complaining of +the heat;" but as terrestrial matters go, the month was remarkably +propitious up to the 25th. Then, all without warning,--unless possibly +from the pimpernel, which nobody heeded,--a violent snow-storm descended +upon us. Railway travel and telegraphic communication were seriously +interrupted, while from up and down the coast came stories of shipwreck +and loss of life. Winter was here in earnest; for the next three months +good walking days would be few. + +December opened with a mild gray morning. The snow had already +disappeared, leaving only the remains of a drift here and there in the +lee of a stone-wall; the ground was saturated with water; every meadow +was like a lake; and but for the greenness of the fields in a few +favored spots, the season might have been late March instead of early +December. Of course such hours were never meant to be wasted within +doors. So I started out, singing as I went,-- + + "While God invites, how blest the day!" + +But the next morning was pleasant likewise; and the next; and still the +next; and so the story went on, till in the end, omitting five days of +greater or less inclemency, I had spent nearly the entire month in the +open air. I could hardly have done better had I been in Florida. + +All my neighbors pronounced this state of things highly exceptional; +many were sure they had never known the like. At the time I fully agreed +with them. Now, however, looking back over my previous year's notes, I +come upon such entries as these: "December 3d. The day has been warm. +Found chickweed and knawel in bloom, and an old garden was full of +fresh-looking pansies." "4th. A calm, warm morning." "5th. Warm and +rainy." "6th. Mild and bright." "7th. A most beautiful winter day, mild +and calm." "8th. Even milder and more beautiful than yesterday." "11th. +Weather very mild since last entry. Pickering hylas peeping to-day." +"12th. Still very warm; hylas peeping in several places." "13th. Warm +and bright." "14th. If possible, a more beautiful day than yesterday." + +So much for December, 1887. Its unexpected good behavior would seem to +have made a profound impression upon me; no doubt I promised never to +forget it; yet twelve months later traditionary notions had resumed +their customary sway, and every pleasant morning took me by surprise. + +The winter of 1888-89 will long be famous in the ornithological annals +of New England as the winter of killdeer plovers. I have mentioned the +great storm of November 25th-27th. On the first pleasant morning +afterwards--on the 28th, that is--my out-of-door comrade and I made an +excursion to Nahant. The land-breeze had already beaten down the surf, +and the turmoil of the waters was in great part stilled; but the beach +was strewn with sea-weeds and eel-grass, and withal presented quite a +holiday appearance. From one motive and another, a considerable +proportion of the inhabitants of the city had turned out. The principal +attraction, as far as we could perceive, was a certain big clam, of +which great numbers had been cast up by the tide. Baskets and wagons +were being filled; some of the men carried off shells and all, while +others, with a celerity which must have been the result of much +practice, were cutting out the plump dark bodies, leaving the shells in +heaps upon the sand. The collectors of these molluscan dainties knew +them as quahaugs, and esteemed them accordingly; but my companion, a +connoisseur in such matters, pronounced them not the true quahaug +(_Venus mercenaria_,--what a profanely ill-sorted name, even for a +bivalve!) but the larger and coarser _Cyprina islandica_. The man to +whom we imparted this precious bit of esoteric lore received it like a +gentleman, if I cannot add like a scholar. "We _call_ them quahaugs," he +answered, with an accent of polite deprecation, as if it were not in the +least to be wondered at that he should be found in the wrong. It was +evident, at the same time, that the question of a name did not strike +him as of any vital consequence. _Venus mercenaria_ or _Cyprina +islandica_, the savoriness of the chowder was not likely to be seriously +affected. + +It was good, I thought, to see so many people out-of-doors. Most of them +had employment in the shops, probably, and on grounds of simple economy, +so called, would have been wiser to have stuck to their lasts. But man, +after all that civilization has done for him (and against him), remains +at heart a child of nature. His ancestors may have been shoemakers for +fifty generations, but none the less he feels an impulse now and then to +quit his bench and go hunting, though it be only for a mess of clams. + +Leaving the crowd, we kept on our way across the beach to Little Nahant, +the cliffs of which offer an excellent position from which to sweep the +bay in search of loons, old-squaws, and other sea-fowl. Here we +presently met two gunners. They had been more successful than most of +the sportsmen that one falls in with on such trips; between them they +had a guillemot, two horned larks, and a brace of large plovers, of some +species unknown to us, but noticeable for their bright cinnamon-colored +rumps. "Why couldn't _we_ have found those plovers, instead of that +fellow?" said my companion, as we crossed the second beach. I fear he +was envious at the prosperity of the wicked. But it was only a passing +cloud; for on reaching the main peninsula we were speedily arrested by +loud cries from a piece of marsh, and after considerable wading and a +clamber over a detestable barbed-wire fence, such as no rambler ever +encountered without at least a temptation to profanity, we caught sight +of a flock of about a dozen of the same unknown plovers. This was good +fortune indeed. We had no firearms, nor even a pinch of salt, and coming +shortly to a ditch, too wide for leaping and too deep for cold-weather +fording, we were obliged to content ourselves with opera-glass +inspection. Six of the birds were grouped in a little plot of grass, +standing motionless, like so many robins. Their novelty and their +striking appearance, with two conspicuous black bands across the breast, +their loud cries, and their curious movements and attitudes were enough +to drive a pair of enthusiasts half crazy. We looked and looked, and +then reluctantly turned away. On getting home we had no difficulty in +determining their identity, and each at once sent off to the other the +same verdict,--"killdeer plover." + +This, as I say, was on the 28th of November. On the 3d of December we +were again at Nahant, eating our luncheon upon the veranda of some rich +man's deserted cottage, and at the same time enjoying the sunshine and +the beautiful scene. + +It was a summery spot; moths were flitting about us, and two +grasshoppers leaped out of our way as we crossed the lawn. They showed +something less than summer liveliness, it is true; it was only +afterwards, and by way of contrast, that I recalled Leigh Hunt's + + "Green little vaulter in the sunny grass, + Catching his heart up at the feel of June." + +But they had done well, surely, to weather the recent snow-storm and the +low temperature; for the mercury had been down to 10 deg. within a +fortnight, and a large snow-bank was still in sight against the wall. +Suddenly a close flock of eight or ten birds flew past us and +disappeared behind the hill. "Pigeons?" said my companion. I thought +not; they were sea-birds of some kind. Soon we heard killdeer cries from +the beach, and, looking up, saw the birds, three of them, alighting on +the sand. We started down the hill in haste, but just at that moment an +old woman, a miserable gatherer of drift rubbish, walked directly upon +them, and they made off. Then we saw that our "pigeons," or "sea-birds," +had been nothing but killdeer plovers, which, like other long-winged +birds, look much larger in the air than when at rest. Returning towards +Lynn, later in the afternoon, we came upon the same three birds again; +this time feeding among the boulders at the end of the beach. We +remarked once more their curious, silly-looking custom of standing +stock-still with heads indrawn. But our own attitudes, as we also stood +stock-still with glasses raised, may have looked, in their eyes, even +more singular and meaningless. As we turned away--after flushing them +two or three times to get a view of their pretty cinnamon +rump-feathers--a sportsman came up, and proved to be the very man on +whose belt we had seen our first killdeers, a week before. We left him +doing his best to bag these three also. He will never read what I write, +and I need not scruple to confess that, seeing his approach, we +purposely startled the birds as badly as possible, hoping to see them +make off over the hill, out of harm's way. But the foolish creatures +could not take the hint, and alighted again within a few rods, at the +same time calling loudly enough to attract the attention of the gunner, +who up to this moment had not been aware of their presence. He fired +twice before we got out of sight, but, to judge from his motions, +without success. A man's happiness is perhaps of more value than a +plover's, though I do not see how we are to prove it; but my sympathies, +then as always, were with the birds. + +Within a week or so I received a letter from Mrs. Celia Thaxter, +together with a wing, a foot, and one cinnamon feather. "By this wing +which I send you," she began, "can you tell me the name of the bird that +owned it?" Then after some description of the plumage, she continued: +"In the late tremendous tempest myriads of these birds settled on the +Isles of Shoals, filling the air with a harsh, shrill, incessant cry, +and not to be driven away by guns or any of man's inhospitable +treatment. Their number was so great as to be amazing, and they had +never been seen before by any of the present inhabitants of the Shoals. +They are plovers of some kind, I should judge, but I do not know." On +the 16th she wrote again: "All sorts of strange things were cast up by +the storm, and the plovers were busy devouring everything they could +find; always running, chasing each other, very quarrelsome, fighting +all the time. They were in poor condition, so lean that the men did not +shoot them after the first day, a fact which gives your correspondent +great satisfaction. They are still there! My brother came from the +Shoals yesterday, and says that the place is alive with them, all the +seven islands." + +Similar facts were reported--as I began in one way and another to +learn--from different points along the coast; especially from Cape +Elizabeth, Maine, where hundreds of the birds were seen on the 28th and +29th of November. The reporter of this item[4] pertinently adds: "Such a +flight of killdeer in Maine--where the bird is well known to be +rare--has probably not occurred before within the memory of living +sportsmen." Here, as at the Isles of Shoals, the visitors were at first +easily shot (they are not counted among game birds where they are known, +on account of their habitual leanness, I suppose); but they had landed +upon inhospitable shores, and were not long in becoming aware of their +misfortune. In the middle of December one of our Cambridge +ornithologists went to Cape Cod on purpose to find them. He saw about +sixty birds, but by this time they were so wild that he succeeded in +getting only a single specimen. "Poor fellows!" he wrote me; "they +looked unhappy enough, that cold Friday, with the mercury at 12 deg. and +everything frozen stiff. Most of them were on hillsides and in the +hollows of pastures; a few were in the salt marshes, and one or two on +the beach." Nobody expected them to remain hereabouts, as they normally +winter in the West Indies and in Central and South America;[5] but every +little while Mrs. Thaxter wrote, "The killdeers are still here!" and on +the 21st of December, as I approached Marblehead Neck, I saw a bird +skimming over the ice that covered the small pond back of the beach. I +put up my glass and said to myself, "A killdeer plover!" There proved to +be two birds. They would not suffer me within gunshot,--though I carried +no gun,--but flew off into some ploughed ground, with their usual loud +vociferations. (The killdeer is aptly named _Aegialitis vocifera_.) + +[4] Mr. N. C. Brown, in _The Auk_, January, 1889, page 69. + +[5] It seems probable that the birds started from some point in the +Southern States for a long southward flight, or perhaps for the West +Indies, on the evening of November 24th, and on getting out to sea were +caught by the great gale, which whirled them northward over the +Atlantic, landing them--such of them, that is, as were not drowned on +the way--upon the coast of New England. The grounds for such an opinion +are set forth by Dr. Arthur P. Chadbourne in _The Auk_ for July, 1889, +page 255. + +During the month with the history of which we are now especially +concerned, I saw nothing more of them; but by way of completing the +story I may add that on the 28th of January, in the same spot, I found a +flock of seven, and there they remained. I visited them four times in +February and once in March, and found them invariably in the same place. +Evidently they had no idea of making another attempt to reach the West +Indies for _this_ season; and if they were to remain in our latitude, +they could hardly have selected a more desirable location. The marsh, or +meadow, was sheltered and sunny, while the best protected corner was at +the same time one of those peculiarly springy spots in which the grass +keeps green the winter through. Here, then, these seven wayfarers +stayed week after week. Whenever I stole up cautiously and peeped over +the bank into their verdant hiding-place, I was sure to hear the +familiar cry; and directly one bird, and then another, and another, +would start up before me, disclosing the characteristic brown feathers +of the lower back. They commonly assembled in the middle of the marsh +upon the snow or ice, where they stood for a little, bobbing their heads +in mutual conference, and then flew off over the house and over the +orchard, calling as they flew. + +Throughout December, and indeed throughout the winter, brown creepers +and red-bellied nuthatches were surprisingly abundant. Every pine wood +seemed to have its colony of them. Whether the extraordinary mildness of +the season had anything to do with this I cannot say; but their presence +was welcome, whatever the reason for it. Like the chickadee, with whom +they have the good taste to be fond of associating, they are always busy +and cheerful, appearing not to mind either snow-storm or low +temperature. No reasonable observer would ever tax them with effeminacy, +though the creeper, it must be owned, cannot speak without lisping. + +Following my usual practice, I began a catalogue of the month's birds, +and at the end of a fortnight discovered, to my astonishment, that the +name of the downy woodpecker was missing. He had been common during +November, and is well known as one of our familiar winter residents. I +began forthwith to keep a sharp lookout for him, particularly whenever I +went near any apple orchard. A little later, I actually commenced making +excursions on purpose to find him. But the fates were against me, and go +where I would, he was not there. At last I gave him up. Then, on the +27th, as I sat at my desk, a chickadee chirped outside. Of course I +looked out to see him; and there, exploring the branches of an old +apple-tree, directly under my window, was the black-and-white woodpecker +for whom I had been searching in vain through five or six townships. The +saucy fellow! He rapped smartly three or four times; then he +straightened himself back, as woodpeckers do, and said: "Good-morning, +sir! Where have you been so long? If you wish to see _me_, you had +better stay at home." He might have spoken a little less pertly; for +after all, if a man would know what is going on, whether in summer or +winter, he must not keep too much in his own door-yard. Of the thirty +birds in my December list, I should have seen perhaps ten if I had sat +all the time at my window, and possibly twice that number had I confined +my walks within the limits of my own town. + +While the migration is going on, to be sure, one may find birds in the +most unexpected places. Last May I glanced up from my book and espied an +olive-backed thrush in the back yard, foraging among the currant-bushes. +Raising a window quietly, I whistled something like an imitation of his +inimitable song; and the little traveler--always an easy dupe--pricked +up his ears, and presently responded with a strain which carried me +straight into the depths of a White Mountain forest. But in December, +with some exceptions, of course, birds must be sought after rather than +waited for. The 15th, for example, was a most uncomfortable day,--so +uncomfortable that I stayed indoors,--the mercury only two or three +degrees above zero, and a strong wind blowing. Such weather would drive +the birds under shelter. The next forenoon, therefore, I betook myself +to a hill covered thickly with pines and cedars. Here I soon ran upon +several robins, feeding upon the savin berries, and in a moment more was +surprised by a _tseep_ so loud and emphatic that I thought at once of a +fox sparrow. Then I looked for a song sparrow,--badly startled, +perhaps,--but found to my delight a white-throat. He was on the ground, +but at my approach flew into a cedar. Here he drew in his head and sat +perfectly still, the picture of discouragement. I could not blame him, +but was glad, an hour later, to find him again on the ground, picking up +his dinner. I leveled my glass at him and whistled his Peabody song (the +simplest of all bird songs to imitate), but he moved not a feather. +Apparently he had never heard it before! He was still there in the +afternoon, and I had hopes of his remaining through the winter; but I +never could find him afterwards. Ten days prior to this I had gone to +Longwood on a special hunt for this same sparrow, remembering a certain +peculiarly cozy hollow where, six or eight years before, a little +company of song sparrows and white-throats had passed a rather severe +winter. The song sparrows were there again, as I had expected, but no +white-throats. The song sparrows, by the way, treated me shabbily this +season. A year ago several of them took up their quarters in a roadside +garden patch, where I could look in upon them almost daily. This year +there were none to be discovered anywhere in this neighborhood. They +figure in my December list on four days only, and were found in four +different towns,--Brookline (Longwood), Marblehead, Nahant, and +Cohasset. Like some others of our land birds (notably the golden-winged +woodpecker and the meadow lark), they seem to have learned that winter +loses a little of its rigor along the sea-board. + +Three kinds of land birds were met with at Nahant Beach, and nowhere +else: the Ipswich sparrow,--on the 3d and 26th,--the snow bunting, and +the horned lark. Of the last two species, both of them rather common in +November, I saw but one individual each. They were feeding side by +side, and, after a short separation,--under the fright into which my +sudden appearance put them,--one called to the other, and they flew off +in company towards Lynn. It was a pleasing display of sociability, but +nothing new; for in winter, as every observer knows, birds not of a +feather flock together. The Ipswich sparrow, a very retiring but not +peculiarly timid creature, I have now seen at Nahant in every one of our +seven colder months,--from October to April,--though it is +unquestionably rare upon the Massachusetts coast between the fall and +spring migrations. Besides the species already named, my monthly list +included the following: herring gull, great black-backed gull, ruffed +grouse, hairy woodpecker, flicker, goldfinch, tree sparrow, snowbird, +blue jay, crow, shrike, white-bellied nuthatch (only two or three +birds), golden-crowned kinglet, and one small hawk.[6] + +[6] To this list my ornithological comrade before mentioned added seven +species, namely: white-winged scoter, barred owl, cowbird, purple finch, +white-winged crossbill, fox sparrow, and winter wren. Between us, as far +as land birds went, we did pretty well. + +The only birds that sang during the month--unless we include the +red-bellied nuthatches, whose frequent quaint twitterings should, +perhaps, come under this head--were the chickadees and a single robin. +The former I have down as uttering their sweet phoebe whistle--which I +take to be certainly their song, as distinguished from all their +multifarious calls--on seven of the thirty-one days. They were more +tuneful in January, and still more so in February; so that the titmouse, +as becomes a creature so full of good humor and high spirits, may fairly +be said to sing all winter long. The robin's music was a pleasure quite +unexpected. I was out on Sunday, the 30th, for a few minutes' stroll +before breakfast, when the obliging stranger (I had not seen a robin for +a fortnight, and did not see another for nearly two months) broke into +song from a hill-top covered with pitch-pines. He was in excellent +voice, and sang again and again. The morning invited music,--warm and +cloudless, like an unusually fine morning in early April. + +For an entire week, indeed, the weather had seemed to be trying to outdo +itself. I remember in particular the day before Christmas. I rose long +before daylight, crossed the Mystic River marshes as the dawn was +beginning to break, and shortly after sunrise was on my way down the +South Shore. Leaving the cars at Cohasset, I sauntered over the +Jerusalem Road to Nantasket, spent a little while on the beach, and +brought up at North Cohasset, where I was attracted by a +lonesome-looking road running into the woods all by itself, with a +guide-board marked "Turkey Hill." Why not accept the pleasing +invitation, which seemed meant on purpose for just such an idle +pedestrian as myself? As for Turkey Hill, I had never heard of it, and +presumed it to be some uninteresting outlying hamlet. My concern, as a +saunterer's ought always to be, was with the road itself, not with what +might lie at the end of it. I did not discover my mistake till I had +gone half a mile, more or less, when the road all at once turned sharply +to the right and commenced ascending. Then it dawned upon me that Turkey +Hill must be no other than the long, gradual, grassy slope at which I +had already been looking from the railway station. The prospect of sea +and land was beautiful; all the more so, perhaps, because of a thick +autumnal haze. It might be called excellent Christmas weather, I said to +myself, when a naturally prudent man, no longer young, could sit perched +upon a fence rail at the top of a hill, drinking in the beauties of the +landscape. + +At the station, after my descent, I met a young man of the neighborhood. +"Do you know why they call that Turkey Hill?" said I. "No, sir, I +don't," he answered. I suggested that probably somebody had killed a +wild turkey up there at some time or other. He looked politely +incredulous. "I don't _think_ there are any wild turkeys up there," said +he; "_I_ never saw any." He was not more than twenty-five years old, and +the last Massachusetts turkey was killed on Mount Tom in 1847, so that I +had no doubt he spoke the truth. Probably he took me for a simple-minded +fellow, while I thought nothing worse of him than that he was one of +those people, so numerous and at the same time so much to be pitied, who +have never studied ornithology. + +The 25th was warmer even than the 24th; and it, likewise, I spent upon +the South Shore, though at a point somewhat farther inland, and in a +town where I was not likely to lose myself, least of all in any +out-of-the-way woodland road. In short, I spent Christmas on my native +heath,--a not inappropriate word, by the bye, for a region so largely +grown up to huckleberry bushes. "Holbrook's meadows," and "Norton +pasture!"--the names are not to be found on any map, and will convey no +meaning to my readers; but in my ears they awaken memories of many and +many a sunny hour. On this holiday I revisited them both. Warm as it +was, boys and girls were skating on the meadows (in spite of their name, +these have been nothing but a pond for as long as I can remember), and I +stood awhile by the old Ross cellar, watching their evolutions. How +bright and cheery it was in the little sheltered clearing, with nothing +in sight but the leafless woods and the ice-covered pond! "Shan't I take +your coat?" the sun seemed to be asking. At my elbow stood a bunch of +lilac bushes ("laylocks" they were probably called by the man who set +them out[7]) that had blossomed freely in the summer. The house has +been gone for these thirty years or more (alas! my sun must be rapidly +declining when memory casts so long a shadow), but the bushes seem +likely to hold their own for at least a century. They might have +prompted a wise man to some wise reflections; but for myself, it must be +acknowledged, I fell instead to thinking how many half days I had +fished--and caught nothing, or next to nothing--along this same +pleasant, willow-bordered shore. + +[7] So they were called, too, by that lover of flowers, Walter Savage +Landor, who, as his biographer says, followed a pronunciation +"traditional in many old English families." + +In Norton pasture, an hour or two later, I made myself young again by +putting a few checkerberries into my mouth; and in a small new clearing +just over the brook ("Dyer's Run," this used to be called, but I fear +the name is falling into forgetfulness) I stumbled upon a patch of some +handsome evergreen shrub, which I saw at once to be a novelty. I took it +for a member of the heath family, but it proved to belong with the +hollies,--_Ilex glabra_, or ink-berry, a plant not to be found in the +county where it is my present lot to botanize. So, even on my native +heath, I had discovered something new. + +The flora of a Massachusetts December is of necessity limited. Even in +the month under review, singularly favorable as it was, I found but +sixteen sorts of wild blossoms; a small number, surely, though perhaps +larger by sixteen than the average reader would have guessed. The names +of these hardy adventurers must by no means go unrecorded: shepherd's +purse, wild pepper-grass, pansy, common chickweed (_Stellaria media_), +mouse-ear chickweed (_Cerastium viscosum_), knawel, common mallow, +witch-hazel, cinque-foil (_Potentilla Norvegica_,--not _argentea_, as I +should certainly have expected), many-flowered aster, cone-flower, +yarrow, two kinds of groundsel, fall dandelion, and jointweed. Six of +these--mallow, cinque-foil, aster, cone-flower, fall dandelion, and +jointweed--were noticed only at Nahant; and it is further to be said +that the jointweed was found by a friend, not by myself, while the +cone-flower was not in strictness a blossom; that is to say, its rays +were well opened, making what in common parlance is called a flower, but +the true florets were not yet perfected. Such witch-hazel blossoms as +can be gathered in December are of course nothing but belated specimens. +I remarked a few on the 2d, and again on the 10th; and on the afternoon +of Christmas, happening to look into a hamamelis-tree, I saw what looked +like a flower near the top. The tree was too small for climbing and +almost too large for bending, but I managed to get it down; and sure +enough, the bit of yellow was indeed a perfectly fresh blossom. How did +it know I was to pass that way on Christmas afternoon, and by what sort +of freemasonry did it attract my attention? I loved it and left it on +the stalk, in the true Emersonian spirit, and here I do my little best +to embalm its memory. + +One of the groundsels (_Senecio viscosus_) is a recent immigrant from +Europe, but has been thoroughly established in the Back Bay lands of +Boston--where I now found it, in perfect condition, December 4th--for at +least half a dozen years. In Gray's "Flora of North America" it is said +to grow there and in the vicinity of Providence; but since that account +was written it has made its appearance in Lowell, and probably in other +places. It is a coarse-looking little plant, delighting to grow in pure +gravel; but its blossoms are pretty, and now, with not another flower of +any sort near it, it looked, as the homely phrase is, "as handsome as a +picture." Its more generally distributed congener, _Senecio +vulgaris_,--also a foreigner--is, next to the common chickweed, I should +say, our very hardiest bloomer. At the beginning of the month it was in +flower in an old garden in Melrose; and at Marblehead Neck a +considerable patch of it was fairly yellow with blossoms all through +December and January, and I know not how much longer. I saw no +shepherd's purse after December 27th, but knawel was in flower as late +as January 18th. The golden-rods, it will be observed, are absent +altogether from my list; and the same would have been true of the +asters, but for a single plant. This, curiously enough, still bore five +heads of tolerably fresh blossoms, after all its numberless companions, +growing upon the same hillside, had succumbed to the frost. + +Of my sixteen plants, exactly one half are species that have been +introduced from Europe; six are members of the composite family; and if +we omit the cone-flower, all but three of the entire number are simple +whites and yellows. Two red flowers, the clover and the pimpernel, +disappointed my search; but the blue hepatica would almost certainly +have been found, had it come in my way to look for it. + +Prettier even than the flowers, however, was the December greenness, +especially of the humbler sorts: St. John's-wort, five-finger, the +creeping blackberries,--whose modest winter loveliness was never half +appreciated,--herb-robert, corydalis, partridge-berry, checkerberry, +wintergreen, rattlesnake-plantain, veronica, and linnaea, to say nothing +of the ferns and mosses. Most refreshing of all, perhaps, was an +occasional patch of bright green grass, like the one already spoken of, +at Marblehead, or like one even brighter and prettier, which I visited +more than once in Swampscott. + +As I review what I have written, I am tempted to exclaim with +Tennyson:-- + + "And was the day of my delight + As pure and perfect as I say?" + +But I answer, in all good conscience, yes. The motto with which I began +states the truth somewhat strongly, perhaps (it must be remembered where +I got it), but aside from that one bit of harmless borrowed hyperbole, I +have delivered a plain, unvarnished tale. For all that, however, I do +not expect my industrious fellow-citizens to fall in at once with my +opinion that winter is a pleasant season at the seashore (it would be +too bad they should, as far as my own enjoyment is concerned), and +December a month propitious for leisurely all-day rambles. How foreign +such notions are to people in general I have lately had several forcible +reminders. On one of my jaunts from Marblehead to Swampscott, for +example, I had finally taken to the railway, and was in the narrow, +tortuous cut through the ledges, when, looking back, I saw a young +gentleman coming along after me. He was in full skating rig, fur cap and +all, with a green bag in one hand and a big hockey stick in the other. I +stopped every few minutes to listen for any bird that might chance to be +in the woods on either hand, and he could not well avoid overtaking me, +though he seemed little desirous of doing so. The spot was lonesome, +and as he went by, and until he was some rods in advance, he kept his +head partly turned. There was no mistaking the significance of that +furtive, sidelong glance; he had read the newspapers, and didn't intend +to be attacked from behind unawares! If he should ever cast his eye over +these pages (and whatever he may have thought of my appearance, I am +bound to say of him that he looked like a man who might appreciate good +literature), he will doubtless remember the incident, especially if I +mention the field-glass which I carried slung over one shoulder. +Evidently the world sees no reason why a man with anything better to do +should be wandering aimlessly about the country in midwinter. Nor do I +quarrel with the world's opinion. The majority is wiser than the +minority, of course; otherwise, what becomes of its divine and +inalienable right to lay down the law? The truth with me was that I +_had_ nothing better to do. I confess it without shame. Surely there is +no lack of shoemakers. Why, then, should not here and there a man take +up the business of walking, of wearing out shoes? Everything is related +to everything else, and the self-same power that brought the killdeers +to Marblehead sent me there to see them and do them honor. Should it +please the gods to order it so, I shall gladly be kept running on such +errands for a score or two of winters. + + + + +DYER'S HOLLOW. + + "Quiet hours + Pass'd among these heaths of ours + By the grey Atlantic sea." + MATTHEW ARNOLD. + + +I lived for three weeks at the "Castle," though, unhappily, I did not +become aware of my romantic good fortune till near the close of my stay. +There was no trace of battlement or turret, nothing in the least +suggestive of Warwick or Windsor, or of Sir Walter Scott. In fact, the +Castle was not a building of any kind, but a hamlet; a small collection +of houses--a somewhat scattered collection, it must be owned,--such as, +on the bleaker and sandier parts of Cape Cod, is distinguished by the +name of village. On one side flowed the river, doubling its course +through green meadows with almost imperceptible motion. As I watched the +tide come in, I found myself saying,-- + + "Here twice a day the Pamet fills, + The salt sea-water passes by." + +But the rising flood could make no "silence in the hills;" for the +Pamet, as I saw it, is far too sedate a stream ever to be caught +"babbling." It has only some three miles to run, and seems to know +perfectly well that it need not run fast. + +My room would have made an ideal study for a lazy man, I thought, the +two windows facing straight into a sand-bank, above which rose a steep +hill, or perhaps I should rather say the steep wall of a plateau, on +whose treeless top, all by themselves, or with only a graveyard for +company, stood the Town Hall and the two village churches. Perched thus +upon the roof of the Cape, as it were, and surmounted by cupola and +belfry, the hall and the "orthodox" church made invaluable beacons, +visible from far and near in every direction. For three weeks I steered +my hungry course by them twice a day, having all the while a pleasing +consciousness that, however I might skip the Sunday sermon, I was by no +means neglecting my religious privileges. The second and smaller +meeting-house belonged to a Methodist society. On its front were the +scars of several small holes which had been stopped and covered with +tin. A resident of the Castle assured me that the mischief had been done +by pigeon woodpeckers,--flickers,--a statement at which I inwardly +rejoiced. Long ago I had announced my belief that these enthusiastic +shouters must be of the Wesleyan persuasion, and here was the proof! +Otherwise, why had they never sought admission to the more imposing and, +as I take it, more fashionable orthodox sanctuary? Yes, the case was +clear. I could understand now how Darwin and men like him must have felt +when some great hypothesis of theirs received sudden confirmation from +an unexpected quarter. At the same time I was pained to see that the +flickers' attempts at church-going had met with such indifferent +encouragement. Probably the minister and the class leaders would have +justified their exclusiveness by an appeal to that saying about those +who enter "not by the door into the sheepfold;" while the woodpeckers, +on their part, might have retorted that just when they had most need to +go in the door was shut. + +One of my favorite jaunts was to climb this hill, or plateau, the "Hill +of Storms" (I am still ignorant whether the storms in question were +political, ecclesiastical, or atmospheric, but I approve the name), and +go down on the other side into a narrow valley whose meanderings led me +to the ocean beach. This valley, or, to speak in the local dialect, this +hollow, like the parallel one in which I lived,--the valley of the +Pamet,--runs quite across the Cape, from ocean to bay, a distance of two +miles and a half, more or less. + +At my very first sight of Dyer's Hollow I fell in love with it, and now +that I have left it behind me, perhaps forever, I foresee that my +memories of it are likely to be even fairer and brighter than was the +place itself. I call it Dyer's Hollow upon the authority of the town +historian, who told me, if I understood him correctly, that this was its +name among sailors, to whom it is a landmark. By the residents of the +town I commonly heard it spoken of as Longnook or Pike's Hollow, but for +reasons of my own I choose to remember it by its nautical designation, +though myself as far as possible from being a nautical man. + +To see Dyer's Hollow at its best, the visitor should enter it at the +western end, and follow its windings till he stands upon the bluff +looking out upon the Atlantic. If his sensations at all resemble mine, +he will feel, long before the last curve is rounded, as if he were +ascending a mountain; and an odd feeling it is, the road being level, or +substantially so, for the whole distance. At the outset he is in a +green, well-watered valley on the banks of what was formerly Little +Harbor. The building of the railway embankment has shut out the tide, +and what used to be an arm of the bay is now a body of fresh water. +Luxuriant cat-tail flags fringe its banks, and cattle are feeding near +by. Up from the reeds a bittern will now and then start. I should like +to be here once in May, to hear the blows of his stake-driver's mallet +echoing and re-echoing among the close hills. At that season, too, all +the uplands would be green. So we were told, at any rate, though the +pleasing story was almost impossible of belief. In August, as soon as we +left the immediate vicinity of Little Harbor, the very bottom of the +valley itself was parched and brown; and the look of barrenness and +drought increased as we advanced, till toward the end, as the last +houses were passed, the total appearance of things became subalpine: +stunted, weather-beaten trees, and broad patches of bearberry showing at +a little distance like beds of mountain cranberry. + +All in all, Dyer's Hollow did not impress me as a promising farming +country. Acres and acres of horseweed, pinweed, stone clover, poverty +grass,[8] reindeer moss, mouse-ear everlasting, and bearberry! No wonder +such fields do not pay for fencing-stuff. No wonder, either, that the +dwellers here should be mariculturalists rather than agriculturalists. +And still, although their best garden is the bay, they have their +gardens on land also,--the bottoms of the deepest hollows being selected +for the purpose,--and by hook or by crook manage to coax a kind of +return out of the poverty-stricken soil. Even on Cape Cod there must be +some potatoes to go with the fish. Vegetables raised under such +difficulties are naturally sweet to the taste, and I was not so much +surprised, therefore, on a certain state occasion at the Castle, to see +a mighty dish of string beans ladled into soup-plates and exalted to the +dignity of a separate course. Here, too,--but this was in Dyer's +Hollow,--I found in successful operation one of the latest, and, if I +may venture an unprofessional opinion, one of the most valuable, +improvements in the art of husbandry. An old man, an ancient mariner, no +doubt, was seated on a camp-stool and plying a hoe among his cabbages. +He was bent nearly double with age ("triple" is the word in my notebook, +but that may have been an exaggeration), and had learned wisdom with +years. I regretted afterward that I had not got over the fence and +accosted him. I could hardly have missed hearing something rememberable. +Yet I may have done wisely to keep the road. Industry like his ought +never to be intruded upon lightly. Some, I dare say, would have called +the sight pathetic. To me it was rather inspiring. Only a day or two +before, in another part of the township, I had seen a man sitting in a +chair among his bean-poles picking beans. Those heavy, sandy roads and +steep hills must be hard upon the legs, and probably the dwellers +thereabout (unlike the Lombardy poplars, which there, as elsewhere, were +decaying at the top) begin to die at the lower extremities. It was not +many miles from Dyer's Hollow that Thoreau fell in with the old wrecker, +"a regular Cape Cod man," of whom he says that "he looked as if he +sometimes saw a doughnut, but never descended to comfort." Quite +otherwise was it with my wise-hearted agricultural economists; and quite +otherwise shall it be with me, also, who mean to profit by their +example. If I am compelled to dig when I get old (to beg may I ever be +ashamed!), I am determined not to forget the camp-stool. The Cape Cod +motto shall be mine,--He that hoeth cabbages, let him do it with +assiduity. + +[8] In looking over the town history, I was pleased to come upon a note +in defense of this lowly plant, on the score not only of its beauty, but +of its usefulness in holding the sand in place; but, alas, "all men have +not faith," and where the historian wrote _Hudsonia tomentosa_ the +antipathetic compositor set up _Hudsonia tormentosa_. That compositor +was a Cape Cod man,--I would wager a dinner upon it. "Thus the whirligig +of time brings in his revenges," I hear him mutter, as he slips the +superfluous consonant into its place. + +This aged cultivator, not so much "on his last legs" as beyond them, was +evidently a native of the soil, but several of the few houses standing +along the valley road were occupied by Western Islanders. I was crossing +a field belonging to one of them when the owner greeted me; a milkman, +as it turned out, proud of his cows and of his boy, his only child. "How +old do you think he is?" he asked, pointing to the young fellow. It +would have been inexcusable to disappoint his fatherly expectations, and +I guessed accordingly: "Seventeen or eighteen." "Sixteen," he +rejoined,--"sixteen!" and his face shone till I wished I had set the +figure a little higher. The additional years would have cost me nothing, +and there is no telling how much happiness they might have conferred. +"Who lives there?" I inquired, turning to a large and well-kept house in +the direction of the bay. "My nephew." "Did he come over when you did?" +"No, I sent for him." He himself left the Azores as a cabin boy, landed +here on Cape Cod, and settled down. Since then he had been to +California, where he worked in the mines. "Ah! that was where you got +rich, was it?" said I. "Rich!"--this in a tone of sarcasm. But he added, +"Well, I made something." His praise of his nearest neighbor--whose +name proclaimed his Cape Cod nativity--made me think well not only of +his neighbor, but of him. There were forty-two Portuguese families in +Truro, he said. "There are more than that in Provincetown?" I suggested. +He shrugged his shoulders. "Yes, about half the people." And pretty good +people they are, if such as I saw were fair representatives. One boy of +fourteen (unlike the milkman's heir, he was very small for his years, as +he told me with engaging simplicity) walked by my side for a mile or +two, and quite won my heart. A true Nathanael he seemed, in whom was no +guile. He should never go to sea, he said; nor was he ever going to get +married so long as his father lived. He loved his father so much, and he +was the only boy, and his father couldn't spare him. "But didn't your +father go to sea?" "Oh, yes; both my fathers went to sea." That was a +puzzle; but presently it came out that his two fathers were his father +and his grandfather. He looked troubled for a moment when I inquired the +whereabouts of the poorhouse, in the direction of which we happened to +be going. He entertained a very decided opinion that he shouldn't like +to live there; a wholesome aversion, I am bound to maintain, dear Uncle +Venner to the contrary notwithstanding. + +A stranger was not an every-day sight in Dyer's Hollow, I imagine, and +as I went up and down the road a good many times in the course of my +visit, I came to be pretty well known. So it happened that a Western +Islands woman came to her front door once, broom in hand and the +sweetest of smiles on her face, and said, "Thank you for that five cents +you gave my little boy the other day." "Put that in your pocket," I had +said, and the obedient little man did as he was bidden, without so much +as a side glance at the denomination of the coin. But he forgot one +thing, and when his mother asked him, as of course she did, for mothers +are all alike, "Did you thank the gentleman?" he could do nothing but +hang his head. Hence the woman's smile and "thank you," which made me so +ashamed of the paltriness of the gift (Thackeray never saw a boy without +wanting to give him a _sovereign_!) that my mention of the matter here, +so far from indicating an ostentatious spirit, ought rather to be taken +as a mark of humility. + +All things considered, I should hardly choose to settle for life in +Dyer's Hollow; but with every recollection of the place I somehow feel +as if its score or two of inhabitants were favored above other men. Why +is it that people living thus by themselves, and known thus transiently +and from the outside as it were, always seem in memory like dwellers in +some land of romance? I cannot tell, but so it is; and whoever has such +a picture on the wall of his mind will do well, perhaps, never to put +the original beside it. Yet I do not mean to speak quite thus of Dyer's +Hollow. Once more, at least, I hope to walk the length of that +straggling road. As I think of it now, I behold again those beds of +shining bearberry ("resplendent" would be none too fine a word; there is +no plant for which the sunlight does more), loaded with a wealth of +handsome red fruit. The beach-plum crop was a failure; plum wine, of the +goodness of which I heard enthusiastic reports, would be scarce; but one +needed only to look at the bearberry patches to perceive that Cape Cod +sand was not wanting in fertility after a manner of its own. If its +energies in the present instance happened to be devoted to ornament +rather than utility, it was not for an untaxed and disinterested +outsider to make complaint; least of all a man who was never a +wine-bibber, and who believes, or thinks he believes, in "art for art's +sake." Within the woods the ground was carpeted with trailing arbutus +and a profusion of checkerberry vines, the latter yielding a few fat +berries, almost or quite a year old, but still sound and spicy, still +tasting "like tooth-powder," as the benighted city boy expressed it. It +was an especial pleasure to eat them here in Dyer's Hollow, I had so +many times done the same in another place, on the banks of Dyer's Run. +Lady's-slippers likewise (nothing but leaves) looked homelike and +friendly, and the wild lily of the valley, too, and the pipsissewa. +Across the road from the old house nearest the ocean stood a still more +ancient-seeming barn, long disused, to all appearance, but with old +maid's pinks, catnip, and tall, stout pokeberry weeds yet flourishing +beside it. Old maid's pinks and catnip! Could that combination have been +fortuitous? + +No botanist, nor even a semi-scientific lover of growing things, like +myself, can ever walk in new fields without an eye for new plants. While +coming down the Cape in the train I had seen, at short intervals, +clusters of some strange flower,--like yellow asters, I thought. At +every station I jumped off the car and looked hurriedly for specimens, +till, after three or four attempts, I found what I was seeking,--the +golden aster, _Chrysopsis falcata_. Here in Truro it was growing +everywhere, and of course in Dyer's Hollow. Another novelty was the pale +greenbrier, _Smilax glauca_, which I saw first on the hill at +Provincetown, and afterward discovered in Longnook. It was not abundant +in either place, and in my eyes had less of beauty than its familiar +relatives, the common greenbrier (cat-brier, horse-brier, Indian-brier) +of my boyhood, and the carrion flower. This glaucous smilax was one of +the plants that attracted Thoreau's attention, if I remember right, +though I cannot now put my finger upon his reference to it. Equally new +to me, and much more beautiful, as well as more characteristic of the +place, were the broom-crowberry and the greener kind of poverty grass +(_Hudsonia ericoides_), inviting pillows or cushions of which, looking +very much alike at a little distance, were scattered freely over the +grayish hills. These huddling, low-lying plants were among the things +which bestowed upon Longnook its pleasing and remarkable mountain-top +aspect. The rest of the vegetation was more or less familiar, I believe: +the obtuse-leaved milkweed, of which I had never seen so much before; +three sorts of goldenrod, including abundance of the fragrant _odora_; +two kinds of yellow gerardia, and, in the lower lands at the western end +of the valley, the dainty rose gerardia, just now coming into bloom; the +pretty _Polygala polygama_,--pretty, but not in the same class with the +rose gerardia; ladies' tresses; bayberry; sweet fern; crisp-leaved +tansy; beach grass; huckleberry bushes, for whose liberality I had +frequent occasion to be thankful; bear oak; chinquapin; chokeberry; a +single vine of the Virginia creeper; wild carrot; wild cherry; the +common brake,--these and doubtless many more were there, for I made no +attempt at a full catalogue. There must have been wild roses along the +roadside and on the edge of the thickets, I should think, yet I cannot +recollect them, nor does the name appear in my penciled memoranda. Had +the month been June instead of August, notebook and memory would record +a very different story, I can hardly doubt; but out of flower is out of +mind. + +In the course of my many visits to Dyer's Hollow I saw thirty-three +kinds of birds, of the eighty-four species in my full Truro list. The +number of individuals was small, however, and, except at its lower end, +the valley was, or appeared to be, nearly destitute of feathered life. A +few song sparrows, a cat-bird or two, a chewink or two, a field sparrow, +and perhaps a Maryland yellow-throat might be seen above the last +houses, but as a general thing the bushes and trees were deserted. +Walking here, I could for the time almost forget that I had ever owned a +hobby-horse. But farther down the hollow there was one really "birdy" +spot, to borrow a word--useful enough to claim lexicographical +standing--from one of my companions: a tiny grove of stunted oaks, by +the roadside, just at the point where I naturally struck the valley +when I approached it by way of the Hill of Storms. Here I happened upon +my only Cape Cod cowbird, a full-grown youngster, who was being +ministered unto in the most devoted manner by a red-eyed vireo,--such a +sight as always fills me with mingled amusement, astonishment, +admiration, and disgust. That any bird should be so befooled and imposed +upon! Here, too, I saw at different times an adult male blue +yellow-backed warbler, and a bird of the same species in immature +plumage. It seemed highly probable, to say the least, that the young +fellow had been reared not far off, the more so as the neighboring +Wellfleet woods were spectral with hanging lichens, of the sort which +this exquisite especially affects. At first I wondered why this +particular little grove, by no means peculiarly inviting in appearance, +should be the favorite resort of so many birds,--robins, orioles, wood +pewees, kingbirds, chippers, golden warblers, black-and-white creepers, +prairie warblers, red-eyed vireos, and blue yellow-backs; but I +presently concluded that a fine spring of water just across the road +must be the attraction. Near the spring was a vegetable garden, and +here, on the 22d of August, I suddenly espied a water thrush teetering +upon the tip of a bean-pole, his rich olive-brown back glistening in the +sunlight. He soon dropped to the ground among the vines, and before long +walked out into sight. His action when he saw me was amusing. Instead of +darting back, as a sparrow, for instance, would have done, he flew up to +the nearest perch; that is, to the top of the nearest bean-pole, which +happened to be a lath. Wood is one of the precious metals on Cape Cod, +and if oars are used for fence-rails, and fish-nets for hen-coops, why +not laths for bean-poles? The perch was narrow, but wide enough for the +bird's small feet. Four times he came up in this way to look about him, +and every time alighted thus on the top of a pole. At the same moment +three prairie warblers were chasing each other about the garden, now +clinging to the side of the poles, now alighting on their tips. It was a +strange spot for prairie warblers, as it seemed to me, though they +looked still more out of place a minute later, when they left the +bean-patch and sat upon a rail fence in an open grassy field. Cape Cod +birds, like Cape Cod men, know how to shift their course with the wind. +Where else would one be likely to see prairie warblers, black-throated +greens, and black-and-white creepers scrambling in company over the red +shingles of a house-roof, and song sparrows singing day after day from a +chimney-top? + +In all my wanderings in Dyer's Hollow, only once did I see anything of +that pest of the seashore, the sportsman; then, in the distance, two +young fellows, with a highly satisfactory want of success, as well as I +could make out, were trying to take the life of a meadow lark. No doubt +they found existence a dull affair, and felt the need of something to +enliven it. A noble creature is man,--"a little lower than the angels!" +Two years in succession I have been at the seashore during the autumnal +migration of sandpipers and plovers. Two years in succession have I seen +men, old and young, murdering sandpipers and plovers at wholesale for +the mere fun of doing it. Had they been "pot hunters," seeking to earn +bread by shooting for the market, I should have pitied them, +perhaps,--certainly I should have regretted their work; but I should +have thought no ill of them. Their vocation would have been as +honorable, for aught I know, as that of any other butcher. But a man of +twenty, a man of seventy, shooting sanderlings, ring plovers, golden +plovers, and whatever else comes in his way, not for money, nor +primarily for food, but because he enjoys the work! "A little lower than +the angels!" What numbers of innocent and beautiful creatures have I +seen limping painfully along the beach, after the gunners had finished +their day's amusement! Even now I think with pity of one particular +turnstone. Some being made "a little lower than the angels" had fired at +him and carried away one of his legs. I watched him for an hour. Much of +the time he stood motionless. Then he hobbled from one patch of +eel-grass to another, in search of something to eat. My heart ached for +him, and it burns now to think that good men find it a pastime to break +birds' legs and wings and leave them to perish. I have seen an old man, +almost ready for the grave, who could amuse his last days in this way +for weeks together. An exhilarating and edifying spectacle it +was,--this venerable worthy sitting behind his bunch of wooden decoys, a +wounded tern fluttering in agony at his feet. Withal, be it said, he was +a man of gentlemanly bearing, courteous, and a Christian. He did not +shoot on Sunday,--not he. Such sport is to me despicable. Yet it is +affirmed by those who ought to know--by those, that is, who engage in +it--that it tends to promote a spirit of manliness. + +But thoughts of this kind belong not in Dyer's Hollow. Rather let me +remember only its stillness and tranquillity, its innocent inhabitants, +its gray hills, its sandy road, and the ocean at the end of the way. +Even at the western extremity, near the railway and the busy harbor, the +valley was the very abode of quietness. Here, on one of my earlier +excursions, I came unexpectedly to a bridge, and on the farther side of +the bridge to a tidy house and garden; and in the garden were several +pear-trees, with fruit on them! Still more to my surprise, here was a +little shop. The keeper of it had also the agency of some insurance +company,--so a signboard informed the passer-by. As for his stock in +trade,--sole leather, dry goods, etc.,--that spoke for itself. I stepped +inside the door, but he was occupied with an account book, and when at +last he looked up there was no speculation in his eyes. Possibly he had +sold something the day before, and knew that no second customer could be +expected so soon. We exchanged the time of day,--not a very valuable +commodity hereabout,--and I asked him a question or two touching the +hollow, and especially "the village," of which I had heard a rumor that +it lay somewhere in this neighborhood. He looked bewildered at the +word,--he hardly knew what I could mean, he said; but with a little +prompting he recollected that a few houses between this point and North +Truro (there used to be more houses than now, but they had been removed +to other towns,--some of them to Boston!) were formerly called "the +village." I left him to his ledger, and on passing his house I saw that +he was a dealer in grain as well as in sole leather and calico, and had +telephonic communication with somebody; an enterprising merchant, after +all, up with the times, in spite of appearances. + +The shop was like the valley, a careless tourist might have said,--a +sleepy shop in Sleepy Hollow. To me it seemed not so. Peaceful, remote, +sequestered,--these and all similar epithets suited well with Longnook; +but for myself, in all my loitering there I was never otherwise than +wide awake. The close-lying, barren, mountainous-looking hills did not +oppress the mind, but rather lifted and dilated it, and although I could +not hear the surf, I felt all the while the neighborhood of the sea; not +the harbor, but the ocean, with nothing between me and Spain except that +stretch of water. Blessed forever be Dyer's Hollow, I say, and blessed +be its inhabitants! Whether Western Islanders or "regular Cape Cod men," +may they live and die in peace. + + + + +FIVE DAYS ON MOUNT MANSFIELD. + + "Lead him through the lovely mountain-paths, + And talk to him of things at hand and common." + MATTHEW ARNOLD. + + +I went up the mountain from the village of Stowe in very ignoble +fashion,--in a wagon,--and was three hours on the passage. One of the +"hands" at the Summit House occupied the front seat with the driver, and +we were hardly out of the village before a seasonable toothache put him +in mind of his pipe. Would smoking be offensive to me? he inquired. What +could I say, having had an aching tooth before now myself? It was a +pleasure almost beyond the luxury of breathing mountain air to see the +misery of a fellow-mortal so quickly assuaged. The driver, a sturdy +young Vermonter, was a man of different spirit. He had never used +tobacco nor drunk a glass of "liquor," I heard him saying. Somebody had +once offered him fifty cents to smoke a cigar. + +"Why didn't you take it?" asked his companion in a tone of wonder. + +"Well, I'm not that kind of a fellow, to be bought for fifty cents." + +As we approached the base of the mountain, a white-throated sparrow was +piping by the roadside. + +"I love to hear that bird sing," said the driver. + +It was now my turn to be surprised. Our man of principle was also a man +of sentiment. + +"What do you call him?" I inquired, as soon as I could recover myself. + +"Whistling Jack," he answered; a new name to me, and a good one; it +would take a nicer ear than mine to discriminate with certainty between +a white-throat's voice and a school-boy's whistle. + +The morning had promised well, but before we emerged from the forest as +we neared the summit we drove into a cloud, and, shortly afterward, into +a pouring rain. In the office of the hotel I found a company of eight +persons, four men and four women, drying themselves about the stove. +They had left a village twenty miles away at two o'clock that morning +in an open wagon for an excursion to the summit. Like myself, they had +driven into a cloud, and up to this time had seen nothing more distant +than the stable just across the road, within a stone's toss of the +window, and even that only by glimpses. One of the party was a doctor, +who must be at home that night. Hour after hour they watched the clouds, +or rather the rain (we were so beclouded that the clouds could not be +seen), and debated the situation. Finally, at three o'clock, they got +into their open wagon, the rain pelting them fiercely, and started for +the base. Doubtless they soon descended into clear weather, but not till +they were well drenched. Verily the clouds are no respecters of persons. +It is nothing to them how far you have come, nor how worthy your errand. +So I reflected, having nothing better to do, when my wagonful of +pilgrims had dropped out of sight in the fog--as a pebble drops into the +lake--leaving me with the house to myself; and presently, as I sat at +the window, I heard a white-throated sparrow singing outside. Here was +one, at least, whom the rain could not discourage. A wild and yet a +sweet and home-felt strain is this of "Whistling Jack,"--a mountain +bird, well used to mountain weather, and just now too happy to forego +his music, no matter how the storm might rage. I myself had been in a +cloud often enough to feel no great degree of discomfort or lowness of +spirits. I had not decided to spend the precious hours of a brief +vacation upon a mountain-top without taking into account the additional +risk of unfavorable weather in such a place. Let the clouds do their +worst; I could be patient and wait for the sun. But this whistling +philosopher outside spoke of something better than patience, and I +thanked him for the timely word. + +Toward noon of the next day the rain ceased, the cloud vanished, and I +made haste to clamber up the rocky peak--the Nose, so called--at the +base of which the hotel is situated. Yes, there stretched Lake +Champlain, visible for almost its entire length, and beyond it loomed +the Adirondacks. I was glad I had come. _I_ could sing now. It does a +man good to look afar off. + +Even before the fog lifted I had discovered, to my no small +gratification, that the evergreens immediately about the house were +full of gray-cheeked thrushes, a close colony, strictly confined to the +low trees at the top of the mountain. They were calling at all hours, +_yeep, yeep_, somewhat in the manner of young chickens; and after +supper, as it grew dark, I stood on the piazza while they sang in full +chorus. At least six of them were in tune at once. _Wee-o, wee-o, tit-ti +wee-o_, something like this the music ran, with many variations; a most +ethereal sound, at the very top of the scale, but faint and sweet; quite +in tune also with my mood, for I had just come in from gazing long at +the sunset, with Lake Champlain like a sea of gold for perhaps a hundred +miles, and a stretch of the St. Lawrence showing far away in the north. +During the afternoon, too, I had been over the long crest of the +mountain to the northern peak, the highest point, belittled in local +phraseology as the Chin; a delightful jaunt of two miles, with +magnificent prospects all the way. It was like walking on the ridge-pole +of Vermont, a truly exhilarating experience. + +All in all, though the forenoon had been so rainy, I had lived a long +day, and now, if ever, could appreciate the singing of this +characteristic northern songster, himself such a lover of mountains as +never to be heard, here in New England, at least, and in summer-time, +except amid the dwindling spruce forests of the upper slopes. I have +never before seen him so familiar. On the Mount Washington range and on +Mount Lafayette it is easy enough to hear his music, but one rarely gets +more than a flying glimpse of the bird. Here, as I say, he was never out +of hearing, and seldom long out of sight, even from the door-step. The +young were already leaving the nest, and undoubtedly the birds had +disposed themselves for the season before the unpainted, +inoffensive-looking little hotel showed any signs of occupancy. The very +next year a friend of mine visited the place and could discover no trace +of them. They had found their human neighbors a vexation, perhaps, and +on returning from their winter's sojourn in Costa Rica, or where not, +had sought summer quarters on some less trodden peak. + +Not so was it with the myrtle warblers, I venture to assert, though on +this point I have never taken my friend's testimony. Perfectly at home +as they are in the wildest and most desolate places, they manifest a +particular fondness for the immediate vicinity of houses, delighting +especially to fly about the gutters of the roof and against the window +panes. Here, at the Summit House, they were constantly to be seen +hawking back and forth against the side of the building, as barn +swallows are given to doing in the streets of cities. The rude structure +was doubly serviceable,--to me a shelter, and to the birds a fly-trap. I +have never observed any other warbler thus making free with human +habitations. + +This yellow-rump, or myrtle bird, is one of the thrifty members of his +great family, and next to the black-poll is the most numerous +representative of his tribe in Massachusetts during the spring and fall +migrations; a beautiful little creature, with a characteristic flight +and call, and for a song a pretty trill suggestive of the snow-bird's. +Within two or three years he has been added to the summer fauna of +Massachusetts, and as a son of the Bay State I rejoice in his presence +and heartily bid him welcome. We shall never have too many of such +citizens. I esteem him, also, as the only one of his delicate, +insectivorous race who has the hardihood to spend the winter--sparingly, +but with something like regularity--within the limits of New England. He +has a genius for adapting himself to circumstances; picking up his daily +food in the depths of a mountain forest or off the panes of a +dwelling-house, and wintering, as may suit his fancy or convenience, in +the West Indies or along the sea-coast of Massachusetts. + +One advantage of a sojourn at the summit of any of our wooded New +England mountains is the easy access thus afforded to the upper forest. +While I was here upon Mount Mansfield I spent some happy hours almost +every day in sauntering down the road for a mile or two, looking and +listening. Just after leaving the house it was possible to hear three +kinds of thrushes singing at once,--gray-cheeks, olive-backs, and +hermits. Of the three the hermit is beyond comparison the finest singer, +both as to voice and tune. His song, given always in three detached +measures, each higher than the one before it, is distinguished by an +exquisite liquidity, the presence of _d_ and _l_, I should say, as +contrasted with the inferior _t_ sound of the gray-cheek. If it has +less variety, and perhaps less rapture, than the song of the +wood-thrush, it is marked by greater simplicity and ease; and if it does +not breathe the ineffable tranquillity of the veery's strain, it comes +to my ear, at least, with a still nobler message. The hermit's note is +aspiration rather than repose. "Peace, peace!" says the veery, but the +hermit's word is, "Higher, higher!" "Spiritual songs," I call them both, +with no thought of profaning the apostolic phrase. + +I had been listening to thrush music (I think I could listen to it +forever), and at a bend of the road had turned to admire the wooded side +of the mountain, just here spread out before me, miles and miles of +magnificent hanging forest, when I was attracted by a noise as of +something gnawing--a borer under the bark of a fallen spruce lying at my +feet. Such an industrious and contented sound! No doubt the grub would +have said, "Yes, I could do _this_ forever." What knew he of the +beauties of the picture at which I was gazing? The very light with which +to see it would have been a torture to him. Heaven itself was under the +close bark of that decaying log. So peradventure, may we ourselves be +living in darkness without knowing it, while spiritual intelligences +look on with wondering pity to see us so in love with our prison-house. +Well, yonder panorama was beautiful to _me_, at all events, however it +might look to more exalted beings, and, like my brother under the +spruce-tree bark, I would make the best of life as I found it. + +This way my thoughts were running when all at once two birds dashed by +me--a black-poll warbler in hot pursuit of an olive-backed thrush. The +thrush alighted in a tree and commenced singing, and the warbler sat by +and waited, following the universal rule that a larger bird is never to +be attacked except when on the wing. The thrush repeated his strain once +or twice, and then flew to another tree, the little fellow after him +with all speed. Again the olive-back perched and sang, and again the +black-poll waited. Three times these manoeuvres were repeated, before +the birds passed out of my range. Some wrong-doing, real or fancied, on +the part of the larger bird, had excited the ire of the warbler. Why +should he be imposed upon, simply because he was small? The thrush, +meantime, disdaining to defend himself, would only stop now and then to +sing, as if to show to the world (every creature is the centre of a +world) that such an insect persecution could never ruffle his spirit. +Birds are to be commiserated, perhaps, on having such an excess of what +we call human nature; but the misfortune certainly renders them the more +interesting to us, who see our more amiable weaknesses so often +reflected in their behavior. + +For the sympathetic observer every kind of bird has its own temperament. +On one of my jaunts down this Mount Mansfield road I happened to espy a +Canada jay in a thick spruce. He was on one of the lower branches, but +pretty soon began mounting the tree, keeping near the bole and going up +limb by limb in absolute silence, exactly in the manner of our common +blue jay. I was glad to see him, but more desirous to hear his voice, +the loud, harsh scream with which the books credit him, and which, _a +priori_, I should have little hesitation in ascribing to any member of +his tribe. I waited till I grew impatient. Then I started hastily +toward him, making as much commotion as possible in pushing through the +undergrowth. It was a clever scheme, but the bird was not to be +surprised into uttering so much as an exclamation. He dropped out of his +tree, flew a little distance to a lower and less conspicuous perch, and +there I finally left him. Once before, on Mount Clinton, I had seen him, +and had been treated with the same studied silence. And later, I fell in +with a little family party on the side of Mount Washington, and they, +too, refused me so much as a note. Probably I was too near the birds in +every case, though in the third instance there was no attempt at +skulking, nor any symptom of nervousness. I have often been impressed +and amused by the blue jay's habit in this respect. No bird could well +be noisier than he when the noisy mood takes him; but come upon him +suddenly at close quarters, and he will be as still as the grave itself. +He has a double gift, of eloquence and silence,--silver and gold--and no +doubt his Canadian cousin is equally well endowed. + +The reader may complain, perhaps, that I speak only of trifles. Why go +to a mountain-top to look at warblers and thrushes? I am not careful to +justify myself. I love a mountain-top, and go there because I love to be +there. It is good, I think, to be lifted above the every-day level, and +to enjoy the society--and the absence of society--which the heights +afford. Looking over my notes of this excursion, I come upon the +following sentence: "To sit on a stone beside a mountain road, with +olive-backed thrushes piping on every side, the ear catching now and +then the distant tinkle of a winter wren's tune, or the nearer _zee, +zee, zee_ of black-poll warblers, while white-throated sparrows call +cheerily out of the spruce forest--this is to be in another world." + +This sense of distance and strangeness is not to be obtained, in my case +at all events, by a few hours' stay in such a spot. I must pitch my tent +there, for at least a night or two. I cannot even see the prospect at +first, much less feel the spirit of the place. There must be time for +the old life to drop off, as it were, while eye and ear grow wonted to +novel sights and sounds. Doubtless I did take note of trivial +things,--the call of a bird and the fragrance of a flower. It was a +pleasing relief after living so long with men whose minds were all the +time full of those serious and absorbing questions, "What shall we eat, +and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?" + +I remember with special pleasure a profusion of white orchids +(_Habenaria dilatata_) which bordered the roadside not far from the top, +their spikes of waxy snow-white flowers giving out a rich, spicy odor +hardly to be distinguished from the scent of carnation pinks. I +remember, too, how the whole summit, from the Nose to the Chin, was +sprinkled with the modest and beautiful Greenland sandwort, springing up +in every little patch of thin soil, where nothing else would flourish, +and blossoming even under the door-step of the hotel. Unpretending as it +is, this little alpine adventurer makes the most of its beauty. The +blossoms are not crowded into close heads, so as to lose their +individual attractiveness, like the florets of the golden-rod, for +example; nor are they set in a stiff spike, after the manner of the +orchid just now mentioned. At the same time the plant does not trust to +the single flower to bring it into notice. It grows in a pretty tuft, +and throws out its blossoms in a graceful, loose cluster. The eye is +caught by the cluster, and yet each flower shows by itself, and its own +proper loveliness is in no way sacrificed to the general effect. How +wise, too, is the sandwort in its choice of a dwelling-place! In the +valley it would be lost amid the crowd. On the bare, brown mountain-top +its scattered tufts of green and white appeal to all comers. + +To what extent, if at all, the sandwort depends upon the service of +insects for its fertilization, I do not know, but it certainly has no +scarcity of such visitors. "Bees will soar for bloom high as the highest +peak of Mansfield;" so runs an entry in my notebook, with a pardonable +adaptation of Wordsworth's line; and I was glad to notice that even the +splendid black-and-yellow butterfly (_Turnus_), which was often to be +seen sucking honey from the fragrant orchids, did not disdain to sip +also from the sandwort's cup. This large and elegant butterfly--our +largest--is thoroughly at home on our New England mountains, sailing +over the very loftiest peaks, and making its way through the forests +with a strong and steady flight. Many a time have I taken a second look +at one, as it has threaded the treetops over my head, thinking to see a +bird. Besides the _Turnus_, I noted here the nettle tortoise-shell +butterfly (_Vanessa Milberti_--a showy insect, and the more attractive +to me as being comparatively a stranger); the common cabbage butterfly; +the yellow _Philodice_; the copper; and, much more abundant than any of +these, a large orange-red fritillary (_Aphrodite_, I suppose), +gorgeously bedecked with spots of silver on the under surface of the +wings. All these evidently knew that plenty of flowers were to be found +along this seemingly barren, rocky crest. Whether they have any less +sensuous motive for loving to wander over such heights, who will presume +to determine? It may very well be that their almost ethereal +structure--such spread of wing with such lightness of body--is only the +outward sign of gracious thoughts and feelings, of a sensitiveness to +beauty far surpassing anything of which we ourselves are capable. What a +contrast between them and the grub gnawing ceaselessly under the +spruce-tree bark! Can the highest angel be as far above the lowest man? +And yet (how mysteriously suggestive would the fact be, if only it were +new to us!) this same light-winged Aphrodite, flitting from blossom to +blossom in the mountain breeze, was but a few days ago an ugly, crawling +thing, close cousin to the borer. Since then it has fallen asleep and +been changed,--a parable, past all doubt, though as yet we lack eyes to +read it. + +I have spoken hitherto as if I were the only sojourner at the summit, +but there was another man, though I seldom saw him; a kind of hermit, +living in a little shanty under the lee of the Nose. Almost as a matter +of course he was reputed to be of good family and to read Greek, and the +fact that he now and then received a bank draft evidently gave him a +respectable standing in the eye of the hotel clerk. Something--something +of a very romantic nature, we may be sure--had driven him away from the +companionship of his fellows, but he still found it convenient to be +within reach of human society. Like all such solitaries, he had some +half-insane notions. He could not sleep indoors, not for a night; it +would ruin his health, if I understood him correctly; and because of +wild animals--bears and what not--he made his bed on the roof of his +hermitage. I had often dreamed of the enjoyment of a life in the woods +all by one's self, but such a mode of existence did not gain in +attractiveness as I saw it here in the concrete example. On the whole I +was well satisfied to sleep in the hotel and eat at the hotel table. +Liberty is good, but I thought it might be undesirable to be a slave to +my own freedom. + +Two or three times a wagon-load of tourists appeared at the hotel. They +strolled about the summit, admired the prospect, picked a bunch of +sandwort, perhaps, but especially they went to see the snow. They had +been at much trouble to stand upon the highest land in Vermont, and now +that they were here, they wished to do or see something unique, +something that should mark the day as eventful. So they were piloted to +a cave midway between the Nose and the Chin, into which the sun never +peeped, and wherein a snow-bank still lingered. The mountain was grand, +the landscape was magnificent, but to eat a handful of snow and throw a +snow-ball in the middle of July--this was almost like being at the North +Pole; it would be something to talk about after getting home. + +One visitor I rejoiced to see, though a stranger. I was on the Nose in +the afternoon, enjoying once more the view of Lake Champlain and the +Adirondacks, when I descried two men far off toward the Chin. They had +come up the mountain, not by the carriage road, but by a trail on the +opposite side, and plainly were in no haste, though the afternoon was +wearing away. As I watched their movements, a mile or two in the +distance, I said to myself, "Good! they are botanists." So it proved; or +rather one of them was a botanist,--a college professor on a pedestrian +collecting-excursion. We compared notes after supper and walked together +the next morning, enjoying that peculiar good fellowship which nothing +but a kindred interest and an unexpected meeting in a lonesome place can +make possible. Then he started down the carriage road with the design of +exploring Smugglers' Notch, and I have never seen or heard from him +since. I hope he is still botanizing on the shores of time, and finding +many a precious rarity; and should he ever read this reference to +himself, may it be with a feeling as kindly as that with which the lines +are written. + +That afternoon I followed him, somewhat unexpectedly. I went down, as I +had come up, on wheels; but I will not say in ignoble fashion, for the +driver--the hotel proprietor himself--was in haste, the carriage had no +brake, and the speed with which we rattled down the steep pitches and +round the sharp curves, with the certainty that if anything should +break, the horse would run and our days would be ended,--these things, +and especially the latter consideration, of which I thought and the +other man spoke, made the descent one of pleasurable excitement. We +reached the base in safety and I was left at the nearest farmhouse, +where by dint of some persuasion the housewife was induced to give me a +lodging for the night, so that on the morrow I might make a long day in +Smugglers' Notch, a famous botanical resort between Mount Mansfield and +Mount Sterling, which I had for years been desirous of visiting. + +I would gladly have stayed longer on the heights, but it was pleasant +also to be once more in the lowlands; to walk out after supper and look +up instead of down, while the chimney swifts darted hither and thither +with their merry, breathless cacklings. How welcome, too, were the +hearty music of the robin and the carol of the grass finch! After all, I +thought, home is in the valley; but the whistle of the white-throat +reminded me that I was not yet back in Massachusetts. + + + + +A WIDOW AND TWINS. + + "The fatherless and the widow ... shall eat and be + satisfied."--DEUTERONOMY xiv. 29. + + +On the 1st of June, 1890, I formally broke away from ornithological +pursuits. For two months, more or less,--till the autumnal migration +should set in,--I was determined to have my thoughts upon other matters. +There is no more desirable plaything than an outdoor hobby, but a man +ought not to be forever in the saddle. Such, at all events, had always +been my opinion, so that I long ago promised myself never to become, +what some of my acquaintances, perhaps with too much reason, were now +beginning to consider me, a naturalist, and nothing else. That would be +letting the hobby-horse run away with its owner. For the time being, +then, birds should pass unnoticed, or be looked at only when they came +in my way. A sensible resolve. But the maker of it was neither Mede nor +Persian, as the reader, if he have patience enough, may presently +discover for himself. + +As I sat upon the piazza, in the heat of the day, busy or half busy with +a book, a sound of humming-bird's wings now and then fell on my ear, +and, as I looked toward the honeysuckle vine, I began after a while to +remark that the visitor was invariably a female. I watched her probe the +scarlet tubes and dart away, and then returned to my page. She might +have a nest somewhere near; but if she had there was small likelihood of +my finding it, and, besides, I was just now not concerned with such +trifles. On the 24th of June, however, a passing neighbor dropped into +the yard. Was I interested in humming-birds? he inquired. If so, he +could show me a nest. I put down my book, and went with him at once. + +The beautiful structure, a model of artistic workmanship, was near the +end of one of the lower branches of an apple-tree, eight or ten feet +from the ground, saddled upon the drooping limb at a point where two +offshoots made a good holding-place, while an upright twig spread over +it a leafy canopy against rain and sun. Had the builders sought my +advice as to a location, I could hardly have suggested one better suited +to my own convenience. The tree was within a stone's toss of my window, +and, better still, the nest was overlooked to excellent advantage from +an old bank wall which divided my premises from those of my next-door +neighbor. How could I doubt that Providence itself had set me a summer +lesson? + +At our first visit the discoverer of the nest--from that moment an +ornithologist--brought out a step-ladder, and we looked in upon the two +tiny white eggs, considerately improving a temporary absence of the +owner for that purpose. It was a picture to please not only the eye, but +the imagination; and before I could withdraw my gaze the mother bird was +back again, whisking about my head so fearlessly that for a moment I +stood still, half expecting her to drop into the nest within reach of my +hand. + +This, as I have said, was on the 24th of June. Six days later, on the +afternoon of the 30th, the eggs were found to be hatched, and two +lifeless-looking things lay in the bottom of the nest, their heads +tucked out of sight, and their bodies almost or quite naked, except for +a line of grayish down along the middle of the back. + +Meanwhile, I had been returning with interest the visits of the bird to +our honeysuckle, and by this time had fairly worn a path to a certain +point in the wall, where, comfortably seated in the shade of the +hummer's own tree, and armed with opera-glass and notebook, I spent some +hours daily in playing the spy upon her motherly doings. + +For a widow with a house and family upon her hands, she took life +easily; at frequent intervals she absented herself altogether, and even +when at home she spent no small share of the time in flitting about +among the branches of the tree. On such occasions, I often saw her hover +against the bole or a patch of leaves, or before a piece of caterpillar +or spider web, making quick thrusts with her bill, evidently after bits +of something to eat. On quitting the nest, she commonly perched upon one +or another of a certain set of dead twigs in different parts of the +tree, and at once shook out her feathers and spread her tail, displaying +its handsome white markings, indicative of her sex. This was the +beginning of a leisurely toilet operation, in the course of which she +scratched herself with her feet and dressed her feathers with her bill, +all the while darting out her long tongue with lightning-like rapidity, +as if to moisten her beak, which at other times she cleansed by rubbing +it down with her claws or by wiping it upon a twig. In general she paid +little attention to me, though she sometimes hovered directly in front +of my face, as if trying to stare me out of countenance. One of the most +pleasing features of the show was her method of flying into the nest. +She approached it, without exception, from the same quarter, and, after +an almost imperceptible hovering motion, shut her wings and dropped upon +the eggs. + +When the young were hatched I redoubled my attentions. Now I should see +her feed them. On the first afternoon I waited a long time for this +purpose, the mother conducting herself in her customary manner: now +here, now there, preening her plumage, driving away a meddlesome +sparrow, probing the florets of a convenient clover-head (an unusual +resource, I think), or snatching a morsel from some leaf or twig. +Suddenly she flew at me, and held herself at a distance of perhaps four +feet from my nose. Then she wheeled, and, as I thought, darted out of +the orchard. In a few seconds I turned my head, and there she sat in the +nest! I owned myself beaten. While I had been gazing toward the meadow, +she had probably done exactly what I had wasted the better part of the +afternoon in attempting to see. + +Twenty-four hours later I was more successful, though the same ruse was +again tried upon me. The mother left the nest at my approach, but in +three minutes (by the watch) flew in again. She brooded for nine +minutes. Then, quite of her own motion, she disappeared for six minutes. +On her return she spent four minutes in dressing her feathers, after +which she alighted on the edge of the nest, fed the little ones, and +took her place upon them. This time she brooded for ten minutes. Then +she was away for six minutes, dallied about the tree for two minutes +longer, and again flew into the nest. While sitting, she pecked several +times in quick succession at a twig within reach, and I could plainly +see her mandibles in motion, as if she were swallowing. She brooded for +thirteen minutes, absented herself for three minutes, and spent six +minutes in her usual cautionary manoeuvres before resuming her seat. +For the long interval of twenty-two minutes she sat still. Then she +vanished for four minutes, and on her return gave the young another +luncheon, after a fast of one hour and six minutes. + +The feeding process, which I had been so desirous to see, was of a sort +to make the spectator shiver. The mother, standing on the edge of the +nest, with her tail braced against its side, like a woodpecker or a +creeper, took a rigidly erect position, and craned her neck until her +bill was in a perpendicular line above the short, wide-open, upraised +beak of the little one, who, it must be remembered, was at this time +hardly bigger than a humble-bee. Then she thrust her bill for its full +length down into his throat, a frightful-looking act, followed by a +series of murderous gesticulations, which fairly made one observer's +blood run cold. + +On the day after this (on the 2d of July, that is to say) I climbed into +the tree, in the old bird's absence, and stationed myself where my eyes +were perhaps fifteen feet from the nest, and a foot or two above its +level. At the end of about twenty minutes, the mother, who meantime had +made two visits to the tree, flew into place, and brooded for seventeen +minutes. Then she disappeared again, and on her return, after numberless +pretty feints and sidelong approaches, alighted on the wall of the nest, +and fed both little ones. The operation, though still sufficiently +reckless, looked less like infanticide than before,--a fact due, as I +suppose, to my more elevated position, from which the nestlings' throats +were better seen. After this she brooded for another seventeen minutes. +On the present occasion, as well as on many others, it was noticeable +that, while sitting upon the young, she kept up an almost incessant +motion, as if seeking to warm them, or perhaps to develop their muscles +by a kind of massage treatment. A measure of such hitchings and +fidgetings might have meant nothing more than an attempt to secure for +herself a comfortable seat; but when they were persisted in for fifteen +minutes together, it was difficult not to believe that she had some +different end in view. Possibly, as human infants get exercise by +dandling on the mother's knee, the baby humming-bird gets his by this +parental kneading process. Whether brooding or feeding, it must be said +that the hummer treated her tiny charges with no particular carefulness, +so far as an outsider could judge. + +The next day I climbed again into the tree. The mother bird made off at +once, and did not resume her seat for almost an hour, though she would +undoubtedly have done so earlier but for my presence. Again and again +she perched near me, her bill leveled straight at my face. Finally she +alighted on the nest, and, after considerable further delay, as if to +assure herself that everything was quite safe, fed the two chicks from +her throat, as before. "She thrust her bill into their mouths so far" (I +quote my notes) "that the tips of their short little beaks were up +against the root of her mandibles!" + +Only once more, on the 4th of July, I ventured into the apple-tree. For +more than an hour and a half I waited. Times without number the mother +came buzzing into the tree, made the circuit of her favorite perches, +dressed her plumage, darted away again, and again returned, till I was +almost driven to get down, for her relief. At last she fed the +nestlings, who by this time must have been all but starved, as indeed +they seemed to be. "The tips of their bills _do_ come clean up to the +base of the mother's mandibles." So I wrote in my journal; for it is the +first duty of a naturalist to verify his own observations. + +On the 10th we again brought out the ladder. Though at least eleven days +old, the tiny birds--the "widow's mites," as my facetious neighbor +called them--were still far from filling the cup. While I stood over it, +one of them uttered some pathetic little cries that really went to my +heart. His bill, perceptibly longer than on the 5th, was sticking just +above the border of the nest. I touched it at the tip, but he did not +stir. Craning my neck, I could see his open eye. Poor, helpless things! +Yet within three months they would be flying to Central America, or some +more distant clime. How little they knew what was before them! As little +as I know what is before me. + +The violence of the feeding act was now at its height, I think, but it +would be impossible to do justice to it by any description. My neighbor, +who one day stood beside me looking on, was moved to loud laughter. When +the two beaks were tightly joined, and while the old bird's was being +gradually withdrawn, they were shaken convulsively,--by the mother's +attempts to disgorge, and perhaps by the young fellow's efforts to +hasten the operation. It was plain that he let go with reluctance, as a +boy sucks the very tip of the spoon to get the last drop of jam; but, as +will be mentioned in the course of the narrative, his behavior improved +greatly in this respect as he grew older. + +On the 12th, just after the little ones had been fed, one of them got +his wings for the first time above the wall of the nest, and fluttered +them with much spirit. He had spent almost a fortnight in the cradle, +and was beginning to think he had been a baby long enough. + +From the first I had kept in mind the question whether the feeding of +the young by regurgitation, as described briefly by Audubon, and more in +detail by Mr. William Brewster,[9] would be continued after the +nestlings were fully grown. On the 14th I wrote in my journal: "The +method of feeding remains unchanged, and, as it seems, is likely to +remain so to the end. It must save the mother much labor in going and +coming, and perhaps renders the cooperation of the male parent +unnecessary." This prediction was fulfilled, but with a qualification to +be hereafter specified. + +[9] _The Auk_, vol. vii. p. 206. + +Every morning, now, I went to the apple-tree uncertain whether the nest +would not be found empty. According to Audubon, Nuttall, Mr. Burroughs, +and Mrs. Treat, young humming-birds stay in the nest only seven days. +Mr. Brewster, in his notes already cited, says that the birds on which +his observations were made--in the garden of Mr. E. S. Hoar, in +Concord--were hatched on the 4th of July,[10] and forsook the nest on +the 18th. My birds were already fifteen days old, at least, and, unless +they were to prove uncommonly backward specimens, ought to be on the +wing forthwith. Nevertheless they were in no haste. Day after day +passed. The youngsters looked more and more like old birds, and the +mother grew constantly more and more nervous. + +[10] But Mr. Hoar, from whom Mr. Brewster had his dates, informs me that +the time of hatching was not certainly known; and from Mr. Brewster's +statement about the size of the nestlings, I cannot doubt that they had +been out of the shell some days longer than Mr. Hoar then supposed. + +On the 18th I found her in a state of unprecedented excitement, +squeaking almost incessantly. At first I attributed this to concern at +my presence, but after a while it transpired that a young oriole--a +blundering, tailless fellow--was the cause of the disturbance. By some +accident he had dropped into the leafy treetop, as guiltless of any evil +design as one of her own nestlings. How she did buzz about him! In and +out among the branches she went, now on this side of him, now on that, +and now just over his back; all the time squeaking fiercely, and +carrying her tail spread to its utmost. The scene lasted for some +minutes. Through it all the two young birds kept perfectly quiet, never +once putting up their heads, even when the mother, buzzing and calling, +zigzagged directly about the nest. I had seen many birds in the tree, +first and last, but none that created anything like such a stir. The +mother was literally in a frenzy. She went the round of her perches, but +could stay nowhere. Once she dashed out of the tree for an instant, and +drove a sparrow away from the tomato patch. Ordinarily his presence +there would not have annoyed her in the least, but in her present state +of mind she was ready to pounce upon anybody. All of which shows once +more how "human-like" birds are. The bewilderment of the oriole was +comical. "What on earth can this crazy thing be shooting about my ears +in this style for?" I imagined him saying to himself. In fact, as he +glanced my way, now and then, with his innocent baby face, I could +almost believe that he was appealing to me with some such inquiry. + +The next morning ("at 7.32," as my diary is careful to note) one of the +twins took his flight. I was standing on the wall, with my glass leveled +upon the nest, when I saw him exercising his wings. The action was +little more pronounced than had been noticed at intervals during the +last three or four days, except that he was more decidedly on his feet. +Suddenly, without making use of the rim of the nest, as I should have +expected him to do, he was in the air, hovering in the prettiest +fashion, and in a moment more had alighted on a leafless twig slightly +above the level of the nest, and perhaps a yard from it. Within a minute +the mother appeared, buzzing and calling, with answering calls from the +youthful adventurer. At once--after a hasty reconnaissance of the man on +the wall--she perched beside him, and plunged her bill into his throat. +Then she went to the nest, served the other one in the same way, and +made off. She had no time to waste at this juncture of affairs. + +When she had gone, I stepped up to the trunk of the tree to watch the +little fellow more closely. He held his perch, and occupied himself with +dressing his plumage, though, as the breeze freshened, he was compelled +once in a while to keep his wings in motion to prevent the wind from +carrying him away. When the old bird returned,--in just half an +hour,--she resented my intrusion (what an oppressor of the widow and the +fatherless she must by this time have thought me!) in the most +unmistakable manner, coming more than once quite within reach. However, +she soon gave over these attempts at intimidation, perched beside the +percher, and again put something into his maw. This time she did not +feed the nestling. As she took her departure, she told the +come-outer--or so I fancied--that there was a man under the tree, a +pestilent fellow, and it would be well to get a little out of his reach. +At all events, she had scarcely disappeared before the youngster was +again on the wing. It was wonderful how much at home he +seemed,--poising, backing, soaring, and alighting with all the ease and +grace of an old hand. One only piece of awkwardness I saw him commit: he +dropped upon a branch much too large for his tiny feet, and was +manifestly uncomfortable. But he did not stay long, and at his next +alighting was well up in the tree, where it was noticeable that he +remained ever after. + +With so much going on outside, it was hard to remain indoors, and +finally I took a chair to the orchard, and gave myself up to watching +the drama. The feeding process, though still always by regurgitation, +was by this time somewhat different from what it had been when the +bills of the young were less fully developed. In my notes of this date I +find the following description of it: "Number Two is still in the nest, +but uneasy. At 10.25 the mother appeared and fed him.[11] Her beak was +thrust into his mouth at right angles,--the change being necessitated, +probably, by the greater length of his bill,--and he seemed to be +jerking strenuously at it. Then he opened his beak and remained +motionless, while the black mandibles of the mother could be seen +running down out of sight into his throat." + +[11] For convenience, I use the masculine pronoun in speaking of both +the young birds; but I knew nothing as to the sex of either of them, +though I came finally to believe that one was a male and the other a +female. + +The other youngster, Number One, as I now called him, stayed in the +tree, or at most ventured only into the next one, and was fed at varying +intervals,--as often, apparently, as the busy mother could find anything +to give him. Would he go back to his cradle for the night? It seemed not +improbable, notwithstanding he had shown no sign of such an intention so +long as daylight lasted. At 3.50 the next morning, therefore, I stole +out to see. No: Number Two was there alone. + +At seven o'clock, when I made my second visit, the mother was in the +midst of another day's hard work. Twice within five minutes she brought +food to the nestling. Once the little fellow--not so very little +now--happened to be facing east, while the old bird alighted, as she had +invariably done, on the western side. The youngster, instead of facing +about, threw back his head and opened his beak. "Look out, there!" +exclaimed my fellow-observer; "you'll break his neck if you feed him in +that way." But she did not mind. Young birds' necks are not so easily +broken. Within ten minutes of this time she fed Number One, giving him +three doses. They were probably small, however (and small wonder), for +he begged hard for more, opening his bill with an appealing air. The +action in this case was particularly well seen, and the vehement +jerking, while the beaks were glued together, seemed almost enough to +pull the young fellow's head off. Within another ten minutes the mother +was again ministering to Number Two! Poor little widow! Between her +incessant labors of this kind and her overwhelming anxiety whenever any +strange bird came near, I began to be seriously alarmed for her. As a +member of a strictly American family, she was in a fair way, I thought, +to be overtaken by the "most American of diseases,"--nervous +prostration. It tired me to watch her. + +With us, and perhaps with her likewise, it was a question whether Number +Two would remain in the nest for the day. He grew more and more +restless; as my companion--a learned man--expressed it, he began to +"ramp round." Once he actually mounted the rim of the nest, a thing +which his more precocious brother had never been seen to do, and +stretched forward to pick at a neighboring stem. Late that afternoon the +mother fed him five times within an hour, instead of once an hour, or +thereabouts, as had been her habit three weeks before. She meant to have +him in good condition for the coming event; and he, on his part, was +active to the same end,--standing upon the wall of the nest again and +again, and exercising his wings till they made a cloud about him. A +dread of launching away still kept him back, however, and shortly after +seven o'clock I found him comfortably disposed for the night. "He is now +on his twenty-first day (at least) in the nest. To-morrow will see him +go." So end my day's notes. + +At 5.45 the next morning he was still there. At 6.20 I absented myself +for a few minutes, and on returning was hailed by my neighbor with the +news that the nest was empty. Number Two had flown between 6.25 and +6.30, but, unhappily, neither of us was at hand to give him a cheer. I +trust that he and his mother were not hurt in their feelings by the +oversight. The whole family (minus the father) was still in the +apple-tree; the mother full, and more than full, of business, feeding +one youngster after the other, as they sat here and there in the upper +branches. + +Twenty-four hours later, as I stood in the orchard, I heard a hum of +wings, and found the mother over my head. Presently she flew into the +top of the tree, and the next instant was sitting beside one of the +young ones. His hungry mouth was already wide open, but before feeding +him she started up from the twig, and circled about him so closely as +almost or quite to touch him with her wings. On completing the circle +she dropped upon the perch at his side, but immediately rose again, and +again flew round him. It was a beautiful act,--beautiful beyond the +power of any words of mine to set forth; an expression of maternal +ecstasy, I could not doubt, answering to the rapturous caresses and +endearments in which mothers of human infants are so frequently seen +indulging. Three days afterward, to my delight, I saw it repeated in +every particular, as if to confirm my opinion of its significance. The +sight repaid all my watchings thrice over, and even now I feel my heart +growing warm at the recollection of it. Strange thoughtlessness, is it +not, which allows mothers capable of such passionate devotion, tiny, +defenseless things, to be slaughtered by the million for the enhancement +of woman's charms! + +At this point we suddenly became aware that for at least a day or two +the old bird had probably been feeding her offspring in two +ways,--sometimes by regurgitation, and sometimes by a simple transfer +from beak to beak. The manner of our discovery was somewhat laughable. +The mother perched beside one of the young birds, put her bill into his, +and then apparently fell off the limb head first. We thought she had not +finished, and looked to see her return; but she flew away, and after a +while the truth dawned upon us. Thereafter, unless our observation was +at fault, she used whichever method happened to suit her convenience. If +she found a choice collection of spiders,[12] for instance, she brought +them in her throat (as cedar-birds carry cherries), to save trips; if +she had only one or two, she retained them between her mandibles. It +will be understood, I suppose, that we did not see the food in its +passage from one bird to the other,--human eyesight would hardly be +equal to work of such nicety; but the two bills were put together so +frequently and in so pronounced a manner as to leave us in no practical +uncertainty about what was going on. Neither had I any doubt that the +change was connected in some way with the increasing age of the +fledgelings; yet it is to be said that the two methods continued to be +used interchangeably to the end, and on the 28th, when Number Two had +been out of the nest for seven days, the mother thrust her bill down his +throat, and repeated the operation, just as she had done three weeks +before. + +[12] Mr. E. H. Eames reports (in _The Auk_, vol. vii. p. 287) that, on +dissecting a humming-bird, about two days old, he found sixteen young +spiders in its throat, and a pultaceous mass of the same in its stomach. + +For at least two days longer, as I believe, the faithful creature +continued her loving ministrations, although I failed to detect her in +the act. Then, on the 1st of August, as I sat on the piazza, I saw her +for the last time. The honeysuckle vine had served her well, and still +bore half a dozen scattered blossoms, as if for her especial benefit. +She hovered before them, one by one, and in another instant was gone. +May the Fates be kind to her, and to her children after her, to the +latest generation! Our intercourse had lasted for eight weeks,--wanting +one day,--and it was fitting that it should end where it had begun, at +the sign of the honeysuckle. + +The absence of the father bird for all this time, though I have +mentioned it but casually, was of course a subject of continual remark. +How was it to be explained? My own opinion is, reluctant as I have been +to reach it, that such absence or desertion--by whatever name it may be +called--is the general habit of the male ruby-throat. Upon this point I +shall have some things to say in a subsequent paper. + + + + +THE MALE RUBY-THROAT. + + "Your fathers, where are they?"--ZECHARIAH i. 5. + + +While keeping daily watch upon a nest of our common humming-bird, in the +summer of 1890, I was struck with the persistent absence of the head of +the family. As week after week elapsed, this feature of the case excited +more and more remark, and I turned to my out-of-door journal for such +meagre notes as it contained of a similar nest found five years before. +From these it appeared that at that time, also, the father bird was +missing. Could such truancy be habitual with the male ruby-throat? I had +never supposed that any of our land birds were given to behaving in this +ill-mannered, unnatural way, and the matter seemed to call for +investigation. + +My first resort was, of course, to books. The language of Wilson and +Audubon is somewhat ambiguous, but may fairly be taken as implying the +male bird's presence throughout the period of nidification. Nuttall +speaks explicitly to the same effect, though with no specification of +the grounds on which his statement is based. The later systematic +biographers--Brewer, Samuels, Minot, and the authors of New England Bird +Life--are silent in respect to the point. Mr. Burroughs, in Wake-Robin, +mentions having found two nests, and gives us to understand that he saw +only the female birds. Mrs. Treat, on the other hand, makes the father a +conspicuous figure about the single nest concerning which she reports. +Mr. James Russell Lowell, too, speaks of watching both parents as they +fed the young ones: "The mother always alighted, while the father as +uniformly remained upon the wing." + +So far, then, the evidence was decidedly, not to say decisively, in the +masculine ruby-throat's favor. But while I had no desire to make out a +case against him, and in fact was beginning to feel half ashamed of my +uncomplimentary surmises, I was still greatly impressed with what my own +eyes had seen, or rather had not seen, and thought it worth while to +push the inquiry a little further. + +I wrote first to Mr. E. S. Hoar, in whose garden Mr. Brewster had made +the observations cited in my previous article. He replied with great +kindness, and upon the point in question said: "I watched the nest two +or three times a day, from a time before the young were hatched till +they departed; and _now you mention it_, it occurs to me that I never +did see the male, but only the white-breasted female." + +Next I sought the testimony of professional ornithologists; and here my +worst suspicions seemed in a fair way to be confirmed, although the +greater number of my correspondents were unhappily compelled to plead a +want of knowledge. Dr. A. K. Fisher had found, as he believed, not less +than twenty-five nests, and to the best of his recollection had never +seen a male bird near one of them after it was completed. He had watched +the female feeding her young, and, when the nests contained eggs, had +waited for hours on purpose to secure the male, but always without +result. + +Mr. William Brewster wrote: "I have found, or seen _in situ_, twelve +hummers' nests, all in Massachusetts. Of these I took nine, after +watching each a short time, probably not more than an hour or two in any +case. Of the remaining three, I visited one three or four times at +various hours of the day, another only twice, the third but once. Two of +the three contained young when found. The third was supposed to have +young, also, but could not be examined without danger to its contents. I +have never seen a male hummer anywhere near a nest, either before or +after the eggs were laid, but, as you will gather from the above brief +data, my experience has not been extensive; and in the old days, when +most of my nests were found, the methods of close watching now in vogue +were unthought of. In the light of the testimony to which you refer, I +should conclude, with you, that the male hummer must occasionally assist +in the care of the young, but I am very sure that this is not usually, +if indeed often, the case." + +Mr. H. W. Henshaw reported a similar experience. He had found four nests +of the ruby-throat, but had seen no male about any of them after +nidification was begun. "I confess," he says, "that I had never thought +of his absence as being other than accidental, and hence have never made +any observations directly upon the point; so that my testimony is of +comparatively little value. In at least one instance, when the female +was building her nest, I remember to have seen the male fly with her and +perch near by, while she was shaping the nest, and then fly off with her +after more material. I don't like to believe that the little villain +leaves the entire task of nidification to his better half (we may well +call her better, if he does); but my memory is a blank so far as +testimony affirmative of his devotion is concerned." Mr. Henshaw recalls +an experience with a nest of the Rivoli humming-bird (_Eugenes +fulgens_), in Arizona,--a nest which he spent two hours in getting. "I +was particularly anxious to secure the male, but did not obtain a +glimpse of him, and I remember thinking that it was very strange." He +adds that Mr. C. W. Richmond has told him of finding a nest and taking +the eggs without seeing the father bird, and sums up his own view of the +matter thus:-- + +"Had any one asked me offhand, 'Does the male hummer help the female +feed the young?' I am quite sure I should have answered, 'Of course he +does.' As the case now stands, however, I am inclined to believe him a +depraved wretch." + +Up to this point the testimony of my correspondents had been unanimous, +but the unanimity was broken by Dr. C. Hart Merriam, who remembers that +on one occasion his attention was called to a nest (it proved to contain +a set of fresh eggs) by the flying of both its owners about his head; +and by Mr. W. A. Jeffries, who in one case saw the father bird in the +vicinity of a nest occupied by young ones, although he did not see him +feed or visit them. This nest, Mr. Jeffries says, was one of five which +he has found. In the four other instances no male birds were observed, +notwithstanding three of the nests were taken,--a tragedy which might be +expected to bring the father of the family upon the scene, if he were +anywhere within call. + +In view of the foregoing evidence, it appears to me reasonably certain +that the male ruby-throat, as a rule, takes no considerable part in the +care of eggs and young. The testimony covers not less than fifty nests. +Some of them were watched assiduously, nearly all were examined, and the +greater part were actually taken; yet of the fifty or more male +proprietors, only two were seen; and concerning these exceptions, it is +to be noticed that in one case the eggs were just laid, and in the +other, while the hungry nestlings must have kept the mother bird +extremely busy, her mate was not observed to do anything in the way of +lightening her labors. + +As against this preponderance of negative testimony, and in +corroboration of Mr. Lowell's and Mrs. Treat's circumstantial +narratives, there remain to be mentioned the fact communicated to me by +Mr. Hoar, that a townsman of his had at different times had two hummers' +nests in his grounds, the male owners of which were constant in their +attentions, and the following very interesting and surprising story +received from Mr. C. C. Darwin, of Washington, through the kindness of +Mr. Henshaw. Some years ago, as it appears, a pair of ruby-throats built +a nest within a few feet of Mr. Darwin's window and a little below it, +so that they could be watched without fear of disturbing them. He +remembers perfectly that the male fed the female during the entire +period of incubation, "pumping the food down her throat." All this time, +so far as could be discovered, the mother did not once leave the nest +(in wonderful contrast with my bird of a year ago), and of course the +father was never seen to take her place. Mr. Darwin cannot say that the +male ever fed the young ones, but is positive that he was frequently +about the nest after they were hatched. While they were still too young +to fly, a gardener, in pruning the tree, sawed off the limb on which the +nest was built. Mr. Darwin's mother rescued the little ones and fed them +with sweetened water, and on her son's return at night the branch was +fixed in place again, as best it could be, by means of wires. Meanwhile +the old birds had disappeared, having given up their children for lost; +and it was not until the third day that they came back,--by chance, +perhaps, or out of affection for the spot. At once they resumed the care +of their offspring, who by this time, it is safe to say, had become more +or less surfeited with sugar and water, and gladly returned to a diet +of spiders and other such spicy and hearty comestibles. + +Mr. Henshaw, with an evident satisfaction which does him honor, remarks +upon the foregoing story as proving that, whatever may be true of male +hummers in general, there are at least some faithful Benedicts among +them. For myself, indeed, as I have already said, I hold no brief +against the ruby-throat, and, notwithstanding the seemingly unfavorable +result of my investigation into his habits as a husband and father, it +is by no means clear to me that we must call him hard names. Before +doing that, we ought to know not only that he stays away from his wife +and children, but _why_ he stays away; whether he is really a shirk, or +absents himself unselfishly and for their better protection, at the risk +of being misunderstood and traduced. My object in this paper is to raise +that question about him, rather than to blacken his character; in a +word, to call attention to him, not as a reprobate, but as a mystery. To +that end I return to the story of my own observations. + +In last month's article[13] I set forth somewhat in detail (if the +adverb seem inappropriate, as I fear it will, I can only commend it to +the reader's mercy) the closeness of our watch upon the nest there +described. For more than a month it was under the eye of one or other of +two men almost from morning till night. We did not once detect the +presence of the father, and yet I shall never feel absolutely sure that +he did not one day pay us a visit. I mention the circumstance for what +it may be worth, and because, whatever its import, it was at least a +lively spectacle. It occurred upon this wise: On the 19th of July, the +day when the first of the young birds bade good-by to its cradle, I had +gone into the house, leaving my fellow-observer in the orchard, with a +charge to call me if anything noteworthy should happen. I was hardly +seated before he whistled loudly, and I hastened out again. Another +hummer had been there, he said, and the mother had been chasing him (or +her) about in a frantic manner; and even while we were talking, the +scene was re-enacted. The stranger had returned, and the two birds were +shooting hither and thither through the trees, the widow squeaking and +spreading her tail at a prodigious rate. The new-comer did not alight +(it couldn't), and there was no determining its sex. It may have been +the recreant husband and father, unable longer to deny himself a look at +his bairns,--who knows? Or it may have been some bachelor or widower who +had come a-wooing. One thing is certain,--husband, lover, or inquisitive +stranger, he had no encouragement to come again. + +[13] These two humming-bird papers were printed in consecutive numbers +of _The Atlantic Monthly_, June and July, 1891. + +As if to heighten the dramatic interest of our studies (I come now to +the promised mystery), we had already had the singular good fortune to +find a male humming-bird who seemed to be stationed permanently in a +tall ash-tree, standing by itself in a recent clearing, at a distance of +a mile or more from our widow's orchard. Day after day, for at least a +fortnight (from the 2d to the 15th of July), he remained there. One or +both of us went almost daily to call upon him, and, as far as we could +make out, he seldom absented himself from his post for five minutes +together! What was he doing? At first, in spite of his sex, it was hard +not to believe that his nest was in the tree; and to satisfy himself, my +companion "shinned" it, schoolboy fashion,--a frightful piece of work, +which put me out of breath even to look at it,--while I surveyed the +branches from all sides through an opera-glass. All was without avail. +Nothing was to be seen, and it was as good as certain, the branches +being well separated, and easily overlooked, that there was nothing +there. + +Four days later I set out alone, to try my luck with the riddle. As I +entered the clearing, the hummer was seen at his post, and my suspicions +fastened upon a small wild apple-tree, perhaps twenty rods distant. I +went to examine it, and presently the bird followed me. He perched in +its top, but seemed not to be jealous of my proximity, and soon returned +to his customary position; but when I came back to the apple-tree, after +a visit to a clump of oaks at the top of the hill, he again came over. I +could find no sign of a nest, however, nor did the female show herself, +as she pretty confidently might have been expected to do had her nest +been near by. After this I went to the edge of the wood, where I could +keep an eye upon both trees without being myself conspicuous. The +sentinel spent most of his time in the ash, visiting the apple-tree but +once, and then for a few minutes only. I stayed an hour and a half, and +came away no wiser than before. The nest, if nest there was, must be +elsewhere, I believed. But where? And what was the object of the male's +watch? + +My curiosity was fully roused. I had never seen or heard of such conduct +on the part of any bird, and the next forenoon I spent another hour and +a half in the clearing. The hummer was at his post, as he always was. We +had never to wait for him. Soon after my arrival he flew to the +apple-tree, the action seeming to have no connection with my presence. +Presently he went back to the ash, and drove out of it two intruding +birds. A moment later two humming-birds were there, and in another +moment they flew away in a direction opposite to the apple-tree. Here, +then, was a real clue. The birds were probably our sentinel and his +mate. I made after them with all speed, pausing under such scattered +trees as had been left standing in that quarter. Nothing was to be +found, and on my return there sat the male, provokingly, at the top of +the apple-tree, whence he soon returned to the ash. A warbler entered +the tree, and after a while ventured upon the branch where the hummer +was sitting. Instead of driving her away he took wing himself, and paid +another visit to the apple-tree,--a visit of perhaps five minutes,--at +the end of which he went back to the ash. Then two kingbirds happened to +alight in the apple-tree. At once the hummer came dashing over and +ordered them off, and in his excitement dropped for a moment into the +leafy top of a birch sapling,--a most unnatural proceeding,--after which +he resumed his station in the ash. What could I make of all this? +Apparently he claimed the ownership of both trees, and yet his nest was +in neither! He sat motionless for five minutes at a time upon certain +dead twigs of the ash, precisely as our female was accustomed to sit in +her apple-tree. For at least seven days he had been thus occupied. Where +was his mate? On the edge of the wood, perhaps. But, if so, why did I +hear nothing from her, as I passed up and down? Again my hour and a half +had been spent to no purpose. + +Not yet discouraged, I returned the next morning. For the three quarters +of an hour that I remained, the hummer was not once out of the ash-tree +for five minutes. I am not sure that he left it for five minutes +altogether. As usual, he perched almost without exception on one or +other of two dead limbs, while a similar branch, on the opposite side of +the trunk, he was never seen to touch. A Maryland yellow-throat alighted +on one of his two branches and began to sing, but had repeated his +strain only three or four times before the hummer, who had been absent +for the moment, darted upon him and put him to flight. A little +afterward, a red-eyed vireo alighted on his other favorite perch, and he +showed no resentment. The day before, a warbler had sat on the same +branch which the yellow-throat now invaded, and the hummer not only did +not offer to molest him, but flew away himself. These inconsistencies +made it hard to draw any inference from his behavior. During my whole +stay he did not once go to the apple-tree, although, for want of +anything better to do, I again scrutinized its branches. This time I +_was_ discouraged, and gave over the search. His secret, whatever it +might be, was "too dear for my possessing." But my fellow-observer kept +up his visits, as I have said, and the hummer remained faithful to his +task as late as July 15th, at least. + +Some readers may be prompted to ask, as one of my correspondents asked +at the time, whether the mysterious sentry may not have been the mate of +our home bird. I see no ground for such a suspicion. The two places were +at least a mile apart, as I have already mentioned, and woods and hills, +to say nothing of the village, lay between. If he was our bird's mate, +his choice of a picket station was indeed an enigma. He might almost as +well have been on Mount Washington. Nor can I believe that he had any +connection with a nest found two months afterward in a pitch-pine grove +within a quarter of a mile, more or less, of his clearing. It was +undoubtedly a nest of that season, and might have been his for aught I +know, so far as the mere fact of distance was concerned; but here again +an intervening wood must have cut off all visual communication. If his +mate and nest were not within view from his ash-tree perch, what could +be the meaning of his conduct? Without some specific constraining +motive, no bird in his normal condition was likely to stay in one tree +hour after hour, day after day, and week after week, so that one could +never come in sight of it without seeing him. But even if his nest was +in the immediate neighborhood, the closeness and persistency of his +lookout are still, to my mind, an absolute mystery. Our female bird, +whether she had eggs or offspring, made nothing of absenting herself by +the half hour; but this male hardly gave himself time to eat his +necessary food; indeed, I often wondered how he kept himself alive. Is +such a course of action habitual with male hummers? If so, had our +seemingly widowed or deserted mother a husband, who somewhere, unseen by +us, was standing sentry after the same heroic, self-denying fashion? +These and all similar questions I must leave to more fortunate +observers, or postpone to a future summer. Meantime, my judgment as to +the male ruby-throat's character remains in suspense. It is not plain to +me whether we are to call him the worst or the best of husbands. + + + + +ROBIN ROOSTS. + + "From every side they hurried in, + Rubbing their sleepy eyes." + KEATS. + + +Of all the nearly eight hundred species of North American birds, the +robin is without question the one most generally known. Its great +commonness and wide distribution have something to do with this fact, +but can hardly be said to account for it altogether. The red-eyed vireo +has almost as extensive a range, and at least in New England is possibly +more numerous; but except among ornithologists it remains a stranger, +even to country-bred people. The robin owes its universal recognition +partly to its size and perfectly distinctive dress, partly to its early +arrival in the spring, but especially to the nature of its nesting and +feeding habits, which bring it constantly under every one's eye. + +It would seem impossible, at this late day, to say anything new about +so familiar a bird; but the robin has one interesting and remarkable +habit, to which there is no allusion in any of our systematic +ornithological treatises, so far as I am aware, although many individual +observers must have taken notice of it. I mean the habit of roosting at +night in large flocks, while still on its breeding grounds, and long +before the close of the breeding season.[14] + +[14] Mr. William Brewster has been aware of this habit for twenty-five +years, but, like myself, has never seen it mentioned in print. He +devotes to it a paper in _The Auk_ for October, 1890, to which I am +happy to refer readers who may wish a more thorough discussion of the +matter than I have been able to give. My own paper was printed at the +same time, in _The Atlantic Monthly_, and had been accepted by the +editor before I knew of Mr. Brewster's intention to write. References to +a roost in Belmont, Mass., discovered by Mr. Brewster six years before, +are frequent in the following pages. + +Toward the end of summer, two years ago, I saw what looked like a daily +passage back and forth of small companies of robins. A friend, living in +another town, had noticed similar occurrences, and more than once we +discussed the subject; agreeing that such movements were probably not +connected in any way with the grand southward migration, which, so far +as we could judge, had not yet commenced, but that the birds must be +flying to and from some nightly resort. The flocks were small, however, +and neither of us suspected the full significance of what we had seen. + +On the 19th of July, 1889, the same friend informed me that one of our +Cambridge ornithologists had found a robin roost in that city,--a wood +in which great numbers of birds congregated every night. This led me to +keep a sharper eye upon my own robins, whom I had already noticed +repeating their previous year's manoeuvres. Every evening, shortly +before and after sunset, they were to be seen flying, now singly, now by +twos and threes, or even by the half dozen, evidently on their way to +some rendezvous. I was suspicious of a rather distant hill-top covered +with pine-trees; but before I could make it convenient to visit the +place at the proper hour, I discovered, quite unexpectedly, that the +roost was close by the very road up and down which I had been walking; +an isolated piece of swampy wood, a few acres in extent, mostly a dense +growth of gray birches and swamp white oaks, but with a sprinkling of +maples and other deciduous trees. It is bounded on the further side by a +wet meadow, and at the eastern end by a little ice-pond, with a +dwelling-house and other buildings beside it, all within a stone's throw +of the wood. + +This discovery was made on the evening of July 25th, and I at once +crossed a narrow field between the wood and the highway, and pushed in +after the birds. It was too dark for me to see what was going on, but as +I brushed against the close branches the robins set up a lively +cackling, and presently commenced flying from tree to tree before me as +I advanced, though plainly with no intention of deserting their +quarters. The place was full of them, but I could form no estimate of +their number. + +On the following evening I took my stand upon a little knoll commanding +the western end of the wood. According to my notes, the birds began to +arrive about sunset,--but this was pretty certainly an error,--and +though I did not undertake an exact count until the flight was mainly +over, it seemed likely that at least three hundred passed in at that +point. This would have made the total number twelve hundred, or +thereabout, on the assumption that my outlook had covered a quarter of +the circuit. After the flight ceased I went into the wood, and from the +commotion overhead it was impossible not to believe that such a +calculation must be well within the truth. + +The next day was rainy, but on the evening of the 28th I stood by the +shore of the pond, on the eastern side of the wood, and made as accurate +a count as possible of the arrivals at that point. Unfortunately I was +too late; the robins were already coming. But in fifty minutes, between +6.40 and 7.30, I counted 1072 birds. They appeared singly and in small +flocks, and it was out of the question for me to make sure of them all; +while I was busy with a flock on the right, there was no telling how +many might be passing in on the left. If my observations comprehended a +quarter of the circle, and if the influx was equally great on the other +sides (an assumption afterward disproved), then it was safe to set the +whole number of birds at five thousand or more. Of the 1072 actually +seen, 797 came before the sunset gun was fired,--a proportion somewhat +larger than it would have been had the sky been clear. + +On the afternoon of the 29th I again counted the arrivals at the eastern +end; but though I set out, as I thought, in good season, I found myself +once more behind time. At 6.30 robins were already dropping in, +notwithstanding the sky was cloudless. In the first five minutes +eighteen birds appeared; at sunset 818 had been counted; and at 7.30, +when I came away, the figures stood at 1267. "The robins came more +rapidly than last night," I wrote in my notebook, "and for much of the +time I could keep watch of the southeastern corner only. My vision then +covered much less than a quarter of the circuit; so that if the birds +came as freely from other directions, at least five thousand must have +entered the wood between 6.30 and 7.30. As long as it was light they +avoided passing directly by me, going generally to the left, and +slipping into the roost behind some low outlying trees; though, +fortunately, in doing this they were compelled to cross a narrow patch +of the illuminated western sky. I suspect that the number increases from +night to night. Between 6.40 and 7.30, 1235 birds came, as compared +with 1072 last evening." + +Two days afterward (July 31st) I went to the western end of the wood, +and found the influx there much smaller than on the opposite side; but I +arrived late, and made a partial count only. After sunset 186 birds were +seen, whereas there had been 455 entries at the eastern end, two nights +before, during the same time. + +Thus far I had always been too late to witness the beginning of the +flight. On the evening of August 1st I resolved to be in season. I +reached the border of the pond at 5.15, and at that very moment a single +robin flew into the wood. No others were seen for eighteen minutes, when +three arrived together. From this time stragglers continued to appear, +and at 6.30 I had counted 176. In the next ten minutes 180 arrived; in +the next five minutes, 138. Between 6.45 and 7, I counted 549; then, in +six minutes, 217 appeared. At 7.25, when I concluded, the figures stood +at 1533 birds. For about twenty minutes, as will be noticed, the +arrivals were at the rate of thirty-six a minute. Throughout the +thickest of the flight I could keep a lookout upon only one side of me, +and, moreover, the gathering darkness was by that time making it more +and more difficult to see any birds except such as passed above the dark +tree line; and from what went on just about me, it was evident that the +number of arrivals was increasing rather than diminishing as my count +fell off. There seemed to be no good reason for doubting that at least +two thousand robins entered the wood at the eastern end. + +Two nights later I stationed myself in the meadow southwest of the +roost. Here I counted but 935 entries. The movement appeared to be fully +as steady as on the opposite side, but as darkness came on I found +myself at a great disadvantage; a hill occupied the background, giving +me no illuminated sky to bring the birds into relief, so that I could +see only such as passed close at hand. Of the 935 birds, 761 came before +seven o'clock, but it was reasonably certain that the flight afterward +was nearly or quite as great, only that I wanted light wherewith to see +it. + +On the evening of August 4th I went back to the eastern end, and as the +sky was perfectly clear I hoped to make a gain upon all my previous +figures. But the fair weather was perhaps a hindrance rather than a +help; for the robins came later than before, and more in a body, and +continued to arrive long after it was impossible to see them. I counted +1480,--53 less than on the 1st. + +I attempted no further enumeration until the 18th. Then, in an hour and +ten minutes, 1203 birds were seen to enter the roost at the eastern end. +But they arrived more than ever in flocks, and so late that for much of +the time I missed all except the comparatively small number that passed +in my immediate vicinity. Many were flying at a great height,--having +come from a long distance, as I inferred,--and sometimes I knew nothing +of their approach till they dropped out of the sky directly over the +wood. On this occasion, as well as on many others,--but chiefly during +the latter part of the season,--it was noticeable that some of the +robins appeared to be ignorant of the precise whereabouts of the roost; +they flew past it at first, and then, after more or less circling about, +with loud cackling, dived hurriedly into the wood. I took special note +of one fellow, who came from the south at a great altitude, and went +directly over the wood. When he was well past it he suddenly pulled +himself up, as if fancying he had caught a signal. After a moment of +hesitation he proceeded on his northerly course, but had not gone far +before he met half a dozen birds flying south. Perhaps he asked them the +way. At all events, he wheeled about and joined them, and in half a +minute was safe in port. He had heard of the roost, apparently (how and +where?), but had not before visited it. + +This count of August 18th was the last for nearly a month, but I find a +minute of August 27th stating that, while walking along the highway on +the westerly side of the roost,--the side that had always been the least +populous,--I saw within less than two minutes (as I calculated the time) +more than eighty robins flying toward the wood. Up to this date, then, +there could not have been any considerable falling off in the size of +the gathering. Indeed, from my friend's observations upon the Belmont +roost, to be mentioned later, it seems well-nigh certain that it was +still upon the increase. + +Toward the close of August I became interested in the late singing of +several whippoorwills, and so was taken away from the robins' haunt at +the hour of sunset. Then, from the 5th to the 13th of September, I was +absent from home. On the night of my return I went to the shore of the +pond, where, on the 1st of August, I had counted 1533 entries. The +weather was favorable, and I arrived in good season and remained till +the stars came out, but I counted only 137 robins! It was plain that the +great majority of the congregation had departed. + +As I have said, there was little to be learned by going into the wood +after the robins were assembled. Nevertheless I used frequently to +intrude upon them, especially as friends or neighbors, who had heard of +my "discovery," were desirous to see the show. The prodigious cackling +and rustling overhead seemed to make a deep impression upon all such +visitors, while, for myself, I should have had no difficulty in +crediting the statement had I been told that _ten thousand_ robins were +in the treetops. One night I took two friends to the place after it was +really dark. All was silent as we felt our way among the trees, till, +suddenly, one of the trio struck a match and kindled a blaze of dry +twigs. The smoke and flame speedily waked the sleepers; but even then +they manifested no disposition to be driven out. + +For curiosity's sake, I paid one early morning visit to the roost, on +the 30th of July. It would be worth while, I thought, to see how much +music so large a chorus would make, as well as to note the manner of its +dispersion. To tell the truth, I hoped for something spectacular,--a +grand burst of melody, and then a pouring forth of a dense, uncountable +army of robins. I arrived about 3.40 (it was still hardly light enough +to show the face of the watch), and found everything quiet. Pretty soon +the robins commenced cackling. At 3.45 a song sparrow sang, and at the +same moment I saw a robin fly out of the wood. Five minutes later a +robin sang; at 3.55 another one flew past me; at four o'clock a few of +the birds were in song, but the effect was not in any way +peculiar,--very much as if two or three had been singing in the ordinary +manner. They dispersed precisely as I had seen them gather: now a +single bird, now two or three, now six, or even ten. A casual passer +along the road would have remarked nothing out of the common course. +They flew low,--not as if they were starting upon any prolonged +flight,--and a goodly number alighted for a little in the field where I +was standing. Shortly before sunrise I went into the wood and found it +deserted. The robin is one of our noisiest birds. Who would have +believed that an assembly of thousands could break up so quietly? Their +behavior in this regard may possibly have been influenced by prudential +considerations. I have said that many of them seemingly took pains to +approach the roost indirectly and under cover. On the westerly side, for +example, they almost invariably followed a line of bushes and trees +which runs toward the roost along the edge of the meadow, even though +they were obliged sharply to alter their course in so doing. + +All this time I had been in correspondence with my friend before +referred to, who was studying a similar roost,[15]--in Belmont,--which +proved to be more populous than mine, as was to be expected, perhaps, +the surrounding country being less generally wooded. It was a mile or +more from his house, which was so situated that he could sit upon his +piazza in the evening and watch the birds streaming past. On the 11th of +August he counted here 556 robins, of which 336 passed within five +minutes. On the 28th he counted 1180, of which 456 passed within five +minutes,--ninety-one a minute! On the 2d of September, from a knoll +nearer the roost, he counted 1883 entries. + +[15] This roost was discovered by Mr. William Brewster, in August, 1884, +as already mentioned. + +This gathering, like the one in Melrose, was greatly depleted by the +middle of September. "Only 109 robins flew over the place to-night," my +correspondent wrote on the 25th, "against 538 September 4th, 838 August +30th, and 1180 August 28th." Two evenings later (September 27th) he went +to the neighborhood of the roost, and counted 251 birds,--instead of +1883 on the 2d. Even so late as October 9th, however, the wood was not +entirely deserted. During the last month or so of its occupancy, the +number of the birds was apparently subject to sudden and wide +fluctuations, and it seemed not unlikely that travelers from the north +were making a temporary use of the well-known resort. It would not be +surprising if the same were found to be true in the spring. In April, +1890, I saw some things which pointed, as I thought, in this direction, +but I was then too closely occupied to follow the matter. + +How early in the season does this nightly flocking begin? This question +often presented itself. It was only the middle of July when the +Cambridge roost was found in full operation, though at that time many +robins must still have had family duties, and some were probably +building new nests. Next summer, we said, we would try to mark the +beginnings of the congregation. + +My own plans to this end came near being thwarted. In December I was +dismayed to see the owner of the wood cutting it down. Happily some kind +power stayed his hand when not more than a third of the mischief was +done, and on the 29th of June, 1890, while strolling homeward along the +highway, listening to the distant song of a veery, I noticed within five +or ten minutes seventeen robins making toward the old rendezvous. On +the following evening I stood beside the ice-pond and saw one hundred +and ninety-two robins enter the wood. The flight had begun before my +arrival, and was not entirely over when I came away. Evidently several +hundreds of the birds were already passing their nights in company. In +my ignorance, I was surprised at the early date; but when I communicated +my discovery to the Belmont observer, he replied at once that he had +noticed a movement of the same kind on the 11th of June. The birds, +about a dozen, were seen passing his house. + +Thinking over the matter, I began to ask myself--though I hesitate about +making such a confession--whether it might not be the adult males who +thus unseasonably went off to bed in a crowd, leaving their mates to +care for eggs and little ones. At this very moment, as it happened, I +was watching with lively sympathy the incessant activities of a female +humming-bird, who appeared to be bringing up a family (two very hungry +nestlings), with no husband to lift a finger for her assistance; and the +sight, as I fear, put me into a cynical mood. Male robins were probably +like males in general,--lovers of clubs and shirkers of home duties. +Indeed, a friend who went into the roost with me, one evening, remarked +upon the continual cackling in the treetops as "a very social sound;" +and upon my saying something about a sewing circle, he answered, quite +seriously, "No, it is rather like a gentleman's club." But it would have +been unscientific, as well as unchristian, to entertain an hypothesis +like this without putting its soundness to some kind of test. I adopted +the only plan that occurred to me,--short of rising at half past two +o'clock in the morning to see the birds disperse. I entered the wood +just before the assemblage was due (this was on the 9th of July), and +took a sheltered position on the eastern edge, where, as the robins flew +by me, or alighted temporarily in the trees just across the brook, they +would have the sunlight upon their breasts. Here, as often as one came +sufficiently near and in a sufficiently favorable light, I noted whether +it was an adult, or a streaked, spotted bird of the present season. As a +matter of course, the number concerning which this point could be +positively determined under such conditions was very small,--only +fifty-seven altogether. Of these, forty-nine were surely birds of the +present summer, and only eight unmistakable adult males. If any adult +females came in, they passed among the unidentified and uncounted.[16] I +was glad I had made the test. As a kind-hearted cynic (I confess to +being nothing worse than this), I was relieved to find my misanthropic, +or, to speak more exactly, my misornithic, notions ill founded. As for +the sprinkling of adult males, they may have been, as a "friend and +fellow woodlander" suggests, birds which, for one reason or another, had +taken up with the detestable opinion that "marriage is a failure." + +[16] A week later, my correspondent reported a similar state of things +at the Belmont roost. "A very large proportion of the birds are +spotted-breasted young of the year, but occasionally I have detected an +adult male." He examined the birds at near range, and at rest, after +they had come into the roost in the earlier part of the evening. + +During the month of July, 1890, I made frequent counts of the entries at +the eastern end of the roost, thinking thus to ascertain in a general +way the rate at which its population increased. On the whole, the growth +proved to be fairly steady, in spite of some mysterious fluctuations, as +will be seen by the following table:-- + + July 3 247 + " 5 383 + " 6 356 + " 10 765 + " 12 970 + " 14 1120 + " 16 1064 + " 17 1333 + " 19 1584 + " 22 1520 + " 23 1453 + " 27 2314 + +After July 6th all the enumerations were made with the help of another +man, though we stood side by side, and covered no more ground than I had +hitherto attempted to compass alone. The figures of the 27th were far in +excess of any obtained in 1889, and for a day I was disposed to take +seriously the suggestion of a friend that some other roost must have +been broken up and its members turned into the Melrose gathering. But on +the evening of the 28th I tried a count by myself, and made only 1517 +birds! The conditions were favorable, and the robins came, as they had +come the night before, in flocks, almost in continuous streams. The +figures had fallen off, not because there were fewer birds, but because +I was unable to count them. They were literally too many for me. The +difficulties of the work, it should be explained, are greatly enhanced +by the fact that at the very corner where the influx is largest none of +the low-flying birds can be seen except for a second or two, as they +dart across a bit of sky between the roost and an outlying wood. To +secure anything like a complete census, this point must be watched +continuously; and meantime birds are streaming in at the other corner +and shooting over the distracted enumerator's head, and perhaps dropping +out of the sky. I conclude, therefore, not that the roost had increased +in population, but that my last year's reckoning was even more +inadequate than I then supposed. Even with two pairs of eyes, it is +inevitable that multitudes of birds should pass in unnoticed, especially +during the latter half of the flight. I have never had an assistant or a +looker-on to whom this was not perfectly apparent. + +As I stood night after night watching the robins stream into this little +wood,--no better, surely, than many they had passed on their way,--I +asked myself again and again what could be the motive that drew them +together. The flocking of birds for a long journey, or in the winter +season, is less mysterious. In times of danger and distress there is no +doubt a feeling of safety in a crowd. But robins cannot be afraid of the +dark. Why, then, should not each sleep upon its own feeding grounds, +alone, or with a few neighbors for company, instead of flying two or +three miles, more or less, twice a day, simply for the sake of passing +the night in a general roost? + +Such questions we must perhaps be content to ask without expecting an +answer. By nature the robin is strongly gregarious, and though his +present mode of existence does not permit him to live during the summer +in close communities,--as marsh wrens do, for example, and some of our +swallows,--his ancestral passion for society still asserts itself at +nightfall. Ten or twelve years ago, when I was bird-gazing in Boston, +there were sometimes a hundred robins at once about the Common and +Garden, in the time of the vernal migration. By day they were scattered +over the lawns; but at sunset they gathered habitually in two or three +contiguous trees, not far from the Frog Pond and the Beacon Street Mall +(I wonder whether the same trees are still in use for the same purpose), +where, after much noise and some singing, they retired to rest,--if +going to sleep in a leafless treetop can be called retiring. + +Whatever the origin and reason of this roosting habit, I have no doubt +that it is universal. Middlesex County birds cannot be in any respect +peculiar. Whoever will keep a close eye upon the robins in his +neighborhood, in July and August, will find them at sunset flocking to +some general sleeping-place. + +It would be interesting to know how far they travel at such times. The +fact that so many hundreds were to be seen at a point more than a mile +away from the Belmont roost is significant; but I am not aware that any +one has yet made a study of this part of the subject. My own birds +seemed to come, as a rule, by easy stages. In the long narrow valley +east of the roost, where I oftenest watched their approach, they +followed habitually--not invariably--a zigzag route, crossing the meadow +diagonally, and for the most part alighting for a little upon a certain +wooded hill, whence they took a final flight to their nightly haven, +perhaps a quarter of a mile beyond. Farther down the valley, a mile or +more from the roost, birds were to be seen flying toward it, but I found +no place at which a general movement could be observed and large numbers +counted. + +As to the size of these nightly gatherings, it seems wisest not to +guess; though, treating the subject in this narrative manner, I have not +scrupled to mention, simply as a part of the story, some of my temporary +surmises. What I am told of the Belmont wood is true also of the one in +Melrose: its shape and situation are such as to make an accurate census +impossible, no matter how many "enumerators" might be employed. It could +be surrounded easily enough, but it would be out of the question to +divide the space among the different men so that no two of them should +count the same birds. At present it can only be said that the robins are +numbered by thousands; in some cases, perhaps, by tens of thousands. + + + + +THE PASSING OF THE BIRDS. + + "The Bird of Time has but a little way + To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing." + OMAR KHAYYAM. + + +By the first of August the bird-lover's year is already on the wane. In +the chestnut grove, where a month ago the wood thrush, the rose-breasted +grosbeak, and the scarlet tanager were singing, the loiterer now hears +nothing but the wood pewee's pensive whistle and the sharp monotony of +the red-eyed vireo. The thrasher is silent in the berry pasture, and the +bobolink in the meadow. The season of jollity is over. Orioles, to be +sure, after a month of silence, again have fits of merry fifing. The +field sparrow and the song sparrow are still in tune, and the meadow +lark whistles, though rarely. Catbirds still practice their feeble +improvisations and mimicries in the thickets along the brooksides as +evening comes on, and of the multitudes of robins a few are certain to +be heard warbling before the day is over. Goldfinches have grown +suddenly numerous, or so it seems, and not infrequently one of them +breaks out in musical canary-like twitterings. On moonlight evenings the +tremulous, haunting cry of the screech-owl comes to your ears, always +from far away, and if you walk through the chestnut grove aforesaid in +the daytime you may chance to catch his faint, vibratory, tree-frog +whistle. For myself, I never enter the grove without glancing into the +dry top of a certain tall tree, to see whether the little rascal is +sitting in his open door. More than half the time he is there, and +always with his eye on me. What an air he has!--like a judge on the +bench! If I were half as wise as he looks, these essays of mine would +never more be dull. For his and all other late summer music let us be +thankful; but it is true, nevertheless, that the year is waning. How +short it has been! Only the other day the concert opened, and already +the performers are uneasy to be gone. They have crowded so much into so +brief a space! The passion of a life-time into the quarter of a year! +They are impatient to be gone, I say; but who knows how many of them +are gone already? Where are the blue golden-winged warblers that sang +daily on the edge of the wood opposite my windows, so that I listened to +them at my work? I have heard nothing of their rough _dsee, dsee_ since +the 21st of June, and in all that time have seen them but once--a single +bird, a youngling of the present year, stumbled upon by accident while +pushing my way through a troublesome thicket on the first day of August. +Who knows, I say, how many such summer friends have already left us? An +odd coincidence, however, warns me at this very moment that too much is +not to be made of merely negative experiences; for even while I was +penciling the foregoing sentence about the blue golden-wing there came +through the open window the hoarse upward-sliding chant of his close +neighbor, the prairie warbler. I have not heard that sound before since +the 6th of July, and it is now the 22d of August. The singers had not +gone, I knew; I saw several of them (and beautiful creatures they are!) +a few days ago among the pitch pines; but why did that fellow, after +being dumb for six or seven weeks, pipe up at that precise moment, as +if to punctuate my ruminations with an interrogation point? Does he like +this dog-day morning, with its alternate shower and sunshine, and its +constant stickiness and heat? In any case I was glad to hear him, though +I cannot in the spirit of veracity call him a good singer. Whist! There +goes an oriole, a gorgeous creature, flashing from one elm to another, +and piping in his happiest manner as he flies. It might be the middle of +May, to judge from his behavior. _He_ likes dog-day weather, there can +be no question of that, however the rest of the world may grumble. + +This is a time when one sees many birds, but few species. Bluebirds are +several times as abundant as in June. The air is sweet with their calls +at this moment, and once in a while some father of the flock lets his +happiness run over in song. One cannot go far now without finding the +road full of chipping sparrows, springing up in their pretty, +characteristic way, and letting the breeze catch them. The fences and +wayside apple-trees are lively with kingbirds and phoebes. I am +already watching the former with a kind of mournful interest. In ten +days, or some such matter, we shall have seen the last of their saucy +antics. Gay tyrants! They are among the first birds of whom I can +confidently say, "They are gone;" and they seem as wide-awake when they +go as when they come. Being a man, I regret their departure; but if I +were a crow, I think I should be for observing the 31st of August as a +day of annual jubilee. + +A few years ago, in September, I saw the white-breasted swallows +congregated in the Ipswich dunes,--a sight never to be forgotten. On the +morning of the 9th, the fourth day of our visit, a considerable +flock--but no more, perhaps, than we had been seeing daily--came +skimming over the marshes and settled upon a sand-bar in the river, +darkening it in patches. At eight o'clock, when we took the straggling +road out of the hills, a good many--there might be a thousand, I +guessed--sat, upon the fence wires, as if resting. We walked inland, and +on our return, at noon, found, as my notes of the day express it, "an +innumerable host, thousands upon thousands," about the landward side of +the dunes. Fences and haycocks were covered. Multitudes were on the +ground,--in the bed of the road, about the bare spots in the marsh, and +on the gray faces of the hills. Other multitudes were in the bushes and +low trees, literally loading them. Every few minutes a detachment would +rise into the air like a cloud, and anon settle down again. As we stood +gazing at the spectacle, my companion began chirping at a youngster who +sat near him on a post, as one might chirp to a caged canary. The effect +was magical. The bird at once started toward him, others followed, and +in a few seconds hundreds were flying about our heads. Round and round +they went, almost within reach, like a cloud of gnats. "Stop! stop!" +cried my companion; "I am getting dizzy." We stopped our squeakings, and +the cloud lifted; but I can see it yet. Day after day the great +concourse remained about the hills, till on the 13th we came away and +left them. The old lighthouse keeper told me that this was their annual +rendezvous. He once saw them circle for a long time above the dunes, for +several hours, if I remember right, till, as it seemed, all stragglers +had been called in from the beach, the marsh, and the outlying grassy +hills. Then they mounted into the sky in a great spiral till they +passed out of sight; and for that year there were no more swallows. +This, he insisted, took place in the afternoon, "from three to four +o'clock." He was unquestionably telling a straightforward story of what +he himself had seen, but his memory may have been at fault; for I find +it to be the settled opinion of those who ought to know, that swallows +migrate by day and not by night, while the setting out of a great flock +late in the afternoon at such a height would seem to indicate a +nocturnal journey. Morning or evening, I would give something to witness +so imposing a start. + +The recollection of this seaside gathering raises anew in my mind the +question why, if swallows and swifts migrate exclusively in the daytime, +we so rarely see anything of them on the passage. Our Ipswich birds were +all tree swallows,--white-breasted martins,--and might fairly be +supposed to have come together from a comparatively limited extent of +country. But beside tree swallows there are purple martins, barn +swallows, sand martins, cliff swallows, and chimney swifts, all of which +breed to the northward of us in incalculable numbers. All of them go +south between the middle of July and the first of October. But who in +New England has ever seen any grand army of them actually on the wing? +Do they straggle along so loosely as to escape particular notice? If so, +what mean congregations like that in the Ipswich dunes? Or are their +grand concerted flights taken at such an altitude as to be invisible? + +On several afternoons of last September, this time in an inland country, +I observed what might fairly be called a steady stream of tree swallows +flying south. Twice, while gazing up at the loose procession, I suddenly +became aware of a close bunch of birds at a prodigious height, barely +visible, circling about in a way to put a count out of the question, but +evidently some hundreds in number. On both occasions the flock vanished +almost immediately, and, as I believed, by soaring out of sight. The +second time I meant to assure myself upon this point, but my attention +was distracted by the sudden appearance of several large hawks within +the field of my glass, and when I looked again for the swallows they +were nowhere to be seen. Were the stragglers which I had for some time +been watching, flying high, but well within easy ken, and these dense, +hardly discernible clusters--hirundine nebulae, as it were--were all +these but parts of one innumerable host, the main body of which was +passing far above me altogether unseen? The conjecture was one to +gratify the imagination. It pleased me even to think that it _might_ be +true. But it was only a conjecture, and meantime another question +presented itself. + +When this daily procession had been noticed for two or three afternoons, +it came to me as something remarkable that I saw it always in the same +place, or rather on the same north and south line, while no matter where +else I walked, east or west, not a swallow was visible. Had I stumbled +upon a regular route of swallow migration? It looked so, surely; but I +made little account of the matter till a month afterward, when, in +exactly the same place, I observed robins and bluebirds following the +same course. The robins were seen October 26th, in four flocks, +succeeding each other at intervals of a few minutes, and numbering in +all about 130 birds. They flew directly south, at a moderate height, +and were almost certainly detachments of one body. The bluebird movement +was two days later, at about the same hour, the morning being cold, with +a little snow falling. This time, too, as it happened, the flock was in +four detachments. Three of these were too compact to be counted as they +passed; the fourth and largest one was in looser order and contained a +little more than a hundred individuals. In all, as well as I could +guess, there might have been about three hundred birds. They kept a +straight course southward, flying high, and with the usual calls, which, +in autumn at least, always have to my ears a sound of farewell. Was it a +mere coincidence that these swallows, bluebirds, and robins were all +crossing the valley just at this point? + +This question, too, I count it safer to ask than to answer, but all +observers, I am sure, must have remarked so much as this,--that birds, +even on their migrations, are subject to strong local preferences. An +ornithologist of the highest repute assures me that his own experience +has convinced him so strongly of this fact that if he shoots a rare +migrant in a certain spot he makes it a rule to visit the place again a +year afterward on the same day, and, if possible, at the same hour of +the day. Another friend sends me a very pretty story bearing upon the +same point. The bird of which he speaks, Wilson's black-cap warbler, is +one of the less common of our regular Massachusetts migrants. I count +myself fortunate if I see two or three specimens during its spring or +autumn passage. My correspondent shall tell the story for himself. + +"While I was making the drawings for the 'Silva,' at the old Dwight +house, I was in the habit of taking a turn every pleasant day in the +gardens after my scanty lunch. On the 18th of May, 1887, in my daily +round I saw a Wilson's black-cap for the first time in my life. He was +in a bush of _Spiraea media_, which grew in the midst of the rockery, and +allowed me to examine him at near range with no appearance of fear. +Naturally I made a note of the occurrence in my diary, and talked about +it with my family when I got home. The seeing of a new bird always makes +a red-letter day. + +"The next spring, as I was looking over my notebook of the previous +year, I came upon my entry of May 18th, and thought I would be on the +lookout for a black-cap on that date. Several times during the morning I +thought of the matter, and after my lunch I sauntered into the rockery +just as I had done the year before. Imagine my start when there, in the +very same bush, was the black-cap peering at me; and I found on looking +at my watch that it was precisely the same hour,--half past one! I +rubbed my eyes and pinched myself to make sure it was not a dream. No, +it was all real. Of course, I thought the coincidence very singular, and +talked about it, not only with my family, but also with other people. +You must remember that I had never seen the bird elsewhere. + +"Well, another spring came round. The 18th of May was fixed in my mind, +and I thought many times of my black-cap (I called it _my_ black-cap +now), and wondered if it would keep tryst again. On the morning of the +18th, the first thing I thought of when I awoke was my black-cap. That +forenoon I actually felt nervous as the time approached, for I felt a +sort of certainty (you smile) that I should see my bird again. My lunch +was hastier than usual, and I was about to sally forth when it flashed +across me--'Suppose the bird should be there again, who would believe my +story? Hold! I will have a witness.' I called to Mr. J----, who was at +work upstairs, and after explaining what I wanted, invited him to +accompany me. We cautiously entered the rockery, and within a few +minutes there flitted from a neighboring thicket into that very Spiraea +bush my black-cap! I took out my watch. It was just half past one!" + +My own experiences in this kind have been much less striking and +dramatic than the foregoing, but I may add that a few years ago I +witnessed the vernal migration in a new piece of country--ten miles or +so from my old field--and found myself at a very considerable +disadvantage. I had never realized till then how much accustomed I had +grown to look for particular birds in particular places, and not in +other places of a quite similar character. + +I speak of witnessing a migration; but what we see for the most part +(ducks and geese being excepted) is not the actual movement northward +or southward. We see the stragglers, more or less numerous, that happen +to have dropped out of the procession in our immediate neighborhood,--a +flock of sandpipers about the edge of the pond, some sparrows by the +roadside, a bevy of warblers in the wood,--and from these signs we infer +the passing of the host. + +Unlike swallows, robins, bluebirds, blackbirds, and perhaps most of the +sparrows, our smaller wood birds, the warblers and vireos especially, +appear to move as a general thing in mixed flocks. Whenever the woods +are full of them, as is the case now and then every spring and fall, one +of the most striking features of the show is the number of species +represented. For the benefit of readers who may never have observed such +a "bird wave," or "rush," let me sketch hastily one which occurred a few +years ago, on the 22d of September. As I started out at six o'clock in +the morning, in a cool northwest wind, birds were passing overhead in an +almost continuous stream, following a westerly course. They were chiefly +warblers, but I noted one fairly large flock of purple finches. All were +at a good height, and the whole movement had the air of a diurnal +migration. I could only conjecture that it was the end of the nocturnal +flight, so far, at least, as the warblers were concerned; in other +words, that the birds, on this particular occasion, did not finish their +nightly journey till a little after sunrise. But if many were still +flying, many others had already halted; for presently I came to a piece +of thin, stunted wood by the roadside, and found in it a highly +interesting company. Almost the first specimen I saw was a Connecticut +warbler perched in full view and exposing himself perfectly. Red-bellied +nuthatches were calling, and warblers uncounted were flitting about in +the trees and underbrush. A hurried search showed black-polls, +black-throated greens, blue yellow-backs, one redstart, one +black-and-white creeper, one Blackburnian, one black-and-yellow, one +Canadian flycatcher (singing lustily), one yellow redpoll, and one +clearly-marked bay-breast. The first yellow-bellied woodpecker of the +season was hammering in a tree over my head, and not far away was the +first flock of white-throated sparrows. After breakfast I passed the +place again, and the only bird to be found was one phoebe! Within +half a mile of the spot, however, I came upon at least three goodly +throngs, including scarlet tanagers (all in yellow and black), +black-throated blue warblers, pine warblers, olive-backed and +gray-cheeked thrushes, a flock of chewinks (made up exclusively of adult +males, so far as I could discover), red-eyed vireos, one solitary vireo, +brown thrashers, with more redstarts, a second Blackburnian, and a +second black-and-yellow. Every company had its complement of chickadees. +Of the morning's forty species, thirteen were warblers; and of these +thirteen, four were represented by one specimen each. For curiosity's +sake I may add that a much longer walk that afternoon, through the same +and other woods, was utterly barren. Except for two or three flocks of +white-throated sparrows; there was no sign whatever that the night +before had brought us a "flight." + +Autumnal ornithology may almost be called a science by itself. Not only +are birds harder to find (being silent) and harder to recognize in +autumn than in spring, but their movements are in themselves more +difficult of observation. A few years of note-taking will put one in +possession of the approximate dates of arrival of all our common vernal +migrants. Every local observer will tell you when to look for each of +the familiar birds of his neighborhood; but he will not be half so ready +with information as to the time of the same birds' departure. Ask him +about a few of the commonest,--the least flycatcher and the oven-bird, +or the golden warbler and the Maryland yellow-throat. He will answer, +perhaps, that he has seen Maryland yellow-throats in early October, and +golden warblers in early September; but he will very likely add that +these were probably voyagers from the North, and that he has never made +out just when his own summer birds take their leave. + +After the work of nidification is over, birds as a rule wander more or +less from their breeding haunts; and even if they do not wander they are +likely to become silent. If we miss them, therefore, we are not to +conclude as a matter of course that they have gone south. Last year, +during the early part of the season, cuckoos were unusually plentiful, +as it seemed to me. Then I discovered all at once that there were none +to be found. After the first of July I neither saw nor heard a cuckoo of +either species! Had they moved away? I do not know; but the case may be +taken as an extreme illustration of the uncertainty attaching to the +late-summer doings of birds in general. Every student must have had +experiences of a sort to make him slow to dogmatize when such points are +in question. Throughout May and June, for example, he has heard and seen +wood thrushes in a certain grove. After that, for a whole month, he +hears and sees nothing, though he is frequently there. The thrushes have +gone? So it would seem. But then, suddenly, they are singing again in +the very same trees, and he is forced to conclude that they have not +been away, but during their period of midsummer silence have eluded his +notice. On the whole, therefore, after making allowance for particular +cases in which we may have more precise information, it would be hard, I +think, to say just when our nocturnal travelers set out on their long +journey. As the poet prayed Life to do,-- + + They steal away, give little warning, + Choose their own time; + Say not good-night,--but in May's brighter clime + Bid us good-morning. + +Their departure bereaves us, but, all in all, it must be accounted a +blessing. Like the falling of the leaves, it touches the heart with a +pleasing sadness,--a sadness more delicious, if one is born to enjoy it, +than all the merry-making of springtime. And even for the most +unsentimental of naturalists the autumnal season has many a delightful +hour. The year is almost done; but for the moment the whole feathered +world is in motion, and the shortest walk may show him the choicest of +rarities. Thanks to the passing of the birds, his local studies are an +endless pursuit. "It is now more than forty years that I have paid some +attention to the ornithology of this district, without being able to +exhaust the subject," says Gilbert White; "new occurrences still arise +as long as any inquiries are kept alive." A happy man is the bird-lover; +always another species to look for, another mystery to solve. His +expectations may never be realized; but no matter; it is the hope, not +its fulfillment, that makes life worth having. How can any New +Englander imagine that he has exhausted the possibilities of existence +so long as he has never seen the Lincoln finch and the Cape May warbler? + +But "I speak as a fool." Our happiness, if we are bird-lovers indeed, +waits not upon novelties and rarities. All such exceptional bits of +private good fortune let the Fates send or withhold as they will. The +grand spectacle itself will not fail us. Even now, through all the +northern country, the procession is getting under way. For the next +three months it will be passing,--millions upon millions: warblers, +sparrows, thrushes, vireos, blackbirds, flycatchers, wrens, kinglets, +woodpeckers, swallows, humming-birds, hawks; with sandpipers, plovers, +ducks and geese, gulls, and who knows how many more? Night and day, week +days and Sundays, they will be flying: now singly or in little groups, +and flitting from one wood or pasture to another; now in great +companies, and with protracted all-day or all-night flights. Who could +ask a better stimulus for his imagination than the annual southing of +this mighty host? Each member of it knows his own time and his own +course. On such a day the snipe will be in such a meadow, and the golden +plover in such a field. Some, no doubt, will lose their way. Numbers +uncounted will perish by storm and flood; numbers more, alas, by human +agency. As I write, with the sad note of a bluebird in my ear, I can see +the sea-beaches and the marshes lined with guns. But the army will push +on; they will come to their desired haven; for there is a spirit in +birds, also, "and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them +understanding." + + + + +A GREAT BLUE HERON. + + "Why appear you with this ridiculous boldness?" + SHAKESPEARE. + + +The watcher of birds in the bush soon discovers that they have +individual as well as race characteristics. They are not things, but +persons,--beings with intellect, affections, and will,--and a strong +specific resemblance is found to be consistent with no small measure of +personal variation. All robins, we say, look and act alike. But so do +all Yankees; yet it is part of every Yankee's birthright to be different +from every other Yankee. Nature abhors a copy, it would seem, almost as +badly as she abhors a vacuum. Perhaps, if the truth were known, a copy +_is_ a vacuum. + +I walked down the bay shore of Cape Cod one summer morning, and at a +certain point climbed the steep cliff to the railway track, meaning to +look into a large cranberry meadow where, on previous visits, I had +found a few sandpipers and plovers. Near one end of the perfectly level, +sand-covered meadow was a little pool, and my first glance in that +direction showed me a great blue heron wading about its edge. With as +much quietness as possible I stole out of sight, and then hastened up +the railway through a cut, till I had the sun at my back and a hill +between me and the bird. Then I began a stealthy approach, keeping +behind one object after another, and finally going down flat upon the +ground (to roll in the soil is an excellent method of cleansing one's +garments on Cape Cod) and crawling up to a patch of bayberry bushes, the +last practicable cover. + +Here let me say that the great blue heron is, as its name implies, a big +bird, standing almost as high as an ordinary man, and spreading its +wings for nearly or quite six feet. Its character for suspiciousness may +be gathered from what different writers have said about it. "He is most +jealously vigilant and watchful of man," says Wilson, "so that those who +wish to succeed in shooting the heron must approach him entirely unseen, +and by stratagem." "Extremely suspicious and shy," says Audubon. +"Unless under very favorable circumstances, it is almost hopeless to +attempt to approach it. To walk up towards one would be a fruitless +adventure." Dr. Brewer's language is to the same effect,--"At all times +very vigilant and difficult of approach." + +This, then, was the bird which I now had under my field-glass, as I lay +at full length behind the friendly bayberry bushes. Up to this point, +for aught that appeared, he was quite unaware of my espionage. Like all +the members of his family that I have ever seen, he possessed so much +patience that it required much patience to watch him. For minutes +together he stood perfectly still, and his movements, as a rule, were +either so slow as to be all but imperceptible, or so rapid as almost to +elude the eye. Boys who have killed frogs--which was pretty certainly my +heron's present employment--will need no explanation of his behavior. +They know very well that, if the fatal club is to do its work, the +slowest kind of preliminary motion must be followed by something like a +flash of lightning. + +I watched the bird for perhaps half an hour, admiring his handsome blue +wings as now and then he spread them, his dainty manner of lifting his +long legs, and the occasional flashing stroke of his beak. My range was +short (for a field-glass, I mean), and, all in all, I voted it "a fine +show." + +When I wearied of my position I rose and advanced upon the heron in full +sight, expecting every moment to see him fly. To my astonishment he held +his ground. Down the hillside I went, nearer and nearer, till I came to +a barbed-wire fence, which bounded the cranberry field close by the +heron's pool. As I worried my way through this abominable obstruction, +he stepped into a narrow, shallow ditch and started slowly away. I made +rapidly after him, whereupon he got out of the ditch and strode on ahead +of me. By this time I was probably within twenty yards of him, so near +that, as he twisted his long neck every now and then, and looked at me +through his big yellow eyes, I began to wonder whether he might not take +it into his head to turn the tables upon me. A stab in the face with +that ugly sharp beak would have been no laughing matter; but I did not +believe myself in any danger, and quickened my steps, being now highly +curious to see how near the fellow I could get. At this he broke into a +kind of dog-trot, very comical to witness, and, if I had not previously +seen him fly a few yards, I should have supposed him disabled in the +wing. Dr. Brewer, by the way, says that this bird is "never known to +run, or even to walk briskly;" but such negative assertions are always +at the maker's risk. + +He picked up his legs at last, for I pressed him closer and closer, till +there could not have been more than forty or fifty feet between us; but +even then he settled down again beside another pool, only a few rods +further on in the same meadow, and there I left him to pursue his +frog-hunt unmolested. The ludicrousness of the whole affair was enhanced +by the fact, already mentioned, that the ground was perfectly flat, and +absolutely without vegetation, except for the long rows of newly planted +cranberry vines. As to what could have influenced the bird to treat me +thus strangely, I have no means of guessing. As we say of each other's +freaks and oddities, it was _his way_, I suppose. He might have behaved +otherwise, of course, had I been armed; but of that I felt by no means +certain at the time, and my doubts were strengthened by an occurrence +which happened a month or so afterward. + +I was crossing the beach at Nahant with a friend when we stole upon a +pair of golden plovers, birds that both of us were very happy to see. +The splendid old-gold spotting of their backs was plain enough; but +immature black-bellied plovers are adorned in a similar manner, and it +was necessary for us to see the rumps of our birds before we could be +sure of their identity. So, after we had scrutinized them as long as we +wished, I asked my companion to put them up while I should keep my glass +upon their backs and make certain of the color of their rumps as they +opened their wings. We were already within a very few paces of them, but +they ran before him as he advanced, and in the end he had almost to +tread on them. + +The golden plover is not so unapproachable as the great blue heron, I +suppose, but from what sportsmen tell me about him I am confident that +he cannot be in the habit of allowing men to chase him along the beach +at a distance of five or six yards. And it is to be added that, in the +present instance, my companion had a gun in his hand. + +Possibly all these birds would have behaved differently another day, +even in what to us might have seemed exactly the same circumstances. +Undoubtedly, too, it is easier, as an almost universal rule, to approach +one or two birds than a considerable flock. In the larger body there are +almost certain to be a few timorous souls,--a few wider-awake and better +instructed souls, let us rather say,--who by their outcries and hasty +flight will awaken all the others to a sense of possible danger. But it +is none the less true, as I said to begin with, that individual birds +have individual ways. And my great blue heron, I am persuaded, was a +"character." It would be worth something to know what was passing behind +those big yellow eyes as he twisted his neck to look once more at the +curious fellow--curious in two senses--who was keeping after him so +closely. Was the heron curious, as well as his pursuer? Or was he only a +little set in his own way; a little resentful of being imposed upon; a +little inclined to withstand the "tyrant of his fields," just for +principle's sake, as patriots ought to do? Or was he a young fellow, in +whom heredity had mysteriously omitted to load the bump of caution, and +upon whom experience had not yet enforced the lesson that if a creature +is taller and stronger than you are, it is prudent to assume that he +will most likely think it a pleasant bit of sport to kill you? It is +nothing to the credit of humankind that the sight of an unsuspicious +bird in a marsh or on the beach should have become a subject for +wonder. + + + + +FLOWERS AND FOLKS. + + "To know one element, explore another, + And in the second reappears the first." + EMERSON. + + +Every order of intelligent beings naturally separates the world into two +classes,--itself and the remainder. Birds, for instance, have no doubt a +feeling, more or less clearly defined, which, if it were translated into +human speech, might read, "Birds and nature." We, in our turn, say, "Man +and nature." But such distinctions, useful as they are, and therefore +admissible, are none the less arbitrary and liable to mislead. Birds and +men are alike parts of nature, having many things in common not only +with each other, but with every form of animate existence. The world is +not a patchwork, though never so cunningly put together, but a garment +woven throughout. + +The importance of this truth, its far-reaching and many-sided +significance, is even yet only beginning to be understood; but its +bearing upon the study of what we call natural history would seem to be +evident. My own experience as a dabbler in botany and ornithology has +convinced me that the pursuit of such researches is not at all out of +the spirit of the familiar line,-- + + "The proper study of mankind is man,"-- + +whatever the author of the line may have himself intended by his +apothegm. To become acquainted with the peculiarities of plants or birds +is to increase one's knowledge of beings of his own sort. + +There is room, I think, for a treatise on analogical botany,--a study of +the human nature of plants. Thoroughly and sympathetically done, the +work would be both surprising and edifying. It would give us a better +opinion of plants, and possibly a poorer opinion of ourselves. Some +wholesome first lessons of this kind we have all taken, as a matter of +course. "We all do fade as a leaf." "All flesh is grass, and all the +goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." There are no +household words more familiar than such texts. But the work of which I +am thinking will deal not so much with our likeness to tree and herb as +with the likeness of tree and herb to us; and furthermore, it will go +into the whole subject, systematically and at length. Meanwhile, it is +open even to an amateur to offer something, in a general and discursive +way, upon so inviting a theme, and especially to call attention to its +scope and variety. + +As I sit at my desk, the thistles are in their glory, and in a vase at +my elbow stands a single head of the tall swamp variety, along with a +handful of fringed gentians. Forgetting what it is, one cannot help +pronouncing the thistle beautiful,--a close bunch of minute rose-purple +flowers. But who could ever feel toward it as toward the gentian? Beauty +is a thing not merely of form and color, but of memory and association. +The thistle is an ugly customer. In a single respect it lays itself out +to be agreeable; but even its beauty is too much like that of some +venomous reptile. Yet it has its friends, or, at all events, its patrons +(if you wish to catch butterflies, go to the thistle pasture), and no +doubt could give forty eloquent and logical excuses for its offensive +traits. Probably it felicitates itself upon its shrewdness, and pities +the poor estate of its defenseless neighbors. How they must envy its +happier fortune! It sees them browsed upon by the cattle, and can hardly +be blamed if it chuckles a little to itself as the greedy creatures pass +it by untouched. School-girls and botanists break down the golden-rods +and asters, and pull up the gerardias and ladies'-tresses; but neither +school-girl nor collector often troubles the thistle. It opens its +gorgeous blossoms and ripens its feathery fruit unmolested. Truly it is +a great thing to wear an armor of prickles! + +"The human nature of plants,"--have I any reader so innocent as not to +feel at this moment the appropriateness of the phrase? Can there be one +so favored as not to have some unmistakable thistles among his Christian +townsmen and acquaintance? Nay, we all know them. They are the more +easily discovered for standing always a little by themselves. They +escape many slight inconveniences under which more amiable people +suffer. Whoever finds himself in a hard place goes not to them for +assistance. They are recognized afar as persons to be let alone. Yet +they, too, like their floral representatives, have a good side. If they +do not give help, they seldom ask it. Once a year they may actually "do +a handsome thing," as the common expression is; but they cannot put off +their own nature; their very generosity pricks the hand that receives +it, and when old Time cuts them down with his scythe (what should we do +without this famous husbandman, unkindly as we talk of him?) there will +be no great mourning. + +Is it then an unpardonable misdemeanor for a plant to defend itself +against attack and extermination? Has the duty of non-resistance no +exceptions nor abatements in the vegetable kingdom? That would be indeed +a hard saying; for what would become of our universal favorite, the +rose? On this point there may be room for a diversity of opinion; but +for one, I cannot wish the wild rose disarmed, lest, through the +recklessness of its admirers, what is now one of the commonest of our +wayside ornaments should grow to be a rarity. I esteem the rose a +patrician, and fairly entitled to patrician manners. As every one sees, +people in high station, especially if they chance to possess attractive +social qualities, are of necessity compelled to discountenance +everything like careless familiarity, even from those with whom they may +formerly have been most intimate. They must always stand more or less +upon ceremony, and never be handled without gloves. So it is with the +queen of flowers. Its thorns not only serve it as a protection, but are +for its admirers an excellent discipline in forbearance. They make it +easier for us, as Emerson says, to "love the wood rose and leave it on +the stalk." In addition to which I am moved to say that the rose, like +the holly, illustrates a truth too seldom insisted upon; namely, that +people are more justly condemned for the absence of all good qualities +than for the presence of one or two bad ones. + +Some such plea as this, though with a smaller measure of assurance, I +should make in behalf of plants like the barberry and the bramble. The +latter, in truth, sometimes acts as if it were not so much fighting us +off as drawing us on. Leaning far forward and stretching forth its arms, +it buttonholes the wayfarer, so to speak, and with generous country +insistence forces upon him the delicious clusters which he, in his +preoccupation, seemed in danger of passing untasted. I think I know the +human counterparts of both barberry and bramble,--excellent people in +their place, though not to be chosen for bosom friends without a careful +weighing of consequences. Judging them not by their manners, but by +their fruits, we must set them on the right hand. It would go hard with +some of the most pious of my neighbors, I imagine, if the presence of a +few thorns and prickles were reckoned inconsistent with a moderately +good character. + +As for reprobates like the so-called "poison ivy" and "poison dogwood," +they have perhaps borrowed a familiar human maxim,--"All is fair in +war." In any case, they are no worse than savage heathen, who kill their +enemies with poisoned arrows, or than civilized Christians, who stab the +reputation of their friends with poisoned words. Their marked comeliness +of habit may be taken as a point in their favor; or, on the contrary, it +may be held to make their case only so much the blacker, by laying them +liable to the additional charge of hypocrisy. The question is a nice +one, and I gladly leave it for subtler casuists than I to settle. + +How refreshing to turn from all these, from the thistle and the bramble, +yea, even from the rose itself, to gentle spirits like the violet and +anemone, the arbutus and hepatica! These wage no war. They are of the +original Society of Friends. Who will may spoil them without hurt. Their +defense is with their Maker. I wonder whether anybody ever thinks of +such flowers as representative of any order of grown people, or whether +to everybody else they are forever children, as I find, on thinking of +it, they have always been to me. Lowly and trustful, sweet and frail, +"of such is the kingdom of heaven." They pass away without losing their +innocence. Ere the first heats of summer they are gone. + +Yet the autumn, too, has its delicate blooms, though they are +overshadowed and, as it were, put out of countenance by the coarser +growths which must be said to characterize the harvest season. Nothing +that May puts into her lap is more exquisite than are the purple +gerardias with which August and September embroider the pasture and the +woodland road. They have not the sweet breath of the arbutus, nor even +the faint elusive odor of the violet, but for daintiness of form, +perfection of color, and gracefulness of habit it would be impossible to +praise them too highly. Of our three species, my own favorite is the one +of the narrow leaves (_Gerardia tenuifolia_), its longer and slighter +flower-stems giving it an airiness and grace peculiarly its own. A lady +to whom I had brought a handful the other day expressed it well when she +said, "They look like fairy flowers." They are of my mind in this: they +love a dry, sunny opening in the woods, or a grassy field on the edge of +woods, especially if there be a seldom-used path running through it. I +know not with what human beings to compare them. Perhaps their antitypes +of our own kind are yet to be evolved. But I have before now seen a +woman who might worthily be set in their company,--a person whose sweet +and wise actions were so gracefully carried and so easily let fall as to +suggest an order and quality of goodness quite out of relation to common +flesh and blood. + +What a contrast between such lowly-minded, unobtrusive beauties and +egotists like our multitudinous asters and golden-rods! These, between +them, almost take possession of the world for the two or three months of +their reign. They are handsome, and they know it. What is beauty for, if +not to be admired? They mass their tiny blossoms first into solid heads, +then into panicles and racemes, and have no idea of hiding their +constellated brightness under a bushel. "Let your light shine!" is the +word they go on. How eagerly they crowd along the roadside, till the +casual passer-by can see scarce anything else! If he does not see +_them_, it is not their fault. + +For myself, I am far from wishing them at all less numerous, or a jot +less forward in displaying their charms. Let there be variety, I say. +Because I speak well of the violet for its humility, I see no reason why +I should quarrel with the aster for loving to make a show. Herein, too, +plants are like men. An indisposition toward publicity is amiable in +those to whom it is natural; but I am not clear that bashfulness is the +only commendable quality. Let plants and men alike carry themselves +according to their birthright. Providence has not ordained a diversity +of gifts for nothing, and it is only a narrow philosophy that takes +offense at seeming contrarieties. The truer method, and the happier as +well, is to like each according to its kind: to love that which is +amiable, to admire that which is admirable, and to study that which is +curious. + +A few weeks ago, for example, I walked again up the mountain road that +climbs out of the Franconia Valley into the Franconia Notch. I had left +home twenty-four hours before, fresh from working upon the asters and +golden-rods (trying to straighten out my local catalogue in accordance +with Dr. Gray's more recent classification of these large and difficult +genera), and naturally enough had asters and golden-rods still in my +eye. The first mile or two afforded nothing of particular note, but by +and by I came to a cluster of the sturdy and peculiar _Solidago +squarrosa_, and was taking an admiring account of its appearance and +manner of growth, when I caught sight of some lower blue flower +underneath, which on a second glance proved to be the closed gentian. +This grew in hiding, as one might say, in the shadow of its taller and +showier neighbors. Not far off, but a little more within the wood, were +patches of the linnaea, which had been at its prettiest in June, but even +now, in late September, was still putting forth scattered blossoms. What +should a man do? Discard the golden-rod for the gentian, and in turn +forsake the gentian for the twin-flower? Nay, a child might do that, but +not a man; for the three were all beautiful and all interesting, and +each the more beautiful and interesting for its unlikeness to the +others. If one wishes a stiff lesson in classification, there are few +harder genera (among flowering plants) than _Solidago_; if he would +investigate the timely and taking question of the dependence of plants +upon insects, this humble "proterandrous" gentian (which to human vision +seems closed, but which the humble-bee knows well how to enter) offers +him a favorable subject; while if he has an eye for beauty, a nose for +delicate fragrance, and a soul for poetry, the linnaea will never cease +to be one of his prime favorites. So I say again, let us have variety. +It would be a stupid town all whose inhabitants should be of identical +tastes and habits, though these were of the very best; and it would be a +tiresome country that brought forth only a single kind of plants. + +The flower of Linnaeus is a flower by itself, as here and there appears a +man who seems, as we say, _sui generis_. This familiar phrase, by the +bye, is literally applicable to _Linnaea borealis_, a plant that spreads +over a large part of the northern hemisphere, but everywhere preserves +its own specific character; so that, whether it be found in Greenland or +in Maryland, on the Alaskan Islands or in Utah, in Siberia or on the +mountains of Scotland, it is always and everywhere the same,--a genus of +one species. Diversities of soil and climate make no impression upon its +originality. If it live at all, it must live according to its own plan. + +The aster, on the contrary, has a special talent for variation. Like +some individuals of another sort, it is born to adapt itself to +circumstances. Dr. Gray enumerates no less than one hundred and +ninety-six North American species and varieties, many of which shade +into each other with such endless and well-nigh insensible gradations +that even our great special student of the _Compositae_ pronounces the +accurate and final classification of this particular genus a labor +beyond his powers. What shall we say of this habit of variability? Is it +a mark of strength or of weakness? Which is nobler,--to be true to one's +ideal in spite of circumstances, or to conquer circumstances by suiting +one's self to them? Who shall decide? Enough that the twin-flower and +the star-flower each obeys its own law, and in so doing contributes each +its own part toward making this world the place of diversified beauty +which it was foreordained to be. + +I spoke of the linnaea's autumnal blossoms, though its normal flowering +time is in June. Even this steady-going, unimpressible citizen of the +world, it appears, has its one bit of freakishness. In these bright, +summery September days, when the trees put on their glory, this lowliest +member of the honeysuckle family feels a stirring within to make itself +beautiful; and being an evergreen (instead of a summer-green), and +therefore incapable of bedecking itself after the maple's manner, it +sends up a few flower-stems, each with its couple of swinging, fragrant +bells. So it bids the world good-by till the long winter once more comes +and goes. + +The same engaging habit is noticeable in the case of some of our very +commonest plants. After the golden-rods and asters have had their day, +late in October or well into November, when witch-hazel, yarrow, and +clover are almost the only blossoms left us, you will stumble here and +there upon a solitary dandelion reflecting the sun, or a violet giving +back the color of the sky. And even so, you may find, once in a while, +an old man in whom imaginative impulses have sprung up anew, now that +all the prosaic activities of middle life are over. It is almost as if +he were born again. The song of the April robin, the blossoming of the +apple-tree, the splendors of sunset and sunrise,--these and things like +them touch him to pleasure, as he now remembers they used to do years +and years ago. What means this strange revival of youth in age? Is it a +reminiscence merely, a final flickering of the candle, or is it rather a +prophecy of life yet to come? Well, with the dandelion and the violet we +know with reasonable certainty how the matter stands. The autumnal +blooms are not belated, but precocious; they belong not to the season +past, but to the season coming. Who shall forbid us to hope that what is +true of the violet will prove true also of the man? + +It speaks well for human nature that in the long run the lowliest +flowers are not only the best loved, but the oftenest spoken of. Men +play the cynic: modest merit goes to the wall, they say; whoever would +succeed, let him put on a brazen face and sharpen his elbows. But those +who talk in this strain deceive neither themselves nor those who listen +to them. They are commonly such as have themselves tried the trumpet and +elbow method, and have discovered that, whatever may be true of +transient notoriety, neither public fame nor private regard is to be won +by such means. We do not retract what we have said in praise of +diversity, and about the right of each to live according to its own +nature, but we gladly perceive that in the case of the flowers also it +is the meek that inherit the earth. + +Our appreciation of our fellow-men depends in part upon the amount, but +still more upon the quality, of the service they render us. We could +get along without poets more comfortably than without cobblers, for the +lower use is often first, in order both of time and of necessity; but we +are never in doubt as to their relative place in our esteem. One serves +the body, the other the soul; and we reward the one with money, the +other with affection and reverence. And our estimation of plants is +according to the same rule. Such of them as nourish the body are +good,--good even to the point of being indispensable; but as we make a +difference between the barnyard fowl and the nightingale, and between +the common run of humanity and a Beethoven or a Milton, so maize and +potatoes are never put into the same category with lilies and violets. +It must be so, because man is more than an animal, and "the life is more +than meat." + +Again we say, let each fulfill its own function. One is made for +utility, another for beauty. For plants, too, are specialists. They know +as well as men how to make the most of inherited capacities and +aptitudes, achieving distinction at last by the simple process of +sticking to one thing, whether that be the production of buds, +blossoms, berries, leaves, bark, timber, or what not; and our judgment +of them must be correspondingly varied. The vine bears blossoms, but is +to be rated not by them, but by the grapes that come after them; and the +rose-tree bears hips, but takes its rank not from them, but from the +flowers that went to the making of them. "Nothing but leaves" is a +verdict unfavorable or otherwise according to its application. The +tea-shrub would hold up its head to hear it. + +One of the most interesting and suggestive points of difference among +plants is that which relates to the matter of self-reliance. Some are +made to stand alone, others to twine, and others to creep. If it were +allowable to attribute human feelings to them, we should perhaps be safe +in assuming that the upright look down upon the climbers, and the +climbers in turn upon the creepers; for who of us does not felicitate +himself upon his independence, such as it is, or such as he imagines it +to be? But if independence is indeed a boon,--and I, for one, am too +thoroughbred a New Englander ever to doubt it,--it is not the only good, +nor even the highest. The nettle, standing straight and prim, asking no +favors of anybody, may rail at the grape-vine, which must lay hold of +something, small matter what, by which to steady itself; but the nettle +might well be willing to forego somewhat of its self-sufficiency, if by +so doing it could bring forth grapes. The smilax, also, with its thorns, +its pugnacious habit, and its stony, juiceless berries, a sort of +handsome vixen among vines,--the smilax, which can climb though it +cannot stand erect, has little occasion to lord it over the strawberry. +If one has done nothing, or worse than nothing, it is hardly worth while +to boast of the original fashion in which he has gone about it. +Moreover, the very plants of which we are speaking bear witness to the +fact that it is possible to accept help, and still retain to the full +one's own individuality. The strawberry is no more a plagiarist than the +smilax, nor the grape than the nettle. If the vine clings to the cedar, +the connection is but mechanical. Its spirit and life are as independent +of the savin as of the planet Jupiter. Even the dodder, which not only +twines about other weeds, but actually sucks its life from them, does +not thereby lose an iota of its native character. If a man is only +original to begin with,--so the parable seems to run,--he is under a +kind of necessity to remain so (as Shakespeare did), no matter how much +help he may draw from alien sources. + +This truth of the vegetable world is the more noteworthy, because, along +with it there goes a very strong and persistent habit of individual +variation. The plant is faithful to the spirit of its inherited law, but +is not in bondage to the letter. Our "high-bush blackberries," to take a +familiar illustration, are all of one species, but it does not follow +that they are all exactly alike. So far from it, I knew in my time--and +the school-boys of the present day are not less accurately informed, we +may presume--where to find berries of all shapes, sizes, and flavors. +Some were sour, and some were bitter, and some (I can taste them yet) +were finger-shaped and sweet. And what is true of _Rubus villosus_ is +probably true of all plants, though in varying degrees. I do not recall +a single article of our annual wild crop--blueberries, huckleberries, +blackberries, cherries, grapes, pig-nuts (a bad name for a good thing), +shagbarks, acorns, and so forth--in which there was not this constant +inequality among plants of the same species, perfectly well defined, and +never lost sight of by us juvenile connoisseurs. If we failed to find +the same true of other vines and bushes, which for our purposes bore +blossoms only, the explanation is not far to seek. Our perceptions, +aesthetic and gastronomic, were unequally developed. We were in the case +of the man to whom a poet is a poet, though he knows very well that +there are cooks and cooks. + +It is this slight but everywhere present admixture of the personal +quality--call it individuality, or what you will--that saves the world, +animal and vegetable alike, from stagnation. Every bush, every bird, +every man, together with its unmistakable and ineradicable likeness to +the parent stock, has received also a something, be it more or less, +that distinguishes it from all its fellows. Let our observation be +delicate enough, and we shall perceive that there are no duplicates of +any kind, the world over. It is part of the very unity of the world, +this universally diffused diversity. + +It does a sympathetic observer good to see how humanly plants differ in +their likes and dislikes. One is catholic: as common people say, it is +not particular; it can live and thrive almost anywhere. Another must +have precisely such and such conditions, and is to be found, therefore, +only in very restricted localities. The _Dionaea_, or Venus's fly-trap, +is a famous example of this fastidiousness, growing in a small district +of North Carolina, and, as far as appears, nowhere else,--a highly +specialized plant, with no generic relative. Another instance is +furnished by a water lily (_Nymphaea elegans_), the rediscovery of which +is chronicled in a late issue of one of our botanical journals.[17] +"This lily was originally found in 1849, and has never been seen since, +holding its place in botanical literature for these almost forty years +on the strength of a single collection at a single vaguely described +station on the broad prairies of southwestern Texas;" now, after all +this time, it turns up again in another quarter of the same State. And +every student could report cases of a similar character, though less +striking than these, of course, within the limits of his own local +researches. If you ask me where I find dandelions, I answer, anywhere; +but if you wish me to show you the sweet colt's-foot (_Nardosmia +palmata_), you must go with me to one particular spot. Any of my +neighbors will tell you where the pink moccasin flower grows; but if it +is the yellow one you are in search of, I shall swear you to secrecy +before conducting you to its swampy hiding-place. Some plants, like some +people (but the plants, be it noted, are mostly weeds), seem to flourish +best away from home; others die under the most careful transplanting. +Some are lovers of the open, and cannot be too much in the sun; others +lurk in deep woods, under the triple shadow of tree and bush and fern. +Some take to sandy hill-tops; others must stand knee-deep in water. One +insists upon the richest of meadow loam; another is content with the +face of a rock. We may say of them as truly as of ourselves, _De +gustibus non est disputandum_. Otherwise, how would the earth ever be +clothed with verdure? + +[17] The _Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club_ for January, 1888, page +13. + +But plants are subject to other whims not less pronounced than these +which have to do with the choice of a dwelling-place. We may call it the +general rule that leaves come before flowers; but how many of our trees +and shrubs reverse this order! The singular habit of the witch-hazel, +whose blossoms open as the leaves fall, may be presumed to be familiar +to all readers; and hardly less curious is the freak of the chestnut, +which, almost if not quite alone among our amentaceous trees, does not +put on its splendid coronation robes till late in June, and is +frequently at the height of its magnificence in mid-July. What a pretty +piece of variety have we, again, in the diurnal and the nocturnal +bloomers! For my own part, being a watcher of birds, and therefore +almost of necessity an early stirrer abroad, I profess a special regard +for such plants as save their beauty for night-time and cloudy weather. +The evening primrose is no favorite with most people, I take it, but I +seldom fail to pick a blossom or two with the dew on them. Those to whom +I carry them usually exclaim as over some wonderful exotic, though the +primrose is an inveterate haunter of the roadside. Yet its blossoms +have only to be looked at and smelled of to make their way, homely as is +the stalk that produces them. They love darkness rather than light, but +it certainly is not "because their deeds are evil." One might as well +cast the opprobrious text in the face of the moon and stars. Now and +then some enterprising journalist, for want of better employment, +investigates anew the habits of literary workers; and it invariably +transpires that some can do their best only by daylight, while the minds +of others seem to be good for nothing till the sun goes down; and the +wise reader, who reads not so much to gain information as to see whether +the writer tells the truth, shakes his head, and says, "Oh, it is all in +use." Of course it is all in use, just as it is with whippoorwills and +the morning-glory. + +The mention of the evening primrose calls for the further remark that +plants, not less than ourselves, have a trick of combining opposite +qualities,--a coarse-grained and scraggy habit, for instance, with +blossoms of exquisite fragrance and beauty. The most gorgeous flowers +sometimes exhale an abominable odor, and it is not unheard of that +inconspicuous or even downright homely sorts should be accounted +precious for their sweetness; while, as everybody knows, few members of +our native flora are more graceful in appearance than the very two whose +simple touch is poison. Could anything be more characteristic of human +nature than just such inconsistencies? Suavity and trickery, harshness +and integrity, a fiery temper and a gentle heart,--how often do we see +the good and the bad dwelling together! We would have ordered things +differently, I dare say, had they been left to us,--the good should have +been all good, and the bad all bad; and yet, if it be a grief to feel +that the holiest men have their failings, it ought perhaps to be a +consolation, rather than an additional sorrow, to perceive that the most +vicious are not without their virtues. Beyond which, shall we presume to +suggest that as poisons have their use, so moral evil, give it time +enough, may turn out to be not altogether a curse? + +I have treated my subject too fancifully, I fear. Indeed, there comes +over me at this moment a sudden suspicion that my subject itself is +nothing but a fancy, or, worse yet, a profanation. If the flowers could +talk, who knows how earnestly they might deprecate all such misguided +attempts at doing them honor,--as if it were anything but a slander, +this imputation to them of the foibles, or even the self-styled good +qualities, of our poor humanity! What an egoist is man! I seem to hear +them saying; look where he will, at the world or at its Creator, he sees +nothing but the reflection of his own image. + + + + +IN PRAISE OF THE WEYMOUTH PINE. + + "I seek in the motion of the forest, in the sound of the + pines, some accents of the eternal language." + SENANCOUR. + + +I could never think it surprising that the ancients worshiped trees; +that groves were believed to be the dwelling places of the gods; that +Xerxes delighted in the great plane-tree of Lydia; that he decked it +with golden ornaments and appointed for it a sentry, one of "the +immortal ten thousand." Feelings of this kind are natural; among natural +men they seem to have been well-nigh universal. The wonder is that any +should be without them. For myself, I cannot recollect the day when I +did not regard the Weymouth pine (the white pine I was taught to call +it, but now, for reasons of my own, I prefer the English name) with +something like reverence. Especially was this true of one,--a tree of +stupendous girth and height, under which I played, and up which I +climbed till my cap seemed almost to rub against the sky. That pine +ought to be standing yet; I would go far to lie in its shadow. But alas! +no village Xerxes concerned himself for its safety, and long, long ago +it was brought to earth, it and all its fair lesser companions. There is +no wisdom in the grave, and it is nothing to them now that I remember +them so kindly. Some of them went to the making of boxes, I suppose, +some to the kindling of kitchen fires. In like noble spirit did the +illustrious Bobo, for the love of roast pig, burn down his father's +house. + +No such pines are to be seen now. I have said it for these twenty years, +and mean no offense, surely, to the one under which, in thankful mood, I +happen at this moment to be reclining. Yet a murmur runs through its +branches as I pencil the words. Perhaps it is saying to itself that +giants are, and always have been, things of the past,--things gazed at +over the beholder's shoulder and through the mists of years; and that +this venerable monarch of my boyhood, this relic of times remote, has +probably grown faster since it was cut down than ever it did while +standing. I care not to argue the point. Rather, let me be glad that a +tree is a tree, whether large or small. What a wonder of wonders it +would seem to unaccustomed eyes! As some lover of imaginative delights +wished that he could forget Shakespeare and read him new, so I would +cheerfully lose all memory of my king of Weymouth pines, if by that +means I might for once look upon a tree as upon something I had never +seen or dreamed of. + +For that purpose, were it given me to choose, I would have one that had +grown by itself; full of branches on all sides, but with no suggestion +of primness; in short, a perfect tree, a miracle hardly to be found in +any forest, since the forest would be no better than a park if the +separate members of it were allowed room to develop each after its own +law. Nature is too cunning an artist to spoil the total effect of her +picture by too fond a regard for the beauty of particular details. + +I once passed a lazy, dreamy afternoon in a small clearing on a Canadian +mountain-side, where the lumbermen had left standing a few scattered +butternuts. I can see them now,--misshapen giants, patriarchal +monstrosities, their huge trunks leaning awkwardly this way and that, +and each bearing at the top a ludicrously small, one-sided bunch of +leafy boughs. All about me was the ancient wood. For a week I had been +wandering through it with delight. Such beeches and maples, birches and +butternuts! I had not thought of any imperfection. I had been in +sympathy with the artist, and had enjoyed his work in the same spirit in +which it had been wrought. Now, however, with these unhappy butternuts +in my eye, I began to look, not at the forest, but at the trees, and I +found that the spared butternuts were in no sense exceptional. _All_ the +trees were deformed. They had grown as they could, not as their innate +proclivities would have led them. A tree is no better than a man; it +cannot be itself if it stands too much in a crowd. + +I set it down, unwillingly, to the discredit of the Weymouth pine,--a +symptom of some ancestral taint, perhaps,--that it suffers less than +most trees from being thus encroached upon. Yet it does not entirely +escape. True, it leans neither to left nor right, its trunk is seldom +contorted; if it grow at all it must grow straight toward the zenith; +but it is sadly maimed, nevertheless,--hardly more than a tall stick +with a broom at the top. If you would see a typical white pine you must +go elsewhere to look for it. I remember one such, standing by itself in +a broad Concord River meadow; not remarkable for its size, but of a +symmetry and beauty that make the traveler turn again and again, till he +is a mile away, to gaze upon it. No pine-tree ever grew like that in a +wood. + +I go sometimes through a certain hamlet, which has sprung suddenly into +being on a hill-top where formerly stood a pine grove. The builders of +the houses have preserved (doubtless they use that word) a goodly number +of the trees. But though I have been wont to esteem the poorest tree as +better than none, I am almost ready to forswear my opinion at sight of +these slender trunks, so ungainly and unsupported. The first breeze, one +would say, must bring them down upon the roofs they were never meant to +shade. Poor naked things! I fancy they look abashed at being dragged +thus unexpectedly and inappropriately into broad daylight. If I were to +see the householder lifting his axe against one of them I think I should +not say, "Woodman, spare _that_ tree!" Let it go to the fire, the sooner +the better, and be out of its misery. + +Not that I blame the tree, or the power that made it what it is. The +forest, like every other community, prospers--we may rather say +exists--at the expense of individual perfection. But the expense is true +economy, for, however it may be in ethics, in aesthetics the end +justifies the means. The solitary pine, unhindered, symmetrical, green +to its lowermost twig, as it rises out of the meadow or stands a-tiptoe +on the rocky ledge, is a thing of beauty, a pleasure to every eye. A +pity and a shame that it should not be more common! But the pine +_forest_, dark, spacious, slumberous, musical! Here is something better +than beauty, dearer than pleasure. When we enter this cathedral, unless +we enter it unworthily, we speak not of such things. Every tree may be +imperfect, with half its branches dead for want of room or want of sun, +but until the devotee turns critic--an easy step, alas, for +half-hearted worshipers--we are conscious of no lack. Magnificence can +do without prettiness, and a touch of solemnity is better than any +amusement. + +Where shall we hear better preaching, more searching comment upon life +and death, than in this same cathedral? Verily, the pine is a priest of +the true religion. It speaks never of itself, never its own words. +Silent it stands till the Spirit breathes upon it. Then all its +innumerable leaves awake and speak as they are moved. Then "he that hath +ears to hear, let him hear." Wonderful is human speech,--the work of +generations upon generations, each striving to express itself, its +feelings, its thoughts, its needs, its sufferings, its joys, its +inexpressible desires. Wonderful is human speech, for its complexity, +its delicacy, its power. But the pine-tree, under the visitations of the +heavenly influence, utters things incommunicable; it whispers to us of +things we have never said and never can say,--things that lie deeper +than words, deeper than thought. Blessed are our ears if we hear, for +the message is not to be understood by every comer, nor, indeed, by +any, except at happy moments. In this temple all hearing is given by +inspiration, for which reason the pine-tree's language is inarticulate, +as Jesus spake in parables. + +The pine wood loves a clean floor, and is intolerant of undergrowth. +Grasses and sedges, with all bushes, it frowns upon, as a model +housekeeper frowns upon dirt. A plain brown carpet suits it best, with a +modest figure of green--preferably of evergreen--woven into it; a +tracery of partridge-berry vine, or, it may be, of club moss, with here +and there a tuft of pipsissewa and pyrola. Its mood is sombre, its taste +severe. Yet I please myself with noticing that the pine wood, like the +rest of us, is not without its freak, its amiable inconsistency, its one +"tender spot," as we say of each other. It makes a pet of one of our +oddest, brightest, and showiest flowers, the pink lady's-slipper, and by +some means or other has enticed it away from the peat bog, where it +surely should be growing, along with the calopogon, the pogonia, and the +arethusa, and here it is, like some rare exotic, thriving in a bed of +sand and on a mat of brown needles. Who will undertake to explain the +occult "elective affinity" by which this rosy orchid is made so much at +home under the heavy shadow of the Weymouth pine? + +According to the common saying, there is no accounting for tastes. If by +this is meant simply that _we_ cannot account for them, the statement is +true enough. But if we are to speak exactly, there are no likes nor +dislikes except for cause. Every freak of taste, like every vagary of +opinion, has its origin and history, and, with sufficient knowledge on +our part, could be explained and justified. The pine-tree and the orchid +are not friends by accident, however the case may look to us who cannot +see behind the present nor beneath the surface. There are no mysteries +_per se_, but only to the ignorant. Yet ignorance itself, disparagingly +as we talk of it, has its favorable side,--as it is pleasant sometimes +to withdraw from the sun and wander for a season in the half-light of +the forest. Perhaps we need be in no haste to reach a world where there +is never any darkness. In some moods, at least, I go with the +partridge-berry vine and the lady's-slipper. It is good, I think, to +live awhile longer in the shadow; to see as through a glass darkly; and +to hear overhead, not plain words, but inarticulate murmurs. + +I am not to be understood as praising the pine at the expense of other +trees. All things considered, no evergreen can be equal to a +summer-green, on which we see the leaves budding, unfolding, ripening, +and falling,--a "worlde whiche neweth everie daie." What would winter be +worth without the naked branches of maples and elms, beeches and oaks? +We speak of them sadly: + + "Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang." + +But the sadness is of a pleasing sort, that could ill be spared by any +who know the pleasures of sentiment and sober reflection. But though one +tree differeth from another tree in glory, we may surely rejoice in them +all. One ministers to our mood to-day, another to-morrow. + + "I hate those trees that never lose their foliage; + They seem to have no sympathy with Nature; + Winter and summer are alike to them." + +So says Ternissa, in Landor's dialogue. I know what she means. But I do +not "hate" an impassive, unchangeable temper, whether in a tree or in a +man. I have so little of such a spirit myself that I am glad to see +some tokens of it--not too frequent, indeed, nor too self-assertive--in +the world about me. And so I say, let me never be, for any long time +together, where there are no Weymouth pines at which I may gaze from +afar, or under which I may lie and listen. They boast not (rare +stoics!), but they set us a brave example. No "blasts that blow the +poplar white" can cause the pine-tree to blanch. No frost has power to +strip it of a single leaf. Its wood is soft, but how dauntless its +spirit!--a truly encouraging paradox, lending itself, at our private +need, to endless consolatory moralizings. The great majority of my +brothers must be comforted, I think, by any fresh reminder that the +battle is not to the strong. + +For myself, then, like the lowly partridge-berry vine, I would be always +the pine-tree's neighbor. Who knows but by lifelong fellowship with it I +may absorb something of its virtue? Summer and winter, its fragrant +breath rises to heaven; and of it we may say, with more truth than +Landor said of the over-sweet fragrance of the linden, "Happy the man +whose aspirations are pure enough to mingle with it!" + + + + + INDEX. + + + Asters, 62, 214, 217. + + Autumnal flowers, 212. + + Autumnal ornithology, 191. + + + Bearberry, 72, 78. + + Bittern, 71. + + Blackberry, 63, 210, 224. + + Bluebird, 179, 184, 185. + + Butterflies:-- + in November, 36. + on Mt. Mansfield, 104. + + + Catbird, 176. + + Cedar-bird, 33. + + Chestnut-tree, 228. + + Chewink, 191. + + Chickadee, 49, 55. + + Cowbird, 83. + + Creeper:-- + black-and-white, 85. + brown, 49. + + Crossbill, white-winged, 27. + + Cuckoo, 192. + + + Dandelion, 219. + + December birds, 54. + + December flowers, 60. + + Diapensia, 23, 25, 30. + + Dodder, 223. + + + Evening primrose, 228. + + + Flicker, 53, 69. + + Flowers:-- + in November, 36. + in December, 60. + on Cape Cod, 80. + on Mt. Lafayette, 22, 25. + on Mt. Mansfield, 103. + + Flycatcher:-- + great-crested, 9. + least, 9. + olive-sided, 9, 10. + phoebe, 9, 10, 179. + Traill's, 9. + yellow-bellied, 9. + + Golden Aster, 80. + + Golden-rods, 81, 214, 215. + + Goldfinch, 177. + + Grass Finch (Vesper Sparrow), 5, 110. + + Greenland Sandwort, 23, 25, 31, 103. + + Groundsel, 61. + + + Habenaria dilatata, 103. + + Heron, great blue, 197. + + Holy-Grass, 25. + + Humming-bird:-- + Rivoli, 139. + ruby-throated, 111, 135. + + Hyla Pickeringii, 36, 38. + + + Jay:-- + Canada, 100. + blue, 100. + + + Kingbird, 9, 148, 179. + + + Lady's-slipper, 79, 227, 239. + + Lapland Azalea, 31. + + Lark:-- + meadow, 53, 176. + shore (or horned), 53. + + Linnaea, 216-218. + + + Maryland Yellow-throat, 149, 192. + + Mount Cannon, 33. + + Mount Lafayette, 15, 24. + + Mount Mansfield, 90. + + + November in Eastern Massachusetts, 36. + + Nuthatch, Red-bellied, 49, 55, 190. + + + Oriole, Baltimore, 123, 176, 179. + + + Peck's Geum, 23, 25, 31. + + Phoebe, 9, 10, 179. + + Pine Grosbeak, 26. + + Pine, white, 232. + + Plover:-- + golden, 202. + killdeer, 39, 41. + + Poverty-Grass, 72, 81. + + Purple Gerardia, 81, 213. + + + Redstart, 16, 190, 191. + + Robin, 55, 153, 184. + + Roses, 32, 81, 209. + + + Scarlet Tanager, 176, 191. + + Screech Owl, 177. + + Smilax:-- + glauca, 80. + rotundifolia, 80, 223. + + Snow Bunting, 53. + + Sparrow:-- + chipping, 179. + field, 176. + Ipswich, 53, 54. + song, 53, 85, 176. + vesper, 5, 110. + white-throated, 16, 52, 91, 92, 102, 110, 190. + + Strawberry, 32, 223. + + Swallow, white-breasted, (Tree Swallow), 180, 183. + + Swift, Chimney, 110, 182. + + + Thistles, 207. + + Thrush:-- + gray-cheeked, 16, 19, 94, 95, 97, 191. + hermit, 19, 97. + olive-backed, (or Swainson's), 19, 51, 97, 99, 191. + water, 84. + Wilson's (or veery), 17, 19, 98. + wood, 98. + + Turnstone, 86. + + + Veery (Wilson's Thrush), 17, 19, 98. + + Violets, 212, 219, 221. + + Vireo:-- + Philadelphia, 11. + red-eyed, 11, 83, 153, 191. + solitary (or blue-headed), 11, 13, 191. + warbling, 14. + + + Warbler:-- + bay-breasted, 6, 190. + Blackburnian, 6, 16, 190, 191. + black-and-yellow, (magnolia), 190. + black-poll, 6, 16, 96, 99, 102, 190. + black-throated blue, 16, 191. + black-throated green, 16, 85, 190. + blue golden-winged, 178. + blue yellow-backed, 83, 190. + Canadian flycatcher, 16, 190. + Connecticut, 190. + golden (summer yellow-bird), 192. + Nashville, 8, 16. + pine, 191. + prairie, 84, 178. + Tennessee, 5, 6. + Wilson's black-cap, 186. + yellow-rumped (myrtle), 95. + + White-winged Crossbill, 27. + + Winter Wren, 102. + + Witch-Hazel, 61, 228. + + Woodpecker:-- + downy, 50. + golden-winged (flicker), 53, 69. + yellow-bellied, 190. + + Wood Pewee, 9, 176. + + + + +OUT-DOOR BOOKS + + Selected from the Publications of + Houghton, Mifflin and Company, + _4 Park St., Boston; 11 East 17th St., New York._ + +Adirondack Stories. 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