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diff --git a/42170-0.txt b/42170-0.txt index 6a25c9d..9640899 100644 --- a/42170-0.txt +++ b/42170-0.txt @@ -1,36 +1,4 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Summer, by Dallas Lore Sharp - -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: Summer - -Author: Dallas Lore Sharp - -Release Date: February 23, 2013 [EBook #42170] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUMMER *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42170 *** [Illustration: A SUMMER EVENING--NIGHT HERONS (page 54)] @@ -3354,361 +3322,4 @@ PAGE 121 End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Summer, by Dallas Lore Sharp -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUMMER *** - -***** This file should be named 42170-0.txt or 42170-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/1/7/42170/ - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: Summer - -Author: Dallas Lore Sharp - -Release Date: February 23, 2013 [EBook #42170] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUMMER *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - [Illustration: A SUMMER EVENING--NIGHT HERONS (page 54)] - - - The Dallas Lore Sharp Nature Series - - - - - SUMMER - - by - - DALLAS LORE SHARP - - - AUTHOR OF "THE LAY OF THE LAND," "THE FACE OF THE FIELDS," - "WHERE ROLLS THE OREGON," "THE FALL OF THE YEAR," - "WINTER," "THE SPRING OF THE YEAR," ETC. - - - ILLUSTRATED BY - ROBERT BRUCE HORSFALL - - - BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO - HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY - The Riverside Press Cambridge - - - COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY PERRY MASON COMPANY - COPYRIGHT, 1913 AND 1914, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY - COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY THE CENTURY COMPANY - COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO. - COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY DALLAS LORE SHARP - - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - - - The Riverside Press - CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS - U . S . A - - - TO - - ROBERT BRUCE HORSFALL - THE FRIEND AND ARTIST - OF THESE FOUR BOOKS - - - - - CONTENTS - - - INTRODUCTION ix - I. THE SUMMER AFIELD 1 - II. THE WILD ANIMALS AT PLAY 9 - III. A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO SEE THIS SUMMER 18 - IV. THE COYOTE OF PELICAN POINT 27 - V. FROM T WHARF TO FRANKLIN FIELD 39 - VI. A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO HEAR THIS SUMMER 46 - VII. THE SEA-BIRDS' HOME 57 - VIII. THE MOTHER MURRE 65 - IX. MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS 79 - X. RIDING THE RIM ROCK 88 - XI. A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO DO THIS SUMMER 100 - XII. THE "CONY" 112 - NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 123 - - - - ILLUSTRATIONS - - - A SUMMER EVENING--BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERONS _Frontispiece_ - RED CLOVER AND BUMBLEBEE 4 - RED SALAMANDER, OLD AND YOUNG 7 - NEWTS 7 - HIPPOPOTAMUS--"IT WAS HIS GAME OF SOLITAIRE" 9 - THE OTTER AND HIS SLIDE 12 - "FOLLOW MY LEADER" 14 - BUTTERFLIES AT PLAY--"WHIRLING OVER MT. HOOD'S POINTED PEAK" 16 - RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD AND NEST 20 - ORCHIDS 22 - YOUNG COWBIRD IN VIREO'S NEST 25 - COYOTE--"WHAT A SHOT!" 28 - ARGIOPE, THE MEADOW SPIDER 44 - CICADA--"DOG-DAYS-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z" 48 - "THE BATS FLITTING AND WAVERING ABOUT" 49 - RED-EYED VIREO--"DO YOU BELIEVE IT?" 52 - TUFTED PUFFINS 59 - BRANDT'S CORMORANT 63 - A MOTHER SPIDER WITH HER SACK OF EGGS 67 - THE FATHER STICKLEBACK ON GUARD 68 - CALIFORNIA MURRE--"WITH THREATENING BEAK WATCHED THE TWO MEN - COME ON" 75 - PETRELS--"SKIMMING THE HEAVING SEA LIKE SWALLOWS" 80 - RIDING THE RIM ROCK--"NECK AND NECK WITH A BIG WHITE STEER" 97 - SASSAFRAS 105 - DEADLY NIGHTSHADE 106 - POISON SUMACH 107 - POISON IVY 108 - VIRGINIA CREEPER 109 - THE DEADLY MUSHROOMS 110 - POKE BERRIES 111 - THE CONY, OR PIKA 116 - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -In this fourth and last volume of these outdoor books I have taken you -into the summer fields and, shall I hope? left you there. After all, -what better thing could I do? And as I leave you there, let me say one -last serious word concerning the purpose of such books as these and -the large subject of nature-study in general. - -I believe that a child's interest in outdoor life is a kind of hunger, -as natural as his interest in bread and butter. He cannot live on -bread and butter alone, but he ought not to try to live without them. -He cannot be educated on nature-study alone, but he ought not to be -educated without it. To learn to obey and reason and feel--these are -the triple ends of education, and the greatest of these is to learn to -feel. The teacher's word for obedience; the arithmetic for reasoning; -and for feeling, for the cultivation of the imagination, for the power -to respond quickly and deeply, give the child the out-of-doors. - -"If I could teach my Rugby boys but one thing," said Dr. Arnold, "that -one thing should be poetry." Why? Because poetry draws out the -imagination, quickens and refines and deepens the emotions. The first -great source of poetry is Nature. Give the child poetry; and give him -the inspiration of the poem, the teacher of the poet--give him -Nature. Make a poet of the child, who is already a poet born. - -How can so essential, so fundamental a need become a mere fad of -education? A child wants first to eat, then to play, then he wants to -know--particularly he wants to know the animals. And he does know an -elephant from a kangaroo long before he knows a Lincoln from a -Napoleon; just so he wants to go to the woods long before he asks to -visit a library. - -The study of the ant in the school-yard walk, the leaves on the -school-yard trees, the clouds over the school-house roof, the sights, -sounds, odors coming in at the school-room windows, these are -essential studies for art and letters, to say nothing of life. - -And this is the way serious men and women think about it. Captain -Scott, dying in the Antarctic snows, wrote in his last letter to his -wife: "Make our boy interested in natural history if you can. It is -better than games. Keep him in the open air." - -I hope that these four volumes may help to interest you in natural -history, that they may be the means of taking you into the open air of -the fields many times the seasons through. - - DALLAS LORE SHARP. - MULLEIN HILL, February, 1914. - - - - -SUMMER - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE SUMMER AFIELD - - -The word summer, being interpreted, means vacation; and vacation, -being interpreted, means--so many things that I have not space in this -book to name them. Yet how can there be a vacation without mountains, -or seashore, or the fields, or the forests--days out of doors? My -ideal vacation would have to be spent in the open; and this book, the -larger part of it, is the record of one of my summer vacations--the -vacation of the summer of 1912. That was an ideal vacation, and along -with my account of it I wish to give you some hints on how to make the -most of your summer chance to tramp the fields and woods. - -For the real lover of nature is a tramp; not the kind of tramp that -walks the railroad-ties and carries his possessions in a tomato-can, -but one who follows the cow-paths to the fields, who treads the -rabbit-roads in the woods, watching the ways of the wild things that -dwell in the tree-tops, and in the deepest burrows under ground. - -Do not tell anybody, least of all yourself, that you love the -out-of-doors, unless you have your own path to the woods, your own -cross-cut to the pond, your own particular huckleberry-patch and -fishing-holes and friendships in the fields. The winds, the rain, the -stars, the green grass, even the birds and a multitude of other wild -folk try to meet you more than halfway, try to seek you out even in -the heart of the great city; but the great out-of-doors you must seek, -for it is not in books, nor in houses, nor in cities. It is out at the -end of the car-line or just beyond the back-yard fence, maybe--far -enough away, anyhow, to make it necessary for you to put on your -tramping shoes and with your good stout stick go forth. - -You must learn to be a good tramper. You thought you learned how to -walk soon after you got out of the cradle, and perhaps you did, but -most persons only know how to hobble when they get into the unpaved -paths of the woods. - -With stout, well-fitting shoes, broad in the toe and heel; light, -stout clothes that will not catch the briers, good bird-glasses, and a -bite of lunch against the noon, swing out on your _legs_; breathe to -the bottom of your lungs; balance your body on your hips, not on your -collar-bones, and, going leisurely, but not slowly (for crawling is -deadly dull), do ten miles up a mountain-side or through the brush; -and if at the end you feel like _eating up_ ten miles more, then you -may know that you can walk, can _tramp_, and are in good shape for the -summer. - -In your tramping-kit you need: a pocket-knife; some string; a pair of -field-glasses; a botany-can or fish-basket on your back; and perhaps a -notebook. This is all and more than you need for every tramp. To these -things might be added a light camera. It depends upon what you go for. -I have been afield all my life and have never owned or used a camera. -But there are a good many things that I have never done. A camera may -add a world of interest to your summer, so if you find use for a -camera, don't fail to make one a part of your tramping outfit. - -After all, what you carry on your back or on your feet or in your -hands does not matter half so much as what you carry in your head and -heart--your eye, and spirit, and purpose. For instance, when you go -into the fields have some purpose in your going besides the indefinite -desire to get out of doors. - -If you long for the wide sky and the wide winds and the wide slopes of -green, then that is a real and a definite desire. You want to get out, -OUT, OUT, because you have been shut _in_. Very good; for you will get -what you wish, what you go out to get. The point is this: always go -out for something. Never yawn and slouch out to the woods as you might -to the corner grocery store, because you don't know how else to kill -time. - -Go with some purpose; because you wish to visit some particular spot, -see some bird, find some flower, catch some--fish! Anything that takes -you into the open is good--ploughing, hoeing, chopping, fishing, -berrying, botanizing, tramping. The aimless person anywhere is a -failure, and he is sure to get lost in the woods! - -It is a good plan to go frequently over the same fields, taking the -beaten path, watching for the familiar things, until you come to know -your haunt as thoroughly as the fox or the rabbit knows his. Don't be -afraid of using up a particular spot. The more often you visit a place -the richer you will find it to be in interest for you. - -Now, do not limit your interest and curiosity to any one kind of life -or to any set of things out of doors. Do not let your likes or your -prejudices interfere with your seeing the whole out-of-doors with all -its manifold life, for it is all interrelated, all related to you, all -of interest and meaning. The clover blossom and the bumblebee that -carries the fertilizing pollen are related; the bumblebee and the -mouse that eats up its grubs are related; and every one knows that -mice and cats are related; thus the clover, the bumblebee, the mouse, -the cat, and, finally, the farmer, are all so interrelated that if the -farmer keeps a cat, the cat will catch the mice, the mice cannot eat -the young bumblebees, the bumblebees can fertilize the clover, and the -clover can make seed. So if the farmer wants clover seed to sow down a -new field with, he must keep a cat. - -I think it is well for you to have some one thing in which you are -particularly interested. It may be flowers or birds or shells or -minerals. But as the whole is greater than any of its parts, so a love -and knowledge of nature, of the earth and the sky over your head and -under your feet, with all that lives with you there, is more than a -knowledge of its birds or trees or reptiles. - -But be on your guard against the purpose to spread yourselves over too -much. Don't be thin and superficial. Don't be satisfied with learning -the long Latin names of things while never watching the ways of the -things that have the names. As they sat on the porch, so the story -goes, the school trustee called attention to a familiar little -orange-colored bug, with black spots on his back, that was crawling on -the floor. - -"I s'pose you know what that is?" he said. - -"Yes," replied the applicant, with conviction; "that is a _Coccinella -septempunctata_." - -"Young man," was the rejoinder, "a feller as don't know a ladybug when -he sees it can't get my vote for teacher in this deestrict." - -The "trustee" was right; for what is the use of knowing that the -little ladybug is _Coc-ci-nel'-la sep-tem-punc-ta'-ta_ when you do not -know that she is a ladybug, and that you ought to say to her:-- - - "Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home; - Your house is on fire, your children alone"? - -Let us say, now, that you are spending your vacation in the edge of -the country within twenty miles of a great city such as Boston. That -might bring you out at Hingham, where I am spending mine. In such an -ordinary place (if any place _is_ ordinary,) what might you expect to -see and watch during the summer? - -Sixty species of birds, to begin with! They will keep you busy all -summer. The wild animals, beasts, that you will find depend so very -much upon your locality--woods, waters, rocks, etc.--that it is hard -to say how many they will be. Here in my woods you might come upon -three or four species of mice, three species of squirrels, the mink, -the muskrat, the weasel, the mole, the shrew, the fox, the skunk, the -rabbit, and even a wild deer. Of reptiles and amphibians you would see -several more species than of fur-bearing animals,--six snakes, four -common turtles, two salamanders, frogs, toads, newts,--a wonderfully -interesting group, with a real live rattler among them if you should -go over to the Blue Hills, fifteen miles away. - -[Illustration: RED SALAMANDERS, OLD AND YOUNG] - -You will go many times into the fields before you can make of the -reptiles your friends and neighbors. But by and by you will watch them -and note their ways with as much interest as you watch the other wild -folk about you. It is a pretty shallow lover of nature who jumps upon -a little snake with both feet, or who shivers when a little salamander -drops out of the leaf-mould at his feet. - -[Illustration: NEWTS] - -And what shall I say of the fishes? There are a dozen of them in the -stream and ponds within the compass of my haunt. They are a -fascinating family, and one very little watched by the ordinary -tramper. But _you_ are not ordinary. Quiet and patience and much -putting together of scraps of observations will be necessary if you -are to get at the whole story of any fish's life. The story will be -worth it, however. - -No, I shall not even try to _number_ the insects--the butterflies, -beetles, moths, wasps, bees, bugs, ticks, mites, and such small "deer" -as you will find in the round of your summer's tramp. Nor shall I try -to name the flowers and trees, the ferns and mosses. It is with the -common things that you ought now to become familiar, and one summer is -all too short for the things you ought to see and hear and do in your -vacation out of doors. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE WILD ANIMALS AT PLAY - - -The watcher of wild animals never gets used to the sight of their -mirthless sport. In all other respects animal play is entirely human. - -A great deal of human play is serious--desperately serious on the -football-field, and at the card-table, as when a lonely player is -trying to kill time with solitaire. - -I have watched a great ungainly hippopotamus for hours trying to do -the same solemn thing by cuffing a croquet-ball back and forth from -one end of his cage to the other. His keepers told me that without the -plaything the poor caged giant would fret and worry himself to death. -It was his game of solitaire. - -In all their games of rivalry the animals are serious as humans, and, -forgetting the fun, often fall to fighting--a sad case, indeed. But -brutes are brutes. We cannot expect anything better of the animals. -Only this morning the whole flock of chickens in the hen-yard started -suddenly on the wild flap to see which would beat to the back fence -and wound up on the "line" in a free fight, two of the cockerels -tearing the feathers from each other in a desperate set-to. - -You have seen puppies fall out in the same human fashion, and kittens -also, and older folk as well. I have seen a game of wood-tag among -friendly gray squirrels come to a finish in a fight. As the crows pass -over during the winter afternoon, you will notice their play--racing -each other through the air, diving, swooping, cawing in their fun, -when suddenly some one's temper snaps, and there is a mix-up in the -air. - -They can get angry, but they cannot laugh. I once saw what I thought -was a twinkle of merriment, however, in an elephant's eye. It was at -the circus several years ago. The keeper had just set down for one of -the elephants a bucket of water which a perspiring youth had brought -in. The big beast sucked it quietly up,--the whole of it,--swung -gently around as if to thank the perspiring boy, then soused him, the -whole bucketful! Everybody roared, and one of the other elephants -joined in with trumpetings, so huge and jolly was the joke. - -The elephant who played the trick looked solemn enough, except for a -twitch at the lips and a glint in the eye. There is something of a -smile about every elephant's lips, to be sure, and fun is so -contagious that one should hesitate to say that he saw an elephant -laugh. But if that elephant didn't laugh, it was not his fault. - -From the elephant to the infusorian, the microscopic animal of a -single cell known as the paramoecium, is a far cry--to the extreme -opposite end of the animal kingdom, worlds apart. Yet I have seen -_Paramoecium caudatum_ at play in a drop of water under a compound -microscope, as I have seen elephants at play in their big bath-tub at -the zoölogical gardens. - -Place a drop of stagnant water under your microscope and watch these -atoms of life for yourself. Invisible to the naked eye, they are -easily followed on the slide as they skate and whirl and chase one -another to the boundaries of their playground and back again, first -one of them "it," then another. They stop to eat, they slow up to -divide their single-celled bodies into two cells, the two cells now -two living creatures where a moment before they were but one, both of -them swimming off immediately to feed and multiply and play. - -Play seems to be as natural and as necessary to the wild animals as it -is to human beings. Like us the animals play hardest while young, but -as some human children never outgrow their youth and love of play, so -there are old animals that never grow too fat nor too stiff nor too -stupid to play. - -The condition of the body has a great deal to do with the state of the -spirit. The sleek, lithe otter could not possibly grow fat. He keeps -in trim because he cannot help it, perhaps, but however that may be, -he is a very boy for play, and even goes so far as to build himself a -slide or chute for the fun of diving down it into the water. A writer -in one of the magazines tells of an otter in the New York Zoölogical -Park that swam and dived with a round stone balanced on his head. - -Building a slide is more than we children used to do, for we had -ready-made for us grandfather's two big slanting cellar-doors, down -which we slid and slid and slid till the wood was scoured white and -slippery with the sliding. The otter loves to slide. Up he climbs on -the bank, then down he goes--splash--into the stream. Up he climbs -and down he goes--time after time, day after day. There is nothing -like a slide, unless it is a cellar-door. - -How much of a necessity to the otter is his play, one would like to -know--what he would give up for it, and how he would do deprived of -it. In the case of Pups, my neighbor's beautiful young collie, play -seems more needful than food. There are no children, no one, to play -with him there, so that the sight of my small boys sets him almost -frantic. - -His efforts to induce a hen or a rooster to play with him are -pathetic. The hen cannot understand. She hasn't a particle of play in -her anyhow, but Pups cannot get that through his head. He runs rapidly -around her, drops on all fours flat, swings his tail, cocks his ears, -looks appealingly and barks a few little cackle-barks, as nearly -hen-like as he can bark them, then dashes off and whirls back--while -the hen picks up another bug. She never sees Pups. The old white coon -cat is better; but she is usually up the miff-tree. Pups steps on her, -knocks her over, or otherwise offends, especially when he tags her out -into the fields and spoils her hunting. The Society for the Prevention -of Cruelty to Animals ought to send some child or puppy out to play -with Pups of a Saturday. - -I doubt if among the lower forms of animals play holds any such -prominent place as with the dog and the keen-witted, intelligent -otter. To catch these lower animals at play is a rare experience. One -of our naturalists describes the game of "follow my leader," as he -watched it played by a school of minnows--a most unusual record, but -not at all hard to believe, for I saw recently, from the bridge in the -Boston Public Garden, a school of goldfish playing at something very -much like it. - -This naturalist was lying stretched out upon an old bridge, watching -the minnows through a large crack between the planks, when he saw one -leap out of the water over a small twig floating at the surface. -Instantly another minnow broke the water and flipped over the twig, -followed by another and another, the whole school, as so many sheep, -or so many children, following the leader over the twig. - -The love of play seems to be one of the elemental needs of all life -above the plants, and the games of us human children seem to have -been played before the dry land was, when there were only water babies -in the world, for certainly the fish never learned "follow my leader" -from us. Nor did my young bees learn from us their game of "prisoners' -base" which they play almost every summer noontime in front of the -hives. And what is the game the flies play about the cord of the -drop-light in the centre of the kitchen ceiling? - -One of the most interesting animal games that I ever saw was played by -a flock of butterflies on the very top of Mount Hood, whose pointed -snow-piled peak looks down from the clouds over the whole vast State -of Oregon. - -Mount Hood is an ancient volcano, eleven thousand two hundred -twenty-five feet high. Some seven thousand feet or more up, we came to -"Tie-up Rock"--the place on the climb where the glacier snows lay -before us and we were tied up to one another and all of us fastened by -rope to the guide. - -From this point to the peak, it was sheer deep snow. For the last -eighteen hundred feet we clung to a rope that was anchored on the edge -of the crater at the summit, and cut our steps as we climbed. - -Once we had gained the peak, we lay down behind a pile of sulphurous -rock, out of the way of the cutting wind, and watched the steam float -up from the crater, with the widest world in view that I ever turned -my eyes upon. - -The draft pulled hard about the openings among the rock-piles, but -hardest up a flue, or chimney, that was left in the edge of the -crater-rim where parts of the rock had fallen away. - -As we lay at the side of this flue, we soon discovered that -butterflies were hovering about us; no, not hovering, but flying -swiftly up between the rocks from somewhere down the flue. I could -scarcely believe my eyes. What could any living thing be doing -here?--and of all things, butterflies? This was three or four thousand -feet above the last vestige of vegetation, a mere point of volcanic -rock (the jagged edge-piece of an old crater) wrapped in eternal ice -and snow, with sulphurous gases pouring over it, and across it -blowing a wind that would freeze as soon as the sun was out of the -sky. - -But here were real butterflies. I caught two or three of them and -found them to be vanessas (_Vanessa californica_), a close relative of -our mourning-cloak butterfly. They were all of one species, -apparently, but what were they doing here? - -Scrambling to the top of the piece of rock behind which I had been -resting, I saw that the peak was alive with butterflies, and that they -were flying--over my head, out down over the crater, and out of sight -behind the peak, whence they reappeared, whirling up the flue past me -on the wings of the draft that pulled hard through it, to sail down -over the crater again, and again to be caught by the draft and pulled -up the flue, to their evident delight, up and out over the peak, where -they could again take wings, as boys take their sleds, and so down -again for the fierce upward draft that bore them whirling over Mount -Hood's pointed peak. - -Here they were, thousands of feet above the snow-line, where there was -no sign of vegetation, where the heavy vapors made the air to smell, -where the very next day a wild snowstorm wrapped its frozen folds -about the peak--here they were, butterflies, playing, a host of them, -like so many schoolboys on the first coasting snow! - - - - -CHAPTER III - -A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO SEE THIS SUMMER - - -I - -The dawn, the breaking dawn! I know nothing lovelier, nothing fresher, -nothing newer, purer, sweeter than a summer dawn. I am just back from -one--from the woods and cornfields wet with dew, the meadows and -streams white with mist, and all the world of paths and fences running -off into luring spaces of wavering, lifting, beckoning horizons where -shrouded forms were moving and hidden voices calling. By noontime the -buzz-saw of the cicada will be ripping the dried old stick of this -August day into splinters and sawdust. No one could imagine that this -midsummer noon at 90° in the shade could have had so Maylike a -beginning. - - -II - -I said in "The Spring of the Year" that you should see a farmer -ploughing, then a few weeks later the field of sprouting corn. Now in -July or August you must see that field in silk and tassel, blade and -stalk standing high over your head. - -You might catch the same sight of wealth in a cotton-field, if cotton -is "king" in your section; or in a vast wheat-field, if wheat is your -king; or in a potato-field if you live in Maine--but no, not in a -potato-field. It is all underground in a potato-field. Nor can cotton -in the South, or wheat in the Northwest, give you quite the _depth_ -and the ranked and ordered wealth of long, straight lines of tall -corn. - -Then to hear a summer rain sweep down upon it and the summer wind run -swiftly through it! You must see a great field of standing corn. - - -III - -Keep out from under all trees, stand away from all tall poles, but get -somewhere in the open and watch a blue-black thunderstorm come up. It -is one of the wonders of summer, one of the shows of the sky, a thing -of terrible beauty that I must confess I cannot look at without dread -and a feeling of awe that rests like a load upon me. - - "All heaven and earth are still--though not in sleep, - But breathless, as we grow when feeling most; - And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:-- - * * * * * - The sky is changed!--and such a change! Oh night, - And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, - Yet lovely in your strength. .. .. .. - .. .. .. .. . Far along, - From peak to peak the rattling crags among, - Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, - But every mountain now hath found a tongue, - And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, - Back to the joyous Alps who call to her aloud." - - -IV - -But there are many smaller, individual things to be seen this summer, -and among them, notable for many reasons, is a hummingbird's nest. -"When completed it is scarcely larger than an English walnut and is -usually saddled on a small horizontal limb of a tree or shrub -frequently many feet from the ground. It is composed almost entirely -of soft plant fibers, fragments of spiders' webs sometimes being used -to hold them in shape. The sides are thickly studded with bits of -lichen, and practiced, indeed, is the eye of the man who can -distinguish it from a knot on the limb." - -This is the smallest of birds' nests and quite as rare and difficult -to find as any single thing that you can go out to look for. You will -stumble upon one now and then; but not many in a whole lifetime. Let -it be a test of your keen eye--this finding of a little hummer's nest -with its two white eggs the size of small pea-beans or its two tiny -young that are up and off on their marvelous wings within three weeks -from the time the eggs are laid! - - -V - -Have you read Mr. William L. Finley's story of the California condor's -nest? The hummingbird young is out and gone within three weeks; but -the condor young is still in the care of its watchful parents three -months after it is hatched. You ought to watch the slow, guarded youth -of one of the larger hawks or owls during the summer. Such birds build -very early,--before the snow is gone sometimes,--but they are to be -seen feeding their young far into the summer. The wide variety in -bird-life, both in size and habits, will be made very plain to you if -you will watch the nests of two such birds as the hummer and the -vulture or the eagle. - - -VI - -This is the season of flowers. But what among them should you -especially see? Some time ago one of the school-teachers near me -brought in a list of a _dozen_ species of wild orchids, gathered out -of the meadows, bogs, and woods about the neighborhood. Can you do as -well? - -Suppose, then, that you try to find as many. They were the pink -lady's-slipper; the yellow lady's-slipper; the yellow fringed-orchis -(_Habenaria ciliaris_); the ladies'-tresses, two species; the -rattlesnake-plantain; arethusa, or Indian pink; calopogon, or grass -pink; pogonia, or snake-mouth (_ophioglossoides_ and _verticillata_); -the ragged fringed-orchis; and the showy or spring orchis. Arethusa -and the showy orchis really belong to the spring but the others will -be task enough for you, and one that will give point and purpose to -your wanderings afield this summer. - -[Illustration: ORCHIDS - - 1. _Arethusa bulbosa_ - 2. _Pogonia ophioglossoides_ - 3. Pink Lady's-Slipper - 4. Yellow Lady's-Slipper - 5. Showy Orchis -] - - -VII - -There are a certain number of moths and butterflies that you should -see and know also. If one could come to know, say, one hundred and -fifty flowers and the moths and butterflies that visit them (for the -flower and its insect pollen-carrier are to be thought of and studied -together), one would have an excellent speaking acquaintance with the -blossoming out-of-doors. - -Now, among the butterflies you ought to know the mourning-cloak, or -vanessa; the big red-brown milkweed butterfly; the big yellow tiger -swallowtail; the small yellow cabbage butterfly; the painted beauty; -the red admiral; the common fritillary; the common wood-nymph--but I -have named enough for this summer, in spite of the fact that I have -not named the green-clouded or Troilus butterfly, and Asterias, the -black swallowtail, and the red-spotted purple, and the viceroy. - -Among the moths to see are the splendid Promethea, Cecropia, -bullseye, Polyphemus, and Luna, to say nothing of the hummingbird -moth, and the sphinx, or hawk, moths, especially the large -one that feeds as a caterpillar upon the tomato-vines, -_Ma-cros'-i-la-quin-que-mac-u-la'-ta_. - - -VIII - -There is a like list of interesting beetles and other insects, that -play a large part in even _your_ affairs, which you ought to watch -during the summer: the honeybee, the big droning golden bumblebee, the -large white-faced hornet that builds the paper nests in the bushes and -trees, the gall-flies, the ichneumon-flies, the burying beetle, the -tumble-bug beetle, the dragon-fly, the caddis-fly--these are only a -few of a whole world of insect folk about you, whose habits and -life-histories are of utmost importance and of tremendous interest. -You will certainly believe it if you will read the Peckhams' book -called "Wasps, Social and Solitary," or the beautiful and fascinating -insect stories by the great French entomologist Fabre. Get also -"Every-day Butterflies," by Scudder; and "Moths and Butterflies," by -Miss Dickerson, and "Insect Life," by Kellogg. - - -IX - -You see I cannot stop with this list of the things. That is the -trouble with summer--there is too much of it while it lasts, too much -variety and abundance of life. One is simply compelled to limit one's -self to some particular study, and to pick up mere scraps from other -fields. - -But, to come back to the larger things of the out-of-doors, you should -see the mist some summer morning very early or some summer evening, -sheeted and still over a winding stream or pond, especially in the -evening when the sun has gone down behind the hill, the flame has -faded from the sky, and over the rim of the circling slopes pours the -soft, cool twilight, with a breeze as soft and cool, and a spirit that -is prayer. For then from out the deep shadows of the wooded shore, out -over the pond, a thin white veil will come creeping--the mist, the -breath of the sleeping water, the soul of the pond! - - -X - -You should see it rain down little toads this summer--_if you can!_ -There are persons who claim to have seen it. But I never have. I have -stood on Maurice River Bridge, however, and apparently had them -pelting down upon my feet as the big drops of the July shower struck -the planks--myriads of tiny toads covering the bridge across the -river! Did they rain down? No, they had been hiding in the dirt -between the planks and hopped out to meet the sweet rain and to soak -their little thirsty skins full. - - -XI - -You should see a cowbird's young in a vireo's nest and the efforts of -the poor deceived parents to satisfy its insatiable appetite at the -expense of their own young ones' lives! Such a sight will set you to -thinking. - - -XII - -I shall not tell you what else you should see, for the whole book -could be filled with this one chapter, and then you might lose your -forest in your trees. The individual tree is good to look at--the -mighty wide-limbed hemlock or pine; but so is a whole dark, solemn -forest of hemlocks and pines good to look at. Let us come to the -out-of-doors with our study of the separate, individual plant or -thing; but let us _go on to Nature_, and not stop with the individual -thing. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE COYOTE OF PELICAN POINT - - -"We have stopped the plumers," said the game-warden, "and we are -holding the market-hunters to something like decency; but there's a -pot-hunter yonder on Pelican Point that I've got to do up or lose my -job." - -Pelican Point was the end of a long, narrow peninsula that ran out -into the lake, from the opposite shore, twelve miles across from us. -We were in the Klamath Lake Reservation in southern Oregon, one of the -greatest wild-bird preserves in the world. - -Over the point, as we drew near, the big white pelicans were winging, -and among them, as our boat came up to the rocks, rose a colony of -black cormorants. The peninsula is chiefly of volcanic origin, -composed of crumbling rock and lava, and ends in well-stratified -cliffs at the point. Patches of scraggly sagebrush grew here and -there, and out near the cliffs on the sloping lava sides was a field -of golden California poppies. - -The gray, dusty ridge in the hot sun, with cliff swallows and -cormorants and the great pouched pelicans as inhabitants, seemed the -last place that a pot-hunter would frequent. What could a pot-hunter -find here? I wondered. - -We were pulling the boat up on the sand at a narrow neck in the -peninsula, when the warden touched my arm. "Up there near the sky-line -among the sage! What a shot!" - -I was some seconds in making out the head and shoulders of a coyote -that was watching us from the top of the ridge. - -"The rascal knows," went on the warden, "I have no gun; he can smell a -gun clear across the lake. I have tried for three years to get that -fellow. He's the terror of the whole region, and especially of the -Point; if I don't get him soon, he'll clean out the pelican colony. - -"Why don't I shoot him? Poison him? Trap him? I have offered fifty -dollars for his hide. Why don't I? I'll show you. Now you watch the -critter as I lead you up the slope toward him." - -We had not taken a dozen steps when I found myself staring hard at the -place where the coyote had been, but not at the coyote, for he was -gone. He had vanished before my eyes. I had not seen him move, -although I had been watching him steadily. - -"Queer, isn't it?" said the warden. "It's not his particular dodge, -for every old coyote that has been hunted learns to work it; but I -never knew one that had it down so fine as this sinner. There's next -to nothing here for him to skulk behind. Why, he has given my dog the -slip right here on the bare rock! But I'll fix him yet." - -I did not have to be persuaded to stay overnight with the warden for -the coyote-hunt the next day. The warden, I found, had fallen in with -a Mr. Harris, a homesteader, who had been something of a professional -coyote-hunter. Harris had just arrived in southern Oregon, and had -brought with him his dogs, a long, graceful greyhound, and his -fighting mate, a powerful Russian wolfhound; both were crack coyote -dogs from down Saskatchewan. He had accepted the warden's offer of -fifty dollars for the hide of the coyote of Pelican Point, and was now -on his way round the lake. - -The outfit appeared late the next day, and consisted of the two dogs, -a horse and buckboard, and a big, empty dry-goods box. - -I had hunted possums in the gum swamps of the South with a stick and a -gunny-sack, but this rig, on the rocky, roadless shores of the lake--a -dry-goods box for coyotes!--beat any hunting combination I had ever -seen. - -We had pitched the tent on the south shore of the point where the -peninsula joined the mainland, and were finishing our supper, when not -far from us, back on shore, we heard the doleful yowl of the coyote. - -We were on our feet in an instant. - -"There he is," said the warden, "lonesome for a little play with your -dogs, Mr. Harris." - -There was still an hour and a half of good light, and Harris untied -his dogs. I had never seen the coyote hunted, and was greatly -interested. Harris, with his dogs close in hand, led us directly away -from where we had heard the coyote bark. Then we stopped and sat down. -At my look of inquiry, Harris smiled. - -"Oh, no, we're not after coyotes to-night, not _that_ coyote, anyhow," -he said. "You know a coyote is made up of equal parts of curiosity, -cowardice, and craft; and it's a long hunt unless you can get a lead -on his curiosity. We are not out for _him_. He sees that. In fact, -we'll amble back now--but we'll manage to get up along the crest of -that little ridge where he is sitting, so that the dogs can follow him -whichever way he runs. You hunt coyotes wholly by sight, you know." - -The little trick worked perfectly. The coyote, curious to see what we -were doing, had risen to his feet, and stood, plainly outlined against -the sky. He was entirely unsuspecting, and as we approached, only -edged and backed, more apparently to get a sight of the dogs behind us -than through any fear. - -Suddenly Harris stepped from before the dogs, pointed them toward the -coyote, and slipped their leashes. The hounds were trained to the -work. There was just an instant's pause, a quick yelp, then two -doubling, reaching forms ahead of us, with a little line of dust -between. - -The coyote saw them coming, and started to run, not hurriedly, -however, for he had had many a run before. He was not afraid, and kept -looking behind to see what manner of dog was after him this time. - -But he was not long in making up his mind that this was an entirely -new kind, for in less than three minutes the hounds had halved the -distance that separated him from them. At first, the big wolfhound was -in the lead. Then, as if it had taken him till this time to find all -four of his long legs, the greyhound pulled himself together, and in a -burst of speed that was astonishing, passed his heavier companion. - -We raced along the ridge to see the finish. But the coyote ahead of -the dogs was no novice. He knew the game perfectly. He saw the gap -closing behind him. Had he been young, he would have been seized by -fear; would have darted right and left, mouthing and snapping in -abject terror. Instead of that, he dug his nails into the shore, and -with all his wits about him, sped for the desert. The greyhound was -close behind him. - -I held my breath. Harris, I think, would have taken his fifty dollars -then and there! And the warden would have handed it to him, despite -his past experience with the beast; but suddenly the coyote headed -straight off for a low manzanita bush that stood up amid the scraggly -sagebrush back from the shore. - -The hunt was now going directly from us, with the dust and the -wolfhound behind, following the line in front. The gap between the -greyhound and the coyote seemed to have closed, and when the hound -took the low manzanita with a bound that was half-somersault, Harris -exclaimed, "He's nailed him!" and we ran ahead to see the wolfhound -complete the job. - -The wolfhound, however, kept right on across the desert; the greyhound -lagged uncertainly far behind; in the lead, ahead of the big grizzled -wolfhound, bobbed the form of a fleeing jack-rabbit! - -The look of astonishment and then of disgust on Harris's face was -amusing to see. The warden may have been disappointed, but he did not -take any pains to repress a chuckle. - -Harris said nothing. He was searching the stunted sagebrush off to the -left of us. We followed his eyes, and he and the warden, both -experienced plainsmen, picked out the skulking, shadowy shape of the -coyote, as the creature, with belly to the ground, slunk off out of -sight. - -It was too late for any further attempt that night. - -"An old stager, sure," Harris commented, as we returned to camp. -"Knows a trick or two for every one of mine. But I'll fix him." - -Nothing was seen of the coyote all the early part of the next day, and -no effort was made to find him; but toward the middle of the -afternoon, Harris hitched up the bronco, and, unpacking a flat package -in the bottom of the buckboard, showed us a large glass window, which -he fitted as a door into one end of the big dry-goods box. Then into -the glass-ended box he put the two hounds. - -"Now, gentlemen," he said, "I'm going to invite you to take a -sight-seeing trip on this auto out into the sagebrush. Incidentally, -if you chance to see a coyote, don't mention it." - -If all the coyotes, jack-rabbits, gophers, and pelicans of the -territory had come out to see us thump and bump over the dry, uneven -desert, I should not have been surprised; and so, on coming back to -camp, it was with no wonder at all that I discovered the coyote, out -on the point, staring at us from across the neck of the peninsula. -Nothing like this had happened on his side of the lake before. - -Harris saw him instantly, and was quick to recognize our advantage. We -had the coyote cornered--out on the long, narrow peninsula, where the -dogs must run him down. The wily creature had so far forgotten himself -as to get caught between us and the ridge along shore, and, partly in -curiosity, had kept running ahead and stopping to look at us, until -now he was past the place where he could skulk back without our seeing -him, into the open plain. - -Even yet all depended upon our getting so close to him that the dogs -could keep him constantly in sight. The crumbling ledges at the end of -the point were full of holes and crevices into which the beast could -dodge. - -We were not close enough, however. With one of us watching the coyote, -should he happen to run, Harris turned the bronco slowly round until -the glass end of the box in the back of the buckboard was pointing -directly at the creature. There was a scramble of feet inside the box. -The dogs had sighted the beast. Then Harris started as if to drive -away, the coyote watching us all the time. - -Instead of driving off, he made a circle, and coming back slowly -toward the coyote, gained the top of a little knoll. Had the coyote -seen the dogs in the box, he would have vanished instantly; but the -box interested and puzzled him. - -He stood looking with all his eyes as the procession turned, and once -more the glass end of the box was pointed directly toward him. The -dogs evidently knew what was expected of them. They were silent, but -ready. Suddenly, without stopping the pony, Harris pulled open the -glass door, and yelled, "Go!" - -And go they did. I never saw hundred-yard runners leap from the mark -as those two hounds leaped from that box. The coyote, in his -astonishment, actually turned a back handspring and started for the -point. - -The dogs were hardly two hundred yards behind him, and were making -short work of the space between. It seemed hardly fair, and I must say -that I felt something like sympathy for the under dog, wild dog though -he was; the odds against him were so great. - -But the coyote knew his track thoroughly, and was taking advantage of -the rough, loose, shelving ground. For the farther out toward the end -of the point they ran, the narrower, rockier, and steeper grew the -peninsula, the more difficult and dangerous the footing. - -The coyote slanted along the side of the ridge, and took a sloping -slab of rock ahead of him with a slow side-step and a climb that -brought the dogs close up behind him. They took the rock at a leap, -slid halfway across, and scrambling, rolled several yards down the -slope--and lost all the gain they had made. - -Things began to even up. The chase began to be interesting. Here -judgment was called for, as well as speed. The cliff swallows swarmed -out of their nests under the overhanging rocks; the black cormorants -and great-winged pelicans saw their old enemy coming, and rose, -flapping, over the water; the circling gulls dropped low between the -runners; their strange clangor and the stranger tropical shapes thick -in the air gave the scene a wildness altogether new to me. - -On fled the coyote; on bounded the dogs. He would never escape! -Nothing without wings could ever do it! Mere feet could never stand -such a test! The chances that pursued and pursuers took--the -leaps--the landings! The whole slope seemed rolling with stones, -started by the feet of the runners. - -They were nearing the high, rough rocks of the tip of the point. -Between them and the ledges of the point, and reaching from the edge -of the water nearly to the top of the ridge, lay the steep golden -garden of California poppies, blooming in the dry lava soil that had -crumbled and drifted down on the rocky side. - -The coyote veered, and dashed down toward the middle of the poppies; -the hounds hit the bed two jumps behind. There was a cloud of dust, -and in it we saw an avalanche of dogs ploughing a wide furrow through -the flowers nearly down to the water. Climbing slowly out near the -upper edge of the bed was the coyote, again with a good margin of -lead. - -But the beast was at the end of the point, and nearing the end of his -race. Had we been out of the way, he might have turned and yet given -the dogs the slip--for behind us lay the open desert. - -Straight toward the rocks he headed, with the hounds laboring up the -slope after him. He was running to the very edge of the point, as if -he were intending to leap off the cliff to death in the lake below, -and I saw Harris's face tighten as his hounds topped the ridge, and -senselessly tore on toward the same fearful edge. But the race was not -done yet. The coyote hesitated, turned down the ledges on the south -slope, and leaping in among the cormorant nests, started back toward -us. - -He was surer on his feet than were the hounds, but this hesitation on -the point had cost him several yards. The hounds would pick him up in -the little cove of smooth, hard sand that lay, encircled by rough -rocks, just ahead, unless--no, he must cross the cove, he must take -the stretch. He was taking it--knowingly, too, and with a burst of -power that he had not shown upon the slopes. He was flinging away his -last reserve. - -The hounds were nearly across; the coyote was within fifty feet of the -boulders, when the greyhound, lowering his long, flat head, lunged for -the spine of his quarry. - -The coyote heard him coming, spun on his fore feet, offering his fangs -to those of his foe, and threw himself backward just as the jaws of -the wolfhound clashed at him and flecked his throat with foam. - -The two great dogs collided and bounded wide apart, startling a jack -rabbit that dived between them into a hole among the rocks. The -coyote, on his feet in an instant, caught the motion of the rabbit, -and like his shadow, leaped into the air after him for the hole. - -He was as quick as thought, quicker than either of the hounds. He -sprang high over them,--safely over them, we thought,--when, in -mid-air, at the turn of the dive, he twisted, heeled half-over, and -landed hard against the side of the hole; and the wolfhound pulled him -down. - -It was over; but there was something strange, almost unfair, it -seemed, about the finish. - -Before we got down to the cove both of the dogs had slunk back, -cowering from the dead coyote. Then there came to us the buzz of a -rattlesnake--a huge, angry reptile that lay coiled in the mouth of the -hole. The rabbit had struck and roused the snake. The coyote in his -leap had caught the warning whir, but caught it too late to clear both -snake and hounds. His twist in the air to clear the snake had cost him -his life. So close is the race in the desert world. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -FROM T WHARF TO FRANKLIN FIELD - - -Over and over I read the list of saints and martyrs on the wall across -the street, thinking dully how men used to suffer for their religion, -and how, nowadays, they suffer for their teeth. For I was reclining in -a dentist's chair, blinking through the window at the Boston Public -Library, seeing nothing, however, nothing but the tiles on the roof, -and the names of Luther, Wesley, Wycliffe, graven on the granite wall, -while the dentist burred inside of my cranium and bored down to my -toes for nerves. So, at least, it seemed. - -By and by my gaze wandered blankly off to the square patch of sky in -sight above the roof. A black cloud was driving past in the wind away -up there. Suddenly a white fleck swept into the cloud, careened, -spread two wide wings against it, and rounded a circle. Then another -and another, until eight herring gulls were soaring white against the -sullen cloud in that little square of sky high over the roofs of -Boston. - -Was this the heart of a vast city? Could I be in a dentist's chair? -There was no doubt about the chair; but how quickly the red-green roof -of the Library became the top of some great cliff; the droning noise -of traffic in the streets, the wash of waves against the rocks; and -yonder on the storm-stained sky those wheeling wings, how like the -winds of the ocean, and the raucous voices, how they seemed to fill -all the city with the sweep and the sound of the sea! - -Boston, Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco--do -you live in any one of them or in any other city? If you do, then you -have a surprisingly good chance to watch the ways of wild things and -even to come near to the heart of Nature. Not so good a chance, to be -sure, as in the country; but the city is by no means so lacking in -wild life or so shunned by the face of Nature as we commonly believe. - -All great cities are alike, all of them very different, too, in -details; Boston's streets, for instance, being crookeder than most, -but like them all, reaching out for many a mile before they turn into -country roads and lanes with borders of quiet and wide green fields. - -But Boston has the wide waters of the Harbor and the Charles River -Basin. And it also has T Wharf! They did not throw the tea overboard -there, back in Revolutionary days, as you may be told, but T Wharf is -famous, nevertheless, famous for fish! - -Fish? Swordfish and red snappers, scup, shad, squid, squeteague, -sharks, skates, smelts, sculpins, sturgeon, scallops, halibut, -haddock, hake--to say nothing of mackerel, cod, and countless freak -things caught by trawl and seine all the way from Boston Harbor to the -Grand Banks! I have many a time sat on T Wharf and caught short, flat -flounders with my line. It is almost as good as a trip to the Georges -in the "We're Here" to visit T Wharf; and then to walk slowly up -through Quincy Market. Surely no single walk in the woods will yield a -tithe of the life to be found here, and found only here for us, -brought as the fish and game and fruits have been from the ends of the -earth and the depths of the sea. - -There is no reason why city children should not know a great deal -about animal life, nor why the teachers in city schools should feel -that nature study is impossible for them. For, leaving the wharf with -its fish and gulls and fleet of schooners, you come up four or five -blocks to old King's Chapel Burying-Ground where the Boston sparrows -roost. Boston is full of interesting sights, but none more interesting -to the bird-lover than this sparrow-roost. The great bird rocks in the -Pacific, described in another chapter of this book, are larger, to be -sure, yet hardly more clamorous when, in the dusk, the sparrow clans -begin to gather; nor hardly wilder than this city roost when the night -lengthens, and the quiet creeps down the alleys and along the empty -streets, and the sea winds stop on the corners, and the lamps, like -low-hung stars, light up the sleeping birds till their shadows waver -large upon the stark walls about the old graveyard that break far -overhead as rim rock breaks on the desert sky. - -Now shift the scene to an early summer morning on Boston Common, two -blocks farther up, and on to the Public Garden across Charles Street. -There are more wild birds to be seen in the Garden on a May morning -than there are here in the woods of Hingham, and the summer still -finds some of them about the shrubs and pond. And it is an easy place -in which to watch them. One of our bird-students has found over a -hundred species in the Garden. Can any one say that the city offers a -poor chance for nature-study? - -This is the story of every great city park. My friend Professor -Herbert E. Walter found nearly one hundred and fifty species of birds -in Lincoln Park, Chicago. And have you ever read Mr. Bradford Torrey's -delightful essay called "Birds on Boston Common"? - -Then there are the squirrels and the trees on the Common; the flowers, -bees, butterflies, and even the schools of goldfish, in the pond of -the Garden--enough of life, insect-life, plant-life, bird-life, -fish-life, for more than a summer of lessons. - -Nor is this all. One block beyond the Garden stands the Natural -History Museum, crowded with mounted specimens of birds and beasts, -reptiles, fishes, and shells beyond number--more than you can study, -perhaps. You city folk, instead of having too little, have altogether -too much of too many things. But such a museum is always a suggestive -place for one who loves the out-of-doors. And the more one knows of -nature, the more one gets out of the museum. You can carry there, and -often answer, the questions that come to you in your tramps afield, in -your visits to the Garden, and in your reading of books. Then add to -this the great Agassiz Museum at Harvard University, and the Aquarium -at South Boston, and the Zoölogical Gardens at Franklin Park, and the -Arnold Arboretum--all of these with their multitude of mounted -specimens and their living forms for _you_! For me also; and in from -the country I come, very often, to study natural history in the city. - -What is true of Boston is true of every city in some degree. The sun -and the moon and stars shine upon the city as upon the country, and -during my years of city life (I lived in the very heart of Boston) it -was my habit to climb to my roof, above the din and glare of the -crowded street, and here among the chimney-pots to lie down upon my -back, the city far below me, and overhead the blue sky, the Milky Way, -the constellations, or the moon, swinging-- - - "Through the heaven's wide pathless way, - And oft, as if her head she bowed - Stooping through a fleecy cloud." - -Here, too, I have watched the gulls that sail over the Harbor, -especially in the winter. From this outlook I have seen the winging -geese pass over, and heard the faint calls of other migrating flocks, -voices that were all the more mysterious for their falling through the -muffling hum that rises from the streets and spreads over the wide -roof of the city as a soft night wind over the peaked roofs of a -forest of firs. - -[Illustration: ARGIOPE, THE MEADOW SPIDER] - -Strangely enough here on the roof I have watched the only nighthawks -that I have ever found in Massachusetts. This is surely the last place -you would expect to find such wild, spooky, dusk-loving creatures as -nighthawks. Yet here, on the tarred and pebbled roofs, here among the -whirling, squeaking, smoking chimney-pots, here above the crowded, -noisy streets, these birds built their nests,--laid their eggs, -rather, for they build no nests,--reared their young, and in the long -summer twilight rose and fell through the smoky air, uttering their -peevish cries and making their ghostly booming sounds with their -high-diving, just as if they were out over the darkening swales along -some gloomy swamp-edge. - -For many weeks I had a big tame spider in the corner of my study there -in that city flat, and I have yet to read an account of all the -species of spiders to be found dwelling within the walls of any great -city. Even Argiope of the meadows is doubtless found in the Fens. Not -far away from my flat, down near the North Station, one of my friends -on the roof of his flat kept several hives of bees. They fed on the -flowers of the Garden, on those in dooryards, and on the -honey-yielding lindens which stand here and there throughout the city. -Pigeons and sparrows built their nests within sight of my windows; and -by going early to the roof I could see the sun rise, and in the -evening I could watch it go down behind the hills of Belmont as now I -watch it from my lookout here on Mullein Hill. - -One is never far from the sky, nor from the earth, nor from the free, -wild winds, nor from the wilder night that covers city and sea and -forest with its quiet, and fills them all with lurking shadows that -never shall be tamed. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO HEAR THIS SUMMER - - -I - -The fullness, the flood, of life has come, and, contrary to one's -expectations, a marked silence has settled down over the waving fields -and the cool deep woods. I am writing these lines in the lamplight, -with all the windows and doors open to the dark July night. The summer -winds are moving in the trees. A cricket and a few small green -grasshoppers are chirping in the grass; but nothing louder is near at -hand. And nothing louder is far off, except the cry of the -whip-poor-will in the wood road. But him you hear in the spring and -autumn as well as in the summer. Ah, listen! My tree-toad in the -grapevine over the bulkhead door! - -This is a voice you must hear--on cloudy summer days, toward twilight, -and well into the evening. Do you know what it is to feel lonely? If -you do, I think, then, that you know how the soft, far-off, eerie cry -of the tree-toad sounds. He is prophesying rain, the almanac people -think, but I think it is only the sound of rain in his voice, summer -rain after a long drouth, cooling, reviving, soothing rain, with just -a patter of something in it that I cannot describe, something that I -used to hear on the shingles of the garret over the rafters where the -bunches of horehound and catnip and pennyroyal hung. - - -II - -You ought to hear the lively clatter of a mowing-machine. It is hot -out of doors; the roads are beginning to look dusty; the insects are -tuning up in the grass, and, like their chorus all together, and -marching round and round the meadow, moves the mower's whirring blade. -I love the sound. Haying is hard, sweet work. The farmer who does not -love his haying ought to be made to keep a country store and sell -kerosene oil and lumps of dead salt pork out of a barrel. He could not -appreciate a live, friendly pig. - -Down the long swath sing the knives, the cogs click above the square -corners, and the big, loud thing sings on again,--the song of -"first-fruits," the first great ingathering of the season,--a song to -touch the heart with joy and sweet solemnity. - - -III - -You ought to hear the Katydids--two of them on the trees outside your -window. They are not saying "Katy did," nor singing "Katy did"; they -are fiddling "Katy did," "Katy didn't"--by rasping the fore wings. - -Is the sound "Katy" or "Katy did"? or what is said? Count the notes. -Are they at the rate of two hundred per minute? Watch the -instrumentalist--till you make sure it is the male who is wooing Katy -with his persistent guitar. The male has no long ovipositors. - - -IV - -Another instrumentalist to hear is the big cicada or "harvest-fly." -There is no more characteristic sound of all the summer than his big, -quick, startling whirr--a minute mowing-machine up on the limb -overhead! Not so minute either, for the creature is fully two inches -long, with bulging eyes and a click to his wings when he flies that -can be heard a hundred feet away! "Dog-days-z-z-z-z-z-z-z" is the song -he sings to me. - -[Illustration: "FLITTING AND WAVERING ABOUT"] - - -V - -This is the season of small sounds. As a test of the keenness of your -ears go out at night into some open glade in the woods or by the side -of some pond and listen for the squeaking of the bats flitting and -wavering above in the uncertain light over your head. You will need a -stirless midsummer dusk; and if you can hear the thin, fine squeak as -the creature dives near your head, you may be sure your ears are -almost as keen as those of the fox. The sound is not audible to most -human ears. - - -VI - -Another set of small sounds characteristic of midsummer is the -twittering of the flocking swallows in the cornfields and upon the -telegraph-wires. This summer I have had long lines of the young birds -and their parents from the old barn below the hill strung on the wires -from the house across the lawn. Here they preen while some of the old -birds hawk for flies, the whole line of them breaking into a soft -little twitter each time a newcomer alights among them. One swallow -does not make a summer, but your electric light wires sagging with -them is the very soul of the summer. - - -VII - -In the deep, still woods you will hear the soft call of the robin--a -low, pensive, plaintive note unlike its spring cry or the -after-shower song. It is as if the voice of the slumberous woods were -speaking--without alarm, reproach, or welcome either. It is an -invitation to stretch yourself on the deep moss and let the warm -shadows of the summer woods steal over you with sleep. - -[Illustration: THE RED-EYED VIREO] - -And this, too, is a thing to learn. Doing something, hearing -something, seeing something by no means exhausts our whole business -with the out-of-doors. To lie down and do nothing, to be able to keep -silence and to rest on the great whirling globe is as needful as to -know everything going on about us. - - -VIII - -There is one bird-song so characteristic of midsummer that I think -every lover of the woods must know it: the oft-repeated, the constant -notes of the red-eyed vireo or "preacher." Wilson Flagg says of him: -"He takes the part of a deliberative orator who explains his subject -in a few words and then makes a pause for his hearers to reflect upon -it. We might suppose him to be repeating moderately with a pause -between each sentence, 'You see it--you know it--do you hear me?--do -you believe it?' All these strains are delivered with a rising -inflection at the close, and with a pause, as if waiting for an -answer." - - -IX - -A few other bird-notes that are associated with hot days and stirless -woods, and that will be worth your hearing are the tree-top song of -the scarlet tanager. He is one of the summer sights, a dash of the -burning tropics is his brilliant scarlet and jet black, and his song -is a loud, hoarse, rhythmical carol that has the flame of his feathers -in it and the blaze of the sun. You will know it from the cool, liquid -song of the robin both by its peculiar quality and because it is a -short song, and soon ended, not of indefinite length like the robin's. - -Then the peculiar, coppery, reverberating, or _confined_ song of the -indigo bunting--as if the bird were singing inside some great kettle. - -One more--among a few others--the softly falling, round, small, -upward-swinging call of the wood pewee. Is it sad? Yes, sad. But -sweeter than sad,--restful, cooling, and inexpressibly gentle. All day -long from high above your head and usually quite out of view, the -voice--it seems hardly a voice--breaks the long silence of the summer -woods. - - -X - -When night comes down with the long twilight there sounds a strange, -almost awesome _quawk_ in the dusk over the fields. It sends a thrill -through me, notwithstanding its nightly occurrence all through July -and August. It is the passing of a pair of night herons--the -black-crowned, I am sure, although this single pair only fly over. -Where the birds are numerous they nest in great colonies. - -It is the wild, eerie _quawk_ that you should hear, a far-off, -mysterious, almost uncanny sound that fills the twilight with a vague, -untamed something, no matter how bright and civilized the day may have -been. - - -XI - -From the harvest fields comes the sweet whistle of Bob White, the -clear, round notes rolling far through the hushed summer noon; in the -wood-lot the crows and jays have already begun their cawings and -screamings that later on become the dominant notes of the golden -autumn. They are not so loud and characteristic now because of the -insect orchestra throbbing with a rhythmic beat through the air. So -wide, constant, and long-continued is this throbbing note of the -insects that by midsummer you almost cease to notice it. But stop and -listen--field crickets, katydids, long-horned grasshoppers, snowy -tree-crickets: _chwi-chwi-chwi-chwi--thrr-r-r-r-r-r-r ---crrri-crrri-crrri-crrri--gru-gru-gru-gru-- -retreat-retreat-retreat-treat-treat_--like the throbbing of the -pulse. - - -XII - -One can do no more than suggest in a short chapter like this; and all -that I am doing here is catching for you some of the still, small -voices of _my_ summer. How unlike those of your summer they may be I -can easily imagine, for you are in the Pacific Coast, or off on the -vast prairies of Canada, or down in the sunny fields and hill-country -of the South. - -I have done enough if I have suggested that you stop and listen; for -after all it is having ears which hear _not_ that causes the trouble. -Hear the voices that make your summer vocal--the loud and still voices -which alike pass unheeded unless we pause to hear. - -As a lesson in listening, go out some quiet evening, and as the -shadows slip softly over the surface of the wood-walled pond, listen -to the breathing of the fish as they come to the top, and the splash -of the muskrats, or the swirl of the pickerel as he ploughs a furrow -through the silence. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -THE SEA-BIRDS' HOME - - -After my wandering for years among the quiet lanes and along the -winding cow-paths of the home fields, my trip to the wild-bird rocks -in the Pacific Ocean, as you can imagine, was a thrilling experience. -We chartered a little launch at Tillamook, and, after a fight of hours -and hours to cross Tillamook Bar at the mouth of the bay, we got out -upon the wide Pacific, and steamed down the coast for Three-Arch -Rocks, which soon began to show far ahead of us just off the rocky -shore. - -I had never been on the Pacific before, nor had I ever before seen the -birds that were even now beginning to dot the sea and to sail over and -about us as we steamed along. It was all new, so new that the very -water of the Pacific looked unlike the familiar water of the Atlantic. -And surely the waves were different,--longer, grayer, smoother, with -an immensely mightier heave. At least they seemed so, for every time -we rose on the swell, it was as if our boat were in the hand of Old -Ocean, and his mighty arm were "putting" us, as the athlete "puts" the -shot. It was all new and strange and very wild to me, with the wild -cries of the sea-birds already beginning to reach us as flocks of the -birds passed around and over our heads. - -The fog was lifting. The thick, wet drift that had threatened our -little launch on Tillamook Bar stood clear of the shouldering sea to -the westward, and in over the shore, like an upper sea, hung at the -fir-girt middles of the mountains, as level and as gray as the sea -below. There was no breeze. The long, smooth swell of the Pacific -swung under us and in, until it whitened at the base of the three -rocks that rose out of the sea in our course, and that now began to -take on form in the foggy distance. Gulls were flying over us, lines -of black cormorants and crowds of murres were winging past, but we -were still too far away from the looming rocks to see that the gray of -their walls was the gray of uncounted colonies of nesting birds, -colonies that covered their craggy steeps as, on shore, the green firs -clothed the slopes of the Coast Range Mountains up to the hanging fog. - -As we ran on nearer, the sound of the surf about the rocks became -audible, the birds in the air grew more numerous, their cries now -faintly mingling with the sound of the sea. A hole in the side of the -middle Rock, a mere fleck of foam it seemed at first, widened rapidly -into an arching tunnel through which our boat might run; the swell of -the sea began to break over half-sunken ledges; and soon upon us fell -the damp shadows of the three great rocks, for now we were looking far -up at their sides, where we could see the birds in their guano-gray -rookeries, rookery over rookery,--gulls, cormorants, guillemots, -puffins, murres,--encrusting the sides from tide-line to pinnacles, as -the crowding barnacles encrusted the bases from the tide-line down. - -[Illustration: TUFTED PUFFINS] - -We had not approached without protest, for the birds were coming off -to meet us, wheeling and clacking overhead, the nearer we drew, in a -constantly thickening cloud of lowering wings and tongues. The clamor -was indescribable, the tossing flight enough to make one mad with the -motion of wings. The air was filled, thick, with the whirling and the -screaming, the clacking, the honking, close to our ears, and high up -in the peaks, and far out over the waves. Never had I been in this -world before. Was I on my earth? or had I suddenly wakened up in some -old sea world where there was no dry land, no life but this? - -We rounded the outer or Shag Rock and headed slowly in opposite the -yawning hole of the middle Rock as into some mighty cave, so sheer and -shadowy rose the walls above us,--so like to cavern thunder was the -throbbing of the surf through the hollow arches, was the flapping and -screaming of the birds against the high circling walls, was the deep, -menacing grumble of the bellowing sea-lions, as, through the muffle of -surf and sea-fowl, herd after herd lumbered headlong into the foam. - -It was a strange, wild scene. Hardly a mile from the Oregon coast, but -cut off by breaker and bar from the abrupt, uninhabited shore, the -three rocks of the Reservation, each pierced with its resounding arch, -heaved their huge shoulders from the waves straight up, high, -towering, till our little steamer coasted their dripping sides like -some puffing pygmy. - -Each rock was perhaps as large as a solid city square and as high as -the tallest of sky-scrapers; immense, monstrous piles, each of them, -and run through by these great caverns or arches, dim, dripping, -filled with the noise of the waves and the beat of thousands of wings. - -They were of no part or lot with the dry land. Their wave-scooped -basins were set with purple starfish and filled with green and pink -anemones, and beaded many deep with mussels of amethyst and jet that -glittered in the clear beryl waters; and, above the jeweled basins, -like fabled beasts of old, lay the sea-lions, uncouth forms, -flippered, reversed in shape, with throats like the caves of Æolus, -hollow, hoarse, discordant; and higher up, on every jutting bench and -shelf, in every weathered rift, over every jog of the ragged cliffs, -to their bladed backs and pointed peaks, swarmed the sea-birds, -webfooted, amphibious, shaped of the waves, with stormy voices given -them by the winds that sweep in from the sea. - -As I looked up at the amazing scene, at the mighty rocks and the -multitude of winging forms, I seemed to see three swirling piles of -life, three cones that rose like volcanoes from the ocean, their sides -covered with living lava, their craters clouded with the smoke of -wings, while their bases seemed belted by the rumble of a -multi-throated thunder. The very air was dank with the smell of -strange, strong volcanic gases,--no breath of the land, no odor of -herb, no scent of fresh soil; but the raw, rank smells of rookery and -den, saline, kelpy, fetid; the stench of fish and bedded guano, and of -the reeking pools where the sea-lion herds lay sleeping on the lower -rocks in the sun. - -A boat's keel was beneath me, but as I stood out on the pointed prow, -barely above the water, and found myself thrust forward without will -or effort among the crags and caverns, among the shadowy walls, the -damps, the smells, the sounds, among the bellowing beasts in the -churning waters about me, and into the storm of wings and tongues in -the whirling air above me, I passed from the things I had known, and -the time and the earth of man, into a monstrous period of the past. - -This was the home of the sea-birds. Amid all the din we landed from a -yawl and began our climb toward the top of Shag Rock, the outermost of -the three. And here we had another and a different sight of the wild -life. It covered every crag. I clutched it in my hands; I crushed it -under my feet; it was thick in the air about me. My narrow path up the -face of the rock was a succession of sea-bird rookeries, of crowded -eggs, and huddled young, hairy or naked or wet from the shell. Every -time my fingers felt for a crack overhead they touched something warm -that rolled or squirmed; every time my feet moved under me, for a -hold, they pushed in among top-shaped eggs that turned on the shelf or -went over far below; and whenever I hugged the pushing wall I must -bear off from a mass of squealing, struggling, shapeless things, just -hatched. And down upon me, as rookery after rookery of old birds -whirred in fright from their ledges, fell crashing eggs and unfledged -young, that the greedy gulls devoured ere they touched the sea. - -I was midway in the climb, at a bad turn round a point, edging inch by -inch along, my face pressed against the hard face of the rock, my feet -and fingers gripping any crack or seam they could feel, when out of -the deep space behind me I caught the swash of waves. Instantly a cold -hand seemed to clasp me from behind. - -I flattened against the rock, my whole body, my very mind clinging -desperately for a hold,--a falling fragment of shale, a gust of wind, -the wing-stroke of a frightened bird, enough to break the hold and -swing me out over the water, washing faint and far below. A long -breath, and I was climbing again. - -[Illustration: BRANDT'S CORMORANT] - -We were on the outer Rock, our only possible ascent taking us up the -sheer south face. With the exception of an occasional Western gull's -and pigeon guillemot's nest, these steep sides were occupied entirely -by the California murres,--penguin-shaped birds about the size of a -small wild duck, chocolate-brown above, with white breasts,--which -literally covered the sides of the three great rocks wherever they -could find a hold. If a million meant anything, I should say there -were a million murres nesting on this outer Rock; not nesting either, -for the egg is laid upon the bare ledge, as you might place it upon a -mantel,--a single sharp-pointed egg, as large as a turkey's, and just -as many of them on the ledge as there is standing-room for the birds. -The murre broods her very large egg by standing straight up over it, -her short legs, by dint of stretching, allowing her to straddle it, -her short tail propping her securely from behind. - -On, up along the narrow back, or blade, of the rock, and over the -peak, were the well-spaced nests of the Brandt's cormorants, nests the -size of an ordinary straw hat, made of sea-grass and the -yellow-flowered sulphur-weed that grew in a dense mat over the north -slope of the top, each nest holding four long, dirty blue eggs or as -many black, shivering young; and in the low sulphur-weed, all along -the roof-like slope of the top, built the gulls and the tufted -puffins; and, with the burrowing puffins, often in the same holes, -were found the Kaeding's petrels; while down below them, as up above -them,--all around the rock-rim that dropped sheer to the sea,--stood -the cormorants, black, silent, statuesque; and everywhere were nests -and eggs and young, and everywhere were flying, crying birds--above, -about, and far below me, a whirling, whirring vortex of wings that had -caught me in its funnel. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -THE MOTHER MURRE - - -I hear the bawling of my neighbor's cow. Her calf was carried off -yesterday, and since then, during the long night, and all day long, -her insistent woe has made our hillside melancholy. But I shall not -hear her to-night, not from this distance. She will lie down to-night -with the others of the herd, and munch her cud. Yet, when the rattling -stanchions grow quiet and sleep steals along the stalls, she will turn -her ears at every small stirring; she will raise her head to listen -and utter a low, tender _moo_. Her full udder hurts; but her cud is -sweet. She is only a cow. - -Had she been a wild cow, or had she been out with her calf in a wild -pasture, the mother-love in her would have lived for six months. Here -in the barn she will be forced to forget her calf in a few hours, and -by morning her mother-love shall utterly have died. - -There is a mother-principle alive in all nature that never dies. This -is different from mother-love. The oak tree responds to the -mother-principle, and bears acorns. It is a law of life. The -mother-love or passion, on the other hand, occurs only among the -higher animals. It is very common; and yet, while it is one of the -strongest, most interesting, most beautiful of animal traits, it is at -the same time the most individual and variable of all animal traits. - -This particular cow of my neighbor's that I hear lowing, is an -entirely gentle creature ordinarily, but with a calf at her side she -will pitch at any one who approaches her. And there is no other cow in -the herd that mourns so long after her calf. The mother in her is -stronger, more enduring, than in any of the other nineteen cows in the -barn. My own cow hardly mourns at all when her calf is taken away. She -might be an oak tree losing its acorns, or a crab losing her hatching -eggs, so far as any show of love is concerned. - -The female crab attaches her eggs to her swimmerets and carries them -about with her for their protection as the most devoted of mothers; -yet she is no more conscious of them, and feels no more for them, than -the frond of a cinnamon fern feels for its spores. She is a mother, -without the love of the mother. - -In the spider, however, just one step up the animal scale from the -crab, you find the mother-love or passion. Crossing a field the other -day, I came upon a large female spider of the hunter family, carrying -a round white sack of eggs, half the size of a cherry, attached to her -spinnerets. Plucking a long stem of grass, I detached the sack of eggs -without bursting it. Instantly the mother turned and sprang at the -grass-stem, fighting and biting until she got to the sack, which she -seized in her strong jaws and made off with as fast as her long, rapid -legs would carry her. - -I laid the stem across her back and again took the sack away. She came -on for it, fighting more fiercely than before. Once more she seized -it; once more I forced it from her jaws, while she sprang at the -grass-stem and tried to tear it to pieces. She must have been fighting -for two minutes when, by a regrettable move on my part, one of her -legs was injured. She did not falter in her fight. On she rushed for -the sack as fast as I pulled it away. She would have fought for that -sack, I believe, until she had not one of her eight legs to stand on, -had I been cruel enough to compel her. It did not come to this, for -suddenly the sack burst, and out poured, to my amazement, a myriad of -tiny brown spiderlings. Before I could think what to do that mother -spider had rushed among them and caused them to swarm upon her, -covering her, many deep, even to the outer joints of her long legs. I -did not disturb her again, but stood by and watched her slowly move -off with her encrusting family to a place of safety. - -I had seen these spiders try hard to escape with their egg-sacks -before, but had never tested the strength of their purpose. For a time -after this experience I made a point of taking the sacks away from -every spider I found. Most of them scurried off to seek their own -safety; one of them dropped her sack of her own accord; some of them -showed reluctance to leave it; some of them a disposition to fight; -but none of them the fierce, consuming mother-fire of the one with the -hurt leg. - -Among the fishes, much higher animal forms than the spiders, we find -the mother-love only in the _males_. It is the male stickleback that -builds the nest, then goes out and _drives_ the female in to lay her -eggs, then straightway drives her out to prevent her eating them, then -puts himself on guard outside the nest to protect them from other -sticklebacks and other enemies, until the young shall hatch and be -able to swim away by themselves. Here he stays for a month, without -eating or sleeping, so far as we know. - -It is the male toadfish that crawls into the nest-hole and takes -charge of the numerous family. He may dig the hole, too, as the male -stickleback builds the nest. I do not know as to that. But I have -raised many a stone in the edge of the tide along the shore of Naushon -Island in Buzzard's Bay, to find the under surface covered with round, -drop-like, amber eggs, and in the shallow cavity beneath, an old male -toadfish, slimy and croaking, and with a countenance ugly enough to -turn a prowling eel to stone. The female deposits the eggs, glues them -fast with much nicety to the under surface of the rock, as a female -might, and finishes her work. Departing at once, she leaves the coming -brood to the care of the male, who from this time, without relief or -even food in all probability, assumes the rôle and all the -responsibilities of mother, and must consequently feel all the -mother-love. - -Something like this is true of the common hornpout, or catfish, I -believe, though I have never seen it recorded, and lack the chance at -present of proving my earlier observations. I think it is father -catfish that takes charge of the brood, of the swarm of kitten -catfish, from the time the spawn is laid. - -A curious sharing of mother qualities by male and female is shown in -the Surinam toads of South America, where the male, taking the newly -deposited eggs, places them upon the back of the female. Here, glued -fast by their own adhesive jelly, they are soon surrounded by cells -grown of the skin of the back, each cell capped by a lid. In these -cells the eggs hatch, and the young go through their metamorphoses, -apparently absorbing some nourishment through the skin of their -mother. Finally they break through the lids of their cells and hop -away. They might as well be toadstools upon a dead stump, so far as -motherly care or concern goes, for, aside from allowing the male to -spread the eggs upon her back, she is no more a mother to them than -the dead stump is to the toadstools. She is host only to the little -parasites. - -I do not know of any mother-love among the reptiles. The -mother-passion, so far as my observation goes, plays no part whatever -in the life of reptiles. Whereas, passing on to the birds, the -mother-passion becomes by all odds the most interesting thing in -bird-life. - -And is not the mother-passion among the mammals even more interesting? -It is as if the watcher in the woods went out to see the mother animal -only. It is her going and coming that we follow; her faring, foraging, -and watch-care that let us deepest into the secrets of wild animal -life. - -On one of the large estates here in Hingham, a few weeks ago, a fox -was found to be destroying poultry. The time of the raids, and their -boldness, were proof enough that the fox must be a female with young. -Poisoned meat was prepared for her, and at once the raids ceased. A -few days later one of the workmen of the estate came upon the den of a -fox, at the mouth of which lay dead a whole litter of young ones. They -had been poisoned. The mother had not eaten the prepared food herself, -but had carried it home to her family. They must have died in the -burrow, for it was evident from the signs that she had dragged them -into the fresh air to revive them, and deposited them gently on the -sand by the hole. Then in her perplexity she had brought various -tidbits of mouse and bird and rabbit, which she placed at their noses -to tempt them to wake up out of their strange sleep and eat. No one -knows how long she watched beside the lifeless forms, nor what her -emotions were. She must have left the neighborhood soon after, -however, for no one has seen her since about the estate. - -The bird mother is the bravest, tenderest, most appealing thing one -ever comes upon in the fields. It is the rare exception, but we -sometimes find the real mother wholly lacking among the birds, as in -the case of our notorious cowbird, who sneaks about, watching her -chance, when some smaller bird is gone, to drop her egg into its nest. -The egg must be laid, the burden of the race has been put upon the -bird, but not the precious burden of the child. She lays eggs; but is -not a mother. - -The same is true of the European cuckoos, but not quite true, in spite -of popular belief, of our American cuckoos. For our birds (both -species) build rude, elementary nests as a rule, and brood their eggs. -Occasionally they may use a robin's or a catbird's nest, in order to -save labor. So undeveloped is the mother in the cuckoo that if you -touch her eggs she will leave them--abandon her rude nest and eggs as -if any excuse were excuse enough for an escape from the cares of -motherhood. How should a bird with so little mother-love ever learn to -build a firm-walled, safe, and love-lined nest? - -The great California condor is a most faithful and anxious mother; the -dumb affection of both parent birds, indeed, for their single -offspring is pathetically human. On the other hand, the mother in the -turkey buzzard is so evenly balanced against the vulture in her that I -have known a brooding bird to be so upset by the sudden approach of a -man as to rise from off her eggs and devour them instantly, greedily, -and make off on her serenely soaring wings into the clouds. - -Such mothers, however, are not the rule. The buzzard, the cuckoo, and -the cowbird are the striking exceptions. The flicker will keep on -laying eggs as fast as one takes them from the nest-hole, until she -has no more eggs to lay. The quail will sometimes desert her nest if -even a single egg is so much as touched, but only because she knows -that she has been discovered and must start a new nest, hidden in some -new place, for safety. She is a wise and devoted mother, keeping her -brood with her as a "covey" all winter long. - -One of the most striking cases of mother-love which has ever come -under my observation, I saw in the summer of 1912 on the bird -rookeries of the Three-Arch Rocks Reservation off the coast of Oregon. - -We were making our slow way toward the top of the outer rock. Through -rookery after rookery of birds we climbed until we reached the edge of -the summit. Scrambling over this edge, we found ourselves in the midst -of a great colony of nesting murres--hundreds of them--covering this -steep rocky part of the top. - -As our heads appeared above the rim, many of the colony took wing and -whirred over us out to sea, but most of them sat close, each bird upon -its egg or over its chick, loath to leave, and so expose to us the -hidden treasure. - -The top of the rock was somewhat cone-shaped, and in order to reach -the peak and the colonies on the west side we had to make our way -through this rookery of the murres. The first step among them, and -the whole colony was gone, with a rush of wings and feet that sent -several of the top-shaped eggs rolling, and several of the young birds -toppling over the cliff to the pounding waves and ledges far below. - -We stopped, but the colony, almost to a bird, had bolted, leaving -scores of eggs and scores of downy young squealing and running -together for shelter, like so many beetles under a lifted board. - -But the birds had not every one bolted, for here sat two of the colony -among the broken rocks. These two had not been frightened off. That -both of them were greatly alarmed, any one could see from their open -beaks, their rolling eyes, their tense bodies on tiptoe for flight. -Yet here they sat, their wings out like props, or more like gripping -hands, as if they were trying to hold themselves down to the rocks -against their wild desire to fly. - -And so they were, in truth, for under their extended wings I saw -little black feet moving. Those two mother murres were not going to -forsake their babies! No, not even for these approaching monsters, -such as they had never before seen, clambering over their rocks. - -What was different about these two? They had their young ones to -protect. Yes, but so had every bird in the great colony its young one, -or its egg, to protect, yet all the others had gone. Did these two -have more mother-love than the others? And hence, more courage, more -intelligence? - -We took another step toward them, and one of the two birds sprang into -the air, knocking her baby over and over with the stroke of her wing, -and coming within an inch of hurling it across the rim to be battered -on the ledges below. The other bird raised her wings to follow, then -clapped them back over her baby. Fear is the most contagious thing in -the world; and that flap of fear by the other bird thrilled her, too, -but as she had withstood the stampede of the colony, so she caught -herself again and held on. - -She was now alone on the bare top of the rock, with ten thousand -circling birds screaming to her in the air above, and with two men -creeping up to her with a big black camera that clicked ominously. She -let the multitude scream, and with threatening beak watched the two -men come on. A motherless baby, spying her, ran down the rock -squealing for his life. She spread a wing, put her bill behind him -and shoved him quickly in out of sight with her own baby. The man with -the camera saw the act, for I heard his machine click, and I heard him -say something under his breath that you would hardly expect a mere man -and a game-warden to say. But most men have a good deal of the mother -in them; and the old bird had acted with such decision, such courage, -such swift, compelling instinct, that any man, short of the wildest -savage, would have felt his heart quicken at the sight. - -"Just how compelling might that mother-instinct be?" I wondered. "Just -how much would that mother-love stand?" I had dropped to my knees, and -on all fours had crept up within about three feet of the bird. She -still had chance for flight. Would she allow me to crawl any nearer? -Slowly, very slowly, I stretched forward on my hands, like a -measuring-worm, until my body lay flat on the rocks, and my fingers -were within three _inches_ of her. But her wings were twitching, a -wild light danced in her eyes, and her head turned toward the sea. - -For a whole minute I did not stir. I was watching--and the wings again -began to tighten about the babies, the wild light in the eyes died -down, the long, sharp beak turned once more toward me. - -Then slowly, very slowly, I raised my hand, touched her feathers with -the tip of one finger--with two fingers--with my whole hand, while -the loud camera click-clacked, click-clacked hardly four feet away! - -It was a thrilling moment. I was not killing anything. I had no -long-range rifle in my hands, coming up against the wind toward an -unsuspecting creature hundreds of yards away. This was no wounded -leopard charging me; no mother-bear defending with her giant might a -captured cub. It was only a mother-bird, the size of a wild duck, with -swift wings at her command, hiding under those wings her own and -another's young, and her own boundless fear! - -For the second time in my life I had taken captive with my bare hands -a free wild bird. No, I had not taken her captive. She had made -herself a captive; she had taken herself in the strong net of her -mother-love. - -And now her terror seemed quite gone. At the first touch of my hand I -think she felt the love restraining it, and without fear or fret she -let me reach under her and pull out the babies. But she reached after -them with her bill to tuck them back out of sight, and when I did not -let them go, she sidled toward me, quacking softly, a language that I -perfectly understood, and was quick to respond to. I gave them back, -fuzzy and black and white. She got them under her, stood up over them, -pushed her wings down hard around them, her stout tail down hard -behind them, and together with them pushed in an abandoned egg that -was close at hand. Her own baby, some one else's baby, and some one -else's forsaken egg! She could cover no more; she had not feathers -enough. But she had heart enough; and into her mother's heart she had -already tucked every motherless egg and nestling of the thousands of -frightened birds, screaming and wheeling in the air high over her -head. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS - - -"Who has not wondered," I asked, many years ago, "as he has seen the -red rim of the sun sink down in the sea, where the little brood of -Mother Carey's chickens skimming round the vessel would sleep that -night?" Here on the waves, no doubt, but what a bed! You have seen -them, or you will see them the first time you cross the ocean, far out -of sight of land--a little band of small dark birds, veering, -glancing, skimming the heaving sea like swallows, or riding the great -waves up and down, from crest to trough, as easily as Bobolink rides -the swaying clover billows in the meadow behind the barn. - -I have stood at the prow and watched them as the huge steamer ploughed -her way into the darkening ocean. Down in the depths beneath me the -porpoises were playing,--as if the speeding ship, with its mighty -engines, were only another porpoise playing tag with them,--and off on -the gray sea ahead, where the circle of night seemed to be closing in, -this little flock of stormy petrels, Mother Carey's chickens, rising, -falling with the heave and sag of the sea, so far, for such little -wings, from the shore! - -You will see them, and you will ask yourself, as I asked myself, -"Where is their home? Where do they nest?" I hope you will also have a -chance to answer the question some time for yourself, as I had a -chance to answer it for myself recently, out on the Three-Arch Rocks, -in the Pacific, just off the coast of Oregon. - -I visited the rocks to see all their multitudinous wild life,--their -gulls, cormorants, murres, guillemots, puffins, oyster-catchers, and -herds of sea-lions,--but more than any other one thing I wanted to see -the petrels, Kaeding's petrels, that nest on the top of Shag Rock, the -outermost of the three rocks of the Reservation. - -No, not merely to _see_ the petrels: what I really wished to do was to -stay all night on the storm-swept peak in order to hear the petrels -come back to their nests on the rock in the dusk and dark. My friend -Finley had done it, years before, on this very rock. On the steep -north slope of the top he had found a safe spot between two jutting -crags, and, wrapping himself in his blanket as the sun went down -behind the hill of the sea, had waited for the winnowing of the small -mysterious wings. - -Just to sleep in such a bed would be enough. To lie down far up on the -ragged peak of this wild sea rock, with the break and swash of the -waves coming up from far beneath you, with the wide sea-wind coming -in, and the dusk spreading down, and the wild sea-birds murmuring in -their strange tongues all about you--it would be enough just to turn -one's face to the lonely sky in such a spot and listen. But how much -more to hear suddenly, among all these strange sounds, the swift -fanning of wings--to feel them close above your face--and to see in -the dim dusk wavering shadowy forms, like a troop of longwinged bats, -hovering over the slope and chittering in a rapid, unbirdlike talk, as -if afraid the very dark might hear them! - -That was what I wanted so much to hear and to see. For down in a -little burrow, in the accumulated earth and guano of the top, under -each of these hovering shadows, would be another shadow, waiting to -hear the beating of the wings and the chitter above; and I wanted to -see the mate in the burrow come out and greet the mate that had been -all day upon the sea. - -This petrel digs itself a little burrow and lays one egg. The burrow -might hold both birds at once, but one seldom finds two birds in the -burrow together. While one is brooding, the other is off on its -wonderful wings--away off in the wake of your ocean steamer, perhaps, -miles and miles from shore. But when darkness falls it remembers its -nest and speeds home to the rock, taking its place down in the little -black burrow, while the mate comes forth and spreads its wings out -over the heaving water, not to return, it may be, until the night and -the day have passed and twilight falls again. - -We landed on a ledge of Shag Rock, driving off a big bull sea-lion who -claimed this particular slab of rock as his own. We backed up close to -the shelf in a yawl boat, and as the waves rose and fell, watched our -chance to leap from the stern of the little boat to the rock. Thus we -landed our cameras, food and water, and other things, then we dragged -the boat up, so that, a storm arising or anything happening to the -small steamer that had brought us, we might still get away to the -shore. - -It was about the middle of the forenoon. All the morning, as we had -steamed along, a thick fog had threatened us; but now the sun broke -out, making it possible to use our cameras, and after a hasty lunch we -started for the top of the rock--a climb that looked impossible, and -that was pretty nearly as impossible as it looked. - -It had been a slow, perilous climb; but, once on the summit, where we -could move somewhat freely and use the cameras, we hurried from colony -to colony to take advantage of the uncertain sunlight, which, indeed, -utterly failed us after only an hour's work. But, as I had no camera, -I made the best of it, giving all my time to studying the ways of the -birds. Besides, I had come to stay on the peak all night; I could do -my work well enough in the dark. But I could not do it in the wind and -rain. - -The sun went into the clouds about four o'clock, but so absorbed was I -in watching, and so thick was the air with wings, so clangorous with -harsh tongues, that I had not seen the fog moving in, or noticed that -the gray wind of the morning had begun to growl about the crags. -Looking off to seaward, I now saw that a heavy bank of mist had -blurred the sky-line and settled down upon the sea. The wind had -freshened; a fine, cold drizzle was beginning to fall, and soon came -slanting across the peak. The prospect was grim and forbidding. Then -the rain began. The night was going to be dark and stormy, too wet and -wild for watching, here where I must hang on with my hands or else -slip and go over--down--down to the waves below. - -We started to descend at once, while there was still light enough to -see by, and before the rocks were made any slipperier by the rain. We -did not fear the wind much, for that was from the north, and we must -descend by the south face, up which we had come. - -I was deeply disappointed. My night with the petrels on the top was -out of the question. Yet as I backed over the rim of that peak, and -began to pick my way down, it was not disappointment, but fear that I -felt. It had been bad enough coming up; but this going down!--with the -cold, wet shadow of night encircling you and lying dark on the cold, -sullen sea below--this was altogether worse. - -The rocks were already wet, and the footing was treacherous. As we -worked slowly along, the birds in the gathering gloom seemed to fear -us less, flying close about our heads, their harsh cries and winging -tumult adding not a little to the peril of the descent. And then the -looking down! and then the impossibility at places of even looking -down--when one could only hang on with one's hands and feel around in -the empty air with one's feet for something to stand on! - -I got a third of the way down, perhaps, and then stopped. The men did -not laugh at me. They simply looped a rope about me, under my arms, -and lowered me over the narrow shelves into the midst of a large murre -colony, from which point I got on alone. Then they tied the rope about -Dallas, my eleven-year-old son, who was with me on the expedition, and -lowered him. - -He came bumping serenely down, smoothing all the little murres and -feeling of all the warm eggs on the way, as if they might have been so -many little kittens, and as if he might have been at home on the -kitchen floor, instead of dangling down the face of a cliff two -hundred or more feet above the sea. - -Some forty feet from the waves was a weathered niche, or shelf, eight -or ten feet wide. Here we stopped for the night. The wind was from the -other side of the rock; the overhanging ledge protected us somewhat -from above, though the mist swept about the steep walls to us, and the -drizzle dripped from overhead. But as I pulled my blanket about me and -lay down beside the other men the thought of what the night must be on -the summit made the hard, damp rock under me seem the softest and -warmest of beds. - -But what a place was this to sleep in!--this narrow ledge with a -rookery of wild sea-birds just above it, with the den of a wild -sea-beast just below it, with the storm-swept sky shut down upon it, -and the sea, the crawling, sinister sea, coiling and uncoiling its -laving folds about it, as with endless undulations it slipped over the -sunken ledges and swam round and round the rock. - -What a place was this to sleep! I could not sleep. I was as wakeful as -the wild beasts that come forth at night to seek their prey. I must -catch a glimpse of Night through her veil of mist, the gray, ghostly -Night, as she came down the long, rolling slope of the sea, and I must -listen, for my very fingers seemed to have ears, so many were the -sounds, and so strange--the talk of the wind on the rock, the sweep -of the storm, the lap of the waves, the rumbling mutter of the wakeful -caverns, the cry of birds, the hoarse grumbling growl of the sea-lions -swimming close below. - -The clamor of the birds was at first disturbing. But soon the -confusion caused by our descent among them subsided; the large colony -of murres close by our heads returned to their rookery; and with the -rain and thickening dark there spread everywhere the quiet of a low -murmurous quacking. Sleep was settling over the rookeries. - -Down in the sea below us rose the head of an old sea-lion, the old -lone bull whose den we had invaded. He was coming back to sleep. He -rose and sank, blinking dully at the cask we had left on his ledge; -then clambered out and hitched slowly up toward his sleeping-place. I -counted the scars on his head, and noted the fresh deep gash on his -right side. I could hear him blow and breathe. - -I drew back from the edge, and, pulling the piece of sail-cloth over -me and the small boy at my side, turned my face up to the slanting -rain. Two young gulls came out of their hiding in a cranny and nestled -against my head, their parents calling gently to them from time to -time all night long. In the murre colony overhead there was a constant -stir and a soft, low talk, and over all the rock, through all the -darkened air there was a silent coming and going of wings--wings--of -the stormy petrels, some of them, I felt sure, the swift shadow wings -of Mother Carey's chickens that I had so longed to hear come winnowing -in from afar on the sea. - -The drizzle thickened. And now I heard the breathing of the sleeping -men beside me; and under me I felt the narrow shelf of rock dividing -the waters from the waters, and then--I, too, must have slept; for -utter darkness was upon the face of the deep. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -RIDING THE RIM ROCK - - -From P Ranch to Winnemucca is a seventeen-day drive through a desert -of rim rock and greasewood and sage, which, under the most favorable -of conditions, is beset with difficulty; but which, in the dry season, -and with a herd of anything like four thousand, becomes an unbroken -hazard. More than anything else on such a drive is feared the wild -herd-spirit, the quick black temper of the cattle, that by one sign or -another ever threatens to break the spell of the rider's power and -sweep the maddened or terrorized herd to destruction. The handling of -the herd to keep this spirit sleeping is ofttimes a thrilling -experience. - -Some time before my visit to P Ranch, in Harney County, southeastern -Oregon, in the summer of 1912, the riders had taken out a herd of four -thousand steers on what proved to be one of the most difficult drives -ever made to Winnemucca, the shipping station in northern Nevada. - -For the first two days on the trail the cattle were strange to each -other, having been gathered from widely distant grazing-grounds,--from -the Double O and the Home ranches,--and were somewhat clannish and -restive under the driving. At the beginning of the third day signs of -real ugliness appeared. The hot weather and a shortage of water began -to tell on the temper of the herd. - -The third day was long and exceedingly hot. The line started forward -at dawn and all day long kept moving, with the sun cooking the bitter -smell of sage into the air, and with the sixteen thousand hoofs -kicking up a still bitterer smother of alkali dust that inflamed eyes -and nostrils and coated the very lungs of the cattle. The fierce -desert thirst was upon the herd long before it reached the creek where -it was to bed for the night. The heat and the dust had made slow work -of the driving, and it was already late when they reached the -creek--only to find it dry. - -This was bad. The men were tired. But, worse, the cattle were thirsty, -and Wade, the "boss of the buckaroos," pushed the herd on toward the -next rim rock, hoping to get down to the plain below to water before -the end of the slow desert twilight. Anything for the night but a dry -camp. - -They had hardly started on when a whole flank of the herd, as if by -prearrangement, suddenly breaking away and dividing about two of the -riders, tore off through the brush. The horses were as tired as the -men, and before the chase was over the twilight was gray in the sage -and it became necessary to halt at once and make camp where they were. -They would have to go without water. - -The runaways were brought up and the herd closed in till it formed a -circle nearly a mile around. This was as close as it could be drawn, -for the cattle would not bed--lie down. They wanted water more than -they wanted rest. Their eyes were red, their tongues raspy with -thirst. The situation was a serious one. - -But camp was made. Two of the riders were sent back along the trail to -bring up the "drags," while Wade with his other men circled the uneasy -cattle, closing them in, quieting them, and doing everything possible -to make them bed. - -But they were thirsty, and, instead of bedding, the herd began to -"growl"--a distant mutter of throats, low, rumbling, ominous, as when -faint thunder rolls behind the hills. Every plainsman fears the growl, -for it usually is a prelude to the "milling," as it proved to be now, -when the whole vast herd began to stir, slowly, singly, and without -direction, till at length it moved together, round and round, a great -compact circle, the multitude of clicking hoofs, of clashing horns, -and chafing sides like the sound of rushing rain across a field of -corn. - -Nothing could be worse for the cattle. The cooler twilight was -falling, but, mingling with it, rose and thickened and spread the -choking dust from their feet that soon covered them and shut out all -but the dark wall of the herd from sight. - -Slowly, evenly swung the wall, round and round without a break. Only -one who has watched a milling herd can know its suppressed -excitement. To keep that excitement in check was the problem of Wade -and his men. And the night had not yet begun. - -When the riders had brought in the drags and the chuck-wagon had -lumbered up with supper, Wade set the first watch. - -Along with the wagon had come the fresh horses--and Peroxide Jim, a -supple, powerful, clean-limbed buckskin, that had, I think, as fine -and intelligent an animal-face as any I ever saw. And why should he -not have been saved fresh for just such a need as this? Are there not -superior horses to match superior men--a Peroxide Jim to complement a -Wade and so combine a real centaur, noble physical power controlled by -noble intelligence? At any rate, the horse understood the situation, -and though there was nothing like sentiment about the boss of the P -Ranch riders, his faith in Peroxide Jim was complete. - -The other night horses were saddled and tied to the wheels of the -wagon. It was Wade's custom to take his turn with the second watch; -but, shifting his saddle to Peroxide Jim, he rode out with the four of -the first watch, who, evenly spaced, were quietly circling the herd. - -The night, for this part of the desert, was unusually warm; it was -close, silent, and without a sky. The near thick darkness blotted out -the stars. There is usually a breeze at night over these highest -rim-rock plains that, no matter how hot the day, crowds the cattle -together for warmth. To-night not a breath stirred the sage as Wade -wound in and out among the bushes, the hot dust stinging his eyes and -caking rough on his skin. - -Round and round moved the weaving, shifting forms, out of the dark and -into the dark, a gray spectral line like a procession of ghosts, or -some slow morris of the desert's sheeted dead. But it was not a line, -it was a sea of forms; not a procession, but the even surging of a -maelstrom of hoofs a mile around. - -Wade galloped out on the plain for a breath of air and a look at the -sky. A quick cold rain would quiet them; but there was no feel of rain -in the darkness, no smell of it in the air. Only the powdery taste of -bitter sage. - -The desert, where the herd had camped, was one of the highest of a -series of tablelands, or benches, that lay as level as a floor, and -rimmed by a sheer wall of rock over which it dropped to the bench of -sage below. The herd had been headed for a pass, and was now halted -within a mile of the rim rock on the east, where there was about three -hundred feet of perpendicular fall. - -It was the last place an experienced plainsman would have chosen for a -camp; and every time Wade circled the herd and came in between the -cattle and the rim, he felt its nearness. The darkness helped to -bring it near. The height of his horse brought it near--he seemed to -look down from his saddle over it, into its dark depths. The herd in -its milling was surely warping slowly in the direction of the -precipice. But this was all fancy--the trick of the dark and of -nerves, if a plainsman has nerves. - -At twelve o'clock the first guard came in and woke the second watch. -Wade had been in his saddle since dawn, but this was his regular -watch. More than that, his trained ear had timed the milling hoofs. -The movement of the herd had quickened. - -If now he could keep them going and could prevent their taking any -sudden fright! They must not stop until they stopped from utter -weariness. Safety lay in their continued motion. So Wade, with the -fresh riders, flanked them closely, paced them, and urged them quietly -on. They must be kept milling, and they must be kept from fright. - -In the taut silence of the starless desert night, with the tension of -the cattle at the snapping-point, any quick, unwonted sight or sound -would stampede the herd--the sneezing of a horse, the flare of a -match, enough to send the whole four thousand headlong--blind, -frenzied, tramping--till spent and scattered over the plain. - -And so, as he rode, Wade began to sing. The rider ahead of him took up -the air and passed it on, until, above the stepping stir of the hoofs, -rose the faint voices of the men, and all the herd was bound about by -the slow, plaintive measure of some old song. It was not to soothe -their savage breasts that the riders sang to the cattle, but to -prevent the shock of any loud or sudden noise. - -So they sang and rode, and the night wore on to one o'clock, when -Wade, coming up on the rim-rock side, felt a cool breeze fan his face, -and caught a breath of fresh, moist wind with the taste of water in -it. - -He checked his horse instantly, listening as the wind swept past him -over the cattle. But they must already have smelled it, for they had -ceased their milling. The whole herd stood motionless, the indistinct -forms nearest him showing, in the dark, their bald faces lifted to -drink the sweet wet breath that came over the rim. Then they started -again, but faster, and with a rumbling from their hoarse throats that -tightened Wade's grip on his reins. - -The sound seemed to come out of the earth, a low, rumbling mumble, as -deep as the night and as wide as the plain, a thick, inarticulate -bellow that stood every rider stiff in his stirrups. - -The breeze caught the dust and carried it back from the gray-coated, -ghostly shapes, and Wade saw that they were still moving in a circle. -If only he could keep them going! He touched his horse to ride on with -them, when across the black sky flashed a vivid streak of lightning. - -There was a snort from the steers, a quick clap of horns and hoofs -from within the herd, a tremor of the plain, a roar, a surging -mass--and Wade was riding the flank of a wild stampede. Before him, -behind him, beside him, pressing hard upon his horse, galloped the -frenzied steers, and beyond them a multitude, borne on, and bearing -him on, by the heave of the galloping herd. - -Wade was riding for his life. He knew it. His horse knew it. He was -riding to turn the herd, too,--back from the rim,--as the horse also -knew. The cattle were after water--water-mad--and would go over the -precipice to get it, carrying horse and rider with them. - -Wade was the only rider between the herd and the rim. It was black as -death. He could see nothing in the sage, could scarcely discern the -pounding, panting shadows at his side; but he knew by the swish of the -brush and the plunging of the horse that the ground was growing -stonier, that they were nearing the rocks. - -To outrun the cattle seemed his only chance. If he could come up with -the leaders he might yet head them off upon the plain and save the -herd. There were cattle still ahead of him,--how many, what part of -the herd, he could not tell. But the horse knew. The reins hung on his -straight neck, while Wade, yelling and firing into the air, gave him -the race to win, to lose. - -Suddenly they veered and went high in the air, as a steer plunged -headlong into a draw almost beneath his feet. They cleared the narrow -ravine, landed on bare rock, and reeled on. - -They were riding the rim. Close on their left bore down the flank of -the herd, and on their right, under their very feet, was the -precipice, so close that they felt its blackness--its three hundred -feet of fall. - -A piercing, half-human bawl of terror told where a steer had been -crowded over. Would the next leap crowd them over too? Then Wade found -himself racing neck and neck with a big white steer, which the horse, -with marvelous instinct, seemed to pick from a bunch, and to cling to, -forcing him gradually ahead, till, cutting him free from the bunch -entirely, he bore him off into the sage. - -The group coming on behind followed the leader, and after them swung -others. The tide was turning. Within a short time the whole herd had -veered, and, bearing off from the cliffs, was pounding over the open -plains. - -Whose race was it? It was Peroxide Jim's, according to Wade, for not -by word or by touch of hand or knee had he been directed in the run. -From the flash of the lightning the horse had taken the bit, had -covered an indescribably perilous path at top speed, had outrun the -herd and turned it from the edge of the rim rock, without a false step -or a shaken nerve. - -[Illustration: (Page 7) "NECK AND NECK WITH A BIG WHITE STEER"] - -Bred on the desert, broken in at the round-up, trained to think steer -as the rider thinks it, the horse knew, as swiftly, as clearly as his -rider, the work before him. But that he kept himself from fright, that -none of the wild herd-madness passed into him, is a thing for great -wonder. He was as thirsty as any of the herd; he knew his own peril, I -believe, as none of the herd had ever known anything, and yet such -coolness, courage, wisdom, and power! - -Was it training? Superior intelligence? More intimate association with -the man on his back, and so a farther remove from the wild thing that -domestication does not seem to touch? Or was it all by suggestion, the -superior intelligence above him riding, not only the flesh, but the -spirit? - -Not all suggestion, I believe. Perhaps a herd of horses could not be -stampeded so easily as these P Ranch cattle. In this race, however, -nothing of the wild herd-spirit touched the horse. Had the cattle been -horses, would Peroxide Jim have been able to keep himself outside the -stampede and above the spirit of the herd? - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO DO THIS SUMMER - - -I - -First, select some bird or beast or insect that lives with you in your -dooryard or house or near neighborhood, and keep track of his doings -all summer long, jotting down in a diary your observations. You might -take the white-faced hornet that builds the big paper nests in the -trees; or the mud wasp, or the toad under the steps, or the swifts in -the chimney, or the swallows in the barn. It hardly matters what you -take, for every life is interesting. The object is to learn how to -follow up your study, how to watch one life long enough, and under -circumstances different enough, to discover its many-sidedness, its -fascination and romance. Such careful and prolonged study will surely -reveal to you something no one else has seen, too. It will be good -training in patience and independence. - - -II - -Along with this study of _one_ life, keep a list of all the beasts, -birds, insects, flowers, etc., that live--I mean, that build nests or -dig holes and rear families--in your dooryard or in this "haunt" that -I told you in "The Spring of the Year" (see page 42, Sections III and -IV) you ought to pick out as your own field of study. This list will -grow all through the summer and from year to year. I have a list of -seventy-six wild neighbors (not counting the butterflies and insects) -that are sharing my fourteen-acre farm with me. How many and _what_ -wild things are sharing your dooryard, your park, your favorite haunt -or farm with you? Such a list of names, with a blank place left for -each where observations can be entered from time to time, would be one -of the most useful and interesting journals you could keep. - - -III - -All through June and into July you should have a round of birds' nests -that you visit daily, and to which you can take your friends and -visitors--that is, if you live in or near the country. One will be in -the big unused chimney of the house, perhaps, and that will be the -first; then one in the barn, or in a bird-house in the yard; or in the -pear-or apple-tree hole; one in the lilac or honeysuckle bushes, and -then down into the orchard, out into the meadow, on into the woods and -back--taking in twenty to thirty birds' nests with eggs and young! Did -you ever do it? Can you do it this summer? Don't you think it would be -quite as exciting and interesting as going to the circus? I can do it; -and if you come out to Mullein Hill in June or July, any one of my -small boys will take you on his "birds' nest round." - - -IV - -You should camp out--even if you have to pitch your tent in the back -yard or up on the roof! You should go to sleep on a bed of -boughs,--pine, or spruce, or hickory, if possible,--or swing your -hammock between the trunks of sweet-smelling forest trees, and turn -your face up to the stars! You will never want to sleep in a room with -closed windows after that. To see the stars looking down upon you; to -see the tree-tops swaying over you; to feel the fresh night wind -stealing across your face and breathing into your very soul--yes, you -must sleep at least _one_ night this summer right out on a bed of -boughs; but with a blanket of wool and a piece of sail-cloth or rubber -coat over you and under you, and perhaps some mosquito-netting. - - -V - -But you must _not_ build a fire in the woods, unless you have a guide -or older people with a permit along. Fires are terrible masters, and -it is almost as dangerous to build a fire in the woods as to build one -in the waste-paper basket in the basement of some large store. Along -the seashore or by the margin of a river or lake, if you take every -precaution, it might be safe enough; but in the woods, if camping out, -make all preparations by clearing a wide space down to the bare -ground, then see that it is bare ground and not a boggy, rooty -peat-bed beneath, that will take fire and smoulder and burn away down -under the surface out of sight, to break through, perhaps, a week -after you have gone, and set the whole mountain-side afire. Build your -fire on bare, sandy earth; have a shovel and can of water at hand, and -put the fire out when you are done with it. It is against the law in -most States to set a fire out of doors after the 1st of April, without -a permit from the fire-warden. - -Now, after this caution, you ought to go out some evening by the shore -with a small party and roast some green corn in the husk; then, -wrapping some potatoes in clay, bake them; if you have fish, wrap them -in clay with their scales on, and bake them. The scales will come off -beautifully when the clay is cracked off, and leave you the tastiest -meal of fish and potatoes and corn you ever ate. Every boy and girl -ought to have a little camp-life and ought to have each his share of -camp-work to perform this summer. - - -VI - -At the close of some stifling July day you ought to go out into the -orchard or woods and watch the evening come on--to notice how the wild -life revives, flowers open, birds sing, animals stir, breezes start, -leaves whisper, and all the world awakes. - -Then follow that up by getting out the next morning before sunrise, -say at half-past three o'clock, an hour before the sun bursts over the -eastern hills. If you are not a stump or a stone, the sight and the -smell--the whole indescribable freshness and wonder of it all--will -thrill you. Would you go to the Pyramids or Niagara or the Yellowstone -Park? Yes, you would, and you would take a great deal of trouble to -see any one of these wonders! Just as great a wonder, just as -thrilling an experience, is right outside of your bedroom early any -June, July, or August morning! I know boys and girls who _never_ saw -the sun get up! - - -VII - -You ought to spend some time this summer on a real farm. Boy or girl, -you need to feel ploughed ground under your feet; you need the contact -with growing things in the ground; you need to handle a hoe, gather -the garden vegetables, feed the chickens, feed the pigs, drive the -cows to pasture, help stow away the hay--and all the other interesting -experiences that make up the simple, elemental, and wonderfully varied -day of farm life. A mere visit is not enough. You need to take part in -the digging and weeding and planting. The other day I let out my cow -after keeping her all winter in the barn. The first thing she did was -to kick up her heels and run to a pile of fresh earth about a newly -planted tree and fall to eating it--not the tree, but the earth, the -raw, rich soil--until her muzzle was muddy halfway to her eyes. You do -not need to eat it; but the need to smell it, to see it, to feel it, -to work in it, is just as real as the cow's need to eat it. - - -VIII - -You ought to learn how to browse and nibble in the woods. What do I -mean? Why, just this: that you ought to learn how to taste the woods -as well as to see them. Maurice Thompson, in "Byways and Bird Notes," -a book you ought to read (and that is another "ought to do" for this -summer), has a chapter called "Browsing and Nibbling" in which his -mountain guide says: "What makes me allus a-nibblin' an' a-browsin' of -the bushes an' things as I goes along? I kinder b'lieve hit keeps a -feller's heart stiddy an' his blood pure for to nibble an' browse -kinder like a deer does. You know a deer is allus strong an' active, -an' hit is everlastin'ly a-nibblin' an' a-browsin'. Ef hit is good for -the annymel, hit otter be good for the feller." - -[Illustration: SASSAFRAS] - -[Illustration: DEADLY NIGHTSHADE] - -The guide may not be right about the strength to be had from tasting -the roots and barks and buds of things, but I know that I am right -when I tell you that the very sap of the summer woods will seem to -mingle with your blood at the taste of the aromatic sassafras root, -the spicy bark of the sweet birch and the biting bulb of the Indian -turnip. Many of the perfumes, odors, resins, gums, saps, and nectars -of the woods can be known to you only by sense of taste. - - -IX - -[Illustration: POISON SUMACH] - -"But I shall bite into something poisonous," you say. Yes, you must -look out for that, and you must take the pains this summer to learn -the poisonous things of our woods and fields. So before you begin to -browse and nibble, make a business of learning the deadly nightshade -with its green or its red berries; the poison sumach with its _loose_ -panicles or clusters of grayish-white berries; the three-leaved poison -ivy or "ground oak" (which you can easily tell from the five-leaved -Virginia creeper); and the deadly mushrooms with their _bulbous_ -roots. These are the poisonous plants that you will meet with most -frequently, but there are a few others, and it will be safest not to -nibble any plant that is strange to you. Nor am I suggesting that you -make a meal on the pitch of the pine trees or anything else. Do not -_eat_ any of these things; taste them only. I was once made -desperately ill by eating poke root (I was a very little child) which -I took for sweet potato. Poke berries are not good to _eat_. Take -along a few good sandwiches from home to eat. But learn to know the -mints, the medicinal roots and barks, and that long list of -old-fashioned "herbs" that our grandmothers hung from the garret -rafters and made us take occasionally as "tea." - -[Illustration: POISON IVY] - -[Illustration: VIRGINIA CREEPER] - - -X - -[Illustration: THE DEADLY AMANITA] - -Finally, as a lover of the woods and wild life, you ought to take a -personal responsibility for the preservation of the trees and woods in -your neighborhood, and of the birds and beasts and other lowlier forms -of wild life. Year by year the wild things are vanishing never to -return to your woods, and never to be seen again by man. Do what you -can to stop the hunting and ignorant killing of every sort. You ought -to get and read "Our Vanishing Wild Life," by William T. Hornaday, and -then join the growing host of us who, alarmed at the fearful increase -of insect pests, and the loss to the beauty and interest of the -out-of-doors through the extermination of wild life, are doing our -best to save the wild things we still have and to increase their -numbers. - -[Illustration: POKE] - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -THE "CONY" - - -We were threading our slow way along the narrow divide of the Wallowa -Mountains that runs between the branches of the Snake River. Our guide -was a former "camp-tender," one who carries provisions to the -sheep-herders in the mountains. As we were stopping a moment to -breathe our horses and to look down upon the head springs of Big Sheep -and Salt Lick Creeks on one side, and the narrow ribbon of the Imnaha -on the other, this guide and our mammal-collector rode on ahead. An -hour later I saw them round the breast of a peak far along on the -trail and disappear. That night they brought into camp a "cony," or -pika, or little chief hare. - -The year before, this camp-tender, in passing a certain rock-slide -among the high peaks of the pass, had heard and seen a peculiar little -animal about the size and shape of a small guinea-pig, whistling among -the broken rock. He had never seen the little creature before,--had -never heard of it. It was to this slide that he now took our -naturalist, in the hope of showing him the mountain guinea-pig, and, -sure enough, they brought one back with them, and showed me my first -"cony," one of the rarest of American mammals. - -But I was broken-hearted. That I should have been so near and missed -it! For we had descended to Aneroid Lake to camp that night, and there -were no cony slides below us on the trail. - -While the men were busy about camp the next morning, I slipped off -alone on foot, and, following the trail, got back about ten o'clock to -the rock-slide where they had killed the cony. - -A wilder, barrener, more desolate land of crags and peaks I never -beheld. Eternal silence seemed to wrap it round. The slide was of -broken pieces of rock, just as if the bricks from an immense chimney -had cracked off and rolled down into the valley of the roof. Stunted -vegetation grew around, with scraggly wild grass and a few snow-line -flowers, for this was on the snow-line, several melting banks -glistening in the morning sun about me. - -I crept round the sharp slope of the peak and down to the edge of the -rock-slide. "Any living thing in that long heap of broken rock!" I -said to myself incredulously. That barren, blasted pile of splintered -peaks the home of an animal? Why, I was on the top of the world! A -great dark hawk was wheeling over toward Eagle Cap Mountain in the -distance; far below me flapped a band of ravens; and down, down, -immeasurably far down, glistened the small winding waters of the -Imnaha; while all about me were the peaks, lonely, solitary, mighty, -terrible! Such bleakness and desolation! - -But here, they told me, they had shot the cony. I could not believe -it. Why should any animal live away up here on the roof of the world? -For several feet each side of the steep, piled-up rock grew spears of -thin, wiry grass about six inches high, and a few stunted -flowers,--pussy's-paws, alpine phlox, and beardtongue, all of them -flat to the sand,--and farther down the sides of the ravine were low, -twisted pines,--mere prostrate mats of trees that had crept in narrow -ascending tongues, up and up, until they could hang on no longer to -the bare alpine slopes. But here above the stunted pines, here in the -slide rock, where only mosses and a few flat plants could -live,--plants that blossom in the snow,--dwell the conies. - -I sat down on the edge of the slide, feeling that I had had my labor -for my pains. We had been climbing these peaks in the hope of seeing -one of the last small bands of mountain sheep that made these -fastnesses their home. But, much as I wished to see a wild mountain -sheep among the crags, I wished more to see the little cony among the -rocks. "As for the stork," says the Bible, "the fir trees are her -house. The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; and the rocks -for the conies." I had always wondered about those conies--what they -looked like and how they lived among the rocks. - -I knew that these little conies here in the slide (if indeed they -_could_ be here) were not those of the mountain-peaks of Palestine. -What of that! The very rocks might be different in kind from the rocks -of Nebo or Lebanon; but peaks are peaks, and rocks are rocks, and the -strange little "rabbits" that dwell in their broken slides are all -conies to me. The cony of the Bible is the little hyrax, a relative of -the elephant. - -I sat for a while watching. Was this the place? I must make sure -before I settled down to waiting, for when in all my life again might -I have this chance? - -Out in the middle of the slide was a pile of rocks with an uneven look -about them, as if they had been heaped up there by other hands than -those that hurled them from the peak. Going quietly out, I examined -them closely, and found the perfect print of a little bloody paw on -one of them. - -This was the right place. Here was where they had shot the specimen -brought into camp. I got back to my seat, ready now to wait, even -while I knew that I was holding back the camp from its day's march. - -Perhaps I had been watching for half an hour, when from somewhere, in -the rock-slide surely, though I could not tell, there sounded a shrill -bleating whistle, not unlike the whistles of the ground squirrels and -marmots that I had heard all through the mountains, yet more -tremulous and not so piercing. - -I waited. Presently a little gray form crept over a stone, stopped and -whistled, then disappeared. It was my cony! - -If you can think of Molly Cottontail turned into the shape of a -guinea-pig about eight inches long, with positively no tail at all, -and with big round broad ears, and with all four legs of equal length -so that the creature walks instead of hopping,--if you can imagine -such a rabbit,--you will get a pretty clear picture of the cony, or -pika, or "little chief hare." - -I kept as still as the stones. Presently the plaintive, bleating -whistle sounded from nowhere again--behind me, beyond me, up the slide -or down, I could not tell. The rocks were rough, rusty chunks two or -three feet long, piled helter-skelter without form or order, so that -any one spot in the slide looked precisely like every other spot. I -could not tell just the piece the cony had crossed, once my eyes were -off of it, nor into which of the cracks he had disappeared. I could -only sit still and wait till I caught him moving, so completely did -his color blend with the rusty brown tone of the slide. - -All the while the shrill, piteous call kept coming from anywhere in -the slide. But it was not the call of several voices, not a colony -whistling at once. The conies live in colonies, but, judging from the -single small haycock which they had curing in the sun, I think there -could not have been more than two or three pairs of them in this -particular slide. Possibly there was only the single pair, one of -which had been shot, for presently, when my eyes grew sharp enough to -pick the little creature out against the rocks, I found that one was -doing all the calling, and that for some reason he was greatly -disturbed. - -Now he would stop on a slab and whistle, then dive into some long -passage under the stones, to reappear several feet or yards away. Here -he would pause to listen, and, hearing nothing, would call again, -waiting for an answer to his tremulous cry which did not come. - -Under and over the stones, up and down the slide, now close to me, now -on the extreme opposite edge of the pile he traveled, nervously, -anxiously looking for something--for some _one_, I truly think; and my -heart smote me when I thought it might be for the dead mate whose -little bare foot-pads had left the bloody print upon the rock. - -Up and down, in and out, he ran, calling, calling, calling, but -getting no answer back. He was the only one that showed himself, the -only live one I have ever seen, but this one I followed, as he went -searching and crying over the steep rock-slide, with my eye and with -the field-glasses, until long past noon--with a whole camp down the -cañon looking for me! - -But they must know where to look. Let them climb out of the cañon, -back to the top of the world to the cony slide, if they could not wait -for me. - -Higher up than the mountain sheep or the goat can live, where only the -burrowing pocket gopher and rare field mice are ever found, dwells the -cony. This particular slide was on one of the minor peaks,--loftier -ones towered all about,--nor do I know just how high it was, but the -cony dwells above the tree-line, up in the Arctic-Alpine Zone, in a -world of perpetual snow, from ten to fourteen thousand feet above the -sea. - -By perpetual snow I mean that the snow-banks never melt in the -shadowed ravines and on the bare north slopes. Here, where I was -watching, the rock-slide lay open to the sun, the scanty grass was -green beyond the gully, and the squat alpine flowers were in bloom, -the saxifrage and a solitary aster (April and September together!) -blossoming in the edges of the snow just as fast as the melting banks -allowed them to lift their heads. But any day the wind might come down -from the north, keen and thick and white about the summits, and leave -the flowers and the cony slide covered deep beneath a drift. - -Spring, summer, and autumn are all one season, all crowded together--a -kind of peak piercing for a few short weeks the long, bleak, unbroken -land of winter here on the roof of the world. - -But during this brief period the thin grass springs up, and the conies -cut and cure it, enough of it to last them from the falling of the -September snows until the drifts are once more melted and their -rock-slide warms in another summer's sun. - -For the cony does not hibernate. He stays awake down in his catacombs. -Think of being buried alive in pitch-black night with snow twenty-five -feet thick above you for nine out of twelve months of the year! Yet -here they are away up on the sides of the wildest summits, living -their lives, keeping their houses, rearing their children, visiting -back and forth through their subways for all this long winter, -protected by the drifts which lie so deep that they keep out the cold. - -As I looked about me I could not see grass enough to feed a pair of -conies for a winter. Right near me was one of their little haycocks, -nearly cured and ready for storing in their barns beneath the rocks; -but this would not last long. It was already early August and what -haying they had to do must be done quickly or winter would catch them -hungry. - -They cut the grass that grows in the vicinity of the slide, and cock -it until it is cured, then they carry it all below against the coming -of the cold; and naturalists who have observed them describe with what -hurry and excitement the colony falls to taking in the hay when bad -weather threatens to spoil it. - -Hardy little farmers! Bold small folk! Why climb for a home with your -tiny, bare-soled feet above the aerie of the eagle and the cave of the -soaring condor of the Sierras? Why not descend to the warm valleys, -where winter, indeed, comes, but cannot linger?--or farther down where -the grass is always green, with never a need to cut and cure a -winter's hay? - -I do not know why--nor why upon the tossing waves the little petrel -makes her bed; nor why, beneath the waves, "down to the dark, to the -utter dark" on - - "The great gray level plains of ooze," - -the "blind white sea-snakes" make their home; nor why at the north, in -the fearful, far-off, frozen north, the little lemmings dwell; nor -why, nor why. But as I sat there above the clouds, listening to the -plaintive, trembling whistle of the little cony, and hoping his mate -was not dead, and wondering why he stayed here in the barren peak, and -how he must fare in the black, bitter winter, I said over to myself -the lines of Kipling for an answer,-- - - "And God who clears the grounding berg - And steers the grinding floe, - He hears the cry of the little kit-fox - And the lemming on the snow." - - - - -NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS - - -CHAPTER I - -TO THE TEACHER - - Let me say again that the best thing any nature book can do for - its readers is to take them out of doors; and that the best - thing any nature-study teacher can do for them is to take them - out of doors. Think of going to school to a teacher so simple, - wholesome, vigorous, original, and rich in the qualities of the - soul that she (how naturally we say "she"!)--that she comes to - her classroom by way of the Public Garden, carrying a bird-glass - in her hand! or across the fields with a rare orchid in her - hand, and the freshness and sweetness of the June morning in her - face and spirit! Why, I should like to be a boy again just to - have such a teacher. Instead of bird-songs it is too often - school gossip, instead of orchids it is clothes, instead of the - open fields it is the round of the schoolroom that most teachers - are absorbed in. Most teachers can add and spell much better - than they can read, because they do not know the literary values - and suggestions of words. Nothing would so help the run of - teachers as the background, the observation and feeling, that - would come from an intimate knowledge of the out-of-doors in the - vicinity of their schoolrooms. - - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 1 - - Learn first of all the joy of walking. It is enough at first to - say "I am going to take a woods walk," with nothing smaller in - mind to do or hear or see. Such tramping itself is one of the - very best ways of meeting the wild folk, and getting acquainted - with nature. Go to a variety of places--the seashore, the - water-front, the upland pasture, the deep swamps, even if you - take a car-ride to reach them. Then select the place nearest at - hand to frequent and watch closely. - -PAGE 3 - - There are many good books on the use of the camera for - nature-study. Among them read: "Nature and the Camera" by - Dugmore; "Home Life of Wild Birds," by Herrick. - -PAGE 4 - - _The clover blossom and the bumblebee_: Read the intensely - interesting book of Darwin's on the cross-fertilization of - flowers. You will also find readable accounts in "Nature's - Garden," by Mrs. Blanchan. - -PAGE 5 - - In what nursery book do you find the original account of _the - House that Jack Built_? - -PAGE 6 - - _Coccinella septempunctata_: The ladybirds, or ladybugs, are - named according to the number of their spots: _septempunctata_ - means seven-spotted. Another is called _novemnotata_, - nine-spotted. - - _Sixty species of birds_: Make your own list. Study your woods, - your neighborhood, minutely day and night in order to find them - all. - - -CHAPTER II - -TO THE TEACHER - - Set the students to watching and reporting this rare but very - interesting phase of wild animal life. Nothing will tax their - patience and ingenuity more; nor will any of their reports need - so careful scrutiny and weighing, so easy is it to be mistaken. - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 10 - - _"line"_: the end of the race; the "tape" or mark set for - runners in a contest. - - _"set-to"_: a combat or fight. - - _mix-up_: is the same half-slangy word or newspaper expression - for a general fight. - -PAGE 11 - - _Paramoecium_: this is one of the best known of the - single-celled animals. You can get them by making an "infusion" - of raw potato, a little hay, and stagnant water. - -PAGE 12 - - _A writer in one of our magazines_: The account is found in "St. - Nicholas" for May, 1913. - - _two big slanting cellar-doors_: These were in the shed of my - grandfather's farmhouse, "Underwood," and covered the - "bulkhead" of the cellar. - -PAGE 13 - - _The [Massachusetts] Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to - Animals_: has its headquarters in Boston. It does a great work - for "dumb" animals, and publishes a paper called "Our Dumb - Animals" that every home and school should have. - -PAGE 14 - - _follow my leader_: a game that all boys know and love, - especially when a strong, daring leader takes the game in hand. - -PAGE 15 - - _Mount Hood_: is the highest peak of the Cascade Range in - Oregon. The _rope_ hanging down from the summit was brought up - on a pack-horse or mule (I forget which) as far as Tie-up Rock, - then carried to the summit by the professional guides and there - fastened for the safety of those whom they take to the top - during the summer. - -PAGE 17 - - _a wild snowstorm_: for a fuller description of this storm and - the whole climb see the chapter in "Where Rolls the Oregon" - entitled "The Butterflies of Mount Hood." - - -CHAPTER III - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 19 - - _"All heaven and earth are still," etc._: this is from Byron's - "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," a poem you ought to read. - -PAGE 21 - - _Mr. William L. Finley's story_ of the condor appeared in the - "Century Magazine." It is one of the most interesting bird - stories ever written. - - _This is the season of flowers_: among the helpful and - interesting flower books for field use are "Gray's Manual," - Mrs. Dana's "How to Know the Wild Flowers," and Chester A. - Reed's little vest-pocket _Guide_ with colored plates of the - common flowers. - -PAGE 25 - - _rain down little toads_: I saw it again in the deserts of - Oregon, the quick shower making millions of western spadefoot - toads hop up out of the sand. As the sun came out again, presto! - all were gone--into the sand out of sight. - - -CHAPTER IV - -TO THE TEACHER - - In reading this story point out the very narrow margin of life - among the wild animals; that is to say, show how little a thing - it often is that turns the scales, that makes for life or death. - We need all our powers, and all of them developed to their very - highest degree of efficiency for the race of life. Only the - fittest survive, and for these the race is often under too great - handicaps. - - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 27 - - _plumers_: those who used to kill birds for their beautiful - plumage. - - _Klamath Lake Reservation_: is partly in California. It was set - aside by President Roosevelt. - - _the coyote_: is the prairie or desert wolf. He is larger than - the red fox, but smaller than the gray, or timber, wolf. - -PAGE 29 - - _homesteader_: one who settles upon land under the Federal - home-steading laws. - - -CHAPTER V - -TO THE TEACHER - - With a map of Boston follow the course of this title--from the - crowded wharf and water-front to the wide, country-like fields - of Franklin Park. It is a five-cent car-ride, a good half-day's - walk if you watch the wild life on the way. Map out such a - course in your own city and take your pupils over it on a - tramp, watching for glimpses of animal and bird life and for the - sight of Nature's face--the sky, the wind, the sunshine, trees, - grass, flowers, etc. Make the most of your city chance for - nature-study. It is an important matter. - - -FOR THE PUPIL - - T wharf, long one of the busiest fish wharves in the world, - perhaps the busiest, is, as I write, on the point of being - abandoned by the fish-dealers of Boston, who are to occupy a - huge new pier at South Boston, built by the State at a cost of - about a million dollars. Franklin Field is a great athletic - field adjoining Franklin Park in the southern part of Boston. - -PAGE 39 - - _list of saints_: these immortal names are carved in various - places on the outer walls of the Public Library. - - _cranium_: the head, or rather the skull. - - _herring gull_: _Larus argentatus_, one of the largest and - commonest of the harbor birds, and very much like the Western - gull of Three-Arch Rocks. It is a pearl-gray and pure white - creature with black on the wings. The immature birds are a - brownish gray and look like an entirely different species for - the first year. - -PAGE 40 - - _Boston, Baltimore, etc._: Make a study of your city parks and - the spots of green and the open spaces where the wild things may - be found. Go to the Public Library and ask for the books that - treat of the wild life of your city: "Wild Birds in City Parks," - by Walter, will be such a book for Chicago; "Birds in the Bush," - by Torrey, and "Birds of the Boston Public Garden," by Wright, - for Boston. - - _Charles River Basin_: the wide fresh-water part of Charles - River just above the dam and near Beacon and Charles Streets. - - _Scup_: another name is porgie, porgy, scuppaug. - - _Squid_: (_Ommastrephes illecebrosus_), a cephalopod, or - cuttlefish, used for bait along the Atlantic coast. - - The "cuttle-bone" in canaries' cages is taken from the genus - _Sepia_. - - _Squeteague_: pronounced skwe-teg´; also called weakfish and - sea-trout. - - _Scallops_: are shellfish the large muscle of which is much - prized for food. - - These are only a few of the fish kinds brought in at T Wharf. - -PAGE 41 - - _Grand Banks_: a submarine plateau in the Atlantic, eastward - from Newfoundland; noted as a fishing-ground. Its depth is - thirty to sixty fathoms. - - _the Georges_: a smaller bank lying off Cape Cod. - - "_We're Here_": the name of the schooner in Kipling's "Captains - Courageous." - - _Quincy Market_: an old well-known market in Boston. - - _King's Chapel_: on Tremont Street. It was begun in 1749 and is - still used for worship. See "Roof and Meadow" for a fuller - account of the sparrows. - -PAGE 42 - - _rim rock_: the edging of rock around the flats and plains of - the sage deserts of Oregon. - - _Boston Common_: known to every child who has read the history - of our country. The "Garden" is across Charles Street from the - Common. - -PAGE 43 - - _Agassiz Museum_: the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy at Harvard - University. It is popularly called the Agassiz Museum in honor - of the great naturalist Louis Agassiz, who founded it. - - See Sarah K. Bolton's "Famous Men of Science." - - _Arnold Arboretum_: is near the western edge of Boston; one of - the most celebrated gardens of trees in the world. - - _Through the heaven's wide pathless way_: from "Il Penseroso," - by Milton. - -PAGE 44 - - _Swales_: wet, grassy, or even bushy, meadows. - - -CHAPTER VI - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 46 - - _The tree-toad_: (_Hyla versicolor_); he is said by country - people to prophesy rain. - - _pennyroyal_: is one of the small aromatic mints. - - _Wilson Flagg_: one of our earliest outdoor writers. Look up - his life in any American biographical dictionary. - - -CHAPTER VII - -TO THE TEACHER - - For a fuller account of this Wild Bird Reservation see the - chapter in "Where Rolls the Oregon," called "Three-Arch Rocks - Reservation." Bring out in your reading the point I wished to - make, namely that these great reservations of State and Federal - Government are not only to preserve bird and animal life, but - also to preserve nature--a portion of the earth--wild and - primitive and thrilling, against the constant encroachments of - civilization. Interest your pupils in their own local parks, - preserves, etc., and if they have farms or wood-lots, have them - post them and set them aside as their personal sanctuaries for - wild life. - - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 57 - - _Tillamook_: the name of a town near the coast of Oregon. - - _at the mouth of the bay_: Tillamook Bay, where the bar is only - about thirty feet wide, making the passage extremely difficult - and dangerous. - - _Three-Arch Rocks Reservation_: was set aside by President - Roosevelt. Credit for this and the other Oregon Reservations is - largely due to Mr. William L. Finley and the Audubon Societies. - -PAGE 59 - - _Shag Rock_: so named for the black cormorants that nest upon - it, for these birds are commonly known as "shags." - -PAGE 60 - - _the sea-lions_: were of the species known as Steller's - sea-lions. - - _reversed in shape_: I mean the close hind flippers, the - tapering hind end of the body, gave them an unnatural - shape--reversed. - - _Æolus_: the god of the winds. - - -CHAPTER VIII - -TO THE TEACHER - - Set the pupils to watching for evidences of mother-love among - the lower creatures, where we do not think of finding it; stir - them to look for unreported acts, and the hidden, less easily - observed ways. Such a suggestion might be the turning of a new - page for them in the book of nature. - - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 65 - - _Cud_: the ball of grass or hay that the cow keeps bringing up - from her first stomach to be chewed and swallowed, going then - into the second stomach, where it is digested. - - _stanchions_: the iron or wooden fastening about the cow's neck - in the stall. - - _mother-principle_: the instinct or unconscious impulse of all - living things to reproduce their kind. - -PAGE 66 - - _spores_: the name of the seed dust of the ferns. - - _the hunter family_: these are the spiders that build no nets - or webs for snaring their prey, but hunt their prey over the - ground. - -PAGE 69 - - _Toadfish_: See the chapter in the "Fall of the Year" called "In - the Toadfish's Shoe." - -PAGE 70 - - _Surinam toads_: pronounced soo-ri-näm´. - - _Mother-passion ... in the life of reptiles_: many readers, - seeing this statement in the "Atlantic Monthly," where the - essay first appeared, have written me of how when they were - _boys_ they saw snakes swallow their young--or at least killed - the old snakes with young in them! Isn't that mother-love among - the reptiles? But every time the story has been about garter - snakes or moccasins or some other ovoviviparous snake; that is, - a snake that does not lay eggs, but keeps them within her body - till they hatch, then _gives birth_ to the young. I have never - seen a snake swallow its young; though big snakes do _eat_ - little ones whenever they can get them. - - -CHAPTER IX - -FOR THE PUPIL - - Mother Carey's chickens are any of the small petrels. The little - _stormy petrels_ of poetry and story belong to the Old World and - only wander occasionally over to our side of the Atlantic. - -PAGE 79 - - _petrel_: pronounced _pet´rel_, so called in allusion, - perhaps, to Saint Peter's walking on the sea. - - -CHAPTER X - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 88 - - _P Ranch_: is one of the Hanley system of cattle ranches, which - cover a wide area almost seventy-five miles long. The buildings - and tree-fences, the stockades and sheds make it one of the most - picturesque I have ever seen. This story was told to me by Jack - Wade, the "boss of the buckaroos." "Buckaroo" is a corruption of - the Spanish _vaquero_, cowherd. - - _Winnemucca_: find the place on the map. - -PAGE 91 - - _buckskin_: a horse of a soft yellowish color. He got his name - Peroxide Jim from the resemblance of the color of his coat to - that of human hair bleached by peroxide of hydrogen. - - -CHAPTER XI - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 100 - - _paper nests in trees_: The common yellow-jacket hornet builds - similar large round nests in bushes, and other wasps build paper - nests behind walls, under the ground, in holes, etc. - -PAGE 107 - - _bite into something poisonous_: Send to the Department of - Agriculture at Washington for the little booklet on our - poisonous plants. It is free. - - -CHAPTER XII - -TO THE TEACHER - - Try to bring home to the class the profoundly interesting facts - of animal distribution--where they live, and how they came to - live where they do. Point out the strange shifts resorted to by - various creatures who live at the various extremes of height or - depth or cold or heat to enable them to get a living. - - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 121 - - "_And God who clears_": these lines of Kipling I am quoting as I - first found them printed. I see in his collected verse that they - are somewhat changed. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Summer, by Dallas Lore Sharp - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUMMER *** - -***** This file should be named 42170-8.txt or 42170-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/1/7/42170/ - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: Summer - -Author: Dallas Lore Sharp - -Release Date: February 23, 2013 [EBook #42170] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUMMER *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - -</pre> - +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42170 ***</div> <div class="figcenter"> <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="400" height="602" alt="" /> @@ -3979,382 +3941,6 @@ enable them to get a living.</p></blockquote> first found them printed. I see in his collected verse that they are somewhat changed.</p></blockquote> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Summer, by Dallas Lore Sharp - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUMMER *** - -***** This file should be named 42170-h.htm or 42170-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/1/7/42170/ - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: Summer - -Author: Dallas Lore Sharp - -Release Date: February 23, 2013 [EBook #42170] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUMMER *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - [Illustration: A SUMMER EVENING--NIGHT HERONS (page 54)] - - - The Dallas Lore Sharp Nature Series - - - - - SUMMER - - by - - DALLAS LORE SHARP - - - AUTHOR OF "THE LAY OF THE LAND," "THE FACE OF THE FIELDS," - "WHERE ROLLS THE OREGON," "THE FALL OF THE YEAR," - "WINTER," "THE SPRING OF THE YEAR," ETC. - - - ILLUSTRATED BY - ROBERT BRUCE HORSFALL - - - BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO - HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY - The Riverside Press Cambridge - - - COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY PERRY MASON COMPANY - COPYRIGHT, 1913 AND 1914, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY - COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY THE CENTURY COMPANY - COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO. - COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY DALLAS LORE SHARP - - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - - - The Riverside Press - CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS - U . S . A - - - TO - - ROBERT BRUCE HORSFALL - THE FRIEND AND ARTIST - OF THESE FOUR BOOKS - - - - - CONTENTS - - - INTRODUCTION ix - I. THE SUMMER AFIELD 1 - II. THE WILD ANIMALS AT PLAY 9 - III. A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO SEE THIS SUMMER 18 - IV. THE COYOTE OF PELICAN POINT 27 - V. FROM T WHARF TO FRANKLIN FIELD 39 - VI. A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO HEAR THIS SUMMER 46 - VII. THE SEA-BIRDS' HOME 57 - VIII. THE MOTHER MURRE 65 - IX. MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS 79 - X. RIDING THE RIM ROCK 88 - XI. A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO DO THIS SUMMER 100 - XII. THE "CONY" 112 - NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 123 - - - - ILLUSTRATIONS - - - A SUMMER EVENING--BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERONS _Frontispiece_ - RED CLOVER AND BUMBLEBEE 4 - RED SALAMANDER, OLD AND YOUNG 7 - NEWTS 7 - HIPPOPOTAMUS--"IT WAS HIS GAME OF SOLITAIRE" 9 - THE OTTER AND HIS SLIDE 12 - "FOLLOW MY LEADER" 14 - BUTTERFLIES AT PLAY--"WHIRLING OVER MT. HOOD'S POINTED PEAK" 16 - RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD AND NEST 20 - ORCHIDS 22 - YOUNG COWBIRD IN VIREO'S NEST 25 - COYOTE--"WHAT A SHOT!" 28 - ARGIOPE, THE MEADOW SPIDER 44 - CICADA--"DOG-DAYS-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z" 48 - "THE BATS FLITTING AND WAVERING ABOUT" 49 - RED-EYED VIREO--"DO YOU BELIEVE IT?" 52 - TUFTED PUFFINS 59 - BRANDT'S CORMORANT 63 - A MOTHER SPIDER WITH HER SACK OF EGGS 67 - THE FATHER STICKLEBACK ON GUARD 68 - CALIFORNIA MURRE--"WITH THREATENING BEAK WATCHED THE TWO MEN - COME ON" 75 - PETRELS--"SKIMMING THE HEAVING SEA LIKE SWALLOWS" 80 - RIDING THE RIM ROCK--"NECK AND NECK WITH A BIG WHITE STEER" 97 - SASSAFRAS 105 - DEADLY NIGHTSHADE 106 - POISON SUMACH 107 - POISON IVY 108 - VIRGINIA CREEPER 109 - THE DEADLY MUSHROOMS 110 - POKE BERRIES 111 - THE CONY, OR PIKA 116 - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -In this fourth and last volume of these outdoor books I have taken you -into the summer fields and, shall I hope? left you there. After all, -what better thing could I do? And as I leave you there, let me say one -last serious word concerning the purpose of such books as these and -the large subject of nature-study in general. - -I believe that a child's interest in outdoor life is a kind of hunger, -as natural as his interest in bread and butter. He cannot live on -bread and butter alone, but he ought not to try to live without them. -He cannot be educated on nature-study alone, but he ought not to be -educated without it. To learn to obey and reason and feel--these are -the triple ends of education, and the greatest of these is to learn to -feel. The teacher's word for obedience; the arithmetic for reasoning; -and for feeling, for the cultivation of the imagination, for the power -to respond quickly and deeply, give the child the out-of-doors. - -"If I could teach my Rugby boys but one thing," said Dr. Arnold, "that -one thing should be poetry." Why? Because poetry draws out the -imagination, quickens and refines and deepens the emotions. The first -great source of poetry is Nature. Give the child poetry; and give him -the inspiration of the poem, the teacher of the poet--give him -Nature. Make a poet of the child, who is already a poet born. - -How can so essential, so fundamental a need become a mere fad of -education? A child wants first to eat, then to play, then he wants to -know--particularly he wants to know the animals. And he does know an -elephant from a kangaroo long before he knows a Lincoln from a -Napoleon; just so he wants to go to the woods long before he asks to -visit a library. - -The study of the ant in the school-yard walk, the leaves on the -school-yard trees, the clouds over the school-house roof, the sights, -sounds, odors coming in at the school-room windows, these are -essential studies for art and letters, to say nothing of life. - -And this is the way serious men and women think about it. Captain -Scott, dying in the Antarctic snows, wrote in his last letter to his -wife: "Make our boy interested in natural history if you can. It is -better than games. Keep him in the open air." - -I hope that these four volumes may help to interest you in natural -history, that they may be the means of taking you into the open air of -the fields many times the seasons through. - - DALLAS LORE SHARP. - MULLEIN HILL, February, 1914. - - - - -SUMMER - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE SUMMER AFIELD - - -The word summer, being interpreted, means vacation; and vacation, -being interpreted, means--so many things that I have not space in this -book to name them. Yet how can there be a vacation without mountains, -or seashore, or the fields, or the forests--days out of doors? My -ideal vacation would have to be spent in the open; and this book, the -larger part of it, is the record of one of my summer vacations--the -vacation of the summer of 1912. That was an ideal vacation, and along -with my account of it I wish to give you some hints on how to make the -most of your summer chance to tramp the fields and woods. - -For the real lover of nature is a tramp; not the kind of tramp that -walks the railroad-ties and carries his possessions in a tomato-can, -but one who follows the cow-paths to the fields, who treads the -rabbit-roads in the woods, watching the ways of the wild things that -dwell in the tree-tops, and in the deepest burrows under ground. - -Do not tell anybody, least of all yourself, that you love the -out-of-doors, unless you have your own path to the woods, your own -cross-cut to the pond, your own particular huckleberry-patch and -fishing-holes and friendships in the fields. The winds, the rain, the -stars, the green grass, even the birds and a multitude of other wild -folk try to meet you more than halfway, try to seek you out even in -the heart of the great city; but the great out-of-doors you must seek, -for it is not in books, nor in houses, nor in cities. It is out at the -end of the car-line or just beyond the back-yard fence, maybe--far -enough away, anyhow, to make it necessary for you to put on your -tramping shoes and with your good stout stick go forth. - -You must learn to be a good tramper. You thought you learned how to -walk soon after you got out of the cradle, and perhaps you did, but -most persons only know how to hobble when they get into the unpaved -paths of the woods. - -With stout, well-fitting shoes, broad in the toe and heel; light, -stout clothes that will not catch the briers, good bird-glasses, and a -bite of lunch against the noon, swing out on your _legs_; breathe to -the bottom of your lungs; balance your body on your hips, not on your -collar-bones, and, going leisurely, but not slowly (for crawling is -deadly dull), do ten miles up a mountain-side or through the brush; -and if at the end you feel like _eating up_ ten miles more, then you -may know that you can walk, can _tramp_, and are in good shape for the -summer. - -In your tramping-kit you need: a pocket-knife; some string; a pair of -field-glasses; a botany-can or fish-basket on your back; and perhaps a -notebook. This is all and more than you need for every tramp. To these -things might be added a light camera. It depends upon what you go for. -I have been afield all my life and have never owned or used a camera. -But there are a good many things that I have never done. A camera may -add a world of interest to your summer, so if you find use for a -camera, don't fail to make one a part of your tramping outfit. - -After all, what you carry on your back or on your feet or in your -hands does not matter half so much as what you carry in your head and -heart--your eye, and spirit, and purpose. For instance, when you go -into the fields have some purpose in your going besides the indefinite -desire to get out of doors. - -If you long for the wide sky and the wide winds and the wide slopes of -green, then that is a real and a definite desire. You want to get out, -OUT, OUT, because you have been shut _in_. Very good; for you will get -what you wish, what you go out to get. The point is this: always go -out for something. Never yawn and slouch out to the woods as you might -to the corner grocery store, because you don't know how else to kill -time. - -Go with some purpose; because you wish to visit some particular spot, -see some bird, find some flower, catch some--fish! Anything that takes -you into the open is good--ploughing, hoeing, chopping, fishing, -berrying, botanizing, tramping. The aimless person anywhere is a -failure, and he is sure to get lost in the woods! - -It is a good plan to go frequently over the same fields, taking the -beaten path, watching for the familiar things, until you come to know -your haunt as thoroughly as the fox or the rabbit knows his. Don't be -afraid of using up a particular spot. The more often you visit a place -the richer you will find it to be in interest for you. - -Now, do not limit your interest and curiosity to any one kind of life -or to any set of things out of doors. Do not let your likes or your -prejudices interfere with your seeing the whole out-of-doors with all -its manifold life, for it is all interrelated, all related to you, all -of interest and meaning. The clover blossom and the bumblebee that -carries the fertilizing pollen are related; the bumblebee and the -mouse that eats up its grubs are related; and every one knows that -mice and cats are related; thus the clover, the bumblebee, the mouse, -the cat, and, finally, the farmer, are all so interrelated that if the -farmer keeps a cat, the cat will catch the mice, the mice cannot eat -the young bumblebees, the bumblebees can fertilize the clover, and the -clover can make seed. So if the farmer wants clover seed to sow down a -new field with, he must keep a cat. - -I think it is well for you to have some one thing in which you are -particularly interested. It may be flowers or birds or shells or -minerals. But as the whole is greater than any of its parts, so a love -and knowledge of nature, of the earth and the sky over your head and -under your feet, with all that lives with you there, is more than a -knowledge of its birds or trees or reptiles. - -But be on your guard against the purpose to spread yourselves over too -much. Don't be thin and superficial. Don't be satisfied with learning -the long Latin names of things while never watching the ways of the -things that have the names. As they sat on the porch, so the story -goes, the school trustee called attention to a familiar little -orange-colored bug, with black spots on his back, that was crawling on -the floor. - -"I s'pose you know what that is?" he said. - -"Yes," replied the applicant, with conviction; "that is a _Coccinella -septempunctata_." - -"Young man," was the rejoinder, "a feller as don't know a ladybug when -he sees it can't get my vote for teacher in this deestrict." - -The "trustee" was right; for what is the use of knowing that the -little ladybug is _Coc-ci-nel'-la sep-tem-punc-ta'-ta_ when you do not -know that she is a ladybug, and that you ought to say to her:-- - - "Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home; - Your house is on fire, your children alone"? - -Let us say, now, that you are spending your vacation in the edge of -the country within twenty miles of a great city such as Boston. That -might bring you out at Hingham, where I am spending mine. In such an -ordinary place (if any place _is_ ordinary,) what might you expect to -see and watch during the summer? - -Sixty species of birds, to begin with! They will keep you busy all -summer. The wild animals, beasts, that you will find depend so very -much upon your locality--woods, waters, rocks, etc.--that it is hard -to say how many they will be. Here in my woods you might come upon -three or four species of mice, three species of squirrels, the mink, -the muskrat, the weasel, the mole, the shrew, the fox, the skunk, the -rabbit, and even a wild deer. Of reptiles and amphibians you would see -several more species than of fur-bearing animals,--six snakes, four -common turtles, two salamanders, frogs, toads, newts,--a wonderfully -interesting group, with a real live rattler among them if you should -go over to the Blue Hills, fifteen miles away. - -[Illustration: RED SALAMANDERS, OLD AND YOUNG] - -You will go many times into the fields before you can make of the -reptiles your friends and neighbors. But by and by you will watch them -and note their ways with as much interest as you watch the other wild -folk about you. It is a pretty shallow lover of nature who jumps upon -a little snake with both feet, or who shivers when a little salamander -drops out of the leaf-mould at his feet. - -[Illustration: NEWTS] - -And what shall I say of the fishes? There are a dozen of them in the -stream and ponds within the compass of my haunt. They are a -fascinating family, and one very little watched by the ordinary -tramper. But _you_ are not ordinary. Quiet and patience and much -putting together of scraps of observations will be necessary if you -are to get at the whole story of any fish's life. The story will be -worth it, however. - -No, I shall not even try to _number_ the insects--the butterflies, -beetles, moths, wasps, bees, bugs, ticks, mites, and such small "deer" -as you will find in the round of your summer's tramp. Nor shall I try -to name the flowers and trees, the ferns and mosses. It is with the -common things that you ought now to become familiar, and one summer is -all too short for the things you ought to see and hear and do in your -vacation out of doors. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE WILD ANIMALS AT PLAY - - -The watcher of wild animals never gets used to the sight of their -mirthless sport. In all other respects animal play is entirely human. - -A great deal of human play is serious--desperately serious on the -football-field, and at the card-table, as when a lonely player is -trying to kill time with solitaire. - -I have watched a great ungainly hippopotamus for hours trying to do -the same solemn thing by cuffing a croquet-ball back and forth from -one end of his cage to the other. His keepers told me that without the -plaything the poor caged giant would fret and worry himself to death. -It was his game of solitaire. - -In all their games of rivalry the animals are serious as humans, and, -forgetting the fun, often fall to fighting--a sad case, indeed. But -brutes are brutes. We cannot expect anything better of the animals. -Only this morning the whole flock of chickens in the hen-yard started -suddenly on the wild flap to see which would beat to the back fence -and wound up on the "line" in a free fight, two of the cockerels -tearing the feathers from each other in a desperate set-to. - -You have seen puppies fall out in the same human fashion, and kittens -also, and older folk as well. I have seen a game of wood-tag among -friendly gray squirrels come to a finish in a fight. As the crows pass -over during the winter afternoon, you will notice their play--racing -each other through the air, diving, swooping, cawing in their fun, -when suddenly some one's temper snaps, and there is a mix-up in the -air. - -They can get angry, but they cannot laugh. I once saw what I thought -was a twinkle of merriment, however, in an elephant's eye. It was at -the circus several years ago. The keeper had just set down for one of -the elephants a bucket of water which a perspiring youth had brought -in. The big beast sucked it quietly up,--the whole of it,--swung -gently around as if to thank the perspiring boy, then soused him, the -whole bucketful! Everybody roared, and one of the other elephants -joined in with trumpetings, so huge and jolly was the joke. - -The elephant who played the trick looked solemn enough, except for a -twitch at the lips and a glint in the eye. There is something of a -smile about every elephant's lips, to be sure, and fun is so -contagious that one should hesitate to say that he saw an elephant -laugh. But if that elephant didn't laugh, it was not his fault. - -From the elephant to the infusorian, the microscopic animal of a -single cell known as the paramoecium, is a far cry--to the extreme -opposite end of the animal kingdom, worlds apart. Yet I have seen -_Paramoecium caudatum_ at play in a drop of water under a compound -microscope, as I have seen elephants at play in their big bath-tub at -the zoological gardens. - -Place a drop of stagnant water under your microscope and watch these -atoms of life for yourself. Invisible to the naked eye, they are -easily followed on the slide as they skate and whirl and chase one -another to the boundaries of their playground and back again, first -one of them "it," then another. They stop to eat, they slow up to -divide their single-celled bodies into two cells, the two cells now -two living creatures where a moment before they were but one, both of -them swimming off immediately to feed and multiply and play. - -Play seems to be as natural and as necessary to the wild animals as it -is to human beings. Like us the animals play hardest while young, but -as some human children never outgrow their youth and love of play, so -there are old animals that never grow too fat nor too stiff nor too -stupid to play. - -The condition of the body has a great deal to do with the state of the -spirit. The sleek, lithe otter could not possibly grow fat. He keeps -in trim because he cannot help it, perhaps, but however that may be, -he is a very boy for play, and even goes so far as to build himself a -slide or chute for the fun of diving down it into the water. A writer -in one of the magazines tells of an otter in the New York Zoological -Park that swam and dived with a round stone balanced on his head. - -Building a slide is more than we children used to do, for we had -ready-made for us grandfather's two big slanting cellar-doors, down -which we slid and slid and slid till the wood was scoured white and -slippery with the sliding. The otter loves to slide. Up he climbs on -the bank, then down he goes--splash--into the stream. Up he climbs -and down he goes--time after time, day after day. There is nothing -like a slide, unless it is a cellar-door. - -How much of a necessity to the otter is his play, one would like to -know--what he would give up for it, and how he would do deprived of -it. In the case of Pups, my neighbor's beautiful young collie, play -seems more needful than food. There are no children, no one, to play -with him there, so that the sight of my small boys sets him almost -frantic. - -His efforts to induce a hen or a rooster to play with him are -pathetic. The hen cannot understand. She hasn't a particle of play in -her anyhow, but Pups cannot get that through his head. He runs rapidly -around her, drops on all fours flat, swings his tail, cocks his ears, -looks appealingly and barks a few little cackle-barks, as nearly -hen-like as he can bark them, then dashes off and whirls back--while -the hen picks up another bug. She never sees Pups. The old white coon -cat is better; but she is usually up the miff-tree. Pups steps on her, -knocks her over, or otherwise offends, especially when he tags her out -into the fields and spoils her hunting. The Society for the Prevention -of Cruelty to Animals ought to send some child or puppy out to play -with Pups of a Saturday. - -I doubt if among the lower forms of animals play holds any such -prominent place as with the dog and the keen-witted, intelligent -otter. To catch these lower animals at play is a rare experience. One -of our naturalists describes the game of "follow my leader," as he -watched it played by a school of minnows--a most unusual record, but -not at all hard to believe, for I saw recently, from the bridge in the -Boston Public Garden, a school of goldfish playing at something very -much like it. - -This naturalist was lying stretched out upon an old bridge, watching -the minnows through a large crack between the planks, when he saw one -leap out of the water over a small twig floating at the surface. -Instantly another minnow broke the water and flipped over the twig, -followed by another and another, the whole school, as so many sheep, -or so many children, following the leader over the twig. - -The love of play seems to be one of the elemental needs of all life -above the plants, and the games of us human children seem to have -been played before the dry land was, when there were only water babies -in the world, for certainly the fish never learned "follow my leader" -from us. Nor did my young bees learn from us their game of "prisoners' -base" which they play almost every summer noontime in front of the -hives. And what is the game the flies play about the cord of the -drop-light in the centre of the kitchen ceiling? - -One of the most interesting animal games that I ever saw was played by -a flock of butterflies on the very top of Mount Hood, whose pointed -snow-piled peak looks down from the clouds over the whole vast State -of Oregon. - -Mount Hood is an ancient volcano, eleven thousand two hundred -twenty-five feet high. Some seven thousand feet or more up, we came to -"Tie-up Rock"--the place on the climb where the glacier snows lay -before us and we were tied up to one another and all of us fastened by -rope to the guide. - -From this point to the peak, it was sheer deep snow. For the last -eighteen hundred feet we clung to a rope that was anchored on the edge -of the crater at the summit, and cut our steps as we climbed. - -Once we had gained the peak, we lay down behind a pile of sulphurous -rock, out of the way of the cutting wind, and watched the steam float -up from the crater, with the widest world in view that I ever turned -my eyes upon. - -The draft pulled hard about the openings among the rock-piles, but -hardest up a flue, or chimney, that was left in the edge of the -crater-rim where parts of the rock had fallen away. - -As we lay at the side of this flue, we soon discovered that -butterflies were hovering about us; no, not hovering, but flying -swiftly up between the rocks from somewhere down the flue. I could -scarcely believe my eyes. What could any living thing be doing -here?--and of all things, butterflies? This was three or four thousand -feet above the last vestige of vegetation, a mere point of volcanic -rock (the jagged edge-piece of an old crater) wrapped in eternal ice -and snow, with sulphurous gases pouring over it, and across it -blowing a wind that would freeze as soon as the sun was out of the -sky. - -But here were real butterflies. I caught two or three of them and -found them to be vanessas (_Vanessa californica_), a close relative of -our mourning-cloak butterfly. They were all of one species, -apparently, but what were they doing here? - -Scrambling to the top of the piece of rock behind which I had been -resting, I saw that the peak was alive with butterflies, and that they -were flying--over my head, out down over the crater, and out of sight -behind the peak, whence they reappeared, whirling up the flue past me -on the wings of the draft that pulled hard through it, to sail down -over the crater again, and again to be caught by the draft and pulled -up the flue, to their evident delight, up and out over the peak, where -they could again take wings, as boys take their sleds, and so down -again for the fierce upward draft that bore them whirling over Mount -Hood's pointed peak. - -Here they were, thousands of feet above the snow-line, where there was -no sign of vegetation, where the heavy vapors made the air to smell, -where the very next day a wild snowstorm wrapped its frozen folds -about the peak--here they were, butterflies, playing, a host of them, -like so many schoolboys on the first coasting snow! - - - - -CHAPTER III - -A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO SEE THIS SUMMER - - -I - -The dawn, the breaking dawn! I know nothing lovelier, nothing fresher, -nothing newer, purer, sweeter than a summer dawn. I am just back from -one--from the woods and cornfields wet with dew, the meadows and -streams white with mist, and all the world of paths and fences running -off into luring spaces of wavering, lifting, beckoning horizons where -shrouded forms were moving and hidden voices calling. By noontime the -buzz-saw of the cicada will be ripping the dried old stick of this -August day into splinters and sawdust. No one could imagine that this -midsummer noon at 90 deg. in the shade could have had so Maylike a -beginning. - - -II - -I said in "The Spring of the Year" that you should see a farmer -ploughing, then a few weeks later the field of sprouting corn. Now in -July or August you must see that field in silk and tassel, blade and -stalk standing high over your head. - -You might catch the same sight of wealth in a cotton-field, if cotton -is "king" in your section; or in a vast wheat-field, if wheat is your -king; or in a potato-field if you live in Maine--but no, not in a -potato-field. It is all underground in a potato-field. Nor can cotton -in the South, or wheat in the Northwest, give you quite the _depth_ -and the ranked and ordered wealth of long, straight lines of tall -corn. - -Then to hear a summer rain sweep down upon it and the summer wind run -swiftly through it! You must see a great field of standing corn. - - -III - -Keep out from under all trees, stand away from all tall poles, but get -somewhere in the open and watch a blue-black thunderstorm come up. It -is one of the wonders of summer, one of the shows of the sky, a thing -of terrible beauty that I must confess I cannot look at without dread -and a feeling of awe that rests like a load upon me. - - "All heaven and earth are still--though not in sleep, - But breathless, as we grow when feeling most; - And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:-- - * * * * * - The sky is changed!--and such a change! Oh night, - And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, - Yet lovely in your strength. .. .. .. - .. .. .. .. . Far along, - From peak to peak the rattling crags among, - Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, - But every mountain now hath found a tongue, - And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, - Back to the joyous Alps who call to her aloud." - - -IV - -But there are many smaller, individual things to be seen this summer, -and among them, notable for many reasons, is a hummingbird's nest. -"When completed it is scarcely larger than an English walnut and is -usually saddled on a small horizontal limb of a tree or shrub -frequently many feet from the ground. It is composed almost entirely -of soft plant fibers, fragments of spiders' webs sometimes being used -to hold them in shape. The sides are thickly studded with bits of -lichen, and practiced, indeed, is the eye of the man who can -distinguish it from a knot on the limb." - -This is the smallest of birds' nests and quite as rare and difficult -to find as any single thing that you can go out to look for. You will -stumble upon one now and then; but not many in a whole lifetime. Let -it be a test of your keen eye--this finding of a little hummer's nest -with its two white eggs the size of small pea-beans or its two tiny -young that are up and off on their marvelous wings within three weeks -from the time the eggs are laid! - - -V - -Have you read Mr. William L. Finley's story of the California condor's -nest? The hummingbird young is out and gone within three weeks; but -the condor young is still in the care of its watchful parents three -months after it is hatched. You ought to watch the slow, guarded youth -of one of the larger hawks or owls during the summer. Such birds build -very early,--before the snow is gone sometimes,--but they are to be -seen feeding their young far into the summer. The wide variety in -bird-life, both in size and habits, will be made very plain to you if -you will watch the nests of two such birds as the hummer and the -vulture or the eagle. - - -VI - -This is the season of flowers. But what among them should you -especially see? Some time ago one of the school-teachers near me -brought in a list of a _dozen_ species of wild orchids, gathered out -of the meadows, bogs, and woods about the neighborhood. Can you do as -well? - -Suppose, then, that you try to find as many. They were the pink -lady's-slipper; the yellow lady's-slipper; the yellow fringed-orchis -(_Habenaria ciliaris_); the ladies'-tresses, two species; the -rattlesnake-plantain; arethusa, or Indian pink; calopogon, or grass -pink; pogonia, or snake-mouth (_ophioglossoides_ and _verticillata_); -the ragged fringed-orchis; and the showy or spring orchis. Arethusa -and the showy orchis really belong to the spring but the others will -be task enough for you, and one that will give point and purpose to -your wanderings afield this summer. - -[Illustration: ORCHIDS - - 1. _Arethusa bulbosa_ - 2. _Pogonia ophioglossoides_ - 3. Pink Lady's-Slipper - 4. Yellow Lady's-Slipper - 5. Showy Orchis -] - - -VII - -There are a certain number of moths and butterflies that you should -see and know also. If one could come to know, say, one hundred and -fifty flowers and the moths and butterflies that visit them (for the -flower and its insect pollen-carrier are to be thought of and studied -together), one would have an excellent speaking acquaintance with the -blossoming out-of-doors. - -Now, among the butterflies you ought to know the mourning-cloak, or -vanessa; the big red-brown milkweed butterfly; the big yellow tiger -swallowtail; the small yellow cabbage butterfly; the painted beauty; -the red admiral; the common fritillary; the common wood-nymph--but I -have named enough for this summer, in spite of the fact that I have -not named the green-clouded or Troilus butterfly, and Asterias, the -black swallowtail, and the red-spotted purple, and the viceroy. - -Among the moths to see are the splendid Promethea, Cecropia, -bullseye, Polyphemus, and Luna, to say nothing of the hummingbird -moth, and the sphinx, or hawk, moths, especially the large -one that feeds as a caterpillar upon the tomato-vines, -_Ma-cros'-i-la-quin-que-mac-u-la'-ta_. - - -VIII - -There is a like list of interesting beetles and other insects, that -play a large part in even _your_ affairs, which you ought to watch -during the summer: the honeybee, the big droning golden bumblebee, the -large white-faced hornet that builds the paper nests in the bushes and -trees, the gall-flies, the ichneumon-flies, the burying beetle, the -tumble-bug beetle, the dragon-fly, the caddis-fly--these are only a -few of a whole world of insect folk about you, whose habits and -life-histories are of utmost importance and of tremendous interest. -You will certainly believe it if you will read the Peckhams' book -called "Wasps, Social and Solitary," or the beautiful and fascinating -insect stories by the great French entomologist Fabre. Get also -"Every-day Butterflies," by Scudder; and "Moths and Butterflies," by -Miss Dickerson, and "Insect Life," by Kellogg. - - -IX - -You see I cannot stop with this list of the things. That is the -trouble with summer--there is too much of it while it lasts, too much -variety and abundance of life. One is simply compelled to limit one's -self to some particular study, and to pick up mere scraps from other -fields. - -But, to come back to the larger things of the out-of-doors, you should -see the mist some summer morning very early or some summer evening, -sheeted and still over a winding stream or pond, especially in the -evening when the sun has gone down behind the hill, the flame has -faded from the sky, and over the rim of the circling slopes pours the -soft, cool twilight, with a breeze as soft and cool, and a spirit that -is prayer. For then from out the deep shadows of the wooded shore, out -over the pond, a thin white veil will come creeping--the mist, the -breath of the sleeping water, the soul of the pond! - - -X - -You should see it rain down little toads this summer--_if you can!_ -There are persons who claim to have seen it. But I never have. I have -stood on Maurice River Bridge, however, and apparently had them -pelting down upon my feet as the big drops of the July shower struck -the planks--myriads of tiny toads covering the bridge across the -river! Did they rain down? No, they had been hiding in the dirt -between the planks and hopped out to meet the sweet rain and to soak -their little thirsty skins full. - - -XI - -You should see a cowbird's young in a vireo's nest and the efforts of -the poor deceived parents to satisfy its insatiable appetite at the -expense of their own young ones' lives! Such a sight will set you to -thinking. - - -XII - -I shall not tell you what else you should see, for the whole book -could be filled with this one chapter, and then you might lose your -forest in your trees. The individual tree is good to look at--the -mighty wide-limbed hemlock or pine; but so is a whole dark, solemn -forest of hemlocks and pines good to look at. Let us come to the -out-of-doors with our study of the separate, individual plant or -thing; but let us _go on to Nature_, and not stop with the individual -thing. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE COYOTE OF PELICAN POINT - - -"We have stopped the plumers," said the game-warden, "and we are -holding the market-hunters to something like decency; but there's a -pot-hunter yonder on Pelican Point that I've got to do up or lose my -job." - -Pelican Point was the end of a long, narrow peninsula that ran out -into the lake, from the opposite shore, twelve miles across from us. -We were in the Klamath Lake Reservation in southern Oregon, one of the -greatest wild-bird preserves in the world. - -Over the point, as we drew near, the big white pelicans were winging, -and among them, as our boat came up to the rocks, rose a colony of -black cormorants. The peninsula is chiefly of volcanic origin, -composed of crumbling rock and lava, and ends in well-stratified -cliffs at the point. Patches of scraggly sagebrush grew here and -there, and out near the cliffs on the sloping lava sides was a field -of golden California poppies. - -The gray, dusty ridge in the hot sun, with cliff swallows and -cormorants and the great pouched pelicans as inhabitants, seemed the -last place that a pot-hunter would frequent. What could a pot-hunter -find here? I wondered. - -We were pulling the boat up on the sand at a narrow neck in the -peninsula, when the warden touched my arm. "Up there near the sky-line -among the sage! What a shot!" - -I was some seconds in making out the head and shoulders of a coyote -that was watching us from the top of the ridge. - -"The rascal knows," went on the warden, "I have no gun; he can smell a -gun clear across the lake. I have tried for three years to get that -fellow. He's the terror of the whole region, and especially of the -Point; if I don't get him soon, he'll clean out the pelican colony. - -"Why don't I shoot him? Poison him? Trap him? I have offered fifty -dollars for his hide. Why don't I? I'll show you. Now you watch the -critter as I lead you up the slope toward him." - -We had not taken a dozen steps when I found myself staring hard at the -place where the coyote had been, but not at the coyote, for he was -gone. He had vanished before my eyes. I had not seen him move, -although I had been watching him steadily. - -"Queer, isn't it?" said the warden. "It's not his particular dodge, -for every old coyote that has been hunted learns to work it; but I -never knew one that had it down so fine as this sinner. There's next -to nothing here for him to skulk behind. Why, he has given my dog the -slip right here on the bare rock! But I'll fix him yet." - -I did not have to be persuaded to stay overnight with the warden for -the coyote-hunt the next day. The warden, I found, had fallen in with -a Mr. Harris, a homesteader, who had been something of a professional -coyote-hunter. Harris had just arrived in southern Oregon, and had -brought with him his dogs, a long, graceful greyhound, and his -fighting mate, a powerful Russian wolfhound; both were crack coyote -dogs from down Saskatchewan. He had accepted the warden's offer of -fifty dollars for the hide of the coyote of Pelican Point, and was now -on his way round the lake. - -The outfit appeared late the next day, and consisted of the two dogs, -a horse and buckboard, and a big, empty dry-goods box. - -I had hunted possums in the gum swamps of the South with a stick and a -gunny-sack, but this rig, on the rocky, roadless shores of the lake--a -dry-goods box for coyotes!--beat any hunting combination I had ever -seen. - -We had pitched the tent on the south shore of the point where the -peninsula joined the mainland, and were finishing our supper, when not -far from us, back on shore, we heard the doleful yowl of the coyote. - -We were on our feet in an instant. - -"There he is," said the warden, "lonesome for a little play with your -dogs, Mr. Harris." - -There was still an hour and a half of good light, and Harris untied -his dogs. I had never seen the coyote hunted, and was greatly -interested. Harris, with his dogs close in hand, led us directly away -from where we had heard the coyote bark. Then we stopped and sat down. -At my look of inquiry, Harris smiled. - -"Oh, no, we're not after coyotes to-night, not _that_ coyote, anyhow," -he said. "You know a coyote is made up of equal parts of curiosity, -cowardice, and craft; and it's a long hunt unless you can get a lead -on his curiosity. We are not out for _him_. He sees that. In fact, -we'll amble back now--but we'll manage to get up along the crest of -that little ridge where he is sitting, so that the dogs can follow him -whichever way he runs. You hunt coyotes wholly by sight, you know." - -The little trick worked perfectly. The coyote, curious to see what we -were doing, had risen to his feet, and stood, plainly outlined against -the sky. He was entirely unsuspecting, and as we approached, only -edged and backed, more apparently to get a sight of the dogs behind us -than through any fear. - -Suddenly Harris stepped from before the dogs, pointed them toward the -coyote, and slipped their leashes. The hounds were trained to the -work. There was just an instant's pause, a quick yelp, then two -doubling, reaching forms ahead of us, with a little line of dust -between. - -The coyote saw them coming, and started to run, not hurriedly, -however, for he had had many a run before. He was not afraid, and kept -looking behind to see what manner of dog was after him this time. - -But he was not long in making up his mind that this was an entirely -new kind, for in less than three minutes the hounds had halved the -distance that separated him from them. At first, the big wolfhound was -in the lead. Then, as if it had taken him till this time to find all -four of his long legs, the greyhound pulled himself together, and in a -burst of speed that was astonishing, passed his heavier companion. - -We raced along the ridge to see the finish. But the coyote ahead of -the dogs was no novice. He knew the game perfectly. He saw the gap -closing behind him. Had he been young, he would have been seized by -fear; would have darted right and left, mouthing and snapping in -abject terror. Instead of that, he dug his nails into the shore, and -with all his wits about him, sped for the desert. The greyhound was -close behind him. - -I held my breath. Harris, I think, would have taken his fifty dollars -then and there! And the warden would have handed it to him, despite -his past experience with the beast; but suddenly the coyote headed -straight off for a low manzanita bush that stood up amid the scraggly -sagebrush back from the shore. - -The hunt was now going directly from us, with the dust and the -wolfhound behind, following the line in front. The gap between the -greyhound and the coyote seemed to have closed, and when the hound -took the low manzanita with a bound that was half-somersault, Harris -exclaimed, "He's nailed him!" and we ran ahead to see the wolfhound -complete the job. - -The wolfhound, however, kept right on across the desert; the greyhound -lagged uncertainly far behind; in the lead, ahead of the big grizzled -wolfhound, bobbed the form of a fleeing jack-rabbit! - -The look of astonishment and then of disgust on Harris's face was -amusing to see. The warden may have been disappointed, but he did not -take any pains to repress a chuckle. - -Harris said nothing. He was searching the stunted sagebrush off to the -left of us. We followed his eyes, and he and the warden, both -experienced plainsmen, picked out the skulking, shadowy shape of the -coyote, as the creature, with belly to the ground, slunk off out of -sight. - -It was too late for any further attempt that night. - -"An old stager, sure," Harris commented, as we returned to camp. -"Knows a trick or two for every one of mine. But I'll fix him." - -Nothing was seen of the coyote all the early part of the next day, and -no effort was made to find him; but toward the middle of the -afternoon, Harris hitched up the bronco, and, unpacking a flat package -in the bottom of the buckboard, showed us a large glass window, which -he fitted as a door into one end of the big dry-goods box. Then into -the glass-ended box he put the two hounds. - -"Now, gentlemen," he said, "I'm going to invite you to take a -sight-seeing trip on this auto out into the sagebrush. Incidentally, -if you chance to see a coyote, don't mention it." - -If all the coyotes, jack-rabbits, gophers, and pelicans of the -territory had come out to see us thump and bump over the dry, uneven -desert, I should not have been surprised; and so, on coming back to -camp, it was with no wonder at all that I discovered the coyote, out -on the point, staring at us from across the neck of the peninsula. -Nothing like this had happened on his side of the lake before. - -Harris saw him instantly, and was quick to recognize our advantage. We -had the coyote cornered--out on the long, narrow peninsula, where the -dogs must run him down. The wily creature had so far forgotten himself -as to get caught between us and the ridge along shore, and, partly in -curiosity, had kept running ahead and stopping to look at us, until -now he was past the place where he could skulk back without our seeing -him, into the open plain. - -Even yet all depended upon our getting so close to him that the dogs -could keep him constantly in sight. The crumbling ledges at the end of -the point were full of holes and crevices into which the beast could -dodge. - -We were not close enough, however. With one of us watching the coyote, -should he happen to run, Harris turned the bronco slowly round until -the glass end of the box in the back of the buckboard was pointing -directly at the creature. There was a scramble of feet inside the box. -The dogs had sighted the beast. Then Harris started as if to drive -away, the coyote watching us all the time. - -Instead of driving off, he made a circle, and coming back slowly -toward the coyote, gained the top of a little knoll. Had the coyote -seen the dogs in the box, he would have vanished instantly; but the -box interested and puzzled him. - -He stood looking with all his eyes as the procession turned, and once -more the glass end of the box was pointed directly toward him. The -dogs evidently knew what was expected of them. They were silent, but -ready. Suddenly, without stopping the pony, Harris pulled open the -glass door, and yelled, "Go!" - -And go they did. I never saw hundred-yard runners leap from the mark -as those two hounds leaped from that box. The coyote, in his -astonishment, actually turned a back handspring and started for the -point. - -The dogs were hardly two hundred yards behind him, and were making -short work of the space between. It seemed hardly fair, and I must say -that I felt something like sympathy for the under dog, wild dog though -he was; the odds against him were so great. - -But the coyote knew his track thoroughly, and was taking advantage of -the rough, loose, shelving ground. For the farther out toward the end -of the point they ran, the narrower, rockier, and steeper grew the -peninsula, the more difficult and dangerous the footing. - -The coyote slanted along the side of the ridge, and took a sloping -slab of rock ahead of him with a slow side-step and a climb that -brought the dogs close up behind him. They took the rock at a leap, -slid halfway across, and scrambling, rolled several yards down the -slope--and lost all the gain they had made. - -Things began to even up. The chase began to be interesting. Here -judgment was called for, as well as speed. The cliff swallows swarmed -out of their nests under the overhanging rocks; the black cormorants -and great-winged pelicans saw their old enemy coming, and rose, -flapping, over the water; the circling gulls dropped low between the -runners; their strange clangor and the stranger tropical shapes thick -in the air gave the scene a wildness altogether new to me. - -On fled the coyote; on bounded the dogs. He would never escape! -Nothing without wings could ever do it! Mere feet could never stand -such a test! The chances that pursued and pursuers took--the -leaps--the landings! The whole slope seemed rolling with stones, -started by the feet of the runners. - -They were nearing the high, rough rocks of the tip of the point. -Between them and the ledges of the point, and reaching from the edge -of the water nearly to the top of the ridge, lay the steep golden -garden of California poppies, blooming in the dry lava soil that had -crumbled and drifted down on the rocky side. - -The coyote veered, and dashed down toward the middle of the poppies; -the hounds hit the bed two jumps behind. There was a cloud of dust, -and in it we saw an avalanche of dogs ploughing a wide furrow through -the flowers nearly down to the water. Climbing slowly out near the -upper edge of the bed was the coyote, again with a good margin of -lead. - -But the beast was at the end of the point, and nearing the end of his -race. Had we been out of the way, he might have turned and yet given -the dogs the slip--for behind us lay the open desert. - -Straight toward the rocks he headed, with the hounds laboring up the -slope after him. He was running to the very edge of the point, as if -he were intending to leap off the cliff to death in the lake below, -and I saw Harris's face tighten as his hounds topped the ridge, and -senselessly tore on toward the same fearful edge. But the race was not -done yet. The coyote hesitated, turned down the ledges on the south -slope, and leaping in among the cormorant nests, started back toward -us. - -He was surer on his feet than were the hounds, but this hesitation on -the point had cost him several yards. The hounds would pick him up in -the little cove of smooth, hard sand that lay, encircled by rough -rocks, just ahead, unless--no, he must cross the cove, he must take -the stretch. He was taking it--knowingly, too, and with a burst of -power that he had not shown upon the slopes. He was flinging away his -last reserve. - -The hounds were nearly across; the coyote was within fifty feet of the -boulders, when the greyhound, lowering his long, flat head, lunged for -the spine of his quarry. - -The coyote heard him coming, spun on his fore feet, offering his fangs -to those of his foe, and threw himself backward just as the jaws of -the wolfhound clashed at him and flecked his throat with foam. - -The two great dogs collided and bounded wide apart, startling a jack -rabbit that dived between them into a hole among the rocks. The -coyote, on his feet in an instant, caught the motion of the rabbit, -and like his shadow, leaped into the air after him for the hole. - -He was as quick as thought, quicker than either of the hounds. He -sprang high over them,--safely over them, we thought,--when, in -mid-air, at the turn of the dive, he twisted, heeled half-over, and -landed hard against the side of the hole; and the wolfhound pulled him -down. - -It was over; but there was something strange, almost unfair, it -seemed, about the finish. - -Before we got down to the cove both of the dogs had slunk back, -cowering from the dead coyote. Then there came to us the buzz of a -rattlesnake--a huge, angry reptile that lay coiled in the mouth of the -hole. The rabbit had struck and roused the snake. The coyote in his -leap had caught the warning whir, but caught it too late to clear both -snake and hounds. His twist in the air to clear the snake had cost him -his life. So close is the race in the desert world. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -FROM T WHARF TO FRANKLIN FIELD - - -Over and over I read the list of saints and martyrs on the wall across -the street, thinking dully how men used to suffer for their religion, -and how, nowadays, they suffer for their teeth. For I was reclining in -a dentist's chair, blinking through the window at the Boston Public -Library, seeing nothing, however, nothing but the tiles on the roof, -and the names of Luther, Wesley, Wycliffe, graven on the granite wall, -while the dentist burred inside of my cranium and bored down to my -toes for nerves. So, at least, it seemed. - -By and by my gaze wandered blankly off to the square patch of sky in -sight above the roof. A black cloud was driving past in the wind away -up there. Suddenly a white fleck swept into the cloud, careened, -spread two wide wings against it, and rounded a circle. Then another -and another, until eight herring gulls were soaring white against the -sullen cloud in that little square of sky high over the roofs of -Boston. - -Was this the heart of a vast city? Could I be in a dentist's chair? -There was no doubt about the chair; but how quickly the red-green roof -of the Library became the top of some great cliff; the droning noise -of traffic in the streets, the wash of waves against the rocks; and -yonder on the storm-stained sky those wheeling wings, how like the -winds of the ocean, and the raucous voices, how they seemed to fill -all the city with the sweep and the sound of the sea! - -Boston, Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco--do -you live in any one of them or in any other city? If you do, then you -have a surprisingly good chance to watch the ways of wild things and -even to come near to the heart of Nature. Not so good a chance, to be -sure, as in the country; but the city is by no means so lacking in -wild life or so shunned by the face of Nature as we commonly believe. - -All great cities are alike, all of them very different, too, in -details; Boston's streets, for instance, being crookeder than most, -but like them all, reaching out for many a mile before they turn into -country roads and lanes with borders of quiet and wide green fields. - -But Boston has the wide waters of the Harbor and the Charles River -Basin. And it also has T Wharf! They did not throw the tea overboard -there, back in Revolutionary days, as you may be told, but T Wharf is -famous, nevertheless, famous for fish! - -Fish? Swordfish and red snappers, scup, shad, squid, squeteague, -sharks, skates, smelts, sculpins, sturgeon, scallops, halibut, -haddock, hake--to say nothing of mackerel, cod, and countless freak -things caught by trawl and seine all the way from Boston Harbor to the -Grand Banks! I have many a time sat on T Wharf and caught short, flat -flounders with my line. It is almost as good as a trip to the Georges -in the "We're Here" to visit T Wharf; and then to walk slowly up -through Quincy Market. Surely no single walk in the woods will yield a -tithe of the life to be found here, and found only here for us, -brought as the fish and game and fruits have been from the ends of the -earth and the depths of the sea. - -There is no reason why city children should not know a great deal -about animal life, nor why the teachers in city schools should feel -that nature study is impossible for them. For, leaving the wharf with -its fish and gulls and fleet of schooners, you come up four or five -blocks to old King's Chapel Burying-Ground where the Boston sparrows -roost. Boston is full of interesting sights, but none more interesting -to the bird-lover than this sparrow-roost. The great bird rocks in the -Pacific, described in another chapter of this book, are larger, to be -sure, yet hardly more clamorous when, in the dusk, the sparrow clans -begin to gather; nor hardly wilder than this city roost when the night -lengthens, and the quiet creeps down the alleys and along the empty -streets, and the sea winds stop on the corners, and the lamps, like -low-hung stars, light up the sleeping birds till their shadows waver -large upon the stark walls about the old graveyard that break far -overhead as rim rock breaks on the desert sky. - -Now shift the scene to an early summer morning on Boston Common, two -blocks farther up, and on to the Public Garden across Charles Street. -There are more wild birds to be seen in the Garden on a May morning -than there are here in the woods of Hingham, and the summer still -finds some of them about the shrubs and pond. And it is an easy place -in which to watch them. One of our bird-students has found over a -hundred species in the Garden. Can any one say that the city offers a -poor chance for nature-study? - -This is the story of every great city park. My friend Professor -Herbert E. Walter found nearly one hundred and fifty species of birds -in Lincoln Park, Chicago. And have you ever read Mr. Bradford Torrey's -delightful essay called "Birds on Boston Common"? - -Then there are the squirrels and the trees on the Common; the flowers, -bees, butterflies, and even the schools of goldfish, in the pond of -the Garden--enough of life, insect-life, plant-life, bird-life, -fish-life, for more than a summer of lessons. - -Nor is this all. One block beyond the Garden stands the Natural -History Museum, crowded with mounted specimens of birds and beasts, -reptiles, fishes, and shells beyond number--more than you can study, -perhaps. You city folk, instead of having too little, have altogether -too much of too many things. But such a museum is always a suggestive -place for one who loves the out-of-doors. And the more one knows of -nature, the more one gets out of the museum. You can carry there, and -often answer, the questions that come to you in your tramps afield, in -your visits to the Garden, and in your reading of books. Then add to -this the great Agassiz Museum at Harvard University, and the Aquarium -at South Boston, and the Zoological Gardens at Franklin Park, and the -Arnold Arboretum--all of these with their multitude of mounted -specimens and their living forms for _you_! For me also; and in from -the country I come, very often, to study natural history in the city. - -What is true of Boston is true of every city in some degree. The sun -and the moon and stars shine upon the city as upon the country, and -during my years of city life (I lived in the very heart of Boston) it -was my habit to climb to my roof, above the din and glare of the -crowded street, and here among the chimney-pots to lie down upon my -back, the city far below me, and overhead the blue sky, the Milky Way, -the constellations, or the moon, swinging-- - - "Through the heaven's wide pathless way, - And oft, as if her head she bowed - Stooping through a fleecy cloud." - -Here, too, I have watched the gulls that sail over the Harbor, -especially in the winter. From this outlook I have seen the winging -geese pass over, and heard the faint calls of other migrating flocks, -voices that were all the more mysterious for their falling through the -muffling hum that rises from the streets and spreads over the wide -roof of the city as a soft night wind over the peaked roofs of a -forest of firs. - -[Illustration: ARGIOPE, THE MEADOW SPIDER] - -Strangely enough here on the roof I have watched the only nighthawks -that I have ever found in Massachusetts. This is surely the last place -you would expect to find such wild, spooky, dusk-loving creatures as -nighthawks. Yet here, on the tarred and pebbled roofs, here among the -whirling, squeaking, smoking chimney-pots, here above the crowded, -noisy streets, these birds built their nests,--laid their eggs, -rather, for they build no nests,--reared their young, and in the long -summer twilight rose and fell through the smoky air, uttering their -peevish cries and making their ghostly booming sounds with their -high-diving, just as if they were out over the darkening swales along -some gloomy swamp-edge. - -For many weeks I had a big tame spider in the corner of my study there -in that city flat, and I have yet to read an account of all the -species of spiders to be found dwelling within the walls of any great -city. Even Argiope of the meadows is doubtless found in the Fens. Not -far away from my flat, down near the North Station, one of my friends -on the roof of his flat kept several hives of bees. They fed on the -flowers of the Garden, on those in dooryards, and on the -honey-yielding lindens which stand here and there throughout the city. -Pigeons and sparrows built their nests within sight of my windows; and -by going early to the roof I could see the sun rise, and in the -evening I could watch it go down behind the hills of Belmont as now I -watch it from my lookout here on Mullein Hill. - -One is never far from the sky, nor from the earth, nor from the free, -wild winds, nor from the wilder night that covers city and sea and -forest with its quiet, and fills them all with lurking shadows that -never shall be tamed. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO HEAR THIS SUMMER - - -I - -The fullness, the flood, of life has come, and, contrary to one's -expectations, a marked silence has settled down over the waving fields -and the cool deep woods. I am writing these lines in the lamplight, -with all the windows and doors open to the dark July night. The summer -winds are moving in the trees. A cricket and a few small green -grasshoppers are chirping in the grass; but nothing louder is near at -hand. And nothing louder is far off, except the cry of the -whip-poor-will in the wood road. But him you hear in the spring and -autumn as well as in the summer. Ah, listen! My tree-toad in the -grapevine over the bulkhead door! - -This is a voice you must hear--on cloudy summer days, toward twilight, -and well into the evening. Do you know what it is to feel lonely? If -you do, I think, then, that you know how the soft, far-off, eerie cry -of the tree-toad sounds. He is prophesying rain, the almanac people -think, but I think it is only the sound of rain in his voice, summer -rain after a long drouth, cooling, reviving, soothing rain, with just -a patter of something in it that I cannot describe, something that I -used to hear on the shingles of the garret over the rafters where the -bunches of horehound and catnip and pennyroyal hung. - - -II - -You ought to hear the lively clatter of a mowing-machine. It is hot -out of doors; the roads are beginning to look dusty; the insects are -tuning up in the grass, and, like their chorus all together, and -marching round and round the meadow, moves the mower's whirring blade. -I love the sound. Haying is hard, sweet work. The farmer who does not -love his haying ought to be made to keep a country store and sell -kerosene oil and lumps of dead salt pork out of a barrel. He could not -appreciate a live, friendly pig. - -Down the long swath sing the knives, the cogs click above the square -corners, and the big, loud thing sings on again,--the song of -"first-fruits," the first great ingathering of the season,--a song to -touch the heart with joy and sweet solemnity. - - -III - -You ought to hear the Katydids--two of them on the trees outside your -window. They are not saying "Katy did," nor singing "Katy did"; they -are fiddling "Katy did," "Katy didn't"--by rasping the fore wings. - -Is the sound "Katy" or "Katy did"? or what is said? Count the notes. -Are they at the rate of two hundred per minute? Watch the -instrumentalist--till you make sure it is the male who is wooing Katy -with his persistent guitar. The male has no long ovipositors. - - -IV - -Another instrumentalist to hear is the big cicada or "harvest-fly." -There is no more characteristic sound of all the summer than his big, -quick, startling whirr--a minute mowing-machine up on the limb -overhead! Not so minute either, for the creature is fully two inches -long, with bulging eyes and a click to his wings when he flies that -can be heard a hundred feet away! "Dog-days-z-z-z-z-z-z-z" is the song -he sings to me. - -[Illustration: "FLITTING AND WAVERING ABOUT"] - - -V - -This is the season of small sounds. As a test of the keenness of your -ears go out at night into some open glade in the woods or by the side -of some pond and listen for the squeaking of the bats flitting and -wavering above in the uncertain light over your head. You will need a -stirless midsummer dusk; and if you can hear the thin, fine squeak as -the creature dives near your head, you may be sure your ears are -almost as keen as those of the fox. The sound is not audible to most -human ears. - - -VI - -Another set of small sounds characteristic of midsummer is the -twittering of the flocking swallows in the cornfields and upon the -telegraph-wires. This summer I have had long lines of the young birds -and their parents from the old barn below the hill strung on the wires -from the house across the lawn. Here they preen while some of the old -birds hawk for flies, the whole line of them breaking into a soft -little twitter each time a newcomer alights among them. One swallow -does not make a summer, but your electric light wires sagging with -them is the very soul of the summer. - - -VII - -In the deep, still woods you will hear the soft call of the robin--a -low, pensive, plaintive note unlike its spring cry or the -after-shower song. It is as if the voice of the slumberous woods were -speaking--without alarm, reproach, or welcome either. It is an -invitation to stretch yourself on the deep moss and let the warm -shadows of the summer woods steal over you with sleep. - -[Illustration: THE RED-EYED VIREO] - -And this, too, is a thing to learn. Doing something, hearing -something, seeing something by no means exhausts our whole business -with the out-of-doors. To lie down and do nothing, to be able to keep -silence and to rest on the great whirling globe is as needful as to -know everything going on about us. - - -VIII - -There is one bird-song so characteristic of midsummer that I think -every lover of the woods must know it: the oft-repeated, the constant -notes of the red-eyed vireo or "preacher." Wilson Flagg says of him: -"He takes the part of a deliberative orator who explains his subject -in a few words and then makes a pause for his hearers to reflect upon -it. We might suppose him to be repeating moderately with a pause -between each sentence, 'You see it--you know it--do you hear me?--do -you believe it?' All these strains are delivered with a rising -inflection at the close, and with a pause, as if waiting for an -answer." - - -IX - -A few other bird-notes that are associated with hot days and stirless -woods, and that will be worth your hearing are the tree-top song of -the scarlet tanager. He is one of the summer sights, a dash of the -burning tropics is his brilliant scarlet and jet black, and his song -is a loud, hoarse, rhythmical carol that has the flame of his feathers -in it and the blaze of the sun. You will know it from the cool, liquid -song of the robin both by its peculiar quality and because it is a -short song, and soon ended, not of indefinite length like the robin's. - -Then the peculiar, coppery, reverberating, or _confined_ song of the -indigo bunting--as if the bird were singing inside some great kettle. - -One more--among a few others--the softly falling, round, small, -upward-swinging call of the wood pewee. Is it sad? Yes, sad. But -sweeter than sad,--restful, cooling, and inexpressibly gentle. All day -long from high above your head and usually quite out of view, the -voice--it seems hardly a voice--breaks the long silence of the summer -woods. - - -X - -When night comes down with the long twilight there sounds a strange, -almost awesome _quawk_ in the dusk over the fields. It sends a thrill -through me, notwithstanding its nightly occurrence all through July -and August. It is the passing of a pair of night herons--the -black-crowned, I am sure, although this single pair only fly over. -Where the birds are numerous they nest in great colonies. - -It is the wild, eerie _quawk_ that you should hear, a far-off, -mysterious, almost uncanny sound that fills the twilight with a vague, -untamed something, no matter how bright and civilized the day may have -been. - - -XI - -From the harvest fields comes the sweet whistle of Bob White, the -clear, round notes rolling far through the hushed summer noon; in the -wood-lot the crows and jays have already begun their cawings and -screamings that later on become the dominant notes of the golden -autumn. They are not so loud and characteristic now because of the -insect orchestra throbbing with a rhythmic beat through the air. So -wide, constant, and long-continued is this throbbing note of the -insects that by midsummer you almost cease to notice it. But stop and -listen--field crickets, katydids, long-horned grasshoppers, snowy -tree-crickets: _chwi-chwi-chwi-chwi--thrr-r-r-r-r-r-r ---crrri-crrri-crrri-crrri--gru-gru-gru-gru-- -retreat-retreat-retreat-treat-treat_--like the throbbing of the -pulse. - - -XII - -One can do no more than suggest in a short chapter like this; and all -that I am doing here is catching for you some of the still, small -voices of _my_ summer. How unlike those of your summer they may be I -can easily imagine, for you are in the Pacific Coast, or off on the -vast prairies of Canada, or down in the sunny fields and hill-country -of the South. - -I have done enough if I have suggested that you stop and listen; for -after all it is having ears which hear _not_ that causes the trouble. -Hear the voices that make your summer vocal--the loud and still voices -which alike pass unheeded unless we pause to hear. - -As a lesson in listening, go out some quiet evening, and as the -shadows slip softly over the surface of the wood-walled pond, listen -to the breathing of the fish as they come to the top, and the splash -of the muskrats, or the swirl of the pickerel as he ploughs a furrow -through the silence. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -THE SEA-BIRDS' HOME - - -After my wandering for years among the quiet lanes and along the -winding cow-paths of the home fields, my trip to the wild-bird rocks -in the Pacific Ocean, as you can imagine, was a thrilling experience. -We chartered a little launch at Tillamook, and, after a fight of hours -and hours to cross Tillamook Bar at the mouth of the bay, we got out -upon the wide Pacific, and steamed down the coast for Three-Arch -Rocks, which soon began to show far ahead of us just off the rocky -shore. - -I had never been on the Pacific before, nor had I ever before seen the -birds that were even now beginning to dot the sea and to sail over and -about us as we steamed along. It was all new, so new that the very -water of the Pacific looked unlike the familiar water of the Atlantic. -And surely the waves were different,--longer, grayer, smoother, with -an immensely mightier heave. At least they seemed so, for every time -we rose on the swell, it was as if our boat were in the hand of Old -Ocean, and his mighty arm were "putting" us, as the athlete "puts" the -shot. It was all new and strange and very wild to me, with the wild -cries of the sea-birds already beginning to reach us as flocks of the -birds passed around and over our heads. - -The fog was lifting. The thick, wet drift that had threatened our -little launch on Tillamook Bar stood clear of the shouldering sea to -the westward, and in over the shore, like an upper sea, hung at the -fir-girt middles of the mountains, as level and as gray as the sea -below. There was no breeze. The long, smooth swell of the Pacific -swung under us and in, until it whitened at the base of the three -rocks that rose out of the sea in our course, and that now began to -take on form in the foggy distance. Gulls were flying over us, lines -of black cormorants and crowds of murres were winging past, but we -were still too far away from the looming rocks to see that the gray of -their walls was the gray of uncounted colonies of nesting birds, -colonies that covered their craggy steeps as, on shore, the green firs -clothed the slopes of the Coast Range Mountains up to the hanging fog. - -As we ran on nearer, the sound of the surf about the rocks became -audible, the birds in the air grew more numerous, their cries now -faintly mingling with the sound of the sea. A hole in the side of the -middle Rock, a mere fleck of foam it seemed at first, widened rapidly -into an arching tunnel through which our boat might run; the swell of -the sea began to break over half-sunken ledges; and soon upon us fell -the damp shadows of the three great rocks, for now we were looking far -up at their sides, where we could see the birds in their guano-gray -rookeries, rookery over rookery,--gulls, cormorants, guillemots, -puffins, murres,--encrusting the sides from tide-line to pinnacles, as -the crowding barnacles encrusted the bases from the tide-line down. - -[Illustration: TUFTED PUFFINS] - -We had not approached without protest, for the birds were coming off -to meet us, wheeling and clacking overhead, the nearer we drew, in a -constantly thickening cloud of lowering wings and tongues. The clamor -was indescribable, the tossing flight enough to make one mad with the -motion of wings. The air was filled, thick, with the whirling and the -screaming, the clacking, the honking, close to our ears, and high up -in the peaks, and far out over the waves. Never had I been in this -world before. Was I on my earth? or had I suddenly wakened up in some -old sea world where there was no dry land, no life but this? - -We rounded the outer or Shag Rock and headed slowly in opposite the -yawning hole of the middle Rock as into some mighty cave, so sheer and -shadowy rose the walls above us,--so like to cavern thunder was the -throbbing of the surf through the hollow arches, was the flapping and -screaming of the birds against the high circling walls, was the deep, -menacing grumble of the bellowing sea-lions, as, through the muffle of -surf and sea-fowl, herd after herd lumbered headlong into the foam. - -It was a strange, wild scene. Hardly a mile from the Oregon coast, but -cut off by breaker and bar from the abrupt, uninhabited shore, the -three rocks of the Reservation, each pierced with its resounding arch, -heaved their huge shoulders from the waves straight up, high, -towering, till our little steamer coasted their dripping sides like -some puffing pygmy. - -Each rock was perhaps as large as a solid city square and as high as -the tallest of sky-scrapers; immense, monstrous piles, each of them, -and run through by these great caverns or arches, dim, dripping, -filled with the noise of the waves and the beat of thousands of wings. - -They were of no part or lot with the dry land. Their wave-scooped -basins were set with purple starfish and filled with green and pink -anemones, and beaded many deep with mussels of amethyst and jet that -glittered in the clear beryl waters; and, above the jeweled basins, -like fabled beasts of old, lay the sea-lions, uncouth forms, -flippered, reversed in shape, with throats like the caves of AEolus, -hollow, hoarse, discordant; and higher up, on every jutting bench and -shelf, in every weathered rift, over every jog of the ragged cliffs, -to their bladed backs and pointed peaks, swarmed the sea-birds, -webfooted, amphibious, shaped of the waves, with stormy voices given -them by the winds that sweep in from the sea. - -As I looked up at the amazing scene, at the mighty rocks and the -multitude of winging forms, I seemed to see three swirling piles of -life, three cones that rose like volcanoes from the ocean, their sides -covered with living lava, their craters clouded with the smoke of -wings, while their bases seemed belted by the rumble of a -multi-throated thunder. The very air was dank with the smell of -strange, strong volcanic gases,--no breath of the land, no odor of -herb, no scent of fresh soil; but the raw, rank smells of rookery and -den, saline, kelpy, fetid; the stench of fish and bedded guano, and of -the reeking pools where the sea-lion herds lay sleeping on the lower -rocks in the sun. - -A boat's keel was beneath me, but as I stood out on the pointed prow, -barely above the water, and found myself thrust forward without will -or effort among the crags and caverns, among the shadowy walls, the -damps, the smells, the sounds, among the bellowing beasts in the -churning waters about me, and into the storm of wings and tongues in -the whirling air above me, I passed from the things I had known, and -the time and the earth of man, into a monstrous period of the past. - -This was the home of the sea-birds. Amid all the din we landed from a -yawl and began our climb toward the top of Shag Rock, the outermost of -the three. And here we had another and a different sight of the wild -life. It covered every crag. I clutched it in my hands; I crushed it -under my feet; it was thick in the air about me. My narrow path up the -face of the rock was a succession of sea-bird rookeries, of crowded -eggs, and huddled young, hairy or naked or wet from the shell. Every -time my fingers felt for a crack overhead they touched something warm -that rolled or squirmed; every time my feet moved under me, for a -hold, they pushed in among top-shaped eggs that turned on the shelf or -went over far below; and whenever I hugged the pushing wall I must -bear off from a mass of squealing, struggling, shapeless things, just -hatched. And down upon me, as rookery after rookery of old birds -whirred in fright from their ledges, fell crashing eggs and unfledged -young, that the greedy gulls devoured ere they touched the sea. - -I was midway in the climb, at a bad turn round a point, edging inch by -inch along, my face pressed against the hard face of the rock, my feet -and fingers gripping any crack or seam they could feel, when out of -the deep space behind me I caught the swash of waves. Instantly a cold -hand seemed to clasp me from behind. - -I flattened against the rock, my whole body, my very mind clinging -desperately for a hold,--a falling fragment of shale, a gust of wind, -the wing-stroke of a frightened bird, enough to break the hold and -swing me out over the water, washing faint and far below. A long -breath, and I was climbing again. - -[Illustration: BRANDT'S CORMORANT] - -We were on the outer Rock, our only possible ascent taking us up the -sheer south face. With the exception of an occasional Western gull's -and pigeon guillemot's nest, these steep sides were occupied entirely -by the California murres,--penguin-shaped birds about the size of a -small wild duck, chocolate-brown above, with white breasts,--which -literally covered the sides of the three great rocks wherever they -could find a hold. If a million meant anything, I should say there -were a million murres nesting on this outer Rock; not nesting either, -for the egg is laid upon the bare ledge, as you might place it upon a -mantel,--a single sharp-pointed egg, as large as a turkey's, and just -as many of them on the ledge as there is standing-room for the birds. -The murre broods her very large egg by standing straight up over it, -her short legs, by dint of stretching, allowing her to straddle it, -her short tail propping her securely from behind. - -On, up along the narrow back, or blade, of the rock, and over the -peak, were the well-spaced nests of the Brandt's cormorants, nests the -size of an ordinary straw hat, made of sea-grass and the -yellow-flowered sulphur-weed that grew in a dense mat over the north -slope of the top, each nest holding four long, dirty blue eggs or as -many black, shivering young; and in the low sulphur-weed, all along -the roof-like slope of the top, built the gulls and the tufted -puffins; and, with the burrowing puffins, often in the same holes, -were found the Kaeding's petrels; while down below them, as up above -them,--all around the rock-rim that dropped sheer to the sea,--stood -the cormorants, black, silent, statuesque; and everywhere were nests -and eggs and young, and everywhere were flying, crying birds--above, -about, and far below me, a whirling, whirring vortex of wings that had -caught me in its funnel. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -THE MOTHER MURRE - - -I hear the bawling of my neighbor's cow. Her calf was carried off -yesterday, and since then, during the long night, and all day long, -her insistent woe has made our hillside melancholy. But I shall not -hear her to-night, not from this distance. She will lie down to-night -with the others of the herd, and munch her cud. Yet, when the rattling -stanchions grow quiet and sleep steals along the stalls, she will turn -her ears at every small stirring; she will raise her head to listen -and utter a low, tender _moo_. Her full udder hurts; but her cud is -sweet. She is only a cow. - -Had she been a wild cow, or had she been out with her calf in a wild -pasture, the mother-love in her would have lived for six months. Here -in the barn she will be forced to forget her calf in a few hours, and -by morning her mother-love shall utterly have died. - -There is a mother-principle alive in all nature that never dies. This -is different from mother-love. The oak tree responds to the -mother-principle, and bears acorns. It is a law of life. The -mother-love or passion, on the other hand, occurs only among the -higher animals. It is very common; and yet, while it is one of the -strongest, most interesting, most beautiful of animal traits, it is at -the same time the most individual and variable of all animal traits. - -This particular cow of my neighbor's that I hear lowing, is an -entirely gentle creature ordinarily, but with a calf at her side she -will pitch at any one who approaches her. And there is no other cow in -the herd that mourns so long after her calf. The mother in her is -stronger, more enduring, than in any of the other nineteen cows in the -barn. My own cow hardly mourns at all when her calf is taken away. She -might be an oak tree losing its acorns, or a crab losing her hatching -eggs, so far as any show of love is concerned. - -The female crab attaches her eggs to her swimmerets and carries them -about with her for their protection as the most devoted of mothers; -yet she is no more conscious of them, and feels no more for them, than -the frond of a cinnamon fern feels for its spores. She is a mother, -without the love of the mother. - -In the spider, however, just one step up the animal scale from the -crab, you find the mother-love or passion. Crossing a field the other -day, I came upon a large female spider of the hunter family, carrying -a round white sack of eggs, half the size of a cherry, attached to her -spinnerets. Plucking a long stem of grass, I detached the sack of eggs -without bursting it. Instantly the mother turned and sprang at the -grass-stem, fighting and biting until she got to the sack, which she -seized in her strong jaws and made off with as fast as her long, rapid -legs would carry her. - -I laid the stem across her back and again took the sack away. She came -on for it, fighting more fiercely than before. Once more she seized -it; once more I forced it from her jaws, while she sprang at the -grass-stem and tried to tear it to pieces. She must have been fighting -for two minutes when, by a regrettable move on my part, one of her -legs was injured. She did not falter in her fight. On she rushed for -the sack as fast as I pulled it away. She would have fought for that -sack, I believe, until she had not one of her eight legs to stand on, -had I been cruel enough to compel her. It did not come to this, for -suddenly the sack burst, and out poured, to my amazement, a myriad of -tiny brown spiderlings. Before I could think what to do that mother -spider had rushed among them and caused them to swarm upon her, -covering her, many deep, even to the outer joints of her long legs. I -did not disturb her again, but stood by and watched her slowly move -off with her encrusting family to a place of safety. - -I had seen these spiders try hard to escape with their egg-sacks -before, but had never tested the strength of their purpose. For a time -after this experience I made a point of taking the sacks away from -every spider I found. Most of them scurried off to seek their own -safety; one of them dropped her sack of her own accord; some of them -showed reluctance to leave it; some of them a disposition to fight; -but none of them the fierce, consuming mother-fire of the one with the -hurt leg. - -Among the fishes, much higher animal forms than the spiders, we find -the mother-love only in the _males_. It is the male stickleback that -builds the nest, then goes out and _drives_ the female in to lay her -eggs, then straightway drives her out to prevent her eating them, then -puts himself on guard outside the nest to protect them from other -sticklebacks and other enemies, until the young shall hatch and be -able to swim away by themselves. Here he stays for a month, without -eating or sleeping, so far as we know. - -It is the male toadfish that crawls into the nest-hole and takes -charge of the numerous family. He may dig the hole, too, as the male -stickleback builds the nest. I do not know as to that. But I have -raised many a stone in the edge of the tide along the shore of Naushon -Island in Buzzard's Bay, to find the under surface covered with round, -drop-like, amber eggs, and in the shallow cavity beneath, an old male -toadfish, slimy and croaking, and with a countenance ugly enough to -turn a prowling eel to stone. The female deposits the eggs, glues them -fast with much nicety to the under surface of the rock, as a female -might, and finishes her work. Departing at once, she leaves the coming -brood to the care of the male, who from this time, without relief or -even food in all probability, assumes the role and all the -responsibilities of mother, and must consequently feel all the -mother-love. - -Something like this is true of the common hornpout, or catfish, I -believe, though I have never seen it recorded, and lack the chance at -present of proving my earlier observations. I think it is father -catfish that takes charge of the brood, of the swarm of kitten -catfish, from the time the spawn is laid. - -A curious sharing of mother qualities by male and female is shown in -the Surinam toads of South America, where the male, taking the newly -deposited eggs, places them upon the back of the female. Here, glued -fast by their own adhesive jelly, they are soon surrounded by cells -grown of the skin of the back, each cell capped by a lid. In these -cells the eggs hatch, and the young go through their metamorphoses, -apparently absorbing some nourishment through the skin of their -mother. Finally they break through the lids of their cells and hop -away. They might as well be toadstools upon a dead stump, so far as -motherly care or concern goes, for, aside from allowing the male to -spread the eggs upon her back, she is no more a mother to them than -the dead stump is to the toadstools. She is host only to the little -parasites. - -I do not know of any mother-love among the reptiles. The -mother-passion, so far as my observation goes, plays no part whatever -in the life of reptiles. Whereas, passing on to the birds, the -mother-passion becomes by all odds the most interesting thing in -bird-life. - -And is not the mother-passion among the mammals even more interesting? -It is as if the watcher in the woods went out to see the mother animal -only. It is her going and coming that we follow; her faring, foraging, -and watch-care that let us deepest into the secrets of wild animal -life. - -On one of the large estates here in Hingham, a few weeks ago, a fox -was found to be destroying poultry. The time of the raids, and their -boldness, were proof enough that the fox must be a female with young. -Poisoned meat was prepared for her, and at once the raids ceased. A -few days later one of the workmen of the estate came upon the den of a -fox, at the mouth of which lay dead a whole litter of young ones. They -had been poisoned. The mother had not eaten the prepared food herself, -but had carried it home to her family. They must have died in the -burrow, for it was evident from the signs that she had dragged them -into the fresh air to revive them, and deposited them gently on the -sand by the hole. Then in her perplexity she had brought various -tidbits of mouse and bird and rabbit, which she placed at their noses -to tempt them to wake up out of their strange sleep and eat. No one -knows how long she watched beside the lifeless forms, nor what her -emotions were. She must have left the neighborhood soon after, -however, for no one has seen her since about the estate. - -The bird mother is the bravest, tenderest, most appealing thing one -ever comes upon in the fields. It is the rare exception, but we -sometimes find the real mother wholly lacking among the birds, as in -the case of our notorious cowbird, who sneaks about, watching her -chance, when some smaller bird is gone, to drop her egg into its nest. -The egg must be laid, the burden of the race has been put upon the -bird, but not the precious burden of the child. She lays eggs; but is -not a mother. - -The same is true of the European cuckoos, but not quite true, in spite -of popular belief, of our American cuckoos. For our birds (both -species) build rude, elementary nests as a rule, and brood their eggs. -Occasionally they may use a robin's or a catbird's nest, in order to -save labor. So undeveloped is the mother in the cuckoo that if you -touch her eggs she will leave them--abandon her rude nest and eggs as -if any excuse were excuse enough for an escape from the cares of -motherhood. How should a bird with so little mother-love ever learn to -build a firm-walled, safe, and love-lined nest? - -The great California condor is a most faithful and anxious mother; the -dumb affection of both parent birds, indeed, for their single -offspring is pathetically human. On the other hand, the mother in the -turkey buzzard is so evenly balanced against the vulture in her that I -have known a brooding bird to be so upset by the sudden approach of a -man as to rise from off her eggs and devour them instantly, greedily, -and make off on her serenely soaring wings into the clouds. - -Such mothers, however, are not the rule. The buzzard, the cuckoo, and -the cowbird are the striking exceptions. The flicker will keep on -laying eggs as fast as one takes them from the nest-hole, until she -has no more eggs to lay. The quail will sometimes desert her nest if -even a single egg is so much as touched, but only because she knows -that she has been discovered and must start a new nest, hidden in some -new place, for safety. She is a wise and devoted mother, keeping her -brood with her as a "covey" all winter long. - -One of the most striking cases of mother-love which has ever come -under my observation, I saw in the summer of 1912 on the bird -rookeries of the Three-Arch Rocks Reservation off the coast of Oregon. - -We were making our slow way toward the top of the outer rock. Through -rookery after rookery of birds we climbed until we reached the edge of -the summit. Scrambling over this edge, we found ourselves in the midst -of a great colony of nesting murres--hundreds of them--covering this -steep rocky part of the top. - -As our heads appeared above the rim, many of the colony took wing and -whirred over us out to sea, but most of them sat close, each bird upon -its egg or over its chick, loath to leave, and so expose to us the -hidden treasure. - -The top of the rock was somewhat cone-shaped, and in order to reach -the peak and the colonies on the west side we had to make our way -through this rookery of the murres. The first step among them, and -the whole colony was gone, with a rush of wings and feet that sent -several of the top-shaped eggs rolling, and several of the young birds -toppling over the cliff to the pounding waves and ledges far below. - -We stopped, but the colony, almost to a bird, had bolted, leaving -scores of eggs and scores of downy young squealing and running -together for shelter, like so many beetles under a lifted board. - -But the birds had not every one bolted, for here sat two of the colony -among the broken rocks. These two had not been frightened off. That -both of them were greatly alarmed, any one could see from their open -beaks, their rolling eyes, their tense bodies on tiptoe for flight. -Yet here they sat, their wings out like props, or more like gripping -hands, as if they were trying to hold themselves down to the rocks -against their wild desire to fly. - -And so they were, in truth, for under their extended wings I saw -little black feet moving. Those two mother murres were not going to -forsake their babies! No, not even for these approaching monsters, -such as they had never before seen, clambering over their rocks. - -What was different about these two? They had their young ones to -protect. Yes, but so had every bird in the great colony its young one, -or its egg, to protect, yet all the others had gone. Did these two -have more mother-love than the others? And hence, more courage, more -intelligence? - -We took another step toward them, and one of the two birds sprang into -the air, knocking her baby over and over with the stroke of her wing, -and coming within an inch of hurling it across the rim to be battered -on the ledges below. The other bird raised her wings to follow, then -clapped them back over her baby. Fear is the most contagious thing in -the world; and that flap of fear by the other bird thrilled her, too, -but as she had withstood the stampede of the colony, so she caught -herself again and held on. - -She was now alone on the bare top of the rock, with ten thousand -circling birds screaming to her in the air above, and with two men -creeping up to her with a big black camera that clicked ominously. She -let the multitude scream, and with threatening beak watched the two -men come on. A motherless baby, spying her, ran down the rock -squealing for his life. She spread a wing, put her bill behind him -and shoved him quickly in out of sight with her own baby. The man with -the camera saw the act, for I heard his machine click, and I heard him -say something under his breath that you would hardly expect a mere man -and a game-warden to say. But most men have a good deal of the mother -in them; and the old bird had acted with such decision, such courage, -such swift, compelling instinct, that any man, short of the wildest -savage, would have felt his heart quicken at the sight. - -"Just how compelling might that mother-instinct be?" I wondered. "Just -how much would that mother-love stand?" I had dropped to my knees, and -on all fours had crept up within about three feet of the bird. She -still had chance for flight. Would she allow me to crawl any nearer? -Slowly, very slowly, I stretched forward on my hands, like a -measuring-worm, until my body lay flat on the rocks, and my fingers -were within three _inches_ of her. But her wings were twitching, a -wild light danced in her eyes, and her head turned toward the sea. - -For a whole minute I did not stir. I was watching--and the wings again -began to tighten about the babies, the wild light in the eyes died -down, the long, sharp beak turned once more toward me. - -Then slowly, very slowly, I raised my hand, touched her feathers with -the tip of one finger--with two fingers--with my whole hand, while -the loud camera click-clacked, click-clacked hardly four feet away! - -It was a thrilling moment. I was not killing anything. I had no -long-range rifle in my hands, coming up against the wind toward an -unsuspecting creature hundreds of yards away. This was no wounded -leopard charging me; no mother-bear defending with her giant might a -captured cub. It was only a mother-bird, the size of a wild duck, with -swift wings at her command, hiding under those wings her own and -another's young, and her own boundless fear! - -For the second time in my life I had taken captive with my bare hands -a free wild bird. No, I had not taken her captive. She had made -herself a captive; she had taken herself in the strong net of her -mother-love. - -And now her terror seemed quite gone. At the first touch of my hand I -think she felt the love restraining it, and without fear or fret she -let me reach under her and pull out the babies. But she reached after -them with her bill to tuck them back out of sight, and when I did not -let them go, she sidled toward me, quacking softly, a language that I -perfectly understood, and was quick to respond to. I gave them back, -fuzzy and black and white. She got them under her, stood up over them, -pushed her wings down hard around them, her stout tail down hard -behind them, and together with them pushed in an abandoned egg that -was close at hand. Her own baby, some one else's baby, and some one -else's forsaken egg! She could cover no more; she had not feathers -enough. But she had heart enough; and into her mother's heart she had -already tucked every motherless egg and nestling of the thousands of -frightened birds, screaming and wheeling in the air high over her -head. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS - - -"Who has not wondered," I asked, many years ago, "as he has seen the -red rim of the sun sink down in the sea, where the little brood of -Mother Carey's chickens skimming round the vessel would sleep that -night?" Here on the waves, no doubt, but what a bed! You have seen -them, or you will see them the first time you cross the ocean, far out -of sight of land--a little band of small dark birds, veering, -glancing, skimming the heaving sea like swallows, or riding the great -waves up and down, from crest to trough, as easily as Bobolink rides -the swaying clover billows in the meadow behind the barn. - -I have stood at the prow and watched them as the huge steamer ploughed -her way into the darkening ocean. Down in the depths beneath me the -porpoises were playing,--as if the speeding ship, with its mighty -engines, were only another porpoise playing tag with them,--and off on -the gray sea ahead, where the circle of night seemed to be closing in, -this little flock of stormy petrels, Mother Carey's chickens, rising, -falling with the heave and sag of the sea, so far, for such little -wings, from the shore! - -You will see them, and you will ask yourself, as I asked myself, -"Where is their home? Where do they nest?" I hope you will also have a -chance to answer the question some time for yourself, as I had a -chance to answer it for myself recently, out on the Three-Arch Rocks, -in the Pacific, just off the coast of Oregon. - -I visited the rocks to see all their multitudinous wild life,--their -gulls, cormorants, murres, guillemots, puffins, oyster-catchers, and -herds of sea-lions,--but more than any other one thing I wanted to see -the petrels, Kaeding's petrels, that nest on the top of Shag Rock, the -outermost of the three rocks of the Reservation. - -No, not merely to _see_ the petrels: what I really wished to do was to -stay all night on the storm-swept peak in order to hear the petrels -come back to their nests on the rock in the dusk and dark. My friend -Finley had done it, years before, on this very rock. On the steep -north slope of the top he had found a safe spot between two jutting -crags, and, wrapping himself in his blanket as the sun went down -behind the hill of the sea, had waited for the winnowing of the small -mysterious wings. - -Just to sleep in such a bed would be enough. To lie down far up on the -ragged peak of this wild sea rock, with the break and swash of the -waves coming up from far beneath you, with the wide sea-wind coming -in, and the dusk spreading down, and the wild sea-birds murmuring in -their strange tongues all about you--it would be enough just to turn -one's face to the lonely sky in such a spot and listen. But how much -more to hear suddenly, among all these strange sounds, the swift -fanning of wings--to feel them close above your face--and to see in -the dim dusk wavering shadowy forms, like a troop of longwinged bats, -hovering over the slope and chittering in a rapid, unbirdlike talk, as -if afraid the very dark might hear them! - -That was what I wanted so much to hear and to see. For down in a -little burrow, in the accumulated earth and guano of the top, under -each of these hovering shadows, would be another shadow, waiting to -hear the beating of the wings and the chitter above; and I wanted to -see the mate in the burrow come out and greet the mate that had been -all day upon the sea. - -This petrel digs itself a little burrow and lays one egg. The burrow -might hold both birds at once, but one seldom finds two birds in the -burrow together. While one is brooding, the other is off on its -wonderful wings--away off in the wake of your ocean steamer, perhaps, -miles and miles from shore. But when darkness falls it remembers its -nest and speeds home to the rock, taking its place down in the little -black burrow, while the mate comes forth and spreads its wings out -over the heaving water, not to return, it may be, until the night and -the day have passed and twilight falls again. - -We landed on a ledge of Shag Rock, driving off a big bull sea-lion who -claimed this particular slab of rock as his own. We backed up close to -the shelf in a yawl boat, and as the waves rose and fell, watched our -chance to leap from the stern of the little boat to the rock. Thus we -landed our cameras, food and water, and other things, then we dragged -the boat up, so that, a storm arising or anything happening to the -small steamer that had brought us, we might still get away to the -shore. - -It was about the middle of the forenoon. All the morning, as we had -steamed along, a thick fog had threatened us; but now the sun broke -out, making it possible to use our cameras, and after a hasty lunch we -started for the top of the rock--a climb that looked impossible, and -that was pretty nearly as impossible as it looked. - -It had been a slow, perilous climb; but, once on the summit, where we -could move somewhat freely and use the cameras, we hurried from colony -to colony to take advantage of the uncertain sunlight, which, indeed, -utterly failed us after only an hour's work. But, as I had no camera, -I made the best of it, giving all my time to studying the ways of the -birds. Besides, I had come to stay on the peak all night; I could do -my work well enough in the dark. But I could not do it in the wind and -rain. - -The sun went into the clouds about four o'clock, but so absorbed was I -in watching, and so thick was the air with wings, so clangorous with -harsh tongues, that I had not seen the fog moving in, or noticed that -the gray wind of the morning had begun to growl about the crags. -Looking off to seaward, I now saw that a heavy bank of mist had -blurred the sky-line and settled down upon the sea. The wind had -freshened; a fine, cold drizzle was beginning to fall, and soon came -slanting across the peak. The prospect was grim and forbidding. Then -the rain began. The night was going to be dark and stormy, too wet and -wild for watching, here where I must hang on with my hands or else -slip and go over--down--down to the waves below. - -We started to descend at once, while there was still light enough to -see by, and before the rocks were made any slipperier by the rain. We -did not fear the wind much, for that was from the north, and we must -descend by the south face, up which we had come. - -I was deeply disappointed. My night with the petrels on the top was -out of the question. Yet as I backed over the rim of that peak, and -began to pick my way down, it was not disappointment, but fear that I -felt. It had been bad enough coming up; but this going down!--with the -cold, wet shadow of night encircling you and lying dark on the cold, -sullen sea below--this was altogether worse. - -The rocks were already wet, and the footing was treacherous. As we -worked slowly along, the birds in the gathering gloom seemed to fear -us less, flying close about our heads, their harsh cries and winging -tumult adding not a little to the peril of the descent. And then the -looking down! and then the impossibility at places of even looking -down--when one could only hang on with one's hands and feel around in -the empty air with one's feet for something to stand on! - -I got a third of the way down, perhaps, and then stopped. The men did -not laugh at me. They simply looped a rope about me, under my arms, -and lowered me over the narrow shelves into the midst of a large murre -colony, from which point I got on alone. Then they tied the rope about -Dallas, my eleven-year-old son, who was with me on the expedition, and -lowered him. - -He came bumping serenely down, smoothing all the little murres and -feeling of all the warm eggs on the way, as if they might have been so -many little kittens, and as if he might have been at home on the -kitchen floor, instead of dangling down the face of a cliff two -hundred or more feet above the sea. - -Some forty feet from the waves was a weathered niche, or shelf, eight -or ten feet wide. Here we stopped for the night. The wind was from the -other side of the rock; the overhanging ledge protected us somewhat -from above, though the mist swept about the steep walls to us, and the -drizzle dripped from overhead. But as I pulled my blanket about me and -lay down beside the other men the thought of what the night must be on -the summit made the hard, damp rock under me seem the softest and -warmest of beds. - -But what a place was this to sleep in!--this narrow ledge with a -rookery of wild sea-birds just above it, with the den of a wild -sea-beast just below it, with the storm-swept sky shut down upon it, -and the sea, the crawling, sinister sea, coiling and uncoiling its -laving folds about it, as with endless undulations it slipped over the -sunken ledges and swam round and round the rock. - -What a place was this to sleep! I could not sleep. I was as wakeful as -the wild beasts that come forth at night to seek their prey. I must -catch a glimpse of Night through her veil of mist, the gray, ghostly -Night, as she came down the long, rolling slope of the sea, and I must -listen, for my very fingers seemed to have ears, so many were the -sounds, and so strange--the talk of the wind on the rock, the sweep -of the storm, the lap of the waves, the rumbling mutter of the wakeful -caverns, the cry of birds, the hoarse grumbling growl of the sea-lions -swimming close below. - -The clamor of the birds was at first disturbing. But soon the -confusion caused by our descent among them subsided; the large colony -of murres close by our heads returned to their rookery; and with the -rain and thickening dark there spread everywhere the quiet of a low -murmurous quacking. Sleep was settling over the rookeries. - -Down in the sea below us rose the head of an old sea-lion, the old -lone bull whose den we had invaded. He was coming back to sleep. He -rose and sank, blinking dully at the cask we had left on his ledge; -then clambered out and hitched slowly up toward his sleeping-place. I -counted the scars on his head, and noted the fresh deep gash on his -right side. I could hear him blow and breathe. - -I drew back from the edge, and, pulling the piece of sail-cloth over -me and the small boy at my side, turned my face up to the slanting -rain. Two young gulls came out of their hiding in a cranny and nestled -against my head, their parents calling gently to them from time to -time all night long. In the murre colony overhead there was a constant -stir and a soft, low talk, and over all the rock, through all the -darkened air there was a silent coming and going of wings--wings--of -the stormy petrels, some of them, I felt sure, the swift shadow wings -of Mother Carey's chickens that I had so longed to hear come winnowing -in from afar on the sea. - -The drizzle thickened. And now I heard the breathing of the sleeping -men beside me; and under me I felt the narrow shelf of rock dividing -the waters from the waters, and then--I, too, must have slept; for -utter darkness was upon the face of the deep. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -RIDING THE RIM ROCK - - -From P Ranch to Winnemucca is a seventeen-day drive through a desert -of rim rock and greasewood and sage, which, under the most favorable -of conditions, is beset with difficulty; but which, in the dry season, -and with a herd of anything like four thousand, becomes an unbroken -hazard. More than anything else on such a drive is feared the wild -herd-spirit, the quick black temper of the cattle, that by one sign or -another ever threatens to break the spell of the rider's power and -sweep the maddened or terrorized herd to destruction. The handling of -the herd to keep this spirit sleeping is ofttimes a thrilling -experience. - -Some time before my visit to P Ranch, in Harney County, southeastern -Oregon, in the summer of 1912, the riders had taken out a herd of four -thousand steers on what proved to be one of the most difficult drives -ever made to Winnemucca, the shipping station in northern Nevada. - -For the first two days on the trail the cattle were strange to each -other, having been gathered from widely distant grazing-grounds,--from -the Double O and the Home ranches,--and were somewhat clannish and -restive under the driving. At the beginning of the third day signs of -real ugliness appeared. The hot weather and a shortage of water began -to tell on the temper of the herd. - -The third day was long and exceedingly hot. The line started forward -at dawn and all day long kept moving, with the sun cooking the bitter -smell of sage into the air, and with the sixteen thousand hoofs -kicking up a still bitterer smother of alkali dust that inflamed eyes -and nostrils and coated the very lungs of the cattle. The fierce -desert thirst was upon the herd long before it reached the creek where -it was to bed for the night. The heat and the dust had made slow work -of the driving, and it was already late when they reached the -creek--only to find it dry. - -This was bad. The men were tired. But, worse, the cattle were thirsty, -and Wade, the "boss of the buckaroos," pushed the herd on toward the -next rim rock, hoping to get down to the plain below to water before -the end of the slow desert twilight. Anything for the night but a dry -camp. - -They had hardly started on when a whole flank of the herd, as if by -prearrangement, suddenly breaking away and dividing about two of the -riders, tore off through the brush. The horses were as tired as the -men, and before the chase was over the twilight was gray in the sage -and it became necessary to halt at once and make camp where they were. -They would have to go without water. - -The runaways were brought up and the herd closed in till it formed a -circle nearly a mile around. This was as close as it could be drawn, -for the cattle would not bed--lie down. They wanted water more than -they wanted rest. Their eyes were red, their tongues raspy with -thirst. The situation was a serious one. - -But camp was made. Two of the riders were sent back along the trail to -bring up the "drags," while Wade with his other men circled the uneasy -cattle, closing them in, quieting them, and doing everything possible -to make them bed. - -But they were thirsty, and, instead of bedding, the herd began to -"growl"--a distant mutter of throats, low, rumbling, ominous, as when -faint thunder rolls behind the hills. Every plainsman fears the growl, -for it usually is a prelude to the "milling," as it proved to be now, -when the whole vast herd began to stir, slowly, singly, and without -direction, till at length it moved together, round and round, a great -compact circle, the multitude of clicking hoofs, of clashing horns, -and chafing sides like the sound of rushing rain across a field of -corn. - -Nothing could be worse for the cattle. The cooler twilight was -falling, but, mingling with it, rose and thickened and spread the -choking dust from their feet that soon covered them and shut out all -but the dark wall of the herd from sight. - -Slowly, evenly swung the wall, round and round without a break. Only -one who has watched a milling herd can know its suppressed -excitement. To keep that excitement in check was the problem of Wade -and his men. And the night had not yet begun. - -When the riders had brought in the drags and the chuck-wagon had -lumbered up with supper, Wade set the first watch. - -Along with the wagon had come the fresh horses--and Peroxide Jim, a -supple, powerful, clean-limbed buckskin, that had, I think, as fine -and intelligent an animal-face as any I ever saw. And why should he -not have been saved fresh for just such a need as this? Are there not -superior horses to match superior men--a Peroxide Jim to complement a -Wade and so combine a real centaur, noble physical power controlled by -noble intelligence? At any rate, the horse understood the situation, -and though there was nothing like sentiment about the boss of the P -Ranch riders, his faith in Peroxide Jim was complete. - -The other night horses were saddled and tied to the wheels of the -wagon. It was Wade's custom to take his turn with the second watch; -but, shifting his saddle to Peroxide Jim, he rode out with the four of -the first watch, who, evenly spaced, were quietly circling the herd. - -The night, for this part of the desert, was unusually warm; it was -close, silent, and without a sky. The near thick darkness blotted out -the stars. There is usually a breeze at night over these highest -rim-rock plains that, no matter how hot the day, crowds the cattle -together for warmth. To-night not a breath stirred the sage as Wade -wound in and out among the bushes, the hot dust stinging his eyes and -caking rough on his skin. - -Round and round moved the weaving, shifting forms, out of the dark and -into the dark, a gray spectral line like a procession of ghosts, or -some slow morris of the desert's sheeted dead. But it was not a line, -it was a sea of forms; not a procession, but the even surging of a -maelstrom of hoofs a mile around. - -Wade galloped out on the plain for a breath of air and a look at the -sky. A quick cold rain would quiet them; but there was no feel of rain -in the darkness, no smell of it in the air. Only the powdery taste of -bitter sage. - -The desert, where the herd had camped, was one of the highest of a -series of tablelands, or benches, that lay as level as a floor, and -rimmed by a sheer wall of rock over which it dropped to the bench of -sage below. The herd had been headed for a pass, and was now halted -within a mile of the rim rock on the east, where there was about three -hundred feet of perpendicular fall. - -It was the last place an experienced plainsman would have chosen for a -camp; and every time Wade circled the herd and came in between the -cattle and the rim, he felt its nearness. The darkness helped to -bring it near. The height of his horse brought it near--he seemed to -look down from his saddle over it, into its dark depths. The herd in -its milling was surely warping slowly in the direction of the -precipice. But this was all fancy--the trick of the dark and of -nerves, if a plainsman has nerves. - -At twelve o'clock the first guard came in and woke the second watch. -Wade had been in his saddle since dawn, but this was his regular -watch. More than that, his trained ear had timed the milling hoofs. -The movement of the herd had quickened. - -If now he could keep them going and could prevent their taking any -sudden fright! They must not stop until they stopped from utter -weariness. Safety lay in their continued motion. So Wade, with the -fresh riders, flanked them closely, paced them, and urged them quietly -on. They must be kept milling, and they must be kept from fright. - -In the taut silence of the starless desert night, with the tension of -the cattle at the snapping-point, any quick, unwonted sight or sound -would stampede the herd--the sneezing of a horse, the flare of a -match, enough to send the whole four thousand headlong--blind, -frenzied, tramping--till spent and scattered over the plain. - -And so, as he rode, Wade began to sing. The rider ahead of him took up -the air and passed it on, until, above the stepping stir of the hoofs, -rose the faint voices of the men, and all the herd was bound about by -the slow, plaintive measure of some old song. It was not to soothe -their savage breasts that the riders sang to the cattle, but to -prevent the shock of any loud or sudden noise. - -So they sang and rode, and the night wore on to one o'clock, when -Wade, coming up on the rim-rock side, felt a cool breeze fan his face, -and caught a breath of fresh, moist wind with the taste of water in -it. - -He checked his horse instantly, listening as the wind swept past him -over the cattle. But they must already have smelled it, for they had -ceased their milling. The whole herd stood motionless, the indistinct -forms nearest him showing, in the dark, their bald faces lifted to -drink the sweet wet breath that came over the rim. Then they started -again, but faster, and with a rumbling from their hoarse throats that -tightened Wade's grip on his reins. - -The sound seemed to come out of the earth, a low, rumbling mumble, as -deep as the night and as wide as the plain, a thick, inarticulate -bellow that stood every rider stiff in his stirrups. - -The breeze caught the dust and carried it back from the gray-coated, -ghostly shapes, and Wade saw that they were still moving in a circle. -If only he could keep them going! He touched his horse to ride on with -them, when across the black sky flashed a vivid streak of lightning. - -There was a snort from the steers, a quick clap of horns and hoofs -from within the herd, a tremor of the plain, a roar, a surging -mass--and Wade was riding the flank of a wild stampede. Before him, -behind him, beside him, pressing hard upon his horse, galloped the -frenzied steers, and beyond them a multitude, borne on, and bearing -him on, by the heave of the galloping herd. - -Wade was riding for his life. He knew it. His horse knew it. He was -riding to turn the herd, too,--back from the rim,--as the horse also -knew. The cattle were after water--water-mad--and would go over the -precipice to get it, carrying horse and rider with them. - -Wade was the only rider between the herd and the rim. It was black as -death. He could see nothing in the sage, could scarcely discern the -pounding, panting shadows at his side; but he knew by the swish of the -brush and the plunging of the horse that the ground was growing -stonier, that they were nearing the rocks. - -To outrun the cattle seemed his only chance. If he could come up with -the leaders he might yet head them off upon the plain and save the -herd. There were cattle still ahead of him,--how many, what part of -the herd, he could not tell. But the horse knew. The reins hung on his -straight neck, while Wade, yelling and firing into the air, gave him -the race to win, to lose. - -Suddenly they veered and went high in the air, as a steer plunged -headlong into a draw almost beneath his feet. They cleared the narrow -ravine, landed on bare rock, and reeled on. - -They were riding the rim. Close on their left bore down the flank of -the herd, and on their right, under their very feet, was the -precipice, so close that they felt its blackness--its three hundred -feet of fall. - -A piercing, half-human bawl of terror told where a steer had been -crowded over. Would the next leap crowd them over too? Then Wade found -himself racing neck and neck with a big white steer, which the horse, -with marvelous instinct, seemed to pick from a bunch, and to cling to, -forcing him gradually ahead, till, cutting him free from the bunch -entirely, he bore him off into the sage. - -The group coming on behind followed the leader, and after them swung -others. The tide was turning. Within a short time the whole herd had -veered, and, bearing off from the cliffs, was pounding over the open -plains. - -Whose race was it? It was Peroxide Jim's, according to Wade, for not -by word or by touch of hand or knee had he been directed in the run. -From the flash of the lightning the horse had taken the bit, had -covered an indescribably perilous path at top speed, had outrun the -herd and turned it from the edge of the rim rock, without a false step -or a shaken nerve. - -[Illustration: (Page 7) "NECK AND NECK WITH A BIG WHITE STEER"] - -Bred on the desert, broken in at the round-up, trained to think steer -as the rider thinks it, the horse knew, as swiftly, as clearly as his -rider, the work before him. But that he kept himself from fright, that -none of the wild herd-madness passed into him, is a thing for great -wonder. He was as thirsty as any of the herd; he knew his own peril, I -believe, as none of the herd had ever known anything, and yet such -coolness, courage, wisdom, and power! - -Was it training? Superior intelligence? More intimate association with -the man on his back, and so a farther remove from the wild thing that -domestication does not seem to touch? Or was it all by suggestion, the -superior intelligence above him riding, not only the flesh, but the -spirit? - -Not all suggestion, I believe. Perhaps a herd of horses could not be -stampeded so easily as these P Ranch cattle. In this race, however, -nothing of the wild herd-spirit touched the horse. Had the cattle been -horses, would Peroxide Jim have been able to keep himself outside the -stampede and above the spirit of the herd? - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO DO THIS SUMMER - - -I - -First, select some bird or beast or insect that lives with you in your -dooryard or house or near neighborhood, and keep track of his doings -all summer long, jotting down in a diary your observations. You might -take the white-faced hornet that builds the big paper nests in the -trees; or the mud wasp, or the toad under the steps, or the swifts in -the chimney, or the swallows in the barn. It hardly matters what you -take, for every life is interesting. The object is to learn how to -follow up your study, how to watch one life long enough, and under -circumstances different enough, to discover its many-sidedness, its -fascination and romance. Such careful and prolonged study will surely -reveal to you something no one else has seen, too. It will be good -training in patience and independence. - - -II - -Along with this study of _one_ life, keep a list of all the beasts, -birds, insects, flowers, etc., that live--I mean, that build nests or -dig holes and rear families--in your dooryard or in this "haunt" that -I told you in "The Spring of the Year" (see page 42, Sections III and -IV) you ought to pick out as your own field of study. This list will -grow all through the summer and from year to year. I have a list of -seventy-six wild neighbors (not counting the butterflies and insects) -that are sharing my fourteen-acre farm with me. How many and _what_ -wild things are sharing your dooryard, your park, your favorite haunt -or farm with you? Such a list of names, with a blank place left for -each where observations can be entered from time to time, would be one -of the most useful and interesting journals you could keep. - - -III - -All through June and into July you should have a round of birds' nests -that you visit daily, and to which you can take your friends and -visitors--that is, if you live in or near the country. One will be in -the big unused chimney of the house, perhaps, and that will be the -first; then one in the barn, or in a bird-house in the yard; or in the -pear-or apple-tree hole; one in the lilac or honeysuckle bushes, and -then down into the orchard, out into the meadow, on into the woods and -back--taking in twenty to thirty birds' nests with eggs and young! Did -you ever do it? Can you do it this summer? Don't you think it would be -quite as exciting and interesting as going to the circus? I can do it; -and if you come out to Mullein Hill in June or July, any one of my -small boys will take you on his "birds' nest round." - - -IV - -You should camp out--even if you have to pitch your tent in the back -yard or up on the roof! You should go to sleep on a bed of -boughs,--pine, or spruce, or hickory, if possible,--or swing your -hammock between the trunks of sweet-smelling forest trees, and turn -your face up to the stars! You will never want to sleep in a room with -closed windows after that. To see the stars looking down upon you; to -see the tree-tops swaying over you; to feel the fresh night wind -stealing across your face and breathing into your very soul--yes, you -must sleep at least _one_ night this summer right out on a bed of -boughs; but with a blanket of wool and a piece of sail-cloth or rubber -coat over you and under you, and perhaps some mosquito-netting. - - -V - -But you must _not_ build a fire in the woods, unless you have a guide -or older people with a permit along. Fires are terrible masters, and -it is almost as dangerous to build a fire in the woods as to build one -in the waste-paper basket in the basement of some large store. Along -the seashore or by the margin of a river or lake, if you take every -precaution, it might be safe enough; but in the woods, if camping out, -make all preparations by clearing a wide space down to the bare -ground, then see that it is bare ground and not a boggy, rooty -peat-bed beneath, that will take fire and smoulder and burn away down -under the surface out of sight, to break through, perhaps, a week -after you have gone, and set the whole mountain-side afire. Build your -fire on bare, sandy earth; have a shovel and can of water at hand, and -put the fire out when you are done with it. It is against the law in -most States to set a fire out of doors after the 1st of April, without -a permit from the fire-warden. - -Now, after this caution, you ought to go out some evening by the shore -with a small party and roast some green corn in the husk; then, -wrapping some potatoes in clay, bake them; if you have fish, wrap them -in clay with their scales on, and bake them. The scales will come off -beautifully when the clay is cracked off, and leave you the tastiest -meal of fish and potatoes and corn you ever ate. Every boy and girl -ought to have a little camp-life and ought to have each his share of -camp-work to perform this summer. - - -VI - -At the close of some stifling July day you ought to go out into the -orchard or woods and watch the evening come on--to notice how the wild -life revives, flowers open, birds sing, animals stir, breezes start, -leaves whisper, and all the world awakes. - -Then follow that up by getting out the next morning before sunrise, -say at half-past three o'clock, an hour before the sun bursts over the -eastern hills. If you are not a stump or a stone, the sight and the -smell--the whole indescribable freshness and wonder of it all--will -thrill you. Would you go to the Pyramids or Niagara or the Yellowstone -Park? Yes, you would, and you would take a great deal of trouble to -see any one of these wonders! Just as great a wonder, just as -thrilling an experience, is right outside of your bedroom early any -June, July, or August morning! I know boys and girls who _never_ saw -the sun get up! - - -VII - -You ought to spend some time this summer on a real farm. Boy or girl, -you need to feel ploughed ground under your feet; you need the contact -with growing things in the ground; you need to handle a hoe, gather -the garden vegetables, feed the chickens, feed the pigs, drive the -cows to pasture, help stow away the hay--and all the other interesting -experiences that make up the simple, elemental, and wonderfully varied -day of farm life. A mere visit is not enough. You need to take part in -the digging and weeding and planting. The other day I let out my cow -after keeping her all winter in the barn. The first thing she did was -to kick up her heels and run to a pile of fresh earth about a newly -planted tree and fall to eating it--not the tree, but the earth, the -raw, rich soil--until her muzzle was muddy halfway to her eyes. You do -not need to eat it; but the need to smell it, to see it, to feel it, -to work in it, is just as real as the cow's need to eat it. - - -VIII - -You ought to learn how to browse and nibble in the woods. What do I -mean? Why, just this: that you ought to learn how to taste the woods -as well as to see them. Maurice Thompson, in "Byways and Bird Notes," -a book you ought to read (and that is another "ought to do" for this -summer), has a chapter called "Browsing and Nibbling" in which his -mountain guide says: "What makes me allus a-nibblin' an' a-browsin' of -the bushes an' things as I goes along? I kinder b'lieve hit keeps a -feller's heart stiddy an' his blood pure for to nibble an' browse -kinder like a deer does. You know a deer is allus strong an' active, -an' hit is everlastin'ly a-nibblin' an' a-browsin'. Ef hit is good for -the annymel, hit otter be good for the feller." - -[Illustration: SASSAFRAS] - -[Illustration: DEADLY NIGHTSHADE] - -The guide may not be right about the strength to be had from tasting -the roots and barks and buds of things, but I know that I am right -when I tell you that the very sap of the summer woods will seem to -mingle with your blood at the taste of the aromatic sassafras root, -the spicy bark of the sweet birch and the biting bulb of the Indian -turnip. Many of the perfumes, odors, resins, gums, saps, and nectars -of the woods can be known to you only by sense of taste. - - -IX - -[Illustration: POISON SUMACH] - -"But I shall bite into something poisonous," you say. Yes, you must -look out for that, and you must take the pains this summer to learn -the poisonous things of our woods and fields. So before you begin to -browse and nibble, make a business of learning the deadly nightshade -with its green or its red berries; the poison sumach with its _loose_ -panicles or clusters of grayish-white berries; the three-leaved poison -ivy or "ground oak" (which you can easily tell from the five-leaved -Virginia creeper); and the deadly mushrooms with their _bulbous_ -roots. These are the poisonous plants that you will meet with most -frequently, but there are a few others, and it will be safest not to -nibble any plant that is strange to you. Nor am I suggesting that you -make a meal on the pitch of the pine trees or anything else. Do not -_eat_ any of these things; taste them only. I was once made -desperately ill by eating poke root (I was a very little child) which -I took for sweet potato. Poke berries are not good to _eat_. Take -along a few good sandwiches from home to eat. But learn to know the -mints, the medicinal roots and barks, and that long list of -old-fashioned "herbs" that our grandmothers hung from the garret -rafters and made us take occasionally as "tea." - -[Illustration: POISON IVY] - -[Illustration: VIRGINIA CREEPER] - - -X - -[Illustration: THE DEADLY AMANITA] - -Finally, as a lover of the woods and wild life, you ought to take a -personal responsibility for the preservation of the trees and woods in -your neighborhood, and of the birds and beasts and other lowlier forms -of wild life. Year by year the wild things are vanishing never to -return to your woods, and never to be seen again by man. Do what you -can to stop the hunting and ignorant killing of every sort. You ought -to get and read "Our Vanishing Wild Life," by William T. Hornaday, and -then join the growing host of us who, alarmed at the fearful increase -of insect pests, and the loss to the beauty and interest of the -out-of-doors through the extermination of wild life, are doing our -best to save the wild things we still have and to increase their -numbers. - -[Illustration: POKE] - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -THE "CONY" - - -We were threading our slow way along the narrow divide of the Wallowa -Mountains that runs between the branches of the Snake River. Our guide -was a former "camp-tender," one who carries provisions to the -sheep-herders in the mountains. As we were stopping a moment to -breathe our horses and to look down upon the head springs of Big Sheep -and Salt Lick Creeks on one side, and the narrow ribbon of the Imnaha -on the other, this guide and our mammal-collector rode on ahead. An -hour later I saw them round the breast of a peak far along on the -trail and disappear. That night they brought into camp a "cony," or -pika, or little chief hare. - -The year before, this camp-tender, in passing a certain rock-slide -among the high peaks of the pass, had heard and seen a peculiar little -animal about the size and shape of a small guinea-pig, whistling among -the broken rock. He had never seen the little creature before,--had -never heard of it. It was to this slide that he now took our -naturalist, in the hope of showing him the mountain guinea-pig, and, -sure enough, they brought one back with them, and showed me my first -"cony," one of the rarest of American mammals. - -But I was broken-hearted. That I should have been so near and missed -it! For we had descended to Aneroid Lake to camp that night, and there -were no cony slides below us on the trail. - -While the men were busy about camp the next morning, I slipped off -alone on foot, and, following the trail, got back about ten o'clock to -the rock-slide where they had killed the cony. - -A wilder, barrener, more desolate land of crags and peaks I never -beheld. Eternal silence seemed to wrap it round. The slide was of -broken pieces of rock, just as if the bricks from an immense chimney -had cracked off and rolled down into the valley of the roof. Stunted -vegetation grew around, with scraggly wild grass and a few snow-line -flowers, for this was on the snow-line, several melting banks -glistening in the morning sun about me. - -I crept round the sharp slope of the peak and down to the edge of the -rock-slide. "Any living thing in that long heap of broken rock!" I -said to myself incredulously. That barren, blasted pile of splintered -peaks the home of an animal? Why, I was on the top of the world! A -great dark hawk was wheeling over toward Eagle Cap Mountain in the -distance; far below me flapped a band of ravens; and down, down, -immeasurably far down, glistened the small winding waters of the -Imnaha; while all about me were the peaks, lonely, solitary, mighty, -terrible! Such bleakness and desolation! - -But here, they told me, they had shot the cony. I could not believe -it. Why should any animal live away up here on the roof of the world? -For several feet each side of the steep, piled-up rock grew spears of -thin, wiry grass about six inches high, and a few stunted -flowers,--pussy's-paws, alpine phlox, and beardtongue, all of them -flat to the sand,--and farther down the sides of the ravine were low, -twisted pines,--mere prostrate mats of trees that had crept in narrow -ascending tongues, up and up, until they could hang on no longer to -the bare alpine slopes. But here above the stunted pines, here in the -slide rock, where only mosses and a few flat plants could -live,--plants that blossom in the snow,--dwell the conies. - -I sat down on the edge of the slide, feeling that I had had my labor -for my pains. We had been climbing these peaks in the hope of seeing -one of the last small bands of mountain sheep that made these -fastnesses their home. But, much as I wished to see a wild mountain -sheep among the crags, I wished more to see the little cony among the -rocks. "As for the stork," says the Bible, "the fir trees are her -house. The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; and the rocks -for the conies." I had always wondered about those conies--what they -looked like and how they lived among the rocks. - -I knew that these little conies here in the slide (if indeed they -_could_ be here) were not those of the mountain-peaks of Palestine. -What of that! The very rocks might be different in kind from the rocks -of Nebo or Lebanon; but peaks are peaks, and rocks are rocks, and the -strange little "rabbits" that dwell in their broken slides are all -conies to me. The cony of the Bible is the little hyrax, a relative of -the elephant. - -I sat for a while watching. Was this the place? I must make sure -before I settled down to waiting, for when in all my life again might -I have this chance? - -Out in the middle of the slide was a pile of rocks with an uneven look -about them, as if they had been heaped up there by other hands than -those that hurled them from the peak. Going quietly out, I examined -them closely, and found the perfect print of a little bloody paw on -one of them. - -This was the right place. Here was where they had shot the specimen -brought into camp. I got back to my seat, ready now to wait, even -while I knew that I was holding back the camp from its day's march. - -Perhaps I had been watching for half an hour, when from somewhere, in -the rock-slide surely, though I could not tell, there sounded a shrill -bleating whistle, not unlike the whistles of the ground squirrels and -marmots that I had heard all through the mountains, yet more -tremulous and not so piercing. - -I waited. Presently a little gray form crept over a stone, stopped and -whistled, then disappeared. It was my cony! - -If you can think of Molly Cottontail turned into the shape of a -guinea-pig about eight inches long, with positively no tail at all, -and with big round broad ears, and with all four legs of equal length -so that the creature walks instead of hopping,--if you can imagine -such a rabbit,--you will get a pretty clear picture of the cony, or -pika, or "little chief hare." - -I kept as still as the stones. Presently the plaintive, bleating -whistle sounded from nowhere again--behind me, beyond me, up the slide -or down, I could not tell. The rocks were rough, rusty chunks two or -three feet long, piled helter-skelter without form or order, so that -any one spot in the slide looked precisely like every other spot. I -could not tell just the piece the cony had crossed, once my eyes were -off of it, nor into which of the cracks he had disappeared. I could -only sit still and wait till I caught him moving, so completely did -his color blend with the rusty brown tone of the slide. - -All the while the shrill, piteous call kept coming from anywhere in -the slide. But it was not the call of several voices, not a colony -whistling at once. The conies live in colonies, but, judging from the -single small haycock which they had curing in the sun, I think there -could not have been more than two or three pairs of them in this -particular slide. Possibly there was only the single pair, one of -which had been shot, for presently, when my eyes grew sharp enough to -pick the little creature out against the rocks, I found that one was -doing all the calling, and that for some reason he was greatly -disturbed. - -Now he would stop on a slab and whistle, then dive into some long -passage under the stones, to reappear several feet or yards away. Here -he would pause to listen, and, hearing nothing, would call again, -waiting for an answer to his tremulous cry which did not come. - -Under and over the stones, up and down the slide, now close to me, now -on the extreme opposite edge of the pile he traveled, nervously, -anxiously looking for something--for some _one_, I truly think; and my -heart smote me when I thought it might be for the dead mate whose -little bare foot-pads had left the bloody print upon the rock. - -Up and down, in and out, he ran, calling, calling, calling, but -getting no answer back. He was the only one that showed himself, the -only live one I have ever seen, but this one I followed, as he went -searching and crying over the steep rock-slide, with my eye and with -the field-glasses, until long past noon--with a whole camp down the -canyon looking for me! - -But they must know where to look. Let them climb out of the canyon, -back to the top of the world to the cony slide, if they could not wait -for me. - -Higher up than the mountain sheep or the goat can live, where only the -burrowing pocket gopher and rare field mice are ever found, dwells the -cony. This particular slide was on one of the minor peaks,--loftier -ones towered all about,--nor do I know just how high it was, but the -cony dwells above the tree-line, up in the Arctic-Alpine Zone, in a -world of perpetual snow, from ten to fourteen thousand feet above the -sea. - -By perpetual snow I mean that the snow-banks never melt in the -shadowed ravines and on the bare north slopes. Here, where I was -watching, the rock-slide lay open to the sun, the scanty grass was -green beyond the gully, and the squat alpine flowers were in bloom, -the saxifrage and a solitary aster (April and September together!) -blossoming in the edges of the snow just as fast as the melting banks -allowed them to lift their heads. But any day the wind might come down -from the north, keen and thick and white about the summits, and leave -the flowers and the cony slide covered deep beneath a drift. - -Spring, summer, and autumn are all one season, all crowded together--a -kind of peak piercing for a few short weeks the long, bleak, unbroken -land of winter here on the roof of the world. - -But during this brief period the thin grass springs up, and the conies -cut and cure it, enough of it to last them from the falling of the -September snows until the drifts are once more melted and their -rock-slide warms in another summer's sun. - -For the cony does not hibernate. He stays awake down in his catacombs. -Think of being buried alive in pitch-black night with snow twenty-five -feet thick above you for nine out of twelve months of the year! Yet -here they are away up on the sides of the wildest summits, living -their lives, keeping their houses, rearing their children, visiting -back and forth through their subways for all this long winter, -protected by the drifts which lie so deep that they keep out the cold. - -As I looked about me I could not see grass enough to feed a pair of -conies for a winter. Right near me was one of their little haycocks, -nearly cured and ready for storing in their barns beneath the rocks; -but this would not last long. It was already early August and what -haying they had to do must be done quickly or winter would catch them -hungry. - -They cut the grass that grows in the vicinity of the slide, and cock -it until it is cured, then they carry it all below against the coming -of the cold; and naturalists who have observed them describe with what -hurry and excitement the colony falls to taking in the hay when bad -weather threatens to spoil it. - -Hardy little farmers! Bold small folk! Why climb for a home with your -tiny, bare-soled feet above the aerie of the eagle and the cave of the -soaring condor of the Sierras? Why not descend to the warm valleys, -where winter, indeed, comes, but cannot linger?--or farther down where -the grass is always green, with never a need to cut and cure a -winter's hay? - -I do not know why--nor why upon the tossing waves the little petrel -makes her bed; nor why, beneath the waves, "down to the dark, to the -utter dark" on - - "The great gray level plains of ooze," - -the "blind white sea-snakes" make their home; nor why at the north, in -the fearful, far-off, frozen north, the little lemmings dwell; nor -why, nor why. But as I sat there above the clouds, listening to the -plaintive, trembling whistle of the little cony, and hoping his mate -was not dead, and wondering why he stayed here in the barren peak, and -how he must fare in the black, bitter winter, I said over to myself -the lines of Kipling for an answer,-- - - "And God who clears the grounding berg - And steers the grinding floe, - He hears the cry of the little kit-fox - And the lemming on the snow." - - - - -NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS - - -CHAPTER I - -TO THE TEACHER - - Let me say again that the best thing any nature book can do for - its readers is to take them out of doors; and that the best - thing any nature-study teacher can do for them is to take them - out of doors. Think of going to school to a teacher so simple, - wholesome, vigorous, original, and rich in the qualities of the - soul that she (how naturally we say "she"!)--that she comes to - her classroom by way of the Public Garden, carrying a bird-glass - in her hand! or across the fields with a rare orchid in her - hand, and the freshness and sweetness of the June morning in her - face and spirit! Why, I should like to be a boy again just to - have such a teacher. Instead of bird-songs it is too often - school gossip, instead of orchids it is clothes, instead of the - open fields it is the round of the schoolroom that most teachers - are absorbed in. Most teachers can add and spell much better - than they can read, because they do not know the literary values - and suggestions of words. Nothing would so help the run of - teachers as the background, the observation and feeling, that - would come from an intimate knowledge of the out-of-doors in the - vicinity of their schoolrooms. - - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 1 - - Learn first of all the joy of walking. It is enough at first to - say "I am going to take a woods walk," with nothing smaller in - mind to do or hear or see. Such tramping itself is one of the - very best ways of meeting the wild folk, and getting acquainted - with nature. Go to a variety of places--the seashore, the - water-front, the upland pasture, the deep swamps, even if you - take a car-ride to reach them. Then select the place nearest at - hand to frequent and watch closely. - -PAGE 3 - - There are many good books on the use of the camera for - nature-study. Among them read: "Nature and the Camera" by - Dugmore; "Home Life of Wild Birds," by Herrick. - -PAGE 4 - - _The clover blossom and the bumblebee_: Read the intensely - interesting book of Darwin's on the cross-fertilization of - flowers. You will also find readable accounts in "Nature's - Garden," by Mrs. Blanchan. - -PAGE 5 - - In what nursery book do you find the original account of _the - House that Jack Built_? - -PAGE 6 - - _Coccinella septempunctata_: The ladybirds, or ladybugs, are - named according to the number of their spots: _septempunctata_ - means seven-spotted. Another is called _novemnotata_, - nine-spotted. - - _Sixty species of birds_: Make your own list. Study your woods, - your neighborhood, minutely day and night in order to find them - all. - - -CHAPTER II - -TO THE TEACHER - - Set the students to watching and reporting this rare but very - interesting phase of wild animal life. Nothing will tax their - patience and ingenuity more; nor will any of their reports need - so careful scrutiny and weighing, so easy is it to be mistaken. - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 10 - - _"line"_: the end of the race; the "tape" or mark set for - runners in a contest. - - _"set-to"_: a combat or fight. - - _mix-up_: is the same half-slangy word or newspaper expression - for a general fight. - -PAGE 11 - - _Paramoecium_: this is one of the best known of the - single-celled animals. You can get them by making an "infusion" - of raw potato, a little hay, and stagnant water. - -PAGE 12 - - _A writer in one of our magazines_: The account is found in "St. - Nicholas" for May, 1913. - - _two big slanting cellar-doors_: These were in the shed of my - grandfather's farmhouse, "Underwood," and covered the - "bulkhead" of the cellar. - -PAGE 13 - - _The [Massachusetts] Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to - Animals_: has its headquarters in Boston. It does a great work - for "dumb" animals, and publishes a paper called "Our Dumb - Animals" that every home and school should have. - -PAGE 14 - - _follow my leader_: a game that all boys know and love, - especially when a strong, daring leader takes the game in hand. - -PAGE 15 - - _Mount Hood_: is the highest peak of the Cascade Range in - Oregon. The _rope_ hanging down from the summit was brought up - on a pack-horse or mule (I forget which) as far as Tie-up Rock, - then carried to the summit by the professional guides and there - fastened for the safety of those whom they take to the top - during the summer. - -PAGE 17 - - _a wild snowstorm_: for a fuller description of this storm and - the whole climb see the chapter in "Where Rolls the Oregon" - entitled "The Butterflies of Mount Hood." - - -CHAPTER III - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 19 - - _"All heaven and earth are still," etc._: this is from Byron's - "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," a poem you ought to read. - -PAGE 21 - - _Mr. William L. Finley's story_ of the condor appeared in the - "Century Magazine." It is one of the most interesting bird - stories ever written. - - _This is the season of flowers_: among the helpful and - interesting flower books for field use are "Gray's Manual," - Mrs. Dana's "How to Know the Wild Flowers," and Chester A. - Reed's little vest-pocket _Guide_ with colored plates of the - common flowers. - -PAGE 25 - - _rain down little toads_: I saw it again in the deserts of - Oregon, the quick shower making millions of western spadefoot - toads hop up out of the sand. As the sun came out again, presto! - all were gone--into the sand out of sight. - - -CHAPTER IV - -TO THE TEACHER - - In reading this story point out the very narrow margin of life - among the wild animals; that is to say, show how little a thing - it often is that turns the scales, that makes for life or death. - We need all our powers, and all of them developed to their very - highest degree of efficiency for the race of life. Only the - fittest survive, and for these the race is often under too great - handicaps. - - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 27 - - _plumers_: those who used to kill birds for their beautiful - plumage. - - _Klamath Lake Reservation_: is partly in California. It was set - aside by President Roosevelt. - - _the coyote_: is the prairie or desert wolf. He is larger than - the red fox, but smaller than the gray, or timber, wolf. - -PAGE 29 - - _homesteader_: one who settles upon land under the Federal - home-steading laws. - - -CHAPTER V - -TO THE TEACHER - - With a map of Boston follow the course of this title--from the - crowded wharf and water-front to the wide, country-like fields - of Franklin Park. It is a five-cent car-ride, a good half-day's - walk if you watch the wild life on the way. Map out such a - course in your own city and take your pupils over it on a - tramp, watching for glimpses of animal and bird life and for the - sight of Nature's face--the sky, the wind, the sunshine, trees, - grass, flowers, etc. Make the most of your city chance for - nature-study. It is an important matter. - - -FOR THE PUPIL - - T wharf, long one of the busiest fish wharves in the world, - perhaps the busiest, is, as I write, on the point of being - abandoned by the fish-dealers of Boston, who are to occupy a - huge new pier at South Boston, built by the State at a cost of - about a million dollars. Franklin Field is a great athletic - field adjoining Franklin Park in the southern part of Boston. - -PAGE 39 - - _list of saints_: these immortal names are carved in various - places on the outer walls of the Public Library. - - _cranium_: the head, or rather the skull. - - _herring gull_: _Larus argentatus_, one of the largest and - commonest of the harbor birds, and very much like the Western - gull of Three-Arch Rocks. It is a pearl-gray and pure white - creature with black on the wings. The immature birds are a - brownish gray and look like an entirely different species for - the first year. - -PAGE 40 - - _Boston, Baltimore, etc._: Make a study of your city parks and - the spots of green and the open spaces where the wild things may - be found. Go to the Public Library and ask for the books that - treat of the wild life of your city: "Wild Birds in City Parks," - by Walter, will be such a book for Chicago; "Birds in the Bush," - by Torrey, and "Birds of the Boston Public Garden," by Wright, - for Boston. - - _Charles River Basin_: the wide fresh-water part of Charles - River just above the dam and near Beacon and Charles Streets. - - _Scup_: another name is porgie, porgy, scuppaug. - - _Squid_: (_Ommastrephes illecebrosus_), a cephalopod, or - cuttlefish, used for bait along the Atlantic coast. - - The "cuttle-bone" in canaries' cages is taken from the genus - _Sepia_. - - _Squeteague_: pronounced skwe-teg'; also called weakfish and - sea-trout. - - _Scallops_: are shellfish the large muscle of which is much - prized for food. - - These are only a few of the fish kinds brought in at T Wharf. - -PAGE 41 - - _Grand Banks_: a submarine plateau in the Atlantic, eastward - from Newfoundland; noted as a fishing-ground. Its depth is - thirty to sixty fathoms. - - _the Georges_: a smaller bank lying off Cape Cod. - - "_We're Here_": the name of the schooner in Kipling's "Captains - Courageous." - - _Quincy Market_: an old well-known market in Boston. - - _King's Chapel_: on Tremont Street. It was begun in 1749 and is - still used for worship. See "Roof and Meadow" for a fuller - account of the sparrows. - -PAGE 42 - - _rim rock_: the edging of rock around the flats and plains of - the sage deserts of Oregon. - - _Boston Common_: known to every child who has read the history - of our country. The "Garden" is across Charles Street from the - Common. - -PAGE 43 - - _Agassiz Museum_: the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard - University. It is popularly called the Agassiz Museum in honor - of the great naturalist Louis Agassiz, who founded it. - - See Sarah K. Bolton's "Famous Men of Science." - - _Arnold Arboretum_: is near the western edge of Boston; one of - the most celebrated gardens of trees in the world. - - _Through the heaven's wide pathless way_: from "Il Penseroso," - by Milton. - -PAGE 44 - - _Swales_: wet, grassy, or even bushy, meadows. - - -CHAPTER VI - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 46 - - _The tree-toad_: (_Hyla versicolor_); he is said by country - people to prophesy rain. - - _pennyroyal_: is one of the small aromatic mints. - - _Wilson Flagg_: one of our earliest outdoor writers. Look up - his life in any American biographical dictionary. - - -CHAPTER VII - -TO THE TEACHER - - For a fuller account of this Wild Bird Reservation see the - chapter in "Where Rolls the Oregon," called "Three-Arch Rocks - Reservation." Bring out in your reading the point I wished to - make, namely that these great reservations of State and Federal - Government are not only to preserve bird and animal life, but - also to preserve nature--a portion of the earth--wild and - primitive and thrilling, against the constant encroachments of - civilization. Interest your pupils in their own local parks, - preserves, etc., and if they have farms or wood-lots, have them - post them and set them aside as their personal sanctuaries for - wild life. - - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 57 - - _Tillamook_: the name of a town near the coast of Oregon. - - _at the mouth of the bay_: Tillamook Bay, where the bar is only - about thirty feet wide, making the passage extremely difficult - and dangerous. - - _Three-Arch Rocks Reservation_: was set aside by President - Roosevelt. Credit for this and the other Oregon Reservations is - largely due to Mr. William L. Finley and the Audubon Societies. - -PAGE 59 - - _Shag Rock_: so named for the black cormorants that nest upon - it, for these birds are commonly known as "shags." - -PAGE 60 - - _the sea-lions_: were of the species known as Steller's - sea-lions. - - _reversed in shape_: I mean the close hind flippers, the - tapering hind end of the body, gave them an unnatural - shape--reversed. - - _AEolus_: the god of the winds. - - -CHAPTER VIII - -TO THE TEACHER - - Set the pupils to watching for evidences of mother-love among - the lower creatures, where we do not think of finding it; stir - them to look for unreported acts, and the hidden, less easily - observed ways. Such a suggestion might be the turning of a new - page for them in the book of nature. - - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 65 - - _Cud_: the ball of grass or hay that the cow keeps bringing up - from her first stomach to be chewed and swallowed, going then - into the second stomach, where it is digested. - - _stanchions_: the iron or wooden fastening about the cow's neck - in the stall. - - _mother-principle_: the instinct or unconscious impulse of all - living things to reproduce their kind. - -PAGE 66 - - _spores_: the name of the seed dust of the ferns. - - _the hunter family_: these are the spiders that build no nets - or webs for snaring their prey, but hunt their prey over the - ground. - -PAGE 69 - - _Toadfish_: See the chapter in the "Fall of the Year" called "In - the Toadfish's Shoe." - -PAGE 70 - - _Surinam toads_: pronounced soo-ri-naem'. - - _Mother-passion ... in the life of reptiles_: many readers, - seeing this statement in the "Atlantic Monthly," where the - essay first appeared, have written me of how when they were - _boys_ they saw snakes swallow their young--or at least killed - the old snakes with young in them! Isn't that mother-love among - the reptiles? But every time the story has been about garter - snakes or moccasins or some other ovoviviparous snake; that is, - a snake that does not lay eggs, but keeps them within her body - till they hatch, then _gives birth_ to the young. I have never - seen a snake swallow its young; though big snakes do _eat_ - little ones whenever they can get them. - - -CHAPTER IX - -FOR THE PUPIL - - Mother Carey's chickens are any of the small petrels. The little - _stormy petrels_ of poetry and story belong to the Old World and - only wander occasionally over to our side of the Atlantic. - -PAGE 79 - - _petrel_: pronounced _pet'rel_, so called in allusion, - perhaps, to Saint Peter's walking on the sea. - - -CHAPTER X - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 88 - - _P Ranch_: is one of the Hanley system of cattle ranches, which - cover a wide area almost seventy-five miles long. The buildings - and tree-fences, the stockades and sheds make it one of the most - picturesque I have ever seen. This story was told to me by Jack - Wade, the "boss of the buckaroos." "Buckaroo" is a corruption of - the Spanish _vaquero_, cowherd. - - _Winnemucca_: find the place on the map. - -PAGE 91 - - _buckskin_: a horse of a soft yellowish color. He got his name - Peroxide Jim from the resemblance of the color of his coat to - that of human hair bleached by peroxide of hydrogen. - - -CHAPTER XI - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 100 - - _paper nests in trees_: The common yellow-jacket hornet builds - similar large round nests in bushes, and other wasps build paper - nests behind walls, under the ground, in holes, etc. - -PAGE 107 - - _bite into something poisonous_: Send to the Department of - Agriculture at Washington for the little booklet on our - poisonous plants. It is free. - - -CHAPTER XII - -TO THE TEACHER - - Try to bring home to the class the profoundly interesting facts - of animal distribution--where they live, and how they came to - live where they do. Point out the strange shifts resorted to by - various creatures who live at the various extremes of height or - depth or cold or heat to enable them to get a living. - - -FOR THE PUPIL - -PAGE 121 - - "_And God who clears_": these lines of Kipling I am quoting as I - first found them printed. 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